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sweepseven · 9 months ago

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Cirque du Soleil Bazzar review

Happy 24th Cirque show and 60th (!!) performance to me! I did not specifically plan to see Bazzar this year, but as these things weirdly tend to for me, it worked out anyway. I had been interested to see this show for some time, though not for my usual reasons: I was very taken by its development but distinctly disinterested in the show itself. There were some acts I was keen to see but nothing about the theme, costumes, or music ever really grabbed or even attracted me. But I was very drawn to the story of its unexpected post-pan revival: it did well where intended (smaller Asian audiences), and then it seemed to surge even further, potentially beyond anywhere Cirque initially expected. Good for the show, but... is it good for Cirque?

I am extremely glad I saw Bazzar, not because it rocked my world, but because I feel like Cirque has tipped its hand in a very weird way with this one. For the very first time I felt like the Cirque du Soleil brand actively harmed its own show. For the very first time I thought a tent show actually belonged anywhere but under a tent. And as with most shows that generate the densest reviews from me (and this one is dense), there were so many glaring areas for improvement that I want to take the entire creative team, shake them by the shoulders, and demand "why did you half-ass something with so much potential??"

But we know why. No one expected this show to see much of the world beyond Asia. This was their fun, low-cost experiment for small international markets. But suddenly Cirque is exiting the pandemic with a viciously public bankruptcy. Suddenly they have to face a stunning track record of recent failures (Paramour, RUN, Axel, Nysa's utter failure to launch). The only thing new on the docket is a disaster of a show in development that the pandemic probably did a favor to by ensuring it was scrapped and rebuilt (Under the Same Sky).

But they had Bazzar. And it was doing well. So off it goes on a traditional Grand Chapiteau tour whether one suits it or not.

Did I have fun at Bazzar? Categorically yes. This is a bright, energetic, honest show with stunning and unique acts deserving of very high praise. I smiled the whole time. But will this review focus more on what Bazzar reveals about Cirque as we know it today? Also yes. I'll include an act by act breakdown as usual, but not before we take a painfully close look at everything else, beginning with four key observations:

Bazzar does not belong under a Grand Chapiteau.

I want to be very clear that this is not the fault of the show. This is Cirque's misstep. They developed a smaller show meant to be presented under a smaller tent, then repackaged it inside a traditional GC and thought the audience wouldn't know the difference. We did. I knew it from the moment I noticed there were no spotlight operators ascending the pylons just before the top of the show. Simply put, Bazzar does not utilize its space. There is not an act, a moment, a set piece, or an interlude (there are actually basically no interludes at all - more on that later) that necessitates a 270 degree view. Every part of this show could be presented in a traditional theater.

And it would do so well in one. That's where this fucking gets me. Bazzar would work tremendously well touring in traditional theaters, and Cirque has never tried it before. I could see this show at the New Victory Theatre on Broadway so clearly it hurts. Bazzar has the spirit of a show that makes an impact in 72, maybe 96 hours and then moves on to the next stop arena-style, but without the gaping chasm of an arena format. It is an intimate show, it does embrace its audience. So why hasn't Cirque given Bazzar a single act that takes advantage of the space it's granted? It has aerial straps, but we don't want to fly the artist over the audience? It has slackline, but we don't want to do any sort of creative rigging? It has a huge emphasis on dance, but we don't want to bring that into the aisles even once?? Why are we here, people??

The truth is we don't need to be. We do not need to be in this tent. And it is immensely difficult for a show to capture the hearts of a 2,600+ seat tent when it was never designed to do so. We are better off with a traditional straight-on view and an orch/mezz/balc setup that will let the intent and staging of the show shine.

Bazzar would do well to distance itself from its parent company's name.

Bazzar does this really weird and uncomfortable thing where it reminds you like ten times over that you're at Cirque du Soleil. You're actually directed by the Maestro to respond "wowwwwww" whenever they say "Cirque du Soleil." Which is often.

But very little about the show says "Cirque" besides the tent and the acrobatics. I actually feel strongly that this show could have been put on - and to even better effect - by a company like Cirque Mechanics. They are small, scrappy, innovative as hell, and guess what! They tour traditional theaters!! They produce infectiously magical shows that marry movement and structure - they would be a splendid match for the spirit and content of Bazzar. Instead Cirque falls over itself in the effort of reminding you that you're at one of their shows, which ultimately evokes a response of "...aight." We know. We paid the ticket price. No one cares. It's strange and fourth wall breaking. Let Bazzar be Bazzar, which it is very good at doing. If you have to insist on your brand this overtly, maybe it's time to ask yourself whether your brand speaks for itself at all anymore.

Bazzar betrays a careless development.

I saw the "someone takes the magic hat" show. It was called Quidam and it ruined my life. I saw the "conductor-like entity passes the torch" show. It was called Kooza and it ruined my life. I saw the "zany shit happens in a zany world" show. It was called Kurios and it didn't ruin my life, but god was it fun and memorable as hell. So again I ask Cirque, what are we doing here?

Bazzar could have been the Fantasia of CdS. Music made movement. It even says so right in the beginning (in English, I might add, so there is no missing it): "Everything is music." This is a unique and potentially beautiful theme. And there are moments in the show where it's illustrated quite vividly, usually in the form of the Maestro conducting the audience, who were more than willing to participate.

But I challenge someone on the creative team to tell me what any of the acts do to service this theme. The big emphasis on dance is an excellent value add, but apart from that and an excellent showcasing of the band, there is nothing that screams "music matters." There is only a confused broken hat throughline so pointless that it weakens both plot and theme at the same time. It is shocking to me that at no point during development did someone ask "what are we even doing with this hat."

(Conspiracy theory: they did ask. They asked and then they realized a broken baton would be 10x more meaningful to a conductor than a hat. But then they remembered that not only was Kooza the pass the torch show, it was also the haywire baton show. So. Better to retread the ground of three shows rather than the same show twice over, I guess.)

The best thing Bazzar could do is abandon all hints at a plot entirely. We don't need one. Sometimes the show just is "guy conducts" and that's perfect. Look at Corteo - "guy dies." Look at Zed - "guy explores." Look at Dralion - "there's elements." All fantastic, evocative shows. Instead Bazzar trips along in its effort to replicate Kurios' magic with none of the commitment to setting or theme. But hey, at least you know you're at Cirque du Soleil, right? ("Wowwwwww.")

Ultimately, Bazzar has solidified my belief that Cirque is closing in on ten straight years of unremarkable original shows.

I want to emphasize "original" here - I consider Alegria IANL a remake (and you know I think it's a work of art), and I consider Drawn to Life a collaboration (and you know I think it's adorable). Apart from those, it's time to admit that Cirque has been all emotional and thematic misses since Luzia. Believe me when I say I take absolutely no pleasure in this realization. But something about seeing Bazzar made me sit back and think, "Shit. The good old days really are behind us."

I watched this show and felt genuinely sorry for the people next to me that didn't return after intermission. They told me it was their first ever show. What if we'd been at Varekai instead? Would they have made it through? Would it have made lifelong fans out of them? And what about newer fans who came to Cirque even too recently to enjoy the Dragone arena era? They are here just in time to witness spectacular shows like LOVE close and yet may never understand the true depth this company is capable of delivering. More than fun, more than escapism, but true works of art that challenged emotion and left you a changed person when you exited the tent.

Fun and escapism are great. But tons of companies do that, and Cirque was so much more for a very, very long time. I am running out of ways to communicate that without sounding dismayed for newer fans or diminishing the enjoyment they derive from what shows they are able to see live. I can only encourage them to seek out IANL, Corteo, or Luzia (or if life takes them to Vegas - Mystere, O, or Ka). That is what we used to have. That was the standard and expectation, all of the time. That is what you deserve.

Anyway. Writing all this bummed me out. I really did have fun at Bazzar, too. I'm just so exhausted by the bar being set at fun and neat and silly, both by the company and newer audiences. That actually isn't good enough. Your time, emotion, and money (especially at this price point) are worth so, so much more.

Act by act time ig. Actual placement of non-act elements might be a little out of order.

Preshow - Maestro and band collaborate in physically playing with beats (think imaginary ball dribbles and tosses to bass hits). Right away you can see that the Maestro is an excellent and infectious physical actor.

Opening - "Everything is music." I'll tell you what the fuck is music - the musician on tenor sax absolutely ripping it at center stage. Such high energy, and even the dancing and general acrobatics behind him couldn't pull focus. He was one of the highlights of the entire show - if it wasn't percussion and it wasn't keyboards, it was him. What a talent and what a powerhouse.

Unfortunately the singer was out tonight, so I didn't get to see her live. While I don't think her character would have done much to enhance the overall show, it did diminish the effect of the theme. Everything is music... anyway here's a three piece band and some pre-recorded vocals. Bad luck.

Teeterboard - A relatively quick three-man act. Fun and high energy but otherwise pretty unremarkable.

Roller skating - Now we're talking. I was really really happy to see a roller skating act that leaned on some truly technically difficult tricks instead of the usual flashy ones. They had flash too, don't get me wrong, but I think this was particularly well balanced for a roller skating act.

Aerial straps - YES. SIR. I didn't know this show had aerial straps so I originally thought it might be in rotation for something, but about a minute in that theory was quickly refuted. I've never seen a man perform such a bendy straps act. He was a fantastic front bender, ridiculously strong, beautiful lines, and completely daring. This was a highlight of the night.

Acrobatic bicycle - This was cute and had the length of an act but somehow still felt like a bridge rather than a full act in its own right. It's hard to describe - the artist couldn't have had more fun, his stage presence was infectious, but I kept expecting it to end earlier than it did.

Mallakhamb - I was most excited to see this. I haven't seen anyone perform this act live since like.... 2016, and certainly never in Cirque. It wholly delivered. The success of this act alone should spur Cirque to seek out more unique, global disciplines. What a fantastic choice to feature a discipline straight out of the show's origin country. The four dancers (Pink, Yellow, Purple, and Red for this act) did a ton to heighten the energy, too.

Duo trapeze - This act at first made me think Totem's Lovebirds Lite. It started out cute but a bit unpolished, and I think we could have gotten more emotional connection had the music stood out more. They really kicked it up at the end with some fun drops and a twisting of the trapeze you rarely see in static, much less duo. I really liked it in the end.

Vertical rope - D A M N. This artist absolutely killed it. Fierce, dynamic, and unrelenting. Press kit tells me this character is called the Floating Woman, but she was called what sounded like Rochambeau several times by the Maestro, particularly when she took off with the hat or broke it or whatever she did (or maybe she just took it and Mini Maestro later broke it... I promise you it does not matter either way). Since she was already established as a key enough character to name and to serve as a forward mover of our pointless plot, I admit I did expect this act to do more narrative work. Instead it's just her performing, which she does beautifully, but it doesn't add anything to the broader story in the way you might hope or expect given the way she was previously established. Regardless this was one of my favorite acts of the entire evening.

Slackline - Big fun. Happy to see another unique act for a touring show. The audience went wild for him.

Cyr wheel - This act was performed by someone that somewhat resembled the Floating Woman rather than Mini Maestro, whom I understand used to perform it a while ago. Now it seems this act is in rotation but I can't for the life of me figure out what it was in for. Again, this act was solid but not really doing anything different from what we've seen before. But maybe my cyr opinions are forever tarnished after seeing Ghislain in Alegria so recently.

Hand to hand - Okay this one actually made me kind of angry. This act is doing something. There is real chemistry, there is excellent choreography, there are all the trappings of an act accomplishing something other than looking cool. But not only does Bazzar outright refuse to let its acts have any meaningful impact on the show, it's given these three artists some of the worst wigs I've seen in all my Cirque days. I wanted this act to teach Ovo a thing or two. Hell, I wanted it to teach Alegria a thing or two. It's genuinely better than both! It screamed wasted potential and while I enjoyed it, I found myself aggravated on behalf of the artists. It felt like watching them get short-changed.

Fire - Fave of the night. Holy hell. The music alone. I'll get more into the music overall in a sec, but this was one of the few songs that stood out to me as distinctly unique from the rest of the soundtrack. We did have one drop but who the fuck caaaares, this guy absolutely rocked it. More often in Cirque you see this type of act performed specifically as "fire knife dance" with a tangible emphasis on the discipline's Polynesian origins. While it's clear that influence and training are present here, this act seemed to favor inspiration from the rave scene and flow arts. The music had a clear EDM edge to match, which of course I adored. Can't say enough good things about the entire experience of this act.

Finale/hair hang/juggling/hoops/cyr wheel (again?) - It seems like the finale was going for a charivari-style energy, but unfortunately it doesn't have the impact it could. Charivari makes a great opening in Kooza because it welcomes you into the thematic energy of the show. It also makes a fantastic finale for Zed, where it calls back to every single feat you saw up until the very end. Here we instead see some really cool stuff, but they're totally disconnected from the rest of the show and sharing the stage between so many disciplines robs the audience of a moment to appreciate any of them in full. The only un-disconnected moment was cyr wheel, but only because we'd already seen it, and at this point it feels even weirder because you're looking at the same thing twice when everything else onstage at the moment is new. It's just poor execution.

The show ends with the hat finally being fixed, which of course doesn't matter because the hat never had any impact on the world. Maestro hands it off to Mini Maestro, whom until this moment didn't appear to want, deserve, or otherwise have any sort of vested interest in it beyond "hat important." The Floating Woman is there too and it's kind of like... should she be given a chance instead? Has she had some sort of redemption moment I blinked and missed, or is she just an impish lil scamp and we don't care that she kicked off this whole meaningless chain of events? Why do both of these characters exist when neither completes any sort of meaningful work? Whatever. Bazzar doesn't care so I guess I shouldn't either. All dance, all smiles, the end.

Music - This was interesting to me because the music is good, but it's also very rarely distinct. It has a similar feeling to Echo in that way, but comes away the stronger of the two because at least Bazzar's music is fun and energetic rather than Echo's "ethereal for ethereal's sake" style. For a show where everything is music, you'd think they'd put forth some effort to distinguish most songs from one another.

Dance/general cast - LOVE. Love. Listen to me: love. Dance is this show's strength and it knows it, and it was such a treat to see it highlighted so deliberately and frequently. Some of the main dancers were highlighted less than others (Blue, where were you hiding so often? :(( ), but whenever they accompanied a proper act, they were ever a plus and never a distraction. This is also an excellent moment to note that this entire cast is incandescently happy to be there. Their energy is infectious and they are responsible for the smile that stuck to my face for the duration.

I do feel like the average age of the cast was like... 26. And it's only that high because Maestro was like in his fifties. I know this is a simpler show, but between the cast ages and general lack of thematic polish, a very snobby part of me was thinking "Circus Smirkus" at times. TO BE CLEAR: Circus Smirkus produces incredible performers and is a vital part of American circus tradition. But Bazzar seems like the kind of show an artist starts at before graduating to something more serious and artistic, be it within Cirque or elsewhere.

Costumes - Way better in action than they look in pictures! At times they really do look like sketches in motion. The dancers' costumes were pretty uneven in places - clearly someone loved Red but didn't care whether Green lived or died, for example - but I was continually and pleasantly surprised to see such structure affording so much movement.

Plot notes - I've mentioned it a couple times now but the broken hat doesn't mean a fucking thing. Maestro points at it, says it's important, it breaks, and there are a grand total of zero consequences from there on out. This colorful, musical world doesn't fall into discordance (hi Kooza). Other characters don't attempt to grab a piece of Maestro's apparent authority (hi Alegria). We all just carry on as normal, and when it's fixed, we're told this is good and a relief and we all celebrate Mini Maestro, a wholly pointless character whose inheritance of the hat is, you guessed it, also pointless. I'm telling you, this show would be orders of magnitude better without any of it. It truly deserves more than this less than half baked effort.

There were a grand total of two interludes: one where EMTs attempt to resuscitate the broken hat, and another frankly embarrassing one where the Maestro wanders around with some facsimile of a VR headset for like, way too long. The impact of this latter interlude is: VR is topical, right? The rest of the show is just act to act to act to act with no breaks in between, no moment to breathe or appreciate, no time to piece together a broader experience.

However there were also no clowns, which to me is often an advantage lol.

So that's it! My advice is see Bazzar if it comes near you, but I implore you not to spend more than $80 on a ticket. Be prepared to smile a lot and feel a little bit like Cirque thinks you're stupid. And if we make it to 2026 without some real improvement in Cirque's body of original work... I dunno, people. I don't know how many more times I can say "wowwwwww" without meaning it. Not at the level I invest my time, travel, and care into these shows.

#cirque du soleil #bazzar #reviews

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dreadnotau · 3 years ago

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Big (but sort of not big) announcement time! (At the bottom is a TL;DR if you don’t have time to read paragraphs of my ramblings.)

First thing’s first, I got into college!!! A lot of you probably don’t know, but it’s been a massive uphill battle to practice for the exams to enter the art college I wanted. It’s why I haven’t been posting basically anywhere but here since the year started. It was a lot of work and stress, but it paid off! I’m gonna be studying subjects and doing art things that I’m ACTUALLY interested in! No more are the days of dreading the next German test or pulling my hair out because of some bullshit math equations, from now on it’s just blood, sweat and tears poured into canvases, baby!

Joking aside, this is genuinely monumental for me. Though it DOES mean I’m gonna be pulled thin on my time and creative juices the moment the first semester starts, I’m still excited to keep working on Dread Not alongside the schoolwork I’ll inevitably have to do, too. This comic is, as I’ve said many times, my biggest passion project yet, and the fact that I stuck with it for over a year now is another thing I have to be very proud of.

But, in all honesty, this project wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for my best friend, Meow! As some of you may know (or maybe noticed the changed bio), Meowchela is the co-author of Dread Not, and is the one who encouraged me to go through with a full comic telling of the story, (instead of just letting it sit idly in my brain like most of my Deltarune and Undertale AUs do, whoops) so, again, you have her to thank for all of this. She’s not directly involved with the creation of the pages (yet?), but she is the one who helped add many characters, sideplots, and satisfying conclusions to what was, originally, just an AU about Toriel, Asgore, Spade, Gaster, and Kris, as well as helping with designing characters both that appear later on and have appeared already (Rouxls’ fabulous design was made by her!)

The reason I bring this all up in detail now is because she is now OFFICIALLY credited as a co-author. I used to just mention her in posts and tags, as well as give her a special role in the discord server, but now she’s credited alongside me in the bios of both the Twitter and the Tumblr accounts! The reasons why she didn’t want to be credited until recently are her own, but I hope you all give her as warm a welcome as you gave me as a fellow author of Dread Not! She knows this story better than anyone (better than even me sometimes, whoops x2) and I hope we can all see it through to the end!

Don't take my word for it all, though, here's a statement from Meow:

Hello everyone! I'm Meow, who you now know as the co-author for Dread Not! I've been around for this project since the concept stages, and seeing all of your love and support for it means so much more than I can reliably say. You may now be wondering why I've been so silent despite being around for so long, and the answer to that is very personal. All I'll say is that it took a while to build up the courage to allow Kooki to even mention me by name (and trust me, he's wanted to since we made the blog!) and so having a proper credit like this is monumental. I'm happy to finally be more front and center for the project, even if still a litle nervous! =w=;;

Thank you for reading from the bottom of my heart. Seeing everyone being so kind about the comic is half the reason I came out of my shell in the first place. While it's true that without me the comic wouldn't exist, in turn my efforts would never have been realized had it not been for all of you! So thank you again, and I hope you're as excited for what's to come as I am!

And, lastly, and kind of least importantly (to me), I’ll be postponing this week’s page. Both so I can relax for 2 seconds after my exams, and so I can have more ready for the week after this one. I’m gonna be going on vacation soon, too, so I’ll try to have a page ready for posting while I’m away from home. And, if it’s not ready, it’ll just be postponed for a week, too. You guys have dealt with longer hiatuses, it shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

TL;DR: Kooki is in college now and October is gonna kick his ass. Meowchela is now officially credited as a co-author of Dread Not. This week’s page will be postponed so I can actually go touch grass for once.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for your continued support of this comic! Act 1 is in it’s last third, and progress on Act 2 is looking promising. Stay tuned!

#dread not #dreadnot #dread not au #dreadnotau #not comic #not a hiatus announcement thankfully #this is just a post basically bringing to the spotlight some recent developments #seriously tho i wish i could give meow more credit but shes like nooo ur the one drawing the pages dont put my name on those #and like i get where shes coming from but also? she def deserves more credit for helping as much as she has already #maybe i'll get to include her name on some future pages who knows #for now though im gonna go like. lie down. exams were HELL

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murdereraisuha · 4 years ago

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screaming about chapter 5 but more coherently this time

This is gonna cover 1. the recent update’s events in comparison to my previous theories & expectations, 2. the winner of the VDC and Vil’s character development 3. Kalim & Jamil’s character development, and 4. the main story moving forward

Spoilers for everything up to 5-67. Word count: 2117

So, in my “Jamil is Snow White” theory post, I used the events of the original Snow White to try and guess how TWST chapter 5 would correlate to it and what characters would fill what roles (Snow White, huntsman, prince, etc.) in the story.

Originally, I kind of assumed the beginning of chapter 5 would line up to either the beginning of the movie or halfway through when the Queen is already hatching her plan to get Snow White with the poison apple. However, it seems like the movie events have actually been compacted into 5-57 to 5-67.

After the NRC rehearsal, Vil becomes the most beautiful, corresponding to the beginning of the movie when the Queen is still the most beautiful. Then, Neige, out of his natural cuteness rather than hard work and practice like Vil, usurps him, representing the point Snow White becomes the fairest in the land. The next part with the apple juice and Rook coming to the rescue is a mix of the next part of the movie, when the huntsman tells Snow White to run, and the part of the movie with the poison apple. Then, the MC and the rest of the dance team kind of act like the dwarves by fighting the Queen/Vil. However, other than that, everyone follows their corresponding role: Neige is Snow White and Rook is the huntsman.

I think the story as it has played out makes sense. I was initially startled by Vil suddenly going murder mode, but. To work so hard on this song and choreography and training up your team, only to have the media love your lifetime rival who’s only brought an arrange of a kid’s song with clumsy singing and dancing to the table, potentially crushing your plan for victory here... I understand Vil’s feelings here and the sudden, desperate decision to curse Neige.

Rook’s actions after that don’t seem too out of line with what we know about his personality and his unconventional beliefs/actions regarding beauty and Vil’s beauty. Seriously though, wtf please don’t just drink poison. Anyway, I really enjoyed Kalim coming in then. The way he noticed Vil’s face being like Jamil’s before his overblot? The part when he tried to remind Vil that no one drank the juice so Vil hasn’t hurt anyone yet? Good stuff right there.

However, the way things played out also disappointed me somewhat. Though we had a Kalim & Jamil interaction, we still haven’t had a good resolution to their character/relationship development, so hopefully that’s in the final part of chapter 5. Furthermore, though Kalim did slap the apple juice away, I really felt like he and Jamil would have had more involvement with poison/curses in this part considering all the stuff in this chapter about Kalim being poisoned in the past.

There’s also the fact that all Jamil did was evacuate the area, it was Kalim and Rook who were around when Vil overblotted. The pattern of the previous overblot causing the next has kind of been broken. It could mean that the pattern was actually the dorm leader causes the next overblot?? Anyway, I’m hoping that Jamil will have his time in the spotlight in the next part.

-----

So that kind of brings me to the future. First off, who will win the VDC? Personally, I think that it will be NRC. With everyone so enthusiastically proclaiming in 5-67 that they’re going to win the championship, it would feel off for them to fail. From things that Vil has said this chapter, like in 5-37 when he admonishes Deuce that effort isn’t enough to succeed, it seems like the bad route/worst case scenario of Vil’s outlook is to lose hope that his efforts will ever give him success or a happy end. Therefore, the good route would be for him to keep hope, to keep the belief that he can get his happy end, and I think winning the VDC would be the thing that would support this belief. I do not think he would learn much from losing; if he has already lost and got relegated to the role of villain so many times before, one more time would not mean much to him.

Other people have said that Vil also needs to learn to chill and stop holding people to such high standards, which is something I agree with. Though Epel’s beliefs on masculinity and power were pretty harmful, Vil’s methods of trying to correct those beliefs were also harmful. Vil’s treatment of Epel at the end of Epel’s ceremony robes story seriously left a bad taste in my mouth. The thing is, something or someone would need to prompt a change in Vil’s beliefs for a change to occur. After Deuce and Epel’s outing, they seem to be pretty chill with Vil, so there aren’t any conflicts in the group. I can’t think of anyone in the team other than Kalim and maybe Ace who would have a strong enough opinion on not pushing yourself too hard that they would try and give that opinion to Vil, and Kalim’s already had a big interaction with Vil in 5-62.

So, I feel like any further Vil character development this chapter would come from an interaction with Neige. Going back to the debate of who will win VDC, we know that Vil resents Neige for always being the hero. If Neige won yet again, would Vil take what he says to heart? However, if Vil won, that would be a new situation. I think that the first things he hears from a Neige that has finally lost would be impactful to him.

I’m not sure though of all this though because of this line in 5-66:

Vil’s saying that throwing a tantrum and taking it out on other people was awful of him. Though it obviously refers to his attempts to murder before and during his overblot, it could also point to an overall shift in mindset regarding how he treats others. His attempts to mold Epel into a poison apple, for example, stemmed from his own ambitions and frustration at Neige, which you could interpret as a sort of tantrum that he then took out on Epel. Vil may have already learned to relax on pushing his high standards on others.

Regardless of if that’s true or not, I personally think that Vil and Neige still have a lot that they could learn from each other, assuming my perception of Neige as being innocent rather than a white lotus is correct. Vil’s team’s performance had a lot of cohesion and rehearsal put into it, but it was very competitive focused. On the other hand, Neige and the dwarves obviously had a lot of fun with their performance. However, it was clumsy and they were ill prepared. Therefore, Vil could teach Neige more discipline and planning while Neige could teach Vil about how to not lose sight of finding joy in your work.

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As I have already said, I’m hoping for more Kalim & Jamil stuff in the final part of chapter 5. I originally theorized that something would happen to one of them, probably Kalim, and that would lead to some sort of reveal about their feelings and the chapter would end with them clearly on the trajectory to repair their relationship and really become friends.

Since nothing happened yet and neither got poisoned/cursed, I think then that the event that sparks the finale of their character development would probably relate directly to the VDC. First off for our possibilities, we have the two’s families watching as Jamil takes the spotlight as a main vocal while Kalim is in the back. Given what we know, I don’t think Kalim’s family would be too happy about that. The conflict from that definitely seems like it could result not only in some sort of understanding between Kalim and Jamil, but also maybe even a change in Jamil or his family’s status. For a less dramatic possibility, we also know from 5-47 that Jamil’s sister will be coming to watch. If she makes an appearance, perhaps she will have some unexpected insight to say that would lead to a discussion & development between Jamil and Kalim.

Finally, my Jamil becomes the most beautiful theory might still be partially true, though idk if that’s just me not wanting to give up on it cause of how funny it would be. Basically, the theory was that, after the VDC performances, the internet/media become super interested in Jamil due to how talented and handsome he is. I originally thought that could serve as a factor for Vil overblot, but now I think it could prompt some discussion & development between Jamil and Kalim due to it serving as a clear example of Jamil finally showing his true ability and by how much Jamil was letting Kalim win. Furthermore, Vil might be affected by an event like that. Though the overblot’s already happened, perhaps something happening with Jamil specifically would lead to something happening between him and Vil, fulfilling the pattern of the previous overblot doing stuff with the next. I’m out of ideas for the Scarabia boys, so let’s continue.

-----

Honestly, I don’t think anything will happen with Idia and Ortho outside of a quick teaser at the very end of the chapter. Considering that we still have to cover all the stuff with the VDC performance and its results and the aftermath of the results, Idia’s presentation thingy might not even happen until chapter 6. ?

Idk, rn I’m more concerned about the overarching plot with Mickey Mouse than I am about chapter 6 Ignihyde shenanigans. So, we had a little flash of the Queen/Hag during the day, and also we finally discovered that Malleus is Malleus. So things are picking up a bit. I’m not sure if something unexpectedly big this chapter will happen though. I’ve seen people saying that the boss was surprisingly easy so there might be another big battle coming up. I don’t actually play the game so I don’t know anything about that, is it intentional or is it just that the chapter took so long to update that y’all had tons of time to beef up your boys? For me, it did feel like the Vil overblot was the climax of the chapter. With all the other stuff like the VDC results and the Scarabia boys’ character development, I don’t know if there’s any more room. There could be some big new info with Mickey Mouse or Grim’s bad eating habit, but I can’t picture something happening that would warrant another boss battle.

I do have some thoughts on Mickey Mouse, but I think I’ll save my memey ones for another post and wait for the end of chapter 5 before getting my serious thoughts together. Anyway, now a little talk on chapter 6. So, we have 4 options: chapter 6 will be something regarding Idia’s presentation, something regarding Deuce borrowing the magical wheel, something combining those two plot points, or something else entirely.

Well, for something combining those two, Riddle was the one wanting Idia to go do the presentation in person, right? So, Idia probably doesn’t like Riddle that much. Maybe he wants to make some sort of plan to get back at Riddle. What can he use?

Uh I just looked back at 5-39 to figure out what exactly is up and one translation says Deuce forcefully borrowed the magical wheel and another says he borrowed it as a huge favor??? The original says 無理言って借りてきた, deepL translates it as forcibly borrowed, 無理を言って means asking for something unreasonable. What exactly are the circumstances here?

Okay whatever, look, Deuce is in some sort of debt to Ignihyde. Idia could use him since he and Riddle are in the same dorm. Idk my train of thought got wrecked by the translation confusion.

But anyway so we know Deuce is probably gonna be Meg. I’ve never watched Hercules and I don’t know anything about it aside from what I’ve just read on wikipedia. The summary there says that Hercules kills a bunch of monsters and becomes famous then Hades holds Meg hostage in exchange for Hercule’s powers and Hercules accepts the trade but then “Hades reveals that Meg was working for Hades all along” ??? And then in the end though “ Hercules chooses to remain on Earth with Meg”. So what happens, is Meg good or what? Alright it might be better to at least wait for whatever sneak peek of chapter 6 we get at the end of chapter 5 before speculating. Let’s end this here before it gets any longer.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst spoilers #twst analysis #twst theories #vil schoenheit #kalim al asim #jamil viper #update screaming

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love-bokumono-fics · 3 years ago

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WIP Wednesday - Friends of Mineral Town, Part 2!

I'm going to make 2 WIP Wednesday posts today for the FoMT WIP Wednesday feature. When I sorted by Date Updated, I realized that the most recent 10 fics have all received a feature on the blog over the last couple months. Which is great! But I also want to take time to feature some of the WIPs that haven't been updated in a little bit, but still deserve some time in the spotlight. Part 1 featured the first 10 fics on the list, Part features the next 10! Happy reading! Do you have a FoMT WIP that didn't get featured today? Drop the link to it in a Submission box! We're always happy to feature submissions! to cure what ails you - by indoorsy; WIP, 7/?, 22k Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Doctor Trent; Characters: Claire, Doctor Trent | Torre Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, his name is Doctor Summary: Claire, a perpetual people-pleaser with a sensitive soul, uproots her mundane city life to take over her grandfather's farm. Her endeavors are supported by the friendly community of Mineral Town - including the town's eccentric doctor. A Happy Lamp for an Unhappy Life - by MacchiatoRodion; WIP, 7/?, 17k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Major Character Death; Categories: Gen, Multi Fandoms: Back To Nature, A Wonderful Life, Friends of Mineral Town, Havest Moon DS Cute Characters: Cliff, Old Nina, Galen | Guri, Mary the Librarian, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Basil the Writer, Celia | Seperia, Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Jennifer, Gray, Kai, Carter the Pastor, Popuri, Rick, Manna, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Aja | Adge, Doctor Trent, Dr. Hardy | Paddock Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Death, Past Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tags May Change, Childhood Memories, Child Abandonment, Domestic Disputes, Poor Life Choices, Flowers, Developing Friendships, Healing, Child Neglect Summary: Cliff was once considering committing suicide, so his instinct is to jump off the edge of Mother's Hill, where so many lovable people had perished before. But something compels him to look down at the area where the bodies should have landed. To his surprise, there was an entire village at the bottom. He decides to investigate since he doesn't anticipate that anybody will miss him while he is away. He ends up meeting someone who shows him the impact of even the shortest life to him. This story begins in the summer leading up to the beginning of Friends of Mineral Town and the first chapter of A Wonderful Life/DS. Story of Mineral Town - by CustardPudding; WIP, 2/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon 64, Back To Nature Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Gray, Cliff/Female Farmer, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Brandon, Kai/Popuri, Harris/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire, Sara, Cliff, Gray, Jennifer, Karen, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley Additional Tags: Chickens, Angst, Family Drama, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, More like medium burn? I don't really know, Some Fluff, But also quite a bit of angst, Canon couples, Ann/Brandon is kinda cracky, Some underage drinking, Which is mostly Karen, Minor Swearing Summary: Claire and Sara, sisters who have been inseparable for their whole lives, are vastly different. With Claire's quiet and responsible nature combined with Sara's hotheaded and standoffish one, many wondered how they could possibly be related by blood. But they took care of each other nevertheless. So when they inherit their late grandfather's farm, they expect it to be an easy thing. Take a few looks at it, restore it to its former glory, and then sell it and move on. They were wrong, of course. Rival After Events - by LuxBeacon (Number13teen); WIP, 4/13, 7k Rating: General

Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Kai/Popuri, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Karen/Rick, Gray/Mary the Librarian | Marie, Harvest Goddess/Pete | Jack, Kappa/Claire, Male Farmer | Yuto/Huang | Won; Characters: Elli | Elly, Doctor Trent | Torre, Popuri, Kai, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Karen, Rick, Mary the Librarian, Gray, Pete | Jack, Claire, Harvest Goddess, Kappa, Won | Huang, Gourmet - Character Additional Tags: Fluff, Rival Marriage, LGBTQ Themes, Wholesome, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net Summary: A series of one shots detailing the lives of the Mineral Town bachelorettes and bachelors after marrying their rival. Each story references different locations and characters from across the franchise and each chapter takes inspiration from actual events in the games. Pure Fluff. Year One - by pawprintmusical; WIP, 7/?, 10k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Harvest Moon DS Cute, A Wonderful Life Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Elli/Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray/Mary the Librarian, Kai/Popuri, Karen/Rick; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Zack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Cliff, Elli, Doctor Trent | Torre, Gray, Mary the Librarian, Karen, Rick, Kai, Popuri Additional Tags: MFoMT, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, alcohol mention, didn't want to tag the whole town but they're here with a chunk of AWL people too, Tags Added As I Go, Pre-Relationship, Not Remake Compliant Summary: Claire needed a change, and Mineral Town seemed like just the ticket. She just never expected how much it would change her. Rainy Day Vignettes - by Shelookstothesky; WIP, 7/?, 31k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: A Wonderful Life, Harvest Moon DS Cute, Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Marlin | Mash, Pony | Aya | Jill, Rock, Muffy | Muumuu, Griffin | Garfan, Takakura, Celia | Seperia, Vesta, Claire Additional Tags: Vignette, Eventual Romance, Angst and Drama Summary: This fanfic is a collection of scenes I wrote with the Jill/Pony and Marlin paring back in 2016 and decided to reread and edit them just for fun. I'm not sure if I'll actually write new scenes in addition to the original ones I wrote back in 2016. I suppose it will depend on how engrossed I get back into the plot. I hope you enjoy anyway!~ Life is like a Festival - by LeafBubble; WIP, 7/?, 26k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Many relationships will happen, Final pairing is a mystery; Characters: Rick, Popuri, Barley | Mugi, May | Mei, Saibara, Gray, Duke, Manna, Basil the Writer, Anna, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Thomas, Harris, Old Ellen, Elli | Elly, Stu | Yu, Jeff, Sasha, Karen, Doctor Trent | Torre, Carter the Pastor, Cliff, Doug | Dudley, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Kai, Gotz | Gotts, Brandon, Jennifer, Zack, Won Huang Additional Tags: Adult themes are present, Depression, Angst, Prejudice, Sexuality, Abandonment, Happy Themes, Life gives the good and the bad Summary: Claire is a young woman who led a comfortable life. Great up bringing, amazing schooling, landed a dream job. As the days go by she feels as if she was doing nothing, but being a cog in the machine. A chance get away on a cruise forever changes her life. A forgotten land, facing turmoil when crops and animals begin to decay. A goddess is in disarray as she needs to find a new farmer to help restore the town. After making a deal with a goddess, Claire vows to find the man who saved her life. Will she decide to take on the challenge of being a farmer in an unfamiliar town and find this mystery man, or pack her bags and face reality? Friendships will be tested, and love will be fought and lost. A slow burn story that will go through the lives of the many

characters of Mineral Town and their connections to each other. all that glitters - by christinahosetti; WIP, 3/?, 5k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/F Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Jennifer; Characters: Claire, Jennifer Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Worldbuilding, Eventual Smut, Fae & Fairies, not gonna tag the whole town but they're all there basically, claire is called clover Summary: “You’re not completely solitary, though,” Clover points out, now harvesting the blackberries into a tupperware container she’s fished out of her rucksack. “You hang out with me all the time. And Mugi, and Lillia, and Harris.” “That’s true. They’re all people with peaceful energies, though, so I don’t mind them so much. No drama or nastiness.” Clover gives her an odd look. “I’m not sure that applies to me.” “Well, you’re the exception.” - Jennifer has secrets to keep, but the farmer makes her want to spill them all. Harvest Moon: The Novel - by CurtTheGamer, WIP, 5/?, 8k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence; Major Character Death Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, Back To Nature Characters: Pete | Jack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Doug | Dudley, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Karen, Elli | Elly, Old Ellen, Gray, Jeff, Cliff, Gotz | Gotts, Sasha, Maria the Mayor's Daughter, Anna, Thomas, Manna, Doctor | Trent, Duke, Saibara, Stu | Yu, Won | Huang, Kent, May | Mei, Barley | Mugi, Kai, Popuri, Lillia the Shopkeeper, Rick, Basil the Writer, Harris, Jennifer, Zack, Dog, Horse Summary: Pete is a young man from the big city. He hasn't dreamed of having a job outside the city, nor does he want to. But when an old friend from a small village dies, Pete inherits his farm. Though reluctant, he agrees to leave his city life to become a farmer. Will he live happily ever after, or will the old-fashioned country life become a bore? What is Art? (Not That) - by FosterTheBananas; WIP, 1/2, 1.2k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Characters: Won | Huang, Brandon Summary: Huang heads to Mineral Town to help oversee shipments for his cousin. While there, he tries to buy some art in the hopes of reselling for a profit, but instead he catches the attention of an eccentric artist who. just. won't. go. away.

#wip wednesday #harvest moon #story of seasons #friends of mineral town #fomt #sos fomt #story of seasons friends of mineral town

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a-crimson-lion · 5 years ago

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For Want Of Equality

To anyone who is familiar with my recent post, it's no secret that I hate Katsuki Bakugo.

One of the big reasons is his faulty and sometimes downright unrealistic winner's mentality.

...another reason would be the people around him. Let me elaborate on that.

My Hero Academia is filled to the brim with memorable characters. You can't forget the green sunshine boy Izuku. Or the ever iconic All Might. Even sinister villains like Tomura Shiragaki, All for One, and even the deplorable Overhaul are all memorable faces.

The abundance of characters makes it likely that some of them will get fleshed out. And this is where the problem begins.

Taking a moment to sympathize with Katsuki, the environment he grew up in has ironically handicapped him for the real world. Everyone has sung his praises so much that he has to learn how to take a loss (and him winning multiple times when he shouldn't is also not helping). He's also his harshest critic, demanding the best of himself even if "his best" might not be the best for him, or anyone else for that matter. Taking that into consideration, it's easy to understand why Katsuki's development is so slow at this point in the series.

It's hard to remember that, however, when virtually everyone else around him is making leaps and bounds in their development.

Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki's former victim, is already reclaiming his sense of self-worth, and has managed to reel in a quirk that was previously uncontrollable in mere months. He's often cited as one of 1-A's best students.

Shoto Todoroki is often a common comparison point when it comes to Katsuki's arc. Shoto had a powerful quirk, antisocial tendencies, and came off as condescending, much like Katsuki. The difference was that he held back due to personal issues, and managed to overcome said issues because he had a basic understanding of compassion, something Katsuki hasn't had much experience with. Katsuki doesn't hold back, period, so it's understandably fustrating when a fellow powerhouse refuses to give it his all. He tries goading Shoto into releasing his flames, but unlike Izuku, he doesn't succed. That's because he isn't using compassion and understanding. Katsuki wants Shoto to go all out because he wants to beat Shoto at his strongest; Shoto wants to rise to the top to spite Endeavor, and because he wants to help his mom. Their ideals are similar, but the motivations are completely different. Compare that to Izuku, who wanted Shoto to go all out so he could accept himself and for no other reason, and it's easy to see why Katsuki falls short in motivating Shoto.

Katsuki's problem is that he closes off emotions. Izuku let's his emotions flow out like second nature.

Getting back to development, even Izuku's best friends have their moments in the spotlight. Ochako learns that she can't always rely on one method to become a hero, and she proceeds to get stronger during her internship with Gunhead, later put her feelings for Izuku aside so they can both become heroes. Meanwhile, Tenya gets blinded by revenge during the Hosu arc, and thanks to Izuku's efforts, he realizes what he did was wrong, allowing him to grow as a character and adding a layer of depth to him overall.

Momo and Eijiro are another two examples of characters with significant development, Eijiro especially, but I'm already rambling a bit too much.

The thing is, when you're surrounded by multiple characters showing significant progress in their development, it's hard to look at the ones with lackluster growth, like Katsuki... or Minoru.

Although I will give Katsuki this: Minoru's development has been minimal. Katsuki's development has been ongoing, and the fruit is still ripening, but at least it's there!

It isn't even just development. There are multiple characters who outclass Katsuki in separate fields.

Momo has Katsuki beat in the strategy department, going so far as to call out his faults after the Battle Trial.

Neito Monoma (more on him later) is another jerk, but unlike Katsuki, he can actually work with his teammates! He still lost, but he managed to catch Katsuki off guard once during the Cavalry Battle.

Even best girl Tsuyu Asui (psyche, all BNHA girls are best girls) has Katsuki beat in the emotional department. She actually talks to the Rescue Squad after the Hideout Raid Arc and apologizes for her action, venting out her personal guilt. Katsuki feels guilty after he fails the Provisional License Exam, and he proceeds to drag Izuku out and beat him up instead of talking to him, or even All Might, the guy he feels guilty about.

All these comparisons just make Katsuki feel... flat.

Think of it this way: Katsuki basically abused Izuku for nearly a decade, but most of the fandom doesn't acknowledge this, or even the fact that he told Izuku to kill himself at the series' start, mostly because it hasn't been seen or discussed again so far in the series. Meanwhile, Neito (told you we'd see him again) goes and bumps Izuku on the back of the head among other things, and suddenly the fandom is up in flames.

The difference is exposure.

Now, most of the fandom tends to:

Like Izuku.

Hate it when he gets hurt (by his own hand or someone else's).

We see that Katsuki hurted Izuku and continued to hurt Izuku until recently in the series. So why do we give him a pass for that? It's likely because he gets so much screen time. Most of us figure that if we're gonna have to deal with Katsuki so much, we might as well get used to it. The narrative makes us give a begrudgingly tolerance of Katsuki, which in most cases evolves into a fondness. Since we've seen so much of Katsuki, we're willing to justify most of his behavior since we think we know everything there is to know about him. Some of arguments may be valid, and the rest could just be a stretch. That's familiarity bias at work.

Notice how there's rarely such treatment for Neito.

We don't see him that often in the series, and when we do see him, it's usually while he's antagonizing 1-A and/or Katsuki. Most of the fandom immediately brings out their defenses because we LIKE Class 1-A. With the exception of the Joint Training Arc, Neito hasn't given us much of a reason to like or sympathize with him. He's either dissing our favorites in 1-A or, in my case, dissing Katsuki (which is a mixed bag in and of itself). These acts of intimidation immediately make most of us forget Neito's good points: he's a team player (his team is Class 1-B), and most of his taunts don't cross the point of no return (with a few exceptions). Unlike Katsuki, Neito is never willing to get physical unless he's allowed, and most of the time he's not bragging about HIS superiority, but of Class 1-B's superiority as a whole.

Due to the familiarity bias, most of us try ro justify Katsuki's good points and Neito's bad points.

Katsuki and Neito do both have good and bad points, but they're skewed over due to the familiarity bias. The same logic applies to when we see Katsuki as a lacking character. We keep comparing him to other characters because we want him to get that sort of development instead of what he currently has.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great thing that his character is going through development. But...

Shoto came from a similar situation as Katsuki, and he didn't gain a superiority complex. Plus, he actually grows beyond his father's expectations and his own hatred. The thing with Katsuki is that every challenge he faces only tells him to get stronger, while every challenge he should face conveniently curveballs away from him (Ochako lost the match, Katsuki passed the final exam, Katsuki avoided fighting Mirio). We know his mindset isn't healthy, but he brushes any attempts to fix that aside, instead deciding to focus more on his own strength. Tsuyu goes and talks to her friends about her guilt? Katsuki goes and thrashes Izuku over his guilt. There are too many instances where the alternatives for Katsuki could be better than what we actually have.

He's starting to recognize his faults... He's starting to encourage his friends... He's starting to understand what being a hero is actually about... All of those are good things.

But they mean NOTHING if Katsuki can't manage to get his sh*t together and his head straight. What's development worth if nothing's ultimately learned and there's frequent regression?

-Crimson Lion (16 August 2019)

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugou #anti bakugo #anti bakugou #izuku midoriya #shoto todoroki #neito monoma #character analysis #meta #drabble #rant #vent #long post #phewww #glad that's off my chest

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adrianodiprato · 5 years ago

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+ “No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.” George Bernard Shaw

This is Water

The United Nations has described the global scale and pace of education disruption from COVID-19 as “unparalleled”. Across the world, over a billion students are not attending a physical school campus, with numbers increasing each day. Education officials at all levels, in addition to parents, are attempting to keep students engaged and learning at home through a variety of modes. However, amid all the fear, panic and unknowns, new channels of innovation, creativity and systemic transformation are also accelerating at unprecedented levels.

School systems have been forced to rethink conventional learning models, and rapidly build, test and pilot new structures to accommodate a completely different reality. One of our Series One Game Changers Yong Zhao recently said this via his blog: “Online education cannot replace all functions schools play in our society, but it can do a lot more than being a lesser version of face-to-face schooling.” When the dust settles, COVID-19 may present itself as a microcosm of what’s to come. A new mainstream, for doing schooling differently.

The Aurora Institute in America describes the traditional model of K-12 education system as a “veritable monolith in which each student’s learning journey follows a single path at a single pace.” Modernising our education system means moving away from an industrial age “one-size-fits- all” model in which teachers stand and deliver and learners sit and get.

In their Workforce of the future: The competing forces shaping 2030 report Price Waterhouse and Coopers (PwC) identified the megatrends shaping our future, today. Swift advances in technological innovation, demographic shifts, rapid urbanisation, shifts in global and economic power, resource scarcity and climate change are the tremendous forces reshaping society. And to thrive, education needs to be open to re-casting the purpose of schooling as we, collectively, shape our own destiny, with adaptability the key to the future. Blair Sheppard, Global Leader, Strategy and Leadership Development at PwC said, “So what should we tell our children? That to stay ahead, you need to focus on your ability to continuously adapt, engage with others in that process, and most importantly retain your core sense of identity and values. For students, it’s not just about acquiring knowledge, but about how to learn. For the rest of us, we should remember that intellectual complacency is not our friend and that learning – not just new things but new ways of thinking – is a life-long endeavour.”

Those school leaders and educational sectors that understand potential futures, and what each might mean for them, and have the courage to plan ahead, will be the best prepared to support young people to succeed and flourish in the obvious reality of a new tomorrow. We need to re-examine the purpose of schooling for our times and ensure that it is based on the facts and best predictions about the impact of this relentless change.

This then shines a spotlight on learning and why, what and how of what matters for this new world environment. Teachers and school leaders will need to alter the way we think about how our students learn and the environments in which we encourage this learning to take place. None of this is really complicated—it just requires us to abandon the binary thinking around what learning is and start to be open to doing schooling differently. For mine the future of education is anytime, anywhere - on campus, online, in context and in country. I have previously written about transforming learning via my classroom of tomorrow posts:

The Future Is Now (2018) focus:

- From School to Community

- Digital Literacy

- From Standards to Habits

- The Significance of Place

- The Rise of Individualised Learning Plans

Educational Trends (2019) focus:

- Meaningful Project-based Learning

- Formative assessment solutions

- Game-based learning & Gamification

- Co-constructivism

- Crowdsourced classes

It is increasingly becoming more and more obvious that the mission of childhood education can no longer be the generation of standardised test data, but learning powered by the physical, mental health and emotional competency and wellbeing of every student and every teacher. To equip today’s students to thrive in the workplace of 2030 and beyond, a whole new curriculum competency framework is needed: one that centres on foundational literacies (ways of knowing), capability skills (ways of thinking) and character attributes (ways of being). Literacy and numeracy will continue to be the building blocks on which all learning rests. And strong discipline knowledge still matters, not so students can regurgitate facts, but because it is fundamental to deep understanding, robust thinking skills and the ability to learn and transfer through application.

In May 2005 David Foster Wallace gave the commencement address at Kenyon College. He started his speech with this little parable about fish and water:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

Then Foster Wallace brings the audience to a renewed consciousness around this construct of the obvious:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: "This is water." "This is water."

I really like how Kyle Kowalski, founder of Sloww describes his three profound life lessons from This is Water by David Foster Wallace:

Our default setting - it’s easy, automatic and comfortable. It’s basically our unconscious bias.

Choice & thinking - you have control and therefore a choice of how and what to think. You can choose to look at anything in life differently than the default setting.

Awareness & consciousness - staying present, paying attention and conscious to the obvious truth in front of us.

Now, I do not consider myself the wise old fish, of course not. But much like the point of the fish story, I am merely attempting to state the most obvious, important realities of our new world environment and help all teachers and school leaders to see learning and schooling through a new lens, creating a dialogue of what’s possible.

During this global pandemic l have been inspired and encouraged by the actions of many individual educators and learning communities to rethink what education can be and should be in the future.

Very soon we will launch Series Two of the #GameChangers podcast series featuring Pernille Ripp, Pasi Sahlberg, Nikki Kirkup, Greg Miller, Jan Owen, Conrad Wolfram, Deborah Netolicky and Stephen Harris. Where we will further explore models of learning and doing schooling differently. I am very much looking forward to working in collaboration with Associate Professor of Education and Enterprise Dr Philip Cummins as, together, we bring you the brightest stars in education today. Those brave school leaders that are prepared to move from what’s safe and comfortable, who are open to the possibility of different, and who embrace the conscious truth of a world going through exponential change. These types of educators are the ones that understand Foster Wallace’s “obvious” and are the true game changers of our time.

We are at a crossroads and we can’t sit back and wait for the evolution to happen to us. To create change, we must do something. Change is a verb. Driving the transformation of our K-12 education systems is led by educators designing new learning models and leading the changes taking place across the field, by imagining a path forward, to futures that most cannot see.

This is water. This is water.

#permissionistriumph #This Is Water #Game Changers

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wezzaner · 5 years ago

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TV Couples-Tropes in Descendants

Ever heard of the TV tropes: Alpha Couple, Beta Couple and Omega Couples?

The alpha couple are basically the narratively undeniable couple. They are the centerpiece, the untouchables, they are the story. They are written in the stars. No matter how you try to spin the canon narrative, you have to venture into AU or future-verse territories to not have them together.

The beta couple are the secondary couple. They are, more often than not, friends or confidants to the alpha couple. They act as a foil to the alpha couple, meaning, they basically highlight the alpha couple’s traits by contrast. They also tend to get their brief time in the spotlight then will get shoved aside for the rest of the story.

The omega couples exist more in the movie musicals genre and are convenient couples. A pair the spares situation, if you will. They are getting together last minute for no other reason other than the fact that we have the finale number coming up. Nothing leads up to it, they’re just there.

In Descendants:

Alpha couple: Mal/Ben

Beta couple(s): Evie/Doug and surprisingly, we get a second in Carlos/Jane

Omega couples: Jay/Audrey (D1), Carlos/Jane (D1, before being promoted to beta in D2), Chad/Lonnie (D1), Chad/Audrey (D3)

Notice how I did not include Jay/Lonnie (D2), Jay/Gil (D3) or Uma/Harry at all? Well, I can’t, none of them canonically got together to be betas, and they had their own mini arcs so they can’t be omegas.

I’d assume that Jay and Lonnie dated briefly and separated for some reason: be it an amicable separation simply due to graduation and going their separate ways (Everybody knows that you don’t bring the girl with you after high school. - Chad Danforth, HSM) or anything else. Like Jay coming to terms with his bisexuality, perhaps, and wanting to take his time before doing anything serious.

Uma/Harry, I wholeheartedly believe, are canon. Just future canon.

Jay/Gil are a wildcard. Their bonding is adorable, whether as friends or more. Or current friends with the possibility of something more, I am just glad I am here for it. And I will forever be giddy inside whenever I remember Disney allowed them to partner-up and dance.

Why such a seemingly irrelevant post?

Because there’s a certain mindset you must be familiar with before you jump into the “they deserved more screen time”, the “why didn’t they officially get together?” and the “F you Disney for doing this to us” chants. It is just how it goes, especially in a movie when you have time constrictions, unlike a TV show where multiple ships can sail simultaneously or in different times. So, what you have to do is, learn to appreciate what’s happening in the background. The fleeting looks, the hand-holding, the reassuring glances and the deleted scenes (chemistry between actors automatically translates to chemistry between the characters). A lot of scenes don’t end up making it into the final product and a lot of takes and angles don’t end up making it as well.

This isn’t me being mad at Disney, it’s just me trying to fill in the gaps to make sense of the story. Like a lot of fanfiction writers do to plot holes, right? But then, for me, it turned into this genuine confusion and curiosity to find out why some characters, like Doug, are so hated while he’s pretty much unexpendable to the story. Or why some people are hell-bent on Mal and Evie being a thing even though we have a proposal, two true love’s kisses and a song about sisterly love and friendship to counter that.

Basically, you need to understand that Evie/Doug and Carlos/Jane are foils to Mal/Ben. The only reason Evie/Doug got the spotlight somewhat in D1 is primarily to develop Evie’s character and then, along with Carlos/Jane, served their purpose only in D2 and D3 which was contradict Mal/Ben’s relationship. And anything meaningful that is meant to happen, happens to Mal and Ben.

Let’s see how:

In D1:

1- While Mal spelled Ben, jump starting their relationship faster than most. Evie and Doug started rather organically, getting to know each other. I’d even argue that Evie and Doug were strictly friends throughout the first movie and part of the six months between D1 and D2.

2- Bal unknowingly started Audrey’s downward spiral, Devie’s relationship didn’t step on any toes.

3- Bal’s started because Mal had a motive (stealing the wand) behind spelling him, unlike what he assumed. Devie was selfless on both parties, he defended her (selfless act) and she became intrigued by the person wasting their breath on a VK.

4- Jock versus nerd. Glaringly obvious.

5- Tomboy with a sharp tongue versus a feminine princess, arguably with social-cue issues.

6- Mal’s turned good for Ben. That’s it, she liked him and wanted to explore the relationship further. Evie’s motive was her exploring herself and all she could be. She found herself with Doug’s help, I’ll give you that, but she grew all on her own. He can’t take credit for that. I can also use Carlos and Jay as foils for Mal, Carlos turned good because he saw the life he could have away from his mother’s abuse and Jay found the error in his father’s teachings.

7- Both Mal and Evie are magical, but only Mal gets to exploit said magic while Evie’s is all but erased from the movies.

In D2:

The difference was more on how they handled problems. Also, Ben being Mal’s motive to be good meant that at the first sign of trouble in paradise, she had an identity crisis and fled.

1- Evie was straight forward with Ben, helping him get to the isle to confront Mal and bring her back. Jay and Carlos lied to Doug, their lies and his insecurities created a problem that wasn’t even there.

2- Ben’s and Doug’s approach to solving their problems was the same: desperate confrontation. Their attitudes and reasons were drastically different. Ben felt guilty for pressuring Mal and belittling the effort she was putting in being his girlfriend. Doug was frantic, fear and insecurity fueling his accusation.

3- Mal initially refused to compromise, basically kicking Ben out. Evie recognized the motive behind Doug’s accusation and shot them down immediately. You know, like the queen she is.

4- Again, Bal saying their “I love you”s while Devie take things slow, enjoying their time. Of course, also Carlos spending six whole months getting to know Jane before he even asked her out.

In D3:

Now D3 was exclusively action-based with very little relationship developments happening. This movie, which is even more Mal-centered and benches Ben altogether, turned almost every character into foils for Mal.

1- Mal and Ben being together long enough (two months shy of a year) to warrant a proposal. Evie and Doug struggle to say their “I love you”s. And Carlos freaks out over Jane’s first birthday since they got together.

2- Uma, Evie and Ben wanting to free the VKs while Mal wants to close the barrier for good based on a threat made for show by her own father. Then she opens the barrier for good to have a relationship with her own father. Nothing selfish about the motives of Uma, Evie and Ben and nothing is selfless about Mal’s motive.

3- Mal being in a happy stage of her relationship while everybody else seems to be struggling. Evie and Doug with their L-word issues, Carlos with Jane’s birthday, Chad still trying to be with Audrey, Uma’s reluctance sending Harry into a chaotic-flirting frenzy, Jay’s supposed recent break-up with Lonnie.

I’m not entirely sure what I had in mind when I started writing this, I guess I was trying to make sense of what we got in the final cut of each movie. It feels like the same frustrations I had watching the High School Musical movies so long ago and being curious as hell about pretty much everyone but Troy and Gabriella. And I am certain I skipped major plot points that would have emphasized everything I’m trying to say, feel free to add to this.

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desktopdust · 5 years ago

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Phantom Network: Spacetime Exception

(Recently I applied for a writing position, and was presented with a series of prompts and told to write a short story for consideration. The following is what I came up with, and while they liked it quite a bit, ultimately another candidate was selected; not sure if I’ll do anything further with this idea, but at the very least, I wanted to make it available for anyone interested.)

I really thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But as I hopped onto the underside of a small bridge, pressing myself up against it to stay out of the rushing waters beneath me, it occurred to me that maybe that assessment hadn’t been so accurate.

I’ve been running jobs like this for years. Sure, I usually prefer to pick my own targets, but it wasn’t unheard of for someone to contact me and make a good case, just like my current “client” did. So I proceeded as normal: read up on the target, dropped them an @ on social media saying “Congratulations! You’re next!”, and went to get my wardrobe cleaned. (I know what you’re thinking, but a proper wardrobe is essential in this line of work! The gunmetal-colored alchemar I wear is some nice armor for sure, but on its own it just doesn’t pop. Add a dark brown fog coat, a bowler hat, and a green silk scarf, and there, brings the whole thing together! Well, that and a black domino mask with fabric over my mouth for anonymity…also important. Anyway.)

The property belonged to Jenaro Walters, one of the richest men in the world and exactly the kind of scum I love to steal from. According to the client, he kept one of his most prized possessions, a priceless jade vase, in his summer castle near the southern shore. (Yes, summer castle. He owns multiple honest-to-God castles, and that’s in addition to five other homes. What’s that? He could feed the entire country for a decade with that kind of money? You’re right! But he won’t!) It had a lovely view of the surrounding countryside, otherwise untouched for miles around with the sea lapping in just on the horizon, and was protected by immense stone walls reinforced with iron supports and guarded by a “highly-trained” security team. The castle itself is on the small side for a castle: still unreasonably huge, but looking at others on the market you can see Walters had some restraint. It sported half a dozen battlements and barely fewer towers, a moat inside and outside the outer wall, but decoration-wise it was rather plain. Not a single gargoyle in sight! What a waste. Well, at least I wouldn’t be tempted to steal one.

The job went well at first. I waited until night had fallen before making my approach, discovering that the guards were in such a panic thanks to my announcement that it was child’s play sneaking past them and scaling the wall. I made my way across the courtyard, in through one of the windows, and around a few bends in the barren stone hall before realizing what was wrong. The floorplan didn’t match the one I had memorized at all. When that dawned on me, I ran back outside to gather my bearings, but wouldn’t you know, I came across the one guard who was actually doing her job and suddenly the whole place was on alert.

Now, the cautious thing to do probably would have been to fall back and gather some new intel. But I didn’t do that.

At the very least, I was careful in crawling onto the right side of the bridge. No one was around to see me, so I sprinted back over to the castle, pressing myself against a shadowed wall to remain out of sight as I thought. This was honestly a pretty troubling development: the floorplans I get from the Phantom Network are always accurate, and are updated frequently enough that my target couldn’t have had enough time to remodel. So the way I saw it, there were two possibilities. Either someone here had some kind of technology or ability that allowed them to quickly rearrange the interior of a building, or…one of my fellow thieves provided a fake floorplan.

But I had to set that aside for the moment—this vase wasn’t going to steal itself, and the longer I wait the more chance these idiots will have to get their act together. My alchemar switched on with a low hum. Gravity’s hold on me lessened, and with one leap I shot up towards the castle roof; just before reaching it, I shifted gravity sideways, dropping on all fours against the wall and creeping forward to glance over the edge. A tall tower stood at the center of the rooftop, and the surrounding area was barren. Unfortunately, there was a balcony about halfway up the tower, from which several spotlights scanned the area. That and the door at its base were the only ways in.

I could certainly take out the guards, but with the place on high alert it wouldn’t be long before someone realized they weren’t at their post—getting out would be a lot more difficult than it needed to be. I knew I needed to take the long way. I waited until the searchlights had just swept past and then threw myself over the edge. With my gravity still rotated, I “fell” straight across the rooftop to the tower door, successfully avoiding detection; I then restored normal gravity, dropping down from the wall, and tried the door. It was…unlocked? That didn’t bode well. This job was getting worse by the minute…but, I was too stubborn to back out. So in I went.

The first few floors of the tower were totally empty. I was extra careful in sneaking past the entrance to the balcony, and made it roughly three-quarters of the way up before encountering something I couldn’t avoid. The floor in question was one long hallway, lined with fancy artwork and exotic plants, terminating in an elegantly carved double door that had a single guard. He was large. Large as in roughly the same size as the doorframe behind him. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular physique, and wearing flashy gold alchemar made of thick plates with a horned helmet that totally obscured his visage, with locks of straight brown hair flowing out the back. Nice aesthetic, I’ll give him that.

I took a moment to weigh my options. I could go back to the balcony—incapacitating the guards from behind would be even easier, and then I could climb the tower from the outside and avoid this wall of muscle. However, that didn’t solve the problem the conspicuously-still searchlights would cause. Forward remained the best choice. Hoping to avoid a fight if possible, I activated my alchemar and quickly increased the force of gravity upon him from a distance. Unfortunately for me, rather than collapsing like a normal person would, the big gorilla managed to stay upright, and now knew someone else was nearby. Fantastic.

“Who goes there?” he bellowed. “Show yourself, trespasser!”

Well, no point in hiding. I strolled into the room, keeping gravity focused on my foe, and tipped my hat to him. “Evening, friend. Would you mind letting me through?”

He glared at me—even with his face hidden, it was obvious. “You…! You’re the one I was told to watch out for! Phantom Thief Roche!”

“Oh, I see my reputation proceeds me,” I said. I removed my hat, twirling it around with one finger. “Well, you know my name: who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

Despite the intense gravity, the guard raised his arms and flexed them proudly, declaring, “My name is Aldebrand! I have served under Master Walters for the whole of my life, and in light of your recent threat, he has ordered me to ensure the safety of his most prized possession!”

“Ah, so his prized possession is kept here! Thanks for confirming that, Brandy.”

Aldebrand lowered his arms. “Oh…”

Returning my hat to my head, I said, “Look, Brandy, I can see you’re under the rich bastard’s thrall so I won’t try to reason with you, but I am getting that vase one way or another. Just lie down, for your own sake.”

Instead, Aldebrand took a defiant step forward. “I think not! I know your tricks, thief—you think that you are unstoppable simply for wielding the power of gravity? You have chosen a coward’s element! I shall defeat you head-on!”

He charged. The second he did, I willed the point my gravity powers were pulling him towards to move forward even faster, pulling his head down to the floor. On one hand, it worked. On the other, that didn’t stop him. Aldebrand pushed himself forward along the floor, his alchemar flashing and releasing flames that wreathed his body; I was only barely able to jump in time, adjusting my own gravity so that I “dropped” to the ceiling.

“Fire,” I mumbled. “That’s less than ideal.”

Honestly? I was expecting something like rock or metal. When a big brute uses alchemar, they usually favor an element that’s tough, strong, and, well, physical. Were that the case, I could easily counteract any move he made: no matter what rocks or blades he threw, I could alter gravity to redirect them, staying out of range while using his own attacks against him. Fire, though…fire doesn’t care so much about gravity. Basically, Aldebrand had the advantage in both ranged and close combat, and I was going to need to get creative.

“What’s the matter?” Aldebrand asked as he struggled to his feet. “You come to pick a fight, yet are too afraid to finish it?”

He held both hands out, shooting a volley of fireballs at me. Rolling out of the way, I willed gravity to pull Aldebrand towards the farthest wall, momentarily ceasing his attack; he spun as he fell, ultimately landing on his feet, and then threw a punch. His fist spawned a compressed, fast-moving fireball that shot directly at me. Quick reflexes were all that saved me, dropping me to the wall just as the flames sailed past my head. Aldebrand didn’t let up: he ran along the wall towards me, shooting more fireballs every second. I opened my hand and pulled a painting into it, catching the attacks and setting the art on fire in the process.

“Fiend!” Aldebrand shouted, stopping his offensive. “How dare you damage Master Walters’s property!”

I gave a shrug. “Alright, if it means so much to you…”

Spawning another gravity well, I threw the flaming portrait at Aldebrand. The extra pull brought it to his face faster than he expected, giving me time to get moving, but that was all. He used the power of his alchemar to extinguish the flames, and then punched another pinpoint blast my way. This time I was ready, and pulled another painting forward to shield me. Aldebrand roared.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked as I flung the painting. “Walters has more than enough money to replace this trash.”

Aldebrand swatted the painting away—oh, he adjusted quickly, good for him. “It is the principle of the thing, you impudent cur! But what should I expect of one who simply takes what rightfully belongs to others?”

Ducking below another fireball, I said, “Rightfully? That’s rich.”

Aldebrand reared back. Just in time, I leapt onto another wall, dodging his attack, and then leapt right at him, manipulating gravity to pull us both towards each other to amplify the force of the punch I delivered to his face. I remembered too late that he was wearing very thick armor. As we both dropped to the floor, I clutched my hand, grunting through my teeth, and Aldebrand wasn’t willing to give me a chance to recover. A huge fireball sent me rolling across the floor—if not for the protective field my alchemar generated, that probably would’ve burned me to a crisp. I got on my feet as quickly as I could, only to find Aldebrand charging at me.

“Die, wretched thief!” he yelled.

Flattening myself against the floor, I created a gravity well that pulled Aldebrand upward, sailing right overhead and crashing through the door he was meant to guard. He groaned in pain as he picked himself up, and that was when I finally worked out how I was going to win.

“Tell you want, Brandy, I’ll humor you,” I said as I pulled three paintings through the air, lighting them on the residual flames from Aldebrand’s recent attacks. “You wanna know why I don’t give a damn about Walters’s property? I’ll tell you: it’s simple reciprocation.”

Aldebrand led with a flurry of fireballs as he ran back into the room. I carefully manipulated the paintings to shield me, throwing one of them when the opportunity presented itself.

“Walters and all the other elitist bastards like him don’t give a damn about anyone else. They take what they want, leaving as little as possible for those without the power to stop them, all so they can horde everything of value for themselves.”

Aldebrand swatted. Anticipating him, I pulled the painting off to his side, throwing a second at the same time.

“They say you should treat others the way you want to be treated, right? If he’s treating everyone like dirt, then I can only assume that’s how I oughtta treat him!”

The second painting smashed into Aldebrand’s face while the first circled around to hit him in the back. He braced for the third, but instead of sending it at him, I sent it around the room to light up the potted plants sitting around. Aldebrand shook with fury.

“You understand nothing!” he told me. “Parasites like you are the greedy ones! I shall tolerate no more of this slander!”

He rushed across the room, and I stood ready. With a calculated application of my power, the many burning trees all flew straight towards Aldebrand, who surrounded himself in intense flames to totally incinerate them before they could make contact. A second later he was upon me, throwing his entire weight into a single punch, just like I was hoping. I leaned back as far as I could—I couldn’t alter my gravity to escape, I needed to focus on Aldebrand’s gravity. The first step was eliminating the natural force keeping him on the ground, making his body lighter and his punch come faster. As it passed, the flames surrounding him singed me, but I held fast to my concentration: I generated a powerful gravity well at the exact point where his momentum aimed him, and with nothing to hold him down, the force of Aldebrand’s punch threw him headfirst into its pull, launching him through a support pillar and into the wall with a loud smack. Any flames that lingered went out as he dropped to the floor, unmoving.

“Whew,” I said, dusting myself off. “That was a workout. Hey, Brandy, are you dead?”

I didn’t get a response.

“So that’s a ‘maybe’…ah well.”

I couldn’t be sure that no one had heard our scuffle, so once I was on the other side of the doorway I stacked as much rubble as I could to block off any would-be pursuers. Luckily, I didn’t come across any more opposition until reaching the top floor. The sprawling circular room had low lighting, and was entirely empty save for the pedestal at the very center, upon which sat a jade vase with a rounded body, short neck, and twin handles. Drawing a pellet from my coat, I crushed it and blew the resulting dust forward—thin beams of red light came into view, crisscrossing through the entire room to form a tight net around the treasured pottery. The original plan had been to sneak into the castle’s generator room and deactivate any security measures like this, but now that the floorplan I had received had proved faulty, that was no longer an option. One look was enough to tell me I wouldn’t fit between the beams, so I took a deep breath and reactivated my alchemar.

First step was to create a gravity well above the vase that was equally strong as the natural gravity pulling it down. By adjusting the balance between these two forces, I was able to gently lift the vase from its pedestal and move on to the hard part. Most of the gaps in the net were wide enough that the vase would be able to pass through them standing up, but not all of them—I was going to need to turn the vase on its side to thread it through the laser grid, and figured I’d have the most room to do so right above the pedestal. It was a very precise process, and being worn out from my fight sure didn’t help matters. Shifting my hands to help myself better visualize what I was doing, I gradually moved the sources of the opposing pulls on the vase in opposite directions, subtly angling both as I did so that they remained centered directly upon the vase. One false move and it would drop to floor, shattering and triggering the alarm to notify every guard on the property of my location. I had to try not to focus on that possibility, though.

It took a while, but I eventually got the vase horizontal, the two gravity wells holding it firmly in place like a pair of tweezers. I paused to take a breath, and then manipulated the balance between the wells, slowly pulling the vase towards me and through the first opening in the grid. The next gap was to the side, so I halted the vase and again adjusted the locations of the wells to get it in position. The vase needed to be reoriented this way after every single gap—the grid was cleverly-made, turns out—but eventually it made it across the room, allowing me to pluck it from the air and power down my alchemar. I allowed myself a sigh of relief as I clutched the vase. Finally, I thought, I had the damn thing and could get out already. I had had my fill of surprises for one day.

I turned around to find a gun in my face. My first thought was that it was incredibly rude—hardly a proper greeting. My second was a storm of rage I can’t quite articulate with words.

“Congratulations, Roche!” said the one holding the gun. “Job well done, I’d say.”

My eye twitched. I recognized that voice. Sure enough, I was looking at an athletic woman with medium brown skin and bright red, shoulder-length hair that nicely framed her smug face. Her alchemar was silver and looked very lightweight, the armor itself being very sleek but accentuated by a knee-length half-skirt and off-the-shoulder shawl, both made of smooth pink fabric. Despite the situation, I was totally powerless to stop myself from letting out a long, wordless groan.

“Kari,” I then muttered. “So good to see you.”

She giggled. “Aw, thank you! It’s lovely seeing you as well.”

I gestured around, careful not to touch the still-active lasers. “Come here often?”

“Nope, first time.”

“What a coincidence, me too. I’ll warn you now, the service is terrible—I ordered a drink an hour ago and haven’t heard back since.”

Playing along with a sour expression, she said, “Oh, that’s a shame. It had such good reviews.”

“Well, maybe they’re having an off night, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“Good point.” Kari held out her free hand. “Anyway, I’ll take that.”

Pulling the vase away, I said, “Um, excuse me? I stole this fair and square, Kari. I won’t give it up so easily—you haven’t even bought me dinner.”

“How can I if the service is bad?”

“I never said it had to be here.”

Rolling her eyes, Kari said, “You’re such hard work, you know that?”

“I take pride in it, in fact.”

A smirk crossed Kari’s face. “Darling, if you don’t give me the vase, how can I pay you for your services?”

I can only imagine what my face looked like as I slowly processed what she was telling me. I’m imagining something very stupid-looking.

“You…you’re my client?” I asked.

Kari nodded. “Mm-hm!”

“If you wanted the damn thing, why not just steal it yourself?!”

“Too much work. This was easier.”

I’m an idiot. A fool. I’m a complete and total sap. I’d say she played me like a fiddle, but I’ve tried playing fiddle—it’s actually very difficult, and saying that’s what happened when she exerted zero effort would be an insult to the skilled fiddle-players of the world.

As I was mentally kicking myself, I noticed a change in Kari’s expression. She looked…serious? Maybe? Hard to tell, I’d never seen her serious. “All joking aside, Roche…I needed to evaluate you, and this seemed like the best way to do it.”

“Evaluate?” I repeated. “…Wait, this was a test? You set this all up to…hang on: are you the one who swapped the floorplan in the Phantom Network database?”

Her coy smile returned. “Haven’t the foggiest what you’re referring to, but sounds like it’s beside the point.”

“It’s definitely point-adjacent.”

“Listen, darling: I have a lead on a much, much bigger job, but after running the numbers it looks unlikely I’ll be able to pull it off myself. I need an…assistant. And after screening a few candidates, I’ve decided you’re the best fit.”

“Lucky me,” I grumbled.

“You are lucky! Now, what do you say you hand me that vase and we talk business?”

I handed her the vase. She had to grab it with both hands, finally removing the gun from its threatening position, and I replied, “I say ‘see ya’.”

Not giving her a chance to answer, I headed for the door. However, in the time it took me to blink, Kari was suddenly standing in the doorway, pouting with the vase tucked under one arm. At least she had put the gun away.

“Hey now, what kind of response is that?” she asked.

“After discovering I’ve been bamboozled by a chronic pain in the neck who wants to make me her lackey? An entirely fair one, in my humble opinion.”

“‘Humble’, huh?”

“Well, it sounds nice.”

Kari sighed. Her alchemar shimmered briefly as she let go of the vase—rather than falling, it hung eerily-still in mid-air, allowing her to ignore it as she stepped towards me.

“Roche,” she said, looking…probably-serious again. “When I say this is a big job, I’m not talking about payment. I’m talking about what it means.”

I snorted a laugh. “What? Suddenly you care about what jobs mean? My gosh, Kari, when did you become a proper thief?”

I expected a sharp retort, but that’s not what I got. Kari’s expression remained the same, and something danced behind her eyes…I couldn’t really tell what it was, but it made me feel like a bit of a jerk. And not in the satisfying way.

“I may owe you some explanation,” Kari said, “but certain things are still personal. I hope you understand.”

Ah. So it’s personal.

“A job like this unsettles the elitists, shows the people their oppressors aren’t invincible. But miscellaneous gestures like this just aren’t enough. Haven’t you ever wondered what it would take to really change things? To not just undermine the oppressors’ power, but to take it all away?”

I had to think for a moment, ultimately saying, “That sounds too good to be true. And in any event…frankly, Kari, I wouldn’t feel safe working with you. You’ve screwed me over a few too many times for me to just trust you.”

Kari nodded. “…Fair enough.”

Really? Who is this? What the hell happened to her?!

Before I could form a coherent reply, though, she extended her hand and said something even more shocking: “Honor among thieves.”

I gawked. I was just too stunned to do much of anything else. When I finally found some words, I said, “You…do know how serious a promise that is, right? If you break it, the Phantom Network will ban you—or worse.”

She stared directly into my eyes and said, “I understand completely.”

…Dammit. Just when I thought I knew how to handle this thorn in my side, she finds new ways to defy expectation. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering her offer. But, even with our history, I couldn’t deny she seemed genuine…and admittedly, I had found myself wanting something more than petty theft. Stripping the elites of their power altogether was too tantalizing a prospect to simply ignore.

“Oh, what the hell,” I mumbled, taking the hand offered to me.

Kari’s face brightened a bit, and she failed to suppress a smirk. “Not very official.”

Smiling back, I leaned forward and said, “Honor among thieves. I look forward to working with you, dear Kari.”

To be sure I was overselling it, I quickly kissed her hand before letting go. Kari turned, tossing her hair, and said, “Excellent. Welcome aboard, Roche. Now, shall we make our escape?”

As she walked through the door, she pulled a pink veil over her face. I took a step after her, but then realized the vase was still hanging there, and turned to say something.

“Oh,” she said, “and would you mind carrying the vase?”

The power holding it aloft cut out suddenly—I had to scramble to catch it in time. Giving a heavy sigh, I said under my breath, “Yup. I really have no idea what I’m getting myself into.”

#original #Phantom Network

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makistar2018 · 6 years ago

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Taylor Swift’s Feud With Scooter Braun Spotlights Musicians’ Struggles to Own Their Work

Prince, Janet Jackson and Jay-Z all fought to control their master recordings. In a blog post about the sale of her former record label, Swift put her personal spin on the issue.

By Ben Sisario and Joe Coscarelli July 1, 2019

It is one of the oldest and hardest lessons of the music industry: No matter how successful artists may be, chances are someone else owns their work.

Prince, protesting how his label, Warner Bros., had control over his master recordings, quipped in 1996: “If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.” That same year, when Janet Jackson negotiated a landmark contract with Virgin Records, ownership of her original recordings was a major deal point.

Now we can add Taylor Swift to the chorus of artists who have bemoaned that their creative work is someone else’s property, as she once again used her social-media megaphone to stir debate about the inner workings of the music industry.

In a Tumblr post on Sunday, Swift responded bitterly to the news that her former label, Big Machine, had been sold for more than $300 million to a company run by Scooter Braun, the manager of pop stars including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Swift had strong personal objections to the deal, which included the rights to her first six albums, blaming Braun for orchestrating “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, an on-and-off client.

But the episode also highlighted the fraught and little-understood industry politics of master recordings — the original copies of an artist’s work — and the copyrights associated with them.

The owner of a master controls all rights to exploit it, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies or video games. The artist still earns royalties from those recordings once associated costs are fulfilled, but controlling the master could bring greater income, as well as a level of protection over how the work is used in the future. (These rights are separate from copyrights for songwriting.)

The deep significance that musicians attach to their masters was highlighted last month, when a group of artists sued the Universal Music Group over a fire in 2008 that destroyed many original recordings, after an exposé was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Historically, record companies have retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in backing an artist over the course of their contract.

“Fundamentally, the business model that most record companies operate under is not unlike the venture capital business,” said Larry Miller, the director of the music business program at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

“They make investments in unproven talent,” he added. “The trade is that, traditionally, the masters stay with the record company.”

Swift, despite appearing to have an almost unrivaled level of self-determination as a star — like single-handedly getting Apple to change a royalties policy in 2015 — signed such a deal with Big Machine in 2005, at the beginning of her career. Her post on Sunday was partly an admonishment to young artists to avoid those kinds of contracts.

“This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,” Swift wrote, in a jab at Big Machine’s founder, Scott Borchetta.

Hours later, Borchetta posted a rejoinder, including a snippet of a deal proposal, that suggested that Swift could have earned her recording rights back had she renewed with Big Machine last year. Instead, she signed with Universal. (Her next album, “Lover,” is due in August.)

Borchetta also called into question Swift’s claim that she only learned of the deal once the news broke — he said he texted her the night before — and noted that her father, Scott Swift, was a minority shareholder in Big Machine.

The barbs between Swift and Borchetta, a rare example of such contractual dirty laundry being aired outside of litigation, captivated the industry and raised questions about the age-old power dynamic between artist and label.

“This kind of deal is neither unusual or controversial,” the media mogul David Geffen said. “She didn’t want to put up $300 million. Someone else did. They offered her a deal that she rejected to get ownership of her masters. Only time will tell who made the wise decision.”

Geffen, whom Braun has frequently described as a mentor, added: “I’m betting that Scooter will build an important company with the addition of this asset.”

Steve Stoute, a music and advertising executive whose new company, UnitedMasters, allows artists to keep their rights, saw the Swift episode as a painful illustration of what he called “the fundamental problem with the record industry.”

“The record business historically runs the same business model as sharecropping,” Stoute said. “You build it; we make you think that you own it; you act like you own it; but at the end of the day, we own it.”

The battle between Swift and Braun also divided celebrities on social media, as accusations of exploitation intermingled with personal loyalties.

Some of Braun’s clients, like Bieber and Demi Lovato, defended his personal character. “I have dealt with bad people in this industry and Scooter is not one of them,” Lovato wrote on Instagram.

But other female artists took Swift’s lead as an opportunity to discuss their own experiences in a business that has long faced criticism for its treatment of many creators, especially young women and people of color.

“I signed contracts when I was 15 & I’m still paying the consequences for it,” the singer Sky Ferreira, now 26, wrote on Instagram after pointing people to Swift’s blog post. “Insisting on your rights, value & ownership doesn’t make you difficult.” She added: “Just because this system has been the same for decades doesn’t mean it’s okay or you need to bow down to it.”

In a statement expressing support for Swift, the pop singer Halsey wrote: “it turns my guts that no matter how much power or success a woman has in this life, you are still susceptible to someone coming along and making you feel powerless out of spite.” Alessia Cara chimed in: “stop stealing from women who work hard!!!”

And the rapper Iggy Azalea, while interacting with fans on Twitter, added: “this is why I’m so happy to own my master for this new album, they really do ppl crazy dirty on ownership of their intellectual property in the biz.” After years of limbo on major labels, Azalea recently announced a deal with the distributor Empire that gave her ownership of her recordings.

Tension over the ownership of recordings is nearly as old as the industry, but it has gained momentum as superstar artists have exerted greater control — typically after years of work. Prince rebelled against Warner Bros. in the mid-1990s, after nearly two decades of hits. And when Jay-Z became president and chief executive of the Def Jam label in 2004, he insisted on earning back control of his masters on that label.

The industry’s shift to streaming has begun to change the dynamic between artists and labels, which once held exceptional leverage through their ability to market albums and promote songs to radio stations. Given this change, some younger artists have leaned toward autonomy.

The singer and rapper XXXTentacion, for example, who was killed in a shooting last year, rejected traditional long-term label deals in favor of one-off contracts for each of his releases that offered lower payment upfront, but gave him full ownership and a higher royalty rate.

Swift’s talent for fueling debate continued on Tumblr — the platform where she frequently communes with her most faithful fans — well after she published her account of the deal. “taylor will not be silenced,” wrote one fan who earned acknowledgment from Swift.

Elsewhere, some questioned whether Swift, with her enormous wealth and reputation for careful self-mythologizing, was the best messenger for this ongoing battle, especially after Borchetta pushed back, sharing deal points and private text messages between the two parties.

But the power of Swift’s fame made her message about the importance of ownership a vital lesson, Stoute said.

“If you’re an artist today, you must go into the record deal owning your master,” he said. “If not, then you are basically building an asset that you will not own.”

The New York Times

#taylor swift #2019.07.01 #scooter braun is a piece of shit

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icharchivist · 6 years ago

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Hey, how do I get into hypmic? Is it an anime? A song based thing? Like I see some music videos but also there's apparently a plot so that can't be it right? It seems interesting but I'm lost

aaHH HEY!! welcome welcome!

Oh my god i’ll try my best to make it not sound as complicated as it is.

Hypmic is a mixed media series that is mainly told via songs and drama tracks, so it’s a little tought to get into, but we also get side content with a manga. The only struggle is to find all you need online but i have a drive file with all the songs/elements in chronological order, so i can send that in private if you want to (the fandom tends to try not to share stuff publically because the right holders are very serious over not letting things spill too much)

the plot is a little cheesy and it’s mostly just for characters’s moments and excuse for songs but tbh I have so much joy out of it i don’t even want to belittle it for that, it’s the best kind of cheesy i love it so much.

the place to start is here, this video:

youtube

The translation of this song in particular can be found here. As you can see in the video there is also the profile (name/age ect.) of each characters.

You’ll find all the translations available on this website. They only translated the first battle season (the second one just started recently) and so far we only have summaries of the new seasons thanks to this twitter account.

The general structure of the series, as it is narratively intended to be consumed, is that each Album has about 3 songs and 2 drama tracks. So you just need to get into the albums in a chronological order to get about everything. The rest is honestly just bonus, even if we’re starting to get more unique content in the manga adaptation lately.

(there are previews of each albums on youtube, and the full songs of all the ensemble songs and of the latest album’s songs, you can find them in this playlist to give you an idea at least of if you’re interested in the sound.)

The Project: Was started by Ichiro’s VA specifically to bring spotlight to the Rap scene in Japan. Each songs are made in collaboration of multiple rappers who get promoted with it. Meanwhile it is also a passion project for the 12 main seiyuus involved who all get to develop their characters with it. Each divisions generally works with different styles of music and ambiance. Each Divisions also get different plots and different development through them, evolving with very different themes.

The Story (at least what you need to know before getting into it):

After World War 3, the new Government in place in Japan banned all weapons, only allowing them to be remplaced by Hypnosis Microphones, Microphones that can cause multiple physical and mental injuries depending on your flow, your way to use words, the truth of your words, ect... Some more extreme uses in skilled hands can do as much as create violent hallucinations or even healing.

Originally the Government barricaded itself in Chuukukou, the center of the city, and left the rest of Tokyo to fend for themselves in territories battles. As time went by and the territories battles were organized in a way for only 4 major divisions to be in the control of the city, Chuukukou however siezed the opportunity to organize Gladiator Battles with said 4 representants and fight for more territories between themselves while entertaining everyone, as the battles are treated also like they were idols. It’s of course more a way for the Government to keep a control over what’s going on outside and keep a close eye on the powers outsides its walls.

Those Four Divisons are divided as presented in the above video:

Ikebukuro Division is taken care of by the Buster Bros!!, Ichiro Yamada, Jiro Yamada and Saburo Yamada - three brothers working odd jobs together. Yokohama Division is taken care of by Mad Trigger Crew, Samatoki Aohitsugi, Juuto Iruma, and Riou Busujima Mason - a Yakuza, a Corrupted Cop, and an Ancient Marine Shibuya Division is taken care of by Fling Posse, Ramuda Amemura, Gentaro Yumeno, and Dice Arisugawa - A Fashion Designer, A Writter, and A Gambler. Shinjuku Division is taken care of by Matenrou, Jakurai Jinguji, Hifumi Izanami, and Doppo Kannonzaka - A Doctor, An Host, and a White Collar Worker.

I am keeping it as vague as possible so if you get into it you get to discover why those bands even formed and what sort of dynamic they ended up creating with each others. If the fact those combinaisons of characters intruigue you then i’m encouraging you to get into it even more because it is fantastic ahah.

And to make their battles worse: the Four Leaders, Ichiro, Samatoki, Ramuda and Jakurai actually used to be part of a band together, The Dirty Dawg and were very close. Until something happened leading to their breakup and some level of resentment- different for everyone of course. And obviously this gets addressed as the battles go on.

I’ve personally got into the saga by just knowing vaguely about the characters and listening to the music available on youtube and ended up... well. Loving the songs so much I needed to know the story behind them. So i personally i do recommand listening to the songs on youtube, and if you like the vibe, just dive into it ;O

Before moving on, reminder, all of the translations available for all i’m talking about are on that website.

The Structure of the Main Series, is therefore by Albums:

The four first albums (Buster Bros!! Generation / Mad Trigger Crew Bay-Side / Matenrou Clinical Sound / Fling Posse - F.P.S.M) are the Introductions albums: Each about one of the division, has one song by character to present them, and 2 drama tracks setting up their dynamics (the first drama tracks of each album is available on youtube if it serves as a starting point - the second drama tracks explore the relationships more in depth and are not available online.)

Then you need to listen to the Battle Anthem / translation

Then comes the Battle Season:

-War War War, BB VS MTC. It has one group song per band, and a rap battle song where they face off, alongside with two drama tracks that basically moves the main story up while establishing the dynamics between the divisions. (as a word of advice storywise, listen to the group songs before the drama tracks and to the battle song after the drama tracks) -Battle Battle Battle, FP V M. Same formula as Warx3. -Death Respect, The finale of the winners (that I won’t reveal yet). The album itself only has the battle songs and remix of the groups songs. -The Champion, with a song announciating the Champion, AND a Song about the Past of the Four Leaders when they used to be together. Along with two drama tracks, one basically concluding the Battle Seasons and the characters’s arcs, and a Prequel Drama Track about the leaders’s past.

There are yet no translations for the Prequel Drama Track.

Then we have the preparation for the second Season as it starts with Hoodstar.

The last released Album’s name is Enter the Hypnosis Microphone. The album countains: -All the 3 ensemble songs -All the 4 group songs -4 New Group Songs that are all available fully on Youtube. 3 out of the 4 had been translated. (Ohayo Ikebukuro, Stella, Papillion. Dead Pools wasn’t translated yet) -5 Drama Tracks: One per division and one finale one that conclude this arc in particular. Only summaries are available.

That’s the core of the story, that’s where you should focus on. Like I said I can share the full discogaphy in private. We’re being secretive but we just keep it private, so if you are interested my file should be clear about the Order and all.(I also have the translations saved in those files for better accessibilities - if i share this file you will just need to follow the numbers and you should be fine, just ask me about it and i’ll send it gladly, i just don’t post it in public)

ON A SIDENOTE: we get mostly Official art releases via magazines and such so it can be hard to find again. as much as i hate zerochan in term of how it deals with fanarts, its official art sections is pretty solid so you can find a few of the official arts HERE if curious.

Another note: the winners during Battle Seasons are determined by the audience, the fans, us. As a result the plot is always everchanging by our own involvement with it. We get to decide the winners just like Chuukukou is supposed to do and that’s a fun gimmick. for now we’re not in a battle season but soon :3c

If THEN you decide to go into deep, There a few manga, and you can find the translated versions of it there. (only three of them had been translated).

the manga are hard to find and incomplete so i wouldn’t encourage you to seek them yet unless you get into deep. The two first manga that were translated are adaptations of the first drama tracks. it seems the volume version that recently came out also adapted the second drama tracks but we hadn’t got to see them yet. The Third manga (ongoing) is set before the Prequel about the Leaders, before the met each other and it sets up more the politics of the world (warning the politic worldbuilding is slightly cringeworthy). I wouldn’t recommand it before you’ve reached the Champion album. It is also not over yet. Now two new manga are ongoing and i only have chapter 2 of each in Japanese so @.@ but they seem to cover unique new side stories for the characters with some lore dump. We get translation threads over the twitter i linked once in a while.

Other bonus: They started releasing Duets for some characters, which are super hard to find (i have them though so it’s fine, we just have no translation of them except the translation threads). The Duets so far are mostly joke songs + a drama track to give it context. We got a Samatoki&Ichiro, Jiro&Saburo and Hifumi&Doppo duets so far. More seem planned. They came out with the volume versions of the manga.

Others bonus: They have made 2 full lives yet where the Seiyuu came out as In Character as possible to play and sing their songs. It’s mostly bonus content to see how they set up some of the songs ahah. (I have them but it would take me time to share them)

Upcoming: there will be a ryhtmic/visual novel mobile game, but we have no idea how much it will be involving plot or just gaming device ahah. But it’s coming.

I think this is as much as a vague taste i can give about the series. If you’re really curious i can send the file right away, and you can take it at your own rythm.

and since i’m publishing it that’s an invitation for anyone who would want it.

I hope it makes it clearer and i sure hope you are still curious about it :3c

Take care! :3

#god i hope it's at least not confusing and doesn't scare anyone kjdhfdj #it's just sO GOOD #not the most instinctive series to get into #and cheesy af #but i'm SO involved i love it so much #so ;3c #ichafantalks hpm #hpm ref #yoshifics #ichareply

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Democratic divides take center stage at first debate

https://wapo.st/31ZcPzE

SOULESS Trump 😢😭🖕👉“BORING!” he tweeted as the candidates began discussing the deaths of a father and daughter at the border.

Democratic divides take center stage at first debate

By Toluse Olorunnipa and Michael Scherr | Published June 27 at 12:16 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted June 27, 2019 |

Deep divides over health care and economic policy dominated the first Democratic presidential debate Wednesday, as 10 candidates jousted in Miami over the best formula for beating President Trump and fixing the economic struggles of the middle class.

The result was a prime-time display — the first national event of the election season — showcasing economic and regulatory differences that have riven the Democratic Party, including transformative plans to eliminate private health insurance, fund free college for most Americans, break up giant corporations and impose sharp tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

The ambitious slate of proposals highlights the Democrats’ leftward shift, a trend Republicans are seeking to take advantage of by linking the party with socialism and government control. The generally sober event also highlighted one of the key dilemmas that Democrats face in their attempt to oust Trump — a bombastic showman whose name was only occasionally mentioned but whose presence loomed large over the proceedings.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), standing center stage with the most early attention from moderators, drove much of the debate with a passionate defense of disruptive plans that would face long odds of passage in Congress. She framed each of the issues as a question of determination, saying she was willing to fight and take on the “corruption in this system” that had created the problems.

“We’ve had the laws out there for a long time to be able to fight back. What’s been missing is courage, courage in Washington to take on the giants,” she said. “I want to return government to the people, and that means calling out the names of the monopolists and saying I have the courage to go after them.”

Her rivals were forced to respond, though they avoided taking her on directly, trying to explain their plans as different routes to the same goal.

“I do get concerned about paying for college for rich kids; I do,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), a thinly veiled reference to plans supported by Warren to make public colleges free for all Americans.

But the two-hour debate proceeded without a significant viral or humorous moment to rival the kind of spectacle created by Trump during the 2016 debates that were dominated by the real estate developer’s shocking comments, off-color jokes and biting attacks on his rivals.

Trump’s campaign characterized the debate as “the best argument for President Trump’s reelection,” arguing that Democrats were proposing “a radical government takeover of American society that would demolish the American Dream so many are gaining access to under the growing Trump economy.”

Rather than paint a hopeful vision of the nation’s future, the Democrats onstage focused on the grim challenges facing the country — warning of a long list of serious threats to the nation’s well-being, such as corporate power, global warming, the humanitarian crises on the southern border and the growing economic power of China.

Perhaps seeking to introduce themselves to a national audience, the candidates only rarely addressed one another directly or strayed from well-rehearsed lines.

When Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) was asked about previous comments criticizing politicians who pledge to break up specific companies — as Warren has — he seemed to shift in Warren’s direction, saying “I don’t think I disagree” that corporate consolidation is a problem.

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke gave his first answer in both Spanish and English, but he struggled to respond directly to the question about how high he would bring the marginal tax rate for the wealthy. He spoke instead about ending gerrymandering while bolstering the Voting Rights Act and same-day voter registration.

“I would support a tax rate and a tax code that is fair to everyone,” he said, after the question was repeated to him.

Wednesday’s debate marked the first of 12 scheduled by the Democratic Party, including at least two split over two nights, with 10 more candidates scheduled to appear in Miami on Thursday. Polls show a wide-open race, even as most of the 23 candidates struggle to register even 2 percent support.

Warren was the only candidate to appear polling in double digits, with clear momentum after months of tireless campaigning. Three other candidates, O’Rourke, Klobuchar and Booker, have been struggling to maintain the early expectations of their campaign announcements. Six more, including Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, have found themselves struggling to be noticed in the crowded field.

But all of the candidates were given a chance to weigh in on the key divides in the party. Only Warren and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio raised their hands when asked whether they would get rid of private health insurance.

“I understand: There are a lot of politicians who say , ‘Oh, it’s just not possible.’ . . .,” Warren said, fully embracing the single-payer health-care plan backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who will be onstage Thursday. “What they’re really telling you is that they just won’t fight for it. But health care is a basic human right. And I will fight for it.”

The issue of immigration, an area of relative agreement in the Democratic Party, prompted one of the few fierce exchanges of the night — between the two Texas politicians on the stage. Former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro sought to draw a contrast with O’Rourke by saying the former congressman opposed repealing part of U.S. immigration law that allows for criminal prosecution of migrants who come to the United States without proper documentation. Castro has called for decriminalizing undocumented immigration, a position Republicans have branded “open borders.”

“I think that you should do your homework on this issue,” Castro said, turning to O’Rourke. “If you did your homework on this issue you would know that we should repeal this section.”

O’Rourke said he favored immigration policies that ended the family separations that have taken place during the Trump administration, and to ensure that migrants seeking asylum are not detained.

For most of the candidates onstage, the debate marked one of only two chances they will have, in addition to the July debates, to spark the interest necessary to get them on the September debate stage, when the polling and donor qualification requirements will dramatically tighten.

Several candidates made clear attempts to grab and hold the spotlight in the hopes of breaking through.

At both ends of the stage, de Blasio and former Maryland congressman John Delaney, who poll the lowest, forced their way into the conversation repeatedly, with the former arguing he was the most passionate liberal on the stage and the latter playing the role of the most practical moderate.

“What we are hearing here already in the first round of questions is that battle for the heart and soul of our country,” de Blasio said. “This is supposed to be the party of working people. Yes, we’re supposed to be for a 70 percent tax rate on the wealthy.”

Delaney responded by calling such ideas unrealistic. “I think we have to do real things to help American workers and the American people. Right?” he said.

Booker’s strategy in the debate was to repeatedly personalize the issues that were raised. When talking about guns, he spoke about his Newark neighborhood where seven people were recently shot. “I live in a low-income black and brown community,” he said when asked about corporate consolidation. “I see every single day that this economy is not working for average Americans.”

Candidates focused mostly on policy but also spent time attacking Trump for his governing style and his record since taking office in 2017. Trump’s erratic approach to foreign policy came in for blistering attacks.

“I don’t think we should conduct foreign policy in our bathrobe at 5 in the morning,” Klobuchar said.

“This president and his chicken hawk Cabinet have led us to the brink of war with Iran,” Gabbard said.

“The biggest threat to the security of the United States is Donald Trump,” Inslee said to applause.

Ryan was one of several candidates who blamed Trump for conditions at the border, where migrants from Central America have been traveling in family groups, overwhelming U.S. facilities meant to house adults. Lawyers visiting some of the facilities have said that children in the facilities were living in squalor without access to basic hygiene items.

For his part, Trump weighed in from Air Force One, where he was en route to the Group of 20 summit in Japan. He focused on technical difficulties that forced NBC to cut to a commercial break when audio problems surfaced.

“.@NBCNews and @MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate,” he tweeted from over the Pacific Ocean.

The president didn’t attack any specific Democrat during the debate, instead focusing on a candidate who was not on the stage.

“Ever since the passage of the Super Predator Crime Bill, pushed hard by @JoeBiden, together with Bill and Crooked Hillary Clinton, which inflicted great pain on many, but especially the African American Community, Democrats have tried and failed to pass Criminal Justice Reform,” Trump tweeted from his presidential plane before the debate even started. “Please ask why THEY failed to the candidates!”

The president has repeatedly weighed in on the Democratic primary, and he spent part of Wednesday doing the same. His focus has largely been on Biden, who in early polling has been leading Trump in some key states. Biden will join Sanders and eight other Democratic candidates at Thursday’s debate.

On Wednesday, with Biden not on the stage, Trump appeared less interested in the actual substance of the debate.

“BORING!” he tweeted as the candidates began discussing the deaths of a father and daughter at the border.

#donald trump #u.s. news #trump administration #politics #president donald trump #politics and government #trump #white house #us: news #democratic party #democrats #democratic debates #debate #demdebate #2020 presidential election #2020 candidates #2020 election #2020 Presidential Candidates #2020 Presidential Election

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thekaijudude · 6 years ago

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Prediction: Trigger ties to the 3 New Ultras?

Well it sure has been a LONG time since I've done one of these

So I've decided to do up this post after talking to some of you in the dms and irl which made me think more about Trigger's introduction in this, "awkward" time as well as regarding the latest rumors of Titus, Taiga and Fuuma which lead me to realize a pretty solid but DARING consolidation of all of the above.

So for those aren't in the loop, here's what basically went down in several discussions both on and offline:

1. Trigger's suspicious identity

Bringing up what is perhaps my very first theory on Trigger which I had proposed before but I would like to add on,

So Trigger seems to be sort of "sealed" from what it seems from the golden armor covering his colour timer and throughout his upper torso.

Back then, I proposed that he was perhaps corrupted by some unknown force and is now not acting out of his own free will.

In addition, his ultra protectors around his colour are very reminiscent of Orb's and since R/B is essentially adding to the lore of O-50, I suspected that Trigger was also a separate O-50 ultra agent sent by Orb's Light to accomplish a separate mission.

So this is what I think went down, Trigger failed in his mission which resulted him being turned into this corrupted version of himself.

However, for what reason that he seems to be targeting Rosso or rather Katsumi in particular seems to be perhaps tied to further character development for Katsumi himself

(Cause I suspect TsuPro may want Katsumi to go down Kotaro's path like in Taro, which more or less commemorates his 45th anniversary)

But casting a completely New Ultra with so many strings attached just to be a one-off character seems pretty strange isn't it?

But keep that point in mind as this is integral when I consolidate all the theories below.

2. The significance of casting 3 ultras in one series

Of course many have put forth that this was actually one of TsuPro's many projects that was put on indefinite hiatus due to the legal debacles but I dare say that the New Era will be full of very uncharted waters and casting three ultras in one series is just exemplifying that.

So in one of the discussions, someone pointed out to me that perhaps each individual ultra may embody an era (Showa, Heisei, New Era) which explains the number of new ultras which I definitely can see the merit in that claim

But another put forth the point that if it was possible that a yet to be announced fourth ultra may be featured to embody the New Gen Heroes era which, by following this line of postulation, definitely justifies such a suggestion since TsuPro even bothers to draw a distinction themselves by officially establishing the 'New Generation Heroes' Era in many of their official statements and merch.

And heck, Grigio herself was only revealed much later into R/B anyways so it's not like they haven't done this before.

Which leads to the major point in this post:

3. The Consolidation

So essentially, I suspect TsuPro has plans for Trigger post R/B movie and he'll be appearing again in the new series as an embodiment of the New Gen Heroes Era because:

1. He's the last Ultra (not counting Gruebe cause he's not confirmed to be a permanent fusion) to be featured in the New Gen Heroes Era

2. His suit literally has Easter eggs which allude to all the designs of the New Gen Heroes Era

3. Considering that there's so many strings attached to this character as put forth in point 1 which literally SCREAMS "foreshadowing a reappearance later"

However,

An alternate conclusion would be that Trigger isn't his real name as it's just the name of his corrupted persona and in actuality, his name is one of the 3 new Ultras and that the New Series casted 3 Ultras to just embody the Showa, Heisei and the New Era only.

And thus concludes my prediction for Trigger.

Overall, Trigger just seems to be in the spotlight in the fandom recently which has sparked so many interesting discussions across many platforms, keep it up guys XD

#ultraman #ultraman r/b #ultraman rb

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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What Do Republicans Believe About Taxes

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-believe-about-taxes/

What Do Republicans Believe About Taxes

What Is A Republican

As you can see, the dictionary definition of a Republican is very brief. And since a Republican is simply defined as a member of the Republican party of the U.S. it is important to understand what the Republican Party stands for. To understand what a Republican is you have to understand the Republican Party. And that is what the rest of this article examines.

Views Of Stricter Environmental Laws Climate Change

On environmental issues, 65% of adults say that stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost, compared with 33% who say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy.

A large majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost, including 92% of liberal Democrats and 79% of conservative and moderate Democrats.

Republicans and Republican leaners are more likely to say stricter environmental laws cost jobs and hurt the economy than that they are worth the cost . However, there is a wide divide in views among Republicans by ideology. Two-thirds of conservative Republicans say stricter environmental laws hurt the economy. Views among moderate and liberal Republicans are nearly the reverse: 60% say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost.

Majorities across age groups and levels of educational attainment say stricter environmental laws are worth the cost. Adults younger than 30 and those with a postgraduate degree are among the most likely to say this.

As other surveys have found, there also continue to be wide partisan differences in opinions about climate change. Among the public overall, 52% say the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity, while 17% say it is getting warmer mostly due to natural patterns in the environment. About two-in-ten say there is no solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, and 9% say they are not sure.

Gop Must Stop Believing In Magic

Im not making a plea for larger government just a plea for economic sanity. If Congress in its all-seeing wisdom wants to spend $700 billion on the military, billions of dollars on farm subsidies and so on, it must either raise enough money in taxes to pay for the programs it authorizes or reduce the size of government.

Instead, although Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate and the House from 2017 to 2019, they chose not to make any substantial cuts to government programs that would balance the revenue lost by their series of massive unfunded tax cuts.

Unquestioning and unsubstantiated belief in the magical power of tax cuts isnt a viable economic policy. The GOP is putting America on an unsustainable path that is disastrous both for its fiscal future and for the hopes of people trying to get ahead.

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Corporations Will Bring Back Profits Stashed Overseas

Republicans did their best to include as many corporate giveaways as possible in their tax cut, but spun them as a benefit to the greater economy. Take repatriated earnings. American multinational corporations like to keep their overseas profits away from the IRS, and the Republican tax plan aimed to change this by offering companies a temporary tax holiday. Earnings kept overseas would be subject to a one-time tax at a very low rate that could be paid over the course of eight years. President Trump promised that this would produce a flood of repatriated earnings amounting to $4$5 trillionnearly twice the amount that corporations were actually storing overseas.

This was just another lie, one that no serious economist believed for a moment. And indeed, after a brief boom in repatriated earnings after the tax cut passed, there was a bust. Repatriations to date have amounted to only $840 billion above normal, and the total amount of repatriations in the last quarter of 2019 is only $60 billion higher than it was before the tax cut passed. The total will never come anywhere close to $4$5 trillion.

But maybe foreign investors responded more positively to the tax cut than domestic investors did? Nope. Foreign investment increased briefly but then plunged. Apparently they didnt take Republican promises any more seriously than Americans did.

What Do Republicans Believe In

Do all Republicans believe the same things? Of course not. Rarely do members of a single political group agree on all issues. Even among Republicans, there are differences of opinion. As a group, they do not agree on every issue.

Some folks vote Republican because of fiscal concerns. Often, that trumps concerns they may have about social issues. Others are less interested in the fiscal position of the party. They vote they way they do because of religion. They believe Republicans are the party of morality. Some simply want less government. They believe only Republicans can solve the problem of big government. Republicans spend less . They lower taxes: some people vote for that alone.

However, the Republican Party does stand for certain things. So I’m answering with regard to the party as a whole. Call it a platform. Call them core beliefs. The vast majority of Republicans adhere to certain ideas.

So what do Republicans believe? Here are their basic tenets:

Republicans Can’t Handle The Truth About Taxes

Congressional Republicans are channeling one of my favorite political hacks, the late Massachusetts Congressman Jimmy Burke, who boasted he voted for spending bills, tax cuts and against any increase in the debt ceiling.

House and Senate Republicans voted against the COVID-stimulus bill and oppose the Biden infrastructure and tax measures. Yet, despite the votes, more than a few cite their support for popular provisions in each spending initiative, rail against deficits, and oppose tax increases.

Republicans complain the $2 trillion Biden initiative is full of stuff that really isn’t infrastructure. Sen. Roy BluntRoy Dean BluntA tale of two chambers: Trump’s power holds in House, wanes in Senate46 GOP senators warn they will not vote to raise debt ceiling says all that should be taken out and reduce the size to $600 billion.

The biggest, $400 billion over eight years, is to provide more personnel and resources for in-home care for the elderly or people with disabilities. We have a son with disabilities, and we can afford expensive good care; we have encountered many families who cannot. If you know anyone with a loved one with Alzheimer’s, you’ll look more kindly on this provision. Does Sen. Blunt believe this isn’t an urgent need?

But what really gets the conservative juices going is opposing the proposed tax increases; since the fall of the Berlin Wall, tax cuts have been the only glue that holds increasingly disparate Republicans together.

Poverty Must Solve Itself

Republicans believe that poor people are usually poor for a reason, be it laziness, choice or whatever. Unless we demand that people pull themselves up by the bootstraps and solve their own problems, people will not be motivated to do things. Therefore, the issue of poverty cannot be solved by the government. Charity should be the choice of individuals.

Gop Real Estate Owners Make Out Big

Besides the laws benefits to real estate pass-throughs, real estate in general was hugely favored by the tax law, allowing property exchanges to avoid taxation, the deduction of new capital expenses in just one year versus longer depreciation schedules, and an exemption from limits on interest deductions.

If you are a real estate developer, you never pay tax, said Ed Kleinbard, a former head of Congresss Joint Committee on Taxation.

Members of Congress own a lot of real estate. Public Integritys review of financial disclosures found that 29 of the 47 GOP members of the committees responsible for the tax bill hold interests in real estate, including small rental businesses, LLCs, and massive real estate investment trusts , which pay dividends to investors. The tax bill allows REIT investors to deduct 20 percent from their dividends for tax purposes.

Who We Are

The Center for Public Integrity is an independent, investigative newsroom that exposes betrayals of the public trust by powerful interests.

Republicans Invented Progressive Income Taxes Will They Turn Left Again

Rendering of a red elephant in a spotlight representing the Republican Political Party in front of … the American Flag.

getty

President Trumps sagging poll numbers have prompted some eager speculation about the future of the Republican Party.

If Trump loses, will the GOP rethink its political strategy? Recast its policy agenda? Or will it double down on both on Trumpism, whatever that might mean?

Whether Trump wins or loses in November wont settle these questions.

The future of the Republican Party belongs to him, Matthew Walther in a recent analysis for The Week. His legacy arguments about its true value and how it should be understood, its relationship with previous right-wing insurgent movements such as the Tea Party will determine the course of the GOPs fortunes for the next decade.

Indeed, Trumps legacy will almost certainly endure for over a decade because its about more than just him. Trumpism is part of the Republican Partys broader historical evolution. It began to emerge long before Trump took his famous ride down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in 2015; it will persist long after he vacates the Oval Office, whether thats in January 2021 or January 2025.

American presidents even the transformational, disruptive ones exist as part of a process. They dont emerge from nowhere to upend and recast political institutions single-handedly. They channel and give expression to changes already underway in American society.

Inequality Poverty Divide Republicans More Than Democrats

Juliana Menasce Horowitz

In recent weeks, many political observers have described a rift between liberals and centrists in the Democratic Party over how to tackle poverty, income inequality, and broader issues of economic fairness. Some have framed the discussion around Elizabeth Warren vs. Hillary Clinton. Others have focused on between New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has proposed raising taxes on the rich to pay for a citywide prekindergarten program, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has vowed to lower taxes.

But a new Pew Research Center/USA TODAY survey suggests that, at least for the moment, the issue of how best to deal with poverty and income inequality and whether the government should address these issues at all divides Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party more than it does Democrats and leaners.

To be sure, majorities of 60% or more among Republicans and Democrats across the ideological spectrum agree that inequality is on the rise, and about 90% of liberal and centrist Democrats say the government should do something about it. But while a 61%-majority of moderate and liberal Republicans say the government should do something to reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else, 55% of conservative Republicans dont want the government to do much or anything at all about inequality.

Most Welfare Recipients Are Makers Not Takers

The first myth, that people who receive public benefits are takers rather than makers, is flatly untrue for the vast majority of working-age recipients.

Consider Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, which currently serve about 42 million Americans. At least one adult in more than half of SNAP-recipient households are working. And the average SNAP subsidy is $125 per month, or $1.40 per meal hardly enough to justify quitting a job.

As for Medicaid, nearly 80 percent of adults receiving Medicaid live in families where someone works, and more than half are working themselves.

In early December, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, We have a welfare system thats trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work.

Not true. Welfare officially called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families has required work as a condition of eligibility since then-President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996. And the earned income tax credit, a tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers, by definition, supports only people who work.

Workers apply for public benefits because they need assistance to make ends meet. American workers are among the most productive in the world, but over the last 40 years the bottom half of income earners have seen no income growth. As a result, since 1973, worker productivity has grown almost six times faster than wages.

What Is A Republican Republican Definition

April 11, 2014 By

This article fully answers what a Republican is and gives the definition of a Republican in a fair, unbiased, and well-researched way. To start the article we list out the definition of a Republican, then we cover the Republican Partys core beliefs, then we list out the Republican Partys beliefs on all the major issues.

The Definition of a Republican: a member of the Republican party of the U.S.

The Economy Will Be Supercharged

If an investment boom was the big lie that drove everything, the arguments made to the general public in support of the tax cut mostly revolved around a better-known metric: economic growth. The usual way of measuring this is by looking at gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States. In the decade since the end of the Great Recession, GDP growth has averaged 2.3 percent per year.

Republicans claimed that the investment growth spurred by the tax cut would drive GDP growth higher. predicted growth rates of 3 to 4 percent. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin went with a more modest 2.9 percent. Trump himself told reporters at his Cabinet meeting that he was holding out for 6 percent growth. These projections were mostly just spun out of thin air.

So how did we do? Since the investment boom never materialized, its hardly a shock to learn that GDP growth didnt boom either. The growth rate increased modestly for two quarters and then dropped steadily. In the last quarter unaffected by the coronavirus crisis, it was barely above 2 percent. Not only didnt the tax cut usher in the growth that Republicans predicted, but growth rates started dropping soon after.

History Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.

Energy Issues And The Environment

There have always been clashes between the parties on the issues of energy and the environment. Democrats believe in restricting drilling for oil or other avenues of fossil fuels to protect the environment while Republicans favor expanded drilling to produce more energy at a lower cost to consumers. Democrats will push and support with tax dollars alternative energy solutions while the Republicans favor allowing the market to decide which forms of energy are practical.

Majority Of Americans Say Government Has Responsibility To Ensure Health Coverage

A majority of the public says that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage, while 41% say this is not the governments responsibility.

However, most of those who say the government does not have a responsibility to provide health coverage nonetheless favor continuing programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Roughly a third of the public holds this view. Just 6% say the government should not be involved in providing health insurance at all.

Among those who say it is the governments responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, there are differences over how to achieve this goal.

Overall, 30% of adults say government is responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health care coverage and that health insurance should be provided through a single national health insurance system run by the government. A similar share of the public thinks health care for all Americans is a government responsibility but supports providing health insurance through a mix of private companies and government programs.

Seven-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners say it is not the governments responsibility to make sure all Americans have health insurance. Among Republicans, conservatives are much more likely than moderates and liberals to take this view. Still, just 12% of conservative Republicans say the government should not be involved in health care at all.

Crime And Capital Punishment

Republicans generally believe in harsher penalties when someone has committed a crime, including for selling illegal drugs. They also generally favor capital punishment and back a system with many layers to ensure the proper punishment has been meted out. Democrats are more progressive in their views, believing that crimes do not involve violence, such as selling drugs, should have lighter penalties and rehabilitation. They are also against capital punishment in any form.

Trump Keeps Pretending To Want To Tax The Rich

Trump as a candidate promised to raise taxes on the rich, and after taking office he again promised to raise taxes on the rich. Trump said he believed in raising taxes on the wealthy, including myself and later promised that his administrations tax reform would not benefit the wealthy at all.

None of this was true, of course instead he backed a plan from congressional Republicans for a large regressive tax cut. Once that was enacted, House Republicans began to queue up a program they called Tax Reform 2.0 that would be an even larger and only modestly less regressive tax cut. Trump, again aware that this is not popular, tried to make up a fake middle-class tax cut during the waning days of the midterms, but as soon as the election was over .

This is all nonsense, but its telling nonsense.

Even very dishonest politicians dont routinely pretend to hold the opposite of their partys position on key issues. Trump isnt out there pretending to champion abortion rights, clean energy, or humane treatment of refugees. Hes trying to muddy the waters on taxes because he knows the standard Republican position on tax policy is unpopular.

Yet this is rarely covered as a striking, daring, or even noteworthy stance.

Most Americans Favor Expanding Renewable Energy Sources But Divides Remain Over Expanding Offshore Drilling Nuclear Power

Most Americans favor expanding solar power or wind power , including strong majorities of both Republicans and Democrats. The public, however, is evenly divided over whether to expand nuclear power . Fewer than half of Americans support more offshore oil and gas drilling , hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas, known as fracking or coal mining .

These findings are broadly in line with previous Center surveys, which found strong majorities in favor of increasing solar or wind power and more mixed views about expanding other energy sources. Support for more nuclear power plants has inched up 6 percentage points since 2016 . Support for coal mining has declined from 41% to 35% in the same period.

Sizable majorities of both Republicans and Democrats including those who lean to each party favor more solar panel farms or wind turbine farms . More Republicans than Democrats support expanding nuclear power plants; support for nuclear power is stronger among conservative Republicans than among moderate or liberal Republicans .

Conservative Republicans also stand out as more inclined to support expansion of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas as well as coal mining . By comparison, fewer than half of moderate or liberal Republicans favor expanding these energy sources .

Foreign Policy And National Defense

Republicans supported Woodrow Wilson‘s call for American entry into World War I in 1917, complaining only that he was too slow to go to war. Republicans in 1919 opposed his call for entry into the League of Nations. A majority supported the League with reservations; a minority opposed membership on any terms. Republicans sponsored world disarmament in the 1920s, and isolationism in the 1930s. Most Republicans staunchly opposed intervention in World War II until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. By 1945, however, internationalists became dominant in the party which supported the Cold War policies such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Americans Want To Tax The Rich

Theres no polling on specific brackets or exactly who counts as rich that I can find, but surveys are very consistent that for some definition of rich the voters would like to see higher taxes:

The most recent poll on this I can find is an April 2018 Gallup survey which had 62 percent of respondents saying the wealthy do not pay their fair share in taxes, a number thats been consistently in the high 50s or low 60s in the 21st century.

Pew found in 2017 that said it was bothered a lot by the fact that rich people dont pay their fair share.

A 2017 CBS poll found that 56 percent of voters said wealthy people should pay higher taxes.

One person who gets this, incidentally, is President Donald Trump.

Political Positions Of The Republican Party

Republicanism in the United States

The platform of the Republican Party of the United States is generally based on American conservatism, contrasting with the modern liberalism of the Democratic Party. The positions of the Republican Party have evolved over time. Currently, the party’s fiscal conservatism includes support for lower taxes, free market, of corporations, and restrictions on labor unions. The party’s social conservatism includes support for gun rights and other traditional values, often with a foundation, including restrictions on abortion. In foreign policy, Republicans usually favor increased military spending and action. Other Republican positions include restrictions on immigration, opposition to drug legalization, and support for school choice.

Regulating The Economy Republican Style

The Republican Party is generally considered business-friendly and in favor of limited government regulation of the economy. This means favoring policies that put business interests ahead of environmental concerns, labor union interests, healthcare benefits and retirement benefits. Given this more pro-business bias, Republicans tend to receive support from business owners and capitalists, as opposed to support from labor.

Republicans Economic Views And How They Work In The Real World

Kimberly Amadeo is an expert on U.S. and world economies and investing, with over 20 years of experience in economic analysis and business strategy. She is the President of the economic website World Money Watch. As a writer for The Balance, Kimberly provides insight on the state of the present-day economy, as well as past events that have had a lasting impact.

Robert C. Kelly

Republican economic policies focus on what’s good for businesses and investors. Republicans say that prosperous companies will boost economic growth for everyone.

Republicans promote supply-side economics. That theory says reducing costs for business, trade, and investment is the best way to increase growth. Investors buy more companies or stocks. Banks increase business lending. Owners invest in their operations and hire workers. These workers spend their wages, driving both demand and economic growth.

Republicans define the American Dream as the right to pursue prosperity without government interference. That’s achieved by self-discipline, enterprise, saving, and investment by individuals. Warren Harding said, “Less government in business and more business in government.” Calvin Coolidge said, The chief business of the American people is business.

Here is a short list of the pros and cons of some Republican economic policies.

Compare And Contrast: How Do The Republican And Democratic Tax Plans Differ

Brown EdwardsLatest News

SEPTEMBER 29, 2020

With the presidential election only weeks away, many people are beginning to pay closer attention to each candidates positions on such issues as the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, the environment and taxes.

Among their many differences, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have widely divergent tax proposals. Their stances could have a major impact on the amount of taxes youll owe in the future. Heres an overview of each candidates tax proposals for both individuals and businesses.

Trumps tax proposals for individuals

The GOP-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law in December 2017. It included a number of temporary federal tax cuts and breaks for individuals and families for 2018 through 2025. President Trump has indicated support for preserving tax reforms under the TCJA and possibly providing additional breaks for individuals and families.

The White House budget document for the governments 2021 fiscal year indicates support for extending these TCJA individual tax provisions beyond 2025:

The current federal income tax and estate tax regimes,

The expanded child and dependent tax credits ,

Increased standard deduction amounts ,

More favorable alternative minimum tax rules, and

Continued limitations on itemized deductions for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes .

Bidens tax proposals for individuals

Other elements of Bidens plan that would affect individual taxpayers include:

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sunshinekarliekloss · 7 years ago

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Karlie Kloss, Coding's Supermodel: The Forbes Cover Story

Karlie Kloss is sitting in a glass-walled SoHo office holding court with five teenage girls. Over video chat with several more, they are brainstorming how to support scholars of Kode with Klossy once class is out. The teenagers are all graduates of Kode with Klossy summer camps, an initiative by Kloss’ education nonprofit that aims to teach girls the basics of computer programming.

In her off-duty uniform of a Planned Parenthood T-shirt, black jeans and Gucci loafers, the 6'2" supermodel listens intently. One young woman wearing a white Kode with Klossy top suggests a custom app for students to communicate through. Kloss nods and encourages more ideas. Perhaps Kode with Klossy could upload lesson videos for scholars to look back on, or start a newsletter with events and internships. Another girl in glasses says she posts tricky coding problems on Snapchat and scholars from her camp offer solutions.

As the meeting concludes, Kloss hugs the girls before rallying them to put their hands in for a cheer. “Klossy Posse!” they shout in unison.

A 36-time Vogue cover girl is an unlikely candidate to launch a charity that has taught more than 500 young women how to code. But the 25-year-old has leveraged her giant social audience–some 12.6 million followers across platforms–to grow a burgeoning nonprofit that aims to balance the scales of software engineering’s gender disparity.

“I didn’t go into this with the plan to build an education nonprofit,” says Kloss, a member of the 30 Under 30 Class of 2018, over vegan cupcakes and cookies in her Manhattan office. “I really went into all this out of my own curiosity of wanting to learn what the heck coding was, because it was building massive enterprise value for people in a short period of time.”

Her first taste came in 2014, when she signed up for a two-week boot camp at adult-education company the Flatiron School in Manhattan to learn the basics of computer programming. “I didn’t actually know who she was,” says Avi Flombaum, cofounder of the Flatiron School, who taught Kloss’ class. “She was the best student in that group and I was surprised by how enthusiastic she was.”

Kloss covered the basics of Ruby on Rails, a popular web development framework. But she quickly noticed that her classes weren’t gender equal, an imbalance that mirrored the tech workforce. “I was curious, why are there not more women in this space?” recalls Kloss. An idea for how to help took form: “I realized, here I am with this platform and reach to young women across the country and around the world,” Kloss explains. “If I could just help a handful of girls that would be really meaningful.”

In 2015, Kloss spent more than $20,000 to personally underwrite 21 scholarships for teenage girls to the Flatiron School’s two week pre-college coding class–the very class she had taken the year prior (Flatiron School matched the donation).

But she was itching to do more. Last summer, Kloss took the initiative in-house, launching her own two-week summer camp for teenage girls aged 13 to 18 in New York, Los Angeles and her hometown of St. Louis. Kloss helped pick candidates, design the curriculum and select teachers; its graduates have gone on to win hackathons and land places at Ivy League universities. In June, the program expanded to 12 cities across the U.S., with plans to grow further.

Adults are also included: Last July Kloss launched a year-long online scholarship with the Flatiron School that selected one woman every month to enroll in its full stack web development course. And whhile other nonprofits with similar missions, such as Girls Who Code and Black Girls Code, are far more established, Kloss’ reach brings her objective to millions.

To date, funding for Kode with Klossy programs has come from Kloss herself and the brands she poses for. According to a familiar source, Kloss has personally contributed into seven figures to Kode With Klossy since 2015. She has also redirected a slice of her modeling contracts with companies such as Adidas, Swarovski and Express to fund and support Kode with Klossy. Ford’s STEAM Experience—an initiative focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines as well as the arts, part of the car maker’s philanthropic arm—lent additional support to this summer’s camps.

Such initiatives are sorely needed. Half a million more jobs related to computers are expected to be added by 2024. Though 74% of high school girls are interested in STEM, women only earned 18% of all undergraduate computer science degrees in 2015. That impacts employment, especially among minorities: Women made up just over a quarter of the tech workforce last year, though African-American women comprised a mere 3% and Latina women counted for only 2%.

“There are so many young women who really could change the world with this kind of opportunity, girls who self-select out because they don’t see others in the industry that look like them,” says Kloss.

The daughter of an emergency room physician, Kloss’ favorite subjects as a child were math and science. Had she not been discovered at a charity fashion show in a mall, aged 13, she might have become a doctor or a teacher, she says. Instead, she booked her first advertisement in 2007; that same year she landed her first major runway show, walking for Calvin Klein.

Her career quickly took off, but it went into overdrive with the advent of Instagram. Thanks to social media, says Kloss, “I could be seen as well as heard.” As her followers swelled, her fees increased. She premiered on Forbes’ highest-paid models list in 2014 banking $4 million pretax; this year, her contract earnings soared to $9 million in the 12 months prior to June 2017.

“When social media arrived, models came back into the spotlight because now everyone could see what was behind the velvet rope,” says Maja Chiesi, SVP at IMG Models, the agency that represent Kloss. “The next evolution is brands wanting the full, 360-degree sense of who these women are… They want women with a voice.”

Enter Kloss, who has long presented herself as more than just a pretty face. In 2012, she started a charitable cookie line called Klossies with Manhattan dessert spot Momofuku Milk Bar; the treats donated to meals for children with each purchase. After taking the odd night class at New York University, in 2015 she enrolled (mentor and supermodel-turned-philanthropist Christy Turlington wrote her recommendation letter). With her busy schedule, she has opted for approximately one class a semester, so far notching credits in creative writing and feminism.

She is eager to expand her platform through a YouTube channel, launched in 2015, that documents her travels and baking forays. Next up: A talk show, Movie Night with Karlie, airing on the Disney-owned Freeform in December.

All of it serves to raise awareness for Kode with Klossy. As she focuses on the nonprofit, she has pared down her modeling contracts to the most lucrative partnerships. Today, says Kloss, she works with “partners that really are excited to work with me because of not just what I look like, but because of what I stand for.” It makes sense that her bookings have shifted from conventional beauty and fashion to tech; she can be seen in recent advertisements for electronics giant Samsung and website builder Wix.

For now, the aim is to grow quickly and cost-effectively. “I’ve been thinking about Kode with Klossy like a startup,” says Kloss. The nonprofit’s team is lean, with Kloss, her manager and business partner Penni Thow, five full-time employees and consultants plus help from three members of her management.

And, Kloss says, she is just getting started. “I plan on building a big business at some point, too.”

Startups, you’re on notice.

#Karlie kloss #Forbes #30 under 30 #article #kode with klossy #coding #2017 #november 2017

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epackingvietnam · 4 years ago

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According to the Experts: 5 Technical SEO Trends to Watch in 2021

Posted by morgan.mcmurray

It’s no secret that SEO relies heavily on technical components to drive site rankability, and with so many emerging technologies, new tools, and metrics (*cough* Core Web Vitals *cough*), you might be wondering whether these constant updates will affect your more technical work.

To find out more about the state of technical SEO in 2021, we asked seven industry experts for their thoughts. The overwhelming answer? Keep doing what you’re doing.

“The core essentials in 2021 will remain about the same — every SEO needs to understand the fundamentals of crawling vs. indexing and the technical basics that have to be met before a site can rank,” says Moz Search Scientist, Dr. Pete Meyers. “All the fancy footwork in the world won’t get you anywhere if there’s no floor beneath you.”

But what should that floor be constructed of? Read on to find out!

1. Focus on the fundamentals

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Technical best practices are the “best” for a reason, so having a strong foundation of basic technical SEO skills is still a must.

“For me, the most underrated technical SEO strategy has always been the fundamental best practices,” says consultant Joe Hall. “It might sound surprising to some, but the vast majority of my clients have a difficulty in grasping the importance of best practices or just the basic fundamentals of SEO. I think this is in large part because of our community's focus and attention on the ‘next best thing’, and not very often talking about the basic fundamentals of technical SEO.”

Those fundamentals include hard skills like understanding how to recognize and fix crawlability, indexation, accessibility, and site performance issues, but also how to prioritize the issues you come across.

SEO expert Lily Ray notes that prioritization is an area of improvement that novice technical SEOs need to address first, as they may be more inclined to cite small things as major problems when they’re really not: “It is common for new or junior SEOs to send a laundry list of technical items as exported by [SEO tools] directly to clients, without prioritizing which ones are the most important to fix, or knowing which ones can be ignored,” she says. “In many cases, the tools don’t even flag some of the more severe technical issues that may be affecting crawling, indexation, or rendering… Good technical SEOs are able to pinpoint real problems that are having a significant impact on the website’s ability to rank well, and they know which tools or other resources to use to be able to solve those problems.”

So start taking note of not just the what when it comes to technical issues, but also the influence those issues actually have on the sites you work on.

Need to brush up or build on these hard skills? Not to worry — Moz Academy recently released a Technical SEO Certification that can help you do just that!

Sign Me Up!

Beyond the more hands-on, practical skill sets required for building and maintaining search-optimized websites, our experts agree that basic soft skills are just as important, with several citing the need for cross-team collaboration abilities.

“Technical SEO implementations generally require working with multiple teams... which means there’s a lot of partnership, persuasion, give and take collaborations,” says Alexis Sanders, the SEO Director at Merkle. “Having project management, client services, storytelling, and communication skills will support implementation.”

So don’t get stuck in the weeds of your technical work — make sure you’re in constant communication with the teams and stakeholders who will help support your initiatives.

2. Gear up for Core Web Vitals

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One of the hottest topics in the industry right now is no doubt Core Web Vitals, the new Google ranking factors update expected in May 2021. But do technical SEOs really need to worry about them?

The experts say yes, but to work as a team to address them, and make your SEO voice heard. Alexis Sanders puts it this way: “The page experience update consists of Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness, web app security, and removing interstitials. Regardless of how teams are structured, making progress is going to require a wide array of talents, giving SEO a more involved seat at the table, as these elements affect our bottom-line.”

When prioritizing what to focus on, make sure that improving site speed is at the top of your list.

“If you only work on one area of Technical SEO in 2021, make it site speed,” advises Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso. “Site speed is one of those great parts of technical SEO where the benefit isn't only for search engines — it also helps the people visiting your website. Remember, not everyone is coming to your website using the latest technology and fastest internet connection.”

When asked about their favorite ways to optimize, here’s what the experts suggested:

Start using a content delivery network, such as cloudflare.com.

Implement server-side caching for markup and design assets like CSS and JavaScript, and minimize the number of individual requests made for each page by bringing CSS and JavaScript in-line.

Optimize media files by converting to next-generation formats and compressing for size and use of data.

Use tools like BuiltWith, Wappalyzer, and Lighthouse to investigate what third party scripts have been loaded on a page, and remove them if you no longer need them, or move as many as compatible to a tag management tool.

Focus on image performance optimization.

Work with analytics and other internal teams to establish processes and expectations for adding and removing tagging.

Set requirements and expectations around page speed early in the development process.

Addressing any site speed and usability issues now will set you up to better weather rankings shake-ups caused by Core Web Vitals.

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3. Use schema and structured data strategically

To ensure that crawlers can read, index, and serve the content of their sites to searchers, many SEOs rely on structured data and schema frameworks to organize everything — as well they should. But when implementing structured data, the experts agree, make sure you’re using it to achieve specific goals, and not just because you can.

“Some structured data has material impact on search results or how Google can process and understand a site, while other structured data will be totally irrelevant to any given site or have no measurable impact,” says Dr. Pete. “We need to use structured data with clear intent and purpose in order to see results.”

Lily Ray agrees, pointing out the debate on the topic of schema within the industry:

“There is a wide range of opinions on this topic within the SEO community, with some SEOs wanting to ‘mark up all the things’ and others not believing schema is important if it doesn’t generate Rich Results. Personally, I like to apply structured data if I believe it can provide search engines with more context about the entities included in our clients’ websites, even if that schema does not generate Rich Results. For example, I believe that adding Schema attributes related to your brand and your authors is a good approach to help solidify information in Google’s Knowledge Graph.”

The takeaway? Get clear on your goals, and implement structured data if it makes sense for your strategy, but don’t “mark up all the things” if doing so will create unnecessary work for you and your team without bringing about the results you’re looking for.

4. Leverage automation to get things done

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Emerging technologies don’t always stick around long enough to become useful, but one innovation that won’t be going away anytime soon is using languages like Python to help automate various workflows, like data analysis and research.

“The technical SEO industry has been exploding with new ideas and innovations in the past couple of years, particularly related to analyzing data at scale and automating SEO processes, which has resulted in programming languages like Python moving into the spotlight,” says Lily Ray.

Why is automation important? Not only can it make your day-to-day work easier and more streamlined, it can have positive effects on your business as well.

“I still think that improving time to task completion (performance optimization) is core to every business,” says Miracle Inameti-Archibong, the Head of SEO at Erudite. “Not just because of the page experience update coming in May, but because it affects all channels and directly affects the bottom line of the business (sale, leads) which is what key decision-makers are interested in.”

In 2021, explore ways in which automation can help you achieve both your technical SEO and broader business goals more effectively.

5. Don’t forget about analytics and reporting

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SEO success is incremental and gradual, usually taking months to years before you can definitively show how the work you put in has paid off. But if something goes wrong? Well, Dr. Pete has the perfect analogy: “The truth is that technical SEO is often like washing dishes — no one gives you much credit for it, but they sure notice when you break something.”

While technical SEO is the basis for all other SEO work, your non-SEO co-workers and managers will likely pay attention more when things are going wrong than when they’re going right. To help mitigate this issue, he suggests steering clear of “vanity metrics”, such as pages indexed, and instead “showing how a clear plan of action led to improvements in relevant rankings, traffic, and sales.”

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Make sure you’re outlining specific metrics and goals from the start of every campaign, which will help guide your efforts and give you an easier framework for reporting on things down the line. And don’t forget to factor in outside forces that may be affecting your results.

“Organic traffic can be impacted by a lot of external factors, or your other, non-technical SEO campaigns,” says Tom Capper, Moz’s Senior Search Scientist (say that five times fast). “Tactics like SEO split-testing or, at a more primitive level, counterfactual forecasting, can help to isolate these effects in many cases, and happily technical changes tend to have a quicker, more direct impact than some other types of change that don’t see returns until the next core update.”

So when analyzing and reporting, remember: quantity isn’t always quality, and make sure you have the full picture before gleaning insights.

Conclusion

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While the core of your technical SEO work will stay the same in 2021, there is plenty of opportunity to build and improve on foundational skills, implement structured data and automation, clarify the way you analyze and report your results, and plan for Core Web Vitals to take effect. And while technical work can sometimes feel isolating, remember that cross-team collaboration is key to success, and that you’re part of a community of SEOs with similar goals!

Speaking of community, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the amazing work of Areej AbuAli and the Women in Tech SEO network.

“If you identify as a woman, do join the Women in Tech SEO Slack channel and subscribe to its newsletter,” advises Miracle Inameti-Archibong. “I wish I had a community like that at the beginning of my career. There are loads of people always willing to help with not just technical SEO issues, but mentoring and sharing of opportunities.”

Have questions for the experts, or advice not mentioned here? Let us know in the comments!

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