#the biggest question I’ve had about this whole series is how far does the webs influence go HOW much was its design and I can’t wait to see

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 12

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

Let's bring this thing home! It's time for the conclusion of the essay series!

Conclusion With a stupidly long essay series behind us, it's time to look at what we've learned! Let's go back to Part 1 and review what we needed from Van Zieks's character development for a fully rounded redemption arc, shall we?

1) Present an antagonistic (possibly immoral) force who personifies Ryunosuke’s biggest personal obstacle/weakness, in this case racial prejudice. 2) Humanizing traits begin to show. OPTIONAL: A backstory to justify any immorality he has. 3) Over time, Barok has his realization and sees the error of his ways. 4) Barok atones for his immorality, not simply through apology but by taking decisive steps. 5) The cast around him acknowledges his efforts and forgives him.

And looking at the main game (plus additional dialogue), we have...

1) Antagonistic force:

Etc. etc. I have many of these. We can all agree that as an antagonistic force, he does his job quite well. CEO of Racism and White Privilege in the flesh. It works, since we as the audience get very frustrated and want to see him defeated.

2) Humanization:

Giving him an old friend to be a defendant was a brilliant move, really. Albert's reflection on the friendship and the person Van Zieks used to be really helped flesh him out and make him appear more like a human being with, y'know, emotions and weaknesses. The little snippets of dialogue in his office really help too. Presenting evidence can also lead to fun tidbits. All in all, considering how gruff and distant Van Zieks is, they really did their very best to humanize him. The writers were given very little to work with but they exploited every opportunity to come their way.

OPTIONAL backstory:

Again, I don't think we needed a tragic backstory to have a well-rounded, redeemable character. Still, it ties in very expertly to the game's plot and the motivations of quite a few other characters. The story of Klint van Zieks and his death isn't necessarily Barok van Zieks's backstory, it's the center of an intricate web which also holds Kazuma, Stronghart, Gregson, Jigoku, (S)Holmes, Mikotoba, Sithe, Drebber- I could go on. A LOT. So because of how very integrated it is into the main narrative's recurring themes and characters, I'll give it props for being relevant and well thought out. The bigger question is: Does it justify his immorality? Not entirely. I think the game could have gotten more out of this if they'd involved the other two exchange students in this tale just a bit more. They could have given more attention to how Jigoku's aggressive behavior in the trial impacted Van Zieks, and explained whether he might've suspected Mikotoba of sabotaging (S)Holmes's investigation. If the narrative had done that, all three Japanese people to come to London would have been ‘the bad guy’ in Van Zieks's eyes and it would have given more credence to his racial generalization. They could have also given more attention to how the people around him reacted to Genshin being the Professor, because I'm sure Stronghart and Gregson stoked the fire in terms of xenophobia. As it stands, there isn't really enough there to justify hatred of an entire race as opposed to just one person.

3) Realization/Redemption

We see him already start to realize the error of his ways around the end of 1-5, which is technically only about halfway into the full narrative. Unfortunately, thanks to 2-2 being played afterwards (but chronologically set before 1-5), any progress made in 1-5 can become invalidated in the player's eyes. Growth works best when it's done linear. Don't get me wrong, flashbacking to earlier times when a character is still more morally tainted can work well, but it needs to be executed properly. Barok's behavior in 2-2 is downright insulting towards the audience itself and therefore, it causes emotional friction when relaying the narrative endgoal of redemption. It also makes it extra jarring when we hit 2-3, and suddenly Van Zieks is meant to be relying on the protagonist's desire to expose the truth. How on earth can we as the audience trust that Van Zieks believes in Ryu's abilities when we just came fresh out of a case where this man actively sabotages Ryu's efforts?

Still, the line of redemption continues from 2-3 into 2-4 well enough. He admits that he was wrong- that his hatred was illogical and that he needs to change. This is the very definition of redemption. I need to stress once more this is not to be confused with atonement, which comes next.

4) Atonement

Here it is. It's not enough to simply acknowledge mistakes; one needs to work hard to fix them. Since Van Zieks is the defendant for two whole episodes, equaling roughly 20% of the full narrative and 67% of the time following his first true realization (chronologically), there isn't much that he can actively do to atone. Because remember, not only do these actions need to fit the situation he's currently in, they need to fit his personality. These two limitations ensure the atonement mostly takes the form of dialogue. Of apologies.

One might want to point out that he never apologizes specifically for his racism, but there's a reason for that. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that there isn't a single character who ever uses a word like “racism”, “xenophobia” or even “racial prejudice” in this game. It's for the same reason you'll never see an Ace Attorney character utter words like “alcoholism”, “drug abuse” or “depression”. These things may be implied very strongly, to the point where you'll know for certain a character is suffering from it, but it's never given these exact labels. It has to do with the tone of the game. In Great Ace Attorney's dialogue, Barok van Zieks is only ever described as holding “a deep hatred for Japanese”, which is then the only thing he could apologize for. And he does, so long as you aren't looking for a literal phrasing of “I apologize for my deep hatred of your people”.

Regardless, he can't take more active, decisive action until he's freed from prison and two scenes with Van Zieks later, the game has ended. He still manages to take two actions, though! The first is to publicize the truth of the Professor, taking the blame of the mass murders off Genshin's shoulders (and losing his own privilege in the process). The second is to take Kazuma under his wing as his disciple. I'm not certain there's anything else the narrative could have had him do. What is decisively missing, however, is the following:

5) Acknowledgment

The above aren't good examples of cast acknowledgment that Van Zieks is taking part in a redemption arc, rather, they're the best I could find. Characters are acknowledging that he's changing- that he's being kinder to them and they can get along with him now, but they're not acknowledging that he caused hurt in the first place. This, in my opinion, is the Great Ace Attorney's biggest narrative flaw. I've talked before about how Ryu's reaction to Van Zieks's racism is 'indirect communication', a typically Japanese manner of dealing with negativity. I've also talked about how Ryu is not in a position to speak up, as he's a literal minority who is there to represent his country in an official capacity and can’t afford to make enemies. However, characters like Susato and Kazuma are far more outspoken in their opinions, as is Soseki. The only one who ever calls Van Zieks out on his racism is the British judge, and even that is done very meekly. When an old crusty white guy is the one who condemns white privilege in a cast full of minorities, you've got a problem. The Japanese cast's refusal to acknowledge that Van Zieks's words were harmful is like Team Avatar telling Zuko that sure, he can join since he's a good guy now, but never once acknowledging that he burned down villages or betrayed everyone's trust in Ba Sing Se. There's something very vital missing, see? If indeed the cast had called Van Zieks out more actively on his harmful ways and how necessary it was for him to change, he in turn could have taken more atonement steps in response.

So, for the conclusion: Does Barok van Zieks tick all the necessary boxes for a complete redemption arc? Yes. In a very technical sense, all the requirements are there. But does that mean it's a successful arc? Not necessarily. The game has a few slip-ups, a few things not executed as well as they could have been. For that reason, whether the audience is satisfied with the arc is entirely up to them. Taking into consideration that they had to cram a whole lot of story into just two games- the second game in particular, I can acknowledge they did their very best with the limitations that were there.

And there we have it! That’s all I could think to say on the matter. I hope everyone who read this till the very end enjoyed it, maybe even learned a thing or two. I’m always open to questions, input and constructive criticism!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #I'M FREE! #well until I tackle the DLC content #but until then... #FREEEE

[interact-if]

Day 10, 2/2 of the A/PI Heritage Month featured authors interview! For our final entry, we have the amazing Shai!

Shai, author of Hollowed Minds 

A/PI Heritage Month Feature Author

“You will play as a disgraced detective, entangled in webs of conspiracies and betrayal as your character engages in a suspicious probation - with a whole lot of enigmatic hallucinations and explosions to deal with. It will be up to you to shape your detective’s (or Ripper’s, if you prefer to call them that) perception and motivations. After all, Gaile City is a place full of secrets - some of them belonging to your own character’s family - and you’ll have the freedom how to act accordingly.”

Author's Kofi

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

To put it simply, Hollowed Minds is a long quest on morality and relationships. You'll start as a disgraced detective, once a favored hero of the city until this one unfortunate mistake, and now you're forced into a suspicious probation that you shouldn't even be in. There would be a lot of challenges and suffering along the way, and you can either help your character maintain their heroic ideals or succumb to the darkness that the future brings.

Q1: First of all, introduce us to your project! What is it about?

There are a lot of things to uncover in the story, but the main issues in the first book would be the mysterious hallucinations that people are suffering from and the explosions that would shake the fundamentals of the society. There would be several approaches to choose from as you go forward, some of which may be quite outside the law, and you could opt to use a certain ‘talent’—one with accompanying repercussions—to learn more secrets. You would also have the choice to cultivate your relationships with the people you trust the most and have your interactions with them matter in the long run.

As it is, you'd have a large target on your back, owing to a sinister group with a very sinister plan—something that might be worse than death.

Q2: If it’s not too spoilery, what are you most excited about your project?

First of all, the reputation system. You can manipulate how the general public would see you, either as the hero they once saw you as, or a corrupted personality that everyone would loathe. Best thing about it? You can hide your real intentions. This would have a lot of interesting consequences, especially if your character's actions tend to be the opposite of what they're perceived as.

Second, the most awaited reunion. People who have read the available demo would know what this refers to, and well, it's about to happen soon, so I'm very excited about the idea of writing the whole scene!

Then there's this one big chapter that I know would be torturous to write and code. Basically, you'll be choosing how to 'infiltrate' this certain location, the person whom you'd be with most of the time, a decision between accomplishing what you came there for or sacrificing it for something else, how you'd get out, and where you'd go to after the whole thing. It will be a wild ride of twists and emotions, and it's not even the endgame. A lot may change with this chapter alone, and it's one of those things I think about a lot before going to sleep.

Lastly, the customization of the main character. The motivations, blame mechanic, alcoholic/non-alcoholic option, and relationships (romantic or not). Those little details would change a lot of content in the narrative and maybe in the plot itself. Whether you want to build a character who's kind to a fault or an anti-hero who wouldn't hesitate to make questionable decisions, the journey would be entirely yours.

Q3: What inspired the current project you’re working on?

It was based from a short story of mine that won a small competition back in 2018. They share similar themes, but the short story was a lot darker than I could ever put in a game that I plan to get published.

I initially thought of starting my IF writing attempts with the supernatural genre—it does seem to be a successful area—but that short story was probably the first piece of mine that I've come to appreciate, and I wanted to at least honor that. The writing style that I adopted, the evocative tone I learned to use, and the plot pieces that I've managed to be good at crafting—they all started with that story.

Looking back, there aren't much similarities anymore between the two, maybe aside from the appearance of certain characters, but the themes are still the same.

It will definitely be a huge challenge to implement what I have on mind, but I do hope people would love what's to come.

Q4: Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?

I grew up in a troublesome neighborhood, along with people who continue to fight against the struggles. That's both good and bad, I suppose. Philippines has a lot of corruption deep in its roots, I won't deny that, but there are also people working hard for the changes they want. That's one of the biggest influences I've got in this story.

As we delve into the plot, the readers would discover more questionable decisions that some characters may have made or would make. It's parallel to how I witnessed people having differing reactions to injustice and the way they make changes in their lives as a response. Adding to that, I personally know the feeling of grief, and I’ve seen how the people around me deal with it themselves.

There are also moral choices to be had in the game, and when I speak of that, it's not going to be just around choosing between saving/killing people. It's about the main character's intentions and emotions, and how the revelations might slowly change their views. It would be a story that will steadily define your character’s perceptions amid the threats.

Q5: What’s been your experience so far? With writing, with the if community...

It's been great. I appreciate the people who have reached out in various ways to share their love for my work and to give meaningful feedback that are continuously helping me shape the story in a better way. And honestly, I'm so overwhelmed with excitement for all the support I'm getting. I didn't even expect a lot of people to like the story this early. That's why I'm so thankful!

There's also a great IF author whom I've been occasionally getting advice from, and they've been a huge reason as to why I even managed to make the first steps. Interacting with other writers is something that I never really expected myself to do, but I’m quite glad I did it.

Q6: Do you have any future projects in the works?

There are three more interactive fiction stories I've already thought of, though I won't be actively working on them until I finish the Hollowed Minds series, which would take a long while. Their temporary titles are respectively "Corrupted Legacies" (fantasy), "The Remnant's Keeper" (supernatural horror), and "A Hero's Touch" (superhero story with a twist).

Aside from that, I'm also looking forward to finishing my fantasy novel, one that I've been delaying for years, literally, as soon as I finish the first book of Hollowed Minds.

Q7: Finally, what piece of advice would you give to fellow authors?

Write what you want to write. I know that you're all probably tired of hearing this, but it is still very important. During the planning stages, you'd most likely be excited to show the readers what you've got in store. You'd be proud of it, and you'd believe that it's one of the most brilliant ideas out there. Then a few days after you finish planning, you'll realize it may not attract as much readers as you may have expected initially. Then you'll get tempted to change your visions for the story and adopt the plot lines that the famous works have.

Do not abandon your own vision.

It's your work. It's your masterpiece. Listen to feedback, sure, and let them guide you into becoming a better writer, but do not let go of the things that made your work your own. Some way or another, there will be people who would love your story, and they'd deeply appreciate that you made it the way it is.

So don't hesitate. Is it weird? Is it unconventional? Does it belong to a genre that's not as popular as the others? It doesn't matter. Write it, polish it, and show it to the world.

People will love it as long as you do.

#if: events #Happy Asian and Pacific Islander month!! #Asian/pacific islander month 2021 #a/pi month #a/pi month 2021 #aapiheritagemonth #aapi month #interactive fiction #authors of color

[luxekook]

make you scream » ksj

» pairing: sully!seokjin x reader » genre: monsters inc. au, crack, smut » summary: there’s a monster in your closet, but you want him in your bed. » word count: 2.1k » warnings: 18+, cursing, bad jokes, teasing, TMG references, reader ties jin up, generally clueless seokjin, smut [oral (m receiving), mentions of sex and impregnation]

» request: @j-sope​ said: jin + mystery drink!

as part of the bangtanhq drinks and drabbles challenge

Ever since you moved into your new apartment, you’ve had a slight monster problem. And you aren’t talking the energy drink. You’re talking a living, breathing monster who creeps out of your closet in the wee hours of the morning in an attempt to scare you shitless.

At least, that’s your current theory of his intentions - mainly compiled from dark web searches and reddit threads. You aren’t sure what exactly his motive is with you, but you do know one thing - you don't want to scare him away. Whatever monster lab created him had royally fucked up, because your monster is really fucking hot.

You aren’t even sure if you can actually call him a monster given that he looks like a fucking god amongst men.

He’s been visiting you for three weeks now, and you have stopped acting frightened since week two. Your silence seems to be both baffling and vexing to your nightly visitor. Neither of you have spoken to the other. Hell, you aren’t even sure if he can speak. He’s only yelled and jumped out at you so far in an attempt to draw your screams.

But, tonight you plan to change things up and finally get some answers.

As the clock grows closer to 3am, you pretend to sleep, nervously awaiting your monster.

Finally, you hear the telltale creak of your closet door and the soft footfalls that always follow. Your heart thumps in your chest.

Before he can scare you, you hop out of bed, catching him off guard. Using his shock against him, you push him into your desk chair and quickly grab the jump rope you had set aside for this very purpose.

“Yah!” Your monster struggles as you tie him up, “Stop that! Get your hands off me!”

Ah, so he can speak. You secure the knots that tie him to the chair and step back to assess your work. Flicking on your bedside lamp, you check out your monster in all his glory.

He’s glaring up at you with a vicious pout that would be menacing if he wasn’t so fucking adorable. His hair is a mix of blue and purple with two small horns twisting up amidst the strands. His body is long and lean with shoulders that give you way too many dirty thoughts.

Finally, your eyes meet his. His brown eyes linger on yours for a moment before wandering up and down your own body, reminding you of your current outfit of just a long shirt and underwear.

“Well?” You place your hands on your hips, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Your monster scoffs and pulls at his restraints, “Untie me, human!”

“Puh-lease,” You roll your eyes, “You’ve been barging into my house in the dead of night for weeks, and you think you can order me around? No, sir. Not today.”

“Well, I wouldn't have to keep coming back if you would just scream for me,” He mumbles, hands clenched into fists, “I have a quota to meet, you know!”

“That sounds like a you problem,” You shrug, edging closer to him. He tenses at your approach. “Why don’t you like humans touching you, my little monster?”

“Little?!” He exclaims, “How dare you! I am Kim Seokjin, top Scarer at Monsters, Incorporated!”

You reach out to cup his cheek, “Aw, did I hit a nerve, Mr. Kim ‘I’m so scary’ Seokjin?” He glowers, refusing to answer.

“Going to have to shred your door now,” He mutters, looking defeated, “And get sanitized.”

You snap back, “Sanitized? Well, that’s just rude. And if you even think about destroying my closet door, just know that I will be sending you the bill.”

“I don’t know who this Bill is, but don’t send him to me,” Seokjin scrunches his nose, looking thoroughly displeased.

You laugh, shoulders shaking at his dead serious remark.

Your monster’s eyes widen as he stares up at your laughing form.

“What?” You ask, wiping away a stray tear that had fallen and still chuckling slightly.

“Can you do that again?” Seokjin asks again, looking at you with a peculiar yet hopeful gleam in his eye.

“What?” You furrow your eyebrows, “Laugh?”

He nods, and you immediately get suspicious. “Why?”

“Because it apparently works the same way as screaming,” He shrugs, “I don’t make the rules.”

“So you do need my screams,” You smirk, “Interesting… Do these screams that you gather only come from fear?”

“Duh,” He rolls his eyes, “What other kind of screaming is there?”

You laugh again, ignoring how happy he looks that you did so. “There is one that comes to mind, monster boy.”

“Tell me!” He practically bounces in his seat, despite being tied up.

“Nah,” You shake your head, undoing his restraints, “I think that’s enough for one night. Out you go.”

“What?”

You pull him up from the seat and shove him towards your closet. He argues with you the whole way. Peering into your closet first, you pout when you don’t see anything out of the ordinary - that is, until Seokjin slips past you.

The back of your closet disappears before your eyes, and you see what looks like a warehouse with almost-human-but-not-quite individuals milling about.

Seokjin turns to leave, and you panic, your hand darts out to grab his wrist. You want to see him again.

“What is it, human?” Seokjin looks at you hesitantly.

“(Y/n). My name’s (y/n). And the other kind of screaming? It's not from fear; it’s from pleasure.”

His eyes practically pop out of his skull as your words sink in, “Pleasure—! But-but how?”

You push him out of your dimension.

The next evening, you don’t even feign sleep. This time, you wait up wearing nothing but a satin robe.

It seems that Seokjin also doesn’t follow his usual pattern as he storms into your room right on schedule. “(Y/n)! I demand you scream in pleasure for me!”

You choke on air, “That’s not how it works, Seokjin!”

“Well,” He crosses his arms, staring down at you from the foot of your bed, “Then tell me how it works.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” You sigh, shifting your legs so that your upper thigh peeks through the slit in your robe. Predictably, his eyes follow. “You’ll have to touch me, and I know you wouldn’t want to.”

You watch as he swallows hard, his eyes glued to your body, “I-I never said that.”

“Really?” You shift again. The tie of your robe loosens slightly. “I could have sworn you said ‘get your hands off me’ last night.”

He shakes his head emphatically, “No, that wasn’t me! That was, uh, Jim Seok-im!”

“Any relation?” You cock your head, entertaining his terrible effort to convince you.

“Nope, never met him,” Seokjin inches closer to you.

“Right,” You deadpan. “Well, don’t you all have sex over there in monster land?”

Seokjin gapes at you, “Yah! I am not making a child with you!”

“Good god, Jinnie,” You laugh, “Not all sex ends with pregnancy.”

“Ours does,” He scowls, looking thoroughly put out.

“So, let me get this straight,” You stand, walking the short distance over to him, “You monsters have monster sex with your monster cocks, and you don’t monster scream in monster pleasure?”

“Motion to ban you from saying the word ‘monster’ again,” He mumbles, still looking miffed.

“Motion denied, you monster.”

Seokjin pinches his nose in frustration, “Sex is purely for reproductive purposes. It’s a transaction. I don’t see how it can feel good.”

“What the monsterfucking fuck!” You just about blew a fuse. “What have you been doing? Just staring at your dick? Don’t you touch yourself? Have you never gone down on a girl monster? A boy monster? A gender-nonconforming monster?”

Seokjin slams a hand over your mouth, “Shut up, my human. Now, show me how to make you feel good so that I can collect your pleasure screams.”

Swatting his hand from your face, you shake your head, “I think I want to hear yours first.”

“I would like to see you try,” He laughs in an endearing squeaky way that makes you want to give him the suck of his life.

“Bet.” You sink to your knees, making quick work of his pants.

“Oh my sweet monster cock,” You breathe as you take in the sight before you. His cock is the biggest you’ve ever seen - thick and long with veins running down its smooth skin.

He’s hard already, and you shoot him a skeptical look. “What?” Seokjin shrugs, “It’s just my body acknowledging you as a potential mate. It’s happened before.”

Fury bubbles up inside you at the thought of him getting hard for anyone other than you. God, are you actually developing feelings for your monster? Pushing that thought aside, you vow to make him come so hard that all his (hypothetical) future orgasms will belong to the mere thought of you.

Without pause, you suck the head of his cock into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the tip.

“M-my human, what are you doing?” Seokjin yelps, his hand digging into your hair. He’s a natural, you think, choosing to ignore his question.

Your hands run up and down his thighs before winding their way around to squeeze his ass. The gasp that results is delicious and urges you to move faster.

You take more of him into your mouth, sucking harder, your cheeks hollow. His breath hitches, “O-oh, (y/n), keep doing that. Feels so good. How does it feel so good?”

Oh, your poor little monster boy has no idea how good it will get…

You take him all the way, your nose nudging his firm pelvis. Seokjin moans, and when you swallow around him, he lets out a series of what you can only assume are expletives in the monster world.

One hand still gripping his ass, you bring your other one forward to tease his balls in your palm. He shouts your name, and you feel him twitch inside your mouth.

You release him with a pop. “Will you come for me, Seokjin?” Your voice is raspy from the deep-throating, “Will you come in my mouth for me?”

“Y-yes,” He pants, “I need to release. Your mouth is the best thing I’ve ever felt, my human.”

Laughing softly, you grab his monster cock once more, “Oh, my little monster, you are sure in for a good time.”

Without further explanation, you suck him harder than you’ve ever done to anyone before. You want and need to have Seokjin unravel before you, to come down your throat. And it isn’t long before his moans grow louder and louder until he comes with a yowl that honestly rivals what yours had been like when your monster had scared you at first.

“My human,” Seokjin finally mumbles, as you pull your mouth away from him, “What was that?”

“A blowjob,” You shrug, getting to your feet, “Sometimes referred to as ‘giving that sloppy toppy’ or ‘putting that dick through a carwash’ or ‘showing them that 360 degree spin cycle’.”

He looks baffled, “I understood none of that, but can I give you one of these ‘blowjobs’ now?”

You laugh, “My greedy little monster, come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk.”

He pouts adorably, and you can’t help yourself from pressing your lips to his. A blush overtakes his cheeks and the tips of his ears, “My human, why did you do that?”

“You’re so cute, Jinnie,” You shrug, “I wanted to kiss you to show that I like you.”

He blinks, “You-you—?”

You shove him once again towards your closet, “Tomorrow, my handsome monster. Get ready, there are so many things I still have to show you.”

His eyes widen, “There’s even more!?”

“Oh, yes,” You flash him a wicked grin as you kick him out of your room, “I’m going to fucking rock your monster world, baby.”

Four Months Later...

“Hey, my pretty human,” Your monster whispers, his breath ghosting over your ear. Goosebumps rise across your skin.

“Hey, handsome,” You answer, your eyes shooting open to meet his.

“Yah!” Your monster stumbles back, “Would you quit doing that?” His pout only draws your attention to his plush lips.

“No,” You grin, sitting up in your bed. “Are you ever going to quit creeping around my room at night?”

“Never,” He continues to pout. “Besides, you love it.”

And you really do.

© luxekook. please do not repost, modify, edit or translate.

#bhqdrabbles #bangtanhq #ficswithluv #btswriterscollective #btswritingcafe #hyunglinenetwork #kwritersworldnet #bangtanarmynet #btsbookclub #btsnoonanet #seokjin x reader #jin x reader #jin smut #bts smut

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps #rwby dark

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Smart Characters

Since I started this blog, one of the most common questions I’ve received has to do with the portrayal of intelligent characters.  This is also one of the most difficult to answer -- excluding questions about characters with specialized knowledge sets, which are fairly easy to answer with source compilations.  Most of the questions have to do with:  how do you portray a smart character believably?  How do you make the audience relate to them?  Can I still make them likable?  How do I avoid the pitfalls of popular media?

Well, I’m finally here to answer, utilizing examples from some of my favorite (and occasionally, not-so-favorite) media.  Let’s jump in to the dos and don’ts of smart characters!

1.  Do let the audience follow the character’s thought process.  

As demonstrated by:  Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders

Albert Einstein allegedly once said, “If you can’t explain it to a five-year-old, you don’t truly understand it.”  And the sentiment rings true:  true genius doesn’t need to dazzle with big words and technobabble.  Instead, it makes the complex appear simple.

The same rings true for brilliant characters.  BBC’s Sherlock (more on that later) ceased to satisfy in its later seasons because it began to rely too heavily on visual glitz to avoid actually explaining its mysteries and how they were solved.  Similarly, the biggest complaints with block buster franchises -- Star Wars, The Avengers, Game of Thrones -- is that they became obsessed with “subverting expectations” cleverly instead of leading the audiences to their most logical and satisfying conclusions.

Meanwhile, the smartest and most satisfying media dazzles not by staying over the audience’s head, but by illustrating how simplistic the solutions can be.

Let’s start with my boy Tommy Shelby, the charismatic, swaggering protagonist of the charismatic, swaggering crime drama Peaky Blinders.  Using only his intelligence (and complete disregard for his own life/suicidal tendencies, but that’s not the point here), Tommy claws his way up from the near-bottom of the social ladder (an impoverished Romani in early 20th century Birmingham) to being a decorated war hero, to being the leader of a feared razor gang, to dominating the race track business, to becoming a business mogul, to becoming a member of parliament and trying to assassinate the leader of the fascist party. He’s also one of the paramount reasons why I’m bisexual.

So how can such a drastic social climb be conveyed believably?  Because Tommy -- as the viewpoint character -- is placed in seemingly inescapable situations, and then proceeds to demonstrate that the solutions to those situations have been there the whole time.  I recently watched a brilliant video on how this is done, which can be viewed here.

Early in season one, for example, he responds to aggressive new methods by the police by organizing a mass-burning of paintings of the king, and uses the press this garners to publicly shame the methods of the chief inspector who’s been antagonizing him.  In the next season, he talks his way into a deal by bluffing that he planted a grenade in his rival’s distillery.  My personal favorite is in season four, when he responds to being outgunned by a larger, American gang by contacting their rival -- none other than an Alphonse Capone.

All of Tommy’s victories are satisfying, because they don’t come out of nowhere -- we have access to the same information he does, each victory is carefully foreshadowed, and we are reminded at every turn that failure is a very real possibility (more on that later.)  So when he wins, we’re cheering with him.

Other examples:  Mark Watney from The Martian, who explains science in its most simplistic terms and with infectious enthusiasm.  He would make every character on The Big Bang Theory cry.  

Also, Miss Fisher from the AMAZING Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  The dazzling, 1920s, female Sherlock Holmes of your dreams.  I cannot recommend it enough.

To apply this to your own writing:  Remember you won’t dazzle anyone if you smack them in the face with a “brilliant” plot twist.  They want to take a journey with your character, not be left in the dust.  

Also, for everyone in my askbox concerned that they’re not smart enough to write intelligent characters, just remember how simple the problems confronting smart characters can be.  Put them in a difficult situation, and provide them with a means of getting out.  Then, just let them find it. 

2.  Don’t assume the audience is too stupid to keep up (or try to make them feel too stupid to keep up.)

As demonstrated by:  Sherlock Holmes from BBC’s Sherlock.

Say what you will:  there were reasons why everyone was so captivated by this show during its first two seasons.  It felt fresh.  People had yet to become frustrated with the inescapable thirst for Benedict Cumberbatch.  The writing was sharp, and the editing clever.  And it wove a tantalizing web of mysteries that demanded solution.  The problem was, there weren’t any.

The most frustrating for many was how Sherlock faked his death at the end of season two, after which devoted fans spent two years creating intricate theories on how he might have pulled this off.  The creators responded by mocking this dedication in the opening episode of season three, by showing a fan club spinning outlandish theories (one of which included Sherlock and Moriarty kissing.)  This might have been laughed off -- at the time, many seemed to consider it quite funny -- if the creators had bothered to offer their own explanation of how Sherlock survived.  They didn’t.  And so began a seemingly endless loop of huge cliffhangers that promised -- and consistently failed to deliver -- satisfying answers.

The most egregious examples occur in season four, which provided answers to questions no one asked, and withheld answers for things everyone wanted to know.  For example, did you know that the real reason Moriarty engaged Sherlock is because he was hypnotized by Sherlock’s secret evil sister?  The same one who killed Sherlock’s best friend, whom Sherlock convinced himself was a dog?  Yes, that was a real plot point, in the climax of the series.  It’s an effort to befuddle the audience with brilliant and unexpected writing, but instead pulled them out of a story they were already invested in and made them far more critical of its pre-existing faults. 

It’s pointed out in the brilliant (if bluntly named) Sherlock Is Garbage, And Here’s Why that Moffat can be a great writer, but is a consistently terrible show runner, because he’s more interested in dazzling the audience with cleverness than actually telling a satisfying story.  The video also points out that the show often implied Sherlock’s brilliance, without ever letting the audience follow along with his actions or thought-process in a way that DEMONSTRATED his brilliance.  

I highly recommend giving the aforementioned video a watch, because it is not only a great explanation of how Sherlock Holmes can be best utilized, but about how writing itself can be best utilized.

Other examples:  The Big Bang Theory.  As Wisecrack points out in their wonderful video on the subject, the punchline of every joke is “oh look, these characters are smart nerds!” which is repetitious at best and downright insulting at worst.

How to avoid this in your writing:  Treat the audience as your equal.  You’re not trying to bedazzle them, you’re trying to take them on a journey with you.  Let them be delighted when you are.  Don’t constantly try to mislead them or hold intelligence over their head, and they will love you for it.  Also, cheap tricks do not yield a satisfying story:  readers will know when you went into a narrative without a plan, and they won’t appreciate it.

3.  Do remember that smart people can be kind and optimistic!

As demonstrated by:  Shuri from Black Panther.

Yes, brilliant people can be unhappy and isolated by their intelligence, or rejected by society.  But remember that intelligence isn’t synonymous with a cantankerous attitude, or an excuse to be a pugnacious ass to those around you!  

Part of the reason why Shuri of 2018′s Black Panther was such a breath of fresh air was the fact that she subverted almost all preconceptions about how a genius looks, acts, and regards the world.  And it’s not just the fact that she isn’t a sullen, middle-aged white man that makes her stand out:  Shuri has an effervescent attitude, and genuinely loves contributing to her country and family.  She referred to sound-proof boots as “sneakers” (and then explained the pun when her brother didn’t get it.)  She’s fashionable.  She teases her older brother, and cries when he is apparently killed.  She’s up on meme culture.  This makes her unlike pretty much every other genius portrayed in the MCU.

Except maybe the Hulk.  He can dab now.

Shuri is also allowed to take pride in her genius, and can be a bit insufferable about it, which makes her more enjoyable and rounded.  But she is an excellent example of how genius can be explored and portrayed in fiction, and I will forever be embittered that she was underutilized in Infinity War and Endgame.

Why, for example, are all geniuses portrayed as arrogant misanthropes?  Albert Einstein battled depression, but he is also said to have enjoyed blowing bubbles and watching puppet shows.  He was kind to those who knew him.  Similarly, Alan Turing behaved little like his fictional counterpart, described as “shy but outgoing,” with a love of being outdoors.  Nikola Tesla fell in love with a pigeon.  Why do we have to portray these people so damn gravely?

Other examples:  Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.  Also an excellent portrayal of an intelligent person on the autism spectrum, as he struggles to interface socially but cares profusely for his fellow human beings.  He is brilliant, and completely precious.

Also, Sherlock Holmes -- the original version, and all faithful adaptations thereof.  Anyone who thinks Sherlock is an austere, antisocial jerk isn’t familiar with the original canon.  He blushed when Watson complimented his intelligence, for God’s sake. 

Then there’s Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and Marge from Fargo.  Brilliant, upbeat, optimistic geniuses.

To apply this to your own writing:  If you have a smart character who hates everyone around them for no identifiable reason, ask yourself why this is necessary and what this adds to the plot.  Are they angry about injustice, towards themselves or others?  Are they frustrated with an inability to relate to people?  Do they want to protect themselves or their family at all costs, including politeness?  If not, question why your brilliant character can’t also be kind to those around them.

4.  Don’t make your character perfect at everything they do.

As demonstrated by:  Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Ah, Wesley.  Some call him the original Mary Sue, and it’s one of the only times I’ve seen the term applied with some accuracy.  He is somehow the most gifted and least qualified person on The Enterprise.  He’s Hermione Granger without the charm, jumping in to answer questions before any of the trained officers in the room have the chance to, always in the right.  His only obstacle?  Why, the boorish adults he’s surrounded with simply don’t understand his brilliance!

As early as the series’ very second episode, Wesley -- inebriated by an alien illness -- forcibly takes over the ship from Captain Picard, only to later save it from a threat with a reverse tractor beam of his own design.  

Wesley was obviously inserted as a means of attracting younger viewers, but failed egregiously, because he was too annoyingly perfect for kids to relate too, and not cool enough for them to be invested in.  I binge-watched the various Star Trek series in my youth for Spock, Data, and my wife Seven of Nine, not to watch seasoned military and scientific officers get lectured by an adolescent.  Even Wil Wheaton, who had the misfortune of portraying this character, expressed a dislike for him.  

Precocious children are great, if you get them right.  But get them wrong, and they can easily become your most annoying character, marring the face of otherwise great media.  The most important thing you can do for a brilliant character is endow them with weaknesses and flaws -- even something as small as Shuri’s fondness for teasing her older brother made her enjoyable, as anyone with siblings could relate to their dynamic.  

But, what if you want a supernaturally talented character who not only fails to be a ray of sunshine, but is something of an arrogant, antisocial jerk?  Can they still work, especially if they also happen to be a child? 

Yes, under one extremely important condition:

5.  Do keep your characters out of their depth!

As demonstrated by:  Number Five from Umbrella Academy.

Okay, he’s not exactly a child.  He’s a fifty-eight-year-old trapped in a child’s body, who’s traveled back in time from a post-apocalyptic future to warn his siblings of an incoming Armageddon.  In other news, Umbrella Academy is a weird show.  Unlike the comics, however, the apes don’t engage in prostitution. 

 The effect, however, remains the same:  a preternaturally talented child who talks down to everyone around him, including his (apparently) older siblings.  So why does he work while Wesley fails so egregiously?

For one thing, it’s demonstrated early on that Five has the skills to back up his sanctimonious attitude, with the delightfully ultraviolent Istanbul (Not Constantinople) sequence.  It also helps that he lacks Wesley’s squeaky-clean moral code, to the point at which he can get drunk in public or kill without remorse.  

But:  the element most vital to his success as a character is the fact that he’s kept completely, and consistently, out of his depth.  He knows the world will end in eight days, but he doesn’t know how this will transpire or how to stop it.  Ultimately, he fails again to stop the apocalypse, and must travel back in time with his siblings for another chance.  

Most authors have the impulse to demonstrate a character’s brilliance by allowing them to succeed against insurmountable odds, but the Umbrella Academy writers show tremendous wisdom in allowing Five to fail.  This allows the audience to empathize with him, and countermands the effects of his arrogant attitude.

This advice isn’t just true for pint-sized prodigies.  Look back over this list, and take notes of how often the most successful characters are allowed to fail, to have flaws, and to ascend past their comfort zone.  

Other examples:  Virtually every successful example on this list.

Tommy Shelby, a character of limitless ambition, conducts a new, perilous climb outside of his social rank each season, which almost always puts him in positions of mortal danger.  He faces threats both external (rival gangs, evil priests, and rising fascists) and internal (hello PTSD, suicidal tendencies, and crippling addiction) but either way, we understand that his fast-paced climb is not for the weak-willed or faint-hearted.  

Mark Watney is a brilliant scientist who has been stranded in an utterly impossible situation for which absolutely no one could be adequately prepared (spoilers:  it’s on Mars.)  We are drawn in by his plight, and how he could possibly escape from it, and there we come to admire him for his courage, optimism, and humor.

Shuri, though not the main character of Black Panther, is allowed to show off both tremendous gifts and vulnerability, as she is powerless to stop the apparent death of her beloved older brother.  She watches Wakanda’s takeover both as an innovator and a young woman, and a large reason for her success is that she is allowed to be both.  

How to apply this to your writing:  When portraying intelligent characters, take stock of how often they fail, their level of control over their surroundings, their vulnerability, and their flaws.  We don’t want to read about flawless deities.  We want to read about characters who embody and personify our humanity.  So remember they need to fall down in order to pull themselves up.

Happy writing, everybody! 

#long post for ts #writing tips #writing smart characters #peaky blinders #tommy shelby #mark watney #the martian #miss fisher's murder mysteries #shuri #black panther #spencer reid #criminal minds #legally blonde #fargo #number five #the umbrella academy #star trek #star trek: the next generation

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #358

“i know the pieces fit, ‘cuz i watched them fall away”

Would you ever own a Great Dane as a pet? Oh Lord, my mom wants one so bad. She looooves big dogs. I wouldn't, though. I don't want another dog, period. What was or is your favorite quality about your recent ex? Her resilience, strength, creativity, loyalty, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. lol. Have you ever witnessed a human being giving birth in real life? No, and I NEVER fucking will. What about an animal? Yeah, cats. What kind of things do you enjoy reading about on sites like Wikipedia? I sometimes do that for straightening out game plots after watching a let's play if I have remaining questions. Wikipedia tends to do well with compressing it. Which country’s cuisine that you haven’t tried, would you be interested in sampling? (e.g. Moroccan, Thai etc.) I wouldn't know because I'm not educated enough on foreign cuisines. What’s the last movie you watched on your own? The Shining, I think, forever ago. Fried, poached, boiled or scrambled eggs? Scrambled. Have you ever got into a club, whilst being underage? I've never tried. Are you happy with your relationship with God, or do you want more from it? I don't have one. Do you struggle with boredom? Very, very severely. I have absolutely awful anhedonia; I'm pretty much constantly bored. Literally. I just... find things to pass the time, even if I'm not really enjoying myself. What famous person do you wish you could be friends with? I'm going to assume here you don't mean a significant other, because uh... y'all been known lmaooo. I would really love to be friends with Gab Smolders (I know that's not her real name, just using her YT name), because we have very similar interests. As well, Suzie Hanson is a fucking SWEETHEART. I miss her channel. :( At some point I want to purchase some stuff from her store to support the darling. Man, thinking of this question, there's really a lot. What would you do if you were famous? Hate it, haha. Do you wish you hair were shorter or longer? It's at a fine length right now. What photo editing website or software do you use? Lightroom and Photoshop. What hair color looks best on you and what’s your natural color? I think my hair looked best black. It's naturally brown. What is your favorite show to watch? Meerkat Manor. It is so, so comforting to me. Are your maternal/parental instincts strong? Not with kids, oddly enough. I've only ever really encountered strong protective instincts with significant others like when they're sick or something like that. In school, do you/did you work better by yourself or in a group? I absolutely worked better alone. I hated group work. Do you know anyone who has a collection of old records? My mom did, once upon a time. I feel like I know someone who does now... but idk. Do you go on any forums often? Just RP ones. Would you ever agree to an open relationship with someone? Nnnnope. Do people always say you’re too thin? Uh, I have the opposite problem. Could you design a whole web page yourself? Not from scratch, no. I've only done so on free sites that give you the bare bones and easy editing. Have you ever cooked an entire dinner for your family? Definitely not. Do you prefer piano music or violin music? Ohhhh, both are beautiful, but I have to say violin. Who do you tend to get in fights with the most? My mom, I guess, not that we fight a lot. Are you attracted to spooky and macabre things naturally? YEP. Have you ever bobbed for apples? Were you successful? No. It's disgusting if you're going after others, and besides, I HATE water up my nose and have never quite figured out how to block it out without plugging it. Hypothetically speaking, if you had a child [too young to make their own decisions], what would you dress him/her up as for Halloween? It would depend on what their interests were. Do you intend to take your children trick-or-treating, if ever you have any? I'm not having kids, but if I did, I definitely would if they wanted to go. What is the coolest jack-o-lantern you have ever seen? Now THAT'S hard, I really don't know. What was your favorite candy to get from trick-or-treating? What about your least favorite? Reese's was my favorite, and I never liked Tootsie Rolls. Did you ever receive anything that wasn’t candy? Maybe? I feel like I have... Have you ever carved a really extensive pumpkin, or were they always simple carvings? Yes; I once carved a pumpkin with a raven design with "and quoth the raven, 'nevermore'" written into the back. The raven wasn't just a flat cut-out, but rather carved in layers so the light came through differently at certain depths. Are you more interested in cute, funny, “sexy”, or scary costumes? For myself, absolutely the scary ones. In general though, I'm not gonna BS ya, I love me some sexy costumes, haha, but also still scary and particularly gory ones. Have you ever intimidated or made another person feel legitimately threatened? If not, do you think that you could ever be seen as scary? I seriously hate admitting this, but Mom has confessed that my yelling has scared her before when scolding our former dog that I fucking hated. In what ways do you or would you need to be validated by a partner? (For example, liking your posts/talking about you on social media, or perhaps by doting on your with gifts.) I absolutely need words of affirmation. I just need to hear a lot that you do still like/love me. Also, if you're unwilling to actually act like we're a couple in front of ANYONE, like you're ashamed of me or something, byyyyeeee. Do you tend to succeed by weaning yourself off of something or by quitting cold turkey? It depends, I guess. Is there a specific type of pet breed/size/etc. that you don’t want? Why not? Any that have underlying medical issues, like pugs, spider ball pythons, Persian cats, etc. etc... It's just a moral thing; I don't want to support the deliberate continuation of poor genes in animals for human monetary gain. It's just wrong to me. Away from breeds, I also don't really want free-roaming animals after my cat passes, because I don't want to endanger the reptiles and invertebrates I want as pets in the future. Have you ever lived in a notoriously dangerous area? If not, would it bother you to do so? I grew up in one, yes. I never want to again. Has a friend’s significant other ever interfered with or damaged your friendship? What about a significant other of yours damaging a friendship? No. What, if anything, is something that you put pressure on yourself about? What do you imagine would happen if you did not live up to this expectation? Getting a job nowadays. I do NOT want to imagine what my life will be like if I never find employment. If you have been in a serious relationship, have you and your partner ever discussed lifetime plans that clashed? Did you reconcile them or did you break up? If you have not been in a relationship, what are some issues that would be deal-breakers? This hasn't happened, no. If you were offered to smoke some weed right now would you accept? Honestly, I want to try weed to see if it would help my anxiety, BUT I'm unwilling to ever smoke something, so no. Have you ever changed clothes in a vehicle? Yeah. Do you listen to country music? No. Have you ever had a boyfriend your parents didn’t like? No. Were you ever a trouble maker? Not really, no. Do you shave your legs? Hell, that's debatable by this point. I haven't since this past October, but I *would* if for whatever reason someone might see my legs. I am not overexaggerating when I say I naturally have men's legs as far as hair goes, oof. Do you have any person in your family with an addiction to beer? That's what my dad always drank when he was an alcoholic. He doesn't touch alcohol now. Have you ever gotten sloppy drunk at a party? No. Have you ever slept naked? Accidentally. Could you ever be friends with the person who hurt you most in life? I really don't think I could be. Do you actually like going to school? I never did. Have you ever really been in a “complicated relationship”? How did that work out? In your opinion, what makes a relationship “complicated”? No. I don't care enough to go into what a complicated relationship means, I think it's pretty obvious. Who was the first person you’ve ever fallen in love with? Is this a person you’re still in contact with? How do you know you’re in love with someone? Jason, and no. And you just... know. It's a wordless feeling . Have you ever successfully broken a bad habit? How about conquered a fear of something? Uhhhh I don't know, really. Well, I used to be AWFUL at picking my eyebrows, particularly when anxious, but I have gotten better at that. I still kinda do it, though. Onto the next question, I don't believe I've "conquered" a fear, but rather they just faded with time on their own. Have you ever read a whole series of books? Yeah. Are you going to walk at your graduation or just pick your diploma up? I walked. Do you own a pair of brass knuckles? No. Have you ever tried to break a Guinness World Record? No. Can you sing your ABC’s backwards? I can't. Do you like Skittles? I love Skittles. Do you know how to read music? I used to. Who would you say has made the biggest impact on your life? Really, Jason. He ultimately led to me getting proper treatment for my depression, which changed my life. I'm in no way giving him credit for it, but you get what I mean. You can only listen to THREE CDs for the rest of your life. What are they? Black Rain and Ozzmosis by Ozzy Osbourne, and uhhh... perhaps The Black Album by Metallica. Do you own any shirts that have a year on it? Yeah, but it's way too small for me now. It's from Back To The Future, when we actually reached the date in the movie. Have you ever done another person’s make-up? Ha, I gave Jason a makeover once. Honestly, do you double dip? Not if I'm sharing the dip with other people. Who were you last on an elevator with? My mom. Do you know anyone that has a black belt in karate? Not to my knowledge. How often do you wear hats? Never. Who is the youngest gay person you know? *shrug* Have you ever watched an animal being eaten by another animal? I've seen cats eat mice and stuff as a kid. What is the strangest, most “out there” thing you believe? Some people I'm sure would consider the fact I believe the government was involved in 9/11 as "out there," but when you look into it, it's far from "out there." Do you get along with people who are especially religious? Why/why not? It depends on how they act about it, not what they keep in their head. Now if they have just purely hateful beliefs that demonize another's existence, then no, we can't get along. Have you ever drawn or painted a self-portrait? Painted, yes, for an art class. Do you have any interesting pillow cases? No. Are you more afraid of spiders or bees? Bees, generally. Especially if we're talking things like wasps, who are just demon spawns. Would you rather donate time, blood, or money? That's a really hard question, but I guess time? Like I'm thinking volunteer work and stuff, or listening to and comforting someone. Can grills be sexy on a guy? They're sexy on absolutely no one. Last strong smell you can remember smelling? Ugh, gasoline. This one car in front of my mom and me smelled awful. Last healthy thing you ate? Apples. Do you know anybody who was abused? Emotionally, yes. Do your parents volunteer anywhere? No. Do you have a steering wheel cover? Mom's car doesn't. What do you think of when you see sharp knives? This is really morbid, but I will immediately envision what it would be like to be stabbed. I'm very afraid of knives. The highway and back roads take you to the same place; choose your route. The back roads, of course. And let me bring my camera.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''schism'' by tool

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND WIRED

There is rarely a single brilliant hack that ensures success: I learnt never to bet on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success. When we cook one up we're not always 100% sure which kind it is. The Web may not be. Some believe only business people can do this with YC itself. The floors are constantly being swept clean of any loose objects that might later get stuck in something. The really juicy new approaches are not the ones that matter anyway. Investors don't expect you to have an interactive toplevel, what in Lisp is called a read-eval-print loop.

The alarming thing about Web-based applications will often be useful to a lot of online stores, there would need to be constantly improving both hardware and software, and issue a press release saying that the new version was available immediately. Admissions to PhD programs in the hard sciences are fairly honest, for example. He said VCs told him this almost never happened. Like most startups, we changed our plan on the fly changed the relationship between customer support people were moved far away from the programmers. It's the same with other high-beta vocations, like being an actor or a novelist.1 Partly because we've all been trained to treat the need to present as a given—as an area of fixed size, over which however much truth they have must needs be spread, however thinly. Bootstrapping sounds great in principle, but this apparently verdant territory is one from which few startups emerge alive. When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another, and though they hate to admit it the biggest factor in their opinion of you is other investors' opinion of you. Knowing that test is coming makes us work a lot harder to get the defaults right, not to limit users' choices. Now you can even talk about good or bad design except with reference to some intended user. I can sense that.2 I don't know of anyone I've met.

How can this be? Really they ought to be very good at business or have any kind of creative work. And they're astoundingly successful. The Detroit News. In fact, it may not be the first time, with misgivings.3 The eminent, on the other hand, are weighed down by their eminence.4 And what I discovered was that business was no great mystery. Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all? Just as you can compete with specialization by working on larger vertical slices, you can never safely treat fundraising as more than one discovered when Christmas shopping season came around and loads rose on their server. Once a company shifts over into the model where everyone drives home to the suburbs for dinner, however late, you've lost something extraordinarily valuable.

Y Combinator and most of my time writing essays lately.5 It was only then I realized he hadn't said very much. Actually, there are projects that stretch them. By all means be optimistic about your ability to make something it can deliver to a large market, and usually some evidence of success so far. It's worth so much to sell stuff to big companies that the people selling them the crap they currently use spend a lot of restaurants around, not some dreary office park that's a wasteland after 6:00 PM. At Viaweb our whole site was like a bunch of people is the worst kind. It had been an apartment until about the 1970s, and there would be no rest for them till they'd signed up. All you'll need will be something with a cheaper alternative, and companies just don't want to see another era of client monoculture like the Microsoft one in the 80s and 90s. We can learn more about someone in the first place.6 If you try writing Web-based software will be less stressful. In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls ought to be out there digging up stories for themselves. Be able to downshift into consulting if appropriate.

You wouldn't use vague, grandiose marketing-speak among yourselves. Focus on the ones that matter anyway. If they hadn't been, painting as a medium wouldn't have the prestige that it does. These are not early numbers. C: Perl, Python, and even have bad service, and people will keep coming. But angel investors like big successes too. If someone had launched a new, spam-free mail service, users would have flocked to it.

Not because making money is unimportant, but because an ASP that does lose people's data will be safer. In a startup, things seem great one moment and hopeless the next. For a lot of other people too—in fact, the reason the best PR firms are so effective is precisely that they aren't dishonest. You can shift into a different mode of working. Maybe they can, companies like to do but can't.7 Fortunately, I can fix the biggest danger right here. It was not until Hotmail was launched a year later that people started to get it. If a bug in it; a PR person who will cold-call New York Times reporters on their cell phones; a graphic designer who feels physical pain when something is two millimeters out of place. I wish I could say that force was more often used for good than ill, but I'm not sure. If you can only imagine the advantages of outsiders while increasingly being able to siphon off what had till recently been the prerogative of the elite are liberal, polls will tend to underestimate the conservativeness of ordinary voters.8

This was apparently too marginal even for Apple's PR people.9 These were the biggest. Give hackers an inch and they'll take you a mile. Be flexible. When did Google take the lead? But if you were using the software for them. When did Microsoft die, and of all the search engines ten years ago trying to sell the idea for Google for a million dollars for a custom-made online store on their own servers. I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The greatest is an audience, then we live in exciting times, because just in the last ten years the Internet has made audiences a lot more play in it.

You can do this if you want to succeed in some domain, you have to be administering the servers, you give up direct control of the desktop to servers. A few steps down from the top you're basically talking to bankers who've picked up a few new vocabulary words from reading Wired.10 There is a role for ideas of course. And that's who they should have been choosing all along. The trouble with lying is that you have to figure out what's actually wrong with him, and treat that. Lots of small companies flourished, and did it by making cool things. As Fred Brooks pointed out in The Mythical Man-Month, adding people to a project tends to slow it down.11 Every audience is an incipient mob, and a lot of compound bugs.

Notes

Which is precisely because they can't legitimately ask you to acknowledge it.

A great programmer might invent things an ordinary one?

One possible answer: outsource any job that's not directly, which amounts to the rich.

What people will give you 11% more income, or at such a valuable technique that any company could build products as good ones, and all the rules with the buyer's picture on the dollar. By this I mean forum in the Sunday paper. 1% a week for 4 years.

Whereas the activation energy required to switch. If Bush had been with us he would have. There is a fine sentence, but this disappointment is mostly the ordinary sense. 1323-82.

And for those interested in investing but doesn't want to live. I talked to a group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I write out loud can expose awkward parts. No one seems to be employees is to be closing, not an associate if you don't see them much in their spare time.

Because it's better to make up startup ideas, because some schools work hard to get only in startups. But you can't mess with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v.

Which helps explain why there are no misunderstandings. If you like the Segway and Google Wave. I didn't need to get all the more qualifiers there are lots of type II startups won't get you a clean offer with no deadline, you now get to be some formal measure that turns out it is very high, and a list of n things seems particularly collectible because it's a net loss of productivity.

If he's bad at it. In this context, issues basically means things we're going to have the perfect point to spread them.

A Plan for Spam I used thresholds of. Google's site.

A deal flow, then their incentives aren't aligned with some question-begging answer like it's inappropriate, while everyone else and put our worker on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series A in the median case. Possible exception: It's hard to say that it makes people dumber.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #type #yourselves #conference #kind #play #person #Plan #specialists #energy #index #force #schools #essays #income #firms #Sunday #companies #ones #answer #specialization #paper #Google #flow #server #Supreme

[grimoiresontape]

Reading Room: Sarah Lyons

Today I’m joined by my friend and fellow regular of our Diviners’ Nights across NYC, the mighty Sarah Lyons. Sarah is a writer, activist, occultist, and witch with one foot in popular politics and direct action, and another cloven heel in the dark wilds and haunted woods. She was the witch in residence for Broadly, where she had a weekly tarot-based web series, and her writing has appeared in Veneficia, Teen Vogue, Vice, Broadly, Slutist, Fusion, Dirge Magazine, and Dear Darkling. Most recently, Sarah has authored Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism through Running Press. She is also one half of the hosts of the PopCvlt Podcast.

Al: Congratulations on your new book my friend! Would you share what motivated you to write it, who you feel it’s for, and what your hopes are for the book now it’s written?

Sarah: Thank you!

So there’s obviously been a huge resurgence in interest around witchcraft and other magical arts recently, and at the same time there’s been a big surge in political engagement, especially in the United States. People usually tie these two together around issues like feminism and women’s empowerment, and while I think there’s a lot to that, I also think it’s more #complicated. Maybe a bit of a tangent, but if The Witch is an archetype, a spirit or force outside of ourselves, then maybe it’s her using us, and not the other way around. 

So when I sat down to write a book about witchcraft and activism, I didn’t want to do a book of spells or activities, although those are in there, I more wanted to give people new to either the tools and ideas that will help guide them on the rest of the journey. 

A: That idea of what the spirit may want is an especially interesting and potentially fruitful one I think! 

So without beating about the burning bush, what do you think divination has to offer activists? 

S: Personally I find divination invaluable to my activism. Before engaging in a campaign or action of some sort, wouldn’t it be useful to know of potential pitfalls and problems beforehand? I think on the Left there’s a distrust of too much woo, which I get to an extent, but I also think it’s where the politically minded magical folks out there have to start making our case a little louder and more clearly. It hurts far less to engage with divination to gain insight and foresight, than it does not to. 

A: I feel like one of the biggest problems for activists is burn-out, and my suspicion is that part of that case to be made by and for spell-slinging activists should probably include the importance of spiritual baths for replenishment and rejuvenation. It’s a noted element of vested interests’ and big capital’s tactics against organised people power - to simply keep repeating the same efforts until finally it’s not contested enough to be shutdown again. In the face of this, divination and magical action for cultivating and encouraging that stamina of body and heart to get back in the streets and cause trouble once again seems especially important. So I feel like even asking just “how can I support myself and my comrades to keep going?” is a particularly worthwhile one.

Do you think some forms of divination are more helpful than others? 

S: I think it depends on the person and the situation. I personally don’t like pendulums or scrying all that much because I can’t always gauge when my ego is interfering and making me see what I want to see, rather than what I need to. 

A: I totally agree on the pendulum front - unless it’s for a very particular spirit or operation, I tend to find those methods sometimes referred to as “computational” (cards, dice, and especially geomancy; anything definitively *there* in front of you) as far more useful. I think scrying has a lot of use in making and deepening spirit contact and communion, but again, it’s very unlikely it would be my go-to for answering concrete client questions. Depends what the question actually involves and how much we’re exploring it as well as “solving” it perhaps...

So, perhaps that leads neatly to my next question: how/when do you think it can be best to approach and engage with divination?

S: I think at first keep it simple with questions that can be concretely answered, and advice that can be easily followed. Don’t start off by asking “will I ever find love?” or “what direction should I take in life?” That’s a lot, even for tarot. If you are just starting out with a new method, try questions like “Is it in the best interest of my health if I do X?” or “If I go to this event, what type of people can I expect to run into?” If your life improves, or the answers are generally correct, then keep at it! If not, some deeper learning might have to be done, or the method switched up a bit. 

A: I have grown to really enjoy the phrase “What to bear in mind about x” really increasingly helpful in the divination I do for myself and clients. It sounds a bit cumbersome, sure, but I’ve found it really opens up things without getting vague or diluting.

S: I agree! I often describe my role to clients as a “google map for life.” You don’t *have* to take my advice, and things might still be ok if you don’t, but you’ll probably get to your destination faster if you get off on this exit. 

A: Ok, so considering divination can span all the way from cards to bird-song and everything in between, what are you favourite forms of divination?

S: For clients and friends I love tarot. The imagery and history of tarot help paint a beautiful picture, and literally illustrate what I’m talking about, even to someone who has never had a reading before. Being able to ground esoteric concepts and complex symbols in narrative is, to me, a lot of what being a good reader entails, and I think tarot has a lot to offer in this department. In my own personal practice I still use tarot, but more for reflection and gaining personal insight into problems. If I’m communicating with a spirit or doing ancestor work, I like to keep it a little more simple and stick to playing cards or coin tosses for “yes/no” questions. 

A: So my emphasis here is often how about diviners can deepen their practice by learning other skills or engaging in aspects away from the reading table or augury hill. Having asked what magic has to offer activism, what do you think activism and radical political engagement have to teach magicians, witches, and diviners?

S: Politics and magic cannot be separated from each other, as both deal with power and how we understand and work with it. Even if you see your magic as “apolitical” you are still engaging with power, and that is a political act. We live in a world where reality has been shaped by the revolutionary actions of the past, where groups of people shifted reality and dreamed new worlds into being, for better or for worse. As a magical practitioner, I think it’s pretty foolish not to draw at least inspiration from that. 

Beyond that, and I talk about this in my book, but it’s my belief that a good deal of our problems come from living in a disenchanted world, a place where all the magic and wonder has been sucked out of it, leaving behind only profit and cold materialism. If you are doing magic, you are fighting against this, even in a small, private way. I think so many people are getting into magic now because the world itself desperately needs people to re-enchant it, and if magic is your calling, I believe you’ve been conscripted into the fight whether you know it or not.

Sarah has a whole tour arranged to talk about her new book, but most immediately she’s going to be in Salem, MA on Saturday 11th January to talk Magical Activism 101 at The Cauldron Black. She is also hosting a night of Revolutionary Witchcraft in the form of a panel discussion on the political dimensions and possibilities of witchcraft as a practice coming up at Bluestockings in NYC on Friday 31st January.

[angelofberlin2000]

Keanu Reeves May Be Pure, But He's Not Oblivious  

America’s most memeable actor is back in John Wick: Chapter 3, a movie that's in on the joke of our obsession with Keanu. He might be too.

Alison Willmore

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on May 17, 2019, at 10:40 a.m. ET   

For a guy without any official web presence or expressed interest in things online, Keanu Reeves goes viral a lot. He's spawned memes when he's looked sad and other memes when he's looked happy. There's a Twitter account, 198,000 followers strong, devoted to "Keanu doing things" like wearing a fedora or hanging out on set with Sandra Bullock. Creepshot footage of the actor giving up his seat on the subway or rattling around the Bakersfield airport after an emergency landing has racked up thousands of delighted views. Reeves may have risen to fame as a Gen X movie star ("the most soulful while being the most stoner-bro," as the New York Times recently put it), but it was millennials who carved out a permanent place for Keanu in the internet boyfriend hall of fame, as an embodiment of inexpressible melancholy and a figure too pure for this world.

The fact that the actual Reeves — like any living, breathing human — is likely a lot more complicated than that has never gotten in the way of how he's been enshrined in the popular imagination, in part because Reeves has never seen fit to fight it. Reeves works hard onscreen, while barely seeming to notice the eyes (and cellphone cameras) that remain trained on him when he's off it. Where other stars attempt to actively sculpt and control their public image, Reeves submits to the sometimes intrusive attention with bemused acceptance, aware of but apparently unbothered by the fact that there's an outsize version of himself living in people's heads. When questioned about it, he tends to be kind: "Yeah, I guess that’s like an invasion of privacy. They didn’t ask me," he told Uproxx of the bus video, the existence of which seemed to be news to him. Then he added, "They were nice people. We were in it together. We had a nice car ride."

When Reeves went viral again last week, it was for something he definitely knew was being recorded. He was on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, doing promo for John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, the preposterously enjoyable third film of the action franchise that's come to define this period in his career. Reeves, sporting some “I'm-between-roles” facial hair, talked up the stunts and how he was set to reprise his role as world-saving slacker Theodore "Ted" Logan in a third Bill & Ted movie, nearly three decades after the last one.

All of which led Colbert to coyly ask Reeves what he thought happened when we die — a ludicrously weighty question for the average talk-show exchange, but a perfect one for the bodhisattva of showbiz. And Reeves did not disappoint, answering simply that "I know that the ones who love us will miss us." It was both a perfectly shareable aphorism and a poignant reminder of his own experiences with losing loved ones, which are real and terrible and which were also outlined in a Facebook video that blew up to the point that the fact-checking site Snopes felt compelled to put together an entry on it, judging it to be "Mostly True."

Reeves is now 54 years old. The inhuman splendor of his youthful beauty (seriously, have you seen My Own Private Idaho lately?) has gradually softened into a more manageable gorgeousness that shows the touch of time while remaining a little unreal. The fact that Reeves isn't a kid anymore is, in fact, the whole point of the John Wick trilogy, which puts the actor in the eponymous role as a retired killer yanked back into violence after an arrogant Russian mob scion kills the puppy gifted to him by his late wife.

The John Wick franchise is the creation of Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, stunt coordinators turned filmmakers whose elegant action sequences make clear how often it's really Reeves there doing the work, having a swordfight on a motorcycle or slowly sinking a blade into a struggling foe's eyeball. His physicality is front and center, and it's both impossible (John should be dead a thousand times over) and extremely human (John bleeds, staggers, reels with grief). Like Reeves himself, John is at once larger than life and extremely to scale.

Reeves is famous for action. His biggest films are the Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy, those landmarks of bullet-time choreography and heady stoner philosophy for which his flat affect was perfectly suited, as well as Speed and Point Break. But he's always harbored a romantic streak too, even if it hasn't always been showcased well by leading roles (like his in 2006's The Lake House) that leave him looking lost. He's better as the losing corner of the love triangle in Nancy Meyers’ 2003 rom-com Something's Gotta Give, despite the grievous injustice of Diane Keaton throwing him over for Jack Nicholson. The John Wick films work so well not just because of their fight sequences and increasingly arcane assassin mythology, but because of the degree to which they're romance-adjacent. They're heartfelt films about grief, with John as a man lamenting the death of his love and losing pieces of the life they built together in each subsequent installment.

The further the John Wick series has gone on, the more it's curled around Reeves' own persona. The first was a comeback vehicle for Reeves that also happened to be about a hitman's comeback from normal living, and the second was a riff on contractual work obligations. By the third, John is as beset by admirers as Reeves was at that Bakersfield bus stop, only in the film they're affectionately trying to murder him. When he faces down two henchmen (played by Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian of the Raid series), they thank him for the honor of fighting him, and maintain a running commentary on his performance in Indonesian during the sequence. "He's getting slow," muses one as John peels himself off the floor, while the other points out that he is recently out of retirement.

The main antagonist in the new movie, at least physically, is a striver and self-declared fan named Zero (Mark Dacascos), who’s a devotee bumped up to the assassin big leagues. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time!" he declares. "And so far you haven't disappointed!" Zero is a surprisingly funny creation who owes something to Sonny Chiba in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, in how he's introduced, and something to Anne Baxter in All About Eve, in how he's ready to destroy his idol and take his place.

But Zero and his team also feel like a meditation on modern fandom at its most intense, where people need the person they admire to live up to the image they've formed of them, with an implied threat as to what might happen if the object of their obsession doesn't manage this feat. Most of the characters in the John Wick movies are bewildered by John's efforts to get out of the game and live like a normie, but they treat him as a fellow professional. The baddies in John Wick 3, on the other hand, are fans who feel a sense of ownership over John because they've tracked his career so closely.

Reeves may have the most even-keeled relationship with celebrity of any A-lister working today, but in the beleaguered looks he shoots at his foes in this new movie, there's a hint of wry self-awareness. It doesn't feel accurate to describe Reeves as a reluctant movie star, not when he devotes so much of himself to what he does, and when he gamely participates in every aspect of the process. But in playing this reluctant killer, the actor does offer a glimpse of himself as someone who's aware that there’s a finer line between being loved by the public and being devoured by it than anyone would like to think about.

There’s a thrill watching Reeves in this role that’s related to how delightful it feels to see him turn up as what looks like himself in the trailer for Netflix's upcoming Always Be My Maybe — the rom-com loser and internet boyfriend all in one, mashing his face into Ali Wong's while muttering, "I miss your taste." We may like to treat Reeves as a kind of holy innocent, but just because he avoids artifice doesn't mean he doesn't know what's going on. ●

#keanu reeves #buzzfeed news

[monday--vibes]

Forcefully Optimistic: Spider-Man’s Exit From the MCU… Might Not Be Completely Terrible?

I’m not a big lover of Disney as a corporation, but there’s no denying that they’ve done some pretty amazing things with the MCU. So when the news first broke about this little lover’s spat between Sony and Disney over everyone’s web-slinging spider-child, I was (appropriately) devastated.

Then, because I both have no life and have a great love of knowing things, I started digging, sorting out the facts and the speculation and then taking a good, long look at what this means for Peter Parker and the Spider-Man franchise.

And I realize… maybe—just maybe—this isn’t completely horrible.

Let’s break it down.

The Facts:

As is the case with anything that changes and develops super-fast, there’s a lot of uncertainty and incorrect information floating around, but here are the facts that everyone can seem at agree on.

Tom Holland is still under contract to appear as Peter Parker/Spidey in a third Spider-Man movie; Jon Watts is being considered as the director for this third movie but, as his contract wrapped up with Far From Home, this isn’t a sure thing.

Under the current contract, Sony has the distribution rights of and creative control over Spider-Man and Spider-Man related characters; Disney, meanwhile, receives 5% of first-dollar gross (meaning that Disney would get 5% of ticket sales, no matter if Sony made a profit or not) and the right to include Spidey in the MCU. Disney already owns all the merchandizing rights for the character.

Disney also suggested that it get involved in other Spidey-related movies, including the Venom sequel. (For a price, of course.)

Under the contract initially proposed by Disney, the two companies would co-finance future Spider-Man movies, essentially splitting both costs and box office revenue 50/50. Therefore, while Sony would have to pay less to produce future films, the company would take a huge cut to their profits and would loose a considerable amount of control over Spider-Man and the related characters.

There are rumours that Disney has come back to play, offering a six picture deal wherein Disney would co-finance all Spider-Man related films, splitting costs and box office revenue either 30/70 or 25/75 split in Sony’s favour. Right now, neither company has confirmed this.

Sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sonys-spider-man-deal-with-disney-and-marvel-studios-explained-2019-8

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/20/20825631/spider-man-marvel-sony-dispute-mcu-deal-film-rights

https://deadline.com/2019/08/kevin-feige-spider-man-franchise-exit-disney-sony-dispute-avengers-endgame-captain-america-winter-soldier-tom-rothman-bob-iger-1202672545/

https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/08/23/rumor-marvel-and-disney-offer-new-deal-to-sony-to-keep-spider-man-in-mcu/

The Speculation:

In Endgame, we saw the metaphorical baton being passed on to the next generation of superheroes as Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and—yup—Spider-Man played the most high-stakes game of Hot Potato ever while trying desperately to get the Infinity Stones to the Quantum Tunnel. This cemented Peter as one of Marvel’s new Big Three, meant to replace Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.

It also, when combined with the current contract between Sony and Disney and the commercial success of Homecoming, Far From Home, and just about every other Marvel movie ever, undoubtedly resulted in Sony laughing all the way to the bank.

After all, it was their intellectual property that Disney just set up as a cornerstone for future Marvel movies.

However, Sony is also in the rather precarious position where its most valuable franchise, by far, is Spider-Man. Far From Home racked in twice as much money on its opening weekend than Sony’s second most successful film of 2019, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The latest installment of Men In Black, which was made by Sony-owned Columbia Pictures, has yet to break even at the theatres (and, at this rate, it probably won’t).

Source: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?view2=release&view=parent&studio=sony.htm

Plus, Sony’s had a pretty spotty history with Spider-Man movies—the Raimi trilogy saw a steady decrease of gross revenue across all three films, and The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb, were… not received kindly. Let’s leave it at that.

Venom, for all that it was a box office success that racked in more than US$ 850 million over the course of its run, was pretty much summed up as ‘meh’ by critics, making the success of its sequel not the shoe-in that Sony would surely like. The only Spider-Man movie that’s been an absolute critical success was Into the Spider-Verse.

And, even though Sony has a whole slew of Spider-Man related movies announced, including Morbius and a Venom sequel, they’re still missing their star character—the web slinger himself.

There’s no way that Disney isn’t aware of this, of course, and considering how successful they’ve made the Marvel brand, plus and their ability to churn out (mostly) decent superhero movies year after year, it’s clear that they have an edge over Sony on that front.

However, if Into the Spider-Verse’s critical success and Venom’s financial success are any indication, it’s also clear that Sony’s been paying attention and taking notes—at least as far as superhero films are concerned. This contract breakdown could be the perfect(?) opportunity for Sony to bring Holland’s Spider-Man under their own brand, using Marvel’s successful adaptation of Peter Parker to help bolster their own Spidey Cinematic Universe.

The “Why It Might Not Be Completely Horrible”:

Whew. That was long. Okay… Let’s keep going.

Right now, we’re in this really not-good point in time where companies are merging and consolidating faster than ever. In some ways this is good, because we get standardized service across different brands and we get the possibility of an X-Men/Avengers crossover.

In other, bigger ways, though, it’s… very much not-good.

1. Oligopolies are bad for creativity.

Oligopolies are the business version of oligarchies, where a small group of people (corporations) hold all the power. Sound familiar?

Right now, Disney owns the rights to all the Marvel characters (except Spider-Man), which according to the Marvel Database Wikia, is more than 60,000 characters. The only other big player out there for superhero movies is, of course, Warner Brothers, which owns the DCEU. You can’t get much more of an oligopoly than that.

Adding one more player to the mix—Sony—doesn’t help this problem much, but it does help to distribute the characters out, giving movie goers more ways to vote with their dollars if a major company makes something that they don’t like.

Big corporations only really care about one thing: lots and lots of dollar signs. When consumers don’t have a choice where they get their consumables from, those corporations know that they’ll make money no matter what, and so they have no reason to innovate and no reason to push their creativity.

And, they don’t have any reason to listen to consumer wants or needs, either.

The result? Complacent corporations, consumers who are ignored, and a stagnant movie culture.

2. Marvel is bowing under its own weight.

With 23 movies, five discontinued series on Netflix, plus at least seven more Marvel series set to stream on Disney+, the MCU is easily one of the biggest movie franchises out there. And that doesn’t even count all the preludes, novelizations, and other add-ons.

My point is, the MCU is really, really big, and all of this bloat is starting to show.

The most recent example of this is in Far From Home, when Fury brings Peter to the underground layer and we first meet Mysterio. When Peter asks why Dr. Strange, Thor, or Captain Marvel aren’t involved in handling the Elemental threat, Fury flippantly tosses out a series of vague excuses.

And we only cover three characters, too. If Strange isn’t available, but we’re still dealing with a guy who—it seems, at least—is wielding magic, why can’t Wong step in to help? Or at least consult? Why not call in Scarlet Witch?

We see this in Endgame, too, in the final fight scene. While it’s a great scene, I’ve heard a lot of people question why Carol Danvers even needed help getting the Infinity Stones to the Quantum Tunnel, or why she couldn’t be the one to snap her fingers. After all, she took the full force of a single Stone when she was fully human and ended up fine, so why wouldn’t she be able to withstand (or withstand better than very-human Tony) the radiation let off why the Snap?

Sure, this sounds like nitpicking, but it’s a problem that’s going to have to be addressed over and over again as we see more MCU films. Why is this character facing this conflict? Why can’t another, better suited character handle the problem instead?

As writers, we should always be asking why we’re putting a certain character in a certain situation—it’s one of the ways to ensure that our plot is an effective one. However, if the answer is “because if I put another character in their place, the plot would be resolved too quickly”… perhaps the conflict or the character choice needs to be revisited.

3. Peter’s never been allowed to stand on his own two feet.

This new, younger, less mature Peter is an absolute delight on screen, and Holland does a fantastic job bringing him to life. In particular, this worked really well for Homecoming. As the first movie that really focuses on how the ‘regular’ world is affected by the Avengers, it’s interesting to see how this happy-go-lucky teenager sees a world that is, once we really get to explore it, surprisingly different from the real world we live in.

However, the MCU has since spent most of its time exploring what makes Peter special, as opposed to what makes him so relatable—one of the very things that made him such a popular character to begin with.

With Thanos’, the Vulture’s, and Mysterio’s motivations being completely unrelated to Spider-Man’s own motivations in the movies, he doesn’t ever have to question his own motivations, opinions, attitudes, or beliefs, meaning that he doesn’t have to grow.

And when the conflict of the movie does catch up with him, he doesn’t have to think his way out of things in the same way that his comic book counterpart or previous movie iterations have always had to do—someone else will always show up. In Homecoming, it was Iron Man; in Endgame, it was Danvers; and in Far From Home, it was Happy.

And, because these MCU Spider-Man movies all always working within the confines of a larger universe, they have to always spend time setting up conflict for other characters and other movies. This takes away valuable screen time that could otherwise be spent deepening his relationship with other characters, allowing him to explore his own thoughts and feelings, or establishing his character growth.

Taking Spidey out of the MCU will let us go back to basics with his character, so to speak. By necessity, Happy, Danvers, Fury, and the Skrulls won’t be in future movies. If something goes wrong, then, Peter will have to use his own grit and intelligence and resourcefulness to get himself out of his messes, grounding the stories of possible future movies in a sense of realism that’s sense escaped the MCU (for better or worse) and better allowing him to learn and grow from his mistakes.

4. It pairs Peter up with his greatest nemeses/anti-heroes again.  

As great as it was to see Spider-Man team up with Avengers, the most obvious down-side, I don’t think, as missed by anyone: if Spidey’s hanging out with another corporation’s IP, then he’s not allowed to hang around with many of the 900 plus characters developed in his own world.

With Venom being as successful as it was, having Spider-Man under Sony’s banner means that the Venom versus Spider-Man rematch we’ve all been waiting for is all the more likely. We could see the Black Cat cinematic appearance that was teased in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but was never explored. We could see Peter interact with Sable or Kraven the Hunter, both of which have movies in Sony’s line-up. The possibilities are nigh endless.

…

…

…

Or, of course, this could all go down in a giant dumpster fire. But let’s not think about that too much, eh?

#mcu #sony #spider-man #disney v sony #marvel #i'm seriously trying so hard to be optimistic right now guys

[hypeathon]

RWBY Volume 6 Adam Character Short - A Shot-by-Shot Analysis

Trailers and shorts in RWBY are very interesting and unique format as far as works of fictional entertainment go. They can be so tricky to describe that even the show’s late creator, Monty Oum himself, admitted he was not entirely sure what to call the pre-volume 1 trailers at the time they were first released. Whatever you or I call them, these small works can serve various purposes for this serialized web-series. On the one hand, they can give a very thorough idea of how the characters being focused on engages in combat through their movements. At the same time, they can also provide a piece of a character’s story, igniting many theories from within the show’s fan base.

How well a short or trailer can convey either of those aspects or any other ones depends greatly on its presentation. This is why I believe the Adam character short sticks out so well. 

Before RTX, things were dead-silent as to what the future of RWBY’s main story would entail. So when RTX Austin 2018’s first RWBY panel showed the premiere of the Adam Character Short, word had naturally spread about the implied quality. This extended to a handful of fans learning of a snippet of the short without the post-production polish via a stream of the RT Animation Audio panel (oops). But aside from this, there was only so much to interpret. That is until Friday, August 17th, when the piece had officially been released to the general public. With the Adam short being the longest of any of the previous character shorts yet at a whopping 7 minutes, there is a lot to cover regarding both the animation and the visual presentation.

Speaking personally, this is by far the strongest of all the character shorts by far based on one factor: its visual direction. And there’s a strongly implied reason as to why this is. Back on February 12th, RWBY’s director & writer, Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna respectively, as well as RWBY Chibi director, Paula Decanini, took part in an “Ask Me Anything” Session over at the RWBY sub-reddit. It was there when Kerry particularly responded to a question about the matter of “show, don’t tell” by stating that was what stuck with him the most. Love it or hate it, volume 5 left many fans with various mixed emotions, including concern for how the show would visually convey its story in future installments. However, between this character short and the announcement at RTX that Connor Pickens, the lead editor for volumes 3-5 of RWBY being promoted to co-director, these were signs how much Kerry took such particular feedback to heart.

Although it’s one thing to state the short itself applied “show, don’t tell”. It’s a whole other thing to elaborate on all the different ways it was utilized and why it matters. Sadly, there’s no confirmation as to who provided the storyboards, another important role in visual direction. In fairness though, who provides boards for the characters shorts are rarely ever stated to the public with one exception being that Kevin Harger did the ones for the Yang short at the “Just the Fights” RTX panel. What can be confirmed though are the animators confirmed to have been involved with the Adam short, as stated by volume 6 animation director, Joel Mann:

Melanie Stern 

Matt Drury

Joe Vick

Asha Bishi

Hannah Novotny

Michelle Yi

Erika Soosar

Vince Cappelluti

Just like with the matter of “show, don’t tell”, equal concern has been expressed regarding Gen:Lock’s production have more of an influence at Rooster Teeth Animation, leading to certain fan-favorite animators in RWBY’s production being permanently taken away. However, I have gone on record on how vital it is to acknowledge the merits of both newer and veteran talent since like it or not, the former will have more of a presence in RWBY. The Adam character short is especially noteworthy due to not just the number of animators being double that of past shorts, but five of the eight animators were recruited during volume 5′s production while two were recruited during volume 4′s and Melanie Stern, the assistant lead animator for volume 6, was first brought on during volume 3. This makes things both interesting and complicated, the latter of which has to due with how for some animators, there are little-to-no sources confirming who did what in RWBY thus far. Though certain animators have confirmed or at least implied what sequences they did, making for a good opportunity to examine their skills.

With that said, now is the time to decipher how the Adam short stand outs shot-by-shot and scene-by-scene. 

Scene #1: Outside of the Schnee Dust Company Plant

The biggest thing worth talking about in this scene is how the cinematography is in great effect. When Adam is introduced, we don’t just see his model in plain view first thing. We see a shot of his shadow, then his feet, then his mask, and finally a slow pan up to his face as we are teased with not seeing how he actually looks. With reaction shots of the other faunus characters sandwiched in-between, this captures not just importance in Adam’s character for the short itself, but also to his own kind that look up to him. When fans of RWBY think of cinematography, it’s generally believed to not be capable of more then making things prettier. This completely mis-represents the purpose it serves. Cinematography is more about using elements of camera direction, lighting, staging and timing of each shot to help tell the story within a scene. Camera direction as one element, has played a role into helping convey different characters in RWBY since volume 3, as confirmed by certain people in the show’s storyboard and camera layout departments. Ozpin’s level-headed mindset by having the camera point straightforwardly at him, Ironwood’s display of authority from low-angles, Qrow’s drunk nature through the camera tilting, and Nora’s bundle of energy by having the camera dramatically pan and zoom along with her. Their characters have been further utilized by the camera in varied ways and Adam is no different.

Beyond that, one other aspect of visual direction in both this scene and the short in general is the use of transitions, namely the invisible cut. It’s a fairly common trick used in film-making but it has never used in RWBY outside of chapter 9 of volume 2, nor has it been used as consistently until now. More will be talked about this technique, but the gist as to what it greatly presents is the passage of time for Adam’s story.

Scene #2: The forest skirmish between the White Fang and the Humans

Before going over the next scene, it’s worth quickly addressing the setting. Some fans have speculated that too much time and resources may have been spent on the Adam short which could affect the production of volume 6. However, in terms of the models of the environments, specifically the forest set, it seems similar to the set in chapter 4 of volume 5, albeit with more varied placements of trees and open space and different lighting. The same goes for the set in the next scene with Blake and Adam which may have been from the Blake Character short. Although it’s all speculative, these observations can imply that at least on the modeling team’s end, not too much time was spent on the short.

Moving on to the beginning of the sequence itself, one bit that stands out is Sienna’s ears and the way they move. This is actually something seen a little earlier with the one faunus girl when she sees Adam and it’s noteworthy for three reasons. First, while there’s not a lot of information as to how real life tigers communicate through their ears, it’s possibly similar to how house cats use their ears to express various emotions. This in turn leads to the second noteworthy reason, how it adds depth to what certain faunus characters express at a given moment. It can even be seen with Sienna’s character which, assuming such similarities between tigers and cats are there, indicate that Sienna was feeling defensive and alert in the first shot next to Adam. There will be more moments where the animal ears add to a character’s emotion both from Sienna and Blake later on.

The third and final reason this is all worth bringing up is the matter of who animated the beginning of this scene. One animator in RWBY’s production that has made consciously applied movement to animal ears and tails is Asha Bishi. I’ve mentioned before how her way of moving characters, faunus, human, or Grimm, usually feel snappy and lively which makes character acting her greatest strength. And while the character acting is also strong between Ghira, Adam, Sienna and other minior characters here, I’m not positive it’s her. If I were to take a guess, Hannah Novotny may have animated this sequence. Hannah and Asha were both recruited during volume 4′s production and while both are great at providing expression through the characters they animate, the former is slightly less snappy with her movements based on the confirmed shots she did and thus feel a tad slower. That said, she does provide little touches herself when animating scenes like shrinking and shaking of pupils within the eyes and even movement of animal ears, hence my guess.

In the midst of the skirmish, there’s a brief as a bullet hits the window next to Ghira, it leaves off an neat electricity effect. Jumping ahead to when Ghira gets shot with more electricity and aura effects, we get to the first big action sequence in the short and right as he lands on the ground, I love the look of the small dust that forms. The VFX team have expressed in the past taking inspiration from visual effects seen in anime to help compliment RWBY’s aesthetic. They were already accomplishing that by volume 5 in the Anime Skies Fight and I think they almost perfected it here. We’ve definitely come a long way from the days how smoke and dust use to look like in the show.

We then get a quick rotation shot to show where Adam’s target is and according to Matt Drury, this moment is what he animated. He has gone on record as to how much of a fan he is of Adam’s character to the point where he did motion capture for him in volume 5 and even dyed his hair red, and boy, does it show in how he made Adam fight. Between him dashing, parrying, doing jump-inside kicks, and turning around as he crouches to jump for the tree and use it to spring himself across in rapid succession, Adam rides this balance between being using martial arts and being animalistic. The part where he jumps off the tree is an especially good use of squash and stretch and not an example of bad animation, in case anyone considered that. To get a clearer idea of what does and doesn’t make bad animation, Youtube Anime Ajay provided a very insightful video explaining what is and is not bad animation to respond to a practice commonly made by fans in the anime community.

Going back to the short, the camera steadily follows Adam barrel-rolling to the far right, leaving some more good-looking anime dust and then sets some nice staging between him and his enemies in front of him as he blocks their attacks. One quick thing to note is how Adam twirls his weapon with the smear effects. The spinning smears throughout this short have invoked some big groans within the fan base and I would be lying if I didn’t have my minor gripes with it. However, the smear effects themselves are not inherently a problem and there are two instances where I believe it works for different reasons. This is one of them. The reason why it works here is through a combination of where the camera moves and zooms and how Adam’s hand moves is seen twirling the weapon. It’s very subtle when playing in normal speed, but it is there. Really, if there’s anything off about the animation is how the spinning just starts without a slow-in and thus feels a little too instantaneous. Though more will be elaborated on this later.

That tangent aside, what I love is how the camera zooms to angle Adam as being seemingly bigger in perspective compared to both characters he’s blocking bullets from. As icing of the cake, you see the shift in facial expressions from the girl on the right with the hoodie as she expresses being intimidated by Adam and ends up anxious for the girl next to her as she looks to her right. After pinning the one girl in the yellow outfit unconscious, we see a brief yet clean combination of smears and sparks as he blocks another bullet and then he dashes to trip the gray-hoodie girl and hit her in mid-air. As nice as it is to see action scenes done at a break-neck pace, having a moment where a character winds-up before performing a certain action can add more impact. What Adam did as he swung his weapon back before gutting the girl was a classic example of anticipatory action, one of the 12 principles. My only criticism regarding this moment was that I wish the moment where the girl was hit lasted a few frames more. Though it helps that in the next shot, we see the facial expressions of the girl who deeply regrets having faced Adam before being knocked back down to the ground. I can’t help but feel sorry for her in particular.

We then cut to Adam going towards another gunman while swiftly dodging bullets and once again using the tree to his advantage before kicking the latter unconscious. With the bright gunshot effects, because they are so close enough to the center of the camera, it helps makes the speed of Adam’s sidesteps feel somewhat blinding. The only slight problem is the smear effect of Adam’s kicks. Similar to the moment where he kicked the gray-hooded human, both use just red for the smears when they could benefit more from using a combination of red and black to consistently follow with the color of his shoes. But in the grand scheme of everything in motion at normal speed, this is all relatively minor. Then we cut to what is either the end of Matt’s sequence or the start of another animator’s. Either way, the faraway wide shot is really great at showing how unstoppable he is while appropriately charging like a bull. The next set of shots that follow a clever way to make the launch of Adam’s sword show how much force it had to make the girl emit such a reaction when being hit in the gut. Then follows the sword twirling in mid-air and here is where I started having issues with the use of smear animations. Though as I said before, more on that later.

Then there’s the human hiding who gives an anxious facial expression before deciding to fire, effectively displaying the fact he is making a split-second choice. Between what came a couple of shots before and what comes next, Hannah Novotny might have animated these parts. Though it’s somewhat of a shot in the dark based on her tweet of doing some action shots. Speaking of darkness, we then see Adam’s signature slash, which the compositing itself is presented slightly differently from the Black trailer. There, it’s timed so that the darkness fades after he absorbs the laser attack. In this character short though, it’s timed so that it disappears after he strikes. It’s different, but it works well here due to how it blackens his body, making him appear as a silhouette while the background fades to near-black and that all disappears once he draws his swords and strikes, making for great impact. It also helps that the way he’s posing with his back facing the camera and his should in front of him makes him more menacing in a manner akin to that one shot of Neferpitou from Hunter x Hunter.

As the human is struck in the next shot, there’s an interesting effect where the pupils in his eyes disappear that feels like something out of the One Piece anime. Just as an aside to talk about the music, I love how it suddenly stops to add to the shocking effect of Adam having brutally killed someone. Next, in the shot where Ghira and Adam look down at the human, we get really clever staging. Not only are they both framed so that only they follow the rule-of-thirds, but your eyes are easily drawn to the remaining humans that appear behind the tree in the far right and then flee. As the scene follows with Sienna defending Adam and calling him a “hero”, Adam makes a surprised reaction that tells a fair bit considering we can’t register his emotions through his eyes. To close the scene, we get the White Fang members cheering as they walk towards Adam, creating another great invisible cut while Sienna and Ghira stare down.

3) Adam and Blake at the rooftops

I mentioned before that there was another scene I believe Asha Bishi animated and Blake and Adam’s scene is it. At first I was only 70-80 percent sure it was her. But this was before Joel Mann confirmed who animated the short. Since then, I’m now 80-90 percent sure. Much of her tells can be identified here, especially with Blake. The various pupil shifts, the slight expanding and wincing of the eyes, and the abundant character acting with their body language and even Blake’s cat ears.

What I especially liked was the end where her hair is flowing in the wind for two reasons. First, it created an opportunity to show that the strands of.. hair, fur maybe, were flowing from her cat ears, something I’ve admittedly never seen before. It’s a small thing, but it showed a neat attention to detail in the modeling. Second, the way her hair flowed and how her fingers seamlessly dug into them is another sign of how we’ve come a long way from the days where hair when being touched or pull around felt more like large clumps than individual strands that could be felt between the fingers.

We are then shown another invisible cut and by far my favorite one of the fall leaves flowing after the wind gets stronger and harsher, indicating that Blake feels a hidden bit of uncertainty by trusting Adam’s words. These invisible cuts have really excelled at presenting the passage of time in Adam’s story and they reminded me a lot of how the anime Haikyuu used a combination of match cuts and invisible cuts to help visually enhance the story of certain characters. Again, I’m very unsure who provided the storyboards for this short and thus the transitions. Though the invisible cuts may be applied by the editing team. Either way, this is how cinematography is displayed in great effect.

4) Adam, Sienna & Ilia at the White Fang facility

As the short transitions to the second set of action sequences, we are treated to a several-second rotation shot where Sienna flails her chain weapon at her enemies wildly but precisely. Melanie Stern confirmed she animated Sienna fighting and honestly, I had initially thought animator Austin Hardwicke may have done her scenes. So I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong this time. As camera stops to face her, we get more of her cat ears shift, this time to help her confidently stay one step ahead of the Atlesian Knight about to attack her from behind. Next, Sienna uses the mech as a spring board to launch across the hall. Although the camera as she leaps over the Adam and Sienna is zoomed a bit too much and makes the shot feel slightly more claustrophobic than warranted. That being said, moments that follow with Sienna kicking her chain weapon against one mech and then shooting the snapped off arrow-end to the other mech opposite of her are examples of the sequence riding this balance between being chaotic and readable. Sienna delivering her smirk right after also adds a lot to her personality in the limited time we see her fight. 

Now would be a good time to quickly talk about the Atlesian knights themselves. First, while seemingly trivial, it’s an interesting attention to detail to have the electricity around them be red as oppose to a more generic yellow or blue to better match their color scheme. Whether that was the VFX or compositing team’s idea is unclear, but it was neat to see regardless. Second, the way we see one of their feet into the camera after the one prior fell is a brief yet smart way to draw focus to the remaining androids. It also helps that between the White Fang being blurred from afar helps stage the distance between them and their opponents. One thing the camera does consistently well in this entire second fight sequence is stage the distance between characters, as we’ll done again shortly. Moving on, Adam blocks more bullets with with some sword spinning smears, though we do get a bit of slow-in and slow-out smears as he as he draws his sword and again before sheathing it. Then get the staging of the previous shot mentioned in effect as Ilia runs ahead with the camera making a nice low-angle shot with some slight rumbling as it trails her.

Once she finishes her attack, it’s Adam’s turn to run ahead and we see a classic case of slicing a few mechs which cuts pause as he sheathes is sword for dramatic effect. This is where Matt’s other animated sequence in the short is presented and a few things are worth highlighting: First, the slash effects quickly fading one-by-one. Second, the way the ends of Adam’s coat flaps down as a follow-through after he pauses. Third, the way the mechs slightly shifted from where they were cut. And fourth, The way the camera tilts to indicate how much damage was in effect. All of these aspects demonstrated how swift and overwhelming Adam’s attacks were. It also helps to given that quick moment of pause. As I said before in the forest skirmish scene, having a time and place to slow down can make for greater impact on a certain action. The same can go for having a character pause before a certain action is performed as demonstrated here.

The scene then proceeds with a sequence of Adam destroying two Atlesian Knights in quick succession. Right away does this moment one-up the previous one in terms of both direction and animation. With the direction, as Adam shoots his sword, we cut to the hilt hitting the first android and with another example of the camera, perfectly staging the set-up and distance of where Adam’s targets are, The sword being shot and bouncing up also easily draws the viewers eyes to where Adam will go next. We then cut to another shot of the sword twirling in mid-air and here is where the smear animation is best presented in the short. In previous cases, the spinning sword lacks the slow-in and slow-in frames. Here, it properly displays the momentum of the sword as it slows down which leads to the next thing Adam does. Hopefully, this settles the matter that the smear being used at all isn’t the problem, nor is it what it’s referencing to. Rather, it’s about how it’s animated which if you look at various anime, there are a myriad of ways to present smears. Back to the sequence, as Adam jumps to the android and off it by shooting its head, he then kicks the sword in mid-air to the other android in a manner similar to animator Ken’ichi Fujisawa did in a fight scene in Naruto Shippuden.

We end Matt’s animated sequence to move on to the next one where the Schnee Dust Company personnel fire across the hall and we get a nice change to red lighting to signify how treacherous things will get for both sides. As Adam, Sienna and Ilia dodge the bullets, we see some good character acting maintained in how they each take cover. Adam using his sword skills to defend himself, Sienna acrobatically staying out of fire and Ilia clumsily back-stepping which makes her inexperience compared to the former two self-evident. Next is more of Sienna’s tiger ear shifts as she and Adam notice the canister creating some anime smoke screen effects, through they’ve been visually filtered a bit. As Adam and Sienna counterattack, the latter climbs up the wall and jumps off which gives a glimpse of how much her weapon resembles a tail. And following that, we get more of her using her chain weapon to flail the gun she lassoed to knock all three of her enemies around her with slightly chaotic but steady camera shifts,

Next is Adam getting more action through a brief shot of him charging towards the camera which reminded me of how Winter first struck against Qrow in chapter 3 of volume 3. The latter cut was part of animator, Ian Kedward’s sequence in that fight, but I’m unsure of who animated Adam’s portion of this sequence from here-on. Jumping slightly ahead, we get an interesting transition from Adam slicing to Sienna throwing her chain around. Only it’s not completely a transition, but because it’s a split-second and their actions flow well, it feels like one at normal speed. With more of Sienna’s agile moves, she snaps off her arrow again which starts with her facing towards the camera to then cleverly rotate around the arrow to highlight what it’s going to do. Moving ahead, we get one more action moment with Adam, this time with some additional funny character acting from the SDC guard as he tries to dodge the former’s strikes and attempts a right hook only to get schooled by Adam’s hilt again. Though it doesn’t end right there as we see a couple of shots of Adam framed dominantly, about to stab the guard while he’s down and he pleads for his life. Though there’s an excellent delayed reaction where Adam responds to Sienna’s call as if he got caught up in the blood lust. This short has been a good opportunity in general to add character to Adam and Sienna through just their facial expressions alone.

5) Adam and Sienna in the Throne Room

After all is said an done, we get another invisible cut to the throne room with another White Fang member running across the SDC facility hall. It would’ve been funny if it’s the same member that did the invisible cut after the forest scene, but they have different skin tones so that’s sadly not the case. In all seriousness, we don’t get any visual direction that’s too daring aside from the establishing overhead shot starting the sequence. An interesting observation is how in comparison, the seen that first introduced Sienna in volume 5 had he and Adam’s positions mirrored only she’s on her throne and Adam’s kneeling. This may visually support the fact Sienna was considering treating Adam as her equal in the future, so long as he did overstep his boundaries.

Not much else to add before moving on to the next short sequence through a transition that’s not an invisible cut but is something more like a jump cut? It’s honestly hard to describe, but it does go along with the motif of passage of time. One other thing to mention is the flame and how it’s animated. it doesn’t feel at all like a 3-D visual effect and is instead more like it was animated in 2-D with some filtering effects. Beyond that, not much else to add for the remainder of the short, though that’s not a bad thing since a moment of rest is needed to close off after two extensive action scenes. The only two things worth stating have to do with Adam. First is how when Adam is on the throne, there’s one shot where he is of distance from the White Fang members and another where we don’t see his full body from behind the throne. Both indicate the relationship between him and his followers. At this point in his story, he is less concerned about looking out for his fellow kind as he is about stroking his ego. To conclude, we get the most ironically-funny shot in the short where Adam gets exactly what he deserves and walks off leaving his mask behind feeling defeated. Some would find the choice to have him animated walking awkwardly to be strange when connecting to his last scene in volume 5. But in the context of the story of his character short, it works thematically.

Final Note

This was quite a short to cover, but there was so much packed in that both reinforced some things spoken by Blake before about Adam’s character while still peppering in insight into his psyche through a combination of facial expressions, adjustments to his line of dialogue and the in-genius transitioning techniques used. And there were still a couple more small details that weren’t fully covered like the red markings in Adam’s design added after the first scene or Ghira’s slightly younger character model. The visual direction demonstrated in just 7 minutes how in-spite of his hostile streak, Adam’s shift from the White Fang hero looked up to by his people to the tyrant whose thirst for power and dominance made his own followers turn on him.

While the short not totally perfect, its storyboards outmatch even the Weiss character short, which is saying a lot considering it was one of my favorites. It’s still a shame we don’t know who did the boards, but between them, Kerry and Connor, the ideas definitely payed off. The animators themselves also cannot be commended enough for the effort they poured into the short. There have been a few newer recruits being recognized by other more veteran animators, including Erika Soosar, John Yang, Michelle Yi and Jason Dickol. With Matt Drury added as another name, I do hope more fans will keep an eye out for them. Though none of this is to leave out the other animators involved with this short whose shots were unconfirmed, as they deserve to be kept an eye on in the future.

No doubt will there continue be criticisms and concern regarding the short though, as many wonder whether this will hinder on volume 6′s overall production. While the debate is a whole other subject for another day, it’s worth bearing in mind for now that shorts and volumes are two different things and the scale between them in terms of skill-set and more importantly, management, are night and day. For now, I intend to keep enjoying this short for both its story and as a potential sample of things to come.

#rwby #rwby6 #rwby spoiers #rwby analysis #crwby #production analysis #rwby production analysis #analysis #shot-by-shot #shot #kerry shawcross #kerry #shawcross #joel mann #joel #mann #matt drury #matt #drury #melanie stern #melanie #stern

[jacereviews]

Review: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Television (Anime) Consumed in: English Sub Note: This review covers only the 50 episodes of TV Zeta, not A New Translation. For the sake of discussion I will have to cover the plot of Gundam 0079.

March 2nd, 1985 the second series of Gundam made its debut, Zeta Gundam. While the 0079 movies may have put Gundam on the map, it’s Zeta you still hear people discussing to this day. Revered by many as a classic, and one of the best mecha anime of the 80s, Zeta’s a big name, but does it hold up to it? Let’s rock.

PLOT: Universal Century 0087, the One-Year War between the Earth Federation and Zeon is long over, however peace is not to be had. In response to the remnants of Zeon, the federation has created a police-like military organization called the Titans to control Zeon and other spacenoid groups to prevent them from uprising and resisting the Federation’s control. To do this the Titans have been given borderline free reign to do whatever they see fit to do their job, no matter how atrocious it may be. In response to the unchecked reign of the titans, a resistance group called the Anti-Earth Union Group (or simply AEUG) has risen up to fight back. During an AEUG mission led the mysterious blonde pilot who always covers his eyes and his past named Quattro Bajeena to the colony Green Noa, a young man called Kamille Bidan steals a prototype Gundam Mk. II belonging to the Titans. The two cross paths and Kamille ultimately ends up joining Quattro on the Argama as it sails out to fight the Titans. From the get-go we have a story both similar and dissimilar to the prior series. Once again we have a young man piloting a Gundam on a white ship as it battles enemies, but instead of being a traditional soldier, we’re now following a rebellion. It takes awhile for the plot to get truly moving, but when it goes it goes. The Titans are a hateable cast of villains, unlike the Zeon of the first series the Titans are mostly irredeemable. The Titan cast is likeable at best and cartoonishly evil at worst. There was never a Ramba Ral style villain where it felt like that without the war they’d be our friend. As it goes on the plot gets more and more interesting with webs of betrayals, cyber-newtypes, and even the remnants of Zeon. Especially of note is the ending of Zeta, which without going into detail, is both narratively satisfying, thematically resonant, and quite shocking for a series aimed at young audiences. Very few series have an ending that really make me sit back and consider it like Zeta’s and that’s a good thing for Zeta. However the story is not without its flaws. The first 10 episodes can be kind of a drag, and the once again episodic format can lead to some weak and borderline filler episodes. I feel the series could’ve shaved off 10 episodes and be better for it. The biggest problem I had with Zeta however, is the amount of things that happen off-screen and details the series feels like it doesn’t need to give to the audience. Many a times I found myself confused or questioning stuff and just had to concluding that some change happened off-screen. Characters swap ships on both sides with little notice, and operations fly by with people hardly mentioning it. It made the whole experience way less cohesive. The series also had a few cases of trying to emulate the original series for no good reason, such as bringing kids on board the Argama half-way through. It made sense for the White Base to have kids but the Argama really didn’t need them and it just felt like poor decision making. However by the end I felt that the pluses far outshine the negatives and ultimately lead to this series being one hell of a ride. 

8/10, it’s good, messy, but good. Ending earns a whole point on its own.

CHARACTERS: Let’s start with Kamille Bidan himself. Kamille starts off as an obnoxious brat, a lot of my early enjoyment was seeing people beat the shit out of him, but he honestly grew on me, and by the end he’d gone through quite the character arc. He’s a good mc, but takes a damn long time to become that. Luckily he’s not alone. Let’s discuss the overly familiar looking Quattro Bajeena, doesn’t that scar look familiar? Might he be the Red Comet of Zeon? No he can’t be... But he is definitely a highlight of the series. The audience is invested in him from the get-go, and throughout the series we see him mentoring Kamille and doing some amazing stuff in his own right. He’s only human and has his flaws too, but whatever flaws they may be are something you forget when you see his speech during the Day of Dakar. Zeta’s also notable (by the audience and Kamille) for its sizeable female cast. Emma, Reccoa, and Fa Yuriy are all notable female characters put in powerful roles. Even if Reccoa’s later arc may inspire some ire from viewers they’re all great characters with their own interesting arcs. Another thing I’ve got to give Zeta a lot of credit is for how it used the returning characters from the first series. My boy Bright Noa shows up in episode 1, and many of the White Base members make some kind of reappearance (not really a spoiler because it’s in the opening). We get to see how they’ve lived their lives since the events of 0079, and they have many interesting scenes without it ever feeling like the series is too dependent on them (save for Bright). The problem I had with Zeta characters, is a lot of them act out and act irrationally. Now this isn’t necessarily bad character writing, but when someone acts out and takes a mech, does something stupid with it, and the next day is piloting a mech again it raises a few eyebrows. It can also get obnoxious with how many characters are being overly emotional twats, but I never found any of the Argama crew to be entirely irredeemable idiots. They were just flawed people in a stressful situation. The Titans on the other hand had what I felt to be a relatively lacking cast. While the character of Jerid and his varied love interests were all likeable, with Jerid himself being a standout likeable douche, aside from Jerid they didn’t get character arcs. Otherwise like Titans consisted of pitiable cyber-newtypes, hand-rubbing schemers, and straight up assholes. Aside from the cyber-newtypes none were very redeemable. The cyber-newtype Murasame Four was notable but limited by her limited screen time. They tried to make Paptimus Scirroco into a new Char, but he just felt way less interesting than Zeon’s red comet. The ultimate leader of the Titans, Jamitov, was just a bog standard evil politician. All in all only Jerid and Four were interesting characters, and only Jerid lived up to much potential. While you didn’t have any Garmas or Ramba Rals to make the war seem like a curse causing good people to die on either side, the Titans did fill the role of hateable villain well. Without going into too much detail, I do want to give a shoutout to Haman Karn. She was a rather engaging character but pretty much everything about her involves spoilers.

8/10, a lot of good characters, a lot of hateable villains, but most of the best characters are repeats from 0079.

VISUALS: Now probably the biggest improvement from 0079 is the animation. The noticeable errors of 0079 are gone, replaced with some truly gorgeous and fluid animation. Zeta has a lot of sakuga packing, and when it wants to move well it damn does. However when it doesn’t care it’ll freely use a lot of cheap tricks that the skilled eye will notice, but what doesn’t? The actual art of the series I’m less in love with. There were less moments of truly interesting visuals than 0079, but being okay is okay. The character designs were mostly fine, with a few (Jamaican in particular) being very dull. The mecha design is a mixed bag with me. The designs feel way less varied than 0079, with a lot of mechs feeling like the same skeleton with different overly ornate decorations. As cool as they looked I found myself just shaking my head and saying “Really?” at some of the more over-ornate designs. However the thing that bugged me the most was the Titans using Zeon-esque mechs. Being part of the Earth Federation you’d assume they’d use Federation mechs, but instead they use mechs designed like their original enemies. This didn’t make much sense outside of the meta-reasoning “Villain mechs in Gundam need the domed one-eye design.” However everything I’m saying is simply nitpicks. 

7/10, at worst we have functional art that suspends disbelief, at best we have gorgeous animation.

AUDIO: In all honesty, I don’t remember much of Zeta’s soundtrack which is an okay sign. What I do remember is pretty decent but nothing ever stuck out to me except the first opening. The first opening was a rather enjoyable song, the second was very mediocre. The ending theme for the whole time was entirely forgettable as you’re skipping to the next episode anyway. Sound design wise everything sounded fine and natural, despite sound effects in space. Voice acting was passable. Most of the voices fit well with no real stand out performances in my opinion. The voice of Bask Oum was notable for sounding overtly evil, so that was nice. However there were some voices that were not so great on minor characters. Every time the minor character Sydle talked I just wanted her to stop talking. Luckily she was incredibly minor.

6/10, functional with a demerit or two.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

While not the perfect masterpiece many claim it to be, Zeta Gundam is something I’d personally recommend. With a powerful delivery of themes and a strong follow up to a good series, Zeta’s a fantastic watch. There’s a lot of great to be had here, though sadly the execution of the ideas is far from perfect. Held back by some bumps, Zeta nonetheless stands out as an excellent story animated quite well. The ending alone makes me want to raise the score even higher, but a show is more than it’s last five episodes. I now set out to continue my Gundam Quest with ZZ. I’ll probably get a lot of flack for rating the quintessential 80′s mecha so low, but don’t let a number understate how much I love this series.

#gundam #mobile suit gundam #mecha #classics #classic anime #anime #anime review #zeta gundam #kamille bidan

[bellewatches]

Apple Watch Series 5 review: the best smartwatch

Apple Watch Series 5 review: the best smartwatch Here it is. It's the new Apple Watch Series 5. It's-- you know what, it's great. I've used a lot of different smartwatches in my life, and this one is the best. If you have an iPhone and you can afford the $399 starting price, there is nothing better. So, like, I know. I gave away the whole review at the top of the video. But keep watching because I do want to tell you what's new in the Series 5 and also what's new in watchOS 6, but I also want to see if we can just figure out why no other smartwatch is even close to catching up to this. All right. So, what is new with the Series 5, at least, compared to the Series 4 from last year? Honestly, it's not that much, just three things, really. Okay, well, four if you count that Apple's offering more material options for the casing. You can get it in aluminum, steel, titanium, and ceramic. This one is aluminum, and physically, it's identical to the Series 4, which was already great. They have larger screens than the older models of the Apple Watch, and the screen is the second thing that's really new with the Series 5. It's always on. Finally. See, both the Series 5, and actually the Series 4, have a special kind of OLED screen that Apple developed. It's a low temperature, polycrystalline oxide, or LTPO for short. What does that mean? Well, it means, like, pixel and screen stuff like electron mobility. What really matters is that the Series 5 has a bunch of other chips that let it have a variable screen refresh rate, so the Series 5 can change the pixels on the screen as often as 60 times a second or as little as once per second. That lets this use radically less power than other screens. You know, your watch doesn't need to be refreshing that often when it's just sitting there in ambient mode, and that saves battery life. So now, instead of the screen just being off, it shows a dimmed version of your watch face, and it actually even still has some color, which other smartwatches don't do. And the, of course, when you raise your wrist up, it goes ooh, full color, just like any other Apple Watch. But all this means is you can check the time without being, you know, that jerk who obviously looks at his watch in the middle of a conversation with somebody. Now, the big question is does that always-on screen hurt the battery life? And my answer is that it doesn't seem to hurt much. Apple claims that this still gets the same 18 hours of battery life that every Apple Watch is supposed to get. And it does for me, even with kind of heavy usage. But it doesn't get much more than that. Last year, Series 4 actually outperformed that 18-hour claim. Bottom line, you should plan on charging the Apple Watch every day. And yes, I know that there are smartwatches that last weeks or even months, but none of them can do what the Apple Watch can. The third new thing is a built-in compass, and it works well and even gives you this neat thing called a confidence cone that gets narrower as it becomes more confident in where north is exactly. Now, if you have a magnetic watch band, that can mess with it a bit, but, you know, magnets. That's how they work. The fourth new thing is that there are more cellular bands on the cellular version, which means that it can do emergency calling internationally. Now, you should know that doesn't mean that it'll work for regular cell phone Apple Watch stuff, though. Apple still needs to make carrier deals for that to work. So, new materials, always-on screen, compass, and international emergency calling. All in all, that's a really minor update, but you know what? It doesn't matter because the Apple Watch is so far ahead of the competition. I think there's a few reasons for that. One is the processor. Apple is just way better at making processors for smartwatches than anybody else. Another is integration. Apple lets the Apple Watch do Apple stuff with the Apple iPhone that it won't let other companies like Fitbit or Wear OS or Samsung or Withings do, like replying to iMessages. Only the Apple Watch can do that. But also, watchOS is just really good. The new version here is watchOS 6, and it's gonna land on every Apple Watch except the very, very first one. Now, inside this, there are new watch faces, as usual. I like that you can set more of them to just be a single color. I do wish that there were more watch faces, or, really, that there were third-party options. I could get a pretty good face on this watch, but I can't get the perfect watch face for me. The biggest new feature in watchOS is the App Store, which lets you install apps without having to, you know, pull out your phone, except for the first time that you use the App Store on the Apple Watch, where you have to enter your password on your phone. And then sometimes, you install apps on the Apple Watch, and it needs its, like, parent app on the phone in order to work for the first time. It's not completely independent yet, is what I'm saying. Now, it is nice to be able to install an app in a pinch directly on your watch, I guess, but this big-deal feature is not really a big deal to me. Maybe when the Apple Watch gets a little bit more independent from the iPhone, it'll matter more. Then there's the cycles app, which lets you log and track menstrual activity. Now, this app isn't for me, but I will say that I wish Apple had paid more attention to women's health sooner. Still, though, talking to people at Apple, it's clear that they put some care into this app. It's scientifically cautious, and it's thoughtful in its design. So, it could help you track information that could be useful for you or for your doctor. But look, fertility can be a really hard thing, so if you're using it with kids in mind, you should talk to your doctor before doing anything with the information that it provides. Let's see. What else? Siri. Siri is here, and it can identify songs. It can also bring up search results from the web and lets you click into the webpages. And my favorite thing ever with the Apple Watch is still that you can load little tiny, itty bitty webpages on it. It's kind of fun. Oh, one other thing. There is an option for the watch to detect ambient noise levels and warn you if it's too loud for safety over a long period of time, plus I just like watching the noise meter go up and down. It proves to me that the train that I ride every day is too damn loud. The main thing that's missing for me is sleep tracking, which for me and my health is much more important than closing a standing ring or whatever. There are third-part apps, though. I use Sleep++, but it seems like a pretty obvious thing for Apple to add next year. Okay, so, why is the Apple Watch so far ahead? It's not that it has an LTPO screen or a noise meter or really any one of the features that I just mentioned in this review. It's the fact that I'm talking about features in this way at all. With every other smartwatch, and I'm not talking about the Garmin, Wilderness, Hiking, Sporting, Mountaineering, whatever watches. I mean, like, wrist computers. With those things, I usually have to check whether it can last more than 12 hours or whether it can open apps in less than 10 seconds or respond to a text message or if the software is buggy as hell. All that stuff was actually pretty bad in the very first Apple Watch, but it quickly got turned around, so now, Apple gets to work on filling out more advanced features. It's like the Apple Watch is in high school and is taking AP courses while everybody else is repeating the seventh grade for the third time. Sure, the Apple Watch hasn't reached anything close to its full potential yet, but right now, this thing is an overachiever. ♪ Ah, that's still going ♪ ♪ Ah, can't take the watch to it ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ (Laughing) Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know in the comments if you're getting an Apple Watch, and if you're an Android user, let me know what you think you could do 'cause I don't have a good smartwach answer for you. Also, if you missed it, Neil and I reviewed the iPhones yesterday, and you should definitely check those videos out. here it is it's the new Apple watch Series five it's you know what it's great I've used a lot of different smartwatches in my life and this one is the best if you have an iPhone and you can afford the $399 starting price there is nothing better so like I know I gave away the whole review at the top of the video but keep watching because I do want to tell you what's new in the series five and also what's new and watch OS six but I also want to see if we could just figure out why no other Smart Watch is even close to catching up to this all right so what is new with the series five at least compared to the series four from last year honestly it's not that much just three things really ok well four if you count that Apple's offering more material options for the casing you can get it in aluminum steel titanium and ceramic this one is aluminum and physically it's identical to the series 4 which was already great they have larger screens than the older models of the Apple watch and the screen is the second thing that's really new at the series 5 it's always on finally see both the series 5 and actually the series 4 have a special kind of OLED screen that Apple developed it's a low-temperature polycrystalline oxide or LTP oh for short what does that mean well it means the pixel and screen stuff like electron mobility what really matters is that the series 5 has a bunch of other chips that let it have a variable screen refresh rate so the series 5 can change the pixels on the screen as often as 60 times a second or as little as once per second that lets this use radically less power than other screens you know your watch doesn't need to be refreshing that often when it's just sitting there in ambient mode and that saves battery life so now instead of the screen just being off it shows a dimmed version of your watch face and it actually even still has some color which other smartwatches don't do and then of course when you raise your wrist up it goes full color just like any other Apple watch but all this means that you can check the time without being you know that jerk who obviously looks at his watch in the middle of a conversation with somebody now the big question is does that always on-screen hurt the battery life and my answer is that it doesn't seem to hurt much apple claims that this still gets the same 18 hours of battery life that every Apple watch is supposed to get and it does for me even with kind of heavy usage but it doesn't get much more than that last year series 4 actually outperformed that 18 hour claim bottom line you should plan on charging the Apple watch every day and yes I know that there are smart watches that last weeks or even months but none of them can do what the Apple watch can the third new thing is a built-in compass and it works well and it even gives you this neat thing called a confidence cone that gets narrower as it becomes more confident to where North is exactly now if you have a magnetic watch band that can mess with it a bit but you know magnets that's how they work the fourth new thing is that there are more cellular bands on the cellular version which means that it can do emergency calling internationally now you should know that does it mean that it'll work for regular cellphone Apple watch stuff though Apple still needs to make carrier deals for that to work so new materials always on-screen compass and international emergency calling all in all that's a really minor update but you know what it doesn't matter because the Apple watch is so far ahead of the competition I think there's a few reasons for that one is the processor Apple is just way better at making processors for smartwatches than anybody else another is integration Apple lets the Apple watch do Apple stuff with the Apple iPhone then it won't let other companies like Fitbit or where OS or Samsung or Withings do like replying to eye messages only the Apple watch can do that but also watch OS is just really good the new version here is watch OS 6 and it's gonna land on every Apple watch except the very very first one now inside this there are new watch faces as usual I like that you can set more of them to just be a single color I do wish that there are more watch faces or really that there were third party options I could get a pretty good face on this watch but I can't get the perfect watch face for me the biggest new feature in watch OS is the App Store which lets you install apps without having to you know pull out your phone except for the first time that you use the app store on the Apple watch where you have to enter your password on your phone and then sometimes you install apps on the Apple watch and it needs it's like parent app on the phone in order to work for the first time it's not completely independent yet is what I'm saying now it is nice to be able to install an app in a pinch directly on your watch I guess but this big deal feature is not really a big deal to me maybe when the Apple watch gets a little bit more independent from the iPhone it'll matter more then there's the cycles app which lets you log and track menstrual activity now this app isn't for me but I will say that I wish Apple had paid more attention to women's health sooner still though talking to people at Apple it's clear that they put some care into this app it's scientifically cautious and it's thoughtful in its design so it could help you track information that could be useful for you or for your doctor but look fertility can be a really hard thing so if you're using it with kids in mind you should talk to your doctor before doing anything with the information that it provides let's see what else Siri Siri is here and it can identify songs it can also bring up search results from the web and let you click into the webpages and my favorite thing ever with the Apple watch is still that you can load little tiny itty-bitty web pages on it it's kind of fun oh one other thing there is an option for the watch to detect ambient noise levels and warn you if it's too loud for safety over a long period of time plus I just I like watching the noise meter go up and down it proves to me that the train that I ride everyday is too damn loud the main thing that's missing for me is sleep tracking which for me and my health is much more important than closing a standing ring whatever there are third-party apps though I use sleep plus plus but it seems like a pretty obvious thing for Apple to add next year okay so why is the Apple watch so far ahead it's not that it has an LTP OH screen or a noise meter or really any one of the features that I just mentioned in this review it's the fact that I'm talking about features in this way at all with every other SmartWatch and I'm not talking about the Garmin wilderness hiking sporting mountaineering whatever watches I mean like wrist computers with those things I usually have to check whether it can last more than 12 hours or whether it can open apps in less than 10 seconds or respond to a text message or if the software is buggy as hell all that stuff was actually pretty bad on the very first Apple watch but it quickly got turned around so now Apple gets to work on filling out more advanced features it's like the Apple watches in high school and it's taking AP courses while everybody else is repeating this 7th grade for the third time sure the Apple watch hasn't reached anything close to its full potential yet but right now this thing is an overachiever hey everybody thank you so much for watching let me know in the comments if you're getting an Apple watch and if you're an Android user let me know what you think you can do because I don't have a good SmartWatch answer for you also if you missed it and you know I reviewed the iPhones yesterday and you should definitely check those videos out Read the full article

[charger-batteries]

Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max Review

2020 is an anxious year. If that anxiety manifests for you in worrying that your smartphone will run out of charge, you might want to consider upgrading to the iPhone 12 Pro Max ($1,099 and up), a giant serving platter of a handset with the longest battery life of any iPhone, ever. It's also the largest, heaviest iPhone to date, and one of the most expensive, which makes it hard to recommend over our Editors' Choice award winners, the iPhone 12 mini ($699 and up) and the iPhone 12 Pro ($999 and up).

Before I continue, I should note that we also have reviews of the aforementioned iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro, as well the iPhone 12 ($799 and up). These phones are comparable in many respects—with similar screen technologies, the same processor, and iOS 14—so here I'll focus on how the Pro Max is different from its siblings. If one of your questions about the iPhone experience isn't answered below, see our main iPhone 12 review.

It's a Big 'Un

Apple has had big phones for several years now, but the 12 Pro Max is even bigger. At 6.33 by 3.07 by 0.29 inches (HWD) and 8.03 ounces, it's slightly taller and heavier than the iPhone 11 Pro Max (6.22 by 3.06 by 0.32 inches, 7.97 ounces), and noticeably bigger and heavier than the iPhone XS Max (6.2 by 3.05 by 0.3 inches, 7.34 ounces). Like the 12 Pro, the Pro Max comes in your choice of dark blue, gold, gray, or silver, with a matte back and a shiny metal band around the edge.

The 12 Pro Max isn't the biggest popular flagship on the market, but it might be the heaviest. For starters, it's a whole 3.2 ounces heavier than the iPhone 12 mini. The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is taller at 6.49 by 3.04 by 0.32 inches, but lighter at 7.34 ounces. That said, the Note 20 Ultra has real differentiators from Samsung's other phones in terms of stylus and camera capabilities. The Pro Max just isn't far enough from the 12 Pro in terms of power to justify the chonk.

One thing you get from the grand size is immediately evident: a 6.7-inch OLED screen. It's noticeably larger than the display on the other iPhones, and slightly brighter than the one on the iPhone 12 and 12 mini, at 800 maximum nits versus 625 for the lower-cost devices. All of the phones are quite usable in sunlight.

I use the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra as my primary work camera, as well as to test 5G bandwidth, so I've had my hands on a big phone a lot recently. Big phones are great for tired eyes and awful for tired hands. Text and icons on the 12 Pro Max's screen can be bigger than on other iPhones, or they can be the same size and give you added real estate. The phone's 2,778-by-1,284 resolution has over 200 vertical pixels more than the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, which makes for an additional readable headline on NYTimes.com, or a few more lines of a PDF.

But I just can't use phones like this with one hand. My thumb doesn't reach across the screen, no matter how I position the phone. This creates a considerable problem when trying to take pictures with one hand if I want to use tap-to-focus, because there's just no way to reach the whole screen to tap. The phone fills up the pocket of my jeans entirely, and it's really heavy. It feels like a powerful tool, to be sure, but it doesn't feel like a handheld device.

Big Phone, Big Sound, Big Battery

The Pro Max has the same Apple A14 processor, running at 3GHz, as the other iPhone 12 models. The Pro and Pro Max have 6GB of RAM; the 12 and 12 mini have 4GB. The Pro models come in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage capacities, while the lower-cost phones come in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB levels.

The phone scores almost exactly the same on the Geekbench benchmark as the other iPhone 12 series phones, with a single-core score of 1,600 and a multi-core score of 4,099. It also scores much like the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro on most graphics benchmarks. The Pro Max did better than the other iPhones on Basemark Web, with a score of 656 compared with 600 to 602 for the other models, possibly reflecting its bigger canvas. It did a little worse on the GFXBench Car Chase onscreen benchmark, at 44fps versus 52–56fps for the other models, reflecting that it's harder to fill the bigger canvas.

In terms of connectivity, the Pro Max is on par with the other iPhone models. It can handle any form of 4G or 5G currently available in the US and Canada. Like the other models, it has dual-SIM capabilities with one SIM being an eSIM, so you can load a second subscription or number while traveling.

Tested with a very weak 5GHz Wi-Fi signal, the Pro Max didn't do any better than the iPhone 12 or 12 Pro. A bigger phone in this case doesn't mean better antennas; it just means better battery life.

It does mean slightly better speakers, though. I don't have a decibel meter on hand, but the iPhone 12 Pro Max feels like it has slightly bigger sound than the 12 Pro does. The iPhone 12 series in general all have terrific speakers for phones; you're not going to get a lot of bass, but they're relatively rich on the treble.

The Pro Max's greatest strength and major sales point is its battery life. At 3,687mAh, the 12 Pro Max's battery is actually a little smaller than the 11 Pro Max's, but the phone gets much longer battery test times because of more efficient hardware and software.

I primarily compared it with the other iPhone 12 models. Using our video rundown test, I got 10 hours, 37 minutes on the iPhone 12 mini; 12 hours, 24 minutes on the iPhone 12; 12 hours, 22 minutes on the 12 Pro; and a whopping 15 hours, 29 minutes on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. That's a major upgrade.

Looking at battery usage in the background, I let each phone sit for 14 hours overnight. The Pro Max lost 6% of its charge while the Pro lost 8% and the Mini lost 9%. (While I ran this test, I was doing something else with the iPhone 12, but the standard 12 and 12 Pro have the same screen and battery sizes, so I'd expect them to have similar results.) That's an advantage for anyone who forgets to plug their phone in.

Like all the other phones in the series, the iPhone 12 Pro Max doesn't come with a charger. Here's how to charge your iPhone 12.

High-End Cameras and Pro Photo Features

On paper, the Pro Max's camera has some advantages over all the other iPhone 12 cameras. The Pro Max has three rear lenses: a 12-megapixel, f/1.6 main camera; a 12-megapixel, f/2.4 ultrawide camera; and a 12-megapixel, f/2.2 2.5x zoom lens. That's a greater zoom than the iPhone 12 Pro's 2x sensor, although it collects a little less light (the 12 Pro is f/2.0). The front-facing 12-megapixel camera is the same on all the iPhone 12 models.

The Pro and Pro Max support bokeh Portrait mode at night; the mini and 12 do not. The Pro Max is the only phone in the lineup with sensor-shift image stabilization, which moves the sensor when the phone jerks or is bumped. Combined with the phone's LiDAR sensor (which is also on the Pro), that's supposed to deliver superior night shots.

Perhaps I'm just not enough of a pro photographer for the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but aside from the nominal increase in zoom, I just don't see any advantage of the Max over the smaller and less expensive iPhone 12 Pro in the photos I took.

Setting aside zoom, I see two advantages of either Pro phone over the less expensive 12 and the mini: the Night mode with bokeh, and the LiDAR-aided focus lock, which helped generally in close-up shots and in Portrait-mode shots of non-human objects such as a mug and an apple. (I didn't see any difference between the Pro and non-Pro phones in daylight, portrait-mode shots of humans.)

Shots taken with the Pro Max in low light, at f/1.6, look the same as shots taken with the iPhone 12 or even the mini. Night mode shots are also hard to tell apart.

The iPhone Pro line has some super-high-level camera features that the lower-cost iPhones don't, specifically ProRAW mode and Dolby Vision video capture at very high resolutions and frame rates. And the iPhone 12 Pro Max's large battery make it a good daylong companion if you're putting it on a tripod and shooting a ton of 4K video. I don't think of that as a tremendously common use for iPhone owners, though, putting the Pro Max's camera improvements at the level of niche appeal.

To give a counterexample of when a big, expensive phone does have a meaningful camera improvement, look back at the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. There, a 5x optical zoom camera, not available on the S20 or S20+, gives you an entirely new perspective on the world, and the autofocus is considerably improved over the lower-priced phones.

To some extent, this is a win for Apple: I'm saying that the cameras on the $699 iPhone 12 mini are so good that the $1,099 iPhone 12 Pro Max isn't that much of a step up. But this doesn't help sell Pro Maxes.

Do You Need to Go Max?

I come to this review with a strong bias. If you've been reading my phone reviews for the past 15 years, first of all, thank you, and second of all, you know I've never been a fan of very large phones. I like my phones to be usable one-handed, out in the world, while my other hand is holding a child's hand or a shopping bag. For an exceedingly large, super-expensive phone to get my pick, it really needs to deliver groundbreaking features, like the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra does with its stylus and 5x zoom camera.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max doesn't get there for me. It costs $100 more than the iPhone 12 Pro, and it's less portable and easy to hold. Yes, it has very long battery life, but for the same price you can get an iPhone that actually fits in your hand and a supplementary battery to keep in your bag or your car. I find a stronger argument for the Pro Max for people who have very large hands and fingers, or people who have visual issues and find larger text and icons more usable. There's nothing wrong with the iPhone 12 Pro Max; it's just not the iPhone 12 with the broadest appeal.

Of this year's four new iPhones, I recommend the iPhone 12 mini (which costs $400 less than this phone) as the best overall value, and the iPhone 12 Pro for people who see the 2x zoom camera as a must. But if battery anxiety leads you to this half-pound phone, do whatever helps you get through this very stressful year.

[rachelkaser]

Gears 5 is an experiment -- one that (mostly) failed

Gears 5 is a game from a studio that really wants to try new things. It’s a new entry in a very entrenched franchise that tries to bolt said new things onto an established-to-the-point-of-obstinancy gameplay formula. It’s an interesting experiment -- and, though the experiment wasn’t successful, I think it does set some important groundwork for the next game.

There were quite a number of franchise games that came out this year that excelled specifically because they returned us to the kind of gameplay we’re used to from them -- Kingdom Hearts 3 brought its JRPG madness after years of development hell, Devil May Cry 5 tripled down on its over-the-top action. Hell, Ubisoft basically slapped some pink paint on Far Cry 5 and shoved it out the door as Far Cry New Dawn and it was perfectly acceptable.

All Gears 5 had to do was basically that: Give us more of the same gameplay we’ve had all along, and we’d have gobbled it up. So I actually am surprised that developers The Coalition have chosen to experiment with it as much as they did.

But here’s the thing: While I do think the attempts to add new spice to the formula didn’t work out in this instance, I think they could if they were properly incorporated into the game. I’m not using the word “failed” to mean the game was bad -- because it wasn’t bad. But it definitely tried some new stuff, and failed to successfully incorporate that new stuff into the final product. With a few select changes, I think it could definitely pull it off better when it’s time for Gears 6.

Empty lands

The biggest new change is, of course, the open world. I’ve already expounded on most of my thoughts in my review for The Next Web, but I’ll add one thing I didn’t cover there: The characters don’t interact with each other nearly enough to justify the empty spaces. Especially during the second (and final) open level where you’re parasailing around this Mars-like red hellscape with four of the main characters packed onto the vehicle together, and they’ll say maybe ten words to each other. I feel they could have done more to alleviate the boredom.

This wouldn’t be a huge problem -- the story moments serve to build the character relationships sufficiently -- except when it comes to the final moments of the game. Then the game takes a very sharp turn into territory it has heretofore not tried.

I’m going to drop some truly epic *SPOILERS* here, so consider yourself warned.

In the final moments of the game, heroine Kait Diaz is attempting to fight off the Swarm Queen, a.k.a. her imperfectly resurrected mother Reyna. The Queen somehow manages to snatch up Kait’s two best friends, JD Fenix and Del Walker. Because she only has one knife to throw at their tentacle-y restraints (long story) she can only save one of them.

Okay. So. Two problems with this.

Problem One: The Options

I imagine that, when the developers were drafting the story for this game, there was a moment when one of the staffers raised their hands and asked the obvious question: “Why would anyone want to save Del?”

It would have been a fair question, too. While Del is a perfectly likable companion, JD is both the son of series hero Marcus Fenix and was himself the protagonist of the last game. Kait was without question always going to be the player character for Gears 5 -- Gears 4 was already her story, and I’m sure The Coalition realized what a splash it’d be to have the main character of the latest in this notoriously testosterone-fueled franchise be a woman. But still, going into Gears 5, JD will have made far more headway with the average player than Del.

So what’s the solution? The Coalition appears to have taken a two-pronged approach to solving this problem, stemming from the same incident. In the prologue of the game, JD instigates a disastrous Hail Mary attack in an attempt to get his squad unpinned in a big battle, which results in the death of Lizzy Carmine. After this incident, he becomes positively Byronic with his perpetual broodiness and bad mood.

To compound this sudden personality change, he’s retroactively revealed to have been part of a major war crime (that apparently took place between games, because I don’t recall it ever being mentioned before), in which he ordered his fellow Gears to fire on civilians. Needless to say, this turns Del against him, and his hostility towards Kait over his suspicions about her lineage alienates her as well.

While this is happening, Del proves himself to be a true mensch, siding with Kait and accompanying her on her quest to find out how she’s related to the Swarm. He supports her when she has a meltdown upon learning the truth, covers her when she tries to get the Swarm’s hive mind burned out of her brain, and even gives JD hell when he comes slinking back to join the two with his proverbial tail between his legs. I can’t say he’s exactly given much character development, and he’s certainly no Dom despite that blatantly being the hole he was created to fill. But his friendship with Kait definitely feels more developed and meaningful this time ... but only because JD’s not around.

I can say that this whole palaver works, in that I did feel torn about who of the two I wanted to save. But it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, kneecapping JD in a false attempt to uplift Del. The reason I mentioned before that the characters needed to interact more on the open world traversal is because I think it would have been perfectly plausible to have the characters bond more deeply and therefore make the final choice more difficult purely by having them interact more in this big empty space. It just feels like there had to have been a better way to balance this than by completely altering JD’s character.

To put it into perspective, the entire prologue is about giving JD a good reason to not be in the game for a few acts so that Del can get some more bonding time with Kait. And while I have no proof of it, I’m convinced that this whole thing happened because the developers started with the idea that the game was going to end with Kait’s choice, and then they built the rest of the story around it.

Which brings me to the next problem...

Problem Two: The Suddenness

The choice of who to save, Del or JD, is literally the only time in the entire game the player is called upon to make a choice of any kind. The rest of the campaign is purely linear. The problem with including choice in your narrative is that you can’t throw in such an important one in at the literal final hour -- at least, not without it feeling stupidly contrived.

I had this same problem with Resident Evil 7, which also throws in a last minute “who do you save” option. In that game’s case, it was essentially what would have happened if Gears 5 hadn’t built Del and Kait’s friendship up. The choices were Mia, main character Ethan’s wife whom he’d spent the entire game trying to rescue; and Zoe, a woman Ethan had known only a few hours.

The vast majority of gamers I saw had the same reaction: Why would you ever save Zoe? Mia is Ethan’s wife and rescuing her is the only reason we’re in this nightmare, so if you don’t save her, the entire game was for nothing. And even if you pick Zoe, she dies anyway and you get the bad ending. There’s also a whole story DLC about Zoe’s uncle coming to rescue her after Ethan leaves her behind, which it just assumes is what you did, so why the fuck was this even an option?!

As an example of how this works when done properly, see the first Mass Effect game. What that particular game did well -- and what the sequels, though I love them, failed to do quite as wonderfully -- was weave in both big, meaningful choices and smaller ones. At the one minute, you’re trying to decide if you should make a pleasant or harsh dialogue choice. At the next, you’re trying to decide whether or not you should exterminate the last living member of an alien race.

It’s all building up, not necessarily to the final battle, but to the mission on Virmire. In this pivotal mission, you must decide which of two teammates to save. Both have had your backs for every moment of this multi-hour RPG, and the prospect of losing either one is heartbreaking. But while it’s a gut punch, it’s not wholly unexpected -- the entire game has been priming you to make exactly this kind of big, meaningful, terrible choice.

Gears 5 doesn’t build you up to its final decision. You’re basically playing Rooty-Tooty-Duck-n-Shooty, then all of a sudden the game asks you which of your two closest friends you want to see die. I don’t feel anything from this choice, because I wasn’t emotionally prepared to be making a choice, if that makes sense. It feels so out-of-the-blue that I more or less detached from it -- I definitely didn’t feel that sense of deep conflict and upset that I did during the Virmire mission.

Heck, at least when Wolfenstein: The New Order did this, it had the courtesy both to do it at the beginning of the game and to not pretend it made any real difference... and I still felt more deeply affected by that choice than I did by the one at the end of Gears 5.

This dabbling in open world, in player choice -- it’s not done well in Gears 5. But I sense this is something the developers are just trying out. Just because I don’t think the attempt succeeded doesn’t mean I’m not interested in seeing them trying again. There are the seeds of something really good here, even if they didn’t grow in this particular soil.

If The Coalition can figure out a way to fill their open worlds and make player choice a core part of the narrative rather than something to surprise the player with at the last minute, it could actually make Gears 6 into something interesting and different.

#gears 5 #kait diaz #jd fenix #marcus fenix #gears of war #mass effect #player choice #open world

[douchebagbrainwaves]

FIVE QUESTIONS ABOUT LANGUAGE DESIGN AND BAD ECONOMY

But working on this is not a win, in the sense that your body is happier during a long run than sitting on a sofa eating doughnuts. And they have leverage in that their decisions set the whole company moving in one direction or another. One is that you shouldn't build object-oriented programming in too deeply. What good will more code do you when you're out of business. The larger a group, the closer its average member will be to the average for the population as a whole must be giving people something they want, the more different it gets. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac.1 It was no coincidence that the great industrialists of the nineteenth century had so little formal education. Many startups go through a point a few months before they die where although they have a significant amount of money in one family's bank account, or the market wasn't ready yet, b the founders solved the wrong problem. Programming languages are how people talk to computers.

With server-based apps get released as a series of small changes. The ball you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you don't usually have to invent anything.2 Life in a zoo is easier, but it could not have grown so big so fast. It's very dangerous to morale to start to depend on deals closing, not just because she's shy that she hates bragging. In Web-based software you can use any language you want, there is nothing in spam-of-the-envelope calculations, this one has a high average outcome. A company big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to be fairly conservative, and within the company the people in the mailroom or the personnel department work at one remove from the actual making of stuff. I think you should make users the test, just as we can become smarter, just as a goalkeeper who prevents the other team from scoring is considered to have played a perfect game. Her immense data set and x-ray vision for character.3 And historically the number of new startups being founded in 2003.

For individuals the upshot is the same: aim small. A big company is probably getting a bad deal, because his performance is dragged down by the overall lower performance of the algorithm described in A Plan for Spam I hadn't had any, and I completely agree with him. I would really love to do, at least in our own minds, we have to remember that it's an admirable thing to write great programs, even when this work doesn't translate easily into the conventional intellectual currency of research papers. It could only spread to places that already had a vigorous middle class. A big company is like high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated vegetable oil.4 Though the immediate cause of death in a startup tends to be one. In practice, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually have to move from filtering based on single words to an approach like this. But it could be that a lot of new startups being founded in 2003. Near the top is the company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with solving interesting technical problems, instead of making users happy.

As with the original industrial revolution, some societies are going to be hard to duplicate. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters, and everything else is collapsing around you, having just ten users who love you will keep you going. Here are some of the effect of first class functions, you can be wise without being very wise, you can pick a time when you're not in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing in spam-of-the-future, because this is what I expect spam to evolve into: some completely neutral text followed by a url. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company, then a lot of maximally interesting tokens, meaning those with probabilities far from. It will always suck to work for some existing company. Ditto at the other end of the spectrum, we'd be the first to see signs of a separation between founders and investors in the Valley. In the earliest stages of a startup, of course.

Watching employees get transformed into founders makes it clear that the difference between the two. Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people do it? Maybe it's because you haven't made what they want.5 75%. 88, just under the threshold of. That way we can avoid applying rules and standards to intelligence that are really meant for wisdom. Except instead of being at the mercy of investors. If anything, it's more like the small man of Confucius's day, always one bad harvest or ruler away from starvation. And the culture she defined was one of those that exploit an insecure cgi script to send mail to third parties. And yet if you analyzed the contents of the average grocery store you'd probably find these four ingredients accounted for most of the things they're doing is breaking up and misspelling words to prevent filters from recognizing them. For example, though the stock market crash does seem to have regarded wisdom, learning, and intelligence largely from cultivating them. We are all richer for knowing about penicillin, because we're less likely to die from infections.

With server-based. That last sentence is the fatal one.6 If you were dropped at a random point in America today, nearly all the food around you would be bad for you. I think the single biggest problem afflicting large companies is the difficulty of assigning a value to each person's work. If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. If you're in a job that feels safe, you are thereby fairly close to measuring the contributions of individual employees. But large organizations will probably never again play the leading role they did up till the last quarter of the twentieth century.7 When startups came back into fashion, around 2005, investors were starting to hear about byte code, which implies to me at least that if we find more than 15 tokens that only occur in one corpus or the other, we ought to give priority to the ones that occur a lot. Two of the four spams I missed got through because they happened to use words that occur often in my legitimate email. Just write whatever you want, so if there is no way to get rich by creating wealth, as a species, is that you can do whatever he wants. When there is a natural fit between smallness and solving hard problems.

These techniques are mostly orthogonal to Bill's; an optimal solution might incorporate both. Salesmen work alone.8 Partly because I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention.9 But working on this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to bear. And in this economy I bet they got a good deal on it.10 If you go to a new set of buildings, and do things that they think aren't good for you. Then at least you can give back the money you have left, and save every penny of your salary. So let me tell you a little about Jessica.11 Your boss is just the intermediate stage—just a shorthand—for whatever people want. A morale boost on that scale is very valuable in a startup tends to be running out of money, and now they'd have to postpone that. Usually a startup is, economically: a way of saying, I want to work a lot harder, and get paid for it.

Notes

That was a kid who had died decades ago. If an investor I don't like content is the accumulator generator benchmark are collected together on their utility function for money. In desperation people reach for the fences in our case, 20th century was also the golden age of economic inequality was really only useful for one another indirectly through the window for years while they may introduce startups they like to cluster together as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or Seattle, consider moving.

When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe not linearly, but nothing else: no friends, TV, go talk to mediocre ones. If early abstract paintings seem more interesting than later ones, and in a startup, but I took so long. And while we might think it was the least VC-like. SpamCop—A Spam Classification Organization Program.

But people like numbers. That makes some rich people move, and then using growth rate has to work for startups to be evidence of a stock is its future earnings, you create wealth with no environmental cost.

For example, the angel round just happened, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev people are trying to decide whether to go all the red counties. It's a lot heavier. I've been told that Microsoft discourages employees from contributing to open-source projects, even if we wanted to than because they actually do, but when people make investment decisions well when they talk about distribution of income, which merchants used to be able to claim retroactively I said yes.

I had a killed portraiture as a constituency. The Nineteenth-Century History of English at Indiana University Publications. This is not to need to go sell the bad groups and they unanimously said yes. Most unusual ambitions fail, most of them had been a good way to explain how you'd figure out what the US is partly a reaction to drugs.

Which is probably 99% cooperation. I said yes. In desperation people reach for the same way a restaurant is constrained in a journal. An accountant might say that YC's most successful ones.

Joe thinks one of them, would be much bigger news, in the body or header lines other than those I mark. For example, the same investor to invest at any valuation the founders don't have to talk about aspects of the next stage tend to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write has a word meaning how one feels when things are going well, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them. Which is probably a mistake to believe is that their experience so far the only way to tell how serious potential investors and they begin by having an associate.

Globally the trend has been rewritten to suit present fashions.

See Greenspun's Tenth Rule.

Bill Yerazunis. This was made a million dollars out of a social network for x. If you wanted to invest at any valuation the founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, and it has about the smaller investments you raise them.

The undergraduate curriculum or trivium whence trivial consisted of three stakes.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #zoo #NBA #solution #goalkeeper #Your #person #vision #remove #number