#I feel like Harry has been making a point of using his platform to hype up black performers specifically over the last year

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Fri 11 June ‘21

LT band news! Guitarist Isaac posted a pic of himself with the other guitarist and bassist, plus LTHQ team member Jessie! Things are happening…idk what things, but THINGS! We know tour shows aren’t for a long while now so what might they be rehearsing or meeting for? Hopes are up that it could be to do promo for a single!! But really whatever it is would be exciting as hell. The shopping list for the recipe Louis will be following for his video is out and it does not look like it’ll be challenging- it’s a fish finger sandwich! I’m a little confused by the addition of waffles (not to mention sugar) in the ingredient list but overall how hard can it be right? I guess we’ll find out. And a fan who met Louis the other day says she had him write HOME for a tattoo and “told him that the song is extremely important for the whole lgbtq+ community” and that he “smiled and said thank you and bless you darling,” and we got more video from yesterday of him out by the studio; he was wearing the skull/ laurel/ rose/ triangle ‘new era’ cap again, nice, and how appropriate for the exciting LT2 era things he is cooking up (not the fish fingers, the other stuff.)

The much hyped Our Song behind the scenes video is finally here! We see the part where Niall pretends to be afraid of the dog that was hired to bark at him, but as we were told, the dog does not bark and was therefore fired; maybe the poor dog was just starstruck, leave her alone! Plus Niall and Anne are cute and look to be having fun, of course. And last night Niall was papped in Hollywood, looking good in all black with gucci loafers, oh lala.

Behind the scenes videos hype continues, with one for Lima’s NFT as well- it opens with a voiceover saying “stop being scared of who you are, you’re not negative you’re vulnerable” and other uplifting soundbites, then shows Liam drawing and walking in a beautiful forested glade, but mostly in his house he recently moved out of- Winston the dog has a sleeping-in-the-background cameo- and he and the other collaborators (musician Zedd and animator Gabe Damast) talk about how they worked out the concepts over zoom and tell us about Liam’s concept for the piece. They also talk about (and show one of) the physical objects and fancy packaging for it that they’ve made to sell along with the NFT, presumably because simply buying bragging rights of ownership of an intangible digital item isn’t actually terribly satisfying, so they need to provide some actual thing. Besides the dinner in Vegas that the buyers will be invited to join them at that is; we also learn more about that and oh my GOD wtf… uh I mean what they said is that it will take place in a literal glass box in the middle of the resort I honestly didn’t know they could make it sound MORE UNPLEASANT to me holy crap, not even to hug Liam would I do that. Liam also did a live where he tells us some stuff we already knew about Louis and Harry; about Louis he said that he’s working on music right now and “god he’s got long hair now doesn’t he”, I KNOW RIGHT, and about Harry that “he looks great in his policeman uniform,” Liam you WOULD like that, and “name a man who can pull off every look.”

Harry followed musician Pauli the PSM on insta. And as he’s often used his follows to tell us about people he is working with/ preparing something with one always wonders… For example as his scheduled shows for this year draw ever nearer with no rescheduling announcement yet, we’re all becoming impatient to know if he’s planning to play any of them this year. And if so, I know I wouldn’t be at all surprised if brand new mom Sarah Jones chose to sit a few out, so today’s follow of a British drummer… well, <eyeballs emoji>, right?! Honestly though it could be for any reason, that’s just wild speculation.

#louis tomlinson #liam payne #niall horan #harry styles #I know we all want the entertainment value of watching louis flail like hell on the cooking segment but the fact is #Louis doesn’t like publicly being bad at things. I’m guessing he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t think he could pull it off so my hopes of that #happening are not high #I feel like Harry has been making a point of using his platform to hype up black performers specifically over the last year #and I for one appreciate that #11 jun 21 #isaac anderson #matt dinnage #michael blackwell #jessie.... have I just forgotten her last name? we must know it right? #jessie martin #GOT IT #pauli lovejoy

[alltheselights]

Hey so I am a solo louie, I follow you despite you being a larrie because I think you are super level headed and quite frankly I love that you separate how you feel about their relationship and their career your damn good writer too. I became a fan last year and I am well aware that for the most part larries don’t believe that child is his. Apart of me thinks that is just crazy but another knows that the entertainment industry is also batshit crazy so anything can happen. What I don’t understand is the point of it , nobody really cares and there is no way he would come out of this without without ruining his life and like I just don’t see how the whole thing makes any sense. None of it makes any logical sense like how do they plan all of this to end and why ?

VERY long response under the read more!

I think the key thing you’re forgetting is that when this started, people DID care. This didn’t start in 2017 or 2020 - Louis’ heavy closeting with Eleanor started all the way back in 2011 (a much different time then now) and babygate started in 2015. Louis was in the biggest band in the world and there were continual widespread rumors about him and his bandmate being together - his bandmate who was set up as the heartthrob frontman from the beginning of the band and I think starting in 2014 (or whenever Jeff first entered the picture) was looking toward an eventual future solo career, which is exactly what Sony wanted.

I think part of it was just to shut down the rumors with Harry, who again, I think Sony has always viewed as their money machine, and also just because just as many boybands before them, One Direction was marketed to girls as objects of their lust - boys the fans could fantasize about dating. I don’t believe any of the boys who may have identified as LGBTQ+ would have been permitted to come out while in the band because of this marketing strategy, but especially not Louis, who many stereotyped as gay from day one of the band and who many shipped specifically with the most popular of the heartthrob members.

I think the other big part of it is just punishment for Louis and always has been. Not only did he threaten their bottom line by not fitting into the cookie cutter One Direction straight boy mold that Sony clearly wanted and expected from all the boys, but he also fought for One Direction to become more than Sony/Syco wanted them to be. They expected the band to make them a lot of money with bubble gum pop songs for a few years and then burn out quickly when they’d overworked them too much and when all the girls turned toward a new shiny boyband or artist on the horizon, but what they didn’t account for was the fact that rather than falling in line, Louis and the others would fight to write more on the albums and Louis specifically would fight for them to mature their sound. And Louis was very successful in that because even though One Direction was not at their peak popularity with some of their later, more mature, and more well-written albums, they developed a fanbase with that music that would’ve stuck around long-term, not just for their personalities and pretty faces but for the actual music, which I suspect would never have happened if they’d just continued on their generic path that Sony set them on.

Most solo Louies recognize the sabotage of his career with his lack of promo, the fact that he is never protected or defended in the media by his team, and how they push his personal life as a focal point for most promo rather than his talent and music. If you can recognize that, it’s probably not that hard to imagine that they could saddle him with a beard and a fake child to double down on his heterosexuality and then continue it out of spite, fully recognizing that they have tied his hands in terms of his public image because it’s been so long of this, media trained him out of showing his true personality and mannerisms for years, and alienated him from large portions of his fanbase - because Larries are NOT the only group of his fans that suspect he is not straight - I know tons of solo Louies do as well.

The question of why it’s continuing today is a great one and I wish I had the answer and could see what’s happening behind the scenes. If Louis had finally gotten rid of Sony and Syco last year and immediately his solo career started improving, suggesting that his team was finally working for him and doing their jobs properly, and still the stunts continued, I think it would make sense to start to wonder whether Louis wanted that for himself. However, that’s not what happened at all. Louis still has the same management and PR, PR that has always been associated with Sony and Syco, by the way, and there have been no improvements to anything related to his career. I understand that there are limitations because he hasn’t toured or put out a new album yet, but I think you just have to see the lack of press, promo, and even basic respect and recognition around his massive record-breaking livestream in December and his upcoming festival to see that things haven’t changed. LTHQ on Twitter continues to be as useless as ever, Louis’ social media is rarely used to promote his career, and there has been no attempt to build hype for the future music that Louis is working on aside from a single set of pap pictures outside of the studio. These are some of the most basic things that a normal team would be working on, particularly considering how massive Louis’ platform is and how excited his fans have been even throughout the pandemic.

Louis watches what his fans say about everything on Twitter, and when he’s able to, he changes things with a snap of his fingers to ensure that his fans are happy. There’s no doubt in my mind that Louis has watched fans continue to complain about his team over the last year, yet nothing ever changes or improves, and he occasionally makes subtle nods to the fact that his support and successes are thanks to the fans only - never his team. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when he releases new music, but at least as of now, I think it’s evident that Louis is still not being positioned for success in his career with the team that he’s with, even after leaving Syco/Sony.

Without knowing what contracts Louis has signed over the years and how long they are binding, it’s impossible for fans to know how free he is officially, so all we can do is go off of what we see. And what I see right now is that nothing has changed with his career, and so while it seems absurd, it doesn’t actually shock me that much that other elements haven’t changed either. I also think it’s going to be very difficult for them to end babygate in particular at this point, which is probably something at the forefront of their minds.

So I can’t answer for why it hasn’t ended or when and how it will, but I can tell you that as long as his career is not prioritized by anyone around him, I find it very hard to believe that he is 100% free to make his own choices. Even if commercial success is not Louis’ number one priority, we’ve seen so many times how much it means to Louis when he does well on the charts. I do sometimes worry that Louis has given up and resigned himself to this fate because of how long he’s been sabotaged - I’ve worried about this particularly in the last year or so - but I still don’t believe this is all his choice. You can’t convince me that this person who was so clever with how to mature the band in One Direction, this person who has so much interest in the back end of the music industry, this person who has fought tooth and nail for a solo career that nobody thought he could pull off, this person who cares so deeply about what his fans think, is content with the team around him not bothering to do the basics of their job - to the constant widespread and loudly expressed frustration of his fanbase. And as a result, I suspect that babygate and Elounor are likely still around for the same reasons the rest hasn’t improved.

#i think this got incoherent toward the end #hopefully you get what i'm saying #asks

[leejungchans]

juliet’s relationships with ateez.

they’re so beautiful i’m gonna fucking cryhdjhfjshsjs i’m going through it 💔

#HONGJOONG; (HONGLIET)

juliet is the self-proclaimed favourite child of hongjoong

she was very shy pre-debut and was scared of clashing with him, so they never fought

they became a lot closer when she asked hongjoong to help her with her rapping; she was always trained to be a vocalist so she thought her rapping needed work and (shyly) approached him asking for his advice

as they became more comfortable with each other, she learnt to honestly communicate her thoughts with him

makes sure hongjoong doesn’t overwork himself; brings him food, coffee, or just accompanies him silently when he’s working; will not hesitate to use her sad puppy eyes to convince him to go back to their dorm so he can get proper rest

she always looks on with a very proud smile when she hears hongjoong speaking in english; he picked up a little bit of her aussie accent too :>

actually doesn’t mind being a little shorter than him but she wears platform shoes a lot to tease him; he has jokingly threatened to throw them away

she is very worried about his scalp; but she loved his red and blue hair, and of course the famous mullet

with hongjoong especially it’s literally “juliet see, juliet do” :c

hongjoong dotes on juliet especially because she will always be a baby in his eyes; when they first met she was around 15, so he has always been really gentle with her; he looks after her extremely well

never lets her pay for anything despite her protests

she wants to treat him to stuff too :<

overall a very wholesome relationship

#SEONGHWA; (HWALIET)

another very, very wholesome relationship

he’s so, so gentle with her but will goof around with her too :(((

is the one who brings snacks, an extra jacket or blanket for her because she always forgets

when they first debuted, juliet would be very uneasy before public appearances because of the hate and comments she’d get; seonghwa was always there to calm her down and support her

when she was still in school he would nag her to do her homework hajshwjsj

she’s close with all the boys’ family but perhaps the closest with seonghwa’s and will sometimes visit his family with him during breaks!!

seonghwa is usually the first person juliet goes to if she’s having a bad day

she clings to him a lot, like, a lot; she will attach herself to his arm like a koala any chance she gets

sharing almost identical disgusted expressions

he always makes sure she’s eating; he gets sad if she doesn’t

late night talks with warm tea

each other’s #1 hype man; as much as she acts disgusted when seonghwa does aegyo or purposefully acts sexy, you can always hear her cheering him on in the background

that doesn’t mean she doesn’t tease him though

“excuse me, please put your tongue away” “mY hiPs aRe fLeXibLe” “sO hAwT” “wOw, AmAziNg” “...please stop”

#YUNHO; (JUNHO)

two babies

juliet lives to see yunho smile and it’s her life’s mission to make sure he stays happy forever

yunho always gives her piggyback rides

the height difference between these two is the funniest thing ever because she isn’t even that short but she always looks like a dwarf next to yunho

“uh...excuse me, you’re forgetting something :/” “huh? ohhh...[crouches down to match her height]” “thank you :D”

yunho brings out juliet’s happiest side effortlessly because it’s just impossible to be sad around him

that being said, yunho is her designated giant teddy bear whenever she’s sad

they always start dancing out of nowhere

you will hear her whooping and cheering very loudly in the background whenever yunho twerks and stuff

yunho’s fellow harry potter fan

he likes pinching her cheeks, patting her head and playing with her hair

but if he tries to use her head as an armrest she will kick him (out of love :3)

#YEOSANG; (SANGLIET)

someone save ateez from these two because they love roasting everyone

will not hesitate to roast each other as well

best friends who judge people together

when the others say or do something questionable, you can sometimes see yeosang and juliet exchange looks or hide their faces from secondhand embarrassment

little beans who get shy easily :(

she is yeosang’s biggest hype man; he could literally just be breathing and she will still go “wow, a living statue, absolutely breathtaking” “an angel sent to us from the heavens above” “yes, vocal king! yes, dance legend!”

they do everything in tiny :((((((((

they dance to the ponytail song together

she loves his birthmark so much and practically tells him that every day; she thinks it makes him even more beautiful and unique

he likes her cooking a lot so she always makes him food and lets him help out

“please don’t cut off your finger...” “do fingers grow back?” “i don’t know but i don’t want to find out from you.”

The™ best comedic duo but no one is ready to admit that yet

#SAN; (JUSAN)

juliet constantly judges san jokingly but she’s honestly just as chaotic

he once spun her ipad on his finger and almost dropped it; she didn’t speak to him for an hour

like hongjoong, san also picked up on her aussie accent a bit

juliet goes :OOOO every time san shows off his martial arts skills

if they’re not wreaking havoc together, then one of them is filming the other wreaking havoc alone while laughing hysterically behind the camera

she looks up to san so, so much; the way he improved his dancing tremendously through hard work and determination inspires her deeply

they learn other groups’ choreographies together

hypes the other up for everything

loves his voice so much; listens to him sing with heart eyes and vice versa

so, so clingy :((( they’re just tiny babies who need a lot of love and affection

juliet loves san so much and it breaks her heart knowing that he struggles with self-esteem like she does; they have a lot of deep talks where they talk for hours in the dark

#MINGI; (2MIN)

2Min!!!!!! 🥺

a giant and a baby

that only applies to their heights, though; because they’re both babies personality-wise

juliet is either being loud and dumb with him or she’s going “ahsjajsj please stop, we’re idols •_•”; there is no in between

she’d let mingi give her more piggyback rides but the first time he gave her one he almost dropped her

juliet never shuts up about how good mingi is at rapping and dancing; she’ll tell you that at least once a day

“anyways, mingi is such a good rapper and dancer. did i mention how phenomenal he is? because he is the best rapper and dancer :]”

whenever juliet sings/dances, mingi always looks on very proudly

“our main vocalist/dancer, everyone!”

her designated giant teddy bear number 2

like with hongjoong, she makes sure mingi is eating and sleeping because he works a lot too :(

it makes mingi really happy when she tries to rap his parts

juliet is the leader of the mingi protection squad, if you hurt him she’ll actually k word you in your sleep

#WOOYOUNG; (2YOUNG)

2Young; when they get paired up together for stuff, they introduce themselves with “2!” “Young!”

dear god, they are so loud

she’s either the first one shushing him or the others are telling both of them to shut up

wooyoung screams a lot so to juliet the only solution is to be even louder

siblings who annoy each other but also love the other to bits and will kill for each other

one time they did a v-live together and an atiny pointed out how when juliet says “no” it sounds like “noerrrrr”; wooyoung hasn’t let it go since and clowns her for it every chance he gets

one minute they’re bickering over something stupid and the next they’re cuddling on the sofa and laughing at random stuff on their phones

wooyoung teases her for literally everything, from her height to her australian accent; it’s a miracle she hasn’t killed him yet

“wooyoung dance king!”

she loves his vocals so much :(

she also loves his laugh; she thinks it’s very contagious and it always makes her laugh even harder

very clingy pt.2 :(((((

they like to cook together; despite juliet’s constant teasing, she genuinely loves his cooking

the biggest army’s

the duo that has everyone wrapped around their fingers

#JONGHO; (JONGLIET)

they’re the youngest ones so they’re bound to be chaotic together

they have a secret handshake!!

since they’re the only ones who don’t share a birth year with anyone in the group, they call themselves the “21st century duo”

another tom-and-jerry relationship but they love each other to bits i promise :’)

high note battles that make the others go •_•

their duets though :’)))) a blessing

when they sang miss a’s “good-bye baby” together at mama 2019

vocal legends

jongho always use the fact that she’s the youngest against her, especially when they’re asked to do aegyo

“i think the maknae should do it >:)” “jongHO SHUTUPJAGSJAJS”

“well, he’s the youngest among the boys, so i think he should go too”; cue his look of ultimate betrayal

imagine her face when she saw his red hair for the first time :(

“omgomgomg now you’re a real apple!!!” :(((((

more piggyback rides!!

okay, but juliet is honestly so grateful for jongho; they’re the closest in age so it’s always very easy for her to talk to him and she loves him a lot :’(

they understand each other very deeply and usually they don’t need to exchange words to know what the other is thinking/feeling

she can overthink a lot and in those moments he’s her voice of reason and is always there to help her through those times

partners in crime :>

#about.juliet #ateez 9th member #ateez ninth member #kpop oc #idol oc #ateez oc #kpop addition #idol addition #ateez addition #kpop imagines #idol imagines #ateez imagines #kpop au #idol au #ateez au

[evilelitest2]

Hey there. I recently wondered why Sanders didn't manage to be primary candidate for the democratic party (at least in terms of popularity). In fact, I got the impression that despite even social media hyping him up, quite a few weren't really that invested on what he had to say/wanted to do. As a non-American, I get the feeling that Americans themselves might be a bit averse to change, even though many do want it. Is the US generally more socially conservative which might explain Bernie's los?

Eh, its a mix.  The general conservatism of the US did mean that Sanders had a staunch opposition right from the word go, but I think Sanders also made a ton of mistakes during the 2020 race on top of that.  Because he really should have done better than in 2016, unlike then he had massive name recogonition, the DNC didn’t have the more sleezy rules anymore, he already had a massive fundraising apparatus, Biden was a weaker candidate, and the donor class/centrist politicians were divided.  But he made a few mistakes and I’m still of the opinion that he shouldn’t have run in 2020, and let somebody younger with less bad blood take up the torch.  So what went wrong beyond a centrists not liking socialism 

1) Sanders was too old.  This isn’t entirely his fault, but a 78 year old who had a heart attack on campaign is at a huge disadvantage, and people are wary for voting for him because of that.  Now Biden is a 77 year old man with his own health concerns, but it really didn’t help, doubly so with the heart attack

2) Sander has earned a lot of enemies for the 2016 election, sometimes for shit he did and often times for shit he didn’t do, but he was a divisive figure in a way that somebody like Warren would not be.  His hyper confrontational style made a lot of people dislike him, and probably helped contribute to the centrists dropping out when they did .

3) The vote was split with Elizabeth Warren, which he never found a solution too (see below) 

4) Ok but those first three things weren’t really his fault.  One of the things that was his fault is that he didn’t really...bother to campaign . At least in the traditional sense.  Sander’s entire strategy was to win the prmiary with only 30-35% of the vote, assuming that the Centrists would divide themselves until it was too late.  Not only was this not true in terms of Centrist unity, the problem with this plan is that it meant he didn’t really bother trying to win over the remaining 70% of the race.  Which mean that even though he won the first three states, he didn’t manage to capitalize on this by convincing people, if you didn’t like Sanders after Iowa, you weren’t going to like him after New Hampshire.  

5) He made no effort to court specific leaders.  This was the most evident with the Black Community (See below) but just in general, Sanders aimed his campaign at rallying people who liked him, and not on getting existing Democratic leaders to endorse him.  And I get that sentiment, but it really fucked him over in South Carolina.  He didn’t even bother to ask for Clyburn’s endorsement

6) Young people don’t come out to vote and his entire plan was based on the youth vote

7) Unlike a lot of class oriented Leftist, Sanders does believe in internationality (see below) but he still has a bit of a tin ear on the issues of women and minority issues.  hIs platform on both were good and I don’t think he is a sexist or a racist, but he tends to fall into this “A rising tide raises all ships” mentality which isn’t that helpful, he has always struggled to take his larger rhetoric of social revolution and apply it to racial issues or gender issues, which is very frustrating because race more than class has defined American politics.  A lot of black people didn’t really feel like he “got” how their issues are unique beyond just class, even though his platform was pretty good. 

8) Antisemitism.  It was a factor we shouldn’t ignore it 

9) He ran his campaign more on changing the dialogue about Socialism than he did to actually win.  Which in many ways is a really admirable strategy, and he did a great job on changing American minds on a lot of issues but it doesn’t help you actually win a race

10) Americans, especially Black Americans, didn’t really want to take a risk in 2020.  A lot of leftists in 2016 thought “oh Clinton lost so the dems will embrace a leftist” when in reality the message the Dems got was “Ok,....embrace a white man with a less controversial record”  And Biden is seen as safe.  The Black community in particular, who have been really hurt by the Trump administration, didn’t want to take any risks.  

11) In 2016 Sanders got a ton of working class whites in rural/industrial areas to support him against Clinton, so the assumption was “hey these guys are open to socialism”.  And in 2020 they all went to Biden, because it turns out they weren’t for Sanders, they just hated Clinton, and sexism played no little part in that 

12) Sanders didn’t do a good job reaching out to Warren.  He didn’t even bother to ask her for an endorsement until after Super Tuesday.  After that one debate (ugg) Sanders made no effort to reach out and or do Damage control, which effectively alienated him from the other wing of the Progressive Left.  

13) Sanders and especially his fans, did not take Biden seriously.  The entire primary assumption was that Biden was going to be like Jeb Bush in 2016, and the real threat would be Mayor Pete/Bloomberg/Harris/Warren/Booker/the ghost of Hillary Clinton’s career, anything but Biden himself.  And so Biden kinda...avoided most of the Ire of the Sanders campaign, and when he went into South Carolina, he had very little that actually hurt him.  Biden was the Front Runner from the start, and nobody really bothered to knock him off that perch 

14) Ok now we need to talk about the ugly side of things.  Sanders himself is a good man and not a bigot.  Some of his fans though...not so much.  The so called ‘Dirtbag Left” or the “Red Brown Alliance”, basically Class Reductionist “Anti Identity Politics” leftists who openly indulge in racism, sexism, homophobia and all types of abusive internet tactics.  Its a tiny minority of Sanders fans, but because they are super active online (and make a habit of harassing journalists) they start to dominate the conversation.  Podcasts like Chapo House, Cumbucket, True Anon, or Red Scare, pundits like Angela Nagle or Glenn Greenwald, or Taibbi, there is an entire cottage industry of so called “Socialists” who spend most of their time peddling conspiracy theories, indulging in bigotry (but its ok because they support Universal Healthcare) and above all harassing people online.  And a toxic fandom ruins your ability to reach out to people, which is sort of the point of an election.  This isn’t really Sanders fault because he is a 78 year old grandpa, but his campaign really didn’t make any effort to clamp down on the toxic fanbase that surrounded the movement and it ruined their ability to do outreach.  The tweeting of snakes at warren was a big part of this 

#ask EvilElitest #Dirtbag left #Bernie Sanders #Elizabeth Warren #2020 primary

[celestial-depths]

Harry Potter has always been much less progressive than its fandom: a retrospective

In June 2020, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling decided to use her platform to devalue trans people by ridiculing a headline with trans-inclusive language and going on to spout hateful nonsense like insisting that recognizing trans women as real women makes the experiences of cis women somehow less valid. I’m not going to repeat her baseless arguments here because I’m not really interested in picking them apart, as more qualified commentators than me have already done that, and doing so would be like throwing rocks at a house of cards anyway. Instead, I want to reflect on the fan reaction to her statements. The response has been overwhelmingly negative, with many fans expressing feelings of disappointment and surprise over her choice to further vilify a group of people who are already marginalized and vulnerable to violence and discrimination. I was disappointed, too, but, sadly, not surprised. Not because this isn’t the first time in recent history when Rowling has aligned herself with TERFs, but because I think her writing and interviews have always suggested that her politics are way more regressive and conservative than what most of her fans may have assumed. Me and Harry Potter go way back. I’m in my thirties now, and I remember reading the first two books at the age of eleven, just before the global Harry Potter hype had really taken off. In fact, I may have been among the last wave of readers who got to start the series without the faintest idea what the books were even about. At the time, I had a habit of reading books without checking out the blurbs first because I enjoyed the feeling of diving into a story and being taken completely by surprise, so I didn’t even know that wizards were involved when I started reading. I couldn’t have been at more perfect an age to discover the books. For pre-teen readers like me, they were the perfect mix of escapism and relatability. It was wild adventures and magic combined with the everyday reality of a school-aged child, which is probably why I felt more connected to it than I did with other fantasy books I also enjoyed, such as The Lord of the Rings. Harry would learn spells and fight dragons in one chapter and worry about homework and making friends in the next one, which was why it was always easier for a kid like me to daydream about going to Hogwarts than it was to imagine fighting orcs in Middle-Earth (sidenote: this is also why I was never a big fan of the HP movies; they kept the exciting highlights but they left out the slice-of-life parts, which instantly made them seem less relatable to me). My generation also got to grow up with the series. I read the first book at 11, and the final one was released when I was 19, so I was always roughly the same age as Harry during my first read of each book. But by the time I read that final chapter, I was no longer as enamored with the series as I used to be – not because I’d grown bored with the series, but because its politics had started to worry me over the years. I didn’t like the story it was telling between the lines, and I certainly didn’t like the note it ended on. I wasn’t really involved in the fandom during my first years of being a fan of the series, but I did step into it around the time Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. I was fifteen, I was extremely excited about the release of the first new HP book in three years, and I soon found myself spending hours in fan message boards speculating about future plot twists and discussing my favorite characters. The fandom had its flaws – you don’t know the meaning of the word “petty” unless you’ve witnessed the absolutely brutal fights adult human beings in the HP fandom had over their Hermione Granger shipping preferences – but overall the community was inclusive and open-minded. The fans were a diverse bunch of people who generally seemed to agree that the world of HP was as progressive as they were, since the main message most of them picked up from the books was that one should not discriminate anyone based on the qualities they were born with. I agreed with that reading of the books for a long time, but as I grew up I began to pay closer attention to what the books were actually depicting and what it was leaving out altogether, and I eventually started to wonder whether the series was progressive as it was made out to be. The story was seemingly preaching a message of inclusion, yet all the characters were straight (no, Dumbledore doesn’t count because his sexual orientation was never brought up in the books), cis, and able-bodied, and non-white characters were barely there. What is there to be inclusive about when there’s hardly any real diversity among the very, very vast cast of characters, especially not among the main heroes? Moreover, HP’s way of using non-human characters as metaphors for discrimination yielded very questionable results. The series used house-elves as a metaphor for slavery, yet it ends with the conclusion that the enslavement of house-elves was only wrong when they were treated cruelly, and that they actually preferred slavery to freedom, which was why Hermione was depicted as being silly for fighting for their emancipation. That’s a load of yikes. Werewolves, the series’ metaphor for the HIV positive, were violent, tragic, and uncontrollable, which is... also not great. And don’t even get me started on the books’ take on goblins, who bore extremely uncomfortable resemblance to antisemitic caricatures. The series built a hierarchy between species and used it to address real-life inequality between groups of people, but it never dismantled or even properly questioned that hierarchy, In fact, the biases towards and unequal treatment of other species was ultimately made to seem natural and right. So, there’s that. The books were also littered with awful fatphobia, which doesn’t comply with the anti-discrimination message by any means, and the apparent importance of personal choices and accomplishments got lost by the final two books. For instance, the penultimate book explores Voldemort’s origins and concludes that he was simply born evil, either because he lacked a mother’s love or because he was born from a loveless union (a rape, if we’re being specific, though the books doesn’t recognize it as such, and that’s a whole another can of problematic worms). I don’t even have the time to unpack all the twisted ideas about gender roles that plot point suggests, but my main point here is that it seems like Voldemort never chose to be evil, and apparently neither did his followers, as most of them seem to be villains because they were sorted into Slytherin, or that they were sorted into Slytherin because they were already villainous. At the age of 11. Even the two Slytherins who actively choose to do the right thing in the end (Draco and Snape) do so out of cowardice (Draco) or selfishness (Snape). Meanwhile, as the series progresses Harry’s goodness is less and less predicated by his actions and more based on the virtue of simply being the Chosen One, all the way up to the point where Harry ends up resorting to torture and mind-control – two of the three “unforgivable“ acts as determined by a previous installment in the series – and suffering absolutely no consequences, because he is the hero and nothing the hero does can be bad. The world of Harry Potter, which steers towards being morally ambiguous around the midpoint of the series, ends up being disappointingly black-and-white and deterministic by the end. Choice ends up having very little to do with anything. And then there’s the gender issue, which bothered me most of all. The series exhibits very old-fashioned and restrictive gender roles without ever really questioning them, throws around casual sexism, and it paints a really appalling picture of femininity through its overly sentimental, subservient, frivolous female characters, whose only motivation for doing anything is far too often devotion to a male character or their children, and who are always defeated by their pesky female emotions. Rowling is a self-declared feminist, and I distinctly remember this one writing of hers where she was congratulating herself for championing characters like Hermione Granger over characters like Pansy Parkinson, and that’s her view of feminism I guess? Putting down one female character in favor of another? Pitting women up against each other, urging them to be good girls instead of bad girls – doing all that instead of paying attention to the structural, cultural, ideological reasons why gender expectations and inequality are harmful? Honestly, I don’t think that HP is pro-women at all; the female characters lack agency and are constantly sidelined in favor of male characters, and the series valorizes a very narrow view of womanhood that’s obsessively centered around motherhood and sacrifice.   Overall, the HP series seem to idealize this aesthetically and ideologically old-timey view of society where the world is unrealistically white and straight, and where static hierarchies prevail. The story does not end in a revolution, rebellion, or reform because the story isn’t really about progression; it’s about following traditions and preserving pre-existing power structures. The epilogue of the series really hammers down this point: in the final chapter, the main characters have grown up, married their (white) childhood sweethearts, assumed the roles and biases of their parents and named their kids after their dead relatives, joyfully returning to the origin point of a cycle that brought death and destruction into their world as if there was never anything wrong with that cycle to begin with. So, yeah. I’m not really shocked to see J.K. Rowling expressing awful opinions about trans people because the world of HP was already built upon a whole bunch of awful, traditionalist ideas. As a teen, I’d been read the series through the hopeful lens of my own set of values, but by the time that final book was released, I’d become disillusioned with Rowling and the series, and I no longer took HP for the forward-looking, inclusive story I had made it up to be. I didn’t stop liking certain aspects of the books, but I did stop thinking of Rowling as someone to look up to. For some time, I hoped that Rowling was simply misguided and that she would eventually listen, learn, and rethink. But she keeps proving herself as someone who absolutely refuses to see past her privileged, white, and straight point of view despite all of her resources, and who has inexplicably chosen to crusade against trans women, of all the people in the universe, as if the world wasn’t already hostile enough towards them. So, fuck her. But you know what? The HP fandom doesn’t have to take its cues from J.K. Rowling. The fans don’t have to condone her discriminatory views or agree to read her books in the light of her backward politics. They’ve never done that. From Wolfstar to Black Hermione and from Gay Draco to Trans Snape, the fandom has always been a nurturing environment for fan interpretations that aim to add diversity and complexity to the books, whether Rowling agrees or not. Long live the headcanon. (The fans have also learned to tune out Rowling’s unnecessary comments when they feel like it. Two words: wizard poop. That alone should suggest that the things she says aren’t always worthy of anyone’s attention.)

#harry potter #jk rowling

[codonnell-me]

The Phantom Menace Destined to Fail?

Curtis O’Donnell

The Global Blockbuster

Professor DelNero

The Phantom Menace Destined to Fail?

           The year was 1999, George Lucas has finally brought back his beloved Star Wars franchise for millions of fans worldwide. The hype and anticipation for the Phantom Menace reached an extreme high that would contribute to the film's large fall from grace based on the expectations of long-lived fans. This will be supported by examining the production, marketing, reception, and an overall critical analysis of The Phantom Menace.

          Confirmation that George Lucas was to be working on the Star Wars prequels came in 1993 after doubt that he would return to the series, after being burnt out by the Original Trilogy. Once this announcement was made “It didn’t take long for hysteria to take hold. The film’s impending release dominated every inch of the US media.” (Al Horner). This created a lot of pressure for the film to be released and George Lucas was looking to bring in a director to handle the films similar to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Before the filming of The Phantom Menace started, George Lucas approached at least three directors to take on his prequel trilogy. Robert Howard stated that “He told me he had talked to Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and me. I was the third one he spoke to. They all said the same thing: ‘George, you should do it!’ I don’t think anybody wanted to follow-up that act at the time. It was an honor, but it would’ve been too daunting.” (Chitwood). This helps explain that George Lucas did attempt to take the responsibility off his shoulders and one of the main drawbacks of The Phantom Menace was the script as well as the pacing of the film. The Phantom Menace started filming in 1997 of June 26th and ended on September 30th, which mostly took place at Leavesden Film Studios in England, along with film locations such as Tunisian deserts and Italy palaces for Tatooine and Naboo. (Bouzereau). Reshoots were later done from August 1998 and February 1999 after a private showing. This shows that Lucas was very careful with The Phantom Menace, despite a relatively short filming process, he went back to reshoot and edit. The film was shot on 35mm film and was filled with many special effects, which is one of the main reasons George Lucas wanted to return to the Star Wars series (Bouzereau).

          From an effects point of view, The Phantom Menace was immensely important for the film industry. Jar Jar Binks was the first fully CGI’d character to appear in a film and was considered very impressive. Despite the accomplishment, Jar Jar Binks as a character was not well received and people believed that the film would have been better without him altogether. The spectacle of all the CGI was overused and has not aged well, especially when compared to current Star Wars and Marvel films. Not to mention the costs that the newly implemented CGI added. In fact, “Liam Neeson is famously one of the tallest stars in Hollywood, but during the shooting of The Phantom Menace, that height came at a price. The sets were only built up to the actors’ heads and the rest was filled in with CGI. But Neeson was so tall that he cost the set designers an extra $150,000 to build the sets up to the top of his head.” (Sherlock). The overall budget for The Phantom Menace $115,000,000 which was inflated due to the heavy use of CGI and the building of all the sets.

           With the massive anticipation of the return of Star Wars, marketing was heavily implemented towards all audiences. Before anyone even knew what, the Phantom Menace was, “Lucasfilm developed an enormous multimedia event; Shadows of the Empire. Spanning books, comics, video games, toy lines….almost everything you could imagine. Similar to a movie release, it was marketed across all platforms and debuted a brand-new story featuring new and returning characters.” (Harris). This merchandizing tested the waters of the demand for Star Wars as well as push the name before anything in the film was released. Lucasfilm’s also rereleased the three Original films into theatres to serve as a final test as well as give fans that were either not born or too young to view the films on the big screen. Which was ultimately one of the biggest pulls to go see the Phantom Menace, to be a part of this historically massive event. For example, “ on November 18th, 1998… the Star Wars universe was forever changed. Debuting in a relatively limited number of theaters across North America, the very first trailer for The Phantom Menace accompanied the film Meet Joe Black and a few others that winter. Fans who managed to catch wind of this, the internet was still an infant, were known to pay admission into the theater and leave before the film even started. Just paying to watch a two-minute teaser. Some multiple times a day” (Harris). This illustrates the excitement people had for the film and the building of anticipation the marketing contributed to and the well put together trailer not only showed a small preview of the film, but it gave people nostalgia as well as announce that their beloved franchise was back. The “second trailer in March of 1999 these would go on to rank among the most downloaded items of all time, notoriously taking forever with a dial-up connection, but fans would endure the grueling wait for these short glimpses of the upcoming cinematic event.” (Harris).The impact of the trailer shows that even for the early internet period, marketing reached the web and helped spread across millions of people. Now one of the biggest talking points pf marketing for the Phantom Menace may not be the trailers, the extended universe, releases, but the toys and merchandising that came with The Phantom Menace.

          To show how important the toys were to marketing and fans alike is “Midnight for The Phantom Menace took place at Toys ‘R’ Us locations nationwide. Turnout for these events exceeded all expectations, many local and national news organizations covered the events in some fashion, and have become a special place in the hearts and minds of those who were lucky enough to have lived in this dawning of the modern era of Star Wars fandom.” (Harris). Once again the grand event of The Phantom Menace spawned many smaller events through marketing that pulled people into the theatre to await what they believe will be a masterpiece. The marketing was so intense people look back and believed the film was created to sell merchandise and primarily for kids. This backlash as well as overloading on toys later actually contributed to less merchandizing. For example, for Attack of the Clones “when merchandise tied to the movie materialized at Toys R Us and elsewhere. Only this time the rollout was more subdued after some of the esoteric fare released for 1999's "The Phantom Menace" languished on shelves for months. "We've scaled it back a lot," said Lucasfilm licensing executive Howard Roffman. "We're going to stick to the basics - toys, video games ... the things our fans prefer, rather than some of the fringe items."(CBS).

          As far as critical reception goes, the movie scored with fans extremely poorly. Many fans even went back to see the movie again to try to convince themselves of what they believed. Some fans today even go back and edit the films to their liking. To fit in line with what they believed the films should have been. For example “The first prominent Star Wars fan edit was The Phantom Edit, which circulated Hollywood on videotape in 2001 (Kraus 2001). It is a typical Star Wars fan edit in that it was presented as an attempt to turn cinematic lead into gold (note 1). The Phantom Editor, aka Mike Nichols, has said that he intended to turn Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) into a stronger film by bringing it in line with the filmmaking philosophy that George Lucas espoused while making the original Star Wars trilogy” (Phillips). At the end of this statement, it is one of the reasons why the Phantom Menace was not well received. George Lucas made the prequels trilogies differently from the original series, instead of story-oriented character-driven focus, the world-building, cinematic story-driven. The plot was criticized for being too politically driven and this left “The Phantom Menace confused audiences. Confusion led to disappointment, disappointment led to anger, anger led to hate and now, two decades later, The Phantom Menace remains ridiculed: a symbol of Hollywood hubris and the uneasy intersection between creativity and commerce (Lucas reportedly financed the film, not through a Hollywood studio, but using a $100m cheque from toy company Hasbro, leading to suspicions that entire characters were devised because they’d make good action figures)” (Al Horner). Once again fans felt cheated that profit appeared to take more control over creativity and passion. The plot of politics also made it hard for any demographic of fans, with it being too complicated for children and too simple for adults. Jar Jar Binks was blamed for many of the problems with fans believing he was too childish and ruined the entire story with his humor. The critics were not any more impressed than the fans were. The Phantom Menace received a 54% splat on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.5 out of 10 on IMDB. One critic,  David Edelstein, wrote "Those poor souls who’ve been camping out in front of theaters for six weeks: Who can blame them for saying, 'To hell with the critics, we know it will be great!'? The doors will open, and they’ll race to grab the best seats and feel a surge of triumph as their butts sink. We’ve made it: Yeeehaww!! They’ll cheer when the familiar John Williams fanfare erupts and the title–Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace–rises out of the screen and the backward-slanted opening “crawl” begins: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…Yaaahhhhhhh!!! Then, their hearts pounding, they’ll settle back to read the rest of the titles: 'Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.' Taxation of trade routes: Waaahoooo!!!!" (Beck). This goes to show that the hype and nostalgia of the previous Star Wars films only aided the film in falling further down in disappointment, with many fans not receiving the story each and everyone wanted.

          Overall the Phantom Menace was incredibly ambitious for its time, and George Lucas looked to craft his own story. Despite the negative reception the film has received in the past, some fans are starting to warm up to the film with the emergence of the sequels. The Phantom Menace also exposed a whole new generation to Star Wars and those kids that are now grown up are fond of the prequel trilogy. Will the film ever be looked back and considered a great? Most likely not, with a hard to follow and confusing plot, aged CGI, hindering characters, and poor pacing the film will always be criticized. On the bright side, The Phantom Menace accomplished a lot for the film industry in technological advances and its impact will always be seen in the future.

 Works Cited

Beck, Kellen. “20 Years Later: Critics' Reviews of 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace'.” Mashable, 19 May 2019, mashable.com/article/star-wars-phantom-menace-reviews-20-years-later/.

Bouzereau, Laurent, and Jody Duncan. Star Wars: the Making of Episode I, the Phantom Menace. Ballantine, 1999.

CBS News. “'Star Wars' - Attack of the Toys.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 24 Apr. 2002, www.cbsnews.com/news/star-wars-attack-of-the-toys/.

Chitwood, Adam. “'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' Was Offered to Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis.” Collider, 24 Sept. 2019, collider.com/star-wars-episode-1-ron-howard-steven-spielberg-robert-zemeckis/.

Harris, Michael HarrisMike. “The Not-So-Phantom Marketing - The Journey To The Phantom Menace.” RetroZap, 3 Sept. 2019, www.retrozap.com/the-not-so-phantom-marketing-the-journey-to-the-phantom-menace/.

“Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).” Rotten Tomatoes, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_menace.

“Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 16 May 1999, www.imdb.com/title/tt0120915/.

Phillips, Forrest. “Symposium.” Transformative Works and Cultures, journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/download/385/260.

Horner, Al. “The Phantom Menace at 20: Where Did It All Go Wrong for the Star Wars Prequel?” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 19 May 2019, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/star-wars-the-phantom-menace-20-year-anniversary-george-lucas-a8914821.html.

Sherlock, Ben. “Star Wars: 25 Crazy Details Behind The Making Of The Prequel Trilogy.” ScreenRant, Screen Rant, 7 May 2019, screenrant.com/star-wars-prequel-trilogy-behind-the-making-of/.

[kyndaris]

May Your Heart be Your Guiding Key

For almost a week, I stayed cooped up at home and played as much of Kingdom Hearts 3 as I could. The hype was real and I was simply excited to have the game in my hands. Of course, being employed full-time meant that I had to use some of my precious annual leave. To be fair though, I had plenty of it since I hardly used it and my manager actually does not want to see me go and relax because apparently I’m quite necessary to the general business side of things. But because of my obligations, there are times when it can be difficult to keep on top of the latest and greatest titles. Particularly because I do not work as a game journalist or have a dedicated YouTube or Twitch channel with plenty of ad revenue to fund a starving artist. 

And let’s be honest: even if I grabbed a decent streaming or recording device on the cheap, the market has since been so saturated, it’ll be hard to make much of a dent. A singular person can only go so far and editing is no simple task.

But back to the series that sparked my endless joy in video games in general!

The game starts off from the ending of Dream Drop Distance. Sora has lost many of his accumulated abilities and powers after nearly falling becoming a vessel for Xehanort. To find a means of regaining his strength, Sora and his companions: Donald and Goofy head towards Olympus where Hercules suffered his own performance issues in the second numbered installment of the franchise to see if the hero might be able provide any answers. This is jokingly referred to as Kingdom Hearts 2.9 and serves as a rudimentary tutorial to the controls. 

Within the two to three hours of gameplay, players are re-introduced to a more basic flowmotion, shotlocks and attractions. Gone are the reaction commands and drive forms of yesteryear. Instead, Sora is able to tap into keyblade transformations and joint attacks with his companions.

Once the story for the world ends, Sora is no closer to reclaiming the Power of Waking but he has hope for what the future might bring and heads back to Master Yen Sid to report back in. There, he is met by Riku and Mickey who had travelled to the Realm of Darkness to rescue Aqua - only for her to be missing and their own keyblades damaged when they encountered a Demon Tower. 

Plot points are exchanged and Sora is charged with heading to various Disney worlds so that he can find some way to unlock the power slumbering within him. The excuse felt flimsy but I hardly cared - eager as I was to delve into Arendelle, the Toy Box and various others worlds.

Each of the Disney worlds have their own story with only fleeting exchanges with Organization XIII members that provide some more insight into the overall plot. While several followed the plot beats from their respective films, the Pixar worlds as well as San Fransokyo contained their own individuals stories separate from the films. And for a good twenty to thirty hours, I enjoyed interacting with the likes of Woody and Buzz to Hiro to Captain Jack Sparrow.

Then there were the cutscenes with a focus on many of the other characters. Brief snippets of Kairi and Lea as they trained. Riku and Mickey as they gathered more information about the Organization’s plans and uncovered information that the players may have already been familiar with if they played the entries that were scattered on numerous platforms (but which were all collated in the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 collections).

By the end of the all the Disney worlds, however, Sora was no closer to regaining the lost Power of Waking. Plot being plot, though, he was soon diving head-first into danger in order to save Riku and the King when they failed to respond in their second attempt to rescue Aqua. From there, the plot quickens and before long, Aqua is saved and Ventus is woken from his decade long slumber. With the final battle at hand, the Seven Guardians of Light have a day of rest though it is clear that many are eager to save their friends that were still lost: Roxas, Terra and Namine.

As one, they travel to the Keyblade Graveyard only to be met by countless Heartless as the Organization unleashes their plan. And for one brief moment, the Guardians of Light fall. Sora is sent to the Final World and experiences a brief Harry Potter moment. After retrieving his missing pieces, he returns and like the film Groundhog Day, he relives the disaster that befell them until he rescues the hearts of his friends from a Heartless known as the Lich before the power of Light pulls its own Deus Ex Machina by summoning both the Lingering Will to combat Terra-Xehanort and all the players of Union X to defeat the Demon Horde of Heartless.

With these obstacles out of the way, the Guardians race to Master Xehanort. Aided as well by Master Yen Sid, they enter a labyrinth and clash with the Seekers that Xehanort brought to his side: Dark Riku (when he was possessed by Ansem and using a replica), Xigbar, Saix, Luxord, Larxene, Marluxia, Xion, Vanitas, Terra-Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Ansem and Xemnas.

After each is struck down, many reveal their hidden motivations for joining with Master Xehanort. While I found myself sympathetic to quite a few, I could not shake the feeling that some of them were contrived explanations for the villains to exist.

But though it seemed as if victory was close at hand, Master Xehanort reveals Kairi being held hostage. In order to spawn the X-blade, he strikes down the defenseless girl. Enraged, Sora rushes to attack only to be knocked aside. Seeing his plan come to fruition, Master Xehanort summons Kingdom Hearts as the culmination of his plans.

With the aid of his friends, Sora uses a beam of light to trap Master Xehanort and is taken to Scala ad Caelum. For someone who has dabbled with Union X, there were shades of Daybreak Town found within.

Eager to finish, though, I pushed on through and managed to defeat Master Xehanort at last. A slew of cutscenes soon followed but no Kairi was to be found. And as the ending played and many of the other characters managed to gain a happy ending, Sora was still desperate to find his dear friend and set out on a solitary journey. Whether or not he found her - as well as the price he paid was left ambiguous by game’s end. And for someone who has sacrificed so much, it did feel unsatisfying that Sora could not achieve the happily ever after that I so craved.

Even Kairi’s character and service to the plot seemed less than inspired. I could not shake the feeling that she was treated merely as a means to support Sora’s grand story arc. The fact that she was so easily kidnapped by Xemnas and then summarily executed felt like lazy storytelling.

Even Master Xehanort’s reveal that he was only seeking Kingdom Hearts so that he could reset the world felt like a cheap excuse to bring the Dark Seeker saga to a resolution. In fact, Kingdom Hearts 3 also dropped many additional plot points that only added to the mystery. The epilogue revealed that Xigbar was actually Luxu, one of the six apprentices of the Master of Masters. Additionally, Demyx, Luxord, Larxene and Marluxia were all hinted to have ties to the guilds of the Foretellers and the Dandelions, but none of these were properly explored.

Worse was the fact that Isa and Lea had only joined Ansem the Wise in order to help a girl that had become their friend. Who she was remained a mystery though there was a possibility her heart was encountered in the Final World. Even Maleficent and Pete made several cameos only to leave their story dropped half-way through the game.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is not a perfect game by all means. The narrative was one of the weakest out of all the other games in the Dark Seeker Saga. But the combat and the joy that it brought with its focus on Disney worlds was still enough to bring a smile to my face.

As someone who wants to uncover all the secrets to the franchise, this blogger, at least, will be looking forward to the next saga. Whether or not Sora will be the main protagonist is up in the air but I would also be excited to see someone else take the reins. Kingdom Hearts 3 feels like the end of a legacy and while the door to the last seventeen years comes to a close, another one is open.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t take as long for all these remaining mysteries to be answered.

On a side note, the loss of Leonard Nimoy was clearly felt in this entry. The new voice actor brings his own flair to the character but Spock will be missed.

#kingdom hearts 3 #video games #spoilers #kingdom hearts

[cannedapricot]

Triwizard Tournament! Kang Daniel | Part 1

my potterhead self is showing fuck

includes a teensy bit of harry potter spoilers!!

kang daniel

there wasn’t a being in the castle who didn’t know his name

the sixth year gryffindor beater who had a swarm of girls following him everywhere?

yeah, that’s him

the sorting hat had contemplated whether to place him in hufflepuff or gryffindor for a while in his first year

the hat was finally about to put him in hufflepuff until danny boy here hoped for gryffindor

the hat sighed lol

“is it because harry potter was in gryffindor?”

“no, the gryffindor animal is a lion right???? and a lion is basically a huge cat!!”

so the hat was like,

“uh, ok kid if that’s how you want it”

and then announced gryffindor to the whole school

everyone thinks that daniel’s a pure blood because??? he looks so natural with magic he must’ve grown up with it

but danik’s a half blood!

his dad was a pure blood who fell in love with a muggle 

but he did indeed grow up with magic

his mom didn’t even care that his dad was a wizard lol 

she was even excited about it!!

so magic was used around the house like any pure blood’s house lmao

“hey dad!! could you pass me the chips?”

“sure!! Wingardium Leviosa!!”

daniel got his first cat when he went shopping for textbooks with his dad in his first year

but fell in love with another cat when he went shopping with ong in his third year

and bought it on a whim

BUT 

you’re only supposed to bring one pet to hogwarts :’)

so ong is forced to say that peter’s his pet in front of teachers :’))

daniel LOVES care of magical creatures

that one student that thinks blast ended skrewts are cute

and whenever daniel starts gushing over them, ong receives so much second hand embarrassment that he pretends to not know daniel

even though the whole school knows that they’re basically the second fred and george weasley 

and so naturally, they were regulars at weasley’s wizard wheezes 

filch hates all of them lmao

this particular year, it was rumored that there would be another triwizard tournament held at hogwarts

nobody knew who started the rumor

but ongniel heard of it the second they stepped foot on platform 9 ¾

they knew what it was obviously

you’d have to be a fresh new muggle born to not know

seongwoo was hYPED ASF

“LISTEN BUDDY,,,, WE HAVE TO TRY GET OUR NAMES IN THE CUP”

daniel just chuckled and went along with it

“it’s not like we’d get chosen anyways”

and lo and behold, after the sorting ceremony,

mcgonagall announces the tournament in a tone of, “i-opposed-to-this-idea-but-the-others-were-all-for-it-so-here-we-are”

she repeats 18305 times that,

“ONLY wizards and witches of the age SEVENTEEN AND OVER may participate”

while glaring at ongniel 

ongniel snickers at this because,

“thERE’S GOTTA BE A WAY TO GET PAST LMAO”

you were a ravenclaw in the same year as daniel

you were also a muggleborn who had no idea that the magical world existed!

so you were curious and excited about everything

you’re eagerness to learn everything about the magical world led you to being sorted into ravenclaw

you were appointed prefect last year and you’d bEEN STOKED!!!!

because being a prefect meant!!!!

thaT THE PROFESSORS!!!

RECOGNIZED YOUR SKILLS!!!!!

you knew daniel of course, you had charms with the gryffindors in fourth year

you had even and shared a desk with daniel 

because flitwick had enough of ongniel and split them up lmao

to your surprise you found daniel not as mischievous as you originally thought 

and you also found yourself getting dragged into pranks with onglniel thanks to you getting along well with niel

“hey guys,,,, we shouldn’t be doing this,,,,”

“come one y/n!! live a little!!”

“bUT WHAT IF WE GET EXPELLED???”

“won’t happen. now keep watch for filch while we set these wet start no heat fireworks up”

you just stand there flabbergasted while daniel sends you the cutest smile

ong was way too busy with the fireworks to care about what you two do lmao

basically

you were the only sane one in the trio

kind of

so when mcgonagall announces the triwizard tournament

you mumble,

“i thought they weren’t doing that anymore after diggory’s death”

while turning your head to look at the boys at the gryffindor table

and to your expectation, they were whispering excitedly to each other

after the great feast, you wanted to talk the two out of it but head boy! minhyun who was also from ravenclaw catches you and reminded you that,

“y/n you are a prefect!!!!111!1 remember what a prefect has to do???”

and so you sigh and herd the junior students towards the ravenclaw tower

next day during breakfast, you zoomed over to the gryffindor table

not caring that all your ravenclaw friends were like,

“ooooooh is y/n gonna have breakfast with their boyfriend? ;))))”

ongniel didn’t even realize you were there until you slaMMED YOUR FIST ON THE TABLE

and congatulations!!!!111!1!1

you’ve officially got the two’s attention!1!!!

along with everyone else in the great hall

a w k s

everyone kinda returns to their breakfast after a second tho because

“oh it’s that time of the week where y/n tries to stop ongniel from doing something stupid”

it happens so often it’s normal for everyone

“don’t even try put your name in the cup”

you hissed

“holy shit you almost sounded like you were speaking parseltongue there”

“i will fucking end you ong”

ongniel is shook™

you were dead serious this time

“people d i e. you’ve heard of the scary death count. you’ve heard about diggory. not to mention you’re u n d e r a g e”

ok you may have sounded like a nagging mother

but you were genuinely worried

what if they succeed in putting their names in???

whAT IF THEY GET PICKED?????

ongniel bursts into laughter and say the line they always say to you

“it’s not gonna happen y/n. listen, i know you’re worried for us but even if we get to put our names in, we won’t get chosen!”

“even if we were chosen, mcgonagall wouldn’t let us participate!”

the two boys, even though they always do the exact opposite of what you say, know that you’re just looking out for them

“but even so, you shouldn’t even take that-”

“we’re going to be fine y/n. go back to the ravenclaw table and eat with your friends!!”

daniel says, giving you the sweetest smile

the same smile that you can’t say no to

and so, reluctantly, you shuffle back to your table

your friends giggling and asking if you asked daniel out and got rejected

“i didn’T ASK HIM O U T!!”

come september the 30th, all the halls were filled with whispers of the incoming beauxbatons and durmstrang students

and while your friends mumble about classes finishing early and how they’d be missing out on history of magic

you found yourself daydreaming and dropping further away from your group

“y/n!! come on, hurry up or we’ll miss seeing their entrance!!”

“coming-”

just as you were picking up your pace, you felt an arm wrap around you

“sorry!! we’ll be borrowing y/n!”

looking up, you meet the gaze of daniel

with ong on your other side but really all you see is danik 👀👀

your friends burst into giggles and wave before heading off

leaving you with the two trouble makers

standing the middle of the hallway

with people bumping into you guys

“can’t you two kidnap me in a better place??”

“what? you expected us to corner you in the shrieking shack??”

rolling your eyes, you turned around, removing daniel’s arm from you in the process

“what do you two need?? i’m a prefect i have to go keep the ravenclaws in order so cut to the chase”

grinning, seongwoo slides up next to you

“say y/n, you know how to brew an ageing potion right???”

“yeah”

“could you maybe-”

“nope, not doing it”

the halls were empty by this point

everyone was outside waiting for the beauxbaton students and durmstrang students

“but none of us know at all!”

“well, you’ll just have to find someone else to do it.”

you turn around with a snap and head towards the grounds

leaving ongniel standing in an open hallway

“by the way,”

the two boys snap their heads up, eyes filled with hope

“george said that he and fred tried using an ageing potion and it didn’t work. i doubt that it’ll work this time either”

they were even more deflated

“do you think minhyun would make us one?”

“doubt it”

the two sigh in unison

“where have you been? you know how bad jaehwan is at his job of being prefect”

head boy! minhyun hisses to you the moment you arrive

“sorry, two dumbasses delayed me”

just as you say dumbasses

daniel and ong step out onto the grounds lmao

and minhyun winces

“i feel bad for you”

“i feel bad for me too”

suddenly a gust of wind that makes everyone hold onto their books blows past

and everyone gasps as they see the horse drawn carriages arriving

you catch ongniel oogling at the students of beauxbatons the second they step out

and you unknowingly frown

minhyun catches this and smirks

“jealous that your crush is staring at another?”

“whaT NO--- DANIEL AND I ARE JUST FRIENDS”

“ah, so it’s daniel”

“IVBSIBVOSB WHATNO-”

“why didn’t you deny anything about seongwoo??”

and shit

ok you may have a teensy tiny little crush on the tall boy

b u t

you weren’t obvious

 r i g h t ? ? ? ?

“you were obvious y/n, try harder”

fuck

and while you beat yourself up about it inside

minhyun looks at the emerging boat of durmstrang with a small smile

as the durmstrang students step out, minhyun leans over to you whispering about how he bets that that one durmstrang student would be champion

this action doesn’t go unnoticed tho

out of the corner of his eye,

danny boy notices

and boy was he not in a good mood because of it

“hey seongwoo”

“yeah bro?”

“do you think,,,, y/n’s dating minhyun?”

ong nearly chokes on his spit

“wHaT???”

following danik’s gaze, ong sees you whispering back to minhyun

“holy shit they might be actually dating”

narrowing his eyes, daniel watches as you and minhyun walk back inside

minhyun extends his arm towards you

and you let out a hearty laugh before taking his arm

after that day, you haven’t made conversation with daniel

you were ?????confused as heck

because

you can’t remember ever offending him????

like????

usually when you brush pass the two in the hallways, daniel would ruffle your hair

but now he acts like he didn’t see you???

ong apologizes on his behalf

“i have no idea why he’s being like this,,, i’m sorry”

and daniel’s mad at himself for being mad at you

“are you sure,,,, that you aren’t taking y/n and minhyun’s relationship too hard??”

“i’m not. there’s no reason to”

daniel replies as he pouts behind his fantastic beasts and where to find them textbook

daniel’s obviously upset about it

and ong thinks he knows why

on the other hand, you were pacing around in the library in front on minhyun, who was reading a book on healing properties

“what if- what if- whAT IF HE’S MAD BECAUSE I WOULDN’T BREW HIM AN AGEING POTION????”

the librarian pops her head out from behind a shelf and mouths at you to “shhh”

minhyun chuckles, flipping the page

“i doubt it”

“theN WH Y”

“i have an idea of why. but it’ll unfold itself as time goes by”

you nearly pull your hair out at his answer

returning the book to it’s shelf, minhyun pats your shoulder

“here, i’ll walk you back, it’s getting late”

sighing, you follow minhyun out of the library

“aren’t you going back to the dorm?”

“i’m on night duty tonight-”

minhyun’s words cut off as you two come face to face with the one and only

kang daniel

and ong but he’s not the main chaRACTER HE R E

danik’s lowkey trigGERED

but he stays silent and walks past you two

“uh, hey y/n!! have a nice night!!!”

ong says and also brushes past

you’re just 

“???????????whatthefuck”

and minhyun just stands there with a small smile

because he definitely knows why now

hello!! i’ve decided to split this au into two parts as it gets quite long!! i hope it’s ok with all of you,,,, anyway!! happy new year to all of you!! it’s been quite a while since i posted a scenario and i think this is my first scenario of 2018!! i hope im still relative oops

#this is featuring quite a bit of minhyun dsobvos #wanna one #kang daniel #produce 101 #triwizard tournament! au #harry potter! au #hogwarts! au #broduce 101 #wanna one scenarios #kpop #kpop scenarios #mmo #kang daniel scenarios #wanna one imagine #wanna one aus #kang daniel imagines #kang daniel aus #kang euigeon

[wellthatwasaletdown]

it feels so obvious now that the flags are just a part of his image. i was trying really hard to be hopeful that wasn’t the case bc he also had the puerto rico flag and trans flag, but to ignore the black lives matter flag shows he is a coward and that BLM is too controversial a topic for him to touch. this will only change if there is too much backlash.

and now i’m thinking he probably only used the trans flag bc it was safe for him to parade since most of the GP dont care to know about that flag. but lgbtq and ally fans will recognize it and love him for being inclusive, i almost did. i should have just known from how he prances around every single night with the flags that it’s for show. i don’t doubt he’s in support of lgbtq community, but it feels so much like staged production. i’m starting to feel like that’s all he is now. just look at his kiwi gimmick of stopping the song to hype it up. it’s so clearly a rehearsed tactic to market it as *the* harry styles song. this is the rock hit. he has his stance for it and all. but he had a massive platform and audience at iheart and no one talks about or knows the song besides his fans. if it were the work of an iconic legendary modern rock star, it would have been all over the news and the radio, everyone would obsess over it. but all people talked about was that he was there and that his outfit was ridiculous. at this point i doubt making it a single will change anything.

and to the anon asking, if bowie is trending, why hasn’t harry caught on with the GP, it’s because harry’s music is nothing compared to bowie (or any rock artists of the aesthetic harry is trying to imitate). harry brings a guitar on stage that he can barely play, and bowie was a multi instrumentalist who masted music production enough to experimented with it. harry is all imitation and nothing unique, and the guitar is just another thing meant to enforce his image.

after weeks of being forced to listen to hs1 at work, literally every single one of my co-workers talks about how it’s boring and repetitive. woman was one of the few songs i enjoyed and now i can’t stand it because i realized it’s so flat. it’s literally over before i know it and goes nowhere. the whole album has zero lasting value. someone might look back in 10 years and say hm that was kinda interesting that a guy from a boyband put out a rock album, but no one will know it for anything else besides that. nothing about the album is important sounding or groundbreaking, and that’s why rock and rockstars were big in the first place, because it was groundbreaking. his team just took popular rock vibes and sounds and smushed them into an album. no one’s going to bother listening to imitation when the real thing is just as easily acceptable and much more enjoyable. and made by better vocalists and people with more talent than he has.

he is MEANT to look like the next big rockstar and MEANT to sound like it, but all he does is look ridiculous, put expensive clothing to shame, and sound tired even though he had all the time in the world to prepare for this tour. if they weren’t so obsessed with forcing this image, he might have actually had a good album.

#harry styles #submission

[cryptocoingrowth]

BTC Miami Blockchain Conference Kicks Off Its Seventh Year

On January 16, The North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) opened its doors at the James L. Knight Center in Miami for its seventh year. The conference was filled with hundreds of crypto enthusiasts, exhibits, and well known speakers from the blockchain industry. Also Read: Grassroots Bitcoin Cash House Movement Expands to Ghana

BTC Miami Conference Commences With Crypto Exhibits and Speakers Discussing Blockchain Solutions

BTC Miami, the popular blockchain event hosted in beautiful downtown Miami, has kicked into high gear as the James L. Knight Center filled with crypto and blockchain supporters from all around the world. Thursday’s opening remarks started with TNABC host Moe Levin and the city of Miami’s Mayor Francis Suarez. The mayor discussed blockchain and crypto innovation within Miami’s borders in order to establish the city as a hub of innovation. Suarez also announced that this week was an officially recognized event by the city called Blockchain Week Miami.

TNABC 2020 was filled with all types of crypto companies and exhibits. The official concluded his talk by presenting Levin with a certificate from the city. Following Suarez, Bobby Lee, the founder of the wallet card Ballet, discussed how people can make digital currencies more accessible and referenced the cold storage Ballet card. TNABC attendees heard from bnktothefuture.com’s Simon Dixon, Veriblock’s Justin Fisher, and a climactic mid-day speech from blockchain investor Brock Pierce. Pierce explained how crypto solutions and blockchain could transform the world for the better.

Bitcoin.com’s Miami Token Airdrop and Spreading SLP Awareness

The exhibit hall was filled with TNABC attendees checking out all the companies showcasing platforms, devices, and artwork. Bitcoin.com gave away bitcoin cash-loaded Golden Ticket scratch-offs, after having people download the Badger Wallet. After that step, people swept the QR code on their scratch-off ticket, in order to reveal their bitcoin cash (BCH) reward. Then the user had to join the special Telegram group Bitcoin.com created to post their SLP address. When the conference convenes on Friday, people who swept their Golden Tickets will get some special SLP-based Miami Conference tokens airdropped for participating.

The Bitcoin.com booth gave away Golden Ticket scratch-offs with free bitcoin cash and during the conference people who downloaded the Badger Wallet and swept the scratch-off’s QR will be airdropped “Miami Conference tokens.” The “Miami Token” can be exchanged at the Bitcoin.com booth for special rewards. The Bitcoin.com booth was busy with people learning about peer-to-peer cash and the innovation behind the Simple Ledger Protocol.

BTC Miami 2020 participants need to download the Badger Wallet and then scratch their Golden Ticket for a BCH reward. Then the user needs to join the exclusive BTC Miami Telegram group to post their SLP address. After the SLP address is posted, at some point during the conference participants will be airdropped Miami Conference tokens. A few members of the SLP development team were in attendance as well including SLP engineer James Cramer. Speaking with news.Bitcoin.com, Cramer gave his thoughts on the crypto conference in Miami. “The conference has been great so far,” Cramer told news.Bitcoin.com. “Meeting with people face to face that you speak with on the internet. You can do video conference calls and things like that, but meeting people face to face is way better.” The developer also talked about TNABC participants asking the developers about SLP tokens. “We made new bright green t-shirts that say slp.cash with the SLP logo. People are asking about SLP and they are super interested — I think people are open to trying the Simple Ledger Protocol,” Cramer said.

SLP developers represented at TNABC Miami this year.

Massive Crypto and Blockchain Building and Recognition From the City of Miami

Other booths included Edge wallet, Crypto.com, Bitangels, Tradestation, and the Crypto Playhouse. TNABC featured unique artwork as well from crypto artists like Fractalencrypt, Sergey Gordienko, and Lucho Poletti. After lunch, TNABC participants watched a panel on cryptocurrency regulations and law. Additionally, during the remainder of the afternoon, people listened to talks from Edge Wallet’s Paul Puey, crypto pioneer Nick Spanos, Binary Financial’s Harry Yeh and closing remarks from TNABC host Moe Levin. During the event, news.Bitcoin.com spoke with Levin and asked him what he thought about the seventh annual TNABC conference.

TNABC featured a number of artists like Lucho Poletti, Fractalencrypt, and Sergey Gordienko. “I feel like this event more closely resembles 2015 and 2016 and not that many people have experienced those years,” Levin explained. “What I mean by that is during 2015, it was after the climactic rising price of bitcoin hitting $1,200 with all the hype and then nothing for two years — and we produced this event for 300 to 400 people in 2015 and it was tiny. It was super small compared to the last two years and I believe there were only a few exhibits at the time. But those businesses who attended and some of those exhibitors went on to build what are now some of the biggest companies in crypto.” Levin added: A lot of people are not aware of the cycles in this industry and what happens is when the market is down, people start building a lot more. They don’t go out much, they don’t hype things, they just build. And when there’s real hype and interest globally, they have the widest nets to capture all the interest.

TNABC’s main theatre room. Additionally, Levin spoke about Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s speech and the certificate he received earlier in the day. “I would love to take as much credit for making Miami a Bitcoin City but I’m not here every day building a blockchain center and encouraging companies to come here. But the city of Miami is and when they say the quote ‘open for business,’ it is true. It’s also a form of legitimacy from a local government for crypto globally … because it’s a real thing — it’s an official Blockchain Week recognized by Miami. It’s nice man, it feels good.” What do you think about The North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) Miami? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Bitcoin.com is an official platinum sponsor and media partner of the 2020 TNABC event. Image credits: Shutterstock, SLP, Jamie Redman, TNABC, Bitcoin.com, Fair Use, and Pixabay. Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. The post BTC Miami Blockchain Conference Kicks Off Its Seventh Year appeared first on Bitcoin News.Original Article - Bitcoin.com Read the full article

[stringnarratives]

An Act of Shelf Discovery

[This post brought to you spoiler free and full of the blogger’s personal experience!]

In my third-ever post on this blog on March 23, 2017, I wrote about making the switch from physical books to e-books. For someone who loved (and still loves) the sensory aspect of physical books, it was a daunting challenge, but a necessary one: At the time, I would go on average 6 months between moves, had three shelves at my consistent disposal, and more books than I could count. Books lived in piles next to my bed, were stored in boxes in the closet, were forced upon my brother (who is also an avid supporter of this blog and probably reading this post: In which case, hi!) under the guise of “recommendations” so they could live in his space instead of mine. 

Fast forward two years and that habit has set in hard - I purchase between 85 and 90 percent of my books digitally now, even though some of the circumstances that made it necessary have thankfully expired (For the record, infrequent moving is an absolute joy!). In addition to a more compact, generally cheaper library that I abuse less and finish more, e-books have also contributed strongly to another new book-buying habit I’ve developed: Preordering.

In 2019, I made it a goal to learn more about my own literary consumption by forgoing the majority of traditional book shopping and preordering any new release that piqued my interest. Tracking each of my pre-purchases via color-coded spreadsheet (as one does, and indeed, must), I’ve thrown myself full-force into the new, and learned a lot in the process, both about the function of preorders in the publishing industry and about my own taste in literature.

The Purpose of Preorders

Before this experiment, my main experience with pre-orders had been primarily in relation to video games (I’m a sucker for midnight release downloads directly to my console) or limited edition media that I’m unlikely to procure without being proactive. I didn’t really know much about them beyond the consumer perspective, but being the chronic researcher I (clearly) am, I wanted to know what my new purchasing habit meant in greater context. 

To break it down, preorders serve two main purposes in the publishing industry. They are A) a promotional tool for authors and publishers to build hype for a book before it’s released and B) an indicator for stores to properly respond to a book’s demand.

A preorder’s promotional value could come from a few different avenues. As pre-order sales contribute to the release week sales total for a book (as mentioned in this Parnassus Musings post), they can be valuable fuel for books that rocket to the top of bestseller lists. For first time or less well-known authors, having a preorder page automatically create an additional searchable content and feeling of legitimacy for books in the promotional phase. The more people who pre-order the book are also potentially more people who would share about their pre-order with their friends.

For established authors, preorders often come from existing fans of a series or the author themselves, and serve as an indicator as to the activity of the existing fanbase, efficiency of an author’s platform for communicating with fans, as well as their interest in new work.

In 2016, the written script of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” became Amazon’s No. 1 preorder for the year, according to CNET, and topped Barnes & Noble’s chart as well, according to Rolling Stone. While the exact number of preorders was apparently not released, it makes complete sense that the number would be a big one. Pottermore (which Wikipedia describes as a “digital publishing, e-commerce, entertainment, and news company from J. K. Rowling” not limited to the popular virtual Hogwarts experience) released a bulletin early last year that over 500 million Harry Potter books had been sold in the 20 years since the first book’s release. 

In addition to their promotional function, preorders also serve as an indicator for a book’s popularity upon release. In a 2017 blog post to authors about the importance of pre-orders, Penguin Random House stresses that a high enough preorder number could “lead to retailers increasing their initial orders.” Last November, Barnes & Noble reported former first lady Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” to be the most preordered book of 2018, according to The Washington Post.  This article in particular points out how booksellers prepare for a book’s popularity based on a preorder buzz, “bracing” for enormous numbers of books to fly off the shelves by bulking up their orders ahead of time.

Preorders are a function of marketing in the publishing industry - an opportunity to get readers in the door early, and get them to talk about a book before its release. In return, readers get discounts, bonuses, the satisfaction of knowing they’ll be one of the first members of the public to receive the work, and, very occasionally, some insight into who they are as readers.

Getting Shelf-ish

In the four-ish months (at time of writing), around 22 books have come to me through the preorder method. With 13 books total read so far this year, about 7 of them were preorders, both they and the books between them have plenty to tell about how I read.

My taste is more consistent in concept than it is in practice.

Anyone who’s stuck around String Narratives long enough will know that, across mediums, I’m big on a few genres: Science fiction, horror and satire, primarily. When I started preordering books as a part of this experiment, I thought it pretty safe to assume that if a book fell into one of those categories, there was a good chance I’d enjoy it. Which, for the record, probably still holds true. 

But one thing that I did notice early on in this experiment and didn’t expect at all was that I very, very quickly get bored with my own taste. I can get ahold of too much science fiction at once, too much horror. Both genres can get absolutely exhausting without a break between them - breaks I took naturally when purchasing books in a more traditional fashion without realizing. So, for all of those winter sci-fi reads I was so excited about started losing their appeal, I found myself turning to much different fare as a palate cleanser: YA fiction, books about food, and biography - three genres much lower on my radar which I ended up enjoying just as much.

Access to books is rarely the thing that keeps me from reading.

It is what it says on the tin. Where I’d previously easily blamed “not having anything to read” (a concept laughable to anyone who knows me, much less has lived with me and my books) for a lack of desire to consume printed work, I have to now own up to my truth. As books are on a similar mid-week release schedule as most other popular media, I get at least one book delivered to my e-reader most Tuesdays, which means there is always something to read. If I don’t want to read, it’s simply because I don’t feel like it. (Which is totally okay! Life happens and we roll with it.)

My library is built from recommendations.

Recommendations and reviews are my bread and butter when it comes to choosing what kind of media I want to ingest, and not always in the way you think. I typically rely on others to help discern the true atmosphere of a work when I’m easily caught up in cover art and promotional images. While books in the promotional stage are less likely to have a significant number of reviews, I still rely fairly heavily on Advance Reader Copy (ARC) reviews to estimate how much I’ll enjoy a book before preordering. Adding onto that, I get a lot of my book news from online outlets specifically dedicated to new book releases, including Verge’s monthly round-up of science fiction books and Book Riot’s whole entire site. 

My new release discovery time is anywhere between 1 month and 10 months.

Was I absolutely stoked to find out that my book of the year 2018 - Semiosis by Sue Burke - was getting a sequel? I absolutely was. Did I preorder that sequel nine months and 11 days before it’s projected to come out? I absolutely did. For authors I already know, love and follow, I’m happy to be that fan that lets everyone know I’ve already made the preorder. For authors I’m less familiar with, or who are debuting their first book, that ten month window might actually shrink to something more like ten days. It isn’t a hard and fast rule, but there certainly is something to being in the know when it comes to favorite authors’ upcoming releases - a result of great communication and even better marketing.

The narratives we consume say a lot about us. They speak to our loves, our fears, the places we want to go between the hours of our waking lives. We pass them along to those around us, intentionally or not. 

But as we become consistently more aware of how the stories around us shape our lives and mature in our understanding of how they fit into the world, we must also, I believe, recognize something else: The way we acquire narratives says just as much about us as the stories we choose to slip into. 

#topics #preorders #books #book #ebooks #topic #preorder #a horrifying pun title

[dustingrayves]

praecantatio

Pairing: elsain WC: 2077 Rating: T AU: harry potter au Category: fluff Notes: snippets of elsword and ain’s lives in hogwarts

1st year

Anxiety is almost palpable between the kids, their shuffling loud and whispers hushed by Professor McGonagall. Elsword’s wide red eyes look over the Great Hall.

The hat is placed onto his head and almost immediately it laughs, whispering ‘You’re just like your sister,’ just to him before exclaiming “Griffindor!” to the whole hall.

There’s cheers from the middle of the hall, Elesis standing up from her seat to usher him towards her, wrapping one strong arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug while laughing heartily.

“I knew you’d make it here, kiddo!” she says, and Elsword can’t his own grin, stretching his face.

The next student announced is a Slytherin, and Elsword is still distracted by his sister and all the other people by the table trying to talk to him and introduce themselves that he only catches a glimpse of silver hair, a tall boy making his way towards the cheering Slytherin table.

Elsword blinks curiously, but it’s like the boy disappears when sitting down.

2nd year

"Hey, who's that?" Elsword asks, and all the heads around him at the Griffindor table turn towards his pointing finger, aiming somewhere at the mess hall entrance.

"Who?"

Els' brows crease. "That pretty boy, with the silver hair. He always sits in the back of the class. He's just coming in."

"I can't see him..."

"He's right there, by the door! He's greeting the Bloody Baron!"

"Els, no one talks to the Bloody Baron."

"I still can't see him. You sure you don't need glasses?"

"Fuck you guys, I'm gonna go talk to him if you're not gotta tell me anything," Elsword grumbles, standing up and leaving his half-eaten pudding and stumped friends sitting there.

He makes his way through the crowd to where the Bloody Baron still hovers by the door. It's very rare to see anyone talking to him, and students even take a few steps away from him as they enter and leave the mess hall. There he is, the pretty boy.

Just as Elsword steps towards him, the Bloody Baron decides to take his leave and floats away, leaving the boy alone in the middle of the doorway.

"Hey!" he calls out, trying to get the boy's attention. He, however, either doesn't hear him or ignores him and starts making his way through the hall towards the Slytherin table.

Well, considering that and the green patterned scarf wrapped around his neck, he's probably Slytherin. That's more than Els knew three minutes ago.

"Hey!" he calls out again, shoes squeaking on the floor as he dashes up to his, tapping his arm to get his attention.

The boy stops in his tracks, turning to look at him no less than completely shocked. "You're calling me?" he asks incredulously, as if that idea is something laughable.

"Yes! Sorry, you're probably hungry... Uh..." Els falters, his courage dying out. He didn't really think through what he was going to say once he actually talked to the boy. "U-uh, what's your name?"

The boy blinks down at him - and he's so much taller than Elsword, towers over him even with his lanky limbs. "I'm Ainchase Ishmael," he says, muttering the next few words, "Usually no one notices me, haha."

Elsword's mouth opens in a gasp. He doesn't think at all before he is blurting out, "I don't believe that! You're so pretty, how come!?"

Ainchase, or Ain, as Els dubs him in his mind (see, he dislikes long names), tenses up, shoulders rising and eyes going wide.

Elsword realizes the meaning of his words and holds up his hands, waving them frantically. "Handsome! I meant handsome!"

Ain hugs the tall stack of books he's holding close to his chest, and though it's pretty hard from this angle, Els can see red creeping up his cheeks and ears. "T-thank you... You are very pretty yourself. Ah, I'll... have to go now. Fancy meeting you, um..."

"Elsword. S-Sieghart. Elsword Sieghart," Els finally stammers out with difficulty.

"Elsword," Ain repeats softly, "Fancy meeting you, Elsword!"

And then the Slytherin boy is scurrying off, hunched over his stack of books slightly and leaving Elsword behind with flaming cheeks and a burning stomach.

It doesn't take much persuasion to get Ain to sit with him somewhere closer to the front of the classroom. In fact, it's pretty easy. The tall boy just nods and follows him where he sets down his stuff.

Over the span of one day, Els learns that Ain excels at all the subjects, but doesn't gloat or even try answering when the teachers ask the class. No, instead he has to listen to that girl, Granger, as she blurts out all the answers before her hand is even fully outstretched.

Honestly, he'd much rather hear Ain answering.

But he does get to hear the boy whispering the correct answers to him whenever he writes down the wrong thing. The knowledge that Ain is watching him make all these stupid mistakes (and really, he could avoid most of these by paying more attention) and isn't even a little malicious while correcting him makes him feel irrationally happy. Not even Chung would do that.

And as much as he notices Ain pays attention to him, he pays just as much of it to him. His hand flicks lightly as he holds the quill, and when he holds his wands, it's never with all fingers, just three. His pinkie and index are always off the wood, and the grace of his movements is impeccable.

After nightfall, laying in his bed and staring at the red curtains, Els realizes he wants to know more about him. He wants to be friends.

3r year

Elsword helps Ain join the Quidditch team. Ain had probably said it on accident, but when the last game ended, he looked quite dreamy, and confessed that he'd 'like to try playing it. It looks so fun from the distance, you know? And flying is the best, so that's just a bonus!'

So Elsword didn't wait even a minute and yanked Ain all the way to the potion classroom, where Severus Snape was, clearing out the aftermath of a class with the first years with perfected flicks of his wand.

He eyes Elsword with obvious doubt in his eyes. "Mr. Sieghart. Mr. Ishmael. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Ain is visibly uncomfortable with the use of his last name, just like usual, so Els takes it upon himself to tell the professor all the details.

Half an hour and a flying demonstration later, the Slytherin team has a new Chaser. Snape pulls Ain away to talk to the team captain, and Ain's face is stretched into such a bright and vibrant smile that it creates butterflies in Els' stomach all by itself.

Ain on a broom is like looking at magic itself. The way he maneuvers it, and the way he uses the air itself to help himself... It's like looking at a Pegasus. Ain was born to be in the air, or at least it looks like it.

He almost can't see what's going on, but the crowd around him is going wild; cheering and yelling fills the air. Someone hands him a pair of binoculars — he thinks it's Hagrid, but he doesn't look and check.

With them, it is much easier to watch the silver haired boy.

Ain catches his stare a few times, and even mouths something, but it's too far for Els to be able to decipher.

Elsword had never liked Quidditch, not even a bit, never understood the hype, but everyone on the Griffindor platforms would not hesitate to bet that the loudest cheers whenever Ain scored a point were from him.

Elsword's first kiss happens when he's fourteen.

Waiting by the changing room, still holding a rattler, just like the majority of the students, he's taken by surprise when the door opens and the tall boy he'd been waiting for runs out and almost tackles him, arms wrapping around Elsword's shoulders and lips crashing against the redhead's.

It doesn't feel real. Ain's lips are soft like feathers, hold grateful like Els had personally put up the stars in the night sky. Els has to glance down to make sure he's still standing on the firm ground, because it feels like he's floating.

If he weren't a human, or if he were enchanted with a spell, he probably would've melted right then and there.

4th year

Hogwarts provides many hidden nooks and crannies for those who need it. If one were to pay close attention, they might catch a pair of students hiding in tiny, unused corridors, fingers twined with each other so tightly they were almost the same, with eyes full of adoration, wonder, young love.

Green and red press close, clothes shuffling as they hold onto each other, stealing kisses before emerging back to the more populated corridors, fluidly merging back into the crowd like nothing had happened at all.

Only tiny, knowing smiles that matched each other would betray them, if someone were to pay attention, but they aren’t. The Triwizard tournament seems to occupy everyone’s minds more than two boys hiding away to kiss.

5th year

The library is much more lively than usual, filled to the brim with students huddling in couples or groups to work with the same books. The OWLs had always managed to stir up the quiet place, and the students' chattering provides a nice white noise.

Well, of course, if they're not chatting right next to you.

Placing a red bookmark between the yellowed, fading pages of his book, Ain closes it and sets it onto the table, next to a stack of them.

He looks at Elsword, who, predictably enough, is doodling onto a piece of parchment instead of reading any books.

Seeing as he knows Els won't just start working out of nowhere, and he himself is sick of the books more than enough for now, Ain takes inspiration from the group next to them.

"What would you like to be when you graduate, Els?" he asks, fixing a strand of his hair that had managed to fall out of his braid.

Elsword looks up from his surprisingly accurate caricature of Snape at Ain. Setting down his quill, he hums while thinking.

Ain waits patiently until the redhead finally brightens up, opening his mouth. "I don't know yet. Not anything in the office, though, that'd be terrible. What about you?"

Ain doesn't need that much time to think; in fact he doesn't need any time to think. With the utmost confidence he says, "I don't care. Anything is fine if I could do it with you."

At the soft smile gracing his face and the heartfelt tone, Elsword's face fills with rushing blood, coloring his cheeks pink. He reaches over and bumps a fist into Ain's cloaked shoulder.

Ain laughs while Els picks up his quill with a touch of anger and embarrassment.

Els’ hand slips into Ain’s, fingers twining underneath both their robes’ large sleeves, hidden from sight even in the middle of the hallway.

Ain’s face colors a shade of pink and he gasps, tugging at his hand, but Els doesn’t let him go, instead squeezing reassuringly.

“Umbridge is gonna blow a fuse,” Ain mutters, but Els’ smile doesn’t wane even a little.

“Only boys and girls aren’t allowed near each other,” he says slyly, amusement and mischief twinkling in his eyes. “We’re just fine.”

Ain grips his book closer to his chest, looking around anxiously, but no one seems to even notice. He squeezes the fingers back softly.

7th year

Ain hadn’t been treated as a Slytherin for years. Being with Elsword practically every waking moment they could, and having Elesis’ blessing of ‘he makes my brother happy, so don’t fucking touch him’ made him part of their pseudo-group, so no one even bat an eyelash when he’d been the first from the Slytherin table to dash his way to the Griffindor one, taking his usual spot by Elsword’s side, wand gripped tightly in one hand.

McGonagall gave an order to escort the Slytherin students, but by then, Ain had been long gone with Elsword, following Elesis as she helped guide the masses of students with the prefects.

Els’ hand slides into his, a familiar warmth, and Ain squeezes on instinct, smiling down reassuringly.

Everything is chaos, everything is falling apart right around them, but they have each other, and right now, that’s what they need.

#elsword #elsain #eso's fics #hp au #this has been sitting unfinished for ages #i left out the sad ending bc i didnt wanna suffer... #mine

[davidcarterr]

Skateboard Cafe Profile

Welcome to the first company profile in what will be an ongoing series. Skateboard Cafe have become one of our favourite companies here at Slam. Their output is steady, we love their graphics and if you haven’t watched their latest video you need to scroll down and get familiar. The idea of this feature is to offer some background to the brands we stock via the people behind them. We were stoked to speak to Rich Smith who offered a valuable insight into the inner workings of Skateboard Cafe as well as the strengths and weaknesses of it’s team riders. Without further ado here’s the profile…

Rich Smith at work. Photo by Korahn Gayle

When did Skateboard Cafe start as a brand?

As a brand, to me 2012 was kind of a milestone. That was the first time we released a small drop of boards and clothing together alongside a promo (which introduced our first official rider Shaun Currie) that was definitely a moment, like shit… Shaun’s relying on us to give him a few boards a month, I hope these boards sell! We were also giving boards to Harry Ogilvie and Josh Arnott around that time.

Before that though ‘Skateboard Cafe’ was the name of a scene video I released in 2008. It became a label for our crew and the edits we made that then developed into making a few tee’s, followed by a few boards and so on. So yeah I’d say the idea started 08, brand 2012.

What inspired the name?

Originally it was simply to give the video a theme, the intro was filmed in a cafe, 50s diner style, checkerboard floor n stuff and had jazz music playing. I just thought that was steez and a slightly different approach than usual. The name kinda stuck after that and as we grew into a brand it was the perfect theme and aesthetic to work with for graphic, music, edits.

What other companies were doing things that resonated with you guys when you first started out?

I’m not sure about any brands we really resonated with, I remember being hyped on 5Boro around then, this edit and this edit in particularly hit a sweet spot for me, especially the music choice… Obviously haha. I was inspired by what Daves Quality Meats were doing back then, I remember visiting their store in NY around 2008, seeing the interior was amazing, all done out as if it was a butchers, t-shirts hung up on meet hooks and stuff like that. That made me think, aye maybe Skateboard Cafe could be a place like this one day, a skate store all themed out like a cafe, serve tee’s on baking treys or whatever… It helped me vision what Cafe could be.

We’re really stoked on all of the new graphics you guys are putting out. What’s the process there, do you do all of that in house?

Cheers! I’m really happy with the new direction we’re taking. It’s a mix, myself and Makepeace cover some of it, the more bold, simple, text based and photo stuff. More recently I’ve found myself bouncing ideas back and forth with Ollie Lock, he has input here and there then we reach out to artists that suit the graphic we’re after. @becki_clark_ @richtpaint and even my dad worked on a graphic for us, so yeah it’s very in house.

We often work with Gaurab Thakali which I’m super grateful for, his art ties in so nicely to our aesthetic. He’s responsible for Dom’s debut pro board, Sax Flowers, the 4 board bar series we did…

It’s been cool watching the company grow organically to the point where it’s at. Has it been a trip watching it evolve?

Yeah it’s pretty crazy, from filming my mates for a little scene video to now having a full blown company, a skate team to look after, product being sold all over.

Having a Cafe edit on Thrasher for the first time was a trip! Knowing people all round the world will see us skating and fucking around at College Green haha

The whole thing began with your love for filming and your edits define the company. Is that still your favourite role?

Yeah as much as it fucks my back and ruins my social life I love it haha. My motivation for the whole brand continues to stem from filming and making edits with my friends. I also really enjoy the process of working on graphics… It’s similar to the feeling of editing, you make a rough draft, develop the idea a little then export a final version your happy with. Anything where I’m creating is my favourite roll.

What videos inspired you to pick up a camera?

I was mostly inspired by local vids growing up, Jus Foolin and Bristol In Bloom in particular. It was sick to see footage of some of the skaters you’d see out and about on a daily basis, skating spots you know. Then a little after that I used to buzz off of Lost & Found and Static 2 (Josh Stewart keeps inspiring me to pick up the camera! I just don’t understand how he can still walk, how do you do it Josh?)

What was the response like to the new video Ensemble?

I had a feeling it would get a good response but not like this, it’s getting shared all over the globe and getting such positive, genuine feedback. Quartersnacks wrote on their site saying the vid will still look good in 10 years from now, does it get much better than that? Haha definitely hyped to move onto the next thing and glad we now have our own platform to build on.

Which premiere went off the most?

Manchester was the most rowdy haha, we ended up arriving late (due to some insane technical difficulties like my laptop dying during the final export and a shit load of traffic amongst other things I can’t even go in to) so it meant everyone had time to get nice and steaming before we arrived. Was like walking into a busy pub after a football match.

TT Liquor, Shoreditch.

London was pretty special though, big thanks to the guys at TT Liquor, they hooked it the fuck up. Cocktail bar / cinema with a few different floors, they decked out the window for us, sorted drink sponsors, made us custom Cafe drink menus… Seriously the best venue you could ask for.

The video is banging, such an amazing array of styles too. You must be stoked on where the team is at now?

Yeah I’m stoked on the diversity of the team. We’ve been around long enough now to have a nice mix of a few generations too, from Sam (Philly Slugs) and Savannah who are like 18/20 to guys like Harry and Dom in their early 30s with everything in-between. Trips feel like a big tweaky family vacation haha

Who is the most surprising person to film?

Korahn continues to surprise me, I wasn’t expecting much from him for Ensemble as we had both kind of agreed he was taking a back seat on this project to focus on finishing up his part with Magee and Kev and also to make this vid more about the new guys. He ended up filming 30/40 seconds of footy in the last few weeks of filming. I know that’s classic Korahn but it still surprises and amazes me.

We were really happy to see Dom Henry’s love letter to Fairfield’s. Such a sick send off and then the second part was poetic too. He’s a firm favourite here. Did he know he was going to be turned pro when the video dropped?

Yeah the Fairfields section was Dom’s idea, I still don’t get how he skates that place so well… It’s so grim and crusty! Dom knew he was going pro, that was the arrangement as soon as he got on. It was just a matter of when and with the launch of the vid felt like the perfect time. The idea for the stand up comedy graphic was actually his too, passed on to the man Gaurab who absolutely nailed it.

While we are on the subject of team riders we asked you to run through the team as part of the company profile. Introduce us to the family…

What can we expect this coming year from the Skateboard Cafe? Are you straight onto the next video project or having a breather?

The plan is to work with new artist and explore new graphic avenues as well as releasing more than 2 drops a year. I’m currently having a little breather from filming to rest my back but as soon as that’s better we’re gonna be making more frequent, shorter edits through out the year and keep the YouTube channel pumping.

Words of advice for anyone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

Besides doing it for the right reasons (because you love it and not to make a quick £) I’d say if you have an idea don’t be too precious with it, don’t sit on it until it’s too late… Just get it out there and let it start developing because you never know what it could become.

We hope you enjoyed this informative conversation with Rich. See everything we have from Skateboard Cafe

The post Skateboard Cafe Profile appeared first on Slam City Skates Blog.

Skateboard Cafe Profile published first on https://medium.com/@LaderaSkateboar

[theinvinciblenoob]

Industry vets and students alike crammed into UCLA’s historic Royce Hall last week for TC Sessions: AR/VR, our one-day event on the fast-moving (and hype-plagued) industry and the people in it. Disney, Snap, Oculus and more stopped by to chat and show off their latest; if you didn’t happen to be in LA that day, read on and find out what we learned — and follow the links to watch the interviews and panels yourself.

To kick off the day we had Jon Snoddy from Walt Disney Imagineering. As you can imagine, this is a company deeply invested in “experiences.” But he warned that VR and AR storytelling isn’t ready for prime time: “I don’t feel like we’re there yet. We know it’s extraordinary, we know it’s really interesting, but it’s not yet speaking to us deeply the way it will.”

Next came Snap’s Eitan Pilipski. Snapchat wants to leave augmented reality creativity up to the creators rather than prescribing what they should build. AR headsets people want to wear in real life might take years to arrive, but nevertheless Snap confirmed that it’s prototyping new AI-powered face filters and VR experiences in the meantime.

I was onstage next with a collection of startups which, while very different from each other, collectively embody a willingness to pursue alternative display methods — holography and projection — as businesses. Ashley Crowder from VNTANA and Shawn Frayne from Looking Glass explained how they essentially built the technology they saw demand for: holographic display tech that makes 3D visualization simple and real. And Lightform’s Brett Jones talked about embracing and extending the real world and creating shared experiences rather than isolated ones.

Frayne’s holographic desktop display was there in the lobby, I should add, and very impressive it was. People were crowding three or four deep to try to understand how the giant block of acrylic could hold 3D characters and landscapes.

Maureen Fan from BaoBab Studios touched on the importance of conserving cash for entertainment-focused virtual reality companies. Previewing her new film, Crow, Fan noted that new modes of storytelling need to be explored for the medium, such as the creative merging of gaming and cinematic experiences.

Up next was a large panel of investors: Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst), Jacob Mullins (Shasta Ventures), Catherine Ulrich (FirstMark Capital), and Stephanie Zhan (Sequoia). The consensus of this lively discussion was that (as Fan noted earlier) this is a time for startups to go lean. Competition has been thinned out by companies burning VC cash and a bootstrapped, efficient company stands out from the crowd.

Oculus is getting serious about non-gaming experiences in virtual reality. In our chat with Oculus Executive Producer Yelena Rachitsky, we heard more details about how the company is looking to new hardware to deepen the interactions users can have in VR and that new hardware like the Oculus Quest will allow users to go far beyond the capabilities of 360-degree VR video.

Of course if Oculus is around, its parent company can’t be far away. Facebook’s Ficus Kirkpatrick believes it must build exemplary ‘lighthouse’ AR experiences to guide independent developers towards use cases they could enhance. Beyond creative expression, AR is progressing slowly since no one wants to hold a phone in the air for too long. But that’s also why Facebook is already investing in efforts to build its own AR headset.

Matt Miesnieks, from 6d.ai, announced the opening of his company’s augmented reality development platform to the public and made a case of the creation of an open mapping platform and toolkit for opening augmented reality to collaborative experiences and the masses.

Augmented reality headsets like Magic Leap and Hololens tend to hog the spotlight, but phones are where most people will have their first taste. Parham Aarabi (Modiface), Kirin Sinha (Illumix) and Allison Wood (Camera IQ) agreed that mainstreaming the tech is about three to five years away, with a successful standalone device like a headset somewhere beyond that. They also agreed that while there are countless tech demos and novelties, there’s still no killer app for AR.

Derek Belch (STRIVR), Clorama Dorvilias (DebiasVR), and Morgan Mercer (Vantage Point) took on the potential of VR in commercial and industrial applications. They concluded that making consumer technology enterprise grade remains one of the most significant adoption to virtual reality applications in business. (Companies like StarVR are specifically targeting businesses, but it remains to be seen whether that play will succeed.)

With Facebook running the VR show, how are small VR startups making a dent in social? The CEOs of TheWaveVR, Mindshow and SVRF all say that part of the key is finding the best ways for users to interact and making experiences that bring people together in different ways.

After a break, we were treated to a live demo of the VR versus boxing game Creed: Rise to Glory, by developer Survios co-founders Alex Silkin and James Iliff. They then joined me for a discussion of the difficulties and possibilities of social and multiplayer VR, both in how they can create intimate experiences and how developers can inoculate against isolation or abuse in the player base.

Early stage investments are key to the success of any emerging industry and the VR space is seeing a slowdown in that area. Peter Rojas of Betaworks and Greg Castle from Anorak offered more details on their investment strategies and how they see success in the AR space coming along as the tech industry’s biggest companies continue to pump money into the technologies.

UCLA contributed a moderator with Anderson’s Jay Tucker, who talked with Mariana Acuna (Opaque Studios) and Guy Primus (Virtual Reality Company) about how storytelling in VR may be in very early days, but that this period of exploration and experimentation is something to be encouraged and experienced. Movies didn’t begin with Netflix and Marvel — they started with picture palaces and one-reel silent shorts. VR is following the same path.

And what would an AR/VR conference be without the creators of the most popular AR game ever created? Niantic already has some big plans as it expands its success beyond Pokémon GO. The company which is deep in development of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is building out a developer platform based on their cutting edge AR technologies. In our chat, AR research head Ross Finman talks about privacy in the upcoming AR age and just how much of a challenger Apple is to them in the space.

That wrapped the show; you can see more images (perhaps of yourself) at our Flickr page. Thanks to our sponsors, our generous hosts at UCLA, the motivated and interesting speakers, and most of all the attendees. See you again soon!

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

[fmservers]

TC Sessions AR/VR surveys an industry in transition

Industry vets and students alike crammed into UCLA’s historic Royce Hall last week for TC Sessions AR/VR, our one day event on the fast-moving (and hype-plagued) industry and the people in it. Disney, Snap, Oculus and more stopped by to chat and show off their latest; if you didn’t happen to be in LA that day, read on and find out what we learned — and follow the links to watch the interviews and panels yourself.

To kick off the day we had John Snoddy from Walt Disney Imagineering. As you can imagine this is a company deeply invested in “experiences.” But he warned that VR and AR storytelling isn’t ready for prime time: “I don’t feel like we’re there yet. We know it’s extraordinary, we know it’s really interesting, but it’s not yet speaking to us deeply the way it will.”

Next came Snap’s Eitan Pilipski. Snapchat wants to leave augmented reality creativity up to the creators rather than prescribing what they should build. AR headsets people want to wear in real life might take years to arrive, but nevertheless Snap confirmed that it’s prototyping new AI-powered face filters and VR experiences in the meantime.

I was on stage next with a collection of startups which, while very different from each other, collectively embody a willingness to pursue alternative display methods — holography and projection — as businesses. Ashley Crowder from VNTANA and Shawn Frayne from Looking Glass explained how they essentially built the technology they saw demand for: holographic display tech that makes 3D visualization simple and real. And Lightform’s Brett Jones talked about embracing and extending the real world and creating shared experiences rather than isolated ones.

Frayne’s holographic desktop display was there in the lobby, I should add, and very impressive it was. People were crowding three or four deep to try to understand how the giant block of acrylic could hold 3D characters and landscapes.

Maureen Fan from Baobob Studios touched on the importance of conserving cash for entertainment-focused virtual reality companies. Previewing her new film, Crow, Fan noted that new modes of storytelling need to be explored for the medium, such as the creative merging of gaming and cinematic experiences.

Up next was a large panel of investors: Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst), Jacob Mullins (Shasta Ventures), Catherine Ulrich (FirstMark Capital), and Stephanie Zhan (Sequoia). The consensus of this lively discussion was that (as Fan noted earlier) this is a time for startups to go lean. Competition has been thinned out by companies burning VC cash and a bootstrapped, efficient company stands out from the crowd.

Oculus is getting serious about non-gaming experiences in virtual reality. In our chat with Oculus Executive Producer Yelena Rachitsky, we heard more details about how the company is looking to new hardware to deepen the interactions users can have in VR and that new hardware like the Oculus Quest will allow users to go far beyond the capabilities of 360-degree VR video.

Of course if Oculus is around, its parent company can’t be far away. Facebook’s Ficus Kirkpatrick believes it must build exemplary ‘lighthouse’ AR experiences to guide independent developers towards use cases they could enhance. Beyond creative expression, AR is progressing slowly since no one wants to hold a phone in the air for too long. But that’s also why Facebook is already investing in efforts to build its own AR headset.

Matt Miesnieks, from 6d.ai, announced the opening of his company’s augmented reality development platform to the public and made a case of the creation of an open mapping platform and toolkit for opening augmented reality to collaborative experiences and the masses.

Augmented reality headsets like Magic Leap and Hololens tend to hog the spotlight, but phones are where most people will have their first taste. Parham Aarabi (Modiface), Kirin Sinha (Illumix) and Allison Wood (Camera IQ) agreed that mainstreaming the tech is about three to five years away, with a successful standalone device like a headset somewhere beyond that. They also agreed that while there are countless tech demos and novelties, there’s still no killer app for AR.

Derek Belch (STRIVR), Clorama Dorvilias (DebiasVR), and Morgan Mercer (Vantage Point) took on the potential of VR in commercial and industrial applications. They concluded that making consumer technology enterprise grade remains one of the most significant adoption to virtual reality applications in business. (Companies like StarVR are specifically targeting businesses, but it remains to be seen whether that play will succeed.)

With Facebook running the VR show, how are small VR startups making a dent in social? The CEOs of TheWaveVR, Mindshow and SVRF all say that part of the key is finding the best ways for users to interact and making experiences that bring people together in different ways.

After a break, we were treated to a live demo of the VR versus boxing game Creed: Rise to Glory, by developer Survios co-founders Alex Silkin and James Iliff. They then joined me for a discussion of the difficulties and possibilities of social and multiplayer VR, both in how they can create intimate experiences and how developers can inoculate against isolation or abuse in the player base.

Early stage investments are key to the success of any emerging industry and the VR space is seeing a slowdown in that area. Peter Rojas of Betaworks and Greg Castle from Anorak offered more details on their investment strategies and how they see success in the AR space coming along as the tech industry’s biggest companies continue to pump money into the technologies.

UCLA contributed a moderator with Anderson’s Jay Tucker, who talked with Mariana Acuna (Opaque Studios) and Guy Primus (Virtual Reality Company) about how storytelling in VR may be in very early days, but that this period of exploration and experimentation is something to be encouraged and experienced. Movies didn’t begin with Netflix and Marvel — they started with picture palaces and one-reel silent shorts. VR is following the same path.

And what would an AR/VR conference be without the creators of the most popular AR game ever created? Niantic already has some big plans as it expands its success beyond Pokémon GO. The company which is deep in development of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is building out a developer platform based on their cutting edge AR technologies. In our chat, AR research head Ross Finman talks about privacy in the upcoming AR age and just how much of a challenger Apple is to them in the space.

That wrapped the show; you can see more images (perhaps of yourself) at our Flickr page. Thanks to our sponsors, our generous hosts at UCLA, the motivated and interesting speakers, and most of all the attendees. See you again soon!

Via Devin Coldewey https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

[theconservativebrief]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become a breakout star in the Democratic Party since June, when she pulled off a stunning upset in the New York midterm primaries, beating Rep. Joe Crowley, a top Democrat in the House.

And, not coincidentally, she has also become the white-hot epicenter of not just derision, but blistering, nonstop criticism from conservatives and Republicans.

Ocasio-Cortez is a part of the new left flank of the Democratic Party that is fighting both Republicans and establishment Democrats (and, occasionally, the media) in advance of the fall midterms.

A Bronx native, she’s a democratic socialist, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as her political mentor. She’s become a welcome surrogate on the trail for progressive primary candidates; in fact, she’s seemingly everywhere, campaigning for left-leaning Democrats in Kansas, Michigan, and Hawaii.

And to some on the right, like Sean Hannity, Ocasio-Cortez and her politics are “downright scary.”

Former President Barack Obama is retired from politics, for all intents and purposes, and, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, not available for conservatives to “kick around” anymore. And blasting Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose name and image Republicans have used to try to terrify voters for more than seven years, just isn’t getting the job done.

Polls like this are why I tend to doubt the attacks on Pelosi do the GOP much good. Pelosi ranked dead last (out of 10) when people were asked whether something or someone was an impt factor in their vote choice for 2018. https://t.co/7L4kgqBYAJ pic.twitter.com/zYX98yMZrI

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) August 15, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is young, new to politics, and far to the left. And to many on the right, she is something else — a target.

Ocasio-Cortez has become ubiquitous in conservative media, a perfect character to represent a changing Democratic Party that is going hard on expanding the social safety net — in the conservative media’s view, too hard.

Though most Republicans have never heard of her, National Review, Breitbart, the American Conservative, and other right-leaning outlets have all written extensively on Ocasio-Cortez. National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke wrote that he was doing so “because she’s being hyped as the Next Big Thing. Because she’s now within the Vanguard of the Extra Serious Committee for Democratic Socialism in America. Because she’s making videos with Bernie, and being toasted on the Sunday shows.”

Two weeks ago, prominent conservative writer and podcast host Ben Shapiro offered Ocasio-Cortez $10,000 to debate him. “Miss Ocasio-Cortez, I’m really excited that you’ve been elevated to that position and I would love to have a real conversation with you about the issues,” he said, adding, “Not only am I eager to discuss the issues with you, I’m willing to offer $10,000 to your campaign, today, for you to come on our Sunday special,” concluding, “However you want to do it, I am more than willing to talk to you.”

(The Sunday Special is a special feature on The Ben Shapiro Show podcast and video series in which Shapiro interviews figures from politics and culture. For the sake of transparency, Shapiro has also invited me to be on the show.)

Though Shapiro told Fox Business that he didn’t expect a response, Ocasio-Cortez ultimately did. “Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions.” I reached out to the Ocasio-Cortez campaign, and was told that the tweet was Ocasio-Cortez’s full statement on the matter.

Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions.

And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one. pic.twitter.com/rsD17Oq9qe

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) August 10, 2018

I reached out to Shapiro, too, and asked why he wanted to debate Ocasio-Cortez (who is running in a deep-blue district in a blue state) and what his response was to her tweet. He said he wanted to have “a discussion or debate — whichever she chose” with Ocasio-Cortez, “Because Tom Perez called her the future of the Democratic Party, and because she hasn’t done a single interview with anyone who didn’t vote Democrat, so far as I am aware.” In response to her tweet, Shapiro said, “Cross-partisan discussions make the country better. End of story. She had every right to say no, of course. But suggesting that this is in any way comparable to catcalling is patently ridiculous and insane.”

Shapiro has gained a massive online following, particularly on Twitter and YouTube, and his appeal with young conservatives has made him, according to the Washington Post, “the person who appeared to be doing the most to shape the thinking of the new generation of Republican leaders.”

And on DailyWire.com — of which Shapiro is editor-in-chief — there are six pages of stories on Ocasio-Cortez, with headlines including, “INSANE: Here’s How Much The Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez ‘Medicare For All’ Bill Would Cost” and “Ocasio-Cortez Makes Most Idiotic Statement Ever On Twitter.”

The laser focus on Ocasio-Cortez within conservative and right-wing circles is reminiscent of another Democrat who still looms large in the right: Nancy Pelosi, who to conservatives “epitomizes out-of-touch, liberal elitism” and whose image has been used in GOP campaign ads across the country since the late 2000s.

[embedded content]

But Pelosi’s ability to shape the opinions, and votes, of Republicans and independents with her mere presence in ads may have been overstated from the start, and especially in 2018. And with Donald Trump taking up considerable oxygen in the minds of voters, that effect may be even more muted.

As one campaign strategist who spoke anonymously with Politico said in June 2017, “There is zero evidence that linking a candidate to Nancy Pelosi is a meaningful, powerful message that will persuade swing voters or motivate the GOP base.”

That makes Ocasio-Cortez’s entrance into the political scene an important one — for Republicans.

To be clear, Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t become a “boogeyman for conservatives” just because of her ideas and political positions. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and someone who ran on Medicare-for-all and a federal jobs guarantee in a deep-blue district, that would have been par for the course.

And Ocasio-Cortez isn’t just a democratic socialist, she’s a democratic socialist who is young, female, and making headlines across the country as she attempts to lead progressive candidates like herself to victory in their primary races.

To many on the left, she’s an invigorating “rock star.” To conservatives looking to paint the new left as terrifying, she’s the perfect example. Plus, if Ocasio-Cortez wins in November, she, like Nancy Pelosi, could hold her seat in Congress for decades.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez greets supporters in Flint, Michigan, on July 28, 2018. Kainaz Amaria/Vox

So conservatives are framing their criticisms of Ocasio-Cortez and, in Shapiro’s words, the “howling at the moon branch of the Democratic Party,” through not just Ocasio-Cortez’s political platform, but through her gaffes and misstatements. One example: She argued that the cost of government-financed health care would be far outweighed by private health care if you added in “the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to health care.” Another: She said critics of her confusing answers on the Israel/Palestine issue were largely from the alt-right. (They weren’t.)

Michael Graham wrote for CBS News that “[her] gaffes have become so frequent—and harmful—that a cottage industry has risen up on the Right to trumpet them. She’s become a staple of talk radio and clips of her less-than-flattering moments frequent Fox News. Websites like the Washington Free Beacon and the Daily Caller delight in highlighting the latest misstep from the new poster person for American Progressivism.”

In a Free Beacon article titled “Five Idiotic Moments in the Most Recent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Interview,” Alex Griswold put it more succinctly: “So yeah, conservatives are looooving this whole Ocasio-Cortez phenomenon.”

Some observers, like FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, have argued that despite her mistakes, Ocasio-Cortez’s policy knowhow is “about on par with or maybe a bit ahead” of the average member of Congress.

The level of policy expertise isn’t great in Congress. And everyone says some dumb shit in long, extemporaneous interviews. Pick one of the random 435 members of the House out of a hat, have them do TV several times a week, and you’ll see much worse.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 9, 2018

And it’s worth pointing out that misstatements aren’t exactly uncommon in the world of politics, from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s “valiant but often unsuccessful struggles with the English language” all the way up to the president of the United States.

(Even though Trump frequently commits errors and gaffes and tells outright lies, one Republican Congress member said in July, “I don’t care … He has a different technique, that’s why I voted for him … [he] doesn’t want to act like one of those guys who you just played talking here, saying all of those words.”)

But within the conservative imagination, Ocasio-Cortez might not be that much like Nancy Pelosi, who does hold real political power and influence and has for decades, or even Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). Ocasio-Cortez is maybe more like the left-wing version of Tea Party candidates who flamed out hard in the 2010 midterms, a Todd Akin or a Christine O’Donnell.

More specifically, O’Donnell — the Tea Party candidate who stunned the country when she won the 2010 Delaware GOP primary — became national news not for winning her primary, but for gaffes widely (and gleefully) shared in mainstream media outlets, from a complete lack of knowledge regarding Supreme Court cases and the Constitution to her mistaken belief that scientists had created mice with human brains.

Within weeks of winning her primary, O’Donnell went from a shock victory to being parodied on Saturday Night Live — a fate many conservatives would love to see befall Ocasio-Cortez.

Christine O’Donnell’s book, Troublemaker, at a book signing after speaking at a Broward Republican Party fundraiser in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on August 25, 2011. Carey Wagner/Sun Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images

But there’s something important to remember about Christine O’Donnell. Though she ultimately lost in the general election, her candidacy was a part of a larger wave election that put Republicans with policy positions like hers in the majority in the House and gave the GOP considerable power in states nationwide.

O’Donnell was a Tea Party candidate whose political generation included such figures as Mick Mulvaney (now Trump’s budget director), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) — all of whom didn’t just win their races in 2010, but reshaped their political party as a whole.

In short, though O’Donnell lost, her ideas and political perspective won. And the conservative concern about Ocasio-Cortez, and, more broadly, “an insurgent-led shift towards a more Sanders-esque Democratic party,” is still very much a possibility.

For her part, Ocasio-Cortez’s team has made it clear that she will not be slowing down her media appearances, arguing that the added attention will put the spotlight on her policy platform, which includes eliminating ICE and a federal jobs-for-all guarantee.

But conservatives will continue to hammer her, believing that by doing so, they can sink the most visible representative of the “new” Democratic Party.

Ocasio-Cortez speaks about income inequality, low minimum wage, and Medicare-for-all in Flint, Michigan, on July 28, 2018. Kainaz Amaria/Vox

Original Source -> Why conservatives love to hate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief