#but just in terms of the opportunity cost of working on other (original) projects… | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ramshackledtrickster · 11 months

Note

Tuning in on the family stuff with Miguel. Are we even sure that he used to have a family in his own dimension? Because the way he talked about his past made it sound like he might’ve not even had that. So either he might’ve had a family before and experienced twice the loss. Or did he just have a very shitty life, which made it easier for him to go somewhere where he has someone to personally love & care for. Also, when he left his dimension, wouldn’t that mean things went down the pits there?

Maybe !! Again, there’s tons of possibilities since the backstory is so vague so far, and you’re hitting all the right possible marks

I personally subscribe to him having a family before (or at least having Gabriella before), since it makes more sense for his choice to jump worlds that way since that want is so so so much more potent if he had experienced that positive experience before.

Under the cut, mentions of domestic abuse, neglect, suicidality, getting drugged

His life really is. Shitty. In the comics. He lacked a lot of stability growing up, his step-father being verbally and physically abusive while his mother was traumatized as a result (but coped with it unhealthily by later on neglecting Miguel, and projecting her hatred for his real father (Tyler Stone, Alchemax CEO) onto him growing up. His brother became completely jealous of him and tried to kill him, his love life is tumultuous and he has had outbursts that cost him that which he regrets deeply, and a lot of his own bodily autonomy was taken away from him at work since his spider-man origins revolve around Tyler drugging him with an extremely addictive substance (Rapture) that he could only get out through a gene splicer machine (and his co worker tried to kill him using spider DNA in that process). He is frequently shown as being suicidal and had a pretty in depth fantasy with that… it’s really hard to read and shocking tbh

So it makes total sense why he would jump at the opportunity to find somewhere where everything is better— even more so, if Gabriella was basically his only ray of sunshine in his own world, lost her, and would do anything to get back to her.

Maybe in his dimension, everything turned out for the worse too. His family dead (yeah his mom gets a redemption but gets killed off in a poorly done way— ,maybe Gabriel died too, or they ended on such bad terms they just never see each other again), partner dead, and the one person he had consistent positive connection to (his daughter) is dead or gone… he’ll, maybe his reputation as Spider-Man has take a turn for the worst and he can’t take being public enemy number one anymore. It would be hard to resist the temptation to go elsewhere, and part of it being to give himself a second chance and redeem himself since he fucked up a lot of his relationships himself. He’s remorseful, and heavily driven by guilt, and painfully aware of his shortcomings and his toxic traits that he has internalized over the years.

So yeah personally I can see your takes as being an ‘all the above’ type thing in my interpretation based on the comics :))

I guess my personal summation of it is,, no family (anymore— dead or cut off), but had one and wanted to hold onto that with Gabriella, his choice was absolutely influenced by his personal trauma and upbringing and guilt complex, and maybe he left his dimension since he felt he had nothing left to lose. Maybe during the period he left his own dimension, things stayed relatively/negatively the same? Since it’s a universe run by Alchemax (in the comics) and maybe he started feeling helpless since there’s not enough that could be done to stop it, and he lost so much motivation over time despite wishing he could do more to change it?

#across the spider verse spoilers #miguel o'hara #spiderman 2099 #spoilers #child abuse cw #suicidal cw #drugging cw #ask to tag

139 notes · View notes

felassan · 1 year

Text

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

Chat asked why Marvel's Avengers and Fallout 76 are still being supported yet Anthem isn't. Mark replied, "Two reasons, but they're basically the same reason. EA is definitely not something that likes to support things that they consider to be failures. But the other reason, which is kind've the same thing, is that because BioWare has so much going on, there is a tendency, there's always a lot of pressure to move people onto the biggest need, and Anthem is not the biggest need. If BioWare was allowed to add fifty to sixty people that wouldn't be the case, well at least it wouldn't be in the short-term, but it isn't because EA is very cost resistant, resistant to spending costs, so it's really about corporate structure and culture than anything else. If you look at something like Battlefield or other games at EA that have failed and then recovered, it's usually because the studio that made them literally had nothing else going on so the only option was to let them fix it or to basically shut the studio down. In the case of BioWare, there's always something else they could be working on and as a result, when things don't go as well people tend to get moved onto those other things. That's essentially what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda as well, though in the case of ME:A there was also pressure from Jade Raymond's studio to steal all those people, which is what ended up happening. So it's really about the approach to these things at a corporate level."

Chat asked "Can you make a video about development hell and how games with long production cycles like Dragon Age Origins avoid that?". Mark replied "The short answer to how do games avoid development hell long production cycles is basically that they don't. It's probably worth a video to talk about what happens in the middle of long projects, but the short answer is what often happens is that they spend some period of their time kind've going in a big circle because the time is so long that projects can get lost. DA:O added and took out multiplayer three different times. Anthem spent a ton of time not being able to admit that it was making Destiny. ME1 spent a ton of time trying to figure out what it wanted its combat to feel like".

Chat asked "What do you feel about the revival of the Griffons?". Mark said "I think it's going to be hard to pay griffons off in gameplay but I'm glad that they are back, it's an interesting addition".

Chat asked "Did you know about the Netflix show? If not what are your thoughts?" Mark replied "I did know about the Netflix show so I'm not going to comment on it at this time, I'll wait and see what it looks like. It's been in the works for a while" [note: this video is from before Absolution released]

On the reason why Dragon Age has so many multimedia things e.g. books, comics, compared to other IPs: "I mean Witcher has tons. BioWare actually has a dedicated business development group which looks for opportunities to make money with the IP".

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

[on the lyrium spirits/ghosts that provide the riddles during the Gauntlet] Chat asked "I've never been sure if these spirits are accurate memories of these people, or just how the masses believe them to be. I presume that's deliberate?". Mark said "Yes, definitely the accuracy of these memories is definitely up for debate and that is on purpose. Definitely DA:O, Dragon Age in general is filled with the unreliable narrator"

If you go the Gauntlet with no party members, the game gives you a bunch of indestructible ash wraiths instead. "It's super weird"

Chat asked "Is there an answer to the question of what the Ashes and this whole [thing] are really about, or is it left deliberately unknowable?". Mark said "It's left unknowable, I don't think that the Ashes is ever discussed. It doesn't really fit in with the magic of the rest of the setting does it?"

"Definitely there's a lot of 'Andraste taking over old elven temples' throughout the world"

The Queen of the Blackmarsh "was definitely combat design firing on all cylinders"

Chat commented "I noticed recently that many character models in BioWare games have a 'collar' on clothes even when it doesn't otherwise fit with what they're wearing. Is there a reason for that?". Mark said "The collar is probably to cover a neck seam. That's usually why there's something weird going on with the head"

Chat commented "I still don't know how I feel about the 'every class gets their version of lock pick' in DA:I". Mark replied "The reason for the every class gets their own lock pick thing in DA:I is, the problem is that what you usually end up with is rogues get a bunch of stuff to do outside combat and nobody else does, so the goal was to try to get a variety of activities for different classes. I don't know that it was super effective because I don't think that it was used widely enough, but that was the thinking. 'It's useful to have a mage along because a mage will let you get into these spots, it's useful to have a warrior along because they can lift heavy things and reach jars on high shelves'. But I think there's a lot of established game design around locked doors and locked chests, and I think the things in DA:I, people just weren't used to introducing them"

"I think the reason why you can't recruit anyone into the Wardens in DA:O is you don't know how to do that and Alistair doesn't either I guess. But there are a couple of opportunities in DA:O where you could sort've imagine, 'hey, we could use some more of us'." Chat commented that it's also a blood magic ritual and Mark said "It is totally, I mean it is fairly obviously blood magic, but yes it is not really ever [addressed]"

"Jade Empire had gay romances, that's probably the first mainstream game that had them"

Chat commented on the difficulty spikes in DA:O being a bit random at times. Mark said "There's only limited auto-balancing in DA:O so things are triggering on certain assumptions and those assumptions are definitely not always being met." Chat mentioned character movement speed and hardware engine speed at the time and Mark replied "Speed is most likely a limitation"

"I don't know if inventory limits are worth it. It's an interesting question. I get the idea but, I don't think everyone loves inventory management. It's been done better but I don't know that it's ever been done good. Especially for stuff like this where it's just, y'know, punishing you for not having sold stuff. I think having a weight limit on what you can equip, maybe, because then it's more you just can't carry around everything and the kitchen sink, but punishing me and my treasure-gathering for not having bought the extra backpack, kinda stupid, honestly. From Baldur's Gate 1 to modern games, inventory is pretty similar"

Chat asked "Were the Warden Colors (from DAII on) not decided on in DA:O? The mods prove the engine can handle the graphics". Mark replied "The art direction in DA:O is a little loose. So it's really about art direction in future games, it's not about technology, I mean you have to remember that this thing was supposed to run on a much crappier console, but yeah it's really more about art direction than anything else. DAII is where the art direction starts to establish a look for Dragon Age"

"Infinite healing is problematic. But yeah toxicity works, some other form of limiting works, but if you can heal infinitely then every single combat needs to be able to threaten you all on its own which is a problem"

Chat asked "How do Sha-Brytol and Golems function in terms of Titan connection? They're identical minus the rocks right? Instead of rocks Sha-Brytol are bound to armour?" Mark replied, "I don't know lore-wise the difference, I mean it's possible that golems are sort've a broken construction in comparison, the lost lore kinda thing"

Chat commented "I asked Mike [Laidlaw] about the golems and I got the impression that there was some sort of implementation difficulty that he couldn't easily explain". Mark said "I do think there was an ask for golems for DA:I from an art perspective and we didn't have the model, the time for the model, so that's part of it for sure". Chat mentioned that we fight golems in The Descent. Mark said "If so they were created after the fact, I don't really remember though"

Shale is small for a golem so they can walk through doors in gameplay. That's why they are the size they are

Chat said "I'd be curious to know how the global metrics break down, what the most popular race and class people choose is. I imagine BioWare has those numbers." Mark said, "I don't know if we have numbers on DA:O because our telemetry was so bad, but yeah, humans are usually the most popular. Dwarf is a pretty niche one but people who play dwarves pretty much always play dwarves. Elf is probably the second most popular. I think human is just sort've the choice that people who don't understand fantasy well, so it's also I would say often the one that's often chosen by people who are less engaged in the game. I'm not saying everyone who plays human is doing so because they don't want to engage n the system, not to deride that, but it includes that group as well". Chat commented, "The order was Human > Elf > Qunari > Dwarf. Dwarf was the least played race in DA:I". Mark replied "Yeah, I think that's probably right. Dwarf is sort've a 10 percent sort of thing. It's got a very strong group that play it any opportunity they can ever have but it doesn't get a lot of play otherwise"

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #mass effect #next mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #anthem #long post #longpost #video games #dragon age: absolution #alistair theirin #fav warden #jade empire #lgbtq

25 notes · View notes

fandomfluffandfuck · 1 year

Note

the more I read abt it the more I think the firing of Victoria Alonso is a bad sign, bc she wasn't just some uninvolved suit she was working on the movies from the beginning and approving all the final visuals, so hearing her as a gay Latina talking about trying to push for better representation and publicly criticizing Disney for funding the Don't Say Gay stuff is a bit chilling, along with reading the articles that she recently conflicted with marvel over refusing to blur out pride flags in the background of the newest antman & how they got mad at her for promoting an Argentinian historical film about a dictatorship in Argentina that the US sponsored during/as part of the Cold War.

feels like her firing wasn't just a lot of the mass cost-cutting going on rn, but also part of an american boy's club culture among others in power over there that was tired of her pushing for lgbt inclusion and doing projects that promoted not just non-American politics but specifically politics that questioned the US' 20th century legacy and its heavy revisionism upheld by America's history books & propagandized media. It's like the marvel brand pushing towards a uniform US-centrism that makes little room for minorities cultures or stories that can encroach against their American corporate politics too directly without being behind a bunch of opaque metaphors or being brushed away to the background or being overwritten by newer stories that do away with opportunities for representation or inclusion of other perspectives.

Ask #2:

I mean, look at the how marvel in paper and cinematic mediums treated the Winter Soldier Cap plotline. It had Steve and Bucky, 2 soldiers who served their country to fight Nazis in WW2 in an integrated transnational unit, both get dragged into the 21st century to find that the Captain America image has been turned into a propaganda tool by the government and the very same government hired and funded the Nazis they fought in WW2, who then turned Bucky into a mindcontrolled slave. That had the potential to have the most direct analogy and critique of the IRL USA, but then what happens in the fallout of that movie and how do the characters and world get affected by this revelation?

Nothing much, there's no lingering distrust in the government that funded this, even among characters who were directly affected. Characters with origins in the same Nazi organization get funny dances and memes or favorable adaptations. Even though Steve dropped the shield and Cap role, this hardly turns into a long term character development of him questioning the country he serves (as an Irish immigrant in the early 20th c who would've been other-ized already) instead Steve goes back to fighting for it under a notion of legacy and symbol and the shield is characterized as so so important to him. Bucky, the one most directly affected by the US hiring the Nazis who enslaved him, just ends up meekly serving the government itself and trying to abide by its criminal laws that deemed him a perpetrator even though reasonable minds, Steve, should be demanding reparations even if there's no hope of that actually happening. There's no reckoning to how both Bucky and Steve being treated as little else than supersoldier weapons by their own government. Instead, newer stories just focus on more ways they can serve it without ever questioning the very core of their inexplicable loyalty to an entity that took part of their exploitation, which could serve as a cathartic progression and consequence of the Winter Soldier plotline and create potential for fresher stories that deal with what if the former Cap characters said "enough of this BS," but instead marvel church's out more of the cap'n murrica: [insert name of IRL war the US has heavily propagandized the shit of and now uses for patriotic media marketing]

that really shows the limitations of what marvel does with their politics, the closest thing they got to accurate historical critique of a real life event (the Western Allies hiring Nazis post-WW2) also gave birth to the most popular take on the characters in both mediums, and yet none of it comes close to actually pushing the status quo in the fictional world or to progressing the characters into something that reflects their stances on the exploitation they underwent by "their own people." The characters involved ironically almost develop amnesia to the bombshells in the Winter Soldier plotline and regress into Generic Murrican Old White Guy #1 and #2 to serve as prop pieces within US-centric status quo stories ad infinitum

Ask #3:

to give a more specific example: marvel's newest Captain America event thing goes by "Cold War" and is about a secret shadow government that controls the entire world (gee, wonder what kind of far rightist repeats that kind of conspiracy theory) and they are also known as... The Revolution (really tossing aside all subtlety there!) and they're conveniently responsible for every bad thing the USA and its allies did for the past 200 years (way to completely render their best Cap story meaningless)

meanwhile, the IRL Cold War had the US fund fascist movements in Africa, Asia & LatAm (literally what the 1985 Argentinian film that marvel's execs got annoyed with is about) and said movements repressed grassroots movements constituted by people at the bottom of the political hierarchies there, not a secretly powerful group known as "The Revolution."

Their newest comics completely turn the "Cold War" on its head to appeal to the reactionary anxieties that America is secretly under attack by some secret shadow group, even when the IRL power dynamic was radically different. The WS stories were the closest they ever got to pulling away from regurgitating decades-old US propaganda, and it also happens to be the most popular and humanizing in fleshing out its characters into with actual emotion and connection. And yet the franchise can't help but revert back to their roots and invalidate that entire story just so they can repeatedly pumping out Murrican stories that'd make McCarthy look up and smile.

Sorry I didn't respond to this for a while, I wanted to make sure I had the time to sit down and read and appreciate what you had to say. And as far as I'm aware of Marvel stuff, I can safely say, unfortunately, I think you're right. Right on the money.

I don't think her firing was cutting costs or anything of the sort. If they could fire anyone... it seems very targeted to fire her, and it, sadly, doesn't surprise me 🙃

I hate it here.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to write all this down because yes--you're so right, and I don't actually have much of anything to add because you explained it so well. You're being critical, and it's good. Recognizing what is happening is the first step to changing what is happening.

It's beyond shitty that huge corporations like Marvel can't be representative and diverse and kill so, so much of the actually interesting parts of their content in favor of saving face for more conservative views and people.

#asks #anti marvel #us politics #victoria alonso #fandom discourse

10 notes · View notes

clonewarsarchives · 2 years

Photo

NOTES FROM THE FRONT LINE (#132, APR 2012)

It’s generally accepted that Walter Murch (along with friend and colleague Ben Burtt redefined the role of the cinematic sound engineer, coining the term “Sound Designer” for Apocalypse Now (1979), which was foreshadowed by his “Sound Montage” credit for The Conversation (1974).

Murch later turned his hand to directing, helming Return to Oz, the 1985 sequel to the beloved classic. It was his friend George Lucas who offered him the opportunity to take the director’s chair again for The Clone Wars season four episode from the Umbaran quadrilogy, “The General.” Interview by J. W. Rinzler

Star Wars Insider: How did you first get invited to direct an episode of The Clone Wars?

Walter Murch: I heard about Bob Dalva, who’s a friend, film editor, director, and cameraman. George Lucas had asked him to be a guest director on the show (Season Two’s “The Deserter”) and I kept tabs with him, checking how it was going. He was having a great time doing it. I think it was a year later that George said, “What about you? Do you want to be a guest director?” Based upon the experience that Bob had, and my own general interest in the interface between art, story, and technology, I thought I would see what it was all about.

Did you choose a script from the four episodes of the Umbaran story arc?

They just said here it is. I didn’t get to choose. I think I would’ve been overwhelmed if I had to choose, because I didn’t know anything about the process other than what Bob and George had told me. It was much better just to get an assignment and not have to make a choice, weighing variables that I had no knowledge of at that time.

What did George tell you about the show?

Not much. He said, “It’s great, you’ll love it!” What he’s interested in with guest directors is people coming on board and injecting whatever it is that makes a metal into an alloy: a little extra something that’s not normally in the metal, but that helps to turn it into something else: iron into steel, brass into bronze, hopefully stronger. There are four directors on staff—very talented directors who are each working on three projects at once in various stages, whereas a guest director is only working on one thing and doesn’t hang around after the job is done. I wasn’t involved at all in the final animation. It’s just a very specific 12-week gig—to learn the software and produce the work.

George also wanted to bring in, with Bob and me and Duwayne Dunham—another guest director who has done two shows—someone who has experience in live action. George wants an infusion of a live-action sensibility into the process of doing animation, so it becomes scene-based rather than shot-based. Animation tends to be shot-based work because of the expense of producing animation; you want to minimize the amount of work, so shoot only what is absolutely necessary. Whereas with the zViz software (a proprietary software platform developed by George Lucas and Lucasfilm that helps directors compose shots), which is what we were working with, it doesn’t cost anything to keep the shot going, especially in a dialogue scene. It’s covering the dialogue the way you would cover a normal dialogue scene in live action from many different angles, which allows you to choose in the editing how the scenes will be constructed.

So you had 12 weeks. At this point was the script already written?

Yes, it was finished and, other than meeting at the end of the process, I never had any interaction with the writer. [Supervising director] ave Filoni did ask, “What do you think about the script? Any ideas?” In this story, the two clones, Fives and Hardcase, have to penetrate an alien airbase and there’s a perimeter fence around it. In the original script, they walked up to the fence and turned it off with some device they had. I thought we should make it a little harder, just to get a bit more action into it; also, if you can do everything with your own devices, it makes the opposition look weaker. So the whole idea of climbing up the tree, and then booby-trapping it to distract the guards —that was my contribution to the story.

So once you did the script, it went to the story reel phase using zViz. Was there anything in between those stages?

There was a lot of work already done in set and character design, all of which I inherited. They just said, “Here it is!” I slightly changed the nature of what some of the weird creatures were—that was another script idea I guess—I made the weird flying creatures into vultures so that they would try to eat the bodies of dead clone troopers. In the script they were just seen as passing clouds, but since they looked like vultures mated with manta rays, I thought, Let’s give them a personality and a purpose. What do these guys do? So that was another thing. I didn’t modify the look of the creatures, but I did modify what they did.

You then moved onto the zViz story reels.

I went to zViz class for the first two weeks. I had a one-on-one tutor and I was learning the software. Co-incident with that, in the afternoons, I started to play with the set and the characters, and reading the script, and working out how we were going to stage everything; just arranging the basic elements of the “soldier” aspect of the work, which is: “Here’s the army. There’s the enemy. Our army is moving in this direction. They’re coming from that direction. They’re in single-file, and so on.” At that stage, only basic camera parameters had been set, so I went through the script scene-by-scene and blocked it out using zViz. I had a team of four story artists who were going to be working with me—Bosco Ng and Dave Brickley would sometimes be standing next to me saying, “Don’t do that. It’s more efficient to do this,” just like when you learn to drive a car. You have an instructor there to prevent you from crashing. I got about two percent into using zViz. Maybe five percent. Maybe I would have been able—for the story reel—to do some actual story reel animation, but this particular show is so full of action that I left it to the artists that were working with me.

What was the next stage?

After the blocking? The story reel. I assigned scenes to the story artists and they would phone me up four hours later and say, “Want to take a look?” And that would give me other ideas and I’d make suggestions and they would work their way through the scenes.

As with live action, do you have to choose the “virtual camera lenses” you use?

Yes. I began to sketch that out in the plotting stage. But I generally left that up to the animators, except for a few specific places like that shot of the first emergence of the scorpion tank: I wanted that to be a telephoto lens.

Did you find it liberating?

Yes, it was. I felt insecure during the two weeks when I was learning the software and not knowing how much more I had to learn. If we had all the time in the world, it would’ve been different—but this is an ongoing series and you have to hit schedule milestones. And I was very happy with the work the story artists did; they saved my bacon a number of times when there were things I couldn’t quite figure out. Based on their own experience being animators and working on The Clone Wars, they knew what could be done and that would trigger ideas from me. So it was a very good collaboration with all four guys.

Did you have any involvement with the direction of the actors?

Yes, once we’d recorded and cut the temporary voices in. and then made any adjustments, we went down to Los Angeles and recorded the actual voices of the clones and Krell. So I was there for the final recording. It’s very important, I think, for the director of the recording.

The episode has a lot of action in it, but is also quite violent. There’s a scene where some Umbarans walk past and the clones shoot them in the head.

That was another idea I had. And another was the amount of stomping that the scorpion tanks do. There are many clones that get killed by being stepped on. This was an idea I came up with based on exploring the ability with zViz to articulate the character’s movement, like a puppet. The scorpion tanks are a six-legged mechanism. It wasn’t specified in the script what those legs could do—it just walked forward and shot. I thought it would be more interesting if it appeared to be alive in an animalistic sense and, working with Dave Brickley, we started tooling around with these creatures. We made them stand up on their hind legs, so to speak, and put the front legs up in the air. Once you did that, it was clear that it would be good.

These ideas arise spontaneously out of the directing process and if nobody stops me, then I’ll do them. It’s grisly—people killed by being stepped on, and the idea of finishing off this Umbaran pilot—and it begs the question. “If they didn’t shoot him, what were they going to do with him?” Then there’s the whole idea of these vulture creatures feeding on the flesh of clones. I plead guilty to the grisly parts of the story, or emphasizing them anyway.

Is that because you think kids today can handle it?

I think so, but I wasn’t thinking about the audience spedifically. It’s shown at eight o’clock at night, and I know that the viewing age ranges very wide. I thought it was my duty—I’d been invited in to do this stuff and they were looking for somebody from the outside. So I guess I was pushing the edge of the envelope. And I think that’s one of the very interesting things about the show. It gets into some pretty deep, philosophical waters about what an army is: Who are the soldiers in an army, and what are they really doing? Do they obey orders without thinking or are they obliged to think on their feet and countermand an order if they know a better way to do it and what’s the cost of that? How does identity emerge out of group of soldiers who, in this case, are literally bred to be the same. And yet different identities do emerge out of their DNA—how does that happen? How do you cohere as a military fighting force where the idea is to sublimate your identity and not be individuals? Once you start thinking about all that, you get into some pretty interesting areas.

It sounds like it intellectually engaged you.

Yes, it did. But all this is not specifically limited to my episode. That whole Umbaran arc in particular is about the assassination of a kind of Hitler. When do you kill the guy who’s supposedly your commanding officer? What he’s doing is wrong and against all military code, and yet you have to obey him. it’s a dilemma that the human species confronts over and over. I looked at maybe 12 other episodes in the course of 12 weeks. and I was really impressed with the range of subject matters and the implications of some of the ideas that were being explored.

Also, I was taken with the density of the storytelling in a 22-minute session; I would be watching one of these episodes, looking at the animation and being impressed with the style and the production design and all of that, and then the seven-minute moment, the commercial break, would come and I’d realize, wait a minute, that felt like 20 minutes not seven! It felt like a lot had happened and it had only been seven minutes. Each of these 22-minute episodes feels like an hour in terms of the visual and thematic complexity of the stuff that’s being explored. Those experiences quickly eliminated any sense that I was making a film for kids. But by the same token, Return to Oz, which is essentially a film for kids, also has some heavy-duty stuff in it. I think kids can take it.

Did you get to see your episode before it went to air?

Yes, but the first version I saw I thought the picture was way too dark. I would not have animated things the way I did if I had known it was going to be that dark. I had been told Umbara was a dark planet, but I didn’t know it was going to be that dark. There’s a saying in England: When you do live-action night shooting, you’ll get the question, “Where is this light coming from?” And the answer is, “That’s ‘Customer’s Moonlight.’” In other words, the audience paid to see the movie—the light is there to allow them to see what they paid for. But when I saw the aired version of “The General”, the darkness had been lightened. I don’t know what knobs they twirled, but there was much mom light. And yet it still looked like a dark planet. So I was much happier.

Is there anything that you’d like to have differently?

The Clone Wars animation is getting on good. particularly for certain characters. that I would like to see them move even more in a live-action sense. There’s still a tendency, especially in the story reel stage, to over-articulate body language. There are lots of hand gestures, kind of in a marionette sense, and you tend to fall into doing that because there is no facial animation at the story reel stage, only rudimentary changes from anger to joy. And with the clones wearing helmets, you don’t see any face, so there is a tendency to over-compensate with body-language. I think that may have been necessary in the early days when the animation wasn’t as sophisticated. Now it’s getting so good, it might be time to back off from the marionette aspect and treat them more like real people, real actors.

Do you think they should invest a little more in that?

Yes, but with some characters I think they’re already there! There’s a wonderfully evil female character Asajj Ventress. She’s fantastic—both as a character and how she’s animated. I love that character.

THE CINEMA OF WALTER MURCH

Walter Murch enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1965. In its School of Cinema, he met George Lucas, future writer/director John Milius, author Donald Glut (who penned the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back), Director of Photography Caleb Deschanel (who shot 1979’s More American Graffiti), and a host of other luminaries who came to prominence during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. After Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola founded American Zoetrope, Murch helped edit and mix sound on the latter’s The Rain People (1969). His résumé soon filled out with a series of Lucas and Coppola projects: THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), and The Godfather Part II (1974), before winning an Academy Award in 1980 for his sound design on Apocalypse Now. His subsequent credits include, among many others, Ghost (1990), The Talented Mister Ripley (1999), Cold Mountain (2003), Jarhead (2005) and The English Patient (1996), for which he netted Oscars for both film and sound editing.

#season 4 #408 #crew #insider #i132 #the clone wars #guest directors #got real detailed into the process and the episode!

19 notes · View notes

twiainsurancegroup · 26 days

Link

0 notes

kisaantrade · 1 year

Text

What is India's leading B2B portal?

The chance to use marketplaces within a particular industry increases as technology develops and e-commerce expands. Resources are plentiful in the agriculture B2B market, specifically in the agricultural sector. Farmers can purchase and sell raw materials and machine spare parts through these outlets to meet their farming needs. permits them to sell their crops to distributors and wholesalers as well. Therefore, integrating e-commerce into business platforms is very beneficial for the agricultural industry, whether the farmer or distributor. The benefits of implementing B2B ecommerce in the agriculture sector will be covered in this post.

This means that B2B platforms will be primarily used by farmers and distributors. As a result, more transactions are moving from offline to online. B2B customers place larger average orders, which results in higher conversion rates. Additionally, millennials prefer to shop online, and tech-savvy buyers are changing the B2B landscape.

How do B2B companies operate?

Businesses that operate on a B2B (business-to-business) basis serve other businesses rather than single consumers. Manufacturers, wholesalers, and service providers are just a few examples of B2B companies.

The following are the essential components of B2B business operations:

1. Identifying Target Clients: B2B companies frequently have a defined target market made up of other companies or organisations. To develop and offer products or services that satisfy the demands of its target customers, a business must recognise and comprehend their needs and preferences.

2. Building Connections: B2B companies frequently rely on solid connections with their clients. This may entail creating a sales team to interact directly with prospective clients or using digital channels to connect with prospects.

3. Providing Specialized Solutions: B2B companies frequently adapt their offerings to meet the unique requirements of each client. Customizing goods or services or coming up with original solutions to solve a particular business problem are examples of this.

4. Negotiating Terms: Contracts, pricing, and other terms are frequently negotiated by B2B companies with their clients. Before making a first purchase or when extending or expanding a contract, negotiations may take place.

5. Giving Customers Ongoing Support: B2B companies frequently give their clients ongoing service and support to make sure their needs are met and problems are resolved quickly and effectively.

Successful B2B linkages in agriculture require four factors:

1) Market Opportunities

To encourage leading companies to collaborate with SMEs, a lucrative opportunity must exist. The International Finance Corporation worked with olive oil SMEs in the West Bank to help them distinguish their product because it was not competitive on the export market. A United States-based importer became interested in the premium specialty product that SMEs were able to promote thanks to the project.

2) Mutual gain

The lead company and SMEs must see concrete advantages to collaboration. Alquera, a dairy company in Colombia, sought out lower-cost production techniques and quickly realized there was room to improve the caliber and output of its SME suppliers as well. Alquera implemented a supplier development programme that led to the supply of high-quality raw materials for itself, the discovery of a dependable customer for the SMEs, and an increase in revenue for all involved.

3) Adequate capacity

To meet lead-firm standards for scale, quality, cost, labour, and the environment, a minimum level of SME capacity is required. SMEs can participate in a lead firm's supply chain by participating in capacity-building activities like mentoring, advisory services, and training. In one case studied, publicly funded technical and marketing support helped Cambodian SMEs engaged in rice processing attract the interest of international lead firm importers, leading to a sharp rise in rice exports.

B2B linkage-supporting measures

The existence of large corporations in developing economies does not automatically lead to the emergence of business connections. Instead, the public sector has a crucial role to play in fostering connections. In order to meet the specific needs of lead companies, work with SMEs to develop their capacity, or work broadly across an industry, public sector actors may partner with them.

1) Bottom-up initiatives

In the case of the Cambodian rice industry, IFC established a project to give rice processing SMEs the necessary support as the nation emerged from decades of civil unrest, political unrest, and poor economic policy. 169 SMEs in the nation were impacted by a "bottom-up" capacity-building intervention that helped position them as suppliers to foreign importers and distributors.

2) Top-down initiatives

Additionally, using a "top-down" strategy, the public sector can collaborate with businesses through public-private partnerships that are customized to meet their needs. In the case of the Colombian dairy industry, Alquera collaborated with a government-run training facility to deliver programmes that raised SME supply chain productivity.

3) Industry-wide initiatives

As an example, the U.S. Agency for International Development collaborated with coffee organisations, government organisations, producers' associations, and potential lead firms in Central America to boost productivity and enhance business practices along the coffee supply chain. These "industry-wide" initiatives aim to promote greater competitiveness in a given industry.

Benefits of business-to-business agricultural markets

Increased access to buyers and sellers: A wider range of potential buyers and sellers are accessible to participants in B2B agricultural marketplaces than they might have been able to find on their own. Sales may increase as a result, and prices may go down.

Enhanced efficiency: By offering a central platform for transactions, B2B agricultural marketplaces can streamline the buying and selling process and cut the time and expense associated with conventional procurement methods.

Reduced transaction costs: By charging lower commissions and fees than conventional intermediaries like brokers or agents, B2B agricultural marketplaces can lower transaction costs.

More accurate pricing transparency: B2B agricultural marketplaces can offer more accurate pricing information, enabling buyers and sellers to make more informed choices based on the state of the market.

Enhanced product and service offerings: Compared to individual suppliers, B2B agricultural marketplaces can provide a wider range of goods and services. Customers may be able to find everything they require in a single location as a result, saving time and effort.

Kisaan Trade

A B2B agricultural e-commerce platform from India is called Kisaan Trade. To make the buying and selling of agricultural goods and services easier, the platform links farmers, agribusinesses, and other agricultural industry participants.

By enabling agricultural businesses to register on the platform and look through the available goods and services, Kisaan Trade employs the B2B model. The products these companies require can then be ordered, and Kisaan Trade manages the transaction between the buyer and seller.

How is Kisaan Trade the largest B2B marketplace for agriculture?

One of the biggest B2B agricultural marketplaces in India is called Kisaan Trade. To make the buying and selling of agricultural goods and services easier, the platform links farmers, traders, agribusinesses, and other agricultural industry participants. One of the largest B2B agricultural marketplaces in India, Kisaan Trade, has grown for a number of reasons, including the following:

A large network of participants: Over 10,000 buyers and sellers from all over India are part of Kisaan Trade's extensive network of agricultural industry participants. Due to its vast network, the platform has been able to develop a vibrant marketplace with a variety of goods and services.

Easy-to-use platform: Platform that is simple to use: Kisaan Trade's platform was created with farmers, traders, and other agricultural industry participants in mind. The platform offers tools to make the buying and selling process easier, including digital payments, logistics assistance, and seller ratings.

Strong customer support: Kisaan Trade has a team of experts on hand to help buyers and sellers with any queries or problems they may be experiencing. This company offers excellent customer support. Participants on the platform now have a greater sense of confidence and trust thanks to this level of support.

Customized solutions: Kisaan Trade provides its customers with customized solutions such as individualized product recommendations, flexible pricing, and specialized logistical support. Kisaan Trade has been able to set itself apart from other B2B agricultural marketplaces thanks to these tailored solutions. Kisaan Trade has grown to be one of the largest B2B agricultural marketplaces in India thanks to its focus on creating a sizable network of participants, offering a simple-to-use platform, providing strong customer support, and delivering customized solutions.

#b2bportal #b2btradeportal

0 notes

ragunath12 · 1 year

Text

Is the NFT market the future?

YES ,Here is the few words about nft market

We have all heard about NFTs and the digital art commercialization market, about which we have been able to read news of all kinds, from large investments to projects that fail, and that leads us to think, is it worth investing in the creation of exclusive content for certain users? Does this have some kind of added value for the brand?

To begin with, it is necessary to remember what an NFT marketplace development service is and what it is for: a Non-Fungible Token is a collectible piece that, as its name says, is not material, in other words, it is a digital item with a subjective value generated by its exclusivity and that translates into a price created by the same community that buys and sells it.

Now, what is so special about NFTs? We could say, “but if I can download an image like the NFT with the same quality, the same signature and for free”, and yes, that’s true , but what makes these items so special is that they are collectible and there is only one original. There may be many adaptations of the Mona Lisa, but the real one will always be found in the Louvre, this is what users are looking for, exclusivity, being the owners of the original piece.

If we put it in terms that we all know, having an NFT is like having a unique bowl of Pokémon , a special golden edition that was only produced once. It may not symbolize money , there may be hundreds of replicas , but the original has a value that no copy will have, that’s how Non-Fungible Tokens work.

And now, knowing this, is it worth investing in the creation of NFT’s for companies? Let’s start with the obvious facts: first, it is no longer necessary to offer face-to-face products or services to customers, in addition, a new link is created between the fanbase and the brand, customers show their brand love by purchasing original products directly . For example, a musician can sell their songs directly to a fan through an NFT without having to go through streaming platforms.

At this point we can understand that what an NFT sells is not a product, it is a brand itself. A success story exemplifying how to sell the brand without selling the product is Pringles , they created a digital flavor called CryptoCrisp with 50 originals for marketing. The GIF started out at $2 each, which would cost an actual Pringles can, and quickly jumped to $600 per item. Another notable example is the invention of Nike’s CryptoKicks in 2019, the creation of assets to manufacture digital shoes on a blockchain, which can be customized and manufactured.

It is clear that not all users want an NFT marketplace platform development to collect, which is why some brands have chosen to add benefits to their items ; For example, Adidas grants access to exclusive garments and front row for future collection launches.

In order to have a real impact on the Crypto — market we must show the world what makes our tokens special. According to Forbes magazine , there are 3 ways to give added value:

Give access to an exclusive online community together with the NFT. Tickets to future events, online or in person.

Opportunity for personalized forums with senior company officials such as the CEO or founder.

Also, you need to include a lot of trust into the equation; users do not buy any product, they have to be sure that it will be useful, that they can bet on an item that will be more valuable in the future, as well as being a serious offer, with good foundations and credibility as a business, (this taking into account the case of Lana Rhoades and the almost scam of 1.5 million Euros with CryptoSis ).

The future of NFTs has two great possibilities, that they go amazingly well or tragically wrong.

Case 1: if all goes well, NFTs will be able to be exhibited and popularized in the metaverse , they will become a type of Crypto Currency with a lot of movement and they will be considered a collectible just like valuable paintings or modern art sculptures, there will be a new market where brands will be able to develop a fanbase interested in branding and not just in the product.

Case 2: the world begins to reject NFTs as they are considered useless, they cannot be implemented in the metaverse environment and those who already have them keep them due to the impossibility of selling them at a decent price. They are lost in the future due to the imminent fall and disconnection of servers and those who managed to take advantage of the boom in this market accumulate their wealth while others regret not having thought better of it.

So, there are actually two options in the non-fungible tokens market : you enter the NFT marketplace development company , you assume the risks, you invest in positioning and marketing campaigns aimed at a specific population with these interests, resulting in a exponential growth in branding and customer loyalty, in addition to gains related to public interest in the products, which can also result in a loss of investment in the medium term…Or, we let it go and watch it rise or fall from afar while we focus on what already works for us and pay the opportunity cost by falling behind on what could work.

#nft marketplace development service #nft market future #future of nft market

0 notes

supportingstrat01 · 2 years

Text

Selling Your Plumbing Business or Other Trade? Get a Bookkeeping Pro.

If you’re positioning your trades business for sale, or just trying to grow it, an experienced bookkeeper can provide financial intelligence and insights.

With many young people looking at the trades as a cost-effective alternative to careers that require expensive college degrees, this could be an ideal time to sell the trades business that you’ve worked so hard to build. Here’s what you need to know to make the sale go smoothly — or, if you’re looking to keep it, foster its long-term growth.

An Industry-Driven Chart of Accounts

Is your chart of accounts (COA) set up in a way that best reflects how your trades business operates? If your answer is, “What’s a chart of accounts?” — well, that’s a good indication you need professional bookkeeping support.

Done right, bookkeeping involves much more than merely entering numbers into one of the many popular apps available to business owners. Bookkeeping should also provide invaluable financial intelligence about your business. And that starts with your COA.

Basically, a COA breaks down revenue and expenses into granular detail so you can identify your greatest (and weakest) sources of profit as well as the greatest drains on your resources.

For instance, let’s say you’re a commercial electrician. And let’s say roughly half of your work consists of redoing the wiring in existing commercial spaces that are being remodeled, while the other half consists of clean-sheet-of-paper wiring projects for new construction. Which type of project is more profitable?

The answer might surprise you. And if one type of work is clearly more profitable than the other, then focusing on getting the right projects could make your business more attractive when it’s time to sell.

Up-to-Date, Accurate Financial Information

When it’s time to sell. That’s a key phrase. Even if you’re not thinking of selling your trades business this year, that could change by next year. So you should approach your bookkeeping and financial records in a way that keeps your business in a constant state of readiness.

History shows that it takes a minimum of six months to sell a business. If you’re not prepared, it will take longer — and if your records are thoroughly disorganized, that could scare off prospective buyers altogether.

Keeping good records is simply good policy even if you hope to keep your business forever. For one thing, you need to be ready in case you get audited by the IRS.

Here again, pro bookkeeping support can be vital. A good bookkeeper can work with your CPA to ensure all of your information is accurate and up to date. This helps you not only avoid IRS penalties, but avoid overpaying as well.

Be Ready for Every Opportunity

Rather than sell your business, you might decide you would rather grow it. That, in turn, might require outside investors or financing. But the preparation is essentially the same. Any prospective buyer or investor will conduct due diligence. And they will want to see:

P&L statement: This summarizes where your business stands at a given moment by measuring how much revenue you have coming in (profit) versus your expenses (loss). Obviously, the more the first number exceeds the second, the better.

Balance sheet: This is similar to a P&L, but it also takes into account your overall financial structure, including any money that shareholders have invested.

Cash flow statement: This is another financial document that is subtly different from the first two. Basically, it takes into account not just your P&L but also any debts you incurred when your business started, such as a bank loan. Here’s an analogy: Say you invested $1,000 in a stock and sold it a year later for $1,500. Your net gain would be $500 because you have to account for the original $1,000 that you put in. The relationship is similar in your business bookkeeping: Generally, your positive cash flow will be less than any profit on your P&L because you have to account for any debts on your balance sheet.

Tax returns: Prospective buyers will want to see several years’ worth of tax returns to get a sense of how healthy your business has been over time. They’ll also want assurance that you’re in compliance with the law.

A business plan: Ideally, you created a business plan before starting your trades business. This document lays out your long-term projections for the business along with the research that informed those projections and the steps you intend to take to meet them. Now, maybe when you started out, your business plan amounted to a simple idea that you never actually wrote down: “I’m a good plumber. I know from working for somebody else that there’s a huge demand for capable plumbers in my area. So if I start my own plumbing business and work hard, I can make a good living and be my own boss.” And kudos to you for making that work. But if you plan to sell your business, you’ll need to create a written business plan that provides actual numbers to verify what you’ve done and the rationale behind your approach.

Most Important: Professional Bookkeeping Support

If that all sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. And if you’re too busy meeting the demands of your thriving trades business — a business that you hope to sell someday so you can enjoy a comfortable retirement — that’s all the more reason to enlist professional bookkeeping support.

At Supporting Strategies, our experienced, U.S.-based professionals use secure, best-of-breed technology and a proven process to provide a full suite of bookkeeping and controller services. Are you ready to learn how you can move your business forward? Contact Supporting Strategies today.

0 notes

emiliopdas919 · 2 years

Text

10 Sites to Help You Become an Expert in Crypto recruitment agencies

10 cryptocurrency work that will possess you partnering with Bitcoin and blockchain

From developers to writers, the Bitcoin advancement has actually generated projects that are embeded in a wide array of skill-set sets. Today is actually the opportunity to commit your abilities within the cryptocurrency task market.

Lily Martis and also Jon Simmons

10 cryptocurrency jobs that will definitely have you teaming up with Bitcoin and blockchain

Cryptocurrency opens up project options along with a variety of skills.

Don't forget when the only form of money you must fret about was actually the kind sitting in your pocketbook? Oh, just how opportunities-- as well as cash-- have transformed from copper cents and buck costs to, properly, we are actually reaching that.

Cryptocurrency, bitcoin, blockchain-- you hear these terms on the news and see all of them across your social feed, yet does anyone in fact recognize what any Blockchain recruitment agency one of this definitely implies?

What is cryptocurrency?

According to Investopedia, cryptocurrency is actually "a digital or electronic money that makes use of cryptography [secret code] for safety." Unlike typical unit of currency, it isn't supported through a federal government or even financial institution.

Rather, it is tracked and traded on a decentralized social digital ledger understood as the blockchain. You can easily think about it form of like the Venmo app, yet for cryptocurrency

The original and most-widely used cryptocurrency is actually Bitcoin, however there are actually others such as ether.

What skills are actually needed for cryptocurrency tasks?

As you might picture, specialist skill-sets are essential to landing a project in the cyptocurrency universe, as a lot of work lists require difficult capabilities, including Espresso, artificial intelligence, Python, synthetic intellect (AI), C/C++, Node.js, and Amazon.com web solutions.

Nonetheless, there are actually options for non-techies too. Companies likewise value prospects with soft skill-sets, including interaction, creative thinking, and also analytical, as well as who are actually business, self-motivated, and staff gamers.

Jobs in cryptocurrency.

According to a latest Monster analysis, the cryptocurrency project market performs the growth. Using information delivered by the TalentNeuron tool coming from insights and also innovation business CEB, we found that directories for work stating either "cryptocurrency," "bitcoin," or even "blockchain" have climbed 194% year-over-year, coming from 2018 to 2017.

Curious if there is actually a task in cryptocurrency for you? Our experts rounded up 10 projects that are going to have you dealing with bitcoin and blockchain now.

Service advancement rep

What you 'd perform: As with some other increasing area, cryptocurrency is developing brand-new company chances all over several industries (wellness treatment, finance, and property among others), so there is actually a necessity for people to seek those out, press item relationships and also near bargains.

What you would certainly require: Beyond an in depth understanding of the target of your provider's cryptocurrency application, service growth agents need to have some sales expertise and stellar interaction skills. Lots of possess degrees in company, money, or even interactions.

What you would certainly make: $45,619 per year Discover service development work on Monster.

Data scientist

What you will do: "Blockchain technology is relatively new and often misunderstood, which means that there is actually exceptionally high demand for experts in information science," points out Harrison Brady, communications specialist at Outpost Communications, a telecommunications company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. Your task would certainly be actually to evaluate transaction records to aid designers simplify expertises.

What you will need: Lots of records scientists keep an expert's degree in information or even information technology. Strong rational abilities are vital, as are actually interaction abilities, which are needed to impart fads to your business's forerunners.

What you will do: nies such as mutual funds and also insurance coverage companies, along with along with exclusive financiers appearing to purchase cryptocurrency. A regular day includes encouraging financial investments, building expenditure approaches (like the greatest time to sell as well as buy), assessing risks, and also sustaining investment profiles.

What you would certainly need to have: Commonly, economic analysts keep a bachelor's level as properly as a permit, usually coming from the Financial Field Regulation Authorization. Also, having first-class rational, personal computer, and also math skills will create you a very competitive applicant when applying to cryptocurrency-oriented projects.

What you would certainly perform: That do you hear all this crypto updates coming from? Journalists. As a writer, you 'd deal with the most up to date information on cryptocurrency and also blockchain technician. You could be stating for a paper, publication, weblog, or even a brand name.

What you 'd require: A lot of writers begin out through interning at a newspaper or journal, as well as have an undergraduate's level in journalism, communications, or even a similar industry. Writing examples (or even program, if that is actually the kind of writing you want) are crucial to landing a setting.

What you 'd perform: Do you wish to assist take cryptocurrency from water cooler conversations to a real-life, simple to use currency that's resisting to hackers and various other internet criminals? Cryptocurrency exists in a digital globe, so typically, there's a demand for specialists who can produce safe and secure, uncomplicated knowledge for clients through electronic applications. The biggest crypto exchange in the planet, Coinbase, makes use of maker learning to stay ahead of cyberpunks.

What you would certainly need to have: At a high amount, equipment understanding designers should be actually experienced in natural foreign language processing (NLP) records as well as algorithms review. Many possess at minimum a professional's in information technology, sometimes a Ph.D., and also know with analytical evaluation foreign languages including Python and also SQL.

What you would certainly do: For cryptocurrency to remain to do well, prospective consumers and also investors need to have to understand it exists-- and also just how it works. Advertising and marketing managers estimate the demand for cryptocurrencies and also blockchain and match up worths. They recognize potential users, display patterns, and cultivate tactics to help folks maximize their earnings and market allotment.

What you 'd need: Marketing managers must be eager beavers who take pleasure in introducing as well as promoting products from scratch. They need to become both left-brained and right-brained-- creative as well as rational. Education-wise, many store a bachelor's degree, yet knowledge is the name of the game listed below. Before being ensured to manager, the majority of possess numerous years of knowledge working in advertising, advertising, promotions, or sales.

What you 'd perform: Sure, the majority of sectors need to have study experts, but in new areas including crypto, the opportunities for job are bountiful. "This role has actually been actually made to aid educate Americans about developments in the cryptocurrency industry as well as create better choices," says Jon Brodsky, that leads finder.com's US functions, a The big apple Urban area-- based provider that assists folks make far better qualified as well as individual selections.

What you will need to have: Investigation experts must have solid data review, calculated reasoning, and also written interaction skills. They need to additionally have a thorough understanding of the cryptocurrency business-- schedule as well as distinctions in between money, modern technologies, trading systems, treatments, and also much more. Experts typically have at the very least a bachelor's level in market investigation or a related industry.

1 note · View note

tyrannuspitch · 3 years

Text

Jumping off @kidrat ’s recent post on JKR, British transphobia, and transphobia against transmasculine people, after getting a bit carried away and too long to add as a comment:

A major, relatively undiscussed event in JKR’s descent into full terfery was this tweet:

[image id: a screenshot of a tweet from JK Rowling reading: “’People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Rowling attaches a link to an article titled: “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate” /end id]

This can seem like a pretty mundane TERF talking point, just quibbling over language for the sake of it, but I think it’s worth discussing, especially in combination with the idea that cis women like JKR see transmasculine transition as a threat to their womanhood. (Recite it with horror: ”If I were young now, I might’ve transitioned...”)

A lot of people, pro- or anti-transphobe, will make this discussion about whether the term “woman” should include trans women or not, and how cis women are hostile to the inclusion of trans women. And that’s absolutely true. But the actual language cis women target is very frequently being changed for the benefit of trans men, not trans women, and most of them know this.

Cis people are used to having their identities constantly reaffirmed and grounded in their bodies. A lot of cis women, specifically, understand their social and physical identities as women as being defined by pain: misogynistic oppression is equated to the pains of menstruation or childbirth, and both are seen as the domain of cis women. They’re something cis women can bond over and build a “sisterhood” around, and the more socially aware among them can recognise that cis women’s pain being taken less seriously by medicine is not unrelated to their oppression. However, in the absence of any trans perspectives, these conversations can also easily become very territorial and very bioessentialist.

Therefore... for many cis women, seeing “female bodies” described in gender neutral language feels like stripping their pain of its meaning, and they can become very defensive and angry.

And the consequences for transmasculine people can be extremely dangerous.

Not only do transmasculine people have an equal right to cis women to define our bodies as our own... Using inclusive language in healthcare is about more than just emotional validation.

The status quo in healthcare is already non-inclusive. When seeking medical help, trans people can expect to be misgendered and to have to explain how our bodies work to the doctors. We risk harassment, pressure to detransition, pressure to sterilise ourselves, or just being outright turned away. And the conversation around pregnancy and abortion in particular is heaving with cisnormativity - both feminist and anti-feminist cis women constantly talk about pregnancy as a quintessentially female experience which men could never understand.

Using gender-neutral language is the most basic step possible to try and make transmasculine people safer in healthcare, by removing the idea that these are “women’s spaces”, that men needing these services is impossible, and that safety depends on ideas like “we’re all women here”. Not institutionally subjecting us to misgendering and removing the excuse to outright deny us treatment is, again, one of the most basic steps that can be taken. It doesn’t mean we’re allowed comfort, dignity or full autonomy, just that one major threat is being addressed. The backlash against this from cis women is defending their poorly developed senses of self... at the cost of most basic dignity and safety for transmasculine people.

Ironically, though transphobic cis women feel like decoupling “women’s experiences” from womanhood is decoupling them from gendered oppression, transmasculine people experience even more marginalisation than cis women. Our rates of suicide and assault are even higher. Our health is even less researched than cis women’s. Our bodies are even more strictly controlled. Cis women wanting to define our bodies on their terms is a significant part of that. They hold the things we need hostage as “women’s rights”, “women’s health”, “women’s discussions” and “support for violence against women”, and demand we (re-)closet ourselves or lose all of their solidarity.

Fundamentally, the problem is that transphobic cis women are possessive over their experiences and anyone who shares them. Because of their binary understanding of gender, they’re uncomfortable with another group sharing many of their experiences but defining themselves differently. They’re uncomfortable with transmasculine people identifying “with the enemy” instead of “with their sisters”, and they’re even more uncomfortable with the idea that there are men in the world who they oppress, and not the other way around. “Oppression is for women; you can’t call yourself a man and still claim women’s experiences. Pregnancy is for women; if you want to be a man so badly why haven’t already you done something about having a woman’s body? How dare you abandon the sisterhood while inhabiting one of our bodies?”

Which brings me back to the TERF line about how “If I were young now, I might have transitioned.”

I’m not saying Rowling doesn’t actually feel any personal connection to that narrative - but it is a standard line, and it’s standard for a reason. Transphobic cis women really believe that there is nothing trans men go through that cis women don’t. They equate our dysphoria to internalised misogyny, eating disorders, sexual abuse or other things they see as “female trauma”. They equate our desire to transition to a desire to escape. They want to “help us accept ourselves” and “save us” from threats to their sense of identity. The fact is, this is all projection. They refuse to consider that we really have a different internal experience from them.

There’s also a marked tendency among less overtly transphobic cis women, even self-proclaimed trans allies, to make transphobia towards trans men about cis women.

Violence against trans men is chronically misreported and redefined as “violence against women”. In activist spaces, we’re frequently told that any trauma we have with misogyny is “misdirected” and therefore “not really about us”. If we were women, we would’ve been “experiencing misogyny”, but men can’t do that, so we should shut up and stop “talking over women”. (Despite the surface difference of whether they claim to affirm our gender, this is extremely similar to how TERFs tell us that everything we experience is “just misogyny”, but that transmasculine identity is a delusion that strips us of the ability to understand gender or the right to talk about it.)

I have personally witnessed an actual N*zi writing an article about how trans men are “destroying the white race” by transitioning and therefore becoming unfit to carry children, and because the N*zi had misgendered trans men in his article, every response I saw to it was about “men controlling women’s bodies”.

All a transphobe has to do is misgender us, and the conversation about our own oppression is once again about someone else.

Transphobes will misgender us as a form of violence, and cis feminist “allies” will perpetuate our misgendering for rhetorical convenience. Yes, there is room to analyse how trans men are treated by people who see us as women - but applying a simple “men oppressing women” dynamic that erases our maleness while refusing to even name transphobia or cissexism is not that. Trans men’s oppression is not identical to cis women’s, and forcing us to articulate it in ways that would include cis women in it means we cannot discuss the differences.

It may seem like I’ve strayed a long way from the original topic, and I kind of have, but the central reason for all of these things is the same:

Trans men challenge cis women’s self-concept. We force them to actually consider what manhood and womanhood are and to re-analyse their relationship to oppression, beyond a simple binary patriarchy.

TERFs will tell you themselves that the acknowledgement of trans people, including trans men, is an “existential threat” that is “erasing womanhood” - not just our own, but cis women’s too. They hate the idea that biology doesn’t determine gender, and that gender does not have a strict binary relationship to oppression. They’re resentful of the idea that they could just “become men”, threatened by the assertion that doing so is not an escape, and completely indignant at the idea that their cis womanhood could give them any kind of power. They are, fundamentally, desperate not to have to face the questions we force them to consider, so they erase us, deflect from us, and talk over us at every opportunity.

Trans men are constantly redefined against our wills for the benefit of cis womanhood.

TL;DR:

Cis women find transmasculine identity threatening, because we share experiences that they see as foundational to their womanhood

The fact that transphobes target inclusive language in healthcare specifically is not a mistake - They do not want us to be able to transition safely

Cis women are uncomfortable acknowledging transphobia, so they make discussion of trans men’s oppression about “womanhood” instead

This can manifest as fully denying that trans men experience our own oppression, or as pretending trans men’s experiences are identical to cis women’s in every way

#transphobia #transmasculinity #transandrophobia #this could maybe do with one more proofread but i've spent way too long on this so whatever!

780 notes · View notes

kingstylesdaily · 4 years

Text

Harry Styles — ‘It’s about bringing more music to Manchester’

The One Direction band member and solo star on launching into his first substantial business venture.

But the star hasn’t joined me on a Zoom call to discuss traumatic haircuts. Instead, we’re discussing what’s being billed as his first venture into the world of business. Styles is the public face of a new arena to be built in Manchester, which will be one of the largest indoor venues in the UK when it opens in 2023.

It’s being built by the US entertainment company Oak View Group at a projected cost of £350m. The capacity will be 23,500. Following a link-up with the Manchester-based business The Co-operative Group, it will be called Co-op Live.

“It feels like full circle for me to be doing this,” Styles says, speaking in what looks like the stainless steel confines of his LA film trailer. He grew up near Manchester, in a village in the neighbouring county Cheshire. “My first job was with the Co-op, it was delivering papers for them,” he recalls.

Manchester was where he went to gigs with friends. It was also where he auditioned for the television talent show The X Factor in 2010 when he was 16, singing an unaccompanied version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”. It led to him joining the boy band One Direction. Transcending their talent show origins (they came third on The X Factor), Styles and his bandmates became a global phenomenon. They were the first band in US chart history to have their first four albums debut at number one, outdoing even The Beatles. With his newly shorn hair, a green jacket with big stitching, a T-shirt with blue palm trees and a cross dangling from his neck, Styles manages even on a visually unflattering Zoom call to look the part of the teen heart-throb. But, whereas other boy band singers have struggled to establish themselves as individual acts, Styles has made a handsome success of it. He launched a solo career in 2016 and has released two accomplished hit albums. In 2017, he made his acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s war film Dunkirk. He’s currently shooting Olivia Wilde’s horror-thriller, Don’t Worry Darling.

Diversification from the evanescent world of teen-pop continues with his involvement in the Co-op Live arena. It links him with two big names in the US entertainment industry. Tim Leiweke, former CEO of the concert promoter AEG, and Irving Azoff, former CEO of Ticketmaster, run Oak View Group, the company building the arena. Azoff’s son Jeffrey Azoff is Styles’s manager. “This is a big project and it would be a lot scarier if I was with people I didn’t know,” the singer says.

He has a financial stake in it as an investor. “I didn’t get into music because I wanted to be a businessman,” he says. “I got into music because I love music. That’s always going to be a first for me. But when an opportunity like this comes up, for me it feels so much about what I can bring to it as a musician, and also as a fan.”

Construction of the arena is due to begin in November. Styles has a vaguely defined role as an adviser in its design and decor. “Obviously I’m not an expert architecturally, in terms of building an arena,” he says. “I guess the weight of my involvement falls into the idea of what you want backstage as an artist. People operate in different ways after a show. Some people like a quiet space, some people like a place where you can invite all your friends.”

Arenas have a reputation as soulless venues, the kind of interchangeable setting where a forgetful star can get the name of the city wrong (as happened to Bruce Springsteen in 2016 when he cried, “Party noises, Pittsburgh!” during a show in Cleveland).

Even at the tender age of 26, Styles is a veteran of these cavernous spaces, which he refers to as “rooms”.

As an artist, it’s rare to find that if you’re touring for months at a time, to go in these big rooms and feel that comfortable.” Manchester’s new arena is being designed to maximise sightlines between performer and audience. “That’s usually the first thing that you miss when you go into big rooms,” he says. “There’s a point when you’re doing shows and you can see the whites of people’s eyes and you can have that connection with people. It’s easy to lose that if you can’t see people’s faces.”

The first time he sang in public was in the canteen of his Cheshire school, for a music competition. He recalls the feeling of exhilaration: “You’re so used to sitting in the classroom and looking up at your teachers. All of a sudden everyone’s down there and the teachers are looking up at you.” He gets the same sensation when performing for tens of thousands of people. “It’s obviously on a different scale but that feeling is very much the same,” he says. “I think it’s the same chemical. It’s just like such an unnatural thing. It’s kind of like — this isn’t supposed to be like this, this isn’t how life works. That kind of adrenalin I think is just something that you wish you could share with people that you know. It’s a beautiful thing, it’s a really special moment.”

The coronavirus pandemic poses an existential threat to venues. “It’s such a strange time to be talking about live music, because right now it just doesn’t exist,” Styles says. He insists that the Co-op Live is designed to enhance Manchester’s live infrastructure, not overwhelm it. (The city already has one of the UK’s largest indoor venues, the AO Arena.)

After its projected completion in 2023, Co-op Live will be able to welcome its celebrity investor on stage (“If they’ll have me. I’ll have to speak to someone and ask about that”). In the meanwhile, Styles is due to embark on a world tour next February, although the pandemic has cast it in doubt.

“It’s one of those things of just seeing how things go,” he says. “I don’t think anyone wants to be putting on a tour before it’s safe to do so. There will be a time we dance again, but until then I think it’s about protecting each other and doing everything we can to be safe. And then when it’s ready and people want to, we shall play music.”

via the Financial Times

#kingstylesdaily #Harry Styles #hs: financial times #hs: article #October 2020

566 notes · View notes

stylesnews · 4 years

Photo

Harry Styles — ‘It’s about bringing more music to Manchester’The One Direction band member and solo star on launching into his first substantial business venture

Two weeks ago, the stark phrase “HE CUT HIS HAIR” began trending on social media. I can confirm its truth: the One Direction member turned solo star Harry Styles has indeed cut his hair. The usual curly tresses are gone, scissored into a tousled, swept-back look. It’s for a film role he’s currently shooting in Los Angeles. But the star hasn’t joined me on a Zoom call to discuss traumatic haircuts. Instead, we’re discussing what’s being billed as his first venture into the world of business.

Styles is the public face of a new arena to be built in Manchester, which will be one of the largest indoor venues in the UK when it opens in 2023. It’s being built by the US entertainment company Oak View Group at a projected cost of £350m. The capacity will be 23,500. Following a link-up with the Manchester-based business The Co-operative Group, it will be called Co-op Live.

With his newly shorn hair, a green jacket with big stitching, a T-shirt with blue palm trees and a cross dangling from his neck, Styles manages even on a visually unflattering Zoom call to look the part of the teen heart-throb. He launched a solo career in 2016 and has released two accomplished hit albums. In 2017, he made his acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s war film Dunkirk. He’s currently shooting Olivia Wilde’s horror-thriller, Don’t Worry Darling.

Even at the tender age of 26, Styles is a veteran of these cavernous spaces, which he refers to as “rooms”.

“There’s a lot of cold rooms that you can play in,” he says. “You definitely remember being in the ones that sound better, the ones in which you can create some sort of feeling of being at home. As an artist, it’s rare to find that if you’re touring for months at a time, to go in these big rooms and feel that comfortable.”

Manchester’s new arena is being designed to maximise sightlines between performer and audience. “That’s usually the first thing that you miss when you go into big rooms,” he says. “There’s a point when you’re doing shows and you can see the whites of people’s eyes and you can have that connection with people. It’s easy to lose that if you can’t see people’s faces.”

He gets the same sensation when performing for tens of thousands of people. “It’s obviously on a different scale but that feeling is very much the same,” he says. “I think it’s the same chemical. It’s just like such an unnatural thing. It’s kind of like — this isn’t supposed to be like this, this isn’t how life works. That kind of adrenalin I think is just something that you wish you could share with people that you know. It’s a beautiful thing, it’s a really special moment.”

“The purpose is not in any way to try to monopolise the city in terms of music,” he says. “It’s about bringing more music to Manchester, wanting to bring more artists there, to use this building as a reminder of why it’s such a great music city, not trying to wipe out other venues.” After its projected completion in 2023, Co-op Live will be able to welcome its celebrity investor on stage (“If they’ll have me. I’ll have to speak to someone and ask about that”). In the meanwhile, Styles is due to embark on a world tour next February, although the pandemic has cast it in doubt.

#harry styles #oct20 #article #ft #cooplive

354 notes · View notes

hldailyupdate · 4 years

Text

With his newly shorn hair, a green jacket with big stitching, a T-shirt with blue palm trees and a cross dangling from his neck, Styles manages even on a visually unflattering Zoom call to look the part of the teen heart-throb. But, whereas other boy band singers have struggled to establish themselves as individual acts, Styles has made a handsome success of it. He launched a solo career in 2016 and has released two accomplished hit albums. In 2017, he made his acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s war film Dunkirk. He’s currently shooting Olivia Wilde’s horror-thriller, Don’t Worry Darling.

Even at the tender age of 26, Styles is a veteran of these cavernous spaces, which he refers to as “rooms”.

As an artist, it’s rare to find that if you’re touring for months at a time, to go in these big rooms and feel that comfortable.”

Financial Times about Harry being the new face of a new arena in Manchester. (26 October 2020)

#harry styles #harry update #article #financial times #hldaily #october 2020

201 notes · View notes

pechayfiles · 2 years

Text

Hello, I'm pechay.

New blog? Here's why:

For some reason, my tumblr blog account got terminated. I'm trying to reclaim it but just in case, I made a new one. I will be reposting all the cc I released here when I find the time. I'm currently working on something at the moment.

Links

My Patreon Page

My Terms of Use:

FOR USE

• Please give me credit. You may tag my blog.

• Please do not put my cc behind paywall or early access builds. Do not upload them with your build at all. Reference my cc post.

RECOLORS

• You have my permission to recolor my creations.

• You are not allowed to include the mesh in your recolors. Please reference my original post.

• You are not allowed to put recolors of my cc behind paywalls or as exclusive content. You can only release them for free.

BLENDER SCENE

• I will allow you to use my creations for your blender scenes for rendering purposes

• I am not okay with my creations being included in blender scenes that will be sold so please do not upload with your blender scenes.

CONVERSIONS

• Ask for my permission first if you want to convert my creations to Sims 2 or Sims 3.

• If given permission, please credit and link the original post of the cc you converted.

• You are not allowed to convert my meshes for other games.

On Collaborations

I am open to collaborations as long as you don't ask me to make CAS cc. I would prefer it if the collaboration is for public release and not early access. You can inbox me if you're interested.

On Commissions

Anything but CAS custom content.

I can make custom neon signs for you. Be prepared with the font of your liking.

Please inbox me first if you want to commission cc. I prefer it if you can provide reference images and be clear in your specifications about the cc. I can mod it to make it functional as long as I won't need to add custom animations to do it. If I have to add custom animations, it will cost more. Sets will cost more. Of course, the price depends on the degree of difficulty and quantity of the content you want me to create. I will take only one commission at a time. I don't want to pressure and burden myself too much because it will affect the quality of my work.

About Me

I'm an EARLY ACCESS creator. Strictly early access only. All the custom content I release for my patrons go public EXACTLY 2 weeks after I post them on Patreon, no exceptions.

That being said, I guarantee that your private info would not be of use to me. Since my cc goes public two weeks after release, it's kind of pointless to track where my creations go.

Should you decide to leak my creations, I won't really mind. I consider it as free advertising and an opportunity for me to be known by people (because let's face it, I'm not at a level yet where I can boast about the quality of my work.

Now let's discuss my work. I create all my meshes and textures from scratch. I often use images I find online for references.

However, there are times when I see a 3d model I like. When that happens, I try to ask permission first if I can convert it for the game. I always give credit to the original creator and I WILL NEVER CHARGE for that content.

The same rules apply for art that I liked and got the permission for to use in my creations. Again, unless the textures of my cc were 100% made by me, I will never charge or post it as early content. As long as I used someone else's art/creation (with permission, of course) the custom content will be free. It is an ironclad rule I made for myself.

I would describe my creative process as scatterbrained and sporadic. So when I post #wip images, the actual content release could happen somewhere within a week to months. Ah, I know, I know. I know it sounds counter productive, but I promise that when I start projects, I may not finish them immediately, but when I do, I guarantee my best effort was given to them.

Most of the time, the reason I get stuck on a project is because the result I got wasn't what I expected or that I couldn't pull off what was initially in my mind. Or because I realized I still lack the skills to turn the concept in my head into something I could work with. Given my stubbornness, pride, and uncompromising personality, I always decide to put the problematic project on hold so I can come back to it after I have learned the skills needed to realize it. Again, I know it sounds counterproductive, but I have continuously improved my cc making skills due to it. I hope you can give me as much patience as I'm trying to give myself. I do want to give out the best I can.

Thanks for the support and I hope I can continue to give you custom content that you can enjoy.

#pechay #sims 4 cc #sims 4 custom content #ts4 cyberpunk #ts4 cc download

2 notes · View notes

hlupdate · 4 years

Link

With his newly shorn hair, a green jacket with big stitching, a T-shirt with blue palm trees and a cross dangling from his neck, Styles manages even on a visually unflattering Zoom call to look the part of the teen heart-throb. But, whereas other boy band singers have struggled to establish themselves as individual acts, Styles has made a handsome success of it. He launched a solo career in 2016 and has released two accomplished hit albums. In 2017, he made his acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s war film Dunkirk. He’s currently shooting Olivia Wilde’s horror-thriller, Don’t Worry Darling.

Even at the tender age of 26, Styles is a veteran of these cavernous spaces, which he refers to as “rooms”.

As an artist, it’s rare to find that if you’re touring for months at a time, to go in these big rooms and feel that comfortable.”

#harry styles #articles #261020

134 notes · View notes