L'aventure de Canmom à Annecy - Vendredi 2: The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes

It's almost a week since the day now but here's more Annecy writeups! I will be republishing this whole series in a very fancy filterable way on canmom.art soon, so look out for that!

Friday's second act was the new anime film The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes (夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 Natsu he Tonneru, Sayonara no Deguchi), a title which conveniently only uses kanji from the first ~10 levels of Wanikani so it's nice and easy to read. That said, this showing had both English and French subtitles, so I didn't need to lean on my Japanese knowledge this time. Here's a trailer...

This film seems to have been out in Japan for long enough that it's already available on nyaa (GJM are working on a sub), but this was actually my first time hearing about it. It was originally a light novel by Mei Hachimoku, then a manga, and now an anime film by Tomohisa Taguchi.

Taguchi has a pretty good track record as a director, although mostly stuff I've not seen. In fact the only of his works I've seen before is the original series Akudama Drive (2020), which is a very stylish scifi heist anime. He also directed the recent Bleach film, and the 2017 Kino's Journey TV anime, as well as a number of adaptations of the Persona games.

As seems to be customary for screenings at the Bonlieu Grand Salle, he and one of the producers (I regret that I didn't make a note of which of the three) came on stage before the film to comment a little. [That guy on the left - I'm not sure his name but he seems to be one of the main people running Annecy, since he introduced most of the films and carried out interviews at most of the Grand Salle screenings I went to.]

Taguchi remarked that most of his previous work has been action, so this more grounded romance film was a big change of pace. He spoke about wanting to capture the loneliness of the two main characters. The animation was carried out at Studio CLAP, a young studio whose previous work is Pompo the Cinephile, which we watched on Animation Night 123.

This film actually ended up winning the 'Paul Grimault Award', one of the three awards bestowed to feature films, which is named after a French animator who I presently mostly know from the bus stop by Cinema Pathé; at some point I gotta dig in more lmao.

So, with all that introduction... what sort of film was it? I went in expecting a solidly made summer movie in the Makoto Shinkai idiom... and that is indeed precisely what I got.

The story concerns two highschoolers, Kaoru (our main viewpoint character) and Anzu. Kaoru is a boy whose sister died when he was young, leading to his parents breaking up and his father falling into alcoholism. Since she was attempting to retrieve a beetle for him, he blames himself for the death - a sentiment shared by his father. Anzu meanwhile is a new transfer student who arrives at the school and immediately makes waves by acting standoffish towards the other students. She has aspirations to become a mangaka, following in the footsteps of her grandfather, but this has estranged her from the rest of her family who disapproved of his lack of success. So she severely doubts her own talent.

The pair meet on a rainy day waiting for a train that is delayed by hitting a deer, at which Kaoru lends Anzu his umbrella. This train stop becomes a recurring motif throughout the film, symbolising the evolution of their relationship. The other major element is a local legend of the 'Urashima Tunnel', which can grant wishes, at the price that time is drastically slowed down inside the tunnel, so that seconds inside the tunnel pass as hours outside. Kaoru discovers the tunnel is in fact real, and might give him a way to save his sister; Anzu follows him and the pair start researching the properties of the tunnel (e.g. its effect on phone communications), and draw up a plan to enter it and get what they want, even if it sends them thousands of years into the future.

Naturally they grow closer together and start to form a romantic relationship. Kaoru learns about Anzu's manga, and comes to the conclusion that she doesn't lack talent at all - and he also knows (somehow) that the tunnel is not capable of bestowing talent, only restoring things that were lost. So in the end (spoilers!) Kaoru enters the tunnel in secret without Anzu knowing. Eight years pass on the outside during which Anzu becomes a successful mangaka, still eaten by her highschool relationship; inside over a matter of minutes Kaoru finds his sister, and spends a little time with her, before realising that actually what he really needs is to be with Anzu, so he texts her and starts running back. They reunite near the entrance of the tunnel, smooch, and live happily ever after (even though Kaoru is still a high schooler and there's an eight year age gap lmao, this just straight up isn't even mentioned as a potential issue).

Generally I enjoyed the buildup a lot more than the final act. That this kind of movie centres on a heterosexual relationship is inevitable, but Anzu and Kaoru's hesitant relationship is genuine and sweet - the scene where Kaoru is reading Anzu's manga as she anxiously waits for his opinion is especially well observed. The pair's efforts, led by Anzu, to analyse the properties of the tunnel through experimentation is fun, since that's precisely what I would do if confronted with a magical tunnel of time dilation. That said, the central fantastical conceit, the time dilation tunnel, doesn't feel like an especially interesting metaphor.

Compared to the films of Makoto Shinkai, which visually and narratively it hews very close to (complete with the coloured highlights), the notable divergence is that the couple don't end up separated and do get their happy ending. Kaoru's decision to break their compact and leave Anzu alone outside the tunnel for eight years ultimately... just doesn't matter too much. He realises he needs to move on, says goodbye to his sister, and reunites with Anzu. I think it might be more interesting if Anzu actually ended up moving on and starting a different relationship and Kaoru had to face up to the fact that he has thrown away his one connection, but then I'm a miserable bitch who loves suffering lmao. Alternatively, I think it would be really cool if they actually did send themselves thousands of years into the future, although it would put this film into a very different genre.

In any case, the ending to this film ultimately left me a little cold. Yay, breeding pair got together.

Even so, it was absolutely an entertaining film; the environments are suitably beautiful, the animation is solid. Whether you'd enjoy it will probably depend how much you enjoy the "summer movie magical romance" subgenre. If you like Makoto Shinkai's movies, you'll probably like this one. If you hate Makoto Shinkai's movies, I expect you'd feel much the same about this one.

Speaking of Makoto Shinkai, I was a little surprised not to see Suzume in competition. But in general it seems pretty random which anime studios decide to submit their work to Annecy. Some studios like Science Saru have a pretty close relationship with the festival, others seem to ignore it entirely. (Perhaps it is a case of like, for smaller studios it's a valuable chance for promotion, but Makoto Shinkai is basically guaranteed a massive worldwide audience so he doesn't need to bother to come out to France?)

Interview with Leon about the national team and Bayern part 2

By sport1

Was the lack of cohesion also the problem at the Qatar World Cup?

We only had seven days of preparation before the World Cup. To develop such a spirit in such a short time is extremely difficult. Regardless of that, we've had another challenge for years: I think you, as a fan, just know: this is my team. That's the left winger, he's marching up and down and hitting crosses. That's the striker who scores goals for us. We are still looking for the best team and the best formation. We are currently in this process, to be honest.

Do team afternoons like Tuesday, when you and your colleagues went bowling, help you grow together as a unit?

The evening was great! We usually go out to eat together. Then we do the same as at the hotel. This time we play against each other in different teams in various lanes. You laugh together, have fun and get to know the guys even better through those evenings. That was good for us.

It is said that Julian Brandt was the best.

That's right, Jule played the best round, followed closely by Joshua and me. It was a lot of fun. To get back to the question: a team spirit can also develop over the course of a tournament if you have a sense of accomplishment. We barely knew each other at the 2017 Confederations Cup, but over the course of the tournament we became a real unit. It's clear that you grow together faster with a sense of achievement. Then the automatisms kick in, you get a run....

After the World Cup in Qatar, Joshua Kimmich confessed to us very honestly that he was afraid of falling into a mental hole and that he worries that he personally, and therefore his generation, will forever be associated with failure.

I know exactly what Jo meant by that. Before our generation, teams always reached the semifinals of the World Cup. So far we haven't managed to bring our qualities to the field in a tournament. That is extremely frustrating. The early exit from the World Cup was definitely the most difficult stage of my career.

Compared to the 2018 World Cup, I had a different role. As one of the leading players, I had completely different expectations of myself and the tournament. I can only thank those around me, my family and friends for supporting me so well during this time.

In a year's time, on June 14, the opening match of the European Championship will kick off in your own country. How can you ensure the important spirit of optimism?

The easiest way to do that is through convincing games and convincing victories. And we need that badly. What really frustrated me in Bremen is the fact that the fans wanted it! They were there and ready to make a lot of noise. But again we didn't get the spark to jump out at them.

When we did 2:3 and 3:3, I said to myself: How amazing it is when flags are flying everywhere! When you have a whole country behind you, it must be a unique feeling. We all want to experience that in the summer of 2024. But for that we have to do our part.

Society is more divided than it has been for decades. Politically we are experiencing a shift to the right - is the national team also suffering because people can't or won't identify with Germany and the team at the moment?

Good question! A positive person would say: We, the selection, can be the common denominator of all. This is also my desired scenario. It has always been like this: soccer brings people together and can bring different opinions back together, or at least put them in dialogue. You're happy about something together and still have lively discussions. Without burdening the players and the team too much, I am convinced that soccer has the power to give our country a positive boost again! Euro 2024 can come at the right time!

What are your memories of the last home tournament, the 2006 World Cup?

I was eleven years old at the time. I didn't have a jersey. But I immediately think back to the team spirit ball, which was available as a mini version in the menu at McDonald's at the time, and I dribbled around with it for the whole four weeks. I also think of all the flags on the cars. The World Cup and the national team were the talk of the town - all over the country. They were electrifying weeks. I really want to experience that as a player!

Is Hansi Flick the right trainer for this?

Yes, definitely. Thanks to the successful time at Bayern, I have a different image of him than maybe some players who only know him from the national team. I know what Hansi is capable of. I trust him 100 percent that he will coach us to a successful European championship.

Our SPORT1 expert Mario Basler harshly criticized his teammate Joshua Kimmich on the double pass and put forward the thesis that you suffer with Kimmich. "The bad thing is that he wants to do everything," Basler said. And: "Whoever plays next to him in midfield is the poorest, because he just runs back and forth." They even "trashed" him with that. How do you see it?

I am not a fan of these polarizing statements. In fact, Jo has always backed me in recent years. The situation has even changed a bit recently due to the change of position. I am 100 percent convinced of Joshua's qualities. As a player and even more as a person. I appreciate him very much, as a friend and as a teammate. It's a privilege to play with him for our country and at FC Bayern.

We have noticed these days that you have a special handshake. You grab your forearms with your hands. Tell us what it is?

I don't know if I can disclose that. I'd have to get Jo's permission first ( laughs ). But it's been our check for years. That's how we always salute. It's about a movie, I can tell you that much. It shouldn't be boring for you, as a reporter you have to do some research.

On Tuesday you will return to Gelsenkirchen with the test match against Colombia. What memories do you have of your time in S04?

I spent five very emotional and successful years there. Today I would be very satisfied with the placements at that time. In January 2018 my transfer was announced and I had to go through a steel bath with the fans. But I understood the pain of the fans. We finished runners-up and thanks to the success there was a happy turnaround. I received a standing ovation in the stadium. That completed the story at Schalke. It was a good moment.

Schalke relegated, your other former club, VfL Bochum, stayed. Mixed feelings for you?

Absolutely. It hurts a lot. As happy as I was for VfL, I also think there are hardly any football fans in Germany who want Schalke relegated. I even know Dortmund fans who wanted Schalke there. 04 belongs in the 1.Liga, no question!

I still have a lot of contact with players and staff and I can really appreciate what that means to the people at the club. You wouldn't wish relegation on anyone, especially the club you played for five years.

Do you still wear a blue and white band on your right wrist because of your connection to Schalke?

It's getting pretty personal today ( laughs ). But that's okay. I'll just reveal one thing: the blue ribbon is Sead Kolašinac's. We gave it to each other when he left. We are still in regular contact.

Can you imagine returning to the Ruhr area at some point?

Everyone knows that I am very connected to the Ruhr area just for family reasons. That's no secret. Schalke is a big club, just like Bochum. But that's not a problem for the next few years.

Karim Benzema moves to Saudi Arabia and earns more than 200 million euros. How do you feel about the trend of more and more experienced players going to the desert?

I read that you always wanted to play there ( smiles ). What can I say? The financial resources are huge in Arab countries. They are entitled to the fact that some players are dragging their feet in the autumn of their careers. Personally, I can absolutely rule it out. I would clearly prefer Bochum or Schalke.

Source

There are many great documentaries to choose from, but here are some of the most acclaimed and popular ones, according to various sources.

- **Man on Wire (2008)**: A thrilling documentary about Philippe Petit's daring high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974¹.

- **Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)**: A powerful and transporting documentary that showcases the legendary Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and more¹.

- **I Am Not Your Negro (2016)**: A profound and incisive documentary that explores the history of racism in America through the writings and interviews of James Baldwin¹.

- **Fire of Love (2022)**: A cinematic and heartbreaking documentary that tells the story of two French lovers, Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died in a volcanic explosion while pursuing their passion for volcanology¹.

- **20 Feet From Stardom (2013)**: A fascinating and uplifting documentary that celebrates the lives and voices of the backup singers who have worked with some of the biggest stars in music history¹.

- **Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)**: A hilarious and provocative documentary that follows the exploits of an eccentric amateur filmmaker who becomes obsessed with the world of street art and its elusive master, Banksy².

- **Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)**: A devastating and emotional documentary that chronicles the life and death of Andrew Bagby, who was murdered by his ex-girlfriend, and the custody battle over their son, Zachary².

- **Grizzly Man (2005)**: A compelling and tragic documentary that examines the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, who lived among grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 years, until he and his girlfriend were killed by one of them².

- **Samsara (2011)**: A mesmerizing and visually stunning documentary that takes the viewer on a journey across 25 countries and five continents, capturing the beauty and diversity of the natural and human world².

- **O.J.: Made in America (2016)**: A comprehensive and gripping documentary that traces the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose sensational murder trial exposed the deep-rooted racial tensions and divisions in America².

- **Free Solo (2018)**: A breathtaking and inspiring documentary that follows Alex Honnold, a rock climber who attempts to scale the 3,000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without a rope or any safety equipment².

- **The Act of Killing (2012)**: A disturbing and surreal documentary that challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass killings in various cinematic genres, revealing the horrors and absurdities of their crimes².

- **Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (2021)**: A fascinating and informative documentary that explores the lifestyles and habits of the people who live in the Blue Zones, regions of the world where people live longer and healthier than anywhere else³.

- **ReMastered: Who Shot the Sheriff (2018)**: A captivating and investigative documentary that unravels the mystery behind the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976, and the political turmoil that surrounded it³.

- **30 for 30: Nature Boy (2017)**: A revealing and entertaining documentary that profiles the legendary professional wrestler Ric Flair, who rose to fame and fortune in the 1980s, but also faced personal and professional challenges along the way³.

- **Break Point (2017)**: A thrilling and suspenseful documentary that follows the daring escape of two tennis players from Czechoslovakia in 1985, who defected to the West during a tournament in Switzerland³.

- **Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020)**: A shocking and tragic documentary that delves into the life and crimes of Aaron Hernandez, a former NFL star who was convicted of murder and committed suicide in prison³.

- **Unsolved Mysteries (2020)**: A popular and intriguing documentary series that presents real cases of unexplained disappearances, murders, paranormal phenomena, and more, inviting the viewers to help solve them³.

- **Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2021)**: A riveting and scandalous documentary that exposes the dark secrets and crimes of the Murdaugh family, a powerful and wealthy dynasty in South Carolina that has been involved in multiple deaths and cover-ups³.

- **Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (2021)**: A chilling and fascinating documentary that investigates the mysterious disappearance and death of Elisa Lam, a young woman who stayed at the notorious Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, where many crimes and tragedies have occurred³.

Total solar eclipse: All you need to know about the rare celestial event

A total solar eclipse is set to darken skies across central and Eastern Canada in a rare celestial event last witnessed in the country 45 years ago.

On April 8, the eclipse’s path will cross through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Several cities and towns will go into complete darkness during the day for a few minutes. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth, aligning perfectly and completely blocking the sunlight. Typically, a total solar eclipse is visible once roughly every 18 months or once every one to two years from somewhere on Earth, but for a given location this can be a very rare occurrence coming after a gap of centuries. “It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that you know you might not be able to get to experience again,” said Ilana MacDonald, outreach co-ordinator for the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. The last time the path of a total solar eclipse crossed Canada was in 1979. For Kingston, Ont., it’s the first one in nearly 700 years, said Robert Knobel, associate professor and head of the department of physics, engineering physics and astronomy at Queen’s University in the city. “It’s a beautiful, natural phenomenon and it allows us to actually think about our place in the universe,” he said in an interview with Global News. “It really allows us a chance to experience astronomical phenomena, just by walking outside.”

Who can view it?

Millions of people in parts of central and eastern Canada will get to witness this celestial event. The eclipse will be entering over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dashing up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscrossing the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England, before exiting over Eastern Canada into the Atlantic. The total solar eclipse will have a narrow path roughly 185 kilometres wide.

This image from the NASA Eclipse Explorer website shows the path of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse over North America. An estimated 44 million people live inside the 110-mile-wide (180-kilometre-wide) path of totality stretching from Mazatlán, Mexico to Newfoundland. NASA via AP The path of totality is a line that goes diagonally from the southwest to the northeast in North America, Knobel said. In Ontario, places like Fort Erie and Niagara Falls will be “really good” spots to view the eclipse since the central path of totality is going through Lake Ontario, he said. However, both Ottawa and Toronto, like many other cities, will only get a partial solar eclipse, in which the sun is not hidden in totality. In Quebec, Montreal, Sherbrooke, and the Saint Lawrence Valley will also get a good view. The eclipse will occur between mid and late afternoon, depending on location, in Canada.

Photo courtesy: Canadian Space Agency

What will it look like?

As the moon starts to obscure the sun, it will initially start out as a partial eclipse, when the sky gets darker and it becomes cooler. “What you’ll see is a little bit of a crescent as the moon shadow passes in front of the sun,” Knobel said. But the moment it goes from a partial eclipse to totality, you will notice a “dramatic change in temperature and light,” MacDonald said. “As the moon completely covers the sun, you’ll have this big halo of light around the sun and that’s the sun’s corona, which you can’t usually see when the sun is just in the sky, because the sun itself is too bright,” she explained.

The moon covers the sun during a total eclipse Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, near Redmond, Ore. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Dan Falk, a science journalist in Toronto, has travelled across the world and witnessed five total solar eclipses, the most recent one in Oregon in 2017. He said at the time of totality people will get to see a little black disk surrounded by halo and it will appear as if there is a little hole in the sky. “It’ll be this very eerie, kind of surreal phenomenon that’s really not like anything else you can see,” he said. “I’m hoping that lots of people, especially folks who haven’t had the chance to see this phenomenon before, are able to experience this.” The total solar eclipse can last between one and four minutes, MacDonald said. During this time, birds will start to react as if it’s nighttime and could start to fall asleep. Meanwhile, flowers will start to close just for those few minutes. When totality is over, it’ll get bright again. The peak spectacle on April 8 will last up to four minutes and 28 seconds in the path of total darkness.

How can you safely view it?

In preparation for the event, some school boards in Ontario and Quebec have already cancelled classes on April 8 out of an abundance of caution. According to the Canadian Space Agency, looking directly at the sun without appropriate protection can lead to serious problems such as partial or complete loss of eyesight. Experts stress that the danger of looking directly at the sun is not any different when there is a total solar eclipse as it would be on any other day of the year. It’s just that one is more tempted to look up when there is a total solar eclipse. “It’s always dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper protection because the sun is very bright,” MacDonald said. The best way to protect yourself is by wearing eclipse glasses, made up of aluminized polyester, when you do look up during a partial eclipse. People can also use cardboard and poke a hole through it or even a colander and cheese grater would work. In the moments of totality, when the sun is completely covered, it is actually safe to take your glasses off for a few minutes safely and look up, Knobel and Falk said. After this year, the next time a solar eclipse will be visible from Canadian soil will be in 2039, when the path of totality cuts the very northern part of Yukon. Read the full article

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Whitney Wolfe Herd: How the Bumble boss changed the dating scene

Getty Images

By Imran Rahman-Jones & Shiona McCallum

BBC News

Out of adversity comes opportunity, so the saying goes.

For Whitney Wolfe Herd, that meant taking a difficult exit from online dating app firm Tinder – which she sued for sexual harassment – and setting up Bumble, her own rival company with a focus very much on women.

Nearly a decade and a billion dollar fortune later, Ms Wolfe Herd announced this week that she is stepping down as Bumble’s boss.

But it is a bittersweet moment. In an interview with the BBC before she made her announcement, Ms Wolfe Herd lamented that, as a group of young women who came up in tech in the 2010s, not many are left.

“It is disappointing to see just how little women have advanced,” she said. “I’ve watched the fall of what people call ‘the girl boss era’. That’s tragic.”

However, Bumble will still be led by a woman – Lidiane Jones, the former boss of Slack, will take over as chief executive while Ms Wolfe Herd will stay on as executive chair.

‘Outdated dynamics’

When she launched Bumble in 2014, unlike other apps at the time, it was focused on female empowerment in the dating scene – where women who date men would have to make the de facto “first move” to message a new match.

“The gender dynamics of dating and romance still seemed so outdated. I thought, what if I could flip that on its head?” Ms Wolfe Herd wrote in a 2020 blog post of the app’s conception.

Less than seven years later, Ms Wolfe Herd would become the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire.

A 2017 Bumble ad campaign encouraged women to “be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry (then find someone you actually like)”.

Ms Wolfe Herd chaired panel talks, created networking events and promoted women in business.

Getty Images

Her Instagram shows her taking her young sons into Bumble HQ, appearing on magazine covers and hanging out with the likes of Hollywood A-lister Reese Witherspoon.

“I don’t really look at my life as a division of work and personal. I blend it,” she recently told the BBC.

“And maybe that works for me. And maybe it doesn’t work for someone else. But I will tell you, it is hard.”

Before Bumble

Ms Wolfe Herd has said that in the past her life has “been pretty dark”.

She has previously said that her ambition “comes from abusive relationships”, referring to a boyfriend she had as a teenager (her ex-boyfriend has denied all the claims).

Shortly after exiting her role at Tinder she launched a legal case accusing another of the co-founders, whom she had been in a relationship with, of sexual harassment.

Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, denied the claims but paid around $1m to settle the dispute.

“I was super depressed, I was paranoid,” she said of that time, telling the Diary of a CEO podcast that she didn’t leave the house for three weeks and was “drinking too much”.

She says she was pulled through by her now-husband, Texas oil heir Michael Herd.

She was also supported by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev, founder of dating app Badoo.

Ms Wolfe Herd did not plan on making another dating app, but it was Mr Andreev who convinced her.

They flew to Mykonos in the summer of 2014 with some ex-Tinder employees and worked on the idea.

Within a few months of her leaving Tinder, Ms Wolfe Herd had launched Bumble.

She was 25 years old. By the age of 31, she would – for a few months at least – be a billionaire.

Making the first move

The majority of the company’s staff in the early days were women – a rare sight in the tech world – and its brand was based around female empowerment.

Bumble’s defining feature was that after a match, women would be the first to message.

It was designed like this to give women more control in the online dating space, but over time has sought to become more gender inclusive – allowing anyone to message first in same-gender matches or those between two non-binary people.

Getty Images

The app bans users who body shame others, and similar to other dating apps, it uses AI to detect nude photos sent in private chats and lets the recipient choose to view or block the images.

It backed women’s safety campaigns, such as calling for cyber-flashing to be made illegal in the UK and EU. The UK did make it a criminal offence under the Online Safety Act 2023 after calls from multiple campaigners.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing.

In 2019, Andrey Andreev sold his majority stake in Bumble’s parent company and left the business after Forbes investigated allegations of a toxic and misogynistic workplace in the London office.

Mr Andreev denied the allegations against him. Ms Wolfe Herd said at the time that she never saw any toxic behaviour in the office, adding: “Andrey has never been anything but kind and respectful to me.”

The app’s user base grew, and by 2021 it had over 40 million profiles on it. It created apps for friendship – Bumble BFF – and business networking.

Badoo was later incorporated into its parent company, Bumble Inc, and when Bumble Inc went public in February 2021, Ms Wolfe Herd became a billionaire overnight.

She held her young son as she rang the Nasdaq bell and yellow ticker tape cascaded around her.

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Shares traded for about $75 back then.

But by November of that year, they were worth less than half of that and Forbes reported that she had lost her billionaire status.

Now, despite growing revenue and an increase in users who pay for extra features, the share price is under $14.

Match Group, Bumble’s rival that owns Tinder and Hinge, has also seen its share price drop in that time.

Perhaps it’s a sign of the inherent difficulty in the online dating business.

If the apps work well, people get together and stop being customers.

If they do not work well, users may become disillusioned and eventually delete them.

The future of Bumble

Bumble already uses AI to filter out pictures or messages that violate its policies.

But Ms Wolfe Herd says they will be taking it to the next level in the future.

The focus is to facilitate better interactions on the app – “coaching people” as she puts it – through suggesting better photos, bios or even chats with other people.

She wants to use AI to help “teach people and show them and guide them, how to behave better” and to “instil confidence in all of our daters”.

She adds: “How can generative AI actually get you into a healthy, empowering, productive conversation, cut through the noise, cut through the friction? And then get you offline?”

It’s also a recognition that what people want is face-to-face meet-ups – whether through the dating app or through the friendship or business apps.

However from January, it will be Ms Wolfe Herd’s successor, Lidiane Jones, who has to deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis.

Related Topics

Companies

Female entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship

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Dating apps

Online dating

More on this story

Bumble founder steps down as boss of dating app

6 days ago

Resident blames political roadblocks for inaction to help Halifax neighborhood at 'extreme' wildfire risk

At the dead end of Wright Lake Run in the Halifax-area subdivision of Westwood Hills is a gap where a bridge used to be.

It’s there that members of the residents association had been trying for years to restore the crossing over to Crown lands in an effort to create a second exit out of the community.

Westwood Hills currently only has one way in – and one way out.

That reality came into sharp focus on May 28, when some residents trying to evacuate the area in the midst of the Tantallon wildfire found themselves blocked in by the fire.

“There’s now officially no way out of Westwood,” says resident Nick Horne in a video he took of the billowing smoke in his neighborhood.

He and others eventually get out, but, he adds, “The fact that nobody was hurt, was pure luck.”

A number of homes in the community were destroyed.

Horne says he tried for years to get the evacuation exit built, communicating with the province, the city, and Nova Scotia Power, which owns the land immediately around the old bridge.

He insists most of the pieces were in place, except for input on tonnage and other issues pertaining to the road, from Halifax’s emergency management division director, Erica Fleck.

Horne says that never came, and the project came to a halt.

“That falls on the office of EMO,” he says, “to action those items and they did nothing.”

A 2017 FireSmart assessment by a Department of Natural Resources Fire Prevention Officer found much the community to be at either “extreme” or “high” risk of wildfire, and noted “lack of egress (is) an issue when it comes to evacuations.”

A representative with Nova Scotia Power confirms the utility had been communicating with the Westwood Hills Residents Association in 2016 about the use of its land to construct a bridge for a “recreational access” road, but says the decision was made not to proceed after discussions with homeowners who were “most directly impacted” raised safety and noise concerns.

Horne says one resident who no longer lives in the area did express opposition, but believes a lack of political will was the ultimate roadblock.

“We need to really ask for accountability, from our government, and the institutions that our government employs,” he says.

Halifax's Emergency Management Division chief, Erica Fleck wasn't available for an interview Friday.

Municipal spokesperson Laura Wright told CTV by email Regional Council directed staff at its June 6 meeting to “develop a staff report on developing egress for the Westwood Hills subdivision.”

The motion to do so was introduced by the councilor for the area, Pamela Lovelace.

Friday, Lovelace penned an open letter to Premier Tim Houston calling attention to the provincial government’s role over the years in the creation of communities lacking egress.

“It will take a long time for my community to heal from this devastation,” she wrote. “Until such time, however, we need to deal with the accountability of how and why, since the 1970s, the Nova Scotia Department of Public Works approved, and continues to approve, unconnected subdivision roads without adequate egress in the HRM.”

When it comes to the history of a second exit for Westwood Hills, Lovelace says it’s a complicated issue of land ownership.

“If they (NS Power) were to choose to open up their property and have it become a public roadway with a public bridge, they would then have to transfer that land over to HRM,” she says, “currently it is private land.”

“Which also leads to provincial Crown land,” she adds, “and the province has not in any way agreed to have egress through their land, so…leadership is needed by the province of Nova Scotia.”

Lovelace says established communities like Westwood Hills and Highland Park were designed with approvals from the province as they were constructed before amalgamation.

Newer developments, such as Indigo Shores, she says, went ahead without approval from council because some were deemed “special planning areas” by the province to expedite housing.

“And if the municipality had the authority and the autonomy to make decisions, then the special planning areas wouldn’t have forced HRM to agree to an additional 150 homes in Indigo Shores when in fact we rejected it due to the fact that egress does not exist.”

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Public Works Minister Kim Masland was asked by a reporter Friday who approves plans for a subdivision such as Indigo Shores.

“That would be HRM under their planning,” stated Masland.

But, she added, the province is communicating with the city on the issue.

“We have been working with HRM to talk about giving land to HRM so that they could provide those exits,” Masland said, “one of the things we have to think about is there is provincial land, and sometimes there is developer’s lands in between.”

Lovelace adds it’s also a matter of funding.

“It’s Crown land, so let’s work together to figure out how to transfer Crown land over to the municipality so then we can begin to plan these egress routes, and, I would hope, that the provincial government would fund them,” she says.

At the end of the day, what Horne and other residents want is an assurance they will see another exit built soon for their community.

“I see no action on this right now,” he says, “a staff report from HRM that’s going to take two years plus… is not going to help us.”

“The building blocks are in place, the proposals are there…HRM needs to pick up where (we) left off and they need to make this happen.” 

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/lQnya03

New THUNDERMOTHER Lineup Announces 2023 Tour Dates

The first official promotional photo of the new THUNDERMOTHER lineup can be seen above.

THUNDERMOTHER currently consists of guitarist Filippa Nässil, singer Linnéa Vikström (THERION, AT THE MOVIES),bassist Majsan Lindberg and drummer Joan Massing (HONEY CREEK).

Less than two months ago, it was announced that singer Guernica Mancini, drummer Emlee Johansson and bassist Mona Lindgren were exiting THUNDERMOTHER and were forming a new band together. At the same time, Nässil revealed that she would continue with a new THUNDERMOTHER lineup featuring Vikström and Lindberg.

In recent weeks, Mancini, who joined THUNDERMOTHER in 2017, gave several interviews in which she described her time with the group as "six tough years" and "a very bumpy ride". She also said that Filippa decided to fire her from the band without consulting the other members of THUNDERMOTHER, a move which they perceived as "very disrespectful towards them, being that they believed that we were a democracy and that we had a say in these things," according to Guernica.

Earlier this month, Nässil shared a six-minute video in which she addressed some of the questions surrounding the departures of Mancini, Johansson and Lindgren as well as her decision to carry on with a new lineup. She said in part: "Some stuff you read online and even now in some magazines is true and some stuff has more to it," she explained. "I mean, there's a depth to what happened and it's impossible to read in a few lines or a quote from someone. And I wanna assure you and tell you guys that I did my absolute best to work everything out between the old members. I think we should be conscious in what we're saying and trust that I have done my absolute best for peace, love and rock and roll and I did everything in my power to work it out with the previous bandmembers.

"I would never throw anybody under the bridge. I think that's another private matter. What happened has been behind the curtain, so to speak, so it's not everything that people need to know about or should know about because it's just unnecessary to throw stuff at each other, I think."

"I'm thrilled to have Majsan back, who's done hundreds of shows with me in THUNDERMOTHER. She's the THUNDERMOTHER bass player. And I'm thrilled to have Linnéa Vikström, my friend since many, many years, on vocals. And we have a great new drummer. She likes great bands like CLUTCH, FOO FIGHTERS, BLACK CROWES and stuff like that, so a really groovy drummer. And I can't wait for the future."

Nässil went on to say that all the previously announced THUNDERMOTHER concerts "will happen. Not a single canceled show. Everyone has faith in THUNDERMOTHER and so should you.

"We are super stoked to tour with the SCORPIONS in Europe again and doing our own shows," she added. "So that's something we're doing right now — rehearsing."

According to Filippa, she and her new bandmates are "hoping to release a new song before" they hit the road, but she acknowledged that this may be hard to pull off as "it's crazy hectic right now."

Earlier this month, Mancini, Johansson and Lindgren announced that they have launched a new band called THE GEMS. Mancini and Lindgren told Germany's Metal Hammer magazine that THE GEMS, which sees Lindgren returning to her original instrument, the guitar, is planning to release its debut single, "Phoenix", in April. Mancini and Lindgren also noted that THE GEMS' live performances will include material from THUNDERMOTHER's last two albums, 2020's "Heat Wave" and 2022's "Black And Gold", both of which featured songwriting contributions from Guernica and Emlee.

Following the release of their latest album, "Black And Gold", last summer and countless live shows alongside an extensive tour with iconic SCORPIONS in North America last fall, THUNDERMOTHER recently announced plans to team up with SCORPIONS for more European live dates, as well as headline gigs on the "Black And Gold" tour 2023.

"Black And Gold" was recorded at Baggpipe Studios in Stockholm, and was mixed and mastered by Søren Andersen at Medley Studios in Copenhagen.

Alice Wilder

1. Internship position: Planet Money

2. Hometown/university: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

3. Favorite DC spot: *NYC I love to take long walks through the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade and the park below. Sea Witch is the best place to grab a beer, they have an amazing backyard. Vineapple is where I go to drink coffee on the weekend. 

4. Favorite NPR show, blog or podcast: Other than Planet Money, right? Embedded and Rough Translation!

5. No. 1 song you’re jamming to right now: Truth Hurts by Lizzo

6. Coolest thing you’ve done while at NPR: Getting to know my beloved fellow NYC interns, Marcie and Madeline. 

7. Top #NPRLife moment(s): Doing a tape sync of Alec Baldwin! He said I have, "a firm handshake and a can do attitude." 

8. If you could have @NPR tweet the entirety of one document/work, what would it be? Would love it if they would just tweet out each year UNC won the national championship. 

9. Who is your dream Tiny Desk artist? Carly Rae Jepsen

10. What’s next for you? I'm sticking around at Planet Money for a bit! I'm also running my newsletter for interns at tinyletter.com/internweekly

11. Advice for future interns? The first few weeks can be hard! It's normal to cry and feel like you don't deserve to be where you are. Trust that you're where you're supposed to be, and it's okay to make mistakes. We're here to learn. Communicate with your supervisor, if you need help, ask! They can't read minds. Also, on one difficult day Sonari Glinton sat me down for some serious life advice. Here's my favorite part: When you make a mistake, forgive yourself immediately. Beating yourself up over it does nothing to help. Apologize, forgive yourself, and then be part of the solution. 

Joshua Jackson interview with “Irish Independent”

It was during a childhood visit to his granny’s house in Dublin’s Ballyfermot that Joshua Jackson smoked his first cigarette.

“My memories of those visits to Ballyfermot are quite sweet really,” the Dawson’s Creek actor recalls. “I was always running around with the neighbourhood kids, getting into trouble. Not bad trouble, just little-kid trouble. Although, technically it’s where I smoked my first cigarette, so that in itself isn’t the sweetest memory.”

Jackson’s handsome face surges with deep laughter lines and quiet dimples at the mention of mum Fiona’s home turf. “She might prefer I’d say she was from Chapelizod”, he jokes, before proudly pinning his mum’s allegiance to “Ballyer”.

Was the young Canadian treated like a shiny, exotic object by the local kids? “I was a bit, but I became less exotic the older I got. Culturally, I was so far away from an Irish kid but in a little pack of children, everyone finds their level. It also helped that I had my own cousins, my own blood, around with us. I had that family connection so I never felt too exoticised.”

An entry on his IMDb profile suggests his late grandparents Rosemary and Patrick were opera singers in Dublin, indicating that performance runs in the genes. The actor seems unaware. “Mum tells me they used to sing to each other a lot. My grandparents lived in council housing with a little kitchen out the back, garden right outside, and they would sing to each other through the window as he was out pottering about while she was cooking.

“But he was known more as a snooker shark around Ballyfermot. And my grandmother, she was known as a sainted mother of seven.”

Having welcomed his first child, Janie, with his wife, the actor Jodie Turner-Smith, last year, it’s obvious family is paramount for 43-year-old Jackson, as he Zoom-calls from a rich hotel suite with dark wallpaper and plump cushions in the background. It stems from an evident bond with his mum, whose presence lovingly peppers our conversation. Just 16 when she left Dublin, Fiona Jackson travelled through Paris, Amsterdam and Geneva before embracing the vibrancy of London’s Swinging Sixties and ultimately making for Vancouver in her early twenties.

In an entry on her blog, she speaks of falling for “the spectacular beauty of snow-capped mountains and the Pacific Ocean” and ultimately scoring an entry-level position at a Canadian talent agency. It led to a career as a successful casting agent, working on film classics including Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson and McCabe & Mrs Miller with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.

She met and married Joshua’s father, John Carter, and the young family moved to Los Angeles. Sister Aisleagh was born shortly before John walked out on the family, leaving a profound effect.

“My father, unfortunately, was not a good father or husband and exited the scene,” the actor disclosed last year, before adding it’s something he “will never get over”.

Young infants in tow, Fiona returned to Vancouver and, having found early success in casting, helped contribute to the foundation of the burgeoning “Hollywood North” industry on the Canadian west coast.

Accompanying his mum on set, young Joshua’s interests were piqued. “She introduced me to this world and saw from a young age that I enjoyed performing in a way that kids do. She allowed me the opportunity to step into her work world, but it was also very clear that it was work.”

He appeared as an extra on MacGyver and as a child actor’s double in The Fly II, and Fiona could see her son’s talent and genuine desire to impress. So she allowed him to audition. However, permission came with strict caveats.

“I don’t think my mum would have ever put me anywhere near the entertainment industry if I didn’t have something to offer to it. And not just for myself; she’s a prideful woman and didn’t want to be embarrassed by her kid.”

Casting 1991 melodrama Crooked Hearts with ER’s Noah Wyle, Fiona gave Joshua a chance to shine. Impressing the filmmakers, the then-12-year-old secured the part, setting him not only on a path to stardom but away from the troubles of his teen years.

“My mother gave me the guard rails I needed at that time and also recognised, being a working single mum and with me a young boy, transitioning into a teenager, I needed structure in my life. I needed something that I was passionate about and had a respect for, because I was kind of a typical teenage disaster.

“I look back on those times in my life and the two parallel tracks I was running on. On the one hand, getting into all sorts of trouble and, on the other hand, my professional life, where I showed up and learned my lines and did my job in order to be respected by the adults I was around. If I hadn’t had that professional side of my life, the other side would have taken over, and Mum saw that. Who knows where I would have ended up?”

So Jackson was a full-on teen delinquent? “Yeah, I was, to a certain extent. It was relatively innocent — nobody died — but I was a teenage boy who didn’t have a father in the home, didn’t have a man to be scared of, frankly, and as a teenage boy, I think that helps. My mum had to work and she wasn’t always in the house so I learned to get into more and more trouble. I got into just enough trouble to have a good time and learn some lessons but if I hadn’t had my work life, I might have tipped over into the kind of trouble that you don’t come back from.”

Three decades in and Jackson remains one of the hardest-working, most recognisable actors in the game. Hitting pay dirt at 18 as Dawson’s Creek’s Pacey Witter — the wisecracking, teacher-bedding antithesis to James Van Der Beek’s beleaguered titular drip — the actor was a revelation: the soul and bite of a seasoned character performer in the guise of relatable poster-boy idol.

Teens swooned, so did the industry, and alongside Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams and Katie Holmes, Jackson had Hollywood at his feet.

A string of popcorn offerings followed — Cruel Intentions, Gossip, Shutter, Cursed — some quality, others derivative, with the small screen ultimately best utilising his skills. A five-season run on sci-fi series Fringe was followed by an outstanding turn on Showtime’s The Affair. Last year, he maintained a brooding presence opposite Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington in Little Fires Everywhere. And this year, he takes on arguably his darkest work yet in Dr Death.

The new miniseries is based on the non-fiction podcast of the same name, and Jackson portrays Christopher Duntsch, a former spinal surgeon who maimed 33 patients owing to gross malpractice while operating in hospitals in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. Two of these patients lost their lives. Convicted in 2017, Duntsch is currently in prison and serving life imprisonment. He still maintains his innocence, with his defence arguing that he was merely a bad surgeon, not a criminal.

Exuding a simmering malevolence, the actor showcases Duntsch’s disturbing complexities and terrifying behaviour as a narcissist and sociopath with a keen insight. Did Jackson meet with Duntsch? “I wanted to, but that was going to be really difficult because he’s appealing his case and his lawyers would’ve advised against it. And as I got deeper into the materials and podcast, and got a better understanding of the man, I don’t think it would’ve helped because he still really believes he’s the victim of his own patients, and the lawyers and the legal system. I’m not sure asking a liar for the truth gets you any closer to the truth.”

When it came to the victims, Jackson wanted to maintain a respectful distance. “I didn’t need to drag them through those awful memories again and I’m always a little dubious about asking people to delve into the worst moments of their life just to satisfy my curiosity. The questions had already been asked thanks to the podcast.”

Dr Death came at the right time in the actor’s life. New baby daughter Janie offered a crucial respite from the intense, and often dark, six-month foray into Duntsch’s malignant psyche.

“Inhabiting Mr Duntsch was an ugly space to live in for six months. If I’d been coming home to an empty house every night, it would have been a pretty bleak existence. It was so much better to come back to a loving home. My one-year-old doesn’t give a damn what I was doing that day. She just wants to be loved and hugged and cuddled, and it was the perfect antidote when some days were particularly heavy.”

Recently Jackson confessed that the Dawson’s Creek cast won’t be returning for a retrospective reunion like the Friends stars did earlier this year. “If you put our mid-forties selves together on a couch now, with our creaking backs, it might shock people.”

Quizzed on an actual reboot of the drama, Joshua reckons he’s simply too old to replicate the iconic rapid exchanges of dialogue between the garrulous young characters. “We were like The West Wing for teenagers,” he laughs, referencing Aaron Sorkin’s hit political TV series, also infamous for speedy script delivery. “My 43-year-old brain couldn’t do a show at that pace. Back then, we were doing seven, 10 pages a day and, to deliver dialogue at that speed, you have to have a certain mental capacity for that, and I don’t have it anymore. That’s the real reason why we’re not doing a reunion — I’ve become too dumb to keep up with that script.”

He remains in touch with his DC co-stars, including Holmes, his one-time girlfriend of two years. There’s even a text chain. “It goes through spurts every once in a while. I’ll have a bunch of messages on it and then it’ll go dormant. We’re like college friends — there are moments we’re all in contact and then long, fallow periods as we get on with our lives.”

While maintaining a busy slate, Jackson’s overwhelming purpose continues to circle the women in his life. Turner-Smith is currently shooting a new movie with Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, so he’s assuming full-time dad duties. It’s an equitable arrangement given the flexible needs of their individual commitments, and one he appears content with.

Every Fifteen Minutes (2)

Summary:

“In honor of Peter Benjamin Parker,” the obituary reads. “2001 - 2017. Peter B. Parker, 16, died on the 5th of February, 2017, as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash involving a drunk driver…”

Tony can't finish reading. He swears his heart stops. “FRIDAY,” he croaks.

He doesn’t have to finish the order; FRIDAY, as if reading his mind, activates his Iron Man suit and sends it to envelop his body. Tony is shooting through the skies before he even fully realizes it.

OR: Peter Parker was in a car crash—except... he wasn’t. One forgetful Spider-Kid, one sleepy best friend, and one misleading post on social media all lead to a disastrous turn of events, culminating in the arrival of an unexpected guest at Midtown High.

Read here on AO3 (@a_matter_of_loyalty)

:::

Chapter 2: grip you tight (but you’re slippin’ out)

Chapter Summary: Tony Stark arrives at Midtown High. Unfortunately, he's still under the impression that Peter Parker is dead. 

Naturally, chaos (and drama) ensues.

:::

After giving the students a few minutes to finish their lunches, Principal Morita activates the intercom and urges all juniors and seniors to the parking lot to witness the—simulated, of course—car crash. The teachers and participating emergency responders had planned out the simulation in excruciating detail: the police officers had donated a wrecked car from evidence lockup to be used for the simulation, and they’d already sectioned off the site of the crash with yellow tape. Two of the participants—one senior and one junior—had been selected for the fabrication and informed of their roles.

One of the seniors—Douglas Fitzpatrick, if Morita remembers correctly—would act as the drunk driver, “arrested” at the scene for all to witness. The junior, on the other hand—Peter Parker, Morita recalls faintly—would be posing as the casualty. Morita was worried, at first, that it might be too traumatic for Peter to play dead—Morita knows Peter’s family history, after all. But when asked if he would participate, Peter had agreed reluctantly and asked, All I have to do is lie still, right? 

Morita nodded at that. And then, to everyone’s surprise, Peter had merely beamed and reasoned, Great! I’m kind of tired—I didn’t get much sleep last night—so I’ll just sleep through it.

(True to his words, Peter had started dozing off as soon as they’d arranged him on the road, before they’d even finished smearing the fake blood across his forehead.)

Morita had been stunned. Mr. Harrington had choked. 

But, well, at least Peter had said yes, which means that everyone involved has now been thoroughly prepped. All they have left to do is present their demonstration to the student body and hopefully ingrain an understanding of the repercussions of drinking-and-driving in the students.

:::

Car crash…? Ned wonders to himself in confusion, head snapping up at the sound of his principal’s voice echoing through the school hallways. He feels vaguely nauseous. Oh shit, there was a car crash? Here? 

He curses to himself and pushes his lunch away, jumping from his seat and following the other students outside. Where on earth is Peter? he asks himself, not for the first time. After leaving Mr. Harrington's classroom earlier, he’d gone straight to the cafeteria, hoping to run into Peter either along the way or inside the lunch hall. Peter’s always getting hungry, after all; Ned reasons it isn’t too farfetched that Peter left earlier to snag himself a big portion. But even after scouring the cafeteria, Ned still hasn’t caught sight of Peter, and his mind is running rampant with fear.

Morita mentioned a car crash. If there really has been an accident in front of their own school, Ned has no doubt that Peter will want to be the first one to arrive at the site of the incident, doing his best to help even if it means giving up his secret identity.

My anonymity isn’t worth anyone’s lives, Peter once told Ned, determination burning in his gaze. If it comes between keeping my secret and saving someone… I know what I have to do.

Oh, shit, Ned swears. Please tell me he hasn’t been exposed—

His worry spiking as he jumps to conclusions, Ned hastens his pace and weaves his way through the other students, trying to push through the crowd. When he finally barrels through the gates and arrives at the parking lot, he freezes, the reality of attention all juniors and seniors, there has been a car crash by the parking lot, please proceed in an orderly fashion wrapping around him like a vice.

A large number of juniors, seniors and teachers are already gathered around the site of the crash, lined in neat rows. Ned ignores the orderliness of it all and forces his way to the front, heart caught in his throat.

(If Ned were thinking clearly, he would have realized something is off about this entire situation. After all, why would Principal Morita be encouraging students to go to the site of a tragedy?

But Ned isn’t thinking clearly, partly because of his still-drowsy mind and partly because of his concerns for his best friend.)

Ned inhales sharply when he’s finally able to see beyond the assembled students to the crime scene.

Ambulances and police cars are already lined up along the street, with EMTs and police officers alike leaping out of their vehicles to respond to the accident. One officer yanks open the mangled car door and drags the driver out by the cuff of his shirt.

The driver looks young, Ned thinks, squinting his eyes. Have I seen him somewhere before…? 

Shaking it off, Ned turns back to the scene. Thankfully, Spider-Man is nowhere to be seen. Ned knows he shouldn’t be relieved about that—shame punches through him even as he thinks it—but he also knows that Peter isn’t truly ready to have his identity exposed to the world, even if he is resolved to give up his secret for the sake of others. 

As the police officer tests the driver for his blood alcohol levels—god, I can’t believe this is happening at my own school—the paramedics break off to approach someone else, a figure on the street Ned previously missed.

Ned stiffens. The pedestrian—the victim, Ned thinks faintly to himself—lies sprawled out on the street, streaks of blood painted across his forehead. The victim looks even younger than the driver, hauntingly unmoving as he rests collapsed on the road. I’ve never seen a dead body before, he thinks numbly, bile bubbling up inside him, and his mind shrieks at him to pull away. But something about the situation, macabre as it is, keeps him fixated, horror and fear curdling in his gut. The victim—my age, he’s my age—looks eerie, skin pale and—

No.

It takes Ned a moment—a moment longer than it should—to recognize the victim. Beneath the blood, Ned knows that face; he knows those freckled cheeks and that tranquil smile and that mess of curls.

He knows. 

Ned’s heart drops like lead, descending through the soles of his feet and burrowing into the pavement, as he finally understands why Spider-Man isn’t at the scene of the crime.

Answer: because Peter Parker already is.

No, no, no—

Ned watches, paralyzed, as the paramedics crowd around Peter—his best friend, his brother—in a rush of footsteps and white coats. One of them kneels down beside Peter and feels for his heartbeat, fitting two fingers against Peter’s neck.

No.

The paramedic stands, head bowed, and quietly announces Peter to be dead on arrival.

Ned doesn’t hear the whimper that exits his mouth. He doesn’t feel the sharp twinge that shoots through him as he crashes to his knees, hands shaking by his side. He isn’t aware of anything but the fragmenting of his heart, the roaring in his ears, the tears in his eyes, the blood on Peter’s face—

Dead on arrival. Dead. 

Ned only regains awareness, rapidly stumbling to his feet, when the paramedics start lifting Peter onto a stretcher. Just as they are about to cover Peter’s face with a white cloth—no no no—Ned bulldozes his way through, shoving away anyone and everyone in his path. “No!” he gasps, and the desperate objection comes out strangled. “What are you doing?” Don’t you know he’s claustrophobic? he wants to ask, rooted in denial. He’ll be so scared. He won’t be able to breathe. “Peter? Peter! Hey!”

“Hey, kid, you can’t be here—” one of the paramedics starts.

“Get out of my way!” Ned shouts, ducking under the paramedic’s outstretched hands. He can vaguely hear the other students start to murmur in confusion, but he doesn’t let that stop him. Their voices are muffled in his ears. All he can hear is Peter’s laugh, like a distant memory, an echo of another time. Like hell I can’t be here, he thinks angrily. That’s my best friend. He’s my friend and he’s not fucking dead. 

(He can’t be. Please don’t let him be dead.)

“Peter!” He skids to a stop by Peter’s side, nearly falling over onto his knees a second time. “Peter? Why aren’t you responding?” He lurches forward and grips Peter’s hands, hanging limply from either side of the stretcher, with urgency. Please respond, Peter. Please. “Peter—”

“Where the hell is he!?” an unexpected voice bellows from above, sharp and frenzied enough to be heard by the entire crowd. It’s a voice all of them have heard before, though most only recognize it from interviews and press conferences and the ever-iconic reveal of I am Iron Man. “Kid? Kid!”

“What the hell?” someone yelps from the crowd. “What is Tony Stark doing at Midtown High? In Queens?”

“Tony Stark? Here?”

“No way!”

“In the sky, look!”

“Oh, my god. It’s Iron Man!”

“Holy shit, it’s really him! Tony Stark! At our school!”

Ned tears his eyes away from the bloody face of his best friend for the first time since he spotted him. He leans back on the heels of his feet, eyes darting to the sky—and sure enough, Tony Stark hovers above them, panels of red and gold gleaming under the midday sun.

“Mr. Stark!” the name rips out of Ned’s throat with a choked gasp. And then, more desperately: “Oh, god, Mr. Stark.”

Iron Man’s repulsers power off with a mechanical whine. The suit lands mere feet away from Ned with a thud—the force of which makes Ned flinch closer to his friend until he remembers Peter is lying still and dead, unable to help—before the faceplate finally slides open, revealing the famous face of Anthony Edward Stark.

“Ned.” Tony’s voice is raw and guttural, wrecked, when he meets Ned’s eyes.

(Normally, Tony would call him Ted or Fred or Jared or anything at all besides his real name.

The use of his real name breaks Ned’s heart all over again, because he knows why Tony uses it now; he knows why the situation is serious enough to warrant Tony’s disregard of his usual sassy routine.

He knows whose body he’s standing beside.)

:::

The thing is, all of this could have been avoided. All of this could have been prevented—if only Ned had paid attention in class, if only Peter had remembered to wear his StarkWatch to school, if only Flash had added a short disclaimer to his post, if only Peter hadn’t fallen asleep during the simulation… 

If only, if only, if only.

But none of those what-ifs happened, because this is how the story went. There is no longer any use in pondering on those niggling what-ifs. Now, one can only take refuge in the present, in reality.

And in this reality, the errors of the characters piled up one after another, leading to calamity.

:::

A short while ago…

Minutes away from Midtown High, minutes away from finding answers, Tony makes one last effort to deny the reality staring him in the face:

“FRIDAY,” he says suddenly, “check Peter’s StarkWatch, please. Pull up his vitals for me.”

FRIDAY does so, and he waits with bated breath, hoping, pleading, praying—

God has certainly never listened to his prayers before. Or if He has, He’s never cared to answer them.

God doesn't answer them now, either.

When Peter’s details load on his screen, Tony’s hope shrivels up and dies in his ribcage.

No data available, the pop-up reads, as if the watch is simply out of range or malfunctioning.

Except Tony personally built and customized Peter’s watch. He categorically knows that there is no possible way for either of those two things to happen: Tony specifically designed Peter’s watch to have unlimited range, and his technology has never failed him before.

The only way FRIDAY wouldn’t be receiving Peter’s data is if the watch has been broken beyond repair, or if…

If there is no data to receive. If Peter’s heart is no longer pumping blood through his body.

If Peter is dead.

Tony grits his teeth, swallows down the bile rising up his throat, and urges FRIDAY to fly faster. He needs answers. (He needs to know what took his kid from him.)

It feels like hours have passed—though Tony knows it’s only been a few minutes—before he finally arrives at his destination. FRIDAY brings him to a stop in front of Midtown High, and Tony’s worst fears are realized when he spots the congregation of police cars and ambulances parked outside the school gates.

Years ago, during the Battle of New York, Tony crashed through his balcony window and hurtled through the skies towards certain death. It was the first time since Iron Man’s creation that he’d been genuinely afraid of flying. Since then, Tony made sure to keep his suit either on him or accessible at all times, unwilling to face the feeling of free-falling ever again.

In that way, Iron Man is his safety net. His suit is his greatest form of protection.

Today, hovering above the scene of a car crash, Iron Man provides him no safety, no confidence. Tony looks at the assembly of emergency responders, of bystanders, and feels like falling.

(This is so much worse than the Battle of New York.)

Tony exhales shakily, activates his external speakers, and tries to hide the tremor in his voice as he demands, “Where the hell is he!?” He winces at the sound of his own voice, made gravelly by terror. “Kid? Kid!”

He hears the murmurs almost immediately, but he ignores them; he may have grown up accustomed to being in the public eye, but right now, he’d gladly give it all up to fix this. He’d gladly give up Tony Stark, give up his fame and fortune, to be able to take Peter in his arms and keep him there – safe and sound.

It isn’t until he hears his name coming from a vaguely familiar voice that he snaps to attention, eyes immediately pinpointing the source—Ned Leeds, standing in the middle of a circle of paramedics.

Tony stops cold, sucking in a sharp breath as a glacial darkness—wispy with fear and nausea—seeps into his bones, strangling him.

Because the sight that greets him as he spots Ned threatens to break Tony all over again. He immediately recognizes him, his kid’s sidekick (How many times do I have to tell you he isn’t my sidekick, Mr. Stark, Peter would whine for the thousandth time. He’s my guy-in-the-chair!), leaning over the still form of Peter fucking Parker. Tony’s eyes unwittingly catch on the spatter of blood marring the kid’s face.

Tony doesn’t want to believe it. It can’t be true.

(Peter Parker is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Meeting Peter, taking him under his wing and getting to know him—through evenings spent in the lab going over blueprints and pranking one another, through playful fights over the TV remote and movie options, through game nights and Mario Kart competitions, through mentoring and getting mentored—are all the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

This… this is the worst.)

“Oh, god, Mr. Stark,” Ned’s voice quivers with fear, with loss, and Tony chokes back a sob, letting FRIDAY operate the Iron Man suit on auto. She powers it down and opens the faceplate for him, and he’s left staring at Peter and Ned side-by-side, one kid unmoving and one trembling. Together even at the very end.

“Ned.”

Ned crumbles.

“Mr. Stark,” Ned repeats, voice hitching and then splintering, overwhelmed by blubbering cries. “P-Peter, he’s – he’s… they declared him DOA.” The abbreviation—DOA—is nothing more than a hushed murmur as it leaves Ned’s voice, punched out by the sheer devastation in his cognizance.

Tony’s next breath stutters on its way out.

DOA. To have it confirmed is a punch in the gut. It's electricity coursing through his blood, it's ice in his veins, it's a missile exploding in his face. It's almost—almost—enough to drive Tony to his knees, except… except he needs to see it for himself, before—

Before he can believe it. Believe that Peter is truly gone, that his smile will never again light up Tony’s life, that his world as he knows it has ended.

“Mr. Stark, I…” Ned flounders. He looks… so, so inexorably lost. Unable to escape this new reality that threatens to suffocate them with its terrors. Ned sniffles, convulsing. “Oh, god, Mr. Stark, I can’t—”

Ned doesn’t finish his sentence, abruptly breaking off as gasping sobs overwhelm his voice. Tony doesn’t need him to finish his sentence; Ned’s tears convey his despair better than any words could have. So Tony might not know what exactly Ned was going to say, what Ned can’t do, but Tony already knows he can’t, either.

-

Ned doesn’t finish his sentence, gasping sobs overwhelming his voice. Tony doesn’t need him to finish his sentence; Ned’s tears convey his despair better than any words could have. So Tony might not know what exactly Ned was going to say, what Ned can’t do, but Tony already knows he can’t, either.

Not when Peter’s body is just lying there. Completely, utterly motionless. 

Tony gulps down a burst of fear, approaching the pair of best friends on trembling legs, as if he’s a newborn foal struggling to stand on his own instead of Tony Stark, the man behind the most successful technology corporation to date. Eventually, he manages to find his way, coming to a stumbling halt before Peter, unblinking eyes fixated on his kid and desperately searching for answers, for any sign of life.

(Searching and praying for any sign that Peter has managed to defy all odds yet again—that he has managed to elude even the bone-chilling label of DOA.)

He finds none.

A ragged, dissonant exhale tumbles out of his lips, the puff of air floating downwards, unseen as it crashes into smooth asphalt. His gaze follows, pulled towards the ground—pulled towards Peter—by some palpable force. Peter is mere feet away from him now—close enough that Tony would be able to touch him if he were to reach out—and yet he feels miles away, as if there is a cavernous distance between them impossible to bridge. 

(If it were possible, Tony would follow Peter anywhere.)

Tony shudders. “Wake up,” he whispers into the unbearable space between them like a prayer. A wish, one that sings true, born from the deepest desires of his heart. “Please wake up. Don’t… don’t make me say goodbye to you. Please, just – just open your eyes, kid. If you’re ever going to listen to anything I say, let it be this.” 

I can’t lose you, he doesn’t say, but feels with every bone in his body. It’s true, he realizes: he can’t. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s truly lost Peter, only that it’ll be ugly. Please wake up.

Tony Stark does not beg for anything or anyone. 

Today, he does. Today, he sinks to his knees and presses his forehead to Peter’s and begs.

“Peter, please.”

:::

The unexpected appearance of the famed Anthony Edward Stark at a high school in Queens is cause enough for shock. The sight of that same Stark, head bowed and on his knees before one of their own? Well, that easily sends a thousand more exclamations and rumors rippling through the crowd.   

(Somewhere amidst all of these exclamations, somewhere in the thick of the crowd, Flash Thompson watches, dumbstruck, as Iron Man falls to his knees and whispers a mantra of broken pleas. Every single accusation Flash has ever made about Peter lying about his Stark Industries internship, about knowing Tony Stark, returns to the forefront of his mind. 

Parker doesn’t just know Tony Stark, he realizes, feeling queasy all of a sudden. This is… this is—

Well. Flash doesn’t think he’s ever even seen his own parents look at him like that: with such profound and unconditional love.

So, Flash thinks as the bile rises up his throat, Peter Parker has even more than I thought he did. 

And as his classmates whisper excitedly all around him, hushed murmurs of oh my god Tony Stark knows Peter Parker making the air buzz with anticipation, Flash—for the first time in a long, long time—is completely silent in the face of new rumors about Peter Parker. Now, he knows the truth. They all do. And deep down in the inner workings of his mind, he finds himself unable to look away as his world comes crashing down around him.

After all, the truth hurts.)

It is these whispers that eventually attract Tony’s attention, and he reluctantly draws away from Peter to scan the area once more. It doesn’t take long before he spots the senior standing by the hood of a police car, hands twisted and cuffed behind his back. The student stumbles backwards and blanches visibly when Tony slowly—menacingly—rises to his feet and locks eyes with him.

Tony wonders what it is the student sees in his eyes. Wonders if the student can see the fear horror guilt grief anger –

For now, Tony settles on anger. Pushes down the all-consuming anguish so that anger is all he can feel, all he allows himself to feel. His jaw shifts tensely as the rage twitches and spasms inside him, burning bright with the force of a supernova. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this angry (read: hurt) before. 

Tony thought he knew anger. 

He was wrong.

This – this is anger the likes of which he’s never encountered before. This anger goes far beyond the rush of explosive fury at Yinsen’s murder; the ice-cold rage he felt at Stane’s betrayal; the mix of panic, wild urgency and volatile anger that consumed him as he faced the threat Loki posed to his home; the vulnerable, vengeful and defensive outrage that exploded inside him as he watched Bucky Barnes’ fingers curl around his mother’s throat; the hurt that devoured him and turned him blind with the need to attack attack attack (read: protect himself) as Steve Rogers turned against him.

This is anger that overwhelms—the type that threatens to crush him under its weight or boil him alive. It’s an anger that froths with every inch of affection he felt for Peter, every ounce of devotion and care and love.

It’s an anger that devastates.

(His kid is gone. All he has left to hold on to now, as he struggles to keep himself above water, is this.

Giving into grief will drown him. Giving into rage? It’ll destroy him, but at least it’ll be quick.)

He’s livid, and he takes that wrath and turns it into vitriol, stalking forward like a predator with prey in its sight. 

“Y-You’re Iron Man—” the student chokes, either a last-ditch attempt to distract Tony or an unspoken plea for mercy, Tony can’t tell, but he doesn’t care. 

He growls, a heartbroken howl disguised by the red-hot flame of fury, and lunges forward, grabbing the senior by the collar of his shirt. He yanks, vicious, and drags the senior up until he can barely touch the ground with his toes.

“Was it you?” he thunders, deaf to the alarmed protests of the police officers surrounding them. The student is quiet, the air frigid and taut between them, and Tony snarls, repeating himself, “I asked you a goddamn question, asshole. Was it you who killed Peter!?”

(Do you have any idea? he wants to say. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? To Peter? To May, to Ned, to that MJ girl? To Happy, to Rhodey, to Pep?

To me?

Congratulations, asshole. You managed to bring Tony Stark to his knees. And I have no idea… I have no idea—

He has no idea how to fix himself, how to pick up the pieces and glue himself back together in the face of the wreckage of a car crash and Peter Peter Peter and blood—Peter’s. 

It feels like the world has stopped, but Tony knows reality is crueler. He knows there is no end in sight, knows the world will keep on spinning and time will keep on marching and people will keep on living.

What he doesn’t know is how. 

How? How can he possibly live on? How can he live in a world without Peter, without his kid?)

The color drains out of the student’s face. Tony doesn’t give him a chance to answer before he’s growling and drawing back a fist, white-knuckled with tension. The officers’ protests grow louder, more desperate, but Tony pays them no heed. He can’t pay attention to anything at all beyond the buzz of Peter Peter Peter beating in time with his racing pulse. 

I’ll make you pay. My kid deserved better, he thinks, knows—

His kid.

He stills.

In life, Peter had been the kindest, most gentle person he knew. Peter had been generous and considerate and immeasurably selfless. 

Peter had believed in second chances.

Tony closes his eyes in defeat, the breath leaving him in a frustrated hiss. Tony would gladly raze the world to ashes for Peter, but Peter had never been one to condone violence. Don’t fight fire with fire, the kid would say, shaking his head in something between exasperation and fondness. It’ll only burn you, too. 

(Tony would gladly burn alive if it meant Peter was safe. He’d willingly let the inferno take him if only—

If only.)

Tony lets go of the student’s shirt and pushes him away with enough force to send him staggering backwards. “Don’t think that you’ve been forgiven,” he seethes, dark and lethal. “You should be fucking grateful that my kid was ten times the person you are.”

(Peter is—was, Tony reminds himself with an ache in his chest—ten times the person Tony is. Peter has always been better than the rest of them, with his heart of gold, his tendency to care about everyone he meets, his unfailing optimism, his compassion, his peerless sense of duty and morality, his earnestness and genuineness—

He was so much better, Tony thinks. He was the very best of us, and—

And somehow, Peter had believed in him. Peter was always the first person to have faith in him, to trust him and support him. Peter had been his greatest and most ardent supporter—the kid’s confidence in him had never wavered, even when Tony’s own self-confidence did.

Despite all of his failures, despite the blood that stains his hands to this day, Peter has always seen good in him. For some unfathomable reason, Peter—who possessed more goodness in his bleeding heart than anyone else Tony knows—looked up to him.

He didn’t deserve it. He failed Peter. 

I couldn’t save him—)

The senior student falls back against the police car, violent tremors running through his body. “I don’t – I don’t understand,” Douglas Fitzpatrick whimpers pitifully. Principal Morita hadn’t told him anything about a surprise guest appearance—much less about Tony Stark being that guest. He tries to gather his thoughts, tries to process the situation as he wonders if this is all simply part of the demonstration—maybe the event organizers wanted to use the hysterical reaction of a bystander to further drive the point home and remind the students that their actions have consequences. But why Tony Stark? 

Or, better yet: how? How, when Tony Stark is unarguably the single most influential man in the entire world, thanks to both his limitless fortune as the owner of Stark Industries and his prodigious fame as Iron Man? When Tony Stark is the same tech tycoon who regularly spends his time among the fellow elite—CEOs, military generals, and world leaders alike? When Tony Stark is an Avenger—the Avenger—who reforged himself into a superhero in a dark cave in Afghanistan, right under his kidnappers’ noses?

Finally, Douglas shakes his head and backs away from the famous Avenger, closing his eyes to the sight of Actual Tony Goddamn Stark staring at him with pure hate in his eyes. This doesn’t feel like a performance. 

“What… what are you talking about? I didn’t do anything,” he insists, breaking character in an effort to escape Mr. Stark’s judgmental, recriminating gaze. Who wouldn’t break under Iron Man’s stare? “I didn’t do anything!”

His desperate protests only seem to dig him an even deeper grave. Tony’s glare darkens inexplicably. “You ‘didn’t do anything’?” he echoes, a laugh that is both hollow and hysterical forcing its way out of his throat. “You didn’t— no. No. I’m not letting you escape this, escape what you did.” I haven’t been able to escape it. Not since I found out. Not even for a second. “I was interrupted in the middle of one of the most boring board meetings I’ve ever sat through by an alert and a fucking post on social media. I had to find out through a goddamn Twitter post.” The words come out hissed, simmering with something deadly, his voice fluctuating at random points. Unstable. He certainly feels unstable, reminiscent of a ticking time bomb, as if one misstep from the handcuffed student might set him off.

Tony pauses, a niggling feeling at the back of his head reminding him of something. Something crucial. 

Tick. Tick.

Tick.

The Tweet—Tony remembers with sudden, sickening clarity, the heartless caption that had accompanied the posted obituary. 

[as if anyone would even miss parker, lol]

Renewed rage blazes in the pit of his stomach, sparking a growing fire. He’s hit with the sudden and powerful urge to revisit the Tweet that started all of this and hunt down the poster who dismissed Peter’s life with careless ease, completely unaware of how much brighter Peter made Tony’s own life. Unaware of how lucky they were, to have shared a school with the most brilliant kid Tony has ever met.

‘As if anyone would miss him’? That’s… oh, god. I would, he thinks, nauseous. I would miss him. Pete knows that, right? That I’d miss him. That I already do miss him.

Peter has to know that, or…

Tony shakes off the line of thought before the possibility of Peter not knowing, of Peter doubting how much he means to Tony, can send him into a tailspin. Instead, he focuses on the present, on the asshole currently shrinking away from him. 

Tony corrals his new, different anger into a vault for the moment. He can figure out who was cruel enough to post those words later. For now, he lets his original festering rage at the student driver solidify into lead, into poison. 

“You’re not escaping this,” Tony reiterates, unrelenting. “You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.” If not in blood, then I’m at least going to make you pay in prison. I won’t stop until I do. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Douglas continues to plead his case, face scrunched up in desperation. “I – I swear. Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do it. I didn’t! I don’t know what I could’ve possibly done! We’ve never even met before, Mr. Stark.”

The name ‘Mr. Stark’ sounds wrong on this student’s tongue, twisted and tarnished. It sounds nothing like how Peter says the name, like a familiar nickname instead of a distant moniker. It feels like a glaring blemish on his memory of Peter; it feels like a betrayal. 

“Don’t,” Tony bites out. “Don’t you dare”—ruin my memory of Peter, the only thing I have left of him thanks to you—“say my name as if you have any right. I suggest you tread very carefully from now on, because as it is, I’m already looking forward to seeing you sentenced to prison forever. Piss me off again, and you won’t like what happens next.”

“Mr. Stark!” an unfamiliar voice interjects, sounding flustered and more than a little beleaguered. Tony whips around to find a middle-aged man in an off-the-rack suit and a horrendous mustard yellow tie jogging up to him, looking harried. Tony vaguely recognizes him as Peter’s principal—Morrison or Morita or something like that. “Mr. Stark, please. You’re making a scene.”

Tony’s jaw drops. ‘Making a scene’? He’s making a scene? Not for the first time today, an overwhelming torrent of emotions explodes in his chest. A staggering indignation at the realization that, at a time like this, the principal’s primary concern seems to be maintaining appearances for public perception, as though Peter is but an afterthought. A monumental, bone-shattering agony—a sort of pain bigger than bruised ribs and broken bones, sharper than shrapnel in his chest, stronger than palladium poisoning—at the thought of how hurt Peter—Peter, who holds nothing but the utmost respect for his principal and his teachers—would be to realize how little he factored into his own principal’s priorities. A reinvigorated, unquenchable thirst to ravage everyone who’s ever wronged his kid and everyone who’s ever looked the other way.

Tony snaps his jaw shut. His expression shutters, shock at the interruption turning into frost. The indignation burns low in his gut, ignorable only because Tony already has his sights set on another target. “I suggest you get the hell out of my way. This is the only warning you’ll get, so I’d advise you to make the smart move and take it,” he utters quietly, but the low volume of his voice does nothing to undermine the deterrent in it. If anything, it only makes Tony sound more dangerous, his words less of an impulsive threat and more of a solemn vow. His voice is one that guarantees retribution.

The principal—it’s definitely Morita, Tony recalls—balks noticeably. “Mr. Stark,” he starts apprehensively, his own voice hesitant as if he believes he’s approaching a wild animal that might decide to attack him at any moment. 

Tony immediately looks askance at Morita, silently exhorting the man to choose your next words with caution, and Morita gulps audibly—but decidedly continues to stand firm in front of Tony. Tony would be impressed by the principal’s courage in the face of the Avenger who singlehandedly flew a nuclear missile into a wormhole if it weren’t for the fact that his kid is still lying dead behind him and Morita doesn’t even seem to care, defending a student who doesn’t deserve it. 

Morita clears his throat anxiously. “Please refrain from threatening my students, Mr. Stark. I'm not sure what Mr. Fitzpatrick has done to earn your ire, but regardless, he is still a minor.”

A minor, Tony echoes in his mind, brimming with contempt. A minor. Tony has to fight to bite back the instinctive response that leaps to his mind: And what about Peter, huh? Another minor—one who was in your care, who was under your protection while at this school? What about him, Morita? Or does he not matter? His well-being, his life, his future?

“I don’t give a shit what ‘Mr. Fitzpatrick’ is,” he grits out, struggling to rein in the anger enough to sound measured when all he wants is to tear into Fitzpatrick. “Prison would be a mercy after what he’s done.”

Tony glances to the side to find that the student in question looks visibly nauseous, face ashen and horrified. “P-Prison?” Fitzpatrick stutters. “I don’t... I’ve never even committed a crime!” he protests, voice insistent and pleading. “I haven’t, Mr. Stark. I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

The words the only misunderstanding here is why the hell you’re still seeing the light of day are on the tip of his tongue, begging to be unleashed. At the last second, however, Tony pauses, his eyes narrowing. There’s something off about this entire situation. 

It’s only when Douglas squirms uneasily, looking for a way out—looking for absolution—that it hits Tony. The student in front of him is sober, he realizes. Or at the very least, he doesn’t sound drunk; he isn’t slurring his words in the slightest. He may be stammering, but Tony can tell that’s from sheer nervousness, not inebriation. The student doesn’t even look drunk—there’s no visible flush to his neck and chest, no wild-eyed look on his face. 

Even more tellingly, Tony can’t smell the familiar, pungent stench of booze on the student’s breath. 

There is nothing to indicate that the student was recently wasted enough to accidentally crash into an innocent bystander. (Into Peter.)

(Honestly, Tony’s a little ashamed that it took him this long to notice the student’s glaring lack of insobriety, but then again, he has been a little preoccupied with the thought that he’s lost his kid, so he figures he gets a pass on not being at the top of his game just this once.)

Tony’s narrow-eyed stare sharpens. An accusatory demand—what the ever-loving fuck is going on here—is already on its way up his throat when he’s cut off before he can even open his mouth.

A familiar voice groans behind them, drowsy and fatigued. Tony freezes, his heart thudding loudly in his chest, and for a moment, everything else sounds muted to his ears as his focus zeroes in on that single brief groan.

Peter.

:::

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Apple Launches Scheduled for Next Season

Apple is considered to be the state-of-the-art enterprise in the world now. It is the business to which nearly all others search for direction. When Apple reveals an innovative new design vocabulary or launches a new product, it creates ripples throughout the marketplace. Suddenly, the entire industry is crafting products in Apple’s overall image. However to say Apple is merely a trend-setter understates the organization’s position as probably the figurehead of invention in customer engineering. Apple isn’t simply setting technology trends; Apple’s vision pieces precedents and starts actions that allow the developments to exist in the first place. As great as it must experience to be Apple in this situation - and as humbling since it must experience to be any of the many businesses copying Apple at every convert - it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Most people can claw your way to the top of a mountain, but there’s not a lot of stable ground up there. One incorrect step as well as your toppling back down the mountain, undoing years of the hard work needed to get up there. We do not want to discount Apple’s successes in 2018: Apple Pencil support for ipad device was a good addition; iOS 12 has provided new life to iPhones as old as the 5S; Apple Watch Series 4 is literally saving lives; and that’s only a few highlights. Looking back again, though, 2018 was a fairly tough year for Apple as certain missteps finished up affecting the company’s bottom line. Amongst Apple’s most dubious techniques in 2018, there’s one I wanted to discuss for a significant purpose: With no second-generation iPhone SE in sight, it seems Apple has exited the spending budget flagship market. The fact is, I’ll take it one step additional: I am convinced Apple would not be launching any longer budget iPhones, and here is why. Apple’s product collection is certainly varied. The company generates revenue from services like iTunes and Apple Music to accessories like AirPods and the Magic Keyboard, from home entertainment devices like Apple TV 4K to personal processing devices like the MacBook Pro. However sales for most of these are not that amazing (though Apple’s income certainly are). It is actually the iPhone that makes up about nearly all Apple’s income. Since its debut in 2007, iPhone has pushed Apple’s revenue to such incredible heights that the company is just about the first trillion-dollar company in history. With so a lot of Apple’s income riding on the game-changing gadget, you can bet there will be a significant drop in Apple’s revenue if people beginning buying less iPhones. And that is specifically what we are experiencing. Immediately after a modest fourth quarter, revenue for Q12019 - which, to be clear, is comprised of October, November, and December, covering the holiday shopping season - was lower than Apple actually projected. With the expense of fresh iPhones rising, income would’ve increased actually if unit sales experienced only remained steady, but there were fewer iPhone units sold through the period. The implication can be that demand has waned, or it’s feasible there wasn’t much demand for Apple’s costly new iPhones in the first place. The first symptom of challenges was in 2017, the entire year iPhone X premiered. At a starting price 50 percent higher than the prior year’s baseline model, iPhone X unit product sales were reportedly smooth although Apple’s income increased. How? Because even though Apple sold roughly the same amount of units as the year before, the common cost of an iPhone had improved. When you sell the same quantity of products but tag up the price, you still visit a bump in product sales. Of program, it’s not just the iPhone that’s become more expensive. Apple has raised selling prices across virtually all the company’s stock portfolio. But with the iPhone driving revenue, the implication is usually this: If iPhone sales and profits continue to be toned or begin to fall, Apple will have to keep raising the price of the iPhone each year to maintain year-over-year revenue gains. As you can plainly see, it’s not a coincidence Apple has made a decision to stop reporting iPhone unit sales publicly. Also if 2017 was an outlier, the start of new iPhones in the fall is meant to give Apple a go of revenue adrenaline in the final stretch, allowing for a strong finish as the business crosses the fiscal finish line. But for the second season in a row, that did not happen. Doesn’t it appear reasonable, if improbable, that increasing the costs for brand-new iPhones has resulted in lower demand? About a week ago, Apple CEO sent a letter to investors. You can browse the letter for yourself on Apple’s web-site, nonetheless it warns investors that Apple’s 1Q2019 income will end up being $9 billion lower than was originally projected. The letter largely blames China’s overall economy for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone income decrease although also suggesting that individuals are still adapting to the termination of carrier financial assistance. In a recently available talk Cook reiterated most of the same points to explain lower-than-anticipated iPhone gross sales. Besides slowed development in growing marketplaces and the lack of subsidized pricing through carriers, Cook pointed to iOS 12 and the $29 battery substitute program while having encouraged users to keep their previous iPhones rather than choosing new ones. As you might remember, Apple started the battery alternative program in late 2017 in hope of hiding the smell of the electric battery hot debate, which had earned accusations of designed obsolescence. As stated by Cook, many with old iPhones didn't upgrade mainly because they could get new batteries for cheap. This would take away the overall performance caps that Apple had imposed on them, repairing their iPhones with their original glory, particularly when paired with iOS 12. Actually, Apple went to lengths to ensure that iOS 12 would make older iPhones faster, so Make is likely correct in thinking the battery substitute program and iOS 12 factored in to the weaker sales of 2018 iPhones. On the other hand, Cook asserted that complicated trade relations between the US and China was ultimately the largest factor. China represents a ton of untapped sales potential for Apple, so there’s probably some truth to that, too. You can observe the entire interview in the video below if you want to hear more of what Make has to say about it. On the other hand, critics and analysts possess suggested poor iPhone sales are a indication of market saturation; at this point, most people who would like an iPhone already have one, and that’s a hard hurdle to overcome, especially with people transitioning much less frequently. It is even quite feasible that Apple priced the 2018 iPhones out from the developing markets the business claims to end up being targeting. After all, in the event that you live in China and need it a new mobile phone, are you going to buy an iPhone XS for $1,000 (¥6800) or even more, or will you get the latest Vivo or Xiaomi Android smartphone that’s manufactured locally and will do in essence anything iPhone XS can do at a small fraction of the price? Not surprisingly, Cook basically sidestepped this issue of ballooning iPhone prices - a concern that we’ve seen across most of Apple’s products for that matter - which has been one of the primary criticisms of brand-new iPhones. New Asking Price will Increase Price raises for the iPhone used to end up being pretty rare. In fact, after carriers stopped providing subsidized pricing on smartphones, forcing us to start paying complete MSRP if we wished to buy fresh iPhones, we're able to at least count on a constant starting price from 12 months to year. That starting cost used to be $649. With the launch of iPhone 8 in 2017, it jumped to $699, a unsatisfying gain, but it was not too surprising. It was only a $50 boost after generations of a consistent price, a lot of people gave Apple a pass. And also, actually at the higher price, iPhone 8 seemed positively cheap when compared to $999 price on the new iPhone X. Yet apparently, the price increase for iPhone 7 collection a precedent because in 2018, the purchase price jumped again. Matching the increase from iPhone 7 to iPhone 8, the 2018 iPhone collection started out at $749 for iPhone XR. You would argue that iPhone XR is a better device than iPhone 7 and justifies the extra $100, but value is subjective. Although some might say iPhone XR is worth its $749 starting price, especially compared to Apple’s more high quality models, many customers will fixate on how each new generation of iPhone is more expensive than the one before. And at this time, can you blame them? To create matters worse, as iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR were getting unveiled in stage during Apple’s fall 2018 event, iPhone SE was being discontinued. So not merely are iPhones getting more and more expensive, but Apple has eliminated the only spending budget option we had. So if you’re looking to get a new iPhone in 2019, there’s very little choice anymore. Buyers are effectively being forced to accept Apple’s higher starting price in the absence of a true budget iPhone. Naturally, consumers and critics alike are getting more vocal within their calls for an iPhone SE successor. Overwhelming Unpredicted Benefits Apple revealed the iPhone SE , which stands for Special Edition, in March 2016 at a particular spring event. Both for consumers and the industry at large, iPhone SE was an extremely un-Apple device for Apple to release. The iPhone 6 had simply jumped in size and received a totally new design from the previous generation. Then iPhone SE was released, having a smaller, compact form with its design practically indistinguishable from the previous-generation iPhone 5. Even more surprising was the actual fact that iPhone SE particularly featured most of Apple’s up-to-date, front runner-level engineering in spite of the reduced starting price; for just $399, you got the same custom A9 processor as iPhone 6S and a 12 MP camcorder with 4K video recording and a bigger battery. In reality, the only significant short-cuts were the lack of 3D Touch and the use of first-generation TouchID rather than the faster second generation. But, again, taking into consideration its low starting price (which eventually settled to $349), the iPhone SE provided uncharacteristically great value for something made by Apple. The challenge was that iPhone SE didn’t become a top-selling iPhone. In the course of its life-span, its defining characteristic was that it offered an inexpensive point of access to the iOS ecosystem though it eventually gained relatively of a cult following among particular Apple fans. Naturally, after iPhone SE had been the baseline of the iPhone lineup for a couple of years, buyers were prepared for the obligatory refresh. While iPhone SE offered an excellent cost-to-performance relation in 2016, a refresh could link the functionality gap that grew as iPhone SE’s A9 processor chip was followed and changed, first by the A10 Fusion chip in iPhone 7, on the other hand by the A11 Bionic in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X . Patiently Expecting Apple's New Releases Affirmed, we heard that Apple was working on a new version of the budget iPhone. Details varied, however the iPhone SE successor - alleged to be named possibly iPhone SE 2 or iPhone X SE (with suffix and modifiers meticulously arranged)- appeared to have the same purpose as the initial, which was to be a compact, low-cost iPhone offering great functionality and most of the most recent features. A lot of the difference surrounding the naming method for the iPhone SE 2 was because of unclear stories as to whether the device would maintain its iPhone 5-era design or whether it would embrace the new iPhone X visual. Some customers insisted (or maybe hoped?) iPhone SE 2 would appear to be an iPhone X from the front with a almost bezel-less, edge-to-edge display. These accounts were generally informed by supposed designs for display screen protectors and situations; if legitimate, the implication was that iPhone SE 2 would have a bezel-less, notched display related to iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Of program, the notch would become among the defining characteristics for 2018 smartphones overall as its was imitated by nearly every smartphone manufacturer after the iPhone X debuted in past due 2017; nevertheless, for Apple’s reasons, the notch just exists to house biometric sensors for Apple’s proprietary FaceID. So the implication was that iPhone SE 2 would feature FaceID although the high cost of FaceID components made it an unlikely inclusion in virtually any budget iPhone. Following these reviews, renders were made to show how the device might appear if it ended up being real. Assuming the case designs and resulting renders were accurate, iPhone SE 2 would’ve been a fascinating device, the lovechild of the bygone iPhone 5 and the more futuristic iPhone X. Provided Apple could keep production costs and, by expansion, the MSRP down, iPhone SE 2 could’ve easily outsold the original iPhone SE, possibly learning to be a top seller like the original iPhone SE never could. These weren’t simply the pipe dreams of iPhone SE followers and anyone who wanted cheaper iPhones; reports from Apple’s own suppliers all but confirmed plans for iPhone SE 2, offering estimates for possible production schedules and ship dates. In early August 2017, Wistron Corp. - a low-volume manufacturer located in Taiwan that Apple recruits when iPhone demand is high - was focusing on expanding its production base to accommodate a fresh compact Apple smartphone, which many presumed to end up being an updated iPhone SE. After that came a tentative ship day: In late November 2017, Economic Daily News in Taiwan reported Apple have been eyeing a release day in the first half of 2018 for the iPhone SE 2, which would’ve been consistent with the spring release of the original iPhone SE. January 2018 brought another report of iPhone SE 2 launching in 2018. Shortly thereafter, there was a rumor iPhone SE 2 would feature a glass rear panel, suggesting the addition of the wireless charging features that the iPhone has already established since 2017. Just simply because rumors pointed to Apple gearing up for the release of a next-generation iPhone SE, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities who's known for predicting Apple’s products with uncanny accuracy, planted one of the 1st seeds of doubt. In late January 2018, Kuo reported iPhone SE 2 had very little chance of released because Apple had exhausted its resources on the three flagship models to be released in 2018. Of training course, those three models finished up being iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. However, rumors persisted - though at a slower pace - in spite of Kuo’s question. For instance, there were specifications and other information on the iPhone SE 2 reported in April 2018. Regarding to these leaks, Apple designed to keep production costs (and, by expansion, the eventual retail price) down by omitting the 3.5mm headphone jack and using iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip rather than the A11 Bionic chip found in iPhone 8 and iPhone X. For all intents and reasons, the axe was decisively dropped in July 2018 as BlueFin Research told MacRumors that Apple had nixed all programs to proceed with iPhone SE 2. We’ll probably never find out for sure whether iPhone SE 2 was ever actually in the pipeline; however, also if it had been planned initially, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever obtain an iPhone SE 2 at all. It’s been four weeks since the start of the 2018 iPhones, an event that coincided with iPhone SE being removed from Apple’s lineup, which, in and of itself, allegedly happened because Apple retired its A9 processor chip. So apart from Apple quickly unloading the last iPhone SE devices at a discounted $249 price, which took just 24 hours, iPhone SE is fully gone from Apple’s catalog, and anyone looking forward to a next-generation iPhone SE has little trigger for hope. In the event that you ask me, the writing is on the wall structure: Apple won’t be making another budget iPhone. FORGET ABOUT Budget iPhone? Spending budget smartphones, or smartphones that price roughly $300 or less, are pretty common today. In some instances, these budget devices offer great bang for your buck. Some of the newer notable examples include the Moto G6 for $240, LG Stylo 4 for $250, Huawei Mate 20 Lite for $290, and, of course, the amazing Pocophone F1 for $299. Should you have a tad more to spend, you can look for a used or refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8 for just barely over $300. Or you can get the brand new Nokia 7.1, an Android One gadget with the design and nearly all the features that top-shelf Android flagships have for the discount price of $350. I’m not sure where the term originated, but I totally agree: “Good mobile phones are receiving cheap, and cheap cell phones are receiving good.” Of program, you might’ve pointed out that the smartphones mentioned previously are Android smartphones. What about iPhones? When carriers did apart with subsidizing smartphones, we had to start paying full retail cost for new smartphones. Therefore Apple’s decision to create the iPhone SE was extremely timely: Rather than paying $649 or more, you could buy an iPhone at under $400 without producing a huge amount of compromises. Suddenly, individuals who favored iOS to Android had their very own Pocophone. From September 2016 to its discontinuation in September 2018, iPhone SE was never a top-selling iPhones. Also at its peak, iPhone SE under no circumstances accounted for more than 11 percent of iPhone product sales as the third-best-selling iPhone, and just by a slim margin. Meanwhile, both iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus nearly tripled the sales of iPhone SE during that period, accounting for 28.5 percent and 29.5 percent of iPhone sales, respectively. After September 2017, iPhone SE sales dropped substantially, remaining somewhere between 5.5 percent and 8 percent until the device was pulled in fall 2018. Imagine that you’re Tim Cook looking at these amounts. Everybody has been requesting a second-generation budget iPhone, but sales numbers present that when a lower-cost option is available, nearly all customers keep buying the more costly iPhones. If customers are willing to pay even more for high-end iPhones, does it make sense to produce a cheaper gadget that, at best, only about one in ten consumers would be interested in buying? With some context, positioning the iPhone more as a luxury item starts to make sense. Like voting on a ballot, Apple’s customers have already been casting their votes on higher-end iPhones, therefore we can’t actually blame Apple for moving away from budget smartphones that do not sell well. If you’re miffed about the loss of life of iPhone SE 2, there are, actually, cheaper iPhones available for people on a spending budget. But you’re not going to see them in retail stores. Current Market Conditions Apple gave customers the lower-cost iPhone they’d long been asking for, but most of them decided not to buy it. So if you’re Apple, do you produce a second generation knowing the first era didn’t sell well, or perform you ditch the budget-iPhone idea altogether? It seems Apple chose the latter. Nevertheless, it doesn’t take away from the actual fact that spending budget iPhones already are available, not forgetting plentiful. Specifically, I’m discussing used iPhones on the market. The gray market refers to the buying and selling of used iPhones on the secondhand marketplace. It’s comprised of the many people selling their utilized products after upgrading, which essentially produces an unofficial market of budget iPhones. Therefore those listings for iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 on eBay, the Amazon Marketplace, services like Swappa, and yard-sale applications like LetGo will be the gray market for iPhones. Apple doesn’t need to invest in R&D, sourcing parts, production, and distribution for a budget iPhone because we curently have access to all the discounted iPhones we could ever want in the secondhand market. And every year when fresh iPhones are released, millions even more iPhones will revitalize the secondhand market as users who upgrade to new iPhones sell their older ones. Plus, any post-2016 iPhone models about the gray market could have better specs than iPhone SE, and a few of these used iPhones would be cheaper than investing in a new iPhone SE from Apple for $349. In other words, Apple doesn’t need to sell a budget iPhone since the current-generation iPhones purchased at complete retail cost today become budget iPhones as consumers utilize them and finally sell them to on the gray market when they upgrade. And more devices are shown on the gray market every day, so as long as Apple is selling smartphones, the gray marketplace is a renewable supply for budget iPhones. Of program, the gray marketplace isn’t the only way to get an iPhone on the inexpensive. Depending about how you consider it, Apple actually offers new budget iPhone options every year. With the official unveiling of new iPhones each year, the MSRP of each preceding generation still in creation is decreased. For instance, when iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X had been announced in the fall of 2017, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus became previous-generation products, which warranted cost cuts. The iPhone SE was still in production when iPhone 7 got its lessen price, if you wanted a fresh iPhone but didn’t want to invest $699 or even more for iPhone 8 or iPhone X, you could choose iPhone SE from $349, iPhone 6S from $449, or iPhone 7 from $549. Though $349 isn’t specifically chump transformation, it’s certainly more palatable than iPhone X’s thousand-dollar starting price. With iPhone SE discontinued, the cheapest iPhone available is iPhone 7 for $449, meaning the least expensive iPhone on the market is $100 a lot more than last year. To be fair, iPhone 7 was a great device at release, and it’s still a compelling option today, especially for the price. Though it had been divisive as Apple’s 1st iPhone without the seemingly requisite 3.5mm headphone jack, iPhone 7 is in any other case a full-presented flagship. But if you’re searching for a fresh iPhone on a budget, which would you rather purchase: a 2016 iPhone for $449 or an iPhone SE 2 with the latest A12 Bionic processor chip for $100 less? Regarding iPhone SE 2 not materializing, maybe understanding what could’ve been can be what makes this so disappointing for a few. Even though the data suggests a restricted audience for budget iPhones, there will always be situations in which a low-cost iPhone with current-generation overall performance hits the sweet spot. Where Should Apple Go From Here? It’s a great time to become a lover of tech, particularly portable tech as budget and mid-range flagships are slaying in the Android smartphone market. Though priced higher than a $349 iPhone, the OnePlus 6T is certainly a primary example of how to offer flagship-level specifications, design, and performance at a lower life expectancy cost. For better or worse, Apple appears to have evacuated the budget smartphone sector after just one single attempt. Granted, Apple has never really catered to budget-minded consumers with almost all the company’s hardware starting at $1,000 or more and a shrinking number of gadgets, like iPods and iPads, priced lower than that. This is why it was so unusual for Apple to create a budget iPhone in the first place. The problem is that it seems Apple is currently trying to close a door that maybe the company never should’ve opened in the first place. After all, when you’re offering this inexpensive iPhone on the lineup, all of the flagship iPhones seem that a lot more expensive by comparison. Whether or not there’s a fresh iPhone SE in the future, the prices mounted on Apple’s items are climbing. In many markets, Apple is coming dangerously close to pricing the iPhone along with most of Apple’s other products out of reach. For customers who can’t (or don’t wish to) pay such exorbitant prices, the fact that Apple offered inexpensive options in the past but no longer offers those options now will undoubtedly leave a bad flavor in people’s mouths, almost like biting into a rotten apple. Honestly, I hope I’m wrong concerning this, but if Apple really wants to curb the decline in iPhone demand and for product sales to resume an upward trajectory, 1 of 2 things will have to happen, and sooner rather than later. Apple needs to either lower the margins on iPhones to make them less expensive (or even just less costly), or there must be a fresh budget option so consumers in least have the illusion of preference. Because as the numbers show, most buyers choose the premium iPhones anyway, but if Apple puts a spending budget model on the table, at least they won’t feel just like they’re being forced to pay the ever-growing Apple tax. Apple’s current pricing structure gives consumers just high- and higher-priced models to choose from. But it seems buyers are needs to realize there’s still an added option, which can be to save themselves the difficulty, and potentially some buyer’s remorse, by not buying brand-new iPhones at all.

Assembly of the Gods

Twon, If you're reading this it's too late my G. 

I'm never sure where to begin with these stories. Y'all remember when Nas spit a whole story backwards? Nevermind forget it. 

The year is 2013, I believe, and it's a rainy night in the fall. My boy Robbie Maxx drags my wife and I to a Meek Mill show in Teaneck NJ, just to peep the scene. The parking lot is a mad house of course. We had to wait in line and shit, which wasn't the vibe. We finally get in the spot, it's already packed and the opening acts are doing their thing. This one performer caught my attention. This short, energetic kid with his squad on stage with him screaming, "UPPERCLASS!". The young boy with the name "TWON" gleaming off his hat was spitting some fire with no fear or nervousness to a sold-out crowd in his hometown. Pretty dope performance overall. Soon after his exit from the stage Meek would come out and make is presence known. I knew that wasn't the last time I'd see or hear from that Twon guy. 

Some months later Maxx would headline a show at this spot called Mexicali Live (Debonair Lounge) and guess who he throws on the bill? You guessed it, TWONDON. It had been a while since I last saw the kid and this go-around the music was a bit different. He performed and did his thing much like the first time I saw him. He was chopping it up with his fans/supporters after his performance, so I had to wait to talk to him. I hate that sh*t. I was able to properly introduce myself and extend the invitation to collab. I'll admit our first encounter wasn't the greatest. It's always weird when a ni**a that doesn't know you tries to strike a conversation. He'll tell you. Although he knew of me as being Maxx's producer/engineer up until this point we hadn't had any extensive interaction. We exchanged info and that was that. He wasn't trying to hear anything I had to say that night though.

 Now it's 2014, I was floating around to different events in NYC. One in particular was a private album release party for Mobb Deep (RIP Prodigy). I want to say it was their last album, "The Infamous Mobb Deep." I'm coolin' in the spot for a little bit and guess who I bump in to? Of course, Twondon. The first thing he says to me is, "Damn B, you get around". At this point this ni**a finally realizes he can't escape the God. This time we got a chance to really chop it up. He mentioned to me he was looking for a new spot to record and a good engineer. I had to get my boy right. The first track we recorded together was, "Life's a Bitch" featuring AZ. I remember Twon asking me, "Yo B, can you somehow scratch in the Acapella of AZ from Nas' "Life's a Bitch"?” and explained how he wanted it to cut in and out of the hook. I remember thinking to myself, "This ni**a has no clue this my f**king BAG." To make a long story short my execution of what he requested was flawless. In past interviews Twon has mentioned that "Life's a Bitch" was when he found "His sound."

 Soon after Twon would make 1985 Sound Studio in Belleville, NJ his new home for recording. By this time I had already mixed a few singles for him including "4th and Inches" and "Run It" featuring Bizzy Crook and slew of others. There's this on-going thing where he'll say some sh*t like "Yo B, make me sound icy" and somehow I know what he means everytime. He also connected me with a few artists he knew including a young lyricist by the name of Dolla $ign Dunn who I continue to help with developing his sound as well. In the early stages of creating with Twon he had already had a lot of his beats picked out so he didn't really need me for production. I was just helping to cultivate that Upperclass sound through my mixing and mastering techniques. It wasn't until mid 2015 that discussions of his debut EP "Stay Golden" began to take shape. 

After a session one day Twon asked me about a beat I was creating on my ipad that I previewed on Instagram I think. No stories back then this was all timeline action. He said "That beat sound like me." 

I didn't think anything of it, I looped up the beat, added a few more elements to it and gave it up. No charge. That was the birth of the first single "Too Committed". He sat on the beat for a short time and came back to the studio and laid the 1st verse and the hook. Later on he told me that Smoke DZA would be blessing the record and executive producing the album "Stay Golden." 

"TWON!!? Antwon!! Wake your black ass up it's 1 in the afternoon..."   -Gloria's Intro (Mama Twondon) 

Twondon's “Stay Golden” album was released December 8, 2015, a day after my 30th Birthday. I was in Vegas my ni**a. The project was well received. The song "Million Dollar Babies" off that project racked up 600,000+ streams on Spotify alone. The whole roll-out for that project was dope. I go back and listen to that project sometimes and I love the way it sounds. It sounds just like the title, "Golden." So much work went into it and I enjoyed every minute of it. There are 10 mixes on "Too Committed" alone. Occasionally I will hear my wife bumping "All the Above." She's also partially responsible for placing "Too Committed" in the Indie film "King of Newark" (2016) 

After the success of that project we continued to create and build. The last few years I've watched Twondon evolve from rapper/lyricist to clothing designer to all-around entrepreneur. Yeah man, my boy was making clothes. I had to support him because the Upperclass Intl. collections were dope, simple as that. Every collection is limited pieces, so if you miss it for the week it's available it's over. His system is untouchable to say the least. He'll give you some dope music and then turn around and give you some fresh clothes. Young Nipsey traits for sure. The one piece I missed out on was this navy blue Upperclass hoodie he dropped. Still salty about that. He know. 

The inception of "God Complex" 

Summer of 2016 I locked in with my brother Josh. He would come to the crib on random days and cook up. Lay hooks, make beats etc. One of the hooks he laid was on "F**k What They Tryna Say," we both knew it was special. He laid it down and we never revisted it. Typical Josh sh*t. He's just a legendary soul. He's different. 

2017 I relocated to Atlanta. Twondon and I would maintain our working relationship and brother-hood from a far. We would send sessions back and forth, long ass facetime calls and sh*t. I would send beats sometimes and I stumbled across that joint "F**k What They Tryna Say" again, so I sent it to him. He didn't have anything in his catalog like it at the time. He wrote to it in about 45 minutes maybe less and sent me voice notes of the verses he had. Just undeniable flame. Since he didn't have a studio to record in at the time, I arranged to shoot back to Jersey to handle some business and record his verses. We linked up at a Sheraton I was staying at in Weehawken NJ overlooking New York City. I set up my laptop and microphone, we had some "God-Talk" and we got to work. Needless to say this record "Fuck What They Tryna Say" is about to be 4 years old by the time you guys hear it. Timeless vibes. Around the time we recorded that song I was still dealing with the indelible aftermath of my own personal police misconduct situation. It's documented that US Police had already shot and killed 72+ unarmed black males from 2015-2017. The numbers continue to rise. The message in that song is powerful, heavy and very clear, Fuck what they tryna say. We're not naive to what's happening in our communities, but as you can see we still thrive anyway. So we dont give a f**k what yall talking about. Plain and simple. 

"The skeletons in the closet is rising, the truth is louder than ever they kill us and televise it..." "FWTTS" - Twondon (feat Josh.GLPA) 

These last few years have made me realize how important the artist-engineer and artist-producer relationship really is. We've gotten so good at separating our business and personal lives that when this guy hits my line and simply says, "Mr. Ross," my response is normaly "Mr. Gibbs?”, I know something is coming. Would you believe we've spent the last 7 years developing his sound to what you hear today? I've mixed and mastered over 30 songs, 3 albums and 3 EPs for Twondon thus far. So many email threads, text messages, phone calls and overtime to bring to life that Upperclass sound you know him for. “God Complex” is just a cornerstone of what we've been able to build together on this journey of ours. Songs like “199$” and “Trips Up North,” are the creative by-product of our extensive conversations about life, man-hood, spirituality and how we are limitless in our thinking and resilient in what we pursue. We are Gods in our own right. Like Ye said, "I just told you who I thought I was, a God". Just respect it. Hope you enjoy this masterpiece. More music on the way. It's Upperclass ̡ 

Written by Brandon "Plan B '85" Ross 1985 Music 

Stream/Buy God Complex NOW

http://smarturl.it/GODCOMPLEXPACK

Exit Review: Search WWW

Synopsis

Bae Ta Mi is a highly intelligent, driven business woman working in the fast paced technology sector as a powerful executive with the popular web portal, Unicon.

At the same time she's got the opportunity to climb higher than ever in her career--and consequently has the furthest to fall--she meets a younger man named Park Morgan in a arcade, and after engaging in a few competitive games of Tekken the two of them get a drink together and have an immediate palpable attraction to one another. One thing leads to another and they end up sleeping together.

Ta Mi might have been willing to let the whole thing go as a one night stand, but shortly afterwards she finds out that Morgan--the CEO of his own small music company that composes music for videos games--has recently taken a contract with Unicon. and the two of them must navigate newly blossoming feelings and differing world views around their fast paced professional lives.

The story also revolves around the lives of two other high powered women in executive positions within the companies of Barro and Unicon, balancing issues of love and business as well as ethical dilemmas around technology, privacy and freedom of information.

Review

Story: The story of Search WWW happens on a couple different levels. On the one hand it's a kind of feminist wish fulfillment fantasy, where the majority of the powerful executives running this part of the world are beautiful women who are interested in forwarding their careers, forming friendships and rivals with each other as they do, and somehow managing to have thriving love lives at the same time.

On the other hand, it's about a collection of people with different struggles trying to find balance in their lives. Whether that balance is between their independence and their need to be loved, their idealism and their ambition, or between family duty and personal identity.

It's kind of a difficult drama to review for this reason. There's a lot of different elements at play, and many of them work well, though not always equally well. This is a drama with a lot to say, while also trying to be a fun piece of escapism. And sometimes it definitely seems to compromise the message for the escapism or vice versa. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think unless you are fully buying into the concept and the characters it's going to be difficult to find the drama wholly satisfying on every front. Kind of a jack of all trades, master of none kind of situation. It's a corporate drama, a female power fantasy, a noona-romance and a piece of social commentary about search engines. That's a lot of hats to wear at once and wear well.

Acting: Jang Ki Yong has been all over the place in the past year, and it looks like he isn't going anywhere but up from here. He already proved that he is capable of handling a male lead role in Come and Hug Me, although I don't feel that was his strongest performance. In Search he seems to be showing a more grounded performance. In interviews he talked about the director encouraging him to play a more relaxed version of himself, and because he often plays stiff, stoic individuals it was really refreshing even though the enthusiastic young man who is unreservedly in love with an older woman is not at all a new concept. I'd like to see more like this in the future from him.

Im Soo Jung has been acting for a long time, but she hasn't made a lot of dramas, and only came back to dramaland after a 13 year hiatus to make 2017's Chicago Typwriter and 2019's Search. If this is the kind of work she's going to keep putting out, I'm looking forward to her next projects. I really hope she keeps making drama in the coming years, because she's great as Ta Mi. Very fun, charismatic, and cutting, with just the right amount of pathos.

The main trio of women play off each other so well, and I loved the way the drama focused on their individual dynamics and developed them, especially the emphasis on female friendship which is oft neglected, but never should be. Especially in this kind of show.

This drama also gave us a very cute romance between Lee Da Hee's Scarlett and Lee Jae Wook's (also recently of Extraordinary You fame) adorable rookie actor, Ji Hwan. One hopes to see more from both of them in a similar vein, and even if it's a bit of a long shot it would be lovely to see them reunite in another project, because the chemistry was golden.

Production: I personally loved the way this drama looked and felt to watch. I thought the editing, sets, styling, etc had a lot of personality. There was obviously a lot of thought put into how each scene would be shot, the colors we associate with the different characters, the camera movements that clue us into how the characters are feeling and how they are relating to other characters. There's nothing phoned in about the editing and direction. I think the whole drama looks very expensive and very clean.

However, I did see some complaints about the editing. My roommate didn't like the wobbly camera movements that are used in emotional scenes to indicate the characters are in distress, they made her feel sea sick. So something to be aware of. For me, however, it worked.

Feels: Man, I have heard every kind of reaction to this show. I've heard from people who liked the romance and had no interest in the business aspects of the drama. I've seen people who couldn't care less about the main romance but liked the parts of the drama that were about powerful women kicking ass and solving ethically complex problems regarding the business. I've seen people who deeply disliked Ta Mi, people who loved her, people who thought she and Morgan were boring as sin. I've seen people (a lot of them, mostly on tumblr) who thought that Scarlett and her actor were the only reason to watch this drama at all.

While, a lot of that is valid, I thoroughly enjoyed this drama. I do think it helps to be a little bit older in order to relate with the characters better. Teens and young twenties might have a hard time empathizing with Ta Mi, her priorities and her insecurities, and I could see that making this a frustrating watch at times. But I thought it was a realistic portrayal of a relationship between two people with radically different value systems and sets of life experiences. For me the romance really worked and I liked all three of the female leads.

I do also think it's going to significantly help if you like business dramas to begin with. I personally found the idea of a web portal business like Google or Bing, how much influence they have over the information people see and what people talk about and some of the moral dilemmas that go along with that really interesting and unique.

Would I recommend Search: WWW? Yes, especially if you like dramas with messy, realistic relationships, corporate intrigue or just female power fantasy.

8.5/10

Headlines

Images of brutality against Black people spur racial trauma (AP) Since Wanda Johnson’s son was shot and killed by a police officer in Oakland, California, 11 years ago, she has watched video after video of similar encounters between Black people and police. Each time, she finds herself reliving the trauma of losing her son, Oscar Grant, who was shot to death by a transit police officer. Most recently, Johnson couldn’t escape the video of George Floyd, pinned to the ground under a Minneapolis officer’s knee as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. “I began to shake. I was up for two days, just crying,” she said. “Just looking at that video opened such a wound in me that has not completely closed.” Johnson’s loss was extreme, but, for many Black Americans, her grief and pain feels familiar. Psychologists call it racial trauma—the distress experienced because of the accumulation of racial discrimination, racial violence or institutional racism. While it can affect anyone who faces repeated prejudice, in this moment, its impact on Black people is drawing particular attention. The unfortunate irony is that the very tool that may be helping to make more people aware of the racism and violence that Black and other people of color face is also helping to fuel their trauma.

Critics question `less lethal’ force used during protests (AP) When a participant at a rally in Austin to protest police brutality threw a rock at a line of officers in the Texas capital, officers responded by firing beanbag rounds—ammunition that law enforcement deems “less lethal” than bullets. A beanbag cracked 20-year-old Justin Howell’s skull and, according to his family, damaged his brain. Adding to the pain, police admit the Texas State University student wasn’t the intended target. Pressure has mounted for a change in police tactics since Howell was injured. He was not accused of any crime. He was hospitalized in critical condition on May 31 and was discharged Wednesday to a long-term rehabilitation facility for intensive neurological, physical and occupational therapy. His brother has questioned why no one is talking about police use of less lethal but still dangerous munitions. “If we only talk about policing in terms of policies and processes or the weapons that police use when someone dies or when they are ‘properly lethal’ and not less lethal, we’re missing a big portion of the conversation,” said Josh Howell, a computer science graduate student at Texas A&M University. The growing use of less lethal weapons is “cause for grave concern” and may sometimes violate international law, said Agnes Callamard, director of Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University and a U.N. adviser.From 1990 to 2014, projectiles caused 53 deaths and 300 permanent disabilities among 1,984 serious injuries recorded by medical workers in over a dozen countries.

Coronavirus Global Death Toll Passes 500,000 (Foreign Policy) The coronavirus pandemic, about to enter its fifth month this week reached two grim milestones over the weekend: More than 10 million people have been infected with the virus and over 500,000 have died of it. Europe has seen the most deaths of any continent, although its overall caseload is declining. The situation in the Americas is more concerning: Two countries—the United States and Brazil—account for roughly 35 percent of all COVID-19 deaths worldwide and both countries are still seeing new cases in the tens of thousands daily.

Virus hits college towns (NYT) The community around the University of California, Davis, used to have a population of 70,000 and a thriving economy. Rentals were tight. Downtown was jammed. Hotels were booked months in advance for commencement. Students swarmed to the town’s bar crawl, sampling the trio of signature cocktails known on campus as “the Davis Trinity.” Then came the coronavirus. When the campus closed in March, an estimated 20,000 students and faculty left town. With them went about a third of the demand for goods and services, from books to bikes to brunches. Fall classes will be mostly remote, the university announced last week, with “reduced density” in dorms. Efforts to stem the pandemic have squeezed local economies across the nation, but the threat is starting to look existential in college towns. Communities that have evolved around campuses are confronting not only Covid-19 but also major losses in population, revenue and jobs.

Band’s pandemic diversion leads to every-night gig in park (AP) What started as a way for two musicians to get out of the house during the pandemic has turned into nightly concerts at the boathouse in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park—with fans who expect them to play three to four hours a night, seven nights a week. “One day I came here with my guitar out of nowhere, to just get some fresh air. And people just started coming over. And then they were like, ‘Thank you!’ And then it took a life on its own,” said Alegba Jahyile, leader of Alegba and Friends. Jahyile, a Haitian raised in New York who plays guitar, drums and bass, recalled a woman who cried at one concert. “You made my day,” she told him. “It’s been a terrible week for me and my family. Listening to you, singing, I felt the joy, I found a little bit of serenity, of peace to my day.” The area has steps that are good for sitting. It’s also adjacent to a grassy hill where people can bring children and dogs, spread blankets, plop down lounge chairs, and picnic while listening to the music.

World Food Program warns of ‘devastating’ pandemic impact in low- and middle-income countries (Washington Post) The World Food Program (WFP) warned Monday that the socioeconomic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic will be “devastating” and could trigger food shortages for millions of residents of low- and middle-income nations. In the countries in which the organization operates, the number of people suffering from hunger is estimated to rise by more than 80 percent by the end of 2020, in comparison with pre-coronavirus times. Latin America and Africa are among the most heavily impacted areas. “This unprecedented crisis requires an unprecedented response. If we do not respond rapidly and effectively to this viral threat, the outcome will be measured in an unconscionable loss of life, and efforts to roll back the tide of hunger will be undone,” WFP Director David Beasley was quoted as saying in a release. “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.”

Iceland’s president wins second term (Foreign Policy) Icelandic President Gundi Johannesson won a second term on Saturday in a landslide victory. Johanneson won 92 percent of the vote, while his right wing challenger Gudmundur Franklin Jonsson received just 7 percent of the vote. The Icelandic presidency is a largely symbolic post, although the president can exercise veto power over legislation.

Britons are fatter than most in the rest of Europe, says PM Johnson (Reuters) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday Britons were significantly fatter than people in most of the rest of Europe, admitting he had lost weight after contracting the novel coronavirus. Speaking to Times Radio, Johnson said: “I have taken a very libertarian stance on obesity but actually when you look at the numbers, when you look at the pressure on the NHS (National Health Service), compare, I’m afraid this wonderful country of ours to other European countries, we are significantly fatter than most others, apart from the Maltese for some reason. It is an issue.” “Everybody knows that this is a tough one, but I think it’s something we all need to address.” Johnson did some press ups to show he was “as fit as a butcher’s dog” in an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper, just months after he fought for his life in hospital against the coronavirus.

French court convicts former PM Fillon of embezzling public funds (Reuters) A French court on Monday found former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon guilty of embezzlement of public funds in a fake jobs scandal that wrecked his 2017 run for president and opened the Elysee Palace door for Emmanuel Macron. A French court on Monday found former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon guilty of embezzlement of public funds in a fake jobs scandal that wrecked his 2017 run for president and opened the Elysee Palace door for Emmanuel Macron.

Hard times even for homeless (Worldcrunch) Speaking to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, anthropologist Luisa Schneider described one homeless girl she’s followed. “Before the crisis, she was able to study and wash in cafes or libraries. Neither is possible now.” Schneider expects more Germans to sleep on the streets in the coming months. “Many networks have now collapsed. Even homeless people who used to support each other are now losing sight of each other.” In France, government authorities and NGOs were able to accommodate 177,600 people with shelter during the lockdown period, reports Le Monde. The government has invested more than 2 billion euros helping those without homes, including requisitioning 13,300 hotel rooms. Yet France’s emergency phone number for homeless assistance remains overwhelmed, with over 200 calls on average daily and many unable to secure a temporary housing situation. And as the country continues opening up, it is unclear how long the special accommodation period will last.

Polish election (NYT) Polish President Andrzej Duda failed to win enough of the vote in Sunday’s election to avoid a runoff, according to exit polls, forcing him into what is expected to be a tightly fought contest with the liberal mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski next month. Although Duda came out ahead on Sunday, analysts expect that to change in the runoff election in two weeks, as opposition voters whose support was split in the first round unite around Trzaskowski.

Russian state exit polls show 76% so far back reforms that could extend Putin rule (Reuters) Russian state opinion pollster VTsIOM said on Monday that its exit polls showed that 76% of Russians had so far voted to support reforms that could allow President Vladimir Putin to extend his rule until 2036. The nationwide vote on constitutional reforms began on June 25 and is being held over seven days as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic. If approved, the changes would allow Putin to run twice for president again after his current term expires in 2024.

Militants attack Karachi stock exchange, killing at least 3 (AP) Militants attacked the stock exchange in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Monday, killing at least three people—two guards and a policeman, according to police. Special police forces deployed to the scene of the attack and in a swift operation secured the building, killing all four gunmen. There were no reports of any wounded among the brokers and employees inside the exchange and a separatist militant group from a neighboring province later claimed responsibility for the attack.

China forces birth control on Uighurs to suppress population (AP) The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children. While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide.” The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. The population control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as a punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, the AP found, with the parents of three or more ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines. Police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.

Thailand opens its borders to some (Worldcrunch) Thailand will allow pubs and bars to reopen on Wednesday and plans to let in some foreign travelers after recording five weeks without any community transmission of the coronavirus, a government official said. Pubs, bars and karaoke venues will be able to operate until midnight as long as they follow safety guidelines such as ensuring two-meter spaces between tables. Foreigners with work permits, residency and families in Thailand will also be able to enter the country, but will be subject to a 14-day quarantine. Visitors seeking certain types of medical treatment such as some cosmetic surgery or fertility treatment could also be allowed into the country.

Balcony churches: Kenyans find new ways to worship in lockdown (The Guardian) The children hang over the balcony railings on Sunday morning. In the parking lot below, a four-person band test microphones and practise harmonies. A moment later, the group fills the Mirema apartment complex in Nairobi with music: “I’m happy today, so happy. In Jesus’s name, I’m happy.” The Rev Paul Machira, a tall, slender beanpole of a man with greying hair, leaps around energetically, encouraging the balcony worshippers to join in prayer. Sporting green overalls embroidered with his nickname, Uncle Paul, the 43-year-old has been traveling around apartment complexes across Nairobi, bringing his balcony services and Sunday school to families since the Covid-19 pandemic closed down places of worship in Kenya on 22 March. Pairing dance moves with their tunes, the band encourage children and their parents to spend the hour dancing and praying together. When Machira realises that a crowd has gathered on the balcony of the apartment building next door, he shifts to a “360 service” to include those neighbours. Machira’s services are by invitation only. He says that the group have had to skip services because some of the neighbours have objected to “noise-makers” in their complex. Machira’s group have been booked for as many as four services in one day before. This popularity means that they sometimes have to split into two, renting an additional van and musical equipment to cover more ground.

Franziska (Frannie) Monahan

1. Internship position: Story Lab Intern

2. Hometown/university: University of Oregon

3. Favorite DC spot: Probably any one of the various (FREE) museums around town. I've spent literal days walking around some of them and have still never able to see everything on exhibit. 

4. Favorite NPR show, blog or podcast: My favorite NPR podcast specifically is Rough Translation, which started out as a Story Lab project! Not NPR, but I'm also really loving Heavyweight from Gimlet.

5. No. 1 song you’re jamming to right now: Sun In An Empty Room by the Weakerthans

6. Coolest thing you’ve done while at NPR: I pitched and produced an episode of ATC's non-narrated series, Brave New Workers. I got to do basically every part of creating a final product from researching workforce trends to finding the perfect guest to mixing and scoring the piece. It was really awesome to get to take charge on a complicated project about a topic that's really important to me.

7. Top #NPRLife moment(s): In no particular order: Going on a road trip to Philadelphia to do field recording for another Brave New Worker's segment. Attending Interns-giving, for which I made an NPR-themed pie that is now more famous than I will ever be. Getting to listen to and give feedback on new podcast pilots during Story Lab meetings. Hanging out with tons of awesome, smart, talented, helpful, kind and wonderful people all the time who also love geeking out about podcasts and all things public radio.

8. If you could have @NPR tweet the entirety of one document/work, what would it be? Full transcript of Michael Scott's "Threat Level Midnight"

9. Who is your dream Tiny Desk artist? I'm a cellist, and because cellists seek each other out I know there is a fairly substantial army of lady cellists in the NPR building. So my dream Tiny Desk concert is our debut performance as the NPR Riot Grrrls Cello Orchestra. 

10. What’s next for you? Sticking around here for a little while!

11. Advice for future interns? Say yes to everything, even if it scares you or you don't think you're good enough. Because the truth is, you are good enough and that's why you're here. And if you don't know how to do something, ask. Or if you do something wrong, whatever. Learn from it. People at NPR from your fellow interns to your supervisors want you to succeed and do your best. Take advantage of that. Because this really is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Next Year Innovative developments by Apple

Apple is without a doubt the most innovative company in the world at the present time. It is the business to which nearly others look for direction. Every time Apple reveals a forward thinking new design language or launches a new product, it creates ripples through the entire marketplace. Eventually, the whole industry is crafting products in Apple’s look and feel. However to say Apple is merely a trend-setter understates the business’s position seeing that probably the figurehead of invention in customer technology. Apple isn’t simply setting technology tendencies; Apple’s vision models precedents and starts motions that allow the tendencies to exist in the first place. As great as it must feel to be Apple in this situation - and as humbling since it must experience to be any of the many companies copying Apple at every switch - it’s not all sunlight and rainbows. You can claw your way to the top of a mountain, but there’s very little stable surface up there. One wrong step as well as your toppling back down the mountain, undoing years of the effort needed to get up there. I actually do not want to price cut Apple’s successes in 2018: Apple Pencil program for ipad device was a wanted addition; iOS 12 has provided new life to iPhones as previous as the 5S; Apple Watch Series 4 is literally saving lives; and that’s simply a few highlights. Searching back again, though, 2018 was a pretty tough year for Apple as certain missteps ended up impacting the company’s important thing. Within Apple’s most questionable techniques in 2018, there’s one I wanted to emphasize for an important reason: Without second-generation iPhone SE around the corner, it appears Apple has exited the spending budget flagship market. In reality, I will take it one step further: I am sure Apple won’t be launching any longer budget iPhones, and here is why. Apple’s product collection is certainly varied. The company generates revenue from services like iTunes and Apple Music to add-ons like AirPods and the Magic Key pad, from home entertainment devices like Apple Television 4K to personal computing gadgets just like the MacBook Pro. However sales for most of these aren’t that amazing (though Apple’s income most certainly are). It is essentially the iPhone that makes up about the majority of Apple’s revenue. Since its debut in 2007, iPhone has pushed Apple’s revenue to such incredible heights that the company has become the first trillion-dollar firm ever sold. With so much of Apple’s income riding on the game-changing gadget, you can wager there would be a significant drop in Apple’s revenue if people starting buying less iPhones. And that’s specifically what we are experiencing. Following a modest 4th quarter, revenue for Q12019 - which, to be clear, is comprised of October, November, and December, encompassing the holiday shopping season - was much lower than Apple originally expected. With the price of brand-new iPhones rising, revenue would’ve increased actually if unit sales experienced only remained constant, but there have been fewer iPhone units sold through the period. The implication is that demand has waned, or it’s possible there wasn’t very much demand for Apple’s expensive new iPhones in the first place. The first indicator of challenges was in 2017, the year iPhone X was released. At a starting cost 50 percent higher than the prior year’s baseline model, iPhone X unit product sales were reportedly toned although Apple’s revenue improved. How? Because even though Apple sold approximately the same quantity of products as the entire year before, the average cost of an iPhone had improved. When you sell the same number of products but mark up the price, you still see a bump in sales revenue.

Of course, it’s not merely the iPhone that is gotten more costly. Apple has raised selling prices across almost all of the organization’s portfolio. But with the iPhone driving revenue, the implication is this: In the event iPhone product sales continue being smooth or begin to fall, Apple will have to keep raising the price of the iPhone every year to maintain year-over-year revenue gains. As possible plainly see, it’s not really a coincidence Apple has made a decision to stop reporting iPhone unit sales publicly. Even if 2017 was an outlier, the start of new iPhones in the fall is supposed to give Apple a shot of income adrenaline in the final stretch out, allowing for a solid finish as the business crosses the monetary finish line. But also for the second 12 months in a row, that did not come up. Doesn’t it appear possible, if improbable, that increasing the prices for new iPhones has led to lower demand? In regards to a week ago, Apple CEO sent a document to shareholders. You can read the letter for yourself on Apple’s webpage, but it warns traders that Apple’s 1Q2019 revenue will be $9 billion less than was originally projected. The letter largely blames China’s overall economy for almost all the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline while also suggesting that buyers are still adapting to the extinction of carrier subsidies. In a recent interview Cook reiterated most of the same reasons to clarify lower-than-anticipated iPhone profits. Beyond slowed development in developing markets and the lack of subsidized pricing through service providers, Cook mentioned to iOS 12 and the $29 battery substitution program seeing that having encouraged users to keep their outdated iPhones rather than buying new ones. As you might recall, Apple began the battery alternative program in late 2017 in hope of hiding the smell of the battery hot debate, which had earned allegations of designed obsolescence. As indicated by Cook, many with old iPhones decided not to upgrade because they could get brand-new batteries for cheap. This would take away the functionality caps that Apple got imposed on them, fixing their iPhones to their former glory, especially when paired with iOS 12. In fact, Apple went to lengths to ensure that iOS 12 would make older iPhones faster, so Cook is most likely right in thinking the battery replacement program and iOS 12 factored into the weaker sales of 2018 iPhones. Nevertheless, Cook declared that complicated trade relationships between the US and China was eventually the largest factor. China represents a huge amount of untapped sales potential for Apple, so there’s probably some truth to that, too. You can observe the full interview in the video below if you would like to hear more of what Make has to say about it. Meanwhile, critics and analysts possess suggested poor iPhone sales certainly are a sign of market saturation; at this time, most people who would like an iPhone already have one, and that’s a hard hurdle to overcome, specifically with buyers modernizing much less frequently. It is also surprisingly possible that Apple valued the 2018 iPhones out from the developing markets the business claims to be targeting. After all, if you live in China and want to buy a new cell phone, will you buy an iPhone XS for $1,000 (¥6800) or more, or will you get the latest Vivo or Xiaomi Android mobile phone that’s manufactured locally and may do in essence whatever iPhone XS can do at a fraction of the price? And in addition, Cook mainly sidestepped the topic of ballooning iPhone prices - a condition that we have watched across most of Apple’s products for that matter - which has been one of the primary criticisms of brand-new iPhones. New Price Hikes Price boosts for the iPhone used to be pretty rare. Actually, after carriers stopped offering subsidized prices on cell phones, forcing us to start paying complete MSRP if we wanted to buy fresh iPhones, we're able to at least depend on a consistent starting price from year to year. That starting price used to be $649. With the discharge of iPhone 8 in 2017, it increased to $699, a frustrating increase, but it wasn’t too alarming. It had been only a $50 boost after generations of a consistent price, so many people gave Apple a pass. And also, also at the bigger price, iPhone 8 seemed really cheap compared to the $999 price tag on the brand new iPhone X. Yet apparently, the price increase for iPhone 7 place a precedent because in 2018, the purchase price jumped yet again. Matching the boost from iPhone 7 to iPhone 8, the 2018 iPhone collection started out at $749 for iPhone XR. You would argue that iPhone XR is a better device than iPhone 7 and justifies the excess $100, but value is subjective. Although some might say iPhone XR is worth its $749 beginning price, especially in comparison to Apple’s more premium models, many customers will fixate about how each new era of iPhone is more costly than the one before. And at this time, can you blame them? To make matters even more serious, as iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR were being unveiled on stage during Apple’s fall 2018 event, iPhone SE had been discontinued. So not merely are iPhones getting increasingly more expensive, but Apple has eliminated the only spending budget option we had. So if you’re seeking to get a new iPhone in 2019, there’s not much choice anymore. Buyers are mainly having to simply accept Apple’s higher starting price in the absence of a genuine budget iPhone. Naturally, customers and critics as well are getting more vocal within their demands an iPhone SE successor. Incredible Unpredicted Benefits Apple unveiled the iPhone SE , which stands for Particular Edition, in March 2016 at a special spring event. Both for consumers and the industry most importantly, iPhone SE was an extremely un-Apple device for Apple to release. The iPhone 6 had just jumped in proportions and received a completely new design from the prior generation. Then iPhone SE was released, featuring a smaller, compact form with its design practically indistinguishable from the previous-generation iPhone 5. A lot more surprising was the fact that iPhone SE particularly featured the majority of Apple’s up-to-date, flagship-level technologies regardless of the reduced starting price; for just $399, you have the same custom made A9 processor as iPhone 6S in addition to a 12 MP surveillance camera with 4K video recording and a bigger electric battery. Actually, the only significant short-cuts were having less 3D Touch and the use of first-generation TouchID instead of the faster second generation. But, once again, taking into consideration its low starting price (which eventually settled to $349), the iPhone SE offered uncharacteristically great value for something made by Apple. The problem was that iPhone SE did not become a top-selling iPhone. Throughout its life-span, its defining characteristic was that it provided an affordable point of access to the iOS ecosystem though it eventually gained relatively of a cult following among specific Apple fans. Obviously, after iPhone SE had been the baseline of the iPhone lineup for a couple of years, customers were prepared for the required refresh. Although iPhone SE offered an excellent cost-to-performance relation in 2016, a refresh would bridge the functionality gap that grew as iPhone SE’s A9 processor was followed and changed, first by the A10 Fusion chip in iPhone 7, then again by the A11 Bionic in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X . Patiently Looking forward to Apple's New Product launches Sure enough, we heard that Apple was working on a fresh version of the budget iPhone. Details varied, however the iPhone SE successor - alleged to be called either iPhone SE 2 or iPhone X SE (with suffix and modifiers meticulously arranged)- seemed to have the same purpose as the initial, which was to be a compact, low-cost iPhone offering great efficiency and most of the latest features. Much of the disagreement encircling the naming method for the iPhone SE 2 was because of unclear stories as to whether the gadget would retain its iPhone 5-era style or whether it could embrace the new iPhone X aesthetic. Some customers insisted (or possibly hoped?) iPhone SE 2 would look like an iPhone X from the front with a nearly bezel-less, edge-to-edge display. These stories were mainly informed by supposed styles for display screen protectors and situations; if reputable, the implication was that iPhone SE 2 could have a bezel-much less, notched display related to iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Of training course, the notch would become one of the defining features for 2018 mobile phones overall as its was imitated by almost every smartphone manufacturer following the iPhone X debuted in late 2017; however, for Apple’s purposes, the notch only exists to accommodate biometric sensors for Apple’s proprietary FaceID. Therefore the implication was that iPhone SE 2 would feature FaceID although the high price of FaceID components managed to get an unlikely inclusion in any budget iPhone. Following these reviews, renders were made to show how the device might appear if it ended up being real. Assuming the case styles and resulting renders had been accurate, iPhone SE 2 would’ve been a really fascinating gadget, the lovechild of the bygone iPhone 5 and the more futuristic iPhone X. Provided Apple can keep production costs and, by expansion, the MSRP down, iPhone SE 2 could’ve easily outsold the original iPhone SE, possibly becoming a top seller just like the original iPhone SE never could. These weren’t just the pipe dreams of iPhone SE followers and anyone who wanted cheaper iPhones; reports from Apple’s very own suppliers all but verified programs for iPhone SE 2, offering estimates for possible production schedules and ship dates. In early August 2017, Wistron Corp. - a low-volume manufacturer based in Taiwan that Apple recruits when iPhone demand is high - was focusing on expanding its creation base to accommodate a fresh compact Apple smartphone, which many presumed to be an updated iPhone SE. After that came a tentative ship day: In late November 2017, Economic Daily News in Taiwan reported Apple had been eyeing a release time in the first half of 2018 for the iPhone SE 2, which would’ve been consistent with the spring release of the original iPhone SE. January 2018 brought another report of iPhone SE 2 launching in 2018. Shortly thereafter, there is a rumor iPhone SE 2 would include a glass back panel, suggesting the addition of the wireless charging features that the iPhone has had since 2017. Just simply because rumors pointed to Apple gearing up for the release of a next-generation iPhone SE, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities who is known for predicting Apple’s products with uncanny accuracy, planted among the first seeds of doubt. In late January 2018, Kuo reported iPhone SE 2 had hardly any chance of being released because Apple had exhausted its resources on the three flagship models to be released in 2018. Of program, those three models ended up being iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. However, rumors persisted - though at a slower pace - in spite of Kuo’s question. For instance, there have been specifications and other information on the iPhone SE 2 reported in April 2018. Regarding to these leaks, Apple designed to keep production costs (and, by expansion, the eventual retail cost) down by omitting the 3.5mm headphone jack and using iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip rather than the A11 Bionic chip used in iPhone 8 and iPhone X. For all intents and reasons, the axe was decisively dropped in July 2018 as BlueFin Research told MacRumors that Apple had nixed all plans to proceed with iPhone SE 2. We’ll probably never find out for sure whether iPhone SE 2 was ever in fact in the pipeline; however, actually if it was planned initially, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get an iPhone SE 2 at all. It’s been four a few months since the release of the 2018 iPhones, a meeting that coincided with iPhone SE being taken off Apple’s lineup, which, in and of itself, allegedly happened because Apple retired its A9 processor. So apart from Apple quickly unloading the last iPhone SE models at a discounted $249 price, which took just a day, iPhone SE is fully gone from Apple’s catalog, and anyone waiting for a next-generation iPhone SE has little cause for hope. In the event that you ask me, the composing is on the wall: Apple won’t be making another budget iPhone. FORGET ABOUT Budget iPhone? Spending budget smartphones, or smartphones that cost roughly $300 or less, are pretty common currently. In some cases, these budget devices offer great bang for your buck. Some of the more recent notable for example the Moto G6 for $240, LG Stylo 4 for $250, Huawei Mate 20 Lite for $290, and, of course, the impressive Pocophone F1 for $299. If you have a tad more to spend, you can look for a used or refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8 for just barely over $300. Or you can get the new Nokia 7.1, an Android One gadget with the design and nearly all of the features that top-shelf Android flagships possess for the discount price of $350. I’m not sure where the phrase originated, but I totally agree: “Good cell phones are receiving cheap, and cheap cell phones are getting good.” Of course, you might’ve pointed out that the smartphones mentioned above are Android smartphones. How about iPhones? When carriers did away with subsidizing smartphones, we had to begin paying full retail price for new smartphones. Therefore Apple’s decision to create the iPhone SE was very timely: Instead of paying $649 or even more, you could purchase an iPhone for under $400 without making a ton of compromises. Suddenly, people who preferred iOS to Android had their own Pocophone. From September 2016 to its discontinuation in September 2018, iPhone SE was never a top-selling iPhones. Also at its peak, iPhone SE hardly ever accounted for more than 11 percent of iPhone sales as the third-best-selling iPhone, and just by a slim margin. Meanwhile, both iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus almost tripled the product sales of iPhone SE during that period, accounting for 28.5 percent and 29.5 percent of iPhone sales, respectively. After September 2017, iPhone SE sales dropped substantially, remaining somewhere between 5.5 percent and 8 percent until the device was taken in fall 2018. Suppose you’re Tim Cook looking at these quantities. Everybody has been requesting a second-generation budget iPhone, but sales numbers present that when a lower-cost option is available, the majority of customers keep purchasing the more costly iPhones. If customers are willing to pay even more for high-end iPhones, does it make sense to produce a cheaper device that, at best, no more than one in ten consumers will be interested in buying? With some context, positioning the iPhone more as a luxury item starts to make sense. Like voting on a ballot, Apple’s customers have been casting their votes on higher-end iPhones, therefore we can’t really blame Apple for moving away from budget smartphones that do not sell well. If you’re miffed about the loss of life of iPhone SE 2, there are, actually, cheaper iPhones available for individuals on a budget. But you’re not likely to observe them in shops. Current Market Conditions Apple gave clients the lower-cost iPhone they’d always been asking for, but most of them decided not to buy it. Therefore if you’re Apple, do you produce a second generation knowing the first era didn’t sell well, or do you ditch the budget-iPhone idea altogether? It seems Apple chose the latter. However, it doesn’t eliminate from the fact that spending budget iPhones are already available, not to mention plentiful. Specifically, I’m discussing used iPhones on the market. The gray market refers to the buying and selling of used iPhones on the secondhand marketplace. It’s comprised of the many people selling their used devices after upgrading, which essentially produces an unofficial market of budget iPhones. Therefore all those listings for iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 on eBay, the Amazon Marketplace, solutions like Swappa, and yard-sale applications like LetGo will be the gray market for iPhones. Apple doesn’t need to spend money on R&D, sourcing parts, manufacturing, and distribution for a budget iPhone because we curently have access to all of the discounted iPhones we're able to ever need in the secondhand marketplace. And each year when new iPhones are released, millions even more iPhones will revitalize the secondhand market as users who update to new iPhones sell their aged ones. Plus, any post-2016 iPhone models in the gray market could have better specs than iPhone SE, and some of these used iPhones would be cheaper than investing in a new iPhone SE from Apple for $349. Quite simply, Apple doesn’t have to sell a budget iPhone because the current-generation iPhones purchased at complete retail cost today become budget iPhones as consumers utilize them and eventually sell them to on the gray marketplace if they upgrade. And more devices are listed on the gray marketplace every day, so as long as Apple is selling smartphones, the gray marketplace is a renewable resource for budget iPhones. Of training course, the gray market isn’t the only method to get an iPhone on the inexpensive. Depending about how you look at it, Apple actually offers new spending budget iPhone options each year. With the official unveiling of new iPhones every year, the MSRP of every preceding generation still in production is decreased. For instance, when iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X were announced in the fall of 2017, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus became previous-generation gadgets, which warranted cost cuts. The iPhone SE was still in production when iPhone 7 got its price cut, if you wanted a fresh iPhone but didn’t want to invest $699 or even more for iPhone 8 or iPhone X, you could choose iPhone SE from $349, iPhone 6S from $449, or iPhone 7 from $549. Though $349 isn’t exactly chump switch, it’s certainly more palatable than iPhone X’s thousand-dollar starting cost. With iPhone SE discontinued, the least expensive iPhone available is iPhone 7 for $449, meaning the cheapest iPhone on the market is $100 more than last year. To be fair, iPhone 7 was an excellent device at release, and it’s still a compelling option today, specifically for the cost. Though it was divisive as Apple’s first iPhone without the apparently requisite 3.5mm headphone jack, iPhone 7 is otherwise a full-presented flagship. But if you’re searching for a new iPhone on a budget, which would you rather buy: a 2016 iPhone for $449 or an iPhone SE 2 with the most recent A12 Bionic processor chip for $100 less? Regarding iPhone SE 2 not materializing, maybe understanding what could’ve been is what makes this so disappointing for some. Even though the info suggests a limited audience for spending budget iPhones, there will always be situations where a low-cost iPhone with current-generation efficiency hits the sweet spot. Where Should Apple Go From Here? It’s a great time to be a lover of tech, particularly mobile tech as spending budget and mid-range flagships are slaying in the Android smartphone marketplace. Though priced higher than a $349 iPhone, the OnePlus 6T can be a prime example of how exactly to offer flagship-level specs, design, and performance at a reduced cost. For better or worse, Apple appears to have evacuated the spending budget smartphone sector after just one attempt. Granted, Apple hasn't actually catered to budget-minded customers with almost all the company’s equipment starting at $1,000 or even more and a shrinking amount of gadgets, like iPods and iPads, priced lower than that. That is why it was so unusual for Apple to produce a budget iPhone to begin with. The problem is that it seems Apple is now trying to close a door that probably the business never should’ve opened in the first place. After all, when you’re offering this inexpensive iPhone on the lineup, all of the flagship iPhones seem that much more expensive by comparison. Whether there’s a new iPhone SE later on, the prices attached to Apple’s items are climbing. In many markets, Apple is coming dangerously close to pricing the iPhone along with most of Apple’s other items out of reach. For customers who can’t (or don’t want to) pay such exorbitant prices, the actual fact that Apple offered inexpensive options previously but no longer offers those options today will certainly leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, almost like biting into a rotten apple. Honestly, I am hoping I’m wrong about this, but if Apple really wants to curb the decline in iPhone demand and for sales to resume an upward trajectory, one of two things will need to happen, and sooner rather than later. Apple needs to either lower the margins on iPhones to make them less expensive (or even just less expensive), or there must be a new budget option so customers at least have the illusion of preference. Because as the numbers have shown, most buyers choose the premium iPhones in any case, but if Apple puts a budget model on the table, at least they won’t feel just like they’re having to pay out the ever-growing Apple tax. Apple’s current pricing framework gives consumers only high- and higher-priced models to pick from. But it seems buyers are needs to recognize there’s still an added option, which is definitely to save themselves the difficulty, and possibly some buyer’s remorse, by not buying new iPhones at all.