"You are all invited to join an Artist vs. AI competition-!" I would rather shit in my hands and clap ❤️

Decoding Whiteshirts: Unraveling Their Global Cultural Significance

Introduction

To sum up, the way of presence is a mosaic of occasions, challenges, and victories that characterize our personalities and perspectives. Every part of our reality bears to the narrative of what our identity is and is a standupinfo for us. The illustrations we see from these activities act as directing thoughts for our future endeavors, affecting our inclinations and ways of behaving. While certain discoveries are outright and unambiguous, others are refined and leaned to change as we query and mature. It is basic to strategy ends with a receptive outlook, perceiving the intricacies of human life and the steadily evolving nature of conditions. Moreover, ends should be seen as achievements in our ceaseless mission for information, knowledge, and fulfillment. They give prospects to thought, reflection, and the refining of our perspectives and standards. In this view, the procedure of achieving ends is really pretty much as quintessential as the actual discoveries, featuring the cost of imperative reasoning, sympathy, and interest. At long last, ends address the amount of our encounters, proceeding as scaffolds between the past, present, and future as we arrange the mind boggling fabric of presence with tirelessness, reason, and information.

History of Whiteshirts

Origins and Evolution

The beginning stages of the whiteshirt date back many years, following its establishments to old-fashioned developments where fundamental material pieces of clothing were worn for sound judgment and comfort. After some time, whiteshirts created in style and material, becoming indivisible from clean and refinement.

Whiteshirts in Different Cultures

1. Whiteshirts in Western Fashion

In Western countries, the white shirt has arise as inseparable from refinement and impressive ability, and is frequently related with formal outfit and business venture circumstances. Its impeccable, shimmering appear to be radiates self conviction and immortal energy.

2. Whiteshirts in Eastern Fashion

In Western countries, the white shirt has arise as inseparable from refinement and impressive ability, and is frequently related with formal outfit and business venture circumstances. Its impeccable, shimmering appear to be radiates self conviction and immortal energy.

3. Historical Context and Symbolism

From the beginning of time, whiteshirts have been instilled with imagery, addressing immaculateness, status, and social legacy. From non common functions to get-togethers, the whiteshirt's significance rises above simple pattern patterns.

Whiteshirts in Modern Fashion

Contemporary Trends

From the beginning of time, whiteshirts have been instilled with imagery, addressing immaculateness, status, and social legacy. From non common functions to get-togethers, the whiteshirt's significance rises above simple pattern patterns

Whiteshirts in Pop Culture

From the beginning of time, whiteshirts have been instilled with imagery, addressing immaculateness, status, and social legacy. From non common functions to get-togethers, the whiteshirt's significance rises above simple pattern patterns

Influence on Global Fashion Industry

The impact of whiteshirts reaches out past individual style decisions. They act as primary pieces in design assortments around the world, displaying their getting through allure and flexibility across different social scenes.

Cultural Significance of Whiteshirts

Symbols of Status

In numerous social orders, whiteshirts represent wealth and social standing. Their relationship with formal events and expert clothing highlights their job as markers of accomplishment and decency.

Work Environments

Inside workplaces, whiteshirts project amazing skill and unwavering quality. They are in many cases leaned toward clothing for conferences, interviews, and corporate occasions, epitomizing a feeling of discipline and meticulousness.

Formal and Casual Settings

Concentrates on show that dress decisions, including whiteshirts, can impact how people see and are seen by others. A well-fitted whiteshirt can convey authority, capability, and dependability.

Psychological Impact of Whiteshirts

Perception and Impression

Concentrates on show that dress decisions, including whiteshirts, can impact how people see and are seen by others. A well-fitted whiteshirt can convey authority, capability, and dependability.

Personal Identity

For some, the whiteshirt holds individual importance, mirroring their style inclinations, social foundation, and values. It fills in as a material for self-articulation, permitting people to extend their personality through dress.

Societal Perceptions and Stereotypes

Whiteshirts, similar to any clothing, can be dependent upon cultural generalizations. While they radiate impressive skill for some, others might connect them with inflexibility or similarity. Understanding these insights adds profundity to their social importance.

Global Perspectives on Whiteshirts

Regional Variances in Whiteshirt Styles

Across the globe, whiteshirts take on different styles impacted by provincial style and social standards. From fitted European slices to baggy Asian plans, every variety adds to the lavishness of whiteshirt style.

Whiteshirts as Fashion Statements

Style aficionados overall use whiteshirts as design explanations, layering them with frill or matching them with striking pieces to make remarkable looks. Their versatility makes them a material for individual inventiveness.

Impact on Global Fashion Trends

The getting through fame of whiteshirts influences more extensive style, affecting everything from runway assortments to road style. Their immortal allure guarantees they stay a staple in design discussions universally.

Conclusion

To sum up, obviously the way of presence is a mosaic of occasions, challenges, and victories that characterize our personalities and perspectives. Every part in our reality bears to the narrative of what our identity is and a big motivator for we. The illustrations we see from these activities act as directing thoughts for our future endeavors, affecting our inclinations and ways of behaving. While certain discoveries are outright and unambiguous, others are refined and leaned to change as we query and mature. It is basic to strategy ends with a receptive outlook, perceiving the intricacies of human life and the steadily changing nature of conditions. Moreover, ends should be seen as achievements in our ceaseless mission for information, knowledge, and fulfillment. They give prospects to thought, reflection, and the refining of our perspectives and standards. In this view, the procedure of achieving ends is really pretty much as quintessential as the actual discoveries, featuring the cost of imperative reasoning, sympathy, and interest. At long last, ends address the amount of our encounters, proceeding as scaffolds between the past, present, and future as we arrange the mind boggling fabric of presence with tirelessness, reason, and information.

Mastering Social Media Marketing: Tips from Industry Experts

Introduction:

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses to connect with their audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales. However, with the proliferation of platforms and the constant evolution of algorithms, mastering social media marketing requires more than just posting content regularly. To shed light on the best practices and strategies in this dynamic field, we've gathered insights from industry experts who have demonstrated mastery in leveraging social media for business success.

1. Focus on Quality Over Quantity:

According to John Smith, a renowned digital marketing strategist, one of the biggest mistakes businesses make on social media is prioritizing quantity over quality. "It's not about how often you post, but rather the value you provide with each post," says Smith. Instead of bombarding your audience with content, focus on creating high-quality, engaging posts that resonate with your target audience.

2. Build Genuine Connections:

For Sarah Johnson, a social media influencer with a significant following, authenticity is the key to success on social media. "People can spot inauthenticity from a mile away," says Johnson. "Focus on building genuine connections with your audience by being transparent, relatable, and responsive." Engage with your followers, respond to comments and messages, and show them that you genuinely care about their needs and interests.

3. Stay Consistent Across Platforms:

Consistency is crucial for maintaining a strong presence on social media, says Emily Davis, a branding expert. "Make sure your branding is consistent across all platforms, from your profile picture and cover photo to your tone of voice and messaging," advises Davis. Consistency helps reinforce your brand identity and makes it easier for your audience to recognize and engage with your content.

4. Embrace Video Content:

Video content continues to dominate social media platforms, and businesses that embrace this trend are reaping the rewards. "Video allows you to convey your message in a more engaging and memorable way," says Mark Thompson, a video marketing specialist. Whether it's short-form videos for Instagram Stories or long-form content for YouTube, incorporating video into your social media strategy can help you stand out and capture your audience's attention.

5. Listen to Your Audience:

According to Maria Garcia, a social media analyst, listening to your audience is just as important as talking to them. "Pay attention to what your audience is saying about your brand, your competitors, and your industry," says Garcia. "Use social listening tools to monitor conversations, identify trends, and gather valuable insights that can inform your content strategy and business decisions."

6. Experiment with Advertising:

While organic reach on social media is declining, paid advertising presents a valuable opportunity to amplify your message and reach a larger audience. "Experiment with different advertising formats, targeting options, and ad creative to see what resonates best with your audience," advises David Miller, a paid media specialist. "Start with a small budget, test and optimize your campaigns, and scale up your efforts as you see results."

7. Keep Up with Trends:

Social media is constantly evolving, with new features, trends, and algorithms emerging all the time. "Stay informed about the latest trends and developments in the world of social media," says Jessica Lee, a social media consultant. "Attend industry conferences, follow thought leaders, and subscribe to relevant newsletters to stay ahead of the curve and adapt your strategy accordingly."

Conclusion:

Mastering social media marketing requires a combination of strategic thinking, creativity, and adaptability. By incorporating insights from industry experts, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of the best practices and strategies for success in this dynamic field. From focusing on quality over quantity to embracing video content and staying consistent across platforms, these tips offer valuable guidance for businesses looking to elevate their social media presence and achieve their marketing objectives.

Avail Top-Notch Web3 Development services

Every new innovation is subjected to criticism and unwanted activities but do all of us neglect it? No, we plan for the solution and that has created the path for this modern society. The same way has been followed for decades which has brought one of the finest solutions to the internet world with better security and privacy that’s “WEB 3”. The world is filled up with genius from various industries which is the key for the tech world in bringing up a number of solutions to various problems. Let’s get an overview on Web3,

Evolution from Web1.0 to Web3.0

Web1.0 era was roughly around between the late 90s to early 2000s, when the web was just holding a few pieces of content with a static page. Overall it was just a content-delivering network that was delivering users a piece of information. Also, these data were stored directly in the website files instead of another separate database. This trend starts with its new version of web2.0 in 1999 but only after the 2004s O’Reilly Media Web2.0 conference, the term gets popularized among users around the world even though it was coined by Darcy DiNucci in 1999. Web2.0 was targeting user-generated content also works on improved interoperability and starts incorporating APIs for a better user experience. And one thing that changes the internet world is social networking where web2.0 paved the way for it.  Now after further improvements on the web the term web3.0 was coined and also named as third generation internet.

Some Web3.0 Trends

The world is experiencing the launch of many web3 platforms and many of them are making their steps on the success path. Even many operating systems are developed over the decentralized network, let's see some trending web3 applications

Brave - a decentralized browser

IPFS - a decentralized storage

Steemit - social network operated by users

Status - secured messaging app

Audius - your web3 Spotify

And it goes on, every platform in web2 has its same updated version as web3 and this will dominate over the web2 applications in the coming years.

What's the benefit of Web3 in Web Development?

Web3 brings in the most awaited benefits from the user's point of view, a web3 platform benefits the global users with personalized user experience, improved security, improved privacy, interoperability, scalability, and more features. Web3 involves most of the platforms to function and upgrade its services under its community guidelines. These platforms bring a few trusted and longtime users as a community member who follows the guidelines of the platform and every update depends on the final decision of this community this applies only with the decentralized application, and most of the web3 platforms are decentralized that provides various solutions.

Web3 Development Company

The digital space is seeking blockchain developers where they will be made to work on various web3 products. If you are on the way looking on to launch a web3 product you may get in touch with the blockchain-certified experts of Maticz. Maticz, the pioneer in providing various Web3 development services to the clients all over the globe for years. With well-experienced, they have developed and launched 150+ web3 products successfully in the digital space. As a web 3.0 development agency their professionals give their best to the improvement of the web3 community in various industries around the globe.

Summing Up

Web3 - Is this a real digital revolution? Further developments and innovations have to say it but my thoughts on this with the present situations and innovations show the path for a revolution in the digital world. Because this is something new to the users and has attracted the young generation so it could bring some unpredictable changes to the digital world as well as the physical world. The development of web3 solutions will be a game changer in the digital world which will bring the whole global population to the web3 world. Connect with a web3 Development company to bring up your ideas to digital reality.

Nvidia earnings take a hit as game graphics sales weaken

Fascinated in understanding what is actually following for the gaming business? Be part of gaming executives to discuss emerging components of the business this Oct at GamesBeat Summit Subsequent.  Sign up now . 

   Nvidia noted earnings for the second fiscal quarter finished July 31 amid a slowdown in Personal computer and gaming sales. The economical results for revenues met diminished anticipations which were established right after Nvidia warned that its quarterly success would be weaker than envisioned. 

 The company’s organization in recreation graphics and AI chips saw massive advancement in 2020 and 2021 all through the pandemic, but now issues are slowing down in gaming. In immediately after-several hours investing, Nvidia’s inventory is down 3% to $167.58 a share.

 Revenues came in at $6.7 billion, up 3% from a 12 months back and down 19% from the previous quarter. Analysts expected earnings of $6.7 billion vs . $6.5 billion last calendar year. Earnings for each share came in at 26 cents on a GAAP foundation, when compared to expectations of 35 cents a share.

 For the datacenter, analysts envisioned $3.8 billion vs . $24 billion very last calendar year. And for gaming they envisioned $2. billion compared to $3.1 billion previous 12 months.

 Nvidia launched its preliminary earnings on August 8, when it warned traders that the company was going to miss on its individual anticipations for the quarter as gaming revenue weakened. Nvidia noticed softness due to the war in Ukraine and a slowdown in China, with macroeconomic slowdowns about the world influencing shopper demand in a destructive way. The company stated it is unable to ascertain what effects slipping demand for crypto mining had on the lessen revenues. 

 GAAP earnings for every diluted share for the quarter were 26 cents down 72% from a yr in the past and down 59% from the prior quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share had been 51 cents, down 51% from a yr back and down 63% from the prior quarter.

 “We are navigating our source chain transitions in a tough macro natural environment and we will get via this,” explained Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, in a statement. “Accelerated computing and AI, the groundbreaking function of our firm, are reworking industries. Automotive is becoming a tech market and is on keep track of to be our next billion-greenback enterprise. Advances in AI are driving our datacenter business when accelerating breakthroughs in fields from drug discovery to local weather science to robotics.”

 He extra, “I glimpse forward to next month’s GTC conference, exactly where we will share new advances in RTX, as effectively as breakthroughs in AI and the metaverse, the next evolution of the net. Join us.”

 In the course of the next quarter of fiscal 2023, NVIDIA returned to shareholders $3.44 billion in share repurchases and income dividends, next a return of $2.10 billion in the initial quarter. The enterprise has $11.93 billion remaining beneath its share repurchase authorization by means of December 2023. Nvidia designs to carry on share repurchases this fiscal 12 months.

 Nvidia said it expects revenue for the third fiscal quarter, which finishes on October 31, to be $5.9 billion. Gaming and professional visualization earnings are predicted to drop sequentially, as laptop or computer makers and channel partners lower stock ranges to satisfy present degrees of demand and to prepare for Nvidia’s up coming technology of chips. The company expects that drop to be partly offset by sequential progress in datacenter and automotive.

 GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are anticipated to be 62.4% and 65.%, respectively, moreover or minus 50 foundation factors. 

 Datacenter revenue  Second-quarter revenue was $3.81 billion, up 61% from a year ago and up 1% from the earlier quarter. Nvidia stated Grace superchips are getting utilized to make HGX systems by some of the world’s top personal computer makers — which include Atos, Dell Systems, Gigabyte, HPE, Inspur, Lenovo and Supermicro.

 Gaming and visualization  2nd-quarter revenue was $2.04 billion, down 33% from a year in the past and down 44% from the past quarter. Experienced visualization next-quarter income was $496 million, down 4% from a year ago and down 20% from the earlier quarter.

 Introduced a significant launch of Omniverse with new frameworks, instruments, apps and plugins, including 11 new connectors to the Omniverse USD ecosystem that deliver the full to 112. It also cofounded the Metaverse Requirements Forum to align with other members on the greatest means to make the foundations of the metaverse.

 Automotive  Second-quarter revenue was $220 million, up 45% from a calendar year ago and up 59% from the earlier quarter.

   GamesBeat’s creed  when masking the sport marketplace is “the place enthusiasm meets company.” What does this suggest? We want to explain to you how the information matters to you — not just as a decision-maker at a activity studio, but also as a supporter of online games. Irrespective of whether you examine our content, pay attention to our podcasts, or enjoy our movies, GamesBeat will assist you study about the marketplace and appreciate engaging with it.  Find out far more about membership.

https://socialwicked.com/nvidia-earnings-take-a-hit-as-game-graphics-sales-weaken/

Upgrading the Airport Experience for Travelers – Airport Experience Conference

Tutorials & tips about Content and Video Marketing.

Via Shafer Ross, Airport Experience News

Brian Solis keynoted the Airport Experience Conference in Orlando, Florida. Following is a summary of his presentation, “Digital Disruption And The Post-Pandemic Consumer.” Following his presentation, Brian also signed copies of his best-selling book, “X: The Experience When Business Meets Design.”

AXC Keynote Solis Suggests Brands Redesign the Airport Experience

Special Coverage: 2022 AX Conference

Brian Solis is a digital analyst and anthropologist and Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce who took the stage at the 2022 Airport Experience Conference as the Keynote Speaker to discuss the tech evolution of the world post-COVID and what customers want.

“I spend a lot of time looking at every industry and predicting how it will change,” said Solis. He described the process of creating something new and the two conditions under which that process can happen. “There are two moments of true innovation: the aha moment, where I have an idea and I’m excited to make it happen; then there’s the uh-oh moment – a global pandemic, a change in customers, our competitors are out-innovating us.” The latter situation isn’t ideal, he said, but the writing on the wall has been there for a while.

“The last two years have been dramatic,” he said. “But they’ve only accelerated what’s happened in the last twenty.”

In the airport specifically, he said, he feels there is so much room for true innovation because “in travel, rarely was the airport part of the experience.” Now, of course, gone are the days of a single fast-food restaurant and convenience store being the only options when moving through an airport. Still, Solis said, “there are a lot of things that get in the way of being creative.”

Too often, “We are business first, we are financial first, we are stakeholder and shareholder first; and every day that consumer is evolving. At some point, the consumer says, ‘I have choices and I’m going to exercise those choices.’” There’s a chasm, he said, between the business and the customer.

“Dedicating time and money to keeping up with change narrows the gap between business and consumer,” he said. “We have to find the opportunity to invest in new experiences when we know we’re going to get a return on those experiences.”

The global airport community, said Solis, has developed some new ways to stay abreast of what people want and what needs to change. “[Singapore] Changi Airport (SIN) is magical, immersive, innovative, modern – that’s what I’ve seen, that’s what other travelers say. It felt spacious, it felt the opposite of all the angst that we experience in airports around the world.”

Solis explained that, among other collaborative efforts with tenants, SIN has a program they call DIVA – Digital, Innovation, Ventures & Analytics. This marketing initiative creates a pathway for Changi concessionaires and partners to develop exciting and engaging promotional strategies to drive travelers throughout the airport to their businesses.

“Iteration is often confused for innovation,” said Solis. “Iteration is not a bad thing. We need it, we always need to constantly improve on what already exists; but that’s not enough – innovation is the creation of net new value. It didn’t exist before and as that value persists it can lead to disruption.

“Start with the experience we want people to have and work backwards to what our strategy will be,” he added.

Ultimately, Solis stressed the importance of seeing the future for what it is: potential.

“The future doesn’t exist yet,” he said. “We have a say in how that unfolds. …The future is going to happen because of the things you do different moving forward.”

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Business (Kamilah Sayeed & MC)

Reposting because of the issue with tags, hopefully it works..

Book: Bloodbound (property of Pixelberry Studios)

Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed & MC: Amy (I do not own those characters, they're the property of Pixelberry Studios as well)

Warnings: none

Rating: Mature

Author's note:  I'm not a native English speaker, I'm sorry for any mistakes (feel free to correct me).

Finally, the first chapter is out for you to read 😂 Forgive me for so many descriptions in this one, but I really want to make everything clear for you.

Also, prepare yourself for a slow burn throughout this story 💕

~ 1500 words

------------------------

Chapter 1

The world has never been a peaceful place.

The rule of hierarchy was present between species since the dawn of time. But finally, the opportunity for humans has arrived, making them lords of the earth. Somehow the evolution decided to let those fragile creatures gain the knowledge that put them above others.

So humans kept enjoying life to the fullest, drawing benefits from the earth. But year after year, they were not giving anything in return. The dominant species became the direct danger to the planet, which gave them life.

That's when nature decided to speak up.

When the sky above humans' heads was peaceful, the danger crept up in the shadows. A new species created in the image of humans placed itself at the end of the food chain.

Bloodsucking monsters started walking the earth, killing those to whom they belonged not so long ago. But the perspective had been irreversibly changed since the day of their rebirth as immortals.

Worth remembering is that nature always finds a way to keep the system in balance. That's how another rule has been created on the purpose of this new world.

It says that even the best hunter may one day become the prey.

***

Kamilah Sayeed was working late in her office.

Over the years, she learned that the best time for her to work was during late hours. Especially after, the building emptied itself, leaving her alone, free from unnecessary conversations with coworkers.

New York was sleeping sweetly behind the windows when the CEO of Ahmanet Financial was still very much awake. The sound of fast tapping of the keyboard filled the room as Kamilah's eyes were moving quickly on new documents in search of any mistakes.

Her mind was lost in work, focusing all attention on the bright screen in front of her.

She was just looking through the database of her company when the phone ringing pierced through her ears, killing the silence she was worshipping so much.

The woman sighed deeply, taking a quick look at the phone. She stopped tapping right after noticing Adrian's name on the screen, realizing that the call must have been urgent. Otherwise, he would not bother her at this hour.

"Yes?" Kamilah spoke after putting on a speakerphone, hardly hiding her icy tone.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," he said politely, listening to the noise of tapping, "your work process, I assume."

"Get on with it, Adrian," she scowled, rolling her eyes.

Kamilah was thankful that her best friend was not able to see this reaction of hers. She was already imagining a sarcastic comment he would make about her attitude.

"It's about tomorrow's meeting," Adrian knew too well when it was the right time to end teasing. "Something came up out of sudden, so, unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Paine won't be available."

The woman sighed again, clearly annoyed this time, leaning back on her chair. Hands moved to her hair as she brushed it with her fingers, trying to remain calm.

"So the meeting is canceled," she stated, about to hang up, but Adrian intervened just in time.

"No, no," he paused, making sure she was still there. "They informed me about their absence, but the meeting is still on the top list of our day."

The words got her attention as she looked at the screen once again, composing herself on the seat.

"How is that possible?" she masked curiosity with her emotionless tone.

"They will send their daughter in return," Adrian answered, patiently waiting for her feedback.

Kamilah's eyes moved from the phone, wandering over the desk to the documents she had prepared for the meeting a while ago.

"Then, so be it," she answered shortly before hanging up.

A sly smile danced in the corner of her mouth when she created a new file. Her fingers were hitting the keyboard faster than before, disturbing silence of the night.

A spark grew in her eyes as she muttered to herself.

"Finally, something exciting."

***

Kamilah was standing near the window in the conference room, looking down at the street. Her eyes stopped at the long, black limousine which was shining in the brightness of the sun right by the enormous building of Ahmanet Financial.

It was just a matter of time when paparazzi went entirely crazy over their point of interest, just getting out of the car. A young woman hidden behind shaded spectacles, with her body covered with a big scarf, was carefully escorted by her personal security guards.

Immediately, the pavement glowed with intensely flashing cameras from every side of it. Reporters kept taking pictures long after the whole crew disappeared inside the building as if they were still hoping for a good photograph for their articles.

"Guess who's just arrived," Kamilah turned to Adrian who smiled cheerfully.

Surname Paine was well known in New York City as the most successful investor. Their fame went back in centuries. Generation after generation, family members were proving the worth of this name, making them highly valuable associates.

They had been working with vampires for ages. And by doing so, Paines remained as the only family in the city that could stay alive with this kind of knowledge. What's interesting, not many were aware of what started their cooperation with the vampires' world to begin with.

But... there was a catch.

Because of the threat that came with this kind of business, Paines had restricted rules when it went to choosing the companies they would decide to work with. It was not so easy to gain their trust, and it took a lot of patience.

Kamilah Sayeed was always prepared when it went to her new, potential associates. Also, in this case, she took her time to gather all valuable information about Mr. and Mrs. Paine. Everything about their educational and career path. She knew their family tree as if it was her own.

The CEO of Ahmanet Financial used to study her business associates in a way as she thought of them as both: her future ally,

or enemy.

What she was not prepared for in this situation was their daughter.

She could not find anything significant about this girl, so everything came down to her age. She was 22 years old, just graduated college, this part made Kamilah particularly anxious about the meeting since she expected to be taken seriously.

And hated having her time wasted.

Paines made sure that their daughter had some privacy, even though it was the hardest part to achieve. Because of the kind of life they lived, the girl was daily exposed to speculations created by paparazzi.

In their eyes, she was rated as another spoiled by influential parents kid.

What's more, the girl was always seen in the company of at least one bodyguard. With her face covered as much as it was possible, not even showing her eyes.

Paine's daughter was indeed a mysterious human thing.

At that moment, the doors were opened by the assistant who invited guests to the conference room. Kamilah turned away from the window, facing this average height woman who stepped inside. At the same time, Adrian stood up to greet the whole crew with a smile and warm words.

Only after the doors were closed again, Paine's daughter started slowly taking off her scarf and glasses. By doing so, she revealed her long, wavy, blonde hair that fell freely on her shoulders and back. Her skin was light and a little blushy from the rush that she was in earlier while trying to avoid the paparazzi.

Her eyes green, radiating.

The girl mumbled a quiet, thank you, to the guard who took glasses away from her. After doing so, she turned all her attention to both CEOs standing in the middle of the room.

Mesmerized by the view.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," finally Adrian snapped out of his astonishment and took a few steps toward the girl. Her security guards tensed slightly, watching his moves, "Amelia Paine," he extended a hand to greet her.

"Oh," she returned the gesture, shaking his hand lightly. "Please, just Amy."

She smiled delightfully, spreading warmth all over the room. The girl had this unusual for her age confidence going on. It was clear that this situation was not making her uncomfortable or nervous. As if she was prepared for this from the moment of her birth.

Her eyes moved behind Adrian's back eloquently, searching for another person she was supposed to meet with.

The woman approached her gracefully, intensely staring at the girl with her chestnut eyes, searching for a hint of hesitation. Kamilah was well aware of how influential she and Adrian were in this industry.

And yet, it made no impression on this girl.

"It is a pleasure, indeed," she said skeptically, keeping eye contact. "May I introduce myself..."

"Kamilah Sayeed," Amy's soft voice echoed in woman's ears, piercing deep inside. "Don't worry, I did my homework for today."

Truly bold words followed by the most innocent look.

------------------------

Next chapter: 2

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tag list: @cheeto-choices @kamilah-is-queen @ariaminsinclair @helpconfusedpersonhere @ayushixo

Gaming Beyond the Concept of Triple A Video Game Titles

An interesting point in the news (courtesy of wccftech) this week was made by Cliff Bleszinski (Cliffy B) of Unreal Tournament and Gears of War fame and more recently the co-founder of Boss Key Productions.

During industry conference Reboot Develop 2017, Cliff took to the stage and put forward his view that ‘AAA games’ cost too much to make and the development of such games are a ‘nearly unsustainable’ model, his reasoning behind this is based on a number of points including the fact that:

Customers can only afford a few $60 dollar games a year and this price is a high point for most consumers Consumers have been burned with DLC / Bugs in their games Player expectations are very high in terms of Graphics. feature sets and polish and quality Citing Horizon Zero Dawn as an example, Cliff went on to posit that the seven year development cycle for a project like this can be undertaken and afforded by Sony with the reason that they can get so heavily invested in something like this is that they will be the ones profiting from the sale of their consoles, which a game like Horizon Zero Dawn is very likely to have a positive effect on.  So Sony – whom Horizon Zero Dawn’s Developer Guerrilla Games belong to – has two branches here, both the software and their hardware, with which they can recoup their investment and further to this make a profit. Pink gaming decor.

In contrast to this he then made a comparison to the financial commitment that was made by Take-Two with regard to Bioshock Infinite where the outcome of overstretching to fulfill a AAA vision resulted in a number of lay offs over at Irrational Games.

A remedy for this, he suggested, would be the advent of the ‘AA game’. These games would be games that despite a restricted budget focused on what matters most, giving examples of his type of game being the likes of Rocket League by Psyonix and Digital Extreme’s Warframe adding also that digital only would also be a consideration for success.

So, have our expectations got out of hand, or is the amazing high standard and polish of the games we see nowadays simply a result of the evolution of technology and the desire of creators to improve, innovate and deliver that next big thing? Is it all simply about the bottom line (obviously to a great degree, it’s business), or is there something to be said for the ambition of developers and creators to express themselves and push the limits of the gaming medium via the technologically impressive consoles we use today?

Whether it’s gamer expectation, businesses pushing for profit or creators with the passion and determination to bring their ambitious gaming visions to the gaming community, it does look like there is a point here. No one likes to hear about studios closing, job cuts, or devs not getting paid for their hard work and if this can be avoided by simply scaling back ambition on a project and being more realistic in financial terms of what can be achieved then that’s great. Though conversely, it would definitely be a shame if the spectacle of the ‘AAA game’ was only within the reach of the hardware manufacturers.

Ultimately, if the costs of the AAA’s continue to get out of hand and cause businesses problems the amount made will dwindle as the lessons are learned.

In the ‘What We’ve Been Playing’ section this week the guys have been getting themselves involved in some – dare we say it – fantastic AA titles. Antony has been braving the enigmatic and alluring world of ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’, this PS4 console exclusive title from Giant Sparrow, makes of the amazing ‘Unfinished Swan’ couples an exciting narrative driven story with interesting gameplay, a must play for any PS4 owners who may have like titles like ‘Gone Home’, ‘Firewatch’ or ‘Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’ Gaming laptop overheating.

While Darren has been getting himself all done up like a super sleuth of murder prevention in his new favorite haunt – The Sexy Brutale, this clever and original game has Darren eager for more after only a few hours of play, with it’s mix of thoughtful gameplay and ingenious puzzles. Definitely a game worth checking out if you feel like something different.

The Sexy Brutale is available now on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Also this week Darren is getting geared up and ready for a gaming exhibition near him as Game Mania comes to the Winter Gardens in Blackpool on the 6th and 7th of May.

Celebrating gaming from past and present it looks like this event is catering for the whole family with an array of free to play pinball machines arcade games and consoles plus a kids area full of Minecraft, Lego and Marvel fun. With VR making it’s presence known and a NES Mini Classic up for grabs it sounds like a great day for any gamer.

It’s time for free monthly game announcements, On Xbox One, we have Giana Sisters: Twisted Dream’s – Director’s Cut will be available May 1 – 31, followed by the co-op adventure Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris on May 16 – June 15.

Then on Xbox 360, and Xbox One through Backward Compatibility, we have a pair of great Star Wars games. Starting with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II and the return of Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice on May 1 – 15, followed by LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga and the opportunity to play through all six classic Star Wars movies in LEGO, what’s not to love there!

The free PS Plus games for May have also arrived this week and it starts with a MUST PLAY title, the fantastic Tales from the Borderlands by Telltale Games.  Set in the unforgiving world of Pandora after the events of Borderlands 2, follow the journey of Rhys and Fiona as they are thrown together to recover a fortune they both believe is theirs.

Even if you’re not a fan of the Borderlands series, this game is a must play; it’s incredibly funny, well written and has a stellar voice cast too, what’s not to like!

The rest of the line up looks like this:

Tales from the Borderlands, PS4 Abzu or Alien Nation, PS4 Blood Knights, PS3 Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants, PS3 Laser Disco Defenders, PS Vita (Cross Buy with PS4) Type:Rider, PS Vita (Cross Buy on PS4)

And finally just before the Sparks went to pod news broke of an awesome new add-on for a Spark favourite, Forza Horizon 3 that you never saw coming.

Forza fans, your Hot Wheels fantasies are about to come true! The second Forza Horizon 3 expansion – Forza Horizon 3 Hot Wheels – arrives on May 9 exclusively on Xbox, and is included in the Forza Horizon 3 Expansion Pass. This expansion lets players travel to a brand-new location in Australia, a place where lazy Sunday drives are replaced by insane high-speed stunts on miles of looping, banking, giant iconic orange Hot Wheels tracks. Starring famous Hot Wheels vehicles like the Twin Mill, the Rip Rod, and the Bone Shaker – THE SPARKS CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS!

Taylor Swift Bent the Music Industry to Her Will

By: Lindsay Zoladz for Vulture Date: December 30th 2019

In the 2010s, she became its savviest power player.

n late November 2019, Taylor Swift gave a career-spanning performance at the American Music Awards before accepting the statue for Artist of the Decade. (Swift was perhaps the perfect cross between the award’s two previous recipients, Britney Spears and Garth Brooks.) Clad in a cascading rose-colored cape and holding court among the younger female artists in attendance - 17-year-old Billie Eilish, 22-year-old Camila Cabello, 25-year-old Halsey - Swift had the queenly air of an elder stateswoman. After picking up five additional awards, including Artist of the Year, she became the show’s most decorated artist in history. “This is such a great year in music. The new artists are insane,” she declared in her acceptance speech, with big-sister gravitas. That night, she finally outgrew that “Who, me?” face of perpetual awards-show surprise; she accepted the honors she won like an artist who believed she had worked hard enough to deserve them.

Swift cut an imposing adult figure up there, because somewhere along the line she’d become one. The 2010s have coincided almost exactly with Swift’s 20s, with the subtle image changes and maturations across her last five album cycles coming to look like an Animorphs cover of a savvy and talented young woman gradually growing into her power. And so to reflect on the Decade in Taylor Swift is to assess not just her sonic evolutions but her many industry chess moves: She took Spotify to task in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and got Apple to reverse its policy of not paying artists royalties during a three-month free trial of its music-streaming service. She sued a former radio DJ for allegedly groping her during a photo op and demanded just a symbolic victory of $1, as if to say the money wasn’t the point. Critics wondered whether she was leaning too heavily on her co-writers, so she wrote her entire 2010 album, Speak Now, herself, without any collaborators. In 2018, she severed ties with her longtime label, Big Machine Records, and negotiated a new contract with Universal Music Group that gave her ownership of her masters and assurance that she (and any other artist on the label) would be paid out if UMG ever sold its Spotify shares. Yes, she stoked the flames of her celebrity feuds with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, and Katy Perry plenty over the past ten years, but she’s also focused some of her combative energy on tackling systemic problems and fashioning herself into something like the music industry’s most high-profile vigilante. Few artists have made royalty payments and the minutiae of entertainment-law front-page news as often as Swift has.

Within the industry, Swift has always had the reputation of being something of a songwriting savant (in 2007, when “Our Song” was released, then-17-year-old Swift became the youngest person ever to write and perform a No. 1 song on the Billboard Country chart), but she has long desired to be considered an industry power player, too. A 2011 New Yorker profile of Swift circa her blockbuster Speak Now World Tour noted that she initially intended to follow her parents’ footsteps and pursue a career in business, quoting her saying, “I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was 8, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be.” In an even earlier interview, she fondly recalled the times in elementary school when she stayed up late with her mother, practicing for school presentations. “I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds - because male artists are allowed to,” she said this year in an unusually candid Rolling Stone interview. “And I’m so sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business.” Of course, she still spent plenty of time sitting at her piano or strumming her guitar, but in that conversation she painted herself as someone who is also “sit[ting] in a conference room several times a week,” coming up with ideas about how best to market her music and her career.

And so over the past decade, Swift’s face has appeared not just on magazine covers and television screens, but on UPS trucks and Amazon packages. Her songs have been featured in Target commercials and NFL spots, to name just two of her many lucrative partnerships. That New Yorker profile also found her to be uncommonly enthused about the fact that her CDs were being sold in Starbucks: “I was so stoked about it, because it’s been one of my goals - I always go into Starbucks, and I wished that they would sell my album.”

“Taylor Swift is something like the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music,” Hazel Cills wrote recently in Jezebel. “She has propelled her career from tiny country artist into pop machine over the past few years with little shame when it comes to corporate collaborators.” Such brazen femme-capitalism will always be a turnoff to some people (“the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music” is even less of a compliment in 2019 than it was when Lean In was first published), but it’s undeniable that it has helped Swift maintain and leverage her status as a commercial juggernaut more consistently than any other pop star over the past ten years.

In the 2010s, with the clockwork certainty of a midterm election, there was a Taylor Swift album every other autumn. (Yes, there was a three-year gap between 1989 and Reputation, but she all but made up for it with the quick timing of August’s Lover.) The kinds of pop superstars considered her peers did not stick to such rigid schedules: Adele released two studio albums this decade, Beyoncé released three, and even Rihanna - who for the first three years of the decade was averaging an album a year - eventually slowed her roll and will have released just four when the 2010s are all said and done. The only A-plus-list musician who saturated the market as steadily as Swift did this decade was Drake.

Still, Drake’s commercial dominance was more of a newfangled phenomenon, capitalizing on the industry’s sudden reliance on streaming and his massive popularity on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Drake might be the artist who rode the streaming wave most successfully this decade, but - with her strategic withholding of her albums from certain platforms until they better compensated artists - Swift was often the one bending it to her will. And she could do that because she didn’t need to rely on it solely: Somehow, against all odds, Taylor Swift still sold records. Like, gazillions of them. When Swift’s 2017 record, Reputation (some critics thought it was a critical misstep, but it certainly wasn’t a commercial one), moved 1.216 million units in its first seven days, Swift became the only artist in history to achieve four different million-selling weeks. And, of course, all four of these weeks came during a decade when traditional album sales were on a precipitous decline. At least for those mere mortals who were not an all-powerful being named Taylor Alison Swift.

“Female empowerment” has been such an ambient, unquestioned virtue of the pop culture of this decade that we have too often failed to take a step back and ask ourselves what sort of power is being advocated for, and if its attainment should always be a cause for celebration. Is “female empowerment” any different from the hollow, materialistic promises of the late ’90s “girl power”? Is “female power” inherently different or more benevolent than its default male counterpart? Maybe this feels like such a distinctly American hang-up because we have not yet experienced that mythic, oft-imagined figure of the First Female President, and have thus not had to contend with the cold reality that, whoever she is, she will, like all of us, be inevitably flawed, imperfect, and at least occasionally disappointing.

As she’s grown into her own brand of 21st-century American pop feminism - sometimes elegantly, sometimes gawkily - Swift seems to have come to a firm conviction that female power is essentially more virtuous than the male variety. This was a side of herself she celebrated in her AMA performance. Swift opened her medley with a few fiery bars of “The Man,” her own personalized daydream of what gender equality would look like: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can,” she sings, “wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” She wore an oversize white button-down onto which the titles of her old albums were stamped in a correctional-facility font: SPEAK NOW, RED, 1989, REPUTATION. Plenty of the millions of people who scrutinize Swift’s every move interpreted her choice of outfit and song as not-so-subtle jabs at Big Machine’s Scott Borchetta and the manager-to-the-stars Scooter Braun, with whom Swift is still in a messy, uncommonly public battle over the fate of her master recordings. (The only album title missing from her outfit was “LOVER,” which happens to be the only one of which she has full ownership.) She has framed the terms of her battle with Borchetta and Braun in strikingly gendered language: “These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work,” she told Rolling Stone. “And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of Scotch to themselves.” Though she is herself a very rich, very powerful woman, she reads their message to be unquestionably condescending: Be a good little girl and shut up.

It is true that many record contracts are designed to take advantage of young artists, and that young women and people of color are probably perceived by music executives to be the marks most vulnerable to exploitation. But it is also true that Swift signed a legally binding contract, the kind that a businesswoman like herself would have to respect if it were signed by somebody else. Braun, who has been asking to have these negotiations in private rather than on Twitter, claims to have received death threats from her fans.

Even as she’s grown into one of the most dominant pop-culture figures in the world, Swift sometimes still seems to be clinging to her old underdog identity, to the extent that she can fail to grasp the magnitude of her own power or account for the blind spots of her privilege. “Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me,” she sang on Speak Now’s Grammy-winning 2010 single “Mean,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that, compared to 99.99 percent of the population, she already was. The mid-decade backlash to Swift’s thin-white-celebrity-and-model-studded “girl squad” - none of which was more incisive than Lara Marie Schoenhals’s hilarious parody video - took her by surprise. “I never would have imagined that people would have thought, This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it... I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to.”

“Female power” is not automatically faultless, and can of course be tainted by all other sorts of biases and assumptions about class, race, and sexual orientation, to name just a few more common pitfalls. Swift’s face-palm-inducing 2015 misunderstanding with Nicki Minaj revealed this, of course, and plenty of people felt that her sudden embrace of the LGBTQ community in the “You Need to Calm Down” was a clumsy overcorrection for her past silence. Maybe she would have gotten where she was quicker if she were a man. But it would take a more complicated, and perhaps less catchy, song to acknowledge she might not have gotten there at all had she not also enjoyed other privileges.

Art has its own kind of power - sneakier and harder to measure than the economic kind. The reason Taylor Swift has been worth talking about incessantly for an entire decade is that she continues to wield this kind, too. “I don’t think her commercial responsibilities detract from her genuine passion for her craft,” a then-17-year-old Tavi Gevinson wrote in a memorable 2013 essay for The Believer. “Have you ever watched her in interviews when she gets asked about her actual songwriting? She becomes that kid who’s really into the science fair.”

After so much industry drama, much of the lived-in, self-reflective Lover is a simple reminder that Swift was and still is a singular songwriter. Yes, this was the decade of such loud, flashy missteps as “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Welcome to New York,” and “Me!,” but it was also a decade of so many quieter triumphs: the pulsing synesthesia of “Red,” the nervous heart flutter of “Delicate,” the sleek sophistication of “Style,” the concise lyricism of “Mean,” the cathartic fun of “22,” the slow-dance swoon of “Lover.” But like so many of her fans, and even Swift herself, I still find the most enduringly powerful song she’s ever written to be “All Too Well,” the smoldering breakup scrapbook released on her great 2012 album Red. “Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well,” she sings, an innocent enough lyric that, by the end of the song, comes to glint like a switchblade. In a decade of DGAF, ghosting, and performative chill, remembering it all too well might be Swift’s stealthiest superpower. She felt it deeply, can still access that feeling whenever she needs to, and that means she can size you up in a line as concisely cutting as “so casually cruel in the name of being honest.” Forget Jake Gyllenhaal or John Mayer. That’s the sort of observation that would bring Goliath to his knees.

“It is still the case that when listeners hear a female voice, they do not hear a voice that connotes authority,” the historian Mary Beard writes in her manifesto Women & Power, “or rather they have not learned how to hear authority in it.” At least in the realm of pop music, Swift has spent the better part of her decade chipping away at that double standard, and teaching people how to think about cultural power a little bit differently. She sprinkled artful emblems of teen-girl-speak through her smash hits (“Uhhh he calls me and he’s like, ‘I still love you,’ and I’m like, ‘This is exhausting, we are never getting back together, like, ever”) and did not abandon her effusive love of kittens and butterflies in order to be taken seriously. As an artist and a businesswoman, she made the power of teen girls - and the women who used to be them - that much more perilous to ignore. Because they’ve been there all along, and they remember all too well.

how did you know you wanted to be a botanist? did you ever consider doing something else?

(I’m going to write this one with proper capitalization because this is gonna be long and it’s easier to read)

Ohhh yeah. Like, to be honest, if I could do ANYTHING with my life I’d probably teach people about plants, write science fiction, or teach about plants through writing science fiction. I feel a lot like a journalist walking through botany conventions and stuff, like I just want to survey everything and learn it all and talk about it, and I’m not sure if I would be good at being like, a Real Plant Scientist, despite having some VERY niche botanical interests that i would absolutely dig deep and go through the literature for (isoetes and isoetes evolution, maize, lichens, carnivorous plants of the very specific nepenthes genus, hornworts, thermogenesis, etc, if you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ve probably seen me Go Off about a ton more). I do consider myself to be an aspiring botanist, but not a researcher looking to produce data and publish. That being said, going into academia isn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities for me.

Right now, I kind of have the pipe dream of trying for a science communication grad program, or a science fiction writing program. As it stands, I’m a biology major with a plant science concentration, I’m going into my junior year of undergrad, and i’m going to declare an english minor this year. I’ve been writing sci-fi since i was 10, and I’m currently in the process of buckling down to try to get something published (on a small scale to start) and increasing my stamina to work on some substantial projects, be it fiction or nonfiction or both. If I want to take writing seriously, I figure I have to start working hard for it now. 

As for like, HOW I got into botany, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about this on here, so I should start by answering a frequent question I get: most botanists stumble into botany. Like, they go down a path with animals or ecology or another biological field, and then accidentally fall in love with them. Not everybody is like, down for botany right in undergrad. Actually, a lot of people don’t think plants are very cool in undergrad. I started learning at 15, and I get asks sometimes that are like ‘I’m 17, am I too old to get into botany?’ like dude RARELY do you see botanists younger than 20 lmao you are NEVER too old for that shit. Plants have the disadvantage of being static beings in the peripheral of our everyday lives until you start paying attention to them (a phenomenon colloquially referred to as ‘plant blindness’ in the botany/horticulture communities), so they tend to get sidelined in K-12 education and are easily overlooked in general. 

I got into botany through an unpaid high school internship program. Fun fact, before all this I was passively thinking about becoming a zoologist, and what a disaster that would have been. I signed up to help out in a local greenhouse and was immediately blasted by how fucked up ornamental plants are. Specifically, I remember a time when my mentor was like, ‘do you want to see what $1,000 worth of plants looks like?’ and of COURSE I wanted to, so he brought me down to the back of the greenhouse. $1,000 worth of seeds turned out to be about 10-15 test tubes and blank white packets in a tupperware container. He took one of the test tubes out; it was filled with bulky, lumpy looking tan seeds. He said each one grew a pot of three different types of lettuce. They were bulky because each one was three separate seeds fused together with a rubbery substance that companies apply to make the seeds easier for robotic potting arms to pick up. It’s wild shit. I was a big fan of Jurassic Park at the time. As you can imagine, my third eye had been absolutely blasted open and I’ve never been the same.

From there I started volunteering in a community greenhouse, then I got obsessed with plants that heat up (thermogenic plants) and ended up teaching myself a ton off of wikipedia and from anything that wasn’t behind a paywall to understand what the hell I was reading about, then got some money from an extended learning program at my school to do a research project with it, and then my extended learning teacher had me submit my research to a science competition, and after that I got chosen to give a presentation at said competition and to be completely honest I completely blacked out for 15 minutes and can only remember crying on stage at the end about how much I loved Eastern Skunk Cabbages (my subject for the project), and THEN I went onto the National competition in San Diego and THAT was wild because in retrospect WOW my project sucked data and hypothesis-wise, and THEN I spent a summer doing manual labor for an industrial maize breeding facility which was wild, and after that I went to college and got invested in lichens and isoetes and all that wild shit and that’s where I am now. Last summer I went to the BSA conference in Manchester and the ICPS conference in California, both of which I liveblogged on here. They were awesome. Like holy shit. 

As for the history of this blog: I started this blog when I was...god, 15 or 16 I think, when I first was going hog wild getting obsessed with plant stuff I absorbed off the internet. My parents and friends got very tired of my infodumping very fast. I’d been a tumblr user for a couple years already, so I made this blog to talk about stuff so I wouldn’t annoy people irl, and now it’s turned into like, wow. This(tm). Which is wild. 

I get a lot of questions too about like, jobs in botany, and how to get further in botany, and I never really know how to answer them because I’m still figuring it out myself. My number one biggest source of botany information, to be completely honest, is asking people, and talking to people in horticulture and botany positions and bugging them with questions (I first learned about isoetes while talking to a couple grad students around a campfire on a BSA fern foray. One was wearing an isoetes convention hat, and they were all kind of struggling to explain them to me when I asked, which of course got me obsessed immediately because when a plant in general is difficult to explain you know it’s some cursed shit. It then took me a semester of college to begin to understand them, and yes, they are just That Cursed and also INCREDIBLY underrepresented and understudied in the literature). 

Idk how to end this but yeah thank you guys for asking me questions and supporting my shitposts and stuff all these years. It’s made me a better science communicator than I could have ever imagined it would make me, and I’m still learning a ton from it. I’m moving back to college tomorrow. I will finish this post with a picture of a hornwort (anthocerotophyta), the slimiest of the cursed lads: 

Perfect Score Conference: The Big day!

Hello Perfect Score fans! Can you believe it’s been over a whole week since the Perfect Score Young People’s Music Careers Conference, our music industry careers event designed especially for young people?

The day was a huge success: massive thanks to the exhibitors, panellists, speakers, performers, tutors, funders, gophers, teachers, guardians and (of course!) the enthusiastic young attendees for making it so special.

The event kicked off at around 9.30am as the young people arrived keen and ready to learn, already the atmosphere was buzzing as they excitedly perused the 15 exhibitor stalls and chatted to representatives from organisations across the music industry.

At 10am the attendees hustled into the auditorium to hear the keynote speeches. First, Pedestrian’s Director Bob Christer welcomed everyone to the event, and encouraged the young people to start devising some burning questions to put to the panel later! Louise Rickwood of The Creative Industries Federation started the keynote speeches by setting the scene of the event, revealing that the music industry is worth £5.2 billion to the UK economy and engaging the audience with some energetic live interaction, welcoming their contributions. This was then followed by some words from Oliver Morris of UK Music and Skatta, a young grime artist from Coventry.  They spoke about pathways into the music industry, and shared Skatta’s latest music video.

The young people were then let loose to explore the exhibition stands in more depth, including enjoying displays and demonstrations by organisations such as OHMI Trust, The National Foundation for Youth Music, Intasound, Confetti, Normans Musical Instruments, Youth Education Project, Leicester Music Education Hub, Steinberg Media Technologies, Musicians’ Union, The Mighty Creatives, Rock School Limited, Amara Publishing, Horus Music, DeMontfort University and Voice Magazine. The attendees had a fab time interacting with the exhibits, including music technology, software and instruments (including some unusual home-made varieties!)

During this time, young people who have been involved with the Perfect Score project developing and rehearsing their own original music met with UK Music to present their tracks and receive personalised feedback about ways to advance their music industry career. These young performers are known as the the Press Start Musicians and Trainees, and include Estar, Sly, 11, Usman, Muzi, TM, Aaliyah Essence, Nidah Hanif, and Dulzo.

At 11am it was time for the workshops.  One was lead by Leicester music-scene veteran and beatboxer Akshay Sharma (a.k.a. Mr. Shay), which was a journey into music technology: how it used, by who, and covering the evolution of music technology from the piano to modern-day samplers. The young people really got involved and enjoyed the session.

The second workshop was by event and stage manager Kelly McCormack, which was all about the role of the stage manager.  This included defining what a stage manager does, the skills and personality required, the pros and cons of the job, some insights from other people in the business, as well as good ways to get experience if you’re interested in pursuing stage management as a career. It was a fun session, which had the young people very engaged and interested.

It was then time for lunch, a busy time when the young people chatted to exhibitors and listened to music. Perfect Score Project Manager Kate Rounding even got the chance to show them her flute playing skills, accompanied by music tracks created during Pedestrian’s Concept music project!

The next activity for the day was the panel discussion, our panel was comprised of Oliver Morris, Louise Rickwood, Kelly McCormack, Skatta, Perfect Score Press Start musician Estar, and Tanyel Gumushan and Niall O’Connor of PPLPRS. Questions posed to the panel included those around collecting royalties and registering with PPLPRS, how the organisation operates, and the kind of corporate work that ensures people are licensed. There was also a lot of discussion about inspiration, why artists make their own music and the challenges that the panellists have faced in their music careers. The key message to the young people was that there is no straight pathway in anyone’s music career - everyone’s journey is different, but each time a door closes a new opportunity opens elsewhere. Young musician Estar spoke very confidently about her own musical journey with the Perfect Score project, and the work she’s doing towards getting her music known.

In the final part of the day the young attendees were treated to performances by the Perfect Score Press Start musicians. The performances were incredible and the atmosphere amazing as the musicians performed a diverse range of music including rock, hip-hop, R&B and reggae-inspired pieces in response to smiles, big applause and back row singing and dancing by the audience! Sly and Estar’s performance celebrated their home in the the city of Leicester, referencing lots of Leicester landmarks and features. All of the Press Start musicians showed great bravery and confidence, to the admiration of everyone watching.

The event then drew to a close, the day having been a great success. Altogether 145 people attended the event, including 80 young people. After the young people and their guardians had departed, a partner organisation forum was held which was attended by over 30 people from organisations including HQ Familia, Arts Council England, Soft Touch Arts and Technology in Music Education. This represented a chance to explore future thinking and discuss the development of joined-up approaches to working across Leicester and the East Midlands. All the music industry representatives that attended were very impressed with the Perfect Score Young People’s Music Careers Conference, and expressed a desire to continue and take it further.

We hope you enjoyed Perfect Score, and that we’ll see you again next year! Keep your eyes peeled for more videos, photos and snippets from the project, which we will share as they become available.

As ever, if you’d like to contact us about this project you can reach Pedestrian’s Perfect Score team by emailing [email protected].

The Supplejack

Summary of the story:  Peter Parker has been alone his whole freshman year but finds hope when Stark Industries announces a science competition. The prize? An internship with Tony Stark.

Hi all. Thank you for being patient on this one. I haven't been at my best recently and writing has taken the brunt of that. In saying that I hope you all doing well and enjoy this one.

I'm also working on my other story "A Night She won't Soon Forget" and that should be posted sometime next week!

Previous Chapter Fifteen: He Returns

Chapter Sixteen: Civil War

Peter reclined back onto the towel. Sand moved under his body to accommodate the shifting in weight as he changed positions. He closed his eyes and listened to the people talking over the waves lapping at the shore. More sand underneath his head siphoned down creating a gritty pillow for his head.

He exhaled.

Flash and Julia were talking to his side. Their soft tones were loud enough to guess Flash had done something irritating and Julia was, in her way, telling him off. He couldn’t hear their specific words but he smirked at a cry of dismay from his friend over something Julia said. Their laughter washed over him along with the general sounds of a beach. It was good to have them close.

He smiled.

They were upstate for the weekend at one of Frank’s mom’s cottages. The home, bigger than any house let alone cottage had the right to be, was hidden away in the Finger Lake Region. It was beautiful country surrounded by hills and vast trees, all miles from the city. Peter couldn’t tear his gaze away from the farms and forests they passed to get to their little oasis. He didn’t ask for specifics when Frank invited them and sitting on the beach with everyone he was glad he didn’t let himself turn down the offer. It was nice to just be for a moment.

Their whole team came out plus Flash, Estee, and Ned in celebration of their runner-up status for the conference. He hadn’t thought there was anything to celebrate but his team had been overjoyed at the announcement. The group chat overflowing with all sorts of ecstatic messages and memes.

The celebration had to be put on hold because of the fast approaching end of school. Finals took over their thoughts for the time and everything else was waylaid. Frank and Monica were graduating so their schedules were filled along with the addition of making sure they were ready for the fall. He and Julia tried to help as best as they could but school bogged down their own schedules as well.

Peter expected everyone to separate in a natural way with all of these factors and was dismayed, as well as pleased, the group chat never extinguished. There wasn’t a day where someone didn’t text something, whether it was Frank talking about one of his games or Julia making sure they were all doing okay for the week. Those small connections were enough to get him through finals and not thinking about what happened.

Summer arrived with the abruptness of the last ring of school bell and finish of finals. One minute the world was on your shoulders and the next it didn’t matter how long you went without sleep to study for the history final. The average was a 59 percent and Peter scraped by with a 65. At least he’d aced all his other finals. Those acted as a buffer when May asked him about the results.

The hot season had been… different than what he was used to. There wasn’t any other way he could describe it. Instead of the long walks alone, waiting for May to get home from work by reading or working ahead on homework for the upcoming year Peter was familiar with, this year Peter had friends.  And they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The whole group of them stuck together as much as they could even after the presentation. Julia met him at the library more times than he could count. Although she didn’t have homework the two of them, and sometimes Flash accompanying her, would read there. More often than not they would then go no a fieldtrip around the city, finding new spots and ice-cream places they had all never been before. Sometimes Frank and Monica would join them on their escapades.

It was glorious.

And it was exhausting.

He hoped they wouldn’t change when fall was ushered in with the start of school and life began again.

Only two more weeks until the date back.

Logically, he knew it wouldn’t be the same but the thought of starting out his sophomore year the same way his freshman year began was unbearable. It had to be different. He suspected, good or bad, that nothing would quite be the same again. But he was also different.

Peter thought about everything that happened – everything he went through – and realized how much had changed. It was a chilling reflection. The depths of evolution he went through in the past year alone. He’d been lost in the sea of grief as school began and it wasn’t until a white flag, in this case a piece of paper hanging outside of the office, waved that something shifted. Of course, he was resistant to it and avoided the signup sheet simultaneously afraid and yearning for what signing his name could bring.

From there it all tumbled accumulating into even greater changes than Peter ever dreamt possible. Ned was steadfast in his offer of friendship. Cafeteria lunches became commonplace when Peter didn’t feel comfortable before. He’d even begun to enter into the debates Mike held at the table earning approving glances from Midge and Jaimik.

In the midst of all this Peter won the internship. Him. Peter Parker. The freak no one liked. The one who felt best in a safe place instead of in the bustling halls of school was interning at Stark Industries with some of the smartest people he’d ever met.

He remembered wishing he could be like the people who walked into the building like it was any other day; not stopping to stare at the intricate planes and panels leading up to the clouds. While Peter often ran late and didn’t have time to stop and stare, he found the building had become a safe place to him. His seat by the window was always empty and waiting for him and besides it was a cabinet full of snacks Julia would share. Lab five and its occupant were beginning to be as familiar and his talks with Friday never failed to make his day.

Thinking of lab five made his chest tighten. Something he always felt when Mr. Stark was mentioned somehow. He wondered what would have happened if everything had gone differently.

If Peter explained.

If he’d stood up for himself and made Mr. Stark listen.

What would Ben have said about it all? How would he react to his nephew forgetting to his speech about courage and shyness? In actuality, Peter had no doubt Ben would’ve stormed into Stark Tower and gave Mr. Stark a piece of his mind. Ben’s approach would be direct and the results would be swift, he was sure of that much. But that was something Peter couldn’t do.

He respected Mr. Stark too much to try and push himself into the man’s life. There was a list of things left unsaid but maybe it was for the best. At least now the man attributed the faults to something Peter did instead of who Peter was. He wasn’t sure if he could handle another rejection of himself again. Especially not from Mr. Stark.

Peter shook his head on the towel and ignored the sounds around him as long as he could.

All of these incited the changes in himself. He was still Peter but at the same time he was something more. He had friends and family. People he could contemplate opening up to. Topics he was passionate about. A job doing something he excelled at. They all were apart of him now when a year ago he could never have dreamed of any of it. And he felt so lucky to be able to think that; to be laying there on the beach as his friends surrounded him.

And that was that.

Julia squealed and began laughing. She stood up in a hurry, spraying sand onto her towel and Peter’s face. He sat up, covering his face with his hands to block the sun while trying to spit out the offending grit in his mouth.

“What was that?” He found Julia soaking and Flash holding a bottle full of liquid.

“You stand back, Flash” She yelled. He smiled and progressed further toward her. Peter scrambled onto his feet at the deranged grin Flash sent him. Julia’s hands were up to provide a barrier in front of her. Her head moved back and forth between the two of them.

“Oh, no you don’t. Peter, I’m warning you.” He stepped toward her. “Flash, you’ve corrupted him!”

Flash moved forward after a nod from Peter. Julia darted backward but Peter blocked her exit. Flash raised the bottle again and flipped it over but Julia was too fast. The water ended up dripping into his hair and down his face. At least the sand from before was washed away.

His bangs flattened onto his forehead and he coughed to get the liquid out. Flash and Julia’s laughter ignited further at the sour face he was making. Her arm was over Flash’s shoulder and the two huddled together as he wiped the hair from his eyes.

“So funny.” He frowned when they continued to laugh. Their eyes crinkled and he couldn’t help but smile in response. Peter stepped toward them and shook his head. Water sprayed over the two, provoking protests. They followed him as he ran to the dock, dodging their attempts to throw the last of the water on him.

Frank stepped out of the house and onto the porch. His yells of encouragement were followed by the sounds of his steps as he ran toward them.

“Yeah, fight it out!”

The planks of the dock shook under each step forward. They all backed up, not wanting to get in the way until they realized they were stuck between the dock and water with nowhere to go.

“No!” They yelled united under a common enemy fast approaching. Frank continued to yell. His eyes bulged out and Peter could almost imagine his tongue leaving his mouth and dangling over the side of his face. At the last moment he extended his arms out on either side of his body and jumping forward. He dragged the three of them up and over the water until they crashed into the waves.

Peter swam back to the beach. Sand squished through his toes as water pooled in his bathing suit before dripping down his legs. He stood at the precipice of the water watching as the tide moved back and forth, over and away from his feet. In the corner of his vision he could spy Frank pushing Julia into the water again at the edge of the dock. Her raised voice filled with mirth so at odds with her normal quiet tones. It seemed everyone was able to let loose on their weekend trip.

He turned his back on the shore and made his way to his towel. Monica and Estee had arrived while they were swimming. They smiled as he approached.

“Cold?” She asked snickering at the shivers running down his arms. Peter nodded and sat down careful to keep his sand encrusted feet off the towel. He watched the others continue to swim around. Their laughter punctuated the splashes as they jumped off the dock.

Monica moved over and sat next to him. Her head rested on top of her knees tucked against her chest.

“Peter?” She said in a quiet tone. “I wasn’t sure if I should say anything or when a good time to talk would be but I wanted you to know I’m really proud of our team. I could tell you thought we blamed you for the place we got but the thought never crossed my mind. You know?”

Peter swallowed and turned to face her. She stared straight at the lake but there was an openness in her face.

“I didn’t…” He cleared his throat. “How did you know?”

This time she did look over at him with a soft smile. There wasn’t an ounce of blame there. Peter shifted on the towel.

“I think I know you by now Peter. Plus, I would’ve felt the same if I was… you know.”



The tightness knotted in his chest in response and he did his best not to remember Mr. Stark’s parting words. Instead he focused on his teammate. It was her senior year and college was around the corner for her. He wondered what she would do now that both of her internships were done and her life was just beginning. She was sure of what she wanted that there was no doubt she would do something great. There was no reason for her to lie because he knew she would have no trouble saying her mind. Peter looked over and was grateful now for that straightforwardness. It let him accept her words and feel the knot loosen.

“Thank you.” He said.

She leaned over and put a hand around his shoulder, drawing them together.

The sun was setting behind a row of trees on the other side of the lake. Clouds lingered in the sky creating specks of purple and black overlaid on the fire palate in the sky. Frank, Flash, and Julia finally crawled out of the water and onto the shore all shivering and prune-skinned from the water. They plopped down on the towels and started digging into their bags to grab the snacks they brought down from the cottage.  

Peter accepted a handful of grapes. Everyone laughed and talked as they dried off. Two more weeks until school and in that moment, Peter would’ve given everything to stay on that lake; somewhere in upstate New York with his friends.

-

“How’s the Yaesu doing?” Barry asked from his spot in the doorway.

Peter looked up from behind a pair of magnifying goggles. Barry’s features were distorted under the pair of goggles but he smiled at the way Peter was almost bouncing off the seat as he nodded.

“I think it’s done.” He said.

Barry entered the room and Peter shoved everything over to the side of the desk so he could move the radio over to where his boss was standing. Barry whistled as he inspected the new parts all secured in their right place.  He tinkered around with a few of the disks but then stepped back.

“This is great, Peter. I’m glad you talked me into those extra hours, though your old manager is missing out on one good barista. She’s a beauty. With your finishing of that I think you deserve the rest of the day off.”

Peter opened his mouth to protest; to say he needed the distraction, but Barry was already waving him off.

“No worries. You’ve been working so much and I know you want some time before school. I’ve got the shop covered here.”


At least he was kicking Peter out in the nicest way possible but he wasn’t sure what he would do now. Frank and Monica had moved into their dorms the weekend before. Frank was out of state on a football scholarship. The pictures they sent of their cramped rooms did not inspire excitement about Peter’s own future prospects. Their small updates while sporadic allowed everyone in their team to stay connected.

Flash and Julia were doing something together which had surprised Peter but everyone else didn’t share his reaction. Monica said he should have seen it coming and on reflection Peter realized they had spent a large amount of time together at the cottage. He thought it was cute they were friends. Julia brought a sort of calm to Flash whose energy otherwise had too many directions to go to. Under the other’s influence Peter noticed the focused energy in Flash and a rise in confidence in Julia.

Ned was Ned. The boy texted Peter if he wanted to hang out today citing movies they could watch but with this unexpected freedom so early in the day Peter just wanted to spend time by himself.

There was nothing wrong with that, he reassured himself and ignore the guilty feeling of not texting his friend back. Spending time with yourself was important. Balance was key and while their upstate vacation was fun he returned home tired. After all he thought of by the lake, all the changes he’d undergone, he wasn’t a completely new person. He was still Peter Parker and sometimes he needed to be with himself.

Peter went into the back to grab his stuff. He spotted Barry on his way to the door in the front. The man was leaning against the counter, arms crossed on the glass case with his eyes trained on the small TV set up by the register. One red Converse rested on the other.

“Barry?” Peter spoke trying to gain the attention of his boss but the man didn’t respond. He said his name again with the same lack of response. The news murmured in the back and Peter walked around the counter, curious to see what was monopolizing his boss’s attention.  

The camera was shaking. Blurry images focused and unfocused on the screen amidst dirt and chaos thrown into the air. The trembling stopped; the camera focused and everything seemed to pause.

Peter’s breath lodged, trapped and turning stagnant, in his chest. The camera was stationary but what it captured was made all the more violent by this unnatural stop in motion. The outside world was silent, trapped in the spell the recorded world wove spinning regardless of its effects in brash action. Metal screamed on impact. Dust and debris streamed across the sky and Peter’s eyes tried to follow every movement in anticipation.

The first thing his eyes zoomed in on was the blue suit. Hadn’t he seen it on the TV only a month ago with that stranger? Captain America stood center screen, facing away and gesturing wide to someone he couldn’t see. His back tensed. Muscles rippled under the taught fabric facing them. His dropped for a moment. The helmet with dipped out of sight before his back straightened again. His shoulders square and spine tall. Then he brought his arm up and lunged forward.

Something hit the ground.

Red and gold caught his eye.

Peter gripped the edge of the counter as blue hit the red suit, sending the cement cracking under the pressure. Why was he? How could Captain America attack… his fellow Avenger? His friend?

His knees threatened to buckle as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

Captain America and Iron Man. In battle.

Beyond those two frontal figures other superheroes were fighting. Using their powers against each other. Not against a villain or some common enemy. No, they were fighting amongst themselves.  

Captain America stood above Iron Man. His feet near the man’s head. Cement cracked in a grotesque halo around his head. The building behind them was on fire.

In the back of his mind Peter wondered how this was being recorded and broadcasted onto the TV. All those thoughts were stripped away when Mr. Stark, no, Iron Man, launched off the ground, toward the other man.

Their fight began in earnest. There were no more pauses, nothing to say there was any hesitancy left in either figure. The colors clashed on screen and a restless itching invaded his muscles and into his blood cells. He needed to do something. To run or distract or… something. But he didn’t know where to go or what to do. Would he be welcomed? The most sickening prospect is he knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything either way. Not in comparison to all of the special people already there.  

Still, despite reaffirming these thoughts there remained the urge to run there and help Mr. Stark in any way he could.

Regardless of not being wanted or needed.

“Look at that there. Who would have thought good old Captain America would engage like that?”



Peter focused on the screen again. Cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck at the realization they were at a different location than before. The walls were dark and condensed the vision of the cameras making him feel claustrophobic.  

Iron Man was standing apart from a figure shrouded in the shadows. The famous shield, the one Peter dreamed of holding as a child, was cast to the side. Scratches marred the star on the front. Captain America stepped out from his place by the wall with a frown. He said something as he looked Iron Man up and down. A faint, pleading look replaced his otherwise dour expression.

Punches were thrown and explosives detonated in the cramped quarters so quickly it was difficult to keep track of everything. Peter lost sight of Iron Man for a moment and his heart clenched until the faint glow of the arc reactor appeared from inside the dust cloud.

Peter couldn’t think of him as Mr. Stark in that suit. His name refused to surface in Peter’s mind with all the metal incasing him, protecting him. It created this distance and it would hurt too much to think of that as Mr. Stark fighting.

The shield was in his hands.

Everything was in slow motion. The itching grew and Peter needed to run, to scream, to stop it but he was helpless. Captain America brought the shield over his head. His knees were on either side of Iron Man’s chest. The shield came down and slammed, stopped in time by Iron Man’s hands. The shield came up again, higher than the previous time, and it was flying down.

His heart stopped. Iron Man’s hands weren’t enough to stop the energy behind the assault.  Captain America stared down. Iron Man gazed upward, pain and a sort of grime acceptance in his eyes.

The shield came down faster than he could follow, the stars and stripes blurred by the motion. The results were confirmed with the denting of the red armor. The arc reactor fractured. Glass cracked and allowed the light to slip through the gaps.

The two men stared at each other. Their broken and torn up armor added unspoken meaning to the betrayed faces they wore. Iron Man’s helmet came off and it was the first time he wasn’t realized to see Mr. Stark’s face. Before that moment there was still a doubt and hope it would’ve been someone else or empty. But no, Mr. Stark gasped for air while his hands clawed against his chest.

Those wide eyes and desperate movements were the last to appear before the TV went black.  Peter was frozen. He was stuck in the fraught moment that had ended too soon and not soon enough on screen. The one he knew Mr. Stark was still living.

Barry said something. His eyes searched Peter’s face but he couldn’t look away from the screen now filled with headlines and news anchors. His boss moved around the counter and clapped him on the shoulder with another word Peter missed. He moved to the back of the store leaving Peter alone.

The person on screen was speculating about the possibilities of meaning this could mean for the Avengers and greater world. Their lips hurried through the broadcast but it was obvious they didn’t know what was happening.  

One particular sentence caught his attention.

“…and, of course, Tony Stark also under the alias, Iron Man, was on scene. While we don’t know exactly what caused this rift between the group it is clear his motivations and actions are far from scrutiny given past indiscretions…”

His hands clenched at his sides at the smirk on the reporter. The tighter he squeezed the deeper his nails bit into the flesh of his palms. It was just like those people staring in the hallways of the Tower. Their faces all pressed against the glass to catch a glimpse and speculate about their boss. The news was the same. The amount of times Mr. Stark had joked about what they wrote about him was sickening.

Who were they that they had the right to say that? How was that fair?

Peter squeezed his hands harder, pushing his knuckles into the glass on the counter before storming out of the building. He didn’t call out a goodbye to Barry or clock out of work. It didn’t matter.

The wind swept through his hair and a chill descended onto his skin as he walked out. On pilot he steered through the crowds of people without making eye contact. His thoughts were miles away but his feet began the way to his apartment without prompting.

He couldn’t help the tendril of worry curled in his stomach. It nested there and created a pit stuck like an anchor weighing down his body and thoughts. Mr. Stark had to be okay. He was Iron Man after all and the man had faced much worse. He’d always come out ahead every other time.

That was the defining difference though. Mr. Stark had faced worse enemies before but Captain American wasn’t an enemy to Peter’s knowledge. While Mr. Stark didn’t talk about the Avengers often and Peter didn’t want to pry, it was a kind word he spoke when he did. Peter never dreamed there would be discord in the world-famous group. They were the Avengers and to all outward appearances they were colleagues and friends. Everyone’s aimed weapons. The scowls and grimaces. All the fighting in the back. All of it aimed at a teammate.

He thought of Julia, Frank, and Monica and shivered. Would they turn on each other given the chance? Peter shook his head at the wayward nature his thoughts were taking. He had to focus on what was happening now.  

Mr. Stark’s eyes and his hands holding onto his chest would be burned into his mind. The image of fissured glass and metal replayed over and over. Peter wasn’t sure if he could remember to breath normally.

-

The subway ride passed by without notice as his thoughts whirled around in his head. Somehow Peter made it back to his room ensconced in the familiar warmth of his blanket. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped to obliviate everything. For a selfish instant, all he wanted was to forget about the afternoon and all the baggage that came loaded with it. He should’ve helped. It was like there was this voice in the back of his mind that knew in some other universe he would have been strong enough to help in some way. It wasn’t to be. He was here in his apartment under the covers in his bed. He was hiding from his aunt and her questions. He was hiding from himself and the disappointment he felt about it all.

Peter’s phone rested against the pillow to his side. He ignored all the incoming text messages from his friends and instead scrolled through every social media and news outlet he could think of trying to get a crumb of new information. There were videos breaking down every scene of the footage released like a movie trailer. Everything was conjecture.

There was one option to find the truth.

Shaking hands dialed the contact and with minimal thought to convince himself out of this course of action, Peter pressed call. The lone sound that filled the air was the rings followed by Mr. Stark’s voicemail. The man’s voice, gentle and teasing, took Peter’s breath away. He hadn’t heard it in so long and yet it felt like yesterday. He remembered the story Pepper told him of how she forced him to set up the voicemail on his number.

“You know who it is. You’re trying to call me so I’m supposed to say leave a number but don’t. I’ll find you.” He could hear the phone being put down and Mr. Stark walking away while talking to his partner. “Are you happy now, Pepper?” He said and they both laughed.

She told Peter over dinner one night how stubborn the man was. How even though he was quick to right his wrongs, change came difficult for him, including, apparently, a new voicemail. The man had griped from across the table but winked at Peter when he insisted in defending Mr. Stark’s honor and told Pepper he was the same way. He glanced up under his lashes when he spoke, confident for the first time that night, to see their eyes soften as they gazed at him.  

He scowled at the memory and let the phone fall screen first onto his mattress before turning toward the wall. Peter tucked the blanket higher over his head and wished he had the courage to leave a voicemail, or to call one more time so he could hear their laughter again.

His stomach throbbed as he thought about his internship. He spent so many hours in the Tower over forged metal and takeout boxes with the man. All the time he agonized over if he should be there and listing everyway he wasn’t good enough when it would’ve been, not easy because nothing was that easy, but worth it to forget about all that. How strange and how worth it would his internship have been if Peter had just accepted he was wanted there? At the time he rationalized he was doing everyone a favor. He was saving them from disappointment but maybe he was saving himself the potential hurt. Peter thought of his promise to himself to try and be happy and he realized maybe this was a part of it.

Osborn and his curled smile were the crux of this. The injection of that man into his life had closed off doors he was only beginning to see were available to him. If only he’d never gone to Oscorp.

It was no use thinking like that but his mind kept circling around the two men well into the morning. Nothing fruitful came of it and he was left with shadows darkening his eyes.

May tried to grab his attention. She loaded up his plate with toast and strawberries but Peter pushed it around. His homework beckoned him from his desk but as he sat there, Peter found his eyes wandering to the fire escape and beyond.

His feet pounded against the sidewalk as his walk turned into a run. Despite the screaming in his muscles and the pressure building in his lungs he continued forward, urged by the lack of thought his action was providing. He was so focused on his body he didn’t have to think about Mr. Stark and why he was fighting with Captain America. Self-reflective thoughts were shoved down by the sound of his harsh breaths and for the moment Peter was running.

And it was heaven.

Thank you!

Taglist: @whatisthou @demi-starzak @warmwithafewfrostymoments

Next Chapter Seventeen: Reflections and Realizations

Taylor Swift Bent the Music Industry to Her Will

In the 2010s, she became its savviest power player.

In late November 2019, Taylor Swift gave a career-spanning performance at the American Music Awards before accepting the statue for Artist of the Decade. (Swift was perhaps the perfect cross between the award’s two previous recipients, Britney Spears and Garth Brooks.) Clad in a cascading rose-colored cape and holding court among the younger female artists in attendance — 17-year-old Billie Eilish, 22-year-old Camila Cabello, 25-year-old Halsey — Swift had the queenly air of an elder stateswoman. After picking up five additional awards, including Artist of the Year, she became the show’s most decorated artist in history. “This is such a great year in music. The new artists are insane,” she declared in her acceptance speech, with big-sister gravitas. That night, she finally outgrew that “Who, me?” face of perpetual awards-show surprise; she accepted the honors she won like an artist who believed she had worked hard enough to deserve them.

Swift cut an imposing adult figure up there, because somewhere along the line she’d become one. The 2010s have coincided almost exactly with Swift’s 20s, with the subtle image changes and maturations across her last five album cycles coming to look like an Animorphs cover of a savvy and talented young woman gradually growing into her power. And so to reflect on the Decade in Taylor Swift is to assess not just her sonic evolutions but her many industry chess moves: She took Spotify to task in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and got Apple to reverse its policy of not paying artists royalties during a three-month free trial of its music-streaming service. She sued a former radio DJ for allegedly groping her during a photo op and demanded just a symbolic victory of $1, as if to say the money wasn’t the point. Critics wondered whether she was leaning too heavily on her co-writers, so she wrote her entire 2010 album, Speak Now, herself, without any collaborators. In 2018, she severed ties with her longtime label, Big Machine Records, and negotiated a new contract with Universal Music Group that gave her ownership of her masters and assurance that she (and any other artist on the label) would be paid out if UMG ever sold its Spotify shares. Yes, she stoked the flames of her celebrity feuds with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, and Katy Perry plenty over the past ten years, but she’s also focused some of her combative energy on tackling systemic problems and fashioning herself into something like the music industry’s most high-profile vigilante. Few artists have made royalty payments and the minutiae of entertainment-law front-page news as often as Swift has.

Within the industry, Swift has always had the reputation of being something of a songwriting savant (in 2007, when “Our Song” was released, then-17-year-old Swift became the youngest person ever to write and perform a No. 1 song on the Billboard Country chart), but she has long desired to be considered an industry power player, too. A 2011 New Yorker profile of Swift circa her blockbuster Speak Now World Tour noted that she initially intended to follow her parents’ footsteps and pursue a career in business, quoting her saying, “I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was 8, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be.” In an even earlier interview, she fondly recalled the times in elementary school when she stayed up late with her mother, practicing for school presentations. “I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to,” she said this year in an unusually candid Rolling Stone interview. “And I’m so sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business.” Of course, she still spent plenty of time sitting at her piano or strumming her guitar, but in that conversation she painted herself as someone who is also “sit[ting] in a conference room several times a week,” coming up with ideas about how best to market her music and her career.

And so over the past decade, Swift’s face has appeared not just on magazine covers and television screens, but on UPS trucks and Amazon packages. Her songs have been featured in Target commercials and NFL spots, to name just two of her many lucrative partnerships. That New Yorker profile also found her to be uncommonly enthused about the fact that her CDs were being sold in Starbucks: “I was so stoked about it, because it’s been one of my goals — I always go into Starbucks, and I wished that they would sell my album.”

“Taylor Swift is something like the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music,” Hazel Cills wrote recently in Jezebel. “She has propelled her career from tiny country artist into pop machine over the past few years with little shame when it comes to corporate collaborators.” Such brazen femme-capitalism will always be a turnoff to some people (“the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music” is even less of a compliment in 2019 than it was when Lean In was first published), but it’s undeniable that it has helped Swift maintain and leverage her status as a commercial juggernaut more consistently than any other pop star over the past ten years.

In the 2010s, with the clockwork certainty of a midterm election, there was a Taylor Swift album every other autumn. (Yes, there was a three-year gap between 1989 and Reputation, but she all but made up for it with the quick timing of August’s Lover.) The kinds of pop superstars considered her peers did not stick to such rigid schedules: Adele released two studio albums this decade, Beyoncé released three, and even Rihanna — who for the first three years of the decade was averaging an album a year — eventually slowed her roll and will have released just four when the 2010s are all said and done. The only A-plus-list musician who saturated the market as steadily as Swift did this decade was Drake.

Still, Drake’s commercial dominance was more of a newfangled phenomenon, capitalizing on the industry’s sudden reliance on streaming and his massive popularity on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Drake might be the artist who rode the streaming wave most successfully this decade, but — with her strategic withholding of her albums from certain platforms until they better compensated artists — Swift was often the one bending it to her will. And she could do that because she didn’t need to rely on it solely: Somehow, against all odds, Taylor Swift still sold records. Like, gazillions of them. When Swift’s 2017 record, Reputation (some critics thought it was a critical misstep, but it certainly wasn’t a commercial one), moved 1.216 million units in its first seven days, Swift became the only artist in history to achieve four different million-selling weeks. And, of course, all four of these weeks came during a decade when traditional album sales were on a precipitous decline. At least for those mere mortals who were not an all-powerful being named Taylor Alison Swift.

“Female empowerment” has been such an ambient, unquestioned virtue of the pop culture of this decade that we have too often failed to take a step back and ask ourselves what sort of power is being advocated for, and if its attainment should always be a cause for celebration. Is “female empowerment” any different from the hollow, materialistic promises of the late ’90s “girl power”? Is “female power” inherently different or more benevolent than its default male counterpart? Maybe this feels like such a distinctly American hang-up because we have not yet experienced that mythic, oft-imagined figure of the First Female President, and have thus not had to contend with the cold reality that, whoever she is, she will, like all of us, be inevitably flawed, imperfect, and at least occasionally disappointing.

As she’s grown into her own brand of 21st-century American pop feminism — sometimes elegantly, sometimes gawkily — Swift seems to have come to a firm conviction that female power is essentially more virtuous than the male variety. This was a side of herself she celebrated in her AMA performance. Swift opened her medley with a few fiery bars of “The Man,” her own personalized daydream of what gender equality would look like: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can,” she sings, “wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” She wore an oversize white button-down onto which the titles of her old albums were stamped in a correctional-facility font: SPEAK NOW, RED, 1989, REPUTATION. Plenty of the millions of people who scrutinize Swift’s every move interpreted her choice of outfit and song as not-so-subtle jabs at Big Machine’s Scott Borchetta and the manager-to-the-stars Scooter Braun, with whom Swift is still in a messy, uncommonly public battle over the fate of her master recordings. (The only album title missing from her outfit was “LOVER,” which happens to be the only one of which she has full ownership.) She has framed the terms of her battle with Borchetta and Braun in strikingly gendered language: “These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work,” she told Rolling Stone. “And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of Scotch to themselves.” Though she is herself a very rich, very powerful woman, she reads their message to be unquestionably condescending: Be a good little girl and shut up.

It is true that many record contracts are designed to take advantage of young artists, and that young women and people of color are probably perceived by music executives to be the marks most vulnerable to exploitation. But it is also true that Swift signed a legally binding contract, the kind that a businesswoman like herself would have to respect if it were signed by somebody else. Braun, who has been asking to have these negotiations in private rather than on Twitter, claims to have received death threats from her fans.

Even as she’s grown into one of the most dominant pop-culture figures in the world, Swift sometimes still seems to be clinging to her old underdog identity, to the extent that she can fail to grasp the magnitude of her own power or account for the blind spots of her privilege. “Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me,” she sang on Speak Now’s Grammy-winning 2010 single “Mean,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that, compared to 99.99 percent of the population, she already was. The mid-decade backlash to Swift’s thin-white-celebrity-and-model-studded “girl squad” — none of which was more incisive than Lara Marie Schoenhals’s hilarious parody video — took her by surprise. “I never would have imagined that people would have thought, This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it … I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to.”

“Female power” is not automatically faultless, and can of course be tainted by all other sorts of biases and assumptions about class, race, and sexual orientation, to name just a few more common pitfalls. Swift’s face-palm-inducing 2015 misunderstanding with Nicki Minaj revealed this, of course, and plenty of people felt that her sudden embrace of the LGBTQ community in the “You Need to Calm Down” was a clumsy overcorrection for her past silence. Maybe she would have gotten where she was quicker if she were a man. But it would take a more complicated, and perhaps less catchy, song to acknowledge she might not have gotten there at all had she not also enjoyed other privileges.

Art has its own kind of power — sneakier and harder to measure than the economic kind. The reason Taylor Swift has been worth talking about incessantly for an entire decade is that she continues to wield this kind, too. “I don’t think her commercial responsibilities detract from her genuine passion for her craft,” a then-17-year-old Tavi Gevinson wrote in a memorable 2013 essay for The Believer. “Have you ever watched her in interviews when she gets asked about her actual songwriting? She becomes that kid who’s really into the science fair.”

After so much industry drama, much of the lived-in, self-reflective Lover is a simple reminder that Swift was and still is a singular songwriter. Yes, this was the decade of such loud, flashy missteps as “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Welcome to New York,” and “Me!,” but it was also a decade of so many quieter triumphs: the pulsing synesthesia of “Red,” the nervous heart flutter of “Delicate,” the sleek sophistication of “Style,” the concise lyricism of “Mean,” the cathartic fun of “22,” the slow-dance swoon of “Lover.” But like so many of her fans, and even Swift herself, I still find the most enduringly powerful song she’s ever written to be “All Too Well,” the smoldering breakup scrapbook released on her great 2012 album Red. “Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well,” she sings, an innocent enough lyric that, by the end of the song, comes to glint like a switchblade. In a decade of DGAF, ghosting, and performative chill, remembering it all too well might be Swift’s stealthiest superpower. She felt it deeply, can still access that feeling whenever she needs to, and that means she can size you up in a line as concisely cutting as “so casually cruel in the name of being honest.” Forget Jake Gyllenhaal or John Mayer. That’s the sort of observation that would bring Goliath to his knees.

“It is still the case that when listeners hear a female voice, they do not hear a voice that connotes authority,” the historian Mary Beard writes in her manifesto Women & Power, “or rather they have not learned how to hear authority in it.” At least in the realm of pop music, Swift has spent the better part of her decade chipping away at that double standard, and teaching people how to think about cultural power a little bit differently. She sprinkled artful emblems of teen-girl-speak through her smash hits (“Uhhh he calls me and he’s like, ‘I still love you,’ and I’m like, ‘This is exhausting, we are never getting back together, like, ever”) and did not abandon her effusive love of kittens and butterflies in order to be taken seriously. As an artist and a businesswoman, she made the power of teen girls — and the women who used to be them — that much more perilous to ignore. Because they’ve been there all along, and they remember all too well.

CGWorld: Interview with Resident Evil 7′s lead character artist

The following is a translation of an interview with Hirofumi Nakaoka, the lead character artist for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard that was published on the CG World website on January 13, 2017.

You can find the original article on the following link:

https://cgworld.jp/interview/201701-capcom.html

Introduction

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the latest installment in the popular survival horror game series has finally been released. It’s the first numbered title in the series developed natively for current [8th] generation consoles based on Capcom’s in-house “RE Engine”, which also supports VR, incorporating a presentation of fear like nothing that came before. With the entire game being fully compatible with VR, the title is expected to be a spark that will ignite the VR gaming market.

Capcom, the company who developed and published RE7, has established two new local development bases in Osaka with a focus on in-house development. They are aggressively hiring human resources and are expected to have over 2,500 game creators in their employ by the year 2021. Such a company-wide strengthening of its development system is also due to the need for an environment that allows for the creation of more discerning games. We’ve interviewed Hirofumi Nakaoka, lead character artist for RE7, about the human resources and development environment sought by the company.

The Amount of Calories That Can Be Poured Into Each Character Varies

Hirofumi Nakaoka (仲岡 博史) was the lead character artist in RE7. He is a digital artist from Tokyo with 9 years of experience who transferred over to Capcom due to his love for zombies. “I changed jobs during my second year of employment, but I got used to the change pretty quickly.” says Nakaoka. “I don’t really feel any barriers from newcomers or transfers when I look around. I don’t have time to make walls around myself, so people around myself tend to talk with open frankness and we all become pretty close. From a company-wide perspective, only half of our employees are from the Kansai region and the number of foreign creatores are increasing as well.”

What Capcom wants is “a passion for creating games” is the first thing that Nakaoka says in blunt terms.

“As the scale of game development increases, the need to create prettier games that require less rework increases.” says Nakaoka. “However, people cannot control their inner urges, even when they’re receiving instructions from above. There are ideas from all over the place and people who seemingly want to realize them.” As Nakaoka points out, cooperation, character and technology are of course essential, but more importantly it is important for people to have some passion and not be too divided in their jobs.

The Whopper made a shocking debut in Resident Evil 6, the previous entry in the series. A morbidly obese zombie also known as the “XL size” within the game. Top: the first piece of concept art depicting a creature that is too large to enter a door. Bottom left: Finalized concept art. Bottom right: Official CGI.

In fact, Nakaoka said that during the development of RE6, he wanted to make a large obese zombie. He was entrusted with the design and modelling of the enemy, which led to the birth of the so-called “Whopper” enemy character.

The Molded, a new creature introduced in RE7, was also a daring new character concept that was created from full-scratch at a time when 3D scanning is becoming more commonplace. “There was no material to use as a reference so we created [the Molded] from scratch. I think that’s what makes our company unique.”

Molded, a new creature that appears in RE7. Creature from complete scratch without any photoscanning. An enemy representative of the game that gave players trouble even in the demo version of the game. “It was a difficult character to create” says Nakaoka. “But as someone familiar with the series’s setting, I think it fits quite well.”

Aiming for video quality that approaches the quality of overseas VFX movies in real-time

Cooperation with partner companies is now required in order to reduce labor cost in the large scale of game development. In response, Capcom has opened two development studios in Osaka City, with plans to hire over 2,500 developers.

“To create a high-quality game, first we need a structure that allows for in-house development. Then we will cooperate on the necessary parts and manage our costs.” such is their policy.

In addition to recent graduates, Capcom is also actively recruiting mid-career veterans, with almost all the job posts available for high-end CGI artists and engineers.

“With the evolution of technology, we’re constantly switching between new tools.” says Mr. Nakaoka. “The RE Team in particular has a work chart that is optimized in a timely matter during development.”

When it comes to modelling, photoscanning is being used more frequently. For example, you can buy a hamburger, break the wrapping paper in a nice way, scan it, fix it and then use it in the game. In turn, if the final data format is preserved, the individuals will have the flexibility to use whatever tools they like.

Up to around 12 tools are used to create a single character model.

Upper left: a 3D-scanned model via Photoscan, a program which recreates in high-quality a solid object via photographs taken from various angles.

Upper right: Retopology with Zbrush.

Center left: Hair generated by the Ornatrix plug-in.

Bottom left: Detail fixing with Maya.

Bottom right: Real-time output with the Marmoset toolbag

Job applications from outside the videogame industry are more than welcomed, particularly experience with high-end pre-rendered movies. This is because knowledge in pre-rendered videos from the movie industry is required to create better real-time CGI. On the other hand, even mobile game artists can quickly catch up with the technology and tools if they have a solid foundation. In-house desining meetings and conference briefings are also frequently held and assistance to seminar attendees are also provided.

An in-house designing meeting (top), with a guidelines on how to design characters (bottom). Artists recruited from vocational schools tend to have lacking drawing skills compared to their skills with tool acquisitions and game development. For that reason, Capcom often holds lectures teaching their employees on how to draw. In addition, there are other various in-house seminars such as tool studying sessions and conference reports.

One of their features is their emphasis on an employee’s welfare and mental care. A superior takes care of and calls on the assignment of both, projects and positions. On one hand, employees are required to have a regular lifestyle. If an employee wishes to work overtime after 10PM, they must ask permission from their superior. “Despite the flexible workhours, we still value health overall.” says Nakaoka. “Perhaps that’s the one aspect that differs the most from the past.” A passion for creativity and a heart that governs you. Cool games are being created by a group of professional creators with backgrounds in creating not just videogames, but also from the live-action and animation industries.

Text by Kenji Ono

Photos by Yohei Onuma

Kill la Kill at Sakura-Con 2019

It’s been a few days since Sakura-Con 2019 ended, but I’m back home now—and well rested enough to finally write in detail about my experience there!

The con featured a playable demo of Kill la Kill the Game: IF, and David Vincent (Senketsu) was present as well. I was able to spend quite a bit of time with the game over the weekend, and I also attended one of Vincent’s panels, “BlazBlue/Kill la Kill Voices with David Vincent,” which he hosted on Saturday, April 20th. While the panel revealed very little about the upcoming video game, there were quite a few fun tidbits shared about the Kill la Kill anime and voice acting industry.

Since I played the game first, let me start there!

Kill la Kill the Game: IF

The Kill la Kill the Game: IF demo was available to all attendees of Sakura-Con from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on Friday and Saturday and from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday, but unfortunately, there was very little publicity regarding its appearance at the convention. Sakura-Con itself never advertised the demo; shockingly, Arc System Works is even absent from the Exhibitors list in the official Sakura-Con paper guidebook.

Even someone like me—who has heavily followed any and all news on the game since its announcement and devoted dozens of hours to reporting on it—only discovered a few mere days before the con that I would be able to play!

So, maybe it’s no surprise that I heard, many times over the weekend, some variation of, “I didn’t know there was a Kill la Kill fighting game!” And maybe it’s even less of a surprise that there was practically no line to try the game out while it was available at the Sakura-Con Exhibitors Hall—heck, sometimes, there wasn’t a line at all.

While the small crowd allowed me to easily play numerous matches—the only characters I have yet to try are Houka Inumuta and Ragyo Kiryuin, and I played Ryuko Matoi and Satsuki Kiryuin several times each—I was also sad to see the game not receive the attention it deserves.

As for the game itself, do note that this account is coming from someone who is not a gamer and who’s legitimately struggling to think of any other fighting games besides the Super Smash Bros. and Tekken series that she’s played. (But, y’know, actually, Tekken was my jam back in the day. Anyone else remember playing Devil or Angel in Tekken 2 and just holding down like circle, triangle, and square to shoot lasers outta your eyes and take out practically all of the opponent’s HP bar? Just me?)

So, needless to say, anime fighters are totally new ground for me. I don’t have the background to discuss how Kill la Kill the Game: IF stacks up to similar titles, nor do I have the expertise to talk any technical details, and I won’t pretend that I do. But I will say this: as someone who was already planning on buying the game 2-3 times purely for the story and who had extremely minimal interest in the actual gameplay, I enjoyed playing way more than I thought I would. The combos were flashy and fun, I loved the supers and special attacks, and the whole experience honestly brought me back to the good times I had playing Tekken as a kid. Sitting at the Arc System Works booth, I thought, “Wow, this is fun!”

Regarding the particular demo available at the booth, a few elements stand out to me:

✄ First, the build was not titled in the same way that other builds have been. Whereas the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) 2018 build was titled “EVO2018 Demo Version,” the Anime NYC build was titled “AnimeNYC 2018 Demo Version,” and the EVO Japan 2019 build was titled “EVO Japan 2019,” for example, the Sakura-Con build was simply titled “Demo Version.”

✄ It was previously revealed in ArcLive episode 46 that there will be an online demo of Kill la Kill the Game: IF. It’s likely that the Sakura-Con demo, literally titled “Demo Version,” will be this online demo.

✄ The Sakura-Con demo did not include all of the stages that have been seen in other builds. For instance, the Fiber Castle that was first playable in the Game Developers Conference (GDC) build last month was not present in the Sakura-Con demo.

✄ The Sakura-Con demo did include all of the characters that have been seen in other builds. Ryuko Matoi, Satsuki Kiryuin, Uzu Sanageyama, Ira Gamagoori, Houka Inumuta, Nonon Jakuzure, Ragyo Kiryuin, Nui Harime, and the dual-wielding variations of Ryuko and Satsuki were all available to play (though, printed-out character guides only seemed to be available for Ryuko and Satsuki). This is perhaps interesting because the PQubeGames stream from last week did not have Ragyo, Nui, or the dual-wielding variations of Ryuko and Satsuki available to play.

✄ But speaking of the PQubeGames stream, the build there did offer alternate color options from the character select menu. The colors were “Basic Color,” “ARC Collab Color,” and “Alternate Color.” The Sakura-Con demo, in contrast, did not offer alternate color options from the character select menu. 

✄ At Sakura-Con, the only way to see alternate colors was for both players to choose the same fighter. All alternate colors in the Sakura-Con demo were presumably based off of the evil clone colors from the Kill la Kill episode 25 OVA: characters are grayed out with green eyes and blonde hair. The PQubeGames stream includes a match that features the evil clone colors for Ira, and Alpharad’s GDC video includes a match that features the evil clone colors for Satsuki. 

✄ And, though I do not have any screenshots, I purposely played double-character matches against the computer when there was no line at Sakura-Con just to see the alternate colors. I was able to try Ryuko against Ryuko and Nui against Nui, and they too had the evil clone coloration for their alternate colors. Ryuko is grayed out with blonde hair and green eyes (which Senketsu shares as well), though her red streaks remain intact. Nui is also grayed out with a green eye and a dark pink eyepatch. 

✄ Interestingly, the evil clone colors were not the alternate colors that were originally shown for Ryuko and Satsuki. At EVO 2018 last year, the alternate color for Satsuki was not grayed out and did not have green eyes. The alternate color for Ryuko featured orange hair and a white Senketsu. It was stated in ArcLive episode 46 that there will be more than two color options per character, so perhaps these colors for Ryuko and Satsuki will make a return in the final version of the game.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Seven Net Shopping is offering Junketsu-colored costumes for the cast as a pre-order bonus, and these costumes could possibly be purchasable later.

✄ There were minor changes to the translation in the Sakura-Con demo. For one example, Senketsu’s “Don’t make me dizzy,” which was the localization as of the GDC build last month, became “You’re making me dizzy.” I also might have been too overwhelmed to pay the most attention to this detail, but I can’t say I recall any mention of “Snippity-Snips.”

✄ It might be another case of being too overwhelmed to pay the most attention to this detail, but I also can’t recall any of the big red “Counter Hit”s and “Guard Break”s that have been in every build thus far in the Sakura-Con demo.

✄ After completing a match, the game simply said, “Thank you!” In the past, such as at Anime NYC last year, there would be a request to complete a survey and share your thoughts. The game may be too far in production now to really incorporate feedback.

For some other general notes on the game and my experience playing it:

✄ Every character has an Instant Kill attack that’s accompanied by an elaborate cutscene (and you can see all Instant Kills that have been featured in gameplay videos in this extensive document). I never managed to score an Instant Kill myself (because I failed at the rock-paper-scissors-styled Bloody Valor like literally every time and definitely got Insta-Killed for it!), but while watching others play, I caught glimpses of the Instant Kills for Uzu and Nui, neither of which I’ve seen in any released gameplay footage thus far. 

Uzu’s Instant Kill involves a lot of “Men! Dou! Kote!”-ing, and Nui’s Instant Kill is rather haunting. The pupil of her one eye shrinks, and she slashes her opponent in a way that’s reminiscent of how she murders Isshin Matoi. When she’s finished, she sticks out her tongue.

✄ I enjoyed playing Ryuko and Satsuki (both versions) the most, and this is probably only partly because they’re my favorite characters on the roster. Both Ryuko and Satsuki are speedy fighters with some really fun, flashy combos and specials. I tend to value speed over power when it comes to gaming, so these two fit my preferences nicely.

✄ Ira was by far my least favorite character to play (sorry, Gama! I still love you!) He’s simply far too slow for my liking. But surprisingly, I enjoyed playing as Nonon more than I thought I would. I like my battles up close and personal, but zoning as Nonon wasn’t really that unappealing at all.

✄ I played against the computer for the double matches, and it was set very easy. I won without breaking a sweat, and I lost to plenty of folks at the con.

✄ And, of course, I love the dialogue. The banter really makes this game 100 times more enjoyable. 

Well, for me, at least. 

I can’t tell anyone else how to play the game, but it definitely hurt a little when folks I played with skipped the cutscenes.

✄ I saw so many lines I hadn’t seen translated before, and I wish I had the memory to recall all of them. But perhaps some of the most amusing lines came from the double-character matches. 

Nui notes that it’s annoying that her copy looks like her, but she haaaates even more that her copy sounds like her. Ryuko, meanwhile, gets very caught up in calling out her copy as a fake, but Senketsu tries to be all analytical about it. He wonders if it’s the Life Fibers that created the clone and tells Ryuko, “Stay calm... there may be more of them.” Ryuko answers, “Fight now, think later!” When you win, Senketsu will say, “We won, but I have so many questions” or wonder about where “she” came from. It was way too loud in the Exhibitors Hall to make out the Japanese here, but I wonder if Senketsu does in fact specify that he’s referring just to the copied Ryuko and is less concerned about the copy of himself, pfff.

Other dialogue things:

✄ Uzu calls Nui “a beast.”

✄ Ryuko essentially pulls a, “You killed my father, prepare to die!” right before fighting Nui, and it is amazing.

✄ Ryuko tells Ragyo, “You’re just like your kid.”

✄ Ryuko’s “ass wipe” comment is included in the PQubeGames stream, but, okay. It’s great. It definitely got some reactions at the con! 

Especially because she was directing it at herself in that case....

tl;dr?

✄ Me, a non-gamer just about 100% interested in this thing for the story, really enjoyed playing the game!

✄ Which sadly did not receive much attention from Sakura-Con.

✄ But it’s a fun game with fun dialogue, and while the Sakura-Con demo didn’t have everything I’ve seen in other builds (such as some stages and the option to use alternate colors), all currently released characters were playable. It seems likely that Sakura-Con’s demo’ll end up being the online demo of the game, and I’d be thrilled to play this build again!

BlazBlue/Kill la Kill Voices with David Vincent

Saturday’s panel was largely an open Q&A session with David Vincent with some voice acting from the crowd in the latter half. Some Kill la Kill-related questions and answers are as follows:

✄ Someone (not me, I swear!) noted that Ryuko and Senketsu have a very close bond in the series and asked if David Vincent (Senketsu) ever recorded with Erica Mendez (Ryuko) in the booth. The answer was no. It’s too difficult to match lip flaps with more than one person in the booth, so in anime dubbing, everyone records alone.

✄ One question asked about the auditioning process for Senketsu. Vincent noted that he wasn’t sure how to voice a jacket, but he understood more as he watched the series. He described the typical auditioning process for voice acting roles, saying that an actor is called in to read for the character and, if they do well, they’ll receive a callback to read for the character again. With every callback, the pool of actors becomes smaller and smaller until one actor finally wins the role. Interestingly, Vincent said that he had to record the first episode of Kill la Kill again because he was told to change the voice he was using. Later in the panel, he further revealed that he had to say the “Sen-i-Soshitsu!” line at the end of the first episode about 25 times because producer Hiroe Tsukamoto was very strict about the pronunciation; for example, she told him the correct way to pronounce “Osaka.”

✄ When asked if Vincent tries to base his performance on the Japanese VAs, he said no. Vincent likes to bring his own take on a character.

✄ In regards to ad-libbing, Vincent said that he often isn’t allowed to. For instance, at the end of Senketsu’s speedy recap for episode 16, he ad-libbed Senketsu taking a deep breath... but this was cut.

✄ Someone spoiled the ending for Kill la Kill and asked how Vincent felt about Senketsu getting “dusted.” Vincent answered that Kill la Kill is a wild, ludicrous show, but Senketsu’s death is quite poignant. The final episode was shown at Sakura-Con 2014, at another panel that Vincent was present for, and he said many people came up to him afterwards and expressed how saddened they were by Senketsu’s passing.

✄ Regarding Senketsu’s death, there was a question asking if Senketsu is “really” dead in the episode 25 OVA. Vincent said that Senketsu is “comic book dead” and coming back.

Can I foolishly hope this means that there’s a “Senketsu Lives” ending in the upcoming video game?

✄ Concerning the game, Vincent said that he had signed contracts and couldn’t say a thing about it... except that he just finished recording, and it’s good.

Given that Kill la Kill the Game: IF releases in North America and Europe on July 26th, it’s likely that we’ll hear a bit more of the English dub—and Vincent reprising his role as Senketsu again—before too long.