so glad the hearth timeline is like… slightly more understandable than before. previously i had freminet down as being given to the hearth at about 5, arle killing the previous knave when he was about 8, and the twins being taken in a few months later at about 12 when he was still 8. for my au, that makes them about four years apart, which feels slightly large of an age gap but ultimately it works better than making them a year or two apart.

apparently, canonically arle was 16 when clervie died at 16, 17 when she killed the previous knave, and then spent an unknown amount of time in prison before becoming a harbinger and taking over as the director of the house of hearth.

freminet was taken in during the year between clervie’s death and crucabena’s death. the twins were taken in a few months after that.

if freminet was taken in at 5-6, the twins taken in around 9-10, that keeps the age gap between the trio as well as explains the ~10 year gap between this and canon. that would make freminet 15-16 and the twins 19-20, which fits them really well. i wish arlecchino was older, though; she definitely feels older than ~27.

Plum blossoms in the snow (II)

Part 4: April and May (II)

Disclaimer: I try to keep things objective (if I include my personal opinion, it’s in cursive and in brackets), but I’m biased because of the XZ friendly content I’m usually exposed to and by my own views of their situation. Open to discussion, but please make sure you’ve enough information to do so.

(There was a mistake in the last post, that an anon pointed out. I’ve edited the post. Thank you!)

In May, some of the controversy resurfaced, in the topic of how idols and celebrities affect the younger generations, and, even how they affect younger generations by affecting those in charge of their education.

TV documentary

At the beginning of May, a documentary appeared on the news about a mother worried for her high school daughter, who neglected her studies “because she was infatuated with XZ”. Among other things, she’d ask for money to buy XZ’s new song (0’5 by the way) and she’d borrow money from her classmates to buy things he endorses.

Her daughter also appeared on the documentary, saying that her academic performance has nothing to do with XZ, but rather with the pandemic situation, as she’s not used to online classes. It turned out that she had skipped a grade, and entered high school directly from 2nd year of middle school, so she lacked the support of a network of friends and encouragement in her new situation. She said that as soon as she got her motivation back, she’d keep studying.

However, general public sided with her mother, and said that this kind of obsession with an idol was leading the youths astray.

Interview with Economic View

XZ also gave an interview, for the first time since 2/27, for Economic View, alking about many topics, the “XZ fans incident” among them (I found this video with subtitles, and I think the subtitles are quite good).

He said, among other things:

“Everything happened in the climax of the country’s fight against the epidemic. I was deeply troubled and worried while I was quarantined at home. I also felt very if this incident has brought trouble to netizens. If that’s the case, from here, I want to say a sincere ‘I’m sorry’.

Since my debut to now, I’ve never ceased to receive well-meaning criticism and guidance. I went from being a normal person to go on to the stage. From my friends, from seniors… I’m always open to them. But of course, there is malicious criticism, some fake rumours and slander, that I think don’t affect just me, but also my friends and family. I don’t feel wronged. I just don’t understand.

When I was 19-20, and I first used w/ibo, I didn’t realize. That in such a public platform, I made inappropriate comments that have hurt other people. I apologize for the consequences of the inappropriate comments I’ve made in the past.”

He also said that the fans always did public welfare projects in his name, and that he got energy from them.

“I hope fans can live their own lives well, and don’t resort to extreme actions to hurt others or themselves.”

This interview was of course praised for showing responsibility and answering almost all questions. We can all notice that his responses are very carefully worded, that he takes his time thinking about what he’s going to say and how, and that his answers are very calculated. Don’t misunderstand me. He did it very well in this interview, and I don’t think he was insincere, but he needed to be very careful about what he said at the time.

Other idols and their sasaengs

On the 9th of May, WYB posted the following:

“I work very hard, can’t I even nap for a bit in the car? My staff stood in front of your car, and you still dared to drive forward? For a long time, strangers come and knock my hotel room’s door, they install tracking devices in my car, there’s people following me no matter where I go… unbelievable! I really can’t understand you!”

A crazy fan had followed him on her car. When the security had tried to stop her, stepping in front of her car, she still tried to drive forward.

To this, UNIQ OFFICIAL account expressed their support like this:

“Against this kind of vile behaviour, report to the police! Let the law investigate their legal responsibility! To those who go against other people’s security and don’t respect your privacy, zero tolerance!”

The teacher’s incident

On the 10th, XZ posted:

“Please listen to me carefully once more! I wish you to take good care of your studies, careers, personal lives, and to place them before “chasing stars”. Study hard, take your job seriously. Be responsible and assume your obligations, follow the rules of your career and abide by professionalism. I don’t your help.”

This message may seem harsh to some of their fans. So, why did XZ publish such a comment?

A primary school teacher had posted a video of his students cheering for XZ. This angered a lot of netizens, who said that she was using a position of power to “indoctrinate” young children to like this idol. The haters affirmed that she was guiding the children to “chase” stars, and that she’s a bad influence (I actually agree with this one, you really shouldn’t do this in a classroom, but to involve XZ again is going too far).

XZ and the teacher were reported to the authorities. The Ministry of Education answered that the teacher had been suspended from her job and the school’s director had received a formal reprimand. The teacher’s w/ibo account had also been blocked. This is the main reason for XZ’s post.

Talking about unreasonable responses, after this incident with the teacher, the next day the topic “XZ’s supertopic teachers group” went on hot search in w/ibo. A group consisting of more than 1000 teachers, all fans of XZ, had been formed inside the supertopic. This was widely questioned by the netizens and haters.

To be fair, this didn’t happen just to XZ. Around the same time, another video emerged, with a teacher encouraging his kindergarten students to cheer for Wang Junkai. So with this incident, the Ministry of Education started to pay attention to similar content.

On the 14th, XZ forwarded an article by People’s Daily about teachers using their students to cheer for their idols and asking 

“Don’t go beyond the limits of your professionalism. Don’t leave the circle of rationalism. The fan quan can’t circle everything” (”quan” means circle)

Many more teachers were reported, and in response, the XZ’s fans association posted this:

“There are many voices criticizing XZ’s fans right now. We accept the criticism. XZ has told his fans to “pursue the idols” in a civilized and rational way, but some still display unreasonable behaviour. These actions have a great negative impact on him. We apologize to him and to other fans in their name.”  

This even extended to a teacher teaching a course of cyber-violence. She used XZ as an example of cyber violence and haters’ attack. This was brought again to the authorities by the haters, and she was suspended from her job. Luckily, her students and their parents were very supportive and defended her, so she came back to her post.

(This was just ridiculous. Really).  

This is quite a curious thing: even though we can see that objectively, this teacher didn’t do anything wrong, the department deemed her at fault due to the large number of reports.  

(It’s a thinking that goes along the lines of “if a lot of people think she has done something wrong, then she must have done something wrong”.)

So if haters can’t find anything to criticize in XZ, they’ll turn to his fans.

More support...

15th of May. A screenwriter and director posted a comment praising XZ and lamenting about his situation. The next day, he updated saying that he had been attacked in private comments because of his post, so he was very angry by it (he was angry with haters, not with xz).

On that day a photographer that had worked with him also praised him, saying he was humble and polite. He was also attacked by haters and antis, saying he had only praised XZ out of all the idols he had worked with, so he had to have ulterior motives, such as being paid by his studio or insulting the other idols in disguise.

People noticed that if someone defends XZ, no matter who they are, they’ll be attacked. No matter what XZ does, he’ll be criticized by some. If he doesn’t do anything, the haters turn on to his fans. Hater were trying to destroy every effort he made, and they managed it easily at first. After each appearance in public, he faces all kinds of comments. So conspiracy theories surged, about a mastermind behind the haters.

Even the lawyer that was managing XZ’s case was attacked by haters.

(Who in his right state of mind calls a lawyer with their own mobile phone to insult them? This logic and rationale amazes me…)

... and a little disappointment

At the end of May, the photos of him filming a episode of the season 2 of 青春环游记 were leaked on S/na News. He did participate in the recording, but the episode didn’t include him in the end (aired mid-June). A worker said they had been feeling pressure from various fronts, and finally felt that it’d be best not to include him (I suppose they feared the pressure from the antis).

In the midst of disappointment, his fans mostly reacted by keeping a positive attitude: “he posted two selfies lately, he shot a cute video making a drink (the douyin video), he seems in a good mood in all them. With them he was trying to cheer us fans. He has told us not to be used by others, not to get carried away by antis, not believe rumours, and to not be suspicious of his studio. What’s an episode in a variety show? He got paid anyway just for recording it. Let’s not cry over it.”

Truly, in spite of everything that happened at February and March, I think this is the kind of comments he deserves from his fans: people who are a little bit sad because he didn’t make it to the episode in the end, but who are still supporting him, waiting for his next project and listening to what he says.

←Part 4 (I): Plum blossoms in the snow (I) | Part 5 and 6: A snowy summer→

Could you please liveblog the making of Sonne?

I got a few of the same request yes hello

Fun fact everyone already knows Sonne was my first Rammstein experience (that I remember). The video was played at least once a day on kerrang and my dad would play it to help me sleep when I was a bairn.

Okay was it a fan added thing or was Oli stoned when he had the idea? It seems like a stoned thing to do

Maybe it's because I grew up around mining towns but... Hot.

They all look so cute schneider looks like a Rat

"did touring in the US have any influence on the album?"

"Nope" the most adorable twisty smile I've ever seen

"I hope not"

*very strange noises from Richard that I have never heard before or since* "it wasn't an influence"

Does till drink super strangely out of that cup or am I overanalysing?

This hair is what immediately comes to mind when I think Till Lindemann

Rat. Rodent man.

It's interesting that they're all saying such soft lovely things about making the album as if nothing happened and everything was fine the whole time. I guess it's nice they didn't just sit and complain about each other though. Love and solidarity.

Richard. Looks very nice :) good shoulders. Next person who meets him say good job growing those shoulders. More people should wear tank tops I feel.

God they're all so adorable I have to keep replaying bits.

He does say Glück auf right? Why did they have to completely soot him up is it because the truth looks a little silly?

The grin at Richard will end me one day.

@struwwelzeter I think? Once pointed out that he says irgendwie a lot and ever since I've been unable to not hear it when he says it in the last minute he's said it at least twice. I mean I get it I too have things I say a lot but god it's worse than "you know?"

It's just such a long sound to make as filler? It has three syllables

I love the way he's talking and would like a full documentary of him just discussing things like this just ask a vague question and let him run with it

It's so nice hearing from Oli always I think he does it on purpose. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. A treat

Schneider is a dumbass yes but his intelligence also. He's right, you don't actually have to do what you're supposed to as long as you're doing good work

"we tried to make songs we'd still like in two years" smart move, they're playing several of those songs still not far off two decades later

I can really feel Paul's accent when he talks right after someone else it's so round and I love it but I do worry that if I ever decide to properly learn German I will accidentally develop his accent

Schneider doing the pounding will be the death of me actually that's what'll do it

Why does Richard just kind of lick the spoon I can almost hear the found of his jaw clicking shut

I like Jörn a lot. Im tempted to hit him over the autistic thing but in his defence that was fifteen years ago

It's really cool actually that they use the same few directors for the most part, I love seeing how their ideas and techniques have evolved even though I don't know very much about that kind of stuff. Sonne vs Ausländer.

It doesn't help that they made Paul look MINISCULE next to till in this shot. Why does he seem to like the short jokes? I suppose he gets them a lot he has known flake since he was 18

Till is so ! giggly ! In this video ! He is enjoying this so so much! Like a proper big laugh teeth fully out

The boys slow motion headbanging together gets me in my feelings for some reason it's just very sweet and fun

They too look high

The entire "we wanted to name it Herzeleid" bit almost always has me cry-laughing for some reason it's just so Him and so Funny and Cute and you can see his own amusement building inside of him as he prepares to deliver the line

There is already a Herzeleid album and unfortunately it is also by us

He's a pretty man I love when you can see that glint in his eyes

Did Paul mispronounce synthesiser?

Till eats like he's the youngest of six children have you ever noticed that?

The Cain Instinct rising within Paul and nobody moving to stop him. Flake and Schneider just stare and wait to see what he'll do looking just a little concerned. He looks like he's trying to explain and demonstrate something to Schneider but I don't know what he's saying just before he does it

It's funny that their objectively best song was written for and seemingly rejected by a boxer. It's obvious if you know but if you don't you'd have no idea

That sounds very silly im sorry I still have ok stick in my head

Till is flirting. I think Till is flirting. Too many little genuine smiles.

Have any if you played Skyrim? Schneider is sitting in that chair like a Jarl in a bonnet

I think Paul just picks random numbers any time he needs numbers. What was it, 37 extra new songs after the untitled album was finalised? 27? I don't trust him.

Oli is refusing it seems to take credit and also talking like a sub just saying don't @ me

Ways the dwarves. Were right.

A little bit indignant? Yeah rather shocked

Poor Robert hhh

I'm not saying Paul seems excited about being spanked but what I am saying is

He can't explain it but I think we all can

God till is pretty in this tree bit

"eins, zwei, drei, oh!" Typical Schneider behaviour and I truly do adore.

Putting Paul on Olis side was a choice that was made

I really do appreciate just how much work they put into all the details of this, I don't know what professionals think but I for one think they did an amazing job. No wonder they kept hold of Jörn

The boys doing their cuddles! I wonder why there isn't more fic based on Sonne, I think I've only read one or two? Is it because you guys don't know enough about mining because I don't think anyone would mind

I would do many things for a documentary with Paul as the David Attenborough type figure

There's something so charming about Till arguing about the logic of finding out snow white is dead(?) and whether or not Schneider needs to inform them of that fact

Of course they'd put Schneider first look at his little suspicious face

Okay this but they go into way more detail about their favourite parts.

Flake likes to grumble but he is also the most genuinely content man I have ever layed eyes on. If he's with the band he's happy.

Olis little gesture is the cutest actually?

Okay yeah you can totally tell they made up and it's all water under the bridge they worked it out and are happy

Nevermind, Flake just had to do it. "Perhaps in time we'll learn that not everyone has to concern themselves with everything" honey you can say Richard, Paul and Schneider it's okay

They learned to trust each other, basically. They accept the support and help and recognise the expertise of the others. A lot of bands never find that. A lot of people in general never find that, actually.

I still cannot tell whose laugh is the fucking ridiculous one, it's either Richard or Schneider and I think it's Schneider despite Richard looking like a yawning dog

Oh that's Paul's partner next to him right? With the red hair?

Who is the dude till is cuddling with? He looks familiar is he in the ITDW making of?

I do love to see a gaggle of giggling boys

Okay no it's schneider, the fool. His laugh is completely unrestrained and cascading and barking and odd and its glorious to behold.

I would love to see them watch and reach to their older making ofs because so much of it is mirrored. What Paul says about it needing to be fun, the Keine Lust thing that. Actually that's also about it needing to just be for fun. Hm. Still, do it.

Tills joke about getting to that point in the next twenty years how did he knowwwwwww

Fortunately I can knock on wo—thats not wood

Alleth gut, he says.

1127

1. What is one thing you will never do again? Watch The Hours. Film itself is great, but is way too triggering.

2. Would you rather be twice as smart or twice as happy? I’d take happiness easily. It’s not bad for the most part to make mistakes and I’d rather be too clumsy than be altogether miserable.

3. What happened the last time you cried? It was the day of what would’ve been our anniversary and at that moment I was alone in my car at a parking lot (waiting for the office to open) on a gloomy day. I just had to cry and let my feelings out for like 5 minutes to accept everything but I was immediately fine afterwards, haha. Grief can be funny.

4. What happened the time in your life when you were the most nervous to do something? My first job interview. It was my first adult thing ever. They never got back to me - very professional of them - but I was still grateful for the experience nonetheless.

5. What would your parents be surprised to learn about you? That I was in a whole ass relationship for technically 6 1/2 years. They probably have an inkling by now, but only about me being in a relationship. I’m sure they would be very surprised if they ever found out how long it had actually gone for.

6. What’s your worst habit? I pick at my toenails when I’m nervous or stressed. I tend to do this when I’m doing a work task that I particularly dread, and sometimes I’ll end up being fixated on the habit for like 10 minutes straight and not get anything done.

7. What superpower would you have for one day? Time travel, just to take quick trips to multiple decades and see how life was like during those times.

8. What fictional character do you have the biggest crush on? Matty from 13 Going on 30 would be one of them. Albert Finney’s character in Two for the Road is also charming as fuck.

9. Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world? If money wasn’t an issue, probably somewhere cozy in like Switzerland or Canada.

10. What is your most bizarre pet peeve? Not necessarily a pet peeve but I get extremely uncomfortable when someone hands me a gift then they insult the gift while in front of me, saying it’s not a great gift or that I probably don’t need it, etc. Filipinos also have this habit of saying something along the lines of, “You earn way more than me so you’d probably think this gift sucks” like how do you want me to react :(((((( I love receiving gifts and the idea of being thought about already means a lot to me, so it just makes me wince a little bit when I hear statements like the above.

11. Who knows you the best? Gabie, probably. I’ve changed a lot since then, though.

12. What after school activities did you do in high school? Clubs were mandatory extracurricular activities in my high school; in my time, I joined the table tennis and yearbook clubs.

13. What “most likely to” superlative would you be most honored to receive? Idk, we didn’t have those in school. I probably would have been honored to get a journalism-themed one though; something like Most Likely To Write for NYT or Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer or something like that. Obviously that’s changed now and I’ve long let go of journalism as a passion.

14. What’s the last book you really loved? I haven’t read in a long, long while.

15. What was the greatest television show of all time? I don’t watch a lot of TV so I’m not the most credible decision-making body for this lol, but out of all the shows I’ve watched the best one would easily be Breaking Bad.

16. What’s been your favorite age so far? 16. Life was insanely easygoing back then and everything fell into place for me at the time.

17. If you could go back in time, what is one piece of advice you would give your younger self? Know when it’s enough. Be kind to yourself.

18. What one thing would you be most disappointed if you never got to experience it? Have kids.

19. Apologize or ask permission? I don’t understand the relationship between the two.

20. Unlimited love or money? I would love to never have to worry about finances ever again.

21. If you knew you would die in one week, what would you do? Take a week-long leave for work, spend all my money, bond with my dogs, throw a party for my closest friends, and honestly, make my peace with her.

22. What’s your most listened to song? Spotify doesn’t show that feature, but I bet it’s from Paramore or Hayley anyway. It would be impossible to know my most-listened to song of all time, like if we took into account my Spotify, iTunes, etc.

23. Beach vacation or European vacation? I need a beach vacation badly, but a European vacation would be a new and different experience. I’d take the latter.

24. If you could have been a child prodigy what would you have wanted to be skilled at? Playing the piano.

25. What’s the first thing you would do if you won the lottery? Depends on how much I won lmao. I’d probably retire this early if the money was big enough since I’m pretty stingy anyway. But generally, I would like to pay off whatever bills my parents are currently paying for, get back the car that we had to sell because of the pandemic, and maybe go for a solo vacation or five heheh.

26. What celebrity would you trade lives with? Kylie Jenner, for a day. Just so I can briefly have a taste of how being that rich is like.

27. If you were a performing artist, what would you title your first album? Nope.

28. What story do your friends still give you crap about? Staying with Gab despite the red flags that glared for four whole years is one of them. Angela will also never let go of that one time I tried some kind of fruit juice in high school and I described it as ‘packs a punch.’ It’s understood as a super Westernized idiom where I live and literally no one uses it in a casual sentence, so it was a hit with her and now we use ‘packs a punch’ whenever we want to describe something awesome or surprising.

29. If earth could only have one condiment for the rest of time, what would you pick to keep around? Mayonnaise and I will die on this mayonnaise-coated hill.

30. What is the ideal number of people to have over on a Friday night? Ideally? At this point? Like 20. I would love for that to be the case on the first Friday we can consider the Philippines COVID-free.

31. What was the worst age you’ve been so far? Sorry for yet another incoming Paramore reference but they literally have a lyric that goes, “22 is like, the worst idea that I have ever had.” Before turning 22 I used to think it was a weird line, like how could 22 possibly be unenjoyable? Now I’m 22 in a pandemic going through a rough breakup and I can’t even see my friends nor work in my first workplace ever.

32. What is your weirdest dealbreaker? If they wanted only cats as pets. I can deal with a dog and a cat, I guess; but cats were never fond of me so I feel like I’d struggle with this situation lol.

33. What fictional character reminds you most of yourself? Mr. Peanutbutterrrrrrr. Has a lot of love to give, doesn’t always use it on the right people. Also lives on pleasing others.

34. Do you believe in karma? Just to a tiny extent, in how I would want people’s awful actions to come bite them in the ass one day. It’s not a philosophy that controls my life and the things I do whatsoever.

35. What was your favorite TV show as a kid? My absolute favorite was Hi-5, with the original cast. As I got older my interests shifted to Spongebob and The Fairly OddParents.

36. What is the weirdest thing you find attractive in a person? I don’t think it’s weird, but I don’t hear thighs too often when people list down their favorite physical traits. It’s certainly one of mine.

37. What Jeopardy! category would you clear, no problem? A Friends-themed one, obviously. This reminds me of the Jeopardy night I had with some friends a few nights ago! That was so much fun, and Andi makes really great and fun questions hahaha.

38. What is something you’re superstitious about? I don’t think I am about anything.

39. What is the scariest experience you have ever had? Maybe that night my grandpa went into a drunk rampage. I was 9, right in his line of sight, frozen and scared shitless, and I didn’t know who he was going to strike next.

40. Who is a non-politician you wish would run for office? I never really think about this. If someone’s a non-politician then there must be a reason they aren’t, lol.

41. What cheesey song do you have memorized? Little Things by One Direction is very cheesy and it’s one of my least favorite songs of theirs, but I still have it memorized out of habit.

42. What one dead person would you most like to have dinner with, if it were possible? My great-grandpa died all the way back in the 70s, even before some of my aunts and uncles could meet him. It would be cool to spend time with him.

43. Do you think it’s important to stay up to date with the news? Yeah, absolutely. I have the stomach for it lol, so I always monitor what’s happening locally and globally. Skipping the news from time to time is fine because I get how anxiety-inducing and depressing some events can be, but there’s a huge difference between ignoring the news for your mental health and being indifferent altogether. I’d immediately judge anyone who’s the latter, and would assume you are incredibly privileged.

44. What is the best present you could ever receive? My money refunded -____________- I had food delivered to my director, Bea’s house as a surprise earlier today, but apparently I ran into a scammer driver and the fucker drove away with the meal I had bought for Bea. I reported the driver and the situation, and thankfully the customer service rep of the food delivery app quickly responded and said they’d return the full amount I paid for; but I still haven’t received it.

45. Would you give up one of your fingers if it meant you’d have free wifi wherever you go, for the rest of your life? No. Mobile data exists for a reason.

46. What’s the first thing you’d do if you were the opposite sex for one day? Check out my voice.

47. If someone told you you could give one person a present and your budget was unlimited–what present would you get and for whom? I’d love to surprise Angela with an overseas trip that would last for like a month. Traveling is one thing we have yet to do as best friends.

48. What is the nicest thing someone could say about you? Nothing particular, but it makes me happy when people call me strong and when they validate the shit I’ve gone through over the years.

49. Giant house in a subdivision or tiny house somewhere with a view? I would take the giant house. When it comes to my own place, I would want to have a lot of space to roam around.

50. What is the weirdest quirk your family has? Nothing is coming to mind.

What does 'net zero' actually mean? Here's why some people are upset

https://sciencespies.com/environment/what-does-net-zero-actually-mean-heres-why-some-people-are-upset/

What does 'net zero' actually mean? Here's why some people are upset

It might seem odd to find supporters of climate action debating the merits of a concept that science shows to be essential for halting climate change, and which is accordingly embedded at the heart of the defining global agreement.

Yet that is where we find ourselves with the concept of “net zero” – the point at which any remaining emissions of greenhouse gases are balanced with absorption, halting further warming of the climate.

The necessity of reaching net zero emissions globally is abundantly proven in science, and governments pledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement to achieve “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks” in mid-century, in pursuit of holding global warming to 1.5 °C.

This language was included in the Paris Agreement only because of a determined push by activists and vulnerable countries. And it’s hard to think of a more successful recent example of activists’ ideas changing the terms of debate.

In two years, the number of nations, sub-national governments and corporates setting net zero targets has mushroomed, with coverage leaping from 16 percent of global GDP in June 2019 to two-thirds now. It is no exaggeration to say that net zero is now the defining lens through which many governments, businesses, NGOs and other types of entity view decarbonization.

However, activists are not universally celebrating. Many have reacted by pointing out the flaws in some net zero targets, with particular fire turned on oil and gas companies that plan to pay for offsets in place of dealing with the emissions caused by burning their product.

In some cases, concerns about the implementation of net zero targets turn into criticism of the concept itself. Recently three climate change academics including former IPCC chair Bob Watson described net zero as a “fantasy” and a “trap”, while Greta Thunberg said that “these distant targets” are about “making it seem like we’re acting without having to change”.

Net zero commitments: a mixed picture

To be credible, an entity proclaiming a net zero target should have certain measures of robustness in place: at the very least, a high-level commitment, a published plan, immediate emission-cutting measures and an annual reporting mechanism. It must ensure that all its attributable emissions are covered, and that any “netting” uses high-quality, verified and permanent removals.

In March 2021 we were among researchers publishing the first analysis of the robustness of net zero commitments made across 4,000+ national and sub-national governments and companies, accounting for 80 percent of global emissions.

We found the picture is mixed: while most entities with a net zero target do have some robustness measures in place such as interim targets (60 percent) and a reporting mechanism (62 percent), others do not. The picture on offsets (paying for carbon credits from actions elsewhere) is particularly concerning, with only 23 percent of entities either ruling them out or putting restrictions on their use.

Does this mean that the concept of net zero as a defining frame for decarbonization is itself a fantasy? We would argue that it absolutely does not.

The rapidly growing suite of net zero pledges comes with a coherent theory of change. Firstly, if an entity is serious, it will follow its pledge by putting robust measures in place, beginning with immediate actions to cut emissions: not doing so will quickly open up the entity in question to accusations that it is not serious.

Secondly, pledging a target means that the entity can be held to account by voters, shareholders or customers. Thirdly, to demonstrate credibility it may have to apply for accreditation from an impartial mechanism such as the science-based targets initiative, which can validate whether its plan is realistic.

Fourthly, such accreditation mechanisms evolve over time to follow the science. For example, the UN-backed Race to Zero recently published upgraded criteria (in which we were involved); further annual strengthenings await.

Each of these four steps makes the commitment more concrete – and if it is not serious, exposes that clearly.

Signs that net zero targets lead to stronger action

There are early indications that this is more than a theory. The UK, EU and US all recently set 2050 net zero targets and then upgraded their 2030 targets to make them commensurate.

In Germany, the constitutional court has just ordered the government to increase its near-term action to ensure that the costs of meeting net zero do not fall disproportionately on future generations.

A survey of the new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that nations are due to submit before the next UN climate summit, COP26, shows that 32 of the 101 countries with net zero targets have enhanced their NDC, compared with 11 of 90 countries without a net zero target.

Climate advocates are right to highlight the loose nature of some pledges, particularly from fossil fuel corporates. Such scrutiny is necessary to protect the science from greenwash. As Thunberg subsequently tweeted, “the problem is of course not the net zero targets themselves, but that they’re being used as excuses to postpone real action”.

If you can’t see that “net zero targets” risk leading to these things, then you either don’t understand the problem or you have a very clear agenda. The problem is of course not the “net zero targets” themselves, but that they’re being used as excuses to postpone real action.

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 27, 2021

This is a real danger. If we allow disingenuous uses of net zero to discredit the concept as a whole, we risk giving up the hard-won gains secured by activists and vulnerable countries in Paris in 2015.

Rather than tarring all net zero pledges with the same critical brush, we would advocate differentiating serious targets from those set for greenwashing. Not all entities will embark on their journey to net zero with a fully fledged plan, but they should quickly clarify how they will reach their target: those that do so deserve plaudits if their plans are robust and viable, while those with unviable or absent plans deserve criticism.

Despite the imperfections, widespread strengthening of net zero targets, specifically to generate steep emission cuts in the next decade, offers the most viable route to implementing the Paris Agreement and so preventing the most dangerous impacts of climate change. We should get net zero right – not get rid.

Richard Black, Honorary Research Fellow, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London; Steve Smith, Executive Director, Oxford Net Zero, University of Oxford, and Thomas Hale, Associate Professor in Public Policy, University of Oxford.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#Environment

Following Jason Schreier's continued BioWare story, we have direct insight from many BioWare employees regarding the initial Dragon Age 4 BioWare were going to create code named 'Joplin' and envisioned by Mike Laidlaw, against the now in production Dragon Age project that has been code named 'Morrison'.  

Last time we talked about both projects - Joplin and Morrison, equally named after their respected music artists who died at the age of 27, but were both known for revolutionizing their respected industry.

This latest report examines everything that Joplin was going to be regarding the future of the next Dragon Age title.

Let's now delve into the potential game that Dragon Age 4 initially was going to be, before it was rebooted for Anthem and Andromeda's developments.

As I quote:

The plan for Joplin was exciting, say people who worked on it. First and foremost, they already had many tools and production pipelines in place after Inquisition, ones that they hoped to improve and continue using for this new project.

They committed to prototyping ideas early and often, testing as quickly as possible rather than waiting until everything was on fire, as they had done the last time thanks to the glut of people and Frostbite’s difficulties.

“Everyone in project leadership agreed that we couldn’t do that again, and worked to avoid the kind of things that had led to problems,” said one person who worked on the project, explaining that some of the big changes included:

1) Laying down a clear vision as early as possible.

2) Maintaining regular on-boarding documents and procedures so new team members could get up to speed fast; and

3) A decision-making mentality where “we acknowledged that making the second-best choice was far, far better than not deciding and letting ambiguity stick around while people waited for a decision.”

(That person, like all of the sources for this story, spoke under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about their experiences.)

Prepare the tears for this next quote guys....

Another former BioWare developer who worked on Joplin called it “some of the best work experiences” they’d ever had. “We were working towards something very cool, a hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth,” they said. “I’m sad that game will never get made.”

You’d play as a group of spies in Tevinter Imperium, a wizard-ruled country on the north end of Dragon Age’s main continent, Thedas. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Dragon Age: Inquisition.

(In other words, they wanted Joplin to be the opposite of the Hinterlands.) There was an emphasis on “repeat play,” one developer said, noting that they wanted to make areas that changed over time and missions that branched in interesting ways based on your decisions, to the point where you could even get “non-standard game overs” if you followed certain paths.

A large chunk of Joplin would center on heists. The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene.

It was all very ambitious and very early, and would have no doubt changed drastically once Joplin entered production, but members of the team say they were thrilled about the possibilities.

The first big hiccup came in late 2016, when BioWare put Joplin on hold and moved the entire team onto the troubled Mass Effect: Andromeda, which needed as many hands as possible during its final months of development.

The Joplin team expanded with people who were rolling off Andromeda and kept working, prototyping, and designing the game. After spending months of their lives helping finish a Mass Effect that didn’t excite a ton of people, it was nice to return to Dragon Age.

One thing that wasn’t discussed much on Joplin was multiplayer, according to a few people who worked on the project, which is perhaps why the project couldn’t last.

By the latter half of 2017, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic.

In October of 2017, not long after veteran Mass Effect director Casey Hudson returned to the studio to take over as general manager, EA and BioWare took that drastic action, canceling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

A tiny team stuck around to work on a brand new Dragon Age 4, code-named Morrison, that would be built on Anthem’s tools and code base. It’s the game being made now. Unlike Joplin, this new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue.

One promise from management, according to a developer, was that in EA’s balance sheet, they’d be starting from scratch and not burdened with the two years of money that Joplin had already spent. Question was, how many of those ideas and prototypes would they use?

It’s not clear how much of Joplin’s vision will shape Morrison (at least some of it will, says one person on the game), but shortly after the reboot, creative director Mike Laidlaw left, as did some other veteran Dragon Agestaff.

Matt Goldman, art director on Dragon Age: Inquisition and then Joplin, took over as creative director for Morrison, while Darrah remained executive producer on both that project and Anthem.

In early 2018, when I first reported that BioWare had rebooted the next Dragon Age and that its replacement would be a live service game, studio GM Casey Hudson responded on Twitter.

“Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”

The game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumor among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description.

“The idea was that Anthem would be the online game and that Dragon Age and Mass Effect, while they may experiment with online portions, that’s not what defines them as franchises,” said one. “I don’t think you’ll see us completely change those franchises.”

When asked, a few BioWare developers agreed that it’d be technically possible for a game built on Anthem’s codebase to also have an offline branch, but it’s not yet clear whether Morrison will take that approach. If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself.

(Diablo III, for example, is online-only on PC yet can be played entirely solo.)

One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content.

Single-player downloadable content like Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser, while often excellent, typically sells only a fraction of the main game, according to developers from BioWare and elsewhere across the industry.

Yet this wouldn’t be a “live service” game if it was a repeat of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which compartmentalized its single- and multiplayer modes.

Fans in the past have grown outraged at the idea of BioWare putting a lot of emphasis on multiplayer gaming, but there are ways in which a service-heavy Dragon Age 4 could be ambitious and impressive.

For example, some ideas I’ve heard floated for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe.

Maybe in two or three years, Morrison will look completely different. It’s not like Dragon Age hasn’t changed drastically in the past. In the office, BioWare developers often refer to Mark Darrah’s Dragon Age team as a pirate ship, one that will eventually wind up at its destination, but not before meandering from port to port, drinking as much rum as possible along the way.

His is a team that, in the past, has iterated and changed direction constantly—something that they hoped to cut down for Joplin, but has always been part of their DNA (and, it should be noted, heavy iteration is common in all game development).

One BioWare employee summed it up well as we talked about the future of BioWare’s fantasy franchise. “Keep in mind,” they said, “Dragon Age games shift more than other games.

”Said another current BioWare employee about Morrison: “They have a lot of unanswered questions. Plus I know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

There are other questions remaining, too: With BioWare’s Austin office gradually taking over Anthem going forward, when will the bulk of employees at the company’s Edmonton HQ move to the Morrison team?

Will Morrison be able to avoid following the lead of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which took on too many people too early and wound up suffering as a result?

And, most important, will BioWare work to prevent the burnout that has led to dozens of developers leaving over the past two years, with so many citing stress, depression, and anxiety?

End of article, so my thoughts on this, of course, I have my worries especially regarding the multiplayer part, it was to my knowledge that there is a separate Dragon Age team working on the multiplayer component completely estranged from the core team.

I hope that this is still the case, however, it's EA that're the ones who plaque BioWare to incorporate multiplayer and live-service.  

Honestly the biggest concern here is how much of Joplin's original vision and resources are going to be put into Morrison's production, because the description of Joplin is everything I've wanted in a Dragon Age game following from Inquisition.

To hear that this initial game has been canned is heart-wrenching, any signs of Joplin's ashes in Morrison is all I can hope for.

Hope is all we really have right now regarding the future of Dragon Age, and don't forget Mass Effect, which is also going to affected by this too.

Of course, I have my worries. But I am hopeful for what the Dragon Age team can do, and I feel to fear when we still haven't seen the game yet is a little blind-sighted. Who knows when we will see or hear anything, I imagine we may see something on EA Play's live-streams next June, just before E3, but honestly, I'm not sure!

The next Dragon Age project is expected to release within 2-3 years from now, all we can hope for next is a reveal of some-sorts, like a title or development update.

It would be incredible if BioWare could come out and share some insight on what the heck is going on with the next Dragon Age, like a development diary which they did with Mass Effect: Andromeda.

To get a glimpse of this next game and the vision for it is what we in the BioWare fandom all need right now. To know what is going on with the next Dragon Age and how true it will stick to Joplin's original vision.

But until we do hear something, like always, you're already in the right place...

“....his 6'2" frame and sea green eyes catapult him into that other plane of existence known as Ridiculously Good-Looking. To call him charming is kind of like saying Heidi Klum has a nice smile.”

“ ....his rarefied magnetism, that room-owning presence,”

“If every woman in America could share a bottle of Italian red and a plate of olives with Goode, he’d be bigger than Clooney. Scratch that—bigger than Brad”. Candice Rainey - Elle.

I HAVE TO AGREE. 

Full interview with Matthew from 2008 - which is typically funny and charming - is under here.  The end is  ADORABLE!

I wanted to meet Matthew Goode at a wine bar. I remembered from an earlier encounter with the 30-year-old British actor that the guy is partial to the grape—not in a let's swirl and sniff while we muse on "the legs" way, but he knew his way around a wine list, confidently pronounced appellations, and is a believer in drinking glasses of it daily, because, you know, it's heart-healthy. His publicist, however, isn't on board. He has a meeting with a director right after. Can I choose a coffee spot? I pick a small Italian joint on New York's Lower East Side where they serve espresso, too.

When Goode slips out of the black sedan that's chauffeuring him around on this Monday afternoon and bounds through the door, he spots me, kisses me on both cheeks, and takes a seat at our small table nuzzled up against a floor-to-ceiling window.

"Right," he says, grinning. "Let's order some wine! And some bread and olives."

What about the thing with the director? Goode flashes me a look: Never mind that.

"Two glasses," He says to the waiter, who's holding a bottle of Pinot Nero, about to pour me one. "And we'll do a bottle of that."

If every woman in America could share a bottle of Italian red and a plate of olives with Goode, he'd be bigger than Clooney. Scratch that—bigger than Brad. He's wearing a wrinkled T-shirt, a black knit beanie, and faded Levis that hang just right off his hip bones. He smokes Marlboros. He quotes Cary Grant and the British columnist Jeffrey Bernard freely but so aptly that it doesn't come off as jerky, just incredibly...cool. "`None of my party drinks singles, they do have some style, you know.' That's one of my favorite lines in that play. I fucking love him," Goode says in his plummy English accent, referring to Keith Waterhouse and his play Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

He tells me I have olive bits stuck in my teeth, and to make me feel like less of an idiot he pulls his cheek open with a hooked finger and shows me a jagged bottom molar that's half missing. "I have horrible teeth. I've been walking around like that for two years, and I still haven't gone to see a dentist about it."

He pops off funny, self-deprecating stories, like the time Emma Thompson told him he had a large Roman nose just like Peter O'Toole's before he got his done, that underline just how normal he is, despite the fact that his 6'2" frame and sea green eyes catapult him into that other plane of existence known as Ridiculously Good-Looking. To call him charming is kind of like saying Heidi Klum has a nice smile.

Of course, because he can't clone himself a million times over and steal wives and girlfriends away for a liquid lunch, the reality is that most women, and moviegoers in general, still don't know who the hell Matthew Goode is—mostly because we've only seen him in a handful of films, some of them uneven oddballs (Imagine Me & You and Copying Beethoven) that haven't exactly sent his career trajectory skyrocketing.

Nonetheless, his rarefied magnetism, that room-owning presence, has managed to seep through all of his work, snapping critics and directors to attention—even as a teen-dream heartthrob in 2004's Chasing Liberty, in which he played a Secret Service agent ordered to protect Mandy Moore, the president's daughter, as she jaunts around Europe. Though not exactly the kind of soul-stirring material for which Goode studied drama at the University of Birmingham ("It is what it is, but without it I wouldn't have been here"), it did lead to a supporting yet crucial role in Woody Allen's Match Point as Scarlett Johansson's fiancé, in which he nearly upstaged his costars.

Last year, Goode made himself unrecognizable in The Lookout, Scott Frank's twisted take on the heist-movie genre. He nailed the character, a diabolical American ex-con who preys upon a brain-injured janitor.

"The Lookout was what made me think, Yeah, he can do it," says 300 director Zack Snyder, who cast Goode as a not-so-straight-ahead villain in his comic-book geek-out Watchmen, due in 2009. "He's really interested in doing the work of acting."

Goode, who lives in London, is in town to promote this month's Brideshead Revisited, based on the 1945 novel by Evelyn Waugh, in which he stars as Charles Ryder, a reserved Englishman who forms an intense bond with an unhinged aristocratic Catholic family. Brideshead is a very British, very layered text, exactly the kind of material that's nearly impossible to jam into a two-hour film. That, compounded by the fact that it was made into a beloved UK miniseries starring Jeremy Irons 27 years ago, makes this production a potential suicide mission.

"I watched Brideshead Revisited," I tell Goode. "That's a complicated film. I'm not sure what my question is."

"What's it about?" Goode smiles and crinkles his brow. "Right."

"It reminds me of..."

"Gay porn?"

We should probably get to that. In the book, Ryder forms a close relationship with his schoolmate Sebastian Flyte (the son in the unhinged Catholic family), and it's unclear whether they are simply tight pals or Waugh meant to imply that they have a physical relationship. In the film, that question is answered—subtly, but answered.

Goode requests that we move outside so we can smoke. I ask him if he's nervous about how the film will be received.

"Every job you do is nerve-racking," he says, taking a drag off his cigarette.

But it feels like he's particularly skittish about this role.

"I'm not very well-known in England, so it's quite interesting that this is a job that will make me a little more known, perhaps. And it can make me more known for not a good reason—as in, they should have never fucking remade it. And that's nerve-racking."

Though he's the kind of actor who pores over script and dialogue (he could write the CliffsNotes for Brideshead at this point), Goode loathes describing his "process." "There's no way you can possibly explain it. And the more you do it, the more you sound like a dick. I don't want to hear, `I bled for you.' It's like, Fuck off."

He'd much rather talk about his girlfriend, Sophie, who lives in New York City but has agreed to move into a flat with Goode in London. He pulls out a billfold wallet with scrap-book-size 4" x 5"'s—Sophie bearing two Big Gulp-size margaritas in Mexico, Sophie satirically striking a voguing pose—all creased and worn around the edges.

Goode has to meet the director soon. We have one last cigarette, finish off our follow-up carafe, and he's off. I get a text five minutes later: "Fuck. I left without putting anything down for the bill. Sorry, even if it's ELLE, I should have got the tip. I'll get the wine in London. Love Goodey." Ladies, meet the next leading man.

DWTS 27 week 8

Wait, this is the semi-finals? Man, remember when we had 10-11 weeks of competition? Like, if we waited one more week, we’d have 10 nice weeks and not have to do two double eliminations in a row.

Anyway, I’m watching this week live!! Sort of. I’m streaming the west coast airing and my channel is 10 minutes behind.

Round 1: Dedication to someone special

Bobby and Sharna - Salsa Guess Bobby has won over a part of the audience. I don’t mind him too much. I don’t find him annoying the way some people do; he seems to be genuinely having fun. And he gave up on the extra-ness from the first few weeks. Now, this dance felt kinda random, like they couldn’t get Bobby a song. Also, this song solely belongs to that male number from a bunch of seasons back. The ladies owned this dance, Bobby just jumped around looking stoked to be there. There wasn’t much salsa. 7-7-7 T21 honestly that was generous

Alexis and Alan - Waltz The best part of the package was Milo holding that plastic cup with his mouth open like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh at last week’s video package. Alexis dedicating this dance to Alan screams of producer manipulation. Now, there wasn’t anything wrong with Alexis’ dancing, but she had that whole shower setup and moody lighting and a somewhat edgy song and she wasn’t dancing up to the ambiance. It felt like she was just doing the moves without reaching her full extensions. She is a good dancer, she just needs that extra bit to look great. The lift was glaringly obvious. Is it just me or are the dance in this round very short? Found the song weird for the style too, though I think Alan did decent dealing with that. 9-9-10 T28

Joe and Jenna - Contemporary Joe dedicates this to his mother, grandma, and - wow who could have guessed - his girlfriend Kendall (gotta appeal to the Bachelor nation). Mostly Kendall. Well, Jenna looked nice in this dance. joe didn’t do much, so I can’t really say anything about him. Like, even just sweeping his arm across his chest, he made it look so unemotive. The lengths the judges went to be euphemistic about the lack of dancing was amusing. “Efficient! Minimalistic!” 8-7-7 T22 The 8 was generous. I mean, it wasn’t a hot mess like Bobby’s, but there was nothing to make a mess of. At least Bobby moved.

Juan Pablo and Cheryl - Argentine Tango JP dedicates this to his mother, who survived breast cancer. Thought the dance didn’t really match the story, but probably the producers just wanted him to do more latin and capitalise on him being latin american. Very nice dance, my only comment would be that his feet were flexed. Needs to point those feet! Nice musicality in the choreo from Cheryl. CAI called him the most consistent performer this season and I disagree - I think that’s Milo - but Juan Pablo is a good dancer nonetheless. 10-10-10 T30

Evanna and Keo - Contemporary Evanna dedicated this dance to a late friend, director, and former coworker Simon Fitzmaurice who passed away from ALS. I wasn’t too jazzed about the choreo, and I felt sometimes Evanna was dancing too hard even with the strong accents in the music. She had very nice lines and NICE POINTED FEET though. I think if Milo is my most consistent performer, Evanna has had the most consistent improvement over the course of the competition. She has come into herself at the right time and it will propel her into the finale for sure. 10-10-10 T30 Keo is very emotional because Erin reminded him this is the furthest he’s gone in the competition. And it seems he has further to go with Evanna.

Milo and Witney - Argentine Tango Milo’s mother was in Ghostbusters?? His dance is for her, because she inspired him in acting, but also raised him by herself. They are very close. “Now get into a good college!” LOL. I felt a new level of maturity in Milo with this dance. He made the AT feel strong and intense without having to lean into the sensualness the adults do. I thought his ganchos could be sharper, but Witney was suuuuuuper sharp so it might just be relativity at work. 9-9-9 T27 what??! I thought he deserved tens! He should be on par with Alexis at least.

Round 2: Judges’ choice

The judges choose a style they’ve already done and mentor them in it. Note, not a new style like previous seasons. That’s what you get from making people do 2 dances per week for the first 2 weeks.

Bobby and Sharna - Jive Mentor: Len. Well, Bobby was definitely a LOT cleaner, though the jive choreo was very simple and repetitive. I laughed at them dancing on Len’s face. He was kicking outwards rather than in front of him, though. Now Bobby, no need to be so self-depreciating and call yourself the worst dancer when Joe is still there. 8-8-8 T24

Alexis and Alan - Jive Mentor: Bruno. I found Alexis’ original jives already pretty good, so methinks they were really desperate to keep a good dancer like Alexis over Joe, so they gave her something they already knew she could do well in. Very nice, very sharp, girl has nice legs. She fell behind time though coming out of the chorus. I think this is also the first time this show has had a workout-themed dance that didn’t feel hammy. 10-10-10 T30

Joe and Jenna - Quickstep Mentor: CAI. Yep, that dance definitely needs work. Oof, his footwork was still real rough. He didn’t miss steps, but there were times where he got off time, or ran too fast that he took extra steps. Important point by CAI about breathing - not only does it not breathing make it hard for you to focus on the dance, it also makes you more tired, especially for a fast dance like a quickstep. 8-8-8 T24 Wait how is Joe above Bobby in cumulative scores now? No, no, no. Maybe he is finally going home and they want to give him a nice sending off.

Juan Pablo and Cheryl - Salsa Mentor: Bruno. I think a T-rex could count the number of standard ballroom dances Juan Pablo has done on one hand. I honestly didn’t remember JP’s first salsa. Now this one I thought was fun to watch, but he seemed to freeze slightly in the beginning when Cheryl was doing a backbend onto his leg and he was supposed to schmooze his hair. He also felt kinda jumpy and not grounded enough. I think they should have made him redo his cha cha because it’s a latin dance (ie he can be good at it) but it didn’t go well the first time round. 10-10-10 T30 maybe he was also losing to Joe in votes and needs the scores boost? Since they can’t showmance him with Cheryl.

Evanna and Keo - Foxtrot Mentor: Len. Kinda a weird song for the style. Didn’t really allow for the elegance and fluidity a foxtrot usually requires. There was a spot where Evanna looked like she jumped onto her foot rather than take a step. Otherwise, good dance. 10-9-9 T28

Milo and Witney - Cha cha Mentor: CAI. So Milo definitely felt less loose and gangly than week 1. I don’t think it was “wild”, but it felt a little off because Milo was trying to smoulder at times and it wasn’t really his thing.

Total tallies: Juan Pablo - 60 Evanna - 58 Alexis - 58 Milo - 55 Joe - 46 Bobby - 45

oooh I’m a little worried about Milo having a bit of an “off” week. I still think he has been the most consistent performer this whole season though.

Jeopardy - Joe, Alexis, Juan Pablo

Safe - Alexis

So Joe and Juan Pablo are eliminated. Looks like Juan Pablo wasn’t getting votes. But why does Alexis still need a jeopardy scare vote boost? They already got rid of Joe. Maybe it’s to get rid of Bobby next. I can see him beating her votes wise.

I hope either Milo or Evanna win the show. VOTE VOTE VOTE.

A far too long, fever-induced Unpopular Opinion, likely first of many, (keeping in mind that is it an opinion and not expressed at all in mean spirit): The casting/character ages in Fantastic Beasts.

Again, this is likely a wildly unpopular opinion because I’ve never come across anyone who has even touched slightly on the subject, but it is an, admittedly minor, detail that got me thinking a little. Again, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter a great deal and I’m sure I’m still going to enjoy the series either way but it’s just a personal opinion I’ve had nonetheless.

I do understand the organic nature of film and the flexibility you need to allow. Sometimes the character will be pitched or imagined as a certain age, but it doesn’t translate into film well (think LOTR or GOT, etc) or the casting directors like an actor who is obviously much younger or older so much that it trumps the desired age bracket. And most times, it is purposely done that way especially in teen-based movies and tv shows (90210, Smallville, Gossip Girl, PLL, etc, etc) which lead to wildly inaccurate expectations of what teenagers look and act like (in my high school experience anyway). Sometimes for legal and professional reasons, its more convenient to have adult actors portray younger characters. 

Often pre-imagined characters evolve and change to fit the actor that is set to portray them whether it be gender, race, age, hair colour, eye colour, relationships, characterisation, etc. Sometimes this is celebrated, goes unnoticed or is a disappointment.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I understand that it comes down to a matter of priorities.

Neville, Petunia and Dudley were all blondes in the books. Did it really matter that the actors weren’t (and didn’t dye their hair for the role?) IMO, nah not really. I know a lot of people still can’t forgive the ‘you have your mothers eyes’ issue. I can. Partially. Personally, I didn’t mind Harry’s signature “green as a fresh pickled toad” eyes being blue in the film because Daniel Radcliffe couldn’t wear the contacts. Only auditioning actors with green eyes, the rarest eye colour on the planet, would exclude a lot of talented actors and potentially perfect Harry’s. I don’t believe green eyes were essential to Harry’s character (but I can’t speak for everyone), I think there were more important qualities. Geraldine Somerville, who played the older Lily Potter, also had blue eyes. But then, after making a huge deal over Harry having his mothers’ eyes, they cast young Lily, with whom they do close up, full face scenes of, with big brown eyes. I’m not saying she didn’t do an excellent job – she did wonderfully. I suppose it was just a strange decision in the eyes (pun not intended) of a lot of fans that the casting of a two or so minute role precluded what seemed to be such an integral theme that had been woven through each book and movie so frequently. This is just an example of the questionable, dare I say for lack of a better word ‘lazy’, ‘just imagine for the sake of the plot that he/she…’ attitude that I get from HP/FB at times.

Getting back on the topic of age, one thing I did have a problem with in HP was James and Lily’s age. I don’t think I’m entirely alone in this. 21 seemed old when I was a wee one reading Harry Potter for the first time. It was only when I got older that I realised how young they were and how it added quite fundamentally to the tragedy of their short life and death. It was heartbreaking either way, don’t get me wrong, but seeing (an actual 21-year-old actor portraying) a 21-year-old young mother slain in the first flashback in Philosophers Stone would have been truly shocking. It would also add to the tragic aftermaths of Sirius and Remus too. However, I did later realise that this was probably due to having to match Alan Rickman’s casting as Snape, and later, Gary Oldman and David Thewlis (which I think were all fantastic in their roles). So, they sacrificed the canonical age of James and Lily for the casting of Snape and the Marauders (possibly). Whether this was something the fans agree or not, they prioritised what was most important, in their eyes, to the film. But then, after all of that, for some reason they keep James and Lily’s age of death as 21 on their gravestone??? Therefore, casting two barely-speaking roles to a 43 and 34-year-old who they expect the film going audience to believe are 21??? I assumed that when they did the full casting and knew that Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman and David Thewlis would look far too old for their long-deceased classmate counterparts they would just make the characters older in the films but now I think they wanted to keep film Snape, Remus and Sirius in their early to mid (and eventually late, by the end of the books) thirties and didn’t want it to look painfully obvious. I think a lot of films and tv shows do this to try and pull off the age differences. A 27-year-old actor portraying a ‘high school student’ can often pull it off until you stick them next to a real life 15-year-old. I like to believe it’s that or something other than lazy writing but I can’t know for sure. 

This brings us to my current thoughts about Fantastic Beasts which has some of the most wildly strange actor vs character casting age I’ve seen in some time. As a quick refresher (or if you don’t know…) here are the actors ages vs what their characters age is (if I’m not mistaken)...

 Eddie Redmayne - 36 / Newt Scamander – 29

Zoë Kravitz – 29 / Leta Lestrange - 29 (probably given that she was in the same year as Newt)

Ezra Miller – 26 / Credence Barebone - 18 (from an interview but still unconfirmed from filmmakers)

Katherine Waterston – 38 / Porpentina Goldstein - 25

Alison Sudol – 33 / Queenie Goldstein – early 20’s/hopefully not late teens (she’s younger than her 25-year-old sister so 24 at the absolute most but I’d say younger given the dynamic). I haven’t found a confirmed age anywhere.   

Dan Fogler – 42 / Jacob Kowalski – 26

Callum Turner – 28 / Theseus Scamander – 37

 Try and keep in mind that there is no mean spirit intended in my opinion on this. My opinion on the acting ability of each of these people isn’t necessarily relevant to this particular discussion though I do commend actors who can convincingly pull off different ages though I certainly can’t fault actors who can’t as there is only so much you can do sometimes. This is purely about what is most important – character or actor – and the relevance of it.

Eddie Redmayne, in my opinion, seems to have features that allow him quite an amount of leeway in terms of age. He starred in the mini series based off one of my favourite books, Pillars of the Earth (definitely an underrated series I heartily recommended) where he portrays his character as a teen all the way up to a man in his forties/fifties and, in my opinion, is quite believable. I think I have more trouble believing that Eddie Redmayne is 36 than I do believing Newt Scamander is 29/30 (as his birthday is in February, I’m assuming he is 30 during Crimes of Grindelwald) and even if that weren’t the case, I think a six-year difference at those ages can be neither here nor there with some people especially with the right clothes, mannerisms, etc...

Zoë Kravitz – hold on to your hats, a 29-year-old playing a 29-year-old. I haven’t done my in-depth research on the other actors not aforementioned, but I believe this may be the only occurrence of this happening in this film series.

Ezra Miller said that Credence was 18 in an interview. This is probably true, and I would’ve guessed around that age anyway. I think I double checked it on the characters wiki and it matched. As a side note, as a general rule I don’t tend to take the actors words as gospel truth until its confirmed by the writer or director. I feel like, in this film series, there are some actors that get maybe somewhat carried away and speculate rather a lot about their character and sometimes it isn’t entirely accurate. Of course, actors are usually allowed some creative control over their characters and often get little titbits about their past/future that help with their portrayal, but I have noticed some actors’ thoughts about their character don’t add up at all to what the filmmakers have also said and I know which side wins out. A lot of actors are shocked/surprised/disappointed/elated when they find out developments about their character - not even they always know what’s around the corner and sometimes what they think isn’t necessarily true. No matter how deserving, creative or insightful they are about their character, it doesn’t solely belong to them. I think a lot of fans forget this. They go on about ‘so and so said this’ and ‘so and so literally said…’ while blatantly disregarding anything J.K or the FB filmmakers say and again, I know which ones actually run the show. This has nothing to do with Ezra, to be honest, it’s just a quick observation I’ve noticed.  I’m so off topic! Anyway, Credence I would’ve put as a late teen/20-year-old at most from his character and I think Ezra has one of those faces that, like many, can float around in the weird young adolescence stage that you can can’t quite pinpoint whether they’re late teens or mid-twenties (I’m in university and pretty much anyone between 18-27ish is indistinguishable to me). Either way he’d be carded at the uni bar. I think if I met a modern-day Credence Barebone I wouldn’t think twice if he told me he was 18.

Katherine Waterston is the one I am most anxious writing about and the one I’m sure a lot of people are cocked and ready to come after me about. She’s probably also one of my two biggest irks with the age issue. Just to get this out the way, I am not the biggest Tina fan (yet). At first, it was casual indifference. I didn’t (and don’t) hate her, I just didn’t really take to her in the first film (I already have hope that the new film may sway me). It really started as simply as that. I will write a separate post on all my thoughts revolving around this because there are many. All I will say is that if you don’t love Tina or ship Newtina based on the first film, it is a very cruel and vicious fandom to be part of. At least in my experience. But that’s a different issue. Let me say firstly that I think Katherine Waterston is very beautiful and I would be happy to look like that at 38 (obviously not the same as she is very Caucasian and I’m a nut-brown Maori, but you get my point). Obviously, I don’t know how the story will unravel and how important it is but was it absolutely necessary that Tina had to be 25? I think 30 would have been passable. Or even better, she could’ve been a little (or however much) older than Newt? Normalising relationships where the woman is older than the man is something I’m here for (my sister is two years older than her boyfriend – 19 and 21 – and it’s so controversial to people??? But I know lots of relationships in the reversal). That would’ve been my ideal scenario if they had Tina originally set for 25 but discovered they really loved Katherine Waterston and decided it would be inconsequential if they wrote Tina a bit older than originally planned. However, I do think it might be the other way around. Maybe it is important that Tina is 25. This might be one of the reasons why I haven’t yet meshed with this character or either of the Goldsteins for that matter. I do admit that I forget that they are in their early and mid-twenties. I do forget that Tina is (apparently) only 25. I honestly believe that I would have liked – or at least had a lot more understanding and sympathy – for Tina’s character had it been obvious she was so young. I will explain more thoroughly in the separate post I’ll eventually write that, had FB been a book before a movie, I would likely have really enjoyed book!Tina. Please understand this particular opinion isn’t about the actor. I’m just saying that I, personally, feel like it was easy to lose sight of the fact that this character is only 25 when the actor playing her is nearly forty years old. Please don’t twist this and interpret it to being me ‘coming after’ the actor. I don’t know why age is regarded as such an insult. It’s the most beautiful, natural thing. Katherine Waterston is 38. There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s healthy and pretty and could easily pass for younger if she so desired. But again, I think sometimes why I don’t find Tina endearing at all (yet) is because I see (not in terms of the actor, the character) a 38-year-old (or round about) woman acting like a 25-year-old. This might be even harder for me to combat in the next film as she is supposed to be quite younger than newcomers Theseus and Leta (ridiculously younger than Theseus) whose actors are both twenty-somethings joining Ezra as the babies of the cast. Don’t come at me about insulting her about her age. Carmen Ejogo is 45 and she cancelled everyone in FBWTFT. A lot of people grow more and more beautiful with age. Older doesn’t mean less beautiful so let’s put that to rest immediately.

Alison Sudol looks like a fucking earth angel and she was a great Queenie. I loved Queenie’s character. Did I love Queenie as a person? No. There is a difference – again, that ties in with what I’ll eventually write about my feelings about those two. I don’t know Queenie’s age, but she is younger than Tina so at the absolute most she would be 24 but I would wager given the big-little sister dynamic they seem to be following, there’s likely more than a year’s difference. I wouldn’t have thought Queenie was so young had I not known otherwise. There are some who find her character a little more annoying than cute, but I think if she were portrayed by someone who was in fact in their early twenties, she probably wouldn’t have come across as so naïve and a little airy. A lot of development occurs in your twenties and there is a tremendous amount of personal growth by the time you hit thirty. The same issue with Tina I suppose. You can forgive a lot of Queenie’s quirks when you remember how young she is but sometimes it’s easy to forget when physically she seems older. I will have to keep in mind how young and impressionable she is still while watching her actions in Crimes of Grindelwald because again, I think I forget sometimes.

I had no idea how old Jacob was, admittedly. I guessed anywhere between 32-40 (I assumed Jacob and Queenie had a bit of an age gap either way) but I was way off. Apparently, he’s 26. My head is in my hands at this point. I know Jacob’s been through a lot (and I’m not saying Dan Fogler isn’t a cutie!) but if some guy told me he was 26 and I arranged to meet him and Jacob Kowalski (again, based on first impressions. I love Jacob) walked in, I’m calling the fucking police. There is no way he is TWENTY-SIX. I love Jacob and Newts relationship, but I never saw Jacob as being the younger one. The fact that he is younger than Newt, Leta and Theseus (again! 11 years younger than Theseus!) when he looks like he could be their fucking uncle is unreal. I don’t really know why they made Jacob so ludicrously young when there was honestly, in this case, no need. I had to track down his age because it had zero (0) relevance to the film. Only thing I can think of is maybe to make his relationship with Queenie not come across as creepy? Who knows. 

This one really hurts me. Theseus, my poor boy. The FB team really are just gonna swing around and do THAT. Callum Turner is, in my opinion, a great Theseus from what I’ve seen so far. From interviews, it looks like he adores Zoë and he has great chemistry with Eddie. They’ve also done well to find an actor with similar physical characteristics and mannerisms as Eddie Redmayne making him a very believable casting for Newt’s brother. Though later it was revealed that Theseus is supposed to be eight years older than Newt making Theseus 37/38 which I think was completely unexpected for most people. We knew from the first film that Newt was the youngest brother and even with Callum Turner only being 28, I thought with the right clothes and such they could make him look older – or at least old enough to look like he could pass as Newt’s older brother. But nearly forty? With the kind of trauma Theseus has been through not to mention the likely constant drama of his troublesome brother and fiancée (and his brothers’ new friends and extremely messed up future brother-in-law)? Does he exfoliate with the Philosopher’s Stone? Drop that skin case routine, Theseus. Again, I don’t know what the film is going to bring. Perhaps Theseus must be significantly older than Newt for plot related reasons. Maybe for the sake of the story, he had to be old enough to not attend school with Newt, or maybe their father died early on and Theseus had to grow up quickly to fill a father figure void (that could explain the complicated nature of their relationship) or it might be for any number of reasons. My only hope is that it is specifically relevant to his character and not an inconsequential detail that could easily have been adjusted when they cast such a young actor. It can be a risk having a cast of actors in their thirties and forties playing a cast of twenty-somethings convincingly, and I’ve mentioned why, but it can be pulled off though I think it’s a strange move casting an actual twenty-something year old, one of the youngest cast members, to play a character 10+ years older than some of the oldest cast members characters. I think, like with the Goldstein’s, I will have to be constantly reminding myself when understanding the character that Theseus is that much older than Newt and Leta and even more so than Tina, Queenie and Jacob. 

Again, I’m not saying the actors haven’t done a good job with their respective roles, it’s just my 4am cough medicine powered thoughts on how they’ve made some interesting choices regarding what age they’ve kept the characters vs the actors real life ages and how it, for me at least, has affected the way I’ve interpreted the characters and would I feel any different about them had they made the characters similar ages to their actors or vice versa. I might be the only person who has thought about it and it’s not even a complaint on the cast itself (it’s a great collection of actors), it’s just an observation not at all eloquently put by a flu-riddled person. 

The Genius Behind The Genius

It’s been already eight years since Pokémon Black and White were released for the Nintendo DS. Time sure flies. I think we can all agree that it seems like yesterday. This just comes to prove how big the mark these games have left is, not to mention the amazing sequels we got to play. One of the many reasons why it’s hard to forget these games is their story. In fact, it took over a year to write, and seeing the result, it was definitely worth the time spent.

But what makes up a good story? A decent amount of plot twists and an interesting theme to talk about are good answers, but this time we’ll be focusing in characters. There’s no good story without characters, and turns out Pokémon Black and White has plenty of them. Cheren, Ghetsis, Bianca, Iris, Juniper... the list feels endless. Each of them have their own unique origins, story and behavior... and then there’s N.

N is an anti-villain, since he’s the king of the villainous Team Plasma, but sees Pokémon as his friends and acts nicely towards the player.

When N was very young, he was abandoned in the woods, where he was raised by the Pokémon living there. One day, Ghetsis began taking care of him, claiming to be his father. Actually, it’s still a mystery who N parents are, to the point where Junichi Masuda, the current director of the Pokémon games, even suggested he could have been born from Pokémon. When the player meets N for the first time, N is already over eighteen years old. My guess is that he’s 19, but I’ll go deeper into that theory later.

Despite not having received proper education, his IQ is stated to be extremely high. His mind exceeds any other human mind from the Pokémon world. Junichi Masuda revealed that he can look into people’s past and future. But his most recognized talent is probably his skill with mathematics. He’s a mathematical genius. It’s said that he sees everything in a black and white fashion, and uses mathematical formulas as a way to make sense of it, since being raised by Pokémon prevented him from having our generic vision of the world. This is the exact same reason why he proves to have a closer relationship with Pokémon than humans.

Being a mastermind who was raised by Pokémon, N considers himself a personification of perfection.

Little more needs to be known about N to realize how distinct of a character he is. Nonetheless, N is still a fictional character, and as with any other work of fiction, there’s a real human mind behind it. The creator of the creation and, for N’s case, the genius behind the genius.

That person is, as you may have guessed already, Junichi Masuda himself. The director and lead composer of Pokémon Black and White and their respective sequels. It’s evident that a good character is never born out of nowhere. There’s always a source of inspiration behind it, and maths were definitely the strongest influence around his creation. At plain sight, the references may not seem obvious. But the same way N has a completely different point of view of what we see, we also need to change our perception of N to see them and figure them out.

Junichi Masuda next to Shigeru Ohmori, game designers and directors of many Pokémon games. Both worked on Black and White together.

By simply looking at N’s official artwork from Black and White, the only thing that’s worth talking about is the cube hanging from his belt. Since it doesn’t have any colors other than a dark shade of yellow, it can’t be a Void Cube, a variant of the well-known Rubik’s Cube with a hole in the middle of every face. Instead, we could be talking about the second iteration of a Menger Sponge, but try to remember what I just mentioned about Void Cubes.

Understanding what a Menger Sponge is can be relatively easy. It gets more complex when we try to approach it from a mathematical point of view. First, think of a big cube of infinite dimensions, which turns out to be the first step of the Menger Sequence. Now, split that big cube into 27 smaller cubes of the same dimensions, and remove the cube that’s in the middle of every face and in the very center of the cube. The shape that the 20 remaining cubes form should remind you of the Void Cube I mentioned earlier, and the cube hanging from N’s belt, of course. Now follow the same steps for those 20 cubes, and repeat the process infinitely. 

The result is a cube with infinite surface, but zero volume, as it will have an infinite amount of holes. Two different and equally valid points of view for the same concept.

One does not realize how the cube will eventually end up having infinite holes until it’s looked from a mathematical point of view.

The truth is, this cube doesn’t take any major, or even minor role in the story of the games, but early concept artworks and notes suggest that it was initially going to be relevant to the plot of the game. However, if N still wears it in the final games, there has to be a reason for that, and it’s probably because of the fact that no-one will find anything interesting in that cube unless it’s seen from a mathematical point of view, or N’s default point of view.

Moving away from his appearance, one of the things that gets the attention of most people is how he’s named after a single letter: the letter N, which happens to be the letter that’s used to represent the set of all natural numbers, which are all numbers without any decimals starting from zero (zero is not part of that set). In fact, this isn’t just a coincidence, as Junichi Masuda has revealed that N stands for Natural Number. However, if you’ve played through Black and White, you should know that N isn’t his actual name. His full name in every language is Natural Harmonia Gropius. And yes, there’s a mathematical context behind it. Actually, not all of the context has to do with math.

The natural set (N) is the most basic mathematical set, and is contained inside all of the bigger sets (real numbers, rational numbers...)

The first part of his full name, Natural, should be already figured out, and there isn’t much more to explain. However, the next part, his surname Harmonia, can be a little bit harder to understand, so let’s focus first on the last name, Gropius, since it’s not confirmed to have a specific origin. Gropius is a rather popular last name in Germany, and is often associated with Walter Gropius, pioneer of modernistic architecture during the XXth century. This could reference the fact that N wants to build a world where Pokémon and humans can live together in... well, harmony. Though it’s debatable whether this is true or not.

Regarding Harmonia, at first glance, it may seem like it refers to the musical term harmony: combinations of chords that create a pleasant melody. While that point of view is correct, the mathematical point of view we’re focusing on leads us to harmonic functions. I won’t go into detail on what they are because it requires a rather wide knowledge on maths to understand. In fact, we don’t really have to, as this only will help us realize there has to be a relation between music and maths somewhere in N’s development history, and by analyzing the well-known N Battle Theme, we’ll find out how math also influenced this tune.

Harmonic functions are those who have a first and a second derivative that always satisfy Laplace’s equation (df^2/dx(n)^2=0)

The genius we’ve been talking about all this time, Junichi Masuda, was in charge of composing this very specific theme, and states in a post from his personal blog that he was influenced by prime numbers to compose it. But why prime numbers? Masuda defends this idea by considering N as the “one” genius, and implying that prime numbers are the ones who get closer to being as unique as number one, due to the fact that they only have two divisors.

I’ve tried finding a music sheet of N’s Battle Theme so following the song becomes easier, however, I found nothing, which surprises me considering it’s a very popular theme. However, since all of this info comes from Junichi Masuda himself, we can definitely trust on it. As a replacement, here’s a video with the song so you can try to follow along, specially if you’ve got a good musical ear.

Right at the first part of the song, you can hear several combinations of eight ascending notes. Imagine the lowest note of the eight, which is always the first one of each set, is note #1, and that the number associated to every note increases by one whenever the key of the note also increases by one position. Do this in all of the sets, and you should get the following number combination: (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19), which happens to be number one followed by the first seven prime numbers... with seven itself also being a prime number. Also, note that following the definition of prime number, 1 is NOT one of them.

After this intro, several sequences of three notes, with the last note playing for way longer than the other two, can be heard. The fact that it’s three notes isn’t a coincidence since three is a prime number. In music terms, a bar is the segment of time that corresponds to a specific amount of beats stated at the beginning of the music sheet, which is usually four, and the longest note of the three extends for five bars... with five also being a prime number. But this doesn’t end here. This whole theme extends for 83 bars before it begins to loop... and guess what? 83 is also a prime number!

All prime numbers from 1 to 100 appear green on this chart. 1 isn’t a prime number.

We can also find some relations between N and prime numbers on the character itself and not just on his battle theme. For example, in the game, he’s said to be 5′ 11′’ tall. At this point I don’t think I should remind that 5 and 11 are prime numbers, but I’ll do just in case. His trainer ID number in Pokémon Black and White is 00002 (two is the only even prime number). And he’s also the only trainer in Generation V that uses all 17 types of Pokémon at least once during the game. And yes, 17 is also a prime number. Though this info I just mentioned isn’t confirmed, and could be just a coincidence.

Also, there’s much more in N’s Battle Theme other than all of the influence from prime numbers. The clocks ticking in the middle of the song, the sudden bursts of energy... all of these elements aren’t random, and Junichi Masuda explains all of them on his personal blog, so definitely check it out if you’re interested in knowing more about it! https://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/dir_english/?m=201110

...and you reached the end of the article!

As you saw, the creativity put into the creation of N is simply insane. People often tend to ignore the development stories of their favourite characters no matter how much they love them, but if you attempt to do a small research to find out, you may end up finding something as surprising as this. Authors and developers care about their characters, to the point where they end up putting all of this effort to make it stand out. Thanks for reading!

~TodoNintendoS, as part of Daily Nintendo Fact #100

For CEOs like Vinita Bali and Vineet Nayar, career gets diverse after retirement

NEW DELHI: CEOs wear many hats and play many a role within the organisation they lead. And, as they move off the corporate limelight and give up day-to-day operational management, many of these business leaders are juggling multiple roles that provide diversity the CEO job cannot offer.

Vinita Bali’s plural career started when she took up a full-time operational role as managing director of Britannia Industries. She was on a few overseas boards even then. For her, this diversity was very attractive.

"Through this, you learn about different industries; you’re not focused only on your operational responsibilities." Currently, she is on two boards abroad, in the UK and Switzerland. At home, she continues to be a director at Crisil (since 2014) and Titan (since 2006). She also sits on the board of the Hindu group of newspapers.

Bali was among 27 global leaders appointed by the UN secretary general to stand on the lead group of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement. She is the chairperson of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and is on the advisory board of Cornell University’s department of nutritional science. Apart from this, she advises the board of IIM Bangalore.

Bali is working longer hours now than she used to when she had the operational job at Britannia. "In an operational role, you are responsible for just that and so you spend a lot of time doing largely one thing. Today, the people that I work with give me a global perspective, literally, from all over the world," she said.

Bali was clear that she wanted to live the next 20 years of her life very differently from the previous 20. "I now travel a lot, my day can end with sitting in on a call with the UN late at night and a new day can begin with looking at the retail strategy for Titan.

" Life has been busier after stepping down from operational roles for several others as well. HCL Technologies’ former CEO Vineet Nayar has always been fascinated by the power of innovative ideas. HCL Comnet was a billion-dollar startup built on the idea of remote management, HCL Technologies had seen a multibillion dollar transformation around the idea of his book Employees First, Customer Second.

For him, life after HCL grew across dimensions: some planned and some accidental. He offers free mentorship to 18 aspiring startups. He also acts as an adviser to large global corporations around digital transformation and building high-performance teams, which helps fund work at his NGO, Sampark Foundation

"I live a life where we are resource-starved and ideas can only be implemented by influencing others rather than commanding them. This is definitely more exciting and challenging than anything I have done till date and more scary too, as probability of failures is much higher," he said.

Plural careers are rewarding, offer flexibility and have a huge upside because they offer value creation and the diversity to do multiple roles, said Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Bharti Airtel.

Kapoor is leveraging his experience of three decades across multiple careers. While he offers consulting, he has invested in a bunch of startups and mentors them as well, and is on the boards of many companies.

"While as a CEO you build strong teams to strategise and deliver, donning multiple hats may be unstructured initially but decades of training brings in some structure to your approach," said Kapoor.

For Ravi Venkatesan, the former India head of Microsoft, it gave the time and freedom to do what he wanted. "As we get older, the central questions to think about are: 'Why am I here?' 'How will I measure my life?' I turned 47 and didn't want to postpone doing the things I have wanted to — like writing, strengthening institutions, making a difference to the country and to individuals, having the time to read and think," he said. "There is no certainty whatsoever that any of us will live to 60, then retire and do these things. So I decided to do it now."

Venkatesan's main commitment now is that as the chairman of Bank of Baroda. He is also the founder and chair of a rapidly growing philanthropic movement, Social Venture Partners. He is also working on his next book, What the Heck Do I Do with My Life. For him, all these different experiences are rewarding in different ways. The seven years he spent at Microsoft were intense and exhilarating, the experience of which, he says, he won't trade for anything. "But I wouldn't trade what I am doing now either, since it gives me freedom and satisfaction." He serves on several boards, including of Infosys and Rockefeller Foundation. He founded and is a venture partner at Unitus Seed Fund, and is a fund adviser at Kalaari Capital.

Funny peculiar

As one-quarter of The League of Gentlemen, Mark Gatiss is used to playing odd characters - great practice for his stage role in All About My Mother. He talks to Sarah Dempster

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/aug/20/theatre.arts]

Later, we will hear tell of Nubian effigies and septuagenarian sauce, of outrageous folly and the dashed inconvenience of finding oneself betrothed to not one but two Fannies. But first, a cautionary tale re: the hidden perils of high-street gadgetry. "I recently bought a digital dictaphone," announces Mark Gatiss, solemnly. "But when I got it home I noticed that there was already a 35-second recording on it. I thought, 'Hello'. So I pressed play and all I heard was (he adopts a casserole-thick cockney drawl): "'Errr ... Boxing Day mornin'. Lookin' aaht the window. Contemplatin' ... 'avin' a wank.' And that was it. Obviously, whoever it was had his festive wank, decided he had no further use for his dictaphone, and then took it back to the shop. Wonderful!" he hoots. "I immediately thought, 'Yes!' [He raises a fist in triumph.] 'This is the dictaphone for me!'"

Well, of course it is. Gatiss's imagination thrives on such peculiarities. From The League of Gentlemen's hapless, unemployable Mickey Michaels to Nighty Night's sexually stunted Glenn Bulb, his characters are often bleakly hilarious fusions of the strange and the wrong.

Today, sitting in a quiet corner of the National Theatre's artificial turf lawn, Gatiss cuts a rakish figure. Resplendent in a flapping, 1930s-style pinstripe suit and fetching brogues, there is an air of Boy's Own mischief to the chap, a dandy-in-aspic glee that echoes that of Lucifer Box, the all-quipping, all-boffing secret service hero of Gatiss's literary period romps The Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber and still-in-the-planning Clawhammer (in which a now-elderly Box finds himself up to his walloping libido in 1950s naughtiness).

In much the same spirit of adventure, Gatiss's latest role is that of a forthright transvestite called Agrado in the Old Vic's production of All About My Mother - Pedro Almodóvar's beloved paean to female resilience. The rehearsals, he says, are going "swimmingly". His fellow cast members - who include Diana Rigg and Lesley Manville - are "just wonderful". And yet a cumulonimbus hovers on his otherwise tranquil horizon.

"Word came from Madrid," he confides, sotto voce, "that Pedro wants me to lose weight." Clearly, this is preposterous. The man is thinner than rhubarb. And yet, having seen snaps of Gatiss dressed as volcanic redhead Agrado, the Spanish director was apparently insistent. "I know from my experience on the League that you can get quite ... boxy," he says. "I've got to have a prosthetic chest and the more you build out, the bigger you become. Nobody's saying I'm fat. But basically, I'm off the bread."

Now 40, Gatiss's voice is as warm as a recently vacated bath chair, his northern inflections softened by his many years in London and an outlook that always reached far beyond the terraced rooftops of his Sedgefield, County Durham childhood. His CV bears testament to this ambition, his enduring fascination with nostalgia and grotesques, and the overriding, shining importance of Not Just Doing Any Old Rubbish. "I'm very lucky," he says. "I always used to say, in the olden days, when any kind of career looked like a pipe dream, that the thing I'd really like to do is become well known for something and then, as a result, be offered all kinds of different things. And that's exactly what's happened. That was my dream plan - I never thought it would ever happen. It's amazing how the League has opened so many wonderful doors."

Roles in The Wind in the Willows (as Rat), BBC4's live remake of The Quatermass Experiment (as a worried boffin), the excellent Fear of Fanny (as the titular Cradock's downtrodden husband) and Starter for Ten (as Bamber Gascoigne) have demonstrated his versatility, but it is his involvement with the multi-award-winning League of Gentlemen that continues to generate the loudest online burble.

Persistent forum-generated rumours that the troupe has called it a day are met by Gatiss with a mock-theatrical sigh. "We haven't split up. We're on a sabbatical. We had lunch the other day. But it's difficult at the moment because we're all doing different stuff."

Will there be future projects with fellow Gentlemen Steve Pemberton, Jeremy Dyson and Reece Shearsmith? "I certainly hope so. I mean, Steve and Reece have written a new BBC2 thing by themselves (Psychoville), so that's interesting. I don't want it to be seen as the League, or only half the League, as it were, but I suppose that's inevitable. But we all want to do something together.

"When we sort of paused, we'd been working together continuously for almost 12 years, from the beginning of our Fringe life to the film (The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse). I would never have been able to do a show like All About My Mother because we never had three months off. So I think it's a lovely thing to step off the treadmill. And because we've all done different stuff we'll come back with different experiences. Then it'll become a total pleasure to reform, rather than, 'What the hell are we going to do next?'"

Television remains a constant source of passion for Gatiss, its highs ("Upstairs, Downstairs is wonderful!") and lows ("I want to write a drama about ratings - the whole system is fucking bollocks!") negotiated with equal gusto. Above all, however, is his love of Doctor Who. "In a way, it's been the spine of my career," he says. "It was my first TV memory and I always wanted to be in it and write for it. In the interregnum, in the dark days, I wrote Doctor Who books [he has written four to date]. And then when it came back, Russell [T Davies] asked me to write for it. And now I've been in it as well [as Professor Lazarus]. So it's all fantastic - hah-hah!"

His home life displays a similarly chipper disregard for convention. A few years ago, Gatiss decided to build a Victorian laboratory in a spare bedroom. "We had this fabulous room, blood red, beautiful fireplace. I bought all the furniture, chemical bottles and a fantastic wax head of a Nubian boy with a fez on it. All original. Amazing stuff. But then all I ever did was show it to people. I'm not quite sure what I thought I was going to be able to do with it - turn back time or something. It was a folly. At one point, I toyed with the idea of covering it in cobwebs and then just showing people it through the keyhole. But it was a case of be careful what you wish for. I wanted a laboratory as a kid; then I had one and just thought, 'Oh'. So I dismantled it. I've kept nearly all of the stuff, though. It's around the house."

Does his partner, Ian, share his affection for such monstrosities? "He ... tolerates it," says Gatiss, affectionately. As, presumably, does the couple's rumpled, sensible labrador, Bunsen. "He is extraordinary. He's the light of our lives."

The next few months will see the genial multi-tasker juggle a flurry of new projects - a situation that Gatiss ("not a workaholic, but nearly") is "very comfortable" with. The BBC are planning to adapt his Lucifer Box novels, he will "possibly" write an episode for the fourth series of Doctor Who, and there will be appearances in Consenting Adults - a BBC4 drama based around the Wolfenden report - and Andrew Davies's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility: "I play John Dashwood, who has a terrible wife called Fanny. Yes, another Fanny! It's my fate. What have I done to deserve them?

"As long as I'm able to write and perform stuff that gives me the same excitement as I've always felt, I can't imagine wanting much else," says Gatiss, smoothing out the creases in his voluminous trousers in preparation for a suitably dandy-ish evening stroll. "To be able to sit down and write, 'Interior: Tardis'. Or write a very spooky ghost story. They're the same preoccupations I've had since I was little. That's what makes me happy".

· All About My Mother is at The Old Vic from August 27. Box office 0870 060 6628.

“Two title fights! Two title fights! Cub Swanson! Bethe Correia! CARE!” UFC 227 Preview

Joey

July  29th, 2018

Do you folks remember those movies where the mad scientist/business director/army general/warlord would shout something along the lines of "I don't want excuses, I want results!" before going on a tirade about how things aren't being done?

Welcome to UFC 227!

This card has two fundamental flaws that for better or for worse will prevent it from being viewed in any sort of positive light heading into it. The first part is that MMA fans are like the sort of folks I've run into working in office buildings and apartment complexes  in New York City. These people pay premium prices for a service and they expect said good or service to be delivered. They don't want to hear that you're short staff or that you've run out of something; they're paying for it so they expect it. They don't care that your "We're only human" excuse is perfectly valid. This card on paper started off with the promise or allure of GSP/Nate Diaz and Gustafsson/Rockhold among other things. I've discovered that the more the show has to change from its original incantation, the more and more the audience grows to reject it. To quote WB Mason, “Just is good is never ever just as good.” EVEN if TJ/Garbrandt II and Mighty Mouse/Cejudo II are perfectly acceptable high level MMA title fights that stayed the same, it's irrelevant to what we're NOT getting and so all of it matters nil in the grand scheme of things. The days of "At least the main event stayed together" or "Well kudos to them for saving the show!" are gone for this audience. MMA fans don't want your excuses, they just want your results. Once a card FEELS like it's being throw together in a slapshot fashion, you can't win them back. The excuses for UFC 227 are valid but the results are a pale withered birch compared to what we were assuming to be offered. The second flaw is that in MMA, unless it's REALLY special, you can't "Been there, done that" folks. My belief is that rematches can only sell when the element of surprise is at play. There's no real great high level excuse that either Cejudo or Garbrandt can rely on to convince audiences that things will be different. Cormier had the cocaine induced frenzy Jones was on for their first fight, Lesnar had the whole Steve Mazzagatti excuse and Conor (and Dana) offered up 1,000 excuses as to why Conor lost to Nate the first time. All we know on Cejudo and Garbrandt is that the champions of those title fights dispatched of them with ease. That doesn't get you excited for a rematch you have to pay premium prices for. Throw in the size-ism (this card has one fight above 155 lbs) and just the general fatigue from what was a very busy/very good July for MMA and we're limping into this show.

Despite that, I still like this card. It's not the sort of card I'd pay $60 solo for but it is absolutely a "If you can split the price" type card that will likely surprise you IF you order it. Henry Cejudo is the best fighter at 125 lbs not named Demetrious Johnson and earned the rematch with two definitive wins in a row, Cody Garbrandt was the logical choice above the likes of Dom Cruz (he beat Cruz who beat TJ) and Assuncao (We've seen TJ/Rapha twice now). Two title fights plus a tremendous featherweight fight as Renato Moicano tries to take the next step in his career against Cub Swanson who is now in that "I'm about to fall out of relevancy!" stage of his UFC career where he seems to rattle off six wins in a row. Moicano may be MMA's best fighter nobody really even knows about and he's the one dude who came the closest to solving the Brian Ortega riddle. Thiago Santos gets to potentially style on a good regional dude in Kevin Holland and JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana is...well it's on the show I guess. MMA's best weight class gets to shine as there's five bantamweight fights and all of them are tremendous quality. Jose Torres is back in business and he draws a tremendous fighter in Alex Perez in arguably one of those "Look back in five years and be shocked two dudes this good fought one another this early in their UFC runs" fights. Even Betche Correia is back and Betche vs Irene Aladana has some fun fight potential. I'm going to give this show until the end of the prelims to sell me on it, chances are I'm gonna wind up taking the plunge.

Fights: 13

Debuts: 3 (Kevin Holland, Montel Jackson and Matt Sayles)

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Gus vs 8 people cancelled, Bharat Kandere OUT, Marlon Vera IN vs Wuliji Buren, BenitoLopez OUT, Montel Jackson IN vs RIcky Simon)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Henry Cejudo, Demetrious Johnson, Cody Garbrandt, TJ Dillashaw, Cub Swanson, Bethe Correia)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 2 (Cub Swanson, Marlon Vera)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Demtrious Johnson, Henry Cejudo, Cody Garbrandt, JJ Aldrich, Ricardo Ramos, Kyung Ho Kang)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2016 (in the UFC): 27- 10

Demetrious Johnson- 4-0 Henry Cejudo- 2-2 TJ Dillashaw- 3-1 Cody Garbrandt- 4-1 Thiago Santos- 4-3 Kevin Holland- 0-0 Polyana Viana- 1-0 JJ Aldrich- 2-1 Cub Swanson- 4-2 Renato Moicano- 3-1

Divisional Breakdown:

Bantamweight- 5 (!) Flyweight- 2 Women's Strawweight- 2 Featherweight- 2 Middleweight- 1 Women's Bantamweight- 1

Too High Up- JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana

A fool would say Thiago Santos vs Kevin Holland is too high up. Santos is coming off a loss to David Branch and Holland is making his debut. Three casual reasons why you're wrong; 1) Thiago Santos has not been to a decision since 2015, spanning eight straight fights where he's either finished or been finished before the the end of the second round. 2) This card is so small in size and stature that for the sake of variety, bigger fellas are necessary. 3) Even if Kevin Holland isn't anything; I'd rather see him get a chance to prove what he is/isn't on the main card than if he was buried on the FX Prelims. For me, Aldrich vs Viana is a fight that has no point on probably any main card ever. That's no knock on both ladies as Aldrich is 2-1 in the UFC and Viana smelted Jamie Moyle in her debut. It's just not a PPV quality fight by any stretch of the imagination. Holland vs Santos probably isn't either BUT again, this card is so small in size that any "big" dude is getting the main card spot. 115 lbs is back in another one of their finishless ruts and this fight figures to not do anything to change that.

Too Low- Ricardo Ramos vs Kyung Ho Kang

Why is this on the FIGHT PASS prelims and not even the top fight either? Jose Torres vs Alex Perez is at least a tremendous fight with a dude who has been built up to the Fight Pass audience in Torres. Ricardo Ramos has wins over Michinori Tanaka and Aiemann Zahabi and the last one was a spinning back elbow KO in a tremendous fight. He should be higher. Kyung Ho Kang is coming off a triangle win over Guido Cannetti in a really good first round finish. These guys are at least televised prelim quality and DARE I say, I'd have no issue with them on the PPV main card either. Ramos is probably my new favorite Brazilian up and comer whose sole loss was a banana peel fight vs Manny Vasquez that Vasquez is still riding off of (and Vasquez is no slouch either!). Ramos should be off Fight Pass by now.

Stat Monitor for 2018: Debuting Fighters (Current number: 19-23):  Kevin Holland, Matt Sayles, Zhang Weili and Montel Jackson

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 20-10): Marlon Vera, Montel Jackson

Second Fight (Current number: 29-21): Ricky Simon, Polyana Viana, Wuliji Buren, Sheymon Moraes, Jose Torres

Cage Corrosion (Current number: 15-26):  Bethe Correia

Undefeated Fighters (Current number: 22-17):  Jose Torres, Montel Jackson

Keeping An Eye On But Not Really:

The UFC Win Check Test The records of fighters who have 4 or more UFC fights (or three full calendar years in the organization) but 0 wins against people still in the UFC:

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- So what necessarily can each losing fighter do to give themselves a better chance to come out on the right end of their respective title rematches? Cody Garbrandt's biggest change I suppose would be to temper his aggressiveness and fight smarter. No, he's not going to outpoint TJ over the course of 25 minutes given their respective styles. At the same time, we know Dillashaw CAN be hit (and Cody CAN hurt him) so it's not a matter of IF he can hurt him. Garbrandt completely abandoned what worked in the Cruz fight and what he did share in both fights was an at times willingness to style a bit too much. It works vs a dude like Cruz who can't hit you hard enough to back you off or make you pay for it. It's not going to work against Dillashaw who hits really hard. Cody's walk em down and flurry for power can work in spurts but he needs to pick his shots better. For Cejudo? I got nothing. Cejudo's improved by leaps and bounds with his hands but we've seen this before. Against Dustin Kimura, he looked like an all world striker----and then he went back to being a clinch happy potshotter who was frustrated by the quality of takedown defense by the likes of Chico Camus and Jussier Formiga. The only guys who can beat Mighty Mouse are the guys who are a) bigger than him (check for Cejudo), b) make him pay for when he gambles on exchanges or poor exits with pressure (???) and c) do NOT think that the best way to beat him is to try and sucker him into a grappling exchange. It's like when everybody figured that beating Anderson Silva would come down to trying to smother him for five rounds. If Cejudo thinks he can beat Mighty Mouse just because Sergio Pettis was happy to give him his legs and play guard then he's in for a world of shit.

2- This is without question the biggest test of Cody Garbrandt's career. Cody's obviously been through plenty tougher in his personal life but this isn't just a situation where you see a young prospect have to bounce back from a loss. Garbrandt got finished by a guy he considered a friend in violent fashion on the biggest show of the year when 11 months prior he had basically stated his case to be the UFC's next Urijah Faber. Garbrandt was humiliated and nothing is more hurtful than when the humiliation is from someone who knows you. After running through a bunch of dudes, Garbrandt's ego has been checked and while we've seen TJ recover (his first UFC fight was a loss), the onus falls on Garbrandt to bounce back similarly. He'll have to figure it out and get back on the right track in another pressure cooker.

3- Marlon Moraes, Dominick Cruz or Raphael Assuncao for the winner?

4- Whatever you do, don't snooker yourself into believing that we're getting DJ vs the winner of this fight next. Be surprised rather than disappointed for once.

5- The key to all Henry Cejudo fights is basically the same to all Mighty Mouse fights; Just how long is it before they seem to get bored? The difference is that a bored Mighty Mouse seems to check in while Cejudo seems to check out.

6- Irene Aldana's UFC run has been....interesting. Compare it to Alexa Grasso's run where it feels like Grasso is getting the bare minimum out of her time to Aldana who is 1-2 but has at least showcased what she's capable of in each fight. Against Leslie Smith she seemed ill prepared for Smith's boxing chops until it was far too late. Against Kaitlyn Chookagian, she got outworked in a fight where I feel like she took it pretty convincingly. Against Talita Bernado, she was pretty much on point early and then coasted late. Aldana has showcased some really good work and this division probably needs her to be really good really quickly. Her kicking game comes and goes, she still looks weaker than everyone she faces but her takedown defense and her boxing chops are really good. There's still upside here in a division where Cat Zingano and Sara McMann are still quality capable 135ers. EVERYONE who has beaten Bethe in the UFC has either been a champ (Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey) or gone on to fight the champ (Rocky Pennington). What's more Bethe is the sort of fighter who will give Aldana every opportunity to stand and trade with her. IF Aldana finishes Bethe, it's going to open up a ton of eyes.

7- Cage Warriors Brett Johns chose to show up at the worst time possible vs Aljamain Sterling.  Against an opponent he couldn't outmuscle or outathlete, Johns looked woefully out of his depth. To Johns' credit, Sterling on his top game tends to do that most guys. Brett Johns gets a reset vs Pedro Munhoz who is in a similar spot of "Okay now what?" In many ways this is where the bantamweight division has its big problem; there are so many fighters in similar spots of "Okay now what?" because everybody is good and everybody is in this clogged artery where 10-15 great fighters like Brian Kelleher, Aljamain Sterling, Brett Johns, Pedro Munhoz, Iuri Alcantara, Jon Dodson, Rob Font and Douglas Andrade are all beating one another to try and create a pecking order outside of the top 5. Everytime a guy wins, he gets knocked off by a guy who lost to someone else so the snake is always eating its tail. This is another one of those fights.

8- Renato Moicano has more relevant wins in the last three years than Cub Swanson does. Jeremy Stephens and Calvin Kattar trump Hacran Dias, Kawijiri, Choi and Lobov.

9- TheAntiCool in the past has talked about how Moicano is the sort of guy who needs a lot of breathing space and distance to operate. Swanson is normally very good if nothing else at being able to fight both forwards and backwards. He and Greg Jackson made the switch really quickly on Doo Ho Choi once they felt he couldn't keep up going backwards and I imagine the gameplan is going to be similar unless he just wants Moicano to tactically work him over with his howitzer jab and leg kicks. Also keep an eye on the body work from Swanson because the most underrated aspect of Ortega vs Moicano was that Brian Ortega made a conscious decision to go after Moicano's body once he got pieced up in the first round.

10- I wonder how many people who hopped off the Jose Torres bandwagon will come hopping back on when he (probably) finishes Alex Perez?

11- This UFC stretch of fighters making weight has now extended to three events with this passing Calgary card. Can we make it four in a row?

12- Chris Curtis not getting a contract got some folks really mad/sad on twitter but to me the real miss of the Contender Series was Montel Jackson not getting a deal. Jackson pretty much dominated Rico Discullio en route to a third round stoppage and I believe the only reason he didn't get signed was because he lost points due to excessive fouling. He's rough around the edges but also tremendously gifted from an athletic POV and he flashed so many raw intangibles that I'm really excited he's getting this short notice opportunity vs Ricky Simon.

2, 6, 12 for Marcello, 4, 6, 19, 27 for Jacques, 6, 12 for Cas? ~ 👀

[oh SHIT these are so many questions I feel so blessed…also you must have liked question 6 LOL teasing. Thank you for sending this in man!!!]

Marcello

2. What is their pain tolerance? Do they close their eyes and block it out, or go into a full blown panic?

Oooooh, that depends…If he knows something is going to hurt, he can usually calm down and get it over with by not thinking about it at all. And a few things are selective; being beaten, slapped, things like that have scarily little outward affect on him (mainly because he’s not afraid of what he already knows whoops have i said too much-)But pain he doesn’t know the source of, or didn’t see coming? Horrifying concept to him. He would fall apart and panic if he was ever shot or stabbed, or met with some sort of bodily pain that he doesn’t know why he’s experiencing. He hates torture porn movies like Saw and commonly worries about being put into a situation like that. Case in point, he would rather never feel pain at all and does a semi decent job at making it look like he doesn’t care, but once he’s pushed past his limit, he can’t calm himself down at all.

6. How easily do they cry? Is it different alone vs in public?

A lot easier than you would think. He’s actually far more prone to crying in front of people as opposed to alone, as solitude has always been a form of coping to him. The quickest way to work him up is to betray him, which is a hard task since it’s so difficult to earn his trust in the first place. Talking about his deeper feelings out loud also has a tendency to make him feel overly vulnerable and emotional, and if you really wanna see him cry, be one of his students. Whenever they’re hurting, he’s hurting a hundred times worse and does everything in his power to fix their problems, even if it looks impossible to solve.

12. Do they have someone they trust during their own time of need, or do they prefer to handle it alone?

Marcello’s accompanist is a character my lazy ass has yet to fully develop or name, but I want him to fill this exact role. He’s calm, patient, pretty much the exact opposite of Marcello in almost every way, and that’s why he needs him. When there’s a problem in his life, he wants to hear a voice that isn’t his own nagging at him, one that will suggest the best resolve even if it isn’t one he wants to accept. He treats his accompanist with the utmost respect, although refraining from confiding in him often as he’s scared of burdening him with too many problems.

Jacques

4. What are the most telltale signs that they’re sick or injured?

Everything. This man believes he is the height of subtlety. He is not. When he’s sick, he’ll barely say a word even against Cedric’s teasing, which comes to a slow once he starts to realize Jacques doesn’t feel well, and he’ll take frequent breaks outside or in the bathroom just to have a moment and gather himself. Which proves pretty fruitless once he returns to the kitchen and starts coughing all over again.

When he’s injured, say a problem with his shoulder for example, it’s pretty much the same story with very little talking and breaks to get himself together. The only difference is that he’s visibly frightened as he goes about his duties- Jacques is even more scared of pain than Marcello, easily the most scared out of the bunch. This is the kind of thing that Cedric will notice immediately and either demand he or Jacques take care of it or that Jacques goes home to rest, met with an argument that Jacques can’t keep up with because he’s in pain and concedes pretty easily.

6. How easily do they cry? Is it different alone vs in public?

Not very easily at all. It would take a lot of effort to even get him to the point of trying not to cry. He’s a grown man, been through loss, disappointment, anguish, etc…but he isn’t very used to blaming himself. With Cedric, his pride is already challenged in all sorts of ways. Every now and then, he’ll say something out of retaliation and see it visibly hurt Cedric’s feelings, creating a sort of heavy guilt in his chest that he would normally chalk up to the other person deserving it. Apologizing is when he gets the most emotional, tearing up and blinking it away to apologize properly, which Cedric will point out as a half hearted joke and reignite their “hate how much I love you” relationship all over again.

Jacques is probably a bit more prone to crying if he’s by himself, being the chronic worrier that he is and only making it worse when he’s alone. It’s a damage to his dignity, but he’d rather let himself feel upset without anyone watching than risk losing face.

19. Are they honest to themselves, or do they ignore feeling hurt or sad?

It takes a certain kind of problem for Jacques to ever be honest with himself. I’m in love with this annoying brat who can’t keep his mouth shut? No, no, that’s totally false. I feel embarrassed about my accent and cultural differences? Non, it’s the Americans who are wrong.

After accepting his anguish and guilt over Celeste’s death, Jacques has been able to acknowledge when he feels a certain way, but it’s typically only over a grave problem. If he really thinks he has a right to be hurt or sad over something- which is almost never- he’ll let himself feel that way and take some time to himself. However, it’s usually Cedric that has to point out to him how he isn’t even acknowledging painful things that have happened, and that’s something he deeply appreciates him for, although he can’t deny feeling fed up that someone so much younger gives him so much emotional advice.

27. Have they overworked themselves into sickness or collapse before?

YES HE HAS THANK YOU FOR ASKING OMG

Jacques is a very hard worker, deriving a lot of his pride from his accomplishments and his standing among coworkers. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel too proud when he woke up on the ground next to the oven one day with about eight people standing over him (this sounds like the start to one of my fanfictions i’m gonna try to keep this brief lol)

During the week where a third of the kitchen staff was out with the flu, Jacques took over a great deal of responsibility and a lot more hours than he was used to, with too much time spent working to realize he was coming down with it too. All he remembered before his collapse was Cedric telling him something about using the wrong knife, then grabbing it from his hand and yelling, and then he suddenly woke up on the floor. Needless to say, Cedric took him home after that. For more deets, call 1-800-absolute-barbarism.

~Cas~

6. How easily do they cry? Is it different alone vs in public?

It takes so much to make this man cry- luckily, so fucking much happens in this OCverse. Cas is good enough at controlling himself to hardly risk getting emotional, but alone he either numbs himself out or breaks down, the latter having happened once already in his office after the announcement of Carter’s escape from prison.

If he’s out of it enough he can get pretty emotional in front of other people, though. Too sleep-deprived, too much caffeine, too stressed in general, once all of the above has been met he can pretty much just start talking about how upset or scared he feels without even realizing who’s around him. When he gets this out of it, you could literally say anything to him and he’ll forget about it three seconds later. The squad finds this terrifying, thankfully a rare occurrence, and will usually beg him to go home until he finally does, although they know he’s not going to sleep there either.

12. Do they have someone they trust during their own time of need, or do they prefer to handle it alone?

He would prefer to handle it alone, but Charles is the least tolerant of his bullshit. He knows exactly how Cas can get when he’s upset about something deep and has a decent ability to point out exactly what it is. On top of that, he and Cas are closest in standing despite Charles being of a lower rank than most, giving Cas very little to scold him with about his informality and will instead just stand there and listen while Charles tells him he needs to get his shit together.

When he does deliberately go to him though, Charles listens with an open heart, despite being known to probably like Cas the least. He knows from the director that Cas is a special case, not just in skill but in who he is, and does his best to offer the easiest solutions to help his current situation, although it’s not always best in the long run.

Thank you so much for these questions again!! 

Wes Craven’s CHILLER on the Schlocky Horror Picture Show

July 27, 2008

OPENING: Hello, good evening, and welcome to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. I'm your host, Nigel Honeybone. "Welcome To The Wooorld Of Tomorrow!" as corporate executive Miles Creighton is cryogenically frozen for ten years until a suitable liver transplant is found and revive him. Unfortunately, his priest informs him his mind and body have been reanimated, but his soul...well his soul is gone...forever! Isn't a "get well soon" card more traditional? Watch, if you dare, as cult horror director Wes Craven attempts to break into the glamourous Made-For-TV movie market with a 1985 chiller called...Chiller! Talk about generic labeling... BREAK: Coming up we have more unfeeling monsters without souls, then after the ads we can get back to Wes Craven's Chiller...brrrrrr! MIDDLE: Welcome back to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. What do I think is the best part of Wes Craven's Chiller? I like the introduction title sequence, maybe because it was inspired by the 1982 John Carpenter film The Thing, and almost as much inspired by the blood test they used in the 1998 film The Faculty. Did I say inspired? I meant to say ripped-off. Through no fault of actor Michael Beck, Miles is just a generic unfeeling monster. It doesn't work well for a TV movie because it's too restrained. He doesn't really kill anyone. His worst crime involves forcing an old man to walk up a long flight of stairs and suffer a heart attack. The fiend! Oh, has that happened in the film yet? I wouldn't want to give away any important plot points, of course. Just pretend I didn't say that...I know, I'll talk about the actors instead. Beck is probably best known for playing gang-leader Swan in the excellent 1979 cult action film The Warriors, probably the high point of his movie career. Low points in his career include playing Sonny Malone in the 1980 musical roller-flop Xanadu, and Lieutenant-Commander Dallas in the 1982 action roller-flop Megaforce, which was so bad...(how bad was it?)...it was so bad he received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. He couldn't even win that. But more recently he can be spotted in television shows like JAG, Robin's Hoods, as the Mars-born terrorist-turned cyborg assassin Abel Horn in the Babylon 5 episode A Spider In The Web, and in Walker Texas Ranger, because you don't say no to Chuck Norris. So not promising so far, but then we have Jill Schoelen's sweet face to look at, so even if your intelligence is insulted your eyes won't be. Jill is much loved not so much for her movies but for her looks. In one Psycho-inspired scene, Miles is seen Peeping-Tomming...is that a word? Anyway, he takes a shufty at Stacy through a hole he drilled while she undresses. I can't fault the man for that, really. I'd probably be drilling a hole of my own, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Jill can be seen in other schlocky efforts like DC Cab, The Stepfather, The Curse II: The Bite, Cutting Class, The Phantom of the Opera, Popcorn, and the 1993 sequel to When A Stranger Calls, and the cunningly titled When a Stranger Calls Back. Her roles in more than half-a-dozen low-budget horror films has earned her a minor cult following and raising her to the status of scream queen. Speaking of queens, Jill Schoelen also dated Brad Pitt for a while. They were engaged for about three months, but then she broke off the engagement for The Phantom of the Opera. I guess the best man won. It would be terribly amiss of me not to mention respected character actor Paul Sorvino as Reverend Penny, whose impressive career includes the 1970 cult film Where's Poppa?, Day Of The Dolphin, Oh God!, Cruising, The Stuff, Goodfellas, The Rocketeer, and was frighteningly convincing as Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone's Nixon. Sorvino also became a favourite of Warren Beatty's, and can be seen alongside Woggles in Reds, Dick Tracy, Bulworth and far too many others. He also fathered, possibly with Warren Beatty, Oscar winner Mira Sorvino. In Chiller, director Wes Craven uses a sledgehammer to make the connection between Miles being emotionally cold

with being physically cold as well. For some reason Wes thinks being cold and dead make you a heartless bastard, but that's just retarded. The metaphor is threadbare as it is, and he drives it into our heads as if nobody would be able to pick up on it on their own. Give us a little credit! Over the last three decades Craven has become an efficient, dependable film-maker who is obviously comfortable behind the camera, but there's no flair, no style, and very little imagination when it comes to horror. Freddy Krueger is really his only memorable contribution to the genre...everyone's entitled to one good day. Speaking of which, although Wes would never admit it, he and Friday The Thirteenth producer Sean Cunningham had worked together on the 1973 soft porn vampire comedy The Case Of The Smiling Stiffs, also known as The Case Of The Full Moon Murders, which means Freddy Versus Jason in 2003 was a thirty-year celebration of sorts for the two film makers. Try to find The Case Of The Smiling Stiffs if you can, I guarantee you'll find it more entertaining than most of their other efforts! But you can do that tomorrow. In the meantime I urge you to remain for the From-The-Freezer-To-The-Oven-To-The-Table excitement that is...Wes Craven's...Chiller! CLOSING: What the hell was that all about? At first Miles seems to be just your average sociopath who has no regard for anyone but himself. Then for the finale, his eyes suddenly become demonic and he's got super strength, lifting cops off the ground with one arm, and all that. My guess is that Wes Craven thought Miles just wasn't evil enough and made a last-minute decision to make him seem 'otherworldly' for the ending. It's these kind of efforts that makes "Made For Television" such a bad reputation. Both acting and direction are rather pedestrian, at best. Cold, you might say. Anyway, please join me next week when I have another opportunity to make your stomach turn and your flesh crawl with another lusting, slashing, ripping flesh-hungry, blood-mad massacre from the back side of the Public Domain on...The Schlocky Horror Picture Show. Toodles!

by Lushscreamqueen

Gold holds below $1,800, Dow, S&P 500 finish lower, Buck buoyed by UNITED STATE yields

 Gold holds below $1,800

 Spot gold price remained below the crucial $1,800 mark on Wednesday, extending their losses to a second consecutive session, pushed by more stamina in the U.S. dollar.

 Spot gold went down 0.3%, to clear up at $1,793.50 an ounce and also place silver fell 1.3%, at $24.06 per ounce.

 " Gold, like all markets, is trading on a day-to-day basis according to exactly how traders are translating the tea leaves for [Federal Reserve] financial plan," stated Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.

 The rare-earth element traded a bit more than Wednesday's rate settlement after the Federal Reserve's Beige Book on economic problems, released Wednesday mid-day, said that general economic development "downshifted a little to a modest rate in very early July via August.".

 Global gold prices dropped 1.9% on Tuesday-- the sharpest one-day portion decrease for a most-active contract considering that Aug. 9, with the move pressing the contract to the lowest settlement given that Aug. 26, FactSet information show.

 Harp gains in the dollar, expectations that reserve banks will certainly taper asset purchases and gold's "failure to break past $1,840 in spite of favorable news [last week] in the form of lower U.S. August nonfarm pay-rolls" added to gold's loss below the vital $1,800 mark, said Chintan Karnani, director of research at Insignia Professionals.

 " This has caused short-term investors using every rise to exit the gold financial investments," he informed MarketWatch.

 Trading for gold has actually come versus the backdrop of concerns regarding the delta version of the coronavirus that creates COVID-19, which has supported rate actions, and uncertainty concerning the Fed's monetary-policy plans, as the labor-market recuperation looks irregular.

 Profits, "the bullish case for gold is characterized by a very breakable equilibrium between a relatively slow but constant financial recovery (data that is as well warm reasons hawkish money flows) as well as still accommodative reserve bank policy," Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Record Research, wrote in Wednesday's e-newsletter. "So, anything that contradicts either among those things will certainly weigh on gold near term.".

 Buck buoyed by UNITED STATE yields.

 The dollar pared gains on Wednesday as Treasury returns dipped after a Federal Get main offered a dovish outlook on the economic situation, and also a day ahead of a European Central Bank policy choice.

 New York Fed Financial Institution President John Williams said that even more development is required in the labor market to attain the "substantial more progression" for the Fed's maximum employment goal.

 He included, however, that it may be appropriate for the Federal Reserve to begin decreasing the rate of its asset acquisitions later on this year if the economic climate remains to boost.

 months to see just how the economy stands up. Fed's Williams provided some dovish remarks that support the concept that the soonest the Fed might taper is December," Edward Moya, senior market expert at OANDA in New York, stated in a record.

 Individually, the Fed said in its newest Beige Book that the U.S. economic climate "downshifted a little" in August as the renewed surge of the coronavirus hit tourist, dining as well as travel.

 The US dollar index, which determines the currency versus six rivals, acquired 0.14% to 92.66, after earlier rising to 92.86, the greatest given that August 27.

 Criteria 10-year Treasury note returns was up to 1.33%, after earlier trading at 1.38%. The returns have actually risen because information on Friday showed that U.S. tasks growth reduced while wage rising cost of living was greater than anticipated.

 An uptick in rising cost of living is making complex the picture for Fed officials that intend to see more progression in employment before decreasing bond acquisitions.

 " At its really worst, there is some issue that small salaries are still lagging customer cost increases by cycle extremes ... and that nominal earnings are having a hard time to stay on top of prices, which is exactly how a wage-price spiral develops," Alan Ruskin, a macrostrategist at Deutsche Bank, stated in a record on Tuesday.

 Data on Wednesday showed that U.S. work openings rose to almost 11 million in July.

 The euro dipped prior to the European Central Bank meeting collection for Thursday. The ECB could tighten up policy faster than many anticipate as inflationary pressures could confirm to be consistent, ECB policymaker Robert Holzmann claimed in a contribution to Eurofi Magazine on Wednesday.

 The single currency was last down 0.13% on the day at $1.1823.

 The greenback additionally gained against Canada's loonie on worries that the worldwide financial outlook is deteriorating also as the Bank of Canada looked past a soft patch in the domestic economy.

 Sterling dropped after the British government on Tuesday revealed a tax obligation walk to fund health and wellness spending and social care.

 Oil settles up 1%

 Crude oil prices jumped on Wednesday and also settled up greater than 1% as U.S. Gulf of Mexico producers made sluggish development in recovering result after Hurricane Ida.

 Brent advanced 1.27% to clear up at $72.95 per barrel, as well as U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude climbed up 1.39% to $69.3 per barrel.

 Manufacturers in the Gulf are still battling to reboot operations 9 days after Ida brushed up via the region with powerful winds and drenching rainfall.

 Concerning 80% of U.S. Gulf production stayed offline on Tuesday, with 79 production platforms still unoccupied. Concerning 17.5 million barrels of oil have actually been lost to the market thus far.

 The Gulf's overseas wells make up regarding 17% of U.S. result.

 " Refinery operations appear to be making a quicker healing," ING experts said in a note.

 Capacity of regarding 1 million barrels per day (bpd) was momentarily closed, down from an optimal of more than 2 million bpd, ING said, pointing out the most up to date circumstance record from the Department of Energy.

 Investors will be carefully watching stock information from the American Petroleum Institute industry group due in the future Wednesday and also the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Thursday for a more clear picture of the tornado's effect on crude oil production and also refinery output.

 Analysts questioned by Reuters expect, on average, that crude oil stocks fell by 3.8 million barrels in the week to Sept. 3, and they prepare for gasoline supplies were down by 3.6 million barrels as well as distillates down by 3 million barrels.

 " It's feasible the loss of refining demand and the amount of petroleum might rather terminate itself out," said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.

 The EIA claimed on Wednesday it expected U.S. crude oil production to fall by 200,000 barrels bpd to 11.08 million bpd in 2021, a larger decline than its previous forecast for a decline of 160,000 bpd.

 Rates were likewise supported as militants in Libya blocked oil exports at Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, an oil engineer at each of the ports stated, although other designers said manufacturing at fields that supply the terminals was unaffected.

 At the same time, the U.N. atomic guard dog criticised Iran for stonewalling an examination right into past tasks and also endangering crucial tracking job, perhaps making complex initiatives to resume talks on reviving a nuclear offer.

 The negotiations between world powers as well as Iran have actually been paused for almost three months since the political election of a new radical president in Iran, reducing prospects of Tehran having the ability to resume oil exports.

 Dow, S&P 500 finish lower.

 The Dow Jones Industrial Average and also S&P 500 fell for a third straight day on Wednesday as investors reassess the financial growth outlook complying with a smooth flight in the market up until now this year.

 The Dow dropped 68.93 indicate 35,031.07 and the S&P 500 dipped 0.1% to 4,514.07. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell nearly 0.6% to 15,286.64, dropping for the initial session in 5.

 Lots of financiers are supporting for volatility in September, among the seasonally weakest months of the year. Price swings can pick up, particularly with the S&P 500 up more than 20% this year without a solitary 5% pullback.

 " We see a bumpy September-October as the lasts of a mid-cycle change play out," Morgan Stanley chief cross-asset planner Andrew Sheets said in a note. "The next 2 months carry an outsized danger to development, plan and also the legislative program.".