#best front end framework

[krishangtechnolab]

The Best Front-End Frameworks for Fast and Easy Web Development 2025

In the rapidly evolving landscape of web development, the choice of front-end frameworks plays a critical role in determining the efficiency and effectiveness of the development process. As the demand for user-friendly, responsive, and visually appealing web applications continues to grow, developers are increasingly turning to frameworks that streamline the development process while also enhancing user experience.

This guide aims to explore the best front-end frameworks that facilitate fast and easy web development, providing insights into their features, advantages, and suitability for various projects.

Read Source : https://www.krishangtechnolab.com/best-front-end-frameworks/

[thepearl256]

Top Tools for Web Development in 2025

Web development is an ever-evolving field, requiring developers to stay updated with the latest tools, frameworks, and software. These tools not only enhance productivity but also simplify complex development processes. Whether you’re building a small business website or a complex web application, having the right tools in your toolkit can make all the difference. Here’s a rundown of the top…

[grey-space-computing]

Angular vs. Other Frameworks: Why It’s the Best Choice for Your Mobile App

In the modern digital age, developing mobile apps has become essential for driving business success. The competition in the mobile app market is intense, and picking the right framework can significantly impact your app’s performance, scalability, and overall success. Among the most popular frameworks are Angular, React, and Vue.js, but Angular mobile app development stands out for its comprehensive tools, advanced features, and support for complex projects. In this article, we’ll explore why Angular is the best choice for your mobile app development projects.

What is Angular?

Angular, an open-source front-end framework created by Google, was first introduced in 2010. Since then, it has evolved significantly, with Angular 2+ being a total overhaul of the original AngularJS. It’s written in TypeScript, offering developers a static type system that makes coding easier and less error-prone. With its component-based architecture and powerful development tools, Angular provides a robust environment for building dynamic, scalable, and secure mobile applications.

Importance of Frameworks in Mobile App Development

Frameworks are crucial in streamlining mobile app development tasks. They provide a structured foundation for building apps, reducing the need to write repetitive code and streamlining the development process. Frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js offer varying degrees of flexibility, ease of use, and performance optimization, making it critical to choose the right one based on the app’s requirements.

Angular vs. React

One of the most common comparisons in mobile app development is between Angular and React. React, developed by Facebook, is widely used for creating user interfaces, particularly single-page applications. Although both frameworks are highly capable, Angular offers a broader range of built-in functionalities, including modules for routing, forms, and HTTP communication. React, on the other hand, often requires third-party libraries to achieve the same functionality, which can increase the complexity of a project.

While React offers flexibility and a shorter learning curve, Angular’s opinionated architecture and robust tools make it a more suitable choice for large-scale and complex mobile app development projects.

Angular vs. Vue.js

Another widely used framework is Vue.js, appreciated for its straightforward approach and seamless integration. It’s often favored by small teams or individual developers for smaller applications. However, when it comes to handling more complex, enterprise-level applications, Angular takes the lead. Vue lacks some of the advanced features that Angular provides, such as dependency injection and comprehensive tooling, making it less suitable for large projects requiring scalability and maintainability.

Core Features of Angular for Mobile App Development

Component-Based Architecture: Angular’s component-based architecture enables developers to create reusable components, reducing redundancy and improving efficiency in development.

TypeScript Support: TypeScript, being a superset of JavaScript, introduces static typing and other advanced features, making debugging easier and code more reliable.

Two-Way Data Binding: This feature allows changes in the user interface to automatically update the underlying data model and vice versa, ensuring real-time synchronization.

Dependency Injection: Angular’s dependency injection system improves modularity and scalability, allowing components to be easily managed and tested in isolation.

Why Angular is Ideal for Complex Mobile App Projects

When managing a large-scale mobile app development project, Angular shines due to its modular development structure. By breaking the app into multiple modules, Angular makes it easier to manage, update, and scale complex applications over time. This is especially useful for projects that involve multiple teams working on different parts of the app, ensuring that changes in one module do not interfere with others.

Security in Angular

Security is a significant concern in mobile app development, and Angular provides several built-in features to enhance app security. It supports HTTPS communication and offers robust authentication mechanisms, including OAuth, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), and more. By incorporating these security protocols, Angular ensures that user data remains protected throughout the app’s lifecycle.

Performance Optimization with Angular

Angular’s Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation ensures that templates and components are pre-compiled, reducing the app’s initial load time. Additionally, Angular’s Change Detection feature minimizes unnecessary updates, optimizing the app’s performance, especially for large-scale projects.

Scalability of Angular for Growing Apps

One of Angular’s strongest attributes is its scalability. As mobile apps grow in complexity and usage, Angular’s modular architecture allows for easy updates and maintenance without disrupting the overall structure. Whether you’re building a small app or a massive enterprise solution, Angular can scale seamlessly to meet the app’s demands.

Support for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Angular is also a popular choice for building Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), which offer users an app-like experience on the web. With PWA support, Angular enables developers to create fast, reliable, and engaging web experiences that work seamlessly across all devices.

Cross-Platform Development with Angular

Another significant advantage of Angular is its cross-platform development capabilities. Angular can be integrated with frameworks like Ionic to build hybrid mobile applications, providing a single codebase that works across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android.

Community and Ecosystem Support

Angular boasts one of the largest and most active developer communities in the tech world. With countless resources, tutorials, libraries, and tools available, developers can easily find solutions to common problems, making it easier to build and maintain Angular apps over the long term.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Angular stands out among other frameworks due to its robust set of features, scalability, and security. For mobile app development projects, particularly those that require handling complex functionalities and large datasets, Angular provides an ideal solution. Its modular architecture, cross-platform capabilities, and extensive community support make it the best choice for developing dynamic, scalable, and secure mobile applications.

FAQs

What sets Angular apart from other mobile app development frameworks? Angular’s component-based architecture, TypeScript support, and built-in security features make it ideal for large-scale mobile apps.

Is Angular suitable for small-scale mobile app projects? Yes, Angular can be used for small-scale apps, though its full potential is realized in complex, enterprise-level applications.

Can Angular be used for both web and mobile apps? Absolutely! Angular supports both web app development and cross-platform mobile app development through integration with tools like Ionic.

How secure is Angular for mobile app development? Angular offers strong security measures such as HTTPS for secure communication, various authentication mechanisms, and built-in safeguards to defend against common threats like XSS attacks.

Is Angular easy for new developers to learn? Angular has a steeper learning curve compared to frameworks like React or Vue.js, but its comprehensive documentation and community support make it accessible for new developers.

[webtracktechnologies]

10 Best Frameworks for Front-End Development in 2024

The front-end development ecosystem is constantly evolving, and 2024 is no exception. With an increasing focus on user experience, performance, and scalability, choosing the right framework can make all the difference in building efficient, modern web applications. Here are the 10 best frameworks for front-end development in 2024.

1. React

React continues to dominate the front-end space in 2024. Maintained by Facebook, it’s a JavaScript library (often called a framework) that enables developers to build dynamic, responsive user interfaces with reusable components. React’s virtual DOM ensures fast updates, making it ideal for high-performance applications.

Key Features:

Component-based architecture

Virtual DOM for faster rendering

Strong community and ecosystem

Support for React Native for mobile apps

2. Vue.js

Vue.js has gained popularity for its simplicity and flexibility. It’s a progressive framework, meaning you can use as much or as little of it as you need, making it an excellent choice for both small projects and large-scale applications.

Key Features:

Reactive two-way data binding

Focused on ease of integration

Lightweight and flexible

Growing plugin ecosystem

3. Angular

Developed by Google, Angular is a full-fledged framework for building robust web applications. It provides a complete set of tools for developers, including dependency injection, routing, and a powerful CLI (Command Line Interface). Angular’s TypeScript-based architecture ensures strong typing and scalable code.

Key Features:

Two-way data binding and dependency injection

Built-in tools for routing, forms, and HTTP services

TypeScript support for scalable applications

Robust testing capabilities

4. Svelte

Svelte has emerged as a game-changer in front-end development. Unlike other frameworks, Svelte shifts much of the work from the browser to the compile step. This results in faster, more efficient applications. Svelte doesn’t use a virtual DOM, which gives it a unique performance edge.

Key Features:

No virtual DOM for faster performance

Compile-time optimization

Simpler and more intuitive syntax

Minimal boilerplate code

5. Next.js

Next.js, built on top of React, is designed for server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG). This makes it an excellent choice for SEO-friendly websites and applications that need fast loading times. In 2024, Next.js remains a top choice for building dynamic, high-performance web apps.

Key Features:

Server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG)

Easy integration with React

Built-in API routes

Powerful routing and pre-rendering features

Read More: 10 Best Frameworks for Front-End Development in 2024

[fixyourwritinghabits]

How do I know which WIP to choose to work on when I have plenty of them all in the stage of being half baked?

Here's the thing. You're halfway there. You're running the bakery, you've got a dozen of things to pop in the oven. You just need to choose one to work with until it's a finished pie.

Which project 'speaks' to you the most? Say you have five possible pies in front of you. You like all the flavors, you know they're going to end up good. But which one really excites you? Which one do you think about the most when you're not working on it? That's probably the WIP to go with. That's the energy you'll need to see it through to the end.

Which project feels the most fleshed out? Another thing to consider is how much plot and framework you already have down. Those vague ideas, first chapter starts, and intriguing concepts may seem solid, but the more work you've already got down, the more progress you'll be able to make.

Which project are you struggling the least with? There's a Nano project I really like the concept of. I've got two-thirds of the first draft written. But what I don't have is the underlying theme. I haven't figured out how to connect the concept to the characters yet. One of these days I will, but I have other stories to get done first. Focusing on the project you know you can figure out is probably the best choice to make.

Here's the last and most important point: You need to stick with that chosen project until completion. This is not a absolute rule. I will not burst through your bedroom window like Slenderman if you decide you can't finish it.

But you gotta try to stick through it. Getting the draft done is the hardest part of the process, and seeing it through to the end before you look at your next project is going to help you form the habit of finishing your work. All those books on the shelf, good and bad, have one thing in common - they got finished. The only way to do that is to stick through the process.

That's why you need to weigh your WIPs carefully. The ones that don't have much to them yet might need more time to proof in the dark recesses of your mind. Others might be far more ready for completion, but you're not giving them the attention they need in favor of all those shiny new ideas.

Pick your pie flavor, and make real sure you're ready to eat it again and again over the course of the next few months. You will hit some walls. You will get frustrated. But you can only finish your WIP one at a time.

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

The many faces of one-sidedness

I love Heesu in Class 2. But before I delight you with my own opinion on the series, let me tell you that I haven't read the manhwa and am only referring to the series here and perhaps a little discourse on expectations and the shift in the viewership of bl series will follow. I just know I can't write meta without digress.

During the broadcast of the series, I noticed how divided opinions were. While some were crying after the original source and didn't even want to give the series a chance, on the other hand there was a debate about whether it was a good bl series or not and what it should be. I don't understand why adaptations can't be seen as a medium in their own right. While the manhwa forms the basic framework on which the story is built, the adaptation is perfectly allowed to go its own way and use its own motifs, build its own storylines that fit better with a filmed story. An adaptation is still its own story with its own story being told, because a one-to-one transfer will mostly never work. @bengiyo wrote a fantastic meta about it! And if you want to read why Heesu in Class 2 is a lovely queer kdrama, go and check out @lurkingshan and her breakdown of the whole story. But well, I already digress.

Heesu in Class 2 was such a good story about the different ways and difficulties to have a one-sided crush. Take Heesin, for example. Heesin feels like she falls in love with men every other day and always confesses it immediately. According to her logic, you can only get over a crush if you confess. This makes her life both very simple and very complicated. She contributes to the daily, loving chaos in the Lee family. She suffers and loves with all her heart. And it seems like it's no big deal to confess that you like your crush. She seems like the opposite of Heesu, whose queerness doesn't allow him to love and suffer so carefree. He suffers quietly without confiding in anyone, while Heesin can celebrate her heartbreak without expecting anything but pity.

Heejeong is the responsible one. The one who gives up her dreams and her love because of fear. Sometimes loving means daring. You jump into something uncertain and make yourself vulnerable in front of another person. Heejeong wanted to study overseas with her boyfriend, but she got cold feet and lost out on an uncertain future. Instead, she lives her 9-5 everyday life with her siblings, in which nothing really exciting happens. And it doesn't have to be to lead a fulfilling life. But she is not happy. She is still hanging on to her dream and she should be able to at least try to live it or live the life she has dreamed of.

Fear can be a major obstacle. Heesu gives her the advice to do what she wants to do. As the most responsible character in the household, portrayed as the most grown-up, she has so far taken on the role of the parents and moved further and further away from her dream self. She has kept a part of her personality, of her self and her past a secret from her siblings. In the end, she realised that this is her life, which she can only shape on her own. She is the architect of her own happiness. Her unrequited love is not even so much for her ex-partner, who she still sees and who is still a big part of her life, but rather with her missed self that she has always dreamed of having. She has spoken out and faced her fear. She wants to be happy for her own sake and to do this she has to overcome her fear and find herself.

Heejae. For me, Heejae epitomises what it's like when the boundaries between romantic love and friendship become blurred and you're caught in a world in between. Being in love with your best friend is one thing. But being in a relationship with someone you love as a best friend is something else. Just as friendship can turn into love, love can turn into friendship and the process of realising this is often difficult and lengthy. You have got used to each other. You feel comfortable. You think you have everything. But her partner has noticed how things have shifted, that something is missing at the end. So he breaks up with her. He no longer wants to deal with this unrequited love. That's not enough for him. He wants to be loved. Loving as a friend is a wonderful thing, but for most people it is no substitute for romantic love. And sometimes it's not easy to realise that your feelings have changed, especially when you've been carrying and cherishing them for so long.

If you want to read more about these siblings you can read An Ode to HeeSu's Sisters by the lovely @soypim.

The sisters are representations of parts of Heesu. Heesin is the antithesis of Heesu. As a heterosexual woman, she can make confessions of love without receiving direct backlash. At best, she is remembered fondly and makes the person feel good even if the feelings are not reciprocated. She stands in the same spot as Chanyeong and Jiyu. It's so easy for heterosexuals to show their vulnerability. Heesu can't do that. In a homophobic society, it's not easy to tell someone you like them. It might not be remembered as a nice memory, it might be seen as an attack, an event that has negative connotations. It's so much harder for Heesu to be so open in his world. And the series manages to realise this so incredibly well.

Heejeong on the other hand stands for the missed moments, for the what-ifs, for the fact that sometimes you have to dare to take the next step if you don't want to stay trapped in the black hole of yourself forever. It's interesting that Heesu is the one to give her the advice to decide for herself, for what makes her happy, and that she shows him again that this is possible by taking a step into her own, hopefully happy future. You can decide for yourself and that's good. Heesu can also decide for himself and decide not to step into the black hole, but to pull himself out of the swamp and follow his dream. Everyone has their own black holes. Everyone deals with them differently. But trying to be happy should be possible for everyone. And even if you decide to stay in your 9-5 or, well, in your closet, that is totally fine, too. No one should stop you from doing what you want, but it is always good when there are people who support you and cherish the person you are.

Heejae. Heejae is just one step ahead of Heesu. She had her best friend as a partner and didn't realise that love had changed. She wouldn't and couldn't let go and had to wait for her partner to break up with her to realise what was going on. Heesu is caught in a similar dilemma, in love with his best friend and at some point, no longer able to distinguish between romantic and platonic love because it has always been like that. Sometimes you get lost in your feelings. Sometimes you don't realise the shift. Sometimes you need an outsider or the other person to realise this.

One thing I didn't understand is the resentment Chanyeong got. Yes, he had a lot of screentime. But that was perfectly ok. He was not only part of the side-couple, but also one of the most important people in Heesu's life. His best friend and secret crush for years. And the perfect parallel between his own heterosexual world and the queer reality in which Heesu moves. While Chanyeong had this secret crush on Summer without realising it was Jiyu, he breaks dozens of girls' hearts when they realise that he doesn't reciprocate their feelings. For Chanyeong, it's so natural for someone to confess their feelings to him and always have, and his approach to his relationship with Jiyu is also simple. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. End of story. And while the two move fearlessly together in their world and bring out the best in each other, Heesu stands alone. He has found a relatively safe anchor with Seungwon and is pretty sure that he would accept him, considering the fact that he has two mothers, but he still has to go through everything alone. He doesn't have the freedom that Chanyeong has.

And while some people have certainly been waiting for Heesu to finally confess his feelings to Seungwon, or vice versa, he first must make peace with Chanyeong. Because this friendship is threatening to drift apart. The friendship is one-sided. And they both realise that. To save them, Heesu has to be honest. And Chanyeong is allowed to react the way he did. He is allowed to be overwhelmed. He is allowed to not know how to deal with the fact that his best friend was in love with him for a long time. It's okay to be human. The important thing is that he talks to Heesu in the end and gives them a chance to readjust their status as best friends. Because Heesu is Chanyeong's best friend, and he wants to be that for Heesu too. It hurts when you feel like you're not the safe haven you always thought you were. It is allowed to have feelings. It is allowed to express them and it was bitterly necessary to do so. And it was just as necessary for Heesu to tell him the truth, because only then did the two of them have the chance to redefine their friendship. It was only through this openness that the one-sided friendship could become an equal friendship again.

Heesu. He says himself that Chanyeong and his unrequited love were his black hole. He had to face it in order to free himself from it, to free himself from the attraction of this well known crush. Because only after he's done that can he be free for the new feelings for Seungwon. I thought it was so great to see how these different infatuations manifested themselves in Heesu. With Chanyeong it was so well-rehearsed, so normal, that in the end he couldn't even know what it was like to just be Chanyeong's friend. The feelings blended together and became a daily mask for Heesu, which he knew exactly how to wear. For Seungwon, on the other hand, these feelings are new. He is helplessly at the mercy of his insecurities, the butterflies and all these new feelings.

I enjoyed seeing him like that so much. And I was happy that he was allowed to be angry with Seungwon. I could understand how he felt so well. ‘Was it fun?’ Oh, I felt that! ‘Do you know how much I struggled by myself?’ Heesu thought he had found a safe place with Seungwon where he could be who he is. And then, in the end, he finds himself alone. Heesu is hurt and finally lets it out. The boy who wanted to please everyone and had advice for everyone, who everyone confided in, but who is alone with his problems has had enough. And it bursts out of him. Fortunately, Seungwon finally manages to open his mouth, apologise and clear up the misunderstanding. And in the end, although not everyone is perfectly happy, they are on the way to a happier future. And every single character was important not only to write a good story, but also to portray the characters genuinely and realistically.

I love my bl bubble and I wouldn't want to miss it. I enjoy watching two boys fall in love and kiss in a world of candy floss and rose-coloured glasses. But I don't forget my roots either. And apart from the whole bl bubble, I think it's great to watch a series from time to time in which queer people are embedded in everyday life and you realise how different experiences in everyday life can be. How difficult it is to move as a queer person in a heteronormative world and how difficult it can be to do the seemingly simplest things for others. Heesu in Class 2 is not a bromance, but a realistic portrayal of queer youth in a society where they can be lucky that people think they are only very bromance-coded when they go to school arm in arm. In other societies, even this gesture would be unthinkable. And as beautifully simple as the bl bubble usually is, I think it's good that such soft tones also exist, which can bring life and the beauty of love in all its tones closer to a larger audience and allow a society to grow up that is more value-free, unprejudiced and open. And an adaptation of a well-known and loved story is the perfect try to give this topic a bigger audience.

I've noticed over the last few months that the bl bubble is more interested in explicit scenes than well-told stories. Why bother with a story in which the protagonists don't even kiss? Why settle for such a bromance when you can just watch two good looking guys make out, fuck the plot. And I'm not saying anything against an interlude of honey on the carpet, it has its appeal, but that doesn't mean I deny a show and its character its queerness just because there's no kissing. Sometimes the quiet sounds are the ones that need to be heard. Sometimes it's the quiet tones that have the most impact. Sometimes it's the quiet sounds that make you understand what it's like outside your own bubble and what difficulties there actually are.

If I only consume media on one side of the spectrum, then I only have a limited field of vision of everything around me. And I understand that not every type of story is to everyone's taste, and that's a good thing. Otherwise it would be pretty boring. But every now and then you should take your head out of your bubble and look around the world.  And just because something is not to your liking doesn’t mean it is bad or not well written or not worth to be told.

If you need some inspiration for some queerness in kdramas, @lurkingshan and @twig-tea gave us all a very detailed History of Queer Representation in Modern Kdrama. Thank you for that!

[felassan]

Mark Darrah YouTube video: 'BioWare's 30th Anniversary. What I Remember from 3 Decades'

Video description:

BioWare turned 30 on February 1st. Can i remember something from every year they existed? Can I do it in less then 3 hours?

[source]

Mark Darrah recently released this YouTube video in which he goes through thirty years of BioWare, it's definitely worth a watch.

Some notes and quotes from the video under the cut. In places it goes into the behind-the-scenes of DA4 development.

In 2005 and 2006, Mark Darrah was working on Jade Empire 2, which would ultimately become Revolver. In the early days JE2 was seen as a direct sequel to JE. About halfway through the year there was a pivot to moving it into a modern setting. Originally it was 'Jade Modern', set in a modern world that existed if you had taken the secret ending of JE and agreed with the Emperor. But over time it shifted to be a different setting that had nothing to do with JE

Mark: "I guess if you really wanted to try you could make the argument that because Sonic Chronicles shipped in 2008 and DA:O didn't ship until 2009, that actually DA:O actually shipped using the Sonic Chronicles dialogue system"

Mark: "At the end of 2009, I think it was the last day we were working before the Christmas break, that's the time when the leadership of the DA franchise had the meeting where we decided that we were going to make DA2, that we were going to essentially jump on the grenade that was being placed in front of BioWare and try to fill the revenue gap that was left by SW:TOR [slipping]"

"2010 is also when we are trying to make DA2, in a really fast rush. We started working on it before DA:O - Awakening had even shipped. What's happened is that SW:TOR has slipped again and EA is basically telling BioWare to make up the revenue. So we are trying to create a product in a very restricted timeline in order to do what EA wants, which is to fill a revenue gap [in that fiscal year]"

"2013 is when the PAX presentation for DA:I happened. [...] It carries some controversy because the game definitely shifted from there to the game that shipped 14 months later. There are things that are represented there that imply a more army-controlling, grand military strategy kind of game that ultimately proved to not be the game that DA:I was supposed to be. But at that point in time those elements still existed in nascent form, or were trying to exist at the very list, so they exist in that demo as well"

DA:I was a very tiring project

After DA:I shipped some of the team went onto Anthem, some went onto ME:A, and some stayed on and made DA:I DLC

DA:I DLC was mostly made in 2015. Leadership on it was largely given to more junior leaders to help them grow and potentially move them into more senior positions

The senior leadership of DA:I spent most of 2015 laying very early frameworks and concepts for what would become DA4 Joplin. The idea was to take a technology that they knew and try to fix their processes and tools pipeline to allow development in this pipeline to go more smoothly

In 2016, all of the people who were on DA:I DLC moved onto ME:A or Anthem. 2016 is the point when most of Mark's time was spent fighting for resources to get them onto Joplin

^ "Periodically EA pushes for franchises to be bigger. They want billion dollar franchises, or they only wanna make the best six games or the best twelve games. In 2016 I built a plan to ship Dragon Ages. The idea was to make Joplin on a relatively regular timeline. At this point in time I believe Anthem is still supposed to ship in 2018 so probably Joplin was supposed to ship in 2019, maybe 2020. But the idea was, ship Joplin, and then we would do two fast-follow sequels, each taking 18 months, and then we would retool after that happened. Did it get Dragon Age to be a billion dollar franchise? It required a little bit of creative accounting to make that work, but it got closer than you would think. The idea was to have minimal DLC or even an expansion pack, and then quickly move onto the sequel. So the idea of increasing the revenue stream was simply to have games come out faster, which I think is not a terrible idea, but this is also the height of infatuation with the concept of live service games"

"In 2016 as ME:A is trying to ship, they are looking for more resources including leadership, and this is when I led a bunch of people that are still on Joplin onto ME:A. The Dragon Age Finaling Team is that group of people. And I'll say that if you see an acronym and it includes 'The Dragon Age Team' in any way you can probably assume that acronym was intentional. Dragon Age Finaling Team is 'daft', and yes it was basically us sort've passively aggressively rebelling against this resource draw"

"ME:A ships in 2017 and what's supposed to happen is that most of the people who were working on ME:A from Edmonton are gonna move onto Anthem, and the people who were working on ME:A in Montreal are supposed to form a large part of the team for DA. But that's not what happens. The team in Montreal ends up getting moved over to the actual leadership in Montreal. There's a point in 2017 when I tried to force Joplin through one of the production gates, to basically make the argument that it actually deserves to be much bigger. It doesn't work and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway"

2017 also marks when Joplin pivots to become Morrison

2017 is also when Mark moved from DA leadership to Anthem leadership. "Theoretically DA and Anthem simultaneously, but I think even in the earliest moments it was obvious that's not what was going to happen"

2017 was a very busy year at BioWare, a lot of things happened and a lot of changes occurred within it

In 2018 Mark was 110% focused on shipping Anthem. "The DA team was trying to do what it can with its very restricted resources with its pivot to being a live service. This is also when it releases the Dread Wolf trailer at the VGAs. That trailer exists in large part to just anchor the title in the public consciousness because there isn't really any massive development happening on the franchise at this time"

When Anthem went to PAX, this was right after a security incident with one of EA's sports franchises. As a result, EA was very concerned about security, so the Anthem team at PAX had a security presence provided by the Pinkertons (private security company), protecting the Anthem people at PAX

In 2019 Anthem shipped. Some of its resources remained to support it in live service and the remainder moved over to DA4. Mark went back onto DA after being away for 16 months and found that things had moved on and that it was a very different landscape. "Coming back from Anthem to a very different DA is pretty hard for me because the game has shifted underneath. My natural instinct is to move forward with whatever we currently have, but in this case because the landscape has mutated so heavily, it takes me quite a long time to find my footing again"

In 2020, for DA4, "We are starting to get some traction, the game is starting to look like something", but then "in March of 2020, COVID hit. Everyone goes home, that is definitely highly disruptive to the development of DA."

In December 2020 “I resign from BioWare, but I actually remain on at BioWare until February 2021"

In late 2022 Mark played a build of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. "It's not called that yet but this is when I start to be involved in the franchise again"

“By 2023 in April I am working with BioWare publicly again, helping them finish DA:TV, and I do that through 2023 and 2024"

"So it's 2025 now and things are changing at BioWare. I hope that BioWare still has a lot of strong years ahead of it. I hope that we willcontinue to see great games come out of their doors. I guess we will see what the future brings. I hope that everyone whose job was lost finds a new place to work, and hopefully it's an even better place, hopefully the situation you find yourself in in the future is better than the one that you come from. Some people are moving around within the EA organization. Some people unfortunately have lost their jobs completely. This is going to be a tough time for a bunch of people and I hope that everyone can show empathy and compassion to people whose lives have been disrupted."

[source]

[ratatouillewastakendammit]

30% Off

Pairing: Hawks x reader

Summary: In the end of the world, death around every corner means you don’t exactly get much time to pleasure yourself. Thankfully, someone you’ve had your eye on is more than willing to help

Warnings: smuttttt; edging; language; apocalypse AU; the 'monster cocks' that I found in a Spencer's the other day.

(I originally wanted to write this for an AIB character, but it's been a while since I've touched on Hawks so I literally just did it again with him.)

Your fingers flit through a small sea of heavy fabrics, each embroidered with some colorful design of whatever video game or anime character had been trending when the world stopped.

Apparently, it had been Gojo, the white outlines of his hair a stark difference to the black of the hoodies base framework.

The material was heavy and warm, hiding your fingers from the damp chill in the air as you slid them underneath to find the price tag.

$49.99

The notion of one piece of clothing being nearly worth a young teens entire shift made your eyebrows tug upward.

Slipping the cloth off of its hanger, you gently ripped the price tag off, letting it fall to the floor as you snuck an arm into one of the sleeves.

Once upon a time, you would have cared about the littering, but it wasn’t as if rest of the mall didn’t look any different.

It was getting increasingly hard to care about things like that.

Instead, you focused on the comfort of your newfound treasure. Taking what you wanted was one of the few benefits you reaped in a place like this.

The mall doors had been hard to pry open, but a crowbar and a few minutes had done just fine. With a few days of peace before another game needing to be won, Mirko suggested some good old scavenging.

If anything, it was a lot better than sitting around and starving to death.

So you, her, and a few others had ended up here, each going their own way to cover the maximum amount of ground before darkness fell over this wasteland.

And while you didn’t exactly think Spencer’s would have the most survivalist-prone gear, it was one of the only stores in the North end of the mall that didn’t reek of rotting food.

You slipped through a wall of nose piercings, grabbing another thick hoody that sported a small drawing of Killua Zoldyck on the lower right corner.

Going towards the back of the store, you rummaged through the trays of snacks that could usually be found near the checkout desk. Even though they technically weren’t the most nutritious, sour gummies and sodas were known to have a better-than-average shelf life.

As you scoured over numerous packages and Best Buy dates, your gaze slipped a few feet to your left, eyes widening as a short chuckle bubbled up into your throat.

You walked over to a stand proudly boasting its abundance of ‘Creature Cocks’ and picked up a glow-in-the-dark Unicorn dildo.

It was nearly 9-inches.

Guess I could use that thing as a weapon if anything.

Snickering, you put the sparkly sex toy back and let your line of sight graze curiously over the smaller, more much conventional ones.

It had been a long time.

Which wasn’t surprising, since personal pleasure wasn’t exactly a priority during what many would define as the apocalypse.

Still…

Almost unconsciously, you reached out, fingers curling around a small toy that slightly resembled one you used to have.

“You know most of those don’t work anymore, right?”

“Shit!” You spun around in fear, locking eyes with the second male in your little group, Hawks. His lower lip was curled in amusement as you pressed a hand to your pounding chest. “You just gave me a heart attack, asshole!”

Regardless, nervous excitement brewed in your stomach. The feelings you harbored for the individual in front of you were dangerous and you knew that, but they were hard to ignore.

“Sorry, didn’t think I was interrupting anything,” his eyes flit down to the device in your hand, a feline-like smirk spreading across his features as he turned and began to leave. “But I’ll leave you to it.”

You dropped the toy, it’s clatter against the floor causing him to swivel his gaze back and you to internally cringe. “Batteries,” you swallowed, cheeks beginning to burn as you mentally fumbled for an excuse. “Some have batteries. I figured we’d run out at some point. For flashlights and stuff… ya know?”

Rambling. You’re rambling. Stop it.

Hawks cocked an eyebrow, stalking closer and quietly bending down to pick up the device. When he straightened, his body was a few centimeters from yours.

A contrasting scent of ashes and spice hit your senses as he lifted an arm to put the toy back, effectively caving you in on one side.

You wondered absentmindedly if he still would’ve smelt faintly of fire if he wasn’t stuck here, in a world surrounded by death and decay.

“If you really needed help that badly, you could’ve just asked,” he replied, wolfish grin doing nothing to quell the heat blooming into your face.

The meaning of his statement hit you like a train, the suggestion crawling below your abdomen to tease you with a flash of pleasure.

“I don’t… I wasn’t trying to-”

“But you want to,” you blinked, eyes wide in surprise as his arm snaked around your waist. “Besides, it might be dangerous to leave you all hot and bothered during an attack or something, don’t you think?”

“I’m not… I’m fine,” the reply definitely lacked the assertion you planned to give it, the idea of his skin against yours more than distracting.

He let out a raspy hum. “So it wouldn’t turn you on at all if I did something like this?”

The hand resting on your hip began moving downward, began toying with the top of your jeans.

Mindlessly, your hips lifted upwards, practically begging to meet his touch.

That smirk grew slightly, excitement flashing through brown irises. “Thought so.”

His hand slipped under the fabric, gently brushing against your clit. The contact made your body jerk in surprise, that soft heat slowly building as the touch moved in between your thighs.

“I-” One finger pushed between your folds, drawing a soft groan from you as he began to slowly thrust the digit in and out.

“I know, princess. Don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you.”

His lips grazed over yours, gently stealing the sigh you gave in response to his movements. Blond hair tickled your face as he continued to whisper praises in your ear.

“So pretty,” his free arm linked under yours when your knees threatened to fall out from under you.“Do you know long I’ve wanted to do this? Wanted you?”

He watched as you continued to slip away in a pleasured haze, expression flashing for a mere second in adoration as his finger drew soft circles over your clit.

The feeling was overwhelming, the rest of the world melting away from the burning heat just begging to reach its climax.

Then it vanished, his touch slipping away as quickly as it came before he pressed his lips against yours, the moment lasting mere seconds but leaving you breathless.

“Why did you stop?” The desperation in your tone might have embarrassed you, if you cared.

“So needy,” he taunted. “I’ll fuck you properly when we have some more privacy.”

You almost reached out to stop him when he backed away, your pride saved as the rest of your group pushed through the isles.

“You guys okay? We’re gonna head back to the shelter soon.” Mirko stopped, eyes widening as she took in the area. “What are you doing back-“

“We thought there might be some batteries in here.” Hawks grabbed one of the toys. An effortless smile gracing his lips , he spun the package around so the label was visible. “30% percent off.”

[teddywesworl]

different anon but re: sex scenes ask, i’m curious to see how you lay out things to outline for continuity of characterization, and what the drive and stakes are in a scene to avoid the sexual archetypes. would you mind sharing what that process looks like for you? really admire your technical breakdowns of writing (yes even and especially when they end up being ‘controversial’)

ok so. I had to take this ask to a word doc to get all my thoughts in order, so that’s your fair warning about how involved my answer is going to be.

First off, I gotta say I always think it’s funny and strange which “takes” of mine get people in a twist, because it’s very frequently the really basic foundational stuff that you would be taught in the first week or two of any introductory fiction writing class. One time, multiple people blocked me on twitter for saying that every paragraph should serve the whole and that readers will get bored if you go on tangents that have nothing to do with the core drive of the story. There was a qrt with the ‘no fun allowed’ robot. I was basically explaining what “kill your darlings” actually means, but even that was too much.

That said, I think the key to continuity of character in sex scenes is very simple: treat sex as any other action, and treat sex scenes like any other scene.

Naturally, that’s easier said than done, because it contains within itself a pair of mandates:

Get your character fundamentals down before attempting to apply them to sex, and

Deconstruct your own relationship with DHSM archetypes.

Yes, sorry, the almost three hour long Contrapoints Twilight video really is the best framework I’ve ever encountered for breaking down cultural norms concerning sex in fiction (and irl tbh), and I think it’s required viewing for anyone who really wants to deliberately subvert those norms.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Step one: character fundamentals.

In the simplest possible terms, good smut is character work. You’re taking blorbo and putting them in a situation. Often, this is a deeply vulnerable situation wrapped up in a lot of emotions. What kind of emotions are they feeling? Do they feel vulnerable? How do they respond to that vulnerability? Are the blorbos boning out of love? Affection? Frustration? Fear of loss? Is it a hatefuck? Multiple of the above? That’s layer one.

Next layer down: are both (or however many) parties here for the same reason, or are their motivations and experiences different? Everyone in a story has their own drives which may be in conflict with one another or, at the very least, play off of one another in interesting ways; the same principle should apply to sex scenes.

Example.

This is from chapter 2 of baseless fabric:

Rook’s fingers bury themselves in Lucanis’s hair, her nails scraping his scalp. “I’ll show you,” she says, and then—oh, yes—tongues and teeth and spit! Rook’s arms around Lucanis’s neck. Arching backs and sweet sighs and a pleasure that fogs Lucanis’s mind. Rook pulls at Lucanis, and Lucanis tries to keep his hips away. He is embarrassed at how quickly he has grown hard; he is alarmed that he could be so forward, so presumptuous as to expose himself in this way and to seek this kind of pleasure in her. Why? asks Spite. It is for her. She came to you for this. Lucanis struggles against this reasoning, though he knows that Spite is correct. That strange despair deep within grows fat on this knowledge. He is still afraid, and it was such long and difficult work to accept that he would never be desired in this way by a person he desired in turn.

Three parties are involved in this scene: Spite, Lucanis, and Rook.

Spite has no sexual attraction or sex drive per se, because he is a non-corporeal entity to whom those concepts are kind of alien, but he enjoys physical pleasure and has an emotional attachment to both Lucanis and Rook, so there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t enjoy sex. He experiences everything Lucanis’s body does, and he has a front row seat to the inner workings of Lucanis’s fucked up little brain. In the video game as written, one could argue that Spite’s core drive is essentially to help Lucanis first survive and then recover from extraordinary trauma (out of. Spite. literally). He picks apart Lucanis’s fear and self-hatred and exposes all of it to Rook, in full confidence that Rook can fix it.

Lucanis, meanwhile, is a big ol’ demi virgin who (I was just talking w @ofcrowsanddragons about this last night) has come to view his own basic human needs as monstrous. It’s dangerous for him to need anything. Even sleep! He’s had both physical and emotional vulnerability drilled out of him from a very young age! He can’t let anyone know he needs! What if his needs are exploited? What if someone notices he needs something and takes advantage? For Lucanis, I imagine that allowing himself to be vulnerable in a safe, controlled way that feels good, with someone he trusts entirely, would be… woof. Very intense.

Rook is the wild card in terms of fanfic and character study, because, as a customizable PC, she could be anything. And she might be physically undescribed in my fics, but the character choices I’ve made aren’t by mistake; I’m writing about The Lucanis Romance, after all, and that provides opportunities for Rook to play both partner and foil. And so: my Rook is sexually experienced, shameless, and a bit vulgar, and she grew up poor. She’s Lucanis’s opposite in a lot of ways, and she serves to highlight his hangups by contrast. He talks down at himself for “seeking pleasure in her,” while her desire for him is uncomplicated. She wants this guy. She cares for him. It feels good when he touches her. On its own, maybe that’s not super interesting fodder for fiction, but she and Spite force Lucanis to reckon with his irrational self-talk and maladaptive coping mechanisms. She can get away with being a bit two-dimensional, because her main function in the story is to challenge his perspective.

The climax (lol) of the fic is arguably the following line in chapter 3: “The despair of fulfillment, the anguish of joy—he thinks he is not made for such things, and so he fights them, even desperate as he is to submit.” Everything in this first encounter between Lucanis and Rook builds toward that final evolution of the idea that Lucanis fears his own emotional needs and resists their fulfillment.

Et voila: Lucanis’s character is examined and has the opportunity to develop through sex!

Still, I admit, all of this is easier said than done. Character study of any kind takes practice to get a feel for, and writing effective character-driven sex requires that you be aware of your own relationship with culturally imposed norms.

Step two: becoming an archetype understander

Watch the Contrapoints video if you haven’t. Yes, in full. I promise it’s worth it. But if you want to save it for later and keep reading this post now, DHSM stands for Default Heterosexual Sado-Masochism, and it’s an extremely useful framework for understanding how patriarchal romantic and sexual roles are organized.

Natalie Wynn defines DHSM as “a division of sexuality into bipolar roles,” as follows:

She goes on: “In reality, none of these roles are interchangeable or even necessarily correlated. Being masculine does not imply being a top, and neither imply being dominant. […] But in DHSM, these roles are assumed to be bundled together and assumed to belong to the sexuality of men.”

I contend that when we are reading E-rated fanfiction and we cross that jarring threshold from in-character plot to out-of-character smut, we have most often just encountered the author deferring to cultural sex scene-writing norms prescribed by DHSM. And, importantly, the sex scene doesn’t have to be heterosexual for DHSM to be in the room!

One of the most important things you can do as you’re writing sex is to ensure that you are aware of the cultural pressure to conform to this false dichotomy.  Notice I didn’t even say ‘don’t conform;’ there are certainly ways to examine & play with DHSM while nominally conforming to it. However, DHSM is omnipresent as a basic assumption in mainstream romance and romantic subplot, and you may be surprised at the extent to which the average person automatically reaches for it while writing. In fact, once you start seeing it, you may not be able to stop.

One of the things I really like about Lucanis as a character is his relationship to DHSM. He’s an assassin, arguably a professional predator. He is extremely rich, and he ends the story with a nation-shaping amount of political power. He is also, quite literally, possessed. His whole personal arc is about his fraught relationship with agency. His romance arc requires that you, the player, pursue him to a much more dramatic degree than any of the other companions, just to get to the point of acknowledged flirtation. He breaks the assumed role. He looks like the Latin Lover trope sprouted wings; but that’s not him.

This is, frankly, why a large proportion of the Rookanis ao3 tag bums me out: there’s so much fic in there that pulls back toward that assumption of bipolarity, flattening him as a result. Lucanis as an aggressive or dominant lover does nothing for me, because I feel that it misunderstands his approach to intimacy.

Now what?

I’ve just said an embarrassing number of words about writing pornography. But how does one synthesize all this stuff?

Here’s an exercise I recommend:

Pick a pairing of your choice and consider each character’s relationship with the DHSM dichotomy. Deliberately run down those columns above and decide which character more closely matches each descriptor in each pair, individually—if they match either, which they may not! Examine the ways in which that pairing might break bipolarity.

Then, try to come up with a sexual scenario that demonstrates that break in DHSM. This is a valuable exercise because it attacks both points simultaneously: it forces you to think of your character fundamentals, and it directly challenges the archetypes.

To use the same baseless fabric example, Rook is clearly the pursuer, but she’s got an exhibitionist streak, and she very much desires penetration:

She leans back, rests her weight on her hands, and deliberately opens the vee of her thighs. Her chemise drapes across them, and it hides very little. There is a shadow beneath, intensified by the flicker of the hearth, and Lucanis’s eye is drawn inexorably down—

Later in the same scene, Spite's POV refers to the act of penetrating Rook as surrender:

The body knows what to do. The instinct for it is ancient and innate, and the rhythm is made at the conjunction of Lucanis’s flesh and heart and mind. It is surrender, a hopeless exposure of underbelly and throat, and it feels good. Lucanis plants one hand on the table and rolls his hips.

Lucanis also acknowledges, multiple times, that he had his own preconceived notions about how sex is supposed to go, which Rook has challenged. For example:

Rook hums and smiles and closes the narrow gap between them. What begins as a simple press of lips develops into the luxuriant slide of tongues, Lucanis pushing the hem of her chemise up so he can bury his hand between her thighs. Rook hooks a knee over Lucanis’s hip and tugs him in until he acquiesces and thrusts into her. It is all slow and lazy. Soft. It feels the way Lucanis always thought it should, except in the ways he couldn’t have foreseen. His body aches from the violence of the previous day, and Rook’s must, as well; the pleasure cuts through the pain, colors it, transforms it into something almost sweet. Rook’s arms coil around him, and she makes the most beautiful little sounds.

(Uh oh, buddy! That's a little masochistic of you!)

If you are working deliberately to improve your character-driven sex scenes, I strongly recommend starting with short (up to like 3k words) ficlets as practice. Pick a trope or two to toss in for extra “put the blorbos in situations” sauce. Forced proximity! Drunken confessions! Hurt/comfort! Fuck or die! Etc. All great fun. Alternately, sometimes you will simply be possessed by the knowledge that certain characters will have certain kinks. Like Lucanis and somnophilia (you get it, right? I don’t even have to explain why. Isn’t that neat?).

As a side benefit, doing this exercise thoughtfully will make you better at character writing more generally. No, really. Spending this time analyzing characters’ relationships to intimacy will help you understand what makes them tick in so many other ways.

Let me sum up.

So, in summary: good smut is character work, and you need your character fundamentals first. However, cultural norms impose the division of sexuality into bipolar roles. Breaking that bipolarity subverts a subconscious expectation, adds tension and interest, and forces both writer and reader to really think about the characters in front of them.

Does that……. Does that answer your question about process?? I swear I didn’t start with the intent to write two thousand earth words about this. And also, I don’t typically sit down and think to myself “how will I break DHSM today?” I have enough practice at this point (and a deep enough obsession with the function of social power) that my disdain for DHSM automatically inserts itself into basically everything I write. I do think these two pieces (1. character first and 2. fuck DHSM) make up the foundation of how I approach smut, though, so hopefully this has been a useful response!!

[dizzymoods]

During the Troubles, Civil Rights Leaders went to Ireland to learn about the plight of the Irish people and to support their fight against colonialism.

Standing on the success of their nonviolent principles which led to civil liberties here (to whatever degree the CRM was successful) and in their ignorance of the history of Ireland, they tried to get the IRA to adopt nonviolent, peaceful civil disobedience.

At the end of their tour of Belfast, where they learned the history and politics of Irish resistance, all of them come to the conclusion that here violence is necessary. The Irish have exhausted all other means including nonviolent ones. Even if some of the CRM leaders maintained nonviolence as paramount, they understood that certain exceptions must be made because — regardless of if they approve of violence or not — their job is to support colonized people and follow their lead.

There is a lesson here that we should apply to the Palestinian struggle.

I’ve seen people pearl clutch over seeing so many dead Palestinians as part of the colonial violence of the camera. This misses the point of why those images are being shared.

Last decade many Black americans, myself included, talked about the commodification of Black death. videos of state murder plastered on every news channel 24/7, going viral across social media platforms connected to the legacy of lynching postcards and gator bait. We demonstrated that those videos rarely got an indictment and only once a conviction. Many of the families of these victims of police murder made it clear they don’t want the image of their loved one to be of death. The reason why we share Michael Brown’s graduation photo instead of the photo of his corpse is because Lesley McSpadden demanded it. With all this in mind, we understand that in most cases the sharing of those images are antiblack.

The Palestinians do not have that history. The Nakba never happened, despite israelis calling this the second Nakba. genocide joe said 40 israeli babies were beheaded after it was found out that the story was some wingnut footsoldier’s lie, not even official israeli hasbara. It was like 2 weeks ago that genocide joe said the number of murdered Palestinians (at the time around 5,000 Palestinians were martyred — the number is now over 10,000) was a Hamas lie.

Linguistically there is no murdered Palestinian. All the headlines read “x amount of israelis killed and some palestinians died”. visually there is no dead Palestinian. official israeli hasbara is trying to flood social media with videos of patient-actors getting into place in Indonesian medical training programs to “debunk” the countless videos of martyred Palestinians.

The denial of the scale of israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is so bad that reporters in Gaza are holding dead children in front of press cameras because Palestinians do not die and are not murdered.

The profit motive of these images is actually in their absence. not their over saturation like with Black americans. The west needs israel as a destabilizing force in the middle east. The strategy of the western media then is to bury these images, to not give them a second of attention. So logically the Palestinian strategy is to proliferate these images to show just how horrifying israel’s crimes are.

Two things can be true at the same time; what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me etc.

The other thing i’m seeing are liberal frameworks to understand genocide. Of particular ire is desirability politics. *jujubee voice* just say white supremacy.

Desirability is tertiary at best. israel is genociding Palestinians because they want control over Gaza and the West Bank (and Lebanon too). They are not genociding Palestinians because Palestinians are “undesirable.” They make Palestinians undesirable to justify taking their land. Talking about this psychoanalytic bullshit distracts from the primary reason for the displacement and mass murder of Palestinians: the taking of their land.

~*desirability*~ is just one way that israel tries to justify its crimes. Desirability is a circular logic that can only make sense once you manufacture its premise irl. It means nothing without the material conditions it claims are true. Its super easy to call someone an animal after you put them in a cage. It’s super easy to call a people dirty savages after you restrict their access to water. It’s super easy to call someone violent after you sequester them in small, barely livable spaces and stress them with bombings and check points.

It’s also — there’s a way in which opposition to something reifies the very thing that you oppose. Toni Morrison continues to beat everybody’s ass. What does it do when you see a baby with half a skull and say “this happened because she is undesirable”? Undesirable to whom? Not me.

Palestinians are not so passive as to oppose white supremacy and desirability. The Palestinian people are a proactive people. Palestine is the issue. Palestine has a people. Palestine has an ecology. Palestine has life. Palestine is life. Palestinians fight for life. life can neither exist nor blossom under white supremacy.

Any analysis that does not begin with this is a distraction. And distractions only benefit the colonizers.

[canonicallyplural]

Agents of SHIELD is canonically plural!

Major Agents of SHIELD spoilers ahead:

Leo Fitz is canonically plural

In the first season of Agents of SHIELD, Leo Fitz and his best friend Jemma Simmons are shown to be inseparable. At the end of the season, Fitz suffers a traumatic brain injury and Jemma leaves SHIELD between seasons.

With the real Jemma gone, Fitz begins hallucinating another version of her. For the whole first half of the season, the Hallucination Simmons helps Fitz work through his problems, and demonstrates a high degree of self-consciousness and independence indicative of personhood.

Of course, she doesn't see herself as real and is proud when Fitz admits she isn't. But that reaction is what makes her real. Perhaps not physically real, but as her own independent agent, capable of thinking and feeling things separate from the host.

In season 4, the team's consciousnesses are uploaded to a virtual reality called the Framework where they have new lives with new memories.

Most of the team, after coming back, experienced an instant integration of their lives. They felt like one person who had merely lived two different lives.

But Fitz is different. Fitz seems to have dissociated from his Framework self. This is revealed later in season 5 where he sees a version of his evil Framework self, called The Doctor. It's initially believed that The Doctor is a manifestation created by a portal to a nightmare dimension, but it's revealed to have been Fitz the whole time!

The Doctor he saw was merely a hallucination. And when The Doctor is fronting later, he's hallucinating the normal Fitz.

Fitz later admits to have been hearing The Doctor's voice for a while.

While this seems like an evil alter trope on the surface, I actually kind of like how it was handled. The Doctor does bad things, but it's shown that he's actually doing what he thinks is best to protect the world. He's taking steps that Fitz wouldn't. That Fitz would be too weak to. But if he didn't take those steps, innocent people would probably have died.

Ghost Rider is Canonically Plural

Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD introduces us to Robbie Reyes who is the Ghost Rider.

As a Ghost Rider, he has a Spirit of Vengeance in him. Not only does the Spirit of Vengeance take control, but it's suggested they also have internal communication even if the audience doesn't get to hear it. And the Spirit of Vengeance doesn't need to fully transform to front either.

There's one episode where the Spirit of Vengeance leaves Robbie and possesses someone else's body. The Spirit of Vengeance takes full control without fronting, and even has a conversation with Robbie in that form. (This is probably at least partially a result of budget constraints since the Ghost Rider mouth never opened. Having a conversation without transforming was probably cheaper. But whatever the reason, it's canon!)

Headcanon and Speculation: This isn't confirmed or really hinted at in the show itself, but Robbie was killing his uncle Eli Morrow while they were inside a quantum battery together that was being dragged straight to Hell. That specific situation would be perfect to justify having Eli Morrow fuse with Robbie... like he is in the comics. Because one big difference in Agents of SHIELD from the source material is that Robbie in the comics doesn't actually have a Spirit of Vengeance. He's instead possessed by Eli Morrow. (Who in the comics was a satanic serial killer.) Robbie later reappears in one episode with no sign of Eli Morrow. But it would be super easy to reveal that the circumstances surrounding what happened fused them, making Morrow part of Ghost Rider's system. We think this would have been revealed in the cancelled Ghost Rider Hulu series. But alas, they never went through with that!

Graviton is Canonically Plural

In the first season, we're introduced to Franklin Hall and Ian Quinn, two characters working with a rare material called Gravitonium. Hall is absorbed into the Gravitonium and isn't seen again.

Later, Absorbing Man touches the Gravitonium and starts hearing voices in his head as a result. It's then revealed that Ian Quinn was also swallowed by the Gravitonium and that both of their voices are still there.

Finally, a huge amount of the Gravitonium is pumped into General Glenn Talbot through a chamber intended to give the recipient super powers, turning him into the series' incarnation of Graviton.

Besides the natural gravity manipulation powers, Talbot's Graviton can use the Gravitonium to absorb other people. Everyone that he absorbs this way seems to become a new voice in his head.

[hunnymisworld]

How Haikyuu Characters would respond to you:

When you ask them for help in making the homework.

SFW | Fluff | Crack | Short AU

N E K O M A VER.

[ READ ME FIRST ]

C O N T E X T: You are a 1st year transfer student in Nekoma HIgh and you've already adjusted to your new environment as well as the new people you met whom you made friends with. You were having a hard time with a homework and decided to ask for help in your fellow classmates/seniors.

KUROO TETSURO

INTIMIDATING (he's smart and he's the captain of the vball team - WBK)

You hesitate to approach him because of his usual sly/serious facial expression.

He noticed you were trying to approach him so to your surprise he approached you instead.

"Hi Y/n, i see you've been looking at me and hesistating about something, is there something i can help you with?"

You shyly told him that you were struggling with chemistry homework and he didn't think twice in helping you.

"Sure! Here, let me see. I'll read it first then i'll explain it to you."

You see him nodding and humming as he scan through the pages of your notebook.

Believe it or not WITHIN 5 MINS. he suddenly closed the notebook and said "Alright, i see what your homework is about. Sit here beside me, i'll show you" while showing you a wide warm smile.

Mans a VISUAL LEARNER (he asked if it was okay for him to write on the back of your notebook - ofc you said yes)

He draws and writes things on the back of your note book and literally creates a framework guide for you to understand the concept of the lesson.

"Do you understand it better now?" (he won't mind to go over it again)

You easily understood what he taught you and you were amazed by how this man just made it easy like that. (Yes, effortlessly like that)

You thanked him and offered something to give him but he stopped you from there.

"No need y/n, I'm glad i was able to help you. Really, i mean it. You don't have to give anything" (but if you insist, i bet you he would agree eating ice cream with you after class - he ofc brings Kenma with him)

"If you're struggling with any homework, you can ask me or ask kenma. No worries, glad to be of help."

YOU ACED THE HOMEWORK!

KENMA KOZUME

Didn't notice you at first cause he's busy playing video games.

"Oh Y/n, sorry i was kinda busy- what can i do for you?"

He's just sitting there looking up at you, gameboy in hand.

When you told him you were gonna ask for help with regards to the homework (he tried to hide it but he was flustered & flattered that you thought he was THAT good that you asked him for help yourself) he just nodded and offered to take a look at your notebook.

He silently scanned through the pages and after a while he explained the concept to you.

The way he explained it was so detailed that you felt like your brain was overwhlemed with the information but at the same time you learned a lot from him.

"Do you understand the concept now? If not i can send you a file with a complete guide in it. I made it myself, if you need any other notes you can tell me." (he really made NOTES everytime he and kuroo studied cause he doesn't wanna ask kuroo again - best believe this man has COMPLETE notes)

He showed a small smile when you thanked him and you offered to buy him ice cream but he suggested another idea instead "An apple pie would great though, but you don't really have to give me anything. It's alright y/n"

You insisted - you ended up eating apple pie with kenma and he tagged Kuroo along (Kuroo is eating ice cream)

YOU ACED!!!

When you checked your notifications when you got home, he literally ended up sending you ALL OF HIS NOTES. He attached a message saying:

" You're welcome :)"

LEV HAIBA

You didn't have a hard time approaching him, he was approachable - But he was dumbfounded when you asked him about the homework.

"Huh?"

MANS WAS CLUELESS

"What homework?"

You were standing in front of him, (looking up - bc he was TALL) with a blank emotion in your face T.T (you thought to yourself: wDYM YOU DON'T KNOW THERE'S A HOMEWORK?!??!)

You were just in awe that he was clueless standing there (your jaw almost hit the floor) T.T

After a while of him trying to remember the homework, he was SHOCKED "RIGHT! THAT HOMEWORK!"

Asks you how to do it instead T.T

He suggested you both go to Kuroo to get help (HE REALLY SAID SOS T.T)

You both were tutored by Kuroo and both got PERFECT SCORES!! ^^

After that you became chaotic besties fr!! <3

MORISUKE YAKU

You were greeted by him with a warm smile as you approach closer.

"Hey Y/n! How are you?" (a warm ball of sunshine fr)

"I see, alright here let me see that" (HE DIDN'T THINK TWICE)

He scanned through it and let you sit beside him as he was trying to figure out at which part were you having a hard time. (He does not mind if he would go over it all again for a number of times - he would understand)

He explained the concept to you in its simplest form and you thanked him after.

He offered to get ice cream after (HE INSISTED TO PAY FOR IT)

You were flustered, you thought you were the one to buy him ice cream (he disagreed and pain immediately so that you won't pay for it)

P R I N C E S S T R E A T M E N T/?!?!?!

"I noticed you were getting anxious so i offered to eat ice cream to calm your nerves down. Cheer up y/n, you'll get through your 1st year smoothly. If you're having difficulties just message me or tell me okay?"

WORDS OFFF AFFIRMATION?????? COMFORT KING??

Pls he is so caring and a type that would know how to comfort you.

Yes, he offered to be you tutor too (FOR FREE!!!!!!!)

YOU ACED THE HOMEWORK (at this point you can graduate with flying colors bc of how good this man is in mentoring you)

E N D

note: part 2??

[justforbooks]

Homeland by Richard Beck – how 9/11 changed the US for ever

Journalist Beck argues that the war on terror made America vastly more authoritarian, paving the way for Trump

Almost a quarter of a century on, is the US still being shaped by 9/11? Richard Beck thinks so, despite all the other shocking and pivotal events there since the 2001 attacks, from the financial crisis to the twin election victories of Donald Trump. In this long, ambitious book, which aims to be an “alternative national history”, encompassing politics, popular culture, consumerism, policing, the use of public spaces and even trends in parenting, Beck argues that 9/11 turned the US into a more aggressive, angry and anxious place, with Trump’s ascendancy only one of the consequences.

Beck depicts the “war on terror” that his country launched in response to al-Qaida’s surprise assault as a continuing, almost limitless military operation, which in its first two decades alone caused “900,000 deaths”, including those of “nearly 400,000 civilians”. His account of interventions and atrocities in countries such as Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan is clear and powerful, switching smoothly between strategic objectives and individual victims, yet much of it will be familiar to anyone who even casually follows US foreign policy.

The book is more original when it lays out the war’s less obviously lethal but profoundly malign effect on America itself. A presidency with massively expanded powers; increased surveillance of US citizens; innocent people arrested and detained on vague “national security” grounds; a greater readiness to use torture; and the thickening of the Mexican border into a militarised zone a hundred miles deep – in these and many other ways, the American state has become more authoritarian and intolerant since 9/11. Meanwhile, US society, Beck says, has followed a similar path, making it increasingly difficult for Muslims and other minorities considered suspicious to lead full political lives, or even appear safely in public during the frequent periods of mass panic about terrorism or triumphalism about its supposed vanquishing.

From all this bleak, carefully collated evidence, Beck draws a striking and timely conclusion: “If September 11 had not occurred, Donald Trump could never have become president.” Nor, the book suggests, could he rule in such a draconian and crudely nationalistic manner while retaining so much public support. The desire for revenge after the horror and humiliation of 9/11, conscious or unconscious, remains so huge that it will take many more years to sate. Superpowers that considered themselves wronged do not forget.

George W Bush, a reckless rightwing Republican by the standards of his day, if not now, was president when 9/11 happened, and reacted with characteristic illiberalism and overconfidence, establishing much of the secretive bureaucracy and elastic legal framework of the “war on terror”, and disastrously invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Then, the much more revered Barack Obama – who turns out to be one of Beck’s main targets – stealthily continued the war, at times appearing to be winding it down with troop withdrawals and conciliatory speeches, while in reality replacing Bush’s macho “shock and awe” displays of force with drone strikes and other assassinations. On the war’s home front, Beck points out, Obama also “tripled the budget” of the Department of Homeland Security’s infamously tough immigration and customs enforcement agency, “deported some three million people”, and further blurred the line between immigrants and terrorists in the public mind.

Why did a supposedly liberal president, who had opposed the Iraq war as a state senator, end up continuing the “war on terror”? For Beck, there is a grand, systemic explanation for the militarism of every US government since 9/11. “With the United States unable to muster the economic strength to maintain [its] hegemony around the world,” he writes, “militarism is the next best option for managing discontents abroad and at home.” In other words, the “war on terror” has never really been about terrorism, but about maintaining America’s global supremacy and internal status quo, threatened not just by radical Islamism but the rise of other superpowers, and growing domestic and foreign discontent with the US economic model.

It’s a compelling thesis. Yet Beck doesn’t connect its many elements closely enough to make it absolutely convincing. His book seems to want to be both a rigorous geopolitical analysis in the style of New Left Review and a work of novelistic nonfiction, informed by the doomy American panoramas of Don DeLillo. In places, he pulls off this tricky fusion, and the pages hum with unsettling facts and conclusions. But elsewhere the book is too broad-brush.

For all its epic sweep, sometimes plunging far back into America’s violent history, the account also omits at least one important precursor to the “war on terror” era. Ronald Reagan’s 1980s presidency, shortly after the US defeat in Vietnam, was also driven by vengeance and intense nationalism, and featured an ever-expanding and authoritarian government campaign against a supposedly vast global threat, the “war on drugs”.

Reagan is now widely remembered as a charming old conservative, rather than a ruthless enforcer of American privilege. This bold and outspoken book, despite its flaws, could help ensure that the domineering ways of the post-9/11 presidents are better understood.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[rahleeyah]

Thoughts. Do you think it was a good or bad idea ultimately for OC to move to Peacock? Personally I feel like apart from the first two eps of season 5 which were amazing, ever since it’s been on a slippery slope downhill. I see people forgetting about it entirely, I barely see anyone talking about it (or am I looking in the wrong places?) I just… I personally feel that it was a bad move by NBC but I would like your thoughts, if you have the time. :)

I think whether or not it was a good idea depends on how you define success.

If peacock is willing to commit to making streaming only content, then I think it was a good move. Since its premiere on peacock oc has consistently been in the top 5-10 most streamed shows. It was nowhere near that high on the list of NBC's most watched traditional shows and it was never gonna be. In the days of streaming a lot of older working adults - these shows' target demos - are not staying up for the 10 pm shows. Why lose sleep when you can watch it the next day? OC's ratings weren't great and they weren't gonna get better. Especially for an arc-based show on a network that specializes in not requiring viewers to remember storylines from one week to the next.

Streaming is the right place for oc. The episodes don't have to be constrained to 45 minutes only; if they wanna go a little over, they can. The show can be grittier on streaming, which it has always wanted to be. And bc it's arc-based, it lends itself better to binge watching. That's what I've been doing, saving up and watching 2-3 episodes at a time. I don't agree that it's been downhill since the premiere; I've been enjoying it, very much.

When it's good oc is the best show of the franchise. It does more character work, and more consistently, than any of the others. When it invests in its second string characters it makes for compelling viewing, and raises the stakes. It's actually bringing Elliot's family life to the front, which is vital to his character. The period where whatever show runner that was (I've already forgotten his name) completely ignored Elliot's family and tried to turn him into the punisher was the weakest point of the series; Elliot doesn't work as a character without the framework of his family, so I love seeing that emphasized now.

OC requires a little bit more from its viewers. It's not HBO level prestige television but it's not baby's first introduction to social justice, either. Viewers have to follow along, keep track of the moving parts, understand what the show is doing, and I like that. I don't like TV that's made to be on in the background while you're scrolling your phone.

And yeah you may just be looking in the wrong places. I'm on bsky, where people are waking up at 6 am to watch the show before work and talking about it animatedly. There's a contingent of viewers who hate arc based shows and really hate it when the episodes don't get tied up neat and tidy at the end, and those voices tend to be especially loud, but I couldn't disagree with them more; OC is a fresh and interesting way to explore this universe, a badly needed rejection of the format.

Streaming will make crossovers harder for svu in the future, but that comes back to how you define success. As much as we may want them to be SVU and OC are not the eo shows. And they're not gonna try to be. They are each trying to stand on their own two feet, and they are going to try to make each show in its own right, independent of one another. If viewers expect something else, we'll inevitably be disappointed.