#even if there is no actual relation whatsoever except one video on youtube going ''this is john and sherlock in old''

[izzymalec]

just finished lucifer, now all shows i started watching (minus she hulk but fuck that) are finished omg #productivity

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Cyprus brings shampoo to Rotterdam 2021

I FELL IN LOVE, I FELL IN LOVE, I GAVE MY HEART TO PRODUCT PLACEMENT.

Though I do see where they come from. Everyone from Panik Records, from her to Eleni Foureira featuring Perfectil on the “Fuego” MV, gonna need that sweet sweet money all of the time. But has Greece’s economy not really recovered for them to constantly need to advertise products on music videos or am I just losing my mind overthinking things?

Eitherway, this review may or may not appear before or during their rehearsal day, so see how do I make a fool of myself by trying to estimate Cyprus’s chances!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

This year we have a 26 year old Elena Tsagrinou from Greece here (the way they were last represented by a somewhat Cypriot on 2017?). She did music early on in her age, also participated in the Greek version of Got Talent. Though, before breaking out as a solo pop sensation in ways you cannot imagine, she used to be in a pop band OtherView. Strangely enough, I’ve heard of them because of this song below but I could’ve NEVER estimated it was her and never could have I predicted she would land herself a Eurovision entrance all alone:

The band has had quite a few successful enough singles with her, she did some music shows participation and hosting, her band switched labels midway through (guess into which one they eventually landed, hint: some of the screenshots in this review have this peculiar logo), and in 2018, she had to “withdraw” from the group to go ahead and pursue the aforementioned solo career, somewhat. She continued doing a lot of shows (particularly seen on the MAD music channel related events), and doesn’t have as many singles as she had with OtherView right now, but she’s possibly well on her way to blossom as an artiste. Some of those reading (lol who am I kidding who even reads these) may be familiar with this little song of hers:

You’ve heard way too many things about “El Diablo”, her 2021 entry, so idk if I feel like explaining the technical side of things all by myself or you already know everything. But in these reviews I repeat everyone else regardless, so let me just say that “El Diablo” is an obvious pop song, with a lot of Swedish related touches to it, because at least one person on this song also worked on Alvaro Estrella’s Melodifestivalen 2021 entry that glorifies at least a handful of the same cliches that “El Diablo” does lyrically. Dear Eurovision lyricists, you can use more foreign languages than Spanish for your obligatory foreign language incorporations, thanks~

Although I’m not sure about whether it is more Laurell Barker’s fault as much as it is Joker Thörnfeldt’s, but it’s easier to blame them equally, because the former probably came up with “ta-taco, tamale” and the latter couldn’t get enough of the word “mamacita” they used for the aforementioned Melodifestivalen entry. Anyway, the lyrics, from what I get, is that she’s in love with an eeeevil guy because he’s sweet talking her, they do some sexy stuff together (presumably), pour sauce on their bodies for no explicit reason other than “obligatory-foreign-reference-itis”, she’s breaking the rules (and idk if it was “mama-mamacita” telling her to do it), got the icy edges that the spicy is melting for her, throws eyelashes on the floor when she’s got no wigs to throw (but that doesn’t matter because even without a wig, she can flip her hair and make him look twice), and there’s as much as you need to know about the song’s lyrics as I feel like I should show to you, because eh. Eurovision has suffered from worse cookie-cutter lyricism through the years, “El Diablo” is painful but not the worst.

REVIEW

But I do like the song somewhat!

“El Diablo” was initially compared to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” upon release, and I totally kind of see why, because in all the right spots you can absolutely hum over the chorus to that over the one of “El Diablo”’s, it just exchanges gratuitous French translation of one of the already sung lines on the bridge for obligatory inserted Spanish terms just for the sake of being trendy with the crowds of the nowadays, because as we learned nothing these days, having a lot of Spanish in your song is apparently trendy. And Elena does nothing absolutely batshit insane on the music video (other than advertising) - no lapdance for the devil Lil Nas X style, no being forced into a bath, no person to sell her body to (not even the titular diablo), no dancers that rise out of their Christian sleep pods. Just Elena singing behind lots and lots of trash bin bag wrap.

Honestly the bigger issue for me than the song being “sAtAnIc because it is called “the DEVIL!!!”, aside from the lyrics, is that the MV does not come with any forewarning whatsoever for the people that are seizure prone when they see strobe lights? And that happens for some extended periods of this clip? I know you are indulged in your advertising and good for you but don’t just care for the companies that pay you if you use their products, do care about people’s wellbeings too, sometime.

But enough about the MV.

The song is decently sounding. It has interesting uses of what sounds like hi-hats during the verses (e.g.: a moment when this happens for the first time on the song is after Elena sings “tonight we’re gonna burn in a par-tY” the second time, and then there’s something that sounds soaring - that’s what I think that the hi-hats did.). It also has some sort of a synth piano on the second verse to boost the song’s sound rather than just relying on 808s and beats. I quite like how the chorus is so instant somehow, idk why but it is for me. Might have a gripe with that childish choir singing “I LOVE EL DIAB-LO” in the tune of standard kindergarten children teasing tune (aka ”NA NA NA BOO BOO”), as well as the constant breathing sounds, but they don’t distract me from generally “fucking” with this song, lol. It’s just that likeable imo.

I just can’t cope with the fact that Cyprus can’t seem to dare to go at least a little bit original with their song, yanno? Ever since 2019 they were called out as being a ripoff of something... hell, everyone since 2016 except Eleni was a ripoff of something. Alter Ego? “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. Gravity? “Human” by Rag’n’Bone Man. Replay? “Fuego” itself. Running? “Lose Control”, Meduza x Becky Hill. Now we have a Lady Gaga song wannabe that even caught the attention of another singer that the music video looked like it was ripping off, and the Eurofandom caught up in hysterics:

Heads up, folks: not EVERY short haired blonde with messy hair, silvery tank top and shortpants that writhes on the floor is a Zara Larsson clone. And I don’t know who stirred controversy first - her or the fans - but this was ridiculous to see, even for me.

Although for a second I saw where they were coming from.

Now see why I want Cyprus to go original for at least once? Because I guess that the way “Fuego” was conjured up, it brought Cyprus so much success with how the package was, how Eleni sold it, and how the song sounded. You know the first thing of everything potentially going wrong for you later on is if you find the formula you’ve been looking for, but you proceed to be using the exact same formula that got you this far in the first place, without realizing what was it in the formula that you needed to bank on to further to make it click, but instead proceed to copy everything like it was an easy, fill-in-the-blank form. You can and should do better than that.

Though that doesn’t stop me from ranking it 11th this year.

Thing is, I really expected it to be the one female pop song of the year I would have the constant impulsive need to replay, replay, yeah. Ever since the chaotic entry MV drop that occured on some random-ass Cypriot TV show where three guys talked a lot (and before that, we got a cooking show), and kept growing increasingly agitated that no one is liking their show, until at some point one of them erupted in “IN TWU MEENETS... EL DIABLO... ON UR TEEVEE”; I was really devastated I couldn’t be able to break the replay button because of Panik Records deciding to rather benefit for themselves to have the MV on their app, then on Youtube, THEN on Spotify in that order. So I listened to a few video rips that I received / had for myself, and it was a fun time... until I realized the desire to play it declined much faster than I thought it would when it actually dropped on Spotify, oops. So I can’t really let myself rank it higher, when there are at least some catchier female bangers with better overall sound, better lyrics, and better multiple-replay factor. But I can’t really settle for a much lower rank for her than 11th, anyway. Girlbanger 2021 power y’all!

That and vocally she’s actually not that bad, even if she has shown up singing her song drunk in a handful of Instastories for some event of some party house, and at the time people overreacted, but I think that at least a large audience of those same people has collectively dropped their “Cyprus obvious NQ” talks come the pre-parties.

Panik Records, when will you put the yeehaw El Diablo on streaming? Now THAT’S a version that has replay value, and I might never get bored of it instead :(

Approval factor: Yeah, there exists some for me in it Follow-up factor: CyBC did one of the nastiest in terms of following up their 2020 arc of “Bring Your Artist Back for Revenge Year” that was 2021, straight up ditching Sandro probably right after Eurovision was done (well it doesn’t look like the case because CyBC published a statement later, but I sense that it might’ve been the case), because “Running” wasn’t doing so well with the “YAS QUEEN” branch of the Eurofandom. Which sucks because Sandro would’ve actually been down to be asked again for Eurovision, as he revealed it to NikkieTutorials during many of her interviews with last year’s class of. “Agreement from both parties” my ass, unless Sandro secretly realized that like Tom Leeb, he was too busy for 2021 Eurovision, which I doubt. It actually sucks imo that Sandro can probably be considered as even a forever non-returnee, because Sandro is more of German roots than Greek, and if we learned anything about the Mukuchyangate 2021, is that Germany will never send a returning artist, at least one that didn’t represent their country first and foremost. So Greece could only ask Sandro nicely only if the contest comes on to Germany, I guess? How do you think they decided on getting Stefania, who still ever so regularly appears on Dutch music, to represent them this year? So on that regard the follow-up from CyBC stinks, eventhough I think that entrywise the follow-up was rather decent, at least in the usual Cypriot way of sending female pop (going from “Replay” to “El Diablo” which I like more than “replay”), and eventhough I’m falling out of the hype for Cyprus I once used to have, their 2015-2021 entry streak had entries that I largely feel positive for overall, so in that regard, the follow up is decent. Qualification factor: In a year of Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, Elena goes out in my eyes with several scratches, but not enough to completely kill her chances. If anything, given the divisiveness of Ireland’s rehearsals, Elena is likely to obliterate any last memory of Lesley Roy any first time viewer has ever had, except for her stage graphics. Even if Elena’s staging will not be as mindblowingly cartooney as the last, once a bop comes on, everyone forgets the slower song and gives into the bop, at least that’s how the draws work when choosing what insignificant song to put on 2nd and wedge in between the opening banger and some lesser-key banger, right? I know that “Replay” barely qualified, but I find “El Diablo” slightly better, and it all goes well, it will barely just as qualify as well. Because in a Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, she can’t be the losing one, really.

INTERNAL CORNER

I already told everything that was noteworthy about Elena’s journey in previous sections, honestly.

• That I said that CyBC likely ditched Sandro right after cancellation just like Hooverphonic ditched “Release Me” should they have had a chance to keep or toss their entry. It doesn’t present itself as the case, but I just feel like it is.

• That the song was revealed on a Cypriot talkshow where three dudes were aware that we were waiting for “El Diablo”, trying to throw some gratuitous English our way, hating that we didn’t like our show, but promising that “El Diablo” MV will be shown in “TWU MEENETS”, which wasn’t but worth the wait eh?

• That people were cackling at Zara Larsson joining in the talks of Elena’s MV having aspects of her own song’s MV plagiarized.

• That Elena performed her song in a private-ish event when drunk and having heaps of fun and people cried that it was gonna be a NQ.

And do I really need to elaborate about the local Cypriot church scandal? It just so happened that a bunch of people read into a song’s title so much, thought it was rude of their country to sing about the devil (eventhough the bigger offenses made here is the gratuitous Spanish more than anything), and hoped that the broadcaster will disqualify the very song they okayed to be internally chosen because they are displeased with it - and if it’s not disqualified, they even threatened to burn the headquarters down. No, really. That’s like the most amusing part of that whole spectacle. Imagine burning a broadcaster headquarters down for a song... if I did it for every favourite of mine that lost to other broadcasters, the broadcasters would run out of locations to rent, because everything else good is pre-occupied or the ashes of their lost headquarters staring back at them.

Imagine being toxicly Christian in 2021... How long until Elena’s face gets photoshopped on the main protagoniste of The Unholy?

ANY LAST WORDS?

Even if I’m with this song, part of me kind of wants me to fail to make Cyprus realize that their formula is starting to wear thin and they got to be somewhat of a versatile nation in Eurovision if they want to be on the radar of not just one specific niche. But then again, they learned nothing when they flopped with Tamta, because she sneakily qualified as opposed to failing even harder than Tulia, ah well. Will they ever learn?

But why would I openly wish this to a top 11 song of mine, oh dear. Good luck Elena, may God be on your side, I guess. :P

[lovemesomesurveys]

an internet/social media survey. 1 - Are you one of those people who shares absolutely everything on social media? What do you think about those who do? I do tend to overshare in surveys and I share quite a bit on Twitter. I’m pretty quiet on my other social media sites, though, in terms of that. It only bugs me when people share something and then someone asks about it and they’re like, “I don’t want to share it on here” or “I don’t want to talk about it.” You just did, though? Why post about it then? Plus, my nosy ass wants to know haha. I see that all the time on Facebook.

2 - Does anyone in "real life" know that you take surveys? Would you be embarrassed if they found your blog? I don’t think so. Back in the Myspace days people knew cause I posted them there, but no one in “real life” follows me on here. I’m surprised I shared those back then cause I don’t want anyone to see them now. Although, I wasn’t as open back then in surveys. I took the more basic ones and didn’t elaborate like I do now.

3 - When you receive a text message, do you reply straight away or wait a little while instead? It depends.

4 - Who was the last person you blocked on social media? Did you have an argument that lead to that happening? I don’t recall. It was probably some spam account on here.

5 - Aside from Tumblr, what websites do you spend the most time on? I spend a lot of time on YouTube. 

6 - What was the first social media account you remember signing up for? Are you still a member of that particular website, if it even still exists? Ooh. I’ve had an online and social media presence for so long... like it was probably something that doesn’t even exist now.  I remember some teen sites I was on that I guess were like the social medias of the day. For example, there was this one website I remember called Kiwibox, where you could interact with other people, post stuff, and it shared like trending topics and whatnot that I was a member of in the early 2000s. It was pre-Myspace. I don’t think it even exists now, but if it did I’m sure my account was deleted long ago for being inactive. 

7 - How many social media accounts do you have now? Do you use them all regularly? If not, which ones do you think you update the most and why? I’m on all the common ones. I use them all, but I’m more active on some than others. Some I check regularly but rarely post. For instance, I’m super active on here and I post on Twitter quite a bit. I check Facebook a few times a day and “like” some stuff, but I very rarely post. I check Instagram and Snapchat, but not daily and I rarely post or even interact on there. I spend the least amount of time on those two.

8 - Are there are any popular apps/social media sites that you've never got into or signed up for? How come? Hmm. Like I said, I have all the main ones I think.

9 - Do you take surveys on any other website apart from Tumblr? Nope. 

10 - Before Tumblr existed, what kind of blogging site did you use (eg. LiveJournal, Xanga etc.). I had a Xanga and LJ account. 

11 - Is there anything you miss about websites like MySpace, or do you prefer social media the way it is now? The Myspace days were interesting that’s for sure. I miss the hype of changing up my page and adding stuff, picking my profile song, rearranging my top 8, changing my display name, follow forever trains, comment 4 comments... haha what a ride.

12 - How old were you when you first got the internet at home? Was it broadband/wireless or did you use dial-up? I remember it wasn’t long after my brother was born, so it was sometime in 1999. I remember when my mom brought home our first computer. Those were the days of dial up/AOL. Gah, I do not miss that. 

13 - Are you old enough to remember life without any kind of internet access whatsoever? What kind of things did you do to fill the time? Ha, yeah. It’s crazy to think of the days before the internet, but I did have them. I actually used to play outside *gasp* That’s shocking cause ya’ll know I’m a hermit crab. I used to get so tan back then cause I spent so much time outside. Other things I used to do was play Barbies for hours, play with my cousins, read, color, and watch TV.

14 - Have you ever gotten into an argument with a stranger online before? Lol yeah.

15 - Overall, would you say social media is a good thing or a bad thing, or does it depend on how you choose to use it? It definitely has its pros and cons. There’s a dark side to social media and the internet in general, but a lot of good can be done with it as well. 

16 - How much time do you think you spend online each day? Is this something that varies depending on the weather? I spend a decent amount of time online for sure, but it does vary. The weather has absolutely nothing to do with it. 

17 - If your internet went off right now and you knew it wouldn't come back on for several hours, what would you go and do instead? Well, it’s 3:50AM so I’d watch some TV and attempt to go to bed.

18 - Since getting the internet, what's the longest period of time you've gone without access to it? Did you miss it as much as you thought you might? Probably the times I had surgery. I didn’t have to go completely without because once I was able to I was able to rent laptops that were available for patient use or access a computer while there. That was really nice during the couple times I had to spend a few months in the hospital. Even the shorter stays, like a week or two, I had some access at some point. But yeah, I definitely wasn’t on nearly as much during those times. Not at all the first few days/week. Then when I was back home and had my laptop I still wouldn’t feel up to spending much online. I did miss it, but I spent so much time resting and sleeping during the early stages of recovery so it was fine for awhile. I did start to get stir crazy, though.

19 - What's something you find yourself doing less of because you spend too much time online? Hm. I can’t think of anything I do less for that particular reason. 

20 - What websites do you spend the most time on? Do these fall into any particular category or are they just random? Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

21 - What website from your childhood/teen years do you wish still existed? I miss Xanga a lot. The survey community was poppin back then. I miss the days, not so much the websites themselves, of Myspace, Neopets, playing games on Disney Channel’s and Nickelodeon’s websites, making dolls, and the AOL teen message boards. Good times, good times. Much nostalgia. 

22 - Have you ever met up with anyone in real life that you first met via the internet? Did you get on as well as you thought you would? Nope. I had online friends back in the day that I talked to all the time and actually texted with. I even talked to them on the phone a couple times. :O That was during my Jonas Brothers days and I got close to a few people that I met through a Jonas Brothers’ message board and chatroom. I was pretty involved on there. I can’t believe I used to do that cause I wouldn’t do that now.

23 - What's your thoughts on internet dating and is it something you would ever consider for yourself? I probably wouldn’t do it myself, but hey if that works for people then go for it. *shrug*

24 - Do you tend to shop more online or in person? Is that something that's changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? I do all my shopping online now since the pandemic hit, but even for a few years prior I was doing most of my shopping online. 

25 - Speaking of the pandemic, did you find all the stories on social media quite scary or overwhelming at the beginning? Absolutely. 

26 - If someone on social media annoys or upsets you, are you likely to tell them or just hit the hide/block buttons? Nah, I’ll just keep on scrolling. If it’s that bad then I’d likely mute or just delete. 

27 - Are there topics you won't post on social media about, simply because they always end up in an argument? I don’t post about politics. 

28 - Are you friends with your parents and family members online? Do you limit what you say because you know they can see it? Yes and yes. Like, even though I don’t post anything bad or risqué lol I still hide some stuff from my grandparents just because they wouldn’t get it, ya know? I’ve done that before and my Nana called my dad and asked if I was okay cause I posted some relatable self-deprecating meme or something haha. It’s sweet of course that she cares, but yeah I didn’t want her to get worried and concerned over stuff like that.

29 - Are you using the internet for anything else except this survey right now? I’m watching ASMR videos on YouTube as well.

30 - Do you access the internet more via a phone, tablet or laptop/PC? Which device do you prefer overall? I use my phone a lot for certain things and my laptop for others. Like, I much prefer the Facebook and Twitter apps, and I access Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, the Kindle app, and my email on my phone as well. I use both for YouTube. I only like to access Tumblr on my laptop, though, as well as Pinterest.

[recycledmovies]

‘Parasite’ shows the ugliness of Koreans dealing with their hierarchical society in very high detail. Unlike many other interpretations I’ve seen, I will not deal with the details and the mise en scene, but the overall story, characters and their roles. The details are stunning, but I don’t think that’s an excuse to look away from the main story to focus on the little things. Also, there are two dimensions from a macro and meso point of view that I think are more relevant than finding hidden foreshadows or symbols.

Please note that I am Korean and know enough about Korea to point out the flaws of our society and people, including myself. I know very well that Koreans hate being criticized (just as Gitaek shows signs of anger when Mr. Park points out that he has an weird smell), but the truth is the truth and nothing will improve if we cannot see ourselves objectively. So if you’re pissed at my interpretation because you are a proud Korean, think again about what good pride will do.

The Hierarchical Society

Hierarchy has always been part of Korean culture. But as the movie shows, hierarchy is not based on traditional values anymore but overridden completely by economic status. You can see this in the scene where the young pizza box collector speaks down to the Kims. Traditionally, speaking in this manner to people who are even a year older would be considered absolutely unacceptable. This scene sets the stage as a society where economic values have become the new standard for hierarchy. In reality, money justifies everything in Korea and I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of places around the world. Basic ethics and philosophy is forgotten, or something only the naïve remembers anymore.

Although the Parks have higher economic status, a number of scenes demonstrate that in essence, they are also just human beings and have the same flaws as anyone else. Mr. Park and Yeon-gyo uses Gijeong’s underwear as prop during their role-play intercourse on the couch after criticizing the former driver for indecency and accusing him of drug abuse without any evidence whatsoever. Although the Parks are respectful towards the Kims, they still smell the difference. This is another trait of the Korean middle class. While they act like decent people in general, deep down, they still consider the Parks different. Koreans know very well that this is not a trait of the upper class, but more a trait of the middle class. We like to think that we are different from those that are of lower class in our hierarchy. We may act like we respect others, but deep down, the concept of hierarchy prevails. Even today, when two Koreans meet for the first time, questions go back and forth to subtly reveal the status in hierarchy of the two people. Sometimes this is age, sometimes social status and sometimes economic status, but we always establish the hierarchy. When a difference in status is found, the language that we use suddenly changes. The higher class can speak down and the lower class has to speak the polite version of Korean and show respect in almost every word, gesture and even posture.

Another fascinating feature of Koreans and our hierarchical society that also appears in Parasite is the fact that rather than the middle class cooperating with each other to make their lives better, individuals try to move up to the higher class by stepping on their fellow middle class people. The goal is always to make our own lives better by being better than others rather than making everything better. Choongsook demonstrates this when she finds out that Moon-gwang has been hiding her husband in the cellar. Immediately, Choongsook decides to side with the higher class family and fails to see that Moon-gwang’s family and her own would benefit from a partnership. An example in reality? Although most Koreans get outraged when owners of Korean conglomerates or their family members mistreat and deceive the public, most Koreans would do anything to get a job at Samsung, LG or Korean Air. No matter how inhumanely the upper class treats the lower classes, people will jump at any chance to join the higher class and look down on those that are considered lower once they get there, regardless of how many ethical or philosophical values they have to give up.

The dominance of competition in the Korean mentality is emphasized by the fact that both the Kims and the Parks had gone bankrupt from trying to run a franchise store of a ‘Taiwanese Castella’ chain. Even though the Kims hear that Moon-gwang’s family had gone through the same financial difficulties for the same reason, they fail to feel sympathy and only think about competing with those that can be considered their closest fellows. Sadly, another common characteristic among Koreans.

The Absence Of A Middle Class Family

The middle class is the essence of capitalism. The large portion of middle class sets the norm in most modern societies and creates a barrier for the upper class preventing upheavals from inequality. But there is not middle class character in the movie that influences the plot. It’s hard to see this as accidental and for me it was the single most impressive aspect of the plot.

I have two explanations for this absence of the majority. First is that in a strictly hierarchical society, nobody feels like the middle class. Apart from very close friends, everyone else is either in a higher class or a lower class than myself. In one on one interaction with other I’m either the upper class or the lower class. When two Koreans meet for the first time, we ask questions that can lead to answers which give clues to who is higher in the hierarchy. Usually age, social status or financial status is asked indirectly to establish the hierarchy. Once it is established, it dictates the language, gestures and even postures of the two people. Even if one person is a couple of months older than the other, the hierarchy unfolds.

Another reason I think the middle class was left out was because the majority of the audience would be middle class Koreans and Koreans are terrible at taking criticism. If the plot had a middle class family, most of the audience would related themselves to that family. And if the movie showed any criticism towards them, it would instantly become personal to the audience and Bong would have had a hard time both financially and reputation wise.

The Deranged Husband

Moon-gwang’s husband acts like a crazy person and shows unconditional respect towards Mr. Park, who doesn’t even know that Moon-gwang’s husband exists. But is this really that weird for Koreans? Most Koreans work for tycoons that brainwash their employees to show unconditional obedience while not even knowing their names. We arrive at our desks before our superiors do and leave after our superiors leave even if we have nothing to do at our desks and have to kill time watching Youtube videos. Can we really say that Moon-gwang’s husband is that much different from the average Korean? And just like Moon-gwang’s husband, the middle class does nothing about being forced to show fake respect everyday. We actually encourage it by investing years of studies to pass the company employment exams. Yes. Korean companies have exams because there are so many people trying to become employees. One of them is called SSAT. Guess what the first ‘S’ stands for?

Moon-gwang goes on further by impersonating the North Korean national news caster. The North Korean news caster is a symbol of manipulation and oppression for South Koreans. Are South Koreans really in the position to think that North Korea has extreme issues and we are free from oppression and manipulation?

The Hero

Like in reality, there are always exceptions. The exception in this movie? Gitaek. Gitaek is the only character in the movie that acts against the hierarchical system for values that are innate to humans. As a result, he is forced down into the cellar that Moon-gwang’s deranged husband once lived. This also directly reflects the Korean society where being different is unacceptable. Maybe reality is not as severe as in the movie, but going against popular sentiment brings similar consequences. I remember growing up, people who would had tanned skin were called ‘tanning jok,’ meaning ‘tanning tribe.’ During the cryptocurrency boom, people traded cryptocurrency were called ‘coin choong,’ meaning ‘coin vermin’. Such framing isolates people who show any difference from the majority, regardless of whether the difference is positive or negative. Of course, heroes, who act against the wrong when others don’t, are also often isolated by the majority. Gitaek, the hero of the lower class who couldn’t stay put when Mr. Park showed no concern for other people’s lives than that of his son, ends up in the place where a deranged man once lived. The peer pressure to act the same way that others do in Korea is so strong that they can no longer tell the difference between a deranged person and a hero but can only regard them as misfits.

Socially Acceptable Deception

Although the title ‘Parasite’ has a negative vibe, it must be noted that no character in the film ever shows signs of excessive greed or bad intentions. People might debate that the Kims were greedy, but in reality, lying and pretending is everyday life for average Koreans. It is especially considered acceptable when it’s done for profit. Hell, it’s usually considered clever and smart. You’d get a pat on the back if you were working in Korean company and you showed better performance by deceiving others. The lies can be justified further in the movie considering that the Kims were desperate in terms of finances and they had to deceive in order to survive. Giwoo shows no signs of remorse about deceiving the Parks and justifies his lies by saying that he will enter university once he gets his funds together. Things a lot worse than small lies are justified everyday in reality and this is hardly considered a problem among people that have not been educated properly in ethics or philosophy. Do it long enough, and it becomes a way of life.

When Philosophers Are Considered Failures

There are a lot of interpretations about the rock and what it symbolizes. Overall, the rock was the boundary between cleverness and wisdom. Kiwoo, who had the strongest ties to the rock, was no doubt an intelligent character. He was clever enough to deceive the Parks and actually demonstrated knowledge about teaching high school students. But his obsession over the rock implies the boundaries of his intelligence. The power of the rock is a myth and the rock came to Kiwoo with his new job as a tutor. The reason Kiwoo’s friend came over at the beginning of the movie, was to offer him a job. While doing so, he brought the rock as a gift. But as the story progresses, Kiwoo goes on to believe that the rock brought him the new job and good fortune to the whole family. Such myths are still common in Korean culture and often lead to irrational decisions though not as extreme as the case in the movie. A lot of Koreans still read interpretations about dreams everyday and visit fortune tellers before big events such as marriage, buying an apartment, moving jobs etc. The rock is the hope and last resort that Giwoo chose without any logical reasoning.

When Giwoo first meets Dahye, he captures both Dahye and Yeon-gyo’s attention by saying “I don’t care whether the answer to question 24 is right or wrong. In reality, it’s the attitude that’s important.” It’s a great motivational speech, but at the same time, it shows that Giwoo is focused more on handling situations than the basic truth behind the situations.

The study that focuses on the latent truth is philosophy. In Korea, majoring in philosophy is considered a huge failure. Even if you study philosophy in the most prestigious Seoul National University, people laugh and your degree is a mockery. Giwoo’s attachment to the rock, his short term plans and failure to tend to the truth mimics such aspect of Koreans. Without philosophy, we focus on the wrong things. We live in cramped apartments that cost close to a million U.S. dollars and buy exotic cars to show off. A lot of us focus on the top portion of Maslow’s triangle while sacrificing the bottom portions. In other words, we make our lives better by creating fundamental problems. It’s not just Giwoo.

Mr. Park’s ‘Line’

Mr. Park complains about Gitaek’s smell, but he doesn’t fire him for the fact that Gitaek doesn’t cross the ‘line’ that is so important to Mr. Park. From the moment Mr. Park mentions the ‘line’, the line becomes a big deal not only for Mr. Park, but also for the audience as this line has the potential of becoming the tipping point of a major conflict among characters. This mysterious line becomes so important that the audience forget about the basic moral values or philosophical lines of human society and only focus on trying to understand Mr. Park’s line and whether Gitaek crosses it or not. Ironically, it is Mr. Park that crosses the more important line of basic human ethics at the climax of the story. He reveals that he has no respect for human life other than that of his own family when faced with dramatic situations in reality. In spite of having two people in his garden with critical stab wounds, Mr. Park is only worried about his son who had passed out and manages to show disgust towards Moon-gwang’s husband’s smell rather than being worried about his life. Finally it is Gitaek that snaps, not Mr. Park.

“Your Plan Can’t Fail If You Have No Plan”

This is the life philosophy of Gitaek. I’ve seen reviews saying that this is the basic mentality of losers in society. But is it? How many middle class Koreans have made plans themselves that actually worked out? We show hatred towards the owners of Samsung, Hyundai and all those Jaebols, but most of the middle class try so hard to work for them and become a part of their establishments. Was that the plan so many middle class people had that worked out so well? How many Koreans you know currently work at their dream jobs? Gitaeks philosophy isn’t a sign of his inability. It’s his observation of life as a lower class citizen in a hierarchical society. When absolute powers above us make all of the decisions, your plans often get swept away and you are forced to adapt to whatever those higher class people have in store. In other words, Gitaek knows that ‘plans’ of the powerless are merely dreams in a hierarchical society.

Throughout the movie we laugh at the ridiculous plans that Giwoo makes. But in the end, he comes up with a plan to save his father that makes more sense. But how do we feel about that one? It feels closer to a dream than a plan. This is what plans of the powerless look like. Either short sighted plots or unattainable dreams.

So Who Is The Parasite?

Everyone and no one. All three families leech on another family. Moon-gwang and her husband had been leeching on the Parks while traumatizing Dasong. The Kims leeched on anyone with money. And the Parks leeched on the lower class. Despite the whole family working for the Parks, the Kims couldn’t even afford a motel when their underground apartment got flooded. Moon-gwang and her husband couldn’t afford a home either and had debt problems.

More importantly, both the Kims and the Parks scattered like cockroaches when the light switched on and people appeared. The Kims scattered from the Parks’ house when the Parks returned early from their failed camping trip. The Parks and their wealthy friends scattered when the true face of the capitalist hierarchical society appeared in their garden. The Parks had also been hiding in their dens while leeching on the lower class and accumulating wealth. But when the consequences unfold and real people of the society appear, all they can do is run.

When Koreans get tired of these conflicts among one another, we use the term ‘Hell Chosun.’ It’s a word that represents how Koreans leech and step on one another to get ahead of any and all kind of competition. Maybe this is the real parasite in our minds. It eats away at our rational minds and guides us towards irrational decisions. In the end, Mr. Park, Moon-gwang, her husband and Gijung lose their lives, Giwoo gets impaired and Gitaek has to live like an actual cockroach.

  I’m sure there are other interpretations that have different views. I especially found the detail oriented explanations very interesting since by myself, I tend to focus harder on the forest rather than the trees. It would be fascinating to see how people from other cultures interpret the movie as well and whether other hierarchical societies have the same problems. Let me know what you think of my perspective and I hope I’ll soon come across another movie that I can’t resist writing about.

[lunarmoonflowyr]

Because I’m bored I’m going to write down a bunch of my passive thoughts on a new game I started playing and because once I start making streaming/youtube content related to viddy game I might make a video on this

Vambrace: Cold Soul Initial Impressions

Vambrace: Cold Soul is a game by Devespresso Games, an independent game developer based out of Seoul, South Korea who’s other notable titles seem to be a series of horror adventure games titled “The Coma”. 

Vambrace however, is a game far more akin to something like Darkest Dungeon in visual style and gameplay design however the Steam store page description has it claiming to be inspired by “the gothic fantasy of Castlevania, the deep lore of a series like The Elder Scrolls, the replayability of roguelites like FTL: Faster Than Light, and the sweeping, character-driven epics of our favorite JRPGs.”

This is going to be a small writeup of my initial impressions after 2 hours of the game. 

THE STORY SO FAR

We are a woman named Evelia Lyric, although she just goes by Lyric most of the time so that’s what I’ll be referring to her as throughout the rest of this writeup. Lyric immediately begins showing tell-tale signs of “JRPG Protagonist Syndrome”, as she:

1. Survives being passed out in a freezing arctic-like environment while wearing what could maybe be called clothing for a slightly harsh winter in New England, and comes out of it with barely any complications to speak of

2. Has an (allegedly) famous father who leaves her a Mysterious Book That No One Can Read, and the titular Vambrace, which is now apparently fused to her arm, that lets her pass through what the game refers to as the “Frostfell”, a massive magical ice barrier surrounding the city of “Icenaire” that apparently kills anyone who touches it. Apparently she can also one-shot evil ghosts with it, but only in the narrative. She did it in a cutscene once, and so far that hasn’t translated to gameplay.

3. Has so-far-unmentioned heterochromia

4. Gets a high-ranking soldier to trust her almost immediately when only one brief conversation ago he had a suspicion that she was a spy for “The Green Flame”, apparently some rival faction that’s very, very Not Good. 

Getting confused by all the random names yet? Trust me, it doesn’t really get much better. This game’s story shows a lot of the very painful signs of an over-written, over-developed fantasy world that someone very obviously put a lot of time and love into, but didn’t really know where to stop.

Names, places, and concepts are thrown at you non-stop with a new one being introduced almost every dialogue sequence if you spend time talking to the locals of Icenaire once you convince the guard captain to let you go wandering the streets. You can also find random lore pages strewn around the place that add even more lore on top of everything else. 

It all gets to be so dense and confusing you almost completely lose track of what the actual, present-day story is. The game has no trouble throwing random scraps of lore at you, full of names that mean nothing, but when it comes to actually explaining what the hell is going on right now, it falls a bit short. Here’s my understanding so far. 

Lyric’s father has either died or mysteriously disappeared, I can’t remember which, and she’s been left a letter, a book, and the titular Vambrace. The book is referred to in the game mechanics as “The Codex” and is referred to by NPCs as a “book that nobody can read”, because apparently foreign languages don’t exist in this world, yet so far I’ve counted 6 or 7 distinct fantasy races that apparently all speak the exact same language all the time. 

The vambrace has fused itself to Lyrics arm, and her fathers letter tells her to go to Icenaire (I have no fucking clue what that name is supposed to mean by the way, and it sounds really fucking awkward to say so it has to mean -something-. The “ice” part is pretty self-explanatory if a little on the nose, the entire game takes place in what appears to be an apocalypse along the lines of if you took the events of “Frozen” and turned it up to 11, but the only insight I could get on the “naire” part is that it’s from the Irish Gaelic word “náire” which means something along the lines of “ashamed” or “to have shame”. So this city is basically named “ice-ashamed”, which I have no clue what that’s supposed to mean, and it’s bothering me enough that I’ve gone on an entire run-on paragraph to rant about it because it sounds stupid to say and exactly like a city name I would’ve come up with for my crappy fantasy stories that I wrote when I was fourteen.)

Where was I again?

Right, okay, so Lyrics father instructs her to go to Icenaire (blech) and find some dude named “Zaquard Ventrue”. That name also means nothing, except as far as I can tell, “Zaquard” is the pseudonym of one of the people at Devespresso, and the first thing that comes to mind for Ventrue is Vampire: The Masquerade, and I’m not sure it really means anything there either. 

The naming system in this game seems really off, it has no consistency and a lot of it is really self-indulgent, because you find out that this Zaquard fellow (in the game) is the big head honcho of what apparently is some kind of resistance movement of the oppressive organization called “The Green Flame”. 

So Lyric goes through the “Frostfell” (the magical ice barrier thing around the city that allegedly is the cause of this whole Frozenpocalypse deal) by using the power of the mysterious Vambrace, and...passes out because of it, only to be found by a scavenging party in a tutorial section where the game teaches you how to play it using said scavenging party. 

More on that later. 

Lyrics unconscious body is dragged back to the city, she somehow hasn’t contracted hypothermia, and the next scene we’re given is an interrogation from some guy who’s last name is Esquire. 

I don’t think the writers of this game knew what the word “Esquire” meant, because despite traditionally appearing after a person’s name, it is not a surname, it is a title. So the strange and unconventional naming choices continue. 

Anyway, Captain Generic Man, Esq., interrogates Lyric for all of five minutes before believing her at face value that she has a magical super-gauntlet that lets her pass through this extremely lethal magical barrier, when he has all the reason in the world to believe that she’s some kind of spy sent by the people his resistance faction is supposedly fighting against. 

And instead of keeping her under close watch until she’s at least somewhat established some trust that she’s not a mole or a spy or an assassin, he just...lets her roam free, around the city. Completely by herself. With no supervision, whatsoever. 

As you can probably tell, I already have several problems with this games pacing and general overall writing quality, and we’re not even past the prologue section yet. 

Oh, yeah, and Captain Generic gives Lyric some free money for her troubles, because the player needs to know how the market system works and how to buy healing items, and we can’t be assed to have them come across money in a non-contrived manner. 

And the currency is really weirdly specific? Its this stuff called “Hellion”, which in real-person-language is a word for a malicious troublemaker or nuisance. But in the same setting where a city is named “Ice Shame”, “Hellion” is apparently some kind of magical incense that the fox people burn to appease their gods. 

Oh yeah there’s a race of fox people in this game. They run the markets. They’re less full on furries and more like regular humanoids, but with fox ears, a tail, and pointy teeth, so like that weird halfway “haha guys look I’m totally not a furry” deal thats basically just “catgirls but with a different animal”. 

Anyway. 

You’re given a fat stack of cash and told to go buy yourself some food from the market, because we need to give you a tutorial on how to buy shit. 

So you go to the market and are taught by a smooth-talking fox-man-person-thing how to buy things at a market, after which you are immediately spotted by the only guard in the city with an ounce of sense who instantly goes “Hey holy shit isn’t that the person that literally nobody recognizes in this city that’s been cut off from the outside world for presumably several years at this point and the only other known faction that has the resources to keep a human alive is one we’re actively at war with?” and throws your ass right back in jail. 

By the way, the things you can choose to buy at the market are all pretty typical JRPG items that heal stat debuffs, or are basically different flavors of health potion that restore different amounts of health, and for any seasoned JRPG veteran it’s pretty easy to guess what items do what and how they function (sort of) but there’s plenty of unique-to-this-game stat conditions and the way the health mechanic works is kinda wonky, and the game asks you to buy your healing items before it even explains to you how the hell that part of the game actually works. 

I’ll go more in-depth to the gameplay once I finish this story synopsis but I just felt like pointing out that at this point you’ve been walked through some of the basic mechanics of the game and some of the combat, but the part of the game that deals with debuffs and HP and how you deal with those things hasn’t been explained yet. 

This game is very weird. 

Anyway, during the attempt to throw your ass back in jail, some shit is going down in the room that has the elevator to the surface (yeah apparently this city is like, underground. They don’t actually explain why, or how, or if it was like that before the Frozenpocalypse or if the Frozenpocalypse buried it, and if it was buried, how the hell did it get excavated so cleanly like this and why are all the buildings intact? Whatever, apparently the game doesn’t consider this important, which is weird considering all the random lore tidbits it does deem important, so we’re moving on now.)

OH hold on let me backtrack a bit. While you’re being let out of your jail cell because Captain Generic just felt like it apparently, you walk up to this other jail cell with a goth chick inside it and you’re told she’s an Extremely Powerful Bad Guy, Do Not Fuck With Her. 

So, as you arrive at the elevator to the surface, guess who just made an escape and caused a spooky ghost person to invade the city and injure two people! That’s right, Spooky Not-So-Jailed-Anymore Goth Chick! Who’s name is Isabel Salazar, and it’s really saying something that that’s the most normal name we’ve encountered so far in this god forsaken game. 

So you’re now face-to-face with a spooky ghost. You think you’re about to get into a combat section, you’ve been taught how to do combat, but nope! Lyric just waltzes up to the fucker and smacks him in the face with her Vambrace hand and it...melts...him? Just, with absolutely zero fanfare? 

Uh. Sure. Alright. Weird, do we get some kind of special attack that hurts ghosts? Guess we’ll find out. 

So the guard who was trying to arrest you, a redhead with pointy ears who’s very obviously an elf but hasn’t directly been called an elf in-game yet so I’m not sure if we’re using that word but fuck it she’s an elf, who’s name is Celest. That’s all, I don’t remember if she’s given a last name. 

Celest is reprimanded by Captain Generic, Esq. for trying to re-arrest the possible spy who was let go with literally no actual forethought put into it, and she’s understandably miffed, and Captain Generic tells you to come meet him in the war room because “someone is very interested in meeting you.” 

This leads nicely into the scene where our protagonist meets the leader of this massive underground (literally) resistance movement, who, upon hearing our surname and being told we’re the daughter of Some Random Guy, immediately trusts us to go after Isabel and lead an expedition all on our lonesome with a party of random soldiers we get to pick from a “help wanted” board instead of, I dunno, maybe sending some actual soldiers with us. 

This leader is the previously mentioned Zaquard Vampire Clan Man, who looks exactly how you’d expect a self-insert resistance leader to look, a young white-haired anime boy looking dude who’s bangs cover his eyes and we can’t see them. And he has earrings. 

Farquaad here apparently knew about our dad, and our dad was apparently the lead researcher about Archons (?) and the Vambrace is an Archonian (???) artifact (also they spell it “artefact” in the game and I hate it, they also say “magick” and it makes me want to find whoever was in charge of writing this and punch them) so that’s why he trusts us now, apparently. 

We are then tasked with a mission to go retrieve Evil Goth Chick, who apparently is going to go tell these Green Flame fellows the location of our massive underground city secret base, which is somehow super duper secret despite being huge. 

Keep in mind that this entire game’s setting is allegedly one massive city, it’s not like Eragon where the big inside-the-mountain Dwarf city was kept secret from Galbatorix, because that at least had the justification of being halfway across the entire fucking continent from the Empire as well as being on the other side of a massive fucking desert. 

This is all apparently one huge city! And the “secret underground base” is kinda big itself! It doesn’t make sense that its some big secret!

Ugh, whatever, if I keep harping on about every bit of the narrative that doesn’t make any fucking sense when you think about it for more than ten seconds I’m going to give myself a stroke so now that I’ve caught you up to where I am in the story, let’s move onto the gameplay. 

THE GAMEPLAY

If you’re at all familiar with Darkest Dungeon (a much better game) the gameplay is most similar in style to that. You have a party of 4 adventurers, you walk through room after room of a connected “dungeon” except in this case its neighborhood streets and buildings, find treasure, manage the balance of treasure in your inventory vs healing and utility items, and you have combat. 

Let’s talk about the combat first, because its the part I like most about this game and the reason I’m probably going to keep playing it. 

Vambrace takes a similar approach to Darkest Dungeon in that each character has a certain number of skills at their disposal, being limited in use by where the character is standing in the party order and what position slots in the opposing party they can target. 

When you get into combat, the party orders will look like this, with your party on the left and the opposing party on the right. 

4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4

The skills are divided into three range categories.

- Short or melee range skills can only be used in position 1 and 2 and can only target positions 1 and 2 on the opposing side unless those two positions are empty, in which case they can target 3 and 4. 

- Medium range skills can be used from any position, but can only target positions 1 and 2. 

- Long range skills can be used from any position and can target any position. 

Some skills also take flourish points to use, and characters build up flourish points throughout encounters by using their basic skill. 

Different characters have different classes, which determine different skills they’re able to use. 

This is a basically solid combat system, as proven by Darkest Dungeon, however Vambrace falls short of DD in two ways:

The first is Darkest Dungeon’s position system, and its supplementary corpse system, work slightly differently. Position order is the same, however, there can be no empty spaces breaking the line. If the line would be broken, units that are furthest back move forward to close the line. 

So say you encounter 4 enemies, so positions 1-2-3-4 are all fully occupied. If you kill the enemy in position 2, the enemies in positions 3 and 4 will move forward to fill in the blank space, so now only positions 1-2-3 are occupied. 

This is mitigated in Darkest Dungeon by the corpse system, when you kill an enemy it leaves a corpse behind, which fills up the space and prevents the backline from moving forward. However there are several skills in DD that remove corpses as part of the effect. 

This opens up different paths to take in terms of strategy. In both Vambrace and Darkest Dungeon, the 3 and 4 positions are usually filled by the more deadly foes, the enemies that take those positions usually cause debuffs to your party or have a higher damage output. 

However, in Darkest Dungeon, you can either run a strong backline of your own and try to eliminate the opposing backline quickly, or you can run a strong frontline and a more supportive backline to try and take out the frontline, and then wipe out the corpses, pushing the backline units to the front and making all their skills basically useless, since most enemies that stick to the back in DD have maybe one attack that they can use in position 1 or 2, and it’s usually not a very good attack. 

There are also attacks in DD that you can use to force the enemy to shuffle positions, bringing the backline to the front and crippling them without even touching the tanky frontline. 

However, in Vambrace, positions are static on the enemy side. When you kill enemies in front, the backline enemies stay in the backline. This leads to a much more limited strategy, where you pretty much only want to focus the backline first, and the frontline afterwards. 

There’s also the matter of turn order. Characters with a higher Awareness stat (more on stats in a second) get a bonus on their initiative and can go higher in the turn order, beyond that I’m not actually sure what factors are involved in determining this. However, the turn order itself is transparently displayed in the bottom center of the screen during combat, telling you very clearly which position on which side gets the next move, which helps out a lot with planning out your encounters.

Once you get the hang of it though, Vambrace’s combat is still enjoyable, and I’d say the aesthetic and environment around it makes it different enough from Darkest Dungeon that I can enjoy playing both for different reasons. Vambrace far more embraces certain JRPG aspects, for instance. 

Speaking of which, lets talk stats. 

Before I do though I want to talk about one of my biggest gripes with the game so far, and that’s the fact that its interface is terrible. This game doesn’t have a menu for keybinds, it doesn’t let you re-bind things, and its control scheme is a little awkward to say the least. 

It also hides a lot of information to be only accessible in the tutorial pages, which you can access at any time in the pause menu, but it makes things tedious because this game has a lot of smaller things to keep track of.

Each character has 5 stats. Combat, Sleight, Merchantry, Awareness, and Overwatch, and each one has a different impact on the game. 

Combat is fairly self explanatory, it determines how good your character is at fighting. 

Sleight determines how good the character is at scavenging, and it affects the quality of loot you find in containers.

Merchantry affects buying and selling, the higher the merchantry, the cheaper stuff is to buy and the more people pay for your junk. 

Awareness determines how well you can avoid traps

And Overwatch determines how good your character is at managing the party during camping.

Your stats can also affect the outcomes of certain random events that can trigger throughout the dungeons, although I’ve only encountered a handful of them so far.

Speaking of camping, one of the most under-explained mechanics in this game is the camping mechanic, and my first and only death so far has been because of a failure to properly explain said mechanic, causing me to fuck it up 3 times before I did it right, and because camping is actually extremely vital to success in this game, it caused me to die and fail the mission. 

Any healing items in your inventory cannot be used on the fly, they are only usable during a camping session. You can initiate a camping session upon finding a suitable spot for one, which you can either randomly find in the generated rooms of a “dungeon”, or in between the “dungeons” on a mission in shelters where you get sort of a mini-camp session. 

A full camping session involves you selecting the character with the highest Overwatch skill to manage said session. You need to do three specific things to maximize your sessions effectiveness, and these things are not properly tutorialized and are easy to misunderstand or miss out altogether. When the camping session starts, the character you’ve chosen to manage the whole thing starts out by standing in front of the campfire, with an “interact” icon hovering above it. 

Do not interact with the campfire. It will end the camping session immediately and you cannot redo it, you will have to find a new campsite. 

Instead, you need to find the interact icon for sleep and the icon for music. The first one will restore the HP of your whole party equal to your session leader’s Overwatch skill provided it goes without incident, and the second one will restore the Vigor of your whole party equal to the session leader’s Overwatch skill. 

Oh. Right, Vigor. 

Vambrace has 2 health bars essentially. There’s your Hit Points (HP), and then there’s Vigor. HP works how you think it does, you take damage in combat or from poison or traps and if you hit 0 you die. 

Vigor is basically a worse version of the Stress mechanic from Darkest Dungeon, but instead of ticking up as your characters get more and more stressed out, their Vigor essentially goes down as you walk through the various dungeon rooms, and certain debuffs and traps can reduce it as well. 

Once you’ve done both a sleep and a music session, you then need to open up your inventory and use the appropriate healing items to cover up whatever those two things didn’t get. If one character was particularly badly hurt and needs extra patching up after a nap, do it with healing items now. You cannot use healing items outside of a camping session, so do it now. 

You can also only use status healing items here too, and status ailments don’t go away with a nap. 

Only once you have done those three things should you interact with the campfire again, ending the camping session and continuing on with the dungeon. 

The Other Stuff

The other reason besides the gameplay being interesting enough that I plan on continuing to play this game is that the art direction and the sound design are actually very, very well done, with a feeeeew small exceptions. 

Let’s start with the art direction. 

Visually, the game looks fantastic. It’s as if you took the visual style of Darkest Dungeon but made it more anime-esque and less horrifying, more pleasant to look at. It’s really pretty and well stylized, and is a style that will hold up visually even when graphical advancements outpace it. 

The character designs are also all fairly unique, if a little over-designed sometimes. You can pick out all the named characters on sight alone, they’re all visually distinct from each other and are easily recognizable. 

The sound design is also, for the most part, really really good. The ambient noise is a good quality, the audio is well balanced and none of it really grates on my ears, and some of it is actually pretty nice to listen to.

The music in the game so far is also good, and while I haven’t come across any tracks that made me want to just sit there and listen to it on loop for a few minutes, I also haven’t found any tracks that made me go “oh god oh god make it stop”

The only part of the audio I have a problem with is...the voice acting. It’s only shown up in a few very small cutscene bits so far, mostly the initial opening scene, but I can’t really put my finger on what’s wrong with it. The only character who’s spoken so far is Lyric, and I really am finding it hard to say exactly why her voice-acted dialogue bothers me, but it really grated on my ears and I was glad when the cutscene ended. 

I think it was a mixture of the quality of the audio, it didn’t sound professionally recorded although I’ll grant it that it wasn’t “Skyrim mod voice acted by the modder” level of terrible, but it still left a lot to be desired. The other part that got to me was just the style with which the actress was talking, however I can’t really pinpoint if it was just the stilted dialogue she was stuck with, if the direction was bad, or if she just didn’t really have much of an idea what she was doing. 

She had a very monotonous voice throughout, and while she wasn’t speaking flatly or like she was bored, it was moreso that kind of voice people give characters like Sasuke in fandubs, where they’re overly mopey and Serious™ which kinda takes the oomph out of lines that should have had the more somber tone. 

Overall Thoughts and Opinions

Keep in mind this is all based on the first 2 hours of gameplay, and that I’ll probably post a more detailed version of this (or make a video) once I’m either a lot further into the game or I beat it. 

I don’t hate the game. I think the writing is completely overdone and obnoxious, and has way, way too much lore and way too many things going on without focusing on the more narrow plotline, and I have a huge problem with the very very inconsistent naming scheme, but aside from those two specific criticisms, I’ve definitely seen worse writing. 

And it’s not like the characters aren’t endearing in that “this character 1000% slots into a very specific JRPG trope but I’m here for it” sort of way. I did enjoy what I got to see of Lyric and the other named characters, even though they were completely stereotypical and Lyric comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue. 

So far the writing is very flawed, but in a tolerable way. I’d much more rather play a game written with love and care and have the flaws come from human error rather than a game that was written by committee to be as bland and appealing to as wide an audience as possible without offending anyone. 

The gameplay definitely isn’t as deep as it could be, but the out-of-combat mechanics actually do require a lot of forethought and planning once you actually understand them. 

That’s probably my biggest criticism of the game outside of the writing, the game has a pretty decent tutorial that tries to explain everything, but the UI design and how the game presents its information outside of the tutorial works against that and forces you to memorize things and constantly refer back to the tutorial pages. 

There’s a lot of quality-of-life things that are missing that shouldn’t be. The ability to rebind keys, the ability to even check a simple menu solely dedicated to the keybinds instead of sifting back through the tutorials trying to figure out what fucking key you need to press for things is. 

There’s no hover-over information, on anything. The mouse does literally nothing, you could control the whole game with the keyboard. This is especially problematic when dealing with stat buffs and debuffs, because while you can open up your character stat menu in combat to check exactly what their debuffs do, you can’t open up an enemy stat page and are completely reliant on having memorized what icon corresponds to what debuff and what that debuff actually does. 

But if you can look past the cripplingly bad UI and inability to rebind keys, along with the weird writing, the game is actually fairly charming and does have a lot to offer, so I’d definitely recommend checking it out! I bought it on sale for about $16 USD, and if the game keeps up the current quality for a decent chunk of playtime, I’d say it’s worth it around that price. Probably not at full price though. 

[antagonistchan]

i’m having a normal one on Discord, just getting emotional and introspective about a show about talking trains with faces

(i mean i’ve gotten incredibly introspective about this show before, like holy shit this show was absolutely the foundation of my entire identity (like i go into more detail on at the end there) so i think about it in relation to who i am a LOT, but still)

me, at 4:03 PM EST: youtube recommended me a video about Thomas and this was the very first frame i’m also an adult Thomas fan (albeit an extremely casual one) and i get why they needed to do this but this is still incredibly funny [a screenshot of a banner that says “THIS VIDEO IS NOT FOR KIDS. THIS IS AN ANALYSIS & REVIEW FOR ADULT FANS OF THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE. YES, WE EXIST”]

(okay for the rest of this i won’t use screenshots, i just felt like the very beginning needed a visual indicator)

me, at 4:54 PM EST: i'm like 20 minutes into this hour long analysis about why the last few seasons of Thomas have totally sucked and on the one hand it's inherently funny to see an hour-long analysis of Thomas the Tank Engine but on the other hand i absolutely agree with everything the dude is saying. particularly that these seasons are. kinda racist. because they decided to put a big emphasis on Thomas "travelling to other countries" to explore new cultures except it was VERY OBVIOUSLY written by white british people who have never even been to these countries and only did like five minutes of research on the internet

me, at 6:50 PM EST: man this hour-long analysis of why the last few seasons of Thomas are really bad is actually really fucking good there's a lot of "They're trying to look progressive without actually doing anything progressive and actually being pretty damn offensive more often than not and it's infuriating that they're getting good press from this" a lot of "Just because the writers of the show care about the fans doesn't mean the corporation in charge does, corporations are not your friends" a lot of "Mattel is a completely inept corporation that's slowly dying and dragging Thomas down with it" a lot of "this is a fucking 70-year-old franchise and they're not remotely treating it with the respect it deserves" a lot of "most of the beloved writers have been jumping ship because Mattel has been so demanding of them lately" 

me, in the same post but a new separate paragraph: and also apparently Thomas is just straight-up dead now. like they haven't officially announced the end of the series or anything yet, but a new season for 2021 hasn't been greenlit and the franchise's profits have dropped faster than David Cameron's pants at a pig farm, so the actual serious hardcore Thomas fans are all like "yeah there's like an 80% chance we're never getting another season again after this"

me, in another separate paragraph: which is sad. like again i'm an extremely casual fan, to the extent that i had no fucking idea any of this had happened and it's been happening since 2017, but this franchise IS very important to me. when i first saw Thomas and the Magic Railroad when i was like 3, i...... i kinda consider that the moment i was truly born? because before then i was just........ a toddler with no depth to who i was whatsoever. but that movie, even when i was THAT young, inspired the hell out of me, and it was basically the foundation for my entire aesthetic and artistic style. i've evolved SIGNIFICANTLY over the 19 years since and so my style/aesthetic is basically unrecognizable from that now, but that was still the starting point.

[starryeyed-char]

On Camera

Or that one time Lance decided to live-stream when he really should’ve been resting. The (established) klance YouTuber AU that no one asked for, but you’re all getting. Domestic klance sharing an apartment is my jam, and throwing a little angst in there is a bonus.

I’m actually really happy with this, and if people like it I might do an actual long AU thing with this setting, so feedback is appreciated! For now though, just a one-shot. This is also proof that the best writing for me happens at 3 AM… oops. I hope you enjoy!!

Psst @taylor-tut this is that thing I not-so-discreetly mentioned in my tags, have a wonderful day.

Lance McClain was a rulebreaker in every way, except for one thing. He believed it was always necessary to have a routine, and never stray from it. If asked, he’d inform you that a steady routine was the foundation for a steady life.

Showering every morning, brushing his teeth every night, thinking of a cheesy one-liner for Keith each day without fail, the list went on. Little things.

One of his many routines was to live-stream, always on Sundays. Because who did anything besides sit at home, definitely not with a hangover, on Sunday?

New videos went up on Wednesdays, but the carefully edited ones on YouTube and his live-streams were very different. Many fans even preferred seeing him live, mainly because he couldn’t stop himself from making bad jokes, and was usually too lazy to straighten his bedhead.

And they would always ask him to go bother Keith in the next room, which Lance more often than not was obliged to do.

So when he woke up late one Sunday with a killer headache and a stuffy nose, Lance wasn’t about to let it get in the way of his routine.

He discovered a note from Keith on the kitchen table that said he’d be out running errands, and Lance lamented that he hadn’t been awake to tell Keith to get soup. After shooting him a quick text, the only response Lance got was “You don’t even like soup.”

Lance chuckled softly, which quickly led to a series of wet coughs. Clearing his throat, he began to set up his camera, wrapped himself up in blankets, and started the stream.

“Hey guys,” he said with a small wave, and winced at how raspy his voice sounded. He sniffled, and edged the off-screen box of tissues closer to him.

The chat was quickly flooded with “HELLO”’s and “LANCE!”’s. By now, all the fans knew when he went live. Lance was, however, surprised to see several inquiries about his health.

There were quite a few “Are you okay”’s, and even some “You seem sick”’s, with one of Lance’s personal favorites being “You look like shit.”

He read off the last comment with a short laugh. “Thanks, KeiththeKutie05.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Nice name.”

After a short pause of him continuing to scan the chat, he spoke again. “I’m fine though, just got a cold or something. Nothing could stop me from live-streaming!”

As the viewers seemed satisfied with this response, Lance wasn’t surprised to see the usual repetition of “Where’s Keith?” in the chat. He sighed.

“Mullet Boy is running errands,” Lance told them, rolling his eyes for effect. “Probably going out to buy a new pair of fingerless gloves.”

Keith and Lance had been sharing an apartment for some time now, and the Internet was very invested in their relationship, or so it seemed. Keith was annoyed by the whole thing at first, but Lance found it entertaining that his fans seemed to like Keith better than him. Lance could, admittedly, relate.

Eventually, the accidental publicity that came with dating a YouTuber inspired Lance to make a collab channel for them, though Keith never got his own. He insisted that he was too awkward to film anything by himself, which Lance secretly found adorable.

Numerous people began telling Lance to prank Keith when he came back, to which Lance grinned. Playing tricks on Keith during live-streams had become somewhat of a tradition in and of itself. “Maybe I will,” Lance tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You guys got any ideas?”

Lance read through some of the responses but saw nothing particularly appealing, then perked up at someone asking when he’d do a video with Hunk again.

“Actually, I got some good news for you guys,” Lance declared, sneezing into his elbow before continuing. “Hunk and I are going to be playing videogames on Pidge’s channel sometime next week, and Hunk has both of us coming over to his and Shay’s for a baking video. I haven’t decided what we should do for my part yet. Maybe a Q & A?”

Once again, Lance’s eyes scanned through the suggestions until his eyes snagged on one he liked. “Cards Against Humanity, huh? With YouTube’s shitty new rules it could get demonetized, but I do love that game, so why not? I’m positive Pidge owns it, and I can tell them to bring it over. Maybe I can even convince Keith to play with us.”

Lance couldn’t help but smile at the enthusiastic response that got.

“I think I’m going to get myself some more coffee,” Lance decided, looking down at the empty mug resting on a coaster. “Last night Keith made me watch this really scary movie, so I naturally had trouble falling asleep. Gotta have coffee to keep myself functioning. Do you guys prefer coffee or tea? Keith and I are both coffee people, but he likes his black. No sugar or anything, disgusting if you ask me.”

Lance almost regretted this comment as a war of opinions on black coffee slowly took over his computer screen.

“Well, anyway, I’m gonna go to the kitchen real quick. I’d bring my laptop but… I’d probably spill coffee on it, and we can’t have that.”

Lance stood, and was about to start towards the next room when his vision abruptly blurred and refocused. He knew immediately something was wrong.

His legs felt like jelly, and the room seemed to spin as he took a single step forward. Had he only been fine when he was sitting? Lance had half the mind to sit right back down, but his brain was growing muddled, and direction simply didn’t make sense.

Lance’s migraine flared abruptly in intensity, and then suddenly the wood floor was rushing up to meet him. Everything went dark.

Keith glanced at his phone as he moved around to the back of the car, where he’d stored the groceries, and had to repress a fond smile at the Twitter notification on the screen. Lance was, apparently, live-streaming. Keith thought he might actually miss his time-slot for once, but he figured by now he should be used to the Cuban boy’s dedication to routine.

Lance’s channel got some negative feedback from more ‘sophisticated’ YouTubers for being… all over the place. A dedicated beauty guru, or PrinceLotor as his channel was called, had dragged Lance on Twitter on more than one occasion.

Lance was anything but consistent when it came to videos. He did whatever he felt like doing that week, and the fans loved it. Sometimes he played songs on his guitar, sometimes he did prank-calls. He would film Q&A’s, or tell stories about all the interesting stuff that happened in his life— Lance’s bad luck was rather famous. He recommended TV shows, did hauls of what he got for holidays, vlogged on occasion when he went to stores, you name it.

But Lance’s favorite thing to do were collabs.

Hunk, an incredibly smart engineer, had a baking channel as a hobby, and Lance was his favorite assistant.

Pidge was a newer gaming channel, but their obsession with theorizing about the game’s lore while playing and busting other fan theories made them grow in popularity quickly. For two player games, Lance was ideal.

Allura was an extremely popular beauty channel, and Lance let her give him makeovers whenever she wanted to. Shiro could use extra actors in his short films.

And Keith… well, the two of them had a channel together that had no pattern whatsoever, much to Lance’s dislike. Absolutely spontaneous and random, usually doing things by popular fan request, like dancing or karaoke. And uploads were by no means regular.

Keith was surprised at how much he had started to enjoy it. Lance had been telling him he should start an art channel, with animations and speedpaints and the like, and Keith wasn’t… that opposed to the idea. It could be a useful source of income, to help with all the debt he would come into after graduating college. But he’d never tell Lance.

Without thinking too much of it, Keith swiped right across his screen, taking him to Lance’s tweet about the live-stream in order to like it. He was about to close his phone again and begin taking groceries up to their apartment when his eyes snagged on something odd.

Lots of the replies to Lance’s tweet mentioned him, particularly the recent ones, even tagging him in it. Keith couldn’t fathom why they would be talking about him if he wasn’t on the stream, unless Lance was complaining about him live again.

Keith bristled. Lance better not be still annoyed at him for the movie the last night. Signs wasn’t scary at all, and not even a real horror movie! Lance simply stated that 'he didn’t mess with aliens.’

But when he looked at all the mentions, Keith felt his irritation give way to confusion, and then panic.

“KEITH GET TO UR APARTMENT”, “YOU BETTER GO CHECK ON LANCE”, “HOLY SHIT HES COLLAPSED KEITH HURRY YA ASS UP”, and the one that really sent Keith reeling “UH GUYS IS IT JUST ME OR DID WE WITNESS LANCE’S DEATH ON CAMERA?”

Keith slammed the trunk, all groceries forgotten as he sprinted into the apartment building and ran for the stairs. They only lived on the third floor, and he was not about to wait for the slow, crowded elevator.

He fumbled to fit his key in the lock and opened the door to the living room, only to spot the live-streaming set up, with no Lance. Keith rushed forward, but drew up short when he realized that Lance was in fact passed out on the floor in front of the couch.

“Oh my god— Lance!” Keith sank down beside him, turning his boyfriend over. “Lance, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Lance’s eyes opened slowly, and Keith felt relief flood his system, despite the uncharacteristically pale skin. “K-Keith? Wha… I thought you were shopping?”

“I’m back,” Keith answered shortly, wincing as he pressed a hand onto Lance’s forehead. “Jeez, you’re on fire. Why didn’t you tell me you were this sick?!”

“Are you a fire?” Lance mumbled under his breath, and Keith furrowed his brows in confusion.

“What? No, Lance, I was saying you have a fever.”

“Because you’re hot and I want s'more,” Lance continued, as if he hadn’t heard him at all. Keith was suddenly painfully aware that the live-stream was still going, and that his face was even more flushed than Lance’s, and not because of a fever.

Keith glanced at the computer sitting on the coffee table briefly, noting that most of the chat was full of random keyboard smashing. He smiled apologetically. “At least he’s conscious,” he shrugged, hoisting Lance up off the floor and propping one of his arm’s around Keith’s shoulder. “I’m going to take this idiot to the hospital, he’s way too hot.”

“So you finally admitted it,” Lance’s voice was barely audible, and Keith glanced back down to see him grinning up at Keith tiredly.

“I meant your temperature, dumbass. Next time, tell me when you’re not feeling well.”

And with that, he shut off the stream.

[gracieyvonnehunter]

Why are brands so bad at apologizing?

Good apologies are difficult. Companies should make them anyway. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

According to a professional apologizer.

Thanks to the internet, apologies look, feel, and sound far different from how they used to. They come in formats that seem unimaginable even just a decade ago: a screenshot of a Notes app, a teary-eyed confessional on YouTube, or a long-winded tech company blog post.

In recent years, apologies and professional statements of regret have become more pervasive than ever, especially in the business world. Corporate contrition, from both high-profile and small businesses alike, is not rare inasmuch as it’s a safety blanket for brands mindful of damage control.

Dishing out a public relations-approved apology gives the impression of appearing sorry, while the company (that’s supposedly in the wrong) attempts to regain its handle on the situation by reminding customers of its values and the intent of its actions — often before the apology itself.

For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or his public relations team) penned a 900-word statement shortly after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, yet it still took the company multiple tries (after Facebook’s stock dropped) for Zuckerberg to say: “I’m really sorry.”

Or in the case of Pepsi’s advertisement with Kendall Jenner, which received backlash for using protest imagery, the company simply said it “missed the mark” in what it was trying to portray.

In The Apology Impulse, co-author Sean O’Meara, a professional apologizer and public relations professional, argues that the corporate world has ruined the sanctity of the apology by failing to say sorry and over-apologizing. The book, which was published on October 29, examines the most egregious and effective business apologies in recent memory, from United Airlines’ passenger-dragging debacle in 2017 (and its failure to properly apologize) to Johnson & Johnson’s calm handling of a Tylenol recall in 1982.

Here, O’Meara discusses what makes an effective apology, the worst apology archetypes, and how social media has made customers demand more cultural responsibility and sensitivity from businesses — and whether or not that’s reasonable.

You outlined several archetypes in the corporate apology starter pack, like the “faux-pology” (when a company expresses limited fault) or the “passive apology” (using passive voice in a statement). In your opinion, which type is the worst and why?

That’s a tough one because I hate all of them. The worst habit an apologizer can fall into is leading with a qualifying character reference, or the Schrodinger’s apology.

Let’s say there’s been a privacy hack with a company and one of the first things addressed in its corporate statement is, “We take the protection of consumer data very seriously.” As a customer, you know there’s a “but” coming in the apology. It assumes that the people you’re giving the apology to are stupid. If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues.

“If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues”

That adds insult to injury. If you’re apologizing, you’re conceding that you failed. If you’re conceding that you’ve failed, it’s just not the time to give yourself a character reference and say, “Hey. We’re great 99 percent of the time. We messed up here.” If the customer is the 1 percent — if you’re that person that’s really unlucky — that’s going to make them feel worse because they’re like, “Okay. I’m the person that suffered from this rare and exceptional failure, as you put it. That gives me no comfort whatsoever.”

In one chapter, you outlined how it took three of the world’s biggest brands — United Airlines, Facebook, and Papa John’s — three tries each to apologize correctly. These apologies were mostly triggered by a financial loss or a drop in stock prices. Do you think most corporate apologies require a financial incentive?

The short answer is yes. A company’s finances and investor confidence really play a part. With a lot of the high-profile apologies in the book, I suspected some companies were evasive because they were trying to avoid litigation. That’s a myth. Some people believe that saying sorry invites litigation because it’s an admission of guilt. It’s been proven not to be true, particularly in studies on the United States’ health care sector.

It actually lowers the chances of litigation if you apologize. It’s kind of like a game of chicken where a company doesn’t want to say sorry because it doesn’t want to get sued, but it also doesn’t want its stock price to keep tanking. Whichever one becomes more severe first — if the stock price keeps going down, executives lean toward saying sorry versus risking a lawsuit. It does get complicated in that scenario.

Does a proper apology necessarily have to include the phrase “I’m sorry” or could action be more effective to consumers than a statement itself?

I used to think no, but I changed my mind when I was writing the book. I used to think you had to say sorry, but how Johnson & Johnson responded to customers getting poisoned through Tylenol proved me wrong here. The CEO came up with a solution, and he went on TV to deliver that message. The company took a huge financial hit, but they definitely saved lives by quickly enacting a solution.

With that level of action — and I’m not expecting every organization to be able to do this — that was as good as saying sorry. Tylenol didn’t technically owe anybody an apology, but they were sorry because of what happened. Instead of putting out a press release or going on an apology tour, they poured all their energy into fixing the problem, innovating and protecting their customers. So brands can deliver contrition without using the s-word.

In the book, you write that apologies are costly. Why is that, and what are the financial effects?

There’s the obvious cost of promoting an apology to make sure that people get the message. That can be anything up to the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think Uber’s apology campaign was the most expensive one we documented at $500 million.

Then there’s the cost of being sorry. If you imagine an organization that has been criticized for, let’s say, a marketing campaign that people didn’t like or found offensive.

If the company apologizes, it has to presumably scrap that campaign and the creative that goes with it. For example, Dove had a campaign with women taking off their sweaters. As the first woman took her sweater off, the next model in the shop appeared. The way it was edited, it appeared like a black model took off her sweater for a white model to appear. The implication that people took from that was Dove implied that using its products will make you whiter.

I don’t think that’s what Dove intended, but that’s how it looked from a certain angle. Dove had to end that campaign and obviously replace it. You can’t just leave a vacuum where you’re not advertising. There’s the cost of replacing the creative or withdrawing a product, and then there is the extra cost to the organization of being vigilant.

One thing organizations don’t realize is once you say sorry, you’re on notice. Consumers are hyper-vigilant to what you do next. All that extra care, all that extra market testing, focus groups, that all goes into the budget of what it costs to be sorry as an organization.

Can brands ever really issue an apology that feels real and human?

It is rare, but it can be done. I think when you see these apologies, which are usually a social media post or use very vague language, a brand will just pop that out on the internet and they’ve apologized. That, to me, isn’t genuine regret. That is public relations.

JetBlue had a great example of a proper apology when there was a massive snowstorm in 2007. There was bad planning and the airline ended up having to cancel hundreds of flights so thousands of customers were affected.

CEO David Neeleman didn’t immediately apologize. He looked at how JetBlue failed and then made a YouTube video. I’m pretty sure it was the first high-profile corporate apology via social media. If you watch it, you’ll notice that David Neeleman, he’s not a natural publicist. He’s very much a businesslike CEO. He’s sitting in his office and he’s talking to camera and it’s not slick, but it’s authentic in the right way.

Brands go for authenticity and they pay millions of dollars to emulate authenticity. This was real authenticity. This was a guy who was not overly sorry. He was explaining what consumers can expect when his company failed again. He didn’t say if we fail again. He acknowledged that he’s running an airline and there are a lot of moving parts. There will be a future where JetBlue has to cancel flights and people are inconvenienced.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2qclf8X

[timalexanderdollery]

Why are brands so bad at apologizing?

Good apologies are difficult. Companies should make them anyway. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

According to a professional apologizer.

Thanks to the internet, apologies look, feel, and sound far different from how they used to. They come in formats that seem unimaginable even just a decade ago: a screenshot of a Notes app, a teary-eyed confessional on YouTube, or a long-winded tech company blog post.

In recent years, apologies and professional statements of regret have become more pervasive than ever, especially in the business world. Corporate contrition, from both high-profile and small businesses alike, is not rare inasmuch as it’s a safety blanket for brands mindful of damage control.

Dishing out a public relations-approved apology gives the impression of appearing sorry, while the company (that’s supposedly in the wrong) attempts to regain its handle on the situation by reminding customers of its values and the intent of its actions — often before the apology itself.

For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or his public relations team) penned a 900-word statement shortly after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, yet it still took the company multiple tries (after Facebook’s stock dropped) for Zuckerberg to say: “I’m really sorry.”

Or in the case of Pepsi’s advertisement with Kendall Jenner, which received backlash for using protest imagery, the company simply said it “missed the mark” in what it was trying to portray.

In The Apology Impulse, co-author Sean O’Meara, a professional apologizer and public relations professional, argues that the corporate world has ruined the sanctity of the apology by failing to say sorry and over-apologizing. The book, which was published on October 29, examines the most egregious and effective business apologies in recent memory, from United Airlines’ passenger-dragging debacle in 2017 (and its failure to properly apologize) to Johnson & Johnson’s calm handling of a Tylenol recall in 1982.

Here, O’Meara discusses what makes an effective apology, the worst apology archetypes, and how social media has made customers demand more cultural responsibility and sensitivity from businesses — and whether or not that’s reasonable.

You outlined several archetypes in the corporate apology starter pack, like the “faux-pology” (when a company expresses limited fault) or the “passive apology” (using passive voice in a statement). In your opinion, which type is the worst and why?

That’s a tough one because I hate all of them. The worst habit an apologizer can fall into is leading with a qualifying character reference, or the Schrodinger’s apology.

Let’s say there’s been a privacy hack with a company and one of the first things addressed in its corporate statement is, “We take the protection of consumer data very seriously.” As a customer, you know there’s a “but” coming in the apology. It assumes that the people you’re giving the apology to are stupid. If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues.

“If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues”

That adds insult to injury. If you’re apologizing, you’re conceding that you failed. If you’re conceding that you’ve failed, it’s just not the time to give yourself a character reference and say, “Hey. We’re great 99 percent of the time. We messed up here.” If the customer is the 1 percent — if you’re that person that’s really unlucky — that’s going to make them feel worse because they’re like, “Okay. I’m the person that suffered from this rare and exceptional failure, as you put it. That gives me no comfort whatsoever.”

In one chapter, you outlined how it took three of the world’s biggest brands — United Airlines, Facebook, and Papa John’s — three tries each to apologize correctly. These apologies were mostly triggered by a financial loss or a drop in stock prices. Do you think most corporate apologies require a financial incentive?

The short answer is yes. A company’s finances and investor confidence really play a part. With a lot of the high-profile apologies in the book, I suspected some companies were evasive because they were trying to avoid litigation. That’s a myth. Some people believe that saying sorry invites litigation because it’s an admission of guilt. It’s been proven not to be true, particularly in studies on the United States’ health care sector.

It actually lowers the chances of litigation if you apologize. It’s kind of like a game of chicken where a company doesn’t want to say sorry because it doesn’t want to get sued, but it also doesn’t want its stock price to keep tanking. Whichever one becomes more severe first — if the stock price keeps going down, executives lean toward saying sorry versus risking a lawsuit. It does get complicated in that scenario.

Does a proper apology necessarily have to include the phrase “I’m sorry” or could action be more effective to consumers than a statement itself?

I used to think no, but I changed my mind when I was writing the book. I used to think you had to say sorry, but how Johnson & Johnson responded to customers getting poisoned through Tylenol proved me wrong here. The CEO came up with a solution, and he went on TV to deliver that message. The company took a huge financial hit, but they definitely saved lives by quickly enacting a solution.

With that level of action — and I’m not expecting every organization to be able to do this — that was as good as saying sorry. Tylenol didn’t technically owe anybody an apology, but they were sorry because of what happened. Instead of putting out a press release or going on an apology tour, they poured all their energy into fixing the problem, innovating and protecting their customers. So brands can deliver contrition without using the s-word.

In the book, you write that apologies are costly. Why is that, and what are the financial effects?

There’s the obvious cost of promoting an apology to make sure that people get the message. That can be anything up to the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think Uber’s apology campaign was the most expensive one we documented at $500 million.

Then there’s the cost of being sorry. If you imagine an organization that has been criticized for, let’s say, a marketing campaign that people didn’t like or found offensive.

If the company apologizes, it has to presumably scrap that campaign and the creative that goes with it. For example, Dove had a campaign with women taking off their sweaters. As the first woman took her sweater off, the next model in the shop appeared. The way it was edited, it appeared like a black model took off her sweater for a white model to appear. The implication that people took from that was Dove implied that using its products will make you whiter.

I don’t think that’s what Dove intended, but that’s how it looked from a certain angle. Dove had to end that campaign and obviously replace it. You can’t just leave a vacuum where you’re not advertising. There’s the cost of replacing the creative or withdrawing a product, and then there is the extra cost to the organization of being vigilant.

One thing organizations don’t realize is once you say sorry, you’re on notice. Consumers are hyper-vigilant to what you do next. All that extra care, all that extra market testing, focus groups, that all goes into the budget of what it costs to be sorry as an organization.

Can brands ever really issue an apology that feels real and human?

It is rare, but it can be done. I think when you see these apologies, which are usually a social media post or use very vague language, a brand will just pop that out on the internet and they’ve apologized. That, to me, isn’t genuine regret. That is public relations.

JetBlue had a great example of a proper apology when there was a massive snowstorm in 2007. There was bad planning and the airline ended up having to cancel hundreds of flights so thousands of customers were affected.

CEO David Neeleman didn’t immediately apologize. He looked at how JetBlue failed and then made a YouTube video. I’m pretty sure it was the first high-profile corporate apology via social media. If you watch it, you’ll notice that David Neeleman, he’s not a natural publicist. He’s very much a businesslike CEO. He’s sitting in his office and he’s talking to camera and it’s not slick, but it’s authentic in the right way.

Brands go for authenticity and they pay millions of dollars to emulate authenticity. This was real authenticity. This was a guy who was not overly sorry. He was explaining what consumers can expect when his company failed again. He didn’t say if we fail again. He acknowledged that he’s running an airline and there are a lot of moving parts. There will be a future where JetBlue has to cancel flights and people are inconvenienced.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2qclf8X

[shanedakotamuir]

Why are brands so bad at apologizing?

Good apologies are difficult. Companies should make them anyway. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

According to a professional apologizer.

Thanks to the internet, apologies look, feel, and sound far different from how they used to. They come in formats that seem unimaginable even just a decade ago: a screenshot of a Notes app, a teary-eyed confessional on YouTube, or a long-winded tech company blog post.

In recent years, apologies and professional statements of regret have become more pervasive than ever, especially in the business world. Corporate contrition, from both high-profile and small businesses alike, is not rare inasmuch as it’s a safety blanket for brands mindful of damage control.

Dishing out a public relations-approved apology gives the impression of appearing sorry, while the company (that’s supposedly in the wrong) attempts to regain its handle on the situation by reminding customers of its values and the intent of its actions — often before the apology itself.

For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or his public relations team) penned a 900-word statement shortly after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, yet it still took the company multiple tries (after Facebook’s stock dropped) for Zuckerberg to say: “I’m really sorry.”

Or in the case of Pepsi’s advertisement with Kendall Jenner, which received backlash for using protest imagery, the company simply said it “missed the mark” in what it was trying to portray.

In The Apology Impulse, co-author Sean O’Meara, a professional apologizer and public relations professional, argues that the corporate world has ruined the sanctity of the apology by failing to say sorry and over-apologizing. The book, which was published on October 29, examines the most egregious and effective business apologies in recent memory, from United Airlines’ passenger-dragging debacle in 2017 (and its failure to properly apologize) to Johnson & Johnson’s calm handling of a Tylenol recall in 1982.

Here, O’Meara discusses what makes an effective apology, the worst apology archetypes, and how social media has made customers demand more cultural responsibility and sensitivity from businesses — and whether or not that’s reasonable.

You outlined several archetypes in the corporate apology starter pack, like the “faux-pology” (when a company expresses limited fault) or the “passive apology” (using passive voice in a statement). In your opinion, which type is the worst and why?

That’s a tough one because I hate all of them. The worst habit an apologizer can fall into is leading with a qualifying character reference, or the Schrodinger’s apology.

Let’s say there’s been a privacy hack with a company and one of the first things addressed in its corporate statement is, “We take the protection of consumer data very seriously.” As a customer, you know there’s a “but” coming in the apology. It assumes that the people you’re giving the apology to are stupid. If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues.

“If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues”

That adds insult to injury. If you’re apologizing, you’re conceding that you failed. If you’re conceding that you’ve failed, it’s just not the time to give yourself a character reference and say, “Hey. We’re great 99 percent of the time. We messed up here.” If the customer is the 1 percent — if you’re that person that’s really unlucky — that’s going to make them feel worse because they’re like, “Okay. I’m the person that suffered from this rare and exceptional failure, as you put it. That gives me no comfort whatsoever.”

In one chapter, you outlined how it took three of the world’s biggest brands — United Airlines, Facebook, and Papa John’s — three tries each to apologize correctly. These apologies were mostly triggered by a financial loss or a drop in stock prices. Do you think most corporate apologies require a financial incentive?

The short answer is yes. A company’s finances and investor confidence really play a part. With a lot of the high-profile apologies in the book, I suspected some companies were evasive because they were trying to avoid litigation. That’s a myth. Some people believe that saying sorry invites litigation because it’s an admission of guilt. It’s been proven not to be true, particularly in studies on the United States’ health care sector.

It actually lowers the chances of litigation if you apologize. It’s kind of like a game of chicken where a company doesn’t want to say sorry because it doesn’t want to get sued, but it also doesn’t want its stock price to keep tanking. Whichever one becomes more severe first — if the stock price keeps going down, executives lean toward saying sorry versus risking a lawsuit. It does get complicated in that scenario.

Does a proper apology necessarily have to include the phrase “I’m sorry” or could action be more effective to consumers than a statement itself?

I used to think no, but I changed my mind when I was writing the book. I used to think you had to say sorry, but how Johnson & Johnson responded to customers getting poisoned through Tylenol proved me wrong here. The CEO came up with a solution, and he went on TV to deliver that message. The company took a huge financial hit, but they definitely saved lives by quickly enacting a solution.

With that level of action — and I’m not expecting every organization to be able to do this — that was as good as saying sorry. Tylenol didn’t technically owe anybody an apology, but they were sorry because of what happened. Instead of putting out a press release or going on an apology tour, they poured all their energy into fixing the problem, innovating and protecting their customers. So brands can deliver contrition without using the s-word.

In the book, you write that apologies are costly. Why is that, and what are the financial effects?

There’s the obvious cost of promoting an apology to make sure that people get the message. That can be anything up to the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think Uber’s apology campaign was the most expensive one we documented at $500 million.

Then there’s the cost of being sorry. If you imagine an organization that has been criticized for, let’s say, a marketing campaign that people didn’t like or found offensive.

If the company apologizes, it has to presumably scrap that campaign and the creative that goes with it. For example, Dove had a campaign with women taking off their sweaters. As the first woman took her sweater off, the next model in the shop appeared. The way it was edited, it appeared like a black model took off her sweater for a white model to appear. The implication that people took from that was Dove implied that using its products will make you whiter.

I don’t think that’s what Dove intended, but that’s how it looked from a certain angle. Dove had to end that campaign and obviously replace it. You can’t just leave a vacuum where you’re not advertising. There’s the cost of replacing the creative or withdrawing a product, and then there is the extra cost to the organization of being vigilant.

One thing organizations don’t realize is once you say sorry, you’re on notice. Consumers are hyper-vigilant to what you do next. All that extra care, all that extra market testing, focus groups, that all goes into the budget of what it costs to be sorry as an organization.

Can brands ever really issue an apology that feels real and human?

It is rare, but it can be done. I think when you see these apologies, which are usually a social media post or use very vague language, a brand will just pop that out on the internet and they’ve apologized. That, to me, isn’t genuine regret. That is public relations.

JetBlue had a great example of a proper apology when there was a massive snowstorm in 2007. There was bad planning and the airline ended up having to cancel hundreds of flights so thousands of customers were affected.

CEO David Neeleman didn’t immediately apologize. He looked at how JetBlue failed and then made a YouTube video. I’m pretty sure it was the first high-profile corporate apology via social media. If you watch it, you’ll notice that David Neeleman, he’s not a natural publicist. He’s very much a businesslike CEO. He’s sitting in his office and he’s talking to camera and it’s not slick, but it’s authentic in the right way.

Brands go for authenticity and they pay millions of dollars to emulate authenticity. This was real authenticity. This was a guy who was not overly sorry. He was explaining what consumers can expect when his company failed again. He didn’t say if we fail again. He acknowledged that he’s running an airline and there are a lot of moving parts. There will be a future where JetBlue has to cancel flights and people are inconvenienced.

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[inawickedlittletown]

Walking The Wire (122/155)

Summary: Tony Stark always knew about Peter Parker. He didn’t know that Peter was going to get superpowers and become Spider-Man, but he always knew about Peter because Peter was his son.

This will span from pre-Iron Man up through the rest of the MCU (eventually including Infinity War) and will be for the most part canon compliant except where I’ve taken some liberties and interpreted canon a certain way.

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Tony/Steve (endgame), Tony/Mary (past)

A/N: If you want me to tag you when I post new chapters let me know. This fic is also on AO3

I used Collider’s MCU timeline to stay canon and the title of this fic is an Imagine Dragons song that is just so fitting for Peter and Tony

@findmeinthestarss

Masterpost

Chapter One Hundred Twenty One

Tony understood the pain of finding out something horrible at the wrong time. He understood the emotions that crossed Quill’s face and he knew even though Quill had never explained who Gamora was that she was important. Important not just to Quill either but apparently to Thanos and the blue-android person that had arrived. She confirmed that Thanos had the Soul Stone which was -- it meant that there were only two left. The Time Stone and the Mind Stone -- Vision’s stone. It was good to know that the stone in Vision’s head still hadn’t made it to the gauntlet, but that there were only two left for him to collect -- that was hard to swallow.

Either way, understanding what Quill was going through and the emotional shock that he took, it didn’t make it harder to hate him for giving in to his emotion.

“Okay, Quill, you gotta cool it right now. You understand?”

Quill wasn’t listening. His eyes were wild.

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t engage. We’ve almost got this off.”

They were so close. He and Peter almost had it.

“Tell me she’s lying,” Quill said and then he was yelling, “Asshole! Tell me you didn’t do it!”

Quill was past being reasoned with. He didn’t care whatsoever for the plan or what they had spoken about earlier or any of it. He just cared about Gamora and the implication that she was gone. Tony had to wonder if he might have reacted the same way if it was Peter that Thanos had killed or Steve.

Even through the hold that Mantis had on him, Thanos could answer. “I...had...to,” he grunted out. It made it even more clear to Tony and the others that Thanos was breaking through and that Mantis wasn’t going to be able to hold him for long.

But the answer was enough to make Quill angrier and Tony knew there was nothing to quell that rage. He had felt it himself when he found out Bucky had killed his parents and he knew -- he knew how destructive it was.

“No...you didn’t -- you didn’t--” Quill hit Thanos. “No, you didn’t!”

Tony had to stop him. Mantis was losing her hold fast and the movement that Quill was causing wasn’t helping.

“Quill!”

The gauntlet was almost off--

“Hey, stop. Hey, stop. Stop. Hey! Stop!.” Tony said and he let go of the gauntlet and tried to hold Quill back. Peter was stronger anyway -- he could take it off--

Peter tried, Tony could tell that he tried but once Mantis started to really lose her control--

“It’s coming! It’s coming! I got it. I got it,” Peter said and when Tony glanced over the gauntlet was almost off. Maybe -- but no, Thanos was waking.

Mantis was thrown off and despite how close Peter was, he lost his hold and the gauntlet went back on Thanos’ hand. Peter didn’t go back at Thanos but instead after Mantis who was flying through the air.

“Oh, god,” he heard Peter say.  

Strange was thrown off -- everyone was pushed aside but Tony wasn’t willing to give up. They had been so damn close! The nanonites created a weapon for him and Tony went at him with it but it didn’t even matter as Thanos just headbutted him away.

Tony got up, a bit shaken and went back at it until a shadow fell over him and it looked like the moon was moving towards him--

New York was a mess. Whatever had happened in Greenwich Village had everyone shaken up. Most people still remembered the last time that aliens had attacked New York. At least this time it hadn’t been a prolonged fight, but it had lasted long enough to create quite a mess. Still, all anyone could talk about was how Iron Man and Spider-Man had disappeared in the aftermath. It meant that Michelle couldn’t do anything but watch what had been uploaded to the internet.

Some of it came from security cameras but a few things came from people with their phones out and all of it was a ridiculous mess to sort through and full of messy shaky angles which cut off at odd places. Still, Michelle was kind of obsessed with watching any and everything she could find. It was easier than worrying about Peter. Not that it did much to stop her from worrying.

Her phone rang and Michelle picked it up at once. A part of her had hoped it would be Peter to finally answer all the texts she had sent and to tell her it was a lie and that he hadn’t gotten on that spaceship but -- no, it was just Ned.

“Hey,” Ned said.

“Hi,” Michelle said and waited for Ned to tell her why he’d called.

“I, um, I contacted Peter’s AI. I figure I’d try Karen. She lost contact with Peter -- she said that Peter was on the ship. It’s the only reason she would have lost contact with him.”

Michelle knew that already -- well, she’d put the pieces together despite how much she wished it wasn’t true. It was different to hear a confirmation despite how much the media seemed to be reporting on it with complete surety. Some of them seemed to think that it meant they might as well put Iron Man and Spider-Man as missing and likely dead. Only one video from a YouTuber had wondered about Tony Stark’s son and how he was handling it. Of course, they had no idea that Peter was his son and that Peter was Spider-Man.

“So, he’s in space,” Michelle said.

“Yeah,” Ned said and there was a sad tone to his voice.

Michelle suddenly remembered that Ned and Peter were huge Star Wars nerds. Maybe that would help...but probably not. Fiction and the real world were different things.

“Do you think he’s--” She trailed off and took a deep breath. “He’s with Iron Man. Maybe they’ll both be okay.”

“I don’t know,” Ned said. “I hope so. I, um, I was thinking I would go see his aunt. She doesn’t really have anyone else so she’s probably freaking out. Do you want to come with me?”

Michelle didn’t really know Peter’s aunt — although she really wasn’t his aunt was she? Michelle had seen May in passing over the years and maybe said hello to her, but she knew how much she cared about Peter. There wasn’t much else that she and Ned could do, though, so it made sense to try and help in a way that they maybe could by supporting Peter’s family.  

“Yeah, alright. I -- we can do that.” Then maybe they could be together through all of this because Michelle couldn’t imagine that this was going to be easy for any of them.

“I’ll meet you at yours,” Ned said, “I’ll call when I’m outside.”

It was a good thing they lived so close.  

She clicked onto Twitter for a moment checking to see if there was anything new. For the most part, Twitter was the most accurate and if not accurate then certainly it had the newest information. People were more likely to tweet or post something online in the moment before the big news media could pick up on it.

Sure enough some sort of thing had happened in San Francisco. Michelle couldn’t tell if it was related but there were pictures and some guy had become giant. It seemed like the whole world was having some sort of crisis.

Then there was something else -- an attack in Africa. Not ships like the round thing that had come down in New York City, but similar enough that it had to be connected.

And when she kept clicking there was more. Not many of the news sites had been reporting on it but apparently another circular ship had come into Earth and more precisely it had arrived in upstate New York. It had happened almost around the same time as the other attack in the city — maybe a little later — but there was only a couple of tweets about it so it had probably gone overlooked. It made Michelle a little suspicious though because she knew from Peter that the Avengers facility was in upstate New York and it was probably likely that the attack had happened there. So it was clear that the aliens had probably come after The Avengers for some reason or another.

May was a little drunk. It was -- she didn’t really drink all the time but since Ben’s death she’d done it more often. A glass of wine here or there -- sometimes she’d get a few drinks with friends from work. But even then, her reasons had never been this dire.

Pepper was the one that had called her in the aftermath. Reaching out because that was who Pepper was and May had heard the worry and fear in her voice and May had known then that she needed to prepare for the worst. Damn it -- this was exactly why she hadn’t wanted Peter to be Spider-Man. Her boy. Her Peter.

The kitchen had a few shattered plates and glasses from the moment when May had just lost herself to her anger. It had been a long while since May had gotten upset about Peter being Spider-Man. She had gotten used to it, actually, and come to understand why Peter felt like he needed to do it, but this -- this wasn’t Peter just helping the regular person after school. It was dangerous and off planet and it felt like losing Ben all over again.

Pepper had called again a bit later, asking if May needed anything. What she needed was Peter back. If he did come back May would demand he move back and she would demand that he give up his silly notions of being a superhero. If -- when Peter returned. He had to come back to her.

Time passed oddly. Fuzzy. The news anchors seemed scared too -- worried about what it meant for Tony Stark to have disappeared. Gone with the alien ship. People just had so much faith in Iron Man and to have him gone...

There had been another attack too, apparently. People were only just finding out about it -- another alien ship had shown up and left quickly from Upstate New York and May knew what that meant. Maybe more Avengers were missing...or worse.

Other reports had started coming in -- attack in Africa.

May just drank more. Maybe she would pass out and when she woke things would be back to normal. But -- no, they couldn’t be, not if Peter wasn’t around.

“Damn you, Tony Stark,” she muttered. “Damn you, you better protect my kid.”

His kid. May took a swig of the tequila -- it didn’t really burn as it went down anymore.

When a knock came, May ignored it at first until it came again and again and then she opened the door and it was Ned and some girl whose name she couldn’t remember but that had to be one of Peter’s friends.

“May,” Ned said.

May gulped. “Peter’s gone,” she said.

“I know--”

“We know,” the girl said and stepped forward. “Mrs. Parker, can I get you some water? Maybe coffee? Or food -- you should eat. I can tell you’ve been drinking and it probably helps if you have something to eat.”

May sobbed and Ned -- good old Ned who looked like he’d been crying wrapped an arm around her and led her inside.

“I miss him,” May whispered.

“We do too,” the girl said.

Work was the easier thing to face than everything else. Pepper just -- she had to hope. Tony had come out of worse things. The cave -- the wormhole -- even the palladium poisoning. This was going to be one more thing to add to the list of things that Tony survived and maybe still left some damage behind. It was better than the alternative. It was easy to tell herself that and yet so much harder to actually believe he might make it back from this. Worse -- Peter was with him. Sweet and lovely Peter who Pepper adored. She wished she’d spent more time with him. She’d gotten to know him a little better since Peter had moved into the tower, but SI kept her hard at work and she had all kinds of business trips on top of all the other Avengers business. Still, Pepper had made time to have dinner with everyone at the tower from time to time. She loved the family that Tony had -- loved that she could be a small part of it and that Tony was finally getting what he deserved.

SI stuff was pushed aside after the attack and after Tony disappeared with Peter in tow. Instead, Pepper was dealing with the media and the government and the UN. Tons and tons of questions were being asked and she didn’t really know the answers. Was she aware that all The Avengers had left the tower? Yes. Did she know where they were currently? No. And on and on and on. The UN was being good about it -- they saw the threat for what it was. Pepper had even gotten to talk to The President of the United States for a quick moment. That had been surreal. Then, there was Ross who didn’t even have a reason to be concerned. He wasn’t on the UN council and he wasn’t even Secretary of State anymore. Pepper didn’t actually know what he was doing these days -- she just wanted to be rid of him.   

It was a good distraction. Perhaps the only reason that Pepper didn’t break down into tears when she thought about Tony gone up into space and the rest of them in Wakanda fighting another attack. Everyone knew where they were by now -- there was coverage of what was happening and Pepper was avoiding watching any of it. Thing were a little insane. Maybe more than a little and somehow Pepper was left to try and clean up the messes. At least it gave her something to do.

“You better be okay, Tony Stark,” she muttered. “You better bring your kid home.” She wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t.

Chapter One Hundred Twenty Three

[zacfaq]

PLEASE DON’T SEND ME “PASS IT ON” MESSAGES !! as sweet as some of they are they can be really annoying. i don’t check my PMs here! if you need to get ahold of me either send me an ask, or email me.

apparently necessary reminder: google exists! i’m not a know-it-all source, honestly i shouldn’t even be your second plan after google unless it’s a question specifically based on me or something relating to me

i try to avoid fandom drama as much as possible and keep a generally positive space, so please don’t come and ask me about stuff like that. thanks. 

if you want to commission me please send an email to zacharyjackbaron@gmail.com. do not email me through this address if your intentions are purely social and not work related

-what do you use to record and edit your speedpaints?

i use OBS to record, and edit in sony vegas

-what do you use to draw?

huion gt-191 and clip studio paint

-what are your pen settings?

just the default settings. all my custom stuff/things i’ve downloaded from CSP assets are just things i think look neat but probably never end up using. 

-a blog called papersans is claiming to be you! are they a thief?

that’s literally me, i use it to archive my art so i can find stuff easier without having to hunt through my tag. also available for people who just want to see my art n not my other posts

-when is your birthday?

february 6th!

-what is your sexuality?

gay. i like men.

-how long does it take you to draw?

idk like. awhile? sometimes 45 minutes sometimes four hours sometimes a week. 

-can i draw you/your ocs?

of course! pls show me after it would make me very happy !!!!! 

-favourite band/singer/musician?

i don’t know a damn thing about myself here’s a spotify playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Zk5o5g7nMnGt0vrJVEcDq?si=7cd248a0b64046ee

-will you do art for cheap/free?

nah. art is currently the only job/income i have, if ur interested in commissioning me you can either find my prices on like, any of my pages, but if not ur more than welcome to email me @ zacharyjackbaron@gmail.com and i can give you prices there !! -(venting or something involving abuse, suicidal thoughts, self harm, bullying, eating disorders, or other similar things in real life situations. even in fiction i’m iffy.)

i hate to sound rude or not be of help, but please don’t send these messages to me. they send me into horrible anxiety  for several personal reasons. if you’re having such negative thoughts i implore you to speak to someone you trust without an anonymous mask, or do your best to seek help from a professional. i have my own things to worry about and as much as i’d like to help, i simply can’t.

-(asking for advice that isn’t related to art)

i would love to help but i’m not an ~all knowing source~. i can’t give you tips for school. i can’t give you tips for life. not only will i probably not know a solution for you but there’s likely a chance i’m in just as bad a situation as you/going through the same problem, as silent as i am about my personal life. also don’t use ‘asking for advice’ as an excuse to vent about things or to send me a paragraph describing in depth something listed above/that’s potentially triggering. thank you.

even if you’re looking fr art tips i’m not a great source i’m still learning, ur best bet is looking for already existing sources and reading through those bc i don’t preach the word of Art God. i’m also awful at explaining things

-why didn’t you answer my ask?

Main reason is i’m just really really bad at socializing, so it’s not anything on u. i’m almost always low on energy and when i do talk to people it wears me out really quick. i’m also just. not gr8 at talking in general so if i can’t think of a reply i tend to just leave things n then end up forgetting about them

-how do you draw [blank]?

honestly my art style is such a fucked up thing that’s so personalized to my own use i can’t do or make tutorials. the best i can do is direct you to my youtube.

-can we do an art trade?

sorry, i’ll have to say no. i’m not necessarily busy but i get stressed very easily, so i try to keep my art to either personal stuff or work ! if you would like art from me, please considering commissioning me! mutuals and friends may be the exceptions here if they catch me at a good time or we make plans well ahead to do smth when we’re both free to work on stuff

-can we be friends?

please don’t ask this. i’m awful enough at socialization as is and i just don’t fit well with most personality types. not to mention this is just overall a bad question. it backs the person being asked into a corner where they either have to say “yes” and end up in a friendship that actually isn’t working out and is maybe only good for one side bc they’re getting any and all of the benefits, and if they say “no” they look like a total dick bag and come across as an ass. don’t ask this question. it’s not how socializing works. it’s not how friendships work. thanks. -can you tag [blank]? unfortunately i’ve been a real bad place in terms of memory so i can’t tag tons and tons of things. i try and tag more general/basic things but i’m sorry i’ll have to pass on specifics. if i post or reblog things that trigger u or harm you it might be best to unfollow for ur own safety!! very sorry

if it’s specific words you’d like tagged please consider blacklisting the word itself. 

-how tall are you?

i’m 5'11".

-can you promo me?

i’d rather not, doesn’t sit well with me. if you have a commission post you want me to reblog i’m happy to! but i won’t just do text based handouts, y’know? not a fan of being used for visibility for no reason, and chances are if i do it for one person it’ll happen with hundreds of others and i don’t want my blog to turn into a free advertisement zone that just floods peoples’ feeds with promotions.

-you reblogged something from someone extremely problematic/unsafe

thank you for letting me know! tell me what it is they did, even better offer proof on it. i’ll likely delete the post and blacklist their url to hopefully prevent their name popping up on my blog in the future. i won’t publish these asks mostly to avoid discourse or in the event false information is provided. sorta just safety precaution i guess

-you’ve done something bad

again, thank you for letting me know! if i post or say something questionable please feel free to message me and i’ll try my best to address the issue and adjust accordingly. i’m aiming to grow as a person so critique is welcome, both on me and my artwork. don’t just come up and call me an asshole or a prick or something, actually point out the errors and explain why they’re wrong so i can better understand and it doesn’t just turn into a defensive round of who’s worse, because i tend to be a very defensive person.

-i think someone is stealing/reposting your art!

thank you very much for telling me! don’t message them right off the bat, come to me first and i will deal with it. i’ve dealt with this shit tons of times and it’s tiring as fuck but i’d rather repeat the same stupid civil message over and over again than start a giant calamity over something and end up with someone getting hurt. if you do get involved please stay polite about it don’t throw insults just a simple “hey this art was done by princeofmints/tv-headache/zachary jack/dirtypip/(etc my other account names) and he doesn’t want his art reposted, please take this down or add proper credit.”

-can i use your art as an icon?

sure man. only on places like instagram, tumblr, or twitter though, and proper credit in an easy to see place must be given. if a piece of art is of my ocs or especially vent art though never use it for icons. thank you.

-can i repost your art?

the answer is “no” but i know you’re going to do it anyways. easy to see credit is mandatory. if you see somebody reposting my art please let me know and i’ll talk to them. if you want to use my art in things like image edits, i don’t allow that. want to use my art in a video? if it’s something like an AMV sure fine just credit me and inform me beforehand, if it’s something like a cringe/comparison video. no. i don’t want any association with work like that whatsoever. you may not use my artwork for fanfic covers.

-can i colour/finish one of your sketches?

no. even if you don’t intend on posting it. 

-what is [insert some form of media/fandom]

https://www.google.ca/

-why do you have an entirely separate blog for your FAQ? you know you can make blog pages, right?

i’m well aware of that and originally my faq WAS set up on a blog page, but unfortunately many folks proved to be either lazy or just couldn’t figure out how to get to a blog page on mobile so i had to set it up this way for accessibility purposes.

-tons of your videos are gone, what happened to them? will they come back? can you repost them?

i set old videos on private for my own sake, i don’t like having my old content available bc it just looks old and stale and i don’t like it. there’s nothing deep about it, i just don’t want people interacting with my old stuff. as deep is it gets is i just deleted videos related to fandoms i’m sick of bc the association is fuckin annoying. these videos will not come back into public. i do keep them posted for my own reflection sake, but that’s it. don’t ask me to bring them back. don’t whine about me not putting shit back out just bc ur a little sad n gonna cry. guilting people is gross, reevaluate yourself.

if you want a song from an old video, just ask me! I’ll happily let you know what the music is in case u liked ‘em and can’t remember the titles or artists. i’ve also got a playlist full of the music i listen to so u can comb through there n see if the songs u want are there

[corneliusreignallen]

Why are brands so bad at apologizing?

Good apologies are difficult. Companies should make them anyway. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

According to a professional apologizer.

Thanks to the internet, apologies look, feel, and sound far different from how they used to. They come in formats that seem unimaginable even just a decade ago: a screenshot of a Notes app, a teary-eyed confessional on YouTube, or a long-winded tech company blog post.

In recent years, apologies and professional statements of regret have become more pervasive than ever, especially in the business world. Corporate contrition, from both high-profile and small businesses alike, is not rare inasmuch as it’s a safety blanket for brands mindful of damage control.

Dishing out a public relations-approved apology gives the impression of appearing sorry, while the company (that’s supposedly in the wrong) attempts to regain its handle on the situation by reminding customers of its values and the intent of its actions — often before the apology itself.

For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (or his public relations team) penned a 900-word statement shortly after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, yet it still took the company multiple tries (after Facebook’s stock dropped) for Zuckerberg to say: “I’m really sorry.”

Or in the case of Pepsi’s advertisement with Kendall Jenner, which received backlash for using protest imagery, the company simply said it “missed the mark” in what it was trying to portray.

In The Apology Impulse, co-author Sean O’Meara, a professional apologizer and public relations professional, argues that the corporate world has ruined the sanctity of the apology by failing to say sorry and over-apologizing. The book, which was published on October 29, examines the most egregious and effective business apologies in recent memory, from United Airlines’ passenger-dragging debacle in 2017 (and its failure to properly apologize) to Johnson & Johnson’s calm handling of a Tylenol recall in 1982.

Here, O’Meara discusses what makes an effective apology, the worst apology archetypes, and how social media has made customers demand more cultural responsibility and sensitivity from businesses — and whether or not that’s reasonable.

You outlined several archetypes in the corporate apology starter pack, like the “faux-pology” (when a company expresses limited fault) or the “passive apology” (using passive voice in a statement). In your opinion, which type is the worst and why?

That’s a tough one because I hate all of them. The worst habit an apologizer can fall into is leading with a qualifying character reference, or the Schrodinger’s apology.

Let’s say there’s been a privacy hack with a company and one of the first things addressed in its corporate statement is, “We take the protection of consumer data very seriously.” As a customer, you know there’s a “but” coming in the apology. It assumes that the people you’re giving the apology to are stupid. If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues.

“If you’re going to apologize, if you fail, you don’t get to speak to your own virtues”

That adds insult to injury. If you’re apologizing, you’re conceding that you failed. If you’re conceding that you’ve failed, it’s just not the time to give yourself a character reference and say, “Hey. We’re great 99 percent of the time. We messed up here.” If the customer is the 1 percent — if you’re that person that’s really unlucky — that’s going to make them feel worse because they’re like, “Okay. I’m the person that suffered from this rare and exceptional failure, as you put it. That gives me no comfort whatsoever.”

In one chapter, you outlined how it took three of the world’s biggest brands — United Airlines, Facebook, and Papa John’s — three tries each to apologize correctly. These apologies were mostly triggered by a financial loss or a drop in stock prices. Do you think most corporate apologies require a financial incentive?

The short answer is yes. A company’s finances and investor confidence really play a part. With a lot of the high-profile apologies in the book, I suspected some companies were evasive because they were trying to avoid litigation. That’s a myth. Some people believe that saying sorry invites litigation because it’s an admission of guilt. It’s been proven not to be true, particularly in studies on the United States’ health care sector.

It actually lowers the chances of litigation if you apologize. It’s kind of like a game of chicken where a company doesn’t want to say sorry because it doesn’t want to get sued, but it also doesn’t want its stock price to keep tanking. Whichever one becomes more severe first — if the stock price keeps going down, executives lean toward saying sorry versus risking a lawsuit. It does get complicated in that scenario.

Does a proper apology necessarily have to include the phrase “I’m sorry” or could action be more effective to consumers than a statement itself?

I used to think no, but I changed my mind when I was writing the book. I used to think you had to say sorry, but how Johnson & Johnson responded to customers getting poisoned through Tylenol proved me wrong here. The CEO came up with a solution, and he went on TV to deliver that message. The company took a huge financial hit, but they definitely saved lives by quickly enacting a solution.

With that level of action — and I’m not expecting every organization to be able to do this — that was as good as saying sorry. Tylenol didn’t technically owe anybody an apology, but they were sorry because of what happened. Instead of putting out a press release or going on an apology tour, they poured all their energy into fixing the problem, innovating and protecting their customers. So brands can deliver contrition without using the s-word.

In the book, you write that apologies are costly. Why is that, and what are the financial effects?

There’s the obvious cost of promoting an apology to make sure that people get the message. That can be anything up to the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think Uber’s apology campaign was the most expensive one we documented at $500 million.

Then there’s the cost of being sorry. If you imagine an organization that has been criticized for, let’s say, a marketing campaign that people didn’t like or found offensive.

If the company apologizes, it has to presumably scrap that campaign and the creative that goes with it. For example, Dove had a campaign with women taking off their sweaters. As the first woman took her sweater off, the next model in the shop appeared. The way it was edited, it appeared like a black model took off her sweater for a white model to appear. The implication that people took from that was Dove implied that using its products will make you whiter.

I don’t think that’s what Dove intended, but that’s how it looked from a certain angle. Dove had to end that campaign and obviously replace it. You can’t just leave a vacuum where you’re not advertising. There’s the cost of replacing the creative or withdrawing a product, and then there is the extra cost to the organization of being vigilant.

One thing organizations don’t realize is once you say sorry, you’re on notice. Consumers are hyper-vigilant to what you do next. All that extra care, all that extra market testing, focus groups, that all goes into the budget of what it costs to be sorry as an organization.

Can brands ever really issue an apology that feels real and human?

It is rare, but it can be done. I think when you see these apologies, which are usually a social media post or use very vague language, a brand will just pop that out on the internet and they’ve apologized. That, to me, isn’t genuine regret. That is public relations.

JetBlue had a great example of a proper apology when there was a massive snowstorm in 2007. There was bad planning and the airline ended up having to cancel hundreds of flights so thousands of customers were affected.

CEO David Neeleman didn’t immediately apologize. He looked at how JetBlue failed and then made a YouTube video. I’m pretty sure it was the first high-profile corporate apology via social media. If you watch it, you’ll notice that David Neeleman, he’s not a natural publicist. He’s very much a businesslike CEO. He’s sitting in his office and he’s talking to camera and it’s not slick, but it’s authentic in the right way.

Brands go for authenticity and they pay millions of dollars to emulate authenticity. This was real authenticity. This was a guy who was not overly sorry. He was explaining what consumers can expect when his company failed again. He didn’t say if we fail again. He acknowledged that he’s running an airline and there are a lot of moving parts. There will be a future where JetBlue has to cancel flights and people are inconvenienced.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

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[ulltrasilence]

The best On the net Mobile Cellphone Servicing System To become A Expert

Chorus from retaining your cell phone on to get a extended period of time when your indicators are weak. This usually will get rid of your battery, leaving you might no juice whenever you need to have it most. Consider to take your mobile phone phone calls in destinations where your indicators are certainly powerful to avoid wasting battery.

Test not to accept updates that happen to be more than the air or apps that should have a ton of memory from a cellular phone. This can reduce its general performance in the long term and decrease the processing energy that it has. Be certain that you merely add what you will need on your mobile phone to conserve memory.

When looking for a cell cell phone, contemplate the characteristics you really need. Telephones supply a good deal of options in today's current market, which include Internet entry, cameras and also the capacity to perform various apps. While all these capabilities are pleasant, it'd not be worthy of paying out with the costliest cell phone if you is not going to utilize them. Think twice prior to making your last variety.

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From time to time signing a longer term agreement is worth it to acquire the mobile phone you need. Some vendors will supply the ideal rates should you be inclined to indicator on for their assistance for just a 12 months or two. Just ensure that you might be inclined to decide to the contract, simply because ending the time period early can charge lots in penalties.

Test to limit the quantity of online video that you just watch in excess of the world wide web over the system with the day. Video clip will wipe out your GB allowance since it is normally streaming and demands lots of information to run. When you are observing YouTube videos frequently throughout the day, chances are you'll desire to opt for limitless details.

Just about every couple of times restart your mobile phone, especially if it is a good cellular phone. You may not recognize it, but you are carrying all-around a miniature laptop or computer within your pocket. These desktops take in up memory after some time, which may result in poor overall performance. All you have to do is restart your mobile phone to acquire memory back into perform.

To increase the battery existence of one's cellphone, make sure that applications aren't working within the history whatsoever times. Some apps will go on to operate except if you disable them, which can drain your battery rapidly. Verify your options to see whatever you want to do in an effort to switch these applications off and make your battery past more time.

Make sure to consider information minutes when signing up for your cell cell phone system. Some programs have very restricted minutes, which can convert right into a poor offer when you use your telephone to accessibility the online world or engage in games usually. In case your phone is effective at executing these items, have the most from it by paying for a plan that supports sufficient use.

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Very careful about seeing movie when you find yourself applying 4G or LTE sign. Your cell mobile phone prepare most likely comes with a data allowance with the thirty day period. Online video rips all the way through this allowance, so that you may perhaps conclude up being billed extra somewhat rapidly. Should you find yourself typically going above, you could possibly wish to look into a different system.

Test not to make use of your cell cellular phone in spots that have weak or no signal. Phones will use a lot more power wanting to obtain weaker alerts. It doesn't issue whether you are utilizing the cell phone or not. Just leaving it on in these parts can absolutely drain your cell phone's battery existence inside some hours.

Beware of spots with inadequate mobile phone reception. A foul signal is not really just frustrating, it's also an actual drain in your battery. Even when you happen to be not making use of your mobile phone, possessing it turned on within an location that receives lousy cell mobile phone reception can drain your battery wholly.

If you are paying for a cell cell phone inside the retail store, guantee that you have your money's well worth by haggling together with the dealer. This doesn't do the job each of the time, but usually you'll get discount rates that you can use in your telephone or for applications that utilize on your mobile phone.

Does one uncover your cell mobile phone battery dying really promptly? If so, it might be that you are possessing a weak signal. Believe it or not, a weak signal can drain a battery. If you find yourself not using your cellphone, tend not to keep it wherever you don't have got a signal, this sort of to be a drawer or closet.

Be extremely very careful relating to prolonged warranties. These additional expenditures are generally just that and almost nothing more. If a cell cellular phone is going to fall short, it commonly transpires while in the initially 12 months that is commonly protected via the simple guarantee. Furthermore, lots of people go for new cellular phones each year, so the prolonged guarantee is then surely not worthy of your time and efforts.

If you are utilizing the Web from a cell mobile phone, you'll want to take into consideration setting up application to safeguard you from viruses. Many individuals don't know this, however, you might have hackers entry your cellphone the same way they'd do to your pc. You could find plenty of no cost downloadable software program on the web that can help you battle this concern.

Give your telephone a reboot each one or two days. When you are consistently applying characteristics on your own cell phone these types of as applications, e mail and browsers, your mobile phone is storing cached facts. Substantially of this info is needless and will be purged through a reboot. This may totally free up procedure methods and very clear prospective glitches.

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Look at shopping for the coverage in your mobile mobile phone. This tends to prevent revenue in the long run. Should your cellphone is broken, stolen or in any way broken, you'll no more have the ability to use it normally. This will likely call for you to get a new telephone, and that can charge hundreds. Insurance will allow you to purchase a brand new mobile phone for a discounted value, and that can be well well worth the every month expense.

Be sure to restart your mobile cellular phone every single other working day. That is specially significant in case you have a smartphone. Just as a pc, mobile devices require for being restarted to fix glitches and purge memory. When you neglect to restart it just about every other working day, you may begin to encounter troubles.

[theextraspoon]

Your favorite hemp brands and companies may go missing from Facebook! However, can Facebook really be used as a place to obtain honest unbiased information anymore? It would seem if you have a differing opinion you better not say it, less you risk your social media, payment processors and entire existence online be taken from you.

Youtubers of all shapes and sizes have been falling risk to censorship lately. Since the recent deplatforming of TheRalphRetort (now located at stream.me) and their #1 late night show the #Killstream, twitter has been a mess of deep dives and deletion with the assumption that only one side would face censorship, but as we all knew would happen, that isn't the case. Now creators like MumkeyJones have been removed from the platform for his dark humor surrounding killer Elliot Rodger, which leaves creators questioning how can someone just delete history? Mumkey  had two channels deleted from the platform, the final nail in his coffin being a private, never before seen video.This leaves many with concerns and nowhere to place them. What is grounds for censorship? How can we prevent ourselves from being completely deleted across social media platforms simply for disagreeing with or posing an opposing opinion of someone with a bigger voice?

It's been said as a private platform, Youtube can do whatever they'd like.in terms of censorship. However if Google runs the ads all across the internet, how would their censorship be considered a fair practice under federal law? It's been said "if you don't like it, create your own platform."

Okay, even if the mass of the internet came together to collect the funds needed to host the space needed for an unlimited upload platform, it doesn't automatically compare. For example, creators don't get seen unless you already know about them and businesses have no one else to advertise to.

The best way to explain this concept is to imagine Youtube as an island. If you don't like the rules of their island, you can leave and buy your own island. 

Okay, but islands are expensive and even if I buy my own island, I'm still alone on my island. I don't need an island, I just want a banner on that island because all of the people are already on that island. If you burn my banner and kick me off the island, that isn't fair, because I can't talk to those people on that island... even if they want to hear me.

Natural Healthy CBD has been warning others about the impending censorship since last year when their payment processor was shut down and their youtube deleted. They knew it was only time before it would begin happening to others but luckily, people have begun to notice the island starting itself on fire.

Natural Healthy CBD (@CBDHealthy on twitter) has always been a compete together not against each other platform. If you are a hardworking, lab tested CBD hemp provider they will allow you a chance to sell with their platform with proper lab testing, which can be rather lucrative,  which is why they're often partnered and silenced first. Platforms find concern with businesses that stand for free speech, especially those as connected with as many influencers, celebrities, and businesses as Natural Healthy. That said, now that their facebook and their brand Hemperpedic's facebook has been deleted along with their main instagram, which means it's about to happen to all of us again. 

Sadly it's been happening as seen in this article on the Free Thought Project:

Because government is the antithesis to freedom, industrial hemp has been banned nationwide since 1937 ostensibly due to the plant’s similarities to marijuana. Many have speculated that this move was also due to the fact that cannabis is in direct competition with the pharmaceutical industry by providing far safer alternative treatments as wel. However, all this changed this month after President Donald Trump signed the Agriculture Improvement act of 2018, legalizing industrial hemp on a national scale.

Industrial hemp is once again legal in all 50 states but its legalization has set off a new disturbing trend. In a move that appears to be a give away to big pharma, Facebook has begun banning hemp pages.

Just as the farm bill was passed by the House and Senate earlier this month, the page for hemp grower “Franny’s Farmacy” was banned.

“We had that up for about the first month, got a few thousand followers, it was great, it was really driving sales, then it disappeared,” co-owner Franny Tacy said.

The reason Facebook gave them for banning their hemp page was utterly bogus too. The social media giant claimed that Franny was “Promoting the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals.”

“Being an ex-pharmaceutical rep, there is no way we posted anything that violates Facebook’s terms of service,” says Tacy. “We make no claims, we make no recommendations … but we do use the words hemp and CBD and those seem to be becoming trigger words as well.”

Days after being banned, Franny started a new page which began amassing new followers, but after just four days, it was taken down too. This time, Facebook accused Franny and Jeff Tacy of “encouraging drug use.” They sell no drugs whatsoever.

But Franny’s hemp page was not the only victim to Facebook’s give away to the pharmaceutical industry in the name of suppressing the legal sale of hemp. This week, the page for the Carolina Hemp Company was also unpublished. they were given the exact same reason: “promoting the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals.”

Page admin Brian Bullman noted that they have never made any claims which could be interpreted as such. What’s more is the fact that they are a hemp company — not a pharmaceutical company — and they sell no pharmaceuticals at all.

“The stated reason should be of concern,” Bullman wrote. “Our curators do an exceptional job of making sure our content is clean and void of claims. CHC also tends to sell mostly non-isolate products not only due to the superior performance, but also to avoid the possibility of infringing on a pharmaceutical model under the current unfolding conditions as stated by the FDA’S non-binding statement/interpretation.”

Highlighting the sheer insanity of Facebook’s bogus claims is the fact that pages like Pfizer — who actually do promote the use of dangerous pharmaceuticals — are still thriving. For those who may be unaware, Pfizer is the company behind the drug Chantix (prescribed to people to quit smoking) which has been shown by the FDA to have caused thousands of serious injuries and dozens of deaths. Meanwhile, no one in the history of cannabis has ever died from its use.

But Pfizer’s ability to promote deadly drugs on Facebook’s platform — while those who promote hemp are banned — should come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention. As TFTP reported in October, after we were banned, Facebook joined with the Atlantic Council which is directly funded and made up of groups tied to the pharmaceutical industry as well as the military industrial complex, and even government itself.

In fact, Pfizer’s Director for Advocacy and Professional Relations, Mia Masten, is a member.

As Facebook continues to crackdown on folks who promote peace, healthy lifestyles, and sustainable alternatives to deadly medicines, they are showing their true colors — as well as their true masters. To those who don’t know how deep the Atlantic Council’s tentacles reach into all things tyranny, war, and corporatocracy, below is an eye opening short video that explains it.

As TFTP previously reported, in May, after Americans were successfully whipped into a tizzy of Russian hacking and meddling, along with the fake news hysteria, the Americans begging for censorship craze came to a head when Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council.

Facebook announced that it partnered with the arm of the council, known as the Digital Forensic Research Lab that was brought on to help the social media behemoth with “real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.”

Apparently, Free Thought Project was one of those threats and now the hemp industry is too.

Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council, so what, right? They can do whatever they want and hire outside third parties to help them police the platform they own, right? Yes, this is correct. However, the Atlantic Council is funded by government which makes this move especially insidious.

The Atlantic Council is the group that NATO uses to whitewash wars and foster hatred toward Russia, which in turn allows them to continue to justify themselves. It’s funded by arms manufacturers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. It is also funded by billionaire oligarchs like the Ukraine’s Victor Pinchuk and Saudi billionaire Bahaa Hariri.

The list goes on. The highly unethical HSBC group — who has been caught numerous times laundering money for cartels and terrorists — is listed as one of their top donors. They are also funded by the pharmaceutical industry, Google, the United States, the US Army, and the Airforce.

The “think tank” Facebook partnered with to make decisions on who they censor is directly funded by multiple state actors — including the United States — which voids any and all claims that Facebook is a wholly “private actor.”

Daniel McAdams@DanielLMcAdams

Oct 12, 2018

Replying to @caitoz @InmanAlex

The entity that is making censorship decisions for Facebook, as publicly announced, is the Atlantic Council, a partly US government-funded entity. At what point will the extremely tight ties between these companies and the US government end the "they are private" argument?

Daniel McAdams@DanielLMcAdams

Is this a private entity? pic.twitter.com/5oGABYjMqz

197

7:26 AM - Oct 12, 2018

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It gets worse.

The Atlantic Council wields massive influence over mainstream media too, which is why when this partnership was announced, no one in the mainstream press pointed it out as the Orwellian idea that it is. Instead, headlines such as “US think tank’s tiny lab helps Facebook battle fake social media(Reuters)” and “Facebook partners with Atlantic Council to improve election security (The Hill)” were put out to spin the fact that a NATO propaganda arm is now censoring the information Americans see on Facebook.

They have even been caught engaging in the creation of actual fake news and no one in the mainstream has called them out on it.

As Bryan MacDonald so aptly noted, some of the stuff the Atlantic Council itself gets away with serves to show its power over the mainstream media. For instance, when Ben Nimmo, a one-time NATO press officer, and Atlantic Council board member, himself ludicrously insisted grammar mistakes were “proof” that social media users critical of NATO were paid Kremlin trolls, and later when he smeared a British man by labeling him a Russian bot, the popular press didn’t bother to question whether he was a fit and proper person for Facebook to engage as a censor. Even after the victim appeared on Sky News to prove he was a real person. Thus, what should have been a warning of the dangers of DFR Lab was essentially ignored.

At the time, Nimmo, instead of apologizing, wrote “interesting to see the real face of Ian56789, rather than the David Gandy one, at last (referring to his Twitter avatar). Not a troll factory account. Rather, a pro-Kremlin troll(definition based on [sic&91; use of someone else’s picture, systematic use of Kremlin narratives, and repetitive abusive behaviour),”

WikiLeaks was the sole voice of reason, and challenged the lobbyist. “You literally produced, with money from weapons companies and dictatorships, a fake news story that spread all over the world, defaming a very British retiree, who wants to reduce arms company profits, as a Kremlin bot,” they wrote. “So who’s the paid troll?”

Ben Nimmo✔@benimmo

Apr 20, 2018

Interesting to see the real face of Ian56789, rather than the David Gandy one, at last. Not a troll factory account. Rather, a pro-Kremlin troll (definition based on use of someone else's picture, systematic use of Kremlin narratives, and repetitive abusive behaviour).

WikiLeaks✔@wikileaks

You literally produced, with money from weapons companies and dictatorships, a fake news story that spread all over the world, defaming a very British retiree, who wants to reduce arms company profits, as a Kremlin bot. So who's the paid troll?

2,319

4:31 AM - Apr 21, 2018

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This is the group Facebook is now taking direction from in regard to who is allowed to post information on their platform. The Atlantic Council has been proven to create fake news to slander people who have an antiwar stance in an effort to keep their pro-war weapons companies in the black. It is utter insanity. However, in today’s information war, it is to be expected.

However, unless we fight back in the form of sharing information deemed “wrong think” by the censors, this problem will only continue to get worse. We must continue to alert our fellow humans to this censorship before it becomes the norm. We must use this recent purge as our Streisand moment and turn this massive and blatant act of censorship around as a tool to expose the tyrants behind it.

So we pose the question to you... are you scared yet? Is it time to work together? Hemp Hookahzzz and CBDinstead think so. They've used this opportunity to show what the community is made of by joining Natural Healthy to spread the news to their fellow hemp accounts. Now THAT is what the media should be made of!

Do you believe in free thought and speech? SHARE THIS ARTICLE!

via Natural Healthy: Latest News

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Play Wolverine Journey Manufacturing facility Game Online.

If you're dealing with over-productivity recently, the iTunes Application Store has your extremely addicting, time eliminating cure - simply tons a few games onto your apple iphone or iPod touch as well as employ late in the early morning! However allow's now make use of an adjective that expects a verb: Johnny is assertive. You will always have the ability to play your preferred video games on Kongregate. I just entered into Youtube streaming video games myself and it is a lot of fun! ArmorGames has a very developed forum with effective moderators. It's not a real straight replacement for 'addicting' which is an adjective. Possibly you're seek even more activity, and in that instance, Mortal Kombat X is an exceptional gallery competitor to play. I would certainly like to go back, and recognize what I do now, as well as hire a correct group and really make an appropriate company out of AG. Gamers will have the ability to construct their team of 3, with each personality having their very own one-of-a-kind capacities and abilities. If you 're craving usable activity video games, you have actually concerned the best area. Gamers will be able to enhance their War-Mech battle matches with a greatly detailed skills system never ever prior to seen in an iPhone video game. Actually, the topic, possibly of their own subconscious will, comes to be addicted to a things. Stocked each day with new cost-free games, consisting of activity video games, experience video games, board & card video games, multiplayer video games, puzzle games, competing games, skill games, sporting activities video games, as well as much more addictive games. That would certainly expand out to something like X is extremely addicting individuals", makings no feeling whatsoever. To play the evil one's advocate, Addicting Gamings does have a little more of an informal feeling to it. A great deal of the video games that obtain launched on AG are either more difficult, quicker paced, or have a steeper understanding curve & cater more to people that play a lot of video games. Promoted as one of the largest open-world third-person action role-playing games on the market, this bombastic title is one with which players must expect to invest at the very least 100 hours. about this game Just the English language permits fantastic understanding and approval of a little wrong use which at some point ends up being approved. I will certainly respond to the inquiry in relation to Flash & web games generally. After that this cost-free video game of the prominent True Make Up series is specifically just what you need! I had no suggestion laid-back video games would get so big, and also with just what I recognize today I believe I could have done something actually fascinating with AG. In run 3 you will certainly find new games mechanics like falling apart floor tiles, ramps, darkness, ability to come back a tunnel after jumping out as well as a lot more. In the various other examples - They were all habit forming individuals" and also ... widespread lack of knowledge of the habit forming mentality" - Addictive individuals" should imply people who you end up being addicted to" and habit forming way of thinking" must suggest a mentality that you come to be addicted to"! Heck, Sim City was addictive before the video game even began!