#mostly by keeping important features central

[dinoserious]

nudder comm of this guy

[violetwolfraven]

You know what maybe I’m just tired and feeling the existential dread of growing up, but actually my small, petty hill to die on is that I don’t think I will ever forgive Disney for abandoning the fairies franchise. I cannot even properly express what those movies were to me as a kid. They very well may have been my first hyperfixation. But come on beyond the sentimental value, those movies:

Encouraged kids to take an interest in nature and be nice to plants and animals.

Depicted a (mostly female) friend group that spent virtually every scene they had together onscreen building each other up and supporting each other.

Featured a female lead who is essentially a mechanical engineer, and is not treated as any less magical or important for it than her friends who can magically make flowers grow or bend light (except for the first movie wherein her feeling less magical and important is the central conflict).

Gave said female lead a “love interest,” I say in quotations because while they are definitely implied to have romantic feelings for each other, he is never called anything other than her best friend and the two of them ending up together is never treated as an urgent priority. Their friendship is incredibly important to both of them, but no one acts like it’s a problem that they’re just friends for now.

Redeemed the mean girl pretty damn successfully (in my opinion), Vidia never apologizes for most of her actions onscreen, but she does realize when she’s gone too far and makes an effort to fix her mistakes, and from that point on she is integrated into the friend group who, as I mentioned before, spend 90% of their screen time uplifting each other.

In The Lost Treasure, let Tink’s temper have consequences, a good lesson for kids in not taking their friends for granted and treating them kindly, but also teaching respect for boundaries and personal space through Terrence’s end.

In Secret of the Wings, demonstrated that sometimes rules are there for safety reasons, but you can try to think of a creative solution to do what you want while still keeping things safe for everyone.

In Legend of the Neverbeast (admittedly not the greatest movie in the series), depicted the fairies having to say goodbye to an animal companion permanently, something most kids will probably experience at some point.

Inspired a banger of an online game and several banger songs.

And what has Disney done with this franchise they spent 7 years on (longer if you count the books)?

Allowed a massive decline in quality on the last movie made (Legend of the Neverbeast) and then acted shocked when it didn’t do as well as the previous ones.

Cancelled all fairy projects after that.

Shut down the game in 2013.

Made a bunch of the songs from the soundtracks seemingly disappear off the face of the earth.

I know it doesn’t make the top 100 shitty things Disney has done, probably not even the top 1000, but I am still extremely salty about it, even though it’s been almost 10 years.

[bylerlipglances]

STRANGER THINGS and D&D

Time Magazine Special Edition: 50 years of D&D(2024)

I've highlighted the important details, skip the rest...

Who is Vecna?

So I googled each of them. since s4 pulled from DnD lore, I wouldn’t be shocked if Duffers have more cooked up for s5. (Chris Perkins, the game design architect of D&D, mentioned his favorite villains, which Stranger Things could borrow from)

Vecna – The Whispered One

A former mortal wizard-turned-lich-turned-god of secrets, undeath, and forbidden knowledge.

He ascended to godhood by betraying his own most loyal servant (Kas the Bloody-Handed) and embodies the danger of unchecked ambition and hoarding of knowledge.

Skeleton hand, glowing eye because that's all that's left of him in most stories (the Hand and Eye of Vecna are legendary artifacts).

Cold, calculating, god of necromancy and secrets.

Wants to become the sole deity, ruling over a world of silence, fear, and undeath.

Expect whispers, cults, undead legions, and paranoia-fueled puzzles.

Strahd von Zarovich – The Dark Lord of Barovia

The first vampire, and ruler of the misty, cursed realm of Barovia.

Brooding, elegant, tragic villain.

Obsessed with Tatyana, a woman who keeps being reborn and rejecting him.

He’s a master manipulator, necromancer, and a vampire overlord who controls an entire demiplane (Barovia)

Central villain of Curse of Strahd, one of D&D’s most famous adventures.

He plays with the party before he kills them and death is never the end in Barovia.

Lolth – The Spider Queen

The chaotic evil goddess of spiders, lies, betrayal, and drow (dark elves).

Once an elven goddess, she betrayed the elven pantheon and was cursed into her current form.

Rules over the Underdark from the Demonweb Pits.

She encourages her followers (mostly drow) to betray, backstab, and manipulate, leading to a culture of endless power struggles.

Drow clerics of Lolth are often key villains.

Her presence means webs, traps, illusions, and political sabotage.

Orcus – Demon Prince of Undeath

A demon lord of the Abyss and the patron of necromancers and undead.

Massive, bloated, goat-headed demon with bat wings, wielding the Wand of Orcus (a death-stick of god-tier power).

Wants to replace all life with undeath and conquer the multiverse.

He creates armies of undead, turns gods into 'zombies', and casually obliterates reality when he gets bored.

Even other demon lords hate him.

Epic-tier villain — usually shows up around level 20+

Themes of death cults, necromantic rituals, apocalyptic stakes.

It also features an article from the time of s2 shooting.

Part 1: Mapping D&D History

[miloscat]

[Review] Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC)

Pew-pew eye-lasers not included.

Sayonara Wild Hearts continues to be one of my favourite games, and after my annual birthday playthrough of it, I decided to check out the Swedish developer Simogo's latest game. Unlike SWH it's not a technopop thrill ride but a moody and atmospheric puzzle adventure, which it turns out is more in their wheelhouse anyway as they have three other games in their catalogue that could be described this way!

In 1963 an eclectic German artist, Lorelei Weiss, is invited to an isolated hotel in central Europe by an eccentric filmmaker. Supposedly, they are going to collaborate on a new art piece, but what you find instead is a series of riddles and locks hiding a mystery that stretches into the past and the future. As you open more doors you uncover the series of occult events that led to a tragedy, and the reasons behind the surreal happenings at the hotel.

You control Lorelei as she strolls around this cramped and obtuse place (or breaks into a light jog if she's had an espresso recently). Helpful menus keep track of documents you've seen, your inventory, and a log of questions and events; referencing these is essential, but I also found it useful to have at least one other external source of note-taking (plus photos of the screen), to cross-check solutions and maps. These menus can be a bit fiddly with the "controller" interface, since it's a one-button game; I played this on my fancy new Steam Deck and it worked well apart from this. I haven't played too many of these deep game-wide puzzle experiences, but I certainly found this easier to get along with than Myst or La Mulana.

While you navigate the hotel, certain recurring themes help to reinforce the puzzle elements: specific years and character names have importance, and there's a maze featured prominently which you explore in a few different ways. There's plenty of spatial reasoning, number, and logic puzzles which are catnip for me, apart from which the game makes sure to have references for any required knowledge like Roman numerals, Greek letters, astrology concepts, etc., so it's all self-contained. Apart from getting hung up on certain puzzles that I didn't yet have the required clues for (I needed a slight nudge every now and then), I felt good about the difficulty and the game consistently made me feel smart when I made a deductive leap or connection.

The sound design is classy and minimalist, while the look of the game is very striking, mostly monochrome except for highlighting certain things in a bright crimson for effect, especially the eponymous laser eyes. The subtly shifting textures add to the heightened mood of this eery, slightly threatening place, but notably important things are easy to spot in the game world. I should note too that the threat rarely becomes overt; outside of specific, telegraphed events there is no risk of a game over, softlock, or point of no return, and the game doesn't jumpscare you or employ disturbing imagery for shock value.

LatLE likes to play with the reality of the story in fun ways too, and not just in anachronistic plot details. At certain points you play an in-game "prototype" of the game itself on a Playstation 1-like console, complete with tank controls, fixed camera angles, and texture warping. There's also sequences that ape early graphic adventures. These diversions are very relevant and mandatory, as all clues build towards a final puzzle in a most satisfying way. Of course, there's also the occasional optional diversion like collecting figurines representing Simogo's prior games, and even Game Boy-like minigames based on them, my favourite being the LatLE action-maze game demake!

I'm glad I gave Lorelei a chance; not being an aficionado of this genre, I nevertheless had a fantastic time puzzling through this intricate mystery. I love how it balanced fantastical elements with the mundane, in an authentically grounded European setting (and a bit of tongue in cheek wryness at times). It never got overwhelming, consistently dripfeeding problems and the necessary clues and tools to solve them, all while looking damn good doing it. Also, there's a cute dog! And maths!! What more do you need?

[smallishzine]

Just a small heads up, if you include shipping you may wanna make it clear that there are ships and what ships are there. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with shipping, especially since I’ve seen people say Joel thinks it’s a bit weird to be shipped with anyone other than Lizzie (needs to be fact checked, this is just what I’m seeing in boat boys comment sections). Maybe consider making the ship stuff a separate section or just telling people in advance (pinned post, bio, anywhere clear works) that it includes shipping so those who don’t like it can walk away.

important info about the zine plz read even if you didn’t send the ask:

thank you for the heads up! We’re about to get super rambly and vaguely off topic but we promise all your points get addressed. This is actually a great opportunity to clarify, because I realized I didn’t explain myself particularly clearly, if some one does choose to include shipping, its all going to have to be subtext (as always except for shadowbeans whose alternate ship name I still refuse to use), but that is for non-canon ships. Regardless of how people feel about it, c!Joel and c!Jimmy did in fact kiss in Real Life smp, and c!Joel and c!Sausage did in fact have a child together in esmp2, so we’re not gonna rewrite events. Basically when I say shipping in the context of this zine I mean taking relationships the c!Joel had with other people and creating moments that didn’t necessarily happen but feel plausible for the characters that are able to be interpreted as romantic as well as platonic. Also, everyone’s definition of ship art is different, so the level that I was thinking is pretty mild (and btw I’d like to interject here that this is not me dissing on shipping or ship art love shipping so much that I found a ship called the relation and I never left it, but I also know that people have all sorts of comfort levels with different things so this zine is going to be dry docked but I assure you that out there on my super secret personal blog we are very much lost at sea). Like, to give some examples of what would be okay versus not okay for the zine: kissing is pretty much off limits, honestly mostly because that’s a pretty boring zine piece, there’s nothing going on except the ship, but anything where any sort of romance is up to the interpretation, such as hugging, handholding, spending time with, these are all normal things, but also this can’t be the focus of the piece. Please no one just draw like Joel and someone hugging and call it a day. Implied shipping is allowed to feature in your piece, not be the main focus of it. That’s just not an interesting zine piece. Valid art/writing, still amazing stuff keep sharing it on the internet it’s very interesting, just not in the context of this zine. Anyway, you are correct about not everyone being comfortable with that stuff, so if any piece comes off as really shippy without violating the guidelines we’ll make sure to label it correctly, but also, I should make it clear, I’m really hoping that shipping doesn’t become the focus of this zine. It is a Joel zine, so Joel should remain the focus, and any shipping would be subtextual and not central to the zine. There are many great Joel ships out there with lovely content to consume, but that’s not really the focus of this zine. Also, that aside, if Joel doesn’t want his character (because we are talking about shipping cs here. Cc!Joel is a lovely person, but this zine is going to be in-character. Also while cc!Joel should absolutely be respected in what sort of fan content he wants people making about him, his character is, well, just that: a character. Its like saying you can’t ship two characters from an animated tv show because their irl voice actors aren’t comfortable being shipped. It’s just two different things) shipped with characters who don’t belong to his wife, he should probably stop making his c! kiss all those men. And have children with them. And send them love hearts in the mail. And call them babe. If he did it in canon it’s probably safe to say we’re good having them do it in fan content. But again shipping should be an extremely small part of the zine if it’s there at all and should be subtextual enough that even people who don’t ship can still positively engage with the zine!!! If it needs a warning, it’s probably too shippy.

also all this aside if I’m handling this wrong guys I’m sorry I’m only one person and it’s really stressful trying to please everybody I promise I’m trying my best but I just wanna get together with a bunch of other people who share this strange fascination with the bean man and make art and writing about it I don’t wanna get canceled or something I promise I’m trying my best. I’m really struggling to balance my love of creating shipping fan content and realizing that not everyone is comfortable with that and it’s really difficult and stressful I just can’t we all just draw and write what makes us happy I just want this to be a fun experience and being yelled at on the internet for drawing two characters who’s ccs aren’t in an irl relationship being something other than friends is not my definition of a good time. I’m not accusing you anon of doing anything like that the ask was very respectful but I’m worried this post will prompt less polite people to come and yell at me.

-mod Dinn

[cymae-mesa]

i got an ask a while ago asking how divorcesteal has changed how i look at mcrp (if it has). i'd like to turn that back on you: has divorcesteal (or your cage experience) changed how you look at mcrp at all? how has being a divorcesteal fan been different than being a fan of other much larger SMPs?

Many answers to these questions.

Most salient today, utterly exhausted as I am from several days up late watching one more stream before bed: this is my first real experience trying to follow all of a steaming based server live. I'm a hermitcraft main and only really got invested in non-techno povs of dsmp once the story was mostly over? I think I'm too completionist to see a server producing this many hours of video a week and keep a reasonable sleep schedule... Which, given how excited i am to follow season 2, i should do something about.

Being closer to the people involved and seeing behind the curtain more (note not enough to properly understand several important povs, just more) it's interesting to really grok how contingent this style of semi-adversarial story telling is. There's several moments of chance events which utterly upended the story in a way the creators didn't intend or expect. If I'd been watching the edited youtube video, or even the livestream of a server i could see less of, these would probably have seemed like planned or at least foreseen narrative moments.

Being closer to the people involved did enable the very worst of my sadistic audience id though. I think a lot about the terrible things that could happen to pearl in a traffic series, but i don't go into twitch chat or tumblr dms talking about it to her. I guess to the extent this is a moral failing on my part there was a kind of retribution... But I'm not convinced that's how most of the creators see it.

One thing I've learned over the season and especially post season is how often my interpretation of events differs from the creator. Sometimes this is a feature of them knowing more, i only really got obsessed during the back end of the season and even then much of what happened wasn't streamed or was in a stream i missed. Sometimes it's just a normal variation in interpretation where certain symbols or connections are more obvious to different people. Sometimes it's my own demons and desires as a tragedy-goblin. This gap is less obvious when i see less from the creators.

A thing that really stood out from the cage was how easy it can be to slip into a "character" headspace without explicitly planning to? At the start of the stream i was surprised to be teleported but not especially intimidated by the fact i had been? I decided to put my gear away mostly from a sense of "if you're going to do something you may as well do it properly", not from intimidation. But before i realised it i had slipped into a headspace of feeling legitimate fear and a desire to please my captives. (Before i get concerned messages it was also easy to step out of that headspace after a drink and an irl cuddle). I've done that move before of course both on stage and in kink, but those I'd intended and planned? This was merely a thing that seemed apt. I guess this is not super centrally a mcrp thing and applies more generally, but it's interesting to experience first hand how strange social contexts can produce a strange version of yourself. And by implication how the characters you see in less formalised mcrp might be less intentional than I imagine?

(Also not strictly an answer to any of your questions, but the cage noticably changed how other people saw me, which is excellent).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Underground Empire: Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman's must-read account of "How America Weaponized the World Economy."

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

At the end of Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman's new book Underground Empire, they cite the work of John Lewis Gaddis, "preeminent historian of the Cold War," who dubbed that perilous period "The Long Peace":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840554/undergroundempire

Despite several harrowing near-misses, neither of the two hair-trigger, nuclear-tipped arsenals were ever loosed. When the Cold War ended, the world breathed a sigh of relief and set about refashioning itself, braiding together economic and social interdependencies that were supposed to make future war unthinkable. Nations that depend on one another couldn't afford to go to war, because they couldn't hurt the other without hurting themselves.

The standard account of the Cold War's "Long Peace" is that the game theorists who invented Mutually Assured Destruction set up a game where "the only way to win was not to play" (to quote the Matthew Broderick documentary War Games). The interdependency strategy of the post-Cold War, neoliberal, "flat" world was built on the same fundamentals: make war more costly than peace, victory worse than the status quo, and war would be over – if we wanted it.

But Gaddis has a different idea. Any effect Mutually Assured Destruction had on keeping fingers from pushing the buttons was downstream of a much more important factor: independence. For the most part, the US and the USSR had nonintersecting spheres of influence. Each of these spheres was self-sufficient. That meant that they didn't compete with one another for the use of the same resource or territory, and neither could put the other in check by seizing some asset they both relied on. The exceptions to this – proxy wars in Latin America and Southeast Asia – were the disastrous exceptions that proved the rule.

But the past forty years rejected this theory. From Thomas Friedman's "World Is Flat" to Fukyama's "End of History," the modern road to peace is paved with networks whose nodes can be found in every country. These networks – shipping routes, money-clearing systems, supply chains, the internet itself – weave together nearly every nation on Earth into a single web of interdependencies that make war impossible.

War, you may have noticed, has become very, very possible. Even countries with their own McDonald's franchises are willing to take up arms against one another.

That's where Farrell and Newman's book comes in. The two political scientists tell the story of how these global networks were built through accidents of history, mostly by American corporations and/or the American state. The web was built by accident, but the spider at its center was always the USA.

At various junctures since the Cold War, American presidents, spies and military leaders have noticed this web and tugged at it. A tariff here, a sanction there, then an embargo. The NSA turns the internet into a surveillance grid and a weapon of war. The SWIFT system is turned into a way to project American political goals around the world – first by blocking transactions for things the US government disfavors, then to cut off access for people who do business with people who do things that the US wants stopped.

Networks tend to centralization, to hubs. These central points are efficient, but (as we learned during the covid lockdown) brittle. One factory fails and an entire category of goods can no longer be made – anywhere. When it comes to global resiliency, these bottlenecks are are a bug; but when it comes to US foreign policy, these chokepoints are a feature.

Farrell and Newman skillfully weave a tale of individuals, powers, circumstances and forces, showing how the rise and rise of world-is-flat rah-rah globalism created a series of irresistable opportunities for "weaponized interdependence." Some players of the game wield these weapons like a scalpel; others (like Trump) use them like a club.

This is a chronicle of the dawning realization – among US power-players and their foreign adversaries, particularly in China – that the US lured its trading partners into entrusting it with financial clearing, IP enforcement, fiber landings, and other chokepoints, on the grounds that American wouldn't risk the wealth these systems generated by turning them into engines of coercion.

But then, of course, that's exactly what America did, from the War on Terror to economic sanctions on Iran, from seizing Argentinian reserves to freezing Russia's cash. Sometimes, the US did this for reasons that I sympathize with, other times, for reasons I am aghast at. But they did it, and did it, and did it.

America's adversaries (and frenemies, like the EU) have tried to build alternative "underground empires" to offset the risk of having their interdependencies weaponized (or to escape from an ongoing situation). But therein lies a conundrum: world-is-flat-ism has ended the age of indepedence. Countries really do need each other – for energy, materials, and finished goods. Independence is a long way off.

To create new interdependency networks, it's not enough for countries to agree that they don't trust America as neutral maintainer of their strategic chokepoints. They also have to agree to trust one of their own to operate those chokepoints. Lots of countries have come to mistrust US dollar-clearing and the SWIFT system – but few are willing to allow, say, China to run an alternative system that carries out settlements in Renminbi. The EU might be able to suck in some "friendly" countries for a Euro-clearing system, but would China trust them? How about Iran?

Farrell and Newman make a good case that US's position at the center of the web is a historical accident, and possibly a one-off, contingent on the ascendant post-Cold War ideology that said that markets and the interdependencies they create would neutralize the threat of handing a rival nation that much power.

Which leaves us in a world of interdependency in conflict. If Gaddis is right and the Long Peace was the result of independence, then this bodes very ill. The only thing worse than a world where no one can depend on anyone is a world where we must depend on entities that are hostile to us, and vice-versa. That way lies a widening gyre of conflict that felt eerily palpable as world events unfolded while I read this excellent, incisive book.

Political science, done right, has the power to reframe your whole understanding of events around you. Farrell and Newman set out a compelling thesis, defend it well, and tell a fascinating tale. And when they finish, they leave you with a way to make sense of things that seem senseless and terrible. This may not make those things less terrible, but at least they're comprehensible.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[plusultraetc]

I gotta know: In your Star Wars AU, what are your thoughts on what forms of Force abilities each character would favor/specialize in?

Also is it just for the villains or are some of heroes included as well?

STAR WARS AU MY BELOVED. As I was trying to answer this ask, I ended up finishing the second chapter of my fic--which I hadn't even looked at in MONTHS--so thank you so much for getting the au gears turning!!

I'm going to put this under a read more because it is. A lot.

Also, this is the exact emotion I experienced when I saw this in my inbox:

SO for context, I don't really have any plans atm to write A Big Multichapter Fic for this au--instead, I've been working on shorter fics in a series & just writing whichever parts of the story I feel like writing. So far the outline for the series consists of three fics:

1. some who dream of dawn, the completed(!!) Bakugou fic 2. end of an age, the in-progress Mic fic, which is Very Grim and therefore slow going 😭 3. the untitled Aizawa fic (the titles are taken from some of my favorite Star Wars quotes, but nothing has clicked for this one yet 🤔)

That being said, I've tried to be vague about the roles of characters who don't feature heavily in any of these fics, bc I want to be able to write something for them later should inspiration strike, and I don't want to be restricted by a throwaway line in a fic that wasn't even about them. In theory, heroes are Jedi and villains are Sith, Inquisitors, etc, but if I don't need to name someone, I try not to. Just in case. For the same reason, I've mostly been considering specific Force abilities as I need them/as I think benefits the story, which means I have fully Made Things Up when I felt it made for an interesting plotline. Mic is the best example of this, and also I Love Him, so I'll start with him!!

Yamada--Since I started with the idea that heroes = Jedi, he was one of the first characters I did any brainstorming about for the au. I actually toyed around with the idea of him being a Jedi shadow before I settled on Aizawa for Plot Reasons. ANYWHO, after Yamada was injured on a mission, he was reassigned to the Archives on Coruscant for the duration of his recovery. But I needed a reason to keep him there, so I decided that he has a talent for creating Force seals--particularly for holocrons. In canon, basically any skilled Force user can open a holocron, but I thought it would be kind of cool if there was a way to add an extra layer of security to the most important ones. Force seals are very tricky to make and very tricky to make well, but since Yamada is very good at it, he ended up getting stuck in the Archives tending to the holocrons. The bright side is that he and Aizawa got to see each other more often when Aizawa was brought back to the Temple to teach.

Aizawa--For obvious reasons, I've entertained the idea of Aizawa being very good at any kind of Force cleansing/negating, be that of objects (such as kyber crystals) or the abilities of other Force users. It's a very useful skill for a shadow to have.

Shinsou--If I ever write an au and Shinsou is not a central character, that's because my ao3 has been hacked and it's not me writing that au. That's my boy and He's A Main Character To Me. For obvious reasons again, Shinsou has a talent for the good old fashioned Jedi mind trick, but he also has a notable and very intuitive aptitude for Force immersion. That is, he's good at hiding--himself, his feelings, and his Force signature. This is relevant for Plot Reasons.

Yagi--All Might my BELOVED. A hero among the Jedi on par with Anakin 'The Hero with No Fear' Skywalker in SW canon, but without all the 'falling to the Dark Side.' He's notably Very Strong with the Force (go figure lol).

Midoriya--PSYCHOMETRY. I think Midoriya has a lot of potential Force abilities in this au (like, insight/Force sensing could serve as a replacement for Danger Sense, etc), but I always like to see if I can squeeze some kind of vague reference to the vestiges into any given au (like the psychic au!!) At first I was trying to do something with Force ghosts, but then I thought WAIT. Psychometry just feels like it fits. The whole 'seeing the past by touching something' is reminiscent of both the 'literally talking to past lives' AND his very impressive research skills & hero history knowledge in MHA canon. Idk I just think it's neat.

Bakugou--Turning Bakugou into a Jedi was... challenging. For obvious reasons. But one of the things I was Very Sure about from the start was that I wanted him to be powerful in all the ways a warrior should be powerful (think Force leaps and Force blasts and Force deflection, etc) but he Struggles with the subtler aspects of his Jedi training. He's not especially good at meditating, mind tricks, or mental links with other living beings, but before Order 66, he was at least passable at those things if only bc he worked like crazy at them. Just like. Imagine Bakugou aggressively meditating in an attempt to get better at it. That was him as a padawan.

AFO--AFO CAN SENSE SHATTERPOINTS. That's how he comes up with all of his Schemes. I hate that guy but I do love a good shatterpoint.

Dabi--So there's actually a scene in Star Wars Rebels (my beloved) where Sidious uses blue Force fire, so like. Yes. He can also use this ability as a kind of? Rope? (Sidious uses it to try to pull Ezra into a portal. What in the Forest Training Camp arc.) He is ALSO pretty good at Force immersion, which helps him hide his slow slide toward the Dark Side. Lots of rhyming in that sentence.

I thiiink that covers the majority of the characters whose Force abilities I have pretty much worked out. Obv there are others present in the au, but like I mentioned, I've been trying to keep the specifics a little vague in case I come up with something I want to include in a fic later on!!

This was an absolute delight to ramble about. Thank you again for giving me an excuse to do so!! I hope some part of this was somewhat interesting to read 😅

[samsblades]

hey mari! do you have any tips on writing drafts and organizing your writing? i feel like i'm a very messy and inconsistent writer, my ideas are all over the place and i can't really connect or interlink them

hiya lovie! hmmm i'll do my best to give some tips!! i'm not hugely systematic, though i started organizing a bit more when i started using ellipsus as my main writing platform! i highly recommend checking it out as it's far more secure and ethical than google docs! and for me, easier to organize and customize! it's also targeted towards fanfic/creative writers so they have lots of great resources. and it's free!

very long response below the cut! i tend to get carried away when asked about writing tips LOL

in terms of plain old organization, i just have one overarching folder titled "samsblades" for all my stuff for this blog. and my main document is my wips document! ellipsus has this really nice feature of drafts for a single thing all stored in the same document, which you could use in a number of ways. i'm really weird and in general, i only write one wip at a time, so i use the main "final draft" document for whatever fic i'm writing at the moment. then i use the other drafts for brainstorming, as well as the next few fics i'm going to be writing so i can brainstorm those when i don't feel like writing my current fic. this is because i mostly write requests, and i do them in chronological order, so i just know exactly which order i'm writing my wips.

one of by biggest things for me in terms of organization and writing drafts is to always keep my planning doc separate from my actual writing doc. even if i end up copy and pasting a good chunk, i work way better with them separated.

once i'm done writing a fic, i delete the planning usually to clear up space, then transfer the fic to a different document/folder where i compile all finished works. then my main wip document is fresh and open!

in terms of feeling all over the place, i recommend having a doc where you can just dump all of your ideas! i just separate mine by fandom and character, but you could also further organize by genre or expected length. but it might help to allow there to be a centralized spot for rambling or half-baked ideas, or even complicated ideas! just so you don't have to search high and wide for that one thought you had but you don't remember where you put it.

and as i'm reading your ask over and over again it feels like you're asking a bit more about the writing process itself rather that technical organization i think, so apologies lol and let me have a go at that! i do think some of the same tips apply, especially the one about having a spot for writing full on prose and another for just brainstorming, but having them side by side/connected somehow. without that outline, i tend to get lost or stuck really fast.

in general though, outside of a messy bullet point outline, i do tend to be pretty fuck it we ball with fics, especially because i primarily write blurbs and oneshots which can feel a bit more straightforward. but if i'm doing a longer fic or something like that, i try to let those connections fall into place as much as they can as i write that outline. biggest thing for me in the outline is that i can just yap without trying to make it any good writing, and i can usually go at it and have interconnecting ideas come to me as i outline.

however, this doesn't always solve everything, so sometimes you need to take some time from wip or ask a friend for advice, or really work through it on your own by asking questions to yourself. start simple with things like "how can i make this get from point a to point b" and just list every possible way you can think of, even if it doesn't make sense. you may be hit with a stroke of genius, or may need to keep asking question. "okay, this might work, but brings up another problem. how can i fix that one." take it one step at a time for sure! the bigger picture is definitely important, but sometimes you need to look at smaller things before you can get to the end product.

and if you're feeling really stuck and need even more structured organization for drafts, you can look for writing templates online that will help you. another great thing about ellipsus is that they have a ton of available templates like for scene building, overall story planning, world building, characters, aus, etc! i'm trying to take advantage of these along with my normal methods for a series i'm working on, and they do help a lot with brainstorming!

hope at least one little thing in all this blabbing helps and lmk if there was anything i didn't address that you wanted tips for or if you have any other questions! thanks for bearing with me <333

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Five

Week 29:

Film(s): Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA)

Viewing Format: Streaming Video (Amazon)

Date Watched: 2022-02-11

Rationale for Inclusion:

Late in the runtime of last week's film, The Thing From Another World (Dir. Christian Nyby, 1951, USA), as part of a monologue trying to convince his fellow occupants of the Arctic base not to destroy the carnivorous plant alien that has already drained the blood of multiple scientists and sled dogs, Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) concludes his plea for the importance of the pursuit of knowledge at all costs with, "We split the atom." At which point, one of the airmen, Lt. Eddie Dykes (James Young), cuts in with, "Yes, and that sure made the world happy, didn't it?" The sardonic quip stops Carrington cold.

In 1951, only six years had passed since the United States had deployed atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August of 1945. Whilst news of the destruction and atrocities were initially slow to spread, by the time the film takes place the scientists and airmen in The Thing no doubt knew the horrors inflicted upon Japan. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1949, and the Cold War was very much underway.

With this cultural context in place, it follows that the post-apocalyptic film would make a comeback in the 1950s. Rocketship X-M (Dir. Kurt Neumann, 1950, USA) featured a post nuclear disaster society on Mars, but this survey has not featured a film where the central narrative is built around people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world since natural disaster film Deluge (Dir. Felix E. Feist, 1933, USA). So when I encountered Five (Dir. Arch Oboler, 1951, USA) described as the "first to depict the aftermath of an Earthly atomic bomb catastrophe" whilst perusing Wikipedia's science fiction cinema list, I knew it was an essential film to view.

Five was an independent film written, directed and produced by Arch Oboler, a successful radio dramatist who followed in Orson Welles' footsteps in transitioning to filmmaking. Oboler had directed three films prior to Five, and to keep costs down on the production the cast featured relatively unknown working actors, the crew was recruited from recent University of Southern California graduates, and the primary filming location was a Frank Lloyd Wright designed guest house on Oboler's Malibu ranch.

Reactions:

With its limited cast and locations, Five is dominantly the kind of no frills character study that would become more commonplace during the 1960s. It is simply and competently made with aesthetics that may remind modern day audiences of episodes of anthology television series, like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.

As implied by the title of the film, the small cast of characters includes five people: the pregnant Roseanne Rogers (Susan Douglas Rubeš), white everyman Michael Rogin (William Phipps), the aged bank clerk Oliver P. Barnstaple (Earl Lee), black everyman Charles (Charles Lampkin), and supposedly affluent adventurer Eric (James Anderson). Roseanne's sex and Charles' race become sources of drama, mostly because Eric exhibits a behavior described decades later by sociologists as "elite panic."

Lee Clarke and Caron Chess of Rutgers University coined the term in a 2008 journal article, in which based on available research and case studies of disasters from the 1950s through 2001 they determined that the source of panic in these scenarios was not the general public devolving into a mob, but by elites, fearing that their power and wealth would be violently stripped from them by a mob. Clarke and Chess specifically identify three relationships with panic that occur during disasters: elites fearing panic, elites causing panic, and elites panicking. My introduction to this concept came via an episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards recorded during November of 2020, when amid the COVID-19 pandemic and stress around the presidential election having a reminder that the majority of people are inherently giving, caring, communal creatures was a huge comfort.

In Five, after an initially violent encounter, Michael and Roseanne band together for survival, with Oliver and Charles later joining them. They compassionately deal with Roseanne's pregnancy and Oliver's mental dissociation and decline from radiation sickness amid their limited resources. Oliver's dying request to visit the nearby ocean results in the old man having as peaceful a death as available under the circumstances, and the discovery of a man washed ashore, Eric.

The injured Eric's explanation for how he survived the atomic bombing is bizarre compared to the banality of the others' explanations, who were shielded from the blast via being in an elevator, lead-lined hospital x-ray room, and bank vault, respectively. Instead Eric was actively climbing Mount Everest alone when a blizzard stranded him. When he made it back to basecamp he found other climbers dead. On foot and via abandoned conveyances Eric had made his way back to America, encountering no other survivors along the way, just dead bodies.

Eric's journey in its entirety sounds highly unlikely, but at first only one aspect utterly defied my credulity: who climbs Mount Everest alone? Mountaineering is not a pet topic of research for me, but I know enough to know that no serious climber attempts Everest without guides, frequently members of the local Sherpa community. "What happened to his sherpa?" I demanded aloud when we got to this point in the film. "Did he eat them?"

Given that Eric is gradually revealed to be a greedy opportunist, in retrospect his story may have been nothing but lies. It seems more likely he was in the United States the entire time and leapfrogged from one pocket of resources and survivors to another until he ended up washing up on the beach. Regardless of whether he actually was a billionaire or not--and the film does nothing to disprove his account--he nevertheless has an elite mentality: trying to hoard resources (including Roseanne) to himself. 

Eric is the sociopathic evolution of the wandering rapists from Deluge, and ultimately serves the narrative role of Michael's doppelganger. Michael may have initially tried to sexually assault Roseanne, but spends the rest of the film making up for that feral moment. Eric is predatory and ends up becoming a murderer in the course of the narrative; after being banished by the others, he goes back to steal supplies and kills Charles when he is caught. Michael is spared having to also become a murderer by the reveal near the end of the film that Eric has radiation poisoning and likely does not have much time left. The film makes it clear that Michael is a good man, and deserving of being the new Adam of the post-apocalyptic world.

Roseanne earns her new Eve status in part by being the token female, and in part because she is devoted to her missing husband until she finds definitive proof that he died in the bombing. Her dedication to her husband and baby are all that is needed to qualify her as a good woman. 

Unfortunately, her newborn dies for reasons of narrative convenience. Apparently it was too much to ask for Michael to be father to a baby he did not conceive. Instead it ends with Michael and Roseanne left alone. Despite the tragedies and threat of radiation sickness lingering, Five closes conservatively and reasonably optimistically: life will go on.

Before I wrap up, I would be remiss if I did not spend more time discussing Charles. His presence is itself a progressive act, given how the casts of most mainstream films surveyed thus far have been all or mostly white. However, he is introduced in a subservient role to an old white man, and spends the remainder of his time in the narrative as a litmus test to show who is the superior white man to repopulate the world: Michael or Eric. The notion that Charles might be a candidate for Roseanne's mate is never so much as suggested. For all the indignities Charles suffers throughout Five, he at least is spared the trope frequently placed on black men of being the first to die. Overall, Charles is a minor step forward for black representation in science fiction cinema.

Five, on the other hand, is a solid first representation of the post-nuclear apocalypse narrative. Later films built on the premise, like On the Beach (Dir. Stanley Kramer, 1959) and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Dir. Ranald MacDougall, 1959), would result in better movies, but Five deserves greater attention within the sub-genre.

[grigori77]

Movies of 2024 - My Summer Rundown (Part 1)

Straight up front, I've decided not to include the Director's Cuts of Rebel Moon in here, ultimately realising I've got FAR TOO MUCH to say about the finished product to fit in either of these, so I'll be posting a complete rundown of how I feel about all that sometime in September. Instead I'm just gonna concentrate on REGULAR business right now, so ...

The Runners-Up:

20.  MYTHICA: STORMBOUND – The Kickstarter-funded D&D-inspired fantasy adventure franchise returns after the original series ended in high style with 2016’s The Godslayer, telling an enjoyably offbeat (mostly) standalone story about a disparate group of warriors trapped in a remote inn by an unseen force.  Former series star Jake Stormoen makes his feature debut as a director here, ushering the cheap-but-cheerful action in with clear love for the material, and the results leave strong potential for a fresh saga moving forward.

19.  JIM HENSON, IDEA MAN – Prepare to get hit HARD in the feels as director Ron Howard turns documentarian for this thoroughly fascinating and lovingly reverent examination of the life, career and legacy of the core creator of The Muppets, as well as one of the most important film and television visionaries to have influenced the lives and imaginations of a whole generation of proud geeks, myself included.  If this doesn’t make you cry by the end you just don’t get it …

18.  AM I OKAY? – As far as I’m concerned, any remaining debate on whether or not Dakota Johnson can actually act should be put to bed by her performance in Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne’s endearingly quirky comedy drama.  She’s simply MESMERISING as Lucy, a socially awkward LA thirtysomething who’s just come to the sudden realisation that she’s gay, floundering through her new dating life with the help of her far more confident best friend Jane (House of the Dragon and Crazy Rich Asians’ Sonoya Mizuno).

17.  ARCADIAN – This intriguingly lo-fi indie horror, starring Nicolas Cage as a father desperately trying to keep his two teenage sons (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) alive during a terrifying apocalypse in which bloodthirsty monsters come with the night, very much snuck in under the radar, but it deserves some SERIOUS recognition for its visceral thrills and unsettlingly unique creature designs, as well as impressive central performances and steady, unshowy helming from feature-debuting director Benjamin Brewer.

16.  NEW LIFE – Brand new writer-director John Rosman makes a very intimidating debut indeed with this impressively robust suspenseful pandemic horror about a desperate young woman hitchhiking her way across America, unaware that she’s the carrier of a lethal viral pathogen.  Hayley Erin (Pretty Little Liars: the Pefectionists) plays understandably paranoid to perfection, while Sonya Walger (Lost, For All Mankind) is equally magnificent as the world-weary corporate fixer sent to hunt her down.

15.  MAXXXINE – Mia Goth’s murderous porn star Maxine Minx returns in the third (but hopefully not final) instalment of prolific horror writer-director Ti West’s deliciously NASTY X Trilogy, following our viciously resourceful and ruthlessly determined young star-in-the-making as she fights tooth and nail to secure the role she knows will help her go legit and break into SERIOUS movies, all while dodging the threat of LA’s Nightstalker killer, the burgeoning Satanic Panic and her own dark past coming back to haunt her …

14.  HIT MAN – The latest cinematic offering from unapologetically unique writer-director Richard Linklater, based on a bizarre true story, might ultimately be one of his more light, airy and ultimately insubstantial films, but there’s no denying it’s also a hell of a lot of fun, Glen Powell (who also co-wrote the screenplay) clearly having a blast playing a college professor who moonlights as a fake assassin to help the New Orleans Police perform undercover stings in order to prevent potential murders-for-hire, only to fall in love with one of his marks (Good Omens’ Adria Arjona).  The end result is a wonderfully frothy screwball comedy that’s a winning laugh-riot from beginning to end.

13.  THE BIKERIDERS – Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Midnight Special, Loving), one of the most interesting and eclectic filmmakers to come out of the late 2000s’ indie scene, once again in fine form with a fascinating fictionalised take on photojournalist Danny Lyons’ photo-book chronicling the life and times of the influential Outlaws Motorcycle Club.  Tom Hardy stars as Benny, the laconic leader of the Vandals biker club and Elvis’ Austin Butler smoulders magnificently as his protégé Johnny, while Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer provides the narrative’s grounding anchor as the latter’s down-to-earth girlfriend Kathy.

12.  I SAW THE TV GLOW – Underground writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To the World’s Fair) thoroughly deserves their newfound big-time breakout into the more high-profile scene due to the runaway success of this thoroughly twisted A24 existential horror revolving around awkward teen Owen (Justice Smith), who becomes overwhelmingly obsessed with 90s YA TV series The Pink Opaque, only to see his life become increasingly unsettled after the disappearance of his closest friend Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) makes him wonder if the supposedly fictional show might actually be TRUE, and having a direct effect on his own reality …

11.  LONGLEGS – Anthony Perkins’ son Osgood, who’s been making a name for himself in the indie horror scene for a while now (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House, Gretel & Hansel), is breaking out in a major way as a filmmaker thanks to this deeply unsettling slowburn procedural mystery thriller.  Maika Monroe delivers a masterclass in subtle nuance as rookie FBI agent Lee Harker, an emerging clairvoyant whose uncannily accurate talents get her assigned to the manhunt for the titular, potentially supernatural serial killer (a virtually unrecognisable Nicolas Cage).

[raayllum]

Ok, I was thinking… Zym had less prominence these last two seasons (in s5 even Stella had more shine than him). Makes sense I guess, because this arc is called "the mystery of Aaraos", but the series is still called "the dragon prince". So… Do you think Zym is going to be a key piece for the development of the last arc? Like, do you think it's a piece of Aaravos's game or a piece to defeat him?

So while Zym is the 'central' figure in arc 1... he's effectively a macguffin, both in and outside of the egg. Like - Zym gets a small arc about fear and flying that is mostly tethered to Ezran in S2 (and carries over in 3x09) and a tiny, 2-ep arc of being scared to go see his mother (pretty much on her deathbed) in 3x08-3x09. Like, he has personality and importance, but he's mostly there to illuminate the other characters choices surrounding his existence. All of the dragons in arc 1 are, effectively, far more plot devices than characters with maybe the exception of Avizandum in 3x06 (and even then that's malleable) and possibly Sol Regem, but he exists more to be a bigoted obstacle than a character in 3x01 (save for the flashbacks).

S4 is the first season that changes this radically, featuring Zym, Zubiea, and Rex Igneous as fully realized characters. Zym has more emotional resonance as a character (his bond with Ibis, his love for his mother and Ez, his complex responses to Rex Igneous besmirching the father he'll never know, etc). While it's definitely on the back burner in S5, it's more so of a 'return to form' of the previous seasons than anything new or different in terms of prominence. After all, Zym only saves the kids once (1) in S2 as well, and he does the same thing in S5. However, Zubeia and Sol Regem keep us tethered to "having dragons as characters" element.

That said, I do think Zym's presence in the story will continue to be important - he'll likely have an arc of missing / reuniting / replacing (?) his mother next season, maybe having to look into the logistics of a draconic child king (if that's even a Thing) and some nice Ezran parallels. Aaravos also said that "the key is the dragon prince" in regards to Viren's plans for Xadia (and presumably Aaravos' initial plans for getting out) in 3x09, but it's not clear if that still holds. However, I do think that Zym plays some part in arc 2 - whether as an aspect of defeat or victory for Aaravos - simply because Zym is literally in the stars in the intro. (His existence being what Leola wished for, maybe?)

Like arc 1 was about Zym, long thought dead/gone, being returned to the world. Now Aaravos is on that same path, with his own two Katolian humans + one elf team. So Zym's still gonna be important. He'll just never be as developed as our human/elf main cast of characters, and I don't think he needs to be.

[noomyart]

FINALLY ABLE TO FILL THIS

Tagged by @ca-van & @tropical-lycan!

Are you named after anyone Nope! But I got middle name from both my dad and my mom's side, causing people to think (And sometimes argue with me???) that my first middle name is part of my first name

When was last time you cried Them onions my dude. But from emotion? I don't really pay much attention to it. I cry a lot when I have a break down, but other than that I don't really do it.

Do you have kids? Nope! Don't plan to either, I do not think I'll be a good parent. But I'd love to be "relief family / leisure family". Don't know the correct English term or if it's normal other places, but basically where you help support parents who struggle by taking care of the children for some time during the week

Do you use sarcasm a lot I do a lot with people I know will understand and purposefully use very overdramatized tone, or when writing I tYpE iN veeeeeeeery clear way to signalize that I'm currently being a goofball. I try not to do it with strangers, and tend to not do it in a way that could hurt a person directly if they don't get the sarcasm if I'm not super fucking close friends. Like "Won't somebody think of the rich" (Which at most will warrant quick explanation if someone doesn't catch the sarcasm) vs "I hate you for this" (Which can be taken very personal by whoever it is directed at, if they don't catch the sarcasm).

What sports do you play/have played Played handball back in my days. Despised it. I do pole dancing now and weight lifting

What's the first thing you notice about people I am mostly face blind, so I tend to latch onto any very defining features like scars, birth-marks, tattoos, as well as what clothes a person is currently wearing, that will help me keep track of them and recognize them again.

What's your eye color: Green with brown central heterochromia, because something had to try to cancel out the gay (It failed)

Scary movies or happy endings: I like when horror can have happy ending, too. I'm a bit bored by horror movies that always end with everyone dead Any special talents I have extremely good intrapersonal and emotional memory and can remember most of my life from age 3 and up to the same degree of things that happened last year (i.e. I don't have full hyperthymesia where I can remember every single day chronologically and remember every conversation word for word, but anything that made a small impression on me will lodge itself and I can remember it). Also I have special talent for forgetting important shit despite this.

Where were you from Small ass farm town in Denmark. Yee-haw

What are your hobbies Entomology is my special interest. Please ask me about bugs. Other than that, drawing, gaming, reading, writing, embroidery. I love cooking, too.

Do you have pets Sadly none at the moment, but I've grown up with animals almost my entire life. Hope to get a cat soon

How tall are you 160 cm!

Favorite subject in school Biology

Dream job Well on my way to my dream job of web developer. But I would have loved to be an entomologist as well. I love working with animals Tagging @oddgreyhound @gamebird @rosewind2007 @theres-no-protocol-for-this and anyone who want to do it! (You're ofc also free not to do it and just yeet my mention to the shadow realm 😂)

[britcision]

I mean listen

Listen

I love literally every single thing about this and I will be adding this to my soulcanon

But there is just one quibble:

The heart not being active is a key component of a LOT of vampire lore

They have no pulse so when you press your head tenderly to their chest you get jack shit, or sometimes an extremely slow, extremely feeble beat

(Them 1-in-100 normal beat vampires clearly have active hearts so they’re fine but like. Classic vamps? Often no heart beat as a core identifying feature)

And. Vampires are typically unable to consume any human food, not just unwilling

Also, blood isn’t especially nutrient-dense compared to other foods, but y’know what it is full of? Pre-digested nutrients fully ready to be taken directly to the organs, no further disassembly required

(Blood is mostly protein and has 7g per 100mL vs a peanut’s 26g per 100g, and peanuts also have way more fat which is vitally important because that is where the energy comes from)

Real convenient if, say… your digestive system is no longer for digesting

SO

May I propose:

The stomach has taken the place of the heart and this is another reason why they must ingest blood, because they are ALSO known for not breathing and it is so inconvenient to oxygenate all that blood when you can simply go steal someone else’s pre-oxygenated-blood

The digestive system is already majorly focused on touching as much blood as possible to get nutrients in, just a couple convenient wee ulcers and now you can pump blood directly in and out of the stomach wall and then what is your heart for?

Decoration

(And staking, which is interesting because it does almost always occur in conjunction with the heart not beating lore, so they’re not using it but it is still emotionally important? Or it’s doing Something Else)

Honestly peristalsis is all about muscles clenching in rhythm anyway all it needs is to be dialed up and suddenly the extra-diffused circulatory system (because of using many smaller arteries than just two) can also help to more centrally control blood flow, which may contribute to healing factors

Send less blood to that gaping wound, or MORE with additional platelets and replace the volume by feeding immediately and bam

This is also why vampires can’t build normal muscle or body fat, since they’re simply not taking in nutrients through any process that allows for excess storage, which is why no matter how much blood they drink or cars they yeet you see so many vampire twinks

You can maintain your existing human muscle mass, but the cancer simply is not affecting the growth of muscle cells, or every vampire would be an ever-expanding ball of muscle fit to make a bodybuilder weep

The only remaining issue is hyping up the immune system to deal with potentially keeping the cancer in check and dealing with those inconvenient blood types…

vampire who’s married to an archaeologist voice: my love, stop trying to carbon date me

[unicausnews]

Here’s find out how to file your ITR this 12 months: Read stepwise information

Here's find out how to file your ITR this 12 months: Read stepwise information Jun 24, 2025 09:38 PM IST The deadline for non-audit instances is prolonged to September 15, 2025, whereas self-assessment tax funds are due by July 31, 2025. The Income Tax Department of India has provided an Excel-based offline utility for submitting Income Tax Return-1 (Sahaj) and Income Tax Return-4 (Sugam) for the evaluation 12 months 2025-26, i.e the monetary 12 months 2024-25. 7 key factors to recollect when submitting your Income Tax Return (ITR) this 12 months.(REUTERS) Under this newly launched utility, staff, pensioners, freelancers, and small enterprise homeowners will be capable of validate their returns by making a JSON file, importing to the e-filing portal, and therefore, put together their earnings tax returns, even with out web entry. According to the official web site, this 12 months, the deadline for submitting ITR has seen an extension until Sept 15, for non-audit cases-including ITR-1 and ITR-4 filers. Put throughout by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), this changed the sooner window which allowed submissions solely until July 31, with the intention to accommodate structural adjustments and utility rollout delays. However, the deadline for paying any self-assessment tax stands on July 31, 2025. Taxpayers ought to abide by this time-frame to keep away from curiosity penalties. Filing your ITR this 12 months? Here are 7 key factors to recollect when submitting your Income Tax Return (ITR): 1. SELECT THE SUITABLE ITR FORMTaxpayers are suggested to pick the appropriate ITR type, based mostly on their current pay scales. Salaried people can be submitting their return utilizing ITR-1 (Sahaj), given their earnings is from wage, single home property, and different sources (like curiosity), totaling their earnings to no more than ₹50 lakh. If taxpayers' earnings is from capital features, international earnings or a number of family properties, they are going to be utilizing ITR-2. 2. SELECT THE APPLICABLE OPTION BETWEEN THE NEW AND OLD TAX REGIMETaxpayers should determine in the event that they should file their return underneath the previous tax regime with exemptions and deductions or the brand new regime with fewer deductions and diminished slab charges. In the case of investments in schemes just like the Public Provident Fund (PPF) or National Savings Certificate (NSC) for tax profit, they may solely be thought-about underneath the previous regime. 3. COLLECT AND CHECK ALL RELATED DOCUMENTSTaxpayers should acquire all vital paperwork like Form 16, which is given by the employer and signifies wage and TDS (Tax Deducted at Source).  Form 26AS (which exhibits the main points of all tax credit) needs to be printed and checked whether or not it embrace TDS on wage, curiosity earnings and so forth. These particulars needs to be checked and ensured that they're mirrored on Form 16. 4. USE THE NEWLY INTRODUCED OFFLINE UTILITY OR THE ONLINE PORTALSTaxpayers can use the newly launched offline utility by following the aforementioned course of or observe the beforehand used Tax2win and different on-line portals that present easy on-line one-step submitting choices for ITR-1(Sahaj) and ITR-4 (Sugam).  The on-line portals additionally pre-fill information like Form 16, guaranteeing a consumer pleasant expertise. 5. LOOK OUT FOR THE FILING DEADLINE AND CONSEQUENCES OF DELAYFor this evaluation 12 months (2025-26), there was an extension for the deadline for submitting non-audit instances, i.e for salaried people submitting ITR-1 and ITR-4 to Sept 15, 2025. Self-assessment tax cost deadline stands at 31 July 2025, after which taxpayers would possibly incur curiosity penalties and charges based mostly on the variety of days delayed. If there's an current delay in submitting ITR for earlier 12 months(s), there's a provision to file belated returns inside the previous two years utilizing ITR-U (for people who haven't filed their returns collected in use solely). Read More: https://ne

[matebizpvtltd011]

Maximizing Sales Performance with a CRM Management System

Today's competitive business era has every business concerned with peak sales performance. But how do firms automate operations, drive customer satisfaction, and end up selling more? The response is through an improved CRM Management. Matebiz Pvt. Ltd., being among the top customer management software firms, feels that the right CRM system can immensely improve a business's sales performance. 

But is it that easy, simply to adopt a CRM system into business processes? Here is how a CRM Management System can drive maximum sales performance and why companies should take advantage of its potential.

 The Role of a Human Resource Management System in Maximizing Sales Performance

Most businesses emphasize to a great extent for the purpose of fueling sales expansion but tend to overlook the fact that they also need to emphasize company processes. A Human Resource Management System (HRMS) is a software program which can indirectly assist a company's CRM initiative by having the right people on hand to execute sales methods.

A CRM Management System can be supplemented by an HRMS in the following manner:

Improved Recruitment: A good HRMS enables firms to recruit, onboard, and onboard experienced sales representatives familiar with CRM tools.

Training and Employee Development: Through improved training modules, HRMS provides adequate training of the sales force on CRM tools.

Performance Monitoring: An HRMS tool enables performance management in which the manager can see the extent to which the teams are utilizing CRM tools to optimize their productivity and sales.

The reason that both an efficient CRM Management System and an HRMS are available is that your salesmen are not only being given the best possible tools but are being given the required support to carry out their work in the best possible way. Matebiz Pvt. Ltd. understands the point that such a two-pronged approach plays a big role in improving the performance of the employees as well as sales results.

Why a CRM Management System is Needed to Boost Sales

CRM Management System can be said as not merely being a customer contact management system; it's just a game of sales performance changer. Some reasons why they happen to be mostly important are provided below: They centralize Customer Information

The management system of a CRM brings the customer data onto one platform through which salespeople can access entire customer data along with purchase history and preferences instantaneously. Using this information, they can decide and change the sales strategy appropriately so that all possibilities of getting deals closed would be maximized.

Automation of Sales Processes: These applications of CRM also make mundane tasks such as data entry, lead tracking, and follow-up reminders automatable. Thus, salespeople have scope to focus on priority tasks that directly contribute to improved sales performance, such as calls to prospects or relationship building.

Lead Management Improved: A CRM Management System enables an organization to prioritize the leads based on the level of their engagement and convertibility. It keeps track of all activities and provides instant feedback, so no lead is missed, and consequently there is a boost in conversions and sales.

Effective Communication: Sales teams must communicate with the prospects and the customers on a day-to-day basis. A CRM system supports easy communication by integrating with emails, calls, and chat functionality. Integration of features with the CRM system enables sales teams to aggregate all customer interactions in one place so that nothing is missed.

Real-Time Analytics and Reporting: The most powerful aspect of a CRM Management is that it can give real-time analysis. Salespeople can monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), monitor deal progress, and see which practices are performing best.

Data-driven decision-making provides salespeople with facts upon which to make strategic decisions, and this translates into improved results and improved performance.

The Role of Customer Relationship Management Software in Sales Improvement

Customer Relationship Management Software is an important utility in building one-to-one customer experience. The more customer-centric the relationship, the higher the likelihood of purchase. Here is how Customer Relationship Management Software will improve your sales performance:

Customer Insights and Segmentation: With Customer Relationship Management Software, businesses can divide their customer bases by demographics, behavior, or purchasing habits. It enables sales teams to create highly tailored campaigns that appeal to each segment uniquely, fueling engagement and conversions.

 Improved Customer Retention: It takes organizations much less money to hold on to their customers than it does to bring new customers aboard. Customer Relationship Management Software enables organizations to provide improved customer service by following through on contacts, quickly resolving issues, and reading previous contact notes. This creates higher levels of customer retention, repeat business, and continued sales success.

Personalized Sales Approaches: With the capacity of getting access to the rich customer information, the reps are able to dispense individualized recommendations and follow-ups on account of every single customer's need and interest. Not only is customer satisfaction improved but also chances of success in selling.

Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Customer Management Software also ensures better communication between the sales, customer support, and marketing departments. Because they can see the same customer data, Matebiz Pvt. Ltd. is sure that synchronized sales and service plans ensure smooth communication and improved overall sales performance.

Key Takeaways: How CRM Management System Drives Sales Success

In order to effectively optimize sales performance, organizations require a CRM Management System and an enabling Human Resource Management System. Below is a summary of how they help:

CRM Management collects customer data, automates procedures, and provides real-time visibility to push sales performance to its fullest. Human Resource Management System makes your salesforce properly enabled, trained, and motivated to use CRM tools to their full potential.

Final Words

Customer Management Software enables increased customer relationships, thereby retention, repeat business & additional sales. Investment in such software by organizations means they can automate, streamline efficiency, and realize maximum sales potential ultimately. Matebiz Pvt. Ltd. makes efforts to help organizations achieve the best out of their CRM system and drive their sales process toward long-term progress.