#wb is the top target

[akutasoda]

hi hi ml!!! we’ve only recently become moots but i hope you dont mind me joining your event 🫶‼️ if star rail is still open, wb boothill & aventurine !! with general domestic stuff !! specifically cooking or baking with him ;; i wonder how that would go

also thank you again for the opportunity 💕💕

a life with you

synopsis - a domestic lifestyle with them

includes - aventurine, boothill

warnings - gn!reader, domestic stuff, fluff, slight angst at the start, slight crack, teasing, wc - 675

a/n: hii ren! don't mind at all <3

aventurine ★↷

↪a domestic setting to aventurine is something to be treasured with your loved ones. he loved his family and he still does but now after all this time, the person he gets to experience domestic bliss with is you.

↪to him, being with you in that domestic style is one of the only places where he can show his weaknesses. it's just you and him so if you've made it this far with him he trusts you enough to show his most vulnerable side.

↪it would be a change of pace compared to his life as one of the stonehearts but a very welcome change. he'll let himself indulge heavily in the moments of peace with you as he knows that being with you is the closest thing he can get to being safe.

↪due to being a stoneheart, he is prone to being sent across the galaxy quite often and with you in his life he does try and get back to you as quick as possible. alot of the time he gets back late as well so doesn't encourage you to wait up for him but if you do, his heart melts so much.

↪once he gets really comfortable with you, you can start seeing him become more open and honest with his words and actions. he likes to embrace you whenever he can and sometimes catches himself unconsciously searrching for your figure even if you're right next to him.

↪maybe has some cooking or baking skills but would be extremely limited - very open to learn however and whether it's out of genuine interest or just an excuse to be with you is up in the air. very willing to help you anywhere and so cooking or baking is no exception.

↪would be a surprisingly good baker/cook. it takes him a little while to get into it but when he does he becomes very efficient. no accidents would occur when you two cook or bale together and whatever you'd make would turn out very good.

boothill ★↷

↪a galaxy ranger, a bounty hunter, a cowboy. boothill was many things, constantly moving around to chase his next target - he didn't live for himself afterall. he never settled in one area for too long and so domestic activities were irrelevant in his life.

↪he probably had a higher probability of experiencing domestic activities when he was human but definitely not as a cyborg. he just doesn't have time for such trivial things that wouldn't give him the homeliness that it would to anyone else. or so he thought.

↪you made alot of things that seemed pointless to his cold metal body worthwhile. he may not be able to feel the same feelings he used to but atleast with you he could fully convince himself that he could. so that domestic feeling becomes real to him.

↪ it's never really a dull day when boothill's around, although if you asked him he'd tone down his slight hyperactive mind. he isn't that energetic at home but he can get very loud and annoying sometimes especially when you knwo he's trying to tease you

↪he's very touchy both in and out of a private setting, sometimes tones it down if you aren't really a pda type. while he may not be able to feel you under his cold fingertips he can instead feel a comfort in knowing nobody would dare mess with you when you have him practically slumped on top of you. also is a massive bed hogger - you have to fight him for even a slither of the bed.

↪cooking probably isn't one of boothill's strong suits. whether or not he actually need to consume food is unknown - he probably doesn't but because he does have a human face he probably can still taste. however he'd gladly entertain you if you wanted cook or bake with him.

↪ absolutely no help whatsoever. most likely does not know how to cook or bake but would insist he does just to nearly set things on fire. if you really wanted him to help you probably have to distract him by telling him to hand you ingredients or stir things but then he'd insist to help - do you think he could pull up recipes in his mind?

akutasoda's 1k event

[lol-jackles]

I love your insights and agree that Jensen’s deal with Amazon seems to fit more like a actor’s holding deal. If I understand how those work, it’s where the studio pays the actor a salary for a year to hold them to try and find a role for him/her in a tv show or movie. Is that correct?

You’ve said Amazon doesn’t pay actors very well, so what is your guess to Jensen’s salary that Amazon is paying him? (Is that how he was able to afford a $10million mansion in Connecticut?)

Do those work like typical salaries (weekly/monthly) or because it was also tied to his production company, was that annual salary paid to him in an upfront sum with hopes the ackles would use the money to develop a project?

given the strike, the ackles cannot develop anything, do they have to refund any money back to amazon?

Thank you and yes, in typical holding deals the actor will receive a salary for at least one year while the studio finds a suitable project for them. Similarly, Jensen would get paid X amount of dollars for the term no matter what. He would get a check every month that comes out of the millions in his deal, this will go to pay for overhead of running Chaos Machine, including employee salaries., office space, etc. So any advanced money the Ackles received is their's to keep even if there are no project(s) for Amazon's original programming.

With that said, I highly doubt that the CMP received the typical starter $10 million for production overheads as the deal was to hire Jensen for his acting (and his fandom). Jensen may have received $1 million in retainer fee instead.

As for the Ackles' ~ investment in Connecticut, he's going to sell that house in a year or two to an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, then use the “sale” and the equity in the CT house to buy another house, just like he did with the Colorado house that was brought when he sold the Austin lake house (at half the market value) to the same trust. For example, if the Ackles put down at least 20% for the lake house, when the property’s value goes up by 20% (and it will), the Ackles have now made a 100% ROI and that’s before considering rents and tax write offs. Then when the houses like the lake house is sold for real in 10, 15, or 20 years, it will be sold at it's actual market price. It's a classic use of these types of trusts to make money by reaping the actual profit from the real sale and on top of the previous profit when the house was first sold into the trust. 

Jensen can easily never work again in his life just by living off his net worth, which I’ve speculated to be 20-25 million dollars and if he invest conservatively his net worth will double in ten years. While he's ~investing in real estates, I suspect his main source of passive income comes from investing in target-date funds, they’re a mix of stocks, bonds, and alternative assets and probably in a collection of mutual funds. If Jensen keeps to the common rule of withdrawal limit of 4%, he’ll have at least $1 million fuck-you money every year, more than enough to cover property tax and he and his family will be comfortably wealthy for the rest of their lives without working. But men need to work, hence why he pitched to WB the ideal of continuing SPN after Jared leaves.

@supernaturalconvert techically the trusts own the houses, and the people currently living at the lake house are paying rent to the "beneficiaries", which are the Ackles.

[incarnateirony]

Do you think given the praise Jensen has gotten for his music, his work on The Boys and Big Sky and how The Winchesters have been names a favorite sci fi show. That people think Jared is the successful one? Do these people still think Jared is winning. Like I’m serious, if he is still winning where are his wins and all the praise for his show and his acting or chemistry with anyone? Where are all the articles about Jared? Just wondering how you feel about this.

It's why they're trying to perform aerobics for his numbers, as are lower quality outlets. EW won't prostate to him but smaller ones like TVL that are desperate to maintain relationships are.

The funniest spin I've seen so far is them using flat rounded numbers to the tenths (0.1, 0.2) and then, rather than using the hundredths to break ties, they bring in audience size, something worth less than monopoly money. Then break out the unroundeds and it's like. Ah. Windy's highest was 0.06 but they rounded that to 0.1. Ah, Walker's running a 0.88 on the year average, even WITH it rallying "big" all the way to 0.12 for once after running 0.8 most of the year.

Then people go WELL WINCHESTERS HIT LOW because they act like context doesn't matter, like Nexstar doesn't know the only day Winchesters ranked that low was when we lost a third major center nobody else lost, and the +3 and +7 still somehow shattered Walker same week. And even with the liberal zones axed for weeks, and TW immediately recovering, TW still averages higher live and 4x in app.

Just because we want to believe a thing, doesn't make it true. I want to believe Kung Fu will survive, but its numbers are perfect mirrors of Walker, so I'm not going to hold my breath on it, even if I CAN argue "it's a later slot, of course it'll go down." That argument may also be Nexstar's, but at the end of the day, we know they're only looking for a few shows, and the top earners are AA, AAH, TW. Like, period. And all are WB/CBS coproduced to make good on their contracts.

Winchesters has been routinely hitting 0.2 in +3 and +7 its entire run. Like, actually hitting, or breaking past like 0.22. I think one week we got 0.19. Meanwhile Walker's best jog put it at 0.16 like once, 0.15 like once, and they're rounding THOSE up NOW, but kept their heads down the half of the season it would have rounded to 0.1. It's. It's embarrassing on a professional media level to watch.

This narrative may convince muggle fans it's worth watching, which is the goal of the spin. It may give idiots on twitter fodder they feel they can fight about, but it's all irrelevant data that's being jogged as LOOK, THE SHOW IS ACTUALLY OK. It does Jared no professional favors in the eyes of people that know what they're looking at, and really looks like the death rallies of a show avoiding cancellation in the perspective of the broader media sphere. If they try REAL HARD maybe they can get more 18-49 up to bring its numbers ABOVE Kung Fu average, to make it WORTH that 8P slot while KF is in 9. If they try REAL HARD they can at least get a renancel. And that's all this is. It's them trying Real Hard to not get flat cancelled by Nexstar.

What do people think Jared was pulled into Dennis' office about a month ago? Get your shit together and your numbers up, son, or it's over. I don't care what you do. We'll target our ads for it but you gotta get monetizable numbers up, end-of-story.

This doesn't even account for CW's live and digital app ad bundling. It doesn't account for the fact that Walker gets about a 5 in app and Winchesters gets like an 18-22. Or AA in the same range. Yeah, AA's gonna be more expensive, but it's running them a 0.3 some days in +7. It's doing double Walker's lives. It's literally worth like 3-4x as much as Walker and has several multiples over of funding sources. It could easily be warranted a renancel while promoting forward Homecoming. If Walker at the same age as AA thinks it can get a renancel, them trying to exclude AA from being above them is fucking comedy. Just look in the gap of ad client quality per show.

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

ok i did the gold morning MOM team-up legends. they were a lot of fun just like team-up legends always are askdjfa;sldkfjsda;lfk

Tattletale and The Simurgh 2WUB

Legendary Creature - Human Villain Avatar

Flying, Vigilance

Players play with the top card of their library revealed.

1WU: Draw a card, then put a card from your hand on top of your library.

1UB: Each player mills a card.

2/5

***

Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine 3UBR

Legendary Creature - Human Hero Villain

When Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine enter the battlefield, exile up to three target creature cards from your graveyard.

If a creature dealt damage by Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine this turn would die, exile it instead.

Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine has all abilities of all creature cards exiled with it.

4/4

***

Amy and Riley 1WBB

Legendary Creature - Human

Lifelink, Deathtouch

T: Prevent the next 2 damage that would be dealt to any target this turn.

Whenever Amy and Riley becomes tapped, you may pay WB. When you do, another target creature gains "When this creature dies, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control." until end of turn.

2/3

***

Chevalier and Ingenue 1WBR

Legendary Creature - Human Knight Hero Villain

1: Attach target Equipment you control to Chevalier and Ingenue. Activate this ability only once each turn.

You may exert Chevalier and Ingenue as it attacks. If you do, until end of turn it gets +X/+X, where X is the number of Equipment attached to it, and gains first strike, menace, and trample.

3/2

***

Skitter and Shadow Stalker 1WBG

Legendary Creature - Human Hero Villain

Menace

Whenever Skitter and Shadow Stalker deals combat damage to a player, planeswalker, or battle, you create that many 1/1 black and green Insect creature tokens.

Whenever Skitter and Shadow Stalker attacks, you may exile three cards from your graveyard. If you do, it can't be blocked this turn.

3/3

***

Saint and Defiant 3WUR

Legendary Creature - Human Construct Artificer

W, T: Destroy target artifact.

1R, T, sacrifice an artifact: Draw a card, then discard a card. Saint and Defiant deals X damage to any target, where X is the mana value of the sacrificed artifact.

2U, T: Return target artifact from a graveyard to the battlefield under your control. Activate this ability only if you control three or more artifacts.

2/5

[zhoras-bitch]

Question: How did Wolf Bride got into the Choices book Top 10 list in the app? I only heard hate and complaints about it. How did even topped "the older" Choices books which are still popular like Elementalists or It Lives.

I believe it's part of a huge global conspiracy to promote shit taste.

Ok that was a joke, if you want a serious answer than here it is. Wolf Bride and It Lives obviously has very different target audiences in mind, and I my guess is that the kind of people WB is for are not usually on tumblr. So yeah, here it might seem like WB is universally hated but I suspect if you went on twitter or insta you might see a different picture.

Also, popular doesn't necessarily mean well-liked. Hate reads are also a thing. And even if half of the people who read Wolf Bride did it for shits and giggles, they still read it, haven't they?

[my-chaos-radio]

Release: September 9, 1999

Lyrics:

Spy on me baby use satellite

Infrared to see me move through the night

Aim gonna fire shoot me right

I'm gonna like the way you fight

You know what you're

Now you found the secret code I use

To wash away my lonely blues

So I can't deny or lie cause you're

The only one to make me fly

Sexbomb Sexbomb you're a Sexbomb

You can give it to me, when I need to come along

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb

And baby you can turn me on

No don't get me wrong ain't gonna do you no harm (no)

This bomb's for lovin' and you can shoot it far

I'm your main target come and help me ignite

Love struck holding you tight.

Make me explode although you know

The route to go to sex me slow

And yes, I must react to claims of those

Who say that you are not all that.

Sexbomb Sexbomb you're a Sexbomb

You can give it to me, when I need to come along

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb

And baby you can turn me on

Sexbomb Sexbomb you're a Sexbomb

You can give it to me, when I need to come along

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb

And baby you can turn me on

You can give me more and more counting up the score

You can turn me upside down and inside out

You can make me feel the real deal

And I can give it to you any time because you're mine

Sexbomb Sexbomb you're a Sexbomb

You can give it to me, when I need to come along

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb

And baby you can turn me on

Baby you can turn me on

Sexbomb Sexbomb you're a Sexbomb

You can give it to me, when I need to come along

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb

And baby you can turn me on

Songwriter: Errol Rennalls

SongFacts:

"Sex Bomb" is a song by Welsh singer Tom Jones. Performed in collaboration with German DJ and record producer Mousse T., the song was released in 1999 in several European countries; in January of the following year, it was issued across the rest of Europe except the United Kingdom, where it was not released until May 2000. Outside the UK, the track served as the second single from Jones' 34th album, Reload, while in the UK, it served as the fourth single.

Commercially, "Sex Bomb" reached number one in France and Switzerland while becoming a top-three hit in Austria, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Wallonia. The Peppermint Disco Mix of the track contains a sample from "All American Girls" by Sister Sledge and has been used as the opening theme song of the WB Network television series Grosse Pointe. A different version appears on Mousse T.'s 2001 debut solo album, Gourmet de Funk.

[sorrowfulsoul]

Open main menu

Wikipedia

Search

Category:Unprintworthy redirects

About this page

Category Talk

Language

Watch

Edit

See also: Wikipedia:Printability

The pages in this category are redirects from names that are unsuitable for inclusion in a printed version of Wikipedia. To add a redirect to this category, place {{Rcat shell|{{R unprintworthy}}}} on the second new line (skip a line) after #REDIRECT [[Target page name]]. For more information follow the links. Never substitute redirect template(s), nor place them on soft redirects.

See also the complete list of redirect templates and the redirect style guide.

This is a maintenance category, used for maintenance of the Wikipedia project. It is not part of the encyclopedia and contains non-article pages, or groups articles by status rather than subject. Do not include this category in content categories.

This is a tracking category. It builds and maintains a list of pages primarily for the sake of the list itself. They are not part of the encyclopedia's categorization scheme.

This category is hidden on its member pages—unless the corresponding user preference (appearance → show hidden categories) is set.

These categories can be used to track, build and organize lists of pages needing "attention en masse" (for example, pages using deprecated syntax), or that may need to be edited at someone's earliest convenience.

These categories also serve to aggregate members of several lists or sub-categories into a larger, more efficient list (discriminated by classifications).

"Unprintworthy" redirects are redirect pages on Wikipedia that aid online navigation, but would have little or no value as pointers to target articles in a hard-copy book. The name of a redirect may be unprintworthy for a number of reasons, including being nearly identical to the name of the target page, containing typographical errors, or not being encyclopaedic. Redirects are not unprintworthy just because the name may be offensive to some, unless the name is also not encyclopaedic.

See also the categories Templates for unprintworthy redirects and Printworthy redirects

Contents: Top 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

# 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A Aa Ab Ac Ad Ae Af Ag Ah Ai Aj Ak Al Am An Ao Ap Aq Ar As At Au Av Aw Ax Ay Az

B Ba Bb Bc Bd Be Bf Bg Bh Bi Bj Bk Bl Bm Bn Bo Bp Bq Br Bs Bt Bu Bv Bw Bx By Bz

C Ca Cb Cc Cd Ce Cf Cg Ch Ci Cj Ck Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Cq Cr Cs Ct Cu Cv Cw Cx Cy Cz

D Da Db Dc Dd De Df Dg Dh Di Dj Dk Dl Dm Dn Do Dp Dq Dr Ds Dt Du Dv Dw Dx Dy Dz

E Ea Eb Ec Ed Ee Ef Eg Eh Ei Ej Ek El Em En Eo Ep Eq Er Es Et Eu Ev Ew Ex Ey Ez

F Fa Fb Fc Fd Fe Ff Fg Fh Fi Fj Fk Fl Fm Fn Fo Fp Fq Fr Fs Ft Fu Fv Fw Fx Fy Fz

G Ga Gb Gc Gd Ge Gf Gg Gh Gi Gj Gk Gl Gm Gn Go Gp Gq Gr Gs Gt Gu Gv Gw Gx Gy Gz

H Ha Hb Hc Hd He Hf Hg Hh Hi Hj Hk Hl Hm Hn Ho Hp Hq Hr Hs Ht Hu Hv Hw Hx Hy Hz

I Ia Ib Ic Id Ie If Ig Ih Ii Ij Ik Il Im In Io Ip Iq Ir Is It Iu Iv Iw Ix Iy Iz

J Ja Jb Jc Jd Je Jf Jg Jh Ji Jj Jk Jl Jm Jn Jo Jp Jq Jr Js Jt Ju Jv Jw Jx Jy Jz

K Ka Kb Kc Kd Ke Kf Kg Kh Ki Kj Kk Kl Km Kn Ko Kp Kq Kr Ks Kt Ku Kv Kw Kx Ky Kz

L La Lb Lc Ld Le Lf Lg Lh Li Lj Lk Ll Lm Ln Lo Lp Lq Lr Ls Lt Lu Lv Lw Lx Ly Lz

M Ma Mb Mc Md Me Mf Mg Mh Mi Mj Mk Ml Mm Mn Mo Mp Mq Mr Ms Mt Mu Mv Mw Mx My Mz

N Na Nb Nc Nd Ne Nf Ng Nh Ni Nj Nk Nl Nm Nn No Np Nq Nr Ns Nt Nu Nv Nw Nx Ny Nz

O Oa Ob Oc Od Oe Of Og Oh Oi Oj Ok Ol Om On Oo Op Oq Or Os Ot Ou Ov Ow Ox Oy Oz

P Pa Pb Pc Pd Pe Pf Pg Ph Pi Pj Pk Pl Pm Pn Po Pp Pq Pr Ps Pt Pu Pv Pw Px Py Pz

Q Qa Qb Qc Qd Qe Qf Qg Qh Qi Qj Qk Ql Qm Qn Qo Qp Qq Qr Qs Qt Qu Qv Qw Qx Qy Qz

R Ra Rb Rc Rd Re Rf Rg Rh Ri Rj Rk Rl Rm Rn Ro Rp Rq Rr Rs Rt Ru Rv Rw Rx Ry Rz

S Sa Sb Sc Sd Se Sf Sg Sh Si Sj Sk Sl Sm Sn So Sp Sq Sr Ss St Su Sv Sw Sx Sy Sz

T Ta Tb Tc Td Te Tf Tg Th Ti Tj Tk Tl Tm Tn To Tp Tq Tr Ts Tt Tu Tv Tw Tx Ty Tz

U Ua Ub Uc Ud Ue Uf Ug Uh Ui Uj Uk Ul Um Un Uo Up Uq Ur Us Ut Uu Uv Uw Ux Uy Uz

V Va Vb Vc Vd Ve Vf Vg Vh Vi Vj Vk Vl Vm Vn Vo Vp Vq Vr Vs Vt Vu Vv Vw Vx Vy Vz

W Wa Wb Wc Wd We Wf Wg Wh Wi Wj Wk Wl Wm Wn Wo Wp Wq Wr Ws Wt Wu Wv Ww Wx Wy Wz

X Xa Xb Xc Xd Xe Xf Xg Xh Xi Xj Xk Xl Xm Xn Xo Xp Xq Xr Xs Xt Xu Xv Xw Xx Xy Xz

Y Ya Yb Yc Yd Ye Yf Yg Yh Yi Yj Yk Yl Ym Yn Yo Yp Yq Yr Ys Yt Yu Yv Yw Yx Yy Yz

Z Za Zb Zc Zd Ze Zf Zg Zh Zi Zj Zk Zl Zm Zn Zo Zp Zq Zr Zs Zt Zu Zv Zw Zx Zy Zz

Subcategories

This category has the following 19 subcategories, out of 19 total.

C

Redirects from colloquial names‎ (198 P)

D

Redirects from titles with diacritics‎ (9,298 P)

Redirects from titles without diacritics‎ (3 C, 412,337 P)

Redirects from other disambiguation‎ (4 C, 12,839 P)

Redirects from predictable disambiguation‎ (510 P)

Redirects from unnecessary disambiguation‎ (2 C, 30,749 P)

Redirects of dubious utility‎ (19 P)

I

Redirects from incorrect disambiguation‎ (3,572 P)

Redirects from incorrect names‎ (5 C, 10,165 P)

L

Redirects from titles with ligatures‎ (105 P)

Redirects from titles without ligatures‎ (493 P)

M

Middle-earth redirects from redundant titles‎ (152 P)

Redirects from misspellings‎ (48,487 P)

O

Redirects from other capitalisations‎ (1 C, 407,815 P)

P

Redirects from plurals‎ (25,577 P)

Redirects to plurals‎ (2,484 P)

Redirects from US postal abbreviations‎ (42,391 P)

R

Redirects from emoji flags‎ (273 P)

S

Redirects from shortcuts‎ (1 C, 28,798 P)

Pages in category "Unprintworthy redirects"

The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 1,557,538 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.

(previous page) (next page)

ـ

۝ ֽ

­ ‌

‍ ͏



܏ ݀ ݃ ݄ ݇ ݈ ݉ ݊

ـ ҉

–

؂ ༘ ༙ ༵ ༷

༾

༿ ྂ ྃ ྆ ྇ ࿆

›

Ž



​ ׄ ׅ

؀

؁

؃

؄

؅ ؐ ؑ ؒ ؓ ؔ ؕ ؖ ؗ ؘ ؙ ؚ

؜ ۖ ۗ ۘ ۙ ۚ ۛ ۜ ۟ ۠ ۡ ۢ ۣ ۤ ۧ ۨ ۪ ۫ ۬ ۭ 𝅥

𝅦 𝅧 𝅨 𝅩

𝅭

𝅳

𝅴

𝅵

𝅶

𝅷

𝅸

𝅹

𝅺 𝅻 𝅼 𝅽 𝅾 𝅿 𝆅 𝆊 𝆋 𝆪 𝆫 𝆬 𝆭 ॑ ॒ ︡







 𝉂 𝉃 𝉄

ߺ ᩿ ⵿

𑂽

𑃍



”

’ ꙰ ꙱ ꙲

⁡

 ️ ︎ ︍ ︌ ︋ ︊ ︉ ︈ ︇ ︆ ︅ ︄ ︃ ︂ ︁ ︀

󠀁 󠀠 󠀡 󠀢 󠀣 󠀤 󠀥 󠀦 󠀧 󠀨 󠀩 󠀪 󠀫 󠀬 󠀭 󠀮 󠀯 󠀰 󠀱 󠀲 󠀳 󠀴 󠀵 󠀶 󠀷 󠀸 󠀹 󠀺 󠀻 󠀼 󠀽 󠀾 󠀿 󠁀 󠁁 󠁃 󠁄 󠁅 󠁆 󠁇 󠁈 󠁉 󠁊 󠁋 󠁌 󠁍 󠁎 󠁏 󠁟 󠁞 󠁝 󠁜 󠁛 󠁚 󠁘 󠁗 󠁖 󠁕 󠁔 󠁓 󠁒 󠁑 󠁐

(previous page) (next page)

[bidkon]

Five Challenges to Effective Cost Controls.

Cost management is the most critical portion of managing any project and any change in cost estimation directly impacts on the project schedule and scope. The accurate practice of project cost control is very important in any project in orderF to successfully attain the project goal. Advancement in technology has made a mind-set of stakeholders to complete the entire project within tight schedules and low project cost. There are a number of challenges that occur while practicing project cost control in any project.

​Following are the top five challenges that comes across for effective cost controls:

Controlling Scope Variation

​For any project, a budget is prepared beforehand and it is very common to have an inevitable variation in the scope, which leads to variation in the budget. In this scenario, it is very important for the project manager to control the changes in scope. It can be identified that only controlling the variation in scope would help the project manager to make the budget manageable. Therefore, controlling this variation in cost is due to scope variation, which is very difficult and is one of the major challenges faced for effective cost controls.

Accurate Cost Analysis

​Every project requires appropriate analysis of costs for the resources within the project. Project professionals are frustrated due to the difficulty they face in managing and maintaining cost accounting for the project. It is very important for the project professionals to implement effective cost analytical tools in order to monitor the cash flow within the project. Hiring an appropriate accountant for cost analysis is the common challenge that project professionals come across while attaining the required target.

Integrating Schedule and Cost

​Aligning the schedule and budget of the project is another difficult task that project professionals come across in cost control management. In every project, managers of Controlling and monitoring activities and managers for managing cost codes, fiscal periods, and transactions are typically different. Managers responsible for managing WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and task activities are least aware about the cost analysts who monitors the flow of cash for each activity and so, it becomes very difficult for the cost analysts or accountants to control costs for each task. Therefore, it accounts as a major challenge for project managers to control cost.

Accurate Reporting

​In every project, customers are involved in the project where customers might include stakeholders, the IT business unit, funding authorities, and many more. These customers demand regularly for accurate reports for each activity in order to check its proceedings. Sometimes, it becomes very difficult for a project manager to provide error free reports of all departments associated with the project to its customers.

Adapting Advanced Technology

​There are numerous advancement in project cost management but only an appropriate usage of this technology can lead in attaining the project’s goal. Despite all major advancements in technology, project management is afraid of adapting it correctly. This is also a common challenge to cost control management faced by many project professionals.

Cost management is the most critical portion of managing any project and any change in cost estimation directly impacts on the project schedule and scope. The accurate practice of project cost control is very important in any project in order to successfully attain the project goal. Advancement in technology has made a mind-set of stakeholders to complete the entire project within tight schedules and low project cost. There are a number of challenges that occur while practicing project cost control in any project.

Contact Info

Address Unit 3, Dynon Road, West Melbourne, VIC 3003. AUSTRALIA.

 info@bidkon.com.au  +61 430 194 637

[taiblogcomics]

Cry Havoc! And Let Slapstick the Dogs of War

Hey there, jetpack technology. We're half done this Slapstick miniseries by now! We'll be two-thirds done by the end of this one! Isn't the number six grand? Well, let's get into it~

Here's the cover:

Oh boy, this cover. One, Slapstick himself is barely integrated into it. He feels like an afterthought. If this were a larger multimedia franchise, I'd think that was his stock art down there. No, instead, we're selling this cover based on the other thing on it. That's right, furries, we're targeting you! Let's talk about that for a minute! So, obviously, the first thing the War DOGS here are parodying is GI Joe (the ninja design really sells that). That fits with the other '80s references the series has been making: Bro-Man was He-Man, the Taurs were Smurfs with a light coat of MLP. But the second thing~?

Hey, show of hands, who remembers Road Rovers~? Because I remember Road Rovers. I was super into Road Rovers as a kid. Only lasted 13 episodes, believe it or not. It was very much in the vein of the other WB shows of its era: Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid. Except it was an entirely action-focused cartoon with the same level of comedy, which is probably why it didn't last too long. Now, you could also argue it's a SWAT Kats reference, but A) the War DOGS are dogs, not cats, and 2) both are from the '90s, so it's odd either way~

Anyways, I could ramble about Road Rovers for the rest of this review, but Steve Harmon, AKA Slapstick, in an effort to cure his clowny cartoon condition, is conscripted by ARMOR to fight off other cartoons that invade our dimension. To that end, last issue he fought off the aforementioned Taurs, rescuing their lone female member, Taurette, in the process. Taking leave, Slapstick spends his time rebuilding the very portal that got him in trouble with ARMOR to begin with. And it's still getting him in trouble, as it starts shooting out beams that turn inanimate objects into very animated cartoons~

Steve's mom is upstairs remarking to her husband how she's glad Mike is visiting, she likes how he's a stabilising, grounding influence on Steve. Mike has a job, Mike has his own place, Mike isn't chasing some silly dream of being a superhero or mercenary or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Nothing strange happens when Mike's around. Of course, it's at this moment that the cartoon cup of coffee charges out from Steve's basement bedroom declaring he's "off the hizzy for shizzy". Perfectly normal events in the Harmon household~

Mrs. Harmon goes down to give her son a talking-to, during which the broom she's holding also catches one of the stray cartoonifying energy bolts and starts making lewd remarks about how she grips it. Slapstick snatches it away while his mom storms off, complaining "Richard, do you know what your son just did? He turned the broom perverted!" I feel like this issue alone, let alone this whole miniseries, could give me a top ten list of amazing out-of-context dialogue lines from comic books. We're only on page two!

Slapstick retreats back into his room, asking for a minute to think of something. Mike retorts that him thinking is what started this mess. While Slapstick's dirty laundry comes to life and begins a revolt, Mike reaches his breaking point and tries to slam the big red button on the portal device. Except… Slapstick didn't build the thing with an off switch. It only has an on switch, because he didn't want anyone turning it off while he was using it. I think that's more of the kind of thinking that got him in this mess, yeah.

He next tries to go for the plug, but the machine defends itself with another piece of equipment coming to life to protect it. Likewise, the fusebox comes to life before Slapstick can blow the power grid. This is getting out of hand--and out of room, as the cartoonification begins spreading to other appliances in the house. Such as the dishwasher turning on Mrs. Harmon. Now Slapstick's mad. It's one thing to go after him, but when you go after his family, it's too far. See, in spite of his attitude and lack of forethought and disregard of the law, he's still a decent guy under that clown costume.

While Slapstick holds back the other appliances, Mike also leaps into action. To fight a cartoon, you gotta think like a cartoon, right? So he manages to fight his way over to that on switch again, but this time he writes "OFF" over the "ON" and hits the button. And this works. That's absolutely fantastic, well done. However, it's only prevented further catastrophe, as it's shut down the portal but not reversed the transformations. ARMOR might have to come by and sort all that out. Which Slapstick is not looking forward to, in spite of his crush on that one agent.

Before they can further react, however, even more nonsense hits the fan. The War DOGS' tank materialises in Slapstick's room, and if he has a basement room big enough to hold a tank, maybe I'd be reluctant to move out too. Also, their appearance is accompanied by theme music, to Mike and Slapstick's bafflement. The War DOGS (which stands for War Defense Operations Guerrilla Squadron) start blasting, and their blue lasers have the effect of de-toonifying all the rambunctious furniture. Slapstick is unaffected, since he's been a toon too long.

With the active threat now neutralised, the War DOGS sound off. There's too many of them to go into detail (a full 12 characters with distinct designs, army roles, and dog breeds), but Rex is the leader of the bunch. And the only girl is named Crimson, because the GI Joe equivalent was Scarlett. And the ninja is named Silent-But-Deadly, in case you forgot what kind of comic this is. Rex reports that they were told by an informant that the Princess' champion may be here--and the devious enemy team Skratch may be after him. They can't let that happen.

So the War DOGS, Mike, and Slapstick all file out of the house, headed for the streets to do recon. Before Silent-But-Deadly can get in position, though, the dastardly felines of Skratch attack! They demand the surrender of the champion. And yes, they are indeed just a cat-themed version of Kobra. (That's the other reason why the War DOGS can't be SWAT Kats.) A brawl ensues, and in the midst of the fight, Mike gets hit by laserfire. Slapstick is pissed. He's tired of this "champion" nonsense, since every time it comes up, his friends and family around him just get hurt.

Slapstick takes off running, hoping to lead the fight to an empty field or something, so no random innocents will get hurt. But after a bit, he notices that, just like his Twitter account, nobody is following him. Looking back, he sees Skratch loading a captive Mike into a portal and disappearing. He begins shouting that they've got the wrong guy. Rex replies that of course that human is the champion. That's why they have to come to this dimension to find the champion in the first place. How could Slapstick be the champion? He's a toon like them!

ARMOR (including Agents Teresa, Isabel, and Taurette) shows up to corraborate Rex's story. Think about it: Mike and Slapstick were both at the football game when Bro-Man attacked. And the Taurs attacked the mall where Mike works, not the ARMOR facility where Slapstick was being held. Anyway, ARMOR is here to arrest the War DOGS for the dimension breech, but they explain they just used Slapstick's portal, getting him in trouble. But that's not important now. He'll deal with consequences later. All that's important is getting his friend back. So he ends the issue by leading a team-up of himself, ARMOR, and the War DOGS through the portal to Dimension Ecch…

I think, like last time, this issue a lot of fun. It's zany, it's silly, it's tiny, it's toony, it's all a little loony~ The solution to the over-powered portal is beautiful in its cartoon logic. And the parodies continue to remain on point, if a little one-sided leaning. Like, the Taurs were very Smurfs-coded (the names being "X Taur", the Smurfette type, the wizard antagonist, the hats) with just a bit of a My Little Pony coat of paint in their design. The War DOGS are the same way: very GI Joe parody with just a dash of Road Rovers slapped on top. Even Bro-Man is basically just He-Man with only a little Conan the Barbarian in appearance. So it's not really a parody fusion, it's a parody of one property with another property painted over it. I know they don't have time to run into the whole backstory of all these shows they're riffing on, just saying it's an odd amalgamation of things. I guess adding the second parody just makes it wackier or something. It's not bad in any way, just a thing I noticed about the choices.

Anyway, next issue, we're finally going to see the much-discussed Dimension Ecch and meet its oft-rumoured princess~

[gz8manage]

Time and Cost Based Project Management

Challenge

A small number of projects will be completed within target, time and cost budgets. Proper planning is key to project success and few issues go beyond the scope of planning. Time/cost overrun is one of them. It is true that some problems can be avoided by planning and proper execution, but you can never accurately predict what will happen to a project once it begins.

Below is a list of common challenges that lead to time/cost overruns:

1. Insufficient budget

One of the main reasons for budget overruns is insufficient budget. Failing to allocate an adequate time and cost budget to a project at the beginning of the project will obviously lead to time/cost overruns or failure.

2. Infeasible cost estimates

Cost estimation is an important process for a project and a common cause of budget overruns. If budgets are only based on feelings, or are calculated by inexperienced or unqualified personnel, projects will unexpectedly face budget overruns. This may look good in the early stages of a project, but often looks impractical in later stages.

3. Underestimate the complexity of the project

Medium to large projects often have the risk of overrunning time/cost because the larger the project, the greater the complexity that can arise during execution.

4. Extend the project schedule

If the project goes as planned, it does not mean that the project time and cost constraints are also met. On the other hand, if the project schedule is extended, this automatically translates into more time and money that needs to be invested in the project. Project delays mean more time is required to arrange people and resources.

5. Lack of a backup plan

If project management does not include a backup plan for possible problems, even the smallest delay in the plan can lead to overruns.

6. Lack of resource planning, allocation and utilization (the most common mistakes project managers make)

Resource planning, allocation and utilization are aspects most in need of technological-based support in project management. If the software used by the organization cannot match resources on demand based on the skills and available time of the talent pool, and cannot calculate (or recalculate) the load and cost of allocated resources after allocation (or reallocation) in real time, it will be difficult for the project manager to achieve appropriate resource planning, allocation and utilization.

Whatever the reason, if the project manager cannot effectively plan for the resources available, it will obviously lead to budget overruns. One of the most common mistakes that cause overruns is failing to estimate the skills and amount of resources that will be used during the project. On the one hand, they may be underestimated, or there may be resource conflicts after the project starts, but the project manager cannot handle the reallocation of resources well. On the other hand, they can be overvalued, blocking resources that could be used effectively elsewhere.

Solution

Time and cost are two common constraints businesses face while launching and managing projects, making effective oversight of these factors a skill that every project manager needs to have. When it comes to efficient project time and cost management, 8Manage PM can help you in: 1. Two-way project planning

8Manage PM WBS can break down the team’s work into manageable parts. WBS deliverables are aimed at dividing projects into manageable chunks that can be assessed and monitored, making it easier for project managers to assign and manage individual responsibilities.

8Manage PM provides top-down and bottom-up bidirectional work breakdown and planning of time, resources and costs. Each activity and deliverable in the WBS can be arranged by the project manager and the activity responsible person or the deliverable responsible person in two ways. Time, resources and costs are scheduled to avoid making plans based on feelings.

2. Create a baseline

After creating a project plan, it is important to implement baselines that can be used to track tasks and project performance. 8Manage PM s Baseline feature provides project managers with a set of stored values for projects, which include:

Original planned start and end dates

Planned workload

Estimated cost

Budgeted income

Having a baseline plan for reference helps to provide an accurate comparison between the initial plan and the actual progress of the work and the projects earned value calculation.

3. Continuously monitor time, resources and fund use

8Manage PM allows you to continuously monitor the use of time, resources and funds for project activities and deliverables. It enables you to consistently recheck the situations to provide accurate status of schedules, resource allocation and cost budget.

4. Manage scope creep and change requirements

8Manage PM supports to define deliverables and use project evaluation and review techniques such as the aforementioned WBS to allocate resources and identify critical paths. The system also provides comprehensive requirement change management. When a requirement change occurs, it will automatically calculate the time and cost impact of the project from the changes in the WBS, and remind the stakeholders of the project.

5. Monitor project progress and performance and predict the time and cost of completing the project

Monitoring project progress and performance provides project managers with indications of activity coordination issues, resource conflicts, and cost overruns. Besides monitoring project progress and performance, 8Manage PM also predicts the time and cost of project completion for the project manager, thereby enhancing his/her insight into the project.

[miloscat]

[Review] Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)

A rather grisly adventure.

After I first enjoyed War in the North with my spouse, we were anticipating what WB would do with the licence next. Sadly this next-gen effort didn’t support co-op so she lost interest; I picked it up later and am finally getting to it now, now that my next-next-gen console can play the previous next-gen games at maximum settings (although my foolish eyes couldn’t detect a difference between the “favour resolution” and “favour quality” settings). By waiting I did get a cheap package with all DLC included, so that’s cool.

Shadow of Mordor is seemingly an effort to make The Lord of the Rings more dark and gritty. You see the family of protagonist Talion brutally murdered in the first five minutes and so he teams up with the ghost of Celebrimbor in a quest of bloody, gory, graphically violent vengeance. This game generated some conversation at the time about the depiction of orcs as an inherently evil race and thus a “safe” target for indiscriminate murder; I think that by focusing on them, rendering them with more life than ever before, with hopes and fears, and steeping the protagonists in darkness in order to fight them, these issues rear their heads. In other words, the more grounded and realistic the take, the more murky the moral relativism becomes. To some extent this is exactly what they were going for, but the bottom line is I find the incessant stabbing and on-screen throat-cutting off-putting. But I digress.

So much for the tone. The gameplay is very derivative of Assassin’s Creed, and I’ve read that the combat also takes cues from the Batman Arkham games. Put it together with a dynamic enemy hierarchy and some magic powers and you’ve got an engaging game that plays quite well. I found the clambering around, trying to take out orcs by stealth addictive. When you do get discovered and a real rumble ensues, I was less enamoured of the timing-based counters and found myself swiftly overwhelmed in these awkward scraps. This is kind of the point though, it’s not meant to be easy. I did like slowing time to rapidly headshot a bunch of dudes, finding it an effective way to get out of trouble. You also get the ability later to brainwash orcs to back you up or instigate infighting, not to mention the mechanics around taming beasts or unleashing wild creatures that add variety. The skill tree lets you pick up abilities (some enjoyably overpowered) based on your preferred style.

I suppose the Nemesis system must be mentioned, the supposed landmark feature that tracks enemy captains, giving them unique personalities and quirks and having you re-encounter them as they react to you and advance through the ranks. It’s maybe a little over-engineered but gives you plenty of chances for extra risk and reward, as well as generated events on top of the emergent situations. It makes the open world feel that much more alive and responsive. And speaking of the structure, I liked that the two hub areas weren’t too big. I came to learn the layout and landmarks, and ended up doing everything without sinking too much time or the game overstaying its welcome by dragging things out.

Now, the setting. It’s somewhere in between The Hobbit and LotR, as Sauron has been evicted from Dol Guldur and is gathering strength. Orcs have retaken Mordor (more lush in these times than what we see in the films), wiping out the last of Gondor’s meagre garrison on the Black Gate and enslaving the other inhabitants. This chaotic situation is the backdrop for Talion’s search for some edgy OCs, evil men who are ruling in the dark lord’s absence. Along the way you meet Gondorian deserters and settlers, a feisty dwarf, and a proud but beleaguered human tribe. Oh, and Gollum, who has a relationship with Talion and Celebrimbor very much like his interactions with Sam and Frodo respectively. Besides this, the tribe is led by a queen under the spell of Saruman exactly like Théoden. There’s some good stuff here, and plenty of cool lore obviously written by Tolkien nerds (love filling in that logbook!), but also these “low-hanging fruit” familiarities, part of the “prequel problem”.

The DLC included in the package I got constituted some nice bonuses. Skins let me play as the warrior woman Lithariel through most of the game, extra captain types are mixed in, and some overpowered runes gave me a headstart. Also included are two mini-campaigns, each set in one of the existing open world zones: one that expands on the beast-taming mechanic with fun and silly results, and one that shows Celebrimbor’s initial clash with Sauron in the Second Age that focuses on the brainwashing powers. This one I had more trouble with due to the elf’s tweaked moveset needing some time to get used to, but both are decent follow-ups and continuations of the gameplay on this engine. There’s even challenge gauntlet things if you just can’t get enough, but I had in fact had enough. Except now I’m going to play the sequel...!

[smartadmin]

How to Perform Task Estimation in Project Management?  Project Estimate and Project Success

Generally, the planning phase consumes much of the work of project management. Once the objectives are set, the next step is to perform a detailed definition of tasks. Tasks are created to meet the project objectives after taking into consideration of project risk and other managerial processes. Project Manager needs to perform task evaluations based on the budget constraint, time limits, performance standard, target, limit of authority, and delegation. Once task estimation is done, project managers choose the best team and assign roles and responsibilities to them on the project. Otherwise, miscommunication may occur leading to delays and situations where team members may have to redo their work.

The task estimation phase starts with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The WBS is a list of the smaller components that are required for completion of the project. The WBS needs to include 100% of the work defined by the project scope and all of the deliverables. The completion of WBS gives list of desired outcomes. Thereafter, it will be easier to estimate resources and time required for each outcome. It is advised to go for both optimistic and pessimistic estimates to juggle deadlines. Further, identifying the order in which tasks need to be completed leads to prioritize the most significant tasks on the top to avoid discrepancy and loss of productivity. This part is commonly handled through GANTT charts which help to utilize the resources optimally. With the completion of task estimation and sequencing, the project implementation schedule can be defined.

During the task estimation phase it will be helpful to set standards for when and how communication should occur. How often work status is reported? How should emergencies be reported? A complete task estimate is very helpful in eliminating redundant work, and organizing efforts. It prevents team from straying into areas not allowed or waste effort on low priorities.  

Smart Admin provides the option to break down work into small units, and assign the same to team members. With the inbuilt communication, each team members is updated with the changes if any. Time limit can be fixed for each of the tasks using Smart Admin tools, and outcome can be measured against the target.  

[incarnateirony]

ksdjfskjdfs 2po all "they said many times the show isn't about romance."

yeah then they made this show and said, the old show wasn't about romance, it was bromance, but this show is about romance, not bromance---and then about found family. Then they stamped it on the posters and in the commercials and on the socials and started spamming destiel shit and said it's their romantic revenge. from the destiel i love you guy that got us ripped off air temporarily in russia with the scene that WB used for deancas market testing.

Why do these people keep acting like this is still the same show, the same network, the same studio, the same production house, the same year, the same product, the same market targeting, the same ANYTHING JESUS

GUYS.

IF YOU WANT TO WATCH SUPERNATURAL, GO WATCH SUPERNATURAL.

THIS IS NOT SUPERNATURAL AND IS MADE BY 100% DIFFERENT PEOPLE TOP TO BOTTOM ASIDE FROM A FEW WRITERS AND ACTORS. AND THOSE PEOPLE WANT ROMANTIC REVENGE.

WHATS

NOT

CLICKING

[kennysamathedeviant]

Thank you so much for that DCEU post, it pins down a lot of my own thoughts about this whole "WB meddling with the DCEU directors' visions" thing. I'm also one of those people who had been increasingly frustrated every time there are news regarding the DCEU directors, and wishing that the studio had backed up and stood by them more. (1/2)

But the more I think about it, I wonder if it's not just because of my own kneejerk reaction to the relentless public and media bias against the DCEU and the need to put the blame somewhere else (i.e. the studios), instead of it being an actual problem caused by the studios. (2/2)

Sorry I didn't answer this earlier, it was late then and I was already asleep in bed

I'm so glad you liked the post, it's been sitting in my draft for days and i was nervous about putting it out there but i've gotten low key tired of subtly pointing it out in reblogs that WB has actually so far, by all evidence, done right by their directors. I really don't blame anyone for being frustrated at the possibility of there being problems at the studio, especially with the way the rumours always make it seem that a majority of the fandom's problems would be solved if they listened to their directors. I know I've read my fair share of heartbreaking fan confessions that they can't believe history repeated itself when people hated BvS, like they did MoS, and how it was tearing at their souls and they really, really wouldn't want to go through it again. I've had days where it was too much to come online because I knew what i'd be seeing, it's all so physically/mentally exhausting and deeply humiliating. So, I don't blame anyone for wanting better, but the never ending hatred is beginning to push us in a direction where we'd ignore all warning signs, and give anything, possibly even our support of the studio, for that one chance for people to just say along with us; "hey, that was a great movie!" even though it's improbable. We're being gaslighted. Forced to believe that things could be different and it's somehow an internal issue that it puts a target on your back for identifying as a DCEU fan and not an external issue. But I refuse to look at it that way, because at the end of the day, something that's still plain as day is that the movies we love, are held to a different, impossible standard than lesser movies in the same category, or any category for that matter.

I remember that one of the first reviews for BvS I read was that it was "a meat headed movie" meaning it was all about brawn and no brains, dude bro rubbish, then another said it was not filled with action but is like a work of art but that was bad. Two completely contradicting opinions on one movie and they both claim it's bad and are both wrong as attested by the movie's own quality. Just like with Man of Steel, initial reactions from people who saw the movie first, was 100% positive, with so many saying it surpassed the TDK trilogy, then the reviews came out and it was 100% opposite. Like Man of Steel, initial reactions were like "best movie ever", then suddenly it was "worst movie ever". Till then, all initial indications was that everyone had gotten with the program, the marketing to prepare people for the tone, story, length finally worked, we got built up with hope, then they crushed it, spat on it, pissed all over it, for months, then turned around and said it's the studio's fault they were such tools about it. All the critical slamming of Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams and even Hans Zimmer's incredible score, is still fresh in my memory. Ben Affleck got slammed too but he initially got off easier, he was the best Batman ever and I couldn't help but think that Batman, being allowed to be a character and allowed to be re-interpreted in different ways, helped. Then WB said "hey, how about a Batman movie?" and then suddenly it's "I can't support a batman who kills!". The so called "feminist" sites that keep slamming the dceu actresses for not having "punch a dude" as some kind of default personality trait, when all we've ever heard is that punching dudes =/= strong female character, it's complexity. The idea that it's the studios fault somehow that they're biased, is equivalent to all those soulless people who said they can't empathise with Superman in the dceu because he didn't have a "moment" with a kid, because who cares about his own suffering? Or they can't accept him killing Zod because they never had him state he doesn't kill, despite Zod killing over 5,000 people and wanting to go for 6billion, like that enhances anything in anyway, or who state Superman is depressing to watch and that he was sad he saved people (i've literally heard this multiple times) or who use mental gymnastics to justify any number of reasons why they hated x, y and z. The problem with blaming the studio, is the predicament in which it exists doesn't support that statement. DCEU directors and actors are always putting their reputation on the line by being involved with it, signing into the DCEU is like signing a waiver, surrendering your reputation to the possibility of ruin. You'll get scrutinised immediately until you get a movie script, and it'll continue until you directed or acted in a movie and then it'll really get bad after the movie is released. If the studio truly has a hand in all that, the directors would walk, it's bad enough you get shit for aligning with WB, but then WB enabling that nonsense? Why the hell are you sticking around? Marvel in 8 years have rotated almost all of their directors except Favreau, Whedon, Gunn and the Russos. But their director problems are well known, even with at least three of the above directors. But that has never hampered the predictability of the public to suck up to them but somehow the DCEU; about to go four years strong, who has retained every director to release a movie, probably will retain Patty Jenkins and will most likely retain Ben Affleck, is the one with the reputation of interfering in director's visions? It's all so paradoxical.

Then you look how they treated Man of Steel like dirt despite its time length, you recall how their complaints conflict with what did happen in the movie, and then you see they did the same thing to BvS, and you suddenly wonder why you should believe that these people even give a shit about what version of movie they're watching. Those who say "Lois Lane sucks" for being competent and ahead of the curve, are not believable for saying they needed more of Lois. Those who don't care about Clark are not believable for saying they needed to see 30mins more of him, those who have been sitting at the edge of their seats for hints of negativity, slandering the movie for it's tone, story, writing and canvassing for the movie's failure, are not believable when they say they would have liked a longer cut with more of those things they hated, it's all just one big farce. And the really annoying thing, is that they're trying, and even being successful, to convince fans that they would care if the stars were aligned. That we shouldn't focus on how they screw us and the studio over repeatedly, we should focus on how the studio isn't putting all it's eggs in one basket, walking off into a market where everyone's anticipating their arrival with sledgehammers. We should focus on the fact the studio had the foresight to sell some of those eggs early, and to people who are likely to buy it, and the ones they ruined for them, weren't everything. Those ones they held back? They were better and they totally wouldn't go at it with a sledgehammer, if they had brought those along too. Logic; hater style. That's the logic they've been feeding us for months, while still bashing the movie with no distinction in the next breath, passing it over for awards, and choosing Deadpool of all movies for awards it's not merited. Trying to convince people 2016 was bad for WB, when the first quarter alone saw a huge improvement in profits beyond the studio's own estimations, courtesy in no small part, to BvS. But no, they would have liked them to put all their money and resources on the line, like they're gambling at a blackjack table, on a flimsy excuse they'll consider not being biased tools, so they can completely screw them over and remove the competition that was never allowed. I wish I lived in a reality where the billion dollars potential that each movie obviously had (considering how much money they make on negativity), came true but I don't live there. And it's very frustrating that we know every movie is still going to get hit with it, Wonder Woman will get it, JL will get it, and they'll still try to convince us that it's the studio's fault. But fair and unbiased treatment makes merit possible and merit is worth it's weight in gold but we've so far been denied it. So whatever knee jerk reaction that the fandom has, is because they deliberately put it there, through all the relentless public as well as media bias, slander from all angles, gaslighting and an elevated form of concern trolling. There's obviously more than one way to tank a franchise, if you can't tank it's fans, tank the fans faith in the product studio. We'll just have to be wary of these people and their latest reasons for wanting the opposite of what they said they did, five minutes ago.

[blind-rats]

The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself. 

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement. 

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

[figgolu]

when i was reading wano, the arc was almost reaching its end, so it was quite enjoyable (sorry to the people who have been reading weekly ever since it started. you're stronger than us marines) and it left me with a lot of questions and interesting theories such as:

blackbeard is a descendant of the kurozumi

SOUNDS INSANE BUT LISTEN during the wb vs roger chapter, we see shanks and buggy talking about young bb

i got hooked on that detail like why would oda make a point of it? especially on a chapter with big figures on their prime: whitebeard, roger, oden, rayleigh and, maybe, marco. then we jump to oden's execution and orochi's grudge when he says

and i know that you're thinking sleep isn't enough to pinpoint a connection between these two but i have another "coincidence" to mention.

higurashi had the mane mane no mi, which was later eaten by bon clay, and semimaru had the bari bari no mi, which was later eaten by bartolomeo. we all know that after a devil fruit user dies their power reappears somewhere, it's a fact. but what else needed the death of the current user to make the power pass on? blackbeard's yami yami no mi, the power to cover everything in darkness and make a person helpless just like death, something vicious that crawls its way to victory like a traitor, something that was used to take down a powerful figure who was the leader of a group of warriors and the protector of a hidden land, whitebeard, but it could also be oden who was betrayed by someone on his side that wasn't close to him but used their connection to get what they wanted and tried to destroy the place they cherished the most.

but if wano's borders were never opened before, how would blackbeard, someone from the grand line, be a kurozumi? i have another crazy theory to answer this question and it's about toki.

toki comes from the void century and one of the daimyo families that served the kozuki, but she's never been to wano before meeting oden and she jumped into the future everytime she was in danger.

we know wano closed its borders to protect something within the country during the void century which means that toki's parents could be outside during the conflict that made the country isolate itself or they were given a mission that could only be accomplished by being outside such as spreading the poneglyphs around the world or carrying information about pluto. but both are way too important and dangerous jobs to be carried by one clan so they could've been entrusted to the five daimyo families who were trapped outside of wano after its isolation was complete and they were persecuted by the world government for knowing the truth — a reason for toki to keep jumping into the future until she found a time when the people of wano weren't considered criminals or a way to get to the country's riches.

so if the five families were targets, they needed to hide and what's the best way to hide yourself from the world than changing your name? marshall d. teach can be a descendant of the kurozumi from the void century who gave up on their name to survive.

but what about the other three (fugetsu, uzuki, shimotsuki)? we know kozaburo left wano illegally 55 years ago, so all i could guess was that these three families died running away from the wg because they are prideful people of wano and would never give up on their clan's name. toki only survived because of her devil fruit and the kurozumi survived by leaving their pride behind because they've never been like the other clans, that's why they're the only ones whose surname doesn't contain the kanji for "moon", because they're ready to do anything to survive and stand at the top.

also, kurozumi means "black charcoal" and easily relates do teach's epithet "blackbeard" and his devil fruit that engulfs things into the darkness like charcoal paints things in black.