Raithe

I seem to recall in one of the interviews with Rickman after the last film was made, he did say that Rowling took him aside during the first film and told him how Snape would end and that helped shape his portrayal through all films that followed and that he kept it a secret the whole time.

It had a whole slew of faces in it that turn up constantly in the sci-fi industry that I still end up thinking I first recognise them from Earth Final Conflict. As I recall, wasn't that based on another of Gene Roddenberry's ideas? It was along the lines of they took his notes and his widow guided the start up of the project based off them..

While I appreciate the effect Harry Potter had on getting people back into reading, I have to say my enjoyment has always run into the slight wall that I'd just finished re-reading a batch of the Books of Magic comics from Neil Gaiman. And that always makes me go "Huh." when it comes to Harry Potter. Much as I know that idea is sharing from the same background. Gaimain himself has repeatedly said that any similarities are merely because Rowling and himself are drinking from the same well. Still, it always had a slight jarring effect for me. That, and how much the story beats are repeated through the series. Harry is excited. Harry has a fun time with friends. Mysteries ensure. Harry has a falling out with friends. Friendship triumphs and mystery is overcome with the help of those friends.

New SnailLoad Attack Relies on Network Latency Variations to Infer User Activity - SecurityWeek

Taylor Wily Dead: 'Hawaii Five-O' Actor Was 56 (hollywoodreporter.com)

I think the most amusing thing about The Boys at the moment is that they are apparently getting review bombed where a chunk of the fan demographic have suddenly realised it was satire pointing at them. Supposedly it took them this long to grok that it was satire, and that Homelander wasn't the hero... The show's creator in a recent interview made a comment : “Some people think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that? The show’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them.” “If that’s the message you’re getting, I just throw up my hands.”

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" except instead it's just The Critical Drinker, Star Wars Theory and other YouTube "personalities" telling you that this is it, they're "done with Star Wars". Until the next video.

The first book that freaked me out and I couldn't finish first time reading was Dracula when I was 8. Harker's descent into madness was just a bit too disturbing at the time. To be fair, my parents started me on Enid Blyton when I was 4/5, then I rolled into expanding interests. Arthur C Clarke and JT Edson Westerns got started when I was ending first school and rolling into middle school, so that would have been that 7-10 age period. I was about 11 when I went through Shogun for the first time. Similarly, I was going through Alistair Maclean, Ian Fleming, and Robert Ludlum around that period. For some amusement to the audience, I actually picked up the Dragonlance Chronicles at a car boot sale when I was about 10, and a week or two later I actually go the first 5 books in the Gor Chronicles at another car boot sale thinking they were similar. They had the epic fantasy covers after all.

On a serious note, keeping it calm and clear and non-antagonistic always seems the best approach. That it was a pleasant experience but you don't think you meshed as well as you were hoping, and that you're at a stage in your life where you need to find the natural spark rather than try to force it? Things I've learned from one mildly abusive passive-aggressive ex, and another one who was, shall we say, heavily invested in certain tastes that required it, is always making sure communication is clear, trustworthy, and not open to emotional interpretation. Or, you could just say that you're looking for Gomez and Morticia, not Romeo and Juliet. *** On the matter of reading age-ranges, I can hold my hand up and cheerfully admit I've gotten into heaps of trouble with friends with suggestions of reading for their kids. I am apparently heavily biased by the things I read at those ages, which most people apparently don't consider appropriate for their kids at the same ages. I'm not sure if that says anything about what my parents allowed me to read, my grasp on reading, or current trends in parental viewpoints.

Through the medium of interpretive dance?

As mentioned, I was invited to the London premiere event showing the first two episodes of The Acolyte a few backs. Now with the third episode having dropped and taken that in, I think given the nature of the show, it's going to really require the full thing to be watched to get the best idea on its script. Trouble being, is they're doing a murder-mystery detective plot, which can be slow burn to start with, and then they look to be throwing in flashback episodes and sequences. So yes, they got Carrie-Anne Moss to do the big name, then kill her off in one five minute fight sequence at the start of the first episode, but she's going to be turning up in assorted flashback stuff through the season to showcase why certain things are happening and putting characters into focus. Which I think is part of the problem. Doing an episodic release structure where most character backgrounds and reasons for behaviour aren't going to be explained or understandable until you've gotten half a dozen threads a month down the line... is not going to help with fan reception. A lot of the sensible critique of the show (some stilted dialogue, some cheapish looking costume design, and set choice questions, and flat filming) seem to be getting lost in the haze of complaints of woke casting (It's a very varied casting - which does make sense for a galactic spanning collection) and some fan horror over how not-great the Jedi are coming across as. Not quite picking up on that the High Repuplic time frame is pretty much when the Jedi are at the height of their dogmatic, bureaucratic, this is the right path absolutism with no time for questioning the path. The reveal that Amandla Stenberg was actually was a thing they'd managed to keep hidden from all trailers and such, so that was a nice touch. While you have to recognise the capability that Lee Jung-jae playing Master Sol apparently went from Korean acting royalty to learning English for the role some months before shooting began. So yes, I think to contemplate the actual story, I'm going to end up struggling my way through it just so i can have fully reasoned discussions about it afterwards. But it's not exactly got me excited or engaged.