#I like facts behind the production and writing and development and how things changed overtime and what was cut and-

[danidoesathing]

Can you list some of your favorite horror movies facts you know? :0

oh anon you have opened up pandoras box

-In Midsommar, the images of Dani's dead family is overlaid multiple times throughout the film despite her never seeing their bodies like the audience did

-X and Pearl were filmed at the same time!

-Miles Fischer, who plays Peter in Film Destination 5, is also a musician and made a music video with the cast of FD5 which was a parody of said movie and sitcoms like Save By the Bell. It's called New Romance and can be watched here

-Speaking of Final Destination, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the star of three) actually produced a that single tear in the final scene all naturally. She had to do it twice because the first take was ruined.

-The Roller Coaster scene in 3 was also the last filmed!

-Tony Todd appears in every Final Destination movie except for 4 (In three he voiced the ominous devil statue in front of the Coaster). His character is named William Bludsworth (yes really).

-Scream had originally Dewy dying at the end, but the director made a decision (I mean literally while filming that scene last second) to change his fate

-You can tell who is Ghostface at any point in time by the way they hold the knife. Stu uses two hands with the knife, while Billy only holds it with his right hand. Billy also tends to strangle people for whatever reason.

-Wes Craven did not know about line about all the Nightmare on Elm Street's sequels sucking so he had no part in that.

-None of the Cloverfield movies were written to be in a connected universe, and two of the three were actually made under different titles that had both those and their scripts altered to fit the "connected universe" thing. So if you ever felt like those movies felt weirdly disconnected, congrats! you're right

-John Goodman actually makes an appearance in The Cloverfield Paradox in a brief news interview. Once again, he plays a character whose theories are 100% correct but sounds insane, but they are confirmed not to be the same character

-The first Cloverfield Movie actually had an ARG. Really. like a whole ass ARG for promotion. wild

-In the Hellbound Heart book, Pinhead and the rest of the Cenobites are written as gender neutral leaning towards feminine. Diversity win! the torture bondage demons are nonbinary!

-Hereditary was originally planned to take place during winter, but Ari Aster changed his mind once arriving on set

-The set of Hereditary was constructed in a way that had the walls and ceiling able to be moved/removed which allows for the more creative camera angles seen in the film.

-Tony Todd has played Candyman/Daniel Robitaille in every Candyman movie. Yes even in the sequels

-Prey is the first full lengthen film to have a full Comanche dub (which was all recorded by the originally actors!)

-The translator in Prey, Raphael, appears in the Predator comics (specifically, Predator: 1718) and is referenced in Predator 2

-Cabin in the Woods was obviously heavily inspired by Evil Dead. But the infamous betting board actually names Deadites as a monster. This implies that Ash's unfortunate adventures in the cabin was a successful ritual and the only reason he was allowed to live was because he played the role of the Virgin (this is obviously not canon, but its a neat idea)

-It also makes reference to the "Angry Molesting Tree" from Evil Dead. "Snowman" may be a reference to Jack Frost (killer snowman movie) and the Reanimated may be a reference to The Reaminator

-The dog in The Thing, Jed, was not trained to a lot of the odd behavior the Thing actually shows. For example, the brief moment where he looks into the camera and then looks away, which creates a very uneasy feeling of being seen in the audience. There are also moments where he dead still. He was not trained to do either of these things. He was just a very talented actor and I love him.

-The first victim of The Thing's shadow is not done by any of the actors of the movie. Its actually the director's, as it creates more ambiguity as to his identity

-Joe Hill is Stephen King's son. He is also a writer, and wrote the original source material for things like The Black Phone, Horns, Locke and Key, and NOS4A2. They both wrote In the Tall Grass

and now for facts about one of my favorite horror movies

-Nope originally ended with the deaths of both OJ and Angel. Even after OJ's fate was changed, they only changed Angel's fate after Brandon Perea (his actor) convinced Jorden Peele to change his fact. Angel's plot armor ascends even reality fr

-The track that plays during OJ's final scene is called "A Hero Falls" likely because it was written for his death. The song also has parallels to a track that played in the beginning of the movie during OJ and Em's car ride to the ranch

-OJ's actor, Daniel Kaluuya, mentioned having suffered an injury years ago due to a horse riding accident and developed a fear of horse riding from that. He had to work through that for the role.

-Ricky is referred to as "Jupe" through almost the entirety of the film, even in the subtitles. This has no meaning or symbolism for his character whatsoever im sure.

-Jean Jacket and it's alternate form was inspired by sea creatures like Jellyfish and Octopus, but it was also inspired by the angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Specifically Sahaquiel, the tenth angel

-Em performs the Akira slide during the climax of the movie

-There's a few alternate dialogue for scenes that can be seen in the deleted scenes. it doesn't make that much a difference in terms of themes/story/characterization/etc but we did learn that OJ had a thing for Oprah when he was younger which explains some of Em's jabs at him

-There's a deleted scene that has an alternate introduced to Em that revealed the reason she was late was because she hitting on a group of girls. cant say im surprised tbh but I find it funny the longest deleted scene is just another confirmation that Emerald gets the most pussy in the state of California

-Antlers wears a skirt for the entirety of the film

-While OJ was going after Ghost and sees the power going out during Ricky's practice for the Star Lasso Expereince, you can see the power line's lights going off which shows JJ's path back to the farm

-Brandon Perea was the one that insisted on expanding Angel's character during development past Peele's original baseline idea

-Michael Abels scored this film as well as Get Out and Us

and I probably have more but. christ this post is long

[anathema-game]

Good News!

Hello everyone! Long time no see! Meishali here, Anathema’s producer, artist, baby-codemule, and lead writer. We’ve been quiet in the past few months mostly due to other projects, and tough real life shenanigans. I come here with a special announcement, that I felt needed to be made official, and visible on our tumblr and my patreon. This was not easy to come to originally, but here goes:

TWIST OF FATE: ANATHEMA WILL BE A FREE GAME. FOREVER. FOR EVERYONE. 

Preferably available on Steam and Itch.io once the development reaches completion. Yes: that includes potential DLCs and updates, if potential DLCs and updates are to come. Our main point: accessibility and diffusion.

We are also on semi-hiatus until late January / Mid-February in order to sort in real life issues and finish side projects. Past that point, we plan on resuming weekly posting!

Do read more under the cut if you’re curious about what it means, and why I, Meishali, took this decision.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

So, what’s happening? Basically, nothing changes. The development is the same, and will not be slowed by this change at all. This was something I’ve had in mind for a long time, but nothing had been announced yet. 

A lot of people assumed it would be at an ‘accessible’ price (5€-10€), with good reason; so that the contribution could help fuel more projects, and get all contributors to touch something fair for their hard work. But over time, this decision made less and less sense to me. Or rather, I felt compelled to try something far less traditional.

Anathema is currently being created on my own “free time”; those are actually working hours, but I am not remunerated, and neither is Merriweather, my co-writer. I know Merriweather to be juggling with dire jobs to simply afford to live. 

On my end, this is done while I undertake commission work and I often look to my patreon patrons for assistance: audio licenses, textures, additional scripts and resources, are all paid from my personal pocket, and always will be.

WHY IT’S HAPPENING

I’ve always been self-taught in art and writing, and I am currently learning how to manipulate Ren’Py as I code the game how I want it (with the help of friendly Python coding angels!). 

Most of the things I’ve read, copied, learned from, were put out there for free. Something that, as a starving artist, is marvelous. Over the years I’ve developed some manner of “e-gratitude” toward all those people mashing free resources together for the sake of sharing, hoping to help or inspire others… Enough to substitute consequent school fees, or degrees, when you know where to look and when you know how to practice.

I want Anathema to be accessible. Among people of my generation, not everyone can afford even $1 on games and distractions without feeling some manner of spender’s guilt. Always gravitating around bills, and health, and just… All sorts of things that I think should be free, but are extremely expensive (even if just mentally) in our current society.

I want people to enjoy and indulge in content I create without ever having to worry about what they paid to consume it. In the same way, if the game is not an enjoyable experience, as in, it doesn’t suit a player’s taste, they can simply stop playing without going through the hassle of asking to be reimbursed, or simply regretting the purchase.

THE REAL TRIGGER

I’ve done a lot of research, lately. Looking what was in the market, and that implied playing visual novels cross platforms. Steam, itch.io, mobile apps, all independent works. And what I’d seen is, of the things that are appealing and breaking with the genre (inclusive, etc.), a vast amount are simply not worth the price.

I was looking at the horror of micro-transactions namely, that mobile VNs (even from friendly-looking independent studios) seem to have adopted. While I typically have no problems with such practices, in those cases and games I will not list, they were wrong.

Things as odd as paying a couple of euros for extra lines (200 words) that remain locked behind a paywall even after paying for access once. As all you know, microtransactions are always like that; such small amounts trick people into thinking it isn’t much, but overtime, games end up costing hundreds if counted in cumulative spends… When they hardly contain more than half a short story. 

Buying games by chapters when the content is so minimal is… Absolutely wild, in my opinion. And putting core story elements behind a paywall is unfair.

My reason for doing this is attached to principles. This is how I think games should be, and this is how I think games can be.

I want people to know that this is a possible way to make it work, while being fairly compensated by others. I put my trust in our fanbase, and in VN appreciators in general, that they’ll know how to diffuse us, rate us, and remunerate us in consequence overtime.

HOW WE WILL SUPPORT OURSELVES

We do need to eat, and pay bills, too, admittedly.

If people do enjoy the game, and do want to contribute, they’ll be invited to do so through tips or patreon subscriptions, though details are still being worked out at this point. But something is certain: they will likely be able to buy official goodies and physical merch available then!

ETC...

The game is also now an official project of “Erwan Hermine Productions”, my (Meishali’s!) micro business company. While that affects nothing, the fact that it’s official is pretty exciting. We even have a splash screen and all!

Thank you for reading, and again, thank you for sticking with us!

— Meishali

[duncepatrick92]

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[ba2batomicmoo]

Professional skills.

Look at professional skills that help with group projects in a broad term. 

1. Basic project management. Things like: 

- Scheduling. “ A project schedule is a document collecting all the work needed to deliver the project on time. “ (https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/what-is-project-scheduling) This web article speaks of how online scheduling is extra helpful for keeping a group on track and keeps efficiency up by having everything in one place. It also talks about how to start project scheduling:

How to Schedule a Project: 

1. What needs to be done? 2. When will it be done? 3. Who will do it?                         

After answering these it’s easier to plan dates, link activities, set smaller internal deadlines and plan resources needed.

Define Activities: 

What are the activities that you have to do in the project?   Work Breakdown Structure and deliverable diagrams to help depict a flow.  (https://www.workamajig.com/blog/guide-to-work-breakdown-structures-wbs (Information on what a WBS is. )

Do Estimates:

“ Now that you have the activities defined and broken down into tasks, you next have to determine the time and effort it will take to complete them. “

Determine Dependencies:

This is where one task depends on another task to be completed before the project can progress. Planning where these tasks might be in a project and giving a little cushion room o internal deadlines can prevent rescheduling or overtime.

Assign Resources:

Finally, planning resources needed to complete a project. This is everything from staff to physical items such as software. “ You’re going to have to assemble a team, and their time will need to be scheduled just like the tasks. “

Maintaining a Project Schedule: 

“ Once you’ve got all the pieces of your schedule together, the last thing you want to do is manually punch it into a static document. “

Scheduling Tasks:

Using a Gantt Chart is an easy, visual way of keeping an eye on how a project is progressing. (https://www.projectmanager.com/templates/gantt-chart-template)

You can also set some software up to email individuals when they’re on or off target with certain tasks.

Scheduling People:

“ Integrating your calendar into a project management software is a simple way to stay on top of your resources. You can schedule your team’s workload through colour-coding, so you know at-a-glance who is behind, ahead or on schedule with their tasks. “

Estimation: Trying to make an educated guess on how long it will take a project to be compleated. Here are a few examples of how to do this:

1. Expert judgment: Talking/employing people who have had a hand on experience in planning similar projects and employing them for their expertise.  

2. Comparative or analogous estimation: “ If your current project is similar to past ones, take the data from previous work and extrapolate it to provide your estimates for the new job. “ 3. Top-down: “ Using a high-level work breakdown structure and data from previous projects, you can add estimates for each project work item to determine the overall effort and cost. “ This is good for quickness but lacks an in-depth insight. 

4. Bottom-up: “ Each task is estimated individually, and then those estimates are rolled up to give the higher-level numbers.  This process makes you think about what’s required in order to take a step back to see if the big picture still makes sense. “ 5. Parametric model estimating: “ This is a more scientific method that essentially auto-calculates estimates using detailed data from previous activities.  This can be a quick method but needs robust data to feed it. And because it’s all about the math, it’s hard to adjust for the environmental, political and cultural differences between projects.“

(https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/5-methods-of-project-estimation/)

Task management: “ Task management is a way of describing how you identify, monitor and progress the work that you need to do during the day.  ”

Managing tasks is important and helps you to prioritise tasks of importance compared to which task came in first (which might be of less importance.).

Some benefits are:   

You can see everything you are working on at once

You know what your priorities are

You know how much time you’ve got to do those tasks

You can group tasks together to work on similar things at the same time

The Tools for Task Management: 

Some people manage on pen and paper but when you’ve got larger projects with multiple people playing their part a Work Breakdown Structure software may be best. These kinds of software allow the whole team access to the project progress as well as allowing the team to: 

Export and import lists

Define custom views

Print lists

Filter lists by day/week/month

Drill down into the detail of a task from the task list

Manage dozens (and even hundreds) of tasks easily with only a few clicks.

How To Manage Your Team’s Tasks:

You will likely have to chase people up for things they’re behind on. You can also add tasks to peoples online tasks list if they say they need to do something more so they don’t forget (This is through certain software that you can do this.). The software will also allow you to keep an eye on individual progress and chase them up when they need help. This will also allow you to see which individuals have too much work and those that can take on more. 

Ultimately having software to help manage your team will make your life a whole lot easier. 

(https://www.projectmanager.com/task-management)

Basic Analytics: “ Analytics allow companies to obtain a clear picture of events in the past and the future of their performance. A peek into the future helps companies to get prepared. ”

“Descriptive analytics: The objective of descriptive models is to analyze historical trends and figure out relevant patterns to gain insights on population behaviour. Descriptive analytics involves finding answers to ‘what has happened?’.”

“Predictive models: build upon descriptive models as they move beyond using historical data as a principal basis for decision making, often using structured and unstructured data from various sources. They enable decision-makers to make informed decisions by providing a compressive account of an event’s likelihood to occur in the future.”

“ Prescriptive models: go beyond descriptive models that only address what is going on, and beyond predictive models that can only tell what will happen, as they go on to advise what actually should be done in the predicted future. They quantify the effect of future actions on key business metrics and suggest the most optimal action. “

(https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2016/07/3-analytical-concepts-every-professional-fresher-in-analytics/)

(I’ve left it here for analytics as this is something I would find difficult to do within our current team and I don’t think it’s necessary for our project.) 

2. Problem Solving:  This is something that the whole team needs a skill. The more the merrier. 

Holding meetings to discuss problems that have a-rose. It should have a clear purpose with relevant participants. “ The team member calling the meeting should go ahead and make sure that the agenda of the meeting is clearly defined, ground rules are established, and that the meeting stays on topic. ” The meeting should have someone to write minutes down. Members should also be encouraged to brainstorm. Finally, writing up a document informing people of the changes and how to continue forward will be helpful.  

This link has different strategies to solve problems you and your team might have. (https://www.brighthubpm.com/resource-management/87541-problem-solving-techniques-in-project-management/)

3. Resolving conflict: Conflict within a team is bound to happen at some point. 

Some points in avoiding confrontation:

Dealing with conflict immediately – avoid the temptation to ignore it.

Being open – if people have issues, they need to be expressed immediately and not allowed to fester.

Practising clear communication – articulate thoughts and ideas clearly.

Practising active listening – paraphrasing, clarifying, questioning.

Practising identifying assumptions – asking yourself "why" on a regular basis.

Not letting conflict get personal – stick to facts and issues, not personalities.

Focusing on actionable solutions – don't belabour what can't be changed.

Encouraging different points of view – insist on honest dialogue and expressing feelings.

Not looking for blame – encourage ownership of the problem and solution.

Demonstrating respect – if the situation escalates, take a break and wait for emotions to subside.

Keeping team issues within the team – talking outside allows conflict to build and fester, without being dealt with directly.

The below article has an action plan on how to deal with conflict in a fair, constructive manner with extra resources in alternate techniques. (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_79.htm)

4. Transformative conversation: A simple rule. You have one conversation at a time. (https://michaelhyatt.com/one-conversation-rule/)

This rule gives everyone the following: 

1.  “ It gives everyone a chance to be heard.”  

2. “ It validates and honours everyone.”

3.  “ It sets the stage for real connection.”  

4.” It develops listening skills. “

5.” It takes the stress out of hosting. “

6. “ It makes everyone feel comfortable. “

5.Technical documentation: any type of documents kept and needed by your team explaining how to use or do something. Here are a few examples: 

“End-user support: This means things like user guides, release notes, online help systems, training programs, or operating procedures—anything that helps users use your product.

Marketing support: Anything that’s product-focused and used to market your company (like explainer videos, presentations, or technical landing pages)

Development support: This could be functional and technical specifications, software development guides, or simply procedures and tools to help your developers do their jobs.

Organization support: Information about your company, structure, procedures, workflows, policies, and anything else teammates needs to know to do their jobs.”

Creating a ‘documentation plan’ : 

1. Goals: “ Having and knowing a clear goal is essential to writing good technical documentation and will help inform everything you do. ”

2.  Existing resources:  ”Do a quick audit and find anything and everything that will help you write or confuse your audience if they find it.” “ What’s currently out there? Are you updating or merging current resources or starting from scratch? Are there old, outdated versions that need to be killed? ”

3.  Style guides:  “ Some industries require you to write technical documentation in a specific way (like the Plain Language guidelines for government sites or Simplified Technical English for aerospace, aviation, or defence companies).”

4. Outline of topics: “ What topics and subtopics will you be covering in your technical documentation? Think of this as a table of contents and try to list out every major section and subsection you think you’ll need.”

5.  Tools and management: “What software, tools, or websites will be used to create and manage the documentation? “

6.  Deadline and final deliverables: “ When is it due and what format will it be in?“

It’s always important to consider how technical documents are going to be laid out. They need to be easy to navigate and easy to read. 

The layout is important for the reader. If the layout of a document isn’t clearly structured then those reading it can find it useless and hard to understand. Layouts like the following can help keep things clear and simple and to the point:  

Title: What is it?

Subtitle: Additional information

Overview: What will you learn

Table of contents: Internal navigation

Features: Each section of the document

Read next: Related documents that might help the user

Keeping things in order with subcategories will keep navigation easy. 

Tips on writing well: 

-  “ Write like a human: Use simple, clear language whenever possible.”

- “ Remember, your readers aren’t you: The golden commandment of technical writing is thou shalt not assume. You might think you’re being obvious, but you have to be keenly aware of the knowledge level your audience is at. ”

- “ Write as much as needed to be helpful and not a word more: Short writing is good writing.”

- “ Remember the power of visuals: It’s another cliche, but pictures really do say a thousand words.”

Getting feedback: 

“At 30% done (your first draft or outline), you’re not asking for in-depth feedback or reviewing or typos and grammar, but rather for the reviewer to engage in the broader outline, flow, and structure of the document. While at 90% done (your final draft), you’re asking them to go over the documentation with a fine-tooth comb and nit-pick any issues.”   

(https://plan.io/blog/technical-documentation/)

Other forms of documentation can include the following :

Process documentation

Operations documentation

Troubleshooting documentation.

(But I don’t think all of this is necessary right now.... and is also confusing me.)

6.  Risk management: 

Risk management is something that the whole team needs to be aware of. There are now programmes that can now inform the team of potential risks and strategies to avoid them.   

7.  Customer and client management: 

When working with outside companies it's important that all the team has communication and basic customer/client skills so that they can answer and report back to clients and the group clearly. 

The following article has a list of tips for customer-facing jobs: https://learn.g2crowd.com/customer-service-skills

The bold subheadings of this post can be found from this article page: https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/7-essential-skills-for-project-teams/

[dadingeorgia]

Down in the hole

I'm a little nervous about writing this post, but I can't seem to get away from this line of thought, so here it goes:

I've been very focused recently on improving myself, taking control of my anxiety, redirecting my old coping mechanisms into more productive channels, and communicating positively with people.

There have been times in the past few weeks where I haven't always succeeded. I have 20+ years of bad habits and tendencies, and I sometimes say the wrong thing or let my emotions take over how I interact with myself and others. I guess the difference now is that's it's becoming more apparent to myself that I'm doing something I don't want to, instead of just popping off and not realizing until later that I've been insensitive and hurtful. The realization is a positive step, but the goal is to control these things.

It's only been within the past few years that I've started to become self-aware of some of these tendencies, and really within the past few weeks I've started to understand the wake of damage these have left behind me, and how it's hurt people I love. It's sobering, and it makes me feel as though I have been an ugly person. I don't want to be ugly. I want to be confident, and compassionate, and strong.

When I look inside myself to try to improve, I feel like I need to understand why I have these undesirable traits. I suspect that my anxiety is probably genetic, but I've developed habits and behaviors that feed it. I am may not be able to completely change the anxiety disorder, but I can choose how I react to it and how I behave.

I've been sharing some of this with a couple of close friends. Each of them have independently made comments to the effect of "that's not surprising, considering your upbringing." Hearing that from two different sources really made me stop and think. I've struggled for years about aspects of my childhood, but never really considered that it was having a direct impact on my choices. That really got my attention, since I'm actively trying to change myself. What are my kids seeing from me, and how will that affect them?

There's a story from my childhood that I've told to a couple of people. I've never thought about it too much. To me, it's just a thing that happened, but those who've heard it recoil in horror and tell me how utterly fucked it is.

This happened when I was probably five or six years old. We lived out in the country. We had a horribly bad well and never had enough water for the house, so Dad decided to have a cistern built. He hired an old family friend to come excavate a large hole about a seven feet deep out in our front yard, and then build a concrete cistern.

Well, the old guy got the hole about half dug, but then his backhoe broke down and he never finished step one of the job. The half dug hole and the broken backhoe sat in our front yard for several months while Dad tried to call the old guy and get the job finished (the old guy had taken a few hundred bucks from Dad and stopped returning the calls).

One weekday while Dad was at work and I was at home with Mom and my younger brother, Mom was in the house. My brother was probably only two or three at the time, so I'm sure he was inside with her. It must of been around 10 or 11 am, and I got curious about the hole (even though I had been warned to stay away from it).

I fell in.

The hole was about seven feet deep and about 12 feet side to side. We lived in southeastern Ohio where the soil is that thick slimy shale clay. It cushioned my fall. I wasn't hurt, but there was no way for a six year old boy to climb out of the hole.

For the next five or six hours or so, I tried to scale the muddy walls, and hollered for Mom to come help. After awhile, I just sat down and looked up at the square blue patch of sky above me.

Around four o'clock or so, Dad got home from work. I heard his truck pull into the driveway, and as he walked down the sidewalk past the hole, I called out again for help.

Dad looked down at me with exasperated disbelief and muttered some words I didnt recognize, and then grabbed a ladder and helped me get out of the hole. He asked how I got there, and I was afraid I was gonna get a whipping for playing near the hole. I lied and said my brother had pushed me in. Dad didn't say anything else to me, but went inside and lit into my mother for failing to notice my absence for several hours.

Mom yelled back at him about how this was his fault for hiring the old flake who never finished the job, and just leaving the hole in the yard. I don't really remember what else got said. I did eventually get a spanking from Mom, not for playing the near hole, but for ruining a pair of jeans.

Eventually, the cistern did get finished, and the hole filled in (I think that happened about a year after the falling incident). I never really thought much about it.

I just always believed that falling in the hole was my fault. I'd been told to stay away from it. I didn't get hurt, and just ruined some clothes. It wasn't a big deal. To me, it's always been a weird, humorous anecdote from childhood, something to tell once in awhile in the "yeah, but you're not gonna believe this shit" category.

As I examine my behaviors and attitudes, I see that I tend to deflect responsibility. I don't deal with unexpected setbacks and let them sit until the consequences become too much to handle, and sometimes even longer than that. I get angry at people for details of a situation without examining my role in the larger situation. My emotional responses are centered on my feelings, and don't account for how others have been impacted. I don't like these things about myself. They've enabled my anxiety and depression, and they've strained and ruined relationships that were valuable to me.

That little story is a smorgasbord of modeled behavior that has followed me into my life. I've never realized that until recently.

My parents weren't bad people. They didn't abuse me or my brother. We didn't starve, and we had clothes. My dad busted his ass at a factory job that he hated (and one that probably ultimately killed him) to provide a house and financial security for his family. My mom didn't work, and he single-handedly paid off a 30-year mortgage in seven years. What Dad wasn't great at was interacting with the family. He worked as much overtime as he could get, and when he was at home, he was exhausted and wanted quiet. I don't have many memories of hanging out with him. In fact, the boy-in-the-hole story stands out to me the most because it's one of the very few times I can recall Dad getting upset on my behalf.

I get now why people who know me think that's such a fucked up story, especially the ones familiar with my struggles.

None of this is to say that I'm not responsible for improving myself. Yes, my parents' behavior influenced me. They built a world where that sort of thing was normalized, and I grew up in it and absorbed it, but blaming them doesn't fix me or make me better. Getting hung up on blame only ensures that I'm likely to perpetuate that in my own life, and pass that along to my children.

It's hard to write a post that makes my parents look bad. For all of their shortcomings, they did love us, and we loved them. Sometimes I feel like a very flawed and ugly person, and I feel very awkward about transferring those feelings to my parents because they had some of the same issues I'm trying to overcome now.

I feel very motivated to improve myself because I'm tired of being unhappy and I'm distraught that my behaviors have negatively impacted my relationships, but I'm even more motivated to improve myself so I can teach my children how important it is to have self-worth and confidence.

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Philly columnist illustrates culture change needed at USA Hockey

NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 29: Dave Ogrean, executive director of USA Hockey addresses the media during a press conference at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on June 29, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Wages, marketing, and program development are all part of the National Team’s demands of USA Hockey. However, their decision to boycott and demand equitable treatment goes far beyond the tangible.

The fight is about a culture change not only in USA Hockey, but in the way women’s sports are viewed as a whole.

It’s difficult to understand a situation when you’re not directly impacted by it. Lucky for us, John Smallwood of Philly.com, has two articles giving his take on the situation with the US Women’s National Team and USA Hockey.

These woefully under-researched, alternative facts-filled columns provides unique insight into what the Women’s Team is facing from an ideological perspective.

It would be too easy to rip Mr. Smallwood a new one by dissecting each post, line by line. (And I don’t feel like having an aneurysm tonight.)

It’s also counterproductive.

When fighting against small mindedness and deep-seeded beliefs, the person who yells the loudest doesn’t always win.

Sometimes you have to look behind the words, and at the message that’s coming through.

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In his first post, “Women’s national hockey team pay argument doesn’t hold up,” Smallwood concludes that the USWNT players are essentially asking for a handout from USA Hockey because they don’t have a ‘high-paid professional sports league’ to fall back on.

This speaks to the pervasive belief that women use the demand for equality as a way to get free things, stuff they don’t deserve or haven’t worked for.

Why is it we wax poetically about Sidney Crosby’s devotion to his craft and not the same about Meghan Duggan? He can completely focus on hockey. Meghan is working to keep her head above water anyway possible in addition to being a phenomenal athlete.

It’s not Duggan’s fault she was born a girl.

Smallwood goes on to write, “The National Women’s Hockey League is a four-team league with a salary cap of $270,000 per team. Players get a share of the home gate after 500 tickets are sold.”

This clearly does not fit into what Smallwood considers a professional league because they don’t make the same money as the NHL, NBA, or NFL. (All leagues that didn’t make money when they first started out, and required players to work second jobs.)

Which leads to another point made by Smallwood, “Professional sports are businesses, not charities. An athlete’s income is directly related to how much revenue he/she can generate, individually, or as part of a team and league.”

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How can the Women’s Team be expected to generate revenue when the constant drumbeat is ‘women don’t make money’ in sports?

Say it enough and people start to believe it.

It’s also pretty damn hard to generate any revenue without investing in the product. It goes beyond wages. No one can expect to grow an audience when they don’t put it on TV or stream online live.

There was one particular example that came to light Monday. Brianne McLaughlin, former National Team goaltender, spoke to The Garden Faithful podcast about a potential gold medal game rematch between the US and Canadian women’s teams in 2014.

McLaughlin said:

“After the 2014 Olympics, the response we’d gotten, there was TV broadcasting willing to pay huge amounts of money for one more game. Like, fans wanted to see one more USA-Canada game that they were willing to dump so much money [into it]. So we had a meeting about it, and by the time we got out of our meeting, before we had even decided what we wanted to do, we had heard from the Canadian team that USA Hockey told them that we didn’t want to play.” (Transcribed by Hannah Bevis.)

What the actual f—?

The gold medial game between the US and Canada in Sochi was a ratings hit.

From Sports Media Watch in 2014:

Thursday’s Canada/United States Olympic women’s hockey gold medal game drew 4.9 million viewers on NBC, according to Nielsen fast-nationals, up 96% from the same match-up on MSNBC in 2010 (2.5M). Viewership was the highest for women’s hockey final since 2002, when coverage aired in NBC’s primetime window.

From TV By the Numbers:

The thrilling women’s gold medal hockey game between the United States and Canada at noon ET on Feb. 20, won 3-2 by Team Canada on an overtime goal by Marie-Philip Poulin, averaged 4.9 million viewers on NBC to rank as the most-watched hockey game in the U.S., excluding Stanley Cup Finals, since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics men’s gold medal game.

Not agreeing to a rematch with Canada makes zero sense. If anything, USA Hockey is negligent of not making the most of a business opportunity.

Considering this, how is USA Hockey showing that the women’s team is not an ‘afterthought’ as Duggan told Puck Daddy?

This brings us to the final point.

Smallwood’s second article is titled, “U.S. women’s ice hockey players need a league of their own.”

Seriously.

He wrote about the NWHL in his first article. (It’s quoted above!) A scant five days later he has a brilliant idea – give the women a professional league!

Smallwood must be in some sort of ‘Misery’ situation. He writes his columns on a typewriter – without the use of the interwebs – then Kathy Bates hits him over the head with the typewriter causing amnesia.

That or he’s never watched a women’s hockey game from beginning to end, national team or otherwise. Most likely he hasn’t taken the chance to interview or get to know the players he so flippantly believes he knows better than.

He, like many, still see the National Team players as nothing more than girls who aren’t as good as the boys. Who don’t deserve to earn a living wage for complete devotion to their sport because it’s not what they want to watch and assume others don’t either.

That’s why we’re still having this conversation in 2017. That’s why the National Team is boycotting Worlds.

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Jen Neale is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @MsJenNeale_PD.