#Worth Avenue Capital

[wacloans]

Worth Avenue Capital: Florida Direct Private Lender

Worth Avenue Capital has been providing commercial real estate and small business loans in Palm Beach and all of South and Central Florida since 2008. Worth Avenue Capital specializes in providing hard money funding and financing solutions as well as advisory services for both small businesses and real estate developers who are having difficulty obtaining conventional bank financing.

[comradekatara]

Here's a completely random ask for you: what holiday (halloween, valentine's day, national ice cream day, etc.) would each member of the Gaang feel unreasonably strongly about? Can be positive or negative feelings.

oh this is a good question! (i hate so many american commercial holidays so this is a great avenue for me to project my frustrations with us capitalism onto these little guys. and to be clear im just doing us holidays bc otherwise there would simply be too many options and i’d be stuck here forever)

aang: he’s not enough of a hater to dislike any holidays. he’s a big fan of april fool’s day, valentine’s day, and halloween, because he appreciates fun and joy and love and merriment duh

katara: every thanksgiving she goes on an impassioned rant about the historical revisionism of the us empire deployed as a propaganda tool as it continues its genocidal imperialist project and the absolutely sick and twisted audacity of americans to celebrate a known lie in a mockery of the atrocities committed from the past into the present (this one may or may not just have been me, yesterday). every november-december she goes on an impassioned rant about the commercialism of christmas, and how it’s largely a fake holiday devised by capitalists to glorify the sanctity of the nuclear family, and how the supposed “secularization” of christmas is in fact a product of christian hegemony, it’s propaganda and you’re all falling for it because you crave hollow comforts in your cold and dismal life, and instead of attempting to look beyond the scraps you are given under capitalism you all just force yourselves to enjoy a facade of happiness and nostalgia because you refuse to admit that you’re fundamentally uncomfortable in your society!!!!!!!! (this is what i think but wisely refrain from saying because it’s not worth it. katara, however...) also she likes valentine’s day sometimes (depending on whether or not she has a boyfriend). she also has a lot to say on columbus day and the fourth of july of course, but this bullet point is already far too long.

sokka: his favorite holiday is pi day. he does not care for any other us holiday (but he has been known to enjoy a halloween here and there), but he specifically hates april fools because aang insists on pranking him every time, for some godforsaken reason. (he’s just so prankable!)

toph: her least favorite holiday is valentine’s day because it promotes m*rriage, one of her most hated institutions (it’s a long list). her favorite day is taco tuesday

zuko: he insists on celebrating shakespeare’s birth/deathday as if it is a real holiday that anyone actually cares about. and he gets offended when no one else cares. his least favorite holiday is the fourth of july, but not for any political reasons, it just has really bad vibes.

suki: she loves halloween because it has everything you could ever ask for in a single day: dressing in elaborate costume, eating so much candy, and getting really drunk. she’s also one of those people who gets really obnoxious on 4/20, at which point mai is like “you know it’s hitler’s birthday, right?” and immediately kills the vibe. just because she can :)

mai: she has a love/hate relationship with halloween, because theoretically it’s a celebration of the gothic, the liminal, the macabre, the ghostly. but in practice it’s just an excuse for everyone around her to get wasted. she hates christmas more though. santa freaks her out and cloying, forced cheer and merriment is unnerving and infuriating, actually.

ty lee: she dreads valentine’s day every year because she simply has too many suitors and it is very stressful. she likes april fool’s day because it gives her the opportunity to exercise her more devious inclinations. she can prank people so well they don’t even know they’re being pranked; on april first the world is her playground.

azula: she has no real opinion on any specific holidays. they’re petty distractions for mindless drones who require a modicum of frivolity here and there to spice up their otherwise dull, worthless lives. however, she quite likes tax day.

[coralhoneyrose]

Pairing: Chrom / F!Robin

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Feelings Realization, Misunderstandings, Secret Relationship, Medium Burn, Demisexual!Chrom

Preview:

By mid-morning, Ylisstol takes shape against the misty horizon. The pale stone walls that rim the city’s periphery bite into the sky like concentric rows of gleaming teeth. The road the Shepherds travel upon transforms too, from muddy footpaths buried in leaf litter to paved avenues that welcome the horses’ hooves and caravan’s wheels.

Robin is surprised by the effect that seeing the capital again has on her—some pinching in her chest that she wasn’t even aware of loosening at last. She’s not sure when Ylisstol became familiar enough for her to miss it so dearly, but there’s no denying the warm relief that being back brings her now. She missed its cobbled streets, criss-crossed by squealing children chasing after one another; missed the bakery on the corner that slips her an extra turnover each time she pays a visit; missed being cocooned in her bed, her real bed, back in the castle.

Homesickness, a quiet voice within her supplies. She can’t help but wonder if the ache of it is merely new to her since losing her memories or if it is just new to her, period. More than once she’s speculated that the reason no one has ever come asking after her since she lost her memories might be that she never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots…that she never had a home to miss before the one that Chrom gave to her.

Thinking of him draws her eyes back to the castle looming ahead where Exalt Emmeryn is no doubt eagerly awaiting the return of her brother and sister. Words Chrom spoke the night of the assassination attempt echo in Robin’s mind: Emm represents the best of the halidom—the part most worth protecting.

Read More

[random-xpressions]

My greatest career decision came last year when I plunged into an unprecedented risk taking which was actually received by a fatal blow in its initial phase. But like it is said, every master was once an amateur and looking back at that decision now, I couldn't be more convinced that if someone truly makes a goal to escape the matrix then there will be a hundred avenues opening up for you. This entire bubble of capitalism in which you're bound by the shackles of 9-5, living from paycheck to paycheck, with no other concern but to get your head above water and have the bills paid off in time - if that mentality is not changed, one will remain stuck there till you step into grave and even then you'll die penniless. I'm not even an advocate of promoting millionaire mindsets, you'll find that ideology promoted much, as if a luxurious lifestyle is the supreme goal or the fallacy in which people equate success to material wellbeing. No, that's never the case. When I say about escaping the matrix or living off grid, then it is first and foremost a state of mind in which you meticulously plan your way out of the rat race and the shit shows. The word "work" will no longer be seen as something totally distinct from your soul essence but rather it will all come into one perfect flow. God's grace, I don't work any longer out of compulsion or for the fear of my expenses not being met. While just speaking with someone in my corporate circle today I said: "deals are closed when the spirits are high!" One can't expect to be part of a cause even if it be commercial when you're not driven by high spirits. It is only when two parties fully and consciously see the worth of a venture that they will embark upon it. That's the only way of human engagement in absolute win/win for all involved - minds in unison, hands joined in cosmic flow, that's how human labour bears fruit. Heed to your heart's calling, it knows the way...

Random Xpressions

[gowns]

Among so many heinous problems trickling down on our heads from the top of the film industry is that of intellectual property. It’s not that adaptations are new, but that the ability to make a living by creating anything else has only recently been destroyed. IP obsession has killed the mid-budget movie, it’s killed the movie star, and it’s coming for the rest of the industry. This is as much a problem for audiences as for filmmakers (at any level), and it all comes from the same place: Unchecked greed, and the familiarity with which we accept it.

Tidy, consistent, sustainable profits—the kind of thing generated by movie studios that once offered a diverse slate of reasonably budgeted adult dramas, teen-date rom-coms, family films, and fence-swinging art movies—are a thing of the past for those in charge of the industry. Other forces from the entertainment world are certainly at play, specifically the rise of prestige TV as a destination for what the movies have abandoned. But the pivot to the IP Era feels simple, because it feels familiar. It’s because tidy, consistent, sustainable profits aren’t enough. There must be growth. There must be domination. There must be Shared Universes.

This attitude goes beyond being risk-averse. Risk aversion isn’t new. Single-minded speculation, trying to alchemize IP into gold, is.

The management decisions keeping workers from their fair pay—as described by Writers Guild of America board member John Rogers in a thread about the current strike—are the same ones milking old IP for all it’s worth: “The new robber barons of Hollywood are on a suicide run.” This shift is tech-bro economics, Wall Street-fellating “vulture capitalism” here to feast on the industry, not further it.

...Sure, an executive could gamble on a few million dollars on an “idea” from a “writer.” They could also flip the big Binder O’ Properties to a random page, do a rail of coke off of it and spend $100 million to reboot whatever’s underneath. A new Ghostbusters? Another go at the Dark Universe? Let’s do it! Monopolies, even monopolies built on unsustainable properties—on the slums of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues, in board game terms—have the potential to be more than profitable. They can define decades of strategy. Investors like that. It feels stable yet exciting, predictable yet potentially limitless.

“We’re going to focus on franchises,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav assured investors. “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years. We haven’t done a Harry Potter in 15 years.”

It doesn’t matter if viewers are burned out or if the franchise is inextricably linked to a raging asshole. There’s recognizable media out there just asking to be exploited into an empire, one that could grow and grow and grow. If it eventually burns like Rome—say, if you’re former Disney CEO Bob Chapek and your streaming business continues to bleed money despite releasing bad franchise movies directly onto it—then you can simply fiddle your little heart out, floating away on your golden parachute. Naturally, studio leadership favors this approach, which in turn sets the precedent for the only kinds of movies their companies finance, market and stuff into theaters.

We, the country’s moviegoing public, have already been trained to understand this. 

Pretty consistently, folks go to the movies when they recognize something and stay home when they don’t. Looking at the past 10 years of box office Top 10s, it’s far faster to note which movies aren’t based on a pre-existing property: Frozen, Gravity, Inside Out, Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets, Sing, Onward and Tenet.

That’s it. Eight movies out of 100. 

Two of them even let you see a person.

But in the IP Era, people are merely a liability. Movies seeking this modern kind of success—as many sequels, spin-offs and merchandise tie-ins as possible—only need humans in front of the camera when they function as an extension of IP. Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum were brought back for the latest Jurassic World cash-grab to excite us as embodied reminders of a better movie. They’re not actors anymore. They’re mascots. 

When you realize that that’s all AAA actors are being cast as, it becomes obvious why the biggest blockbusters have recently boiled down to ensembles standing around reskinned warehouses and parking lots. As Jake Ures writes, “when acting has been reduced to stewarding IP,” you don’t want people getting invested in the stars. Rather, “it’s better for investors if they function as empty vessels for stories much bigger than them, ones that can be endlessly iterated long after they’re out of the picture.”

...Performers have long feared being themselves turned into IP. Jet Li famously skipped out on The Matrix sequels so his moves wouldn’t be digitized in some Warner Bros. library, to be used to whatever future end by a company that no longer needed his martial artistry. This, by the way, is the plot of Space Jam: A New Legacy, as LeBron James attempts to avoid the same fate…threatened by the in-universe Warner Bros. Really, this idea is so normalized as to be the bad guy’s plan in a kid’s movie. Netflix is trying to own the rights to its actors’ simulated voices “by all technologies and processes now known or hereafter developed, throughout the universe and in perpetuity.” It’s not about creating something, it’s about owning something, forever.

And that’s the success model. Increasingly, it’s the only model. Because now we crave it, beaten into submission by the sheer onslaught of “Remember that?” requels, legacy sequels and reboots released since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Star Trek and Star Wars: The Force Awakens helped establish the monoculture model of filmmaking. Audiences didn’t do this to pop culture. It was the corporate powers that invested in and encouraged their most ravenous demographic, turning “audiences” into “fandoms.” We’ve had slop shoveled onto our pop culture prison cafeteria trays for decades, and the prison-industrial multiplex expects us to give our compliments to the chef for another meal of empty-calorie Easter eggs.

[read more - jacob oller for paste magazine]

[salt-and-vynegar]

Tears of Themis - Ch. 09

Spoilers under the cut, just because I’ve seen some people talk about it, and I wanted to talk about an aspect of it too.

For Tears of Themis Ch. 09, I can see why people are talking about it. There’s a lot that happens in the span of a chapter, and on top of that, there’s a case, but unresolved one. For me, I think the most interesting part of the chapter was the part of the chapter that is likely the most divisive.

For me, it was the fact that Artem, Marius, Luke, and Vyn, all end up both helping each other, and also have a lot of conflict with each other.

This chapter had something I had wanted for a while, which is conflict between the members.

As much as NXX is a team, it is worth noting that they are a team that is built on a shaky foundation. I’m really glad that issue got brought to the forefront here. Ever since the introduction of the NXX investigation team hinted in the earlier chapters, there’s always been something that sorta bugs me in the main story. Vyn brings it up in Chapter 2, which is the idea that NXX is made of people who have a similar goal, but crucially, this goal (and Rosa, to a lesser extent), are the only things that are holding this group together.

In the main story, I get the sense that they work together because it’s convenient. Not because they particularly like each other. Each of them have their own sort of niche regarding how to go about investigating, and also, their own “zone of influence” as I call it. There are certain things that each of them can do that the others cannot. Marius, Vyn, Artem, and Luke all have capital and connections in various industries and with various Stellian and Svartian individuals due to the nature of their jobs and the accolades they have both received in the community, and within both nations.

So when Chapter 9 explores this idea by having all the NXX members pursue separate individual investigative avenues (after the NSB essentially takes over the NXX’s investigation of Heirson), they run up against each other. Without a singular focus, the other members including Rosa, end up doing their own thing. So, you get a bit of a glimpse regarding what each of the suitors have to deal with daily, but also the ways in which their characters are morally ambiguous.

We get a nice confrontation early on with Marius and Luke, where in Marius confronts Luke about his investigation into Pax (albiet briefly). This also comes back around when Marius and Luke end up “interrogating” each other regarding Tyson Turner’s death. We get to see Vyn’s tendency to strike off on his own without a word. In Luke’s case, Rosa is investigating with him, but hiding his illness and the true nature behind it. There’s also the idea brought up in this chapter that the NSB considers that Luke has divided loyalties. It’s an interesting idea, but a post for another time. We also get to see Artem and Luke go at it as well, when it turns out that Artem is the attorney behind someone that Luke and Rosa find suspicious in their investigation.

With all of these developments, I think it’s easy to see how the shaky the foundation of the NXX team is. Each of the suitors have their own vested self-interest and their own goals outside the team, so I am not surprised to see the conflict here.

I think there is a professional courtesy that they extend to each other, since they have worked with each other for so long. You can see it in how Luke picks up the button from Marius’s suit that was torn by Tyson Turner and returns it to Marius in an attempt to keep Marius out of the investigation into Tyson Turner’s death, as it would immediately make him a suspect. You can see it in how Vyn stops what he’s doing to help Rosa make progress in her investigation over Gerard’s disappearance. You can also see it in how Artem allows Luke to ask Nurse Harper questions about the drug she used to kill Tyson and Gerard’s mother, despite the fact that earlier, Artem had chided both Rosa and Luke for contacting Nurse Harper in private, without him there, as her lawyer.

However, even with the professional courtesy they extend to each other, it is clear that at this point, this chapter has changed the dynamic a fair bit. It has framed everyone as out for their own interests. 

Luke, as NSB agent who wants to get to the bottom of Oedipus and First People’s Hospital Incident, runs up against Marius and Artem. Marius as a “suspect” in Tyson Turner’s death, and Artem as the lawyer for the nurse suspected to be an investigative lead into Oedipus.

While this chapter is Luke centered, there are additional hints regarding the rest of the NXX members conducting investigations on the side. 

In this case, the fact the NSB has blocked off access from the Big Data Lab frames Luke as squarely in opposition to the fact finding and investigations that Vyn, Artem, and Marius seem to be doing on the side. 

Vyn’s identity of Svartian noble blood has been revealed as of last chapter, and with Vyn’s tendency to hold onto information and not reveal it, given the fact that he openly seems to have reinforced the connection between him and Rosa in front of this unknown person (and at this point, we also don’t know what Rosa told him in regards to her investigation with Luke), an unknown person that he does not seem to think too highly of, frames Vyn as setting the stage for additional conflict with the members of NXX later on down the line. 

In Artem’s case, it’s hinted at that he’s following up with the people hurt by Heirson’s actions, and family members of Heirson employees. But yet, he’s framed as an understandable obstacle in Luke and Rosa’s investigation, defending someone who is suspected of possibly murdering two people. This seems to frame the question of why Artem took on Skye Harper as a client in a more sinister light, which could lead to more additional conflict with NXX members too, especially if their investigations leads them to more people that Artem represents.

While Marius’s investigation isn’t quite as clear or clearly hinted at as Vyn’s or Artem’s, it is clear that he is investigating something big. To the extent that Vincent had to double-check with Marius about whether to inform Austin von Hagen, his dad, about it. Though NSB has restricted access to the Big Data Lab, it’s also clear that he (along with Vincent), is doing additional investigations that involve more than just Tyson Turner, that he is also keeping from the rest of the team.

With the NXX members keeping so many secrets from each other, I’m curious to see how the other chapters play out. But also, if the NXX team, will be able to make it through. I’m assuming that in the next few chapters, we’ll get more in-depth about the additional investigations each suitor is doing on the side, and how they all relate to the big mystery regarding Gerard’s disappearance, the NXX infected drugs, Oedipus, and Tyson Turner’s death.

[mariacallous]

German farmers’ irate marathon protests that reached a high point last week has evoked comparisons to the 1524-1525 German Peasants’ War, the largest uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. Across the country, well-ordered columns of tractors, many-hundred-strong, thundered along autobahns en route to urban centers, occupying main squares in almost every major city and hundreds of towns. In some places, the farmers clashed with police; in others, effigies symbolizing the current center-left German government—composed of the Social Democrats, Greens, and liberal Free Democrats—hung from a yardarm.

On Monday, the caravans descended from all directions on Berlin, Germany’s capital city. An estimated 10,000 farmers, agriculture sector workers, and sympathetic citizens marched through the city as snow and freezing winds coursed down its wide avenues. The protesters’ sirens, horns, and cowbells created a din that could be heard many blocks away. Despite the fact that the demonstration shut down the city center and disrupted traffic all around Berlin, the ruddy-faced farmers, thickly bundled atop their imposing machinery got thumbs-ups, approving waves, and words of encouragement from passersby.

The signs fastened to their machinery expressed their dire messages: “If the farmer dies, so does the country,” “Better death than slavery,” “The death of farming = starvation,” and “If German farmers are ruined, you’ll be importing your food.”

The immediate object of the agricultural sector’s ire was the Jan. 4 government announcement that it will cancel a longtime subsidy for diesel fuel. Farmers rely on diesel for many types of machinery and are reimbursed about 21 euro cents (23 U.S. cents) per liter (about a quarter of a gallon) of fuel. That’s about 12 percent of a liter’s total price. This is worth about 1,700 euros ($1,850) a month to the average farm and runs German taxpayers around 440 million euros ($482 million) annually.

Environmentalists and market-minded liberals had long had the diesel subsidy in their sights, but it was pushed onto the front burner late last year, when Germany’s highest court ruled unconstitutional the government’s appropriation of 60 billion euros ($65 billion) left over from COVID-19 pandemic emergency aid for climate measures. The ruling left a gaping 17-billion-euro ($18.5-billion) hole in the 2024 budget that the government has been racing to plug ever since.

The traditionally arch-conservative farmers’ lobby—never a friend of any of the government’s coalition partners—protested vehemently as if the scratched benefit would bankrupt every hard-working, salt-of-the-earth homestead in Germany. But neither this nor other dark prophecies will transpire—and not because the government backed down on Jan. 4 and agreed to reduce the subsidy in phases over three years. In fact, the diesel subsidy has very little impact on most farms’ well-being.

Experts say that the average German farmer isn’t facing existential threat and that the nullified diesel rebate alone would pinch only those small farms already teetering.

“Most farmers aren’t poor,” said Stephan Cramon-Taubadel, an agricultural economist from the University of Göttingen. He pointed to the farmers’ lobby’s own recent study, which show the average income of a full-time farmer is 82,000 euros a year—and that’s just agricultural income, usually only one part of many farms’ total income.

In fact, an astounding half of this income, roughly, hails from subsidies. And that’s just for being farmers—not for specifically being small, family-run farms, or farms hit hard by drought, or farms that are cleaner or less-emissions-intensive or more decent to livestock.

On the contrary, most of the subsidies are distributed per hectare, meaning that the largest agribusinesses are reaping the lion’s share. The condition of the German farmer today is dramatically different than that of their 16th-century predecessors involved in the peasants’ war, who bore heavy taxation and suffered egregious injustice under the yoke of the nobility.

Germany’s nearly 270,000 farmers are recipients of a vast number of direct and indirect subsidies, most of which dwarf the diesel rebate—and even increased in total last year by 200 million euros ($217.5 million) compared to 2022.

The largest chunk of this pie hails from the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, which allocated German farmers about 7 billion euros in 2023, some of which was calculated per hectare (2.5 acres) of farmland, other parts of which went toward specific funding programs for sustainable and environmentally sound farming and rural development. The German government—in other words, German taxpayers—kicks in another roughly 6 billion euros. (In return, Germans pay some of the lowest food prices compared to household income in Europe, which are lower only in Luxembourg and Ireland.)

Moreover, German farmers are coming off banner seasons: In 2022 and 2023, profits rocketed upward by more than 30 percent each year, despite high inflation and, in 2022, the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.

“German farmers had a record year,” said German agriculture expert Alfons Balmann of the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development.

What, then, are Germany’s farmers griping about? Why does one farmer after another interviewed on German television insist that the political class is not listening to them? That they won’t be taken for granted? That they won’t allow change to happen over their heads?

The ham-fisted defense of agriculture’s status quo is not new, but rather the decades-long mission of the Deutscher Bauernverband (DBV), the agricultural sector’s powerful political lobby. Germany’s Christian Democrats above all have loyally served the DBV since the early postwar years—and today is no different. Conservatives such as Bavaria’s governor, Markus Söder, took to the farmers’ stage in Munich, expressing his undiluted support for their demands. “Without our farmers, there’s no Germany,” he said.

But this rigidity comes at the expense of making changes in our modern food production system in line with the changing times and sensibilities. For years now, there has been pressure on German farmers to reform their existing business model: from the EU, from Germany’s environmental agencies, from animal rights and biodiversity advocates, and from the climate movement.

The angry farmers, argued Jost Maurin of the newspaper Die Tageszeitung, partly have “themselves to blame for the fact that their sector is currently losing the energy tax rebate completely. They have ignored all justified demands for a reform of climate-damaging subsidies for decades. For years, the authorities have recommended to employ financing to promote more environmentally friendly agriculture. But climate arguments simply bounce off Germany’s subsidy champions.” One of the options left to the government, Maurin said, was to simply lop off the diesel rebate, killing two birds with one stone.

There’s no better example of this attitude and the close cooperation between the agricultural lobby and European conservatives than the EU reform measures that were ambushed last year by the European People’s Party, the alliance of the continent’s conservatives in the European Parliament. With the agricultural lobby at its back, the European People’s Party led the charge to water down a nature restoration measure and vehicle emissions regulation, as well as to kill off completely a bill that would have reduced the use of toxic pesticides.

Balmann, of the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development, said that the writing is on the wall for the farmers, and pointed to an extensive study sponsored by the DBV, green nongovernmental organization, and German agencies that charts a path toward sustainable farming.

What do Germany’s farmers say they need to make it happen? Another 10 billion euros each year in government aid. But farmers shouldn’t expect to be given something more from government without giving something up in return.

[astrology-bf]

Hero's Lantern

(CW: Endwalker Spoilers)

‘Home’ means many things depending on the person that you ask. To some, home is their home country: Jullus pyr Norbanus never once ceased calling Garlemald his home regardless of how difficult it had become to live in it, and Lyse Hext felt the same with Ala Mhigo despite having lived most of her life in foreign lands. For those of a more itinerant bent, home might be wherever you can simply rest: adventurers like Ardbert or nomads like Estinien take a view wherein the whole world is one village, and ‘home’ is a broad patchwork of inns and alehouses where toil and misery are put temporarily aside.

The Warrior of Light was such a person. Gydeo Abbey, where he spent his youth and where the closest folk he had to parents dwelt, was not a home as much as a fond place to visit. He had his dwelling in Ul’dah, near Emerald Avenue, but in truth the housekeeper he paid had got more use from it than Ifan ever had. ‘Home’, to him, was wherever he could take his ease. Sometimes that was a place, but in most cases it was people: people like the former Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and in particular the man with whom he was in love.

That man, G’raha Tia, and now walked along the road between Noumenon and the center of Sharlayan alongside Ifan. It was now evening, Azeyma having sunk beneath the western sky, and they had just returned from meeting up with Alphinaud and Alisaie within the storied archive to discuss events of late, particularly the presence and request of their new acquaintance, Wuk Lamat, who had ventured to the Scholar’s city from the far off western continent of Tural.

Though Ketenramm the Blue had long since reached Tural, then called simply ‘the New World’, it remained quite enigmatic to the folk of the Three Continents. The waters of Indigo Deep were treacherous even in summer, and the constant state of war with both the beast tribes and then Garlemald precluded much attention (or investment) in exploring further west despite the tales of riches beyond counting. That had been changing, as the attempted exploitation of the Whalaqee which Ifan and Martyn had thwarted well attested, and now it seemed as though the growing interest was becoming mutual: Wuk Lamat had ventured from the capital of Tulliyolal to ask for aid in a contest for succession, specifically Ifan’s. 

Ifan was delighted by her personality. She was vivacious, and he had immense respect for any woman that could polish off a plate as vigorously as she did (see: Lyse Hext). And though Wuk Lamat was obviously fresh in battle, as attested by her badly-concealed fright during their impromptu hunt upon the Isle of Hamm, she could clearly hold her own and had a good head on her shoulders. A fine warrior, and a fine prospective friend.

But a fine ruler? That was another question, and a sort of question that Ifan was not much interested in answering.

Ifan hated politics, and with good reason. The Bloody Banquet. The many ills in Ishgard. The struggle over Ala Mhigo. And last but not least, Doma: where Ifan had to put aside the feelings of his heart, lest Doma come into possession of a man of mass destruction. Though he and Hien were still close, close to the point that he and G’raha were now slightly more than friends themselves, there would always be that distance by virtue of the Lord of Doma’s office. Perhaps one day that country would be prepared to stand without a monarch, but much as Yugiri said upon the Steppe - much like Ifan, Doma’s desire was for Lord Kaien’s son. And for both Hien and Ifan, the people of that land came first. 

The Warrior of Light had not made his misgivings about politics known to Wuk Lamat in either his expression or his words, however, and had instead listened with quiet interest as she explained the process: a contest for succession between her and her adopted siblings for the throne of Tulliyolal, where she would need to prove her worth by leading - leading her allies of her choice, like Ifan. ‘Allies’, but there was a distinct whiff of ‘retainer’ given it involved no real gain for Ifan save whatever nonspecific favor having her in a high place might lead to down the line. And there was the simple matter that, to Ifan’s mind, Tural’s succession was the business of its people and not foreigners trying to ‘civilize' them.

For all those reasons not to go, however, Ifan was still uncertain.

So he did what any person feeling ill at ease would do: went home. It was fortunate that all that took was turning to his right and talking to the archon at his side, which he now did.

G’raha seemed to share Ifan’s discomfort, a faint frown on his noble brow. “Despite all that we’ve learned, I cannot help but feel we have yet to hear the whole story.” he mused. Then the archon pursed his lips for just a moment, and glanced at Ifan before smiling. “What about you, dear heart? Are you inclined to accept or refuse Wuk Lamat’s request?” he asked, though the faintly amused twitching of his ears well indicated he had an answer in his head.

Ifan smirked back at his lover. He reached over to run his thumb and index finger along one pointed ear, smirk easing to a loving smile as he watched G’raha’s tail curl in delight at the sensation. “You know me. I’d rather not get involved in politics.” he answered.

The Miqo’te chuckled once, then nodded wryly. “If only others had the same good sense.” agreed the archon. 

The pair came to the bridge between Tranquility and the Baldesion Annex, but rather than continue on they paused to take the view. Menphina was a slender waxing crescent, and her young light was dim enough that even Sharlayan’s city lights were insufficient to occlude the stars. A gorgeous evening overlooking Scholar’s Harbor, where Thaliak stood proudly as he’d done since he’d been built in centuries past. Gorgeous, but ordinary: the Ragnarok was now in Labyrinthos once again, the many people who’d joined forces to see that mighty vessel to completion now long since dispersed. And though both moon and sea of stars were present, even G’raha and Ifan who had stood upon both Mare Lamentorum and then Ultima Thule had difficulty seeing them as anything but backdrop, as they’d known them nearly their entire lives. For all the portentousness of fate that marked both men’s lives, they seemed much as any loving couple did: talking of affairs while on a walk back to their house.

Ifan hummed, leaning against the railing of the bridge as he looked out towards the sea and where the constellation of the Arrow hung. “That said… I do have some concerns.” he said, at length.

G’raha smiled at him. He slid close, hip to hip so he could curl his tail around one of Ifan’s thighs. He always did it, even without thinking, on some level remembering all those times he’d had the Hyur pulled away. “I am always happy to listen, my love.” he replied with a warm smile.

The magician gave a soft wink in return, then leaned down to bunt his head on G’raha’s thankfully before he leaned forward on the railing. He shimmied closer so that the other man could drape an arm around him. “This brother of hers. Koana, I believe his name was.” he began, at length.

G’raha’s expression settled. He nodded. “The sibling who studied in Sharlayan, if I recall?” The Miqo’te gave the other man a squeeze around the waist, tail flexing now and then around his thigh.

Ifan frowned for just a moment as he hummed in affirmation. “She mentioned how interested he was in technology.” he elaborated, slowly.

The archon’s ear twitched as his gaze shifted forward. He digested Ifan’s implication in thoughtful quiet for a short while, then nodded again in understanding. “You fear the rise of a new Garlemald.” he observed, tone indicating that he found the notion more than reasonable.

Ifan nodded in return. “Allag, too. I haven’t forgotten why you sealed the Tower, ‘Raha, and why you still keep it sealed. After everything we’ve been through, I can’t in good conscience stand by if there’s a risk of that being repeated.” he stated, expression rather stern.

G’raha’s own expression mirrored that of his lover. He was the expert on Allag, in many ways, and was intimately familiar with its many, many sins. The archon grimaced, then looked back at Ifan reassuringly. “Understandably so, dear heart. You seem inclined to go, if only to take his measure.” he observed again, using his arm to nudge the Hyur towards him and encourage him to put his weight on G’raha.

Ifan obliged, knowing the Miqo’te was quite strong enough to carry him without sweating. He hummed again, then gave a noncommittal sigh. “It could be nothing. Plenty of people are interested in technology, but it becomes suspicious when they’re also interested in power.” he disclaimed, looking back to meet his lover’s eyes. 

G’raha’s ears fell slightly as he saw Ifan’s expression. Skepticism, sheepishness, but also… “Forgive me, Ifan, but you seem… strained.” he said gently, giving his beloved a reassuring squeeze of both his arm and tail. 

The magician let out a mirthless huff and nodded. “Just remembering Yotsuyu.” he stated.

G’raha blinked, his head tilting slightly in confusion at the mention of the now-dead Witch of Doma. “For what reason?” he asked.

Ifan took in a breath, then smiled wanly down at G’raha. Difficult to talk about, but easier - Ultima Thule, and the weight that he’d cut out there at the near cost of his life, had helped greatly. “I promised her I’d kill Hien if he didn’t make Doma better.” he began, tone thoughtful. “But I think she didn’t just mean him, specifically… Looking back, she might have been trying to tell me not to let politics or sentiment get in the way of doing the right thing. There may no longer be a Hydaelyn in need of a champion, but… Everything I’ve learned and earned along that path, I have a responsibility to use that to do good. Like making sure Tural and the rest of Etheirys greet one another in a friendly spirit.” He frowned, but it was less a frown of irritation and more one of resolution. 

The former Crystal Exarch didn’t answer right away, listening patiently before giving Ifan’s words careful consideration. That was simply his beloved champion’s nature: much like G’raha, Hydaelyn had chosen him because of it. A love for everything within creation, and for making people happy. So much so, that he forgot creation also included him. So G’raha smiled, leaned up to press a gentle kiss to Ifan’s neck, nuzzled it with a faint purr within his muscled chest, and then relaxed and gazed at him again. “I would not think any less of you if you declined responsibility for once, dear heart. You have more than earned the right to focus on yourself.” he stated, with clear and gentle firmness.

Ifan’s frown had vanished at the contact, his face a cast of loving warmth. “On us, you mean.” he countered, with equal firmness.

G’raha chuckled softly with a nod, but then gave his beloved a look of soft resolve. “I do, but… yourself, as well. That includes if your focus takes you to Tural, my mighty champion.” he reassured.

A deep and resigned sigh left Ifan’s chest as he gave G’raha a slow nod in answer, gazing over at the statue of the Scholar. Then he glanced at G’raha with a hum. “You aren’t going, then?” he asked, obviously suspecting such a possibility.

The archon nodded with an obviously disappointed smile, ears flattening and tail tightening where it remained on Ifan’s leg. Nonetheless, his tone was certain. “Krile has worked tirelessly to put the Students back on their feet after what happened at the Isle of Val, yet the task remains unfinished. I would not wish to deny her closure regarding her grandfather, however happy I would be adventuring by your side.” he explained.

Ifan reached up to drape an arm across his beloved’s shoulders, pulling him close and pressing a firm kiss to one laxed ear, making its twin flutter happily. “Aye, and I’ve been wanting to go on a proper adventure with her, too. We’ll always have linkpearls, and I’m sure there’s aetherytes.” he mused, smiling down at G’raha with equal disappointment. 

G’raha’s lips pursed briefly, and he smiled sadly. “I will miss you, dear heart. Extremely so.” he said, softly. Arm hugging Ifan tightly, trying to memorize his texture. 

“Likewise, my lord. Your mighty champion will be thinking of you every day.” replied the Hyur, his other hand going to G’raha’s so he could thread his fingers with the archon’s. 

After a short while, G’raha’s smile became more reassuring. Then he huffed, and chuckled at himself. “He needn’t be too grieved. Once matters are in hand in Sharlayan, I am certain my restraint will lapse.” he admitted, giving the magician an extremely sheepish grin.

Ifan couldn’t help but grin back in return, squeezing and rocking his beloved with his arm. “Chasing me all the way across the sea just for a lay. My dirty old man.” he teased, lovingly.

G’raha stuck his tongue out from in between his teeth and gave Ifan a wink, too happy to be bashful or indignant. “Naturally. A lord will be most eager to sample the fruits his champion collects for him on expedition to a far off land.” he agreed, tail sliding up between the Hyur’s legs for just a moment as he teased in turn. His ear flicked happily, and he gave the other man a slight wiggle of his head as well.

Ifan simply had to laugh, all disappointment vanished by his love’s good humor. He smirked down teasingly. “And the food, I’m assuming.” he countered.

G’raha tried his best to give a regal, sagely nod. “That as well.” he replied, though he quickly broke down into chortling as the pair let out their tension. Laughter eased into a long and tender kiss, Ifan’s head craned down so G’raha didn’t have to strain too much by reaching, while the Miqo’te’s hand rubbed over Ifan’s back in slow and soothing circles, occasionally gripping when the kiss became a little heated. 

Ifan smiled at G’raha, cheeks a ruddy bronze and forehead resting on the archon’s, looking much less troubled than he had a few mere moments prior.

The archon’s face was set in much the same expression, arms around his lover’s waist as Ifan’s draped around his shoulders. He hummed, ears splayed in contentment and his tail not having once left where it clung to Ifan’s thigh. “At the end of everything, it remains an exciting journey to a faraway continent. Such a journey would be the envy of many a scholar. And if you go to Tural, and are not moved to help Wuk Lamat…” he began, slowly.

Ifan nodded against G’raha’s head. “Quietly take my leave, and come back home.” he finished with a quiet and content hum.

G’raha nodded in return, smile widening and warming. “A home which will be waiting eagerly for you, dear heart, with open arms. Assuming he does not find you before then.” he promised.

The magician had to swallow, smile settling because he was too happy to express it. “I love you, ‘Raha. My noble lord.” That G’raha had found the title shameful seemed so funny, now, as the archon was every bit a real king to him. Less a figure of authority, and more one of steady comfort and aspiration.

G’raha blinked back a little moisture he felt forming in his eyes, his face matching his beloved champion’s: a title that he once deemed disrespectful, but was true in how he felt about him. Someone he relied on for protection, provided for with all his heart and soul, and rode away into the sunset with - at least into into the fairy tale’s next chapter, as no fantasy is ever truly final. “And I you, Ifan. My mighty champion. Even should an ocean come between us.” he replied, fingers curled in Ifan’s clothes as Ifan’s curled in his.

They gazed at one another silently. Rocking slowly, the only noises being the waters underneath the bridge and the quiet hum of activity from the Agora further down the road. A quiet and ordinary evening in Sharlayan, giving not a hint of what had happened in the past, nor any hint of what yet lay ahead. 

Ifan straightened up and sighed, then nodded.  “Tural, then?” he hummed, smiling down at G’raha.

G’raha’s ears flicked happily as he straightened up in turn. He gave Ifan a squeeze, then both his arms and tail left the Hyur as he offered Ifan his hand instead - offering to lead the way towards the Annex, where they’d make their final plan. The archon nodded with a happy, loving smile, and answered with clear confidence. “Aye, dear heart. Tural.”

[eightyonekilograms]

1) Is 4ch also subject to end-of-ZIRP threat? 2) We seem to only be talking about American social media companies. What about matome or Chinese sites? Do they have alternative revenue streams?

AIUI 4chan is currently owned by an eccentric Japanese millionaire who runs the thing at a loss out of his own pocket, so if/when it also comes under threat is less a question of the economy and more if/when he gets bored or runs out of money (he's not worth that much so I don't think he can do this forever)

I have no idea what the economics of the Chinese internet is like, and specifically whether they run off venture capital or bank loans or actual revenue streams from customers with avenues that aren't available in the west for whatever reason. But the Chinese economy appears to be undergoing a noticeable contraction at the moment and at the same time they're biting down on their consumer tech sector for what appear to be political reasons, so I wouldn't say I'm bullish on Chinese websites in general.

[lenbryant]

(Long Post, Sorry) Hitting Theater Hard: The Loss of Subscribers Who Went to Everything

The subscription model, in which theatergoers buy a season’s worth of shows at a time, had long been waning, but it fell off a cliff during the pandemic.

As a group of stagehands assembled train cars for the set of “Murder on the Orient Express,” Ken Martin looked grimly at his email. His first year as artistic director at the Clarence Brown Theater in Knoxville, Tenn., was coming to an end, and the theater had missed its income goals by several hundred thousand dollars, largely because it had lost about half its subscribers since the start of the pandemic.

“I’ve already had to tear up one show, because of a combination of cost and I don’t think it’s going to sell,” he said. “I’m in the same boat as a lot of theater companies: How do I get the audience back, and once I get them in the door, how do I keep them for the next show?”

The nonprofit theater world’s industrywide crisis, which has led to closings, layoffs and a reduction in the number of shows being staged, is being exacerbated by a steep drop in the number of people who buy theater subscriptions, in which they pay upfront to see most or all of a season’s shows. The once-lucrative subscription model had been waning for years, but it has fallen off a cliff since the pandemic struck.

It is happening across the nation. Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater had 13,566 subscribers last season, down from 19,770 before the pandemic. In Atlanta, the Alliance Theater ended last season with 3,208, down from a prepandemic 5,086, while Northlight Theater, in Skokie, Ill., is at about 3,200, down from 5,700.

Theaters are losing people like Joanne Guerriero, 61, who dropped her subscription to Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J., after realizing she only liked some of the productions there, and would rather be more selective about when and where she saw shows.

“We haven’t missed it,” she said, “which is unfortunate, I suppose, for them.”

Many artistic leaders believe the change is permanent.

“The strategic conversation is no longer ‘What version of a membership brochure is going to bring in more members,’ but how do we replace that revenue, and replenish the relationship with audiences,” said Jeremy Blocker, the executive director of New York Theater Workshop, an Off Broadway nonprofit that has seen its average number of members (its term for subscribers) drop by 50 percent since before the pandemic.

Why do subscribers matter?

“No. 1, it reduces your cost of marketing hugely — you’re selling three or five tickets for the cost of one,” said Michael M. Kaiser, the chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland. “No. 2, you get the cash up front, which helps fund the rehearsal period and the producing period. And No. 3, subscriptions give you artistic flexibility — if people are willing to buy all the shows, some subset of the total can be less familiar and more challenging, but if you don’t have subscribers, every production is sold on its own merits, and that makes taking artistic risk much more difficult.”

There’s also a strong connection between subscriptions and contributions. “Most donors are subscribers,” said Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, the producing artistic director of Capital Repertory Theater in Albany, N.Y., “so there’s a cycle here.”

Theaters are simultaneously trying to retain — or reclaim — subscribers, and also reduce their dependence on them. Many are experimenting with ways to make subscriptions more flexible, or more attractive, but also seeing an upside in the need to find new patrons.

Programming is clearly on the mind of lapsed subscribers around the country. Even as subscriptions have fallen sharply at regional nonprofits whose mission is to develop new voices and present noncommercial work, they have remained steadier at venues that present touring Broadway shows with highly recognizable titles.

“There’s so much going on with the ‘ought-to-see-this-because-you’re-going-to-be-taught-a-lesson’ stuff, and I’m OK with that, but part of me thinks we’re going a little overboard, and I need to have some fun,” said Melissa Ortuno, 61, of Queens. She describes herself as a frequent theatergoer — she has already seen 17 shows this year — but finds herself now preferring to purchase tickets for individual shows, rather than subscriptions. “I want to take a shot, but I don’t want to be dictated to. And this way I can buy what I want.”

But there are other reasons subscribers have stepped away, including age. “We’re all old, that’s the problem,” said Happy Shipley, 77, of Erwinna, Pa., who decided to renew her subscription at the Bucks County Playhouse, but sees others making a different choice. “Many of them don’t stay up late anymore; they’re anxious about parking, walking, crime, public transportation, increased need of restrooms, you name it.”

Arts administrators say that many people who were previously frequent theatergoers remain fans of the art form, but now attend less frequently, a phenomenon confirmed in interviews with supersubscribers — culture vultures who had multiple subscriptions — who say they are scaling back.

Lisa-Karyn Davidoff, 63, of Manhattan, subscribed to 10 theaters before the pandemic; now she is far more choosy, citing a combination of health concerns and reassessed priorities. “If there’s a great cast or something I can’t miss,” she said, “I will go.” Rena Tobey, a 64-year-old New Yorker, had at least 12 theater subscriptions before the pandemic, and now has none, citing an ongoing concern about catching Covid in crowds, a new appreciation for television and streaming, and a sense that theaters are programming shows for people other than her. “For many years, I’ve pushed my boundaries, and I’m just at a point where I don’t want to do it anymore.”

And Jeanne Ryan Wolfson, a 67-year-old from Rockville, Md., who had four performing arts subscriptions prepandemic, is just finding she likes an à la carte approach to ticket purchasing; she kept two of her previous subscriptions, dropped two, and added a new one. “I was paying a lot of money for the subscriptions, and some of the productions within those packages were a bit disappointing or might not have the wow factor I was looking for,” she said. “I think what I want to do is pick and choose.”

Martin said the Knoxville theater’s staff has spent much of the summer discussing the drop in subscriber numbers — the theater had about 3,000 before the pandemic, but 1,500 last season — and hired a marketing firm to study the situation.

Then comes “Kinky Boots,” the kind of uplifting musical comedy many of today’s audiences seem to want. (“Kinky Boots,” with a plot that involves drag queens, also makes a statement for a theater in Tennessee, where lawmakers have attempted to restrict drag shows.) There will be more adventurous productions, but in a smaller theater: “The Moors” by Jen Silverman, and “Anon(ymous)” by Naomi Iizuka.

But selling tickets show by show, instead of as a package, is challenging and expensive.

“It takes three times as much money, time and effort to bring in someone new,” said Tom Cervone, the theater’s managing director. He said the theater is trying everything it can — print advertising, public radio sponsorships, social media posts, plus appearances at local street fairs and festivals where the theater’s staff will hand out brochures and swag (branded train whistles to promote “Murder on the Orient Express,” for example) while trying to persuade passers-by to come see a show.

The theater, which is on the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee, is less dependent than some on ticket revenue, because, like a number of other regional nonprofits, it is affiliated with a university that subsidizes its operations. Still, the money it earns from ticket sales is essential to balancing the budget.

“It’s been scary some days,” Cervone said, “like, where is everybody?”

Michael Paulson is the theater reporter. He previously covered religion, and was part of the Boston Globe team whose coverage of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. More about Michael Paulson

[notebooknebula]

Best Financing Secrets For Mobile Home Park Investments #shorts

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://www.JaysLiveEvent.com

Free Report:

https://www.jayconner.com/MoneyReport

Watch the Full Interview at:

"The Mobile Home Park Niche: A Profitable and Overlooked Real Estate Opportunity"

Jefferson is a mobile home park investment expert and educator. He is the founder of Park Avenue Partners, a private equity real estate fund that acquires and operates mobile home parks nationwide.

His investment funds are returning 10% - 15% IRRs to Limited Partners. Both personally and through his partnerships, Jefferson has acquired 43 MHPs in 15 states since 2007 totaling over $81mm in value.

He started the industry’s first MHP podcast and the largest group on LinkedIn dedicated to investing in mobile home parks.

Prior to beginning to manage investors’ money in 2014, Jefferson spent seven years investing his own capital in mobile home parks and consulting with high-net-worth families with interests in the manufactured housing industry.

Jefferson has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg Magazine, and on the Real Money television show. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Jefferson’s favorite mobile home is the 1954 Spartan Imperial Mansion, upon which the Company’s logo is partially based. He finds the Bowlus Road Chief to be pretty appealing too.

Join the Private Money Academy: 

https://www.JayConner.com/trial/

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now?

It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at

https://www.JayConner.com/Book

What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyPodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his own money or credit.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

YouTube Channel

Apple Podcasts:

Facebook:

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Making Peace With It

There's plenty of discourse, as per usual, going around about the latest film from THE Walt Disney Animation Studios...

A lot of the more deriding comments remark that the film in question, Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn's WISH, is just the same movie as TANGLED/FROZEN/MOANA but with a cheap 2D filter. I'm sure that it's not a filter nor is it cheap, and while it doesn't seem to be doing what experiments like PAPERMAN and FEAST did a decade earlier, there's still plenty of hard work on the screen and I think the visuals look very, very nice.

I've noticed, amidst a lot of the discourse, that some people just want WDAS to make a new hand-drawn animated film instead of what they consider an "imitation". A 2D film, not a film that's made up of 3D models but looks like a painting or illustration, but an actual 2D film with some CGI stuff... Something that looks like TARZAN, not PAPERMAN.

But, I don't see a 2D film happening there anytime soon. I know legendary animator Eric Goldberg said something about a particular 2D project being in the works about a year ago, but that to me meant a new short or maybe a Disney+ series/special... Not a full-blown feature length film. Disney removed what remained of their 2D animation unit in early 2013, pink-slipping several of their best 2D animators. All the assets and desks, gone. Goldberg, Mark Henn, and Randy Haycock stuck around, their work usually amounting to small stuff like Maui's mini-Maui tattoo in MOANA, 2D pencil tests, and the opening theme to STRANGE WORLD.

The attempt to make hand-drawn features a thing at the studio again amounted to disappointment. I love THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and WINNIE THE POOH, but the former did so-so at best at the box office, the other was sabotaged... But also, this may sound a bit harsh, but I feel that Disney made a big mistake in having those two stories be their comeback 2D features... An old-school-style fairy tale movie that looked like it could've been made in the early '90s or even before that... and a very '60s-looking Winnie the Pooh movie that only ran an hour long and had very muted stakes... Not necessarily the most thrilling-looking things to audiences in the era of UP, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, TOY STORY 3, TANGLED, and KUNG FU PANDA 2, for sure. Like, even much-maligned movies like CARS 2 and THE SMURFS did way better than both of those movies.

So that didn't happen. Disney's future was CGI once more, because capitalism had once ruled - in the early 2000s - that hand-drawn animated features just weren't worth making in America... Unless they were based on hit TV shows, like SPONGEBOB. And it seemed that the ho-hum box office of PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and WINNIE THE POOH's lightning-fast in-and-out run, further "proved" that. When PAPERMAN debuted before WRECK-IT RALPH in fall 2012, it gave us something of a glimmer of hope... That 2D *could* live on as a part of CGI. The three-dimensional qualities made less complicated in CGI, but with hand-drawn's special sauce, so to speak... But it didn't amount to much, either.

But no, the reality is, you have to look elsewhere for 2D animated features... Anime, non-American features, films like KLAUS, etc. That's where it's all thriving, in alternative avenues. It's not happening at the big studios, including Disney Animation themselves.

However, here's the thing about the whole "bring back 2D already!" and "WISH isn't like PAPERMAN so it's a failure" discourse...

I feel that we are lucky that Walt Disney Animation Studios even exists.

Do you know when they were last on the chopping block? As in, facing a complete and total shut down?

2006...

Not that long ago...

Disney Animation had no new movie released in that calendar year, their latest movie at the time was their first in-house all-CGI affair, CHICKEN LITTLE. That movie did okay at the domestic box office, but what it coughed up overall worldwide wasn't all that great against its bloated budget.

Michael Eisner had stepped down as CEO of The Walt Disney Company in September 2005, after a very turbulent and controversial final set of years running the joint. Bob Iger, his deputy, had taken his place and after seeing firsthand what was going wrong, he sought to fix some of the major problems... Namely, the severing relationship between the DizCo (to borrow an abbreviation from Steve Hulett) and Pixar. Pixar's contract was over after the completion of CARS, released in 2006, and they weren't keen on renegotiating because of how Eisner was running things. Iger repaired the broken bridge, and DizCo bought Pixar in early 2006 for a whopping $7.4b.

And with that move, change came to Walt Disney Feature Animation, which would be renamed to Walt Disney Animation Studios...

But the road to the studio's future was rocky. Steve Jobs, who of course was one of Pixar's founding fathers and former owner, had actually proposed the idea of **shutting down Walt Disney Feature Animation**! His reasoning? Basically, "Well who needs them when you got Pixar?" John Lasseter vetoed this, and he and Ed Catmull were named the new heads of Disney Animation, tasked with helping restore the studio's box office fortunes.

If Jobs had had his way, Walt Disney Animation Studios' whole "canon" of animated features would've possibly ended with... CHICKEN LITTLE... Ending a decades-long legacy that began with the very, the one and only SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS!

Upon "reviving" Disney Animation, the initial plan was to have a new hand-drawn feature every two years. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG would've gotten that whole ball rolling, but it didn't... In fact, the Lasseter-era CG pictures got off to a rocky start as well. MEET THE ROBINSONS was largely dumped and it failed to recoup its budget, BOLT did so-so. TANGLED would be the first big hit of that then-new line-up of CG Disney movies, and then WRECK-IT RALPH and FROZEN continued it. It was a straight, uninterrupted hit streak from there until COVID-19 broke out in March 2020. None of the movies really deviated from the assets and style and tricks used in BOLT, TANGLED, and FROZEN. Even a sci-fi techy movie like BIG HERO 6 still felt like it could be set in the same universe as those other fantasy movies, albeit set far into the future.

That continues today in movies like RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, ENCANTO, and STRANGE WORLD. WISH is that same look, too, but rendered and executed differently. Whatever the 2024-release feature film is, probably the same deal.

Other studios, even Pixar, have been varying it up. Disney Animation, the oldest of these big studios, is staying the course...

I sometimes grouse about it, I sometimes say "C'mon Disney, vary it up a bit!"

But the other part of me is saying... We're lucky they're even still around.

Walt Disney Animation Studios is literally the bedrock of the entire company. No Disney cartoon studio, no Disney company, plain and simple. Walt Disney didn't get into doing live-action movies until the 1940s, TV in the early 1950s, and themes parks in the mid-1950s... and a lot of that took off because of the strong image he and his crew had built with all the Alice Comedies, the Mickey Mouse and friends cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, and the beloved animated features.

It seems shocking and almost sacrilegious that Steve Jobs himself took a look at that studio, after 68 years of making animated features and had just released feature #46... and thought "Ehh, shut them down." In the brutal world of capitalism, sadly, WDAS at the time looked like an old and injured horse that needed to be put out of its misery. Whatever we might think of those divisive early 2000s features sans THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE and LILO & STITCH, they were - at the time of their release - not critical darlings nor box office giants. Certainly not enjoying what Pixar's movies were rewarded at the time. MONSTERS, INC., FINDING NEMO, and THE INCREDIBLES were critical darlings and box office titans, LILO & STITCH got great reviews but only coughed up around $273m worldwide. That was around as much as what MONSTERS, INC. and THE INCREDIBLES made *domestically*. CHICKEN LITTLE outgrossed LILO & STITCH at the worldwide box office, if you can begin to wrap your head around that!

2D got the boot over these box office failures and many other reasons, but the studio was also on thin ice...

But you would think, they're safe again! More than safe! TANGLED was a hit, WRECK-IT RALPH was a hit, FROZEN made gazillions of dollars, and so on and so forth... But I get the sense that Walt Disney Animation Studios is only kept around for... Legacy reasons. Because it is *the* studio, again, the bedrock of the whole company. It's kept alive simply because of that. And what's better than having two animation studios making big hits year after year? And movies that are 95% of the time guaranteed Oscar locks?

Consider how long *other* animation studios and projects lasted at Disney...

Blue Sky Studios, which they got as part of the package when they purchased 21st Century Fox film/TV assets from the Murdochs? They shuttered it after SPIES IN DISGUISE, *one* single movie, lost money at the box office. That was the *only* Blue Sky movie that Disney distributed. Then they proceeded to pull the plug on NIMONA, which was roughly 3/4 done! Though luckily, instead of yeeting it into a black hole as a "tax write-off" or locking it away so that no one else could score a success with it, they surprisingly offloaded the picture to someone else. And that someone else, Annapurna and Netflix, have finished it and it's coming out this summer... The one that got away. I'd have a good chuckle if NIMONA, in addition to be a great beloved movie, beats both of Disney's animated offerings at the Oscars. Would be poetic justice, in a way.

There was also Disneytoon Studios, the makers of all those direct-to-video films from the '90s to the mid-aughts. LION KING II, LADY AND THE TRAMP II, BAMBI 2, ya know? It was kept alive after John Lasseter purged all of the direct-to-video sequel projects that they had in the works (such as DUMBO II, THE ARISTOCATS 2, and a prequel film about the Seven Dwarfs), and it was rebranded as an outlet for CGI Tinker Bell movies (I guess Disney really wanted to compete with Barbie Fairytopia at the time?) and spin-offs of Pixar's CARS franchise. Fascinatingly, PLANES and PLANES 2 would've lead to a movie about subway trains, and also a spacecraft movie. Said spacecraft movie was aiming for a spring 2019 release, with footage shown off at the 2017 D23 Expo... After Lasseter's ouster from The Walt Disney Company in mid-2018 following misconduct allegations, out went Disneytoon Studios. It wasn't rerouted to make a different kind of movie following Lasseter's ouster, it was just gone. Just like that. It was as if Lasseter had kept that small studio on life support.

Those are the most recent examples I can think of.

We can also stretch back to the '90s, when Disney's goldmine that was WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, didn't get beyond a handful of short films and some theme park stuff. A ROGER RABBIT sequel or prequel was a NO-FREAKIN'-BRAINER, but due to various complications, it stalled and stalled and stalled... and didn't happen.

Speaking of Roger Rabbit... Robert Zemeckis, director of that film. Remember how his company, ImageMovers Digital, formed a brief partnership with Disney to create motion-capture movies? It only resulted in 2009's A CHRISTMAS CAROL and the massive flop MARS NEEDS MOMS. They got pretty far long with a gnarly-looking remake of YELLOW SUBMARINE, but that was canned when the partnership ended.

Or how about their partnership with Skellington Productions? THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was a respectable success in 1993 that became a cult favorite thereafter, but JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH - despite being directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton - failed to recreate that success some three years later. Doors shut on that whole collaboration, a feature film adaptation of TOOTS AND THE UPSIDE-DOWN HOUSE canceled, Skellington was no more a little after that.

Heck, Pixar themselves could've been toast if TOY STORY didn't do well. Or A BUG'S LIFE. Or even MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO. And weird contractual agita prevented them from making sequels, save for TOY STORY 2. If one of those originals had flopped in the early 2000s, they wouldn't have had a TOY STORY 3 or an A BUG'S LIFE 2 to back them up.

Anyways, yeah, Walt Disney Animation Studios themselves were almost on the chopping block as late as 2006... And they were on the chopping before that, too. There were eras where each movie of theirs needed to do well in order to justify their existence. If anything, that's been almost their entire existence. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS was a box office phenomenon in 1938, but World War II completely took the wind out of the studio's sails, partially causing PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, and BAMBI to flop. The studio spent almost the whole decade making anthology movies made up of smaller, disconnected segments until returning to single-story features in 1950 with CINDERELLA... Then when SLEEPING BEAUTY bombed hard in 1959, the studio was on thin ice once more. Roy O. Disney and the business side of the company saw no future for animated features and felt "Why not just continue to re-release the 10+ movies that we've already made?" Walt still kept animated features going, but the studio was significantly scaled down.

So throughout the 1960s and 1970s, each new movie had to be a profitable success, or else they would've been shut down. 101 DALMATIANS was a blockbuster, as was THE JUNGLE BOOK. THE SWORD IN THE STONE did alright, THE ARISTOCATS, ROBIN HOOD, and THE RESCUERS made decent coin in North America, and did significantly better in Europe. I swear, France and West Germany literally carried Disney's feature animation wing on their backs during those decades!

And then when outsiders came in and took over the Disney enterprise in the mid-1980s, and THE BLACK CAULDRON was released to middling reviews and weak box office? The reasoning was "Why are we still making these?" New CEO Michael Eisner and new chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg seemed more interested in the adult-oriented Touchstone division that Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller founded in 1984 before his ouster. That, and the then-newly opened Walt Disney Television Animation. Imagine that! THE BLACK CAULDRON being Disney's final animated film, and their future only being in Saturday morning cartoons and adult live-action comedies. Luckily, Roy E. Disney - Walt's nephew - also happened to be there, and he knew the cornerstone of the company was the animated features, *not* this new Touchstone thing that was founded by a family member he didn't see eye to eye with. It took some time, but animated features proved themselves viable again... Funny how it took *one* movie to almost put an end to that! It's not like THE BLACK CAULDRON came off of a long series of floppy movies, it was the studio's first money-loser in decades...

So yes, I feel we're in this prolonged period of Walt Disney Animation Studios merely existing. Now that they're 100 years old and have produced - to the company's estimation - 61 animated movies, soon to be 62 with WISH, they're just... There. Still making movies, but likely not moving the needle. They're pretty much a legacy brand now, and I guess they'd change course if people stop showing up to their movies. STRANGE WORLD was a massive flop, yes, but that had more to do with other things than it being yet another CGI WDAS movie. ENCANTO exploded on Disney+, and RAYA was successful as a streaming title as well. WISH would have to bomb, and their next five or so features, to make a big reinvention happen... Or, they would be shut down. "You had a good run!"

Believe me, I'd love to see Disney Animation shake things up a bit. I'd love to see them try all-new styles and stories in CGI once more, like they did with many of their short films. I'd love to see a feature that looks *nothing* like TANGLED, FROZEN, MOANA, and STRANGE WORLD. And directed by someone who isn't Chris Buck, Don Hall, or Byron Howard. A complete and total outside voice, with a new spin on the Disney animated feature. The way someone like Mark Dindal did with THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE, or Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois with LILO & STITCH. Films that were classically Disney in a unique way, but totally did their own thing and redefined what a Disney animated movie could be! Of the CG pictures, I felt the same about Rich Moore's WRECK-IT RALPH, which feels like the freshest picture of that era to me. ZOOTOPIA, also directed by Moore, a runner-up candidate.

(I know that there have been other directors on some of the recent films, but the main directors are the ones that have been there for quite some time and have been directing all the movies. I see more of a Hall picture in RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON than I do a Carlos Lopez Estrada picture.)

I have no idea what the future of Disney Animation looks like. Jennifer Lee has been CCO of the studio since Lasseter's 2018 ouster, and all of the movies she's overseen so far are Lasseter-era greenlights. Movies that were likely locked down and determined a while ago, plus she spent a good chunk of her first year and a half balancing her CCO duties with writing/directing FROZEN II.

WISH might be the first greenlight under her watch, and it appears that she was one of the writers on it, too. After all, she did direct FROZEN and FROZEN II with Chris Buck, in addition to writing them. Other than WISH, the only things that seemed to get greenlit after her promotion were a handful of Disney+ shows, only a single one is an original - IWAJU. A collaboration with a Nigerian upstart studio. The few images they released last autumn, it just looks like a generic Disney Junior show to my eyes. The show itself may be pretty good, but I'm thinking... This is all they've got? They're very mum about what they have coming out, we don't even know what Feature #63 is. We know ZOOTOPIA 2 and FROZEN III are in the works, but not what the next original movie after WISH is. Pixar next door, we know what original movie they have coming out in 2024, but WDAS? No dice. Heck, we didn't even know a thing about WISH until this past year, when it was officially unveiled at the D23 Expo. A little over a year before its release.

So, I don't think we truly have an idea of what's next anyways, other than WISH and IWAJU. And maybe they do just stay the course for the rest of the decade.

I try not to complain or grouse, there are things I "wish" (hah!) they would do... But, I've just got to accept that this is the status. They're alive and running and making movies and keeping people employed, and they may have been morphed into a mere legacy studio at this point. Another brand. Like Marvel and Lucasfilm. Marvel is comic book superhero movies, Lucasfilm is just Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and... Disney Animation? "We make Disney movies, just the way you like 'em." WISH sounds a lot like that, honestly: A fantasy musical adventure with a princess and a funny animal sidekick in it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but we shall see... For now, I'll take what I can get. I've generally liked all the post-Lasseter movies anyways, some more so than others (particularly RAYA and ENCANTO over RALPH BREAKS, FROZEN II, and STRANGE WORLD), would love to see them push the envelope again, but hey- What can ya do?

[davidsatkinsons]

Embracing the Challenge: Betting on Underdogs in Basketball

Betting on Underdogs: Unearthing Value in Basketball Wagering

When it comes to the realm of NFL Betting Philippines betting, there exists an exhilarating yet often overlooked avenue — wagering on underdog teams in basketball. In this company, we will navigate the terrain of underdog betting and unveil the strategies that can lead to substantial rewards. This often uncharted territory holds the potential for astute bettors to unearth hidden gems and capitalize on value-rich opportunities.

Before we delve into the strategies that can tilt the odds in your favor, it is paramount to underscore the importance of comprehensive research. To make informed wagers on underdogs, it is essential to stay abreast of the latest news, statistics, and analyses from esteemed sources. Websites such as ESPN and Sporting News offer invaluable insights and data to fuel your decision-making process.

One of the fundamental tenets of underdog betting is discerning the potential in these teams. Contrary to popular belief, not all underdogs are created equal. Some may be in the midst of a temporary slump, while others boast hidden strengths that can disrupt the established order. Comprehending team dynamics, injury reports, and tactical strategies is your ticket to gaining an edge.

When it comes to odds, it is worth noting that bookmakers frequently underestimate underdog teams, creating alluring betting prospects. Perusing platforms like Betting Pro and OddsShark can serve as your compass to identifying disparities in odds, allowing you to capitalize on underrated teams.

Moreover, keeping a finger on the pulse of betting trends and sentiment can prove advantageous. Online betting communities and forums often serve as treasure troves of insights that may not be readily accessible elsewhere. However, exercise prudence and verify information to ensure its credibility.

It is imperative to bear in mind that the allure of underdog betting should be tempered by responsible gambling practices. Betting should be an enjoyable endeavor within the boundaries of your financial means. Resources such as GambleAware offer guidance on cultivating responsible gambling habits to foster a positive and sustainable betting experience.

For those intrigued by the historical narratives surrounding underdog triumphs, Wikipedia provides an extensive page that delves into the concept. Exploring these stories can yield profound insights into the unpredictable nature of sports and the indomitable spirit of underdogs throughout history.

Strategies for Betting on Underdog Teams

Now that we've explored the concept of betting on underdogs in basketball and highlighted the importance of research, let's delve deeper into strategies that can help you profit from these often underestimated teams. Betting on underdogs requires a unique approach compared to wagering on favorites. Here are some key strategies to consider:

Team Analysis: Examine the underdog team's recent performances, both home and away. Look for signs of improvement or resilience, even in the face of losses.

Opponent Assessment: Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the favored team. Identify any vulnerabilities that the underdog might exploit, such as injuries to key players or a recent losing streak.

Historical Data: Research past matchups between the underdog and the favored team. Sometimes, certain teams have a historical advantage that might not be reflected in current odds.

In-Game Betting: Consider live or in-game betting. If the underdog starts strong or surprises with an early lead, odds may shift in your favor, allowing you to hedge your bets or maximize profits.

Budget Management: Set a clear budget for your underdog bets and stick to it. The allure of higher odds can be tempting, but responsible bankroll management is essential for long-term success.

By incorporating these strategies into your betting approach, you can increase your chances of finding value in underdog teams and enjoying a unique and potentially profitable betting experience.

The Evolution of Biometric Betting Technology

In the rapidly advancing landscape of sports betting, technology continues to push boundaries and redefine the way we engage with our favorite pastime. One of the most promising frontiers is the integration of biometric technology, a development poised to revolutionize the industry. In this exploration, we'll delve into the future of biometric betting technology and its potential to transform the way we experience and interact with sports betting.

Biometric technology involves the measurement and statistical analysis of people's unique physical and behavioral characteristics. These can include fingerprints, facial recognition, voice patterns, and even heartbeat rhythms. In the context of sports betting, this technology offers a new level of personalization and security.

One of the most significant advantages of biometric betting technology is its potential to enhance the security and integrity of the betting process. By utilizing biometric markers, such as fingerprint or facial recognition, betting platforms can ensure that the person placing the bet is indeed the authorized account holder. This safeguards against issues of identity theft and unauthorized use of betting accounts.

Moreover, biometric technology has the potential to create a seamless and immersive betting experience. Imagine placing a bet with a simple glance at your device, or confirming a wager with the touch of a finger. This streamlined process eliminates the need for passwords and PINs, providing a frictionless user experience.

The use of biometric data can also lead to more personalized betting recommendations. By analyzing biometric information, betting platforms can gain insights into user preferences, behaviors, and even emotional states. This data can be leveraged to offer tailored betting suggestions, enhancing the overall betting experience.

Reputable sources like CNBC and BBC have covered the emergence of biometric technology in various industries, shedding light on its potential applications and implications. These platforms offer valuable insights into the broader technological landscape.

For a comprehensive understanding of biometric technology and its applications, you can explore the dedicated Wikipedia page on Biometrics. This resource provides in-depth information about the various forms of biometric identification and their uses across different sectors.

The Future of Biometric Betting Technology

As we venture further into the realm of biometric betting technology, our exploration uncovers more layers of its transformative potential and the profound impact it may have on the way we engage with sports betting. In this follow-up wake we will delve deeper into the exciting possibilities and practical applications of this cutting-edge technology.

Enhanced Security Measures

One of the primary concerns in the world of online sports betting is security. Unauthorized access to betting accounts and identity theft are ongoing challenges. Biometric technology offers a robust solution by adding an additional layer of security. Beyond fingerprints and facial recognition, more advanced biometrics like retina scans and voice authentication can be employed to ensure the highest level of user verification.

Furthermore, the use of biometrics can reduce the risk of underage gambling. By verifying the age of bettors through biometric markers, platforms can maintain compliance with age restrictions and provide a safer betting environment.

Real-Time Monitoring and Responsible Gaming

Biometric data can be leveraged for real-time monitoring of a bettor's well-being during betting activities. By tracking physiological indicators like heart rate variability, betting platforms can detect signs of stress or compulsive behavior. This data can trigger responsible gaming interventions, such as limiting bet amounts or suggesting breaks for the bettor's mental and financial well-being.

Additionally, biometric technology can be used to verify the identity and location of bettors, ensuring compliance with local gambling laws and regulations. This feature is particularly crucial in regions with strict betting restrictions.

Personalized Betting Experiences

The future of sports betting lies in personalization, and biometric data can play a pivotal role in achieving this goal. By analyzing biometric information, betting platforms can tailor their offerings to individual preferences and needs. This includes suggesting bets based on a bettor's past choices, favorite sports, and even their emotional state during specific games.

Imagine receiving a personalized betting recommendation based on your historical betting patterns and your real-time emotional response to a game. This level of customization has the potential to enhance the overall enjoyment and engagement of sports betting enthusiasts.

Biometric Betting in Practice

Biometric betting technology is already making strides in various forms. Some betting platforms have started implementing fingerprint or facial recognition for login authentication. As the technology matures, we can expect to see wider adoption and more advanced applications in the industry.

Further Reading

To stay informed about the latest developments in biometric betting technology and its broader implications, consider exploring the following resources:

TechCrunch: TechCrunch offers in-depth coverage of emerging technologies, including biometrics, and their impact on various industries.

Wired: Wired frequently features articles on biometric technology and its applications, providing insights into its potential future trends.

Forbes: Forbes delves into the business and financial aspects of biometric technology, shedding light on its potential market impact.

In our ongoing exploration of biometric betting technology, we are just scratching the surface of what this innovative field has to offer. As technology continues to evolve, we can anticipate a future where sports betting becomes more secure, personalized, and responsible, thanks to the power of biometrics.

[skullinahat]

lots of shitty unconfident baby politics rambling here but that "How This Climate Activist Justifies Political Violence" interview in the new york times is so interesting to me in it's portrayal of the failure point of lifestyle politics. lifestyle politics are not an effective political method and stagnate actual change, but beyond that, when and where they fall apart is so fascinating.

because like, lifestyle politics and consumer ideology (i can't remember the correct terminology im so sorry adorno) go hand in glove. within capitalism, what you buy is your life. lifestyle politics state how you live your life is your politics. what you buy is your politics. and i think we apply these concepts to things we don't buy as well, within an attention economy. who you watch on youtube is your politics. who you follow and dont follow is your politics. (see: callout culture.)

i also think its why so many people react to criticism so negatively. because criticism is seen as a call to political and moral action, that action being to stop participating in whatever is the object of criticism. with consumerism being seen as the end-all be all of the political landscape, you have a moral obligation to not enjoy anything you're morally opposed to.

this creates incentive to not criticise things, so you can continue enjoying the latest show. (which also produces absolutely noxious analysis.) people often say "is there anything good left?" in reaction to learning some aspect of their show was unethical.

and this is the big failure point of lifestyle politics i want to focus on in this post: there is no "ethical" lifestyle under capitalism. there is no life that is not made out of other's exploitation. there is nothing that escapes its grasp.

and realizing this within lifestyle politics basically feels like the worlds ending. i'm describing my own expeirence here. with consumer politics having been your only political avenue, and a reflection of your moral worth as a person, the realization that there is no way to live ethically makes you feel helpless. theres no political action you can take to make things better when you only understand political action as what you do and don't buy and signal your support for.

you believed the entire goal of politics and life was to live ethically, and if you can't live ethically, what's the point of living at all?

and this happens in real time in the interview!

to paraphrase, Malm states that the excessive emissions caused by luxury lifestyles kill people by accelerating climate change. billionares are killing people, and violence in justified in response. and the interviewer responds with this:

"But by that logic, i cannot live an ethical lifestyle, and i contribute to death."

and later we see the logical outcome of realizing it's physically impossible to do what you've lived your whole life trying to:

the footnote is incredible. it really does feel suffocating, only having known lifestyle politics, and realizing they're not effective. it absolutely feels hopeless.

i've got a lot more thoughts here, about how useless lifestle politics are, and how they actively limit the life of those who engage in them, and stop them from effecting change, but i've run outta brain juice, and that has all been better said a century ago. i would highly recommend reading the article.

[chinbiz]

I was watching some stuff about men's self-help and noticed that a lot of what typically gets discussed ultimately traces back to relationships and sex. You have the manosphere that essentially says "learn to get sex or a girlfriend, and getting sex or a girlfriend will make you confident and happy", and then you have people I otherwise agree with who are countering this with "learn confidence, and that will get you sex or a girlfriend", and the issue is both of these are accepting the amatonormative narrative that having a romantic relationship is uniquely important and should be a priority.

Amatonormativity is why we devalue platonic relationships and relationships/relationship structures that fall outside of the nuclear family. It is why we as a society don't prioritize other avenues of connection such as community building.

If we as leftists are going to start giving out self-help style advice (big "if" there), we should be applying critical analysis to the narratives being pushed. We should be acknowledging that the current system prioritizes monogamous romantic relationships and that self-help plays into this. Instead of telling boys whether the chicken or the egg comes first in terms of confidence and romance, we should be decoupling these concepts altogether and teaching them to question why they've been taught that having a girlfriend will cure their depression and cleanse their pores in the first place.

The antidote to PUA and manosphere culture is not the left giving advice on how to bag a chick, but to teach these boys to think critically about why they have prioritized sex and relationships above all else and tied their entire self worth to dating, and what systems that thinking benefits (capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc).

Throughout high school I watched (mostly cishet) boys my age internalize amatonormativity in several ways. I knew several who became serial monogamists, jumping from relationship to relationship, terrified of being single, desperate to fill a vacancy in their self-worth that simply can't be fixed by romance. Romantic relationships unsurprisingly did not cure their depression and self esteem issues like they felt so sure about. I knew some who stayed in toxic relationships because they thought they would be less valued as people alone. And finally, there were the ones that had convinced themselves so much of their sexual and romantic inferiority that they turned to overt misogynistic control, abuse, and violence. This was not just incels, as it often had more to do with self-perception than reality, and I found myself afraid for my life and the lives of my peers in a romantic relationship with one of the people who internalized it in this way. Dating did not help these people.

None of these people were truly fulfilled by romantic relationships like they had been led to believe, through constant pushing of amatonormative messages by society and self-help. This is without even touching on how objectifying it is to treat women as simply a milestone for personal growth or social status.

So what do we do about this?

As leftists, we should start teaching not only boys, but all genders to be critical of messages they are fed about what gives them value, as a lot of the times it's coming from someone trying to sell them something, whether that's a bullshit $80 advice handbook, bullshit $80 beauty products, or isolation in the form of cutting off friends to start a family. I also think we should reach out to people in our lives that we are worried are dealing with internalized amatonormativity and challenge them on why they prioritize romance above all else. The second best time to start is today. Finally, we should be teaching people about the value and fulfillment that can come from community building and genuine friendships. Amatonormativity degrades these things, and it's important to push back on this

And if you are struggling with placing your self worth in sex and romantic relationships, I want you to ask yourself these questions:

Why do you place such a high importance on romantic relationships? Do you genuinely find romance interesting enough to prioritize it over things you are passionate about, or are you unsure?

Why do sex and relationships seem valuable to you? Whether you can think of an answer to the first part or not, is the way you value these things influenced by your upbringing?

What do you actually want for your life? Is a romantic relationship feasible at this moment with your goals? Can you wait to get into a relationship?

Self worth is not going to come through achievements, or connections, or conformity to social norms. Ultimately society will create a new insecurity for you to worry about once you've achieved the last "important" milestone. Connection and intimacy can come from many places, not just romantic relationships, and if you are more attached to the idea of being in a relationship than spending time with a person or people you care about regardless of your status with them, then you should probably spend some time exploring why that is before you make any decisions about getting into a relationship, because a relationship won't help you.

Also a few disclaimers real quick:

1. While I talk mostly about amatonormativity for cis men and boys in this post, it can definitely be applicable to everyone. Women and other people affected by misogyny are going to likely be affected by amatonormativity in unique ways, although I think most of it is relatable to everyone. We're in this fight together and I wish you luck ❤️

2. I am not in any way downplaying the beauty of romantic love by uplifting other forms of connection. I am currently in one romantic relationship and care a lot about my partner, but the important thing is that we came together because we care about each other and wanted our relationship to progress in that way, not because we felt like we had to. I might get into more romantic relationships in the future if time allows and I find the right people (polyamory moment).

3. I wrote this at 3 AM so keep that in mind if there's a ton of grammatical errors and none of this makes sense lol

[mariacallous]

Former Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek claims he’s not hiding abroad. However, many of his videos on social media were shot in a Budapest penthouse apartment owned by a company close to Viktor Orbán’s government. During the time we were watching the house, a man hiding his face jumped into the same type of car that Obajtek posted about. On another occasion, Orbán’s close aide entered the building.

In the morning  of June 1, a tall woman with colored blonde hair wearing a black hoodie stepped out of a beautifully renovated 19th-century building of Budapest’s elegant Andrássy avenue. A huge advertisement banner above the building’s gate reads in English: “luxury apartments for sale,” and “where values and high quality meet.” The woman crossed Oktogon, the Hungarian capital’s iconic eight-sided square, then disappeared onto a smaller street while talking to someone on the phone.

Twelve minutes later, a metallic gray Lexus ES 300h briefly stopped in front of the same building. At exactly the same time, the ornate brown wooden gate opened, and a man hiding behind a face mask, sunglasses and a cap appeared on the street. The timing was so precise that there was barely enough time for us to start recording what was happening: the man had already jumped into the back seat of the car and disappeared.

Later, when we analyzed the video frame-by-frame, we could identify the driver as a blonde-haired woman — one who looked extremely similar to the one who had just left the building.

Meanwhile, the tinted passenger windows of the Lexus successfully hid the man. The whole process seemed carefully designed and perfectly executed in order to protect his identity. The letters on the license plate of the car, however, signify that it comes from Warsaw’s Mokotów district. 

We had good reason for watching the house on Andrássy, even on a Saturday morning: VSquare and Frontstory.pl’s partner on this investigation, Radio Zet, has learned from its sources that one of the building’s residents is Daniel Obajtek. He is the former CEO of the Polish state-owned oil company Orlen, and his long tenure leading the Polish oil company is embroiled in scandal. 

Was the man who did everything to hide his face while slipping into the car Obajtek? We can’t know for sure. However, a few weeks earlier, on April 10, Obajtek’s official Facebook account posted a photo of him fueling a metallic gray car. Only certain parts of the car are visible in the picture – but from those very distinct parts, the type of car, Lexus ES 300h, is easily recognizable.

This past week, in addition to watching the building at Andrássy in the hope that we could meet Obajtek, we also thoroughly analyzed his social media content. With the help of sources with intimate knowledge of the various relevant locations, we successfully identified the places from which he has been posting his videos — at least since February.

This is how we were able to confirm that many of his Instagram videos are indeed recorded at the same building at Andrássy from a 147 square meter penthouse apartment worth approx. €1.6-2 million. The official owner of the apartment is BBID Ltd, a real estate developer company that turned the previously run-down building into luxury housing. The owners of the company reportedly have close ties to Viktor Orbán’s government and are even business relations with the Hungarian Prime Minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz. According to Radio Zet’s sources, the penthouse where Obajtek spends considerable time is rented out, although it’s unclear who is officially renting it.

Obajtek posted his first video from the penthouse apartment on February 19. In April, he even conducted a Youtube interview with a right-wing journalist  in what seems to be his secret Budapest home. Another recurring location in Obajtek’s videos is Budapest’s City Park (Városliget) at the end of Andrássy avenue, from which he appears to have posted multiple videos – including one mocking Polish media by suggesting he is not “on the run” from his scandals but rather getting into shape to face the “media’s attacks.”

Although the videos are carefully edited so as to not show recognizable landmarks, Hungarian text or anything else that would give away their locations, we could still identify them using open source research. 

Recently, Obajtek has been the subject of much attention from the public — as well as from Polish prosecutors, due to revelations about Orlen’s gigantic financial losses during his tenure as CEO. Polish investigators are currently conducting three main investigations into dealings under Obajtek’s leadership:

on the merger of the state-owned Orlen and Lotos energy companies and the agreement to sell a 30 percent stake in the Gdansk Refinery to Saudi Aramco

on Orlen’s huge financial losses, which were caused by the radical cutting of fuel prices on the wholesale and retail markets in autumn 2023 – and which may have been related to the parliamentary elections (the idea being that lower prices would boost the then-ruling Law and Justice government’s chances)

the unsupervised transfer of more than PLN 1.5 billion to OTS (Orlen Trading Switzerland).

So far Obajtek is expected to testify in the prosecutor’s investigation as a witness – he is not charged. Though according to Gazeta Wyborcza, staying abroad might be a preventive measure for him to avoid any potential charges before the European Parliament elections. Obajtek is running as the Law and Justice’s candidate from Podkarpacie (Southern Poland).

Obajtek is not the first person from outside of Hungary who, when scrutinized by their home countries’ authorities, feels that it is safer under Hungarian jurisdiction. In 2018, after he was convicted and sentenced to jail, former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski fled to Hungary, where he was granted asylum. In early 2024, facing charges at home, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent multiple days at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília, as the New York Times has uncovered. Both of them reportedly closely coordinated with Hungarian government officials. 

There is no information on whether Obajtek also enjoys the protection of Hungarian authorities or communicates with them. However, shortly after 6pm on Monday, June 4, we spotted Viktor Orbán’s close personal aide Dávid Héjj entering the Andrássy avenue building. We have no information as to which apartment he went into, but he routinely typed in the gate code without any help, suggesting it is not his first visit there. There was no indication that Obajtek was also in the building at the time.

What is public knowledge, however, is that Obajtek knows Viktor Orbán: back in 2022, when Orlen and Hungary’s MOL oil company entered into a deal over acquiring gas stations in both countries, the deal was “welcomed” by the government and Obajtek was received by Orbán in his office.

We sent requests for comment to BBID Ltd. and the office of Viktor Orbán, none of them reacted before publication. 

Obajtek replied: “I have never made a secret of the fact that I conduct business talks not only in Poland, but also abroad. It is, therefore, natural that I have to stop somewhere during these trips. As a private person, I do not have to explain myself. Please do not look for sensations. I am not asking you where you are staying during your trips.”