#because he decided to use his very large platform to all but outright say that yuki crashed deliberately to benefit red bull

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

"I got nothing" it's almost like they don't want to talk to someone who has perpetuated hate and conspiracy theories involving their team and drivers which has led to themselves, their team and their drivers receive horrific hate and death threats, Ted...

[grim-faux]

2 _ 22 _ A Flawless Order  

First

 The factory was alive. Parts and sections once cold and silent, now howled with the intent of struggling through a monotonous existence in a world that would forsaken it. After however many years it lulled since the contraption ground into inactivity, it is remarkable that the place still mostly worked. From within the bowls of the construction arose indignant grinding and screeching, the whole of the operation not entirely seamless. It might yet come undone at the seams and rip itself apart.

 For the time, he supposed, the child was on some sort of mission. Or something. It was too much to hope that the boy was not in the heart of a prelude to a disaster.

 Hunched awkwardly in the doorway to the office, the Thin Man scrutinized the reverberating clashing and mincing with a raised brow. He wondered what the factory produced… or what it once created. Certainly not televisions. The Signal Tower provided those. He did feel an inkling of sympathy for the lost children.

 The pummeling din dampened a great deal when he shut the door. It was far too much activity, energy, such a… racket. He would wait for now, let the child fulfill his compulsion for exploration. When the kid was ready, he would resurface. That’s how this usually worked.

 Beside the little package of food tossed onto the desk, an intercom receiver and control pad lay embedded in the dusty surface. It didn’t matter if the device forgot its purpose, could no longer carry the current and fulfill its role. For so long the device has been inert, lonely and neglected.

 He swept his hand over the tarnished panel, the lights beside the scribbled slots blinked. The static thrummed, physically manifesting in vibrating particles.

 “M͘҉͟o̡͡no͞,” he projected, through the receiver. From beyond the thick cinderblock wall, his projected call reverberated with a metallic echo. The Thin Man sat at the desk and bent forward, as if he needed to speek directly into the contraption. “P̧a̶gi̢͢n̷̡͞g̡̕͠ ̛M̴o͘͡n̸͝o͢.̵ ̵̨̕W͏̢͝o͢u͠l͟d҉͡ ͜Yo̢͜u̡ Has͠t̸̵̸e̶̸n̢ ̶̕Y͞o͝u͞͏r̴̶͟ ̶C͏u̷̶r̸r͟e̡nt͟ Ą͡cti̢v̴͝i̴̕͝t̴͞ies̴͏,̴͢ A̧n҉d̸ R͟e͟p͢o̴͡r̢̧t͘͜ To҉ ̸̷T̸҉h̢e͏̨ ͠Ma̸͢͞n͜a͏̢ger̶̨’̵s͜ ͠O̢̡ff͠i̸c҉҉ę.̷”

 Perhaps the child would get a kick out of that. Or not. It might remind the boy that he was still waiting. Alas, some things never changed.

 __

 On the other side of the factory, or more to the middle, or off center of the near center.

 The strange flower growing from the cement pillar garbled some speek. Mono paused on the catwalk and gave it his attention, but hesitantly. Only because the flower was unusual and sounded like the Thin Man, but he wasn’t certain what it was saying. It was distorted. Also, why was the flower speek? Trick? Did flower catch the Thin Man?

 For a while he stared down from his perch with his hands on his knees, tilting his head. It couldn’t get him from up here, he thinks. The flower didn’t say anything else, but maybe he wasn’t moving. Some nasties only reacted to movement. It didn’t know where he was.

 He pushed up into standing and hurried away, checking along the metal grate for something he could lift. Some pieces of metal, a little bit of pipe (too small), this ratty old glove. He spied a canister a little ahead, and rushed to snag that. Racing back over to the flower, he chucked the canister off the platform and managed to knock the whole funnel off the wall. Direct hit!

 On a path below choked by vapor, emerged the mechanic, glaring down at the shattered flower spread across the ground.  

 Yeek!

 Mono ducked back a step, but it was meaningless. The Mechanic turned its glare upward, and if he could easily see the creature below through the grate, then there was a good chance it saw him as well. This suspicion was confirmed when the heavy clatter of boots began pounding below, a snort trumpeted out. A ladder was somewhere down there, but he didn’t remember specifics. He took off on the walkway in the direction he had initially been going, gaze sifting for a way down or cover. The catwalk was tol, and ahead the rail bent aside.

 An earthquake shook the surface beneath his feet and he nearly lost his balance; walking on the uneven and porous surface was challenging, now he was at a full dash with a boulder rebounding across the floor. If that wasn’t enough, a bleating crack tore out and a large metal tool smashed against the rail. Right above his head!

 Mono stumbled and grabbed for his hat. Though the metal piece was quite large and very solid, it’s impact would easily scatter him to the furthest corners of the city. Fortunately, it ricocheted over the handrail and zipped out of sight. Far off into the factory.

 Plenty more where that came from.

 Mono grabbed the support bar at the bend of the walkway, striving not to lose speed as he whipped around onto the new path. He leapt a sequence of steps and roughly hit the bottom rung, but with a little grumble recovered and stole back his pace.

 Steam gushed and the machinery squealed, heaving pistons thrummed around him; it was hard to breath with how thick the air was. He wasn’t used to being so heated through, and the sauna seeped into his lungs, choking out his ragged breaths.

 Nonetheless, his pace never faltered. Not even when a fuse clattered against the floor, too near and much too loud. The crash splint his hearing, and suddenly the rumbling groan of the factory became distant. The vibrations through the platform rattled up his thin legs, threatening to splinter his bones right inside his body. If… he had bones, like Her, that is. That was still a mystery....

 The Mechanic is catching up. It’s catching up, it’s pace quickened as it closed on its quarry. A bellowing cough tore through the space between them, the force of it blunted by Mono’s impaired hearing. But he can feel it; the rocketing footfalls thrashing his swift but shorter strides. The creature has something in its clutch, he’s certain. He can’t see, won’t look – Flee! It’s right on top of him, but hasn’t decided if it should kill outright or maim him beyond recovery.

 Off the side from the platform, a section of moving parts of the machine lumber methodically through their mindless operation. Mono doesn’t second guess the leap and dives off the side, aimed for one of the gears a little below. As he falls and his coat swooped around him, the dilemma of his timing surged through his mind.

 Was too soon? Too late? Low. But is far!

 Nonetheless, he braced his body for the impact trusting he had momentum. He dropped short, his fingertips barely catching grip of the eroded tooth of a gear. It swings upward in its clockwise motion, carrying its feathery cargo. Mono heaved up, trying to fit himself into the dip before the other tooth of the reversed gear can clench—

 The tool swatted against the gear, an inch beneath Mono’s toes. His fingers popped loose, and he fell, first smacking his shoulder against a bolt in the center of the gear, then spiraling three or five full turns in his terrible descent. Somewhere in the vortex of his plunge he smashed into a corroded slate, with wires strapped across the length. In a panic he grappled for a hold, but the steam and grease wouldn’t permit anchorage. He skid backwards reaching still, and suddenly nothings beneath him….

 Falling!

 He crashed to the floor at last, landing somewhere beneath a canopy of winding pipes. Without allowing a brief to recover, no he shoved himself upright and scrambled for better protection among the sprawling networks. In some patches the pipes have a base extended to the cement, massive bolts skewer a plate in place. These clusters Mono shuffled around or beneath when he could, some expelled waves of heat. Other pipe bundles have a lattice frame built around them, while others have caved over time. Patches of light from the factory ceiling gleamed down, he can see enough to get around without several concussions.

 Little by little, his hearing began recovering from the calamity it endured. The wheezing of machine guts and rattle of something within the pipes, pilfered through his muddled senses. It wasn’t totally restored, everything was more off and he couldn’t recall how booming the place was before the short reprieve.

 His musing is abruptly shattered when a ragged gloved-hand stuffed down into a space of the pipes, not far from where he was hunched low. For a moment he stalled and held his breath, holding perfectly still. Through the clog of machinery, he couldn’t figure where the Mechanic was now. The thick, cracked fingers clawed at the gravely floor, stretching and poking to their extent. Blindly.

 If move, see? Did see but didn’t grab? Miss?

 Mono wasn’t sure, but if he stayed put for much longer, an eye might peer into the opening. The blackened fingers still grappled at the vacant space, sensitive to movement, maybe even smell?

 Right when the hand began shuffling away, he made his move. Easing in closer to the pattern pressed into the dirty floor where the hand had clawed… he zipped by and kept going! Faster and picking up as much speed as he could, while in his half-blind-folded stance. Above somewhere a breathy snort carried over the racket of hissing pumps, the hammering boots trailed his swift trajectory somewhere to the side. The pockets of scarce radiance flickered against the swift dash of the Mechanic, bearing down on the knotted canopy but barred from an opening. 

 Mono didn’t chance a glance, all his focus maxed in diving in among the pipelines and anchors punched into the cement. He dropped and skid on his knees, upon reaching a barricade loaded with debris. He scrambled over himself, backtracking a few feet and took an opening in the mesh of a grate. The hole wasn’t large enough for him to push through, he barreled into the rusted metal and kept going when it vaporized with minimal resistance.

 A screech shot forth overhead, too close! The pipes arched above him caged him from the Mechanic and a clear reach – maybe-MAYBE it could squeeze its hand into a gap – but not quick enough to grab for the flighty Mono. He barely glimpsed up, only to check once where he was headed in relation to his cover.

 It was a little too late for him to register that the next opening he squeeze through led onto the open floor. Not even a pathway, but a break between one collision of mechanical limbs chugging away, and another Tetris of gears and hydraulics hammering away. All at once he was free of the overbearing heat, the steam evaporated and the confining embrace of the pipes shrugged away from his coat.

 Mono spun around, his dry coattail swept across his knees. Go! GoGoGo!

 He darted to the other side of the metal amalgamate, charging at an open portion beyond a narrow trench. A gasp of steam chuffed a meter or more off, but what caught his attention was the heap of melted skin and chains creeping through. When Mono locked view with it, the Mechanic dove toward him.

 With every ounce of his dash power, Mono peeled towards what he hoped was a narrow opening beneath the grate. He stuffed his shoulders through the fence by the path and tumbled, barely making it back to his feet as he galloped awkwardly toward the crevice. The fence slowed the Mechanic but a moment, he simply hopped it and was once more clomping towards his target, gasping on the acrid fumes.

 The opening was narrow and too small for the Mechanic to reach within. However, it was also very not long. It was a trap he would be cornered within, and Mono didn’t even hesitate to take in what was beyond the little tiny haven before he was hurtling out once more.

 For a second, the Mechanic was stumped. It grumbled to itself, voice becoming distant and distorted by the howling conveyor belt shrieking nearby. Mono was still in the open, but he had the chance to take in the area. Get out of sight for a wink. Enough to lose the grotesque focus of the creature.

 Thick cables rose high in his path, the eventual end fading from view high above. He stuffed himself between the narrow space, nearly swimming as he heaved through among available spaces. The narrow passage at least too miniscule for the Mechanics reach, quite possibly, beyond its vision. From elsewhere, a gruff bark announced its agitation. That still sounded too close.

 The floor gave out suddenly, and Mono lost his grip. He toppled down a steep incline into a lower basin beneath the chugging machinery. With haste he rolled over into a crouch and gave the area a sweep with his eyes, searching for movement through the veil of fumes and ripples of heat. The edge of his hat was saturated with sweat and his scalp drenched, be blinked at the salty sting in his eyes while he struggled to peer through the blur. He thought the Mechanic was nearby again, but it hadn’t made a sound yet. It could be prowling….

 Or could be sneaking up behind him!

 Nothing was near which should warrant any panic. Mono kept skimming his gaze around the thick pillars, swinging machinery, all-in-all, whatever was moving. Before rising to move, he pulled back his coat from his leg and checked his knee.

 A red blotch stained the pants. It didn’t hurt, or he couldn’t feel it. The cut might’ve reopened, but he did fall pretty hard. For now, he left it alone and made note on it. Worse would happen if he didn’t keep his wits, got distracted with pointless distractions.

 He weaved through a pillar thicket, following beside the steep slope he skid down. At times he climbed over a broken gear or other castoff equipment, such as pipes or a random tool – usually rusted and coated in thick grease that had a foul odor. Even the twisted body of a Viewer found its way down here, but likely toppled in from the ceiling. By now, the factory was so thick with fog he couldn’t see hardly anything beyond the spires of cranking metal limbs.

 Movement to the left, behind a stairway and a mesh of fortified scaffolding, spooked Mono into diving low. Even if he’s too far away and likely obscured by steam, he takes no chances and tracked the malicious shadowy patterns drifting beyond the barrier. He’s certain it is the Mechanic by instinct (and how his luck has been today), and abruptly began sifting among the pipes and dips in the floor. He detached from following the side of the slope and opted to cut directly through the corroded jungle, to the best of his ability. Down here there lay no landmarks, everything was the repeated meshing of mechanical portions gushing steam, twittering, or bellowing heat.

 It takes a while of his dodging and cautious navigation – every time a pipe hissed he tucked down and hid, even if he knew it wasn’t the Mechanic - but finally, he reached the other side of the dip and another ramp. With no indication of the Mechanic, and going a while without catching that horrible thunder of boots, he’s feeling much safer. Make no mistake, Mono knows he will never be safe – him or the Thin Man – with the creature sneaking around. It lost his trail, but that wouldn’t last.

 He had a hard time trying to scale up the slope, to the regular floor. It’s not that steep, but the surface has a fine swill of grease and dirt, and his feet are sort of wet too. The drama is actually tiring him out, and he relented for a while to pick his way further along and find a space that wasn’t so icky.

 The floor proves to be as much of a hinderance as the Mechanic. He probably doesn’t skid around on the flat surface, on account of the layer of dirt. He can’t climb up the slant by conventional means, but it’s okay. He climbed the side of a section of scaffolding near the slope, and from there gained enough height to leap off and nearly reach the edge. When he hit the peak of the incline, he flailed his arms but managed to flop forward. With a tremendous heave, he vaulted over the slant and stands on flat ground. At last!

 Where is he? This place is different, but it’s all the same factory. Vibrating wheels, tugging long conveyor belts above the floor – sometimes higher. Pipes with the little round things sprouting like weeds. He hiked along, crossing through an open path and went to the fence on the other side. So far no sign of the Mechanic; that is not good. He’s happy to not do the flee, but now where is it? Somewhere, watching?

 Mono turned his gaze up, and spun around as he moved among long metal vents stretched across the floor. One of the elevated pipes forced him to crouch down very low, the surface and air about it heated, and broiled his skin through his ever faithful coat. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this dry, he felt like a crispy leaf discarded from a tree.

 The boundary of the drumming machinery ebbed little by little, and he reached another fence. Nothing on the other side appeared out of place, aside from it looking much more open than a pathway. First confirming no movement among the fringe of heated vapor, he squeezed through the bars and examined the floor. A path was still open, but it was much wider and littered with ruble; from the ceiling, he thought. Through the haze above, something hovered, like a walkway, but higher. He followed a clear path towards a sequence of steps, which rose to a platform upon a cement block.

 From this new vantage point, he gave the portions of the surrounding factory a hurried scan. With his scout satisfied, he checked on the tall stand fitted to the platform. It was almost too high to reach, if not for the chair anchored beside it. He hoisted himself onto the ratty seat and from there leapt to the slanted surface.

 The corroded panel carried colored buttons, like a television remote. But many-many more. He accidentally knelt on one, and a rackety clunk rebounded from the fog above.

 Mono nearly jumped out of his skin when a chain thudded to the cement floor, generating a head-splintering crack, as well as forming a shallow crater in the path he had been on.

 LOUD!

 He fumbled on the controls, something he hit or knocked made the chain recoil by an inch or more off the floor. Not so loud, but still! Flee!

 Carefully he let himself down from the stand and took off, sliding beneath the rail and dropped to the gritty floor. He made it to the nearest fence and zipped through the bars, exactly when a racket of boots bombarded the scene. A little more cautious and not as panicked, Mono maneuvered low among the pipes and coils of wiring stretched beneath a layer of rotten, black texture.

 Out there and above, the boots descended into view from a ladder he previously overlooked. It was directly behind the podium he was clambering all over!

 In the dark he crouched, watching as the Mechanic plopped heavily to the floor and orbited the platform. Snuffling, grumbling to itself. It rubbed at the knob of its head beneath the cap. He hoped this time he didn’t drop anything, but he didn’t linger around to find out. He crammed himself between a narrow space among the wiring and kept going. Ever and always mindful when large pipes broiled, or a random space gushed a thin thread of steam.

 For a very long while, Mono lost track of the Mechanic. A feat which never ceased to make him nervous, but he kept silent and more astute of whatever he was handling, if he had to leap onto something else. It was mostly navigate the floor beneath the machine, and one other time he climbed a chain to reach the height of the catwalk which stretched above the factories convoluted shape. Somehow in all this exploration, he didn’t hear or see trace of the creature.

 He did find a doorway! More like a large bay entrance, it is something he recognized from a book. A supply entrance, for stuff to make goop! Or to send colorful boxes away. Whatever it opened up for, it was a way out to somewhere else. He found it by following a big path, which was a kind of a small road. But not like the chewed up roads that lay among the cities crumbling buildings.

 A lever to the side wall should open it, he thinks. The stretched cords go to the doors at the top. Unfortunately, when he dangled from the lever, nothing happened. It drooped under his weight, but… it needed a fuse.

 He let go and inspected the current fuse in the slot. It had nothing in it, he could tell by just the feel of it. Mono had hoped he was wrong, but no. Another fuse had to be around, a good one. Maybe he could take the one that awoke the factory.

 But how far away was that? And dragging it, among the ruble and collapse? With the Mechanic lurking? That would be hard, if not disastrous. He’d keep the option open and try to find his way back, but the course encircling the factory was not without hazards. The whereabouts of this door remained a mystery, but if he followed the wall as closely as he could, he might manage to make it back to the other fuse.

 In places, a portion of the wall caved in. Didn’t collapse entirely, but it was a wall within a wall, and not a way out. Some paths lay bloated with ruble, or parts from the machines interwoven pieces. With all the swirling fumes, he couldn’t see far, and didn’t know exactly… where he was, at any time. It was impossible to maintain a sense of direction, but a strong unknown power might be at work.

 When he emerged from a division among the pipes and twisting vents, he found an area of the wall intact. Which left his route open for exploration. What caught his interest immediately was an open door and what looked like a window, but the glass was dark. And there was no rain of boards on it. Some sort of clothing or uniforms, like what the Mechanic wore, lay draped on the floor and across a bench by the wall. Belts too, with a few tools. The Mechanic did have a fuse at one point, maybe he’d find one here!

 However, approaching the open doorway did spook him a bit. It reminded him… of the Hospital, for some reason. Maybe being alone, and it was dark inside. Did the lights not work? The fuse woke up the factory, but didn’t make the bay door work. The office light came on, because of the Thin Man.

 Mono blinked at the ceiling. Slowly he raised his hand toward one of the lamps dangling by a cord and tried to focus, on ‘asking’ the light to come on. Asking may not be right. The Thin Man didn’t do anything, he just stood there. How did—

 The first two bulbs burst in a firework of sparks, and Mono catapulted backwards. He scooted back on his butt scrambling to get up, but a sound – a not too scary noise – ensnared his attention. Poised by the bench, he looked around. It was very faint, beneath the howl of the gnashing and hiss of the factory itself. Sounded like metal-on-metal clink. He looked up.

 It was easy climbing up onto the bench, and there he found a box. A shut up box with two clasps on one side, and hinges, with a little strap atop. He leaned against the side and tapped.

 Nothing. Hmm. He shuffled and scooted the box, trying to get an easy reach at the clasps.

 Something inside moved! He heard it!

 Mono bounced back and crouched at the bench edge, glaring at the box. Something was inside that. Something alive. Maybe an animal. He kind of knew it wasn’t any sort of animal. But… it could be just an animal. It could.

 Inching over to the box once more, he shifted it around until he could view one of the clasps. Whatever was inside thumped around, the random settling of weight there or here made it difficult to really move the clunky thing. At last, he could fix a firm grip on one clasp and tugged it. This or that way, the thing was latched hard. Like glued to the container.

 With a sigh he stood back, and gave his area a good search over. He needed to stay focused, getting caught wouldn’t help anyone. He could always come back. If he got the— no, that was a dumb idea. Even without the Mechanic getting up to no good, it wouldn’t work. The worst could happen, and he didn’t want to think about that danger.

 Electing no grace, Mono just rammed his shoulder to the container and let it plunge to the floor. It wasn’t a far fall, but unexpected it would be. The clasps still faced him, and now faced skyward. He plopped down onto the front and pried at the sturdy latches. With every ounce of his mightiness, he braced his feet and knee to the surface and heaved! Shoved!

 Clack!

 One undone. He paused to catch himself and rally up for round two! Good thing he ate before leaving. With a firm struggle, grinding his teeth, nearly losing his grip twice, the second clasp sprang free. He toppled over the lock, a little winded and sore, but completely fine. He just needed to gather his wits.

 The lid was open, but he didn’t hear anything inside. He shuffled over to the opening and pried at the now visible crease, forcing it wider by a foot.

 “Hey,” he whispered. Maybe it was just an animal. Whatever, he wasn’t about to climb down in there. “Psst?” he hissed. “Hai?”

 At last, the whites of something eyes peered back up at him. Mono gazed in, and the contents of the box glared back. He shifted on the top of the box, forcing the lip up a bit more. The face was dirty and cheeks gaunt, he couldn’t make out the clothing. Rags, it seemed. The eyes felt so barren and accusatory, as if he invaded. Was it just the one kid?

 Must’ve been, because they shot out through the side of the container, away from Mono, and hit the floor running. As he recoiled backwards, he watched them veer off to the fence and the machinery beyond, until the figure faded in the choking haze.

 That wasn’t weird or anything, he reflected. Briefly, he checked around and within the container – only a peek – in case there were other kids. That… he wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or not. He settled on not thinking about it.

 At least he didn’t have the awkward dealing with a kid that wanted to pack. Not that he didn’t want to pack, it was confusing right now. It would’ve been nice to have someone to help, and keep an eye out. For a little while, at least. Until they didn’t want too anymore, or something like that. He would understand this time. Sure.

 Mono slipped off the container and ventured in the direction the other kid went. They likely found the space he came out of, but he needed to find another passage through the machinery. He would try and reach the office, and check if he missed any fuses.

 First however, he slipped between thick cement pillars and scooted into a substantially cluttered space, overburdened with pipes and thick vents. Sleep was impossible with the sweltering fumes and the churning machinery, but he needed to stop moving for a bit. Curl up by a pipe and rest his eyes, but no sleep. Not even half sleep.

 The kid bailing didn’t bother him. He understood. Getting locked up like that. Caught. Doomed. Kids helping other kids out of traps and cages wasn’t a thing. Risky business, and why bother? The kid got trapped, they were pretty bad at the one rule. Caught, you’re as good as dead. Some didn’t get as far as caged.

 He shuddered.

 All in the past. Focus here and now. He can’t let his guard down. He nestled down in his coat and pried one eye open, again searching the fog swirling among the cables. Clear. No movement. Alone. No one to watch. No second set of ears. No one to catch him if he fell. Just him.

 Mono.

Next

[cozycryptidcorner]

Hey, guys! Here’s the story for the second place raffle winner. They asked for a prequel to the kinktober harpy story, and I’m so happy to oblige. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

There’s a salty bite to the air.

The cuts along your arms and legs sting, and you can feel the steady pulse of your heart slowly thrumming blood through them, like a metronome, almost. You look to your left, then slowly to your right, trying to find a break in the many guards lining the exits. Goddamnit, these people are learning not to trust you when you don’t have any shackles on, which… okay, that’s understandable, but can you get a break for once? You only tried running for the space between pillars twice.

The room you’re in is large, the domed ceiling able to rival that of the Roman Pantheon, with a large hole at the very top to let in sunlight. It’s not terribly hot, you’d estimate that you’re somewhere in the Mediterranean, keeping the ship’s last coordinates before the storm in mind. You’re on some kind of island that is not on any maps because a society of bird ladies would definitely have made headline news if anyone knew about it. But at the same time, a whole ass island isn’t something you can hide from satellites….

You can feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, but you don’t give your watcher any kind of sign that you’ve noticed him. Instead, you turn around to where a long table of appetizers sit, servants carrying trays of wine-filled goblets back and forth from the large pitchers that lie near the pillars for convenience. Can’t let the bird people go one minute without being absolutely hammered, can we? Some of the servants are human, like you… actually, most of them are, now that you’re taking a distinct moment to look them all over. That’s probably where you’ll end up once you’re no longer some kind of exclusive novelty for these people to look at.

And one person in particular likes to look, you’ve found. Besides the guards, because of course, at least two or three are giving you the side-eye; the international language of don’t fucking try anything. But you’re going to try, you just aren’t going to get caught, you decide, meandering over to where the appetizers are. There are many utensils on the table, that way you don’t get your hands up in someone else’s food. While nibbling on a bit of cracker, you try to take stock of what can be used to stab and what might be used to pick the locks of your’ room.’ You can’t be obvious about it, either, so you try to keep your face on the food, taking a bit of everything so the guards don’t get suspicious. There’s a large, two-pronged fork that you could use as a weapon, though you don’t have anywhere to stash it.

As you reach over to grab something probably bread-related, your hands brush up against the long fingers of someone you’re very familiar with. He takes the pastry in his hand and turns to face you, his expression most likely smug, but you don’t give him the satisfaction of making eye contact.

“Are you going to ignore me all night?” Diom��dês asks, taking a bite of the pastry. “You haven’t so much as wished me a happy birthday, and that makes me sad.”

“Well, I didn’t even know that’s why we’re here. Happy birthday.” You turn around and leave, but he follows.

“Everyone has brought me gifts, but you haven’t.”

“Funny story,” you say, rolling your eyes, “I think I lost my debit card in the ocean while I was almost drowning, so I’m kind of broke right now.”

Diomêdês seems... thrilled by your response. “I can be convinced to look past it.”

You know that he likes playing games with people’s heads, you’ve seen the others grovel at his feet, begging for his favor, lowering themselves in the hopes he might elevate them somehow. Pathetic, really, and without any guarantee that he’ll so much as offer his hand for them to smear their lipstick all over. “I’m sure you can be.”

It’s like a dance, one that you have to take extra care not to lead yourself out to the chopping block. Saying something outwardly hostile will get you a quick whack from any guard that overhears your sass, and that’s only if you’re lucky. While every little cell in your body fizzles with the desire to tell Diomêdês that he can eat your goddamn dick, you have to bite it down and bide your time. Playing dumb seems to be the most effective way to dodge bowing down and giving him what he wants while not risking getting stabbed by one of those decorated spears that the guards carry.

That is, only if Diomêdês isn’t hell-bent on making your day miserable, which seems to be the case.

“A visit from you tonight might make everything better.”

“Wouldn’t that be something.” You say cautiously, knowing that you can’t just leave the room and go back to your cell unless you were physically and visibly ill. After all, you are basically just a piece of decoration here, and so you must be front and center so the other harpies can gawk at you all they want. That doesn’t stop you from trying to find someplace to hide, eyes scanning the feast room for a tablecloth to maybe duck under, or a crowd to fade into. “I’m sure there are hundreds of females ready to break into your room when you retire for the night.”

“None of them are you.” He says it almost gently, but without the proper knowledge of kindness to make it genuine. There’s still a tone of demand in his voice, one that makes the rebellious side of you kick even harder, despite the slightest bit of yearning that you feel in the pit of your stomach.

“That’s correct.” People are looking at you now, as the eyes of the harpies tend to follow those with more power than they, and standing next to a prince places a rather large target on the back of your head.

He looks at you intently, as though he is about to come to some sort of great conclusion but can’t quite get there. “You will join me tonight.”

Your palms are sticky with sweat, and you know you can’t outright refuse him, especially in such an openly public setting with all eyes watching your every move. In a muted, dry tone, you assent, “Okay.”

And then he goes back to ignoring you as if you don’t even exist. Diomêdês got what he wanted from you anyway, and you suppose he couldn’t care to put effort into the conversation anymore. All through the rest of the feast, you’re on high alert, trying to figure out how you’re going to wriggle out of going to the prince’s room once the sun goes down, but you can’t really think of anything other than racing to the cliffside and throwing yourself over faster than the harpies can fly down and fetch you… and that’s not even a desirable outcome.

Of course, you get to be escorted by two armed guards to his bedroom, leaving you no other option but to walk through the two heavily decorated columns. You bite your lip as you timidly walk into the spacious room, one that should be considered far too large for a single person to use as their living space. The marble of the floors looks almost like smoke, varying between tones of gray and black, polished to the point where you can see your pale, shaky reflection. It feels cold against your bare feet, the ornament locked around your ankle softly jingling with every step you take. You fold your fingers together as you try to think of some way you are going to wriggle out of any uncomfortable expectations Diomêdês might have for you, coming up with a couple rather ludicrous and unlikely ideas.

His bed is in the center of the room, upon an elevated platform, and that’s where you find him, er, cadoodling with a female of his species. The mattress isn’t rectangular like one you might find back home, but is round, though entirely big enough to fit a good-sized orgy should he be in the mood for one. Only when you are close enough to see how the feathers along his wings puff out and twitch does he notice your presence. Diomêdês sits up, completely unbothered by his nakedness, and looks you over with the same unsettling stare that he gave you the first day the two of you met. You don’t give him the satisfaction of showing embarrassment, though, because you know he enjoys making others uncomfortable, and return his gaze with an unabashed glare.

“Get out,” he says to the female who is now lounging leisurely at his side.

She obeys without question, reaching over to the light blue chiton lying on the floor and slipping it back over her head in one, fluid motion. You only offer her a parting glance, and she arches her eyebrows in response. Not in disdain, you realize far later, but rather with curiosity.

“Sit down,” Diomêdês says, patting the mattress by his side.

You look behind you before responding, checking to see if there are any guards to hear your defiance. “I’d rather stand.”

Diomêdês looks at you then, his head cocked to the side as though he can’t believe what he just heard. Then, more insistently, he says, “sit.”

You harden your voice. “No.”

His brow furrows slightly, his eyes darting down to the ground as he thinks over your audacity to even breathe a word of defiance. Before he can open his mouth, you interrupt his train of thought with a wild shot in the dark.

“I’d like to tell you a story, your grace.”

The side of his mouth twitches, not in a smile, no, but in a frown. “A story? Do you think that I’m a child?” He asks, his voice sullen and angry.

“About where I’m from,” you elaborate, gesturing out with your palms. “You know… where the humans live.”

That catches his attention because speaking of your homeland is strictly forbidden, though you don’t know why. You learned from another human that the queen, Diomêdês’ mother, decreed the law herself, seemingly out of nowhere, but the punishment is severe. You know, because you’ve experienced it, and the lashes on your back have barely healed up by now. A second offense would surely have worse consequences, but you’re willing to take a gamble that the prince enjoys that which is forbidden... knowledge, objects, things he shouldn’t have.

After a nerve-wracking moment, and with a crazed look in his ocean-blue eyes, he demands, “tell me. Tell me everything.... leave no details out.”

A numb kind of relief floods your veins, and you try to think of a place to start. You honestly didn’t expect you would make it this far, so you aren’t even sure what he might like to know. It takes you only a brief second to sort out your thoughts, categorizing things until you have a nicely bulleted list of topics to shift through in your head, and then you begin.

“So airplanes are a thing that exist…”

[o-a-crutchfeild]

Of Lions and Eagles

Circus AU for the Caprive Prince Reverse Bang 2019 

@capri-bigbang2k19

This fic is based on the lovely @silverdraeconis‘ Cirque du Vere piece! 

Available on AO3

When Damen woke, he was locked in a cage with a lion, and his head was killing him.

He was on his feet in less than three seconds, trying to put as much distance between himself and the creature as possible. He took a deep breath, and assessed the situation… the lion was chained to the opposite wall, and didn’t seem all that interested in him. It didn’t have the range of motion to reach him, and even if it could, it probably knew that food was coming soon, and Damen wouldn’t be the easiest meal it could get. For the moment, he wasn’t in acute danger from the lion. 

Despite this, he was definitely in acute danger from someone, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall how he’d ended up in this cage. The last thing he remembered was going out for the night, and following Jokaste into a tavern that she swore would make all his worries disappear. He’d chosen a golden drink that he remembered tasted like honey and good rum, and after that… the night was blurred. 

Well, his worries certainly had vanished, but they seemed to have been replaced with a whole new set of far more pressing concerns, such as what he was going to do to get out of this cage, who put him here in the first place, and where, geographically, he was. 

He wouldn’t have to wonder for long on all three accounts, however, as the door of the cage swung open to reveal an aging man with a broad-shouldered physique and a nearly black beard. The man crossed to stand near the lion, stroking its mane in a manner that did not show any kind of warmth or affection. “What are you worth, do you think?” the man asked, glancing at Damen with a cool judgement in his eyes. “Tall, quite strong obviously, mildly attractive… what price could you fetch?” 

Damen did not answer. The man looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place him, and considering that this was clearly his captor, the last thing he wanted was to play into his games. Showing a hand never ended well, especially before you knew the rules of the table or even what your cards meant. 

“Of course, your father will most likely pay the most for you,” the old man said with what sounded like it could have been a laugh if it wasn’t so false. “That’s very good news for you. It means that this little encounter shouldn’t change your living situation for all that long, and you’ll get away scot free.” 

Damen leaned against the bars of the cage, waiting for the old man to come out and say what he meant. All these implications and provocations were getting tiresome very quickly. He couldn’t understand what the point of it was- who was the villainous monologue even for? Was his kidnapper actually expecting to impress him, hoping for a positive review on his kidnapping skills later? Was it meant to be entertainment? 

The old man seemed to be frustrated by his silence, because he growled, yes, outright growled like the animal he had ceased petting, and almost moved closer to Damen, before seeming to think better of getting out of range of his little pet, and scoffing. “Well, and here I thought when they said you were a big dumb lump, they were talking about your intellect. Are you actually incapable of speech?” 

“No. I just haven’t heard much worth a response.”

The look on the old man’s face was quite amusing. Damen wasn’t certain what had been expected. This old guy really expected him to be intimidated? Damen couldn’t fathom how, even drunk, this man could have gotten the jump on him, but he was far more interested in how he’d get out of the situation than how he’d gotten into it, and somehow he was pretty sure that any questions about that particular topic would go unanswered. 

Unfortunately, Damen had forgotten one crucial thing that really should have made him a bit more nervous, and that one crucial thing was called a lion. He remembered that one crucial lion just as the old man walked towards the place where the chain was affixed to the bars of the cage, with a large silver key. He paused, just before unlocking the beast, to look at Damen, seeming quite self-satisfied. “You’ll find,” the old man said, “that I am impatient, and so is this lovely creature.” He stood up, pocketing the key and meeting Damen’s eyes, a cool threat hanging in them. “Tonight, you and he will go into the arena. You’ll be given a whip, and a costume. Whether you succeed or fail… The audience of the Cirque di Vere has been promised a show, and a show they shall have.”

In an instant, everything clicked, and Damen felt a sinking in his stomach. He knew at once where he’d recognized the man from. 

It was Auguste’s uncle. 

…

Two years ago, Damen had made a terrible, horrible mistake and decided to take his girl of the week, a petite blonde whose name he couldn’t for the life of him recall, to the circus. It was all well and good that he couldn’t remember her, because halfway through the date she’d gotten quite annoyed with him- specifically, when the silk dancers came out, and one of them, a tall, confident looking man with an infectious smile and what seemed like an infallible charm landed just in front of their seats. Damen had nearly forgotten that he was on a date at all, as he bended to kiss the extended hand. The girl had left, claiming that she felt a bit ill. At the door to the tent, Damen had been handed a slip of paper, inviting him backstage. 

It was just going to be a fling, he’d thought, and for a few hours, it was… until they’d both had a few drinks in them, and Damen had ended up with Auguste on top of the trapeze platforms, doing something that trapeze platforms were not meant for. Then, he’d asked to see some of the tricks in private, and Auguste had agreed, if Damen promised to catch him.

He’d missed. 

The crunch of bones snapping was sobering to say the least, and it had been a nightmare when they’d tried to sue him. Auguste couldn’t perform anymore- his leg had been shattered, and while his father’s lawyers had avoided any charges going through, and Damen had tried to forget the whole awful incident, it was clear now that he’d escaped nothing. 

He sighed heavily, glancing at the lion. Even with a weapon, he wasn’t sure that his was getting out of this alive. He stepped closer to the lion, and heard a voice coming from behind him. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.” 

Damen took a deep breath, and turned around. “And why is that?” he asked, looking at the man sitting in the wheelchair with a kind of wariness that he wasn’t used to having around anyone. 

“Because if you come at a lion like that it’ll take your hand off,” Auguste said dryly. “Look. I may hate you, but I don’t actually want you to die. I’d rather just get that nice ransom check for the amount that we tried to sue you for in the first place and be done with it. My brother is good with the animals. He’ll be in here to coach you for a bit, make sure you know enough to not get eaten, and in return, you’ll never mention our names again. Deal?” 

Damen looked at Auguste, and then at the lion. Well, this wasn’t going to be fun, was it? But it might be a little less horrible if he had some semblance of knowledge of how to not die tonight, so… “Deal. Honestly though, I have to ask, why do I have to fight a lion in the first place?” 

“Because my uncle knows that a lot of people really dislike your family and will pay a lot for the chance to witness you being eaten alive.” August offered a quick smile, the kind that made Damen feel like there was a joke he wasn’t in on, most likely at his expense. “Best of luck.”

As he wheeled out, Damen had to wonder just what his family had ever done to make anyone hate him that much. 

…

Damen’s first impression of Laurent was- who the fuck lets this kid near lions?

“I was all for letting you get eaten,” he declared, stepping into the cage haughtily and shooting Damen and ice-cold glare. “But Auguste says that if you die, he’ll know I didn’t train you properly and he’ll be quite disappointed, so you’d better listen carefully and do as I say or else.” 

Damen’s second impression of Laurent was, oh, that’s why they let that kid near lions. 

Laurent stepped up to the lion, holding a whip in his pale, thin hands, before twisting around to meet Damen’s. Damen knew, in that moment, that he was very glad that he was expensive. “Do you know how to crack it?” Laurent asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Damen glanced at the whip, considering. “In theory, but I’m better with a sword.” 

Laurent rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s convenient. It’d be easier to do this with more space,” he muttered. “Alright, you can’t actually crack the whip inside the cage, obviously, so we’re just going to make sure you have a really solid base in theoreticals.” He moved closer, and demonstrated his grip, his feet solid beneath his shoulders, as he held the whip firmly. “You see how I’m holding it? I want you to copy my pose and grip.” 

Damen chuckled. “Kid, I’m pretty sure I know how to hold it.” 

Laurent crossed his arms. “Do you want to learn or do you want to get eaten by a lion?” 

Damen mirrored Laurent’s earlier pose. “Alright. So how does this keep me from being eaten?” 

“He’s trained,” Laurent said, a bit of pride in his voice. “Mostly. He’ll recognize if you can control the whip, and he knows what a lashing feels like. If you can get one or two good hits on his hide, he won’t mess with you much until you put the weapon down… so you just have to not put the weapon down until you’re out of the ring. Think you can manage it?” 

“Yeah, seems simple enough.” 

“Simple enough while he’s chained up.” 

Damen nodded. “So I just… swing it, right? Not much to it?” 

Laurent rolled his eyes again. It seemed to be a favorite expression of his. “Not quite,” he said. “At least, not unless you don’t care about getting caught on it. As fun as it would be to see you take a lashing, it’d be inefficient in keeping you alive for you to trip over your own whip.” Laurent stepped back, letting the whip fall behind him, and to the side. “When you bring it up, you don’t want it to hit you.” 

Damen nodded. “Can I try?” 

Laurent looked up at him, blue eyes tense. “You want me to hand you a weapon, while I’m alone with you in a cage?” 

“How else am I supposed to figure out how to use it?” Damen asked. 

Laurent scowled, and moved within range of the lion, holding the whip out to Damen. “Fine. If you don’t give it back, I’m unlocking him. You don’t know how to use it properly yet, so don’t get any clever plans.” 

“Can’t be too clever if they wouldn’t work,” Damen pointed out. 

Laurent nearly smiled. Nearly. Damen was almost entirely sure. 

Damen looked down, lying the whip to his right, behind him. “Is that how I should hold it?” he asked. “Is it accurate?” 

Laurent nodded. “Looks about right to me. Now, hand it back. We can’t do any cracking in here, like I said, so there’s no reason for you to keep holding onto it.” 

Damen passed the weapon back. “So, now what?” 

“Do you know how looping works?” Laurent asked. 

Damen shrugged. “More or less.” 

“Show me.” 

Damen swung his arm up smoothly, before bringing it down fast. Laurent stepped back quickly. “Was that correct?” Damen asked. 

“Yes. Yes, that was… that was fine,” Laurent nodded. “That should work for a forward crack. Do you want to learn other variations?” 

“Think it will help?” 

Laurent nodded. “It could.” 

“Then yes, of course.”

Laurent moved, placing his left foot forward, and pulling back his arm. “It’s like throwing a ball for the overhand crack,” he explained, demonstrating the movement. He paused for a moment, looking Damen over. “Well, are you going to try it or not? I’d prefer not to be wasting my time here if all you’re going to do is gawk and then-” 

“Why doesn’t it bite you?” Damen cut him off. “You or the old man. You’re not holding a weapon, so how come I can’t put mine down once I’ve trained it?” 

Laurent looked amused, and shook his head. “I can go near him- not it- because I was there when he was born, and helped raise him from a cub. Lions are very hierarchical, and this one knows I’m part of his pride, so he won’t let any harm come to me. Same goes for the rest of the troupe, with a few exceptions.” 

“What exceptions?”

“The ones who beat him, obviously,” Laurent chuckled. “If you hit a dog, it’ll stay loyal. If you hit a cat, it’ll hold a grudge. Alas, this is one cat you’ll have to hit, because you’re not part of his pride, and he’ll eat you if you don’t.” 

Damen frowned. “So you’re alright with your pet being whipped?” 

“I don’t have a choice in the matter, do I? People pay to see it more than most acts, so it’s not as though my uncle’s going to close that ring’s centerpiece.”  

Damen frowned. That didn’t quite seem right… but he wasn’t exactly his business. “Well, what’s his name, anyway?”

Laurent gave Damen an unamused look. “What’s it matter to you? Now, there’s one last lash I’m going to teach you, and then tonight, hopefully for all of us, the ransom will arrive, and you will be gone from our lives forever. Thing you can manage that?” 

Damen grinned. “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I’m not the one who decided to be here.” 

…

That night, Damen was thrown an outfit with more buttons than he could honestly say he knew what to do with, and brought in chains to the tents. His heart was pounding, and he hoped desperately that the theory would be enough in practice. He passed Auguste, and tensed instantly… but the dark blue eyes seemed much less sharp than before, almost playful. Damen wasn’t sure if that was because Auguste was looking forward to seeing him murdered by a lion, or something else entirely, but it was almost comforting to see. He nodded, and Auguste gave him a tiny salute, just as Damen was unchained, and shoved into the ring. The crowd began screaming, clearly ready for the slaughter. There was something special about bloodlust cries that made them quite different from normal excitement, Damen thought. He’d been to plenty of sporting events, but none of them had ever had this kind of dissonance in the air, like the crowd was cheering in a minor chord. 

Damen took a deep breath, and stepped into the ring, taking the whip from the wall, and remembering the theory, placed it on the ground to his right, behind him, before swinging it up smoothly, and cracking it down. If the sound of the crack hadn’t alerted him, Damen would have been able to tell he’d gotten it right purely based on the reaction of the crowd around him, which nearly doubled in volume. Damen looked up for the first time, and for a moment, he was sure there had to be some hideous joke being played upon him, because up above was a blond acrobat on the silks, performing that same routine that Damen had watched, years earlier. 

For a moment, Damen thought that perhaps the entire incident had been a scam, and Auguste’s legs had never been harmed. Maybe this was his brother’s idea of a great practical joke? Kastor had never really known what was appropriate… but then, Damen saw the face of the acrobat, dancing artfully above him, and recognized his short-tempered teacher from just hours before. 

He was just as entranced by the show as he’d been two years ago, which was a problem, considering that the lion had just been released. 

Damen brought the whip up quickly, cracking it in the air just as the lion leapt through, and… stopped. Damen took a step back, as the lion stared him down, eyes shining with what seemed like sheer glee. The crowd was dead silent, uncertain what to expect. Two pure exhibits of peak physical form, Damen and the lion, eye to eye, neither one moving an inch. Damen glanced up, and saw that Laurent had paused his routine, perched on the trapeze and looking down on the scene with an intense, calculative gaze. When Damen caught his gaze, Laurent tilted his head, almost accusingly. 

Slowly, Damen brought his hand up, and ran it down the lion’s forehead. The lion closed his eyes, and made a low, rumbling noise that, if Damen wasn’t very, very mistaken, was a purr. Damen felt a grin split his face, and he stroked the lion again. 

The crowd’s reaction was… less than positive. Damen had been right about the bloodlust- if not a man eaten, the crowd had at least been promised a lion beaten into submission, and a fantastic battle, not some brat whose father most of them hated getting to pet an exotic cat. The booing was louder than even the cheering had been, and Damen found quickly that the real task of the night would be to dodge circus food, flung from disappointed guests’ baskets and laps. He hadn’t known people actually did that kind of thing. 

It was at this moment that Laurent decided to land in the ring. For some reason that Damen would be more than a little hard pressed to guess at, the younger man seemed to be interested in taking a more hands-on role in the show. 

“I don’t know what you did,” he growled in Damen’s ear, “but this is going to be a show. If you’re not going to fight a lion, you better believe you’ll be riding him.”

“Riding?” Damen demanded, perhaps a bit loudly, because the crowd seemed to suddenly develop a far greater interest in the events that were transpiring in the ring. 

“Yes. Riding. You’ve got such an affinity, after all, don’t you? Why not take it a step further?” 

Damen hesitated. He’d ridden bareback before, yes, but that was horses, that was entirely different. He reached out, and stroked the lion’s mane again. “Think he’ll let me?” 

“I think that if we have a failed show, my uncle will be extremely unhappy. Climb on, and leave some room for me.” 

“What?” Damen demanded, but Laurent was already moving across the arena. Damen bit his lip, uncertainly staring down the lion’s back… there was not truly a lot that could be done about it, was there? He took a deep breath, and then, in under three seconds, he’d jumped onto the lion’s back, and was gripping his sides with his legs as tight as he could, holding on for dear life. The crowd was, once more, delighted by this turn of events. They really were quite fickle, Damen thought, glancing at the half eaten cotton candy on the ground before him, that the lion quickly stepped over. 

It was then that Damen felt something landing behind him, and heard the crowd’s cheering yet again. It wasn’t cruel cheering this time, however. It was the kind of amazed applause that he’d recalled from the last circus. Damen turned his head to see, behind him, Laurent, standing on one foot on the lion’s rump, his other foot held high over his head, and his back arched beautifully. Damen nearly fell off the lion at the sight. It really was, he had to admit, a fantastic circus, kidnapping aside. 

Damen considered for a moment, before tapping the lion in the side, a small nudge meant to say, go faster. It was as though a gunshot had been released. A half hysterical, half delighted laugh ripped unbidden from Damen’s throat as the beast raced around the circle, and he felt himself leaning forward, truly enjoying the ride. If this was what it meant to be kidnapped and tortured, he’d have to try it more often. He laughed, and looked up at the crowd, raising one hand and waving. 

It was almost too short a time in the ring before the act was over, and the curtains came down around the ring. Laurent jumped down, scowling and stretching himself out. “You had to make him go faster, didn’t you?” Laurent groaned. “Do you have any idea how difficult it was to hold that pose when he was racing around at fifty miles an hour?” 

“I doubt more difficult than what your uncle had planned for me,” Damen retorted. “What happened, anyway? Why didn’t he attack?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. You’re lucky I was there to save the act, though, because if you’d impacted ticket sales, or heaven forbid caused a refund, you’d have definitely ended up on his bad side.”

Damen nodded slowly. “Why did you help me, anyway? Don’t you want me dead? I’d think that you would hope for me to be on his bad side.” 

Laurent glanced at Damen, scowling. “I want the ransom money, not your neck. And in any case, Auguste wants you to survive, so… I suppose I do as well.” 

Damen shrugged it off. That made a good deal of sense- loyalty and greed were great motivators for many an unlikely ally, and in this… literal freakshow… Damen could use every ally he could get. He glanced at the lion, uncertainly. He’d curled up on the ground, and seemed to have fallen back asleep. Maybe it was a vegetarian lion or something along those lines. 

As Damen walked over, the lion opened one eye, and then closed it again. Damen knelt down, and was about to stroke his mane, when the beast let out an unmistakable growl. Clearly, whatever had happened in the ring must have been some kind of insane fluke.

… 

Damen was brought back to the cage, with little more than a dirty look from the old man. That night, when he heard the door opening, Damen was half expecting to be shouted at in some ridiculous fashion, but instead, light footsteps came up to the cage, and Laurent slipped in, a plate of food in one hand. He held it out, looking annoyed. “Well? Are you going to eat, or not?” 

Damen hesitated, before taking the plate. “Is it poisoned?” he asked. “Since the lion didn’t actually end up killing me?” 

Laurent scoffed, looking annoyed as he sat down across from Damen, crossing his arms and legs at once. “Don’t be an idiot. We can’t get money for your safe return if you’re dead.” 

Damen raised a brow. Was this kid actually planning to sit with him while he was eating? “Well, maybe it’s just poisoned to make me ill, without any of the lethal effects.” 

“Why would we want you to get sick in a cage we have to clean? The lion’s filth is enough without adding yours to it,” Laurent said. 

Damen nodded, taking a bite. “So, was that all you came for?” It wasn’t terrible, he had to admit. Some bread, seemed like it was fresh, and a thick beef stew that wasn’t half bad at all. “I mean, I’m glad I won’t have to starve while I’m waiting for the ransom money to come through, so thanks.”

Laurent rolled his eyes. Yep, that was definitely his favorite thing to do in response to just about anything Damen had to say. “Actually,” he said, his tone a bit clipped, “the first half of the money was just wired to a foreign account. We’ll get the other half in cash when we go to swap you tomorrow.” 

“That was fast,” Damen grinned. “I was worried I’d be stuck here for months on end.”

Laurent shrugged. “You’re a liability, and I think my uncle’s a bit afraid of you now that he knows he can’t rely on the lion eating you if you get too close to him. I doubt you’ll be seeing him again while you’re here.” 

Damen nodded slowly. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “Why didn’t you just give me the food and leave?” 

“I need to bring the plate back when you’re done with it,” Laurent said promptly, before hesitating, and continuing. “Also… Auguste and I had a conversation. A few, actually. And he said, from what he can remember, that everything that happened was… not something you would have meant to do.”

“Honestly,” Damen said quietly, “I’m sorry for what happened. I don’t think it was alright to kidnap me, or throw me in a ring with a lion, but all things considered… you deserved compensation. At least, Auguste did. I never meant to hurt him.” 

Laurent nodded, and for a moment, in the halflight of the cage, Damen could see something almost vulnerable about him. Damen took another bite of the food, before setting it aside, and looking at Laurent, trying to pick out details about him. Laurent looked up, and his eyes were sharp again. “If you’re even thinking about giving a description to the police-”

“How did I end up here?” Damen asked, cutting him off. 

Laurent shifted uncomfortably. “A girl,” he said, finally. “I didn’t get her name, but my uncle paid her a lot to deliver you. He’s already made ten times that in profit, and he’s only got half the ransom, but still…” He shrugged. “If I were you, I’d choose who I sleep with a lot more carefully, you seem to have the absolute worst ability to stay out of dangerous, sex-related situations of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Damen wasn’t sure how to deny it, or even if denying it was an option at this point. “Was she blonde? Pale skinned, with blue eyes?” 

“You certainly have a type, don’t you?” Laurent smirked. “Yes, she was, though I’m not sure how far that will narrow things down for you.”

For a moment, they were quiet in the cage. It was a comfortable silence. Damen wondered how long it took most people to develop Stockholm Syndrome. It was typically more than one day, right? 

“If you ever need someone to ride a lion again…” Damen started, before trailing off, realizing that it was probably not the smartest thing to offer. 

Laurent’s head jerked up, his eyes wide with astonishment. “You’re joking. You have to be joking.”

Damen shrugged. Not the smartest thing to offer, maybe, but perhaps one of the more interesting ways to spend a weekend. “You know how to get in touch, considering that you have to have stalked me a fair bit to manage to pull off this kidnapping thing. Just… give me a call next time. No need to hold me for ransom, alright?”

Laurent blinked, and though he carefully composed his expression, Damen was pretty sure he’d succeeded in baffling that particular acrobat. It wasn’t a bad experience, overall… though it seemed that it would be a very expensive one. 

…

The next morning, Damen was brought into a van with three strongmen, and the old man at the wheel. He was brought to a forest in the middle of nowhere, and once a backpack filled with cash had been handed off, the van was unlocked, and he was escorted out, and told, along with his parents, that if they didn’t want any more trouble, they’d remain there for the next fifteen minutes. It was a rather awkward fifteen minutes, before Damen was brought into his father’s car, seated next to Kastor, who made jokes about Damen running off to join the circus for the next several minutes until their father, Theomedes, snapped at him that he’d said quite enough.

The next week seemed to be more or less ordinary, though Damen made a point of not asking out Jokaste again. He didn’t have any proof that it had been her who sold him out, but there was definitely something false about her relief when he came home. Damen hadn’t really stopped thinking about the experience eleven days later- who would?- but he had lost any slight expectation of contact from the circus when his phone rang. 

It was a blocked number, and Damen answered, expecting a robotic voice to tell him that unfortunately, his social security number had been cancelled, and he needed to register his credit card with said robot to reopen it. Instead, a sharp, tense voice on the other end asked, “Did you mean it as a joke?”

Damen knew at once who it was on the other end, of course. “Well,” he said, leaning back in his bed. “That would depend on what, exactly, you’re referring to.”

“Eagle hasn’t been letting anyone on his back since you,” Laurent snapped. “The audience wants to see the act, and it’s not available, and we’ll pay you to show up and do it.” Then, muttered under his breath, “Stupid cat…” 

“Eagle?” Damen asked, half laughing. “Is that his name?” 

“Will you be there or not?”

Damen considered for a moment. It would definitely be among his worse ideas to go back into a ring with a lion, among people who had recently kidnapped him, and then try to recreate what had obviously been some kind of fluke that he’d been lucky enough to survive. “Tell me where I’m going.” 

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Dusk Diver

I finished playing Dusk Diver, a small beat-em-up by JFI Games. I originally played it because it was on sale, I’ve had my eye on it for a few months now, and I needed a break from DMC5 for a bit. And boy do I have some thoughts about it now that I’m done with the game. Namely a bunch of nitpicks, but... we’ll get there in time. 

But as always, let’s start with that Synopsis.

Dusk Diver takes place in the Ximending district of Taipei, Taiwan. The story focuses on Yumo Yang, a Taiwanese high school senior that got caught up in a spiritual adventure over her summer vacation. While out with her friend she was randomly pulled into the alternate dimension of phantoms and demons. Before she was about to get killed by one a local loin god protects Yumo by (accidentally) transferring his powers to her. After she fends off the phantoms she decides to help clean her city of phantoms over summer break with the god’s help, along with the help of his eccentric and frugal boss... Boss. 

The plot takes off from there as Yumo pummels phantoms, gains allies, brightens up her town, and learns more about why the phantom and human realms are colliding. I gotta’ say, it’s nice to actually write the synopsis without having to either look at wiki article or outright copy it. This game is very simple for both good and ill. 

So... what do I think of this game? 

Well, unlike Assassins Pride I’ll be going over the bad first and then try to end on a high note, since for all my issues and nitpicks I did enjoy this game very much.

With that said, let’s start with...

The Bad

The Localization

So the localization is very similar to Under Night In-Birth Late[st] in that it feels very unfinished. When I talked about Under Night’s localization I was a little too harsh on it for my current liking and I’ll use Dusk Diver to explain myself a bit better.

Dusk Diver’s localization isn’t bad. I played this game listening to the Taiwanese dub and nothing sounded too off, but the script, the actual words on the screen, were rife with spelling and grammar errors, inconsistent terminology, and even moments where you could read the actual code of the game in the text. This the translation was either rushed, or it didn’t have enough time to really finish it, which makes it feel really sloppy. The said thing is that this game does have a rather charming script despite this, but reading all those errors and trying to correct them in your head can be... annoying.

The RPG Elements

So... this game is a beat-em-up that revolves around doing large combos and keeping up a hit counter to get higher drops of health, SP, TP, and other resources. The main goal of combat is to get combos going, collect SP and TP, and use those to do more damage to the enemies. 

So why is there an RPG level up system in this game?

I still have a lot of DMC5′s mechanics ingrained in me, so forgive me if this sounds pushy, but in most hack-and-slash/beat-em-up style games tacking on an RPG-style upgrade system only slows down the overall gameplay. 

Let me explain. Every time you complete a level for the first time you gain skill points. You use those points to improve your HP, SP, attack, etc.. This doesn’t feel good to do for this style of gameplay. In most beat-em-ups/hack-and-slash games skill points and similar currency are typically used for new moves or special abilities. DMC5′s red orbs are for new moves, Nero’s devil arms, and a limited amount of health and devil trigger increases. Senran Kagura uses its currency for costumes, accessories, and music, with the mere act of leveling up giving you higher bases automatically and more moves when you reach a certain level that proves you’re familiar enough with your current moveset to expand it. Solely making the numbers of damage and health go up doesn’t make you feel more powerful, it makes you feel like you can just handle the enemies that have gotten a lot more health and do a lot more damage for no reason other than slowing down the gameplay. I’ll save my recommendations for later, but the quick version is that the skill points should be used for more moves, more SP, and Drive duration only, as health and attack feel really arbitrary points to tack on for this style of gameplay.

The Platform/Alternate Gameplay Modes

Not often and namely during side missions for the Boss, but sometimes you have to do platforming segments and reach a certain point on the map and defeat some enemies.

They’re terrible.

Much like Devil May Cry, movement, jumping, and generally getting around feels fine save for me wishing Yumo’s run speed a bit faster. However, precise jumping and general platforming just don’t work. I don’t believe there’s a drop shadow in this game, the jumping itself has much different momentum when trying to maneuver in the air, making some moving platforms a pain to reach, and while the platforms themselves are rather large, the moving platforms go too slow compared to a lot of the fast-paced combat, making it a painstaking wait to get to the next fight.

Again, like DMC, this most platform this game should have is fighting on rooftops. In fact, I believe in the second or third mission you did have to traverse rooftops and it was actually pretty fun. Like I said, the platforms are usually wide enough that even with the wonky jumping it’s not a pain and getting to a higher point on the map and seeing the overall scenery is... nice. 

It’s just when you want me to pull off jumps like this is a Mario game is when things get dicey.

But those are all the big issues down, or at least my top three so...

Smaller Issues that Bug Allen

Like I said, I have more nitpicks than actual problems with this game. The game itself is a fine 10-15 hour experience, but there are several smaller issues that just pile up as you play it. It shouldn’t take you out of the game, but they did frustrate me a little. With that said though:

The minimap needs an ability to mark sidequests, it’ll make for a lot less backtracking and random pausing to look at the map and see where I need to go. I understand that this game is a more or less faithful for recreation of the Ximending district, but for non-locals playing this game like me finding locations is rather difficult. 

Since this game has visual novel styled cutscenes it’d be nice to have a log button to backtrack conversations just in case you skim over some important dialogue.

On that note, an option to control the speed of the text would be great as well, as I didn’t see one in there initially.

Cutscene Skip Button. It’s annoying to do the hard mode of these stages and having replay cutscenes I’ve already seen. Especially when I’m just hunting for Dragon Vein Shards.

Dragon Vein Shards should be tied solely to upgrades, as using them for plot advancement only adds to the grind... or so I would say if not for me have twice as many of the shards needed for progression every time. Again, I’ll go more in depth when I talk about my desires in a sequel, but for now I’ll just say these items should either be for leveling up or as a sort of collectible.

I’d like the rank system to be more like DMC, tying clear time, damage taken, max combo, and things like all together so that the end goal isn’t just to speedrun a stage for the S-rank.

Can the menu option be mapped to the triangle button like every other game? It kept throwing me off when I tried to pull up the map.

There doesn’t need to be a small cinematic when you do certain guardian attacks. It locks Yumo in place and has a real high chance to miss its target save for bosses.

It’d be best to map items to the buttons instead of the d-pad, as it kept tripping me up when I was trying to heal. 

I think that’s it for the major nitpicks, so let’s move onto the the good stuff.

The Good

Story and Theme

The story of Dusk Diver is simple, but effective. You go around saving the district by fighting monsters, you see how those monsters effect the district in each arc, and you solve the problem, usually getting an ally along the way. The few people that are aware of your secret job as a magical martial arts girl, usually the elderly or spiritually attuned, are very supportive toward Yumo. 

The game has an overall light, encouraging tone. It wants you to love the city as much as Yumo and Leo do, and it works. All of your side missions have you help out the locals in some way and you gain increased power for the super mode. You work at a convenience store, you partner with the local gods and guardians. Everything you do reinforces the idea of protect, preserving, and understand the town you live in. Yumo gets bonus dragon shard veins by frequently eating at local restaurants and becoming a regular. You help tourists out finding places to visit. You help an elderly man by taking photos of his old stomping grounds and he reminisces on what those old buildings were originally for. You help a coffee shop for free drinks. The list goes on, but a lot of the game reinforces this theme of community and loving the town do so much in. This is a very comfy game despite all the action of bashing demons and phantoms.

Characters

While simple, Yumo as a character is a very cheery girl that just wants to help others. She’s a bit annoyed at being forced to help at first, but she is someone that’s helpful at heart. And seeing her want to protect her friends and town is genuinely heartwarming. 

Plus, I really like her design. I’ve always been a fan of simple street clothes, and black with yellow highlights will always sell me on a character. 

Your guardians are pretty fun too. Leo’s knowledge of the city and desire to help others really gives him a cool grandpa vibe. Bahet’s a quiet and encouraging guy with a noble background despite his punk fashion. Le Viada is a model with a complex around her age and big sister mentality, the list goes on. Again, these characters are simple, but effective.

Gameplay

While I did have my nitpicks, the gameplay is solid beat-em-up action. Light and heavy attacks with the occasional use of the the guardians. And each guardian has a special ability with their damage. Leo can do massive damage to enemy shields, getting rid of them in one or two shots with his more powerful moves. Bahet can slowly chip away at an enemy with his scythe’s poison effect. Le Viada’s guns can outright ignore enemy armor and punch through it, as well as lay down traps, and... there’s a fourth guardian for when you beat the game. I won’t spoil it, but they’re basically a turret that stays in one place while you summor your other guardians, making her unique as you can’t usually summon two guardians at a time. And like I said before, aiming and lining up certain attacks can be a bit unwieldy since some moves playcinematics that lock you in place, but it’s overall fun. Racking up combos, using big AoE moves, it all feels great.

And with all of that out of the way.

Wishes for the Future

Much like in my Fire Emblem rambling I don’t like the idea of correcting a story or game that’s already been finished, but I find no issue with discussing what I want for the future. And I really thing this game can have a sequel. The game states that Yumo isn’t the first person in recent time with latent spiritual powers, or that this is the first time that the phantom and human realms became loose. And hell, Yumo is still someone that wants to protect her town, so it’d be easy to make a game in another area of Taipei that’s gone out of whack, or even give the reins to someone else. And I do want a sequel. 

Like I said, my main issue with this game are some nitpicks that could honestly be fixed with a patch or a two-month delay. If this game sold well enough to get a sequel I’d buy it. 

That said, here are a few things I’d like to see in that hypothetical sequel. Such as...

Rankings

A lot of these are going to be taking a page from DMC since I was taking a break from DMC5 to play this, but the ranks shouldn’t be tied solely to clear time. That just makes people speedrun the stage and miss Dragon Veins. Having rank linked to time, combos, hits taken, and so on would give you some breathing room when you try and explore a stage, as you wouldn’t be punished for being curious. You’d still need to be quick, but you won’t be completely screwed either.

Leveling Up

Leveling up give you skill points that you can stick into your health, SP, attack, super mode duration, just dodge duration, luck, and moves. This game shouldn’t give attack or health for skill points. This is just my belief with design, but beat-em-ups shouldn’t just jack up the health of normal enemies as you get stronger, instead just giving us tougher enemies with different patterns of attack. The game already does this with some success, so those slots that increase health and attack seem pointless. You get skill points when you complete a stage for the first time, or find dragon vein shards. This... really puts a lot of pressure on the kinds of skills you upgrade, and while I’m not against that it does make this very light-hearted oddly restricting as you debate what to upgrade. I’d recommend using those dragon vein shards solely to level up instead of for story progression as well. With each upgrade costing more and more dragon veins as you increase your stats. In this first game you can collect over 150 dragon veins. You only need 50 to complete the story mode, and I had about 75 by the time I reached the final mission. 

I know some people struggled to grab them, but... I didn’t, so... maybe have the veins do something else than gate story progression.

Post Game Activities

If we are going to have a post game to finish up some side quests for 100%, then we might as well have some extra things to do too. 

Oh right, I never mentioned that yet.

Yeah, once you beat the game you’re essentially in a free-run mode to finish some leftover side quests and do a few extra things you might have missed, but... I finished all the side quests before the final story, so I was left with just finishing some hard-mode missions and finishing up my upgrade tree. That said, if there is going to be a post game here’s a few ideas:

Survival Mode where you fight waves of enemies. Some akin to a Bloody Palace Mode where you can compete for a high score among friends and online.

Post Game dungeons that are hard as hell, this could be DLC if you wanted as I wouldn’t mind paying for more content like this.

Extra moves/skills. Yumo’s moveset is rather small compared to DMC and Senran Kagura. If we’re going to have just one character to play as then I’d rather have a complex character that takes awhile to learn than an easy one where I’m spamming the same moves over and over... or give us more characters to play as with equally simple movesets.

That’s really it. The game overall is fun with it’s only real flaw being a rather short game for 35 bucks. Like I said, either some DLC or a sequel would make me feel better about recommend this one, but if you want a fun, short beat-em-up game then this is out on steam, PS4, and the Switch. Feel free to get... though I’d recommend waiting for a sale.

In any case, back to DMC5 for me.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift is the artist of the decade

By: Courteney Larocca for Insider Date: December 16th 2019

Not only has Swift been putting out No. 1 hit after No. 1 hit this decade, but her music has latched onto its listeners in deeply intimate ways. The singer has also been actively using her platform as a successful artist to shed light on injustices within the music industry to ensure a younger generation of musicians can thrive in an environment that cares about their work, as opposed to commodifies it.

Taylor Swift knows that if you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. Oddly enough, Swift usually is the smartest person in any room.

While the casual observer may see Swift as nothing more than a pop star, she's one of the few people who has actively been making her industry - and the lives of her fans - better in irreversible and notable ways throughout the decade.

Swift was barely 20 years old when she became the youngest artist to ever win album of the year at the Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010, for her sophomore album, "Fearless." While the album came out in late 2008, it set Swift up to become an international phenomenon over the course of the 2010s; it even landed at No. 98 on this decade's overall Billboard Hot 200 list.

Her early success made sense - audiences love a wunderkind, plus there was something so incredibly relatable about a teenager telling her crush, "you belong with me."

But for me, and other fans of Swift, it was more than that. She was someone we could see ourselves in as we navigated our own lives and romances. And with the release of "Speak Now," in late 2010, Swift proved she wasn't capable of just reinventing optimistic love stories, she had a complete grasp on heartbreak and pain, too.

Swift demonstrated her songwriting prowess early on, and her music only continued to get stronger all the way through her 2019 album, 'Lover'

"Speak Now" is an entirely self-written album that charted on the Billboard Hot 200 for 137 weeks, which was not only a huge middle finger to critics who claimed Swift didn't write her own music, but also proof she was one of the most promising songwriters of her generation.

Arming herself with lyrics like "I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe," and "The lingering question kept me up / Two a.m., who do you love?" Swift created a bulletproof foundation for a career built around her uncanny ability to pinpoint crucial moments of intimacy and turn them into universal anthems of heartbreak, love, and loss that became soundtracks to real fans' lives.

Obviously, the stellar music never stopped coming. With 2012 came "Red," an album that's aged so gracefully that it's landed on numerous best albums of the 2010s lists.

Swift dropped her pop masterpiece, "1989," in 2014 - an album that boasts her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date, "Shake It Off," which stayed on the chart for 50 consecutive weeks. "1989" also earned Swift another album of the year win at the Grammys, making her the first woman to ever be honored with that award twice.

Swift continued her career growth with "Reputation" in 2017, which helped her break The Rolling Stones' record for highest-grossing US tour in history by earning a whopping $266.1 million. Then, capping off the decade came 2019's "Lover," an album that showcased all of Swift's immense musical talents, but stands out in her catalog as the first album that she outright owns - a triumph that goes far beyond the music itself.

It's important to note, though, that there is no singular album that can easily be delegated as the "fan favorite," largely because each album is so special within Swift's discography. If you picked seven different fans off the street, they could very easily all have a different answer to the question, "What is your favorite Taylor Swift album?"

Even critics can't fully answer that question. While "Red" is known for being critically beloved (and is my own personal favorite), Billboard had six of its writers argue for one of her first six studio albums as being her best. Also, when I ranked Swift's best and worst songs for Insider earlier this year, songs from every single one of her albums made the "best" list.

One of the reasons Swift's fans constantly latched onto her music this decade - leading to her chart-topping dominance - was because her lyrics always felt so personal, yet relatable at the same time.

Take "All Too Well," for instance. It was a deep cut tucked cleverly away at track No. 5 on "Red." It was never released as a single, but this mighty pop-rock ballad became the sort of musical zenith most artists only dream about writing.

Hearing Swift weave in intimate details about listening to her ill-fated lover's mother tell stories about his childhood or leaving her scarf at his sister's house might seem too specific to reach a larger audience outside of her piano room, but it's exactly that candor that makes Swift's best songs feel so ubiquitous.

Swift's relatability proved crucial in 2017 when it came to her impacts on societal shifts outside of the music industry

Two months before the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein was published, Swift stood up in a Denver courthouse against an ex-radio DJ who groped her at a 2013 meet-and-greet and then had the gall to sue her for damages after he was fired from his job.

The phrases from her testimony, "I'm critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my a--," and "I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," will forever be ingrained in Swift's fans' minds alongside the lyrics she wrote in her high school diaries.

After she won her symbolic $1, which she sought out for "anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault," The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN, told ABC that its national hotline saw a 35% increase in calls over the weekend following her testimony.

"Seeing someone that they respect, that they identify with [state they've been assaulted], has a big impact," RAINN's president Scott Berkowitz told ABC News at the time.

It's easy to look at a statistic and not think about the people behind it, but I can say that for myself, Swift played a pivotal role in how I viewed my own sexual assault.

Even before her fearless testimony, I turned to her 2010 ballad, "Dear John," for validation that I wasn't the only woman who ever counted her footsteps, praying the floor won't fall through again while dating a man with a "sick need to take love away." I later found solace in "Clean," the atmospheric "1989" closer that promises its listener that they'll one day be able to finally breathe after a roller-coaster relationship.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'm not the only one who saw their own pain reflected in Swift's lyrics, allowing them to grieve. After all, she wouldn't have become the artist with the highest-ever amount of American Music Awards, which is a fully fan-voted show, if her music was just OK.

Swift has also made strides at bettering the music industry for her fellow artists as well as herself

I won't rehash the recent legal woes brought on by Scott Borchetta selling Swift's former label Big Machine Records - and thus, all of Swift's catalog up through 2017's "Reputation" - to Scooter Braun (because who needs Big Machine anyway?). I will say that Swift fighting to own her art, and by proximity her fight for all artists to own their art, is just one example of the work she's done this decade to protect artists' rights.

You may remember that she got endlessly dragged for taking her music off Spotify or writing a letter to Apple condemning its policy of not paying artists during a three-month free trial period of Apple Music. But underneath all of the misogynistic, "she's only out for money" criticisms spat at her, you'll find she did those things to bring light to issues within her industry that hurt up-and-coming artists who don't have the millions of dollars that Swift has. Within less than 24 hours, Swift received a direct response to her open letter to Apple, saying the company had decided to reverse its decision.

When Swift chose to leave Big Machine behind in 2018, she didn't just leave for the sake of leaving. She instead negotiated a deal with Universal Music Group that not only granted her the rights to everything she would create under the label but also included a clause in her contract stipulating that "any sale of [UMG's] Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable."

She also said the label had agreed to this "at what they believe will be much better terms than paid out previously by other major labels."

That means that with her contract, Swift made sure other favorite artists of this decade, like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Kanye West, will benefit from the revenue their art brings in. The same goes for lesser-known and newer artists signed to the label.  

Even other artists have given credit to Swift for the way she changed the way we consume pop music

It's hard to imagine today's pop stars like Ariana Grande would be able to name-check their former lovers in songs like "Thank U, Next," and have them be the successful hits we know today if Swift hadn't previously crafted breakup songs like 2010's "Dear John" and 2014's "Style" that made it clear who the tracks were about - John Mayer and Harry Styles - right there in the titles.

Halsey, another artist who rose to prominence this decade, has even lionized Swift as one of her songwriting heroes, notably for her smart bridges.

"The bridge [of a song] is a fortune cookie. It pulls the whole thing together, it's the punchline, it's one of the most important parts of a song. Ask Taylor Swift, she writes the best ones in history," Halsey said in a November 2019 interview with Capital FM.

Anyone who's listened to "Out of the Woods," "Don't Blame Me," or "Lover" knows this to be true.

Swift deserves to be the artist of the decade because her music validated women while she simultaneously fought for a younger generation to make new music in a better environment

It took 13 years for Swift to come out with a track contemplating the misogynist double standards she's had to face as a woman in the music industry, and it's easy to agree with her sentiment: If Swift were a man, then she would, no doubt, be "The Man."

But while she maybe would have faced fewer obstacles and overtly sexist criticisms throughout her career if she were a man, she may not have touched as many women's lives with her music.

Being someone who has idolized Swift since I was 11 years old, I can say that the reason she matters is because not only does she produce beautifully-worded tracks that resonate with fans on extremely personal levels, but she also wants to make the world a better, fairer place - one music contract, open letter, and song lyric at a time.

And that's something that should never be shaken off.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

Impeachment 101

If you follow the news even vaguely, you’re hearing a lot about impeachment, for good reasons. Since you’re hearing a lot about it, it’s worth understanding how it works. The civics class Cliff’s notes are well and good, but that’s not necessarily enough to separate signal from noise. Lotta scorching hot takes out there, people.

Pictured: a widdle baby take, awwww!

The basic analogy is that impeachment of a public official is like an indictment in the criminal justice system. Once the official has been impeached, the process moves to a trial in the Senate. If the official is acquitted they go back to their jobs, just like defendants who are acquitted in a trial can go back to their lives. If they are convicted, the sentence is removal from office. This post focuses on presidential impeachment because, obviously, but constitutional impeachment proceedings apply to other federal officials as well. Vice presidents, cabinet members, and judges1 would be subject to the same process. In practice, though, presidential impeachments are unique because the public is also paying conscious attention. Whether or not the secretary of the interior gets to keep his job is not something most of us think about in our day-to-day lives, but if someone else suddenly becomes the president, we’re going to notice.

In American history, there have been consequential impeachment proceedings against three presidents: Andrew Johnson (1868), Richard Nixon (1974), and Bill Clinton (1998). Two of those presidents were impeached by the House of Representatives. No United States president has been removed by conviction in the Senate. That’s a really small sample size because it’s a drastic thing which shouldn’t happen very often. That means most of what we understand impeachment to be isn’t about laws or even formal congressional procedures. A lot of it is expectations, customs, and winging it. 

Of the three historical examples up there, the most useful comparison is to the case of Richard Nixon. Johnson was too far in the past to be particularly helpful now. The Clinton impeachment is recent enough that most people at least vaguely remember it, but it’s not really helpful in understanding how events are unfolding now because it was pure bad faith bullshit. It was still an important event historically, but the process of trying to work through major existential questions is just different than the process of pulling stuff out of your ass. But the Nixon administration was modern enough to make sense to us. His criminality was, more or less, comparable to Individual-1’s. His fall even started with a break-in at the DNC.

In practice, the official beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry tends to come pretty late in the game, after months or even years of public hearings which convince people that impeachment is necessary. Congress started investigating Watergate before a special prosecutor was even hired. There’s a temptation to write stuff like this off unless a C-Span clip goes viral, but this step is really important in convincing voters that whatever’s being investigated is worth grinding the country to the halt and turfing out the head of state. And if Congress is acting in good faith, they’re trying to get really important information and explain it to the public, and that also takes a while – not least because if you actually need a court to enforce a subpoena for important information, you have to be able to prove that you tried everything else first.

That’s where we are now. If Democratic leadership had sworn a blood oath that they were 100% dead set on impeaching Individual-1, they would be doing exactly what they’re doing. There are legitimate and complicated tactical questions about how long we should spend here, what the scope of the investigations should be, if and when Democratic leadership should even publicly say what they’re doing. But what people are saying, which as of now is “we’re not there yet,” should not be confused with what they are doing, which has been a large and coordinated move in that direction.2

Impeachment proceedings formally start with the House Judiciary Committee approving a resolution to start an inquiry. This doesn’t necessarily amp up their investigative powers overall. (It may make some information easier to get – but the courts would have to decide that, which also takes time.) The most powerful tool remains lots and lots of public hearings, organized into a basic story that the national media can understand and convey. It’s important to do this only after laying the groundwork because a premature impeachment inquiry arguably gets in the way of a more comprehensive set of investigations, sucks up all the attention��from other worthy investigations or political issues, and sets an unnecessarily narrow time frame to wrap up the investigation.

An impeachment resolution isn’t about “do we hate this dude’s face y/n?” but about whether they’ve committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. “High crimes and misdemeanors” are purposefully vague so that they can evolve with the times. While the impeachment process is in many ways analogous to criminal justice procedure, impeachable offenses are not necessarily crimes, and not all crimes are necessarily impeachable offenses. The Framers initially intended it to include things like cheating your way into office, or selling out the United States to a foreign power. The main offense on which different Congresses have historically agreed is obstruction of justice, and it makes sense: the most important part of the president’s job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and obstructing justice is, you know, the opposite of that. In practice, an impeachable offense is whatever the House of Representatives says it is. The point is, a majority of the Judiciary Committee has to agree on a list of specific things that the president did which are bad enough to merit removal from office – kind of like the specific charges that a prosecutor brings against a criminal defendant. Things on that list are called articles of impeachment.

The one time in history that impeachment proceedings have resulted in a president actually leaving office, they only ever got this far. By the time the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved, the Watergate hearings had made it clear that the House was going to impeach him and Republican senators had seen enough to tell him that he would be convicted. That’s not a shortcut – those hearings took over a year – but it is a possibility. 

If they approve the articles of impeachment, a majority of the House Judiciary Committee passes the resolution to the full House, which becomes like a grand jury. With a regular old majority vote, the House can impeach the president. Their presidency isn’t over, but it is damaged. Again, the criminal procedure analogy is useful: when someone gets indicted, that doesn’t mean they’ll be locked up immediately, but it does mean their life gets a lot more complicated for a while. If a majority of the House votes no, the process stops.

Once the president is impeached the process moves to the Senate, where there is a trial of the president. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the judge, a few representatives from the House majority are the managers (ie, prosecutors), and the Senate is the jury. Evidence is heard, arguments are made, and eventually there is a vote to acquit or convict. If two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict, then the president is removed from office and the vice president is sworn in as president. Any less than that, the president is acquitted and everyone goes back to their jobs.

Under current circumstances, that two-thirds bar means that conviction and removal are effectively impossible. The Republicans are the majority in the Senate, and Senate Republicans are completely indifferent to national security, democratic legitimacy, the rule of law, and basic morality. They have been showing us who they are for years; it is way past time to believe them.

There are a lot of legitimate arguments that impeachment in the House is worth doing anyway, and there are a lot of legitimate reasons to be reluctant. Unfortunately, you need to be especially wary of cynicism, fatalism, and bothsidesism right now: a lot of commentators out there are misguided, irresponsible, or outright dishonest enough to insinuate that Democrats could stop this Trump nightmare immediately but they just aren’t because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . If that were possible, it would clearly be the right thing to do. Because it’s not possible, the way forward is far less clear.

There’s no cheat code to get us through this quickly. We can’t afford to get used to this, and we can’t afford to get overwhelmed by it. A couple of things you can do if it helps you stay grounded:

If you’re ready for impeachment, call your member of Congress and let them know.

Use whatever platform you have to spread digestible stories about Trump regime corruption and obstruction, or of course any constructive arguments on the subject of impeachment. Think carefully before sharing impatient attacks on elected Democrats, though, because what we need them to do is hard enough and weakening them with infighting makes it even harder.

1 For example, if someone on the Supreme Court was found to have told dozens of bald-faced lies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in order to cover up serious wrongdoing and openly threatened to abuse his position to retaliate against anyone who opposed him because of said misconduct, he could also be impeached. Just clarifying IN CASE A MOTHERFUCKER THINKS WE FORGOT.

2 I’m stressing this point because …. look, I don’t blame anyone for being emotional right now, I’m just saying, if a #Take boils down to “BoTH sIDeS aRe DoInG nOthInG, dEmS dOn’t CarE, NANcy pelOsi DoeSnT gET It,” you may want to approach it with some skepticism.

[heroes-of-our-hearts]

Chapter Two: A Flirt? Maybe. A Teacher? Not So Much.

Okay, maybe you had overestimated yourself a little bit. You really, really weren’t cut out for teaching. The kids were all over the place.

One was cussing up a storm and yelling at anyone who got within reasonable distance. Another was running around trying his best to round up his classmates, in the process just causing more of a distraction. There was a kid who had been staring at your chest for the past five minutes, and you had half a mind to freeze him to the ceiling.

Oh jesus.

How the hell were you going to handle this?

Just as you were about to freeze everyone’s feet to the ground, literally, you noticed a figure lurking in the corner. Your knight in shining sleeping bag came at just the right time.

“Shouta!” You called. Okay, you pleaded.

His brows hit his hairline at the sound of your voice, and the image of his students running amok. You were a hero for christ’s sake, what did he expect?

Well, to be fair, he expected a teacher. Of course, you were doing a rather shitty job at keeping everyone calm for their lesson.

“What the hell?” He muttered, and you realized it was probably more to himself than to you.

The poor man looked like he was on his way to take a nap, enjoying a few hours to himself without these child-devils. Instead, you were pulling him into the training room the class had been assigned to, your hands clasped in front of you.

“Please help,” you said.

He hesitated, and you weren’t above begging at that point. You were utterly lost on what to do with the kids. Teaching one kid for a few lessons as the number one hero in America was easy. Teaching a room full of kids who fully intended to be heroes one day as a completely unknown hero foreign to their country? Yeah, not so good.

“Hey!” Shouta called, and despite the fact that his voice wasn’t that loud, he still managed to catch the attention of the class.

“Seriously,” you mumbled, “You have to teach me how you do that.”

He shot you an unamused look.

“Right, go nap or whatever you were planning on doing,” you dismissed, muttering a thanks.

He didn’t leave though, instead settling in the corner of the room with his yellow sleeping bag. You weren’t sure if you felt more comfortable having him there, or more nervous since he’d probably be able to see right through your ‘teacher’ alias.

“I’ve been given a list of all of your quirks,” you announced, crossing your arms over your chest and making eye contact with each of them, “I’d like to see you all in action, if I’m honest. A paper only says so much. You should be learning the most about your enemies while observing.”

You could do this. Treat them like other heroes you’d be working with on a mission. You’d had to do enough of that in America. If you could roll with it like that, you’d be fine.

“Alright, first up: Yuga Aoyama.”

A blonde kid stepped forward, his smile flashy.

“How will we be demonstrating?” He asked, leaning back to show off the belt around his waist.

He had a naval laser quirk, according to the intel you’d been given. As far as they were concerned, you had a water manipulation quirk. They couldn’t know the rest of it though.

Still, it should be easy enough.

“I want you to use your quirks in a fight against me,” you told them.

A few students began murmuring among themselves. You could see the little caterpillar in the corner stirring at the mention of a fight.

“Give it all or nothing, no holding back,” you explained, turning away from them so you could flick on the lights.

There was a stadium in the center of the room, surrounded by water. Nedzu had chosen the perfect location really.

“You’re going to be at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to knowing my quirk,” you offered as a piece of advice, leading him towards the stadium. “However, use the fact that I don’t know anything about what you’ve been taught as an advantage.”

He was nodding, though you weren’t entirely sure if he was actually listening or just excited to show off. You really hoped he was, because you weren’t taking it easy on them. They already were lucky enough you could only use a quarter of your quirk.

He was quick to take his place, waving to his classmates without a care in the world. Well, at least you could remedy some faults in their mindset, if nothing else. Cockiness was deadly in the hero world. Confidence, sure, but every opponent was a threat. The minute you took one too lightly was the minute blood was shed.

“Go!”

The poor kid looked startled for a minute, like you were just going to attack him unwarranted. Perhaps that’s why Eraserhead had such a sway over them. You could picture the guy throwing them off balance.

No, you wanted to see what they could do. It would be no good to just knock him out of the ring due to his own self-importance. You were specifically looking to see how they utilized their quirks for defense and offense. Often times, heroes would only use it for one or the other. That’s what separated the good from the great.

Aoyama charged a beam of light at you, one that was dodged easily enough. If you were lucky, you wouldn’t even need your quirk for a while. He was on the offensive, using his quirk to drive you to the edge of the ring.

You wondered what he’d do for defense. In the case of a quirk like his, it’d probably be best to use his quirk to push you back if you got two close. One well coordinated attack in close quarters and he would put you on the defensive.

You charged forward when he took a break in between laser beams. He had a limit, as did all quirk users. You’d help him increase it, but for the time being, you’d use it to your advantage.

His eyes widened as he saw you sprinting towards him. He backed away, scrambling to use his quirk against you, but it was sloppy and you sidestepped the attack. You slid down as you approached him, cautious just in case he decided to try one more attack. He didn’t.

Instead, you ended up taking him with you, barreling him over the edge as you stopped just in time. You caught him by the shirt, pulling him back over. The kid seriously looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

“You’re too offensive,” you said, standing him up straight. You let your hand linger for a moment longer just in case he keeled over. “You need to pay more attention to my feet, watch my movements. If you use your quirk at the right moment, you can put me on the defensive, and you’ll have the upperhand.”

Though he was still shook up, he nodded, running back towards his classmates like he didn’t want to be near you any longer. Come on, you weren’t that bad. You didn’t even hurt him.

Shouta was now fully interested in the show, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched you. He was still wrapped in his sleeping bag though, and you had to stifle a laugh at the look. UA sure did have some characters.

“Mina Ashido,” you called, taking your place back on the platform.

The tests all began to blur together. Each of them eager to show off their skills. They were talented, you’d give them that, but they had a long road ahead of them if they wanted to be heroes. Thus far, they’d all made rather silly mistakes that were easily avoidable with a little advice. It would be simple enough to discover plans to help improve their quirks.

They all listened too, which was an amazing feat in itself. You didn’t think they would hear anything you had to say before you began.

Furthermore, you thought you were going to get away with not using your quirk at all. (Katsuki Bakugo had almost blown a hole through the ceiling when he realized that you didn’t use your quirk against him.) Then, you’d gotten to the final two.

It was just Shoto Todoroki and Izuku Midoriya left. The former of which was staring at you with cold eyes, pun not intended. He’d been silently observing each of the fights before him, trying to get a read on how best to proceed. You should’ve expected as much from Endeavor’s son. Though, you could’ve also expected a right ass, because you’d had the ‘luxury’ of meeting Japan’s number two hero before, and you were not impressed by his behavior.

The young Todoroki launched a tower of ice at you, the frozen fractals covering the ground in a split second, hungry to reach its target. You didn’t even blink, anticipating a move like that. There were a few ice heroes you’d met in your times, villains too, and they all had a similar fighting style. Todoroki wasn’t too far off the mark.

You lifted your hands, squeezing your fists while taking a hard stance. The ice raging towards you turned to water before it even made it halfway. Your moves were delicate, using the kid’s own power against him. The water rushed around you, doing an ancient dance as you took one step forward, your wrist relaxed. The water listened to your hand’s call, moving all at once with a decisive flick.

Todoroki’s eyes widened, a makeshift ice block protecting him from your sudden blow.

Quick on his feet, and a good defense? You could vibe with it.

Only, he wasn’t using his fire. It made you curious. If you had the chance to throw some fire his way right now, you would. Alas, you had to pretend like your quirk was only water manipulation. God, you wanted to curse your stupid alias.

“Not bad, not bad,” you commended him, offering a hand out. He took it.

“Although, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with you after quickly.”

You leaned in to say it so the other kids wouldn’t hear. You knew teenagers well enough, and if you’d just outright said it, they would’ve been talking about what you possibly wanted to discuss with him.

“And one more,” you announced. “Izuku Midoriya.”

The kid in question popped up, and you couldn’t help but notice there was now a very large hero trying to covertly watch the scene unfold.

All Might was not a stealthy man. Noted.

To be fair, someone that large would be difficult to hide. And he had the brute strength of a thousand elephants, so stealth isn’t really needed when you can just barrel your way through life. What was that saying? Nobody will catch you if nobody is left to catch you.

Izuku looked determined when he stood before you, but you could see some hesitancy in his eyes.

You were a bit suspicious when you read his file. He was a late bloomer, according to the records. He’d discovered his quirk not too long ago.

You had a few theories, but you would wait to discuss them.

He was making his move, running towards you with an impressive speed. You didn’t move though, waiting to see what he’d do.

He shouted a scream, something that sounded very familiar to one of All Might’s moves, and his hand glowed brightly.

You hummed, refusing to let this kid injure himself for the sake of what was supposed to be an evaluation of his quirk. A tendril of water snuck around his waist and pulled him back towards the arena. The cheers of his classmates fell silent.

His arm flickered for a moment, before it returned to its natural color.

“Bide your strength,” you advised, releasing the water’s grip on him. It slunk back into the pool below. “If you use too much at once it hurts you, yeah?”

He nodded.

“Then until you’re able to, avoid using your quirk. Think of it like a secret weapon.”

He was drinking in your advice, but seemed puzzled by the notion of not relying on his quirk.

“Heroes learn to adapt,” you furthered your explanation, hoping to shine some light on your way of thinking. “There are times when your quirk may be useless against an enemy or impossible to use. Take him for example.”

You jerked your head in the direction of Eraserhead. The man in question shot a look to you. A part of you hoped you weren’t offending him. But hey, you were just using him as an example, was he really going to get mad about that?

“He can stop people from using their quirk. Do you think they just run away?”

Midoriya shook his head. His eyes were wide and you thought that you may have been striking a chord with him. He probably thought he was quirkless for a long time, and if his dream was to be a hero, you were directly contradicting what he believed.

“As a hero, you need to be strong always. A quirk is just another tool in your arsenal. Don’t be misled, it can be powerful, but you can’t let it define you as a hero.”

Your hand was resting on his shoulder now, and you tried to really get a glimpse into his eyes. He was a smart kid, you knew that already, and a good listener too. You could tell his hand was itching to go write more in those journals he kept about.

“Thank you,” he bowed, scampering off towards the rest of his classmates.

They were all talking in hushed whispers as you found yourself needing to address them once more. It seemed, however, that they’d earned a bit more respect for you than they’d had in the beginning. Or perhaps you’d just worn them out.

“Next class we’ll begin working towards individual goals,” you said above the noise. “I’m impressed with all of you, and I look forward to seeing you again.”

There were murmurs of thanks and chatter about as they began to trickle from the class. Though, you took note that Todoroki was staying behind, just as you’d asked. Shouta was waiting by the door too, probably for his student, but you were hoping to talk to him.

“Todoroki,” you greeted, stepping off the platform to be more level with him. Well, okay, he was definitely still taller than you.

“Why did you want to speak with me?”

Straight to the point. Damn, this kid could really use a smile. Though, if you had a father like Endeavor you were sure you’d be frowning more often too.

“I noticed you avoided using fire.”

He nodded, as if it were normal. Okay, not a fan of the flames. Maybe something to do with dear old dad?

“You don’t have to tell me your personal life,” you whispered to him, making certain that Shouta wouldn’t hear.

Teacher or not, you weren’t about to make Todoroki uncomfortable by allowing another to hear what should probably be a more personal conversation.

“I’ve met your father,” you told him, and the kid’s eyes widened. “No offense, but he’s kind of an ass.”

You could tell he was trying to hold back a smile. Clearly, he agreed.

“He doesn’t think of fire the way it should be.”

“What do you mean?” Todoroki asked, cautious, but intrigued.

“Fire is powerful, yes, but it’s not some brute force you use to beat people into submission. Fire is life, the very heartbeat of the world. To use fire isn’t to have a weapon, it’s to guide a living, breathing element.”

You sighed gently, running a hand over your hair.

“There’s often a disrespect amongst the elemental quirks. It’s important to remember that the elements are often beyond human control. Even the most powerful elemental users can struggle with their quirk. As humans with elemental quirks, we need to remember that the elements belong to the Earth, not to us.”

Todoroki’s eyes had narrowed at some point during your talk, and he looked rather suspicious.

“You know an awful lot about the elements.”

You shrugged.

“I’ve had some practice with a few different quirk users.”

“Tempest?” Todoroki inquired, and you nearly had a heart attack.

He was asking if you’d met Tempest, not if you were her, but god damn the kid needed to not oust you like that. Seriously, you had almost run away before you realized how odd that would make it seem.

“Yeah, actually,” you replied, nudging him on the shoulder and giving a lopsided smile.

“Now, why don’t you go catch up to your friends.”

You felt a bit bad that you were relieved when he left. You liked the kid, sure, but it was your first day and you thought one of them had guessed who you were. A rollercoaster of emotions, that’s for damn sure.

“Nice talk?”

You jumped.

“Jesus, give me a warning before you…” You gestured vaguely around the area Shouta was occupying.

He was giving you a toothy grin in a return. The first real smile you’d seen from him.

“I’m surprised you didn’t just sleep through everything,” you admitted, crossing your arms over your chest.

You were frowning at him. Seriously, did he really feel the need to be Mr. Mysterious over here? He shrugged.

“Okay, tall, dark, and handsome,” you stepped towards the exit. “Continue to be that way.”

He followed after you, one brow raised.

“Tall, dark, and handsome?” He echoed.

You laughed at the unamused look on his face. He really was a tough egg to crack.

“And I’m sure you know it too,” you hummed, not bothering to see if he was following you down the hallway. You knew he would.

“You talk a lot,” he deadpanned, though you noticed he burrowed further into his capture weapon.

You: 1, Shouta: 0.

“All part of the charm,” you promised, doing a 180 when you noticed a familiar face in the hallway.

Okay, her face was familiar to you, but yours wasn’t familiar to her. Well, at least not in this identity.

“Midnight,” you called, her attention on your almost immediately.

She perked up at the prospect of meeting someone new. Yeah, same old Midnight.

You missed her, really. She was a good friend of yours in the hero industry. The two of you clicked after your first meeting a few years ago and stayed in touch. You felt bad for disappearing off the face of the planet for the time being.

“Poseidous,” she guessed, then shot a smile to Shouta too. They were friends, from what you knew. She talked about her friends quite a bit with you.

“I’m really happy to meet you,” you replied, “I’m a big fan of yours.”

She quirked her brow, a smug expression on her features.

“Badass and sexy? Yes please,” you giggled, holding your hand out to her so you could shake it.

She brushed it aside to pull you in for a hug instead. Unlike Hizashi’s though, you melted into it. You really did miss her. You’d have to explain everything to her as soon as this was finished.

“I have class, have this guy give you my number and we can go get drinks this weekend,” she offered.

Shouta, unsurprisingly, looked annoyed.

“Most definitely,” you nodded excitedly, waving goodbye as she ran off in the direction of her class.

You eyed the man who was supposed to be giving you her number, disappointed when he made no move to do so. In fact, he was just slouched there with his hands in his pocket.

“Aw, don’t look so upset,” you tried to cheer him up. “You’re badass and sexy too.”

He left.

[localbizlift]

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, says Facebook used him to get its acquisition past EU regulators

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, who left Facebook a year ago — before going on to publicly bite the hand that fed him, by voicing support for the #DeleteFacebook movement (and donating $50M to alternative encrypted messaging app, Signal) — has delved into the ethics clash behind his acrimonious departure in an interview with Forbes.

And for leaving a cool ~$850M in unvested stock on the table by not sticking it out a few more months inside Zuckerberg’s mothership, as co-founder Jan Koum did. (Collecting air cooled Porsches must be an expensive hobby, though.)

Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators who had been concerned it might be able to link accounts — as it subsequently did.

“You mean it won’t make as much money”

The WhatsApp founders’ departure from Facebook boils down to a disagreement over how to monetize their famously ‘anti-ads’ messaging platform from Menlo Park.

Though how the pair ever imagined their platform would be safe from ads in the clutches of, er, an ad giant like Facebook remains one of the tech world’s greatest unexplained brain-fails. Or else they were mostly just thinking of the billions Facebook was paying them.

Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

But that “very simple business” idea was rejected outright by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who he said told him “it won’t scale”.

“I called her out one time,” Acton also told Forbes. “I was like, ‘No, you don’t mean that it won’t scale. You mean it won’t make as much money as…,’ and she kind of hemmed and hawed a little. And we moved on. I think I made my point… They are businesspeople, they are good businesspeople. They just represent a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don’t necessarily agree with.”

CANNES, FRANCE – JUNE 22: Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg attends the Cannes Lions Festival 2017 on June 22, 2017 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images for Cannes Lions)

Still, it seems Acton and Koum had a pretty major inkling of the looming clash of business “principles and ethics” with Facebook’s management, given they had a clause written into their contract to allow them to immediately get all their stock if the company began “implementing monetization initiatives” without their consent.

So with his ideas being actively rejected, and with Facebook ramping up the monetization pressure on the “product group” (which is how Acton says Zuckerberg viewed WhatsApp), he thought he saw a route to both cash out and get out — by calling in the contract clause.

Facebook had other ideas, though. Company lawyers told him the clause didn’t yet apply because it had only been “exploring”, not yet implementing monetization. At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” So presumably things got pretty chilly.

The original $19BN deal for Facebook to buy WhatsApp had been rushed through over a weekend in 2014, and Acton said there had been little time to examine what would turn out to be crucial details like the monetization clause.

But not doing the due diligence on that clearly cost him a second very sizeable personal fortune.

Regardless, faced with more uncomfortably chilly meetings, and a legal fight to get the unvested stock, Acton said he decided to just take the winnings he already had and leave.

He even rejected an alternative proposed settlement (without fleshing out exactly what it was) — saying Facebook management had wanted to put a nondisclosure agreement in it, and “that was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys”.

“At the end of the day, I sold my company. I am a sellout. I acknowledge that,” he also told Forbes, indicating that he’s not unaware that the prospect of a guy who got really, really wealthy by selling out his principles and his users then trying to claw out even more cash from the ad tech giant he sold to probably wouldn’t look so good.

At least this way he can say he took an $850M haircut to show he ‘cared’.

In August Facebook confirmed that from next year it will indeed begin injecting ads into WhatsApp statuses — which is where the multimedia montage Stories format it cloned from Snapchat has been bolted onto the platform.

So WhatsApp’s ~1.5BN+ monthly users can look forward to unwelcome intrusions as they try to go about their daily business of sending messages to their friends and family.

How exactly Facebook will ‘encourage’ WhatsApp users to eyeball the marketing noise it intends to monetize remains to be seen. But tweaks to make statues more prominent/unavoidable look likely. Facebook is a master of the dark pattern design, after all.

The company is also set to charge businesses for messages they receive from potential customers via the WhatsApp platform — of between a half a penny and 9 cents, depending on the country.

So, in a way, it’s picking up on Acton’s suggestion of a ‘metered model’ — just in a fashion that will “scale” the bottom line in Sandberg’s sought for ‘loadsamoney’ style.

Though of course neither Acton nor Koum will be around to cash in on the stock uplift as Facebook imposes its ad model onto a whole new unwilling platform.

“I think everyone was gambling… because enough time had passed”

In perhaps the most telling tidbit of the interview, Acton reveals that even before the WhatsApp acquisition had been cleared he was carefully coached by Facebook to tell European regulators it would be “really difficult” for it to combine WhatsApp and Facebook user data.

“I was coached to explain that it would be really difficult to merge or blend data between the two systems,” Acton said.

An ‘impossible conjoining’ that Facebook subsequently, miraculously went on to achieve, just two years later, which later earned it a $122M fine from the European Commission for providing incorrect or misleading information on the original filing. (Facebook has maintained that unintentional “errors” were to blame.)

After the acquisition had been cleared Acton said he later learned that elsewhere in Facebook there were indeed “plans and technologies to blend data” between the two services — and that specifically it could use the 128-bit string of numbers assigned to each phone to connect WhatsApp and Facebook user accounts.

Phone-number matching is another method used to link accounts — and sharing WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with the parent group was a change pushed onto users via the 2016 update to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions.

(Though Facebook’s linking of WhatsApp and Facebook accounts for ad targeting purposes remains suspended in Europe, after regulatory push-back.)

“I think everyone was gambling because they thought that the EU might have forgotten because enough time had passed,” he also said in reference to Facebook pushing ahead with account matching, despite having told European regulators it couldn’t be done.

Regulators did not forget. But a $122M fine is hardly a proportionate disincentive for a company as revenue-heavy as Facebook (which earned a whopping $13.23BN in Q2). And which can therefore swallow the penalty as another standard business cost.

Acton said Facebook also sought “broader rights” to WhatsApp users data under the new terms of service — and claims he and Koum pushed back and reached a compromise with Facebook management.

The ‘compromise’ being that the clause about ‘no ads’ would remain — but Facebook would get to link accounts to power friend suggestions on Facebook and to offer its advertising partners better targets for ads on Facebook. So really they just bought themselves (and their users) a bit more time.

Now, of course, with both founders out of the company Facebook is free to scrub the no ads clause and use the already linked accounts for ad targeting in both directions (not just at Facebook users).

And if Acton and Koum ever really thought they could prevent that adtech endgame they were horribly naive. Again, most probably, they just balanced the billions they got paid against that outcome and thought 2x [shrug emoji].

Facebook’s push to monetize WhatsApp faster than its founders were entirely comfortable with looks to be related to its own concerns about needing to please investors by being able to show continued growth.

Facebook’s most recent Q2 was not a stellar one, with its stock taking a hit on slowing user growth.

Three years after the WhatsApp acquisition, Acton said Zuckerberg was growing impatient — recounting how he told an all-hands meeting for WhatsApp staffers Facebook needed WhatsApp revenues to continue to show growth to Wall Street.

Internally, Acton said Facebook had targeted a $10 billion revenue run rate within five years of monetization of WhatsApp — numbers he thought sounded too high and which therefore must be reliant on ads.

And so within a year or so Acton was on his way out — not quite as personally mega-wealthy as he could have been. But definitely don’t cry for him. He’s doing fine.

At the Signal Foundation, where Acton now works, he says the goal is to make “private communication accessible and ubiquitous”.

Though the alternative e2e encrypted app has only unquantified “millions” of users to WhatsApp and Facebook’s multi billions. But at least it has $50M of Acton’s personal fortune behind it.

[pmsocialmedia]

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, says Facebook used him to get its acquisition past EU regulators

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, who left Facebook a year ago — before going on to publicly bite the hand that fed him, by voicing support for the #DeleteFacebook movement (and donating $50M to alternative encrypted messaging app, Signal) — has delved into the ethics clash behind his acrimonious departure in an interview with Forbes.

And for leaving a cool ~$850M in unvested stock on the table by not sticking it out a few more months inside Zuckerberg’s mothership, as co-founder Jan Koum did. (Collecting air cooled Porsches must be an expensive hobby, though.)

Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators who had been concerned it might be able to link accounts — as it subsequently did.

“You mean it won’t make as much money”

The WhatsApp founders’ departure from Facebook boils down to a disagreement over how to monetize their famously ‘anti-ads’ messaging platform from Menlo Park.

Though how the pair ever imagined their platform would be safe from ads in the clutches of, er, an ad giant like Facebook remains one of the tech world’s greatest unexplained brain-fails. Or else they were mostly just thinking of the billions Facebook was paying them.

Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

But that “very simple business” idea was rejected outright by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who he said told him “it won’t scale”.

“I called her out one time,” Acton also told Forbes. “I was like, ‘No, you don’t mean that it won’t scale. You mean it won’t make as much money as…,’ and she kind of hemmed and hawed a little. And we moved on. I think I made my point… They are businesspeople, they are good businesspeople. They just represent a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don’t necessarily agree with.”

CANNES, FRANCE – JUNE 22: Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg attends the Cannes Lions Festival 2017 on June 22, 2017 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images for Cannes Lions)

Still, it seems Acton and Koum had a pretty major inkling of the looming clash of business “principles and ethics” with Facebook’s management, given they had a clause written into their contract to allow them to immediately get all their stock if the company began “implementing monetization initiatives” without their consent.

So with his ideas being actively rejected, and with Facebook ramping up the monetization pressure on the “product group” (which is how Acton says Zuckerberg viewed WhatsApp), he thought he saw a route to both cash out and get out — by calling in the contract clause.

Facebook had other ideas, though. Company lawyers told him the clause didn’t yet apply because it had only been “exploring”, not yet implementing monetization. At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” So presumably things got pretty chilly.

The original $19BN deal for Facebook to buy WhatsApp had been rushed through over a weekend in 2014, and Acton said there had been little time to examine what would turn out to be crucial details like the monetization clause.

But not doing the due diligence on that clearly cost him a second very sizeable personal fortune.

Regardless, faced with more uncomfortably chilly meetings, and a legal fight to get the unvested stock, Acton said he decided to just take the winnings he already had and leave.

He even rejected an alternative proposed settlement (without fleshing out exactly what it was) — saying Facebook management had wanted to put a nondisclosure agreement in it, and “that was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys”.

“At the end of the day, I sold my company. I am a sellout. I acknowledge that,” he also told Forbes, indicating that he’s not unaware that the prospect of a guy who got really, really wealthy by selling out his principles and his users then trying to claw out even more cash from the ad tech giant he sold to probably wouldn’t look so good.

At least this way he can say he took an $850M haircut to show he ‘cared’.

In August Facebook confirmed that from next year it will indeed begin injecting ads into WhatsApp statuses — which is where the multimedia montage Stories format it cloned from Snapchat has been bolted onto the platform.

So WhatsApp’s ~1.5BN+ monthly users can look forward to unwelcome intrusions as they try to go about their daily business of sending messages to their friends and family.

How exactly Facebook will ‘encourage’ WhatsApp users to eyeball the marketing noise it intends to monetize remains to be seen. But tweaks to make statues more prominent/unavoidable look likely. Facebook is a master of the dark pattern design, after all.

The company is also set to charge businesses for messages they receive from potential customers via the WhatsApp platform — of between a half a penny and 9 cents, depending on the country.

So, in a way, it’s picking up on Acton’s suggestion of a ‘metered model’ — just in a fashion that will “scale” the bottom line in Sandberg’s sought for ‘loadsamoney’ style.

Though of course neither Acton nor Koum will be around to cash in on the stock uplift as Facebook imposes its ad model onto a whole new unwilling platform.

“I think everyone was gambling… because enough time had passed”

In perhaps the most telling tidbit of the interview, Acton reveals that even before the WhatsApp acquisition had been cleared he was carefully coached by Facebook to tell European regulators it would be “really difficult” for it to combine WhatsApp and Facebook user data.

“I was coached to explain that it would be really difficult to merge or blend data between the two systems,” Acton said.

An ‘impossible conjoining’ that Facebook subsequently, miraculously went on to achieve, just two years later, which later earned it a $122M fine from the European Commission for providing incorrect or misleading information on the original filing. (Facebook has maintained that unintentional “errors” were to blame.)

After the acquisition had been cleared Acton said he later learned that elsewhere in Facebook there were indeed “plans and technologies to blend data” between the two services — and that specifically it could use the 128-bit string of numbers assigned to each phone to connect WhatsApp and Facebook user accounts.

Phone-number matching is another method used to link accounts — and sharing WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with the parent group was a change pushed onto users via the 2016 update to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions.

(Though Facebook’s linking of WhatsApp and Facebook accounts for ad targeting purposes remains suspended in Europe, after regulatory push-back.)

“I think everyone was gambling because they thought that the EU might have forgotten because enough time had passed,” he also said in reference to Facebook pushing ahead with account matching, despite having told European regulators it couldn’t be done.

Regulators did not forget. But a $122M fine is hardly a proportionate disincentive for a company as revenue-heavy as Facebook (which earned a whopping $13.23BN in Q2). And which can therefore swallow the penalty as another standard business cost.

Acton said Facebook also sought “broader rights” to WhatsApp users data under the new terms of service — and claims he and Koum pushed back and reached a compromise with Facebook management.

The ‘compromise’ being that the clause about ‘no ads’ would remain — but Facebook would get to link accounts to power friend suggestions on Facebook and to offer its advertising partners better targets for ads on Facebook. So really they just bought themselves (and their users) a bit more time.

Now, of course, with both founders out of the company Facebook is free to scrub the no ads clause and use the already linked accounts for ad targeting in both directions (not just at Facebook users).

And if Acton and Koum ever really thought they could prevent that adtech endgame they were horribly naive. Again, most probably, they just balanced the billions they got paid against that outcome and thought 2x [shrug emoji].

Facebook’s push to monetize WhatsApp faster than its founders were entirely comfortable with looks to be related to its own concerns about needing to please investors by being able to show continued growth.

Facebook’s most recent Q2 was not a stellar one, with its stock taking a hit on slowing user growth.

Three years after the WhatsApp acquisition, Acton said Zuckerberg was growing impatient — recounting how he told an all-hands meeting for WhatsApp staffers Facebook needed WhatsApp revenues to continue to show growth to Wall Street.

Internally, Acton said Facebook had targeted a $10 billion revenue run rate within five years of monetization of WhatsApp — numbers he thought sounded too high and which therefore must be reliant on ads.

And so within a year or so Acton was on his way out — not quite as personally mega-wealthy as he could have been. But definitely don’t cry for him. He’s doing fine.

At the Signal Foundation, where Acton now works, he says the goal is to make “private communication accessible and ubiquitous”.

Though the alternative e2e encrypted app has only unquantified “millions” of users to WhatsApp and Facebook’s multi billions. But at least it has $50M of Acton’s personal fortune behind it.

via Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2xIdRmh

[workfromhom]

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, says Facebook used him to get its acquisition past EU regulators

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, who left Facebook a year ago — before going on to publicly bite the hand that fed him, by voicing support for the #DeleteFacebook movement (and donating $50M to alternative encrypted messaging app, Signal) — has delved into the ethics clash behind his acrimonious departure in an interview with Forbes.

And for leaving a cool ~$850M in unvested stock on the table by not sticking it out a few more months inside Zuckerberg’s mothership, as co-founder Jan Koum did. (Collecting air cooled Porsches must be an expensive hobby, though.)

Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators who had been concerned it might be able to link accounts — as it subsequently did.

“You mean it won’t make as much money”

The WhatsApp founders’ departure from Facebook boils down to a disagreement over how to monetize their famously ‘anti-ads’ messaging platform from Menlo Park.

Though how the pair ever imagined their platform would be safe from ads in the clutches of, er, an ad giant like Facebook remains one of the tech world’s greatest unexplained brain-fails. Or else they were mostly just thinking of the billions Facebook was paying them.

Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

But that “very simple business” idea was rejected outright by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who he said told him “it won’t scale”.

“I called her out one time,” Acton also told Forbes. “I was like, ‘No, you don’t mean that it won’t scale. You mean it won’t make as much money as…,’ and she kind of hemmed and hawed a little. And we moved on. I think I made my point… They are businesspeople, they are good businesspeople. They just represent a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don’t necessarily agree with.”

CANNES, FRANCE – JUNE 22: Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg attends the Cannes Lions Festival 2017 on June 22, 2017 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images for Cannes Lions)

Still, it seems Acton and Koum had a pretty major inkling of the looming clash of business “principles and ethics” with Facebook’s management, given they had a clause written into their contract to allow them to immediately get all their stock if the company began “implementing monetization initiatives” without their consent.

So with his ideas being actively rejected, and with Facebook ramping up the monetization pressure on the “product group” (which is how Acton says Zuckerberg viewed WhatsApp), he thought he saw a route to both cash out and get out — by calling in the contract clause.

Facebook had other ideas, though. Company lawyers told him the clause didn’t yet apply because it had only been “exploring”, not yet implementing monetization. At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” So presumably things got pretty chilly.

The original $19BN deal for Facebook to buy WhatsApp had been rushed through over a weekend in 2014, and Acton said there had been little time to examine what would turn out to be crucial details like the monetization clause.

But not doing the due diligence on that clearly cost him a second very sizeable personal fortune.

Regardless, faced with more uncomfortably chilly meetings, and a legal fight to get the unvested stock, Acton said he decided to just take the winnings he already had and leave.

He even rejected an alternative proposed settlement (without fleshing out exactly what it was) — saying Facebook management had wanted to put a nondisclosure agreement in it, and “that was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys”.

“At the end of the day, I sold my company. I am a sellout. I acknowledge that,” he also told Forbes, indicating that he’s not unaware that the prospect of a guy who got really, really wealthy by selling out his principles and his users then trying to claw out even more cash from the ad tech giant he sold to probably wouldn’t look so good.

At least this way he can say he took an $850M haircut to show he ‘cared’.

In August Facebook confirmed that from next year it will indeed begin injecting ads into WhatsApp statuses — which is where the multimedia montage Stories format it cloned from Snapchat has been bolted onto the platform.

So WhatsApp’s ~1.5BN+ monthly users can look forward to unwelcome intrusions as they try to go about their daily business of sending messages to their friends and family.

How exactly Facebook will ‘encourage’ WhatsApp users to eyeball the marketing noise it intends to monetize remains to be seen. But tweaks to make statues more prominent/unavoidable look likely. Facebook is a master of the dark pattern design, after all.

The company is also set to charge businesses for messages they receive from potential customers via the WhatsApp platform — of between a half a penny and 9 cents, depending on the country.

So, in a way, it’s picking up on Acton’s suggestion of a ‘metered model’ — just in a fashion that will “scale” the bottom line in Sandberg’s sought for ‘loadsamoney’ style.

Though of course neither Acton nor Koum will be around to cash in on the stock uplift as Facebook imposes its ad model onto a whole new unwilling platform.

“I think everyone was gambling… because enough time had passed”

In perhaps the most telling tidbit of the interview, Acton reveals that even before the WhatsApp acquisition had been cleared he was carefully coached by Facebook to tell European regulators it would be “really difficult” for it to combine WhatsApp and Facebook user data.

“I was coached to explain that it would be really difficult to merge or blend data between the two systems,” Acton said.

An ‘impossible conjoining’ that Facebook subsequently, miraculously went on to achieve, just two years later, which later earned it a $122M fine from the European Commission for providing incorrect or misleading information on the original filing. (Facebook has maintained that unintentional “errors” were to blame.)

After the acquisition had been cleared Acton said he later learned that elsewhere in Facebook there were indeed “plans and technologies to blend data” between the two services — and that specifically it could use the 128-bit string of numbers assigned to each phone to connect WhatsApp and Facebook user accounts.

Phone-number matching is another method used to link accounts — and sharing WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with the parent group was a change pushed onto users via the 2016 update to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions.

(Though Facebook’s linking of WhatsApp and Facebook accounts for ad targeting purposes remains suspended in Europe, after regulatory push-back.)

“I think everyone was gambling because they thought that the EU might have forgotten because enough time had passed,” he also said in reference to Facebook pushing ahead with account matching, despite having told European regulators it couldn’t be done.

Regulators did not forget. But a $122M fine is hardly a proportionate disincentive for a company as revenue-heavy as Facebook (which earned a whopping $13.23BN in Q2). And which can therefore swallow the penalty as another standard business cost.

Acton said Facebook also sought “broader rights” to WhatsApp users data under the new terms of service — and claims he and Koum pushed back and reached a compromise with Facebook management.

The ‘compromise’ being that the clause about ‘no ads’ would remain — but Facebook would get to link accounts to power friend suggestions on Facebook and to offer its advertising partners better targets for ads on Facebook. So really they just bought themselves (and their users) a bit more time.

Now, of course, with both founders out of the company Facebook is free to scrub the no ads clause and use the already linked accounts for ad targeting in both directions (not just at Facebook users).

And if Acton and Koum ever really thought they could prevent that adtech endgame they were horribly naive. Again, most probably, they just balanced the billions they got paid against that outcome and thought 2x [shrug emoji].

Facebook’s push to monetize WhatsApp faster than its founders were entirely comfortable with looks to be related to its own concerns about needing to please investors by being able to show continued growth.

Facebook’s most recent Q2 was not a stellar one, with its stock taking a hit on slowing user growth.

Three years after the WhatsApp acquisition, Acton said Zuckerberg was growing impatient — recounting how he told an all-hands meeting for WhatsApp staffers Facebook needed WhatsApp revenues to continue to show growth to Wall Street.

Internally, Acton said Facebook had targeted a $10 billion revenue run rate within five years of monetization of WhatsApp — numbers he thought sounded too high and which therefore must be reliant on ads.

And so within a year or so Acton was on his way out — not quite as personally mega-wealthy as he could have been. But definitely don’t cry for him. He’s doing fine.

At the Signal Foundation, where Acton now works, he says the goal is to make “private communication accessible and ubiquitous”.

Though the alternative e2e encrypted app has only unquantified “millions” of users to WhatsApp and Facebook’s multi billions. But at least it has $50M of Acton’s personal fortune behind it.

from Facebook – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2xIdRmh via IFTTT

[un-enfant-immature]

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, says Facebook used him to get its acquisition past EU regulators

WhatsApp founder, Brian Acton, who left Facebook a year ago — before going on to publicly bite the hand that fed him, by voicing support for the #DeleteFacebook movement (and donating $50M to alternative encrypted messaging app, Signal) — has delved into the ethics clash behind his acrimonious departure in an interview with Forbes.

And for leaving a cool ~$850M in unvested stock on the table by not sticking it out a few more months inside Zuckerberg’s mothership, as co-founder Jan Koum did. (Collecting air cooled Porsches must be an expensive hobby, though.)

Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators who had been concerned it might be able to link accounts — as it subsequently did.

“You mean it won’t make as much money”

The WhatsApp founders’ departure from Facebook boils down to a disagreement over how to monetize their famously ‘anti-ads’ messaging platform from Menlo Park.

Though how the pair ever imagined their platform would be safe from ads in the clutches of, er, an ad giant like Facebook remains one of the tech world’s greatest unexplained brain-fails. Or else they were mostly just thinking of the billions Facebook was paying them.

Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

But that “very simple business” idea was rejected outright by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who he said told him “it won’t scale”.

“I called her out one time,” Acton also told Forbes. “I was like, ‘No, you don’t mean that it won’t scale. You mean it won’t make as much money as…,’ and she kind of hemmed and hawed a little. And we moved on. I think I made my point… They are businesspeople, they are good businesspeople. They just represent a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don’t necessarily agree with.”

CANNES, FRANCE – JUNE 22: Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg attends the Cannes Lions Festival 2017 on June 22, 2017 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images for Cannes Lions)

Still, it seems Acton and Koum had a pretty major inkling of the looming clash of business “principles and ethics” with Facebook’s management, given they had a clause written into their contract to allow them to immediately get all their stock if the company began “implementing monetization initiatives” without their consent.

So with his ideas being actively rejected, and with Facebook ramping up the monetization pressure on the “product group” (which is how Acton says Zuckerberg viewed WhatsApp), he thought he saw a route to both cash out and get out — by calling in the contract clause.

Facebook had other ideas, though. Company lawyers told him the clause didn’t yet apply because it had only been “exploring”, not yet implementing monetization. At a meeting over the issue he said Zuckerberg also told him: “This is probably the last time you’ll ever talk to me.” So presumably things got pretty chilly.

The original $19BN deal for Facebook to buy WhatsApp had been rushed through over a weekend in 2014, and Acton said there had been little time to examine what would turn out to be crucial details like the monetization clause.

But not doing the due diligence on that clearly cost him a second very sizeable personal fortune.

Regardless, faced with more uncomfortably chilly meetings, and a legal fight to get the unvested stock, Acton said he decided to just take the winnings he already had and leave.

He even rejected an alternative proposed settlement (without fleshing out exactly what it was) — saying Facebook management had wanted to put a nondisclosure agreement in it, and “that was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys”.

“At the end of the day, I sold my company. I am a sellout. I acknowledge that,” he also told Forbes, indicating that he’s not unaware that the prospect of a guy who got really, really wealthy by selling out his principles and his users then trying to claw out even more cash from the ad tech giant he sold to probably wouldn’t look so good.

At least this way he can say he took an $850M haircut to show he ‘cared’.

In August Facebook confirmed that from next year it will indeed begin injecting ads into WhatsApp statuses — which is where the multimedia montage Stories format it cloned from Snapchat has been bolted onto the platform.

So WhatsApp’s ~1.5BN+ monthly users can look forward to unwelcome intrusions as they try to go about their daily business of sending messages to their friends and family.

How exactly Facebook will ‘encourage’ WhatsApp users to eyeball the marketing noise it intends to monetize remains to be seen. But tweaks to make statues more prominent/unavoidable look likely. Facebook is a master of the dark pattern design, after all.

The company is also set to charge businesses for messages they receive from potential customers via the WhatsApp platform — of between a half a penny and 9 cents, depending on the country.

So, in a way, it’s picking up on Acton’s suggestion of a ‘metered model’ — just in a fashion that will “scale” the bottom line in Sandberg’s sought for ‘loadsamoney’ style.

Though of course neither Acton nor Koum will be around to cash in on the stock uplift as Facebook imposes its ad model onto a whole new unwilling platform.

“I think everyone was gambling… because enough time had passed”

In perhaps the most telling tidbit of the interview, Acton reveals that even before the WhatsApp acquisition had been cleared he was carefully coached by Facebook to tell European regulators it would be “really difficult” for it to combine WhatsApp and Facebook user data.

“I was coached to explain that it would be really difficult to merge or blend data between the two systems,” Acton said.

An ‘impossible conjoining’ that Facebook subsequently, miraculously went on to achieve, just two years later, which later earned it a $122M fine from the European Commission for providing incorrect or misleading information on the original filing. (Facebook has maintained that unintentional “errors” were to blame.)

After the acquisition had been cleared Acton said he later learned that elsewhere in Facebook there were indeed “plans and technologies to blend data” between the two services — and that specifically it could use the 128-bit string of numbers assigned to each phone to connect WhatsApp and Facebook user accounts.

Phone-number matching is another method used to link accounts — and sharing WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with the parent group was a change pushed onto users via the 2016 update to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions.

(Though Facebook’s linking of WhatsApp and Facebook accounts for ad targeting purposes remains suspended in Europe, after regulatory push-back.)

“I think everyone was gambling because they thought that the EU might have forgotten because enough time had passed,” he also said in reference to Facebook pushing ahead with account matching, despite having told European regulators it couldn’t be done.

Regulators did not forget. But a $122M fine is hardly a proportionate disincentive for a company as revenue-heavy as Facebook (which earned a whopping $13.23BN in Q2). And which can therefore swallow the penalty as another standard business cost.

Acton said Facebook also sought “broader rights” to WhatsApp users data under the new terms of service — and claims he and Koum pushed back and reached a compromise with Facebook management.

The ‘compromise’ being that the clause about ‘no ads’ would remain — but Facebook would get to link accounts to power friend suggestions on Facebook and to offer its advertising partners better targets for ads on Facebook. So really they just bought themselves (and their users) a bit more time.

Now, of course, with both founders out of the company Facebook is free to scrub the no ads clause and use the already linked accounts for ad targeting in both directions (not just at Facebook users).

And if Acton and Koum ever really thought they could prevent that adtech endgame they were horribly naive. Again, most probably, they just balanced the billions they got paid against that outcome and thought 2x ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Facebook’s push to monetize WhatsApp faster than its founders were entirely comfortable with looks to be related to its own concerns about needing to please investors by being able to show continued growth.

Facebook’s most recent Q2 was not a stellar one, with its stock taking a hit on slowing user growth.

Three years after the WhatsApp acquisition, Acton said Zuckerberg was growing impatient — recounting how he told an all-hands meeting for WhatsApp staffers Facebook needed WhatsApp revenues to continue to show growth to Wall Street.

Internally, Acton said Facebook had targeted a $10 billion revenue run rate within five years of monetization of WhatsApp — numbers he thought sounded too high and which therefore must be reliant on ads.

And so within a year or so Acton was on his way out — not quite as personally mega-wealthy as he could have been. But definitely don’t cry for him. He’s doing fine.

At the Signal Foundation, where Acton now works, he says the goal is to make “private communication accessible and ubiquitous”.

Though the alternative e2e encrypted app has only unquantified “millions” of users to WhatsApp and Facebook’s multi billions. But at least it has $50M of Acton’s personal fortune behind it.

[thejourneymaninn]

Januanders Day 9 - The Chantry explosion

The Chantry explosion is the one argument pretty much everyone throws around when it comes to criticizing Anders, claiming it is an unforgivable act that condemns him no matter what (spoiler alert: I don’t agree), so many people have written about it already, defending and explaining it a lot better than I could, and I doubt there’s any argument in defense of Anders that hasn’t been brought up (and, unfortunately, ignored) yet.

Thus, I’m only going to ramble about a few things that are of personal importance to me when it comes to this oddly controversial topic. And yes, I used “oddly” for a reason, because I honestly don’t understand how anyone could actually think this is something you should condemn him for.

I know Bioware had him use an explosion precisely because they knew what people would associate that with and because they wanted us to react that way, yet to this day, I still can’t believe that actually worked. Yet it seems it did, considering people that criticize (and often, downright hate him) keep insisting that “Anders blew up a church and killed hundreds of innocent people. He destroyed every possibility of a peaceful solution.” Which is especially frustrating considering that this is simply…not true.

 “Church”

Yes, Anders blew up a “church”, yet in Thedas, that term hold quite a different meaning than the one we tend to associate with it.

Everyone is completely terrified of the Chantry, just look at the Viscount’s reaction when you tell him Seamus has been lured to there. He leaves his son in danger (as it turns out, he even leaves him to die) because he “cannot be seen interfering in Chantry affairs”. He literally begs Hawke to go in his place, he is desperate and paralyzed with fear – and with good reason. Cross the Chantry, and you have an Exalted March coming your way.

So while technically, the building itself may be considered a “church”, it is far more than a “peaceful place of worship”. It is the gilded centre of power of the highest authority and military power in all of Southern Thedas (or, in this particular case, Kirkwall). And it also just happens to be the head of the army that controls and imprisons mages. It is their leaders that Anders attacked, and it is hardly his fault that they use religion as a means to control the world.

 “Peaceful Solution”

The argument that he should have found a peaceful solution is downright disgusting, for not only does it put the responsibility of ending oppression on the oppressed, it also essentially asks them to place the lives of the rest of the population above their own. It literally tells mages to wait quietly, let themselves at best (!) be stripped of all rights and imprisoned for life, at worst abused, killed or made tranquil, for perhaps another ten, fifty or thousand years so they won’t inconvenience anyone. Because the lives of others are deemed to have more worth than those of mages, or let’s be real, any worth at all. What a very Chantry argument to make.  

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they are expected to do this despite not actually having means to achieve “peaceful change”. They are not allowed to leave the Circle, they have no rights, no voice, and if they do try to speak up…well, the consequences are listed above. And yet, they are expected to somehow gain freedom by smiling and bowing their heads.

 “Innocent victims”

Anders killed people. No one is arguing that. We can debate numbers, but I don’t think those even really matter, for a) No matter how high we go, they’d still be far lower than the number of mages killed if Meredith had gone through with the Rite of Annulment (which she had sent for long before the explosion), and b) the people he killed weren’t innocent (to be clear: I am in no way suggesting they deserved death, just that there are no “innocent bystanders” when it comes to the treatment of mages in Thedas.)

Elthina isn’t innocent. The way I see her, she is the biggest (and best) manipulator in the game, someone who knows exactly how to stay in power, and how to appear like a friend to everyone while you’re doing so. And even if she isn’t, if her “I feel for them, but I can’t get involved” act is genuine, she is in no way innocent. As Meredith’s superior, it was her job to intervene, and she chose to ignore it, knowing full well her inaction cost lives.

And the other people in the Chantry, or the people killed in the streets? Aside from  the fact that most of the deaths of people who were not in the Chantry are on the Templars (demons, fighting and abomination were a direct result of the invocation of the Rite of Annulment) – the general population is not “innocent” either. They are complicit in the oppression of mages.  “Let the Templars and mages solve their own problems” gets thrown around quite a lot in Inquisition, as if mages just appeared out of nowhere someday when they are in fact, a part of the population until their magic manifests and the rest of the population is only too happy to let them be taken away. Calling the Templars on mages, or outright lynching them as soon as they set foot into a village – the general population is more than willing to do the Templars’ jobs for them. If they didn’t participate, or at the very least ignore, the oppression, the Chantry would have a much harder time keeping the oppressive system in place.

And yes, the Chantry is largely to blame for the populations’ attitude towards magic. They keep them misinformed, poor, and struggling to survive. When you’re literally living in dirt trying not to starve, I doubt freeing mages is your biggest priority. They, too, are victims of the Chantry, but that doesn’t absolve them of their responsibility for their part in the oppression of mages (and elves, for that matter), and they have to face the consequences.

  Of course, you can make the argument that killing people is never ok, no matter the cause. I even understand that, to a certain degree; I don’t like the thought of death and destruction either. The only problem with this argument is that in cases of oppression and tyranny, inaction doesn’t cause less death. It just means the killings continue behind closed doors, where we don’t have to see them or deal with them.

Accordingly, Anders didn’t cause more violence. He just brought it to the people who up until then, had had the luxury of ignoring it. After a lifetime of having been taught the opposite, he finally decided that no, their lives were not worth more than the lives of mages. And I couldn’t agree more.

  As for how the Chantry Boom fit in with Anders’ character…. Well, after years of trying to change the way mages are treated, and the extra push towards action from Justice, I feel it made sense for him to do it. I don’t think it was something he wanted to do, though. He may not exactly regret it, but he certainly isn’t happy about it either. Anders spent ten years trying to find other ways, to make people understand and listen, because when it comes down to it, he is not a violent person. He didn’t want mages to have to fight a war for their freedom, he wanted people to understand that mages are people like everyone else and thus deserve that freedom. He wanted to make them understand so they would give mages freedom. After all he had suffered, after decades of having lived in the Circle, he still tried to believe it was possible.

I say”tried” because I am not sure he ever fully did believe it (looking at, for instance, banter he has with Bethany in Act 1), but he tried anyway. And of course, he eventually had to realize he was wrong. He could not convince anyone – the opinion of the population is controlled by the Chantry, and even if he’d had a platform to actually reach enough people, he wouldn’t have been able to counter the hate and misinformation they had been spreading for over a thousand years with just his smile and words (it’s a nice smile, but it’s not enough).

And while he did have some access to the people in power (the Chantry and in this specific case, Elthina), they had no interest in changing the lot of mages, as it is a huge part of where there power comes from. Fear of mages provides them with both an army of Templars, the mages’/tranquils’ workforce and their magic to aid their army. It also strengthens their role (and presumed necessity) as the “protector of the people” against the “curse of magic” - why would they be willing to give that up? I’m not entirely certain even Anders fully realizes just how much keeping people in fear of mages and mages themselves locked up benefits the Chantry, but I think by the time he finally decides to act,  he has come to the conclusion that they have no intention of ever doing anything to help mages.

I know a lot of people accuse Anders of “betraying” their Hawke and I suppose if you played a Hawke who didn’t fully support Anders’ views, you might feel that way. It’s true that he gets extremely manipulative if Hawke doesn’t agree to help right away; I can understand if people find that upsetting (though I’d still argue that the words he chooses leave little doubt about the nature of what he’s planning. He does lie, but he also makes it rather obvious he is planning something big).

Since my Hawke shared Anders views and agreed to help immediately, I didn’t have that problem; the only feeling of “betrayal” there might possibly have been was along the lines of “What the fuck, Anders?! I wanted to do that myself! Way to steal my thunder, bro.”

I don’t have to “excuse” what he did in order to like him, I fully believe he was right. And I wish the game had given my Hawkes the option to support him as wholeheartedly as I do.

[greenonthursdays]

Script Treatment: AT BLAKE'S

(an authorized sequel to EM ONE by @captain-aralias)

(under the aegis of Blake’s Junction 7)

SCENE: Six months after the non-events of the film. EXTERIOR, DAY.

Avon loses track of and finds Blake’s card several times before Vila finds it for him.

(“What’s this, then?” “…hrm…? No, wait, give that here, it’s personal!” “If it’s personal, why’d you leave it on the dashboard?”

To which Avon has no good answer.)

Sooner than later they are en route to Blake’s last known address.

(DIRECTOR’S NOTE: There is a large apartment complex near me where all tenants have to pay what’s called a public safety surcharge on their rent. Basically, the city noticed that a single address constituted a wildly disproportionate number of police and emergency dispatches, and decided its residents should foot the bill for their own delinquency. There’s also a couple of cruddy motels whose owners pay a property tax surcharge for the same reason. I don’t know if this situation could exist in Britain, or if there’s anything comparable. Nevertheless this is the approximate level of seediness you should imagine, going forward.)

Avon purposely neglects to call ahead in hopes they’ll find Blake is out, or better still, moved away. This is not the case.

Gan doesn’t come up with the others because he’s lying down in the caravan with a migraine. Cally would actually prefer a migraine over the prospect of watching Avon and Blake dart their eyes around and mumble at each other for an hour. Of course it was Vila who convinced Avon they should come, and if he’s made a worse decision recently he can’t remember it. The only one who isn’t wildly uncomfortable is Dayna, who’s preparing herself to be wildly bored.

Blake plays that he is delighted to see them while wondering if he is, really. After about a minute he will realize he is not. Unfortunately it is far too late.

Blake’s flatmate Deva absolutely will not take the hint to make himself scarce and hangs around the kitchenette doing nothing in particular. Avon can’t tell whether Deva and Blake are just mates or, you know, “special friends.” Deva seems rather camp, but you never know. Also Avon can’t figure out whether he’s jealous.

Jenna goes to light a cigarette for her nerves and is informed this is strictly prohibited. There are all sorts of smoke detectors, and the system is wired directly to the local fire station. If anything goes off anywhere they’re sure to send a crew.

Blake offers to put the kettle on. No comment except from Avon: “I think. I think that would be nice.” Then there’s the matter of washing up enough cups for everyone, and then he finds the tea canister has been put back in the cupboard empty. He turns off the burner. The kettle hisses to itself as though it alone truly understands what it means to be happy.

There is a police siren in the distance. It gets closer. It is directly outside the building.

“Not to worry,” Blake says, “the cops come, they go, it’s usually nothing.”

Dayna rushes to the window, Cally not far behind. “There’s more of them coming,” she says. “Three, four cars.”

“I think it’s the firearms unit!” Cally says. They share a significant look.

Vila has an unpleasant thought. “Avon,” he says, “you don’t suppose…this…is on account of us, do you?”

“Of course not,” Avon says. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I only meant,” Vila says, “that Blake, well, you were always keen on us being terrorists and. Well. Maybe someone noticed.”

“Blake,” Deva says, “you never mentioned that you were a terrorist.” He doesn’t sound concerned or even terribly interested.

“Oh,” Blake says. “That. Haven’t in ages, actually. How about you, though?” he says to Avon. “Been keeping your hand in?”

“At what,” Avon says blankly.

“Being a terrorist!” Blake says. He looks rather cheerful for the first time all afternoon.

“I think the girls do,” Avon says. He isn’t sure whether this is a lie. Jenna is looking pointedly at nothing.

Heavy footfalls of an unknown number of police in the stairwell, then in the corridor. Deva looks out the peephole. “They’re all grouped round the door of 508,” he says.

“But that’s Mr. Yousef,” Blake says, “whatever could they want with him?”

“No, he’s 510,” Deva says. “508 is the blonde girl with the manicure that could slit your throat.”

Outside, the police announce that the occupant(s) of 508 should open the door and stand back with their hands on their heads. No answer. Then they state that if the door isn’t opened immediately they will break it down. Then they begin doing so.

Deva has his eye glued to the peephole; Dayna and Cally are on the balcony watching the scene below. Everyone else sits frozen, stewing in a unique blend of social anxiety, secondhand shame, and existential dread.

More thumps from the corridor. “If it isn’t just,” Blake says lamely, “if it isn’t just like what we used to get up to.” Then he doesn’t say anything else.

Vila thinks wistfully of the flask that’s in one of his pockets, probably. The thing is it’s only half-full, and if he brought it out now he’d be obliged to share.

Avon is supposed to be quitting smoking as of last week, which means he’s been bumming cigarettes off Jenna as often as she’ll allow. Pretty soon they’re passing one back and forth, not looking at each other. Avon is definitely, particularly, not looking at Blake.

No one notices the smoke detector beeping at first because of all the noise from the corridor. Deva removes his eye from the peephole to point out that the the building-wide alarm will be going off in a moment and they had better get started evacuating. Considering the alarm will have originated from this flat it’s the least they can do.

“Yes,” Blake says, “be a good-faith gesture, wouldn’t it?”

Dayna and Cally tear themselves away from the balcony. Everyone files cautiously into the corridor. The door of 508 is askew on its hinges and the police inside look simultaneously agitated and depressed.

Vila slipped out first and gets as far as the third-floor landing before the building-wide alarm goes off. He pauses to hunt for his flask. It’s in the last pocket he checks, and full of pineapple juice for some reason.

Outside, Gan is remonstrating with a tow truck driver who is leisurely winching the station wagon up onto the platform.

“I keep telling you,” he says, “you can’t tow a vehicle when someone’s inside it, it’s not permitted.”

“Well, you weren’t inside it when I got there,” the man says without rancor.

“I had been, though,” Gan says. “I’d only just stepped out. For air. I suffer from migraine.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the man says, adjusting the hitch on the caravan.

“Look, you’re not taking the caravan as well, are you?” Gan is beginning to get really upset.

The others watch blankly. “Avon,” Vila says, “he can’t do that, can he?”

They are standing directly beneath a sign marked GP ESTATES RESIDENT PARKING ONLY. ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED. Avon sighs deeply. Jenna lights a cigarette and hands it to him.

“I’m sorry about all this, Avon,” Blake says. “Should’ve mentioned about the parking situation. I suppose I thought you must have taken the bus.”

“Why would we have taken the bus,” Avon says rhetorically, without inflection.

Vila is speaking earnestly to the tow truck driver. “I don’t suppose you could leave the caravan? It’s where I keep all my things.”

“Can’t,” the man says. “They’re attached, aren’t they? Besides, the caravan’s not going anywhere without being towed anyhow.”

“Oh,” Vila says. “That’s very true.” He takes out the flask again.

“Let me have some of that,” Cally says.

“It’s pineapple juice,” Vila says.

“We don’t care,” Dayna says.

They stand apart, passing the flask between them. Gan makes a last attempt to enter the caravan, which is by now at an angle on the tow truck’s platform, only to be rebuffed by the driver. He joins them in a huff. Dayna offers him the flask.

Gan smells it. “This is pineapple juice,” he says.

“Well, don’t drink it then,” Dayna says.

It begins to rain lightly. Deva has gone inside.  "We should have brought Orac in with us,“ Jenna says. "He’ll be terribly bored all alone, wherever they’re taking him.”

“I think he’ll manage,” Avon says.

“How is Orac?” Blake asks.

“The same,” Avon says.

“Oh,” Blake says.

The tow truck drives away. Blake begins to say something about coming up to make some phone calls, but thinks better of it. Jenna is checking her purse for a bus schedule.

“I don’t suppose you have a car,” Avon says. Blake shakes his head. “I think,” Avon says, “I think we should be going now.” To the others: “Come on, let’s get moving!”

“Is that it, then?” Blake says.

“It’s the end, Blake,” Avon says heavily.

A motorbike engine revs loudly somewhere nearby, startling everyone. “The next bus is in 12 minutes,” Jenna says. She heads toward the street and the others follow.

“Goodbye,” Blake calls after them. “Goodbye, Avon!”

“Goodbye, Blake,” Avon says without turning around. He isn’t sure if Blake can hear him. It doesn’t matter anyway.

ROLL CREDITS.

(But stay tuned for: DVD EXTRAS!

(DELETED SCENE 1: Featuring Soolin as the blonde in 508 who is being extremely cagey about why the police might want to speak with her. She takes hardly a moment to survey the damage before beginning to pack a bag while talking briskly on the phone in Korean. Neither Blake nor Deva will see her again.

(DELETED SCENE 2: Featuring Tarrant as the young man who has been polishing an already very shiny motorbike next to the drained swimming pool. Gan suspects him of having called the towing service out of spite. This is incorrect, but sometimes it’s nice to have a face to blame.

(DIRECTOR’S NOTE: Anticlimax is one of my favorite narrative devices, so naturally I loved Blake’s Junction 7. It’s a parody that has maybe 3.5 outright jokes, all of which are underplayed into nonexistence. The utter banality of every interaction is, for me, the film’s greatest appeal.

(After reading EM ONE, I started wondering what the series finale would be like as refracted through the Blake’s Junction 7 universe. What kind of catastrophe can you orchestrate when your prime directive is that nothing of any importance can be allowed to happen to anyone? I’m personally squeamish about social humilation/embarrassment scenarios, but I take an unholy delight in inflicting them on characters.

(I don’t expect I’ll post this anywhere else. I wrote it in about a day and a half, not looking back, and keeping the narrative as spare as possible. It feels, to me, more like a detailed treatment for something I haven’t yet developed than a full-blown story. I did make myself laugh, though. I hope you do too.

(The police-raid-next-door thing actually happened to me. Except it was two cops instead of many, and turned out to be a case of deliberate false reporting. It was still extremely awkward, though.)

[onpassive-official]

The ONPASSIVE movement: Already done for you

ONPASSIVE Products:

ONPASSIVE products and digital infrastructure have already been put in place.  It’s a business that has been done for you and can enable your vision to take shape in reality with predictability and guaranteed success. It is my hope that this series will provide a soup-to-nuts explanation of ONPASSIVE.  So, I will start with our vision statement because that is the expectation.

You see, it’s been Mr. Mufareh’s long-time understanding that if a marketer can’t make the math work to provide a business that’s predictable… it’s not a real business. As a legitimate, ethical, and forward-thinking company, his products were being created based on marketing predictability and ensured profitability before collecting dime-one.  Consequently, as more and more products were added, the predictability became more and more evident.  This is largely due to ONPASSSIVE’s ability to re-group existing markets by duplicating their processes, restructuring them, and automating it all through the use of proprietary technology.

In this way, ONPASSIVE has become a champion for the masses and a driving force in the new paradigm; the new way of modeling the business of online marketing.   Awake to the notion of rapidly evolving global awareness, Mr. Ash Mufareh sought to define ONPASSIVE’s global role.   His vision of an online community of cooperative and mutually beneficial marketers solidified into a single, powerful statement half way through 2019 that identifies his heart-felt aspirations for connectedness, prosperity, and a greater global good.  

To that end, everyone knows being limited by finances…experiencing lack… is no fun.  But with success, lack is overcome.  That allows the hearts and minds of those affected to rise to a higher level of caring, loving, and giving; not to mention enjoying greater, personal happiness.  For this reason, fairness and value, success and benefit, constitute the backbone of the ONPASSIVE vision.

ONPASSIVE has been designed to improve the lives of its members; to provide better methods of handling the daily routines of life.    We are working diligently to provide new-found freedom and we are seeing progress and improvement every day.  However, Mr. Mufareh has also committed for the benefit of all that he would never look back and say, “We should have done this better.”   So, although our success may not be happening as quickly as it could, it is happening. Every decision we ever make is done in the hope that the outcome will bring happiness. So, let’s decide to be happy.  Let’s decide to embrace the ONPASSIVE vision.

Our mission is your vision.  When you catch the dream and witness our vision, you’ll realize that ONPASSIVE is anything but ordinary and cannot be referenced in general, currently known, market terms because we are a new breed. Nothing like us has ever existed before as a single entity under one roof with a vision for raising the human condition. So, if you are marketer or would like to be a marketer, our mission is your vision!   This means, as a marketer, you can be in any business you want and ONPASSIVE guarantees your success.

Our Vision

“ONPASSIVE is the ultimate, complete and unique, Digital Marketing Platform that ensures everyone succeeds, regardless of their backgrounds or ability, by offering the simplest environment with the highest standards and the most value while sustaining the benefits of a global stimulus plan.”

Mr. Mufareh is a family-man that holds a Master’s of Information Technology & eCommerce (MIT) and also attended Harvard University to learn specifically about online business creation.  He has nearly twenty years of internet marketing experience and was searching for a better way to experience online marketing, to provide leadership to online entrepreneurs, and to develop a business model that would allow its members to enjoy radical success.

But, as a Master Marketer, he knew of no real, online-marketing system that could be trusted to provide honest, ethical, and principled leadership while guaranteeing success without limits to the millions that need online business solutions. His personal experience of being lied to, cheated, and stolen from produced a heart-felt desire to create an ethical, fresh, sustainable, and profitable experience for others.  He desired a “clean,” business model built on a principle of connectedness.

Unethical companies and outright scams notwithstanding, he understood clearly from years of online marketing that the vast majority of marketers weren’t successful because recruiting customers and building teams is tough, marketing tools are expensive, and most people don’t like trying to sell products; especially if they hold only marginal value.

Out of his understanding and resolve, Mr. Mufareh created a new business model with clean, fresh, and affordable products that does not require its entrepreneur members to sell or recruit.  It’s a business everyone can be proud of and a business that can be left to families as an inheritance.  And with this new model came the online marketing paradigm shift that is ONPASSIVE. We will explode onto the scene in such a way that the world will take notice.

The first outward and digitally tangible manifestation of the new model came in the creation of GoFounders.  As a platform to house tools for Founding Members, it was a stand-alone utility launched in 2018. Considered the top 1% of the company, all Founders are members of GoFounders and use the platform to stay in touch with each other and the company, as well as to invite others to join as Founders. GoFounders was integrated into the single ONPASSIVE Database during the first weeks of 2020.

About the same time the conceptual development of new, core AI technologies, a host of digital products, and some pretty radical ideas for other break-through technologies also came about.  Some of these ideas are still currently under development and have only recently been shared privately through GoFounders events.  We are not a secret company but, as a new and promising breed of Information Technology (IT) Company, we have very good reasons to keep ONPASSIVE’s development private.

There are three main things ONPASSIVE recognizes and seeks to address through the GoFounders platform.   For a hundred different reasons, people get distracted. We know this and accept it as a part of life.  Consequently, GoFounders has a back-office complete with its own social media so our Community, which includes ONPASSIVE Staff, can easily minimize the duration of distractions while encouraging our community to focus on our vision and contribute to the community.  The energy of the back-office is unsurpassed as the communication that flows throughout reflects many levels of creativity and enthusiasm.

Despite what we have all learned about online business structure from years of participation, ONPASSIVE is an Information Technology (IT) Company built with teams. It is not an MLM of any sort and does not consider there to be an upline or downline structure. Rather, each Founder has teams. But the MLM-thing is a tough nut to “crack” for people brought up in old-school internet. For this reason, GoFounders expects and encourages teams to stay close. So much so that, GoFounders is a permanent structure for use as a legacy (inheritance) for our kids AND our kids’ kids.  Through GoFounders we can get breaking news “on the fly” allowing us to mobilize mass communication very quickly.  This is especially useful for keeping our community abreast of change and to disseminate that information rapidly throughout the company.

This video discusses the start of ONPASSIVE; it’s Vision, CEO, and GoFounders platform. This video is of the first of a new video series, “The ONPASSIVE Movement”, that discusses everything about ONPASSIVE. Information in the series forms the foundation of the next ONPASSIVE Public Webinar. The next video in this series will talk about the Founder and benefits, marketing, and the ecosystem.

[automaticpostinfluencer]

How to negotiate refunds and conduct Zoom ceremonies

Kyle Matson and Tracy Meng had to postpone their March 28th wedding in Kauai, Hawaii.

Source: Evan Chung

Tracy Meng and Kyle Matson had planned to get married Saturday, March 28. Instead, they’re hosting a Zoom ceremony.

Welcome to the new normal.

Meng, 32, a vice president at Checkout.com and Matson, 32, Chief of Staff at Robinhood, had booked a destination wedding for 120 guests. The two live in San Francisco and had been working for months to assemble of team of vendors from both Hawaii and California to meet in Kauai. 

Like thousands of other Americans, Meng and Matson had to cancel their wedding as states made the decision to limit group gatherings and the world has shifted to social distancing as a way of life. 

While Meng and Matson are still planning on having a wedding in Kauai in August, assuming life returns to normal, the two will be celebrating from their home on the date of the wedding. Instead of a normal wedding, they’ll be doing a virtual reception where a group of 30 guests, including the wedding parties, will bring dinner and drinks to their computers. Their guests will log in to Zoom, the video conference platform, which has become one of the few runaway business success stories of the past few weeks. Zoom shares have doubled in value since Jan. 31 at a time when the broader S&P 500 has fallen about 20%. 

“At this point we just have to be OK with things not being perfect, knowing that we’re not in control,” Meng said in an interview.

The U.S. wedding industry takes in billions of dollars each year, with venues, photographers, florists, caterers, videographers and other vendors establishing full-time businesses around the events. A U.S. wedding cost $44,000 on average in 2018, according to “Brides” magazine. Wedding ceremonies have come to an abrupt halt from coast to coast as large gatherings have been banned nationwide.

The Pleasantdale Chateau, a wedding venue in West Orange, New Jersey, has already canceled all of its weddings for the next eight weeks, costing it about $2 million in revenue, said Santiago Sevilla, director of operations. Sevilla said he laid off 90% of his staff last week, including waiters, bartenders and cleaning people who have worked together at The Pleasantdale Chateau for more than 10 years.

“There’s no work for them,” Sevilla said. “At least if we lay them off, unemployment can cover them. I haven’t done this much crying in years.”

Rescheduling madness

The Pleasantdale Chateau is now hoping to rely on a combination of insurance and loans from the government, including a national stimulus package that is dedicating $350 billion in loans to small businesses to help survive the year. The lack of certainty about when weddings can be rebooked is adding to everyone’s stress.

“I’ve got brides panicking with weddings in September,” said Sevilla.

Given venue policies, Lavish Weddings, a wedding planner based in San Diego, is working as a conduit to control the flow of cancellations by only allowing customers to nix weddings through the end of June, said owner Christine Ong Forsythe. Lavish helps plan about 40 weddings per year, working with vendors to coordinate around a time and setting.

Now the majority of Forsythe’s time is being spent working with vendors and clients to come up with agreeable cancellation policies around deposits. Forsythe estimates about half of her vendors have given couples 100% of their money back if they’ve had to cancel their wedding, though nearly all have first tried to reschedule before canceling and keeping some of the deposit.

“Obviously not everyone has pandemic in their contract,” Forsythe said. “It’s hard for our clients and it’s hard for vendors. We understand if they can’t do a full refund — a lot of people can’t. It’s not their choice to cancel.”

Rescheduling events means vendors can’t book a different client for the future date, so they’re doubling up on reservations and collecting only one fee instead of earning two fees.

Moreover, rebooking events for later this year or next year creates hectic weekends and extremely long hours, said Jeremiah Cox, a wedding videographer at ParkLife Wedding Films in Champaign, Illinois. Cox said his company tries to avoid back-to-back weddings because the company films and edits on the fly, showing a six minute highlight film of the day’s events to guests at the reception that night. The work is frequently 12 hours of “nonstop, go-go-go work,” he said.

“It’s going to be crazy,” Cox said. “We’ve never taken back to back days before. But it’s desperate times.”

The National Association for Catering & Events chapter of Maine recently held a Zoom conference call for its members championing a campaign from HoneyBook, a business software company for wedding planners and related vendors, entitled “#RescheduleDontCancel.” 

The Maine-based chapter has been brainstorming ideas around rescheduling with clients, including altering weddings to smaller groups of people who might be comfortable in certain situations.

“Maybe you have 20 people, but they all get caviar and you livestream the wedding to everyone else,” said Katrina Petersen, the Program Director of NACE Maine and an owner of a wedding venue. “Maybe you send some gifts to grandma and grandpa. Maybe each couple at the wedding gets their own table to keep distance, and they each get a nine-course dinner and champagne.” 

But many March, April and May weddings are destination weddings, which have led to more outright cancellations than postponements than would occur in-season for cold weather U.S. states, such as Maine. That’s caused vendors and couples to start looking at fine print around contracts they never thought they’d have to examine to figure out what deposit money can or should be refunded.

“This is a somewhat unprecedented situation,” Jonathan M. Dunitz, a lawyer at Verrill in Portland, Maine, said during the NACE Maine conference call. “Even lawyers are scrambling to figure out what’s going to happen with contracts.”

Scouring contracts

The primary issue is defining a so-called “force majeure,” or “act of God,” which many contracts contain that say certain external acts allow vendors to keep prepaid fees. But the language around what’s covered by force majeure is typically very specific, and “very few cover nationwide epidemic,” Dunitz said.

“We don’t really know if this will be considered an act of God,” Dunitz said.

Many contracts only require full refunds if the vendor cancels, rather than the couple. That can lead to a game of chicken between the two parties, with each side pushing their coronavirus tolerance to the maximum, said James Dungan, a Chicago resident who canceled his destination wedding in Austin, Texas on March 29 and hasn’t rescheduled given the uncertainty of coronavirus quarantines.

“It was a really messy process trying to cancel because nobody wanted to cancel,” said Dungan, who noted that vendors in Austin had already been hit hard by the cancellation of South by Southwest, the annual conference and festival that was scheduled to run from March 13 to March 22 this year. Dungan said he ended up negotiating refunds on a vendor-by-vendor basis, sometimes trying to push partial refunds to full reimbursements. “I totally described it as a game of chicken to friends,” Dungan said.

Dungan, 31, and Hurst, 29, are now planning on dressing up for their wedding in full (Hurst picked up her wedding dress earlier this week) and walking over to Lake Michigan on March 29 to celebrate on their own, followed by baking and eating their own wedding cake.

“We were planning on making our own for the wedding anyway,” Hurst said. “Now we’ll just eat it at home ourselves.”

Christina Vargas and Dan Kornfeld have made the decision to cancel their May wedding on account of coronavirus quarantines.

Source: Christina Vargas

Christina Vargas, 37, and her husband, Dan Kornfeld, 47, were savvy enough to buy wedding insurance in late February after coronavirus beginning spreading wildly in China. Still, the couple found that many policies didn’t cover for pandemic and only purchased one after ensuring the language protected them. They’ve moved their May 16 wedding to December 5 in hopes they won’t need to use the insurance at all.

Unfortunately, Vargas and Kornfeld already got their May 16 date engraved into their wedding bands. Vargas said she’s already made a date with her ring-maker to add December 5 to the ring “as soon as everything clears up.”

Deciding to cancel, and sending an e-mail to the entire guest list alerting them that the wedding is off, can be emotionally excruciating. Sara Padua, 36, and her husband David Cordua, 37, looked into setting up hand sanitizer stations at their venue in Mexico City and even “had the transportation people agree to put masks in every shuttle” before making the gut-wrenching decision to cancel.

They plan to reschedule in Mexico City, in part because they’ve already paid in full and wouldn’t get a refund, said Padua, and also because they still want their dream destination wedding, even if they have to wait.

No end date in sight

Rebooking has become a game for many couples who are deciding how far out they’re comfortable rescheduling their wedding while not knowing when quarantines will lift. It’s possible some couples may need to reschedule twice if they rebook too early. 

Rachel Shkolnik marries Evan Shaffer at her parents’ house after cancelling their Cipriani wedding.

Source: Rachel Shkolnik

Rachel, 30, and Evan Shaffer, 36, decided to cancel their wedding at Cipriani in midtown New York City for 350 guests on March 15. They’ve coordinated with all of their vendors to reschedule for late June, realizing they may have chosen a day that’s too early for quarantines to have ended.

In the meantime, the Shaffers found a way to still get legally married and even celebrate. They gathered at Rachel’s parents’ house on Centre Island in Oyster Bay, New York and had a rabbi marry them in front of immediate family and a few cousins to make a minyan of 10 people.

And if people still don’t come together to celebrate by June 28?

“If we still can’t get married in late June at this venue, we have a lot more concerns as a country than a wedding reception,” Rachel said.

WATCH: White House and Senate strike deal on historic $2 trillion coronavirus stumulus bill

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