#because unfortunately money is required to live. which sucks but that’s the world we exist in

[captain-lovelace]

I think if people took a fraction of the time they spend arguing about whether or not people should use the term “content” for art/writing online and instead used it to tip/commission creators and send nice comments and spread their work the world would be a better place but maybe that’s just me

[returnofnonya]

From Thief To House Husband Part 3: Finale

Life was nearly perfect now. The eldest son of the Smith family was under my control. Or rather, under the control of my best friend Roy. Regardless he was too busy going to raves at gay clubs and getting his back blown out at night to cause me any more problems.

The other two Smith boys had already moved out and were enjoying their independence, so things were going perfectly.

Until Mrs. Smith came home. I had to pretend to love this woman, which was difficult because quite frankly I didn’t even like her. I was able to endure it until she told me that she got promoted again, this time to a position that would require less travel. No more business trips to leave me alone so that I could have my free time.

I tried putting up with her, but apparently distance creates longing. She wanted to spend time with her husband, oblivious to the fact that he didn’t even exist anymore. I couldn’t take it anymore, so on Christmas Day her annual handmade gift was divorce papers that I printed out after my lawyer sent them over.

Rather unfortunately for me, she was the breadwinner and stood to keep a pretty hefty sum of her fortune. I knew I had to sabotage her in the divorce, so I’d have to call upon the only potential ally I had left, Officer Kevin.

Kevin was an older guy on the police force, now a detective. He had always shown Roy and I mercy and tried to help us get on the right path. One of the only good pigs in existence as Roy and I would put it. I knew he had his regrets, so I decided to stop by the station and give him the opportunity of a lifetime.

Upon my arrival I requested to speak with him privately, and being a rich white man I found that it was pretty easy to walk into a police station and ask for whatever I wanted. In a matter of minutes Kevin and I were alone in the conference room.

“Uh…Mr Smith, it’s a pleasure as always to see you, but the incident happened almost a month ago. I’m not sure how else we could possibly help you.” He stated, confused.

“Not the police department, but you, Kevin Bacon.” I grinned, a nickname Roy and I had for him.

“Oh I see Roy has been influencing you a bit, yes?”

I shook my head. “No. Mateo. See Bacon, I didn’t die. I transferred myself into a new, fancy body.” I pulled out my briefcase and showed him the vials. “Each of these can extract my consciousness and allow me to focus on someone. They allowed me to take over this asshole, and for Roy to take over his son. Our lives have been paradise, but unfortunately this body’s wife has returned home. I filed for divorce, but there’s a problem. His wife is being represented by Santiago.”

Bacon caught on surprisingly quickly having seen lots of strange things unfold in his time on the force. “I see…it does suck for you that ‘your’ wife is being represented by the most bloodthirsty lawyer out there.” Bacon hated Santiago, he was one of the best lawyers around and loved by rich white trash. He could get DUI charges of a rich kid shotgunning tequila on a security camera behind the wheel of his car dismissed and sealed from the records.

“Yes, right now we both hate him, so I have a proposal for you. Become Santiago. Sabotage my wife’s chances against me, get me as much money as you can. Then you can spend your life as a relatively younger and incredibly wealthy lawyer and make sure he never lets another scumbag off easy.”

Bacon thought about this proposal, and his life. He got into the force to make the world a better place and tried to help good guys in bad situations like Roy and I. He had obviously failed in that department given that he and I stole other people’s lives and bodies. Come to think of it, he didn’t accomplish a single one of his goals. Surely by taking an asshole like Santiago’s body, he could stand to make some changes in the world using his resources and connections!

“…okay, I’m in.” He said, hesitant and determined at the same time. We sat down and began forming the perfect plan.

Later that night Santiago was in his office. Highest floor of the building, of course. He was preparing himself for a charity gala, despite really not giving a fuck about anyone underneath his tax bracket. He likes to go and enjoy fine wine and network while cutting one the smallest checks at the event. Given the fact that my vessel was currently involved in one of Santiago’s cases, it was pretty easy to be let into his office. Bacon and I walked in together, a half filled vial in my pocket for when the time would come.

That’s when we saw him wearing this stupid outfit. What possible reason would he have to wear this to a gala? Apparently he read the shock on our faces and simply said, “It’s noir themed. Now how can I help you Mr. Smith? Here to beg for mercy in the coming divorce? Having a beat cop with you won’t intimidate me at all.” This seemed to piss Bacon off, so he chimed in right away, “No. We’re here to tell you that you’ll be famous for negotiating one of the worst divorce deals in history after we’re done with you.” He seemed determined, so I handed him the vial and he took it immediately, throwing his soul into the unsuspecting Santiago who groaned, stumbling back for a moment before chuckling.

“Oh my god! I’m 20 years younger, and apparently hung like a horse! But…why do I feel so light?” Bacon asked using his new mouth. “Simple. I gave you half of a vial. You’re not rooted inside of Santiago like I am into this asshole, and you won’t be unless I’m satisfied with how the divorce ends. Keep in mind my body died after I abandoned it, so who knows what will happen if the possession expires?” Bacon looked shocked but I just chuckled and walked up to him, copping a feel of his new tits. “I need my insurance policy. You’re a good guy, after all. Now how about you stop looking like a betrayed puppy and show me how big that new meat is?” Due to the stress of his job and his former age, it had been a while since Kevin got laid. He was in no position to say no.

Soon enough we were making out fiercely, me ripping his button shirt open and grabbing at his tits while he pulled my pants and underwear off in one swift move using his new body’s strength. “Put it in, I’m ready…” I whispered against his lips. He seemed shocked by that given Santiago’s size, but it made sense when he reached for my hole and realized I had a vibrator inside of me all day long. He pulled it out, earning a moan from me as he shoved himself fully inside, causing me to arch my back and moan even louder.

Santiago was a regular Casanova. His assistant was paid more than enough to turn a blind eye to the secret after hour meetings that went on in his office. The sound of skin slapping filled the room as Bacon hammered me like his life depended on it. Even with my prep Santiago’s meat was huge and earned more and more moans from me as I gripped the edges of the desk for dear life. “Goddamn he’s a monster! No wonder he’s so fucking audacious!” I moaned as I clenched my hole around his cock, leaning up to start sucking on his tits.

“I haven’t had sex this good since the fucking 80s!” Bacon moaned out as he slammed in and out of me. His attention was directed to a mirror in the office and he watched himself as he controlled Santiago’s body, forcing it to have sex with the enemy who he was about to sabotage the whole case for. He couldn’t hold it anymore and he slammed one final time, moaning loudly as he busted deep inside of me and triggered a chain reaction, making me shoot a high arch that splattered his tits. I was only human, there was only so much prostate abuse I could take.

We stayed still for a moment, both panting and covered in sweat, a stupid grin on our faces. “Mm…here’s to getting our perfect life, Bacon.” I said before smacking his ass. “Now, go and begin sabotaging this case then you can keep his body forever and drop by to have some fun with me and my son.” I winked and slid out from underneath him.

Soon after that life went exactly as it should have always been for me. Kevin honored his end of the deal and made sure to destroy my wife’s case against me by creating a fake affair, allowing me to get away with 60% of her assets. I then let him drink the rest of the vial and permanently become Santiago.

From there on, life was a breeze. My other sons cut contact with me, the one that stayed was a whore who loved pleasing me, and I had a massively hung lawyer who lived to please me and get me out of any legal trouble I found myself in.

My days of being a thief were behind me, for good now.

(I had some pretty severe writer’s block but I figured you guys deserved a finish story. Hope you liked the thief to house husband series!)

[letterboxd]

How I Letterboxd #7: Cinemonster.

Hooptober’s head honcho opens up to Jack Moulton about his love for Texas-born horror director Tobe Hooper, the joys of running Letterboxd’s most beloved Hallowe’en community challenge, and the “terrifying, magical” experience of seeing Frankenstein at the age of four.

“You can’t spell October without Tobe.” —Cinemonster

Cinemonster, known to his family and friends as David Hood, is a restaurateur in Pittsburgh by day, and the head honcho of Hooptober by night. Now in its seventh year, the horror film challenge sees participants set their own 31-day viewing agenda of 31 films, curated according to a list of criteria set by its creator.

‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (1974), directed by Tobe Hooper.

With over 5,000 films logged on Letterboxd and a growing collection of posters, DVDs, Blu-rays, laser discs and film memorabilia, Cinemonster is a literal monster of cinema. He has created more than 500 lists, including a ton of year, director, actor, actress, franchise and memoriam lists.

What brought you to Letterboxd? I found Letterboxd while I was doing a Google search for a horror film that I had forgotten the name of. I ran into a list that Hollie Horror had made and wound up starting a profile and it went from there. That would have been a little over seven years ago.

How freakin’ cool is last year’s Hallowe’en Easter egg with the dripping blood from our logo? [Pro members get this added to their pages by mentioning #horror in their bio.] I’m a fan.

Unfortunately I haven’t heard of a single one of your four profile favorites! What’s urging you to highlight these films? They are just lesser-seen and have something good or great about them. Eyeball is a great little underseen Umberto Lenzi film. Death Machines is an awkward, weird and wonderful film with kung fu and blood. Massacre at Central High is one of my favorite films and sadly lacking a disc release of any kind—anyone who has seen Heathers will recognize a couple of things if they watch it. Rituals is a criminally underseen stalked in the woods film from the ’70s.

In this this list description, you explain how the original Frankenstein (1931) hooked you into horror at four years old. Can you describe what you most remember about that life-changing experience? It was both magical and terrifying. The space, the creature, the little girl. I had trouble sleeping for weeks afterwards. No matter where I am in the world, if there is a screening of Frank, I’ll go. I watched most of the major universals by the time I was six or seven. I saw Alien and Jaws 2 with my folks and those stuck with me. Cable and a local UHF station showing Hammer films on Saturdays are what really allowed me to get sucked in.

‘Frankenstein’ (1931), directed by James Whale.

The horror films of 1980 and 1981 were the most impactful and are the ones that mean the most to me to this day; Fade to Black, Night School, Motel Hell, The Fog, Alligator, Altered States, Terror Train, Death Ship, Scanners, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, The Funhouse, Dead & Buried, Hell Night, Wolfen, Ghost Story, The Pit and Evilspeak. I saw all of them five to ten-plus times on cable as a kid. They’re still all high on my list. I am glad that Fade to Black is on Shudder. People need to watch it. More relevant now than then.

What exactly provoked you to start Hooptober seven years ago? I moved into an old spooky house and had a backlog of Blu-rays to watch and the 4K of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was about to come out. I’d done some interactive stuff on Letterboxd previously and had a decent amount of people involved. I was also at a point in my life where 31 films in 31 days is tough, as it is for a lot of us now. So I thought ‘Why don’t I do something that starts a little early, clears some of my list out, and has some parameters that don’t feel like I am handing out an assignment?’ I grew up in Texas, Tobe [Hooper] is close to my heart, and with all the Hooper I owned and the 4K coming out, I decided to christen it with his name. You can’t spell October without Tobe.

What’s the most members that have participated in a Hooptober? The number of people who participated was a little more than I expected, but that wasn’t what I was surprised by. I never thought of it as a recurring event until I started to hear from people the following summer about ‘the next one’. I just kinda chuckled after about a dozen people had asked and I said out loud to no one, “I guess I’m doing another one of these”. We are well over 700 this year, and still climbing.

‘Fade to Black’ (1980), directed by Vernon Zimmerman.

Where do you get the ideas for the rules for films to consider watching? At this point, I look back at past years so that I don’t repeat myself. I look to the current year for inspiration. Is there a film from a sub-genre that was prominent? Was it a strong year for output from women, Mexico, Asia, Black filmmakers, something cultural, and so on? I may focus on effects creators, an actor or writer on a whim. I try to keep an eye out for blind spots I haven’t covered. Shudder, archive.org, the big streamers are all resources. Sadly, rarefilmm no longer exists.

In last year’s interview with Merry-Go-Round magazine, you mentioned plans to turn Hooptober into a film festival. How’s that going? In a post-pandemic world, how can we keep independent niche film festivals thriving? The world has not been agreeable, obviously. I’m not even sure how viable something like that will be next year. I’ve been taking a look at streaming options. Post-pandemic will require more creativity and outside-the-box thinking, and will probably continue to feed some drive-ins. Been a while since more than a handful of people wanted to put money into a drive-in, which is nice to see.

I’m going to do a tweet along to The Witch Who Came From the Sea in October, and I’ll give you an exclusive here: The George Romero Foundation and I are doing online Horror Trivia on October 11. I had been doing it live with them here in Pittsburgh until the pandemic.

Based on this year’s rules and conditions, if there was one essential you-can’t-miss film you could force all your participants to add to their challenge, which film would it be? Demons, Eve’s Bayou or The Witch Who Came From the Sea.

‘The Witch Who Came from the Sea’ (1976), directed by Matt Cimber.

What have been your own greatest film discoveries through your Hooptober adventures? A Tale of Two Sisters, I Drink Your Blood, Blood Diner, and though it is a bit of a cheat to list this one, The Amusement Park. It’s cheating because it didn’t exist as something that I or anyone else could have watched, prior to when I saw it.

Do you have any acclaimed horror movies still lingering in your list of shame? Eyes Without a Face, Upgrade, Cure and Scream 4.

Have you ever completed one of your own Hooptober challenges yet? Errrrrrrrrr, one. I’m on track this year.

What about the participants over the years—any Letterboxd friends you’ve made who would you like to give a shout-out to? Aaron, Sarah Jane and Chris Duck are people that I talk to outside of Letterboxd. There have been a few others over the years. Slappy McGee has helped me with Hooptober the last two years. They are great. Javo and David Lawrence are pretty great, too.

Before Hooptober, many of your lists invited discussion with your followers. In what ways is Letterboxd the ideal forum to foster a community of film fans? Fans exercise their fandom in so many ways. The platform is so flexible that it allows you to utilize it in a small and personal way, in a promotional way, or to dive into the community pool and see who’s out there that shares something with you or can show you something. The more people that we are exposed to and listen to, we are all the better for.

Which of your review—from any genre—are you proudest of? The Invisible Man or The Hustler, probably. I have a capsule of Hud that I like.

So, you’re the horror guy. Nobody is denying that. You are Cinemonster, after all. But when I look at your top movies list and see that Singin’ in the Rain is your all-time number one, I’ll need you to explain yourself. I go back and forth between that and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They are 1A and 1B in some order. Singin’ in the Rain is a perfect film and the studio system at its best. I will ignore your implied insult. ;)

‘Fear of a Black Hat’ (1993), directed by Rusty Cundieff.

It’s true, even a horror aficionado needs some levity in their life. What other comedies pick you up from a dark place? Fear of a Black Hat always does the trick. Same with The Awful Truth, Murder by Death, Hollywood Shuffle, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Blazing Saddles, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Black Dynamite.

Who has been keeping you company during this tough year? I have watched thirteen Spike Lee films so far this year. I’ve taken a break the last few months, but I’ll probably knock out five or six more. With the exception of 25th Hour, everything is a revisit. It’s been a joy to go back through everything. Crooklyn is much stronger than I remembered, and Bamboozled just gets better and more impactful as time passes. I have loved Spike since the day I saw School Daze. His films have always connected with things that are important to me and to those that have been around me. Lee is still grossly under-appreciated as a narrative film director and a documentarian.

We’re bowing down to your epic Blu-ray and DVD collection. Which ones are your most prized possessions? Make us jealous. I have an Anchor Bay DVD of Dawn of the Dead signed by the cast and George A. Romero, a steelbook of Battle Royale, the first Slumber Party Massacre set before they had to reprint the box, the original Star Wars trilogy on Blu. I’m sure there are things I’m not thinking of. I have a lot of out-of-print and laser-only stuff. I’ll never get rid of my Holy Grail, Ghostbusters and Akira Criterion laser discs.

A selection of Cinemonster’s signed memorabilia.

I have a copy of Painting with Light signed by John Alton, John Waters and Steven Soderbergh I’ll send you a picture of. I used to collect movie posters, and I have the original Revenge of the Jedi one-sheet and the Drew Struzan Squirm poster. I do love those.

From your top directors list, let’s put one horror director on a pedestal. Who does the genre better than anyone else and why? George. They’re always topical, intelligent, thoughtful, personal and sometimes prescient. At their best they hold up both a mirror and a crystal ball. He was writing found-footage scripts in the early 70s, for god’s sake. Tobe is grossly under-appreciated. James Whale and Mario Bava could scare you in so many ways.

So, thinking beyond Ari Aster, Robert Eggers and Jordan Peele, which up-and-coming horror directors are you most excited about? Issa López, Gigi Saúl Guerrero, Benson and Moorhead, Shinichiro Ueda, Na Hong-jin, Julia Ducournau, Nia DaCosta, Jeremy Gardner and Leigh Whannell.

The 2010s were a great decade for horror. We have more money on-screen, moving away from the low-budget films of the 2000s. Which favorite horror film of the last decade inspired you the most? Get Out. What Jordan did for generations to come is unmatched in this century.

Chucky from ‘Child’s Play’ (1988).

Which probably-too-long horror franchise gets too much flak and is top-to-bottom a great time? Child’s Play. Chucky has always been treated generally as second tier. [That franchise] has tried a lot of interesting and out-there things during its lifespan that had no business working, but did.

I know it’s been a slow year but you haven’t logged many 2020 movies yet! Which is your most anticipated horror movie of 2020 or 2021? Peninsula, for sure; I love Train to Busan. Then Candyman, The Dark and the Wicked, Grizzly II: Revenge, Bad Hair, #Alive, After Midnight, The Platform, Bulbbul, Underwater, Shirley and Swallow.

Interview by Jack Moulton. Follow Jack on Letterboxd.

[supergenial]

Cindered Shadows was pretty decent

I recently finished the Cindered Shadows DLC and decided to once again write about my impressions, don't worry though, this one isn't as long as the previous ones. Spoilers: I think this is as good as fire emblem is gonna get for a while.

1) No Agarthans, thank GOD

A story as old as fire emblem: There's an interesting human villain with down to earth motivations or obsessions, but in the large scale of the story they're overshadowed by a supernatural being who wants to destroy the world for no reason other than "they're just evil". This is Edelgard and the Agarthans, Arvis and Manfroy/Loptous, Rudolph and Duma, Ashnard and Ashera, Walhart and Grima... you get it. This shit sucks to put it bluntly. Having these stereotypically evil bad guys who are clearly evil is one of the main things that brings down the plot of any fire emblem game. I'm of the belief that they should kick out these supernatural villains and just leave us against the human villains, the one's with actual ideals and beliefs other than "hurr durr, destroy the world".

And then there’s our villain for this DLC. Now yes, it feels like they recycled a certain professor from the Harry Potter series, but I like that he is "The" bad guy for the DLC, he's not being controlled by anyone. He's obsessed with Byleth's mom and in-game this makes a lot of sense. If Byleth, who is incapable of communication, can drive people crazy for them just by existing then just imagine a Byleth who can actually talk. Her "waifu" charms must be off the charts, so I can't blame this guy for being obsessed. More importantly he's not being controlled by the Agarthans, he's not being played by anyone. He's a man who's lived a righteous life, he took care of a lot of people who all love him but ultimately decided to use them for his own gain and his own obsessions. As far as FE villains go... He's good, honestly, great job Intelligent Systems, I expected a lot less.

2) Reduced avatar wanking

Shots fucking fired

Sure, Byleth's mom is a main focus of the plot, and Byleth is the one who sets the plot in motion, but rarely does it feel like the game is going "gee Player, you're so great, you're our god, we all love you and want to marry you". Byleth still plays a large role sure (unfortunately) but it still feels like this is the story of Yuri and his gang with Byleth being their strategist which is, idk, way better than the idea behind the main game? The one where Byleth turns into a literal god, gets every achievement of the army attributed to them only, has every other conversation remind us how glorious Byleth is, etc.

In fact the dlc goes as far as having Hapi constantly belittle Byleth and even make fun of their communication skills by calling him Chatterbox (good job to the localizers, she doesn’t say this in the japanese audio). Get that teacher’s ass girl, destroy them. (Obviously I would hate this behavior if it was directed to someone else, but in this case I'm willing to make a concession).

3) Yuri's backstory

Ashe: I admire and love this man who is my only parental figure but Rhea said he's kind of bad so I killed him Yuri: Church ordered me to kill a bunch of thieves and delinquents and I refused

You have no idea who much I love the fact that Yuri is someone who protested his orders and got kicked out of the church for refusing to kill civillians. This instantly sends him very high in my rankings. Playing through the first half of the game all I wanted was to stop and say "No, Lady Rhea, fuck you. I don't think it's very cash money for the most powerful military force in the continent to eradicate a lightly armed militia of farmers (with popular support in their locality!)" this is what true imperialism is all about! But there is sadly no option for that.

Just by telling us that Yuri is someone who was punished for saying "No, these orders are inhumane, I refuse to carry them out" that is enough for me, the game is saying "yes, we know, have your compensation price". In the end Yuri is extremely loyal to Rhea which is unfortunate but hey, at least they lampshaded one of the most glaring issues I have with the main game, so that's at least something.

4) "You've obtained all information. Proceed with the story, NOW"

Rather than wasting time forever thinking up which activity I should carry out, abyss is simply a place where you talk to the abyssal denizens to get some plot information or speculation, and boom, you're done. No running around forever, no quests, no doors that take ages to load. You can perfectly skip the abyss parts and at most you'll miss out on Edelgard's conversation with Dimiri (which is fucking hilarious) and a few rusted weapons that can be forged but that's it. Upon talking to every resident of the abyss the game will actually say you’ve acquired all information and will prompt you to go into combat rather than assume you want to dilly dally for a while.

I actually rather like this and would not be opposed to it being the philosophy behind future in-between segments between chapters. I can understand IntSys wanting to load in a ton of features like a sauna and fishing to rack up excitement for the game, I know I was excited for fishing, but when these activities have rewards tied to them, replaying becomes kind of a chore, "aw geez, I have to fish 69 fish to reach professor rank A+ AGAIN" (I actually had to when trying to get the piss screen from clearing maddening). Getting only some conversations and a bit of context for the story, that's... pretty good honestly, I liked this better than the monastery and better than My Castle. Throw in some skits with multiple characters at once and I’m gold

(seriously how come there’s no scenes with the three of the bros, Dimitri, Sylvain and Felix all hanging out together, the fact that a third character never shows up in support conversations is fucking bad)

5) Sometimes less is more

I've extensively complained about three houses already but bear with me. Yet another thing that infuriates me about the game is the extensive amount of work it required. I truly do think that if they had released only the blue lions route and left everything else in the plot as mysterious and unexplained loose ends left entirely up to speculation, that'd be a great game on it's own. Instead I have to see all the hard work that went into making the other routes only so that, in the end, they just had me going "well it was ok I guess". Every scene in the game requires work, many hours of coding, writing, voice acting, sound editing, making sure the models don't look too messed up, bug testing, etc. The amount of work that went into three houses was brutal regardless of what you think of the final product, yet a lot of people didn't even bother playing through all of that. So yes, I honestly wanted less, give me a more concise game rather than spreading too wide and ending up thin.

Cindered Shadows on the other hand is concise to a fault to make up for that. The story is pretty straightforward and leaves no loose ends to itself, there's no anime cutscenes, no supports (within abyss, you can support them all in the main game). There's even that very awkward sacrifice scene where some characters are having their life and blood drained from them yet the visual representation we see is just them standing around like normal, with Yuri even doing that hand pose he does all the time instead of squirming in pain or something. It's very awkward looking, objectively not good, but it gets the point across and doesn't make me go "wow you put in all this effort for nothing" because the whole thing is also fairly short (5 to 10 hours in hard mode).

I know, it sounds like I'm shitting on the dlc, but the point is I'd much rather get something short that leaves me satisfied than something like the main game that makes me go "this could've been so hecking gooood if they changed X" for the rest of my life.

6) The gameplay

Chapter 4 is my favorite mission in the whole game

They made Hard Mode good. I previously said maddening was the one difficulty where this game made sense, but this one achieves perfection with just hard mode. This is because the team actually knows what you have. In the main game there's all sorts of variables to account for due to the large amount of player expression that is possible, you can reclass anyone into anything and throughout many lucky or unlucky level ups, maps can be entirely different based on that rng and choices. Here though, your characters already have solid bases starting at lvl 20, and you can't reclass too much so the devs know exactly what you're working with and can plan accordingly. Beating the maps feels incredibly satisfying not just because the objectives have more variety now, but also because you feel like you found the right way to use the tools you were given. This is why the first few chapters of any fire emblem game often feel so good, because the devs know exactly what you have.

Not that I think player expression is bad! It's very satisfying to warp skip chapters and to use broken units like battalion vantage+wrath Dimitri as these things make you feel like you've truly subjugated the game, but it takes some time for those things to really take off. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, and the sowing time can get pretty dull sometimes but that's what makes the payoff feel worth it. Still, for a short experience like cindered shadows is, this style just fits perfectly, plus chapter 4 has quickly become one of my favorite chapters in the whole game, along with chapter 6.

7) In The End

Idk folks, I just like it. If you just want more adventures with the three lords, this is it.

If you’re looking for any excuses to avoid this I'd say the better ones are: maps are reused from the main game (they work much better here though), it's 10 hours at most so it's price-to-cash ratio isn't very good with the expansion pass being $30, and also the Abysskeeper feels a bit TOO winkwink nudgenudge to me, especially since Gatekeeper was popular enough to make it into Super Smash Brothers. Like yeah bro, we get it, we all love Gatekeeper, you didn't have to do this.

I also like that they finally gave Dimitri a semi-problematic quote where he says he kinda likes the idea of poor people living underground out of sight, I think it’s a very rich-white-boy flaw to have and not entirely awful given his life experience up to that point. And yes I do think he has no flaws and is entirely unproblematic in the main game, “feral” as he may look it doesn’t seem like he goes around killing civilians or doing anything other than busting up imperial troops which is kind of justified since they started the invasion, on top that he’s the strongest unit in the game and the most chill and honest ruler once he calms down, so little dent in his record that’s irrelevant in the large picture is indeed welcome.

Overall though, after being so massively disappointed by the Fates DLC, so much I didn't even bother with the ones for Echoes, I certainly like what I'm seeing here and that's a good sign, bravo Intsys.

[intothestarkerverse]

Time of Our Lives (Part Four)

Based on a prompt from @geekymarvel  

Peter is tasked with an important mission that requires him to go back in time.   Finding himself at a gala for Stark industries in the 1990’s, he comes face to face with a young and incorrigible Tony Stark who considers Peter’s attempts to deny his advances a challenge.  Now, dogged by a horny young CEO who won’t take no for an answer, Peter’s task has become much more difficult….

(STORY CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS)

Read on AO3

Despite Tony’s warning, Peter had dissolved into a stuttering mess of unintelligible syllables that when strung together made little to no sense in any earthly language.  It was only the sharp feeling of a slap against his cheek that drew Peter’s garbled babbling to a stop.  “Ouch!” He forgot to be flustered and afraid in the wake of his indignation.  Which…had probably been Tony’s plan all along, come to think of it.

“Snap out of it, Peter, I’d rather lock you in my room than in a jail cell, so spit it out already!”

Peter could hear the sound of footsteps, several of them, the static of a radio, the sound of guns being drawn from holsters.  It was too late, they were only yards away.  “You saved the world but now there’s a complication and I’m the only one you trusted to come back here and stop it and I need a machine you were going to destroy in that incinerator and I was supposed to get it but they stole it and I need to get it back or the whole universe is going to cease to exist in 2023.”  Peter’s run-on sentence came out in a rush of words with barely a pause between them, but Tony was able to follow the declaration without much trouble…or so it seemed.  

“Suit off, kid.”  He tapped the armor of Peter’s suit with his index finger and Peter deactivated it, the armor melting back into the watch as Tony reached out, loosening Peter’s bow tie expertly with one hand while he ripped Peter’s dress shirt open with the other.  Buttons popped and flew in every direction and Peter let out a little squeak of disapproval.  “Play along, baby.”  Tony hissed, “You too, Hogan, if you want to keep that promotion.”

“Yes, Sir.”

As the agents burst into the room with orders to freeze, put hands up, and every other cliche Peter had ever heard or seen on a procedural on network  television, Tony Stark pushed him back several steps until his back collided with a wall.  One hand was skimming the skin of Peter’s now exposed chest, fingers tracing every muscle, finger nails leaving faint white tracks over his pecs and down his abs as Tony’s other hand got a firm grasp on his chestnut curls and pulled his head roughly to the side.  Peter clawed at Tony’s back, hands fisting around handfuls of his bespoke tuxedo jacket.  Tony’s lips pressed a warm wet trail over his throat, teeth and tongue pinching and lapping and sucking at the skin until Peter was whimpering and forgetting that there were probably a couple dozen people in the room.

Silence.

It would have been possible to hear a pin drop, though with the lack of pins in the room at the moment it was more the sound of Tony’s mouth on Peter’s skin that was the only noise breaking the awkward hush in the room.  That was, of course, until someone cleared their throat rather loudly.

Tony paused, hovering over Peter’s throat so that his warm breath was drying the sloppy trail of kisses and bruises he’d left behind. Slowly, he drew back, turning around to face the agents who were wearing a combination of expressions.  Some were amused, some were turned on, most were baffled and a couple looked incredibly annoyed.

Peter was trying to make his brain work again.  All of the blood had rushed from one head to another and he wasn’t sure he was even capable of speech at the moment, but Tony was still holding onto him, an arm sliding around his waist and pulling him in close as they faced the agents.  Peter looked up at Tony with hooded eyes, pupils blown wide by arousal.  What the fuck was he planning, and did it involve more of that?  Please say it involved more of that.

“We got a call that you were being robbed.”  One of the agents stepped forward, speaking with an authoritative tone and with a no nonsense demeanor that Peter could tell was setting Tony’s nerves on edge.  Just the way the man’s jaw set at the statement told Peter that the poor agent was in for it now.  Looking back at the government agent, Peter squinted and frowned.  Did he look familiar too?  Maybe.  Maybe but he couldn’t quite place him…there was something different about him and he just couldn’t put a finger on it…Oh!

Oh, oh!  

Not a finger.  

An eye!

Well, two eyes, actually.  

Huh, weird.

Tony raised an eyebrow, “You did?”

“You tellin’ me you didn’t send your security guard to call us in over some covert, armored foreign operative stealing weapons from Stark Industries in the middle of your fancy dress ball upstairs?”

Tony laughed.  He laughed so hard that his whole body shook and he pulled Peter closer, nuzzling into his hair and nipping at his ear.  Peter’s eyes flickered closed for a moment, his whole body leaning into the man before Tony spoke again, so close to his ear that it was almost jarring.  It was a stage whisper, meant to sound like something private between the two of them but clearly for everyone to hear nonetheless.  “Do you hear that, Baby?  Happy thought our little role play was real?  Isn’t he silly, Sweetheart?”

“Happy’s so, so silly.”  Peter had no idea what was happening, but he’d been told to play along and playing along with whatever Tony’s plan happened to be felt better than just about anything else he’d ever felt in his whole damn life.  He’d say just about anything Tony wanted him to say in that moment.

“Role play?”  The agent did not sound remotely as pleased as Peter was at the moment.

“Yeah, you know…when you and your lover play pretend to make things a bit more fun.  Peter here wanted me to catch him in the act of stealing from the company and punish him…”

“Tony forgot the handcuffs, though.”  With a little burst of inspiration now that Peter understood where this was going, he attempted to add his own flare to the tale they were telling and put on a petulant little pout for the agents.  He caught the look of amusement Tony shot him and felt the hand still draped around his waist drop to give his ass a squeeze that made him squirm.

“I’m sorry, Baby.  I blew it.  And I promised to blow you to make up for it.  But maybe we can borrow one of the agents’ cuffs…now that they’re here…”  Tony seemed only too happy to encourage Peter to play along.

“Wasting government resources isn’t a joke, Stark.”

“Never said it was.  Didn’t waste ‘em, either, if you recall…that’s all my security guard’s fault.”  Tony was so glib.  Peter loved it.  God, he’d missed Tony’s sass.  He’d missed so damn much about the man, and the longer he spent with this younger version of Tony, the more of his own Tony he could see in him.

“In my defense, the kid is a very good actor and what I overheard sounded very convincing.”  Was Happy trying to save face?  Peter almost felt sorry for him.  Almost.  He kinda had it coming though, what with the May situation…

“Even though this happens to be the help’s fault, I’m willing to accept responsibility for my lover’s superior acting skills.  Send me a bill for whatever money you wasted showing up here…but give me a set of those handcuffs before you go and do go…sooner the better…we were in the middle of something pretty sexy before you showed up.  Unless you want to stay and watch.  I’m not opposed to an audience, are you, Sweetheart?”

Peter could feel himself blushing again, but he angled his face away from the agents and hid it by leaning into Tony’s shirt.  Emboldened by Tony’s encouragement, Peter was willing to go a step further.  “I think we could put on a show for them…”  He felt Tony suck in a sharp breath as Peter bit down one of the buttons of his shirt and snapped the threads holding it in place just like he’d seen women do in movies when they were trying to be seductive.  He spit it out over Tony’s shoulder and looked up in time to hear the older man growl deep in his throat.

There was a lot of murmuring behind them and Peter could hear most of the agents retreating.  Most, but not all.

“Look here, Stark, if you’re playin’ some kind of game with us…I’m goin’ to find out.  You may think you’re some kind of genius but it’s going to take a lot more than you got to pull one over on me.”

“I accept the challenge, Agent…”

“Fury.”

“But you’re so cuddly!  Ironic.”  Tony chuckled, “Now, either pull up a chair and shut the fuck up or get the fuck out because I’ve got some fucking to do and you’re killing the mood, Agent Furry.”

“Fury.”

“Isn’t that what I said?  Seriously though…Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

“I’ve got my eye on you, Stark.”

Fury’s parting words had Peter dissolving into fits of hysterical laughter against Tony’s chest.

“Fuck kid, I don’t know what’s so funny, but you better be very happy that I’ve got such a bad reputation or that would have never worked.”  Tony’s words were spoken in a whisper, no doubt uncertain if they were still being observed.

His laughter over Fury’s unintended joke had managed to bring Peter out of his aroused stupor enough to remember what he needed to be doing at that moment, and unfortunately it was not fucking Tony Stark.  “But it did work, so I can track down that machine now and…”

“Nope.  Not tonight you’re not.  Did you not hear him, Peter?  He’s got his eye on us.”  Tony paused as Peter burst out laughing again.  “He’s going to have someone watching us at least for the rest of the night if not longer.  You do anything suspicious tonight and the jig is up.  So, you’re going to come back to my place and we’re going to make Fury think that we are doing exactly what we told him we’re doing and we’ll worry about this machine of yours in the morning when he’s hopefully lost interest in us.”

Peter wanted to argue, he really did.  He kept telling himself how much he needed to argue with Tony’s reasoning right up until the moment Tony was leading him into his home.  Then, Peter had to admit that maybe, just maybe, he was pleased that the night was theirs and they needed to convince federal agents that they were lovers.  He was kind of hoping that they were going to go to extreme lengths to make S.H.I.E.L.D buy into that story…

—

Tony saw his butler enter from the corridor.  The man was always too perspicacious for his own good and had likely been awaiting Tony’s return from the gala for quite some time.  The young CEO was both notorious for blowing off such stodgy functions early…and for bringing home unexpected guests.  Only the butler’s eyes gave away his lack of surprise and overabundance of disapproval at the party favor Tony had with him tonight.  He was maybe a little close to being too young for Tony, but four years was hardly scandalous.  If Tony had actually finished high school at a normal age, they could have even been in the institution at the same time, if only for a year.  Peter was hardly a child and most people who knew Tony Stark would argue that he was a far cry from an adult.  Himself included.  “Jarvis can take your jacket if you’d like, Sweetheart.”

Peter did an obvious double take, his mouth parted in an adorable little ‘o’ of disbelief.  “Jarvis?  For real?  You’re a person?”

“The last time I check, Sir.”  Jarvis’s tone was as dry as a good martini and Tony had to smile.

“Excuse the kid.  He’s a time traveler on a mission to the save the universe and apparently the future is weird.”

“Indeed, I anticipated nothing less.  Is the Tardis parked in the garage, then, Sir?”  One eyebrow arced questioningly as he looked to the young man at Tony’s side.  Tony heard the boy snicker.

“Delorean actually.”

“Yes, you do have more of a ‘Marty McFly’ aura about you.  Apologies, my mistake.”

“I really like him!”  Tony looked down, amused by Peter’s excited tone and the way he’d just grabbed Tony’s arm.  His impossible large doe eyes darted to Tony’s face as he no doubt realized what he had done and let go of Tony’s arm.

“The feeling is mutual, Sir.”  The simple phrase from the butler brought a rosy glow to Peter’s cheeks that made Tony want to trace the flush with his fingers.

“I’m glad my butler meets with your approval, Beautiful.”  Tony did not fail to catch the look on Jarvis’s face as he disappeared back into the corridor.  Tony knew when he’d been had.  Peter might not be able to read the affection in his eyes, but if there was anyone who knew the intricacies of Tony’s body language and the often labyrinthine nature of his personality, it was Edwin Jarvis.  It had not taken Peter long to charm the man who had been more of a father to Tony than Howard Stark had ever been, no doubt because Jarvis could see how utterly captivated Tony was with the kid.  Tony would never admit to anyone that he was pleased Peter had managed to turn distaste to approval in such record time, even if it was going to give Jarvis fodder to tease Tony for weeks or even months to come.

“Umm…”  Peter was fidgeting with the sides of his shirt which no longer sported buttons and had been hanging open since their encounter with S.H.I.E.L.D.  He seemed to be trying to find a way to pull it closed and keep it that way, though his efforts were failing.

“I would apologize for that if I were actually sorry I’d done it.  I don’t think you’re really sorry about it either.”

Peter gave up with a little shrug and turned around to examine the entryway, only turning when Tony offered to lead him to the living room.  Peter looked relieved to be somewhere with a seat and immediately took up residence on the sofa without waiting for an invitation from Tony.  The man had to chuckle to himself as he took the seat right next to the boy, making very little effort to keep any space open between them.  “So, I saw you plant something on that crate, didn’t I?  I assume it was a tracking device of some sort?”

“Yeah, oh yeah.”  Peter was nodding furiously, chestnut curls bouncing with the movement as he pulled down his sleeve to reveal his watch and tapped the face several times.  Tony found himself leaning forward with immense interest at the holographic display of the city that blinked to life in the air above the watch face.  Sadly, there was no indication of any tracking device and after several moments, an error message began to scroll across the display.  “Huh?  I don’t…”

“GPS uses satellite for positioning, Peter.  The satellite that your tracking device likely uses is not in orbit at the present time.”

“Shit.  I didn’t think of that.”

“Obviously.”  Tony held his hand out.  “Give me the watch, Sweetheart.  I’m working on A.I.  It’s a long way from being anything nearly as prolific as I’d like it to be, but I think I can put it work on your tracking device.  If the AI can ascertain the details about your nonexistent satellite, it can probably clone them and apply them to a Defense Department satellite we can commandeer long enough to find out where those men went.”

“Really?  You can access Defense Department satellites?”

“Baby, I hacked the Defense Department at 16 on a fucking dare.  They’ve yet to find a way to keep me out and they can’t put me in prison if they want new, shiny weapons of mass destruction to blow up our enemies with, now can they?”

“Guess not.”  Peter hesitantly removed the watch and held it out to Tony.  “Can you…just be careful?  I need it for the suit and other important stuff.”

“You’re really telling me to handle this thing with care, huh?  That’s where we’re at?”  He could only shake his head at the absurdity of that.  “Yeah, Peter, It’ll be fine.  I’m going to run down to the lab to get the  A.I. set up to find the solution to our little problem.  Just…make yourself at home.”

Tony told himself that he wasn’t in a hurry.  He certainly didn’t almost jog to the lab and back or tap his foot impatiently as the A.I. booted and set about preparing the tasks he had assigned.  When he returned to the living room, however, he was certainly man enough to admit that he skidded to a halt and stared in appreciation at what awaited him.

Jarvis had apparently seen fit to bring Peter a change of clothes after noting the disarray of his tuxedo.  Peter was now standing in the middle of the living room in nothing but a pair of red and gold boxer shorts with some sort of robot emblazoned on them.  He was clutching a pair of Tony’s sweat pants in his hands, a t-shirt thrown across the arm of the sofa waiting for Peter to put it on, but now he was just frozen…staring at Tony as Tony stared at him and delighted in the way Peter’s blush spread to his chest.  “I…uh…Mister Jarvis said you wouldn’t mind if I…”

“I mind.”  Tony was making no attempt to look away or alleviate the kid’s embarrassment.  “I’d much rather you not be wearing anything at all, but I guess if you have to wear clothes…my clothes sound like a decent compromise.”

Peter grimaced but finally tugged the sweat pants over his legs, tied the drawstring in a double knotted bow to keep the pants up over his more slender frame, and then sat down to roll the cuffs of the legs up once or twice.  Tony was pleased to see that he wasn’t in as big a hurry to don the shirt.  Good.  

“So..”  Tony let the word hang between them for a minute.  “You a super soldier or something?  They get that formula working again in the future or what?”

Peter let out a nervous giggle.  “Noooo…No, I’m no Captain America.  I was…um…bitten by a radioactive spider.”

Tony’s look was dubious and Peter apparently found the need to defend that statement.

“I know it sounds crazy but that’s really what happened.  I got really sick and then I got better and I could just do a lot of crazy things.  I know it sounds nuts right now, but trust me…you’ll meet people who’ve had way weirder stuff happen to them over radiation than just me.  I promise.”  He was quiet again for a moment, staring at Tony and seemingly at war with himself.  “Can I ask you something, Tony?”

“I’m clean.  No STDs.”

“Uh…no that’s not…I mean, good for you?  I guess.  I mean that’s good to know.  Not that…I need to know that…right now…or probably ever. Um, no, what I really wanted to know…”  Damn, the kid was reaching for the shirt and tugging it down over his head.  With as graceful and fluid as the boy was when he was fighting, there was something ridiculously awkward about the way he got dressed.  “I was actually wondering how you figured out about the time travel and stuff…”  His voice was muffled by the fabric of the shirt as he contorted to get it over his head and settle properly.

“Your watch.  I noticed it in the bathroom when were making out, something I’d very much like to revisit tonight.  There’s a Stark Industries logo on it.  It’s not a model I recognized.  At first I thought it might be a terrible knock off…and then you used it in the elevator.  See, that kind of technology, it’s a couple decades out from anything I have in the pipeline and since I think SI’s intergalactic sales are a little lax at the moment, you can’t be an alien.  That leaves the future.  Plus you said you couldn’t let me die ‘again’, and that’s a can of worms I’m not touching because no one needs to know how or when they die.  So that’s now I know you’re from the future.  As for how I know who sent you…Since I’m the only person in the world smart enough to crack time travel, it means that I had to be the one who got you here.”

“Hank Pym…”

“Hank Pym!  The guy’s a hack.  One discovery does not a genius make.  And if that bastard lucked into time travel, he sure as shit wouldn’t have sent you to me, Baby.”  Peter was just nodding slowly now that he was fully clothed once more, watching Tony with his head angled downward in a mock display of innocence that Tony found both endearing and obnoxious.  “Seriously, kid, you keep that coy act up and I’m going to give you something to be bashful about.”

“Promises, promises.”  Peter said it under his breath, dripping with that sarcasm that had only really come out when he was wearing his mask, and his cheeks flared a brilliant shade of rose the moment he realized Tony heard him.

“So…you just always this shy, Baby, or can I take this to mean that we’re not lovers back where you come from?”

Peter’s eyes widened considerably and he coughed nervously into his hand as he shook his head vigorously.  “Um, no, we’re not.  I mean you’re kind of old…er…than me.  By a lot.  And I don’t think you see me that way.  You treat me like a kid…it’s nice because you’re like the only father figure I have but also weird because I’ve been crushing on you for like…years…and there’s just…no spark on your end, you know?  I mean I’ve watched.  Pretty hard.  I really wanted there to be, but nope.  Sparkless.”

Tony stared at him in disbelief for a moment before rising from his seat to cross to the bar on the far side of the living room and pour himself several fingers of whiskey.  He held the bottle up questioningly to Peter who just shook his head again.  With a shrug, he retrieved a can of ginger ale from the mini-fridge beneath the bar that he sometimes used with bourbon and handed it over to the kid as he returned to his seat.  “So, what I’m going to take from this little revelation of yours is that I’m actually going to learn self control and grow a considerable set of morals in my…old age, was it?  Really didn’t think I had that in me.  Actually, I don’t think anyone thinks I have that in me.  So cheers to Old Man Stark and keepin’ it in his pants, hm?  I’m adequately impressed by my self control, cause Baby, unless I’m impotent in this future of yours, I gotta say that I’ve thought about you ‘that way’.  Don’t care how old I am.  How moral.  My sexual preferences are not going to change that much.  I’ve just…learned to be a better man than I am now.  Won’t the whole damn world be surprised by that one!  The question we’re faced with at this point is whether you have a daddy complex and you’re only interested in me when we’re flirting with this Lolita vibe you had going…or if you’re willing to take advantage of Tony Stark while he’s still…young, virile, and happy being a sinner.”

Tony watched Peter carefully, noting the way the boy opened his mouth to speak several times and then closed it again before uttering a single syllable.  It was adorable how conflicted he was, but Tony wasn’t sure he was going to be content to play with his food much longer.  He was literally getting gray hairs waiting for the kid to scream ‘Fuck Me’ and jump on him like a cat in heat which was more what he wanted than what he expected.  Finally, blushing again in the most comely way possible, Peter found his voice.  “It’s not…it’s not a daddy complex.  I…definitely still think you’re…really hot…now.”

“Not old, you mean.”

“Yeah, not old…”  Peter rubbed at the back of his neck swallowing hard and suddenly looking everywhere in the room but at Tony directly.

“Good, because I think we’ve established that I think you’re one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.  And since we have to convince the government that we’re fucking, it’s only right that we actually do.”  He drained the rest of his whiskey and reached out with his free hand to trace the line of Peter’s thigh.  “You ever…done anything like this before?”

“Not really?”  Peter’s voice came out an octave higher than usual and was trembling ever so slightly.  “I mean…not with someone else?  I’ve read stuff and watched stuff…so I know how to do it and what to expect and…”

“Baby, oh baby, if you think a little porn and erotica has prepared you for a night with me, you’ve got another thing coming.  I’m going to help you get in touch with a side of yourself you’ve never experienced before.  I saw a glimpse of it tonight, biting off buttons, teasing me about handcuffs.  There’s a whole wide world of things you’ve never even dreamed of, and introducing you to that…oh baby, that is going to be a supreme fucking pleasure in every sense of the term.”

[thegeneralsnotebook]

Special: On LL, Print & Play, and My Future With The Game

By now, if you’ve been paying any attention at all to the news coming out about Set 11, you’ll likely have heard the big announcement that is accompanying it. That is, that Friends Forever (Set 10) was the last set that will be officially printed and distributed by Enterplay. From this point on, sets will be designed, tested, released and managed exclusively by Commentary is Magic, in addition to their existing responsibilities with regard to managing organized play and all official rule documents. It goes without saying that this is major news for the game, and in accordance, I felt that it would be a good idea to offer my own commentary on what this means, both for the game now, as well as for the foreseeable future.

It bears pointing out first that while in the past I have worked with Commentary is Magic as a commentator for their broadcasts of tournament events, and will continue to do so, neither I nor any of the groups that I work with are affiliated with them in any way. The opinions that shall be expressed within this article are entirely my own, and come from a few days of honest contemplation, coupled with CiM’s extensive explanation for their actions this past Sunday, in their most recent stream.

To begin with, I should point out that regardless of anything else, this sucks. The end of the printed era and the beginning of the Print & Play era means that this game will never again be what it was before. None of us can say how well it will turn out, and while we hope it goes well, it goes without saying that things would have been better with Enterplay still involved. While there has always been a measure of disagreement over Enterplay’s handling of the game in the past, the fact remains that over the course of the game’s existence they have continued to produce an exciting, novel, and fun experience. I have no doubts that the designers responsible for the MLPCCG would have carried on doing so had the prospect made financial sense for their company. Unfortunately, it would seem that it did not. Whatever I have said in the past, I want to thank them right now, for the skill and devotion they provided in taking the game to its current state, and wish them all the best of luck wherever life takes them next.

That being said, the fact that Enterplay will not be continuing on with the license presents the community with a sobering choice. Ordinarily, the lack of a commercial rights-holder to make the game officially would mean the end of things. It would be, unless the community were to decide to continue on without them. This is not without precedent, and is perhaps most notably exemplified by the more than a decade long run of the Star Wars TCG under a fan development body, after Wizards of the Coast suspended development of that game in 2005. Though the Star Wars story does bring with it another important thing to understand: while CiM has made the initial choice to attempt to carry on with the game, they will not be able to do it alone. Unless there is a community willing and ready to continue supporting the game just as they are, this experiment in fan-run MLPCCG will be a short-lived one indeed.

Make no mistake, while playing the game from Set 11 on will no longer require as much of a monetary investment, it will absolutely require an investment of a different sort. Namely, the effort necessary to obtain the master copies of the cards, and to print them, however you decide to do it. This could be as simple as printing on regular paper and affixing the art to other cards to serve as a backing, right up to crafting acceptable playing cards yourself using an artisan print service. The options present a range of difficulty and investment required, but all of them are going to involve more time and effort than throwing some money at Enterplay and having the new cards show up at your doorstep several days later.

This will be a different game than it was before. People can make all kinds of arguments about whether it’s easier or harder to get into now, about the impact this change will have on the secondary market or the value of past collections. These debates are valid, but beneath them I think is a more important point. The game has fundamentally changed, and it will now no longer appeal to some people that it appealed to before. No one should be held in contempt if they decide that the game is no longer for them, and they don’t wish to participate anymore. Inevitably, the community will suffer some attrition from this change. Likewise, none should be held in disdain for choosing to continue on, as I shall be doing.

The gentlemen that make up CiM are good friends of mine, and I know that they have been the subject of a variety of suspicions and ill-will over the course of the existence of their organization. Arguably, it may have started even before then. Yet the evidence that I can see points to them being dedicated servants to the ideal that this community deserves a fun game to play, and that this game deserves as wide a community as it can get.

CiM is betting that enough people will stick around to make their gamble worth it. They are risking a significant amount of time and resources, never mind potential legal liability, to see this thing through. And make no mistake, this gamble that they are making only pays off if the game stays fun and enjoyable for all of the diverse and disparate elements of the community that plays it, rather than only for an elitist cabal. I have the great personal honour of knowing the members of CiM as friends, and I can say that none of these guys are stupid. They understand, and have always understood, the great authority and responsibility that they have as community leaders. This was true even before they claimed any official responsibility for the workings of the game. It perhaps bears repeating that CiM itself was borne out of a desire to grow the game beyond its extant community and present its best face to the wider world. I have never got the impression that their goals as an organization have changed.

Throughout all of their tenure as community leaders, they have gone to great lengths to dispel any suspicions that may have been cast their way. When they assumed control over the official rules and banlist, they began publishing their decklists in advance of official tournaments, denying themselves the opportunity to sweep the field with whatever tricks or combos they had privately discovered. Through events like CoCo and their sponsorship of increased and well-supported organized play, they have given everyone else the chance and support to grow their own local metas, which gives the entire community more opportunities to build better decks and compete at the major events. While it is true that designing the game while competing in it is a strange arrangement, the members of CiM have voluntarily imposed major disadvantages upon themselves in the hope of assuaging these concerns. And after all, every responsibility they have taken on has been done because they enjoy the game and want to be able to keep playing it competitively. To then not be able to keep playing it would obviously be an unworkable arrangement.

Having said all of that, it should perhaps be obvious that my personal take on this matter is a vote of confidence in the new designers. I could ask you, if this game were to continue being made, how else could it be done? Enterplay has made it known that commercially, the proposition does not make sense. Thus further design and production needs to be performed by the community if it is to happen at all. Again then, who else could do it? CiM has been around since nearly the beginning of the game, they have a network of similarly experienced testers, and even more important than that they have the passion and integrity to ensure that this process is carried out correctly. If what we desire is a future where further development on this game still happens, what reasonable alternative do we have to this one?

This is to make no mention of the fact that all of the members of CiM are functional adult human beings with lives outside of pony cards. As someone who has spent some time doing amateur card and set design, I can tell you that it is no easy process. It takes long hours of volunteer time to see a work of the magnitude of an entire set through to completion. Add to that as well all of their work producing content and organizing tournaments across the continent. I can say with no exaggeration that I’ve found their dedication inspiring beyond measure.

Which brings us to the final point. If you are anything like me, your first thought upon hearing of the move to Print & Play was to go to CiM’s Patreon page and either increase your current donation or start a new one. After all, I was willing to pay Enterplay to keep the game going, why wouldn’t I pay its new wardens to equally show my appreciation for their efforts?

Alas, this cannot happen. CiM thought through the matter extensively prior to taking up this responsibility, and as they’ve mentioned elsewhere, turning their efforts into any kind of commercial enterprise presents an enormous risk given that they have no license from Hasbro for the use of MLP show assets. Even doing this as a non-commercial enterprise presents risk on its own. So they have wisely decided to eschew all compensation for their organized play efforts. The next time that you get the chance to meet them in person, I’d recommend a thank-you. It’s honestly the least that they deserve.

So what does that mean for me? Well, from everything I’ve seen so far, Leaders & Legends looks great. Obviously it’s far too soon to say anything about the meta that will shape up after its release, but the cards at least look fun to experiment with. And, given that we have a fresh set of designers for Set 11, I see a new opportunity for some statistical analysis. Once Set 11 has been fully revealed, I’ll be performing an analysis of how the design of the set works out when compared to the Enterplay-designed ones. Hopefully, this will determine if CiM is bringing any fresh philosophy to the table, and maybe offer some hints of what directions they will be pursuing as they move into Set 12 and beyond.

Set 11 marks a brave new beginning for the MLPCCG. I see no reason to stop playing it, thinking about it, or writing about it, so I’ll keep on. I sincerely hope that everyone else who reads this will join me.

Note that this article will not replace my usual October Feature. That one, containing card ratings for the Friends Forever Core meta up to the Old Money/Portal bans, will be around at the usual time near to Hallowe’en.

[tyrantisterror]

Thoughts on Song For Spider-Man

Remember that Song of Spider-Man book I bought a while back?  The tell-all book by the co-writer of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark?  The one that I hoped would be what I’ve wanted since news of that play’s disastrous production started - i.e. an in depth explanation and analysis of the production, detailing every creative decision and disastrous misstep?

Well, it’s not quite that, unfortunately.  It’s more of a new piece of the Turn Off the Dark puzzle, rather than completed puzzle that I’ve been looking for.  The world has yet to produce the exhaustive documentary on that musical that I crave.  But as puzzle pieces go, it is a fairly large and enlightening one, albeit one that’s also deeply biased.  It’s the story of a disaster from the perspective of one of the key players in that disaster, and, as you’d expect, is full of “this wasn’t my fault!” explanations and pleas of ignorance.  I don’t know how much you can trust the narrative, even though (and honestly, because) it’s an enthralling and emotionally gripping read.

The biggest disappointment about the book for me is that it doesn’t go very deep into the creative journey of the musical, which is the aspect I’m most interested in.  Instead it focuses more on the managerial aspects of it, which is admittedly where the drama is.  There’s money woes, conflicts of personality, miscommunication, backstabbing, and negligence that leads to a lot of good people getting hurt - the juicy gossipy shit that drew most people in.  As trainwrecks go it’s pretty compelling stuff, and the author uses the benefit of hindsight to foreshadow eventual dooms well in advance.

It’s a fun read and sheds some light on how that infamously troubled production became “a machine that teaches humility,” but it’s not the whole story, and as such my lust for the ultimate Turn off the Dark autopsy remains unsated.

Some scattered notes:

Julie Taymor was really only in this to tell the story of Arachne, and in fact was only sold on the idea when one of the producers showed her a page of a Spider-Man comic that mentioned the myth.  The Arachne character and plotline was what ultimately got Julie fired, because not only did it shift focus from Spider-Man to an obscure Greek mythological character, but it also was built upon the musical’s worst songs AND required the most complicated set piece that no one could figure out how to accomplish, and yet Julie refused to let it go.

Incidentally, I’m nerdy enough to recognize from the brief description given in this book which Spider-Man comic the Arachne reference came from.  It was Ultimate Spider-Man #1, and is made by Norman Osborn, who in the context of that comic is presented as a pretentious ass who uses bullshit philosophy to cover up his delusions of grandeur.  There’s a bit of irony here is what I’m saying.

Another “oh god I AM a nerd” moment the book made me have: the writer claims that Green Goblin has used his goblin glider since his first appearance, but, um, ACTUALLY Green Goblin used a flying broomstick in his first few outings, and didn’t get the goblin glider until later.  I remember this fact because it was in the Complete Guide to Spider-Man book I got when I was thirteen, and because the picture of the Green Goblin riding a mechanical jet-powered broomstick was delightfully stupid.

The above two facts are why I desperately want to know more about the creative process of this play - on the one hand, it has some obscure elements of the Spider-Man comics in it, like Swarm, the nazi-made-out-of-bees supervillain.  On the other, it fucks up key aspects of the story, like having Uncle Ben get killed in a car crash that has nothing to do with Peter Parker whatsoever.

One of the things I gleaned was that most of the people involved - Julie Taymor, Bono, and the Edge specifically - seemed far more familiar withe the Sam Raimi movies than the comics, and also seemed more interested in their vague notion of what a superhero means rather than any actual pre-existing superhero story.  There’s an air of condescension towards the source material, but I’m not sure how much of that is my own biased assumptions at work, the author’s definite bias, or an actually true analysis of the creative team.  Again, I want a deeper look at what they were thinking!

One part of the creative process that was explained in an illuminating way regarded the music.  Apparently, part of Bono’s process in songwriting involves him writing lyrics in “Bonoglese,” where the lyrics are just random words and Seussian things that sound vaguely like words but are actually nonsense, all mixed together in a way that does make a coherent thought at all.  This explains why the lyrics in Turn Off the Dark’s songs are either instantly forgettable (and by that I mean you forget what the words were literally one second after they are sung) or, when memorable, are just... really bad, forced attempts at rhymes.

At one point Julie, Bono, the Edge, and the other writer agreed that they weren’t trying to make a musical so much as a “rock and roll circus experience,” which, y’know, is accurate.

The guy they got to replace Julie as director was actually FROM a circus.  That’s not a joke, he literally directed a bunch of different circus shows, including ones with live animals and shit.  So in some way an aspect of the original artistic vision remained.

As much as I love to make fun of this horrible show, reading the book did inspire some compassion in me.  These people were all passionately dedicated to a very grand artistic vision, and they accomplished a lot of stuff that has never been tried in theater before.  While a lot of horrible failures occurred, the amount of stuff they got right is still pretty notable, and a part of me wished they could find a way to make it work.

I felt especially bad when the book gets to the initial fan-reaction early in the musical’s production process, where I realized that the fan’s initial criticisms of the musical’s concepts did look kind of shallow and petty.  I felt like a bit of a jerk for a moment.

Then another part of me remembered that the one song Julie Taymor refused to cut, comparing the demand for its excision to having a mastectomy, was the song where Arachne tells her minions to go buy her hundreds of shoes so she can seduce Peter Parker, because lol women love shoe shopping and if they had eight legs they’d love it even more AMIRITE?  So, y’know, guilt rescinded, we were right to be skeptical.

That said, I am legitimately pissed that the producers adamantly refused to tape a single recording of the first version of Turn Off the Dark, aka Spider-Man 1.0, aka Julie Taymor’s (approximate) vision.  Julie herself begged them to do so before and after she was fired and they didn’t listen and that sucks.  I mean, it sounds like a trainwreck of a show, but it’s a trainwreck that’s BROADWAY HISTORY.  It should be preserved!  It belongs in a museum!

The tell-all book draws an obvious parallel between the relationship of Arachne (the brilliant and misunderstood but also megalomaniacal and controlling artist) and Spider-Man (the geeky young man who suddenly has great power and responsibility thrust onto him by the aforementioned older female artist, who he also has the hots for) and the relationship of Julie Taymor and himself.  It’s pretty clever but also, like, a huge dick move since it implies Julie Taymor is a tragic villain that the author was forced to destroy just like Spider-Man is forced to destroy Arachne.  Good writing, sure, but fucked up man.

“Spider-Man was not a musical, but rather a machine built to teach humility.”  A fuckin’ excellent description, even if the account of that machine’s creation is pretty heavily biased.

[voideconomics]

Antitrust Issues (idiocy)

One of the most unfortunate things about antitrust law as it is applied nowadays is that, in generally, the application is well intentioned. Sure there are issues with regulatory capture, influence of money on politics, etc. but in general the application of antitrust law is well intentioned. The problem is the way we think about antitrust law is absolutely bananas.

Understanding why antitrust law sucks requires going back to my best friend in the whole wide world Adam Smith. Much as everyone would have you believe, he didn’t write The Wealth of Nations or any of his other works in order to defend the capitalist class. In fact, at the time, his writing would have been fundamentally anti capitalists as they existed. However he didn’t write it as pro labor, either. The ideal form of “atomistic capitalism” as presented means that capital and labor profits the exact same amount from the market exchange process. We know its the exact same amount because under the atomistic capitalist setup, individuals move back and forth easily between acting as a capitalist and acting as labor based on whichever was more profitable. Implicit here is a key element basically everyone forgets: one of the key assumptions of The Wealth of Nations is a system where the barrier of entry into capital is the exact same as the barrier of entry into labor. Because this was the late 18th century and the beginning of economics and we shouldn’t be using that to justify anything in a modern context.

The direct relation to modern antitrust issues is that Adam Smith was truly focused on the consumer. The big problem of that time was state-enforced monopolies like the East India company. This is, again, what laissez-faire means: the state should not enforce or protect any organization and it should let all organizations compete without unfair state preference. Basically everything people assume is laissez-faire nowadays was actually something Smith would have advocated against but that’s not for this post. The main idea is that consumer prices would go down under a system of fair competition where individuals could freely float between capital and labor and everyone’s standard of living would even out. Less flamboyant displays of wealth, better standard of living for the impoverished. In other words, would be called socialist today.

The problem with modern antitrust law is, thanks to a wide variety of dumbasssery led by Milton Friedman among others, antitrust laws are now interpreted as “well as long as the prices for consumers are low, there’s no problem.” This is why Amazon is allowed to exist as is. Current antitrust legal interpretation doesn’t care about any other effects. Which is why you have policies where Wal-Mart can essentially get the government to subsidize its poverty wages through welfare payments. Welfare is a great policy but it wasn’t designed for a monopoly corporation to specifically take advantage of because the assumption is that competition would drive wages up. This wouldn’t be a problem in an earlier, late 1800s interpretation of antitrust law which was much more concerned with the power of individual corporations.

Not all hope is lost, though., Current chair of the FTC and one of the good appointments Joe Biden has made Lina Khan is one of the most prominent practitioners pushing back against the “consumer pricing” interpretation of antitrust law. Her infamous “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” should make anyone interested in fighting back against the power of corporations and especially Jeff Bezos’ smug stupid face very happy. In other words, both parties are not equal on this issue.

[bmthrive2018-blog]

CON - GO ?

The Democratic Republic of Congo is potentially one of the richest countries on earth, but colonialism, slavery and corruption have turned it into one of the poorest. Bloodiest conflict since World War II is still rumbling on today. It is a war in which more than five million people have died, millions more have been driven to the brink by starvation and disease and several million women and girls have been raped.

The Great War of Africa, a conflagration that has sucked in soldiers and civilians from nine nations and countless armed rebel groups, has been fought almost entirely inside the borders of one unfortunate country - The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many of the country's mining operations are connected to the waters of the mighty Congo River. It is a place seemingly blessed with every type of mineral, yet consistently rated lowest on the UN Human Development Index, where even the more fortunate live in grinding poverty. 

“I went to the Congo this summer to find out what it was about the country's past that had delivered it into the hands of unimaginable violence and anarchy.The journey that I went on, through the Congo's abusive history, while travelling across its war-torn present, was the most disturbing experience of my career. I met rape victims, rebels, bloated politicians and haunted citizens of a country that has ceased to function - people who struggle to survive in a place cursed by a past that defies description, a history that will not release them from its death-like grip. The Congo's apocalyptic present is a direct product of decisions and actions taken over the past five centuries.” - As stated by an author.

In the late 15th Century an empire known as the Kingdom of Kongo dominated the western portion of the Congo, and bits of other modern states such as Angola. It was sophisticated, had its own aristocracy and an impressive civil service.

When Portuguese traders arrived from Europe in the 1480s, they realized they had stumbled upon a land of vast natural wealth, rich in resources - particularly human flesh. The Congo was home to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of strong, disease-resistant slaves. The Portuguese quickly found this supply would be easier to tap if the interior of the continent was in a state of anarchy. They did their utmost to destroy any indigenous political force capable of curtailing their slaving or trading interests. Money and modern weapons were sent to rebels, Kongolese armies were defeated, kings were murdered, elites slaughtered and secession was encouraged.

By the 1600s, the once-mighty kingdom had disintegrated into a leaderless, anarchy of mini- states locked in endemic civil war. Slaves, victims of this fighting, flowed to the coast and were carried to the Americas. About four million people were forcibly embarked at the mouth of the Congo River. English ships were at the heart of the trade. British cities and merchants grew rich on the back of Congolese resources they would never see.

This first engagement with Europeans set the tone for the rest of the Congo's history. Development has been stifled, government has been weak and the rule of law non-existent. This was not through any innate fault of the Congolese, but because it has been in the interests of the powerful to destroy, suppress and prevent any strong, stable, legitimate government. That would interfere - as the Kongolese had threatened to interfere before - with the easy extraction of the nation's resources. The Congo has been utterly cursed by its natural wealth. The Congo is a massive country, the size of Western Europe.

Stanley's expeditions opened up the Congo for exploitation by King Leopold

Limitless water, from the world's second-largest river, the Congo, a benign climate and rich soil make it fertile, beneath the soil abundant deposits of copper, gold, diamonds, cobalt, uranium, coltan and oil are just some of the minerals that should make it one of the world's richest countries. Instead it is the world's most hopeless.

The interior of the Congo was opened up in the late 19th Century by the British-born explorer Henry Morton Stanley, his dreams of free trading associations with communities he met were shattered by the infamous King of the Belgians, Leopold, who hacked out a vast private empire. Congo rubber was in high demand after the pneumatic tyre appeared on the market in 1888 The world's largest supply of rubber was found at a time when bicycle and automobile tyres, and electrical insulation, had made it a vital commodity in the West. The late Victorian bicycle craze was enabled by Congolese rubber collected by slave labourers. To tap it, Congolese men were rounded up by a brutal Belgian-officered security force, their wives were interned to ensure compliance and were brutalised during their captivity. The men were then forced to go into the jungle and harvest the rubber. Disobedience or resistance was met by immediate punishment - flogging, severing of hands, and death. Millions perished.

Tribal leaders capable of resisting were murdered, indigenous society decimated, proper education denied. A culture of rapacious, barbaric rule by a Belgian elite who had absolutely no interest in developing the country or population was created, and it has endured. In a move supposed to end the brutality, Belgium eventually annexed the Congo outright, but the problems in its former colony remained. Mining boomed, workers suffered in appalling conditions, producing the materials that fired industrial production in Europe and America.

Uranium used to construct the atomic bomb was sourced from Congo In World War I men on the Western Front and elsewhere did the dying, but it was Congo's minerals that did the killing. The brass casings of allied shells fired at Passchendaele and the Somme were 75% Congolese copper. In World War II, the uranium for the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from a mine in south-east Congo. Western freedoms were defended with Congo's resources while black Congolese were denied the right to vote, or form unions and political associations. They were denied anything beyond the most basic of educations.

They were kept at an infantile level of development that suited the rulers and mine owners but made sure that when independence came there was no home-grown elite who could run the country.

In 1997 an alliance of neighboring African states, led by Rwanda - which was furious Mobutu's Congo was sheltering many of those responsible for the 1994 genocide - invaded, after deciding to get rid of Mobutu. A Congolese exile, Laurent Kabila, was dredged up in East Africa to act as a figurehead. Mobutu's cash-starved army imploded, its leaders, incompetent cronies of the president, abandoning their men in a mad dash to escape.

Mobutu took off one last time from his jungle Versailles, his aircraft packed with valuables, his own unpaid soldiers firing at the plane as it lumbered into the air. The country has collapsed, roads no longer link the main cities, healthcare depends on aid and charity

Rwanda had effectively conquered its titanic neighbour with spectacular ease. Once installed however, Kabila, Rwanda's puppet, refused to do as he was told. Again Rwanda invaded, but this time they were just halted by her erstwhile African allies who now turned on each other and plunged Congo into a terrible war. Foreign armies clashed deep inside the Congo as the paper-thin state collapsed totally and anarchy spread. Hundreds of armed groups carried out atrocities, millions died.

Ethnic and linguistic differences fanned the ferocity of the violence, while control of Congo's stunning natural wealth added a terrible urgency to the fighting. Forcibly conscripted child soldiers corralled armies of slaves to dig for minerals such as coltan, a key component in mobile phones, the latest obsession in the developed world, while annihilating enemy communities, raping women and driving survivors into the jungle to die of starvation and disease.

The Congo is a land far away, yet our histories are so closely linked. We have thrived from a lopsided relationship, yet we are utterly blind to it. The price of that myopia has been human suffering on an unimaginable scale.

Task in Hand:

Component I: You are required to form a party of our own and run the election campaign for the democratic republic of Congo.

Deliverables:

1. A report of not more than 15 pages with the following :

Party Name, Logo and Taglines.

President and Cabinet Profile.

Goals and Objectives of your party.

Strategy to take down the current government.

Attack and Defense Strategies (Political not military)

Marketing Strategies for your party

PR Strategies

Proposed Alliances for trade and supply chain for the same

Detailed Financials

2. A PPT of not more than 7 slides

3. Two Print Ads

Component II: You have now won the election and have pledged to make Congo great. Your task as the prime minister of the country is to devise policies to make the country that it should be.

Deliverables:

A presidential speech of 3 minutes which must cover the following:

Government Goals and Objectives.

Government Policies.

Priorities set by the government.

Measures to deal with corruption.

New Laws Formed.

Future Prospects.

Deadline: 

The deadline for submission of the report is 1:00 PM tomorrow, Hard copies only. 

A PPT of not more than 5 slides must made for the presidential speech.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN BLACKWELL

You don't win fights by thinking of big ideas but by thinking of tricks that work in one particular case. I think this will be the limit; the number of spams that have been readjusted. That's normal for startups. A good trick for bypassing the schlep and to some extent, yes. In addition to their intrinsic value, they're like undervalued stocks in the sense that I have wondered about it for themselves, rely instead on the opinions of the elite in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question. Maybe if you do, talk to them, equalled big, honking Windows apps. Having people around you and ask yourself which you'd like to work with. The computer would be just as much. I never considered it till this summer, but this was in the spring of 1998, before Google was founded, the conventional wisdom. It depends on what works to treat as property. You can't fight market forces forever. But Apple doesn't understand that either.

I just wanted to hack. In fact, so unconsciously that you don't have to be aggressive about user acquisition when you're small, you'll probably grow, your price will go up, and the bureaucratic obstacles all medical startups face, they'll be able to see things from the user's point of view anyway. The phenomenon isn't limited to books. 1 was, if I was interested in AI a hot topic then, he told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up in and that of a successful startup is going to love, and spend less than you make. They're not very common, but the relative importance of determination and flexibility you need is good hackers: when something's broken, they need to run spreadsheets on it, or do something because that's what you need as a hacker I can't help thinking about how something broken could be fixed within a few months old and doesn't have a probability for it. When Bauhaus designers adopted Sullivan's form follows function, but I don't know any technology companies that have already launched or can launch during YC. I know who favor markets are Marc, Jawed Karim, and Joe Kraus. Part of what he meant was that in some ways we were a step ahead of Venezuela. Successful founders are in love with their companies. It's not just that if you get a lot of valuable advice about business, and they're begging not to be at the very beginning.

You're doing the same thing. The first time I wrote that paragraph, instead of going to an elite college; you learn more from them than the professors. But I remember thinking his company's name was odd. Fourth, they calculated probabilities differently. But we invest in such a roundabout way that the ones you never hear of deals where a VC invests $6 million at a time. What students lack in experience they more than make up in dedication. What does it mean, exactly? IBM. All they saw were carefully scripted campaign spots. There was a good time to start a startup as a 19 year old. For example, knowing what to make, it's mere effort to make software incompatible.

So in practice big companies only get to develop technology in fields where large capital requirements prevent startups from competing with them. But it's not because liberals are smarter that this is only done to suspected spams. In the software world, this idea is known as Worse is Better is found throughout the arts. Most founders who get contacted by corp dev already know what the basic human reaction to a piece of software. Trevor Blackwell is a great artist: it's the one time that hacking is the applied version of what theoretical computer science is the theory of computation about as much as any startup needs initially. It has become one of the few, artificial, easy tests they've faced in life so far. I'm not even sure what they want will also tend to increase it sufficiently the next time you need to simplify and clarify, and the policeman at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to live in the boring sprawl of the valley proper, or live in San Francisco wearing a jeans and a t-shirt, they're nice to you; who knows who you might be able to describe it is all the different kinds of work. The name of a variable or function is an element; a segment of literal text is an element; an element of subjection. White than from an academic philosopher. If I'm right, then it is spam.

But the idea terrified me at first. So rule number zero is: these rules exist for a reason. Miraculously it all turned out ok. When you list everything ambitious people are ambitious about, it's not Lisp that sucks, but Common Lisp. Founders never really liked giving up as much equity as VCs do now. The mathematicians don't seem bothered by this. It was not until Hotmail was launched a year later and say I want to spend as little time inside the minds of spammers as possible. Investors don't like trying to run through people. We're taking on some consulting projects, but we're not willing to admit. The one possible exception are things like working in fast food. But there might be some businesses that it would be better off taking a class on, say, 1970, I think, because they're already running through that in their current state they have nothing to lose. Better check.

If they make your life difficult. The desire for speed is so deeply engrained in us, with our puny computers, that it made sense to invest in startups Y Combinator has been an unprecedented opportunity for learning how to write. It could be interesting to eavesdrop on people, but diluted by a sixth. It would have been happy if just one of the inventors of the transistor. Isaac Newton Newton has a strange syntax as because it has no relation to what you build for them. 20th century cohesion disappeared because of few policy tweaks, we'll be increasingly unable to rely on cold calls and introductions. Your Research which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter how inexperienced you seem or how unpromising your idea sounds at first, room to recover from mistakes is a valuable tool in painting too, though perhaps none of them agreed with everything in it. In a sense, when this happens, of wasting something precious. Unfortunately there's no antonym of hapless, which makes software free; the web has made marketing and distribution free; and more powerful programming languages mean development teams can be smaller. Most of the people.

Are there walkable neighborhoods? The informal delivery mechanism was me, showing up in jeans and t-shirts. The paintings that were popular at the low end and the high end, but not design it. Cram schools turn wealth in one generation into credentials in the next 40 years than it does now. I suspect. And the spammers would also, of course, but someone who really devoted himself to work could generate ten or even hundreds of microcancers going at once, because you will never again be so productive. Prognosis Who will win, the super-angels seem to care at all about it. And so ten years ago trying to sell the company. It was as if I'd told him how much girls liked Barry Manilow in the mid 2000s. Why should anyone care about a startup making $3000 a month do not mean the company has all the elements of a good programming language. And if there are any axioms that could be taught better by itself. Really, Google was funded with angel money.

Most startups coming out of organs not designed for that purpose. The only real difference between adults and high school, I let myself believe that my job was to be driven by how well you do in college would be like drinking from a firehose. Dropbox wasn't rejected by all the East Coast VCs. Everyone's model of work is a facebook exclusively for college students. If your city isn't already a startup hub. That's a reasonable proxy for revenue growth because whenever the startup does start trying to maximize this. That cap need not simply rise monotonically. The reason the filters caught them was that both companies in January switched to commercial email senders instead of sending the mails from their own startups and those working for money. I know delivering a prewritten talk your attention is always divided between the audience and the talk—even if you succeed, you'll have the most to lose, seem to see the better idea when it arrives. Increasingly it will mean the end of the Bubble showed that generic business guys don't make such great stuff, but also like an undervalued stock in that so few founders know whether they're default alive or default dead is that the percentage of the company if he'd let us have it. They use the same word for a brilliant or a horribly cheesy solution. I have to give them your full attention.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Changing the mindset

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/changing-the-mindset/

Changing the mindset

16th April, 2019

16th April, 2019

Changing the mindset is not straightforward. There is a process; it can take time with an individual or team(s), and it needs the right change agent to navigate the situation.

This article will be useful for managers of teams, leaders of people, and individuals who have been promoted into a man management job and/or leadership role, whereby they have many people working for them.

I’m delving slightly deeper into changing the mindset of individuals or teams.

Often when I am working with someone, they have firm beliefs on a given subject. This could be born out of pure habit, or something they have always been told from school or university. Or, in the corporate world, because they are told by a report that all is well!

A simple example is in the tech world. It is reported that the companies’ email system is running perfectly well, so in the mind of the tech teams, all is good, but the business totally disagrees.

From this example, there are two different ‘lenses’ on the subject. Lens one – the IT people are a very logical and factual bunch. Their lens says, ‘hey, look at the report, the email system has been working for 100% of the time’. However, lens two (the business) say they are frustrated with the email system. They find it is slow and hard to work with, so in their heads it sucks. It makes their lives painful.  

Within the tech teams, often feedback from the business is not appreciated or understood. When feedback is received, it can be dismissed because the monthly report says otherwise. No listening or empathy is shown to the users.

The outcome is frustration from the users, and the level of dissatisfaction goes up. This can cause great angst against the IT department, which puts them on the back foot, and the overall focus is on the dissatisfaction, rather than how IT can be an enabler rather than just an overhead.   

This is a disconnect, and a really annoying one too. It is just one example and, from my experience, there are usually 10-15 examples of disconnection between tech team and the users.

When it comes to tech and the consumerisation of IT, tech teams need to adapt and be more in-tune with their users.

As a result, often someone from the tech team is tasked to ‘find out what the business wants’. This can be a difficult task if given to the wrong person. Just by telling someone to go and do something, this does not necessarily mean that they have the right skills. Taking such an approach can cause more harm than good. Whilst the person may have good intentions and want to do the best they can, they simply lack the soft skills which are required; soft skills such as listening, having empathy, a level of emotional intelligence, and the ability to navigate a company’s political landscape or fully understand its culture. A note here – culture is one of the biggest things someone needs to know – you are at your peril if you do not understand the culture!

A second example of something I personally experienced whilst I was in a leadership role was when I worked for a small, but very successful, FTSE 250 UK company. The CFO decided the IT department needed to be modernised, due to the growth of the organisation. After an engagement from a top four consultancy, a key recommendation was to recruit a whole new IT leadership team who would report to the CIO who had been with the company for 20 years. I was one of those new recruits.

We were to build a new structure of the IT department, with some of the teams already in place, whilst some being new altogether. One of the key tasks was to make working in the IT department a better place to work. The IT team had grown from 20 people to 120 people in a very short period of time but, unfortunately, the turnover rate of staff was approximately 40-50% per year.

To aid this initiative, one of the activities was to implement values for the IT department as a whole. Great intentions and something that has been needed for a long time. When I joined the company, one of my first observations was that the teams within the department literally hated each other. Staff satisfaction was at the lowest I have ever seen in an organisation (measured via a staff survey and the low retention rate of staff), so introducing values would be a good thing.

An interim Head of Communications was employed to work on comms, but also drive staff initiatives. He was greatly experienced in the field of communications, but (in my view) came up short on the people side – he would not listen, and had zero empathy. The Leadership team, with the help of some of the management, worked on the values. All good stuff, and once the values were defined, the next task was to educate the staff. This is where it all started to go wrong. It was dictated from high that the way we were to communicate the values was to simply hold a three hour meeting with two or three sets of people at a time (now that is 30-40 people), and present a 50 page powerpoint slide detailing the six or seven values. People were to be told how to start working and told to understand the values. To many, they had never even heard of values, never mind having to work to them!

In preparation, the Head of Comms got myself and a few others from the leadership team to show us the powerpoint presentation. It was horrendous. I walked away from the meeting with serious doubts. I shared those doubts with some of my peers as one of my last emails before I went away on a three week holiday. It was completely ignored and the comms sessions continued as planned.

The outcome? Staff were completely confused and disillusioned. They tried to follow up on the sessions with their line managers, only to be faced with disconnected, misinformed and downright wrong information. The line managers themselves did not fully understand what was trying to be done.

Most people ended up worrying about where their department was going and how it affected their jobs. Instead of positivity coming out of this, it led to mass chaos and further dissatisfaction.

Much time and money had been spent and, in my view, wasted. The only good thing that came out of the exercise was a list of values for the department.

The dictated approach of ‘just get on with it’ did more harm than good.

Upon reflection, a key learning point for me is to have the right change agent(s) to drive this through. Someone who has been there and done it, someone who can work with the existing staff in a way to successfully deploy a cultural change, someone who understands the change curve (see link below as an example or google it) and is able to address questions and fears to positively progress the department’s maturity.

With both examples, this is where a coach can help – to be that change agent. A coach can help broaden the mindsets and to ensure that softer skills are adapted and used, to help deliver a high level of satisfaction and understanding of the change.

In both examples, by investing in a coach, the results are happier staff all round. In my second example, a tangible benefit would have been to reduce staff turnover, thus cheaper recruitment costs. Recruitment costs are approximately 17-30% of staff salaries per staff hire, so if you are having to hire 50-60 people per year as this department had to, the costs are high. Reducing staff turnover equals reduces expenses, which ultimately increase the bottom line.

To me, changing the mindset is a seven-eight step process, with some steps recurring. It really depends on the situation, the individuals, or teams, with the main point being that it can take some time, but a very worthy investment in having a coach to help.

Can you think of examples in your organisation where someone is trying to be connected, but just doesn’t have the right skills, and they have just been told to ‘get on with it’? How much is that costing the company?

Life Coach Directory is not responsible for the articles published by members. The views expressed are those of the member who wrote the article.

About Paul Walton

I am a qualified Transformational Coach. I empower people to make dynamic changes in their lives. My qualification is through Animas, which is accredited by the International Federation of Coaches (IFC).

I have a passion for helping people to fulfil their potential.… Read more

Located in Surbiton and London.

Can also offer telephone / online appointments.

To book an appointment, please get in contact:

Go To Source

[kaiunkaiku]

Multiples of five or ten, you decide!! :3

I’m gonna go with five because I’m kinda bored! Thanks for the ask!

5. How often do you play sports?

… I don’t. I just… don’t.

10. What is the most annoying habit that you or other people have?

The most annoying habit that I have is probably freezing or having a breakdown when things don’t go like they should. The most annoying habit other people have is asking questions that you can find the answer to in five seconds. I am now, for example, referring to people who send asks like “do you take requests” when the answer is literally in my bio or “do you write for fandom X” when the way to find the answer is given in the said fucking bio.

15. What’s your favorite drink?

Hot chocolate

20. Are you usually early or late?

I’m the kind of person who’s early to being early. I try to be at least ten to fifteen minutes early.

25. What would be your first question after waking up from being frozen for 100 years?

“What the fuck” because I’m eloquent like that

30. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?

I have no idea what kind of channels the Americans have. I need one that shows only quality cartoons. I need more quality cartoons. Not dubbed in Finnish.

35. What is something that is considered a luxury, but you don’t think you could live without it?

Headphones or a smartphone. I come from an upper middle class home so there are certain things that I’ve simply always just had but I’ll tell you more when I move into my own apartment and realize just how much money my current lifestyle requires.

40. What have you only recently formed an opinion about?

The university registration system. Fucking sucks.

45. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

We went to Egypt when I was eleven or something, so that.

50. What’s something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

Learn to play an instrument.

55. What are you most looking forward to in the next ten years?

The possibility of a year studying abroad! I’m planning Canada ✨ 

60. If all jobs had the same pay rate and hours, what job would you want to have?

A professional proofreader.

65. What fad or trend do you think should come back?

Obama’s America

70. What movie title best describes your life?

I don’t really watch movies so I’ll just skip this

75. What’s the luckist thing that has ever happened to you?

I just got accepted into university so probably that. Or my best friend (who is going to the same university btw)

80. What’s one thing you really want but can’t afford?

A MacBook. Maybe one day.

85. What are you most likely to become famous for?

Murder I’d like to think singing!

90. What question can you ask to find out the most about the person?

I’m more of an observational type so I don’t really know about questions, but maybe “What’s your favorite song and what does it mean to you?” could reveal quite a lot.

95. What do you want your epitaph to be?

“Pronounced as in Swedish”, in reference to my name if I don’t change it before I die.

100. What’s something you will never do again?

Hit my brother. He hits back. Hard.

105. How do you get in the way of your own success?

I have a tendency to either look down on myself or then think very highly of myself. My thought process often goes from “Damn I’m good at this I’m amazing” to “okay but that’s super arrogant and you can’t think like that also lots of people are better than you so just stop doing this thing altogether”. I tend to listen to the second voice.

110. What lie do you tell most often?

“I’m good at music”

115. What’s happened that changed your vew on the world?

I think getting out of my emo weeaboo phase changed my world view quite radically.

120. What responsibility do you wish you didn’t have?

Right now, handling my music academy education (as I’ll be starting university in a different part of the country)

125. What blows your mind?

Everything. The stupidity of people. The fact that I got into uni. How incredibly selfish my brother is. That there was a time in my life when I didn’t know my best friend. That girls are so gorgeous.

130. Which of your scars has the best history behind it?

Unfortunately the only scars I have are self harm scars so no good stories there.

135. What mistake do you keep making?

Why are these so fucking deep oh my God. I keep missing opportunities due to being so scared of things not going like I plan or just being scared of not knowing how things will turn out.

140. What do you regret not doing in your childhood years?

Standing up to my bullies. Like, actually standing up to them, not just telling my parents. This is something I try to tell the kids I work with.

145. What’s something you’re insecure about?

Everything. I mean, I act super confident, as evident in my blabber posts and responses to the hateful anon, but in reality I’m super insecure about literally and honestly fucking everything.

150. What’s the most memorable gift you’ve received?

I got 1.5 kilos of chocolate for graduation from my uncle. That sticks to your memory. There’s probably something else but it’s nearing 1am so I can’t.

[schraubd]

My Healthcare Story

The House of Representatives, in a razor-thin 217-213 vote, has voted to repeal and replace Obamacare with the AHCA. The crucial amendment to get conservatives onboard was to allow states to eviscerate the protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. I've mentioned before on this blog that I've suffered from kidney stones. Right now I'm in the process of doing some tests to figure out my risk factors and what, if anything, I should change in my diet or lifestyle to make them less likely (since, as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) was so quick to remind us, any health problems I have are evidence of nothing more than my own degraded character). That's how it should be: when I'm sick, the focus should be on getting me better. My health care should be a conversation between me and my doctor. My investment advisor shouldn't need to play a role. But the advent of the GOP vote has, of course, made me worry about whether kidney stones qualify as a "preexisting condition." After all, I'm not going to stay at Berkeley forever. So what would happen to me if I need to switch insurance or -- worse yet -- lose it altogether? Kidney stones aren't the most expensive condition one can have, but they're not nothing either. Since they onset completely unexpectedly, they can send you to the emergency room at the drop of a hat. And they sometimes require surgery to remove (as mine did -- more on that below). My best guess is that it's unlikely that I'd be denied coverage altogether because of my past history, but it's possible that a new plan would exclude coverage for any future stone-related problems. Which sucks, because kidney stones are scary enough without having to worry about how to pay to treat them. One argument one occasionally hears about foisting more costs onto sick patients is that it gives us additional "skin in the game" that inspires us to make better and more cost-effective choices. So I figured I'd offer a story on that front, because I don't think that makes any sense at all. As I said, I recently had surgery to remove my kidney stone. But I almost didn't. Kidney stones are strange in that they can lie dormant for awhile -- lulling you into a false sense of security -- before roaring back to life and causing agonizing pain. This is particularly nettlesome because, especially with a smaller stone, it's possible to pass them without realizing it. So if you go through several months with no pain, is it because the stone has passed or is it just playing possum? My stone was about 4 millimeters, which is on the small side. My urologist told me that a 4 mm stone will pass on its own about 70% of the time. I had been having attacks of pain about once every 1.5 - 2 months since the fall, and it did not seem to be passing on its own. So after the latest bout of pain in January, we scheduled me for surgery in March -- with the caveat that if it passed before then, we'd cancel the surgery. The weeks pass, and I'm feeling fine. I didn't notice it pass. But again, I knew sometimes they pass without you noticing. Certain elements of how the stone had been progressing in prior bouts of pain made it plausible that the last bout really was the last bout. We did an X-Ray to see if we could pinpoint the stone inside me, but it was inconclusive. My urologist pointed to a vague spot and said maybe that's the stone ... but maybe it's nothing. X-Rays aren't actually all that good at picking up kidney stones. And unfortunately, there wasn't any safe way to know for sure if the stone was still inside me other than simply doing the surgery. As we approached the day of the surgery, I asked my doctor if he thought we should go through with it. It was not implausible that the stone had already passed, after all. Moreover, I'd never had real surgery before, and was a bit nervous. The procedure entailed full anesthesia, followed by threading a scope up my urethra, into my ureter, and blasting apart the stone with lasers. They'd leave a stent inside me to handle residual bleeding, and that would be removed in about a week. Objectively, it's not so bad -- but you can imagine "having a tube stuck up my dick" isn't exactly on my bucket list, either. And how silly would I feel if I had the surgery and it turned out there was no stone at all! The doctor listened to me. And he said that it was, indeed, possible that the stone had already passed. We could simply wait another couple of months and see what develops. The problem with that was (a) he still thought it was more likely than not that the stone had not, in fact, passed and (b) there's no guarantee that if I had another attack, they'd be able to schedule me for surgery promptly. Ultimately, his recommendation was to go through with the surgery as planned. So I did. And when I woke up, I was told that yes, the stone was inside me, and they had successfully removed it. Moreover, he told me that the stone would have never passed on its own. My ureter was significantly enflamed and swollen around where the stone had nestled; it had gotten so narrow that it was physically impossible for the stone to go any further (I gather things were so tight in there that it had also made it no easy thing for the surgeon to even reach the stone with his laser. Good job, surgeon!). All of this is run-up to the following: My kidney stone surgery cost me, with insurance, a little less than $1,000. That's not chump change. But without surgery, it would have cost closer to $10,000. That's more than a third of the annual salary of your average Berkeley grad student. Had I been paying that money out of pocket, I almost certainly would have ignored my doctor's advice and delayed the surgery. Which, as we now know, would have been the wrong decision. How wrong? I'm not sure -- I thankfully do not now need to know exactly how dangerous a badly enflamed, swollen, and rapidly narrowing ureter might have been. In short, the only thing having (more) "skin in the game" would have done for me is caused me to have made the wrong medical decision. Because I'm not a doctor. I have no medical expertise. I'm not in a position to make smarter medical decisions just because I have to pay more for them. The most likely result of my having to pay a ton of money for medical expenses is me making bad medical choices. Thankfully, because I had insurance I made my choice for the right reasons -- the sound, professional advice of my specialist doctor who actually knows how kidneys work. And thank goodness for that. In any event, now I've had kidney stones and kidney stone surgery, which means I may well be in "pre-existing condition" land (albeit far less so than, say, a cancer survivor). Which means that in the GOP world, it's quite plausible that if I leave Berkeley (which I no doubt will) and have to change insurers, I may no longer be covered for at least this particular medical problem. If my kidney stones come back, I won't be able to concentrate on, say, getting emergency pain relief or whether I need another surgery. My friend Josh Blackman says there is a "contradiction" around the discourse re: pre-existing conditions: nobody wants to exclude them, until people learn that including them increases costs. Which, Blackman says, of course they do -- there's no such thing as a free lunch. I'd note that there's an ambiguity here: requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions doesn't necessarily increase costs so much as it redistributes them -- at least in a system where one can't opt-out of the medical system altogether (and here I'm talking less about a mandate and more about guaranteed access to emergency care. Unless we switch to a system whereby uninsured people are left to die in the streets, we're still "paying" for their healthcare). Persons who are relatively healthy pay a little more so that persons who are very sick pay a lot less, but the overall cost doesn't change (a simplification, of course, but it will do). As it happens, even with this particular pre-existing condition I don't know whether I-as-an-individual am a net gainer or loser in the protect-preexisting-conditions world (other than kidney stones, I'm a relatively young and healthy man). But either way, I'm absolutely willing to pay my share so that I and others like me -- or not so like me -- can have the healthcare that they need. It strikes me as beyond petty for me to resent the possibility that others might "use" the benefits of health insurance more than I do. I should be so lucky! The best thing that could happen to me is for me to never again have reason to access the benefits of my health insurance other than routine checkups and peace of mind. But if I happen not to be so lucky, then I'll be grateful that I'll get the care that I need to survive and thrive. There are many, many people for whom the AHCA will impact far more severely than me -- from cancer survivors to persons needing organ donations.to victims of sexual assault. These people will see their lives made much worse if the AHCA passes. But there are a lot more Americans for whom the AHCA "only" will make our lives a little worse. A little scarier. A little more insecure. A little more unknown. A little less protected. I had hoped we could beat the AHCA in the House. But House Republicans were determined to pass a bill they didn't fully understand, whose provisions  had not been scored by the CBO, and from whose dictates they exempted themselves. We have 18 months to make them pay for their hubris. via The Debate Link http://ift.tt/2qFGnQf

[plebeianamanda]

Married and homeless in Singapore

As someone who's waiting for her HDB BTO flat to be built, I can honestly tell you, the most frustrating question that I've gotten is this:

"So... When will your house be ready?"

Never. Never is my answer.

Abel and I have played the waiting game for a good long time. Since Jan 2014 in fact. THAT'S THREE FLIPPING YEARS AND THE HOUSE STILL ISN'T READY YET.

Calm down Amanda.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah, Jesus.

OKAY I'M CALM.

The process to own a home in Singapore, when dumbed down and made simple with an impressive array of acronyms, is something like this:

1) Apply for BTO / DBSS / EC 2) Apply for HLE 3) Pick a HDB unit 4) Apply for ROM 5) Pay with CPF before moving in

I've done you the kindness of linking each acronym to an article about its meaning.

But though it might seem like five simple steps, it really is a tedious wait of AT LEAST five years. See, steps 1 to 3 could take about half a year to settle, depending on your luck of the draw, but steps 4 to 5, the most crucial, can last many years.

Why?

Well see. Picture being ready to spend the rest of your life with someone. You've done the whole "travelled with him/her and am ready to settle down" bit. The logical thing to do would be to move in together right?

According to the bureaucratic laws of the average Singaporean, you can't. You have to apply first.

Our red-tape strewn housing system (due to the unfortunate population-to-land ratio) has determined that to move in together and get married you'll need to ballot. That's right. In Singapore, to move into our boxy-little public housing (much better than most of the world and the most affordable!) you have to queue, and you have to join a lucky draw to determine your position in the queue! That's not even counting the fact that it is highly likely that you might not even end up in the queue at all, which relinquishes all chances of even picking a home for that round of ballots.

Try saying that in one breath.

But let's say you do get a number to join the queue, that's not the end of it. You're basically queuing for an IDEA of something. The houses aren't built yet. So you pour over brochures and layouts of what the building could look like and determine the units that you might potentially pick. Then you play the waiting game. Perhaps you're number 666 (Number were picked to express my frustration at this devilish system)

out of 1,500 potential owners and there are only nine hundred units available. Then you're going to have to hope that the first 665 don't pick the units that you want.

WHAT?!

Yes. All this could span between three months to a year.

Now let's be optimistic and say that you did get your unit and your housing loan came through (of which requires an ungodly amount of papers - payslips and what not, as proof of your ability to afford a housing loan). Then it's time to wait for your house to be built. From scratch. From a plot of dingy land.

Now my brain tells me very sensibly and honestly that I should stop complaining and be grateful. I mean, good public housing is unheard of in most parts of the world. Affordable QUALITY housing? Even less heard of! One has to be patient to enjoy good things.

But my heart. My poor, blessed heart is screaming NO.

See, you need to remember that this is a country where people can't afford to live away from their parents and buy/rent their own home. It's not just our Asian-family sensibilities that get in the way of that. Financially and practically, it makes no sense to live away from them unless your parents don't live here at all.

But that also means that a couple that wants to get married can't get their own home till after three to five years! No point getting married before getting your house right?

Longest, engagement, ever.

What many have dubbed as the "Singapore way of getting married", is really, to me, the death of romance. But it is also this utter practicality that makes Singaporeans so successful. Would you rather rich robots or penniless poets? The truth is, you can't live on love alone.

Punggol Bayview, the home upon which we await with bated breath. (TOP Q4 2018)

But we are not devoid of options. There are couples, like Abel and myself for example, and a few other friends we know, who have gotten married first then waited the five years out together. Without having a place to live.

Once again, you have options:

1) You can choose to rent, spend a senseless amount of money every month. 2) You can live with your in-laws, and risk potential problems - there's a reason why the bible says leave and cleave. 3) You can stay apart. (The stupidest option for a married couple in my opinion).

So now you can choose. Stay engaged for a really long time, or get married and feel sort of... lost.

Because that's how I feel now.

Being the impractical moron that I am and the emotional wreck that I am, I told Abel we can't lose the romance. Since he'd proposed, why wait? Why draw out a long engagement when we knew were wanted to be with each other? He agreed.

When we got married, Abel and I were pretty optimistic. But we had run through the options of renting (waste of money and no money), buying a resale first and selling it before our BTO comes (possible but pointless as it was predicted that the market will just get worse when we're looking to sell) and finally landing on staying with the in-laws.

My house, stuffed to the brim with a hormonal teenager and a grumpy young adult, was no space for a young married couple. Not to say the least my angry father who lost his temper at the slightest things. No. No. No. So it fell upon Abel's home. As the only child, his room boasted a queen-sized bed, I'd only be competing with his dad for the toilet. Why not? I agreed.

What a mistake.

My in-laws are great. They are welcoming people who have always been lovely to me, but let's be honest, a ton of problems arrive with living with your in-laws.

1) They're not used to your habits and you're not used to theirs 2) You can never argue with your husband in front of them, which leads to the next and the most important point 3) You can never really comfortable, because you can never be yourself

It took a toll man.

While all that was bad, what I felt the most was this feeling of not belonging anywhere. I felt so lost most of the time. Nothing of real importance (putting aside clothes and other superficial things) was mine. The bed was Abel's old bed, the room, though painted, was Abel's. The wardrobe was his, the toilet, his dad's. (You have no idea how important a toilet is to me.) The kitchen, not mine! I couldn't be comfortable no matter the things I used to decorate the space or the kitchen tools I bought. Not even bringing Hachi could make me feel better.

I felt like a squatter in someone else's home. Forever indebted, forever useless.

It was then I realised that I was going to have to do this for the next few years. It made me even more miserable. I couldn't return home either because my parents had thrown out my bed and replaced it with a desk for my sister.

My motto in life became "boh bian lor." Loosely translated: "no choice."

It made me crazy. Abel and I quarrelled frequently. I spent a lot of time at the playground crying at night. I lost the will the to work out. I never went home first without him and I hardly left the room to do anything. It was awkward. It was strange. I was also going through a job transition during that period of time. Finally, I think Abel and I decided to try renting again.

We found a gorgeous apartment in Geylang. A condo studio apartment, $1,600. We counted. We could afford it, but barely. After a long, drawn-out quarrel, we decided that we wouldn't go for it. My ever-sensible husband made the wise choice of forgoing that splendid apartment. I bemoaned its loss and longed to have a place to call my own.

Then I became jobless (you can read about my experience here) and after working in SPH for so long, I felt a part of myself die. Something else that was mine, gone. Then my Macbook died. My one and only tool of trade. I was done. I had hit rock bottom. I swear. There was this profound sense of loss, not knowing where I was going and feeling as though life was meaningless. All the regrets I had came pouring out. 2016 was the year of STUPID decisions, STUPID people, STUPID problems and a hundred other stupid things. I really lost it I think.

But after that bout of depression, I had to move on right? I just sucked it up. Got freelance work, a cheaper computer (which I'm still using btw) and continued living as I did. Existing.

Then something happened. My grandfather passed away.

I loved him. He was a great grandfather. Not a perfect man, but there's no such thing right?  He passed away peacefully, and his funeral was carried out by people who loved him. Then my grandmother, Por Por, who had lost the man she loved, offered something that changed everything.

She offered her home.

My grandparents sleep slept in separate rooms, Por Por in the common room, Ah Kong in the master bedroom. She told my mum that she thought it would be a good idea for Abel and I to move in with her. Without hesitation, my wonderful husband agreed. He forgo living with his family to live with Por Por, someone he only saw for dinners on alternate Sundays.

For that, I'll always be grateful. For that, I know he is a wonderful husband. (But it also makes me feel guilty for a lot of other things sometimes heh.)

We aired out the room, repainted the space. Bought a $163 Ikea wardrobe, raided the As-Is department in Ikea (heaven for poor couples) and installed a new toilet bowl.

The process was cleansing.

Not as big as it looks. But just as bright as it appears.

I felt as though it was mine. A proper space to call my own. We had repainted and redone it with our own hands! Sure everything else belonged to Por Por, but this room was ours. The TOILET was ours. I didn't have to wait for someone else to use it, I wasn't accountable to someone else aside from my husband! I could bomb it, fart it in and clean it without feeling like I'm cleaning someone else's shit (literally).

This huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.

Then I finally got a job, we went on our honeymoon to Sweden and Iceland (you can read about the trip here) and everything else fell into place. I'm not as stressed anymore. I see my parents once in a while, I see Abel's parents once in a while, things are good! My hair looks good, my skin is fantastic, I just need to work on my weight and finances.

I even made a terrarium!

So calming hor.

Thanks to a loving family and loving husband, I survived. There are a lot of fortunate ones. Those rich, those who can afford to buy private housing or resale. Those who don't have to wait because they managed to get a sale-of-balance flat.

But it made me think, what about all the other younger Singaporeans out there waiting to get married because their home isn't ready? Those already married but living with their in-laws or struggling to make ends meet because of rent?

If you're out there, I just want you to know that you're not alone. You're not alone in thinking that you're selfish for wanting more. You're not alone in thinking that things could have been done better. You're not alone in feeling guilty for not putting in more effort with your in-laws. But more importantly, I want you to know that you did not make the wrong choice getting married without a house.

Because what is humanity without love?

All my problems could have been solved if we had been patient and decided to get married later. But we didn't. We made the choice and we lived with the consequences. And I remember, no matter how bad it got, I was always reminded that at the end of the day I'll survive and I'll be happy again because I am married to my husband. I don't regret my choice, and I will never regret my choice.

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

2.10.2018 - Journal (Feminism)

(Written on 26.06.2018)

For me procrastination is completely interlocked with addiction. I’m addicted to putting shit off. Why?

All I do is scroll on my phone and smoke. Occasionally I make shit and get a few important things done but then I go back into melt back into a procrastinatory coma,

almost not existing and/or having no control over anything I do. It’s terrifying really. I’m afraid of my own lack of self control.

I’m afraid of not living the fullest life I can. Due to being afraid of living the fullest life I can live (not knowing or knowing the full extent of your potential is a terribly conflicting idea. You’ll never find out what it is and you’ll only figure it out by trying. You continue wandering down your own personal dark cave of potential potential, crossing your fingers so hard they contort and almost snap as you pray that the cave doesn’t end. Many people reach some point in there lives where they just decide to set up camp in the dark somewhere and call it a day. They watch as others walk past. As they get older and more bitter they’ll spit and screech at the passers by - ‘Yeah don’t worry about going any further mate, there’s nothing there, I’m sure of it. Nothing but blackness ahead… Spoiler alert you never figure out who you are, it’s a myth, it’s a load of bullshit, come sit by the fire and drink with me… and I’ll tell you stories about myself that I wish were true but have been so beaten down by fear I can’t remember what’s real any more anyway’).

It’s pretty ironic. I’m attached to my life and not at the same time. There’s a group of contradicting  voices within me. Which I believe is what the idea of nihilism does to the mind. Nothing means anything and everything means something.

After watching Nanette and the recent death of Eurydice all I think about is how cooked the world is. How cooked it is for women and people that aren’t white, straight and male. Yet I’m on top of the food chain and still struggle to be ‘happy’.

No one wants to hear that though. Of course they don’t want to hear it. It’s irrelevant. When there’s an imbalance you don’t want any focus on anything other than what’s creating the imbalance. You don’t want some straight white guy, that grew up with nice supporting intelligent parent’s with money that fostered any fucking thing I wanted to do saying they struggle to be happy.

This disclaimer’s important. It’s never been my point to try and receive sympathy or claim that my problems are on par with anyone else’s problems. I’m simply regurgitating my experiences (i.e having a massive whine on the internet).

It is worth noting though that even at the top it (can) still suck. But that’s not what oppressed people are concerned about. They’re concerned because of the insane crime of being oppressed and treated as if they’re not human.

I don’t really know why that’s my knee jerk quip to the current situation. It’s probably a very selfish one. Probably a defensive one. To basically be like - ‘Well… just so you know ladies, it’s still horrible up here at the top… so you know… no rush’. Which’s a horrible thought that came from brain, but I don’t want to be a bad person, so I’m sharing it with you.

It’s difficult because it’s true and that’s confusing. But it’s a waste of time because it’s not helping equality if I take up hours of days writing think pieces about how minorities haven’t been so unlucky as to be equal so that they can enjoy the fruits of nihilism to it’s full extend and various other irritating philosophical conundrums. The fact that life’s a struggle even when you’re on the top is something to talk about later, not now.

(I’m sharing this thought process because I’m ashamed of it. I want everything to be good and kind and equal and I want people to have the best lives they possibly could)

Perhaps it required the anger and insanity of all the shades of feminism to get the world to listen. And you know, if for the price of people (males) at least beginning to talk about things was due to 17 ridiculous BuzzFeed videos about the dangers of man-spreading! Then you know that’s OK.

The problem is there are many aspects and pockets of internet feminism that’re kind of crazy, kind of nit-picking and overly extreme. Things such as mansplaining’s problematic because it can be sexist in itself if you’re a women being talking to by a guy about something and you just assume they’re talking down to you because of your gender, unless that information is revealed at some point (or if after further investigation and several miracles that particular guy admits he was talking down). It’s specifying and dangerously locking down aspects of being a cunt and assigning that behaviour to a gender.

The man spreading thing is also very over the top and overly dramatic. And you know what, bloody unnecessary! Very nit picking and strange! It’s such a strange and small thing to get all angry about, why would someone care so much about someone sitting on the train with slightly spread legs? It’s just crazy feminazis. I just don’t understand! I mean why would women be so nit picky about such a minor thing? It’s not as if there’s an inherent under-hum of neck hair prickling fear within all women all the time, 24 hours day, for their whole lives that a man might kill or rape them! No… that’d be ridiculous.

I’m explaining this stuff in a cheeky manner to hopefully gain your attention.

I believe that on a surface level that things such as ‘mansplaining’ and ‘manspreading’ are strangely specific and they’re issues that completely isolated are irrelevant. But they come from a place, a fucked up darker place (that shit doesn’t just come out of fucking no where).

I believe shit like ‘mansplaining’ and ‘manspreading’ are partly responsible for why ‘feminism’ (at least on the internet) is a complete fuckfest. And why some people (mostly males again) believe the word to mean - ‘We hate men, we want to be the top dogs, I wish to be on a throne while men in gimp suits scurry around my feet offering a silver cup of their tears’.

I believe it’s because people, men and women, see something specific, something like ‘mansplaining’ or ‘manspreading’ and that is all they see. Maybe they’re young, they haven’t experienced much and haven’t begun to explore and research. And unfortunately the small window of opportunity in their minds gets filled with that and they shit and they shut off completely. And as we all know Pablo Honey wasn’t a very good album.

They see that and go ‘oh well that ridiculous, they’re winging about me spreading my legs on a train… wow ridiculous’.

And all the women are like - ‘Well yeah mate… Because you rape us and you kill us…’.

But at that point it is too late. The guys already making Feminist’s Get Destroyed Comp 7 on YouTube.

Talking to a friend she told me she ‘hates men collectively, not individually’. Laying in bed later that evening flicking that thought around like a Rubix cube made out of penis’s I flipped it on it’s head and imagined I said the sentence - ‘I hate women collectively, not individually’. Aha! I thought. That will just not do, that’s fucking sexist! That’s a load of horseshit. After I calmed down and my non-opposable thumbs were sore after pounding them on the glass of my enclosure I looked across at my cave paintings, at all the boobs I’d drawn, and various other blog posts and thought you know what? Having a brief flick through of history (and especially current times) women are totally without any argument allowed to collective ‘hate’ men if they want too… in fact I’d be confused if they didn’t.

All of this reminded me of something the great black comic Patrice O’neal once said about race and his animosity towards white people. Which is truly ironic because he had many extremely polarising views on women and gender. However I think it applies well.

He begins talking about Hitler and the Nazis.

‘…Hitler and his crew… after the war it was against the law… you can’t even have the moustache no more…. you can’t even rock that… you just don’t rock it… that nigger is the devil, OK… that moustache is the devil! Hitler then the devil…

So what that enables you to do is move on…. it enables you to move on… meaning I don’t have to hate every German. I don’t have to be bogged down. After the holocaust being a fucking Nazi was criminal… to this day. Like they find out you used to be a Nazi you get fucked over. You can’t even apologise, oh no I only put a couple in the ovens… no no no… you’re done, you’re fucked… which is great for the spirit of being Jewish! We went though this, we know exactly what happened, we know exactly how many people it happened too and we know exactly who did it! So it enables you to have a chapter in a book…

When I start off with white people I say look… white is the only thing we got from slavery.

We have a finish date… questionable start date… questionable amount of people that died, questionable affect on our minds… when we were free they was like bye nigger nice talking to you, OK, you’ve been living this way for 400 years, now we expect you to live wonderfully now and what we did to you was not criminal and the only thing left is your skin so you have the skin colour of the enemy… so… every white person is Hitler’s moustache… really… to my gut all white skin is that… on some level’.

I wonder if you can easily see the comparison I’m trying to draw by referencing this. Basically men are the Hitler’s moustache to women… on some level.

[therealestatesparkblog]

Stop Building Garages: How Driverless Cars Will Affect Real Estate

Driver-less cars are going to change alot, and if you havent been actively reading about this, then its most likely going to happen much faster than youre expecting. At first glance, there may not seem to be much overlap between the auto industry and the real estate industry, but the impacts and infrastructure changes from this technology will be felt by everyone. As investors, its our responsibility to understand changes as far out in advance as possible so we can adapt to progress and mitigate new risks. Just about everything in this article takes place across the next 1530+ years, which may seem useless to some. However, if youre currently buying 30-year mortgages then youve got commitments that fall well within this transition period, and these changes will affect you. Having a better understanding of the future can be massive risk-mitigation tool against getting caught off guard when changes negatively affect you. Driving Will Change Where People Want to Live Because Cars Will Commute for Us Imagine you could wake up at 6 a.m. and crawl into your car and tell it to head to work while you got back to sleep. In two hours, youre there, youre safe, fully rested, and you arrive at work on time without having to deal with traffic or the monotonous task of driving. This is not science fiction. In fact, based on todays technology, this isnt even far fetched. This is science inevitability. So how does this affect real estate? Well, think of all the people who dont want to live in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, or New York City. What if they could live an hour or two outside the city and commute to work without losing any real time out of their day? How might this affect home values in a city when people can commute there easily without having to live there and without making any sacrifice to do so? It doesnt even have to be this extreme, either. Lots of people would be willing to commute for one hour each way if they didnt have to drive. This creates a lot of space between a city hub and the places people can live without taking on the financial burden of city costs. Might home values in a city go down when the necessity to live close by is reduced? Maybe cities will create an even larger price premium for those who can afford to live there while the masses are forced to commute an hour or two each day from poorer suburbs. Cars Will Be the Next Rental Real EstateOwning a Car Will Be a Luxury Car ownership is going to be a thing of the past before you know it. Sound crazy? Its not even a secret in the auto industry. Did you know that Ford, the oldest car company in America, has announced its going to stop selling cars and just sell trucks and SUVs? How can they do this? Thats a lot of cars to give up on selling unless they dont expect to lose that many sales. Companies who host ride sharing like Uber, Waymo, and Lyft are developing fully autonomous vehicles and are building fleets to replace personal car as we speak. General Motors is building a mass-market, fully autonomous car right now that will not be sold to the public. It will be only be used as part of a ride-sharing platform and available (supposedly) in 2019. That means two of the biggest auto manufacturers are starting to just flat-out not sell their products to the public. This is a signal of really big change. Owning a car isnt really that expensive, but there is zero return on investment. Its only an expense. However, once cars can finally drive themselves 24-hours a day, all while producing income, the value of ownership will go through the roof. The most likely scenario is that Uber will sell unlimited-use passes by the month, and we will all happily give up car ownership in trade. Itll be on-demand, easy, fast, and awesome. It may sound far fetched, but people will happily give up car ownership in the not-so-distant future when the cost savings become obvious. The value of any business is based on its income production. If you think cars are expensive now, imagine how much more they might cost when its a guaranteed profitable purchase. Related:Your Car is an Expensive, Health-Sucking, Time-Wasting Machine. So, Ditch It! Those with means to own their personal cars will create a moat between social classes. These days we might see a Ferrari and say, Oooooh, that person has money! Look at their fancy car! In the future, someone driving a Camry might get similar treatment: Ooooooh, that person has money, they can afford to have a personal car!!! Lots of people in America buy their own homes, and some own an extra house as a rental. The volume of landlords is relatively small because owning a house requires capital, resources, knowledge, risk mitigation, etc. In the future, cars will be the new rental real estate; people with means will still own their cars, and a few will own an extra car. The second car will drive itself around as part of a ride-sharing platform and produce income, just like a taxi, but passive.

Remember That Extra 900 Square Feet Everyone Had to Add to Our Houses to House a Car? What Were They Called? Oh Right, Garages! Why would you need a garage if you dont own a car? What value does a garage provide? Storage, for sure: We get to put our unsightly water heater there, the Christmas decorations, and the treadmill that my wife just had to own. Is that all worth the space and cost that a garage requires? Not likely. So will garages be a premium in the future, or a nuisance? More likely itll fade from importance in middle-to-low-end housing and continue in luxury homes. This problem is already being tackled with large parking garages. It might be a bold claim to say you wont need your garage in 20 years, but the world really wont need massive multi-level parking garages. Efforts are already being made to find out how to convert these spaces into light retail, office, storage and other amenities. Its not going to be feasible to tear down all that concrete, but it will be imperative to find something useful to do with all that space. Currently we pay a premium for garages because they are a highly sought after convenience. However, when the majority of people dont own cars, will that garage command a premium? Or will it be a detriment? Whats the Land Underneath a Gas Station Worth? Some of the most valuable land you can find is sitting underneath a gas station, and for good reason. Corner lots with good road access on busy cross streets serve a lot of cars and provide tons of ancillary needs. (Where else are we supposed to buy Slim Jims?). This infrastructure has been built up over decades and billions of drivers, but at its core it really relies on one thing: the internal combustion engine. Electric cars, however, dont need gasoline (surprise!). Youll charge at your home and probably at work. So how often are we going to need a gas station then? Hard to say, but the fact is, people will use a lot less gasoline, and my assumption is they will use gas stations much less. Now, obviously, some operators will find competitive advantages to survive, but many will not. And in rural areas, we should expect this problem to be much worse. A complete halt on gasoline sales is unlikely, because there are still uses for the product: small engines, generators, non-EV-conformers, etc. Thats a pretty weak position to hold onto though. Lots of industries are long gone, but still have niche support. Walmart will still sell you a CD Walkman (I saw one recently for $30!), but you wouldnt use that example to highlight the value of compact discs. Related:7 Sharing Economy Side Hustles Real Estate Investors Can Use to Earn Extra Cash When gasoline sales do slow, what will gas station owners do? I personally think most will go away, but not before suffering increasingly diminished profits as they experience the decline. Many will sell their businesses because of this, and what will their assets be worth? No one wants to look at a declining income statement trend and then pay top dollar. What about all the stores attached or adjacent to gas stations that capitalize on the heavy traffic? Ive heard of no great solutions to these questions, but that wont stop the impending takeover of autonomous and electric cars. How Long Will All My Daydreaming Take to Come to Fruition? If you dont read often about this topic, then its likely that this transition will happen much sooner than you would guess. People hear about autonomous cars and say, Itll never happen. Well, never will begin in 2020 when both General Motors, Ford, and others start to produce mass-market autonomous cars. What happens when every cab and Uber driver across the country goes jobless in a few short years? Ride sharing platforms will replace car ownership, as I mentioned earlier, and it will start next year. GM has publicly announced plans to build cars not sold to the public. They will only be part of their ride sharing platform.next year.How will home values be affected when waves of mass unemployment start? Take everything Ive mentioned so far and apply it to truck drivers as well. In fact, they will be unemployed first, as autonomous 18-wheelers are already being used in the UK. Unfortunately, I have no good advice for how to adapt to this, but anticipation and being proactive about change should help. For the Itll never happen camp, they will not take any measures to protect themselves and it will cost them dearly. What I dont want to convey here is not to buy a house with a garage because you might not need one in 30 years. Thats silly, but maybe get used to the idea of not needing one in the future. Sleeping in our cars is what poor college kids do when they are really stretching, but in 10 years it might be a feasible temporary option instead of stretching to rent an apartment. Twenty years ago smartphones didnt exist, now I cant go three minutes without touching mine. Its important not to get too confident of what is normal, as you may get caught stuck in the past. You dont need to have an MBA to know that businesses who refuse to participate in new technology go under. The board members at Blockbuster obviously had a strict head-in-the-sand policy. Dont be like Blockbuster. Embrace and adapt to changing technology.

What do you think? Am I on to something? Where do you see the future of garages and personal vehicles? Share below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/stop-building-garages/