#but. but. after trading 8 points worth of things for a package and then getting a single piece of chalk from it

[termitnik]

After a night of delivering gifts you stumble upon a package at your front door...

Hoping there is no sand pest inside, you open it and recieve:

coffee beans

candles and a box of matches

a piece of brain (non-infected)

a bottle of painkillers

May your studies be successful, wishing you luck, strength and health! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

oh dear!!! coffee beans are Always well-appreciated and very much welcomed and i am sure the rest of my findings will be useful as well!

thank you so much for sending something back and thank you for the rest of the wishes! merry christmas to you too!

me with my conffee i made from my new confee beans.... 💞

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: October 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of October 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

After months of the Tory government fucking up their response to the Covid pandemic you would think that they’d have some baseline of competence by now, but no, it turns out that the Test & Trace program they were so proud of was nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet - an Excel spreadsheet that lost the data of at least 16,000 people, while also begging the question how they spend £12bn of taxpayer’s money on an Excel spreadsheet, to which the answer is...they didn’t, it was existing software, they just pocketed the cash

It comes as no surprise that proven liar Boris Johnson puts the blame on the rising Covid numbers in the UK on the public - because it's definitely not been his master advisor breaking the lockdown rules to pop to Durham with his family after testing positive for Covid on what just so happened to be his wife’s birthday, not the Tory government changing the rules on masks when Michael Gove was spotted in Pret Manger without one, and definitely nothing to do with cases rising significantly within two weeks of the double whammy of the Tory government saying children “must” go back to school and people must go back to work as they can now be fired if they don’t.  Definitely not their fault,  Not at all...

The approach of the Tory government to Manchester being upgraded to Tier 3 boils down to initially promising to provide the fully-costed £60m package that Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham requested, only to turn around and give them £20m instead and try and justify it by saying it boils down to £8 per head for the entire population.  After all, if Burnham really wanted that money, he’d have been one of Dominic Cummings’ mates and completely unqualified for the job, as that’s the quickest way to open the purse strings as wide as he’d like

It was quite impressive that Margaret Ferrier came to the conclusion that, having tested positive for Covid while in London, obviously the best course of action would be to take a train journey 400 miles back to Scotland before self-isolating, because of course nobody else used that train

...although some of the Tory MPs criticising Ferrier really should have paused before commenting, mainly to check whether they were the ones vociferously defending Dominic Cummings for his 300 mile drive to Durham after testing positive or his subsequent drive to Bernard Castle to test his eyesight

Not only did the Tory government vote against giving free school meals to children a mere ten days after awarding Marcus Rashford an MBE for his work in trying to give underprivileged children free school meals, but they tried all manner of excuses to defend it best exemplified by Nicky Morgan saying she voted to let children starve because Angela Rayner called one of her parliamentary colleagues “scum”, while Twitter troll Ben Bradley claimed that people spent their free school meal vouchers in crack dens and brothels, before claiming he was “misquoted” - which is Tory code for “I have deleted that tweet, because I do not understand how screengrabs work”

Remember how Rishi Sunak has been presented as the human face of the Tory party?  I have to ask, since he decided to yank £1000 a month from Universal Credit payments, and for some reason the “centrists” of Twitter who have been lionising him for several months have been oddly quiet

The batshittery of the Home Office has now extended to coming up with increasingly ludicrous plans to prevent migrants, with the latest bright idea of Priti Patel (and don’t pretend it was anyone else) being to have ships in the English Channel using pipes to blow air into the water that will create waves to send them back to France - as if a dinghy wouldn’t just steer around the ship, or that they wouldn’t make Calais and Sangat the best surfing destinations in northern France overnight

...and it got worse when we learned that Priti Patel was informed that a knife-wielding man stormed into the office of a migration solicitor spouting the exact same rhetoric and injured the receptionist, to which her response was to double down on the rhetoric as if she and proven liar Boris Johnson weren’t inciting violence at this point

...which makes smirking cretin Priti Patel issuing a statement expressing sadness at a couple of child migrants drowning in the English Channel about as sincere and reassuring as a card from Harold Shipman expressing sympathy for the death of an elderly relative

Not for the first time Keir Starmer managed to take all the focus off the Tories and onto the Labour party with his moronic approach to running his own party, namely by suspending Jeremy Corbyn for the crime of...hang on, he actually hasn't said what infraction Corbyn committed by responding to the EHRB report into antisemitism in the Labour party, but he suspended him anyway

...while Lisa Nandy supported this by using a blatant strawman argument saying “There are some on the left” who believe blatant anti semitic tropes...blatant anti semitic tropes that she invoked in the exact same sentence as her obvious strawman argument

Suspected rapist Brett Kavanaugh has been busy using legal loopholes to try and claim that votes in Wisconsin only count if they were tallied up on Election Day and no day past that.  Because as we know, US Presidential Elections have often been straightforward affairs where both vote counts and recounts are always necessary, as Kavanaugh obviously remembers as he was working for George W Bush’s campaign in Florida after the 2000 election

How nice of the Tory government to use a parliamentary loophole to completely avoid allowing a vote on whether or not the UK should import chlorinated chicken, therefore enshrining both the importance of democracy and the importance of food safety standards - in the EU

Once again Keir Starmer seems to think “Opposition” means “Whip your MPs into abstaining”, this time on the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, because as we all know letting legislation pass that absolves the police of any and all illegal activity is definitely going to win voters around

Good guy Rishi Sunak took the Tim Martin approach to worker relations by telling musicians to get another job if they were so worried about their finances - which not only ignores the fact that plenty of musicians do already have more than one job, but also begs the question why this same advice hasn’t been given to the landlords carping about rent holidays etc 

Not only did The Sun blatantly lie by claiming a photo of Jeremy Corbyn taken at a wake was at a “posh dinner party” as obvious rage bait for their knuckle-dragging readership, but it has to be asked where they got the photos from as they weren’t shared publicly on Twitter or Instagram

...although the Freudian slip by the BBC when reporting the non-story, calling Corbyn “the Labour leader”, not only sums up just how shit they are at reporting facts these days, but also underlines he’s doing a better job of rattling the establishment’s cages than Keir Starmer has

Definitely not a conspiracy theorist Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer claimed that the government are combining Covid numbers and flu numbers so that they could...anyone got any idea what the point of making this up was?

Instead of keeping Robert Jenrick locked in a cupboard until the whole “Getting backhanders which influence who he gives property contracts to” thing goes away (spoilers: it won’t) instead they sent him out to justify £25m to a Jake Berry’s constituency - to which he said it was fine, as Jake Berry gave £25m to Jenrick’s constituency so there’s no reason to say anything dodgy is going on

For some strange reason Dominic Cummings doesn't have to face any charges for his failure to pay £30,000 worth of council tax on a property he also broke planning laws to have extended.  Yes, there’s a reason I put this directly after the phases “Robert Jenrick” and “backhanders”...

The ridiculousness that is Liz Truss started the month proudly stating that post-Britait trade negotiations with the US would undermine Britsh farmers - and this wasn’t a flub, she genuinely meant to express this - and ended with the frankly baffling crowing from the Department of Trade about how “soya sauce” which was being sued by Great British Bake Off contestants would be cost the same post-departure thanks to the UK-Japan trade deal, which ignores the fact that most soy sauce is imported from China - also that paying zero tariffs on £100k of stilton being exported to a country with high lactose intolerance while Nissa, Toyota et al face no tariffs when importing tens of millions of pounds of cars a year is not what anyone should be calling a victory...unless they work for Nissan, Toyota et al, anyway

Convicted criminal Darren Grimes learned that there’s such a thing as “responsibility” when he learned that the police were investigating his interview with David Starkey for incitement of hatred, which could have easily been avoided if he was in any way competent or if he admitted he isn't a journalist - and of course, the usual voices of Toby Young, Laurence Fox and Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer all came running to his defence...and shut up when they were informed this ruling was introduced by Thatcher

Somebody should have explained to WWE that, when their move to ban their employees independent contractors from third party platforms such as Twitch already cast a remarkably negative light on their shady employment practices, they should ramp it up by demanding their employees independent contractors hand over those third party platforms and then out of the goodness of their hearts WWE would hand them a percentage of those earnings

As if Steve Baker describing himself as “the hard man of Britait” isn’t reason enough to include him, his demanding that the Church of England be disestablished if it doesn’t fall in line with their No Deal death cult certainly is

It has to be asked why Ross Clark saw Jacinda Ardern winning a a record mandate in the New Zealand elections so decided it was in his interests to write a Telegraph article claiming her Covid has been a disaster...you know, a country which currently has 0 cases and a total of 25 deaths since February.  It’s almost as if the thought of a left-leaning leader who hasn’t had a disastrous response to Covid being rewarded by the electorate has Clark worried for some reason...

Professional victim Laurence Fox has identified the biggest problem in modern society: Sainsburys supporting Black History Month.  Of course, it definitely wouldn’t be something like Laurence Fox calling anyone who disagrees with him a paedophile, that’s all part of a healthy society...

The latest idea of Tim Davie to make sure that BBC newsreaders remain compliant drones was to bring in a set of rules saying they are never allowed to state an opinion ever (no doubt aimed at Emily Maitlis, who did) and to ban that favourite buzzphrase of the right, any form of “virtue signalling” no matter how worthy the cause...except for wearing poppies, that’s still allowed, in spite being a clear example of this “virtue signalling” that Davie is banning

Complete and utter nutcase Dan Wootton is dangerous as well.  That’s both the entry, and also a quote from Labour MP Chris Bryant in response to him banging on about herd immunity as if he's an expert and not The Sun’s showbiz bottom feeder who has been elevated for no logical reason

Once again Laura Kuenssberg is quoting anonymous “sources” critical of the Opposition - meaning she’s either not a very good journalist as she can’t even name her source, or she doesn’t have a source so she's a liar.  Has anyone else noticed this is a regular occurrence with Kuenssberg yet?

How thoughtful of Manchester United and Liverpool to pitch a wonderful idea that the Premier League be reduced to eighteen teams, while also christening the concept with the definitely not Orwellian moniker of Project Big Picture under the guise of helping the Football League and not, say, easing their fixture lists by four league games per season.  Of course, they’re volunteering to give up their Premier League places, aren’t they?

Once again Isabel Oakeshott just had to be on the wrong side of a story, this time howling in outrage that an anti-lockdown petition with 15,000 signatures is being ignored - signatures including Harold Shipman, Bernard Castle,  Dominic Cummings of Bernard Castle, Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename, and last but by no means least, Dr Corona McCoronaface...

Former wrestler Joey Ryan is dealing with his wrestling career being over due to a wealth of allegations of him being a sexual abuser in the most healthy manner possible, namely filing lawsuits against literally anyone he can blame, be it the accusers, his former employers, or random people who call him out via social media

So far it appears Shaun Bailey is planning on winning the London Mayoral election with batshit promises to allow corporations to sponsor London Underground stations and change the names appropriately (which won’t be confusing for tourist guides...) and try and say that Sadiq Khan is at fault for fans not being allowed into football stadiums nationwide

Clueless grifter Tim Pool came up with a genius answer when asked why his “centrist” podcast only ever seems to have right-wing guests and that was to claim that his setup couldn’t handle remote interviews - which would make sense if a.) He hadn’t been saying how much money had been poured into his setup, b.) Zoom didn’t exist, and c.) We forget all the times he’s done remote interviews in the past

Your would think that Lars Sullivan would have learned to not potentially jeopardise WWE’s efforts to promote him after a combination of injury and also not mentioning him for months due to being a creepy bastard online, but no, as soon as he returned to TV he was being a creepy bastard to a yoga instructor - while using his official WWE Instagram account to be a creepy bastard

Not only did Alex Hutchison open himself up for criticism by outright stating that Twitch streamers can count themselves lucky that they don’t have to pay licensing fees to stream games and their careers would be over if they did, he also opened himself up for ridicule when his aforementioned idiotic statement led to Google seeing his Twitter bio and telling him that, no, he was not a lead designer for Stadia and needed to change that shit PDQ

Once again Arsenal showed their lack of understanding of juxtaposition, with them announcing their longtime mascot was being let go for cost-cutting measures - and then a few hours later announcing they’d signed a player with a £200k a week wage

Some faultless logic from Apple regarding the the iPhone 12: the box won’t include a charger or earbuds to reduce packaging...yet it cost the same as if it did, while also meaning people have to buy chargers and earbuds separately that requires far more packaging

To nobody’s surprise it’s clear that Kim Kardashian does need it explained to her that saying how haaaaaaaaaaaaaard it is to spend two weeks being screened and self-isolating so you can go to the private island for your birthday is galling most of the time, but outright disgusting during a global pandemic

Oh dear, it looks like Eric Trump tried being clever again asking how Joe Biden owns a house that’s worth $4m on his senator’s salary of $174k...only to be told that Biden bought the house for $185k, sold it in 1996, pays more than $750 in taxes and loves his son

And finally, testing positive for Covid, is Donald Trump - but he assures us that he is fine and definitely not a contamination risk having been pumped full of steroids and aborted foetus cells which are available to so many people, and definitely didn’t need a better Twitter password

[haiyuta]

Thieve | | Minho

summary: stealing the wrong jewel soon learning that the prince isn’t as bad as he appears. 

word count: 4.1k || prince!minho, lots of soft moments, soft smut, like superr soft, kissing, grinding, touching, soft prince minho, teasing 

a/n: here's something no one asked for but I have writer's block and wanted to do something royal related so here it is 

Running as fast as your legs could take you, you maneuvered through the forest dodging trees while avoiding the knots on the forest floor. Your heart pumped fast while your mind was abuzz with what you've done. In a small stack in your right hand, a beautiful jewel lied in it. A large ruby you've stolen. This stone was enough to let you live comfortably maybe start a restaurant or a farm. 

The sound of yelling and horses made you push yourself as you speed up. You felt exhausted tracking down the rich male and taking the jewel while they were in mid sleep and now running. Your mind was racing you knew a perfect way out the river disconnecting the two sides of the land.

Seeing the cliff your eyes widen in shock a few more mins and you would be across the river and be in the clear. The horses kept up with you already closing in. If you could just reach the river, you'll be in the clear. 

Closing in on the cliff you stopped in your tracks seeing the river flowing lightly in the morning light. Ready to jump you hesitated to look at the distance of the jump. This jump could kill you calculated. The horse's thuds were inclosing on you already. 

The hesitation would be the end of you before you could jump you felt the weighted net surround you. Your hand with the sack tumbled out your hand and over the edge. 

"Halt thieve," you heard the man yell. Gazing at him he looked like a guard as he got off his horse. 

You were caught.

"Where is the jewel thieve," the large guard grunted out. 

Glancing at him you shot him a smirk "hope you can swim cause it's in the river," you hissed. 

Sighing the guard looked at you "tie her up we have to notify the prince his jewel is gone." You felt the net lift off one of the men grabbing your wrist as they tie it behind your back as they added another rope to make sure they could handle you from a distance.  Leaping on their horse they pulled you along. 

The feeling of dread filled you as you walked toward the area you stole the jewel from. A small camping area between two towns. The shame of not being able to just jump filled your mind as you held your head low. Coming to the camp you were at just a few minutes ago you stopped to see the fire was out at this point. Seeing a slim male stand up seeing his guards. 

You should be ecstatic at being in the presence of a prince. The ultimate women's fantasy the prince of some random kingdom and talking to him. The overall dread of being punished for your crime was stirring. 

"Sir this is the thieve that took your jewel," the guards said as they jumped off the horses. Pushing you forward making you fall to your knees. You sent a glare at the guard. 

Looking up the prince he sighed tilting his head at you. "So, you're the filthy thief who stole the jewel," he said slowly. The look on his face was a mix of amusement and anger. He was a prince you thought to yourself. He was the stereotype gentle clear face, small features, slim the whole prince package. You couldn't place his region at all. How far have you've gone from home you didn't even know where you were? 

"I did," you admitted sending him a glare. Your eyes lingered to the sword that was on his hip.

He laughed for a split second as it slipped to a serious look in a second "did I ask you to speak," he tilted his head "Where is the jewel," he spoke slowly, "if you have it I'll let you go I don't feel like killing a lady today."

He stopped eyeing you up and down "barely a lady," he corrected himself. You scoffed at his insult. Really insulting your femininity, it made you roll your eyes. You were a thieve the last thing you thought of buying were things to make you look more like a ladylike unless it was for seducing men you had to do one or two times. 

"Your jewel is in the river," you explained a slight smile raised on your lips staring at him. 

The male frown his eyebrows at you with a slight shake of his head. He sighed putting his hand across his eyes as he felt his temple. "Aren't you a joy throwing my jewel in a river," he hissed. Looking from you to the guards he glared "and my wonderful trained guards couldn't save it," he passive-aggressively spoke about them. 

The prince folded his arms "that jewel was for my dear mother," he said moving closer toward you. The morning light reaching both of you slowly making you finally see his expensive clothing.

The aura around him was one of authority and privilege.  "And you took it and thrown it away," he spat the words out at you. In your mind, you tried to figure out how to get out of this situation, but nothing came to you. Your arms tied behind your back you on your knees in front of him. The mercy of death soon looming over you. 

Before you knew it his sword was out as it laid under your chin. "What shall I do with you," he hummed a small smirk on his lips. 

Your body shook as he forced your chin to look up at him. The blade was sharp and expensive as it touched your chin. "Sell you," he hummed "you wouldn't even be a fraction of what that jewel was worth," the prince gritted out. The ultimate distaste of being sold out bubbled within you. 

"Kill me then," you challenged pushing the sword closer to your throat. One simple twist of his wrist you're dead. Accepting death at this point was what you decided. You would rather die than to be sold off. "I'm not worth anything." 

"Kill you that sounds nice," his thin eyes stared at you. The blade touching your neck it was cold making you flinch away from it. 

"Since you want death, I will not grant it," the prince smirked at you. "We'll decide your true fate at the castle." Turning around he put his sword back on his hip. "Morning is upon us men we are only 3 more towns away from the castle," he hummed. 

"Prince," you spoke looking up at him "May I ask what's your name," you said. 

A small smirk lit his handsome face "Prince Minho 3rd in line for the throne," he with a matter of fact tone. 

"What is your name little thieve," he asked. 

Blinking you mumbled "Y/n my name is Y/n," you said not wanting to claim your old title as a noble. 

It's been months since you stole from the prince. You were lucky you got away with your life from stealing from a high royalty like him. 

The kingdom he was from was a lovely kingdom. The town was bustling with trade perfect for merchants from the fishing district and texture to trade in. A middle ground of sorts. Winding from the town were noble homes they were lovely and clean as the main castle of his home was at the end well-guarded of course. 

Coming here he explained to you to work off the jewel that equals about 10 years of your life. Or die. With that, you decided to become a servant rather than die.

Wanting to escape was a common thought but the work here was too good. Getting a small allowance for the work you did, a room in the lower parts of the castle and did have two square meals a day. Getting the servant clothing which was low quality but still a nice set of clothing. 

This was better than the life of stealing for money risking your life as a traveler while stealing. While living with the royal family wasn't awful, they seemed as long as you worked, they didn't mind the servants. 

You learned Prince Minho was 3th of this kingdom. You learned the prince had 8 brothers. The one first in line was Prince Chan was handsome the next in line and rather serious in front of people. He was friendly to you and the servants always boosting the moral of whoever was near him. 

Being a servant to Minho it was just back and forth with the prince. Whatever you said he had a comeback. What he needed he made you get it in spite of having other servants. Whenever he was bored, he would request you to do something interesting. 

Breaking you out of your thoughts you heard Minho speak. "Arrow," he said in a lazy manner. With a sigh, you pulled out the next arrow from the holder handing it to him. You've been watching Minho shoot arrow after arrow in practice. He was expertly trained you noted.

Eyeing him you got a good look at his calm face as he closed one eye as he focused on the target. His hair was slightly tousled and sweaty from being in the heat. 

Pulling back the arrow it shots out with an intense force. The arrow landed in the blue area showing it was a good shot but could have been better. "Wow prince that was a very good shot," you said sarcastically clapping. 

Minho scoffed "Can you do better than me."

Raising an eyebrow at him you grinned "I've never had proper training, but I could do about the same as you," you challenged back. 

Quirking an eyebrow, he grinned "pick up a bow then," he accepted the challenge smoothly. 

The bubble of a challenge filled your chest. "Will do," you spoke back smoothly. Placing the arrow bag down you picked up one of the bows. It was a heavy expensive bow when you picked it up. 

Glancing at him he watched you as you picked up the bow angling it. 

"Here I'll help," he shifted a small laugh. Reaching over he grabbed your hand helping you aim. Your mind buzzed with how close the prince was.  "Keep steady," he whispered. Glancing at him you tried to focus on the bow and not Minho next to you. 

Closing one eye you directed it at the target and releasing the bow. It hit a little in the red showing you did better than Minho on that one. 

Grinning you smiled "Maybe you need more practice prince," you teased out sticking your tongue out at him.

Minho stuck his tongue in his cheek and grinned "that's real cute but that was pure luck," he tilted his head. The look on his face struck a chord in your chest making you roll your eyes at the feeling. The cord making you slightly scared of the feeling. Who can blame you he was a handsome young man that called what you did cute. 

Trying to avoid eye contact you put the bow back picking up the arrow bag. 

"Get back to shooting it's hot out here," you moaned in fake annoyance at Minho. Trying to cover how shy you were with being so close with Minho. 

He gave you a small smile without words you handed him another arrow as he finished up his sets. 

Being in the prince’s present was getting easier. The back and forth was getting lighter and easy.  He was a busy prince his days packed full of training, meetings and such but always found time for himself in between. You even explained to him why you stole the jewel for his mother. Explain you were once a noble but soon your parents were requesting of you to marry an older man. Rejecting the claim, you ran away from your village never looking back. 

Minho was sympathetic and sensitive about your past claiming he understands slightly. Every year his parents would host a courting party as women from across the land would come and look for marriage. Minho said he couldn't marry anyone, yet he was too young and it was too quick for him. 

Right now, you and Minho were in the garden looking at the precious animals he loved so much. 

"This is my kitty all the way from faraway lands," he showed you one of his cats. They were very pretty you thought kind of like Minho. You blinked at the thought of the prince trying to push those feelings away. 

Looking back at the cat you noted how fluffy they were with their large blue eyes as it cuddled in Minho arms. 

"Oh, I've seen these but they're still rare," you commented looking at the small creature. His eyes sparkled looking at the cat as it cuddled in his arms. 

"May I," you asked wanting to hold the small creature. He eyed you for a second and nodded passing the small creature gently. Picking up the cat you smiled at how warm and fluffy it was.

"This kitten is adorable," you commented looking at it sit in your lap. 

Minho let out a tiny grin as he gazed at the cat and you. His eyes flickering as you let the cat grab at your finger. 

"You're adorable," he blurted out suddenly.

You straighten your back at the comment looking at him curiously. Your stomach twisted at the words "prince you shouldn't say those things," you commented at the fact. The tension rose the more he didn’t answer you.  

He didn't respond but with a kiss. You were stunned at the kiss not moving to feel his lips attached to yours. Eyes widen to see Minho delicately press his lips on you. 

Your eyes fluttered closed at the kiss as you smoothly kissed back. It was soft and needy but as fast as it came it left. Pulling away your eyes widen to look at the prince his eyes were staring at the ground in reflection. 

"I should go," you spoke taking the kitten and handed it to Minho he mumbled a light thank you. Quickly as ever, you left the garden running back inside the castle. 

Ever since the kiss you and Minho, there was a distance between the two of you. Only formally addressing one another and keeping the small talk at a minimum. You did miss him dearly, but you didn’t want to push the prince into anything he was going to get in trouble for. And kissing a servant was something he would get in trouble for.

Right now, you were running around for Chan. He was the main prince and it seemed nothing for him was done recently. 

You had to clean his clothing, go out and buy him more ink and paper for his stuff all while still juggling Minho needs like his practice and meetings. It's been so much you haven't seen much of Minho. He didn't really come looking for you either. 

With a sigh, you walked into Chan's office with arms full of paper. "Here's the paper you asked for," you said putting it down on the side table. 

He thanked you for your handwork. "Please sit I know it’s a walk from the ground floor to here," he grinned gesturing toward the leather couch in the room. 

"I really shouldn't," you mumbled looking at the attractive place to sit. 

"No please I would feel bad if you didn't," he said. 

But before you could sit you felt someone enclose your wrist. "Chan stealing my servant again I see," Minho smooth voice told you. 

Chan leaned back on his chair "just a little she's so efficient," he said. 

Minho rolled his eyes "yeah I know that's why she’s mine," he said smoothly. His words of ‘mine’ filled your mind. Pulling you out the room you felt Minho go towards his room. 

"What are you doing," you asked stopped in the hallway. It was always quiet in the prince’s area. 

"So, you're spending your time with Chan now," Minho accused. 

Rolling your eyes, you glanced at his hold on your wrist firm but still gentle. "I was helping him like he requested," you explained. This was the first time since you've been so direct with Minho in a week or so. 

"He's not your prince I am," he said weakly his small eyes widen and his handsome face slightly defeated. "You're," he paused looking at you. 

"I'm your what servant Minho," you spoke fiercely back wanting to just argue with him. Wanting to have that causal back and forth once again. 

Without words, you both came after each other for a final kiss. You just disregarded the rules and just kissed him. He pressed your back against the wall as he kissed you. It was a slow needy kiss you didn't know how much you've missed him until you didn't have him. 

Kissing him felt amazing it was filled with so much need. Pulling away from you softly breathed noting how amazing the prince felt against you. "You're," he paused "mine," he breathed. 

Processing the words, you stopped looking down reminding yourself what you were "We really can’t," you whispered with a serious tone.

"Why we know we feel this," he bites back. You couldn't even argue that after being near Minho for almost a year at this point you've grown close. From the annoying way, he would always argue back to his love of animals to the way he was passionate about his royal manners. Long days and nights with him caused the feeling to grow deep.

“You haven’t been my servant for the last month you’ve been my companion,” he said with passion. You felt your body fill with joy and your body buzz with happiness at the word. Companion. You couldn’t deny you were at this point. The talking, the teasing the playful looks.

Without words, he leaned in to steal a kiss from you. You gladly accepted the kiss.

Kissing him slowly back you enjoyed it wanting him so bad after all this time. Pulling away you gazed up at him “We shouldn't do this out here," you mumbled shyly knowing you were out in the open. He agreed pulling you toward his room. 

The moment you guys were in the privacy of his room he quickly locked the door making sure no one could barge in. The familiar room of his was large and spacious. The colors of deep brown wood and clean reds. Minho pushed you gently against the wall again as his hands roamed your body. 

"I've wanted you for so long," he said in a husky manner as his lips went to your neck to kiss it and mark it. 

“I’ve wanted you to prince,” you moaned back at the feeling of his teeth attacking your neck.

Deep inside you knew this was wrong but you didn’t care at this point. The prince wanted you and you wanted him.

Feeling him grab your hand he led you to his spacious bed. He looked magnificent. His dark hair clean yet messy he looks so alluring with his legs spread out his hands behind him. "Come," he mumbled patting his lap. 

"With pleasure," you grinned placing yourself nicely into his lap. The moments like these were priceless you thought. Coming from stealing his stuff to kissing him what time does to the heart. Kissing him, sitting on his bed being his equal for a moment in time. 

His eyes were so full of love and want as he gazed at you. "I want you so bad," he mumbled knowing he wanted to have you but couldn't. 

"We can't,” you said reaching for his hair running your fingers through it. Like you thought it was course yet still soft. Minho let out a hum from the feeling of your nails in his hair.

"I agree," he mumbled knowing that you both couldn't yet give each other fully yet. The probability of getting pregnant was too high at the moment. 

“But we can do other things,” you hummed brushed his shirt wanting it off already.

Before you knew it, he shifted you more directly on his lap your legs folding under you so you could sit comfortably. "Take this off," he lightly mumbled at the dress you were wearing. "I can't wait to get you out of these servant clothes," he said. "I can dress you in golds and silks." The double meaning of his words causes your heart to race with want. 

Raising your arms above your head you let him slip the thin dress over your head. He was gentle and needy as he touched across your body. His attentive touches driving you wild. 

“Can I,” you asked wanting his shirt to be off as well. Giving you a short cute nod, you helped him take off his silk shirt revealing his chest. He was chiseled and strong.

You moved your hands against his chest enjoying his strong chest.

Moving your hips against his in want. He let out a small moan from your movement. Capturing you in another kiss you grabbed your face to steady yourself as his hands laid across your thighs and ass. 

“You like,” he chuckled at how you were touching him.

You could already feel him growing under you from just kissing him. "You're so excited," you commented at how aroused he was already. 

"Mmh, of course, you're amazing," he praised you. 

Grinning at the words at how amazing it felt to be praised. "My prince praising a servant," you teased out staring at his deep eyes. 

Rolling his neck, he sighed "you know you're more than that," he said in a teasing tone "you're my equal the best equal I’ve met," with that he gave you another open mouth kiss. The heat of his mouth driving you insane.

Moving your hips against his you felt his erection moving against your center. "ah," you moaned in the kiss feeling his body against yours. His erection hitting your clothed center ever so nicely. You felt so close to him in this position all you wanted was him. 

Releasing the kiss, you let out a moan in pleasure. "You feel so good against me," he let out a throaty moan. 

The more you moved the more pleasure built up in your body. Your skin was so warm as you clung to Minho neck to steady yourself. His erection even through clothing was causing you so much pleasure. 

Shifting a moan, you heard Minho gentle lust filled voice say, "please come for me." "Come on I want to see that angelic face filled with pleasure," his words egging you on. 

With those words a few moments later, you came on his lap. The moment shaking your body to the core. Gripping Minho tighter you whimpered feeling him rut against you for another moment. His erection so warm and needy against you.

“Come on join me my prince,” you whispered to him. He let out a moan his handsome face twisting in pleasure as he came.

Holding on to one another you blushed at the realization of what you just did.

Feeling Minho shift you off his lap and into his bed lightly. Putting your hands over your face in embarrassment seeing Minho sweaty and still needy.

“Aw, that’s adorable,” he commented. Laying on the bed he sighed wrapping his arm around you. In the comfort of his large bed, you fell asleep.

Waking up you realized it was already morning time in the kingdom. The sun already rising in the horizon ready to fill the room. Soon the servants will come in to check on the prince. Unwrapping his arm from around you with shame you got up. 

"Y/n where are you going," he hummed realizing you were getting up. 

"Um it's almost morning I should be going," you responded looking at your barely clothed body. Shyly you tried to get up, but his strong arm still captured you. You knew he wasn’t supposed to do this he was breaking so many rules, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was you.

"No, stay with me," he hummed pulling you close to him. Sighing in defeat you let your eyes wander to his soft face. He had a calm look as he slowly went back to sleep. 

"I know I'm handsome but watching me is a little much," he mumbled smirking. 

"Oh, don't get cocky Mr. Y/n you're so pretty," you mimicked what he said last night. 

Rolling over on his stomach peaked out at you "I wasn't lying," he grinned once again. You didn't know what was to come from kissing the prince. You blushed remembering the other stuff you did together. All you knew was the prince didn't regret it and you didn't either. 

[dgennk]

Undertale: Saving Dreemurrs - Halloween

NOTICE: [I just wanted to write something and post it, to get back into writing. I’m working on an AU for Undertale, cause that’s captured my heart since January, and I just wanted to get my toe wet on something silly. Why Halloween? Cause I had some white Reese’s when I was thinking this up. Maybe I’ll rewrite it for Halloween this year? Anyway, thank you for reading, any constructive criticism would be helpful.]  Friday October 31st, Halloween. 

Within the Underground, this date held no special worth, just another day to live for the next. On the surface however, this date marked a special occasion. As the sun would set, children and adults alike would leave their homes, adorned in costumes for one goal. 

Sugar rush inducing, cavity spawning, sweet candy. 

Sour, bitter, tooth-rotting sweet. Candies and confections were prepared and bought for costumed humans of the night.

Today this tradition held strong, especially with the inclusion of monsters that once called the Underground their home.

This could be merrily seen within the Dreemurr abode, as its children returned from hours of trick-or-treating. Four children scrambled into HOME with pillow cases filled to bursting with sugary delights.

“Your outerwear, children!” their trailing guardian, Toriel, reminds as she shuts the door behind her. 

“Yes mom!” “Got it!” and “Yes, Ms. Toriel!” choired the children, closely followed with the shuffle of clothing. Scarves and jackets, tossed at the basket beside the second entryway, the act hardly slowed their rush.

With a skip into the foyer, Frisk kicks off his final boot and breaks for the right hall. “Last in trades free!”

“Huh?” Asriel gasps while MK lets out an indignant ‘Dood!’ Only for them to be left behind by the other human child.

Chara cackles, their foam forked tail wiping as they turned the corner.

The two boys scramble to give chase, neither willing to part with their treasured trove.

Toriel hummed as she hung her snaily shawl a step from the door. A light thud had her eyes flutter but the bleat that proceeded drew a knowing smile. “Perhaps,” she muses, “I should unveil it a tad earlier.” Her smile grew. 

“That wasn’t fair,” mumbled Asriel, sitting at the center circle mat, sack of candy buried in his lap. He rubbed his snout, slightly bruised from his fumble.

“Come on dude, don’t be sore,” Mk laughed beside him, his candy sack untied from his chest.  “Your mom’s dress was just too long!”

“I needed it for my costume!” proclaimed the prince fervently. He threw his arms around his bag and dug his face deep. It worked in tandem with his wide-brim green hat to obscure his downcast look. “And, it’s a robe, not a dress.” 

“But like,” MK began, a brow risen with a perplexed twist of the snout. “Could have made it shorter.”

“That,” chimed Chara with a playful smile, reclined on the far right bed. “Wouldn’t be authentic.”

A groan escaped the hidden boss monster. “Chara, please stop teasing.”

The jester’s smile grew. “Okay, Az.” Bells jingled with their chuckle. 

Frisk tapped his painted chin in thought, face turned up for the starry-blue ceiling. He hummed and nodded then headed for the down prince. “I change my mind,” he leans down, while reaching a blue hand into his right pocket.

“Hm? Frisk?” The prince peered up.

“Here,” The child placed a treat on Asriel’s bag. A blackish ball, about the size of a doughnut hole, with ovid sprinkles topped on its shell. It was inside a clear twist wrapper, no labels to be seen.

“Where did we get those?” Chara mumbled aloud, with a lean to peer over.

A small smile came over Asriel’s mostly shaded visage as he accepted the gift. “Thanks Frisk.” He opened the wrapping, it was hard and didn’t smell much like anything. He still appreciated it all the same. He slipped it between his teeth and took a small crunch to it.

His reaction was a bit of a surprise to the others watching. 

Chara paused to stare, wide-eyed. Their brother had taken to the candy well. No, that was an understatement. The boss monster moaned in delight, holding his cheeks as whatever piece of confectionery in his mouth seemed to overload his senses. She couldn’t help but twist her head at Frisk, only to stare, numb from his expression. His eyes gleamed scarlet in the shadow of his hair, a telling smile etched onto his face. “... Frisk?”

“Azz, dood,” MK calls, “WHAT is that?”

The boss monster only groaned before turning his head with a bob. “Oh,” he muttered lightly, his voice muffled somewhat. “It's greht, like moh’s pie, but,” he pauses to savor the taste on his tongue. “It's tahfy!”

“Eh?”

“Hey Asriel!” the rubber-clad Dreemurr smiled wider. “You can have more if you want!!” 

“Critical hit!” Chara grunted.

“You ghot more?!” Asriel bursts to his feet, his own candy forgotten to the floor. 

Hook. The thin smile on Frisk’s face had blossomed into a face-splitting grin. “Yeah, a dozen if you wanna trade!”

“Oh,” pauses Asriel, “Righht! Uhm… Do you have sohmethhing in mihnd?”

Line! “Well…” he draws it out before clicking his teeth. “How many of those big Reese's do you have?!”

DEVIL! Chara screams internally.

“Oh, those,” Asriel smiles brightly. “Papyrus and Undyne were giving out the really big stuff, they gave me 5. I think they were… jumbo?” he trailed, unsure and flustered. He hadn’t really read the packages at the time. He perked quick though, beaming. “You can have them! If you want?”

“Yes! Yeah!!” Frisk chirps while pulling a white bag from his candy sack. With palpable eagerness he presents it forward to the prince, only for both to stumble. A blur swooped between and snatched it, leaving the two at a loss!

Chara’s glower twinkled, standing high on the bed parallel to the other. “You sneak!” she accuses. “No one gave us these on our route! Where did you get them?”

Frisk’s brows pulled down with his angry expression. “You can’t take my trade candy! Give it back!”

“You had these since the start, didn’t you!?” Chara ignored Frisk’s demand and instead placed the bag behind their back, their other hand pointed at the miffed blue munchkin.

“N-No I didn’t!” protested Frisk.

“You’re a bad liar!” She giggled angrily in retort.

“Come on guys!” MK yawned at them. “Let’s just start eating candy already!”

Frisk whips his hand out to point at Chara, squinted eyes burning red hot, “Not until Chara lets me get my Jumbo Recess!”

“Your Jumbo Recess?!” Chara repeated with a haughty laugh. “You knew I was going to trade for them! I always trade with Asriel!”

Now the youngest Dreemur pulls back, arms crossed over their chestplate. “I didn’t forget! I got something for you too!” he ends in a huff.

“Wait, what?” blinked Chara.

“I was gonna trade for your Rice Krispie Treats with this!” he finds and reaches into his candy-sack. After a shuffle he takes a deeper reach inside and withdraws an oval shaped treat, just a few inches shorter than his face, covered in a clear wrinkled wrapping.

Chara was speechless, arms falling slack.

“Where did you get that giant egg! Is that chocolate?!” Mk was right by it, looking over the super-sized egg thing.

“I got it from the store,” Frisk started with a matter-of-fact tone. “It was pretty hollow but mom helped me put cream inside, so it’s like those egg things you get from dad.”

“Cadbury... Eggs.” Chara slowly corrects. Realization struck her brain. Frisk and mom had made this for them. 

Her heart swelled in the chest, rosy cheeks now venetian despite the grey paint. “Hey…” She couldn’t look Frisk in the eyes. “Sorry.”

“Trade this for your Rice Krispies and we good!” the boy gave a thumbs up.

“Sheesh,” Chara smiled, and reached for the bag she dropped. “I get it, I get it.” She didn’t meet a paper bag, instead her hands landed upon something fuzzy. She blinked and looked down.

Asriel was draped over his bed. Where the bag once was, his head was now. His green hat now on the floor, forgotten. He was chewing groggily, half-lidded eyes gazing at nothing in particular while a large mass of stringy, sticky taffy laid within his maw. Wrappers with nothing inside laid all over the bed. The bag was on the floor now, torn open.  

Frisk grinned.

MK laughed.

Chara groans.

“...Uh?” Asriel tried to speak, however, the tough candy made it embarrassingly difficult.

“Hey dude!” Mk, popped in front of Frisk excitingly. “You got something big you can trade me?!”

“Fufufu!” The child laughs in the manner of a hero. He turned to Chara and handed them the monster of a creme egg. Then, he turned around and walked to his sack, shrouding it from prying eyes.

MK waited with a held breath as the human slowly rose, his arms held before him but close to hide what laid in his hands. 

“Are you ready for this?” Frisk asked anonymously. He didn’t need to look back, he could feel the intensity of MK’s nods. He could hear the whisper of their draft. “Then get ready…

For the dragon!!”

“YOOOOOO!” Frisk had unveiled a stupidly thick gummy in the crude shape of a dragon head, about the size of, again, Frisk’s face.

“Where did you get these?” Chara balked.

Frisk closed eyes glinted and presented the gummy head with one hand and pointed at the star-struck monster. “For your ring pops, I’ll give you this! Deal?”

MK had like 8 of those. 

“Deal!”

With the transaction concluded, Frisk happily handed the massive wyrm head to the monster who lifted it with his maw alone.

“Fris-” Before Chara could repeat her question, a knock came at the door, drawing all the children’s attention.

A laugh came as the door knob was turned. “I’m sorry to interrupt in on the fun-oh!” Toriel paused, seeing the state of the four. “I can see you’ve already begun trading. Well, I have to ask you to finish your candy for the time being.”

“Uh?” MK whines, gummy the size of a fist in his mouth. “Ow cooh?”

She couldn’t help her excitement. “Well, It was for the party later this evening, but I had so many ingredients I made a second chocolate pumpkin and snail pie!” she clapped. “I thought we could share that between ourselves before the rest arrive.” 

The looks on Chara and Asriel’s faces would always confuse Frisk. Pumpkin and chocolate sounded good but they had a feeling there would be more snail out of the three.

“Hael?” MK questioned. 

Asriel was first on his feet this time, a blur of rainbow met everyone in the room as he dashed out first.

“H-Hey! Wait Asriel!” Chara leapt after them. And MK soon followed after, though with far less enthusiasm than before. This left Toriel and Frisk.

The Boss Monster could only be amused by her child’s expression. She reaches out her hand. “Do not worry,” she gave a wink. “I had made a slice with no snails for yourself.”

And with that Frisk beams, racing for their mother and gripping her hand tight. They were all-but dragging her out now, a toothy smile on their face.

Toriel laughed, “my, my.” And closed the door behind them, to go enjoy a treat with her children.

[freewheelen]

1 YEAR REVIEW: 2018 Harley-Davidson Softail Low Rider (Sofia)

Whenever I read or watch motorcycle reviews, I can’t help but notice a heavy reliance on spec sheets. And I get it, approaching a subjective review of a product with an objective data set certainly helps set the playing field for all competing models. However, this post isn’t about the latest electric naked bike that just hit the market or the revamped scrambler that is being hyped as “game-changing”. This post is about my daily rider.

With that in mind, I could dwell on the dual-bending valve Showa forks, or my high-flow S&S air cleaner, or the 102 ft lbs of torque that the Milwaukee 8 engine produces. But bragging about your bike’s specs is like plastering a “Proud Parent of an Honor Student” on your bumper or boasting about how attractive your significant other is. They’re used to favorably reflect on you, not reflect how that person - or in this case, motorcycle - makes you feel. Sure, your girlfriend could be model material but if she treats you like shit, why does her “hotness” matter, right?

So I’m not going to take that approach in this review. Instead of flooding you with figures on compression rates, length of suspension travel, or lean angle**, I’m going to explain how all of those things contribute to the feeling she gives me. 

**Please see the stock spec sheet here (if it interests you)

I purchased my Low Rider in April of 2018. I had to trade in my Sportster Iron 883 - which was heartbreaking for me at the time (see the story here) - but it was well worth the sacrifice. From the moment I rolled her off the lot, I knew I made the right decision. 

She handled better than the Sporty. She accelerated WAY faster than the 883. And most importantly, she braked lightyears beyond the Iron.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: 

I don’t want to know if it’s better than a Sportster, I want to know whether it’s a good purchase.

But I think it’s important for me to establish the bike I originally owned and how that shaped my assessment of the FXLR, and the first place I noticed an improvement was in the suspension. 

The combination of Showa forks up front and the monoshock out back puts Harley’s past suspension offerings to shame. For 650 lbs., the bike feels responsive and surprisingly nimble. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the bike dives into corners and I’ve definitely put that feature to use. But the fork not only allows you to attack the twisties, but it also does a great job of keeping the rubber to the road. The wheel hop of the Sportster: eliminated. If you’re debating whether you should buy a new Softail, I could easily make a case with the upgraded forks alone, but that’s just the front suspension, you still have the brilliant monoshock in the rear. 

While the fork provides improved handling, the rear suspension grants a new level of comfort. Those potholes no longer send shocks through my spine. Those railroad tracks no longer make my teeth click. Those road irregularities no longer buck my girlfriend off the seat. And if there’s any barometer of rear suspension performance, it’s your old lady’s ass...and mine loves the FXLR. But comfort isn’t the best feature of the monoshock, the stability it provides is. I’ve hit 120 mph twice on the Low Rider thus far, and the stability of the bike never faltered. The speed wobbles of the Dyna: eliminated. Are you noticing a theme here yet?

But don’t get me wrong, the suspension isn’t perfect. There’s no adjustability in the front and the rear doesn’t give you dampening or rebound settings. Also, you have to remove the seat to adjust the monoshock. Unless you’re planning on carrying a flathead screwdriver on you, I wouldn’t set my heart on changing the preload on the fly. 

Now, I should note that I plan on upgrading to Ohlin’s suspension (front & rear) in the future, but the stock setup would be sufficient for 90% of those looking for a Harley. 

Ultimately, the OEM suspension makes me feel grateful. Grateful for the safety it provides. Grateful for the responsiveness it adds to such a massive bike. Grateful that I get comfort and performance right out of the box!

Which leads me directly to the heart of the Low Rider, the Milwaukee 8 motor.

It shakes less. It runs cooler. It pulls harder (through all 6 gears). Compared to the Twin Cams I’ve ridden, the M8 outshines them in every way. To be honest, you’ll probably need to regulate your own speed if you buy a new Softail because they’re most comfortable at 85-90 mph. Every time I ride on the highway, I hit 100 mph at least once (unintended and intended). There have been many times where I unconsciously hit 70 mph on surface streets! 

On the flipside, the M8 is very particular when it comes to modifications. My tuner/mechanic has told me that finding the right configuration of parts is crucial to any performance upgrades you install on the new mill. Luckily, I had some guidance, but if you’re considering customizing your Milwaukee 8, I suggest consulting a professional - or at the very least read some forum boards - before you slap on any old exhaust or fuel manager. 

On the note of fuel management, if you want to maintain the maximum range (200+ miles per tank), leave the engine in stock form. After my numerous mods, I’m lucky if I can squeak out 150 miles between fill-ups. I’d be lying if I said I regret sacrificing those additional 50 miles per tank - because Sofia absolutely rips - but it’s something you should weigh before buying or upgrading an M8.

 If I had to express how the engine makes me feel, I’d say it makes me feel spoiled. Spoiled by all that torque. Spoiled that she pulls through all 6 gears. Spoiled that I get the power of a Harley without all the shaking or heat.

Now, we’ve been dwelling on speed up to this point, but if you’re planning on going fast, you have to be able to stop as well...

When it comes to the brakes, I have to caveat that I ride my Low Rider harder than most Harleys are intended. I currently need new rotors, pads, lines (braided), and a master cylinder rebuild because I’ve run the brakes into the ground. 

Though the front end is only outfitted with a single disc, the bite of the 4-piston calipers really help to slow down the 650 lbs. of the Low Rider. While the front brake lever loses feel over time - due to the rubber brake lines - it easily retains the forceful braking of those 4-pot calipers. However, the same can’t be said of the rear caliper, which lacks any responsiveness and is downright mushy. 

Most riders say that the front brakes provide 70% of your stopping power while the rear covers the remaining 30%. On the FXLR, that ratio is more like 90/10. But in the end, you’re riding a Harley, and Harleys have never been known for their braking components. Now, that’s by no means an excuse, but if you’ve ridden a Harley before, your expectations are already set appropriately. If not, good luck! 

With the vague feel of the rear pedal and the diminished responsiveness of the front lever over time, I’d say that the brakes make the bike feel sketchy. But hey, you’re riding a chopper, baby! Sketchiness is part of the package.

In the end, if I had to do it all over again, I would buy the Low Rider every time. The bike outperforms every Harley I’ve ever ridden and it’s one of the most aesthetically versatile platforms under HD. You can go Club Style, Bobber, Chopper. Hell, I’ve even seen Scrambler and Cafe Racer M8 Softails. It’s for that reason, that I didn’t cover the design of the Low Rider. I think my bike is the perfect example of the FXLR being a blank canvas for you to customize yourself. 

Now the only question left is: when are you upgrading?

[thesinglesjukebox]

LADY GAGA - STUPID LOVE

[6.42]

Far from "Shallow" now...

Brad Shoup: Thudding sixteenths and vocal chop straight out of a Todd Edwards remix... it's always great when she visits. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: It must be exhausting to be Lady Gaga. Here's a short list of her accomplishments since 2013's ARTPOP: winning a Grammy for a jazz duets album, winning a Golden Globe for her role in American Horror Story, headlining the Super Bowl, co-hosting arguably the best Met Gala in years, winning an Oscar for A Star is Born, getting a number one Billboard single from the soundtrack, launching a vegan make-up line, and starring in a Las Vegas residency. And yet, the dominant critical narrative has still essentially been: Gaga is absent from pop music. (For comparison, Katy Perry has been a judge on American Idol.) Of course, her self-mythologizing is partially to blame for this, but it's unclear what could have possibly satisfied her critics and die-hard fans outside of re-reinventing music à la 2010. So what's her move given the weight of the world's impossible expectations? To make simple, unpretentious pop music on her own terms. In a recent Billboard interview, she laughed while stating, "I would like to put out music that a big chunk of the world will hear, and it will become a part of their daily lives, and make them happy every single day." My first reaction upon reading this was: yes, we should hold Gaga to a higher standard because she's Gaga, but how can we balance that with the potentially damaging effects for her mental health and sanity? So on "Stupid Love" when she sings, "Now it's time to free me from this chain/I gotta find that peace, is it too late?" I like to hope it's meta-commentary on her rediscovering the joy in her music and being, free of expectation. Gaga tracks are often described as "huge" or "epic", but none has ever so perfectly embodied "fun." I'm definitely excited about how this track sounds -- an ebullient return to her earliest disco pop roots, at a time when radio is dominated by trap -- but "Stupid Love" stands out to me because of her embrace of radical self-love. This is the Gaga that I've always loved -- and she's always been enough. [9]

Leah Isobel: The production filters back an entire decade's worth of Stefani's influence into a three-minute Fruit Gusher burst of tang, but the lyrics are decidedly forward-looking, all declarative statements of "now is the time!" bullshit. In the middle of this past/present/future time-play, as the beat drops out beneath her, she asserts the key line: "all I ever wanted was lahv." If it's a disappointingly shallow retcon for an artist whose initial breadth and ambition was the entire point, the promise of it lingers in my brain. After all, it's not too far from a similar pop megalomaniac realizing that she "traded fame for love without a second thought" about 20 years ago. That rich vein of popstar self-examination writ large is so suited to Gaga's talents as an artist -- a provocateur, fake-deep philosopher, musical theatre nerd, and hook-writing master all at once -- that I have listened to this song five times in a row pretty much every single day since it, uh, appeared on the internet. My paws are reluctantly up, Stef. Don't fuck it up. [7]

Jessica Doyle: Fun, and otherwise unremarkable. If you've been a Gaga fan for a while -- if you're invested in the narrative of this hardworking woman, who has been through downs and ups and downs and then ups again -- I imagine the fun is enhanced by a certain comfort and relief in seeing her have fun; in imagining her feeling strong and secure enough to release a fun song that doesn't have to upend anything. But I am a heartless, acontextual consumer, for whom the marginal cost of listening to something else is zero, and I miss "Bad Romance." [5]

Tobi Tella: For an artist who at her peak overstuffed everything with too many ideas, there's really not much happening here. It's loud and upbeat, sure, but the lyrics are barely the thread of a coherent song, and the production reminds everyone who wants "pure" pop to come back to be careful what they wish for. Maybe that A Star is Born "pop music bad guitar music good" cynicism rubbed off too much? [4]

Katherine St Asaph: Just when I thought Gaga was lost to the land of Real Music™, or worse, flailing attempts to be chill by the least chill performer in pop music (yes, including Taylor Swift), she goes and releases this, 50,000 firecrackers on a Eurovision stage. The thicket of hooks is packed, with Black Midi levels of referential density. The whole thing sounds like "Born This Way," which is to say it sounds like "Express Yourself"; there's a juddering sequencer out of "Do What U Want" (reminds me more of "Weekend" by Class Actress, but which is more likely to be the actual inspiration?) and a touch of, of all things, September's "Cry For You." Gaga fills every crevice of the song with singing, throaty and belty and huge: a relief after years of songs filled only with half-assed #vibes. If it feels frivolous against much of Born This Way and The Fame Monster and some of Artpop, and far less ambitious, it at least pulls her out of the "Shallow" piano muck. [7]

Vikram Joseph: Perhaps a stupid song about making stupid choices is the Lady Gaga lead single we both need and deserve in 2020. The battering-ram synths feel like running down a hill into a gale-force wind; the best thing about "Stupid Love" is that Gaga sounds like she's having a lot of fun, and by extension so are we. [7]

Alex Clifton: "Stupid Love," much like "Born This Way" before it, is ready-made for pride parades, grown from the same mystical lab that gave Lady Gaga her incredible melodic sensibilities. Unlike its predecessor, though, it has more euphoria in it, presumably because it's not making a political point. Gaga's more focused on having fun here, and you can tell. The verses aren't my favourite, but the chorus hits as an overwhelming rush of dopamine, and now I can't stop dancing in my computer chair. Between this and Dua Lipa's album, we're in for a hell of a good time for pop music this spring, and I am extremely excited. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: She was doing this better a decade ago. A lot better. [2]

Joshua Lu: The narrative surrounding "Stupid Love" regards it a return to the Pop Gaga that's been mostly absent since 2013: A revival if you're a fan, a regression if you're not. The issue with this narrative is that "Stupid Love" lacks any key similarities to the Gaga of yesteryear; the only real sonic link is how the bassline brings to mind the since-redacted "Do What U Want" beat. Instead we have something that's somehow not a Kygo song, with vocal chirps that got old last year, serviceable but clichéd hooks (the entire pre-chorus has all the charm of a Taio Cruz album track), remarkably basic lyrics filled with platitudes, and a title that has no bearing on anything in the song -- there's nothing lyrically or aurally stupid about anything here, and Gaga has shown a deep capacity to be stupid in her past pop works. In reality, what we have here isn't a return to anything, but rather the continued flagging of Gaga's desire to develop genuinely off-beat or interesting pop music, whether intentional or not. Gaga's talents as a vocalist elevate the song beyond the usual pop pap, but it's not nearly at the level I once hoped she could remain at. [6]

Alfred Soto: Kudos to Jamieson Cox for catching an obvious forebear: the rattling sequencer recalls 2013's forgotten "Do What U Want," which was all set to do some business until radio programmers remembered R. Kelly had been a menace for years. Amiably confusing lack of affect with simplicity, "Stupid Love" flexes its pop strength with the expectation that fans will admire it. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The synths pack a punch but they never quite get me to where I should be. I wanna feel desperation, exasperation -- that love is worth looking stupid for. All I get is a familiar, quasi-stoic performance that sounds like Gaga's doing some excellent karaoke. [4]

Kayla Beardslee: Sure, it's competent, but Gaga is capable of so much more. Many other blurbs will discuss the song's aggressive datedness and bland lyrics, but what really bothers me is that the two halves of "Stupid Love" -- the dramatic vocals and the unrelenting gallop of the synths -- don't fit together. Gaga is giving her all with those signature "laahv"s, but there's just not enough empty space left for her in the production. Her performance ends up laying flat on top of the track, adding nothing except a sense of laziness from her producers and engineers. [5]

Pedro João Santos: Serviceable Max Martin bopathon scams its way into my brain again -- no matter how direly in need of an incubator this whole structure is. Gaga's weakest lead single feeds you Kygo, threatens to ascend during "All I ever wanted was love", and still can't fight the aura of afterthought. [6]

Jibril Yassin: "Stupid Love" is a giddy rush of EDM-pop fun, but it's the first time experiencing a major Gaga single entirely devoid of surprises. Bracing yourself for a twist that never arrives or a strange turn of vocals rearing its head from nowhere, "Stupid Love" makes up for its unremarkableness with a masterclass in songwriting. What Lady Gaga hasn't forgotten how to do is translate the feeling of having your initial gut feelings completely validated. "Stupid Love" makes its magic in casting the act of love as necessary and dare I say it -- radical. [7]

Jackie Powell: On "Stupid Love" Lady Gaga achieved a corollary. By trying to put her healing process into simple poetry, she also created an accompanying sound that's comparable to an analgesic. The function of the track is to heal and liberate. (Truth be told, Little Monster or not, the song has helped me get out of bed in the morning.) Gaga's latest cut is packaged into a familiar formula, and that's part of the reason why this track serves as a formidable lead single and symbol for the upcoming Chromatica. The equation is one that mirrors the "best of" Stefani Germanotta. What's brilliant about "Stupid Love" is that its visual and lyrical messaging and surrounding sonic arrangement and melody bring what Little Monsters and casual music fans with a Gaga fascination expect. And that's okay. She has told Oprah that her goal now isn't just to shock people but rather to exude authenticity. She stirs elements from all of her pop eras into the most hearty and flavourful version of Gaga soup (and that does include Joanne contrary to popular belief.) Each ingredient works and is soluble. She tossed in the elements of the The Fame that made fans want to Just Dance and sprinkled some catchy Swedish-sounding pop melodies (Max Martin, hello!) and sung onomatopoeia from The Fame Monster, à la the "hey-ah, hey-ahs." A suspenseful build, uniquely potent and soaring vocals are ounces of Born This Way. Don't worry, ARTPOP is doused on this track not only in color, but in sound. There's a reason why that sped up "Do What U Want"-esque bassline works. There's a contrast between her bright vocal performance and the electronic bass' darkness. Joanne comes across in the allegorical concept which once again can be interpreted to reflect the current American experience. Music video director Daniel Askill confirmed that Gaga wanted to portray the "warring tribes as a metaphor for the state of the world today." So, Mother Monster is on a mission to introduce the world to her new brainchild, ever-developing ideologies and honest ways to examine life. "Stupid Love" isn't the end-all but merely the beginning. Paws up and welcome to Chromatica bitches. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: NOPE! WAIT. wait. This is actually a welcome back for... the bass, who is joined by his drumming sister, his synth bros and Lady Gaga, who has come here from the Make A Wish Foundation to take him around New York. They have a wonderful day together, with the synth bros getting their percussive background vocal girlfriend an NYPD hoodie, and the experience convinces Lady Gaga to make bright, happy pop music again! (The bass, in the midst of a happy dance, got hit by her limo and had to go back to the hospital.) [8]

Scott Mildenhall: Between its hyperventilating over-excitement and ever-exciting hyper-sincerity, Gaga seems to have finally created a pop emergency. The false alarm of "Applause" was overstuffed and underpowered, but "Stupid Love" redresses that balance by going harder and clearer, like a newly thawed cut from a cryogenically frozen, course-correcting Artpop Monster edition. Time might seem to have turned in on itself, but no: the greater lyrical directness arrives in a way that feels culminatory. The plainspokenness of that indelible "all I ever wanted was love" makes it almost an epitaph, grounding it in a present in which all experience has been lived, and all realisations are realised. Undeniably, Lady Gaga is not dead, but this is what she knows. [8]

Will Adams: I defended "The Cure" and lamented the immense pressure on Gaga to make every release the Next Big Thing, however even that soured when it turned out to be part of A Star Is Born's ~superficial pop~ world. So where to next, when she's caught between turgid rock balladry and ill-fitting trop-pop? On "Stupid Love," we get the best possible outcome: whizzing past Joanne, making a brief stop at Artpop but ultimately landing on the dazzling excess of Born This Way. Like any good synthpop number, the synths display a wide range of textures: they tunnel, they drill, they poof, they gleam. Gaga is more than willing to match their energy. Noteworthy, though, is that she takes a brief pause only on the pre-chorus's "all I ever wanted was love"; even the way the title scans it almost sounds like she could be singing "I want just to be loved." This is the essence of pop: amidst the big dumb fireworks display, a human message at the core. [7]

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW G1 CLIMAX 28 Day 17, Day 18 and FINAL Review (Aug 10th, 11th & 12th, Tokyo, Nippon Budokan)

Day 17 (A Block)

Togi Makabe vs. michael Elgin  ***3/4

YOSHI-HASHI vs. Hangman Page  ***1/2

Minoru Suzuki vs, Bad Luck Fale  **

EVIL vs. Jay White  ***1/4

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada  *****

Day 18 (B Block)

Toru Yano vs. Tama Tonga  *

Juice Robinson vs. Hirooki Goto  ***3/4

Tomohiro Ishii vs. SANADA  ****1/2

Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.  ****1/2

Kenny Omega vs. Kota Ibushi  *****

G1 CLIMAX 28 FINAL:

Hiroshi Tanahashi (A Block Winner) vs. Kota Ibushi (B Block Winner)  *****

Photos.

NJPW made a triumphant return to Nippon Budokan this weekend. The show on the 10th saw A Block action come to a close. This was a good show that culminated in a classic main event. Togi Makabe pinned Big Mike Elgin in a really hard hitting bout to start Block action off. This was near excellent stuff with Makabe winning with a Kong Knee in 8:46. YOSHI-HASHI used Karma to defeat Hangman Page in a very good 10:22 outing, which turned out much better than it looked on paper. Minoru Suzuki got a DQ victory over Bad Luck Fale after, yep, you guessed it, Tama Tonga ran in at 8:51 as Suzuki was going for the Gotch Piledriver, and hit Gun Stun on him. The match up to that point was pretty good, but I’m just totally done with this Firing Squad nonsense now. So too, seemingly, are the fans, one of whom threw a bottle into the ring in protest as the Tongans beat Suzuki-gun down in the post match. EVIL played spoiler to Jay White next, as after fending off chair assisted interference, he pinned Switchblade with the STO at 11:36. This was very good stuff, enhanced by the drama of if White won, he’d still be alive as a potential winner.

Then Tanahashi and Okada, the greatest wrestling rivalry of this generation, completely blew the doors off Budokan with another classic ***** battle. This was by no means their best match together, nor was it as good as their match on May 4th, but it was completely different and still a masterpiece. Also, it’s hardly a knock seeing as they’ve had some of the greatest wrestling contests ever. The thing with these guys matches together, is that they’re almost completely ‘safe’ matches. They rely on bucket loads of drama, compelling stories and just great ringwork, whilst never doing anything too overly dangerous (see: the main event of Day 18). This went the broadway, as all three of their G1 matches have, and was unbelievably dramatic, with the final 5 minutes or so being especially so. Budokan was going crazy for this, and they had them for the whole 30 minutes, with both men really hammering home the importance of what was at stake in the match, with both fighting with an added desperation. There were a load of call backs to previous classics, and it featured all of the amazing, inventive counters to their signatures spots we’ve all come to know and love from these guys’ matches. After blocking almost every big move the other have, Okada finally hit the new spinning Rainmaker, then went for another, but Tana landed a hard slap which dropped him. With the crowd solidly behind him, Tanahashi hit a HFF to the back with 10 seconds remaining, but Okada kicked at two, then went up for another as the time limit expired. The draw meant Tana took the block with a grand total of 15 points, with 8 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw, which is incredible really.

The August 11th show was one hell of a wrestling event. Things started at the bottom of the barrell as Toru Yano scored a DQ win over Tama Tonga, after the Tongan gave the referee the Gun Stun. Maij and Sugabayashi then escorted the Firing Squad out of the building. This was trash and I hope the booking with this faction changes soon. Juice Robinson pinned Hirooki Goto with Pulp Friction in 10:36 of a great little sprint. Goto came in selling the arm from the ZSJ match, playing in to their impending NEVER Title match. Juice also took the cast of before the bell rang, and the left hand was the prelude to the win. Block action commenced with three absolutley excellent matches. Firstly, Tomohiro Ishii defeated SANADA with his Vertical Drop Brainbuster in a tremendous 17 minute outing. Ishii has been the MVP of this G1 without any doubt, having consistently incredible matches, and SANADA himself had his best G1 yet. Of course Ishii is the next challenger to Omega, so he had to win here, and that he did. This was excellent, hard-hitting stuff which the sold out Budokan were white hot for. The next match was another hard-hitting white hot affair. Zack Sabre Jr. very surprisingly, though not unwelcomely defeated odds on favourite Tetsuya Naito in an exceptional wrestling contest. The story here was Naito winding ZSJ up with his laid back demeanour, Zack had a submission counter to everything Naito did, then out of a mutual frustration, both guys started stiffing each other. After some incredible counters and escapes, Zack turned a Destino into the Michinoku Driver for the shock clean pin at 18:17. I loved this match.

But not as much as the battle of the Golden Lovers main event of Day 18. Now lets get this out of the way; I thought their match together in DDT in 2012 was excellent, but by no means the GOAT. So this is a rematch of that particular classic, and is a match many thought they’d never see again. This certainly didn’t disappoint, but it was probably a very different match to what most were expecting. It didn’t have the madman moves of their 2012 outing, but what it lacked there, it made up for in them stiffing the hell out of each other, sometimes in a very uncomfortable fashion. This had the drama and emotion of the previous nights main event - with Naito eliminated, it came down to the winner of this taking the Block - but it was a much more physically intese outing. They hit about a million big moves; Kenny teased an OWA off the apron, but Ibushi tried to counter into that deadlift German into the ring, but Omega turned it into a package Tombstone on the apron. He then turned back the clocks, getting a near fall with Croyt’s Wrath. Kenny hit the Terminator Con Hilo and Kota hit the Golden Triangle, then looked like he almost killed Omega with a standing Moonsault which he landed in a double knees, which looked absolutely no fun at all to take. Kenny went for that top rope Dragon Suplex insanity, but Ibushi landed on his feet. He hit the Last Ride and Kamigoye for great near falls. Omega blocked a reverse rana with an insane reverse Ganso Bomb, hit a bunch of V-Triggers, then went for a second rope One Winged Angel, but Kota battled free and, with Omega sat on the top rope, hit a horrifying looking double stomp to the back of Kenny’s head. Ibushi then hit an ubelievable top rope Tiger Driver for an incredible nearfall, then landed another Kamigoye for the win in 23:13 of fantastic action. They embraced after the match, but its worth noting that Omega remains winless against Ibushi.

Which brought us to the finals between Tanahashi and Ibushi. The undercard of this was a profound disappointment. It wasn’t bad, everything was good, but there was nothing must-see or especially newsworthy. Until the finals. This was a blow-away match, and the best these two have ever had against each other. The drama was off the page before the bell even rang; Omega accompanied Ibushi to the ring, but seconding Tanahashi, was long time rival, Katsuyori Shibata, which gave this match an added sense of importance. They had hard strike exchanges throughout this one. There was a great spot early as Tana tried a dropkick from the floor onto the apron, but Ibushi countered with a big double stomp. Tana skinned the cat right into a package Tombstone for a near fall. The Ace started destroying Ibushi’s knees with Dragon Screws, then after sending Ibushi to the outside, Tanahashi hit an HFF to the floor. Kota would battle back though, hitting an absoulutely pefect top rope springboard Asai Moonsault. They traded Germa suplex variants, before Ibushi hit Tana with a Boma Ye. He tried a Last Ride, but Tanahashi hit that devastating Left Hand, which lead to a super intense strike battle, which culminated in Ibushi hitting his massive Lariat at Budokan went crazy.

Tanahashi got a near fall with a straight jacket German, then went for the HFF, but Ibushi got his knees up, then hit another Boma Ye to the back., and that hideous looking double knee standing Moonsault. Kota then hit that terrifying Lawn Dart into the corner pad, and the deadlift German into the ring, both of which were scary to watch, knowing how banged up Tana is. Tanahashi turned a Kamigoye into two Twist and Shouts, then hit a Dragon Suplex for a great near fall. Tana went up and hit the High Fly Flow to Ibushi's back. Tana went back up, but Ibushi fought to his feet, and Tana hit a standing HFF. He went back to the top a third time and nailed hit another High Fly Flow to win his third G1 at the 35 minute mark. This was an outstanding match, and probably my second favourite of the tourney, behind Omega/Ishii, which told a compelling, timeless story of the old gun slinger looking for one last shot at glory. After Ibushi had left the ring in tears, unable to exceed God, and Shibata paraded him around the ring on his shoulders, and Mr. August himself, Masahiro Chono, handed him the G1 trophy and flag, Tana air guitared like the Ace of old to send everyone home happy.

I don’t know if this has been the greatest G1 of all time (it has very strong competion from last years superb tourney), but this was blow away stuff. I can’t say enough good things about Tana in this thing, the guy is a rare breed, The One Man Of Talent, who despite being in a considerable amount of pain, pulls out classics like the two he had this weekend when he needs to, and I was beyond hapy to see him win the tournament. His babyface fire in that final with Ibushi was at Kobashi levels and he has to be the smartest worker in the business when it comes to mapping out these matches. Well we’re back on the road to Wrestle Kingdom, and with Tanahashi vs. Omega being the potential main event, we’re in for a hell of a ride. Go Ace!

NDT

[a-magpie-witchling]

WOOT BROKE W(b)ITCH HAUL

HEY YOU

YES YOU

ARE YOU BROKE BUT STILL WANNA PULL THE THREADS OF THE ETHER AND DEFY THE ESTABLISHED LAWS OF MAN INVOKING THE ANCIENT MAGICK?

GOOD.

You and I are gonna go S H O P P I N G

But, Semiramis! I just told you I’m broke! I can’t get nice things!

*smack*

WRONG.

The world is full of wonders, one of them being

DOLLAR STORES

Remember sweeties, a witch’s best friend is scavenging.

Open your eyes. Look around. Scout your neighborhood.

But what about the things that I can’t get out on the streets!?

That’s what we’re shopping for!

Now before we move on, close your eyes… then open them again because you need to read the rest of the message… and repeat the following mantra:

THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING BUT MYSELF.

No fancy ingredients, no pretty crystals, no expensive incenses will work better than your RAW HEART AND SOUL.

Mkay?

Now let’s go get some of that good shit.

How good?

Diz gud.

Now, it’s no mystery that a broke ass witch needs to pay a visit to the local dollar stores to get her materials every once in a while, but if you’re like me and live in a place where there are no dollar stores (and there are no dollars either) WHERE TO GO?

The answer is here:

CHINESE IMPORT STORES ARE YOUR NEW SANCTUARY.

These places are AWESOME for a witch on a budget, because they carry EVERYTHING. From toys to art supplies to kitchenware…

AND SPIRITUALITY SUPPLIES.

(That’s where we come in)

Speaking of budget, by the way. Let’s set one.

Say… $15?

FIFTEEN AMERICAN DOLLARS. I will take you home with some nice and rare goodies that will spice up your spells.

Let’s go in.

Oooh what a promising start. This here, my friends, are 25 grams of the purest coke Palo Santo wood. Don’t like it in its natural state?

They have it in incense too!

But we ain’t getting that shit. I’m allergic so I can’t burn anything scented or else I… die.

But know they’re there, as well as essential oils, and they’re quite accessi-

WHAT!?

28 BUCKS FOR A BOTTLE OF ESSENTIAL OIL!?

AIN’T NOBODY GOT CASH FO DAT

Nah I’m just kidding. This is the price in pesos, meaning that these oils are *math happens* $1.55 each!

What a D E A L

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR BECAUSE I’M SOON TEACHING YOU HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN OILS.

Also, holy shit…

You HAVE to see the candles aisle in this place.

They have them twirly

Large

Larger

The photo is not blury, you’re drunk

Scented

Scentless

Birthdayful

Oh hellooo thereee~

Twelve candles for $1.94 you say?

Meaning SIXTEEN CENTS A CANDLE?

Adopted.

Don’t let anyone tell you cheap candles don’t get the job done, people!

Plus they burn just as good.

NOW at this point the store was 10 minutes away from closing time, so I had to stop taking pictures to get my ass outta there, BUT

Here’s a look at what we got:

That doesn’t look too good, let’s add a F I L T E R

Those little crochet doilies that will serve as my new altar tablecloths? They were $0.55

But Amis! Those don’t look too witchy, more like what my grandma puts under her vases!

First of all, how dare you.

Second of all, how dare you.

Granmotherly stuff is witchy by D E F I N I T I O N. Embrace the grandma aesthetic, y’all!

Also:

If you’re poor you have to be CRAFTY. Look at that! It has a pentacle now. How long did it take? Literally 30 seconds! Imagine what we could do with a whole afternoon!

Ok, I admit it, that was a fiasco, BUT WE’RE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

Let’s take a closer look at what else we brought, shall we?

This tiny chest is 7.5 cm wide x 5.5 cm tall x 5.5 cm deep (3 in x 2.1 in x 2.1 in) and will hold my pocket altar. It was *drum roll* $1.70!

I was getting tired of using my mom’s big ass scissors to cut my tiny delicate herbs, so I got myself this pair of snips! Price: $0.55 and they’re sharper than Tom Hiddleston’s style. Plus they serve a multitude of purposes, like shanking a bitch.

A quick stop by the crystal shop that was also closing (pfft crystal shop. Sounds like out of a fantasy novel, love it) yields the following goodies:

-Onyx ($0.55)

-Fluorite ($0.27)

-Snowflake obsidian (hard to get where I live. It’s kinda pricey at $2.20. I recommend other kinds of obsidian or maybe just black glass as I’ve been using until today, it still works awesomely. I got the obsidian because I wanted to experiment with it and my Mentor recommended me to get it, same as the fluorite).

-And the CUTEST little quartz formation. This one kinda defeats the purpose because it was a bit pricey. You don’t need it; any clear quartz will work the same.  It was $4.50 and it was my guilty pleasure of the month. It also came with a free satchel that’s most certainly going to be used with magickal results in the foreseeable future.

More of it because it’s so gorgeous ♥

Back to the fluorite! That shit is large and cheap! Well, you see, it’s kinda ugly because I was part of a larger stone and broke down the middle when they were trying to perforate it to make it into a pendant.

But check this hot babe out

W O R K I T

Coming back from the imports store, I paid a visit to my pot dealer erh I mean my herbs supplier. Got myself some ginger for $0.27

AND THEN

I SAW IT

Maybe they don’t package it like this in your country, but here this little shitty capsule is worth its weight in GOLD.

Y’all know what this is?

This is SAFFRON.

Now normally I steer fucking clear of things this expensive, but when I asked my dealer I mean the vendor she said it was on sale.

This stuff LITERALLY sold by FRACTIONS OF GRAMS. In this case that’s 0.2 grams of saffron, that’s 0.007 ounces. YES. ZERO POINT ZERO ZERO SEVEN. Insert here Bond reference

Retail price? Normally around $8 per capsule (EIGHT AMERICAN DOLLARS!)

How much on sale?

TWO DOLLARS.

A tip for the broke witch: hunt down for sales. Even if you don’t use the ingredients in your spells, you can still trade them with other witches or with anyone, really.

After this I went home and decided to try out my new candles.

And as I said, if you’re poor, you gotta get crafty!

I cut one of the candles in half. A part went to my pocket altar, and the other half…

I used one of those ceramic saucers with the little erh… lower level circle in the middle?

USE CERAMIC. THIS IS IMPORTANT. IT RESISTS TEMPERATURE WELL AND YOU’RE GONNA NEED IT.

Melt the wax in the microwave or on the flame and then make sure it stays in the center of the saucer. Then take it out and wait until it cools down (or put it in the freezer if you are an impatient little shit). DO NOT LET IT SOLIDIFY COMPLETELY.

Then you take it out and use a round cookie cutter (or if you’re a cheap ass like me, find something else)

I just used the styling nozzle of my hair drying because F U K D A P O L I C E

Put it again in the freezer and once it’s completely solidified use a spatula because you, my dear witch

Just made yourself a moon wax amulet!

Engrave it with your sigils, place it on your altar, carefully soften the bottom with heat and use it as a seal, the possibilities are endless!

BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE REMNANTS!?

EVIL EYE WARD!

The rest? Melt it again or use it as a poppet in case you wanna cast a spell over an onion ring…

By the end of the day, our haul is:

-Altar cloth $0.55

-Herbs snips $0.55

-Mini-altar wooden box $1.70

-Dozen of blue candles $1.94

-Ginger root $0.27

-Satchel $0

-Snowflake obsidian $2.20

-Fluorite$ 0.27

-Onix $0.55

-Quartz crystal formation $4.50

-Saffron Capsule $2

A grand total of $14.53!

Of our budget of $15 we still have $0.47 that where I live is enough for the bus ride back home!

If we take away the unnecessarily pricey stuff (the quartz and the saffron) we got everything for $8.03!

Now if THAT’S not magick, I don’t know what is!

 SOME FINAL TIPS!

1)      REUSE as many things as you can.

2)      MOVE THOSE FEET. I know it doesn’t sound appealing, but CHECK SEVERAL PLACES. Find the best prices by checking different stores and comparing.

3)      BE CREATIVE. If you find yourself in need of something you can’t afford, think and find a way to replace it or get it through other routes. As I said, witch trading is a thing!

4)      BARGAIN. There’s no shame in it, people! If you’re dealing with independent merchants and buy regularly/are buying a lot, try to get better prices! Don’t disrespect their business, though!

5)      REMEMBER YOUR MANTRA. Witchcraft requires NOTHING. Except you.

 Now go out there and work your Magick!

-Semiramis, the Magpie Witchling

[rewolfaekilerom]

we can’t criticize grad students for being influenced by toxic academia

//NOTE: This was originally posted to Wordpress on 05.22.2021//

It’s 9:26 am as I type this. I had my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday, and I spent all of Thursday night–and into the wee hours of Friday morning–with a low-grade fever and a splitting headache. Ibuprofen helped, but I was in a fog all day yesterday. I worked, but only on tasks that I could manage–nothing too rigorous, just training and reading. I feel better today but am still a little sore under my left arm. Needless to say, I’m thankful to be (almost) fully vaccinated and to be feeling better. It’s Saturday, and I was looking forward to crocheting all day. I had no intentions of writing anything because I didn’t have much to say.

I’m 8 minutes into a 20-minute Ask a Mortician video. All of her videos are incredibly fascinating, and she seems like a real doll, but this video is an exceptionally interesting one. I happened to check Facebook, the site where dreams go to die, and I came across a post by TPII responding to an article written by a then-first-year grad student, Andy Greenspon. It’s titled “9 things you should consider before embarking on a PhD” and it’s shared on Elsevier Connect. Of the article, TPII writes, “Gaslighting by a Harvard PhD candidate, masquerading as grad school advice. To write this in 2021…. ffs.”

I’m not linking either of these things because I don’t want some algorithm to trace them back to me, but I think that’s enough information for someone reading this blog to go find these, if they still exist.

About Greenspon’s article: the title pretty much gives the plot. It’s a first-year student’s take on the lessons they’ve learned during their first year of grad school. As they put it in the first paragraph, the point of this article is to “save you [the prospective grad student] from anguish and help you make better decisions as you embark on that path to a PhD.” The author is now a PhD candidate in the sciences, which tells you more about the way publishing works than possibly anything else–except that maybe the author has stuck with grad school despite the negative aspects of the lessons in this article.

I won’t rehash the contents of Greenspon’s article because a truly interested reader will go find it for themselves. In some sense, the article quite clearly functions as a time capsule reflecting a particular stage in this particular grad student’s educational trajectory. I’d be curious to see how they feel about some of the things they wrote. As with any advice, everything this author says needs to be taken with a grain of salt. If there are any prospective grad students reading this, my main advice–advice that I think anyone will agree with–is that you need to get as many opinions and as much advice as possible because one person’s opinion of, perspective on, or experience during grad school will differ considerably from that of another person. Some of Greenspon’s recommendations simply won’t work for certain people, and that’s okay. If you’re considering going to grad school, you’re already probably a good critical thinker; you know how to approach something critically and without embracing it wholesale, so you should have no problem determining, for instance, if taking a year off between undergrad and grad school is an option for you. It wasn’t for me, and I don’t think it would’ve changed much if it had been.

All that being said, I don’t actually think all that much of what Greenspon says is especially controversial–except for point #7 and point #9 (the second is the source of the TPII controversy, if you can call it that). So, though I don’t think every bit of advice in the article will be advice every read should follow, I do think it’s advice worth hearing and considering. If nothing else, it’s good to get another perspective.

Greenspon’s seventh point is the point I’d take issue with–or, maybe, ask to be a bit more nuanced–as someone who has a PhD in a humanities discipline. In my experience, a program’s reputation matters quite a bit. It might not matter as much as location in the sense that someone probably shouldn’t go to a school that is in a location where they know they will be miserable, but names do tend to matter in academia. Let me explain. I went to a PhD program in the middle of the Midwest because that program and the university housing it have very good reputations (good names). This university isn’t Harvard or Yale, which have better names, but there’s no way I would’ve gotten into an ivy. My institution’s small town was just that, a small town with small things to do. I didn’t even know where it was when I applied (and when I got in), but I knew it would be fine for at least five years. The town wasn’t as uninhabited and without entertainment as, say, Mars, but it was no Chicago or Boston or Manhattan. You had to get creative and make your own fun because the town didn’t just provide it for you. The trade-off, though, was that the school and the program had strong reputations, which brought opportunities (and entertainment) that made it worthwhile. As someone who didn’t continue on in academia in a traditional way, I’ve found that my institution’s name has been a talking point in interviews and other networking opportunities. Hell, my dad received comments on my university (it’s football team, maybe) because he was wearing a t-shirt from there while on vacation halfway across the country from the university. I’m not sure I so much disagree with Greenspon here as I think the way the point is phrased here needed to be refined a bit. That is, Greenspon’s point isn’t wrong, but the way it’s stated is a bit misleading because so much time is devoted to advising that the reader go somewhere fun. Maybe I’m misreading Greenspon, but it seems to me that Greenspon is, in actuality, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to a program’s full package. If that’s the case, then I agree with Greenspon that “the reputation of the individual department you are joining — and sometimes even the specific research group you work in — are . . . important.” Indeed, when I say that going somewhere with a “good name” matters, I’m speaking about both the university itself and the particular grad program. Both of those things constitute a “good name.” The decision to go to a particular PhD program is informed by a whole assortment of choices, including its reputation, its location, finances, and departmental culture, among other things. Within that list of decisions, reputation might rank lower on the list of important decisions than location; for someone else, it may rank higher. That’s normal. In any case, Greenspon is right to point out that these things need to be considered. I guess I just think the phrasing in this section could’ve been clearer.

So, on to the point that received TPII’s attention: point #9, “There are no real breaks.” According to TPII, this is “Gaslighting by a Harvard PhD candidate, masquerading as grad school advice.” Scrolling through the comments on this Facebook post, a lot of readers are calling out TPII’s use of the word “gaslighting.” It seems like TPII, whose comment on the article is remarkably limited for someone who made such a strong comment on this article, is taking issue with the last third of this point, where Greenspon advises that “you should have passion for the research you work on (most of the time), so you should be excited to think up new experiments or different ways to consider that data you have collected.” I’m not fond of the “you should” phrasing here, and I do think Greenspon sounds a bit naive here. Most grad students feel that passion, but passion can take different forms and evolve over time. Think of passion in a relationship: early on in a relationship, you may feel passion in the form of lust for your partner, but that lust may evolve into a different form of passion as time goes on, becoming a deep commitment or trust in that partner. By my fourth year of the PhD program, I still cared about my topic, but I wasn’t brimming with excitement at the newness of it; that passion and devotion had evolved with time.

Back to the “you should” of it all, though. The problem with this phrase is not, as the Facebook commenters point out, that it’s “gaslighting” readers. Calling this “gaslighting” undermines instances where people actually are gaslit. The reader isn’t being made to question their judgment, memory, or interpretation of their experiences. The reader isn’t being forced to turn to Greenspon for emotional support/validation after having had their own experiences delegitimized and called into question by deception, contradiction, etc. Rather, the problem with this type of phrasing is the way it proselytizes a particular “right way” of doing graduate school. The problem is that is may potentially imbue guilt in a reader who, at the time of reading this piece, doesn’t feel that passion. There are a million reasons why this might be the case, and I’d be shocked to learn that there’s even one grad student–Greenspon included–who didn’t, at some point in their education, feel less-than-passionate about their research. It happens because we’re humans and sometimes get burnt out when work on the same thing for a number of years. But from the perspective of taking this as it was intended, this argument is a testament to how early on Greenspon was indoctrinated into the grad school mentality that one must be passionate about and devoted to one’s topic. And frankly, as someone who completed a PhD program relatively recently, having interest in one’s topic makes grad school a lot more bearable, so in a lot of ways, I think Greenspon is right to emphasize it.

Do I think passion is necessary? No, but as I said, passion can take a lot of forms. So, again, we’re back to the point that maybe Greenspon’s language isn’t great; maybe an editor should’ve recommended a few revisions here, or maybe Greenspon should’ve written this as a fifth-year student rather than a first-year student. Whatever. But this isn’t gaslighting. And as at least one Facebook commenter pointed out, are we really going to criticize a graduate student for being a product of the culture in which they’re being indoctrinated rather than criticizing the culture itself? I’m not down with that. I may disagree with some of the words Greenspon uses or the ways Greenspon makes certain points, but I’m not a public page with 1,000s of followers calling out a grad student for sharing advice about how they’ve survived the first year of an incredibly difficult experience–an experience that is known to have produced a wide range of negative effects, including PTSD, CPTSD, depression, anxiety, and so on.

And if you think I’m being extreme here, look at the first two thirds of Greenspon’s ninth point. This is where Greenspon emphasizes the amount of time that a grad student is expected to devote to their studies and research, and what gets sacrificed in the process. This is about survival. Greenspon says,

In a stereotypical “9-to-5” job, when the workday is over or the weekend arrives, you can generally forget about your work. And a vacation provides an even longer respite. But in a PhD program, your schedule becomes “whenever you find time to get your work done.” You might be in the lab during regular work hours or you might be working until 10 p.m. or later to finish an experiment. And the only time you might have available to analyze data might be at 1 a.m. Expect to work during part of the weekend, too. Graduate students do go on vacations but might still have to do some data analysis or a literature search while away.

As a PhD student, it might be hard to stop thinking about the next step in an experiment or that data sitting on your computer or that paper you were meaning to start. While I imagine some students can bifurcate their mind between graduate school life and everything else, that’s quite hard for many of us to do. No matter what, my research lies somewhere in the back of my head. In short, your schedule is much more flexible as a PhD student, but as a result, you never truly take a break from your work.

The only thing that shocks me about these two paragraphs is that Greenspon might know of grad students who go on vacation. I’m absolutely shocked. Where are they going? Are these vacations actually part of conference travel or visits to family so they can attend funerals or weddings? I’m mostly being sarcastic because I know the answers to these questions. And anyone who has been a grad student in the last decade will know that everything Greenspon says here is true. Anyone who doesn’t see the truth here is sorely out of touch with what grad students across academia experience.

And that brings me to my other point about TPII–the book and the blog. They’re products of an earlier time of academia–the book especially.

The book was published in 2015, and by then its approach to grad students finding jobs was already getting tiresome.

Let me start by saying that I’m the target audience for this book. I graduated high school in 2008, the same year as the academic job market apocalypse. I started my MA program in 2012, and I started the second year of my PhD program in 2015. Between 2012 and 2015, I attended plenty of career workshops and lectures. By my second year of the PhD, I was already thinking extensively about what I’d do after the PhD, and I’d already been seeking out extra opportunities that would give me as many skills as possible.

By 2015, I had heard more than my fair share of the same relentless, cloying negativity that characterizes the tone of the TPII book. It was all the rage at that time. Professors considered themselves “cool” if they grumbled and groaned about how hard it was for grad students to find jobs. But for grad students, it was no longer “cool”; it was over-played, out-of-touch, and unproductive. It was negativity for the sake of negativity, and all it did was shatter dreams or serve as a brutal wake-up call without offering something else in its place. That negativity wasn’t matched with some opposite–some other place to invest one’s hope for the future.

At that time, and I’m assuming today as well, the “cool” professors were the ones who embraced students seeking alt-ac or non-ac opportunities, the ones who encouraged their students to develop other skills and seek other forms of knowledge. The coolest were the ones who helped their students do these things by brainstorming and researching opportunities with them, who found resources on campus that could help when the professors themselves didn’t have firsthand knowledge in certain areas, and who generally and genuinely supported students seeking careers outside of academic.

At a certain point (and I’d argue that this point came well before 2015), it was no longer ethical to advise that any grad student pursue an academic job without any other options. But this book was published in 2015, and it was still the “gold standard” for job market advising in 2019 and 2020. I’m sure it still is, but 2018/2019 was when my advisor handed me a copy of the book and said something about it helping me get a job.

It did help me, but probably not in the intended way. Tucked at the back of the book is a short chapter on “Leaving the Cult.” That’s what helped me–that’s the section where TPII isn’t outdated. That’s the section where the book doesn’t try to play the part of “cool, moody, negative aunt” and actually is the cool aunt. In 2015, that short chapter shouldn’t have been relegated to the last few pages of the book; it should’ve been expanded to at least half of the book’s length.

This revision would’ve fundamentally altered the function and purpose of the book, but I think that’s what would’ve made the book worthwhile in 2015 and after. It’s what would’ve made the book stand the test of time. Don’t get me wrong, the book is still made out to be the “gold standard,” but it isn’t actually serving its target demographic as well as it could because it’s so focused on finding them jobs in a market where those jobs simply don’t exist–or they don’t exist in the way the book suggests they do.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Back to my video.

XOXO, you know.

[junker-town]

The Bulls’ big market vision is coming into focus

The Bulls are done thinking small about team building.

The Chicago Bulls spent the 20+ years following the end of their Michael Jordan-led dynasty as the biggest small market team in the NBA. With John Paxson as the long-tenured leader of the front office under owner Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls built their teams with a conservative approach that prioritized stability, flexibility, and profitability. When they got some good luck on their side, it worked out pretty well.

Paxson hit on a string of draft picks in the ‘00s that laid the foundation for a playoff-caliber team without a superstar. That changed when the Bulls cashed in a 1.8 percent chance to land the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 draft and rights to Derrick Rose. Chicago leveled up again two years later when it hired Tom Thibodeau, a revolutionary defensive mind who earned his shot at the right time to take advantage of the league’s changing rules. He took the Bulls from a No. 8 seed to a No. 1 seed in his first year as Rose became the youngest MVP in league history.

Those Bulls teams were built through two methods: taking high-character college veterans in the draft, and signing role players to mid-sized contracts on the free agent market. When Chicago took its big swings at a superstar, it routinely came up whiffing. It couldn’t land Kobe Bryant after a highly publicized trade request, it struck out on LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in the summer of 2010, and it missed once more on Carmelo Anthony in an attempt to salvage the last vestiges of that era. Carlos Boozer and Ben Wallace were as good as it would get.

When bad luck came for the Bulls in the form of Rose’s injury issues, the front office couldn’t find any way out. Instead, Chicago management reverted back to its worst tendencies with decidedly different results. Doug McDermott, Denzel Valentine, and Tony Snell were a far cry from Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, and Taj Gibson. They threw foolish amounts of money at hometown players like Wade and Jabari Parker in an attempt to sell some tickets and capture the lost local magic of Rose. They fired Thibodeau to hire another buzzy name on the coaching carrousel — Fred Hoiberg — only to see he couldn’t live up to the hype.

The Bulls lucked their way into a superstar anyway when Jimmy Butler scratched and clawed his way into one as a former No. 30 overall draft pick. When it came time to pay him his value, Chicago balked. The Bulls traded Butler two years before his contract expired for a package of young players and one pick swap to start a long descent into the NBA abyss.

Over the next four years, the Bulls would win the fewest games in the NBA. Head coach Jim Boylen was an embarrassment to the team and the city on and off the court, with a high school gym teacher routine that didn’t play well with seasoned pros. As the losses piled up, fans started to take matters into their own hands calling for an overdue change in the front office. ‘Fire GarPax’ billboards and grassroots protests popped up around the city. Things reached another level when Chicago hosted the 2020 All-Star Game and the locals loudly chanted ‘Fire GarPax’ during an interview with aspiring All-Star Zach LaVine. Reinsdorf still wouldn’t fire Paxson, but Paxson eventually took the fans advice and stepped aside.

Somewhere along the line, the Bulls lost focus of what they should be. They had a global brand born out of Jordan’s greatness, but they acted more like the Indiana Pacers or the Orlando Magic. They crossed their fingers for lottery luck every year, but were lost when they didn’t get it. Even with ‘90s nostalgia hitting its peak, the Bulls had never seemed further away from the glamour franchise they once were.

Every team in the NBA can lose and pray the draft leads them to a star. Only a few can have star players want to join them. With the hiring of Arturas Karnisovas as the franchise’s new lead basketball decision-maker, the goal was get to the Bulls back to their rightful place in the league’s hierarchy.

If it hasn’t happened yet, it finally appears that the Bulls are on their way.

Photo by Ashley Landis - Pool/Getty Images

One year ago today, the Bulls felt lost and directionless. The franchise had pegged its hopes and dreams to Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr., and Coby White as top-10 draft picks with little progress to show for it. LaVine was ascending, but there remained a debate over how much he really impacted winning. Boylen was still the head coach.

GarPax had left the cupboard incredibly bare after whiffing on at least eight consecutive first round draft picks following the selection of Butler (White would be No. 9 if he doesn’t pan out). None of the Bulls’ own players were were worth much in trades. Karnisovas had two options: trade LaVine amid his first All-Star season and rebuild again on his own terms, or get desperate and start trying to win now.

He made his decision on day of the 2021 trade deadline with the Bulls still sitting far out of playoff contention. Chicago traded two first round picks and Carter to the Magic for Nikola Vucevic, a 30-year-old two-time All-Star who had become one of the best post scorers in the NBA and was now shooting threes at a 40 percent clip. The move for Vucevic came completely out of left field, as did the next deal the Bulls made that day by sending out three more players, headlined by Daniel Gafford, and receive Daniel Theis and Troy Brown Jr. in the return.

It was easy to see the move for Vucevic as a shortsighted overpay, but it was the aggression and creativity the Bulls’ new front office showed that was really promising. The short-term returns on the deal were putrid: LaVine was placed in Health and Safety Protocol shortly after the deadline, and the Bulls failed to even make the play-in tournament. They surrendered the No. 8 overall pick to the Magic and still owe one more in 2023.

Karnisovas was adamant he wasn’t done, and knew he had major work to do entering the offseason. The Bulls had some avenues to cap space, but they chose to operate as an over-the-cap team. That meant Chicago’s long-rumored affection for restricted free agent Lonzo Ball would require the New Orleans Pelicans to cooperate. It happened in the first minute of free agency, with the Bulls working out a sign-and-trade and inking Ball to a four-year, $85 million deal.

Hours later, the Bulls struck again by signing Alex Caruso for the mid-level exception of $37 million over four years. Chicago had improved the team considerably, but the picture still felt incomplete with a gaping hole on the wing. That’s when Karnisovas made his most audacious move yet, acquiring DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade that sent out Thad Young and another first round pick (this one in 2025). DeRozan signed a three-year, $85 million deal.

While the Ball move was met with universal acclaim and the reaction to the Caruso signing was also positive (unless you were a Lakers fan), the Bulls were bashed for their DeRozan deal. ESPN’s Kevin Pelton gave the Bulls a D- grade for the move. John Hollinger of The Athletic also panned it, writing “Chicago set itself up to chase a .500 record and a low-end playoff berth this year … and likely kneecapped its ability to do anything beyond that for the next half decade or so.”

In a vacuum, it certainly feels like the Bulls overpaid for DeRozan both in terms of his contract and the trade assets going back to San Antonio. The move shouldn’t be judged in a vacuum, though. The Bulls had a clear hole on the wing around Ball, LaVine, Vucevic, and last year’s No. 4 overall pick Patrick Williams. Their trade assets were limited. LaVine is on the last year of his contract, and Vucevic is another year older. Chicago was desperate to make a push up the Eastern Conference playoff picture, and this was the best way to do it.

The Bulls didn’t care about ‘losing the deal’ when they signed DeRozan — they only cared about winning games. Given where they were a year ago, it certainly feels like they built the best team possible out of the assets at their disposal.

Photo by Layne Murdoch Jr./NBAE via Getty Images

The Bulls now have a five-man lineup that fits together exceedingly well on the offensive end. There are four three-point threats in the starting lineup. They have two dynamic on-ball creators in the halfcourt. They have a big man equally comfortable scoring in the post or popping out behind the arc to hit threes. They have an ideal linking guard who can connect their backcourt star and frontcourt star together while igniting their transition attack.

LaVine and DeRozan were both excellent as pick-and-roll handlers last season. LaVine spent 43.5 percent of his possessions on those play types, per Synergy Sports, and scored exactly one point per possession, which graded out in the 82nd percentile of the league. DeRozan took 84 percent of his possessions as a pick-and-roll handler, and scored 1.02 points per possession. While LaVine has been used almost exclusively on the ball since coming to Chicago because the team has lacked competent playmaking, DeRozan’s late career leap as a facilitator could finally unlock his off-ball game in the halfcourt.

Even on the brink of his 32nd birthday, DeRozan can still bend defenses with his burst as a ball handler. He has improved his vision and his passing touch year-over-year after breaking the first line of defense, finishing with a 31 percent assist rate last season that ranked in the 100th percentile among forwards, per Cleaning the Glass. It’s easy to envision LaVine whipping around screens to look for an advantage as DeRozan directs the offense against a set defense and works to find his spots in a reliable mid-range game.

The LaVine-Vucevic pick-and-roll should also still be effective even if DeRozan fails to space the floor off the ball. LaVine is a dangerous pull-up shooter with a lightning-quick first step who can usually blow by his man and put the opposing defense into rotation. His issue has been consistently making the right decision with the ball after that happens, but he showed signs of progress last year by posting his highest assist rate since his rookie year. He just pulled off one of the most difficult tasks in basketball, posting great scoring efficiency numbers (63.4 percent true shooting) with a high (31 percent) usage rate. His job should only get easier with better teammates this upcoming season.

That starts with Vucevic. Vooch has always been something of a high-volume battering ram in the paint since entering the league out of USC. He is still living up to that reputation, posting the sixth highest frequency of post-ups and scoring the third most points per game on those play types, per NBA.com. His inside scoring touch is now complemented by a sweet shooting stroke. Between his time in Orlando and Chicago last season, he hit 40 percent of his threes on 6.3 attempts per game.

A more under-discussed part of Vucevic’s offensive profile is his passing ability. He has been one of the best passing big men in the league over the last five years, finishing in the 93rd percentile or higher in assist rate for centers over that time, per Cleaning the Glass. Vooch’s playmaking will provide an additional path to halfcourt offense, and should become even more effective now that the Bulls have an wonderful connecting piece in Ball.

Ball is one of the oddest players in the NBA. Despite being drafted as a point guard with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 draft, his game hardly resembles a traditional floor general. He struggles to break down opposing defenses off the dribble and is allergic to both attempting shots at the rim and the foul line. Instead, Ball thrives as a quick ball mover, a reliable high-volume floor spacer (around 38 percent from three each of the last two years), and a transition spark plug. His feel for the game is his defining quality, and it should pop even more within a team contexts that tailored to suit his strengths. To add a soon-to-be 24-year-old of this caliber is a major addition in every way.

The wildcard is Williams. As the youngest full-time player in the NBA last season, Williams made 71 starts and drew the defensive assignment on the league’s biggest stars. He hit 39.1 percent of his threes, but was still a reluctant catch-and-shoot threat who often got in his own head after a couple misses. As the Bulls wait for him to become more confident as a shooter, Williams can also make an impact as a cutter and on the offensive glass. His defensive role will be far more important than his offensive role on this team. Williams has flashed impressive rim protection instincts, and has the frame to absorb contact at the rim. His development represents the organization’s cleanest path towards an even bigger climb up the standings, but it’s worth wondering if such a low-usage offensive role is what’s best for his long-term growth.

The Bulls’ offense ranked No. 21 in the league last year and could be due for a climb in or around the top-10. The defense is a different story, but it was surprisingly competent in Donovan’s first season, ending the year No. 12. Ball will help on the defensive end as an opportunistic playmaker who can force turnovers, while Caruso provides elite point of attack defense for a team that badly needs it.

Chicago still needs a backup center who can offer some rim protection (update: they signed Tony Bradley). They could use a more versatile forward with superior defensive capability on the bench than what Markkanen can offer. The wing depth could still be a problem. Even at their best, the defense may very well be an adventure.

With these caveats aside, the most important thing is the Bulls now have a five-man lineup that fits well and makes sense. The scope of the rebuild over the last five months as been remarkable. Given how aggressive Karnisovas was in getting to this point, there’s no reason to think he’ll start settling now.

It’s easy to think the Bulls overpaid for what’s likely to be a low-end playoff team in the East. The Bucks and Nets are still way, way ahead of the rest of the conference, and breaking into the second tier of the East — alongside the 76ers, the Heat, and the Hawks — would be a huge accomplishment. The third tier — led by the Knicks and Celtics — won’t be easy to surpass, either.

For the Bulls, cashing in their future draft picks and giving up a huge contract to DeRozan was simply the price of doing business. Whatever the reward is at the end of the season is also only a small piece of the big picture. For once, the Bulls are acting like a big market team and may just be establishing themselves as a destination for top-end talent down the line. Given the way superstar transactions work in the NBA — with the player often picking his destination rather than the team trading him to the highest bidder — it would be foolish to think they’re locked in to this current group. The Bulls only need one true A-list player to like what they’re building and see his future in Chicago.

Fans and media have a way of romanticizing building from the ground up through drafting and development. It’s incredibly satisfying when it works out, but teams also run the risk of wasting year after year if they don’t get the proper lottery pick or make the wrong pick. The end of the GarPax era is proof of that. The Bulls were going nowhere fast without some dramatic moves, and Karnisovas had the guile to pull them off with the help of GM Marc Eversley (who had a close relationship with DeRozan) and cap expect J.J. Polk (who figured out how to add all these pieces without cap space).

The Bulls would like to view these moves as a first step, not a final one. Their draft pick ammunition is depleted for the next few years, but they suddenly have a lot of tradeable pieces. The way the new front office has reworked the team in such a short timespan should be encouraging for future transactions.

Chicago’s new front office seems to be operating under one guiding principle: improve the team at all costs, and figure out how to do it again later. Regardless of how it plays out, it’s clear the Bulls are done thinking small. It’s about time.

[your-dietician]

2021 NHL Draft Profile: Ville Koivunen

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/nhl/2021-nhl-draft-profile-ville-koivunen/

2021 NHL Draft Profile: Ville Koivunen

Since I started becoming an amateur (but enthusiastic) prospect writer, I’ve noticed that European prospects seem to be underrated in Bob McKenzie’s rankings and actual draft position. And by European, I don’t just mean that they played in European leagues like Liiga, SHL, KHL, and all their junior leagues. I also include prospects who are European and playing in North American junior leagues.

Last year, when Bob McKenzie released his final rankings for the 2020 draft, I compared his rankings against the consolidated ‘consensus’ rankings from all the major public scouting sources. I never wound up publishing it, but here were the top 10 prospects who had the biggest drop in their rankings from the public scouts vs McKenzie’s list:

Zion Nybeck: -43

Kasper Simontaival: -36

Emil Andrae: -36

Alexander Pashin: -35

Martin Chromiak: -29

Carter Savoie: -28

Sean Farrell: -27

Roni Hirvonen: -21

Tyler Tullio: -18

Jan Mysak: -15

Five of the top 10, including the top four in that list, played in European leagues the whole season. Two others were European, and split their season with half the games in a European league and half played in the CHL. Another thing that is common to all of these prospects is that they are almost all 6’0” or shorter. Small and European? Yuck! The last observation I can make is that these are all guys who are typically not ranked in the first round, even by the public scouting people. And if they are, it’s just inside the top 30, so they’re not considered truly elite, top 10 prospects.

I will add a caveat to not take the specific numbers that seriously. My general point is that Bob McKenzie’s rankings have been shown to be the most accurate ranking in terms of predicting the actual draft results, but even he is not perfect — especially in later rounds. What the above is meant to show is that many NHL teams seem to undervalue European players.

Now, we know Dubas hunts for “value” in his draft strategy. That’s why he has typically taken smaller players, and overagers who have shown signs of being late bloomers and worth a later pick. So I think it is worth recognizing that last year with 12 picks, he took Europeans with seven of his top eight picks. I’m feeling a bit proud that I had spotted the big discrepancy between how public scouts ranked Europeans, and how Bob McKenzie/the NHL did before Dubas made all those choices.

Which brings me to Ville Koivunen. He is not an elite prospect, and he doesn’t necessarily have any elite skills. But he is a very good and interesting prospect, and, if Bob McKenzie’s mid-season rankings are any indication, he’s being very undervalued.

THE BASICS: STATS AND CONTEXT

Ville Koivunen is listed as 6’0” winger, and also pretty slight at 165 lbs. He played his full season in Finland’s U20 junior league. Between being an average-height but pencil-thin forward, and playing in a European junior league, he meets the two requirements to go undervalued at the NHL draft mentioned above.

But he has some solid numbers at every level in which he has played this year.

He played for Kärpät’s U20 junior team. He finished 3rd in the league in points with 49 in 38 games, which also led the league among other draft eligible players by eight points. As a result, he was also named the Rookie of the Year for the league. The previous season, Koivunen played in the U18 level and led the league with 71 points in 37 games. It was a six point cushion over second place, who also played in nine more games than Koivunen.

But Finnish junior league is not the strongest competition, so it’s also good to know how he played against tougher competition that is also his age. This year, he played for Finland at the U18 World Junior Championship, where he finished tied for 5th in points with 10 points (4 goals, 6 assists) in 7 games. Last year, he finished third on Finland’s U17 team with 11 points in 16 games. Quite simply, Koivunen has produced everywhere and every level he’s played.

Here are his draft rankings, as of writing this:

Bob McKenzie: 91st

Will Scouch: 26th

Scott Wheeler: 43rd

Elite Prospects: 34th

Dobber Prospects: 61st

Smaht Scouting: 30th

THE GOOD: COMPLETE OFFENSIVE PACKAGE

In an earlier profile, I wrote that Logan Stankoven was so interesting as a prospect because he had no big weakness offensively while he has elite skills almost across the board. If you take that same sentiment, but replace “elite” with “very good”, you describe Koivunen.

His greatest strength is as a playmaker. He has good vision and accurate passing, and he doesn’t just make easy, safe passes to wide open teammates. His passing helps with zone exits and zone entries, and setting up dangerous scoring chances in the offensive zone. But it goes beyond that, to the point that I’m almost willing to call him an elite playmaker, but I’d want to see how his playmaking holds up in the Liiga against professional competition. Here’s what Josh Tessler from Smaht Scouting says:

Koivunen is a crafty passer. As shown above, he can generate great accuracy on his backhand attempts. But, he has also proven that he can complete crisp diagonal feeds and smooth tape-to-tape feeds with a light gentle release. You can also expect Koivunen to place deceptive drop passes. He will skate with the puck in one direction, a teammate will follow, grab possession of the puck off of the drop pass and go in the opposite direction.

Here’s a great example of Koivunen’s puck handling, skating, and playmaking setting up a goal. He is #14 in white, and the one carrying the puck for the whole start of the clip.

Lukko and Kärpät are tied at 1-1 after 20 minutes of play. Aleksi Antti-Roiko opened the scoring for Kärpät after a nice setup by #2021NHLDraft prospect Ville Koivunen. Jeremi Tammela would tie the game late in the period. SOG 13-9 for Kärpät. #U20SM #Game2 pic.twitter.com/hmQfFetSzf

— Finnish Jr Hockey (@FINjrhockey) April 7, 2021

The other standout skill, which I have trouble separating from his playmaking because that’s where it shows up the strongest, is how smart and clever Koivunen is with and without the pick. He can anticipate play well and use several tricks to create more dangerous scoring chances, for himself and his teammates. But he also anticipates plays defensively, to get the puck back and go the other way. That has helped him create very strong possession numbers wherever he has played. Here’s what Marco Bambino from McKeen’s Hockey says:

Koivunen is a highly intelligent player and his hockey sense has stood out in my viewings, from the U16’s up to the U20 league. He has patience, puck poise and he consistently chooses the best option while pressured. He has superb offensive vision: when he sees an opportunity, he will take an advantage of it. He is alert in his own end and his stick placement enables him to intercept passes and strip players off the puck, making it difficult for opposing teams to establish offensive zone pressure. He plays smart both offensively and defensively.

Lastly, we come to Koivunen’s skating. While he is not the fastest skater you will see, he is very agile and maneuverable, and his speed is good to very good. This is something that helps him with his playmaking, because he is very adept at using quick cuts and sudden changes in direction to elude defenders and open up better passing or shooting lanes in the slot. From Curtis Schwartzkopf at Future Considerations:

Koivunen has great balance on his feet and has surprising strength in front of the net when battling for position for someone weighing 161 pounds. He has good awareness about when to start breaking out of the zone to make himself open for a pass and does this by keeping his feet moving up ice. One thing that stuck out was how Koivunen would come to a complete stop to change direction instead of a long sweeping turn which gave him an edge in chasing down the play. Koivunen seems to always keep his body square to the puck which makes him always open for a pass. Finding open ice seems to come easy to Koivunen as he scored his goal by discretely sliding into a wide open area in the slot for a point blank chance he buried.

This is a good example of how Koivunen uses his skating to set up a good shooting chance for himself:

Going back and watching a bunch of Ville Koivunen as a I prepare for my report on him.

Koivunen LOVES to play the puck up the boards, cut in as soon as he has cleared the perimeter, goes to the slot and fires a wrist shot. It’s like clockwork and he thrives at it.#2021NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/w9BxDE4skb

— Josh Tessler (@JoshTessler_) May 4, 2021

The overall profile for Ville Koivunen is as a jack of all trades, but a master of one (maybe one). He is an extremely solid all-round player everywhere on the ice. He is one of the better defensive wingers in this draft, but doesn’t lack for offensive talent either. I may have some questions on how much both his offense and defense would play up at higher levels, but he has time to develop and get stronger as he plays up in the Liiga, AHL, and NHL. What you cannot deny is that his skills and his statistical profile are extremely impressive, even for the level he played.

Here are some good clips of his two-way play without the puck:

Ville Koivunen was named the rookie of the year in FIN U20 league. A smart, skilled and unselfish winger who creates lots of offense. But his ability to win possession also makes him tough to play against. Here are some takeaways and pass interceptions from No. 14. #2021NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/6yFdR2URD4

— Marco Bombino (@marco_bombino) April 8, 2021

If you look at the manual tracking data from either Lassi Alanen (free) or Will Scouch (paywall), you will see that he leads or is among the leaders in just about every category. He drives possession, he drives dangerous scoring chances while suppressing them by the other team, and he drives zone exits and entries on transition.

THE FLAWS: NO ELITE SKILLS

This is my only question about Koivunen. He has a solid all-round skillset, with no big weaknesses. But there are some skills that are only good or okay, and may hold him back in the future, unless he improves on them. The two things that come through from the games I had seen, and what I’ve seen other scouts say, are his skating and his shot.

I feel like the issues with his skating is a bit nitpicky, but it does exist. While he is quick and agile, his top speed could wind up be lacking at higher levels. Because of how effective he can be in terms of quick changes of direction and sharp cuts, I don’t think he’s lacking for athleticism. It sounds like something that may be more an issue of strength and mechanics, both of which are things that can be worked on. From Marco Bambino, at the same link as above:

If there is one particular area which requires improvement, it would be his skating. He often takes wide turns and glides on the ice a bit too much for my liking, instead of using his edges more consistently. Additionally, his knee bend and ankle flexion are not optimal. His acceleration does not give him a considerable advantage either. Although his skating is not high end right now, I think it is largely caused by his raw physique. I firmly believe that Koivunen will improve his speed, acceleration and edge work as he gets stronger.

The other nitpicky thing is that Koivunen doesn’t really have a great shot. Again, this seems to be something due to strength and mechanics. From Josh Tessler at Smaht Scouting:

While Koivunen has proven to be an effective goal scorer at the U20 level, there is work to be done on his shot. Right off the bat, he will generate good height when scoring goals, but it is far from consistent. One of the things that I noticed about his shot is that his stick blade will occasionally be closed and not open. You need your stick blade to be more open (raised) in order to generate height. In addition to generating height, I’ve also noticed that Koivunen will struggle with shooting accuracy and shot selection in well-defended situations.

When it comes to his shot, it’s not something that has prevented Koivunen from scoring a good amount of goals at any level he’s played… so far. He’s gotten by to date by taking shots from dangerous locations. You don’t need an elite shot to be a good goal scorer, after all. But as he plays against better defenses who are able to block him off or push him out of those dangerous areas, he’s not likely to be a 30+ goal scorer in the NHL. But he could be a 15-20 goal guy that drives good results and gets to 50-60 points based on his playmaking.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Bob McKenzie has said ahead of his final rankings that there will be some dramatic changes compared to his mid-season rankings. He tied that the U18 tournament, where some prospects got a lot more attention or even got to play at all. Ville Koivunen was fantastic in the tournament, as an example, so even if he was originally ranked at the end of the third round before, he may shoot up into the second round now.

My original hope was that he would stay somewhere in the third round, so the Leafs could trade down and get him AND another good prospect for the range. That may or not be realistic now, depending on how the final rankings change to give us an indication of what NHL teams are thinking.

The other thing is that, by all accounts, Koivunen got must stronger down the stretch. Some public scouting reports I read on Koivunen weren’t too high on him on early-season viewings, but those same people started to rave about him more leading into, during, and after the U18s. I think he is someone a lot of teams like and are hoping to get later, but that also may mean some team may take him earlier.

I don’t know why but I tend to like jack of all trades prospects, even if they don’t have a high end elite skill to carry him. Not that Koivunen is perfect, but he is just solid in so many important areas, and his flaws are things that can be fixed. He has the foundation of being a very useful two-way winger who can influence both sides of the ice, more than you’d expect of an average winger prospect.

If neither Stankoven or Morrow fall that far, Koivunen is one of my first choices for the Leafs to take with their second round pick — whether they trade down once or not.

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Tips To Hire Best Software Development Company & Developers

Once you've got determined that your business requires custom-built software, the foremost essential decision to require is of selecting a particular custom software development company

There are many custom software development companies existing and competing globally. If you come short to select the right company, it'll become an obstruction within the accomplishment of your project. to help you to require the spot on decision, we've considered the eight key elements to be taken into thought for choosing a well-suited technology partner.

So, how will you decide on that good custom software development company which may give the simplest solutions amongst the remainder out there? i'm sure that you simply know there's tons of disparity stuck between finding a software development company and finding the simplest software company which match your project requirements.

*Brilliant Solutions And Services

They're all experienced in building software and applications from basic to enterprise levels. Most of those service providers have invested a substantial period of your time within the industry, know the newest trends and are continually competing in several markets for projects. So, these companies got to be highly competitive and truly they're modernizing with time to urge recognized as a number one software package Development Company.

Consequently, how does one choose that one provider from these many specialists out there within the industry and therefore the marketplaces? It’s without a doubt a really complicated job and will be executed with caution. However, you'll find eight key points given below to be useful in selecting your precise software outsourcing partner. 

8 Key Considerations before Choosing a Best Software Development Company

 1  Understand and Identify Your Precise Requirements

2  Set a variety of your Budget to make a decision Accordingly

3  Check the Company’s Technical Capabilities and Proficiency

4  Get Referrals and Check their Reputation in Your Network

5  Determine the dimensions and Scope of your Software Project

6  How Serious are they to Develop the Project

7 Timeline, After Sales Support and Services

8 Have a Demo and Test Drive with a Prototype

 1 Understand and Identify Your Precise Requirements

How are you able to choose the simplest software development company for your project when even you don’t know what you desire? Recognize your business requirements.

You need to possess chats together with your management, key employees, realize the present issues and well analyze the requisite solution.

Create a transparent outline of your software package development solution you would like to satisfy your company’s business and technology objectives. Considering the character of your project, the technical requirements and specifications pick an offshore or an onshore service provider.

Also, before you choose the corporate , categorize the problems you're facing with the present scenario or systems. attempt to check would the new solution will meet all of your needs and is it the sort of software which will lend a hand to satisfy your business objectives.

You can choose for an offshore or an onshore service provider company counting on your requirements and therefore the outlook of your proposed project.

You also need to ask them about the strength and profile of the software developers for hire.

2 Set a variety of your Budget to make a decision Accordingly

Cost is usually the foremost significant deciding factor. Analyzing the general cost will enable you to understand the capacity of investment which will be involved in your project. Also, you would like to cross-check with the key stakeholders to make a decision is it fit your budget and is it well worth the investment or not.

Anyways one must determine whether the pricing of the project comes within the decided budget. Unless convinced on the definite ROIs, you don’t want to travel insolvent buying an over or a high-priced software that automates just some parts of your current business.

Some vendor companies price their solutions for the utter piece of evidence of overpricing to seem like a complicated and superior company. don't forget to seem for out of sight or supplementary costs within the contract, like added fees for documents management, software set-up, maintenance, and support costing or in-person training charges.

3 Check the Company’s Technical Capabilities and Proficiency

Collect the knowledge about the service provider company with reference to skills, acquaintance, and knowledge of the team members. inspect their portfolio and explore their working within the latest technologies during a related domain as your project. Track company’s experience with management of projects within the specific niche, company’s expertise in decoding your needs into fitting solution, the communication efficiency, obedience to deadlines, and therefore the like. Also, check the software package development process they're going to use to require your project further for final development.

Have relaxed meetings and obtain to understand one another with online chats, but collect firm information within the course of your dealings, that without a doubt showcases their competence in preceding works.

A company that's innovative or has less experience might not have the aptitude to prevail over tricky challenges that come during the event procedures. However, if the management and staff are at an inexpensive level also as have a high degree of experience you'll try them for your project.

4 Get Referrals and Check their Reputation in Your Network

One of the foremost excellent ways to understand about the corporate is to urge in-tuned with its customers. Get the clients’ references from the corporate and congregate the various feedbacks. you'll realize the category of projects the corporate has got to hold on, its capacity to satisfy the standard and timeliness of projects it's delivered.

You can converse together with your colleagues, friends and other professionals in your network to understand a few mixture of software development companies. this is often the preeminent thanks to get candid feedback about the businesses . you'll even post queries in several online forums, social media, and professional sites.

Of course, you would like to accompany the simplest custom software development company, but would you choose a corporation that's not courteous and pleasant to figure with? Know the company’s suppleness to urge on with diverse ambiance by watching their customer base and client affiliation within the past.

Check the client’s testimonials and reviews on diverse platforms or get connected with one among their clients all the way through social media channels to understand their view of the corporate .

5 Determine the dimensions and Scope of your Software Project

 Is your project big or vast? Not all companies start any size of custom software development projects. Some software development companies commit only to large fishes, which give them with giants and million dollar projects.

Such companies’ development arc over a little period of your time shall display their know-how and industry perspective. Has the corporate been rising swift or failing in size or sluggish over this period?

6 How Serious are they to Develop the Project

The company to which you outsource must comprehend to your entire proposed requirement during a way you realize and seek to.

Do they need enough time and resources to be invested or are they only doing a task for cash they take from you?

These are apparent from the way they suggests additional features which may be incorporated, potential scopes for the merchandise , or contradict with the thought that's almost constructive.

However, confirm they back their view with suitable facts and causes that persuade you about their enthusiasm and isn't just to ‘make the task simple’ for them.

7 Timeline, After Sales Support and Services

A very vital consideration is that the timeline of your software development project. A software project may take much time to urge finished. So, you want to have a particular project deadline set to urge the software developed, for swiftly launching your product within the different marketplaces.

However, you only can’t expect the software to be voluntarily developed; it's always intelligent to affect features for time.

A high-quality custom software development company will work with you the way you desire, confirm you get on-time delivery of defined project milestones and even assist you to form an ingenious trade-off linking the features and time-frame of the project, just in case of stiff deadlines.

Sorry to mention , bet there are not any 100% good solutions. albeit too small, there's always some of the likelihood that things might go erroneous after project release from the seller , especially with the case of software projects.

So confirm your vendor company make available unswerving access to the technical team and propose good quality support, maintenance, technical updates and upgrades along side troubleshooting services for an inexpensive period of your time even after sales. 

Make sure you've got the small print about the technical support services of the seller company. Your software might face problems after the delivery, fetching your work to say no . So, discuss about the after-development support services offered by the corporate .Also, get suitable agreement on safety and security problems and the way you get your data back just in case you set down the seller contract. anticipate to some charges especially if the info was encrypted, but it shouldn’t cause you to ruined in any case.

 8 Have a Demo and Test Drive with a Prototype

Most companies lately offer a free trial to form certain the excellence of the features, paybacks and real-time usability. you'll confirm that the software will meet your business requirements by finding out the obligatory features and functionality during the trial or by taking a demo. During the trial, be happy to ask your service provider for all the queries and confusions you'll have with the wants and delivery.

*Here are a number of the Software Demo Questions

*What quite technologies and tools will match the project?

*What other software applications are often integrated?

*What sorts of customizations I can expect?

*What kind of support will i buy after the project?

*Are training and onboarding incorporated? How long does the procedure take?

*Are there any restrictions on what percentage products and clients I can have?

*Can I control what type and level of knowledge my employees are ready to see?

*Can I control what type and level of knowledge my employees are ready to see?

 Why should we prefer you above your competitors?

During every software demo, it’s time to stipulate whether that current vendor are going to be ready to provide an accurate mixture of consistency, functionalities, features, and suppleness.

As your primary stepping stone when setting-up your goal is choosing the precise custom software development company. an error here might cause shattering outcomes.

We are an expert software development company in Udaipur with demonstrating work in website development and application work . Object developer are expert software developer company.

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The History of Superhero Trading Cards

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This article is part of our Collector’s Digest series powered by:

For over 80 years, trading cards have been an essential part of collectors’ lives. Whether baseball cards or Garbage Pail Kids, the card collecting bug bites early and often. This seems doubly true when it comes to cards inspired by the beloved heroes and villains of DC and Marvel Comics, who have been the subject of countless non-sport lines across the decades.

These companies (and their independent peers) have released comic book characters into the pop culture landscape who have impacted our lives in ways that cultural anthropologists are still scratching their heads trying to figure out. And so we wanted to present to you a history of superhero trading cards via the genre’s most memorable offerings.

Just be warned that we can’t be held responsible for the desire that the following collectibles will stir deep within you.

1940 Superman Trading Cards

Price: $150 – $9,000

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… one of the coolest and most collectible non-sport card lines ever made! Originally printed by the Philadelphia-based Gum Inc. company – which subsequently was renamed as the Bowman Gum Company before being bought by Topps in the 1950s – this was the first-ever line of Superman cards. The decades have seen many sets based on the Man of Steel (Topps’ Superman in the Jungle line from the late 1960s is also well worth your time), but this specific line is a souvenir of an era when Supes was the biggest comic sensation in the universe. Since these were released in an age when pop culture was considered ephemeral and disposable, they are rather difficult to find in an acceptable condition, thus the astronomical prices for individual cards in the line. If you somehow manage to compile a complete set, congratulations, for you are truly a Superman of collecting!

Buy 1940 Superman Trading Cards on eBay

1966 Donruss Marvel Super Heroes

Price: $4.99 – $175.00 per card

Released just as Marvelmania was truly getting off the ground, Donruss’ 1966 set – which appropriately consisted of 66 cards – marked the first time that some of the House of Ideas’ most iconic characters were included on trading cards. As such, the prices for individual cards fluctuate wildly, and it’s best that you comparison shop various eBay sellers to get the best deal. What makes these cards stand out is the charmingly corny humor on display in many of the cards, as well as several entries that let you fill in the word balloons spoken by your favorite heroes. ‘Nuff said? Probably not, as we could talk about how much fun this set is for days…

Buy 1966 Donruss Marvel Super Heroes Cards on eBay

Batman 1966 Topps Trading Cards

Price: $60 – $250

As Marvel was just getting their feet wet in the trading card game, DC had already established themselves as the industry leader. It’s especially easy to understand why when you glimpse the Topps company’s tie-in line for the Batman TV show. Each card features stunning paintings from Topps legend Norman Saunders (the artist who also worked on iconic lines like Mars Attacks and Wacky Packages) featuring Batman and his rogues gallery of villains in action scenes that remain the purest example of how creative trading cards can get. FYI: This set was re-released in 1989 in conjunction with the Batman movie (more on that in a minute) and prices for the reissued cards tend to be lower.

Buy Batman 1966 Topps Trading Cards on eBay

Marvel Comic Book Heroes Sticker Trading Cards

Price: $5 – $8

Iron Man flies through the air asking if anyone has an oil can. Dracula makes jokes about doing the Hustle. The Human Torch advises against getting a sunburn. Yes friends, Topps’ 1976 line of stickers featuring Marvel heroes and villains is easily the goofiest entry on this list. And if you love dad jokes and horrific puns, the best.

Buy Marvel Comic Book Heroes Sticker Trading Cards on eBay

Bubble Funnies

Price: $10 – $30

We’re flipping the script here for a second to clue you in on a line that may look like trading cards but isn’t exactly trading cards. Amurol’s 1981 Bubble Funnies line was an assortment of baseball card-sized comics with pocket-sized adventures from The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Spider-Woman, Archie, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Because they were somewhat hard to find and the retail cost was more than the average wax pack, the line died after its initial six entries. Bummer.

Buy Bubble Funnies on eBay

Marvel Superheroes First Issue Covers Set

Price: $89 – $170

Discussions of non-sport cards tend to focus on the major distributors like Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Skybox, and Upper Deck, which is a shame because sometimes sets released by independent vendors get lost in the shuffle. Case in point, this 1984 release from the Fantasy Trade Company which showcased the first issues of Marvel’s most beloved comics. From Spider-Man to Werewolf by Night and everything in between, this series was packed with unforgettable covers on the front and trivia about their respective books on the back. This is a line that doesn’t have the popularity of its big league brethren, but it is unmatched in terms of its coolness cachet.

Buy Marvel Superheroes First Issue Covers Set on eBay

Batman Movie Trading Cards Set

Price: $12 – $30

The two sets of cards based on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film are the most easily available entry in this overview. As common as these things were, they also were the entry point into the world of card collecting for a generation of fans. If you’re one of them, then these are nothing short of priceless.

Buy Batman Movie Trading Cards Set on eBay

1992 Skybox Marvel Masterpiece Set

Price: $39 – $75

The mind boggles at what contemporary trading card collecting would be like without Skybox’s 1992 Marvel Masterpiece line. This set gave a cool factor to non-sport cards that hadn’t previously existed, making long-time hobbyists feel vindicated and new fans eager to get each of the line’s 100 cards. The future began here, and we haven’t looked back since.

Buy 1992 Skybox Marvel Masterpiece Set on eBay

1995 Fleer Marvel Metal Inaugural Card Set

Price: $200 – $350

Along with the various Skybox lines, the so-called Marvel Metal card sets from the Philadelphia-based Fleer Company helped usher in the comics-related trading card boom of the 1990s. These highly coveted collectibles weren’t made of adamantium, but for fans it was close enough. The talent involved in the production of the inaugural 138-card set included George Perez, Jim Lee, and Adam Kubert, adding an air of authenticity to the proceedings. Looking back at the iconic debut series of Marvel Metal cards nowadays offers a welcome flashback to the frenetic fun of collecting in the 1990s.

Buy 1995 Fleer Marvel Metal Inaugural Card Set on eBay

Upper Deck Marvel Ages Lenticular Puzzle Spider-Man Cards

Price: $150 – $300

This four-card set from Upper Deck’s current Marvel Ages set recreates one of Spidey’s darkest moments by recreating a legendary scene from The Amazing Spider-Man #50 through four interconnecting lenticular 3-D cards. As you can see, these are absolutely stunning. More than that though, they illustrate how far the card collecting hobby has come over the last 80 years. Despite the technological advances that differentiate them from the earlier entries on this list, these cards share the same purpose as their bell-and-whistle-less counterparts – to dazzle anyone who holds them in their hands.

Buy Upper Deck Marvel Ages Lenticular Puzzle Spider-Man Cards on eBay

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I Need to Explain to You Just How Dire America’s Pokémon Card Crisis Is

It is possible, maybe even likely, that sometime during the pandemic you have heard that Pokémon card collecting is undergoing a sort of renaissance. Having large swaths of the world largely confined to their homes sends people searching for new hobbies, rediscovering old ones, and searching their closets for old collectibles. All of this has led to a scorching hot Pokémon card market. 

As I said, you have maybe heard about this already. But I need to explain to you how out of hand things have gotten. The story here is not “Pokémon cards are kind of popular again.” The resurgent interest in Pokémon cards has brought multiple major, well-respected companies to their knees, has caused Target stores to consider calling the cops, and has led to shortages and/or price increases of basically anything even remotely attached to the hobby of collecting cards. However wild you might think any of this is, it is wilder than that. 

I know this, because I collected Pokémon cards when I was a child. I played in weekly tournaments at my local card shop. I competed (and did well!) in a national tournament sponsored by Nintendo in 1999. At that tournament alone, I won a series of cards that are now worth thousands of dollars. I had a First Edition Charizard, one of the most sought-after cards of all time, when I was 10. I sold it on eBay when I was 11, for $150. It was a huge sum of money at the time. One of these sold for more than $300,000 a few months ago. Like many other people, I have spent much of the last few months digging through my old cards, identifying which ones are valuable, and selling them on eBay. I have not even begun to sell my most valuable cards and have already made more than $3,000. I sold a First Edition Eevee, one of the most common cards in the Jungle set released in 1999, for $40. I sold a First Edition Magikarp, the most impotent Pokémon that has ever existed, for $70.

A good way to check the prices people are selling Pokémon cards for is to check eBay’s “sold items.”

The prices people are willing to pay for Pokémon cards are very high, but to be honest that is pretty normal collector stuff. I kept these cards in the first place because “they might be worth something someday.” It is now “someday,” and they are worth something. 

What is NOT normal is what is happening at the higher ends of the collecting hobby and, specifically, in the “graded” card market. There is a “grading” industry in the collectibles world whose purpose is to authenticate and determine the condition of a card, or a comic book, or a piece of sports memorabilia. For Pokémon, Magic, and sports cards, graders consider the centering, coloring, edges, and general condition of a card, and assign it a score between 1-10 (1 is considered “poor,” 10 is considered “gem mint.”) Scratches, bends, creases, pen marks, printing errors, etc. all affect a card’s grade. Grading is done under special lighting and with magnifying glasses and other tools to really put a card through the proverbial ringer. This is a very serious enterprise. Once a card has been graded, it is not only considered to be authentic but it also means a professional has looked at it and, in the case of a 10, determined that it is perfect, the ideal specimen of a card that was made in limited quantities. 

Prices of PSA-graded cards that have sold at auction recently. Image: PSA

Getting a card graded at a high score affects the price of that card on the secondary market by many orders of magnitude. An ungraded, holographic First Edition Charizard card from the base set (the very rare card I sold on eBay when I was a kid) is worth a few thousand dollars. A First Edition Charizard graded a 10 is worth, as I mentioned, $300,000. For less rare cards, this price magnifier effect is still in place. A card that might sell for $10 ungraded could sell for $200 or more if graded a 10. There are dozens of Pokémon cards that are worth between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars if they're graded an 8, 9, or 10.

With old Pokémon cards in particular, there are a lot of damaged, low-grade cards because they are literally children's toys, designed to be shuffled and handled repeatedly and traded back and forth. I distinctly remember playing with cards that would have been worth a lot of money today at recess in elementary school, laying the cards in the dirt. A search on eBay will show many cards that would be very valuable that are selling at relatively low prices because they are bent, scratched, written on, or otherwise half destroyed. This means there's a huge incentive to get cards that are in good condition graded, because there are relatively few of them out there.

Over the last few months, as people have been raiding their closets for their old Pokémon card collections, they’ve been mailing their cards to get graded at one of the three major companies that does this. The companies are Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), and Beckett Grading Services (BGS). Each of these companies has been grading collectibles for decades, though CGC made its name grading comics and only began grading trading cards about a year ago. Under the weight of the resurgent Pokémon card hobby, each has been completely crushed by demand and COVID-related backlogs, to the point that, from the outside, it seems as though they are barely functioning (It’s not just Pokémon cards, there has also been a resurgence in sports card, Magic card, and Yu-gi-oh! card collecting).

PSA, the most popular grading service, has published card grading wait times of up to 10 months but collectors say they have at times waited for more than a year to get certain cards graded. BGS’s published wait times are “Approximately 9+ months.” CGC claims that its wait times are “144 working days.” These long wait times do not come close to showing the inner workings of what seems to be happening at these companies right now, however. 

Both PSA and CGC have posted increasingly alarming blog posts and updates about the current state of the grading industry. All three companies seem to be making a lot of money despite being completely unable to keep up with demand. In March, Joe Orlando, the CEO of PSA, wrote a blog post called “an avalanche of cardboard” in which he noted that there was a “tsunami” of cards submitted to the company: “At the time of this writing, PSA was receiving more cards every five days (over 500,000 per business week) than what we used to receive every three months.”

Orlando noted that there were “some who questioned my sanity” after an earlier post explained why card collecting survived the financial crisis, 9/11, and would survive the pandemic. 

“The sheer volume of orders that PSA received in early March has fundamentally changed our ability to service the hobby”

“Even I didn’t think it would be THIS good,” he wrote of the new interest in the hobby and the 10-20x increase in prices some cards have seen during the pandemic. “During the past year, our company has hired, trained, and onboarded dozens upon dozens of new employees … In October of 2020, we doubled the size of our headquarters to accommodate for increased operational capacity.”

Barely a week later, though, Steve Sloan, PSA’s president, announced that the company would temporarily stop accepting cards for grading unless collectors pay $300 per card for “Super Express” service or $600 per card for “Walk Through” service. It said in addition to the new warehouse it bought it would be buying yet another warehouse and said that it was desperately looking for new graders to keep up with demand. 

“The sheer volume of orders that PSA received in early March has fundamentally changed our ability to service the hobby," Sloan wrote. "The reality is that we recently received more cards in three days than we did during the previous three months.” 

CGC, meanwhile, announced in early March that it has “experienced extraordinary growth in demand for our expert and impartial certification services” and as a result had hired 70 new employees in three months, bought “an additional 21,000 square feet of space, implemented comprehensive training programs, brought in efficiency consultants and worked thousands of hours of overtime.” It also claimed it was investing in “cutting-edge technology, including AI, robotics, advanced software, and more” and said that it would give a $1,000 start bonus to any new employees to incentivize people to apply to work there. 

Now, a little over a month later, CGC has announced it’s increasing that start bonus to $2,500 and that it is “seeking to immediately hire dozens of employees … for nearly all positions.” This week, it announced that prices for its cheapest grading services would increase substantially and set a Wednesday deadline for submissions before the price increase. 

That new deadline led to yet another surge of submissions and seemingly led to its submission website having major difficulties; the CGC forums are currently filled with very angry people who seemingly weren’t able to meet the deadline. I submitted a few dozen cards to be graded by CGC in early February before I understood just how dire this situation is; it took more than a month for the company to even acknowledge it had received the cards. They have still not formally entered the grading process. What this looks like on a collector's or consumer's end is that they are taking some of the most valuable collectibles they own (if you are getting cards graded, they are almost definitely worth thousands of dollars on eBay or on the secondary market) packaging them up, and mailing them into what is essentially a black hole, with little idea of when they will come back. 

“Knowing that we sent our cards out and they were supposedly delivered but have no confirmation that they received is very unnerving,” one CGC forum poster wrote Thursday. “Waiting months to get confirmation that actually received an order is very unfair.”

“I am wondering what happened to my stuff :(,” another wrote.

CGC, PSA, and BGS did not respond to a request for comment. 

Meanwhile, prices for things that are ancillary to trading card collecting, including cheap plastic sleeves, hard plastic “Top Loaders,” and another type of card protector called "Card Savers" which are required for submitting cards to be graded are also skyrocketing in price. A collector I know has begun to simply buy Top Loaders from Chinese wholesale websites and sell those on eBay rather than deal with Pokémon cards at all. Target stores around the country have lines around the block every Friday morning and the company has begun to consider whether it might have to call the cops to prevent people from camping out overnight. 

This is all to say that, yes, Pokémon cards are popular again. But that is underselling it. The popularity of Pokémon cards and other trading cards are leading to a situation in which hundreds of people are working "thousands of hours of overtime" and companies are offering massive bounties for new hires to keep up with demand, and are still failing to do so. 

“We are extremely excited about the future, not just for our company, but for the entire industry,” Orlando said in his blog. “You should be too.”

I Need to Explain to You Just How Dire America’s Pokémon Card Crisis Is syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[swordarkeereon]

No More Outside Publishers. Period.

I made a solid decision at the beginning of the year to no longer work with any outside publishers. There are two exceptions. The first being my friend Bernadette’s publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, where Saving Sarah May (my first, and perhaps only, sweet romance) was published. The second, being my friend Andre Gonzalez publishing house, M4L Publishing, which publishes me and Andre’s co-authored Amelia Doss series.

What was the final straw, you ask? It wasn’t a straw really. It was more like I had a realization of what my work is actually worth, and that people were coming to me with TERRIBLE publishing deals and offering to pay me what professional writers were making back in 1990. YES – 30 years ago professional rates. I’ve been writing for almost 30 years, and I’m really not doing anything for other writers in the industry, or myself, by accepting anything less than .20 cents a word for an article (plus more if newsletters and videos are required).

Modern day, professional advances on non-fiction books are running $5,000 – $20,000 ($2,500 is noob, rock bottom), and I’ve had publishers contact me and offer me $500 -$700 and tell me that’s a professional rate. Uh, no. Sorry. Not for a professional writer who’s been at this game for over 30 years, and who is one of the foremost world experts on her subject matter. Advances on non-fiction haven’t been that low since the 90’s, and if you’re working for that — you’re fucking yourself.

What is even worse is when you know what these publishers are selling the books for, and that they’re only paying their authors $4-$5 per copy sold toward the advance of $700, and you know the publisher is making $36 a copy (after you deduct the $10 print cost). Yet — it was the AUTHOR who did all the work. Especially in occult publishing, I’ve learned, no one is hiring editors, and layout is often done by the publisher him/herself. I know this because I’ve later found mistakes in my own work published by certain publishers that any editor would have caught.

Frankly, coming to a professional author who isn’t just starting out, and offering them 1990’s rates for professional content, is FUCKING INSULTING. And between last year and this year, I’ve been insulted enough to realize – hey – I’m worth getting paid professional rates!

Especially when I can publish my own work, do a fantastic job, AND make 100% of the profit without having to include a middle man, and not only make my professional rate, but also the publisher’s cut (minus printing, editorial, and formatting fees). But still, the difference is huge. Let me just spell it out for you.

ARTICLES: A 7,000 word article at .20 cents a word (which is the rock bottom professional NF rate in 2021) is $1,400.00. If you’re writing NF articles for someone and they’re paying you less than that…. WTF are you doing? The last one I did has barely netted me .10 cents a word, which is what I was being paid to write articles for a trade magazine back in 1996. Not kidding.

BOOKS: Let’s specifically talk the economics of limited edition hardcovers (LEH). Let’s say a publisher prints 250 LEH. They offer the author a $700 advance with an 8% royalty toward that advance (that means you have to sell at least 175 books before you earn out that advance and start actually making money, of which there is approximately only $300 more to make.) This means you’re being paid, AT MOST, $1000 to write a content rich book at a minimum of about 30,000 to 40,000 words. SERIOUSLY. Now, take into account that the publisher is likely only paying about $2,500 in printing (including shipping, taxes, etc) and the book, with all copies sold, the book stands to bring the publisher $12,500. Even if the publisher hires an editor for about $400, that means it’s only $4000 out of his pocket. The author gets $1000. The printer and editor get $3000 between them. The publisher walks away with over $8,000. Seems a bit predatory to me since without the author, you don’t have the book. Period.

Now I’m not saying the publisher shouldn’t make money. After all, they have to hire the editor, format it, get it printed and do the distribution, marketing, etc… But honestly — that’s the easy part nowadays. I know because I’ve been indie publishing since 2006. The hardest part is learning how to format or finding a formatter, where to find editors, where to find a printer, and how you’re going to distribute it. Once you have those things set up – you sit back and delegate. You line up orders, you package them and ship them out. Hell, you don’t even have to leave your home office to do that. You can print your own mailing labels directly from most point of sale systems, or via USPS online. USPS will deliver your mailing material, and they’ll pick that shit up for you if you arrange it. After the initial rush of sales on a book, your time spent packaging orders is minimal (unless you do that as your primary business).

There are some publishers that are doing better splits with authors, but the sad fact remains that many of them are just putting out the up front money to have the books printed, hoping the author ran it by a few friends who edited it, they quickly format it via word (which literally takes maybe an hour depending on length), and distribute it. For that, they’re taking half, or more. They don’t edit. They don’t market. (They’ll tell you they do, but they don’t. One post on their social media page doesn’t count.)

I published one book with a publisher who honestly didn’t know how to sell my books. We did have a 50/50 split, but this guy was HORRIBLE at selling the books. I got the first few royalty payments okay, but then, like a lot of small publishers do when they start to go under because they don’t know what they’re doing, he started spending the money as it came in and when it was all said and done, he owed me a little under $1000 and basically whined that it was my fault the book wasn’t selling. That I wasn’t well-known enough and the books were worthless to him. (All this so he could get out of paying me my $950 or whatever.) So I told him that instead of cash, he could send me the books he couldn’t sell. He did. I made well over that $950 he owed me on those books. A lot over, actually. I had no problem selling them. He couldn’t figure it out. ::shrug:: To this day, I don’t know what was so difficult about selling them and my only guess is HE wasn’t putting forth any effort to market them, and was expecting me to do it. And so I did and I ended up doing well on that book.

So — there’s that. Not all publishers know what they’re doing beyond distribution, and if they want to pay an author peanuts for a book and expect the author to do all the marketing — well seriously, fuck that. Let’s not even get into the hourly rate you’re making. If you make $1000, divide by the minimum wage in your state (it’s almost 12.50 in Colorado) — that means you have to be able to write a full book in 80 hours (two weeks) just to make minimum wage. That means all outlining and research, all the writing, and all the revision. 80 hours. Considering most NF books can take authors six months to a year to write — how much you think authors are actually making per hour at $1,000.00 for a book? Even for a 30,000 word book at .20 cents a word – the author should be making a minimum of $6,000.00. That at least pays the author for 480 hours, which covers twelve 40 hour work weeks at minimum wage (12.50 an hour), or three months of their time. (I could write a solid 30K book in 3 months).

Then the question is — if you’re going to do the bulk of the work anyhow, why not just add managing the project and distribution to the mix and do it yourself? You can have readers fund the printing costs through paid pre-orders. You only need 50 people to pre-order to pay for a 250 print run. 56 if you want to hire an editor. At least then you’re the one making the eight to ten-thousand dollars. Yes, you’ll have earned every cent with writing, hiring editors, formatting, dealing with printers, and doing your own marketing and distribution, but you won’t feel used – like a cheap whore.

If you are a professional writer, you charge professional rates because you’re WORTH PRO RATES. End of story.

Is there an instance where I would consider a traditional contract? Absolutely. The contract would require the following:

Contract limit of 3-5 years, at which time 100% of all rights revert back to me.

It better be a million dollar book deal.

I get full creative license.

HAHA — contracts like that don’t exist. But if I can do what a publisher can do, and I could do it better and actually make what I’m worth, then why wouldn’t I? That said, I don’t often deal in LEH anymore. I prefer my books to be affordable for readers which means ebook, paperback, and hardcovers that won’t break the bank. Which means I do make a lot less than the above example, but at least I’m not handing most of my wages to a middle man who is basically my pimp while I do the bulk of the work. If I’m doing the bulk of the work anyway — I’m doing IT ALL. Eventually each book will earn out the work I put into it. Some books it happens faster – others it happens slower.

Okay, I’ll quit bitching. I am simply fed up with being offered insulting contracts.

[chadnevett]

The Infinity Gauntlet Box-Set

Some brief words on the recent Infinity Gauntlet box-set that Marvel released and I was one of... dozens(?) to buy it. Actually, I just went and looked up the top 100 graphic novels in March, when this came out, the number two dollar rank isn't on the chart, which I'm betting is this given it's cover price making it much easier for it to make a big dollar splash while not making the chart at all.

Before we get going, here are the contents:

INFINITY GAUNTLET PROLOGUE PREMIERE HC 440 PGS. / COLLECTING SILVER SURFER (1987) 34-38, 40, 44-50; THANOS QUEST 1-2

INFINITY GAUNTLET PREMIERE HC (NEW PRINTING) 256 PGS. / COLLECTING INFINITY GAUNTLET (1991) 1-6

INFINITY GAUNTLET CROSSOVERS PREMIERE HC 504 PGS. / COLLECTING CLOAK AND DAGGER (1988) 18, SPIDER-MAN (1990) 17, INCREDIBLE HULK (1968) 383-385, DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 34-35, SILVER SURFER (1987) 51-59, QUASAR 26-27, SLEEPWALKER 7; MATERIAL FROM DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 31-33

INFINITY GAUNTLET AFTERMATH PREMIERE HC 344 PGS. / COLLECTING SILVER SURFER (1987) 60-66, DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 36, WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH 1-6; MATERIAL FROM SILVER SURFER ANNUAL 5

INFINITY WAR PREMIERE HC 264 PGS. / COLLECTING INFINITY WAR 1-6

INFINITY WAR CROSSOVERS VOL. 1 PREMIERE HC 552 PGS. / COLLECTING FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 366-368, SPIDER-MAN (1990) 24, DEATHLOK (1991) 16, DAREDEVIL (1964) 310, WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH 7, DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 42-44, SILVER SURFER (1987) 67-69, WONDER MAN (1991) 13, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 110, SILVER SABLE & THE WILD PACK 4, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (1990) 27, QUASAR 37, NEW WARRIORS (1990) 27, MARC SPECTOR: MOON KNIGHT 41-42; MATERIAL FROM CAPTAIN AMERICA (1968) 408, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 109, MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) 108-111

INFINITY WAR CROSSOVERS VOL. 2 PREMIERE HC 536 PGS. / COLLECTING WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH 8-10, QUASAR 38-40, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 111-112, DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 45-47, NOMAD (1992) 7, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (1990) 28-29, SILVER SABLE & THE WILD PACK 5, WONDER MAN (1991) 14-15, MARC SPECTOR: MOON KNIGHT 43-44, SLEEPWALKER 18, FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 369-370; MATERIAL FROM MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) 112

INFINITY WAR AFTERMATH PREMIERE HC 352 PGS. / COLLECTING WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH 11-17, SILVER SURFER/WARLOCK: RESURRECTION 1-4, QUASAR 41-43; MATERIAL FROM MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS (1988) 112, MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2

INFINITY CRUSADE PREMIERE HC 488 PGS. / COLLECTING INFINITY CRUSADE 1-6, WARLOCK CHRONICLES 1-5, WARLOCK AND THE INFINITY WATCH 18-22

INFINITY CRUSADE CROSSOVERS VOL. 1 PREMIERE HC 344 PGS. / COLLECTING THOR (1966) 463-464, IRON MAN (1968) 294-295, AVENGERS WEST COAST 96-97, DARKHAWK 30, CAGE (1992) 17, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 124, MARC SPECTOR: MOON KNIGHT 57; MATERIAL FROM DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 54-55, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 122-123, WEB OF SPIDER-MAN (1985) 104-105

INFINITY CRUSADE CROSSOVERS VOL. 2 PREMIERE HC 352 PGS. / COLLECTING ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 125, 127; THOR (1966) 465-467; DARKHAWK 31; SILVER SURFER (1987) 83-85; DEATHLOK (1991) 28; MATERIAL FROM DOCTOR STRANGE, SORCERER SUPREME 56, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 126, SILVER SABLE & THE WILD PACK 16-17, WEB OF SPIDER-MAN (1985) 106, DEATHLOK (1991) 29

INFINITY GAUNTLET COMPANION PREMIERE HC 528 PGS. / COLLECTING THANOS ANNUAL 1; WHAT IF? (1989) 49, 104; WHAT THE-?! 20; AVENGERS & THE INFINITY GAUNTLET 1-4; INFINITY GAUNTLET (2015) 1-5; MATERIAL FROM WHAT IF: NEWER FANTASTIC FOUR, WHAT THE-?! 24; BONUS MATERIAL

Oh, and it came with one of those posters made of the same material as flags of the cover of The Infinity Gauntlet #1. I haven't hung it up, because I have no idea where I would.

But, really, as you can see, it is basically everything Jim Starlin did with the cosmic characters from his Silver Surfer run through The Infinity Crusade with pretty much every possible tie-in included, including many that aren't explicit tie-ins (like in the various Aftermath volumes). Looking at the contents of this set, you can tell that talking about the actual quality of the comics would be futile. You're only buying this sort of set if it's already your thing. For me, it was a chance to read all of the tie-ins and comics surrounding the Starlin stuff. From that perspective, let's run down some good and bad things:

* The biggest negative that I have is that the Infinity War tie-ins by Starlin aren't presented in that collection, they're shunted off to the Infinity War Crossovers volumes. This is especially frustrating given how the first voume is so large that the first couple of issues collected are bound to the front cover rather than the spine. Taking the few issues of Warlock & the Infinity Watch along with that Thanos four-parter from Marvel Comics Presents would have slimmed down that volume to not make that necessary, and would have made for a better reading experience for Infinity War (especially since the trade of that event includes those issues -- though, maybe not in between issues as I place them, but at the end -- I'd have to check out a copy of the paperback to see...). After all, the rule of thumb that I follow (and, really, makes the most sense) is that any comics written by the writer of the main event series are essential to understanding the event. But, that's the only real negative that I have. The only other thing that would have been a benefit would have been including the Silver Surfer graphic novel Homecoming that Starlin wrote as it ties into his run on that title to a small degree and is more explicitly reference in the Silver Surfer/Warlock: Resurrection mini. Maybe adding in another volume with the rest of the Infinity Watch run? That's probably pushing it, but, while we're nitpicking.

* Honestly, there isn't much else that I can criticise. The packaging is great. Solid box. Heavy. HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY. It came in a box from Amazon that then contained another box and it was packaged to avoid damage. The look of the set is good. I like that, for the spines of the books, they used the heroes lined up on the cover of The Infinity War #1. The cover art on each of the volumes (front and back) is a cover from the issues inside with the backgrounds stripped away. In some cases, it works better than others, but, really, who cares. No printing errors that I found or poor quality scans or anything. Good paper stock. The binding is, mostly, good, aside from the beginning of the first crossovers volumes for The Infinity War, as I stated above.

* The reading order is solid. That's an area where I could probably nitpick for days if I really wanted, but what's the point. The only spot where I was concerned was with the Starlin stuff and they put all of that in the same order that I have my copies of the comics in, so... I mean, when it comes to the various crossover issues, I thought that they did a really good job of balancing the various concerns of the spot in the main event that the tie-in issues connected with (which was, sometimes, several issues of the main series) along with the need to present cliffhanger issues right before the followup for better reading. There's no perfect solution and I think that everyone involved here did a good job of finding that balance.

* Despite my complain about not including the Homecoming OGN, I can't fault them for missing anything. In a few cases, they presented excerpts from issues where the event in question was briefly referenced just to be as complete as possible. When it came to the Infinity Gauntlet Companion collection, that's where the bonus material really explodes. Variations on The Infinity Gauntlet are included, like the all-ages retelling and the Secret Wars Battleworld mini, What If? issues, What The--?! issues, even the Starlin-penned Lim-drawn Thanos annual #1 that features an avatar of the Gauntlet-wielding Thanos are all included. From there, the material digs down even deeper with material from a swimsuit special, reproductions of various trading cards, tons of variant covers from different projects that relate, a lot of Marvel Age material, and then panels of scans of original art from anything that they could find that was collected in the set it seems. I would never say that the set is worth it just for this volume because look at the price tag, but I will say that this volume was my favourite of the bunch because of the breadth of material.

As I said, this isn't a set that you worry about the quality of the content too much ahead of time, but I would like to take a brief wander through some of what stood out on that front:

* Not since Avengers vs. X-Men have I had a chance to see such a large sampling of event series tie-in books. This set has three events in their entirety and it provides a cool window into how tie-ins can be approached. Now, of course, events done in the early to mid '90s are different than events done at Marvel over the past decade. There were no creative retreats where Starlin talked about his ideas and other people chimed in and, thus, writers were able to tailor their tie-ins a bit better to the main series and their own. Most of the tie-ins usually expanded on scenes their characters appeared in and used them to further whatever story was already being told in the book. Even for characters that played larger roles in Starlin's stories, there wasn't much room to add meaningfully to the main series, so series like Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange wound up taking a small piece and then going off on their own tangent. The former used a lot of hallucinations or interior exploration; the latter was big on Astral Projection. Lip-service was the name of the game.

* This set did give me a further appreciation for Ron Marz's work on Silver Surfer and Thor where you could definitely see the effect of coming up under Starlin had on his work. His Surfer stuff is the closest I've seen anyone not named Starlin doing comics that I'd put in with Starlin stuff.

* One of my favourite tie-ins was Wonder Man #15, which tied into The Infinity War. I'd read a few issues of the title to that point and it was... fine. But, this issue really took the subplot of Wonder Man questioning his humanity and existence, the idea that he needed anger to get his powers going, and tied it into the doppelganger stuff from the event, and really delivered a strong issue. I was really blown away with the work done to integrate the two.

* Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange were the only comics to tie into all three events.

* You could tell how desperate a title was for sales by how many tie-ins it had... by the end, Alpha Flight and Thor both had six tie-ins to The Infinity Crusade. Ouch.

* Honestly, most of the tie-in comics are... not good. Take a look at the comics that were participating in those events and you're not exactly seeing the cream of Marvel's crop. But, they weren't as bad usually as I would have expected. A lot were serviceable. Some were fun. Only a few were outright terrible. It was a fun window into that period of Marvel.

If there is anyone out there afflicted with the same interest in this material, then this box-set is worth it. I really can't imagine that there are many of you. I wouldn't have thought it would be more than just me, honestly.