#i cant overstate how much this means to me and how much i loved seeing this

[mellow-cello]

Hello! Not a question and I'm sorry if I'm being annoying rn but I have post a few fanarts inspired by "under the surface"(https://twitter.com/aquwo_/status/1669062863858679809?s=61&t=svmof1ffydkIhdwx9oAEHQ) and just wanted to make sure you've notice them. That's okay if you just don't wanna interact with them or something not trynna to press on you! And sorry if 'm being annoying! But this fic is important to me and I just want to show HOW MUCH it is important to me and how much im appreciate &love & adore your work

I am so so so so SO sorry for how long this took. I saw this days ago and absolutely lost it with how much I loved this piece. Admittedly I've been in a weird sort of mental health state for a while, and this absolutely floored me. I honestly have been spending days trying to put into words how much I love this, but I don't think I'll be able to actually articulate it. The care you put into the expressions is phenomenal. The tenderness there in both pieces from Harry to Snape and then Harry to Draco is just... It makes me so damn happy.

In case anyone is having trouble with links in asks, here's a hyperlink so you can put this art into your life faster.

[cringefailcabitha]

sorry i dont have tumblr (i only use it to stalk cabby art LOL) and idk if youll answer this but i am known as the cabby yapper by my friends so i wanted to bring this up to someone who thinks about her as deeply as me

do you ever like think about how terrifying mephones plan for a season 4 would have been to cabby specifically? out of all of the final 3 she has been hurt by the game the most (with no closure mind you unlike balloon), i think having to go through everything again would genuinely break her. even if shes less misunderstood the game still puts pressure onto her to be a facts machine, a strategist. when shes literally the kindest person ever, trying to comfort silver (despite his constant mistreatment of her), and sacrificing almost every post merge challenge for the sake of somebody else (i.e giving up her inani-mate for yinyang, sacrificing herself in episode 13 to put herself on the line with yinyang even if she was manipulating them out of obligation, AND EPISODE 15 SHE DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE WON IF SHE HAD USED HER FILES and completely foiling blueberrys plan, but she didnt because she cared about bot)

in the episode when shes reading the file, the screen actually starts shaking a little. implying she was absolutely horrified at what she was reading. and she had every single right, especially considering what shes gone through.

the other thing that’s absolutely insane to me is the fact that this information was conveyed to her via a file. aka her disability aid, something she relies on. that mustve been horrifying to see something so person to her used against her in such a way.

sorry i regurgitated a lot of this info from the shut i put on tiktok. im just genuinely crazy about cabby

ALSO UR A CABTUBE TRUTHER IM LITERALLY SO IN LOVE WITH CABTUBE i am lesbian cabbys number one truther and see her shipped with men far too much. but like i was so hoping test tube would at least apologize or something. it irritates me how they can make one sided silvercandle canon but they cant show us anymore one-sided cabtube. just make her blush or something. but tbh it made me emo when test tube (and pb bc they nodded) oraised cabby, it made me genuinely crazy.

also unshout out to everyone bullying cabby this episode genuinely why were half of them so mean please let silver Die slowly and painfully. also if lifering (i hc him and cabby as father and daughter, like u cannot convince me lifering and floory arent her dads) switched up on cabby i will personally take his soul like the grim reaper he will be seeing these hands.

sorry feel free to ignore this!

-🍭

😭 I was for real thinking about that earlier today like hasn’t she been through enough… Yes Cabby is a very competitive person but after everything that happened to her in this season and the fact that she’s Still in a vulnerable place right now I don’t think she would find it particularly enjoyable to not receive a prize and then immediately be thrust into a new season of competition— and as a team leader, no less.

Test Tube thanking her for apologising was,,, weird to me. I literally rolled my eyes. It gave me the impression that she (and Paintbrush) think Cabby *should* be apologising to everyone for making some of them uncomfortable? And I just don’t agree. As polite as it is, I think it’s way overstating her actions. Like… why is it “right” to apologise to the entire jury for her past behaviour making “some of them uncomfortable” pre episode 7 when she had never even worked with half of them when said behaviour was supposedly occurring? It’s so frustrating to me, like… how much smaller does she have to make herself for them to be satisfied? I don’t get it.

And of course, “making them uncomfortable” thing again comes back to her files. It’s basically impossible for her not to internalise the idea that keeping information is bad because she Might get things wrong (which. Is another thing. As far as we’ve seen, her writing is almost always correct, barring Bot which is an obvious outlier, and erroneously attributing Suitcase turning on her alliance in season 2 to Balloon’s manipulation.) In episode 15 too, aka the worst Test Tube episode to me, she says Cabby thinks everyone is just “what she happened to write down” as if Cabby is careless and doesn’t do her due diligence when writing her files. Which to me directly contradicts her calling Cabby’s Fan file “impeccable” and having “so many notes” back in episode 2?

And as for Test Tube’s assertion that Cabby would turn on her the moment she stopped being useful, and that she treated everyone like chess pieces on her little board, it really felt like her jumping to conclusions because of what happened with Fan. Because she has done that to no other member of the Pinkers. And there is way less manipulation on Cabby’s part in the show than Test Tube’s irritation would have it seem.

I’m not sure if the writers intentions were to make Cabby as manipulative as Silver from the beginning, but if it was and that’s why this is all going on, well. Mission status isn’t exactly a success to me— the only manipulation she does is in episode 2, when she tries to get Bot to vote out Fan (and presumably the rest of the team as well), and episode 7, where she makes a big show of approaching Silver about how it would be better for him to stack the ice cream because, knowing him to be lazy and careless, it would increase the odds of him screwing up the challenge and make it easier to vote him out.

I’m at least relieved that Test Tube seems to have been thinking about things whenever Cabby says something self-effacing or seems to be nice, because it gives me hope that she may finally realise she’s been taking it too far and maybe Cabby will get an apology, but the fact that she’s been just sitting on it for like 3 episodes by now is killing me,

[fair-dinkum-mechanic]

You must want you, you must love you. Live by yourself, give yourself presents, experiences, go out on your own. Enjoy your company, do things every day that release happy chems in your brain. It’ll be hard, but it’ll be worth it. You’ll get comfortable, you’ll adapt. In time you’ll be better, you’ll see yourself better, feel better. It’s a rough process, but it works. You must love you first, once you do the rest will follow. All will fall into place eventually, after you learn to truly/fully love yourself.

It may sound cliché, “love yourself,” everyone tells us to. Because its true.

*sends you a tight hug*🫂 you are not alone.

Thank you so much, for helping, and reaching out 💖 I don’t know you but this means so much.

I try every day to do this. To enjoy what I love, to see my friends, to make others smile. So that others feel good being around me. And I think I’m really successful at that. I make people laugh, I make them happy, and I enjoy being around them. I try to walk on my own, eat on my own, hell Ive even gone out on my own for drinks many moons ago. I just can’t shake this feeling. I CANT shake this feeling that there is something so base, so fundamentally WRONG with my brain, I don’t feel how others feel I don’t cope how others cope. And it would be fine if I knew anyone else who had the same issue as me but I never have, only similar feelings at times. I’m trying so hard I can’t even overstate how hard I’m trying but I’m one little breeze away from the cards all falling again and I already know one of them is coming sooner than I thought.

I don’t know if I deserve this. I must’ve done something awful to deserve feeling like this and nothing or nobody being able to stop it.

[moss-selfship]

its super fucking cute on how much you love this cat creature dude oh my god

like i genuinely cant overstate just how much i love and adore her This is the strongest ive ever felt for an FO before, like by MILES..like it is insane. I cant think of anyone else (as you can see by me making her my only FO on here. cause genuinely she has just taken over my entire heart) The fact she is the First FO ive ever had (AND I DO MEAN EVER) that the idea of me and her having a fankid is one that i wouldnt actually mind?? like mind you, i dislike kids, always have. And every time ive had FOs i have never had fankids with them and each time i either come up with reasons for the inability to have kids or just say how neither of us want one. And its cause the idea of me being a dad makes me VISCERALLY uncomfortable and fucks with me (its why i refuse to have kids in real life and want to get the snip when i can. all of this from trauma and shit i dealt with growing up) and its such a strong feeling that even FICTIONALLY the idea of me as a dad fucks with me and makes me uncomfortable. But izutsumi?...it feels different...for the first time it feels like...yeah im not chomping at the bit to make a fankid with her...but i dont mind the idea of it for once. which still blows my mind cause that is already a massive thing for me.

[beemovieerotica]

i was rereading your make pies and bake the dead fic for the 2nd time, and i just cant overstate how much i adore this story and how well you nailed the pushing daisies narration style with a hannibal spin to it. i was wondering if you had any tips and tricks on how you write your pushing daisies-esque narration? i'm really interested in writing a post-s2 continuation fanfic since there's not much love out there on ao3, and see yours as a good example of how to write their voices and style!

💖💖💖💖💖

oh my gosh!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. this message makes me smile so much :)

and yes I'd be happy to help! so I think there are a few telltale parts of the pushing daisies narration style that I can pin down:

there's a rhythm / balance to the narration: you'll have maybe one or two very long sentences with very detailed description (embrace rambling) fixated on something with complete seriousness...and then you break it with a short, deadpan, matter-of-fact statement. and it's either inherently absurd or it's the juxtaposition of that fact that makes it funny.

internal rhymes and LOTS of alliteration---like genuinely go nuts with the kinds of things that Serious Writers at Serious Writer School tell you not to do.

repetition. both in the dialogue, like quick repetitive banter back and forth, and in the narrative voice itself. there's this clever thing the narrator did that I tried to imitate a couple times, where they repeat key words or phrases in the same or next sentence, but the words may have different meanings the 2nd time they're used...or the sentence gets mirrored on itself in an interesting way. (I'll try to find an example)

irreverence. pushing daisies is about dead people and the characters are NOT normal about it. there almost has to be a persistent nonchalance/dismissal of death to it to keep it light. someone would 100% refer to a dead burn victim as "barbecued." and if there's a naked dead woman speared on a taxidermied deer's antlers, then the first thing her zombie should probably say is, "what the everloving fuck"

I definitely have my own strong conceptions of the characters in my head, so I don't necessarily want to give advice like "Olive talks / behaves this way." but if you have specific questions about vocal patterns or style or things to incorporate to make the character stand out, I'd be happy to go deeper into it 👍

[squeeneypod]

anyway i love podcasts! have loved wtnv since i started listening in 2013! didnt know what a podcast was and i thought cecil was very unsettling! it was one of the first pieces of media i consumed that involved a queer protagonist! i bothered my family talking about it and almost went to dashcon for them but narrowly avoided it!

alice isnt dead and within the wires! what the fuck!! that shit was so good! complex women who love each other but it's complicated and one of them is talking into a recorder about it!! wtw does that twice and then keeps going with other good stuff!

loved tma since i started listening in 2019! first thing that made me realize that horror is a genre i can enjoy! from there i could get into other shows and it turns out i have both a high tolerance for spooky media and a really great love of it! like a big sampler platter of subgenres! im very emotionally invested and also it's very funny!

archive 81! the hotel! old gods of appalachia! the lost cat pod! orbiting human circus! the silt verses! unwell! wooden overcoats! dungeon economic model! the tower! the cryptonaturalist! lots of others im still listening to or havent started yet or just cant think to mention at this very moment! i love podcasts!

and im glad that wtnv exists because i dont know if i wouldve known about them otherwise. it made such a huge impact on audio fiction podcasts and i dont think its a coincidence that one of the first big-time fiction podcasts of our time was queer.

ten years has past since it began, nine since i started listening, and last night i finally got to see a live show. and i dont think it can be overstated how queer and weird it's allowed to be. and how queer and weird it was in 2012. and how much it means to me.

so im glad that one night in 2013 i got into bed and started listening. night vale is not a place i would want to live, but ive lived in it for almost a decade and know my neighbors well.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

editor’s commentary 4: repeated clips part 1: stake & snake

so like i think i said somewhere before, this video works by assigning a meaning to certain clips, like the one of spyfall in the plane is shame. heres all the other repeated ones that i havent talked about yet (i think. im writing all these commentaries sorta all at the same time. let’s not get bogged down in the order of things etc)

missy and her stake represents danger

0:27 – i think in the first instance it’s the danger of trusting the master?

you trust her, danger, this is where you end up, 13 doesnt trust anymore, 12 lets go, this is where you end up

1:15:

talked about this one here

2:56

here i think it represents the risk in the watch. in finding out whats in it, or not finding out whats in it, in how vulnerable it is to have this part of you that you cant see be a physical object that anyone can just get their hands on. but mostly i think the risk of knowing, the decision of knowing or not knowing

i like how this sequence is bookended by 13 looking at tecteun (that first shot is 13 asking tecteun “hundreds? thousands?”), then the first half is the static part. being still, stagnant, being kept, in a watch, in a display case, in a grave (similar shapes to those too, that helps), and the second half is everything falling, 13, azure dropping the watch, 13 dropping the watch. falling is finding out about your past and losing your identity on the way.

it’s like the staticness of not knowing vs the turmoil you will unleash if you decide to know. you know? and it being bookended by 13 means it’s her decision. and the middle one being missys stake means it’s risky. am i making sense

i can not overstate how little of this was conscious on my part. it was ALL vibes. i have no plan i have no like, meanings written down before hand it was ALL vibes, it was all just me walking around with the song on spotify imagining which moments might fit where. absolutely no forethought at all

the dead snake represents breaking free of the control of another person

mentioned this briefly in the last paragraph. i think it comes back twice? once there around 2:56 and once here at 2:48:

the monopoly represents the doctor’s controlling behaviour with regard to the people she loves. missy killing the snake is missy pushing back against that.

the difference between s10 vault arc and this fic’s vault arc is that in this fic theres yaz. and adding that third person into the mix actually like, really destabilises the doctor’s position of power in the whole situation? because the third person is both yaz and missy. yaz destabilises the dynamic between the doctor and the master – specifically missy bc shes pretty much defined by how she shapes herself to the doctor’s approval – by offering missy attention. thats really kind of all she does. she sees the way the doctor reacts to missy and this makes her curious. she wants to know more about whats going on. and because the doctor wont provide any info, either about herself or about her relationship with the master, yaz turns to missy. and while missy wont just like, tell her life story to someone she doesnt know that long yet and who’s still human, shes way more willing to share than the doctor is (anyone would look willing to share if you put them next to 13). and because yaz is so eager to just listen, and listen fairly open-mindedly and from a place of trying to at least understand and, if she can, empathise, missy gets more willing to share as time goes on.

so yaz destabilises the doctor-master vault power dynamic simply because she offers missy relatively non-judgemental attention and interest in her worldview (yaz has the same ‘i can fix her’ impulse as the doctor when it comes to missy but because of her background shes coming at it like ‘we need to understand the cause of the problem before we can fix it’ and because the doctor has like 0.5 coping mechanism, they probably havent yet realised there are reasons behind missys behaviour, or her own)

and the way that missy destabilises the power dynamic between yaz and the doctor is that shes a source of information and guidance in addition to the doctor. where the doctor stops answering questions, missy will happily step in, if only because it’s an easy way to get under the doctor’s skin. where the doctor tries to obstruct the ways in which yaz is becoming more like her, missy will actively tutor. if this is mostly just for her own benefit and enjoyment, doesnt matter, it is what yaz wants and needs (although probably not in this specific way by this specific person but beggars cant be choosers) and it breaks the doctor’s monopoly haaaaa we got there we got there ahfkjhdgk

missy killing the snake is her pushing back against that control the doctor has over her (also like emotionally? yaz is giving her attention, yaz is meeting some of her emotional needs, yaz can never hope to replace the doctor’s role in missys life obviously and she knows that but missy is becoming slightly less emotionally dependent on the doctor). yaz taking away the cobwebs is her exercising her agency by being applying what shes learnt both watching the doctor and watching missy. also, like, unveiling stuff? search for the truth.

and then theres 13 with the watch. bookending with the first of these four shots bc the middle two are responses to 13 but also thats 13 breaking free from tecteun/division obviously

and the snake comes back around 2:55 but i already talked about that in the stake bit. snake+stake surrounded by the static watch and then the falling watch = breaking free from tecteun is risky and scary

[rushingheadlong]

idk about anybody else (maybe i have backwards thinking??) but i'd rather have adam record new content with what's left of queen. when i heard him singing The Show Must Go On i was like 😣😣, only bc Freddie never got to sing that live. i'd rather them make original content bc that is unique to them!

i admire adam for lots of reasons, though im not particularly fond of his songs, but i respect his courage. stepping into freddie's shoes was never going to be an easy job!! but i'd never ever hate on him.

at the end of the day: if adam was to sing the songs exactly like freddie did, there would be hate. if he was to put his own spin on it, like he does, he'd get hate. he cant win.

much love 💓

( - @two-lovers-together )

@two-lovers-together

Yeah I can understand feeling a bit oof about hearing Adam sing the songs that Freddie never got to sing live... The way I see it, though, is that if Freddie could have toured and performed those songs live he absolutely would have, and I think it’s a great way to honor Freddie’s legacy to include songs like The Show Must Go On, Love Kills, I Want It All, etc. in their setlists so that these songs get a chance to be performed live the way they should have been in the 80s/90s instead of saying, “Well Freddie never did that so we’re going to let these songs fade into obscurity.” But I very much understand why some people would feel differently about that!

I think what gets to me about the Adam hate is that, like you said, he gets hated no matter what he does. If he puts his own spin on it then he’s not respecting Queen’s/Freddie’s music but if he doesn’t change it enough then he gets accused of trying to “replace Freddie” (even though Adam, Brian, Roger, and everyone actually involved with Q+AL have repeatedly said that Adam couldn’t replace Freddie even if he wanted to).

There is absolutely a double-standard that gets applied to Adam and it’s made worse, I think, by the fact that he’s a gay pop star who got his break on American Idol. The people who are fans of him, specifically, are fans of his work with Queen - but the people who are fans of Queen first and foremost don’t always (or even usually) like Adam and always judge him for how he got his start, which isn’t fair on any level. And like I’ve said in other posts today, that means that while there is incentive for Adam to bring Brian and Roger into his work, Queen has to be more cautious about what they do with Adam so they don’t set off a new wave of accusations about how they’re “not really Queen anymore” just because they’re doing things without Freddie and John. 

And not to keep going off (and this isn’t directed at you specifically at all! I just continue to have Too Many Words) a lot of the hate that Adam gets reeks of homophobia. The accusations that he’s too flamboyant (even though he’s no more flamboyant than Freddie ever was), that he’s trying too hard to replace Freddie (because they’re both gay so obviously that means that they’re basically the same person)... Paul Rodgers can change Queen’s music because he is physically incapable of singing them as they were written and it’s heralded as a good decision, but then Adam changes Queen’s music to add his own bits of flair while still keeping them in the original key and tempo and he gets shit on for it. 

Adam is expected to always sing perfectly, perform perfectly, reassure everyone that he’s not trying to replace Freddie, be thankful that he’s so “lucky” to be working with Brian and Roger (never mind that Brian and Roger wouldn’t even be touring as Queen if Adam wasn’t in the picture), show his sexuality in a way that’s safe and palatable to straight fans, only talk about connecting with Freddie’s music as a fellow gay man either in vague terms (so no one can accuse him of putting words in Freddie’s mouth) or else talk about it again in a way that’s palatable to straight fans... 

Like I genuinely cannot overstate the amount of pressure that Adam is under that Paul Rodgers was not under, and the ways in which his career has always been marked by him being an out gay man and how that impacts his work with Queen (because despite Freddie also being a gay man Queen fans are some of the most remarkably homophobic people I’ve encountered in quite some time).

He really cannot win, and that is such a travesty because Adam is genuinely a great performer and musician in his own right and he deserves more honest recognition for his work, not to continually be trashed by Queen fans who refuse to accept that Brian and Roger are never going to tour with a Freddie impersonator.

[kvltprince]

I was tagged by the lovely @leporidaefluff (Thank you! it was the push i needed to get started on this instead of just going oh~ neat~!)

Rules:

1. Choose an OC.

2. Answer them as that OC.

3. Tag 5 people to do the same. Sorry if anyone has already been tagged, no obligation. @ heathie on whatever acct cos im a dumbass an i miss your bois(you miss em too), @randomwordsandstormydays, @randomfuzzbunny, @jornaquinn @chrysocolladawn ( @somewhere-withoutyou if you would...) and anyone else who would enjoy doing this. (if i get tagged again ill do anther oc. i would tag a few others but i feel weird tagging ppl i dont like ever talk to lol.)

What is your name?

"Lucy Grandchester, yeah that one.” 

How old are you?

“Fourty-five unless you are getting nitpicky about cryostasis. That doesn’t count unless I am joking with a ghoul, honestly.”

What do you look like?

He lets out a small half chuckle, "Oh, we are doing this okay. I’ll bite. Slightly short middle aged punk, long greying curly hair, undercut, with one leg and too many tattoos?”

Where are you from? Where do you live now?

Lucy uncomfortably takes down his hair and redoes his messy bun while sighing and becoming a bit short. “I’m from just the other side of that irradiated water near that gas station south of here. Name kinda gives it away. You have seen it? I honestly am not sure how it’s standing still between the bombs and everything else. It’s looked after now, and is a surprise asset to still have. I lived in Boston for a while after all that, and back in this area once Nuka World was opened, then back in the Boston area, and would you look at that I am back in Nuka World and it is a lot more comfortable now.”

What was your childhood like?

"...Unstable, for everyone. It got a bit better once my parents were dead... are we done with this line of questions? Or am I excusing you?”

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

“Well, I started out trying to play nicely vaguely with anyone that didn’t try to shoot me first. That.... hasn’t stayed how it is. At least not fully, though i generally play nice until I am given a reason not to. I am friendly with the Disciples, the Operators, several of the Children of Atom groups that haven't irradiated their sense out of their heads yet, the Railroad.”

Tell me about your best friend.

He finally visibly relaxes the rest of the way after that history business, and takes a drink of a quantum. “Oh only one best friend? Are we in high school again? aw Alright. We have some parallel histories.” He swirls the glowing drink, but doesn't let himself get lost in his head too far. “Great humor, puts up with my shit somehow, doesn't blow my sneaking. Laugh that could take on the world even though they probably wouldn't. No I am not spoiling who I decided on. A man has to have some secrets somewhere and mine are in short supply”

Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

“My son Shaun never ceases to surprise me with what he can come up with, and how well adjusted he is. Codsworth is still helping out with the household, and helping keep Shaun from disassembling live turrets while I am away, though now he is living here at Fizztop with us. Surprisingly it seems to be an alright setup, and Shaun has taught a few people some upgrades in their downtime. There is enough room to keep things comfortable, and I have done some park remodeling since I arrived. My closest companions that don’t hate my choices I have made I consider family, but that has become a smaller circle than before.”

What about a partner or partners?

“Gage of course, he is my husband for whatever it is worth in the wasteland. Otherwise I suppose that depends how you are defining that. I am an affectionate person and some people seem to have rather strict definitions of where the edge of friend and partner should be”

Who are your enemies, and why?

“Several people aren’t speaking to me very well at best after I have settled into the Overboss seat here, on a personal level. The Pack were wiped out. The Brotherhood were wiped out. The Institute were wiped out. The minutemen are pretty pissed understandably. The Gunners still show up in vertibirds sometimes and are still pretty fun target practice. My settlements are generally comfortable, and my outposts mostly only have problems with gunners or trappers. Minor annoyances.”

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

“Yeah, of course. I think they got too headstrong for their flightsuits. I mean I understand but you really can’t do that shit and expect no repercussions. It was quite a firework show honestly, I wonder how far away the heat was felt..”

What about The Enclave?

"I don’t know much about them, only one of their ex-soldiers, he didn’t exactly tell me much. Cute, a bit odd. Not sure if it is the radiation that did that or not.”

How do you feel about Super Mutants?

He has a flash of a pensive thought drift across his face “There’s a few that aren’t so bad. Obviously the FEV isn’t mass-curable though, so not exactly much of a choice what to do about them unless you like getting a rocket launcher or a nuke in your face.”

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

“Proobably~ around Bunker Hill, It was just, A Lot. That whole time was not just the specific fight. I don’t remember a lot of it, I’m pretty sure Gage half dragged me home after the main running around and meetings after the fight. I don’t think I had a full thought for a while.”

Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

He thumb points to a sniper rifle leaning against the wall “Yeah, too often, thankfully usually I see them first, and I’ve gotten the sneaking thing down. They make pretty good steaks.”

Do you like fighting?

“Sometimes, honestly. Something tired and overstated about old habits or something boring. Really though, it is exciting and keeps the boredom away. Playfighting and sparring will do, no need to draw blood. I guess. Good to keep knife and sneaking skills sharp however you can.”

What’s your weapon of choice?

“A modded real sharp Throatslicer she called it, I swear Nisha found this thing in the loading dock or something it is the nicest box-cutter I have ever owned. Opens up anything.”

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

“Outlive everything around me usually by not being seen, notice it first, shoot it faster, stab it more, talk my way out of it, or by luck. I have zero real idea, but I can eat nearly anything and I bet that helps too.”

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

"Of course, there are a bunch, and I was ushered into 111 to turn my life upside down. They seem to only be any good for salvage, horror stories, clean water sometimes, and if you are real lucky a trade post and a shave. I have a settlement vault that is doing well that I have taken over and built up, but that is not Vault-Tec related, obviously.”

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

“I have a few recipes that are good for radiation, though it doesn't affect me very badly overall and I am slow to feel any sickness. I suspect that one day I will turn into a ghoul.” He is rather matter of fact and unbothered by this, and hints that he knows that not getting sick much from radiation means just that.

What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

“Probably the stags and gazelles and other herd animals. They are overall unchanged other than most have two heads now, they are still nice to watch”

What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

“Honestly? radscorpions? Those fuckers are too quick and you cant shoot them cos they tunnel and they knock you on your ass and poison you and just UGH”

How do you feel about robots?

"Robots are alright if they are not causing trouble. Some of them are nice. Jezebel is not so nice, but she is guarding red rocket and bitching the entire time so shes no longer my problem. The Rust Devil’s robots are a pain in my ass for real.”

How many caps do you have on you right now?

"Plenty.”

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

He cocks his head slightly “I havent heard that one in a while. Depends on the flavor of Nuka Cola, I do like Sunset Sarsaparilla though, if you have any.”

Do you do chems?

"Not recreationally anymore. No, not because of him.” He nods toward Gage “It just, gets out of hand”

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

"Not as often as you would expect, I mean obviously there is the ‘oh i remember when that wasn't destroyed’ of things, but things are more comfortable than I thought they could be”

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

His eyes narrow slightly “I don’t really do regret. Things were done the way they were because it was the choice at the time. A choice now for an old situation isn’t helpful to living my current life or my old life. I am not living then, I am living now.” 

What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

“Surviving all of this, and myself. Creating this strange semi-stability in this post apocalyptic place.”

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

“Keep me and mine safe, happy as we can be, and I hope that my found-family never fully stops growing. Curious what the future holds for my raiders and friends, there is so much potential, it could be risky but it is there. For once it is a good solid place to be, and it’s mine.” Lucy polishes off his questionable as hell drink with a smile.

[saints-row-2]

film watch day 3: Venom

Venom is only tangentially a horror movie so it probably isnt really fair to include it in my “watch a horror movie every day for a month” list but there is absolutely nothing i could watch today that means as much as Venom does so its going to have to fly

i use this image specifically because it really represents the best bits of Venom. namely; Venom (Tom Hardy) bullies the life out of Eddie (Tom Hardy), while Eddie looks like hes dying of consumption. the rest of the film happens around them, sure, but none of the other actors can hold a candle to Tom Hardy, who storms through this movie doing whatever the fuck he wants and stealing the entire show so hard the film goes from being a dull 2003 style origin story to his own personal Little Shop of Horrors homage. 

Eddie Brock is an edgy tv reporter with his own news show dedicated to covering stories people DONT want to talk about, which i found pretty immediately sympathetic. anyway. he cant resist himself and tries to confront local Elon Musk rip-off Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) about the deaths in Drake’s human testing program related to his search for a cure for cancer. Eddie is promptly fired, and loses his girlfriend and apartment to boot. however, determined to find out the truth, Eddie breaks into Drake’s testing facility, and gets himself infected with the alien symbiote known as Venom. the film then completely loses its own mind. 

Venom’s plot is nonsense. it has at least one major recurring plot thread that goes absolutely nowhere and multiple smaller storylines that have no endings. the character arcs are often inexplicable. the post-climax ending scene happens with next to no explanation at all. the film feels like it had those 40 minutes of scenes Tom Hardy mentioned being cut ripped out. but i didnt particularly give a shit watching the movie and i dont particularly give a shit now.

Venom, as a film, wanted to be a scary edgy action-horror. Tom Hardy wanted to make a buddy cop comedy movie, and because hes the main character, thats what the movie is now. i really cant overstate how fucking good Tom Hardy is in this movie. hes incredibly charming, funny, and likeable, and his chemistry with himself is fantastic. as soon as Venom and Eddie Brock meet the film kicks off in a major way. 

maybe this is my own love of characters who are as you might say “off their shits” is giving me enormous bias but i found myself watching every scene Tom Hardy was in with a kind of rapturous glee. watching Eddie and Venom fight about biting off heads, freaking out in a public restaurant, squabble like children and do ridiculous motorcycle stunts was fucking delightful. 

the film is a mess. but its kind of fucking glorious as well and frankly if youve got an aching desire for a complex plot-driven thriller you can fuck off with that attitude. i watched Venom to see Tom Hardy completely wild out and had a fucking blast. theres a scene where Eddie Brock eats a live lobster. 

what helps the movie as well is how competent and likeable all the other actors are. i got the strong impression Riz Ahmed wasnt exactly deeply moved by his role as Stock Villain, but he fucking does his job well and gives some fun, bizarrely intense nihilistic nonsense speeches. Michelle Williams definitely wasnt given enough to do, but is sharp and funny as Ann. Reid Scott plays Ann’s boyfriend who would ostensibly be Eddie’s romantic rival in any other movie, but is actually a very nice, friendly dude, and i found the lack of romantic tension and bickering between Ann, Eddie and Dan (Scott) really refreshing; it helps keep the focus on Eddie and Venom instead of bogging the plot down in romantic drama. Eddie bounces around the film as a hot mess who cracks wise while needing help and again, was immensely sympathetic in his position as, as Venom says, “a loser”. 

as nuts as this probably sounds, i actually have huge hopes for a Venom 2; i think given a second time round seeing the successes of this movie, they could make a really competent weird buddy comedy with more direct focus on Eddie and Venom. still though, im enormously thankful that Tom Hardy apparently impromptu decided he was going to start remaking The Mask.

if you arent convinced that Venom is the movie for you, you probably arent capable of fun. not to overrate this movie, but if you didnt enjoy it, fuck you. thats all. 

COULD have been gayer. 

[pwnyta]

Shit man Im excited to see Marco again.... Hes just so dope and he probably should appear in Wano right? which means im gonna see my TWO FAVS EXISTING TOGETHER(Zoro and Marco).

I just love laid-back badass first mates? Benn, Zoro, Daz(Fight me), Rayleigh, Marco... and how much more badass can you get? He easily got in all three Admirals way like. Fast enough to stop Kizaru in his tracks, slick enough to catch Aokiji off guard and even stepped in front of Akainus punch barely even flinching...

They needed to cuff his ass with seastone to even have a chance against him and he was still standing by the end ready to take on everyone.

Look Marineford was so fucking good and Marco was the highlight. Theres really no overstating how dope Marco is. AHHH I CANT WAIT TO SEE HIM AND HIS PINEAPPLE HEAD AGAIN.

*DREAMY SIGH~~~* One beautiful bird.

....

I just had a lot of feelings ok....

[rebeccahpedersen]

What Is Anticipatory Breach?

TorontoRealtyBlog

You never know what legal troubles are going to sprout up, until you’re neck-deep in one.

As I write this, I’m dealing with a new issue; one that you will all suggest I should have seen coming, but one that I have never experienced before nonetheless.

I sold a condo in December that went through a series of sign-backs, and as those of you who have been through this before know, the paper is almost illegible by the time you’re done.

Almost illegible, that is.  Lots of words, prices, initials, and items crossed out, but at the end of the day, you still know what the final agreement said.

One day before the closing of this condo, the buyer’s lawyer called the seller’s lawyer to ask what the final sale price was.

The final sale price was $725,000, of course.  This should never have been in doubt.  But the “$715,000” price that’s written under the $725,000 price on the Agreement of Purchase & Sale hadn’t been crossed out with a thick-enough pen, or a dark enough line in an electronic signature program.

A case could be made that the Agreement of Purchase & Sale showed two possible sale prices.

This was all much ado about nothing, since the two parties had agreed to $725,000, and the sale price had been reported on MLS as $725,000, but it still didn’t stop the buyer’s lawyer from making a fuss.

I have no doubt that the buyer wasn’t making this an issue.  Consider that if you are the buyer, and you’re 24 hours away from closing on your first condo, you have packed up your apartment, and you’ve booked a moving van for Saturday, you want your deal to close!  But is it possible that the buyer’s lawyer told him, “We could try to squeeze out some money here”?

As the son of a criminal lawyer of 40+ years, I know the way lawyers think.  They don’t ever want to see anything as clear; there is no black and white, everything is grey.  Everything is up for discussion and debate.  I actually felt that the seller’s lawyer (my client is the seller), rather than nipping this in the bud right away, fell back into his lawyerly ways and started to debate the merits of “two sale prices.”  It’s just habit for most lawyers, who love to debate, and whose favourite word is “could.”

“Well, there could be a case here that there are two sale prices agreed upon.”

“The buyer could have a viable objection in this case.”

Even though the seller’s lawyer knows he works for the seller, it’s just second-nature to want to look at possibilities, and scenarios, and potential situations, ad nauseam.  Not all lawyers think like this, but only lawyers think like this!

After speaking to my seller’s lawyer directly, my beliefs were confirmed; this was more of interest to the lawyer as a case study than it was, in practice, working for his client.

Frustrated as I was, I kept everybody in the situation cool, and ultimately the buyer did want to close on the transaction, and the buyer’s agent did confirm that we had agreed on $725,000, and all worked out in the end.

But looking back on this as I now am, I can’t help but give my head a shake.  How could I not see this coming?  How could I not look at that faint line crossing out the “$715,000” and think that, perhaps, it could be challenged?

I’m being partially facetious here, but I’ve always felt that learning from your mistakes not only enables you to use real-world experiences as a guide, but also ensures you don’t replicate your failures.

So in the spirit of trying to look ahead and anticipate future legal squabbles, let me introduce you to a concept called “Anticipatory Breach.”

I feel that this is a subject we might see and hear more about in the 2019 market, and my solution to the issue is one that I think many of you will benefit from.

When you sell your property, you will always require a deposit in consideration of the agreed-upon offer.

An agreement without consideration is not an agreement.

And thus we routinely submit a deposit cheque with the offer, or thereafter.

Different market conditions call for different procedures with respect to the deposit.  For example, in a red-hot market, where you have a property listed with a specified offer date, and where there are multiple offers, you would expect that any offer submitted is accompanied by a certified cheque or bank draft for 5% to serve as a deposit.  In a cool market, there would be no issue with making an offer without a deposit, waiting for an agreement, and then delivering the deposit the next day.

It’s that latter situation that I want to talk about, because I feel as though many people have been burned in the past year by not addressing this properly.

In every Agreement of Purchase & Sale, there is a section that describes how the deposit will be received.  There are three options:

1) Herewith – meaning that the deposit is in hand when the offer is made, and in practice, the cheque is often paper-clipped to the physical offer.

2) Upon Acceptance – meaning that a deposit will be delivered after the offer is accepted, in accordance with the provisions laid out thereafter in the APS.

3) As Otherwise Described – meaning that the Schedule A will outline how the deposit is to be delivered, and we see this when there are multiple layers to the deposit, ie. the deposit is $50,000 but only $25,000 will be provided “herewith” and a further sum of $25,000 will be provided within three business days.

So if you’re a seller and you receive an offer on your property, pull the trigger and sign the APS, and the deposit is to be delivered “Upon Acceptance,” what should you expect?

Well it’s outlined pretty clearly in the Agreement:

There you go, they even put “Upon Acceptance” in quotations!

“Upon Acceptance” shall mean that the Buyer is required to deliver the deposit to the Deposit Holder within 24 hours of the acceptance of this Agreement.

But what’s missing here, folks?

The lawyers among you, tell me what you see here.  Tell me what we’re missing, and why this can become troublesome?

Anybody catching on here before I divulge?

Okay, so after that last section, “…within 24 hours of the acceptance of this Agreement,” it’s missing anything pertaining to what happens if the deposit is not delivered within 24 hours.  And unfortunately, the Realtor community is not up to speed on this.

I sold a condo last year, representing the buyer, where the listing agent threw an absolute fit that we didn’t have the deposit cheque “on time.”  Technically-speaking, he was right.  We did the deal at noon on a Tuesday, and he wanted the cheque on Tuesday morning.  I may have been too cavalier about it, suggesting that “one day” was essentially “24 hours,” but my buyer-client had the deposit cheque and was going to drop it off at the listing brokerage at 5pm after work.

“Not good enough!” I was told by the listing agent, and again, he was right.  Technically-speaking.  I’m not trying to give myself a pass here, but for a condo that had been on the market for three weeks, and an offer that took four days to turn into an agreement, forgive me if we were 4-5 hours late.

The issue was, the listing agent decided that at 12:01pm, the offer was null and void.

But it wasn’t.

It doesn’t work that way.

And for those of you that caught on to the verbiage (or lack thereof…) in the deposit section from the Agreement of Purchase & Sale above, there is no explanation of what happens if the deposit isn’t received within 24 hours.

The listing agent in this case was a drama queen with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, who thought he was on Million Dollar Listing, and decided he would play fast and loose by suggesting that we “top up” our offer price in lieu of having the deposit delivered on time.

In the end, my client dropped the deposit off at 5pm, received a deposit receipt, and once the two brokerages had all the paperwork and the transaction was processed, the listing agent just faded away.

But what if the situation were different?

What if the buyer just never showed up, and was never heard from again?

Would the offer be null and void?

Could the seller then enter into another Agreement of Purchase & Sale with another buyer.

No, and no.

What happens in reality is you need to unwind the transaction.  Legally-speaking, you, the seller, are still bound by the Agreement.  Even though the buyer never produced a deposit, you are still tied to that Agreement, and cannot sell the property to another party until a Mutual Release has been signed.

And that is where the anticipatory breach comes into play.

If you, as the seller, anticipate that a breach is possible, then it’s best to get out ahead of it.

Again, we’re talking about a very small fraction of deals here; to suggest this is 1% would be overstating things.

But if you’re a seller, and you have two interested parties, and agree with one of them, you want to keep the door open to dealing with the second party if the first party neglects to show up with the deposit.

If you simply enter into the Agreement as most do, with the deposit delivered in accordance with the verbiage above, then would need a mutual release to be signed in order to sell to the second party.

How do you get around this?

Simple.  Make the offer conditional upon receiving the deposit.

This Agreement is conditional upon the Buyer delivering to the Seller or the Seller’s agent a negotiable cheque to serve as a deposit for the real property stated herein, within 24 hours of acceptance of this offer, failing which this offer shall be null and void.

There.

I just wrote that off the top of my head.  It’s not rocket science, and I’m sure we could clean that up a bit, and/or have a lawyer actually draft it, but you get the idea.

A buyer who intends to show up the next day, or even that evening, with a deposit cheque has no issue with this condition.  And it allows the seller to keep the door open to working with a second party if, and only if, the first party never materializes with the deposit.

Through fifteen years in this business, I have only come across this situation twice.  The first time was when my client, after purchasing a condo, called me the next day and started with, “You know, David, last night I sat down with a scotch and got to thinking…,” and suffice it to say, he pulled out of the deal.  He did so illegally, but basically said, “I’m not giving them the cheque, so figure a way out of this for me and let me know when it’s done.”  The second time was when I represented a seller of a Corktown condo, and the buyer’s agent told me his client “got cold feet.”  I had another buyer waiting in the wings, and had resold the property conditional on the first party being released from the existing Agreement.  We got the mutual release from the first party, and the sale to the second party went through.

I don’t expect that this is going to become a common theme in this market, but it’s good to have this in your knowledge-bank, as a seller.

And if you’re a buyer and you see this condition, just know that there’s nothing funny about it.  So long as you bring a cheque as required, you have nothing to worry about.

The post What Is Anticipatory Breach? appeared first on Toronto Realty Blog.

Originated from http://bit.ly/2AUDXUC

[amazingviralinfo]

Wests life and music have combined into an ongoing piece of performance art one that appears unsustainable at this pitch

In an era when the likes of Beyoncé can release perfectly formed records without warning, the saga of Kanye Wests seventh album has been comically messy. He first announced it a year ago, under the name So Help Me God, but postponed its release by several months while renaming it Swish, Waves and, finally, The Life of Pablo.

In the weeks prior to its grandiloquent live-streamed launch at Madison Square Garden on Thursday an album playback featuring celebrity guests and an army of black models debuting Wests latest Yeezy fashion line he posted a series of perplexingly self-destructive tweets on topics including his ex-girlfriend Amber Rose and Bill Cosby. Even for a man who clearly subscribes to Oscar Wildes dictum, There is only thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about, it was a bizarre display.

West, 38, is arguably the most important pop artist of his era and certainly the most compelling, for good or ill. He speaks, and indeed acts, in superlatives. In recent years he has described himself, not always entirely seriously, as the greatest living rock star on the planet, the new Steve Jobs, a potential US president and, simply, the nucleus. Inevitably, he inspires extreme reactions.

When he was booked for last years Glastonbury festival, more than 130,000 people signed a petition calling for an insult to music fans all over the world to be dropped. The vehemence of such attacks on an apologetically outspoken black man doubtless had a racist dimension but that alone does not explain why the rapper is such a uniquely polarising figure.

West was brought up to achieve great things. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, but raised in Chicago by his mother, Donda, an academic, he was given the name Kanye meaning only one Omari wise man and she taught him above all to love himself. In her memoir Raising Kanye, Donda wrote that West inherited from his father Ray, a former member of the Black Panther party, little patience for what he thinks is unjust. Wests kindergarten teacher said to Donda: Kanye certainly doesnt have any problem with self-esteem, does he?

That dude was focused since he was a shorty because he knew what he wanted to do and he had a mother who supported the shit out of him, his friend and fellow rapper GLC once told Complex magazine.

Kanye West in 2004. Photograph: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

After enrolling at art college in 1997, West dropped out to pursue production work for the likes of Jay Z, with a signature sound based on accelerated soul samples, and then fought doggedly to be taken seriously as a rapper.

I realised that he was going to make it happen and he didnt mind being an asshole, Damon Dash, Jay Zs partner in Roc-A-Fella Records, told Complex. If you dont mind being an asshole, youre not going to lose. He wasnt scared, he had gall. A decade later, West told the New York Times: I knew I was going to make it this far; I knew that this was going to happen.

In October 2002, West was involved in a car crash that shattered his jaw and changed his life. He was convinced that God had saved his life and that he needed to write more profound lyrics. He described this epiphany in his 2003 single Through the Wire: a superheros origin story in which he emerges from a life-threatening accident stronger than ever. I knew I was dealing with a different human being after the accident, his managerGee Roberson told Complex. From that day forth, it was game on.

Unlike his mentor Jay Z, the middle-class West couldnt draw on a violent, hardscrabble youth for credibility so he had to create his own drama, trumpeting his talent and ambition to a degree that was unusual even by hip-hops self-aggrandising standards.

Im the closest that hip-hop is getting to God, he told journalists at an album playback in 2005. Talking to the Guardian afterwards, he described his florid braggadocio as both a form of self-motivation and a theatrical performance. Its like Im walking on this tightrope. Its like, damn, what if he falls? And if I do make it, its like, damn, he made it! But either way youre saying damn. Everybody else is just walking on the ground.

West backed up his rhetoric by constantly redefining what hip-hop could be. The College Dropout (2004) bridged the gulf between mainstream rappers and socially conscious underground MCs. The lavish Late Registration (2005) was co-produced by thefilm score composer Jon Brion. The Daft Punk-sampling, Nietzsche-quoting hit Stronger, from Graduation (2007), began hip-hops lucrative liaison with EDM. Most of its current stars, including Drake and Kendrick Lamar, walked through doors that West opened.

West is a tireless enthusiast with constantly expanding tastes and an ear for whats next. He has been adept at choosing collaborators, from big names such as Rihanna and Daft Punk to up-and-comers such as Arca and Kid Cudi, and taking inspiration from fashion, cinema, architecture and visual art. He is a famous perfectionist who claimed to have mixed his single Stronger 75 times before he was satisfied.

Logic would seemingly state that an album with so many people working on it would sound disjointed, but what Kanye manages to do is get the best out of everyone working towards one sound, the producer Evian Christ told Pitchfork in 2013. You cant really overstate how difficult it is to do that.

West is also an unpredictable lyricist who is equally capable of self-aware jokes, crass, misogynist punchlines and eloquent examinations of race and class. Early in his career, he spoke out against homophobia in hip-hop and blurted out George Bush doesnt care about black people during a telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina, although he has only sporadically engaged with politics since. He is often at his best when he is being inappropriate. (Five years later, Bush called the incident the all-time low of his presidency.)

Wests behaviour changed dramatically after Donda Wests death in November 2007, from heart disease. He rarely talks about the loss but last year told Q that he blamed himself: If I had never moved to LA shed be alive. West became a more haunted and guarded figure, returning to music with 808s & Heartbreak (2008), a brave, introspective album that featured more Auto-Tuned singing than rapping and paved the way for Drake and The Weeknd.

Kanye West takes the microphone from Taylor Swift as she accepts her award during the MTV VMAs in 2009. Photograph: Jason DeCrow/Associated Press

The loss of his mother invited sympathy but the next turning point in Wests life inspired fury and derision. In 2009, he interrupted Taylor Swifts acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, bringing to the boil a long-simmering backlash. (West ungallantly references the incident on his new song Famous.) He retreated to his bunker if Hawaii can be called a bunker and made his decadent epic My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) with a legion of collaborators including Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver and Elton John. He later described it as a long backhanded apology.

In recent years, Wests ambition has become both grander and more diffuse. During interviews and concerts to promote Yeezus (2013), an audaciously abrasive electro-punk primal scream that he called a protest to music, he delivered long, furious monologues about his struggle to break into the fashion industry.

He increasingly seems more interested in clothes than in music Right now, over 70% of my focus is on apparel, he told Paper magazine and much more besides. He has compared himself to such world-changing figures as Picasso and Walt Disney, befriended the tech stargazer Elon Musk, and talked about his ambition to inspire an army of risk-taking cultural soldiers. You can see the growth from Im gonna be this great artist to I wanna do something that ignites a fire in peoples souls, he told Q.

However much credit West gets, it is never enough. In a 2013 interview he compared his critics to the eight-grade basketball coach who would not include him in the team even though he hit every shot. The next year, he made the team. West is driven by the desire to prove his doubters wrong, and fired up by his previous ability to do so.

While most high-profile artists accept that they cannot please everybody, West craves approval from establishment institutions that he appears to hate, from the Grammy awards to European fashion houses, as a point of principle. I dont care about the Grammys, he told the New York Times. I just would like for the statistics to be more accurate.

It is unclear what will happen when West can no longer hit every shot. The singles he released last year, including collaborations with Paul McCartney, were coolly received. His Glastonbury performance promised to be either a triumph or a disaster but, most reviewers agreed, fell somewhere in-between. Pitchforks Jayson Greene wrote: He is responsible for the current zeitgeist, but listening to his slightly confused new material, you get the distinct sense that hes struggling to find his current footing in it.

Reading Wests recent tweets, it is impossible to work out exactly what he is trying to achieve. He is clearly a more volatile and erratic character than he used to be. Marriage and fatherhood are often stabilising influences but marrying Kim Kardashian in 2014 has pitched West into a tabloid world with an endless appetite for gossip. It is unlikely that he could retreat from the spotlight, as he did in 2009, even if he wanted to.

Sorry, your browser is unable to play this video.

Kanye West releases album and fashion collection at Madison Square Garden

His life and music have combined into an ongoing piece of performance art which is unsustainable at this pitch. No artist can remain the nucleus of pop culture indefinitely. One day, this extraordinarily successful figure will face the new challenge of learning to cope with no longer being the man everyone is talking about.

Potted profile

Born: Kanye Omari West, on 8 June 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia

Career: Began producing music for local Chicago rappers in his teens and landed his first high-profile job in 1999. Launched his solo career with The College Dropout in 2004. Has released six platinum albums, won 21 Grammy awards, designed several clothing lines, and featured twice on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Runs the record label Good Music and the creative content company Donda.

High point: Bouncing back with his magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010 after his snafu at the Video Music Awards temporarily derailed his career: even Barack Obama called him a jackass. In December 2014, Pitchfork named it the best album of the decade so far.

Low point: The death of his mother in 2007, soon followed by his split from fiancee Alexis Phifer.

What he says: I will die for the art, for what I believe in, and the art aint always going to be polite.

What they say: Hes a brilliant madman. He cant help himself. Like, he doesnt have the same filters other people have. He has to blurt things out hes always saying inappropriate stuff. But he also has brilliant ideas, if you can get him to pay attention long enough Madonna.

[viralhottopics]

Microsoft Surface Studio scores big for creatives, but the Dial is just lame

Mashable illustrator Bob-Al Greene draws in Sketchable with the Surface Pen and Surface Dial on the Microsoft Surface Studio.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

For the two weeks that the Microsoft Surface Studio sat at my desk, it attracted a lot of attention. I’m an illustrator and I work with a lot of other creatives, and artists love to look at something beautiful. There were plenty of Oohs and Aahs, and the beautiful simplicity of the device was demonstrated when, for about 15 minutes, five co-workers gathered around my desk as we went on a tour of the world via Google Maps.

SEE ALSO: Dell Canvas gives you Surface Studio abilities without the luxury price tag

Navigating a 3D satellite view of New York City became a magical experience. Swiping a single finger on the screen allowed for rotating vistas that looked incredible. Was this a high point of artistic achievement? No. Was it insanely fun and beautiful, just because it was on the Studio? Yep.

3D Google Maps on the Surface Studio is an insanely fun and beautiful experience.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Let me back up for minute: I’m Mashable‘s senior illustrator my job is to create the art and graphics that accompany our stories on our website and across our various social channels. In other words, I’m exactly the kind of person Microsoft is trying to appeal to with the Surface Studio, the company’s sleek and powerful all-in-one PC.

In a splashy press event last fall, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Studio and showed off its arsenal of tools and toys for drawing, drafting and painting on its large digital canvas. The news immediately piqued my interest since I spend almost all of my time at work on a Wacom Cintiq 22-inch touchscreen tablet, making things like this:

Image: bob al-greene/mashable

The Cintiq is a top-of-the-line device and allows artists to draw directly on the screen almost as if they were working on paper. Ive worked on various models from Wacom over the years, and the experience on the Cintiq is closest to the feeling of “traditional” tools of pen and ink. However, it functions as a second screen that I use solely for art creation; my everyday tasks, like web browsing and email, I do on an iMac.

The author’s Wacom Cintiq tablet workstation.

Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable

That would change with the Surface Studio, which puts all of your tools in one machine. I’d been thinking about the device’s promise an enormous, beautiful screen housing an all-in-one creative suite so I jumped at the opportunity to switch out my 27-inch iMac and Cintiq for a week or two and work exclusively on the Studio.

At the same time, I was apprehensive: I havent owned or regularly used a Windows device in more than five years. But the transition from macOS to Windows 10 was smooth, and with the exception of some hot-key confusion (curse that Ctrl button!) I was able to focus entirely on the hardware which is a good thing, because there is a lot to take in on the Surface Studio.

Elite Studio

The Surface Studio is a remarkably simple and elegant device. The massively immersive 28-inch screen is attached to the rectangular base by a pair of dual-hinged struts what Microsoft calls the “zero gravity hinge.” The base has to be heavy so you dont inadvertently shift your entire workstation every time you adjust the reclining screen. Ports are in the back of the base four USB 3.0, an SD card slot, a Mini DisplayPort, a headphone jack and Gigabit Ethernet along with the lone power cord.

The Surface Studio makes for an impressively austere workstation.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

I tested the fully tricked-out Surface Studio with an Intel Core i7 processor, 2TB of storage, 32GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX980M graphics card with 4GB of GPU-dedicated RAM. All that power means a price tag of $4,199, up from the base model at $2,999. The high price might be a turn-off for some, but consider that a 22-inch Wacom Cintiq retails for $1,799 and it needs a separate computer to function.

All the ports in back: 4 x USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort, microSD, headphone jack.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

As I disassembled my usual workstation, I was frustrated by the tangle of cords and adapters connecting my Cintiq to power and to my iMac. Despite my best efforts to keep them organized, theyd become tangled, making unplugging a chore. Replacing it all with the Surface Studio doubled my extra desk space instantly and made my whole area feel cleaner and more organized. All I had to plug in was one cord, for power. I booted it up, and within minutes I was creating art.

Getting Immersed

The Surface Studio boasts an expansive 28-inch display, and, at 192 pixels per inch (ppi), everything on it looks and feels crystal clear. The experience of using it is incredibly immersive: The screen is so large that it hides the heavy base and hinge from view, so the display seems to float on its own, magically just “there” in front of your face. In the words of one of my animator colleagues, five minutes after sitting down with the Studio: I feel like Im in my art.

Id never worked on a touchscreen computer before now. I have an iPad at home and Ive experimented with the iPad Pro and Surface Pro, but the ability to touch a screen and manipulate programs with my fingertips on a desktop computer seemed extraneous and unnecessary.

The Surface Studio’s 28-inch screen bestows the feeling of getting immersed in your art.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

The Surface Studio taught me the exact opposite was true. I quickly eschewed the mouse in favor of the more direct interaction offered by the Surface Pen and the five styluses on my own right hand.

With 10-point multitouch, you can really do anything you need to on the Studio with your fingers. Pinching to zoom or rotate an image, scrolling with two fingers, tapping a link quickly with the pad of my index finger, all of this quickly became second nature, as the Studio recreates the feeling of manipulating flat paper on a desk. The ease and simplicity also makes switching between programs a necessity when working on one screen rather than two less of a chore.

After you work on the Surface Studio, you’ll want to touch all your screens.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

In fact, when I did some work on my home workstation later that evening, I caught myself intermittently trying to tap my iMac screen and wishing I had touch capability on my 13-inch Cintiq (a smaller version of my work tablet). I turned this function off within a week of setting up my Wacom tablet, but now I want to give it another try. I suspect the palm rejection on the Surface Studio is more advanced than on the Cintiq, and Ill probably find myself missing the intuitive interface of this gorgeous device. Apple, give us a touchscreen iMac already!

Using the Surface Studio mouse a cheap-feeling, dull gray, plastic blob with a scroll wheel felt unnatural and often unnecessary compared with the touchscreen. That’s partly because the mouse is overly sensitive and twitchy compared to the Apple Magic Mouse Im used to. But also, when a device features five input mechanisms a keyboard, a mouse, a stylus, a dial (more on that in a minute) and your own hand youre bound to start ignoring one.

One sleek all-in-one

Two things about the Surface Studio cant be overstated: the crystal-clear display and the thinness of the screen. At only 0.34 of an inch (8.6mm) along the edge (and 0.49 inch at the center), the Studio puts the bulging back of the iMac to shame. And the ridiculously high resolution (4,500 x 3,000) means 4K videos look next-level gorgeous (heck, I was thrilled enough with a 4K desktop wallpaper).

The Microsoft Surface Studio is an unbelievably slim all-in-one.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

As loyal as I am to my Cintiq, its worth noting that the color display has never been perfect. No matter how many times Ive adjusted the RGB settings on both devices, they never quite match their accompanying iMacs in terms of color saturation and tone. This means double-checking and adjusting every piece of art I make on two screens. But by using just one screen with an sRGB display, this problem disappears on the Surface Studio.

I would be remiss without mentioning two other functions the Studio boasts over my usual work setup: Cortana and Windows Hello. The former, an easily accessible voice-controlled desktop assistant, I found competent but superfluous. Id expect to use it about as much as I use Siri on desktop, which is to say: not much. But Windows Hello which uses face-scanning technology to recognize me and automatically log me in every time I sat down at the Studio was easy to set up and felt pretty cool every time. Again, the word I keep coming back to with the Studio is magical.

Call it a draw

Im ambivalent about making the switch from a Wacom stylus to the Surface Pen. On one hand, its a fine-looking instrument: Sleek and silver, it’s slimmer and shorter, yet heavier, than the Wacom stylus.

The Surface Pen feels natural in my hand, and I was surprised to learn that many of my colleagues dislike the fatter Wacom stylus, which does feel like a fat kindergarten crayon by comparison. To me, both are more than fine.

The Surface Pen was very capable, but lacked the same precision and tools as a Wacom stylus.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Where the Surface Pen loses out is functionality. To start off, the Pen touts 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity precisely half of the Wacom Cintiqs 2,048. So expect less pressure control right off the bat. I do a lot of drawing and often need to vary line width based on how much pressure Im applying, so I want the highest level of pressure control possible. The Surface Pen is just not that.

The Surface Pen touts 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity precisely half of the Wacom Cintiqs 2,048.

Beyond that, theres the issue of customization. Every Wacom stylus Ive used has two buttons on the side that can be programmed to suit the user. I personally use one button as a Pan/Scroll shortcut, and the second to right-click. The Surface Pen has only one button on its side, with only one programmable action: a right-click function I found sluggish.

The Pens shortcut button, located where you would find an eraser on a pencil, offered more promise to me as a first-time user. Its Eraser function not so much its quicker and easier to just use a keyboard shortcut than to constantly be flipping the Pen back and forth in my hand but the Windows Ink Workspace allows for some cool tricks.

A double-click, for instance, brings up Screen Sketch mode and instantly creates an editable screenshot that I can draw on, crop, and save. I take a lot of screenshots on my Mac, so having this function programmed right into my Stylus was refreshing.

Another big feature of the Surface Pen is that it can be magnetically attached to either side of the Studios massive screen at any time. Im a bit absent-minded and I often misplace my Wacom stylus or let it roll underneath my tablet, then have to scrounge around my entire desk looking for it. Not so with the magnetic Stylus Pen. Kudos, Microsoft!

The power of gravity

A lot of the Surface Studios reputation as a revolutionary device hinges on one element: namely, the “zero gravity” hinge. Because its been designed as a multi-purpose creative tool for artists, photographers, designers, videographer and musicians, the Studios screen can be tilted and readjusted almost instantaneously based on what you want out of it.

The Surface Studio’s “zero gravity” hinge.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

So if youd prefer to work on a nearly flat 20-degree incline in Studio Mode, or the more traditional 90-degree Desktop Mode, or somewhere in between, the choice is up to you.

Angling the screen is effortless and cool every time the ease of adjustment makes it a cinch to find your preferred angle instantly. I typically grabbed the screen by its left and right edges to adjust, but you can lift it from the bottom with one hand or press it down with a single finger. Its that easy. The process is smooth and virtually silent, reinforcing the illusion that this is not a grounded device but a levitating screen.

Detail shot of the Surface Studio’s elegant rear #hinge http://pic.twitter.com/dxv7wfYG1v

Bob Al-Greene (@BobAlGreene) February 15, 2017

This light-touch adjustment is both a great strength and one of the Surface Studios few apparent flaws. I prefer to have my screen closer to a 45-degree angle when Im drawing. The Studio accommodated me and it was easy to find my perfect position and begin drawing but I found that applying too much pressure with the stylus would push the screen down slightly, changing the angle.

This happens because the hinge was designed without the locking mechanism seen on devices like the Wacom Cintiq. Of course, the absence of a lock also makes the experience intuitive and smooth, but it’s a trade-off. I hope Microsoft can incorporate some kind of locking mechanism into a future model of the Surface Studio while keeping the adjustment process smooth, simple and elegant.

Dial me out

The other big star of show, if less central to the Surface Studios function, is the Surface Dial. Microsoft has hyped it as a completely new way to interact with technology, though third-party dials have been available for years. This Dial is sold separately from the Studio, retailing for $99.99.

I found it to be a confounding little device.

The Microsoft Surface Dial

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Smooth, sleek and silver, the Dial feels heavy in your hand, like a paperweight, and at first it seems far more impressive than the Surface Studios mouse. The Dials high-friction rubber underside allows it to stick to your screen (sort of), but most of the time I left it sitting on my desk behind the keyboard. In this default mode the Dial has five basic functions (with two extra programmable slots): Volume, Play Next Track, Scroll, Zoom and Undo. Users can switch between these functions by pressing and holding on the dial, which brings up a circular pop-up menu.

The main functions stay the same, but some programs grant the Dial extra powers. Placing it on the screen makes it even more powerful; in the drawing program Sketchable, for instance, the Dial becomes a super-charged homebase for brush controls. Line weight, opacity, brush shape, color and more are all editable, on the fly, while youre drawing. It makes for some eye-catching demonstrations, but Im not convinced its useful in my day-to-day workflow.

The Surface Dial lets you change the color of your brushstroke on the fly.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

The Dial started to frustrate me when I realized it didnt truly stick to my screen. I had assumed, based on the demo videos Id seen, that its sticky base would allow it to cling to the screen wherever I placed it, like a phone on a car dashboard. Even on a tilted screen, I expected the Dial to hold on (at reasonable angles anyway).

Instead, I found that the Dial immediately starts to slide down the screen when you place it, no matter how gentle that angle is. Even at the Studios flattest setting 20 degrees the Dials slow creep downward is visible, made more obvious by the way the devices circular menu lags behind before following the Dial downward every few seconds.

At the 20-degree setting, with a freshly cleaned screen, the Dial takes about 6 minutes to slide from the top of the screen to the bottom. It moves twice that speed when the screen has been in use; it seems the oils from my fingerprints and smudges make the screen slicker. Such is touchscreen life.

“Dial creep” on the Surface Studio after cleaning the screen with a screen wipe. Noticeably slower descent. Time lapse by @KeithHopkin http://pic.twitter.com/RB6k7waPYO

Bob Al-Greene (@BobAlGreene) February 15, 2017

“Dial creep” on the Surface Studio screen at its lowest setting. Time lapse by @KeithHopkin http://pic.twitter.com/ExCDritEWR

Bob Al-Greene (@BobAlGreene) February 15, 2017

All of this simply means that the Dial cannot be placed onscreen and left until you need it again if you want to use the Dial onscreen, Microsoft wants you to hold it there. Its not an oversight or flaw on their part; this is how the designers want you to use it.

This essentially confirms one of the biggest fears I had about the Surface Studio: that using the Dial would be a constant routine of picking it up, placing it on screen, then placing it back on my desk. For what the Dial offers, this extra work isnt quite worth the payoff.

But the sliding was only the beginning.

Mo’ Dial, mo’ problems

I found the Surface Dial to have problems in almost every way I used it. Lets take a look at its five core functions:

Volume: This is probably the most intuitive of the dial’s “main” functions. Using a dial to control volume is not a strange concept to anyone, and the fine-tuning of the dial allows you to quickly and naturally find the perfect volume. If youre listening to music while you work, it makes the most sense to leave the dial in volume mode.

God help you, though, if you then decide to use the Dial for something else: If it’s in a different mode and you want to change the volume with it, you’ll have to hold down the Dial for a moment, navigate to the volume control function, click it, and then rotate to change the volume. Thats four steps to do something I can do now by hitting one key at the top of the keyboard (or by using the volume buttons on the righthand side of the screen).

The Surface Dial is often more trouble than it’s worth.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Play next track: Brings up a widget with Play, Pause, Next and Last Track and Volume controls. I found tapping the screen more intuitive than using the Dial to skip tracks.

Scroll: Scrolling with the dial is a pleasant and smooth experience, but just marginally more pleasant than the mouses scroll wheel. I’d still rather use my iMac’s Magic Mouse or Trackpad both of which allow for side-to-side panning, not just vertical scrolling.

Zoom: Working in art programs like Photoshop and Sketchable, I found myself far more likely to use the pinch-and-zoom capability of the touchscreen, which is more intuitive and precise, and allows for rotation at the same time.

The Surface Dial and the Surface Studio mouse.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

Undo: This is a big one. The Dial becomes a full-on time machine in Undo mode. When activated, the onscreen Dial display shows your work progress as a percentage 100% is your current stage (the present), and 0% is the first stroke you made (the past). By turning the wheel counterclockwise, you travel backward through your work at the pace you decide.

The Dial so sensitive that getting back to any specific point, even one or two steps backward, is a challenge bordering on impossible.

It might sound cool, but this function is the most frustrating to me. With the super-sensitive Dial, moving just one step at a time takes a light touch. In my workflow and that of the artists I talked to, the Undo command is usually used to go back only a step or two to fix an error. For anything more than that, I typically use the History panel in Photoshop. This panel displays dozens of previous steps and labels them, allowing me to quickly navigate to a point in time.

The problem with the Dial is it’s so sensitive that getting back to any specific point, even one or two steps backward, is a challenge bordering on impossible, and I found myself repeatedly getting stuck in loops erasing too much, then jumping too far forward, then too far back, then too far forward.

Moreover, I frequently experienced lag when rewinding quickly or going backward more than, say, 10% at a time. This led to several frustrating moments spent helplessly watching my art unmaking itself far beyond what I intended, knowing I would have to immediately turn the dial back forward again. The effect of rewinding the creation of art makes for a flashy visual, but not when you cant control it effectively. More feedback from the dial or a ratcheting effect within the mechanism could increase the precision, but for now, Undo is an monster you should never unleash on your work.

One last note about the Dial. Just like adding pressure with the Pen, pressing the Dial can occasionally cause the screen to tilt down. In this way, the two premier aspects of the Surface Studio the Dial and the Hinge work together to make the overall experience imperfect. Oh, well.

A Studio worth visiting

At the end of my time with the Microsoft Surface Studio, I did not want to give it up. Considering what a joy it is to work on my regular Cintiq, thats saying quite a bit. Despite its few obvious faults the lack of a locking mechanism on the hinge, and a Dial that I have all but given up on it remains a compelling and undeniably gorgeous instrument.

One of the pieces of art the author created on the Surface Studio.

Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable

As a graphic artist and designer, I was able to adapt the Studio to my daily workflow fairly quickly. An animator colleague of mine used it for an afternoon to create motion graphics and found it up to the task of her workload as well. I have no doubt that artists of all stripes illustrators, musicians, filmmakers, architects, and more will find uses for the Studio and create beautiful things with it.

As hard as I am on the Dial, Im likewise sure some artists will find it an interesting and eventually an intrinsic part of their creative process, but its not the right device for me right now. Luckily, Microsoft isnt pushing anyone to buy it you certainly dont need it to fully enjoy the charms of the Surface Studio.

The Microsoft Surface Studio.

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

So, is this the next big thing for digital artists? After years of Apple being the default brand for young creatives, is Microsoft going to carve out some of that space with the Surface Studio? Well, your mileage may vary. If youre a creative just starting out in your career, or if you dont have a significant chunk of change to drop on it, then there are certainly more affordable ways to piece together your own creative studio.

But if, like me, youre in a place where you can request devices from your employer for your professional work (wink wink), or if youre ready to take a plunge and switch up your creative process at home, then you’ll find lots to love within the Surface Studio’s canvas.

Microsoft Surface Studio

The Good

Huge, gorgeous, immersive 4,500 x 3,000 display Easily adjustable hinge True color sRGB gives it an edge over Wacom Cintiqs wonky color settings

The Bad

Sensitive rear hinge needs a locking mechanism Surface Dial is a clumsy peripheral High price tag and Windows 10 are a hard sell for Mac loyalists

The Bottom Line

Artists will love the immersive, creative workstation that is the Microsoft Surface Studio, but the Surface Dial is a poorly thought out accessory.

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from Microsoft Surface Studio scores big for creatives, but the Dial is just lame

[mavwrekmarketing]

I dont like white women.

Whenever I say that, white women look at me like I just decapitated Taylor Swift. If Im being honest, their reaction is part of the reason I say it. But rest assured, its not the only reason.

I dont like white women because Im not particularly fond of the construct of whiteness or what it represents. I also dont appreciate those who are complicit in my oppression and benefit from it. When I say I dont like white women, its not in reference to any specific white woman (aside from maybe Taylor Swift). Its a declaration that white women pose a very real threat to my existence, and I dont have to embrace that threat with open arms. You have to earn my fondness. This goes for several other groups, obviously, but for some reason white women seem the most baffled by it. Whenever I meet a white woman whos not baffled by it, we instantly become friends. Those are the white women I like.

I dont like white women because Im not particularly fond of the construct of whiteness or what it represents.

As an unapologetically black, queer, and cash poor femme, I accept that I can only speak definitively on my own experiences. In fact, Im of the belief that our experiences are the only things any of us can definitively speak on. But that doesnt mean ours are the only experiences worth acknowledging. There exists a space between the oft chanted chorus silence is violence! and the realization that when we advocate for other people we usually have no idea what were talking about. Navigating that space can be difficult, but its vital to achieving universal liberation. The fact so many white women continue to evade this space is why Black women like me are under the impression they arent all too concerned with our liberation. And just once, Id love for them to prove me wrong.

Im not a scholar, so occasionally I get left behind by academic terminology used to define my identity. Ill never understand why I have to classify myself the way others see fit. Once, someone asked why I refer to myself as cash poor instead of working class. I think working class is a misnomer, since work is no indication of any shared socio-economic status. An undocumented sex worker, for example, and a white housewife trying to get her Etsy Store off the ground dont have much in common. Saying both are working class does a lot to alleviate the conscience of those in positions of privilege. Yet still, when I turn on the news, thats the group I hear politicians declaring their allegiance to. Thats the group I see folks clamoring to fight for. Terms like working class often erase intersections of oppression and replace them with a fictional shared experience. The same can be said of words like feminism, and even women. Ultimately, its not our shared experiences (real or imagined) that will unite us. Its acknowledging our differences.

Today, intersectionality has become a buzzword meant to lend credibility to social agendas that are anything but inclusive.

We leftists and liberals often like to think of ourselves as an intersectional body of unity. When Kimberl Crenshaw coined the phrase intersectionality in the late 80s, the concept was meant to bring attention to co-existing layers of social identity. Today, intersectionality has become a buzzword meant to lend credibility to social agendas that are anything but inclusive. I witnessed this, first hand, last month at the Womens March.

The Womens March was bittersweet for women of color and trans women. Although the official platform of the march referenced intersectionality twice, the experience was anything but that. For all its symbolism and potential, the Womens March was largely a tightly packed shrine to alabaster skin and pink vulvas. My compatriots and I jokingly nicknamed the crowd a sea of astroTERF (a reference to the way trans women were all but excluded from the concerns of the participants). I made a mental note whenever I saw a white woman holding a sign that acknowledged women of color or immigrantsor Black lives mattering. My mental notepad remained largely unused.

I immediately began to think of the violence and harm that self-proclaimed feminists inflict on the most marginalized among us. I thought of all the times I, as a queer individual, believed I was doing enough for queer Black folk by just providing my queer Black body to spaces where not enough of us were present.

I considered the ways in which I was complicit in the erasure of trans women, non-able bodied femmes, and undocumented immigrants; the times I was in my feels because a trans woman made a Facebook status dragging the fuck out of my perception of solidarity. I thought of instances when I actually said Why would I want to fight alongside your struggle if you arent welcoming people like me who are actually trying to advocate on your behalf?

Each of those times I had the wrong way of thinking. I came to that realization by listening and learning and surrounding myself with people who were gracious enough to share insights that I lacked. I believe this has led me to not only be a better feminist, but a better human being. I havent quite yet reached the pinnacle of intersectional Shangri-La, but I know some stuff. And in the interest of sharing my own insights, Ill leave you with three things I try to consider when partaking in liberation work.

Maintaining a Growth Mindset I try to always keep in mind that there are things I dont know. More importantly, there are things I think I know now, that Im just flat wrong about. Hopefully in the future Ill figure out what those things are, and continue on my path of self-determination. But we can never grow mentally, emotionally, or spiritually if we approach things with a closed mind. I always try to listen to the accounts and experiences of others with the notion that Ill pick up something new. Thats how we learn about privilege and our role in oppressing others. Thats how we learn about intersectionality. I cant overstate the importance of listening to people who are willing to share their experiences with us. We just have to be cognizant of who were willing to listen to most intentlywhich brings me to my next point.

Diversity from the Top Society has a hierarchy of experiential priorities. Those priorities align with the social pecking order, starting with straight white able-bodied cisgender men, and proceeding down the line accordingly. When I do anything, I try to start by flipping that hierarchy upside down before I proceed. If Im picking a restaurant to eat dinner, Im going to go out of my way to support a minority-owned business. If Im participating in a direct action, I want to make sure its led by, or in alignment with, the leadership of the most marginalized.

Many Black women who attended the Womens March did so begrudgingly because Black women were largely excluded from the planning until the 11th hour. That doesnt go unnoticed. In order for our liberation to become a reality, we have to incorporate diversity from the top. And it cant be symbolic diversity or tokenism. Are you centering the voices of the unheard? Are you following their direction and listening to their needs? I promise you that your own liberation depends on everyone elses. When you fight for the lives of the most marginalized you simultaneously liberate yourself. A rising tide lifts all boats, yall. Dont end up with a yacht in the desert.

Love Lastly, even when I say I dont like white women, I dont do it from a place of hatred. I do it from a place of self-love and preservation. I dont have to like you to have love and respect for you. If you prescribe to the idea that impact trumps intent, you still cant deny the fact that people who act with love in their hearts usually have the most positive impact. And the best way to convey love is with our actions, not just our words. So when doing this work, its OK to stop and ask yourself if your motivation is coming from a place of love or a place of fear. Its easy to hate. I hate the police. But thats not why I do this work. I do this work because I LOVE my beautiful people, in all their magnificent shapes, sizes, shades, and orientations. I see you. I hear you. And I promise to do my best to honor you.

Reposted from Black Lives Matter Medium.com page: http://ift.tt/2lhA7yy

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[rebeccahpedersen]

What Is Anticipatory Breach?

TorontoRealtyBlog

You never know what legal troubles are going to sprout up, until you’re neck-deep in one.

As I write this, I’m dealing with a new issue; one that you will all suggest I should have seen coming, but one that I have never experienced before nonetheless.

I sold a condo in December that went through a series of sign-backs, and as those of you who have been through this before know, the paper is almost illegible by the time you’re done.

Almost illegible, that is.  Lots of words, prices, initials, and items crossed out, but at the end of the day, you still know what the final agreement said.

One day before the closing of this condo, the buyer’s lawyer called the seller’s lawyer to ask what the final sale price was.

The final sale price was $725,000, of course.  This should never have been in doubt.  But the “$715,000” price that’s written under the $725,000 price on the Agreement of Purchase & Sale hadn’t been crossed out with a thick-enough pen, or a dark enough line in an electronic signature program.

A case could be made that the Agreement of Purchase & Sale showed two possible sale prices.

This was all much ado about nothing, since the two parties had agreed to $725,000, and the sale price had been reported on MLS as $725,000, but it still didn’t stop the buyer’s lawyer from making a fuss.

I have no doubt that the buyer wasn’t making this an issue.  Consider that if you are the buyer, and you’re 24 hours away from closing on your first condo, you have packed up your apartment, and you’ve booked a moving van for Saturday, you want your deal to close!  But is it possible that the buyer’s lawyer told him, “We could try to squeeze out some money here”?

As the son of a criminal lawyer of 40+ years, I know the way lawyers think.  They don’t ever want to see anything as clear; there is no black and white, everything is grey.  Everything is up for discussion and debate.  I actually felt that the seller’s lawyer (my client is the seller), rather than nipping this in the bud right away, fell back into his lawyerly ways and started to debate the merits of “two sale prices.”  It’s just habit for most lawyers, who love to debate, and whose favourite word is “could.”

“Well, there could be a case here that there are two sale prices agreed upon.”

“The buyer could have a viable objection in this case.”

Even though the seller’s lawyer knows he works for the seller, it’s just second-nature to want to look at possibilities, and scenarios, and potential situations, ad nauseam.  Not all lawyers think like this, but only lawyers think like this!

After speaking to my seller’s lawyer directly, my beliefs were confirmed; this was more of interest to the lawyer as a case study than it was, in practice, working for his client.

Frustrated as I was, I kept everybody in the situation cool, and ultimately the buyer did want to close on the transaction, and the buyer’s agent did confirm that we had agreed on $725,000, and all worked out in the end.

But looking back on this as I now am, I can’t help but give my head a shake.  How could I not see this coming?  How could I not look at that faint line crossing out the “$715,000” and think that, perhaps, it could be challenged?

I’m being partially facetious here, but I’ve always felt that learning from your mistakes not only enables you to use real-world experiences as a guide, but also ensures you don’t replicate your failures.

So in the spirit of trying to look ahead and anticipate future legal squabbles, let me introduce you to a concept called “Anticipatory Breach.”

I feel that this is a subject we might see and hear more about in the 2019 market, and my solution to the issue is one that I think many of you will benefit from.

When you sell your property, you will always require a deposit in consideration of the agreed-upon offer.

An agreement without consideration is not an agreement.

And thus we routinely submit a deposit cheque with the offer, or thereafter.

Different market conditions call for different procedures with respect to the deposit.  For example, in a red-hot market, where you have a property listed with a specified offer date, and where there are multiple offers, you would expect that any offer submitted is accompanied by a certified cheque or bank draft for 5% to serve as a deposit.  In a cool market, there would be no issue with making an offer without a deposit, waiting for an agreement, and then delivering the deposit the next day.

It’s that latter situation that I want to talk about, because I feel as though many people have been burned in the past year by not addressing this properly.

In every Agreement of Purchase & Sale, there is a section that describes how the deposit will be received.  There are three options:

1) Herewith – meaning that the deposit is in hand when the offer is made, and in practice, the cheque is often paper-clipped to the physical offer.

2) Upon Acceptance – meaning that a deposit will be delivered after the offer is accepted, in accordance with the provisions laid out thereafter in the APS.

3) As Otherwise Described – meaning that the Schedule A will outline how the deposit is to be delivered, and we see this when there are multiple layers to the deposit, ie. the deposit is $50,000 but only $25,000 will be provided “herewith” and a further sum of $25,000 will be provided within three business days.

So if you’re a seller and you receive an offer on your property, pull the trigger and sign the APS, and the deposit is to be delivered “Upon Acceptance,” what should you expect?

Well it’s outlined pretty clearly in the Agreement:

There you go, they even put “Upon Acceptance” in quotations!

“Upon Acceptance” shall mean that the Buyer is required to deliver the deposit to the Deposit Holder within 24 hours of the acceptance of this Agreement.

But what’s missing here, folks?

The lawyers among you, tell me what you see here.  Tell me what we’re missing, and why this can become troublesome?

Anybody catching on here before I divulge?

Okay, so after that last section, “…within 24 hours of the acceptance of this Agreement,” it’s missing anything pertaining to what happens if the deposit is not delivered within 24 hours.  And unfortunately, the Realtor community is not up to speed on this.

I sold a condo last year, representing the buyer, where the listing agent threw an absolute fit that we didn’t have the deposit cheque “on time.”  Technically-speaking, he was right.  We did the deal at noon on a Tuesday, and he wanted the cheque on Tuesday morning.  I may have been too cavalier about it, suggesting that “one day” was essentially “24 hours,” but my buyer-client had the deposit cheque and was going to drop it off at the listing brokerage at 5pm after work.

“Not good enough!” I was told by the listing agent, and again, he was right.  Technically-speaking.  I’m not trying to give myself a pass here, but for a condo that had been on the market for three weeks, and an offer that took four days to turn into an agreement, forgive me if we were 4-5 hours late.

The issue was, the listing agent decided that at 12:01pm, the offer was null and void.

But it wasn’t.

It doesn’t work that way.

And for those of you that caught on to the verbiage (or lack thereof…) in the deposit section from the Agreement of Purchase & Sale above, there is no explanation of what happens if the deposit isn’t received within 24 hours.

The listing agent in this case was a drama queen with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, who thought he was on Million Dollar Listing, and decided he would play fast and loose by suggesting that we “top up” our offer price in lieu of having the deposit delivered on time.

In the end, my client dropped the deposit off at 5pm, received a deposit receipt, and once the two brokerages had all the paperwork and the transaction was processed, the listing agent just faded away.

But what if the situation were different?

What if the buyer just never showed up, and was never heard from again?

Would the offer be null and void?

Could the seller then enter into another Agreement of Purchase & Sale with another buyer.

No, and no.

What happens in reality is you need to unwind the transaction.  Legally-speaking, you, the seller, are still bound by the Agreement.  Even though the buyer never produced a deposit, you are still tied to that Agreement, and cannot sell the property to another party until a Mutual Release has been signed.

And that is where the anticipatory breach comes into play.

If you, as the seller, anticipate that a breach is possible, then it’s best to get out ahead of it.

Again, we’re talking about a very small fraction of deals here; to suggest this is 1% would be overstating things.

But if you’re a seller, and you have two interested parties, and agree with one of them, you want to keep the door open to dealing with the second party if the first party neglects to show up with the deposit.

If you simply enter into the Agreement as most do, with the deposit delivered in accordance with the verbiage above, then would need a mutual release to be signed in order to sell to the second party.

How do you get around this?

Simple.  Make the offer conditional upon receiving the deposit.

This Agreement is conditional upon the Buyer delivering to the Seller or the Seller’s agent a negotiable cheque to serve as a deposit for the real property stated herein, within 24 hours of acceptance of this offer, failing which this offer shall be null and void.

There.

I just wrote that off the top of my head.  It’s not rocket science, and I’m sure we could clean that up a bit, and/or have a lawyer actually draft it, but you get the idea.

A buyer who intends to show up the next day, or even that evening, with a deposit cheque has no issue with this condition.  And it allows the seller to keep the door open to working with a second party if, and only if, the first party never materializes with the deposit.

Through fifteen years in this business, I have only come across this situation twice.  The first time was when my client, after purchasing a condo, called me the next day and started with, “You know, David, last night I sat down with a scotch and got to thinking…,” and suffice it to say, he pulled out of the deal.  He did so illegally, but basically said, “I’m not giving them the cheque, so figure a way out of this for me and let me know when it’s done.”  The second time was when I represented a seller of a Corktown condo, and the buyer’s agent told me his client “got cold feet.”  I had another buyer waiting in the wings, and had resold the property conditional on the first party being released from the existing Agreement.  We got the mutual release from the first party, and the sale to the second party went through.

I don’t expect that this is going to become a common theme in this market, but it’s good to have this in your knowledge-bank, as a seller.

And if you’re a buyer and you see this condition, just know that there’s nothing funny about it.  So long as you bring a cheque as required, you have nothing to worry about.

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