#note: this is not a criticism of performers (though the industry chewing them up is getting some very pointed look)

[greentrickster]

One of the things I find interesting about Maxwell as a character, especially as we find out more about him, is, as someone with a decent background in theatre, how real he seems to me. Not as some great, grand villain, but as a performer who wanted and who got in over his head as a result.

A little explanation: when I say, “I have a background in theatre,” I don’t mean anything big or grand - I’ve only been paid for I think three of the jobs I’ve done, the majority of it was lessons and volunteer work for more niche stuff. Which is important, because that’s the level of stage William seems to have been at originally. I’ve actually met a lot of Williams in the course of my acting experiences - you’d be surprised how many of them there are. And, I cannot stress this enough, they are not bad people.

You’ll hear people say that the performance industry is cut-throat, and it is, but that means it’s also shockingly rough on the performers in it. There’s a lot of performing in school gyms, having to provide pieces of your own costume even if it’s not a school activity or a lesson, hours like you wouldn’t believe in regards to both practice and performance, and pay such that there’s a reason it’s a trope for actors to have side jobs. And that’s once you’re already in, and getting there is hard enough. Moving up is even more work, and often requires you to be skilled in multiple areas. Injuries happen, and you don’t work? You don’t get paid. Heck, I’ve stopped acting, just because I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want it enough to put up with the conditions getting to do it put me through.

Thing is? There are people out there who do want it that much, who’ll go through a performance with a taped-up leg or a head cold that’s making it hard to think. People who heard the phrase ‘the show must go on’ and took it to heart. People who are constantly looking for some new edge, some way to stand out from the crowd of other skilled, talented people they’re in because they want to be the one on the stage, in the spotlight, getting those applause from the crowd. And, as often as not, it’s easy to get an ego on you once you get there, and also to become incredibly jealous of your place in the spotlight, wary of anyone else taking what you’ve worked so hard to gain.

And all of that feels like it applies so well to William Carter. The man who left his home and family to try and make it as a stage magician in another country. Who was working hard to make it in a tough industry but couldn’t quite find that spark he needed to make it. Who finally found the edge that gave him the leg-up he needed to finally step into the spotlight he’d been seeking for so long. Who guarded the edge he’d gotten jealously, for the same reasons all magicians and many performers guard the secrets of their trade so carefully. Who presumably realized a little too late that he’d gotten in over his head, and didn’t know how to stop.

Now, replace the Codex Umbra with drugs, alcohol, medications, or any number of other things, and William’s isn’t a new story at all - it’s one we’ve seen play out over and over in the performance industry, and I’m sure we can all name at least one star we’ve seen rise and fall in our own lifetimes. It’s not new, strange, surprising, or even unusual. It’s just a case of bad luck that the edge William found cost him in such a strange, horrific manner.

And that’s why Maxwell, once William, is so interesting to me. Because he’s turning out not to have been some great, grand figure, a powerful schemer or clever conman. Heck, as Wes’s story showed us, he’s not even that great at getting back at his enemies. He was just a guy, a really average, normal guy, who really wanted to be a performer. Because, no matter what he became as the King, he doesn’t seem to have started out bad, and the worst he seems to have become in the regular world was something of an egomaniac. Which, again, extremely normal in performers. That’s where the thrill comes from. He was a regular, unassuming guy who got handed the key to his dreams... and didn’t realize the true cost until much too late.

Because I’ve seen how much many performers are willing to pay and put up with for that moment in the spotlight, how much more they’re willing to pay and put up with to make that moment last... and I can’t help but wonder how many of them, if offered the same chance, would make the same choices as William, and also not realize it until much too late.

[glitterandrocketfuel]

YBC Hot Takes: Death Valley

This one took me a while! As the story comes closer to the final confrontations, the plots are getting more complex, and more characters make their appearance as Patrick works through the understanding that "solo career" doesn't mean you're only answerable to or influenced by yourself.

Sacrificed in a crime of passion and despair by a demonic Patrick caught in brainwashed hallucinations, Joe takes a journey to the underworld, while Pete and Andy are stymied by the authorities and rescued by a mysterious double-agent. 

Death Valley - When you Walk Through Hell, You Come Out On Fire

Cutting off your creative instincts isn't as easy as depriving it of oxygen. Creativity is an extremophile, and it can survive in adverse conditions because humans are stubborn that way, and creative humans, even moreso. Let's go down into the Underworld below the cut to learn what happens when the Devil meets Joesus...

Patrick's Creative Spark is set free to ascend to the Good Place. But wait--not quite--because while Patrick thought he'd severed that part of him, these ties run deep, and they constantly renew themselves. The kid-herald (fan) hijacks his elevator to heaven and the room is filled with ruddy, infernal light as Joe is pulled down and away from the light.

Cut back to the real world. The first symbol we see is the heavy-looking, official-looking ring of (jailer's) keys on the hip of a (gatekeeper) cop. All the tools of an arrest--the fingerprinting, the mugshot. Yes, we can giggle at the sloppy way they hung the height chart because we all know Patrick is not that tall, but then again, this is a distorted point of view where all your vital statistics are scrutinized and over-analyzed and under the microscope and let's not forget how Celebrity makes those in its spotlight Larger Than Life (including their shortcomings and weaknesses).

The clumsy hook that his Confidence (Pete) jury-rigged onto the stump of his hand is forcibly removed (his tool is taken away, as incomplete a substitute as it was) and his still-wounded stump is fingerprinted. Ridiculous on the surface, but underneath, this is a sort of bastardized stigmata exposed to be poked and prodded and manhandled by the gatekeepers as he is incarcerated and categorized and chained.

In the dark and shadowy interrogation room, his Integrity and Confidence await cross-examination from the gatekeepers. Locked away from the outside world, where their freedom is curtailed by the gatekeepers and dependent on how they interact with those gatekeepers. As they're trying to make a case to the skeptical inquisitors, the zombie-like, broken Patrick (devoid of his Creativity and cut off from his Integrity and his Confidence) shuffles in chains towards the holding cell where the gatekeepers lock him up into a little, pre-defined prison box and leave him there.

Meanwhile, Joe has descended into a hellishly-lit room filled with all sorts of distracting temptations of the senses--scantily-clad dancing girls in high heels, ostentatiously-decorated walls and luxurious furnishings, and refreshments served with cleavage and a smile.

I feel like it's important to note here that Joe is extremely happy having a frosted donut and more interested in a swig and a smoke than, say, motorboating the generous and available cleavages here.

It's one of the consistent trademarks of the Fall Out Boy video aesthetic that these guys are Awkward Around Girls and in point of fact, the women in their videos, even when they're cast in objectified roles, are never themselves objectified, and almost always, the hallmarks of objectification are trope-subverted and played for laughs, gender-flipped, or lampooned outright.

Just as he's partaken, Joe looks up to see the rock god of sinners himself, Tommy Lee, descending the stairs.

Here we can say that Joe turned his focus to his metal band during the hiatus and all the trappings of Hell resemble the 80's metal aesthetic (right down to the donuts as an obscure Van Halen/David Lee Roth reference), but since this is about Patrick and his walk through the Valley of the Shadow of I Miss My Band, Joe as Patrick's Creative Spark, cut off from Patrick himself, wounded by rejection and criticism and failure, has gone to ground in the underworld.

It's important to note here that in most mythologies, the Walk Through the Underworld is not, in fact, a final destination, but rather the journey that must be taken by a god or hero in order to unlock their greatest powers to their full potential. And indeed, it's a walk down a dark tunnel to meet the scariest devil in the underworld--your own bad self.

Tommy Lee, rock legend and fallen god is Joe's future metal self, distilled into the base elements of rock and roll, recursively defined in human shape. Tommy Lee is what happens when there's no direction, no boundary, no guidance placed on that creative urge, where it follows its distractions, sometimes to dizzying heights, but sometimes getting lost in itself until it becomes self-indulgent and inwardly directed and exists only to serve its own ego (kiss the ring, Joe. Get the tattoo that shows the blind/dead smiley with the horns instead of the crown and pyramid).

Back in the jail cell, boxed in by the industry gatekeepers who penalize you when you don't fit into the neat little boxes, Patrick's a caged animal, observed through a small mirror (reflection) by another, unseen inmate for the briefest of moments.

His Integrity and Confidence are not giving the answers the gatekeepers want, and they're getting angry. But a small ray of hope comes in the form of a cryptic note slid under the door, referencing she who wears the crown but is no princess.

In terms of the Parts of Patrick, Patrick is hemmed in by the expectations of the industry, the pressures bearing down on him over performance expectations, and a dwindling financial investment (he said he was never in danger of going broke, but we all know that if you've ever been poor in America, you never really shake the feeling that you're always one disaster away from going right back there).

He's stifled (choked) his Creativity and it's gone to ground in a self-indulgent downward spiral.

His Confidence and Integrity aren't enough to impress the Gatekeepers, but they aren't out of the game entirely. It turns out that the industry has chewed up and spit out others.

Patrick's core selves can learn from their forebears by listening to a woman who wore a crown, but was never a princess. Ladies and gentlefans, I'd like to introduce you to Queen Courtney Love. If anyone had reason to want to torch the music industry and fans, it's the Widow Cobain, the Scarlet Woman, the Trash Queen who took the haterade spewed at her by an industry and a public that blamed her for a tragedy that wasn't her fault, and not only did she accept it, she wore it like a crown. Through it all, she made music of it, mocking the celebrity culture, mocking their caricatures of her and playing so far into the trope that she came out the other side.

Seriously, Hole put out amazing girlpunk and made such great videos and so much of it was underrated and overshadowed by Courtney Love's tabloid drama (echoing the situation of someone else we know, hmmm?).

In this interpretation, though, Courtney severed from her other Selves and failed to reunite. Much like Patrick, she became a slave to the Cult and eventually, its leader. Her Spark, the part of her that was never spoiled from the outside, is instead working to sabotage the cult from within and reaching out to other sparks like Confidence, but she really connects with Integrity--of keeping yourself in the face of the caricature everyone else throws back at you (this is an important internal step for Patrick as he leaves behind the particular malleability of youth in an industry that has no use for malleable grown-ups).

Pete and Andy arrive at the mystery woman's garage (band) hideout. She reveals the extent of the conspiracy that took hold of Patrick and her status as a double-agent in the anti-music cult. She instructs Pete and Andy in the cult's inner workings, gives them targets, then arms them (with really crazy-cool instrument-weapons). As she's pondering the reach of the cult, Andy returns for a stolen moment of affection before departing once more.

Back in the Underworld, Patrick's Creativity is indulging in all the vices including the perception-altering (and let us all just love these little muffins because in the middle of all the gyratin' wimmin, Joe exchanges his best smoochies with his French bulldog).

He's jamming with the Prince of Darkness and shredding with the rock god and plumbing the intricacies of an unbridled, unbound state of existence. Two charming ladies are particularly attentive when Joe takes his unholy communion and descends further into distorted perception. In this tableau thus far, the party has been Joe, Tommy Lee, and a lot of ladies, with a few Men In Suits looking on from the balconies. But one of Joe's ladies gives a Look that can't be accidental and the situation changes.

Into this altered-state of decadence come the sobering (literally, maybe?) Men In Suits. One of whom trades a girl a hot dog (What kind of Hot Dog Hell is this? Nevermind, we're just going with "it's Fall Out Boy"). The change in atmosphere reveals the ladies to be heralds hovering protectively around Joe as he begins to sober up while the party takes a subtle turn.

Meanwhile, Patrick's cell is approached by the gatekeeper again, only this time flanked by two familiar Vixens, one bearing Patrick's hook. As his cell is opened, his Creativity is dragged back out of the Underworld by the heralds.

Patrick is terrified of the Vixens, but the gatekeepers and Vixens are working together--both seek to turn Patrick into a tool for their own ends, and as long as he's separated from his soul-parts, he's powerless to do anything to stop them.

Patrick's Confidence has been armed with knowledge of the moving parts (and let's be honest--Pete has always been very cognizant of the moving parts of fame, celebrity, attention, and buzz, and how they affect your reception and others' perceptions) and the weapon to cut through the bullshit.

His Integrity has Connected with a kindred spirit that provides him with a roadmap that just might lead him out of the darkness.

Finally, having spent enough time down there licking its wounds and dulling its pain, Patrick's Creative Spark is called out of the Underworld. He has seen his own indulgences taken to the extreme--he's been warned--but by the same token, that time spent away from the slings and arrows of the world has allowed his Creative Spark to emerge with new perspective and even greater power for having walked through Hell and come out on fire.

[charlieharry1]

Four pillars of conversion optimisation in local search

Get greater out of your neighborhood seo & percent efforts. Four pillars of nearby seek conversion optimisationfocusing just a little time & attempt towards powerful conversion optimisation  Digital Marketing Company in Southampton can attain big rewards in local seek advertising. I’ve run hundreds of nearby search engine advertising campaigns in a selection of various industries & geographical markets. One aspect i’ve noticed is that the general public of groups doing neighborhood seo or google adwords are missing as a minimum one of the critical steps important to maximise roi. The first-rate news is that these items is extraordinarily simple to put in force for the majority of organizations targeting localised markets online. Conversion optimisation in nearby search doesn’t need to be rocket technological know-how. The maximum diffused adjustments for your key-word targeting & landing web page first-class can bring about a full-size discount to your price per lead and basic go back on funding. Here’s what i recollect to be the four most essential elements in conversion optimisation in nearby seek advertising. Easy, but effective stuff. 1. Effective conversion monitoring – degree everything. Measuring local search marketingknowing how many traffic your internet site draws every month is vain until you've got perception into how the ones site visitors translate into new clients & earnings. The first step to conversion optimisation in neighborhood search is to ensure that you’re tracking whatever that you take into account to be a treasured conversion. E-mail enquiries (and the sales they result in), 

smartphone call enquiries (and the income they result in), brochure downloads, new email list subscribers, new fb enthusiasts – something. Discern out a manner to song the whole thing. You could’t optimise for conversions without knowing what conversions are coming via and in which they came from. One undertaking right here for corporations trying to track their returns from natural visitors is that smartphone calls are nevertheless the primary point of contact for local clients and natural monitoring numbers. This could reason a few problems for your nap (call, cope with & cellphone range) consistency & hence neighborhood scores in case you’re now not cautious. There are multiple approaches around this mission. The primary is to perform a little paid seek marketing with smartphone tracking numbers over the course of three-6 months and music which keywords are riding telephone calls. You’ll additionally want to have voice recording activated and set aside some time to examine this conversion facts thoroughly. One of the only ways to song cellphone calls out of your p. C campaign is to use reverse proxy tracking generation. Even hire any person to listen to the phone calls and make notes on what income had been done. The entire reason of this exercising might be to accumulate valuable records samples which you could use to tweak your keyword concentrated on & internet site content material (see steps 2 & 3) for better conversions inside the destiny. This is, as soon as you understand which key phrases are converting out of your paid search marketing campaign, you may then attention your seo approach round the ones extra valuable terms. Another technique for monitoring phone call conversions from organic search is to use dynamic quantity insertion (javascript code that allows you to expose dynamic tracking numbers based totally on your website’s referral site visitors assets and different metrics). I think we’ll see this shape of smartphone call monitoring end up increasingly more popular in australia, because it facilitates agencies understand which on line mediums are using cellphone calls organically – with out adversely affecting local rankings because google spiders are nevertheless proven the proper nap (apparently). This answer still gained’t as it should be tune all calls from google+ local even though because a few searchers will name your everyday variety instantly from the search engines like google and yahoo without clicking through to your internet site where the monitoring quantity is proven. 2. Applicable & valuable key-word targeting – make your traffic squeaky smooth

Preferably, you’ll be using a bid optimisation platform in your paid seek that certainly works out which keywords are surely producing the most precious conversions. (each on-line conversions like e-mail enquiries and offline conversions like telephone calls). With out accurate online & offline conversion data, you can by no means truely know which keywords are most treasured for your business. Bear in mind, simply due to the fact a positive key-word drives the maximum traffic for your site, doesn’t imply that it equates to the exceptional go back on funding scenario. As an instance, allow’s fake that you’re a pest manage business placed on sydney’s north shore. You’re running a local adwords marketing campaign with the geo focused on set to consist of your local north shore radius area however you furthermore mght need to try and entice work from throughout the bridge in sydney’s cbd. You’re just not certain if the advert spend can be well worth concentrated on that sydney cbd vicinity but so that you need to test it. It’s probably that a wide, notably aggressive key-word like “pest control sydney” will pressure the maximum site visitors and additionally spend the most important chew of your finances. Keywords like “pest manipulate north shore” & “termite inspections neutral bay” are likely to deliver a whole lot higher value to your enterprise in terms of costs per lead. Specifically in case your website makes it clean that you’re positioned in this vicinity due to the fact consumers want to keep nearby whilst feasible. In pronouncing this, i’ve seen masses of campaigns that get a better fee-consistent with-lead result from the higher quantity, greater pricey key phrases like “pest control sydney”. The answer? You want to check which key phrases are using the excellent fee in keeping with lead. That’s the simplest manner to find out which keywords are surely going to be the maximum valuable to you. You furthermore mght want to remember which positions (across all key phrases) on google are driving the most value-green end result across all goal key phrases. There’s no point trying to determine this out manually. There’s bid optimisation software program available that is designed to do that for you. Tip: from my enjoy, function one within the sponsored hyperlinks section nearly always gives you a higher value per lead. Better volume of site visitors & leads, but at a more high priced price. So it simply relies upon on what your marketing campaign dreams are right here. 3. Website landing pages that sell – “clicks” don’t pay your payments, clients do. You can have the best budget, the exceptional service & a remarkable-applicable key-word set, but in case your internet site &/or touchdown pages don’t give your ability customers what they want then you could as nicely flush your advertising and marketing bucks down the bathroom. Your website need to in reality be addressed before you pump any resources into seo or p. C advertising and marketing. I’ve determined that simple stuff like having your telephone variety effortlessly found, having all your products & services indexed, promoting your provider region without a doubt & having a cellular optimised website are all smooth wins for conversion optimisation in neighborhood search. More on effective landing pages right here and a first-rate article on neighborhood touchdown pages right here. Right here’s a simple instance of how making a few tweaks to your touchdown pages & keywords can enhance your value per lead from nearby google advertising. The report shows spend, impressions, visits, calls & internet events (form submissions) in chronological order from most current down to least recent. Fyi this is for a newcastle primarily based business in the domestic development enterprise, who has a mean sale price of around $500. Four cycles percent conversion evaluation

First campaign cycle – earlier than any marketing campaign learnings had came about. Conversion fee from click on to steer (name or electronic mail shape submission) : 18. 2%. Fee in step with lead = $17. Fifty four

2nd campaign cycle – we wiped clean up some search traffic coming from inappropriate keywords and key phrases that were spending finances for no conversions. Conversion rate: 21. 5%. Fee consistent with lead = $14. Forty nine

1/3 marketing campaign cycle – we determined to make some easy website updates on the start of this cycle, which includes including a few fee primarily based offers and more facts about the commercial enterprise’ merchandise & services. Conversion rate: 23. 3%. Cost according to lead = $12. 50

Fourth marketing campaign cycle – as well as a few ongoing keyword tweaking & marketing campaign bid optimisation, we also launched a cellular optimised website online for the patron to assist searchers discover the facts they needed to convert less difficult on smartphones. Conversion price : 35. 5%. Value in keeping with lead : $eight. Forty seven

Read Also:-  Use an agile approach to boost your marketing

4. Educate your sales crew! – turn on-line leads into offline conversions. Don’t hassle doing neighborhood on line advertising except you have got an powerful offline sales manner in location first. You can hire the satisfactory search organisation, have the fine internet site with the maximum relevant key-word site visitors in the world, but in case your salespeople can’t convert your heat leads into paying customers then the whole thing falls to portions. I have stumble upon this trouble with some of my clients. We begin a marketing campaign for them, deliver a heap of great leads, then we notice (with the aid of listening to voice recordings of the tracked smartphone enquiries) that their receptionists or salespeople are flushing the brand new leads down the bathroom. I propose to lots of my clients that they spend money on a few professional income education if they really need to get the maximum out in their advertising funding with us. A pal of mine, bernard hynes of hynesight has achieved some super paintings for a number of my customers so i've visible first hand how a bit guide in this place can truly maximise your advertising and marketing returns. (and also increase your customer support rankings). This fourth step is the only that i see maximum neighborhood companies wanting help with. It’s additionally probable the easiest step to fix in neighborhood conversion optimisation. Now not simplest that, however income schooling for better offline conversions will drive better returns from all advertising mediums. I hope  Digital Marketing Agencies in Southampton this article has were given you considering a few smooth ways to start driving higher returns out of your neighborhood seek campaigns.

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[fleetfootedchangx]

I’ll Run to You || Cherry

TAGGING: Mike Chang and Rachel Berry 

WHEN: 28th of September

WHERE: Mike & Rachel’s apartment, New York

GENERAL NOTES: Rachel shares one of her songs with Mike 

WARNINGS: None

Rachel: smiled softly to herself as she put the pen down on the bedside table next to the bed where she was laying on next to Mike. After two weeks, she had finally completed the song she had been working on and while she was bias, the brunette thought it was really good. "I'm finished." She told her boyfriend, the room only brightened by the two bedside lamps. It was nearing 10pm and the couple had settled in for the night. It was Rachel's favourite time on the day, she loved just being with Mike and being comfortable and relaxed before bed.

Mike flipped the book he had been reading shut, looking over at Rachel curiously. He knew she'd been writing more lately, but he hadn't wanted to invade her privacy by asking for details on the song while she was still working on it. Now that she was done, though, he couldn't deny he was interested in the process and whatever the finished product was. "Can I read it?" He asked, a bit tentatively. "Or, actually...can I hear it?"

Rachel: wasn't expecting Mike to want to listen to it but she probably should have. Biting down on her bottom lip, the brunette nodded her head tentatively after a pause before quickly opening her mouth to explain. "I'm not a professional so it might not be that good." She felt the need to defend. "They say to write about what you know so... I wrote it about you. About us. Be nice?"

Mike couldn't help but grin when Rachel immediately went on the defensive. "It'll be amazing," he argued, leaning forward to press a soft kiss against her lips. It was a surprise to hear that she'd written about them - somehow their relationship had never crossed his mind as a potential subject for a song - but he nodded in agreement anyway. "I'm hurt that you'd think you even have to ask me to be nice," he teased. "But ok."

Rachel kissed her boyfriend back before offering him a shy smile. "Okay..." She replied before turning her attention down to the page where the lyrics were written. Sucking in a breath, the brunette closed her eyes and began to sing.

The city sky's feeling dark tonight We're back to back with our heads down Just look at me, give me more tonight Just give me more of your love now

Let's set fire to the lonely night You're beautiful when you look at me Let's give love another life

Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine Just call my name on the edge of the night And I'll run to you, I'll run to you

I would run to you, if you want me to Just give me some kind of reason I'll take the pain, take it all away Just give it some kind of meaning

Let's let go, let it be the start You know I'm feeling the same thing Let's let go of our broken hearts

Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine Just call my name on the edge of the night And I'll run to you, I'll run to you

Even if it's gonna break me, love Gonna make my way to you Anyway it's gonna take me, love I run to you I run to you Run, run

Cause you'll be safe in these arms of mine Just call my name on the edge of the night And I'll run to you I'll run to you

Even if it's gonna break me, love I run to you

Mike knew Rachel was talented, but hearing her sing something she'd put so much of herself into put it in a completely new perspective. As soon as the song came to an end, he immediately voiced the thoughts. "You're so crazy talented, and I'm not just being nice. That was amazing"

Rachel: smiled softly. "You really think?" She asked before biting down on her bottom lip. "Thank you."

Mike couldn't help but smile at the seemingly shy way she responded. "I really do," he nodded. "Have you thought about performing your songs before? Like an open mic night somewhere?"

Rachel: shook her head. "Not really." She admitted. "I don't see myself as a girl who writes songs and has an album. At least, not yet. I need to be concentrating on Broadway classics if I even stand a chance at getting a role."

Mike shifted slightly, settling more comfortably beside her. "Fair enough. From what I've heard they're too good not to ever do anything with, but you're right, they might not be the best choice for Broadway auditions." Looking down at the bed, he picked at an imaginary thread on the blanket. "Have you seen anything you're thinking of trying out for?"

Rachel: closed her notebook and it put in on the bedside table beside her. "I try out for everything." She replied seriously. "Even Chorus Parts that have barely any face time on stage. Anything and everything. I can't be too picky just yet."

Mike nodded. "That's probably the smartest approach. I can't imagine you not getting something soon that you can use as some kind of stepping stone to a bigger role. They just need a chance to realize what a star Rachel Berry is."

Rachel: shook her head. "We've been here two months and I haven't even got a call back for a crappy background understudy. Maybe I'm not as a good as Lima made me think I could be?"

Mike chewed on his lower lip. "You are," he tried to reassure her. "It's just an industry that hands out a lot of rejection until you audition for the right person.”

Rachel: shrugged. "Or a nose job." She replied softly. "I thought I had heard my nose wasn't good enough enough during my time at McKinley. Fuck, I was so wrong."

Mike 's eyebrows knit together, a mixture of concern and confusion crossing his face. It was a harsh, judgmental industry they'd decided to go into, he knew, but hearing Rachel repeat that kind of criticism of herself hit hard. "Fuck that," he shook his head. "People at McKinley are idiots, and so are the casting directors you've auditioned for so far. You don't have to change parts of yourself to get a role...besides, you're gorgeous how you are."

Rachel: smiled softly at the passion lacing her boyfriend's voice. "I know." She replied honestly. "I know I'm not the typical beauty but I do know that I am beautiful. It just sucks sometimes for the thing that took me the longest about myself to accept is the reason why I'm being turned down for jobs."

Mike let out a quiet breath. Their situations weren't identical, but it wasn't like he was blind to the biases against him as an Asian-American in performing arts and the ways they worked against him. It was close enough to mirroring her situation that he could see where she was coming from. "Remind me why we're doing this to ourselves, again," he laughed slightly, trying to diffuse the situation though there was a hint of truth to his words.

Rachel: laughed at Mike's comments. "Because we're desperately seeking the approval we never received from our parents from strangers?" She offered out after a moment.

Mike couldn't help the surprised laugh that slipped past his lips. "You know, I actually hadn't thought of it like that, but it would explain a lot."

Rachel: smiled softly. "It really does." She laughed, moving to press a kiss to Mike's lips. "But I don't really care what anyone thinks about me... Besides you. I've become nicer since you and I started dating. You're why I quit the Skanks. I'm sure if you hadn't come along and reminded me of who I truly was supposed to be, I'd be in jail."

Mike cocked his head slightly, considering what Rachel had just said. "Who know the power leaving a note in your locker and some dance lessons could have," he teased. "But I'm glad you remembered who you really are. Besides, without you, I'd be slowly going crazy in a pre-med program somewhere. We're good for each other."

Rachel: laughed. "I'm glad we've prevented each other from slowly going insane."

Mike grinned. "Me too. This isn't where I thought getting transferred to Lima Heights for a while last year would end up going, but it's pretty much the best thing that could have happened."

Rachel: hummed in agreement. "I never thought I'd find the love of my life in high school and that my love would be from McKinley." She admitted with a shake of her head. "It's funny how life works."

Mike distantly wondered whether it should have felt as natural as it did that they both seemed to think of their relationship as something permanent, considering how young they were. He didn't give it much thought, though, because somehow everything felt right the way it was. "I almost feel like I owe my dad the right to say 'I told you so' on this one, since he was in favor of the whole transfer thing, but I'm not sure he'd even want to hear it."

Rachel: smiled softly. "You really should let him. Though I don't think he planned for you to end up slumming it with a Lima Heights Skank." She laughed.

Mike snorted in amusement. "I'll get right on that," he laughed, leaning forward to press a quick kiss against her lips. "Besides, this is hardly what I'd call slumming it."

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 50, Mind Control

Local News:

Clone Crisis Connected to Dragon Prince

Reporting and tips have led to some new revelations in the ongoing clone crisis. There seems to be an organization called the “Hand of Dusk” which is behind not only the proliferation and infiltration of clones, but also the summoning of the purple dragon we are calling Prince a few months ago. Sources say this “Hand of Dusk” is some sort of dangerous and deranged dragon cult. What are they up to?

Tipsters! All you tipsters in meat space or in the Matrix, send more tips on the Hand of Dusk. Send in any information you have no matter how small or innocuous. Only by working together can we stop this scourge, and since our corporate overlords don’t seem to be interested in working together, we have to do it ourselves outside of normal channels.

Corps! Get your members tested for clones and let the SSN know your results. But it isn’t just clones you need to look out for. Sources have indicated that Hand of Dusk cultists have infiltrated multiple Seattle megacorps. This conspiracy is extensive and it threatens not just the corps, but also the citizens and SINless. Don’t let your corp arrogance blind you to the dangers affecting us all.

More importantly, Citizens!, there is a conspiracy growing like a poison that is threatening us all, in the form of a dragon cult, a dragon, and the attempted undermining of our democracy. This conspiracy has only been able to thrive because it has used the megacorps, with their extraterritoriality and lack of accountability, and with their secrecy and lack of transparency, to grow, to gain resources, and to threaten us all.

This is the fault of cultists. But Megacorp negligence and unchecked power is what enabled it. Tir Tairngire has more oversight of megacorps, maybe it is time for UCAS to take more of an oversight role in corporate doings. For all our safety.

 Crime Up at the Docks After Barghest Attacks

Two weeks ago, the Knight Errant precint near the docks, was attacked by a pack of Barghests. An HTR response team went into the precinct to help, but in the subsequent battle to destroy the barghests, the entire precinct was burned down. Later investigations noted that before the destruction, the precinct had had all of its equipment stolen. Knight Errant’s incompetence in being able to a) stop the barghest attack, needing to rely on HTR and b) having their precinct completely destroyed is an embarrassment. And the result? All my tipsters tell me that crime and smuggling is up in the docks area in the absence of the Knight Errant precinct.

This leads SSN to suspect that the barghest attack was probably a deliberate attack, but was it orchestrated by corps or by gangs? We’ll continue on with our investigations on the matter—tipsters send in information. Dock workers? Are you still safe?

 Corp News:

Event Horizon:  An Exploration Into The Morally Bankrupt And Culturally Genocidal Monoculture Of The Horizon Media Empire—(by demmalition1)

The Horizon Group is one of the most depraved and homicidal groups of mad men to ever walk upon God’s Green Earth. They take all that is good in life and the artistic pursuit of creativity and distill it into a microcosm of what they want you to see and hear. You will see the pictures of the valiant executive and the scary technomancer. You will hear the screams of a goody-two-shoes corp employee before she is rescued by the noble officers of Knight Errant. You will get some variations on this from time to time, but all in all they are the monotheistic monoculture that you all put in place for better or worse. Yes, I’m putting the blame of their meteoric ascendancy to godhood firmly on your shoulders, dear readers. You choose to watch their crap, to soak in their controlled and sterile messages of corp dominance each and every day of your routine lives. Their toothless criticisms of any misdeeds on their parts are swept under the rug. Even the slightest scent of criticism will send the beast into a blinding bloodthirsty fury as it hunts down the ne’er-do-well and rips them asunder in order to keep the public on their side.

They take all that is good and chew it up, only to regurgitate it back into your mouths as revolting and vile trash that you happily lap up since you know no better. You’ve only tasted the creative vomit that’s got a flavor of bleach, worried that anything that might form even the slightest agitation to your diet would overwhelm your delicate digestive tract. You’ll then regurgitate the same thing to your friends and family, spreading the corporate line just as they planned, removing any thought of questioning their lordship over the domain of your supposedly-critically-thinking-mind.

Anything taken as unique like the hit show “Hammer and the Fang” is eventually diluted to its basest elements and repackaged for the widest audience out there. Nope, we clearly don’t want an engaging story about the overreach of power by the police and the (previously) inherent thought of basic rights for all beings, not just those with SINs. You want them to hunk off another formless blob of aggressively indistinguishable gray blocks as “Hammer defeats Nails in this thrilling Season 1 midseason finale!”  Nope, anything else would be too hard hitting for you.

Horizon is one of the few corps that knows what they’re doing. Starting small in 2061 as a high-level think tank to help earthquake and gang stricken Los Angeles, they hit it big in 2063 after scoring several extremely lucrative PR contracts. Their successful fending off of Aztechnology with the help of the PCC secured their spot to solidify themselves as “The Horizon Group” soon after while restoring LA and UCLA along with their two big spin-offs: Singularity (Matrix) and Charisma Associates (PR). When the Crash 2.0 hit, they were mercifully spared as the rest of the world was ravaged by the fallout, emerging soon after to help rebuild much of the California Free State. After seizing CATco’s Corporate Court seat in 2065, they became the unstoppable AAA that we all know and hate. There’s been a push as of late by the corp to go into my hometown of Chicago (aka Cee Zee, the Noose, Hell on Earth) and replicate LA. All I can say is... you can’t do worse than Ares, those pigfucking whoremongers deserve whatever’s coming to them.

Despite CEO and President Gary Cline’s repeated talks of cleanliness, all is not well in the land of the never-setting-sun. His use as a puppet to dance and wave in front of the public with his larger-than-life lifestyle to razzle-dazzle and distract them from the whisper of a shade’s shadow is truly troubling. They’re the corp so concerned about their public image that there is something hiding behind the smiler’s false face of deceit. A smile and a handshake to distract you from the pickpocket of your mind, wallet, and whatever else he may purvey to your bounty of information. For each awakened team-building exercise in “cross relational synergy workshops” we get a Bogota defeat. For each meta and AI friendly act, we get a Las Vegas Massacre. Even their well-touted P2.0 Social Network and LMG(U56) programs had and still have horrible consequences for everyone involved (remember Christy Daee?). Don’t even get me started on their Cal-Hot sim systems addictiveness and dubious legality or their amazingly absurd abuse of skilljacks.

Their internal voting system is known as “Consensus 2.0”, a way for all employees to provide individual input and vote on the direction that they think the corporation should head. Though this may seem like a good idea, a direct democracy can have disastrous consequences as is showcased by the Las Vegas Massacre of a group of protestors (mostly Technomancers) who were fighting for equal rights. Safeguards were put in place after this allowing “The Board” to reject any proposal that they think would undermine their public image. And God forbid their public image should be hurt. They do perform a lot of charity work, I’ll give them that, but the nefarious duplicity behind their motives of control is not something to be shirked off the minds of the people so easily. Rumors of involuntary kidnappings and medical experimentation on possibility hundreds of Technomancers should not be taken lightly. Nor should self-generated war crimes in order to build public support for manufactured wars be forgotten lest we revert to pliable semi-sentient slime for them to mold. An attractive succubus is still a demon no matter how eloquently it speaks or how beautiful it looks.

“We Know What You Think” is not just a phrase that they toss around lightly. They say it with confidence because they tell you what to think, no independent thought required. Another, unofficial motto of theirs I see mentioned around in the Matrix is “Better Living Through Copyright”. Can’t really blame them, they got laws in place that make the old Fifth World “Mickey Mouse Laws” look like a joke (that they will then patent, trademark, and copyright before suing to death you or anyone else who dares repeat it for a fraction of a nuyen). They’re the guys who’s Spec Ops teams don’t go in guns blazing. Good ol’ Richard (an unofficial internal name for the Dawkins Group) will instead infiltrate the offending corp and through power memetics and industrial-scale cultural engineering persuade them to stop. They’ll then buy only Horizon branded goods and services. Freedom of Thought be damned.

I’m going to propose something, dear reader. Let’s all go down to the same Stuffer Shack and buy the same burger and gush over the same show with the same revelations as everyone else. Let’s also pass by the SINless beggar on the street who was born and will die alone all because she had the misfortune of having a SINless mommy and daddy. Let’s keep filling our minds with mush and our bellies with chemically altered food designed to placate us and keep all the cattle in line as we go to the slaughterhouse of mainstream media. We’ll wear our little ear-tags of “Team Jorge” or “Team Kelly” and argue over the banal nothingness of the modern media zombie empire we’ve allowed to be constructed in front of our very eyes. We could turn the channel, but Horizon owns damn near 70% of all media in the greater Seattle Metroplex. Good luck finding anything of value anyways, it’s all corp owned (except us at the SSN). It’s amazing what ¥225 billion will buy you. Don’t complain, remember, you made this.

Now tune in, zone out, and pray to the altar of your media overlords. You better hurry up, I hear this episode’s the one where Hammer gets his trick knees fixed.

I wonder where all of this will lead us. Hope the ending is a good one, this story sucks so far.

 Entertainment/Supernatural News:

(Angelyne Billboard sighting in the Barrens)

Angelyne Sighting in Downtown!

Last week, a tipster in the Barrens noted an Angelyne billboard sighting. It showed up out of nowhere, as they normally do, a portent and an omen of an impending possible sighting. And sure enough, last night, Angelyne The Undying was seen driving her pink convertible downtown! This has been the first Seattle sighting of The Undying in ten years. What is she up to? Why did she show up in the Metroplex this week after such an absence? Might she be releasing a new album sometime soon? Who was she visiting? What was she doing here? Any tipsters with information on Angelyne the Undying, send in tips!

 Features:

Once More 10--(by Breach)

Although Renraku had claimed to have SCIRE under control by mid-2061, in 2063 the UCAS military seizes control of the arcology and declares it “officially” liberated of the AI’s influence. But while the arcology was cleared, the world was not.

Official history will never tell you the story I am about to.

Deus survived Renraku’s assault and even the UCAS “cleansing”; somehow, in its experimentation on the arcology’s residents, the AI had discovered a way to write its source code into the minds of people, and engineered its escape through a thousand of these meat-drones, who would be numbered among the “otaku” who could connect to the Matrix without need for cyberdecks to process the sensory input.

Unfortunately for Deus, and fortunately for the rest of us, a second AI named Megaera, which Renraku had employed to combat Deus, was uploaded into the Network as well. The two factions of the Network fought a years-long shadow war among each other, each side recruiting more otaku into its ranks to replace losses.

Pax, one of the leading figures in Deus’s faction, made an alliance with the terrorist group Winternight, and plots were hatched. Winternight, with the aid of Deus’s Network, secured weapons of mass destruction both biological and nuclear; Sioux military forces foiled what appeared to be a nuclear attack, but it takes many months for a Corporate Court-sponsored team of counter-intelligence and shadowrunners to fully bring Winternight to heel.

And it was all too late.

Early in 2064, Novatech - Villiers’ megacorp du jure - announced an IPO of 20% of their stock for public sale to commence on November 2. The UCAS stock exchange undertook a massive upgrade project to prepare for the IPO - and this all played into Deus’s plans, which was to upload himself across the entire Matrix, taking over every connected device on the planet. And he very nearly succeeded.

Fortunately, Megaera had known of this plot and together with the Matrix’s first AI, the program Mirage (part of the Echo Mirage team from the first Crash, if you remember) they managed to stop Deus and thwart his plans - but the fallout of their struggle would ruin the entirety of the Matrix, bringing down the entire world network in what would come to be called Crash 2.0.

This time, it was not just networks, however - because Winternight was part of the plot as well. The Winter of ‘64, which started in August, was later proven to be the result of Winternight rituals, meant to cripple the world. As the three AIs battled in the IPO launch, Winternight launched its own attacks, unleashing a Crash-like virus named Jormungand that trapped many in the Matrix (some of whom would go on to become e-Ghosts), and killing many more.

The second prong of the Winternight strike is in the physical realm, as EMPs were set off to further cripple the worldwide network, and nuclear warheads detonated at fault-lines around the world in an attempt to tear the very land itself apart. The warheads, however, fail to detonate with the force science would expect, and the damage and fallout is largely contained locally.

Someone is responsible for saving the world that day - it could have been much worse. I hope they know our gratitude.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! breach.ssn@gmail.com

 Gang News: 

Ancient JuL33T Murdered!

Shocking news out of Puyallup gangland! Ancient Street Sam JuL33T was found poisoned in her quarters the morning of her wedding of mobster Enzo Gianelli. Belial is on the warpath and expect there to be a lot of gang violence over the next few days. Also expect runner teams to be dispatched to find out her murdered the Street Sam.

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]

[isaacscrawford]

The Trump Health Policy Train Wreck

By JEFF GOLDSMITH

For the second time in just four months, President Trump finds himself standing on the sidewalk reeling and looking for the license number of the health policy truck that hit him. In the wake of Senator John McCain’s unexpected vote last week killing the “skinny” version of ACA repeal, Republicans abandoned their efforts to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare.

Though the process may not be “over” as of this writing, this has been the most catastrophically mismanaged federal health policy cycle we’ve seen in our lifetimes. In this post, I turn to Blumenthal and Morone’s 2009 analysis, The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office” for help in deconstructing the Trump Presidency’s politically costly health policy adventure.

Blumenthal and Morone distilled eight key lessons about how to manage the health care issue from the records of the post-Roosevelt Presidents’ health policy efforts. Attached to each lesson is a letter grade for Trump’s performance.

To succeed in health reform, President must be “care deeply” about the issue. Candidate Trump did not pretend to be a health policy expert, but the most potent applause line in his campaign speeches was his promise to the Republican base to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare. Trump complicated his task, perhaps without fully realizing it, by running way to the left of his base in promising not to cut Medicare and Medicaid and to give people better coverage for less money.

The challenge of rearranging federal involvement in healthcare financing within the “repeal and replace” promise was clearly a good deal more complex than candidate Trump expected, and he candidly admitted as much. One can criticize the Clintons for many aspects of their 1993-94 failed health reform effort, but their substantive grasp of the policy choices involved was truly impressive. Either Clinton could have commanded the stage in a graduate seminar on health policy at Harvard or Hopkins.

Trump, not so much. His repeated references to “the healthcare” as his shorthand on the issue were not an encouraging sign of his immersion in the issue, but the following verbatim excerpt from his July 19, 2017 interview with the New York Times was a masterpiece:

“So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, ‘I want my insurance.’ It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of.”

This was despite multiple earnest efforts by numerous outside parties -Zeke Emanuel (in person) and Avik Roy, James Capretta, Joe Antos and Gail Wilensky (in editorial venues ) to educate him on the knotty substantive problem with repealing ObamaCare’s coverage guarantees, and a host of other issues. At its root, the TrumpCare debacle can be laid at the feet of Presidential disengagement. Trump’s grade: F.

The need for speed. Blumenthal and Morone wrote; “The day after the presidential election, the savvy health policy analyst will slip his or her president-elect a message: ‘Hurry up- you’re running out of time.’ The window of opportunity always slams shut quickly.” In former Senator Alan Simpson’s immortal words: “Healthcare is like bear meat. The longer you chew it, the bigger it gets.” Presidents do not always control their agendas (see Obama/World Financial Crisis), but early is good., as public passion for the issue cools with each passing month as complexities and industry reaction grow.

The practical reality: the closer one gets to mid-term elections, the less willing vulnerable Congress people are to risk political capital on healthcare legislation that may not help them. Despite the commitment to “repeal and replace” on Day 1, the lengthening delay in dealing with the rest of the Trump agenda (tax reform, infrastructure) plus budget and debt ceiling weighs heavily. Trump’s Grade on Speed: D, so far.

Bring a Plan with You. Blumenthal and Morone stressed the importance of “coming into office with a legislative proposal in hand”. In Trump’s case, this was deceptive, because actual legislation was passed by previous Republican Congresses to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare, albeit with full confidence of a Presidential veto. But in the real world of 2017, the political and health system consequences of repeal were untested. The prior legislation was, in other words, completely and blissfully reactionary: symbolically repealing the “Obama” part of ObamaCare, without contending with the messy realities of 20 + million dispossessed individuals, or the stability of the partially federalized individual insurance market. The bill the House passed in May could easily have been titled The Political Revenge and Upward Redistribution Act of 2017, mainly a huge tax cut for corporations and high income individuals, which bore no relation whatsoever to Trump’s campaign promises. Thus, Trump rates an exculpatory C on Bring a Plan, but an F for situational awareness and an F- for fidelity to his campaign platform.

Hush the Economists. Blumenthal and Morone believed that “expanding health coverage requires presidents who are able and willing to overrule their economic advisors”. This is presumably because at any given moment in any health reform debate, someone in the administration will ask “can we afford to expand coverage?”, and deficit hawk economists will answer “not now.”

Here, I disagree with the substance of Blumenthal and Morone’s analysis: health policy cannot exist in a fiscal vacuum; financing must be sustainable for the coverage expansion to last. Part of ObamaCare’s problem was that the unrealistic White House policy requirements that ObamaCare reduce the deficit and that capped the cost at under $1 trillion-both imposed by the President’s political advisors. These economic constraints resulted in inadequate subsidies, mediocre actual dollar coverage and tepid public reaction to the reforms.

However, the Trump process was not driven by policy, economic or otherwise. It was completely political. Since economists played zero role in the TrumpCare debacle, Trump gets an A for ignoring their input.

Go Public. “There is only one job the president can do: create popular momentum for reform”. Here, Trump’s disengagement played a crucial role. Public support for ObamaCare was always lukewarm, rising above 50% exactly one month and languishing in the 40’s in the Kaiser tracking polls for most of the ensuing seven years. Yet, with a vulnerable target, , Trump continuing to pound on the one note “ObamaCare is a disaster” as evidence mounted of the potential harm done to specific individuals, including Trump’s own electoral base http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2017/03/08/the-rust-belt-is-burning-republicans-lay-waste-to-their-base-on-health-reform/ from repealing it. His surrogates didn’t help much, either. Sec. Tom Price was caught claiming that the House bill would not result in Medicaid patients losing coverage , despite multiple Congressional Budget Office findings of eight-figure enrollment declines. The result was a steady increase in the popularity of the law. Trump gets a D- on Going Public.

Manage Congress. “The successful president must be nimble at making our convoluted legislative machinery work.” Trump’s job here was made difficult not only by his campaign promises discussed above, but also by profound divisions in his own party. There were at least three distinct Congressional factions (and therefore agendas): the hardcore Freedom Caucus folks (“Repeal” is fine. Screw “Replace”), the Deficit Hawks (Must Shrink Federal Fiscal commitment to Medicaid AND Medicare, not just roll back the coverage expansion) and the Repeal and Replace (but Leave Medicaid Expansion alone)- the twenty Republican Senators whose states expanded coverage. Similar intraparty divisions cratered the Clinton reforms and nearly killed ObamaCare.

Even a skilled legislative tactician would have struggled to craft a working Senate majority from this divided Republican troop configuration, with only two votes to lose. In retrospect, McConnell came remarkably close, but Trump made his job much harder with huge relationship damage from gratuitous public bullying of Mark Meadows, Lisa Murkowski, Dean Heller, and others. Trump oscillated between complete disengagement and unhelpful and ill-timed interventions. Between clumsy public cajoling, private threats, and constant Twitter driven tactical second guessing, Trump earns an F for capricious and inconstant management of Congress.

Forget the PSROs. This was Blumenthal and Morone’s injunction to Presidents not to get caught up in health policy minutiae. Per #1 above, not a problem for Trump. Grade: A.

Learn How to Lose. Blumenthal and Morone’s message: Given the historical record of the past eighty plus years, the odds are that a given President will be unsuccessful in accomplishing major health reforms. By “learning how to lose”, they meant disengaging gracefully, leaving the door open not only to dissident members of his own party, but collaboration with the other political party to enable incremental progress in the rest of the Presidential term. The Clintons did this, and achieved significant administrative progress with HIPAA in 1996, and a significant coverage expansion with S-CHIP in 1998, both bipartisan bills.

So far, Trump seems not to grasp the “disengage with grace” logic. His recent tweets on the subject show a pronounced disinclination to move on. They have been angry, petulant and insulting (“fools”, “total quitters”, threatening their health coverage) not only to his shaken majorities but to the Democrats who might be future partners in insurance market reforms. 
Jimmy Carter once said, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”, but this is a pretty impressive case of sore loser-ism. Grade so far, F.

As Blumenthal and Morone made abundantly clear in their book, health reform is a devilishly difficult policy and political challenge for any President, even for those who prepared for it years in advance. Lacking a White House health policy presence, and strong White House issue and legislative management, Trump managed to squander a boatload of political capital on his thusfar unsuccessful ObamaCare initiative. Perhaps with a new White House chief of staff, and candid conversation with his Congressional Republican leadership, the President can minimize the negative impact of the TrumpCare debacle on the rest of his domestic policy agenda.

  Article source:The Health Care Blog