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declanowo · 11 months ago

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Random Weekly (Horror) Movies - Week Seven - Anna

Occasionally, my mum used to rally the family to sit and watch all our old home videos, we would crowd around our TV and reminisce on times I couldn’t remember, curious why everyone was so teary. During one of the videos of a holiday, it suddenly cuts out, replaced by footage of a doll. It sits, motionless, because what else would the doll do? I was fascinated by it; my mum said we should skip over it, so I’ve never finished the whole segment, likely, nothing happens, but ever since I’ve dreamt of what the purpose of it was, fascinated by the doll.

I was hesitant to even bother watching this week's film, Anna. It was thrown on my watchlist with several other films that I received on dvd from my uncle back in 2020. While there were a few gems in there (The Blair Witch Project, Doctor Sleep, The Lighthouse) a good chunk of them were strange movies nobody would have ever heard of (Carnival of Fear, The Doll Master, Ghost Month). For a while, I have viewed these films as ‘Supermarket Movies’ - ones you would find while shopping, and likely nowhere else. Always low-budget, usually bad, they are something that I both love and hate to watch.

I found the film to be entirely fine, most of the reviews I had seen before hand presented the film as awful, and sure, it’s cheap as hell, it sounds bad, looks bad and has a heap of problems with the writing - I can’t describe myself as ever feeling invested in the film. Yet, it’s not nearly as boring as I had expected, for a film that is riding off the success of Annabelle. Much of the film's plot was bland, it follows a pair who steal a haunted doll so they can capture the paranormal footage of it. The presence of the titular doll is pretty uninteresting, besides a few moments, her presence is pretty bland - sure, she controls the whole film, yet the budget means she never does anything that made me too interested in her. I think the opening to The Conjuring is great in setting up Annabelle (even if she isn’t used in the rest of the film), she embodies the tone and the scares that I believe a doll like her should, she is motionless, her design effortlessly creepy, her powers are unknown but feel like they have a limit and rules, we are fearful because of what we don’t know, but everything that happens feels correct. In contrast, Anna seldom does anything in the film, most of the scares come from demonic people, it’s all fine, but the doll is pretty boring, I likely won’t mention her too much as a result. Although everything that happens is a result of her powers, it never feels that way, everything strung together placing the doll in a position of power, without ever feeling too scary beyond her general design, and presumed presence.

I’ll start with the bad stuff, which is mostly technical, but I do think there are some great and fun things about this film! I guess the very worst part however, is the characters. Nobody feels real - towards the end of the film, the characters tie up a lady, which eventually leads to her death, they show no remorse or emotion, they talk in long, plain dialogue, I found no joy in watching them, besides a few moments where everything felt so bad it was funny. For a narrative film like this, enjoyable characters are vital, but when I don’t care about our two protagonists, nor our villain, what is left? Especially with such a short cast list. They are what stops me from liking this film; it makes it so difficult to discuss a film, and praise elements of it, when the barebones of it is so unlikable.

One of the first elements I noticed about this film was its sound, and just how bad it was - most of this can all be put down to a low budget, but it’s still a large problem for the film. So many shots where the characters are far away sound echoey, without subtitles I had to have this film extremely loud to understand. Beyond that however, there is seldom a score, and when there is it feels out of place, like the short and sudden burst of drums and electric guitar that play out towards the end of the movie. In this scene there is also some dreadful dubbed dialogue, it’s just plain bad. This can be seen a few times throughout the film, but felt at its worst here! As well as these, the sound effects are often pretty bad too, such as the very quiet and unenthusiastic screams that leak from the demon as it is killed.

Another element that isn’t great, once again down to budget I assume, is the cinematography. Most of the shots are boring and shaky, they can sometimes feel at home in the film as we switch to a handheld camera that the two film with, however otherwise it doesn’t work too well, mostly because every shot has this feel, therefore, it isn’t that interesting and tells me very little about what is happening! Handheld, shaky shots have a place, especially in this film, but by using it in every single shot, it loses all character.

However, moving away from these elements which can be credited to a low budget, I found the acting and dialogue to not be the best. Both of these fuel the fact that neither of the main characters feel real, they are unintentional parodies of people, their jokes are too overdone to ever be funny, their actions too offbeat to be endearing.

This leads into my next problem, which is how long this film is. While an hour and forty minutes sounds fine, the issue comes from how long scenes last - I had a similar issue with American Psycho II: All American Girl - they stretch out to continue jokes, or to spell things out for us further, and it drags down the entire film for me! I think twenty minutes could be shaved off of this just by cutting down some of these unnecessary moments.

However, there are a fair few things I think are great about this film! For starters, I adore the practical effects; the girl (or demon, I’m not too sure) whose head is split in half throughout the film is great, the movements on her wound are amazing and all create such a great practical villain. Similarly, I love the demon’s design, also done practically, they are instantly fun to watch, they were somewhat evocative of The Crooked Man, who is my favourite character from the Conjuring universe. All of this brought a smile to my face, I found them to be incredibly fun!

Next, I enjoy the lighting, sequences are bathed in gloomy pinks or poisonous yellows, while sometimes overexposed, I think they give the film a great look, the settings and sequences are all the more interesting because of this! When I think of the film, the fun colours are likely what I will picture, and I will always appreciate when a film picks a fun colour palette rather than sticking to greys.

Finally, the film has some fun horror sequences! Sometimes with low-budget horror movies, they feel like they are crafted without care, like the filmmakers are designing it without any appreciation for the genre and instead carry a belief that horror is easy to craft. While I felt a little of that feeling bleed into the film, I did enjoy the sequence where Kat wanders through the building, lost and scared, alongside the later sequence where Jacob does a similar thing, while neither scene is especially tense, I enjoyed them nevertheless!

I don’t really have anything else to say about this film!The comedy seldom worked for me, such as the elongated sequence where the boys don’t understand that Kat believes they want her to have sex with them, which was far too long with too poor dialogue to approach funny to me. Yet, I enjoyed the film more than I had expected to, and I can see why someone would like this; there are a lot of great elements here, and if someone can see past the blemishes, I think they will have a good time.

3/10

#horror #horror movies #creative writing #literature #reviews #review #horror film #horror movie

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mmfpeg · 1 year ago

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Super Cub review: Happiness is light personal consumerism

[this was written recently after the show ended (mid-2021). it's relatively better than my recent attempts at writing, probably because covid brain hadn't set in yet]

No, I'm not in favor of capitalism. Shush. Ah, imagining people genuinely argue for capitalism with "buying little cheap things is neat" depresses me already.

But anyway, would you believe me if I said that among the exciting superpowered extravaganzas and visual smokeshows of the anime (plural) of this season, one of the most interesting shows is just a simple story about buying stuff and being happy with it and not much else "happening"?

I'm gonna try to do a bad impression of a MyAnimeList's synopsis here. I don't know why I need to do that; you can just easily google it and see what's up. But in the interest of giving context to the readers without needing them to click away from here… What's Super Cub? It's a series of motorbikes manufactured from Honda, a long-lived model dating from 1958. It's also an anime adaptation of a light novel about a high schooler named Koguma, a lonely jerk without family and friends, going through high school on a scholarship, living in a place where the only entertainment is an FM radio. One day, after seeing someone riding a scooter to school and thinking, "That's neat," she wandered to a bike dealer, and due to a stroke of luck, managed to get a motorbike that's in her budget: a used Super Cub that apparently has killed 3 people. Immersing herself in riding the Cub and taking care of it, she finds joy, forges connection with other people, and even made some friends! Blegh. I'm sorry. but that's the gist of the story! If that doesn't sound like much, that's because it isn't. Still I implore you to watch it anyway.

It's genuinely a thing of beauty, how the gears of this show turn (pun). It's by design a story where much doesn't happen, and that works to its advantage. You don't need big hitter studios like SHAFT or Madhouse because there's not much happening on the screen at a time. Monologues and dialogues are sparse, especially at the start of the show, which is a bit of a wonder when you consider that this is a light novel adaptation. One ponders if the light novel consisted of just 75 lines of written out anime noises. "Uh." "Haa." "Humu." Haha. Anyway, this, along with the aforementioned non-busy screen, give room for the story to breathe, so to say. Stuff like lines of rapid-firing dialogues that even the subtitlers have a hard time keeping up with, or a character's complicated powers that was described a few seasons ago so you forget now and you're left confused, are not here to get in the way of the story. But then again, as I said on the synopsis, there isn't much of the story anyway. So what is this show then? It's… a lot of pondering. Koguma pondering about the changes in her life due to having a motorbike. Koguma pondering about the subtle changes in herself after buying a motorbike. Koguma pondering about the subtle changes from the little upgrades on her motorbike.

Among the fun pondering and navel gazing (two of the things that do happen), one fun thing to point out about this show is that almost all episodes of the show follow a formula that can be summarized as: Koguma buys something with her paltry allowance. Koguma discovers thing works well. Koguma's happy. Wonderfully, even though it's a Honda copyright sign officially sanctioned work, the story manages to convey those consumerism plot points without overtly sounding like a salesperson (the only branded thing that they would ostensibly be advertising is the Cub series motorbikes, after all). It's just a subtle pattern of the show that you don't notice at first, but then you start to and your brain just latches on to it. It's almost like a fun thing for a certain type of jerk (like me) to bring up on the show's discussion as a gotcha of sorts. As an "Indy doesn't actually have an effect on the movie's plot" type of thing. But, you know, the manner in which the story is told doesn't really let me do a "this show is trying to sell you consumerism!!!" argument anyway, even in bad faith, haha. Koguma's living on scholarship. A lot of the conflicts of the show stems from her needing to solve problems arising during her rides, looking for the obvious solution to it, seeing the price and going, "I can't afford this, you're having a laugh." Solutions range from unorthodox stuff that does fit her budget, to connections that she unexpectedly made.

Being a weirdo just by itself leads to a lonely life, but being a weirdo with a Cub begets another weirdo with a Cub. Reiko is one of the first things (people) that Koguma discovers (or rather, discovers Koguma) due to her Cub. Reiko acts like a sweetener to Koguma's bitter, lonely disposition, Reiko being a cheery and in-universe established It Girl, also an expert voice that helps ease Koguma through her honeymoon period with her Cub, a siren(!!) voice that sucks Koguma even deeper in love with her Cub and the concept of "driving around", and some tasty understated interpersonal relationship as well. Reiko calls Koguma exclusively with the -san suffix, even though they're as tight as friends can be on the outside; she only eats lunch with Koguma, Koguma sleeps over at her lodge, uh, thing? They endlessly drive around in tandem, just best buds things. It might be out of reverence; Koguma is a scholarship girl after all, and even though Reiko is the one more experienced and knowledgeable with regard to the Cub and driving, she tends to childishly reject solutions for their driving problems (like not wanting to install a windshield and leg shields due to them looking uncool on Reiko's Hunter Cub. To be fair, they do look uncool on Reiko's cub specifically, haha), and only relents after she sees Koguma using the solutions with no drama, effectively making Reiko the one following the lead. On the other hand, the -san might just be because that's how "distant" their relationship is (the only actual thing that they have in common is that they both ride a Cub, after all). Anyway, speculations aside, Reiko's here to help Koguma buy things! and consume better!!

Joking aside, even though having "I did consumerism!" as high points in the episodes might sound like a very weak proposition, there's this cute little thing that the show does to accentuate it. Put a pretty ribbon on it. You usually don't notice it due to the slightly depressing? undertone of the story, and the not-lavish production value, but the episodes and scenes tend to start out with desaturated colors. And then, after bouts of trying something out to solve her problems (which, as I mentioned before, largely involves her buying something for it), the moment where she finds out that the thing works well, colors come into the screen. It's quite a thing. You haven't been realizing that you're not seeing colors as vividly as they could be, until you see the vivid colors. A shot of happiness in your eyes. Happiness ranging from getting a raincoat so you can brave the rain to do your courier work, installing a windshield to protect you from the late fall cold air, consuming a warm coffee to counter the cold, brewed by Suu-chan, another friend you made along the way… (okay this is a stretch for the "consumerism" talking point lmao she still "consumes" though lmao)

The "being officially sanctioned by Honda" thing does remind me of another show with that distinction, a miniseries titled One Off. I've never actually watched it; the only things I remember from that show are the opening song, "Yakusoku no Basho" by Round Table ft. Nino, which is a great, cute song, obviously better than both SA-A-GIA and the CV song for the ending of Super Cub, though charming as they are; and the ending song, which is shown in story as a part of an in-universe scene, depicted as the characters doing karaoke, which happens to be my only exposure to the actual animation of the show… It left something to be desired. The premise is far more exciting than Super Cub! A beautiful foreigner! Riding a big dang bike! Through the mountainous roads! Although now, with hindsight, we found out that you don't need all that to sell a Honda. All you need is a simple story written effectively! A story about finding a hobby,

making friends along the way,

light personal consumerism,

dressed as an even simpler story about a girl in Yamanashi riding her motorbike.

#i love super cub because it's basically just another season of yurucamp #super cub #review #anime #spring 2021

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lilaceas · 2 years ago

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nurse.

by the end we'd been seen bullets a dark time from harnessed oxygen a bite & handmade curly back your car & took syrup a scary hit about us.

insane i tought to be so in love all your mouth cross is another mouth so you cross the unknow to feel safer & gamer end into fallow snow; so you slept well oil & needle cups all that every lover & kiss. playground, up the hall stars blows i found a care my baby wanderlust sinner of schoolgirls no bra in a flower seed cult soft prision that winter.

flew me off, love erotic dizzy a doll a night—plus, petals lady many making from a parking lot too. blood. princessy low rider & he said: hell, before you or anyone may my son will listen or recovery without asking for a gift on his bit peachy wait to be queen wait for fall over a stary illusion at owning a dumb bitch the angelic whose i'm.

is he right

a home we could feel by handling ghostly

walk agains the sun, & pain full magick did we into reality a taste back to me, again! or, a subtitle love like a tongue two balls & honey in bitter end solutions corner & tea? the whole body made to me was created for me. sickness pound nail polish ex girlfriend hotdogs i'm not who i'm & rounding a cast say so. bees comets errors down off to be in reality show joy lilith a salad a room couldn't see when it rained snow flower he'd step by accident killing people & laughing at my door hurtful & erotic. butterfly saturated between buds, the animal's heartbeat sighs humming frozen juicy of diaries & closer than before imagining fucked up situations cheap trend denied shelter a chair a married man waiting for the right moment when them spills his owned oneness-ness solitary nuts in you once again & forced owner. & no longer.

satiated, haircuts eternity home after home & delicacies south french basketball player lifer difficulties &,

our teeth --stand our hand... in half of the skydie. hold gently. flowy dress.

listen to that laughter; was caught up.

#writing

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archduchessofnowhere · 3 years ago

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Series review: SISI (2021) Episode 1 and 2

It's been 123 years since Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, died aged 60 at the hands of an anarchist. And yet, she remains as famous, and I would dare to say as, if not more, beloved than ever. On-screen depictions of the Empress date as early as 1920, and over the course of the years dozens of actresses have made Elisabeth come to life in films, TV series and theatre. The most famous of all of them being the great late Romy Schneider, who played the Empress as a young girl in the classic Sissi Trilogy (1955-1957) directed by Ernst Marischka, and later reprised her role as a more mature, mysterious character in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973), a biopic movie about Elisabeth's cousin, the ill-fated Fairy Tale King of Bavaria, Ludwig II.

When the series Sisi (2021) was announced, there was of course those who reacted with rejection, saying "Romy Schneider is the only Sisi! If is not her I don't want anyone to play her!!" (Romy's been dead for almost forty years now so this statement just means "never again make movies about Sisi"). But for those who, regardless of their feelings towards the Trilogy, really like the historical Elisabeth, this news were met with joy: perhaps, finally, we'll get a truthful portrayal of Sisi's youth. Casually, around the same time Netflix also announced their own series about Sisi, theirs named The Empress, which is currently being filmed and it's expected to premiere next year. And on top of that, two other movies, these centered on the later years of Elisabeth were also announced (Corsage and Sisi und ich, both also expected to premiere next year). Quoting a line from Elisabeth das Musical, "Elisabeth ist in".

Sisi (2021), therefore, had not only the weight of "carrying" Schneider's legacy, but also the pressure of having a direct competitor. While I highly doubt The Empress had any influence in the series' script or direction, it does creates this strange situation in which there is an informal "race" for becoming THE new series about Elisabeth. A race in which Sisi (2021) has a head start, for it already finished its production, has a release date of December and was renewned for a second season. Last month the first two episodes of the series premiered at the Cannes Series Festival in Paris, and for the delight of the "fandom" of the late Empress, these two episodes were available to watch for free in the Festival's website for two days. The subtitles were only in French, but that didn't stop us, non-German and non-French speakers, from watching them.

Starting in episode one with Elisabeth daydreaming about her first crush and ending in episode two with her waiting for Franz Josef in her bedchamber to consumate her marriage, these episodes were a first taste of what to expect from the rest of the show, from tone to characterization. Before the premiere the production team started to talk about how this was going to be a modern take on Sisi's life, and while I wasn't thrilled, I wasn't against it either. There's been a boom for modernized period dramas (The Great, Bridgerton, Dickinson, etc.) and I actually think that they can work very well, it all depends in what are they going for. However what is Sisi (2021) going for with it exactly is still a mystery to me that those first two episodes didn't solved. What it did solved was the mystery of what were we going to get out of this series in terms of telling one more time the story of the Empress Elisabeth. And boy do I have very mixed feelings about it. So, exactly how was this Sisi?

To begin this review with the more positive points, the production value of this series it's very high and it shows. When the first pictures were released I was worried that it might look "cheap", but I was very wrong. This series looks REALLY GOOD, the cinematography was on point through out the two episodes and it really plunged you into the story. This might be a bold statement given the gorgeous landscapes that are the background of the Sissi Trilogy, but honestly I think that this might be the best looking depiction of Sisi ever (as of now).

The costumes (for which I might write a review on their own) were honestly a dissapointment once the first behind the scenes photos came out and it was obvious that they weren't going for accuracy, but instead choose a modernized, artistic look. And yet surprinsingly they actually work very well on set, mainly for two reasons: first and most important, there is consistency. A lot of time historical costuming fails not because it's not "accurate", but because it's so inconsistent that you can't even point which era they're supossed to recreate (for a clear example, search "reign costumes" without reading the series' synopsis and try to guess in which year the story it's set). In Sisi, most of the costumes have a consistent silhouette so even if the dresses don't actually look like 1850s dresses they still look like they all belong to the same time and place. And thus, when a dress stands up, it does it on purpose (Elisabeth's black dress not only looked quite modern, it also looked drastically different to other dresses we see on the show and that it's the point). The second reason why I think the costumes work it's because they blend into the scene. The pallette color of the gowns (greys, blues, beiges) it's the same pallette color of the series, so the gowns naturally merge with the background: once again, even though they aren't accurate, they look like they belong there. Lastly, I'll add that since the direction the show took it's "modernized retelling of Sis's life" these stylized, modern-looking costumes make sense within the story. I'll expand upon this point later, but the series does have very over the top fictional plot lines that would be even more jarring if everyone was wearing extremly accurate clothing. By dressing Elisabeth and company in clearly syntetic fabrics, it's easier to accept that what you are watching it's fiction.

The acting in these first two episodes was quite solid, it should be noted that this is Dominique Devenport debut as a protagonist and still she seemed very confortable in her role. I feel she captured Elisabeth's charm very well, although this aged up version (I think they never mention Sisi's age but there is no way for Dominique to pass as a fifteen years old girl) isn't shy like her historical counterpart was; on the countrary, this Sisi is quite bold. Meanwhile, Jannik Schümann as Franz Josef is... something else, for sure. His acting was good if maybe a bit exaggerated, but I think that mostly comes from the script that they gave him, which made some wild decisions when it came to the Emperor's characterization (I'll talk more about it later).

Having mentioned the most positives aspects of this series, it's time to talk about the less positives, at least to me: the plot and characterization (the most important things lol).

I'm going to start by clarifying that I actually don't have a problem with historical fiction making stuff up. Sometimes there are things that need to be adapted or modified to work on screen, there are gaps that need to be filled. And that is the fun of historical fiction: to imagine what is in those gaps, what where this people saying and feeling behind closed doors. Of course, that doesn't mean that I have to like what is invented in these stories, specially if it's something wildly inaccurate or just straight up disrespectful to the real people being portrayed. Or, even worse, if it's something that it's just simply bad writing, regardless of wheter it actually happened or not (for example, I didn't dislike Versailles because it's very inaccurate, I disliked it because it's a poorly written TV drama). So when the creators of the show announced how this series was going to put a "modern" spin on Elisabeth's story, I new that there was going to be a least some fictionalization.

It turns out, "at least some" was an understatement.

The first episode covers the famous weekend at Ischl in which Franz Josef takes one look at his teenage cousin and becomes obssesed with her forever. This episode has a very good pacing, I was hooked watching it and I didn't even noticed that almost an hour had gone by until the credits started rolling, and even though it was retelling once again the most told moment in Elisabeth's life, it still felt fresh. I appreaciated the incorporation of Count Richard, a man that worked in service of Sisi's father Duke Max and was her first crush. The Duchess wrote many love poems about him and was very heartbroken when this young love came to nothing. I might be wrong, but I think this was the first time he ever appeared on-screen. Overall, this episode isn't too fictionalized, and the only Big That Didn't Happen Moment ocurred when, riding in the middle of a forest, Elisabeth and Franz Josef are attacked by Hungarian rebeles that randomly pop out in a very action packed scene.

My main problem with that scene it's that it has no consequence to the plot. Sisi comes back physically hurt and with her dress ragged from something that should've been a traumatic experience for a girl who grow up in quite, happy Possenhofen and has never faced the dangers of the world. She was almost killed and yet by the next scene it's all forgotten and she never seems to have been affected by any of what happened to her. The Emperor almost gets killed and still no one brings it up ever again. What was the point of adding something that just never happened if you aren't going to do anything with it? It seems that the sole purpose of it was to create a "brutal forest scene whose layered sexual adrenaline fast-tracks the relationship [of Elisabeth and Franz Josef], but as one of equals". Wasn't any other way of creating a moment like this?

And this isn't even the most over the top fictional plot line we get: the second episode, in my opinion far inferior to the first one, ocupies about half of its run time in a made up story so random that it almost feels like filler. I know that this isn't a documentary, as I already said I was expecting it to have fiction, but this was just too dumb. Am I really supposed to believe that the future Empress of Austria was left to go riding alone (!) in the middle of the night (!!) to a brothel (!!!) and that she befriended a woman that works there and later make her pass as a countess so she could be her lady-in-waiting (!!!!!!)? The woman literally just walks into Possenhofen, says "I'm the countess of... hmmm... Place I Just Made Up" and everyone else it's like "Ok, we'll blindly believe you, you can be the lady-in-waiting of the future Empress, no background check whatsoever". Really? This is the best they could do?

Ultimately, the reason why I prefer the first episode over the second it's because even as frustrating as the Hungarian rebels scene was, at least it doesn't take half of the episode (and it does serves the purpose of "spicing things up" between the main couple, even though I think that could have been achived in a different way). At the end, most of the episode it's still grounded on historical facts and the main storyline it's the very real weekend at Ischl. However the second episode, as I said, feels like filler: we spend a considerable time with the fictional brothel storyline, and in consequence we see little to nothing of the actual engagement and how it took a toll on the very young Sisi. Why not show us instead the intense "crash courses" she had to do, trying to compensate the very informal education she had so far? Why not show us Elisabeth's Hungarian history teacher, Count Johann Mailath, who was probably the first person to positively influenced her about Hungary? Why not show the constant lavish presents that she received, to the point that it was so overwhelming that she had no interet in them? Why not show us how enduring all of this was for her, how she grew more and more melancholic as days passed? Why don't show us her siblings helping her with her studies and being her emotional support, why don't show how they all went to Vienna with her? (I personally really like the Wittelsbach siblings and it genuinely annoys me how often they get sidelined or straight up ignored in films and series about Sisi when she often spent more time with them than with her husband).

Another of the downsides is that the series continues to perpetuate the narrative of "Ludovika scheming to make her daughter Empress and Duke Max being the only one that cares for the girl's feelings". The truth is that Duke Max was an absent figure throughout his children's childhood, he was uninterested in family life and much preferred traveling to far away places. Later in her life Ludovika would say that Max only started to treat her well after their 50th (!) wedding anniversary. I understand that the idea of Good Duke Max is very ingrained in the myth of Sisi, but I think it's time to stop romanticising the man, specially if it's at the cost of making Ludovika look unscrupulous. The evidence we have does show us that there was a parent that cared for their children's wellbeing, and that parent wasn't Max.

Lastly, let's talk about the biggest red flag this series gave me: what was up with the characterizations?

I already talked about Sisi's character and to be honest I don't have anything else to add. I can see some parts of the real Elisabeth in Dominique's Sisi, and I can also see the more "bold" attitude that the screenwritters gave her. Which I don't mind that much since it's just an interpretation, although I do wish they at least kept her shyness. Now, what were they going for when they wrote Franz Josef's character? He is literally the opposite of his historical counterpart: they made him a ruthless, violent, rude, condescending, total frat boy. I go a bit more in-deep about what they did to Franz Josef in this ask, but quoting myself: I said before in a post that I tend to find FJ quite boring as a character in movies/series about Elisabeth (Elisabeth das musical being the exception, but that’s because all characters there are great), so I found this portrayal quite interesting for a change (this man is def not gonna bore us) but also worrisome. I’m all out for a protrayal of Franz Josef in which he isn’t a cardboard Prince Charming, but going all the way to make him practically unecognizable from the historical figure ain’t it either. Let’s hope that they do a good job with him in the rest of the episodes because as of now his whole characterization it’s the writers looking at the real Franz Josef and saying “I can make him worse”.

But the most dissapointing characterization wasn't that of the Imperial couple, but of Helene, Elisabeth's sister. Although hurt for what happened in Ischl Néné always remained close to Sisi and supported her through her hardest time. She loved her sister and never resented her. And yet here Helene is spiteful and mean towards Elisabeth because she envies her. Ugh. Much for this being a feminist show (still I have hope that in the rest of the episodes this changes).

All in all, I have mixed feelings mainly because while I enjoyed this episodes (the first one way more than the second), the truth it's that this wasn't the Sisi that I really wanted. Some people keep asking why are they still making movies/series about Elisabeth where there's already a lot out, and I'll keep answering that it's because none of them have got her right yet. As long as this modern retelling it's a good series I'll like it, but I also will regret that it's not actually about Elisabeth, but just inspired in her. Specially if the sacrifice of accuracy it's the cost of making trashy dramatic storylines full of stereotypes while simultaneously trying to pass as "empowering" and "feminist". Helene doesn't need to become in a spiteful sister, Franz Josef doesn't need to be villainized and Elisabeth definetly doesn't need to be "girlbossificated" for this series to be feminist: showing the life of this woman as it was, showing her struggles, weaknesses and strengths, in summary, being truthful to her life and to the lives of the women that were part of it would have been enough to have a real feminist message. Still, even after saying all that, I'm not pesimistic about the series: I saw potential in it, and I think that potential can be met. And at the end of the day, even if it end ups not making for a good historial series, I think it will be a fun watch nontheless.

#btw when I said ´daydreaming´ I actually meant that she was [REDACTED]#ALSO the soundtrak was really good it had a lot of The Crown vibes and I love it for it #I didn't have any space for putting it in the review so I'll leave it here #sorry this took so long I've been struggling a lot to write anything longer that two parragraphs #I hope this review isn't a mess to understand!#Sisi (2021)#series review #all gifs are mine btw

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notebooknebula · 3 years ago

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Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner

https://www.jayconner.com/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner/

Scott Meyers shares the world of Self-Storage Investing

Scott and his affiliated companies focus on the acquisition, development, and syndicating of self-storage facilities nationwide. He currently owns and operates over 2,200,000 square feet and over 13,000 units nationwide.

His education organization www.SelfStorageInvesting.com provides courses, tools, life events, and mentoring to help others launch self-storage businesses to enjoy a lifestyle, as his saying goes “free from tenant, toilets & trash!”

His various companies are also very mission-focused and funded the construction of 12 houses in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, partners & other associates on their all-expense-paid short-term mission trips.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

1:38 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”- https://www.JayConner.com/Book

2:58 – Today’s guest: Scott Meyers

5:44 – How Scott Meyers got started in the real estate business

8:31 – Scott Meyers’ very first storage facility

10:15 – Scott Meyers’ lesson learned on his first storage facility deal

11:04 – What is syndication?

13:29 – Does the storage investing business also offer multiple exit strategies?

17:09 – Get connected with Scott Meyers – https://www.SelfStorageInvesting.com

18:34 – How does the pandemic affect the Self-Storage industry?

22:09 – No business strives unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems

23:10 – Scott Meyers’ recent projects

25:19 – Best way on starting with Self-Storage Investing business

27:43 – Common mistakes that new self-storage investors make

30:17 – Scott Meyers’ parting comments – “It’s when everybody is running out that you should be, not just running in but understanding what it means to be in the real estate business.”

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11241/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner

Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner

Jay Conner:

Stir. And you are still struggling to do your first deal because you don’t have the funding and you can’t find the money for your deals, or are you a wholesaler? And you’ve received some assignment fees, but there’s some deals you want to stay in, but you said probably haven’t been able to stay in the deals because you don’t have the money or the funding, or are you a seasoned real estate investor? And you’ve done a ton of deals, but you’re sick and tired of paying high interest rates and you want to be in control of your business and you just want to get some more cheap money really, really fast. Well, if you answered yes to any of those three questions, don’t go anywhere because I’m getting ready to plug you into the money right now.

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the private money academy podcast. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority. I’m the host of the show. And I want to welcome you here to the show here on the private money academy podcast. We obviously always talk about private money and getting deals funded, getting money for your deals. But in addition to that, I typically have an amazing guest and expert to join me here on the show. And today is no exception, but before I introduce you to my good friend and expert in this area of self storage, that you’re going to find amazing. I’ve got a free gift for you for just being here on the show. And that is, I just recently released my new book, which is titled where to get the money now, subtitle, how and where to get money for your real estate deals without relying on traditional or hard money lenders.

So here’s the deal folks. I just released this book hit number one on Amazon. And this book was show you. Step-by-step how I went from having no funding from ideals to over $2 million in less than 90 days and how you can get plugged into money as well. We’re not talking about traditional money. We’re not talking about institutional lenders, how to get money very, very fast at super cheap, low interest rates. And I’m glad to send this book to you for free, just cover delivery. You can get the book for free at www dot Jay Conner, J a y C o n n er.com forward slash book. Again, you can get the book, we’ll ship it right out to [email protected] forward slash book. And we’ll get you plugged into the funding for your deals right away. What, as I mentioned, I’ve got an amazing guest and a very, very close personal friend of mine on the show with me today, a little bit about him before I bring him on he and his affiliated companies, they focus in this area on the acquisition, the development and the syndicating of self storage facilities nationwide.

Now, my guests currently owns any operates over check this out 2 million, 200,000, my land’s square feet and over 13,000 units that is gotten nationwide. Well, not only does he do the business, but he also teaches and coaches other real estate investors that want to learn about self storage and how that works. His education company is self storage, investing.com, and it provides courses and tools and live events, coaching, and mentoring to help others launch like you self storage businesses to enjoy the lifestyle. And, you know, as my guest, a good friend is known to say many, many times, get in this business and you’ll be free from tenants free from toilets free from trash. Well, you know, one thing that he and I talk about, and he and I are in a high end mastermind group together, his various companies are also very mission focused. He’s got a heart of gold, he’s got a servant’s heart and he is so far to date. He’s funded the construction of 12 houses, and I’m very, very familiar with this project. 12 houses down in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, his partners, his friends, his business associates on their all expense paid mission trip to do houses for these people. Wow. What a service heart, where that my good friend, Scott Myers, welcome to the podcast.

Scott Meyer:

Hey Jay, it is a good to see you again, my friend, how are you?

Jay Conner:

I am doing fantastic. I know we’ve got a mastermind meeting coming up pretty soon out there in Scottsdale. Are you going to make that one or you don’t know?

Scott Meyer:

I am looking forward to it and I will attend to any, and all of those that will be held in Arizona because now I have a two kiddos that are going to grand canyon university in Phoenix. And so we’re going to be spending a lot of time out in Arizona.

Jay Conner:

Oh, that’s great. Well, Carol joy and I we’ve already got our plane tickets. We’ve got our hotel reservations. So I look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale in just a few short weeks, right around the corner.

Scott Meyer:

Likewise can’t wait. Absolutely.

Jay Conner:

Well, Scott, as I told everybody in the introduction, I mean your expertise, your wheelhouses self storage and self storage facilities, but before we get into that world and your arena, first of all, just tell everybody how you got into real estate.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. Wow. I think probably like most people out there started with the single family house and I learned from, and many folks on here will this name and a whole lot won’t Carleton sheets, who was one of the grandfathers along with Ron Legrand and some of the others that taught people how to get into real estate. So I followed this program to buy houses, rehab them refund, and some rent them out and then replicate and do that over and over again. So the burn method before it was called the bird method. And so that’s how we got started bought a single family house. This was back in 1993 was the first one that I ever bought. It had an assumable VA mortgage on it, which I don’t think there’s any of those left out there any longer and allowed me to get in and just assume that mortgage with very little experience in the way of even credit history at the time, it was a pretty young guy at the time, as you can tell by my age now and doing the math.

So that’s how it started. And then we moved on to buying up more. We refinanced about two more houses than we need to fix them up refinance and buy more. So we had about 75 in 76 houses and didn’t really have the cashflow and the, the, you know, the freedom that we wanted that Carlton sheets had mentioned in the home study system. So we thought, well, economies of scale will fix this. So we started getting into apartments and buying several complexes around central Indiana, but same thing and just kind of bought us more tenants, toilets, trash headaches, and the business model just wasn’t right for us. We wanted to have time. We wanted the freedom that real estate brings. And so to do that in real estate, that means no tenants, no toilets. So that’s either parking lots or self storage, and you can’t really build a lot of value in, in parking lots.

And then we found, but once I dug into self storage, I realized that, ah, this is, this is a place I need to be. People don’t pay rent. You lock them out and you sell their stuff off and get paid. You turn it around by taking a blower and you blow the unit out with no paint, no carpet, no extensive clean-out or repairs. And once I more, the more I looked into the business, I really saw the light and decided that this is the path I wanted to take. So sold their houses, our apartments, and now we’ve gone just, you know, 100% into self storage made that transition about 2005 to where we are now, today, which is where you mentioned Jay, we, we buy existing facilities. Still. That same model is in place. We also convert industrial buildings, grocery stores, anything that is, can be repurposed into so storage, we’ll buy it and convert it. And then we build from the ground up and we do a lot of this on by partnering and doing joint ventures and then syndicating the private equity, which is where you come in, Jay and you know, all too well, what that looks like and how we can leverage other people’s money and bring them along as limited partners to enjoy in the growth in this incredible business. So I hope that wasn’t longer than what you were looking for, but that’s, that’s my story.

Jay Conner:

No, that was perfect. Well, tell us the story about your very first self storage facility that you got into and, and what lessons did you learn from that first deal?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, so the F the very first facility that I got into was a, that we were sending out mailers to facility owners, just like we all do in real estate to the asset class that we’re in. And we ran across some business owners and they were getting a business, a divorce. They were partners in a concrete business and things weren’t going so well. And they wanted, they were parting ways. And this facility, they owned together as well. Well, they, as what happens, unfortunately in the worst is the other one, one side wants to hurt the other. And the other one definitely wants to destroy the other one. And so that’s what they were doing. And they were destroying the value of the facility in the meantime. And so what that meant is we were able to get into this a facility for it, was it appraised for $800,000 more than what the selling price was?

And they just had to get out from under the note, because those two had done such a good job of fighting each other, that the bank was about ready to take the facility back. So I partnered, I partnered up with a gentleman. We came in at 50, 50 cash and both on the balance sheet and excuse me, on the loan request and ended up moving forward on this first property, by taking the existing tenants and raising the rates, which they hadn’t been raised in 10 years, we let them manage, well, let me see. We didn’t let her, we freed up her future to pursue other career opportunities and put a kiosk in place because we don’t have to manage these facilities with a person on site. And then we bought the land next door and expanded and built that up and leased that up as well.

So I sold off to my partner eventually. And that leads to, I guess, the second part of your question, Jay, which is what did I learn from this? Well, first of all, I, I understood the power of leveraging and bringing partners in to projects. But I also, the lesson I learned is that I, I really want to be in that manager position. I wanted to have that control rather than 50 50, and it’s not a control issue. It’s just that, you know, once I learned about syndication and moving on to other projects, that I can be the syndicator, the promoter, and the person who is calling the shots, and I can bring in limited partners for sometimes their balance sheets to sign on the loan as well. But mostly for the equity that is, that is required to get into a facility. So that was probably the biggest lesson. And I also learned, sometimes you shouldn’t bring people that are close to you or friends into a business as well. Sometimes it doesn’t always turn out well. Yeah. Yes.

Jay Conner:

I’ve been, I’ve been down that road myself as well. So to make sure everybody understands what you’re talking about, what do you mean by syndication? What’s that look like? And what’s the benefits of it.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. So in the true sec definition, and I am paraphrasing, anytime you bring two or more people together into a project, and in this instance, a real estate investment where one person is, is active, doing all the heavy lifting, doing all the work, and the other person is bringing money and they’re passive. They don’t have a hand in making decisions or doing any of the project management in a project. Then, then you’ve created a security and then it’s governed by the securities and exchange commission. And so they state that you have to file that, and you have to register with the, depending on the fund or the entity that you set up that has to be registered. So for us, that is a true, so for us, there was one person, as I just mentioned me that I am the promoter. I am the active person on the investment.

Whereas I bring in then a lot of private equity, a lot of limited partners that come into the project. They don’t lend a hand. They’re not involved in the decision making process. And what they’re lending is money into the project. They’re investing into the project with me. And so their role and responsibility is to wire, the funds to close the project. And my responsibility is to do everything else, report back to them, the progress show, the projections and how we are exceeding, hopefully meeting, or if we are underperforming on our projections and then send out to our K ones at the end of the year, because they do become owners of this entity. And they get to participate in the upside as well as in the depreciation as well. So that’s, and I guess a limited sense without getting too far in the weeds, Jay, is, is the definition of a syndication and how we go about approaching the market. Yeah.

Jay Conner:

So, you know, in the world of single family houses, there’s multiple exit strategies. There’s multiple strategies of what someone’s going to do with that property after they invest in it, you know, you can, you can buy a single family house, you can fix it up, you can flip it, you can wholesale houses and, you know, wholesale houses out through other real estate investors. You can buy houses and you can fix them up and you can hold them, you know, for the longterm. So compare self storage to what I just did with single family houses. Are there all these different strategies as to how you can go about the self storage business. And second part of that question is if there are different strategies, how do you decide which one you’re going to do?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, I’d say property is property. And, you know, in a general sense, and you can do all of the above. You know, we buy them and wholesale them, or sometimes a wholesale without us ever taking ownership or taking deed to the property. You can buy them, you can fix them up, turn around and flip them. You can buy them and turn them around partially, and then sell them off and call it a flip or non you sell them to the next person down the road. That’s going to take it the rest of the way, the way that we do it is typically we’re a longer-term hold three to five years. That gives us time to in an existing facility, really turn it around, raise rates, make the improvements, and reduce the expenses as much as possible to maximize the net operating income and then sell it for maximum dollar, our conversions and development.

You know, those projects take roughly four to five years to either buy a building, say a vacant grocery store and convert it to self storage, and then start from ground zero. And at least it up to 80, 85% occupancy and bring in our limited partners and allow them to have a payday and an exit that is comparable to if they were to invest in any other type of entity, a business over that time, and really focusing on the internal rate of return and the same goes for development. So in terms of an exit strategy, it’s a little more difficult in, in the way that we head into those larger projects with our partners in that we can’t do a 10 31, unless everybody decides to go along with us into the next project, which obviously they’re not going to. So at that point we will sell and that we will take our profits off the table.

And then we will move into the next project for our limited partners. For the most part, they are investing through a retirement vehicle like a self-directed IRA or a solo or a real estate 401k. So they don’t really have those tax consequences at, at, at the exit. We also are looking at in terms of an exit strategy. And I guess to back up a step, you know, Jay, I think you, and hopefully everybody on this call recognizes that you, you should always look at the exit strategy or determine what your exit strategy is before you get into a project. It’s not a good plan to just don’t say, well, there’s a good deal. I’m just going to buy it and figure it out later. You can find yourself, maybe a do not, you know, don’t want her later on down the road, or you sit back and take a look at your empire and you realize what a mess.

I can’t even manage this because I never paid any attention to what I was doing. So every time we hit into a project, you know, we identify if it’s a good deal, are we going to keep it? You know, if we’re going to flip this thing in a year, then we’ve got some, you know, capital short-term capital gains taxes. That’s a consideration. If we own it solely, then we can do a 10 31 into something else on. Do we want to do that three years from now? And I’m saying at any point in time, do we want to do that two or three years from now? Where, what are the interest rates going to be and what our cap rates going to be, and how do we expect the market and the economy? What’s it gonna look like? So we’re, we’re always looking six months a year down the road, five years down the road and anticipating what’s going on with the market, meaning interest rates and our capitalization rates, which is how we value these facilities.

And then overall, does this really fit in our business plan? I suffer like everybody from shiny object itis, and I want to buy them all, you know, if somebody else buys a self-storage facility and develop those one, and I’m going down the road, I was just like, that should have been mine. I should have built that. I should have bought that. And it’s a, it’s a real struggle. But if we get into that, you know, we can paint ourselves into a corner if we get into that situation where we just, you know, every once in a while we have to say no. Yeah, for sure.

Jay Conner:

So just to make sure everybody knows before, anybody’s got to jump off a listing here to the podcast. How can people get in contact with you and your companies, Scott, to learn more about what you do and how you can help them in this area of self storage?

Scott Meyer:

Sure. So we go into self storage, investing.com. That is the mothership, and there’s a links to our other websites that focus on the passive investing side of the business. But self-storage investing.com is really the mothership. And, and this is where we’ve been at this longer than anybody in the business and teaching people the right way to go about investing in self storage. I’m just in hopes that once again, you know, a rising tide raises all ships and so that we want everybody to be as educated as possible to go out into the marketplace before they do this to avoid any mistakes. And then also, you know, that just kind of makes it more difficult for the rest of us, that there are a lot of gunslingers out there that aren’t really doing their due diligence and doing things the right way. So that is our, our main purpose in educating people in the business. Cause it just makes it easier for all of us to conduct business in this incredible niche. Exactly.

Jay Conner:

So if you’re remotely interested folks and connecting them with Scott and his team, that website again is www dot self storage, investing.com, self storage, investing.com. We’re coming out here, hopefully on the other side of COVID and the pandemic and all that stuff. What are you seeing in the self storage industry? I mean, overall nationwide is the industry growing, how has COVID affected self storage?

Scott Meyer:

Yeah. Self storage is on a tear right now. I mean, if you look at the asset classes in real estate, no matter what stat you look at in terms of, you know, which asset class has done well, of course I’m biased, but the stats don’t lie, self storage and industrial are right up at the top. I think data centers may be up there as well. Industrial has done really well with Amazon expanding and, and the supporters of the Amazon and the distribution centers that are now coming down to the smaller market size. And, and as we see, unfortunately, the slow death of retail, the, the industrial side and the industrial sector has benefited greatly and self storage because we are heading into a time where we’re heading into a recession. Again, we also have seen now people come home from work and they had to clear out the dining room, the spare bedroom, the spare of family room, or living room and create a workspace for one of the income earners.

And sometimes too, they also last year during the lockdown, you know, when everybody was sent home from school, the colleges shut down and, and the kids had to put all their stuff into storage again, until they were able to go back. The kids that were in K through 12 came home, and we also had to make room in our homes to do school at home as well. So clearing out more furniture to make all of that happen. And then unfortunately there’s a whole lot of businesses that immediately when, when the lockdown started, it just went under because you know, customers are go figure on the lifeblood of their business. And if they couldn’t do it online, they went under. And so their inventory machinery and furniture, business furniture went into storage. And so, you know, we see this was somewhat of a microcosm of what we see during a recession and self storage really benefits during a recession because businesses downsize and put their things in storage, individuals downsized during a recession, they may have to move in with somebody else, a friend or move back home.

And so their extra stuff goes into storage. And so we, we, we spritz traditionally has always done better. You know, we go up to the right during times people buy more stuff and they store more stuff. That’s the nature of what we do here in this country. And if that’s you on behalf of the industry, I thank you for that mentality in this country. But during a recession, you know, we get the hockey stick effect. And then that’s when banks slow down development slows down of all sorts and then demand for self storage goes up. And so that’s what we saw during the pandemic last year. And 2020 was an absolute banner year for our industry. We have been, we have been contactless and touchless since before it was cool to be contactless and touchless using kiosks to rent a unit, much like a kiosk because self storage, you know, renting a unit is a very low labor intensive transaction that can be done over the internet.

And it can be done by way of a cell phone access to our facility, our software, getting a gate code and even a key fob and access on the phone to access a unit can all be done by way of a smartphone as well. So J we don’t, we don’t celebrate recessions personally, nor my company. We don’t celebrate pandemics for now shakes, but our, our industry, I’m, I’m thankful for the industry that we’re in because we have benefited with a huge wind in our sail, not only during a recession as we’re going to pet into again, but then the pandemic, which kind of accelerated that has really benefited our industry. Well, you know,

Jay Conner:

No business thrives, unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems. And that’s what, and that’s what you and your company and the industry is doing. I mean, due to the pandemic, you got all this and increased demand for people needing to put their stuff somewhere. And unless your industry comes along and provides a place to put their stuff, then you know, you’re not a, you’re not solving that problem. So it’s what is, so let’s say someone is, and I’ll tell you, it’s the same thing as going on around here. It’s like here in my little area where Carol joy and I live total, total area of only 40,000 people, I know of four brand new self storage facilities that are under construction right now, four of them. And we already got them everywhere. It’s like my lands, people must have a whole, much more stuff. It’s just like, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. How are you? Are you doing new construction these days? Are you still focusing on existing facilities?

Scott Meyer:

Well, a little bit of both, we are, we were really focused on in 2020 on construction. We had some projects already in the pipeline and then also picked up some others from some folks that while we’re just kind of taking the ball the rest the way down the field, some folks that had some stalls due to due to COVID and some funding issues. And so absolutely we’ve been known developing for a number of years. Now, we’ve got the team, we’ve got the experience. We’re in several markets where we know where the demand is, and we just know it’s a business model that we can replicate over and over again, that allows us to look at a market. And, and Jay, if I could, just the reason why we see so many opportunities and why you’re seeing the say, four facilities going up in your town is a lot of folks will think, well, wait, I see these things everywhere.

Isn’t the market saturated. And you know, how can we possibly, you know, have enough demand for this, but, you know, when we go into a market and we’re looking at it in a place that potentially maybe good for developing a self storage facility, there’s a lot of research that goes into that. First of all, our market is really five mile radius. That’s all the further people are going to travel to a self storage facility from their home is about five miles. And so within that five miles, if the facility is the 1, 2, 3, 4 facilities are full, have a waiting list. And the raising rates every three or four months, then we know what equilibrium is in a market. And it’s, you know, anywhere from five and a half to six and a half, you know, five and a half to six and a half square foot per person.

And anytime that we’re below that if there’s only three or four square foot per person, we know that there’s a lot of demand in that market. So that, and rental rates will dictate when we’re going to go in and build. So it’s not a build it and they will come or hope that they will come and just, you know, hope is not a strategy. And we spend millions of dollars on these facilities. And so that is the reason why we’re seeing a lot about construction. And so we absolutely are bullish because of all the factors that I just mentioned that are, that are occurring in the market right now, which is creating a huge surge in demand for storage.

Jay Conner:

If someone is brand new to self storage, and they’re really interested in exploring it and, you know, really want to see if this makes sense for them, what’s the best way for a brand new person to even get started? Where do they start looking?

Scott Meyer:

Well, I think it starts with, with learning so that they know what they are looking for. And so no shameless plug, but we just got a lot of free resources on our website. Again, just to help people, you don’t have to spend a dime on it, just so you know, what you’re looking at and looking for, then begin to seek out if you’re a part of a real estate investor group in your city and there’s people that are in stores and then strike up a conversation. I I’d asked you to ask them to go out to lunch, to pick their brain, but we know that there’s a whole lot of folks that maybe aren’t interested in doing that these days, but if you can strike up a friendship, get into a conversation or even a subgroup, and some of these other real estate investor circles, or online with several meetups around at your area, then that’s the best way to get plugged in and just sit back and be a consumer of the information and to be a student of the industry to know what’s going on.

There’s I was in single family homes for a number of years. I was in commercial real estate being multifamily. And although a lot of that skillset applies and I’m looking at leverage and cap rates and underwriting, it’s a different business. And so to understand the nuances is really key before you take a take that next and first step, and we’ve seen, as you can imagine in our, on the education side of our business, we’ve seen a lot of folks that have taken that first step and they, and they stepped in a lot of do-do and create a lot of mistakes and messes for themselves. And men have come to us to help them unwind it and get out of it or to survive that one, you know, lose the battle, but win the war by understanding what it takes to succeed on the next one.

So, and then temper that with, you know, don’t, don’t analyze too much or, you know, analysis paralysis by analysis and analysis that causes paralysis. You, you, you know, the saying that to spend too much time researching before you do actually pull the trigger. So learn about the business, get some good advisors and mentors around you before, you know, to put some eyeballs on your underwriting and your offers, and obviously the good legal team or, or a, an attorney to look at your contracts before moving forward. Those are probably the best ways to Intuit, to avoid getting into a catastrophe. My

Jay Conner:

Good friend and guest today is Scott Myers, founder of self storage, investing.com. Be sure and check out his website for the free training and resources that he has there. One last question for you, Scott. And that is what are the most common mistakes or some of the most common mistakes that new real estate investors in self storage makes.

Scott Meyer:

Yeah, I’m writing a book on it as we speak, that’s going to be out before long. So I got 101 of them because that’s the title of the book. So I’ll, I’ll focus on how about the overarching one. And that is I think, and perhaps I’m guilty of this, you know, we’ve been teaching and training people how to do this for 16 years. And, you know, we, we, we state that it is a very simple and predictable business model because it’s compared to other businesses. It is, it’s a simpler and predictable business model. You know, we know the numbers, we know the equilibriums and we can go into a, an existing facility or a development project and make our projections and darn near hit our marks and, and beat them almost every time. But so I, I say that I’m, I’m a product of that.

And that is, I think people have heard that enough. And they’ve heard that, you know, this is a simple, less moving parts. You know, you don’t have the rehabs, you know, lock them out. They don’t pay their money and then you just blow it out and you’re done. You move on to the next and all that’s true, but it’s not a hobby. I mean, this is a business and you have to treat it as such and you have to walk the four corners of your business, and you have to understand it before you get in you. As most people know that are in commercial real estate, you make a $10,000 mistake in your underwriting, meaning you miss some expenses by 5,000 and you missed them. You know, they overstated the income for late fees and other things that shouldn’t have been counted. Well, a $10,000 mistake and underwriting is a hundred to $120,000 in value that you would over pay for a facility.

So you need to understand the nuances, how to value them, how to underwrite them before putting offers, in understanding how to analyze the market. And then for gosh sakes, I’m you don’t take your hands off the wheel and assume that this is a mailbox business because no rental businesses, I don’t care who you said listen to, or, or who says it. It’s not, it’s a business and a business needs to be tended. So a long-winded answer to your question, Jay. But the mistake that people make is that they think, and they hear and assume that it is a simple business because it’s simpler than what they were doing before, but it, it means that they have to understand it and they have to tend it. And, and you do have to farm the business once you own it. And constantly be working, looking at ways to grow occupancy, to grow rates and reduce expenses. And that is perpetual, and that is on a regular basis.

Jay Conner:

In other words, folks, don’t start doing this business without joining hips with somebody that knows what they’re doing, right. And of course, Scott Myers is the expert in this arena. Scott final comments and advice.

Scott Meyer:

Final comments change is good to see again, my friend, I can’t wait to, to see each other. I can’t hold that back. And so you always make me smile and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting together and having dinner together as well with you and Carol joy. And maybe we can get that old gray hair gentlemen, to pay our bill next time again, too, that might be nice and fight from that gang. It’s an exciting time to be in a, in real estate. There’s certainly a lot of changes and there’s some potential threats that are out there, but it’s when everybody’s running out that you should be not just running in again and shooting from the hip, but understanding, you know, what it means to be in the real estate asset class and investing the way and where you should be investing. But now it’s absolutely an exciting time to be doing so. So with that, just great to be here. I’m thankful for the industry of the real estate industry and self storage and a happy to help and assist anyone anywhere along the way that we can. And just be kind, just, just choose to be kind how’s that after a long weekend, so far, and it’s only Tuesday, I’ve had some difficult conversations. So how about I leave it with, let’s just choose to be kind to one another.

Jay Conner:

I love it. There you have it. Folks. My good friend and expert in self storage, Scott Meyers, visit him at www dot self storage, investing.com. Well, so glad to have everyone here on the show. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority wishing you all the best here’s to taking your business to the next level. And we’ll see you right here on the next private money academy podcast.

#Jay Conner #Private Money Lender #Real Estate Business #Real Estate #Real Estate Investing #Real Estate Investor #Real Estate Profit #The Private Money Authority #Flip Your House

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clickbliss · 4 years ago

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R-Type Final 2 is a series celebration with no sense of history

by Amr (@siegarettes)

R-Type Final 2

Developer - Granzella

Publisher - NIS America

PC, Switch, PS4

R-Type Final 2 is a game banking on the poor memories of its returning players. It’s been nearly a decade and a half since the release of the original R-Type Final, plenty of time to forget the details of its melancholy goodbye to the genre. A premature goodbye as it turns out, with the last decade seeing a surge in the popularity of the genre, and R-Type Final 2 acting as a celebration of this fact, declaring the happy return of a genre favorite. For many, that’s a triumph in itself. Getting behind the controls of Final 2’s extensive arsenal of ships is a joy that will carry the experience. But come armed with clear memories, and all its flaws cast harsh reflections through the haze of its brilliant lights.

What Final 2 ended up reminding me most of wasn’t the original Final, but Gradius IV. Subtitled “Resurrection”, Gradius IV made similar claims of a franchise revival, but ended up being a series of franchise refrains, grafted onto modern 3D tech. Likewise, Final 2 initially impresses with its new dynamic lighting, sending shadows reaching and crawling along its surfaces, and turning corridors into tunnels of violent color. The series staples appear to be intact, with the iconic dobkeratops returning alongside other biomechanical beasts and a stage long attack on a massive battleship.

Every component of the series is assembled into a machine unmistakable as another R-Type, but an inspection reveals deep flaws in both parts and assembly. Basic operations cause the game to sputter and creak, and everything is ever so slightly off. Charge timings are mismatched with the pace of the game, to the point where it’s often more efficient to stick to rapid fire, and you’re better off firing 3 or 4 standard charges in the time it takes to fill the level 2 and 3 charge gauge.

Filling the DOSE gauge required for special attacks takes even longer. On anything other than the easiest difficulty, it’s not uncommon for it to take an entire stage to fill up, and requires you to take massive risks, basically not firing your weapons at points and instead ramming enemies with your force pod. All to give you an underwhelming attack that’s likely to get you killed as it obscures enemy shots under a mess of particle effects. I lost count of the amount of times I spent a whole stage building up a special attack, only to get killed by some unseen bullet, or die and find out it was much faster to just fire off a few level 1 charge shots instead.

And if I seem obsessed with efficiency, it’s because more often than not I found myself dreadfully bored by R-Type Final 2. Every stage is a combination of long periods of downtime followed by frustrating cheap shots, hammered in by bewildering checkpoint placement and punctuated by tiresome bosses that often feel more like you’re waiting out a pattern than engaging an enemy.

There’s no ambition on display, no sense of setting or progression, with flat, unengaging level design that often fails the test of basic readability. The worst of these stages is the stage 3 battleship fight. What’s usually a highlight of each entry turns into a test of patience. Taking down each piece of the battleship is joyless--with part either bending like a dented car door, or disintegrating off the ship with no visible impact on the larger structure. It’s also home to the worst of the game’s collision problems, with ships moving in and out of the background with no solid indicator of when they’re entering your plane of movement. Even after several attempts I still found myself slipping up and getting hit because of how difficult to parse it was.

Through the whole ordeal I kept questioning my memory. Has this always been what R-Type was like? Was the dreadful pacing and frustration I was experiencing exclusive to this game, or just part of the series’ design? I’d played the original Final less than a year ago, and Delta even more recently than that.

With those doubts in mind I booted up my PS2 for a direct comparison. What I found was a meticulously crafted, ambitious and deliberately paced game, full of impressive set pieces. In comparison to its sequel, R-Type Final felt more dynamic, and often even looked better, thanks to strong art design and realization of setting. It’s idiosyncratic, but loaded with the weight, intentionality and atmosphere of a series send off.

R-Type Final 2 is ultimately a game that’s come into a world flush with new entries into the genre, flourishing with fresh takes on old ideas. It’s a backwards looking game--not one that finds inspiration in the past and brings back old feelings, but one that cashes in memories of what the past was, without taking any lessons from it or returning to any of what made previous entries successful. It’s R-Type reanimated, not revived, still covered in dirt from its burial plot.

#shmup #review #stg #ps4 #switch #pc #r-type final 2 #r-type #final

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undeific · 4 years ago

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@woerended SAID: 📱 a lil anonymous texting might be fun uwu ✚ MEME: symbol prompts ✚ send a MESSAGE?

Izaya loves his games.

Whether he’s butchering board games and card games, playing a self-indulgent video game, or engaging in something of his own creation, he’s simply fond of fun. One could say that he turns everything he does into a sort of game, even — and perhaps especially — things that others would condemn him for. There is much joy to be had in everything, he believes, if one simply insists upon enjoying it — and so he does, turning his whole life into one intricate, beautiful game, chasing away boredom, irrelevancy, and all-around unpleasantness.

However, boredom does creep up from time to time, no matter how much he attempts to avoid it, to run from it. It’s frustrating, but over time, he has learned a few tricks to conquer this invisible enemy — the most important of which being the creed he has chosen to live by: If nothing is happening, make something happen. Sometimes he will make something big happen, of course, as that is what he’s known for, and that is what he strives for; however, he will also do things on a smaller scale, short-term relief for long-term dullness, an addict taking what he can get.

Mini-games, so to speak.

An example: He will find a number — whether it’s been posted online, scrawled across a bathroom stall or train car, placed carefully in some sort of directory, or even simply punched in at random — and then he will text or call it. Always, he considers what he should say first; he can’t say just anything, after all. It has to be something that grabs the attention of whoever may be on the other end, something that appeals to their (assumed) humanity, something that will pique their curiosity. It is far too easy these days to ignore a text or a call, and so he must make it truly count. He does not intend on being ignored.

Izaya hates being ignored. Even by a faceless, unimportant stranger he’s decided to use for cheap, quick entertainment.

Today, lounging dramatically on a leather couch and watching a muted television, he has his number — but he hasn’t quite decided on a message yet. The empty conversation is open on his phone, white light illuminating dark, scheming eyes. He’s deep in thought, barely registering the subtitles that dance across the silent TV screen. The news. Someone made some money, someone else lost it. Politics are heating up, as they always are, but it’s even more important this time. Someone died today. Murdered. Someone else died, too. Suicide. Someone else is missing — do you know them? Have you seen them?

He looks back at his phone. Fingertips drum impatiently against leather. He’s annoyed at himself; boredom has made him boring, and he has nothing to say — that’s so unlike him. A sigh. He rolls over, facing the couch, and turns off the TV. Eyes fall shut for a moment. Nothingness. Pure, dull, empty nothingness.

Is this what it’s like to be dead?

Eyes flutter open. Well, that will do, he thinks. Even if it does get ignored — it isn’t his best idea, even he will admit that — it will at the very least unsettle the person who receives the message.

[ To: ??? ] Do you know how it feels to die?

#woerended #✚ ANSWERED.

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ultraclops · 4 years ago

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Semi-live Blogging: Return of the Mao Mao Episodes

Before we start, is it just me or is the animation like 10x smoother than it usually is? Also like I said with Nakey, there’s a lot more good expressions too!

Lucky Ducky Mug

Adorabat drinks from sippy cup like baby

"What, Mao Mao's ridiculous mug?" says Badgerclops, holding a cheap plastic big gulp cup he probably got from the grocery store.

How did Adorabat not notice the Lucky Ducky sticker on the Aerocycle

"Don't touch it" (Badgerclops proceeds to slam the table to move it) Ah Badgerclops, ever the contrarian

I'M SORRY DID MAO MAO BLOW THE ROOF OFF OF HQ BY SCREAMING

I love the way Mao says "PROFESSIONAAAL SILENCEEE"

Badgerclops trying to make his mouth disappear and failing made me scream with laughter

Are they seriously reducing Ratarang to 'the funny lil Italian guy'? C’mon guys you’re better than this

Wait why do they think Kevin is Adorabat?? They've seen Adorabat multiple times?? "But they're both blue!" You FOOL Kevin is TEAL there's a difference

Everybody gangsta til Mao Mao's ears start speaking morse code

They're doing surprisingly good silent but it's probably not gonna be that way very long.

Thank you, Lucky Ducky Mug, for catering to my niche interest in characters with neon outlines on black backgrounds.

Mao Mao thinking: Normal thoughts

Badgerclops thinking: Musical-esque singing

Adorabat thinking: Literally just heavy metal

The Sweetypies seriously think they're just playing a really intense game of charades huh,,,

(Mao jabs BC in the stomach with the fire net) HAHA GET REKT

The scene with Badgerclops trying to give Mao Mao Penny's mug is the funniest shit in the world I couldn't stop laughing...or maybe I'm just sleep-deprived

So the Sky Pirates are so similar compared to the Sheriff's Dept. that they can think perfectly in sync? That's cool

SKY PIRATES SONG SKY PIRATES SONG

Why is Snugglemagne throwing a random tea party & why did he only invite the Sheriff's Dept.

Yep there goes the plan. Both of their plans.

Am I going crazy or did the skin on Mao Mao's mouth tear apart like it was sewn shut?! Also yay they're talking again

"It's not gonna stop charging, so I'm just gonna let it explooode..." Mood

"What about the mega laser tube made by mega Losers?" Fsfhkfh

Hey, everyone learned something new from this experience! Are the Sky Pirates gonna try that Hive Mind tactic from now on?

Awww, they fixed his mug with gold - GOD DAMN IT I KNEW THERE WAS A CATCH!!

Lonely Kid

(Sighs) ...I said (SIGHS)

"I literally can't relate to that problem at all." says Badgerclops, who joined a gang because he wanted people to like him.

Shin just dropped off Mao Mao at a summer camp and expected him to make friends? Why does this feel like the plot of Camp Camp

I'm sorry the Mao clan has a freaking PARTY AERO-BUS??

NOO GERALDINE

That BGM is DEFINITELY an extended version of "I Love You, Mao Mao" and I want the lyrics NOW

So Bao was literally just a stray that Mao took home?? Would make sense as to why he wasn't trained

I have a feeling the Flimborg is some sort of sacred being the townspeople worship for some reason

How in the hell did Mao tie that guy up and why didn't he bother to untie him

HOW'D HE SET THE ROCKS ON FIRE USING PAINT

"And then you become frien-" "BEES. IN THE EYES."

"Everyone knows bees are our friends!" "Uh, actually, they were wasps." "Friends to no-one!" Usually I'd agree with BC, but I read an article about someone befriending a wasp and her babies so.

So the Mao clan's just known as the "Golden Cat Family Up The Hill?" Huh. I thought they’d have more recognition, especially since Shin says he went to that same summer camp at the beginning.

Man those kids are jackasses

"Say hi to your mommy!" "I would if she was here..." Excuse me wHAT

Noo don't cry baby boi - tHEN BAO JUST TACKLES HIM ASFHDKDL

"Go away! I don't feel like laughing right now!"

Look. You can see the EXACT point Mao developed his adult personality

I know Mao Mao means well but that is gonna go terribly wrong.

"I AM A HERO! I WILL BE LOVED!!" Okay first of all OUCH, second of all THAT IS PAIN

This monster empty, YEET

Awww it was just a sweet little puppy-ish monster...and it was his BIRTHDAY

"Hi, Aunt Gloria!" (Pulls out pitchfork) BETRAYAL

He didn't feel bad about ruining the festival because he made a friend doing it I 💞💞💝💝💗💗

Thanks for that 'different times' comment cuz I don't want kids thinking being beat is normal.

"Just like you found me...and I'm your best friend!" Tbh I thought she was gonna say 'Me and Badgerclops' & that would make a lot more sense

Why are they fighting over who's his best friend they're obviously BOTH his best friends

I'm sorry did Badgerclops just call Adorabat a "little mutant"?? ARE THE SWEETYPIES MUTANTS??

Awww his friends love him sm...and he feels so loved too...💓💓💗💗💕💕

Try Hard

No one gives a shit about Pinky being kidnapped lol

"K for Copyright Infringement"

"You'll never be like me!" Oof a little harsh maybe?

"You've gotta learn to be your own kind of hero, in your own special way!" So THAT'S where it's from

"You just gotta...try hard." Hey, title drop!

Ngl the moment Mao Mao said "Badgerclops take the shot" I immediately thought of The Confession 3 by TomSka

"Up in a tree, little old me, about to do something...UGLY..." 7-year-old me sniping people on Halo 3 like

Why is he shooting them with gelatin tho? ...oh. Oh THAT'S why.

Tbh if I didn't have subtitles on I would've thought BC was saying "beep boop"

This badger and cat empty, YEET

Adorabat walking into the Skyship with only a walkie-talkie is giving me some sort of vibes...OH, Silent Hill! Or Tattletail

WHOOP HIS ASS SWEETIE

"Mao Mao would hide the body!" Very unsubtle there, wonder how it got past censors

"Ratarang, say something!" "Pasketti?" "THAT'S THE BRAT!"

Wait a sec, they can just use Badgerclops' arm to power the ship? Why didn't they try that in CapturedClops?

"Good thing my head is in here cuz I'm a-scared of heights!" Ramaraffe. Whose whole schtick is making herself taller. Is acrophobic?

"Because she's Sheriff's Department, that's how! >:3" "Also y'all tend to be pretty incompetent >X/"

Why does she keep trying to use the elevator when she can fly? Nvm she climbed up Badgerclops' arm

"Ooooh I'm also hereeee"

"JERK BUTT"

Why is the Omega Field just a bunch of broken glass? And why doesn't she just step around it?

"I can fly!" "She can fly!" "SHE FORGOT?!" Ooh that's why

"You're the best thing to ever happen to a bat like me." 💝💝💕💕💓💓

Wait she's talking through the walkie-talkie and her molts are there but she isn't there where is she?

Oh she was freeing the other two from the gelatin. No wonder Mao Mao almost threw up, it was bug flavored.

GET HIS ASS, HONEY!! ADORASLAP!!

I hope that 'Nah' means Adorabat's realized she needs to be herself instead of her just rejecting her individuality like I think it is.

Scared Of Puppets

Oh, so this takes place after Sleeper Sofa! Praying it's a fix-it episode...

"DISCARD ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T BRING YOU JOY!!" Fuckin Marie Kondo up in here

Oh no PTSD flashbacks. He's scared of them cuz one's head landed on his lap as a kid? Understandable have a nice day.

Who tf collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor then leaps back up and insists they're fine? Mao Mao, apparently.

Hairless ape? Is that what they call humans or are they something different in general?

"TAKE ALL MY MONEY!!" What did BC want an antique puppet for if he had no idea Mao was scared of them...

Mr. Din Dandalib!

"I...(eye twitch) love him too..."

IM SORRY DID HE FUCKING THROW UP OUT OF FEAR...holy SHIT

If I scared my friend and they threw up I would simply never do that again. RIP to Badgerclops but I'm different

(Badgerclops makes concrete blocks around the pothole) "Why didn't you just fill in the pothole??" "I AM TRYING MY BEST!!"

"I SIGNED YOUR DUMB CAST, NOW LEAVE!!"

...Illegal house plants? ...like marijua-

That was literally just that one video where a guy knocked out another guy in a mask jumping out of a trash can...

So it's a CPR class...AND a hair-styling class? How

I stg the moment Badgerclops walked in the door I knew he was carrying Mr. Din Danalin I SWEAR

"You're 10." "BUT I'M 6??" JFC Shin doesn't know his own son's age AND is partially responsible for his pupaphobia. And I called it on Mao Mao being six in the flashbacks

OH WIG

Can someone take the footage of the Annex exploding and add the ReviewTechUSA intro over it please

"How many Adult Learning Annexes have to be destroyed before you admit you're scared of puppets?!" is extremely funny without context

(Mao punches the wall cuz hes mad at himself for being scared) Kinkinkinkinki

How does one forget to drink milk

Oh shit the scene from the promo...

Yay he's starting to feel less scared - wait NVM it JUST STARTED TALKING??

OG SGUTVKC FGCJ OG SHKR OF DJCN JKKKKK

Oh it was just a dream - er, nightmare. FIRST NIGHTMARE SEQUENCE OF THE SERIES!

"I just gotta get my socks on...wait, I wear socks, right?" Dud e you wear NOTHING BUT A BELT...

"I KNEW SELLING THOSE HAIRLESS APE DOLLS WOULD ATTRACT DARK FORCES"

"There’s a lot of pu-" "PUBLIC DANGER"

Those puppets are alive I stg

"I'M A BIG BOI..."

Awwww she said what he told her at the beginning of the episode!

"I'M AFRAID OF PUPPETS" TITLE DROP YET AGAIN

Adorabat takes after Badgerclops sometimes I swear

Oooh shit sequel hook - oh NVM it was Badgerclops voice acting - NVM Mao Mao passed out. Dang

The Perfect Couple

Watermelon time babyyy

TRANSFORMATION TIME BABYYYY

Ah so he wanted to perfectly cut a watermelon in half, that's why he got so many?

"I need (counts on fingers) 600 more watermelons!" glad to see I'm not the only one who counts on my fingers

Why would Penny and Benny need 600 watermelons for their wedding? Also I called it on Penny & Benny being the couple

Mao Mao has to officiate the wedding? I thought priests did that

Please don’t throw up again Mao Mao

"I WILL BUY YOU A BAG TO HOLD YOUR STUFF..."

"A nondescript sack!!" Dude he just taking out the trash...

Nvm its just laundry

"I WILL TURN THIS BUSH AROUND"

Oh so THAT'S what Ramaraffe thought Kevin was Adorabat

"Why don't you buy me cake and do my laundry?" Are you implying you wanna marry Mao Mao, Badgerclops 👀

I lov Mao Mao's faces in this scene he legit looks like a bishouen anime protagonist

Nvm no transformation it's just his wedding outfit

Why did they invite Orangusnake and Boss Hosstritch to the wedding tho? What about when they hid in their moving truck and used their electricity - wait Badgerclops technically did that last one, nvm

Wait THEY DIDN'T TALK TO EACH OTHER BEFORE THE WEDDING?? What a perfect couple huh

Is Mao Mao having hallucinations just gonna be a regular thing now....

IS PENNY SERIOUSLY GONNA MARRY ORANGUSNAKE OUT OF SPITE ASFSDGFUK

Why did Mao Mao say "melons" in a Spanish accent I'm scared

"They're both terrible, so what does it matter if they get hitched or not?" They're definitely gonna change their minds now

"She lied because she wanted to protect his feelings! And he lied because he couldn't bear to hurt her!" Isn't that just the plot of The Truth Stinks?

OH SHIT HE CUT ORANGUSNAKE IN HALF HOLY FUCK

He made Orangusnake officiate the wedding as punishment lol

Why are they,,,stepping on the watermelons?? Damn right Badgerclops I'd cry over that too

"What's, uh, your credit score like?" "850. Why, is that good?" "It's perfect..." HE WANTS TO MARRY MAO MAO NOW ASDFHKL

#semi live blogging #semi-live blogging #//long post #// long post

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nei-ning · 5 years ago

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I think I should write little update about my trip to Japan now that I’m with my laptop again :D

Flight to Japan (9.30h) was amazingly fast! Tho there was turbulence at times. Thanks to it it took me 4 days before swinging feeling left me!

Friend’s apartment, where we stayed, was small and smelled like mold and smoke. Thank God she didn’t smoke inside while we were there!

First day in Japan was... not what I had expected it to be. I thought I would cry with joy and all, but instead my mind was screaming in panic; “I don’t want to be here! This doesn’t feel good! Send me back to Finland with next flight!” I was CONFUSED about these thoughts! I never had them when I went to UK or Germany. But in the next day they were gone.

Every day we went to somewhere and I really liked that! Even if it wouldn’t had been more than 1 minute walk, or less, to nearest 100yen shop! Our hostess lives in super perfect spot, ahah! And I REALLY loved those evening walks with sis! That area of Osaka where we were was SO CALM and PRETTY during evenings! There were crickets too! Could hear their “music” and I really loved it.

And Nara... My God I LOVED NARA! However because sis was having a bad day during Nara day, we didn’t get far, but I’m extremely fine with it since, in the end, I GOT TO FEED AND PET NARA DEERS which I wanted the most!! <3 Plus I managed to buy few souvenirs what you can get ONLY from Nara! :D

And sukiyaki what our hostess made for sis and I few nights before we left was HEAVENLY! I loved it! But of course I got diarrhea from it because it had potato and wheat noodles... I also really liked to watch / listen when our friend watched / listened Attack on Titan via phone or laptop. It was with Japanese dub and subtitles, naturally, but I enjoyed it still SO MUCH! And it also reminded me that I haven’t seen season 3 from that series!

Last day was kind of unpleasant. Not much to do and we both had pretty much run out of money (damn cheap stores with so much cute cheap stuff!) so we couldn’t go do last shopping (not that we would had have room for any more items :’D). Sitting and waiting was the worst - and packing! Ugh!

Then flight back to Finland was pain in the ass... Because time just went SO SLOWLY! Flight was 9.30h and I watched few movies and I also tried to sleep. I felt so tired and just when I was about to fall a deep sleep an older man next to me sat down on his seat and hit me hard with his elbow. Didn’t even apologize (he was from Sweden). After that I couldn’t sleep. When / if I’m woken up in that second when I’m JUST about to fall asleep, I can’t fall asleep anymore.

I have LOTS of photos from my trip, so much that I actually had to buy memory stick from Japan :’D I’m currently babysitting friend’s dog and I don’t have the stick with me, but I try to update some photos either later one day or, latest, after I’m done babysitting the puppy. It shouldn’t last more than 5 or 6 days, I hope.

But all in all; My trip to Japan was one of the BEST TRIPS EVER! <3 (wouldn’t had wanted to leave in the end, ahah) Sis and I talked of going back there after 2 years or so when Tiger’s year’s (new year) items will be on sale.

#text #Japan #Osaka #neis trip

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elfwreck · 3 years ago

Note

Another book that talks about gift economy is Lewis Hyde's The Gift. (The subtitle used to be "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property" but the newer reprint has "Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World" which is much less interesting.)

He points out that money separates people. When you buy bread from a baker, the baker does not care what you do with the bread. Does not get to say whether you eat it or feed it to dogs or use it for mold experiments. You paid money; you got bread; there is no relationship between you and the baker.

That's not a "ruined" relationship; it's a deliberate disengagement.

Your grandma's cookies are not intended to be fed to the dog (probably) nor are they supposed to be used for science experiments (unless you have cleared that in advance). The gift of the cookies comes with strings - there's an expectation of how they'll be used.

Adding money to that relationship would change it. Likely ruin it. (This is also the problem with getting a job doing what you love--it gets weird to sometimes do it for money and sometimes do it for free for the joy of creating.)

David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years points out that there may never have been a "barter economy." There is money almost everywhere, or at least, goods of relatively stable value used for exchange. Barter is what you use with total strangers who don't share currency with you. So you wind up with white dudes thinking the locals don't understand money because their money is not metal chits with the face of some dude on them, AND because when they do commerce together, it's all trades of objects or negotiated services. Because, duh, the white dudes don't have any of the local currency.

There are gift economies EVERYWHERE but we are trained not to see them as "economies" because we've been brainwashed to think "economics" means "money" rather than "management of goods & service resources."

When you borrow a pen from a co-worker, he does not ask you for payment for it. (If he does, he's a dick, and you're not likely to work well with him.) When you're in the supermarket, if you got a stepladder to reach the tall shelf to get something, and someone behind you says "can you get one for me?" - you don't normally ask them to pay you for the service. And most people will grab the extra and hand it over, rather than stepping down and making the other person get it themself.

If a stranger is stepping into the street and you grab their arm to keep them from stepping in front of a car - you don't ask them for payment for saving their life. (Maybe they wouldn't have gotten hit anyway. Maybe they would, but it would've just bruised them. Either way: we don't normally ask for payment for these things.)

Someone asks you to hold their place in line while they rush to their car to get their jacket. You ask someone to hold your drink while you get a rock out of your shoe. A student gives a pencil to someone who forgot theirs on the day of the test. An office keeps a "library" shelf where people drop off books they've read for other people to borrow or keep.

You throw a birthday party for your friend and everyone gives them gifts.

(Do you keep track of the value of gifts you give, and check whether those people give you gifts of the same value on your birthday?)

Gift economies happen in communities. Many of the interactions are very small. The fandom gift economy doesn't just include "write fic/ beta fic/ write comments/ make pictures/ make vids." It also includes "cheerleading on Discord/ reblog notifications of AO3 posts/ exchange headcanons/ throw around story prompts/ recommend a book with similar themes/ post cat pictures when someone's feeling low/ share the sale on cheap writing software."

Most of the gift economy stuff happens in prompt collections, like Yuletide or bingo based ones. But building the cornerstones for that happened off site, and it’s mostly short fiction, which isn’t as popular in some fandoms.

Haha.

Nonnie...

A "gift economy" does not refer to the direct exchange of literal gifts.

It's an economic system a whole culture has instead of having, say, a barter economy where you exchange goods for goods or a market economy where you exchange money for goods.

It's a technical term.

Francesca Coppa, an academic who sometimes writes on fandom, popularized it as a way of looking at fanfic circles—specifically the kind of Livejournal-y, slash fandom-y circles AO3 came out of. (At least... I think she's the one. Maybe one of the other acafans did it first. I'm too lazy to look this up, but feel free to add citations, everyone.)

The point of calling fandom this term is to point out certain social forces that Coppa thinks are present in "fandom"—and that are desirable and worthy of respect/protection/academic study.

Ooh, look, Wikipedia even says: "Some authors argue that gift economies build community,[7] while markets harm community relationships.[8]"

Basically, a gift economy is like your grandma making you cookies. Grandma doesn't expect money from you, and she doesn't expect a 1:1 exchange of labor or goods. She does expect some kind of ongoing grandparent-grandchild familial relationship. There's no charge, monetary or otherwise, for the cookies. On a wider, less emotionally intimate level, this looks like a person paying the sum total of their labor, goods, personal emotional support, etc. into some communal fund of Who I Am To The Community. In exchange, they get all the benefits of community membership.

This model confuses people because we rarely hear about whole societies that actually operate on this model. Even so-called "primitive" societies we learn about in school often operate more on a barter system.

So I meant what I said before:

My payment into the fandom gift economy is things like years of labor to build AO3, educational posts for the good of the community, my fic that I wrote for myself and for fun but that I chose to share.

The direct benefit I receive is social capital.

I am a member of the community by virtue of... well... doing community member things. They can be small things too, like bookmarking or commenting, not just big things like being able to produce longfic people love.

My gifts from the community, aside from social capital, include people's comments on my fic or interesting asks in my inbox, but they also include fics other people wrote for fun and chose to share. Those other people don't know me from Adam or may actively dislike me. They didn't write the fics for me. But I benefit from the general AO3 environment where I can get my free reading material just as other people benefit from me helping to build AO3.

The account I was paying into wasn't I Deserve Patreon Supporters or even I Deserve Comments. It was AO3 Exists And We All Benefit or it was I'm A Member of Fandom.

I write fic and now you comment in exchange is a barter economy.

Support my patreon so I can write more fic is a market economy.

I write fic and so do other people and now there's more fic for the fandom to enjoy is a gift economy.

I comment a lot to encourage writers so we can all have more fic is also a gift economy.

When we try to extract too much direct barter or cash from people in a gift economy, it fucks it up. It's like trying to pay Grandma for her cookies. Maybe Grandma gained $1, but she lost a huge amount of intangible benefit. The relationship is harmed by trying to monetize the tip of the iceberg while failing to see the part under the water.

This is confusing because the only places we encounter gift economies tend to be:

Fandom

Those 'buy nothing' groups on Facebook that are about building local community gift economies, decluttering, and reducing waste

Poorly-written accounts of white settlers destroying indigenous economies in the Americas

Here's Buy Nothing attempting to explain gift economies.

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