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xwing-baby · 3 years ago

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The Guide: Chapter 1/? (Ezra x f!Reader)

gif from @spectroscopes

word count: 5.2k

chapter warnings: reluctant saviour to lovers, injury to reader, one mention of rape, little angst, world building :)

summary: The Guide to Everything Ever is expanding, you are sent out to the furthest reaches of Nowhere to catalogue the planets there. What should have been a quick research mission quickly turns to disaster when you crash on a small forest moon. Injured, with no means of communication, you have to rely on the good will of a mysterious stranger...

a/n: first ever Ezra fic lets gooo!! i am super hyped for this i hope you all enjoy it as much as i do <3

masterlist // asks are always open :)

While The Guide to Everything Ever did cover everything ever, it was a little misleading in the boundaries of everything. History was no issue, there was even a large section of the book on prophecy, millions of consequences mapped out on a fold out flow chart. No, the issue was with physical boundaries of everything.

A long time ago the boundaries of the civilised universe were drawn up. From Eden to Xion-5, trillions of stars and quadrillions of planets all included inside the red line separating us from the somehow even more vast expanse of Nothing. There was nothing in Nothing, that much was well known. That was until a group of explorers did what explorers do and found Something. Something in Nothing makes Nothing impossible so the leaders of this great universe came together and decided The Guide to Everything Ever had to include this new Something in their Everything.

That is where you come in.

The Guide to Everything Ever has always relied on first-hand experience. The first edition was a disaster. It only contained the things everybody knew: how to fold a bedsheet and how to get your dog to not hump the postman. The only vaguely interesting part of the Guide was the planetary comments. Even those could send the most interested scientist to sleep! They tried using robots for the first edition, a mere collection of data from far away planets. This was not successful and The Guide only sold four copies.

The next edition was more ambitious. The editors worked out people were a lot more interested in different planets than they were in barbarian fortifications but they did not want to read reams of boring data from a robot called Steve. They wanted a real Steve to give his experience on these new planets. Honest, often humorous, and yet entirely educational extracts of missions across the stars. It didn’t matter that space travel was accessible to everyone. It saved everyone a lot of time waiting in those cold and boring shuttles to get from one side of the universe to another. They could sit in the comfort of their own homes and learn about the man-sized carnivorous plants of Ereta, the beautiful fabrics created on Lii, or which drinks to avoid if you ever find yourself in a Beetjing bar.

The Guide was a success from that point onwards and expanded each year. Soon the job of researcher became a coveted occupation. You were lucky to get into the academy. Only ten new researchers were added each century. You worked your entire life to get in and it paid off, you were off on your first mission into the furthest reaches of Nothing to report back on the wild ‘verse that filled it.

A long time ago space travel was thought of as the most exciting thing anyone could ever do. It was for a few decades but two centuries later it was commonplace. A lot like the London Underground, you just stuck your headphones on and let that distract you until you reached your far more interesting destination.

For your trip you had chosen to watch Anzarch Hospital. A rather cheesy Martian holovid show, it had been going for years. You were on season 85, with only ten episodes left until you were entirely caught up ready for the season finale which was due to air when you returned from this trip. You would rather be at home watching the episodes but this trip to the end of the line was necessary. It wouldn’t take long, a few rotations at least and then you could go to Annie’s party and watch everyone’s favourite doctor finally find out who killed her robot nurse wife.

Nobody ever said Martian holovids were high class, but they were fun.

The computer interrupted your binge, alerting you with a ding that you were within range of your destination and would be stepping out of hyperspace. You pressed a few buttons, accepted the action, and went back to the episode.

It wasn’t until a few moments later when the lower pitch dong did not sound to let you know you had dropped out. Confused, you switched off the holovid and moved back to the cockpit. It was a new ship, it shouldn't have hyperdrive issues yet. But well versed as you were with glitchy hyperdrives you knew what to do. You pressed some buttons, pulled a lever, dragged the ship out of autopilot and twisted one final knob to drop out safely and without panic.

Your routine was correct. The ship dropped out of hyperspace but as the darkness cleared so did any sense of calm. You were already in the thermosphere, hurtling down to the forest covered grounds at electric speeds. Alarms blared as soon as the devices registered the new atmosphere and severe lack of control.

“Please slow down, your destination is ahead at 750 km,” The computer said cheerfully.

“Stupid thing! You’re going to kill me!” You yelled over the alarms.

“That’s not very nice,” The computer replied, “It’s not my fault the hyperdrive isn’t working,”

“You knew?” You shouted. The sides of the ship rumbled and rattled as the change in air density dragged along the surface. The holoprojector vibrated off the table, crashing to the ground and smashing into pieces. There goes all your holovid downloads, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Destination in 400km,” Every minute of your training was coming back as you worked through every combination of buttons and levers on your dash. Nothing was working.

“Computer? Is there still a parachute in this model?” It was archaic but you prayed that your ship was old enough to still be fitted with one. If it, wasn’t you were never going to slow down fast enough?

“Yes, would you like me to deploy it?” The computer asked.

“Yes!” You shouted at the machine.

“Deploying parachute,”

The parachute erupted from the back of the ship with a loud hiss and pop as it opened into the air. The sudden draw backward lurched you forward, smacking your head onto the metal dash in front of you.

You groaned, holding your hand to the injury immediately. A good splattering of blood now set across the screen and was dripping down your face into your eyes.

“Destiable approach im one minu,” The computer said. You frowned, trying to concrete over the throbbing pain in your head. “Systeeee affectabed,”

“Please tell me I’m not having a stroke,” You pleaded. You were not. You could speak and understand language perfectly. The computer, however, was not okay.

Computers are all well and good, very helpful things to have around that is until their processors are catapulted out by a poorly fitted fabric parachute.

You didn’t have time to worry about the broken computer as the trees below were coming closer and closer.

“Fourteenth millennia remaaaa,” The computer slurred. You ignored it. You didn’t need a reminder of how closer to being impaled by a huge tree you were. Instead of panicking you did the only thing you could, strap in and hope that it was all over quickly.

You pulled the straps of the pilot’s seat down tight over your arms, gripped the armrest tight and shut your eyes. The ship whistled through the air, the drag of the parachute doing very little to slow it down. You screwed your eyes shut, cursing every god you have ever known at your terrible luck. You would never see your family again, never see your friends again, and even more importantly you would never find out who killed the nurse in Anzarch Hospital!

The first contact with forest sent the ship off its course, spinning wildly out of control as the craft hit branch after branch. You screamed as the ship tumbled to the ground.

Finally, you came to a stop. Upside down, hanging from a tree, your ship rocked from side to side. You groaned, aching all over from the rough treatment of your descent. You spat out the blood that had pooled in your mouth and tried to think of a plan. Much like the now dead computer you couldn’t really think in words. More drawled sentences drowned out by pain.

The smell of fuel was the thing to get you moving. You gently unbuckled yourself from the seat, careful to not drop yourself on the ceiling and injure yourself anymore. You climbed around the small circular pod to reach the door.

Inhospitable atmosphere. Air unfit for external respiration, respirator advised.

You grumbled and cursed as that warning meant you’d have to climb up the wall of the still swaying pod to reach your kit. It was heavy and difficult to put on at the best of times, this was quite possibly the worst of times.

With a sharp tug the suit and helmet fell out of the cupboard above your head, narrowly missing you as it fell. Carefully, so as not to trip on the steel beams of the ceiling at your feet or cause the ship to swing and fall any further, you pulled the suit on. It was soft, having never been worn before, lightweight and fit you well. The helmet was heavy, a seal at the bottom to prevent any toxins leaking in and the filter was attached to the back of the dome. It was not ideal but you hoped you could find civilization quickly and would be able to take it off fast.

Helmet on. Bag on. Boots tied. Out the door.

In the small amount of luck, you still held, the ship was only six feet above the ground. You sat on the top of the door and jumped out, landing gracefully on your feet in a large patch of unusual plants. The air filter quietly hummed as it set to work cleaning the air around you and you inspected your surroundings. That was where your luck ran out, as you gathered yourself together you looked to your wrist, to the screen of your watch to look at a map to discover the direction you should go, only to find it smashed beyond repair. You had no guidance.

Dark forest was all you could see in any direction. The canopy was so dense only a small sprinkle of light made its way to the floor. Bouncing off the particles in the air, the space around you glittered in the light. It was silent, only the wind rustling through the grass and twigs under your boots made any noise. You picked a direction and walked, hoping you would come across someone soon.

You found a single well-trodden path after an hour of walking through waist high grass, the pollen of which had now covered your suit in a green blue film that made your hands itch terribly when you touched it, bringing up red rashes almost immediately.

The path made its way through the trees, more light coming through as you made it to the edge of the forest. You couldn’t make out much beyond the break in the trees as the contrast between the darker interior showed the outside in white light. You smiled; open space probably meant civilisation!

As you approached the light your eyes began to strain. Sharp pain cut into your eyes, you groaned and squinted bringing your hands to your helmet to cover them automatically. It was no use as a migraine was quickly taking hold. You continued forward, finally breaking the tree line, feeling the heat of the sun through the thin fabric of your suit.

Then everything went black

“What a curious creature,” A low voice woke you. Slowly you gained consciousness, immediately aware of the throbbing pain throughout your body, you pushed to sit up only to feel a heavy weight on your shoulder, “Careful now,” The stranger warned you. You peeled your eyes open and looked up at the creature that spoke. Dome headed in a yellowed fabric suit, Light reflecting off his head obscured his face. The creature spoke kindly and you would have believed the tone too if it weren’t for the pressure of his foot on your forearm and gun in your face. “What’s a thing like you doing in these parts?”

“I-I’m injured,” You tried to speak confidently but your pain overtook your tone as you opened your mouth, “My ship crashed not far from here,”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” The creature mused.

“Please,” You choked out as darkness threatened your vision once more, “Help me,”

The creature frowned, contemplating his decision as if he were choosing a candy bar at a corner store. You tried to move from under him but the effort was too much and you fell into unconsciousness again.

As your eyes closed and breathing softened, the stranger released his foot from your shoulder. His boot left a muddy footprint on the white material that covered your arm. He watched you for a few more seconds, then presuming you were dead he stepped over your body to the blue rucksack that had fallen just behind you. He was in desperate need of medical supplies and clean clothes wouldn’t hurt either.

The stranger rooted through the rucksack, pulling all kinds of things out. Clothes and food, writing equipment and a flip up device that he did not recognise as anything useful. There were no weapons, and no survival equipment of any kind. You were packed for a Sunday stroll, not a trip to the Green. Whoever you were, you were not like the usual people who came here.

The stranger’s cool demeanour changed when he saw your identification card. A gold card, approximately the size of his palm fell out of the bag and into his lap with a soft tap. He picked it up and inspected it, instantly knowing he was screwed. The Guide’s golden emblem was easy to recognise, while he couldn’t read the language that inscribed the card, he could make assumptions. You were a researcher. It was a well-known fact that Guide researchers were protected. If anyone found out you were dead, he would be convicted no matter what he said. There would be no planet in the entire universe he could hide on from the Guide.

Begrudgingly, he had to save you.

Without any other option, he shoved the contents of your bag back inside its original case and threw it over his shoulder. Then came the difficult task of moving you. It wasn’t for lack of strength that the stranger had difficulty with this task, more to do with the fact he had only one arm. He knew it wasn’t far to his camp, he had only been walking for five minutes before you fell into his path.

He couldn’t carry you. With only one arm it didn’t matter how strong the man was he could never hold you up well enough. He tried to wake you first, it would be far more helpful to him if you could walk. He shook your shoulders to try and rouse you but you were out cold. He had no choice but to drag you.

A quick assessment of your body told him you were not injured too badly, apart from the sores developing on your hands from exposure to pollen and a wound on your forehead inside your helmet. He checked your pulse again, feeling it strong through his gloves he was happy that you were not dead and would not be wasting his time. He grabbed the fabric around your shoulders and pulled you back to his camp.

It took a while but he made it there safely without cracking your helmet or injuring you anymore. He set you down on the floor of his tent, pulled his helmet off for comfort, then got to setting up a recovery bed for you.

The stranger pulled a rolled-up mat from under his cot and placed it on the ground and finally rolled your body in its final place on top and he waited for you to wake up again. It wouldn’t take long, he heard you mutter something as he carried you back and even in the low light of his tent, he could see your eyes moving behind your eyelids. The stranger sat on the edge of his cot, watching you carefully with his weapon in hand in case you woke up violent.

After a few moments, you began to stir. The first thing you noticed as you gained consciousness was the pain in your body. Every inch of your body throbbed but nothing more than your head. You felt hard ground beneath you, but no leaves or dirt, it was cold to touch. You peeled your eyes open, met with a low orange light bouncing off dark tent like material.

“Do not be alarmed,” A man said from across the room. You immediately turned your head to see but saw nothing more than a dark blob, “You are safe,”

You found it very hard not to be alarmed. The last thing you remembered was getting out of your ship into a forest, now you were in a small dark tent lit by one single golden lightbulb with a strange blob sat across from you.

Carefully, you pushed yourself up to sit up from your position on the floor. Noticing the blob was more of a man, and without a helmet, you figured it was probably safe to remove yours. With a sharp tug and a hiss from the oxygen tank you were open to the air and you set the helmet down next you. You rubbed your hand across the back of your neck, screwing your eyes shut as a headache shot through your skull.

You studied the man in the soft light. You could not guess his age, simultaneously old and young, you guessed he was a little older than you. He had tanned skin and dark hair with a curious white, blonde streak in the front. A surprisingly well-kept moustache and a spattered beard covered his lower face and a white scar on his left cheek all together created an intriguing character.

“Are you comfortable?” He asked. You nodded. His kindness was unsettling. There was a gentle tone to his voice and a kindness in his eyes but everything outside of that was the complete opposite. You could not remember how you got here; all you knew was the pain your body was in. Had he attacked you? Had he saved you from something else? He could have killed you, but he didn’t. Something must have enticed him to save you and bring you here. Then you saw it.

In the stranger’s hand, he held a gold card. Your identification card. The golden emblem projecting from the card flickered in the poor light, showing your name and number and rank.

“Should I be asking for an autograph?” The stranger looked back up at you, a smirk on his lips, “I’ve always wanted to meet an author,”

“I-I am not an author,” You coughed, clearing your throat before speaking, “I’m a researcher,”

“You pen those books though, don't you? The Guide?” He asked, “There’s not that much literature being produced this day and age,”

“Technically, but we like to think it’s a team effort,” You shrugged, “I just collect the data and write preliminary reports,”

“Does your team know you’re lost here?” The stranger asked.

“No, I… I don’t know,” You said sadly. The computer had broken before you could send a distress call. With no way to get a message to them from the outer ‘verse it would take weeks for anyone to realise anything was wrong, “I would have to find a signal strong enough to send a distress message but the only way I could do that was with my ship,” You thought aloud. You paused for a moment, trying to remember what actually happened when you fell from the sky, “Where is my ship? Where are we?”

“I never saw your transport I’m afraid,” The stranger said, “You must have walked a considerable distance before crossing paths with me,” You frowned, without your ship you were stuck, “I brought your backpack, if that's of any aid to you,”

You immediately lit up. Taking that as a yes, the stranger reached over the cot and pulled up your rucksack. It was caked in mud and a lot less full than you know it should have been, but you ignored his looting and grabbed the bag from his hands.

The only things left inside were your underwear and a hygiene kit. Your stomach twisted at the thought that you had lost the most important item in the bag. Dumping the contents on the floor you searched through every pocket. The Stranger watched you, one brow raised, wondering what you were looking for.

“Did you take it?” You asked, “It won’t work for anyone but me, you might as well give it back,”

“I do not understand,” The stranger looked puzzled, looking down at the things on the floor to see what had upset you.

“My Guide, where is it? I don’t care about the other things, I need that back,”

“There were no books in there,”

“That is Federation property,”

“You’re going to have to explain what it is you’re so agitated about; I do not know what your Guide is,”

“You do, because you stole it!” You exclaimed. Raising your voice made your head hurt more, you flinched and screwed your eyes shut again.

“I am many things but I am not a thief,” The Stranger was offended by your accusation. You scowled at him. He was a liar and a thief, “I took the food from your bag as payment for my saving you,”

“The Guide uses my biometrics, it won’t be of any use to you or anyone you could sell it to,”

“Hold on, do you mean the flip device?”

“Yes!”

“That thing’s important?” He seemed genuinely surprised, “You can have it, it’s no use to me,”

The stranger stood up and walked the two steps to the other side of the small space. From a cluttered table he picked up the black computer. You sighed in relief, there could be some hope for you yet. He passed you the gadget which to your amazement was still in working order. It had got a little scratched in the crash but you pressed your thumb to the lock and it opened it instantly.

Every researcher had their own personal guide. Similar to an ancient flip phone, used commonly on Earth in the early 2000’s, each Guide was a little bigger than your palm. Though small, it was very mighty. Not only did it store every piece of information a researcher collected, but it also allowed communication through text, audio and holo. Through the System there was unlimited access to other researchers' files, yet unpublished information and access to the ‘verse's existing records. There were maps and history of every planet, and more importantly to you at that moment, census records.

As you had expected, you had no signal on the surface of the moon to send a message to headquarters for a rescue. Instead you focused on what you could find out.

From the corner of your eye, you noticed the man’s suit. Though a little hard to read in the dim light you could make out what looked to be an ID number. You had to know who your captor (or saviour) really was. 875-162.

You typed in the worn black ink digits and waited. Nothing was notorious for its poor reception. The stranger was no longer interested in you know you were engrossed in the computer and not trying to attack him, he got up and was rustling around out of view.

Finally, the page loaded. A photo matching the stranger, though a little younger looking, flashed up in holo. You quickly covered the beam with your finger so as not to alert the man with you. You swiped down to read the information.

“Ezra,” You said under your breath as you read the page.

“I don’t remember giving you my name,” Ezra spoke, making you jump. You looked up, cheeks growing hot as you realised you had said it out loud.

“I searched your ID number,” you said, embarrassed you’d been caught, you told the truth. Ezra frowned, looking around him to see where you had seen it. You pointed to the suit piled up on the floor. The numbers were faded and hard to make out from the distance but you had worked it out. Ezra followed your finger and chuckled lightly.

“I forgot such identification exists,” He said, “You have good eyes to make it out from there,” He added.

You hummed in agreement. You were in perfect condition, had to be for the work. Perfect condition except for the concussion and various bruises on your body.

“Well now you know my name, can I enquire as to yours? I doubt that everyone calls you Researcher 42,” Ezra read your name from the ID card beforehand. Leant against the shelves next to him, he looked down at you.

“Some do,” You said plainly.

“That ‘some’ includes me, does it,” He raised an eyebrow, not expecting you to become so cold.

“Seems like it,”

“42 seems a little impersonal considering I just saved your life,”

“I’m meant to stay separated from my subjects. Anonymity helps with objectivity,” You explained. That wasn’t entirely true. You had always made friends with at least one person in every planet or city you researched. It was how you got the inside scoop, the local knowledge that made your articles so popular. Guide Guidance said that researchers stay anonymous for objectivity, but your popularity said otherwise. You just didn’t want to get any closer to Ezra, even just a quick glance at his record told you that he was not someone you wanted to be friends with.

As he had already shown you, he was a thief. He had been convicted of fraud, arson and two counts of murder. No wonder he was here. Most of the places in Nothing were hot beds for criminals like him. Nowhere in Everywhere would hire him, you expected that he had been hired by a contractor to come here and work for his freedom. There wasn’t much freedom stuck on the green though.

“Whether you give me your name or not, you’ve not got much choice in staying separated. A helpless thing like you will need protection here,”

“And you’ll offer that for free, will you?” You asked sarcastically, immediately knowing he would want something from you in return. You were already indebted to him for saving your life.

“There are a few things I desire,” He looked over your body, smirk twitching on his lips. You curled your lip and moved away from him.

“If you’re going to rape me, I’d rather try my luck out there by myself,”

“Oh no! No, little mouse I would never. I have done some felonious acts but I am not a savage!” He exclaimed quickly covering for himself. You regarded him sceptically. He had supposedly killed two people; he’d already crossed a line most people would not. You didn’t believe he wouldn’t step over that line too. “No, The Guide will want you back, I imagine anyone who returned you would be well rewarded,”

“Possibly,”

“Here’s my offer. I provide protection and shelter whilst you are here, and come that fateful day your deliverance arrives, you will negotiate considerable compensation for me,”

“What compensation would you want?”

“Enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my days free of obligation, a ship to get me off this rock and a clear record,”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you can see how well you fare in the forest alone. Food is pretty scarce this time of year and I wouldn’t put it past a few of them to push some more… basic human morals,” Ezra smirked as your eyes double in size. In all your travels you had never encountered cannibals, not human cannibals anyway.

“I- I can’t promise anything,” You stumbled over your worlds as you accepted faster than you should have. You didn’t know there was anyone other than Ezra on this planet, but you were not in the mood to find out.

“We will discuss details when the time comes,” He said. You nodded. “Now we have all that out the way,” He stood up from the floor, “I have to get to work,”

“What about me?”

“You aren’t coming with me,” He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But you just said-,” you started to protest until Ezra pulled a gun from seemingly nowhere, you immediately shut your mouth and flinched, “What is that?”

“Protection,” He held the gun out, waiting for you to take it.

“No, no, no! You said-“

“Until your people come to your aid, and give me my money, I’ve got to keep working. Any time wasted is money lost out here,” He explained impatiently. He stepped back closer to you and dropped the gun in your lap, “I assume you do know how to use that even if you don’t carry one yourself?”

You looked at the gun, assessing it properly. It wasn’t complicated, a barrel you assumed was already full of bullets and a trigger. Nothing you hadn’t seen before, apart from the electrical tape that was holding it together. With no more protest from you, Ezra assumed it was fine and stepped away, resuming his routine.

“I will be back at sundown. Help yourself to some food,” He told you.

“My food,” You corrected him.

“Remember who is dependent on who here, 42,” He said scornfully. With that he put his helmet back on to his head and left the tent leaving you all alone.

You waited a few moments to make sure he was gone before making your move. You couldn’t stay with a murderer. You were safer in your ship, wherever it was. You could make a distress call and be rescued. Ezra would never know.

You pushed the gun from your lap onto the floor and tried to stand up. Sat down you could feel how sore your limbs were, your back ached from just sitting up for a few minutes and you were pretty sure you could feel every bone in your feet. A light touch to the forehead told you there was a sizable egg growing on top.

Standing up the pain was worse. You immediately became dizzy, gripping onto the metal shelf quickly to stop yourself from falling. You cursed under your breath and took a deep breath. You could do it.

Or maybe you couldn’t.

You took one step towards the table of things Ezra kept, and fell back on your ass. You were lucky not to pull the shelves down with you as it rocked forward slightly. A few items fell off, narrowly missing you. You dodged the heavy items, cringing as the metal thumped to the ground.

Listening to your screaming body, you gave up. You shuffled back to your previously comfortable position against the wall of the tent and looked around you for something to keep yourself occupied.

There at your feet lay a small book. Ezra wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to meet an author, he apparently was a bibliophile. You picked the paper up, stretching to reach it over your bruised and aching legs. It was well worn, obviously water damaged as the pages curled and the image on the front as warped beyond recognition. The title: “Welcome to the Green”.

You were not going anywhere.

sooo what do you think? i had so much fun writing this fic, i hope you guys enjoyed it too. let me know if you want to be tagged in the next part :D

TAGGING usuals and interested people :): @hunters-heathen @peterssweetpea @beskarbabs @wille-zarr @fandom-blackhole @writeforfandoms @dindja @amneris21 @yespolkadotkitty

#ezra (prospect) x reader #ezra x f!reader #ezra x reader #ezra prospect #x reader #ezra prospect angst #enemies to lovers #prospect movie #ezra #pedro pascal character x reader #pedro pascal character #pedro pascal #the guide #molly writes

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thewritewolf · 4 years ago

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My 2020 Tumblr Top 10

1). 1,240 notes - Feb 11 2020

Ah yes, I remember this post. I had just been seeing people talk about Gabenath and putting it above love square in terms of being a healthy relationship. Made me realize that some people really either haven’t watched the show or it has been a LONG time since they watched it, lol.

2). 635 notes - Apr 24 2020 - Running to Catch An Airplane Trope

Still my favorite title of any of my fics. And the closest I’ve got to outright angst - balanced out by fluff, of course. I understand why angst writers love it! The highly emotional comments were wonderful, haha.

3). 587 notes - May 4 2020 - Cat Crossing

To be honest, I was not expected Cat Crossing to get so popular. It was a cute fic I made for a friend’s birthday, based on a game I hadn’t played yet. But everyone loved it! Maybe it was how it really captured the lovable dumbass quality that makes Marichat so fun. Or maybe people saw it because it was at the peak of Animal Crossing fever.

The world may never know!

4). 409 notes - May 24 2020 - Well-Worn Note

Based on a prompt by LNC, I was pretty pleased with this fic and even happier when it did astoundingly well for a fic on tumblr. Looking back on it, I have no complaints - I still like it as it is.

5). 205 notes - Apr 1 2020 - Multiple Second Chances Chapter 1: Pranks

Fun fact - Multiple Second Chances catapulted itself into being my most kudos’d fic on Ao3, beating out old favorites like Rekindle and True Sight easily. As of a couple weeks ago, it was my first fic to break 1,000 kudos!

6). 176 notes - Dec 14 2020 - Mari Christmas And A Happy New Adrien

Very surprised to see this in my top ten since it was posted so recently, but I’m glad that my research and interview paid off, haha.

7). 173 notes - Jan 22 2020 - Possibly Controversial Take

Another post born of frustration. We tend to get so caught up on the negatives that we inflate them so much we fail to see the positives. It makes us forget that the baby beans that we watch bumble around in love are good noodles. The kids are alright...

8). 138 notes - Sep 18 2020 - What He Deserves

Much like Well Worn Note, I don’t really have any complaints about this one shot. Except maybe I could’ve hammered home the angst a bit more and beefed up the fluff, but honestly that’s true of pretty much all my stories!

9). 137 notes - Jan 25 2020 - Shipping Wars Chapter 1 - Marichat

Took me forever to get around to writing this fic and sometimes I wish I’d started it back when I had the idea, when Weredad had come out. Maybe then it would have done better. As it stands, it is still a silly, funny ride and it still cracks me up.

10). 113 notes - Aug 22 2020 - Losing Their Marbles

Poor boys missin’ their girlfriends. ;-;

Good idea for me to not do 31 one shots though, lol. Definitely going to do that going forward - four months of daily updates is hard enough without adding Marinette March and Adrien August fully to that.

Created by TumblrTop10

#tumblrtop10

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stlplaybox · 6 years ago

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Better late than never: my top 10 Transformers of 2017

Yes, yes. I know I’m about 7 months too late but it’s been a tough slog. I was 90% complete in January but have only snailed along since then. I love doing these to really collect my thoughts on a year of collecting but I ended up letting it slip way more than I intended to. Anyway, with that aside out of the way, let’s get cracking.

Here we are again, that time of the year when everyone reflects on the best of the year that was.Twelve months on and the job of selecting my top 10 figures for 2017 was no less daunting than it was the last time. I found myself drawn to my closing remarks from last year as a starting point.

“Hasbro and Takara look to be continuing their winning formula with a strong opening salvo in the form of Topspin, Quake and Krok. It’s also a movie year and I’m very curious how they’ll apply this design ethos to the movie line. The Masterpiece line will welcome more Beast Wars figures and will deliver arguably the most important release of the year: the despot we all want, but will it be the one we deserve?

Third party continue their onslaught of amazing product. MMC’s stable is ready to burst with Kultur on the cusp of release and IDW Megatron due later this year. Maketoys have MP Jazz and Targetmasters on the way whilst pushing the aesthetic and action figure boundaries of the franchise with their Cross Dimensions line. Master Made will turn their eye to their next project after they finish Scorponok and Fort Max. SparkToys will deliver the follow up to their War Within Optimus Prime with Megatron and maybe even the King. Having wow’d us with what they can do at Legends scale, Iron Factory will deliver combiners and a six changer.”

As it turned out, all these things happened. And more. The mantra of “there’s never been a better time to be a Transformers collector” has never been more true. It’s with this backdrop that I embark on disambiguating my own ever-changing proclivities.

Some honourable mentions first because it feels like a transgression of the highest order to not acknowledge at least a slither the other amazing figures that did not make this list.

First off, dear Iron Factory I love everything you guys do. It’s a travesty that nothing you guys made ended up on my list. But the bite-sized delight that you guys deliver time and time again cannot go unacknowledged. From Ultimate Commander to Sixshot, you guys pack an impossible amount of articulation, fun and detail that should not be possible at such a scale.

Planet X Mors: Planet X has been a regular occupier in my lists over the years and as amazing as their Trypticon was, there’s nothing more ambitious than dethroning an official version of a toy. They did that with Grimlock and then repeated it with Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker. It’s a stunning toy that has not left the coffee table since it’s arrival and it was hard leaving it off this list.

MAS-01 Optimus Prime: I have an Ultimetal Optimus Prime. I should not need this. There’s only so many humungous, non-transforming toys one should have in an era that is delivering knockout citybot after citybot. But I succumbed and gratefully so. Whilst Ultimetal delivers an impeccable amount of diecast, detail and finish, MAS-01 delivers insane poseability that will never be possible in a transforming version of our favourite Autobot commander.

Titan Returns Black Shadow: It’s been awhile since an official leader class figure has been of interest to me. Black Shadow outshone the main course that he was an appetiser to. Beautiful headsculpt, wonderful colours, topped with an incredibly clever and satisfying transformation.

Titan Returns Gnaw: It’s a rarity that Hasbro could outdo Takara but they did. Fun and so full of character, Gnaw was a wonderful addition to our fandom. You can see it in the amount of fun photos this little fella has graced. I’ve had a Legends figure in my top TFs in the last 3 years and it was really hard to not have one on the list this year.

TAV-60 Bisk: A fading line that accompanied an uninspiring TV show, TAV managed to deliver some amazing Decepticons with unusual shapes and transformations. Bisk was the epitome of this. A muscle car that turns into a hyper articulated lobster, Bisk was a bundle of joy I found hard to put down for many months in front of the TV or on holiday.

I’ll have to stop there as I’ll be here all year otherwise. Let’s rollout for the top 10.

10: Beast Wars Optimal Optimus (Perfect Effect Beast Gorira)

Never having owned a toy of this quintessential character, I drooled enviously while everyone picked this up at TFNation because it was too large to lug home. The FOMO factor egged me on to buy it on eBay at TFNation in the early hours of the morning. I ship it so it’d be there when I got home. However, upon arriving home after having been away for almost two months I allowed it to gather dust alongside my backlog of unopened toys. It led me to more than once question if I’d just been a sucker for convention hype.

Finally opening it in December, I discovered the perfection that is Perfect Effect’s Beast Gorira. The sculpt is immaculate but what elevates this is the premium finish. Perfect Effect brought their trademark paint and attention to detail to the table and made this the ultimate representation of Beast Wars Optimal Optimus. As much as I love posing Gorira, what holds him back from climbing higher is the finicky transformation.

9: Maketoys G1 Pointblank (Maketoys MTRM-06 Contact Shot)

A surefire way to my heart is a futuristic alt mode. The Autobot cars and Decepticon jet Targetmasters have always occupied a mystical spot in my head for that reason. When Maketoys dropped Pointblank, a Masterpiece of a toy I’d only known from the well-read pages of my G1 toy catalogue, I had high expectations. Those expectations were well and truly blown out of the water when I handled it for the first time. The way those legs compress, the way that chest works, the playability and detail of that cockpit, that insane articulation… it’s a stunning feat of engineering. So much so that it made not one but two trips as a holidaybot in 2017. Subjecting a masterpiece toy to the rigours of a holiday is something that makes most collector’s cringe. But it was that good. That’s a hell of an achievement for a Masterpiece toy.

8. G1 Starscream (MTRM-11 Howling Meteor)

In a heated 3rd party masterpiece scene, if you were going to dislodge an official figure from being the preferred representation of a character, you’d go after the decrepit Seeker mould. But it’s a risk. There was no shortage of collector relief at having finished the Seekers this year so it makes Maketoys ambition all that more audacious. But if anyone was going to pull it off, it was Maketoys. They did. The presence, paint and peerless articulation of everyone’s favourite scheming whiner is a joy to behold, pose, and play. All that stopped it from usurping higher spots on this list was the lack of upwards head articulation and its unphotogenic dark face.

7. MP-32 Optimus Primal

I’ll confess to being one of those “Trukk not Monkey” people once upon a time. But Beast Wars was a show that I grew to love. It lacked the cast of thousands of G1 but it more than made up for that with a story and characterisation that still withstands the test of time. When I liberated this figure from its packaging, the love I felt was instantaneous. The CGI perfect blue, the multiple faces, the loving attention to the sculpt, I was sure I’d have to file for divorce. It went everywhere with me even to the distant fjords of Norway as seen in the picture I’m using here. But there was drama. Gutwrenching heartbreak ensued when I discovered I’d broken it in a fall on a climb in Husedalen. It was an expensive replacement but one I did at TFNation before returning downunder. My personal story with this figure would have catapulted it into the number one spot in any other year but such a time it is to be a collector that this was as high as it could climb.

6. MTMTE Rodimus (SXS R-04 Hot Flame)

If you know me well, you know the place MTMTE and Lost Light holds in my heart. There was a crack at this by a more accomplished third party company that satisfied most. Not me though. SXS stepped up to the plate to deliver the perfect rendition of the cavalier Co-Captain of the Lost Light. It rendered MMC’s Calidus to a mediocre representation of a Hot Rod / Rodimus. The sci-fi vibe of the rugged alt mode, the perfection of the chest sculpt relative to the shoulders, and the exceptional articulation were exhilarating to experience. It’s a toy that will not leave the coffee table anytime soon.

5 . War Within Megatron (SparkToys Spartacus)

It was the year of Megatron. Whichever line you look at, there was not just a good one but a great one. That’s why there are three on this list. War Within got me back into buying Transformers. It lit the spark that re-ignited that childhood love that I’d had for Transformers. Last year, SparkToys Optimus Prime almost took the top spot and they were always going to be in contention in 2017 again given how much nostalgia this plays up in me. Collectors talk about paint and finish but this is a whole different level. Not only is the detail of the sculpt exceptional, every nook and cranny of this pre-war despot is coated in loving layers of vibrant paint. Add the commanding presence of a gladiatorial Megatron and a generous armoury, this figure is packed with endless fun as well as beauty.

4. Titan Returns Decepticon Targetmasters: Triggerhappy, Slugslinger, Misfire

This is a cheat as Triggerhappy had already made my list last year but there was an overwhelming sense of achievement unlocked when I completed this triplet of Targetmasters. All cut from the same cloth but each so uniquely distinct with tonnes of articulation, personality and clever little design decisions, I spent whole evenings playing and photographing these handsome lads. Another important factor was that I acquired all three of these locally and with my boy. As someone who largely imports these days, the fact I could experience the thrill of the hunt again chasing such great figures cemented their place in my memory banks.

3. Chaos Theory Optimus Prime GT-03 Optimus

I mentioned the importance of James Roberts’ MTMTE to my love of Transformers. It’s fiction that elevates the characters and their journeys to a level that we haven’t experienced before. But before there was MTMTE, there was the two part story Chaos Theory. I remember reading it amid the Costa era of TF comics and knowing straightaway this was special. The gravitas with which it regarded the four million year old war and the relationship between the two diametrically opposed leaders gripped me like nothing else. It was not till much later that I realised it was the start of James Roberts’ meteoric rise in TF fiction.

It was only in October 2017 that I secured all the variant covers of those two issues of Chaos Theory (Transformers #22 and #23) after having stopped buying physical comics for many years. But to then obtain a Masterpiece version of that Optimus? With perfectly stunning articulation, paint and detail? A sculpt that oozes a sense of heroic gravity? That I did not expect.

2. Chaos Theory Megatron (GT-02 Tyrant)

Chaos Theory was a tale in two parts. The covers represented the two halves of the story: Optimus Prime and Megatron in both their current day and youthful forms. Generations Toys completed the other half of that equation with their wonderful designed Chaos Theory Megatron. With transformation steps that evoke Masterpiece level ingenuity and a transformation that is a pleasure to switch back and forth between, it’s amazing how Generation Toys designed such a Megatron full of fearsome presence yet is also a stealth bomber at the same time. .

1. MTMTE Megatron (MMC R-28 Tyrantron)

This was a hard choice. On the one hand, of all the figures on this list, MMC’s MTMTE Megatron has the laziest of transformations on top of being a heavy partsformer. On the other hand, never has a character stepped off a page more than this. This wonderfully epic rendition of the tormented Megatron knocks it out of the park. Not only is the every part of the body sculpted to perfection but the head sculpt captures the grim introspection that dominated the former Decepticon leader’s tenure on the Lost Light. If that wasn’t enough, the figure does double duty and with a few bits of parts forming becomes pre-war Megatron from Chaos Theory. It’s a monumental effort from MMC and allowed me to round out 2017 with the 3 most important representations of Megatron to me.

So there’s my list for another great year. 2017 was a special year for me. One dominated by the realisation of some of my favourite characters from my favourite Transformers fiction. It’s a reflection of how vibrant the transforming scene is at the moment that it supports not only a heavy masterpiece market but multiple TF canons as well. There’s truly never been a greater time to be a fan.

#transformers #transformers idw #more than meets the eye #tf mtmte #MTMTE #mtmte megatron #mtmte rodimus #lost light #optimus prime #beast wars #beastmode

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cathygeha · 4 years ago

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REVIEW

First Fate by Kendall Talbot

Waves of Fate #1

Desperate situations bring out the best and worse qualities of humans and this story provides both. An Electromagnetic Pulse can occur naturally with a solar flare or when too close to a lightning strike but can also be manmade, intentional, and used to debilitate one’s foes in times of war. Doomsday worriers have backup plans for end of world scenarios but on the Rose of the Sea cruise ship nobody was prepared for the EMP that struck and all that happened afterward. As the first book in a new series the cast of characters are all presented with their good and bad traits and some backstories. Who will live and who will die? What doe people truly value when in dire circumstances? Who will rally to the cause and who will give up?

What I liked:

* Madeline: a survivor that has overcome much, has a strong will to live, does not give up, and may have found a love to stand by her forever.

* Sterling: a teacher, surfer, nice guy, ditched at the altar, on his honeymoon alone, stalwart, supportive and he may have found his potential future mate in a bad situation.

* Gabby: mother, wife, journalist, selfish but perhaps grows and sees the world differently after her life changes so drastically.

* Max: father, business owner, athlete, calm, caring, giving, and perhaps more than his wife Gabby realizes.

* Gunner, Sykes, and other crew members that survived. I am guessing each will show up more in future books in the series.

* The way that some of the survivors pulled together.

* That there happened to be a physician that survived…they definitely needed her.

* The pace and writing that were intense, graphic, and made me feel I was there.

* Thinking about what I might be able to do now to be better prepared for a worst-case scenario like this.

* That it was almost like watching a movie…it would adapt well to that medium.

* Wondering what will happen next…

What I didn’t like:

* Zon: a bit of a crazy guy…his childhood sounded intense and horrible but he also ended up not being the best guy in the world…self-centered, me-first, gambler, not very nice BUT he might be redeemable…maybe?

* Knowing that EMP’s are real and that a big one could be devastating.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author/in this series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

Prepare for a cruise like no other. When an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strikes Rose of the Sea, the pleasure cruise becomes a drifting nightmare. Powerless and desperate, the eleven hundred passengers and crew must face their new reality: No one is coming to save them. The First Mate. When the EMP destroys the captain’s pacemaker, killing him in a heartbeat, Gunner McCrae is thrust into the top position. But no amount of training could prepare him for the savagery of desperate humans and an unforgiving ocean. The Anchorwoman. Gabrielle Kinsella is known for bringing shocking stories to the world. She should be reporting on the headline of the century. Instead she’s fighting for her children’s lives.

The Acrobat. Held captive by a predator as a child, Madeline Jewel found freedom as the ship’s acrobatic dancer. But being trapped in an elevator brings her worst fears back to life.

The Gambler. Zon Woodrow, notorious gator hunter, won his ticket to the cruise in a poker match. But that isn’t the only pot he’s looking to score. With the ship’s security system obliterated, Zon turns his attention to the casino’s vault. And this time, the house won’t win. As resources dwindle aboard Rose of the Sea, the body count continues to rise. Will ordinary people survive an extraordinary disaster? Or will human nature drown them in darkness?

Find out in this gripping disaster/survival thriller.

FIRST FATE is the first book in the Waves of Fate trilogy and is perfect for fans of Matthew Reilly, Tim Tigner, Jack Hunt, A. G. Riddle and Steven Konkoly. And don't worry, there are no zombies.

AUTHOR BIO

Kendall Talbot is a thrill seeker, hopeless romantic, virtual killer, and award-winning author of stories that’ll have your heart thumping from the action-packed suspense in exotic locations and the swoon-worthy romance. Kendall has sought thrills in all 46 countries she’s visited. She’s abseiled down freezing waterfalls, catapulted out of a white-water raft, jumped off a mountain with a man who spoke little English, and got way too close to a sixteen-foot shark. When she isn’t writing, she’s enjoying wine and cheese with her crazy friends, and planning her next thrilling international escape. She lives in Brisbane, Australia with her very own hero and a fluffy little dog who specializes in hijacking her writing time. Meanwhile, Kendall’s two sons are off making their own adventures – look out world. Kendall’s book, Lost in Kakadu won the acclaimed title of Romantic Book of the Year 2014, and her books have also been finalists for Best Romantic Suspense, Best Crime Novel, Best Continuing Series, and Best New Author. I love to hear from my readers! Find my books and chat with me via any of the contacts below: Website: http://www.kendalltalbot.com.au/ Email: [email protected] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KendallTalbo... Or you can follow me on any of the following channels: Amazon Author Profile: https://www.amazon.com/Kendall-Talbot... Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kenda... Newsletter: http://www.kendalltalbot.com.au/newsl...

#Kendall Talbot #Waves of Fate 1 #NetGalley #Thriler #Suspense #Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)#Disaster at Sea #Survival

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valmos · 4 years ago

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New Scooby-Doo Mysteries 6-10

Episode 6(a): Ghosts of the Ancient Astronauts

Monster: Harriet Mullens, her parrot, and her zombies, her business partner, and his two henchmen

Interests: Fred and Velma are back! Velma’s uncle invited the gang to join him on an expedition. Looking for a baseball sized ruby known as the celestial orb. Uncle’s name is Cosmo. The ruby is actually a map to the Temple of Sirius, which was built by ancient astronauts... also haunted by ghosts of said ancient astronauts. Orb is in Cave of Death, cave is in the Valley of the Zombies. Daphne bribes Scooby and Shaggy with a few hundred Scooby Snacks. Monkey ends up stealing a box of Scooby Snacks from Scooby. Scooby grabs the orb from a statue, triggering all sorts of traps, like the room shaking causing a block to fall from the ceiling, a catapult robot (that could regenerate its boulder?), walls closing in on itself, and a gate closing. Zombies of the valley force the gang into a cobra infested cave. Velma and Daphne don’t seem to like snakes. ... gang defuses the snake situation with a hoe-down. Gang steals zombie cloths and pretend to be zombies to get away. Scrappy: “Let me at em! Let me at em!” Daphne: “You know, for once Scrappy, that might not be a bad idea” The temple has space suits left about the place, like sentries. Scooby stops to have a Scooby Snack break, a monkey steals them again. The villains find the treasure room of the temple with a giant egg encrusted with gems. Gang scares them away by pretending to be ghosts of ancient astronauts. Scrappy find an ancient laptop. Actual ghosts of the ancient astronauts show up , they have been trying to get their ship working for 6,000 years, Scooby figured it out in 6 seconds. Only two aliens were shown, but they had at least 6 suits in the temple, they also didn’t wear any suits when they left. Maybe they were earth suits? (Gosh this episode had weird D&D campaign vibes.)

Episode 7(a): The Night of the Living Toys

Monster: Evil Elf King

Interests: World biggest toy shop is in the middle of a spooky forest. Scrappy mentions Star Puppy again. Scooby-Doo Detective Agency. Legends say that the shop is built over the elf king’s castle. Lady puts ribbons all over Scrappy. Scrappy’s toxic masculinity throws a hissy fit over the bows. Daphne bribes Scooby and Shaggy with a box of Scooby Snacks to get them to go down stairs, she doesn’t wait for the them to respond and just drops them down the stairs.

Episode 7(b): South Pole Vault

Monster: Large Mad Sea Lion

Interests: The baby penguin from The Chipmunk Adventure is taking a bath. (Dang that movie is actually only 3 years away) Mystery Machine in Antarctica. Winter outfits. Penguin gets out the bath and Mystery Machine, driven by Shaggy, slashes it as it was drying itself off. Scrappy gets sealed in a safe. Sadly gets rescued. Crazy dude who hired faux-gang 2.0 to come down to Antarctica thinks a sea lion is the one sabotaging and stealing stuff. Scrappy bribes Shaggy and Scooby with fresh roasted Scooby Snacks. “...don’t make the sea lions suspicious” Daphne... wat? Scooby-Doo Where Are You.

Episode 8: A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle

Monster: Ghost of Dr. Van Hellsing. (and a bunch of others, but they aren’t antagonistic), Chandra

Interests: It is Halloween! Scooby eats candy corn, caramel apple, chocolate bars, and popcorn balls, leaving nothing for Shaggy. It is Halloween night, but faux-gang 2.0 don’t have their costumes yet. Scrappy wants to be either a vampire, werewolf, or an alien from outer space. (I say all three at once. vampire alien werewolf from outer space, but is he bad?) Two aliens come out and laugh and nod to each other. ... Tiny Shop of Terror. (Dang, I make a bad joke about Little Shop of Horrors and the show just like no and sends me to my room 5 seconds latter). Dracula (but a different Dracula then last season) runs this costume shop with Igor. THE ALIENS ARE FRED AND VELMA JUST SCARING SHAGGY AND SCOOBY! Scooby is the millionth customer, they are invited to a Halloween party. Chandra the Unbelievably Remarkable and Quite Interesting Too will be there. Fred is dressed like a super hero, Shaggy is dressed as ... a cat? Velma is dressed like a witch (But not like the cool witch costume she had in ... Were Are You? where it matched her orange and red color scheme, this one is just blue/black and grey) Daphne is a masked superhero or thief? cat. Scrappy is a white rabbit (he is unhappy about this... even though I think he was willingly dressed as a pink rabbit before?) Scooby is dressed as a ghost with a flowerpot on his head. Dracula’s wife also a different Dracula’s wife. Frankenstein’s Monster, Mummy, Werewolf, and Creature from the Black Lagoon-type are here too. Scrappy says “What’s up Doc” Fred, Velma and Scooby try to unmask the real monsters. Invisible Man. The real monsters are all chanting “We want you” several times before the commercial break.. and several times after, before adding “to help us”, even got on their knees to beg. They retired from being scary and moved here to live a normal life. Scooby was not the millionth customer, it was a trick to get them there to get rid of the ghost. Daphne bribe Scooby with a box of Scooby Snacks, Wolfman eats them. Gang brought their normal cloths with them. Scooby find a magic amulet hidden in a wall, one that Chandra had been searching for centuries for. Dracula and his wife knew the amulet was there, hide it to prevent it from being used for evil. (So Dracula knew she wanted to amulet.. yet invited her into their home...) Vintage O negative RED JUICE.

Episode 9(a): A Night Louse at the White House

Monster: Ghost of George Washington, Ghost of Ulysses Grant, and Ghost of Teddy Roosevelt. Ghost of Abe Lincoln

Interests: Formal outfits. VELMA! Velma gets interviewed, they kept that she is a researcher at NASA from the first episode. Velma helped planning the Space Station. Scooby is just going around eating everyone’s food. George Washington’s Ghost claims he has returned to claim his home (... but he never lived in the White House? I think he did oversee the start of its construction so maybe that is what he means?) Shaggy and Scooby sing the national anthem to George Washington, which confuses him (rightfully so because he would never have heard it.) Scooby’s mom and dad see Scooby is under arrest at the White House and rush to pack so they can go help him. Shaggy and Scooby beg to the president not to throw them in jail, president knows they didn’t do it and wants them to catch the ghost (because you know... secret service can’t do it?), and Scooby and Shaggy beg to go to jail so they don’t have to catch the ghost. Gang falsely accuse a woman and she gets arrested. Oh hey, they point out George Washington didn’t live in the White House. ... So there has been this brass eagle this entire episode that the gang got off the ghost and have been using as a clue. Apparently this eagle goes to the top of a flag pole in the area under the White House that unlocks the room where the NASA super computer is. We Natural Treasurein. The ghosts are two spies... and they somehow take a helicopter off the roof of the White House, Scooby and Shaggy hold on to the helicopter. The President, Velma, Daphne, and Scrappy take a second helicopter to give chase. Scooby’s parents show up in a third helicopter with his galoshes (Which has been a running joke a few times of cutting to them in a plane) Note: It is only 2 shoes, not four. The shoes fall on the heads of the spies, so mumsy-doo catches the crook. Scooby and Shaggy chow down.

Episode 10(a): Showboat Scooby

Monster: Ghost of Colonel Beauregard and Ghost of Magnolia

Interests: Dixie-Doo and the Showboat Seven. (... I think I actually remember this episode??) Scooby and Shaggy said there is no way they are going down to the engine room, fade out and they are with Daphne and Scrappy heading to the engine room. Dixie-Doo makes a bunch of fried chicken to motivate Scooby and Shaggy to find the ghost. Dixie-Doo dressed as the Ghost of Magnolia to trick the other ghost. Scooby and Shaggy eat chicken. The real ghosts show up, their misunderstandings in life finally cleared and are reunited. Dixie proposes that it is the most precious sight one has ever seen, but Scooby replies that the fried chicken drumstick is.

Episode 10(b):The 'Dooby Dooby Doo' Ado

Monster: Gang of Thieves

Interests: Faux-gang 2.0 is in Vegas to see Scooby’s cousin Dooby-Dooby-Doo preform. Formal outfits, except Shaggy who is a tux t-shirt? Dooby-Dooby-Doo sings a song. Scooby plays decoy for Dooby-Dooby-Doo. Shaggy plays a record so Scooby can lip sync. it was Scrappy’s idea. Record skips. It keeps saying doobie over and over. It then goes chipmunk speed. Scooby starts singing himself. Scooby’s bad singing ended up saving the day. All three dogs sing a short finale, and Scooby breaks the lights of Vegas all around.

#valmos watches scooby-doo #Episode 6 felt like a weird D&D adventure...#Fred and Velma return again! and again! and then just Velma #Like ... just have them in all the episodes dangnabbit

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notebooknebula · 1 year ago

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Real Estate Manhunt: How To Build a Superstar Team For Your Real Estate Business

Private Money Academy Conference:

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Join the Private Money Academy:

In today’s episode of Raising Private Money with Jay Conner, Neil Timmins joins Jay to share his effective process on how to find, locate, and hire the best dream team for your real estate business.

A true visionary, dreamer, and problem-solver, Neil J. Timmins is on a mission to make a deeply personal impact in the lives of his team members and business partners.

Neil is committed to establishing a lasting legacy through his work as a real estate investor and mentor. Neil has been in real estate for nearly 2 decades.

He started as a traditional real estate agent with RE/MAX where his team was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as a Top 100 team; he was the #1 RE/MAX Agent in Iowa by 29. He made the transition from a Realtor to a full-time investor.

Over the course of his career, Neil has been involved in over $300,000,000 in real estate transactions. While he is still the managing broker for a real estate agency in Des Moines, IA his primary focus is on real estate investments.

Neil’s portfolio depth includes assets ranging from houses to industrial properties. The business currently conducts wholesale, wholetail, and fix/flip transactions.

Recently Neil and his team launched the Legacy Impact Partner Program where they partner with fix and flip investors from around the country.

Neil’s team brings capital to fund and fix rehabs, operational expertise, and years of experience catapulting partners' business to new heights.

Timestamps:

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

0:09 - Today’s guest: Neil Timmins

2:12 - How Neil Timmins started in the real estate business.

3:26 - How to become the number one real estate agent

5:45 - Things that Neil would have done differently for the better.

8:25 - Neil Timmins’ hardest struggle and how he overcame it.

9:58 - What does your culture look like and how was it different from other businesses?

11:16 - What is KPI?

12:44 - How do you maintain the motivation of your team?

13:48 - The hiring process was formulated by Neil Timmins.

16:09 - Neil Timmins’ Book: " Unicorn Hunting For Real Estate Investment Companies" - https://www.landaunicorn.com

23:57 - One personal habit Neil Timmins can’t live without.

26:51 - Neil Timmins’ advice to people who haven’t done their first real estate yet.

27:41 - Jay’s Free Private Money Guide: https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide 29:02 - Neil Timmins’s new projects.

30:04 - Neil Timmins’ parting comments: The real estate business gives me the opportunity to give back.

30:40 - Connect with Neil Timmins: https://www.LegacyImpactPartners.com

32:22 - Raw and Real with Jay Conner

Private Money Academy Conference:

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Free Report:

Join the Private Money Academy:

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

What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his own money or credit.

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ncmagroup · 5 years ago

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This article is by Lenny Rachitsky, a former product lead at Airbnb.

Back when I was a young PM, one of my managers altered the trajectory of my career. It was my second year at Airbnb. I was doing okay, but not great. My new manager, Vlad Loktev, had taken over, just as the project I was overseeing had gotten delayed by weeks. He wasn’t impressed. Although he helped me get it back on track, and we got it out the door, I knew that when performance review season rolled around, it was going to be rough. When the time came, I did indeed get a less-than-stellar rating. Vlad flagged a number of important development areas for me to focus on, including being more communicative about status and getting more aggressive about prioritizing. While I could have left dejected, I instead ended that performance conversation feeling more clear, motivated, and excited than I had ever been.

Here’s why: Vlad had a simple yet powerful performance review system. The clarity of his feedback, the care in his delivery, and the simple organization of his framework all came together to create a career development experience unlike any I’d ever had before. This set me on a course that catapulted me from a newly-minted IC PM to a manager of a half-dozen PMs, tackling everything from marketplace quality to growth, most recently building out and leading a cross-functional 80-person team driving supply growth at Airbnb.

Over the years, as I transitioned into management, took on a handful of direct reports, and conducted over 50 performance reviews, I adopted and expanded his system into an end-to-end performance management framework that has enabled me to systematically grow junior ICs into star performers, to turn big trouble spots into super-strengths, and build one of the best performing teams at Airbnb.

Figuring that other managers might similarly find this system useful, below I’ll dive into why performance reviews typically suck, how we can fix them, and then walk through this framework in step-by-step detail. Whether you’re a first-time manager looking for guidance on handling your first review, an experienced manager hoping to uplevel yourself from good to kickass, or an early-stage founder trying to put a company performance review system in place, the templates, tactics and real-world examples you’ll find here are yours for the taking.

MANAGERS, AVOID THESE COMMON PERFORMANCE REVIEW MISTAKES

It’s rare that one meeting, once or twice a year, has such a tremendous impact on the morale, performance, and trajectory of an employee. Unfortunately, performance reviews are severely underutilized, and often done badly. From the perspective of direct reports, they are more likely to spark dread than hope. On the part of managers, they’re treated more as a chore than an opportunity.

Done well, performance reviews improve performance, align expectations and accelerate your report’s career. Done poorly, they accelerate their departure.

Below are the six most common mistakes managers make with performance reviews:

1. Not spending enough time preparing. Performance conversations directly impact your direct reports’ long-term career prospects, morale, and often their identity. If you spend more time filling out expense reports than you do preparing for your performance reviews, you’re doing it wrong. I recommend spending at least three (ideally five) hours per direct report preparing for performance review conversations, every six months.

2. Relying too much on peer feedback. Some of the highest performers I’ve worked with ruffle feathers on occasion to deliver the right outcome — which can lead to negative peer feedback come performance review season. (This is especially true in leadership roles.) Here’s why over-indexing on peer feedback is dangerous: If you’re judged solely based on peer feedback, you’ll optimize for what’s expected, not what’s right. As a manager, you need to have your own point of view on how the direct report performed, using the peer feedback as just one input, not the driver of your performance conversation.

3. Not providing substantive feedback. Your reports are hungry for feedback. They’re looking at every morsel of information you share with them to figure where they should spend their time. Don’t waste this opportunity.

4. Having a one-sided conversation. Too often, managers simply tell direct reports what they think, what to do, and leave too little space for conversation. Leaders want to look strong and are often insecure about showing any sign of being wrong. An effective performance development process is a mutual commitment to growth and learning, which requires two-way communication and accountability.

5. Failing to have a follow-up plan. Most managers have a performance conversation, say their piece, and then expect their direct report to retain and act on everything they heard. When they revisit these topics at the next performance review, they’re often shocked there wasn’t much progress and fall back on blaming the report for a lack of improvement. It’s not their fault — it’s yours.

6. Not doing them at all. There’s a school of thought that says that companies shouldn’t have performance reviews, that feedback should be ongoing and ever-present. Why wait six months to give feedback, they say, when you can give it regularly and at the moment? The truth is that this rarely works out in practice (i.e. you get no feedback), and more critically, it’s actually a false dichotomy. You should absolutely provide feedback regularly, have consistent weekly 1:1s, and engage in ongoing career conversations. Alongside that ongoing work, however, a regular performance review cadence makes an incredible impact on the trajectory of an employee’s career.

If you can’t find a dozen hours to focus on your report’s career throughout the year, that generally means you have too many reports — or that you shouldn’t be a manager.

FOLLOW THIS THREE-STEP PERFORMANCE REVIEW SYSTEM

As an antidote to the common missteps from above, the system I’ve come to rely on is made up of three equally important parts:

1. Prepare

2. Deliver

3. Follow-up

This template forms the foundation of the system, and we’ll walk through each section in detail below. Here’s the Google Doc version of the template for your own easy use.

STEP 1: PREPARE, PREPARE, PREPARE

This is where the bulk of your time should be spent, as it sets up the steps that follow. Start by gathering data on how your direct report did, both by seeking input from your report’s peers and a self-assessment from the individual directly. You want to get as much signal as possible at this stage, ideally as early on in the process, as you can (I typically start at least a month before a scheduled performance chat, since it often takes a while to get everyone’s responses). There are many ways to do this, and most companies have their own system for gathering feedback, but you can always take a lightweight approach over email.

First, work with your direct report to identify five to eight people who’d be able to provide input. Then fire off emails (bcc’ing everyone) asking three simple questions:

Hi Joe,

In an effort to help Jane level up in her career, I’m gathering peer feedback from people she works most closely with. I would really love your input. If you can find 5-10 minutes in the next few days to answer these questions, I would truly appreciate it (and so will Jane):

1. What are 2-3 things Jane should start doing? Why? 2. What are 2-3 things Jane should continue doing? Why? 3. What are 2-3 things Jane should stop doing? Why?

I will keep your answers anonymous unless you tell me otherwise. Please be honest and candid, as that’s what’ll help me give Jane the best support in her career. And, if there’s anything else you’d like to share, good or bad, I’d love to hear it.

Thank you!

In parallel, ask your report to do self-review, with an email such as:

Hi Jane,

Ahead of our upcoming performance conversation, I would love to get your perspective on how things went. Could you please answer these three questions, along with anything else you’d like to share, and get back to me by X/X?

1. What were your top five accomplishments in this cycle? 2. What 2-3 areas do you want to focus on developments over the next cycle? 3. What are your goals for your career over the next two years?

Thank you!

While you’re waiting for the feedback, I strongly recommend you start crystalizing your opinion on how your report performed. What did they do well? What is keeping them back? What are the one or two most critical development areas for them to focus on over the next cycle? This is a key step to reducing bias and avoiding being completely swayed by what peers say.

As you begin to gather your thinking, and as peer feedback begins to roll in, start to flesh out the template referenced above, which you’ll eventually share with your report. Let’s walk through each section:

Accomplishments: Detail the person’s accomplishments over the course of the period. Collect these from the report’s self-review, peer feedback, and your own notes that you’ve been keeping throughout the year. Each item here should be significant and meaty. For example, write “Hit team’s goals” and “Shipped project X on time and under budget,” not “Held a great meeting” or “Went to three conferences.” In this same section, I also like to include a sampling of the best positive peer feedback I’ve collected, ideally three to five of the best quotes about the person (anonymized of course).

Superpower: Most performance reviews over-index on development areas. The reality is that an individual will have just as much impact (if not more) on an organization if they flex what they are really good at, instead of just trying to improve on the areas they’re struggling with. Here, you have a chance to highlight that. Describe their biggest superpower, and how they can flex it further. A few examples of superpowers that I’ve highlighted in the past include a special knack for storytelling, execution, or galvanizing a team. There’s a lot of research that shows focusing on strengths is much more effective than obsessing over weaknesses. Note that it’s important to watch for bias here since many of us unconsciously describes the same behavior by men as a strength and as a weakness by a woman. (You can read more on this topic here, here, and here).

High-level feedback: Next, I take a step back and summarize the report’s performance in a short narrative, about four to six sentences. I try to make a simple story arc, starting by describing how far they’ve come, then a sentence or two about how they did this cycle, and ending on a high-level overview of what they need to focus on next.

Development areas:

Identify one to two development areas to focus on for the next cycle, and put them in the middle column (see the screenshot below). This part is core to the performance review, so selecting these with care is absolutely critical. A few specific suggestions for how to nail these down:

What is most holding the person back from the next level? If your company has a leveling system, leverage it to explain your thinking.

Do any clear themes emerge from peer feedback or self-review?

If your company does a calibration, is there a key issue you’re hearing from other managers? Even if it’s not something you agree with, it’s something you’ll need to address.

Make sure you still identify important development areas for even the highest of performers. No matter how amazing someone is, there’s almost always something they can focus on to get to the next level.

A few examples of potential development areas include reliable execution, increasing code quality, and more succinct verbal communication. Don’t worry so much about making the descriptions super-comprehensive here, as the details will be filled into the next column. A common mistake here is including too many development areas (more than two makes it very hard to make meaningful progress on any), or not making the development opportunities concrete enough (where your direct reports are left guessing at what you really mean).

Filling in the details within each development area:

This right-hand column is where most of the content — and eventually most of the in-person conversation — goes. The goal here is to make it very clear what the development opportunity is, why it’s so important, and how to concretely improve at it. I often find myself refining this section up until the last minute.

For each development area, include:

A short summary describing the development opportunity. Here’s an example: “Your team has lacked a clear strategy for the past six months. Without a strategy, it’s unclear to your team how all of the work they’re doing fits together, and it makes it hard for anyone outside of your team to understand why you’re prioritizing the things you’re prioritizing.”

Concrete examples of this not going well. Include quotes from peer feedback that support those points, and any examples you can recall where this caused a problem, led to a complaint or came up in a meeting. Build a habit to note these instances throughout the year.

Concrete suggestions for improvement. This is where you share your wisdom and experience in leveling up at this skill. What do you suggest they concretely do to significantly improve at this skill? Be direct, ambitious and constructive. Eventually, this will inform action items that you’ll work with your report on. I often include articles and books to read, people to talk to, and things to experiment with. As much as possible, leverage the superpower noted above, along with any other strengths you recognize, to level up in this area. For example, if their development area is around verbal communication, a suggestion could be “Take a public speaking workshop.” If their development area is around improving execution,” a suggestion could be “Have a weekly check-in with your team where everyone reviews timelines, blockers, and priorities.” If their development area is around hitting deadlines, a suggestion could be “For the next five projects, spend extra time estimating the work.”

What “killing it” would look like. Don’t underestimate your reports by letting them settle for good enough. Work backward from what the perfect next six to 12 months would look like, and describe that in this section. Don’t expect anyone to achieve this, but give people space — and inspiration — to stretch.

Ambitious people want to know not just how to get better, but how to blow it out of the water. Paint that picture for your direct reports — what would “killing it” look like by the next performance review?

Timeline to next level:

Finally, leave your report with a sense of how far they are from the next “level.” Even if you don’t have official levels at your company, including a meaningful milestone for your report to be excited about reaching (such as becoming a manager, expanding the scope, or a title change). There are three common archetypes of situations here:

So close: These people are right on the edge but didn’t quite make it. I use an estimate of six to 12 months (assuming you meet every six months to evaluate performance), and when appropriate verbally share that it’s likely much closer to six months.

Just got promoted: These people are not too worried about reaching the next level, so be super realistic about how long it’ll likely take. I normally say 12 to 18 months.

Doing fine: This is the most common case, and it’s generally going to be six to 12 months.

STEP 2: DELIVER

There’s a lot more to performance reviews than simply sharing the rating, development areas, and change in the comp – how it’s delivered, and the conversation that it sparks is a vital part of making change happen. I’ve had performance reviews where I received a low rating, but I left energized and motivated. I’ve also had reviews where I got an amazing rating but left unsure about my future. That’s because people want context, clarity, and most of all, next steps.

How you message the feedback — and how your direct report feels afterwards — is often more important than the actual content itself.

Here are a few tips for prepping yourself to deliver the performance review:

Schedule it: I book 45 minutes on my direct report’s calendar for the performance conversation. I’ve tried 30 minute and 60 minutes, but there’s something about 45 that seems to work particularly well. Put it on the calendar as soon as you can, partly to let your report know it’s coming, and partly to create a forcing function for yourself. I generally book an extra 30 minutes for myself before the meeting to prep (whether that’s printing out copies, reviewing the key points, or rehearsing the flow).

Prep your narrative: Either in your notes or in your head, script out how you’re going to walk through the review. I have a few suggestions below for how to kick things off and the sequence to follow, but figure out what works best for you. Don’t show up without at least thinking through your intro and the sequence of key points — “winging it” is not a good strategy here.

Send ahead: On the day of the chat, I generally email the doc a few hours prior to the meeting. I find this gives the person time to process the content, instead of reacting real-time in the moment. It also usually leads to a richer discussion during the meeting. I’ll caveat that this isn’t always a great idea, particularly if the report will be very surprised or disappointed with the review, so do what feels right for your situation.

Bring paper copies: This is a small thing, but I’ve found it to be very impactful. I print out two copies of this doc, one for me and one for my report. I bring them to the meeting, along with a highlighter, which I use to highlight important points that come out of our discussion. The physicality of the paper adds an important dimension, keeping the conversation focused and grounded in the facts.

With that prep work taken care of, here’s how I generally sequence the conversation in the room:

Intro: I start each conversation by lightening the mood and checking in with how the person is doing. Everyone is going to be on edge — find a way to make it feel a little less intense. Then share some context about the chat:

Make it clear this is very much a conversation, and that it’s okay to fire off questions and thoughts as you’re going through it together.

Remind them how seriously you take these opportunities to talk about career development, highlighting how much time and effort you’ve put into it.

Share a brief agenda of the meeting, touching on how you’ll walk through the review, share any compensation updates, and leave plenty of time for Q&A.

Share the rating: Some sort of rating scale is generally helpful for reports to get a concrete sense of where they are, so if you don’t have this yet at your org consider introducing it by the next cycle. I try to share the person’s rating as early as possible in the conversation. This is the most immediate thing on people’s mind and I find people don’t fully pay attention until they know how they “officially” did. If it’s not an amazing rating, address that, but don’t dwell on it for too long. Instead move forward, so that you can spend time talking through the opportunities to level up. As much as possible, make sure the performance rating doesn’t come as a total surprise. Your report should generally know how they’re doing through regular chats throughout the year. If the rating is really problematic, this part takes special care and attention and often involves working closely with HR.

Dive in: Walkthrough the doc. If you sent it ahead of time, and the person read it, then just hit the big points. Pause along the way and ask if everything makes sense or if they disagree with anything. Make sure you’re watching the time, and spend at least two-thirds of the meeting on the details within the development areas. When you get to the tough stuff, I’d encourage you to be open and vulnerable. When possible, share personal experiences of when you yourself worked on these very same development areas, what struggles you had, and how you overcame them. The more this feels like you are on their side and there to help them succeed (instead of judging or berating them), the more likely they’ll accept the feedback.

A few common reactions to watch out for during the conversation:

Gets defensive or upset: If you notice this, hear them out and truly listen to their point. There’s always a chance you missed or misinterpreted something. Even if you didn’t, you want to give them a chance to share their perspective. If it starts going in circles though, try to zoom out and move on to the next point. Don’t get stuck on one issue. If it’s still a problem at the end of the conversation, and you haven’t been swayed, stand behind your opinion. Make it clear that it’s okay if you disagree. Talk about next steps, and agree to see how things go over the next six to 12 months.

Goes quiet: This is the most typical reaction. The review is a lot of information to take in at once, so most people are in listening and processing mode, which is fine. But, if it feels too quiet, simply point it out, e.g. “I’m noticing you’re really quiet, I just want to make sure this is all making sense? Any thoughts or questions before we keep going?”

Looks dejected or overwhelmed: This sometimes happens when you have way too much information to share, or the review is negative. In these cases, slow down. Keep checking in. I sometimes stop the review conversation and pivot to a heart-to-heart. Find out what’s going on with the person. Sometimes they take it much harder than they need to. Sometimes they have other stuff going on in their life that’s showing up here. Come back to the human-to-human connection and don’t worry about getting through every nuance and detail of the review.

Share compensation updates (if there are any): Finally, share any compensation updates. This normally ends things on a happy note. Keep it simple, share the facts, and congratulate the person on the achievement. It’s easy for employees to take a raise for granted and not treat it as a big deal, so use it as an opportunity to remind them how much you value their great work.

Leave time for discussion: Then, open it up to any remaining questions and thoughts. Is there anything your report disagrees with? Is there anything they want to dive into further? Is there any more clarity you can give around expectations for the next cycle? Try to give this at least five minutes. That being said, I try not to linger here too long if there isn’t anything pressing, especially if things seem to be in a good place. Often folks need time to process and think about everything they’ve heard, and you can follow up on it in future 1:1s.

Follow-up action plan: Finally, turn this discussion into an action plan (you’ll find guidance on how to do this below). This will allow you to channel all of the ideas, motivation, and momentum into an ongoing structured discussion that holds both of you accountable to making a change.

Outro: Find a way to wrap it up to end on a positive note. Remind them how valuable they are to the company (if they are), how much you enjoy working with them (if you do), and how much potential they have at your company (if they do). And last but not least, let them know that if anything comes up until you chat next, to not hesitate to ping you.

STEP 3: FOLLOW-UP

As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

We want to believe our carefully-chosen words of wisdom are interpreted correctly and seared into the minds of our reports. It’s safer to assume they aren’t.

Early in my management career, I had a report that was underperforming. I put hours into preparing for our performance chat. I identified development areas, included numerous examples, and shared tons of suggestions. I talked through it in our hour-long meeting. I felt like I made a real impact. A month later, I revisited our discussion and it felt as though it never happened. My direct report had vague memories of a few points I had mentioned, and a clear desire to improve, but 95% of the message was lost.

At that moment I learned two lessons. One, it’s my fault as a manager if my report doesn’t remember what development areas to be focusing on. Two, I was treating the performance conversation as the end, when it’s really only the beginning of the performance development process.

The solution to both of these problems is simple — set aside dedicated time to check-in, and hold each other accountable. Here’s how you make this happen:

Create a two-sided action plan: Building off the performance review document, at the end of your conversation (see above), ask your report to list five to seven concrete actions they want to work on over the next six months and add them into a super simple spreadsheet. Give them a week to do this, while it’s still fresh in their minds. Here’s a template you can use, and a few examples:

Alongside this list, make sure they also include what they need from you in order to be successful. It’s important that your report owns this process and chooses the items (with input from you) because they’ll need to be motivated to actually work on these things. The list should be made up of concrete suggestions you noted in their performance review, things your report personally wants to work on, and things that your report needs from you in order to be successful. Put a status color next to each item, and update it every month.

Schedule a one-hour monthly check-in: Put this meeting on the calendar immediately. I call it “Monthly Career Coaching,” to distinguish it from our weekly 1:1s. The focus of these meetings is to step back from the day-to-day and focus on career and performance development. No talk of how a project is going, upcoming deadlines, or blockers (that’s for the 1:1s). Remind your report ahead of each meeting to update their spreadsheet with status and any new discussion items they’d like to make time for.

During the Career Coaching hour: In this meeting, you have three goals:

1. Check in to see how your report is making progress on their development areas.

2. Make sure they have everything they need to in order to move the ball forward.

3. Ensure the list of action items they’re focusing on is still the right list.

The meeting should be mostly you listening, asking questions, and (when really necessary) offering suggestions. Your report should lead the meeting — go through each item in the action plan, share a brief update, and align on the status color. I find most of the time my report is right-on with their assessment. If you disagree, discuss it. Throughout the discussion, instead of telling your reports exactly what to do, help them figure it out for themselves. When asked for the answer or advice, turn it around and ask “What do you think the right approach is?” or “Before I answer, what do you think?” (This book from David Rock and Julie Zhuo’s writing have taught me a lot about how to be a better manager by asking good questions.)

Between chats: Keep track of instances where your report did well, didn’t do well, or generally did something noteworthy. Share these things with your report in real-time as much as you can, or in weekly 1:1s, but also save them in a running file. For example, “July 10th – Ran an excellent meeting with senior execs,” or “Sept 3 – Put together a very strong strategy for Q3,” or even feedback from others (“Jan 4th – Spike shared with me how impressed he is with Jane’s ability to run a meeting.”) I keep a separate Google Doc for each of my reports for this purpose. In addition to Google Docs, there are neat feedback and performance management tools like Matter, Culture Amp, and TINYpulse that can help you keep tabs on performance throughout the year.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

As a manager, the best feeling in the world is watching your direct reports grow. I’ll never forget a junior PM that came to our team with a considerable gap in their collaboration skills. After identifying that development area, working together through the process above, and then revisiting it six months later I was thrilled to see nearly every instance of peer feedback call out that this was no longer an issue — and in fact, this report’s development area had turned into a strength. All it took was infusing performance reviews with more structure, attention, and intention.

Here’s a recap of the process:

1. Prepare

Gather direct feedback — from your report, and from their coworkers

Capture their accomplishments

Describe their “superpower”

Write a short high-level summary of their performance

Identify 1-2 development areas, with examples, concrete suggestions, and what “killing it” would look like

Share a timeline for their next career milestone

2. Deliver

Schedule it

Prep the narrative, bring paper copies

Break the ice

Share their rating

Walkthrough the details, spending the most time on the development areas

Share compensation

Create a follow-up action plan

Leave time for discussion

3. Follow-up

Schedule a one-hour monthly coaching chat

Review the action items together, adjust as things progress

Capture and share examples of what’s going well and isn’t throughout the year

Even if your company already has an established feedback or performance review process, you can easily map this system onto that process. I find that there’s a lot of room for managers to have a more bespoke, personal approach that persists through cycles and organizational changes. Don’t just take the forms and talking points from on high and have a perfunctory conversation. Put in the legwork. You’ll notice the impact immediately, and be on your way to becoming a better manager.

Huge shout out to Vlad Loktev for too many things to name, including his contributions to this post, and to Helen Sims, Yelena Rachitsky, Eric Ruth, and Brett Hellman for reviewing early drafts.

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager This article is by Lenny Rachitsky, a former product lead at Airbnb. Back when I was a young PM, one of my managers altered the trajectory of my career.

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jinsoulsscalp · 6 years ago

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INTRODUCING . . . . . . ATOZI

nicknamed the ‘people’s girl group’, atozi is a 44-member girl group that debuted in 2017. named to sound like a-to-z, the group claims to be able to do everything under the sun. atozi members were first introduced on a survival show, and then promptly ranked, and fans have complete control over the group-- from who is in what subunits, to what concepts they do, to what positions they’re in. every so often, they are put on another survival show and promptly re-ranked. the full group promotes under the name ‘atozi opal’, with the units being named after colors and the subunits being named after birds. made with @parallelwcrlds; i’ve only outlined my own characters below.

for member profiles, please click the read-more.

TSUNADE

full name: nakajima tsunade age: 22 sexuality: bisexual position grade: vocalist (d grade) historical ranks: round one: #16 round two: #23 round three: #24 round four: #1 round five: #1 round six: #1 units: atozi marmelade: visual & lead dancer atozi peacock: maknae & vocalist atozi rosella: visual & performer fc: mina (twice) ship status: singleship open notes: -very pretty but lacks personality -her lack of anything real makes it easy for her to fit any concept -she was fading into the background until a *sexy* concept challenge catapulted her to #1

RAEGAN

full name: jo rayeon age: 22 sexuality: lesbian position grade: dancer (a grade) historical ranks: round one: #15 round two: #3 round three: #2 round four: #5 round five: #6 round six: #5 units: atozi cobalt: main dancer & lead vocalist fc: yves (loona) ship status: reserved for ( @parallelwcrlds )

notes: -big gay energy -one of the most consistently high members of atozi -very confident, but not in an annoying way

CHUNHUA

full name: zhang chunhua age: 25 sexuality: lesbian position grade: rapper (a grade) historical ranks: round one: #13 round two: #2 round three: #3 round four: #4 round five: #7 round six: #6 units: atozi cobalt: main rapper atozi hummingbird: main rapper additionally: opal’s rap captain fc: ciel (mera) ship status: singleship open

notes: -was a solo rapper in china before being scouted to atozi’s company -became very popular due to her well-rounded skills and no-nonsense personality -her 10+ years of experience rapping earned her the rap captain title

MINAE

full name: lee minae age: 28 sexuality: bi position grade: vocalist (a grade) historical ranks: round one: #10 round two: #24 round three: #30 round four: #32 round five: #3 round six: #7 units: atozi garnet: leader & main vocalist additionally: opal’s leader & vocal captain fc: yuna (aoa) ship status: singleship open

notes: -one of atozi’s parent company’s longest trainees -dipped in popularity rounds 3&4 because she had a breakdown over not being higher despite her skill level -is one of the most nurturing and responsible members -leeah’s older sister

EEHOO

full name: jung eehoo age: 19 sexuality: pan position grade: dancer (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #3 round two: #5 round three: #5 round four: #6 round five: #4 round six: #9 units: atozi bubblegum: lead rapper & lead dancer fc: lua (weki meki) ship status: singleship open

notes: -the 4d happy virus of atozi -absolute goofball (dahyun meets yoojung honestly) -her positivity and goofiness has kept her consistently in the top

HIBIKI

full name: fukui hibiki age: 24 sexuality: lesbian position grade: dancer (a grade) historical ranks: round one: #5 round two: #6 round three: #8 round four: #10 round five: #14 round six: #11 units: atozi bubblegum: main dancer & sub rapper atozi rosella: main dancer & rapper fc: momo (twice) ship status: singleship open

notes: -one of atozi’s biggest lesbians, and absolutely does not hide it in front of the cameras -spends all her time practicing her dancing, making her one of the more versatile dancers

SERIM

full name: boo serim age: 18 sexuality: straight position grade: vocalist (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #8 round two: #16 round three: #15 round four: #20 round five: #17 round six: #12 units: atozi bubblegum: main vocalist fc: lara (dreamnote) ship status: singleship open

notes: -fans loved her during the first round, so much that they voted her into a vocal position that she cannot maintain live -often lipsyncs and is ashamed of that but doesn't have the vocal capacity not to

HAZEL

full name: hazel moon age: 24 sexuality: bi position grade: vocalist (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #11 round two: #17 round three: #6 round four: #8 round five: #11 round six: #13 units: atozi lime: visual & main vocalist atozi peacock: visual & main vocalist fc: bomi (girl crush) ship status: singleship open

notes: -atozi’s resident sexy member -particularly popular for being especially risque on camera and on social media -absolutely shameless

EUIJOO

full name: gong euijoo age: 15 sexuality: pan position grade: rapper (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #12 round two: #26 round three: #26 round four: #23 round five: #22 round six: #19 units: atozi marmelade: maknae & lead rapper additionally: opal’s lead rapper fc: hanbyeol (dreamnote) ship status: singleship open

notes: -the baby of atozi and full of energy -she’s not the best rapper yet, but she works hard and is willing to learn, and has energy and confidence, so shes improving quickly (think blackpink lisa)

MIHYE

full name: bang mihye age: 20 sexuality: pan position grade: vocalist (a grade) historical ranks: round one: #40 round two: #33 round three: #27 round four: #36 round five: #35 round six: #21 units: atozi garnet: main vocalist fc: bora (cherry bullet) ship status: singleship open

notes: -headstrong and stubborn -was ranked low initially because she seemed like kind of an ass, but really tries hard to get along with all the members -minae’s shadow-- determined to learn everything she can from her

HEEJUNG

full name: nam heejung age: 18 sexuality: bi position grade: vocalist (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #43 round two: #34 round three: #37 round four: #34 round five: #21 round six: #23 units: atozi garnet: lead vocalist & sub-rapper fc: chaeyeon (iz*one) ship status: singleship open

notes: -heejo’s older sister-- the two are super competitive -during the survival shows they are always neck in neck, and seem to be in a competition of their own rather than a full blown survival show sometimes -heejung’s vocals are a little weaker than heejo’s, but heejung is more charismatic

HEEJO

full name: nam heejo age: 16 sexuality: straight position grade: vocalist (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #42 round two: #35 round three: #38 round four: #33 round five: #20 round six: #24 units: atozi garnet: maknae & lead vocalist fc: chaeryeong (itzy) ship status: singleship open

notes: -heejung’s younger sister-- the two are incredibly competitive -she and her sister initially ranked quite low because fans were annoyed that they were only ever competing with each other, but they rose in the ranks as it became more charming -heejo is a stronger vocalist, and could be even better if she didn’t refuse most help

KANA

full name: maki kana age: 26 sexuality: straight position grade: dancer (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #35 round two: #41 round three: #44 round four: #39 round five: #31 round six: #26 units: atozi garnet: lead dancer & sub-vocalist atozi rosella: leader, main dancer & lead vocalist fc: harumi (egirls) ship status: singleship open

notes: -strong silent type -was a member of a large jpop group as a preteen before she ‘graduated’ when she was 15; she came to korea shortly after -she loves to perform and knows basically nothing else.

KYUNGHYE

full name: baek kyunghye age: 18 sexuality: pan position grade: dancer (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #25 round two: #27 round three: #28 round four: #41 round five: #8 round six: #29 units: atozi garnet: main dancer fc: miso (dreamnote) ship status: singleship open

notes: -the ‘relateable idol’; has a strong following because she shirks most beauty standards in favor of comfort and leisure -great sense of humor

CHERRY

full name: matsuoka sakura age: 27 sexuality: pan position grade: vocalist (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #31 round two: #19 round three: #10 round four: #30 round five: #33 round six: #30 units: atozi lime: lead dancer atozi rosella: main vocalist fc: yukika ship status: singleship open

notes: -an ex-member of two disbanded kpop groups and a show about kpop groups (like idolmaster.kr-- sakura is very much a fictional japanese version of mintty tbh) -she refuses to quit and sometimes could be considered the heart of the group -always there for a pep talk

LEEAH

full name: lee ahnae age: 23 sexuality: lesbian position grade: rapper (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #33 round two: #38 round three: #40 round four: #25 round five: #12 round six: #31 units: atozi marmelade: sub-rapper & sub-vocalist fc: seoyul (berry good) ship status: singleship open

notes: -minae’s younger sister -always feels overshadowed by minae, very much feels invisible, or like the least talented sibling -insecure and a little bitter, but works hard

CHIASA

full name: tsukada chiasa age: 17 sexuality: pan position grade: dancer (d grade) historical ranks: round one: #32 round two: #20 round three: #36 round four: #31 round five: #41 round six: #32 units: atozi orchid: maknae & lead vocalist atozi rosella: maknae, lead dancer & lead vocalist fc: kokoro (cherry bullet) ship status: singleship open

notes: -so, so, so, so loud -she’s like a dog that won’t shut up -she has some throat issues, and could be a really good vocalist if her voice didn’t cut in and out at weird times

MINJOO

full name: wong mingzhu age: 20 sexuality: bi position grade: dancer (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #34 round two: #20 round three: #35 round four: #38 round five: #40 round six: #36 units: atozi orchid: lead dancer atozi hummingbird: lead dancer fc: blair (mera) ship status: singleship open

notes: -was a model in china as a teenager, but decided she didn’t want to pursue that into adulthood -very easily intimidated and overwhelmed -has some big boi anxiety

BOHYUNG

full name: seo bohyung age: 26 sexuality: lesbian position grade: dancer (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #17 round two: #25 round three: #19 round four: #17 round five: #25 round six: #38 units: atozi lime: leader & main dancer fc: jini (gbb) ship status: singleship open

notes: -honestly could do well as a comedian -class clown-- always there with a quick witty joke -really likes covering boy group choreography

SORANO

full name: fujimoto sorano age: 28 sexuality: bi position grade: vocalist (d rank) historical ranks: round one: #7 round two: #13 round three: #22 round four: #29 round five: #32 round six: #39 units: atozi bubblegum: lead vocalist atozi rosella: performer fc: yume (carat) ship status: singleship open

notes: -very quirky and alternative-- was popular at first, until videos started spreading of her bleaching her eyebrows and cutting her own bangs, prompting fans to think she’d lost it -very secure in herself and how she likes doing things -quiet; speaks only when she feels like she needs to

IRA

full name: maira tupkunanon age: 25 sexuality: lesbian position grade: dancer (c grade) historical ranks: round one: #28 round two: #42 round three: #33 round four: #21 round five: #30 round six: #42 units: atozi marmelade: main dancer fc: milk (candy mafia) ship status: singlehship open

notes: -is honestly just happy to be here and be part of something great -is the quintessential big sister she’ll drive you to the mall or buy you booze or something -sneaker enthusiast

RILEY

full name: riley kim age: 21 sexuality: lesbian position grade: rapper (b grade) historical ranks: round one: #36 round two: #43 round three: #41 round four: #44 round five: #37 round six: #43 units: atozi garnet: visual & main rapper fc: elly (weki meki) ship status: singleship open

notes: -brash, opinionated, loud, stubborn, and a little rude -talented rapper who had a decent underground career before switching gears to idol training with atozi’s company -consistently in the bottom-- she thinks its because she’s a ‘real rapper’ and ‘idols can’t handle that’, but really, it’s because of her attitude. -surprise surprise-- that attitude is a defense mechanism bc she insecure as heck

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tvgnetwork · 6 years ago

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$2,000,000 Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) – Churchill Downs

Race 8 (Saturday, November 3: 3:36 p.m./ET; 12:36 p.m./PT)

Mile on turf (three-year-olds and upward)

The Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) features a contentious and large field that figures to make the race an excellent betting affair, as evidenced by #4 POLYDREAM being the lukewarm 5/1 morning line favorite. We begin our analysis with one of many European runners shipping in for this prestigious event:

#1 ONE MASTER (GB) is a four-year-old colt by FASTNET ROCK that has won two races in a row, including a nose victory at 47/1 in the Prix de la Foret (G1) in France. He makes his first start going farther than seven furlongs in this spot and top European jockey James Doyle flies in to ride. Worthy of a second look.

#2 NEXT SHARES is another one that was a longshot victor in his last start, the Shadwell Turf Mile (G1), in which the Richard Baltas trainee stalked the pace before pulling clear of his competition at odds of 23/1. Keep in mind that this guy finished behind #10 CATAPAULT in two starts earlier this year. If he can duplicate that last run at Keeneland (which was a ‘freak’ effort), then he is in with a chance, but I’m thinking he might bounce.

#3 HAPPILY (IRE) suffered a tough loss to classy filly LAURENS in the Sun Chariot Stakes (G1) at Newmarket on October 6 and ships in for trainer Aidan O’Brien, who is still seeking his first ever victory in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. This daughter of GALILEO has failed to win in six starts in 2018 and also note that she faces older males here. Others look more attractive.

#4 POLYDREAM (IRE) defeated talent European turfers JAMES GARFIELD and next out winner THE TIN MAN in the seven furlong Maurice de Gheest (G1) before taking two months off and running poorly in her most recent start, the Prix de la Foret (G1). Another three-year-old filly facing older male turf horses, this gal has failed to win in two starts going a mile while running her best races over seven furlongs. The main handicapping question becomes…is the last furlong going to compromise her chances?

#5 OSCAR PERFORMANCE is a perfect three-for-three going a mile on turf and looks like one of the strongest Americans in the field. The Brian Lynch trainee most recently won the Woodbine Mile (G1) but defeated a much softer group than what he finds here. The forecast calls for rain earlier in the week so the turf may come up wet, but his one try on yielding ground as a two-year-old resulted in a six length win in a Grade 3. That said, his only try over this Churchill Downs grass course was a 15-length loss.

#6 ALMANAAR (GB) sat midfield in the Shadwell Turf Mile (G1) and faded badly in the final three furlongs, finishing well behind #2 NEXT SHARES. He ran a decent second in the mile-and-a-quarter Arlington Million (G1) to stablemate and Breeders Cup Turf contender (G1) ROBERT BRUCE two starts ago and, three starts back, won an allowance race in his first start off a long layoff after winning the Gulfstream Park Turf (G1) in 2017. May be better with a little more distance.

#7 EXPERT EYE (GB) freshens up after a respectable third place finish in the Moulin de Longchamp (G1) in France going this one-mile distance in September. Note he finished behind #11 LIGHTNING SPEAR in the Sussex Stakes (G1) earlier in the year, and his biggest win came in a Group 3 going seven furlongs. That said, trainer Sir Michael Stoute, who conditions this colt, is a world-renowned trainer that knows where to spot his horses in places where they can win. We’ll tab him as a contender.

#8 I CAN FLY (GB) raced over soft ground in the Queen Elizabeth II (G1) last time out and only lost by a nose to ROARING LION, a Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) entrant and a top turf miler in Europe. Like stablemate #3 HAPPILY, she faces older foes and males in this spot, but she certainly held her own against older in the Queen Elizabeth II (G1) just two weeks ago. If she repeats that effort, she has a massive chance.

#9 HUNT (IRE) scratched.

#10 CATAPULT was terrific in his last two races, the Eddie Read (G2) and the Del Mar Mile (G1) this summer. He has clocked a number of sharp workouts in prepping for this race while coming off a two-and-a-half month break for trainer John Sadler, who scores at an 11% clip with runners making their first start off a 61-180 day freshening. Looks like the best West Coast turf miler in the field.

#11 LIGHTNING SPEAR (GB) will make his debut on Lasix while racing in the United States for the first time as well. In August, he won the Sussex Stakes (G1), defeating #7 EXPERT EYE, but finished behind the aforementioned rival in the Moulin de Longchamp (G1) one month later. Most recently, he ran seventh behind ROARING LION and #8 I CAN FLY in the Queen Elizabeth II (G1). Recent form is concerning but will the first time Lasix angle help him get over the top?

#12 ANALYZE IT stalked the pace before weakening as the favorite in the Shadwell Turf Mile (G1) last month, finishing five lengths behind #2 NEXT SHARES. Earlier this year, he finished just a head and neck behind Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) contender CATHOLIC BOY in a duo of races. Note this three-year-old colt has lost four times in a row as the favorite, so he has burned plenty of money this year. Playing against.

#13 GUSTAV KLIMT (IRE) races on Lasix for the first time for trainer Aidan O’Brien and his top rider, Ryan Moore. Most recently, the son of GALILEO ran fourth, beaten a length-and-a-half to #1 ONE MASTER in the Prix de la Foret (G1). This guy is 0-for-five going a mile, with most of his better races coming in seven-furlong races. Passing.

#14 MUSTASHRY (GB) is another European racing on Lasix for the first time. He looks for his third win in a row here as he’s won two straight Group 2 races in Great Britain. He is three-for-four this year, so he’s in great form, and is the second entrant for world-class conditioner Sir Michael Stoute. He’ll have to overcome the poor post position, but this one is an interesting item.

#15 DIVISIDERO is the first of two also eligibles, but does draw in due to the scratch of HUNT. His biggest win this year came in a Grade 3 (he did win a Grade I in 2016), and he does like this turf course, but no doubt he has seen better days. Will go off at a big price.

#16 CLEMMIE (IRE) will need two defections to get into the race. She has failed to win in all five starts this year and showed a bit more as a two-year-old in 2017. Like #15 DIVISIDERO, she has the look of a big longshot.

SELECTIONS

#8 I CAN FLY – Effort behind Roaring Lion was a beauty.

#7 EXPERT EYE – Ran very well in a Group 1 overseas last month.

#5 OSCAR PERFORMANCE – May prove tough to reel in if given an easy lead.

LONGSHOT VALUE PLAY- #14 MUSTASHRY – Poor post but a talented colt for a top trainer.

WAGER STRATEGY

I’ll play all four of my picks in one big exacta box and play my remaining two bucks to win on my top pick.

BANKROLL PLAY ($50 Budget)

$4 Exacta Box: #5 OSCAR PERFORMANCE and #7 EXPERT EYE and #8 I CAN FLY and #14 MUSTASHRY ($48).

$2 Win: #8 I CAN FLY

The post $2,000,000 Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) – Churchill Downs appeared first on TVG BLOG.

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reinofeed-blog · 7 years ago

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ReinoFeed

A Short Review About Best Screen Recorders

Relating to gaming, special peripherals give PC avid gamers a aggressive edge over their rivals. Keyboards and mice are the weapons of alternative for many who play on their computers, versus gamepads for those who play on consoles. Gaming keyboards are specialised hardware that focus not on typing, however on the keys that control the video games, especially MMORPGs and first-individual shooters. There are a couple of hardware producers who've capitalized on this; the main companies are Razer, Logitech and SteelSeries. They've a lot of products in the market catering to this area of interest.

The very best gaming keyboard has to have responsive keys, good ergonomics and even backlighting to verify the person can quickly react to any motion they see on-display. These keyboards also have to be comfortable to make use of, in addition to have recordable macro capabilities which are very helpful for individuals who play MMORPGs incessantly. Logitech's G110, in accordance with many reviewers, has all of those capabilities and extra. It additionally has built-in USB audio with separate headphone and microphone jacks. This helps gamers who voice chat on-line, especially in shooters the place fast communication is necessary. It additionally has media controls, together with quantity control. Lastly, the keyboard has twelve programmable keys with three macros per key, making this a must have for many who play online titles equivalent to World of Warcraft.

Microsoft SideWinder X6 is one other notable product. It has comparable options, but additionally has a "sport mode" that highlights special keys with various colours, making them simpler to focus on. It has an interesting choice referred to as "cruise management" Thor Ragnarok that continues an action with out the consumer having to carry down the important thing or keys assigned to that motion. Finally, it has additional software program that detects the game that is being performed and adjusts its profiles based mostly on the title.

Razer's Arctosa is a extremely-rated product on this area of interest. It has all of the options different keyboards have in a special design that ends in responsive typing and high ranges of consolation. The product has a detachable wrist rest and media keys. Its promoting point is its 1ms response time; this makes the keyboard the quickest in its class, letting avid gamers make cut up-second selections that rather more quicker.

There are lots of gaming keyboards in the market, and these are probably the most notable ones. The perfect gaming keyboard cannot be decided upon, seeing as how they're all great at what they do - giving players the aggressive edge they want. Finest Gaming Keyboards In The Market.

Individuals buy the iPhone not just because it is a pretty wanting phone but additionally as a result of it has a multitude of different functions. One among these is having the ability to play video games via the usage of downloading totally different purposes. These apps can turn your iPhone right into a gamer's paradise.

The first app is comparatively low cost at lower than a dollar and is Doodle Jump. It's a very simple sport to be taught where your levels go up and your score does as nicely. It appears that you shoot little dots from your marker or pen to attack the drawn out area ships. All of the graphics appear like they had been drawn by someone to give it an artistic feel with different scenery options and settings for the levels.

Chopper is another game that you might get drawn into and find yourself spending numerous hours enjoying. You're operating a helicopter with a mission to try to save as most of the civilians that you can. Bombs and bullets are a vital a part of this game as you try to defeat the enemy who is harming your individuals. It actually takes advantage of the built in elements of the iPhone in its aspect scrolling motions.

One other free sport that will don't have any issues sucking you in is named Unblock me. It is a simple concept with a bunch of blocks being on display screen with one in every of them darker than the others. The blocks all kind a traffic jam along with your goal to try to get this block or "automobile" out of the jam. You use the touch display interface to move the blocks round merely and shortly without having any issues. You possibly can even set personal data for the number of moves it takes you to get your block free for each stage and attempt to beat those.

There are a whopping 200 ranges on the free model however if you happen to're simply that good and find yourself out of ranges for a small ninety nine cent charge you can get the opposite levels for a total of 2,000 challenging levels which is able to amuse you for hours and even days on end.

Fans of shooter games will wish to you'll want to obtain DOOM Resurrection.

It is just like the pc sport Doom and the graphics that are used on the iPhone are excellent and some folks would have by no means thought these to be ever doable. You're a marine that's compelled to fight off hell whilst you attack every thing that appears on the display screen. Obviously it is not as extensive because the PC model however you will find it works whenever you want something to occupy a while and it does it quite effectively. This carries a price ticket of $6.ninety nine.

Loopy Machines is a bit cheaper at $2.ninety nine and is a distinct kind of recreation totally. Machines have to be built within the game with a wide range of simple family objects to use the principles of physics to get the ball within the hoop for example. There are 70 levels to challenge your thoughts right here.

By no means kind or fashion can words describe how I really feel in regards to the South. So when me and a buddy of mine from New York was having a heated dialogue in South Seashore in regards to the 5 greatest southern rap songs of all time. I really started to think about this topic very deeply. So after giving it some deep thought and successful the argument with my pal, here is what I got here up with...

1. My Thoughts Enjoying Tricks On Me - This song by the Ghetto Boys from the 1991 album "We Cannot Be Stopped" is primary on the checklist for one cause. The intro to the tune alone makes this record stand out more so than anything. "I stand alone in my four cornered room staring at candles", this verse by Scarface, is likely one of the strongest lyrics that I've ever heard. As this nice track talks about how a person is dropping his thoughts, paranoid, and assume that he's going loopy, was a subject matter that was never heard of earlier than from the South.

The beat is so catchy and is by far the most effective rap songs period. With the mix of Willie D, Bushwick Invoice, & Scarface forming the Ghetto Boys, this diverse group of MCs proved to the world that the South was a region to be reckoned with. This track sampled the 1974 hit by the late nice Issac Hayes "Hung Up On My Bay" and is nothing but pure genius and a basic.

2. Me So Horny - This 1989 track by the Two Live Crew on the album "As Nasty As We Wanna Be" put Miami, as we all know it on the map. This track is so catchy and unforgettable that there isn't any means that you would not listen to this file and get hypnotized by the music. This beat alone is enough to put you in a trance because it was a pattern by the well-known 70`s funk group Mass Manufacturing.

With sure fireplace horns and a hard bass line made this music shoot straight to #1 on the US Billboard Sizzling Rap Tracks in 1989. And though this report did not get hardly any airplay on the radio, because of the controversial nature of specific lyrics by Luther Cambell, Brother Marques, Fresh Child Ice & DJ Mr. Combine, it nonetheless did not stop the album from selling over 2,000,000 information across the nation.

Me So Horny was so controversial that report store owners in South Florida have been banned from promoting this file in their report shops. The lyrics me so sexy was a pattern from the 1987 movie Full Steel Jacket, and with mixture of the 2 samples by Two Reside Crew, that is what makes this record the most effective in this category.

3. Rosa Parks - There is no denying that this 1998 track by Outkast off of the album Aquemini was a recreation changer for not solely the group, but for the South normally. With the mix of funk, soul, rock, poetry, jazz, blues, and spoken word, this tune took Andre 3000 and Huge Boi to another stage. Mostly every fan and hip-hop artist acknowledges this song as being nothing wanting a traditional.

This beat and instrumentation combined with a circulation so chilly by Andre 3000 & Massive Boi made this song top-of-the-line that the south has ever produced. Whenever you heard this music taking part in on the radio or within the membership there was no means that you could not dance to it. The Source Journal out of New York, known for it is bias views at the time in opposition to any hip hop music that wasn't from New York, even had to bow down and give this album a five mic score. Sufficient said!

four. Back That Thang Up - This tune is the 1999 hit single off of the album 400 Degreez by Juvenile. Do you keep in mind what you were doing at the moment when this tune was being played in every nightclub, radio station and TV display across America? This tune was so infectious that every girl in America was backing that thang up within the streets and nightclubs across country. Often known as the second single off of the 1998 release of four hundred Degreez.

This music by far was the one that catapulted Juvenile and Cash Cash Information to hip hop stardom. The lyrical fashion of Juvenile blended with the up tempo bounce sound, mixed with heavy bass and horns, was something that no one has ever heard of in hip hop before that time. The production by DJ Mannie Recent on this song alone shows and proves no doubt that not solely is this track a work of art. But if taking the country by storm was a criminal offense, then this document would get life in prison. Saying that this report is a classic is an understatement.

5. Lollipop - How might we forget this 2008 classic off of Tha Carter three album by Lil Wayne & Static Major. Lollipop was a song that Static Main (Rest In Peace) had written for his personal upcoming album featuring Lil Wayne, however determined on the final minute to offer it to Lil Wayne, and the rest as we all know it is historical past. Licensed 5X Platinum by the RIAA, this song spent 5 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard Non one hundred Charts and was Lil Wayne`s biggest file of to date.

Produced by Jim Jonsin and Deezle, Lollipop reached #1 on the 2008 concern of Notarized by BET. Static Major died 2 weeks before the track's release and by no means got to see the impact of one of the greatest rap and R&B data that was ever produced. It`s very seldom that you may hear a tune just one time and be hooked. That was the impact Lollipop had on anybody who got here within earshot of this tune. The melody is so catchy and melodic that you knew that you simply were hearing something very particular if you heard this music. No one can deny that Lollipop deserves to be on this checklist.

Firstly, what we have to have a look at is what do the words "gaming keyboard" truly mean. Properly I'll let you know that it's precisely what you assume it's. It is a keyboard for gaming. Now with most people it stops there because they suppose that just because it's a gaming keyboard it will possibly only be used for gaming and nothing else. They do not realise that a gaming keyboard can be used for way more than just gaming. So this article is aimed toward giving some recommendation in regards to choosing the right gaming keyboard for you. I remember my first programmable gaming keyboard (the Logitech G15) and how I struggled with it.

The one cause why I wished it, was as a result of it was the best available on the market at the time and I felt for that reason I needed to personal one. I had completely no idea what to do with it or what I was going to make use of it for. I did nonetheless, nearly add another function to it's already impressive list of pre-put in options by illustrating simply how effective the keyboard could be in a recreation of cricket or anything involving a bat. It actually irritated me as a result of I did not need it for all of the functions and because they had been there, I felt I had to make use of all of them. I did use all of them in the long run, but that was solely as a result of I superior my recreation play and in doing so required extra features out of the keyboard.

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admobilize-blog1 · 8 years ago

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A Manifesto for OOH/DOOH: Demystifying ROI for Vehicle Analytics

February 7, 2017

The OOH, DOOH, and Digital Signage industries are showing quantifiable signs of entering a new renaissance. An era where technological innovation and the convergence of platforms will exponentially impact revenues, while trimming percentage points from expense lines. Consequently and by popular client demand, I decided to devise this brief document on the mathematical benefits of integrating Vehicle Analytics into your businesses including: operators, digital signage technology providers (CMS, media players, digital screens), agencies and brands.

Andy Grove was a disruptive leader at Intel and his thinking directly resonates on the state of our industry, we are at an inflection point. One clear example is what we have experienced at AdMobilize over the last year (posting growth of 2,500% year-over-year), but ever more salient over the past 6 months; clients want intelligence now and it has to be real-time, with the ability to integrate with other platforms. Trust us, it took a while for those early industry adopters to embrace the value of this category of technology, but now the floodgates have opened. As with any innovation / adoption curve, it takes time, but once that tipping point happens, there is really only two paths, embrace change or get left behind.

What is Vehicle Analytics?

For those of you first being exposed to this technology, in essence “Vehicle Analytics” is a turnkey technology which allows businesses to gather real-time analytics of all vehicles passing by their assets (large-format billboards, shelters, smart cities, to name a few). Consequently, you can measure year-round, 24-7, key metrics including:

Vehicle count

Detection zones

Average speed

Travel direction

Peak periods

All the data is available in real-time via an intuitive dashboard or can be extracted into CSV files or integrated into your own dashboards. Installation is basic and in the vast majority of scenarios only requires a camera, a computer, connectivity, and power. We analyze and process the stream of vehicles, and automatically layer the algorithms in real-time so it is reflected instantly on the dashboard.

“This seems overly complex, how can I trust the numbers? I have seen other companies trying to show me this and was unimpressed.”

You are most likely thinking these things so I will indulge in playing the role of “myth buster.” The behind the scenes machine learning technology and computer vision algorithms are insanely complex. It took us almost 2 years and our full team of PhD-heavy computer scientists to crack the code. We have seen competitors fall-off the face of the earth because their algorithms were lousy; we give credit to anyone attempting to solve these problems but it’s really hard. The technology is complex for several reasons and I am keeping it technically light:

Accuracy: Each board is different and each camera installation requires the algorithms to be trained and calibrated. The goal is to get as close to 100% accuracy of vehicle data being gathered, which our system has achieved.

Day & Night: As you can imagine, the change in sunlight, shadows, headlights, city lights all affect how the camera is capturing hundreds if not thousands of cars passing every minute. Our system automatically adapts to these environments in real-time to ensure close to 99%+ validity of the data.

Rush Hour: Oh rush hour. This problem kept our scientists busy for months in order to deal with occlusion limitations. We have clients in some of the most congested cities in the world and they needed the solution to work flawlessly. Hard to explain the celebration when we succeeded with the solution to this challenge.

Bandwidth: As expected, lots of data is being captured and analyzed in real-time. Another breakthrough for us was ensuring a “under 1 Gig” of data transfer per month per camera connected 24/7. It was hard work considering the sheer number of cars being accounted for and all happening and being displayed on the dashboard in real-time!

The subject of costs should be transparently communicated with you; this openness is one of the pillars of how we have earned the trust of our 100+ clients.

“This solution seems too expensive, and not scalable at all?”

One of our goals is the democratization of analytics to the entire industry. First, we wanted to resolve the complex technical challenges (completed) and then price the technology so it could be swiftly adopted. Each installation point requires the following:

One Camera

One Computer

Connectivity (existent in most digital boards)

Power (existent in most digital boards)

The total one-time hardware cost is $650. Our team has worked with dozens of camera manufacturers and PC providers to optimize our solution. Thus, a $650 one-time cost is not that inhibitive. Now, you might be thinking that we will charge you an expensive first-time setup cost for the dashboard, setting up for logins, etc…. Nope. The only other cost is $150 per month per camera. The $150 monthly fee per location is the subscription cost for the software, data, dashboard, ability to extract reports, and customer support.

“So how is the activation, machine training and installation process like?”

Hardware Acquisition: We acquire all the hardware equipment (at cost) for you and pre-configure the camera and PC prior to shipping.

Remote Set-up: We work with your installers to efficiently position the camera angle for optimal results.

Scene Training with Machine Learning: We utilize our cutting-edge and proprietary machine learning algorithms to train the angle, location, and traffic flow of that specific camera to ensure the highest accuracy.

Online Dashboard: We provide you with access to your dashboard and train you on accessing the data and reports.

Customer Support: We constantly monitor and communicate with you. Our customer support is awesome.

“Okay, so let’s do the math for a moment… for one digital billboard.”

Hardware cost: $650 (one-time) Software license: $1,800 (yearly) Installer expense: $50 (one-time install, usually takes a technician 30 minutes) Cost for Year 1: $2,500

Cost for Subsequent Years: $1,800 (per billboard)

Okay, so the cost for real-time vehicle analytics for Year 1 is $2,500.

Now let’s assume an ROI scenario for a digital billboard (6 to 8+ flips per minute).

Avg. monthly revenue potential for a large-format digital board: $24,000

Now let’s assume 75% of the flips are sold out; new gross monthly revenue at: $18,000

Assuming we keep that 75% industry average for the entire year, that board should gross about $216,000 per year.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of being too simplistic but for the sake of the hypothesis, let’s assume that the total first year cost of the vehicle analytics solution is $2,500, it would only be 1.2% of total yearly revenues for that board; a small investment for the revenue enhancement potential.

So, onto the magic question, “How do we make money by integrating vehicle analytics into our portfolio?”

Actually, this is one of the questions we enjoy the most when working with our clients. I believe the exercise above clearly demonstrates the low costs and ease of installation in integrating this solution into your business. We have deployed our vehicle analytics platform in dozens of cities in 4 different continents, so the spectrum of how these clients are justifying and benefiting from the ROI is comprehensive. We work with publicly traded clients and also smaller owners that might have a couple of digital billboards in their region.

Operators: it is irrefutable that brands are quickly moving onto a proof-of-performance real-time methodology. At the end of the day these brands are the ones keeping the lights on and providing investors with increased shareholder value. Brands want the same type of tools for OOH/DOOH to what they utilize with online and mobile advertising buys. Any of the ideas below will immediately provide an uptick to your top line.

Charge a Premium (1% to 5%): when you provide brands with vehicle intelligence analytics and dashboards you can charge premiums for those billboard flips because that billboard is now a “smart asset.” Brands understand there is a cost for the operator in providing transparent and real-time data for their campaigns.

Quick ROI math: If you charge a 3% premium for all those flips on the scenario above of the $216,000 yearly revenue, you will have generated another $6,480 in revenues, minus the $2,500 platform cost, and you made another $4,000 per board.

Institute a “Vehicle Analytics” Internal Team: reallocate a couple resources towards a “consulting role” that can assist brands better understand the results of their vehicle campaigns… Some agencies and brands will pay for this “white-glove” service vs. the do-it-yourself or no metrics whatsoever.

White-label the Solution: you can package our entire platform and white-label it as an internal solution to provide directly to your clients under your brand. Lots of freedom in creating revenue opportunities with this approach.

Yield Management: this is potentially one of the industry’s least talked about subject and in my opinion the one that can catapult us to two-digit growth. Perhaps on my next blog, I will focus on providing some insight on yielding rates.

For brevity sake, the potential here resides in triggering different ads based on real-time data and events. For instance, suppose you have a billboard on a road with a speed limit of 50. Now, our vehicle intelligence software can tell with 100% accuracy that the cars are suddenly moving at 10 miles per hour. Why are you serving the same ads with no intelligent triggers? You should be showing an ad where you charge the brand 3x more because the cars are being exposed to that ad 5x longer… By utilizing our technology, and integrating it into any CMS provider in the world (we already have a few integrations so ask), you can trigger those ads instantly and benefit from those premium rates. Not only that, but you can show the brand, exactly when it happened and they can access it themselves online, and so forth. Talk about feeling empowered!

This type of yielding can happen with any of the key performance indicators we measure in real-time.

Creative Campaigns: the ability to trigger ads via an integration of our technology into a CMS system can stimulate the creative juices of agencies and brands. It allows you to show ads based on other attributes as well, such as car type and model. This is called vehicle recognition. Last year, the industry saw a couple of examples of vehicle recognition campaigns, which we were happy to see! The challenge with those is that the accuracy of the triggers were still very low and it was more of a one-time implementation because the costs were too high. We are proud to say that after months of coding, our vehicle recognition triggers and dashboard will be available to our clients this quarter. Let us know if you want to be preview to this, only existing clients will have the initial access.

Imagine showing a “Tesla” car ad on a billboard every time a high percentage of Audi’s passed by or on slow days, where that single Audi driver is driving home late at night, and they see the billboard ad verbiage change:: “Audi, lots of gas. Tesla, We Don’t Need Gas”. How much do you think Tesla will pay for that type of a customized, personal campaign? If this didn’t get your revenue juices flowing, then we might need an intervention.

Digital Signage Technology Providers including: CMS, Media Players, Digital Screens: similarly to the operators, you can easily integrate our entire technology stack directly into your hardware and other systems. Our team is ready to work with you in extending these real-time computer vision metrics to your clients directly; “out-of-the-box” or upon activation of your corresponding services. Its an ideal way of increasing your top line with recurring revenues.

Brands and Agencies: although these thoughts are more directed towards the operators, on behalf of my entire team, thank you! Thank you for entrusting the potential of the OOH/DOOH industry in continuing to elevate our offerings, our technologies, our reach, and the ability to create memorable and highly effective campaigns. I know for a fact that the OAAA, DPAA, GeoPath, and industry leaders are working hard to wow you and the brands you represent.

I hope this synopsis provides a glimpse at the revenue potential and benefits of integrating a turnkey vehicle analytics technology platform to OOH, DOOH, and Smart Cities. Reach out to us, we are ready to answer all your questions and work closely with you on continuing to evolve this brilliant industry.

You can reach us at [email protected] or me directly at [email protected]

Rodolfo Saccoman CEO at AdMobilize

About AdMobilize

AdMobilize (www.admobilize.com) is a machine intelligence company making sense of the physical world. The company’s mission is to connect the physical world to the online grid by utilizing pioneering computer vision and artificial intelligence technology. We provide the DOOH, OOH and Retail industries with the most complete software and hardware platform including: audience measurement, facial detection and recognition, vehicle detection and recognition, gesture recognition, people counting, demographic analysis including age, gender, emotion, and dwell time, just to name a few. With over 100 clients in 50 countries, our clients have embraced the turnkey nature of the technology; the ability to yield rates; actionable business intelligence; serving of dynamic content; and real-time audience analytics dashboards.

Our team of 35 seasoned data science, computer vision, and hardware engineers have created highly scalable solutions equating to the “Google analytics” for the physical world. The company has assembled a high-caliber board of advisors including: Mok Oh (former Chief Data Scientist at PayPal), Kurt Holstein (founded and sold Rosetta Digital for $575M), Noel Elman (renowned MIT research scientist) and Beto Dantas (head of innovation at Flextronics), among others.

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