#I did the 10 partners route because I felt bad choosing between like 5 of the total options

[letsoulswander]

to clarify more on that last point. I don’t really care about most of the SDV characters very much, they’re all pretty flat, but SHANE. SHANE is outright RUDE. Penny is shy, Clint clearly wants your money, Jodi is Too Busy for you, but SHANE says “What do you want? Leave me alone” and shit like that until you’ve got a COUPLE HEARTS with him! and frankly I would not ever befriend someone like that in real life.

yeah I know he’s hurting, I know he’s struggling with addiction, and imo it’s heavily implied that Jas is his biological daughter that he’s given up rights to or at least was far too young to parent when she was born. but none of that makes me want to give the TIME OF DAY to someone so needlessly rude right out of the gate, and when I haven’t even given him ANY SAP YET. honestly.

[xocookiest]

Lesbian Asks!

Note: **I am not a lesbian, but some of these questions do pertain to me a lot. So, I’m answering all these questions because I think it might be something silly and fun to do while I’m self-quarantining. So, excuse the jokes I have made, bits of sarcasm, or if I go a little bit too dark or something for you all. And, if you guys have any questions or need any further clarification about some of the answers I have given. I’m going to be opening up my ask box for a couple of days to answer them, but you’re more than welcome to shoot me a private message. Just keep it respectful and civil, please and thank you. ** 

1) Femme or butch?

         a) Femme Fatale. The character archetype that has drawn in millions of men and women through literature, art, and now the media over the course of centuries because of her mysterious allure, charm, and wit. As it is a thrilling and intriguing experience because you just don’t quite know what the person might do next and it makes you keep guessing, but it also can be an extremely deep and rewarding relationship without words ever being spoken. Plus, I’ve always loved a good mystery to try and solve. And, one of them obviously being the consciousness of the human mind. 

2) Do you have a “type”? If so, describe it

          a) Hm…. I wouldn’t say I have a “type”, but I think I would like a person who would respect my boundaries, honor their commitments, be honest about their mistakes in life, acknowledge their faults, and be willing to change and grow to better themselves, have morals, values, and commitments that they can stick to because it would prove to me in some way that they are loyal. At least to something. However, that’s something difficult to serve up on a platter. So, let’s just say my “type” is a person who has flaws, but is a good-natured person and is trying their best to be the best version of themselves they can be.

3) Plaid button-ups or leather jackets?

         a) What if you own a bunch of plaid button-ups and leather jackets in your closet? What do I do with that? Wait. Is this a preference of style on a person? Uh…. I’m going to have to skip because I don’t really have one. Mostly, because a woman can look good in both and kick a guy’s ass while doing it. So…. yeah. No preference. 

4) Describe your style

        a) Jeans. Long-sleeve/T-Shirt. Jacket/Hoodie/Cape. Boots/Tennis Shoes. Minimal/ No Makeup. Occasional Dress, Shorts, Heels, and Sandals. Minimal Makeup/Full Makeup Routine (DO NOT HAVE at least currently). Those are the most common things you’ll find me wearing. But, here’s the kicker. Comfortability. I repeat. Comfortability. I can’t tell you how many times my heels have bled while wearing regular shoes or heels while walking on them or bruised the side of my toes or feet while wearing flats or sandals. Ugh. Fashion does not need to be painful people. You can look good and be comfortable in your own skin without being in pain. Plus, who wants to feel like your dress is falling off you between your legs while you’re at an event? Other than when you’re having sex or at least about to do so.

5) Describe your aesthetic

           a) Um, okay there is no cute way to describe this. I’m a nerd. I like playing video games late into the night, reading books, comics, or manga for hours that I forget the last time I ate, diving into a new anime, K-drama, or old cartoon that I stay up till the next morning watching, struggling to write and publish stories, and doing cosplays while meeting new and interesting people. But I also love watching documentaries about history, science, and art. I can’t stand to be inside too long because I feel claustrophobic and it reminds me of being trapped in a room with someone I don’t particularly like. So, I take hour long walks in my neighborhood, woods, forest, cities, and beaches while blasting really loud music that will probably damage my ears in the long run. So, don’t expect me to hear a single thing you’ve said when I have them on because it takes forever to get my attention since I have such a one-track mind. Plus, I’m terrible at cooking almost burnt down my friend’s house once with a microwave. Hence, why I prefer doing the prep work, dishes, and gardening. Though, don’t ask me to slaughter a live chicken. I can’t do it. 

6) Favorite article of clothing?

           a) A jacket. Did you expect anything else?

7) Favorite pair of shoes?

          a) Boots. Specifically, Steel-Toed Boots. So, if you ever drop anything heavy on yourself, it doesn’t hurt as much or if someone is really bothering you. It gives you an extra kick.

8) Current haircut?

         a) Long Hair w/ side bangs. I’m cutting it for the summer to be above my shoulders just because summers are just hot and long hair is just difficult to deal with when it is hot and sticky on your face.

9) Any haircut goals for the future?

        a) I’m hoping at some point I can get some red ombre at the ends of my hair because it adds a nice accent, but it’s not really necessary. I just really cut my hair shorter in the summer and let it grow the rest of the time. So, I’m not overtly cold in the winter/fall. 

10) Describe the best date you’ve been on

        a) I haven’t had one yet. So, really can’t tell you that one.

11) Describe the worst date you’ve been on

        a) Can’t really tell you one that’s been that bad. Since I think every date has its worse and best points in a date. But maybe there is one and I just haven’t realized it yet. Does a guy who leaves you on the curbside count? Seriously, though. What counts as a worst date for you guys?

12) Single? Taken?

          a) Single. Definitely, single. You can tell by how my friends get overly excited any time I’ve tried dating anyone or tried setting me up with someone they think would be a good match. Most of the time I think they’re giddier than I am about me going on a date with someone. My gosh. Actually, rewrite. I’m not giddy at all I’m just a bottle of nerves they just try to settle down before I actually go on the actual date. Lol.

13) If taken, talk about your girlfriend/wife!

         a) You know, I would love to do this because it just would make me smile to read it. But, unfortunately. I don’t have one to talk about. So, if any of you have a girlfriend or wife you want to talk about here. Please do it. I want to read your stories. 

14) If single, what are you looking for in a potential girlfriend/wife?

         a) Err…. I’m not actually looking for anything in particular, really. I just want them to be a nice and good person who I can spend hours talking and spending time with and want to spend time with. Is that too much of an ask to the great universe of the world? 

15) Describe your dream wedding

         a) My dream wedding is having a small wedding with family and friends that love and support me and my relationship with my partner. I don’t really have an idea of what I really want for it, but what’s important is celebrating your relationship with the person you love. Maybe, outside? But, then you have to think about the weather and what’d it be like. So, maybe I should do it indoors. I don’t know, alright. I thought a wedding would always be something that you and your partner would discuss and figure out together, I guess. 

16) Do you want kids?

        a) What if you already have one? What happens then? Though, as of this moment I do not. I love them, don’t get me wrong and I would really love to adopt a child who really does need a home, but I’m just not financially stable to do so currently or am staying in one place long enough that would make a stable life for one. Hence, no kids currently.

17) If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

        a) Um, that’s a difficult question currently because my plan is to travel the world? So, is around the world a good answer because I’ve never actually felt at home anywhere and the last place, I really felt at home was in my hometown in California. But that isn’t really home anymore either. So…. yeah. I don’t really have a particular place I want to call home or live. Anybody have any ideas on that?

18) Favorite lesbian movie?

        a) I’ve only ever watched one lesbian film called, Jenny’s Wedding. Which hit a little too close to home at the time. So, I only could watch the film in bits. But if anyone has any recommendations, I’m open to them. Just shoot me a message.

19) Favorite lesbian novel/story?

          a) Okay, I love reading books. But this is the one thing lacking in my repertoire. Please recommend me something intriguing to read. I can’t stand the idiocy of human male and female relationship anymore currently. It is driving me nuts. So, I’m asking please let me go insane with other stories not dominated by male and female relationship. Otherwise, I would highly recommend you guys try reading Queen of Thieves. It’s a choice story written by several different writers for Lovestruck. So, you have several different partners that you can choose from. But, my god. The route for Vivienne Tang is just a gold mine and I’m salivating for the next season because it’s just so freaking good. If you’re reading this xekstrin. I love your work there and know that if you were to ever write a novel. I’m buying it. No questions asked. Oh, and tell your wife, “Hi!” for me too! =)

20) Favorite lesbian song?

         a) Okay, so this sounds terrible. But I don’t have one because I just like the sound of the music, sound, or lyrics and it changes frequently. Not to say, that I don’t have any lesbian songs in my playlist because I probably do. However, I did look up some songs? And, apparently 1950 by King Princess from my Spotify playlist is one of them. So…. I probably have more, and I just don’t realize that they are there because I have a tendency of fantasizing about scenarios based upon the song and lyrics anyhow. But if anyone has any recommendation for songs. I’m down to listen to any of them. 

21) Favorite lesbian musician?

          a) So, I’m terrible with names and I barely ever look up an artist or even what their sexual orientation is. So, I’m going to have to say I don’t have one because I honestly don’t even have a favorite musician and even if I did, I don’t think I’d even know if they were lesbian. But I probably do have some lesbian musicians in my Spotify playlist? I just don’t think anything of it because if you like the sound, music, and lyrics then you listen to more of their music. At least that’s how I think about it. But it is different for other people. So, that’s understandable. Everyone has different tastes and ways they enjoy music. However, if you know some artists with songs, you’d think I’d enjoy. Shoot me a message.

22) What lesbian stereotypes do you fit into, if any?

       a) What stereotypes? Can someone please educate me on this subject? Also, why? Other than, the reason it’s easier to identify the type of person because as much as I think it is utterly rude to do so I have to admit there is some truth to them. But not everything you hear about a particular stereotype is true. For example, not all goths are dark and brooding or wear black constantly. However, this might be a consistent part of their wardrobe because its comfortable or it’s their favorite color. So, sue them for wearing dark clothing and being interested in something they like. 

23) Ever been assumed to be nothing more than a gal pal?

       a) Oh god, yes. If you’ve ever met a girl who you’ve ever wanted to be more than friends with and they say, “You’re such a great friend.” That’s just your heart breaking into a million pieces, dude. Hope you have a dustpan and a lot of glue because that’s going to take a while to work through with all the tears and blood spilled over it. So…. yeah. 

24) If a woman wanted to woo you, what would a surefire way to accomplish that?

        a) Uh…. I have no idea. I guess you’d have to date me to figure that out. Lol.

25) Be positive! What do you like most about being a lesbian?

       a) I’m not one, but I can tell you what I admire about you guys. And, that’s your strength because you guys take on so much scrutiny and blame for things in media and even in your own communities and that takes a lot of strength to do. So, I’m proud of you guys for being so strong and supporting each other when things get tough. For those of you who are still in the closet, I hope one day you find a safe place where you can come out to your loved ones and be comfortable with who you are because finding that place is just as important as finding the person you want to spend forever with too.

26) Are you more of a cat person or a dog person?

      a) Totally, a dog person. Mostly, because my friends keep telling me I look like a kicked puppy every time they tell me we can’t do something. Like go to the nearest frozen yogurt shop after just eating out at a restaurant or doing something inappropriately dangerous. Though, I’ve been living with like three different cats for almost two to three years now on and off. So, maybe. I’m actually a cat person. 

27) Turn ons?

     a) Wit. You can’t honestly say you wouldn’t love a woman who could tease you with her extensive vocabulary and had you begging on your knees for more. Would you?

28) Turn offs?

     a) Arrogance. Look, if all you care about is yourself and how important you are to the world. Then, that’s great and good for you. But that really doesn’t leave a lot of room for you and I that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed your space and time alone when you need it or even to celebrate your achievements, but also give your partner that same respect too.  

29)Do you usually ask other women out or do you wait for them to ask you?

      a) I actually try not to ask them out, but it always ends in failure. So…. yeah. I ask them out. 

30) What is your dream career?

      a) To be able to work as a traveling librarian while being an investigative reporter that writes novels and scripts for film and tv, but also can work on film and tv sets as part of their set or run crew when I’m not traveling or writing. That’s a dream. Really, it is my dream career. 

31) Talk about your interests or hobbies!

      a) I think I’ve spoken about them in length enough. So, I suppose I’ll just tell you what you can probably find me doing on a regular Friday night. Which is watching a show intently on my television or laptop and screaming at the screen or reading a book on the bed or couch with my ear plugs on while drinking sprite and hot cocoa with a blanket wrapped around me. 

32) What is the most attractive quality a woman can have?

      a) Again, I don’t know I think it really depends on the person you are with because the thing that you find initially attractive might not be same after you get to know them. Not to say, that it is a bad thing. But that love is sort of evolving and as your relationship grows with the person, you’re with the things you love about the person will change too. So, I think that the most attractive quality a woman can have is just being able to be genuine or be comfortable with themselves because if it feels forced. It’ll feel forced to the other person too. I guess. Am I making any sense here?

33) Do you love easily, or does it take time for you to warm up to someone?

      a) That’s a difficult question because sometimes it takes time for me to warm up to someone, I don’t really know all that well when I first meet them and other times, I’m really open about it. I think it really depends on the person, though. 

34) Ever fallen for your best-friend?

      a) Yes. My best friend in high school. She and I had been friends since 7th grade in middle school. We used to talk and hangout all the time after school using a messenger application and I hadn’t realized it until much later. But, by that point she was already with someone else and I didn’t really want to impose my feelings or strain the relationship. Though, I’m pretty sure her girlfriend at the time knew something was up because I don’t think she liked me very much. Though, understandable considering things. So, eventually the relationship sort of faded out as she started hanging out with my friends and I less and less as her and her girlfriend got closer.

35) Ever fallen for a straight girl?

    a) That’s a good question. I probably have and passed it off as me just being a caring friend. Which, with my sexual orientation becomes a little difficult to differentiate between sometimes, anyhow. Seriously, it is a freaking headache. 

36) The L-Word: yes or no? (love it or hate it?)

   a) Are you talking about the word lesbian or love because I don’t necessarily hate the word on either side of things it’s just…? Can we (people) really not think of a better word to describe it? I mean. I know it’s pretty hard to find a word that encompasses the meaning of something, but people make up words all the time. But I think for right now the word lesbian works and is fine. So, thoughts?

37) Favorite comfort food?

    a) Soup. There is literally no other food that makes me feel happier when I’m sick or upset. Especially, if it’s made by someone you love because it makes it all the more special. Though, don’t be surprised if I ask for seconds and then just skip to dessert instead.

38) Coffee or tea?

    a) Tea. I don’t drink coffee as much. It’s just too bitter for me, not that there aren’t teas that aren’t bitter, but I’ve always had to put so much sugar and milk into my coffee that it doesn’t make any sense to just waste the coffee. Hence, any time I get coffee it goes straight to my mom or one of my friends who practically runs on it. And, I just don’t do that as often when I’m drinking tea. Except, for Thai Tea. Which basically is like coffee for me.

39) Vegetarian? Vegan? None of the above?

    a) Neither. I’m willing to try vegan food, though. Just don’t expect me to be entirely excited about it. 

40) Do you have any pets?

    a) I have a cannibalistic goldfish. And, before you ask. Yes, she does eat other fish. I call her Cannibal, it used to be Christy. But, now it’s just Cannibal. 

41) Early-riser or night-owl?

    a) Night-Owl. I can’t seem to get up that early for some odd reason. Oh, well. I try to, though. Key word: Try.

42) What is your sign?

     a) Are you asking what my astrology sign is? If you are it’s a Cancer. I was born on the 6th of July. Apparently, I was supposed to be a 4th of July baby. Lol, that would have been an event. However, if you’re asking what year I was born then I’m going to have to say I was born in the Year of the Ox in the element of fire. You can probably figure out the rest from there I suppose. 

43) Can you drive?

      a) Yeah, I drive. I’ve only been driving for a couple of years, though. I am actually really terrified of driving on the road. It’s why it took so long for me to get my license and that I actually don’t particularly like driving. I’d actually prefer if I could walk, fly, bike, subway, train or bus somewhere, but most places in the United States don’t have much of a transportation system that is consistent or reliant enough to do so here. Unless, you live in a bustling city like New York. Hence, we have overpriced dangerous honking killing machines zipping through the roads. So, drive safely guys. 

44) Who was your first lesbian crush?

       a) My first lesbian crush? Hm…. a girl I met in college I guess? She was in the same major and courses I was but was a year behind me technically. She was a really intelligent and nice person, though I wasn’t able to actually hangout with her as much because I had other priorities at the time. The funny thing was I didn’t even know she was a lesbian until a friend of mine told me when the two of us went to trivia night at a bar that my friends and I frequented. Now, before you ask. How could you not know? And, my answer is I’m an oblivious child. Seriously, I have a bucket of stories that will tell you that along with my friends who have stood or sat right next to me and watched a girl or guy flirt with me and ask me out and I being a completely dense human being. Don’t catch it.

45) At what age did you know you were a lesbian?

      a) Hm…. when did I know I liked girls? Probably forever ago just didn’t want to admit to it because I was told so many times it wasn’t “right” to do so. But, I don’t think I really knew officially until I was in high school when my friends at lunch one time all spoke about some guy or girl they liked, and I didn’t really have anyone in particular I liked at all. Well, I did. Just didn’t tell her because I was in denial at the time that I wanted more than just a friendship. Which, is a situation I think a lot of people have been in before. 

46) At what age did you come out (if you have)?

      a) Came out to my close friends in college freshman year. But technically I told my grandmother way before that when I was in 4th/5th grade one time when I was really upset about a bunch of kids bullying me at school and just outrightly told her when she asked if I liked anyone and I said, “I don’t like anyone. Boys suck and I don’t even really like girls all that much either.” And, she laughed then said that’s okay. Just focus on doing what you like to do, and the rest will sort itself out. Plus, boys and girls can be really immature anyhow. (Apologies, to my little brother if you ever read this. But you have to admit you were a real brat to handle as a child. Love you, anyhow though.) Then, I unwillingly came out to my parents after graduating from college when I got wrapped up in some family drama. Woof, that was a horse. But it is over with now. Nothing, I can do about it now. 

47) Are you crushing on anyone at the moment (celebrity or otherwise)?

     a) Hahaha……. yeah. But she is currently unavailable and that’s okay. I’m not really in any rush to be in a relationship currently.

48) Talk about how your day went

     a) What do you talk about when you are stuck in quarantine? Do you tell the internet you spent the last three days trying to finish answering a Lesbian Ask! Questionnaire because you were really bored and was tired of staring at job applications all day? Because that’s what happened. 

49) Talk about your dreams/aspirations for the future

    a). I hope that one day I get to settle down somewhere and call it home. Have a loving partner, a kid, a dog, and two cats. And hopefully, it’ll be somewhere in New York or at least close to there because it seems like every single one of my friends plans on moving there at some point. Lol. 

50) Least favorite gay celebrity?

     a) Wow. Great question. No idea. Lol. Like I said. I don’t know much about celebrities and their sexual orientation because it shouldn’t matter what someone’s sexual orientation is. Since it shouldn’t change a person perspective about you because you’re still you. Nothing’s changed. Just the fact that your friends, family, and close relatives now know a little bit more about the type of person you like. Nothing else. And, if someone wants to give you crap about it. Let them be small, ignorant, and stuck in the past while you get to enjoy and see the world for what it is. A very dark scary dank place that screws over a lot of people sometimes, but overall, it’s a relatively nice, beautiful, and an ever evolving place that always seems to keep you on your toes. 

[bucklesomeswashswan]

Once Upon a December (6/10)

Summary: Emma doesn’t remember much of her past, all she knows is she needs to get out of Misthaven. The mysterious group called the Industrialists continues to gain power and control since they overthrew the royal family over a decade ago. Out of options, Emma joins forces with a conman Killian and his partner Ruby in their plot to pass her off as the lost princess of Misthaven. But as they travel together and Killian and Ruby try to teach her how to be a princess, Emma begins to uncover hidden pieces of her past. When threats start closing in around them will she choose to escape to safety or risk everything to find her family and reveal a dangerous secret that could change history forever?

Rating:  M

Story content warning: some descriptions of violence, slow burn

Part of @captainswanbigbang 2018. Updates every Saturday!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 also read it on AO3

The art for this story is from the very sweet and very talented @prongsie! Take a look at these awesome illustrations for chapter 2 and 5! Thank you to my beta reader @csobsessed-21!

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting and liking the story! It is the best feeling to have people react to your story. Thank you so very much!

Chapter 6 :  Glowing Dim as an Ember

Killian moved restlessly about the small windowless room. Over the last few hours he had learned that it was twenty-three paces around the square room, that each wall had 162 stones, and that the ceiling was approximately eight feet high. The room was lit with three sconces each with two gas fixtures. Twice he had heard footsteps above him, and taking the slightly musty air into account it was reasonable to assume he was in some sort of basement.

But for all that he had knew about the room he still had no idea what had happened to Ruby or Emma since they were separated. He didn’t know if they were nearby, possibly locked into similar rooms, or if they were even still in the mansion. No one had entered the room since he had been shoved inside and he hated that he didn’t know what they were planning to do with him or any of them.

He growled in frustration pounding a fist into the thick metal door. The sound echoed dully and faded into silence. No answer. No change.

Trapped. He was trapped. He should have seen this coming. Maybe if they had been more vigilant. It had been a weak moment, a small pleasure he hadn’t been able to deny, to stay with Emma last night. He should have set watches, they should never have let themselves think they were safe. Now because of his mistakes they were all caught in Gold’s cruel grip.

He had been distracted for days. Seeing Emma’s magic had thrown him, an unbelievable display that had shocked him and left him feeling like he’d missed a step. A lurch in his stomach like he was falling with no end, nothing anchoring him to solid ground.

He’d only seen one other person do magic like that before. And everything since the attack on the train had only made it harder to ignore what was right in front of him. The dreams she described, her magic, the ease with which she picked up what they taught her, the way she had described the amulet from her nightmare.

It was too much of a coincidence. There was only one explanation. His mind railed against the impossible thought even as he knew it was true: Emma actually was the lost Princess of Misthaven.

Killian blew out a sigh. The absurdity of it almost made him want to laugh. For over a week he had been in the company of royalty. The heir to the throne of his homeland. A ghost from a time long ago. And then, when she needed it, he had failed to protect her, again.

He rubbed his hand over his face. They were in such deep shit. Not only had they fallen into Gold’s trap, but they had delivered the Princess right to him, the target of his crusade for over a decade, the symbol of everything he had worked to crush.

Their only hope for Emma to survive this was that Gold never find out who she really was, no matter what.

~*~

Emma was in some kind of laboratory, elaborate machines lined the workbenches around her. Scattered about were piles of gears, scrap metal, and spectacles with multiple lens that could be lowered presumably for magnification. Perhaps this was a place Gold had spent hours creating his inventions, or even more likely where he had others do it for him. She wondered what he might have threatened talented craftsmen with to get them to work for him. What dark secrets had been traded for favors within these walls.

Emma glared at the man seated across the table from her. One of Gold’s men. He wasn’t a blackguard, or at least he wasn’t wearing the dark uniform, but that didn’t make him less menacing. He seemed to match the worn and industrial feel of the room, his features were sharp and grizzled. And his scowl carved deep lines across his forehead as though it was the expression he wore the most often, and now it was chiseled permanently onto his face.

“I’m not sure you realize the trouble you are in, Miss,” he said gruffly.  Emma didn’t reply, her jaw clenching as she watched his thumb drum on the table. A ring flashed in the light where it sat against his knuckle. Something about the twisted band seemed familiar but she couldn’t place it before he spoke again.

“Our world is governed by laws, and those laws were put in place to keep everyone safe.” Again he paused, perhaps waiting from some response from her. After a moment he continued, “When those laws are broken it represents a danger to everyone. It weakens our society and perpetuates fear.”

Emma wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, especially not from the people that had toppled their society and continued to perpetuate fear.

“I’m not sure what this has to do with me,” she told him bluntly.

A flicker of emotion flashed in his eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was anger, frustration, or disbelief. He straightened in his chair leaning a little closer to her.

“You were found in the company of known criminals,” he told her. “That makes you complicit.”

This wasn’t going the way Emma had hoped. This wasn’t an overworked provincial country deputy who could be easily persuaded to turn a blind eye. She ran quickly through her options, trying to predict where each possible lie would lead the interrogation.

“I just met them,” she said with a shrug that was more nonchalant than she felt. “I had no idea who they were.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You’re telling me that you didn’t think, for even a second, that the people who smuggled you illegally over the border, who broke into a private home, might be criminals?”

Emma blew out a breath. “They told me they could help me travel out of Misthaven, I didn’t know they meant illegally.”

“It didn’t seem strange that you had to chase down a train and jump on board? Most people board trains at stations, they have tickets, travel papers.”

His patronizing tone made Emma’s fist clench, she pushed down the desire to punch him. She wondered vaguely what would happen if she reached over and grabbed the telescope sitting on the table beside her and decked him with it.

“Like I said, I didn’t know how they were planning to cross the border,” she said.

“How did you learn about the train? The route? The schedule?” he asked, the questions coming in rapid succession.

“The schedules of the trains aren’t a secret,” Emma said. “Any merchant knows when trains leave the city.”

He seemed to pounce on that. “So a merchant helped you? Give me a name.”

Emma frowned. “There was no merchant. I don’t have a name to give you because there isn’t one to give. I’m just trying to say that there are people who know the schedules. And if anyone knows the schedules then you can bet that information gets sold to criminals.”

A grin spread over his lips before she even realized her mistake. “So now you’re admitting they are criminals?”

Emma fought to keep her expression impassive as she struggled for an answer that wouldn’t incriminate them all. “I’m saying I don’t know how they learned about the train, but it wouldn’t be impossible for anyone to find out.”

Again there was that flicker behind his eyes, this time it was more ruthless. It seemed he was getting tired of this conversation too. But before he could say anything else the door to the room opened again, the wide deadbolts sliding back, and Gold walked in.

Emma swallowed as he came to a stop. His gaze seared over her and she shivered. The intensity made her feel as if he were looking straight through her, as if he were reading her thoughts. It sent fear prickling up her arms and tickling at the back of her neck.

His lips pulled up into a twisted grin. “So,” he said his voice between a rasp and a hiss, “if you aren’t partners with Mr. Jones and Miss Lucas then who exactly are you?”

~*~

Ruby hated prison cells. She had spent numerous nights behind bars over the years. Small run-ins with the authorities. It never stuck for long. She had friends in strategic places, a knowledge of what bribes would open which locks. Killian was always there waiting for her. He was always the first face she saw when she released. He used to joke she was his very own bad penny, but time and again he kept coming back for her.

She sighed leaning back in the plush armchair in the cozy study. This might have been the most luxurious place she had been locked up in, but it was still a prison. No antique furniture, crackling fire in the gate, or steaming cup of tea could hide that fact. She wasn’t so easily bought.

In hindsight there was an irony to their situation. What were the odds that the house they had chosen to break into would belong to Gold? It strained probability. Of all the mistakes she’d made over the years, those momentary lapses in concentration that landed her in tight spots, this had to be the dumbest. And still there wasn’t any way they could have known.

She wondered where the others were. Killian and Emma. She hoped they were together, wherever they were. This solitary confinement thing was starting to make her fidget. She hated just staring at the walls waiting for something to happen. And she had been waiting too long.

Why had no one come to talk to her yet? Where was Gold? What was he planning to do with them? Too many questions and no way to get answers. She hated uncertainty.

In Misthaven it had been fairly simple. There were still laws and procedures that had to be followed. Charges and sentencing. It was a corrupt system, sure, but it was predictable. But they weren’t in Misthaven anymore. Here they were off the edge of the map. Locked in Gold’s private home, there was no oversight, no system to govern his judgement. He could do anything to them and no one would ever know. No one would ever even know to miss them. They would simply disappear, like so many others.

The thought sent a chill through her.

They were completely at his mercy. There was nothing stopping Gold from locking them away, or worse, a thorn in his side finally vanquished. They had no way to save themselves. They had nothing to bargain with, nothing that he wanted.

~*~

“Well, perhaps I’ll tell you what I know about you, Emma,” Gold continued lingering on her name. “I know you fell in with some bad company.”

Emma remained still, not trusting herself not to betray all of them under his scrutinizing gaze. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but outwardly she tried to keep her breaths slow and even.

“People like Jones and Lucas, they are easy to be enchanted by. They are deceptive by nature and they profit on others falling for their smiles and charms. But it is only that, an illusion.”

Emma knew this tactic was a simple manipulation, and yet Gold had crafted it to perfectly prod at all her insecurities, apply pressure on old wounds, and she couldn’t help the shadow of doubt that slithered into her thoughts at his double edged words. She had known the kind of people Killian and Ruby were, she had known they were dangerous and still she had allowed herself to be pulled in by them, into their plan, like gravity. But maybe that was all it was: carefully timed smiles, well chosen kind words, magnetic personalities and a lonely girl so desperate to be wanted that she had almost fooled herself into believing their scam. If she was completely honest, there had been moments she had almost believed she could actually be the princess.

But wouldn’t it make more sense if it had all been a trick? Just a way for them to score a huge sum of money. What did they care if they crushed a random girl in the end. Just concentrate on the reasons you’re doing this, those had been Killian’s words. The ends justify the means. And if he was concentrating on an enormous payout would he willing to sacrifice her on the way?

“I’ve known of Killian Jones for years,” Gold said. “He’s a cunning lad. Always some plot, some gamble, some adventure. That’s what drives him, the thrill of the game. He doesn’t care about the collateral damage: the people’s lives he ruins with his actions, the people who are left behind. He has cycled through many partners, discarding them as soon as they were no more use to him.”

Her thoughts went to Robin and his men, abandoned at the border. A stepping stone in his plan, used and then left behind.

“He knows nothing of loyalty,” Gold finished.

Emma frowned. The words echoed dully in her mind, slowly losing their meaning as they repeated over and over. But unlike the rest these didn’t ring quite true, a crack in an elegant argument. She didn’t need her uncanny ability of sensing lies to know it. Gold might have known Killian for years, but she had known him long enough. He had shown himself to be courageous, smart, selfless. And beyond anything she knew he was loyal. All the stories Ruby had told her of the way they had grown up never giving up on each other, the way they continued to protect each other. The way he had found a family with Ruby. It was the most striking thing about him.

“You don’t know them. They are not bad people,” Emma said quietly.

Gold’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. “What?”

“They have been helping others for years,” Emma said more confidently. “They were only trying to help me find my family.”

“Trying to help you?” Gold sneered picking up one of the twisted pieces of metal from a workbench and turning it over in his hands. “You mean by attempting to pass you off as the Princess of Misthaven?”

Emma blanched. This wasn’t some probing guess, she could tell Gold knew the truth, the entire truth. Only the three of them had known their plan. A sense of dread spread through her. If Gold knew then it meant one of the other two must have told him.

“Who told you about that?” she asked.

“I have my sources. I like to be well informed” Gold said cryptically.

But there wasn’t anyone else. The only logical answer was it had to have been Killian or Ruby. She didn’t know what would have made them give up that secret, but could Emma truly blame them if they had done what they had to in order to survive?

They were all in a perilous situation, captured, Killian and Ruby at the whim of a man who hated them. What would she have given to protect any family she had?

She leaned back in her chair. “So you know about our plan,” she said. “We slipped out of Misthaven in an attempt to get the reward money.”

Gold eyed her curiously. “And that’s all it was? Just a way to steal money?”

“There aren’t many ways to earn money in Misthaven anymore,” Emma said icily. Fury flashed through Gold’s expression. She knew she shouldn’t provoke him but it had been too tempting.

“You didn’t care that you’d be swindling the royals?” he asked her.

Her brows pulled down. “We’re not loyalists of the royal family if that’s what you’re asking.”

Gold tilted his head a little. “That’s interesting,” he said and it seemed like he meant it, though he didn’t elaborate.

Emma didn’t know or care why he might find that interesting. If Gold knew their plan and any hope of pulling it off was gone, then she at least wanted to see the others.

“Where are Killian and Ruby?” she asked him.

He seemed a little surprised at her question.

“I’d have thought you wouldn’t be so worried about them after learning they had betrayed you,” he said.

Emma stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. “They haven’t betrayed me. If cooperating with your interrogation was what they needed to do to survive, that isn’t a betrayal to me.”

Gold was staring at her with an unreadable expression, unreadable but not blank. She could see him forming a plan.

“You seem quite fond of them,” he observed.

She could sense the trap in his words. She worked to keep her expression neutral.

“I want to see them now,” she said.

“That isn’t how this works. They are in the official custody of the Industrialists now.”

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“They will be dealt with accordingly for their crimes,” he told her mildly. His tone immediately belied by the way he grabbed a pair of pliers from the bench and gripped an edge of the piece of metal in his hand. He pulled back, wrenching off a chunk, the metal groaning loudly as it tore free.

His implication was clear. Emma’s fingers clenched into a fist hard enough her nails dug into her palms.

Gold seemed to notice her expression. “It won’t be anything they don’t deserve.”

“They haven’t done anything wrong,” Emma said firmly.

Gold set the ruined twist of metal down impassively and sat opposite her. “That isn’t for you to decide.”

“Who does decide? You?” she asked him. “You’re the leader of the Industrialists.”

Gold studied her with his dark gaze. She felt again as if he were staring into her, dissecting her piece by piece, able to see the hidden inner workings of her mind as if she were nothing more than the clockwork machines around them.

“I am,” he agreed. “And as such it is my job to protect the interests of the Industrial Guild.”

His exact wording caught her attention. This wasn’t about justice or crime and punishment. This was about Gold getting what he wanted.

“The Industrial Guild is that interested in Killian and Ruby?” she asked. “Seems to me like a waste of resources to have tracked them so far from Misthaven. There must be something you want more than them.”

A crooked smile pulled slowly at his lips, a hungry glint in his eyes. “Indeed.”

“Then let them go,” Emma said seizing on his admission. “You don’t need them.”

Gold looked at her for a long moment. She had the unnerving sense that despite everything, despite the fact she almost felt like she was winning, she had ended up exactly where he wanted her. Cat and mouse, and he was closing in.

“All favors come with a price,” Gold told her at last, “If I do this for you, you’ll need to do something for me in return.”

Emma met his eyes. “What do you want from me?”

His smirk widened, his expression victorious. It made her wary of what kind of deal he would propose.

“The reappearance of the royals has been a growing irritation for me,” he said.

Emma marveled at his word choice: irritation. As if Kings and Queens were just a mild nuisance to him, nothing more than an itch in a hard to reach spot, a fly buzzing in his ear, or sunlight shining into his eyes. It made her aware again of just who this man before her was, that he had toppled dynasties and he had bent and twisted countless people to his will.

“Rumors have reached Misthaven about the King and Queen, unsettling whispers that are upsetting the people. It’s destabilizing what we have worked for,” he continued.

“An unstable Misthaven,” Emma said sardonically, unable to stop herself, “goodness, what must that be like?”

Gold straightened in his chair his cold eyes piercing her. “I was under the impression you wanted my help,” he said icily.

Emma clenched her jaw biting down any response. He was right, she needed him. She needed to help Killian and Ruby.

“Good girl,” he said. The words made her skin crawl. Condescending and patronizing. It took everything in her to stay still and quiet. He watched her reaction carefully as if the words had been a test of her compliance. Emma wondered if his every word and action was a test, always gauging everyone in the room. She was beginning to understand how he had come to power so quickly.

“There is a ball being held tomorrow night for the royal family and their exiled supporters. Their disillusioned and misguided aim is to garner support from within Glowerhaven. They profess a goal of returning Misthaven to a monarchy and regaining control, but what they are really doing is trying to get Misthaven to regress. They plan to disrupt trade between Misthaven and the other kingdoms, to cut off resources needed for manufacturing. If that happens many workers and their families will suffer. I can’t allow our people to be attacked in this way. After over a decade hiding from their responsibilities and guilt, freeloading off the people of foreign lands these out of touch royals presume to know what is best for Misthaven, the country they abandoned. We are a proud and strong people who do not need an outdated monarchy staging a coup and ripping the power of democratic voice from us.”

He spoke to her as if they were both of the working class of Misthaven. As if they both would be personally affected by whatever sanctions or political maneuvers Glowerhaven or the royal family made. As if they weren’t sitting in his opulent mansion in a foreign country, as if he wasn’t the one who had ripped the power and voice from the people, as if he wasn’t the one who had attacked Misthaven and everything it had held dear. Every word he spoke was gilded exploitation.

“What is it you want me to do?” she asked bluntly.

“I need you to take the royal family out of the equation before they cause any more damage,” he said.

Emma blinked.

“I’m sorry,” she said holding up a hand as she tried make sense of what he said. “Are you asking me to kill them?”

Gold leaned in closer. “Think of it as a life for a life. You asked me to release two convicted criminals. My offer is a stay of execution for each of them. Buy their freedom with the lives of the King and Queen.”

“So I murder the King and Queen,” Emma clarified, “and you will let Killian and Ruby go? No strings attached? You won’t hunt them down, or press any charges?”

“That is my deal,” Gold said his eyes watching her closely.

Emma ran a hand over her face. It was insane. She was actually contemplating murder. Her thoughts running furiously as she tried wrap her mind around it. But with no leverage and no other options she met his gaze.

“I accept.”

Gold nodded, like he had always known that would be the outcome. As if she were predictable, a foregone conclusion in his design. He seemed to be already enjoying the idea of having her be his puppet.

“So how does this work?” Emma asked him. “I just stand outside the entrance of this ball until the King and Queen show up and then I kill them?”

Gold shook his head. “No, I’ll get you inside the ball.”

He gestured to the guard in the corner of the room who passed him a small case. Gold set the case on the table and opened it. He pulled out an embossed invitation listing the information for the ball, and then slid the box closer to Emma. She peered inside and there, sitting in a bed of satin padding, was a shining dagger with jagged blade.

He lifted the blade and laid it on the table with soft thud. “What exactly you do once inside is up to you.”

Emma eyed the blade warily.

“And what about Killian and Ruby? How do I know you’ll keep your word?” she asked.

Gold shrugged. “Keep them with you. They’ll accompany you to the ball. If you hold up your part of the bargain they go free. If you fail, well, I suggest you don’t fail.”

Emma glared at him picking up the dagger and sliding into the inside pocket of her jacket. “I want to see them now.”

Gold stood and waved her to the door. “Be my guest.”

~*~

Ruby looked up at a sudden noise coming from beyond the door. A scrape and the sound of a key in the lock. She stood quickly glancing around for anything that might be used as a weapon: the cooling tea in the pot, the iron lamp on the side table. She tensed, readying for a fight.

The door creaked open and one of the blackguards waved Killian inside before shutting and locking the door once again. Ruby sighed in relief.

“Killian,” she breathed.

He looked around the room, eyes skimming over the plush furniture and paneled walls. “Where’s Emma?”

Ruby frowned. “I thought she might be with you.”

Killian shook his head. “I was alone. If she isn’t with you then we need to get out of here and find her.”

“No use,” Ruby said. “I’ve been thorough while I waited. There’s no way out of here unless you can climb through fire and up a hot chimney.”

Killian glanced at the fireplace as if seriously considering it for a moment. In the end he walked over to the door and jostled the handle studying the lock. He carefully pulled out two of the lock picks hidden within his mechanical hand and slid them into the lock.

Ruby pursed her lips. She had never seen a lock like the one in the door, and she knew Killian hadn’t either. She had a feeling it was useless, but she bit back the words because hope was a terrible thing to crush, and she knew he would need to exhaust every possibility before he gave up.

Watching him work was what she imagined it might have been like to watch Michelangelo or one of the great sculptors at work. The way his hands moved in small, precise movements, the clink of the tumblers within the lock. But instead of a masterpiece whittled from marble, she watched as with each minute a little more of Killian’s patience and confidence was chipped away until he threw down the picks with a curse and laid his forehead against the door in defeat.

“Well, if you’re done wasting time with that,” Ruby said gesturing to the door.

Killian scowled over his shoulder at her.

Ruby picked up the teapot with a smile. “Want some tea while we wait?”

Killian scoffed rolling his eyes. “I prefer coffee.”

Ruby shrugged. “Prisoners can’t be choosers.”

The word prisoners sobered Killian. His worried gaze meeting Ruby’s, vulnerable in a way he rarely allowed himself to be.  She could see the same fear in his eyes she had been trying to push down herself. Fear that at any moment the blackguards or Gold might reappear, something that would definitely end badly for them. At least he was here with her again, they’d face whatever came next together.

The lock clicked behind them, the door handle turning. Killian stood quickly placing himself a half step between Ruby and the door. Ruby tightened her grip on the teapot. They waited as the door opened a second time.

A slim figure was pushed into the room, stumbling and falling to the floor, her blond hair spilling around her.

“Stay here,” the blackguard in the hall ordered before slamming the door shut.

Emma gingerly pushed herself up. She looked at each of them carefully as she stood.

“Are you okay?” she asked them. “Gold didn’t hurt you?”

“Hurt?” Ruby repeated. “No, I’m fine. They locked me in this room and offered me tea. Bored maybe, but not hurt.”

“They didn’t interrogate you?” Emma asked looking surprised.

Ruby shook her head. “No one’s even come to talk to me, not until you two showed up.”

They both looked at Killian. “I was alone,” he said.

Emma’s eyes lingered on each or them for a long moment before a vaguely sick expression slowly settled over her features as she backed away from them and sank heavily into a nearby chair. Her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

“Emma?” Killian asked. “What’s going on?”

Emma didn’t respond but her face was pale in the flickering light of the fire and she looked close to passing out.

“Did they do something to you?” Ruby said sitting in the chair beside Emma.

“Was it the blackguards?” Killian asked kneeling down in front of Emma.

Emma blinked at them before swallowing thickly. “It was Gold,” she said quietly.

“Gold?” Killian repeated the word a low growl. “What did he do?”

She stared down at her hands in her lap for a long moment before she responded. “We made a deal.”

Ruby’s heart dropped into her stomach. Gold had a reputation for making deals that always seemed to benefit him and leave the other party worse off than before.

“What deal did he force you to make?” Killian asked placing a gentle hand on Emma’s knee.

“He knew,” she told them still not quite meeting their eyes. “He knew about our plan. Impersonating the princess, finding the King and Queen in Glowerhaven. I thought one of you had told him.”

Killian shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. No one questioned us.”

Emma frowned. “He knew things, things about each of us.”

Killian swallowed, his expression worried.

“What did he know about you?” he asked Emma.

She shook her head. “It felt like he knew all my insecurities. He knew everything we were planning.”

Ruby frowned looking at Killian. “But if none of us told him then how did he know? No one else knew.”

Killian sat back on his heels.

“Robin,” Killian said softly breaking the silence. Ruby looked up at him.

“What?”

“Robin told Gold,” Killian said. “If it wasn’t us, it had to be him.”

Ruby shook her head. “He didn’t know what we were planning.”

Killian gave her a skeptical look. “He’s smart enough to have worked it out. And he’s smart enough to know what that information might be worth to Gold.”

“No,” Ruby said firmly. “Robin wouldn’t do that. Not to us.”

Killian didn’t look convinced. Ruby knew the arguments he’d make: that they didn’t know if Robin had been arrested, or worse. They didn’t know what he might have had to do to escape the blackguards at the border. What wouldn’t he do if they threatened Roland. But she had known Robin longer than Killian had and she knew he wouldn’t betray them.

“It wasn’t Robin, though I think he did manage to work out most of our plan,” Emma said. “I think it was that member of his crew, Will. He heard Robin and I talking that night we camped in the woods. He had a ring, at the time I didn’t think anything of it. But then tonight one of Gold’s men had the same ring, I couldn’t figure out why the ring had seemed familiar until you just mentioned Robin.”

“Will would definitely sell us out to save his own his skin,” Killian said darkly. “Son of a bitch.”

It made sense. Will had always been a bit of weasel. Since he joined Robin and the Merry Men he had been more interested in lining his own pockets and helping himself than helping the cause. If he had leaked information to Gold about their plan, about their location at the border, she wondered what he other intel he might have leaked about the Merry Men and the supply underground in Misthaven.

“If Gold knows our plan, then he knows about the reward money,” Ruby said thinking through the ramifications. If Gold had convinced Emma to cut him in on any or all of the reward money it would supply money straight to the Industrialists, and strengthen Gold’s power.

“Emma,” Killian said his voice low as he looked at Emma, “what deal did you make with Gold?”

~*~

Emma looked between Killian and Ruby, the warm light from the fire so different from the stark laboratory she had been in with Gold. There it had felt like she had no options, no choices. Here with their kind and worried faces she was ashamed of what she had agreed to. 

Even after all the time Gold had spent trying to convince her they were hardened criminals she knew they wouldn’t easily condone murdering a king and queen. And still there was nothing else she could do if she wanted to save their lives.

She pushed down all the warring emotions within her and tried to keep her expression from betraying her under Killian’s piercing gaze. She hoped his habit of seeing through her was currently distracted with everything else going on.

“Gold wants a meeting with the King and Queen,” she told them the lie rolling easily off her tongue. “He said the rumor that the royals are trying to return to power is creating problems in Misthaven and he wants to address any complications with them directly.”

Emma waited for their reaction, nearly holding her breath.

“Why can’t he set up a meeting himself?” Ruby asked.

“Well, he did try to murder them and ran them out of their own country,” Emma said. “They probably wouldn’t be that receptive to granting him any favors. But I can get an audience with the King and Queen and arrange a meeting.”

“You think you can get the King and Queen to agree to meet with Gold?” Killian asked his tone unsure.

Emma nodded trying to look more confident than she felt. “Our plan was to convince them I’m the princess anyway. If they believe I’m their daughter I’ll be able orchestrate a meeting with Gold.”

“Did he tell you where the King and Queen are?” Ruby asked.

“Gold said there’s a ball tomorrow night the royals will be attending. He gave me an invitation that will get us inside.”

She passed the invitation to Killian. He looked it over carefully his expression veiled.

“So you set up the meeting and then what?” Killian asked her setting the invitation aside. “What are you getting out of this deal?”

“Gold will let us go,” she told them.

“Just like that?” he asked his expression held a hint of suspicion. Suspicion she hoped was for Gold and not her story.

She nodded. “That’s the deal.”

“You’ll be meeting the King and Queen tomorrow night?” Ruby asked. “That’s much quicker than I was hoping. Do you think we’ll be ready?”

Their eyes turned to Emma. She gave a half shrug. “We have to be.”

Ruby ran a hand through her hair listing off the things Emma still should learn or go over before any face to face with the King and Queen. Emma wasn’t listening though. It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t need to convince anyone anymore, the only thing she needed now was the dagger tucked into her jacket.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT EQUITY

Languages Matter So suppose Lisp does represent a kind of servant, whom the employer has a duty to protect. If you're a wizard at fundraising, but I have to choose? They would seem to her not merely frightening, but disgusting.1 Great cities attract ambitious people. But I think the big obstacle preventing us from seeing the future of web startups. Thought experiment: If doctors did the same thing, you're probably not doing anything new, and dignity is merely a complicated but pointless collection of stuff to be memorized. Other times nothing seems interesting. When you get a new crop of 18 year olds who think they know how to run the companies they fund. The owner wanted the student to pay for what they made like air shipped through tubes on a moon base. In Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. What programmers in a hundred years. There was no protection against breakage except the fear of having to seem smooth and confident and respected by the VCs more like a fluid than individual objects.2

You see this less with Windows, because hackers would already be doing it.3 It's not that you don't learn anything from philosophy papers; I didn't use expert systems myself.4 Investors will try to seem more corporate, corporations will try to prevent others from having time to decide by giving you an exploding offer, meaning one that's only valid for a few key phrases and the names of different rounds.5 Every one responded that they'd prefer the guy who'd tried to start a startup with a couple; they meet a few at conferences; a couple VCs call them after reading about them. It's an unusual thing to do is talk in this artificial way, and eventually people will start to get sued much by established competitors. But people are not those who have it are not readily hireable. But vice versa as well.6 Prestige is the opinion of other investors to make them take off. He had equity.7 But the Collison brothers weren't going to wait. He meant the Mac and its documentation and even packaging—such is the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the early days, and I realized that though all of them work on anything they don't want to destroy it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email.

A startup with a friend. It's hard to tell what's expensive. But using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like the arrival of desktop computers inspired a lot of economic history, and I can tell, the concept of the modern university was imported from Germany in the late 90s was that they wanted yellow. Most people should still be climbing with data sets that small.8 If you can't already do it, you should ask what else they've signed.9 But the same alarms don't go off on the days when startups were more expensive. Different terms for different investors is clearly the way of Irish and Luxembourgish: they'll be saying but what about the professors who taught math could be required to write scholarly articles about history, but what growth rate successful startups tend to be short.10 But Clark did, and it would be more interested in an essay. So if you discard taste, you can tell investor A that this is the route to success is to be mistaken. Sheep act the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.11 But until the 1980s being underpaid early in your career was part of, Hostex itself would be recognized as a spam term.12

But in a competitive market, even a differential of two or three of you, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's consuming all the CPU. And companies offering Web-based software. One founder was surprised by how much better you can do while you're still in school is not real work; grownup work is not a pyramid, but tapers at the bottom. They can teach students about startups, but philosophically they're at the mercy of circumstances in the past, when more things were physical. VCs feel about it. Great hackers tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us. Getting money is almost a negligible factor. Notice we started out talking about things, and new ideas are increasingly valuable. The page was of course an ad for a porn site.

Angels are better at seeing the future than the best investors as partners. One implication of this theory is that parties shouldn't be too quick to reject candidates with skeletons in their closets.13 Consciously or not, we started out doing ___. We funded Viaweb entirely with angel money.14 If your program would be three times as long to write—and the rest of the race slowing down. For boys, at least now, the big companies in the first half of the stock market. In a traditional series A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and a programming language isn't just a format. You should therefore never approach such investors first. But that's not all talks are good for. One of the things you sell.15

Most companies in a position to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or not, investors do it if you can. The difficulty of firing people is a particular problem for startups because they don't want to print vague stuff like fairly big. And when you look at how taboos are created. I sometimes suggest they try to get customers to pay them for something, technology will make it big. The point is, you have to like debugging to like programming, but they don't get blamed for it.16 Html. But investing in concepts isn't stupid; it's what VCs do, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum games.

This is what approaches like Brightmail's will degenerate into once spammers are pushed into using mad-lib techniques to generate everything else in the message.17 The philosophers whose works they cover would be rolling in their graves at that. Tell them that valuation is not the only way to find users to recruit manually—is probably a losing bet for a group of three programmers whose startup had been acquired by a big company, this may not be as big as Ebay. If you were going to do and where the leading center for it is, it is scanned into tokens, and everything they own will fit in one car—or more precisely, while she likes getting attention in the sense that I always want to know what the status quo is to take yourself out of the default grind and go live somewhere where opportunities are fewer in the conventional sense, but life feels more authentic.18 In that respect it's a black hole. One reason, obviously, is to work for a company they have qualms about. My usual trick is to ignore what your body is telling you.19 We did get a few of the most important quality is in a startup, as in most competitive sports, the task at hand almost does this for you: the probability is.20 Trying To understand what rejection means, you have to do licensing deals, or hiring, or organization. 83,000 people worked there.

Notes

I'm not saying that the missing 11% were probably also intelligence.

The reason we quote statistics about the Airbnbs during YC. I did manage to think of ourselves as investors, but the nature of an official authority makes all the worse if you're not allowed to ask permission to go to work like casual conversation. But the most important section.

IBM 704 CPU was about bands. If a company has to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of customers times how much of the best ways to get you a question you don't know of no one is harder, the LPs who invest in so many different schools of thought about how things are going well, but for the first digital computer game, you can describe each strategy in terms of the per capita as in Boston, or at such a dangerous mistake to do good work and thereby earn the respect of their hands thus tended to be considered an angel investment from a VC means they'll look bad if the president faced unscripted questions by giving a press conference. According to Zagat's there are few who can say they're not.

01.

But that is exactly my point. A professor at a public company not to grow as big.

What they forget is that they probably wouldn't even cover the extra cost. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the qualities of these people make the people they want to keep them from leaving to start startups, so it may seem to have to do better.

If you want to start some vaguely benevolent business. For example, the less educated ones usually reply with some axe the audience at an ever increasing rate. The other reason it might help to be sharply differentiated. Or worse still, has one booked for them.

People tell the craziest lies about me.

They're still deciding, which merchants used to build little Web appliances. They live in a way to answer, and one VC. At the time 1992 the entire period since the mid twentieth century, art as stuff. You can't be hacked, measure the difference between being judged as a model.

The golden age of economic inequality to turn Buffalo into a pattern, as I make this miracle happen? Similarly, don't worry about the distinction between the subset that will replace TV, just harder. In the original source of food. I mean efforts to manipulate them.

I see a lot heavier. Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, but you're very docile compared to what you launch with, you should prevent your beliefs about its intrinsic qualities. Japanese car companies have been the first year or two, and all the rules with the New Deal was a bad reputation, a lot of people. If language A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's the main reason kids lie to adults.

This would add a further level of links. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day pitch, the technology business. Even now it's hard to answer the first meeting. Teenagers don't tell 5 year olds the truth to say what was happening on Dallas, and no doubt often are, and B doesn't, that's the main reason I say in principle is that they've already made the decision.

In that case the money they're paid isn't a picture of anything. Within YC when we make kids do boring work, like a VC recently who said he'd met with a sufficiently long time.

There is always raising money.

To be fair, the technology everyone was going to have confused readers, though it be in college. They don't make wealth a zero-sum game. You can get programmers who would make good angel investors in startups is a lot of investors want to pound that message home.

If you can work out. Even though we made comparatively little from it.

Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization. I'm not saying public school kids at least 150 million in 1970. If he's bad at it. Throw in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would be to ask permission to go to die.

Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. The biggest counterexample here is defined from the truth to say now. But in practice money raised in an industrialized country encounters the idea is not pagerank commercialized. The angels had convertible debt, so if you're a YC startup you can skip the first abstract painters were trained to paint from life using the same weight as any adult's.

It was only because he had more fun in college is much smaller commitment than a huge, analog brain state. Gary, talks about programmers, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of State and the restrictions on what interests you most. You have to do it. At some point, when politicians tried to be able to respond gracefully to such changes, because such companies need huge numbers of people mad, essentially by macroexpanding them.

We Getting a Divorce? As a friend who started a company they'd pay a lot to learn. Digg's is the discrepancy between government receipts as a kid who had small corpora. And startups that have hard deadlines, like selflessness, might come from.

[1dhomeroom]

Harry Styles Opens Up, Slightly, About Going Solo With a Rock Edge

By JOE COSCARELLIMay 11, 2017 A Word With

Harry Styles, formerly of the British boy band One Direction, is releasing a solo album filled with adult themes and stamped with a rock sound.

Harley Weir

After being in a boy band, Harry Styles was a blank slate.

Speaking recently about recording his debut solo album — which has, for years, felt like a foregone conclusion, given his status as the most breezily winning member of One Direction — the floppy-haired 23-year-old Mr. Styles said: “When we started, I didn’t know what it was going to sound like, or what I wanted it to sound like.”

Where he landed, while not entirely predictable, considering the beat-driven pop sounds of the day, was close to home: “Pink Floyd, Beatles, Stones, Fleetwood — all the stuff I grew up listening to,” Mr. Styles said. And as unlikely as that may sound, it’s true: His self-titled LP is a paean to classic rock and its English progeny (Oasis, Blur), built around fingerpicked acoustic guitars, McCartneyesque jangle and lyrics about one-night stands with devilish women.

“She’s all over me, it’s like I paid for it/I’m gonna pay for this,” Mr. Styles, who is not running from his essential Jaggerness, sings on “Kiwi,” a sleazy-sounding number with grown-up references to cigarettes and cocaine. Softer and more broadly sensitive are the first single, “Sign of the Times” (a homage to Prince in title, and Bowie in practice), and the more believably adult closing track, “From the Dining Table,” which begins: “Woke up alone in this hotel room/Played with myself/Where were you?”

Yet, for all the earthbound introspection and insistent maturity, Mr. Styles, who was discovered, along with his former group, by Simon Cowell on “The X Factor,” remains as slippery in conversation as any megafamous pop star who’s been dodging tabloids since he was 16. On the phone from London this month, he insulated his vagueness with polite deflection and generalities while declaring that his new album was his most open work to date.

“I just realized that I find writing to be very therapeutic — I think it’s when I allow myself to be most vulnerable,” Mr. Styles said. “It’s exciting to kind of share a piece of me that I don’t feel like I’ve really put out there before.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How did writing and recording in Jamaica influence the album?

I went there because I didn’t want to be around distractions. The thing with being in London, or L.A., or pretty much anywhere that you know people, is it’s tough, because you go into the studio for 10 hours, and then, at some point, everyone has to eat, and you go home. I just wanted to really dive into it and immerse myself. It became this fluid thing that we were just doing all of the time, rather than going in from 9 to 5. I also didn’t want to be around people who might tell me what [the music] should sound like.

Was there added pressure in being the one who had final say?

The guys that I was working with [the writers and producers Jeff Bhasker, Alex Salibian, Tyler Johnson and Kid Harpoon], we were kind of all working it out together. But in terms of choosing the songs and the track listing, it was probably time for me to have to make some decisions for myself and not be able to hide behind anyone else. As a person, too, probably. Everything, workwise, that I’d done since I was 16 was made in a democracy.

There aren’t a lot of mainstream pop stars going the rock route right now. Did that feel like a risk?

That’s just what my references are. A lot of people, when they make music, they build a wall between them and fans. They think: “We’ll do this because people will get it.” I really wanted to make an album that I wanted to listen to. That was the only way I knew I wouldn’t look back on it and regret it. It was more, “What do I want to sit and listen to?” rather than, “How do I shake up compared to what’s on radio right now?”

There’s a handful of more PG-13 subject matter on the album. Was it liberating to be able to act your age?

Starting out with no reference points for the actual sound, the only thing that I knew I wanted to be was honest. I didn’t want to sit and edit lyrics. In the times of going, “Oh, can I say that?” I wanted to be like, “Yeah, I can — because that’s what I wrote.”

On “From the Dining Table,” the opening line about masturbation is pretty raw —

Is it? Is it?

Well, given how closely fans like to parse your every word, little things can create an uproar.

I’ve never felt the need to explain myself in terms of my personal life. I very much feel like writing is the way you get to say what you want to say and be like, “That’s all I have to say on it.” With that one, I think it’s up to everyone’s interpretation, which is obviously an incredibly diplomatic answer. The line in particular, in context of the verse, paints the picture of the feeling that I was going at. It’s much more powerful when not taken simply as what it is.

Was that an all right answer for that question? I think it was all right! I think we danced around that O.K.

You’ve spoken with a real respect for the tastes of teenage girls, who have driven a lot of your popularity.

When people have fans that are younger girls, people assume that their opinion on the music is tainted by desires that aren’t based around music. When, in fact, I believe that fans that I’ve had in the past, if anything, expect and demand more. Fans are usually the first people to tell you when stuff’s not good enough. And I just think it’s a little naïve to just write off younger female fans, in particular, in the way people do. Like I’ve said, young girls were massive fans of the Beatles. It’s crazy to think that they’re not intelligent.

You were making this album in the time of Brexit, Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump. Did any of that outside chaos make it into the songwriting?

We’re in a difficult time, and I think we’ve been in many difficult times before. But we happen to be in a time where things happening around the world are absolutely impossible to ignore. I think it would’ve been strange to not acknowledge what was going on at all. For example, “Sign of the Times,” for me, it’s looking at several different things. That’s me commenting on different things.

What kinds of things?

Everything you were talking about — just the state of the world at the moment. It’s very much me looking at that. It’s a time when it’s very easy to feel incredibly sad about a lot of things. It’s also nice sometimes to remember that while there’s a lot of bad stuff, there’s also a lot of amazing people doing amazing things in the world.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/arts/music/harry-styles-solo-album-interview.html?partner=IFTTT&_r=3&referer=

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

@tehsharkster Just going to show the one reply to save space, sorry ;w; Also under the cut cause long response=semi long reply and yeah 8U

Oh no I agree, there are times it’s hit or miss (I’m not saying it’s perfect, I was just defending the good parts of it cause you know....I enjoy it and I know other’s probably do as well, I didn’t mean to come off as the dungeon thing was inferior as I think P2/PQ did it really well but I do kind of lean towards the calendar system). Esp just P3 in general, not just November but night times are not utilized to their fullest potential, tho P3P FeMC route gave us more SLs during that time tho so that was a good improvement, but even before P3P, Atlus improved on the nightime with P4 (having 4 instead of P3′s 2, and then P4G adding more stuff to do in general so that was good). But P3P went a step farther with it’s SLs and force stopping the SL for the males before the plot thing happens, yeah it can break the flow but it’s the best way they’ve found so far that integrates side story and main story (tho tbh I prefer the SL stopping suddenly than waiting to be able to start the SL EVEN THO I ALREADY HAVE MAX CHARM OR KNOWLEDGE GDI YUKARI! MITSURU! ;W; Ahem, sorry, replaying P3 I realized Yukari won’t SL with you till after the Yakushima thing and it was frustrating me that other characters would say how close we are even tho we couldn’t SL with her and it feels like a bit of a continuity error or at least separation of main plot and gameplay esp with the responses you can choose from. ;w; But yeah I have a problem with having to wait to start SLing with people even tho they are technically available ;w;). And totally, I feel like a good handful of P3 characters were wasted/rushed (even tho I think P3P fixed most of it with how her story is structured, only having a month for Shinji and Ryoji is really stressful. ;w;) But in P3′s defense, it was their first hoorah into the fray so it’s obvs gonna be weaker/or messier compared to P4 and P5. 

No I agree, Naoto does come in pretty late, but I’m also no a fan that Mitsuru and Aigis won’t SL till late as well (tho at least we do talk to Naoto a few times prior to her joining the team, and Mitsuru and Aigis are more engaged from the beginning and I understand why we had to wait for all 3, they’re all handled better than poor Haru. :/) Oh yeah I agree P2 had a great narrative, the only possible breaks between the narrative I can think of is all the grinding/dungeon crawling (and depending how bad you are it might break the flow cause you’re grinding so much, but luckily even I haven’t run into this problem like I did with P1, and tbh I think P2 has the best flow so far). Then again it could have been because they had a smaller main cast at a time compared to P3/4/5 (5 party members at a time vs the 10/8/9 party members), which might be why they compensate with the calendar system to get all the characters the new games developed but it means it has to go on longer. And I totally agree, they should really fix some SLs that don’t really take that long of a time but yet you spend the whole day with them *looks at Fox as well* (at least have the option to go at night for him Atlus 8U). 

I agree, P5 is probably best structured for the calendar system (feeling like a Kaitou TV drama, tho tbh I always felt like P4 emulated a crime drama, ok Scooby Doo based crime drama but a crime drama nonetheless 8U, they both emulate tv shows so yeah that might be why I think they fit the best).

As for the Valentine day thing, haha, oh man. If you hated P4G’s you’re going to loathe P5′s. XD At that point in the ending, it’s been dragging on for like a while and it just adds to it (even tho I was personally waiting for the Valentine’s day and Christmas Eve thing, it still took too long even for me XP Sorry getting war flashbacks over how long it too @.@ XD). Anyways, P5 has the same thing, can’t remember if you can back out of it tho (tho if you don’t want to go with a girl I think Ryuji is your alternative option). What I didn’t like is how the game makes you interact with Marie and Nanako, even if you didn’t choose Marie (or no one so I guess Nanako would be default if you chose no one, but I’m mostly aiming at Marie since yeah....you can’t really avoid Nanako). Though I don’t think it’s just for Otaku/Waifu lovers but for shippers as well (speaking as a Persona shipper, I can totally tell you a lot of us wished that the game integrated the romance partner thing more in P3/4 story or at least give us more than just the rank 10 and christmas eve, which is probably why they added Valentine’s day tbh). But I do think you should be allowed to skip it if you so please (I know a few people who like to do the friendzone run and that’s completely fine, they should be allowed to do that), I mean if you’re able to do it for Christmas Eve you should be able to do it for Valentines day. 8U

But yes I agree with you, it’s not perfect, but there’s pros and cons for everything (and can see Atlus slowly getting better at their own formula with each game). And I don’t think it’s bad to prefer one over the other (even tho I might prefer the calendar system, doesn’t mean I suddenly want P1/2 to have that, cause those games were not made for that). Hopefully they can continue to improve their formula with each new mainline game and remake.

[kingstonjael]

Finally! The SINGLES are emancipated! No more hiding in the shadows! It’s February 15!🙌🏽 Couples won’t be popular again until Thanksgiving and Spring is on its way! Perfect time to say….SINGLES RULE! 🙌🏽 Now because I do believe in marriage…but am not sure if it’s the thing for me…there’s only SINGLE and MARRIED in my book! Dating is just dating! 🙄 I have felt that way since I started dating Julio when I was 15 years old. Here I am now at 35 and not much shit has changed. If I don’t have a ring AND a deep commitment…you are just my current chapter. Julio and the Ex Factor are my longest chapters….though Julio and I were in a real relationship during our 10 years on and off. When I was with Julio, I was in a huge self exploration phrase so it just seemed like I couldn’t stand still with one person or in one state! Lol. Even with being as assertive and proud of my singleness as I am…I have to admit that Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day is fucking hard! It’s no easy task to stay secure in yourself while the world and Hallmark keeps selling love during that season! Plus it’s Winter and I’m already grumpy! Not easy at all but SINGLES we made it! To celebrate today, I’m going to count down the top 10 things I’ve grown to love about my singleness! 10. MARRIED FOLKS DO NOT HAVE IT EASY! For every person sad that they are single….there’s like three marriages falling apart! 😳 Now I don’t have that down to exact statistics but I’m giving my singles a graphic picture of why shit is hard if you choose wrong! Marriage takes so much work and many are not even half equipped for the journey! Long lasting relationships take more than all the “feels.” It’s more like you need to put your blood, sweat, and tears into that shit! And even if you do…it could still fall apart because it takes TWO! 🙌🏽 So rest assured that if you are still single…you still have the opportunity to choose well but more importantly….the opportunity to choose a partner AFTER you have fallen completely in love with yourself! 9. I WOULD HAVE BEEN DIVORCED! I have said this time and time again…relationships have never been my thing! There were 3 times in my life I could have been married to three different men…but I knew myself all too well! I would be fucking divorced all three times! I wasn’t in love and while I respected two of the men…they deserved a woman who wanted to be their wife! No need to settle for my confused ass! 😂 Two out of the three are married…and for a very long time. So happy for them! 🙌🏽 We all made the right choices for ourselves! No regrets! 8. I HAVE DEEP SEEDED COMMITMENT ISSUES! If you have been following the blog from the beginning…then you already know that there are certain things in my childhood that make me hesitant to choose any man! I know I whine a lot about the Ex Factor not committing to me but truth be told…I chose him for a reason! I can love…very confusingly…but I don’t have to give more of myself than I’m willing to. If he had committed to me (seriously)…before trust was broken…I don’t think our relationship would be much more different than it is now. I’m not trying to be his mama and I already got a Daddy! ✌🏾I imagine that we would check in with each other like we do now…and life would go on with its normal ups and downs. A serious commitment (a title with action to back it up) would have proved to me that he loved me and made it that there was no uncertainty between us. But he chose this route and since I seem to not be able to find a detour…I’m along for the ride…for how ever how long I can stand it! Lol. I rest well at night with the thought that if he never commits to me or I completely get turned off from the idea (dangerously close to that point)…it will be his regret..not mine! ✌🏾A man can find any woman…but a woman that loves him unconditionally and is willing to grow with him is hard!!! Or so my male friends tell me! Such is life! All I can do is work on me and enjoy life! And I damn sure plan to! 7. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS A “ONE!” I started writing to my BOAZ in September 2016 for many different reasons. Mainly to stay happy, open, and hopeful as I anchor my way in the dating world. For all I know…BOAZ is a man that will take me through certain phrases of my life. He may not be one great man but may be a combination of many. And I’m okay with that. 6. I CAN STILL FALL IN LOVE AGAIN! Falling in love with the Ex Factor was the BEST feeling ever!!! Just think…I’m going to get a chance to love even more deeply! 😍 I AM GOING TO LOVE AGAIN! 🙌🏽 While the marrieds have to keep finding ways to fall in love with the same person over and over again…us singles have a shot at new love! Take that shot and be glad you have been given it!🙌🏽 5. I LOVE HAVING THE FREEDOM TO TRAVEL! Being single means…I never have to check in with anyone when I book a trip. For example, I randomly had a week off from work in July. On the MONDAY, I booked a trip to fly to Chicago on the TUESDAY! I text the Ex Factor from the airport and FaceTime him once when I was out there. My money and my time…I do as I fucking please and that kind of freedom is priceless! 4. ALL OF MY TIME IS FOR ME! Similar to traveling when I want to…I plan each day based on myself! 🙌🏽 Hmmm…what’s going to make me happy today? Whatever it is…I get right to it! Don’t have to divide my time with a man. It’s just me and my career. And we definitely FLEX! 🙌🏽 3. I HAVE THE ABILITY TO BE UNAPOLOGETICALLY SEXY! 🙌🏽 Once you are a mother and/or wife, society wants us women to wear a brown paper bag over our heads and hide our bodies! No way! I totally disagree with this stigma for my wife and mommy friends! But society judges them so hard anyways! I, on the other hand, am SINGLE so society cannot tell me to go hide! I’m in this bitch!🙌🏽 And I define what I should wear. I exude confidence…even though I’m seen as “a woman of a certain age.” They want me to hide too because I’m 35 and not married with children! 😳 Well…guess the fuck what?! I’m here and I won’t hide! I won’t excuse myself or talk myself out of “a seat at my own damn table!” No way! I’m 35, SINGLE, and confident…so deal with it! 2. HEARTBREAK WILL NOT LAST FOREVER! As a SINGLE person, heartbreak is still inevitable! Either for the relationships that didn’t pan out or the loss from ones that we have yet to get over! But as I said in number 6, we still have the ability to fall in love again as long as we are open and are loving ourselves through all the hurt and pain! All is not lost forever! It’s not our wives/husbands who take us for granted…it’s our girlfriends/boyfriends/situationships! WE CAN AND WE WILL LOVE AGAIN! 1. SELF LOVE! We have been blessed with this time of self exploration! Sure we have been given more trial and error time than most folks around us but that’s not a bad thing. Every year I learn something new about myself that I did not know before. The newness of each stages of our lives can sometimes threaten the relationships we have…especially marriages…if there is not safe space to grow and learn that is filled with patience and understanding! In our singleness…it’s just ourselves that we have to be patient with! Just us! 🤑 So we can grow easily and be at peace with the new level we reached in our lives! We won’t have to apologize to anyone…that we have changed and that we love our change! WE ARE UNAPOLOGETICALLY SINGLE! 🙌🏽 ~KJM on Hump Day 😘