#It's technically only 90% finished but it was getting too ambitious so after a month I decided to post it as is

[radladrobin]

CARNAGE 💗

Progress shots

I made max first and then the rest, part of the reason that it was difficult to do the scene. It's also because I had like 4+ light sources in this and couldn't decide on a direction for the flow

It's beautifully chaotic 😅 max would approve right

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Anton Tobias

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(Seth Green in this movie? A+)

- First things first: Anton’s had a crush on you since the first grade, which is also where the two of you technically met for the first time.

- You being placed in the same class would become a frequent, on and off again thing in both your lives. Every year or so, you’d end up having a class with Anton Tobias and every year, he’d fall for you harder and harder.

- Regardless of how long you’ve been aware of each other’s existence, Anton is still completely incapable of actually speaking to you. There’s been a few instances of him; accidentally or purposefully, coming into contact with you and just widening his eyes, doing a 180 and booking it away from you after you say hello.

- So yeah, for a while, he’s just adorably obsessed with you in a way that only a boy in love can be.

- There was definitely a period in your life where you considered trying to talk to him yourself, wondering if you could ease his nerves a little and show him that he could actually interact with you.

- But then he got really into the whole stoner thing and you found yourself a bit too intimidated to approach him. Plus, he was never at school anymore for you to talk to him anyways.

- It’s only when the two of you reach your junior year of highschool that anything of actual value happens between you.

- It was during one of the days that Anton actually showed up to school. You’d gotten home from school when you went to pull your things out of your schoolbag. It was then that you finally noticed that you had two copies of your English classes book.

- You vaguely remembered assuming you’d dropped yours when you saw a copy near your bag on the floor, a copy you’d quickly stuffed into your bag “again” before rushing to your next class. You cracked open the covers of both and found that one read ‘Anton Tobias’ in a messy scrawl.

- Considering the fact that you didn’t know where Anton lived; or had even ever spoken to him, you couldn’t exactly return the book right away, so, you were forced to wait until school the next day and hope that he showed up.

- The next day, you spotted him in front of the school and quickly made your way over. He looked at you like a deer in headlights as you explained the situation, not saying anything but taking the book from your hands as his friends watched in secondhand embarrassment and amusement.

- Pnub kicked him in the shin and he finally spoke, assuring you that it was alright and forcing a smile onto his face. You offered to let him copy your homework since you borderline stole his book and he asked if you were sure before thanking you as you handed it to him.

- You said goodbye and walked off as as he stared at you in awe. He handled that paper like a museum artifact the entire day.

- You were already seated in your chair when he walked in and surprised you by sitting right next to you. He handed your paper over and thanked you again as you gave him a smile.

- When class is finally over, he stays behind and gathers up the courage to actually talk to you, complimenting your homework before the conversation shifts into more interesting territory. His boys are very proud to see him walking out of the school with you instead of being a puss.

- The two of you made it to the bus area before you were forced to say goodbye, which you did so begrudgingly before you got on. He couldn’t complain though, he’d finally talked to the girl of his dreams and he was floating on cloud nine.

- The two of you start talking to each other everyday and he couldn’t be happier, he feels stupid for being so afraid to start a conversation with you. It takes about a month of short conversations for him to actually invite you to hang out. 

- You’re once again walking out of school with him and you’re just finishing up saying goodbye when he turns back around and asks if you want to come over to his place, which you obviously agree to. 

- So technically, your first date consists of you going over to his house and pretty much just hanging out and enjoying each others company. You watch television, talk some more, eat some food, go for a walks, things like that. 

- It’s after a few months of the two of you hanging out that you have your first kiss. You were a bit bored and flopped on his bed as he fiddled with something, asking if he actually wanted to do something. 

- He asked what you wanted to do as you hovered above him and you watched as his gaze kept drifting down to your lips. You’d suspected before that Anton had a crush on you; primarily because Pnub and Mickey had outright told you he did, but it was only now that you saw he truth in their words. 

- Before you lost your nerve, you leaned down and pressed your lips to his. He froze for a minute as you pulled away, looking at you in surprise as a million thoughts raced through your mind; thoughts that were banished as he lurched up and kissed you again. 

- Rest assured, that kiss sealed your fate. You’re never getting rid of him after that. 

- Lots of Pda. Anton really doesn’t care about what anybody thinks so if he wants to touch or kiss you; which believe me he does, he’ll just do it without thinking.

- His arm around your shoulders, or draped around the couch behind you.

- Drowsy hugs from behind. He’s usually half asleep when he does this and will usually take in a deep, tired breath and sleepily tell you you smell good.

- He presses kisses all over your face whenever he can; particularly when he’s board. He’ll give you one on your temple, then one on your cheekbone, under your cheekbone, the apple of your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth-

- Soft, sometimes slow kisses.

- Makeout sessions. What’s better than laying in his bed and kissing you? To him? Pretty much nothing.

- The two of you cuddle wherever you fall. Sometimes you’re on top of him, other times he’s spooning you with his leg thrown over your body; just all types of cuddling.

- He tends to just call you by your given name but if he feels the need, he’ll call you babe or honey as well.

- He thinks everything you do is so fucking cool. He’s constantly amazed by and complimenting you.

- He’s almost embarrassingly fond of and proud of you. He brags about you to people all the time; it’s really quite adorable.

- He can’t remember basic math 90% of the time but you bet you’re ass he remembers the outfit you wore when you first talked to him or everything about that necklace you always wear or the book you always carry around. He’s well versed in the subject of y/n.

- Fast food dates.

- Watching television together.

- Chilling up in his room.

- Listening to music together. Sometimes you just lay on his bed with your heads connected and your hands intertwined and vibe.

- Walking his dog with him. You know ...Anton really isn’t fond of the way Randy looks at you as you’re walking by.

- Going to the skatepark with him and his friends.

- He’s always phoning you and asking you to come over because he wants to see you; usually groaning when you’re busy or trying to convince you to ditch what you’re doing.

- If you’re into weed then expect to be doing a lot of smoking with him.

- Trying to get him to be a little more ambitious. You’re one of the only things that get him out of bed and out into the world.

- Informing him on the latest happenings because god knows he isnt paying attention to any of whats going on around him.

- Subtle butt touches.

- Wearing his pants because he sure as shit doesn’t. If he’s rocking his boxers, you’re rocking the sweats he’s neglected.

- Occasionally cutting class or skipping school with him. You do want to graduate high school so you don’t do it all the time like he does:

- Doing him a few favors; or more so his mother. Picking up milk on your way over after school, bringing some food, returning movie rentals. Things that take like a five minutes if you’re already gonna be passing said places.

- Waking him up in the morning, or more accurately: the afternoon.

- He loves when you fuss over him. Honestly, the more motherly and “traditional” you act with him the better. Get out all those urges. He’ll never mind.

- Your laugh? Music to his ears. His humor is his main appeal; besides the fact that he’s nearly six foot and pretty attractive.

- Talking all serious about stupid shit until you both breakout into laughter.

- Wondering why he’s suddenly acting so strange....

- Going through the whole idle hand ordeal and stopping him by being crushed by a whole ass car.

- Visiting him in the hospital.

- Helping him after he loses his hand.

- You are his last brain cell. You’re like the main reason this boy is still alive.

- Occasionally shutting him up since he doesnt think before he speaks like 90% of the time. Anton ...maybe don’t make fun of police officers ...to their face ...when they already don’t like you.

- Your parents probably don’t like him ...for obvious reasons, so you’ll most likely have to sneak out or lie to them so that you can see him.

- Helping to keep him calm in stressful situations.

- He thinks he’s really bad at comforting you but he’s actually like accidentally really good at it. He has no idea what he’s doing but it’s working!

- Antons pretty oblivious most of the time so he doesn’t tend to get jealous very often. That being said, since he’s been in love with you for so long, he isn’t too keen on losing you so whenever he senses a serious threat to your relationship, he’ll do whatever he can to stop it.

- He’s sort of a coward so he really isn’t going to be the one you can count on when you’re scared. He’ll probably talk up a big game but the minute a tree limb snaps beneath someone’s foot, he’s clinging to you like a child.

- The two of you don’t fight extremely often; you sort of just know how he is so you’re unfazed by most of what he does. But when you do fight, he has trouble staying calm and saying the right thing. He’ll probably call you a bitch without thinking and you’ll have to stop yourself from strangling him.

- Whenever you’re mad at him, he’ll keep periodically calling you to try and get you to talk to him. He never waits long after you leave either; usually it’s at most an hour before he’s ringing your line. He can always seem to wiggle his way back into your good graces no matter what he does and it’s infuriating.

- He tells you he loves you quite a bit. He’s had a while to come to terms with his feelings so he isn’t afraid to tell you the truth.

- He’s not a fan of talking about the future but let’s just say that you’ll probably be the more established and accomplished person in your relationship.

[tisthenightofthewitch]

IN CONVERSATION WITH GHOST’S TOBIAS FORGE

JACK PARKER   JUNE 13, 2019

Tobias Forge is a charming man. Seated in the bar of Amsterdam’s well hidden Hotel van de Vijsel, he’s just finishing a cup of coffee as rain batters the windows outside. It doesn’t faze him, though, focussing on his phone as I sit down at the small table. We’re here today to discuss Ghost‘s fourth studio album, Prequelle, which just celebrated its first birthday. Over the course of the last twelve months, former man of mystery Forge’s band Ghost have undergone one hell of an impressive campaign trail, taking on bigger stages than ever before with one of their most ambitious productions to date. Everything about Ghost is magistral, and so as they prepare to continue touring with Metallica, Forge tells Jack Parker all about his vision, the future and his personal ambitions.

Hey Tobias. You’re on the road with Metallica at the moment, how’s that going? Very, very cool. I mean, it’s cool from so many aspects because we’re playing in front of fifty, sixty thousand people every night, which is unbelievable. You could talk about being the rock dream, but it’s also very educational. When you look at where we are right now, basically being in the process of playing between the smaller clubs and bigger stadiums, it’s definitely very educational to go up against these huge crowds. It takes time, it takes training, and it takes practice to learn how to do this. Just the fact that you’re focussing your energy in so many different directions, with all these people in front of you. And if it’s big enough, there’ll also be a camera in front of you somewhere which you have to look into and communicate with. All these people in the back need to look at what you’re doing.

Of course. There’s a lot of things like that. But to be honest, you couldn’t ask for a more hospitable host. Hosts. Metallica have been so nice and supportive, you know? We’re treated fantastically; it’s a great summer with a lot of days off too!

Prequelle is now a year old, congratulations on that little milestone. How do you feel about that collection of music, looking back on it a year later?

I don’t think that much of the record. To use a very business-oriented term, I think more of the entire album cycle and where that record has gotten us as a band, and what we’re doing tour-wise. From that aspect it’s been phenomenal, really good. Because it’s wrapping now, I can definitely see the end of the cycle coming up. I can look back at it now and think to myself, “We’ve achieved exactly what we set out to achieve with the record”. The record was very honest and not a repetition of anything I’d done before, and that’s good. I like it! I don’t listen to the album, but that’s the same thing with all of my records. As soon as I’m done writing a record and we’ve started playing it live I already stop listening to it. I honestly can’t, because it makes me slightly nauseous.

So at what point do you start looking towards that next cycle in a more concrete manner? I usually start when I’m wrapping up the recording process for the previous album. There’s already things I leave a production with which I know I want to do differently or improve for the next time. I’m not trying to sound like a killjoy, but there are always things in a production which you eventually realise were not necessary. Like, “that was not good”, or, “we could have done that better”. It’s not necessarily simple stuff like doing a chorus differently, but more a case of, “Ah! I wish we’d spent two more days playing bass” or “I wish we would have tuned that tom or snare better“. I hear it all the time.

The little things, basically. Yeah! But you see, I’m a control freak and a perfectionist, and I really, really want to feel like I’ve done everything in my power to create as good a product as possible. Again, product.

A business term. Exactly, a dumb word. As good an album as possible, as good of a craft as I can. That’s why I walk from a production telling myself that I want to do certain things differently next time round. As far as writing goes, though, the cycle starts a lot more modest and at a lower frequency. I end up with a few things I’d left out of the current record, and then I add a lot of new things. And that’s everything, from small snippets of music that I might have recorded to things I have in my head, or notes. I have a lot of notes with titles and lyrics, conceptual things. Just ideas, really. Knowing now that we’re gonna wrap after this year, I’m gonna go into the studio in January 2020. By then, I will be deep in the process and ready to start working on album five. Touring life is very teenage in how we’re so free and that there’s a lot of late nights – you just can’t be sick! And you have to play, haha. When I make a record, I’m usually quite routine. I like routine, so it’s Monday through Friday from nine to five. You show up for work, drink a coffee and get going.

Business! Yeah, I want it to be like a normal job. When I start doing that, it usually falls into place quite quickly.

I see. Prequelle ends on Life Eternal, which is very much a grandiose and bombastic piece of music. How does this song feed into what you want to explore musically and conceptually during the next cycle? The next record is definitely conceptual.

They all are. Yeah, they are, but not in a King Diamond kind of way where there’s a storyline that starts with Character A and Character B getting rid of Character C. It’s not a rock opera in the classic sense, it’s more a general vibe. Not too dissimilar to what Metallica or Iron Maiden used to do on their albums; they do still, sometimes. Powerslave, for example, is an Egyptian sort of record, but there’s a lot of songs on it which have nothing to do with Egypt. I am conceptual more along those lines, than by trying to write my own Tommy. In this particular case I dare to say that the next album won’t start where Life Eternal leaves off.  The record that I have in mind is very different. Being a Ghost album, it’ll obviously have something to do with Prequelle, but I’m not trying to write a Prequelle 2. It’ll be a completely different record.

You see, that’s what I like about Ghost. There’s a thread of similarity feeding through each record which gives off that whole “this is Ghost” vibe, and yet no two records are the same.  As you said earlier, you’re a control freak and a perfectionist. On the record you play all of the guitar and bass lines yourself, but when you look towards that live show how do you go about finding musicians who match your vision? The band I have now are very good examples of exactly what I’m looking for. They execute what is already there, and they do it very well and do it successfully. They have also adopted the songs a little bit, and changed their physiques to play the songs as intuitively as possible. They’ve gotten into the roles so well that they deliver the lines believably. It sounds authentic, and that’s great. What’s needed is not only mindset and ability, but also time; it takes time. Practice makes perfect, a very worn out term! It takes a very long time for a band to warm to one another, so after little over a year of touring together you can now tell that they’ve gelled. That’s why I think we now have those moments where we listen to a clip and go, “Wow! It sounds really good now”. Everyone’s attentive to the details; they know the songs very well. They did their homework immensely well before we started touring, not just in learning the lines but also in feeling them. That’s two different things! In order to play Ghost music, it also helps if you have a bit of a similar musical background to me, and that you haven’t only played black metal before. It helps if you have been in a pop or rock band, you know? You don’t have to be schooled. Let’s say that we jammed Summer of 69 and you can play it so that it sounds like a rock song, that’s great. You need to be able to play rock and roll, and do it wholeheartedly. You shouldn’t be the kind of person who regards an AC/DC song as not technical enough for you to play good.

You just have to feel it. Yep! You see, I experienced this problem when I had my own metal band, Repugnant. I know how old and fucking backwards I sound by saying this, but the last time I was embracive of something contemporary was in the early 90s. That’s when I still liked records that came out! Before and after that I’d always been embracive of things which came before, like in the 60s, 70s and 80s. By the mid-90s, like 94/95, I started thinking that most death and black metal bands had completely shat themselves. I started excavating a lot of the death metal stuff that I liked in the mid-80s. If you’d have met me in 1995 then all of my favourite things would’ve been from a good ten years earlier. Celtic Frost, Destruction, Bathory, stuff like that! My problem in the late 90s, when I had bands playing that sort of music, was that a lot of people my age grew up listening to the later bands. I had to force them to listen to and not think of Possessed as a band who didn’t sound good enough, you know? Just because they liked “new”, well-sounding, later-90s shit. For most of my life I’ve been in bands trying to educate other people on what I want to do, just because it wasn’t in trend with what was going on at the time. I don’t even know how old you are?

I’m 22. 22, oh shit. It doesn’t matter! You see, the difference between people your age and people my age is that people nowadays have far broader and fresher music tastes. They’re way more educated in music, and they have different points of view which are accessible. Back in 1995, people my age and older chose their own records. You had to choose your own path in a different way!

There was obviously far less instant access to music in 1995. You’d have to trawl through record stores, and now we’ve got streaming. Yeah, and that has been a constant thing for me. Not a struggle, though! Nowadays it’s evened out because I play with people who are ten years younger than me, and I am ten years older. When I was 18 or 22 there were a lot of people who would just turn to you and say, “Oh, I’ve never heard of that band”. People whose first album was a Korn record. Not that I have anything against Korn, but for me that’s just alien. In 1995 I was already knee deep in trying to educate myself with the old school ways of death metal and Satan, so I fucking hated anything that was considered modern, or “nu-metal“. I couldn’t stand it! Anyone wearing shorts spoke of a life and style that was not me. Do you know what I’m saying?

Yeah, I understand. For me, it was very hard to find people I could play with. That’s because of all the musical shit that was going on back then, which is natural of course.

You’ve always been a very ambitious person, and it shows. But where do you want to take that ambition next? If we’re gonna be a bit more broad stroked in terms of life ambitions, then I think that Ghost will obviously always be my claim to fame. I don’t have any dreams of making it artistically in another way, like with Dave [Grohl] playing drums in one of the world’s biggest bands and then becoming the singer of an even fucking bigger band. I don’t have that ambition, but in the future I’d love to play in some different bands and do different things. It doesn’t have to be huge, though. One very basic ambition that I have in order to achieve the things I want to explore is to reach a point of no economical pressure. For me, that would be the luxury. That’s my vision of making it. If I can form a band with people that I like and I’m just gonna be the guitar player or drummer, then to be able to do things like go on tour would be great if I didn’t have to worry about the monetary side of things. That for me is a dream come true, especially now that I’ve spent a decade doing a band which is very money and career-driven. If I ever started a band now, then I’d know what I want to do better. Therefore I feel very excited about the possibility of playing in another band at some point in my life. Hmm, what else? I’m a very cinematically interested person, so I’m really into the idea of scriptwriting. I would definitely start my own production company either alone or with someone else, but only if I had the money, the means and the time. I wouldn’t say I’d produce films, because then people would think of big blockbuster stuff. That’s not what I’m talking about; I’m talking about being able to make short films or series with the sorts of ideas I have. Given the proper time and opportunity to cultivate that, and without having the economical pressure, that would also be a big ambition of mine.

AllThingsLoud.com

[taylorteffyswift]

The Swift Preface of Dylan

This is the story of how @taylorswift changed my life and describes why she is also directly responsible for my career…

I was raised in a small commuter town south of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada called Greely. I was born with a rare genetic condition called Ocular Albinism. Sparing you all the technical details of this ailment, bottom line… I’m legally blind. Aside from all the practical challenges this entails, there are also social challenges that at times are far worse. I have always loved people and growing up as an only child in the country, though being very magical atmospherically, is also very lonely. To make matters worse, when you’re in grade school in the 90s it’s not exactly cool to hang out with “The Blind Guy”. Elementary school wasn't so bad but once the peer pressure and social tensions started to kick in for my peers in middle school, I was alone most of the time and usually on the receiving end of emotional/physical bullying for the rest of the time from both students and faculty. After a while I started to believe my aggressors and began to feel ashamed of who I was in a pool of many other dark thoughts wondering if I would ever find a place in this world or find a crowd of people that would even want to be around me.

I always tell people that the worst part wasn’t the things that I was going through with bullying and loneliness but was that I had nobody to talk to about what I was going through. Having to bottle up it all because I didn’t have a friend to open up to and had to be “strong” and “be a man” to avoid further ridicule and bullying just made the scars deeper. I felt alone more than anything. Until one Wednesday morning in February of 2007. I was at home getting ready for school and in passing, I heard a song come on the radio. My parents often listened to the local country station as it had the best reception around and they didn’t mind the genre. I’d always loved music as a kid but most of the time was focusing on the musical aspect rather than the words and poetry. The words and singing of this song grabbed my attention immediately. The further I got into the song the more I could relate to the story (as I had something similar happening to me with someone at school at that time) and I could also relate through the honesty and conviction of the vocal performance. Whoever this performer was, they were saying what they felt… and they meant it. That entire day that song kept echoing in my head and I was thinking about the words constantly. It wasn’t long before I knew I had to hear more by this artist and find out more about who they are. The name of this song was Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift.

I managed to find someone to lend me the album for an evening. I must have gone through that record from edge to edge about 5 or 6 times at least. I could relate to and understand each of these songs and it made me feel less alone. Some time not too long later, I read her uniquely written MySpace bio and started thinking “Hey, she thinks a lot like I do about stuff”. And for once, I felt like I wasn’t by myself all of a sudden. For once I felt like I had a friend.

It was about a month later and I started thinking about the people that made this album and wanted to know more about the process. I found a lot of different roles but none of them were really what I was looking for. Then I read about the role of Producer. I said to myself “If a producer is the person responsible for taking an amazing artist’s songs (like Taylor) and helping to turn them into a finished product that will touch the hearts of millions of people and spread solace to people like she did to me with her music and talent, this is what I need to do. This is how I will feel fulfilled in my life and make the difference and impact I always wanted to make in other people’s lives”. So from that moment, I started on a journey and since have spent every waking moment learning every skill and gaining every perspective that I could to become better and more well-rounded, faster.

The next day I started teaching myself guitar straight away. I went to an arts high school to learn music (though I couldn’t enroll in the music program due to my sight reading of sheet music notation being terrible obviously). I spent those years in high school focusing on Music, English (for my songwriting), the technology and business classes (for my understanding of engineering concepts and the industry) as well as taking part in as many bands and musical projects that I could to learn the best ways of collaborating with other musicians. I also picked up several other instruments during my high school days to hopefully get to the point where I’d be less dependent when it came to my creative process as a songwriter and arranger.

As soon as I graduated high school, I went into college in Ottawa for music industry arts which is where I learned about producing in great detail and the innerworkings of the “Big Machine” that is the music industry. After graduating college, I started canvasing for songwriters to work with and bands to record. Ottawa has a very over saturated producer and technical scene so getting artists and clientele on-board for a newbie that lived in the middle of nowhere was a challenge… but I had a few great projects coming along in no time. I have spent a while working as a radio producer across Canada as well to learn that aspect of the business as I think it is still a very vital distribution system for the music industry.

Throughout all of this, each one of Taylor’s albums has come out at a time when I really needed it. TS1 in the beginning when I desperately needed a friend and when I decided what I was doing with my life, Fearless when I was working on my first album of all my own work, Speak Now when I came across my first real love interest While I was in a band in my last year of high school, Red when I had the worst breakup I have ever been through and was in a spiral of depression, 1989 when I was going into college for a second time living away from all my friends and family and reputation when I needed a confidence boost when I felt my life was going nowhere and like I’d been betrayed as a punishment for trusting all the wrong people. Reputation also gave me the confidence to start singing and perhaps sharing some of my own songs and stories with the world as well which has led me to embark on a whole new chapter of my story. Any way you slice it, Taylor’s been there through it all. No matter what has happened she has been able to pull me out of the darkest places I’ve ever been as a person and as an artist.

I still work tirelessly each day creating in new styles and learning new perspectives on arranging the musical backbone of a good song. More recently I was given the confidence to start singing and perhaps bringing some of my own stories to the forefront that others might want to hear. I still love collaborating with artists and will always love that workflow as a producer but that the end of the day as long as I’m playing a part (or THE part as the case may be) in producing music that makes a difference and makes people feel less alone who are going through things like I’ve been through, I can get a good night’s sleep with a smile.

At the end of it all, Taylor showed me with her amazing talent, kindness and raw fondness of people and being good to people who are good that music can change hearts and minds. She also showed me that you don’t need millions of dollars to change the world, but just a few beautiful words to describe what some people in their best and worst of times, struggle to express.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that another dream of mine is to someday have the honor and privilege of working with Taylor and contributing to one of her masterpieces in one way or another. I know it’s a beyond ambitious goal that might as well be impossible as Taylor is known for only keeping the best of the best professionals by her side (and she deserves nothing less than the absolute best). But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t still a big motivator for me pushing forward like I do. She moves so… swift (for lack of a better word) with her art and creativity that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to catch up at this point. If I can’t have that opportunity, my last wish would be just to have the opportunity to tell her my story and to thank her for all that she has done for me and helped me through by changing my life and at times, saving my life.

To Taylor: 

I doubt you’ll ever read this and probably will never know who I am as there are so many of my fellow Swifties that are probably far more deserving of your attention than I. But Taylor, you are my best friend and have been there for me through it all. You’re the one person that I can always count on to bring me up when I’m in my darkest places and make me feel like there is someone there even when I have no one. I think it would be one of the biggest tragedies if you, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a big sister, did not know how much you mean to me and how much good you have brought into my life through the beauty and power of your music and art. I will be in your debt for life and I can only hope that one day I may be able to repay at least part of that debt by working with/for you and your music. If that’s pushing beyond my talent and potential skill, then I at least would like to have the chance to thank you in person for all you have done for me (and possibly one of the world’s biggest hugs to accompany that)

Either way, even though you will probably never know my name, I’d always have your back no matter what Taylor.

Swiftie for life & All good things,

Dylan Lalonde

P.S. Taylor, a few weeks back I produced a few covers of your pieces as a little tribute to you and your work. The latest of which is a cover I did of Delicate (which is a few posts down on my blog). I know you’re busy with so much going on, but if you could spare the time, it would mean the world to me if you heard it. No pressure, just if you somehow find yourself bored and curious...

[revel80r]

On the turning of Scyther88

I met my best friend when I was five years old. at the Akron Chinese Christian Church. On this blog, I call him Scyther88. Scyther, myself, and another guy, let’s call him ‘Mango’, have been the three musketeers for most of my childhood. We’d only see each other on sundays, and sometimes a friday, or saturday here or there, because our families all lived in different areas of Akron and we went to different schools during the week. But oh, the bliss of those sundays together with those two idiots. At church on sundays, we hung out together, we got in trouble together, bullied and picked on other smaller kids together, and all the joys of 90′s boyhood ...together. We definitely had our different personalities too. Mango was the oldest (by 8 days). He was always domineering, manipulative, and was kind of our de-facto “leader” of the little gang. Scyther was always the lancer to Mango’s alpha. He always challenged him, had more of a streak of irony and sarcasm than Mango. He was cool. And then there’s me. I was younger than both of them by about a year. I was the little 3rd fiddle. I just played loyal and loved being with these two guys... complicit in all our stupid sins as a bunch of kids.

We got really, crazy into Pokemon, and bonded over it. To this day, Scyther’s email, gamername, username on most platforms has always been “Scyther88″ or some form of it. Mango’s moved on from his “Jolteon88″ or whatever it was. I was an ‘89 baby so I’m not even cool. Now I’m just reVelstΛr. I remember I was the first to get pokemon cards. Mango and I were at some Chinese church camp, and we both got one card each, he got a machop and I got a charmander. Later, a couple weeks later, I got the old blue Pokemon card starter deck. And I became the cool boy. Mango and Scyther both got rival (and better) decks pretty soon afterwards and the 90′s head fever of pokemon collecting materialism had bitten us, and our parent’s wallets hard. We fought, we argued over rules and technicalities, (the best that 4th graders could anyway), etc. But we were buddies and knew that. Even though we didn’t go to the same schools in Akron, we’d go to each other’s birthday parties, play N64 together, etc. It was the good ol’ days. The best and worst part of it was, the Chinese church met in this very large mega-church building in Akron. Very extensive facilities. And us boys had the inside of the church fully explored and mapped out. We knew the place very well. So on sunday we knew there would be the inevitable time our parents had finished socializing and decided it was time to go home, and do other things. And so, purposefully, to milk every sweet moment of pokemon-card battling that we possibly could, we would hide in nooks, crannies, upper rooms, balconies, anywhere we could find and hide in, to hide away from our parents so we could spend more precious moments pokemon-carding away. Our parents had to send out search parties and scour the buildings for us little brats. hahaa. We’re guilty of many white hairs on one of the assistant pastors. 

Reality hits hard. Mango’s family moved away to Asia at the end of 5th grade, and we would not see each other for a very long time. Scyther’s life hit a very rough patch when his dad’s brother passed away. Scyther’s father got angry and blamed Jesus for the passing of his brother. He full turned away from the faith, and forbid Scyther’s mother and Scyther from going to church anymore. I was young and not aware of such heavy things. but I did remember my two best friends no longer being at church, and I was suddenly a lone little guppy in the church youth group. The youngest, least mature, and most annoying, by many grade levels, to the rest of the church youth group.

I saw Mango once, in 8th or 9th grade when his family stopped by Akron for a visit, and the next time I saw him was in college.

Scyther and his mother would occasionally come to church over the years. Scyther’s father was vehemently against God, but Scyther’s mother was all the stronger in the faith in Jesus. And so they’d sneak to church whenever she can over the years to come. And blessings for me, my friendship with Scyther was intact and I got to have a middle school and high school life with my best friend from time to time, talking to him about video games, stupid jokes, girls, and all other kinds of bad things.

Scyther and I even went on a mission trip together in 2006 to Beijing, China.

In the fall of 2007, all three of us idiot musketeers went to the Ohio $tate University as freshman, Mango, Scyther, and my darned self.

I got in contact with Mango the weeks before commencement, and hung out with him the first day on campus. We both got involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and that ended up being our primary community on campus for the next 4-5 years (or on my case, [one of my] primary communities). Scyther and Mango were no longer buddies, no longer close. Mango’s become a popular, social kid. Scyther and I are outcast, and fringe people. I was not aware of this at the time, but Scyther had a very rough middle school and high school life, being rejected and picked on by his white peers, because he is one of only two or three Asians in his entire schools. White people. Y’all messed up. Need to get help. I was not aware, that this messed up my best friend on the inside, as he has a cynical, vengeful, vindictive streak hidden that I either missed or chose to ignore. He became ambitious and focused. So that, one day he will be at the top of the heap, looking down on everyone else who was cruel and had mistreated him in the past. And Scyther will know who had one in the end. That was his plan anyway.

Scyther was driven, ambitious, and disliked people. Mango was popular, responsible, and worked around people. I was a desperate loser junkie who would give up anything to be with people or video-games. 

Guess which one of us dropped out of Ohio State, heheh.

And so Scyther did not like InterVarsity after attending one time, and picked up on the community’s unfortunate clique-y tendencies. decided he was not going to put up with that bovine stool, and chose to attend a Korean church instead. Meanwhile Mango and I became career InterVarsity attenders, becoming leaders in different chapters of IV. Mango got a lot farther along than I did, in leadership and socially, and so it went on.

I am kind of sad to admit that I picked up on signs that Scyther had given up on Jesus very late. He had stopped attending his Korean church, and I simply assumed it was because of the busyness of his schedule, as I had missed many church sessions, although that may have more to do with irresponsibility, though like many college students, I liked to chalk that up to “busyness”. And being roommates with Scyther, we would have bitter arguments from time to time. One time I got so angry, I threatened to murder him, and the dorm manager had to have me stay at a friend’s place overnight that time because of the difficulties in our dorm room. After a year of college I began to realize that Scyther no longer believed or followed Jesus. I was not even aware of my own shallowness and the brokenness in my own pursuit of Jesus, but all I knew was I felt InterVarsity was doing the right thing to me, and I seemingly couldn’t do anything to convince stubborn old Scyther to come back to either InterVarsity or church.

In Scyther’s mind, he realized that being in college, he could do whatever he wanted and was no longer forced to go to church by his mother. He could make his own choices now. And so he decided to not go. And his pains from his past, cynicism and disdain for people, including Christians, took over, and he lost faith in people, community, and Christ. He admitted to himself in not believing or seeing proof of God’s existence. and became atheist.

During all of this, Scyther’s mother remained the strong, strong prayer warrior Christian she has always been. Praying every day for the salvation of her family, urgently imploring God to bring Scyther back to faith. She prayed, and prayed, and prayed.

For many years after that, we had an understanding that InterVarsity and Jesus were just me and my ‘God thing’. but Scyther saw no evidenc, proof, or need for him. There was no way to work around his buttheadedness. Plus, Scyther’s got lots of crap on me, my deepest darkest secret, etc. So it’s not like I’ve been a particularly good, effective, or pure example of a Christian to him. And that was that. There was not much of a productive conversation beyond that.

Scyther graduated from Ohio $tate, and got into grad school in a virology PhD program at Cornell University, while I got academically dismissed, and dropped into crippling depression... Mango graduated and went on to teaching or something like that. There was a drop of contact for awhile.

Over the years from 2011-2016 Scyther and I would skype and hangout online from time to time. sometimes more frequently, chatting and playing vieogames together online every night. Other times we’d go through months of hiatuses from online contact. I visited him at Cornell University in Ithaca. That was a special night as by the grace of the Lord, I got a chance to talk with Scyther about why I believed in God, why I believed in Jesus, and how experienced him. A deeper conversation than the typical StarCraft and World of WarCraft talk we had. In the end, Scyther still saw no evidence, proof, or need for God and I had to just agree to disagree... It’s good. I love him. I love this guy. He is my best friend. He was there with me through much of my shit and depression. Especially that worst period in 2013. 

This year in 2016, I took a very, very long hiatus from video games and much social media. Worked through some of the toughest semesters I had at Capital University, which God has provided for me after scraping and mopping up my mistakes through sweat, blood, and tears at Columbus State Community College... And so 2016 was a banner year for me. Most excellent. I got to go on not one, but two missions trips, one to Mozambique, and one to Taiwan. and after all that crazy goodness, I was brought into church staffship, and finished college in december, finally earning that accursed, elusive piece of paper...

Meanwhile, Scyther was told to wrap up his research, do a dissertation and defense, and finish his graduate school studies. And he did so. And now we all tease him and call him Dr. Scyther. What should have been a joyful, celebratory time, became a disappointment for Scyther, as life after attaining doctorhood was no different from life before. He did not feel any redemption, release, or beams of purpose. Only the emptiness. And so, with his emotions crashing. Scyther realized the truth of life is meaningless. There is no rhyme, or reason. Why spend so much effort building, only for someone else to enjoy the fruits of his labor? What was worth it? We all die and go to the same place, and life is meaningless. He spiraled into depression and decided to kill himself. and with the many years of laboratory experience, he knew exactly what he needed to do to kill himself. He planned it out, wrote apology letters to his mother, wrote one for me, and only found that..... he could not do it. The fear is too much. He is afraid of pain, and confronted with the fact that he did not know what happens to him after he does it. And so, THANK GOD, my best friend Scyther did not kill himself. During this time I was completely unaware that my Scyther was going through so much... Lesson and word of advice... check on your friends, keep in contact with them, ever after you sign off or swear off from social media.. check on your friends. Because honestly, depression and suicidal resolve can come quite swiftly....

Scyther did not kill himself. Thank God he chickened out. One thought reached out to him, The Timothy Keller book he bought out of curiosity on a whim a while ago: “The Reason for God” It is an apologetics book laying out philosophical, experiential, theological arguments fro the experience of God. Very good. Scyther read through it.

One day, in November of 2016, after a conversation with his mother, Scyther felt truth in his mind, that maybe, just maaaybe, God really is real. And that very night he had a terrifying demonic nightmare, as if he was being dragged down to hell itself. Sleep paralysis, the sciences call it. A couple nights later he had another sleep paralysis attack, this time seeing an angry face. He looked it up online and discovered sleep paralysis. And happening so suddenly and coincidally with his openness to the existence of God, a higher being..... He called me and asked about it. Being intrigued, I opened up a little about my own demonic experiences, and assured him that the name of Jesus has power. Jesus has power. Pray, invoke the name of Jesus, and the enemy will flee in every direction from you... We talked for a little while, I mentioned being at the church I was at, and how I was going to a big conference called One Thing in Kansas City that december.

A couple days later, my cell phone broke and I had to switch phones, missing a couple texts and calls in the process; several of these texts were from Scyther, inquiring about this conference, One Thing, and whether IHOP-KC was a cult.

By the time I got in contact with him a couple days after that, Scyther had already figured out the answers to his questions himself. And he was thinking about going. When I talked to him again, Scyther simply told me, unflinchingly, that “God is real. God is totally real. Acts chapter 9. That is all I can say, man.” I really was on the verge of tears, hearing my childhood and best friend, of 22+ years say to me over the phone that God is real, after he had abandoned the Lord and lived as an atheist for about a decade.

And just last month, in December, Scyther joined me and my church going to IHOP’s One Thing conference. It was a beautiful thing to see. His heart was being opened and his character was already different. He had a passion and a zeal for the Lord that I have not seen before. It was amazing. His heart was being opened, and he was being softened to people. My best friend, who in the past hated pretty much every single human being except for his 5-6 friends and family... is now an open, sociable, empathetic heart. I cannot make this up. Jesus is sooooo good and I am so thankful. God’s even opened up Scyther’s mind to the possibilities of prophecy, healing, and miraculous prayer. Things that were strongholds to Scyther’s mind and heart were being unlocked and opened and it is a beautiful, beautiful, redemptive thing to see.

Nowadays, Scyther comes to my church in Columbus, and we are growing, Scyther is growing so, so fast, we are all growing towards the Lord, we are growing together.

I cannot be happier with life.

[topicprinter]

Yesterday I made a post here, and even though the comments and reception were overwhelmingly positive, the mods decided to remove it. I tried to get in touch to ask why and didn't get a reply, but I assume it's because I linked to my Medium blog post. (IMO that's quite stupid. If a link doesn't add value the post will be downvoted, I don't see a reason for the mods to act as if the sub members are children, but fair enough - not my sub, not my rules.)So, because I don't care about the Medium traffic that much and because my main goal was to share my personal experience with likeminded people, I'll post again today with the whole gargantuan text copied here.(I'll still give the original link at the very bottom because the sub doesn't allow pics in the text post, and I specifically made comic strips to make the post easier to read and hopefully funnier (and there are a couple of screenshots). Feel free to ignore it.)- - -5 Lessons from 2 Failed Startups7years ago, on my last year in university, I unwittingly embarked on a startup journey. Here are the five most important lessons that I picked up the hard way.(comic 1)The main reason I wrote this piece is so that I don’t repeat the mistakes I list below, but I’m publishing it in hopes that my experience will have a positive externality — that someone out there will internalize these lessons without paying the cost of money, time, and tears.FIRST STARTUP What it was: the first premium educational platform for a popular competitive video game (Dota 2); My role: main content guy — I wrote most of the content and worked directly with our influencer partners, but with time got more and more involved; Timeline: created platform and developed content; launched successfully and found decent traction; slowly faded into obscurity due to lack of sufficient funding; LESSON 1: Be prepared for different levels of successNaturally, when we started the project we had great expectations for its future financial performance. We also kept in mind that it could crash and burn, as we knew most innovative products fail.The two options in our heads were either:great success — the business supports itself just fine and growsor total failure — we close down and search for “real” jobs.What we failed to anticipate is the vast land in between those two extremes. That’s where we ended up. When we launched we started making enough money to indicate we are onto something, but not enough to fully support and grow the business.(comic 2)When you hear something along the line of “90% of startups fail”, you imagine that 10% of startups hit the jackpot while the other 90% lose their money and close their doors instantly. However, this statement lacks a time dimension and a grayscale between the whiteness of success and the blackness of failure. It could be useful to investors, but it is misleading if you are a founder.I’m sure some startups lose their money very fast and are left with no choice but to close operations. Yet, I’d wager a big chunk of the unsuccessful 90% spend a long time trying to navigate mixed signals from the market. The problem is that in such conditions decision-making is not straightforward. Are you wasting your time, or are you on the brink of something worthwhile? Not an easy call to make.When faced with such decisions, pessimists quit too early, while optimists tend to believe success is just behind the corner perpetually. Both mindsets are wrong.If you quit too early, you are cutting short the chances that you’ll hit a lucky breakthrough.But if you fight for too long, it could get you stuck in a terrible limbo people in the startup community call “the land of the living dead”. You make ends meet, barely, but in reality, you are just wasting your time, potential, and testing the patience of all the people with a stake in your success or failure (people in both your personal and professional life). A business is, generally speaking, not a worthy cause for martyrdom.In our case, we ended up in the second option. We had over-promised so our investors and business partners were unhappy with the performance, yet we were not ready to give up yet because we still saw a lot of potential.At the same time, without the full support of the inventors and partners, we had no chances to succeed. We spend over a year in this state. You need to be realistic about these things, and in startups, the business of selling dreams, this is harder than it sounds.Plan for success, plan for failure, plan for everything in between.Retrospectively, what we had was a successful proof of concept which required further funding to grow and become a real business. Our failure to anticipate this outcome meant that neither we nor our partners or investors were prepared, which spelled the slow and agonizing death of the project.If you’re a founder, you need to be granular in defining success and failure. You need to have a timeline everyone agrees upon (not only the founders but all stakeholders) and a definition of different levels of success so that nobody quits too early or leads a lost war for too long.For example: Great outcome: X months after launch, we’re making enough money to support the business. We agree to reinvest and grow it slowly to avoid dilution (lifestyle business route) or to fundraise to grow fast and search for an exit (startup route). Good outcome: X months after launch, we’re making money, but not enough to support the business. This is expected — proof of concept. We’re in the process of fundraising. If we succeed to fundraise until month Y (money runs out) — great. If not — we close the business. Bad outcome: X months after launch we’re making very little (if any) money. We pivot if we still have resources, if not — we close the business. LESSON 2: Find a mentorThe three main components people talk about when evaluating startups are usually the team, the product, and the market.It’s hard to argue if any of the three is more important than the others. Usually, you need all three to be good enough to reach success.In our case, we were lucky enough to have a favorable market — demand for what we were offering and lack of any real competition.The product was so-so: it could have been much, much better considering our lack of experience & resources, but it was good enough to attract the early adopters and with time it could have evolved.The team, however, had 0 experience.We did this straight out of university (I worked on the project part-time until I finished my masters). The founder was the technical guy and he was a junior developer at best. I was the content marketing guy and even though I had some marketing courses in uni (which mostly focus on traditional, big businesses), I had 0 real-world experience.Our lack of technical/marketing experience proved not to be fatal — we were learning on the go and managed to push out a working product and to reach our customers. We had vision, passion, some domain knowledge, and the willingness to work hard.What was fatal, however, was that we had 0 experience running a business. Honestly, we had close to no knowledge about startups and what to expect of these kinds of projects. Doing the actual work takes thousands of hours, and the minutes spent making a bad decision can easily invalidate all your efforts.If present-day-me could advise and mentor this startup, I’m certain it would have become a successful business.(comic 3)If you are a young entrepreneur, you need a mentor. An official one, with a small share in the business in order to have skin in the game. Ideally — an entrepreneur who has some startup experience behind his back or at least someone who has been deeply involved in such businesses. Turn to your local startup community and it won’t be that hard finding someone interested: after all, most people like giving advice as well as getting free shares in companies.[If you don’t have an official mentor, at least make sure you’re getting mentorship from other places intimately familiar with your business (investors, startup groups or communities, etc.).]Embarking on your first startup journey without a mentor is like trying to become an MBA star without ever having a basketball coach. Unless you are incredibly lucky, you will simply fail. You’ll make fatal mistakes like the one above (and many more I can list, but it would take forever). Frankly, even nowadays, being much more experienced, I doubt I’ll ever work on anything innovative without a mentor.SECOND STARTUP What it is was: a monetization platform for video game influencers and content creators in the same niche My role in it: founder Timeline: fundraised (a bit more ambitiously this time, $90k); created platform and developed content; launched and found 0 traction; turned the website into a profitable gaming blog for a year; tried to pivot in the meantime, unsuccessfully; LESSON 3: Market expertise doesn’t trump startup common senseAs you’ve probably noticed, startup one and startup two are connected. What happened is that the founder of startup one finally had enough and bailed. I still had a chip on my shoulder, however, and managed to convince one of the old investors (and a few new ones) that there is merit in having another go at the market with a new (more ambitious) concept. Naturally, things didn’t turn out as planned.“Fail fast, fail cheap, and leave yourself time to pivot.”That’s probably the most frequently repeated startup advice. And probably the most valuable one you can get. The one that you need tattooed on your forehead if you’re a founder.So, even though I was aware that the biggest startup mistake is to spend all your resources developing something no one needs, I made exactly that mistake. Like many a startup, I burned through 90% of our bank to acquire the validated learning that there’s no demand for the product we’re making.What led me astray was the belief that I was an expert on this particular market niche and knew intimately its needs.(comic 4)The confidence I had, obviously, was false.What’s true is that the previous startup validated that the market actually exists, which is a good start.What’s not true is that the previous startup validated in any meaningful way the new product we’re developing. We had a new concept, a new marketing approach, etc. Equally importantly, the market had changed since the first project — competition was starting to pop up, etc. I was probably one of a handful of people on the planet intimately familiar with this small market niche, and yet my ideas weren’t bulletproof anyway.After we launched and saw 0 traction, I tried to pivot with a new idea based on the market feedback. The problem was that I had to validate it on my own with no budget and no team. I couldn’t do it properly, and I still don’t know to this day if this idea would have worked out if I had more resources to test it.Looking back, if I had focused on being an expert on running a startup as much as I did on being an expert on the market, things could have turned out quite differently. I could have tested the waters for plan A with 20% of the budget. That would have left me with enough resources to try out at least three more different approaches. We were working from Eastern Europe (Sofia, Bulgaria) and mainly with freelancers, which meant that our burn rate was quite low.Failing fast and cheap would have made the company four or five times more likely to succeed. I suspect that this number is even higher because the accumulated expertise by smashing your head into the wall (market) repeatedly means that plan B is usually better than plan A, plan C would probably be better than plan B, and so on.Every startup needs to be lean (test your assumptions with minimal resource investment) and agile (be ready to continually change your concept/priorities base on market feedback). This is simply not negotiable if you want to succeed no matter how much of an expert you believe yourself to be.“Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don’t assume when this happens that you’ve failed. That’s normal for startups. But don’t sit around doing nothing. Iterate.” — Paul GrahamLESSON 4: Don’t regret correct decisions that didn’t turn out your wayAfter launching and finding 0 traction with almost no money left in the bank the realization where things are headed hit me hard. I wasn’t ready for a second failure just yet, however, so I poured all my efforts into finding a source of income for the business to give us some breathing room.Content marketing was my biggest strength, so I made a content strategy and started churning out articles. I managed to grow the traffic of the website significantly (reached 240k unique monthly visitors at its peak), and at the same time, I was doing cold outreach to any viable business that might want to advertise with us long-term.(Google Analytics Screenshot)I deliberately made some of the content well suited to advertise a certain type of business in our niche. Eventually, I managed to close a deal with such a business, which gave us just enough income to keep our head above water.During this time, an unexpected opportunity presented itself. A new game closely related to the one I was writing about pupped up and started gaining popularity (Auto Chess, which later turned into Dota Underlords). I was in a great situation to start writing about it and to turn our website into the main authority site on the subject, and slowly but surely I managed to rank our website in the first place in Google SERPs for most relevant keywords.(SERP screenshot)The hope was that the game was going to continue to grow (and our traffic along with it). This, in turn, would allow me to land bigger advertising contracts, giving me the needed funds to bootstrap a team and continue the validation experiments related to this new market and our newly acquired audience (I was trying to get the business into a positive feedback loop).Then this happened:(steam charts screenshot, player base falls)Dota Underlords (the game we attached ourselves to, our market) fell from over 200k to about 10k concurrent players. Naturally, as I had invested most of my time into Dota Underlords content, our traffic started falling as well, which invalidated the authority site plans and made new advertising sales much, much harder.You could argue I should have diversified our content to avoid this situation, but the reality is that you have limited resources and you need to plan how to use them. The business was created as a startup, it had investors, which by definition demands at least some level of ambition. Surviving as a niche gaming blog wasn’t going to cut it for the people involved, so I decided to go all-in on the opportunity I saw.It didn’t work out, but that’s OK. As mentioned, most startups fail. Sometimes they fail because of avoidable mistakes (as demonstrated above), but sometimes they fail because the educated bets they make don’t work out.Making educated but risky bets is what startups do, so don’t regret the second kind of failure when the risk is anticipated.LESSON 5: Accept full responsibility(comic 5, this one's not that funny :( )It’s quite easy to blame the circumstances when you’re looking back at past failures. It’s a great way to protect your ego. Going back to my own journey as an example:Startup environment: access to mentorship, funding, and know-how would have been much better if I was located in Silicon Valley. Yet, I tried to play the game of startups in Eastern Europe. Paul Graham sometimes mentions the concept of the Milanese Leonardo. In two words — there is no such thing, all great 15th century painters come from Florence, not Milan. So where are the Milanese painters? The theory is that the environment in which you develop trumps any kind of talent and probably even hard work. Maybe I’m a hardworking genius, but simply failed because of the unfavorable environment half-a-planet away from the Valley.Influencer partners: our two key influencer partners for the 2nd startup project bailed just before we launched. Surely they are to blame for the failure at launch, not me?Crisis in Ukraine: speaking of partners, our main business partners for the first startup were a Ukrainian esports organization. Shortly after launch, the political crisis in Ukraine happened and naturally, they were unable to fulfill all of their promises related to our project (they had bigger problems of their own). Surely we couldn’t have predicted geopolitical events while managing an esports startup?I could go on, we’re all masters at making excuses. However, this is a fool’s game. Analyzing your past circumstances is important, but only in the light of taking valuable lessons into the future. An excuse means you learned nothing from an important event.All of the above seems like it’s something I don’t have control over, but I’d argue that’s not true.Environment: I didn’t want to move to SV, but there are other ways to solve this problem at least partially. E.g. I could have reached out to people to ask for remote mentorship. “We have funding, we’re building this product, we want mentorship (weekly/monthly Skype calls) and we’re ready to give you a small share in the company to commit.” That’s not a bad offer and a viable way to make a connection to the real startup world.Partners: I could have done a thousand things to keep them more interested or involved in the project to minimize the chance they’ll quit. Even that aside, I could have made sure we’re not as reliant just on those two and involved more partners in advance.Crisis: sure, I couldn’t have predicted the geopolitical events, but I could have prepared for potential problems with our partners (same point as above). If someone is so important for your business that you fail if they underperform, you better have some plan to mitigate this risk. As a startup founder, you constantly operate in a high-risk environment. It’s your job to protect the project against the most critical and most likely of those risks.Past failures are a blessing — put them on your shoulders and they will make you stronger.Future failures are the ones you want to avoid, and your past failures are the best tool for the job.- - -If you were crazy enough to read all of it, I hope it was useful.(Here's the original Medium link if you want to see the images, feel free to ignore it. If it gets removed again without an explanation I give up.)

[spicynbachili3]

Fantasy fallout: Why Patriots’ Gronk, Gordon and Edelman can break out together – NFL Nation

Can you actually purchase low on three New England Patriots pass-catchers without delay?

Certain you’ll be able to, says ESPN Patriots reporter Mike Reiss, who sees higher fantasy manufacturing forward for tight finish Rob Gronkowski, receiver Josh Gordon and receiver Julian Edelman — even when they’re technically competing for targets in a suddenly-crowded offense.

“I all the time begin with the snaps,” mentioned Reiss, who identified that Gronkowski remains to be mainly an “every-snap man” who simply performed 77 of 78 snaps in Sunday evening’s 43-40 thriller over the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, which included the massive man rumbling downfield for positive aspects of 42 and 39 yards within the fourth quarter.

“Soccer Frenzy Problem: Win $5,000 on Sunday, Oct. 21! Play For Free, and put collectively the longest win Streak that day to win!”

Then there’s Gordon, whose snap rely vaulted from 18 in every of his first two video games with the Patriots to 63 this previous Sunday — which Reiss referred to as “a reasonably sturdy assertion that he has made a giant breakthrough” along with his new workforce.

Not solely has Gordon healed from a hamstring harm, however extra importantly he has earned the belief of Tom Brady.

“Brady actually feels strongly about him,” Reiss mentioned of Gordon, who led New England with 9 targets final week. “That is a key factor with the Patriots. When Brady seems like he can belief you, you are in. And Gordon’s in.”

Final however not least is Brady’s longtime go-to man, Edelman, whose snap rely elevated from 48 in his first recreation again from a four-week suspension in Week 5 to 71 in Week 6.

Reiss mentioned he would begin Edelman “decisively” in fantasy soccer leagues. And he’s leaning towards placing Gordon in that very same class as nicely if he sees one other week with related taking part in time.

The problem for fantasy house owners, Reiss mentioned, is making an attempt to establish which of New England’s pass-catchers might need greater video games or quieter video games based mostly on how a selected protection would possibly assault them (in that sense, it sounds just like the previous drawback of making an attempt to determine which New England operating again might be featured in a selected week).

Opponents have put the strain on Rob Gronkowski because the Patriots tight finish has one landing by six video games. Adam Glanzman/Getty Pictures

But it surely’s just a little totally different with pass-catchers, the place they’ll open issues up for each other. And the presence of Gordon and Edelman ought to truly assist Gronkowski, who has been noticeably double-teamed for a lot of this season.

“He is getting punt-viced on a few of his routes — actually simply operating into two our bodies,” Brady advised WEEI radio. “They make it powerful for him.”

Reiss mentioned the defensive protection might be about 90 % of the explanation why Gronkowski is within the midst of the longest drought of his profession and not using a landing catch (5 straight video games). The opposite 10 % could possibly be age and injury-related, since Gronkowski has been listed on the harm report with an ankle harm this season.

However, as Reiss mentioned, “he’ll nonetheless present you flashes of classic Gronk” like he did within the fourth quarter Sunday.

And as Brady mentioned after the sport, “I will preserve throwing it to him within the greatest moments.”

On the flip aspect, the emergence of Edelman and Gordon because the Patriots’ prime two receivers clearly hurts the worth of different receivers corresponding to Chris Hogan and Phillip Dorsett, who confirmed promise early this season. Hogan hasn’t fully evaporated from the Patriots’ offense, however he performed simply 47 snaps on offense Sunday whereas his special-teams position has elevated.

Fast hits

Atlanta Falcons: One other have a look at the snap counts exhibits Falcons operating again Tevin Coleman performed 38 final week, whereas rookie Ito Smith performed 31 in Atlanta’s Week 6 recreation. On Tuesday, beginning RB Devonta Freeman was positioned on injured reserve. ESPN Falcons reporter Vaughn McClure mentioned the elevated snap counts looks like a superb indication the Falcons are comfy with Smith sharing the load with Coleman going ahead. Plus, McClure mentioned, Smith has confirmed himself to be dependable within the purple zone whereas scoring in every of the previous three video games.

Smith is ambitiously hoping to ignite the Falcons’ run recreation, as McClure wrote. “I feel we could be method higher, man. I would like us to get 200 yards speeding,” the fourth-round choose from Southern Mississippi mentioned. “Y’all have not even seen the floor but out of the operating backs or out of the entire offense. We have not performed an awesome recreation but.”

McClure additionally wrote about how these subsequent three months may assist the Falcons make some powerful selections on the RB place, the place Freeman is signed by 2022 and Coleman is scheduled to be a free agent after this season.

play

2:41

Stephania Bell and Matthew Berry make their instances for Tevin Coleman and Ito Smith versus the Giants.

New Orleans Saints: Nobody has ever carried out a RB timeshare higher than the Saints did it final season, when Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara turned the primary duo ever to each surpass 1,500 yards from scrimmage in the identical season whereas each scoring a minimum of 12 touchdowns. These numbers are virtually actually unsustainable — however it’s a superb instance of what the Saints will try for now that Ingram is again from his four-game suspension.

As I broke down this week as ESPN’s Saints reporter, Kamara’s fantasy house owners need not panic after he had simply 9 touches in Week 5 when Ingram got here again (that was principally a fluke for the reason that Saints obtained forward by so many factors so early, and it was additionally an opportunity to ease up on Kamara’s workload). No, Kamara will not common 23 touches per recreation anymore like he did in September. However I count on him to be a slight “1A” to Ingram’s “1B,” like they had been down the stretch final season.

As for the Saints’ broad receiver corps now that starter Ted Ginn Jr. has been positioned on injured reserve with a knee harm, I feel each backups Tre’Quan Smith and Cameron Meredith are price selecting up and probably utilizing as bye-week fill-ins if wanted. Neither is a sure-thing fantasy starter, although, since they will in all probability break up the manufacturing.

We noticed how the Saints are doubtless to make use of them when Ginn was out in Week 5. Smith, who ought to run extra of Ginn’s deep routes, caught three passes for 111 yards and two deep TDs. Meredith, who may see extra quantity as each an inside and outdoors receiver, caught a season-high 5 passes for 71 yards.

Pittsburgh Steelers: It certain looks like we’ll see some kind of RB timeshare in Pittsburgh, as nicely, with Le’Veon Bell anticipated to return from his contract holdout after the Steelers’ Week 7 bye. As ESPN Steelers reporter Jeremy Fowler has reported, Ben Roethlisberger and different teammates have continued to marketing campaign for incumbent RB James Conner to maintain a big position even when Bell returns. And it obtained to the purpose the place Roethlisberger even made a sarcastic joke about it after Conner ran for 111 yards and two TDs on Sunday.

“What an awesome recreation, however I do know it is his final recreation for us, as a result of Le’Veon’s coming again,” Roethlisberger cracked.

Whereas Conner has been superior, we now have but to see any indicators of breakout from Steelers rookie receiver James Washington. Fowler additionally wrote this week about what has stored that from taking place up to now.

Dallas Cowboys: Veteran Cole Beasley had his second breakout efficiency of the season with 9 catches for 101 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday in opposition to the vaunted Jacksonville Jaguars’ protection — and Cowboys proprietor Jerry Jones referred to as it “Witten stuff … No. 1-ish stuff.”

ESPN Cowboys reporter Todd Archer mentioned it is onerous to count on that sort of involvement from Beasley on a weekly foundation and it in all probability had extra to do with the particular recreation plan in opposition to a man-to-man protection workforce. However Archer did level out Beasley has 39 catches for 415 yards and two TDs in his profession in opposition to this week’s opponent, the Washington Redskins.

Inexperienced Bay Packers: ESPN Packers reporter Rob Demovsky wrote about how each Aaron Rodgers and Inexperienced Bay’s offense may look totally different after the Week 7 bye. Rodgers is hoping to shed the restrictive brace from his knee. However the Packers total are hoping to cease counting on his arm a lot after he has thrown a minimum of 40 occasions in 5 straight video games.

Indianapolis Colts: Indy will give Marlon Mack each probability to be the main man of their backfield after he ran for 89 yards on 12 carries, in accordance with Colts reporter Mike Wells. Wells mentioned Nyheim Hines ought to get some work, too, however a few of that could possibly be as a receiver — which is the place he started his faculty profession at NC State. Additionally, Wells wrote in regards to the Colts’ alarming price of dropped passes, together with 13 over the previous three weeks.

play

1:50

Discipline Yates and Stephania Bell clarify whether or not or not they’re trusting Albert Wilson after the broad receiver’s big Week 6.

Miami Dolphins: Dolphins receiver Albert Wilson continues to be one in every of this season’s most electrifying playmakers — and recently he has been doing it in additional of a full-time position as an alternative of only a handful of performs. The self-described “finest YAC receiver” within the league had 138 of his 155 receiving yards after the catch on Sunday, together with two fourth-quarter touchdowns. Wilson made six defenders miss on a type of TDs, in accordance with Dolphins reporter Cameron Wolfe, who wrote that Wilson’s 14.57 yards after the catch this season are by far probably the most within the NFL.

Chicago Bears: Second-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky continued his latest uptick with a scorching second half in opposition to these Dolphins final week, as Bears reporter Jeff Dickerson wrote.

Philadelphia Eagles: Eagles reporter Tim McManus steered Zach Ertz could be the league’s prime tight finish proper now. Ertz leads all tight ends with 480 receiving yards, and he ranks second behind solely Minnesota’s Adam Thielen amongst all NFL pass-catchers with 48 receptions. He’s on tempo for 128 catches, which might shatter Jason Witten’s file of 110 by a good finish in a single season.

By way of six weeks, he leads all tight ends in targets (66) and receiving yards (480) and is second within the NFL in receptions (48) behind solely Thielen. His 48 receptions are probably the most by a good finish by six video games since 1999. He is on tempo for 128 catches, which might shatter Witten’s file of 110 for many catches in a single season by a good finish.

Minnesota Vikings: In the meantime, Vikings reporter Courtney Cronin wrote about how Kirk Cousins and Thielen have emerged because the NFL’s prime QB-WR duo.

Detroit Lions: Yet one more superlative — Lions reporter Michael Rothstein mentioned Golden Tate, Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones Jr. are making a case because the league’s finest receiver trio.

Carolina Panthers: Panthers reporter David Newton wrote about how Carolina is relying on rookie receiver DJ Moore to shrug off his “welcome to the NFL” expertise when he misplaced two fumbles final Sunday.

• Revisiting Panthers’ darkest hour • Gurley cheering for the Dodgers • How Steelers use gaming to get edge • Why does Cousins fumble a lot? • The tough lifetime of an NFL backup • Chiefs hanging on defensively

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Bucs reporter Jenna Laine wrote that one month in the past veteran receiver DeSean Jackson was the most popular factor within the NFL subsequent to “Fitzmagic.” However now he has to discover a related rhythm with QB Jameis Winston that they have not fairly developed but, relationship again to final season.

San Francisco 49ers: After battling nagging accidents earlier this season — and a significant one to his beginning quarterback — Marquise Goodwin lastly had a breakout efficiency with 4 catches for 126 yards and two touchdowns on Monday evening, as 49ers reporter Nick Wagoner wrote.

Tennessee Titans: Is Marcus Mariota responsible for Tennessee’s offensive woes? Titans reporter Turron Davenport mentioned it is a truthful query with no simple solutions.

Oakland Raiders: Raiders reporter Paul Gutierrez requested, “Wait, wasn’t Derek Carr alleged to thrive below Jon Gruden?”

Los Angeles Chargers: On the flip aspect is Philip Rivers, who’s having the most effective seasons of his 15-year profession due to his give attention to accuracy, in accordance with Chargers reporter Eric D. Williams.

Good factor, too, since I’ve Rivers as my QB in two leagues for what feels just like the 15th straight 12 months.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicynflchili.spicynbachili.com/fantasy-fallout-why-patriots-gronk-gordon-and-edelman-can-break-out-together-nfl-nation/

[braindamageforbeginners]

Hangovers

Cycle 3, Day 9

Two things learned in the last 24 hours:

1. I really need to shut up whenever discussing how things aren’t too bad, that’s just begging for a smiting.

2. I should probably not write about infusion days on infusion days, because the weird stuff tends to happen right before bed (largely because of my new, “Go to bed immediately if something weird happens policy.”

I had another odd, brief hallucination last night, to go with the crippling pain and limp. I was on Facebook, and the icons suddenly became sand castles, and, in a weird way I was suddenly at the beach, sort of (I can’t really describe it; if that makes any sense to you, kudos). And it is kind of frighteningly amazing how quickly these side-effects can set in. However, if you’re sober at the time (I realize that’s an extremely odd, almost self-negating concept when you’re being pumped full of experimental toxins), it’s not frightening. And my bedtime policy paid off; I didn’t become Timothy Leary.I woke up this morning with an unbelievable hangover. I realize I’m prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, but the one this morning had teeth. Which is one of those sorts of good-news/bad news things - I’ve noticed the faster and harder the serum side-effects hit me, the sooner they go. Also, you know how, when you had to get up early to go to school when you were a child, and Mom, in an act of breathtaking cruelty ripped off your covers off and lied, “I know you’re tired and cold now, but it’ll get better if you get moving.” Which, again, feels like a betrayal of sorts if you finally make it out the door and find out it’s 40 degrees. Well, dear reader, mom may been lying to get you out of the house, but I assure you - based on my own experience - once you get out of bed and a-movin’  (and, more importantly, eating and drinking)(make sure you take your zofran or any other appropriate medications), you’ll start feeling like your old self. Don’t rush that “getting out of bed part,” though, take time as needed (this morning, it felt like I actually had go through several stages of evolution)(side-note; you’re gonna feel much less human and more like a jumbled-together set of human cells at the start of activitiies). I went for an ultra-high fiber and coffee breakfast, which seemed to help - or at least reduce my physical description from “possible 90-year-old amnesia patient” to “nasty but manageable back and shoulder pain.” If all this seems meaninglessly detailed, well, yes, it is. I wish I’d known four months ago that switching to a largely coffee-and-raw-fruit-based diet could save me some pain. Definitely I’m feeling immeasurably better and less-mentally foggy (I successfully recovered my Spotify username and hassled the DMV about my ongoing bureaucratic feud), although I’m still definitely showing signs of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, I’m not too bad. Except for some back pain, which probably isn’t that bad, except it is a novelty for me (sort of, it’s happened to me frequently enough that I know to just grab the Tylenol salt-lick).

So, bad news for you guys, mentally-capable yet too physically sore to anything terribly ambitious is the horrible sweet spot of “might as well sit down and write. Something a friend mentioned on Facebook got me thinking; if I’d been told I’d have to heavily modify my diet (sort of; after six pm I believe I’ve done due diligence), schedule (again, Temodar is very weird, and I’m glad I’ve finished it for this cycle), religiously take lots of various pills, get a lot more cardio exercise, sleep a lot more than I’m used to etc. a year ago, like most of you, my first thought would be, “Oh,God, I’m gonna die.” And, to be fair, the night is young (and I still have that new blip on the MRI); but you’d amazed at what you can adapt to. And after a while, even though you still hate all those things, your body will help keep you on the straight and narrow (mostly because your own body will start actively punishing you if you don’t keep up)  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still grumpy and irritable and not going all Tuesday’s with Morrie, but there is a sense that, denied a lot of other of life’s options, I’d double down on the Warlocks, see how far that took me, and leave the black flight box behind for the next folks in line. And now I’m having hallucinations, which, while I can’t claim is something I’m happy about, but it’s definitely not boring,.

Speaking of strange developments, I had some time to think about Ronny Jackson (as it turns out, television news is the perfect thing to watch when you’ve just been pumped full of various suspicious chemicals - there’s no plot, there are no characters, everything lasts 45 seconds, and you don’t lose much of he information) and my constant harping on about finding top-grade professionals when you’re in my situation. Firsoff, I require that level of competence not because of my personal preferences, but because I have a rare, amazingly dangerous disease that’s already behaved unpredictably. If this was standard colo-rectal cancer, I’d probably go to the Local Health Mart. Not to slam anyone, just that different diseases require different levels of management and training (diabetics are allowed to live in society and actually have their own insulin). The common thing you want - from your GP to your neurosurgeon (okay, especially your neurosurgeon) is to be 50th case like yours they’ve seen, not the first (as Dad described it when choosing his orthopedic surgeon)(that’s not the only indicator, but we’ll come to that point briefly).  And that doesn’t happen unless the doctor (or nurse) is out there practicing (oddly enough, younger doctors make better doctors because they don’t have the professional pride/investment that would discourage them from getting a consult)(that was in a study I read).  Which means that the current physician to the president has had two patients in ten years, one of whom was, by all accounts, quite physically healthy except for a history of smoking (I’ll discuss that some other time), and another who’s not completely healthy, but that would require a neurologist and nutritionist. One middle aged man and an elderly-but-previously healthy man. Most practitioners could get out some folding chairs, grab a six-pack, and let the situation play out until someone had a noticeable complaint (TWISTED SIDE NOTE: I just realized that all of my complaints/symptoms have, so far, not come from any disease process, but from side effects of treatment)(my apologies if any of my doctors or nurses are reading this, you’ve all been great, but that Zen Koan is true . Unless they had some sort of horrific, undisclosed disease. That’s barely qualified and experienced enough to lance a boil. And he got his job through Yelp, basically - Obama liked him and wrote a letter of recommendation, and so did Trump. And, in total honesty, now that I have artificial middle-age aches and pains, I’d like anyone who offered me Percocet, too. Mine are mostly-manageable with Tylenol, but infusion days are vicious, and if that was a daily occurrence, I’d make out with anyone with Percocet,

This isn’t actually about Ronny (it’s about widening the scope of this essay so it’s not another gripe-fest of me neurotically keeping track of symptoms), it’s about finding good clinicians. I’m still trying to figure that out for everyone, and I’m only beginning to sort through that data (also, there’s a good chance I’ll die during he attempt, but that’s also not the point of this piece). Ronny is obviously not a good doctor (he might be a fun one, though), but he does provide some lessons.

First, you don’t have to like your doctor. Yelp doesn’t have to like them. You have to trust them. I realize that’s not always easy to sum up, but all of my physicians (and probably nurses and other folks I’m ignoring or forgetting because there isn’t any data available that I can find) have been driven to be better doctors than they are now - that sometimes takes a bit of research (Mad Scientist has an impressive number of papers on PubMed) to figure out, sometimes a neurosurgeon will discuss some new drillbit he helped design to get through the skull (okay, I’m getting the details of that incident wrong, but it happened)(It’s a little off-putting to hear that described in the same glowing tone as developing a new, experimental bratwurst for the.county fair BBQ. But he’s been my neurosurgeon for two extremely successful surgeries. And I might need to revisit him before the year’s out (I hope not, obviously)

Which also brings up a teachable moment; for years - a few solid decades - the medical industry recruited and adhered to the standard that as long as you were competent, you could be an utter sociopath. Which, according to some sources, Ronny is. It’s not even some medical secret, it’s a common stereotype in the media. I suspect that the medical industry is trying to combat this more actively, but, in my first semester, I met a guy (you go to as many study groups as you possibly can when possible) who probably had a favorite hooker buryin’ spot. I listened for ten minutes (and I don’t know how I lasted that long; I should’ve just conspicuously glanced at the clock and fled, as my smarter classmates did. It was 10 minutes of narcissism and genocide (not exactly, he felt that poor people got plenty of insurance, and put-upon hospitals should be able to kick them out on the street)(which actually happened to me at one hospital, thanks to the insurance companies using an obscure legal loophole) I think that was the point I left Mr. Wonderful’s company (If I die and end up the traditional Judeo Christian afterlife and am made to atone for my sins, I’m sure St. Peter will want to know why I didn’t follow that motherfucker back to his apartment and kill him with a shovel, I know it a dark thought, but no darker than the probability that he got his MD, passed all his boards, and was set loose upon an unsuspecting public. But that’s just one guy amongst thousands of potential doctors, Ronny’s been accused by a few sources of sociopathy, As a patient, it’s almost not even worth worying about them - you will know them when you see them. Or, rather, when you talk to them

Another checklist item: if your doctor enjoys where they live.

I’ll continue this thought tomorrow (or technically today)

Author’s note: I spent 12 hours on this thing (sort of; after starting it in the morning (obviously), there were various distractions and errands and infernal family members demanding my time, So the last hour or two was mostly desperately typing before exhaustion took me. So I edited this thing a bit.