#hi queueing the backlog of art from the last year

[skizabaa]

Secret Santa For @mocha-illustrates <3 Sol belongs to @venomous-qwille. Had a blast with this one <3

[pasta-pardner]

hi y'all!

so, surprise: it's actually been about a year since I last logged into tumblr. My blog has been running on queue this entire time. If you've messaged me and I've neglected to answer, that's why.

Sometime soon, I'm gonna comb through my blog to tag the untagged posts from my year+ of inactivity.

And once that's taken care of, I've got a backlog of art, fanvids, and metas to start posting again.

[andromedaexists]

WUPDATE: CALL ME ICARUS

𝚆𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚍𝚊𝚢, 𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟷𝟿𝚝𝚑 || 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙽𝚊𝙽𝚘

y'all i am so busy rn that i forgot to keep yous updated on my progress. moving forward i am going to try and be more present here, i am going to work my way through my backlog of tag games this weekend and queue up all the writing yous tagged me in.

this month is camp nano and it has kept my mighty busy. here is a list of things that has happened this month:

finished the prologue and chapters 1-10. i got them up for betas to read (if you'd like to beta for CMI, the form is still open to apply here)

got in contact with an artist and started the process of commissioning them for a cover (they just sent me the concept sketch and im!!!!!)

set an official publication date (announcement coming soon 👀👀👀)

submitted a query! (and realized that i don't want to trad pub so i'm self pubbing instead!)

started talking to formatting editors. i'm not sure if i'll be able to afford a good formatting review before publication, but i am in talks with someone who will let me use their Vellum!

started research on how to self pub/what company i want to go through (and actually set up a channel where i can dump my research once i compile it!)

cried a lot over this whole process. a lot.

so yeah! a lot has happened! a lot of good stuff, but a lot of stressful stuff as well! that's okay though, i'm just over the moon that i have an official pub date 🥰

i'm going to push through to the end of camp nano, but i am going to try and get back into weekly wupdates and just talking about writing a lot more. i was a little hesitant about joining camp nano given how bad regular nano went for me last year, but a new server i joined has really helped me find my love of writing again (thank you doom and clanky and so many others that i met through the bird app, i love you all)

anyways, enough rambling. let's get to what you guys are really here for: snippets! i am going to add a couple here (read, a snippet for each chapter i've missed updating here) to make up for my relative silence as of late:

Chapter 5:

There are two more encounters listed below it, but before Icarus can read them over he is distracted by a flash of gold entering the shop. His eyes shoot up, latching to the new patron standing in line with their back to him. It’s normal for bright colors and movement to grab his attention, but this time something feels different. He can’t put his thumb on it, but his brain is telling him that he should recognize them. It’s screaming that he should know who they are. But for the life of him, he cannot make out who it is. Whomst? The fuck? From this distance, he can’t see anything that might tell him who they are. Their plain black clothes could be the tell of an Elysian, but that isn’t a guarantee. The only truly identifiable trait is the halo of blond curls cascading over their shoulders. Why do I feel like I know them?

Chapter 6:

Ariadne whistles, a long and appreciative sound as she sees her husband’s work. The tattoo had been a beast to heal, but the hours of torturous pain and restless nights of endless itching had been well worth it. He spent days ogling the tattoo after it had first healed, the feathers look so real that you can almost feel them when running your hands over the inked skin. It is everything he wanted and then some. A feather-light touch runs down the etched skin. There is only one person who had ever touched him with that kind of reverence, his artist must have gotten up to inspect the tattoo. He is admiring his art—as he should—when he says, “Looks like you should have used more lotion.” He lets go of one edge of the hoodie to flip him the bird. It’s impossible to hide anything from his artist, of course, and he knew that his lackluster care would be noted. There are likely small splotches where the ink had fallen out due to his poor moisturizing regiment, but it’s not like he has much of a choice in that. Icarus drops the back of his hoodie with a sigh as he turns to face the artist again. YOU KNOW? HARD REACH AREA ALONE. His eyebrows raise as he speaks, his signs becoming large and boisterous. He then mimes trying to reach the middle of his back. That gets a chortle out of his artist and Ariadne. He hadn’t thought to consider how he would need to reach every part of his back before getting the tattoo, and the fact that he doesn’t have anyone in his life to help him makes it that much worse.

Chapter 7:

“Look,” Andromeda levels at him, voice growing in intensity as they say, “I understand that you don’t quite trust me yet. I mean, we just met yesterday. Hell, I don’t even know your name yet! But-” “Icarus.” He grabs the hoodie on the left and pulls it over his head. He takes a moment to pull his hair up and fasten it in a ponytail before turning and leaning back against the closet door. “My name is Icarus.” “Okay. Icarus. Y’know, that fits.” Their voice is calmer, quieter, as if that piece of information is enough to placate them. Icarus huffs. The name really does fit him, doesn’t it? Always jumping into things without thinking of the consequences, taking risks, and keeping shit close to his chest until he gets a bit too close to hubris and starts to fall apart. Falling in love with the sun personified. Burning, falling, crashing, drowning. Yeah, the name fits him. The only difference between him and the Icarus of myth is that he died at the end of his story. Icarus has no plans of dying. No, he plans of making it out the other end of his story and living to tell the tale.

Chapter 8:

“I thought the whole ‘Oh, Hestia has a pizza shop?’ ordeal would tell you that I have no idea where to go.” Huh, yeah, that should have clicked with him. It’s not like they could search up directions, they likely don’t have a phone just the same as him. Can’t risk having a way for someone to use GPS to locate him. It’s not like he has anyone to keep in contact with, anyways. “It’s just down the street. Go out the front of the building and head down West Saint Clair, it’s just past fourth street. I’d say can’t miss it but you very much could, there’s no sign out front. It’s the only building that looks like there’s someone living in it on that block, though.” “Got it. West Saint Clair, Fourth Street, not-abandoned building.” Andromeda repeats the directions to themself as they head towards the front door. “Anything else while I’m out?”

Chapter 9:

How could he forget? “Καιρὸς δε, Thanatos,” he mumbles as he stretches his arms out in front of him and rests his forehead on the blissfully cool counter. “And here I was thinking you weren’t gonna remember me.” Long gone is the shrill and timid voice of a sickly kid, replaced by one of the most soothing and deep tones Icarus had ever heard. “…Fair ‘nuff.” The vibrations of a glass hitting the counter top make Icarus look up. A glass of water, just water. He groans, that is not what he wants right now. He’s craving the sweet buzz of an energy drink, but that will require him to get up and walk around the island to grab one. Andromeda chuckles, not moving an inch as they watch Icarus suffer over the glass. “Quit pouting and drink.” He drops his head, turning his face away from the glass. “Oh come on, you big baby. Deja de hacer un berrinche y bebe.” They poke his cheek as he pouts. “Mira, food’s ready. Sit up and eat.”

Chapter 10:

“Why are we running?” they ask, gasping for air after the impromptu sprint. Icarus points to the bird as it hops along the ridge of the tent. He turns to watch their reaction, this is a big deal. Their eyes widen and their jaw drops open, they are just as shocked as he is. His smile has not left, though it dulls as their face drops to sadness and grim acceptance. What? “A crow.” Before he can say anything the look is gone. They beam a bright smile at him. “I can’t believe you found a bird! That’s definitely good luck for us.” But it’s not, their reaction sits wrong with him. He squints his eyes, watches them to see if that glimpse of despair will surface again. When it doesn’t, Icarus forces a smile on his face. If they don’t want to talk about it then he isn’t going to talk about it.

Okay, i think that's enough of a writing dump for now. here's the CMI Taglist:

@flowerprose @isherwoodj @cream-and-tea @touchingmadness @lockejhaven @marinesocks @wildswrites @the-finch-address @writingpotato07-deactivated2023 @leighvalentin @inkspellangel @cljordan-imperium @outpost51 @alleahgrinnon @smol-feralgremlin

Please fill out this form to be added or ask to be removed!

[daleisgreat]

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

A movie podcast I listen to, The Big Picture, did a recent episode on the 10th anniversary of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (trailer). Coincidentally enough, that film remains in my backlog box all these years later, so I made sure to re-watch it before giving that podcast a listen. For those unfamiliar with this film, it is based on a series of six graphic novels of the same name by Bryan Lee O’Malley released between 2004 and 2010. The basic gist is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for newcomer to town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win her over Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona’s “Seven Evil Ex’s.” Scott spends the rest of the film exploring Ramona’s mysterious past and dueling her ex’s while practicing with his band, Sex Bo-Bomb, as they progress through a battle of the bands tournament. Sex Bo-Bomb is one slick act! Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) is the doom-and-gloom frontman of the band. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a 2010 take on Daria and effectively nails her vintage expressionless glares and blunt quips. Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) is the affable, DS-loving, always ready alternate for Sex Bo-Bomb. Their #1 fan and also other girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim is one Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knive’s arc is probably my favorite of this ensemble cast as her journey from adoring fan and girlfriend to her final destination is a fascinating quest to see develop and a faithful translation from the books.

I first heard of the books on the videogame podcast, Team Fremont Live where they reviewed the first book and their breakdown of it caught my attention when they dissected all the nonstop videogame references that are peppered regularly throughout it. The film captures that imagery to a T where it feels like Pilgrim is living in a real life videogame. In this world suspending disbelief is required because it is jam-packed with extraordinarily choreographed battle scenes, makes anyone capable of instantly pulling off bombastic martial arts moves in the blink of an eye without any training whatsoever, and quirky little animations of objects like Mario Bros.-esque coins and pixelated items inserted throughout that any videogame fan will pick up on. The fighting game fan in me popped a little each time a thunderous “KO” blared out each time Pilgrim emerged victorious after an evil ex duel. As a lifelong fan of videogames, it was fun picking up on all the references and Easter eggs in the background throughout. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hit at an interesting time where Michael Cera was the only established star at this point in 2010 and was riding the last wave of critical success coming off of Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno. Brandon Routh is noteworthy appearing here as one of the evil ex’s after flaming out in his single appearance in a Superman film. However, a few other stars are here right before they exploded into bigger success like the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Chris Evan is here as another evil-ex shortly after his two Fantastic Four films, but a year before donning the Captain America costume for the first time. Anna Kendrick is here in a small role as Scott’s sister Stacey while in the midst of her initial Twighlight run. Finally, Brie Larson is here as Scott’s evil-ex, Envy Adams and she is the lead for her band, Clash at Demonhead in my personal favorite musical performance of the film as they belt out “Black Sheep.”

It is worth repeating that I highly recommend suspending all disbelief going into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and simply roll with it. The battle scenes are a hoot to take in and feature a ton of CG that holds up well ten years later. It is also worth pointing out this film is part absurd videogame battles, part early 20s love triangle drama and to a lesser extent part musical with several performances from Sex Bo-Bomb and other bands throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright tracked down a few bands to play the tracks for some of the featured bands in the film such as Beck performing the handful of Sex Bo-Bomb songs in addition to a slew of other tracks from artists like The Rolling Stones and Blood Red Shoes that perfectly supplement the outlandish tone of the film. It is not too often on here I recommend hunting down the soundtracks for a film, but the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I wholeheartedly recommend! I think the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World BluRay may have set the record for amount of extra features for a single film in the near seven years of movies I have covered on this blog. A rough tally on my notes gives an approximate sum of nearly five hours of bonuses, and then four feature length commentary tracks on top of that! I will not detail every bonus, but will give some highlights of the ones that stood out for me. There is just under a half hour of deleted scenes with or without commentary from Edgar Wright. Most of them are extended scenes from the first act to trim out excess background info, but an alternate ending is what stood out the most that Wright explained he changed because it did not go over that well in test screenings. I can always appreciate a good blooper reel, and an excellent 10 minute reel is compiled here that I would rate right up with the stellar ones in the Marvel films.

There are three features grouped together in the ‘Docs’ section of the extras tallying up to a little over an hour. If you only had time for one of the five hours of bonuses I would go there because that has the core making of documentary which breaks down collaborating with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley, nailing the casting, detailing the extensive stunt training and interviews several of the bands about being featured in the soundtrack. Speaking of the soundtrack, there are four music videos included. Definitely check out the four minute animated short, Scott Pilgrim vs. Animation that is essentially a prequel to the film that dives into Scott and Kim’s former relationship. There are 12 ‘Video Blogs’ totaling 45 minutes that are raw on set interviews with the cast and crew between takes that sees the crew up to all kinds of mischief to kill downtime. This BluRay easily has the largest photo gallery of any home video I have covered with several hundred photos. One gallery is labeled ‘storyboards’ but each storyboard panel is nearly identical to the excellent quality of the art in Bryan Lee O’Malley books so that is essentially a free comic book adaptation of the movie buried in the extras! I experienced all four of the commentary tracks in one re-watch of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World via jumping around to a different commentary about every five minutes. Edgar Wright is on two of them, one with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley and writer Michael Bocall and the other with photography director Bill Pope. The other two commentaries are split among nine cast members, with Michael Cera and the rest of the leading cast on one and the ancillary cast members on the other cast commentary track. Wright has tons of nonstop insight and production facts on his tracks, and the cast tracks are have a lot of fun anecdotes such as Cera failing at trying to get additional people on the commentary via phone call. On top of the commentary I had on during my re-watch was also a factoid subtitle track to really take in the extra features. Despite going on now for three paragraphs about the bonus features, I think I only touched on about half of what is available, and it is truly astonishing to see how much they crammed into one BluRay disc.

A part of me thought going into this that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would not hold up after 10 years. I would chalk that up to thinking I may have got easily won over with all the hype from being vastly into the books back then and being too caught up into the build to the film’s initial release. I can put those reservations to rest thankfully as I immensely enjoyed this ode to videogame fandom as much as I first did in 2010. Throw in a plethora of extra features to last all year to make Scott Pilgrim vs. the World one of my highest recommendations yet! If you want even more commentary from me about this film than below I have embedded the podcast I originally recorded 10 years ago shortly after seeing the film on its opening weekend. I bring on a couple other special guest hosts that are also ardent Scott Pilgrim fans and we review the film, soundtrack, the books and the videogame. Enjoy!

I brought on a couple other Scott Pilgrim experts on as guest hosts on my podcast to review the film, books, videogame and soundtrack shortly after they all released 10 years ago. Check it out in the embed above for more Scott Pilgrim goodness or click or press here to queue it up for later. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[brothersapart]

FAQ

(the mobile-friendly version)

Background information:

Brothers Apart was started by @nightmares06 October 24th, 2014 and has been going strong ever since! During the last two years two other writers have been added to the team along with a very helpful assistant!

The main storyline, Brothers Apart, has since sparked a collection of AUs. Each storyline is individual in and of itself, but all tie into the main arc in their own way. Visit Links to find your way to the stories.

Why don’t you just post Brothers Apart and not all these other stories?

Since Brothers Apart is (mostly) written by myself, there isn’t enough story built up to have a backlog. Due to a falling out with a former beta reader, writing for Brothers Apart was frozen for a year. During that time we conceived a number of other storylines, and we invite you to enjoy them along with us.

When/where do the stories post?

Sunday, 9pm EST Wednesday, 9pm EST

Any changes to this schedule will be announced on the tumblr as soon as we know about them.

There are three different sites the stories post on:

Archive of Our Own || Fanfiction || Deviantart

Any prompts received will be posted to the tumblr blog before appearing on any other sites, otherwise stories are on the three sites listed above.

Order of creation of the various AUs:

Brothers Apart– “But what if I never fixed Sam?”

Brothers Found– “But what about JACOB?”

Brothers Adopted– “Okay but Jacob’s too cute, let’s make him small”

Brothers Divided– “… bad, Dean”

Brothers Together– “OSCAR”

Brothers Lost– “Okay we should make BOTH brothers small”

Brothers Asunder– “Wee Sammers and Bowman as brothers!”

Brothers Unexpected– “Because Sam/Jacob and Dean/Oscar are too cute to contain”

Brothers Consulted– “I wonder how Sherlock and Dean would react to each other…”

**Various unannounced ideas**

Brothers Saved– “Big Sam and his tiny big brother strutting around”

I love the artwork! Why don’t you have more of (insert character)?

We love the art too! But since we’re writers, and our skill at actual drawing is lacking, all of the artwork you see posted here (with a few incredibly rare exceptions), are either commissioned with our own money or submitted by fans (you lovely, lovely people). We love supporting our favorite artists, so we won’t stop commissioning anytime soon, but it’s dependent on if we have money at the time we get the idea.

If you want to help us out, please Buy Me a Coffee and let us know what character or AU you want commissioned! Once we have enough money for that AU, we’ll get it done.

When does (insert story) start posting?

We’re not sure when each story goes up, we only have a timeline for the days stuff will post. To prevent any stories from gaining favoritism over others, we started running a poll. During the last week or two of a story, there will be a poll with (2) to (6) options offered, and the winner will be the story that starts next!

Keep in mind that the stories that appear in the poll will be fully written/edited and beta’d by our wonderful beta readers, any stories that are incomplete in any fashion will not be included.

The poll is run through SurveyMonkey, and each person gets only (1) vote! Duplicate votes WILL BE REMOVED.

Can you go back to posting stories about only Sam and Dean?

No.

Seriously, we’re going to keep writing together because we do it for fun. You’ll see classic Brothers Apart stories come around when I finish them, but you’ll also get a lot of the collabs we do. We write for ourselves and to get rid of stress. Since we’re not paid to do this (in fact, we spend a decent amount of money on story things), we’ll continue to write what we like.

We still love feedback and getting new ideas from all you readers out there, so keep sending us prompts and suggestions! Just don’t be upset if we don’t do yours– we might not be feeling it.

There’s a book? Where can I get a copy!?

There used to be a book, but it has been discontinued and no longer offered as an option in the contest. Thanks for your interest!

Will Castiel be in the story?

Go read all the stories.

Why didn’t my ask get answered yet?

Generally only one ask is answered a day, please be patient with us.

Popular Tags:

#commissioned art– all the artwork commissioned by the writers of the BA for the stories/ideas we have.

#fanart– artwork done by the fans.

#contest entry 2016– entries submitted for the 2016 BA contest

#bac 2017 tumblr– entries submitted for the 2017 BA contest on the tumblr side (for DA entries, go here).

#daily update– all the story excerpts posted since the beginning.

#prompt– finished prompts (or unfinished prompts, multiple things get filed here).

#submission– wonderful submissions from you readers!

Commissions are open!

What characters belong to who?

@nightmares06–

Supernatural characters– Sam and Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, John Winchester (though I’ll warn that any prompts for John Win are the least likely to be fulfilled because he usually gives me writer’s block), Castiel, Gabriel, Rufus and Rumsfeld. Various other Supernatural characters.

Original characters– Nixie, Ilyana, Celeste (problematic fave), Walt Watch, Mallory Watch, Briella Watch, Moira Wainscot, Krissy Vent, Sean, Kara Bolt, Christian Bolt, Mikael Foyer, Noonia and Elenia.

@neonthewrite–

Original Characters– Bowman, Jacob Andris, Oscar, Rischa, Cerul, Scar, Vel, (any of the wood sprites, basically), Colfax and Adrian (better prompted at @alittleblogoftrust ), Asp the shadow sprite, Indigo Seraf.

Only original characters, as canon characters tend to come very slowly for me.

@borrowedtimeandspace--

Sherlock Characters– Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Greg Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Molly Hooper and Mycroft Holmes.

Doctor Who Characters– Mostly Tenth Doctor, will do Nine, Eleven, and Twelve (I’m working through Classic Who at a snail’s pace xD) Willing to write for companions from New Who as well.

Original Chracters– Zepheera is my main OC, Stan Baker, Simon Baker, Nathan Sullivan and a bunch of borrower bbys: Kernel, Orrick Shelf, Boston Mantel, Baycliff, Klerida, Marcue Overmantle; basically, if you’ve read my stories, any of the OCs are up for grabs.

Story excerpts

Each day on brothersapart.tumblr.com, we will be posting a new excerpt from a story we are working on at the time. This happens at 10a.m. est, and it’s a tiny blurb from the story.

A bit on the tags for our story excerpts:

#trnt here is the abbreviation of the story the excerpt came from– later revealed to be “The Road Not Taken”

Abbreviations we’ve used and their names if announced:

#trnt– The Road Not Taken (posted)

#twf– The Water’s Fine (posted)

#tnplh– There’s No Place Like Home

#atth– A Time to Heal

#iatwaa– It’s a Tall World After All

#sow– Sam of Wellwood (posted)

#don– Dean of Nowhere (posting)

#bofa– Bobby of Far Away

#dow– Dean of Wellwood

#awos– A World of Secrets

#eotm– Epidemic of the Mannequins

#ws– Wayward Sons

#bah– Bigfoot's a Hoax

#coth– Clash of the Hunters

#auv– An Unexpected Visitor

#sotw– Shadows on the Wall

#gacs– Garlic and Cold Spots (posted)

#tsotf– The Study of the Four (posted)

#tttb– The Ties that Bind (posted)

#ababs– A Burglary at Baker Street

#teome– The Enemy of my Enemy

#jiw– Jacob in Wonderland (posted)

#rt– Road Trip

#a:asocs– Aftermath: A Series of Consulted Shorts

#bp– Bittersweet Parting (posted)

#ffh– Far From Home 

#fs– For Science

#adod– A Day of Duality

#bftp– Blast from the Past

#apias– Any Port in a Storm

#thoaw– The Heart of a Wolf

#san– Sam and Nicholas

#apfo– A Place for Oz

#sb– Something Borrowed

#ttol– The Trials of Logan

#lald– Live and Let Die

#aol– Avenue of Life

#malc– M&Ms and Lucky Charms

#afin– A Friend in Need

#boan– Birth of a Nightmare (posted)

#rj– Regarding Jacob

The last kind of tag you’ll see is the queue tag:

All this means is it is a reblogged excerpt from 2016, you can go to the original post to find out its tags.

This has been a dissertation on tags!

If you see any questions we left out, be sure to send in an ask!

[courtneyvbrooks87]

Bitcoin as a Technology and Operations Management Case

Bitcoin as a Technology and Operations Management Case

Sumit Malik, Economics Editor

Bitcoin, a first-of-its-kind digital currency devised in 2008, crossed $50 billion in total value for the first time this summer. It’s weathered severe volatility, technological obstacles, and government regulation to remain the dominant alternative currency. At Consensus 2017, the largest conference for bitcoin and its underlying infrastructure in the US, I was struck by the massive appetite for the technology and the breadth of participants relative to the year prior, beyond the core community of developers and entrepreneurs. In her keynote address on the New York Marriott Marquis main stage, Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson (HBS ’88) reflected the crowd’s enthusiasm: “I love this stuff – bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain technology – and what the future holds.”

The vision for bitcoin is a controversial topic. For every vocal proponent of bitcoin’s potential to uplift the unbanked and reinvent the monetary system, there is an equally outspoken skeptic. In stark contrast to Johnson’s optimism, other financial industry luminaries express distrust, and even disdain, for bitcoin. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon (HBS ’82) reportedly described the digital currency as “a fraud” that “will blow up” and characterized its millionfold appreciation in seven years as “worse than tulip bulbs,” alluding to a 17th-century speculative bubble that abruptly collapsed. Ray Dalio (HBS ’73), founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, took a similar stance concerning the speculative nature investments in bitcoin, citing limitations in systemwide transaction volume and difficulty of use as key risks.

At the heart of the debate surrounding bitcoin’s utility is a fundamental operations management and system design challenge. Detractors argue that bitcoin is facing an existential crisis as three core functions of an effective currency—medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account—are increasingly unviable in light of the technology’s struggles to keep pace with rapid adoption. Delays in transaction processing and rising transaction costs threaten bitcoin’s convenience as a routine medium of exchange, and the need for structural changes creates apprehension among investors, resulting in volatility that precludes reliability as a store of value or unit of account.

The bitcoin network is capable of processing roughly 3 transactions per second, increasing to up to 6-7 transactions per second through a recent software update. Visa, by comparison, can handle upwards of 24,000 transactions per second. Capacity constraints have recently forced themselves to the forefront of bitcoin aficionados’ concerns, as growth in average daily bitcoin transactions grinded to a halt in the second quarter of 2017. Bitcoin transaction volume increased just over 1% quarter-over-quarter, only a fraction of the 14% quarterly growth rate experienced in the last 3 years. Simultaneously, transaction fees skyrocketed tenfold between year-end 2016 and the second quarter of 2017, from $0.24 per transaction to $2.41 per transaction, reflecting the network’s inability to process additional volume and impairing the technology’s value proposition of low-cost value transfer.

Bitcoin transaction fees rose sharply as transaction volume hit capacity constraints

From an operations management perspective, system capacity in bitcoin transfers is limited by a bottleneck in the process of validating transactions. To understand the process flow more precisely, consider a hypothetical where Alice wants to send a bitcoin to Bob. Unlike a bank transfer, in which the participants must trust banks as intermediaries to debit Alice’s account and credit Bob’s account a corresponding amount, a bitcoin transfer distributes trust across computers plugged into the bitcoin network. Rather than use a bank ledger, a bitcoin transaction is tracked on a “blockchain,” which is a shared ledger jointly maintained by network participants.

To complete the transaction, several processes occur in series: (1) Alice decides to send money to Bob; (2) the transaction is grouped with others in a “block”; (3) the block containing Alice’s transaction is broadcast to computers plugged into the bitcoin network; (4) participants in the network sign off on the validity of the transaction; (5) the block containing Alice’s transaction is appended to the shared ledger; (6) the updated shared ledger includes Alice’s completed transaction.

The fourth process in this system is the bottleneck, which limits the capacity of the system. The time required for transaction validation is an average of 10 minutes, enabling about 144 blocks to be added to the shared ledger each day. Each block contains up to approximately 2,000 transactions (1 MB per block with 500 bytes per transaction), setting a theoretical limit of approximately 288,000 transactions per day (3 transactions per second). Any excess transactions that have not been added to the blockchain idle in “inventory” until it is their turn to be validated. A transaction can be prioritized and skip the queue if the sender pays a discretionary fee, an expense that has become all but necessary as the backlog of transactions has grown, at times numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Addressing limitations in bitcoin’s infrastructure has become an existential question for users; it isn’t worth buying morning coffee with bitcoin if the transaction takes hours to complete and several dollars of fees. To reduce throughput time, or how long it takes to complete a transaction, developers have devised methods to fit more transactions per block. Recent software updates enable transactions to be posted using less data, allowing roughly double as many transactions to be included in each 1 MB block. An alternative proposal to increase block size from 1 MB to 8 MB was so controversial due to resource and efficiency concerns that “bitcoin cash,” an entirely new digital currency, was created with this change. Other innovations under development include enabling transactions to occur through faster channels that are segregated from the bitcoin blockchain.

As the bitcoin scalability debate evolves, there’s one area where bitcoin enthusiasts and skeptics can agree: bitcoin is no longer confined to the developers’ backyard. Technologists, operations managers, and business folk alike will play important roles in shaping the future of bitcoin.

Sumit Malik (HBS ’19) is an investor, writer, and entrepreneur. Professionally, his background is in venture capital and private equity at Warburg Pincus, strategy as a board member of Santander Asset Management Chile, and investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Personally, he writes for academic and popular publications and performs music and poi (light- or fire-spinning). He previously received an A.B., summa cum laude, from Harvard College and an S.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

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[angelasolomon]

OPPO F1S: Day In The Life

And we're down to the last 11 days of the first month of the new year! Can someone please stop the time from running so fast??? 😱

So I stayed up late again last night because I couldn't say no to my friends' invitation for a quick midnight snack at Shakey's Marcos Highway, even if I was still full from dinner. Boy, that's gluttony! :p I felt a bit guilty leaving my husband while he's busy working with his backlogs but I thought I'd regret not hanging out with them so I went on. I've missed them so much! We don't go out often anymore since I got married and it's totally understandable, so if there's a chance, I take it. I enjoyed the food and the company, as always.😊 The waiter was kind enough to take a photo of us before we indulged in our food.

On the left: Me, Fr. Al. On the right: Kuya Ron, Pipo and preggy May.

After several alarms, I got to start my day at 6:00 this morning and hooray! I still made it at 8:12 in the office. I've mastered the art of moving fast! It's just so hard to get up in the morning these days! Blame the chilly weather for my lazy being. My husband and I left our bedroom window open again for the 3rd consecutive night as we wanted to experience this "summer night in Baguio" breeze. So lovin' it.❤️

Lucky to have a light day in the office today. I forgot to bring coffee so I just bought a 20-peso cup of taho from the kuya outside our office building to get me started. I'm glad it wasn't a toxic Friday because everything that's going on in my mind is vacation, friends, booze, beaches, infinity pools and the likes. I've forgotten to allot enough space for actual work.😁 Probably because it's almost summer and I have a few trips to plan for the next 4 or 5 months with different set of friends so I'm really excited! I've also been waiting for weekend; I have a quick date with hubby tonight at SM Marikina! Well, it wasn't really a date, but we had to buy storage boxes for our Christmas decors and other stuff for our home. At least for a few hours, maso-solo ko naman yung asawa ko ng walang kaagaw na trabaho! 😅

After we finished our errands, it’s time for dinner. I was only hoping we’d have it in Greenwich, Bonchon, Tokyo Tokyo where we usually go. He looks tired but he said he wanted to go to Truck Park or Lilac so we can try a new place. Uyyy, masipag pa mag-drive. I suggested Miguel & Maria. It’s intriguing to see a long queue outside their restaurant whenever we pass by so I thought it’s our chance to try it.

There were a lot available seats. Luckily, we got the couch seat. They have a really cozy interior. I love the warm lighting.

We did not have heavy merienda so we’re really hungry. We ordered their “specials”.

Miguel & Maria’s Buffalo Wings, Php220. A sure fire favorite. Deep fried chicken wings tossed in our very own buffalo wings sauce. Served with Miguel & Maria’s blue cheese dip.

Baby Back Ribs, Php265. A generous slab of back ribs, marinated in our homemade rib sauce, grilled to perfection. Served with a side of coleslaw and java rice.

Stuffed Pork Chops Ham & Cheese, Php 250. Filled with mozzarella cheese and sweet ham. Your ultimate comfort food served with garlic parsley rice.

Blue Lemonade, Php45. He got the Home Brewed Iced Tea, same price.

Man, the food was really great! The serving was pretty big, we got no room for desserts anymore. Haha! Everything’s worth the price.👌🏼 Will definitely come back and try different food next time!

It was our 9th wedding monthsary last Wednesday, so it's like a post celebration. Little moments like this in between our very busy lives are really important to us. As much as possible, we want to have something to keep the memories alive so we document it by taking pictures of the food we eat, the places where we go, the things we do and of course, ourselves, and posting it on our online journal---Facebook and Instagram. That's when you'd appreciate to have a smartphone, like the OPPO F1S, that can let you do it with really good quality. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera and a whopping 16-megapixel front camera.😮 I. NEED. THIS. PHONE. We usually go out at night after work so it's good to have a phone that produces natural-looking selfies even in low-light conditions. God knows how much I love pictures!

Hopefully, next year, we can finally have our biggest blessing joining us in our selfies...👶🏼 We are patiently waiting and praying.

Have a great weekend, everyone! ⭐️