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centrally-unplanned · 3 years

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Hot damn does this channel rock - finally someone willing to get into the real details of the production process, tool choices, org structures, etc over just being, a bird’s eye view. I have, through other *much* less accessible sources, learned a lot of of this information over the years, but it still has tons of great info that I am picking up from its videos.

The ‘intro’ video linked here is the most big picture, looking into how the individual staff members form a production pipeline and how their roles sit together, and it inspired some big-picture thoughts about how the anime industry over time is sort of a microcosm for the wider transformation in workforce structure that has happened over the years, and all the benefits (like efficiency) and issues (like inequality) that resulted from that.

To recap for those who don’t know: Anime productions obviously have a ton of roles, but the core of any “shot” in a show are the key frame animators and the in-betweeners. The KFA’s start off a shot by drawing just a few of the most ‘important’ frames, that show off poses, positioning, effects, etc, which they sink a lot of time into for just a few frames. These are then passed on to in-betweeners, who draw the ‘rest’ of the frames (they actually re-draw the key frame via tracing as well, ty video!) that fill the space in-between the key frames, bridging those frames together to form a continuous animated shot. They spend much less time per frame doing this, which they can do since they are just tracing/altering the key frames.

As you can probably guess the KFA’s have the ‘good’ job and the in-betweeners have the grunt-work ‘bad’ job. And you might not be appreciating how bad it is, but from a financial standpoint it is, uh, really bad. The average industry salary for an in-betweener in Japan full time is ~$10k a year. For comparison, the minimum wage full-time in Japan is ~$17.5K. They get away with it being way, way less than minimum wage by the usual trick of structuring it as contract work, which of course means it also includes absolutely no benefits. If you want to deep dive into how terrible these roles are, you can have at it.

So why do it? As the video points out, in-betweening can be essentially a mentorship. You can learn a ton from the process of seeing amazing key frames, interpreting them, and getting feedback on corrections, production speed, etc. And it is essentially mentorship because, in the early days of animation in Japan (so 1960′s-1970′s), it was *explicitly* a mentorship. Almost every animator would start as an in-betweener, work that way for 3-5 years, then be promoted to, well okay first to 2nd key frame animator, or in-between checkers, or maybe branch out to layouts, but *eventually* to key frame animator, and so on up the chain. It was essentially an apprenticeship, and that is how all companies worked in the 1950′s! Every division director of a company started out as a salesman, or desk analyst, or something, and promotions happened internally, and based on seniority. The low wages at the bottom were *justified* by the promise of future promotion.

But economies changed, and the anime industry did too. There are a million reasons why they changed, but for talent-based industries like anime, where the quality of a worker is in fact quite easy to observe, as the demand for anime skyrocketed the idea of trapping obviously-talented animators as in-betweeners for years to “pay their dues” made no sense. They left, joined new studios or founded their own, and by the 1990′s that system was totally falling apart. In-betweeners were no longer guaranteed promotions, and for many animators it would be the only job they would have in the industry for years before quitting entirely. Technology helped accelerate this - in the early days when animation was all done by hand, the in-betweeners and key animators sat in the same room, comparing notes and building connections, and letting younger animators learn from old. Now that they are all doing their work digitally, often they just get a file dump, and don’t even talk to each other (tons of org work has gone into building consistent ways of communicating, via notation on the drawings, expectations for what the in-betweeners need to do, so no meetings or human conversation is required. Efficiency! Also, alienation!).

And of course, as communication technology improved, wages stagnated, and demand increased, globalization came to the rescue. I don’t have solid figures, but I have definitely seen estimates that put the majority of in-betweening for Japanese animation being done overseas in Korea or China, where that 10k wage can go a lot farther (the town of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, China, actually has an “Industrial Design” park almost solely devoted to doing outsourced Japanese animation work). This outsourcing is probably a net good thing for those workers, and for anime, don’t get me wrong! But as you can imagine, approximately zero of those Chinese or Korean animators get promoted into Japanese animation studios, while Japanese native in-betweeners are left competing with Chinese wages to afford a Japanese cost-of-living. All of these trends accelerate the winner-takes-all dynamic for the industry - just like every other industry in developed countries, neat!

But of course, its not like ‘outsourcing’ is new to anime - it was just done differently back in the 60′s and 70′s. Kyoto Animation is one of the most famous anime studios, and in particular is famous for having an uncommon number of female animation directors and leads. Certainly a big part of that is due to the fact that it started out as an outsourcing house for cel-painting for studios like Pierrot composed of otherwise-unemployed housewives picking up a side job! Female artists, just like female (and minority) workers in other industries, were the actual cheap labor backbone that justified the more ‘equitable’ salaries of the official workers for companies in the Good Ol’ Days. The inequity just shifted spatially, to new demographics, but has always been there.

Yet there is something to be said for the fact that, of that early days Kyoto Amination clearing house approach, those women were almost all married to men in the animation (or other artistic) industries, and so those wages got pooled. They worked gruelling hours for less pay, but their *household* income was notably higher, as the men would universally have higher wages. Its how working for such wages got justified after all! If you are an in-betweener in Japan today, there is no such pooling, outside of by chance - yet the wage structure remains unmoved.

I think these days the plight of the in-betweener is increasingly well known, but to understand why its so I think the way the anime industry chased the trends in other industries helps not only understand it, but also understand the solution space, or in this case the lack thereof - what industries have solved this problem after all?

#Economics of anime production #essay

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whiterbone-a · 3 years

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i wanna know what your take on the nanami / gojo relationship is ?? cause a big part of me is like nanami isn't someone who really talks , like you won't get inside of him and he'll make jokes here and there with the whole work is shit thing . but i think he lost his heart and happiness alongside yuu and i think he even said this wasn't a mission first years should be on and the fact that yuu looked up to getou and gojo so much and still got killed was like a fucking blade to the stomach.

i mean do you think there is a romantic possability , i do play around with it but at the same time do you think it would be comforting ?? like i know the big ship is gojo and getou because of how close they were but what is nanami to gojo , a tool and a function or a friend and possible lover ??? and how will his death effect him ???

also were gojo actively smiles , nanami only smiles when death is around the corner and i am like red flags here and there . but sorry this got so long and please feel free to ignore it .

hello and welcome. take a seat and thank you for joining me. if this doesnt make sense just pretend u know what im talking about, its the adhd for making my thoughts so scattered everywhere

so in concept the nanami and gojou ship in a romantic concept is rly cute in concept like u have an ex - salary man whos serious doesnt allow himself the luxury of acting his age but on the other end u have someone who still acts like hes a child and never takes anything serious even when hes fighting. they both endured the trauma being a jujutsu sorcerer entails yet they have nothing in common -- gojou dresses like hes a reflection with the moon and nanami, the sun. also the fact that gojou thinks that he, himself, is ascended above all he works with while nanami is just a human living his day to day, and lot of ppl use this as nanami to bring down gojou to his morality just like a nudge or a friendly reminder. he even tolerates and puts up with him a lot more than he should. hes very patient but very honest. a lot of the fanart of them is SO CUTE esp when theyre married and living happily with one another. i even ship them, its actually one of my top ships next to satosugu but like in reality its not so great unfortunately

honestly? theres a small slim of a possibility but due to the nature of the clash of personalities and what their job its like ... not rly possible

nanami, even out of being a salary man, fully treats being a jujutsu sorcerer as a 9 - 5 job and refuses to work overtime. he has small luxuries like he enjoys reading and eating left overs after a day of working hard like who wouldnt and not to mention hes the type to keep his relationships strictly professional. gojou has probably asked him several times to take him out for drinks after work (altho work never ends with gojou which is ironic) and has said no. it’s funny now that i think about it, shouko probably asks him for an occasional drink after hours and he accepts because at least he likes shouko and he knows theres no ulterior motive from her just a couple of coworkers doing some heavy drinking but nothing ever more than that -- hes even said that he wants to get married but when hes no longer a sorcerer

sucks tho, because like everyone else, nanami sees gojou as someone who is extremely powerful and only sees him for his techniques except more like hes a nuisance and extremely annoying, even to the point of having absolutely no respect for him. he realizes, yeah hes strong but as for the full package that is satoru gojou? there’s absolutely nothing to respect about that man

and while we’re talking about gojou, i’ll say it, he’s mentally unstable. i mean, we all knew that -- hes got a couple of “screws loose” as he puts it inside that rattling brain of his. on the opposite side of the spectrum, hes not capable of handling a romantic relationship. hes always always busy, its rare that that he gets a breather for himself. hes always being sent out on missions out of country and ive always portrayed gojou as the type of partner thats not even gentle on his partners in terms of being playful, childish, and being a nuisance. his mental health is absolutely terrible (i’m not saying nanamis is any better but) hes always acted much younger than what he is altho i do blame his upbringing for that.

and gojou treats everyone as good friends but does like to particularly pick on ppl who take themselves too seriously (nanami and utahime), mei mei and yuki are exempt from this. he also doesnt rly care for ichiji but like, that doesnt matter LOL.

i do see nanami eventually giving in for one (1) after dinner ‘date’ after work but when gojou is actually less himself, hes tolerable to be around which isnt saying much tbh. you should def listen to the nanami and gojou drama audio if u can! they’re so fucking funny as a pair, which solidifies them as being cute but were not talking about that rn.

in terms of being ‘what are they’ to each other, its hard to tell. i talked about it briefly as nanami reminding him of his morality and being his humility tho gojou doesnt act like it, he fully believes hes above all and everyone, lovers and close friends are included in this. i read a lot of nana/go fanfics and they portray nanami as someone to push down his ego; to remind him hes actually Not all that great, a child in an adults body, etc. he’s a brutality honest man and gojou can take critic and criticisms to his person but that doesnt mean hes going to listen (and he doesnt, hes even self aware that his personality sucks ass but does he bother to change? absolutely not and he wont start now nor for anyone else).

yuu did definitely help nanami change and shift his ideas about the world, esp hating the jujutsu society afterwards. like, i dont blame u king, it sucks ass. tho, i dont think nanami looked up or cared for gojou and getou that much. getou he looked up to more so because at least hes as a respectable guy, strong, good looking, and stimulates intellectual conversations. gojou? not so much. nanami probably thought that it doesnt matter if u have techniques that is extremely rare to acquire and even more so to master but u suck ass and u dont stimulate joy to be around.

nanami is a good friend and high school buddy to gojou and nanami would definitely call him ‘coworker’ or something along those lines when hes annoyed him too much or doesnt want gojou to benefit too much from simple acknowledgement. gojou thinks hes an ascended being but he definitely respects and finds nanami to be a strong sorcerer and was rather surprised when he took the 9 - 5 job but it was definitely safer.

death ... ah, i think about this all the time. it’s like losing suguru all again except he didnt go rogue and kill a whole village. hes absolutely confident in nanamis abilities to fend off curses and hes too stubborn to let himself die as well, so the idea of him dying doesnt ever cross his mind. thats a true stab to the gut to hear that nanami has died, maybe a moment of truly being unhinged and a darker nature but we wont rly know until it happens in the manga, which i cant wait. i mean, at least mei mei, utahime, and shouko are around but this is nanami were talking about. if this was in terms of a romantic relationship rather than a simple seemingly one - sided friendship of enjoying of being around that person but that person just tolerating him and hoping he goes away eventually. i can’t say, i can’t say! just take these thoughts with like a grain of salt.

also that last statement in the ask, gojous smiles are fake and a mask while the rare times nanami does smile, its genuine.

regardless of what i said, i think it can be a comfy ship! this ship isnt toxic but any means (unless u make it toxic then well, thats a you thing) so just enjoy it! i know i do i think as long as u recognize that maybe neither of them being a relationship would benefit the other then go stupid go crazy, i know i will.

#jupitersnake #tldr its cute in concept but reality they just dont suit each other but #im a sucker for opposites attract so catch me all over the nana/go tag baybe!!!!!!

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gallagherwitt · 4 years

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How about NO Jorgensen...

So I decided to take a look at Jo Jorgensen's campaign website, and I want to talk about her as a candidate.

NOTE: This post is NOT about her viability as a candidate, whether "a vote for Jo is a vote for Trump/Biden," etc. Though interestingly enough, she OPPOSES eliminating the electoral college.

After reading her website, I have come to the conclusion that I would NEVER vote for Jo Jorgensen.

It's not because I'm a partisan bootlicker. In fact I would love to have a POTUS who isn't a Democrat or Republican. No, it's because she is a terrible candidate. She's certainly consistent with Libertarian views of free market, keeping the government out of things, etc., but many of those views add up to someone I for one do NOT want in the White House, or even in Congress.

"Let the free market decide" sounds all noble and "yay liberty!" but history has shown time and again that the free market hurts the worker. The only people who benefit are the wealthy capitalists who, given free rein, prioritize profits over anything else at the expense of workers, communities, and the environment.

The idea that workers can simply choose not to work for companies with shitty compensation and working conditions fails to take into consideration that workers HAVE to work somewhere, and shopping around for an employer (which is how the free market would compel a company to provide better compensation) is a luxury that many, many people simply do not have.

The "free market" is unbridled capitalism, and history has demonstrated that such a market is violently destructive to us and to our environment. Her idea of a free market is a fantasy. The reality is a dystopian hellscape that has been documented time and again for centuries.

On the Q&A portion of Jorgensen's website, there are some things I agree with, but for the most part -- and looking at the big picture that all her answers create -- this is a candidate who is more concerned with the free market and a hands-off government than she is with the living conditions of actual people. Because a great many of her answers are meant to sound like more freedom, but in practice result in more suffering. When faced with a question about whether the government should help people, she almost invariably lands on "the government shouldn't do anything and the free market should decide."

As a voter, I can't abide by that. I don't want the government meddling in every facet of our lives, but I can also see from history that many of the regulations on wages, health and safety, etc., exist because they NEED to exist. Laws requiring decent wages didn't just fall out of the sky. They happened because people WEREN'T paying living wages. We wouldn't NEED environmental regulations if companies weren't dumping pollution into the environment.

In short, Jo Jorgensen errs on the side of the free market, and the free market errs on the side of the rich and powerful.

She's also clearly an isolationist and doesn't believe we should be helping any other nations, which I find remarkably consistent with the "I got mine, screw you" attitude of many Libertarians I've spoken with over the years. The United States is neither a literal nor metaphorical island, and quite honestly, I find isolationism to be dangerously close to nationalism.

From her website:

Q: Should the government raise the federal minimum wage? A: No, and eliminate all wage standards

Q: Should businesses be required to provide paid leave for full-time employees during the birth of a child or sick family member? A: No, private employers should be free to negotiate benefits with employees

Q: Should employers be required to pay men and women the same salary for the same job? A: No, the government should never determine what a private business should pay employees

Q: Do you believe labor unions help or hurt the economy? A: Hurt, I support some private unions but am strongly against public unions

Q: Should the government use economic stimulus to aid the country during times of recession? A: No

Q: Should the government subsidize farmers? A: No, end all government subsidies and let the free market run its course.

Q: Should pension payments be increased for retired government workers? A: No

Q: Should the U.S. remain in the United Nations? A: No

Q: Should the U.S. remain in NATO? A: No

Q: Should the U.S. continue to support Israel? A: No, we should not give aid to any foreign nations

Q: Do you support affirmative action programs? A: No

Q: Should internet service providers be allowed to speed up access to popular websites (that pay higher rates) at the expense of slowing down access to less popular websites (that pay lower rates)? A: Yes

Q: Should the government enforce a “stay-at-home” order to combat the coronavirus? A: No

Q: Should health insurers be allowed to deny coverage to individuals who have a pre-existing condition? A: Yes, and the government should not be involved in health insurance

Q: Should the government regulate the prices of life-saving drugs? A: No, the FDA should be abolished so that drug companies must compete to keep the price of all drugs down.

Q: Should the government increase funding for mental health research and treatment? A: No

Q: When should your state end the “Stay at Home” order and reopen its economy? A: State governments should never have issued “stay at home” orders

Q: Should the federal government increase funding of health care for low income individuals (Medicaid)? A: No

Q: Should the federal government be allowed to negotiate drug prices for Medicare? A: Yes, but ultimately replace medicare with free market solutions

Q: Should there be more or less privatization of veterans’ healthcare? A: More

Q: Do you support the use of hydraulic fracking to extract oil and natural gas resources? A: Yes, and hold fracking companies responsible for damages

Q: Should the U.S. withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement? A: Yes

Q: Should illegal immigrants have access to government-subsidized healthcare? A: Replace highly regulated US health care with a free market and voluntary charities that take much better care of everyone

Q: Should the electoral college be abolished? A: No. The electoral college was designed to protect representation of all states.

Q: Should political candidates be required to release their recent tax returns to the public? A: No, their income is none of our business

Q: Should the government increase spending on public transportation? A: No

Her website is here: https://www. jo20. com/ (copy and paste, then remove the spaces)

#jo jorgensen #election 2020

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squeeneyart · 4 years

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Breathe in the Salt - Chapter 5

AO3

Beta reader was @thesnadger!

Some thoughts on where to go next.

Martin is as helpful as he can be.

Their business finished, Jon and Martin exchanged a friendly “See you tomorrow” and went their separate ways. Jon turned on his heel and took the first turn out of sight. Martin, still holding his groceries, pressed his head against a nearby building and said under his breath, “God, you’re predictable. Smiles at you once and you’re done for. Must be a record.”

It had been a nice smile, though. Maybe at some point he would get to see a non-nervous one, the kind where the person’s face seems to open up like- No, he was not going to fall into poetic daydreaming, not this soon. Good lord.

He stood up straight, fixing his hair and checking for any witnesses. With the coast clear, he started the long walk home. It was fine. Martin wasn’t a complete idiot. He would accept the good news that Jon didn’t despise him and would roll with it, trying his best not to muck it up with more stupid mistakes. Then, with either their time used up or the investigation completed, all three of them would be gone.

The thought struck him hard, and Martin almost stumbled from the emotional whiplash. It had been, what, a day and a half? Surely not long enough to miss them that much, especially the person who had only just started being nice to him ten minutes ago. But Martin knew himself better than that.

Jon had been nice, just as Tim and Sasha had been nice, and he was going to miss the company when they had to leave. It was natural to feel sad about it, he told himself, but eventually their leaving would be a relief. The one-sided affection would have no room for hoping or growing otherwise. At the same time, he might as well enjoy the company of interesting people. Interesting people who wanted to help him, even! Jon had said he’d wanted to work together to figure things out, so that’s what Martin would try to do.

As long as it didn’t get him fired. As long as nothing they did fucked over any chance of employment. As long as his place of work didn’t eat him out of a hunger for vengeance.

Pushing those sour thoughts deep into the back of his consciousness, Martin focused on the morning’s events the rest of the way home. Plans of action formed in his mind, most of them related to the task at hand, a few needing to be waved away as wishful thinking. There was work to be done.

It took quite a bit of digging through crumpled and disorganized paperwork he’d saved from many unsuccessful attempts at employment, but after lunch, Martin sat on his bed with his original work contract. At the bottom was the signature of Peter Lukas, and in the bottom left corner was the stamped Lukas family crest, which Martin had seen every day on a small plaque adorning the lighthouse interior, right over his desk.

It was a simple and rather generic image of a black and white shield, framed by an albatross and a laughably inaccurate seal that Martin couldn’t help but gawk at years after he’d first seen it. He wondered if the artist responsible had had to work with someone telling them what a seal looked like from memory or if the family just hadn’t cared too much for accuracy. Based on the strange ideas Peter would spout at times of how the ocean worked, Martin would bet on the latter. Maybe the whole family was just like that?

Either way, it was equal parts ridiculous and unnerving as it lurked over Martin’s shoulder during the work day but didn’t have much use to him otherwise. He was no expert on symbolism and there was nothing he could see that would relate the crest to the task at hand.

Martin leafed through the work contract, glazing over benefits and salary before stopping on the section labeled “Employee Assignments and Other Expected Duties”.

“Sec. III. The employee agrees to the following non-exhaustive list of duties:

-Be present at the premises between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm, Monday through Friday, including lunch break. -Complete bookkeeping for the employer, Mr. Peter Lukas, using materials delivered to the premises on Monday morning. Delivery will always be completed by the employee's set arrival time at 6am. If nothing is delivered, contact the main house for further instruction to procure materials. -Clean the interior of the premises at regular intervals, including the main entrance, bathroom, kitchen, and upper floors. -Between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm, complete the maintenance list of the top floor (see Sec. IV). This must be completed once every day of the week, including Saturday and Sunday, between the hours of 6 am and 4 pm. There is a zero-tolerance policy for lack of completion. -Inform unexpected visitors of the proper procedure for scheduling a paid tour of the premises (See Sec. V) -Accept packages and sign for if necessary.

Martin looked over the list, biting his cheek. He’d grown lax on staying until 4pm, but with Peter’s general lack of awareness, it had never come up. Otherwise, the duties seemed in line with what he remembered. He looked down to Section IV.

“As referred to in Sec. III, the employee will complete the following tasks during the hours of 6 am and 4 pm every day, including Saturday and Sunday:”

Following this was the list he had long ago written down and taped to his desk. There were no details relating to the purpose of each task, just procedure. He’d kept to the instructions consistently, every switch flipped and seemingly-pointless button pressed, though he’d been very close to missing the 4pm mark on several occasions because of the dreaded walk to the top. This list, again, wasn’t much help. He went over the document a few times then set it aside and flopped onto his back, scattering some loose papers to the floor.

He’d need to find some other angle. Research was a non-starter for him without experience, and as far as his town knowledge was concerned, it wasn’t wrong to call him forgetful in that area as well. It was likely he’d have to accept his part as an amateur tour guide. It didn’t feel like enough, but starting Monday, he’d be back to working and have no time to help anyway, unless their work somehow kept them late into the night.

Jon had been nice with all the working-together talk, but Martin knew he wouldn’t be of much use at all. If he wanted to be helpful, he should begin prepping for dinner.

As evening turned to night, Martin and his mother sat at the dining room table in silence, interrupted only by the light clinking of plates and utensils as they finished the pan-fried chicken and vegetables in front of them. Weekends were always better meal days, always leaving Martin feeling more satisfied with his cooking with all the time he had to focus on it. His mother showed no greater signs of enjoyment than eating without complaint.

“Mum, can I ask you something?” Martin ran his thumb against the smooth metal of his fork. “It’s about work.”

Martin’s mother paused from eating another bite of her meal. “What is it?” she asked, frowning.

Swallowing hard, Martin said, “How much have you had to deal with the Lukas family? There’s this research project being completed and it’s involving a lot of history, so I thought since you’ve lived here so long-”

“Long enough, yes.” Martin could see her nostril twitch. “They came in long before I did and will most likely stay until the fish run out. Otherwise, I kept to my business and they kept to theirs. No reason to get involved with people who wouldn’t bother walking down the hills on foot.”

“Right, it’s just-”

“I don’t feel like talking, Martin,” she said, her voice cracking slightly at his name. “My throat is too sore.”

“Right. Okay, I’ll get you some more water.” He picked up her glass to refill and bit back any other questions. Next to the sink was his mother’s pill case with the current day’s compartment still full. “We’ll get your meds done now, then. Should help a bit.” His mother didn’t respond, having already returned to her dinner.

Afterwards, she requested to step outside. “The night air is good for my lungs,” she argued as a matter of fact, and with no way to dissuade her, Martin completed their little ritual of walking out the door and standing in the fog-filled night in silence, his own face covered in an old scarf. His eyes watered in the dry, salty gale, and he wondered how much time it had taken for his mother to withstand the sting without any tears.

By mid-morning the next day, Martin had finished his duties upstairs. Sitting at the table, he listened to the group’s progress from after he had left them the day before. Spread across the table were photocopies of what looked like legal documents, some of the bare spots between them filled with used mugs of varying sizes.

“We weren’t able to stay there for long before it closed, but we were able to look up some records at the library yesterday,” Sasha explained, sifting through the papers. “Not a terrible archive, all things considered. We’re going to head there again tomorrow morning for a more in-depth look. We didn’t even get to looking for details on the construction of this place.”

“But!” Tim waved one of the copies above his head. “We did get some info on the Lukases themselves. Current residents in town, major stakeholders, that kind of stuff. And-” He pressed the sheet close to Martin’s face. It was a copy (of a copy) of a newspaper article featuring the lighthouse, with some figures standing at the entrance, including one Peter Lukas. “Martin, d’you know anything about the person who worked here before you? He’s one of the younger ones in the family, standing on the left.”

Martin scratched the back of his neck, squinting at the photo. “A bit? Evan Lukas, he was really nice from what I’d heard.”

Tim frowned, lowering his arm. “‘Was’?”

“Yeah, he passed away before I started working here. Peter said it was some heart thing. Runs in the family.” Tim slumped. “Sorry! I’m surprised the records didn’t say so. It was a pretty big deal, really shook people. It made the front page, though I never read the details.”

“Did you ever meet him?” Jon asked, tapping on the rim of his empty mug.

“Sort of? We went to school around the same time and were only a few years apart, which was weird since you wouldn’t expect him to go to a state school with a family like that? Anyway, that was years ago, but even after that you’d hear about him. He was gone for a while, actually, but somehow he ended up in this old place a few years back and, well, y’know.” Martin rubbed his hands.

“Hmmm.” Tim leaned back in his chair, flipping a pencil between his fingers. “Okay, well, that’s one person we probably can’t talk to outside of spookier means. Is there anyone who knew him well?”

Pausing for a moment, Martin said, “I think… no, yeah, he was engaged, but his fiancée left town pretty soon after he died. Don’t know anything about her except she wasn’t a local.” Silence stretched over them as Tim sat in his disappointment

“Well, shit,” Tim let out in an overblown sigh. Sasha patted Tim’s shoulder in sympathy. He grinned at her. “That’s all I’ve got, then. Time to call it a day?” he asked, earning himself a pinch on the ear.

“We’ll just have to go over the items we have until tomorrow,” Jon said, his sigh brimming with exhaustion. “Who knows, we might’ve missed something the first time. Before that, Martin, who was the person we missed yesterday? Would they be worth talking to?”

Hesitating, Martin responded, “Maybe? But if you’ve already got a way to look up historical stuff, it might be better to skip this one.” Jon raised an eyebrow at him and his stomach dropped at the attention.

“It’s just, he’s an eccentric person, difficult to track down, and while he knows the Lukas family pretty well, it’s only because their families do business. His family, the Fairchilds, they’re not a huge family in this town, but this guy, Simon, he’s, well. He’s this small, old man, right?” Martin tapped his foot, looking for something to say to end his babbling. “And you know the cliff behind the lighthouse? It’s got at least 150 meters straight down to sea?” The three nodded, and Martin smiled, his brows furrowed.

“Years ago, he dove right off the damned thing.”

Tim gaped over the railing, his breath floating over the edge. Sasha and Jon gaped slightly less, and from a safer distance, though that didn’t seem to save Jon from the effects of the harsh, cold wind that sent him shivering through a nothing of a windbreaker. Far below the cliff’s edge, down past the wind-worn rock and smattering of trees, through a thin layer of fog that cradled the seaside, there waited an incredibly harsh landing of sea and stone.

“But there’s a fuckload of rocks down there?” Tim sputtered.

Martin kept his gaze straight forward. “Yeah.”

“And even if he just hit water, I mean-”

“Made it out just fine.”

“And you were thinking of just skipping this guy? I don’t care if he’s unhelpful, I want to see if he can fly or something.” Tim stepped from the safety rails, giving one a good pat.

Sasha crossed her arms, eyeing the drop. “Do you know where we can find him?”

Martin scratched his face. “Most of the time he comes here to see Peter for business. Peter absolutely hates it since it’s usually out of nowhere, and Simon always claims he does it because he likes surprises, but I think he just likes to be irritating. Otherwise…” Turning to look at the lighthouse, Martin said, “I do know where Simon lives, and while I can’t guarantee he’ll want to speak to you about anything specific, he definitely loves to talk.”

“Is there anything he’s said to you about the Lukas family? Or the building?” Jon looked at Martin intently, clearly doing his best to not shiver.. “Anything that might’ve seemed like nothing more than gossip or reminiscing?”

With Jon staring at him, Martin’s brain sputtered to a stop. “I-I don’t think so? Like I said, he’s eccentric, so it’s hard to pick apart anything he says as being sincere or as a joke. He told me he was once a firebreather, and I still don’t know if I believe him. Sorry, I know that’s not super helpful.” Martin rubbed the back of his neck.

Jon relaxed his gaze, his corner of his mouth quirking down just a little. “It’s all right. If we can get a hold of him, we’ll ask him some simple questions and hopefully sift through any confusion. Right now, we can all stop giving ourselves vertigo and get back inside. It’s freezing out here.” Jon made a show of shoving his hands under his arms and walked back to the lighthouse.

“Poor guy’s circulation is shot, honestly. Could get hypothermia walking into a basement,” Tim teased behind his hand, not bothering to lower his voice as he leaned toward Sasha and Martin.

“Ha. Very funny.” Jon sent a withering glare over his shoulder and slipped indoors. They followed him back inside, and while the other three sat to discuss possible interview questions, Martin got another round of tea going. He had to have some of those to-go paper coffee cups somewhere in these cupboards, but no amount of looking revealed them. Instead, he managed to find one lonely travel mug and contemplated his options.

Would it be too obvious? Would Jon consider it him joining in on the teasing? At the thought of Jon stubbornly standing outside in a too-thin jacket, Martin resigned himself to whatever reaction he would receive. Either way, he'd get something warm in Jon’s hands so the little pang in his chest would go away.

When Martin brought him the mug, Jon looked suspicious but didn’t complain.

#tma #the magnus archives #breathe in the salt #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #sasha james #timothy stoker #peter lukas #jonmartin #fanfic #au fanfic #selkie au

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years

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(1/2) What if the reason Bryke left was because Netflix wanted to give Azula a redemption arc? Or maybe somebody wanted to change the first scene of the show so that Katara wasn't with Sokka when he went fishing and so Aang wasn't unfrozen until years later... *whistles innocently* And they realized this route would allow them to make a longer series, meaning more content, meaning more profit. Jokes aside, I realize both of these options are 99% not the reason Bryke left, but imagine if...

(2/2) they were? Like, how funny would that be? Well, the latter possibility would be sort of funny, while the former would be somewhat depressing actually. Anyway, I'm surprised how many people are complaining about Bryke's departure. From what I've seen, people primarily shit on them and any praise in regards to ATLA goes to other writers/artists. I already didn't have any high expectations out of the live-action version, but this latest development didn't really worsen them much.

x’D not wrong about the second option being hilarious, though I’d hope I’d have heard something about it, if just out of sheer decency by Netflix to contact the cruel mind behind not sending Sokka fishing with Katara... (?)

Anyways, Bryke’s involvement in ATLA’s writing is often up-played by casual viewers, and downplayed by hardcore fans. There’s no sure way to know how much work they did on ATLA’s writing, seeing as there’s a fair amount of reports that suggest Aaron Ehasz, imposed on Bryke by Nickelodeon, reeled the story into what it became. I’ve even seen people claiming Bryke’s original ending would have featured Aang leaving Katara and Sokka behind while flying off to find more airbenders after the show ended. Not half as feel-good an ending as the show’s, right? Then there’s also reports that male!Toph was going to be in a love triangle with Katara and Aang... adding Zuko to the mix, as he often was added by extra ATLA content, Katara was likely to have three possible love interests, if Bryke had gone forward with this? Considering how Korra outright had three different love interests in ALL the members of her gang, this doesn’t sound like that outlandish a claim, whether there’s real sources for it or not. If they were willing to do it with Korra, I’d believe they’d have done it with Katara.

Ehasz is indeed credited for female!Toph and Azula, in the art book (I think) Bryke are outright featured saying Ehasz is the main artificer behind Azula being who she was, rather than Zuko’s older brother (Bryke’s original concept for her character). With this in mind, when Ehasz comes out and claims that, in a hypothetical book 4, he would have redeemed Azula to also finish Zuko’s personal character arc, and then Bryke show up claiming there NEVER was a book 4 possibility, you get a clearer understanding of where Bryke are likely standing in regards of Azula’s redemption :’) if that’s what Netflix wanted (... though I question they’d have pitched it since the get-go), it’d be no surprise that Bryke wouldn’t hear of it.

There’s no denying Bryke had interesting ideas, and that they worked to build a pretty complex world, but we cannot know how much of that world was solely their doing, and how much of it was also created by the input of the larger team of writers involved in ATLA’s original show. LOK, on the other hand, features a clusterfuck of worldbuilding that doesn’t always make sense, including no shortage of retcons (not only of pre-existing lore, LOK even retcons itself up to three times regarding explaining why and who decided to keep Korra in a compound for most her formative years), terribly written romance (whenever it’s written), poor storytelling decisions that outright derrailed their show and even turned their protagonist into the B-plot for the bulk of the final season... and what a coincidence that this time Bryke had no one breathing down their necks telling them what to do: they had a lot more creative freedom in LOK than in ATLA. There was no Nickelodeon imposed Head Writer, and they didn’t bring Ehasz back of their own volition. Whether because Ehasz isn’t that great to work with or because Bryke simply didn’t want anyone else to poke their noses into THEIR story, Bryke didn’t want any supervision over LOK. And as many loud fans as LOK may have, LOK’s storytelling quality simply doesn’t measure up to ATLA’s, and I refuse to blame Nickelodeon for that when all evidence indicates Bryke had no idea what they wanted for Korra in the first place.

What I’m saying is... Bryke do seem to benefit from having someone else reeling in their ideas, probably providing genuine structure, making them seriously reason with WHERE they’re taking the story. This, going by ATLA’s much clearer structure, is something I’m willing to believe Ehasz offered, and something Bryke lacked, by their own volition, in LOK. It’s also something they lack in the comics, seeing as, up to date, they haven’t done anything in them that really lives up to their potential, as far as I know. “The comics don’t have any direction and aren’t advancing their world’s story” has become a far more frequent complaint with each newly announced and released comic volume, whether by supportive or antagonistic fans. Why might that be...?

It’s possible, of course, that Netflix’s team simply isn’t the kind of team Bryke can work with positively. Maybe they’re too stiff, maybe they’re not that creative, maybe they’re unable to compromise and it’s not all on Bryke?

But with the precedent Bryke has set (ATLA, with supervision, manages quality storytelling, despite its many flaws, whereas LOK, without it, is a storytelling failure), I wouldn’t be surprised that they were outright unwililng to compromise their own ideas after experiencing the full freedom of working on LOK without anyone telling them what to do, and that upon finding they wouldn’t have that same freedom this time, they quit.

Does this mean the show will automatically be better or worse? Eh... beats me, frankly. There’s no denying Bryke did endeavor to develop a large, unique world with the Avatarverse, but as much as the fandom believes otherwise, what made the Avatar world unique wasn’t merely that it wasn’t “white”. This particular qualm by the fandom feels really narrowminded to me, and I’m not saying this because I believe there should be white people in Avatar, hell no: what I do mean is that ATLA had an Asian setting, but the narrative frequently imposed western values on it. They recreated many elements of Asian cultures, but morally? ATLA couldn’t be more western. Is that a good or a bad thing? Beats me. But there’s a lot of occidental influence in ATLA’s narrative, even more of it in LOK, and that somehow doesn’t bother people nearly as much as it bothers them that the liveaction cast isn’t western in the least. Yes, it’s true, the cast shouldn’t be western: but there are many regards in which the original ATLA could pioneer a better understanding of many Asian cultures, and it doesn’t. Even something as complex as the Fire Nation’s cultural practices (no, I don’t mean the genocide and supermacy, I mean everything else) is outright blasted by the show’s western moralism from the get-go rather than seen as what a different culture values (already offered a few thoughts about this on this other ask).

Therefore, in terms of casting, which seems the main concern of the bulk of the fandom, I highly doubt Netflix will be willing to repeat the same mistake M. Night’s fiasco committed. They can’t be that stupid. They’ve done a lot of big diversity efforts in the past, whether insincere or not, in many regards, so I seriously doubt they need Bryke sitting in the casting booth repeating “NO WHITE ACTORS! NO WHITE ACTORS!” to the top of their lungs to remind Netflix's executives that this just can’t happen. Seriously, if that’s what their input for the show was supposed to be about, Netflix was better off saving up the money of hiring those two as main consultants or executives and using that coin to pay the likely lousy salaries of the non-white actors they’ll surely hire :’) I doubt, seriously, that Bryke’s problem had anything to do with white casting. If Netflix entered this deal and didn’t do their homework first, then they’re basically dooming themselves since day one and the show would suck with or without Bryke’s involvement. This is not impossible, but really stupid, and an absolutely failed business venture to jump into.

In the end, I don’t know what that liveaction will shape up into. I don’t exactly care much either, which is why I didn’t really debate this subject before answering this ask... I’m pretty detached from canon these days, as things stand. I can’t even bring myself up to reading the plot of the Kyoshi novels, no matter if people keep telling me they’re ~actually good!~, let alone will I want to rewatch ATLA in liveaction when I’ve become increasingly infuriated by liveaction remakes with each new one Disney releases :’) from the moment it was announced, I knew this remake wouldn’t be for me. It’s not likely they’ll do anything with it that I’ll really want to see, or that they’ll change things in a way that resolves my frequent complaints about the show’s storytelling mishaps. Therefore, I’d always meant to leave it be and let everyone else enjoy it...

... And Bryke’s absence from the project doesn’t really change my mind on that front. At this point, crediting them for the entire success of ATLA is incredibly naïve, especially seeing how none of their later projects have even come close to ATLA’s level of storytelling quality. Likewise, it’d be naïve to assume Netflix is guaranteed to do better without Bryke’s “meddling”. If anything, without Bryke’s likely persistence that the show be kept close to its roots, Netflix is bound to fall into its frequent, known tendencies of pandering to certain crowds at the cost of quality storytelling because Hollywood overused and bad tropes are where success is at! They’ll likely flatten characters, turn them into edgy, non-humorous versions of themselves, not unlike in M. Night’s film, and then everyone will hate the show anyways for offering such dull and simplistic characterization compared to the original :’)

In short... there’s no winning scenario. There really isn’t. I assumed there wouldn’t be one anyhow, from the get-go, at least for myself? But now that Bryke are out, the fandom is divided in about four factions:

The ones who will watch and support the liveaction no matter what.

The ones who think it will suck balls because Bryke aren’t in it.

The ones who think it will be an improvement because Bryke aren’t in it.

The ones who won’t watch it no matter what.

Me... I’ve been in camp #4 from the start. Bryke being part of this project didn’t reassure me, neither does their absence... and I’m still as convinced this show won’t be my thing today as I was when it was first announced. So... *shrug* we live and let die. I mean, first of all we have to wait and see if the show’s production will even survive the pandemic first, so we can worry about how bad or good it will be if Bryke’s departure + COVID-19 didn’t destroy it altogether already :’D

#anon #no offense to anyone who genuinely looked forward to this show #if you all wanted to enjoy it well #maybe you still will?#even bryke acknowledge that :'D #but I wasn't going to no matter what so #*shrug*

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 5 years

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15 questions meme

tagged by @turianosauruswrex a while ago, thanks!

Are you named after someone? nope, my parents literally found my name in a baby-name book and liked the meaning (something like "of the Lord" or "gift of God").

Last time you cried? haha welllll that would probably be when Endgame came out and what I was getting from my thirdhand accounts was that not only was Loki still dead, the time travel overwrote everything, so what we were left with was a single timeline where 2012 Loki left with the Tesseract, wreaked havoc, gave it to Thanos, and died anyway, so it felt like...you know, it wasn't enough for them to kill my boy, they had to make him evil again and shit all over his memory and it seemed really awful and mean-spirited. also I think I was PMSing so that didn't help, but the result was I spent most of a day genuinely struggling not to cry. the time before that was probably back in November, the first time I walked Hazy, because she looked so much like Scully from behind and I was hit all over again with how unfair it was that he was gone and how much he'd lost over the past year or so even before he got sick. the last time I actually full-on sobbed was October 5, the day he was put to sleep. (I was also trying to get over a cold at the time and could barely talk, so the combination meant I REALLY had a terrible time making myself understood and I used up a damn mountain of Kleenex.) I really don't cry much, and maybe that's not super healthy because I hear it's supposed to be cathartic, but I don't remember ever getting that--it's just messy and I get an awful headache, and I don't so much get to a point of feeling cried out as much as I just get sick of it and make myself stop.

Any kids? lol no. not like, living human children. I do have a "my kids" tag though. and Loki is my disaster child. and some of my action figures are my kids. I always assumed I'd have kids because it's What You Do, so I don't think I realized until at least college that it wasn't necessarily something I wanted, and then I eventually realized it was something I actively didn't want. I don't mind being an aunt, but aside from not having a chance to buy some fun baby gear I've seen (like a vampire-teeth pacifier), there is literally not a single part of the child-making-and-having process that appeals to me.

Do you use sarcasm? possibly too much. sometimes I confuse older people when I say, with obvious sarcasm based on the context, that something bad is great, and then I realize I have no idea how else to convey, like, a tiny bit of dark humor about something bad, and I’m a millennial so I gotta make those Jokes(TM) to cope

First thing you notice about a person? I...don't know. this always strikes me as a weird question because it's like...you mean a random person I walk past on the street, or the first thing I notice when I actually meet somebody? it depends on the person, too, because for instance if some random stranger has really rad dyed hair, I will definitely notice that and probably compliment them.

What’s your eye colour? hazelish, which is a fancier way of saying I used to think they were green but they’re more brownish than that without being outright brown.

Scary movies or happy endings? "both is good" dot gif

Special talents? ummm. I'm pretty resourceful, is that a talent? I'm often the person who goes "oh I have that in in my purse, want to use mine?" when somebody needs a bandaid, ibuprofen, a screwdriver, fingernail clippers, iPhone charger, etc., although of course the drawback to that is I'm kiiiiind of a hoarder and I'm almost incapable of packing light. finding random Loki stuff might count as a special talent at this point, idk.

Birthplace? middle of nowhere Minnesota.

Hobbies? Reading, writing, collecting Loki stuff, attempting to customize action figures, cosplay but I'm not very dedicated or good at it, video gaaaaaames (but I’m also not very good at it)

Do you/have you played any sports? I was on the swim team in Barrow for a while but it was like...not really a competitive thing, just the next thing to do after swimming lessons. also entirely my parents' idea; I mostly hated it. (now swimming is one of the few forms of exercise I don't hate, in part because you can't feel yourself sweating when you're in the water.)

Pets? sweet but dumb Siamese-looking cat named Smocha (smoky + mocha). extremely silly, wiggly, kind of high-strung little dog named Hazy.

Height? 5' 3.75". that three-quarters of an inch is important.

Favourite subject in school? probably English because I pretty much always knew what I was doing.

Dream job? are we talking "literal dream job that doesn't actually exist because nobody would ever pay money for this" or something more realistic? because if it's the latter, I really don't know--I'd like to be a published author but not as an actual job, for instance, and at one point I thought I'd love to write for BioWare but now I think working for almost any game company would be a nightmare. if it's the former, I would like to receive a good salary and benefits to sleep as much as I want, play games, write fic, and cuddle my dog, so obviously that is never going to happen because that’s not a job.

I do not have the brain power tonight to tag anyone, sorry

#ask memes

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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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When I sat down with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last week, he was a bit annoyed — admittedly not unusual. He was just back from a news conference where he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — among others — introduced the new Expand Social Security Caucus in Congress.

It barely made a media blip.

“Go out and ask people about the desperation many seniors are living under,” Sanders told me, picking up a copy of the most recent National Journal. The cover story? Meet 2020’s Millennial Kingmaker. “Isn’t that an issue everybody’s worried about?” he asked sarcastically.

It is not hard to understand why Sanders sounds so frustrated. Even as the once-radical Medicare-for-all and a $15-an-hour minimum wage turned into must-have policy accoutrements for Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sanders still feels his proposals are met with a fierce resistance from those who should like them.

Case in point: His recent Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act, also known as Stop BEZOS. The bill, which Sanders introduced with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) earlier this month, would require companies with more than 500 employees whose workers still need to access benefits like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to pay the government back, dollar for dollar.

And yes, that’s a reference to Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.com, the world’s wealthiest man and owner of The Post. Sanders jokingly asked if talking about him during our interview would put my salary at risk. I assured him I’ll be okay.

In Sanders’s view, there is something wrong when “the wealthiest guy in the history of the world, worth about $155 billion, $160 billion … pays workers wages so low that many of them — we don’t know how many of them — are forced to go on public assistance, on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing.”

Amazon, as could be predicted, pushed back hard, saying Sanders’s claims were “inaccurate and misleading” because he did not differentiate between full-time, part-time and temporary employees. More surprisingly, many mainstream and left-leaning Democrats — both establishment figures and media pundits alike — derided it too, accusing Sanders of denigrating the government social safety net and promoting a policy that would make corporations less likely to support such programs and employ people who needed access to them. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, quickly published a paper tearing the proposal apart.

“That’s inside-the-Beltway push back, I would argue,” Sanders said. “My political gut tells me what we are proposing is wildly popular.”

He continued: “I ran for president. I was criticized for every bloody thing I did. Medicare-for-all. ‘Oh, it’s an impossible idea,’ right? ‘American people won’t support it.’ Last poll, 70 percent. ‘Oh public colleges and universities, tuition free, terrible idea.’ Sixty percent of American people support that idea, okay. ‘Raising the minimum wage, you’re crazy, you can’t double it.’ Overwhelming support for it.”

Sanders believes that will happen for Stop BEZOS, too.

“Is my legislation perfect? Probably not,” he said. “Of course, the establishment folks are going to attack us … That’s great. They can come up with better legislation. We’ll look forward to working with them.”

This is where we get to heart of the matter. Sanders and his detractors on the Democratic side are often talking past one other. On a policy level, it is helpful to think of what Sanders is doing as both offering a picture of how the world should be and jump-starting a conversation about how we should get there. To turn to a cliche, Sanders is discussing the forest of income inequality, while many Washington insiders, maybe out of habit, discuss the trees.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #bernie sanders #washington post #democratic establishment #progressive #progressive movement

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gspikes18-blog · 6 years

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athletes getting paid

Tyler Tynes https://www.sbnation.com/2018/3/16/17121588/college-basketball-fbi-investigation-ncaa-player-compensation

Gavin Spikes

English 1010

Dr. Robertson

13 Nov 2018

Athletes Getting Paid

There has been much controversy surrounding college football especially concerning the payment of college athletes. Many people, particularly college athletes, have been speculating for years about the salaries. Multiple colleges make copious amounts of money from collegiate sports. Most of the profit does not even go to the players and instead ends up funding the schools. These schools often do not upgrade facilities or do anything to benefit the players aside from just the normal scholarship. With many people donating to these programs, it is sensible to believe that student athletes should be compensated beyond just the normal scholarship.

A large number of Americans believe that college athletes deserve a salary. Most of the top tier sports in college bring in significant revenue. While schools are gaining large profits, some athletes come from an impoverished background, which creates an unfortunate situation. Student athletes with low socioeconomic status may tend to accept external booster sources that may eventually place them in a position of ineligibility. Regardless, one motive behind the situation may be because they are willing to financially help their families. Nonetheless, the act of receiving booster funds is illegal according to the NCAA. Since it is illegal for donors to give athletes money, they may reconsider helping their families. Imagine, talented athletes with low socioeconomic status who bring great profit to the schools they represent, and yet they cannot provide well for themselves or their families. Most of these athletes get a full-ride scholarship which includes a full tuition, books, meal plan, and a small stipend. This small stipend could be as little as 500 dollars to 1500 dollars a month but most athletes have to use that to pay rent unless they live in student housing. So, this scenario shows how students athletes work extremely hard every single day hustling as “slaves” to the school without a salary as the school they represent make hundreds of millions of dollars. Those athletes receive absolutely nothing in return, except an education. Yet, exploiting students of their talents just to pay for their education is not enough because student athletes help school gain more than what may be expected, especially in terms of football. If schools pay these wonderful kids, these athletes may be able to provide help to their families and also learn how to financially plan and fund what is necessary. If savvy with their pay, student athletes might invest that money and build up residual income. For example, if each player is paid a 1,000 dollars a month, then over four years that will be 48,000 dollars. Most importantly, players will be more inclined to stay in school and finish their degree, instead of quickly becoming drafted after 3 years, cutting their college career short by one year and then depriving themselves of a full college education. That in itself should be enough for colleges to pay the students if they really care about the well being and the success of each student as they claim to. If schools make so much money, why can they not just pay the players so that they can help themselves and their families? It is because these colleges seem to greedy and it is all about putting the money into the pockets of the people that run the school.

The next point that should be brought to light is just how much the College Football Playoff alone generates a profit each year after only 4 games. The number is substantially high. Simply from four games, the College Football Playoff makes 600 million dollars. Just off of those four games alone it generates enough money to pay every single college athlete that participates in an NCAA sport with a salary of 54,000 dollars a year. That number is substantially more than just the 12,000 dollars listed above. 54,000 dollars a year is more than the average income in the United States of America. If that is how much football alone makes off of just four games then imagine how much football generates over a whole season; that is more than enough to pay each of the players and still profit more than enough money to upgrade facilities.

Of course, there is always a downside to each idea that has ever been presented in the human era. When a person goes from being less fortunate to having a decent amount of money in their pockets each month, then serious problems could arise. Some players may lose the drive to attend class since they are going to collect a check either way. These athletes already miss enough school to attend events and games and other sports-related events. They get behind because they miss so much class and need tutors that more times than not, may do their work for them, instead of helping the athletes through the learning process. By paying them and creating an environment in which students may lose the drive to attend class, this problem may only be magnified and intensified causing them to drop out or become ineligible to play sports.

The next on the list of problems is financial irresponsibility. These players are young and possibly naive. Getting paid each month may create terrible spending habits. For example if a player is given 1,000 dollars a month and he sees a car he likes and has never been able to afford a nice car with payments such as 300 dollars a month, then car insurance as well as other bills and things will affect their financial planning. This is a major problem if they do end up getting paid then they should be required to take a budgeting class or some type of financial responsibility class that will help them manage money and spend it wisely for things that they need such as, clothes, food, and other necessities.

The last point is that it could remove the competitive nature from the game. These kids lose the incentive to play. In college the players are trying to make it to the NFL well, in the NFL the nature of competition is slightly lower because many of these people have already made it they have the money now. So these players would most likely be less inclined to play at their best performance.

As this list contains the Pros and Cons of paying college athletes there is many conclusions that you can come to. Now I believe players should be paid and compensated for the hard work that they put in to succeed and make it to the next level of football. There are many things that go against and go in favor of each side. It is hard to say if the NCAA will ever come to the point where they will pay the players for their hard work and dedication they put in day in and day out to help the school profit money.

Malcolm Lemmons (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-athletes-getting-paid-here-are-some-pros-cons_us_58cfcee0e4b07112b6472f9a)

Patrick Hruby https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/college-football-has-money-pay-players-college-football-playoff-proves-ncna833486

Patrick Gleason and Eric Garland https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article202272034.html

Ryan Swanson https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/10/02/want-to-clean-up-college-athletics-pay-the-players/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eea79e79623f

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hippoland · 6 years

Text

11 Things I've learned from running a micro VC in the last year

It's been about a year since I started working on Hustle Fund with my business partner Eric Bahn. People often ask me what it's like to start a micro VC and whether they should do one too. (Hunter Walk just wrote his perspectives here)

Here are some of my learnings from the last year.

1) It is absolutely the best job in the world for me.

I enjoy learning about new technologies and ideas -- and you get to see a lot of them in this business especially in early stage investing. And I enjoy working with founders immensely. But most importantly, I love fundraising. I know -- that isn't what you thought I was going to say. (more on this later)

Much like running a product-startup, you're your own boss, so you sometimes end up working really hard and at all hours depending on where you are in your fund life cycle. But, if it's work you enjoy, then it doesn't feel like work. And, there's also a lot of flexibility, and I've definitely taken advantage of that. You can whimsically pick the most powdery day of the winter and go up to Tahoe to ski. Or go to the beach or lake mid week in the summer and no one will be there. It's great.

2) Starting a micro VC is just like starting a product company. Except harder.

Probably 10x harder. If you go in knowing that with eyes-wide-open, then it's totally fine, but most people don't do enough homework before deciding to start their funds. I would talk with at least 10 micro VCs before deciding to do this.

3) In particular, there is no money in micro VC!

Hah - this seems ironic, but I'll explain.

Most people think VCs have a lot of money. That's if you work for an existing large established VC. But if you are starting a VC, this is definitely not true. I'll break this down across a few points, but the gist is that you have to be willing to make no money for 5-10 years.

If you are not in a solid financial situation to do that, this business can be terrible for your personal life.

3b) Micro VC's have no budgets.

This is surprising to a lot of people. Even if you have say, a $10m fund, most of that money needs to be used for investing -- not for your livelihood or for other things.

In fact, the standard annual budget that VC funds have is 2% of the fund size for the life of the fund (typically 10 years). If your fund is say $10m, then that means you have a yearly budget of $200k. To be clear, this isn't your salary -- this is your budget to run your company. Your salary does come from this number, but you also need to cover salaries of everyone else on your team (if there are others on your team). And, if you travel, those costs come from this number too. If you have an office, that cost fits in here too. Health care and benefits also fit under this. Marketing -- if you have t-shirts / watches / swag, parties -- all of this fits under this budget. There are also fund ops costs that need to be factored into this number too. As it would turn out when you factor in all these costs, $200k actually doesn't go far. To give you some perspective, my salary today is less than what I made at my first job out of college...in 2004.

You need to be willing to bootstrap for about 5-10 years. In contrast to building a product company, where most people bootstrap for maybe 2-3 years and then either raise some money or build off of profits or throw in the towel, when you sign up to do your own VC, you are committed for 10 years (the standard life of a fund). You can't throw in the towel. And if your fund does well -- i.e. your companies either raise more money or they grow their revenues a lot -- you also don't make more money, because your salary is based on a percentage of your fund size. So your salary (or lack of salary) is stuck for years -- until you raise your next fund when you will have new budget from that fund.

Some Micro VCs write into their legal docs that they will frontload all of their budget in the first few years. Under this model, instead of taking say a $200k budget per year for 10 years, some funds will do something like frontload the budget -- say $400k per year for 5 years. This can help increase your budget, though there are still fund ops costs every year for 10 years, so I'm not sure how these funds end up paying for those costs in years 6-10 if they are taking the full budget up front. This is not something we do at Hustle Fund.

Other micro VCs will try to make money in other ways by selling event tickets or whatnot. In many cases, depending on how your legal docs are written, consulting is discouraged. So it actually is very hard to bootstrap a micro VC, because on one hand, you get virtually no salary but are also mostly prohibited from making money outside of your work.

3c) You also will make General Partner contributions to your fund.

At most funds, you will also invest in your fund as well. This allows you to align with your investors and have skin in the game, and this is standard practice. In many cases, fund managers invest 1-5% of the fund size. So if you have a $10m fund, you'd be expected to invest at least $100k to the fund.

So, not only are you not making money on salary, you are also expected to contribute your own money to the fund.

There are some funds that don't write this requirement into their legal docs, but it's something that a number of would-be investors always ask about (in my experience). They want you as a fund manager to be incentivized to make good investments, because you are staking your own cash too. And this makes sense.

3d) Sometimes you need to loan money to your fund.

There have been several cases over the course of the last year, where either Eric or myself have had to loan Hustle Fund money interest-free to do a deal that needed to be done now (before we had the fund fully together).

One thing that is different about raising money for a fund (vs a product-company) is that when investors sign their commitment, they don't actually send you the money right away. So, let's say we raise $10m, we don't actually have the $10m sitting around in a bank account. This surprises a lot of people -- VCs don't actually have cash on hand!

The way investors invest in a fund is they sign a paper committing to invest in the fund. And then later, when the fund needs money, the fund does a capital call. Typically, capital calls are done over the course of 3 years. So, if let's say an investor commits to investing $300k into a fund, then on average, that fund will call 1/3 of the money each year over the course of 3 years. In this case, that would be roughly a $100k investment each year from this individual. The capital calls are not done on a perfectly regular cadence, because sometimes a fund will need money sooner than later. But most funds try as best as they can to do regular capital calls.

But, this also means that there's a lot of strategy and thinking that needs to go into capital calls. For example, when you're first starting out to raise money and have very little money committed -- say $1m, it can be tempting to call 50% of the money right away to start investing $500k into a couple of deals. However, as you continue to raise, subsequent investors, will be required to catch up to that 50% called amount. And let's say you round up another $6m in capital, this means that all of a sudden you have $3m that you're automatically calling to catch up to the proportionate amount that the first set of investors contributed. And if you're writing small checks out of your fund, much of that $3m will then just sit around in your bank account not earning interest and will negatively affect your rate of return. So instead of doing a capital call, loaning your fund money is a way to ensure that you don't have capital just sitting around in your bank counting against your rate of return.

There are bank loans you can get once you are fully closed and up and running, but very few banks will loan you money in the very beginning when you have raised nothing - hah.

3e) And even if your fund does well, you still make very little money at the end of 10 years!

First, most VC funds are failures. In fact, much like startups, I've heard that 9 in 10 VCs will not even get to 1x returns!

But, if you happen to be in the lucky 10%, there's even a range here. The "gold standard" for profitable VCs is a "3x return" benchmark. If you're above it, you're considered excellent. And this is very hard to do. Just getting into the profitable category is an accomplishment in itself. But, let's suppose for a moment that your fund is excellent (because we all believe that our funds are excellent). And let's say that we return 5x on our fund.

On a $10m fund, a 5x fund return means the fund will return $50m. Using a standard 20% carry formula, and after returning most of the gains to the fund's investors, it means that the team will receive $8m. If you have 2 managing partners, that's $4m per person -- but 10 years later. Considering that you'll make no salary for much of that time, there are many other professional / tech / established VC jobs at big Sand Hill firms that will make you more money or the same amount of money on salary alone (not including benefits or stock) with greater certainty. You don't have to be a 90%+ performer as a Director of Product at Google to accomplish the same outcome as an exceptional micro VC manager. Think about that -- you risk so much, much like a startup, but your upside is equivalent to working a steady job at Google for 10 years!

For all of these reasons, this is why microfund managers who are able to raise more money on subsequent funds end up doing so, because for the same amount of work and risk, you'd much rather be paid more in salary and in carried interest later.

4) You should love fundraising.

I think most people think that as a VC you spend most of your time looking at deals. The breakdown of a given week for me is something like:

50% fundraising-related (preparation of materials / meeting potential future investors / networking / etc)

20% marketing-related (content / speaking / etc)

5% ops (legal / audit / accounting / deal docs / etc)

15% looking at deals (talking w/ co-investors & referrers / emailing with founders / looking at decks / talking with founders)

10% working with portfolio companies

Of course, it varies a bit depending on if you're at the beginning of a raise or if you have closed your fund. But, the point is, you will spend a solid chunk of your time as a micro VC on fundraising activities. Even if your fund is closed and you don't have a deck to pitch, you are always in fundraise-mode.

If you have never fundraised for anything before, you will probably think that this process is horrible. Having raised money before for my startup and having coached a lot founders on fundraising over the last few years, I've grown to love it. And part of that is just lots of practice -- the more you practice, the better you get, the more you like something.

5) Fundraising for a micro vc is exactly like fundraising as a product-startup. Except more involved.

Prior to raising a fund, it never occurred to me where fund managers raise their funds. That was just not something I had thought about before. For the big Sand Hill VCs, most of them raise money from institutionals. These are retirement / pension funds at goverment entities. Or endowments at universities. Etc. But as you can imagine, these entities are pretty conservative. And rightly so, the pension check that granny is counting on for her retirement shouldn't be frivalously thrown away on a fund that invests in virtual hippos recorded on some blockchain.

So as a first time manager, often it can be difficult to convince these types of institutional funds to invest. It can be done if you have a strong brand already. But even if you are an experienced angel investor or worked at a well-known VC fund, you're still starting a new fund with a new brand, and there are still questions about whether you can repeat your past success on this new brand.

This means that much like product-startups, you end up raising from individuals, family offices, and corporates primarily. But much like with raising money from angels and corporates for a product-startup, angels and corporates don't have website announcing that they are funding vc funds. You have to hunt for these folks. Often these "angels" whom you can access are folks you know or folks who are 2-3 degrees away from you whom you don't know yet (see my post on raising from friends and family).

And much like a product-startup, the check sizes are going to be smaller if they are from individuals (unless you know lots of very very wealthy individuals). When we first started fund 1, our minimum check size was $25k -- much like the minimum investment amount for a typical product-startup. Except that we were raising tens of millions of dollars not $1m. So, $25k doesn't go far on say a $10m fund.

This means you need to be doing lots of meetings. And this takes time. The average time for a microfund manager to raise a fund is ~2 years. We felt fortunate and incredibly thankful to our investors to be able to raise our fund in < 1 year. But, when you think about it, that's still months of actively fundraising. (see point #4)

6) And you have a limited number of investors you can accept.

Per SEC rules, you can only accept 99 accredited investors into your fund. This means that if you want to raise a $10m fund, you need the average check size to be above $100k.

When product-startups set a minimum check size, it's usually arbitrary. If you're raising $1m for your product-startup, it won't hurt you to take some investors at $1k or $5k checks here and there, especially if they are value-add. With a fund, every slot counts.

So when we started with $25k as a minimum check size for some friends, we knew we needed to quickly raise that bar in order to raise a significant enough fund and still maintain 99 investors. We ended up having to turn away a lot of great value-add would-be investors who could not do a higher investment. I would have absolutely loved to have brought in more investors if I didn't have this restriction.

In other words, you cannot just accept $5k here and there from friends and claw your way to momentum.

To get around this, some funds set up a “1b” fund. E.g. Hustle Fund 1a and Hustle Fund 1b and split startup investments equally between the two. That would be one way to get bring in more investors, but the costs of this setup start to go up, so we decided not to do this.

7) Ok, so there's no money. You also cannot change the world on fund 1.

If you can get past all of the above, and you're still "yay yay yay -- I want a life of making no money and want to fundraise all day and night for whatever cause I am trying to support," the last piece is that you should know that you cannot change the world overnight.

I know so many aspiring micro VCs who go into this, because they want to fund more women or minorities or geographies or some vertical that is underfunded. And I think those are all awesome worthy causes. And me too -- the reason I'm doing this is that I don't believe the early stage fundraising landscape is a meritocracy, and I want the future of funding to be much more about speed of execution rather than about what you look like or how you talk.

But you absolutely need to go into this with a 20-30 year plan. And the reason is that you're a small little microfund with say $5m, you won't be able to change the numbers in any of these demographics, because impact happens at the late stages when VCs pour tens of millions of dollars into companies -- not $100k here and there. What does effect change is having lots of money under management. And that happens by knocking fund 1 out of the park. And then fund 2. And then fund 3. And growing your fund each step of the way. And growing your believers who start to hop onboard your strategy -- not only your investor base but other VCs. And that is a 20+ year plan.

Moreover, you need to be contrarian to have a good fund. But at the same time, you cannot be too contrarian either on fund 1, because you need to work with other VCs in the ecosystem. You need your founders to get downstream capital. So to a good extent, I do care a lot about what downstream investors think and how they think about things. You can only start to be very contrarian once you have more money under management (i.e. have proven out the last couple of funds) and follow on into your companies yourself.

So in short, you will not make any money on fund 1. You might need to loan money to your fund. You will need to have money to invest into your fund. You will constantly be selling your fund as an awesome investment opportunity for this fund and the next fund and the fund after that, etc... And you will not change the world on fund 1. But, if you still love all of this and go in with eyes-wide-open on all of these things, and if you believe you want to do this for the next 20-30 years, then I would highly encourage you to go for it. I think it is the best job in the world.

Fundraising is a nebulous process that I aim to make more transparent. To learn more secrets and tips, subscribe to my newsletter.

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foxofthedesert · 6 years

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RQ OUaT FF | OGA: Ch 8

Chapter 8 – A Bitter Draught

An uneventful month meanders by after the destruction of the garrison at the border. In the interim, Regina has spent her nights much the same way. Tonight no exception is made to the routine that has played an integral role in maintaining an even keel through the undulating seas portentous of a tempest about to blow in from the southeast.

The entire morning was spent embroiled in mostly monotonous meetings, one after another spanning a broad assortment of topics ranging from lumber industrialists bitching about deforestation protocols to a presentation chock full of charts, graphs, and illustrations given by an appallingly boring magistrate from the southerly regions regarding the 'dire threat' posed to her local waterways by wildlife run amok. Apparently overzealous beavers and moles alongside unusual upsurges in foxes, deer, and other agricultural and animal husbandry endangering critters pose as severe a threat as a witch hellbent on the kingdom's destruction – an elucidation for which Regina was ever-so-thankful. The highlight of the morning, and the entire day really, was a girl's chorus from the vicinity of Perrault who visited just before midday to finalize booking them for a gala to be thrown in Red's honor. Regina was so besotted with their cherubic enthusiasm for celebrating the upcoming birthday of the Queen they all adored that she allowed them to lunch with her.

Unfortunately, the proceeding afternoon and evening hours sapped all of the positive energy of that delightful hour. Drafting budget proposals for the council to review was not her idea of fun, nor was reviewing the repairs to the western wall nearing completion after a series of delays. All the same, those things had to be done lest the nobles had cause to question her commitment to the kingdom's financial health and the citadel's security. So after seeing the girl's chorus off, she sequestered in her office, hunkered down and scribbled figures until the wrist and fingers of her right hand ached. Several hours later, she emerged only to spend the next two meticulously inspecting stonework and newly dug rainwater management culverts in the midst of an autumn chill rolling through the area.

By the time Regina trudges up the corridor to her bedchambers, she is weary to the marrow of her bones. Pausing at the door, she fondly recalls how Red had returned from a similar visit to the western wall the month before. Coated in sweat and mud, Red had stank something awful but was nonetheless the picture of simple satisfaction at having broken Queenly protocol to help the workers haul rocks, mix mortar, dig trenches, and pour concrete to fill said ditches so that the new section of the wall had stable foundations. Regina's nose turns up at the memory of the smell wafting from her filthy wife, but then she melts at Red's happy smile at having exhausted herself in hard, honest work that paid objective dividends she has personally witnessed. The wall is now twice as strong as it was before repairs were undertaken. Several times during her review, she was approached by workers and offered thanks for Red's unnecessary but greatly appreciated aid.

I'm just glad it was her that pitched in with the grunt work and not me, Regina thinks, smirking down at her pristine clothing. If Red wants to break her back getting down in the mud with what she insists will always be her sort of folk, she can have at it. As for me, I'll be staying clean and dry. Like mother said, 'That is what servants are for, Regina, and we pay them well enough for their labor. Your job is to ensure that labor is not done in vain.' She wasn't right about a lot, but that's one point I'll agree with her on.

There is a part of Regina that cringes at how snobbish that sounds. Fortunately for her, it is not big enough to make any notable impact upon her conscience. The last time she let the stark disparity between the haves and have-nots bother her, she was a young and criminally naive fool who believed in concepts that will never harmonize with reality – such as the idiotic assumptions that love will always triumph over hate and good over evil. Daniel's death was a slap to the face curing her of those delusions, one that she has yet to recover from and probably never will when five years of marriage to a hopeless romantic has only made a tiny dent in her condescending streak. Besides, if Red can put up with her occasionally sneering down her nose at the common man, why should she be bothered to change any more than she already has? And it isn't as if she is the same callous tyrant who constantly abused the impoverished lower classes during the Dark Days.

Since she fell in love with Red and that hopeless idealism her mother tried to destroy flickered back to life into a quaint but undeniably extant ember, the plight of the rank and file has conclusively improved. There is still destitution, yes, as there always will be in a world as cruel as theirs. But there has been steady upward progress. Salaries of workers all over the citadel, and indeed all over the country, have reached record highs under her audacious agenda to redistribute some of the gross wealth being hoarded by the nobility. The program has not boosted her popularity among the effected noble houses, although even the hardest hit among those most wealthy individuals cannot argue with the wholesale economic benefits produced by a proletariat that is increasingly awash with disposable income. Merchants are especially reaping the harvest of this marked upturn in consumerism, and their nearly universal support of her measures has offset any intransigent defiance from the excessively privileged aristocracy.

So no, Regina does not feel bad for still being a bit of an arrogant, pompous, egotistical asshole. And why should she when Red admittedly finds that side of her...oddly arousing? The answer to that question is self-evident.

As Regina loiters outside in the hallway, the manifesting temptation to provoke Red's attraction to her nasty side is quite potent. Yet as enjoyable as the lengthy, highly energetic romps with her wife invariably are, she is not really in the mood tonight. Unusual as that is, all she wants is to settle in for a relaxing evening in the company of her favorite person in the universe. Red's consistently reliable warmth and devotion is more than enough to take her mind off of the sinister looking storm clouds always a nagging pace ahead of her stride. Storm clouds that thunder the ominous promises of the witch that murdered Robin in front of the whole court and wiped the garrison at Tamerlon off the map.

Prior to entering the chambers, she preemptively sets a number of wards over their door to match those she applies to her wife's person each morning since that terrible day they watched helplessly as one of their dearest friends died. She cannot be too careful since the witch threatening her life also made that lewd comment about Red. Expressing an intent to kill her is one thing, but implying untoward intentions toward her wife is another altogether. So Regina ignores Red's limited amount of snarky griping about her paranoia as she carefully applies the wards, and does not feel a bit bad about doing so. There is no length to which she is unwilling to go to prevent such an indignity being visited upon the only person she has ever known who deserves to live a free, peaceful, and happy life.

Thus far there have been no assassination attempts, much to Regina's equal relief and consternation, which is why she has not immediately recalled Mulan from her task shoring up the southern border with Drakkenhall. It also comes as no great shock since there have been no further sightings of the witch, though she wishes that were not the case. Were there actionable intelligence, she could be out there doing something about the threat. As is, her frustration only grows with each passing day and it feels more and more like the introductory theatrics at the garrison and with Robin were a pot of water hung over a lit fire. Now whatever malefic brew is being prepared has been left to simmer, and once heated to a rolling boil, the concoction will be poured out, no doubt inciting mayhem within the kingdom. To Regina, the waiting is far less preferable to the attack sure to unfold any day now. At least in open conflict she can retaliate. Right now all she's done is sit on her ass, hands tied behind her back, powerless to strike out at an enemy who has yet to reveal herself save through veiled taunts. Psychological warfare is being conducted, and having it waged upon a person of action such as herself is beyond aggravating.

The only comfort through the interminable period of peace before the storm is her nightly ritual with Red. Relaxing together before bed, sipping the finest vintage, and talking about their days helps to unwind the massive knot of frustration that is her entire body and mind of late. Somehow, Red is able to stay calm whereas Regina's self-control is fraying at the edges, and when they are together that inner serenity soothes her irritated nerves as if seeping in via emotional osmosis. After the destruction of the garrison and Robin's death, she's been constantly itching for a fight that refuses to present itself. Red, though, is eerily composed, able to go about her daily business without thoughts of their close friend's abrupt demise hindering or entirely paralyzing her. Whether she's just being brave for Regina's sake or has simply stowed away her grief until the current crisis is over remains uncertain. Regina is too selfish to ask which is the case. Right now she needs her wife's unshakable devotion, quiet strength, easy-going companionship, tender reassurance, and dependable affection – perhaps more so than she ever has.

"Hey, hon! You look beat," Red greets upon Regina's entry.

"I am," Regina says. "It was a long day."

Approaching from where she was perched at their vanity, reading the latest in a long line of epic romances gifted to her by Belle, Red offers Regina a compassionate smile. "I heard. Lots of meetings, huh? And drafting the yearly budget proposal on top of that. I don't envy you."

Regina hums her acknowledgement. Red had spend her day in the town that sprung up beneath the looming shadow of the castle almost immediately after construction was completed some two centuries ago. Referred to now as Eisentor as much due to the easily defensible layout teeming with choke points around the base of the mountain as to the massive steel-reinforced gates, manned around the clock, that bar entrance to the sinuous access road carving a path up to the precipice upon which the Dark Palace sits. In Eisentor, Red is a regarded as somewhat of a fixture, as she can be found there as oft as permitted by the many duties incumbent upon a sovereign.

Today Red paid a visit to the bakery Regina once spied upon and learned of the shifting opinion of her people regarding her rule. Red does not say anything to indicate where she went, nor does she need to; Regina can see the burn marks on her fingers and forearms from greedily plucking hot pastries out of the oven because she was too impatient to wait for them to be safely removed. Ennis and Hanna, the baker and his wife, permit Red to have her run of the place. The indulgence isn't surprising since Red is their Queen, although Regina does not think that factors into their overly kind allowance. Red has a way with people that disarms them almost instantly then has them reduced to so much putty in her palm within a few more minutes. The proprietors of the bakery, all four of them, did not last even that long before they were not only letting Red have her pick of the fresh-out-of-the-oven goodies but were letting her design – and hand-make! – her own confections. The first time that happened Red came back home with flour on her face and dough on her dress, which was a costly garment to have produced. Fortunately for her, the gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate she had baked were delicious. Had Regina known Red had a talent for baking she might not have resisted bedding her quite so long as she did.

In any case, Red's day was far less strenuous than Regina's, thus the reason for her being extra sympathetic. Which she most certainly ought to be as she probably had Ennis and Hanna's absurdly attractive children pawing all over her while she was flitting about their establishment like a butterfly perfectly at home in an environment that decorum would expect her to avoid appearing too comfortable in.

"As well you shouldn't. How are Rina and Alfred, by the way?" Regina asks, unable to keep the venom out of her question. She is still uncomfortable with how much time those two funny and kind, extremely gorgeous, and very single siblings spend around Red.

"Doing good," Red says, smile shifting with longsuffering affection for Regina's irrepressible jealous streak where those two are concerned. "You don't have to keep saying their names like a dirty word, by the way. They're just friends who know I don't have eyes for anybody but you."

"Maybe so, but I'd still feel better if they both got married already," Regina grouses, mood souring further when Red chuckles at her discomfort. "Yuck it up, buttercup. Mock my concerns. But answer me this, what are two highly attractive and eligible individuals like them doing unmarried in their mid-twenties? Huh?"

"Waiting for the right person just like I did," Red calmly answers, ever the diplomat. "The see what I have and want it for themselves. And you know what? I don't blame them one tiny iota. Everyone should be as lucky as me to have found somebody like you."

Eyes dancing, Red sidles over to Regina and pulls her into an embrace without permission. To Regina's frustration, she allows the uninvited move, even appreciates the motive behind it and the comfort it gives her. Ten years ago, she would have incinerated anyone who dared such boldness. Instead she melts into the embrace and accepts the kiss pressed gently to her lips.

You've turned into a pathetic sap, Regina. But who can blame me? These arms are the safest, most loving place in the world. And those kisses are worth all the gold in the kingdom. I may be a sap but at least I'm a happy one.

A chuckle reverberates through Red's chest as Regina loops her arms behind Red, hands joined at the small of her back. "You've been jealous of Rin and Alfie for years for absolutely no good reason. How many times do I have to remind you that neither of them are interested that way in girls?"

Regina pulls away, brows arched. "I thought the same once. Before Leopold's death, I held to my mother's puritanical view of same sex attraction. And then I..." she trails off before mentioning her introduction to Maleficent, not wanting to put Red in a bad mood as well.

Red does not care very much for Mal. Never has really since their introduction almost seven years ago. She insists it is because of the ancient hatred her kind harbors for the race of dragons. One of few historical contributions Anita made to her daughter's thirst for knowledge about her roots was an oral tradition passed down for untold generations which holds that the dragons created werewolves and then enslaved them as a labor force they then exploited mercilessly to erect their great castles and earthworks, some of which exist to this day. That enmity is apparently ingrained into werewolves, which might explain why Red is on constant alert whenever Mal is around for the week or so she visits two or three times per year while her daughter Lillian is with her father. It might, that is, if were not for the scathing glances Red often cast at Maleficent, whether Mal was paying attention or not, only occurring when Regina was present. Among other trustworthy sources, Iris has informed Regina that Red acts perfectly normal when alone with Mal, and that they even seem to get along rather well without Regina between them as she oft is to the keep the peace. Obviously, Red's loathing for Mal is just her own jealous, possessive streak rearing her ugly head – and it is a her, as there is no question the source is the wolf, who thought of Regina as her mate long before her human half did.

So, while it is true Mal was her first foray into the boundless pleasures of a woman's intimate touch, naturally she avoids speaking such a truth aloud to prevent any consequential effusion of blood. A fight between a dragon and the most enormous werewolf on record would not only result in one of the participants being seriously harmed, but there is no telling what damage those two would cause around the citadel tussling in their bestial forms. And as much as Regina enjoys Red acting irrationally possessive and territorial, she does not want her pleasure to come at the expense of innocent bystanders. Or worse, at Red's. Strong as Red is in her fur, could she really take on a dragon as big as a small castle and escape the encounter unscathed? Regina doesn't think so, and thus keeps her trap shut.

Plus, if Mal hurt Red...? Well, then Regina would have to hurt Mal, and she really does not want to do that. She has precious few friends as is that accept her for who she is and not who they want her to be. Mal is one of those, and the oldest at that. It would be unspeakably tragic if Regina lost their deeply embedded camaraderie because she was no better than Snow White at keeping a secret, even if it was her own and not that of another.

"Well," she amends after clearing her throat, "then I learned differently. Such revelations can sneak up on you, as you well know."

Red nods, nibbling her lip bashfully. Unlike Regina, Red had no prior sexual experience with another woman when they became lovers. Her innocence in the matter was as precious as it was exciting. And not only in that aspect, but Red was a virgin as well, having never been brave enough to breach that momentous threshold with Peter before his horrific demise at Red's unwitting...paws. Those crucial details made their first time a priceless gift twice over, so lovingly and trustfully offered by Red and accepted by Regina with all due reverence. Regina will never forget a single detail of that night. Every delightful moan Red let loose, every delicious shudder of the taut muscles in her flawless body, the keening encouragements as Regina's lips, tongue, or fingers discovered all the right spots she never imagined could make her feel so good, and even the whimpers of pain as her maidenhood was delicately torn – all are recorded for posterity within the vault of Regina's memory. Honestly, if she hadn't already known, simply being allowed to observe Red's first time while caught in the throes of some euphoria induced out-of-body experience would have convinced her she was indeed a bisexual woman with a clear preference for the fairer sex.

Getting to be Red's first in two distinct facets almost made her regret giving away both of hers, one to Daniel – a secret Leopold kept for her, one of his few commendable kindnesses to her during their marriage – and the other to Maleficent. Almost. But then she remembers Maleficent breaking her in, how the older dragon had made sure she felt immense waves of almost unbearable pleasure before being allowed to attempt reciprocation, and then how she was expertly guided in the particulars of bringing a woman to orgasm. Under Mal's diligent tutelage, Regina became an expert in her own right and was thus able to impart her wisdom to Red, who proved as eager a student as she once was.

The point, however, is that their fateful encounter on the mountain pass when Regina was hunting down Snow was the first time Red ever experienced attraction to a woman. The intensity of their connection, as she confessed to Regina during their initial and somewhat awkward dinner, had taken her completely by surprise. The fact of the matter is that when confronted by the right circumstance or person, attractions can spring up previously thought absurd if not downright impossible. And if it happened to Red, it could also happen to the baker's offspring. Even Alfred and Rina's preferences are as stated, they would not be unique in questioning them for Red's sake. More than one noble lady with a husband has let slip that they would be receptive to overtures from Misthaven's junior Queen. Hell, Regina herself has been propositioned by seemingly heterosexual women. As unlikely as such as turnabout is, it is not outside of the realm of possibility.

And so even if Regina knows she is being silly, knows that Red is being sincere when insisting she is a one woman gal, that she couldn't be happier in their marriage, and that there is no one else who could ever stir her heart or her passions the way she can, Regina cannot help but feel these irrational surges of jealousy. They aren't Red's fault by any means. No matter how much she has matured emotionally since meeting Red, she is still an inherently possessive woman who finds the concept of others wanting what is hers utterly infuriating.

And Red is mine, dammit. Mine!

"True," Red says, rubbing reassurance into Regina's back between the shoulder blades, like she can sensing Regina's troublesome thoughts. Which is not unusual. Damn werewolf senses. "And maybe they are attracted to me," Red goes on. "Just a teeny tiny bit. If so, they aren't the only ones, and that's not me being boastful. I've had to deal with roving hands and leering eyes since I first grew breasts and developed a figure that didn't more resemble a twig than a girl. That's partly why I made Gran teach me how to shoot a bow and Peter to swing a sword. But that also means I have a lot of experience ignoring that kind of unwanted or unrequited attention. At least the eyes, that is. Hands get slapped."

"Or cut off," Regina growls, remembering one time when a drunk stumbling through town groped Red's chest. On instinct, Regina drew her sword and relieved the man of the offending appendage. Red was not pleased.

"Let's not go there," Red says, nose wrinkling as if remembering the same thing. She then shakes her head, clearly finding the direction their discussion was heading odious. "In fact, let's just drop this topic altogether and meander over into safe waters."

Regina nods curtly. She had not liked the subject any better than Red. "Agreed." Silence then descends in the absence of a topic, not pleasant although not exactly unpleasant either.

"Have you heard anything else from Mulan?" Red asks a moment later.

Knowing this avenue of discussion is in many ways more stressful than the one they'd just been on, Regina indicates towards the plush sofa pushed against the far wall right next the bay window. "Let's sit first." Red's agreement comes by silently allowing Regina to grab her hand and pull her over to the sofa. Only once they are both seated, hips touching, Red leaning into Regina's shoulder, does Regina finally give a proper answer. "Yes, I have heard from Mulan," she says, as Red listens intently, Regina's tightly clutched hand sandwiched between her own in her lap, legs crossed, body angled inward toward Regina. "I received a letter yesterday. There have been no further attacks in Drakkenhall since the two last month. She seems to believe this lull in activity is indicative of an imminent strike. Called it the calm before the storm."

"And you agree with that assessment?" Red asks, looking every bit as worried for Regina's safety as she had the night after they buried Robin.

"I trust Mulan, so yes," Regina says, her tone betraying her own concern. "Also, I have heard reports from my spies of troubling rumors spreading through the lowlands between Snow's realm, Stefan's, and ours. Rumors of armed men being spotted in the dense forests, never long enough to identify numbers before disappearing into the shadows like ghosts. All attempts to scout out these interlopers have come back empty-handed. I'd ordinarily regard them as poppycock, but the locals have long claimed there are secret tunnels criss-crossing the region, remains of ancient works built during the Great Ogre Wars an age ago. Perhaps there is some truth to these rumors and some clandestine force is gathering right under our noses. Or this information can be dismissed as of no consequence because they are ludicrous. Frankly I'm not sure which is the case, though I am inclined to side with the latter over the former."

"Is there not anything we can do to find out for sure? Maybe send some troops to check it out?" Red asks, voice hitching with trepidation that has nothing to do with fear for her own safety or having to don the armor of war. Red is a fearless fighter, has proved so on many occasions. But the thought of sending her people out to battle, to fight and die on her behalf against an enemy whose strength is unknown, is to her an intolerable one. And, more than anything else, she is ever-aware of the witch's threat on Regina's life.

"Not with our forces already stretched thin since the corps stationed nearby was redeployed to Mulan's command on the border." That decision had come a week after Mulan's letter announcing two more villages on Stefan's side had been obliterated by their elusive magic-wielding enemy. It hadn't been an easy one to make, as those troops had standing orders to keep a close eye on Snow and Charming's realm. And if there was any chance those two self-righteous morons might be up to something nefarious, the time to instigate those plans was right now when Regina's eyes were elsewhere. "Best to address the foe we know for a fact is operating in Drakkenhall than to waste resources on what may or may not be a real threat. If you'll recall, we made that decision together," she points out, and not unkindly.

Regina is spared Red's response by a knock on the door that she answers by straightening in her seat before bellowing an affirmative command to enter. Iris strides in seconds later, a little behind schedule, looking slightly harried. In her hand is a silver tray holding two large bell-shaped wine glasses that each contain a generous portion of the castle's finest vintage.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Your Majesties," Iris says, sounding as atypically out of sorts as she looks. "I bumped into someone in the hallway, a redheaded woman I'd never seen before, and nearly lost the tray and it's contents." Her fair face darkens almost imperceptibly. "I stopped a while to question her. Turns out she's new, just got hired onto the custodial staff. Anyway, that's no excuse. I bet your pardon once more, my Queens."

"It's alright, Iris. No harm, no foul," Red says, demeanor warm and accommodating for the maid she would insist is not just that, but her friend.

Both Regina and Red accept their wine with smiles and thanks, though Regina's response is slightly strained by Iris' explanation as to her tardiness. She knows of no new hires amongst the staff, but that is not unusual since Red encourages her to trust more in those to whom she has delegated responsibility instead of micromanaging everything as she is apt to do. Iris, to her credit, says nothing about Regina's reaction except to inquire whether she can be of any further service other than the delivery of their nightly wine.

"No, thank you, Iris," Regina says, still sitting primly while in company other than family or friends as Red nervously worries the surface of her glass. As fond as Regina is of Iris, she cannot seem to lose the distinction between servant and friend ingrained into her from a child by Cora. "You may go." When Iris gives a curt curtsy then immediately begins to leave, Regina feels Red's eyes cut into the side of her head. She sighs. "Wait." And when Iris halts to turn back, adds, "Take the rest of the evening off and don't bother coming in until the afternoon tomorrow. I'd like a lazy morning for once. Both of us could use one, I think."

"Definitely," Red says, looking much more pleased than she did a moment ago. "Have a wonderful evening, Iris. And give John our love, won't you?"

"I will, my Queen," Iris says with effusive gratitude that makes Regina feel a bit better than it probably should. "Thank you both." Whereas Regina nods politely, Red offers Iris one of her big, toothy smiles that could light up the whole castle if she stood in the right place.

With Iris gone, Regina sinks into the cushions of the sofa and blows out a breath. "I'm sorry about before. If I sounded upset or harsh, that wasn't my intent."

Red softly squeezes Regina's hand that she has still yet to surrender. "I know. And I wasn't going to argue. I agreed with your suggestion just like you said and nothing since has changed that. I'm just concerned is all. A witch burning villages in Drakkenhall, rumors of strange men lurking in the lowland forests. I don't like the feel of this one bit."

"Me either," Regina agrees, then takes a sip of her wine. The full texture and smooth flavor go down easy, warming her from the inside out. "Believe me, I wish that underhanded she-devil would just come out swinging already. I'm sick of the games. The waiting is intolerable."

"I know what you mean. There's a tension in the air all the time now. I hate it. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Only when it does, I can't help but feel I'll wish it hadn't."

"As much as I agree, we can't afford to think that way. Negativity breeds defeat, and I'm not about to let this uppity sorceress, whoever she may be, beat me on my own turf. When it comes to fighting fire with fire, I don't lose, darling. You know that."

"Ah, my heroic Midnight Queen!" Red sings, using the title she'd given to Regina long ago. "There is no foe in heaven above or Hades below with whom she will not stand toe-to-toe and prevail."

"Damn straight. And don't go forgetting that any time soon." Smirking, Regina tips her glass to Red, who clinks hers against it with an airy laugh.

"As if I could," Red says after they both take a luxurious drag of their wine. "You're not exactly timid or humble about your martial prowess. Never seen anyone best you with sword or spell, and we have a lot of good fighters and magicians in our arsenal."

Head swirling pleasantly from the alcohol, though it has hit her a little harder and faster than usual tonight, Regina grins darkly. "I just look forward to defending my undisputed title in both against the bitch who killed our friend."

"Hear, hear," Red says, then raises her glass. "To justice for Robin."

Approving of the gesture, Regina raises her glass as well, smile fading into an expression of iron resolve. "To justice for Robin. May it come swiftly and violently. And preferably at the business end of my sword or your furrier half's maw."

"I'll drink to that," Red says, and then they take another gulp of the delicious vintage Iris delivered.

The rest of the evening passes with amiable conversation and a few easy silences that see them leaning against each other while basking in their mutual adoration. They also sneak in more than a few kisses, most of them chaste, though a few get heated, one so much so that Red winds up in Regina's lap before they come to their senses. All too soon, however, the wine collides with Regina as if a sledgehammer descending upon a brittle clay pot, obliterating her senses. Vision blurring, hearing obfuscated, heart suddenly pounding in her ears, she rises unsteadily and nearly collapses straight into the floor.

"Wow," Red says, helping her to stay upright. "That wine sure hit you hard. Weird. Didn't do anything for me." Regina thinks, but is not sure, Red pulls a suspicious face. "Musta just been 'cause you're tired. Let's get you to bed so you can sleep it off."

Regina does not remember much else that comes next except for being wrangled onto the bed, her clothes stripped down to the underwear, and Red's wryly chuckled comment as she is tucked in, "Good thing you gave Iris the morning off. You'll be sleepin' late for sure." Then sheets are pulled up and tucked around her shoulders and all at once, before she can even manage to part her lips to speak, the lights go out.

Once the irresistible darkness claims Regina, she remembers no more.

#once upon a time fanfic #red queen #regina x ruby #Zelena is up to no good #mentions of DragonQueen #a bit of foreshadowing in this one

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moneyintrend · 3 years

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How to start saving money FAST

Do you wish you had more money at the end of each month? Even with a modest salary, there are 5 simple ways to save extra money: Learn how to regularly save $1,000 each month. Plus, a free printable to aid you in achieving your $1,000-a-month goal!

Let's get right to the point: most individuals are terrible at saving money.

According to research, nearly 20% of working Americans claim to have no savings. Worse, according to this poll, 60% of people could not cover a $1,000 emergency with their savings.

Do you have any idea what this means?

It means that in the event of an emergency, these folks will have to borrow money to pay for it.

And you certainly don't want to be in this situation. Above all, you don't want to increase your financial burden.

That's why I've compiled a list of some of the most effective money-saving strategies that you can use right now.

Finally, it is up to you to take personal responsibility for your finances. And whether you earn a six-figure salary or are living on a shoestring budget, you can make a difference by employing these strategies without ever feeling as if you are sacrificing the things that are most important to you.

SAVING MONEY TIPS: HOW TO SAVE $1,000 IN A MONTH

1. Don't waste your money. You're going around the mall with a pal when suddenly:

From the shop window, a very edgy black dress winks at you. You know that if you wear it, you'll look like Kate Moss. You must go inside...

Come to a complete stop right there. Let's take a step back. What went wrong? Why are you in the mall in the first place if you're trying to save money? Second, don't waste your money.

That is to say, if you want to save money, you should never click the "purchase now" button. Allow at least 24 hours for the item to cure. Allow yourself time to consider each item carefully. Cutting down on impulsive purchases is one of the most effective ways to cut costs.

So, before you buy anything, consider the following:

Is it possible for me to live without this item?

Is it truly possible for me to afford it?

Will I actually put it to use?

This reveals if you truly desire or require it. You will be able to make better judgments about whether or not to spend money if you ask yourself these questions. If you're still thinking about it the following day or a few days later and you can afford it, go ahead and buy it.

2. Calculate the true cost of each item.

I discovered several positive reasons for living with less on my path to financial independence. We end up trading our lives for items we possess every time we acquire anything. Or, to put it another way, as Henry David Thoreau phrased it,

The cost of anything is the quantity of life you give up in return. It's time to stop valuing things in terms of money and start valuing them in terms of "how many hours will I have to work to pay for it?"

I now employ this technique on a regular basis. If I want to buy anything, I merely run a few simple calculations to determine if it's worth the effort:

Calculate the true cost of each hour you put in at work. If you earn $40,000 per year and work 40 hours per week, your hourly wage is about $20.

Calculate the life cost of everything you buy now that you know the true worth of each working hour. Spending $20 on lunches on a daily basis? You have one hour left in your life. A pair of jeans for $80? 4 hours of your life are up for grabs.

We all have a certain amount of time on this earth, no matter how old we are. As a result, we must allocate our resources to the things that are most essential to us. We shouldn't waste our time on things that won't benefit us in the long run.

This is the entire premise of a fantastic book called Your Money Or Your Life, which I recently read. If you're looking for a decent book to read, this is it. It will assist you in regaining control of your finances and allowing you to start enjoying a life rather than merely earning a livelihood.

3. Don't be tempted by sales We've all done it.

We come across an amazing deal: a minimalist vegetable cutter that blends in well with the rest of our kitchen accessories. It's difficult to say no.

But, let's face it, let's be honest. Will we ever put it to use? Big deals are staged to get us to purchase items we don't require. Giving in frequently entails spending money on goods we don't intend to use.

So, for each thing you're tempted to purchase during a bargain, consider if you'd buy it at full price.

Consider the following:

How many items did you buy on sale that you would gladly give away if you were granted a refund?

Consider the $40 skirt you bought. How often did you put it on? Once?

Or that nail polisher with the seal still intact?

Because, in truth, it's almost as if you're getting paid to save when you decide not to buy anything and instead put the difference in your savings account.

4. If you save it, make sure you transfer it.

Do you know what you should do first thing in the morning while sipping your coffee?

Check the balance of your savings account.

Simply transfer the equal amount you saved into a separate savings account whenever you save money by not purchasing something (CIT Bank has a great savings builder account that gives you up to 10x more than your average standard bank account). This may seem ridiculous, but it's a wonderful method to ensure that the money you're saving stays in your pocket (and avoid further temptations).

It's a daunting habit to start, but once you get into it, you'll find it quite motivating since you can see the immediate consequences of your efforts by watching your savings account balance grow every day.

Believe me when I say this: The more your savings account balance grows, the more motivated you will get to save — and the more likely you will be to continue with it.

5. Consider your ultimate aim.

Saving money is a big step toward more financial independence and stability. It can also become addicting.

But the most essential part of making sure you stick to it is deciding what you'll do with the money thereafter.

It's critical to understand this because:

If you have a clear objective in mind, you will be far more likely to achieve it. It will assist you in focusing on something good through challenging times. You will be considerably more satisfied if you achieve that aim. Whatever your objective is, make sure you write it down and remind yourself why you are taking action in the first place.

Do you want to book a flight to your ideal vacation spot? Getting out of debt? Have you established an emergency fund? Are you looking for a unique gift for someone you care about?

Simply learn how to handle your money, and these suggestions will assist you in obtaining everything you desire.

#saving money #saving plans #money tips #money intrend #earn money #makine money online

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optomstudies · 7 years

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howdy! first, just so you know, your 'about' link leads to "/about-me" instead of "/about" so it doesn't direct the user to the right page '^^ and second, how did you know you wanted to go into optometry? what's the appeal of your field? have a lovely day c:

ahhh thanks, i’ll fix it up :) i figure i’ll do a full post finally despite the choice being somewhat personal:

I never had a “dream job” when I was younger, I had no idea what I wanted to do in primary school. I topped science in Year 7, so subsequently I enjoyed all my science classes and elected to study Chemistry and Biology for my senior years. From my studies in high school, I really came to enjoy learning in general; I even lamented that I wasn’t privileged enough to just study as many degrees as I wanted. Since my scores reflected my dedication to my studies, I decided to either enrol in UNSW or USyd because they were good universities that often ranked highly in world university scores. Thereafter I figured that a degree in health sciences would be the way to go, because it would involve helping people and sciences. So my choice in degrees was mainly rational and logical combination of interests, strengths and practicalities.

However I switched between multiple ideas once I actually got to Year 12, (because I didn’t want to close any doors), including physiotherapy, dentistry, diagnostic radiography, and I even considered commerce and chemical engineering. I didn’t want to do medicine because although I am generally interested in learning, it seemed like everyone around me was claiming that they had loved learning about anatomy and diseases since they were conceived, and I somewhat naively and purely believed that you should become a doctor only if you were truly passionate about it. Looking back, about half who tried out for it just were in it for the prestige and financial benefits; I know many people who claimed that medicine was the dream for them, and then suddenly decided to switch to dentistry (claiming they had been interested in teeth from when they were born) because they couldn’t get the UMAT required. (If you guys didn’t know, dentistry makes the highest income for graduates). I’m not saying that it’s bad to go for high-paying careers but everyone just acted high and mighty about being morally drawn to medicine/dentistry when they could just be honest and say it’s both that, and being able to help people. But anyway, I digress because people can act silly in high school.

Like I mentioned in my “What I’d Wish I’d Known Before University: Choosing a Degree” study tip, you probably don’t have a true passion, just interests. Yeah, no matter how much research you do, unless you go and sit for a few days following somebody around at their job, you won’t know what they do. And how many jobs do people really know about anyway? There are many more university-accredited occupation titles that people are unaware of compared to jobs that don’t need a qualification. Even when you’re young, if you were asked to list occupations, it’d probably begin something like “firefighter, police officer, doctor, nurse”, etc. Like who even knows about diagnostic radiologist when they’re a kid?

So I was kinda interested in everything; therein lied my problem. So what did I end up having to do? Eliminate jobs by practicalities. I had settled somewhat on pharmacy for a while because my favourite science was chemistry, before hearing that the job prospects were terrible. So I decided on physiotherapy, before finding out after doing some research that you needed to do quite a lot of physical work. Hating physical activity, I then switched to dentistry because I had had braces throughout most of high school (my teeth were zigzags if I had to describe it, so it was almost 4.5 years), but I ended up rejecting that because it wasn’t available as an undergraduate degree in my home city. Then I became quite lost for a while.

ATAR results came out afterwards, and I pretty much had my pick of the degree. So I went to open days at university, which is when I finally chose optometry because it was exactly what I was looking for! The benefits of the job were excellent; it’s really important to think about the practical components of the job at the end when choosing your degree, not just whether you really love the subject or not. Just keep in mind your own personality; there are some people who are extremely stubborn and will fight tooth and nail against something they don’t like studying.

As for optometry, it’s a job that allows you to connect with and aid the community, as well as being well respected in society. The job employs skills such as problem-solving/decision making, communication and interpersonal skills, attention to detail, compassion and patience, etc. Like all health sciences, there’s a large ageing population in developed countries, so there’s generally future stability. It’s also got the opportunity for you to easily take time off and locum (contract work basically), which is excellent if you want to start a family. It’s not a job where you’ll be isolated from other people in society, and neither is it one where you’ll be sitting down or standing up all day so it’s good for your health. It’s also a 9-5pm salary job. Even in comparison to other health sciences, it has many benefits.

Compared to medicine: you don’t have to be constantly on the job as a doctor e.g. if someone has a heart attack in a public place you can’t ignore your duty, you also don’t have to do a 3 year stint in the emergency department working weird hours on call. You also have a much much higher risk of being sued for medical malpractice. Much less blood and at times unsettling diseases as well, and rarely would you encounter terminal patients.

Compared to exercise physiology and physiotherapy, it’s less tiring, so you don’t have to constantly do lots of physical work. Additionally everyday you will see patients who are in pain.

Compared to dentistry, you don’t have to bend your neck down constantly and give yourself a slipped disc at the end of your career

Compared to diagnostic radiography you don’t have to be exposed to radiation everyday and work in a hospital meeting people who may be terminal everyday.

That was all my thinking up until actually entering the degree. Once I got into 2nd year where we started doing optometric techniques, then I really became passionate about it because I worked hard at trying to understand it and practiced something like 20 hours prior to the practical exams. At the end of the year I ended up getting the award for top in 2nd year optom, which was a nice addition and kind of solidified my conviction in doing it.

There’s pros and cons to any occupation, but yeah those were my reasons for choosing optometry :)

#answered #optometry #choosing a degree #studypride

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believingispowerfulmagic · 7 years

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“Abducted”

For @oqpromptparty #65. Robin is a disgruntled former employee of Cora Mills who, in a moment of desperation, kidnaps Cora’s daughter, Regina.

This is probably his worst idea ever. But he figured by now there was no going back. In for a penny, in for a pound—wasn’t that how the saying goes? He should just pick up the phone, use the voice distorter and make the ransom demand.

Was one million dollars too cliché? Should he double it? Triple it? How much would he really need to replace his lost salary? Would it make up for the benefits he also lost?

And if he were caught…what would happen to Roland? Neither he nor Marian had much by the way of relatives. Would his son have to go into the foster care system? Would he grow to resent his father for doing something stupid and throwing both their lives away?

“You’re a terrible kidnapper, you know that?” his victim said. She sat across from him, her silk-clad arms crossed. Her red lips scowled at him.

Robin scowled right back at her. “You get kidnapped often?”

“Once,” she said. “They demanded one million dollars and released me after a couple hours after they got their money. I had bruises from the duct tape for a week.”

He stared at her, blinking a few times. Besides thinking that he shouldn’t then ask for a million dollars, he also felt guilty for forcing her to relive what was no doubt a traumatic experience. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? That I was kidnapped or that you kidnapped me this time?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Both,” he replied, grimacing. “I guess.”

She rolled her eyes, scoffing. “Just like I said. Terrible kidnapper.”

“I’m not a criminal,�� he protested before frowning. “Well, there were a few youthful misadventures…but nothing like this. I didn’t really think this through. I was just acting on impulse.”

“What impulse would lead you to kidnap me from my company’s parking lot?” she asked, looking incredulous.

“Your mother fired me.” He hated how he sounded—more like a petulant child having a tantrum rather than a grown man facing a crisis.

Her incredulous look grow as she stared at him, slack-jawed. “So you thought kidnapping me would get your job back?”

“No,” he replied honestly. “I just wanted enough money to take care of my son, maybe move and start over in a place that hasn’t heard of Cora Mills.”

“Good luck with that,” she muttered but he noticed she had softened when he mentioned his son. Her arms were uncrossed and the incredulous look was gone. She tilted her head. “What about your wife?”

He swallowed, feeling the phantom pain inside him yet again. “She…she died a few years ago, when Roland was still a baby.”

To his surprise, she reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She pulled her hand away, biting her lip before squaring her shoulders. “I’m Regina.”

“Robin,” he replied, holding out his hand. She shook and he let out a soft chuckle. “I really am a terrible kidnapper, aren’t I?”

“I believe that’s been well established,” she shot back, but there was no malice in her words. In fact, it sounded like she was now teasing him.

Did Stockholm Syndrome kick in so fast?

She leaned forward, resting her arms against the table. “I wouldn’t bother calling my mother, though. She has a ‘will not negotiate with terrorists’ mentality when it comes to kidnappers.”

He frowned, replaying something she had said earlier. “But I thought you said your last kidnapper got paid?”

“Because Daddy paid them,” she replied, a sadness coming to her eyes that he recognized—grief. “Mother berated him for giving in, berated me for being stupid enough to get kidnapped. Daddy pushed back though, saying he wasn’t going to leave my fourteen-years-old self to their whims.”

“He sounds like a good man, a loving father.”

She nodded and he heard her voice catch when she said: “He was.”

Robin didn’t press her, giving her time to recover from her moment of grief. When she cleared her throat, she continued: “Anyway, if Mother believed it was my fault I got kidnapped at fourteen, can you imagine her reaction to learning I got abducted when I’m twenty years older?”

“She’s a right bitch,” he said, frowning as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “And she runs a company that’s supposed to help people.”

“Only because she took it over from Daddy. I’m sure she schemes ways to make sure she earns more money at the expense of the people she’s supposed to help,” Regina said, disgusted.

He nodded. “That’s…That’s why she let me go. I worked as a case manager and I got into a very loud argument with her trying to get more resources for the family I was working with.”

Regina’s eyebrow went up. “And you walked away? Alive?”

“Alive but jobless,” he said, sighing. “She also made sure that my termination reason made me ineligible for unemployment. And so I got the incredibly stupid idea to kidnap her daughter and try to get the ransom money. Which I bungled spectacularly.”

“You haven’t even tied me up,” Regina pointed out, shaking her arms for emphasis.

He groaned, realizing there was nothing keeping her here. Robin had taken her to an abandoned warehouse with no locks, so she could easily just make a run for it. While he would probably give chase, there was no guarantee he’d catch her or win in a fight. Regina Mills looked like a lightweight but now he believed she was a probably a petite powerhouse. Freedom, then, was completely in her grasp. That only left one question.

“Why are you still here then?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away, as if pondering the question herself. He watched as she turned her head toward the door only feet from the table they were sitting at. Robin held his breath, expecting her to bolt.

He wouldn’t stop her, he decided.

Regina turned back to him and shrugged. “I guess I was curious to see how this played out and now I’m invested.”

“Invested. How?” he asked, surprised.

“I’m sure you can tell that I don’t particularly care for my mother,” she said. He nodded as it had been evident in her words and tones.

Regina then continued: “I believe in helping others too. Daddy taught me that and Mother showed me how not to do it. So I went to law school and became an advocate for those who need. Didn’t you notice where you abducted me from?”

He had been more focused on getting her into his car than his surroundings but he dimly recalled it was a parking lot for some law firm. Her name was even in it…Something, Mills and Someone.

“Draco, Mills and Swan,” she filled in, as if reading his mind. “I’m sure you’ve heard of us if you’re in social services.”

Robin had heard of them. They were a prestigious firm that he and the other case managers would sometimes recommend to their clients—behind Cora Mills’ back, knowing full well they could face her wrath if caught—to help with particularly difficult cases. He also knew they lobbied the city and state for better and more resources.

“I see the spark of recognition there,” she said, pointing her finger and wiggling it.

He nodded. “But aren’t all social service organizations connected to your mother? Because I tried to interview at a few places but she shut me down. Another reason why I turned to kidnapping.”

“A lot of organizations are connected to her, but Mother’s grip on the sector isn’t as tight as it once was,” Regina replied. “She’s made a lot of enemies and infuriated a few people. I can assure you has no friends at City Hall, for example.”

“Really?” he asked, surprised. Cora Mills always seemed so powerful and appeared to constantly be meeting with the movers and shakers in their area.

Regina nodded. “She backed the wrong house in several elections and the real winners were no fans of how she helped people in need. The fact you were fired by her is going to work in your favor. Trust me.”

“Is the city hiring?”

“Yes,” she said. “It would mean a salary substantially lower than what you were making at my mother’s but their benefits are amazing. And I know a few smaller non-profits that might have part-time opportunities for you if you want to supplement your salary.”

He gaped at her, amazed that she was willing to help him after he had abducted her and held her in the warehouse. Robin shook his head. “You are too good, Regina Mills.”

“No one really says that. But thank you,” she said.

Robin’s spirits crashed though as he rubbed his face. “Too bad it’s all for naught. Who wants to hire a kidnapper?”

“Who did you kidnap?” she asked, tilting her head.

He narrowed his eyes, not sure what she was playing at. “What do you mean? I kidnapped you.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped. I agreed to help someone in the field I specialize in who was down on his luck, meeting up with him for a late lunch or an early dinner, however you want to look at it,” she replied.

“But…I mean…how?” he gasped out.

She chuckled. “No one really saw you kidnap me. You brandished no weapon and didn’t exactly shove me into your car. So it wouldn’t look too suspicious on our cameras. And I’m not going to press charges. In fact, there’s a restaurant around the corner that’s pretty good. We can go there, talk some more and then you can drop me off at my car. Everything will look above the board.”

“You’d really do that?” he asked, touched.

“I don’t want your life ruined any more, not after everything Mother did to you.” She reached out, taking his hand as she gave him a little smile. “So, are you free for that dinner? Or do you need to get your son?”

He shook his head. “My friend agreed to watch him until six. We should be good then.”

“Great. Let’s get out of here before we breath in something toxic and we can talk a bit more.” Regina stood up, brushing off her pants.

Robin stood as well. “I appreciate this, Regina. Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” she said, still surprising him. “You made my afternoon a bit more entertaining. I was just going to go home and probably do some more work.”

He tsked her. “All work and no play, Regina.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “You sound just like my partner, Emma. She’s the ‘Swan’ in our name.”

“Tell me more,” he said, taking a chance and placing his hand on her back. When she didn’t step away, he relaxed and the two headed out of the warehouse together.

He was really glad he kidnapped Regina Mills.

#once upon a time #outlaw queen #oq au #oq ff #oq prompt party #oqpromptparty

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