“Don’t Make Your First Game a Stupidly Big Project” – I went against sound advice and took 4 years to make a game... was it worth it?
[text is taken from gamasutra and pasted below for convenience. Original article: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JohnWatmuff/20210119/376232/Dont_Make_Your_First_Game_a_Stupidly_Big_Project__The_Benefits_of_Going_Against_Sound_Advice_and_Making_a_Game_in_4_Years.php] It was a major exhale to see my open-world, galactic survival strategy game Lilith Odyssey finally make it to the Steam store on January 8, after 4.19 years in development. I am part of a two-developer studio called Chaystar Unlimited, and we have been working on our game for about 4.19 years, according to my therapeutic excel spreadsheets. We worked on the game in our spare time while holding two ordinary office jobs. Our game has now been featured in a variety of publications and after so much time in development, the attention has been charming and thrilling! I want to talk about the bright sides of being naïve and stubbornly curious. Now knowing the extensive struggle that was this project, would we do it all over again? It’s a complicated time to answer that question without having the hindsight of sales data to determine whether making this game was “worth it.” Regardless, in case you are as obsessive/naïve as we were, here’s what we learned. We Learned to Relax Effectively and Appreciate Small Progress To give a sense of what 4 years of game development looks like, you can see my source-code commits (on GitHub) — a steady mix of progress and breaks. It may sound counter-intuitive, but I learned to take lots of breaks. Naturally, I’m an obsessive coder that wants to stay up until 3 a.m. to see my vision come to life. Unfortunately, this is not sustainable, and also clouds my judgement. I tend to *not* reflect on my work while in this state. I still think it’s great fun to “enter the zone” — this process might even channel some deeper artistic output. But between work, countless weekends of game dev, and even small chunks of progress on weeknights, I begin to simultaneously burn out and become anxious. So to keep moving forward, I generally have to take a step back, focus on “life things,” and allow my mind to wander. These relaxation moments are good for mental health, but they also allow me time to think about my work – do I like what I’ve made so far, would I enjoy this feature? Personally, I found that the key to relaxing effectively is being kind to yourself, allowing your mind and body to recover in a way that is right for you. I did the best/most-focused work when I took time or even weekends off to play golf or invest time in parts of life that make me feel good. Days, weeks, or even months: it’s okay to take a break, because it’s only a break. Additionally, never begrudge progress. Even if something takes an exceptionally long time, as long as you complete *something*, you are now further along and in a better position than you previously were. Working in a large bureaucracy for most of my professional life has helped me realize this — big changes happen slowly and are often the product of many tiny bits of progress. Take what the world gives you! A Stupidly Large Scope Helped Us Learn Deeply Admittedly, Lilith Odyssey has an enormous scope — a very stupid (hasty) decision made early in the process. There are more than 1000 planets to explore, 16 space ships to customize with various parts, 20 alien creatures, procedural characters, procedural buildings, space stations, galactic monuments, and an in-game radio with original songs, ads and DJ segments. And honestly, perhaps the game didn’t *need* all of this. We just felt it would be “cool to have.” But to have all that, staying motivated was a big challenge. It wasn't until roughly 1.5 years of dev, amidst several growing pains, where we thought, “Uggh, why did we choose to make this game so unwieldy!?” But we kept working. What helped was recognizing the development of our skills (i.e. better visuals, better game play, better music) and knowing when our growth was enough to hit game quality markers we could live with (not necessarily the best we could do). We were aware of all the advice suggesting that a large 3D game is very difficult to complete — but we went for it anyway! By taking on the challenges of a large scope, we quickly became better learners. I would argue that the ability to learn new things is a skill you can work on, a skill that pays huge dividends in artistic confidence. And part of this skill is recognizing when you’ve learned enough to achieve a solid version of your vision (not its perfected form). For example, aesthetically, our game features a lowpoly/toon-shaded style that looks more playful than technically advanced. I’m sure that other talented devs can do much more. But for our own purposes, this was a sweet spot between looking good enough and moving forward. Learn, make it work, move on. Instead of minimizing the scope of the game to fit our skills, we challenged ourselves and hit depths of quality that we felt we needed. We deepened our skills in areas of coding, sound design, 3D modeling, animation, world building, and marketing to an extent that a smaller project would not have merited. The pay off? We believe we made an explorable, immersive, open-world galaxy. Low poly, sure, but we hit the scope. We realized an artistic vision, and explored new territory that we otherwise may have avoided until a later time. So, if you find yourself facing a large body of work, my advice would be: give it a shot so long as you are prepared to learn. If you try to minimalize your ideas, you may destroy the uniqueness of your art or miss out on finding the inner voice of your work. It takes time to find good art within yourself! We Overcame Fear of Difficulty By Surrendering Certain Battles When we started our project, I had never programmed a 3D game before. I am an experienced software engineer with more than 10 years of experience in a non-gaming software industry. But prior to this game, working in 3D greatly intimidated me! I had consistently defaulted to making simpler 2D games. In college, I nearly failed a graphics programming course. I overcame this specific fear by reading tons of articles about 3D development online, acquainting myself with the proper tools, and repeatedly failing (more on that below). The grander challenge to overcome, however, is the fear of difficulty (intimidation). As my game dev companion has said, it is the voice of self-doubt in all of our heads that says “this is too hard for you to complete.” Early on, my game dev partner motivated me to imagine our game as a 3D game. I was extremely hesitant, and even thought it impossible, but I gave the idea a chance. From there on, the two of us developed an internal culture of fearless problem solving. We were committed to learning anything we needed to learn to complete the project. We were ready to fight any battle — but also willing to tactically surrender battles that were far beyond our skills. The possibility of “falling short” never leaves the mind. Especially in the face of consistent technical hurdles that seem to limit our vision. There were many sobering moments for us where we realized that our technical limitations stood in the way of creating a feature or aesthetic we otherwise would have wanted. Sometimes, we could learn our way through the problem. Other times, we backed down and had to re-concept elements of the game. We Grew Used to Failure Our failures have been frequent and massive. For every one thing that went right, I would say that four things went wrong. We learned to accept the failures, identify a different approach, and move forward with a plan. Not all of our ideas panned out – for example, we had a feature where rescue crafts would pick you up if you were stranded on a planet. We ended up deciding that this feature, while super-cool, was not necessary for the larger game play and its exclusion would not affect game enjoyment. We had to give up on various other concepts, and we had to recreate some content with different styles — until we found something that worked well enough. Perfection was not the goal. Our reasonable satisfaction was. Ultimately, for a small team like ours, game development is an iterative crafting process that requires a balance of rework and acceptance. Link Up With Others It’s important to acknowledge that embarking on a years-long project was made easier by having a trusted creative partner. “Frodo didn’t get the ring to Mordor alone, after all, even when he insisted on it.” — words from my game dev partner. When others are involved, there is more accountability and commitment to see your part of the work through. And when your creative energies are thinning, sometimes all it takes is seeing what your team member has done to stoke your own passion for the project. For solo devs, I’d recommend working with artists – whether that’s for cover art, sound tracks, or asset modeling – to keep things exciting. Not only can you rely on skills better than your own in certain development areas, but getting quality input from others raises the bar for your own work. In the best case scenarios, there’s a symbiotic cycle of great work inspiring other great work that inspires other great work. Was It Worth Working on a Game for Four Years? Yes (but you have to finish it). We are currently polishing Lilith Odyssey and marketing our title as we look ahead to an early Access launch. By many accounts, we have no idea how successful the game will be from a sales standpoint. So, why was the struggle still worth it? We better understand our capacities to learn. Our weak spots are animation and rigging, which we look forward to addressing in future work. But we are not intimidated by the difficulty or challenge of trying something new and complex.
We gained creative confidence. It sounds lame, but in art, and in life, self-belief matters — and it exponentially opens up new doors. We have tons of limitations, but we also know that we’ve got the grit to work through a problem and the tactical wisdom to abandon a costly battle.
We know how to balance our lives. Practicing kindness to yourself and taking mind-clearing breaks will open the capabilities of your person. Learning to balance your inner self, can give you the stability and endurance required to wander across larger oceans — and do much more than you thought possible.
I'd be happy to address any of the points above or answer any questions about hunkering down on a project for 4 years. I attempted to write an article with genuine perspectives about gamed dev -- the same kinds of discussions and prompts I see in this subreddit that have helped me along my journey so far. Cheers all and best of luck on your work!!
Megathread: President Donald Trump announces he has tested positive for Coronavirus | Part II
President Donald Trump announced he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the virus and will begin their quarantine and recovery process immediately. The news comes after it was announced that close presidential aide Hope Hicks tested positive Wednesday evening. Megathread Part I
After AEW Dynamite this week and going to a golf course to interview Kenny Ocheata, how can one argue that Alex Marvez isn't the best wrestling journalist/reporter out there?
The man is dedicated to getting some answers. This week, he went to a golf course where Kenny Ocheata was playing golf to get answers about he felt about the match later that night and teaming with KENTA in a Falls Count Anywhere match. No one told Marvez that Ocheata would be at the golf course with Don Callis. However, Marvez has sources and he likely walked around the course to find Kenny, hence why he asked the two goofballs if they could offer him a ride. In WWE, we don't really see Charly Caruso, Sarah Schreiber, Kayla Braxton or any others really go above and beyond to give us the scoop. Marvez really does much more than them. Those WWE reporters stay backstage and only interview backstage. Never do they go to where a Superstar is hanging out or when they're in the gym, to get an interview from a Superstar. They just do interviews backstage. And when they do this, the questions for the most part, are boring and not tough. Besides that, they let them off the hook and don't ask more than one question, maybe two. The reporters/journalists in WWE are there to ask the Superstars questions on our behalf. With Alex Marvez, it really feels like he knows it's his job to go out of his comfort zone or the Daily's Place and go to where an AEW wrestler may not want to be interviewed. Let's not forget that Marvez got kicked by the Young Bucks. He puts himself in danger to get answers. I don't know how one can make the argument that Marvez isn't the best wrestling journalist/reporter right now. Yes, better than Michael Cole. Cole hasn't broken news or given a great interview in a long while.
Playroom with built in playset for my sanity I mean kids
TL/DR: I took a huge storage room and transformed it into a playroom with a built-in playset for my sanity kids. Pictures from start to finish With the kids home most of the day (thank goodness for in-person preschool), my wife an I were being driven crazy by the kids in the main living room. They were pent-up rambunctious loud normal kids who left their toys everywhere (5 years old, 3 years old, 18 months). So my wife and I decided to reduce our clutter by getting rid of some things and moving others from our huge storage room into a playroom. Unfortunately, my wife went to Pinterest for some ideas. Thus an empty room with their toys became a project. First I measured and made a couple of different models of playset to put in the room. the one in the pictures is the one we settled on. I used Microsoft's 3D builder program. As I didn't need anything too fancy or that cost money. Then we started emptying the storage room, some was sold online, some was given to charities, some was taken to the dump, and we kept a few things. We took some time deciding what to do with the walls. Since I had never mudded or taped we were not confident in my abilities. We also wanted something stronger than drywall because well kids. After discussing manget boards or other options we decided on bead board as I had done that before. Unfortunately, this time was vastly different and not in a good way. Then it was on to mudding and tapping which I had never done before. It turned out better than I expected. Some of my seams were very well done. Others needed some help. It didn't matter if it was the first, middle, or last any of them could have been good or bad. At this point I was waiting for some supplies to come in (mostly wood). So decided to go on to paint. Boss lady decided that we needed to use sky blue. Since most of the paint was going to be on the ceiling I choose Matte paint. I also knew that it would hide my imperfections better. Since the bead board was going 8 feet tall on all walls but one I didn't have to worry about durability. I used my brothers paint sprayer the original primer I used worked great. Then I switched to a slightly different primer but it was thicker and cause some minor issues until I thinned it out. I never want to do primer without a sprayer again it was so much easier. However, they say to roll on color. I also wanted a little texture to help hide the imperfections. So I rolled the blue on. After the paint dried and I was able to get my supplies it was time to get down to the real building. I started with putting in the baseboards making sure they were level. Note if I was to use these kinds of baseboards again I would put the bead board up first. The issue was when I went to put the bead board up it was not perfectly square so I had issues getting it to stay butted agains the board next to it and the baseboard. This was the time when my worst failure of this project happened. I used Liquid Nails with a couple of brad nails from my pneumatic nail gun to put the bead board up. Liquid Nails is what I used last time I did bead board but that wasn't 8 feet tall and more importantly I have since learned that Liquid Nails changed the formula to be VOC compliant. This resulted in 1/3 the holding strength it had before. Finally to top it all off I didn't check the length of the brad nails and they were only 1 inch long so they didn't go far enough to hid studs. Needless to say the whole thing came crashing down. My solution that only partially worked was to use 2 tubes of Liquid Nails a ton of brad nails all over and use a board and chair to hold it up for about an hour. This is when I did my research on Liquid Nails. The next morning when I got up one side of the panel was looking great the other side had a wave in it and I couldn't fix it. Oh well, have to move on or this will never get done. After that I took all the tubes of Liquid Nails back and got Loctite instead. It worked a lot better still had to hold it for several minutes to let it start to cure but better than an hour. My brother-in-law and father-in-law came to help. We finished the bead board and the chair rail. Then we started working on the framing for the playset. I had already put the leger board up before the bead board so we worked on hanging the vertical supports from the ceiling anchor which I had already hung. This is where I got to start using my very overkill, for this project, brackets. Hey if your going to build it for kids might as well over build it. The framing was the most enjoyable part of this entire project in fact it went so smoothly that my father-in-law and I both kept double checking things because it was going too easily. However after drilling holes with the hammer drill and setting the brackets for the posts we hung the joists and every turned out square. Unlike the rest of the room. We then installed the platforms using the plywood I already had. It was a pain to get straight cuts out of the circular saw. I saw guide bent near the beginning so we had chalk lines and free handed it. In retrospect we should have just taken the time to pack up my father-in-law's table saw and bring it over. Rip cuts are a 100% easier on a table saw. I was back on my own to put together the shelves, ladder, and slide. I didnt put the slide together at this point as I wanted to use my electric sander as I was planning on several coats for the slide. So on to sanding everything. I went though a lot of sandpaper. I got the platform, ladder, shelves, and slide super smooth with 320 grit. everything else stopped at 220. Back to painting. So I put up painter's plastic with painter's tape to protect the few things in the room I didnt want to be white. Out came the paint sprayer, but this time I ran out of primer and the store didn't have the one I originally used. When I asked they said they had some in quart sized. So I got that and left, thinking that the different color was due to the different size. Oh, how wrong I was. The primer I was originally using and the second primer I used were both water based as I was planning on using latex paint. This primer was oil based. It was not low fumes, I got a little tippsy and had a headache for the next couple of days. I had to rough up that primer with sandpaper so I could apply water based primer. What a waste of several days. Finally on to the white paint. I thought about rolling it like I did the blue but all the corners and nooks and cranies were just to much for me so I sprayed the paint on as well. I did two coats of primer, two coats of paint. Then for the platform, shelves, ladder and slide I added two coats of Minwax polycrylic water based protective finish. Sanding in between for a very smooth surface. Mostly to make the most touched areas last longer but also to make the slide really fast. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I started putting in the flooring. I had to cut around the posts and the sides but it turned out great and I'm glad most of the room is white or those colors would have been very busy looking. I also got my custom made nets in. I used a ridiculous amount of staples to attach it to the frame. See previous comment about over engineering things. Then I moved in the Lovesac and some toys. I had still not put the slide together becuase I started but stupidly used the same 1 1/2 screws I used for the brackets on the frame. Works great with 2x6s not so great with 3/4 thick plywood. I had to repair, sand, repaint, and refinish that part of the slide. Luckily it only took a day. I then installed the slide using the variable angle brackets, but the wall next to the slide is not square with the wall behind the playset that the platform is square with. The slide ended up being slightly crooked with the bottom moved over toward the ladder side. This left a gap at the connection of the slide and platform. I have not figure out how to fix that yet. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. At some point the TV went up, the chairs came in and the rest of the toys made it on the shelves. Having this separate area for the kids to play and keep all of their toys had made my wife's and my lives infinitly better. I could feel the weight off my shoulders. In case you are wondering the one area of the platform that doesn't have a net is for jumping out onto the Lovesac. Lessons learned. * Use a table saw not a circular saw for rip cuts and crosscuts to big for the miter saw. * Put the bead board up first then put the molding over it. * Double check what base the paint or primer you are use is. Make sure they all match. Oil with Oil, Water with Water. * Never use Liquid Nails again. Since they changed the fomula to be VOC compliant it has 1/3 the holding power it used to. Material List: * Plywood: was already here but something like THIS * Corner Trim: HERE * Long 2x6: Used for the ceiling anchor and front of frame. HERE * 2x6: used for the rest of the framing HERE * Chair rail: Just flat normal moulding made putting up the beadboard harder HERE * Bead Board: I don't recommend using a full sheet like I did HERE * Baseboard: same issue as chair rail. HERE * Original Primer: Works great with the paint sprayer HERE * Second Primer: didn't work as good in the paint sprayer HERE * Bad Oil Primer: Don't trust anyone else to pick up your paint or primer HERE * White Paint and Base for Blue: I use this all the time works good with kids. HERE * Minwax Polycrylic: Great water based protective layer that won't yellow HERE * Caulk: Needed like 8-10 tubes of this HERE * Color Blue: HERE * Foam Interlocking Tiles: worked perfectly for this HERE * Liquid Nails: this stuff is terrible don't buy but if you like being frustrated and angry HERE * Loctite: Much better than Liquid Nails HERE * Custom Netting: ordered two nets cost about $90 with shipping and taxes. Much better than anything else I found. HERE Hardware / Connectors: * Post Cap: HERE * Double 2x6 Joist hanger: Only used two near the posts * Single 2x6 Joist hanger: HERE * Corner Angle Tie: Used for the corners of the frames HERE * Face Post Cap: Used to tie the joists to the post where three joists meet 1 90 degrees to the others HERE * 90 Degree Angle tie: Used to tie the vertical supports to the ceiling anchor HERE * Flush Mount: Used to connect the ladder to the frame while allowing the ladder to be removed HERE * Variable Angle Tie: Used to connect the slide to the frame. Slide at a 30 Degree angle. HERE * 4in Angle Tie: Used to support the steps on the ladder. Ladder at 20 degree angele. HERE * Galvanized Screws: Recommended to work with the brackets. Probably didnt need to use these. HERE * Drain clean out cover: was set back had to use a block of wood to screw into HERE * Screws: for everything else but the brackets. Love star drive wish philips would disappear HERE * Post base: screwed into the concrete to support the posts HERE * Painter's plastic: HERE * Painter's Tape: HERE Tools: * Air compressor: already had this HERE * Pnuematic Nail gun: already had this HERE * Shop Vac: borrowed from Father-in-Law similar to this * Hammer Drill: barrowed from Father-in-Law similar to this * Occillating Mult-tool: borrowed from Father-in-Law similar to this * Circular saw: Use a table saw! similar to this * Jigsaw: works great for cutting the holes for outlets similar to this * Compound Miter Saw: already had this similar to this * Pnuematic Stabler: borrowed from brother similar to this * Paint Sprayer: borrowed from brother HERE Budget: * Original: $500 (pre-playset plans) * Ending: ~$1250. Saved a lot by having the plywood. Spent some by using so much bead board. * Already had most of the tools or could borrow them. Labor "free". Most of the cost was material. In case you were wondering: * Lovesac: Many different sizes ours is the Supersac. HERE * TV Mount: HERE * Roku Express: HERE * TV from yard sale. * Chairs from school closing. also posted to [Homeimprovement](homeimprovement)
[first] [prev] [next] General No'Drak stared at the holotank that showed the disposition of all of his forces on planet. Precursors were recalling their machines, performing a fighting retreat, trying to get off planet with as many resources as they could while exposing themselves to as little fire as possible. In three places as soon as Third Armor started moving in on them the Precursors abandoned their resources and ancillary machines and just lifted off, running hard for orbit. General No'Drak changed the orders to let Space Force handle any vessel that lifted off, sparing the planet from debris falls that were registering in the megatons in some places. A meme popped up on the holotank window showing Third Armor morale and he shook his head. It was an old one, but put together by one of the logistics personnel that were finally coming off shift after refitting and reloading Great Herd armored units. It showed a burning Balor with another Precursor staring at it thinking "On one hand, it represented fifteen years of resource gathering, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure there was a human dancing on the hull." A spin on the spider in the cockpit or house meme, the big Treana'ad thought to himself. His conscious gaze went to the icon for the burrowing mining machine, now four miles down and making a beeline for the junction of the mountain ranges in the middle of the supercontinent. If, somehow, you blow that mountain up, my determined little Telkan officer, you'll start a chain reaction that eventually separate the continental plates into different continents rather than the super continent that has been there for billions of years, he thought to himself. However, having witnessed what your people are capable of, how determined your people can be, I'm sure the planet will break before First Telkan. He lit a cigarette, watching the busy command center, only Ge'ermo'o keeping him company as the Terran Confederate military fought through the night. To what are you heading toward with my men, you metal monster? No'Drak wondered silently. What horrors are they being subjected to? The icon didn't answer, just kept moving at a steady 100 miles per hour on its five thousand mile journey. "...so the kid, right, he gets top grades all the way through 3rd grade. We're talking top marks across the board, blows away testing scores, everything," Casey said, sitting on the edge of a scaffolding and chewing a piece of stimgum. "The end of the school year comes and the Dad says: 'son of mine, first of my line, what shall I bequeath upon thee for such outstanding marks in regards to your schooling?'" Casey idly pulled a small device out of the creation engine attached to his heavy gun and attached it to his frame as he kept talking. Sergeant Addox looked up and shook his head, then went back to watching the device Casey had pulled off his loading frame. Vuxten made sure his Marines were comfortable, making sure that the platoon was relaxing, not letting the stress of their trip dull their edge. Half of them were sleeping, some were playing cards, and about a dozen of the greenies were playing a complex turn based multiplayer 4X game that looked like it had been going on for at least years. "The kid looks at his dad and says: 'I wish for thee to gift unto me a pink golfball, patron of my familial line. One, not more, not less, of the shade of pink. I wish for this simple thing, mine pater, for I do not desire to view the House Mouse Planet, nor do I wish to gaze upon vast worlds you offer me through virtual reality. Nay, father mine, gift unto me just a simple pink golfball," Casey said, waving his hands around, the loading frame whining as he did so. "The father, knowing his son has indomitable will, concedes to his beloved offspring's demands and gifts the lad with a single pink golfball." "Did the kid's language change?" Second Lieutenant Plunex asked, frowning. "My Confederate Standard is not the best, but I feel his language changed." "Shh, you'll mess up the joke," Casey said, grinning. "Your communication thingy is blinking, Casey," Addox said. "Boojums never fail ya," Casey said. He moved up and knelt down next to it. "It's slow, but reliable." "Why don't we use it for our standard communication?" Plenux asked. "I've heard there's problems with some of the quantum devices out in the Hesstla Theater." "Because it's spooky particles," Casey said. "Boojums can suddenly decide they don't want to work, or might decide they're going to pretend to be a different particle, or ignore the flux of the other boojums they're mated to. They're the strange matter of normal particles and like a purrboi or a Treana'ad clan matron do what they want." "How do you know this, Sergeant?" Plunex asked. "I thought you were Ordnance." Casey looked up, grinning behind his clear face mask. The eye patch made it look decidedly villainous, Vuxten thought. "Wasn't born old, kid." "Seriously?" Addox said. "Tell the kid." Casey laughed. "All right. Boojums are the only thing that can reliably send communications out of a Nivenring or Doom Tube," he said. "Damn, long message. Not a template, though. Looks like text." "Doom tube?" Vuxten asked, sitting down on a blank console. He'd queried his datalink, but all he had gotten back was an human in gray metal armor with a green cape standing next to water park slide staring at a small child saying "You find yourself in the Doom Tube, child." It didn't make sense to him. Addox looked up. "Imagine a tube, walls a hundred miles thick, five thousand miles wide, two hundred thousand miles long. Imagine it's full of mountains, lakes, rivers, the like. The atmosphere is prevented from spilling out by walls a thousand miles high. A fusion reactor travels down the length over a period of twelve hours before it exits the tube, moves to the outside, and travels the length back charging the solar panels." Plunex gave a slow whistle. "What's the point of it?" "Well, it's a non-planetary habitat. Usually they move at about point two C between stars on a careful path to avoid being captured by stellar systems," he said. "Humans make them?" Plunex asked. "Why, aren't there enough planets." Addox shrugged. "Nobody knows who makes them, kid." The lights stopped blinking, only three green ones burning. "Welp, better check my text messages," Casey said, squatting down. The frame hissed and thumped and Addox had to turn his head when a piston released steam. "Really, dude, you're gonna do me in the face?" Addox said, mock coughing. "I'm demanding on a first date," Casey said, touching the box with a finger. Vuxten saw the lights come on on Casey's datalink. Casey stood there for a moment, closed his one eye for a moment, then opened it. "All right, my buddy in 108th MI let me know that this thing is heading for the junction of the mountain ranges," Casey said. He turned his palm over, projecting a map up with the holo-emitter in his palm that was Confederate Military standard. "We've got another fifty hours at current speeds to reach the junction range. Precursors are withdrawing, looks like we broke their morale." "They're machines," Private First Class Shutruk said. "How can you break a machine's will?" Casey gave a snort. "Pretty easy, actually. Their coding is obvious once you think about it." "Bullshit," Shutruk said. Casey looked at him and he flushed. "Bullshit, Sergeant," he said in a much more even tone. Casey chuckled. "OK, the Precursors are all: there's only enough ice cream for one, right?" He asked. Shutruk nodded. "So, it's all about resources, all about resource consumption and resource allocation. They view the universe as a zero sum game, like most races who never get too deep into spooky particles. So, if Trucker's out there gutting Precursors like Christmas turkeys --turkey is delicious-- 471i said. "then the Precursors have to decide if the amount of resources it takes to take a planet away from us is more or less than what they will reap once they own the planet," Casey said. "Since we're shredding the Precursors out there, ripping them apart probably faster than they can produce them, it mechanically and logically breaks their will." Shutruk nodded and stayed silent except for a small embarrassed sounding 'oh'. "Never be afraid to ask me a question, kid. All privates are stupid, a private is made up of being young, dumb, and full of cum, it's up to men like me and Addox to educate you, train you up right, so you don't fuck up and blow the Lieutenant here's leg off," Casey said, grinning. "He might find that a bit disconcerting." Shutruk nodded. "Oh, and you're more than five steps from your weapon. You're dead," Casey said, and closed his eye again. "You were my troop, you'd be beating your face." Vuxten checked Shutruk's anxiety metrics, noticing that he'd relaxed despite the Terran NCO pointing out he'd walked too far away from his weapon. After a few more minutes Casey straightened up, picking up the device and slapping it into an empty spot on the loading frame. Vuxten had noted that the closer he looked at that loading frame, the further out of spec it seemed to be. He'd compared it to the other loading frames he'd seen around and noted it was a different model and its serial number indicated it had been run off by one of the big creation engines. Created piece by piece and assembled by hand. He had watched Casey attach over a dozen pieces of equipment he'd fabbed up from the nanoforge attached to the gun, never mentioning what the pieces did or what they were for. "What's the plan?" Addox asked Vuxten. Vuxten had known that question was going to get asked so he was ready. "It's confirmed at least fifty hours till we get there. There will probably be maneuvering and wait list checking, then it'll dock with a facility," Vuxten said. "We use the nanoforge to keep our atmosphere tanks topped off, run up something besides Space Force standard nutripaste, let everyone get some sleep. Weapons check, ordnance check, officers and NCO's do WAG planning." Addox nodded, his face shield transparent. "Sounds good, sir. I'll draw up a guard shift, assign quick reaction force, make sure that it's all smooth till we get there in two and a half days." Vuxten pinged Plunex, telling him to pay attention as he spoke. "Make it happen, Sergeant." "Hooah," Addox said, then moved away. ------------- Vuxten watched as Casey came in through the airlock, followed by three Telkan Marines. He was off shift finally, having eaten nutripaste, taken a drink, and sat down. Plunex was taking over on shift and Vuxten felt tired even though he hadn't done anything for almost twelve hours but sit in the command center for the vehicle. The three Telkan Marines moved over and sat down, keeping close together, as Casey moved up and sat down next to Vuxten. The Terran troop looked as fresh as ever in his loading frame. The black armor plates he'd put on over his adaptive camouflage were unmarred, his armored boots were shined, and he took off his face mask, exposing that he wasn't even sweaty. "How is she?" Vuxten asked. "Ready to come to our rescue if things go south of a hooker's backside," Casey said. "You know, you don't talk like a religious person," Vuxten said. He held up his hand, even though Casey just snorted in amusement. "I've met a few of the guys from the Crusade, seen the Sisters in action, they talk a lot different than you." "Fifth Reformation," Casey shrugged. He grinned. "I've been in the military for over nine hundred years, sir, joined the Planetary Guard at sixteen as a big dumb farm boy from the Black Range Plains. Transferred to Space Force and saw combat by the time I was seventeen," his grin got wider, and again Vuxten found himself wondering just how many teeth a Terran had in their mouth. "The war didn't end until I was almost forty," the grin somehow got wider. "The Elders, they had... well... they had changed my life path for me, in accordance to what they saw my destiny to be. Informed me that I was to stay in Space Force." Vuxten frowned. "Why?" Casey closed his eye and was silent for a moment. He opened it, sat down slowly, and waved his hand to encompass the sleeping Telkan Marines. "They decided that this was where I belonged. Right here. Leading others," he said. "I don't know much about Terrans, much less your people," Vuxten said. He reached out and laid his hand on the heavy gun he'd set down beside him. "The first time I saw your people, I was woken up after a shift of hosing out the interrogation cells. I'd been informed I was now Corporate Security and was going to have to fight the Precursors." "Yeah, I get that, sir," Casey said. "Kind of how I ended up in Space Force," he made a buzzing sound. "Citizen Casey, you are now Space Force and fined fifteen credits for unauthorized wear of Planetary Guard uniform." There was silence for a long moment. --be careful-- 471 transmitted, taking a quick break from arranging his manufacturing queue in one of his city states. --touchy touchy-- "I once got fined a half day's pay because an Overseer got blood on his uniform leaving a cell that he had shot a Telkan female in the head only moments before," Vuxten said quietly. "I hadn't cleaned the cell yet, I was waiting outside. He fined me as he walked out." "Oof, that's rough," Casey said. "Now the Marine Corps gave you a gun and told you not to let that happen to any other being." Vuxten nodded. "Why do you stay in?" Vuxten asked. "Nine hundred years? Aren't you tired?" "You feel tired sometimes, sir?" Casey asked. He was running one finger up and down one of the barrels of his rotary minigun. "Sometimes. Like now. I feel tired and wonder if I've gotten in over my head," Vuxten admitted. "Can't let any doubt show," he gave a wry chuckle and nodded at where Shutruk was sprawled out, his foot twitching as he dreamed. "Could you imagine how Privates like him would react if I showed doubt in the middle of everything?" Casey gave another chuckle, this one with an ugly edge. "Nothing lets you know everything's gone sideways when the Lieutenant starts screaming about how we're all going to die." "That happen?" Vuxten asked. Casey nodded. "Sixth drop. My seventeenth birthday. Left the cake in the mess hall. Dropship took heavy bioplasma hits, one of the engines exploded and we starting spinning in. The Looey blew chunks into his helmet and started screaming we were all going to die." "At least he was wrong," Vuxten said. "He was SUDS'd, like everyone but me," Casey said. His voice got hard. "I was fighting from the wreckage of the dropship, using it as a fighting position, while him and everyone else were gettting SUDS'd out and decanted." Vuxten shifted slightly, not sure if he preferred that long ass pink golf ball joke to what they were talking about now. "How long were you there?" "Two months," Casey said. "Stripping rations from dead men till I got the dropship's nanoforge working," Casey gave a chuckle, reached up and touched his datalink. Vuxten saw the incoming data request from Casey and allowed it. It was creation engine templates, all cracked and jailborked. "What's this?" Vuxten asked. "Telkan and battle buddy rations. Loaded it while we were on top of Gobbler here," he said. "Main nutripaste, standard Space Force troop transport flavor array, basic medicine kits including multivitamin, water additives. Basically everything you need to keep your men in fighting condition if you're sitting in the wreckage of a dropship with only a Class I Nanoforge you hotwired," he patted the nanoforge mounted on his gun's smartframe. "Have your greenie doublecheck it." 471 sighed and passed on his turn, eyeing 442's icon and wishing he'd been able to launch the amphibious attack to take 442's turkey farms away from him. He ran a quick check on the templates and saw that they were standard space force, just the serial numbers filed off and able to be run off of any creation engine. 471's antenna twitched when he saw that there were jailbork codes to break open any nanoforge and print out whatever was needed rather than what the nanoforge was designated as. 471 checked the nanoforge attached to his Telkan Marine's armor and saw that they'd load in just fine. --checks out-- he said, then went back to nervously nibbling on the tip of his bladearm as one of 442's ocean units passed close to his hidden fleet during the other's turn. "Think we'll need it?" Vuxten asked. He watched as Casey checked the status of some complex device the nanoforge on his weapon was slow-printing. "I did," Casey shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully you'll never need it and it'll just sit there in your implant's long term archive storage, compressed and cold, for your whole career." "Proper preperation prevents piss poor performance," Vuxten quoted. "Exactly, sir," Casey said. "If you don't need it, you're that paranoid officer who stresses over everything and tries to micromanage everything. If you do need it, you're lucky and probably stole the idea from a superior officer." Vuxten smiled at that. "Get some rest, sir," Casey said. He tapped one armored fingertip against the barrel of his minigun. "It's another forty hours till we get there." ------------------- "...so then the kid, the kid, right, the kid gets like mondo great grades and junk, and like totally rocks all of like fourth grade, becoming, like, the top grade person and junk," Casey said, his voice slightly high pitched and he waved his hands around. "So, like, his like dad says: 'male child, you are allocated one desire unit' and junk. The kid, he goes like totally: 'I respond with gratitude of your acknowledgement, parental unit. I would like to requisition one pink golf ball for my desire unit.' and the dad like totally gets it for him and junk, totally like wondering what his kid could want a pink golf ball for because it's like totally weird and junk that his kid like totally wants like a pink golf ball and..." One of the attachments on Casey's loading frame started beeping and he cut off, touching his datalink. Vuxten noticed, again, that it looked like Casey had added more armor to the loading frame. Now a lot of the pistons, gears, and chains were covered by armor. "We changed direction," the Terran said. Addox nodded. "Are you sure, Sergeant?" Plunex asked. Casey shrugged. "Unless the magnetic field of the planet decided to shift by thirty degrees over a five minute period, then we changed direction, sir. Who knows, sir, might have happened." "At ease that shit, Casey," Addox said. The same device beeped again and Casey tapped his datalink. "Huh, we're shifting back onto course. Wonder what we moved around?" "Something stupid, I'm sure," Addox said, then leaned back and closed his eyes. "And shut up about that damn pink golf ball. I'm pretty sure the kid's just shoving them up his ass." Vuxten barked out a laugh. ------------------- "Sergeant Addox?" Vuxten asked over the private command channel, making sure that Plunex wasn't paying attention and was asleep. "Go ahead, sir," Addox said, not bothering to make his face shield transparent. "I think I figured out why Casey keeps going back to check on Glory," Vuxten said. "Let's hear it, sir," Addox said. "He got left behind a lot during his career. Kept getting dropped and left behind," Vuxten said. "He doesn't want Glory to be left behind." "Notice what else he's doing, sir?" Addox asked. "Mapping and reconing the machine," Vuxten said. "That way he's covered and everyone doesn't notice him checking on Glory because he's reconing around us." "Know why he's checking on Glory?" Addox asked. Vuxten noted the intensity of the human's voice. "Because Glory isn't a machine, she's a person. A digital sentience, not a machine without feelings." "Exactly, sir," Addox said. "That's why I keep giving him permission," Vuxten said. "I don't want her left alone in the dark in that ore gathering bay." "Good man, sir," Addox said. Vuxten sat quietly in the darkness of the Precursor machine's automated command center. --------------- "The last of the Precursor machines are down, General," the voice said from the operations bay below. "Space Force is reporting all enemy destroyed. Ground side is just mopup of machines that didn't get away." "Thank you, Major," General No'Drak said. He shifted his attention. "Status of the Great Gobbler?" "It's moved under the edge of the junction of the mountain ranges, sir," the Major said. He tossed it up on the holotank. "The fighting has eased up enough we can get seismic on it now. It's slowed down as it's come closer to the surface and no longer moving in a straight line." "Does 108th MI still have a line to Sergeant Casey?" General No'Drak asked. "Specialist Grade Five Peak has reported for duty. Her commander said she's examining the messages right now. Apparently it's some kind of back channel system Casey keeps in operation," the Major said. "Why?" Ge'ermo'o interrupted. "Do you want the real reason or the excuse she gave to her commander?" the Major said. "Both?" Ge'ermo'o suggested, wondering why she would lie. "Officially, it's because Casey works Ordnance and needs to feed 108th MI ammunition consumption levels in his sector," the Major said. "That's the official reason." Ge'ermo'o shook his jowls in slight confusion. "That sounds like a likely reason. Althought I do not understand why he would need a discrete channel and hardware devoted solely between the two of them. What is the real reason?" "Tit pics," No'Drak guessed. Ge'ermo'o queried his implant on the nature of a 'tit' and was flooded with lewd pictures of Terran female mammary glands as well as a bunch of pictures of small birds as well as a handful of explicitly drawn Rigellian females sporting impossible bare mammalian mammary glands. "Well, I wasn't going to put it so crudely. I was going to call it 'inter-personal video, text, and image correspondence'," the Major said. "She's known Casey about sixty years, they've got some history." "Why send pictures of mammary glands?" Ge'ermo'o asked, frowning. "That seems like a lot of effort, to create and conceal a private message device in order to just send images of mammary glands." "It's a Terran thing," No'Drak said. Ge'emo'o suddenly put it together as all the pieces suddenly matched together. "Oh! I suddenly understand!" No'Drak raised an antenna, his specie's version of cocking an eyebrow. "Go on, Most High." "They are involved in a sexual relationship and they send pictures of body parts to one another as a method of sexual enticement and amusement!" Ge'ermo'o felt proud of himself for putting it together."They cobbled together their communications device in secret so their commanders did not know they intended to carry out a long distance quasi-sexual relationship based on text, pictures, and videos in order to ensure sexual delight despite distance." The Major, to his credit, didn't snicker. No'Drak carefully took out a cigarette to avoid busting up with laughter. "Right you are, Most High," No'Drak said. "I am a most observant commander. It is why my men trust me so highly," Ge'ermo'o stated, folding all four arms. "If I were their commander, I would look the other way, as improved morale results in improved performance." It took everything General No'Drak had not to spit out his cigarette in surprise. "It's slowed to the point we can't detect it," someone called out. "They've arrived," No'Drak mused. ----------------- "Ready?" Vuxten asked. Everyone signalled with their icons they were ready, standing at the single double door that was an approximation of an air lock that would lead out of the vehicle. Casey triggered the door and it slid open, the tracks already lubricated. Beyond was an endosteel hallway, big enough for a suited warrior caste Mantid to move around comfortably in, with runners up by the ceiling for green mantids to move down the hallway without getting underfoot. The passageway ran for about a hundred meters and ended in another door. "If anyone sees a hobbit with a ring in here, don't steal the ring," Casey said. "At ease that shit, Casey," Addox said almost absently. "Platoon, move out," Vuxten ordered. [first] [prev] [next]
[Uni] Doing something in our free time other than gaming & netflix
Welcome!
I decided to write this after reflecting on my 2.5 years in university and 23 years in life. University has been a blast and taught me many things - I hustled & played hard, failed and succeeded. However, I wished I learnt earlier that my time and youth would be my most important resource. I have some reservations (not regrets per se) about how I spent my time when I was younger, especially during holidays or extended breaks. In a nutshell, I mostly did two things during my holidays - gaming and reading manga. It was no doubt fun - but I think I could have done more. Hence, I hope that my reflection and advice will be able to help someone out! Target Audience:
JC/Secondary/Poly kids waiting for next year
"ORD LO" mates waiting for Uni
University kids with spare time
Following this, I want to share three pillars that have helped me lead a better life.
1. Physicality
You need to sweat. Like seriously, as much as possible, try to sweat hard at least once a week. It could be any of the following:
Traditional activities (eg. soccer, basketball, rock climbing, badminton, cycling, swimming etc.)
Less traditional activities (eg. Boxing, muay thai, dancing, kayaking, bowling, sailing etc.)
Hitting the gym
From my experience, with the advent of laptops (and with COVID right now), it is incredibly possible to go one month without sweating. Please, get the heck out of your house. Beyond the more tangible benefits, I believe that "physical activities" are helpful in two ways
Socialising — not immediately, but over time, as you get better at your activity, you will have a chance to meet people with a similar interest. Be it hitting the gym or bouldering or whatever, having something to "do" together can't go wrong
Aesthetics and confidence — let's be honest, who does not want to look good? One does not need to look big, but at the very least, there should be no excuse for not looking fit
Considerations
Be financially conscious — if you don't come from a well-to-do background, don't try to pick up golf. If you don't live in a condominium, a $100/session tennis coach might not be the best idea. Focus on what you CAN do.
Excuses — "Today raining sia, better watch my Netflix bah", "Wa shucks, today so hot, cannot run la", "Wa I scared sia, go rock climbing alone". Ngl, most days, your brain will try to rationalise and get you to take the easy way out. It's perfectly fine to take breaks as and when, but be conscious that weeks will pass in a flash (procrastination gang rise up)
2. Doing something productive
Don't worry, I'm not one of those "LEARNING CODING!! UPSKILL YOURSELF OR DIE! JOIN THE RAT RACE" fanatics. What I mean is - don't let your mind go to shit. Read something, read everything. Percy Jackson. Non-Fiction. Doesn't matter, just exercise your knowledge muscle a little. Start writing a diary. Volunteer at least once in a month. Catch up on your schoolwork (Or at least beg seniors for the practice papers, notes and answers). Start doing an online course (C'mon, it's 14 hours. You can't spare 14 hours in a month?) Just make sure that after some time, you've something to say other than "Just Netflix and game lor".
For my rat race wannabes:
First off, absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to grind. Singapore is a f**king competition. If you're from an average family like me, 0 connections, 0 special skills, the need to earn well to support my family, sure, go for it. This are the things I would recommend, in no particular order:
Onlinecourses — seriously, Udemy has 35 effing million students. That's 0.4% of the entire world. It's a great way to explore potential interests and SHOW people you are interested in a particular topic. For example, everyone mfker around me is interested in "investing". My friends and I have been talking about it since secondary school. How many people actually put in the hours and learn about it properly?
Gettingaheadstart — It's increasingly common for university students to "study in advance" for next year. Based on the /sgexams posts I'm seeing, it seems like that is the case for JC/secondary school kids as well. If you think life is a damn race, then go for it.
Startingsomething — listen, there's simply not enough resources for everyone to be earning $10,000 a month within 5 years of employment. You need to STAND OUT if you want to win the race. Write a blog, start a personal finance portfolio, do freelance marketing, do a podcast. Just. Do. Something. If it somehow works out, gong xi fa cai bro. If it doesn't, it's a great story to talk about in an interview.
Just a quick note I am by no means recommending for a JC1 kid to spend their Chinese New Year holidays mugging for A's to get the 90RP + Full scholarship. The section "For my rat race wannabes" is simply for people who WANT to be a part of the rat race. Once again, I would like to stress that it is not necessary - there are many different ways of playing the game of life - you can try to min-max your character stats, you can enjoy the process itself. The list goes on - there is no right or wrong. The key takeaway for this: Don't freaking read manga/watch Netflix for hours upon hours. Consume something else to expand your mind a little.
3. Have some goddamn fun
Now, at the end of the day, we all need a break. I'm not saying to spend your entire life studying or working or hitting the gym. Everything in moderation. Make sure to have some fun and indulge in certain things as well. My recommendations:
Binge something on Netflix (For me, it's B99, Prison Playbook, Kingdom and today, Snowpiercer)
Spend an entire day just gaming (Y'know those days where you have gamed till your eyes hurt and you feel like shit, but one more game doesn't hurt amiright?).
The bottom line is, feel free to indulge, you deserve it.
Thanks for coming this far
Ok, I know the vibes from the first two pillars is that "you need to hustle away" your life. No, please. I want to emphasise that it is perfectly fine to "Do nothing" and just "recharge". Just don't overdo having fun. Don't overdo hustling either or you're going to burn out. Frankly, I love that feeling when I spend an entire day eating chips and climbing the ladder on CSGO - but one day is enough. What I most regret is doing it for weeks upon weeks. If you've come this far, you deserve a summary:
Physicality - working up a sweat helps tremendously. A jawline is great as well. Lastly, it gives you something to do for a bit.
Productivity - don't waste entire weekends. It's easy to fall into some fog. Make sure to do something, however minor.
Have some effing fun - don't forget to take a break. Don't over hustle.
Misc - Useful resources + concepts that drove the article
For my dawgs that want to get into computer science for a five-figure salary (Don't worry 50% of you will burn out and say F CS after Y1 in University)
Ok, this section is rather pointless, so feel free to skip it. Just gonna be me rambling for a little. I've always dreamt of writing about self-improvement. It got me out of many ruts in life, to push myself to do a little more. Today, I decided to say F IT and sit the heck down to write this article. If you notice, I've been commenting a fair bit in /sgexams. I want to do a little more for everyone. Also, I want to start writing more - I want to make it a hobby of mine.
Snack for those who have came this far
Aight, congrats if you have read this far. I'm trying this out - I'm going to facilitate a/multiple "accountability groups". We do a group call every week for 20 minutes - say what you're going to do for the week, and do it. Also, you get to bounce ideas and potentially develop a network over time. (I hope!) If there's interest, I will set up a proper system. leave a comment below that you're interested!
$AYRO - The Most Underwritten EV Play on the Market
Yeah, I know, another fucking EV. Big whoop. We all know combustion engines are going the way of the rotary phone, what makes this any different from TSLA, NIO, WKHS, BLNK, or even GM and F? Two words: Outlets and Segway.
Part I: The Market
Ayro is an EV with an economic moat. Ever consider why half of the EV plays are for charging stations? It's because these things need a lot of juice, and it's hard to get filled fast. Nio admittedly has a creative approach, but the additional batteries that need to be produced to functionally expand their business model is doomed when they try to scale up. We all know battery metals are in high demand, and they do not have a solution to this problem. And while the many new, competing charging stations plays may yield some much-needed supply for rapid charging on-the-go, there is a whole gigantic market for EV use that doesn't require this constant full-refueling, and just needs a more convenient down-payment cost. If anything came from the slow-motion train wreck that was Nikola, it was an awareness for the potential of EV to disrupt the shipping industry. Couple near-zero fuel costs with quick-developing self-driving tech, and we're looking at a future where Amazon could basically offer free delivery. The only problem is, logistically, a network of EVs doing autonomous delivery is going to require a fuckton of cars. You can't have massive eighteen-wheel semis rolling down fifth avenue or up to college campus dorms all day, even with hydrogen fuel cells; the amount of cash you would have to come up with just as down payment on the trucks alone would be prohibitively expensive. So what does that mean? It means we need last minute delivery. The people who drive the actual vans from the Amazon warehouse to you door? That's the market we're looking at here. And I know you just shuddered at the idea of counter playing the largest business in the world, but that's the beauty of this whole thing: we aren't counter-playing the future of driverless delivery, we're supplying it. There's going to be another Nikola eventually, someone who figures it out properly, and the shipping industry is going to change overnight. Warehouses will be emptied and filled so efficiently that the demand will be on getting from the Warehouse to people's homes. Opinion: The amount of money it will cost for a fleet of EV pick-up trucks/vans, and the amount of time it will take to charge given projections by any of the major charging station plays, cannot compete with the cost and efficiency of Ayro 411 type micro-trucks.
Part II: The Product
What the fuck is a 411 micro truck? It's the god-damn future, that's what. The 411 is a light-duty EV made by Club Car. Yes, Club Car, the golf cart company. The company that has produced small scale electric vehicles for recreational and short distance transport sinceNineteen-Fifty-Eight. If you come across any number of bot articles entitled "AYRO is a classic pump-and-dump," just remember they're partnered with the longest-standing, most consistently profitable EV company in the world. The Ayro 411 is a miniature truck that can be configured as a flat bed, pick-up, or covered van during the purchase process. There are a number of additional customization upgrades, and the process feels quite akin to purchasing a Tesla Model 3. They cost about $30,000, a price tag that will only be going down as of their completion of a new factory in Texas and a new contract with Karma Automotive to produce 20,000 units over the next three years. So what? So here's what: the 411 charges on a three prong outlet. No, I'm not fucking joking. This is a truck, a 35 mph, street legal delivery vehicle that requires $0 of additional costs to function. Buy it, plug it in, drive it around. You can't go very far and you can't go very fast but guess what? Ayro doesn't give a fuck! Because that market is already dominated by Tesla, who are years ahead of a dozen other solid competitors. None of them can compete in the short-distance space. The upfront costs of their batteries and recharge stations are too much for the margins of what we're dealing in here. Tesla is only profitable right now because of EV credits; when those dry up, investors better pray they made sufficient preparations to pivot into the solar market with a stiff arm. But the best part is, because Ayro doesn't compete with Tesla, their success is Ayro's. Consider Tesla's own semi play: if they produced the Hydrogen fuel cell behemoth Nikola promised, someone has to come up with a fleet of last minute delivery at some point. Amazon could do it, but guess what? All their vehicles are still combustion. That will only become less profitable (if not outright banned) in the next 10 years or so. Who will be available? Ayro, with customizable 411s. Tag on the inevitable advent of universally applicable self-driving tech, and you have the future of logistics. Even without the delivery angle, these things could be massive on college campuses, at vacation resorts, or in large indoor complexes for such as sporting arenas or exposition centers. Anywhere people use a golf cart to get around now, they could be using an Ayro truck that is probably better suited for the task (except maybe an actual golf course). These could also become a boon for the ride-sharing industry, where fuel costs account for a sizeable loss of profit-margin right now. Side note: did I mention the 411 has a food-cart model? It's made by Gallery, and it's fucking lit. This will change the game for food trucks, mark my words. Once they figure out how to get one of these bad boys with a stove on it, Ayro is going to blow up all over foodies social media, and its gonna be the new hot thing. "Micro-electric van life" influencers will surely abound. Loathsome, I know, but at least we'll get fucking rich, right?
Part III: The Business
Alright, u/y_u_no_mek, I'll admit I'm intrigued. But why should I trust you, a random redditor, with my precious tendies? You shouldn't. I'm not a financial advisor. I barely have a college degree, more like an adult preschool certificate. But you know who you should trust? Rod "The Iron Cock" Keller, Ayro's CEO and guywhofucks in chief. If you aren't familiar, in 2012 Big Rod K was already a former VP at Toshiba, Siemans, then DirecTV, before taking over as president of a then little-known and oft-ridiculed company making nifty electric transportation gadgets. Some idiots said they were the future and most people thought they looked pretty fucking stupid. Fast forward three years, and The Rod of God had turned his company into a staple of city-tourism the world over. That company? Segway. What happened to Segway under Rod Keller? It became the largest personal transport vehicle company in the world. Yeah, it's creative semantics. but guess what? He made everyone a shit ton of money. He took one of the stupidest brands/products I can think of, and made it not only profitable, but popular. This isn't an idea that should have failed, it's an idea that DID fail as soon as Keller left the company. Segway may not be the same ballpark as a proper EV, but it is at very least a testament to the man's ability to lead and grow a business. Rock-the-Stock Rod has over 25 years of experience as a tech executive- If you don't trust me, trust him. The Club Car and Karma Automotive contracts also speak volumes for Ayro's capacity as a serious player, especially in a market where most "competitors" (who are really no threat, as we've established) are brand new startups run by over-eager, over-exuberant leadership with little-to-no experience in a budding sector (See: Nikola). Which brings me to my penultimate point: Ayro's fundamentals. Yes, they have struggled to turn over strong profit margins in the last few quarters, and even posted some losses as recently as a year ago. But guess what? They have eight quarters of cash to burn. You don't come across that kind of cash-on-hand in the startup space right now, especially not for a company that is aggressively expanding production capacity. You know what I think? I think $AYRO stock is getting hammered by AI traders who see that low profit margin and think "this thing is a load of shit," without realizing that the source of the expense is largely investment in future profits. The company isn't old enough to get us a good sense of their ROCI, but I would venture to guess this next fiscal year will do very well for Rod "the killer" Keller and his three-pronged magic bus.
Part IV: The Stonk
Well if you read Lily's blog, you already know the stock market has nothing to do with fundamentals. So what do we know about $AYRO as an options derivative? Well, for one thing it already has fairly massive short interest for a low volume, a metric which will start drawing a lot more attention in the wake of #gamestonk. But more important than that, Ayro is just straight-up undervalued as an EV. EVEN IF the whole EV sector is one giant bubble, the worst of the worst bear case, Ayro can drop at most $7/share. The upside? Fucking massive. I don't know how the rest of you feel about roulette, but I prefer $5 on on 36 to $150 on black. Every EV has the potential to lose massive market cap right now (including Tesla), but the potential upside for Ayro hasn't been limited by runaway speculation quite yet. Compare, for instance, Ayro, Nio, and Tesla. Nio MC: $89 Billion Limits: Requires huge scale of battery production Fisker MC: $4 Billion Limits: scale and batteries; market dilution, distance, recharge solutions Workhorse MC: $5 Billion Limits: scale, market dilution, debts, recharge solutions Tesla MC: $807 Billion Limits: Long/expensive recharge solutions, implementation of recharge infrastructure, impractical at short-distance scale Ayro MC: $209Million Limits: Surge protector Wait did you say millio-
$209 MMMMMMILLION
That's right, Ayro has a market cap of 0.2% of Nio. Stop. Take a deep breath. Look at yourself in the mirror. If you could pay $20 or 2 Cents for a bet with a similar payout, which would you take? Neither has shifty leadership. Both have strong growth potential. But one is limited by physical metal in the ground and the other is a functional product. I know which I would take. TL;DR Ayro is a beautiful, highly undervalued growth play with fundamentals that would make Warren Buffet himself shed tears of pure value-investor ichor. Short distance, standard outlet charging tech means it does not compete with Tesla, Nio, Fisker, or any other EV play. Solid, experienced leadership means the company has good financial sense. Market cap is wildly undervalued, even in the face of a potential EV bubble.
We like the stock
Obligatory holdings: 777 shares picked up @3.28 (Initially had 1000, sold off a few around $8.00) Purchased 4 Calls @12.50 exp Jan 21, 2022 Sold 2 Puts at 2.50 exp 1/21/2023 Sold 7 Calls @17.50 exp 5/21 EDIT: Today was crazy. I had a feeling this was coming, I just didn't think it would be this soon. I believe the stock still has plenty of room to run, so I will be holding for a while longer. Bought more shares at the start of the morning to being my total to 1000; sold 3 more calls @17.50 5/21 exp. (my whole position). Will most likely exercise my 12.50 calls if we hit that high, then turn around and sell those calls around $30. Hopefully free premium monies. Will update this thread if there are any major price changes/news updates
I've Found 929 Discs Over 4 Years - Here's Some Data!
Over the last 4 years I’ve collected data on the discs I’ve found, broken it down into chunks and trends I thought were interesting, and shared it with the community. Previous year’s posts can be found 2019 Post and 2020 Post. This post deals with averages for the entire data set collected over the years. There are some comparisons from the previous years’ averages just for giggles here and there but if you’re looking for trends by comparing old posts you’ll need to remember that all of the data keeps getting rolled over into a larger and larger aggregate. I do plan on breaking finds down by year as well as location in future posts. Lots of neat data so may as well play with it, right? I’ve explained my data collection a bit more near the end of this post. If you notice some math and number discrepancies, it’s likely due to rounding or an incomplete data set. Or maybe it’s just me. As is tradition, I’d like you to ask yourself some questions about found discs. Take a guess, maybe ask your buddies what they think, and see how close you get to the actual data. Put a couple of bucks on it if that’s your thing. I’ll give you a little location context so you know what you’re working with.
Where were these discs found? Basket - 2 Brush - 9 Fairway - 43 Marsh/Mud - 17 Woods - 91 On Ice - 7 Roof - 2 Water - 429 SCUBA - 323
Summarized into some cleaner percentages: Water - 81% Land - 19%
I’ll talk about some thoughts on the locations a bit later. I split Water and SCUBA in the table even though there’s some overlap. If a disc was listed as found in the water, it was recovered either using a retriever or wading. SCUBA is self explanatory. While there are no doubt some SCUBA discs that were found close enough to shore for wading, these were generally deeper and more inaccessible for somebody out just playing.
Here are your questions. 1. How many discs were marked with a name and number? 2. What’s my disc return rate? 3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently? 4. What speed of disc was lost most frequently? 5. What color of disc was lost most frequently? 6. What type of plastic was lost most frequently? 7. What molds were most commonly lost?
I don’t recommend scrolling down much more prior to taking your guesses.
1. How many discs were marked with a name and number? This, along with return rate, was actually one of the pieces of information I wanted to know about when I first started thinking about the discs we were finding. It’s certainly a populacontroversial topic on discgolf.
Discs marked with number: 47% Unmarked discs: 51% Marked, but no number: 2%
So basically half of the discs I find are uninked. That number has fluctuated a bit over the years by a % or two but has really been consistent. The marked but no number discs usually have a PDGA #, but sometimes it’s just a name. In retrospect, I wish I kept track of how many times a bad number was present on the disc but oh well, that ship has sailed.
2. What is my disc return rate?
Total Return Rate (All Discs): 30% Total Return Rate (Marked Discs Only): 65% Total Return Rate (Unmarked Discs): 9%
We text the numbers on the discs we find. Ideally we get it done immediately when we find it as it makes meet-ups easier, but sometimes they’re too dirty and need a good scrubbing before we can read the number. If the text doesn’t work, they get a call. We also scan the local league page, which has a running lost disc thread, and see if we recognize anything. From there we either meet up at a course, arrange a drop-off location like under a trash can, or give it to a league person that can run the disc to its owner. We increased our efforts quite a bit to run “iffy” discs back this year. Last year we only bothered with numbered discs. This year we tried to run back pretty much everything. There’s a story behind it but figured I wouldn’t clutter up a data post too much. There’s actually a lot to unpack with these numbers. For example, 65% of marked discs are returned. Seems kind of low, right? But many of those owners tell us to keep the disc. My numbers on this data isn’t great as I only kept track of it this last year, but I have records of being told to keep a found disc 49 times - that’s 12% of marked discs. If we consider those discs “returned”, our rate goes up to 77%. Those numbers are low - I’m guessing if I had kept better records of “keep its” it would bring us closer to 80% but that’s speculation. Additionally, my buddy has a duffle bag of marked discs waiting to be returned sitting in his car. There’s 35 of them in there that have had positive contacts and are pending being returned. That’s another 9% if they ever get around to trying to get their stuff back (I know, it’s COVID, we’re trying to be understanding - most of these discs have been in there for months though). Anyway, moral of the story? 86% of marked discs are “accounted” for per their owners wishes and a good chunk of the 14% that’s left just had bad numbers. Others never get back to us and a few drop off the face of the earth after replying once or twice. A couple of times the owner had passed. It’s an unusual feeling when you find one of their discs. That still leaves us with a lot of unmarked discs. This year we got a small chunk (9% of all unmarked discs, 4% of total discs found) of them returned. Part of it was coordination with the local league. Part of it was just conversation with other players on the course. My buddy is a talker and likes meeting people. One of the first things he asks is if they’ve played a given course before and if they’ve lost anything. Surprisingly, we’ve returned quite a few discs from these conversations. What do we do with all the unreturned discs? After a few weeks I suppose we take ownership of them and do what we want. Usually we end up giving them away. We adore giving families and groups that are just starting piles of discs. One of the new things we picked up doing this year is making people whole when they’ve lost a disc. Sometimes we haven’t found the specific disc somebody lost but have an identical(ish) unmarked, unwanted, or unclaimed mold that we found that we can give them as a replacement. Sometimes we’ll sell a batch off if we’re getting ridiculous on storage. Helps pay for gear and gas and keeps the clutter down. It’s pretty rare we need to do that though - we’d rather give them to new players but that becomes a tricky proposition with the high speed stuff. A few we’ll keep and bag ourselves, but it’s pretty rare beyond maybe just trying a new mold out for a round or three.
3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently?
Innova holds a commanding lead with Discraft being the only other significant contender. Merging companies like Trilogy and the MVP/Axiom/Streamline narrows things a bit, but not much. Last year I chunked the companies together based on who was manufacturing what, but with Discmania shopping around their sourcing I’m no longer certain who’s making what nowadays.
Data was taken from Infinitediscs’s flight information for each disc. I know there’s occasionally discrepancies between them and the manufacturers but I figured it would be best to pull information from one source.
Top 5 lost speeds: Speed 13 - 20% Speed 12 - 15% Speed 9 - 13 % Speed 5 - 9% Speed 10 and Speed 11 - 7%
Loss % By Type: High Speed Drivers (11-14) – 47% Fairway/Control Drivers (7-10) – 28% Mids (4-6) – 18% Putters (1-3) – 6%
As is tradition, the high speed drivers dominate the lost disc category. I’m looking forward to breaking the land and water data apart as nearly all of the water holes I find discs on are under 300’ from tee to basket but hey, people are going to throw what they’re going to throw. It’s also a bit of a nuisance that putters and mids are the least frequently lost but the most useful disc to give to new players. If y’all could start trying to emulate Lizotte with some unmarked putters on water hazards I’d appreciate it. If he can clear nearly 500’ of water, surely you can manage 250’, right? Go for it... cough
5. What color of disc was lost most frequently?
Blue - 18% Red - 14% Yellow - 13% Orange - 12% Pink - 11% White - 10% Black - 9% Green - 8% Tye Dye - 4% Purple - 3% Gray - 2% Violet - 2% Brown, Clear, Copper, Gold, and Peach each represented less than 1% of found discs.
From year to year, the color averages seem to change the most with the exception of blue being on top. One thing I noticed, however, is that I lump all blue discs together regardless of shade while most of the other colors have a “lighter” and “darker” version so that is likely bloating its numbers a bit. I’m not certain why I recorded them that way. Lord knows I got creative with plenty of other shades. For the purpose of simplicity, all discs marked “burgundy, wine, chartreuse, seafoam, turquoise” or any other oddball description got shoved into an arbitrarily “close enough” color category. Apparently some days I must feel poetic while recording these things.
I lumped all the different plastic brands into “close enough” varieties. Flexy, glow, and lightweight discs all got dumped together regardless of what plastic variety they were built into. I’m guessing a lot of folks thought base plastic would be the most common, but turns out it’s fairly rare in comparison to the premium plastics. I wonder if a lot of it gets retired into peoples’ garages and basements when they decide they like the game and upgrade. Those starter kits have to end up somewhere….
7. What molds were most commonly lost? As is tradition, I’ll be listing these according to the total number found instead of %. Unfortunately there wasn’t a clean “break” point so I’ll just arbitrarily pick...double digits I guess.
Ah, Destroyers - I knew you were the disc we were finding the most of, and every year you prove me right by preposterous ratios. Actually, I’m a bit surprised to see so many Innovas firmly entrenched in the top 10. The list has definitely shifted through the years. Heck, the first year Drones (of all discs) made the top 5. I don’t think I’ve found one since…. Anecdotally, the Kong/Zeus/McBeth Driver just barely missed the list - it’s definitely trying hard to catch up. I have a sneaking suspicion it may actually have made the double digit list but I think two “Prototypes” got marked as Hades due to what the owners indicated they thought they were, but I’m not so sure they weren’t Zeuses. Eh, who knows - we’ll see it on the list next year I’m betting. For the morbidly curious - there were 118 “Unicorn” discs, of which only one example of that given mold was found. Definitely not bitter about having to look up the flight numbers for every single stinking one of them…. A grand total of 271 different molds were found. 4 discs I was unable to identify - two oddball Innovas that had no markings and I just couldn’t figure out and 2 generic ones that probably came out of a Costco “Frolf” set or something.
And some stats for funsies…. Total discs I’ve found courses on: 23 out of 43 played - or 53% of courses played I’ve found a disc on. Disc finding rate: 606 discs found over 503 rounds played = 1.2 discs a round Note: I’ve removed the SCUBA discs from this but there were instances we went out just to wade instead of playing a course so this number is inflated a bit. We do find a lot of discs while playing - 2 or 3 isn’t all that weird. More if we have to go into the water to get one we lose ourselves. Also, this is not accounting for rounds played prior to U-Disc, but I wasn’t finding them at nearly the rate I do now. It’s accurate enough for a hipfire statistic. Most discs found in one day: 73 - SCUBA diving, two tanks of air
Average Discs Found on 1 Tank of Air - 25
u/mechanickzilla made a comment in a recent thread about lugging out a bunch of gear to a pond and searching for hours for 30 discs. It amused me because it sounded right. Turns out to be a pretty darn close estimate! A tank of air lasts roughly an hour. If I average out all SCUBA time it works out to be 25 discs per tank/hour in the water. I did refine my technique from early days and upped my efficiency quite a bit this year - turns out if I bring a salvage bag and don’t rise to toss discs to shore every time my hands were full I get a LOT more search time out of a tank and my average rises to 32 discs per tank, or about a disc every 2 minutes. There is some prep and cleanup time involved so I suppose strictly speaking the rate is lower if I want to account for the entire process instead of just time in the water.
Where discs are being found - 34% on one course, 48% on another, so 82% of discs were found on only two courses.
Most discs returned to one person - I’ve honestly lost count. I know he’s up to 12 or 15 and that’s a conservative estimate.
Most frequently found disc - A blue teebird we’ve returned 4 times. Haven’t seen the previous champion blue Rogue for quite some time. I’ll have to ask the owner what happened to it.
Find anything else interesting? A half dozen vape pens, a jar of marijuana, 8 golf clubs, hundreds of golf balls, 4 golden retrievers (the disc retriever, not the dog), 3 sunglasses, a couple of cell phones, 3 unopened beers, a couple of rakes, untold millions of towels, a bluetooth speaker, 3 sets of car keys, 1 pair of kid-sized glasses, 5 bicycles, and a rifle case.
About Location Location turned out to be a bit trickier to classify than I thought and I’ve changed and reclassified things several times now. For a while it was just woods and water, but that really didn’t do a good job of describing finding something on shore or in a basket. Here’s what I ended up with: Brush - anything not mowed without trees. Includes briars, bushes, and long grass. You’ll notice there are not a lot of these - that’s because I HATE walking through these areas and avoid them. A lot of the ones we found in this condition were there because we were looking for one of our own or we were cleaning up the course and happened to stumble across one while brushwhacking or something. Seriously, long grass is the WORST to look through. I feel for those of you that fight with it and really, really appreciate the courses that cut search paths through it. Marsh - the swampy, mucky crap that disc golf courses love to get built on because what else are you going to do with the land? Not quite enough to be able to submerge your disc, but plenty soggy enough that you’ll ruin a pair of shoes trying to walk through it. A lot of shore finds were reclassified to this. Fairway - anything mowed. I’m always surprised at how many discs we find on the fairway. I suspect some of them are blown down from being stuck in trees. Others are no doubt forgotten. A few are probably bad throws that rolled to someplace ridiculous. A lot of times we get these back to groups actively on the course, but a surprising amount of times we don’t. I think the rest are pretty self-explanatory.
Why? Just...why? Nearly 1000 entries is a lot to monkey with (believe me, I entered every damned one of them - many of them two or three times as I revised and improved my organization). The data collection started more or less by accident. My buddy and I were playing nearly daily and we were stumbling across a steady stream of discs. We speculated about what disc we were finding the most of (there were three or four reasonable contenders) but really didn’t have firm answers, just hazy recollections and some finger counting. In an attempt to answer our whimsically discussed question, I dug through my storage bin and counted. That left me with some numbers, but not the whole picture. I realized that there were quite a few discs that we’d returned, given away, or sold over the year prior. Fortunately, I had been in the habit of texting numbers to try and return discs and we both tended to take pictures if we found something on the course to show our friends. I had also started a disc golf journal I was keeping on Google Calendar and, for whatever reason, had been noting when we found a disc on the course. Between that documentation and memory (there were less than a hundred or so discs at the time, so it was easy to remember where I had found a given disc) I was able to put together a fairly decent, but somewhat incomplete, starting point for data. Sometimes data was missing, like color or plastic, but it was something to work with. I did what I could to keep the data “true” and no doubt neglected to account for some discs simply because I didn’t have documentation for them. I guarantee, for example, some discs were found on the course that were left by the group ahead of us and returned nearly immediately that did not get recorded. I also didn’t record discs lost and found from my own party. When in doubt, I left it out. It means some of my numbers are a bit different from one category to another as well. For example, I may have had documentation on the mold found, but not its color. As I collected the data and put them into an actual spreadsheet (Let me assure you, tracking data in Google Calendar is...not recommended) I realized there was certain data I wanted and began making a concentrated effort to keep track of it. There’s still mistakes and omissions, no doubt, but it should be pretty darn solid. Is the data good for anything? Hard to say. It’s a significant data pool, but the questions that can be asked of it are not always clear. The reason we find so many Innova discs, for example, is probably not because they are more prone to being lost than other brands, but rather that they are more popular and more thrown, and thus more likely to be lost and found. Color becomes more tricky - am I finding a lot of blue discs because they are more popular or are they easier to see and thus be found? Discs found with SCUBA are usually felt rather than seen, is there a difference between colors found on land and water? Finding trends may also be possible. It’s possible to isolate discs found by park per year they were found (heck, down to the date if need be) so perhaps we can find changes from year to year in a given location. It’s something I plan to dig into and post about from time to time. One area I could use some advice on is classifying discs by stability. The spreadsheet currently includes Speed, Turn, and Fade numbers along with quantity. For each mold of disc. I had planned on identifying discs on stable/neutral/understable but those definitions are not particularly clear. If anybody has thoughts on how this could be organized I’d love to hear them. Right now I’m looking at maybe displacement from 0 or something but I have a hard time calling a -2/2 disc like a Valk “Neutral”. I suppose I could break them down strictly by the listed fade/turn numbers. Shouldn’t be more than a dozen combinations. Anyway, I suppose there is no “why” other than curiosity and a desire to contribute to the community. I think it’s interesting so I’m posting it. Not going to lie, I like seeing if it’s enough to earn a “Quality Post” tag as well. As bad as a kid with a sticker chart, I swear. Feel free to ask questions - I do plan on breaking down data by year, location, and stability (once I figure out how to organize it) so there will likely be a few extra posts this year.
I was eight years old when my best friend’s mother ruined the words “I love you.” She was a single mother, just like my mom. Her daughter, Bethany Florence, was in my third grade class. We lived in a place most people would dub the Middle of Nowhere. Growing up in small town America has its drawbacks and perks just like anywhere else. My childhood was full of freedoms that kids in the cities or even most suburbs could only imagine - we ran freely for miles through partially cultivated farmlands, and we even got to drive the occasional golf cart or ATV well before we hit licensable age. That said, social politics could be brutal. Bethany’s mom held Power. If you’ve ever lived in a town beholden to the grace and beneficence of a particular citizen, then you know exactly what I mean. Bethany’s mom could do no wrong. Or, rather, even if she did, she didn’t. My mom never liked Ms. Kay Florence. She asked me all the time who else was in my grade at school and who else I’d like to make plans with over the weekend. But I was at that BFFs stage where I mainly just wanted to hang out with my one Best Friend. Plus, not that I would ever have admitted this, maintaining BFF status with Bethany was good for my popularity at school. Even the kids knew her mom had clout. We’d seen in in action, muffled but visible, when she got Mr. Wallace fired last year over something WE all knew was dumb, but that Bethany told her mother was not. Bethany didn’t like him, so her mom made him go away. Obviously there’s a bit more to that story, but the gist is that there are some people you don’t mess with, and in my town, the Florences were those people. I kept wanting to sleep over at Bethany’s house and my mom kept on making excuses why I couldn’t go that weekend - a birthday party for my Nana, going apple-picking with my cousins visiting from Miami, I “sprained my ankle” (it was only, like, at MOST only a tiny bit sore by then!) - but eventually I flat out asked her, “Are you going to let me sleep over at Bethany’s EVER?” My mom looked worried then, and my guess is she thought I might say something of the sort to Bethany who would say something to her mom. (Bethany had a blabbermouth reputation, but keep in mind, the girl was only eight years old and didn’t have the greatest role models.) “Okay, fine,” my mom finally relented. “You can go.” I could tell she wasn’t too happy about it, but I figured that had something to do with my friend’s mom being kind of weirdly powerful and my mom being weirdly anxious, which she was about a lot of things. Being a single mom can’t be easy, and we were on the run from my dad a few times during the early years of their divorce before he finally got locked up. I think that would do a number on anybody’s nerves. On the day of the sleepover my mom dropped me off and kissed me goodnight. “I love you!” she said. “I love you too, Mom!” I called over my shoulder as I bounced up the steps to Bethany’s front door. We always said “I love you,” my mom and I. Always. At night, in the morning, before and after school, even sometimes when either of us would just leave the room. That’s why what happened next was especially sad. “Welcome, Marta!” Bethany’s mom waved me inside. Bethany stood behind her, holding a giant plastic Tupperware of games and toys under one arm and a glass of some light-colored beverage in the other. “See you soon, Ms. Danes!” my friend’s mother called to my mom. I eagerly allowed myself to be led deep into the house to the most fabulous playroom I’ve ever seen. The stuff in Bethany’s Tupperware box was only the beginning. Every game or toy or arts and crafts supply you could ever want - it was all in that room. “Marta?” Ms. Florence tapped me on the shoulder. “Come with me, I’ll show you where to put your bag.” I followed her dutifully, not questioning the winding, indirect path we took to the room where I’d put my things, nor Ms. Florence’s longwinded, rambling talk about random things that went on and on and on. Truthfully I don’t even remember most of it. All I remember was that her breath smelled funny and grew increasingly agitated during our “talk.” She ended with a lesson for me about what “I love you” REALLY means, and warned me not to trust anyone who says it - especially not someone who says it often. If anyone tells me otherwise, I would do well to remember that “I love you” is a phrase of manipulation and deception. Nobody REALLY means it - least of all prospective romantic partners, but not even blood relatives. No human being is capable of love, she told me. Nobody at all. She seemed angry and sort of hostile as she spoke. Her hands shook slightly. I felt afraid then. Something was wrong with her. Was she drunk? I’d only ever seen one other grownup act this way and it was my dad. I hadn’t seen him in years by this point, however, so I couldn’t be too sure. To be honest, I don’t remember much about that whole weekend other than trying to avoid Ms. Florence as much as possible while she encroached on my personal space - emotional and physical - and laid in hard about the idea of love. The way she said it to Bethany was weird too. At one point, Ms. Florence said, ‘I looove you,’ to Bethany with an obvious air of disdain, but looked me square in the eye while doing so, as if to further make her point. Bethany, for her part, continued playing with two dolls in her dollhouse, ignoring her mom. I noticed, though, that she seemed to tense up whenever her mom was nearby. Later, as Bethany and I whispered in the dark, giggling quietly before we said goodnight, Ms. Florence knocked on the door and motioned for me to come talk to her. She gathered me into a warm embrace and told me to join her in the kitchen for hot chocolate, just the two of us. I didn’t know what to expect, but her whole demeanor had changed. Ms. Florence sat me down at a chair with a steaming cup of hot chocolate already waiting at each of our seats. She gave me my own package of mini marshmallows and told me to sit down, and I obeyed. That’s when she heaved a heavy sigh and told me my mother had called and confirmed Ms. Florence’s fears - not even MY mother loved her own child! She told me horrible, horrible things. She said that my mother vented to her that I was the reason she couldn’t escape my father. I was the reason my mother would never be free of him, that she’d always be worried he would break out of prison and come after us again. If not for me, she’d be able to start life anew. I sat there stunned beyond stunned. Ms. Florence shook her head sadly. “Marta,” she said. “I’m so sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but I figured you should know. Your mother begged me not to say anything, but having lived a life of heartbreak myself, I know how important it is for a person to know the truth, even if it’s painful.” With that, she excused herself and fell asleep on the couch in the next room, while I stirred my hot chocolate in that suddenly bitter-cold kitchen, alone. I had no frame of reference for the sort of toxic relationships Ms. Florence cultivated with everyone in her wake, including her own daughter. As an adult looking back, I realize that Ms. Florence was a broken soul who was most certainly intoxicated that entire evening - markedly so. The whole sleepover was a sickening whirlwind I tried to forget the instant it was over. I wouldn’t have believed it when I first arrived, but when the time came for my mom to pick me up, I was glad to go… although I couldn’t bring myself to look at my mother during the drive home. Sitting beside her in silence that evening at dinner, I shivered inside, knowing the pain imposed upon her by my very existence. I’d never felt so low in all my life. The light of my childhood was extinguished on that day. I grew apart from Bethany after the sleepover. In fact, I grew apart from EVERYBODY. The fear of hurting my mother - or worse, of inciting Ms. Florence’s rage - had me silenced before I even spoke one word about our conversation that night over hot chocolate. Ms. Florence almost singlehandedly supported much of the town’s infrastructure - extracurriculars, community buildings and resources. Whether she funded them herself or funneled the cash through other connections, I don’t know. But NOBODY shined a light on the dark side of that woman. NOBODY. They knew better. Last year’s escapade with Mr. Wallace reaffirmed the situation in everyone’s minds, I was sure of it. I didn’t know what to make of her behavior at the sleepover, and I didn’t know how to manage the guilt over what she’d told me my mother said. I also had nobody to tell. Least of all Bethany, who obviously thought her mom was totally normal. Maybe she was… I had no way of knowing. Listen, I grew up in plenty of dysfunction myself, especially in my earliest years. Ms. Florence let me know full force what she thought about my parents - both of them! She started with my dad, and how he’s a crook and a thief and a druggy and a violent criminal. Okay, okay… I’ve heard that all before. But when she started in on my MOM, claiming that she didn’t deserve me if she thought so terribly of me, how my own mother wished I was never born… well, THAT’S when my head started to spin. By the end of that horrible night, I fell asleep - in Ms. Florence’s kitchen - and then awoke several hours later crying and being consoled by Ms. Florence over my doubts about BOTH of my parents, while Ms. Florence probed for more and more information from me, encouraging me to say everything I knew about everybody, it seemed. Bethany was more than happy to comply with such requests. It was as though privacy not only didn’t exist in the Florence home, it was a preposterous idea! Perhaps that’s how Bethany learned to blab all she knows. Over the following weeks and months, I turned that encounter over in my mind countless times. I dreamt about it. I doodled desperate doodles, wishing a teacher would see my drawings and “figure it out” so that I wasn’t the one to say anything. I couldn’t risk getting my mom in trouble. If Ms. Florence found out I told her ANYTHING, well… my mother’s meager income would dry up in flash! I didn’t know how, but I was sure it would. Plus… could I even TRUST my mom? Maybe SHE never had my best interests at heart - maybe she never really loved me after all. The idea of having my fear confirmed locked my words deep inside. I couldn’t take the risk. Better to wonder if my mom loves me than to know for sure she doesn’t. Ms. Florence’s speech about love made me question the very meaning of love. “I love you.” My stomach churned each time I heard it since the sleepover. The words were lost to my comprehension. They became meaningless to me. Worse than meaningless - they were poison. My mother noticed the change in me. She noticed I stopped reciprocating her “I love you”s. She noticed I stopped hanging out with Bethany. All I did, day after day after day, was play video games in my room. My dad’s mom sent me a virtual reality setup for my birthday last year. A “guilt gift” my mother called it then. At first I didn’t know if it was okay to play it, but my mom waved her hand and said she didn’t care. I played it a little at first, but after my sleepover at Bethany’s, I played it a LOT. More and more hours each day. When summer vacation rolled around, it’s ALL I did. My mom was very worried. By that time, I’d stopped talking to her almost completely. I was in my own world, trapped and alone. My own world, that is, and the world of VR - which had become one and the same. My mother dragged me to a psychologist one morning that summer and, to my horror, the doctor caught on immediately. My mother said she suspected the problem had something to do with my sleepover, since that’s when my mom said she first noticed the change in my behavior. “Did something happen to make you feel uncomfortable while you were there?” The doctor asked me with a critical, almost threatening eye. It was a quick glance that she swiftly corrected, but I saw it. “No,” I said with a distant flatness. “Good,” the psychologist commented, turning to my mom and adding, “In any case, it wouldn’t be wise to doubt the propriety of such a great benefactor, am I right?” The two of them shared a brief chuckle. Clearly her business was controlled or at least benefitted by the Florence Foundation as well. My mom put her hand on my shoulder and when I caught her eye I saw that she knew. “Thank you doctor,” my mother said. “Marta, come now. Let’s go.” We walked to the car and strapped on our seatbelts. “Tell me, Marta,” my mother begged. “Tell me! What happened that night?” My eyes filled with tears. I wanted to tell her, but I was afraid. I wanted to cry that I was so confused and ask her if she really called Ms. Florence that night, or it that was just a strange game of make-believe. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. If it was true, it would beak my heart. If it wasn’t true, it would break my mother’s heart. I was so ashamed because I didn’t know who to trust. By now I’d been running the story on loop in my mind for months, questioning every point I recalled. I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t know if my mother was trustworthy either! I cried on the way home, but that was all. I heard my mother softly sobbing that night through the paper thin wall that ran between our bedrooms in our rundown apartment. I softened my own cries, desperate not to be heard by her in return. From that day on, she stopped pressuring me. She went to work and came home, while I sat on my VR gaming system dawn to dusk. I knew she wished I would go outside and enjoy the sunshine, get un-depressed somehow and go make friends with the tourist kids staying down the road. But she let me be, and I appreciated it. Unbeknownst to her, I actually DID make a friend that summer. Her name was Cherry92 and she lived in my VR headset. Her avatar was a glass of pink lemonade with a pile of cherries floating inside. I LOVE cherries, I always have. My very favorite fruit! That’s what originally made me click on Cherry92’s avatar and challenge her to a VR race. My avatar was an Orange moose with a green booger sticking out of its nose. I picked it because I thought it was funny. Cherry92 thought so too! It started as just a random matchup at my favorite 2-player racing game, but soon we started requesting each other as opponents and using the chat feature more and more. Then we ventured into other games together, utilizing hangout zones just to chill. Our friendship unfolded over the course of several weeks. Once school was back in session, I had less time to spend with Cherry92, but I looked forward to “seeing” her every night when I got to play VR for 45 minutes before bed. By that point I’d been feeling a bit lighter - probably in large part due to finally having a friend - and my mom was happy to be able to set reasonable screen time limits again. You might think that an online or VR relationship isn’t real, but let me tell you, Cherry92 and I had a VERY real friendship. It was healing to me in more ways than one. She helped me learn to trust again, and, strange as it is to admit this, I felt more comfortable confiding in my semi-anonymous friend from Austin, TX than in my mom or a teacher or ANYONE else in my tiny town where word might potentially get back to Ms. Florence. And so it went. Slowly but surely I told her about my life and my hobbies and my fears, and I tiptoed into the story of what happened. Cherry92 never pushed me. She never spoke harshly or pressured me to share more. She never asked nosy questions. She was just THERE for me. And she was wise beyond her years. I know, I know, my mom and teachers always warned me that people can be whoever they want online or in gaming systems, but I’m telling you, Cherry92 was the real deal. Or so I thought. Within a year, I’d made peace with my ordeal, not “on my own” as my mother might have thought, but with the heartfelt compassion of my VR friend, Cherry92. Eventually our correspondence petered out and we fell out of touch. I’m not sure when it happened, but probably about a month after the last time I’d “seen” her was when I realized she was gone for good. It was a bittersweet evening, but by then I’d regained my emotional health for the most part and I was more or less normal at school and at home. My mom continued her path of “letting me be” and had long ago stopped offering me “I love you”s, even though I’m sure it hurt her own heart to let that go. We bridged the gap our relationship suffered, even though I never told her exactly what caused it. It was a slow, steady process. I would say by the time I turned ten, we were really okay again. A few times during my teen years, those old nagging doubts about whether or not my mom really called Ms. Florence to complain about my existence crept back into my mind, and I mostly squashed them, or at least successfully pushed them aside. I’d say things were basically normal. What teenager doesn’t doubt their parents’ affection from time to time? My mom and I were fine, even with those few doubts, and even though it took a VR stranger kid to help me overcome what she failed to help me with. I know if she’d been able to help me, she would have. I believe it. I really do. She would do anything for me - anything in her power. I just know it… right? Last night was my eighteenth birthday. For fun, I suggested to my mom that we break out my old (outdated!) VR system. She laughed and said sure, making some comment about how she wished she had enough money to buy me a new one. I assured her I didn’t care about a new one, I just wanted to play with HER. We played for a while and then ate a home cooked birthday meal, complete with her best amateur-decorated cake. She’s not a “Pinterest Mom,” but she’s better because she’s REAL. “All this cake is making me thirsty!” I joked (although I wasn’t totally kidding, I WAS thirsty!). “Well Marta, then have I got a surprise for you!” My mom stood up with a dramatic flourish and headed to the cabinets by the sink. “Close your eyes!” I closed my eyes, wondering what surprise drink concoction my mother had in store for me. I heard grating sounds and slicing sounds and pouring sounds and squishing sounds. I was definitely intrigued, that’s for sure! “Okay,” she said at last, setting two heavy glasses on the table. “Now… open them!” I opened my eyes and lost my breath. On the table in front of me were two glasses of pink lemonade, each with a humorously large pile of cherries floating inside. I looked up at my mother whose eyes were filled with tears. “Mom?” I whispered. “Were you… Cherry92?” My mother nodded. Then she smiled through her tears. “We meet again, BoogerMoose!” I burst out laughing and crying at the same time. It all made sense. I’d never felt more whole and loved in all my life. The pain of the past melted away into the cherry lemonade. “I hope you’ll forgive me,” my mom said. “I couldn’t think of any other way...I just—“ “Mom!” I cried, flinging myself into her arms and hugging her tight. “I love you!” “Oh my precious daughter, you have no idea how long I’ve yearned to hear those words. I love you too!”
My family started in a trailer in a poor part of my city. First my parents had my sister, and then me a year later. My parents never married, but they tried to make it work for me and my sister's sake. They made it into an apartment, and then eventually worked their way into beginning to pay on the house my mom still lives in today. Up until I was about 10 years old, my father and mom stayed together in this house, and it was the definition of hell. Screaming/fights almost every day. Sometimes my dad would start it, sometimes my mom would, sometimes me or my sister. My dad has thrown me across the room, slapped and punched my mom multiple times, (my mom is 5'2', my dad is 6'3'). He has issues, some from his own father dying while he was young, some from using/selling coke and weed and drinking. My mom told me when I was young (maybe 7-8 years old) she was raped by two men in her home state of Oklahoma, and I don't think I really processed it well as a kid. Her dad also died while she was young, he fell to his death on a construction site. Me and my sister both have mental health issues nowadays, but she did make it through four years of college, which is more than either of my parents or me did. I personally have really bad anger issues and anxiety, PTSD from close range shoot outs and robberies. I struggle daily with depression and suicidal thoughts almost every day. I sold weed at a pretty decent level for a long time, 6-7 years. I started around 16 when I realized my parents didn't really have the money they were giving me for my weed/drug habit. 20 or so dollars every day was adding up and they would tell me. My mom was a manager at a Texas roadhouse around when I was 8-9-ish years old, and she ended up getting in between two drunk guys that were in a bar fight and she got punched in her neck. She ended up getting a $50,000ish settlement, but had to have multiple surgeries and will pretty much always be in pain and will always have metal in her neck to the point where she can feel it when its raining outside. My mom has never been great with finances, so that money after bills went by very fast. She did use probably 20-30 grand of it on a new truck. An brand new F-150. Remember she's 5'2" lol. That was definitely a mistake, and I think she knows it, but I've never been good with money either. My father has always been broke, to the point where he would ask my mother for money for his own weed and bills. I'm not sure where my dad lives now, last I heard it was in the mountains in North Carolina. He left the house when I was around 10 like I mentioned earlier. He went to his moms house for a while and then moved out. His mom took care of us a lot of nights that they couldn't because of work or other things. She's the sweetest most Christian grandmother you could imagine. She had four kids, and then as I mentioned her husband (my dads dad) died of a heart attack while they were all still young. I can't imagine the pain, I'm sure it messed my dad up pretty bad. I think these things are important to understand though, because they help me see why they were always so mad and upset always. So in comes when it started getting hard. I had almost no friends in elementary school, I remember getting a "red card" in maybe second grade for punching a kid in the back, yes the back, lol. Because he was literally just talking to a girl I had a crush on. I never really talked to girls then, I would just decide I had a crush on them. In second grade. Lol. He didn't even hit me back, he was kind of just like "What the fuck?" And then I just walked away until a teacher came up to me that's all I remember. I've always been a kind of small and skinny dude, and I especially was back then. In middle school I started making some friends but I was always annoying them because I was always asking to hang out and to come over to their houses. I remember my bus route used to go through the nicest neighborhoods on my side of the city, I'm talking retired NFL player nice. they make my moms house look like a shack, and I don't know if I realized it back then, but it was making me jealous. The friends I ended up making in middle school were not very healthy friends, we were always the loud and obnoxious ones. I got into a lot of trouble starting around this time, 7th grade. I spent almost half of my 7th grade year in In School Suspension, just staring at wall while "doing" class work. It was also this year toward the end of the year that I got into my first real fight. I was always outspoken, and so was this other guy, but he lived in a super nice house and was from a rich ass family. We had a social studies class together, and one day, I'm not even sure how it started, he started making jokes about my mother working at chick fil a. She got that job after her neck was healed up just enough to get a job. She had to get a job, as she was my house's income. She loved and still loves that job, she's a manager now. But back then and how he made fun of her in front of my whole class while my teacher just didn't do anything about it, I was just so mad. So I told him I was going to beat his ass and after class (and more trolling me) we met next to the side of the school and a huge crowd gathered to watch. A lot of people, not the whole school, but most of my grade, because we all exited the same door if you rode on the bus. I threw the first punch, missed, he grabbed my neck and slammed my head into the brick wall, I tried to throw another punch, missed, and I just yelled "stop making fun of my mom" grabbed my backpack and got on the bus, Just cried the whole way home, my sister on the bus was just wondering what happened. I've never been good at explaining my thoughts or feelings to people, so most people think I'm even more dumb than I actually am. I didn't tell my family about that fight for years, even though my sister did. I just will never forget it. I even tried to tell people that I didn't lose that fight even though everyone heard about it. I just couldn't come to terms with it. 8th grade I don't have many memories of. I was a goofball, and my grades were really slipping now, even worse than the year before. Most people just saw me as that weird kid who got his ass beat. I think around this time I started to get very, very cynical with my worldview and my attitude. I was always on the internet when I could be, playing shitty games on our homes only computer; a dell desktop, and reading stupid conspiracy theories. Later I would start gaming pretty hard, and I loved watching streams all the way back to the justin.tv days. My dad had a PlayStation 1, and I loved watching him play Call of Duty. It might be my only good memory with my dad, honestly, and he never got to play a lot. The internet and my cynical world view pushed me away from religion, even though my family was heavily Christian. Even before this though, I hated going to church. From a young kid onward every single Sunday was a screaming match between me and my mom about not wanting to go to church. Sometimes she would end up getting me to go, but that was less and less, and before even middle school I just stopped going completely. So in between middle and high-school I started smoking weed, it made me some new friends and got me into hanging out at a park near my moms house. This park would end up being where I spent most of my next 6-7 or so years. Most people knew it was a druggie park, would call us all "park rats" and make fun of us for wasting our time and money doing drugs. But I gained more memories here than I could ever write down, I probably could make a book out of those memories. There were all ages of people there, some young as me, some mid 30s-40s, a lot of weed smoking teens, a lot of acid tripping hippies, some Xanax/oxy fiends, and even some meth and heroine people. Most days it was just normal people getting fucked up to enjoy their time, but there was always plenty of drama. This park was known not just on my side of town but through the whole city. its kind of tucked away in woods, sits on a lake, and has a small disc-golf course, so you'd even have a bunch of random (probably) sober people show up to play some days, but they usually stayed on their course and away from us, minus a few of them. I started selling weed when my mom started telling me no to my almost daily asks of 20 dollars. I look back and realize she just didn't have the money to support my habits, and I understand now. But once I started selling weed, I realized I could start eating when I was hungry, I realized I could get and smoke weed almost whenever I wanted to. Being at the park always made it easier to sell it too, because people knew to come there to find some weed. I met a LOT of people selling, and I mean a LOT. I started moving up to QP's (quarter pounds) on the front (pay back later) and always found myself 100-200 short on my re-ups, usually just from smoking too much and cutting too many people deals, Like I said never been good with money. Then the serious shit started happening. I was maybe 17-18 when I was at my weed guy's small apartment downtown one day. I always liked going over there, not only because I knew we'd be smoking a lot, but because me and my plug were close, I looked up to him, and we had a decently similar shitty upbringing. One day, I get a call to come chill downtown at his apartment, even had two of our friends come pick me up from the park and bring me there. Took fat dabs on the way (THC oil/wax) and when I got there he surprised us with sheets of Gel-Tabbed Acid. Strong shit. I took my usual 2 doses, I was known for tripping a lot back then, haven't tripped since this day. It was going to be a "No Traffic" day, meaning no sales in his apartment so we could just smoke and enjoy our time. His girlfriend at the time had arranged a deal between him and 3 people he did not know. A young (17 at the time) girl, a mid twenties white dude, and a mid twenties black dude. What we didn't know until after this, was they had set this up, and once inside (mind you we were tripping pretty hard at this point), the white dude and the black dude pulled a gun on my plug and my plug instantly pulled his and fired back and 20-30 shell casings later everyone ran to get out. This was a very small apartment. I mean very very small, 7 or so people all feet away from each other. I was literally sitting on the floor because there weren't enough chairs for everyone, even before the 3 robbers came in. I ducked behind the chair I was sitting next to. One of the people that drove me there got shot twice, once in the thigh and one through the side of his asscheek, no joke. The white guy who was robbing us took at least one to the chest, and was also crushed underneath us all as we all ran out and flooded the small staircase down, I could not describe to you how twisted and contorted his body was, and I had no doubt he was dead. I ran to find my plug, I'm not sure why, but I saw somehow he had made it all the way to the other side of the street already, and was on the ground. I ran up to him, not wanting to touch him, and told him an ambulance is coming and not to worry, he was laying there bleeding out of his mouth and chest with what I later found out were SEVEN BULLETS IN HIS CHEST. I watched him die, or so I thought. I yelled for someone to call an ambulance and when I saw some random student walking past was doing that I ran away and back to the two friends who had drove me there. They were freaking out, it was a dude and a girl, they were a couple at the time. The dude had just gotten shot two times. His girlfriend needed me to go back in and grab her purse and phone that were left in the chaos, I said no at first, but she begged me so I ran back to the staircase and over the white guy on the stairs who had robbed us, I definitely thought he was dead the way his body looked. I went back up the stairs and into the apartment and grabbed the phone and purse and all I could see was blood and holes everywhere, it was disgusting, and it makes me tear up while I type this. I got back into the car and they drove to the nearby hospital (The guy that got hit twice actually drove, believe it or not) and I got out of the car right before they pulled into the hospital. I'm 23, and besides these last two years, I have been on probation/in legal trouble my whole life. When I was a juvenile, I was on Show-Cap probation, where a cop would most nights come check and make sure I was at home. A cop would wake my whole household up at anywhere from 10PM - 2AM just to make me show him a card I had and then would leave, almost every night. During the shooting I was talking about, I was on Show-Cap probation. That's why I got out of the car at the hospital. I wasn't supposed to be around certain people or things like guns, legally. I got out of my friends car and walked (still tripping balls) to a McDonalds a few blocks away, sat down, and called a friend, crying the whole time, and I just remember seeing black around the edges of my vision, like I was either dying or falling into a like dark area of some kind, definitely losing it to the drugs at this point. I got picked up and drove back to my moms house, I told the car full of people I was with what had happened and they couldn't offer much aside from positive words but I will never forget at least they came and got my ass quick. That was some real friend shit. I cried and cried the whole way back to my moms, got dropped off, and like clockwork a few minutes later my mom got home. I told her something had happened (but not the whole story yet) and I felt like I was going to be in a lot of trouble. About 30 minutes later, maybe in total 1-2 hours after the shooting, a black SUV pulled up to my moms house. I had to go downtown, I will say my mom even made me one of the Sur-gel drinks I had been using to pass drug tests to drink during the car ride there. They weren't even trying to drug test me, I didn't ask her to, she was just that cool I guess. I rode an elevator up a huge building and they sat me down with two cops who were pretty convinced this was my doing in some way. They kept asking me why I had been talking to my plug that day and when I said I hadn't, they pulled up my phone logs and texts. So they not only knew about my outstanding legal issues, they also knew I was lying. I really was just lying because I thought just being there was going to violate my probation. They had me on camera every single step from leaving the car at the hospital to walking into the McDonalds. They really wanted to blame me, they even told me my friend (my plug) was dead and it made me cry and cry and cry and cry. In the end, they couldn't hold me there. They forced me to point at a picture line up of people but I told them over and over I didn't know what they looked like and that you shouldn't use what I say because I just didn't know. Whole time during all of this 3-4 hour interrogation, they yelled and screamed at me and at one point left me in the room for maybe 2 hours while I just cried and cried. They were probably just watching what I would do when alone. I was still tripping acid, hard, and just felt like death was all around me. All I could do was cry. Like I said, they released me to my mother. They obviously had no evidence against me, but one thing that they asked me during the investigation was why was my plugs girlfriend outside talking to the 3 robbers (juvenile girl, white guy, black guy, the juvenile girl ended up getting some lesser felonies but she didn't have a gun or shoot anyone, she just tried to block the exit at first). That was enough for me to put together that she was behind this, set him up to have him robbed. She probably just expected my plug to just give up his shit without a fight, but no, no he would never just do that. Obviously this whole situation fucked me up pretty bad mentally. For weeks I thought my plug was dead. Until one day he literally just called me out of the blue. Told me to come see him at his moms house. I'm telling you, this was my brother. Got in my car and went to go see him. When I got there I tried to hug him but he said he couldn't hug anyone, he lifted up his shirt and it was like a Frankenstein stitching all across his whole chest. If I recall it was 8 bullets that hit him in total. He had to use crutches and a wheelchair to move around the little bit he could. He only has one lung now, and will never move the same. It was a miracle, but no one died during that shooting, not even the white guy robber, who was shot in the chest and trampled over on the staircase. The white guy (I keep saying white guy and black guy just because I'm not trying to give out names, I hate all people equally) ended up pleading guilty and sentenced to 30 something years in jail. The black-guy robber took it to trial and WON. No fingerprints on his taped up shitty little .22 caliber pistol. Jury found him not guilty, and he is a free man to this day. Plug's girlfriend that set it up was never even charged as an accessory, but she did violate her adult probation by being there. As if that's all she deserved. This is a true story, google Fort Sanders shooting, It'll come up. The only reason my name wasn't in the articles was because I was 17 years old at the time. Not even an adult yet. They subpoena'd me after the shooting to make sure I'd show up to court or to trial. It wasn't until 4-5 years later the black-guy robber had his trial. By this time I had moved up a lot in the selling game, my plug (same plug) had moved out to the west coast to step up his game as well. Had my own house I was renting in my hometown, Knoxville, TN. Nice car, shitty (but real) diamond ring, bunch of shoes and clothes, 2 shitty cars. Tons of memories, good times and bad, important memories in between then and the trial. I've had a lot of friends die that I went to school/smoked with, especially when Fentanyl started coming around. From what I've heard that's a problem a lot of people share, fuck Fentanyl. I have done most drugs, but luckily I was just smart enough to stay away from shit like heroine and meth. (not to say Knoxville powder wasn't dirty, because it was) I just really liked weed, it has always calmed down my bad emotions from my childhood and from the events I've been through, I don't get to smoke a lot anymore, mostly because I am poor again now. Its still Illegal as fuck in my state too, but that's another story. I declined to testify at the trial of the black guy robber, and they never asked me to testify at the white guys trial because he didn't have one, he plead guilty. I decided not to testify because of multiple reasons, one- I hate cops, and law enforcement. I understand some are actually decent people. But go through a day in jail without food, because they CO thinks you're lying about not getting a tray, and ask me how you feel about cops after. Go through getting kicked out of your high school during your SENIOR YEAR because someone told some teacher you had weed in your car. I got pulled out of class by cops and arrested, and my car wasn't even on school grounds. Cops used to roll through the park I grew up in and would get out and do pat downs on whoever couldn't run away in time. These things and many more have made me hate cops, and yes, I still to this day hate cops. Is me not testifying the reason one of the robbers walked free? Maybe. But I certainly had no new information to tell the jury they didn't already know. Especially if the no fingerprints on the weapon they recovered was the reason they acquitted him. Who knows, maybe me going in there and crying like a bitch or something would've made it the jury see the truth. Either way it does weigh heavy on my heart but even my plug didn't blame me for not testifying. During and before and after the trial, me and my plug were still at work. This is when I had moved into my house I rented, after living in a shitty apartment. I fully furnished it and everything. Washer, dryer, Ps4, Xbox 1, queen sized bed, the works. Even the little shower floor mat, I loved that home. Fast forward to early covid 2020, my plug was starting to get annoyed with me. I was always asking him about the next pack coming in, always wanting as much of it as he could get to me, and I was always on him about the quality of it, even though it was always above average and most of the time it was top shelf. He ran into some legal trouble driving through Texas, that and along with a few other things happening in his personal life, work for me started slowing down. I never was good at saving money, I knew I should, I'd always beat myself up for not having money when I needed it, but I just never could change my spending habits. I'm still not sold on the whole "trying to be something you're not" argument because I've never had to fake anything. Most of the people I was around have heard from others what I've been through. At one point people were driving 2-3 hours just to pick up from me. I've been robbed plenty of times and I've robbed others. One things for sure, if karma is real, then I've definitely paid my dues. I haven't been selling now or have been in any legal trouble for the longest stretch of time since I started it all almost 8 years ago. And yes, I am proud of that. Almost all of the friends I've ever had have either robbed me or wronged me in some way, or I've cut contact for my own issues or reasons. As of today, I have one friend that lives in Ireland, and he's a great friend, but he's got his own life to live. I got evicted for giving a bad check to my landlord, 3 weeks before they did the eviction halting for covid, which is still active today. Unlucky for sure, but my fault nonetheless. Finding somewhere to live has always been a challenge for me because of my lack of provable income. Today I have decent credit, a credit card, and a few thousand dollars I have invested in my Robinhood account that I seem to keep losing and gaining back. I stream on Twitch, but my last stream I just sat and cried for like 2 and a half hours, its still the latest stream on my channel. No one wants to follow me or give me a chance, which I understand, I probably could make it work if I grinded harder and harder at it, its just depressing as fuck to sit there and talk to yourself for hours at the beginning. Todays' (1/28/2021) events in the stock market made me write this. Me and my mom keep fighting and its BEEN PAST the time I move back out again. No one will lease to me. She wont even stay here until I leave, as of this last week. I'm waiting on my new debit card to get here in the mail, and whether I have somewhere to go or not, I told her I'd leave when it got here, I have been homeless a few times, lived in my car, extended stay hotels, other peoples' couches. Its hard, but I know that I can make it fine. Today I woke up and had $20,000 in my investments, up from $1,100 I started with at the beginning of January 2021. I finally felt a little bit positive about my future at least a little bit, after a very depressing Christmas and January. Then Robinhood and other brokers today cut off buying GME, AMC, and others. I was heavy into GME, having gotten in @ $69 (lol) dollars a share. It was $450+ per share this morning, after a week of mainstream media attention from every social media website, major TV news stations, and billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, that Chamath guy (who seems awesome) and many more. Robinhood and a couple other brokers actually turned off the ability to buy the stock. Literally. All the stocks that were heavy volume "meme stocks" they cut off. I was in GME and AMC, but even Blackberry, Nokia, and others were cut off too. Needless to say, after the whole week of manufactured panic from all of these different sources, this straw broke the camels back. GME at this moment is trading @ 225, and I sold mine when I opened my app and saw it at 155, which was the lowest dip of the day. I came out in the green, I came out making a $1,500 or so dollars. But my portfolio by the time I cut AMC losses went from $20,000 this morning, down to $5,000 as I type this. I have never wanted to kill myself more than I do right now, mostly because this week it felt like I really earned this. I stayed diamond hands (held through the media pressure) through this whole week, only to give up at the end. It will hurt even more if GME recovers from this dip, but It's not because other people are making money without me, its because I could've used that money to move out, get some food to eat, get a new car that doesn't leak through the roof in case I'm living in it here in a couple days. And more importantly, I earned that money. I noticed the momentum before it even touched 40 a share. I've watch DFV's (roaring kitty on YouTube) 5-6 hour livestreams where he was going over the financials and spreadsheets of GameStop back in fucking 2019. I believed in this play and threw the money I had at it, and it should have worked out at least better than it did, I was planning to exit or at least hedge my earnings tomorrow, when shorts have to cover. But when I stepped away to eat lunch and take a shower because of how stressful this morning this morning was, I came back, opened my phone, and I was $15,000 down. So yes, my diamond hands failed. I sold. And while I still had a gain, its not at all what it should rightfully be. I can't even bitch and moan in the Wallstreetbets subreddit because apparently me being a lurker for a year isn't enough because of all of the newbies in there from all of the media attention. So to finally wrap this up, I feel like I tried my best in this life. I haven't always been a good person, but not once have I thought to myself that I was evil. I'm too nice sometimes, and its gotten me fucked over, and I'd still go back and front friends weed or give them money/weed for free because I'm just not having fun unless people around me are too. Everyone's struggling in their own ways. I do not want to live on this earth any longer. I wrote this to at least explain to everyone what happened to me. And while I left out some very important parts in my life, this should give you a summary of what was going through my mind today. I really have been a good human being these last 2 years. Maybe I'm greedy for not selling earlier today. I was just so caught up in finally "sticking it to the man" and making the best play I've ever made I didn't want to feel like they would win by making us sell. I didn't even come out in the red, but goddamn it feels like I lost everything. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, just learn from my mistakes and take care of yourselves. You have to be stronger emotionally than I was. Move out of the U.S. if you can, its just greed and money that rule here. Maybe nowadays that's just everywhere. Thank you to anyone that for some reason read all of this. To my dead friends Tad, Pmoney, Cierra, Raegan, Tina, I miss you guys and you better have a blunt for me when I see you all soon, I could really fucking use one about now. Much Love, - Bleezy
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