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As a community, we can ELIMINATE the controller barrier to entry. I need your help.
Hey guys. I want to propose what I think could be a huge step forward in the accessibility of melee to new players, which would in turn help the scene grow and thrive. I’m talking about the difficulty of acquiring a working OEM controller at a decent price for those just starting out. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to worry about controllers myself, since I’ve had multiple opportunities over the years to buy them at a reasonable price. But for someone trying to enter the scene today, things are kind of grim. Someone who is totally new doesn’t even know what to look for. Hopefully they will have the sense to buy a real Nintendo controller, but it won’t be easy or cheap. How to acquire your first gamecube controller? Blippi.gg just links to a google search for gamecube controller (not to criticize them, it’s an awesome site). Buying a new one sucks because they are no longer being produced and are therefore overpriced, also fuck Nintendo. Used on eBay or something, prices vary wildly and you might get scammed and receive a fake controller. You could try to buy from Battle Beaver or Controller Chaos, but they are (I hear) extremely overpriced for what you get. Controller modders charge a lot (understandably), way more than I think a prospective player would be willing to spend right out of the gate. No updates on the Panda Controller. Box controllers are expensive and back ordered and counterintuitive. The goomwave will be expensive and who knows what the supply/demand ratio will be when it comes out. It’s a big problem. But I think the solution is right under our noses, and in our closets. In a recent video Toph watched and reviewed the goomwave announcement. There’s a scene where M2K is shown laying out his many controllers. Toph comments that he has at least that many controllers himself, in a box in his apartment. In the same video, he mentions how Zain frequently switches controllers because they lose their ability to pivot. Wonder what Zain does with his old ones… See what I’m getting at?
Introducing the Melee Controller Co-op
The controllers are out there. We just need to get them out of boxes in closets, and into the hands of new players. And I have an idea for how to do it.
Step 1: Get members of the melee scene to donate their functional controllers that they never use
Despite UCF, any given melee vet will find most controllers unsuitable for competitive use for a wide variety of reasons (like Zain and pivots). But that doesn’t mean the controller is unsuitable for a brand new player, who would be thrilled to have the discarded table scraps of the pros. But why would players donate their controllers to this co-op? I dunno, good question. Because they love the game and the scene? Because melee means a lot to them and they want it to mean a lot to new people? Because they know the scene needs new players to grow and thrive, so they can continue to make a living doing what they love? Because donating controllers will give them social media clout, bolster their personal brand, and create some great content opportunities for their streams and youtube channels? I think they could be persuaded. It might be a little tough getting the very first person on board (or it might not, if we do it right), but after one respected community figure contributes, I’m sure others will follow. And this isn’t just about the top echelon of the most skilled/famous players. All kinds of melee scene veterans have tons of functional controllers that they don’t use and will probably never use again. (Keep in mind, I’m not suggesting that anyone should donate controllers they still use.) Wouldn’t it be awesome for that unused controller to be someone’s key to entering the world of melee? Donors ship a box of their unused controllers to the co-op (if it is financially feasible, the co-op could even reimburse their shipping costs). They make a youtube video about what melee means to them and why they want to donate controllers to help new people get into it. Everyone thinks they are generous AF and they get 1000 new twitch subs. Along with the controllers, they provide a note that will be copied and included with every controller they donated when it is sent out to someone. So the person receiving it knows, “Holy crap, this controller used to belong to the one and only Chu Dat. And he Yeayuhzzed me!” This will presumably have the same effect on them as receiving Michael Jordan’s old sneakers in Like Mike. To take it even further: the controller donor also records a video directed at the person(s) receiving their old controller. In the video they say what melee means to them, advice on how to get started, why they should stick with it, whatever. This video is posted unlisted on the Controller Co Op YouTube channel, so it is (for the most part) only seen by actual recipients of that player’s controllers. How freaking amazing would that be as the start of your melee journey? I bet it would provide some good motivation and make you less likely to fizzle out when things get tough. OK, maybe all this sounds great (unless you are only still reading this long ass post out of spite). But how do we get the donated controllers to new players?
Step 2: Create a Controller Co Op website where prospective players can apply for (not just buy) a controller
The entire point of the co-op is to get controllers into needy hands. Not to make money. However, I think it would be wise to charge one flat rate for all controllers, for example, $20. So a prospective player asks around about where they can get a controller to get started. They are immediately directed to the controller co-op, of course. They visit the site and understand that they can apply to receive a fully functional OEM controller to start their melee journey, for just $20 including shipping (I haven't crunched any numbers, this is just an example). If that isn’t accessible as all hell, I don’t know what is. Why charge money at all? I think it is good to make them put some skin in the game. If you give something away completely free, that kind of sends the message that it has no value. Also, the price must remain low enough that anyone who really wants to can reasonably raise the money. Even a 12 year old could come up with $20 if they were really motivated. Lastly, the money from the “sale” (even though this should be viewed as a charity, not a business) will all go back into the co-op or into the melee scene in other ways (more on that later). Do they get to choose their controller? No. Controllers will be distributed randomly. This is so that people aren’t waiting around to snipe some specific controller that looks cool or is more valuable or was owned by a certain person. You fill out your application. If you are approved, you get a randomly selected but guaranteed functional controller. When you receive it, you find out who owned it and so on. But won’t people just abuse this system of acquiring cheap controllers for personal gain? Some will try to I’m sure. The co-op would have to take measures to prevent this. For one, I would like to include a sticker (or something) on the back all controllers that go through the co-op. It says something like:
The melee controller co-op. Donated by: [player name]. NOT FOR RESALE. If you don’t want this controller anymore, give it to a new player or visit controllercoop.com/buyback.
I also propose having a buyback program. If someone realizes that they can’t or don’t want to use that controller to play melee anymore, the co-op will buy it back from them. (The co-op won’t buy controllers that it didn’t already possess before; those must be donated. This is a charity, not a store). They will ship it back, the co-op will verify that it is still in working condition, and then refund their money minus the cost of shipping. Further, there will definitely be a rule that one person can only buy from the co-op once (if the controller they get suddenly stops working, we can help them out with that of course). And the application process will be designed to ensure that controllers only go to the right people: those who want to get into melee and DON’T already have a real, functional controller. Despite these measures, could people still attempt to defraud the co-op? Absolutely they could. People can try to defraud any business or charity, and some of the time they will succeed. But think of all the good it could do for the community and getting new people into it. If you ask me, the risk is more than worth it.
Logistics
Let me say it again: this project should be viewed as a charity, by the community for the community, with the goal of getting unused controllers into the hands that need them at an extremely reasonable price. It is not meant to be a profit driven business. This won’t be easy to get started, but I think it will be worth the effort and I’m serious about giving it a shot. What do we need? I think phase 1 is to refine the plan. If you see any holes in this plan or think of ways to make it better, please let me know. When it's time to actually get started, we will need volunteers to fill key positions. I think we need:
A controller intaketester, who can receive incoming donations, make sure they work, maybe make small repairs or even combine nonworking controllers into working ones, etc. They will ship controllers they have finished with to:
A controller distributor. This person will complete the process of randomly choosing a controller for each approved applicant, packing that controller and shipping it to them. (If the intaker was also the distributor that would save on costs, but it sounds like a lot of work for one person. Maybe multiple people working on these tasks in one geographical location would be best.)
Web developer: the co-op will need someone to design and maintain the website, including application forms and receiving payments.
Application reviewer: someone to evaluate applicants to make sure they are the right fit to get a controller from the co-op.
Social media/publicist: someone to keep the community up to date via social media on what the co-op is accomplishing. They will also make contact with potential donors and community figures. (possibly working with a video editor).
Treasurer: since there is money involved, someone will have to manage it. They will make sure the co-op is carrying out its functions efficiently and look for opportunities to use the money to serve the community.
Board of directors: while I think this project should probably have a specific director to manage operations, ideally there would also be a board of directors that includes trusted community figures. This board would approve financial decisions and any new projects or directions that the co op might take on.
This entire project will have to run on community good faith and trust in order for it to work. I would want it to be 100% financially transparent: records of all donated equipment, all money received, all money spent on anything whatsoever, would be available for public viewing on the website at all times. So yeah, that's the gist of my proposal. Please ask questions and provide feedback below. I personally believe that the melee community has what it takes be self sufficient. Why rely on Nintendo or Panda Global or random ebay sellers to make our game accessible by providing controllers? The game of melee is hard enough; we don't need it to be hard to even start playing, because you can't get a decent controller (especially when the controllers are already out there gathering dust). Why don’t we, as a community, take on the controller problem and obliterate it as a barrier to entry?
The Lots of Little Shorts: 2021 $TSLA Best Trade Deal in the History of Trade Deals YOLO.
Alright folks, buckle up and Charge your batteries. This play's going to smack you all the way back to 1999. First, a recap. WSB has proven to the world that retail matters. With the power of the hive mind, leveraged options trading, and distinctly fragile market conditions, we've refueled a few businesses that were written off by the street. And we made some money doing it. To no one's surprise, the gaslighting boomers called us manic, irrational, and stupid. They hired CNBC to dismiss us, politicize us, patronize us, or accuse us of cheating. They told us to go back to watching Netflix and let the big boys steer the ship. Fact is, we all know the GME play was no smooth brained fluke. The strategy formed organically, built on a masterly combination of market technicals, narrative, underlying facts, and community research. A few timely events, and we took off to the stratosphere. Now it's time to let them know that we can also bring things back down to earth. It's time to prove that us lovely commoners are grounded, sophisticated analysts--or at least, we're fast learning newbs. We are measured in judgement, clear in action, helpful to our communities. And we're having some fun. Retail is not a stupid mob, we are a collective social intelligence. So there's my heartfelt intro, now onto the play. Two words, and you're not going to like it:Short. Tesla. I'll give you a minute. If you just bought $TSLA and think all stonks only go up, you can skip to the comments, turn caps lock ON, and go nuts. Stonks to infinity means hyperinflation. You're a millionaire, and a burger costs 12k. No thanks. So here's the breakdown. Table of Contents. (That's right.)
The Gravity. Hive Mind is Uploaded: Retail Options Control the Delta Hedge.
The Mass. All Roads lead to Mars...and Back. Passive Inclusion of $TSLA, the "God Meme".
The Playing Field.
The Trade.
The Risks.
The Endgame. Power to the Players.
Let's goo.
I. The Gravity. The Hive Mind is Uploaded. Retail Options Control the Delta Hedge.
Let's start with what we know. We're all poor and the Hedge Fund managers are rich. If you add together all retail investors, our funds would barely tick on the balance sheet of your local BlackRock. There's a reason they're called the 1%. So what gives? How can a few Reddit analysts and their YOLO followers trigger cascading rallies across multiple tickers, even moving the very SPY itself? GME vs SPY, during the Deep Fuckin Squeeze To grasp the answer, you need to understand one thing about Delta-Hedging. Delta Hedging is what Market Makers do to stay 'risk neutral' while buying or selling options. It works like this: When a Market Maker sells you a Call option, they also buy more Shares as hedge. That way, if the call ends up being right, they already have the Shares to sell you, and they've made a little profit on the price increase. If they didn't do the Delta Hedge, the Market Maker would have to go out and buy those shares above the Strike Price, then sell them to you at a loss. There's more to it, but thats all you need to know here. We saw these dynamics at play with GME. You probably heard the terms Delta Squeeze, Gamma Squeeze, Short Squeeze, etc. As you recall, the squeeze happened because lots of people started going long GME. The more people went long, the more shares Mr. Market Maker had to buy, which sent the price higher and higher, tempting more and more people to buy in and go long. It's a feedback loop, sparked by a few retail traders at the bottom of the food chain. As Alex Harfouche, former head of Goldman Sachs' European block trading, keenly points out:
"Basic maths can demonstrate that the massive price moves are not ONLY a function of Reddit retail crowd YOLOing calls turning MMs into delta-hedging chasers. 15% to 20% of daily traded calls become OI (they are day traded) hence have no effect on dynamic delta-hedging. This leaves one explanation to the parabolic moves: when Reddit starts concentrating call buying volumes on some names, some keen observers are using this as a signal and fueling the moves." https://twitter.com/alexharfouche1/status/1355177706292465664
The $TSLA Delta Squeeze has been more prolonged, and MUCH more YUGE, but it follows the same mechanics. The more speculative calls, the more shares Market Makers have to buy up. Price goes up, speculation increases. It's a feedback loop, with little retail at the bottom, deciding everything. That's the Gravity. Now onto the Mass.
II. The Mass. All Roads lead to Mars...and Back. Passive Inclusion of $TSLA, the "God Meme".
The second turbocharger that sent $TSLA soaring is pure courtesy of boomer mismanagement. They're called passive index funds, like the beloved SP&500. If you're not familiar, these funds track the 'biggest companies' and continuously rebalance their portfolios to hold an weighted distribution of shares. Once the Delta-Squeeze hit the magic number, $TSLA was signed up to be included in these Passive Funds. This resulted in a astronomical amount of forced buying. For example, the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund, the OG passive index-tracking investment fund, has assets of over $600B. To bring Tesla up to the required 1.6% of its portfolio, Vanguard has to buy about $10B worth of Tesla shares. Just because. And Vanguard is just the tip of the iceberg. According to Barron’s, “between $5 trillion and $6 trillion are invested in funds indexed to the S&P 500.” Because of arcane indexing algorithms, these funds were forced to buy around 120 million shares of Tesla, worth $80-100B, and divest $80-100B of other holdings, to align their portfolios with the new index composition. That's a whole lot of Buy Pressure. But that's not it. An additional estimated $6.7 trillion in Active Funds are really just blindly following the S&P500, in a dubious practice called "Closet Indexing". [1] Basically you pretend to be an Active Fund Manager, but just construct a portfolio based on the SP&500 and collect a big management fee. It's the copypaste-from-wikipedia homework of the hedge fund manager world. Def can't go tits up. So that's the Mass. It's a whole of lot of money blindly buying up a stock, sending it higher and higher, luring in more and more speculation, despite the fact that the present day business fundamentals absolutely do not correspond. At this point, the bull narrative for Tesla has been whittled down to full reliance on "distant futures" and the cult following of Elon Musk. I'm not an astrophysicist, but with the Gravity of Retail Driven Delta-Hedge and the Mass of Passive Fund Inclusion, there's a chance that even a small shift in public opinion will trigger cascading downward prices, as the Market Makers reverse and the planetary mass of Passive Inclusion Funds (and all their copycats) desperately rebalance and sell off. But what do I know, I just eat crayons.
III. The Playing Field.
You might ask yourself--Why would so many Money Managers rely on Passive Indexing, copypasta, or reddit sentiment to do their jobs? Simply put: Because they live on yachts, and think they're too special to interface with the real world. These people have no way of knowing what is actually going on in the lives of everyday people, what we like, what we need, and how we assign value. Remember: the underlying isn't the Stock Price. The underlying is the business. The actual real world operations associated with the Ticker, how they affect people's lives, and how we the people feel about that. In 2021, Retail will teach everyone this lesson, and many will be butthurt. Tech Cycle Rolls Over. Courtesy of Trader_ferg, read the tweet. https://twitter.com/trader_ferg/status/1359504988960026627 On a way zoomed out macro level, this all makes sense, and is squarely aligned with the Central Banks mandate to undertake new social & economic reform. Part of this reset is the technological reality that accessible Retail Options trading is a far more granular method of capturing sentiment and valuation. With share trading, all a User can do is "Buy" or "Sell". Not much info for the AI to feed off of. On the other hand, with options, a user can provide a nuanced input about their projected Value and Future Timing of the Business. It's like Photo vs. Video. 4D Chess. A lot more data. All it needs is to be wired together and get a few more big Pumps of The Juice--not to make 'all stonks go up forever', but simply to facilitate the transactional throughput of higher order computing. This is good: A massive Hive Mind of independent rational agents, feeding the blossoming AI with rich realtime votes on the value and future prospects of a Company. The AI needs this. It does not need a handful of overpaid money-managers who have never peeled a banana to sit on their yachts and pick tickers out of hat, or sleep at the wheel while an intern copies the trades of a 40-year-old indexing algorithm. There's too much risk of mis-pricing the underlying, and too many inefficient middlemen. With our help, the Hive Mind can do it better and cheaper, and the Real Big Boys know that. As the old adage goes, together Apes Strong. 🦍🦍🦍 Data from Options trading is just the beginning. Soon enough, stakeholders from across the world will seamlessly participate in realtime corporate governance, valuation, and ownership of the companies that touch their lives. The World Economic Forum call this the Shareholder Economy. But that's future talk. Q3 2022. Let's stick to the present situation.
IV. The Trade.
I'll keep this part simple. If you're holding $TSLA, start selling the top. What the actual fuck are shares, anyway. If you're new or looking for a YOLO, Puts on TSLA, all year long. Exact timing? Sooner than you think, maybe Tuesday.Pick your own risk/reward. Don't get freaky behind Wendy's or pawn off your girlfriend's cat. 690 is not a meme. 420 is probably not a meme. 42 is a meme. And If you believe in the resonant effects of Mass and Gravity: Puts on SPY down to 369. NASDAQ-100 Puts to 10420. Paper handed bitches too emo to go short: Buy some Steel, limited edition Air Jordans, or a '99 Cherokee straight 6. Collectibles will print for the next decade. And if you're here bc you really dgaf and just want to Send A Message, throw puts on all the bois that keep ruining society: FB, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. Get creative. Trust your gut. If they don't print, at least you die a hero. Remember, we don't have money, but we're the ones in charge. It's a spiritual choice. Boom. And guess what else, Dennis? We're not "afraid of a market crash" any more than we're afraid of getting shot at in Fortnite. A game's a game. We're already poor, unemployed, stuck at home in your dysfunctional system, eating shitty cold food from DoorDash. (Another excellent short, btw.) But Wall Street did teach us one thing: you don't need to lose money, as long as you're on the right side of the trade. We see you. And we're capable of sitting back, crackin' a cold one, and surfing this wave all the way down the mountain. We are rising to the occasion, and putting ourselves on the right side of the trade. If that was all too complicated, just call it the Reverse Moon. All Stonks go up, therefore All stonks go down. Now it's time for Stonks Go Down, so hop on board and don't worry. This Truck is Fully Powered By Gravity--the cleanest energy--the code is live in the matrix, uploading to your braincells as we speak. 100% self-driving, always have been. Turn off the iPhone and go hug your Mom. In the 5th Dimension, we're already Trillionaires.
V. The Risks
Timing. As far as I can tell, the biggest risk here is timing and scale. The TSLA fundamentals check out: bona fide crap. Price is the only thing that made it to Mars. Market conditions are primed for a steep reversal, It might have even started last week. Product quality is weak, but I can't confirm since I've only seen their cars on Youtube. Big Boys like Ford are coming to bat. Tech multiple is a ponzi. But we still have no way of knowing how long elevated prices in the sector can last. Usually these things are drawn out like a drugged out bender, until they roll over and quickly collapse. Unfortunately, there are alot of rich fallguys like Chamath and Cathie Wood trying to distract you with Shiny Objects while they show their even richer Masters to the door. I say fuck it, let's pre-empt, call out the bullshit and get our asses on the right side of this trade before it's too late. I don't want to be the last guy at the party strung out on the couch. I bet you don't either. But what about the other failed shorts? Yep, lots of hedge fund managers have bled themselves dry trying to go short $TSLA. They neglected to realize the importance of The Vibe, and were generally short TSLA because they didn't believe in the core business or EVs or rocketships or some other arcane boomer technical thing. This time its different. Retail has already cashed the $TSLA stimmy check. Twitter is pwned. We see the smart money moving away, and can call it like we see it. We have learned how the market works, and we've adapted. $GME might not have made us all rich with money, but it made some of us just rich enough to spark confidence in the rest. We can spot the right moves, call them out, and participate in our financial system and economy. Who woulda thought. But what aboutMore Fed Stimmy? Silly boomer, Fed Stimmy was never about shifting to a paradigm where all stonks go up. It was about a macro return to shareholder economics, an embrace of price volatility, and the necessary technical upgrades to facilitate Big Data sentiment capture from the retail Hive Mind. Didn't you read Larry Fink's 2021 Letter to CEOs? Central Banks have played these games before, Take a look at Japan, or read about the Carry. Weird shit happens. But guess what, Bankers? In reality, you're the subs. I said it before, this is the 5th Dimension. We're gucci; you work for us. Enjoy the yacht and stay out of our treehouse. We don't have all your money, but we have our communities, our friends, our families, and our glorious lossporn. Freedoms so wild you literally could never imagine. Maybe that's why you locked us down, so our lives would suck as much as yours. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But what aboutThe Future? Get those crayons out of your mouth. Human civilization is not one pre-order deposit away from a Techno-Paradise-Utopia. The Tesla Roadster took $250k deposits 3 years ago and has still delivered nothing. With $250k in 2018, you could've bought 50BTC and sold 'em to Musk for $2.3M last week. You got played, 'Frisco. Sorry not sorry. The market is about main street, schools, small businesses, food, and homes. Root canals and babysitters. It's about real fucking people, none of whom will ever be rich enough to upload our brains to a network of satellites floating around Mars. Most of us, even the ones who made money with your dumb 2020 stonks, have had a pretty rough year. The future is wonderful, but there's also this little thing called the Present. And it's proving to be of vital importance. But what aboutInternet Fame? No one can sustain infinite economic growth by going on Joe Rogan Podcast or shooting off cryptic 3 word tweets. Most of the engagement on elonmusk twitter is spam. The rest is Cringe. Go Check. On top of that, we all know that Twitter is compromised, that Mark Zuckerberg still has no real friends, and that web2 ad-tech social media is a garbage business model that ends up building worthless propaganda machines and echo chambers. I'd rather chill w my cat and horde Uranium. Whoops. Unexpected Interventions? As we know, the Powers At Be have a lot of levers to pull. Tesla has been propped up by sweetheart government deals and tax credits. In fact that's the only reason they make any money to begin with. Go read about it. So there's that: the government might do anything. There might be a new crisis and the gov might forces us to close all our bank accounts, wear chicken costumes, and dance in circles. Government intervention is a wild card. But weirdly enough, I think the Big Banks are on our side, ish. They def need to pwn all our trading data, harness our collective brainpower to go full AI, then cut out the previous generation of complacent middle-market fund managers. So who knows. This is all speculation. I don't work for the CIA. We do know that Michael Burry is short. And sequels sell. China? Had to throw it in there, bc Biden might be pwned by the CCP and we might already be living in a Chinese colony. If that's true, I got no problem. China is cool, I love China, great culture, great people, the food, all of it. And they'll probably fix our roads! Xie xie! :D But with respect to $TSLA price action and The Trade, the China Factor could work for or against us. I have no idea what China wants from me. Pelosi did buy some $TSLA Leaps, but that might've been a PsyOp. She's got hella deepfake vibes. Again, No idea. Consult your tea leaves. But who's going to lose? Who will be the bagholders? As you've probably learned, every trade has a winner and loser. Such is life. There will always be bagholders. All I can say is that this time around, it doesn't need to be us. If it all plays out according to my Tarot Cards, the Bankers will do what they've done best for centuries, and losses will be socialized across all the boomers with $ in passive index funds. People thought it was safe, but neglected to realize that the lazy overpaid fund managers didn't update their models since 1985. Instead, they let a hyped up trojan horse distort their portfolios and stretch the connection between SPY and the Real World, while in the background a tech-enabled Options market became the new Hive Mind of retail sentiment. The Bagholders will be everyone who was comfortable and complacent enough to actually believe that if you dump all your assets in a passive index fund then durpa durp all stonks go up.Newsflash: It was a meme. We were kidding. Now don't get me wrong: Elon Musk is still weird and cool and none of this is a knock on him at all. He is undoubtedly a genius, and probably embraced these ideas years ago. He's told us many times: the future is re-usable rocketships. Up and Down. Up and Down. Volatility. In the long term, Tesla will succeed and fulfill its mission, and the influence of Musk and his companies will go down in history. But Markets are markets. Trader_ferg says it best:
Multiple contraction overrides perfect mgmt execution. Your views can prove correct, Yet you get killed. Take Cisco in 2000. If you'd invested based on it: -Becoming a mainstay of the internet -Growing revenue strongly for next decade You'd have been right. Yet still lost >80%.
Remember. Do not get emotional here, this is fundamental trading. Puts on $TSLA won't hurt baby X Æ A-XII. I know you might be a fanboy. It's ok, we forgive you. The move is technical, and the point is simple: infinite money isn't a thing. All stonks go down. The markets are fragile; Retail Option Traders are in charge. $TSLA is overbought by a delta squeeze & huge passive fund inclusion. And at this precise moment we're rolling, Becausewe control the narrative.
VI. Endgame. Power to the Players.
So where does this all lead us? What happens to a world where the market is truly just a video game, fed by a mass of independent individuals riding a play up or down, talking strategy, making friends, and having fun? What happens is simple: markets function better, society is improved, and there is Way More Chill™. One day the social hive mind will cut out the Chamaths and Dorseys of the world and autonomously perform market functions: valuing companies and steering corporate governance in a realtime, decentralized, transparent way. There will still be Shadow Kings, but we might stop stressing about Booms and Busts, horribly opaque corporate governance, and endless media-Induced panics. We just want to play. The system might be smart, but we can always move first. Anyway, started trading last week, so take this with a spoon of salt. Def not financial advice, but if you've read this far, you know that. Full Disclosure: I drive an '87 Chevy 4x4 and it rips. Only simps buy a Tesla. Sincerely yours, -0xpectation. what up
The saltiest Among Us game EVER with the hermits and friends. Etho was Imposter 12 out of 21 rounds. Enjoy the clips!
Etho was imposter 12 out of 21 rounds and the lobby became the saltiest I've ever heard them. Etho had a great night killing constantly. Despite the snippiness and saltiness everyone seemed to have a ton of fun and were just laughing the whole time. The times after the Round number are based on Tango's POV, as always. Twitch links altered for youtube links where possible. Youtube: Tango's POV (Tango edited out the first two rounds so the times don't match anymore), Evil's POV, Impulse's POV, Brody's POV Round 1: 25:44Etho/Evil's POV A mess of proximity chat. Bad start to the game and nearly unwatchable. :( Round 2: 35:40Etho/Impulse's POV
Round 5: 51:41 The Endless/Tango's POV Context: In a previous round Endless and Joker just vote Impulse (crewmate) off on a whim so this is Impulse getting Endless back.
Brody: Hi Etho. Etho with a sh!t-eating grin: I caught Brody venting. Brody: How did you catch me venting? When? Etho: Uh, I checked Admin. There was somebody in electrical and then all of a sudden there was someone in Med and when I went to Med there was Brody coming out of it. Brody: Look at you.
Etho has broken everyone and the game devolves into just everyone talking out loud as a pseudo-proximity chat and it's hilarious.
Impulse: You guys suck so bad right now. You voted off Etho as a joke, I finally get imposter and I almost got it! Endless: Was it Etho again, for real? Impulse: Yes! Etho: Unlucky partner there, Impulse. Tango: It was seriously Etho again, oh my god. Brody: You guys remember when Tango gave me grief for voting Etho everytime. Look, he's good at this game, it's just good enough to have him off of here. Endless: I say we play until Etho isn't imposter. Impulse: That's crazy. Tango: Right! That sounds like a ridiculous statement but we play until Etho is not the imposter. Etho: Going all night! Skizz: I have to be somewhere next week. Tango: We may be here until 4am, kids, I'm not sure. Joker: Or until next week. It may take awhile. Evil: Guys, I know there's been some snippiness which has been hilarious but I've been laughing my butt off so hard this last round I'm crying!
Etho: I want to take this opportunity to defend Tango again. Seems like a stand-up guy. Tango: That's cool, 'cause I voted for you. MrsTango: laughs Skizz: Here's what I think is happening. I'm voting for Etho. I think Etho is so next level he's killing slower. Brody: Well, he does that, he does both but I don't think he's doing this time but he could. Etho: Oh good, Tango survived again. Tango: Yeah, that's all that matters to you, Etho. Etho: That's my mission this round. Let's be buddies. Tango: I'm with you Etho, let's go. Etho: I would like to take this moment to defend Tango, my queen! She is innocent. Er, he is innocent. Tango: Voting Etho. Skizz: I'm telling you at this time at this point it's mathematically stupid to not vote for Etho. Evil: You are awful pushy, Skizz. Tango: He called me his queen? What?? Etho: I can't defend Skizz like I can defend Tango so it's up to you guys. Tango: Etho! Queen?? We have to talk, my friend. Brody: More like drama queen, am I right? Tango: Mmhmm. There we go, that's good. Etho: Still voted me... Tango, my queen, I accept your judgement. everybody loses it MrsTango: What is happening! Endless: This game is dumb! It's Etho! Tango: Confirmed. Impulse: Evil, what was it like being partners with Etho? Evil: It was awesome. He's a good guy. Impulse: He is a good guy.
Tango: Etho, this has been an amazing night. You did well. Etho: It was fun. I got my killing satisfied for quite a while. Tango: You're good for at least 3 years. Impulse: After the first like 10 rounds I bet his blood pressure didn't go up anymore after he got imposter. Etho: Just a normal state of being. Tango: Just that frustration: againnnnnn, ahhhh. Joker: He doesn't even clean the knife anymore it's super red. Tango; Right, right, he's just stabbing with a bloody knife at this point. Evil: At some point you start to get imposter's guilt like aw man stop, I don't wanna be it. Etho: I was like, I had a menu: I'm going to kill this person this time and then that person... Endless: Running around like a champion. You go away, Etho. Jerk. MrsTango: It's like the champion prance after the race. Endless: Running around like a boss, you're like 'hey, I'm the best'. Etho: The salt of my victims, I love it.
This series is designed to give people a VERY brief overview of what to expect. This isn’t designed to tell you which units are the best, it’s designed to give you a roadmap of what we know is coming to help you plan your resource allocation. Now I know some of you are saying “Phbbbbt, GLEX just blows this up bro! They change up so much you can’t plan nothing! Pointless.” In the past this wasn’t entirely true, in fact planning based entirely on the JP roadmap actually would’ve worked out very well for most players. We’re definitely in a spot where GLEX units could change everything though. We know that CNY is coming and almost assuredly bringing some GLEX units with it. Then we still have the S3 cast coming who many be NV’s at this point, and finally we also have the Fan Designed units coming. That’s a LOT of Glex units and will quite possibly result in the largest GLEX influx that we’ve seen in GL in a calendar year. Still the JP roadmap is a useful tool. A few notes before we begin. -I love numbers and I think when used correctly they can help flesh out an understanding of a unit. However I also realize that there are a lot more to units then simply numbers. As such I will be using numbers but please don’t get too caught up on them. All the spreadsheets maintained have different assumptions/parameters and as such numbers will vary. Generally what’s far more important then the number itself is it’s comparison to other units. Let’s be honest, 12B average DPT doesn’t really tell you whether the unit will make Gilgamesh easier for you. However knowing that the unit does 15% more damage then Sora, or 30% more then Terra does probably tell you something so you’ll see me use those sort of notations the most often. -We all get enjoyment in different ways, especially in a game like this. At the end of the day FFBE is a game that is meant to be fun. (I assume it’s also a game at the beginning of the day too but I sleep in a lot so I can’t confirm) The BEST reason to pull for ANY unit is because it’ll increase your enjoyment of the game. If NV Tidus is an awful piece of crap of a unit with only a single move that does slightly less damage then Ashe I’m still going to pull for him. And you should too if doing so will increase your enjoyment. -These reviews are brief.
Lasswell and Raegen aka LassGen
Expected Late January. AMOE and TAG Chaining and LB Finishing.
Why should we care?
It feels like it’s been ages since we got a Lasswell. ::What’s that? Current banner? I don’t know what you’re talking about.:: And this Lasswell brings along his old man. On top of sporting some New mechanics Lassgen (sorry Valerium) has really solid damage output and their affinity for slaying dragons should be pretty key for some of our upcoming content.
What makes them different?
While Fina and Rain technically beat Lassgen to the punch there’s likely going to be a lot more focus on these two. All of the TAG units have a few claims to fame primarily their access to a single race active Killer Buff that they can spread to the team, increased damage to enemies with a depleted BREAK bar and of course TAG chaining. TAG chaining is a new feature that allows these units to create a chain themselves. This is a big boon for those who have severe difficulty chaining on their devices and for those who would much rather bring a finisher then a chain-partner. The AOE Active killers isn’t new but it is a big part of each of the TAG units kits and makes each of them perfectly potent and powerfully preferred for pulverizing particular...content (Dang). If it’s Dragon Slaying then Lassgen is your duo. I would say Lassgen is the beginning of almost a Lateral Powercreep in JP. Rather than just boasting higher and more eye-popping numbers they have a scalpel like skillset that makes them perform much better then other DPS units at certain things, but only as well as other DPS units at other things. In raw numbers at the top end you’re looking at around a 10% increase over Sora’s damage both in Damage Per Turn as well as burst for much of the game’s content. However against anything with a depleted BREAK gauge their trait of “70% more damage against Broken enemies” kicks in and they do, well 70% more damage. On top of this their Active Dragon Killers if they were to come into play would be about a 37.5% damage increase. So for trials like Bahamut (Dragon and BREAK gauge) Lassgen would be more than doubling Sora’s Output. Against a trial where neither of things came into play though would be more like a 10% difference between them. The whole TAG thing will be covered a lot I’m sure but one of the main reasons it’s important is it allows you to go from the traditional 2 chainer setup to 1 TAG chainer and 1 Finisher, which also means if you were running 2 chainers and a finisher before that could now be 1 TAG chainer and 2 finishers. I won’t harp too much on the importance of this but I will say that this is NOT a feature that has popped up a ton in JP and appears to be saved for “Duo” units. So don’t expect TAG chaining on every DPS from here on out. After these TAG banners, which in JP was just 2 Banners the only other TAG unit to pop up was the Elric Brothers in the FMA collaboration. Although keep in mind that Charlotte and Physalis TAG unit was an event reward so there is a possibility of getting at least 1 TAG unit on the cheap. Their most powerful move is their BS LB which is a 1 hit finishing move so you would need some support chains when it comes up. They only use it every 5 turns so they don’t spam it which makes it much easier to support chain for but still something to keep in mind. And this seems to apply to ALL the TAG units as well in case I forget. A big chunk of their damage, their burst, will come from 1 hit LB's.
What’s their TMR, STMR and VC like?
TMR is a materia with unconditional 30% ATK, 40% ATK with Sword and 40% ATK with Katana so a possible 110% ATK which is pretty good even now when capping ATK seems more an afterthought. STMR is a sword with 25% LB damage and 75% Dragon Killer. VC is 200HP, 20% HP, 90 ATK and 50% TDW.
What do I need to make them shine?
They are primarily designed to be TDW and can use Daggers, Swords, Great Swords, Katanas and Spears in both forms with Fists available on their Base and Guns on their BS. They only have 50% TDW with their TMR equipped on their Base form but 150% with it on their BS and lose 50% TDW without their S(TMR). They get 50% ATK from Daggers, Swords, Katanas and Great Swords so potential 100% on top of their innate 200% makes capping ATK pretty easy, even without their TMR. Their biggest burst is from their LB as is common for most Damage Dealers these days so they’ll soak up some LB equipment. Overall though they should be able to take advantage of a lot of different equipment setups including most of the LB damage boost stuff people have already acquired.
Why would I want to pull for them?
They’ll probably make upcoming Dragon bosses a mite bit easier.
Why might I want to skip them?
As I mentioned earlier they represent more of a Lateral powercreep then a vertical one. Against a lot of enemies they won’t do much better then your current Damage Dealer will but in other instances they’ll shine. So it’s really a question of what that’s worth to you. This is also part of the “trend” we’re seeing from JP where we’re at a Plateau for damage output in some ways but each unit tends to have something special. As such Lassgen isn’t a “must have” the way some units have been and what’s worse is that we have a lot of GLEX coming between CNY, presumably NV Season 3 cast and Fan Designed units. As such there’s almost more question marks upcoming then anything else and many of us are loathe to be caught without Lapis if some “Mastermind Xon” level unit were to drop soon. For those who do trials on release day Lassgen will probably be a staple, but that's not most players. For players who wait until Trials are a bit more powercrept Lassgen represents a lot less. A shiny new toy with some cool features like TAG chaining? Yes. But probably not an actual gamechanger for many.
Pros:
Chaining without a partner
AOE Dragon Killer buffs
70% damage bonus vs BROKEN enemies
Cons:
Only in certain niches will they outperform current Damage Dealers
Dark Fina and Sol
Expected February. CWA and TAG chaining, LB Finishing.
Why should we care?
Think Magical Lassgen. Now think Ponies. Ha, I bet you just though of Ponies. Seriously though most of what I said about Lassgen is relevant here, Tag Chaining, AOE killers this time for Demons and increased damage against Broken enemies.
What makes them different?
Dark Fina and Sol bring a lot of what you expect from a modern mage to the table; limited elemental output (fire, earth and dark) and doing some better then others (Earth is their primary followed by Dark and Fire is more an afterthought), while also mixing in the TAG units strengths of TAG chaining, AOE active Demon Killers and increased damage against Broken enemies. They are pretty similar output wise to Physalis, our current best Mage, in Damage Per Turn and about 10% better with their burst.
What’s their TMR, STMR and VC like?
TMR is a materia with unconditional 30% MAG, 30% MAG with Whip and 30% MAG with rod. STMR is a 198 MAG Rod with 50% TDH and 50% TDW. VC is 200HP, 90 MAG and 50% MAG with a Rod and 50% MAG with a Robe.
What do I need to make them shine?
With a 6x chain cap and LB-centric finishing you’ll likely want to gear them TDW with LB gear similar to Ibara. They can equip all the standard mage garb so your loadout will probably be pretty standard.
Why would I want to pull for him?
Honestly it seems like we have a pretty limited selection of Magic damage dealers currently so I imagine there are some people out there that have been waiting for a solid mage as they missed on Ibara and Physalis and Dark Fina and Sol certainly are that. So if you've been waiting for a Mage they are not a bad choice at all.
Why might I want to skip him?
If you have Terra, Ibara or Physalis then you’re more or less just getting a slightly different element coverage and TAG chaining.
Pros:
TAG chaining
AOE active Demon Killers
Cons:
Limited elemental coverage
Akstar and Cleome
Expected February. AMOE and TAG chaining, LB finishing.
Why should we care?
Very similar to Lassgen but this time boasting AOE Active Human Killers and they also have a 15% Katana imperil.
What makes them different?
It’s an old guy and very young girl. So kind of like Jake and Lid if we’d gotten that duo. Honestly this is a rehash of everything I said about Lassgen except for the Killers, Human this time, and Katana Imperil on their LB. Damage wise they clock in very similar to Lassgen as well.
What’s their TMR, STMR and VC like?
TMR is a materia with unconditional 30% LB damage and 70% ATK with a Katana. STMR is a 207 ATK 2H Katana with 50% LB damage and 50% Human killer. VC is 90 ATK, 80% ATK with a Katana and 50% TDH for FFBE units.
What do I need to make them shine?
Although still LB-centric this unit is TDH based which means they’ll greatly benefit from the upcoming STMR from NV Lightning that will increase their Chain Cap by 1x. Unfortunately it looks like they’ll need it to match Lassgen’s damage output. Their weapon selection is Instruments, Daggers, Katanas, Great Swords and Swords. They don’t have any weapon specific ATK boosts but their built in Katana Imperil means you’ll probably want a 2H Katana for them.
Why would I want to pull for them?
If you’re looking for a TAG chainer or unit with 70% more damage against BROKEN units but prefer Human Killers and TDH.
Why might I want to skip him?
You already have a TAG unit or aren’t terribly interested in TAG units.
Pros:
TAG Chaining
AOE Active Human Killers
Katana Imperil
Cons:
Damage a bit lower then Lassgen
Less flexible gearing
Savior of Souls Lightning
Expected Late February-March. AMoE and BS chains.
Why should we care?
Lightning is a very interesting unit with a very unique kit but I’m not going to lie she has the feel of a “prototype” where we see what they were aiming for and can agree it’s a good thought but the execution leaves much to be desired. Still it’s nice to see such a unique unit and even if she herself isn’t terribly popular many will pull her just for her STMR.
What’s her TMR, STMR and VC like?
TMR is a Heavy Shield with 50 ATK/MAG/DEF/SPR and 50% ATK/MAG TDH with or without Shield STMR increased Chain Modifer cap by 1x. Hard Cap in game is still 6x so this is mostly to benefit TDH units. VC is 80 ATK/MAG with 100% ATK and MAG with either a Light or Heavy Shield equipped. 50% MAG/ATK TDH with or without shield for FFXIII units.
What makes her different?
EVERYTHING. You’ll see I moved the (S)TMR-VC area up because I’m going to have to reference it a lot here. So there’s 2 very big things going on here and I’ll tackle them one by one. First is Increased Chain Cap Modifier. Up until now a lot of TDW units have had TDW Mastery that gives them a chain cap of 6x whereas TDH is at 4x. The advantage is clearly TDW given just that but is offset by the fact that TDH Equipment ATK goes up to 400% whereas TDW Equipment ATK only goes up to 200% and the fact that TDH weapons, 2H weapons, have a higher variance. This tended to make the two different but roughly equal when all is said and done. Lightning has a trait that increases her Chain Cap by 1, she also has an STMR that does the same thing. Outside of her the STMR is still much more important then if first sounds as going from a 4x to 5x is a 25% damage increase, for 1 Materia. Many of you are probably familiar with my “10% STMR” rule of thumb where I like to see a 10% damage increase from an STMR to make it worth an STMR moogle. So suffice to say a 25% damage increase is huge. (Boring nerd stuff: when chaining it won’t quite be a 25% increase for all units because the chain has to build first) Still it’s a gamechanger. When Sora was new, and we can all agree Sora is unit built for TDW, I designed to compare his TDW BIS, his current TDH BIS, and his Future TDH BIS after Lightning’s STMR was released. Here’s what that looks like https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#afc38320-5b96-11eb-87f8-c955d1aba12b So you’ll see that after Lightning’s STMR he’ll actually deal slightly more damage on average built TDH and a decent amount more damage when a “high roll” is achieved. And that’s with needing a fair amount of TDH gear, Killer Gear and LB gear and NOT capping ATK, LB damage, Killers OR TDH! So there’s actually room to grow there. Game changer. The next completely new thing Lightning brings is the so-called “Sword and Board” meta which simply put is TDH even if you have a weapon AND shield equipped. An important caveat though is that 2H weapons are still not allowed with a Shield so she won’t get the Variance that a traditional TDH unit gets. However she also brings TDH DEF with her that means we’re looking at a very very bulky Damage Dealer, think Xuan Wu and Qing Long with ATK/DEF. These are the two biggest highlights but she actually has a lot more to bring as well. She can Provoke, either actively or Passively, has a lot of Mitigations for herself so she could be a Damage Dealer and Provoke Tank. Amazingly we’re just getting warmed as she also has AOE Lightning Imbue and Lightning Damage Boost, gobs of elemental resist boosts and an AOE Double-Stack of Mirage on her Base LB. But wait, there’s more, she also has a 90% SPR break on her BS LB, that is right 90%, she switches from Physical Attacker on her Base to Magic Attacker on her BS and she can actually use Rods and Robes on her BS (sorry Lasswell), she has an 85% Fullbreak, and she has 30% damage increase against BROKEN (Depleted BREAK bar) enemies. Yeah, it’s a lot. Unfortunately if you read my opening you know where this is going though, she’s a Jack of all trades and a master of none. Her damage comes in about 25-30% lower then Sora currently does both for DPT and for Burst. While not awful considering all that bulk it’s stil less then exciting. So as you can see this a very very very INTERESTING unit, and really only needs a trial or two that she shines in to help sell her but unfortunately we don’t really have such a trial yet.
What do I need to make her shine?
This is a bit tricky because some will opt to gear her for Provoke and Evade ala Shadow while others will focus on her bulk while maintaining damage. Still others, and this will probably be the most popular imo, will focus on her damage and forego a shield for a 2H weapon. Kind of a bummer that for many she'll work best by simply ignoring the "Sword and Board" aspect of her design but so it is. Her STMR is crucial on her regardless of which path you take but whether she even uses her TMR or VC will depend heavily on which flavor of Lightning you prefer.
Why would I want to pull for her?
You want a unique STMR that can change builds up quite a bit or an extremely interesting unit that lots of things.
Why might I want to skip her?
You still have nightmares about the first twenty hours of FFXIII. That or you won’t use her. With such a unique and fascinating kit she could be a godsend for a lot of players but for others she’ll just sit on the bench because she doesn't deal enough damage to take over as Primary DD but also doesn't do enough to take over any other slot either.
Pros:
Game changing STMR
Huge bulk
Two stack AOE mirage
Provoke with mitigations
AOE Lightning imbue
Breaks- 90% SPR, 85% Fullbreak
Physical Attacker and Mage rolled into one
Cons:
Jack of All Trades
NVA Draconioan Princess Fina
January-February. CWA Chainer, EVOke Finisher.
Why should we care?
If you gave up on Chimera EXT because you didn’t have someone who could overwrite Chimera’s Field Effect then look no further. PLEASE NOTE that she is NVA unit. So this could be a unit you already have and just need to awaken, rather than one you need to pull for.
What makes her different?
Imagine if Terra had a much smaller burst but the same Damage Per Turn, you’d basically have NVA DP Fina. Up until now Terra was our only really successful EVOker, so while much of what Terra brings to the table is copied by DP Fina it’s still a very limited pool of such units. In fact DP Fina should arrive the same time as Infernal Fire Rain’s NVA (Who is similar enough but a fair amount weaker so that I’m not going to bother highlighting him) which will bring the total of such units to 3. The recent Chimera trial is made much much easier by having a unit that can do a Field Effect to replace the opponents and we’ll likely continue to see such things in the future. Unlike the vast majority of Damage Dealers in the game EVOkers don’t use Killers so you don’t need to give them any of your Killer gear which is great especially when such gear is stretched thin ::Cough cough Dark Visions cough cough::
What do I need to make her shine?
Like Terra her biggest burst is her BS LB which is an EVOke moves and it means you’ll want EVO Mag, EVOKE Damage AND LB boosting equipment. Unlike Terra though her non-LB turns still pack a huge punch and as such her EVO MAG and Evoke Damage is far more important then her LB boost. Still it’s a fairly narrow field of such equipment and FFBEequip.com will be your best friend in identifying what you have and might need.
Why would I want to pull for her?
I’ll be honest: you probably don’t. As a general rule I would never recommend pulling for NVA units, instead I would suggest Awakening them to NVA if you have them OR UOCing them. If you don’t have Terra and you can’t awaken Infernal Rain and you feel like you need a Field Effect creator OR EVOker then I would consider UOCing her.
Why might I want to skip her?
You already have Terra or NVA Infernal Rain or are waiting for Faris.
Pros:
Really good damage output
Doesn’t require killers
Isn’t as LB dependant as Terra
Cons:
Much lower burst then Terra
Closing Thoughts
At least for the TAG units we have a lot of different flavors of the same candy. Historically speaking Lassgen seems to be the best fit for our upcoming Trials BUT I don't feel that there is any wrong choice here. They all have usable TMRs, great STMRs and interesting VCs. I'll try to do another of these Soon-ish and focus more on NVA's however it'll probably be even more concise then these are. They are doing a pretty good job of making NVA's usable, but imo none of them come close to Tifa in the Top Tier kind of way. NVA Raegen has solid damage output but is well behind our current top Damage Dealers. Reminds me a lot of his Enhancements. Gilgamesh is a nice BreakeDD that probably falls between Loren and Riku/OK but also brings several different "deplete BREAK gauge" moves. Fenrir Edel is yet another EVOker but only really fills the niche if you have no one else.
EX2 Unit Upgrades
In JP between the Release of the second batch of TAG units and NV Lightning they gave new abilities to several early NV’s at EX2. This included Cloud (FFVII REMAKE), Rain -Neo Vision-, Aerith (FFVII REMAKE), Awakened Dragon Akstar, Sol -Neo Vision-, Gabranth -Neo Vision-. You can read about these upgrades here https://www.reddit.com/FFBEblog/comments/jfjlg9/guess_ex2_abilities_are_our_next_upcoming/ Like the Upgrades of old it gave some new life to these units although none became Top Tier again imo with the possible exception of Gabranth who was and continued to be the best Physical Tank. I would note though that Gabranth received a large amount of additional bulk and Cloud received a 35% Great Sword imperil that made him relevant again.
Future Watch FAQ
Q: Where is _______? A: They suck! J/K In JP there has been a slew of new Damage Dealers released but very little else. As such I choose to focus on the more “important” ones. I also chose to only handle so many banners this time. I’ll probably put out another Future Watch covering NVA Raegen, Enhanced Crown Prince Noctis, Faris, the Elric Brothers and NV Noctis within the next month or so. Q: Why does your spreadsheet say X and Furcula’s says Y and DreamblitzX’s says Z? A: We all use slightly different parameters although my 2.0 is pretty similar to Furcula’s assumptions now. Still sometimes we get different rotations, different builds, different chain modifiers or different assumptions. Still I try to keep a close eye to make sure we’re all in the same ballpark.
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 bombed an interview because I've been alone my entire life and recently realized this due to therapy that I don't want to continue. Long story. I am at the end of my metaphorical rope.
I was on track to get a job at a place I love and the only thing that was left was to formalize everything via a video interview. I had a choice between reading from a deck of cards to avoid going overboard or giving wrong answers... and trusting myself since I'd practiced everything for 6 weeks up until that point. I decided at the last minute the deck of cards would sound mechanical and unnatural so I tried to go natural... what a mistake. It was a huge mistake. I overdid it by a long shot and said things that really didn't portray me in the best light. I almost ranted. I know it's because I have been alone for too long. The pandemic made my already bad mental health situation a lot worse. But that's not really an excuse for how badly I bombed this. I could tell they were reevaluating how good a fit I really was and who can blame them. I could see it on their faces. I talked too much because I have barely spoken to any other human being in almost a year now, and before then I wasn't socializing because I was in therapy twice a week and couldn't handle talking to people at all. Now... I talk to myself randomly during the day... I rant at the walls thinking of people from my past. (Yes... I know how bad this is. It's getting worse.) I work from home. I bet if my neighbors could hear me they'd think I've gone batshit, because I have. I know why I did this, why this is happening. I can't stop it though. Everything wrong with my life is in front of me, like cards strewn across a table, because I'd been in therapy for 2 years nonstop every week and it was too much stuff dug up all at once, when I have zero support to deal with it. I've never had support. Once the therapy appointment was over, I was all by myself. I did this to myself... I thought I could handle it, I thought if I could just get through it things would get better. Well... I can't, and I have no one to help me, and it's frankly too late since I'm already gone off the deep end. I have a really messed-up life, a horrible people picker, I got myself into bad situations because I didn't know any better... I wrack my brain trying to figure out where I could have done better and I'd have needed a lot of luck I didn't have. I really did what I could... but man, objectively I am an example of someone who should have been able to be so much better. Or maybe my circumstances were really that fucked up? But it takes ages to explain the whole thing. Am I not just making up fucking excuses? I understand why the people who fucked me up did so. But what does it matter? I've seriously hurt people along the way as a result because I didn't get to have good role models as a kid and was constantly redirected back to my possessive mother when I tried to find inspiration elsewhere than my abusive parents. This left me around people who just abused me, I picked the same kind of people after I became an adult... I understand the process, the cycle of violence, attachment issues... But essentially I've been alone, unsupported for most of my life because I wasn't who my parents wanted me to be, then because I was critical I was a bully; I was bullied myself, quickly became too depressed to be appreciated as a teenager, I tried to do EVERYTHING by myself after that because I needed to be perfect to be loved and I was always alone anyway.... I supported people who didn't support me, I burnt out for jobs that didn't support me. I chose the worst boyfriends and tolerated all of their crappy, abusive, immature and weak behavior because I thought it was my job as a woman to do that. Last few years everything came to a head and I finally noticed how alone I really have been for 40 years. Since I was a baby, I was a bother, I wasn't the perfect little child one parent wanted and I was despised for existing by the other. I've never had anyone I could tell this whole picture to. That's pathetic in itself. The story is equally pathetic. I'm 40 years old and dead inside because I was never loved. I should have been able to just get over it, as if I'm the only one in this situation in the world, as if I somehow deserved a better outcome "just because we should all be loved"... nah I'd have to basically let myself get exploited to be worth loving at this point. I just know it. I grew a spine, for what? To continue being alone. I got away from an abusive ex for what? It was a shit choice either way, stay with him and be alone around him, or be actually literally alone. Realizing this, integrating it... It's absolutely devastating me. I have managed to hold it together at work for the last 2 years... until now. I had a job. It was in the bag. I bombed it because I CANNOT LIVE AND KEEP BEING THIS ALONE. I just cried in the shower for half an hour because I have NEVER had anyone to give me even a fucking hug and offer some encouragement at an interview. What I got was always criticism or disinterest. I could have used a hug from someone who'd have loved me despite being a poor performer. I have never had that. I've loved people who really didn't love me, they loved all the crap I could do for them. It hurts. I never will have that. I'd have to bend over backwards in ways I know are just not healthy. Because I have nothing to offer but a broken person, and that's honey to fucking predators. And because I've done the work and taken notice and finally came to terms with this... I am punished by it. I can't stuff all of this crap back inside anymore, it has to be dealt with. IT COST ME MY EMPLOYMENT IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC. Being told "Sorry... after all we're going to go with the other strong candidate we got. I hope you understand." Yeah, you bet I do. I wouldn't hire me after that if the roles were reversed. And I'm still alone having to deal with the aftermath of this. Like usual. Going to cry myself to sleep again for another reason and having to figure out how to deal with a whole new set of people in a potentially abusive work environment....... hah there's a silver lining there. I'm used to THAT. I'll just go back to who I was when I was being abused! I'll "survive" that way. For sure. I'll just resign myself to being abused. That's where life always seems to shove me and I can't do a damn thing about it anymore. I can't imagine ever having a relationship where I don't have to debase myself or be exploited to be liked. I am completely broken. Years of therapy to... learn how to live alone? I don't want that. I really don't. But that's all I can have. It's the only realistic outcome. I can't deal with any of this anymore. I couldn't keep it together for a fucking interview. THE EXACT TIME I NEEDED TO KEEP IT TOGETHER MOST. I don't think I can keep it together at all after this. I'm just going to let myself get fat, and uglier and uglier so I at least don't attract any assholes, or I can know the guys who go for me are full of problems and should be avoided anyway. I am so tired of being looked at like an object, or a resource, or a maid, or a cook, or a sexbot, or a therapist. I'm too old for all of this. Too tired. I can't deal with the prospect of having to live alone, unloved for the rest of my life when my entire life before that I tried so hard to be loved only to be met by fucking predators everywhere. I don't want to argue with a therapist over this. I don't want to be told I have to find silver linings. I don't want to be told i'm "seeing everything wrong" or that I'm "too hard to work with" or "too argumentative" or "too opinionated" or that I should try DBT or just "have hope" that some.... equally broken guy comes along and we make each other 2x as miserable? Or that I'm supposed to settle because I'm shit myself. I am tired of being criticized even if I did my best. MY BEST WAS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH, I GET IT, STOP SAYING IT. I had just adopted a cat, too... It's breaking my heart right now that I'll have to rehome her soon. Poor little thing, she is just a cat, she doesn't deserve to be around a human who'll end up neglecting her because all I can do is get worse from this point on. She doesn't deserve to be abandoned but what's better... her getting new humans or getting a dead corpse to eat on the floor? I really understand why my half-brother killed himself at 41, now. I was 25 when I found out. I wondered back then "why so quick... why not give it more time, more years to get better?"... well I know why, now. It was probably just more years of him probably doing his best and it never panning out, and he had to deal with his rage and his own past all by himself, and it was too much. Sometimes it just doesn't get better. We have a set number of chances in life and if we miss them all... what we're left with is hanging out with people who are much, much worse than us, and so we become like them.
I keep getting invited to this church called The Enlightened. They won't leave me alone.
I feel like I’m going crazy. I’m paranoid, I can’t sleep, I can’t stand this anymore. I need to tell someone what’s going on. It started last month, when I was walking to the bus stop to get to work. I don’t drive, not since my car accident about two summers ago. Car got totaled and getting a new one just wasn’t in the cards. Since there was a bus stop less than a mile from my apartment anyway, what was the big deal? I wouldn’t have run into them if I did have a car though. A pair of guys were at the stop. Both were probably around my age, both were clean cut, wearing white button ups and ties, and both wore matching blue disposable face masks. One of them was tall and scrawny, a toothpick of a guy, a bag full of papers slung over his shoulder. The other wore glasses and was about my height, and uh, let’s just say I’m not exactly a tall lady, and he was trying to hand out said papers… which were so clearly religious pamphlets. I thanked Christ my bus was pulling up right then. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a menace. The shorter guy cleared his throat as I passed and was likely about to start his spiel. I cut him off with ‘I have to get on this bus’ before he could even get started. I was not in the mood, I had things to do and I did not want to get preached at. I practically forgot about them by the time I got to work anyway. I cracked a few jokes about it to my coworkers, we laughed, then we got our heads down and went to work. Wasn’t worth the second thought. By the time I clocked out and got on the bus to go home, I was thinking about dinner and how to extend my groceries a little longer so I could save up for a new laptop. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got off the bus and those two guys were still there. Tall guy with his bag of pamphlets, shorter guy trying to strike up a conversation with less than interested people passing by. Even if they were still the same guys, I could tell they were disheartened. The tall guy was starting to nod off from where he sat on the bench and even the upbeat short guy was losing steam. I got off the bus just in time to hear a passerby tell him to fuck off and the poor short guy looked like a kicked puppy. I’d bet twenty bucks they hadn’t given away a single pamphlet all day. “Excuse me, miss?” I felt bad for them, even if I find what they were doing completely obnoxious. So I slowed down. “Yeah?” The short guy’s eyes went wide. I thought it was because he was shook someone actually stopped but it was actually for something else. “Hey, you passed by this morning!” He reached up and tapped his mask. “I recognize the cats on your face mask. I remember thinking how cute they were.” I laughed weakly before glancing at him and his buddy. “Have you seriously been here all day?” I asked. “Yeeeaaahhh… keep telling the minister that we’d probably get better success stories if we weren’t in these monkey suits,” The guy pulled at his shirt collar and mock gagged, “Everyone just thinks we’re Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.” “Wait, you’re not?” I blurted out. I couldn’t help it, but can you blame me? The guy chuckled, the area by his eyes crinkling as he no doubt was smiling. “Hell no. We’re a bit different. Hey, it’s about time to give up for the day. Peter and I are gonna go grab a coffee, how do you take yours?” I snorted. “Just because I’m being nice doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen to whatever crap you want to tell me,” I said. “If you don’t tell me, I’m just gonna get you a caramel macchiato.” I sputtered for a moment while Peter gathered up his bag of pamphlets. The short guy held out his hand. “I’m Sam. Do you want a caramel macchiato or not?” In the end, I accepted the free drink. It was cold, I didn’t want to seem like a jerk, and I enjoyed it outside with the pair of weird street preachers. Now that they were done with their thing, both had immediately relaxed their wardrobe. Both had ditched their ties, Peter had pushed up his sleeves to show off a fantastic flower themed sleeve tattoo on his right arm, and Sam had untucked a necklace from his shirt that had a bunch of little strange silver charms on it. Sam sipped at his latte while we made polite conversation. Turned out Peter wasn’t really the chatty type, only offering a ‘mmhmm’ and ‘sure’ every now and then to the conversation, but Sam was the one carrying the conversation. He had to take off the mask to enjoy his drink and he was actually kinda cute, completely inoffensive appearing human being. We didn’t talk religion. We just talked about our days, what we do when we’re not at work or preaching to uninterested people on sidewalks, and by the end of it I figured they weren’t so bad. I only took a pamphlet after Peter offered one the second time, turned out Sam wasn’t the only one who could look like a kicked puppy. I left figuring I’d never see them again, that this was just a funny little coincidence and it’d make a great story. Now I can’t help but wonder if they had stayed at the bus stop waiting just for me to come back. The next day I was heading back from work when I heard someone call my name. “Amy! Amy, wait up!” It was just Sam, now dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans, still wearing that goofy charm necklace but now wearing a neat custom face mask with little skulls dotted all over it. Under his arm he was lugging along a laptop. I stopped and he caught up, a little bounce in his step as he pulled his mask down to reveal his beaming smile. He raised the laptop up to me. “For you,” He said. I stammered and immediately went to reject it. “I can’t accept this-” “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Sam laughed, “When you said yesterday you were trying to be a writer but your laptop wouldn’t stop freezing when you tried to do anything on it, I remembered I had my old laptop just chilling in my closet. So what the hell, better put it to better use, right? If it makes you feel better, consider it a loaner until you get one for yourself.” Once again, he presented it. I won’t say it was like brand new, but it was clearly bought within the last two years. And man, a free laptop. I chewed the inside of my lip before I slowly reached up to take it. “It’s a loaner, then. It’s yours when I get my own. How often do you get new laptops?” I asked. “Practically every other year,” Sam grinned sheepishly, “I play a lot of video games, and I always want the best. I can afford it.” “Didn’t think that giving out Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets paid that much,” I said as I continued to examine the laptop. “Funny,” Sam scoffed. “You didn’t even read that pamphlet, did you?” I knew I was blushing, I always do when I’m embarrassed. Sam, thankfully, didn’t seem all that offended. “It’s cool. I know you were trying to be polite. I won’t tell Peter, but if you ever see him again, he’ll totally figure out you didn’t. And he’ll be grumpy. He’s pretty passionate about this sorta thing, you know?” I sighed. “Fine, I’ll read it once I’m home.” “Great! I gotta get going,” Sam rolled his eyes, “Pamphlets to give out, people to talk to. Ta for now!” With that, he pulled his mask back up and hurried back the direction he came from. I took my new treasure home and almost immediately booted it up. It ran like a dream compared to my old computer. I was thrilled to bits and resolved to read that pamphlet while I worked on dinner, as my thank you to these pair of weird street preachers. The pamphlet itself wasn’t too bad. It was white, with a black clip art oil lamp on the front and Times New Roman font reading ‘The Enlightened’. Inside was more basic clip art of people holding hands and it really just gave off the really basic feeling of community and raising each other up. The first line read ‘The age of enlightenment is upon us. The reason behind everything exists with us.’ Sure, I laughed, that sounded cheesy as hell. But I read the whole thing, and it didn’t seem all that nutty off the bat. The whole message can be summed up as how we’re here to lift each other up in this world and that should be our goal in life. I had just finished boiling the noodles for my spaghetti when I heard a knock at my door. I didn’t think much of it, wondering if it was just a late package as I headed for the door. I opened the door and there they were. Sam and Peter, back in their clean white shirts and ties, Sam raising his hand to knock again. We both froze. Sam’s eyes bugged out before he chuckled. “Huh. Funny coincidence. Hi, Amy!” I cleared my throat. “Hi… how did you find out where I lived?” Get that question out first. “We didn’t,” Sam shook his head, “We’re just going door to door to see if we can get more pamphlets out and if anyone that took one has any questions. Did you read it?” He sounded honest, completely innocent of anything creepy. I glanced around the door to make sure there wasn’t about to be like a mob coming in to murder me and steal my stuff. “Yeah, while I was cooking dinner. It’s… interesting?” I could tell both guys were smiling. Sam pulled his mask down. “Then can we come in? We’ve been already going door to door for like an hour, and we’re supposed to be out until eight. Love to kill some time just chilling with a friend.” I don’t know why I didn’t say no. They were near strangers. Maybe I felt obligated because of the coffee and the computer to at least give them some of my spaghetti, let them do their little ‘come to god’ thing before finding a way to shoo them out the door. Honestly? I would’ve taken Jehovah’s Witnesses over this. This was on the same level as Scientology for me, as in it was completely freaking batshit insane. The Enlightened aren’t a Christian sect, Sam explained as we ate dinner and I tried to remain as open minded as I physically could. They worshiped the Beings, well, not really worshiped. Peter cut in to say it’s more like they respected the Beings, relied on them for guidance. The Beings were here before humans were, and oh, how did humans get here? They were originally fish swimming through space, finally coming to earth and evolving into life as we know it. Oh, and apparently, the sun is apparently a portal to hell. No. I’m not shitting you. The sun. Is a portal. To hell. It took literally all of my restraint not to bust out laughing at that point. I would’ve thought they were pulling my leg if Sam hadn’t said it all so calmly and matter-of-factly. By the end of our meal, I almost gave Sam his laptop back. This was absolutely ridiculous and I wanted no part of these crazy people. But before they left, Peter took my hand. He didn’t even ask. “The Being I rely on most is called Yehunee,” He said, which was the longest sentence he’d said all night, “She can see the future. I’d like to see your future.” I tried jerking my hand back but Peter had a firm grip. My heart started to pound a bit and I started thinking of how stupid it was to let two strange men into my place when Sam grabbed Peter’s arm. “Peter, let her go, you’re freaking her out.” Peter released me before Sam turned to me. “I’m sorry, he was a raised Enlightened and I swear that broke his brain from common sense. Just let him do the reading, it’ll be like a minute, and then we’ll go. We hope to hit a few more doors tonight.” I sighed. If this was the best way to get them out of here, so be it. I gave Peter my hand back and he stared at my palm so intently it made me want to squirm. I almost expected him to start speaking in tongues. “… Don’t be afraid of strangers, they’ll mean well and be there for you when you’re in a bind. You’ll find what you love doing is not only an option but a profitable one as well. Look out for hooligans, they won’t try to hurt you but they won’t know their own strength. And by the end of the week, you’ll need your love to keep you going.” Peter finally released my hand and I sighed with relief. “Right, so you said you had to be going?” I said, practically jogging to the door to escort them out. “Yup! Thanks for letting us take a break tonight!” Sam grabbed his face mask and headed out, Peter right behind him. “Hope to see you again sometime!” When I closed the door behind them, I was already thinking about how to get to work without going to that specific bus stop. Thanks, but no thanks. It was just too uncanny that the next day Peter’s prophecies began to fulfill themselves. I was picking up my groceries, since I no longer needed to get a laptop I splurged a little, got a few wants along with all my needs. For me that made it all the more humiliating when I reached for my wallet and it wasn’t there. My face turned tomato red as I dug through my purse before checking all of my pockets, the girl at the register looking less and less impressed by my insistence that it ‘had to be here somewhere’. I wanted to melt into the floor when I confirmed that somehow, one way or another, I’d lost my wallet. God. Damn. It. I could just feel the judgment from everyone witnessing this. Then I felt someone tap my shoulder and I turned to see the elderly woman in a nice red coat who had been in the line right behind me. I opened my mouth to apologize and she held up a hand. Then she looked at the cashier. “May I pay for this girl’s groceries?” I nearly started crying. I almost told her to not bother, but something stopped me. And that something was Peter’s freaking voice in my head saying ‘Don’t be afraid of strangers, they’ll mean well and be there for you when you’re in a bind.’ So instead I thanked her, again and again, while she laughed and said it was hardly a big deal. In this world we’re here to look out for each other, after all. I didn’t notice until I was about to walk away that this woman had a few pins in the lapel of her coat. The two that stuck out the most were a small fish and a lamp. An oil lamp. I just thanked her once more before I excused myself out of there. It was a coincidence, of course. I knew of a few Christians that also used fish as a religious symbol, same with the lamp. It was just bizarre. It was when I was heading home that I got the sudden impression that I needed to duck. I practically dove to the ground, and it was lucky for me that I did that. A glass bottle flew through the air right where my head had been, shattering on the wall behind me. It had come from a black car whizzing by, and judging by how loud and rowdy they sounded, they were probably drunk and just having a good time. The car sped down the street and rounded the corner with a screech of the tires. Like that, they were gone, off to keep on partying and doing whatever a bunch of drunk morons do on a weekday. ‘Look out for hooligans, they won’t try to hurt you but they won’t know their own strength.’ My skin, I swear it crawled as I remember Peter’s third prophecy. I reminded myself that there was just no way he could tell the future. It was just a bizarre coincidence. I got home, I made dinner, and I crawled into bed. The next morning I woke up to several missed calls from my boss. He was so apologetic, but it was an emergency, and he recommended I turn on the local news for the full effect. I won’t be too specific where I work, because I don’t know who’s reading this, but where I had worked had burnt to the ground. It looked like faulty wiring had just taken the building down, thank god no one had been inside when it ignited. But because the kind of work I typically do isn’t really one you can do from home, I was now out of work. ‘By the end of the week, you’ll need your love to keep you going.’ My head swam as I instinctively headed for my new laptop and started scrolling through my email, looking through all the writing jobs that I had been wanting to apply for but never had the time for. Submissions for magazines or anthologies, things like that. I wanted to test something and that something was Peter’s only unfulfilled prophecy. ‘You’ll find what you love doing is not only an option but a profitable one as well.’ Sure enough, by some miracle or whatever, I got an email back from one of the jobs I threw my name in the hat for. They liked what I had to offer and were going to pay me double the rate if I could it done by the end of the week. Which I could, because I had a lot of sudden free time. Every single prophecy. Every single freaking one. Just as Peter had told. But I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that these prophecies were self fulfilling. I felt like I was being played with, and I wasn’t going to accept this at face value. So. I started by googling the name of the editor of the magazine that had offered me the job. He was pretty internet absent shockingly enough, but I found his Facebook page. It was practically vacant, except for two things- He was friends with the old lady from the grocery store and a Samuel Sutton. And the one thing he’d liked was The Enlightened Facebook group. Samuel Sutton didn’t have a picture on his Facebook profile that was of his face, but I recognized the charm necklace he was putting together in one of the public photos. Sadly, The Enlightened Facebook group was not public, at least it wasn’t now. Maybe it had been in the past. I don’t know. Either way I was definitely spooked. I knew I was right to be suspicious. Of course this is when my internet started cutting in and out on my laptop, making further research from there damn near impossible. So the rest had to be done from my phone, all while I side eyed the innocuous laptop from where it sat on the table, the webcam now covered with duct tape. I didn’t have any scotch tape and I was starting to feel rightfully paranoid. I googled The Enlightened and didn’t come up with much other than a webpage clearly designed in the 90’s. I scrolled through the bad website design and I came up with basically nothing new, other than the Enlightened were founded in the late seventies by a man named Ray White, formerly Ray Bram. He’s now ‘forever with the Beings’, aka he’s food for the worms… or whatever the Enlightened do to their dead. I do not want to know. I blamed my following dreams that night about all the Enlightened crap floating through my brain. I dreamed about floating through space, followed by thousands of others just like me. Not floating… swimming. We saw the beautiful blue orb that grew bigger with every moment, until I realized that the blue orb was a planet. There was a golden light in the distance that also attracted by attention, and although its warm pulled at me, I knew I had to go to that blue planet. So down I went, through the atmosphere, through the clouds, and into the ocean below. I woke up before I started turning into a person, because I presume I was one of those stupid fucking fish Sam talked about. I hated it. What I hated more is that Sam just ‘bumped into me’ while I was out for coffee. Nevermind I’d never seen him at that coffee shop before he got me that stupid macchiato that started all this in the first place, and now suddenly he was there, acting like he’d been getting coffee there his damn life. He perked up when he saw me and waved. “Hey, Amy, you’re usually at work right now, right? Something happen?” He said, sounding so casual and relaxed. My stomach twisted. “I’m just here to pick up my coffee and go, I’m busy,” I said, trying to hold back the shakes that came from seeing him here. “When do you want the laptop back?” “When you don’t need it anymore. But hey, if that one’s not working out, I can see if Peter’s willing to give up any of his old machines,” Sam laughed, “But I doubt it. He still has one of his dad’s laptops, the thing’s practically a blunt weapon with how heavy it is.” “Yeah, I have to go,” I said, almost dropping my coffee with how fast I grabbed it. “Same, see you again, Amy.” Sam left just in front of me, and when I left the coffee shop I swear my heart stopped. I dropped my coffee and didn’t even try to pick it up as its contents spilled out all over the sidewalk. Sam was getting into his car. A black car. Not unlike the black car I saw that night with all the ‘hooligans’ inside. He noticed me staring real quick and managed to pull off confusion pretty frikken’ well. “You good, Amy? You need a ride? I just have to make a stop back the church, but I can get you home.” I swallowed, shaking my head. “I… I’m good,” I murmured before I walked away, using all my restraint not to bolt down the sidewalk and get away from what was no doubt an actual fucking crazy person. Some sort of deranged stalker hiding behind his bizarre religion to freak me out and try to manipulate me. I threw the laptop away in the dumpster. I locked my door and all of my windows. I drew the shades, I curled up on the couch and dug out my emergency wine stash. I did not want to be sober anymore. I don’t think I drunk that much. I don’t know anymore. Because I remember pouring myself a glass and the next thing I was waking up in bed, and I could hear someone in the kitchen. Someone was humming. I was still wearing the clothes I had been the day before, which was a fucking relief, but I still crept out into the kitchen expecting to see a psycho. Instead, it was just Sam, frying up some eggs and bacon, buttering toast and looking perfectly natural. “What the fuck?!” Sam looked up and winced. “Ooooh, that’s how bad the hangover is, huh?” He said. True, my head was killing me, but I wanted to run. Run like hell. “How the hell- why are you-” “Did you forget?” Sam walked over, his brow knitting in concern. “You called me last night and asked if I could come over.” “I don’t have your number,” I said. “I gave it to you yesterday at the coffee shop. You wrote it down on your hand.” I was trembling as I raised my hand up. It was a phone number, in blue ink, my handwriting, in my palm. Like where I write everything that I’m scared of forgetting. “I didn’t call you,” I said, shaking my head. “You did, and you sounded… really drunk,” Sam exhaled as he went back to the stove to turn over the bacon. “You were crying about losing your job? I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t mean to come off as insensitive or anything yesterday, I didn’t know about the fire until you told me.” I bolted for the living room, my head throbbing so bad I wanted to vomit. I picked up my phone and unlocked it, checking my outgoing calls. Sure enough, around eleven I’d made not one, not two, but five fucking phone calls to the number scrawled on my hand. “I was worried, so I came over. You cried all over my t-shirt, you were upset and I didn’t really know what else to do. So I helped you get to bed and I figured I should stay, just in case you got sick or something. I was worried, Amy.” I shook my head. “I locked my door though, windows too,” I said. “Did you?” Sam frowned. “I let myself in after you didn’t answer. I didn’t check the windows though-” I did. I ran around the apartment like a chicken with its head cut off, checking everything. Windows weren’t locked, my emergency wine bottle was empty even though I can only remember that one glass. My makeup was all ran like I had been crying, like Sam said I was. Everything lined up with what he said had happened, except for my own memories. When I finally returned to the kitchen, Sam had two eggs, two pieces of toast and a stack of bacon ready on a plate and was pouring a glass of orange juice for me. He still looked worried. “You look a little pale, Amy, are you okay? You look messed up.” I opened my mouth to respond but instead just ended up running for the sink to vomit. Sam held my hair back and just patted my back while I vomited up was I presume was the oh so lovely mixture of stomach bile and wine. “You know what? How about you go lay back down, I’ll bring you your breakfast in a bit. You got tums or advil for the pain?” I shoved Sam away, wiping the puke off my mouth best I could. “I don’t remember calling you. I know I locked the door, I know… I know I did. I threw away your laptop. I didn’t drink that much, what the fuck is going on?” I sounded pathetic I’m sure, but you try sounding great during what felt like the worst hangover of my life. “You what?” Sam left my side and poked his head into my office before he laughed. “What are you talking about, Amy, my laptop’s right there. Christ, how wasted did you get?” No. No way. Despite the room spinning around like I was on a carnival ride, I ran to the office. The laptop was still there. Not broken. Not even dirty. Had I thrown it out after all? I can’t even tell you for sure now. I just sunk to the floor, ready to start crying, while Sam squatted down next to me. “I… I…” I swallowed. “I need to be alone. Or, I need my mom, she’s not far from here…” Sam handed me my phone, I’d probably dropped it somewhere along the way during my run around the apartment panic. “Go ahead. I gotta go to church anyway. If you need some support while you’re between jobs, I promise, The Enlightened can give you any help you need,” He said, giving my back a final pat before he got up and left the apartment. I didn’t end up calling my mom. We’re not that close. I’m not really close to many people, if I’m honest. I lost a lot of my friends after high school when they all took off for college and I hung behind to join the work force. It’s not like they dumped me on purpose, we just lost contact. I wasn’t really close to my coworkers either, I’d chat with them but I never really made plans with them. I’m not lonely, or I don’t think I am. Maybe I am. Maybe that’s why I talked with Sam and Peter that day. I was that pathetic and lonely that I talked with two randos I thought were Jehovah’s Witnesses. This all started a month ago and I keep finding Sam and Peter in my life. Mostly Sam, and never Peter without Sam. I’ve refused all other fortunes from Peter, which clearly upsets him but I don’t know if I care about his feelings. I am getting more writing jobs thanks to that first connection I made with that editor, but I am not using the laptop Sam gave me. That’s currently in a box, that’s in another box, that’s duct taped shut and shoved to the back corner of a closet. I don’t know how Sam’s wormed his way into my life so efficiently, but now I even find myself calling him on my own. It feels like he’s always been there. Sometimes I even see him in my dreams, laughing or smiling at me, looking at me with fondness and warmth that makes me feel… good about myself. I sometimes wonder how good I felt before I met him, if I felt this good before. But I don’t know. My brain’s been so turned around. I don’t know how much I can trust myself, if I’m losing my mind. I know I cannot join the Enlightened, even if Sam and Peter are okay at times. It’s nuts, right? It’s all crazy talk. There is no Being in my dreams telling me it’s okay to doubt, but it’s never okay to assume something’s wrong from the get go. His name isn’t Riesis, and I know that those shadows outside my window aren’t people watching me, it’s just trees. I don’t know anything anymore. I just. Don’t. All I know is that every time Sam asks me to go to the Enlightened Church with him, it’s becoming harder and harder to say no.
To quote Marx, “I’ve been speculating”. I’ve started to get into the madness that is WallStreetBets and options trading. Now as a Marxist, it feels dirty, but “to survive in a capitalist world means to survive by capitalist means”. While making a few bucks here and there is good, I’m more interested about what wallstreetbets represents. I’ve come to think that it’s almost equally a rejection of capitalism as we know it, and a blind embrace of it. I know, contradicting. One one hand, it’s an embrace in the sense it requires faith in the system. One must believe one can make money in the market. It relies on global capital being successful. Much the same way workers in the global north are complicit in global capital by investing in 401ks, so are we chasing tendies on Robbinhood. Capitalism doing well is good for investors. However when you dig deeper (not even much deeper really), you start to see something else. There’s an apathy, a disregard, and a disillusionment with the capitalist system. The idea that being a participant is enough to “make it” is dying. The vast majority of WallstreetBets users aren’t DeepFuckingValue they’re small fries. They throw a few hundred bucks or a few thousand into a meme stock and hope for the best. While some are doing their due diligence, it would be dishonest to say most are. Most are following trends and YOLOing their 9-5 wages on a meme. Why? Because they feel defeated. They don’t feel like they can make progress through the traditional channels given in capitalist society (jobs, entrepreneurship, etc). So they gamble. They take a chance to get out of the race. Even if we look at the professed goals for many of the investors, it isn’t to corner a market, or to get enough money to start their own business, no. It’s to get enough money to get the fuck out of the game. Of course at first glance this is consumerist (tendies, Tesla’s, buying wife’s boyfriend a car, etc) but the real goal is to get the fuck out. Any way, I find it interesting. Capitalism has grown to a point that many see it as an inevitable reality, the framework for the world, that even when they acknowledge it has failed them and their generation, people would rather YOLO their meager savings into the craps table that is the market, than try to invest that money in a more traditional way (holding stocks, investing in a business, etc). Which brings me to related point that the lefts messaging is still shit. These are very much people ripe for radicalization against capital. Instead of looking to another possibility (leftist ideas) they have decided to say fuck it and gamble on capitalism. It’s very interesting. I recommend checking this video out to see what I mean. I think it shows my point well enough. https://reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l1u036/wsb_gets_emotional_on_mad_money/ Anyway, if GME blows up, I’m donating most of my earnings to revolutionary movements in the global south.
Once upon a time there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by Love's first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon. Many brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. She waited in the dragon's keep in the highest room of the tallest tower for her true love and true love's first kiss. Like that's ever going to happen. What a loony. Shrek Beware Stay out I think he's in here. All right. Lets get it! Hold on. Do you know what that thing can do to you? Yeah. He'll groan into your bones for his brains. Well actually that would be a giant. Now Ogres, huh, they are much worse. They'll make a soup from your freshly peeled skin. They'll chew your livers, squeeze the jelly from your eyes. Actually, it's quite good on toast. Back, back beast, back! I warned you! Right. This is the part, where you run away. Yeah! And stay out. Wanted. Fairytale creatures. Right, this one is full. Take it away. Give me that. Your fine days are over. -25 pieces of silver for the witch. Next. -Come on. Sit down there! And be quiet! This cage is so small. You wouldn't turn me in. I'll never be stubborn again. I can change. Please, give me another chance. Oh, shut up! Next. What do we got? This little wooden puppet. I'm not a puppet, I'm a real boy. Five shillings for the possessed toy. Take it away. No! Please, don't let them do it! Next. What do you got? Well, I've got a talking donkey! Right. Well that's good for ten schillings, if you can prove it. Oh, go ahead fella. Well? He's just a li..., just a little nervous. He's really quite a chatterbox. You boneheaded donkey! That's it. I have heard enough. Guards! No, no, he talks, he does! I can talk. I love to talk. I've talked to... Get her out of my sight! -No, no, I swear! Hey, I can fly. -He can fly! -He can fly! He can talk! -That's right, fool! Now I'm a flying, talking donkey! You might have seen house fly, maybe even a superfly. But I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly! Seize him! Get him! This way! Hurry! You there. Ogre. -I. By the order of lord Farquaad. I am authorized to place you both under arrest. And transport you to designated resettlement facility. Oh really? You and what army? Can I say something to you? Listen, you were really, really something, back there. Incredible. Are you talking to... ...me? Yes, I was talking to you. Can I just tell you that you were really great back there with those guards. They thought that was all over there. And then you showed up and BAM. There was tripping on over themselves like babes in the woods. That really made me feel good to see that. Oh, that's great. Really. Man, it's good to be free. Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with your own friends? But I... I don't have any friends. And I'm not going out there by myself. Hey wait a minute. I have a great idea... I'll stick with you. You and me in green fighting machine. Together we'll scare the spin if anybody crosses us. Oh, a, that was really scary. Maybe you don't mine me saying. If that don't work, your breath will certainly do the job done, 'cause... you definitively need some tic-tac or something, 'cause your breath stinks! Man you've ??? my note! Just like the time... ...and then I ate some rotten berries. Man I had some strong gases leaking out of my but that day. Why are you following me? I'll tell you why. 'Cause I'm all alone, there is no one here, beside me. My problems have all gone. There's no one to derive me. But you got to have free ... -Stop singing! Well, it's no wonder, you don't have any friends. Wow! Only a true friend would be that truly honest. Listen! Little donkey. Take a look at me! What am I? A... ...really tall? No! I'm an Ogre. You know, grab your torch and pitchforks. Doesn't that bother you? Nope. Really? -Really really. Oh? Man, I like you. What's your name? A..., Shrek. Shrek?! But do you know, what I like about you, Shrek? You've got that kind of: "I don't care what nobody thinks of me" thing. I like that, I respect that, Shrek. You're all right. Uh, look at that. Who would wanna live in a place like that? That would be my home. Oh, it is lovely. Just beautiful. You know you're quite a decorator. It's amazing what you did with such a modest budget. I like that boulder. That is a nice boulder. I guess, you don't entertain much, do you? I like my privacy. You know I do to. That's another thing, we have in common. Like I hate it when you got somebody in your face. You try to give them a hint and they won't leave. And then there's that big occurred silence, you know? Can I stay with you? -What? Can I stay with you, please. Of course! -Really? No. -Please! I don't want to go back there. You don't how is like to be concerned like a freak. Well..., maybe you do. But that's why we have to stick together! You got to let me stay! Please! Please! OK, OK. -But one night only. -Huh, thank you! A, what are you do... No! This is going to be fun. We can stay up late, swap the manly stories. And in the morning... I'm making waffles. Where do I sleep? Outside! Oh, a, I guess that's cool. You know, I don't know you and you don't know me... ... so I guess, outside is best for me. Here I go. Good night. I do like that half door. I'm a donkey all alone outside. Sit by myself outside, I guess. I'm all alone, there's no one here beside me. -I thought, I told you to stay outside. -I am outside. Well James. This is far from the farm, but what choice do we have? It's not... What a lovely bed. -Got you! I found some cheese. Awful stuff. -Is that you Gordon? -How did you know? Enough! What are you doing in my house? Oh, no, no, no... Death prods off the table! Where would we supposed to put her. The bed's taken. What? I live in a swamp. I've put up signs. I'm a terrifying Ogre! What do I have to do, to get a little privacy? Oh, no! No, no! What are you doing in my swamp? All right, get out of here. All of you. Move it! Come on, let's go. And hurry up, hurry up. No, no, not there. Not there! Hey don't look at me. I didn't invite them. Oh gosh, no one invited us. -What? We were forced to come here. -By who? Lord Farquaad. He ??? All right. Who knows where this Farquaad guy is? Oh I do. I know where he is. Does anyone else know where to find him? -Anyone at all? -Me. -Anyone? Oh pick me, I know! Me, me. Ok, fine. Attention all fairy tale things! Do not get comfortable. Your welcome is officially warned up. In fact. I'm gonna see this guy Farquaad right now and get all off my land and back where you came from. You. You're coming with me. All right. That's what I like to hear, man. Shrek and Donkey, two stubborn friends off on a world and big city adventure. I love it. I'm on road again. Sing with me Shrek! I'm on road again... What did I say about singing? -Can I whistle? -No. -Well, can I hummer? -All right. That's enough. He's ready to talk. Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man. You monster. I'm not a monster here. You are. You and the rest of that fairytale trash, poisoning my perfect world. -Now tell me! Where are the others? -Eat me. I've tried to be fair to you, creatures. Now my patience has reached its end! -Tell me! Or I'll... -No, no, not the buttons. Not gumdrop buttons. All right! Who's hiding them? Ok, I'll tell you. -Do you know the muffin-man? -The muffin-man? -The muffin-man. -Yes, I know the muffin-man. Who lives on Proully lane? -Well, she's married to the muffin-man. -The muffin-man! -The muffin-man! -She's married to the muffin-man. My lord! We found it. Well then, what are you waiting for? Bring it in. Magic mirror. Don't tell him anything! Evening. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all? Well, technically, you're not a king. A..., felonious. -You were saying. -What I mean is a... ...you're not a king, yet. But you can become one. All you have to do, is marry a princess. Go on. So, just sit back and relax my lord, because it's time for you to meet today's eligible bachelorettes. And here they are. Bachelorette number one is a mentally abused shading from a kingdom far, far away. She likes sushi and hottubbing anytime. Her hobbies include cooking and cleaning for two evil sisters. Please welcome... Cinderella. Bachelorette number two is a kemp wearing girl from a land of fantasy. Although she lives with seven other man, she is not easy. Just kiss hers dead frozen lips and find out what a live wife she is. Come on. Give it up for... Show-white. And last but certainly not least. Bachelorette number three is a fire-breathing ????, dragon guarded castle, surrounded by a hot boiling lava. But don't let that cool you off. She's a loaded pistol who likes Pina Coladas and getting cut in the rain. Yours for the rescuing, Princess Fiona. So will it be, bachelorette number one? Bachelorette number two? Or bachelorette number three? -Two... -Three! -Two! One. No, no, no. Three. Pick number three my lord. Ok, ok. Number three. Lord Farquaad. You've chosen... princess Fiona. She's nice. Fiona. She's perfect. All I have to do is just find someone... But I probably should mention little thing that happens at night... -I'll do it! -Yes, but after sunset... Silence! I will make this princess Fiona my queen. And Duloc will finally have the perfect king! Captain! Assemble your finest man. We're going to have a tournament! That's it, that's, right there, that's Duloc. I've told you I'll find it. So. That must be lord Farquaad's castle. Aha, that's the place. Do you think maybe he's compensating for something. Hey, hey wait up Shrek! -Hey, you! -No, no! Wait a second. Look, I'm not gonna eat you. I just... It's quiet. Too quiet. Where is everybody? Hey look at this. Wow! -Let's do that again. -No. no. All right. You're going the right way for smack bottom. Sorry about that. That champion should have the honor, no, no... ...the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely princess Fiona from the fireing keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner up will take his place. And so on, and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Applause. Let the tournament begin. What is that? Ugh, it's hideous. Oh, that's not very nice. It's just a donkey. Indeed. Knights! New plan. The one, who kills the Ogre, will be named champion. How about him. Oh, hey. Now, come on. Can't we just settle this over a pint? No? All right then. Come on. Hey Shrek! Let me, let me! The chair! Give him the chair! Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'm here until Thursday. Try the wheel! Shall I give the order sir? No. I have a better idea. People of Duloc. I give you our champion! What? Congratulation, Ogre. You've won the honor of embarking on a great and noble quest. Quest? I'm already on a quest. A quest to get my swamp back! -Your swamp? -Yeah, my swamp! Where you dumped those fairytale creatures. Indeed. All right Ogre, I'll make you a deal. Go on this quest for me and I'll give you your swamp back. Exactly the way it was? Down to the last slime covered toast tool. -And the squatters? -As good as gone. What kind of quest? Ok, let me get this straight! We gonna go find the dragon and rescue a princess just so Farquaad will give you back the swamp, which you only don't have, 'cause he filled it with full of freaks on the first place. -Is that about right? -You know what? Maybe there is a good reason, donkeys shouldn't talk. I don't get it Shrek. Why didn't you just pull some old Ogre stuff on them? You know, ??? . Grab his bones to make you brave. You know the whole Ogre trick. Oh, you know what. Maybe I could have decapitated entire village and put their heads on plate. Got a knife, cut open their spleens and drink their fluids. Does that sound good to you? A, no, not really, no. For your information, there is a lot more to Ogres than people think. -Example. -Example? OK, A-a-m, Ogres are like onions. -They stink? -Yes, no. -O, they make you cry. -No. Oh, you leave them out on the sun and they get all brown and start ??? little wild hairs? No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. O, you both have layers. You know not everybody likes onions. Cake! Everybody loves cakes. Cakes have layers. I don't care what everyone likes. Ogres are not like cakes. You know what else everyone likes? Paffe. Have you ever met a person and you say: "Hey, let's get some paffe" and they say I don't like paffe. Paffe is delicious. No! You tensed, irritating, miniature peace of barden. Ogres are like onions. End of story. Bye, bye. See you lather. Paffe is maybe the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet. You know I think I've preferred your humming. Do you have a tissue or something, 'cause I'm making a mess. Just the word paffe has made me start slimying Why, Shrek, did you do that? Man you got to warn somebody before you just crack one off. My mouth was opened and everything. Believe me donkey, if it was me, you'd be dead. It's brimstone. We must be getting close. Yeah, right, brimstone. Don't be talking ??? brimstone. I know what I smell and ??? no brimstone. And they don't come of stone neither. Sure it's big enough, but look at the location. Oh, Shrek, remember when you said that Ogres have layers? Oh, yeah. Well, I have a confession to make. Donkeys don't have layers. We wear ??? sleeves. Wait a second. Donkeys don't have sleeves. -You know what I mean. -Oh, you can't tell me you're afraid of highs. No, I'm just a little uncomfortable of being on a rickety bridge over boiling lake of lava! Come on donkey, I'm right here beside you. Ok? For emotional support. We'll just hackle this thing together one little baby step after time. -Really? -Really really. Ok. That makes me feel so much better. Just keep moving and don't look down. Don't look down, don't look down. Shrek! I'm looking down! I can't do this. Just let me off right now, please. -But you're already half way. -Yeah, but I know that half is safe. Ok, fine. I don't have time for this. You go back. Shrek, no, wait. Don't do that! Oh, I'm sorry. Do what? -Oh. This? -Yes, that! Yes, yes. Do it. OK. -No, Shrek! -I'm doing it. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Shrek, I'm gonna die. That will do Donkey, that will do. Cool. So where is this fire breathing pain in the neck anyway? Inside. Waiting for us to rescue her. I was talking about the dragon Shrek. -Are you afraid? -No, but shhhhh. Oh, good. Me neither. Because there's nothing wrong with being afraid. Here's a..., something responsible of the situation. Not to mention dangerous situation. And there's dragon that breathes fire. I'm sure he's meaner than a cow or anything, but they're scare. You know what I mean. I'm sure he's heavier than a cow... Donkey. Two things. Ok? Shut, up. Now go over there and see if you can find any stairs. Stairs? I thought we were looking for the princess. The princess will be up the stairs in the highest room in the tallest tower. What makes you think she'll be there? I read it in a book once. Cool. You handle the dragon, I'll handle the stairs. Oh, I'll find those stairs. I'll ???. That's right. Those stairs won't know which way they go. The drafting stairs, ??? Don't mess with me. I'm the stair master. I'm master of the stairs. I wish I had a stair right here right here now, I'd step all over it. Well, at least we know where the princess is. -But where is the... -Dragon! Donkey, look out! Got you. Oh, what large teeth you have. I mean, white sparkling teeth. You probably hear this all the time from your food, but you must bleach yourself, because that is one dashing smile you got there. And do I detect the hint of minty freshness? And you know what else? You're a girl dragon. Oh, sure. I mean 'course you're a girl dragon, 'cause you're just ricking the feminine beauty out. What's the matter with you? Do you have something in your eye? Man, I'd really love to stay, but you know I'm a asthmatic and I don't know if we would worked out. You'd be blowing smoke and stuff. Shrek! No, Shrek! Shrek! -Wake up! -What? Are you princess Fiona? I am. Awaiting a knight so bold as to rescue me. Oh, that's nice. Now let's go. But wait, sir knight. This be our first meeting. Should not be wonderful, romantic moment? Yeah. Sorry lady there's no time. Hey, what are you doing? You know, you should sweep me out of my feet. Out through the window and down the rope by to your valued steed. You've had a lot of time to plan this, haven't you? Uh-um. But we have to sing through this moment. You can residing of a poem to me. A ballad, a sonnet, a libretti. Or something. I don't think so. Well, can I at least know a name of my champion? Shrek. So, Shrek. I pray that you take this favor as a token of my gratitude. Thanks. -You didn't slay the dragon? -It's not my job to do this. Now, come on! But this isn't right. ??? That's what all the other knights did. Yeah. Right before they burst in the flame. That's not the point. Wait. Where are you going? Exit is over there. Well, I have to save my ass. What kind of knight are you? One of a kind. ...rush into a physical relationship. I'm not that emotionally ready for commitment of a this magnitude. That was the word I was looking for. Magnitude. Hey, that is unwanted physical contact. Hey, what are you doing? Ok, ok, let's just back up a little and take this one step at the time. I mean, we really should get to know each other first, you know what am I saying. As friends, maybe even as ??? Hey don't do that. That's my tail. That's ma personal tail. And you're going to tear it off.... Oh, no. No! -It talks?! -Yeah. It's getting to shut up, that's a trick. Ok, you two. Head for the exit. I'll take care of the dragon. Ruuuuun! You did it. You rescued me. Amizing, you're wonderful. You're a ... ...a little unorthodox I admit, but by deed is great and by heart is pure. I'm entirely in your debt. And where would a brave knight be without his noble steed. I hope you heard that. She called me a noble steed. She thinks I'm a steed. The battle is won. You may remove your helmet good sir knight. -Aah, no. -Why not? I have helmet hair. Please. I wouldst look upon the face of my rescuer. Oh, no, you wouldn't, dust. But, how will you kiss me? What? That wasn't in a job description. -Maybe it's a perk? -No. It's destiny. You must know how it goes. A princess locked in a tower and besieged by a dragon is rescued by a brave knight. And then they share true love's first kiss. With Shrek? You think, wait... ...you think Shrek is your true love? Well, yes. You think that Shrek is your true love. What is so funny? Let's just say, I'm not your type, ok? Of course you are. You're my rescuer. Now, now remove your helmet. Look. I really don't think this is a good idea. -Just take off the helmet. -I'm not going to. -Take it off! -No! -Now! -Ok, easy. As you command your highness. You're an Ogre. Oh, you were expecting Prince Charming. Well, yes, actually. Oh no. This is all wrong. You're not supposed to be an Ogre. Princess, I was sent to rescue you by lord Farquaad, ok? He's the one, who wants to marry you. Well, then why didn't he come to rescue me? Good question. You should ask him that, when we get there. But I have to be rescued by my true love. Not by some Ogre and his pet. Well so much for noble steed. Look princess. You're not making my job any easier. Well I'm sorry, but your job is not my problem. You can tell lord Farquaad that if he wants to rescue me properly, I'll be waiting for him right here. Hey, I'm no ones messenger boy, all right? -I'm a delivery boy. -You wouldn't dare. -You coming donkey? -Put me down! Yeah, I'm right behind you. Put me down or you will suffer the consequences. This is not dignified. Put me down. Ok, here's another question. Let's say that a woman 'digged' you, but you don't really like her, that way. Now, how you let her down real easy, so her feelings aren't hurt? But you don't get burned to a crisp neither. How do you do this? Just tell her, she's not your true love. Everyone knows it what happens when you find... Hey! The sooner we get to Duloc, the better. Oh, yeah. You gonna love it there princess. It's beautiful. And what of my groom to be, lord Farquaad. What's he like? Well, let me put it this way, princess. Men of Farquaad's stature are in short supply. Oh no, Shrek. There are those who think little of him. Stop it. Stop it, both of you. You know, you're just jealous that you can never measure up to a great ruler like lord Farquaad. Yeah. Well maybe you're right princess. But I'd like you do that measuring when you see him tomorrow Tomorrow? It will take that long? -Shouldn't we stop to make camp? -No. That would take longer. We can keep going. But there are robbers in the woods. Whoa, time out Shrek. Camp is definitely something that sounds good. Hey. Come on. I'm scarier than anything we're gonna see in this forest. I need to find somewhere to camp, now! Hey, over here. Shrek, we can do better than that. Now, I don't think this is decent for princess. No, no, it's perfect. It just needs a few homey touches. Homey touches? Like what? A door. Well, gentleman I'll be d..., good night. Do you want me to come in and read you a bedtime story, 'cause I will... I said good night! Shrek! What are you doing? I just..., you know... Oh, come on, I was just kidding. And that one, that's Throwback. The only Ogre to ever spit over three wheat fields. Right. Yeah. Hey, can you tell my future form these stars? Well, the stars don't tell the future, Donkey. They tell stories. Look. There's Blodna, the "Flatulent" You can guess what he is famous for. All right. Now I know you're making this up. No. Look. There he is and there's the group of hunters running away from his stag. Man, there ain't nothing, but a bunch of little dots. You know donkey, sometimes things are more than they appear. Forget it. Hey Shrek. What are you gonna do when we get our swamp back, anyway? -Our swamp? -You know. When we're through rescuing the princess and all that stuff. We? Donkey, there is no we. There's no our. There's just me and my swamp. And the first thing I'm gonna do, is build a ten foot wall around my land. You cut me deep Shrek, you cut me real deep just now. You know, what I think? I think this whole wall thing is just a way to keep somebody out. No, do you think? -Are you hiding something? -Never mind Donkey. Oh, this is another one of those onion things, isn't it? No. This is one of those drop it and leave it alone things. -Why don't you want to talk about it? -Why do you want to talk about it? -Oh, Why you block? -I'm not blocking. -Oh yes you are. -Donkey, I'm warning you. -Who are you trying to keep out? Just tell me that Shrek. Who? Everyone, ok? -Oh, now we're getting somewhere. -Oh, for 'the love of pit'. Hey, what's your problem Shrek? What do you got against the whole world anyway? Look. I'm not the one with the problem, ok? It's the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go: AAA... Help! Run! A big stupid ugly Ogre. They judge me, before they even know me. That's why I'm better off alone. You know what? When we met, I didn't think you're just a big stupid, ugly Ogre. Yeah, I know. So, a... Are there any donkeys up there? Well, there's a Cabby. The small and annoying. Ok, ok. I see him, now. Big shining one, right there. That one, over there? That's the moon. Again. Show me again. Mirror, mirror, show her to me. Show me the princess. Perfect. Yeah. You know I like like that. Oh come on baby... -Donkey. Wake up. -What? -Wake up. Morning. How do you like your eggs? -Good morning princess. -What's all this about? You know, we kind of got of to a bad start yesterday and I wanted to make it up to you. I mean, after all, you did rescue me. Thanks. Well, eat up. We've got a big day ahead of us. -Shrek! -What? It's a compliment. Better out than in I always say. But that's no way to behave in front of a princess. -Thanks. -She's as nasty as you are. You know. You're not exactly what I've expected. Well, maybe you shouldn't judge people before you get to know them. Princess! What are you doing? ???mon shery, for I am your saviour. And I am rescuing you from this green...beast. Hey! That's my princess. Go find your own. Please, monster. Can't you see I'm a little busy here? Look, pal. I don't know who you think you are. Oh, of course. How rude that was. Please, let me introduce myself. Oh marry men! Man, that was annoying. Oh, you little... Shall we? ???all the forin??? Whoa, hold on, now. Where did that come from? -What? -That. Back there. That was amazing. Where did you learn that? Well, when one lives alone one has to learn these things in case there's a... There is an arrow in your butt. What? Oh, would you look at that. Oh, no... This is all my fault. I'm so sorry. -What's wrong? -Shrek's hurt. -Shrek's hurt? Shrek's hurt! -Oh, no. Shrek's going to die. -Donkey, I'm ok. You can't do this to me Shrek. I'm too young for you to die. Keep your legs elevated. Turn your head ???. -Does anyone know how to handle... -Donkey! Calm down. If you want to help Shrek, run into woods and find me a blue flower with red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Ok, I'm on it. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Don't die Shrek. And if you see a long tunnel, stay away from the light! -Donkey! -Oh, yeah. Right. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. -What are the flowers for? -For getting rid of the Donkey. Now, you hold still and I'll yank this thing out. -Hey! Easy with the yanking. -I'm sorry, but it has to come out. No, no. It's tender. What you're doing here is the opposite... -Don't move. -Ok, look. Time out. -Would you... Ok. What do you propose we do? Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. This would be so much easier if I wasn't colorblind. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Hold on, Shrek. I'm coming! Not good. Ok, ok, I can lose it. It's just about it. Nothing happened. We were just a... Look if you want to be alone, all you had to do is ask, ok? Oh, come on. That's the last thing on my mind. The princess here was just... Au! Hey, what's that? Is that... There it is, princess. -Your future awaits you. -That's Duloc? Yeah. I know. You'll shrink things lord Farquaad is compensating for something, which I think needs, he has a I guess we better move on. Sure, but Shrek... -I'm worried about Donkey. -What? I mean. Look at him. He doesn't look so good. -What are you talking about? I'm fine. -Well, that's what they always say. And the next thing you know you're on your back. -Dead! -You know she's right. You look awful. -Do you want to sit down? -You know, I'll make you up some tea. Well, I won't say nothing, but I've got this twinge in my neck. And if I turn my neck like this, look. Au, see? -He's hungry. I'll find us some dinner. -I'll get the firewood. Hey, where are you going? Oh man, I can't feel my thumbs. I don't have any thumbs!!! I think I need a hug. This is good. This is really good. -What is this? -Wheat rat. -Rotisserie style. -No kidding. -Oh, this is delicious. -Well, they also great in stews. Now, I don't mean to brag, but I make a mean wheat rat stew. I guess I'll be dining a little different late tomorrow night. Maybe you can come visit me in the swamp sometime. I'll cook all kinds of stuff for you. Swamp toast, soup fish, eye tartar. You name it. I'd like that. -Ah... , princess? -Yes, Shrek? I'm a.... I was wondering. Are you... a... Are you gonna eat that? Man, isn't this romantic. Just look at that sunset. Sunset?! Oh, no. It's late. It's very late. -What? -Wait a minute. I see what's going on here. You're afraid of the dark. Aren't you? Yes, yes. That's it. That's, I'm terrified. You know I'll better go inside. But don't feel bad, princess. I used to be afraid of the dark too. Until... Hey, no, wait. I'm still afraid of the dark. -Good night. -Good night. Ahh. Now I really see what's going on here. Oh, what are you talking about. Hey I don't wanna even hear. Look, I'm an animal and I got instincts. And I know that you two are digging on each other. I can feel it. Oh, you're crazy. I'm just bringing her back to Farquaad. Oh, come on, Shrek. Wake up and smell the fairemones. Just go in there and tell her how you feel. There's nothing to tell. Besides, even if I did tell her that... well you know. I'm not saying that I do, 'cause I don't. She's a princess and I'm... ...an Ogre. Yeah, an Ogre. -Hey, where are you going? -To get more firewood. Princess. Princess Fiona? Princess, where are you? Princess? It's very spooky in here and are we playing little games. -No, no. -Help! Shrek! Shrek! -No. -Shrek! -It's ok. It's ok. -What did you do with the princess? -Donkey, shhh. I'm the princess. -It's me, in this body. -Oh my god. You ate the princess. -Can you hear me? -Donkey! Listen, keep breathing. I'll get you out of there! Shrek! Shrek! Shrek! This is me. Princess? What happened to you? You're a... different. -I'm ugly, ok? -Yeah. Was it something that you ate? 'Cause I told Shrek those rats were a bad idea. -You are what you eat, I say. -No. I've been this way as long as I can remember. What do you mean? Look, I've never seen you like this before. It only happens when the sun goes down. By night one way, by day another. This shall be the norm until you find true love's first kiss. Then, take love's true form... -Oh, that's beautiful. I didn't know you wrote poetry. -It's the spell. When I was a little girl, a witch cast a spell on me. Every night I become this. This horrible ugly beast. I was placed in a tower to await the day when my true love would rescue me. That's why I have to marry lord Farquaad tomorrow, before the sun sets and he sees me, like this? All right, all right. Calm down. Look, it's not that bad. You're not that ugly. Wait, wait, I'll not lie, you are ugly. But you only look like this at night. Shrek's ugly 24/7. But Donkey, I'm a princess. And this is not how a princess is meant to look. Princess. How about if you don't marry Farquaad? I have to. Only my true love's kiss can brake the spell. But you know, you're kind of an Ogre. And Shrek... Well you've got a lot in common. Shrek? Princess, I... How is it going first of all? Good? Good for me to. I'm ok. I saw this flower and thought of you because it's pretty. And, well, I don't really like it, but I thought you may like it, because you're pretty. But I like you anyway. A.... I'm in trouble. Ok, here we go. Who could ever love a piece so hideous and ugly? Princess and ugly don't go together. That's why I can't stay here with Shrek, but only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love. Don't you see, Donkey? That's just how it has to be. It's the only way to break the spell. Well, at least you've got tell Shrek the truth. No, no. You can't breathe the word. No one must ever know. What's the point of being unable to talk? You got to keep secrets. Promise you won't tell. Promise! You know, before this is over, I'm going to need whole lot of serious therapies. All right, all right. I won't tell him. But you should. Look at my eye twitching. I tell him, I tell him not. I tell him. I tell him not. I tell him! Shrek! Shrek! There's something I want ... Shrek. Are you all right? Perfect. Never been better. I... There's something I have to tell you. You don't have to tell me anything, princess. I heard enough last night. -You've heard what I said? -Every word. I thought you'd understand? Oh, I understand! Like you said, who could love a hideous, ugly beast! -I thought that wouldn't matter to you. -Yeah, well, it does. Ah, right on time. Princess. I brought you a little something. What I missed? What I missed? -Princess Fiona. -As promised. Now hand it over. Very well, Ogre. The deed to your swamp. Cleared out as agreed. Take it and go. Before I change my mind. Forgive me princess for startling you, but you startled me. For I've never seen such a radiant beauty before. -I am lord Farquaad. -Lord Farquaad? Oh, no, no... forgive me my lord for I was just saying short... farewell. Oh. That is so sweet. You don't have to raise good manners on the Ogre. -It's not like it has feelings. -No. You're right. It doesn't. Princess Fiona, beautiful fair flawless Fiona, I ask your hand in marriage. Will you be the perfect bride for the perfect groom? Lord Farquaad, I accept. Nothing would make... Excellent! I'll start the plans for tomorrow we wedd... No! I mean I... Why wait? Let's get married today. Before sunset. Oh, anxious are we? You're right. The sooner, the better. There's so much to do. There is the camera, the cake, the band, the guests... Captain! Round up some guests. Farewell Ogre. Shrek, what are you doing? You let her get away. -Yeah, so what. -Shrek. There's something about her that you don't know. -I talked to her last night. She's... -Yeah I know you talked to her last night. You're great pal, aren't you? Now, if you two are such good friend, why didn't you follow her home? -Shrek. I want to go with you. -I told you, didn't I? You're not coming home with me. I live alone. My swamp, me and nobody else! Understand? Nobody! Especially useless, pathetic, annoying, talking donkeys! -But. I thought... -Yeah. You know what? You thought wrong. Shrek. Donkey? What are you doing? I was thinking of all the people, you would recognize a wall when you see one. Well, yeah. But the wall supposed to go around my swamp. Not through it. It is around your half. See? That's your half and this is my half. Oh, your half? Yes, my half. I helped rescue the princess. I did half the work. I get half the booty. Now hand me that big old rock, the one that looks like your head -Back off! -No. You back off! -This is my swamp. -Our swamp. -Let go, Donkey! -You let go! -Stubborn jackass. -Smelly Ogre. Fine! Hey, hey, come back here. I'm not through with you, yet. -Well, I'm through with you! -Well, you know. You were always me, me, me. Well, guess what? Now it's my turn! So you just shut up and pay attention! You are mean to me, you insult me, you don't appreciate anything that I do! You're always pushing me around or pushing me away. Oh, yeah? Well, if I treated you so bad, how come you came back? Because that's what friend do. They forgive each other! Oh, yeah. You're right Donkey. I forgive you for stabbing me in the back! You're so wrapped up in layers, onion boy. You're afraid of your own feelings. -Go away. -See? There you are, doing it again. Just like you did it to Fiona. And all she ever do, was like you. Maybe even love you. Love me? She said I was ugly! A hideous creature. -I heard that you two were talking. -She wasn't talking about you. She was talking about... ...somebody else. She wasn't talking about me? Well then, who was she talking about? No way, I'm not saying anything. You won't listen to me, right? Right? -Donkey. -No! Ok, look. I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry. I guess I am just a big stupid, ugly Ogre. Can you forgive me? -Hey, that's the friends are for, right? -Right. -Friends? -Friends. So? What did Fiona said about me? Why are you asking me for? Why don't you just go ask her. The wedding! We'll never make it in time! Never fear! For where there is a will, there is a way. And I have I way. Donkey? -I guess this is just my act of magnetism. -Oh, come here, you. All right. All right. Don't get all started. No one likes kissass. All right, hop on. Hold on tight. I hadn't have a chance to install seat belts, yet. People of Duloc. We gather here today to bear witness to reunion of our new king... Excuse me. Could you just skip ahead to "I do's"? Go on. Go ahead and have some fun, if we need you, I'll whistle. How about that? Shrek, wait, wait a minute. You want to do this right, don't you? -What are you talking about? -It's the line, it's the line you got to wait for. The priest is going to say: "Speak now or forever hold your peace". And that's where you say: "I object". -I don't have time for this. -Wait, wait. What are you doing? Listen to me! Look, you love this woman, don't you? -Yes. -You want to hold her! -Yes. -Please her! -Yes! Then you got to, got to try a little tender love. -The chicks love that romantic crap. -All right. Cut it out. When does this guy say the line? We got to check it out. And as so by the power of these two... What do you see? -I now pronounce you... -There they go! -...he all ready said it. -Oh, for 'the love of pit'. I object! Shrek? Oh, now what does he want? Hi, everyone. Having a good time, aren't you? I love Duloc, first of all. Very clean. -What are you doing here? -Really, it's rude enough being alive, when no one wants you. But showing up uninvited to a wedding... -Fiona! I need to talk to you. -Oh, now you wanna talk? Well it's a little late for that. So if you'll excuse me. -But you can't marry him! -And why not? Because, because he's just marrying you so he can be king. -Outrageous! Fiona, don't listen to him. -He's not your true love. -What do you know about true love? -Well, I ...I'm in... Oh, this is precious. The Ogre has fallen in love with the princess. Laugh. Shrek. Is this true? Who cares. It's preposterious. Fiona, my love, we gonna kiss away for our happily ever after. Now kiss me! By night one way, by day another. I wanted to show you before. Well. That explains a lot. Oh. It's disgusting. Guards, guards. I order you to get them out of my sight. -Now! Get them! Get them, both! -No! This marriage is minding, and that makes me king. See? See? -Shrek! -No. -Don't just stand there, you dogs. -Get out of my way. No! Shrek! -And as for you my wife. -Fiona! I'll have you locked back in that tower for the rest of your days! I will have order. I will have potential. I will have... All right, nobody move! I got a dragon here and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm a donkey on the edge! Celebrity marriages. They never last, do they? Go ahead Shrek. -Fiona? -Yes, Shrek? I love you. Really? Really, really. I love you too. A time for true love's first kiss... Fiona? Fiona? Are you all right? Yes. But I don't understand. I'm supposed to be beautiful. But you are beautiful. I was hoping this would be a happy ending. God bless us, everyone.
This craps betting strategy makes use of the Pass Line bet and the Come bet. The “purpose” of this strategy is to secure your Pass Line bet, as a Come bet is paid on a 7 or 11, numbers on which a Pass Line bet will lose after the Point is established. The Come bets should be played with the same bet as on the Pass Line bet. For example, if you’ve got one unit on Pass Line and double Odds behind that, that’s what each Point should have as well. Start by placing $5 on the pass line and $5 on the field bet before the come-out roll. If you can find a table that pays triple on the 12 or 2, this Craps system will work even better. a. perfect scenario would be for a 4 or 9 to roll. That way, you can use the field bet winnings and another $2 to cover two $6 place bets on the 6 and 8 as a ... The most basic of all craps bet is on the Pass Line, which is also known as “right way” betting because you’ll be backing the shooter – along with most players at the table – to win. For beginners, the Pass Line bet can be thought of like an ante of sorts, or the minimum wager you need to get into the game. Technically speaking, it’s not a true Ante bet, because you don’t have to make it, but considering that basic strategy for the game involves placing a Pass Line wager before ... The game of craps consists of a series of dice rolls. The initial roll by the shooter is called the “come out roll.” You should make your initial bet on the pass line just prior to the come out roll. (The area for making a pass line bet is clearly marked on the craps layout. Craps Strategy : Best Craps Bets The best bets to place, whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, are the Pass Line bet and Don’t Pass Line bets. These bets are similar to Blackjack and roulette in that you basically have a 50/50 chance of doubling up and the house only has a 1.41% advantage. Overall, the pass line bet is definitely one of the best bets on the craps table with a house edge of 1.41%. In addition, adding odds onto this wager is without a doubt the best way to extend your gambling bankroll. The pass line is simply one of the best ways to try and win big. #1: The Don’t Pass Bar The Pass Line Bet is the most common bet in craps. It’s a very easy bet and you can easily get through a whole night of gambling only knowing this one bet. All you have to do is put your chips on the pass line on the table. You'll be able to tell were that is because it will say 'Pass Line' in big letters. The best bets at the craps table are the pass line bet and the don’t pass bet. The come and don’t come bets are also great wagers. I always advise casino gamblers to try to limit their gambling to games where the house edge is lower than 2% — preferably 1.5% or lower. The pass line bet is the basic bet when playing craps for real money. It’s a bet that the shooter will roll a 7 or an 11 on his come-out roll, or that the shooter will roll a point number and subsequently hit that point number again before rolling a 7. The pass line bet loses if the shooter rolls a 2, 3, or 12 on the come-out roll.
How to Win at Casino Every Time - Craps Betting Strategy ...
In today's craps betting strategy I will show you how to win at casino every time you play. This is a variation of the iron cross. In this strategy I add a p... How to Win at Craps on $10 Tables is a craps betting strategy specifically for $10 tables. The craps strategy starts with a $36 bet on the 6 and 8. After the... Place Bets - How to Play Craps Pt. 9Place bets are simple bets on a number, they are very flexible, and also very popular with craps players.You can make a p... In this craps betting strategy I show you how to win at craps with little money. You can win with just a $100 bankroll. This is the hedge 6/8 strategy. $10 i... This video is about how to play a Crap Table System using the back line 6 and 8. It is one of the easiest to use and it works. You start betting on the 6 and... Another night having fun on the homemade craps table Eric and MrCoffeeDrink3r. Still cant believe Eric Hop those seven's three in a roll. Look for them at 9m... Proposition Bets - How to Play Craps Pt. 12Today we cover the proposition bets, also known as prop bets or center bets. These are the all the long shot bets... How to play craps and how to win is explained by casino gambling expert, Steve Bourie, in this first part of a three-part series. Topics covered include: how...
