#all secondary stuff from the surrounding bs

[rowanhoney]

Used to be able to identify my breakdowns before or during but now it’s taking me a whiiiiile to realise. I’ll look back on a few months ago and be like wow haha I was not right? I don’t believe in that?

#like it used to be very aware of a crappy mood and then doing shit to cope that likely made things worse or whatever whatever #lately it’s more like i just do something super out of character that’s damaging still but in a different way? #then I look back and I’m like errrrrrr girl u weren’t okay then either #I think I’m far away from myself #at least I was last year that was no doubt the issue and feeling powerless #all secondary stuff from the surrounding bs #and only in the past 2 months have i started to really move past some things #like maybe it’s just growth but it doesn’t feel that way?? idk idk I feel weird #I wanna start meditating again #Also #I need some modafinil cos that gave me such clarity it was actually the catalyst for breaking out of my mess

[wineanddinosaur]

Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters?

The labels are colorful, cartoonish, comical, and a bit grotesque.

There’s Tater Bait, depicting a woman with a massive head of 1980s hair cascading over a visor.

Smash Bill shows a poor man’s Rambo, armed to the teeth with an M60 machine gun.

While Waxx Dippz displays a bald-pated man with a Van Dyke beard, seemingly staring into your soul.

Though you might not understand the joke, each of these (and six others labels) seem to be blatantly mocking the modern bourbon geek, that sometimes vile species of obsessive who covets Pappy, clears store shelves of formerly mid-tier stuff like Weller and Eagle Rare, and even adulterates bottles with silly stickers and post-purchase wax coatings, often with a total lack of awareness for their inherent absurdity.

“I deal with these people all the time. Sometimes their lack of a sense of humor is a little alarming,” says Matthew Colglazier, a longtime liquor merchandiser and marketer. “Taking a piss (out of them), that’s part of the fun, I think.”

Catch ’Em All

Colglazier has regularly found himself in the orbit of these whiskey collectors after more than a decade in the spirits industry in various capacities. The Indiana man has been buying single barrels for liquor stores for years and been making trips to nearby Midwest Grain Products (MGP), the massive, former Seagram’s distillery in Lawrenceburg for nearly a decade — well before most drinkers were aware that it was supplying upstart craft distilleries like WhistlePig, High West, and Smooth Ambler with much of the bourbon and rye they were bottling.

Scouring store shelves, looking at the thousands of non-distiller bottlers, as well as the countless craft distilleries that have emerged, all trying to get a piece of the perhaps $10 billion pie, Colglazier began to wonder how a new American whiskey brand could possibly set itself apart.

“When it comes to creating something new and different these days, that’s really a challenge,” says Colglazier.

Feeling confident in his industry acumen, however, Colglazier and some partners decided to branch out with their own brand in 2018. A family member had alerted him to Krogman’s, a whiskey and brandy distillery that had existed in Tell City, Ind., from 1863 until Prohibition, and then ran on fumes until the 1960s. Searching through trademark filings, Colglazier realized that no one owned it anymore. And, just like that, Krogman’s was his.

“We don’t own a distillery, we don’t own a license or anything,” says Colglazier. He sources all his “juice” and lets partners like Cardinal Spirits, a top craft distillery in Bloomington, do the bottling.

Early Krogman’s releases would include Krogman’s Bourbon and Krogman’s Rye, sourced from MGP and packaged at 90 proof in opaque black and red bottles depicting a drawing of the old distillery that no longer stands. It’s a typical way to launch a new brand, by evoking an esteemed history that isn’t necessarily your own and has nothing to do with the liquid in the bottle. These releases sold all right, but they certainly didn’t become a sensation among consumers. Colglazier knew he would have to start tackling his branding in a different way.

“How much innovation is there in the bourbon category today?” asks Colglazier. “I started to think: It doesn’t just have to be about the blocking and tackling of history.”

Around then, Perry Ford, MGP’s sales manager and an old industry connection, sent Colglazier an inventory list of the single barrels he currently had available. Looking over the menu, Colglazier noticed that all nine of MGP’s whiskey mash bills were available in single-barrel form, everything from four bourbons and three ryes to a corn whiskey and even a light whiskey. The MGP mash bills you’ll most often see in single barrel form these days are the ubiquitous 95 percent rye or the “high-rye” bourbon favored by Smooth Ambler and recent darling Smoke Wagon.

As a whiskey drinker himself, Colglazier wanted to try them all, but he needed a good excuse. His first thought: What if he created a unique single-barrel release for each and every mash bill, and then turned all nine into a set? Since the whiskeys were all 3 years old — a little youthful for your average bourbon enthusiast — he knew he’d have to make the labels novel, interesting, and highly collectable if he wanted to sell them.

That would start with what he called each release, naming them after the insider slang (so often intentionally misspelled) that had become popular on secondary market buy/sell sites, private Facebook groups, and message boards over the last decade.

“I tried to pinpoint relatively specific things that people would know,” Colglazier says.

Thus, there’s Tater Bait, a reference to neophyte collectors who do exceedingly embarrassing things in pursuit of rare bottles. Flipperzz refers to people who buy allocated bottles at retail costs only to immediately “flip” them for bloated, black-market rates. Dusty Hunterzzz is a nod to those who comb through off-the-beaten-path liquor stores for vintage bottles that have lingered on shelves for years gathering dust.

“Your civilian bourbon drinker would have no idea what these things meant and would just think, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting label,’” adds Colglazier.

He tapped local designer Aaron Scamihorn for the label art. Scamihorn specializes in a bold, vintage comic book style, perhaps more befitting the skate decks and even craft beer labels he also designs than the sort of staid, regal branding we typically see in the bourbon industry.

“When we first discussed this project it was the first time I’d heard the word ‘tater,’” recalls Scamihorn. His labels are inspired by the beat-up VHS box covers for campy, ’80s movies you would have seen stocked on the bottom shelf at Blockbuster (Buyy it Noww! was surely spawned from 1980s “Harlequin”). That era tracks with the late-30s/early-40s demographic of guys that Colglazier sees as most into bourbon collecting right now.

At the least, these are the dudes who already have a deep familiarity with the most online and underground parlance of the American whiskey world (Unicorn! Maxx Profitzz!) needed to get many of these jokes.

“Some were really on the nose, others were a stretch,” says Colglazier. “Some barely make sense.”

Of course, whiskey fans have long had the “gotta catch ’em all” mentality that, in many people’s eyes, has turned the industry into a game of liquid Pokemon, and Colglazier is well aware of that. But Krogman’s reminds me more of another set of trading cards: Garbage Pail Kids, the 1985 series of depraved and deformed characters meant to mock the then-frenzy surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids.

“It pokes fun, but honors [these people] at the same time,” says Colglazier. “It makes it recognizable to that consumer. It’s kind of a tightrope, and I’m not sure everybody understands.”

No BS!

The trickiest part of the tightrope, of course, is that the same people the labels are mocking are inherently the only people who might possibly desire having these crazy bottles in their collections.

“Looks like they are poking some fun at the bourbon world in general, but actually just bottling ALL 9 MGP recipes at cask strength with no BS!” wrote one man on Reddit. “Kind of better than all the other brands who make up a bunch of back stories. [sic]”

And that’s exactly Colglazier’s point. Yes, the Krogman’s labels may be satire, but the whiskey is no joke — it’s all non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength, catnip for the whiskey cognoscenti who don’t really care about a brand’s nonsense “origin” story.

The set was first released starting in late summer 2020, mostly at big box liquor stores in Indiana, though Tater Bait made its way onto Seelbach’s, an online whiskey retailer that has plans to sell a complete set of nine in the future. There were three to four barrels each of most releases, so fewer than 1,000 bottles per SKU. (For the completists, bottlings made for the Kentucky market had variant labels meant to poke fun at all the Booker’s Bourbon releases like Country Ham.)

They sold for just $32 a bottle, a remarkably reasonable price in an era that has seen other sourced whiskeys cost many times as much. Smoke Wagon’s 8-year-old MGP single barrels, for instance, sell for upwards of $700 per bottle on the secondary market. That’s why another Redditor agreed that it was an “exploitable niche” to sell barrel-proof MGP so cheaply, calling the entire series a “slam dunk.” “The Whiskey Vault,” a popular YouTube channel, praised the series as well, loving its execution and transparency.

“Not subtle!” joked co-host Daniel Whittington.

A Collectible in the Making?

You could argue that Krogman’s is the most honest bourbon brand of this crazy era. It may seem like a troll — and, of course, it partially is — but it’s one of the few MGP-backed bottlers offering unique releases and not trying to dupe consumers and generate high demand based purely on hype. While other bourbon and rye brands pretend they exist in a vacuum, clueless to online discussions and tater-driven market forces, Krogman’s has a keen self-awareness of the hyper-obsessive culture it is being released into.

Colglazier isn’t sure where the series will go next, but a part of me feels that while leaning so heavily into the scene, he’s unwittingly created something that, in a few years, might end up being one of the biggest collectibles of the era. Krogman’s may be seen as an economically priced prank right now, but could it one day be the American version of Ichiro’s Malt Card Series released between 2005 and 2014 — of which a complete “deck” of the 54 bottles in the Japanese series sold for $1.52 million in late 2020?

Probably doubtful, as Ichiro’s came from the shuttered Hanyu distillery and Krogman’s is certainly not as well aged of stock. But sometimes it takes a few years for these ahead-of-their-time ideas to pick up steam. Even the Malt Card Series had initially been consumed by buyers, not squirreled away and collected.

“People really want to see themselves reflected back in the things they buy,” Colglazier says of his bourbon. “In many ways, what we buy, what we collect, these are validations of who we are. People have used lots of consumer goods to validate themselves. This is just taking it to the next level.”

The article Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/krogmans-bourbon-trolling/

[isaiahrippinus]

Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters?

The labels are colorful, cartoonish, comical, and a bit grotesque.

There’s Tater Bait, depicting a woman with a massive head of 1980s hair cascading over a visor.

Smash Bill shows a poor man’s Rambo, armed to the teeth with an M60 machine gun.

While Waxx Dippz displays a bald-pated man with a Van Dyke beard, seemingly staring into your soul.

Though you might not understand the joke, each of these (and six others labels) seem to be blatantly mocking the modern bourbon geek, that sometimes vile species of obsessive who covets Pappy, clears store shelves of formerly mid-tier stuff like Weller and Eagle Rare, and even adulterates bottles with silly stickers and post-purchase wax coatings, often with a total lack of awareness for their inherent absurdity.

“I deal with these people all the time. Sometimes their lack of a sense of humor is a little alarming,” says Matthew Colglazier, a longtime liquor merchandiser and marketer. “Taking a piss (out of them), that’s part of the fun, I think.”

Catch ’Em All

Colglazier has regularly found himself in the orbit of these whiskey collectors after more than a decade in the spirits industry in various capacities. The Indiana man has been buying single barrels for liquor stores for years and been making trips to nearby Midwest Grain Products (MGP), the massive, former Seagram’s distillery in Lawrenceburg for nearly a decade — well before most drinkers were aware that it was supplying upstart craft distilleries like WhistlePig, High West, and Smooth Ambler with much of the bourbon and rye they were bottling.

Scouring store shelves, looking at the thousands of non-distiller bottlers, as well as the countless craft distilleries that have emerged, all trying to get a piece of the perhaps $10 billion pie, Colglazier began to wonder how a new American whiskey brand could possibly set itself apart.

“When it comes to creating something new and different these days, that’s really a challenge,” says Colglazier.

Feeling confident in his industry acumen, however, Colglazier and some partners decided to branch out with their own brand in 2018. A family member had alerted him to Krogman’s, a whiskey and brandy distillery that had existed in Tell City, Ind., from 1863 until Prohibition, and then ran on fumes until the 1960s. Searching through trademark filings, Colglazier realized that no one owned it anymore. And, just like that, Krogman’s was his.

“We don’t own a distillery, we don’t own a license or anything,” says Colglazier. He sources all his “juice” and lets partners like Cardinal Spirits, a top craft distillery in Bloomington, do the bottling.

Early Krogman’s releases would include Krogman’s Bourbon and Krogman’s Rye, sourced from MGP and packaged at 90 proof in opaque black and red bottles depicting a drawing of the old distillery that no longer stands. It’s a typical way to launch a new brand, by evoking an esteemed history that isn’t necessarily your own and has nothing to do with the liquid in the bottle. These releases sold all right, but they certainly didn’t become a sensation among consumers. Colglazier knew he would have to start tackling his branding in a different way.

“How much innovation is there in the bourbon category today?” asks Colglazier. “I started to think: It doesn’t just have to be about the blocking and tackling of history.”

Around then, Perry Ford, MGP’s sales manager and an old industry connection, sent Colglazier an inventory list of the single barrels he currently had available. Looking over the menu, Colglazier noticed that all nine of MGP’s whiskey mash bills were available in single-barrel form, everything from four bourbons and three ryes to a corn whiskey and even a light whiskey. The MGP mash bills you’ll most often see in single barrel form these days are the ubiquitous 95 percent rye or the “high-rye” bourbon favored by Smooth Ambler and recent darling Smoke Wagon.

As a whiskey drinker himself, Colglazier wanted to try them all, but he needed a good excuse. His first thought: What if he created a unique single-barrel release for each and every mash bill, and then turned all nine into a set? Since the whiskeys were all 3 years old — a little youthful for your average bourbon enthusiast — he knew he’d have to make the labels novel, interesting, and highly collectable if he wanted to sell them.

That would start with what he called each release, naming them after the insider slang (so often intentionally misspelled) that had become popular on secondary market buy/sell sites, private Facebook groups, and message boards over the last decade.

“I tried to pinpoint relatively specific things that people would know,” Colglazier says.

Thus, there’s Tater Bait, a reference to neophyte collectors who do exceedingly embarrassing things in pursuit of rare bottles. Flipperzz refers to people who buy allocated bottles at retail costs only to immediately “flip” them for bloated, black-market rates. Dusty Hunterzzz is a nod to those who comb through off-the-beaten-path liquor stores for vintage bottles that have lingered on shelves for years gathering dust.

“Your civilian bourbon drinker would have no idea what these things meant and would just think, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting label,’” adds Colglazier.

He tapped local designer Aaron Scamihorn for the label art. Scamihorn specializes in a bold, vintage comic book style, perhaps more befitting the skate decks and even craft beer labels he also designs than the sort of staid, regal branding we typically see in the bourbon industry.

“When we first discussed this project it was the first time I’d heard the word ‘tater,’” recalls Scamihorn. His labels are inspired by the beat-up VHS box covers for campy, ’80s movies you would have seen stocked on the bottom shelf at Blockbuster (Buyy it Noww! was surely spawned from 1980s “Harlequin”). That era tracks with the late-30s/early-40s demographic of guys that Colglazier sees as most into bourbon collecting right now.

At the least, these are the dudes who already have a deep familiarity with the most online and underground parlance of the American whiskey world (Unicorn! Maxx Profitzz!) needed to get many of these jokes.

“Some were really on the nose, others were a stretch,” says Colglazier. “Some barely make sense.”

Of course, whiskey fans have long had the “gotta catch ’em all” mentality that, in many people’s eyes, has turned the industry into a game of liquid Pokemon, and Colglazier is well aware of that. But Krogman’s reminds me more of another set of trading cards: Garbage Pail Kids, the 1985 series of depraved and deformed characters meant to mock the then-frenzy surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids.

“It pokes fun, but honors [these people] at the same time,” says Colglazier. “It makes it recognizable to that consumer. It’s kind of a tightrope, and I’m not sure everybody understands.”

No BS!

The trickiest part of the tightrope, of course, is that the same people the labels are mocking are inherently the only people who might possibly desire having these crazy bottles in their collections.

“Looks like they are poking some fun at the bourbon world in general, but actually just bottling ALL 9 MGP recipes at cask strength with no BS!” wrote one man on Reddit. “Kind of better than all the other brands who make up a bunch of back stories. [sic]”

And that’s exactly Colglazier’s point. Yes, the Krogman’s labels may be satire, but the whiskey is no joke — it’s all non-chill filtered and bottled at cask strength, catnip for the whiskey cognoscenti who don’t really care about a brand’s nonsense “origin” story.

The set was first released starting in late summer 2020, mostly at big box liquor stores in Indiana, though Tater Bait made its way onto Seelbach’s, an online whiskey retailer that has plans to sell a complete set of nine in the future. There were three to four barrels each of most releases, so fewer than 1,000 bottles per SKU. (For the completists, bottlings made for the Kentucky market had variant labels meant to poke fun at all the Booker’s Bourbon releases like Country Ham.)

They sold for just $32 a bottle, a remarkably reasonable price in an era that has seen other sourced whiskeys cost many times as much. Smoke Wagon’s 8-year-old MGP single barrels, for instance, sell for upwards of $700 per bottle on the secondary market. That’s why another Redditor agreed that it was an “exploitable niche” to sell barrel-proof MGP so cheaply, calling the entire series a “slam dunk.” “The Whiskey Vault,” a popular YouTube channel, praised the series as well, loving its execution and transparency.

“Not subtle!” joked co-host Daniel Whittington.

A Collectible in the Making?

You could argue that Krogman’s is the most honest bourbon brand of this crazy era. It may seem like a troll — and, of course, it partially is — but it’s one of the few MGP-backed bottlers offering unique releases and not trying to dupe consumers and generate high demand based purely on hype. While other bourbon and rye brands pretend they exist in a vacuum, clueless to online discussions and tater-driven market forces, Krogman’s has a keen self-awareness of the hyper-obsessive culture it is being released into.

Colglazier isn’t sure where the series will go next, but a part of me feels that while leaning so heavily into the scene, he’s unwittingly created something that, in a few years, might end up being one of the biggest collectibles of the era. Krogman’s may be seen as an economically priced prank right now, but could it one day be the American version of Ichiro’s Malt Card Series released between 2005 and 2014 — of which a complete “deck” of the 54 bottles in the Japanese series sold for $1.52 million in late 2020?

Probably doubtful, as Ichiro’s came from the shuttered Hanyu distillery and Krogman’s is certainly not as well aged of stock. But sometimes it takes a few years for these ahead-of-their-time ideas to pick up steam. Even the Malt Card Series had initially been consumed by buyers, not squirreled away and collected.

“People really want to see themselves reflected back in the things they buy,” Colglazier says of his bourbon. “In many ways, what we buy, what we collect, these are validations of who we are. People have used lots of consumer goods to validate themselves. This is just taking it to the next level.”

The article Can You Build a Successful Bourbon Brand by Trolling the Taters? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/krogmans-bourbon-trolling/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/656790305151057920

[fatty-thao]

SInce Nobuyuki’s main story is coming to Tenka in 2018, I want to share some thought about him, though we have a VERY long time to go (Shigezane’s, act 2, Shadow chapters.etc etc…if we’re having the long run), I always feel there’s something familiar with Nobuyuki, and finally find out why. Nobuyuki and his relationship with Yukimura pretty much remind me of this guy 

(tell that to me and I’ll punch you in the face)

- They both have yandere tendency and similarity in personality 

- They both have younger brothers whose personalities are completely opposite

Both Yuri and Nobuyuki are the first child of their family, therefore they were set to be the successor, and they both know their place very well. I read Yuri’s main story long ago so I don’t remember much about details, but he often reminded and was reminded by other to be the first prince of  Rossiyskaya, while Nobuyuki was introduced in events as always looking for a bride because he needed to continue Sanada’s bloodline. Both seem to be kind, calm and collected on the outside but hide their true personalities behind their gentle mask. Both have yandere tendency, they both KNOW it very well and will stop at nothing in order to achieve their goals, though Yuri shows no sight of effort in hiding it in front of MC. I’d like to think it’s because of their surrounding environment that cause the different. Yuri , he has many enemies, even his subordinate, Sasha was planning on killing him, and he’s always on guard . I cannot speak about Yuri better than this post http://choc-chino.tumblr.com/post/143017297562, therefore, Yuri’s actions are always on the extreme side. Nobuyuki, however, seems to be loved and respected in his castle, no threat on being replaced. His biggest  duty was to continue the bloodline of Sanada’s clan and stay behind in the castle managing everything inside, so he needed to choose the best for the clan. That’s why I think his behavior is more discreet and hidden, but the similarity is undeniable.

I wrote my impression of Yuri back in the day in the first few chapters ,too bad I don’t have screenshots, but this recap should be enough http://fatty-thao.tumblr.com/post/103202883256/just-started-rossiyskaya-route-and-yuris-already. Yuri claimed to have fallen in love with MC at first sight, and to this day I still very much wonder if this is true, but along the way he became more and more possessive toward her and showed more of his ruthless side. He shot a guy to nearly dead in front of her, he locked her up in his room and guarded so she could not escape (typical yandere action?). And we can see these lines frequently in Yuri’s story and his old events.

Nobuyuki, on the other hand, is more subtle with his yandere, as all purposes of his actions can only be revealed once we got to see his inner thought. This discussion might be best on breaking down Nobuyuki’s character with the hints Voltage gave us at the moment. How did he manage to have MC coming with him back to his castle? He made her think they slept together, and then informed her family BEFORE she knew it, and her family even congratulated her (?) on being with Nobuyuki. He used the same tactic as Yuri : made MC thought she’d made some kind of mistake , and announced their sort of relationship publicly so MC got nowhere to turn to, all according to their plans.

to their rivalry, both show no mercy. Yuri once shot a man to dead in front of MC, and not quite happy with his brother’s obvious feeling to MC. Nobuyuki did something to the Fuyukai so he didn’t dare to come near MC’s and her family anymore, in Yukimura’s MS and his event story as well

(LOL)

Even to Yukimura, Nobuyuki immediately reminded him of his place when he saw the potential threat from his brother’s reaction toward MC

(Honestly I’m very curious how Votage will handle Nobuyuki’s main story and hope they won’t use the love triangle BS in his MS, just …. no, though I can see Yuki being attracted to Nobuyuki’s MC)

In family relationship, Yuri and Nobuyuki are close to their younger brothers, not sure about their parents. Rossiyskaya’s King and Queen were never mentioned in the story, but Yuri and Yelisei are princes, so I just assume their parents are alive, but not close to them. Nobuyuki lost his mother when he was small and then became sort of mother figure to Yukimura, looked after the castle while his father and brother were training and away to war. In my opinion, Nobuyuki was closer to his dad than Yuri, but more like respect between man, not in kind of family way. Yelisei usually says nice thing about Yuri and helps him alot, same goes for Yuri as he help his younger brother in many events. In his IF route, Yelisei made a contract marriage with the MC in order to destroy Sasha’s plan to use him to take down Yuri and so his brother could continue to be successor. Nobuyuki took care of Yukimura due to their mother passing away when his brother was very small, and based on their interation in Yuki’s main story/events/epi, we can see they are close.  And as in my opinion, the weight of being first in line set them apart from their brothers in term of personalities. Yelisei and Yukimura are cheerful, bright, a bit naive and innocent in contrast to their shady manipulated brothers, but in different way. Yelisei seems to be affected by his brother’s action while Nobuyuki wanted to keep Yuki from his dark side (Once in the main story he agreed with Sasha’s plan to be successor and eventually lost his mind ,blamed MC and shot her because he thought she was the one ruining the brother’s relationship.

We haven’t seen anything similar with Yukimura, and honestly  I don’t think he will, Yukimura was raised differently from Nobuyuki, to be the true honor of the family and always ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of his family, while Yelisei, judging by his MS, was raised same as Yuri to be the prince and can be put in the place of successor anytime, and he constantly was dragged into this heir problem by Sasha.

I can’t wait for Voltage to unfold the hidden side of Nobuyuki, though I don’t expect Voltage will write Nobuyuki’s story in the same extreme way as Arithmetic (use to) write and I don’t mind if they do ( minus the love triangle stuff, the triangle thing in Rossiyskaya route’s frustrating and beside, we have full IF Yelisei so I’m gonna pretend there’s no Yelisei’s route in the main story, same for other secondary characters).

#the cinderella contract #slbp #samurai love ballad party #Sanada Nobuyuki #yuri rossiyskaya #slbp Nobuyuki

[docfuture]

Sparring Match, Part 3

     [This story tried really hard to expand to novella or novel length, but I’m already in the middle of one of those 8-).  It takes place between Chapter 30 and Chapter 32  of The Maker’s Ark.  The most recent regular chapter is here, links to my other work here.  Planning a return to Maker’s Ark in two weeks, but might end up with another short work instead.  There will be other stories involving Jumping Spider and Breakpoint at some point.   I plan to put up a progress update regardless.]

Previous:  Part 2

     "The Seer's Madness, eh?" said Jumping Spider.  "That fits with a lot of the little clues I've been picking up, and one big one.  Interesting that it's common enough in the Nine Worlds that they came up with a generic term for it.  I thought Seers were rare."       Yiskah smiled grimly.  "They're rare because the 'Madness' is common, chronic, and often lethal.  Suicide is by far the most frequent cause of death.  And that's for adult extradimensional beings who have already made it over some pretty severe hurdles.  I know from personal experience that staying alive and sane through childhood and adolescence as a human with any kind of extrasensory ability is very hard.  Neither of the two previous controllers of this body managed it."       "I see."  Jumping Spider leaned back in her chair and sipped her coffee.       "But 'Seer's Madness' is a description based on symptoms, not a diagnosis.  By itself, it tells you nothing useful about causes or cures.  Osk knew someone named Hrothgar who had powers similar to Breakpoint.  Loss of self, and their struggles against it, seemed to be key issues for them both.  So he's listening to her."       "Well, I've known that Breakpoint's danger sense was protecting his self-identity, not just his life, for a while.  And it might trigger if you tried to help him.  But he's in more trouble than I thought if he'd rather die than let you do that mind probe.  Are you sure that's really what's going on?"       "No," said Yiskah.  "His self-identity and life are so intertwined, there's no safe way for me check.  That's why I agreed to let Osk handle him.  I wouldn't try mind alteration without a damned good reason.  But my good reasons and his might not match.  If he lost self-control and lashed out using his weakness detection while I was inside his mind, I'd probably be hurt, but survive--but it would trigger my mind trap, and kill him.  That could be what his danger sense is picking up."       Jumping Spider stared at her coffee cup.  "And he can't tell.  And even if he's on track to die without help, he'd rather die as who he is now than lose his identity too."       "Yes.  But Osk thinks she can get him to the point where he will accept help--your help, if not mine."       "Yeah.  Problem with that.  I'm not a nurturing type.  I mess with minds, I don't heal them."       "Neither do I.  I did what I could.  Telepathy can help a lot with diagnosis--if it's a problem I understand.  And I have some experience.  But there's no manual for telepathic treatment of mental disorders, and even if there were, what he did wouldn't be in it."       Yiskah spread her hands.  "Everyone thinks of me as the 'mind healer' because I brought Doc out of his coma.  I got him from 'dying' to 'not dying'.  I did not heal him--what healing he's done has been on his own.  And best not get me started on trying to find an ethical way to practice mind surgery."       Jumping Spider looked up and smiled.  "Oh, someday I'd like to.  But not today.  So.  Where do you want me to start our story?"       "From when you first started working together, but focus on the personal and emotional, and differences between Breakpoint's reactions and what you expected.  Anything you found surprising is a potential clue to helping him."       "All right."  She set down her cup, put her hands behind her head and looked thoughtful.       "I've worked with quite a few people over the years, but I've never had a regular partner for field work.  I got a heads up that Breakpoint was interested and a skimpy dossier from Doc a few years back.  I did a little digging of my own.  Two things stood out.       "The IC agencies didn't have anything on Breakpoint's personal background.  They assumed the synthetic ID Doc gave him was fake, but you can usually get some indirect stuff.  But the nothing they had told me Breakpoint was good at deep cover.  It piqued my interest.  The other thing I found was that he was really good at adjusting to new surroundings and making surface contacts, but he never cultivated anything long-term.  He always moved around."       "Did that make you suspicious?" asked Yiskah.       "A bit.  I double-checked my alien under-cover agent theory after the good impression he made at our first meeting, but it didn't hold up.  He's human, and after a bit of oblique questioning, I had an answer to his secrecy and his desire to be my partner.  Not a complete one, but enough."       "Oh?"       "After the initial shine of being a superhero wore off, he did some hard thinking about root causes and how he could best apply his abilities.  And he didn't trust the end of the Lost Years.  He observed that it didn't matter that his power wasn't genetic--if the wrong people decided to find out if it was.  I knew what that meant.  He still had living family.  And he might be dead to them, but he was never ever going to let anyone know who or where they were.  So they didn't end up dead, period."       "Did he know about your part in the demise of the Superagent program?"       "He guessed.  'Professionally done, no useful clues, never solved, world is a better place now' has been circumstantial evidence pointing to me for a while now.  I got a hint at a bit of well-hidden PTSD, and an obvious subtext that if any nation-state or organization started going after families again--of anyone, hero or villain--he'd be more than willing to help me take them out."       "So you accepted him then?"       "Oh, hell no.  That just meant I didn't reject him automatically.  There are good reasons I usually work alone, so I put him through the wringer first.  I figured the most likely difficulties would be either the frequent lack of closure that comes with the territory, or him turning into Overprotective Man trying to cover me with his danger sense.  Neither of those turned out to be a problem."       Jumping Spider took another sip of coffee.  "Then there were the potential coordination and psychological issues caused by my personal style.  He surprised me there.  He's good at picking up on cues and following my lead as needed, and it took me quite a while to find any way to fluster him or make him angry--and I'm very good at that."       "I'm sure he researched you."       "I can research, too.  But about the only thing that seemed to bother him was calling his mental tricks 'Zen'; he said it was inaccurate and somewhat disrespectful, even if no one else was ever likely to say so.  He was quite willing to lecture me on the finer points of the distinction for longer than I ever managed to keep listening.  I stopped trying to wind him up that way after he changed tacks once, waited for me to notice, and got me with 'That was Zen; this is Tao.'"       "Heh."       "That was typical of how he handled my tests--deflection, humor, or turning them into a mutual game. I eventually took him on a trial mission and everything went fine.  He was also right about just how much time his danger sense could save me.  Infiltration and setup got way quicker with his help."       "When did the personal attraction start?"       "The physical attraction was pretty quick.  I wanted to see how he handled frustration, so I told him I was going to push a few things as part of testing him.  And that 'I'll tell you if you start to bother me' wasn't good enough--he needed to be clear about any boundaries that were important to him."       "And was he?"       "Technically, yes.  I hit my own boundaries first.  That's when I said the hell with it and called him good enough, even though I still had a few reservations."       "Such as?"       "You know how Doc won't take personal time?  He knows it's important, but he's bad at it, thinks other things are more important, and won't listen when you try to tell him otherwise?  And acts like he's trying to work off bad karma from destroying the world in a past life?"       "Too well."       Jumping Spider frowned.  "Breakpoint is socially perceptive and skilled--but social connections are for work and cover.  He won't take personal time because he doesn't think it's important for him.  Which makes him sound like a sociopath, but he's not.  He knows it's important for other people, he's considerate, and he listens.  Which doesn't fit."       "It fits with how most people see The Volunteer.  And Breakpoint used that image as his model.  But the Volunteer is asexual, and Breakpoint isn't."       Jumping Spider snorted.  "Damned right he isn't.  Which made it interesting that I had so much trouble reading him.  It set off a few alarm bells.  But he was an excellent partner.  Then things started getting personal for me."       "Was there a specific trigger?"       "Oh yeah.  I needed some time off after a long mission.  Beach time in the Med.  I knew he needed time too, he'd gotten hit by several big false alarms while we were together."       "Do you know what caused them?"       "One was Flicker; I'm not sure about the others.  I asked him how he was going to unwind, and he gave me some BS about putting in some martial arts practice time.  I told him that wasn't healthy; he should come with me.  He pointed out we needed a cover.  So I told him we'd be NIA agents, a married couple on our anniversary, with secondary cover as contractors."       Jumping Spider snapped her fingers. "And like that, I had a Stepford husband."       Yiskah considered what she was picking up from her mind scan.  "That has a lot of implications.  Could you give an example?"       "Sure.  We attracted a fair amount of attention--that's why we needed a cover if we were going to relax--and I lost count of the number of times strangers told me how lucky I was, or, more often, how lucky we were.  And then came the boots."       "The boots?"       Jumping spider nodded to where her jump boots were leaning against the wall.  "Boots matter a lot to me.  I need both ankle and knee support for safe landings.  That's why I wear thigh-highs.  I'd been thinking of changing my look for a while, and I saw a nice pair in a shop with a design that might be compatible with the right kind of reinforcement, so I bought them to see if they were comfortable enough to wear for very long."       She laughed.  "They weren't.  I ended up back at the hotel with sore feet.  Breakpoint helped me take the boots off.  Then started to rub my feet.  I told him he didn't have to do that.  And do you know what he said?"       "What?"       "'Your husband would rub your feet.'"       Vivid imagery went with that memory.  "Ah," said Yiskah.  "It wasn't--"       "That wasn't cover."  Jumping Spider smiled.  "Cover was his excuse.  And then he rubbed my feet--using his power."       "Was that as good as--"       "Better."       "Oh."       "When he finally finished, I didn't say anything or move for a little bit.  Then I told him that my husband would also make love to me.  And I very much wanted him to."  Jumping Spider sighed.  "And his danger sense went off."       "How did he handle it?  He mentioned to me that you were frustrated."       "He handled it with good humor, and I was fine--I was more frustrated after our second try.  And it wasn't just sexual frustration, it was intel analysis frustration.  I couldn't figure out what it meant, and he didn't know."       "And you're expert at extracting information from sexual reactions."       "Yep.  They're like a canary in a coal mine for a lot of things people try to hide.  But his trigger wouldn't be warning away from starting a relationship--we already had one.  I didn't think it was a specific sexual problem of his, but I couldn't completely rule it out until you did.  But the real puzzler was why his danger sense didn't go off before he started to rub my feet--it was inevitable I was going to ask at that point."       Yiskah leaned back. "It's possible it was an early warning to you, precisely because it was your expertise.  He's good at extracting signal from the noise of his danger sense, but it's limited for long-term dangers.  He triggers off some boundaries because they're the only obvious point for a warning."       "Yeah.  We talked about that.  It can work like a warning sign at the top of a ridge. It's not because the ridge is dangerous; it's for something on the other side.  The ridge is just the easiest place to see the sign."  Jumping Spider waved a hand.  "But he couldn't read the sign.  And neither could I.  He said he'd work on it, so I was willing to wait.  Then."       Yiskah frowned.  "He was reluctant to reveal he can see signs like that at all.  And he downplayed how much the false alarms and noise wear at him.  Flicker seems to be a frequent source, and he doesn't want her to know.  Is that why he resisted coming here?"       "Unless she was gone or busy, yes.  All her Database snooping didn't help, either.  Neither of us know exactly why his danger sense warns him away from her--there are so many possible good reasons.  But Breakpoint wanted to keep a connection, and stay on good terms with her, no matter what.  Two words paid for it all, he said.  I was there when he yanked out his phone, hit the emergency call, and said them, so I can't argue."       "What were they?"       "'Earthquake.  Japan.'"       "Ah."       "So he definitely didn't want Flicker to find out how badly he got wrecked during her battle with the Xelian fleet."       "That was a difficult time for many of us," said Yiskah dryly.       Jumping Spider shook her head.  "Most of it didn't faze him.  Not the Volunteer, not the bombardment starting, not Flicker setting the sky on fire with her rocks.  But for about five minutes in the middle, she started ending the world, at least for him.  Over and over.  Every few seconds.  Breakpoint could feel it coming every time, and he lost it.  Started babbling, and was completely helpless.  We were on stakeout together, waiting to catch that assassin, and I had to hold him--I was worried he might hurt himself."       "I got only a hint from my mind scan, of something he was hiding well."       "He doesn't remember most of it.  Post-traumatic amnesia.  He didn't even remember the big power transformer next door blowing up, and we were about thirty feet away--pieces of it came flying through the window.  The only part he does remember is the end, when he was crying and babbling how the world kept ending, but only he could hear the echoes.  And everything was dangerous, because everyone was dying anyway, so he was useless.  I just held him and made soothing noises.  Then, a little bit after everything else stopped, so did he.  He got this stricken look of embarrassment, pulled himself together, and said he was okay.  I took a little convincing."       "Understandable."       "Turns out his babbling was triggering him, too, but he couldn't tell until afterwards because he was overloaded.  He was lying when he said he was okay, but he got his act together, said I'd kept him alive, and he was ready.  We had to move--the transformer blowing meant our spot wasn't inconspicuous anymore.  But his danger sense was working again, and we caught the fellow with the virus sprayer just before he got to Donner.  You know the rest of that story."       "And there was no way you were going to let things go after that."       "No.  Besides whatever that cost him, Breakpoint had at least one long term problem he didn't understand, we'd already had a clear warning, and he could no longer pretend--to me--that his danger sense would necessarily protect him.  He needed help.  My problem was arranging the logistics without setting him off.  Can I just say that trying to get someone with danger sense to stop stalling is a royal pain?"       "Yes."  Yiskah smiled.  "You managed, though."       "But you can't help him."       "I've already helped him--I just can't directly fix his problems.  But I don't trigger his danger sense for boundary crossings, because of my mind trap.  I have to do something specific.  That's what let me find out what I did, bring in Osk, and get him to the point he was willing to listen.  He'd never have trusted her enough, otherwise.  You still don't."       Jumping Spider smiled.  "I'm still alive because I'm a nasty, suspicious person.  Flicker's Choosers are old, smart survivors.  I don't forget who they worked for and with, and for how long--and how much Flicker, DASI, and you don't know about their history."       "She hasn't set off Breakpoint's danger sense, and she's not even trying to evade it."       "Oh, I believe she'll help him if she can.  That's not the same thing as trusting her."       "Fair enough.  But I need to update her.  Are you okay with that?"       A half-smile.  "To help him?  I said I was.  Go ahead."       "Done," Yiskah said, after a short bit of mental communing.  "And now we wait."       *****       Jumping Spider waved at the display.  They'd been talking for about an hour.  "No, it was easy to see why she needed to be at least two people.  DASI and Black Swan.  Good Cop and Bad Cop.  Omnipresent but trustworthy, if mostly invisible and incomprehensible, versus performance personified, scary and dangerous.  The 'parking ticket' plan worries me, though."       "Why?" said Yiskah.       "Because of how it will be perceived by authoritarian regimes.  I think she's trying to get someone to make a mistake, probably Russia, but they aren't stupid enough to try to nuke her without a lot more provocation that she's given so far."       "If you accepted Stella's offer, you'd know."       "A human director of EDU Intelligence would be mostly a figurehead.  And it's a desk job.  Hell no.  Not unless my knees go, and I can probably talk Doc into building me new ones if they do.  I'm more useful--"       "Hang on.  Update from Osk."       *****       Breakpoint had changed back into his coverall and carried his crowbar.  He also wore a pack; he was clearly planning a trip.  Osk had accompanied him, then left to give them privacy.       "It's no quick fix, but I didn't expect one, and there's no point in delaying anymore," he said.  "I've done too much of that already."  He nodded to Jumping Spider, who snorted.       "We got here," she said.       "Thanks to you.  But I owe you both a full explanation first."       "I'm a bit curious about why you think Osk knows enough to guide you through this."       He nodded.  "Putting minds together from pieces that don't always fit is part of what Choosers do.  That's where einherjar came from.  It's tricky, but Osk is good at it.  Some other Choosers weren't as good--and their einherjar struggled.  Osk has been helping those for more than a hundred years.  The key is to take things slowly.  My first step is a trip to the Nine Worlds."       "Where will you go?" asked Yiskah.       "A place called Ending Falls, to start."       "Ominous name," said Jumping Spider.       "It's called Beginning Falls, too," he said.  "The name for it means both.  The stream from Flicker's pool joins several others, and the Falls are where it meets the sea."       Yiskah frowned.  "I think Journeyman once got into trouble there."       "Osk mentioned that.  It dispels illusions and concealment--and someone saw him.  But it won't directly harm a human, and it weakens the hold of obsessions and false visions.  It's a traditional first stop for beings with power who have screwed something up and are trying to start fresh.  And it helps with the Seer's Madness.  Lif uses it."       "Sounds reasonable," said Yiskah.  "Then what?"       "I can't work continuously on what I need to do.  I'll need to recover after each incremental change.  And what I do during the recovery time is pretty important.  I'm going to work with Osk to help out in the Nine Worlds.  There are a lot of places that are filled with the magical equivalent of old landmines and unexploded bombs.  And people live in them.  They farm in them.  Do you know how dangerous it is to be a farmer there?  And they look out for each other, but my danger sense could be a big help.  And there are these things called void worms that--"       "You miss helping people," said Jumping Spider.       "Yes," he said.  "Helping them, and not having to worry afterwards."       "Ah.  Occupational therapy."       "Sort of.  DASI says the sessions with Osk sound more like cognitive behavioral therapy for seers.  I'll be gone for a week or two, and probably make regular trips for a while after that.  We'll see how things go."  He paused.  "Do you think you'll be working here when I get back?"       Jumping Spider met his eyes.  "Depends.  Plenty I want to learn about, but times are changing fast.  Might need to move in a hurry.  But you have my number.  Call."       "Do you still--"       "Yes."       "Ah, there's more than one--"       "Still yes.  I pushed you because you needed the push and I could not fool you.  Not because I wanted you gone."       Another pause.  "I don't--"       "How many times do I have to say yes before you'll listen?"       Breakpoint looked down and swallowed.  "The Falls will help.  I'm not better yet--but I believe better is possible now.  That's a big change already.  Thank you."  He looked up again, at Yiskah.  "And thank you for finding the right way to trick me."       Yiskah smiled.  "Would that my other work were half as pleasant."       "Now.  Osk said this would help but it had to be my initiative.  My choice."  He took a deep breath.  "Two truths.  Not so much what I've been hiding, but why.  You've both already picked up that my fear reactions aren't quite normal."       "Yes," said Yiskah.  "I assumed you changed them as part of your reshaping, to better adapt to your danger sense.  Which seemed a bit risky.  But the whole thing was risky."       "It was.  But I didn't have a lot of choice.  I didn't start studying martial arts and meditation just because I thought they were cool.  And I didn't pick the Volunteer as a role model just because he was a hero.  Here's a riddle for you:  How do you tell the difference between danger sense with a lot of false positives and panic disorder?"       "Oh.  Shit."       "Yeah.  I don't know how bad my anxiety would have been without my danger sense, but it doesn't really matter.  With it, I had a severe problem.  I didn't even have the luxury of being able to tell myself that it was all in my mind.  Because some of it wasn't.  I was afraid all the time.  Either I was triggered, trying to tell if it was for something real, or worrying about the next trigger."       "Ouch."       "And I quickly discovered that every medication available made it worse--because they damped my ability to distinguish true signals more than they helped with the false."       "Is that the full reason it's dangerous for you to drink alcohol?" asked Jumping Spider.       "Yep."  Another deep breath.  "And now you probably have enough information to track down my family through medical records."       "There was a classic fear spike," said Yiskah.  "Not associated with danger, though."       "An old friend.  Going to have to let some of them back out as I adjust."  He turned to Jumping Spider.  "And some of them will probably be about you.  That happened for family and anyone I got close to.  And even the true triggers... well, for someone else, I often got nothing but the spike.  I couldn't tell whether they were about to be hit by a car or their dog was about to spill their drink by wagging its tail."       Jumping Spider smiled.  "DANGERINT has always been noisy.  Still beats most SIGINT.  I'll deal like I always have.  And minor dangers for me are rare--they get crowded out by the competition."       "I know," he said softly.  "That's one reason I picked you.  I couldn't tell you the full story because I'd never have passed your tests if I had."       "Whoops.  Sorry about that.  Paranoia is a bitch sometimes, even if there are people out to get you.  Doesn't matter now."       Breakpoint closed his eyes and took another breath.       "You do too deserve her," said Yiskah.  "And she deserves you."       "I was getting there," he said.       "I know.  But breaking negative ideation loops is something I can help with, when you aren't trying to hide them."       "But you won't always--"       "Be on Earth after you get back?  Not always, but often.  Distance isn't an obstacle to telepathy, and you have my number, too."  She smiled.  "Call."       "All right.  I better go."       Jumping Spider stepped forward and gave him a long hug.  "Don't kill any dragons I wouldn't."       "I won't.  You take care."       Breakpoint finally stepped back and raised his crowbar in a salute.  "Thank you again, Yiskah, for one hell of a sparring match."       "My pleasure," said Yiskah.       He smiled at that, then turned and went out the door.

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc #Maker's Ark

[howtomusicmajor]

Public vs. Private vs. Conservatory

There are several types of post-secondary education available to musicians. The main forms of official education fall in two general categories: liberal arts universities, and conservatories. Universities can be further divided into public and private schools. They all have benefits and drawbacks, and with roughly 5300 schools in the US, there’s going to be one out there that fits your needs.

University

Overall, universities are focused on providing a diverse education and producing well-rounded liberal arts students. They may provide three different potential degrees - Bachelor of Arts in music, Bachelor of Music, and Bachelor of Science in music. Each of these has its own speciality.

Bachelor of Music: Focuses primarily on the musical aspect of the degree. A good rule of thumb is that two thirds of your overall credits will be in the music department, and one third in gen ed credits. This is the most similar to the education you would receive at a conservatory. The goal here is to be a good musician, with some extra backing in the liberal arts. It is very art-based.

Bachelor of Arts in music: Focuses primarily on receiving a liberal education, with music as a focus within that education. Here the spread is usually one third music to two thirds other classes. The goal is a well-rounded person, with a focus in music. If music is something you may not want as your entire career, or if you are thinking of going into music business or law, then a BA in music may be a better choice than a BM.

Bachelor of Science in music: Focuses in a specific subfield of music, one that is technical or related to business. Fields can include audiology, audio technology, recording, music education, music business, and others. Schools vary as to what will be a BS as opposed to a BM or BA. Essentially these degrees are for people who enjoy science or technically-based training.

Overall, universities provide a broader education. If you have doubts about whether you want to pursue performing as your career, then a University degree is likely better for you. It provides more flexibility to switch majors, as well as  more flexibility within the degree itself when it comes to potential jobs.

Public

Public universities, especially in state universities, are much cheaper than private universities, averaging between $12,000 and $13,000 a year to attend. This is because state and federal governments programs fund part of the university’s system. That means the tuition is not forced to cover the entire cost of running the school. Furthermore, state universities tend to be much larger than private universities, which means that they are usually more diverse and have more programs for students to participate in and use. There are also a greater number of classes offered, and professors available to teach you. In general, state universities simply have more of everything.

State universities, however, also make it much easier to fall between the cracks. When your university has anywhere from ten to fifty thousand students, if you are struggling, then it is less likely than at a smaller school that someone will notice. Some people like being just a face in the crowd, while others prefer to have more individualized attention during counseling and planning sessions. The goal is for you to find an atmosphere that makes you comfortable, and that you can also afford to attend.

Private

Private universities, compared to state universities, are much more expensive. This is because they do not receive state funding. Without that funding, tuition is forced to make up much more of the overall cost of attendance. A private university can cost anywhere from$25,000 to $50,000 per year to attend, when room and board are included. Living on campus and paying the university for room and board is often mandatory at private universities.

General, private universities are much smaller than public universities. They often have a maximum of five or ten thousand students. This means that the school as a whole has fewer resources, facilities, and stuff. While the classes offered maybe more individualized, there are fewer offered, simply because there are fewer professors. As long as the school is well-run, there will be enough classes offered for people to complete their degrees, but scheduling may be harder, because fewer sections are offered of any one class. The benefit is that with fewer students, professor and advisors can give much more attention to each student they do have. This is why private universities boast about their low student-to-faculty ratio.

Some people enjoy having a familiarity with most people on their campus, while others find it off-putting to go to a university with the same number of people as attended their high school, or even fewer. Again, the point is to choose a school that fits you, not one that seems prestigious or one that your friends chose.

Conservatory

Conservatories are essentially prestigious trade schools for learning a musical act. They pride themselves on producing extremely skilled performers, composers, and occasionally educators. The overall education of a conservatory is almost entirely musical. While universities have a general education requirement, most conservatories require almost nothing. Some may require business classes, but there is no requirement surrounding, for example, sociology, or non-musical history. This makes conservatories ideal for people who know their goal is undoubtedly performance-based. However, it makes it much more difficult for people who intend to get further degrees or begin careers that are not performance-based. Without including classes that are usually found in University settings, employers and grad schools are less likely to consider a conservatory student to be a good fit for their organization.

Conservatories in general are very competitive places, even after people have been admitted. Since everyone there intends on performing to make a living, performance opportunities, master classes, and other potential opportunities for growth within the conservatory are very, very desirable. This means that the overall atmosphere can be at times tense, frustrating, or simply energizing, if you thrive under pressure. Some people prefer a more laid-back atmosphere, while others enjoy the challenge of getting ahead in a competitive environment.

So if you are certain that you want to perform, then a conservatory would probably be a great fit. However, if an atmosphere of stiff competition, and a lack of flexibility and future career options is a downside for you, then consider just getting a Bachelor of Music degree from a university instead. The goal is to choose an educational style that works best for you.

#studyblr #music #college #conservatory #university