Artist: Westside Gunn

Album: Pray for Paris

Release Date: April 17th, 2020

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Artist Background:

Born on the East Side of Buffalo, New York, specifically the Central Park area, Alvin Lamar Worthy, known to many & most as Westside Gunn, has been making sense of different directions in a cohesion true to his own design for 38 years. Growing up in the early 90’s, Westside was immersed in Hip Hop from his mother, who had him at 16, to his uncles & other family members who were still in high school, even beginning to rap at the age of 8 himself, yet strictly mcing wasn’t the only path that he wanted to take steps in. From making comic books in fifth grade, screen printing tees in the eighth, & the next taking trips to Atlanta on a Greyhound to buy clothes he couldn’t in Buffalo, he was always interested in multiple mediums, to the extent of applying for fashion school at the age of 19, but having to defer that ambition due to being a teenage father of two.
Westside attempted rap somewhat, but rather unsuccessfully w/ his first mixtape “Flyest Nigg@@ in Charge,” released in 2005 initially & recently re-released. He also founded his fashion label Griselda by Fashion Rebel in 2005. Around this time is also when he first met & befriended the main Griselda producer, Daringer, at a rap night at the Buffalo club Broadway Joe’s where Daringer was Djing. Unfortunately, also around this time, Benny the Butcher’s brother, Machine Gun Blak, was shot & killed; Chine, Conway, Benny, & Westside were all incredibly close & were in a rap crew called the Forerunners together in high school, & another later called Street Entertainment. Griselda’s 2019 album WWCD was named in honor & remembrance of Machine Gun Blak, standing for What Would Chine Do? Gunn was also caught from being on the run from a weapons charge in 2006, & sentenced to federal prison for the first time. When he got out in 2011, he decided to focus on managing his brother Conway’s career & founded Griselda Records. W/ having stepped out from rapping, when Conway was shot in 2012, WSG decided to pick up rapping again to motivate & inspire him, releasing his first official tape, Hitler Wears Hermes, a saying that reworked the popular maxim “The Devil Wears Prada” for a modern audience & era. HWH was also his first collaboration w/ Daringer, who produced the beat Messhall Talk on HWH. Earlier WSG had founded Fashion Rebels, his clothing brand, but w/ the advent of his HWH he formed Griselda Records in 2012 & signed his brother Conway.
In 2014, Gunn released his tape HWH2 which began to lead to a slow rise among the underground. He handed this tape to his friend AA Rasheed, who got it to Planet Asia. Planet Asia liked the tape, & got in touch w/ Westside. Asia played this tape for The Alchemist, who loved it, & then started showing it to the people from Dj Premier, Action Bronson, & Danny Brown who formed similar positive opinions of Westside’s work.
In 2015, WSG released HWH3, a duo tape w/ his brother Conway, under the name Hall & Nash, & a tape w/ producer Big Ghost Ltd, called Griselda Ghost. He did a song w/ Skyzoo on HWH3, & afterwards Skyzoo asked him to feature on his own album, which further grew WSG’s underground acclaim.
2016 was when Westside truly began to break thru to a larger audience. He released HWH4; an album w/ the producer The Purist titled Roses are Red...So is Blood; the Don’t Get Scared Now EP, & the There’s God and There’s FlyGod, Praise Both EP. But his major release was the album FlyGod, featuring Action Bronson, Danny Brown, Roc Marciano, Skyzoo, Your Old Droog, the modern core of Griselda w/ Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, & Keisha Plum, his former signee Mach-Hommy, & friend & associate AA Rasheed, along w/ production from Daringer, The Alchemist, Apollo Brown, Camouflage Monk, Roc Marciano, Statik Selektah, and Tha God Fahim. This album propelled him further into the underground limelight & ears & eyes of labels, blogs, & the underground music scene to a substantial extent. Anderson Paak. even noted in his XXL Freshman cover that the one artist that he thought should be there was Westside Gunn.
2017 was a slower year, seeing him release HWH5, the mixtape Hitler on Steroids alongside Nas’s Dj, Dj Green Lantern, & the EP Raw is FlyGod. Yet a mainstay of the underground, MF Doom, also took notice of the upcoming artist, & created an EP w/ him titled WestsideDoom opening a new door of older & more diverse fans. Griselda also signed to Shady Records this year, after Mike Herard heard “Dear Winter Bloody Fiegs” off of HWH3 & realized Gunn’s potential. In addition, on the Griselda On Steroids Tour, Raekwon surprised the crowd by passing the torch to Westside Gunn.
2018 saw the release of HWH6, & the EP FlyGod is Good...All the Time w/ Mr. Green, as well as the compilation album Hitler is Dead. Most notably tho, WSG released Supreme Blientele which ended up on many year’s end best lists & had features from Anderson Paak., Crimeapple, Elzhi, & Roc Marciano along w/ features from Gunn’s Griselda affiliates.
2019 brought the release of HWH7, & FlyGod is An Awesome God, along w/ the compilation album The Fourth Rope. The major release tho was the Griselda joint album WWCD (What Would Chine Do?) that featured Raekwon & 50 Cent, as well as the single Dr. Birds which began to receive widespread attention along w/ the Bang! Remix featuring Eminem.
Enter 2020, & Westside Gunn’s album Pray for Paris was released to both critical & popular acclaim. Gunn suffered from a COVID-19 infection, but luckily recovered in full health. Later in the year, WSG also dropped the albums FlyGod is An Awesome God 2, & his major label debut for Shady Records, Who Made the Sunshine. On November 14th, Gunn announced his contractual obligations to Shady Records were complete.

The Album Itself:

To start w/, the album art itself begins to convey the feel of the album. If you're wondering why, first off that painting is "David with the head of Goliath", by Carravaggio, an Italian master who you've prolly seen w/ the works, Bacchus, Judith Beheading Holofernes, & Cardsharks.
The ethos behind the design is in the intro of Pray for Paris that starts w/ that high class art auction for the most expensive painting ever sold, The Salvador Mundi, by Leonardo da Vinci, & that world is the one that Westside Gunn wants to enter into. Paris is generally viewed as a stand in for high art & wealth & taste in the West & worldwide, & Gunn is praying he reaches that symbol, wealth & luxury. Just as the designer, Virgil Abloh, was the first black major fashion house head designer, Westside Gunn, a man of small stature akin to David in Carravaggio's work, wants to reach that level of success against the massive odds, some would say Goliath odds, & place his mark & hand, chains, one w/ his portrait as a kid even, on those hallowed symbols, Paris, Carravaggio, etc, of wealth, taste, & luxury for himself.
As to how Paris came to be for Gunn, Virgil ended up playing an integral part in that facet of the trek as well. Virgil Abloh reached out to Gunn w/ tickets for front row seats to the Paris Fashion Week Louis Vuitton show as they were both mutual fans of each other’s respective work & actual friends after being linked by WSG’s associate Chase. Westside rocking Abloh’s first ever fashion brand, Pyrex23, far before the Off-White hype, & continually shouting him out, & Virgil purchasing GxFR apparel as well as records frequently & retweeting Gunn.
WSG began this album while he was in Paris, originally planning it to simply be an EP, recording a couple tracks in a couple hour session. After coming back to the states from his trip tho, he decided that the experience of Paris deserved an entire album.
Right on the 2nd track, “No Vacancy”, WSG already leans into the theme of a Parisian inspired album w/ a simple “Bonjour” to begin the track. Produced by DJ Muggs, it also serves as the first example of the all star ensemble he brought together for this album. It’s & light & enjoyable beat to wade into the album’s overall feel w/, & Westside is sparse akin to the beat delivering a smooth but solid flow.

“The Migos, Nigos, we reload the free throws The Margiela peacoat, the Regal Four story house I got off Ebro, the Vlone Rest in peace Vino (Ah), rest in peace Kino, the Spiegel The seagulls, April fresh ego Slam you on your neck like Bruno Sammartino Welcome home Tito, you proud and sippin' pinot My shooter shot five niggas in a row, we yell ‘Bingo’, my Nino Bulletproof Bentleys parked outside the Whitney”

Already we’ve got the intertwining of fashion luxury & Hip Hop, the Migos obvs, but also Nigo, the founder of BAPE. A Margiela peacoat & the radio DJ Ebro; Bulletproof Bentleys parked outside the Whitney [Museum of American Art in New York]; Westside is already displaying & interweaving his deep immersion & intertwined life, love & knowledge of Fashion, Art, Luxury, Hip Hop, the grimier & the street sides, all seamlessly, Bulletproof Bentleys.
& immediately after the lighter aires of “No Vacancy” end, the heavier hitting beat of “George Bondo,” produced by Daringer, comes in as if almost to just remind us as Westside does w/ the first line that he is still “from a bad block on the Eastside, Peace & War.” It’s a great Griselda posse cut, w/ Benny & Conway coming in & spitting their special blend of potent over a Daringer beat up there w/ the besta the Griselda collab tracks. As Benny ends it to further serve as a reminder, importantly so w/ PFP being WSG’s major label debut, “this Griselda n*gga.” Conway noting similarly as well, “I was him before you ever heard me on a track w/ Em.” George Bondo serves as a singularly great track for one, but also as an establishment of Griselda on this album to enforce their presence & identity imminently in the album early on.
Then “327” comes in once again w/ a mellow beat by Camoflauge Monk to return us to the pace of “No Vacancy” after establishing that this is still Griselda prior w/ “George Bondo.” Similarly to Benny’s noting on his album Burden of Proof that “last year was about branding; this year bout expanding,” “327” is our first sample of an expanded Griselda, w/ features from Tyler the Creator & Joey Bada$$ rather than usual more grimy & street collaborators. One wouldn’t necessarily expect a verse about “he’s 6’5 & I’m a munchkin” talking about a man Tyler’s w/ at a disco & most likely affectionate w/, yet here we are; a Griselda w/ more range & scope. Westside noted that w/ this record he wanted to collab w/ people that he hadn’t before, akin to his Paris experience, a new range for his artistic work as well. Tyler’s collaboration came about w/ WSG hitting him up to learn that Tyler was making beats for him actually, & in turn, WSG asked if Tyler wanted to be on a track. He sent it to him, & the song was made w/ Joey being the only initial planned feature. Also “327” is where the elements of Westside’s Parisian experience become more directly evident in his verses, “them 327’s was blessings,” which, along w/ the track name, is referencing that while in Paris Charaf Tajer, the founder of fashion brand Casablanca, gifted WSG w/ New Balance’s first pair of 327’s. Billie Essco works this point in w/ his smooth hook to a further extent,

“I swear Paris will be prayed for (Prayed for) Unreleased Off-White to the ankles, ayy (Ankles) I'm in them places that you can't go (That you can't go) Don C, Nigo in the same row, ayy (The same row) I swear Paris will be prayed for I need Casablanca by the caseload...”.

This is that place of exclusivity & his dreams that WSG has landed; he’s prayed for this, one must, to him it’s a pinnacle of life none so easily achieved.
Camo Monk comes in again w/ another melodic tune starting w/ a simple & lackadaisical piano for “French Toast.” For me, this is a fav on the album. It’s Gunn just being raw in a light way, rawness w/ a bitta light delight. His singing isn’t great, but it’s one my fav moments of him singing period because of it’s imperfection it works so well in it’s authenticity. From displaying his naïveté “we can laugh over French Toast but you don’t call it French Toast” to just simple tourist delights as the Eiffel Tower, to me this track really encapsulates just the bliss & aloof delight that WSG must’ve felt while being in Paris amidst his loves of fashion & luxury at their zenith. Him & Joyce Wrice’s intertwining vocals also just pair so well & further expand the feel of a fun & simple Paris date. Wale comes in a flows as he does & does a damn great job, but for me, the highlight is always the WSG & Wrice sections of the song despite Wale’s great verse & recreation of Westside’s adlibs. It’s that mix of raw & imperfect & kinda grimy yet luxurious & beautiful between both their voices & the beat that is so often present in Westside’s work but in a different form here. Also the sample at the end is quintessential Griselda, really encapsulating the spirit of WSG the best I ever heard, “I’ll admit I’ll admit; I’m no singer. But what I am is the showstopper — the headliner, the main event, the icon, FLYGOD.”
“Euro Step” then steps in w/ a pared back & simple beat by Conductor Williams that also manages to be mildly odd enough to remain interesting. It’s a relief track where Westside is just flowing, & the beat takes a few steps back instead. Serving as an interlude transition almost to the upcoming posse cut once again, Westside reminds of his origin,

“Never got wet, this for my niggas that's locked in the cage Brushin' their waves with a chip bag, drop it like Six Flags (skrt) Clothes from Fifth Ave, I was broke and got rich fast.”

Daringer comes back in once again w/ beating drums on “Allah Sent Me” after a more minimal beat akin to the transition between “No Vacancy” & “George Bondo.” Gunn comes in w/ an enjoyably annoying & tinny sung chorus,

“I miss the days when bricks was only nineteeeeeeen; I need a 100 right now Get the pot let me do my thiiiiiiiiiiing, stove hold me down Allah sent me here to be the kiiiiiiiiing, bodies on the floor piled.”

Reminding us that he’s not always trying to sing pleasantly, but it’s still that rawness from Griselda that I love. It’s not perfect, but beautifully imperfect. The Griselda crew comes in & effortlessly & skillfully trades verses amongst each other intermittently amidst, & Daringer simply lets the beat remain along w/ another sample of a villain doing exactly what he wants to as he wants to.
A more minimal beat from the Alchemist comes in for “$500 Ounces,” making an odd transition from “Allah Sent Me” that pays off in abundantly in a bit. It’s between tense & more soulful, the frenzied & quick strings providing tension & that soul vocal sample in the back providing a counterpoint in it’s loveliness, yet mirror in it’s firm chops & inflections. This is a cut between coke rap maestros, w/ WSG, Freddie, & Roc interchanging verses in between easily. Roc especially w/ his delivery:

”To run with me, you need sunscreen cream, see I'm covered in bling (Bling) Motherfucker, ain't no shade, even under the trees where monkeys swing (Ah-ah-ah) The marijuana money green, I'm runnin' the company like a drug ring Livin' comfortably off of gut instinct That fell upon me once I was done with the streets (Uh)”

& when “Versace,” hits, the essence of the soul sample on the prior takes the forefront in a glorious luxury of what seems to be a gospel track produced by Jay Versace; the payoff was worth it. It’s all about the balance, of luxury & beauty & gritty & grimy, & Westside continually crafts this album in an exquisite saga of both in perfect balance in curation. At the end WSG also poignantly balances the luxury w/ a more personal lyric noting of the other contrast he’s known compared to his luxury:

”Brick of coke pioneers, imagine laying on the cot Haven't seen your fam in years (Ah), lookin' at old pics Droppin' tears, my old celly live like that (Ah) Inshallah, I'm never goin' back (Never goin' back)”

Jay Versace does an obvs excellent job on this track, & the collab is a humorous story in it’s origin & the theme of Griselda expanding & WSG seeking out unexpected collaborations & collaborators. Versace actually just sent Gunn a message saying he made beats, & WSG didn’t know about his social media career. He thought they were gonna be trash, & the first beat Westside, loves it, & instantly taps him for the album.
The Alchemist comes back in for another odd but oddly just right transition from “Versace,” w/ a sorta 60s/70s RNB vocal sample playing softly in the background creating an almost celestial atmos w/ no drums & only a simple bassline providing us some grounding in the beat, similar to the prior drumless but more glorious atmosphere of “Versace.” Westside pitches down his voice to match w/ Boldy’s deeper & more monotonic flow, & it works wonderfully on this song.
& now to spice things back up, DJ Premier drops in w/ a bassline bound beat w/ an organic & simple snare keeping pace amidst a flurry of bright piano. Among all the personality of a Premo beat, Westside delivers a great like, “My heart cold, but my neck feel like Aspen (Brr),” but the highlight is the infectious chorus. It’s simple, charismatic, & just great.
Now from that Tyler the Creator collab, “Party wit Pop Smoke” is the beat we got, which is an odd but welcome outing for Tyler as well considering its sample based production. WSG made this track in reference to his time in Paris amidst which he met Pop Smoke. Recounting the encounter,

”And when we linked, it was love, and I had on all my jewelry—I'm never going to forget—he came up to me, and picked up my jewelry on my neck. Because I guess he thought it was some light shit...
And he just picked up the one chain and was like, "Oh, shit. This shit heavy as hell." I'm like, yeah what you thought it was? We in the middle of the club partying and shit. That was just crazy because it was just like you could see the kid in him. I didn't know how old he was. When he seen the jewels up close and held it, it was like the kid came out. He was excited and shit. We just kicked it.”

& it’s these typa just weirdly innocent & delightful moments & events comprising the album from it’s inception & final form that I like the most amidst all the grime that make up the basis for this album in a lotta ways. It’s such an unusual balance for Westside when it’s usually just luxury that’s contrasted instead, & it’s just so human. Keisha comes in w/ her smooth but murderous poetry, & then of course lol to complement an incident w/ the childlike nature of Pop Smoke in a moment, Pootie drops in at the end & reminds us that we “need to stop copying off her daddy.”
“Le Djoliba” comes in to close the show out, produced by Bohemia Lynch, w/ a vocal sample that amps up the semi strained “moooonlight” of “Party wit Pop Smoke” in a continual “I’mmm so tired & cold.” West does his thing, enthusiastic adlibs of “Boom boom boom brrrrrrr,” brings in some coke raps & a quotable “the way my fucking neck look they think I sold my soul,” but the best part is the last bit of the song. Westside ends w/ the verse “Front row, Virgil Abloh show, this ngga GOAT (This ngga GOAT) Had a n*gga tap dancin' on the blow (Tap dancin' on the blow, ah)” & then Cartier Williams comes in tap dancing. Besides the blow, this actually happened; Virgil brought out a tap dancer at the Louis Vuitton show.

Opinion:

This is a fav album of the year for me for it’s curation & balance & just overall personality. It bleeds out this just absurd but actual narrative of WSG’s experience of Paris, somewhere amidst the things he loves in some of their best instances. It’s got its grimy & hard bits as we’re accustomed to from Griselda, but overall it’s this sorta sincere & just delightful love letter from Gunn to Paris. From the random bonjours to the constant fashion except events that uniquely happened, the gifted 327s & Casablanca; Louis Vuitton tap dancers & front row seats; Pop Smoke like a kid & Jay Versace like a kid selling beats ; the Salvador Mundi intro & Caravaggio cover art, it’s such a uniquely curated & collected together album that’s raw, but not raw as we usually expect. It’s just organic raw life outside of the normal street ventures; it’s someone on the Streets of Paris who’s wanted to always be there who came from the streets & their raw unfiltered delight & attempt to curate & convey something to us the listeners as grand & fun as the time there was to them. & it does that excellently imo.

Discussion Questions:

1). How do you feel about this album? How do you think it compares to other Griselda releases this year?
2). How about in Westside’s own discography?
3). If you could’ve added or changed one or two features & producers for this album, who would have they been?
4). Top 3 songs on the album?

https://ibb.co/fXpZ7nd
Dear Diary,
Gosh, I have been one busy mama lately! It’s hard to keep everything I need to get done straight sometimes, being a mama leaves me frazzled most days! You know what that’s like, right Diary? Oh wait...you probably don’t because you’re a Diary and not a person. Jeez, I am one silly goose! Anyway, What I like to do is make lists. I call them Brain Dumps. A brain dump is when I sit down at my desk in Orenda Headquarters, prop my phone up against my hardcover copy of Girl, Wash Your Face, flip the camera to front facing and hit record. Next I take out a writing utensil. A writing utensil is either made with ink or lead and glides across your paper as you fashion words from all the letters of the alphabet. I like the ink writing utensils because they come in fun colors and mentally i am still 12 years old. Lead writing utensils only write in gray which is grody because I’m not a doom and gloom type of gal. I choose to be positive and have good days, except in weak moments when I repost memes about depression. So once I’m done with my brain dump I tear it out of my notebook and scotch tape it to my forehead. I don’t remove it until I’ve completed everything on my list. I’m a motivated mama. I like to challenge myself. Diary, the craziest thing happened this week! One of G’s CLEAN (not dirty) diapers somehow wound up in the wash and it didn’t even bust open and leave a mess of gel pellets all over the inside of my machine. Wanna know how it didn’t bust apart? Because it was never in my washing machine to begin with 😂 lol. HAHA! I was low on content ideas, positively desperate for something to post that screamed “I’m a mama, just like you! Things get chaotic in my house, same as yours! You are not alone!” I could have just took a picture of my filthy kitchen and posted that, so simple, but I wanted something more extreme. I had a really great idea, so I rolled with it. G was napping, but before he went down we had been playing in the baby pool in the living room like all normal families do even though we have a perfectly good bathtub right down the hall. That’s of no matter though, let’s stay focused here. So I was rooting around in my diaper bag for a fruit roll up I knew I had stashed, when I found some clean diapers. BINGO! BANGO LANGO DING DONG! Lightbulb went off! I submerged the diapers in the pool until they were chock full of water, set up my tripod, and posed with the waterlogged diapers like a raving lunatic, right in my tv room. I was just about to nail my 3rd pose where I pop my foot out to the side and tilt my head(always need a few for IG carousels), when my roomie walked in! We have a roomie now, in case you didn’t know. She seemed horrified because I was standing there with soaking wet diapers that were dripping on to my ruggable and smiling at nothing. I tried to explain but she backed away and said she had to use the bathroom. I didn’t see her after that for 3 whole days. I might be a liar, Diary, but I’m not a dangerous person. There’s no need to be scared of anyone who plays with wet diapers in the middle of the day...alone....and records it....we’re just mamas on the brink of a nervous breakdown, we’re just like you! Diary, have you ever faked running a 5k? I have. Have you ever nailed your nutrition for 2 whole days in a row? Have you ever lied about getting up at 4:30 am for two weeks straight when you haven’t and everyone knows it because they know how to tell time? Have you ever said “I’m so sad because my dad isn’t flying out for thanksgiving because of covid” but then you fly him out and hide him from your followers but they can tell he was there based on the angle your fam bam thanksgiving picture was taken from and the fact that you actually left the house and did something other than go to Costco? Have you ever eaten clam chowder soup after claiming to be dairy intolerant? Wow. You’ve done none of these things? Weird. But then again you are just a Diary, not a person. I keep forgetting because you’re my only real friend in life. It’s better than having real human friends though, because you can’t talk back and call me on my bullshit! #MOMWIN Ok I better go, it’s time to strap on my Tevas and head on over to my neighbors house to drop of the single chocolate I bought her at the quaint little candy SHOPPE I visited the other day. I didn’t spring for a whole box of chocolates because the gift wasn’t for me and I’m the only person I like to spend money on.
Xo Xo, Amanda

Hi all! I was going through some things from my ex boyfriend and I had a date book compiled, and thought I'd share some of the ideas here before I toss the book out.
Bob Ross Follow Along: Bob Ross has his own Youtube channel that you can go to. Scroll through the video selection and choose a painting that looks appealing to you. Buy canvases and paint and a bottle of wine and have a fun night in following along with Bob.
Murder Mystery Dinner: This would be fun for an at home double date. I found a cheap kit at Tj Maxx but you could also probably find ideas online or a cheap kit online. My kit had invitations that were to be mailed out to guests inviting them to the dinner (could use fb invite), pamphlets with the characters background for the guests to study, dinner ideas (could be as simple as spag and meatballs) and a storyline to follow to solve a murder.
Make Tipsy Bartender Drinks: If you like drinking you could have a fun night in by going to Tipsy Bartenders Youtube and see if there are any drinks you have the supplies to make laying around. He has drinks of varying budgets so if you need something simple and cheap hes got you.
Board Game Night: If you have some board games enjoy a night in playing them. If you don't there is a website called Board Game Online that I find quite fun that you could burn some time on. There is also Drunk Pirate for an online drinking game.
Science Experiments: After a quick trip to the grocery store for some supplies you can enjoy a night in doing various different science experiments such as making a rainbow jar, aqua sand, slime, and whatever other fun experiments you can find online.
Make Clay Sculptures: You can buy a packet of clay at Walmart and mold some figures with it. Let it harden overnight and enjoy date night #2 by painting them.
Fantasy Box: Fantasy Box is a really cool company that creates boxes for different sexual desires. They have costume boxes with fantasies like playboy bunny, school girl, as well as bondage boxes, playful boxes, etc. The boxes are already pretty cheap compared to buying the items individually but you can also find referral codes online for an additional $20 off.
Break a World Record: Look online at Guinness World Record and see if there are any records that you and your S/O can break.
Time Capsule: Buy a lunch box and find various items around the house that are memories that signify your relationship. This could be photos, receipts, trinkets. Put them in the box and open in 1 year with a bottle of wine.
Make each other t-shirts: Buy plain white t-shirts, fabric pens, different craft supplies and decorate t-shirts for each other.
Decorate kitchen supplies: Buy ceramic markers and mugs/plates/shot glasses/etc and decorate some kitchen supplies.
Answer Questions: There are various websites online that have long lists of silly/serious/romantic questions to ask your s/o. Sit down with some mixed drinks and go through the lists with each other.
Puzzles: Find a puzzle that you both like and get to completing. Once done buy some mod podge to seal the puzzle and use it later to decorate your living space!
Draw/Paint Each Other: Depending on your budget this could be as simple as paper and pencil or canvas and paint or both. You can choose to paint each other live while looking at each other (might be harder) or print photos of each other to paint.
$10 Dollar Tree Challenge: Go to Dollar Tree with each of you only allowed a budget of $10 = 10 items. Buy the randomest stuff that might make the other person laugh. My boyfriend and I found minion night lights, anal wart cream, douches, etc.
Youtube Challenges: Do various popular Youtube challenges. Boyfriend Does My Makeup, Chapstick Challenge, Tincan Challenge, Chubby Bunny Challenge, etc.
Buy Books For Each Other: Go to a library and find a book for the other person without telling them what it is. Get home and curl up with each other and read the books.
Taste Test Chocolate & Wine/Cheese & Wine: Buy chocolate and wine and taste test different chocolates with the wine. Could do the same but with cheese and wine instead.
Date Box: Datebox creates a fun, unique date night, and sends you everything needed to enjoy it with your special someone. Each month you get something new and exciting. They have an online only version for a cheaper price or a box you'll receive in the mail. There are referral codes online you can find to make that first box cheaper.
Hunt a Killer Subscription Box: This is an interactive box that takes place over a 6 month period. You will get a new box each month that gives you clues to solve the murder mystery. There are various different themed boxes.
Massages: Buy some massage oil and set the mood by setting up a room by laying a sheet down on the couch/bed, placing a pillow, and playing some peaceful music.
Newly Wed Game: Typically this would require a group of 4 and you can definitely double date and play that way. However, you can also just play with your s/o by printing out the questions, answering them separately then comparing together. Loser could take shots or take a sip of their drink.
Personality Test: You can take a free version of the Myers Briggs personality test and see how your personalities mesh with each other.
Instant Chemistry Compatibility Test: Take a dna test with your s/o by sending in your saliva and see how compatible you really are. These tests are on sale for Valentines day.
Tie Dye: Buy white t-shirts and a tie dye kit. I found one at Walmart that included the ties, bottles and dye. Use a giant plastic tub or your bathtub to make the shirts to save a mess.
Fondue: There are various different fondue recipes online whether it be chocolate or cheese related. Find a recipe and recreate it at home.
At Home Photo Shoot: Use your phone camera, a cheap throwaway polaroid or buy a fujifilm. Set up a room with a backdrop and do photo shoots with each other. You could make it silly by picking out each others outfits for the photos.
Paint Each Others Body: Buy edible paint if you're into that to lick it off each other. Or buy non toxic paint and paint actual art creations on each others backs.
Bubble Bath: Set up a nice warm bath with bubbles, a bath bomb, dim the lights, and play some ambient music.
Paint Snow with Food Coloring: Buy some bottles of food coloring and after it snows go outside and decorate the snow.
Make Maple Candy with Snow. After a fresh snow take some of the snow inside with a tub and take 100% maple syrup and drizzle it along the snow. It will harden into maple candy.
Make blessing bags for homeless: Make a trip to the Dollar Tree. Buy bags, gloves, snacks, hygeine products, etc. Go home, stuff the bags. Then put the bags in the back of your car and whenever you see homeless you can give them a bag.
Travel to new country via Internet: Open up your laptop and choose a country. Travel to that country via the internet. Open it up on Google Maps. Look at local images, learn some words in that language, watch videos.
Karaoke: Open up Youtube and find different Karaoke compilations that have duets.
Dance Lessons: Youtube has various step by step dance videos. Find one that you both like, clear out the living room, and get practicing.
Build a Snowman: After a sticky snow, gather some supplies around the house and go build a snowman outside.
Scratch Tickets: Go to the gas station and buy $10-20 in scratch tickets. Spend some time in celebrating or contemplating how much money you just lost.
Half Hand Video Games: If your s/o and you have a ps4/xbox/nintendo etc you can play this. Each of you get half of the controller and you have to work together to finish the game. This can be fun for games like Spyro, COD and Mario Kart.
Cook-Off: Choose a meal that you both have to prepare such as strawberry short cake or apple fritters. Each choose a different recipe and make your own style. When you're done post on social media and see what your friends and family think on who did best.
Strip PokeStrip Trivia: Get a deck of cards or find some trivia questions online. Loser removes a piece of clothing each time they lose.
Glowstick Party: Go to the dollar tree and buy a BUNCH of glow in the dark sticks. Decorate the room, turn off the lights, play some music, have some drinks, and PARTY.
Walmart/Car Bingo: Make bingo cards for every time you go to Walmart or go on a road trip. The Walmart bingo could be like the people of Walmart. Everytime you see someone without a shirt mark here. The road trip could be signs that you see or things like cows or planes.
Green Eggs and Ham: Want some nostalgia? Remember Dr. Seuss? Prepare green eggs and ham and watch one of the Dr. Seuss movies.
Cartoon Night: Get in your pjs, get some of your childhood favorite cereals and sit down in front of the tv like its Sunday morning and watch some old childhood cartoons.
Meditate: Set up some space in your living room, lay down a blanket, and pull up Youtube videos that will play calm music and instruct you when to breathe in and out.
Yoga: Set up some space in your living room, lay down a blanket, and pull up Youtube videos that will have an instructor telling you what positions you need to do and how long to hold them.
Make a relationship montage video: Depending how long you've been together you probably have a lot of photos and videos. Get sappy and pull up Imovie or Windows Movie Maker and compile all these memories together in a video that you can later watch together.
Themed Country Date Night: Pick a country. For this example I'll use Italy. Make an Italian dinner like pasta or pizza. Dessert could be Italian ice. Play Italian music while you eat. Watch movies based out of Italy.
Learn Your Love Language: There are five ways people receive and process love. Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation and Acts of Service. Take the quiz with your s/o and see which one they are and incorporate it in your relationship.
Airsoft Gun Fight: You can buy a really fancy one or get really cheap ones at the dollar tree. Set up the room for battle, load your guns and get shooting!
Goodwill Trip: Go to Goodwill and go seperate ways and pick out outfits for each other. The crazier the better. Than go somewhere in public wearing them.
One Actor Movie Binge: Choose your favorite actoactress and make a list of movies they're in. Spend a night binging those movies.
DIY Escape Room: There are various DIY tutorials for this online with different themes. Essentially set up the room with different mysteries for your S/O and have them solve how to escape the room with you.
Rainbow Dinner: Prepare a rainbow dinner for your S/O. Ideas could be a colorful pizza, acai bowl with fruits, peanut noodles, etc. There are various recipes online.
Name That Treat: Have your S/O go in the kitchen without you and grab 5 different items. You follow them and grab 5 as well. Feed each other these items and see if they're able to name them. You could also go to the grocery store if you want to make it gross and pick up stuff you don't think they'd guess.
Iron Chef: Prepare a meal where one ingredient is incorporated in everything. For example chocolate. So chocolate needs to be in the app,entree, dessert and drink.
Hawaiian Vacation in your living room: Lay down a tan sheet to look like sand. Lay down another small blanket or towel above it. Set up a mini picnic with foods that are Hawaiian themed. Make a trip to the Dollar Tree and go to their luau party section and buy cups and different decorations to fit the theme. Make a mixed drink like pina colada. Play tropical music.

So after the drama over whether or not they should invoke the 25th amendment , that happened yesterday in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol Building , the call to impeach Trump became louder . We celebrated the with raves the loss of axolotl_peyotl , and now The Democrats have drafted the Impeachment articles of Trump to prevent his escape from justice and running for another election . ( Twitter link to Rep.Omars twitter ) . Good luck you guys from America .
And now we come to our drama from our one and only Conservative . And they never fail to amuse .
Thread by best
Thread by controversial ( I don't even know why I do this for Conservative . Freeze Speech exists there . I'll see myself out after the post. )
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People who don't wanna be depressed , Here is a link to how Trump is going to be removed from the White House : https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=243&v=60MdyQLeq_Y&feature=youtu.be
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So lets start
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Thread I : Lets start with some low drama ones
So does this mean Congress isn’t going to do any real fucking work for 2 weeks? ( Commenters Flair is Trump Conservative )
Can we talk them into dragging it out for 2 years?
And a drumroll for : Hunter & Joe Biden Cameo
Can we talk them into appointing a special counsel to investigate Hunter and Joe Biden!?!
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Trump II ( typo but hilarious I'm keeping it ) : Trump sadly cannot declassify stuff. Good thing for Conservative : No
They don't want him to be able to hold office again and are afraid of what he is still capable of for the next few days. ( Aren't we all )
Yep, probably don't want him to declassify anything to expose these corrupt assholes.
Even conservatives are buying his shit
Oh come on, he's been saying he'd do that for years now. And we still have nothing.
Yeah, gonna have to agree on this one. I'll believe "declassify everything" when I see it. It'd be nice, but probably won't happen.
Lets Add CIA to the Crackpot
Actually he did order the CIA to declassify a lot of documents. The CIA went into swamp mode and is sitting on it.
This guy apparently was smoking Azathoth weed when he wrote this comment . ( The pun is that the universe is a dream of eldtrich gods and he is dreaming stuff like that , Hehe )
He's been trying to do so for a long long time... They impeached him for calling out the Biden's, who were actually under investigation.
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Trump III : Not sure what to call it , but lets say minor Civil War theory propogation .
2021 will be 2020 on steroids. Get ready for complete fallout.
After Jan 6th if you do no comply you're gonna be labelled a terrorist. BLM and ANTIFA are definitely not violent organizations, but the guys who broke (well, the police let them in actually lol) into the Capitol to, mostly, take pictures like idiots are domestic terrorists.
The comment above reads like guy who was trying to troll Conservative but gave up half way and switched to sarcasm.
Stuff about BLM and Antifa being the true terrorists we made along the way and that sub being brigaded by leftists , the usual . Not interesting enough for a full walkthrough .
And now Civil war flames start
Nah. Once Trump is gone things will cool down.
75M people voted for Trump. This isn’t going away no matter how much the Left suddenly cries for unity.
Amazing how unity is their number one priority when they win. When they lose, whoever won is evil and must be stopped at all costs. ( Self Aware Wolf ? But this person seems too deep into Trumps ass to be sure .
These two commentors have been living under a rock . Ignorance isn't bliss after you smoke this
Dude, you think the anger is going away? Maybe if the lockdowns are immediately ended I could see a little cool down. People are literally calling for the expulsion of all Republicans from congress. Just imagine for a second that the democrats use these retards breaking windows at the capitol as an excuse to take complete control of government. I don't think that's going to happen or anyone important getting arrested. But just imagine if all Republicans politicians are taken out in a coup. That would trigger civil war I'd bet.( Purpose of lockdown and apparently , the coup is by the democrats )
I swear if I hear another person advocate for lockdowns, I’m gonna point to both the riots over the summer and the the capitol and seriously bring their competence into question. Lockdowns do nothing but make people angry, upset and willing to pull crap. I can almost guarantee if lockdowns didn’t happen the riots wouldn’t have happened. Yes, people would be upset, but not nearly as much, nor would they have gone as far as they did . ( This guy forgot what BLM was for . Bingo , Bingo )
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Trump IV : This one is just delusion at this point . According to this redditor , well see for yourself .
This shows how dangerously dysfunctional our entire political system is.
They’re almost all grotesquely out of touch: feet dragging over giving ordinary Americans a few hundred dollars during a crisis and falling over themselves to impeach a man whose term ends in two weeks.
Not to mention how they keep trying to take away more of our rights. We need more intelligent, capable young people in politics. Not black green female lesbian Martian identity politicians, we need the new generation that has the mental elasticity to adapt to new situations. We need term limits in Congress. Its absurd how many of our politicians are past retirement age.
A new generation with the mental elasticity to adapt to new situations . Apparently accepting our diversity and treating everybody equally doesn't come under this now , does it .
And a refreshing splash of nepotism
These dumbasses don't realize that Trump can be the kingmaker for the next GOP president if they pull this shit. Personally I look forward to Donald Trump Jr for president. Lol
I look forward to Donald Trump the commentator...whatever form it takes. I'm sure he has a lot of insight. Maybe that's why they are so intent on trying to ruin him now.
No Trump Jr though. I dislike family political dynasties no matter who they are ( This line and the above one are from the same comment )
It's hardly a dynasty when you pull a massive upset, have a second term stolen from you and then your son fights to restore your legacy and save the country.
This clip sums up my reaction
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Trump V : This is the last in detail thread . Democratic Dictatorship . Liberals are the real fascists . Freeze Peach and Conservatives suppressed . Waste of taxpayer money . Democrats just pose for media . And so on .
Jesus Christ, for the love of God. More posturing, more wasting of taxpayer money, More fuel on this fire. If they were smart, everyone will keep their goddamn mouth shut for the next 13 days
The plan is to prevent trump from ever running for president again.
Bingo. People are missing the mark here. This is much bigger than Trump or the 2020 election.
Trump will go down in history as a political martyr, IMHO. (
I wish he’d go out silently but that’s just not who Donald Trump is and I have to respect him for still being himself to the day after the muck he put himself and his family through for his supporters and his country the last five years.
I think he's made himself a bad candidate for re-election at this point anyway. It's time to move on, regroup and look to the future. If there is one. He almost gets it .
Bro if he runs, he will get the nomination. His only opposition will be neocons who stand no chance.
The hate that his base has for the media has only grown, and seeing them scream about trump having another chance at the White House would be yet another middle finger to the establishment
And back to the wasting time part
Thats what boggles my mind. They have nothing better to do right now?
I think the answer is, "No." Besides, the articles were drawn up by Omar. It's just more posturing.
They’ve been screaming for months about stimulus checks. Why don’t they get that $2000 together and get it sent out to us instead of wasting time with this? Haven’t they been screaming about how desperately we needed that money for months? Honestly, a lot of squishy people would be able to get through the rest of January with the chief idiot being inaugurated if they got a check in the mail LOL
This thread is ending a bit abruptly because I'm tired I'll just link a few more comments .
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Trump VI : Extra threads
Is this finally the end of the Orange man?! Find out next time on the season finale of the Banana Republic of America!
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They've wanted this since Day One and I suspect that even with no rally or riot, Pelosi was planning to do this if the Dems took the Senate. The crowning jewel for her has been succeeding in impeaching this president and the message it will send to the Republican Party i.e., this can/will happen to you if/when you run/get elected. It's also a message to half the country. It's the middle finger and a warning, on par with AOC's desire to create a list of those who supported Trump for punishment. Like being forced to accept multiple genders, guys who feel like girls so they can play on girls' sports teams, obeying silly rules: No use of 'Mother', 'Father' and 'Black' must be capitalized to show deference, etc. We are to accept that this country is going Socialist. You will take what you get, do what you're told, pay ever higher taxes to fund illegal aliens' health care, food and housing, engage only in agree speak or we'll ruin your career, threaten your family, burn down your business. I fully expect that as a registered Republican, I'll be audited - and God knows what else.
I think they just hate knowing that Trump will forever be listed as a President of the United States, long, long after they are gone and forgotten.
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Throw that gasoline on the fire. Why does our ruling class think right wing populism is going to magically disappear once Trump is out?
I wonder if there is a more clever play at work here? Bait a GOP member into a filibuster and use that action as impetus to get rid of filibuster for Biden's term
Edit - oh it came from Omar. Never mind the bit about the clever play
If I had to guess, this is mainly for show yet again and potentially being done to prevent Trump from holding office again. If impeached he wouldn’t be able to do so.
As for the charges, ummmmm. What exactly did he do that is an impeachable offense? Calling for peace and telling people to go home peacefully? The phone call they tried to impeach him for before was more of a smoking gun than this and even that was a load of hogwash. Never mind the fact that he is out of office in 13 FREAKING DAYS! Unity my ass, Dems don’t want unity from Republicans. They want us to cower in fear before them and bow before their feet. They want submission. They want us to lay down and die while they corrupt our great country until it is hardly recognizable. Censoring dissidents, mandatory vaccines and proof of it, mandatory national lockdowns for an indefinite period of time while every single small business collapses so the big corporations can come in and clean house. Funneling all of that money to big daddy government to increase Congressional salaries yet again. The same people who decry those big businesses and vote for Democrats to stop them will be the ones to blame when those big businesses control 90% of the economy.
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Oh yeah? Haha... Impeachment over what the fuck exactly? Telling his supporters to get wild and violent and break-into the U.S. Capitol and loot the offices of Congress members? Oh wait. He didn't. Actually, after seeing the recent videos from the Capitol that show the police letting the rioters in and taking pictures and chatting it up with them, I'm hard-pressed to believe the rioters aren't crisis actors paid to further villify President Trump and his supporters.
These last 4 years... the hate campaign against the President, the silencing, the targeting, the bullying, and villifying of Trump supporters and Conservatives and the insidious unconstitutional theft of the election. And now this.
We CANNOT stand for this shit.
So the terrorists where crisis actors willing to fuck over their lifes for this . Wow
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So an actual terrorist Illhan Omar can write up articles of impeachment for a man who has less than two weeks left, but a President calling for peace has those calls silenced and shoved down the memory-hole so that he can be falsely labeled a terrorist. Gotta love this shit.
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Lol wtf, dude is literally leaving office in 2 weeks. It's like they WANT to start a civil war. Smh
Lol they’d lose so hard. None of those ANTIFA idiots know how to use a gun.
And on this note I end this post .

I got into this thing looking to make some easy tendies and prevent a couple of greedy hedge funds from destroying a beloved company from my childhood that was struggling during a global pandemic. I have fond memories of reselling my used games for 2% of their value. Also, it was fun and I like the stock.
GameStop’s financials were pretty decent, and the latest console cycle would give them more juice to transform their business model. Then enters Ryan Cohen: a guy whose balls are so big he got the insane idea to recreate Pets.com — a company so terrible it became synonymous with the dot-com bubble — and he fucking outperformed Amazon.
I start learning about this guy and find out he’s pretty smart and bold enough to make it work. Maybe he can hit a second hole in one and turn another “terrible” company, “the blockbuster of video games,” into one that outperforms Amazon too.
I also learn he’s had his struggles recently, and the reason why he sold Chewy.com was because his father was passing away. He sounds like a good person with that crazy/genius quality who deserves a chance, just like GameStop.
So I enter this position, realizing that hedge funds have royally fucked themselves by taking an extremely risky bet while trying to destroy one of the few good things I had to distract myself from the shittiness of the world (before I found this subreddit). Because this trade was not just potentially profitable, but also morally important, I decided to sell the other stocks in my account and even deposited my rent money for the month. I’ll just pay the late fee and tank my credit score, nbd. And like the genius dumb ass I am, I bought right at the top: 14 shares for $4,340.
I knew the hedge funds were going to lose this game. They got caught with their paints down while peeing into the wind. They were checkmated. And what did they do? They went and fucking changed the rules of the game.
Oh hell no. That’s when this shit got real. That’s the moment when everything changed. It wasn’t about money anymore. It wasn’t about profit or loss. It was about principle. No — it was about the soul of the market. You don’t get to write the rules of the game and rewrite those rules when you lose at your own game. They should’ve just taken the L, but they decided to play dirty — real dirty.
Now I start thinking things are getting real fucky. I can 💎 🙌 and keep holding, but I’m going to need to sell at some point... won’t I? Everyone else is going to sell at some point... won’t they? At what point...? Game-theory kicks in and I’m tryna figure out when everyone is going to sell so I can make off with some profit. What’s my exit strategy? What’s everyone else’s exit strategy?
And then those hallowed words of Saint Value came back to me: “What’s an exit strategy?”
Bingo! Exactly! That’s it! There is no exit strategy!
The answer is: there is no answer. The only way to win an unwinnable game is to not play the game.
G A M E — S TO P
Incredible. This is where the game ends. I’ve been thinking too much like a hedge fund manager who puts profit above principle and can only think in terms of entry strategies and exit strategies. This is market logic. But we are no longer playing the game of market logic. The rules of the game have changed. The game is now about the rules of the game itself. This is a fucking meta-game. 4D Chess. And guess what? I’m not playing your game anymore. You’re playing mine.
GameStop shares no longer represent ownership in a company. It’s no longer just something to exchange at market value. The shares represent our values themselves. Will I think in terms of profit and when to sell my shares? Or will I think in terms of my principles? Can I put a price tag on my values? What is a hedge fund willing to pay for my beliefs? And what market price would my values sell for? How much money could I make selling my soul?
It’s true that I don’t have as much skin in the game as others. But I put in whatever I could. And I would never judge someone for needing to feed their family or finally being able to turn their life around and escape this rigged game—this prisoner’s dilemma that we call our economy.
But GameStop shares no longer represent something a price could be put on. GameStop shares now represent something priceless. In fact, they may hold infinite value. They represent the infinite nature of value itself.
The funny thing is, I can live without money. I’ve done it my whole life. But ironically, it’s the hedge fund managers who own all the money in the world that can’t live without it. If that isn’t a better representation of evil, I don’t know what is. Their greed is infinite, and they would break every rule in the world to satisfy that infinite greed.
But I will choose to operate by a different kind of logic. I will play a game of my choosing.
I entered this position because I saw a way to beat the GameMasters at their own game. And they proved to me what I’ve known all long: that the game is, in fact, unwinnable. It is a game designed for me to lose. It’s a casino-prison where only the lucky get to escape.
So, you want my shares? Well, you don’t get my shares. EVER. They’re mine now, and mine forever.
I’m holding onto these shares. Because when this game is all over and the years have passed, and we’ve all forgotten about this amazing moment in history.... every time I open my account I can look back and remember that time I fought the good fight. I can remember the wild, insane, hilarious, anonymous, beautiful, ragtag idiots I had beside me in that shining moment of glory — that moment we had the audacity to try and win an unwinnable game, and almost did.
These shares don’t hold money. They hold sacred memories that will never be taken from me....
Everyone has to make their own choices in life. Everyone must choose which game they will play. But for the first time ever, the game is finally in your hands. What game will you choose? Will you continue to play the game? Or will the game stop?
In my world, the game stops.
I choose to sacrifice my 💎 🙌
Instead, my hands will go galactic 🌌 🙌
After all... YOLO

"KOTOR 2 Experience" is a parody based on real play sessions of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Sith Lords (with TSLRCM). SPOILER WARNING: These stories are targeted towards those who have already finished KOTOR2 and the original. They will spoil you so hard the milk in your fridge will curdle. And your neighbor's fridge, too.
DESKTOP CLASSIC REDDIT USERS: If the text goes horizontally off the screen, click here to temporarily switch to New Reddit for just this one page. Just hit "Back" to go back to Classic Reddit when you're done reading. Sorry!
Index | Previous Episode (Are you me time traveling from the future?) | Next Episode (Quick, call a medic!)
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(Scene: Ebon Hawk cockpit. Atton is sitting in the pilot's seat. I walk up behind him, put my hand on the chair, and lean down closer to his head.)
Me: You realize you're typing in midair, not actually touching any buttons or anything?
Atton: (Jumps, then turns to look up at me.) Don't do that to me. I don't want to have come out of that death trap by the skin of my teeth just to die an hour later of cardiac arrest.
Me: (Walks forward past his chair and leans against the front console so he doesn't have to turn to look at me. Taps the bottom of the chair with my foot.) This used to be Carth's seat, ya know? Except I think it was a little more cramped back then.
Atton: Don't care. How's our passenger? She still aging?
Me: Yup. And still cryptic as always.
Atton: What a surprise. Just so you Jedi know, the whole "cryptic routine" isn't mysterious, it's just irritating.
Me: Tell me about it!!
Atton: If you really can see the future, you should be at the pazzak table.
Me: Ohh... don't worry. We're most likely going to be doing some "seeing the future" at the pazaak table later.
Atton: You know how to play, then? I figured you stick-up-the-butt Jedi would consider it a spawn of the Dark Side or something.
Me: Like I said, some of us have hobbies. And pazaak's one of the few ways you can consistently get money in a Light Side run.
Atton: I could teach you to play, if you wanted.
Me: I... just said I knew how to play. I learned from last game.
Atton: Oh, right. Sorry, I just can't get my head around the idea of a Jedi playing pazaak. Don't tell me Kreia plays as well. I don't know if I can handle two Jedi card sharks.
Me: Yeah... I don't think she's actually a Jedi.
Atton: Then she must be royalty, because she's got to be Queen of the Galaxy to bark out orders like that.
Me: Oh, so only Jedi "bark out orders", huh?
Atton: No, we've established it's Jedi and royalty. Or you know, maybe she's senile. I mean, how old do you think she is? She may have been good-looking once, but it takes some hard living to make creases like that.
Me: (Grins.) Wow... "good-looking"? How long were you in that prison?
Atton: "Once!" I said "once!" She was maybe good-looking once.
Me: Oh, so a woman can't be good looking in old age? What, men get distinguished as they grow older, but women just turn into old bats?
Atton: What th--? (Stammers and throws up hands.) What is it with you and turning everything I say into an attack against women?
Me: (Goes from leaning to sitting on the console behind me.) I'm just givin' you a hard time. Your script just hasn't been updated for modern sensibilities, and it shows through sometimes. It's not even all that bad, really. I've heard way worse.
Atton: Hey, watch where you're sitting there. I don't want you to accidentally eject the hyperdrive or something.
Me: (Stands up quickly and looks at the console.) There's a button to do that??
Atton: Not really. ...You really don't know anything about piloting a ship, do you?
Me: Nope. I mean, I've flown Tie Fighters before, but that was like in the 90s. It was a lot of fun. I had a joystick for it and everything. Miss that game. Lot more fun than the turret minigames here.
Atton: What's a Tie Fighter?
Me: (Looks at ceiling.) Um... better if you don't know details. (Looks at the console again.) So, seriously, I didn't do anything bad, did I?
Atton: (Leans over to look at the console behind me.) Nah, nothing much. You just vented the atmosphere in the dormitories. No big loss. The old witch probably died instantly.
Me: What?!?
Atton: I'm kidding. Don't get your stolen robes in a bunch. She's fine. We're fine. I think all you did was change the dashboard illumination from violet to dark blue.
Me: Hey, I didn't steal these robes. I... appropriated them. The owner wasn't using them anymore.
Atton: Potato potah-to.
Me: That's rich coming from someone who just broke out of jail.
Atton: (Raises a finger.) I did not break out of jail. I was broken out of jail. If anyone's on the hook for that it's you.
Me: Says the guy who got arrested in the first place. You still never told me what for, by the way...
Atton: Oh no, no, no. Look, look, I respect your privacy. I mean, when have I ever asked you any questions? ...I mean, besides that one.
Me: Hey, you've asked me plenty of questions!
Atton: Like what?
Me: Like... when we first met you asked me what you should call me.
Atton: Psh, that doesn't count. I didn't even ask your name, just what to call you. I just figured having to call, "hey, gal with no clothes on!" over the comms might have made our escape attempt a little more difficult than it needed to be.
Me: Well you can ask me questions. Go ahead. My history's an open book. Ask me anything.
Atton: Okay, where'd you grow up?
Me: Uh... I don't know.
Atton: (Skeptical tone.) You don't know. (Squints at me and pointedly taps his chin.)
Me: (Shrugs.) Seriously! I don't! I mean, I'm assuming I was taken by the Jedi at a young age and raised in some training facility, but I don't remember any of that shit. All I remember is waking up on Peragus. You can ask me anything about that part.
Atton: Didn't you break me out shortly after you woke up?
Me: Yeah.
Atton: So what you're offering me is the ability to grill you about the fifteen minutes you were conscious before you met me, after which time we've been trying not to die together so I know pretty much everything that happened already.
Me: Um... yes. That's what I'm offering.
T3: (Rolls into room and starts interfacing with a panel.)
Atton: This is not feeling like a fair trade, here.
Me: Well, I might be able to answer questions about earlier if it's in the dialog choices.
Atton: So what do your dialog choices say?
Me: Um... nothing right now.
Atton: Because.... (Leans forward, indicating I should finish the sentence.)
Me: Because we're waaaay off script.
T3: (Rolls to the other side of the cockpit and starts working on something over there.)
Atton: And the stuff we're talking about now isn't in the script because... (Keeps leaning forward.)
Me: (Sighs and looks at ceiling.) Because you're not ever gonna trade questions about our pasts.
Atton: (Leans back in his chair.) Bingo.
T3: (Rolls to right behind Atton's chair and starts working on some panel to his left.)
Atton: (Turns around.) Do you mind? I'm sitting here! Bugger off!
T3: Bweeer-beeep woop-dooooo wheep woo!
Atton: Go on, scat! You got an entire freighter to work on! You only picked that panel to annoy me. Go find something else to fix! I'm sure you've got plenty to pick from!
T3: Reep-beeee dwoooo! (Turns around and leaves in a huff.)
Me: Okay, I get why you don't like the stuck-up, cryptic, rude, and commandeering pseudo-Jedi, but what's wrong with T3? He's just trying to help the ship not suck. And I don't know about you, but I like not being stranded in the middle of space. Slow starvation or suffocation while floating in a void isn't my preferred method of dying.
Atton: Look. Droids, I don't trust them. Sometimes they just... well, break... in the head. Sometimes conflicting orders cause it. Give a droid too much data or tell it to do something it can't do, it'll crack their behavior module in half. Others just don't get memory wipes and they start going crazy.
Me: Memory wipes?
Atton: Yeah. Sheesh, don't you know how to take care of your own droid? You gotta wipe their memories on a regular basis or they can't deal with the sheer amount of information in there. (Turns around in his seat to look down the corridor.) And that trash compactor you got is long overdue.
Me: Wait, let me get this straight... If you let a droid keep its memories it... becomes sentient?
Atton: It becomes crazy, that's what.
Me: So you lobotomize it on a regular basis to keep it from gaining sentience.
Atton: You (stammers)... No, you don't "lobotomize" it! It's not a person. It's a thing, and it's made to be wiped on a regular basis. Look, I'm not talking about this anymore. It's your droid. If you want it to stay crazy that's your prerogative. Just keep the insane can opener away from me.
Me: (Crosses arms and rolls eyes.) Is there anybody you like on this ship?
Atton: (Grunts noncommittally and turns his chair around back to the controls.)
Me: (Rolls eyes. Stands up and walks over to galaxy map.)
(Moment of silence. Atton looks at me over his shoulder then looks back to the controls.)
Atton: So... what happened?
Me: "What happened?" Well, once upon a time there was this Republic capital ship that was carrying the last of the Jedi--
Atton: (Half turns in his seat to look at me.) I got that part, jackass. I meant to your lightsaber. There were plenty of times back on Peragus where a lightsaber would've been helpful. So... where's yours?
Me: I thought you weren't asking me questions.
Atton: Technically, I said I never had asked you a question. Not that I wouldn't ever ask one.
Me: So why's it okay for you to ask me now? You decided you're ready to trade personal questions?
Atton: Fine, don't answer. (Turns back to his console.)
Me: What, did you expect me to just give you this one for free? Well, it's a moot point anyway because I don't kn-- Oh! Oh, wait, I do know this! This one's in my dialogue choices!
Atton: (Turns back to me.) ...Aaaaaand?
Me: Yeah... apparently exiles aren't allowed to keep them.
Atton: Oh, yeah? I thought a Jedi was supposed to be married to their lightsaber.
Me: You might say we went through a divorce. A messy one. They got to keep the house, the car, and the dog.
Atton: What'd you get?
Me: My life, along with an ever-present sense of guilt and the inability to settle down anywhere, I suppose.
Atton: That sucks.
Me: Not gonna comment on how I'm an exiled Jedi?
Atton: Nope. That's your business. I'm not asking questions about you. Just your stuff.
Me: That's where you draw the line, huh? At my stuff? Even extremely personal stuff I'm supposedly married to?
Atton: So were you a single hilt or one of those double-bladed Jedi?
Me: What, are you looking to get me a Christmas present?
Atton: (Short laugh.) You think I know where to get one of those? Just making conversation.
Me: Single hilt. Two of 'em, actually. (To self.) At least, that's how I played last game.
Atton: Hnh. Figures. They weren't red, were they?
Me: Psh. No. Do I really seem like the sort of Jedi that'd have a red lightsaber?
Atton: To be honest, it's kinda hard getting a reading off of you. You're all saving people one minute then desecrating dead bodies and giving me a metaphorical wedgie the next.
Me: I'm more of a chaotic good. No, they weren't red, they were... Ooh, wow there's a lot of choices in here. We'll go with this one: (Clears throat and recites in a grand tone of voice.) "It was a viridian blade, one the Jedi Order had never seen before." I wonder if I just picked what lightsaber I'm gonna find later in the game.
Atton: "It"? I thought you had two.
Me: It's only letting me pick one color.
Atton: Well, it - or they - must've been something. Sure be nice to have it now - might make those Sith think twice before coming after us.
Me: Sith have never been scared by a lightsaber before. We'll make do without it. (Sighs and stares at the galaxy map.) Hey, what did you say about the astrogation system earlier? That T3 is running it?
Atton: Yeah. I'm not happy about it, but it's what we got. As long as he doesn't steal the ship, we should be all right.
Me: Why would somebody lock the astrogation system?
Atton: Takes all kinds. Maybe someone didn't want anybody taking the ship out of the system - or knowing where the ship had been.
Me: (Studies the galaxy map and mumbles.) Where the ship had... (Raises eyebrows.)
Atton: Smugglers do it all the time in case the Republic decides to board them... or so I hear. (Pause. Turns around in his chair.) Wait, do you know something?
Me: I... (Shakes head.) No, I don't think so. No, we destroyed that, so why would I-- why would she care if anyone found their way back to it? (Mutters to self.) Gotta get used to referring to Revan in the third person.
Atton: (Points at me over the back of the chair.) You do know something.
Me: Nope. Canonically I have no idea. At least, I think I have no idea. I mean, for all I know, maybe I do know what I think I know. But I don't know what I actually know about this.
Atton: (Squints at me, then sighs and turns back around in his chair.) Fine, be cryptic about it. I guess it's only fair, since I'm not telling you anything, either.
Me: (Rushes back over to stand in front of Atton's console.) Wait, so if I tell you about the Star Forge you'll tell me why you were in jail??
Atton: What's a Star Forge?
Me: You first.
Atton: Nope.
Me: Wait, we had a deal!
Atton: We did not have a deal. ...Though speaking of deals, (squints at me and holds chin) I seem to recall you making a bet with me over the comm back on Peragus over whether you'd have to fight Coorta. Didn't I win that bet?
Me: (Exaggerated shocked gasp.) Hey, you didn't take that bet!
Atton: You certainly acted like I did. I'm sure you would've come to me for money if you won. (Holds out hand.) So pay up.
Me: (Glares at Atton for a moment, then eyes light up.) Okay, fine. Here. (Hands over fifty credits.)
Atton: Well that was easy. I was expecting you to put up more of a fight. (Puts the credits in his jacket pocket.)
Me: (Giggles.) You're forgetting one thing. (Stands up and starts to walk out of the cockpit.)
Atton: (Half turns.) Oh yeah?
Me: You're part of my party now. We share inventory, including credits. Bye. (Gives a little wave and leaves.)
Atton: (Frowns, then checks the pocket where he puts the credit. He turns it inside out. It's empty.) God damnit!
--
Please remember to properly mark spoilers in your replies. This is a blind run, and I'd like to keep it that way. The Markdown syntax for spoilers is >!this!< or use the button for spoilers in the "fancypants" editor.
Index | Previous Episode (Are you me time traveling from the future?) | Next Episode (Quick, call a medic!)

"Why is San Francisco the way that it is?"

- the_status
^{Discussion Thread, Queen Hillary Publishing, October 15th, 2020}

Boy, am I glad you asked!

^{(but really...am I? I know I said "ask me again on Monday" back in October. I spent a little longer on this than I thought I would...Sorry bud.})
A brief note about me and why you should or shouldn't care what I think:
I was born in San Francisco*, California in the late 1980s (👴 lmao), and grew up there through the '90s and '00s.
^\No, not Moraga. Not Mill Valley. Not Sunnyvale. SAN FRANCISCO. You moron. You absolute dolt.)
I've worked for small startups and watched them become major publicly-traded tech firms.
I've worked for local government and watched planning professionals drive themselves insane from knowing how to fix things but not having the political mandate to act on that knowledge.
I've mansplained to more than my fair share of people who didn't really care why San Francisco is the way that it is today. And you can be next!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction: "The City" as Everything but a City

"It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world."

- Oscar Wilde

"Hey, Georgia! San Francisco just wanted to say "thank you!" We already have Nancy Pelosi as our Congresswoman, now you're gonna give us John Ossoff as our Congressman!"

- Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC
Few cities carry as much symbolism as San Francisco. When you consider that San Francisco is a city of not even a million people, its outsize presence in our cultural zeitgeist becomes all the more notable.
For progressives, the city is a besieged bohemian mecca - at once quaint and visionary, and under siege by a looming neoliberal order.
For conservatives, it's an anarchic disastrous mess where unchecked liberal policies have produced a petri dish of societal failure and hedonism, all funded by extreme taxation.
For liberals, it's a hub of technological innovation paradoxically situated precisely where innovation seems most squandered, where byzantine regulations on business and development stymie America's best opportunity to advance into the next century on the backs of immigrant innovators.
All three would likely agree with the assessment of Paul Kanter of Jefferson Airplane:

San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality.

But how did it wind up that way?

Part One: Pre-Industrial San Francisco

Prior to European settlement, what is now San Francisco was Ohlone Indian territory. They were getting along pretty nicely until the Spaniards came up from Mexico with all their missionary bullshit, and that involved a lot of not leaving the Ohlone alone...Things kinda went downhill for the California native population from there in a big way. (Like in a genocide way.)
In the mean time these American people are super into this Manifest Destiny thing and so Alta California starts to have a big illegal immigrant problem from the United States. The San Francisco Bay is by far the best place to anchor a ship on the West Coast, what with the deep calm water and all, so all these illegal immigrants set up a little town called Yerba Buena*. Eventually they decide they're not content just genociding the native people, but also want voting rights and the ability to own the land they're genociding people on, so they go to Sonoma which is one of the only places the Mexicans have guns and they LARP a revolution.
^(\Funny story about the name change. I can explain in the comments if you're curious.)*
It's not the US military doing the LARPing at first but they're definitely super down with it so they decide get in on the fun too and, bingo bango, California's a state now.
Again, brief interlude, and I cannot stress this enough...this whole story REALLY sucks if you're an Ohlone Indian. Like, you're basically being shot and raped murdered by everyone else involved.
So anyway this statehood thing was perfect timing for the Americans because it was only a couple years later that this guy John Sutter sees something shiny in the water. Turns out people will basically crawl over a mountain range or get scurvy and shit themselves around Cape Horn just to get some of this cool shiny stuff, and that's exactly what they did.
So a metric shitload of people came to California starting in 1849. Most were from the Eastern parts of America, but many were from Mexico, Chile, the Philippines, France, and China. (The Chinese came to refer to San Francisco and the surrounding area as "Gold Mountain", and eventually, "Old Gold Mountain") These Forty-Niners were typically blue collar fortune-seekers. Ramshackle types from all over the world who thought they could change their fortunes with a dramatic change of scenery.
Basically right from the get-go, San Francisco was a mostly working class, pluralistic, multicultural and diverse place where people sought the next frontier of wealth, prosperity, and freedom. It was distant from the institutions and power structures that had established dominance in the East. A burgeoning independent metropolis and Capital of the Wild West.
This way of thinking about San Francisco is important because it basically still defines the San Franciscan identity, from the perspective of the people who actually live there, to this day.
TL;DR: San Francisco was:

• Ohlone land, until it was...
• Spanish land, but still mostly empty, until it was...
• American land, but still mostly empty, until it was...
• Still American land, but hella crowded all of the sudden, and now it was defined by...
• Pluralism
• Industriousness
• Innovation
• Freedom and independence from Eastern U.S. institutions
• Being a really shitty place to be an Ohlone Indian despite it being rightfully your land

Part Two: San Francisco as Western Industrial Powerhouse

What we're left with this point is a substantial, rapidly growing port city built around streetcars, horses and buggies, and shipping. It is the jumping-off point for any business endeavor pretty much anywhere in California's interior. And being so distant from the institutions of the East, it starts to develop its own institutions. Banks like Wells Fargo. The Southern Pacific Railroad. Levi Strauss Clothing Company. These dudes were ultimately the only ones to actually get rich from the Gold Rush.
Also still a really shitty place to be for an Ohlone Indian.
(By the way it was also a really shitty place to be Chinese pretty much from the Gold Rush onwards, too. Like, Supreme Court Case shitty....Not just once, either.)
The city caught fire and burned a lot, notably in 1851. This inspired the city to put a phoenix rising from the ashes on its flag. Then it all fell over in an earthquake and burned really good and properly this time in 1906. It rebuilt rapidly in time for the 1915 World's Fair.
This set the stage for what San Francisco would be for the next fifty years or so. An industrious, blue collar, capitalist metropolis. The gateway to the Pacific and the crown jewel of West Coast industry and innovation. A city dominated by organized labor, and, accordingly, progressive and sometimes even radical politics.
Then World War II happened and the U.S. was hella racist. They were hella racist against the Japanese people, to the point that they put them in concentration camps and made them abandon all their property. They were a little less racist to black people, and let them have jobs building planes and ships and stuff, but still too racist to let them fight in the war or live wherever they wanted. So a lot of black people moved to the Bay Area to help build planes and ships and stuff (plus it was still way better than staying in the South.)
With the limited places banks and neighborhood groups would let them live, a lot of them moved in to the existing working-class neighborhoods by the heavy industrial and shipbuilding facilities, and a lot of them moved into the place where the Japanese people had previously lived because, hey, I wonder why all these apartments are empty? Surely that's not a bad omen about how the government will treat minority communities, right?
So now the government has a black neighborhood on its hands and it's very inconveniently right next to some important stuff. Not to be racist (by the way just so you know one of my friends is black) but I think that means the neighborhood is "blighted" because of, you know...all that jazz. So they decided to do a Robert Moses all over the place and kick all the black people out and bulldoze their homes and stuff.
As you can imagine, a lot of minority community groups have wound up being pretty skeptical as a general rule of the vision laid out by mostly white politicians and urban planners for the future of San Francisco as it pertains to their communities.
So, in 1940, San Francisco was 95% white, but right after the war that number started falling steadily. It never stopped, and around the mid-1990s or so San Francisco became a majority-minority city, which it still is to this day.
Meanwhile the government was basically subsidizing suburban sprawl, building urban freeways and giving out super lucrative home loans to veterans ^{(minorities need not apply}). White people who were TOTALLY not racist but were just CONCERNED about the increasing diversity of inner cities started moving out in large numbers. In San Francisco they were largely replaced by immigrants. Overall the population began to decline around 1950 and wouldn't reach 1950 levels again until 2000. In contrast, the Bay Area was still rapidly growing by way of suburban sprawl. The population of the entire Bay Area almost doubles over this same timeframe, from 2.6 million to 6.7 million.
From an economic perspective, by the time the Vietnam War rolls around, the military figures out it can ship things a lot faster and cheaper if it miniaturizes the concept of a warehouse into a weatherized steel box, and then uses trucks and cranes in big lots by the water to load and unload these new "shipping containers" directly on and off ships.
Well, the problem is, the San Francisco isn't really set up for this. And it's not exactly a cheap, easy, or even smart idea to try to change that. So they do it in Oakland instead. And in only a few years, San Francisco loses its status as the primary shipping and industrial city of the Bay. American manufacturing declines generally, but even what little of it stays in the Bay Area doesn't stay in San Francisco.

The city of San Francisco lost twelve thousand manufacturing jobs between 1962 and 1972, the years when most of the Edgewater Homeless were adolescents. (Arthur D. Little Inc. 1975). The Edgewater Boulevard corridor, which had provided employment for most of the residents in the neighborhood up the hill, were particularly hard hit. Most of San Francisco's largest factories were located off Edgewater. It was also the hub for the region's transportation, communications, and utility sectors, including the Southern Pacific Railroad and, most important, the shipyards. Throughout the mid-1950s, the Hunters Point navy shipyard was the engine of heavy industry in San Francisco, with eighty-five hundred employees (Military Analysts Network 1998); but in 1974 it closed down.
...
Economists have shown statistically that high rents, high levels of income inequality, and low rental vacancy rates are the three variables most consistently associated with elevated levels of homelessness in any given city (Quigly et al. 2001; U.S. Bureau of the Census 2001). From the 1990s through the 2000s, San Francisco County ranked number one in the nation with respect to all these variables, and, predictably, its homeless population burgeoned.

^{- from Righteous Dopefiend\}, Phillipe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, University of California Press, 2009*)
So the city is pivoting away from being a blue-collar place where people live and work, and transitioning into a white-collar place where people commute to work, and otherwise pretty stagnant and kind of rife for the circumstances that bring the proliferation of homelessness. This defines the political order of the era. Planners and politicians are envisioning a new San Francisco, where it serves as the Manhattan to the Bay Area's New York, but with suburbs this time, if only they could stamp out all that blight.
TL;DR San Francisco is changing in the following ways in the middle of the 20th century:

• White people are leaving
• Immigrants and POC are moving in
• The city is shrinking in population overall
• The region as a whole is still growing because of suburban sprawl
• The city was rapidly losing its industrial jobs
• The people who depended on those jobs were suddenly unable to properly care for their families
• The city is not defined in any meaningful way as a haven for the rich, but is instead, from a residential perspective, in a state of slow decay and stagnation, populated by blue collar workers, people in public housing, and government bureaucrats
• Residential vacancy rates are low and rents are modestly rising but there is nothing at all like the housing crisis that we know of today occurring
• The planners and politicians are focused on remaking the city into a regional and global capitalist powerhouse, and using bulldozers and cranes to do it
• Conditions are shaping up to be pretty much ideal to drive an increase in homelessness (low vacancy, rising rents, rising income inequality)
• It was still a really shitty place to be an Ohlone Indian despite it being rightfully your land
• A bunch of weirdos were showing up and doing a lot of drugs. Oh yeah, about that, because it's kind of important...

Part Three: Flowers in your Hair

San Francisco's pluralism, its labor politics, and its independence from the hegemonic economic and cultural institutions of the regions to the East made it a mecca for free-thinking liberals and radicals well before the Vietnam War era. It was a working-class Catholic city, so in that sense it was fairly conservative, but it was also a cultural center of the Beat Movement. So when the counterculture movement gained steam across the Anglosphere in the 1960s, San Francisco was the place to be.
On January 14, 1967, a crowd of approximately 20-30,000 people gathered at the Polo Grounds in Golden Gate Park at what became known as the Human Be-In to suffer for fashion in the frigid San Francisco fog. In hindsight we understand this event to be the kickoff festivities of the Summer of Love.

The Human Be-In was the beginning of the story for thousands of people, many of whom would go on to take primary roles in San Francisco's revolution.
...
"When it started out, the city was antiblack, antigay, antiwoman. It was a very uptight Irish Catholic city," said Brian Rohan, [Michael] Stepanian's legal sidekick and another brawling protégé of Vincent Hallinan. "We took on the cops, city hall, the Catholic Church. Vince Hallinan taught us never to be afraid of bullies."
By taking on the bullies, the new forces of freedom began to liberate San Francisco, neighborhood by neighborhood.

^{- David Talbot, Season of the Witch (Free Press Publishing 2012})
As Acemoglu and Robinson repeatedly emphasize in this subreddit's bible, Why Nations Fail: Peace, Prosperity, Poverty, and Read Another Book (Crown Publishing Group, 2012), societies prosper when they produce inclusive institutions, and they collapse when they are subject to extractive institutions. But San Francisco progressivism, with its roots in the 1960s counterculture movement, sought a way out of this equation.
This movement believed the institutions of American culture at the time were extractive. But they blamed this on the very existence of the institutions themselves*.* They didn't try to replace extractive institutions with inclusive ones. Instead they imagined a society which was basically free of institutions entirely.

In this view one certainly couldn't trust the government or the church to dictate what experiences might be pleasurable or useful, so best to just allow or try everything. Some experiential and psychic explorers had wonderful insights and epiphanies, and they did break through to the other side, and some ended up with Jim Jones and the People's Temple.

^{- David Byrne, The Bicycle Diaries (Penguin Books, 2009})
This way of viewing the city was as a location for small, locally-grounded communities. Where interference from forces larger than the community brought only damage. This was fundamentally at odds with the global capitalist Manhattan-esque powerhouse that city planners envisioned for the place.
Where the planners were playing the role of Robert Moses, the new counterculture aligned with Jane Jacobs. They tended to believe, like her, that redevelopment, construction, change, etc...were threats. That in San Francisco's old 1800s construction there was community and culture, and that building over this old-ness would destroy that, as it had in the Fillmore when the city tried to get rid of all the black people...uh...blight. As Jacobs would put it:

Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.
...
If a city area only has new buildings, the enterprises that can exist there are automatically limited to those that can support the high costs of new construction.
...
If you look about, you will see that only operations that are well established, high-turnover, standardized or heavily subsidized can afford, commonly, to carry the costs of new construction. Chain stores, chain restaurants and banks go into new construction. But neighborhood bars, foreign restaurants and pawn shops go into older buildings. Supermarkets and shoe stores often go into new buildings. But the unformalized feeders of the arts - studios, galleries, stores for musical instruments and art supplies, backrooms where the low earning power of a seat and a table can absorb uneconomic discussions - these go into old buildings.

^{- from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs, Random House, 1961}
From this perspective, there was only one threat to what made San Francisco special, and it came in the form of a planning department permit.

To recapitulate the state of affairs circa 1970, the progrowth coalition had complete command of San Francisco's physical and economic development. The dream of remaking San Francisco into a West Coast Manhattan was rapidly taking solid form as skyscrapers went up, BART tracks were laid, and lands were cleared for redevelopment.
...
The progrowth regime accomplished much, for better and for worse. It changed the face of San Francisco. In doing so, however, it fostered resistance among those the regime threatened or whose own dreams of the city were ignored. In dialectical fashion, the progrowth regime created the conditions that gave rise to its nemesis, the slow-growth movement.

^{- from Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975 - 1991, Richard Edward DeLeon University Press of Kansas 1992}
So now we've got a lot of different coalitions in San Francisco. There's the new-age hippies, the Chinese immigrants, the black community, the El Salvadorians and the Mexicans. There's a new gay and lesbian community in the Castro. And they're all pretty much okay letting each other have their corner of the city, because the balance of power is split and balkanized. None holds enough power to threaten the other. But they all, to varying degrees, feel threatened by development. So they start to organize their opposition to the pro-growth regime.

Baghdad by the Bay is now the Balkans by the Bay. Everything is pluribus, nothing is unum. Hyperpluralism reigns. The city has no natural majority; its majorities are made, not found. That is a key to understanding the city's political culture: Everyone is a minority. That means mutual tolerance is essential, social learning is inevitable, innovation is likely, and democracy is hard work. Economic change has produced social diversity, and social diversity is the root of the city's political culture. One of the controlling objectives of the progressive movement has been to slow the pace of economic change to protect against threats to social diversity. The economic forces that helped create San Francisco's political culture could also destroy it. The first line of defense is the antiregime.
...
The ultimate function of the antiregime is to protect the community from capital. It is a regime with the "power to" thwart the exercise of power by others in remaking the city. The primary instrument of this power is local government control over land use and development. In San Francisco, these growth controls have achieved unprecedented scope in these types of limits they impose on capital. They are used to suppress, filter, or deflect the potentially destructive forces of market processes on urban life as experienced by people in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities.

^{- from Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975 - 1991, Richard Edward DeLeon University Press of Kansas 1992}
Since demand for housing in SF proper isn't really rising all that much due to suburbanization and white flight, shutting down this growth doesn't yet manifest in a visceral way in the form of rising housing prices. The paradigm of supply and demand is theoretical to this coalition because it does not have any tangible consequences. So they reject the theory and get to work passing new legal restrictions on development. They build powerful local interest groups to throw their weight around whenever a new development proposal arises for development in their communities. This policy and organizing infrastructure persists to this day.
But when suburban sprawl in the Bay Area hits the boundaries of the greenbelt and there's no more room to absorb new housing demand in the suburbs, and as the tastes of the American hipster return to the same kinds of cultural amenities Jane Jacobs described above, the equation shifts in a big way. Starting with the first tech boom in the 1990s.
TL;DR: In the postwar era, San Francisco blossoms culturally as an epicenter for radical liberal thought.

• In the stagnating ashes of the local manufacturing and shipping economy, the blue collar residences are taken over by a new pluralistic group of people from a vast array of demographics.
• Meanwhile, planners and politicians remake the city as an office hub to house the workforce of the suburban Bay Area as a whole.
• The radical populist pluralism of the residents of San Francisco proper clashes with this vision for the city and they build an anti-growth coalition to combat it.
• Because of the stagnating population this does not yet have consequences on housing costs - suburbanization is continuing to absorb regional demand rather than the city proper.
• These consequences are hidden for decades - long enough for these groups to re-write local development law and cement their anti-growth coalition into local institutions, a sort of Maginot Line against growth.
• Oh, and for just a split second, on Alcatraz, it looks like it might not be such a shitty place to be an Ohlone Indian, but then pretty much right away it is again.

Part Four: The Tech Boom and the Rise of the YIMBYs

A major impediment to a more efficient spatial allocation of labor is housing supply constraints. These constraints limit the number of US workers who have access to the most productive of American cities. In general equilibrium, this lowers income and welfare of all US workers.

^{- Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti, "Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth," NBER Working Paper 21154, National Bureau of Economic Standards, Cambridge, MA, May 2015 (revised June 2015})
Jane Jacobs did a really good job explaining why, strictly from a cultural perspective, suburbs suck and cities are awesome. Weirdly for a long time a lot of people thought it was the other way around, but by the 1990s it wasn't cool to be all suburban anymore and it was way more punk rock to be in a city.
So people who worked in Silicon Valley - largely younger people, fresh out of college - started wanting to live in San Francisco and Oakland instead, because the rest of the Bay Area was (and still is) sterile and suburban.
When the personal computer became a household fixture and the internet started reaching the mass market, suddenly there was a lot more money to be made in computers. All of the sudden San Francisco's population went from slowly rising to rising pretty quickly again. In 1990 San Francisco's population was lower than it was in 1950. By 2000 it was higher. By 2010 it was a lot higher. Now it's over 20% higher than it was in 1990.
San Francisco has always been a pretty expensive place to live, but that was mostly because it wasn't that depressed economically, plus it was beautiful from an aesthetic perspective and the weather was pretty much the tits.
All of the sudden, though, it was still beautiful and the weather was still amazing, but it wasn't just "not that depressed economically" anymore. Suddenly it was a straight-up boomtown.
And it still only has a fraction of the population - and, crucially, housing stock - that the Bay Area as a whole does.
So this entire planning and political infrastructure had spent decades building in one direction, where people moving to the Bay Area for work would live in the suburbs. And in response this anti-growth regime of pluralistic populist left-wing hyper-local community groups succeeded in pretty much freezing development by law in San Francisco proper under the assumption that everyone would just go work in Silicon Valley instead. And then the cultural and economic inertia does a 180 on them. Now everyone wants to live in San Francisco even if they have to work somewhere else.
These shifts - some local, some national, some global - have concentrated themselves in an unprecedented way in a city of less than a million people, focused on the tip of a peninsula only 7 miles across. With so little room for these effects to manifest, they manifest with a vengeance. There is nowhere to spread them out across. They hit like a tall glass of Bacardi 151.
What this does to the housing prices is totally predictable.

California’s home prices and rents have risen because housing developers in California’s coastal areas have not responded to economic signals to increase the supply of housing and build housing at higher densities. A collection of factors inhibit developers from doing so. The most significant factors are:
- Community Resistance to New Housing. Local communities make most decisions about housing development.Because of the importance of cities and counties in determining development patterns, how local residents feel about new housing is important. When residents are concerned about new housing, they can use the community’s land use authority to slow or stop housing from being built or require it to be built at lower densities.
- Environmental Reviews Can Be Used to Stop or Limit Housing Development. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires local governments to conduct a detailed review of the potential environmental effects of new housing construction (and most other types of development) prior to approving it. The information in these reports sometimes results in the city or county denying proposals to develop housing or approving fewer housing units than the developer proposed. In addition, CEQA’s complicated procedural requirements give development opponents significant opportunities to continue challenging housing projects after local governments have approved them.
- Local Finance Structure Favors Nonresidential Development. California’s local government finance structure typically gives cities and counties greater fiscal incentives to approve nonresidential development or lower density housing development. Consequently, many cities and counties have oriented their land use planning and approval processes disproportionately towards these types of developments.
- Limited Vacant Developable Land. Vacant land suitable for development in California coastal metros is extremely limited. This scarcity of land makes it more difficult for developers to find sites to build new housing.

^{Mac Taylor, High Housing Costs, Causes and Consequences, California Legislative Analyst's Office, 2015}
Remember, this is all happening so fast that not only are the institutions built out of the antigrowth regime movement still exerting their power on development, the people who built them are. They're still alive and showing up to community meetings. Remember, if you were 20 in 1975, you're just barely at retirement age now.
It's easy to understand why these people aren't responding to the price signals that are ringing alarm bells to everyone else. If they're renting, they're protected by rent control - their rent price is fixed to a modest cost of living increase as long as they don't move. This means they are totally insulated from a rising rental market, even if the direct consequence of rent control is suppressing supply and causing prices to rise for everyone else.
And if they own instead of rent, wouldn't they be priced out from rising property taxes? Not in California they won't, thanks to Prop 13!*
^(\Prop 13 does not apply to forcible land transfers of tracts rightfully claimed by Ohlone Indians or their descendants)*
These economic incentives ensure that their interests remain the same as they were in 1975 - all upside for them to oppose growth, and no downside. And in the face of this economic incentive, even the Fern Gully fairy tale that developers are inherently anti-environment is hardly necessary to get them to support restrictions which have a negative consequence on the environment and the economy:

Not all change is good, but much change is necessary if the world is to become more productive, affordable, exciting, innovative, and environmentally friendly....At a local level, activists oppose change by fighting growth in their own communities. Their actions are understandable, but their local focus equips them poorly to consider the global consequences of their actions. Stopping new development in attractive areas makes housing more expensive for people who don't currently live in those areas. Those higher housing costs in turn make it more expensive for companies to open businesses. In naturally low-carbon-emissions areas, like California, preventing development means pushing it to less environmentally friendly places, like noncoastal California and suburban Phoenix. Local environmentalism is often bad environmentalism.

^{- from Triumph of the City, Edward Glaeser, Penguin Group, 2011}
It's been long enough since the first tech boom, though, that today there are a lot of people for whom these incentives do not align.
If you have to move apartments for whatever reason, you lose rent control.
If you're a newcomer to the city, you never really got it in the first place.
If you're an environmentalist who understands how carbon emissions work, you want to see more sustainable infill.
Or, like me, if you're a native who has all these advantages but still wants the city to be a place where people can come and live and seek prosperity, regardless of their origins, you simply understand that this status quo must be broken.
This is where the YIMBY movement gets its start. The YIMBY movement is nearly global at this point, but the most well-publicized first-movers in the fight got started in San Francisco about 5 years ago.

In San Francisco...things get weird. Here the tech boom is clashing with tough development laws and resentment from established residents who want to choke off growth to prevent further change.
[Sonja] Trauss is the result: a new generation of activist whose pro-market bent is the opposite of the San Francisco stereotypes — the lefties, the aging hippies and tolerance all around.
Ms. Trauss’s cause, more or less, is to make life easier for real estate developers by rolling back zoning regulations and environmental rules. Her opponents are a generally older group of progressives who worry that an influx of corporate techies is turning a city that nurtured the Beat Generation into a gilded resort for the rich.
...
But the anger she has tapped into is real, reflecting a generational break that pits cranky homeowners and the San Francisco political establishment against a cast of newcomers who are demanding the region make room for them, too.
...
Many longtime San Franciscans view groups like [the San Francisco Bay Area Renter's Federation (SF BARF)] as yet another example of how the technology industry is robbing San Francisco of its San Francisco-ness. Far from the hippies of the 1960s, many of today’s migrants lean libertarian — drawn by start-up dreams or to work for the likes of Google or Apple, two of the world’s most valuable companies. They tend to share a belief, either idealistically or naïvely, depending on who is judging, that corporations can be a force for social good and change.
But BARF members are so single-minded about housing that they can be hard to label politically. They view San Francisco progressives as, in fact, fundamentally conservative. That is because, to the group members at least, progressive positions on housing seem less about building the city and more about keeping people like them out.

^{- Conor Dougherty, 'In a Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to 'Build, Baby, Build', New York Times, April 16th, 2016}
All of the sudden a new coalition starts to form, drawing on the infrastructure of the old pro-growth urban regime and the influence of tech companies and young renters fed up with rising rental prices in the face of the demand.
SF BARF gives way to less eccentric and more mainstream organizations like YIMBY Action. These groups start releasing voter guides and organizing for pro-growth political candidates.
This shift is how San Francisco elected a YIMBY mayor, and how it elected, and then re-elected, the most YIMBY state representative in maybe the whole U.S.
Sen. Wiener's success at the state level has been a major turning point in the YIMBY fight. Escalating these reforms to the state level pulls small cities and towns out of their Prisoner Dilemma, whereby each individual city stands to benefit if everyone else builds housing, but stands to suffer a disproportionate amount of harm in the form of demand on their infrastructure and services if only they do.
He has built a pro-housing coalition with, among others, fellow Bay Area legislators Sen. Nancy Skinner (D - Oakland/Berkeley), Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco), and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D - Oakland/Berkeley). The YIMBY movement in Sacramento is now largely driven by urban Bay Area legislators, pushing against pro-suburb Republicans and substantial anti-gentrification coalitions from the Los Angeles area.
Housing development has accellerated in both San Francisco and Oakland on the back of new-found public support for housing supply growth. I have no reason to doubt this shift will continue as the grip of the old anti-growth regime loosens. It's inevitable once the incentives of the pluralistic components of the political coalitions shift.
Eventually the people with Prop 13 protections will stop owning their homes, one way or another. Eventually the people with pre-tech rents will move and the units will be rented again at market rate.
And when that happens to a large enough degree, the incentives driving the dominant political coalition will shift in earnest towards the evidence-based conclusions of economists and environmentalists. I'd go so far as to say we're past the beginnings of this, and maybe even past the turning point.
But in the mean time, San Francisco is a hotly contested development battlefield.
And to top it all off, if this sudden crunch wasn't already a recipe for capturing the national and global imagination, now it's happening right in front of the people who work at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit.
This makes the drama rife for all of us to watch unfold.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
^{Thank you for coming to my TED talk.}

Side note here, I'm playing on PC, encountered very few glitches, haven't moved from my chair for 3 days I'm having the time of my life.
Anyway, I've barely progressed 10% into the main story line but have spent probably 40+ hours exploring the city and leveling up my intelligence and quick hacks.
Once I hit 20 intelligence and unlocked ultimate quick hacks, my mind was blown. Ultimate hacks cause enemies to commit suicide(literally shoot themselves in the head), make them take out a grenade detonate it in their hands, cause them to go insane and attack everyone around them till they die. Or best yet, just instantly fall over dead
Legendary ping quickhack lets me view every single enemy in a building and quickhack them THROUGH WALLS. I literally ping one guy and have 20 guys kill themselves before I enter the building. It's awesome.
Breaching and enemy network with legendary weaponglitch and blindness hacks causes every enemy who notices you to go blind and have their gun explode. It's hilarious.
Since there arn't any real guides up I tracked down every ripper-doc I could find. Theres one in west brook (near an apartment building waypoint) that sells a legendary cyberdeck that specializes in ultimate hacks and causes them to spread once(HUGE) Only requires 27 street cred which isn't that insanely hard to get.
I bought a tabula rasa and re-speced out of my damage and crit quickhacking perks (which carried me to 20) and put points only into perks that would reduce quickhacking cost and breach protocol quickhack cost reductions. Bingo bango I can cause 2 guys to blow themselves up for 2 Ram. (don't take multi spread perks it will only spread once). Or better yet, murder an elite enemy I never would have had a chance killing by just letting him kill himself. (also, invest in getting more quickhack mats and money from access points, you will need it to craft it up when you hit 20 intel)
My only problem now is what else I should do with my points. I haven't really even started the game lol. All the streamers I have seen are banging away with guns like it's counter-strike (nothing wrong if thats your thing) but man there is a whole nother side of the game to take advantage of.
edit I've since decided that because the only way I could kill "skull level" very hard enemies anyway is by insta killing them (I don't think the devs realized you could get the massive cost of these hacks low enough to use them on vary hard enemies), might as well leveling crafting and stealth for maximum fun and weapon variety.
edit 2 A lot of people in this thread think you need recipies and level 20 crafting skill to craft legendary hacks. You don't, all you need is 20 Intel and the skill that lets you do it and you get instant access to make ALL LEGENDARY/ULTIMATE hacks for free as long as you have the mats. You don't need to find recipes or anything.

I (F48) have known “Pat” (F48) for decades. As far as I can remember, she was fixated on having 5 children and a picket fence dream life. I slowly cut ties with her in college because she was an opportunist and I didn’t trust her. She is both manipulative and forceful. Her idea of cute rubs me the wrong way. Pat likes to walk like a penguin when she wants to elicit pity, and she usually does this when she wants to evoke the underdog narrative. I’ve never seen someone act so despicable and ridiculous at the same time.
I moved on with my life. Happily got rid of her for years. Pat eventually found me on facebook. I accepted her friend request out of politeness.
Pat has become the epitome of a permissive mother. Her (5) kids do as they please and she never calls them out. She tried to force a relationship between me and her daughters and made them call me Auntie. Pat tried to drop them at my house uninvited. Her phone calls were insistent, she tried to monopolize my time and she began to show up at my job. I created some boundaries so she tried to find loopholes. It was a nightmare.
My husband and I hosted a party for the community center (not the real name) new members. The community center is actually a very informal initiative and my husband and I mainly serve the homeless population. We prefer to help strangers instead of catering to potentially narcissistic acquaintances. We don't mind lending a hand but we have encountered truly dishonest choosing beggars.
There are other services, like one of the members who helps women get their wedding and prom dresses for free.The community center location “headquarters” is actually a farm owned by an elderly couple. There is a barn, a venue and a very nice green field with an artificial lake and some fowl. They charge for the use of their facilities (weddings , etc.) but not for community oriented stuff.
Pat had always been salty at her husband for demanding that she go back to work after baby #3. In the meantime, he worked three jobs. She demanded he get her pregnant to fulfill her dream of having 5 kids. He didn’t agree, because he was already nearly 45 and felt like he might never be able to retire. She got away with bringing new babies into this world anyway. Her fascination with being pregnant comes from all the attention she gets. She had at least one miscarriage in between each kid.
Pat latched on to our group. She never missed any of our activities. I hated having her in my house, but it was an open invitation that included virtually everyone and she was very active as an event organizer. I didn’t like the way her kids behaved. We have a designated area for parties and entertainment, but her kids ended up inside my bedroom. We ended up having to keep watch of them and enjoyed zero of our own party.
I called her days later to get my point across (regarding their overall behavior) but she completely cut me off and began talking about herself and said her kids wanted to come visit again and use our pool. I never answered that. I didn't want to say “no, I will not have your brats over”.
She also called me as summer was approaching specifically to let me know her middle daughter was bored and wanted to spend a WEEK at our home. I politely declined, citing that me and my husband have to work and cannot entertain guests. .
Pat paid no heed. Her kid called me on the weekend,calling me “auntie” and attempted to coax me by saying “Mom says you invited me to spend SUMMER with you”. I quickly clarified, and offered an explanation to avoid hurting a kid’s self esteem. Nevermind. Her daughter just hung up on me.
Pat’s facebook also showed some red flags. Some cryptic rants here and there were visible, along with friends’ comments and complaints on how she asked a particular person to watch her kids only for a couple of hours and ended up leaving them all day. Another of her friends criticized her “girls night out “ because Pat had just asked them to be patient and wait until she could pay back some money that she owed them, yet she had money to spend on Friday night outings. I thought those very public comments on private matters were more like a cry of lost patience.
Unpleasant things began to happen. Like the time she volunteered to wrap the Xmas presents for underprivileged kids. We all wanted to create a mix of less costly gifts with really nice ones. Surprisingly, some nice and eye-catching toys and games went missing but turned up under her Christmas Tree (courtesy of her mother in law’s FB posts). No one could prove anything but it was hate-inducing. Or the time my daughter called me in tears to pick her up after she attended Pat’s daughter’s birthday (Casey). My daughter had been ignored all night because she didn’t gift her the expensive gaming stuff Casey practically demanded. My daughter did ask, but I said no. We would buy her a very nice and thoughtful present according to her taste. So when I went to pick her up my daughter was sitting alone in the living room while Casey and her friends stayed outside.
Stories about Pat and her family multiplied. The owners at the farm (community center) decided keep their their gates locked unless they had guests or events because Pat got in the habit of driving in whenever she pleased and it was either her kids screaming and disturbing on-going weddings, throwing rocks at the koi in the lake or harassing the geese in the yard. Or how she stiffed another soccer mom with the lunch bill and then pulled the struggling financially card. Or how other parents hated her because she created unnecessary hostile competition.
When my daughter turned 13, I allowed her to wear my grandma’s ring. It's not an expensive piece of jewelry, but it's vintage and girls nowadays wanna look boho. My Granny gave it to me when I became a teenager so I passed it on to my kid so she could wear it on her birthweek.
It was weird that she became quiet and distracted after that. She also didn’t want to go to school and my husband and I became suspicious. She never opened up, and my other kids had no clue.
We went to her school but her teachers assured us nothing had changed in her environment. My husband and I suspected she was being bullied but our kid gave us no tools to support her. My kid is very sunny, and very compassionate. She has never had any problems with other kids. I called her best friend’s mom. Natalie, my kid’s BFF, told us what was going on. Casey (Pat’s eldest) and my daughter had become “close”. I knew this and wasn’t too thrilled. I found the age (Casey was 17) gap not exactly inappropriate but I’d rather see my daughter spend time with friends in the same age range. Casey is very beautiful and a gifted student. She is also very conceited. To make this story short, she asked my daughter if she could try on the ring and refused to give it back. She later claimed that she lost it but “would look for it” so my daughter was distraught. My daughter kept asking for her ring and as a result, Casey shunned her and spread the word that my kid was trying to steal HER ring. Some kids at school took Casey’s side. So now Casey just wore my kid’s jewelry to school like nothing happened. If that doesn’t qualify as taunting I don't know what does.
My guilt comes from not being able to get my daughter to open up and feel safe telling me the truth. I talked to her and she burst into tears. I was both pained as a mother and furious that some teenage b!tch was doing this under our noses.
I went straight to Pat’s car after school. I asked to talk as Casey was about to go in. So I grabbed Casey’s hand and asked to see her jewelry. Casey froze and she tried to make a fist, so I became relentless. Casey yelled “Mom!” and Pat struggled to get out of the car. I slid the ring off (Casey has tiny hands and wore the ring on her index finger). First Pat yelled at me. After I confronted her with the engraving on the band (my grandma's maiden name), she argued it was loaned to her daughter by my kid. Then she said she bought it. I paid no heed. I did warn them that I knew Casey had become an abusive friend to my daughter.
Pat called me to tell me off. She said she was trying to raise an assertive young woman and I had just messed that up by being “overbearing”. She never apologized for her thief of a child.
Pat's husband ( Hank) is what can be described as a doormat. Pat wore him down to a knob. He had no choice but to “obey” her to keep the peace. She was a bully who actively withdrew affection when he didn’t follow her wishes, even in public. So she got kids #4 and #5 after a relentless campaign that included leaving him for two months. Her pregnancies were a nuisance because she expected to be treated like the only lady who has even been pregnant. She strolled around in a wheelchair almost immediately after getting pregnant and she would “get very sick” on weekends, so her kids were often sent to friends and family so that she could “rest”.
Pat systematically bullied Hank. She would leave town and take the kids with her. Poor Hank would look distraught, drinking on his porch or just looking really lonely. This is how she got off the hook and was able to leave her job. Hank had virtually no voice, so he struggled to keep the marriage together. Everyone liked him, but hated her equally. Hank loved to talk to other people but seemed concerned that Pat would be upset. Over time, according to my husband, Hank began to show signs of depression and mental distress.
Our friend, Lenah, runs the wedding/prom dress initiative. It's not complicated. Dresses are sourced from donations, ebay, trunk shows, etc. Unusually beautiful dresses are retained so that more than one bride gets to wear them. In some cases, a bride will pay 50 bucks, but most of the time, the dresses are donated to the bride.
Pat was involved in this. Lenah kept her in because they never had any issues and her task was limited to just shipping the dresses out.
Pat decided to renew her vows and her bridezilla Karenzilla attitude became the icing on the cake. For starters, she bullied another couple into giving up their wedding date at the farm because she “needed her renewal to match her exact wedding date”. They were not impressed with her harassment, so they booked another venue. As a result, the farm owners were pissed because Pat was already costing them money after she had successfully negotiated a cut in their rate “because she couldn't afford it but will repay by doing maintenance work around the venue” (she never made good on her word).
Pat became attached to a particular dress that was already assigned to another bride. Lenah made it clear that she would need to pay for her own dress. So Pat played it cool and shipped the wrong gown instead. She was adamant that it was the right dress, despite all the notes on Leah’s agenda. The other bride was truly gracious about it. She was obviously disappointed, but never made a scene.
What bothered me most is that I picked that dress and bought it for 40 bucks at a garage sale (not my money, Leah’s money). It was a vintage dress, ankle length, white with lots of lace and a huge bargain. Again, when confronted, Pat “did a Casey” and used the “this is mine” strategy. We felt so bad for the other bride that we did our best to get her something nice to wear. The other bride was a true fighter, she had pulled out of welfare, earned her high school diploma and was working to get on her feet by trying to earn a certificate as an acrylic nail technician. So, her reward was to have some Karen steal her dress? Pat never admitted to messing up, but just by the fact that she claimed it was her dress, we knew.
Lenah never allowed her in her warehouse again. Their last phone fight ended with Pat bringing up the other bride’s past (like it mattered) and “this conversation is over, it's my dress and you are mistaken”. That was weeks before the other bride’s wedding.
Pat went all out on her wedding decor. She spent way too much. She hired a caterer for some food (mainly mimosas and appetizers), but the wedding invitation included a request for specific dishes for her Sunday brunch wedding. Either she ran out of banquet money or was on a complete moocher mode.I picture the penguin walking upon practically asking everyone to supply her wedding reception grub and I cringe.
There is nothing wrong with potluck weddings. In fact, they can be a nice addition to a very cozy and family oriented wedding reception. But, don’t you need to at least be close to your guests in order to ask for such a thing? Even I got an invitation. I told everyone I wasn’t going because I was very uncomfortable being told what to bring and was probably expected to give them a cash gift on top of that. Some of the older ladies in our group agreed. Some said they would not decline in advance because she is a bully and they didn’t want a confrontation.
Lenah called me the night before Pat’s re-wedding. Lenah was there to close the Saturday night bingo and Pat was awfully friendly, but that’s what she does whenever things are going her way. Lenah peeked into the garment bag and saw the exact same dress while Pat was caught up supervising the wedding decoration.
The thing with Karens is that they expect everyone to suck it up, or make their dreams come true, or they simply underestimate everyone and think we are all fools.
Lenah is a very straightforward person with a “so sue me” attitude. She told me she would just ruin the dress. After all, it was hers, so she could do whatever she wanted. If Pat wanted to take legal action, and should things get ugly, she needed to prove ownership. However, the dress was the same, the marks inside the hem and the tags were the same. Even the tag numbers that were punched to identify each dress for logistics purposes matched.
Pat had the dress altered, with some extra beading and dyed to a deep cream color. But it was obviously the same garment. Lenah and I snuck in before the venue was closed for the night. All brides are allowed to stay in a small bedroom for a small charge, so that they don’t need to drive in on their wedding day. Honestly, the makeshift chapel was gorgeous, I don’t know how she paid for it but it was full of flowers and presumptuous details. I naively brought in some ink to spill on the dress, but Lenah said she wanted “something more awful, like a nasty surprise”. Ink would be too obvious and if she saw it ahead, she may be able to snag another gown from somewhere. No, the ideal thing was to have her trust the dress was fine. So Lenah locked herself in a bathroom stall and completely cut out the back panel. She patiently put it back on its hanger and zipped the bag. We left through the emergency door with the back of the dress stuffed inside Lenah's purse. I completely hate people who target and steal from anyone they (Pat and her kid) calculate to be in a weaker position.
The wedding was scheduled at 9 AM. Pat called me at 7 AM, but I ignored her calls. I picked up by 8 AM, both curious and wondering if she suspected anything. Pat was frantic.She was crying that her dress was “missing by half”. I purposely made her explain, being annoyingly dense and continually interrupting like she does, and stalling the conversation. She asked me if I could lend her my wedding dress. I said no, sorry. She then asked me if I would help her get a dress. I was satisfied to remind her that the town's bridal shops were closed on Sunday and the others that would open were almost an hour away. The farm is already almost one hour away from our town.
If Pat could get a shop to rent a dress, she would need to try the dress on, and get it steamed. Even if the dress was ready to wear, it would easily take more than two hours (roundtrip). She tried to ask me to go pick a dress (who would pay for this??). Even if a shop were open and brought her a dress, it would add to the cost. Also, these shops open at 10 or 9:30 at earliest. By time they got to her, it would be time to wrap up the wedding because she needed to clear the venue by 12:00 for the next event.
She broke down and mumbled some stupid stuff I didn't understand. So Pat hung up on me and called Lenah instead.. She asked Lenah to bring her “anything she had available”. Lenah and I ended up delivering the most outdated, moss smelling, oversized dressed. Pat’s disappointment was a mix between angry and emotional. She also tried to wear her knee length silk bridal slip as a wedding dress but it was too obvious and it really looked cheap. She tried to get her daughter to give her her own dress to wear with an open back zipper (due to fitting issues) but Casey refused, asking if she was supposed to attend the wedding naked (she got a point, plus Casey is petite).
The dress needed a petticoat to plump up the skirt, which wasn’t available. So it dragged all over the floor and Pat had to keep pulling it up. Pat walked down the aisle with one hand on her bouquet and another one grabbing her dress. The dress looked limp and weird with the arrangements of pins (they didn’t show) that caused the sleeves and neckline to pucker into messy rims. She spent the ceremony looking uncomfortable and out of place. Very few people attended but that was not part of any revenge, that was just how people reacted to her entitled attitude.
The dress looked awful. The reception portion of the wedding had all this princely decoration, a very nice cake and a bridezilla with a dress from hell. I didn’t stay, but I was told, she was so disappointed she spent her wedding sulking. There was no dance, no actual speech. She had to change into a shirt and leggings because the dress was too uncomfortable. Everyone talked about how Pat put on her flip flops and walked around aimlessly until she ordered the ushers to start folding up the chairs within one hour of the reception. So she practically kicked everyone out and the cake was never cut.
Pat wasn’t the same after this.She was not as loud and avoided everyone. I think she was disappointed that nobody ran to her rescue, not even her family who came from out of town.
Her husband finally cracked under all the pressure and sought some help. He was slaving away and coming home to clean the house while Pat used her kids as an excuse to spend like crazy. Hank also had to do kid homework because Pat never had time or never had patience. She also refused to get a partime job so her kids could attend an afterschool and get help with their school stuff. Therapy seemed to help Hank because the last time Pat left with her kids, he didn't seem distraught. He would be riding his bicycle and could be seen more relaxed while mowing his lawn. Hank told my husband that he had contemplated suicide after their third kid. When Pat returned, he maintained the routine but was interested in going out by himself and doing things for himself. We began to see Pat alone all the time. Hank was seen less and less in the same car and eventually moved in with his parents. He filed for divorce on the grounds of emotional cruelty and I don't think he won. Instead (I’m not sure of this because this is what I was told) there was some sort of a settlement or agreement that she would not get close or interact with him unless it has to do with the kids).
I also don’t know if Pat even actually suspected who/what happened to her dress. She slowly pulled away from the community center and became less active in social gatherings. Pat also removed me from her facebook as well as mostly everyone else from school and the center.
EDIT: TLDR
Bridezilla stole a wedding dress from an underprivileged woman. The actual dress owner destroys her big day.
EDIT: Regarding my kid, there were no prior incidents. Pat, her family and my family were not "friends'. I did see her often. After Casey's birthday incident, there we no additional situations until what happened with the ring. After that, Casey played the "OP treated me badly" card because I physically removed the ring from her hands but I honestly don't feel I need to protect her emotions.
EDIT: THANKS to everyone who took their time to read. Thanks for the nice and kind comments and even the naysayers or aggressive ones. I understand we are all different and some situations can seem enraging or so difficult we instantly want to fix it by reacting or by reproaching. Its human nature to instantly go for "this is what should have happened instead". I appreciate your input. Even the mocking, raging and scrutinizing ones show me indignation and this is good. No one has yet said "I love what Pat did" and that shows we are still striving for a more fair and balanced life. Even the snyde comments show me this has gotten under your skin and I try not to judge. The lovely and supportive Redditors who have shown kindness are also very appreciated.
For the most accurate description, these links can help you get an idea. Not the actual dresses, but extremely close.
What she thought she would wear down the aisle: (shorter sleeve, no train, only ankle-length)
https://www.amyprom.com/products/see-through-scoop-beach-lace-wedding-dresses-long-sleeve-romantic-boho-wedding-dress-bridal-gowns-amy3003
What she got, oversized, outdated. Actually, the dress was even bigger.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/294506251/etsy-wedding-romantic-lace-wedding-dress?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lp.d2.v1&share_time=1530444138000

In a recent discussion with u/Multiman778, I made a list ranking the Paper Mario series. Here's what I wrote.

This'll probably trigger someone, but aight.

1. Color Splash
2. The Origami King
3. 64
4. Sticker Star
5. The Thousand-Year Door
6. Super

Honestly, choosing the rankings for TTYD and Super was kinda hard, because IMHO, they're both boring. I just thought Super was more boring, so it gets booted to sixth.
Same sort of thing with SS and 64. They're both really fun IMO, but 64 was more fun.

So, if you were paying attention to the entries on this list, you'd notice that TTYD and Super were near the bottom, and how I went on to remark about how I thought both games were "boring". Needless to say, I have some explaining to do.
When I first heard about Paper Mario as a whole, it was from watching trailers for Super and Sticker Star on the Nintendo Channel for the Wii. (Does anyone still remember that?) At the time, both games looked really fun to me. Then again, I was 5, so anything looked fun to me. Fast-forward a few years, I decide to check out some of these games on YouTube. Sticker Star still looked fun enough, Super looked more so like something I'd be able to get into, as one of my first Mario games was NSMBW.
(Remember I said that. It's a surprise tool that'll help us later.)
The darker story turned me away a little, but then I found a show called RWBY that I really enjoyed, and then at that point there was no reason not to try it.
It was at this time that I heard of TTYD and 64. as well. 64 definitely lived up to it's prerelease name (Super Mario RPG 2, in case you didn't know), and TTYD?
I dunno. There was something about it that I couldn't explain, but I just didn't like it. Even speedruns looked boring to me. The at-the-time upcoming Color Splash looked pretty cool though.
Fast-forward another few years, where I play Super and Sticker Star for the first time. I had a blast playing Sticker Star. It was more fun than I originally thought I would have, even. Sure, I did end up running out of stickers for the Bowser Jr. fight in World 4/5, but I knew a pretty good (and really fast) coin grinding spot, and was able to stock up again easily. The only part of the game I didn't like was that one raft level with the giant fish, but otherwise, the game was solid.
Super, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. I found it to be an absolute slog, going through the game. So much so, that I can say that my favorite level was the tree in Chapter 3. And that's saying something. Back during those times when I was looking up these games on the web, a ton of the same arguments made now were made back then, too. Namely, the lack of original characters. Sure, they may all be Toads, but I'd rather have Toads than a square with a couple of lines attached. And don't even get me started on 2-3 or the postgame.
2-3 was quite literally jumping for an hour so I could walk to the right for another hour. Yeah, you can slide on the wheel as Mario to make your life slightly easier, but that doesn't even work properly half of the time, and the text box that pops up every time the wheel so much as slows down makes it faster to just walk how you're intended to! And even that's slow! I still have a life to live, you know!
The postgame is just as frustrating, if not more so. First off, for the sake of story reasons, Tippi is gone, so if there's any invisible secrets you missed, or new enemies you want to know about, you have to go to Fort Francis and pay 9,999 coins for a robot replica named Tiptron. As far as I'm aware, unlike Sticker Star, there aren't any easy and quick places to go and grind coins, either. The only one that comes to mind at the moment is the Pits Of 100 Trials. Oh, yeah. The Pits Of 100 Trials. How could I forget? As you get later in the game, you unlock the Pits Of 100 Trials; one being in Flipside, one being in Flopside, and the last one being in the Sammer Kingdom. All of these throw 100 trials at you, with a reward for clearing all of them. The Flipside and Flopside Pits both have 91 rooms filled with enemies, where you have to defeat the one that drops the key to move forward. Every tenth room is a break area, where you can buy items (if you're lucky), or leave. If you leave, you'll have to start over from room 1, so it's usually not the best course of action to take. But then what if you're someone like me, who has chores to do, and a dog to take care of, and a brother to annoy? Then I hope you set aside a couple of hours. Each.
The Sammer Kingdom Pit is a lot more straightforward, simply throwing 100 enemies your way, and expecting you to beat all of them. This would be fine if they didn't have to talk to you before and after EVERY SINGLE ROUND. The rewards for completing these aren't even any good, either. You get Dashell for completing the Flipside one, which is pointless, because Carrie is way better, and you get Catch Cards for completing the other two, which aren't of any use whatsoever except for 100%! And there is no way in heck you are getting me to 100% Super Paper Mario.
As far as my complaints toward TTYD, though... you might want to sit down for this. This is where the takes get really hot.
First off, the arguments you've already heard. The backtracking, the hallway-inspired area design, all that. Backtracking in video games is fine by me. Like I said, I've played NSMB before, so I know that feeling when I get to the Goal Pole and realize I missed the third/second Star Coin, and have to speed back through the level to get it. When you have to backtrack between the different world of the game though, is where things get a little iffy. Color Splash, Sticker Star, and heck, even Super handled this aspect really well. In CS and SS, you can press Start on any level you've already been to to simply leave to the world map, from where you can quickly go and grab the thing (or sometimes Thing) you need. Super's method was a bit more convoluted, but essentially did the same thing; go to the menu, and use the Escape Pipe to leave from pretty much anywhere. Granted, in Super, you still need to walk back to where you were before, but it's not as bad as TTYD, where you not only need to slowly walk to where you were before, but also to where you had to backtrack to to get the thing you needed. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last time I say this, but I have a life to live, dang it! And it really doesn't help that you have to do this multiple times for MANDATORY STORY PROGRESSION. Sure, you can skip most of it with glitches, but I don't know how to do any of that!
As for the hallways, I could really care less. Even two of my favorite games of all time, SM3DW and Splatoon, have areas that are literal straight lines. But in TTYD, this is pretty much the entire game. Like I said, I couldn't care less, but it is still an issue for a series that is 40% battles, and 60% exploration. Heck, Super had more exploration than this.
Oh yeah. The battles. Oh boy.
The battle system in TTYD is most often described as an expansion of the battle system from 64, which I adored everything about, minus the pretty much frame-perfect guard timing, that the tutorial barely helps with. TTYD's battle system, IMPHO, is more of a downgrade. Don't get me wrong, I loved the fact that the partners had their own HP. But a lot of the other things the game does I'm not a huge fan of. The audience mechanic I feel worked well in TOK; the audience helps you out, but there's a drawback; you spend coins that could be used on weapon upgrades or story progression. In TTYD, the audience helps you refill you star energy, as well as helping in other ways whenever they feel like it. They can also screw you over. Whenever they feel like it. That means the audience can randomly get up from their seats and say, drop a stage light on your partner's head, forcing you to rethink the entire strategy you spent the entire rest of the fight forming. And if you were relying solely on that strategy? Pfft. Say hello to the Game Over screen. Yeah, that can very well be blamed on the player being unprepared, but we can't forget the fact that this entire domino effect stemmed from random chance. I know RPGs have random elements; it's kind of a staple of the genre, but this is ridiculous. And yeah, I know you can off some of the audience members. But what if I told you that that was only the beginning?
Say hello to the Bingo Wheel, which is singlehandedly the dumbest game mechanic I've ever seen in any video game ever, let alone in an RPG. The mechanic was sort of in Sticker Star, where it could be activated for 10 coins, allowing you to increase the number of stickers you used that turn, as well as healing you, giving you extra coins, poisoning you, giving you a free attack, or whatever the heck the Lightning Bolt did. Most of the wheel's effects were good, but there was the one bad one. even then, you could still avoid it by slowing down the spinner, though it would cost you more coins. The mechanic was in Color Splash too, but instead of increasing card slots, it simply gave you a card, should you be running low. There were no drawbacks or extra rewards for doing it, either. You just spend coins and get a card. In TTYD, the Bingo Wheel is a bit of a nightmare. It shows up pretty much randomly (Unless there's something I'm missing), with the first two spots on the wheel filled in with a random image. You're then tasked with pressing A and praying to RN-Jesus that you do/don't line up the last picture. If you do, then you'll get an effect based on the image, but the most common picture I've seen is the Poison Mushroom, so you usually don't want to line it up. There's no way of slowing down the wheel, either. This, right here? This is the reason I'd rather play Sticker Star. Yeah, there's still a roulette wheel as part of the battles, but you choose when it shows up. That's something most of the modern Paper Mario games have been doing, actually. Grabbing elements from TTYD's battle system that usually occurred via random chance, and mapping them to a button, and removing some of the hinderances from using it. Some people don't like this, but honestly, I'm totally on board with it.
Then, there's the argument that the modern games don't have any original characters.
...Okay, yeah. For some long-time Mario players, this isn't even a debate. The original characters were better. But on my behalf, I'm going to remind you:

one of my first Mario games was NSMBW.
(Remember I said that. It's a surprise tool that'll help us later.)

As I'm sure you're all aware of, NSMBW (or New Super Mario Bros. Wii), isn't exactly a "Beacon of Originality". Heck, the entirety of the NSMB series isn't. So when I saw the different species inhabiting the different towns, I had to do a double-take. It made me ask "Is this a Mario game?", which might be the question some of you want to be asked when playing these kinds of games. Something so unique and unlike anything else in the series that it makes you question the game you're really playing for a moment. For me though, the guy who grew up playing NSMBW as a uncertified-but-totally-certified Blue Toad main, it was really alienating. Don't get me wrong, I thought Goombella and Professor Frankly fit right in with the rest of the Mario cast, but if you told me that Admiral Bobbery was a Bob-Omb, I probably wouldn't believe you. I remember when I saw the fisherman in PM64 for the first time. I was really confused as to what he was supposed to be, and after talking to him at least 50 times in between chapters, I still don't know much about him besides the fact that he acts like Big The Cat.
Heck, I showed PM64 to someone when they were visiting once, and they said verbatim, "If I got this game when I was a kid, I probably would've returned it."
Those are words you never want to hear anyone say about any game ever. And it's not like that person wasn't a gamer, either. They were very familiar with the modern Mario games.
...Notice how I said they were familiar with the "modern" Mario games. Sure, maybe Nintendo is playing it safe. But you know what? In the end, they're still a business. Businesses have to make money. And in attempting to succeed in that endeavor, they have to appeal to everyone. Not just the people who want TTYD 2, but also the people who grew up playing NSMBU and SM3DW.
If you've made it this far, congrats. You're awesome. I'd give you an award, but all I have is a Catch Card of Dashell, and I'm not sure you'll want it. Either way, if you want, you can put your overall Paper Mario rankings in the comments or something. Idk. Anyway, I'd like to thank you for reading, Ask you to put an F in the chat for Bobby, and wish all of you with dogs to take care of and brothers to annoy a very pleasant evening. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.