I'd like to share a lengthy and self-indulgent note about my history with the Baha'i community and the impact it had on my family and me. It's worth noting that I'm sharing this using a throwaway Reddit account that I generally reserve for browsing porn. I find funny to imagine a Baha'i apologist reading this, becoming angry and judgmental, and then, investigating my profile and ending up jerking off. With that said, let's dive into my story.
I want to share my experience in case it resonates with someone else, a lot of the stories on this Reddit helped me, and perhaps my story will give some comfort to someone else. It has taken me a while to write this down, and I'm glad I finally got around to doing it.
My parents emigrated from their homeland for reasons of principle and value. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by Baha'is who met them. And so, lovebombed and lavished with love, praise, and celebration for moving countries due to values that they portrayed as being closely aligned with the Baha'i faith, my parents fell for this validation and worked very hard once they became Baha'is in the mid-1980s.
My dad got rid of all of his whiskies, and swiftly, my parents began hosting potlucks and fireside chats, diligently working to integrate into the Baha'i ecosystem. Back then, the atmosphere was fairly light-hearted, with devotional gatherings, prayers, and a somewhat 1960s-esque hippie vibe. There was live guitar music, and joss sticks.
However, I remember Baha'i classes having an interesting edge. We were taught that Buddhists were not following a religion but merely a way of life, and that Hindus had become pantheistic because they had lost the core of their faith and religion, which had become corrupted over time. Thanks to Google, I can discover that yes indeed, this is from Lights of Guidance.
There was a significant emphasis on the importance of gender equality and the oneness of humanity – because, hey, the eighties. I feel sad there isn't anything anymore about the Virtues project - even if the Virtues project was sort of framed like it was created by Bahais.
Even in the 1980s, there was an overwhelming atmosphere that the key to being a good Baha'i was how you presented yourself rather than your actual behaviour. I recall learning an apocryphal tale of a young Baha'i who, while fasting, participated in an aerobics class and nearly fainted (yeah, aerobics, this is a real 80s fable), but was told by another Baha'i to prioritize representing the faith well over completing the fast because *it looked bad*. From a very early age, I learned the importance of putting the right face forward.
My parents then took their relationship with the Baha'i faith to the next level and volunteered at the World Centre in Haifa. As a child, this was a pretty interesting experience. I was suddenly immersed in the Iranian, or rather, Persian community, with its strong culture of martyrdom. Even as a child, every event seemed to feature graphic videos depicting young kids being taken from their homes. It was quite frightening, and I remember being afraid.
I also recall a strong sense of hierarchy within the community. My family lived in a small apartment with a very old, busted-up car from the 1970s, while others resided in nice homes with pleasant views and drove nice cars. I attended a local Israeli school, which was a cultural experience in itself, while my peers my age went to the much fancier American school. It's important to note that, at this point, the conversation about the "great catastrophe" – two-thirds of the world's population dying, leading to a period of peace and the entry by troops – was a prevalent topic openly discussed at the World Centre.
We completed our stint there, even living through the Gulf War. Upon returning to my birth country, my parents chose to live in places with smaller Baha'i communities, as they wanted to support and help establish Local Spiritual Assemblies. Things had changed by this point, not only because I was a teenager but also because the community itself had transformed. There was a significant Iranian presence everywhere, and the focus had shifted heavily towards rules, especially those related to sex, drinking, and drug use. There was also a huge emphasis on financial contributions to the faith, and it was the first time I began to see a somewhat materialistic outlook within the community.
As a preteen and teenager, I engaged in activities like dropping off flyers in mailboxes and soliciting strangers to talk about this great new religion, all in the name of “teaching”. I joined the local choir and sang, inspired by a crush I had on a girl there. This was probably the golden time of the community, with the choir doing outreach and a balance between Western and Iranian believers.
However, things began to accelerate. The Ruhi Institute and teaching became significant focal points. I was encouraged to bring a good friend of mine to a Baha'i camp, and once there, I was pressured to ask him to convert. It was very uncomfortable.
This Reddit loves cringe stories, so here is a winner: I had a birthday party with my non-Baha'i friends, and two older Baha'i girls attended. One of the girls ended up stalking my friend, showing up at his workplace and calling him at home with sexually suggestive comments. The matter was escalated to the Local Spiritual Assembly, but instead of talking to me about it, they basically ended my friendship with this kid. To me, this somehow captures so much of what it was like to be a Baha'i child and how Baha'i adults treat children to this day.
When I turned 15, I signed up for Baha'i membership because it was the expected thing to do. However, by the time I was in my early 20s and studying at university, I had started to interact more with the local, real-world community. This might seem like a small thing, but it was actually quite significant. You see, my parents had always felt a little bit on the outside compared to the average person on the street around them. This sense of elitism was really exacerbated by being a Baha'i because Baha'is would walk around in a cloud of self-assurance, slapping each other on the back and saying , "We don't do drugs. We've got all the answers and solutions, not like you." That was pretty much the attitude. It felt very socio-economic, with a lot of judgment towards working-class people. When the Iranians arrived, the cultural judgments grew even stronger.
But I was working in restaurants and learning about booze from bartenders. I had gotten to know real people. I had lost my virginity, and all that Bahai jazz seemed so much less relevant. I hardly even noticed when the year 2000 arrived without the predicted apocalypse, entry by troops, or any of the other anticipated events. Life went on. I lived in another country and met a girl, and we lived together.
Here is cringe story #2: my girlfriend /fiancé and I hosted a Bahai couple from my hometown. Despite being in my late 20s and engaged, and even though I hosted this gentleman in my house and helped him with his preparations for his business and presentations in the country where I lived, he reported to the Local Spiritual Assembly that I was living with a woman and we weren't married. It was absolutely amazing. The level of judgment still grosses me out.
I started to reflect on what the religion had meant to me and saw how it had changed. The obsession with fundraising was becoming ever more strident and panicked. The gaps in the actual scriptural logic of the religion were becoming more exacerbated as real-world problems still ran rife, and real-time discussions on social media brought these issues to light. It took me a while to start really digging into it, and it was only much later, when I started therapy, that I realized I needed to formally resign from the religion.
Looking back, it's astonishing how this religion, which professes to have such blind equality between the genders, as if other religions have some kind of hardwired sexism, actually had hardwired sexism in how the Universal House of Justice operates. A religion that taught the oneness of humanity, as if all humanity is equal and other religions don't recruit from anyone they can find, places divisors. Although of course, Bahai’s can’t recruit from Israeli Jews, so much for oneness of humanity. But this religion has taught that all humanity is equal, unless, of course, you're gay. Then you can't get married, let alone have sex.
There are other principles I haven't touched on, such as non-involvement in politics, unless it involves things happening to Baha'is or politics in Iran. The principle of independent investigation of the truth doesn't seem to work if you might investigate something that's not in line with the Baha'i perspective. The idea of a universal language? I don't really see any evidence that they're even really thinking about that one. The unity between science and religion? A religion that only allows men to sit on its senior board of a global theocracy probably isn't going to jive with a contemporary scientific perspective…. I mean, apparently you don't need a penis to be a man anymore, right?
In between these moments are my colorful memories of random things, like endless discussions about the boundaries of physical intimacy, people getting married at the age of 16 because they had exemptions for being Persian, and meeting Ms. Khanoom in Israel, feeling some sadness that the lone woman who at least brought some feminine energy to the World Centre is now gone, replaced by 12 boring men.
I've had conversations with my wife where I tried to explain what Baha'is actually do. She just wonders why they aren't doing stuff like normal religions do, like reading to the elderly or supporting schools for the disabled. I explain that's not the target demographic. I remember a wealthy man brought to firesides who obviously nobody else wanted to listen to, but we all sat around and applauded him like he was a great ukulele player and a clever man. He pointed out a hilariously Iranian man who was an alternative healer, and they got into a debate about modern medicine. The wealthy man said, "Well, you should see my daughter and what she studied. She studies Law." And then quickly changed the subject when asked about her name since I studied at the same Law school. Here's this man who's self-aware enough to join the adoration of his crowd but doesn't want his daughter mixed up in it in any way. Absolutely hilarious. Make that cringe story #3.
This reflection was sort of sparked when my wife and I discovered that the writings attributed to Rumi, which Baha'is often quote, is the same guy who started the Whirling Dervishes. We read about Rumi and I realized just how different he is from Baha'u'llah. Rumi wrote poetry, but he didn't pretend to be a prophet of God. He was just offering a different dynamic for how to interpret spirituality. He didn't say he was part of some sort of cycle. There's something beautiful about that simplicity. And needless to say, Rumi lived long before the Baha'is ever started.
It makes me wonder, will anyone ever watch the equivalent of a whirling dervish dance for the Baha'is?
The obsession with appearances sounds like a joke, but it isn't. It wasn't for me. Some bad stuff happened to me on my trip to Israel. When we got there, my parents didn't understand why I was so upset about everything. It was a culture shock, attending a local school, not speaking Hebrew, being lumped together with Russian kids who also didn't speak Hebrew, and getting beaten up in the toilet. It wasn't a very good time for me.
So, I was sent to counsel with a local Israeli counselor. After several sessions, she instructed that I had to sit down with my parents and tell them what I needed to tell them, particularly about the shadow that had come over me since coming to Israel. My parents were enraged when I said, “I wish we never became Bahai”.
And so, we returned from the Holy Land and moved to a tiny community that was struggling to get members. To this day, my parents are still members. I've resigned so I'm never dubbed a "covenant breaker." I'm pretty sure my parents know that I resigned because they literally never raise the topic of the Baha'i faith with me. I wish the religion had some interesting cosmology, something mystical, some interesting new take on the universe, or provided my family with tools to handle being migrants or raising teenagers. At the very least, it could have given us a common language we could have used to bond together. It did none of that.
But to be fair, if it wasn't the Baha'is, some other rinky-dink cult would have love-bombed my parents back in the 1980s. Of course, it would have been so much more fun if it had featured more sex and drugs 😊

There is one thing we should all be able to agree with Benjamin Netanyahu on. Any comparison between Israel's war crimes and those of Hamas is, as the Israeli prime minister put it, "absurd and false" and a "distortion of reality".
Here's why:
• Israeli war crimes have been ongoing for more than seven decades, long predating Hamas' creation.
• Israel has kept the Palestinians of Gaza caged in a concentration camp for the past 17 years, denying them connection to the outside world and the essentials of life. Hamas managed to besiege a small part of Israel for one day on October 7.
• For every Israeli killed by Hamas on October 7, Israel has slaughtered at least 35 times that number of Palestinians. Similar kill-ratios grossly skewed in Israel's favour have been true for decades.
• Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinian children since October – and tens of thousands more Palestinian children are missing under rubble, maimed or orphaned. By early April, Israel had killed a further 114 children in the West Bank and injured 725 more. Hamas killed a total of 33 Israeli children on October 7.
• Israel has laid waste to Gaza's entire health sector. It has bombed its hospitals and killed, beaten and kidnapped many hundreds of medical personnel. Hamas has not attacked one Israeli hospital.
• Israel has killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza and more than 250 aid workers. It has also kidnapped a further 40 journalists. Most are presumed to have been taken to a secret detention facility where torture is rife. Hamas is reported to have killed one Israeli journalist on October 7, and no known aid workers.
• Israel is actively starving Gaza's population by denying it food, water and aid. That is a power – a genocidal one – Hamas could only ever dream of.
• Israel has been forcibly removing Palestinians from their lands for more than 76 years to build illegal Jewish settlements in their place. Hamas has not been able to ethnically cleanse a single Israeli nor build a single Palestinian settlement on Israeli land.
• Some 750,000 Palestinians are reported to have been taken hostage and jailed by Israel since 1967 – an unwelcome rite of passage for Palestinian men and boys and one in which torture is routine and military trials ensure a near-100% conviction rate. Until October 7, Hamas had only ever managed to take hostage a handful of the Israeli soldiers whose job is to oppress Palestinians.
• And, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by Western states, those same Western states laud Israel, fund and arm it, and provide it with diplomatic cover, even as the World Court rules that a plausible case has been made it is committing genocide in Gaza.
Yes, Netanyahu is right. There is no comparison at all.

tldr at bottom
currently playing in a party of 7 which consists of 2 paladins (devotion & conquest), 2 fighters (samurai & champion), a death cleric, a stars druid & a mercy monk. every player is level 4 & single classed. we were searching for an npc who ran off on their own despite us having orders to escort them to a town. couple days later we hired a couple mercs & they managed to find tracks that led to an old bone grinder. when we walked in, we were greeted by an old woman whom we were familliar with. conversation sparked & everything was fine til our cleric cast inflict wounds on her (completely unprovoked) & we all rolled initiative. turns out she was a powerful witch & part of an even more powerful coven. we were getting absolutely dominated (lots of us including myself kept getting awful attack rolls) but we managed to scrape by & survive all thanks to the npc we were looking for coming out & supporting. after all that, we couldn’t manage to get inside the nearest town so we set up camp & rested for the night in our bedrolls while two kept watch. one succeeded their perception check but the other nat 1’d (we house rule that nat 20s & nat 1s also apply to initiative & skill checks). the nat 1 watcher was ambushed & dragged away. dm had us resters roll a d20 & i nat 20’d so i woke up when i heard their scream & chased after them. dm had me rolling survival checks bc i had to dive into deep magic fog & i kept getting nat 1s (with a -1 modifier too). for some reason the dm kept letting me live til i eventually rolled good enough to find my way back to camp. some werewolves were surrounding the resters & we had to fight 4 werewolves while each of us (except myself) had less than 10 hp & only one of us had a silver weapon. our casters were out of slots so they couldnt do much damage. our martials went down eventually & after that it was just me (conq paladin) & the spell-less cleric with 2 werewolves left & some newly introduced tree blights. by then, i had been running divine favor for a round & now i decided to drop my shield & pull out my quarterstaff to dual wield with my short sword (i realized after the session a quarterstaff is not light despite being a simple weapon. won’t happen again). sadly, i failed my divine favor concentration a few turns later so i knew in that moment we lost. instead of tpk tho, our dm said we’re all unconscious & we’ll find out what happens next session (this happened towards the regular ending time). as grateful as i am & as much fun as i had, i can’t help but feel we kinds deserved to be tpk’d. cleric starting fights due to hatred of undead. my paladin being broke, unlucky, & clouded by pride. other paladin being plain unlucky. am i wrong for believing our choices & dice rolls kinda warranted a tpk? or would i just make a terrible dm if i ever tried? either way, i’m excited to find out what happens next session. i just hope my paladin can make better choices & i can get better dice rolls.
tldr: party members (including myself) have been getting unlucky rolls & some of us (also including myself) have made bad choices. we’ve all been knocked unconscious but i feel guilty for the fact i believe we deserved to be tpk’d.

START OF THE INTERVIEW
Thiago: We want to welcome you and acknowledge your participation in this interview.
Luu: Thank you for inviting us to this interview. We are honored to participate and answer your questions, comrades.
Thiago: When was the Serving the People (Vietnam) blog created and what are its objectives?
Luu: The blog was created in December last year. With 4 main objectives, to digitize and archive texts from China, in particular texts of Chairman Mao, the Gang of Four and the Cultural Revolution, in addition to other Marxist texts such as documents from the Great Debate, Stalin, Kalinin and other works from countries like Brazil and the Philippines, in Vietnamese, so everyone can access them for free. We also want to push for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Vietnam as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party and encourage the masses to practice and organize, in the north and south of the country.
Thiago: Which groups represented the left line of the Vietnamese Communist Party from 1956 until the total restoration of capitalism?
Thang: There was a rise of the right-wing opportunist line, by the group called "Nhan van-Giai Pham", which attempted to restore capitalist culture through what is called "literature for literature's sake". President Ho Chi Minh was the main defender of Marxism in this struggle.
In the Great Debate between Leninism and revisionism, Ho Chi Minh occupies the middle line. But this line was a serious mistake, because it created fertile ground for the rise of revisionism and opportunism and for the restoration of capitalism in Vietnam later.
Overall, in the history of the Communist Party, the left line was defended mainly by Ho Chi Minh, but he also indirectly liquidated this line by moving to centrism, creating a vacuum that allowed revisionism to take power.
After his death in 1969, the Left line was completely liquidated. The remaining Party leaders fell into centrism or revisionism, and no significant group represented the left line in Vietnam.
Thiago: How did the restoration of capitalism and bourgeois dictatorship occur in Vietnam? How do the State, the Party and the Vietnamese economy work today?
Thang: The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in Vietnam began after the death of Ho Chi Minh and the seizure of power by the revisionist clique, transforming Vietnam into a semi-colony of Soviet social-imperialism. The complete restoration of capitalism in Vietnam began in 1986, when the Doi Moi reform transformed Vietnam from a semi-colony of Soviet social-imperialism into a semi-colony of American imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism, strengthening thus the semi-feudal state.
(Additional note from Luu based on Thang's response: They, the revisionists, adopt the theory of productive forces, similar to that of Deng Xiaoping in every way. This liquidated the Party, turning it into a lap dog of foreign imperialists Vietnam is currently a police state, a bourgeois dictatorship. The economy is heavily controlled by the Yankee and Chinese imperialists, the state also maintains friendly relations with foreign companies and imperialists, as they cooperate with them against the people. in general and the proletariat in particular)
Thiago: What are your criticisms of Ho Chi Minh's centrist deviation and subsequent adoption of "Ho Chi Minh Thought" by his successors? Were there any prominent leaders “to the left” of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam?
Luu: We must criticize Ho Chi Minh's centrism and recognize that he liquidated the left line. We recognize that centrism is a very dangerous thing, even if it is not overtly anti-communist like the right line, but it creates an opening for the right line. We could compare his errors with those of Kim Il-Sung and other leaders who adopted the same positions: at his death, in his will, he did not say to defend Chairman Mao's line, but wanted " not to intervene in the affairs of other nations", although he was sympathetic to Albania and China, he also did not attack the right line, but he nevertheless refused conciliation with the Americans and the policy of capitulation that the Khruschevists were trying to impose on us. However, Vietnam fought nothing else.
Concerning "Ho Chi Minh Thought", those who claim it are dogmatists, taking its centrism as dogma, focusing on its revolutionary morality and asserting that the People's War was a contribution of Ho Chi Minh and not of Mao Zedong. They denied the influence of Mao Zedong Thought on Ho Chi Minh Thought, distorting Ho Chi Minh Thought, claiming that it is influenced by reactionary religions and ideals, transforming it from a revolutionary theory into a reactionary theory. There were no representatives of the left line, only opportunists.
Thiago: What do you think of President Gonzalo and his contributions of universal value? How are anti-revisionism and Maoism perceived in Vietnam?
Thắng: As Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, we cannot but recognize the role of President Gonzalo and his significant contributions to Marxist theory. He identified Maoism as the third and highest phase of Marxism, stating that Maoism is the Marxism-Leninism of the era of imperialism and modern revisionism. In addition, he made important contributions to Maoist theory, such as the militarization of the Communist Party, the theory of Jefatura [“Great Direction” in French, editor's note, cdp.] and the theory of concentric construction of the Party. These contributions are not only valuable for the Peruvian revolution, but also have universal relevance for the international socialist revolution. We must not forget this.
As for the influence of President Gonzalo and his ideology in Vietnam, initially, it was only mentioned through campaigns aimed at degrading his reputation by the government in place. In recent years, with the rise of the communist movement in Vietnam, the Gonzalo question has become an important issue among communists in our country. The revisionists, Trotskyists and pseudo-Maoists always seek to deny the role of President Gonzalo and use the propaganda tools of the imperialists to oppose him. Additionally, government loyalists and liberal forces are participating in this “campaign.” Thus, revisionists, reactionaries, and anti-communists created a sort of “sacred alliance” to oppose Gonzalo’s thought and contributions. Therefore, the immediate task of Vietnamese communists today is to wage a line struggle to defend President Gonzalo, uproot the weeds of modern revisionism, and advance toward the reconstitution of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
Thiago: How is the revolutionary movement developing in Vietnam and what are the current struggles of the masses in urban and rural areas?
Thang: The current “leaders” of the organized revolutionary movement are petty bourgeois. There are so-called “Marxist” groups, such as the “Red Flag League” and the “Young Marxists of Vietnam”. These petty bourgeois groups use memes to propagate and agitate, which is an action to ridicule Marxism, because Marxism is a revolutionary science and cannot be expressed through memes. This action is particularly remarkable among the Young Marxists of Vietnam.
There are also fake "Maoists" like the "Red Flag League", who deny Gonzalo and "defend" the Marxism-Leninism of Mao Zedong Thought, denying the advancement of the revolutionary struggle. They also engage in unnecessary debates online. These guys are also trying to make money by organizing readings of Chairman Mao Zedong's quotes instead of making them universal for the masses.
Luu: There are many strikes and disorganized revolutionary movements within the proletariat, which speak out against their conditions of exploitation. Many peasants are in conflict with the state over land issues. There was a recent revolt in which peasants attempted to reclaim their land by armed methods, such as during the Dong Tam revolt, but they were quickly and brutally suppressed by the so-called state “socialist”. Many uprisings have also taken place in the Central Highlands, but some of them have fallen under the influence of foreign reactionary terrorist groups and are not spontaneous like others. The masses are ready to fight for the revolution, but they are still disorganized.
Thiago: What is the general impression that the masses have of the Communist Party? What daily problems do the masses face and how are they exploited by capitalism and semi-feudalism in Vietnam today?
Luu: Within the petty bourgeoisie, there are two main camps, there is the opposition camp and the loyalist camp. The loyalist camp is generally made up of children of bureaucrats and people who know little about the state. The opposition camp is mainly represented by South Vietnam loyalists, all anti-communist, while the loyalists appear to be communist, but they leave communism aside, being only pro-state and anti-West.
Among the peasants and proletariat, we are not sure, but from what we see, the majority of them do not openly support the state, being rather neutral about the situation. However, the opposition of these classes, notably peasants and indigenous peoples, who took up arms and rose up against the state, was brutally repressed by the police forces. The only indigenous armed groups that carry out terrorist attacks are those sponsored by the United States and CIA agents, but they do not represent all indigenous movements and peasant movements that oppose the state.
The condition of the proletariat in Vietnam is not what one would call good, as even the state claims that many workers live in poverty and misery. The examples are numerous: their salary is not as good as the revisionists claim, and they barely earn enough to survive, as capitalism dictates. Even though schedules are not as strict and conditions are not as bad as in laissez-faire capitalism (like in Bangladesh or other Asian countries), state-controlled unions do the bare minimum to support the workers and seek to make them accept their crumbs and not to organize them.
A friend (who was 14, illustrating child labor) and a family member of mine worked in sweatshops and currently are in poor health, have difficult living conditions, work long hours and are not not paid enough for their efforts.
Thiago: What is the semi-colonial relationship that Vietnam maintains today with North American imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism?
Thang: That’s a great question! The relationship between the Vietnamese bureaucratic capitalist government and the Yankee and Chinese imperialists constitutes one of the most peculiar international relations for the Vietnamese state. First, the state called their relationship with them a "comprehensive strategic partnership", established with China in 2008 and with the United States in 2023. They export capital and goods to Vietnam, establish factories and monopolize the market . This relationship deepens the exploitation of capitalism and the semi-feudal condition of Vietnam.
Additional note from Luu: In terms of industry, citing data from the General Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Science and Technology, about 75% of Vietnam's technology and equipment come from foreign countries, this technology and equipment mainly come from developed countries and regions such as the United States, South Korea and the European Union, which have shown a slight upward trend in recent years (2022 data). Therefore, Vietnam is unable to develop many important industrial technologies (such as oil refining technology, metallurgy, shipbuilding, etc.), because Vietnam's industry is heavily dependent on foreign capitalist conglomerates.
Additionally, Vietnam is a “global sweatshop” with abundant resources and cheap labor. Therefore, Vietnam has become an ideal location for capitalist conglomerates from the United States, China and other capitalist countries to export capital, establish factories and enterprises, invest and control commercial capital in our country. The working class must endure hardship with low wages and difficult living conditions, without enjoying the fruits of their labor, which are instead seized by the capitalist class.
Moreover, the export of goods from the United States and China has disrupted the Vietnamese market, as the revolutionaries of the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc movement once said: "If our products are not purchased from the Chinese, they are bought from the West.”
Vietnamese agriculture relies heavily on Chinese traders, as agricultural products always depend on the purchasing needs of traders. Therefore, many difficulties are often encountered if China imposes border closures. Furthermore, the question of the “lease system” persists in certain small localities in central Vietnam, Vietnam still having feudal characteristics.
Thiago: How is the history of Vietnam, the international communist movement and Marxism taught in Vietnamese schools and universities?
Thang: There was a push towards nationalism and nationalist propaganda in Vietnamese schools by the revisionist clique, they masked Vietnamese settler colonialism against indigenous people and other minorities under the idea of ​​"expansion of territory through the recovery of wild lands” that they were formerly Champa and Chenla (Kampuchea Krom Region). This colonialism was called the “Nam Tien” march south and lasted for centuries. The revisionists also liquidated and erased the history of the struggle for autonomy of ethnic minority groups, supported by Ho Chi Minh.
Luu adds: There were autonomous zones in the North and Northwest mountains, and there was also the Autonomous Mountain People's Movement within the National Liberation Front.
The revisionists have omitted many important parts of the international revolutionary movement. They also dogmatically teach Marxism as a theory without practice in universities, leading students to label it a "nightmare" and only study it to succeed in college, instead of viewing it as a scientific view of the world. They present the Great Debate as a simple “Sino-Soviet split” rather than an international struggle against revisionism. They try to get people to “believe the Party line” without reservation. They immaterialize and trivialize Marxism in general.
Thiago: What is your opinion on Democratic Kampuchea [ Cambodia, editor's note, cdp.] and Laos? Is there a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement in these two countries today?
Luu: This is a delicate question for us. We recognize the national liberation of the people of Kampuchea led by the Communist Party of Kampuchea against the military dictatorship and the American imperialists. We maintain a neutral view of the policies implemented under his government, but we understand that Pol Pot betrayed the Cambodian revolution by supporting the revisionist clique of Deng Xiaoping and arresting the so-called "Gang of Four."
Pol Pot fell into revisionism in his later years. We also oppose the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam; which was just a repeat of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It was a war that only served the profits of two social-imperialist blocs.
Laos today is a semi-colony of Chinese social-imperialism. This country owes China around 25 billion dollars and has had to destroy many lands and rubber plantations. In 2021, the Laos–China (Vientiane–Kunming) high-speed railway line entered service. In addition to tourism needs, this railway is also used to transport timber, rubber, food and minerals from Laos to China. This railway is part of the so-called “Belt and Road” proposed by the Xi Jinping clique.
The People's Revolutionary Party was formed after the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. In the 1950s, they were not a puppet of Soviet social-imperialism, but became one in the 1960s, falling completely into revisionism after the war and after gaining independence. , being occupied by fifty thousand Vietnamese soldiers, which signifies their dependence on revisionist Vietnam and the social-imperialist USSR. After the fall of the USSR, it became a semi-colony of China.
We have no further information on the Communist Movement in Laos and Kampuchea, so we cannot say anything further on this matter.
FINAL NOTES:
Thang: We are very grateful for this interview, it not only marks the solidarity between the Vietnamese and Brazilian proletariat, but also serves as a great example of proletarian internationalism in the class struggle, the national liberation struggle against imperialism and revisionism. Red salute from Vietnam!
Source : https://valedospomares.wordpress.com/2024/04/06/entrevista-com-o-servir-ao-povo-vietna-comunistas-em-um-pais-revisionista/

Conversation about Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) on this subreddit tends to be really limited, with many people taking at face value the "smartest man in the world" claim (which was published in a magazine Veidt owns!) and interpreting the ending as a moral quandary over whether killing millions is worth it to avert nuclear war.
But that's not how Veidt's character is written. Veidt is written, instead, to show how ego, anxiety, and detachment from humanity can drive people to do horrific things.
I collected examples from the text on several facets of Veidt's character, hoping to highlight how -- both through analogy and through plot -- Moore worked to paint a complex picture of Veidt as a person driven mad by anxiety and impotence, his fears fueled by isolation and obsessive media consumption, who did something unthinkable and unnecessary.
Is this post, itself, a bit obsessive? Yes. But I hope that people can link this post in the future the next time someone inevitably asks: "Was Ozymandias right?"

I. Veidt is mentally unwell.

• Dan: “I mean, who’s qualified to judge something like that? This is the world’s smartest man we’re talking about here, so how can you tell? How can anyone tell if he’s gone crazy?” (Chapter XI, page 3).
• Veidt: “By day I imagine endless faces. By night… well, I dream, about swimming towards a hideous… No. Never mind. It isn’t significant.” (Chapter XII, page 27)
• Veidt tells his life story to a bunch of dead bodies. (Chapter XI)
• Veidt: “I don’t mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn’t this one.” (Chapter XII, back matter)
• Veidt is mirrored by the mariner in the Black Freighter, who has visibly gone mad by the time he embarks on the raft and is raving by the time he arrives home.
• We see a reference to Tarkovsky’s iconic film The Sacrifice (Chapter XII, page 31), which also features a character going insane in an attempt to prevent nuclear war.
• Veidt’s plan is, in essence, a form of projection: the squid makes people go insane, have constant nightmares, and kill each other out of fear. The squid is, itself, a nightmare given form.
• Graffiti (Chapter I, page 24) reads “One in eight go mad.” Of the eight Minutemen, Mothman was put in an asylum. There were eight attendees of the Crimebusters meeting. After 11/2, the graffiti has been modified (Chapter XII, page 31) to read “One in three go mad.” Only three of the attendees remain: Veidt, Dan, and Laurie.
• Just look at his expression while killing the Comedian. (Chapter XI, page 26)

II. Veidt is detached from humanity.

• In present day, we only see Veidt in his personal skyscraper or thousands of miles from New York at his private Antarctic fortress -- never on the street.
• Pulling at the Tales of the Black Freighter parallels again, the mariner is marooned and goes mad because he has nobody else to talk to.
• Veidt refers to “stepping back” from humanity: “My first step was to stand back as far as I could, to view the problem from a fresh perspective, my vista widening with my comprehension. [...] I took another step back, and thought again.” (Chapter XI, page 21).

III. Veidt is obsessed with media and pop culture, and it deeply influences his worldview.

• Veidt is constantly engaged with his “multi-screen viewing” (Chapter XI, page 1), which we see originating in 1963 with just a few screens (Chapter XII, page 18). For 20+ years, Veidt has been gleaning a lot of his understanding of humanity from obsessively watching TV.
• The squid is straight out of sci-fi, with Veidt literally hiring famous artists, writers, etc. from literature, comic books, and so on to design the squid and the nightmares planted within it.
• We also know that Veidt has read Tales of the Black Freighter, not just because he hired Max Shea to help with the squid, but also because he references it twice: “I dream, about swimming towards a hideous…” and “I know I’ve struggled across the backs of murdered innocents” (Chapter XII, page 27). The mariner literally sails on the bloated corpses of his innocent crew, and at the end, swims towards the Black Freighter.
• Veidt makes frequent media references: William S. Burroughs (Chapter XI, page 1), Man From UNCLE (Chapter XI, back matter), a bunch of musicians (Chapter XI, back matter) -- there are definitely more.
• Nova Express, heavily implied to be owned by Veidt, is another Burroughs reference.
• Veidt takes personal investment in forming narratives in his advertising, micromanaging plots in TV shows, toys, etc. (Chapter X, back matter).
• Veidt is mirrored by Bernard, the newsstand owner. Both Veidt and Bernard’s parents moved out of Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. Both Veidt and Bernard think they understand the world because they see a constant stream of media (Veidt with his TVs, Bernard with his newsstand) and are terrified of impending war. Both cite popular culture as evidence of impending war despite themselves selling to those audiences (Veidt via his advertising and publications, Bernard via his newsstand). Note Veidt’s obsession with finality and Bernard’s frequent refrain: “... inna final analysis.”

IV. Veidt undercuts his plan for his ego.

• Veidt is careful to distance himself from most of his assassinations, but kills the Comedian by hand -- something he’s not prone to doing. (Dan: “This is Adrian, for god’s sake! We know him. He never killed anybody, ever.” [Chapter XI, page 3]) This immediately clues in both the detectives (“No way this is a straight burglary… somebody really had it in for this guy.” [Chapter I, page 3]) and Rorschach.
• Veidt does this because of his ego: “Recognizing me, he attacked anyway, ‘mistaking me for a criminal.’ I studied his limitations: skillful feint, devastating uppercut; little else… He won. In the short term. [...] I also swore that when next I met Blake or any other foe, though perhaps not on my territory… it would certainly be on my terms.” (Chapter XI, page 19).
• Veidt makes his password “RAMESES II”, leaves lots of clues (“Pyramid Deliveries”), and only teleports the squid when he sees Dan and Rorschach approaching (Chapter XI, page 4). The title of Chapter XI is “Looks on my works, ye mighty”. Veidt wants an audience of his peers. If he had teleported the squid earlier, Rorschach likely would have died.
• Along similar lines, Veidt leaves the Comedian alive for as long as possible and doesn’t kill Rorschach -- sloppy choices, born out of his need for peers who know his plan.

V. Veidt’s plan is doomed and ill-conceived.

• Veidt idolizes Alexander the Great, who failed. Veidt: “Amongst [Babylon’s] ruined ziggurats, I saw at last his failings… He’d not united all the world, nor built a unity that would survive him.” (Chapter XI, page 10)
• Veidt named himself after Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias), famous from the Shelley poem about the impermanence of greatness, which the comic also references. (“And on the pedestal, these words appear: / My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”)
• Dr. Manhattan: “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.” (Chapter XII, page 27)
• Tales of the Black Freighter shows the mariner accidentally attacking his home to save it from a threat he thinks has already arrived, only to discover that the threat was in his head and he had become the thing he feared. Veidt, similarly, was so terrified of nuclear war that he became the threat.
• Rorschach’s journal is the last panel, implying that Veidt’s artificial peace will soon begin to deteriorate.

VI. Veidt's relationship to the Comedian is crucial, and Veidt may be the comic's true "comedian."

• Veidt’s complicated admiration for Blake extends to early in his career, in the mid-50’s: “As intelligent men facing lunatic times, we were very alike, despising each other instantly.” (Chapter XI, page 18).
• Rorschach says of the Comedian: “No one else saw the joke. That’s why he was lonely.” (Chapter II, page 27). But Veidt did: “Too cowardly to confront my anxieties, I had life’s black comedy explained to me by the Comedian himself [...] [He] opened my eyes. Only the best comedians accomplish that. [...] I swore to deny his kind their last black laugh at Earth’s expense. [...] I would trick [the world]; frighten it towards salvation with history’s greatest practical joke. That’s what upset the Comedian: [...] professional jealousy.” (Chapter XI, pages 19-24)
• In fact, though, it ends up being Blake who doesn’t get the joke. When Blake confesses to Moloch, he says of Veidt’s plan: “I mean, this joke, I mean, I thought I was the Comedian, y’know? [...] I mean, what’s funny? What’s so goddamned funny? I don’t get it. Somebody explain… somebody explain it to me.” (Chapter II, page 23)
• Veidt’s likely namesake is Conrad Veidt, perhaps most famous for his haunting, insane-looking grin in “The Man Who Laughs”.
• We see the relationship between comedy/laughter and mental instability explored in Rorschach’s joke: “Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says ‘Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up. Man bursts into tears. Says ‘But, doctor… I am Paglacci.’” (Chapter II, page 27). On the surface, this appears to be about Blake -- but by the end, we can see that it applies just as much, if not more, to Veidt.

VII. Veidt is a Hitler analogue.

• Veidt is a German immigrant whose character design is straight out of a Nazi propaganda ad.
• Veidt idolizes Alexander the Great, a Greco-Roman would-be world conqueror. Nazis frequently invoked Greco-Roman design motifs and obviously had similar goals of conquering the world.
• Dan: “He’s such a caring, conscientious guy. He’s a pacifist, a vegetarian…” / Rorschach: “Hitler was vegetarian.” (Chapter XI, page 15)
• Veidt: “Hitler said people swallow lies easily, provided they’re big enough.” (Chapter XI, page 26)
• 11/2 is Veidt’s personal Holocaust. Over the scenes of carnage in New York, we see the Madison Square Garden sign: “KRYSTALNACHT” (Chapter XII, page 2). Highlighted among the millions of dead: the concertgoers (alternative/punks), Joey and Aline (lesbians), Bernard (whose father fled the Nazis), and a number of Black people (Malcolm, Gloria, Bernie, and the watch salesman). Joey’s posted for Gay Women Against Rape features the band Pink Triangle, a symbol which originated as a badge to identify gay people in Nazi concentration camps.
• Veidt, fundamentally, is obsessed with finding a “final solution” to bring peace -- even if it costs millions of lives.

The Horus Heresy Book 18: Deliverance Lost by Gav Thorpe So last week, we got a lot of response and we would like to explain that we only hated it because we worked ourselves up talking and discussing it and coming to the realisation it didn't add up to a good book. I hope that clarifies things 😃
18 books in and we get our first full one from the point of view of the Raven Guard. The “Night Lords who got some therapy” have not been having a good time with Isstvan V and the massacring of their forces. We get to see what is required to try to rebuild a legion following the betrayal and then what happens when there is more betrayal.
This book builds upon the short story “The Face of Treachery”, also written by Gav Thorpe (go read our previous review Horus Heresy Book 16: Age of Darkness, an anthology : 40kLore (reddit.com) and give us an upvote hint hint) with the Alpha Legion setting up sleeper agents within the Raven Guard, which turns out to be highly useful as a new secret weapon is developed. Perhaps even more so than “Legion”, this story shows just how devious the Alpha Legion are.
‘What do you wish to ask of me, my son?’ ‘The Raven Guard verge on being a spent force, but I would rebuild them if I had the chance,’ said Corax. ‘Yet I cannot spare a warrior from the fighting to come, nor the time to raise up a new generation of the Legion. I seek your permission to launch attacks against the traitors, to mark our final passing in the glory of battle.’ ‘You wish to sacrifice your Legion?’ The Emperor seemed genuinely surprised. ‘In what cause?’ ‘I do not do it out of woe but necessity,’ explained Corax. ‘I must atone for the failure at Isstvan, for it will tear me apart as surely as my wounds did, if allowed to fester in my heart. Forgive me, but I cannot defend Terra, idly awaiting my fate to come to me.’ The Emperor did not reply for some time, his brow creased slightly with deep thought. Corax waited patiently, eyes fixed to the Emperor’s face. ‘I concur,’ the Master of Mankind said eventually. ‘It is in your nature to cry havoc and wreak the same upon your foes. Yet there is no need for sacrifice. I am reluctant, but you have my trust, Corvus. I will grant you a gift, a very precious gift.’
And another quote that we loved:
‘In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows: "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows The wonders of my hand". The City's gone, Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder, and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chase, He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.’
The primarch considered the words, but could not divine their meaning. His mentors on Lycaeus had taught him of poetry, of rhyme and metre and cadence, but he had never quite been able to see the appeal. Poems reminded him too much of the work-songs the prisoners had invented to keep up their spirits while they had hewn with pick and laser drill at the unforgiving stone of the penal colony. The last three lines left Corax feeling disquieted, though, as if the Emperor had suspected that his Imperium could not endure any more than the great empires of mankind's long history.”
Synopsis
“When I was a young boy My father took me into the city To see a marching band He said, "Son, when you grow up Would you be the saviour of the broken The beaten and the damned?" He said, "Will you defeat them? Your daemons, and all the non-believers The plans that they have made?" "Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom To lead you in the summer To join the black parade” Corvus Corax M31.1312
The Raven Guard are still barely alive on Isstvan V and are rescued by Commander Branne, who was guided by prophetic dreams. Beyond two ships sent back to Deliverance, his homeworld, Corax and his remaining forces head to Terra to see the Emperor. That’s good.
However, the Alpha Legion have surgically modified some of their Space Marines to look like slain Raven Guards and even implanted memories into them, to act as sleeper agents and pass on relevant intel. That’s bad.
Corax meets with Dorn and Malcador, and learns that the Emperor is a little busy currently and is unable to meet with him. Getting annoyed Corvus is met psychically by the Emperor, who gives him knowledge of how to access the remains of the ‘Primarch Project’.
With this knowledge Corax can restore his legion, possibly to even greater strength than before Isstvan.
But to get the knowledge, the Raven Guard have to get through a technological Labyrinth that is constantly changing and preventing them access (essentially a ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ moving maze). Corax uses his massive super duper primarch brain power and solves the labyrinth to keep it open. Inside is the ‘Primarch Project’, which can be used to make new Space Marines and quickly mass produce them.
The first of these new marines, dubbed the Raptors, are trained and deployed, striking a Word Bearer garrison hard. Estimates project the traitor legions will be outnumbered in months.
The Alpha Legion cannot allow this, so they rebalance the scales. A genetic poison, concocted from daemon blood, is introduced to the Raptors gene seed.
Soon the Raptors show rapid signs of mutation, morphing into hideous crowlike monsters. There is a certain irony that they resemble the same mutated Word Bearer possessed marines that struck them down on Isstvan. In a show of mercy or desperation, Corax allows the Raptors to remain. It is likely they will serve their legion until their use is no longer required. Omegon (the other primarch of the Alpha Legion) then attacks the gene seed project and chaos breaks out as the sleeper agents emerge and start slaughtering everything in their way. The mutated Raptors are released to fight back and prevent the Alpha Legionnaires escaping. Luckily, a Mechanicum super soldier has arrived to pick up the gene seed and I'm sure he is an upstanding member of society who can be fully trusted….
Corax is annoyed but determined. The remaining Alpha Legion agents are discovered and executed. It is time to strike against Horus and an unlucky unit of Emperor’s Children are wiped out by cunning lightning strikes and feints. The Raven Guard are victorious and plan to harry the Warmaster’s forces in their slow advance on Terra….
Review: Good ideas that do not always come together into a great plot. We genuinely really like this book but there are a few parts that just don’t work.
Labyrinth is an odd design choice; why have a primarch project that can only be solved by a primarch? It is very odd to seclude it in this particular way. Why not stick it on Mars in the Labyrinth? This is the second Labrinth the Emperor is keeping secrets in; why!? It doesn’t really achieve much by keeping it in there. Do we really think Pertarabo or Magnus would not be able to solve it if they turned up? Then they take the super secret project to a world currently experiencing a rebellion…Brilliant, just brilliant. Why not do the mass recruiting experiments on Terra until it is working? It might have made more sense to steal it and raise the stakes and betray Dorn and Malcador, but working for the greater good of the Imperium. It is a minor thing but it slows the book down considerably and you know Corvus is going to solve the puzzle, so there is no tension.
The attack on the Emperor's Children is such bolter porn. The attack on the Perfect Fortress is so not Slaaneshi; it's just a place that needs attacking by the Loyalists and is never mentioned again. Where are the weird palaces of pleasure and the civilians being turned into drugs?
Tinfoil Hat Time We do not have an answer to this one - but did the Alpha Legion send psychic messages to Deliverance? Because if not, why bother to have sleeper agents to a dead legion that was trapped on Istvaan V? Tinfoil Hat Time
I really enjoyed the scene where an Alpha Legion sleeper agent is nearly unmasked during combat training. He uses a move that is only known to the Alpha Legion, and is questioned by the other marines. “I saw someone use it on Isstvan” - he says and teaches the other Raven Guard. Internally he knows Alpha Legion marines will die due to his lapse in concentration.
I do fully sympathise with Omegon on throwing the whole Cabal plot out of an airlock.
Score: 7.5/10 - An solid good book with interesting ideas that just has a few issues from ideas that do not really make sense. We would recommend rereading this one for the cool bits and maybe breezing through the weirder bits. We are incredibly happy to meet Corax and have a more humanised primarch character who considers what they are doing and thinks about it.
Cover: The motion blur on Corvus is superb. He does look like a grim dark Beatle with that mop top unfortunately, but it does seem to suit him. Space marine is looking the right way finally. It might be set in the Perfect Fortress, but we are not 100% sure.
Heresy Watch: In the aftermath of Isstvan V, the Raven Guard have been decimated but Corvus has escaped and is determined to carry on harassing Horus with hit and run strikes. As a giant invisible birdman, he demonstrates he is more than capable of it. Interestingly, the Emperor’s Children stationed at the Perfect City seem to still be protecting the civilians there. The Alpha Legion are fully acting for themselves; they prevent the Raven Guard using the modified gene seed, give Horus flawed intel for it and end their relationship with the Cabal. They are acting for themselves. The Emperor is struggling to deal with the mess Magnus created and has to psychically communicate through Malcador (apparently 2 years before it happens. Let's not bring that up again).
Legion Watch/Number of Book(s):
Dark Angels: 4
: 2
Emperor’s Children: 7
Iron Warriors: 5
White Scars: 2
Space Wolves: 4
Imperial Fists: 8
Night Lords: 3
Blood Angels: 1
Iron Hands: 3
: 2
World Eaters: 9
Ultramarines: 5
Death Guard: 4
Thousand Sons: 5
Sons of Horus: 8
Word Bearers: 9
Salamanders: 2
Raven Guard: 4
Alpha Legion: 5
The Emperor: 7
Another entry for Rogal Dorn. Major characters from various traitor legions show up in the novel, inflating their count. Salamanders and Blood Angels are still forgotten about.
Tropes Watch: Are we the baddies?: 33
The Emperor has a ever shifting Labyrinth containing his secret projects, which has serious Bond villain vibes.
The Alpha Legion literally replace their faces with dead Raven Guard to become undercover agents.
It's definitely not gay: 19 “The Emperor reached out a hand and Corax felt hot fingers upon his brow. Energy flowed through the primarch, knitting his shattered bones, stemming his pouring blood, healing wounded muscles and organs. The primarch gasped, filled with love and adoration.” C’mon man, that's your Dad…. Given that description of injuries shouldnt Corax already be dead? Anyway?
How not to parent 101: 23
Oh Corvus. The poor guy is a little crazed in his quest to get the Raptor project working and it all goes horribly wrong. It was a big gamble and it did not pay off (due to Alpha Legion sabotage but still…)
The Emperor psychically meeting with Corax is an afterthought! And only when Corax gets mad. The son has literally returned home from hell and is confronted by evil stepmother Malcador who says that “dad is way too busy”. If The Emperor cared he would have put plans in place to send a message, help, or even just ask if Corax is ok?
Erebus!!!: 17 Besides the actual Erebus being here and worming his way as usual, Athithirtir is bloody annoying and tries to order Omegon to follow the Cabal. He fully deserves his fate, having alerted the Alpha Legion to what the Raven Guard were doing.
“Alpharius sat down, reluctantly accepting the Warmaster’s invitation, darting a warning look at Erebus just as the Word Bearer opened his mouth to speak. ‘Save your posturing for those that are swayed by it,’ said Alpharius. ‘Your change of loyalty proves the vacuity of your proselytising. You are privileged to stand in the presence of your betters, and should know not to speak until spoken to.’ The primarch enjoyed the contortions of anger that wracked the First Chaplain’s face, but Erebus heeded the warning and said nothing.” All it took was a primarch to finally shut him up.
Does this remind you of anything?: 32
Vicente Sixx (the Raven Guard Chief Apothecary) also doubles up as a singer and bass player in his spare time. His covert name is probably Dr Feelgood.
The super secure labyrinth is basically a one shot DnD dungeon.
Idiot Ball: 1 New trope this week after we keep noticing it. Why did the Alpha Legion sleeper agents stick around after the attack? They knew the Raven Guard knew there were agents, and they all get identified by their DNA and killed shortly thereafter. The Alpha Legion seem to be either amazingly smart and well prepared or absolute idiots. The Custodes have had it for weeks, so it's nice for someone else to have it. There is an argument for someone holding the Idiot Book for every book and we may list them all next week....

Review: Lady on the Cusp
I've taken a deep dive (participated in the Band Camp live stream, ~6 cover-to-cover listens, and play-on-repeat for specific songs to refine my rating) into of Montreal's latest album, Lady on the Cusp, and here are my thoughts on each track. Overall, it's another "average" album from Kevin Barnes. It feels like a more subdued sound compared to earlier experimental works like Skeletal Lamping, but it lacks the exuberance and uniqueness that made those earlier works noteworthy. As Kevin's sound has evolved, especially over the last decade, the music has been less enjoyable to sing along to. It's not that it's relegated to background music, but that the intensity of my enjoyment waxes and wanes in this album and several of the previous releases. Glimpses of inspiration in a few songs (Soporific Cell, Sea Mines That Mr. Gone) make me reminisce for the musical focus and cohesion of some of the earlier works.
Track-by-Track Review:

1. Music Hurts the Head - Rating: 8
   • "Rock and roll is dead. That's why it's cool!"
2. 2 Depressed 2 F**k - Rating: 5
   • Lyrically scattered and musically incoherent.
3. Rude Girl on Rotation - Rating: 8
   • The best guitar riffs on the album. The lyrics of the chorus (stepping on scorpions to lose my erection, really?) prevent me from singing along to the earworm.
4. Yung Hearts Bleed Free - Rating: 7
   • Don't mix up your prayer and anal beads, Kevin.
5. Soporific Cell - Rating: 10
   • IMO the best song on the album. The second half of this song is very catchy.
6. I Can Read Smoke - Rating: 5
   • I expected this would be a skip for most people. After reading some of the comments on the subreddit, I re-listened to this multiple times. It's one of my biggest head-scratchers on the album. I can't relate to those who enjoy it, but I'm glad its sound is appealing to others.
7. Pi$$ Pi$$ - Rating: 9
   • Cool sound, depressing lyrics. This track has grown on me quite a bit since the first round of the album.
8. Sea Mines That Mr. Gone - Rating: 9
   • Saxophonic bliss. Reminiscent of an older sound, like Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies. "I'll probably die in character" is tragic and powerful.
9. Poetry Surf - Rating: 6
   • "Impotent vagina" = this song. Lyrically, I need my dictionary to understand it, which kills the immersion.
10. Genius in the Wind - Rating: 9
    • Funky, experimental, and interesting.

Overall Rating: Lady on the Cusp is a mixed bag, offering glimpses of brilliance amidst tracks that don't quite hit the mark. While it doesn't quite capture the vibrant energy of past albums, it has its moments that remind us of Kevin Barnes' unique musical prowess.

Sometimes we want to see some of them at the cinema too, because TV shows have become so popular globally that they are rising as high as the sky! And oh well, just like hot sultry summers; shows are also burning hot! They are back again my friends- a hint is given above for those who will watch them stuck in one place where there is always unbearable heat. So get a mango shake, grab some popcorn then be ready to keep an eye on some super cool TV shows releasing in May.
1. Blood Of Zeus Season 2 09 May Netflix
An action-adventure anime series that started in 2020 and became very popular. The show’s plot is simple: it’s about an ancient Greek guy called Heron who goes on a journey and his true lineage is discovered by him- he happens to be Zeus’ son who possesses the power to save humanity from demonic army trying to wipe out this peaceful human world and its inhabitants. It had been rated 7.5 IMDb, but now- much to the delight of its fans- has returned with its second installment!!!
2. Bridgerton Season 3 16 May Netflix
A historical romance drama set in England during its Regency era; the show focuses on eight siblings belonging to the Bridgerton family who intend on finding their soul mates. In this season, Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton take center stage as their love story unfolds. Penelope finally abandons her love for Colin after deciding she would rather marry someone else that will allow her enough freedom to live her double life without any interference from her family anymore: Colin however has come back home hence there is still so much spice left simmering in this incomplete love story!
Also Read: The Lost Daughter
3. The Chi Season 6 Part 2 19 May Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus
A thought-provoking teenage drama series developed by Emmy award-winning producer and screenwriter- Lena Waithe. This series is about a set of strangers who are all residents of the same place until some freak coincidences bring them all together. The storylines became larger than they could have been imagined at first. It has been one of the most watched Showtime series and scored 7.6 on IMDb- after much anticipation, it came back for its sixth season with more ambitious goals these characters want to reach.
4. Dark Matter 8 May Apple+ TV
Apple+ TV is launching yet another science fiction thriller show that involves an individual kidnapped into one of uncountable other parallel universes where he lives in this reality. Among various lives he could have lived, this was just sheer misfortune from his side. Now he is searching for answers, but above all else, how to save his family from his evil twin who wants nothing but destroy him entirely; it feels like a mind blowing thriller!
5. Doctor Who Season 14 11 May Disney+
Doctor Who, a much-anticipated sci-fi Disney+ series that has captured the hearts of many people, is back with its 14th season and fans cannot hold themselves together any longer! This is the fifth British version of the franchise that was produced and written by Russel T Davies. Ncuti Gatwa is set to be the new incarnation of ‘The Doctor’; an alien who comes to London via time travel!
6. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire 06 May Disney+
A collection animated mini series set in Star Wars universe and you should really get excited about it – all fans gather! It follows around one young vengeful woman, a Jedi attempting to survive different dangerous Galactic empires across ages searching for destiny. The interest on this Disney animation combined with action thriller storylines makes it hard to ignore.
7. Outer Ranger Season 2 16 May Amazon Prime Video
A mystery thriller drama series released in 2022- a film about a rancher trying to save his land and family, but having to fight through hell. However, he gets involved into an unsolvable mystery right there in Wyoming. This adventurous show was loved by everyone. Therefore the rancher returns for yet another adventure maybe this time stakes could be too high!
8. The Tattooist of Auschwitz 02 May Peacock
This bleak war drama series tells about Lale Sokolov’s real life experience as a Jew prisoner during World War I being ordered to tattoo ID numbers on each inmate in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The show offers revelations that were never told before through eyes of someone who witnessed so many cruelty at first hand.
9. Bodkin 09 May Netflix
A crime drama thriller about three podcasters who stumble upon news about three strangers who have gone missing mysteriously in a deserted Irish town they feel compelled jointly solve it-the deeper they delve into it and uncover the hidden parts of the case-the more terrifying and awful it gets. We are going to witness a number of cliffhangers, unexpected twists and comic reliefs as in this Netflix series. What else is needed for perfect weekend watch?
10. Interview with the Vampire Season 2 12 May AMC+
This mindblowing horror fantasy drama series will just not let you stop watching until the very last episode! The show debuted in 2022 and holds a rating of 7.2 on IMDb. Well after such a long time we have another season here- The screenplay is based on Anne Rice’s novel that was a hit back in 1972 titled “Interview with the Vampire.” These are all about a vampire known as Louie De Pointe who discloses many aspects of his life including romance, bloodlust and demerits of being immortal to one journalist by name Daniel Molloy.
So, those were some TV Shows Releasing In May. Have you made any choices yet?

The man put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. I know that's not his entire legacy, he did lots of good things, but I don't think that the Democratic party, which seeks to contrast itself with the blatant racism of the Republican party, should be going out of their way to idolize a man who put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. It would be SO easy for Republicans to respond to any accusation of their racism or Reagan's racism with "your hero put the Japanese in concentration camps" and yeah that's not a good look.
For two, FDR was not some altruistic progressive champion who helped the common man out of the goodness of his heart. The guy was rich as fuck(essentially a billionaire if you adjust his net worth for inflation), and came into power at a time where the American worker was more dissatisfied than ever. People were hitting the streets and the idea of a socialist revolution was becoming increasingly popular. So a wealthy guy saw the writing on the wall and swooped in, giving the people what he felt they needed to pacify them in order to preserve the system that allows such wealth inequality as he enjoyed.
I feel like whether you want to look at him from the lens of a leftist or the lens of a moderate Democrat it just doesn't make sense to want to point to this guy as the hero that the country needs more of. I think it'd be a bad political move.

Hello :) My name’s Christian Butterfield! I’m currently a collegiate competitor on Western Kentucky University’s national championship speech/debate team, and I’d love to offer some private coaching to students before NCFL/NSDA, or any students wanting to get ahead on the 24-25 speech season!
My Experience — On the college circuit, I’ve made multiple national final rounds in both Extemp and Impromptu, as well as Informative, After Dinner Speaking, Persuasion, Rhetorical Criticism, and POI. In 2024, I was the national runner-up in Individual Sweepstakes at NFA Nationals. In high school, I started and self-coached my school’s Congressional Debate team, where I won multiple state championships and made multiple national outrounds. Outside of speech, I was the National Student Poet of 2019, the nation’s highest award for young poets, as well as a YoungArts winner, and my work has since been featured in Adroit Journal, Kenyon Review, and North American Review.
My Coaching Experience — In Original Oratory, I coached the New Jersey state champion, the Bronx Science champion, as well as multiple state finalists and national qualifiers. In Limited Prep, I coached Extemp at Space City Camp last summer, and coached multiple NFA outround competitors in extemp/impromptu. I’ve also help cut/block multiple POI’s to qualify for NSDA.
I’d love to offer some help before nationals season arrives, whether that be assisting with main events, helping construct supplemental events for NSDA, or simply getting a jumpstart on the 24-25 season! Here’s some specifics!
— Congress: I can research arguments for any bill on the NSDA/NCFL dockets, and hold individual practice sessions to work on analysis/delivery! — Limited Prep: I can provide individual feedback on speeches (both analysis/delivery), and provide targeted lectures on extemp strategy or political content knowledge. I’d also love to help with polishing up Impromptu or Extemp Commentary for those attending NSDA — Public Address: I can help with speechwriting (whether it be line-level edits or major rewrites), and hold practice sessions to work on delivery. — Interp: I can help with intro writing, blocking/delivery notes, and finding/cutting literature. My particular skillset lies in book events (POI/Poetry/Prose), though I’d be happy to help with any event!
In terms of rates, my ballpark estimate is about 20 dollars per hour of time on my end, whether that be a direct practice session or time spent with research/edits. If that represents any financial hardship, I’d be happy to work with you! Feel free to DM to chat more on reddit or ask for my email!

Hello :) My name’s Christian Butterfield! I’m currently a collegiate competitor on Western Kentucky University’s national championship speech/debate team, and I’d love to offer some private coaching to students before NCFL/NSDA!
My Experience — On the college circuit, I’ve made multiple national final rounds in both Extemp and Impromptu, as well as Informative, After Dinner Speaking, Persuasion, Rhetorical Criticism, and POI. In 2024, I was the national runner-up in Individual Sweepstakes at NFA Nationals. In high school, I started and self-coached my school’s Congressional Debate team, where I won multiple state championships and made multiple national outrounds. Outside of speech, I was the National Student Poet of 2019, the nation’s highest award for young poets, as well as a YoungArts winner, and my work has since been featured in Adroit Journal, Kenyon Review, and North American Review.
My Coaching Experience — In Original Oratory, I coached the New Jersey state champion, the Bronx Science champion, as well as multiple state finalists and national qualifiers. In Limited Prep, I coached Extemp at Space City Camp last summer, and coached multiple NFA outround competitors in extemp/impromptu. I’ve also help cut/block multiple POI’s to qualify for NSDA.
I’d love to offer some help before nationals season arrives, whether that be assisting with main events, helping construct supplemental events for NSDA, or simply getting a jumpstart on the 24-25 season! Here’s some specifics!
— Congress: I can research arguments for any bill on the NSDA/NCFL dockets, and hold individual practice sessions to work on analysis/delivery! — Limited Prep: I can provide individual feedback on speeches (both analysis/delivery), and provide targeted lectures on extemp strategy or political content knowledge. I’d also love to help with polishing up Impromptu or Extemp Commentary for those attending NSDA — Public Address: I can help with speechwriting (whether it be line-level edits or major rewrites), and hold practice sessions to work on delivery. — Interp: I can help with intro writing, blocking/delivery notes, and finding/cutting literature. My particular skillset lies in book events (POI/Poetry/Prose), though I’d be happy to help with any event!
In terms of rates, my ballpark estimate is about 20 dollars per hour of time on my end, whether that be a direct practice session or time spent with research/edits. If that represents any financial hardship, I’d be happy to work with you! Feel free to DM to chat more on reddit or ask for my email!

The vipassana training is a great offering to the world and the visions and contributions of Goenka-ji are beyond wonderful. People who serve here out of dharma service and their willingness to help are admirable.
However, as a participant of the training, I’d sadly have to give a poor review. Whether the course is free or not, or the meditation technique itself has nothing to do with these feedbacks.
The way the training is structured is more like a military training than a learning experience. There are a long list of rules including no phones, no books, no journaling, no exercises etc., while I appreciate some of the rules like noble silence which helps attendants focus inwards, all other rules are rigid beyond reasoning. There, in my opinion, must be a middle way. Also I believe these should be suggestions or advices rather than rules. Goenka spoke so much about blind devotion this is kind of hypocritical.
I am not sure if this is universal across all Goenka’s centres however the people running this centre near Barcelona are like slaves to these rules, without ANY discernment. Speaking of attachment! You are not allowed to exercise, you are not allowed to skip meals or a dharma talk, or walk outside at this time. I felt like I was in a concentration camp where every move is being monitored. The manager came to my bed to ask why I am not having breakfast, and said I am not allowed to fast. I found this so ridiculous! I chose to listen to my body need, I don’t eat when I am not hungry. Then I had to go to the teacher to explain why i skipped breakfast! Man we are not in the kindergarten!
Honestly they are so rigid to following the rules I think they are just sheep attached to the idea of having control over people in the group rather than wishing the best for everyone’s learning process and seeing each person’s needs as they are, and accept each one has different needs. This entirely makes the whole experience torturous, and prison-like. If the goal of awakening/enlightenment is to see through the illusion and become the true self, I believe blindly following rules others impose on you without critical thinking is a huge obstacle. Since when exercising interfere with meditation? Yogis have been practicing asana for centuries to aid meditation. There must be some sort of explanation to these rules sadly these are not explained at all. I think they completely miss the plot. This is not the type of Sangha I want to practice with. Everyone behaved like sheep in there.
Everyone seems to be bowing down to the teacher Victoria whom I have no idea who she is and where this superiority comes from? Not to disrespect her but there was no prior communications about having a teacher and who this teacher is. The way I was told to interact with her was like asking me to meet the queen, look at her all the time and sit like this and that etc. Every little thing even non meditation issue has to go through her which I found ridiculous! Unfortunately, as a dharma teacher herself she has very little to no skill to hold space for my concerns. She sits on her dharma throne trying to fake compassion and brushes off whatever I had to say is the worst kind of compassion. She even told me I had signed an agreement to listen to everything she said, I had no idea where I signed this but this is so unbelievable coming directly from a dharma teacher. So much attachment to rules and her inflated superiority, so little equanimity and compassion and love.
regarding the Goenka’s material, I honestly think l it can be improved so much! I admire what this man has done to the world but man, precise communication is not his thing! He keeps on looping through same ideas with his word salad and fluff, some of the discourses are great but most of them are redundant! He could have covered so much more Buddha’s teaching in those 15 hours but it was literally the same ideas everyday. I have studied Buddha’s teaching for around 2 years now and I regret I didn’t learn anything new in this 10 day intensive course. The vipassana instructions are tedious and redundant, the off pitch chanting is a huge test to my equanimity! if I were to record some materials and use them globally for 30 plus years, I would put my effort to script it to perfection.
The female dorm is claustrophobic, with bunk beds facing each other where the space between can only fit one person. One person snores the whole dorm can’t sleep.
I hate to have to provide a bad review, i sincerely hope more people can benefit from this technique to step into mindfulness. If you want to rough it through 10 intensive days striping off all your freedom, repeatedly listening to Goenka’s off pitch chanting and 60% redundant and tedious vipassana instructions, this is THE place to develop equanimity. Otherwise there are better places to learn how to meditate!

BoxOfficeTheory Presale Tracking
USA Showtimes As of May 17
Presales Data (Google Sheets Link)
BoxOfficeReport Previews
DOMESTIC PRESALES
Furiosa Thursday Comp assuming $5M for keysersoze123: $4.49M

• abracadabra1998 ($5.46M Thursday comp. GxK obviously really propping the average up but for now I could see that settling at around $5 Million, still good pace! (May 12). Really good stuff in this market (May 9). Reallyyyyyy good day 1 here. I want to note that: NO I do NOT think preview numbers will be that high; it's just highlighting the fact that this is likely a movie that will be running hot in my market, as cinephile blockbusters usually do. Next update I will have T-14 comps, which will be a lot lower due to the short release window (May 8).)
  
• AniNate (Encouraging to see the weekend fill out a bit. Been seeing a lot of promotion during the basketball playoffs so general awareness has to be getting there now. (May 15). Skimmed through ThuFri and Valley View (Cleveland vicinity) has sold roughly 60 Furiosa tix so far while Tinseltown (Canton) has sold 40. I'm guessing the upfront audience does lean more toward the urban/cosmopolitan sensibilities (May 9). Presales show there's definitely some hype for this. Regal gonna irritate trackers again, offering no upcharge IMAX for Furiosa (May 8).)
  
• Charlie Jatinder ($3.05M Thursday comp.)
  
• el sid ($5.8M average Thursday comp (without Exorcist 2) (May 12). Furiosa continues its strong performance in "my" theaters. The movie yesterday had already 1.310 sold tickets (for Thursday, May 23). Up 15% in ca. 24 hours which isn't bad at all after the first rush. Already comfortably in front of The Fall Guy's final sales (it had 1.071 counted on Thursday for Thursday) and almost on par with Civil War's final sales (1.357) and also the Apes finally had not more than 1.657 sold tickets in my theaters (May 11). I also can't complain about Furiosa's presales in my theaters, not at all. Already 1,138 sold tickets (in all of "my" 7 theaters) for May 23. 14 days left. Promising start. Civil War on Thursday of the release week for Thursday had 1,357 sold tickets and The Fall Guy finally had 1,071 sold tickets (May 9).)
  
• katnisscinnaplex ($3.94M Thursday comp.)
  
• keysersoze123 (Definitely chugging along. I am feeling good about 5m+ previews (May 15). It has way stronger sales than Garfield and that is expected. I am thinking of 5m previews for now (May 14). I think this is a solid OD presales. With a short PS window its probably looking at 5m+ previews (May 9).)
  
• TheFlatLannister ($4.71M Thursday comp. Second straight day of weak growth. Not a great sign (May 18). First meh day since presales started (May 17). Keeps climbing at a strong pace (May 11). This continues to grow at an excellent rate (May 10). Really strong day 2. The short presales is for sure a factor (May 9). Not seeing much of a breakout. Still pretty solid start to presales (May 8).)
  
• vafrow ($3.5M Thursday comp. A bit of a step back today (May 18). It's starting to heat up (May 17). Comps are showing as steady since the last update, but it actually dipped quite a bit this week before rebounding today. Advance ticket buying has been so off in this market recently for some reason. Holding pace with Apes is a good sign (May 16). It had a good day (May 12). Mediocre day 2 (May 10). Not the hottest start. IMAX is the format of choice though, so, ATP will be high (May 9).)
  
• YM! (Southeast Wisconsin: Pretty solid I guess for Furiosa. Seems that most of it's business is in the Marcus Theaters in Mequon/Waukesha so not really expecting much a diverse showing but there seems to be a fanbase around it. Feel good in everyone's 4.5-5M previews range (May 17).)
  

Hit Man

• vafrow (Getting a theatrical release up here in Canada, and early signs are that it might get a pretty decent screen count. Not super wide or anything, but a pretty decent amount for a weekend that has a lot of other releases (May 14).)

The Garfield Movie Thursday / EA+Thursday Comp: $1.22M/$1.97M

• abracadabra1998 ($0.72M EA comp and $1.19M Thursday comp. The two comps that are most helpful, Wish and Trolls (not PLF, EA on a weekend, family movies) are both pointing to a lot lower than average, so I'm inclined to give those a lot more weight. I'm thinking $500-600k for EA (May 18). Still not really accelerating, and the EA is falling against comps (May 12). Good EA numbers, but many of these comps were PLF-only EA, which this is not, so I think the ATP will be quite lower and that should be adjusted for (May 9).)
  
• AniNate (EA screenings are pretty filled to the brim here now for what that's worth. Maybe a surge in family demand will present itself later next week (May 17). EA sales look decent now, but this does feel rather weak compared to the IF presales. Not 100% certain what's going on here but based on this I buy the trades' opening estimates over the forum vibes (May 15). I definitely haven't seen as much of a rush here with Garfield as with IF (May 11).)
  
• el sid (The very even sales are a good sign (May 7). For Sunday, May 19, I can already report that also in my theaters it looks very good for Garfield. They will for sure add shows soon. It has so far only 1 show/theater and the shows are almost sold out, between 1 and 4 seats are still available. So my guess still is that this movie if it's not totally bad (and first reviews here were quite positive) will become a (big) hit. Seems not much on Thursday but it's a step in the right direction (May 6).)
  
• katnisscinnaplex ($0.91M EA comp and $1.11M Thursday comp. Lightyear probably the best comp here size-wise for Early Access, probably ends around 750-800k (May 18).)
  
• keysersoze123 (4 days later. Almost no pace so far. Sunday shows are near sellout and so limited growth. Previews are like 35% of Panda 4 and Friday is under 1/3rd. That said this will under index in MTC1 as Panda also did that. Still struggling to see this as a breakout. Looking at the current state, it looks like half of IF as well !!! Of course that had Reynolds and did not finish that great (May 17). Its definitely weaker than even Elemental. That said these movies tend to finish strong and so I am not writing it off so early. Just that the long PS window is irrelevant for them. They could rather start presales like a week before release and it would be all the same. Meh. We have to wait until next week to gauge where its going to finish. It has very low ATP as well and actual would be even lower as its going to see tons of kids tickets (May 14). Early shows are regular digital shows at 1PM this sunday. So ATP will be very low. I think 500k ish at best. Preview let us see how things go in the final week. Presales at this point are almost non existent (May 13).)
  
• TheFlatLannister ($2.18M Thursday comp. Not much movement at all in the past week. Probably heading to $2M+ (May 17).)
  
• vafrow ($0.4M Thursday comp. Comps don't paint a pretty picture though. EA shows are doing okay (May 11). Still no sales for my core sample for previews. But I did the larger sweep, which shows the interest right now is the Sunday early access shows. Looking at sales patterns, it's mainly blocks of 3/4 tickets, so likely families grabbing some. It's worth noting that the May holiday in Canada is the weekend of May 17-20th, not the weekend after with Memorial Day. I can see families prioritizing getting out the holiday weekend when they have more time (May 4).)
  
• YM! (The combined previews total for Garfield is 35 tickets with 23 tickets coming from EA, which is pretty solid. Still thinking around 2-2.75m previews with EA as while not as widespread, the showings seem like they’re filling up nicely. Think Garfield does about the same as IF though OW as due to the likely lower ATP Keyser hinted at iirc and seemingly little screen space with no PLFs. Meh, kids animation doesn't really make much notion until the Monday for release and Garfield seems indicative of that. Thinking the 1.5-2M Thursday previews range folks were spitting out makes sense. Nothing screams breakout though and the fact it's getting one screen, maybe two at most for previews makes me feel like OW might be similar to IF (May 17).)
  

Bad Boys: Ride or Die Thursday / EA+Thursday comp: $3.64M/$5.30M

• abracadabra1998 ($3.78M Thursday comp. These numbers are from last Thursday, as per my post this morning. This is a more walk-up movie a la Aquaman or Apes so I think it's a pretty good start (May 18). Pretty good start for it honestly (May 16).)
  
• katnisscinnaplex ($5.30M EA+Thursday comp.)
  
• TheFlatLannister ($3.68M Thursday comp. Well, this is a pretty good start (May 17).)
  
• YM! (Again, another solid start-ish. I expect Bad Boys to have the most diverse audience. Can't really predict much on previews but I am feeling confident in the 55-60m OW range for the past few weeks (May 17).)
  
• vafrow ($3.45M Thursday comp. Comps are not the greatest. One, surprisingly hard to find a comparable film with similar start on sales. Plus, I think ticket buying patterns have changed pretty drastically in my market over the last few months. There's very little up front sales compared to late 2023. Dune was the exception (May 17).)
  

The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Re-Releases (June 8-10)

• BoxOfficePro (Fathom Events has also announced that select Regal Cinemas will present the films in 4DX on June 22/23/24 for Fellowship/Towers/Return respectively (May 14).)
  
• katnisscinnaplex (Up to ~1,400 shows now with new locations picking it up and others adding a second showing. LotR1 has sold 831 seats OD, LotR2 sold 715 seats OD, and LotR3 sold 735 seats OD. For comparison, Phantom Menace didn't break 800 tickets until T-3 and we're still over a month out. JW3 comp is currently around 9m (it was at 1,670 tickets sold at this point!) (May 6).)
  

Inside Out 2 Average Thursday Comp: $7.66M

• abracadabra1998 ($3.67M Thursday comp. Holy numbers of shows and seats! Multiplexes are really expecting a lot here. Sales off the bat not amazing here sadly, but we shall see where it goes (May 15).)
  
• AniNate (It is encouraging that Canton is already giving me something to work with with 12 Thursday preview sales. Same number for Fri-Sun. I do see nine sales for first Thursday at Canton now and I think that's a pretty solid start (May 15).)
  
• charlie Jatinder ($11.37M Thursday comp at MTC2.)
  
• katnisscinnaplex ($6.21M Thursday comp. Early sales just haven't been there lately except for the extreme fans. $12.27M Mario comp (May 18). Already at 180 shows for previews in my areas and still has a few theaters left to post. For comparison, Godzilla x Kong finished with 197, Kingdom of Apes 190, and Kung Fu Panda 205 (May 14).)
  
• keysersoze123 (At least the show counts show Plexes are expecting a big OW. I dont remember when we last had a animation movie start with so many shows. I wont count Mario as that was a fan driven movie. Definitely not great presales but this is not a fan driven movie. Let us see where things are in the final week (May 15). Too early to judge presales as ticket sales just started early this morning. Families dont book tickets on weekday mornings. Wait until evening today to judge it. From a release perspective its way bigger than all animation movies seen recently including Panda 4. Easily the biggest I have seen in a long time. Only movie which is not comparable is Mario but that was not just a family flick (May 14).)
  
• Porthos (VERY BAD COMPS: $8.06M Thursday comp. What a strange pre-sale pattern. Threw in Shazam 2 and Barbie simply due to having nothing suitable at T-27, and I wanted something that was backloaded in pre-sales. Was prepared to make a smart-aleck comment about the unsuitability of the pre-sale pattern of Barbie, but after today's update... Okay, yeah. Still no. But what a weird pattern. Was there some sort of promo that dropped today that I'm not aware of? Either way, just a great day (for this type of movie at this point in pre-sales) (May 17). Fairly strong day today, actually. Was concentrated at a couple of theaters (including a small group sale at one showing), but still, sales are sales (May 16). I really do not have good comps for this movie. Like, at all. Especially for D1. With that in mind, I did some digging and did manage to get the Elemental D1 numbers out of the old Tracking thread: IO2 = 5.45946x Elemental on D1 [13.10m]. Now will Inside Out 2 be as backloaded as Elemental? Well it's tough to literally sell 5.5x times the amount of tickets on the final couple of days that Elemental did, so perhaps not. But it does show how fracking backloaded purely kids animation is. Anyway, this is 30 days out and it isn't a CBM film (like AtSV) or CBM-adjacent film (like Incredibles 2). The Sonic 2 comp is perhaps a little concerning. On the other hand, nearly a weeks more of pre-sales so not exactly a great comp. 3.5% of presales are 3D and 40.1% are PLF (May 15). On the Saturday of release weekend (ie NOT EA) there is a special event screening for IO2: INSIDE OUT 2: FUNKO FAMILY EVENT! (2024) Sat June 15th. Might boost the OW slightly, depending on how wide this event is and how much more these tickets will presumably cost (May 11).)
  
• TheFlatLannister ($8.97M Thursday comp. Definitely the biggest rollout in showings since I've started tracking Florida. Bigger than even Dune 2 and it's only T-26 (May 18). This is a super super strong day 2. Probably just Orlando overindexing, but yeah starting to lean towards something big brewing. Florida presales are somehow even crazier. Sold 2357 seats and is getting a blockbuster rollout in terms of showing allocations. Kung Fu panda comp day 2: gives me $8.50M (May 15). Well, I can't really tell if this is a breakout or not yet. Looks very good especially in the first few hours. These are probably terrible comps, but might as well try something (May 14).)
  
• TwoMisfits (I'm kinda shocked at the opening set from my Cinemarks... 2 screens (1 PLF, 1 not) and 6 showings at my PLF 14 for Thursday (and 11 showings on the same screens once it runs full day - 7 PLF b/c 1 is 3d on the reg screen, 4 not)... 3 screens (.75 3d, 2.25 not) and 9 showings at the non-PLF 12 for Thursday (and 12 showings on 2.25 screens once it runs full day)... So, 2 and 2.25 screens for the weekend presale sets... Disney must be charging a huge % for themselves b/c this is an Elemental opening set at my PLF...a little more generous for Thursday at my non-PLF, but then they too drop to an Elemental opening set after the adult Disney base Thursday rush... (May 14).)
  
• vafrow (No new sales. Whatever glitches in the system on day 1 didn't push sales to day 2. I still think the lack of base ticket options will push families to wait. Cineplex has jacked up the cost of premium formats, plus they're throwing in an increase for opening weekend of major releases. It adds up quickly for families (May 16). With the site glitching yesterday, it might account for the slow start. But, what's interesting is the format breakdown. Nothing is being made available in anything close to a regular showtime. The one non 3D showing in Dolby is a matinee showing. Everything else is carrying a hefty premium. They'll likely release regular showtimes closer to release, but right now, it's priced to get eager fans to pay the premium formats (May 15).)
  
• YM! (Seems IO2 is playing more like a kid's animation than a family event in start of presales. However, it is pretty solid for what it is. Do not have comparisons for anything but I like that Majestic is healthy and it about 66% of Garfield T-6. Thinking anywhere from 75m-100m OW rn but can change as we go along (May 17). In fairness it's only been an hour but yeah sales are softer than I expected. However, it is a month out and will largely skew more towards kids than say TLM/Across so wasn't expecting a blitz like them. Here at Marcus theaters are going all out for IO2 with it having the lion share of PLFs with it getting both screens when there is two PLFs with tentpole like levels of screens (May 14). Was taking a look at Marcus Cinemas to see that they have preloaded Inside Out 2 showtimes which seem to start at 3:00 pm on a Thursday. It seems like Marcus is going all out on it as judging from showtimes it's taking away all of Bad Boys’ PLFs in that theaters that have two+ PLFs are giving all to IO2 (May 11).)
  

Deadpool and Wolverine

• keysersoze123 (Only number that matters is OD presales. after few days it will hit a trough and then it will plod along until social media reactions and reviews hit close to release. I think we can kind of predict its OW after its OD presales (May 18). RESPONSE TO PORTHOS: Captain Marvel had very strong sales on its OD despite early start. So OD is all about fans. It does not matter if you start 2 weeks before or 9 weeks. They will still book. So it would be interesting to compare OD sales not only with CM for @Porthos but also the big openers in 2022/23 period from MTC perspective. 1) DS2 - 230k ish. 2) Thor 4 - 136k ish. 3) Wakanda - 110k. 4) Ant 3 - 88K. 5) Guardians 3 - 70k ish. I wonder where Deadpool 3 will land. Anything is fine as long as it does pull in a Marvels (May 17).)
  
• Porthos (No point of comparison for a movie starting presales this early (60+ days before release). Only MCU entry which comes close was Captain Marvel back in Jan of 2019 (T-58 start date). Aside from that, the only other Disney release would be TROS starting at T-59. This is gonna be the longest pre-sale window for a major Disney release since The Last Jedi all the way back in 2017 (which looks to be around 70 days if a cursory check of when tickets went on sale is correct). Hell, it's gonna be the longest major release of any studio since Fast X's execrable 99 day pre-sale window. Have had some that came close-ish, but probably the most on-point recent comparison will be Jurassic World 3's 43 day pre-sale window, which is still over three weeks shorter than this one. I mention this because the sheer length of the pre-sale window will very likely depress the D1/D2/D3 sales somewhat. Maybe not much, but you can't tell me there'd be no difference between a T-21 launch, a T-29 launch, a T-35 launch and a T-65 launch. Sure, it's a matter of smaller degrees when comparing something like a BP2 (starting at T-38), but that extra month is probably gonna slice some numbers off the top of the pile, especially after the first day (May 17).)
  

Domestic Calendar Dates (last updated May 16):
MAY

• (May 19) Review Embargo Lifts [Garfield 9 PM EST]
  
• (May 20) Presales Start [Deadpool and Wolverine (9 AM EST)]
  
• (May 20) Opening Day [Monday: Spider-Man Homecoming Re-Release]
  
• (May 22) Presales Start [The Watchers]
  
• (May 23) Presales Start [Summer Camp]
  
• (May 23) Thursday Previews [Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga + Hit Man + The Garfield Movie + Sight]
  
• (May 26) Presales Start [Bikeriders]
  
• (May 27) Opening Day [Monday: Spider-Man Far From Home Re-Release]
  
• (May 30) Presales Start [A Quiet Place: Day One]
  
• (May 30) Thursday Previews [Ezra + Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle + Summer Camp + Robot Dreams]
  

JUNE

• (June 3) Opening Day [Monday: Spider-Man No Way Home Re-Release]
  
• (June 5) Presales Start [Despicable Me 4]
  
• (June 6) Presales Start [Twisters]
  
• (June 6) Thursday Previews [Bad Boys: Ride or Die + The Watchers]
  
• (June 8) 1-Saturday Re-Release (1st day) [The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition]
  
• (June 9) 1-Sunday Re-Release (1st day) [The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition]
  
• (June 10) 1-Monday Re-Release (1st day) [The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition]
  
• (June 13) Thursday Previews [Inside Out 2]
  
• (June 15) 1-Saturday Re-Release (2nd day) [The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition]
  
• (June 16) 1-Sunday Re-Release (2nd day) [The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition]
  
• (June 17) 1-Monday Re-Release (2nd day) [The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition]
  
• (June 20) Thursday Previews [The Bikeriders + Janet Planet]
  
• (June 27) Thursday Previews [Blue Lock The Movie -Episode Nagi- + Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 + A Quiet Place: Day One]
  

JULY

• (July 1) Presales Start [Longlegs]
  
• (July 2) Opening Day [Wednesday: Despicable Me 4]
  
• (July 4) Opening Day [Thursday: Possum Trot]
  
• (July 4) Thursday Previews [MaXXXine]
  
• (July 11) Thursday Previews [Fly Me to the Moon + Untitled New Line Horror movie]
  
• (July 18) Thursday Previews [Twisters]
  
• (July 25) Thursday Previews [Deadpool and Wolverine + Didi + Fabulous Four]
  
• (July 29) Presales Start [Alien: Romulus]
  

AUGUST

• (August 1) Thursday Previews [Harold and the Purple Crayon]
  
• (August 8) Thursday Previews [Borderlands + Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us + Cuckoo + The Fire Inside + Trap]
  
• (August 15) Thursday Previews [Alien: Romulus + Horizon An American Saga Chapter 2 + Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure]
  
• (August 22) Thursday Previews [Blink Twice + The Crow + The Forge + Slingshot]
  
• (August 29) Thursday Previews [City of Dreams + Reagan + They Listen]
  

Presale Tracking Posts:
April 23
April 25
April 27
April 30
May 2
May 4
May 7
May 9
May 11
May 14
May 16
Note: I have removed most tracking data that has not been updated for 2 weeks. I think there is value in keeping data for a week or two but at a certain point they start to lose their value and should not be treated the same as more recent tracking data.

TLDR: Is there such thing as a life boot camp with ppl with high-functioning ASD? An intensive, hands on, and or immersive type "experience" where one could learn "simple" things like how to open your mail, pay bills on time, make checklists for yourself, keep your room clean (make a bed, fold laundry), etc? It would be such a great bonus if there was ANYTHING that could teach basic intimate relationship skills too either in addition or separately. I have been overcompensating for my husband for almost a decade and a half and Im getting worn out. I don't want to do it bc not only do I think it wouldn't work but it would have me "playing mommy" and no one wants to f*ck their mother. At least they are not supposed to ;)
My apologies if I am in the wrong place.
I love my husband, I do. I don't want to get divorced, we have 2 kids F 13 and M 12. Our parents got divorced and we never want to do that our kids. That said, I have been pretty unhappy for YEARS. I posted in the deadbedroom bc our sex life ground down to a halt and someone there thought my hubby sounded ASD. It made so much sense the more I looked into it. Both of our kids have been diagnosed ASD and ADHD (both my hubby and I are diagnosed ADHD-He takes meds and sees a psch, I don't bc I don't feel the need). Ive told him many times you are either ASD or an a$$hole? Which is it or is it both?
ITB his parents got divorced when he was 6 months old, he never had a romantic relationship that lasted longer than 5 months, and the fact that he is a "geek" (works in tech and has a master's in Physics-he got on a full merit scholarship), he has little to no life skills and or understands what is involved in a healthy happy intimate relationship.
When we 1st met, he was living in squalor. Like never cleaned his bathroom for 13 yrs, only owned 1 fork, had only a bed, a desk, and a book shelf in a 1200 sq ft apt. Stacks of books everywhere and piles of old clothes, shoes, etc. I tend to be a fairly "dynamic" person and had owned my own company for almost a decade. My profession requires a HUGE level of organization, people skills, etc and utilizes all my positive attributes of ADHD. It seemed at the time I could take the guy out of the squalor, give him a beautiful home, children and a great life. But I guess I did not understand that you cant take the squalor out of the guy?!?!
We met when I was turning 40 and he was 42 going on 43. I got pregnant the 1st time we had sex, so we got married, bought our 1st home and other amazing milestones happened easily and quickly for us. For the 1st 5 yrs we were married, it wasn't perfect but things worked and I was happy. I now realize that I just overcompensated for him in MANY ways, thinking that he would get the hang of SOME things and learn how to pitch in and or be more of a partner. We have tried marriage counseling through the yrs but nothing seems to have any effect on him. He goes through the movements or just says what sounds good at the time but just reverts back or doesn't do anything that would be or lead to meaningful change.
He operates on this lvl where if he thinks things are fair or good, they are...even though they so arent. He LOVES playing the semantics game where he will claim things like he IS "trying" bc he does X (that is a very small baby step type thing) for X amount of time and I guess I am supposed to understand and take whatever he is doing bc....reasons and he is "trying."
Besides doing his job that he was doing for years before we met (he is the same "lvl" and has not taken on ANY advancement in his career) to earn the $ that supports our family (we agreed I would give up my company and career until our youngest went to the 1st grade and I have made some savvy investments to bring in considerable $) he does practically NOTHING. He works from home since 2020/Covid and at 1st it was good bc it offered us more freedom in where we could live but now he is around 24/7. I would LOVE to return to my beloved career, but I have nothing left energy and time wise between our kids, the house, and him. He wont even get our mail out of the mailbox, let alone open it and or deal with LIFE.
He is seeing a psychiatrist and says he doesn't suffer from depression. He has terrible sleep hygiene and we sleep in separate rooms. We have cleaning people in once a week but his room is almost constantly dirty, disorganized, and cluttered. He constantly maintains that he doesn't really see what the problem is and plays the "semantics game" like "I empty out the dishwasher" ( a task that I have timed myself doing in less than 2 min) or "I take out the trash" when I bring up that I feel like Im drowning in a sea of tasks.
I have told him that I am unhappy. I have screamed and yelled. I have tried being sweet and accommodating to ask that he be at least semi-accommodating in return but he doesn't seem to care that our relationship is not mitigated. I have tried letting things get so bad that he would HAVE to do more but he just lets things get so bad like when our water gets turned off due to lack of payment, he goes to the store and bought a few gallons of water so "it buys us some time" getting the water bill paid the next day. It is NOT like we don't have the $, he just doesn't "like" paying bills and or "dealing with drudgery" LIKE I DO!?!?!
I have asked him to live in a hotel bc I told him that if he didn't, I would go to a hotel bc I need a break from him AND I want him to know I am SO SICK OF HIS SH*T. He agreed and is supposed to be trying to find help. He has tried life coaches (he simply did not do any work that they gave him to do and they charge 1k a month) and allegedly is trying procrastinators anonymous but I see no real effort. I have asked him to get diagnosed with ASD but he claims he spoke with a therapist that specializes in ppl with ASD and the therapist said that "it wouldn't matter" if he got a diagnosis. I asked if he is telling ppl that his marriage is on the rocks and he told me that he did say that his "lack of effort has put some strife in his marriage." Some strife in his marriage?!?! Did he elaborate and or tell them about how unhappy I am? No. He is "concentrating" his efforts on improving "executive functioning" and I guess this is supposed to help make the MEANINGFUL CHANGE I so desperately want and need him to make.
I think that something like boot camp or a life skill clinic or a halfway house for separated/divorced dads would stand the best chance of having him make the changes to his life he DESPERATELY needs to make. If not for me or even more for him but for our kids. They are picking up his bad and destructive habits. In his defense, he doesn't know how to do most things. Both of his parents were highly toxic ppl. His father died in his apt and it wasn't until his body started to smell that anyone noticed. The fire dept had to climb in through the window-fire escape bc the apt was so cluttered/hoarded. His mother is anorexic, keeps no food in the house, will sleep in her clothes on top of a made bed rather than "do all that laundry," and lives in squalor. So, he never learned it at home.
Is there anything where a grown man could learn basic life skills and or how to be a halfway (Id take 1/8) decent partner? Maybe if he could gain some life skills and or the ability to deal with life's demands, he would be happier, healthier in mind, body, and spirit, and in turn me and our family.
ANY suggestions besides "just get a divorce" or "put up with it bc you have for over a decade" it would be helpful. Thanks for reading my BOOK.