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uvjellyfish · 2 years

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life is fleeting and i realize i may never be able to share the stories i want to as fully fleshed out fiction. but thats ok cause im fine with essay length rambling text posts. so how about some belala lore indulgence :-)

part 1 of ???

some background: belalas spent like, basically her whole life studying to be a chirurgeon. while she excelled in the medical side of the field, her ability to weave healing spells left something to be desired. after learning everything she possibly could at whatever far flung outpost she'd been at, its guildmaster realized the help she needed was simply beyond what he could offer. so he sends her off to where he originally learned his craft, gridania

upon arriving and meeting with e-sumi-yan she immediately gets tasked with the tall order of assisting with the cleansing of the recently-ish-unearthed ruins of amdapor. of course, she wasnt to do it alone, as the guild leader had the foresight to seek help from a band of "incredibly trustworthy adventurers". three guesses at their identities.

sasabe had been approached by the serpent commander i-forgot-his-name while doing business at the adders' nest, asking if she was interested in assisting a newly arrived conjurer with some great arduous task. she accepts, and invites bonana and oranje to help too

so a black mage, a dark knight and a samurai walk into the stillglade fane. this happens during late stormblood, by the way. bonana, upon realizing who theyre helping, is just 100% completely absolutely stunned. to make it worse, she doesnt seem to recognize him (remember, she hasnt seen him since he was still a kid), so he decides to play the cool and stoic act and leave the talking to the other two while he internally panics

its a long, awkward trip down to the south shroud. belala did happen to recognize sasabe as "the girl at the tea shop" that befriended her sister. it prompted her to share quite a few embarrassing stories about said sister, that perhaps he didnt want sas to know about. just as well, belala also spent some time poking and prodding at him a bit, wondering why he seemed to regard her so strangely. but before he caved in to her pouting, they arrived at the entrance to the lost city.

there, they meet a serpent officer casually leaned against the wall, a mighty weird lance upon his back, his collar so high you could fit a number of puppies in it. he proclaims he was sent by brother e-sumi-yan to oversee them to their task, and guide them if need be. a dungeon, basically, theyre doing a dungeon. not lost city though. lets call it ummmmm....the dreamer's assay. sure

the first part is underground where ancient aqueducts flow into a cistern. but after decades upon centuries of being clogged, the areas grown stagnant with mold and decay, the creatures that roam it just as rancid. immediately belala is overwhelmed by the assault on her senses, while the others dont seem nearly as bothered. after assuring shes ok bonana charges ahead, but not too fast cause hes not quite certain of her capabilities yet.

at the end of their path they find an enormous croc infected with all manner of fungi and parasites. not a regular crocodile mind, one of those fucked up hairy ones with the face that splits open

after an intense boss fight the beast is laid to rest, and belala senses a change in the area. grabbing at that feeling, she channels aether through her staff and cleanses the stagnant waters of its taint. as it flowed freely again, she swears she saw someone standing at the other side, leading them onwards

the second part...i havent actually solidified. all ive got is its like a bunch of spiderwebs over a chasm, with a big ol' spider boss at the end. belala cleanses the wind, and she sees the ghost again, taking them even further downwards.

the THIRD area is some kind of sanctum, clearly somewhere important back in its glory days. however, it appeared to have a growing voidsent problem, the fiends forcing themselves to manifest within the power-laden statues adorning the place. after dealing with the infestation, the group comes across a very large, very important and imposing-looking statue, in similar appearance to kuribu. but instead of a faceted red jewel imbedded in its chest, this one was a smooth, pure white.

the serpent officer steps forward, shoving belala out of the way to reveal his ulterior motives. for he was never a real officer, but a black mage of ancient mhach...whose corpse had been roused into undeath by a rather ambitious voidsent. her plans laid bare, she makes her move to inhabit the statue just as it began to stir.

however, she couldnt possess it completely, becoming instead an abomination of marbled stone and twisted flesh, its wings breaking and giving way to a mass of writhing tendrils. the point is its very scary and gross and belala is 100% freaking out cause she has never seen anything like this before. queue final boss music

belala manages to gather herself as the other three make quick work of the fiend. everything goes fairly smooth, until the field is obscured in a cloud of darkness, the voidsent catching all of them unaware in the grasp of her tentacles. with quick thinking bonana shields his sister from the brunt of the attack as theyre grabbed together, afterwards wiggling one his arms loose to protect her with a powerful barrier (blackest night babyyy).

suddenly the conjurer finds herself all alone, that horrible creature gloating as it loomed over her. digging deep to find the courage within herself, she raises her staff and calls out to the stone still clinging on, and the white crystal resonated with her pleas. the statue collapses in on itself, crushing the voidsent within, as a wave of white, holy light bursts out, utterly destroying whatever remnants of it were left.

with victory secured, she rushes to aid the others recovery. none worse for the wear, sasabe starts looking through the rubble of the once-glorious statue. within it she finds the selfsame stone that had been embedded in its chest, completely smooth, save for a single symbol carved into its surface. the soul of a white mage.

she hands it off to belala and upon holding it, she sees the same small ghostly figure clad in white and crimson. this time, however, they take off the hood...revealing a face eerily similar to her own. holding up a finger in a hushing motion, the phantom dissipates, leaving the band to make their way back to gridania.

upon returning belala shows the soul crystal to the guildmaster, and he smiles and congratulates her, revealing the journey had been a deliberate test. it turns out the padjal had already known about its resting place as the ruins were explored, but was asked by the elementals not to disturb it. he was told to wait for the right moment in which a rightful successor would step forward and claim it. reluctantly she accepts, still feeling as if she hadnt quite earned it.

but before she can ruminate on it bonana asks to talk with her alone outside, except its not really a talk he just kind of awkwardly takes off his helmet to reveal his identity. belala is rightfully shocked, wondering why he didnt say so sooner. as it turns out, he didnt because he believed she'd been in cahoots with their mother, as he had seen letter written between them, and knew that she was the one who'd been pressing for him to leave home and study medicine just like she did (the thing that drove him to run away)

belala tries to assuage him and explains the reason she did that was because she knew how unhappy he was at home, and there wasnt much else she could do, being so far away, with no way to talk directly to him without their parents knowing (yet she admits there was an aspect of just wanting to see him again to it as well). but this only irritates him further as he sharply points out hes not a little kid that needed saving, and he definitely didnt need his goody-goody sister being around for others to compare and ask why he cant be more like her

ultimately their little "reunion" ends with him storming off, leaving belala alone to contemplate about just how much time has passed between them.

#bonana bonanza #gold star for reading all this #stay tuned for more of the belala saga

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redrose-arrow · 3 years

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Duncan x Halt anon back here again to elaborate on some other points!!! Firstly I’d like to say: TY FOR LISTENING TO MY RANTING MWAH MUCH LOVE <3 AND TO THE QPR CROWLEY/HALT/DUNCAN ANON: GALAXY BRAIN TAKE IM SO INVESTED IN HEARING MORE (particularly about Halt working for morgarath before meeting Crowley and Duncan......I GASPED WHEN I READ THAT. ITS SUCH AN AMAZING IDEA)

ANYWAY TO THE ELABORATION: The thing about Halt & Duncan, AKA the Thing that gave me the ship idea, is that Duncan seems to find Halt’s disregard for authority more amusing than anything. In one of the Brotherband books there’s this exchange between Duncan, a few of the Brotherband members, & Gilan:

“And if you think these two are bad, you should see Halt. He’s a senior Ranger and he shows no respect for me at all.”

“That’s not quite true, sir,” Gilan interjected. “He has enormous respect for you, so long as you agree with him.”

“Yes. That’s true. [...] Alright,” [Duncan] said at length, “let me think about what we’ve discussed here.” He looked at Gilan. “I’m still inclined to the idea of sending you with some reasonable force.”

Gilan shrugged. “That’s all right, sir. You’ll soon see the light of reason.”

Duncan sighed. “I suppose so.”

So the whole “we know better than you” thing the Rangers have going on doesn’t bother Duncan enough for him to get upset about it—I think it’s like a joke between all the Rangers and Duncan, that they (Halt especially) serve the King in an official capacity, but beyond that they’ll basically just do whatever the hell they want because 1) they’re skilled enough & smart enough to do it, and 2) Duncan knows that whatever they’re doing it’s for a good reason, and ultimately it’ll turn out better for everyone. And I think Rangers are quite high-ranking, actually, if they answer ONLY to the king (are they above barons? It’s not clear but it feels like they’re definitely up there), so all of that combined means that Rangers in general would get a lot more leeway from the king than a knight or even a baron might get. And Halt isn’t just any Ranger, he’s one of the twelve who helped Duncan regain control of his kingdom & win a war against Morgarath (TWICE), AND if I’m pairing this with my AU where Duncan knows Halt is ex-royalty then Duncan beyond a doubt sees the man as an equal—though I‘d say he sees him as an equal regardless of whether or not he knows about his royal background specifically because of all the crap he’s let Halt get away with lmao. We also saw in the infamous banishment scene, Duncan was more than willing to let Halt off the hook, but his chamberlain insisted that the rules be upheld for the sake of preserving his authority; which is obviously what Halt was banking on. So essentially it seems to me like Halt and Duncan are very good friends but they can’t make it LOOK like they’re friends (or make it look like Duncan doesn’t mind Halt doing questionable stuff) for the sake of appearances or whatever, so in public they’ll act their part of royal-leader-and-loyal-follower but behind closed doors it’s no harm, no foul. (Duncan gives off the vibe of like, someone who has to ACT formal to uphold tradition but really doesn’t care either way? Like someone who maybe didn’t want to be king in the first place but stepped up because it was expected of him & there was no one better to take the throne, but because he was never 100% invested in being king he doesn’t care about the etiquette or whatever—which is what I’d imagine Halt would’ve been like as a king BUT THAT’S A WHOLE OTHER STORY, MOVING ON) Halt will do a bunch of illegal sh*t and Duncan will look the other way because by now, he knows the man well enough to know that he’s doing it for a good cause and his methods may be questionable but he gets 👏 it 👏 DONE. And really, who is he to get in the way of good results? (I mean, he’s the king, but whatever. Halt can get good results without TOO much chaos so it’s all fair game, as far as Duncan’s concerned)

That’s not to say Halt doesn’t respect Duncan at all—Duncan’s put his foot down on a few occasions, most notably when it comes to his family. Whenever it’s a matter of keeping Cassandra or even the late Queen Rosalind safe, he was very firm in his instructions about keeping them safe and the Rangers never defied his orders when his back was turned. They may have negotiated or tried to reason with him, but he had the final say and they all (Halt included) respected it. So there’s just a lot of mutual respect & understanding abt where they stand with one another and I just LOVE IT SO MUCH THEYRE GREAT

ANYWAY WANNA HEAR ABOUT MY HC OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HALT’S SISTER DIES AND DUNCAN FINDS OUT BEFORE HIM BC WHENEVER SOMEONE ROYAL DIES THE NEIGHBOURING KINGDOMS ARE ALERTED????

(I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's Duncan-dealing-with-his-Rangers-appreciation time).

I wanted to post this right away because it plays into @vilewile 's reblog of your earlier ask but to be quite honest I am rather speechless and overwhelmed and processing but it's only because it's all so good???? You made me go from 1 to 10 on the shipping scale with two asks and now I cannot let go. Imma need to come up with my own headcanons soon........

about that last thing in all caps - ANON I LITERALLY SCREAMED WHEN I READ THAT OF COURSE I WANT TO HEAR THAT

and of course you're more than welcome!!! I genuinely love reading these all and I'm honoured that my inbox is your outlet ahaha :)

#i'm not kidding #when i'm all alone there's nothing that can stop me #so i did in fact scream #anon where is all of this coming from it's so good #so so good #ranger's apprentice #rangers apprentice #john flanagan #ask redrose #ask redrosearrow #also i lowkey don't want to move on from Halt being a king but alright

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marigoldmonsoon · 3 years

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TW - assault of all kinds

1.16.20

So I had this awful dream last night. More of a nightmare really.

The basic premise was that I was visiting my mom and her wife, and I was staying at her house. I wasnt myself how I am now, I was single and felt very isolated socially so Im not sure if this me even had many friends, if any, or work relationships.

So Im at my moms house and this pair of guys comes over, neighbors I guess. And they are all talking about Q and trying to get to me believe it and I was doing what I usually do, which is passively refuse to believe the nonsense. And then later in the day, one of the guys comes with me to my room and we mess around a little, nothing intense. And he leaves. And im getting ready to go to bed, and its late. And my mom is trying to pressure me more to listen to Q things while I sleep or do some weird online Q sleep mediation thing and I wont do it and she gets mad and slams my door. I decide Im leaving in the morning. I go to sleep.

Im later woken up by the sound of a car door slamming, and I look outside, apparently my room is on the second floor, and I see a car haphazardly parked in the front, and its the guys' car. Im like wtf do they want now, Im going back to sleep. My room is small, and crowded and the bed basically takes up all the space. And I fall back asleep, but am woken up again by the cold air hitting my skin as my blankets are taken away. And its the guy from earlier. And I already see where this is going. And I curse myself for sleeping naked like I do at home. And I curse myself again for having lewd dreams because I know Im already wet and this is going to happen really fucking quickly.

So I scream NO! Over and over and over and think to myself "well this time you can at least say you screamed your head off and said No so people won't criticize you for that, this time". And Im hitting and kicking as much as I can but he's already got me held down pretty tight. Im on my back and he has my wrists pinned to my knees and hes holding both together with his enormous hands. And he doesnt even say anything. Which I think is the weirdest part. Im still screaming and kicking, and hitting. And crying, and yelling FUCK YOU FUCK YOU and I feel him go in. And I just start screaming ITS HAPPENING AGAIN. ITS HAPPENING AGAIN. Over and over. And I just cover my eyes and wait for it to be done. And I just keep saying "its happening again". And then he gets pretty violent towards the end, it hurts, A LOT. And I can feel this deep and intense central stabbing feeling with a hot ache all around it right in what I think is my cervix. And he throws me to the ground and kicks me a few times in the chest and the face before leaving just the way he came in. The car door slams and the car drives away, casually. Im screaming help, I cant find my phone, its dark and my eyes are swollen and I cant see for shit. I feel gooey warm drip out of me onto my legs and I am overwhelmed with rage. Im involuntarily crying out just from the pain. Searching around for my phone on my hands and knees, naked.

Finally I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I start yelling through the door to my mom to call the police, call the police. But I still cant say the word. She and her wife burst through the door, angrily, holding things I dont recognize. And they are yelling at me at they "found my bong" (which was a bong and a lava lamp in one and that was pretty cool) and that they are kicking me out and calling the police because "I did drugs in their house". I swear on my life it's not mine and I didnt do it. I swear on my life over and over and I try to tell them whats just happened. But theyre just angry. And they chase me out of the house, still naked, no phone, and I'm crying and dilirious from the pain. I keep trying to tell them what happened, call the police. But they dont believe me. They dont fucking believe me.

I wake up.

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therealestatesparkblog · 5 years

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10 Lethal Mistakes to Avoid on Your First Real Estate Investment

Your first investment will be a learning process.While youll definitely make a few mistakes along the way, there are a few common pitfalls that can be avoided if you educate yourself beforehand.From financing errors to underestimating repair costs, newbies are at risk to lose serious cash if theyre not careful.Still, a real world education is invaluable, and this guide will help steer you down the best path possible to your very first real estate investment. You may have heard that your first real estate investment is the most difficult one. Its true. Your first deal is difficult because you dont know enough. How could you? Yet you still need to move forward and get started. If you wait until youre 100 percent ready, youll never make progress. But even though your first deal wont be perfect, you still dont want it to be so bad that it will knock you out of the game. So, this article will help you avoid the 10 most lethal mistakes on your first real estate investment. Use this like a checklist to ensure that you avoid the worst case scenarios. When you prevent the worst from happening, you will gain confidence so that you can buy your first deal, move forward, and begin your real world education. Here are the 10 lethal mistakes to avoid. 10 Lethal Mistakes to Avoid on Your First Real Estate InvestmentMistake #1: Bad Financing Bad financing can be one of the most lethal mistakes possible. I have personally seen more real estate investors lose money or go out of business from bad financing than from any other mistake. What is bad financing? For me, it includes a combination of the following: High interest rateAdjustable interest rateHigh monthly paymentBalloon paymentPersonal recourse Most residential bank mortgages at least save you from the first four mistakes because the interest rates are low, fixed for 30 years, with amortizing payments, and there are no balloons. But they almost always require personal recourse, meaning you personally guarantee the loan with your other assets and future earnings. This is probably a reasonable trade-off. Many commercial, portfolio, hard money, and private lenders, however, do not meet any of these criteria. And that could be a problem, especially on your first deal. If you borrow at 12 percent interest with a large monthly payment, a balloon due in one to threeyears, and full personal recourse for the loan, you are likely taking too much risk.

Why? Because the property will likely have negative cash flow with the high interest rate. A balloon note means you will have to refinance or sell in a very short period of time. As many learned in the 2008 credit crisis, trying to refinance when credit dries up is very difficult even with perfect credit and good income. And personal recourse means that if anything goes bad and your lender loses money, they could chase you around and take your other assets in order to collect. I have always used a lot of private and seller financing for my real estate deals, and I keep this list of financing mistakes in mind. For example, I might trade off a little higher interest rate and a larger down payment in exchange for a longer loan term and no personal recourse. Related: The Biggest Mistake I Made as a New Investor (& How You Can Avoid It) The beauty of private financing is that everything is negotiable. But no matter what type of financing you use, be sure to negotiate hard and avoid the worst mistakes. Mistake #2: Bad Location Real estate value always begins with location. The people and businesses who will rent or buy from you begin with location, and then they evaluate other criteria like the lot and the house. Because its so important, you should study the best and the worst locations in your area before buying. There are investors who make money in bad locations, but its a challenging game that beginners should probably avoid. I bought a lower-priced single family house once at a below market price with excellent seller financing terms. But the location was awful. I could not consistently attract good tenants because the neighbors were not pleasant (or safe) to live around. On the other hand, I have bought properties in good locations that I made mistakes on, like paying a little too high of a price. The good location helped to bail me out of some of those mistakes.

Mistake #3: Misjudging Resale or Rent Value I would argue that our number one job as investors is to understand how our end customers (renters and buyers) make buying decisions and then to translate that to a value. If we cant determine the full value potential, we will have a hard time making a confident purchase offer that earns us a profit. This job is important. But its not easy. Its a skill that you must commit to learn and then continue to refine every day for the rest of your investment career. On your first deal, its likely you are not yet an expert on value, so there are a few things you can do to help yourself: Reduce your target market to a relatively small, manageable area.Study all of the transactions in your market daily using tools like the MLS, Zillow, or your local tax assessor. For me, this is like the daily weight training of real estate that keeps me fit and competitive. Hire professionals for assistance. For resale value find a very competent real estate agent and/or appraiser. For rental values find property managers with multiple units in your area.Take courses on valuation at your local Associate of Realtors or other continuing education school.Mistake #4: Underestimating Repair Costs It is inevitable that you will underestimate repair costs at some point. But you want to avoid enormous cost overruns that could cause you to run out of cash or face other problems. To avoid large mistakes, learn a good repair estimating system. I use the one taught by J Scott in BiggerPockets own The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs. Also be sure to get help from other more knowledgeable investors or contractors. Dont be afraid to pay these people for their time and knowledge. You can meet these people by: Mistake #5: Running Out of Cash Your investment properties are like your race car. Cash is like your cars fuel. Whenout of fuel, even the most powerful race car in the world sits still. If you run out of cash, even the best investment property will hurt your wealth building. So you want to avoid running low or running out of cash. This usually happens for a couple of reasons: Underestimating repair costs (see mistake #3 above)Underestimating future capital expenses on a rental property Capital expenses are big ticket items like a roof or a heating-air system replacement. If these costs hit you unexpectedly, it can become a big problem. Related: Want to Lose All Your Money & Cry Yourself to Sleep? Make These 4 Newbie Mistakes! Brandon Turner wrote a really good article about estimating capital expenses and budgeting for them on your rental properties.

Mistake #6: Letting Emotions Drive Your Decisions This is a huge mistake for newbies. And its understandable. I mean it IS an exciting chase to look for your first deal. But you have to balance your enthusiasm with cold, hard, and objective analysis. I love enthusiasm. Its critical as an entrepreneur because it helps you push ahead through the many obstacles you will face. But I have also learned to never make big financial decisions with emotion alone. I use a process of analysis that filters each of my deals. I also run every deal by someone else, which typically means my business partner but sometimes includes other mentors and advisers. My process begins with basic criteria, including general locations, neighborhoods, housing types, construction quality, etc. This helps me to filter down the enormous number of properties out there. Then I use a deal analysis process to analyze the numbers. Here is my basic go or no-go system for a deal. I also like to calculate key metrics like the cap rate (or return on asset), the cash on cash return, the discount from full value, and the internal rate of return. My favorite book to teach you the cold, hard analysis of real estate is What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow by Frank Gallinelli. Mistake #7: Choosing the Wrong Real Estate Strategy Fellow investor and BP writer Erion Shehaj introduced us to the dreaded Shiny Strategy Syndrome and showed why its detrimental to your financial future. Real estate investing has MANY strategies. And as wonderful as BiggerPockets is, its easy to get overwhelmed or waste time chasing the wrong strategy. Heres a tip: You wont find a perfect strategy. But you can find one that pretty well suits your unique strengths, your short-term needs, and your long-term goals. So, instead of borrowing the perfect strategy for someone else, think hard about what you really want and which real estate strategy will get you there. To get you started in this process, I wrote: Investors: DONT Begin by Wholesaling. Take One of These 7 Paths Instead. Mistake #8: Choosing Bad Contractors My business partner and I bought our very first fix-flip deal in December of 2003. We proceeded to go through three different painters, two different heating and air companies, and two different carpet installers before we got the house looking decent. These were expensive mistakes. We were lucky to even make a small profit on that first deal! Finding contractors who will do good work, finish up on time, clean-up after themselves, and charge reasonable prices is harder than finding buried treasure on a beach. Yet the people who do work on your fix-flip or rental deal will make or break its success. J Scott does a great job discussing this issue in The Book on Flipping Houses. He discusses the different types of contractors, when to use each, and how to manage the relationship well.

Mistake #9: Not Using Your Due Diligence Period Some experienced investors make offers with fast closings, in as-is condition, and with no due diligence period. This may help them get a lower price, but for your first deal this is probably not the best route to go. Instead, include a short but reasonable due diligence period that allows you to get out of the purchase contract if you find a problem. Here are a few of the important things I usually do during due diligence: Obtain a very good professional third party property inspectionRepair estimates (see mistake #3 above)Evaluate zoning and local ordinances (for example, the college town where I invest has a law that you cant rent to more than two students in a residential zoning district)Get a professional third party opinion of value and rental comps Basically, you want to double check all of the key assumptions you used to make your offer. If you find that you made a bad assumption, you may need to renegotiate or walk from the deal. Related: The Rookie Landlording Mistake Most New Investors Make Some of your best deals may be the ones you dont do. Mistake #10: Not Learning From Your Mistakes You have just read 9 mistakes to avoid, and I could probably tell you another 20. But no matter what you learn, you will still make mistakes. I guarantee it. This is called The School of Hard Knocks. Go ahead and listen to Annie sing Its a Hard Knock Life and join the club. But the biggest mistake you can make is not learning from this School of Hard Knocks. In our first year of business, my partner and I agreed that we didnt know everything. We knew we would screw up many times. But we decided to call each mistake a seminar, and then write down the lesson. We have attended thousands of these real world seminars since then, and our education continues today. Go ahead and decide to create your own personal School of Hard Knocks. Its an invaluable education. Conclusion Real estate is an entrepreneurial venture. We entrepreneurs shoot for the stars, but we also take risks that could turn out badly. This can be a difficult pill to swallow on your first deal. But risk doesnt have to be a bad word. I see it as a barrier to entry. It means that the less committed, pretender-investors dont bother. They drop out when it gets too tough. The successful real estate entrepreneurs arent perfect. They have scars to prove all of their past mistakes. But they learn to avoid the fatal mistakes that would knock them out of the game. And they learn to always keep moving forward. Forward movement. Thats what entrepreneurship is all about. I hope the lessons of these 10 fatal mistakes help you to continue moving forward at whatever step of the entrepreneurial journey you find yourself. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers.

What did you think of the 10 fatal mistakes to avoid? Are there others that I missed? What challenges are you facing as a new investor? Id love to hear your thoughts and comments below. https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2016/03/22/10-lethal-mistakes-avoid-real-estate-investment/

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celticnoise · 6 years

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There are people inside Celtic Park who look across the city with envy. Not at a well-run club, but at one which commands fanatical loyalty from a support who will swallow anything. I am not saying those people want a gullible support who can be shaped with ease and who will simply tolerate anything, but they see full stands even in the midst of crisis and wonder whether our own fans would be quite so “loyal.”

Let me put their minds at ease; Celtic fans have ten times the loyalty of the Sevco support. They mistake blind obedience for being “staunch”. Staunch is nonsense. It is a suicide pact. It doomed their old club. It will wreck the current one.

Celtic’s support is loyal to the club, and to the idea of the club. When Celtic fans stayed away during Delia’s second year, when they made their frustrations known, it was because our fans care. It is not a sense of entitlement, it stems from having a genuine, emotional, connection that cannot be broken. It stems from wanting the best for us.

Certain people at Celtic Park have differing ideas about what is best for us. That happens at every club. The media seems to believe that life in the garden is rosy across town, but I know for a fact that it’s not and so do they. I’m not going into that today, we have our own problems to worry about, but it’s an example of the press behaving as they do.

Nevertheless, when the press says that there are cracks appearing at Celtic Park that is not wishful thinking and it is not speculation. They are saying it because it’s true and only when the club gets fully behind the manager and his plans will things get better. We know Brendan Rodgers is not an unreasonable man. We know his team building plans will be realistic. He knows the conditions under which our club works.

It has been clear for weeks that something was wrong behind the scenes. The glacial pace of transfer negotiations has been disgraceful. The manager’s frustration was being echoed by many of the fans before he made his feelings public. The board ignored us. They cannot ignore the manager. The board knows season tickets have been bought … they cannot guarantee that he will hang around if he feels that he’s being hamstrung.

But the worst case scenario here is not the manager leaving, of course. That would provoke outrage, of course, but not necessarily carnage. The worst case scenario is if the situation inside the club affects what happens on the pitch to such a negative extent that we lose our stranglehold on Scottish football … that would spark mayhem.

Celtic has a head-start over all of our Scottish rivals that should put us over the hills and far away. I have long argued that no other club can hurt us. If this is all going to come crashing down it will be because we did it to ourselves, either through complacency or bad management. Both afflict us at the moment, and those who are not meeting their responsibilities had better be well aware of how ugly the mood will turn if things start to slip on the home-front.

In spite of delirious drooling in Sevconia today, we are still massive, overwhelming, favourites to win the SPL and by a considerable distance. As usual their celebrations and optimism are grossly premature. Let them have their wee moment, I know that they will be haunted soon enough. We’ve just had a bad spell, but it will take more than that to halt us.

If the transfer window shuts without significant strengthening of this team it will be an outrage, and our manager will be fully entitled to re-consider his position. He reminded Radio Scotland today that he has a three-year deal and has said he has no intention of leaving.

I was glad to hear that public declaration but I’m not daft enough to believe that it makes everything okay. The problems behind the scenes are real and will need real solutions.

Everyone up at Parkhead had better realise that this has to be solved quickly.

The consequences of not doing so are going to be enormous and this is not Celtic fans being unreasonable; we should still be on a high from the summertime and last season’s success; that we are not is entirely self-inflicted. No club has been able to lay a glove on us, but we’ve punched ourselves in the face.

This club is in the strongest position it’s been in for the time I’ve been alive.

That will not save the board if they preside over failure.

In fact, it’ll be exactly what damns them.

To lose now, from here, would be wholly unacceptable and we would want someone to blame for that.

Because that, the Celtic fans are not going to forgive people for if these issues aren’t fixed.

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caredogstips · 7 years

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Desperately required: python hunters to undertake Florida’s unwelcome intruder

Since Burmese pythons encountered their route into the wild in the 80 s they have devastated native wildlife. Now 150,000 “couldve been” lurking in the states waterways

Bill Booth struggles to recall the last experience “hes seen” a raccoon, a fox or a rabbit on one of his frequent hunting jaunts deep into the drenches of the Florida Everglades. An outdoorsman all their own lives, he knows as well as anyone how the native wildlife once abundant in the various regions of the immense wilderness has been all but wiped out by an intrusion of a fatal species he is trying his hardest to remove: the Burmese python.

By some thinks, up to 150,000 of the unwelcome intruders are swimming through the states 1.5 m acres( 600,000 hectares) of waterways, reproduction uncontrollably and exhausting almost every living individual in their route, sometimes taking on even the previously undisputed monarch of the Everglades, the American alligator.

Its a proliferating problem that has led wildlife officials to conceive ever-more colourful attempts to try to eradicate, or at the least contain, the giant serpents. With diversifying success, exertions have included discipline dedicated sniffer bird-dogs, bring back snake hunters from Indias mountain-dwelling Irula tribe, and, very recently, advertising for minimum-wage civilian python-catchers on a two-month contract for a hunting was launched in April.

Bill Booth and a beautiful, if massive, python. Picture: Bill Booth

Booth, who takes his small gang on regular hunts into the most remote specific areas of the ecologically fragile wetlands, is at the forefront of another initiative. The Miami-born firefighter and his fellow Cypress Boys are the current endorses of the Python Challenge, a month-long hunting devised by the Florida fish and wildlife preservation board( FWC) in which members of the public are encouraged to crusade into the Everglades, tracking and captivating as many snakes as they can.

But while Booth nabbed 33 of the 106 pythons property in the 2016 objection, including a 15 -footer exactly 3ft short of the Florida record 18 ft 8in serpent territory in 2013, he accepts the tally had little to no impact on the wider problem.

Theres no way humanly possible to go out there and get caught and get rid of them wholly, he mentioned. Its simply too much of a enormous area.

Theres over a million acres out there, provinces down in the national park that humans have hardly ever been to, areas that are off-limits, and youve went serpents everywhere. When I was a little minor, the Everglades was my backyard and I revalued all the wildlife, but over the years these pythons have taken over and taken a toll on native wildlife. Now you scarcely examine any other wildlife, theres hardly any fowls and you dont insure any raccoons. In four years of hunting quite regularly down there, we might have read got a couple of creek otters, but other than that there is nothing to good-for-nothing there.

From the figures, at the least, theres no scarcity of would-be snake hunters willing to threat the hazards of the brawling with one of sorts most fearsome predators. More than 1,000 participants from 29 positions contested last years objection. Separately, a similar amount applied for the 25 paid slits on next months hunt, the overwhelming reaction thrusting an early close to the South Florida water management regions application process.

Floyd, the snake-sniffing labrador. Photograph: Roger Booth

Its a excite, it really is, Booth replies of catching pythons. You might go for periods without investigating one, and when you do its unexplainable, you simply get goosebumps. Most of the time we identify em out sunbathing themselves.

I was out with a magazine gang for four daylights and merely couldnt find a serpent. We were just to the point of giving up and went to a tree island for lunch, I strolled around and there it was, a 15 -footer.

Floridas problem with pythons became apparent in about the midriff of the last decade, when officials began to notice steep worsens in specific populations of native swine and birds. Anecdotally, the serpents first appeared in the 1980 s, dropped by owners who could no longer care for their fast-growing exotic pets, or having escaped from an Everglades breeding facility destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Skip Snow, a retired biologist with the National Parks Service( NPS ), connected armies with FWC, the US Geological Survey and university researchers to create a number of initiatives to try to limit their impact. So-called Judas serpents were liberated back into the wild with radio transmitters during mating season, designed to lead officials to girls each carrying up to 100 eggs. But after some early successes, there used to be problems linked to batteries running out and other technological issues.

Heres another one! Image: Bill Booth

Snow was also ascribed with the coming into effect of Python Pete, an enthusiastic beagle puppies who invested several months in civilizing with a captured serpent called Bob to be able to sniff out hiding snakes for a reinforce of fried liver.

Unfortunately, Pete was rapidly withdrew when it became clear he couldnt work for more than 15 minutes at a time in Floridas scorching hot and humidity, but his trailblazing exertions continue with a joint endeavour between the NPS, University of Florida and a team from Auburn Universitys bird-dog perception team.

Two pitch-black labrador retrievers, Floyd and Vito, who were previously civilized as bomb-sniffing pups, spotted six pythons during a four-month assignment in the Florida Keys that wrapped up in February. They are good at noticing them when the serpents are right in front of them and we cannot look them, but there are defies, responded Dr Christina Romagosa of UFs department of wildlife and ecology, co-author of a startling 2012 analyze that determined pythons had almost entirely wiped out native mammals in the Everglades, from marsh rats to bobcats and deer.

It can be simple if the serpent is just in front of you in weeds, but if theyre in a puncture or in water, we as people are still objection in finding them.

The dogs were in Key Largo at the same time as the Indian tribesmen, brought in by FWC as a two-month venture. They captured four pythons on an vacated missile locate that the labradors had spotcheck but not found.

Tylan Dean, chief of the biological business diverge of Everglades national park, feels such initiatives are unlikely to make much of a dent in the python population, but pronounces all have some evaluate as part of a toolbox of options and as educational vehicles.

In terms of hold, we still dont have any method that I would call successful, he said.

I try to be rosy because I dont think we should give up on this wonderful ecosystem or the critters that are being affected its worth continuing to try to improve. Theres always potential theres something out there that will be revolutionary, that is able meaningful in our ability to control pythons or increase their impact.