#a name website or general link to their work would be perfectly fine thanks !

[bunabi]

Is anyone open for character sheet commissions, or has a character artist they loved working with and would like to recommend?

Looking to pass along an opportunity to someone who's available! 😭

[bluejayblueskies]

tying the knot

written for week one of @archivalpride for the prompts pre-canon, self-expression, affirmation, and sharing clothes jewelry!

cw for mild internalized acephobia, teasing

also on ao3! (link in source)

.

“Do you like earrings?”

Jon lowers the book he’s reading and frowns at Tim. “Sorry?”

Tim’s laptop is propped on top of Jon’s shins where they’re resting atop Tim's lap, and he’s scrolling through some website that Jon can’t quite make out. “Earrings,” he repeats, pulling up a pair and swiveling the laptop so Jon can see. “I’ve got a coupon. Buy one get one free jewelry.”

“Not like that,” Jon says, wrinkling his nose at the gaudy dinosaur dangle earrings on the screen in front of him. He tugs at one of the small silver hoops in his earlobes and says, “I don’t really change mine. I’d take them out and let the holes close up, but keeping them in is honestly less work.”

Tim hums and turns back to the screen, clicking away from the earrings and continuing to scroll. “What about rings?” He types a few things on the keyboard. “You’ve got that black one you always wear.”

“Hm?” Jon’s hand automatically goes to the thin black band on his right middle finger, twisting it absently a few times. “Oh, that’s my ace ring.”

Tim looks at the ring, forehead creased. “Those are a thing?”

“I- I mean… yeah? I guess?” Jon hesitates a moment, then takes the ring off his finger and offers it to Tim. “I got one my last year in uni. It- it’s really just for me, I don’t wear it to, er… communicate that I’m ace to other people, necessarily, though it can serve that purpose, I suppose. I just… I like it.”

Tim takes the ring and turns it over a few times in his hand. “Huh. Is this, um. Is this something that all ace people know about and… and I just missed the memo?”

“I mean, I- I don’t…” Jon trails off. He closes his book and sets it on the floor next to the couch, watching Tim fiddle with the ring. “Wait, you- you’re ace? I… I didn’t know that.”

“It’s- well, it’s not a new development,” Tim says with a small laugh, “but I never really had the word until I met you? I never minded sex, and I just thought it was normal that I never really wanted it with any particular person. I honestly thought that whole ‘look across the room and see somebody you want to take to bed’ trope was a thing that just happened in movies. Hearing you talk about being ace, even though you’re a different, uh… subtype? Than me? I don’t know, it- it made a lot of sense to me. I still had a bit of doubt, you know, since I do still like sex, but then you said that some people are sex-favorable, and… yep. Pretty sure that’s me. I did a bit of research of my own just to make sure, but I, uh, I never saw anything about ace rings, I guess.”

“Oh.” Jon watches Tim pass the ring from finger to finger, flipping it back and forth between his thumb and middle finger on his right hand. “I, er… thank you, I- I suppose. For telling me, that is.”

Tim hums. “Would have told you earlier, it just… never really came up, I suppose. Always meant to, though. You’re my best friend, and it’s not like I was afraid you’d react poorly or anything.” He flashes Jon a toothy-white smile and holds out his hand, the ring sat in the center of his palm. “The ring’s cool, though. I might get one for myself.”

Jon stares at Tim’s outstretched hand, something warm curling in the pit of his stomach. He’s not sure what, exactly, compels him to say, “Why don’t you, um. Why don’t you wear that one? At- at least until you find one that you, um. That you like.”

Tim looks surprised. “Jon, I’m not stealing your ring.”

“It’s not stealing if I give it to you,” Jon says, crossing his arms across his chest. “I want you to take it. For- for now, that is.”

Tim looks at Jon a moment more before laughing, his eyes crinkling near the corners. “Jon,” he says, closing his hand around the ring and reaching for one of Jon’s hands with the other. Jon allows his hand to be guided away from his chest, and Tim flattens his palm against Jon’s. Jon frowns at the way Tim’s hand dwarfs his by a centimeter or two, trying to ignore the way his skin tingles where it’s pressed up against Tim’s. “I really don’t think it’s going to fit.”

“You haven’t even tried it on yet,” Jon counters stubbornly.

Tim holds the hand holding the ring up in defeat, his fingers still curled into a fist around it. “All right, all right,” he says, taking his hand away from Jon’s and uncurling his fingers from around the ring. Jon ignores the way his skin grows colder at the lack of contact and watches Tim slip the black ring onto the middle finger of his right hand. It goes on until the second knuckle where it sticks, and Tim holds his hand up in the air with a smirk. “See? It’s stuck. You’ve got twiggy fingers, Jon.”

“I- I do not!” Jon sputters, ignoring the evidence in front of him that clearly indicates otherwise. “Besides, I think it looks… fine.”

“Fine,” Tim echoes, amused. He slips the ring off his finger and holds it back out toward Jon. “I’m not taking your ring if it doesn’t even fit, Jon. But thanks.”

“That’s not—” Jon cuts off with a frustrated noise. He moves his legs off Tim’s and stands, leaving Tim holding the ring with a small confused furrow between his eyebrows. “Wait here. I- I’ll be back.”

“Okay?” Tim says, and Jon nods once decisively before retreating to his bedroom. He pulls a few boxes out from his closet and rifles through them, his heartbeat nestling high in his throat and his face growing steadily warmer. This is stupid, he thinks, even as he finds what he's looking for and grips it tightly in one hand, feeling the soft give of it beneath his fingers. Tim’s going to think it’s stupid.

Taking a deep breath, Jon stands and makes his way back to the living room where Tim’s still sat, worrying the ring back and forth between his fingers and watching Jon with a fond, mildly confused smile as Jon sits back on the couch beside him.

Jon sets the ball of black yarn and pair of scissors on his lap, looks at Tim, and says as confidently as he can muster, “Hold out your hand.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Don’t laugh at me,” Jon says sharply, his cheeks burning as he looks at Tim expectantly. “Just- just hold out your hand.”

“I’m not laughing,” Tim says softly as he passes Jon’s ring to his left hand and holds out his right, fingers splayed wide and waiting. “Promise.”

If anything, Jon’s face gets hotter at that. He clips a short length of yarn from the ball on his lap, sets the scissors down, and says, “I- I know.” He hesitates, just a moment, before wrapping the bit of yarn around the base of Tim’s middle finger and tying a crisp double knot, cutting off the ends so they’re short and uniform. He pulls his hands back from Tim’s and settles them nervously on his lap, one hand going absently to the ball of yarn and tugging at a few of the loose strands. “Just, um. U- until you can get a real ring.”

Tim looks at him, expression unreadable, and Jon looks away, embarrassment curling hotly in his stomach. “S- sorry,” he says, worrying the hem of his shirt between his fingers. “It- it was a stupid idea.” He takes the scissors in hand and holds them out toward Tim, still staring intently at his lap. “You- you can cut it off if you want.”

Tim’s fingers brush against Jon’s as he pushes the scissors gently back toward Jon. “I haven’t even said anything yet,” he says, the amusement in his voice mixed with something else that Jon can’t quite place. (Not that he’s ever been great at parsing tone in general.) “What makes you think I don’t like it?”

Jon opens and closes his mouth a few times before making an I-don’t-know noise.

“Well, I do,” Tim says matter-of-factly. “In fact, I’m never taking it off, I’ve decided. I’m taking it with me to the grave. Till-death-do-us-part.”

Jon makes a series of sputtering noises before finally landing on, “Well, I, er. I- I’m glad.”

Tim grins at him and then takes Jon’s hand in his own and slips Jon’s ring back onto his finger. Jon’s mind goes blank of all thoughts other than Tim’s hand is touching mine and Tim is very warm and Tim just put a ring on my finger.

“See?” Tim says, squeezing Jon’s hand in his for just a moment before slipping his hand down to Jon’s wrist and holding Jon’s hand up for display. “Twiggy fingers.”

Jon cuts off his thought of Tim is sitting just close enough to kiss with a scowl and wriggles his hand out of Tim’s grip, ignoring the way that Tim’s grin only widens as he does so. “They are perfectly normal-sized fingers for a man of my stature, I’ll have you know.”

“Mm, yes, I suppose you’re right,” Tim says with a put-upon sigh. “I conceded! The rest of you is twiggy as well.”

“Tim.”

“Absolutely no meat on your bones, Jonathan. Positively scrawny.”

Jon crosses his arms across his chest and frowns. He certainly doesn’t pout, and anybody who says anything different is lying. “Timothy Stoker.”

Tim laughs, his expression softening as he reaches over and takes one of Jon’s hands in his own, squeezing gently. “Oh, full-name basis. I must be in trouble.” He turns Jon’s hand over in his and looks at Jon’s ring, rubbing a thumb over it in consideration. Jon definitely doesn’t blush when he does so. “Really, though. Thanks. It… it means a lot.”

Jon looks down at their joined hands, something fluttering and light curling within his stomach. “It- it’s just yarn,” he says quietly, brushing against the knot of yarn with the tip of his finger.

Tim shrugs. “Yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is that you gave it to me, and you listened, and you cared.”

“Oh,” Jon says softly. He swallows around the lump in his throat before offering Tim a small smile that he hopes doesn’t betray the overwhelming affection blooming deep within him. “Well, you- you’re welcome, I suppose.”

Tim hums. He looks down at their hands, flexes his fingers, and says cheerily, “The yarn is nice too, though. Very soft. Definitely has some friendship-bracelet vibes.”

“Ha ha,” Jon says dryly. He leans across Tim’s lap and retrieves the computer, resolutely not thinking about the heat he can feel radiating off Tim with the proximity. Christ, he’s practically a furnace. “You said it’s buy one get one free? I’m sure you can find something.”

Tim orders a ring in the end, a thick black tungsten band, and he tacks a pair of ostentatious cat earrings onto the order despite Jon’s protests that I’m absolutely never going to wear those, Tim and yes, I like cats, but not dangling from my ears and fine, but I’m wearing them once and that’s it. And when Tim arrives at work two weeks later with the ring on his finger, the thin piece of yarn still tied alongside it as he holds his hand up proudly for Jon to see, Jon’s heart skips a beat before picking back up double time.

Oh, Jon thinks as Tim prattles on about shipping times and little silver cats with green gemstone eyes and heart-shaped ace pins, pressing one of the aforementioned pins into Jon’s hand with a grin. Oh.

Jon holds the small metal heart in his hand and looks at the yarn on Tim’s finger and knows, with absolute certainty, that he’s falling in love with Timothy Stoker. His face gets hot and he focuses on Tim’s hands, trying not to give away the fact that his heart is practically beating out of his chest like a cartoon character.

“Jon?” Tim says, placing a hand on one of Jon’s and startling him free from his thoughts. His hand is warm, Jon thinks. I’d love to hold it. “Everything good?”

“Yes,” Jon says quickly, his eyes snapping up to Tim’s face. Tim is smiling at him warmly, and Jon feels a part of himself melt. “Yes,” he repeats, his mouth curling into a small smile to match. “Everything’s great.”

“Great,” Tim echoes, squeezing Jon’s hand once before letting go. His smile turns a bit teasing at the edges, and Jon braces himself. “Now.” He pulls the earrings out of his pocket and dangles them in front of Jon. “As I recall, you did promise at least once.”

Jon is, unfortunately, falling in love with Timothy Stoker. God help him.

“Fine,” Jon grumbles, taking the earrings out of Tim’s hand and giving him a withering look. “Just once.”

Jon does, in fact, end up wearing the earrings more than once, fiddling absentmindedly with the small cats as he walks through the supermarket and stands on the tube and sits on his couch, flipping through a book. But that’s nobody’s business but his own.

[thedoctornumber11]

Survey results

A few weeks ago, I did a Tumblr RP survey.  I posted a link on here, reblogged it a few times and asked people to answer a few quick questions.  I was curious about how people found new RP partners, particularly since I have a few different friends on here who I know sometimes struggle to find new RP partners.  I also had a theory on the tags that I wanted to confirm, which was indeed confirmed, specifically that we spend a ton of time making sure we tag things and that those tags work correctly, but rarely anyone actually looks through those tags.  Well, here’s the results of said survey.

I put this under a read more since it’s a bit screenshot heavy.  First wanted to know what type of people we were looking at here.  The big reason I included this question was that I know sometimes people who classify themselves as “private” aren’t even really looking that heavily anyway and was curious how true that is.  As it turns out, I didn’t get much evidence on this because barely anyone who took this survey classified themselves as “private.”

If you are wondering about those others, it’s mostly people telling me they are “semi selective,” which what’s the difference between that and selective?  Not sure.  Someone also mentioned that they are generally open to everyone except for specific characters/fandoms, which is fair, although I’d personally qualify that as selective.

This question surprised me a bit.  While the option for “yes please message me first,” was selected the most, it didn’t entirely dominate the poll like I would have expected it too.  Also, most of the others are people who say they prefer first interactions off of a meme, which how the heck did I forgot to include that as an option?  Regardless, it seems the best thing you can do to interact with new people is to just message them.  Some people may prefer to be tagged without messaging first or just have a meme sent to them, but it doesn’t hurt to message first unless someone’s rules say otherwise.

So, the main point of this question is that your open starters are almost useless.  They are great if you are just wanting to get new threads with existing partners, but not a whole lot of people are actually looking through the open starter tag in search of new partners, so if that’s your goal, it might be better to go looking through that tag yourself to reply to other people’s stuff.  This was VERY surprising to me, as it was quite the opposite when I first started RPing on here.  Most of my earliest RP partners I found through posting open starters, which means they were looking through that tag quite a bit.  Now, I’m not saying open starters are completely useless.  As you can see, people do respond to them when it’s posted by people they are already following, which is quite nice by itself.

I think this question speaks for itself.  If you have a few partners that you really enjoyed RPing with but maybe your thread just sort of dropped itself after a while, you should just tag them in a thing!  People apparently love that sort of thing.  There is a small percentage of people who don’t like this, but the overwhelming amount actually like it perfectly fine.

Here’s the big one that really peaked my interests for this entire survey really.  This entire survey was made mostly so I can ask this one question.  Who reads the tags?  And the answer is not many people.  Out of 26 people, only 6 mentioned that they check it more than once a week.  This is almost a bit alarming to me, because like I said before, a lot of us do spend a lot of time working on tags for our posts for they’ll be discovered and that’s almost meaningless since so few people are actually checking those tags.

Since I saw this, I’ve actually been making a point to check the open starter tags and starter call tags semi regularly to respond to a few of those semi regularly.  It’s gotten a lot of new threads started with me and is quite a bit of fun and I do hope it makes the day of a few people.  That being said, the big thing I grab from this is that if you are wanting to find new RP partners, check tags.  You can’t just post an open starter or a starter call and expect it to bring in new partners since so few people are actually checking tags.  However, if you go through tags yourself and respond to other people’s stuff, it’s likely to get you some people interacting.

The next question was an open ended one.  I can’t really include screenshots of these because of the way the website is formatted.  I would have to do it in four or five screenshots and it’s more trouble than it’s worth, so I’ll just paraphrase.  I asked “ If you do look through roleplay tags, which ones do you look through?  If not, feel free to say so. “ and most of the answers were just the fandom related RP tags.  Very few people mentioned open RP or starter call or any generic RP tags.  So if you do insist on posting your own open roleplays or starter calls, make sure you include the fandom related tags, as these are much more important than the generic tags.  If your OC is fandomless, I’d suggest trying to figure out what fandom it would work best with and use those tags.

The main thing I get from this is that it’s unfortunate that so many people struggle to find new partners.  If I had more questions (you can only ask 10 questions per survey without paying money) I might have asked another question about what type of character people were playing to see if that affected this specific result or not.  However, the fact that so many people struggle to find partners is part of the reason I’m making this survey.  It is nice that so many people are also willing to approach new people however!

The next two questions were open ended.  Question 9 was “ How do you usually find new RP partners?  And how often do you go to old RP partners to start new threads?” and this one is a lot harder to paraphrase because I got so many different answers.  A lot of people are nervous to go to older RP partners because they feel stuff may have been dropped for a reason.  Some people also avoid older RP partners not because they are nervous but because why interact with someone who just dropped something already anyway?  This seems a bit odd to me, because I know sometimes muse is lost for specific threads and it just makes sense to start new ones to continue the relationships.  It can be a bit annoying to have things dropped without notice, but generally speaking I enjoy having lots of threads with people so it all works out for me personally and a lot of people also agree with me on that.  The question was pretty half and half as far as this goes to be honest.  As for finding new RP partners, a few people mentioned tags, but a LOT of people mentioned that they find new partners by just seeing who their current partners are interacting with.  This doesn’t really help anyone who’s struggling to find new partners I suppose, but it is something to think about.

The last question is “ Lastly, what is your Tumblr URL?  This is completely optional and more so out of curiosity than anything.  This particular question and information won't be shared with anyone. “ so I’m not sharing that, although I do want to tag @withgutsandglory​ for reblogging the survey and passing it along to a few other people.  They are a great avatar Korra that I enjoy interacting with and I’d love to have more threads with Korra <3.  I also want to thank everyone else who took it.  I’m going to keep the link on my profile for other people to take and maybe come revisit the results in a few years or so to see how it changes.  I think it’s a fascinating subject and I’m glad to have accumulated some of this information and do hope it helps at least one person out there at some point.  I am also going to try and message everyone who did leave their name for this survey so they know the results were posted.

Thanks again for taking this everyone and I hope everyone is having a great day! :D

[awesomevikaskhanna]

How to prevent emails to send into spam folder

1. You Didn’t Get Permission to Email

The #1 rule of email marketing is to get permission to email first. Never buy a list of email addresses, or you risk violating the CAN-SPAM Act and may be subject to penalties of up to $16,000.

To get permission, you’ll need an optin form on your site that makes it perfectly clear that your visitors are subscribing to your email list. Download our 63-point optin form checklist to make sure your optin form is set up properly.

Also, don’t manually add emails that you got off of business cards collected at a conference to your email list. While you may think that they would appreciate your newsletter, sending emails to them violates the CAN-SPAM Act because they did not give you permission.

You can – and should! – send those leads emails, though! Follow up with a separate drip campaign, personal email, or autoresponder series designed just for those leads and give them the chance to optin to your newsletter.

2. Your IP Address Was Used for Spam

Even if you never send spam yourself, your emails could get flagged as spam if your IP address was used by someone else for spam.

For example, if you send your campaigns through an email marketing service, your email is delivered through their servers. So if even one other customer sends spam, it could affect your deliverability as well.

Note, however, that every email marketing service we recommend is vigilant about keeping their sending reputation intact, and they have very strict procedures and regulations in place to prevent this type of thing.

In general, stick to a reputable email service provider and you should be fine. Some providers we recommend are Codermails.in

3. You Have Low Engagement Rates

Top webmail providers have stated that they look at how many emails are opened and how many are deleted without being opened as a factor in their spam filtering decisions.

So if you have low open rates or read rates, your emails are at higher risk of being flagged as spam. And, let’s just say that everyone’s read rates can stand to be a little higher. The average read rate across industries was 24% in 2018.

To increase your open rates, send your emails at the right time, perfect your subject lines, segment your list, and keep your list fresh.

For more detailed tips and 6 more ways to increase your open rates, read our post on 10 easy ways to improve your email open rate.

Making your read rates better means writing better email copy.

4. Your Subscribers Don’t Remember You

The second most common reason that emails never reach the inbox is spam complaints. In 2018, the average overall complaint rate was 0.39 percent, nearly double mailbox providers’ recommended 0.2 percent.

Every time a subscriber reports an email as spam, whether or not the email is actually spam, the complaint gets recorded by the mailbox provider. Once the complaints exceed a certain threshold, all future campaigns skip the inbox and get sent directly to the spam folder.

So why would a subscriber flag your email as spam if it isn’t spam? Well, the most likely reason is that they simply don’t remember you. Even though they gave you permission to email them, they don’t remember doing it, so they think you are sending them spam.

To prevent this from happening, make sure that the branding in your emails is memorable, and matches the branding on your website. This includes any images, colors, typography, voice, etc. Also, make sure the “from” line is from a name they will recognize.

If your subscribers don’t immediately remember you, you could get spam complaints, so keep that in mind.

Also, make sure to include an easily accessible “unsubscribe” link so that they can opt out if they no longer want your emails.

5. You Have Low Mailbox Usage

The fifth item on our list (and the third most common cause of low inbox placement) is low mailbox usage.

In their spam filtering algorithms, mailbox providers look at the ratio of active to inactive email accounts on your list. An inactive email account is an account that hasn’t been used for a long time or is very rarely ever used.

If you are mailing to a large number of addresses that appear to be nearing abandonment, that’s a red flag to spam filters.

To prevent this, clean up your email list periodically of any subscribers who haven’t engaged with your campaigns in a while.

Your email service provider may also include a feature to automatically purge any emails from your list that look like abandoned addresses.

6. Your Subject Line is Misleading

As the CAN-SPAM act states, it is actually against the law to intentionally mislead someone with your subject line in order to induce them to view the message.

In a survey conducted by Litmus and Fluent, over 50% of participants stated that they have felt cheated, tricked or deceived into opening a promotional email by that email’s subject line.

Here are some examples of misleading subject lines:

Did I leave my jacket at your place? This type of subject line can be used as a trick to make it look like they know you.

RE: CURRENTLY IN OFFICE is doubly sneaky because it can be mistaken for a reply to your email or a work-related email.

Urgent – Update your information. If something says “urgent,” it had better be urgent.

Thanks for your order! It’s super poor form to use a transactional subject line if the email isn’t actually transactional.

We know what you’re thinking. “Why would anybody ever do anything like this? These are some super shady tricks.”

You’re so right. But there are also some gray areas you should avoid, too.

For instance, imagine you’ve just written 8 tips for increasing your Instagram engagement and you want to share it with your email newsletter subscribers. To get them to open the email, you consider being sly with a subject line like, “8 Reasons You Should Never Post to Social Media.” But when they open your email thinking that something just drastically changed in the social media marketing world you’re like, “Totes kidding, folks. But here are the 8 tips I ACTUALLY wanted to share with you.”

Some of your subscribers may be amused but others not so much. Is it worth the risk?

7. Your “From” Information is Inaccurate

It’s also against the CAN-SPAM ACT to mislead anyone with your “from,” “to,” “reply-to,” and routing information.

For example, if you made your email look like it was from the President, that would be illegal. Yes, an extreme example, but you get the point.

As a best practice, make sure you include a name in the “from” field that your subscribers are likely to remember, and don’t change it too often. It could be the name of an individual, your company name, or a combination of the two (e.g. “Syed from OptinMonster”). Whichever you choose, go for memorability and consistency.

8. You Didn’t Include Your Physical Address

You legally must include your valid, physical address. That can be your current street address, a post office box that has been registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.

If you are a small business owner and you work out of your home, you should definitely get a P.O. box for business purposes so you don’t have to broadcast your home address.

9. You Didn’t Include an “Unsubscribe” Link

You can’t build a house without doors and you can’t send emails without an unsubscribe link.

No matter how valuable you think your email campaigns are, you still need to give your subscribers a way out. If you don’t, you could get spam complaints (at best), or slapped with thousands of dollars in fines.

At the bottom of your emails, include an unsubscribe link or a similar opt-out feature.

Also, when someone asks to be removed, you need to process that request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee to remove them, ask for any information other than their email address, or make them do anything other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on your website.

For example, you can’t make subscribers fill out a form that explains why they are opting out before they can unsubscribe. If you do want to survey your unsubscribers, show them the survey right after they have successfully opted out or in the unsubscribe confirmation email, not before.

Never sell or transfer the email addresses of your unsubscribers to another mailing list.

10. You Used Spam Trigger Words

Some spam filters are triggered by certain words in the subject line or the body of the email. Some spam trigger words are:

amazing

cancel at any time

check or money order

click here

congratulations

dear friend

for only ($)

free or toll-free

great offer

guarantee

increase sales

order now

promise you

risk-free

special promotion

this is not spam

winner

Your email provider may have a built-in tool that checks your emails for spam trigger words before sending it. Alternatively, you can also use ISnotSPAM, a free tool which scores your emails for deliverability and to see if they’re likely to trigger spam filters.

Just send your email to the email address displayed on their website, and then click on the View Your Report button.

The report will show you the criteria they looked at, along with your score and whether you passed or failed the test.

For a list of spam trigger words, check out this comprehensive list.

11. Your HTML Emails Don’t Follow Best Practices

If you are sending text-only emails, you don’t have to worry about this. However, you may want to send HTML emails as well as a text-only version. That way, you can include some branding elements that make your emails more memorable (which helps with engagement).

We’ve actually tested plain text versus branded emails with our email list and found that the branded emails actually get higher engagement. So it’s definitely a good thing to try with your own list.

However, you need to follow some best practices for sending HTML emails so they don’t get marked as spam:

Use a maximum width of 600-800 pixels. This will make them look good in most email clients.

Keep your HTML code as simple and clean as possible. If you are using a template from a reputable email service provider, you should be OK.

Keep your image-to-text ratio low. Images are OK to include in your email marketing campaigns, but never send image-only emails with no text.

Optimize your images for email by compressing them first. Don’t use super high-resolution images or other media with a large file size.

Don’t use obscure fonts. Stick with fonts that work across platforms, like Arial, Verdana, Georgia and Times New Roman.

Optimize for mobile. Make sure your emails are readable and load quickly on mobile devices, and that your links can be pressed easily with a thumb.

To give you an example, here is one of the branded, HTML emails that our subscribers love:

See how simple it is? We include our logo at the top for brand recognition, but most of the email is text. We also use a simple visual cue, the gray box at the bottom, to highlight the “You are receiving this email because…” area. This makes the email scannable and reminds subscribers about the benefits of being on our email list.

How to Avoid Emails Going to Spam (3 Steps)

Now you know all about the top 11 reasons your emails go to spam. Next, we’ll show you 3 simple steps to keep it from happening.

Step 1. Tell Subscribers to Whitelist Your Emails

When you send welcome emails to your new subscribers, tell them to whitelist your emails.

This is a simple action that helps in a couple of ways.

For starters, subscribers can be sure that they’ll keep receiving the emails they signed up for. Also, having more people whitelist your emails will help to increase your sender reputation, and your inbox delivery rates will be higher overall.

You can get your own personalized set of whitelisting instructions from the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy for free.

Step 2. Tell Gmail Users to “Drag” Emails from Other Tabs to Primary Inbox

Even if your email didn’t go to spam, Gmail users may still have trouble finding your emails because they have been filtered into other tabs like Social or Promotions.

To prevent this, give them these instructions:

How to Drag Emails into Gmail’s Primary Inbox

First, look for the email inside the Promotions tab. Then click, drag and drop it into the Primary tab.

Next, a message will appear asking if you would like to do this for future messages from this sender. Select “Yes”.

Now, your Gmail subscribers will always receive your emails to their primary inbox.

Step 3. Teach Subscribers How to Keep Your Emails Organized in a Special Folder

Your emails are important to your subscribers, but they probably also get a lot of other emails, too. Help them to find your emails easily by teaching them how to organize your emails into a special folder.

Also, remember that engagement is a big factor that can affect your inbox placement rates. Helping your subscribers keep track of all your future emails will help keep your emails out of spam for good.

Give your subscribers these instructions to help them organize emails from you:

How to Organize Emails

Create a special folder where you can archive emails after you have read them.

Don’t set up filters to automatically direct emails into these folders or you may miss something.

After you’ve finished reading an email, manually move it to the folder.

Spam Filter Testing and Spam Checkers

Still worried that your emails might go to spam? If you follow all of the above tips, and you’re still having a problem with emails getting sent to spam, here are some spam checkers that you can use to test your emails for issues.

1. Litmus

Litmus is a suite of email optimization tools which includes a spam checker. Here’s how it helps you keep emails going to spam:

Scans your emails by all the major spam filters before sending, to make sure that they pass.

Checks your reputation by looking at your IP addresses and any domain names used in your email, and checking them against known blacklists. (If any of them could affect your delivery, you’ll get a notification.)

Verifies that your email authentication, such as DKIM, DomainKeys, SenderID, and Sender Policy Framework, is set up properly.

Gives you a spam score, which advises you on why you got that score and how to improve it.

2. Mail-Tester

Mail-Tester is a free spam checking tool that gives you an easy-to-understand score out of 10 on a scale of spammyness.

You’ll have to check each email manually, but it checks to see if you’re blacklisted, DKIM, and the quality of your message, as well as doing a SpamAssassin check.

3. IsNotSpam.com

IsNotSpam.com is a free spam checker that you can try if you don’t have the budget for Litmus.

You’ll have to check each mail manually, and it doesn’t have a comprehensive testing capability, but it will check your Sender Policy Framework, SenderID and DKIM to make sure they are set up properly, and it will do a SpamAssassin check to score your email content.

That’s it! We hope this post helped you to learn 11 reasons why your emails go in the spam box, and how to avoid spam filters.

[callmemoprah]

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[gaudeixcc]

Peloton news – Old dog – new tricks

I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in gravel bikes.

Oddly enough though, I got talked in to doing an 88-mile gravel bike ride by Macca and Drip…. Good Lord.

As I don’t believe in gravel bikes, I don’t own one. This particular sportive had an answer though. Rent one.

I don’t normally believe in renting either. Good job. They’d run out of rental gravel bikes.

So far, this ride was a screaming success.

‘Why don’t you borrow my hardtail?’ suggested the every-helpful McEvoy.

Good idea.

One problem. Drip has had custody of Macca’s ex whip for a while now, so the thing is likely to be un-washed, un-oiled and in need of some recommissioning.

Not so good an idea.

‘Ask RTA if you can borrow his. He’s not doing this ride so you should be fine’.

Thanks Macca.

I left it late. Very late. I’d not done any riding recently and felt distinctly out of condition.

I thought to myself ‘if I can do 30 miles, then I’ll be able to extend that to 40. And if I can do 40 miles, 50 should be easy enough’.

I carried on this line of logic till I reached 88 miles. ‘fuck it, I’ll send RTA a text. Hopefully he’ll tell me to do one’.

He didn’t.

God (in whom I believe-eth not) must have been smiling on me.

Now, Macca likes his gravel bike. In fact, I think the feelings may run deeper. A lot deeper.

At times in recent months, I had wondered if there was some sort of commission angle I’d missed here. I checked the website for the ‘UK gravel bike appreciation society’. Couldn’t see his name as a patron or sponsor.

I checked the ‘North American brotherhood of gravelers’. Same thing. No trace of our pilot.

Finally, I googled all new religions registered in the last 12 months to see if there had been a reverend McGraveloy positioning his ‘new order of the Gravelatti’. Nout.

I did wonder if it was just me. I did wonder if post ride, I would see the religious light and (tail between legs) go off to C&N to place an order. Afterall, James had done so on the mere whiff of new toys in the Peloton. Perhaps I was just being an old stick in the mud and not moving with the times.

‘It’s like when you were a kid…riding around all over the place just for the pleasure of it. No GPS..no heart rate monitor..it’s a breath of fresh air’ sayeth the Reverend many a time over the previous months.

Un-prompted, Drip asked Macca ‘If you had a fire, which bike would you rescue?’.

This is likely the best question Drip has ever asked. Perfectly judged and a response which would be very revealing indeed. This is in contrast to the worst question Dripping has ever asked which was ‘does anyone have any Tramadol’ just before he took a load of drugs and tried to ride in his near catatonic post-crash injured state.

Anyway…. Answer the question Mark…..

‘It would be the gravel’ said Monsignor McEgravel.

Wow.

Bold statement.

So off we set.

RTA’s bike was a perfect fit. And beautiful too. The ride off grass and onto the first bit of gravel (10 yards of carpark prior to the road) was nothing short of…well… nothing short of riding a road bike on a football pitch. It worked. I immediately and whole heartedly declared gravel bikes the future of cycling, computing, politics and life in general.

That statement lasted for about 15 minutes, at which time stamp we found ourselves on a muddy track which was completely and utterly impassable using this sort of bicycle.

Dripping and I dismounted (involuntarily) and trudged after Macca who was stubbornly trying to stay upright.

This was admittedly a low point and things perked up not long after. Much of the route was beautiful. From the North to the South downs and off toward the coast we went.

Drip had prepared well and had his road cleats fitted. The sort of fuck up most of you normally associate with me. It was pleasing to a) stop fairly often (see ‘lack of fitness’ comments earlier) and b) watch Dripping pay for his mistake by extracting mud using nothing more than sharp stones scraped across the bottom of soft cleats, an activity which is akin to Nelly’s ‘removal-of-pedals-with-a-boat-shoe’ trick. Macca took many photos of this. When confronted by the sight of Nelly with his shoe in a death grip he took none and was not making that mistake ever again.

The absolute highlight of the trip was the road support we received from both Bex and Dawn. Bex arrived at strategic points armed with cake, popcorn, energy stuff and a big smile. Fucking ace. Sweets and a sit down. Exactly what I was hoping for. I ate much of what I saw before me.

Low-lights were however many in number.

Dripping being a lot fitter than me was one. If there’s one thing that I don’t like, it’s being a) overtaken by Dripping, b) being overtaken by Dripping and then Dripping and Macca buggering off up a hill and to cap it all c) waiting for me at the top of the hill chatting. Each time I tried to arrive composed with an air of ‘I don’t give a fuckery’ about me.

That didn’t work.

Dripping was very nice about it all… which meant that inside he was doing fucking cartwheels.

I had a quiet word with the God I don’t believe in and enquired about the possibility of delivering some pestilence or maybe locusts onto Dripping, his bicycle and his new found legs. ‘Bit old Skool don’t you think?’ Said the non-existent almighty. ‘maybe’ I muttered. ‘maybe’.

I had much time to think on this ride. It’s lonely being a shit cyclist, but I could at least analyse the pickle I’d agreed to find myself in.

Throughout the course of the day, I think I’ve puzzled it out. I think I have the answer to the question. The big question. Not the meaning of life, the meaning of gravel bike.

Macca was right. If you can have only one bike, then it makes sense.

If you can have only 2 bikes. It doesn’t. I’d always take a road bike, because they are perfect for the road and a gravel is a slight compromise. If I wanted off-road I’d always take a mountain bike, because a gravel is an even bigger compromise.

If I could have 3 bikes, this is where it makes sense…. And then I’d definitely have a gravel because it would be perfect as a winter/commuter bike and if I ever wanted to do a route with a ‘downs link’ type element, then that’s its habitat.

This 88-mile ride wasn’t perfect for the gravel. But it was probably just about the best compromise out of gravel/road/mountain.

But my rides tend to be on or off road. So if off-road, an mtb is just so much more comfortable, capable and suited to the hills.

And for big road rides, particularly our tour trips with big down hills, then I’d always favour the purity of a road weapon.

I’ll leave with this thought though. Both Macca and RTA’s bikes are lovely. Really nice examples. Expensive, tight, slick. Lovely to ride. And they are growing in popularity judging by the crowd who rocked up for the run to the coast. James has got one too, so when the German lands back he’ll be all over it and Strava will be awash with JT/RTA/Macca gravel rides where there will be much declaring of ‘It’s like when you were a kid…riding around all over the place just for the pleasure of it. No GPS..no heart rate monitor..it’s a breath of fresh air’ and other such snake-oilery.

Ultimately though it’s a bike, it’s outdoors, it’s with your mates.

Really, that’s all that matters. The bikes have always been secondary to that and always will.

Gravel onward my friends, gravel onward.

Hoppo

Ps Damo… just price one up for me…just out of curiosity you understand, yeah?

[verdiprati]

Thirteen ways to approach your favorite opera singers

In 2013 when I went from a casual opera fan to a more committed one and joined the Tumblr opera community, I wanted very much to meet the opera singer I idolized, but I did not know how to go about it. At the time, I had seen some corrective advice on Tumblr about how NOT to interact with your favorite opera stars, but it would have helped me if someone had spelled out in positive terms some of the social norms of opera fan/star interaction so that I would know what was possible.

Four years and many opera adventures later, I’ve learned a lot that I wish I could convey to my past self. Since I can’t go back in time, I’m writing up this post to offer a few pointers to newer fans.

This advice is mostly based on my personal observations and I’m definitely open to other viewpoints and additional information. If the detailed explanations all seem obvious to you, then you are probably not the target audience for this post! It is meant for people who want to make a connection with their favorite opera stars but feel mystified and intimidated by the world of professional opera singers.

FIRST: SOME GENERAL ADVICE.

Having strong feelings about opera and about your favorite artists does not make you “creepy.” For one thing, opera is meant to stir feelings such as love and sadness. For another thing, celebrity crushes are perfectly normal. Even celebrities get celebrity crushes.

What makes a person “creepy” is behavior that shows a disregard for other people’s feelings, time, or privacy.

There is a long tradition of opera fans showing love for their favorite stars. It is fine to express your enthusiasm for opera and for your favorite artists, and it is totally normal to want to meet them! (It is also OK to not want to meet them; some people prefer to keep their idols on a distant pedestal.) Just always stay attentive to the artist’s signals. If you know that you have difficulty reading social cues, you might even want to ask for guidance from someone you trust who can help you with social steering.

That being said, I have observed an odd twist to fan/artist interaction: sometimes fans approach artists with excessive caution and reserve, understating their own desire to connect with the artist, feigning nonchalance or saying things along the lines of “we could meet just for a minute really quickly if you want.” I think artists can sometimes misread these signals and get the impression that a person is not really a fan and would actually rather be elsewhere, which could be a little hurtful. Yes, definitely respect performing artists’ time and feelings and privacy; sure, hold back from fawning and gushing over the artists if you think you would embarrass yourself; but there is a virtue in simply and straightforwardly telling someone that you admire them, that you are honored (or would be honored) to meet them, and that you would really love to have a photo of yourself with them or their autograph as a memento of the occasion.

=== THIRTEEN WAYS TO APPROACH YOUR FAVORITE OPERA SINGERS ===

First part: some things you can do even if you are not able to go to your favorite artists’ shows in person.

1. LINK UP WITH OTHER FANS. Look around on social media. The most prominent opera stars tend to have communities of fans gathered around them. Singers are individuals and they can have different quirks in how they interact with the public. Your best information about your favorite singers may come from other fans. If you join a community and earn some trust you may get to hear about other fans’ close encounters of the operatic kind.

2. INTERACT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Some opera singers have a personal presence on social media; some do not. You should be able to tell whether a singer manages their own Twitter, Instagram, fan page on Facebook, etc, or leaves it in the hands of a PR professional. Many singers are approachable this way. They do not necessarily owe you a response if you tweet at them or comment on their posts, but I see a lot of genial fan-artist interactions online, and those can result in the artist recognizing you if you finally get to meet them in real life. (This has happened to me more than once! Val has a cute story about it too.)

If your circumstances allow it, I recommend using your real name and/or photo for any social media accounts that you use to interact with your favorite artists. I think it fosters trust and helps them feel that they are talking to a real person.

As for what kinds of things to say to artists (or when tagging / @-mentioning them) on social media, I have three rules that I try to follow:

Keep it positive.

Keep it positive.

When in doubt, keep it positive.

You are allowed to have critical opinions, of course! But you can be selective about where you express them. If you trash a singer’s colleagues—not just other singers but also, for example, the director or costume designer for their current show—on their Facebook fan page or in a tweet @-mentioning them, you put them in an awkward position: if they “like” your comment, it may appear that they are publicly endorsing your criticism of the people they work with.

It is good to keep compliments 100% unambiguously positive, too. I’ve seen singers react with hurt feelings to social media comments that were clearly meant to be compliments, but that were phrased in a sort of backhanded or sardonic way. Clear and sincere expressions of enthusiasm never go amiss.

3. KNOW WHO THE ARTIST’S AGENT IS. This is not in itself a way of approaching your favorite opera singers, but you may need this information if you want to send fan mail or a backstage request. Here are the artist rosters for some of the larger agencies: IMG Artists, Askonas Holt, Harrison Parrott, and Maxine Robertson Management. If your fave does not appear on those lists, try googling “[artist name] agent”. Normally each artist’s webpage on the agent’s site will have contact information for the main person who represents them.

4. SEND FAN MAIL. Sending a letter of admiration written on actual dead-tree paper is still a time-honored and perfectly acceptable way of reaching out to let an artist know that they have inspired you or touched your heart. If you cannot find contact information on the singer’s website, you can email their agent and ask where to send fan mail for them. Keep your letter reasonably succinct and focused on the artist’s work and its importance to you.

5. PETITION LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS TO BRING YOUR FAVORITE ARTIST TO TOWN. I am not sure how often this works, but it can’t hurt, right?!

Make a list of opera companies, orchestras, and concert/recital series near you that regularly hire artists of similar professional esteem to your fave. (This last point is important—some smaller organizations do not have the resources to bring in A-list artists, and it is best to make a proposal only if the organization could realistically fulfill it.) Then write polite, formal letters or emails to those organizations naming your favorite artist, explaining why you think the artist would be a good fit for the organization and its audience, and saying how much you would love to see this artist perform there. Without going overboard, you may back up your case with one or two YouTube links or quotes from recent reviews.

You might not get a reply and you might not see instant results, since classical music and opera programming is often planned years in advance. However, you have little to lose—the worst case scenario is that your request gets ignored. The potential upside, if your favorite singer comes to perform near you, is awesome.

Second part: some things you can do if your favorite artists come to perform in your area, or if you are able to travel to see their shows.

6. GO TO CD SIGNINGS. Although they cannot be expected at every show, CD signings, when offered, typically take place in the lobby of the theater immediately following a concert or opera. Signings may or may not be announced in advance. In my experience there are always CDs for sale so you can buy one to be signed on the spot. There are not always credit card readers, though, so take cash to every concert if you want to be able to seize the opportunity. (The price for CDs is typically rounded off to $15 or $20 in the US.)

There may be a sign or announcement saying that the artist will only sign the specific CD they are promoting. In the absence of any such declaration, though, it is generally OK to bring your own CD, photograph, or other material for the artist to sign, or you can get them to sign your copy of the program or cast sheet. (I even saw a necktie being signed by the artist in one case, and I have to assume there have been far stranger requests.) For convenience, you can bring the booklet from a CD and leave the actual disc and jewel case at home.

It is also usually acceptable—unless there is an announcement to the contrary—to ask if the artist would be willing to pose for a quick photo or selfie with you. It is acceptable to ask, but the answer may not always be yes; if the artist demurs, be prepared to wave off your request and reiterate your thanks for the signing.

You will probably have a chance to chat very briefly with the artist. Be mindful of the line of people behind you as well as of the artist’s time; keep your remarks short and light. If your opera idol’s co-stars or accompanist are doing signings at the same table, be gracious to them; say thanks or “bravo” for the performance and collect their autograph(s) on your program.

I am still not sure of the etiquette about how many signatures you can ask an artist for at once, but one autograph is certainly the norm and I personally would place the max at two (e.g. asking the artist to sign one item for yourself and one for an absent friend who is a huge fan). Be prepared to give a name for the artist to dedicate each item to.

Bonus tip: Bring a spare Sharpie just in case. You may become the hero of the hour. (I have been the Sharpie-supplying hero on more than one occasion!)

7. GO TO PUBLIC Q&A SESSIONS, AUDIENCE TALK-BACK EVENTS, AND SIMILAR. Although this type of supplemental programming is sometimes announced months in advance along with the opera or concert in question, it often is added to the calendar on relatively short notice. If you have tickets to a performance, check the sponsoring organization’s website and social media frequently in the week or two leading up to the performance date.

If audience interaction is invited, you have a great opportunity to talk to your favorite artist about a topic you both care about: their professional work. Come with a few questions in mind but be aware that the moderator may steer conversation in certain directions. If you are called on to ask a question, you may briefly introduce yourself and say how much you admire the artist, but keep these statements really short. Really, really short. Then move on to your question.

It is not unusual for the artist(s) to hang around for a few minutes after a Q&A type of event and chat with audience members. If you see them doing this, go ahead and walk up to say “thank you for taking my question” or “I just want to say how awesome you are.” Just be respectful of the artist’s time and of other people’s desire for access to the artist.

8. TAKE CURTAIN CALL PHOTOS (OR VIDEOS) AND SHARE THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA. This is the one thing I have done that has resulted in opera singers contacting ME out of the blue (!!!), asking for higher-res copies or permission to republish my photos of them taking their bows. Some singers don’t seem to care about curtain call photos, but many value them as mementos of their performances.

There is one major rule to follow: it is very important to wait until the performance has ended and the applause has started before you even take out your phone or camera and point it at the stage. Taking photos or videos during a performance is strongly frowned upon and can distract and anger the performers as well as your fellow audience members.

Many venues have signs or program notes saying that all photography is forbidden inside the auditorium. Despite these warnings, I have never had an usher try to stop me from taking curtain call photos, and even venues with these warnings have retweeted my curtain call photos, which I take as a form of tacit approval. Obviously, if any theater official asks you to stop taking photos, you should comply immediately.

Minjaš Žugić has made a real art form out of his curtain call portrait photography. His work is inspirational, but keep in mind that it is the result of years of investment in photographic equipment, editing software, and skill development. The average opera fan takes much humbler cell phone pictures, and that’s just fine.

9. SEND A NOTE OR GIFT BACKSTAGE. Like fan mail, this is a time-honored tradition!

What to send? A brief note expressing your excitement for the show and wishing the artist “toi toi toi” or “in bocca al lupo” (the opera world’s phrases for good luck) is always welcome! The artist will be busy getting ready for the show, mentally and physically, so you might want save your longer correspondence for fan mail.

It is not necessary to spend money on a gift; a note alone is perfectly good. However, if you have the means and want to send something, a bouquet of flowers is very traditional; goodies like a box of sweets or a bottle of champagne are also well within the norm. If you have artsy skills, small handcrafts are also nice.

One thing to keep in mind: if an artist is performing on tour, they may not be able to take hard-to-pack items like bouquets or bottles with them when they leave. That may be fine with you—they can simply enjoy the flowers in their dressing room, for instance—or you may want to come up with something more portable.

How to send? The simplest way is to drop off your note and/or gift at the stage door in person. The larger opera houses and concert halls will generally have a guard or receptionist stationed just inside the stage door in the hours before a performance. Locate the stage door by asking at the box office, walking around the theater, or googling “[venue name] stage door.” Walk in and state that you would like to leave a note or gift for so-and-so. This is pretty normal—I have never had the request declined. It helps if your note or gift is clearly labeled with the artist’s name. You generally will not be invited in to deliver the item to the artist yourself; the venue staff will take it to them.

Leave plenty of time before the performance (say, 30-60 minutes) for making the drop-off. Front-of-house staff like ushers, coat-check attendants, and box office workers probably will not be in a position to take items backstage to the artist.

If you are dealing with a smaller venue that might not have a stage door receptionist, or if you are in any doubt about approaching the stage door, contact the venue’s business office by phone or email a few business days in advance. Explain that you are looking forward to so-and-so’s performance on such-and-such date (be specific!); mention that you would like to drop off a note, bouquet, or small gift if acceptable; and ask how best to go about it.

You should also call or email the venue well in advance if you want to have something delivered to the stage door (e.g. by a local florist, or by a carrier such as FedEx) on your behalf; they will be able to give you the correct addressing information. They may want you to use an address for the stage door or loading dock that is not published on the venue’s website.

10. BRING A NOTE OR GIFT UP TO THE STAGE AT CURTAIN CALL. This is something I have seen on a few occasions, though I have not tried it myself: instead of sending a note, bouquet of flowers, or small gift backstage, a member of the audience will sometimes carry it up to the edge of the stage during curtain calls and offer it directly to the artist.

This strategy seems like it must work best at venues without orchestra pits. There is also a tradition of flinging flowers across the pit to the stage when a favorite opera star steps out for their curtain call, but that seems less personal—the artist might not see where the flowers are coming from.

11. STAGE-DOOR YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS. Stage-dooring refers to the practice of fans congregating outside the stage door after a show with the hope of briefly meeting the stars on their way out of the venue. It seems to be common at some of the major opera houses such as the Met and the Royal Opera, and if you spend any time browsing opera fans’ social media, you will see stage door selfies and group photos.

This is actually not something I have done myself, so I have limited advice on precisely how to go about it. Perhaps someone else can chime in?

As in any other situation, stage door behavior should be respectful of the artist’s time and feelings. Address the artist as “Ms. ---” or “Mr. ---” (or “Signora,” “Monsieur,” “Dame,” etc., as applicable!) to get their attention, unless you are already on a first-name basis. Ask politely for what you would like: “Would it be all right if I took a photo?” “Would you have time for a selfie?” “Would you be willing to autograph my program?” If the artist says she is tired or in a hurry, thank her for the performance and let her go. If the artist spends time with you and gives you an autograph, a selfie, or a bit of conversation, remember to thank her for that, too.

12. ATTEND POST-SHOW RECEPTIONS AND MEET-THE-ARTIST PARTIES. These events may or may not be well publicized in advance. Sometimes meet-the-artist events are by invitation only to high-level donors, but sometimes they are open to all ticket holders for a show. Sometimes there are post-show receptions with no formal “meet the artist” component arranged by the venue, but the artists might choose to put in an appearance.

I have had some very lovely chats with favorite singers over post-show drinks and I recommend sticking around for any receptions that you have the opportunity to enjoy!

As for how to approach artists at these events, it is like any other cocktail party or similar social situation, though with the slight twist that a star artist’s attention may be under more demand than other people’s. Sidle up and wait for a break in conversation. When the artist turns your way, say hello, introduce yourself, and tell them what a fantastic performance they just gave. Positive feedback and compliments are very much in order, especially in the hours immediately after a show!

You will have to read the situation a little bit to gauge how long to chat with the artist—try not to take longer than other people are doing, which could be anywhere from under a minute of quick greeting / admiration to several minutes of casual, wide-ranging conversation, depending what the event is like and how mobbed the artist is. If the artist seems to be hanging out with family or personal friends, err on the side of keeping your interaction brief.

I think it is generally OK to ask for an autograph or a selfie or offer the artist a fan letter or small gift at this kind of event: it is a form of compliment, and most artists are happy to oblige. Just keep in mind that it is primarily a social event and not a CD signing line. Make sure the artist gets time to chat with people and enjoy the party.

13. MAKE A BACKSTAGE REQUEST. If there is a singer who would be really special for you to meet, you can straight up ask for the opportunity to meet them. I really wish I had known this earlier! There is no guarantee that your request will be accepted, but it does not hurt to ask. The most standard sort of request is to ask if you may meet the artist backstage after a show.

I would generally recommend contacting the singer or their agent about two weeks in advance of the show you are going to see. If you can find direct contact information for the singer on their website, or if you are able to send them private messages online, you can go that route; otherwise, send an email to their agent. Making your request via a private channel of communication is best, since it might be awkward for the artist to respond to a public request on social media.

Keep your message businesslike and to the point. Here is a template based on emails I have sent to artists’ agents:

Subject: backstage request for [singer’s name] on [date] at [venue]

Hello,

I have been greatly impressed by [singer]'s work and I am very much looking forward to her recital at [venue] on [date]. Would I be able to meet her backstage briefly afterward, to say a word of admiration and perhaps request an autograph?

Thank you,

[my real name]

Allow about three business days for an answer to come back. After that point, if you have heard nothing, you may send a single, polite follow-up query; sometimes messages get lost in the shuffle. However, if your followup also gets no reply, I would read that silence as a “no.”

If your request is accepted, probably the artist will put your name on their backstage list. In most venues, access to the backstage area is restricted, and you will not be admitted backstage unless your name is “on the list.”

When the show ends, approach an usher and explain that you have arranged to meet the artist backstage, and ask where you should go. Go promptly after curtain down, but make sure and stop to collect any belongings you may have left at coat check, because it may close before you are done backstage.

When you get to the backstage entrance (which will probably be an interior door, not the exterior stage door), give your name to the guard and mention which artist you are there to see.

What the backstage experience is like will depend on numerous factors: How many people were onstage? How prestigious are the performers? Are you in a big city at a major opera house or at a smallish auditorium on a college campus seeing a show on tour? Are you part of a small crowd gathering to meet your opera idol, or is it just you? In some cases, the artist or the venue may have assistants guiding you around. In other cases, once you are through the door, you are more or less on your own. You might meet the artist at their dressing room, in the green room, or in a hallway. They may have changed to street clothes by the time you get there or they may still be in costume or in their concert clothes. They may be drinking champagne and celebrating the performance with their castmates or they may be exhausted and yearning for their hotel bed.

Despite the difficulty of generalizing about the backstage experience, the menu of common fan/star interactions is still similar to other in-person events. Lead off by introducing yourself and congratulating the artist on the performance they have just given. Say something about how much you admire them and why you wanted to meet them. You may offer a bouquet of flowers or another small gift if you have brought one, or a fan letter for the artist to read later, but it is certainly not required that you bring the artist anything. You can ask for an autograph or a selfie with the artist if you wish, or you can chat for a bit and say “I just wanted to tell you in person how much I admire you,” and leave it at that.

As always, be respectful not only of the artist but also of the other people in the room. Assume that everyone you meet backstage is someone important who has a good reason for being there.

With regard to the length of your visit, take cues from the artist and from the other people around you. When you sense that your time is up, thank the artist sincerely for their time and make for the exit. Congratulations! You have just met one of your favorite singers. Bask in the glow. :)

[elegiacescapist]

A Peek at the Food of Terratus.

Since I love world-building and food, I figured a post looking at the food and agricultural products in Tyranny was something that I had to do. I’m listing ingredients and crops here, but could be persuaded to come up with a cuisine and meal post much, much, later.

Because the game takes place mostly in the Tiers, most of this information may be only pertinent to them, if something can be linked back to the North or the rest of the Empire, I’ll make sure to mention it. Another thing to note is that a decent number of the consumable items use art assets from Pillars of Eternity, a very different setting with different influences, and that makes it a little murkier to interpret how it could fit into Tyranny’s setting.

The format will be a list (again) of named edibles found or mentioned in-game, separated into food groups. And thanks to everyone who helped me with this list or tolerated my yammering about it, you know who you are!

NOTE: VERY MUCH A WORK-IN-PROGRESS, I WILL ADD MORE IF I FIND MORE, LIKE MY OTHER LORE POSTS

WARNING: MILD TYRANNY SPOILERS

Grains & Bread

Ridgewheat: Staple crop in Azure. A good real life comparison would be an older variety of wheat, in particular Emmer Wheat/Farro, as it is rather hardy and can grow in mountainous areas and poor soil conditions, like ridges. Other wheat varieties to compare would be Einkorn, Spelt, and Khorasan/Kamut.

Rice: This is just speculation, but the terraces and general landscape of the Tiers might be right for some form of rice cultivation, and the “flour” icon in-game is the same as the icon for rice in PoE.

Barley: Implied to exist due to the existence of stout and ale, which require barley as an ingredient.

Corn: Northern Empire, Sirin’s home village is mentioned to have grown corn in-game and in her short story.  Possibly indicates that other real life Columbian exchange foods could also exist.

Meat & Fish

Elk: Lantry describes the forests of Vendrien’s Well as a place the nobles of Apex enjoyed elk hunting when asked about the location in Act II.

Boar: A NPC creature that periodically shows up in-game.

Domesticated Pig: A roast pig appears on the Marriage Bed Armistace’s card in the Conquest. The Scarlet Chorus is known to keep pigs and feed them the corpses of slaves, resisting conscripts, dead soldiers etc., indicating that the Chorus practices indirect cannibalism.

Deer: NPC creature found all over the Tiers in-game.

Hare & Rabbit: Winter hares are hunted in the Northern Empire by hounds (mentioned by an analogy used in dialogue with Salveros). Kills-In-Shadow compares Disfavoured soldiers she captured/hunted to rabbits. Hares or rabbits also appear to be one of the small game animals strung up in the Disfavoured Camp in Act I.

Goat: Lantry mentions that the Sages used goat hide to make their vellum when examining areas in the Burning Library, so I imagine it’s likely the Sages ate a lot of goat meat leftover from skinning the animal.

Eel: Found in the Matani River (dialogue with Matani Sybil) and also mentioned in the phrase “simpering surrender eels”, used in the guidebook by Barik in one of the character annotations.

Trout: What the fish consumable appears to be. Another PoE art asset so take this interpretation with a grain of salt.

Pheasant: Lantry apparently knows the secret to perfectly roast these, mentioned when asking about his knowledge with Sirin around. Appears to match appearance of game birds hanging in the kitchen of the Citadel in Vendrien’s Well. 

Cod: Salted cod was stored in Bastard City warehouses. (dialogue with Lady Lucretius)

Lamprey: Lamprey eggs were stored in Bastard City warehouses. Although I’ve never heard of anyone eating the eggs, lamprey is edible, and I imagine if they catch the eggs they’ll eat the fish. (dialogue with Lady Lucretius)

Cuttlefish: Lantry uses their ink in his sepia ink.

Squid: When tasting Lantry’s sepia ink, the Fatebinder notes that it tastes like this kind of cuttlefish in particular.

Dairy (Warning: Mini-rant about Cheese)

Dialogue seems to indicate that cattle (oxen, etc.) are rare, so much of the common cheeses and other dairy products would use other sources such as sheep or goat’s milk. 

Cheese: The cheese we see in-game as a consumable is described as a hard cheese with a “crumbly texture and dull orange colour.” This describes Cheddar, and while it fits the original setting (Drywood, PoE) that the item art in question is first used, it doesn’t quite match the setting for Tyranny and the Tiers, which uses more Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean influences than it does Medieval/Renaissance period British Isles influences like the Dyrwood. Some earlier origin cheeses such as Pecorino Romano (texture & hardness), Bastardo del Grappa (texture & appearance), Grana Padano or Aged Gouda (hardness) could be alternative references to use for writing and art instead of Cheddar, and because of the existence of corn (a Columbian Exchange food), annatto, which is used for adding colour to orange cheeses such as Mimolette, could also exist and be used to colour this cheese. 

Milk: Must exist because otherwise there’d be no dairy products at all, also mentioned by Barik when talking about the Voices. Goat’s milk is likely more common than cattle-based milk, due to the rarity of cattle,

Butter: Implied to be made and used through the use of the phrase, “butter my ass”, in the Falx Adjudication in Act I. In Act II on the Anarchy path, Bleden Mark can comment on not knowing which side of the bread Tunon butters.

Fruits & Vegetables

Apples: In fruit consumable art, mentioned in the Disfavoured helmet adjudication in Act I as part of an analogy.

Grapes: A necessary ingredient for wine and grappa, alcoholic drinks both mentioned in-game. The Northern Empire is known for fine vintages (dialogue with Pentibor and Fatebinder Cespar), and Vendrien’s Well has or used to have vineyards according to Lantry.

Pears: In fruit consumable art. (PoE asset)

Figs: In fruit consumable art. (PoE asset)

Celery:  Must exist, as celery salt is used for the Dirty Sage cocktail.

Olives: “Greenwarren olives” are mentioned in dialogue with Kosma at Edgering Pass in Act I.

Cabbage: When asking Tunon about quotas and sharing, he uses cabbage as an example mercantile ware. 

Melon: Used by Tychon the Swindler as part of an analogy about “dropping melons” in comparison to head bursting. Kind of melon unspecified.

Cherries: The Fatebinder notes that Lantry’s red ink smells of these.

Hagsberry: Verse mentions her mother’s hagsberry pie recipe when you have insufficient Favour with her whilst talking to her.

Bristleberries: Mentioned in a Tales of the Tiers random event, these yellowish-orange or bright orange berries are described as sweet, tart, nutritious, and energising. Unfortunately they are remarkably similiar in appearance to Bristlebane, which only Beasts and animals can safely eat, and is toxic to humans. “Leaves like hills, safe from the chills. Leaves like rain, unending pain.” -(The Fatebinder, remembering an old saying about these berries.)

Edible Herbs & Fungi

Nettles: The Tripnettle Wilderness once had nettles before Apex tiersmen eradicated them according to the hover text on the map. As well the name of the Nettlebog, a location somewhere within the Empire, indicates their existence outside of the Tiers.

Skycap: Found growing in the mountain ranges of Apex, these are highly valued by Sages for their alchemical properties.

Thistles: Implied to exist due to the name of Lady Lucretius’ destroyed family manor Thistlehome. While thistles are primarily used for medicinal purposes historically, their existence on Terratus may imply that the closely-related artichoke may exist as well.

Sugar & Spices

Honey: Must exist for the creation of the Mead consumable. Apex was known for it’s apiaries as described on the Tyranny website’s map of the Tiers.

Sugarcane: Staple crop in Azure, and an indication that the Tier’s climate must be Sub-Tropical or towards the warmer end of the Temperate range in order for this crop to grow.

Cloves: Vagrant’s Chaw smells a bit like it. (Implied from dialogue with Sterling Hagnon and his inventory)

Garlic: Strings of what appears to be garlic hang from market stalls in centre of Echocall village and Lethian’s Crossing.

Celery Salt: Ingredient for Dirty Sage, indicates existence of celery, and may also indicate the existence of celeriac, a close relative to celery.

Chili Peppers: Strings of what appear to be small red peppers hang from the market stalls in Lethian’s Crossing.

Recreational Drugs, Alcohol, and other Unusual Drinks

Note that a lot of alcohol in this game is beer-based, and beer requires a bittering agent such as hops or gruit (a herb mixture).

Mead: The flavour text for the consumable indicates that it is loved by both the Disfavoured and Chorus. May have been produced in Apex, as they had apiaries, and is likely also produced in the North if the Disfavoured like it.

Brotherhood Stout: A stout which, judging from it’s name, was either named after the Bronze Brotherhod or is something the Brotherhood makes themselves on the side.

Banebrew: An alcoholic concoction made from boiled Bane essence, spices, and ale.

Wine: See grapes entry. Vineyards are mentioned to be found in the North and (possibly formerly) in Vendrien’s Well.

Ale: Ingredient for Banebrew.

Marshberry: A berry that acts as a potent stimulant, known to be eaten by Bastard City merchants to sustain a nights of drunken revelry. A lifetime of use can result in crippling joint pain and a dullness of wits.

Dappleseed: Something you can apparently get “sloshed” on. (dialogue with Erenyos about Barik’s armour)

Grappa:  An ingredient for the Dirty Sage cocktail.

A Dirty Sage: An alcoholic drink made with grappa, olives, and celery salt. Named in “honour” of Lantry. Tastes vaguely like paint thinner, and he loves it. (mentioned when recruiting Lantry in Act II instead of Act I)

[pocinperioddramas]

Some of the things you said in reference to Wonder Woman - Gal Godot specifically - really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not Jewish, but it's my understanding - re a post by a Jewish person on the way antisemitism crops up in discussions of Israel and how to avoid it - that 'Zionism' is just the belief that Israel should EXIST, not something that has any connection to support/lack thereof of Israeli politics/military action. (1/2)

Unless you really do think Israel shouldn’t exist - in which case, please be clear on that so I can unfollow. If it was a case of mistaken terminology (I’ve been there too!) please clarify or edit. I’d be happy to send you a link to the post in the messaging or something if you’re interested, or reblog it and tag you! (Also, it might be good to look into the Godot thing a little - she may be problematic, but a lot of the criticism I’ve seen of her is actually anti-Semetic dogwhistling.) (2/2)

Hello there! I am finally getting around to answering your question, after around 2 weeks of being absent from this blog. As you said that you don’t mind me posting my response publicly, I will do so in order for people to be clarified about my views regarding the issues on the table.

I understand your reservations. You linked me to the post you were referring to in your response to my own ask to you (the link did go through BTW). I actually saw that post a few years ago, I believe, and while the OP’s concerns about anti-Semitism cropping up in the process of defending Palestine are definitely valid (and they have every right to be concerned, as there have been some infamous figures who were pro-Palestine but also turned to be very anti-Semitic - there were at least 2 people I remember reading about, but I can’t remember their names at the moment), not every Jewish person shares their particular view about Israel/Zionism. There is, in fact, a website known as the New Jewish Resistance founded and run by anti-Zionist Jews (and they explicitly identify as such) through whom I learned a lot about anti-Semitism and Zionism and how to fight both forms of oppression (in this article, they discuss about what they stand for and in this other article, they tackle about how being anti-Zionist isn’t equivalent to being anti-Semitic). But understand that this definitely shouldn’t excuse from any possible anti-Semitism (as citing that could make me sound like one of those “I’m not racist, I have [insert race/ethnicity being discussed] friends” or in this case, “I’m not anti-Semitic, I have Jewish friends” and I definitely don’t want to be like that), so please do call me out if I have been anti-Semitic, whether subtle or explicit.

But you do bring up the issue of whether Zionism can be considered a legitimate ideology that started out with good intentions (a la how communism and socialism can be interpreted by many people too), which is the view held by the OP of the post you shared, or if it is an inherently flawed or oppressive ideology. To be honest, I’m still very conflicted about that. The important thing here has always been to center both Jewish and Palestinian voices speaking out on the issue, and while most Palestinians identify as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, Jewish people are divided on it. Of course I definitely think that people who actively support the policies and actions of the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces are reinforcing oppression, but Jewish people who bring up the point about Zionism being interpreted as an ideology with good intentions should be taken into account too, as people do think that Jewish people, despite centuries and even millennia of being in the diaspora, have an ancestral claim to their homeland in the Middle East.

But that also begs the question: if you support the ideology of Zionism while opposing the oppression of Palestine, do you think the two can be brought to life (i.e. Israel - or at least a Jewish state - and Palestine coexisting peacefully) in a way that do not contradict each other? Because as far as I know, Zionism is founded on the belief that the Jewish people have the right to a state of their own in the region of Palestine, where millions of Palestinians have lived for centuries too. Could a Jewish state exist where it does not have to oust these Palestinians from their own lands and it does not have to be a colonizer, and how can it be (realistically) put into practice? Or does Zionism and the right of Palestine to exist as a state directly contradict each other and thus you cannot actually support both? I would in fact hope for a two-state solution, but I do not know how it could be truly brought to life without involving any oppression or bloodshed. (Most of these questions are actually brought up too in the post you shared, but I am still curious about them and now that you asked me about it, it’s made me realize how sorely lacking my knowledge is on the issues and has made me want to learn more now actually. This is actually a good wake-up call for me, so I thank you for that, as your criticism has made me realize it’s important to evaluate my knowledge about issues in social justice - Zionism included - before speaking out.)

Now, with regards to Gal Gadot, most of the criticism I’ve read about her - from the people I follow on social media who have been vocal about being anti-Gal - with regards to her support of the IDF seems valid to me, but as it is said, anti-Semitism can still insidiously seep into conversations where people are defending Palestine, so maybe there truly was anti-Semitism there but I didn’t notice it. I did recently read an article from a Palestinian woman that discussed Gal’s Zionism/support of the IDF that might have had anti-Semitic undertones, though the author did make very good points about other aspects like the cruelties inflicted by the Israeli government and the IDF and the oppression that the Palestinians face from them, so maybe that’s an example of criticism that has anti-Semitic dog-whistling. What other examples have you seen of such criticism with anti-Semitic undertones?

But my point about Gal still stands: she may be a good actress and apparently progressive in other aspects, but her active support of the IDF and her praise of Shimon Peres alone are enough for me not to want to support her in any of her work, even “Wonder Woman”, despite my admiration of the character, her importance as a strong female superhero presence in pop culture and media, and the appeal of the movie due to the rave reviews it received, and I firmly believe that she wasn’t the one best suited to the role as there are plenty of other female actors who are even more progressive and whose personality, behavior, and views embody Wonder Woman and what she stands for more than someone who is an IDF supporter. I hope you understand.

Maybe you know more about these subjects, so if you have any more information, you can share with me so that I can learn too and if I am wrong in my views, I can rectify them and become more understanding and careful on these topics.

I am in no way an expert on Zionism, Israel’s oppression of Palestine, anti-Semitism, and Jewish and Palestinian experiences, as I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. In fact, I only heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict relatively recently (I might have heard about it earlier had I been living in the West, but I don’t and I learned about it entirely through social media - that’s no excuse for me though, and I’m trying to catch up). I have conflicted feelings about Zionism and Israel in general, as I am not always certain about all the information I learn about these topics. But in recent years, I have tended to think along the lines of ‘Zionism is oppressive’ and ‘Israel (at least the way it was created and the state in its present form) is a colonizer/colonial state’, thanks to the articles I have been reading and whose views make sense to me. However I do get that I may have unconsciously appeared to be making assumptions with regards to the issues of Zionism and Israel, despite not being super knowledgeable about it as I’d want to be (although I definitely do think that what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians is wrong). So I apologize for that, and please do not be afraid to criticize me for any faulty information or stances that I hold, when I air such information and stances. I actually encourage my followers and even non-followers to do so, so that I may continue to learn too (but that doesn’t mean I should rely entirely on other people to call me out - I am trying to educate myself as well by reading up on more articles, thinkpieces, and books discussing such issues as well as listening to the voices of the people at the center of such issues - I’m simply saying that it’s perfectly fine to call me out too in addition to me calling out myself while I am learning in my own way).

(Now, I will tread more carefully and be more specific when referring to Zionism and Israeli colonialism and make less assumptions as well.)

You are still free to unfollow me if you want, of course. I do hope we can reach an understanding, and thank you once again for your thoughtful ask. I really appreciate it.

-Admin Dawn

[kyloknightofren]

You’re Sure It’s Not Spelt Hucks?

So for the @verymerrykylux shindig that I’m totally late for, I got to write for @gingerbitch-hux. I’m so sorry it’s late. I have no excuses. I’m a lame dude. Anyways! I hope you like it. Thanks to @sithofren and @kyloren-sithlord for reading through this and giving it the polishing it needed!

There is something to this newfangled Facebook thing that Han is simply unable to wrap his mind around. Leia insists -- in that endlessly annoying Leia way of hers -- that he needs to get it in order to stay current with ‘this generation.’ Whatever that's supposed to mean. Han’s never met a computer he couldn't work his way around, but this god damned, imbecilic blue-and-white website of death is testing him in new and inspired ways.

He hates it.

His first friend, surprisingly, is Luke. He didn't even realize Tibetan monasteries had wifi, but proof to the contrary is staring him right in the face. Lando and Leia tie for second, because he can't find the little button that looks like a horribly mutilated and bleached upper body for a solid ten minutes while Leia sends him a series of increasingly concerned and illegible texts, using literally anything on the keyboard save actual letters, until he finally cedes defeat and calls her to ask for help.

She rolls her eyes at him but helps all the same. She's sweet like that -- burn and salve all in one.

It takes him a month to realize that he's missing something, or perhaps more accurately, someone. Han had simply assumed -- evidently wrongly -- that Ben would search up his name, click the little white face and their relationship would repair itself. The accident smoothed over, or perhaps even ignored; Ben’s attempts at running from the guilt that Han had no small part in exacerbating, resolved.

Searching ‘Ben Solo’ comes up with frustratingly little -- ‘Ben Organa’ produces even less. The internet is supposed to connect people, and all it’s left him with is the taste of palpable bitterness.

Leia gives him a knowing look over what could generously be considered spaghetti and spinach salad that night. She’s never been much of a cook, and Han himself can’t do much in the kitchen beyond opening the wrapper of a granola bar. The house feels empty with just the two of them, and Han can’t even fathom how much emptier it must feel when he can’t take anymore of acting domestic, when it’s just Leia.

“He’s not on there, you know,” she starts, apropos of nothing after too many minutes of uncomfortable silence.

Han grunts in response, digging into his pasta with renewed vigour. Perhaps if he just doesn’t respond, this conversation can simply stop. Of course, Han knows that’s a losing battle.

“I try looking, every few months. Perhaps I’m just not cut out for this internet crap. But -- I happen to know someone. He’s rather good with technology, always getting me out of a bind when I need it.” She smiles at him -- it’s small, but significant. Like everything about her. Han can’t remember the last time he saw her smile like that.

“Is that so?” he asks, the beginnings of a smirk playing about his mouth. “I suppose I could take another look for you, princess.”

“My hero,” she says, rolling her eyes with something he hopes is fondness.

The next days are spent in a fevered state, scrolling through the blue-and-white screen of death. He’s always worked best when he has some sort of task to complete, some goal to reach for.

It seems unlikely that Ben simply isn’t on the internet — he’s a young man, after all. Or at least, that’s how Han remembers him. It’s been close to ten years. Things can change.

Still, no matter how hard he works, there’s no tangible results to give to Leia. no gold medal to award for a job well done. Google refuses to cooperate with him — all of the results pulled up relate back to the accident. One particular news site has the gall to refer to it as a tragedy, which is frankly absurd.

Han resorts to means he never thought he’d use — calling Luke’s daughter and praying that she doesn’t tell Leia. Rey insists that she hasn’t heard from her cousin in at least five years, which is still somehow better than Han himself.

But, she does give him a name, someone he was apparently seeing when they last ran into each other (in a coffee shop of all confounded places). Hucks. Which can hardly be the real name of a human being, but Han supposes that if Rey can be married to someone named Finn, then who is he to judge?

Hucks turns up...nothing. Well, not nothing exactly, but unless Hucks lives in the Bahamas and is a very busty sixty year old retiree whose given name is Pamela, Han probably has the wrong person. Still, he’s not here to judge Ben or his life choices (much), so he sends a link to Rey via email and waits for confirmation.

What he gets in response is a series of -- what are they? Emogicons? -- that indicate someone crying from laughter. Or at least, Han thinks that’s what it is. Rey sends another email to follow up, informing him that he’s spelt Hucks wrong, which is hardly his fault. Who the hell assumes it’s spelt ‘Hux’?

Idiots, that’s who.

Hux is apparently a very well-off lawyer with a strange fixation with ginger cats and a child that Han assumes is his own, given the bright shock of red hair and what Han can only consider to be most morose pout he’s ever seen on a toddler. He apparently doesn’t have a first name, and might be the most boring person Han could have ever conceived of.

His relationship status isn’t publically listed, and as he scrolls through pages and pages of Hux’s very tame Facebook history, he can’t help but be disappointed that there’s nothing on his wall from Ben Solo-Organa-whatever.

There is, however, a lot from a person named Kylo Ren, whose profile picture looks like a hunk of metal garbage in a white room. Leave it to uppity rich folks like Hux to be friends with modern artists. At the very least, this Kylo Ren character has good taste in animal pictures -- Han is a particular fan of the one with the cat holding onto a railing with the caption ‘Hang In There!’.

Han debates, for the better part of fifteen minutes, when is the appropriate time to send a friend request to someone you’ve never met before. He texts Leia for a second opinion and she replies with a series of thumbs up and the weird hands that look like they’re straight out of a televangelist gathering. Which probably means something like ‘go for it’, but Han has never been very good at figuring out what Leia’s trying to say without making a giant mess of everything.

At 3:02, which is probably a very respectable time for lawyers to get tired of working and go on their phones, Han sends his request.

It takes a week and three days for him to get a response from Hux, during which time Han alternately frets that this entire thing is a waste of time and curses Hux’s name for making him wait for so long.

<< Who the hell is this?

There’s a moment of clarity when Han realizes that yes, of course Facebook has a private messaging system. No wonder Leia kept teasing him about posting things onto Luke’s wall. Damn stupid website.

<< Hello? I’m very busy and I don’t have all day to sit here and wait for decrepit old men to figure out how to use the internet. I don’t want whatever it is you’re selling.

>> hi no dont go my name is han

>> i think u knew my son

>> ben

<< Jesus fucking Christ.

>> thats not my name but ill take the compliment

>> i just want to talk to ben

<< We’re all very happy without you and your miscreant ways, thank you very much.

>> wat does that even mean

<< “Ben” has told me all about you. We aren’t interested.

Han is...puzzled, to say the least. He knows he wasn’t the ideal father, knows the accident was his fault, but he doesn’t think that that qualifies him to be treated like the literal scum of the earth. But still. Ben knows this man.

>> wat do you mean “ben”

>> his name is ben

<< Perhaps it used to be, yes. That’s no longer what he goes by.

>> y not?

>> ben is a perfectly good name

>> its a family name

<< Yippee for that. It’s still not his name.

<< Look, I could spend all day arguing about what name my incredibly asinine husband prefers to go by, but that would be a) pointless, and b) a waste of everyone’s time, but most importantly mine.

>> i just want to make sure hes ok

>> wait

>> husband???!?!?!?!??!?!

<< Fuck.

<< Fine.

<< If I answer all your questions, will you promise not to try to contact “Ben”? He’s very . . . delicate, about things like this.

>> but i want to see him

<< Good for you. Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.

>> ok

There’s a brief negotiation, mostly steamrolled by Hux, where they discuss where to meet. They settle on a coffee shop in downtown which Han assumes must be close to Hux’s office. He’s never heard of it before, but -- it’s something.

Han hates the downtown core with all of his being. Where the hell is everyone supposed to park? It’s damn ridiculous. He circles around the block where Hux’s chosen coffee shop is for the better part of twenty minutes before finally finding a spot, squeezed in between two cars that independently are probably worth at least five times what the Falcon is.

He’s wearing his finest jacket — the one with only one grease stain — and a pair of probably clean brown corduroys. Definitely not because he wants to impress his...son-in-law? He’s still not fully able to wrap his head around the concept, no matter how hard he tries. He has a son-in-law, and that son-in-law has a child. Does that make him a grandfather? Does he even want to be a grandfather?

He hasn’t told Leia about this meeting, mostly because he doesn’t want to get her hopes up. Han has spent the better part of twenty years disappointing her, and there’s something about how tenuous their relationship is at the moment that tells him that if he well and truly fucks this up, there might not be any going back.

Hux is easy to spot — he’s the only one with ginger hair and a frown in the whole damn place. He’s sipping fancy coffee, which is to say, coffee that didn’t come from the McDonald's drive through around the corner from his garage.

He claps Hux on the back as he comes around, sliding into the seat opposite with a gruff “Hello.” Hux gives the watch on his hand a cursory glance before glaring up at Han.

“You’re seven minutes late.” His voice is clipped, accented in a way Han wasn’t expecting. It reminds him of Luke’s Uncle Ben, of the Arizona desert and his old smuggling routes.

“Yeah, well, you try parking around here and see if you can get anywhere on time, son.” Hux rolls his eyes, seemingly unimpressed.

From what Han can gleam, Hux is always seemingly unimpressed.

“Yes, well, that’s all well and good but I have a meeting I need to be at in thirty-three minutes, so if we could simply cut to the proverbial chase, I would be most appreciative.” Hux taps a finger on the cup of his fancy coffee, which seems to be more white fluff than actual coffee. The motion draws Han’s attention down, towards the ring gleaming on his hand.

“So — you really — you and Ben?”

“Me and Kylo, yes. If you want to have this conversation, the least you could do is make an attempt to call him by his preferred name.”

“Wait — you mean the Kylo Ren who posts all the cat pictures on your Facebook?”

“Oh my fucking — yes. Of course. Obviously. That Kylo. Your spawn, Kylo.”

“Oh.” Han stares down at the table, at Hux’s hand again. The ring is gold, plain and unadorned but clearly polished regularly and meticulously. There’s something about it that makes Han wish he’d worn his own wedding ring, if only to prove that he’s not a bad husband as well as a bad father. “Are you — happy?”

The question contorts Hux’s face into something more closely resembling a sneer -- it’s clearly not often that he considers happiness as something important, a metric to be closely observed. “I — yes. I suppose we are.”

“That’s good.”

“Indeed.”

They sit in silence — awkward, uncomfortable silence — for what feels like an eternity but is more likely only a minute or two. “He’s an artist, you know,” Hux starts, clearly trying to reach for any topic of conversation that the two of them might have in common. “He has his own studio, and — well, I suppose he doesn’t do as much now because of Cillian, but still. He’s very well known within art circles, if you go in for that sort of thing.”

“Cillian?” Han asks, desperate for anything to cling to in the hopes of continuing the conversation.

“Yes, Cillian. He’s rather brilliant, for a four year old. Kylo is — well, he’s much better with him than I am, but that’s perhaps because Kylo still has the mind of a child locked inside the body of a giant.” The words are harsh, but they’re said with the barest hint of affection — the first actual sign of emotion Hux has displayed throughout the entire conversation.

“And he’s — yours?”

“Ours,” Hux corrects quickly. It’s evidently a conversation he’s had before, if the rapid way he replies is any indication. “He’s ours, no matter who’s biology he’s got in him.”

“Right, yeah.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of Leia or me getting to spend some time with Be-Kylo?” Han knows what the answer is most likely going to be, but he can’t help but ask anyways. For Leia’s sake, if not his own.

“I -— look. You seem like a nice guy, sort of. Kylo’s told me all sorts of absurd things about you that might be true, but given his proclivity towards grandiose exaggeration, probably aren’t.” Han nods along, waiting for the definitive ‘no’ that he’s expecting. “But I can’t speak for Kylo personally. It’s not my place.”

Hux reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a business card in matte black with the name ‘Kylo Ren’ emblazoned in plain white font. “Send him an email. Don’t bother calling because he doesn’t answer his work phone and he has no idea how to check voicemail, no matter what he says to the contrary.”

“Thanks, kid,” Han says, taking the card and putting it in his pocket like it’s a winning lotto ticket. In some ways, it is.

“Don’t mention it,” Hux says, standing up and straightening his suit. “Really, don’t. I sleep on the couch enough as it is.”

Han chuckles, sliding out of his chair. “Yeah, his mom’s the same way. They’re always making you think they hate you when it’s the damn opposite.”

Hux makes a face, something between pained and affectionate, before looking down at his watch. “Well, this has been — something. I ought to —”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on, kid.” Hux glares, but offers his hand to Han anyways. The shake is firm — surprising, given Hux’s relatively willowy figure.

“Have a good day,” Hux says, by way of closing remarks. Han smiles and thinks that, for the first time in the better part of a decade, he actually might.

[ralphlayton]

10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing – Don’t be a Clown

When it comes to sharing B2B marketing advice, I prefer not to clown around too much and do my best to be positive and optimistic with trends, insights and how to's focused on looking forward towards best practices and getting better results. Marketers expect serious results but unfortunatley, many B2B marketers insist on clowning around with half-hearted or incomplete influencer marketing efforts. I know this from stories told by brand marketers that have worked with other agencies and from being on the receiving end of clueless pitches, minimum viable engagement efforts and willfully ignorant attempts to get me to promote something I really have no business caring about. I've heard much of the same from other people who are often engaged as influencers as well. This post is an appeal to B2B marketers to stop clowning around with influencer marketing efforts, especially now when marketing has no room to be wasteful or unsuccessful. Below is a list of some of the worst offenders. If your B2B company is doing these things, whatever efficiency or shortcut you're hoping for is a joke on you in terms of program success and building real relationships with the credible experts your customers listen to. 1. Lead Gen Disguised as Brand Awareness - Marketers initiating an influencer program with stated goals of increasing brand awareness inevitably always shift their thinking midway through and start talking about lead generation and sales expectations if not from the start. Of course building brand awareness and lead generation are two different strategies with different types of metrics. Expecting both from the same campaign is like expecting a flying car to also be a submarine. It's possible, but not very practical. 2. Choosing Influencers Based on What? - Companies hire influencer marketing staff, consultants or agency specialists to help with influencer identification and qualification more than just about any other aspect of an influencer marketing program. And yet, some marketers prefer to choose influencers based on who they think would be influential or based on the opinions of a few executives vs. based on data. Influencer Programs have a strategy for how to achieve a particular goal with the identified audience using a specific mix of content and tactics. Influencers play a role like ingredients in a recipe and data informed selection incorporates a minimum of topical relevance, audience resonance, network size, publishing type, style and cadence as well as brand alignment into consideration. When you start deciding on ingredients for recipe you haven't made before based on what you like vs. what tastes good for your guests, it's possible the dish will be tasty, but probably not. 3.  Overpromise and Underdeliver - Marketers are busy and often overzealous when pressed for time and resources to recruit influencers for a project. Value exchange scenarios emerge where the influencer is asked to X and the brand will do Y in exchange. Then surprises start to happen, like being asked to do this one extra thing. Or two. Or three. When a big exposure opportunity implied in the recruiting effort falls through (it was actually speculative), gets switched for another thing the influencers don't want or requires the influencers to sell their soul to the brand with some kind of endorsement to participate - all contribute to the experience the brand is creating for the influencer. When expectations are not met either by the brand or the influencer, nobody wins. Such disconnects are avoidable with effective influencer program management. 4. Transactional Engagement - Efficiency is an expectation now more than ever in marketing departments and at the same time, influencer engagement is a relationship focused practice. When marketers treat influencer interactions like sales transactions or as impersonal exchanges, it may create conveniences for the marketer, but it's nothing special or worth repeating for the influencer. The classic transactional engagement example is when the marketer invites the influencer to contribute to a project of relevance and then sends a link to a form with 10 more questions than implied in the invite. Once the form is complete, there is no thank you, no acknowledgement and no follow up until the content is published and the marketer sends an email with the exact same 5 social share message suggestions that were sent to the other 49 people who were asked to fill out the form. Yuk. 5. Nowhere to Publish - Less an issue with small or medium sized companies, publishing influencer content on the large B2B brand websites or blogs should already be coordinated and approved before the influencers are recruited and informed where they will see exposure. Nobody wins when a top lineup of experts share their expertise and the brand doesn't have somewhere for that content to live. Also, simply publishing episodic content like a podcast to aggregators and not creating a web page index for the podcast or episodes is a huge missed opportunity. Web pages are hooks in the water for search engines, social shares, industry blogs and media websites. Plus, those web pages also create exposure for the contributing influencers, which is probably why they said yes to the invitation. 6. Fear of Commitment - Relationships take time, effort and investment of resources and can pay incredible dividends over a long period of time. It's definitely a best practice for B2B brands to conduct a pilot influencer project to work out processes and capture initial data for insight into building a program. But make no mistake, it is an ongoing effort towards influencer engagement that builds the kinds of relationships that drive high ROI advocacy from the people your customers trust the most. Fear of committing to some kind of ongoing effort to nurture influencers as part of a strategy to drive brand conversations, grow brand influence, reach new customers and inspire more business has a cost that shows no ROI. 7. Management by Spreadsheet - Like any marketing program, there are many elements to manage in an influencer program from the marketing plan, campaign, assets and measurement to the management, engagement and measurement of influencers. Doing all of that by spreadsheet can work for a pilot but for any B2B company to scale it's influencer marketing efforts, investment in technology like an influencer marketing platform will be worthwhile. An influencer marketing platform should enable marketers to find, manage and measure influencer relationships (at a minimum). 8. Promotion Black Hole - Imagine an exciting new project where everything comes together: the influencers, the brand executives and SMEs and the content is impressive. Then the content publishes and... nothing.  Sometimes brands overestimate the value of publishing on their own properties including social channels. Promotion of influencer content is a bit part of why influencers agree to contribute to a brand's influencer marketing program. Of course the influencer will promote to their own channels and the brand will benefit from that. But if the content the influencer contributed to is not promoted on brand channels, it deflates the influencers motivation and that's a lost opportunity for the brand. 9. One Night Stands - Engaging and activating influencers comes in many forms and some marketers miss the boat entirely on the relationship aspect of co-creating with influencers in search of quickie content capture and social shares. That quickie for a listicle might be satisfying for the marketer as efficient content creation, but it does very little to create a real relationship with trusted experts making product and service recommendations to their loyal audiences.

Engaging influencers only when you need them shows them you only care about yourself. That's not how successful relationships are built.

It's perfectly fine to engage in small or individual projects with influencers. Just don't make that the only thing. Ongoing, or "always on" influencer engagement is practical, manageable and it creates a mutual will scenario for the brand, its customers and the influencers. 10. Goals to Measurement FUBAR - Influencer Marketing is still relatively new to B2B and many marketers add-on influencer contributions to existing content marketing programs than implement dedicated influencer programs on their own. Ambiguity about goals for the influencer part of a content marketing program leads to lack of defined metrics and performance measurement. It could happen that a B2B brand adds a few high profile influencers to a demand gen project that achieves millions of social impressions. But it turns out, very few people shared their email for the download. If the project had goals of name capture, a specific type of influencer that more middle-funnel appropriate should be engaged and provided with UTM encoded URLs for influencer level tracking. When goals to measurement are not clear with influencers that are part of a content project or a dedicated influencer marketing program, measuring and reporting success is basically guesswork. For even more laughs about the ways B2B marketers are sidetracking the results of their influencer marketing efforts, check out this timeless list of 50 ways to fail at influencer engagement. There's nothing funny about failing but it's a lot of fun to hit and exceed program goals. Be sure to check out these examples of successful influencer marketing for B2B brands, big and small and here are 25 campaign ideas.        

10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing – Don’t be a Clown published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[samuelpboswell]

10 Worst Practices for B2B Influencer Marketing – Don’t be a Clown

When it comes to sharing B2B marketing advice, I prefer not to clown around too much and do my best to be positive and optimistic with trends, insights and how to's focused on looking forward towards best practices and getting better results. Marketers expect serious results but unfortunatley, many B2B marketers insist on clowning around with half-hearted or incomplete influencer marketing efforts. I know this from stories told by brand marketers that have worked with other agencies and from being on the receiving end of clueless pitches, minimum viable engagement efforts and willfully ignorant attempts to get me to promote something I really have no business caring about. I've heard much of the same from other people who are often engaged as influencers as well. This post is an appeal to B2B marketers to stop clowning around with influencer marketing efforts, especially now when marketing has no room to be wasteful or unsuccessful. Below is a list of some of the worst offenders. If your B2B company is doing these things, whatever efficiency or shortcut you're hoping for is a joke on you in terms of program success and building real relationships with the credible experts your customers listen to. 1. Lead Gen Disguised as Brand Awareness - Marketers initiating an influencer program with stated goals of increasing brand awareness inevitably always shift their thinking midway through and start talking about lead generation and sales expectations if not from the start. Of course building brand awareness and lead generation are two different strategies with different types of metrics. Expecting both from the same campaign is like expecting a flying car to also be a submarine. It's possible, but not very practical. 2. Choosing Influencers Based on What? - Companies hire influencer marketing staff, consultants or agency specialists to help with influencer identification and qualification more than just about any other aspect of an influencer marketing program. And yet, some marketers prefer to choose influencers based on who they think would be influential or based on the opinions of a few executives vs. based on data. Influencer Programs have a strategy for how to achieve a particular goal with the identified audience using a specific mix of content and tactics. Influencers play a role like ingredients in a recipe and data informed selection incorporates a minimum of topical relevance, audience resonance, network size, publishing type, style and cadence as well as brand alignment into consideration. When you start deciding on ingredients for recipe you haven't made before based on what you like vs. what tastes good for your guests, it's possible the dish will be tasty, but probably not. 3.  Overpromise and Underdeliver - Marketers are busy and often overzealous when pressed for time and resources to recruit influencers for a project. Value exchange scenarios emerge where the influencer is asked to X and the brand will do Y in exchange. Then surprises start to happen, like being asked to do this one extra thing. Or two. Or three. When a big exposure opportunity implied in the recruiting effort falls through (it was actually speculative), gets switched for another thing the influencers don't want or requires the influencers to sell their soul to the brand with some kind of endorsement to participate - all contribute to the experience the brand is creating for the influencer. When expectations are not met either by the brand or the influencer, nobody wins. Such disconnects are avoidable with effective influencer program management. 4. Transactional Engagement - Efficiency is an expectation now more than ever in marketing departments and at the same time, influencer engagement is a relationship focused practice. When marketers treat influencer interactions like sales transactions or as impersonal exchanges, it may create conveniences for the marketer, but it's nothing special or worth repeating for the influencer. The classic transactional engagement example is when the marketer invites the influencer to contribute to a project of relevance and then sends a link to a form with 10 more questions than implied in the invite. Once the form is complete, there is no thank you, no acknowledgement and no follow up until the content is published and the marketer sends an email with the exact same 5 social share message suggestions that were sent to the other 49 people who were asked to fill out the form. Yuk. 5. Nowhere to Publish - Less an issue with small or medium sized companies, publishing influencer content on the large b2B brand websites or blogs should already be coordinated and approved before the influencers are recruited and informed where they will see exposure. Nobody wins when a top lineup of experts share their expertise and the brand doesn't have somewhere for that content to live. Also, simply publishing episodic content like a podcast to aggregators and not creating a web page index for the podcast or episodes is a huge missed opportunity. Web pages are hooks in the water for search engines, social shares, industry blogs and media websites. Plus, those web pages also create exposure for the contributing influencers, which is probably why they said yes to the invitation. 6. Fear of Commitment - Relationships take time, effort and investment of resources and can pay incredible dividends over a long period of time. It's definitely a best practice for B2B brands to conduct a pilot influencer project to work out processes and capture initial data for insight into building a program. But make no mistake, it is an ongoing effort towards influencer engagement that builds the kinds of relationships that drive high ROI advocacy from the people your customers trust the most. Fear of committing to some kind of ongoing effort to nurture influencers as part of a strategy to drive brand conversations, grow brand influence, reach new customers and inspire more business has a cost that shows no ROI. 7. Management by Spreadsheet - Like any marketing program, there are many elements to manage in an influencer program from the marketing plan, campaign, assets and measurement to the management, engagement and measurement of influencers. Doing all of that by spreadsheet can work for a pilot but for any B2B company to scale it's influencer marketing efforts, investment in technology like an influencer marketing platform will be worthwhile. An influencer marketing platform should enable marketers to find, manage and measure influencer relationships (at a minimum). 8. Promotion Black Hole - Imagine an exciting new project where everything comes together: the influencers, the brand executives and SMEs and the content is impressive. Then the content publishes and... nothing.  Sometimes brands overestimate the value of publishing on their own properties including social channels. Promotion of influencer content is a bit part of why influencers agree to contribute to a brand's influencer marketing program. Of course the influencer will promote to their own channels and the brand will benefit from that. But if the content the influencer contributed to is not promoted on brand channels, it deflates the influencers motivation and that's a lost opportunity for the brand. 9. One Night Stands - Engaging and activating influencers comes in many forms and some marketers miss the boat entirely on the relationship aspect of co-creating with influencers in search of quickie content capture and social shares. That quickie for a listicle might be satisfying for the marketer as efficient content creation, but it does very little to create a real relationship with trusted experts making product and service recommendations to their loyal audiences.

Engaging influencers only when you need them shows them you only care about yourself. That's not how successful relationships are built.

It's perfectly fine to engage in small or individual projects with influencers. Just don't make that the only thing. Ongoing, or "always on" influencer engagement is practical, manageable and it creates a mutual will scenario for the brand, its customers and the influencers. 10. Goals to Measurement FUBAR - Influencer Marketing is still relatively new to B2B and many marketers add-on influencer contributions to existing content marketing programs than implement dedicated influencer programs on their own. Ambiguity about goals for the influencer part of a content marketing program leads to lack of defined metrics and performance measurement. It could happen that a B2B brand adds a few high profile influencers to a demand gen project that achieves millions of social impressions. But it turns out, very few people shared their email for the download. If the project had goals of name capture, a specific type of influencer that more middle-funnel appropriate should be engaged and provided with UTM encoded URLs for influencer level tracking. When goals to measurement are not clear with influencers that are part of a content project or a dedicated influencer marketing program, measuring and reporting success is basically guesswork. For even more laughs about the ways B2B marketers are sidetracking the results of their influencer marketing efforts, check out this timeless list of 50 ways to fail at influencer engagement. There's nothing funny about failing but it's a lot of fun to hit and exceed program goals. Be sure to check out these examples of successful influencer marketing for B2B brands, big and small and here are 25 campaign ideas.        

from The SEO Advantages http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/ppB4xw0JQQ4/

[scottmapess]

INSAANE!!! BITCOIN HALVING PUMP NOW!!!? | $100,000 BY SEPTEMBER 2021!!!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In this video today, we will see the third Bitcoin having. This is a very, very bullish event which is going to take the Bitcoin prize way above one hundred thousand dollars, according to this stock to flow ratio model. I’m going to show you exactly what happened after the first having and what happened after the second having and the fact that most likely the exact same thing is going to happen after this, having that we’re going to see today. And also look at this today, Bitcoin created the biggest Bitcoin see me futures gap in Bitcoin history. And will Bitcoin be able to get supported by this key moving average, or is Bitcoin destined to go even lower here in a big having dump? I want to take a look at the different scenarios. I want to show you exactly what I believe is going to happen. And if you think that that sounds interesting, that I think that you should diffuse. Hello and welcome to the Moon. My name is Carl, and I’m here to bring you this cryptic, crazy video. And ever since we saw this bearish divergence, we have seen Bitcoin come down. And this bearish divergence comes from the fact that we have a high in the knee-high behind the price, but a high and then a lower high in the RSI. So a divergence. They are not agreeing with each other. And of course, the question is, will this trend continue to the downside? Because usually these bearish and bullish divergences, they mark the end of a trend. And we have seen a bull trend. Is it plausible that we might be entering into a bear trend here? Well, let’s take a look at some key support here because I want to bring out the V.P. R.. That’s what I want to do first. We can see here, if we zoom out, that Bitcoin did run into some resistance up here to ten thousand dollars. And currently, Bitcoin is running into a big chunk of support here in the V.P. The R and this support area are between eight point nine K down to forty-eight point six K approximately. So Bitcoin is literally exactly testing the support currently. And we can see that if Bitcoin were to break the support area, then there is a big hole here where there is no or less volume traded. And the next major chunk of the volume is down here starting at approximately seven point three thousand. So Bitcoin, if we fail to find support here, I think that we might see Bitcoin come down all the way down to seven points three. And that would be another, let’s see, another 17 percent from where we are currently. Another level I want to take a look at is the on the daily timeframe. I want to show you the daily moving averages because Bitcoin is currently trying to get supported by this purple line, which is the 20 daily. And let me first just take away all of the other lines, because they are not relevant to what I’m saying now. We can see in a bull trend, usually, this is moving average hold support. And usually, in a bear trend, this moving average provides resistance. And we did see support right here. The question is, will Bitcoin get supported by it right now? I think Bitcoin has a great chance of getting supporters here. There is a lot of demand for Bitcoin currently. I mean, we can see the search volume for the Bitcoin having to go completely parabolic. Now it’s even 500 percent higher than back at the peak of the previous having. So there’s a lot of people looking at Bitcoin currently, and that is a key factor here. But let’s also go out to the weekly timeframe, because the most important moving average is the 20-week moving average. That’s my opinion. I think that if I were to get a gun to my head and I had to choose one moving average, one EMEA or an indicator overall on Bitcoin, I would choose the 20-week moving average. You can see how perfectly it provides support in a bull run like this. And it also perfectly provides resistance in a bear trend. Right? Rattier When we broke it to the upside. So a huge bull run when we broke it there, we did see a bear trend. And when we broke it here, we saw a bull run and we broke it here. We saw a big plunge. We can see that this clearly holds a lot of significance now. Well, this is currently sitting down at approximately seven point nine thousand or eight thousand dollars. So a retracement all the way down to 8000 would still be considered very healthy and still in a bull run. And actually, Bitcoin already came down to eight points one and this big dump we saw. But I would say that as long as Bitcoin is a holding above eight thousand dollars, Bitcoin is still in a bull trend in the short term here. And Bitcoin is still looking healthy for the having it leading into the next few months. But if we do see Bitcoin break down below the 20, just like we saw there and just like we saw there and just as we saw there, well, then we can see that usually, this leads to very, very bearish price action. So let’s keep a close eye on the eight thousand dollar level. But, guys, there is one very bullish sign in the charts right now, and this can be fine on the sea meet futures chart because Bitcoin just created the biggest Bitcoin seems futures gap in Bitcoin history. You can see that we have seen big gaps before and all of these gaps on the daily timeframe. They always, always fill sooner rather than later. It’s just very obvious that these gaps hold a lot of significance. And many people ask me, what about these gaps? Why are they getting filled? Well, no one knows exactly why this works so well as it does. But the theory goes that gaps they tend to get filled sooner rather than later. And yeah. And essentially now we can see that this gap is all the way up here at ten thousand dollars. And this means that from where Bitcoin is currently to close the gap before it has to go up all the way here to approximately 15 percent. And this is a bullish sign because, as I said, they tend to feel sooner rather than later. And of course, there is nothing stopping Bitcoin from going a little bit lower before coming up and filling the gap. But there is some kind of magnetism to these gaps and price action tends to get pulled towards these caps. And by the way, guys, thank you so much for liking my video yesterday. I appreciate all of your engagement and the fact that so many of you actually really enjoy watching these videos. And if you are an experienced trader and if you’re looking for an alternative to bit makes, then I recommend BYB it and Fee makes. Both of these exchanges are very, very good. And you can get these bonuses here if you use mine link in the description here. But a big disclaimer, this is only for experienced traders. And also these are affiliate links, which means that I receive commissions whenever someone clicks on my links. And guys, do you remember when I said that Peter Schiff has been very quiet lately when Bitcoin is going up? Well, as soon as Bitcoin had a big fifteen percent dump, Peter Schiff came out and said so bearish stuff about Bitcoin. I’m not even gonna bother reading these tweets, but it is funny here. And I said to him that you only tweet about Bitcoin when it’s going down. That’s very, very convenient, of course. But he’s not the only one. Even Nouriel Roubini came out as Bitcoin dumped. And just a few minutes later tweeted bearish things about Bitcoin, calling it a scam. It will be so interesting to see what these people will be tweeting about when Bitcoin goes above twenty thousand dollars. It will be very hard to call it a scam at that point. And it will be very hard to be bearish on Bitcoin, especially because of the fact that we’re going to see a massive financial crisis and we’re going to see most assets deflate and go down and Bitcoin will go up and there will be very, very few arguments that have any kind of solidity at that point. And actually, assure, they can call Bitcoin a scam. But the fact is that Bitcoin has been profitable for most of the time. And basically this is the base comprised. And whenever this line is green, that means that Bitcoin is at a profit. And essentially, this just takes the current price. And of course, everyone who bought above this price is in red. They are at a loss, but very, very few people comparably bought at these high numbers. And personally, I think that all of these people that were in red are probably the weekends and they probably got shaken out in this big dump. We got down to three-point eight K. That’s my opinion. I think that now the weekends they have left this game. We are now ready for a huge Bitcoin bull run leading into twenty, twenty-one. So let’s talk about the big having pumped that everyone is expecting. First of all, having recorded this is coming up in 12 hours or eighty-two blocks. This is very, very, very exciting, guys. And this is the most accurate measurement, of course, the blocks. If you go to this website here, Bitcoin senses dot com having count on. You can follow this in real-time when there’s no here blocks until having reaches zero. At that point, we will have the bitcoin having officially everything else here is just an estimate, but it’s approximately 12 hours from now. And also, we can see here that the current block generation time is a little bit faster, which means that maybe the bitcoin having will happen sooner than people are expecting. Most people are looking at this metric. That’s 12 hours. All of the other big Bitcoin have encountered. They only have this measurement based on the average block generation time. But you have to look at the fact that block generation time goes up and down and currently blocks are getting added much faster. And this means that we might get this having a little bit sooner than people expected or no. And here we have the famous stock or ratio model. Currently, Bitcoin is perfectly aligning with this sort of cell ratio model. We can see how this purple line behind here, that’s the start to flow ratio. And yeah, Bitcoin has been following this perfectly for the past 11 years and is still on track. If Bitcoin were to come down all the way out to maybe, say, three thousand, two thousand, one thousand, then this would mean that Bitcoin is not sticking to the model. But currently, we’re perfectly on par. And if Bitcoin were to do the exact same as Bitcoin did after the first having and after the second having, basically coming up and meeting the next ratio, then Bitcoin has to come up all the. Up here, and this would mean that Bitcoin has to go up all the way to approximately one hundred thousand dollars per Bitcoin. But the interesting part is that you can see that here we have to stop the flow. But Bitcoin comes way, way above makes a huge overshoot. Also here, a big overshoot way above the ratio, which is all the way down here, this purple line. And if the beta is going to do the same. Well, that’s most likely right. And this means that Bitcoins probably going to go way higher than one hundred thousand. And the author and the creator of this is Dr Phil Rasiah model. He says that Bitcoin will go to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars within the next two years. And he says that that’s just the average. He says that it can go much higher than that, probably 400000. And here we can see on trading you’ve plotted the previous Bitcoin heavies here. This was they had back in 2012. And from the having Bitcoin went up. Look at this. Nine thousand percent in just fifty-five weeks. And this other having we saw in 2016, the second having Bitcoin went up approximately 3000 percent in sixty-six weeks. Well, let’s say Bitcoin goes up only a thousand percent in 70 weeks. Just to be a little bit conservative here. This would mean that Bitcoin would go to one hundred thousand dollars in September 2021. Now, that’s just a very, very rough estimate. And there’s no way we can predict the future price. There is. That’s not possible. But just look at the trend. All traders know that the trend is your friend. And this trend is clearly going to the upside. And I really believe that Bitcoin is going to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next couple of years and millions of dollars in the next decades. And by the way, here’s a side note. Here is the actual code that gives us the Bitcoin having. But I think it’s very, very cool to just take a quick look at the actual code that gives us the having. And here you have the block reward. The subsidize is cut in half. Every two hundred and ten thousand blocks, which will occur approximately every four years. And yeah, so a big shout out to Satoshi Nakamoto for creating this beautiful creation, this new monetary revolution. And yeah, so I believe the bitcoin will go to millions of dollars. And the opposite is true for the U.S. dollar. This statistic shows us that it’s not very smart to hold all U.S. dollars the value of one hundred dollars if you’re huddled since 1913. Well, you can see that you lost basically all of your value. It would be worth approximately four dollars. Now, this begs the question, if you hold one hundred dollars today, how much will that be worth in two decades? Well, maybe ten dollars. Who knows? Maybe even if it’s 50 dollars, that’s still in the wrong direction. Of course, you want your savings to grow over time. And if you are holding U.S. dollars as your savings, then you’re doing it wrong. And especially now that we’re seeing massive amounts of quantitative easing and money printing from governments. This is not the time to be holding Fiat. I would only hold Fiat enough so so that I can stay liquid during the crash and during daily living. But I would never hold more field in a bank than I personally can afford to lose because you never know when the bank is just gonna shut down, close you out and tell you that you cannot access your currency. That would be a problem. This cannot happen with Bitcoin. And speaking of printing massive amounts of money, this is a ridiculous article from CNBC. Don’t fight the Fed. Join them with this ETF. The central bank could be buying. So the backstory here is that the Fed has been starting to buy stuff that they’ve never been buying before with newly created currency, and now they will be starting to buy ETF. And well, the ridiculous part here is that people are starting to realize that a good way to make money now is just to try to buy whatever the Fed will buy later. But you want to buy it before the Fed comes in because when the Fed comes in with their money printers, they can just print unlimited currency and buy these things. So it creates this weird moral hazard where people are buying things, not because of the fundamental value, but because they believe that the Fed will throw a bunch of currency at these assets. And it’s just a very, very weird environment. And of course, this is a great argument for Bitcoin. And honestly, the environment we’re seeing today is just a perfect setup for a massive Bitcoin bull run when people realize the flaws of the current monetary system and the. Floors of the banking system, I believe that soon people will be demanding an alternative. And it is my belief, my honest belief that people will eventually wake up to the power of Bitcoin, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, the fact that it is digital. We can never go about 21 million bitcoins. These things are just so powerful and so few people know about this. Most people have a very, very vague understanding of what Bitcoin is. But as soon as Bitcoin Brixham of twenty thousand dollars, I believe that’s the point where the mainstream will start to flood in. More people will research Bitcoin. And that’s where we’re going to see the biggest bull run in bacon history to date. Please go down and leave it. Thumbs up if you agree with what I just said. And if you haven’t seen my Bible tutorial, then you can click right there right now and I will see you guys tomorrow.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/05/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now-100000.html

[jeffrmayhugh]

INSAANE!!! BITCOIN HALVING PUMP NOW!!!? | $100,000 BY SEPTEMBER 2021!!!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In this video today, we will see the third Bitcoin having. This is a very, very bullish event which is going to take the Bitcoin prize way above one hundred thousand dollars, according to this stock to flow ratio model. I’m going to show you exactly what happened after the first having and what happened after the second having and the fact that most likely the exact same thing is going to happen after this, having that we’re going to see today. And also look at this today, Bitcoin created the biggest Bitcoin see me futures gap in Bitcoin history. And will Bitcoin be able to get supported by this key moving average, or is Bitcoin destined to go even lower here in a big having dump? I want to take a look at the different scenarios. I want to show you exactly what I believe is going to happen. And if you think that that sounds interesting, that I think that you should diffuse. Hello and welcome to the Moon. My name is Carl, and I’m here to bring you this cryptic, crazy video. And ever since we saw this bearish divergence, we have seen Bitcoin come down. And this bearish divergence comes from the fact that we have a high in the knee-high behind the price, but a high and then a lower high in the RSI. So a divergence. They are not agreeing with each other. And of course, the question is, will this trend continue to the downside? Because usually these bearish and bullish divergences, they mark the end of a trend. And we have seen a bull trend. Is it plausible that we might be entering into a bear trend here? Well, let’s take a look at some key support here because I want to bring out the V.P. R.. That’s what I want to do first. We can see here, if we zoom out, that Bitcoin did run into some resistance up here to ten thousand dollars. And currently, Bitcoin is running into a big chunk of support here in the V.P. The R and this support area are between eight point nine K down to forty-eight point six K approximately. So Bitcoin is literally exactly testing the support currently. And we can see that if Bitcoin were to break the support area, then there is a big hole here where there is no or less volume traded. And the next major chunk of the volume is down here starting at approximately seven point three thousand. So Bitcoin, if we fail to find support here, I think that we might see Bitcoin come down all the way down to seven points three. And that would be another, let’s see, another 17 percent from where we are currently. Another level I want to take a look at is the on the daily timeframe. I want to show you the daily moving averages because Bitcoin is currently trying to get supported by this purple line, which is the 20 daily. And let me first just take away all of the other lines, because they are not relevant to what I’m saying now. We can see in a bull trend, usually, this is moving average hold support. And usually, in a bear trend, this moving average provides resistance. And we did see support right here. The question is, will Bitcoin get supported by it right now? I think Bitcoin has a great chance of getting supporters here. There is a lot of demand for Bitcoin currently. I mean, we can see the search volume for the Bitcoin having to go completely parabolic. Now it’s even 500 percent higher than back at the peak of the previous having. So there’s a lot of people looking at Bitcoin currently, and that is a key factor here. But let’s also go out to the weekly timeframe, because the most important moving average is the 20-week moving average. That’s my opinion. I think that if I were to get a gun to my head and I had to choose one moving average, one EMEA or an indicator overall on Bitcoin, I would choose the 20-week moving average. You can see how perfectly it provides support in a bull run like this. And it also perfectly provides resistance in a bear trend. Right? Rattier When we broke it to the upside. So a huge bull run when we broke it there, we did see a bear trend. And when we broke it here, we saw a bull run and we broke it here. We saw a big plunge. We can see that this clearly holds a lot of significance now. Well, this is currently sitting down at approximately seven point nine thousand or eight thousand dollars. So a retracement all the way down to 8000 would still be considered very healthy and still in a bull run. And actually, Bitcoin already came down to eight points one and this big dump we saw. But I would say that as long as Bitcoin is a holding above eight thousand dollars, Bitcoin is still in a bull trend in the short term here. And Bitcoin is still looking healthy for the having it leading into the next few months. But if we do see Bitcoin break down below the 20, just like we saw there and just like we saw there and just as we saw there, well, then we can see that usually, this leads to very, very bearish price action. So let’s keep a close eye on the eight thousand dollar level. But, guys, there is one very bullish sign in the charts right now, and this can be fine on the sea meet futures chart because Bitcoin just created the biggest Bitcoin seems futures gap in Bitcoin history. You can see that we have seen big gaps before and all of these gaps on the daily timeframe. They always, always fill sooner rather than later. It’s just very obvious that these gaps hold a lot of significance. And many people ask me, what about these gaps? Why are they getting filled? Well, no one knows exactly why this works so well as it does. But the theory goes that gaps they tend to get filled sooner rather than later. And yeah. And essentially now we can see that this gap is all the way up here at ten thousand dollars. And this means that from where Bitcoin is currently to close the gap before it has to go up all the way here to approximately 15 percent. And this is a bullish sign because, as I said, they tend to feel sooner rather than later. And of course, there is nothing stopping Bitcoin from going a little bit lower before coming up and filling the gap. But there is some kind of magnetism to these gaps and price action tends to get pulled towards these caps. And by the way, guys, thank you so much for liking my video yesterday. I appreciate all of your engagement and the fact that so many of you actually really enjoy watching these videos. And if you are an experienced trader and if you’re looking for an alternative to bit makes, then I recommend BYB it and Fee makes. Both of these exchanges are very, very good. And you can get these bonuses here if you use mine link in the description here. But a big disclaimer, this is only for experienced traders. And also these are affiliate links, which means that I receive commissions whenever someone clicks on my links. And guys, do you remember when I said that Peter Schiff has been very quiet lately when Bitcoin is going up? Well, as soon as Bitcoin had a big fifteen percent dump, Peter Schiff came out and said so bearish stuff about Bitcoin. I’m not even gonna bother reading these tweets, but it is funny here. And I said to him that you only tweet about Bitcoin when it’s going down. That’s very, very convenient, of course. But he’s not the only one. Even Nouriel Roubini came out as Bitcoin dumped. And just a few minutes later tweeted bearish things about Bitcoin, calling it a scam. It will be so interesting to see what these people will be tweeting about when Bitcoin goes above twenty thousand dollars. It will be very hard to call it a scam at that point. And it will be very hard to be bearish on Bitcoin, especially because of the fact that we’re going to see a massive financial crisis and we’re going to see most assets deflate and go down and Bitcoin will go up and there will be very, very few arguments that have any kind of solidity at that point. And actually, assure, they can call Bitcoin a scam. But the fact is that Bitcoin has been profitable for most of the time. And basically this is the base comprised. And whenever this line is green, that means that Bitcoin is at a profit. And essentially, this just takes the current price. And of course, everyone who bought above this price is in red. They are at a loss, but very, very few people comparably bought at these high numbers. And personally, I think that all of these people that were in red are probably the weekends and they probably got shaken out in this big dump. We got down to three-point eight K. That’s my opinion. I think that now the weekends they have left this game. We are now ready for a huge Bitcoin bull run leading into twenty, twenty-one. So let’s talk about the big having pumped that everyone is expecting. First of all, having recorded this is coming up in 12 hours or eighty-two blocks. This is very, very, very exciting, guys. And this is the most accurate measurement, of course, the blocks. If you go to this website here, Bitcoin senses dot com having count on. You can follow this in real-time when there’s no here blocks until having reaches zero. At that point, we will have the bitcoin having officially everything else here is just an estimate, but it’s approximately 12 hours from now. And also, we can see here that the current block generation time is a little bit faster, which means that maybe the bitcoin having will happen sooner than people are expecting. Most people are looking at this metric. That’s 12 hours. All of the other big Bitcoin have encountered. They only have this measurement based on the average block generation time. But you have to look at the fact that block generation time goes up and down and currently blocks are getting added much faster. And this means that we might get this having a little bit sooner than people expected or no. And here we have the famous stock or ratio model. Currently, Bitcoin is perfectly aligning with this sort of cell ratio model. We can see how this purple line behind here, that’s the start to flow ratio. And yeah, Bitcoin has been following this perfectly for the past 11 years and is still on track. If Bitcoin were to come down all the way out to maybe, say, three thousand, two thousand, one thousand, then this would mean that Bitcoin is not sticking to the model. But currently, we’re perfectly on par. And if Bitcoin were to do the exact same as Bitcoin did after the first having and after the second having, basically coming up and meeting the next ratio, then Bitcoin has to come up all the. Up here, and this would mean that Bitcoin has to go up all the way to approximately one hundred thousand dollars per Bitcoin. But the interesting part is that you can see that here we have to stop the flow. But Bitcoin comes way, way above makes a huge overshoot. Also here, a big overshoot way above the ratio, which is all the way down here, this purple line. And if the beta is going to do the same. Well, that’s most likely right. And this means that Bitcoins probably going to go way higher than one hundred thousand. And the author and the creator of this is Dr Phil Rasiah model. He says that Bitcoin will go to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars within the next two years. And he says that that’s just the average. He says that it can go much higher than that, probably 400000. And here we can see on trading you’ve plotted the previous Bitcoin heavies here. This was they had back in 2012. And from the having Bitcoin went up. Look at this. Nine thousand percent in just fifty-five weeks. And this other having we saw in 2016, the second having Bitcoin went up approximately 3000 percent in sixty-six weeks. Well, let’s say Bitcoin goes up only a thousand percent in 70 weeks. Just to be a little bit conservative here. This would mean that Bitcoin would go to one hundred thousand dollars in September 2021. Now, that’s just a very, very rough estimate. And there’s no way we can predict the future price. There is. That’s not possible. But just look at the trend. All traders know that the trend is your friend. And this trend is clearly going to the upside. And I really believe that Bitcoin is going to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next couple of years and millions of dollars in the next decades. And by the way, here’s a side note. Here is the actual code that gives us the Bitcoin having. But I think it’s very, very cool to just take a quick look at the actual code that gives us the having. And here you have the block reward. The subsidize is cut in half. Every two hundred and ten thousand blocks, which will occur approximately every four years. And yeah, so a big shout out to Satoshi Nakamoto for creating this beautiful creation, this new monetary revolution. And yeah, so I believe the bitcoin will go to millions of dollars. And the opposite is true for the U.S. dollar. This statistic shows us that it’s not very smart to hold all U.S. dollars the value of one hundred dollars if you’re huddled since 1913. Well, you can see that you lost basically all of your value. It would be worth approximately four dollars. Now, this begs the question, if you hold one hundred dollars today, how much will that be worth in two decades? Well, maybe ten dollars. Who knows? Maybe even if it’s 50 dollars, that’s still in the wrong direction. Of course, you want your savings to grow over time. And if you are holding U.S. dollars as your savings, then you’re doing it wrong. And especially now that we’re seeing massive amounts of quantitative easing and money printing from governments. This is not the time to be holding Fiat. I would only hold Fiat enough so so that I can stay liquid during the crash and during daily living. But I would never hold more field in a bank than I personally can afford to lose because you never know when the bank is just gonna shut down, close you out and tell you that you cannot access your currency. That would be a problem. This cannot happen with Bitcoin. And speaking of printing massive amounts of money, this is a ridiculous article from CNBC. Don’t fight the Fed. Join them with this ETF. The central bank could be buying. So the backstory here is that the Fed has been starting to buy stuff that they’ve never been buying before with newly created currency, and now they will be starting to buy ETF. And well, the ridiculous part here is that people are starting to realize that a good way to make money now is just to try to buy whatever the Fed will buy later. But you want to buy it before the Fed comes in because when the Fed comes in with their money printers, they can just print unlimited currency and buy these things. So it creates this weird moral hazard where people are buying things, not because of the fundamental value, but because they believe that the Fed will throw a bunch of currency at these assets. And it’s just a very, very weird environment. And of course, this is a great argument for Bitcoin. And honestly, the environment we’re seeing today is just a perfect setup for a massive Bitcoin bull run when people realize the flaws of the current monetary system and the. Floors of the banking system, I believe that soon people will be demanding an alternative. And it is my belief, my honest belief that people will eventually wake up to the power of Bitcoin, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, the fact that it is digital. We can never go about 21 million bitcoins. These things are just so powerful and so few people know about this. Most people have a very, very vague understanding of what Bitcoin is. But as soon as Bitcoin Brixham of twenty thousand dollars, I believe that’s the point where the mainstream will start to flood in. More people will research Bitcoin. And that’s where we’re going to see the biggest bull run in bacon history to date. Please go down and leave it. Thumbs up if you agree with what I just said. And if you haven’t seen my Bible tutorial, then you can click right there right now and I will see you guys tomorrow.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now/ source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/618051235398959104

[heatherrdavis1]

INSAANE!!! BITCOIN HALVING PUMP NOW!!!? | $100000 BY SEPTEMBER 2021!!!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In this video today, we will see the third Bitcoin having. This is a very, very bullish event which is going to take the Bitcoin prize way above one hundred thousand dollars, according to this stock to flow ratio model. I’m going to show you exactly what happened after the first having and what happened after the second having and the fact that most likely the exact same thing is going to happen after this, having that we’re going to see today. And also look at this today, Bitcoin created the biggest Bitcoin see me futures gap in Bitcoin history. And will Bitcoin be able to get supported by this key moving average, or is Bitcoin destined to go even lower here in a big having dump? I want to take a look at the different scenarios. I want to show you exactly what I believe is going to happen. And if you think that that sounds interesting, that I think that you should diffuse. Hello and welcome to the Moon. My name is Carl, and I’m here to bring you this cryptic, crazy video. And ever since we saw this bearish divergence, we have seen Bitcoin come down. And this bearish divergence comes from the fact that we have a high in the knee-high behind the price, but a high and then a lower high in the RSI. So a divergence. They are not agreeing with each other. And of course, the question is, will this trend continue to the downside? Because usually these bearish and bullish divergences, they mark the end of a trend. And we have seen a bull trend. Is it plausible that we might be entering into a bear trend here? Well, let’s take a look at some key support here because I want to bring out the V.P. R.. That’s what I want to do first. We can see here, if we zoom out, that Bitcoin did run into some resistance up here to ten thousand dollars. And currently, Bitcoin is running into a big chunk of support here in the V.P. The R and this support area are between eight point nine K down to forty-eight point six K approximately. So Bitcoin is literally exactly testing the support currently. And we can see that if Bitcoin were to break the support area, then there is a big hole here where there is no or less volume traded. And the next major chunk of the volume is down here starting at approximately seven point three thousand. So Bitcoin, if we fail to find support here, I think that we might see Bitcoin come down all the way down to seven points three. And that would be another, let’s see, another 17 percent from where we are currently. Another level I want to take a look at is the on the daily timeframe. I want to show you the daily moving averages because Bitcoin is currently trying to get supported by this purple line, which is the 20 daily. And let me first just take away all of the other lines, because they are not relevant to what I’m saying now. We can see in a bull trend, usually, this is moving average hold support. And usually, in a bear trend, this moving average provides resistance. And we did see support right here. The question is, will Bitcoin get supported by it right now? I think Bitcoin has a great chance of getting supporters here. There is a lot of demand for Bitcoin currently. I mean, we can see the search volume for the Bitcoin having to go completely parabolic. Now it’s even 500 percent higher than back at the peak of the previous having. So there’s a lot of people looking at Bitcoin currently, and that is a key factor here. But let’s also go out to the weekly timeframe, because the most important moving average is the 20-week moving average. That’s my opinion. I think that if I were to get a gun to my head and I had to choose one moving average, one EMEA or an indicator overall on Bitcoin, I would choose the 20-week moving average. You can see how perfectly it provides support in a bull run like this. And it also perfectly provides resistance in a bear trend. Right? Rattier When we broke it to the upside. So a huge bull run when we broke it there, we did see a bear trend. And when we broke it here, we saw a bull run and we broke it here. We saw a big plunge. We can see that this clearly holds a lot of significance now. Well, this is currently sitting down at approximately seven point nine thousand or eight thousand dollars. So a retracement all the way down to 8000 would still be considered very healthy and still in a bull run. And actually, Bitcoin already came down to eight points one and this big dump we saw. But I would say that as long as Bitcoin is a holding above eight thousand dollars, Bitcoin is still in a bull trend in the short term here. And Bitcoin is still looking healthy for the having it leading into the next few months. But if we do see Bitcoin break down below the 20, just like we saw there and just like we saw there and just as we saw there, well, then we can see that usually, this leads to very, very bearish price action. So let’s keep a close eye on the eight thousand dollar level. But, guys, there is one very bullish sign in the charts right now, and this can be fine on the sea meet futures chart because Bitcoin just created the biggest Bitcoin seems futures gap in Bitcoin history. You can see that we have seen big gaps before and all of these gaps on the daily timeframe. They always, always fill sooner rather than later. It’s just very obvious that these gaps hold a lot of significance. And many people ask me, what about these gaps? Why are they getting filled? Well, no one knows exactly why this works so well as it does. But the theory goes that gaps they tend to get filled sooner rather than later. And yeah. And essentially now we can see that this gap is all the way up here at ten thousand dollars. And this means that from where Bitcoin is currently to close the gap before it has to go up all the way here to approximately 15 percent. And this is a bullish sign because, as I said, they tend to feel sooner rather than later. And of course, there is nothing stopping Bitcoin from going a little bit lower before coming up and filling the gap. But there is some kind of magnetism to these gaps and price action tends to get pulled towards these caps. And by the way, guys, thank you so much for liking my video yesterday. I appreciate all of your engagement and the fact that so many of you actually really enjoy watching these videos. And if you are an experienced trader and if you’re looking for an alternative to bit makes, then I recommend BYB it and Fee makes. Both of these exchanges are very, very good. And you can get these bonuses here if you use mine link in the description here. But a big disclaimer, this is only for experienced traders. And also these are affiliate links, which means that I receive commissions whenever someone clicks on my links. And guys, do you remember when I said that Peter Schiff has been very quiet lately when Bitcoin is going up? Well, as soon as Bitcoin had a big fifteen percent dump, Peter Schiff came out and said so bearish stuff about Bitcoin. I’m not even gonna bother reading these tweets, but it is funny here. And I said to him that you only tweet about Bitcoin when it’s going down. That’s very, very convenient, of course. But he’s not the only one. Even Nouriel Roubini came out as Bitcoin dumped. And just a few minutes later tweeted bearish things about Bitcoin, calling it a scam. It will be so interesting to see what these people will be tweeting about when Bitcoin goes above twenty thousand dollars. It will be very hard to call it a scam at that point. And it will be very hard to be bearish on Bitcoin, especially because of the fact that we’re going to see a massive financial crisis and we’re going to see most assets deflate and go down and Bitcoin will go up and there will be very, very few arguments that have any kind of solidity at that point. And actually, assure, they can call Bitcoin a scam. But the fact is that Bitcoin has been profitable for most of the time. And basically this is the base comprised. And whenever this line is green, that means that Bitcoin is at a profit. And essentially, this just takes the current price. And of course, everyone who bought above this price is in red. They are at a loss, but very, very few people comparably bought at these high numbers. And personally, I think that all of these people that were in red are probably the weekends and they probably got shaken out in this big dump. We got down to three-point eight K. That’s my opinion. I think that now the weekends they have left this game. We are now ready for a huge Bitcoin bull run leading into twenty, twenty-one. So let’s talk about the big having pumped that everyone is expecting. First of all, having recorded this is coming up in 12 hours or eighty-two blocks. This is very, very, very exciting, guys. And this is the most accurate measurement, of course, the blocks. If you go to this website here, Bitcoin senses dot com having count on. You can follow this in real-time when there’s no here blocks until having reaches zero. At that point, we will have the bitcoin having officially everything else here is just an estimate, but it’s approximately 12 hours from now. And also, we can see here that the current block generation time is a little bit faster, which means that maybe the bitcoin having will happen sooner than people are expecting. Most people are looking at this metric. That’s 12 hours. All of the other big Bitcoin have encountered. They only have this measurement based on the average block generation time. But you have to look at the fact that block generation time goes up and down and currently blocks are getting added much faster. And this means that we might get this having a little bit sooner than people expected or no. And here we have the famous stock or ratio model. Currently, Bitcoin is perfectly aligning with this sort of cell ratio model. We can see how this purple line behind here, that’s the start to flow ratio. And yeah, Bitcoin has been following this perfectly for the past 11 years and is still on track. If Bitcoin were to come down all the way out to maybe, say, three thousand, two thousand, one thousand, then this would mean that Bitcoin is not sticking to the model. But currently, we’re perfectly on par. And if Bitcoin were to do the exact same as Bitcoin did after the first having and after the second having, basically coming up and meeting the next ratio, then Bitcoin has to come up all the. Up here, and this would mean that Bitcoin has to go up all the way to approximately one hundred thousand dollars per Bitcoin. But the interesting part is that you can see that here we have to stop the flow. But Bitcoin comes way, way above makes a huge overshoot. Also here, a big overshoot way above the ratio, which is all the way down here, this purple line. And if the beta is going to do the same. Well, that’s most likely right. And this means that Bitcoins probably going to go way higher than one hundred thousand. And the author and the creator of this is Dr Phil Rasiah model. He says that Bitcoin will go to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars within the next two years. And he says that that’s just the average. He says that it can go much higher than that, probably 400000. And here we can see on trading you’ve plotted the previous Bitcoin heavies here. This was they had back in 2012. And from the having Bitcoin went up. Look at this. Nine thousand percent in just fifty-five weeks. And this other having we saw in 2016, the second having Bitcoin went up approximately 3000 percent in sixty-six weeks. Well, let’s say Bitcoin goes up only a thousand percent in 70 weeks. Just to be a little bit conservative here. This would mean that Bitcoin would go to one hundred thousand dollars in September 2021. Now, that’s just a very, very rough estimate. And there’s no way we can predict the future price. There is. That’s not possible. But just look at the trend. All traders know that the trend is your friend. And this trend is clearly going to the upside. And I really believe that Bitcoin is going to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next couple of years and millions of dollars in the next decades. And by the way, here’s a side note. Here is the actual code that gives us the Bitcoin having. But I think it’s very, very cool to just take a quick look at the actual code that gives us the having. And here you have the block reward. The subsidize is cut in half. Every two hundred and ten thousand blocks, which will occur approximately every four years. And yeah, so a big shout out to Satoshi Nakamoto for creating this beautiful creation, this new monetary revolution. And yeah, so I believe the bitcoin will go to millions of dollars. And the opposite is true for the U.S. dollar. This statistic shows us that it’s not very smart to hold all U.S. dollars the value of one hundred dollars if you’re huddled since 1913. Well, you can see that you lost basically all of your value. It would be worth approximately four dollars. Now, this begs the question, if you hold one hundred dollars today, how much will that be worth in two decades? Well, maybe ten dollars. Who knows? Maybe even if it’s 50 dollars, that’s still in the wrong direction. Of course, you want your savings to grow over time. And if you are holding U.S. dollars as your savings, then you’re doing it wrong. And especially now that we’re seeing massive amounts of quantitative easing and money printing from governments. This is not the time to be holding Fiat. I would only hold Fiat enough so so that I can stay liquid during the crash and during daily living. But I would never hold more field in a bank than I personally can afford to lose because you never know when the bank is just gonna shut down, close you out and tell you that you cannot access your currency. That would be a problem. This cannot happen with Bitcoin. And speaking of printing massive amounts of money, this is a ridiculous article from CNBC. Don’t fight the Fed. Join them with this ETF. The central bank could be buying. So the backstory here is that the Fed has been starting to buy stuff that they’ve never been buying before with newly created currency, and now they will be starting to buy ETF. And well, the ridiculous part here is that people are starting to realize that a good way to make money now is just to try to buy whatever the Fed will buy later. But you want to buy it before the Fed comes in because when the Fed comes in with their money printers, they can just print unlimited currency and buy these things. So it creates this weird moral hazard where people are buying things, not because of the fundamental value, but because they believe that the Fed will throw a bunch of currency at these assets. And it’s just a very, very weird environment. And of course, this is a great argument for Bitcoin. And honestly, the environment we’re seeing today is just a perfect setup for a massive Bitcoin bull run when people realize the flaws of the current monetary system and the. Floors of the banking system, I believe that soon people will be demanding an alternative. And it is my belief, my honest belief that people will eventually wake up to the power of Bitcoin, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, the fact that it is digital. We can never go about 21 million bitcoins. These things are just so powerful and so few people know about this. Most people have a very, very vague understanding of what Bitcoin is. But as soon as Bitcoin Brixham of twenty thousand dollars, I believe that’s the point where the mainstream will start to flood in. More people will research Bitcoin. And that’s where we’re going to see the biggest bull run in bacon history to date. Please go down and leave it. Thumbs up if you agree with what I just said. And if you haven’t seen my Bible tutorial, then you can click right there right now and I will see you guys tomorrow.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now/

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now-100000-by-september-2021

[cryptosharks1]

INSAANE!!! BITCOIN HALVING PUMP NOW!!!? | $100,000 BY SEPTEMBER 2021!!!!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In this video today, we will see the third Bitcoin having. This is a very, very bullish event which is going to take the Bitcoin prize way above one hundred thousand dollars, according to this stock to flow ratio model. I’m going to show you exactly what happened after the first having and what happened after the second having and the fact that most likely the exact same thing is going to happen after this, having that we’re going to see today. And also look at this today, Bitcoin created the biggest Bitcoin see me futures gap in Bitcoin history. And will Bitcoin be able to get supported by this key moving average, or is Bitcoin destined to go even lower here in a big having dump? I want to take a look at the different scenarios. I want to show you exactly what I believe is going to happen. And if you think that that sounds interesting, that I think that you should diffuse. Hello and welcome to the Moon. My name is Carl, and I’m here to bring you this cryptic, crazy video. And ever since we saw this bearish divergence, we have seen Bitcoin come down. And this bearish divergence comes from the fact that we have a high in the knee-high behind the price, but a high and then a lower high in the RSI. So a divergence. They are not agreeing with each other. And of course, the question is, will this trend continue to the downside? Because usually these bearish and bullish divergences, they mark the end of a trend. And we have seen a bull trend. Is it plausible that we might be entering into a bear trend here? Well, let’s take a look at some key support here because I want to bring out the V.P. R.. That’s what I want to do first. We can see here, if we zoom out, that Bitcoin did run into some resistance up here to ten thousand dollars. And currently, Bitcoin is running into a big chunk of support here in the V.P. The R and this support area are between eight point nine K down to forty-eight point six K approximately. So Bitcoin is literally exactly testing the support currently. And we can see that if Bitcoin were to break the support area, then there is a big hole here where there is no or less volume traded. And the next major chunk of the volume is down here starting at approximately seven point three thousand. So Bitcoin, if we fail to find support here, I think that we might see Bitcoin come down all the way down to seven points three. And that would be another, let’s see, another 17 percent from where we are currently. Another level I want to take a look at is the on the daily timeframe. I want to show you the daily moving averages because Bitcoin is currently trying to get supported by this purple line, which is the 20 daily. And let me first just take away all of the other lines, because they are not relevant to what I’m saying now. We can see in a bull trend, usually, this is moving average hold support. And usually, in a bear trend, this moving average provides resistance. And we did see support right here. The question is, will Bitcoin get supported by it right now? I think Bitcoin has a great chance of getting supporters here. There is a lot of demand for Bitcoin currently. I mean, we can see the search volume for the Bitcoin having to go completely parabolic. Now it’s even 500 percent higher than back at the peak of the previous having. So there’s a lot of people looking at Bitcoin currently, and that is a key factor here. But let’s also go out to the weekly timeframe, because the most important moving average is the 20-week moving average. That’s my opinion. I think that if I were to get a gun to my head and I had to choose one moving average, one EMEA or an indicator overall on Bitcoin, I would choose the 20-week moving average. You can see how perfectly it provides support in a bull run like this. And it also perfectly provides resistance in a bear trend. Right? Rattier When we broke it to the upside. So a huge bull run when we broke it there, we did see a bear trend. And when we broke it here, we saw a bull run and we broke it here. We saw a big plunge. We can see that this clearly holds a lot of significance now. Well, this is currently sitting down at approximately seven point nine thousand or eight thousand dollars. So a retracement all the way down to 8000 would still be considered very healthy and still in a bull run. And actually, Bitcoin already came down to eight points one and this big dump we saw. But I would say that as long as Bitcoin is a holding above eight thousand dollars, Bitcoin is still in a bull trend in the short term here. And Bitcoin is still looking healthy for the having it leading into the next few months. But if we do see Bitcoin break down below the 20, just like we saw there and just like we saw there and just as we saw there, well, then we can see that usually, this leads to very, very bearish price action. So let’s keep a close eye on the eight thousand dollar level. But, guys, there is one very bullish sign in the charts right now, and this can be fine on the sea meet futures chart because Bitcoin just created the biggest Bitcoin seems futures gap in Bitcoin history. You can see that we have seen big gaps before and all of these gaps on the daily timeframe. They always, always fill sooner rather than later. It’s just very obvious that these gaps hold a lot of significance. And many people ask me, what about these gaps? Why are they getting filled? Well, no one knows exactly why this works so well as it does. But the theory goes that gaps they tend to get filled sooner rather than later. And yeah. And essentially now we can see that this gap is all the way up here at ten thousand dollars. And this means that from where Bitcoin is currently to close the gap before it has to go up all the way here to approximately 15 percent. And this is a bullish sign because, as I said, they tend to feel sooner rather than later. And of course, there is nothing stopping Bitcoin from going a little bit lower before coming up and filling the gap. But there is some kind of magnetism to these gaps and price action tends to get pulled towards these caps. And by the way, guys, thank you so much for liking my video yesterday. I appreciate all of your engagement and the fact that so many of you actually really enjoy watching these videos. And if you are an experienced trader and if you’re looking for an alternative to bit makes, then I recommend BYB it and Fee makes. Both of these exchanges are very, very good. And you can get these bonuses here if you use mine link in the description here. But a big disclaimer, this is only for experienced traders. And also these are affiliate links, which means that I receive commissions whenever someone clicks on my links. And guys, do you remember when I said that Peter Schiff has been very quiet lately when Bitcoin is going up? Well, as soon as Bitcoin had a big fifteen percent dump, Peter Schiff came out and said so bearish stuff about Bitcoin. I’m not even gonna bother reading these tweets, but it is funny here. And I said to him that you only tweet about Bitcoin when it’s going down. That’s very, very convenient, of course. But he’s not the only one. Even Nouriel Roubini came out as Bitcoin dumped. And just a few minutes later tweeted bearish things about Bitcoin, calling it a scam. It will be so interesting to see what these people will be tweeting about when Bitcoin goes above twenty thousand dollars. It will be very hard to call it a scam at that point. And it will be very hard to be bearish on Bitcoin, especially because of the fact that we’re going to see a massive financial crisis and we’re going to see most assets deflate and go down and Bitcoin will go up and there will be very, very few arguments that have any kind of solidity at that point. And actually, assure, they can call Bitcoin a scam. But the fact is that Bitcoin has been profitable for most of the time. And basically this is the base comprised. And whenever this line is green, that means that Bitcoin is at a profit. And essentially, this just takes the current price. And of course, everyone who bought above this price is in red. They are at a loss, but very, very few people comparably bought at these high numbers. And personally, I think that all of these people that were in red are probably the weekends and they probably got shaken out in this big dump. We got down to three-point eight K. That’s my opinion. I think that now the weekends they have left this game. We are now ready for a huge Bitcoin bull run leading into twenty, twenty-one. So let’s talk about the big having pumped that everyone is expecting. First of all, having recorded this is coming up in 12 hours or eighty-two blocks. This is very, very, very exciting, guys. And this is the most accurate measurement, of course, the blocks. If you go to this website here, Bitcoin senses dot com having count on. You can follow this in real-time when there’s no here blocks until having reaches zero. At that point, we will have the bitcoin having officially everything else here is just an estimate, but it’s approximately 12 hours from now. And also, we can see here that the current block generation time is a little bit faster, which means that maybe the bitcoin having will happen sooner than people are expecting. Most people are looking at this metric. That’s 12 hours. All of the other big Bitcoin have encountered. They only have this measurement based on the average block generation time. But you have to look at the fact that block generation time goes up and down and currently blocks are getting added much faster. And this means that we might get this having a little bit sooner than people expected or no. And here we have the famous stock or ratio model. Currently, Bitcoin is perfectly aligning with this sort of cell ratio model. We can see how this purple line behind here, that’s the start to flow ratio. And yeah, Bitcoin has been following this perfectly for the past 11 years and is still on track. If Bitcoin were to come down all the way out to maybe, say, three thousand, two thousand, one thousand, then this would mean that Bitcoin is not sticking to the model. But currently, we’re perfectly on par. And if Bitcoin were to do the exact same as Bitcoin did after the first having and after the second having, basically coming up and meeting the next ratio, then Bitcoin has to come up all the. Up here, and this would mean that Bitcoin has to go up all the way to approximately one hundred thousand dollars per Bitcoin. But the interesting part is that you can see that here we have to stop the flow. But Bitcoin comes way, way above makes a huge overshoot. Also here, a big overshoot way above the ratio, which is all the way down here, this purple line. And if the beta is going to do the same. Well, that’s most likely right. And this means that Bitcoins probably going to go way higher than one hundred thousand. And the author and the creator of this is Dr Phil Rasiah model. He says that Bitcoin will go to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars within the next two years. And he says that that’s just the average. He says that it can go much higher than that, probably 400000. And here we can see on trading you’ve plotted the previous Bitcoin heavies here. This was they had back in 2012. And from the having Bitcoin went up. Look at this. Nine thousand percent in just fifty-five weeks. And this other having we saw in 2016, the second having Bitcoin went up approximately 3000 percent in sixty-six weeks. Well, let’s say Bitcoin goes up only a thousand percent in 70 weeks. Just to be a little bit conservative here. This would mean that Bitcoin would go to one hundred thousand dollars in September 2021. Now, that’s just a very, very rough estimate. And there’s no way we can predict the future price. There is. That’s not possible. But just look at the trend. All traders know that the trend is your friend. And this trend is clearly going to the upside. And I really believe that Bitcoin is going to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next couple of years and millions of dollars in the next decades. And by the way, here’s a side note. Here is the actual code that gives us the Bitcoin having. But I think it’s very, very cool to just take a quick look at the actual code that gives us the having. And here you have the block reward. The subsidize is cut in half. Every two hundred and ten thousand blocks, which will occur approximately every four years. And yeah, so a big shout out to Satoshi Nakamoto for creating this beautiful creation, this new monetary revolution. And yeah, so I believe the bitcoin will go to millions of dollars. And the opposite is true for the U.S. dollar. This statistic shows us that it’s not very smart to hold all U.S. dollars the value of one hundred dollars if you’re huddled since 1913. Well, you can see that you lost basically all of your value. It would be worth approximately four dollars. Now, this begs the question, if you hold one hundred dollars today, how much will that be worth in two decades? Well, maybe ten dollars. Who knows? Maybe even if it’s 50 dollars, that’s still in the wrong direction. Of course, you want your savings to grow over time. And if you are holding U.S. dollars as your savings, then you’re doing it wrong. And especially now that we’re seeing massive amounts of quantitative easing and money printing from governments. This is not the time to be holding Fiat. I would only hold Fiat enough so so that I can stay liquid during the crash and during daily living. But I would never hold more field in a bank than I personally can afford to lose because you never know when the bank is just gonna shut down, close you out and tell you that you cannot access your currency. That would be a problem. This cannot happen with Bitcoin. And speaking of printing massive amounts of money, this is a ridiculous article from CNBC. Don’t fight the Fed. Join them with this ETF. The central bank could be buying. So the backstory here is that the Fed has been starting to buy stuff that they’ve never been buying before with newly created currency, and now they will be starting to buy ETF. And well, the ridiculous part here is that people are starting to realize that a good way to make money now is just to try to buy whatever the Fed will buy later. But you want to buy it before the Fed comes in because when the Fed comes in with their money printers, they can just print unlimited currency and buy these things. So it creates this weird moral hazard where people are buying things, not because of the fundamental value, but because they believe that the Fed will throw a bunch of currency at these assets. And it’s just a very, very weird environment. And of course, this is a great argument for Bitcoin. And honestly, the environment we’re seeing today is just a perfect setup for a massive Bitcoin bull run when people realize the flaws of the current monetary system and the. Floors of the banking system, I believe that soon people will be demanding an alternative. And it is my belief, my honest belief that people will eventually wake up to the power of Bitcoin, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, the fact that it is digital. We can never go about 21 million bitcoins. These things are just so powerful and so few people know about this. Most people have a very, very vague understanding of what Bitcoin is. But as soon as Bitcoin Brixham of twenty thousand dollars, I believe that’s the point where the mainstream will start to flood in. More people will research Bitcoin. And that’s where we’re going to see the biggest bull run in bacon history to date. Please go down and leave it. Thumbs up if you agree with what I just said. And if you haven’t seen my Bible tutorial, then you can click right there right now and I will see you guys tomorrow.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/insaane-bitcoin-halving-pump-now/