#also yes i know that disconnected spot in the bottom right totally looks like those edge pieces should fit together but they don't

[kadoodles-on-ao3]

Thought it would be fun to share that for Christmas my bf got me a custom-made Xenoblade-concept-art puzzle and we're working on it together :)

[astralsweetness]

So Kiss Me Goodbye (Hui/Reader) (m)

➣ I wrote this in, like, fifteen minutes the day before his enlistment, so it’s not very good at all lmao

➣ Very very vaguely connected to this drabble, which is connected to this fic. Title from Pentagon’s “Beautiful Goodbye”, Hui’s line specifically: "So kiss me goodbye, if I have to leave I'd rather leave beautiful memories behind".

➣ Hui/Reader | Warnings include: Mentioned alcohol in the beginning, pegging (tho it’s not explicitly said, so it could be seen as a male!reader as well), implied choking, mentioned safewording, mentioned hair-pulling. Talks about his enlistment, sort of angsty but things are okay.

Hui’s leaning on you just a bit too heavily, both of his hands wrapped around one of yours to amuse himself. You knew it would end up like this when the somaek was brought out – he might not have had the highest tolerance, but that didn’t mean he found it difficult to drink something lighter than soju.

“It was a lot of fun.” He’s speaking quietly to you, aware of the taxi driver even while drunk, some idol-life rules ingrained in his being without needing to be sober. That being said, the fact that he was half on top of you proved his memory was very selective. “It’s been a while since we could all get together.”

You’ve heard this before, mostly because he’d said some iteration of this to you about six other times tonight. You know how Hui is going to respond to your response, but you lead him down the same conversation as before anyway. “Didn’t you all get together to do the exact same thing the last time you were set to enlist, Hui?” You’re wary to call him anything else in the presence of a cab driver who may or may not be listening.

“Hyojongie didn’t bring Hyuna-noona last time.” He says it like it’s as simple as that, and you suppose it is. For someone who thrived off of being surrounded by his found family, having an extra person was probably nice. “Wish Jinho-hyung could have come though.”

“You know he doesn’t get many off days.” You’re not totally listening to the conversation considering it was one you’d already had with him more than once, but you can feel his glittering gaze on the side of your face, looking at you like you were everything he ever wanted. It was heavy with alcohol but no less sincere.

You keep your gaze turned away, out the window at the night scenery blurring by, his hands still holding yours as he tucks his face in against your neck, facemask rough against your skin.

.｡..｡.

By the time you get home he is half-asleep, the driver looking at you with pity as Hui leans on you when the two of you get out of the taxi. You’re not sure why that look bothers you, fingers holding Hui’s waist a bit tighter in reflex.

He is asleep the instant he touches your bed, curled up on his side of it with his face buried in your pillow, like even in his dreams he was trying to make up for the fact that you weren’t directly next to him. He’s still wearing the clothes he’d worn out to the get-together, but you don’t even entertain the thought of waking him up to deal with them – it was obvious how tired he was, even without the alcohol’s influence.

You leave a glass of water and an aspirin on the bedside table near him, sliding under your covers moments later – he turns towards you instantly, and you wrap your arms around him out of habit, one hand resting lightly on the back of his neck. That was a habit too.

Kissing him on the forehead wasn’t a habit, and he makes a soft sound at the feeling, nuzzling in against your collarbone.

.｡..｡.

You wake to kisses littering across your cheekbones – before you even open your eyes you can hear him laughing softly, knowing precisely when you awoke. He was just too perceptive when it came to those he loved.

“Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure this isn’t my dorm.”

“Shouldn’t you be hungover..” Your response is less than enthusiastic, even when he cuddles up to you and presses more kisses to your jaw. He wanted something, you just didn’t know what yet.

“I am – and I would be worse if my darling lover hadn’t left medicine by the bed.” He pauses only briefly, during which you crack your eyes open finally to look at him. He does look vaguely hungover, but he also looks beautiful, dark hair falling into his eyes and petal pink lips upturned into a slight grin, face the vaguest bit puffy from the alcohol and extended sleep. Then again, he always looked beautiful to you. “I love you.”

That was a new phrase that had entered your relationship only recently, and something Hui had seemed to cling to when it had been given to him. He said it all the time, as a greeting, as a promise, as a threat, as a goodbye.

But the words felt heavy on your tongue – what was that supposed to mean, when he led the life he did? With your relationship the way it currently was? He’s still waiting for a response with an expression you can only categorize as fond. He never rushed you when it came to this, just smiled and waited, unbothered, like he knew your response even if you didn’t say it.

He deserved the truth though, so you murmur a quiet “I love you too” that wreathes around the two of you like a heavy entity, suffocating but also warm and protective.

“This isn’t your dorm because I wanted to wake up next to you.” That, too, was the truth – the sunset hue of his eyes turns more dawn than dusk at the words, brows pulling together like hearing that was a sweet type of pain. He doesn’t say the I’m sorry I can’t more often that you know is crowding on his tongue. Instead he just presses a soft kiss to your lips before the mischievous look from before re-enters his eyes. He definitely wanted something.

“Since I’m here, what about morning sex?” He says it with no shame, forcing a startled laugh out of you – the room feels lighter somehow, and you reach out to affectionately cup his face, brushing your thumb across his cheek. You can feel the slight imperfections of his skin under your finger, the minute things makeup would always cover, his perfect flaws that you loved.

“Depends.” Your hand caresses his face and slides down until it’s wrapped snugly against the side of his throat, right in the spot it belongs. When he swallows you can feel it under your palm, warm and trusting. “What did you have in mind?”

“Want you to fuck me.” He’s grinning, like he enjoys getting to say something so blatantly naughty sounding after always policing what he says for the camera. “It’s been a really long time since I got fucked last.”

“Really?” You find that hard to believe, considering your Hui had always been sort of a slut (which you called him with all the affection in the world). He laughs in mock offense at your question, so utterly happy just from getting to spend the morning with you, despite his apparent hangover.

“Yes, really! I haven’t even gotten to use my own fingers in a while – do you have any idea how clingy those boys can get when they put their mind to it? Even Hyunggu will follow me around now that the enlistment date was confirmed.” Hui’s whining, trying to make a big deal out of something you know he in actuality loved.

“Then I guess I have some work to do, don’t I?” He scoots back a bit so you can stretch as you sit up, blankets pooling around your waist. It’s only now you notice that at some point in the morning he had shed his belt and pants from the night before. “Someone as pretty and cute as you shouldn’t have to touch themselves, isn’t that right?”

He throws you a smile in response – it’s one of his fragile ones, where he looks almost sad but is instead simply overcome with emotion. You can’t help laughing at him, sliding from under the covers and tossing the lube at him haphazardly. He stretches to catch it, just managing to keep it from falling off the bed. “That was supposed to be a good line, Hui, but you ruined it with your sappy affection.”

“Oh – wait, hang on, you can say it again and I’ll pretend I haven’t heard it.”

Sex with Hui ranged from anywhere between incredibly tense and passionate to carefree and casual, and this seemed to be one of the latter scenarios. There’s a persistent laugh lingering in his throat, infectious, and you can’t help but to laugh along whenever he does.

The atmosphere only slightly changes when you begin to open him up, a specific type of gracefulness seen in the line of his body when you crook your fingers and he arches his back off the bed. A sound that might have been a yelp or a moan accompanies it. Everything is still soft and hazy, warmth suffused through your bodies from where his fingers tangle with your own.

You’re content to let him take the lead, watching tenderly even while his fingers curl semi-painfully into your shoulders when he bottoms out, head thrown back, throat working as he swallows hard. You wonder if you could get away with marking him up before he has to go, but ultimately decide not to, knowing at least someone will be recording when he leaves.

Watching him move on top of you while you lie back and watch is a type of special pleasure - he is just so beautiful, brow furrowed and lips parted, gaze dark and intense but just a bit disconnected like he was focused only on how good he felt. It’s only when his movements become rough that you take all control back, a simple heavy hand on his hip making him still. Sweat glistens on his skin, cock red and glistening with pre-cum from a mixture between desperation and arousal.

“Slower – Hwitaek, baby, I’m not going anywhere.” You reach for his hand, finding it easily even if you curse yourself for your choice of words – it trembles in your grasp and you wonder, for the first time, if he hasn’t been totally honest about how he feels about the four weeks he’ll be gone for basic training. He’s gazing down at you with such a bittersweet expression that it makes your chest ache, and he’s completely stopped moving at this point, resting on your hips, taking all of you as deep as possible.

“I know.” His voice is a soft whisper – four weeks of no contact, of only one phonecall for a limited time every seven days. You weren’t sure he’d ever gone that long without contact from either you or one of his boys.

It’s not fear you’re seeing reflected back at you in his eyes, but loneliness. A lingering sadness because he doesn’t want to be apart from those he loves for even a moment.

“Do you need to safeword, baby?” It feels necessary to ask, to remind him of his safety net considering the way he had gone distant, body tense and fingers shaking around your own.

“No.” It’s still soft, but more firm than his voice had been earlier. Whatever had taken hold of his thoughts he’s managed to shake off – it hurts you, but you know it’s necessary. There wasn’t anything anyone could do to change what was going to happen. “Just want to be with you for a while.”

“You’ve got me, darling.” Your words are followed by the sweet press of his lips against your knuckles, fingers still curled protectively around your own like it was something sacred to him. “Here, let’s switch positions, let me take care of you.”

“You already are.” He sounds exasperated but amused, a little grunt being torn from his chest anyway when his back hits the bed, feeling the way you shift inside of him. When you lean down to kiss him he returns it eagerly, if not a bit languidly, a soft whimper of a moan being swallowed up by your mouth when you begin to thrust into him again.

He’s quieter than he usually is, more subdued, one hand clenched tight in the pillow above him and the other interlaced with your own. You’re fucking him deep, punching little gasps out of his lungs while he rocks his hips towards your own. As beautiful as he is you can’t stop your gaze from drifting to his neglected cock, red and slick with need and desperation.

“That looks painful, baby.” You’re speaking softly, bent over him, and he cracks his eyes open simply so he can crane his neck up and kiss you. You try not to laugh into the kiss and largely succeed. “You ready to cum, sweetheart?” At his nod you un-entangle your hand from his, ignoring the disappointed whine that lodges in his throat. It’s quick to transform into a breathless moan when you wrap your hand around him, the glide of skin on skin incredibly slick already from how much he’d been leaking.

Hui orgasms with a sharp gasp, so much quieter and less dramatic than he usually is, muscles in his abdomen tensed tightly and head thrown back, digging into the pillow. The cum glitters on his skin under the weak rays of sun filtering in through the drapes, and he’s breathing hard, chest heaving, and you’re not sure you’ve ever seen something or someone so primally beautiful before.

He lets you be away from him just long enough for you to clean his stomach off with tissues before he’s tugging you back down beside him. It’s a bit too warm, his skin sweaty and sticky, but you nestle down against him anyway and indulge in his presence, perhaps over indulging as the two of you share countless long, languorous kisses.

“Maybe I should be worrying about how I can go four weeks without this, instead of anything else.” His words are coated with amusement and you can’t help but to giggle with him, burying your nose into his neck. His fingers continue to play with yours, resting on his bare chest.

“You’ll manage.” You press a kiss to the corner of his lips when he turns to look down at you, an “I love you” lingering between you both, unspoken but known. “I know you’ll be okay.”

[tomsrebeleyebrow]

i am such a sucker for ancient egypt shit!! can’t you write something about the reader being queen and tom being a guard and their both have a secret relationship so they have to sneak around to do anything, you can add something smutty if you want 👀

A/N: ooooh my dear, i also am an ancient egypt freak!! 😤 (and i already wrote an au oneshot like that so you can read it >here<) one of my favorite time period with the greek/roman ones 🤤💞 so let’s say i looooooved writing your request, so i hope you will enjoy it as much! 🙏🏻 and as always stay safe, darling 💖💗

‘Stay safe, Cheer up’ blurb event

NSFW CONTENT BELOW, SO BEWARE! + slight references to Ancient Egypt’s fashion

Since your youngest age, you’ve been taught many times what your future would be like. Even if, at first, all those manners and protocols sounded absurd to you, you learnt them all to slowly make them yours. Having always been close to the population ever since you would walk, by learning more about them or by playing with children your age, you grew up to be loved by everyone in Egypt.

And now, you were one of the very few women Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, beautiful and powerful that all gods must have blessed you since day one. But still a well-grounded and independent woman who didn’t need arranged marriages to rule a country. And also in a secret relationship with Tom, the chief of your Royal Guard… and your childhood friend.

Was it against the rules? Totally unconventional. But both of you never really cared.

“The Pharaoh requests your presence, Chief!” one of the guards informed Tom who was about to head back to his quarters.

“Thank you. You can go back to your position” answered Tom while adjusting his breastplate.

Passing by the soldier and now walking through the court, Tom noticed in between each pillar surrounding the palace that the night finally settled down on the Egyptian Kingdom. The stars started to shine in the clear sky, dancing all around the full moon. The moonlight lighted up the royal garden as if showing Tom the right path for him to follow to finally reach you.

With a firm nod, Tom dismissed the two soldiers guarding the access to the private part of the palace. The royal quarters. Your quarters. After waiting for the two men to completely leave, the brunette pushed the golden doors open and closed them behind him, before climbing a few stairs, the sound of his strappy sandals slightly echoing in the open corridor he was passing through. Finally, he stopped under the entrance arcade.

And that was when Tom saw you.  

On the other side of the big room, you were laying on a soft chaise lounge onto your right side, your back facing the man as his eyes slowly slid down the light linen robe you decided to wear despite the fresh air of the egyptian night. Tom could make out every curve of your body through your thin piece of expensive fabric, not letting too much work left to his wild imagination. Tom wished he could have captured that beautiful scene in front of him: the Pharaoh herself, casually dressed and laying down while looking at the city of Cairo by night from afar, through the open balcony of her bedroom.

You were the incarnation of grace and power, a delightful mix to Tom.

“You called me, my Pharaoh” Tom finally announced his presence, not moving an inch from his spot.

At the sound of the familiar voice, you slowly turned your head for him to only enjoy your profile for a bit. Your face was free from the usual makeup you used, such as the black kohl around your eyes which makes you look so serious all the time. But Tom’s favorite thing would always be seeing your head without the khepresh, so your long and beautiful hair you kept hidden under it could freely cascade along your shoulders and back.

“I did, yes” your clear and delicate voice resonated in his ears. “Please approach, Tom.”

Following your orders Tom walked towards you, not a word spoken between the both of us as you gracefully passed your legs on the other side of the chaise lounge, bare feet touching the stoned floor and now sitting to face the chief of your royal guard that was approaching. Then you stood up, the robe fully smoothing at the move and just waited there.

Once Tom stopped right in front of you, his height clearly towering over yours, he kneeled onto one knee to then bow his head low, like any people had to do before daring to talk to you, the Pharaoh. Your eyes never left his until his disconnected to look at the floor, waiting for your next words.

“Tom, please stand.”

Your voice was so hard to define sometimes but Tom was one of the only honored people, with your parents, to know that was how you had to be in front of your Kingdom, for anyone to respect and also fear you at the same time. So like he was asked for, the man slowly stood again as his brown orbs found yours once again. The silence between you was quite relaxing, the varied noises of the nocturnal creatures from outside creating such a nice ambiance around you.

After a minute or two of unspoken words, Tom’s hand brushed yours before his rough fingers gently intertwined with your immaculate one, the skin contact oh so needed bringing shivers in both your bodies.

“My love”, whispered Tom as he kissed each knuckle of your hand, “I missed you so much.”

A lovely giggle made it through your lips, soon followed by a warm smile only reserved to the one you loved.

“You see me all day long, my dear” you replied, lifting your free hand to caress his cheek.

“I missed our shared time, just the two of us” professed the chief guard, his words full of love and now lust as he wrapped his other hand around your hips to bring you closer to him. “I missed having you for myself only.”

And after having discarded all clothes from both your bodies, Tom was bottoming you out onto the same chaise lounge he saw you laying on when he arrived, tearing lewd moans out of you to his fullest and own pleasure.

“O-Oh! Tom!!”

His hands slid to your ass squeezing both cheeks, as his hips roughly thrusted back and forth against yours. His lips ran down to place hot open-mouthed kisses on your shoulder and neck, making feel his desperation with each new skin contact.

“You are mine” Tom growled into your ears, pushing and pulling your ass to meet his every single thrust. “All mine, (Y/N), my Queen, my love. Alaways.”

Your fingers digged into his back, his hips slapping against yours with aggressive friction. You could feel Tom’s skin becoming hot and sweaty from his passion. The man was squeezing your ass so tight it may just leave his hands’ prints on it the next day. Your head tossed back, moaning your lover’s name loudly while squeezing him as tightly against your body as you possibly can before you felt your arousal sliding down your thighs and coating his cock.

Tom continued to thrust, sloshing your juices with his movements before sliding away from your hot core. Seconds later, his milky seed slid against your inner thigh as he breathed heavily. Both of your hands slide away from him, falling on your sides as your chest kept raisins up and down in an attempt to relay air back into your tired and frayed lungs. Your handsome guard lover continued to hover above you, admiring how even more gorgeous you looked like that, all spent and out of breath for him, before basically dropping down completely on top of you.

“T-Tom, are you trying to suffocate me?” you squeaked before giggling, feeling his sweaty body against your own.

Tom actually chuckled before sliding to your side, carefully not to accidentally fall from the chaise lounge, wrapping his hands around your waist before turning you to face him. Your faces were inches apart and even though a blush blossomed onto your cheeks, like that always happened after these times, you raised a hand and trailed your soft fingers along his sharp jawline. You were thinking for a long time, and now was finally the time.

“What are you thinking about?” Tom whispered to you, rubbing circles onto your naked back and with an ounce of concern in his voice.

“... Marry me.”

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[gascon-en-exil]

Bottom Ten Three Houses Characters

I decided after a while that I couldn’t fulfill an anon request to do a top 10 list for the whole series, because it would overlap too much with ones I’ve already done - lord privilege is a thing that exists, and I’ve ranked those before - and because it’s really difficult to compare so many characters (~600 if we’re being thorough) across so many different games.  Instead I decided to go negative with it, although around 2/3rds of these ought to be totally uncontroversial at least in my corner of the fandom. Starting from the one I dislike least:

(Dis)honorable Mention: Anna, for putting in such a lackluster showing that she doesn’t deserve a spot on this list despite technically being in the playable cast. It’s not only the lack of supports, although that hurts, but also how obvious it is that the writers have no new material for her. Anna’s gimmick worked fined when she was an NPC and perhaps for the space of a single game as a playable character, and Fates originated the meta idea of making her paid DLC so you have to shell out real money to use her, but that’s the extent of her here too. As a unit she’s far from spectacular, and her paralogue isn’t even good for much but a ton of (mostly mediocre) drops and a tiny bit of context for that Pallardó guy from non-CF Chapter 13. Here’s a revolutionary idea: for the next original FE it might be good to have Anna back to being only a wacky dimension-hopping NPC shopkeeper.

#10 Constance - It pains me that she’s on this list, more than anyone else by far. I really wanted to like Constance, and at first glance she’s right up my alley as a haughty impoverished aristocrat coping awkwardly with her diminished status. I like the dark flier class she’s built around, and her default personality is an even louder pre-timeskip Ferdinand whom you know I love. However, it’s that “default personality” bit that sours me on her, because she’s got two of them. What could have been an interesting take on Constance’s struggles with identity and self-esteem in the wake of her family’s disgrace is presented in such an over-the-top comedic manner that it’s impossible to take her very seriously. It’s more reminiscent of FE13′s Noire than anything, and at least she has the excuse of a mother who performed dark magic experiments on her and fractured her psyche. Constance also supports Jeritza and yet somehow they do no more than lightly allude to their personality issues which is as much a missed opportunity as you can get with such a terrible character (see below), opting instead to try softening Jeritza with his fondness for roses. Lovely.

#9 Leonie - Fandom exaggerates her Jeralt fixation, although it does pop up at the worst times (see: her Byleth support right after his death). As I’m not very concerned with Byleth’s nonexistent feelings though this placement more comes down to general indifference. Leonie feels completely disconnected from the rest of the Deer, and although she’s a supposed reflection of the house’s more egalitarian bent there’s nothing connecting her to the politics or larger culture of the Alliance until you learn about her student loan debt. She really is best understood as a Jeralt fangirl first and foremost, which is why perhaps the most surprising thing about her is when reality comes knocking in her endings and it turns out she picked up her mentor’s vices as well. Jeralt himself would be even further down this list were he playable, but as he isn’t I’ll have to settle for side-eyeing all of his adoring fans. Which brings me to....

#8 Alois - Remember that dating sim Dream Daddy that people were talking about a few years ago? The one that willfully misunderstands what the term “daddy” means in gay male spaces to write fluffy dad joke-laden romances intended for a presumably not-gay audience? Alois is the spirit of that game personified as an FE character, which is not something I ever would have thought to know that I didn’t want. He’s got some funny lines here and there, but that’s the most you can say about him when otherwise he’s just passable midgame filler (of a unit type each house including the Wolves already has one of) standing in Jeralt’s imitation Greil shadow. I don’t even mind the platonic S support all that much because it’s still only Byleth, but it occurs to me that just about the only thing that would have made Alois memorable would be if his S support was romantic but he remained married to his wife. I can’t think of a time when this series has allowed the player to indulge in adultery, so even if it had been limited to an option for f!Byleth it would have been a fascinating option.

#7 Cyril - This isn’t about his devotion to Rhea, which is fully understandable given his circumstances. Nor is it about his performance as a unit which in my experience at least is actually rather good for a Donnel/Mozu-style villager archetype. No, what gets me is that he’s a self-righteous workaholic which makes for quite the grating personality trait. I understand that he finds meaning in his work and that he’s got some entertaining supports calling other characters to task for their terrible work ethics or ignorance of the lives of commoners (VW should have really dug more into his back-and-forth with Claude), but the lectures on not interrupting him or telling Byleth to get back to work are as tiresome as they are frequent. It’s petty I know, but one can only hope he grows out of it eventually. At least he doesn’t wear a pot on his head....

#6 Mercedes - Like Constance, she’s the type of character I wanted to like from the start. She’s pious pseudo-Catholic clergy, with a quirky thing with ghosts and some quiet lesbianism with her BFF that I can take or leave but that I know some people really enjoy (and also she’s bi-for-Byleth, but no one talks about that). Unfortunately as I touched on when talking about Marianne in my Top 10 characters list, Mercedes’s appealing points are sharply contrasted against her more annoying ones. The breathy voice acting I can mostly get used to, but her backstory is unnecessarily convoluted - three families and two flavors of evil adoptive father - and as is also true of Constance her association with Jeritza drags her down a fair bit. To this day I still have no idea what we’re meant to make of the Lamine siblings’ dynamic, but Mercedes’s eagerness to overlook her brother’s crimes and unrepentant bloodlust so she can coo over what a sweet boy he is deep down say some pretty odd things about her personal moral code. Maybe it was implied all along with the paranormal fascination that she’s not as orthodox as she appears to be, but the dissonance is real especially in CF where she gets a support line with Jeritza that tries to woobify him and affirms how much she loves him...and meanwhile in monastery exploration she’s wringing her hands over how much she hates the idea of fighting Faerghus and the church. There’s no through line here, and as justification for characters siding with Edelgard go this one is pretty flimsy.

#5 Gilbert - Similar to Cyril, I don’t dislike Gilbert for the reasons that most of the fandom does. Yes, he’s a crappy father, but as I’m pretty indifferent to Annette and to father-child bonding in general I can appreciate the fresh spin he places on the archetype of the devoted knight. In short, he’s a knight who wasn’t devoted and ran away from his duty, and his arc in AM is all about making up for his past failures both to his family and to his liege. This is an angle to knighthood FE doesn’t delve into often, and it makes him an explicit foil of Dedue as explored in their supports. The reason that Gilbert is on this list though in fact has more to do with that opposition, because I am painfully aware that had AM not killed off Dedue by default in service of self-insert romance Gilbert would not have had to be scripted as Dedue’s replacement both as a unit and as a retainer figure. It’s not his “fault” of course, insofar as one can ever blame fictional characters for the actions of their writers, but whenever I’m running AM and have to take those randomized supply run quests from Gilbert instead of the route’s actual retainer I’m reminded of how we were robbed of power couple Dimidue (in AM anyway - CF of all routes delivers on this point). Gilbert could have been father of the year to Annette and freely given Byleth his (grand)daddy dick and it still wouldn’t overwrite the fundamental problem that Byleth screwed over all three AM-exclusive characters in different ways. As to that, well...look at #1.

#4 Raphael - It’s hard to describe just how much wasted potential there is to this guy. Along with Ignatz and Leonie he could have illustrated the greater social mobility of the Alliance and the increased opportunities non-nobles enjoy there, but all three are mostly side characters. He’s repeatedly positive in the face of tragedy and remains motivated by his love for his remaining family, but 90% of his dialogue revolves around either eating or training to the point that he’s arguably the closest FE16 comes to gimmick character writing (something almost every FE is guilty of, but that has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years because of how much Awakening and Fates used it). He has a sweet friendship with Ignatz with even a bit of chemistry that sits in good company with the kind of simply affability he has with almost everyone he supports, but they have a no homo ending involving one of the game’s eternally offscreen characters. He supports Dimitri, but the bara content is thin on the ground and their line stands out as easily the least substantial of the house leaders’ cross-house supports. Even as a unit he’s lackluster, in the same repetitive category as Alois with nothing that makes him really stand out from the other axe-and-brawling guys. Highest HP growth in the game...whee. I’ve seen arguments that Raphael’s simplicity is the source of his charm, and while I can sort of see that he feels like he belongs in a game like the GBA or Tellius titles where characters have a much smaller amount of overall content to their name. In a game like Three Houses the sheer torrent of lines about food and training wear thin quickly.

#3 Bernadetta - see #8 here. To sum up, she’s annoying, her sex appeal falls flat with me and is frankly just kind of confusing, it bugs me that a significant portion of the Ferdibert fandom headcanons her as Hubert’s bestie when the man clearly does not do besties, and the most positive thing I can think to say about is that based on her habit of befriending known murderers among other things she might be a bit of a sociopath. That’s not very flattering, but at least it’s somewhat interesting. Oh yeah, and Edelgard setting her on fire at the Gronder rematch is good for a meme although I suppose that isn’t technically attributable to Bernadetta.

#2 Jeritza - Jeritza sucks. Everyone, apart from the small number of fans into Bylitza for some reason, is aware that he sucks. He’s a bloodthirsty serial killer we’re meant to like because he killed his father to protect his sister and also because he likes ice cream and kittens...and because he’s clearly mentally ill in some way and Edelgard is weaponizing his illness for her war which means all the murder is okay, I guess. Jeritza is like FE7 Karel if he was somewhat important to the plot and that instead of a redemption arc between games he got Karla and some other characters swearing that he’s really sweet deep down and also he can romance the male self-insert - yay. I love the line of thinking sometimes espoused in anti circles that M/M Bylitza is the only non-Problematic™ Byleth ship because he’s their only gay romantic S rank partner who’s not one of their students, a loli, or Rhea who is obviously the most evil character in the game. As I’ve mentioned above Jeritza also makes other characters he supports worse by association, although he’s not quite as bad in that regard as #1. Do I even need to bring up the painfully affected voice acting? It’s ironic that the vocal director for the English localization turns in unquestionably the worst performance among the named cast, and I have to assume he picked the role for himself solely because he sounds like an imposing Death Knight and not because his voice is at all suited to the troubled twunk underneath the armor. Just about the only thing that would have salvaged Jeritza for me would be if he and Hubert got to have an epic competition to determine once and for all which of them is more evil. Hubert would wipe the floor with this poser.

#1 Byleth - see here at the bottom. They fail as a self-insert, they fail to be a properly realized character even more than previous Avatars, they damage other characterizations and arcs all over the place, and Three Houses overall would have been vastly improved if they didn’t exist or at least weren’t the PoV character. In that previous post I listed just two reasons why I still prefer Byleth to Robin as an Avatar, one being that their significance to the plot is set up before the game even begins and the other being that their lack of a voice makes f!Byleth a less obtrusive presence when it came time for me to have her S rank all the guys to fill out the support log...not enough to where I could treat her as a self-insert, but any amount helps. I do however have to add a third small bit of praise for Byleth, in that they apparently drive antis up the wall for the most asinine of reasons which is always entertaining to witness. I recall when this game’s school setting was first revealed that everyone in the fandom nodded their heads and made the easy prediction that there would be teacher/student sex because that’s just how FE rolls, but somehow still there’s outrage over it. Even so, Byleth is horrible by every significant parameter, and it’s a shame we’ll only be able to imagine what FE16 would have been like had the developers not felt the need to write the whole thing around an Avatar.

[cheezlogerratum]

A Persuasive Essay

☼

           The two duos of half-plastic half-rubber wheels have remained, for the past thirty seconds or so, at rest. Kurtis Spottiswoode, preferably to him Kurt, the owner of the pack, has been repeatedly, over and over, scanning a sign off to the side of the asphalt path. In yellow, it's been telling him:

ATHLETIC EVENT

... with an appropriate arrow pointing to the left. Still, in that same spot, he stands. He can't necessarily tell whether he's trying to understand something he's missing or if he's just spacing out, knowingly looking like a moron, but too afraid to break out of what he believes is a commitment. Even still. Eventually, Mr. Spottiswoode catches onto the fact that the sun has long been set and that there are no "ATHLETIC EVENT"'s in session at this time. His feet succumb to the decline and start stepping across into the parking garage wondering if the sign was placed for a past "ATHLETIC EVENT" or a future one? This is all he seems to think about in the structure, the halides buzzing above and the rumble of the little wheels on his backpack don't even register in his mind. He unlocks and enters his used Camry automatically and realizes he's driving, somehow unable to shake the image burned into his eyes or maybe his head:

ATHLETIC EVENT

←

           Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at his apartment complex at around 9:23pm, around a minute or two later than he usually remembers, and follows the rut path up to his apartment on the second floor. The residents on the first were shrieking, almost with no words, but it soon shifted into laughter and niceties he couldn't quite make out. He went to the bathroom, where he unzipped and went about his business looking at himself blankly in the mirror mysteriously installed right above, maybe a little crooked, the toilet. Kurt had small beady eyes and a large forehead mapped out by rows of remnants of brow folds and a receding hairline, brown and faint. The rest of his torso was adorned by a sport coat and a wrinkly plaid shirt, the rest is invisible. It was a lingering revelation in Mr. Spottiswoode's mind that he was wasting away, not really doing much, but he never wanted to address it head on in fear of possible sadness... but, as he undresses getting ready for bed, he wasn't feeling much now? Just sort of following what he'd always been doing and doing at as succinctly as he can, probably to occupy his mind from that "possible sadness".

☼

           Kurt was traversing through the input and output population of students in flux all around him, talking into headphones and trading glances back and forth, when he realized—the sign was still up! "ATHLETIC EVENT". He felt a minuscule rush inside of him, slightly increasing the speed of his pace, and making him aware of his breath, of his life. He looked around with his head at anything and everything of interest, impulsively, excited. ECSTATIC! He thought he might be forcing this adrenaline onto himself, but he told himself to shut up. Shut up! He was loving it, and would remain loving it all the way to class, his wheels rumbling at a higher pitch.

           Höffus Hall, room 488, was unlocked, dark, cold, and alone for the past thirteen hours or so. Mr. Spottiswoode, with his newfound motivation to live, flicked on the lights and plopped his computer bag onto the table offset at the front of class. He thought of himself as a bearer of life to the once dead or perhaps unborn room, mentally patting himself on the back as students came in at different intervals of time and frequency, totally unaware of their professor's enthusiasm. He unzipped his bag and brought out his old Dell laptop, gray and void of any personal touch. He logged in and fired up Microsoft Outlook, twiddling his fingers as more students populated the room. Outlook revealed itself, updated its folders, and notified the user of an "important message" he received. WOW! Kurt clicked the alert and he was brought to an e-mail sent by an unfamiliar address containing the following:

dear professor,

ive been thinking about alot of things like the paper we were made to write a few weeks ago. i know i haven't finished it and i bet its too late to turn it in now for any grade and i know im failing the class, but i cant fail this class and i think this paper is the only thing that will save me. i hope you understand. ill have the essay done by the start of class on thursday but if you dont accept it or give me a high enough grade to pass the class im going to kill you. i dont want to kill you but i also dont want to fail. i hope you understand.

best, your student

           Kurt Spottiswoode read the message over a few more times, just to make sure, again, not knowing what he was feeling, but whatever it was it wasn't exciting. Before he even had the chance to reply, or give the message a sixth reading, or to think about what the hell, just what the hell he was going to do? he looked at the clock in the bottom right and saw it change from 11:13 AM to 11:14 AM right before his eyes, four minutes late. He looked up with a buzzy sharp air behind his eyes, at a loss of what to even do. What to say? Most importantly, WHAT?

           "Uhhh," Spottiswoode emitted, "who was it that sent me an e-mail this morning?"

           Blank. The look on the students' faces suggested that he had said absolutely nothing. Instead of reading the students for any kind of response, he started to read for any clues, any telling thing coming from any of their persons that might inform him of the presence of a possible murderous psychopath enrolled in his class. There were only 19 students on the registrar but only, after doing the math with his eyeballs for a few seconds, 11 students present. Both the fear of the anonymous student's absence and the regret of not making attendance mandatory via a sign-in sheet and a significant percentage allotted to "Attendance" in the final grade struck him like headlights he wasn't aware he was invading the path of. He quietly surveyed those present in class and what he knew of them. To his knowledge, only 3 students were failing the class, and one of them, Mehi Georgensen, was present, but he knew for a fact she turned in the last assignment. The prompt, by the way, was to write a persuasive essay supporting their opinion on the scientific studies surrounding the spike in American crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s and how experts believe that the trace amounts of lead found in gasoline sold during this time is directly related to the uptick in violence and aggression in people who are exposed to automobiles on a regular basis if not daily. Mehi's essay was roughly 85% blockquotes, 5% topic and concluding sentences, and another 10% dedicated to an enlarged, pixelated image of a red, turned dark gray by the printer, gasoline jug. No, Kurt thought, it can't be her. The other two names failing the class were Eloy Hewitt and Harold Skouras III, both with zeros in the gradebook, but that's all they were to Mr. Spottiswoode. He tried forcing himself to remember who these boys were, what they looked like, who the sick culprit could be. He started to sweat and realized so when a droplet fell from his nose and onto his knuckle belonging to his right hand cupping his mouth out of a side effect of vigorous thought, if you could even call it that. It was now 11:19 AM and Kurt stood back up, hands at his side, eyes open, looking again trying to recognize anyone. He knew who some of the kids were but couldn't remember others because of, what he thought was, a lack of in-class participation. He did, however, recognize Kevin, hands clasped together resting on the table up front, good posture, beaming at Mr. Spottiswoode. Kevin, politely responding to Kurt's gaze, cracked open a smile, unimaginably ready to learn. What a good egg Kurt thought, and looking at this kid, this bright and utterly innocent young man smiling undoubtedly at him, his spirits were lifted by a fraction of security, but that was enough. Kurt breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, clearing his throat, coughing, and began the day's belated lesson.

           Sitting in his assigned corner of office room number 528, populated by a desk, a shelf, a disconnected phone with the cord bunched up, various handbooks on MLA, APA, and Chicago format, yesterday's ¾ eaten Subway sandwich, a stack of filled manila folders, a photo of Bruce Springsteen printed out on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper taped to the wall, and a lamp—Mr. Spottiswoode sat leaned back in his office chair borrowed from the downstairs supply closet, staring, arms crossed, eyes serious, at his computer screen. The e-mail shone through the screen, he couldn't stop thinking. He followed a tangent marveling at the screen itself and its thousands of little pixels made by three columns, red, blue, green, each flickering at him performing as one chunk of some incomplete illusion, creating the image of something that is anything but. Kurt, at a loss, followed multiple tangents like that, perhaps, in a kind of unconscious fashion, trying to find some external excuse or explanation for all this. Surely, surely, it can't be real right? It made no sense, absolutely, completely, totally no sense whatsoever, that this array of pixels that have orchestrated themselves in varying degrees of dimness onto his laptop screen could spell out so plainly and absent of reality his own eventual fate. Well, it doesn't have to come true, does it? Kurt Spottiswoode couldn't believe that he didn't just think of giving in and offering the perp the grade he so desired. Yes. Yes! That was it! He didn't even take into account the circumstance of his academic honor, he had his life! Once again, "LIFE!" He was up, his fists were in the air, his legs were spread apart, and his breathing had escalated into a pant. Yu Quoque, or Professor Quoque as she vehemently prefers, in the opposite corner saw him and witnessing this side of Kurt she had never seen before, she stared, on the phone, mouth slightly agape.

           "Where are you," over the phone, "what was...?"

           "Nothing," Yu whispered, "just work."

☼

           It was Wednesday, the next day, game day! Kurt missed whatever athletic event that happened the day before due to the fact that he was fearing for his life, but now, having found out what to do about the whole situation, he decided to treat himself to a nice, relaxing, athletic event, which happens to be a weeklong championship. Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at the makeshift ticket booth, which was a plastic table with a print out of ticket prices taped to the front side and a cheap cash box guarded by two girls, both with one earbud in whatever ear was facing away from each other, and inquired, "Hello! One ticket for the athletic event and please!"

           "Eight dollars please," the girls in unison, almost in harmony.

           Kurt immediately took to his various pockets in his coat, pants, and satchel, where he finally found a dilapidated ten-dollar bill with a frowny face drawn on Hamilton's face. The girl on the right snatched it, the girl on the left gave him the ticket, and the girl on the right gave him one dollar in change, but he was so ecstatic and overwhelmed by the butterflies in his stomach that he didn't even realize. He wobbled right up to the bleachers taking it all in, smiling, just like Kevin, and started down the steps. The sun was blaring but the air was freezing, a paradox Kurt pondered on fairly often before, but not today, game day! He found a nice spot just above half way down and sat down next to an incredibly buff guy with, who Kurt assumed was, the man's son wearing a black hoodie and buggy glasses. "Isn't this just great," Kurt broke the ice, "this is just... agh! It! You know?"

           "I don't."

           "What's your name?"

           "What's your name?"

           "... I'm Kurt! Err, Professor Kurt to you though, haha!"

           "Goodbye Kurt."

           And the big man got up, even more ginormous than he... holy shit—walked down the bleachers, stomping between other attendees and their picnics, to another spot. Kurt stared a while at the man and thought of his nerve, how someone can be so mean and... rude? but he caught himself in the act of negativity and tried to snap out of it, clamping his eyes shut as a reset mechanism of sorts. Upon opening them, he saw the faded green field, but the longer he looked, the more green it got. He started getting the hang of it and tried it on the trees, the bleachers, and even the jumbo man. The spark of an auxiliary cord boomed through the stadium and was shortly followed by T.I.'s "Bring Em Out" featuring Jay Z. "BRING EM OUT BRING EM OUT" The players jogged onto the field and started warming up, running around preset patterns of cones over and over. Just beneath the song blaring throughout the entire area, echoing off the apartments just next door, Kurt heard a voice, "What's today." Kurt felt it to his left and realized the voice was coming from the kid in the hoodie, still sitting where he first saw him.

           "Wednesday?"

           "And tomorrow?"

           "... Thursday."

The kid hadn't even turned his head to Kurt, in fact, Kurt hadn't even seen the kids' lips, only his eyes bulging out of the edge of his hood. "I need you to proofread something for me," the glasses said.

           "Do I know you?" Kurt inquired.

           "It's important, it's my life's work."

           "I can give you my office hou-"

           "I feel twisty, I can't move correctly... I'd appreciate this greatly."

           "... Ha ha, come on now, let's just enjoy the game?"

           "It's only if I express what I mean and get my point across in a certain perfect way and if I have a clear thesis and purpose to the essay and I make myself believable to the reader that I will get an A."

           "... Harold?"

           "I just need a professional opinion."

           "Eloy!?"

           "It's not done yet I'm sorry."

           And the glasses dropped 8 loose sheets of what Kurt can already make out as a poorly formatted essay and strode his way up the bleachers as swiftly as possible. The sheets were lifted by the wind and flew up down left right forward back, all directly away from Mr. Spottiswoode. Kurt scrambled to follow all of the sheets at once while the image of that hood and those lenses and his voice seared into his mind, playing in a loop, all floating in a superposition playing at the same time, over and over and over again. Kurt caught one of the pages, repeating, "one, one" and so on in his head, adding to the jumble, now worried, now realizing, all at once, that death was way too near. "Two, two two two" but what? He felt silly again, remembering he had a plan, a master one you could call it, but he still felt petrified, sad, wasting away, stumbling over people at an athletic event reaching desperately for pages of an essay a kid is threatening his life over. He lost track of all the remaining pages, looked around, drenched, and saw a page in the middle of the field. He ran down the steps, head bobbing, eyes on the sheet, feeling utterly lightheaded, and sprinted into the field, tunnelvisioned, and bonked heads with a girl swerving out of a row of cones. The audience's collective shocked, "Ooooohh" and a girl nearby's inhaling hissing sound of pain only made everything worse, and he felt like a kid. Mr. Spottiswoode reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at the girl rubbing her head and only thought of himself, how he looked, how people must think of him now, and, somewhat noticing, his stomach sunk. He tried, "I didn't... I'm sorry I'm sorry," under his breath. He grabbed the piece of paper, now grass stained, and made his way up the stairs, eyes down, only wanting to leave, only wanting to go home, and as the girl got up, ready to rumble, the audience broke out in applause.

←

           Kurt couldn't even look at Sally Pilckner and her glasses without shuttering somewhat, or feeling some sharp sweat incoming, so for the remainder of her presentation, he looked down at her converse pretending to be following along when really, truly, he's completely lost. He had already taken attendance to no avail, had sort of thumbed through the essay, but hasn't been able to read it, not even knowing if he should or not. So here he is, Kurt, sat, in the back of a classroom, looking at shoes and contemplating his chances of life or death. The ginormous mega man played in his head over and over, torturing himself somehow just for fun, relatively. "Observe," he remembered "Listen, yes!" So he tried, forcing his brain to latch onto everything happening in the room, which—well, he didn't know—wasn't working. He attempted to consciously meditate on the PowerPoint slide stricken on the pull down screen, bleeding off to the edges onto the whiteboard, infuriatingly so, and thought about the words without reading them:

           HUMANOID.

           CORN.

           BC.

           And he just thought, tried to imagine. He pictured a humanoid in his head and saw wiggles and a form blinking, on and off. The harder he tried the faster it disappeared. Okay uhh, the corn! He saw a kernel, a nugget, perfectly formed, so well imagined he was impressed with himself. Mr. Spottiswoode sat with that little kernel suspended in his mind, projecting it in front of his eyes, over the words, bouncing it around the room, putting it over Sally's face. "UuuaAAAGGHHHCHOOOO!!"

           "Bless you," in unison, harmonious monotone.

           Kurt, looking at the culprit's face a bit too long finally realized the kernel had been erased from his mind. The panic struck him and the sweat kicked back in, trying and trying, squinting and bubbling his mouth. Mr. Spottiswoode needed a plan B, so he remembered:

           BC.

           Okay, this can do. He chugged into his noggin the image of rocks... rocks? And monkeys, for some reason, a wheel? He was doing his best, breathing in and out. "Knowing what uh... how corn was the main commodity in indigenous cultures, what would the world look like right now if we used corn for money?" Dead flat silence, but Sally didn't seem to mind. The class willingly sat in the hoisted dead noise of the room, adding to it every millisecond, everyone thinking someone else will talk, they have to, why aren't they? Why is everyone doing this? And Pilckner, Sally stood face to face to the excruciating silence, swaying, hands clasped behind her back, sniffling, heard a cough, grounding the silence to the utmost potency of bad participation skills. Kurt felt himself walking but didn't remember doing so, and somehow decided to stop right beside Sally, too close, she steps back, and those monkeys are still in his mind, swinging and hooting until they come across a kernel, a big one, glowing in the shattered sun shooting through the tall grass, or the banana leaves, either or? staring at this weird yellow coconut. It's here that they stop moving, their personalities and characteristics put on hold, freeze framed, with the class waiting and peeking under the rim of the table trying to be sneaky superimposed atop the scene before Christ, now at the same time, both immobile, not moving, freeze framed and dead. Kurt stood there until the clock struck 11:58 AM, close enough, and the irresistible sound of ruffling papers and backpack zippers filled the room, sparking some kind of Pavlovian response in the students telling them, "it's time to go", which was probably for the best.

           Kurt Spottiswoode decided to keep on driving tonight, not a clear decision but merely allowing himself to do so. Millbrae now, by the BART station, the monumental Chase Bank shining blue up the columns, credit card slots blinking and egging him on, that Peter's Café across the street, still open, still not much business... but boy, oh boy... Kurt took a leap of faith and pulled an illegal U-turn across the yellow line, the toast in his sights. He parked haphazardly and sat for a minute or two, looking at the fog grow on his windows, and waited for it to completely shell his car. He was now encased, in his own little world he thought, free of anything and everything except him and the essay, now sort of dead within the new realm of his. It was only paper, just neatly formed, digitally stamped stains of ink on a page, saying nothing in particular. He wanted to marinate in this, get the feeling then go, and he went. The wet chill struck him as he left the stratosphere he created, and, with the essay in hand, walked into the snoozy joint.

           A song he couldn't recognize right away was wrapping itself up, and right when he thought he knew the song, "HI welcome to Pete's Café!" She popped up from right behind the circular bar, knowing he was going to be there somehow. She slapped down the menu, the cocktail menu, and a freshly laminated dessert menu. "Freshly laminated!"

           "Yep," Kurt sniffed the menu, "That's fresh for sure, hahahaha!" laughing more for himself than her.

           "What can I start you off with tonight?"

           "Just toast, please."

           "Sweetie, just toast?"

           "Yep just toast."

           The look on her face spelled imminent harm, then immediately transformed into unconditional hospitality. "Vikas! Toast! Sure thing sweetie," snatching the menus in one swoop.

           "Thanks uhh," trying to read her name tag but only caught a V.

           He looked around the place, at the lighting hung in trios across the sloped ceiling, the booths hidden by CLINK... Kurt looked down and saw a plastic tumbler, blue and chipped, filled with water and weak ice cubes, but no V in sight. Noticing this, he noticed everything, which wasn't much, just a diner open for business, no patrons. He sat tapping his fingers in a kind of rhythm when "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee jumps on the overhead speakers.

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire

Is that all there is, is that all there is If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing...

           Once that chorus kicked in he was humming along, eyes closed and drinking out of the mini cup. He opened his eyes and there before him was the essay, off to the side, right where he left it. He was lost in looking, only thinking about reading it, telling himself he wasn't afraid, and then the glasses appeared again, knowing that they belonged to the student, that the student typed this and printed it out, touched it, the net total of his movements to that moment of delivery resulted in the crimps and creases in the pages, the same on every page, again and again.

Let's break out the booze and have a ball If that's all there is...

           His hand shot out at the pages and smacked them once, not knowing what to expect, just a release? Kurt looked up and saw V staring at him before she broke out into strides in his direction. He grabbed the paper and started reading it vigorously.

professor Spottiwoods

Rough Draft

Pedagogyy is the study of how tot each a class in school, anywehere, like elementary school or college. I have been in school for almost all of my life and I feel like I have a big say in how I should be taught in school. There has been much discusssion on what progressive pedagogy might look like, but it has always been discussed and taught in regressive pedagogical systems, which is something liek a paradox isn;t it? we seem to think education is the greatest good, it keeps us young, that's what Aristotle thought, but these systems are old, the teachers are old, and theyf ail to realize that they they are only apart of an institu

           "SPOTTISWOODE?" Kurt froze in the middle of that word he knew was going to be 'institution', maybe spelled wrong, but couldn't help but feel several shots of adrenaline pumping through his body, his heart trying to compensate. "PROFESSOR SUPERWOOD IN THE FLESH!!"

           Mr. Spottiswoode craned his shoulders around to see Zip Baltgalvis—he thinks? —and can only widen his eyes. Zip skips over to Kurt's seat lugging what might be three backpacks at full capacity while Kurt creeps back at the paper, wide eyed, blank, stuck on the same word. Zip spins into the seat next to Kurt's and side hugs him, not responding. "Duuude what's good Spurt? ... It's me!" Kurt turns his head, zonked out, to Zip, frozen in a smile with his fingers turned inwards into his chest. "Zip..." Kurt emitted.

           "Ziiiff!" exasperated, "Ziff Baltgalvis! Twenty-fourtee-" leaning in closer for the whisper-shout, "Twenty-fourteen man! Duude! You're here!!"

           "I'm... here."

           "Yes! Yes!"

           "Hey where's my toast..." slurring and directed in the direction of unseen employees.

           Ziff looked down at the essay through the blonde frizz hanging in front of his face. "State huh? State huuuhh!!? MAN in the flesh! Front and center, late night!! You know, I've been working on things..."

           "Things."

           "Things mmhm... some futuristic things," nodding slowly almost to hypnotize Kurt.

           "What things..."

           "I've been thinking about those things, like to help the future out. Man, Kurt, your mind will be buhlown."

           "Uhh... toast," again at the ghost place.

           "Yeaaah man toast! You're brain'll fry man right on!"

           "What do you mean?"

           "Oh you just gotta come and see."

           "See what Zip?"

           A plate of burnt toast lands and swivels down onto the table in front of Kurt, on top of the essay.

           "The future man..." nodding.

☼

           Kurt Spottiswoode didn't even know he was fast asleep until his own drool cooled by the leather returned to his cheek, sliding his face into consciousness. Wriggling his fingers, cracking them, still on his side, his arm slept along with him. He was awake, but only with his eyeballs. Everything else was testing the waters. Every few seconds the interior would illuminate, sometimes yellow but most times teal-ish, and Kurt was in it and apart of it, an honorary component of the car. Kurt inched his head up off the seat to get a better look at the LED clock up front. It was 12:02, most likely AM. He plopped his head back down, scrunching his mouth to avoid the drool as he tried making sense of the situation he was in. This wasn't his car, he wasn't driving, he wasn't tied up, he was stagnant yet rumbling across asphalt barely any more than two feet from his wet cheek, as the crow flies. Mr. Spottiswoode liked it here, liking the most being able to pretend to be invisible, or to transcend the state everyone thinks you're in, knowing something no one else in the world knows. It was also the quiet of the interior which implied a disappearance of everything outside and anything in the future, just being able to lay... wait... future...

           "COCKADOODLEDOO TEACH! Un-conked?"

           "Muh... Zip,"

           "Hahyeah,"

           "Zi-," stuck on a clog in his throat.

           "Honest man, be honest,"

           "Where are we going?"

           "Dude, you remember this!"

           "I...?"

           "You can think it man, you can access this,"

           "Why was I..."

           "If you just reaaally think,"

           "Is it... Thursday?"

           "Unrelated inquiry, unrelated inquiry,"

           "Zip come on-"

           "Patience is a virtue,"

           "This is fuckin-"

           "Woah, woah,"

           "This is frankly, fucking stupid Zip!"

           "WOOOAH WOOAH,"

           "I wanna know! Where am I going? Where am I being taken to?"

           "I w-"

           "ZIP my foot is down it's being put down right now you got to tell me,"

           Ziff looked back over his shoulder at Kurt, now up in his seat drenched in sweat, eyes locked and loaded. The light outside illuminates the car in red for a split second, distant honking. Ziff looks back and forth hoping he isn't seeing and hearing correctly.

           "I don't like the way you look right now man,"

           "Zip,"

           "I don't friggin' appreciate those looks man!"

           Ziff is nearly done pulling the car over to the side of the road into the grassy overflow of an empty lot next to them once he says this. The back of Ziff's head jerks about, trying to put the car in park while storming out of the car at the same time. "Jesus... ZIP!! ZIP!" Kurt yells at Ziff with the foggy passenger window in the way, trying to unbuckle himself. "ZIIIIIP!!" It was Thursday, it was without a doubt Thursday, and it all came crashing into Mr. Spottiswoode's stomach. Kurt didn't even consciously think these thoughts, but he knew somehow by the way his neurons scrambled to ignite, scrambling together as one, but the buckle is jammed. Kurt sits back and processes the vagueness of himself at this moment, unconsciously looking around, widening his eyes, tuning out everything in order to tune out himself, and the door closes. He looks up and sees the long hair splitting out from Ziff's head. "Zip, where are we,"

           "Mr. Spottiswoode, it'd be really sick if you said sorry,"

           "I'm sorry, now-"

           "For what?"

           "For yelling at yo-"

           "And?"

           "And?"

           Ziff turned his head around to look through the gap under the headrest, eyes worn and wet.

           "And."

           "..."

           "Ziff."

           "No, no no, slip of the tongu- er the mind. I'm sorry. My-"

           "I really wanted you to see what I made Mr. Spottiswoode,"

           "Sure-"

           "When I saw you at Pete's tonight I thought that it was like fate, like that dramatic shit... right?"

           "Sure yea-"

           "I thought 'Hey Kurt's here, I bet he'd like to hang with me' you know? See me..."

           "Yeah,"

           "I thought you were gonna be like the guy who pretends he didn't make eye contact or something, and I was bummed out Mr. Spottiswoode. You were like the first guy... to uh... like really, you know, get me stoked on learning shit. And you were eating and I knew that it was like that fate happening maybe, like the universe collapsed on itself for that one time right?"

           "Sure,"

           "Do you get the same emotions too?"

           "Maybe, I don't really know,"

           "Cause like, the universe likes us...? Like it doesn't stop turning. It's like it keeps wanting us to know something, like..."

           And Ziff stopped, seemingly lost in that universe that led him to what he thought was right now, but Kurt, on the other hand, was back on the paper. "Ziff, I need to sleep I'm sorry."

           Ziff dug into one of the three backpacks he dropped in front of his front door to fish out the keys. Kurt was keeping his distance considerable out in the middle of a parking lot, by the car. Ziff tumbled the keys into the lock and cracked open the door, creaky to the point of filing a complaint with whatever de facto powers that be. The place was lit by strung lights around every edge, ceiling, doorway, floor, but only out of necessity of upholding the common courtesy to the household. Ziff lifted his arms in introduction of the place, "Uh, you can crash on the couch probably."

           Pots and pans brought Kurt back to the waking world, seamlessly too. What amazed Kurt's brain, the first thought in his head this morning, was how shrill these utensils ringing off each other were and how, somehow, that comforted him. He rubbed the sleep off his eyes and got up to mull. He scuffled towards the kitchen a few feet away and stood in the doorway, drawing a blank at the kid with pleasingly messy hair, jammies, bare feet, flipping a piece of bread with a hole in the middle occupied by an egg. The kid felt his presence and gave a half-nod half-smile, what Kurt came to hypothesize as a newly evolved human instinct. Kurt leaned on this doorway, scanning the room for a clock or any other furnishing that might give him a clue of some kind. A group of kids passed by him, recalling, "...ea and his brother was a raccoon in the firs..." and further down the hall a burst of "pffff" and laughter bounced back to him as he tried logging the series of events in his brain. Looking, still standing, invisible again, superposed in this doorway and periodically thrusting his body off enough to fall back onto the wall. A printer fired up in a room somewhere reciting its rhythm of obeying the data it's been fed, music to his ears but merely instinct to itself. But now the printer was approaching...? It was getting louder and louder, its rhythms becoming more complex, fading into Kurt's range of comprehension, but the closer it got the less he knew, the more it wasn't printing anything. Kurt leaned his torso over to peer through the commons area and into the main hallway, footsteps thrown into the mix now too. An upright arrangement of plastic and spinning metal emerged from behind the opening to the room, then a rubber foot inched down onto the wood floor, and the robot was now recognized by Kurt alone. It continued forward, stopped, made minor adjustments to the placement of its feet, and made way straight towards Kurt. His stomach sank and kicked into some kind of action backwards and to his left feeling his way towards some cover of sorts. Kurt crouched behind the side of the fridge, peering out at the rest of the kitchen. The whirring got louder, again, and the robot emerged, again, stopped, repositioned, continued in Kurt's direction. Kurt stayed put this time only because he couldn't think of anything else other than the fact there was a fucking robot walking straight towards him. The robots innards became clearer and clearer as it approached, stopped, repositioned, and reached for the fridge handle, and pulled it, pinching Kurt's fingers. He freaked out for a split second but didn't want to make any sounds in an effort to preserve the invisibility thing that the robot may or may not have seen right through. The door closed and revealed a jug of soylent in the robot's plastic nubs, repositioning away, and inching back out of the kitchen. Kurt stood up and stared at the robot, mouth wide open, sweat flowing, trying to think of its thoughts and what it must be conscious of to do what it does, where it's stored, what it means to it, does it feel what Kurt feels, does it know? A poke arrived on Kurt's left shoulder and he spun around clockwise to whoever it must be, who turned out to be... "Sorry,"

           "Nono I'm sorry," Kurt rattled out.

           "Just getting the uh," she reached up to the cabinet above Kurt's head, which he dodged as it swung open.

           "Woo heheh,"

           "Wanna sit?"

           "Wuh,"

           "Down?"

           "Well okay yeah sure heheh,"

           And he looked underneath and around himself and settled on sitting on the tile, criss-cross applesauce. "Do you go here?" she asked, eyes on the readymade pancake mix.

           "A- me? No I uhhh... I don't, no. I uh don't. Do you?"

           "Yes I go here."

           "Pretty cool, pretty cool uhmm... for what?"

           "Literature, but I'm thinking of changing,"

           "To uhh... ?" shrugging, nervously laughing.

           "Electrical engineering,"

           "And uh, why's that?"

           "I'm working on a project of my own right now with a team of people so I sort of just want time to work on it and E.E. offers independent study in their labs so,"

           "What's the something?"

           "I've been studying the stichomythia of reading common literature. Technically it isn't stichomythia, but it sounds nice to me for some reason and for what I do. So I study that stuff, the ups and down of laughter, contagious at moments and absent the next. Could you read a book or get its sense and flow from the mere knowledge of the progression of chuckles? Or guffaws? What does a 'guffaw' suggest in a story? This depends on the reader, though, which makes my job complicated. There's a flaw in studying and observing these things with people, who read and re-read, the speed increases and decreases, and this warps and distorts the nature of my work, the laughs and chuckles. Me and my team are now looking at developing a system which reads a book at an average pace, its text, and pinpoints or detects the humorous areas to give us a controlled, concise, perfect result of this landscape, the musicality that might be objective to itself and its language that the common subjective emotional someone simply lacks the capability of experiencing. This is what I do,"

           Teams? Landscapes, chuckles, this was all he could pick up on knowing the robot was walking around the place with soylent in its hands. He tried to be interested, but his mind was firing on other cylinders and sputtering out in the process. He was looking at the pan, sometimes focusing in on his periphera and the figures wearing mute colors walking in and out and past in silence—but what was silence to him, Kurt Spottiswoode thought, might have been a universal language to them that he was left out of. "What do you think of that?" He forgot.

           "Sounds pretty cool to me!" looking for something to catch his attention.

           "Do you read?"

           "I uh read lots of things every day yep,"

           "Enjoy it while you can,"

           "Well, you too heh! I'll uh see you around," offering a small wave and some kind of mouth movement he hoped would come off as normal. As he shuffled his way out, she started to mumble and hum the words to a song, loud and proud, making pancakes. He didn't know, he couldn't know if this was just himself projecting, but it sounded like she was humming the words to "Is That All There Is?", pushing himself away now, embarking himself into the house keeping his ears out for the bot. He stepped softly in hopes of the robot not hearing him, and he waddled and peered around and down the halls, doors open, now releasing lots of machine noise, almost every room. He walked up the stairs with his eyes locked on the chandelier which was smothered in webs and dust blocking the way of any light that might be wanting to pass through and offer itself. He was feeling his way upwards, and at the top he saw another commons area with a few couches riddled in no pattern whatsoever, and on one sat the robot, with its soylent in hand. Kurt sleuthed his way by way of his back to the wall down the hallway, soft stepping. "GOOOOOOD MOOORNIIING PALO ALTOOO," Kurt's body scrunched and searched for Ziff's whereabouts, leaning, dodging nothing, and finally finding it, papers and clutter reaching the ceiling and Ziff sitting in it all like a throne with his soylent in hand. "Where ya been buddy?"

           "Ziff listen I have a lot of papers to-"

           "Next on the program we have none other than English Composition extraordinaire-"

           "Ziff,"

           "Bonafide rager-maestro and chug champ 2000,"

           "Ziff that rob-"

           "AND honorary member of the fun boys themselves, Kurt 'Spurt' Spottiswoode!" as he started clapping by himself, clapping rang out from the rest of the second floor. He wheeled himself on his rolly-chair, stood up, and took Kurt by the shoulder leading him back down the hall. "We are utterly stoked to have you on this morning,"

           "Heh I-"

           "Mup, I'm asking the questions, I'm the teach... what is the future to you?" holding the air-mike up to Kurt's mouth.

           "It's soon,"

           "Would you say it's now?"

           "No cause... now's the present?"

           "But the now always changes right?"

           "I guess, but-"

           "Have you ever seen the future?"

           "No,"

           Ziff was now jogging over into the commons area, Kurt already knowing what the punchline would be. "Would you-"

           "Ziff, I need to go home,"

           "I gotta introdu-," taking the soylent out of the robot's hands.

           "Ziff. I'm going," backing down the stairs.

           "Kuuurt... Dude..."

           And everything seemed to fade out, leaving only Kurt's mind reeling in place. He got out onto the street and started following it wherever it went, freezing cold outside. He replayed that robot in his mind a long while and kept zooming in on its soylent trying to find a semblance of a clue that would lead him to some peace of mind, but he couldn't, just stuck in replay. Whatever direction Mr. Spottiswoode was heading in, there were trains.

           Kurt was staring while his mind rambled out the window. The train, he thought, was way too quiet, an environment that discouraged the cocoon of isolation he loved putting himself into. The tracks might as well have been non-existent, leaving Kurt the sole pleasure of listening to his own ears, ringing to themselves to avoid insanity, an instinct. For a moment, Kurt believed that the window his head was leaning on was nothing but another screen, extremely high definition, millions of pixels perfectly and spectacularly calibrated to fool passengers of any scenic route that might have been perceived. It had to be a conspiracy against the senses. What if the screen was hiding something grim and evil? Like an unforgivable violation of human's rights? Dwindling shacks, bodies slogging around awaiting their doom—if his eyes were to penetrate this screen, he wondered, maybe his eyes would meet someone else's, and maybe he would see something rapturous and impossible there in the shared misery, if that's what it was, only to witness it being cloaked by the train's comfy encasing, vanishing behind perspective.

           The corridors of Höffus Hall, human activity simmering down to bathroom breaks and "bathroom breaks", stood in preparation of fulfilling its intended purpose. Direction, visibility, transportation, criss-cross applesauce. Kurt lunged himself up through the stairwell, leaning into the curves of the railing for momentum, his rolly-backpack skipping on the steps, and jumped at the last step for the 4th floor, expecting another. He nearly jogged down the hallway mouthing, "Thursday Thursday, this," as he exhaled every other step. He kept his eyes on his door, erasing anything else from his perception to maximize efficiency. The door opened and out came, rushing, faceless, a slew of students escaping Room 488, breaking off into different directions, unsure if their rut is scheduled correctly or not. The students walking towards Mr. Spottiswoode passed with no regard, purposeful or not, either being plausible he thought. His legs and tiny wheels kept on chugging, though, traversing the hallway renewed with activity indifferent to its origin. Kurt swung open the door and immediately saw Kevin hunched over, shuffling with something. Mr. Spottiswoode moved into position at the front of class, behind his tabletop podium, faux-mahogany desk, and in front of the broken projector screen hanging askew, whiteboard neglected by former courses teeming with information, and sat down in his plastic mold desk chair, which let out a rubbery whine as he landed. Kevin turned around revealing his backpack, filled with five 2" wide binders and what sounded like a load of pencils Kurt assumed were infused with varying increments of graphite intensity, pooling underneath the organization. Kevin became pale as he met Kurt's eyeballs, both of them caught in the act of something untold, implied. The kid, his face tense and vulnerable, who Kurt couldn't believe was the same one who beamed joyous respect at him every single day of class, a scholarly constant, dislodged the frog in his throat.

           "Thank you for the semester Professor Spottiswoode. I wrote you a reflection highlighting how this course improved my ability to critically think about the world and how it presents itself to us and how I can express my personal perception of it through concrete argumentation and healthy sentence structure," digging into one of his binders from the top, sniffling, "I learned that writing a good essay will help you throughout the rest of your life, establishing pathos, logos, and ethos in order to engage the reader is key to allowing anyone to take what you say seriously, perhaps because deep down these elements and rules that go into a well written essay, like relevant topic sentences, presentation of evidence, and analysis of that evidence..." wobbling exasperation, "perhaps these are the fundamentals of life itself and why we love one another and why we make the decisions we make, even our mistakes. It's all one cosmic engaging, insightful, organized essay that we just can't read quite yet," carefully placing the quarter-inch thick packet on the table, "I learned that from you, and it's something I hope to pass onto my children and their children, and I hope to pursue a Master's so I can teach this truth to the next generation of students like you have. This is a part of my essay, I know it and can't control it, I can only proofread it," he picks up and rushes out the door, teary and red-faced, "You're the best teacher ever!" tripping on the door-stop, his sobs bouncing down the hallway in every direction, the most emotional energy this building has ever experienced, undoubtedly seeping into the firmament of the place, dormant and undisturbed, stored in a feedback loop.

           The clock nailed into the wall above the doorway rotated into 11:29 AM, followed close behind by the internal clock in Mr. Spottiswoode's laptop, tucked away in sleep mode inside of Kurt's rolly-backpack. Kurt unzipped the biggest pocket and logged into his laptop, Outlook opening on its own, following orders. The inbox updated and there, waiting, was an e-mail from Ziff with the subject line, "vid of my creation!!!! ;D" Kurt Spottiswoode sat and waited, leaving the e-mail unopened, watching the screen, hand curled into a fist at rest supporting his head, eyes forward. Had he been paying attention, he would've heard the uproar of footsteps outside, vague murmuring, screeching chairs and tables in neighboring rooms to the left, right, upstairs, downstairs, the beeping of high-powered turbo-toasters, motorized longboards whizzing by, trucks backing up, something custodial collapsing, honking, keys jangling to each step, someone quietly running late to class, electrical cars humming, mysterious whooping, and a burst of applause amplified by the valley of dorms just outside the classroom window. Both clocks hit 12:00 PM at almost the same time. Kurt dragged his finger across the trackpad to click the refresh button. Nothing. He hit refresh again. Nothing. He hit refresh. Over and over and over.

←

[tobiologist]

swipe right (if you like me)

Keith/Lance // met on tinder!au // 7.8k+ // sfw // part 2/?

Summary: "I’m doin’ it. Lance giggles under his breath and drags the cat meme picture to the right side of his screen.

But this, friends, is why one shouldn’t tempt fate over Tinder.“

or: Lance finds the most unlikely match on Tinder and (might) gain a boyfriend in the process

Keith

He could strangle Pidge for making him download this stupid app.

It makes absolutely no sense. People rattle off a sentence or two about themselves and hope to lure others in with similar interests, shitty jokes, or a pretty face. Potentially all of the above. Keith doesn’t have the lowest self-esteem in the world, but his ego certainly isn’t in the best shape. When it comes to any of the usual Tinder criteria, he feels like an outlier.

Keith has no desire to hook up with strangers.

>> READ THE REST ON AO3 <<

No, Keith enjoys the idea of sex more than the actual act itself. His hypothetical ‘cherry’ still has yet to be popped, in most senses of the word. He kissed a couple classmates back in high school, girls and guys alike, but nothing more. He’s never seen it as a big deal. Really, Keith could care less about whether he’s getting laid.

School is his top priority at the moment and has been since his sophomore year of high school. Once he can start designing aircrafts, working on spaceships with his own two hands, it won’t be an issue anymore. But until then, he has to stay focused—keep his eyes on the prize.

So, he doesn’t go out of his way to get into the dating scene. It’s downright exhausting, and Keith is just as happy to go through college with a couple friends and a sometimes-nosy-yet-fantastically-compassionate brother. A boyfriend would just cause unnecessary trouble.

Of course…

Things changed a bit when he took an interest in Lance. But it was just that, okay? An interest.

It was hard to ignore the loudest person in every lecture hall. Sure, he quieted down once class started but, before the professor walked in, he chatted with anyone in the general vicinity willing to listen. In the beginning, Lance’s enthusiasm annoyed the absolute shit out of Keith. The guy talked your ear off, whether you wanted him to or not.

But, as time went on, Keith realized most classmates enjoyed Lance’s crazy rants. They were off-the-wall, no doubt about it, but they were interesting. Keith learned they were more like conspiracy theories than rants, which… well. That may be the real root of the problem; Keith lives for conspiracy theories.

That’s what first captured his attention. Lance never engaged Keith directly, but he had no qualms with eavesdropping on Lance’s conversations with other classmates. And, once he took notice of Lance, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

The jerk was amazing. He spoke, moved, breathed as if he were born to tell ridiculous stories and persuade people. He’d be talking to someone and, surely enough, more students would hop into the discussion with their own input. Keith refused to partake—mostly because the thought of embarrassing himself in front of Lance and showing any sort of weakness sickened him—and sat quietly.

Listening.

Lance filled the silence with outrageous stories and theories, ‘fun facts’ and ‘words of wisdom.’ Keith wished, more than anything, he could’ve clamped his hands over his ears and forced himself to tune it out. It was no use, though. It was too late.

Keith liked listening to Lance.

His excitement and passion for what he loved, the timbre and inflection of his voice, every detail sucked Keith in. He’d rather be struck dead than acknowledge it out loud, but he might have developed the slightest bit of a crush on Lance.

Even when tests were passed back and Lance flashed him a look of pure hatred, Keith couldn’t bring himself to dislike the guy. Although Lance never confronted him face-to-face, he had heard about their ‘rivalry’ from Pidge countless times.  And—maybe he’s fucked up in the head—but the very idea of a competition between him and Lance stoked a fire deep in the pit of his gut.

It was absolutely thrilling.

Keith found himself working even harder in class. Of course, he also got distracted more often, what with his gaze drifting to a certain seat, usually a row over, whenever there was a lull in the professor’s lecture. He enjoyed hearing Lance speak, enjoyed listening to the way he regarded the universe as something special, something vast and begging to be explored—

Yeah, Keith had a pretty good feeling he had a crush.

But that didn’t give Pidge any reason to set up a Tinder profile for him. It’s a total trainwreck of a profile, in his opinion. The pictures are… okay, granted, the only picture he wishes she hadn’t included is the knife cat meme.

(Not that he’ll admit that to Pidge.)

So, the pictures—he doesn’t have a big issue with them. It’s the bio he really wants her to change.

He’s stared at those same two lines of text on multiple occasions and still can’t come up with anything else to include. How does someone even decide what to put in a Tinder bio? Most people are there for hookups anyway so what does it matter?

Keith hardly uses his own account. Pidge and—horrifyingly enough—Shiro do most of the swiping for him.

Tonight, however, Keith is bored.

He glances over at the small stack of textbooks propped against his leg. Fuck. In theory, he could work on an assignment instead of putting things off another day. But he wants to make the most of his free time before he confronts the metric fuckton of schoolwork headed his way.

Keith props his feet up on the table and sinks deeper into the couch. Shiro won’t be home tonight so he has the entire apartment to himself. It isn’t all that uncommon for Shiro to spend the night at Matt’s place or, occasionally, Allura’s. But this early on in the semester, when Keith hardly has any homework—he can’t pass the opportunity up.

For the first couple hours, he watches Westworld. When he catches himself drifting off, he disconnects his laptop from the television and reaches for his phone. It’s only 11 o’clock, which is way earlier than he ever goes to bed.

“What the hell do I do now?” Keith asks the empty apartment. Predictably, no one answers him.

Keith groans and tips his head back, fixing his eyes on the ceiling fan overhead. It turns at a leisurely pace, just fast enough to keep him from feeling uncomfortably warm. He tracks the movement of the blades and lets his mind wander.

He could always text Pidge and ask if—dammit. She’s over at another friend’s place tonight. Hunk? Keith is almost positive that’s the guy’s name. And his roommate… Keith swears he knows the roommate, too.

Suddenly, it hits him. He does know the roommate.

“Of course that’s who it is,” Keith mumbles. Because Hunk lives with the same guy Keith has been silently creeping on for the last year or so. Yes, of all the people Hunk could live with, it’s Lance. Fucking aerospace engineering Lance. Who just so happens to also be friends with Pidge.

Keith’s plan to text Pidge is shot down in an instant. Although it does give him an idea.

A totally fucked and uncharacteristic idea, but, again, Keith is bored.

Cautiously, Keith unlocks his phone. His eyes flit across the screen, from app to app, until he spots the one he’s looking for. An app, mind you, he’s only opened and used a handful of times since downloading it. Which Pidge had done two months ago.

There’s a small circle in the center of the screen with his bike picture. Red concentric circles start there and spread outwards, while a message displays underneath. “Finding people near you…” it says. Keith almost wishes it wouldn’t.

Eventually, a profile appears. The guy looks vaguely familiar. Shoulder-length blond hair frames his round face, green eyes glinting promisingly. His pictures show him standing in front of easels—his own art, most likely—or surrounded by friends.

Keith is about to swipe the picture to the right when he realizes he doesn’t remember which way to swipe for people he likes.

“Idiot.” He settles for clicking the little green heart at the bottom of the profile.

Tinder has the decency to remind him which direction to swipe, depending on whether he’s interested in the person or not, and Keith sighs a quiet sigh of relief. He was right about the directions after all. Fantastic.

He goes through about fifteen more profiles—most of which he swipes left on because, wow, there are a lot of fuckboys at their university—before he comes across another familiar face.

But this familiarity hits Keith like a punch to the gut.

“What?” he cries, voice echoing off the thin walls of their living room. “No, no, no.”

There’s no mistaking the flawless skin and golden brown hair, begging to be ruffled. The wicked smirk and dangerous glimmer in his eyes, drawing attention to himself in every picture Keith scrolls across. In one, he wears a baby blue t-shirt with the word “peachy” screened across the front. Keith is almost positive he has class with the guy standing to Lance’s left—maybe that’s Hunk?—while Pidge stands proudly on the other side with an arm around Lance’s waist. The party pictures are easy to spot, considering the large groups of people, as well as the wide array of nonsensical stuff Lance chooses to wear, like a bra made from two red solo cups and beer box over his head.

Just like the Lance that Keith has come to know from class, the Lance in each picture has a certain charm Keith can’t even begin to explain. Even with the plastic cup bra pulled tight over his white crop top.

Just swipe left, he silently urges himself. Nothing good would come out of swiping right. Of course, the chances of Lance finding him attractive enough to want to match with—or the chances of him recognizing Keith and trying to match as a joke—are awfully low.

Keith looks off to the side and then back at Lance’s last picture. He’s at a museum, standing alongside an SR-71 Blackbird, sleek and beautiful. He seems absolutely ecstatic to be there and, for some strange and horrifying reason, Keith is reminded of his father, the man who preferred spending his days rocketing through the sky then down on the ground.

His hands move of their own accord and—

The phone nearly falls out of his hands, and Keith is sure his neighbors must hate him for the noise that comes bursting out of his mouth. Fingers quivering, he stares at the screen, dumbstruck.

“It’s a match!”

No, it can’t be, he wants to tell the stupid app. That’s impossible You’re wrong. He can’t even imagine Lance wanting to swipe right on a social pariah like him. Keith Kogane, the hotheaded and cocksure student who’s always questioning his professors and authority figures. The boy who hates loud and crowded places, like parties or clubs, and finds it difficult to make new friends. He’s the antithesis of everything Lance stands for so why… what the hell could’ve possibly influenced Lance to swipe right?

Keith shakes his head and sets the phone on the table, just of reach.

He’ll watch more Westworld, that’s what he’ll do. After the recent plot twist, he has to watch more and see how events unfold. And avoid thinking of Lance or the fact they matched on Tinder.

Everything is perfectly fine.

But, after one episode, Keith can’t stay away. “Fucking idiot,” he growls at himself and snags his phone off the table. To his horror, he has a message waiting for him. Lance sent you a new message!

“The fuck he has,” Keith exclaims, voice cracking unpleasantly somewhere in the middle of his outburst. Tentatively, he unlocks the screen and presses the notification.

is your mom an alien? because dat ass is out of this world

Keith doesn’t care how cute this asshole’s smile is; he wants to punch him. But the comment is so fucking… cringey that Keith can’t help but let out a short laugh. And the messages don’t stop there. He only has to wait a few minutes for the next couple.

the aliens made me swipe right

hey baby wanna take a ride in my flying saucer?

Keith is definitely laughing now. He’s finding it hard to believe Lance thinks any of this garbage will work. How the fuck could someone as smooth as Lance score hookups with lines like this? Not that Keith has any idea whether Lance hooks up with people he meets on Tinder. It’s just a hunch, alright? A totally unbiased hunch that has nothing to deal with how obnoxiously adorable he finds Lance’s face and quirky fashion sense.  

He deliberates locking his phone, possibly turning it off for the rest of the night to avoid this nonsense Lance calls “flirting,” when the last message arrives.

well you seem cool as fuck

A rush of tingling warmth spreads through Keith’s body. He reads the message again, just to be sure he didn’t imagine it, but it’s real. The social butterfly he’s been dying to talk to for months just told Keith he thought he was cool. Him. Keith.

“Me? Cool?” Keith’s thumb hovers over the blank message bar.

He’s never had anyone say that to him before. ‘Freak’ is one he heard often back in elementary school. And, as he grew older and recognized his sexuality, there were a slew of other insults. Compliments were few and far between, unless they were teachers praising his grades and intellect. Which never lasted long. Once he snapped and turned on a classmate for insulting his family, the teachers went back to giving him a wide berth and avoiding him like the plague.

Keith catches his reflection in the television screen. He speaks again, enjoying the taste of the word in his mouth. “Cool.”

His entire body feels warm, pleasantly so, down to the tips of his toes and fingers.

As planned, Keith turns off his phone for the rest of the night. But he vows to at least say something to Lance the next day in class.

 Lance

-present day-

Phase 1 doesn’t go as well as planned.

The first time Lance asks Keith out, he’s met with obliviousness. Because of course life would be too easy if Keith understood the situation right off the bat. No, the universe has to spice things up a bit for Lance.

Lance heaves a sigh, back propped up against the wall. His laptop whirrs softly, a warm presence on the top of his thighs but not nearly as warm as Keith’s presence beside him. The bed is actually quite small. It used to be problematic whenever Lance had someone spend the night, but, ever since he and Keith started hanging out, there’s only been one guest in his room, other than the occasional Hunk.  

He’s been drowning in thoughts of their ‘rivalry’ for the better part of the day, and, for the life of him, Lance can’t remember how it even started. “I’m such an idiot,” he mutters, seemingly out of the blue.

“No comment,” Keith deadpans, blinking at the laptop screen.

“You’re not supposed to agree with me on that one, dude. But, uh. Yeah, I kind of feel like one right now.”

“Why?”

“Because this ‘rivalry’”—he motions between the two of them—“has been going on since, like, freshman year, and I’m finally starting to ask myself what happened to kick it off.”

“I mean, wasn’t it an issue over grades or something? Every time we got a test back in class, I noticed you glaring daggers at me.”

Lance wishes, more than anything, he could shoot that excuse down. But alas…

“No, nope. That’s not it. Way too petty. I never would start a legendary ‘rivalry’ over something dumb like that.”

“Pidge told me you said ‘I won’t rest until I outscore that stupid hotshot,’” Keith recalls drily. “I would assume I’m the ‘stupid hotshot.’”

Did I really call Keith stupid? He knows he never would’ve meant it seriously, regardless of his competitive nature. “I was just joking!”

“The way Pidge told the story, it didn’t seem that way. You used to shoot me dirty looks in class so I wouldn’t be too surprised.” Keith tries to put a few extra inches of space between them and—Lance panics.

“You’re not stupid at all!”

“You sure about that?” Keith’s voice drips with skepticism.

“Positive! Okay, just— just hear me out.” Lance maintains the space between them, worried he may spook poor Keith. “But you can’t laugh at me or anything.”

“You didn’t laugh when I told you about the alien thing so” —Keith shrugs and continues, albeit grudgingly—”I’m not a dickhead. Go ahead.”

“Alright, well, I was jealous.” There you go, Lance, just bite the bullet.

Keith’s nose scrunches up. “Jealous?”

“Yeah, I was jealous. Because you always got good grades and acted like it was no big deal. I slaved over my assignments, but I was lucky to get a B on anything I turned in. Pick a class, any class. You were always way ahead of me.”

Keith pales, like he’s just seen a ghost or run into the Demogorgon from Stranger Things.  

“Um. Oh,” Keith eventually stutters out.

Lance quickly snaps his mouth shut. He definitely said too much. Keith would want nothing to do with him after a selfish excuse like that, and Lance wouldn’t blame him.  “I’m sorry, I... It sounds pretty messed up, when I put it like that, huh?“

And then Lance remembers.

The plot. Hunk and Pidge’s brilliant plot to get Keith and Lance together. It may not be the perfect moment to ask, but it’s not the worst either. They’re talking about grades, right? And what does someone have to do to maintain their grades? Study.

Which—drum roll, please—gives Lance an opening. He could totally ask Keith out on a study date. Lance pictures how the whole conversation will go down in his head and barely quells his desire to preen like a proud peacock.

“Here, I have an idea. To make it up to you.” Lance carefully flips his laptop shut. To his credit, Keith makes eye contact instead of staring intensely at a random spot on the wall, like he had been doing. “How about we study together?”

“I don’t study well in groups.”

Holy mother of-

“I promise to behave myself,” Lance insists, fluttering his lashes. “I’ll stay on task the whole time.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about…”

“What are you worried about then? Is it the whole ‘memories getting trapped in your mullet’ thing? Because—“

“No, Lance.”

“Is it… because you hate me?”

Lance doesn’t know why he says it, but immediately regrets doing so when Keith’s expression twists into one of pure fear. “I don’t hate you.”

“Then what is it?”

“I… I’m worried I won’t be able to focus.”

Pieces of the puzzle slot clumsily together in Lance’s brain; they aren’t quite meshing together, though.  

“I told you, I’ll only ask relevant questions. No sidetracking, no gossip. I swear on my model aircraft collection that I’ll be the best study buddy you could ask for.”

Keith snort-laughs. “I know that.”

“Then why?”

“It’s just that…“

“Hm?”

“I, uh, you see…”

“Keith, dude, seriously—“

“It doesn’t matter if you sit quietly and read the fucking Dictionary to yourself, Lance, I’ll still be distracted by you!”

Lance is totally unprepared for the surge of emotions. The words turn over in his head, faster and faster, and Lance starts to gain a loose grasp on what Keith is saying. Is he… is he saying he would be too busy watching me?

There’s no way—absolutely no way. But it’s the most viable explanation. Either the slightest noise disturbs Keith or he’s concerned Lance’s very existence will serve as a distraction.

“Just to be sure I’m not going crazy here,” Lance starts, hesitantly, “are you implying that you’ll be too busy ogling the goods to focus on studying?”

And now Lance is getting shoved. Not enough to send him toppling off the bed but enough that it smarts a little where Keith jabbed him. Curious, he glances up and— Keith, the poor dude, bears an uncanny resemblance to a tomato. Lance can practically see the smoke pouring out of his ears.

“Shut up,” Keith growls. The laptop tips precariously to one side, and Keith steadies it. “Forget I said anything. Let’s just—get back to the movie? It’s been so long since I last watched it.”

Keith has a point. It’s been ages since Lance watched The Last Starfighter. He fell in love with the film the very first time he watched it, sitting in his family room with his younger siblings crowded around him. As a young boy, he’d spent hours searching through his father’s expansive sci-fi collection, watching more movies and televisions shows than he’d care to admit.

When rumors were being spread around the engineering department about the prodigal new student and pilot, Lance couldn’t help but be reminded of Alex Rogan. The kid never expected to be put behind the controls of an actual spaceship, but he was born with the skill necessary to do so. Rewatching the film, Lance can’t help but imagine Keith in a similar scenario.

He’d totally be the kind of guy capable of saving the world.

In reality, as Lance grew older, he developed a bit of a celebrity crush on the young Lance Guest. Bonus points went to the guy for having the same first name as Lance. And, okay, he wasn’t as cute as young Harrison Ford, but he was still pretty high on Lance’s list of ‘Sci-Fi Actors I Would Climb Like A Tree.

“Yeah… yeah, okay,” Lance concedes. He pulls the laptop over until it sits comfortably between them again, half resting in each of their laps. “You’re lucky I love this movie, or I’d ask your stubborn ass more questions.”

Keith merely sighs and flips the laptop back open, reaching out to press the spacebar. The movie resumes, and Lance is left with his thoughts, torn between gushing over space dogfights or devising new plans to ask the most oblivious person in the fucking world out on a date.

--

Lance

“I can’t believe that didn’t work,” Hunk grumbles, adjusting his protractor before sketching another line.

Lance sits in the floor of their living room, an open textbook in his lap. Like a cat, Pidge lies stretched out on the couch. She fits perfectly, whereas Lance and Hunk both have to tuck their legs or prop them on the armrest when in her place. Fingers flying across the keyboard, she pays little to no mind to Hunk and Lance’s discussion.

“Are you kidding? It’s Keith.”

Or not.

Lance groans. He’s recounted the whole story of his failed attempt twice now. Between homework problems, Hunk tries taking the situation apart, piece by piece, in search of Lance’s mistake. Pidge butts in with a comment every now and then.

“I know, but still,” Hunk huffs, “That idea seemed pretty foolproof to me. Kudos to you, by the way, dude.”

“Thanks,” Lance mumbles half-heartedly.

“You have to be straightforward with Keith. Otherwise, he thinks he’s imagining things. Or that you’re trying to trick him.”

“Paranoid, much?” Lance flips the page of his textbook, staring aimlessly at the pictured airfoil. “How would I trick him with a study date? Feed him the wrong answers? That’s fucked up, rivals or not.”

Hunk curses under his breath, and the distinct sound of an eraser, pressed hard against paper, fills the apartment. “You ruined my mechanism sketch, dude.”

Lance shoots him a classic ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ look. But Hunk merely nods. “Spouting that garbage. You and Keith never really were rivals in the first place, but you’re definitely not now. You’re friends, at least. More than friends, if things go your way…”

“Anyway,” Pidge drawls, “I don’t know why he wouldn’t want to study together. He comes over to our place sometimes to work on stuff. Says it’s quieter than his place when Shiro invites Allura and Matt for dinner.”

So… Lance might not have told Hunk and Pidge the entire story. The last bit of their talk—when Keith revealed he wouldn’t be able to focus with Lance in the room—remains a closely guarded secret. It’s  definitely better that way. If anything, Pidge would tease poor Keith and, well, Keith would punch Lance in the dick for sharing something so personal.

Lance would deserve it, of course. No question there.

“Not a clue. Maybe he thinks he’s too good to study with his ri—“ Hunk tosses his eraser at Lance. The worn, white block smacks into his cheek, and Lance squeaks. “Hey!”

“Chances are, he’s too shy,” Hunk explains, fixing Lance with a frustrated grimace. “You should know by now that Keith isn’t an academic prude or anything. I’m sure he has his reasons.”

Oh, he has his reasons alright.

“Yeah, he can be pretty, uh, eccentric sometimes. He obviously likes spending time with you, though, so I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it,” Pidge adds, tone matter-of-fact.

Other than his own brother, Pidge is Keith’s closest friend. They bonded their junior year of high school over conspiracy theories and alien abduction, if Lance remembers correctly. Shiro and Matt were already close friends at the time so the two older brothers were encouraging them to get to know each other better. According to Pidge, she’d been a little reluctant at first. Keith was quiet and sometimes snapped at complete strangers. But, the more time they spent together, the closer they became.

Now that Lance knew Keith better, he could see why their personalities meshed so well. In the past, he’d wracked his brain for reasons why the two got along and always came up with zilch, nada. Not anymore.

As Keith’s closest companion, Pidge knows nearly as much as Shiro. Enough for her to judge whether Keith actually likes Lance or simply tolerates him for the sake of keeping up appearances. He obviously likes spending time with you, she says.

“So, what should I try next?” Lance prompts. It’s a welcome diversion from his homework. And, well, he really doesn’t know where to proceed from here when it comes to Keith. “Do I try asking him out again?”

“Maybe?”

“Or—or, you could always ask him how he feels about dating,” Hunk suggests. “Not you specifically but, like… dating in general? Maybe that’ll get him to share some valuable information. If he’s interested in dating anyone right now, if he has any crazy exes, if he’s already talking to someone.”

Ugh. The last suggestion leaves Lance feeling queasy. Keith wouldn’t have someone special like that in his life and not tell Lance… right?

“Eh, I guess.” Lance smooths his fingers over the lines of text on the page. “That could work. You really are a genius, buddy.”

Hunk grins, wide and genuine, and pats Lance soundly on the back. “There he is, Sir Lancelot.”

“Defender of the universe!” Lance doesn’t even shut his book before he stands, placing his hands on his hips. If only he had a cape. “The resident sharpshooter, the tailor himself!”

Pidge objects loudly from her place on the couch. “Hunk, no, why do you encourage him?”

The two go back and forth—making judgments on which nicknames should stay and which have to go—but Lance is only half-listening. The man of action has a new plan of action now.

The next step in Phase I will now commence.

--

Keith

This is weird.

Actually, ‘weird’ doesn’t feel quite right. It doesn’t encompass the full magnitude of ‘what the fuck is happening’ Keith experiences when he’s around Lance. Emotional vertigo, to be honest.

Let’s just say Keith hasn’t mentioned the real reason he matched with Lance on Tinder— to anyone. No, it wasn’t Pidge who made the decision. Keith’s very own finger swiped Lance’s profile to the right. Completely sober, completely in control of his actions, Keith had been the one to kick himself in the ass and shoot for a match.

And it’s only progressively gotten worse now that Lance pays attention to him.

“You certainly seem like you’re in a good mood,” Shiro calls out from the kitchen. Past experience tells Keith the remark is supposed to sound offhanded; it doesn’t.

Keith glances up from his textbook, brows raised. “Really?”

“Well, you seem to be smiling more often.” Shiro’s lips pull up into a soft smile of his own. “It’s nice, seeing you happy.”

“I don’t… feel any different.”

“I’m used to you bursting through the door, full of complaints. Usually about that boy in most of your courses. Oh, what’s his name…”

Shiro is so full of shit. Keith groans and pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes falling shut. “Lance. His name is Lance.”

“Yes, that’s the one! But you two seem to be getting along a lot better now. Is that right?”

“You’ve been talking to Matt… haven’t you?”

Keith watches, just to catch the guilty expression on Shiro’s face and catalogue it for later. “Uh, well. We had lunch the other day, and he—he might’ve brought it up.”

“And what’s ‘it’?”

“Your friendship with Lance! He says the two of you started sitting next to each other in his aerospace structures class.” Shiro fiddles with a couple spoons as he pulls them from the dishwasher. “He also mentioned that… it almost seemed like flirting to hi—“

“No, no,” Keith quickly interjects. “Definitely not. Lance and I are friends now. So we talk? Nothing weird about that, right?”

Shiro turns to fully face Keith. He leans back against the kitchen counter. The scar along the bridge of his nose is far more noticeable when he’s like this, gaze fixed intently on Keith, forehead creasing just the slightest bit. Keith has grown over the years, but Shiro still has a few inches on him. Plus, he works out consistently and has the stocky, solid build to show for it. It doesn’t take long for him to switch from ‘sweet older brother’ mode to ‘intimidating father figure’ mode.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve discussed Lance in the past few weeks. You’ve started hanging out with Pidge and ‘her friends’ on the weekends. I know that Lance is one of those friends.” Shiro narrows his eyes. “I also know how fidgety you were the first time you came home, after hanging out with them. Fidgety but also… kind of… giddy?”

“Giddy?” Keith feels his cheeks start to pink. God, he hates when Shiro does this to him. “That’s the word you’re going with?”

“I can’t think of a more appropriate one,” Shiro laughs. “You could barely sit still and kept checking your phone. Especially with the way you were acting the night before… I was suspicious.”

Shit. Keith had really hoped Shiro hadn’t noticed his odd behavior the night he matched with Lance. The night. The cursed night.

“Like I said, we’re just friends,” Keith stresses again. He knows it won’t be the last time he has to tell Shiro. “He’s a huge pain in the ass, but he’s also a nice guy. That’s the only reason I’ve probably seemed happy. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever…” Shiro whispers the words under his breath, but Keith hears him. He turns and strides over to where his briefcase sits, propped against the table. “Anyway, I have to get to work. These homework assignments need graded, and I haven’t had a chance to hand them off to the TA yet.”

“Yeah, alright. Is it just going to be you tonight for dinner? Or are Allura and Matt coming?”

Shiro chuckles faintly, shaking his head. He fixes the lapels of his shirt and adjusts his tie. Keith is eternally grateful he doesn’t have Shiro as a professor. Not only has he seen the sort of homework he hands out, but he’s the kind of person who would love calling on his “genius little brother” for questions during class.

“Just me.” Shiro finishes inspecting his outfit in the mirror and makes for the door. “I’ll probably be busy, though, so I may bring back Chinese takeout. If that’s okay?”

Keith shrugs. “I don’t mind. You’re the one who likes to cook.”

Translation: Keith is not the world’s best chef.

Shiro flashes a fond smile in his direction before stepping out the door. A rush of cool air filters into the room, and Keith shivers. He’s not looking forward to going out in this weather. Plus, the bus will be packed with the usual crowd plus people who normally walk to campus.

Keith can only hope this isn’t foreshadowing for how the day will go

--

Lance

This will work—this has to work.

His second attempt? Yeah, as expected, that went to shit. The two of them had been sitting in the library, eating lunch, when Lance decided to bring it up.

“So,” he’d drawled, amidst chewing. “You wanna go to the arcade tomorrow?”

“Uh, sure. Is Pidge going?”

Lance almost choked on his sandwich. “I don’t… know? Why?”

“You better make sure you invite her. She’s been dying to go,” Keith says, motioning at Lance with a carrot before crunching into it. “I promised I wouldn’t go without her.”

Of course, Lance had thought about begging Pidge to lie and pretend she had plans. But there were too many loopholes, and Lance would feel bad about robbing Pidge of her opportunity to ‘destroy noobs’ and scrape up some decent cash in the process.

So, back to square one.

A couple days later, Lance settled on a different approach. And his third attempt? You guessed it—also a real bummer. He took yet another L.

“Hey, you wanna go to the movies this weekend?” Lance prompted. He and Keith were walking down to the bus stop, swaddled in thick layers of clothing. “Like, maybe Friday?”

Keith let out a noncommittal noise. It was barely audible past the scarf around his neck. “What movie?”

“I’m not sure… anything you’re interested in seeing?”

“Eh, not really.” Keith paused for a moment before continuing. Lance buried his gloved hands deeper in his pockets. “To be honest, I’d rather just watch something at your place.”

Normally, Lance would’ve danced and cheered because, hell yeah, watching a movie all alone with Keith. But not this particular weekend. Because Shay was staying over and the awkward atmosphere would kill any chance of Lance making a Move.

The initial three attempts in ‘Operation: Woo Keith’ were unsuccessful. Not much of a surprise there. But this idea? His latest idea? Fourth time’s the charm.

Lance scribbled the plan down yesterday, during a break between classes. The chairs in the engineering lounge were crazy comfortable and, curled up in his personal favorite of the bunch, Lance outlined his idea on a scrap piece of paper. Finished, he’d tucked it in his backpack to carry out the following day, when he would have class with Keith.

In a bit of a rush, Lance scrambles to put his lunch together. He spent a decent amount of money on drinks for their last party and needs to pinch pennies for the next few days. Sliding the fridge door open, he reaches for the blueberries.

And, with his fantastic luck, drops the container.

The blueberries roll everywhere—under the fridge, behind the trashcan, managing to even reach the couch. Lance screeches and bends to pick a couple up.

“What are you—oh my God, the fruit killer strikes again!” Hunk freezes just next to the counter. A baggy orange shirt stops just above his knees, hair sticking up at weird angles on top of his head.

“I’m not the fruit killer!”

“Yeah, tell that to the pineapple you sacrificed last week. And the countless other victims in the past!”

Lance scrapes up as many blueberries as he can and dumps them in the trash. He needs to leave soon or he’ll be late for his usual shuttle. And if he’s late to catch the shuttle, he’ll be late to class.

Which means—yep, that’s right. He’ll have to wait to talk to Keith.

Now, that doesn’t completely spoil his brilliant plan. But it deviates from it enough to make Lance anxious. That’s what will throw things off. Because once uncertainty comes into play, Lance freaks out and has been known to sabotage himself.

“The fruit killer has to hurry the fuck up,” Lance says, jamming notebooks and a binder into his bag. He snags the lunch he somehow managed to throw together. “Or he may screw himself over.”

Hunk stops, a few blueberries cradled in his open palms. “This is your last chance to ask him or we’ll have to fix things and reschedule.”

“I know, I know. It’ll all work out, okay?”

Lance is out the door before Hunk can say anything more.

--

Keith

Tap, tap.

Keith glances down at his phone, pressing his thumb lightly over the home key. 8:58 AM.

Tap, tap.

Lance is hardly ever late to class. As a matter of fact, he usually beats Keith there.

Tap, tap, tap.

Keith squeezes the pen in his hand. He’s almost positive the guy he used to sit next to is glaring at him. Obviously he doesn’t appreciate Keith tapping his pen on the edge of his desk. Calm the fuck down.

This isn’t the kind of class you’d want to be late to either. The professor has a strict attendance policy and doesn’t take kindly to people walking in late. There have been a few students who walked in ten minutes late and were ‘politely’ asked to leave. Not that Keith thinks Lance will be that late.

Just as he’s about to text Lance and beg him to get his ass to class, the man of the hour comes crashing into his usual seat.

“Dude—“

“Yeah, I might’ve sacrificed some blueberries to get here on time.”

Keith blinks at Lance, watching as he quickly digs through his backpack. He tugs the desk over his lap and slaps down his notebook. “At least you spared the pineapple this time,” Keith points out.

“You and your love of pineapple.” Lance clicks his pen and turns to the next blank sheet. He pauses, eyes flitting to Keith. “Did you just make a joke?”

Bastard. He can feel the heat creeping across his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. “Professor Coran is going to walk through that door any second now and bitch at you for talking and interrupting class.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll ignore the fact that super serious Keith Kogane, envy of all mullets, cracked a joke.” Lance throws Keith a wink. He can practically feel his insides turning to mush. “Also, I know I probably don’t have to ask at this point but, uh. You wanna come to our party tonight?”

“Oh, it’s tonight?”

“Yeah, but that’s not a problem, right?” There’s a hint of desperation in Lance’s tone that piques Keith’s curiosity.

“No, no. It’s not. I’m just used to them being on Saturday’s.”

“Yep,” Lance answers with a nod, “Just come over at eight. A little early so you don’t have to deal with the rush of people.”

Keith cocks his head to the side. There’s something strange about Lance’s demeanor. He almost sounds… nervous. Which makes no sense whatsoever. This certainly isn’t the first time he’s invited Keith. More like the fourth time—not that Keith’s keeping track or anything.

“Are you okay?” Keith is momentarily distracted by Lance’s fingers, fiddling with the cover of his notebook. “You seem more… jittery than usual.”

“Totally fine, dude,” Lance answers, “just trying to calm myself down after sprinting here from the bus stop.”

If not for Coran charging through the door like a man on a mission, thick pile of papers crammed under his arm, Keith would’ve interrogated Lance further. But he knew better than to open his mouth once their professor entered the picture. The man would definitely call Keith out. He may spare Lance, but Keith… yeah, maybe he deserved to be called out.

“Alright, class, how is everyone this fine morning?” A collective groan fills the room, and Coran scoffs. “Now, now, it’s lovely outside! This weather reminds me of the time I spent up North. I bet this is what it’s like to live on Europa, hm? “

Coran has a reputation for his bizarre anecdotes, random sound effects, and mild obsession with space and alien life. At the mention of Europa, Keith can already tell today is going to be an entertaining lecture.

“Anyway,” Coran singsongs, claiming his usual place at the front of the room. “Today we’re going to discuss the dihedral effect and how we model…”

Keith sighs and writes the date in the top left-hand corner of the page. For the rest of the lecture, he blocks out his surroundings and focuses on the strings of complicated words coming out of Professor Coran’s mouth. This isn’t the sort of class he can afford to ignore.

He makes it through a solid hour and fifteen minutes without dwelling on Lance or his peculiar behavior or the party later that night—

Ugh.

Seriously, Keith puts it all out of his mind until he’s free to go home. That’s when he’ll sit and worry over everything. Which, once he slinks through the door and throws himself down onto the couch a couple hours later, is exactly what he does.

—

Lance

Lance pouts his lips, watching his reflection mimic the gesture.

“You got this,” he tells himself. He checks his shirt for wrinkles, running his hands over the front of his navy blue flannel. It used to belong to his dad, and Lance has always loved the way it hangs on his frame. He wears the sleeves rolled up to his elbow, exposing the long lines of his forearms, and the shirt offers a nice glimpse of his collarbone. A sturdy belt holds his khakis in place, tan fabric hugging his hips and waist in all the right places. He usually reserves these pants for class presentations and interviews, but a date with Keith seems like a worthy occasion.

“Keith used to be your rival, and, sure, he has a mullet. But he’s the coolest, and you’re not going to fuck this up.” Lance jabs his finger into his reflection’s forehead. “I repeat, you will not fuck this up.”

Yes, the mantra is new. He’s never met anyone he legitimately needed a pep talk to approach. Not that needing positive words of encouragement to talk to Keith is a bad thing! It’s more like an ‘I really need to impress this person and convince them I’m worth the effort’ sort of thing.

“I won’t fuck this up.” Lance straightens his spine, standing tall with his hands poised on his hips. “I won’t fuck this up. I won’t, I just won’t. I, Lance McClain, will not fu—”

There’s a hesitant knock at the door, just loud enough that Lance hears it from down the hall. And, oh God, Lance shrieks like a teenage boy who just discovered a spider hidden in the bottom of his boot. He mumbles reassurances under his breath and hastily smooths his hands down the front of his body for probably the millionth time that evening. There’s a slim chance his ministrations only serve to wrinkle his shirt further, but he doesn’t give a flying fuck because Keith Kogane is waiting at his door.

“C- I’m coming!” Lance calls out. He almost trips over a stray sock but catches hold of the doorframe before he can actually fall. “Gimme a second!”

Keith doesn’t answer, but Lance easily conjures up what he must look like. Standing there, likely dressed in his usual dark jeans and cotton red shirt, the worn sort that looks soft to the touch. He’s almost definitely wearing his leather jacket, a pair of scuffed combat boots or, maybe, his red Converse sneakers. Quite honestly, Lance has a soft spot for those stupid shoes.

Lance comes to a screeching halt in front of the door, nervously tugging at the hem of his flannel for several tense seconds, before cracking the door open. His eyes flutter shut, and he repeats the mantra once more. I won’t fuck this up.

But nothing could’ve prepared him for what awaits him on the other side.

Hair— that’s the first thing Lance notices. Dark strands are swept back into a low ponytail, strays framing Keith’s face, the shortest hairs curling at the nape of his neck. The style draws more attention to features Lance had never allowed himself to contemplate before. A barely visible mole near the tip of his left eyebrow, the grey-purple hue of his irises, a tiny pimple hidden alongside the bridge of his nose. Every detail, every minor flaw, leaves Lance riveted. And steals the words right out of his mouth.

“Hey,” Keith, the cute bastard, has the nerve to say. As if nothing about his appearance is weird or hazardous to Lance’s health. Lance seizes the opportunity to give Keith a onceover and, yeah, of course he’s wearing the Converses. Shit.

“Uh, oh, hi,” Lance responds, oh so eloquently.

“Hey,” Keith repeats, the barest hint of a smile taking shape on his lips. “Can I… come in?”

“Uh, yeah, duh, of course.”

Keith takes one step into the apartment and falters. “You’re still doing it.”

Oh crap. “Doing what?”

“Acting all weird and jittery. What the hell is your deal?”

Lance is going to burst. If he holds the truth in any longer, he might literally explode and spray his guts all over their nice, clean walls. I won’t fuck this up, I won’t fuck this up, I-

“There’s no party tonight!” Lance gasps, like the confession is punched out of him.

Keith stops mid-stride and turns on Lance. He stares blankly, uncomprehending, silent questions hanging between them. The motion is quick, sharp. A few extra flyways join the other stray bangs hanging around Keith’s face, tickling his cheeks. Lance distantly wonders if they actually tickle.

“...What?”

“Surprise!” Lance holds his arms out to the side. He’s genuinely shocked his heart hasn’t climbed up his throat yet. Plastering on his best confident grin, he gestures at the entirety of the apartment. “It’s just the two of us tonight!”

Keith’s lashes flutter wildly, and he spins, surveying the empty living room and kitchen. “Uh, did you— just the two of us? You and… me?”

I won’t fuck this up.

“Keithy, boy, what would you do if I told you this was a date?”

[jeffrmayhugh]

BITCOINs Big BREAKOUT OR BREAKDOWN!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Yoho what is going on viewers of the two. Here Chico crypto. Come on you guys like on the normal Saturday Bitcoin game corruption downward movements are startling. Wait for everybody get in the chat Hope everyone’s doing good today. Chaffetz Yeah that’s my cue. TYLER HERE YOU GO. Crypto. Come on you guys. Saturday. Big point. How’s your body doing. What up guys. Yeah we’re starting another downward movement. We beat near the 7 k mark but yeah got rejected pretty hard. So we’re gonna get into my feelings we’re gonna do a little bit of Tyler analysis not technical analysis because we don’t do that here on Chico crypto because I’m not a technical guy. I mean you got to sit around for years and years and I mean we’re getting the finance 1.0 crowd who have been performing this Kia for since the 90s. You guys I mean it’s gonna be hard to beat a lot of these traders. I’ll tell you that right now and a lot of them are getting their paws deep into crypto cryptocurrency that Max Arthur Hayes talked about it. But before we get into my technical analysis we’re going to try something interesting for the T.A. for today. Yeah I’m going to do it a little differently not Microsoft Paint but kinda. So you guys will get to see her in a sec. But if you haven’t follow me on Instagram I’ve been kicked off Twitter. If you guys don’t do that so follow me on Instagram links in the description for you guys check out. You can also follow me on uptrend. I’m on there posting on there and I’m also on the most controversial one to watch. Powered by Bitcoin as we a lot of people not going to like that but I’m going to use anything that works and I’ve actually made about 40 bucks off of Twitch so far so pretty girl in my opinion. God damn it. My chaps disconnected again. Pull out my phone I’m sorry guys. Go. Scott Peterson house went up everybody not see him buddy. So yeah follow me on those so I could do the normal you know why are trying to get me to join your community. See that’s why I want to use that. You’re trying to get me join your stupid community and and pop up that won’t let me get out of it and I click it. That’s why I’m not going to use your crap. But yeah I could do you know the normal trading view type stuff indicator. Bob Barr I don’t even know what they do half the time because it’s a bunch of crap. Yeah you gotta even log in to use it. But I’m going to do something different. So let’s begin that. I hope this works and I’m not just gonna look like a fool but let’s try it anyways so I got make this up a little bit. So I’m going to do VR you guys I’m going to do if you guys heard of the Get game Half-Life Alex I’m going to do this. So I started. If you guys can see it I’m not. Making a fool out of myself. All right. So I hope you guys can see the chart right here. Make sure everything’s going good before I start it. All right. K six k for k Duke. So we’re just gonna get this. You know my opinion you know we’re hanging on to that 6k level. I think we’re gonna go down because there’s a few things going on in finance one point zero. We need to understand for one I love boobs. And number two south side so we got to understand that you draw a line here and it hits resistance but then you draw a line off the bibs. It hits another resistance and then right here that’s where the miners stuff happens. You know a lot of miners unprofitable. We’ve got to keep it there. You know now this game is really done. You guys I would recommend getting VR headset shit ridiculous crazy. Work. Hell yeah. Get it set back up for the regular screen. I’m not going to do that whole time. Does that show that off a little. Okay we’re good. What app has that app is. It’s a game. You guys it’s half life. ALEX It’s frickin crazy good. I got to play a little bit for you but we got to scrap it. Maybe I’ll start a VR channel or something. Yeah I know it’s crazy good like you can do everything in the environment you can interact with. Grab. I mean the reloading gun fighting and it’s so good satisfying. I’ll tell you that. So yeah. Let’s get back into crypto currency. So yeah we’ll talk about my a few things I’m not going to draw on Half-Life Alex charcoal time. Good. Yeah that’s a future so I might be doing technical and our people might be doing technical analysis in the future in like a virtual classroom. A lot more interactivity in my opinion. That’s why I got the VR headset when I learned that Ballard was working on the index and they’re coming out with game maybe left for dead. Might be the next one in VR would be insane. That’s when I was like I need to purchase one the because. I have a feeling with this game engine. They built without I. Alex they are we’re going to see a lot more come out of VR because other game developers are gonna be able to use that game engine but let’s talk about Bitcoin. So we’re gonna go into bitcoin one day chart. I mean this is what we got to understand what’s going to happen. I mean right here you know this is sense you know late early morning Friday Intel you know late afternoon and we had a back down. I mean if you just look at the Dow Jones it’s like bitcoin is following it to a T right now. And if you guys watch my channel that plays video like four or five days ago I talked about how finance 1.0 has their dirty paws in cryptocurrency through leveraged trading exchanges like betting that’s Arthur Hazen and those guys they came from finance one point zero in my opinion you can make a lot more money with large positions and finance one point zero. So what these guys were doing you know is taking a lot of the profits and funneling them into large positions in the stock market risky positions too. Because I mean they’re already doing risky enough positions which they control Bitcoin. But you know if they can find a low enough money into certain certain stuff in stock market they can control that. Q. Oh all right guys. I just muted it that sorry guys I didn’t realize that. So I mean in my opinion we’re going to see if we see the stock market on Monday have a rough time which it’s looking like it I mean it gift bright at closing. We’re going to see bitcoin go back down unfortunately. But I mean for bitcoin to come out of this everything’s going to have to burn and it’s gonna be a total scorched earth cap. I mean I foresee it coming because the stimulus bill I mean it’s not written to save what’s wrong with this nation. It threatened to continue what’s wrong what has been wrong. So that’s my personal opinion. I do think we are going to see more downward movements from Bitcoin and then this goes back to the hash pass rate. I and I don’t think like 1 k to K levels like some people say I’m thinking you know four K levels and that just has to do with the hash rate. China is still profitable at four thousand three thousand five hundred not high. I mean at this hash rate they are pretty profitable still. Not extremely but yeah they are. While other regions significant regions like the United States and some parts of Europe Australia they all become for the most part unprofitable because of electricity costs unless they are using sustainable energy. By you know high initial costs with sustainable operation and I did a video on this where you know some of the bottom levels are for the Bitcoin price just based off of mining industry economies grow public at 10 percent to 3 percent. India is still at 1 percent and the rest of the world still at 4 percent. And I made these all those guesses on that just I kind of pulled them at my me bungle. Yeah. They’re based off just what I kind. I’ve been in the crypto industry for a while you know and seeing how the hash rates kind of moved in in different regions now is just based off of my own estimations me buttonhole they’re actually right. I was like Holy crap. Yeah I got it confirmed by some article I can remember this one I called China’s big spot on I was like Whoa that’s crazy but. Another reason I do think bitcoin is going to go down is because of the fact I mean and I talked about it a lot last week and I’m going to continue to talk about it because this stimulus bill is disgusting. It hurts me personally because it just goes against everything our nation is about or maybe everything our nation is for now was about I should say. So I mean basically most Americans if you made less than seventy five thousand dollars are going to be getting a twelve hundred dollar check. But I mean there is a lot of influences in the space some big ones like Anthony promptly on oh who was saying this is good for bitcoin and I do agree. You know inflation is good for bitcoin but. Twelve hundred dollar check while corporations get the bulk of it is not good for bitcoin. These corporations amass small my new minority of these institutions are in bitcoin. They are all in finance one point zero. They all view Bitcoin as a less valuable more speculative asset than a stock. So they’re not going to invest in it. But a bulk of the money into finance 1.0 stock market and people are getting the twelve hundred dollars. You know not the institutions they are going to be suffering so they’re not going to put it. It’s basically none of that money is going to be getting put into bitcoin in the medium term long term. Yes. Yes. But it’s just like who is it. This is bad. Just bad all around for crypto it’s bad all around for. I mean if it was more equal and you know Americans got a bigger chunk of this it would be great for crypto because they would have money to put in to the bitcoin markets. They don’t have it you guys. I mean it’s only a check for twelve hundred bucks they’re going to spend that on what they need and I know some people aren’t going to lose their jobs but we’re going to have to see the full fallout of this and some of you I’m and as much as I’m not trying to be an asshole this is just maybe Anonymous. Like I always am asked a lot of you are gonna lose your jobs in this chat. Are you going to spend that on Bitcoin or are you going to spend that on frickin rent for the few months rent you guys just sire. Barney thank you rather I appreciate the debt I’m going to buy. I like the mojito. That’s a good one. So it’s kind of an win lose not only not even a lose lose it’s a lose lose in the short term maybe a win lose in the long term for bitcoin but here’s funny was you know Steve Newton Yeah March 17th over a week and a half ago he said we’re looking at Nugent’s duty birches saying we’re looking to send checks to Americans immediately immediately. Yeah. He said within two weeks Americans need to get cash now and the president wants cash. Now we’re looking to send it in two weeks. Newton said on Tuesday so what. That was a week ago and now guess what he said. Three weeks yet treasury secretaries government agents had one day. Wednesday the checks will be sent out within three weeks. Seaweed dough weaves. Keep it up I’m gonna brother. Thanks for the tip and plutonium podcast. Check out his podcast if he has one. Tip brother so they add three weeks two weeks. One week. Yeah when are they come in. Who knows. They asked even in Newton. He is seriously powerful now. He is a controller of basically four trillion dollars. And yeah you hear him and his friends are gonna make out like crazy and crazy. They’re gonna be rich. And if you see Stephen Newton that guy is. I can’t even believe he’s part of our. Executive branch. The guy is such a hustler. Besler. This is the picture you need to see. I came with his wife and dollar bills. Look at. You need to miss what’s on the red carpet. Oh yeah. These guys are players. They are not your average executive. This is elite status. No yeah. There he is with Brent Newton. But let’s get into some crypto news besides the stimulus bill what’s going to happen to bitcoin in my main opinion finance one point zero is going to have some hurt. Federal Reserve Treasury Department. They pulled out all stops and they pulled out everything for corporations. And I think even the markets realize that it’s not it’s not the problem. So markets are going to react badly to. A ban a Band-Aid and not a fix because 2008 was another Band-Aid. We need a fix. Asked that stampede asked covered 19 peak is estimated in July or August. How low do you think BTC will be then three k 1 k. Well it really depends. You guys I mean if we do have a full on Spanish flu type epidemic you know and it grows to that type of level you know the virus starts mutating getting even more deadly. Killing more people. Yeah I mean we’re gonna see some crap go down. I’ll tell you that. That’s why they kind of did this stimulus bill there’s a liquidity problem and if you know the general public withdraws their money out of the banks we’re going to have a bank run like the Great Depression. Stock market is going to go it’s gonna be in another Great Depression. Exactly what happened you guys. Banks will collapse and you’ve seen kind of the new rules they put in to for that liquidity program. Taxpayers are on the hook from the FDIC. I talked about that yes or no. I talked about that on Monday. You guys. Yeah I’m talking about what the banks are doing. Private banks on Monday so it’s. Yeah I mean if we see something like that. Bitcoin is going to go down with it. But as you know the fire burns out and people rise from the ashes. I mean who’s gonna want to go back into that system. Not too many people. I think that’s. I don’t want that to happen. But at the same time I do because that’s the only way Bitcoin really truly breaks away is we need a full on collapse of finance one point zero China crapped on everyone not not really. I mean the half rate is doing pretty fine it’s over a hundred million now. I mean we’re going to see this. Like I said I made a video on this. It’s gonna be similar to what happened in your chart. Right here I said we might see a 40 to 50 per cent reduction in the half rate and it got about to that level and we might go back down. Like yeah. So now I’m sure some of you have got into this even though I told you not to. There is good reason not to do so by Nance listed this F T X token it was a leveraged trading token. Basically you just invest in the dog and it does all the leverage ball only for you. Well now finance is delisting all of them. Every single leverage trading token. So yeah they’ve been crashing Bob Barr whatever so it’s caused a lot of user confusion because that was a huge product on finance it got people talking like crazy people were investing like crazy well by Nancy’s saying. Their users didn’t understand them so that’s why they’re de-listing. The main reason for doing this thing is that too many users do not understand them and then basically the creator of FCX said by Nancy listing out these didn’t want to manage user education support FCX listing out the USD pairs to compensate. You can either send out keys to FTSE quality or all that turn into B USD on finance. So basically he’s saying finance didn’t want to educate their users so that’s why they listed. Well here was 17 days ago finance listed their own tokens in the BMV bull and BMV their FCX tokens. So what is going on. This doesn’t make sense to me you know. No this isn’t about our users didn’t understand it. It’s about money isn’t it. Yes CSC it’s about money. MARTIN Glenn I appreciate that tip and I like the comment. I might stop using toilet tissue and start using dollars soon. Tissue will be worth more. That would be a crazy world. But this was to me on my guy right 17 days ago they listed their own tokens in the being in the UN FCX. Now this isn’t something about money. So if you don’t know by Nance back in December of 10 I mean just a few months ago four months ago invested an undisclosed sum in the crypto derivatives platform FP yet I actually talked about this and I was like this seems shady out the gate because FCX looks like garbage. Hi man. How many years you see yourself holding maker. I see a maker as a long term hold Georgia’s long term. I appreciate the tip but yeah long long term. Especially with the burn mechanism so they invest an undisclosed amount of good amount. And yet CEO is Sam Pinkman freed of. And this was posted just last month. 30 days ago. Finance back FCX exchange 6 billion dollar value waste in an equity Coke sale. So yeah it’s hoping they gain a billion dollar valuation FCX is it sounds like they’re Sam Bateman free it is getting a little greedy but who else is super greedy sleazy finance. Oh yeah he is. You guys know. So there is some shady stuff going on earlier in the month. He acts was getting pumped and dumped like crazy. People were like what is going on is this finance is a scam and free. Who is doing this. Well I don’t think it’s this guy because he’s not smart enough in my opinion. So if you go into that the execs Jane and the right paper it’s garbage it doesn’t even explain how it works at all. It’s a white paper. Yeah see here the white paper I’m like Okay let’s get a nice detailed white paper. Yeah it’s like five pages so I was like nine now. I saw it and I looked into this back when you have X got lunch and that’s why I was like No way am I going to invest in this baloney but this is interesting. So this happened the same day as this come out. So this came out March 2nd. Someone tried to pump and dump at X token on finance FCX Exchange CEO invested in a rival trading platform. So you know that kind of irked seizes being whole. And then I don’t know who to trust here. I don’t think Sam bank being freed is that bright. I mean his white paper is garbage. Maybe the code is great. I don’t know since he 20 token in my opinion it’s centralized. I just haven’t looked into it. But he did post this theory about the bit next stuff. So this was interesting. This was posted on March 12th finance last listed a token on March 11th. So they were friends right here FCX and by Nance we’re still friends. I mean they listed being b ball and B and B Bear. This was March 12th his tweet. Insane theory of the day. There was no beat next hardware issue and he goes in to say that basically beatniks pulled the circuit breakers or BTC was going to zero. Did he get punished for doing this because of the cartel. I mean that Max is big time big time into the cartel you guys. I mean gathered cartel that Max is right in their next finance lobby. Okay axe a lot of the American chains exchanges have retreated because they’ll be going to jail probably baloney ex Coinbase never got involved. Good thing. Bit fanatics crack in. I mean cracking even hot guy tech person in that chain policies to cover their tracks. They’re so spooked. I did a video on that. You should watch that one. That’s probably one of my best videos. Yeah. So did you get repercussions for basically going against that other cartel. I don’t know. Interesting to see buy yeah crap on leverage tokens they work. I wouldn’t recommend getting it in it and then you just hating on leverage. Trading is more. Now despite the Koran the virus was by bit. CEO is bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are. Whatever his name. Do something. Bindu. Yep. Yeah. He’s bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are because the more people who long and then get wrecked the more money you make and the more money you’re YouTube disgusting poxy make. That’s why. Cool dude. So now I’m gonna treat you guys with a little treat. But first I’m gonna answer some questions regarding the live chat. I think my internet is connected again. Chico what is my issue with card. Dunno. Yeah. You should just know it’s car delay now so it has been promising a product for a long time and they keep doing the same thing and it’s disgusting. That’s why Yeah it’s car delay no. Charles Hoskinson even said that car delay no name in a livestream. I’m very happy about that. I got even the founder to call his own project Catalano. I wouldn’t be bullish on guard honor. You guys I would not be you don’t see other projects pulling out you know corona virus DeLay is already. I mean Charles. Thank you. Thank you. And now they can delay. I mean they’re going to delay anyways. It’s GA delay. No you guys they work. They don’t have it going. So yeah. Right when he launched you all we’re delaying right away. He said it you know if you’re a distributed team and your gamer works remotely garbage so this is some good stuff I have for you guys. I think you will like that publishes the game. Who cares about card on now. We don’t want to talk about that garbage project. Let’s focus on some cool stuff. So with the World Health Organization WHO. WHO DID IT. They are launching a block chain platform to fight coated 19 just announced. And it’s in cooperation with some very interesting enterprises and people. It’s called me Parsa and it’s built on top of hyper ledger fabric which we’ll get into in a bit. First let’s get and do some other stuff. So Bill Gates the gates man the antichrist. He stepped down from the board of Microsoft. I’ll mar their game during all this corona virus madness which was kind of weird in my opinion. I below give me a big old tip thanks I allow people to flop floppy into b c c can confirm from friends and family. Inflation is around the corner. So is the price of BTC goes down. It will be bought up and distribution will be better. BTC will be safer than money and banks in. I agree. Under present. That’s why buying BTC but short term in my opinion we’re gonna go down. I mean we just have finances grubby greedy hands to deep in. I appreciate the tip though. So this is interesting when Bill Gates stepped down I didn’t understand why. At first I knew he was involved with some stuff but you get some interesting reasons I guess some insight into why he gave read it and made just a few days ago on nine days ago actually. And this was very interesting question and answer so I put my hand on a stove. Ask Bill thank you for taking the time to do this today. I live in Seattle. Like you and it feels like our testing has not increased our number of confirmed cases starting to lag behind other states. What do you think gets effective social distancing or lack of testing. Says that testing in the US is not organized yet. In the next few weeks I hope the government fixes this by having the website you can go to find out about home testing and chaos. There are things are a bit confused on this right now in Seattle the UAW is providing salvage dozens of tests per day but no one is connected to a national tracking system. Whenever there is a positive test it should be seen seem to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen that social distance distant thing. South Korea did a great job on this including digital contact tracing Booyah digital contact tracing digital. Those are big words and he actually goes into digital a lot into this stream. But whereas the one I want to find God damn it. Yeah. So this person asked a remote controlled user what changes are we going to have to make. How businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing. He says the question of which businesses to keep is going is tricky. Certain foods supply and health systems we still need water electricity and the Internet supply chains for good old critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running. Eventually we will have some digital certificates this show who has recovered or who has been tested or when we have a vaccine who has received it. Boo yah Grandpa. Yeah. So he is basically telling us what they’re planning. It’s a digital tracking system and a digital I.D. system. So here at Davos this year Bill and Melinda Gates they pledged 10 billion dollars and a call for a decade of vaccines 2020 the year of vaccines. So that was interesting. And there was someone they joint presented with Bill Melinda Gates made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting Davos where they are joined by Julian Lobb LaVette CEO of GAVI Alliance GAVI is 80 20 20. So if you ever heard of this this is a basically an alliance to create a digital I.D. system across the globe. So we’ll be interoperable between countries regions districts everywhere and GAVI is one of the alliance partners as well as the Rockefeller Foundation Accenture Microsoft IDEO org and GAVI is the vaccine alliance. That’s your job. Yes. So it’s interesting that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn’t directly on the Web site. I’m sure they’re trying to hide that they’re directly involved with this but they are. And what’s interesting about I.T. 2020 is hyper ledger is one of their general partners as well. What is that block chain based platform being built on hyper ledger. So here is the digital I.D.. This Makinson I think it was put out a McKinsey Global Institute put out this good a little info graphic about what they’re trying to do but here’s what we need to hear understand. No. Our understanding of good digital ideas was informed by extensive consultations with many experts in the field including the World Bank night omni desire network the bill and melinda gates foundation open society foundations idea 2020 and the Rockefeller Foundation. So this is what’s going on you guys are building basically the base layer for this. I mean this is literally coming and it’s coming in front of our eyes. World Health Organization teams up with IBM Oracle en bloc Jane based corona virus data hub and fusion dub me Parsa is launching as a covert information highway so if we go into you idea 2020 there are some other partners that won’t go away. So yeah it’s built on hyper ledger fabric. This is the me process. And then you see who are involved with it. Sara IBM Microsoft Oracle the CDC Chinese CDC European cities the government of Canada Hong Kong John Hopkins national health commission the People’s Republic of China. The Weather Channel World Health Organization some of the people behind it but it’s funny a lot of the same partners are working on this. And so about this Sarah who is actually behind it as well. They’re actually a pretty backed by digital asset. As you can see they’re partners. And what’s funny about I.T. 20 20. If you go to idea 2020 about their leadership Guess who’s on the board of directors wife’s masters of digital asset it’s like Oh is that good for some of the projects I like like Eunice Bright who’s involved with digital asset. Oh man things are gonna get weird chain link involved with this. Oh so let’s finish it all up. So what are they trying to do. I’m sure it’s I mean like what are you talking about either. Well I did 20 20 and their partners announced in September of 20 19 that they were launching a program to write their digital ideas with vaccines. So in my opinion what’s coming is we’re gonna have a system. They’re gonna get these ideas into us by the grown a virus in my opinion. If you want to be able to travel go anywhere you’re gonna have to be verified as not having the disease or being tested whatever and that’s something where they’re going to do it. And so the people who don’t really get the vaccine are going to be ostracized by society. You know they’re going to be like You’re an unsafe bomb. GROSS You know how normal non vaccines are look that kinda. So I don’t know if it’s coming around the corner in a year. I mean I know that it’s coming though writing’s on the wall and I hope I don’t get kicked off of YouTube presents and then this you know part of you know some of these partners who they’re working with just posted this. Is it time for a true global currency yikes. Brains so it’s gonna be a big struggle. I mean in that way they’ll get you know the general population to want the vaccine is you know celebrities as you can see a lot of the celebrities are getting hit with grown a virus. I mean you know a friend a friend of yours that has been hit with a crowd of virus but you know 20 celebrities that got it they’re going to be getting vaccines. I mean like it’s awesome. Everyone get it please. So what coins are involved. YouTube writes a digital asset partner Jane links involved with a lot of those guys and that’s kinda it’s hard for me to like but not it’s like tearing me apart. It’s kind of my heart when I’m with you because yeah it’s like I hate it but then the value from that being involved with something like guys tremendous for those coins. So it’s tearing up my heart when you this laptop sucks my nuts I need a new laptop. Yeah some crazy stuff. My friend’s going on but it’s I mean like I said some of the goings I’m involved with. It makes me think Holy crap what could be coming for those I mean block chain is the future. I mean they’re building future tracking systems I mean and if you understand what Microsoft’s been doing with digital ideas before this. Yeah. Bounced off that 1000 level nicely. Silver gold or b do you see nice porn up there. Yeah I did porn VR acts. Oh I can’t do that on my stream or I would do it again. So much trouble. Yeah. No. If you guys wanna try something cool pornhub VR is pretty dang cool. Yeah I heard about the British PM. What’s the name Boris. Oh you bar your bar was cool. They would just read it. You are. It’s even cooler now. Executive order 6 1 0 2. What is that. I’ll have to look in that view. Yeah yeah. Veracity looks pretty decent. Going after the attention or awards video content involves gaming content a little different than basic attention token. I’m using basic attention road tokens right now I’ve earned 40 cents for browsing no chain links. Price won’t drop the less than the dollar are among those around most. I mean only if bitcoin gets down to like 2k. I mean I don’t see that happening either in this downturn what cryptos are you buy in. I mean the same ones that I’m been buying a very M.D.. If you watch my top portfolio video that gives you a pretty good idea chain link you write a few theorem Xerox protocol kind of network synthetics Al Gore hands up there are no waves I’ve been purchasing I think waves is going to have a big boom soon because of Russia and block chain. What do I think of Keith. Why do you guys like peaky Ari. That guy is the old 2017 scammer and now he’s back for some reason. What the heck. Come on guys do it. What do I think the garbage driving guy has no idea what he’s talking about. He didn’t back then he doesn’t now heard anything about the bite. Every I mean you guys. Eric Jones a partnership with chain link is not a partnership. You guys everyone’s going to use a partnership with everyone’s going to partner with chain link. So when you see a partnership with chain link it’s nothing. I mean so many projects have partnered with chain link because they’re going to have to use or decentralized oracles by now is crap. It’s a finance crap going I’ll tell you that. Carver’s crap all finance ideas are crap FCX token. They invested in our crap. These guys are crap guys. This guy right here is a bad person for the space. I mean more people are starting to realize it. When I was saying it a year ago people called me stupid. Now people are starting to smarten up and learn that yeah this guy’s comeback. He’s a hustler Butler nasty person and so is he. I mean most people don’t even know he’s just a puppet. He has a girl telling him what to do. This is buying answers. Main person. She is pulling the strings. It’s easy and her I think have a secret little relationship do. There had been rumors about that. So you know who wears pants in relationships. That girl as easy as a cop. Definitely. She is swinging em around like a little rag doll. Guarantee it. I still hold. Did you buy it. Yep but unfortunately the downward trend has moved it out of my tops. Is he on porn Ron. No I’m not. I have heard jazz nudes but I don’t. Can’t confirm that Tyler why do you keep running those scams because I just not mine stupid. How do you think I’m running your eye guy. I’m going to call you out. You’re stupid. I’ll tell you that if you think I’m running an E theorem giveaway or you send me a theorem I give it back. You’re fucking stupid. Sorry. Darwinism. So if you send money to him. Sorry got your stupid asshole. That’s just me being honest. God I hate when people do that. I get emails all the time. They send me to death. Fucking what they do. Shut up. Come on man don’t be stupid. I’m just honest it’s all fixed code it is a lie. Cashless society. We’ll see. We actually have first cases here and around my small area of California. So we’ll see if it sadly I’m waiting to see if it gets. I mean if it’s gonna spread and start killing people I know then that that’s when you know it’s not fake. The shit just goes away and you got celebrities getting it. Yeah really. Anyone you know really gets it. You know I would be a little weary All right guys. Oh actually I have a call it a conversation at 12:00 p.m. I’m almost late for that. So I gotta get going. I appreciate everyone who can tune into the livestream today all fifteen hundred woop woop way better than my last livestream last week only I like six seven hundred and it didn’t notify my people as I go on. No it’s YouTube gonna shadow banned me. Yeah. So this makes me happy to see you. Oh crypto crackhead. I appreciate the tip while I’m leaving man. Yeah we’ll see how real this virus gets you guys but I hope everyone stays safe. Keep an eye on the crypto markets because things are gonna be getting interesting. I think Monday is where maybe even Sunday because I think a lot of these financial one point zero traders they know what’s going to happen before the markets open in traditional markets. So keep an eye out for what happened Sunday in the bitcoin markets. That’s why my personal words for you. Other than that you guys I appreciate you for training and then dropping me comments drop me tips. And Monday I got a great video on the banks to tune in that see you guys next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoins-next-big-move-begins-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitcoins-big-breakout-or-breakdown source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/613876774679494656

[heatherrdavis1]

BITCOINs Big BREAKOUT OR BREAKDOWN!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Yoho what is going on viewers of the two. Here Chico crypto. Come on you guys like on the normal Saturday Bitcoin game corruption downward movements are startling. Wait for everybody get in the chat Hope everyone’s doing good today. Chaffetz Yeah that’s my cue. TYLER HERE YOU GO. Crypto. Come on you guys. Saturday. Big point. How’s your body doing. What up guys. Yeah we’re starting another downward movement. We beat near the 7 k mark but yeah got rejected pretty hard. So we’re gonna get into my feelings we’re gonna do a little bit of Tyler analysis not technical analysis because we don’t do that here on Chico crypto because I’m not a technical guy. I mean you got to sit around for years and years and I mean we’re getting the finance 1.0 crowd who have been performing this Kia for since the 90s. You guys I mean it’s gonna be hard to beat a lot of these traders. I’ll tell you that right now and a lot of them are getting their paws deep into crypto cryptocurrency that Max Arthur Hayes talked about it. But before we get into my technical analysis we’re going to try something interesting for the T.A. for today. Yeah I’m going to do it a little differently not Microsoft Paint but kinda. So you guys will get to see her in a sec. But if you haven’t follow me on Instagram I’ve been kicked off Twitter. If you guys don’t do that so follow me on Instagram links in the description for you guys check out. You can also follow me on uptrend. I’m on there posting on there and I’m also on the most controversial one to watch. Powered by Bitcoin as we a lot of people not going to like that but I’m going to use anything that works and I’ve actually made about 40 bucks off of Twitch so far so pretty girl in my opinion. God damn it. My chaps disconnected again. Pull out my phone I’m sorry guys. Go. Scott Peterson house went up everybody not see him buddy. So yeah follow me on those so I could do the normal you know why are trying to get me to join your community. See that’s why I want to use that. You’re trying to get me join your stupid community and and pop up that won’t let me get out of it and I click it. That’s why I’m not going to use your crap. But yeah I could do you know the normal trading view type stuff indicator. Bob Barr I don’t even know what they do half the time because it’s a bunch of crap. Yeah you gotta even log in to use it. But I’m going to do something different. So let’s begin that. I hope this works and I’m not just gonna look like a fool but let’s try it anyways so I got make this up a little bit. So I’m going to do VR you guys I’m going to do if you guys heard of the Get game Half-Life Alex I’m going to do this. So I started. If you guys can see it I’m not. Making a fool out of myself. All right. So I hope you guys can see the chart right here. Make sure everything’s going good before I start it. All right. K six k for k Duke. So we’re just gonna get this. You know my opinion you know we’re hanging on to that 6k level. I think we’re gonna go down because there’s a few things going on in finance one point zero. We need to understand for one I love boobs. And number two south side so we got to understand that you draw a line here and it hits resistance but then you draw a line off the bibs. It hits another resistance and then right here that’s where the miners stuff happens. You know a lot of miners unprofitable. We’ve got to keep it there. You know now this game is really done. You guys I would recommend getting VR headset shit ridiculous crazy. Work. Hell yeah. Get it set back up for the regular screen. I’m not going to do that whole time. Does that show that off a little. Okay we’re good. What app has that app is. It’s a game. You guys it’s half life. ALEX It’s frickin crazy good. I got to play a little bit for you but we got to scrap it. Maybe I’ll start a VR channel or something. Yeah I know it’s crazy good like you can do everything in the environment you can interact with. Grab. I mean the reloading gun fighting and it’s so good satisfying. I’ll tell you that. So yeah. Let’s get back into crypto currency. So yeah we’ll talk about my a few things I’m not going to draw on Half-Life Alex charcoal time. Good. Yeah that’s a future so I might be doing technical and our people might be doing technical analysis in the future in like a virtual classroom. A lot more interactivity in my opinion. That’s why I got the VR headset when I learned that Ballard was working on the index and they’re coming out with game maybe left for dead. Might be the next one in VR would be insane. That’s when I was like I need to purchase one the because. I have a feeling with this game engine. They built without I. Alex they are we’re going to see a lot more come out of VR because other game developers are gonna be able to use that game engine but let’s talk about Bitcoin. So we’re gonna go into bitcoin one day chart. I mean this is what we got to understand what’s going to happen. I mean right here you know this is sense you know late early morning Friday Intel you know late afternoon and we had a back down. I mean if you just look at the Dow Jones it’s like bitcoin is following it to a T right now. And if you guys watch my channel that plays video like four or five days ago I talked about how finance 1.0 has their dirty paws in cryptocurrency through leveraged trading exchanges like betting that’s Arthur Hazen and those guys they came from finance one point zero in my opinion you can make a lot more money with large positions and finance one point zero. So what these guys were doing you know is taking a lot of the profits and funneling them into large positions in the stock market risky positions too. Because I mean they’re already doing risky enough positions which they control Bitcoin. But you know if they can find a low enough money into certain certain stuff in stock market they can control that. Q. Oh all right guys. I just muted it that sorry guys I didn’t realize that. So I mean in my opinion we’re going to see if we see the stock market on Monday have a rough time which it’s looking like it I mean it gift bright at closing. We’re going to see bitcoin go back down unfortunately. But I mean for bitcoin to come out of this everything’s going to have to burn and it’s gonna be a total scorched earth cap. I mean I foresee it coming because the stimulus bill I mean it’s not written to save what’s wrong with this nation. It threatened to continue what’s wrong what has been wrong. So that’s my personal opinion. I do think we are going to see more downward movements from Bitcoin and then this goes back to the hash pass rate. I and I don’t think like 1 k to K levels like some people say I’m thinking you know four K levels and that just has to do with the hash rate. China is still profitable at four thousand three thousand five hundred not high. I mean at this hash rate they are pretty profitable still. Not extremely but yeah they are. While other regions significant regions like the United States and some parts of Europe Australia they all become for the most part unprofitable because of electricity costs unless they are using sustainable energy. By you know high initial costs with sustainable operation and I did a video on this where you know some of the bottom levels are for the Bitcoin price just based off of mining industry economies grow public at 10 percent to 3 percent. India is still at 1 percent and the rest of the world still at 4 percent. And I made these all those guesses on that just I kind of pulled them at my me bungle. Yeah. They’re based off just what I kind. I’ve been in the crypto industry for a while you know and seeing how the hash rates kind of moved in in different regions now is just based off of my own estimations me buttonhole they’re actually right. I was like Holy crap. Yeah I got it confirmed by some article I can remember this one I called China’s big spot on I was like Whoa that’s crazy but. Another reason I do think bitcoin is going to go down is because of the fact I mean and I talked about it a lot last week and I’m going to continue to talk about it because this stimulus bill is disgusting. It hurts me personally because it just goes against everything our nation is about or maybe everything our nation is for now was about I should say. So I mean basically most Americans if you made less than seventy five thousand dollars are going to be getting a twelve hundred dollar check. But I mean there is a lot of influences in the space some big ones like Anthony promptly on oh who was saying this is good for bitcoin and I do agree. You know inflation is good for bitcoin but. Twelve hundred dollar check while corporations get the bulk of it is not good for bitcoin. These corporations amass small my new minority of these institutions are in bitcoin. They are all in finance one point zero. They all view Bitcoin as a less valuable more speculative asset than a stock. So they’re not going to invest in it. But a bulk of the money into finance 1.0 stock market and people are getting the twelve hundred dollars. You know not the institutions they are going to be suffering so they’re not going to put it. It’s basically none of that money is going to be getting put into bitcoin in the medium term long term. Yes. Yes. But it’s just like who is it. This is bad. Just bad all around for crypto it’s bad all around for. I mean if it was more equal and you know Americans got a bigger chunk of this it would be great for crypto because they would have money to put in to the bitcoin markets. They don’t have it you guys. I mean it’s only a check for twelve hundred bucks they’re going to spend that on what they need and I know some people aren’t going to lose their jobs but we’re going to have to see the full fallout of this and some of you I’m and as much as I’m not trying to be an asshole this is just maybe Anonymous. Like I always am asked a lot of you are gonna lose your jobs in this chat. Are you going to spend that on Bitcoin or are you going to spend that on frickin rent for the few months rent you guys just sire. Barney thank you rather I appreciate the debt I’m going to buy. I like the mojito. That’s a good one. So it’s kind of an win lose not only not even a lose lose it’s a lose lose in the short term maybe a win lose in the long term for bitcoin but here’s funny was you know Steve Newton Yeah March 17th over a week and a half ago he said we’re looking at Nugent’s duty birches saying we’re looking to send checks to Americans immediately immediately. Yeah. He said within two weeks Americans need to get cash now and the president wants cash. Now we’re looking to send it in two weeks. Newton said on Tuesday so what. That was a week ago and now guess what he said. Three weeks yet treasury secretaries government agents had one day. Wednesday the checks will be sent out within three weeks. Seaweed dough weaves. Keep it up I’m gonna brother. Thanks for the tip and plutonium podcast. Check out his podcast if he has one. Tip brother so they add three weeks two weeks. One week. Yeah when are they come in. Who knows. They asked even in Newton. He is seriously powerful now. He is a controller of basically four trillion dollars. And yeah you hear him and his friends are gonna make out like crazy and crazy. They’re gonna be rich. And if you see Stephen Newton that guy is. I can’t even believe he’s part of our. Executive branch. The guy is such a hustler. Besler. This is the picture you need to see. I came with his wife and dollar bills. Look at. You need to miss what’s on the red carpet. Oh yeah. These guys are players. They are not your average executive. This is elite status. No yeah. There he is with Brent Newton. But let’s get into some crypto news besides the stimulus bill what’s going to happen to bitcoin in my main opinion finance one point zero is going to have some hurt. Federal Reserve Treasury Department. They pulled out all stops and they pulled out everything for corporations. And I think even the markets realize that it’s not it’s not the problem. So markets are going to react badly to. A ban a Band-Aid and not a fix because 2008 was another Band-Aid. We need a fix. Asked that stampede asked covered 19 peak is estimated in July or August. How low do you think BTC will be then three k 1 k. Well it really depends. You guys I mean if we do have a full on Spanish flu type epidemic you know and it grows to that type of level you know the virus starts mutating getting even more deadly. Killing more people. Yeah I mean we’re gonna see some crap go down. I’ll tell you that. That’s why they kind of did this stimulus bill there’s a liquidity problem and if you know the general public withdraws their money out of the banks we’re going to have a bank run like the Great Depression. Stock market is going to go it’s gonna be in another Great Depression. Exactly what happened you guys. Banks will collapse and you’ve seen kind of the new rules they put in to for that liquidity program. Taxpayers are on the hook from the FDIC. I talked about that yes or no. I talked about that on Monday. You guys. Yeah I’m talking about what the banks are doing. Private banks on Monday so it’s. Yeah I mean if we see something like that. Bitcoin is going to go down with it. But as you know the fire burns out and people rise from the ashes. I mean who’s gonna want to go back into that system. Not too many people. I think that’s. I don’t want that to happen. But at the same time I do because that’s the only way Bitcoin really truly breaks away is we need a full on collapse of finance one point zero China crapped on everyone not not really. I mean the half rate is doing pretty fine it’s over a hundred million now. I mean we’re going to see this. Like I said I made a video on this. It’s gonna be similar to what happened in your chart. Right here I said we might see a 40 to 50 per cent reduction in the half rate and it got about to that level and we might go back down. Like yeah. So now I’m sure some of you have got into this even though I told you not to. There is good reason not to do so by Nance listed this F T X token it was a leveraged trading token. Basically you just invest in the dog and it does all the leverage ball only for you. Well now finance is delisting all of them. Every single leverage trading token. So yeah they’ve been crashing Bob Barr whatever so it’s caused a lot of user confusion because that was a huge product on finance it got people talking like crazy people were investing like crazy well by Nancy’s saying. Their users didn’t understand them so that’s why they’re de-listing. The main reason for doing this thing is that too many users do not understand them and then basically the creator of FCX said by Nancy listing out these didn’t want to manage user education support FCX listing out the USD pairs to compensate. You can either send out keys to FTSE quality or all that turn into B USD on finance. So basically he’s saying finance didn’t want to educate their users so that’s why they listed. Well here was 17 days ago finance listed their own tokens in the BMV bull and BMV their FCX tokens. So what is going on. This doesn’t make sense to me you know. No this isn’t about our users didn’t understand it. It’s about money isn’t it. Yes CSC it’s about money. MARTIN Glenn I appreciate that tip and I like the comment. I might stop using toilet tissue and start using dollars soon. Tissue will be worth more. That would be a crazy world. But this was to me on my guy right 17 days ago they listed their own tokens in the being in the UN FCX. Now this isn’t something about money. So if you don’t know by Nance back in December of 10 I mean just a few months ago four months ago invested an undisclosed sum in the crypto derivatives platform FP yet I actually talked about this and I was like this seems shady out the gate because FCX looks like garbage. Hi man. How many years you see yourself holding maker. I see a maker as a long term hold Georgia’s long term. I appreciate the tip but yeah long long term. Especially with the burn mechanism so they invest an undisclosed amount of good amount. And yet CEO is Sam Pinkman freed of. And this was posted just last month. 30 days ago. Finance back FCX exchange 6 billion dollar value waste in an equity Coke sale. So yeah it’s hoping they gain a billion dollar valuation FCX is it sounds like they’re Sam Bateman free it is getting a little greedy but who else is super greedy sleazy finance. Oh yeah he is. You guys know. So there is some shady stuff going on earlier in the month. He acts was getting pumped and dumped like crazy. People were like what is going on is this finance is a scam and free. Who is doing this. Well I don’t think it’s this guy because he’s not smart enough in my opinion. So if you go into that the execs Jane and the right paper it’s garbage it doesn’t even explain how it works at all. It’s a white paper. Yeah see here the white paper I’m like Okay let’s get a nice detailed white paper. Yeah it’s like five pages so I was like nine now. I saw it and I looked into this back when you have X got lunch and that’s why I was like No way am I going to invest in this baloney but this is interesting. So this happened the same day as this come out. So this came out March 2nd. Someone tried to pump and dump at X token on finance FCX Exchange CEO invested in a rival trading platform. So you know that kind of irked seizes being whole. And then I don’t know who to trust here. I don’t think Sam bank being freed is that bright. I mean his white paper is garbage. Maybe the code is great. I don’t know since he 20 token in my opinion it’s centralized. I just haven’t looked into it. But he did post this theory about the bit next stuff. So this was interesting. This was posted on March 12th finance last listed a token on March 11th. So they were friends right here FCX and by Nance we’re still friends. I mean they listed being b ball and B and B Bear. This was March 12th his tweet. Insane theory of the day. There was no beat next hardware issue and he goes in to say that basically beatniks pulled the circuit breakers or BTC was going to zero. Did he get punished for doing this because of the cartel. I mean that Max is big time big time into the cartel you guys. I mean gathered cartel that Max is right in their next finance lobby. Okay axe a lot of the American chains exchanges have retreated because they’ll be going to jail probably baloney ex Coinbase never got involved. Good thing. Bit fanatics crack in. I mean cracking even hot guy tech person in that chain policies to cover their tracks. They’re so spooked. I did a video on that. You should watch that one. That’s probably one of my best videos. Yeah. So did you get repercussions for basically going against that other cartel. I don’t know. Interesting to see buy yeah crap on leverage tokens they work. I wouldn’t recommend getting it in it and then you just hating on leverage. Trading is more. Now despite the Koran the virus was by bit. CEO is bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are. Whatever his name. Do something. Bindu. Yep. Yeah. He’s bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are because the more people who long and then get wrecked the more money you make and the more money you’re YouTube disgusting poxy make. That’s why. Cool dude. So now I’m gonna treat you guys with a little treat. But first I’m gonna answer some questions regarding the live chat. I think my internet is connected again. Chico what is my issue with card. Dunno. Yeah. You should just know it’s car delay now so it has been promising a product for a long time and they keep doing the same thing and it’s disgusting. That’s why Yeah it’s car delay no. Charles Hoskinson even said that car delay no name in a livestream. I’m very happy about that. I got even the founder to call his own project Catalano. I wouldn’t be bullish on guard honor. You guys I would not be you don’t see other projects pulling out you know corona virus DeLay is already. I mean Charles. Thank you. Thank you. And now they can delay. I mean they’re going to delay anyways. It’s GA delay. No you guys they work. They don’t have it going. So yeah. Right when he launched you all we’re delaying right away. He said it you know if you’re a distributed team and your gamer works remotely garbage so this is some good stuff I have for you guys. I think you will like that publishes the game. Who cares about card on now. We don’t want to talk about that garbage project. Let’s focus on some cool stuff. So with the World Health Organization WHO. WHO DID IT. They are launching a block chain platform to fight coated 19 just announced. And it’s in cooperation with some very interesting enterprises and people. It’s called me Parsa and it’s built on top of hyper ledger fabric which we’ll get into in a bit. First let’s get and do some other stuff. So Bill Gates the gates man the antichrist. He stepped down from the board of Microsoft. I’ll mar their game during all this corona virus madness which was kind of weird in my opinion. I below give me a big old tip thanks I allow people to flop floppy into b c c can confirm from friends and family. Inflation is around the corner. So is the price of BTC goes down. It will be bought up and distribution will be better. BTC will be safer than money and banks in. I agree. Under present. That’s why buying BTC but short term in my opinion we’re gonna go down. I mean we just have finances grubby greedy hands to deep in. I appreciate the tip though. So this is interesting when Bill Gates stepped down I didn’t understand why. At first I knew he was involved with some stuff but you get some interesting reasons I guess some insight into why he gave read it and made just a few days ago on nine days ago actually. And this was very interesting question and answer so I put my hand on a stove. Ask Bill thank you for taking the time to do this today. I live in Seattle. Like you and it feels like our testing has not increased our number of confirmed cases starting to lag behind other states. What do you think gets effective social distancing or lack of testing. Says that testing in the US is not organized yet. In the next few weeks I hope the government fixes this by having the website you can go to find out about home testing and chaos. There are things are a bit confused on this right now in Seattle the UAW is providing salvage dozens of tests per day but no one is connected to a national tracking system. Whenever there is a positive test it should be seen seem to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen that social distance distant thing. South Korea did a great job on this including digital contact tracing Booyah digital contact tracing digital. Those are big words and he actually goes into digital a lot into this stream. But whereas the one I want to find God damn it. Yeah. So this person asked a remote controlled user what changes are we going to have to make. How businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing. He says the question of which businesses to keep is going is tricky. Certain foods supply and health systems we still need water electricity and the Internet supply chains for good old critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running. Eventually we will have some digital certificates this show who has recovered or who has been tested or when we have a vaccine who has received it. Boo yah Grandpa. Yeah. So he is basically telling us what they’re planning. It’s a digital tracking system and a digital I.D. system. So here at Davos this year Bill and Melinda Gates they pledged 10 billion dollars and a call for a decade of vaccines 2020 the year of vaccines. So that was interesting. And there was someone they joint presented with Bill Melinda Gates made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting Davos where they are joined by Julian Lobb LaVette CEO of GAVI Alliance GAVI is 80 20 20. So if you ever heard of this this is a basically an alliance to create a digital I.D. system across the globe. So we’ll be interoperable between countries regions districts everywhere and GAVI is one of the alliance partners as well as the Rockefeller Foundation Accenture Microsoft IDEO org and GAVI is the vaccine alliance. That’s your job. Yes. So it’s interesting that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn’t directly on the Web site. I’m sure they’re trying to hide that they’re directly involved with this but they are. And what’s interesting about I.T. 2020 is hyper ledger is one of their general partners as well. What is that block chain based platform being built on hyper ledger. So here is the digital I.D.. This Makinson I think it was put out a McKinsey Global Institute put out this good a little info graphic about what they’re trying to do but here’s what we need to hear understand. No. Our understanding of good digital ideas was informed by extensive consultations with many experts in the field including the World Bank night omni desire network the bill and melinda gates foundation open society foundations idea 2020 and the Rockefeller Foundation. So this is what’s going on you guys are building basically the base layer for this. I mean this is literally coming and it’s coming in front of our eyes. World Health Organization teams up with IBM Oracle en bloc Jane based corona virus data hub and fusion dub me Parsa is launching as a covert information highway so if we go into you idea 2020 there are some other partners that won’t go away. So yeah it’s built on hyper ledger fabric. This is the me process. And then you see who are involved with it. Sara IBM Microsoft Oracle the CDC Chinese CDC European cities the government of Canada Hong Kong John Hopkins national health commission the People’s Republic of China. The Weather Channel World Health Organization some of the people behind it but it’s funny a lot of the same partners are working on this. And so about this Sarah who is actually behind it as well. They’re actually a pretty backed by digital asset. As you can see they’re partners. And what’s funny about I.T. 20 20. If you go to idea 2020 about their leadership Guess who’s on the board of directors wife’s masters of digital asset it’s like Oh is that good for some of the projects I like like Eunice Bright who’s involved with digital asset. Oh man things are gonna get weird chain link involved with this. Oh so let’s finish it all up. So what are they trying to do. I’m sure it’s I mean like what are you talking about either. Well I did 20 20 and their partners announced in September of 20 19 that they were launching a program to write their digital ideas with vaccines. So in my opinion what’s coming is we’re gonna have a system. They’re gonna get these ideas into us by the grown a virus in my opinion. If you want to be able to travel go anywhere you’re gonna have to be verified as not having the disease or being tested whatever and that’s something where they’re going to do it. And so the people who don’t really get the vaccine are going to be ostracized by society. You know they’re going to be like You’re an unsafe bomb. GROSS You know how normal non vaccines are look that kinda. So I don’t know if it’s coming around the corner in a year. I mean I know that it’s coming though writing’s on the wall and I hope I don’t get kicked off of YouTube presents and then this you know part of you know some of these partners who they’re working with just posted this. Is it time for a true global currency yikes. Brains so it’s gonna be a big struggle. I mean in that way they’ll get you know the general population to want the vaccine is you know celebrities as you can see a lot of the celebrities are getting hit with grown a virus. I mean you know a friend a friend of yours that has been hit with a crowd of virus but you know 20 celebrities that got it they’re going to be getting vaccines. I mean like it’s awesome. Everyone get it please. So what coins are involved. YouTube writes a digital asset partner Jane links involved with a lot of those guys and that’s kinda it’s hard for me to like but not it’s like tearing me apart. It’s kind of my heart when I’m with you because yeah it’s like I hate it but then the value from that being involved with something like guys tremendous for those coins. So it’s tearing up my heart when you this laptop sucks my nuts I need a new laptop. Yeah some crazy stuff. My friend’s going on but it’s I mean like I said some of the goings I’m involved with. It makes me think Holy crap what could be coming for those I mean block chain is the future. I mean they’re building future tracking systems I mean and if you understand what Microsoft’s been doing with digital ideas before this. Yeah. Bounced off that 1000 level nicely. Silver gold or b do you see nice porn up there. Yeah I did porn VR acts. Oh I can’t do that on my stream or I would do it again. So much trouble. Yeah. No. If you guys wanna try something cool pornhub VR is pretty dang cool. Yeah I heard about the British PM. What’s the name Boris. Oh you bar your bar was cool. They would just read it. You are. It’s even cooler now. Executive order 6 1 0 2. What is that. I’ll have to look in that view. Yeah yeah. Veracity looks pretty decent. Going after the attention or awards video content involves gaming content a little different than basic attention token. I’m using basic attention road tokens right now I’ve earned 40 cents for browsing no chain links. Price won’t drop the less than the dollar are among those around most. I mean only if bitcoin gets down to like 2k. I mean I don’t see that happening either in this downturn what cryptos are you buy in. I mean the same ones that I’m been buying a very M.D.. If you watch my top portfolio video that gives you a pretty good idea chain link you write a few theorem Xerox protocol kind of network synthetics Al Gore hands up there are no waves I’ve been purchasing I think waves is going to have a big boom soon because of Russia and block chain. What do I think of Keith. Why do you guys like peaky Ari. That guy is the old 2017 scammer and now he’s back for some reason. What the heck. Come on guys do it. What do I think the garbage driving guy has no idea what he’s talking about. He didn’t back then he doesn’t now heard anything about the bite. Every I mean you guys. Eric Jones a partnership with chain link is not a partnership. You guys everyone’s going to use a partnership with everyone’s going to partner with chain link. So when you see a partnership with chain link it’s nothing. I mean so many projects have partnered with chain link because they’re going to have to use or decentralized oracles by now is crap. It’s a finance crap going I’ll tell you that. Carver’s crap all finance ideas are crap FCX token. They invested in our crap. These guys are crap guys. This guy right here is a bad person for the space. I mean more people are starting to realize it. When I was saying it a year ago people called me stupid. Now people are starting to smarten up and learn that yeah this guy’s comeback. He’s a hustler Butler nasty person and so is he. I mean most people don’t even know he’s just a puppet. He has a girl telling him what to do. This is buying answers. Main person. She is pulling the strings. It’s easy and her I think have a secret little relationship do. There had been rumors about that. So you know who wears pants in relationships. That girl as easy as a cop. Definitely. She is swinging em around like a little rag doll. Guarantee it. I still hold. Did you buy it. Yep but unfortunately the downward trend has moved it out of my tops. Is he on porn Ron. No I’m not. I have heard jazz nudes but I don’t. Can’t confirm that Tyler why do you keep running those scams because I just not mine stupid. How do you think I’m running your eye guy. I’m going to call you out. You’re stupid. I’ll tell you that if you think I’m running an E theorem giveaway or you send me a theorem I give it back. You’re fucking stupid. Sorry. Darwinism. So if you send money to him. Sorry got your stupid asshole. That’s just me being honest. God I hate when people do that. I get emails all the time. They send me to death. Fucking what they do. Shut up. Come on man don’t be stupid. I’m just honest it’s all fixed code it is a lie. Cashless society. We’ll see. We actually have first cases here and around my small area of California. So we’ll see if it sadly I’m waiting to see if it gets. I mean if it’s gonna spread and start killing people I know then that that’s when you know it’s not fake. The shit just goes away and you got celebrities getting it. Yeah really. Anyone you know really gets it. You know I would be a little weary All right guys. Oh actually I have a call it a conversation at 12:00 p.m. I’m almost late for that. So I gotta get going. I appreciate everyone who can tune into the livestream today all fifteen hundred woop woop way better than my last livestream last week only I like six seven hundred and it didn’t notify my people as I go on. No it’s YouTube gonna shadow banned me. Yeah. So this makes me happy to see you. Oh crypto crackhead. I appreciate the tip while I’m leaving man. Yeah we’ll see how real this virus gets you guys but I hope everyone stays safe. Keep an eye on the crypto markets because things are gonna be getting interesting. I think Monday is where maybe even Sunday because I think a lot of these financial one point zero traders they know what’s going to happen before the markets open in traditional markets. So keep an eye out for what happened Sunday in the bitcoin markets. That’s why my personal words for you. Other than that you guys I appreciate you for training and then dropping me comments drop me tips. And Monday I got a great video on the banks to tune in that see you guys next time.

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source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/bitcoins-big-breakout-or-breakdown

[cryptosharks1]

BITCOINs Big BREAKOUT OR BREAKDOWN!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Yoho what is going on viewers of the two. Here Chico crypto. Come on you guys like on the normal Saturday Bitcoin game corruption downward movements are startling. Wait for everybody get in the chat Hope everyone’s doing good today. Chaffetz Yeah that’s my cue. TYLER HERE YOU GO. Crypto. Come on you guys. Saturday. Big point. How’s your body doing. What up guys. Yeah we’re starting another downward movement. We beat near the 7 k mark but yeah got rejected pretty hard. So we’re gonna get into my feelings we’re gonna do a little bit of Tyler analysis not technical analysis because we don’t do that here on Chico crypto because I’m not a technical guy. I mean you got to sit around for years and years and I mean we’re getting the finance 1.0 crowd who have been performing this Kia for since the 90s. You guys I mean it’s gonna be hard to beat a lot of these traders. I’ll tell you that right now and a lot of them are getting their paws deep into crypto cryptocurrency that Max Arthur Hayes talked about it. But before we get into my technical analysis we’re going to try something interesting for the T.A. for today. Yeah I’m going to do it a little differently not Microsoft Paint but kinda. So you guys will get to see her in a sec. But if you haven’t follow me on Instagram I’ve been kicked off Twitter. If you guys don’t do that so follow me on Instagram links in the description for you guys check out. You can also follow me on uptrend. I’m on there posting on there and I’m also on the most controversial one to watch. Powered by Bitcoin as we a lot of people not going to like that but I’m going to use anything that works and I’ve actually made about 40 bucks off of Twitch so far so pretty girl in my opinion. God damn it. My chaps disconnected again. Pull out my phone I’m sorry guys. Go. Scott Peterson house went up everybody not see him buddy. So yeah follow me on those so I could do the normal you know why are trying to get me to join your community. See that’s why I want to use that. You’re trying to get me join your stupid community and and pop up that won’t let me get out of it and I click it. That’s why I’m not going to use your crap. But yeah I could do you know the normal trading view type stuff indicator. Bob Barr I don’t even know what they do half the time because it’s a bunch of crap. Yeah you gotta even log in to use it. But I’m going to do something different. So let’s begin that. I hope this works and I’m not just gonna look like a fool but let’s try it anyways so I got make this up a little bit. So I’m going to do VR you guys I’m going to do if you guys heard of the Get game Half-Life Alex I’m going to do this. So I started. If you guys can see it I’m not. Making a fool out of myself. All right. So I hope you guys can see the chart right here. Make sure everything’s going good before I start it. All right. K six k for k Duke. So we’re just gonna get this. You know my opinion you know we’re hanging on to that 6k level. I think we’re gonna go down because there’s a few things going on in finance one point zero. We need to understand for one I love boobs. And number two south side so we got to understand that you draw a line here and it hits resistance but then you draw a line off the bibs. It hits another resistance and then right here that’s where the miners stuff happens. You know a lot of miners unprofitable. We’ve got to keep it there. You know now this game is really done. You guys I would recommend getting VR headset shit ridiculous crazy. Work. Hell yeah. Get it set back up for the regular screen. I’m not going to do that whole time. Does that show that off a little. Okay we’re good. What app has that app is. It’s a game. You guys it’s half life. ALEX It’s frickin crazy good. I got to play a little bit for you but we got to scrap it. Maybe I’ll start a VR channel or something. Yeah I know it’s crazy good like you can do everything in the environment you can interact with. Grab. I mean the reloading gun fighting and it’s so good satisfying. I’ll tell you that. So yeah. Let’s get back into crypto currency. So yeah we’ll talk about my a few things I’m not going to draw on Half-Life Alex charcoal time. Good. Yeah that’s a future so I might be doing technical and our people might be doing technical analysis in the future in like a virtual classroom. A lot more interactivity in my opinion. That’s why I got the VR headset when I learned that Ballard was working on the index and they’re coming out with game maybe left for dead. Might be the next one in VR would be insane. That’s when I was like I need to purchase one the because. I have a feeling with this game engine. They built without I. Alex they are we’re going to see a lot more come out of VR because other game developers are gonna be able to use that game engine but let’s talk about Bitcoin. So we’re gonna go into bitcoin one day chart. I mean this is what we got to understand what’s going to happen. I mean right here you know this is sense you know late early morning Friday Intel you know late afternoon and we had a back down. I mean if you just look at the Dow Jones it’s like bitcoin is following it to a T right now. And if you guys watch my channel that plays video like four or five days ago I talked about how finance 1.0 has their dirty paws in cryptocurrency through leveraged trading exchanges like betting that’s Arthur Hazen and those guys they came from finance one point zero in my opinion you can make a lot more money with large positions and finance one point zero. So what these guys were doing you know is taking a lot of the profits and funneling them into large positions in the stock market risky positions too. Because I mean they’re already doing risky enough positions which they control Bitcoin. But you know if they can find a low enough money into certain certain stuff in stock market they can control that. Q. Oh all right guys. I just muted it that sorry guys I didn’t realize that. So I mean in my opinion we’re going to see if we see the stock market on Monday have a rough time which it’s looking like it I mean it gift bright at closing. We’re going to see bitcoin go back down unfortunately. But I mean for bitcoin to come out of this everything’s going to have to burn and it’s gonna be a total scorched earth cap. I mean I foresee it coming because the stimulus bill I mean it’s not written to save what’s wrong with this nation. It threatened to continue what’s wrong what has been wrong. So that’s my personal opinion. I do think we are going to see more downward movements from Bitcoin and then this goes back to the hash pass rate. I and I don’t think like 1 k to K levels like some people say I’m thinking you know four K levels and that just has to do with the hash rate. China is still profitable at four thousand three thousand five hundred not high. I mean at this hash rate they are pretty profitable still. Not extremely but yeah they are. While other regions significant regions like the United States and some parts of Europe Australia they all become for the most part unprofitable because of electricity costs unless they are using sustainable energy. By you know high initial costs with sustainable operation and I did a video on this where you know some of the bottom levels are for the Bitcoin price just based off of mining industry economies grow public at 10 percent to 3 percent. India is still at 1 percent and the rest of the world still at 4 percent. And I made these all those guesses on that just I kind of pulled them at my me bungle. Yeah. They’re based off just what I kind. I’ve been in the crypto industry for a while you know and seeing how the hash rates kind of moved in in different regions now is just based off of my own estimations me buttonhole they’re actually right. I was like Holy crap. Yeah I got it confirmed by some article I can remember this one I called China’s big spot on I was like Whoa that’s crazy but. Another reason I do think bitcoin is going to go down is because of the fact I mean and I talked about it a lot last week and I’m going to continue to talk about it because this stimulus bill is disgusting. It hurts me personally because it just goes against everything our nation is about or maybe everything our nation is for now was about I should say. So I mean basically most Americans if you made less than seventy five thousand dollars are going to be getting a twelve hundred dollar check. But I mean there is a lot of influences in the space some big ones like Anthony promptly on oh who was saying this is good for bitcoin and I do agree. You know inflation is good for bitcoin but. Twelve hundred dollar check while corporations get the bulk of it is not good for bitcoin. These corporations amass small my new minority of these institutions are in bitcoin. They are all in finance one point zero. They all view Bitcoin as a less valuable more speculative asset than a stock. So they’re not going to invest in it. But a bulk of the money into finance 1.0 stock market and people are getting the twelve hundred dollars. You know not the institutions they are going to be suffering so they’re not going to put it. It’s basically none of that money is going to be getting put into bitcoin in the medium term long term. Yes. Yes. But it’s just like who is it. This is bad. Just bad all around for crypto it’s bad all around for. I mean if it was more equal and you know Americans got a bigger chunk of this it would be great for crypto because they would have money to put in to the bitcoin markets. They don’t have it you guys. I mean it’s only a check for twelve hundred bucks they’re going to spend that on what they need and I know some people aren’t going to lose their jobs but we’re going to have to see the full fallout of this and some of you I’m and as much as I’m not trying to be an asshole this is just maybe Anonymous. Like I always am asked a lot of you are gonna lose your jobs in this chat. Are you going to spend that on Bitcoin or are you going to spend that on frickin rent for the few months rent you guys just sire. Barney thank you rather I appreciate the debt I’m going to buy. I like the mojito. That’s a good one. So it’s kind of an win lose not only not even a lose lose it’s a lose lose in the short term maybe a win lose in the long term for bitcoin but here’s funny was you know Steve Newton Yeah March 17th over a week and a half ago he said we’re looking at Nugent’s duty birches saying we’re looking to send checks to Americans immediately immediately. Yeah. He said within two weeks Americans need to get cash now and the president wants cash. Now we’re looking to send it in two weeks. Newton said on Tuesday so what. That was a week ago and now guess what he said. Three weeks yet treasury secretaries government agents had one day. Wednesday the checks will be sent out within three weeks. Seaweed dough weaves. Keep it up I’m gonna brother. Thanks for the tip and plutonium podcast. Check out his podcast if he has one. Tip brother so they add three weeks two weeks. One week. Yeah when are they come in. Who knows. They asked even in Newton. He is seriously powerful now. He is a controller of basically four trillion dollars. And yeah you hear him and his friends are gonna make out like crazy and crazy. They’re gonna be rich. And if you see Stephen Newton that guy is. I can’t even believe he’s part of our. Executive branch. The guy is such a hustler. Besler. This is the picture you need to see. I came with his wife and dollar bills. Look at. You need to miss what’s on the red carpet. Oh yeah. These guys are players. They are not your average executive. This is elite status. No yeah. There he is with Brent Newton. But let’s get into some crypto news besides the stimulus bill what’s going to happen to bitcoin in my main opinion finance one point zero is going to have some hurt. Federal Reserve Treasury Department. They pulled out all stops and they pulled out everything for corporations. And I think even the markets realize that it’s not it’s not the problem. So markets are going to react badly to. A ban a Band-Aid and not a fix because 2008 was another Band-Aid. We need a fix. Asked that stampede asked covered 19 peak is estimated in July or August. How low do you think BTC will be then three k 1 k. Well it really depends. You guys I mean if we do have a full on Spanish flu type epidemic you know and it grows to that type of level you know the virus starts mutating getting even more deadly. Killing more people. Yeah I mean we’re gonna see some crap go down. I’ll tell you that. That’s why they kind of did this stimulus bill there’s a liquidity problem and if you know the general public withdraws their money out of the banks we’re going to have a bank run like the Great Depression. Stock market is going to go it’s gonna be in another Great Depression. Exactly what happened you guys. Banks will collapse and you’ve seen kind of the new rules they put in to for that liquidity program. Taxpayers are on the hook from the FDIC. I talked about that yes or no. I talked about that on Monday. You guys. Yeah I’m talking about what the banks are doing. Private banks on Monday so it’s. Yeah I mean if we see something like that. Bitcoin is going to go down with it. But as you know the fire burns out and people rise from the ashes. I mean who’s gonna want to go back into that system. Not too many people. I think that’s. I don’t want that to happen. But at the same time I do because that’s the only way Bitcoin really truly breaks away is we need a full on collapse of finance one point zero China crapped on everyone not not really. I mean the half rate is doing pretty fine it’s over a hundred million now. I mean we’re going to see this. Like I said I made a video on this. It’s gonna be similar to what happened in your chart. Right here I said we might see a 40 to 50 per cent reduction in the half rate and it got about to that level and we might go back down. Like yeah. So now I’m sure some of you have got into this even though I told you not to. There is good reason not to do so by Nance listed this F T X token it was a leveraged trading token. Basically you just invest in the dog and it does all the leverage ball only for you. Well now finance is delisting all of them. Every single leverage trading token. So yeah they’ve been crashing Bob Barr whatever so it’s caused a lot of user confusion because that was a huge product on finance it got people talking like crazy people were investing like crazy well by Nancy’s saying. Their users didn’t understand them so that’s why they’re de-listing. The main reason for doing this thing is that too many users do not understand them and then basically the creator of FCX said by Nancy listing out these didn’t want to manage user education support FCX listing out the USD pairs to compensate. You can either send out keys to FTSE quality or all that turn into B USD on finance. So basically he’s saying finance didn’t want to educate their users so that’s why they listed. Well here was 17 days ago finance listed their own tokens in the BMV bull and BMV their FCX tokens. So what is going on. This doesn’t make sense to me you know. No this isn’t about our users didn’t understand it. It’s about money isn’t it. Yes CSC it’s about money. MARTIN Glenn I appreciate that tip and I like the comment. I might stop using toilet tissue and start using dollars soon. Tissue will be worth more. That would be a crazy world. But this was to me on my guy right 17 days ago they listed their own tokens in the being in the UN FCX. Now this isn’t something about money. So if you don’t know by Nance back in December of 10 I mean just a few months ago four months ago invested an undisclosed sum in the crypto derivatives platform FP yet I actually talked about this and I was like this seems shady out the gate because FCX looks like garbage. Hi man. How many years you see yourself holding maker. I see a maker as a long term hold Georgia’s long term. I appreciate the tip but yeah long long term. Especially with the burn mechanism so they invest an undisclosed amount of good amount. And yet CEO is Sam Pinkman freed of. And this was posted just last month. 30 days ago. Finance back FCX exchange 6 billion dollar value waste in an equity Coke sale. So yeah it’s hoping they gain a billion dollar valuation FCX is it sounds like they’re Sam Bateman free it is getting a little greedy but who else is super greedy sleazy finance. Oh yeah he is. You guys know. So there is some shady stuff going on earlier in the month. He acts was getting pumped and dumped like crazy. People were like what is going on is this finance is a scam and free. Who is doing this. Well I don’t think it’s this guy because he’s not smart enough in my opinion. So if you go into that the execs Jane and the right paper it’s garbage it doesn’t even explain how it works at all. It’s a white paper. Yeah see here the white paper I’m like Okay let’s get a nice detailed white paper. Yeah it’s like five pages so I was like nine now. I saw it and I looked into this back when you have X got lunch and that’s why I was like No way am I going to invest in this baloney but this is interesting. So this happened the same day as this come out. So this came out March 2nd. Someone tried to pump and dump at X token on finance FCX Exchange CEO invested in a rival trading platform. So you know that kind of irked seizes being whole. And then I don’t know who to trust here. I don’t think Sam bank being freed is that bright. I mean his white paper is garbage. Maybe the code is great. I don’t know since he 20 token in my opinion it’s centralized. I just haven’t looked into it. But he did post this theory about the bit next stuff. So this was interesting. This was posted on March 12th finance last listed a token on March 11th. So they were friends right here FCX and by Nance we’re still friends. I mean they listed being b ball and B and B Bear. This was March 12th his tweet. Insane theory of the day. There was no beat next hardware issue and he goes in to say that basically beatniks pulled the circuit breakers or BTC was going to zero. Did he get punished for doing this because of the cartel. I mean that Max is big time big time into the cartel you guys. I mean gathered cartel that Max is right in their next finance lobby. Okay axe a lot of the American chains exchanges have retreated because they’ll be going to jail probably baloney ex Coinbase never got involved. Good thing. Bit fanatics crack in. I mean cracking even hot guy tech person in that chain policies to cover their tracks. They’re so spooked. I did a video on that. You should watch that one. That’s probably one of my best videos. Yeah. So did you get repercussions for basically going against that other cartel. I don’t know. Interesting to see buy yeah crap on leverage tokens they work. I wouldn’t recommend getting it in it and then you just hating on leverage. Trading is more. Now despite the Koran the virus was by bit. CEO is bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are. Whatever his name. Do something. Bindu. Yep. Yeah. He’s bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are because the more people who long and then get wrecked the more money you make and the more money you’re YouTube disgusting poxy make. That’s why. Cool dude. So now I’m gonna treat you guys with a little treat. But first I’m gonna answer some questions regarding the live chat. I think my internet is connected again. Chico what is my issue with card. Dunno. Yeah. You should just know it’s car delay now so it has been promising a product for a long time and they keep doing the same thing and it’s disgusting. That’s why Yeah it’s car delay no. Charles Hoskinson even said that car delay no name in a livestream. I’m very happy about that. I got even the founder to call his own project Catalano. I wouldn’t be bullish on guard honor. You guys I would not be you don’t see other projects pulling out you know corona virus DeLay is already. I mean Charles. Thank you. Thank you. And now they can delay. I mean they’re going to delay anyways. It’s GA delay. No you guys they work. They don’t have it going. So yeah. Right when he launched you all we’re delaying right away. He said it you know if you’re a distributed team and your gamer works remotely garbage so this is some good stuff I have for you guys. I think you will like that publishes the game. Who cares about card on now. We don’t want to talk about that garbage project. Let’s focus on some cool stuff. So with the World Health Organization WHO. WHO DID IT. They are launching a block chain platform to fight coated 19 just announced. And it’s in cooperation with some very interesting enterprises and people. It’s called me Parsa and it’s built on top of hyper ledger fabric which we’ll get into in a bit. First let’s get and do some other stuff. So Bill Gates the gates man the antichrist. He stepped down from the board of Microsoft. I’ll mar their game during all this corona virus madness which was kind of weird in my opinion. I below give me a big old tip thanks I allow people to flop floppy into b c c can confirm from friends and family. Inflation is around the corner. So is the price of BTC goes down. It will be bought up and distribution will be better. BTC will be safer than money and banks in. I agree. Under present. That’s why buying BTC but short term in my opinion we’re gonna go down. I mean we just have finances grubby greedy hands to deep in. I appreciate the tip though. So this is interesting when Bill Gates stepped down I didn’t understand why. At first I knew he was involved with some stuff but you get some interesting reasons I guess some insight into why he gave read it and made just a few days ago on nine days ago actually. And this was very interesting question and answer so I put my hand on a stove. Ask Bill thank you for taking the time to do this today. I live in Seattle. Like you and it feels like our testing has not increased our number of confirmed cases starting to lag behind other states. What do you think gets effective social distancing or lack of testing. Says that testing in the US is not organized yet. In the next few weeks I hope the government fixes this by having the website you can go to find out about home testing and chaos. There are things are a bit confused on this right now in Seattle the UAW is providing salvage dozens of tests per day but no one is connected to a national tracking system. Whenever there is a positive test it should be seen seem to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen that social distance distant thing. South Korea did a great job on this including digital contact tracing Booyah digital contact tracing digital. Those are big words and he actually goes into digital a lot into this stream. But whereas the one I want to find God damn it. Yeah. So this person asked a remote controlled user what changes are we going to have to make. How businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing. He says the question of which businesses to keep is going is tricky. Certain foods supply and health systems we still need water electricity and the Internet supply chains for good old critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running. Eventually we will have some digital certificates this show who has recovered or who has been tested or when we have a vaccine who has received it. Boo yah Grandpa. Yeah. So he is basically telling us what they’re planning. It’s a digital tracking system and a digital I.D. system. So here at Davos this year Bill and Melinda Gates they pledged 10 billion dollars and a call for a decade of vaccines 2020 the year of vaccines. So that was interesting. And there was someone they joint presented with Bill Melinda Gates made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting Davos where they are joined by Julian Lobb LaVette CEO of GAVI Alliance GAVI is 80 20 20. So if you ever heard of this this is a basically an alliance to create a digital I.D. system across the globe. So we’ll be interoperable between countries regions districts everywhere and GAVI is one of the alliance partners as well as the Rockefeller Foundation Accenture Microsoft IDEO org and GAVI is the vaccine alliance. That’s your job. Yes. So it’s interesting that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn’t directly on the Web site. I’m sure they’re trying to hide that they’re directly involved with this but they are. And what’s interesting about I.T. 2020 is hyper ledger is one of their general partners as well. What is that block chain based platform being built on hyper ledger. So here is the digital I.D.. This Makinson I think it was put out a McKinsey Global Institute put out this good a little info graphic about what they’re trying to do but here’s what we need to hear understand. No. Our understanding of good digital ideas was informed by extensive consultations with many experts in the field including the World Bank night omni desire network the bill and melinda gates foundation open society foundations idea 2020 and the Rockefeller Foundation. So this is what’s going on you guys are building basically the base layer for this. I mean this is literally coming and it’s coming in front of our eyes. World Health Organization teams up with IBM Oracle en bloc Jane based corona virus data hub and fusion dub me Parsa is launching as a covert information highway so if we go into you idea 2020 there are some other partners that won’t go away. So yeah it’s built on hyper ledger fabric. This is the me process. And then you see who are involved with it. Sara IBM Microsoft Oracle the CDC Chinese CDC European cities the government of Canada Hong Kong John Hopkins national health commission the People’s Republic of China. The Weather Channel World Health Organization some of the people behind it but it’s funny a lot of the same partners are working on this. And so about this Sarah who is actually behind it as well. They’re actually a pretty backed by digital asset. As you can see they’re partners. And what’s funny about I.T. 20 20. If you go to idea 2020 about their leadership Guess who’s on the board of directors wife’s masters of digital asset it’s like Oh is that good for some of the projects I like like Eunice Bright who’s involved with digital asset. Oh man things are gonna get weird chain link involved with this. Oh so let’s finish it all up. So what are they trying to do. I’m sure it’s I mean like what are you talking about either. Well I did 20 20 and their partners announced in September of 20 19 that they were launching a program to write their digital ideas with vaccines. So in my opinion what’s coming is we’re gonna have a system. They’re gonna get these ideas into us by the grown a virus in my opinion. If you want to be able to travel go anywhere you’re gonna have to be verified as not having the disease or being tested whatever and that’s something where they’re going to do it. And so the people who don’t really get the vaccine are going to be ostracized by society. You know they’re going to be like You’re an unsafe bomb. GROSS You know how normal non vaccines are look that kinda. So I don’t know if it’s coming around the corner in a year. I mean I know that it’s coming though writing’s on the wall and I hope I don’t get kicked off of YouTube presents and then this you know part of you know some of these partners who they’re working with just posted this. Is it time for a true global currency yikes. Brains so it’s gonna be a big struggle. I mean in that way they’ll get you know the general population to want the vaccine is you know celebrities as you can see a lot of the celebrities are getting hit with grown a virus. I mean you know a friend a friend of yours that has been hit with a crowd of virus but you know 20 celebrities that got it they’re going to be getting vaccines. I mean like it’s awesome. Everyone get it please. So what coins are involved. YouTube writes a digital asset partner Jane links involved with a lot of those guys and that’s kinda it’s hard for me to like but not it’s like tearing me apart. It’s kind of my heart when I’m with you because yeah it’s like I hate it but then the value from that being involved with something like guys tremendous for those coins. So it’s tearing up my heart when you this laptop sucks my nuts I need a new laptop. Yeah some crazy stuff. My friend’s going on but it’s I mean like I said some of the goings I’m involved with. It makes me think Holy crap what could be coming for those I mean block chain is the future. I mean they’re building future tracking systems I mean and if you understand what Microsoft’s been doing with digital ideas before this. Yeah. Bounced off that 1000 level nicely. Silver gold or b do you see nice porn up there. Yeah I did porn VR acts. Oh I can’t do that on my stream or I would do it again. So much trouble. Yeah. No. If you guys wanna try something cool pornhub VR is pretty dang cool. Yeah I heard about the British PM. What’s the name Boris. Oh you bar your bar was cool. They would just read it. You are. It’s even cooler now. Executive order 6 1 0 2. What is that. I’ll have to look in that view. Yeah yeah. Veracity looks pretty decent. Going after the attention or awards video content involves gaming content a little different than basic attention token. I’m using basic attention road tokens right now I’ve earned 40 cents for browsing no chain links. Price won’t drop the less than the dollar are among those around most. I mean only if bitcoin gets down to like 2k. I mean I don’t see that happening either in this downturn what cryptos are you buy in. I mean the same ones that I’m been buying a very M.D.. If you watch my top portfolio video that gives you a pretty good idea chain link you write a few theorem Xerox protocol kind of network synthetics Al Gore hands up there are no waves I’ve been purchasing I think waves is going to have a big boom soon because of Russia and block chain. What do I think of Keith. Why do you guys like peaky Ari. That guy is the old 2017 scammer and now he’s back for some reason. What the heck. Come on guys do it. What do I think the garbage driving guy has no idea what he’s talking about. He didn’t back then he doesn’t now heard anything about the bite. Every I mean you guys. Eric Jones a partnership with chain link is not a partnership. You guys everyone’s going to use a partnership with everyone’s going to partner with chain link. So when you see a partnership with chain link it’s nothing. I mean so many projects have partnered with chain link because they’re going to have to use or decentralized oracles by now is crap. It’s a finance crap going I’ll tell you that. Carver’s crap all finance ideas are crap FCX token. They invested in our crap. These guys are crap guys. This guy right here is a bad person for the space. I mean more people are starting to realize it. When I was saying it a year ago people called me stupid. Now people are starting to smarten up and learn that yeah this guy’s comeback. He’s a hustler Butler nasty person and so is he. I mean most people don’t even know he’s just a puppet. He has a girl telling him what to do. This is buying answers. Main person. She is pulling the strings. It’s easy and her I think have a secret little relationship do. There had been rumors about that. So you know who wears pants in relationships. That girl as easy as a cop. Definitely. She is swinging em around like a little rag doll. Guarantee it. I still hold. Did you buy it. Yep but unfortunately the downward trend has moved it out of my tops. Is he on porn Ron. No I’m not. I have heard jazz nudes but I don’t. Can’t confirm that Tyler why do you keep running those scams because I just not mine stupid. How do you think I’m running your eye guy. I’m going to call you out. You’re stupid. I’ll tell you that if you think I’m running an E theorem giveaway or you send me a theorem I give it back. You’re fucking stupid. Sorry. Darwinism. So if you send money to him. Sorry got your stupid asshole. That’s just me being honest. God I hate when people do that. I get emails all the time. They send me to death. Fucking what they do. Shut up. Come on man don’t be stupid. I’m just honest it’s all fixed code it is a lie. Cashless society. We’ll see. We actually have first cases here and around my small area of California. So we’ll see if it sadly I’m waiting to see if it gets. I mean if it’s gonna spread and start killing people I know then that that’s when you know it’s not fake. The shit just goes away and you got celebrities getting it. Yeah really. Anyone you know really gets it. You know I would be a little weary All right guys. Oh actually I have a call it a conversation at 12:00 p.m. I’m almost late for that. So I gotta get going. I appreciate everyone who can tune into the livestream today all fifteen hundred woop woop way better than my last livestream last week only I like six seven hundred and it didn’t notify my people as I go on. No it’s YouTube gonna shadow banned me. Yeah. So this makes me happy to see you. Oh crypto crackhead. I appreciate the tip while I’m leaving man. Yeah we’ll see how real this virus gets you guys but I hope everyone stays safe. Keep an eye on the crypto markets because things are gonna be getting interesting. I think Monday is where maybe even Sunday because I think a lot of these financial one point zero traders they know what’s going to happen before the markets open in traditional markets. So keep an eye out for what happened Sunday in the bitcoin markets. That’s why my personal words for you. Other than that you guys I appreciate you for training and then dropping me comments drop me tips. And Monday I got a great video on the banks to tune in that see you guys next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoins-next-big-move-begins-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitcoins-big-breakout-or-breakdown

[scottmapess]

BITCOINs Big BREAKOUT OR BREAKDOWN!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Yoho what is going on viewers of the two. Here Chico crypto. Come on you guys like on the normal Saturday Bitcoin game corruption downward movements are startling. Wait for everybody get in the chat Hope everyone’s doing good today. Chaffetz Yeah that’s my cue. TYLER HERE YOU GO. Crypto. Come on you guys. Saturday. Big point. How’s your body doing. What up guys. Yeah we’re starting another downward movement. We beat near the 7 k mark but yeah got rejected pretty hard. So we’re gonna get into my feelings we’re gonna do a little bit of Tyler analysis not technical analysis because we don’t do that here on Chico crypto because I’m not a technical guy. I mean you got to sit around for years and years and I mean we’re getting the finance 1.0 crowd who have been performing this Kia for since the 90s. You guys I mean it’s gonna be hard to beat a lot of these traders. I’ll tell you that right now and a lot of them are getting their paws deep into crypto cryptocurrency that Max Arthur Hayes talked about it. But before we get into my technical analysis we’re going to try something interesting for the T.A. for today. Yeah I’m going to do it a little differently not Microsoft Paint but kinda. So you guys will get to see her in a sec. But if you haven’t follow me on Instagram I’ve been kicked off Twitter. If you guys don’t do that so follow me on Instagram links in the description for you guys check out. You can also follow me on uptrend. I’m on there posting on there and I’m also on the most controversial one to watch. Powered by Bitcoin as we a lot of people not going to like that but I’m going to use anything that works and I’ve actually made about 40 bucks off of Twitch so far so pretty girl in my opinion. God damn it. My chaps disconnected again. Pull out my phone I’m sorry guys. Go. Scott Peterson house went up everybody not see him buddy. So yeah follow me on those so I could do the normal you know why are trying to get me to join your community. See that’s why I want to use that. You’re trying to get me join your stupid community and and pop up that won’t let me get out of it and I click it. That’s why I’m not going to use your crap. But yeah I could do you know the normal trading view type stuff indicator. Bob Barr I don’t even know what they do half the time because it’s a bunch of crap. Yeah you gotta even log in to use it. But I’m going to do something different. So let’s begin that. I hope this works and I’m not just gonna look like a fool but let’s try it anyways so I got make this up a little bit. So I’m going to do VR you guys I’m going to do if you guys heard of the Get game Half-Life Alex I’m going to do this. So I started. If you guys can see it I’m not. Making a fool out of myself. All right. So I hope you guys can see the chart right here. Make sure everything’s going good before I start it. All right. K six k for k Duke. So we’re just gonna get this. You know my opinion you know we’re hanging on to that 6k level. I think we’re gonna go down because there’s a few things going on in finance one point zero. We need to understand for one I love boobs. And number two south side so we got to understand that you draw a line here and it hits resistance but then you draw a line off the bibs. It hits another resistance and then right here that’s where the miners stuff happens. You know a lot of miners unprofitable. We’ve got to keep it there. You know now this game is really done. You guys I would recommend getting VR headset shit ridiculous crazy. Work. Hell yeah. Get it set back up for the regular screen. I’m not going to do that whole time. Does that show that off a little. Okay we’re good. What app has that app is. It’s a game. You guys it’s half life. ALEX It’s frickin crazy good. I got to play a little bit for you but we got to scrap it. Maybe I’ll start a VR channel or something. Yeah I know it’s crazy good like you can do everything in the environment you can interact with. Grab. I mean the reloading gun fighting and it’s so good satisfying. I’ll tell you that. So yeah. Let’s get back into crypto currency. So yeah we’ll talk about my a few things I’m not going to draw on Half-Life Alex charcoal time. Good. Yeah that’s a future so I might be doing technical and our people might be doing technical analysis in the future in like a virtual classroom. A lot more interactivity in my opinion. That’s why I got the VR headset when I learned that Ballard was working on the index and they’re coming out with game maybe left for dead. Might be the next one in VR would be insane. That’s when I was like I need to purchase one the because. I have a feeling with this game engine. They built without I. Alex they are we’re going to see a lot more come out of VR because other game developers are gonna be able to use that game engine but let’s talk about Bitcoin. So we’re gonna go into bitcoin one day chart. I mean this is what we got to understand what’s going to happen. I mean right here you know this is sense you know late early morning Friday Intel you know late afternoon and we had a back down. I mean if you just look at the Dow Jones it’s like bitcoin is following it to a T right now. And if you guys watch my channel that plays video like four or five days ago I talked about how finance 1.0 has their dirty paws in cryptocurrency through leveraged trading exchanges like betting that’s Arthur Hazen and those guys they came from finance one point zero in my opinion you can make a lot more money with large positions and finance one point zero. So what these guys were doing you know is taking a lot of the profits and funneling them into large positions in the stock market risky positions too. Because I mean they’re already doing risky enough positions which they control Bitcoin. But you know if they can find a low enough money into certain certain stuff in stock market they can control that. Q. Oh all right guys. I just muted it that sorry guys I didn’t realize that. So I mean in my opinion we’re going to see if we see the stock market on Monday have a rough time which it’s looking like it I mean it gift bright at closing. We’re going to see bitcoin go back down unfortunately. But I mean for bitcoin to come out of this everything’s going to have to burn and it’s gonna be a total scorched earth cap. I mean I foresee it coming because the stimulus bill I mean it’s not written to save what’s wrong with this nation. It threatened to continue what’s wrong what has been wrong. So that’s my personal opinion. I do think we are going to see more downward movements from Bitcoin and then this goes back to the hash pass rate. I and I don’t think like 1 k to K levels like some people say I’m thinking you know four K levels and that just has to do with the hash rate. China is still profitable at four thousand three thousand five hundred not high. I mean at this hash rate they are pretty profitable still. Not extremely but yeah they are. While other regions significant regions like the United States and some parts of Europe Australia they all become for the most part unprofitable because of electricity costs unless they are using sustainable energy. By you know high initial costs with sustainable operation and I did a video on this where you know some of the bottom levels are for the Bitcoin price just based off of mining industry economies grow public at 10 percent to 3 percent. India is still at 1 percent and the rest of the world still at 4 percent. And I made these all those guesses on that just I kind of pulled them at my me bungle. Yeah. They’re based off just what I kind. I’ve been in the crypto industry for a while you know and seeing how the hash rates kind of moved in in different regions now is just based off of my own estimations me buttonhole they’re actually right. I was like Holy crap. Yeah I got it confirmed by some article I can remember this one I called China’s big spot on I was like Whoa that’s crazy but. Another reason I do think bitcoin is going to go down is because of the fact I mean and I talked about it a lot last week and I’m going to continue to talk about it because this stimulus bill is disgusting. It hurts me personally because it just goes against everything our nation is about or maybe everything our nation is for now was about I should say. So I mean basically most Americans if you made less than seventy five thousand dollars are going to be getting a twelve hundred dollar check. But I mean there is a lot of influences in the space some big ones like Anthony promptly on oh who was saying this is good for bitcoin and I do agree. You know inflation is good for bitcoin but. Twelve hundred dollar check while corporations get the bulk of it is not good for bitcoin. These corporations amass small my new minority of these institutions are in bitcoin. They are all in finance one point zero. They all view Bitcoin as a less valuable more speculative asset than a stock. So they’re not going to invest in it. But a bulk of the money into finance 1.0 stock market and people are getting the twelve hundred dollars. You know not the institutions they are going to be suffering so they’re not going to put it. It’s basically none of that money is going to be getting put into bitcoin in the medium term long term. Yes. Yes. But it’s just like who is it. This is bad. Just bad all around for crypto it’s bad all around for. I mean if it was more equal and you know Americans got a bigger chunk of this it would be great for crypto because they would have money to put in to the bitcoin markets. They don’t have it you guys. I mean it’s only a check for twelve hundred bucks they’re going to spend that on what they need and I know some people aren’t going to lose their jobs but we’re going to have to see the full fallout of this and some of you I’m and as much as I’m not trying to be an asshole this is just maybe Anonymous. Like I always am asked a lot of you are gonna lose your jobs in this chat. Are you going to spend that on Bitcoin or are you going to spend that on frickin rent for the few months rent you guys just sire. Barney thank you rather I appreciate the debt I’m going to buy. I like the mojito. That’s a good one. So it’s kind of an win lose not only not even a lose lose it’s a lose lose in the short term maybe a win lose in the long term for bitcoin but here’s funny was you know Steve Newton Yeah March 17th over a week and a half ago he said we’re looking at Nugent’s duty birches saying we’re looking to send checks to Americans immediately immediately. Yeah. He said within two weeks Americans need to get cash now and the president wants cash. Now we’re looking to send it in two weeks. Newton said on Tuesday so what. That was a week ago and now guess what he said. Three weeks yet treasury secretaries government agents had one day. Wednesday the checks will be sent out within three weeks. Seaweed dough weaves. Keep it up I’m gonna brother. Thanks for the tip and plutonium podcast. Check out his podcast if he has one. Tip brother so they add three weeks two weeks. One week. Yeah when are they come in. Who knows. They asked even in Newton. He is seriously powerful now. He is a controller of basically four trillion dollars. And yeah you hear him and his friends are gonna make out like crazy and crazy. They’re gonna be rich. And if you see Stephen Newton that guy is. I can’t even believe he’s part of our. Executive branch. The guy is such a hustler. Besler. This is the picture you need to see. I came with his wife and dollar bills. Look at. You need to miss what’s on the red carpet. Oh yeah. These guys are players. They are not your average executive. This is elite status. No yeah. There he is with Brent Newton. But let’s get into some crypto news besides the stimulus bill what’s going to happen to bitcoin in my main opinion finance one point zero is going to have some hurt. Federal Reserve Treasury Department. They pulled out all stops and they pulled out everything for corporations. And I think even the markets realize that it’s not it’s not the problem. So markets are going to react badly to. A ban a Band-Aid and not a fix because 2008 was another Band-Aid. We need a fix. Asked that stampede asked covered 19 peak is estimated in July or August. How low do you think BTC will be then three k 1 k. Well it really depends. You guys I mean if we do have a full on Spanish flu type epidemic you know and it grows to that type of level you know the virus starts mutating getting even more deadly. Killing more people. Yeah I mean we’re gonna see some crap go down. I’ll tell you that. That’s why they kind of did this stimulus bill there’s a liquidity problem and if you know the general public withdraws their money out of the banks we’re going to have a bank run like the Great Depression. Stock market is going to go it’s gonna be in another Great Depression. Exactly what happened you guys. Banks will collapse and you’ve seen kind of the new rules they put in to for that liquidity program. Taxpayers are on the hook from the FDIC. I talked about that yes or no. I talked about that on Monday. You guys. Yeah I’m talking about what the banks are doing. Private banks on Monday so it’s. Yeah I mean if we see something like that. Bitcoin is going to go down with it. But as you know the fire burns out and people rise from the ashes. I mean who’s gonna want to go back into that system. Not too many people. I think that’s. I don’t want that to happen. But at the same time I do because that’s the only way Bitcoin really truly breaks away is we need a full on collapse of finance one point zero China crapped on everyone not not really. I mean the half rate is doing pretty fine it’s over a hundred million now. I mean we’re going to see this. Like I said I made a video on this. It’s gonna be similar to what happened in your chart. Right here I said we might see a 40 to 50 per cent reduction in the half rate and it got about to that level and we might go back down. Like yeah. So now I’m sure some of you have got into this even though I told you not to. There is good reason not to do so by Nance listed this F T X token it was a leveraged trading token. Basically you just invest in the dog and it does all the leverage ball only for you. Well now finance is delisting all of them. Every single leverage trading token. So yeah they’ve been crashing Bob Barr whatever so it’s caused a lot of user confusion because that was a huge product on finance it got people talking like crazy people were investing like crazy well by Nancy’s saying. Their users didn’t understand them so that’s why they’re de-listing. The main reason for doing this thing is that too many users do not understand them and then basically the creator of FCX said by Nancy listing out these didn’t want to manage user education support FCX listing out the USD pairs to compensate. You can either send out keys to FTSE quality or all that turn into B USD on finance. So basically he’s saying finance didn’t want to educate their users so that’s why they listed. Well here was 17 days ago finance listed their own tokens in the BMV bull and BMV their FCX tokens. So what is going on. This doesn’t make sense to me you know. No this isn’t about our users didn’t understand it. It’s about money isn’t it. Yes CSC it’s about money. MARTIN Glenn I appreciate that tip and I like the comment. I might stop using toilet tissue and start using dollars soon. Tissue will be worth more. That would be a crazy world. But this was to me on my guy right 17 days ago they listed their own tokens in the being in the UN FCX. Now this isn’t something about money. So if you don’t know by Nance back in December of 10 I mean just a few months ago four months ago invested an undisclosed sum in the crypto derivatives platform FP yet I actually talked about this and I was like this seems shady out the gate because FCX looks like garbage. Hi man. How many years you see yourself holding maker. I see a maker as a long term hold Georgia’s long term. I appreciate the tip but yeah long long term. Especially with the burn mechanism so they invest an undisclosed amount of good amount. And yet CEO is Sam Pinkman freed of. And this was posted just last month. 30 days ago. Finance back FCX exchange 6 billion dollar value waste in an equity Coke sale. So yeah it’s hoping they gain a billion dollar valuation FCX is it sounds like they’re Sam Bateman free it is getting a little greedy but who else is super greedy sleazy finance. Oh yeah he is. You guys know. So there is some shady stuff going on earlier in the month. He acts was getting pumped and dumped like crazy. People were like what is going on is this finance is a scam and free. Who is doing this. Well I don’t think it’s this guy because he’s not smart enough in my opinion. So if you go into that the execs Jane and the right paper it’s garbage it doesn’t even explain how it works at all. It’s a white paper. Yeah see here the white paper I’m like Okay let’s get a nice detailed white paper. Yeah it’s like five pages so I was like nine now. I saw it and I looked into this back when you have X got lunch and that’s why I was like No way am I going to invest in this baloney but this is interesting. So this happened the same day as this come out. So this came out March 2nd. Someone tried to pump and dump at X token on finance FCX Exchange CEO invested in a rival trading platform. So you know that kind of irked seizes being whole. And then I don’t know who to trust here. I don’t think Sam bank being freed is that bright. I mean his white paper is garbage. Maybe the code is great. I don’t know since he 20 token in my opinion it’s centralized. I just haven’t looked into it. But he did post this theory about the bit next stuff. So this was interesting. This was posted on March 12th finance last listed a token on March 11th. So they were friends right here FCX and by Nance we’re still friends. I mean they listed being b ball and B and B Bear. This was March 12th his tweet. Insane theory of the day. There was no beat next hardware issue and he goes in to say that basically beatniks pulled the circuit breakers or BTC was going to zero. Did he get punished for doing this because of the cartel. I mean that Max is big time big time into the cartel you guys. I mean gathered cartel that Max is right in their next finance lobby. Okay axe a lot of the American chains exchanges have retreated because they’ll be going to jail probably baloney ex Coinbase never got involved. Good thing. Bit fanatics crack in. I mean cracking even hot guy tech person in that chain policies to cover their tracks. They’re so spooked. I did a video on that. You should watch that one. That’s probably one of my best videos. Yeah. So did you get repercussions for basically going against that other cartel. I don’t know. Interesting to see buy yeah crap on leverage tokens they work. I wouldn’t recommend getting it in it and then you just hating on leverage. Trading is more. Now despite the Koran the virus was by bit. CEO is bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are. Whatever his name. Do something. Bindu. Yep. Yeah. He’s bullish on bitcoin. I’m sure you are because the more people who long and then get wrecked the more money you make and the more money you’re YouTube disgusting poxy make. That’s why. Cool dude. So now I’m gonna treat you guys with a little treat. But first I’m gonna answer some questions regarding the live chat. I think my internet is connected again. Chico what is my issue with card. Dunno. Yeah. You should just know it’s car delay now so it has been promising a product for a long time and they keep doing the same thing and it’s disgusting. That’s why Yeah it’s car delay no. Charles Hoskinson even said that car delay no name in a livestream. I’m very happy about that. I got even the founder to call his own project Catalano. I wouldn’t be bullish on guard honor. You guys I would not be you don’t see other projects pulling out you know corona virus DeLay is already. I mean Charles. Thank you. Thank you. And now they can delay. I mean they’re going to delay anyways. It’s GA delay. No you guys they work. They don’t have it going. So yeah. Right when he launched you all we’re delaying right away. He said it you know if you’re a distributed team and your gamer works remotely garbage so this is some good stuff I have for you guys. I think you will like that publishes the game. Who cares about card on now. We don’t want to talk about that garbage project. Let’s focus on some cool stuff. So with the World Health Organization WHO. WHO DID IT. They are launching a block chain platform to fight coated 19 just announced. And it’s in cooperation with some very interesting enterprises and people. It’s called me Parsa and it’s built on top of hyper ledger fabric which we’ll get into in a bit. First let’s get and do some other stuff. So Bill Gates the gates man the antichrist. He stepped down from the board of Microsoft. I’ll mar their game during all this corona virus madness which was kind of weird in my opinion. I below give me a big old tip thanks I allow people to flop floppy into b c c can confirm from friends and family. Inflation is around the corner. So is the price of BTC goes down. It will be bought up and distribution will be better. BTC will be safer than money and banks in. I agree. Under present. That’s why buying BTC but short term in my opinion we’re gonna go down. I mean we just have finances grubby greedy hands to deep in. I appreciate the tip though. So this is interesting when Bill Gates stepped down I didn’t understand why. At first I knew he was involved with some stuff but you get some interesting reasons I guess some insight into why he gave read it and made just a few days ago on nine days ago actually. And this was very interesting question and answer so I put my hand on a stove. Ask Bill thank you for taking the time to do this today. I live in Seattle. Like you and it feels like our testing has not increased our number of confirmed cases starting to lag behind other states. What do you think gets effective social distancing or lack of testing. Says that testing in the US is not organized yet. In the next few weeks I hope the government fixes this by having the website you can go to find out about home testing and chaos. There are things are a bit confused on this right now in Seattle the UAW is providing salvage dozens of tests per day but no one is connected to a national tracking system. Whenever there is a positive test it should be seen seem to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen that social distance distant thing. South Korea did a great job on this including digital contact tracing Booyah digital contact tracing digital. Those are big words and he actually goes into digital a lot into this stream. But whereas the one I want to find God damn it. Yeah. So this person asked a remote controlled user what changes are we going to have to make. How businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing. He says the question of which businesses to keep is going is tricky. Certain foods supply and health systems we still need water electricity and the Internet supply chains for good old critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running. Eventually we will have some digital certificates this show who has recovered or who has been tested or when we have a vaccine who has received it. Boo yah Grandpa. Yeah. So he is basically telling us what they’re planning. It’s a digital tracking system and a digital I.D. system. So here at Davos this year Bill and Melinda Gates they pledged 10 billion dollars and a call for a decade of vaccines 2020 the year of vaccines. So that was interesting. And there was someone they joint presented with Bill Melinda Gates made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting Davos where they are joined by Julian Lobb LaVette CEO of GAVI Alliance GAVI is 80 20 20. So if you ever heard of this this is a basically an alliance to create a digital I.D. system across the globe. So we’ll be interoperable between countries regions districts everywhere and GAVI is one of the alliance partners as well as the Rockefeller Foundation Accenture Microsoft IDEO org and GAVI is the vaccine alliance. That’s your job. Yes. So it’s interesting that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn’t directly on the Web site. I’m sure they’re trying to hide that they’re directly involved with this but they are. And what’s interesting about I.T. 2020 is hyper ledger is one of their general partners as well. What is that block chain based platform being built on hyper ledger. So here is the digital I.D.. This Makinson I think it was put out a McKinsey Global Institute put out this good a little info graphic about what they’re trying to do but here’s what we need to hear understand. No. Our understanding of good digital ideas was informed by extensive consultations with many experts in the field including the World Bank night omni desire network the bill and melinda gates foundation open society foundations idea 2020 and the Rockefeller Foundation. So this is what’s going on you guys are building basically the base layer for this. I mean this is literally coming and it’s coming in front of our eyes. World Health Organization teams up with IBM Oracle en bloc Jane based corona virus data hub and fusion dub me Parsa is launching as a covert information highway so if we go into you idea 2020 there are some other partners that won’t go away. So yeah it’s built on hyper ledger fabric. This is the me process. And then you see who are involved with it. Sara IBM Microsoft Oracle the CDC Chinese CDC European cities the government of Canada Hong Kong John Hopkins national health commission the People’s Republic of China. The Weather Channel World Health Organization some of the people behind it but it’s funny a lot of the same partners are working on this. And so about this Sarah who is actually behind it as well. They’re actually a pretty backed by digital asset. As you can see they’re partners. And what’s funny about I.T. 20 20. If you go to idea 2020 about their leadership Guess who’s on the board of directors wife’s masters of digital asset it’s like Oh is that good for some of the projects I like like Eunice Bright who’s involved with digital asset. Oh man things are gonna get weird chain link involved with this. Oh so let’s finish it all up. So what are they trying to do. I’m sure it’s I mean like what are you talking about either. Well I did 20 20 and their partners announced in September of 20 19 that they were launching a program to write their digital ideas with vaccines. So in my opinion what’s coming is we’re gonna have a system. They’re gonna get these ideas into us by the grown a virus in my opinion. If you want to be able to travel go anywhere you’re gonna have to be verified as not having the disease or being tested whatever and that’s something where they’re going to do it. And so the people who don’t really get the vaccine are going to be ostracized by society. You know they’re going to be like You’re an unsafe bomb. GROSS You know how normal non vaccines are look that kinda. So I don’t know if it’s coming around the corner in a year. I mean I know that it’s coming though writing’s on the wall and I hope I don’t get kicked off of YouTube presents and then this you know part of you know some of these partners who they’re working with just posted this. Is it time for a true global currency yikes. Brains so it’s gonna be a big struggle. I mean in that way they’ll get you know the general population to want the vaccine is you know celebrities as you can see a lot of the celebrities are getting hit with grown a virus. I mean you know a friend a friend of yours that has been hit with a crowd of virus but you know 20 celebrities that got it they’re going to be getting vaccines. I mean like it’s awesome. Everyone get it please. So what coins are involved. YouTube writes a digital asset partner Jane links involved with a lot of those guys and that’s kinda it’s hard for me to like but not it’s like tearing me apart. It’s kind of my heart when I’m with you because yeah it’s like I hate it but then the value from that being involved with something like guys tremendous for those coins. So it’s tearing up my heart when you this laptop sucks my nuts I need a new laptop. Yeah some crazy stuff. My friend’s going on but it’s I mean like I said some of the goings I’m involved with. It makes me think Holy crap what could be coming for those I mean block chain is the future. I mean they’re building future tracking systems I mean and if you understand what Microsoft’s been doing with digital ideas before this. Yeah. Bounced off that 1000 level nicely. Silver gold or b do you see nice porn up there. Yeah I did porn VR acts. Oh I can’t do that on my stream or I would do it again. So much trouble. Yeah. No. If you guys wanna try something cool pornhub VR is pretty dang cool. Yeah I heard about the British PM. What’s the name Boris. Oh you bar your bar was cool. They would just read it. You are. It’s even cooler now. Executive order 6 1 0 2. What is that. I’ll have to look in that view. Yeah yeah. Veracity looks pretty decent. Going after the attention or awards video content involves gaming content a little different than basic attention token. I’m using basic attention road tokens right now I’ve earned 40 cents for browsing no chain links. Price won’t drop the less than the dollar are among those around most. I mean only if bitcoin gets down to like 2k. I mean I don’t see that happening either in this downturn what cryptos are you buy in. I mean the same ones that I’m been buying a very M.D.. If you watch my top portfolio video that gives you a pretty good idea chain link you write a few theorem Xerox protocol kind of network synthetics Al Gore hands up there are no waves I’ve been purchasing I think waves is going to have a big boom soon because of Russia and block chain. What do I think of Keith. Why do you guys like peaky Ari. That guy is the old 2017 scammer and now he’s back for some reason. What the heck. Come on guys do it. What do I think the garbage driving guy has no idea what he’s talking about. He didn’t back then he doesn’t now heard anything about the bite. Every I mean you guys. Eric Jones a partnership with chain link is not a partnership. You guys everyone’s going to use a partnership with everyone’s going to partner with chain link. So when you see a partnership with chain link it’s nothing. I mean so many projects have partnered with chain link because they’re going to have to use or decentralized oracles by now is crap. It’s a finance crap going I’ll tell you that. Carver’s crap all finance ideas are crap FCX token. They invested in our crap. These guys are crap guys. This guy right here is a bad person for the space. I mean more people are starting to realize it. When I was saying it a year ago people called me stupid. Now people are starting to smarten up and learn that yeah this guy’s comeback. He’s a hustler Butler nasty person and so is he. I mean most people don’t even know he’s just a puppet. He has a girl telling him what to do. This is buying answers. Main person. She is pulling the strings. It’s easy and her I think have a secret little relationship do. There had been rumors about that. So you know who wears pants in relationships. That girl as easy as a cop. Definitely. She is swinging em around like a little rag doll. Guarantee it. I still hold. Did you buy it. Yep but unfortunately the downward trend has moved it out of my tops. Is he on porn Ron. No I’m not. I have heard jazz nudes but I don’t. Can’t confirm that Tyler why do you keep running those scams because I just not mine stupid. How do you think I’m running your eye guy. I’m going to call you out. You’re stupid. I’ll tell you that if you think I’m running an E theorem giveaway or you send me a theorem I give it back. You’re fucking stupid. Sorry. Darwinism. So if you send money to him. Sorry got your stupid asshole. That’s just me being honest. God I hate when people do that. I get emails all the time. They send me to death. Fucking what they do. Shut up. Come on man don’t be stupid. I’m just honest it’s all fixed code it is a lie. Cashless society. We’ll see. We actually have first cases here and around my small area of California. So we’ll see if it sadly I’m waiting to see if it gets. I mean if it’s gonna spread and start killing people I know then that that’s when you know it’s not fake. The shit just goes away and you got celebrities getting it. Yeah really. Anyone you know really gets it. You know I would be a little weary All right guys. Oh actually I have a call it a conversation at 12:00 p.m. I’m almost late for that. So I gotta get going. I appreciate everyone who can tune into the livestream today all fifteen hundred woop woop way better than my last livestream last week only I like six seven hundred and it didn’t notify my people as I go on. No it’s YouTube gonna shadow banned me. Yeah. So this makes me happy to see you. Oh crypto crackhead. I appreciate the tip while I’m leaving man. Yeah we’ll see how real this virus gets you guys but I hope everyone stays safe. Keep an eye on the crypto markets because things are gonna be getting interesting. I think Monday is where maybe even Sunday because I think a lot of these financial one point zero traders they know what’s going to happen before the markets open in traditional markets. So keep an eye out for what happened Sunday in the bitcoin markets. That’s why my personal words for you. Other than that you guys I appreciate you for training and then dropping me comments drop me tips. And Monday I got a great video on the banks to tune in that see you guys next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoins-next-big-move-begins-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitcoins-big-breakout-or-breakdown source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/03/bitcoins-big-breakout-or-breakdown.html

[preciousmetals0]

Tesla’s Cash Flows; Verizon’s Crossroads; Facebook Erodes

Tesla’s Cash Flows; Verizon’s Crossroads; Facebook Erodes:

Tesla to Bears: Eat My Shorts

Do we have any Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) bears reading today?

I know you’re out there. You write in to Great Stuff every time I say something positive about the company. Well, get your emails ready. Today, Tesla’s taking a victory lap … and I’m saying: “I told you so!”

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter, shall we?

Tesla reported blockbuster quarterly results last night. They were good … really good. As in, “Tesla turned in another profitable quarter” good.

Yes, Virginia. Tesla is profitable, earning $2.14 per share in the fourth quarter and beating expectations by more than 20%. Revenue came in at $7.38 billion, besting Wall Street’s target of $7 billion.

Now, we’ve seen Tesla put up profitable quarters before. What makes this one so much better?

Two factors really stood out this time. First, Tesla reported free cash flow of $1 billion for the quarter. That’s impressive just for the sheer fact that the company’s capital spending grew 27% in the same quarter.

Remember the Gigafactory in Shanghai? That cost the company $412 million to push through. Despite the added spending, overall capital expenditures were lower than 2018.

You’re starting to lose me here, Mr. Great Stuff. Just tell me what’s going on, please!

OK, so that’s a lot to take in. In layman’s terms, Tesla is spending less, spending smarter and bringing in more revenue. This is what every company dreams of doing. It’s how things are supposed to work.

What’s more, things will get even better for Tesla this year. The company projected 2020 sales of more than 500,000 vehicles.

Not bad for a company that many people believed would never be profitable.

The Takeaway: 

Wall Street’s Tesla bears are eating a lot of crow today.

Here are two of my favorites:

Ben Kallo, an analyst at Baird, said: “A lot of retail investors actually have a deeper and more accurate insights than many of the big institutional investors and certainly a better insight than many of the analysts.”

Joseph Spak of RBC Capital Markets wrote: “We fully admit things are better than we expected and there is a lot of positive news flow and data points going Tesla’s way.”

While the bears admitted defeat, the Tesla bulls celebrated. “It’s becoming clear, in our view, that Tesla is on a path toward becoming the world’s only relevant publicly listed auto maker,” wrote Alexander Potter of Piper Sandler.

Now, I like Tesla, but I don’t know if I’m willing to follow Potter’s lead and call it the “only relevant publicly listed auto maker.” I think we’re still way too early in the game for that.

However, if Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) don’t get their act together soon, Tesla could soon be the only relevant publicly traded American automaker.

Finally, you might be wondering if it’s finally time for you to bite the bullet and buy into Tesla. That answer is a firm “NO.”

Tesla is overbought and needs to consolidate or pull back more than a little. For the best long-term returns, you’d ideally want to target the $550 to $600 region. It may take a little while to fall back to those levels, but everything driving the shares higher right now is hype.

We don’t buy hype … and neither does Banyan Hill expert Jeff Yastine.

Jeff’s eye for spotting hidden value comes from his 15-plus years of financial news coverage. And now, he has his sights locked on a $5 stock that’s set to make waves.

With its life-saving innovation, this one company is set to revolutionize health care. There’s little hype surrounding this stock today, but Jeff predicts its value could triple in the next few years.

Click here to see why Jeff believes this pioneer is set to soar.

The Good: Am I Blue?

Why, wouldn’t you be too? (Couldn’t resist breaking out a little Billie Holiday.)

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is most certainly not blue. It’s a nice, happy shade of green today … thanks to Azure, Microsoft’s cloud services.

The software giant once again beat Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, riding a 27% spike in intelligent-cloud revenue to $11.15 billion. Azure-specific revenue surged 62%.

Overall, total revenue jumped 14% to $36.9 billion, and earnings topped expectations by $0.29 per share.

Microsoft projected Azure revenue to reach between $11.85 and $12.05 billion for the current quarter, touting its market dominance even in the face of stiff competition from Amazon.com Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) Amazon Web Services.

“Azure is the only cloud that offers consistency across operating models, development environments, and infrastructure stack, enabling customers to bring cloud compute and intelligence to any connected or disconnected environment,” CEO Satya Nadella said.

The Bad: Door No. 1, Please

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) gazed longingly into the horizon today, shedding a few percentage points after a mixed bag of earnings.

America’s largest mobile carrier added 790,000 phone connections. When you consider rival AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) added only 229,000 … so far, so good.

The problem here is Verizon’s media division, on which the company just wrote down a roughly $200 million charge. Who would’ve thought buying AOL and Yahoo was a bad idea? (I think we all thought that, actually.)

It’s like when my wife sends me to Walmart for groceries … and I come back with a Duck Dynasty Chia Pet and a gallon jug of Tabasco. After Tumblr’s fire sale last year, Verizon is 0 for 3 on the acquisition front.

VZ shares have gone practically nowhere since November … of 2018. Personally, I see two paths the company can take.

Mr. Great Stuff, what’s behind door No. 1 for Verizon today?

The company could take the “L” and leave its media unit behind in the noughties (that’s what we’re calling the 2000s now, apparently … or so my daughter tells me).

And door No. 2?

Verizon could pull an AT&T: buy some more content and roll out a streaming service. Yet Verizon’s AOL and Yahoo deals (worth $4.4 billion and $4.48 billion, respectively) were mere pennies compared to the nearly $109 billion AT&T spent for Time Warner.

But honestly, there’s not that much content out there left to buy. There’s what … MGM and Lionsgate? Those are about the only two worth mentioning. And Verizon would probably have to fight both Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) for either of them, pushing the price tag even higher.

Door No. 2 is clearly a bad idea for Verizon. After all, Great Stuff readers know how well the Time Warner ordeal is working out for AT&T…

The Ugly: Overhyped

By most measures, Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) just turned in a solid quarter. The social media giant beat earnings guidance by $0.04 per share and topped revenue expectations by $21 million.

But it wasn’t the actual numbers that scared investors today. It was the growth of those numbers. Facebook’s revenue rose 25% to $21.08 billion — its slowest pace in more than four years. Earnings rose 8% to $2.56 per share, slowing from 20% growth in the prior quarter. This also marks the smallest earnings beat Facebook has ever recorded.

Those are still impressive numbers. Are Facebook’s investors just spoiled?

The answer here is “yes” … with a caveat. Yes, Facebook investors will likely have to get used to lower growth rates for both revenue and earnings. It’s only natural since the company is near market saturation (a problem that Netflix is running into in U.S. subscriber growth).

But the real problem comes with government regulation. Antitrust lawsuits and investigations abound. Defending against those isn’t cheap, and that’ll be an increasingly heavy burden on Facebook’s bottom line. And if the government decides to drop the hammer? That’s even worse.

The ugly truth is that Facebook’s glory days are now behind it. You can expect more “disappointing” reports like this in the future.

You know the drill. You Marco. I Polo.

It’s Reader Feedback time!

Judging from your emails this week, there are two things on your minds: the overhyped coronavirus and internet browsers. Seriously, I didn’t know that browsers were still such a hot-button issue. It’s like I’m back in the days of Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Before we get to those topics, we have some praise from Beth R., who wrote:

I get so much in my inbox from Banyan that I can’t keep up, but I kept yours because of the humor. Love your style of writing. Love the rundown you put in on Roku, because seeing it listed out like that was helpful.

What I like about your email is that it isn’t all about “Something no one else wants you to know” or “Push here to read all about what the Wall Street bigwigs don’t want you to know.” You get the drift. And thank God I don’t have to sit and watch a video I don’t have time for.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Beth! We try our hardest to “keep it real” here at Great Stuff. And if we make you laugh while doing it, all the better! Some days, you just need a spot of humor to help the market go down. Also, no one wants to watch my ugly mug for half an hour on video. So, text is what you get!

On to the browser wars!

I switched to Firefox years ago, mostly for privacy, as Google tends to mine too much information from your history. — Gary S.

I’ve never used Chrome because I’ve never trusted Alphabet! — Tim P.

I’ve recently quit using Chrome and switched to Brave, which is based on the Chrome code base, as is Microsoft’s latest version of Edge. Brave looks and acts very much like Google Chrome without the privacy issues. Well worth checking out. — John S.

There are two themes when it comes to browsers: Great Stuff readers hate Chrome and Google, and love Firefox … and Brave? I have to admit — I’ve never heard of Brave before, but after quite a few of you recommended it, I’ll check it out this weekend. Thanks for teaching this old dog new tricks!

Time to get infectious. Mary S. wrote:

My friends are cutting up limes and clicking their Coronas. I am sure you have seen the meme? 

We have scary-virus exhaustion. 

Mary, I also have scary-virus exhaustion. It’s why I haven’t mentioned it today … except for right now, of course. So, my plan to avoid the coronavirus today failed, and it’s all your fault. I sentence you to a weekend of Coronas and limes.

As for the market, I still maintain that it won’t be that big of a deal until it starts spreading in Western countries. Thanks for writing in, Mary!

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy bull market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

[goldira01]

Tesla to Bears: Eat My Shorts

Do we have any Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) bears reading today?

I know you’re out there. You write in to Great Stuff every time I say something positive about the company. Well, get your emails ready. Today, Tesla’s taking a victory lap … and I’m saying: “I told you so!”

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter, shall we?

Tesla reported blockbuster quarterly results last night. They were good … really good. As in, “Tesla turned in another profitable quarter” good.

Yes, Virginia. Tesla is profitable, earning $2.14 per share in the fourth quarter and beating expectations by more than 20%. Revenue came in at $7.38 billion, besting Wall Street’s target of $7 billion.

Now, we’ve seen Tesla put up profitable quarters before. What makes this one so much better?

Two factors really stood out this time. First, Tesla reported free cash flow of $1 billion for the quarter. That’s impressive just for the sheer fact that the company’s capital spending grew 27% in the same quarter.

Remember the Gigafactory in Shanghai? That cost the company $412 million to push through. Despite the added spending, overall capital expenditures were lower than 2018.

You’re starting to lose me here, Mr. Great Stuff. Just tell me what’s going on, please!

OK, so that’s a lot to take in. In layman’s terms, Tesla is spending less, spending smarter and bringing in more revenue. This is what every company dreams of doing. It’s how things are supposed to work.

What’s more, things will get even better for Tesla this year. The company projected 2020 sales of more than 500,000 vehicles.

Not bad for a company that many people believed would never be profitable.

The Takeaway: 

Wall Street’s Tesla bears are eating a lot of crow today.

Here are two of my favorites:

Ben Kallo, an analyst at Baird, said: “A lot of retail investors actually have a deeper and more accurate insights than many of the big institutional investors and certainly a better insight than many of the analysts.”

Joseph Spak of RBC Capital Markets wrote: “We fully admit things are better than we expected and there is a lot of positive news flow and data points going Tesla’s way.”

While the bears admitted defeat, the Tesla bulls celebrated. “It’s becoming clear, in our view, that Tesla is on a path toward becoming the world’s only relevant publicly listed auto maker,” wrote Alexander Potter of Piper Sandler.

Now, I like Tesla, but I don’t know if I’m willing to follow Potter’s lead and call it the “only relevant publicly listed auto maker.” I think we’re still way too early in the game for that.

However, if Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) don’t get their act together soon, Tesla could soon be the only relevant publicly traded American automaker.

Finally, you might be wondering if it’s finally time for you to bite the bullet and buy into Tesla. That answer is a firm “NO.”

Tesla is overbought and needs to consolidate or pull back more than a little. For the best long-term returns, you’d ideally want to target the $550 to $600 region. It may take a little while to fall back to those levels, but everything driving the shares higher right now is hype.

We don’t buy hype … and neither does Banyan Hill expert Jeff Yastine.

Jeff’s eye for spotting hidden value comes from his 15-plus years of financial news coverage. And now, he has his sights locked on a $5 stock that’s set to make waves.

With its life-saving innovation, this one company is set to revolutionize health care. There’s little hype surrounding this stock today, but Jeff predicts its value could triple in the next few years.

Click here to see why Jeff believes this pioneer is set to soar.

The Good: Am I Blue?

Why, wouldn’t you be too? (Couldn’t resist breaking out a little Billie Holiday.)

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is most certainly not blue. It’s a nice, happy shade of green today … thanks to Azure, Microsoft’s cloud services.

The software giant once again beat Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, riding a 27% spike in intelligent-cloud revenue to $11.15 billion. Azure-specific revenue surged 62%.

Overall, total revenue jumped 14% to $36.9 billion, and earnings topped expectations by $0.29 per share.

Microsoft projected Azure revenue to reach between $11.85 and $12.05 billion for the current quarter, touting its market dominance even in the face of stiff competition from Amazon.com Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) Amazon Web Services.

“Azure is the only cloud that offers consistency across operating models, development environments, and infrastructure stack, enabling customers to bring cloud compute and intelligence to any connected or disconnected environment,” CEO Satya Nadella said.

The Bad: Door No. 1, Please

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) gazed longingly into the horizon today, shedding a few percentage points after a mixed bag of earnings.

America’s largest mobile carrier added 790,000 phone connections. When you consider rival AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) added only 229,000 … so far, so good.

The problem here is Verizon’s media division, on which the company just wrote down a roughly $200 million charge. Who would’ve thought buying AOL and Yahoo was a bad idea? (I think we all thought that, actually.)

It’s like when my wife sends me to Walmart for groceries … and I come back with a Duck Dynasty Chia Pet and a gallon jug of Tabasco. After Tumblr’s fire sale last year, Verizon is 0 for 3 on the acquisition front.

VZ shares have gone practically nowhere since November … of 2018. Personally, I see two paths the company can take.

Mr. Great Stuff, what’s behind door No. 1 for Verizon today?

The company could take the “L” and leave its media unit behind in the noughties (that’s what we’re calling the 2000s now, apparently … or so my daughter tells me).

And door No. 2?

Verizon could pull an AT&T: buy some more content and roll out a streaming service. Yet Verizon’s AOL and Yahoo deals (worth $4.4 billion and $4.48 billion, respectively) were mere pennies compared to the nearly $109 billion AT&T spent for Time Warner.

But honestly, there’s not that much content out there left to buy. There’s what … MGM and Lionsgate? Those are about the only two worth mentioning. And Verizon would probably have to fight both Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) for either of them, pushing the price tag even higher.

Door No. 2 is clearly a bad idea for Verizon. After all, Great Stuff readers know how well the Time Warner ordeal is working out for AT&T…

The Ugly: Overhyped

By most measures, Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) just turned in a solid quarter. The social media giant beat earnings guidance by $0.04 per share and topped revenue expectations by $21 million.

But it wasn’t the actual numbers that scared investors today. It was the growth of those numbers. Facebook’s revenue rose 25% to $21.08 billion — its slowest pace in more than four years. Earnings rose 8% to $2.56 per share, slowing from 20% growth in the prior quarter. This also marks the smallest earnings beat Facebook has ever recorded.

Those are still impressive numbers. Are Facebook’s investors just spoiled?

The answer here is “yes” … with a caveat. Yes, Facebook investors will likely have to get used to lower growth rates for both revenue and earnings. It’s only natural since the company is near market saturation (a problem that Netflix is running into in U.S. subscriber growth).

But the real problem comes with government regulation. Antitrust lawsuits and investigations abound. Defending against those isn’t cheap, and that’ll be an increasingly heavy burden on Facebook’s bottom line. And if the government decides to drop the hammer? That’s even worse.

The ugly truth is that Facebook’s glory days are now behind it. You can expect more “disappointing” reports like this in the future.

You know the drill. You Marco. I Polo.

It’s Reader Feedback time!

Judging from your emails this week, there are two things on your minds: the overhyped coronavirus and internet browsers. Seriously, I didn’t know that browsers were still such a hot-button issue. It’s like I’m back in the days of Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Before we get to those topics, we have some praise from Beth R., who wrote:

I get so much in my inbox from Banyan that I can’t keep up, but I kept yours because of the humor. Love your style of writing. Love the rundown you put in on Roku, because seeing it listed out like that was helpful.

What I like about your email is that it isn’t all about “Something no one else wants you to know” or “Push here to read all about what the Wall Street bigwigs don’t want you to know.” You get the drift. And thank God I don’t have to sit and watch a video I don’t have time for.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Beth! We try our hardest to “keep it real” here at Great Stuff. And if we make you laugh while doing it, all the better! Some days, you just need a spot of humor to help the market go down. Also, no one wants to watch my ugly mug for half an hour on video. So, text is what you get!

On to the browser wars!

I switched to Firefox years ago, mostly for privacy, as Google tends to mine too much information from your history. — Gary S.

I’ve never used Chrome because I’ve never trusted Alphabet! — Tim P.

I’ve recently quit using Chrome and switched to Brave, which is based on the Chrome code base, as is Microsoft’s latest version of Edge. Brave looks and acts very much like Google Chrome without the privacy issues. Well worth checking out. — John S.

There are two themes when it comes to browsers: Great Stuff readers hate Chrome and Google, and love Firefox … and Brave? I have to admit — I’ve never heard of Brave before, but after quite a few of you recommended it, I’ll check it out this weekend. Thanks for teaching this old dog new tricks!

Time to get infectious. Mary S. wrote:

My friends are cutting up limes and clicking their Coronas. I am sure you have seen the meme? 

We have scary-virus exhaustion. 

Mary, I also have scary-virus exhaustion. It’s why I haven’t mentioned it today … except for right now, of course. So, my plan to avoid the coronavirus today failed, and it’s all your fault. I sentence you to a weekend of Coronas and limes.

As for the market, I still maintain that it won’t be that big of a deal until it starts spreading in Western countries. Thanks for writing in, Mary!

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy bull market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

[trvlbug]

The Copper Canyon – Mexico Road Trip Recap

The Road Trip Plan

Road trip theme: Copper Canyon, Mexico!

A friend of mine mentioned wanting to visit Mexico’s Copper Canyon. I’d heard about this place ever since I was a kid, though I didn’t know much about it. Looking at a few pictures convinced me – YES! Let’s go!

(It’s so hard to convince me to take a road trip!)

Copper Canyon vistas stretch as far as you can see

We’d traveled together before, including a little while in Baja, so I knew she wasn’t somebody who would be scared off by a bad road or a Mexican checkpoint.

When to do a Copper Canyon road trip? If you want to see both the top and bottom of the canyon, then spring and fall are your best times. There’s a 6,000 foot elevation difference, which means big temperature variations. In the summer, the bottom is unbearable, while in the winter, you could see snow at the top. In October, I was wearing a fleece at the top, and shorts at the bottom.

Aside from visiting the Copper Canyon, Paquime, and Mata Ortiz (spots we knew we wanted to see), there wasn’t much of a plan. We were just going to play it by ear, and go wherever we wanted each day.

The Road Trip Reality

The Copper Canyon Caper

14 days (for me, less for friends)

2 US states (Arizona, New Mexico) 1 Mexican state (Chihuahua)

1,299 miles

Average 93 miles/day

NOTE: Side trips by bus and train, too, not counted in the mileage

Side trips without Zennie. Usually, Zennie and I are a team, and we travel around together. On this trip, I ended up leaving her parked in Creel for a few days while I went off by bus (to Batopilas at the bottom of the canyon), and by train (the famous El Chepe train down to El Fuerte and back). I’m not used to this multi-modal travel anymore, and it was delightful!

Zennie waits patiently at the campground in Creel

Road conditions. I wrote a bit about roads in Mexico before, on my Sonora Sojourn road trip. Let’s just say they can vary widely, and it’s hard to know beforehand what to expect. For this trip, we stuck to all paved roads, and here’s what I found: .

50% = Good roads. Mostly smooth, wide with shoulders, and Zennie could do her top speed (55 mph on the flats). We had just one short section of toll road.

45% = Moderate. Narrow, with potholes, rough patches, and topes (the serious Mexican speed bumps). These roads are slower and take more concentration to avoid hazards.

5% = Horrible. On these sections, you can’t dodge the bumps and potholes, because they’re everywhere. All you can do is go super slow (10 mph in places), and live with the bumps.

All in all, it wasn’t hard driving, Zennie handled it all OK, and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Planning a Mexico road trip? Be aware that driving times are going to be longer than you might expect. It’s also more mentally demanding than zipping along on the Interstate, so I really prefer shorter driving days.

Group travel? A third person joined us for the trip, so there were 3 of us traveling in 2 vehicles at first. Having friends along can be really fun, when you’re sitting around over drinks in the evening. It can also be pretty stressful, like when our group got separated on the road. I was worried sick! . After a week, the two of them had to head back to Tucson, leaving me back in my normal solo exploring mode for the rest of the road trip. I was sad that they didn’t have a chance to do all the fun stuff I got to do. On the other hand, to be totally honest, I do find it a whole lot easier traveling by myself!

Copper Canyon Road Trip – The Route

Zennie 2017 – Mexico Copper Canyon road trip

A couple of notes on the route map:

I’ve included the legs here that were done by bus and train, as well as the driving segments.

I didn’t include the fact that one person went all the way to the city of Chihuahua when she got separated from the group! Thank heavens she made it to Creel and met us there, because I was really concerned, and had no way to contact her or know where she was.

Moral of the story? * Don’t pass the vehicle you’re supposed to be following. * A cell phone that works in the country where you’re traveling is a safety precaution, not a luxury. * Before I caravan with anyone again, I will make sure we’re agreed on these two points!

Copper Canyon Road Trip – Top 3 Highlights

Copper Canyon, Barrancas del Cobre. What can I say? This was the purpose of the trip, and I was not disappointed! It’s an amazing place! . There are actually 5 canyons here, 4 of which are deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They all come together in this area, which means there’s a huge expanse of steep, twisted canyons and cliffs. It’s incredibly scenic, and more than you can really take in, when you stand on the rim looking at it. It seems to go on forever.

Looking down from the rim of the Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon)

Of course there are spectacular hiking options, and a lot of spots with cultural and historic interest, too. The canyons were big for silver mining centuries ago, and you’ll see relics from that period. Also, these forbidding canyons are the homeland of the Tarahumara people, known for their amazing running ability.

Copper Canyon in green? I was surprised by how green everything was here! I’d expected more brown, like the Grand Canyon. It’s due to the season. If you come here between late Sept and early Nov, you’ll probably see a lot of green since this is just after the rainy season. The first frost is usually around mid-Nov, and the green at the canyon top disappears after that.

Paquime archaeological site. I’ve been wanting to go to Paquime ever since I read the fascinating book House of Rain by Craig Childs. . This is a World Heritage Site, and a major archaeological center, uncovering the ruins of an ancient city. Centuries ago, Paquime was the largest settlement in the region, and a trading center for goods from distant places. People here built multi-story buildings, and had a sophisticated irrigation system that brought water from high in the surrounding mountains, and ran it directly into buildings in town.

The mysterious ruins of Paquime…

House of Rain ties Paquime into the story of the Anasazi, and the author traces their journey over centuries. His theory is that Paquime was the end of their story. Other theories are that this is where the Aztec people came from, or that the people here were ancestors of the Tarahumaras.

Nobody knows the whole truth, and perhaps we never will. All I can say is that it’s fascinating!

El Chepe, The Copper Canyon train. When people talk about touring the Copper Canyon, they are often talking about taking this famous train. It’s an engineering marvel, with 86 tunnels and 39 bridges, and it passes through some beautiful scenery as it climbs from the coast to the mountains.

The famous Copper Canyon train, known as “El Chepe”

The train runs all the way from Los Mochis to Chihuahua, but the spectacular portion of the trip is between El Fuerte at the bottom, and Creel at the top. That stretch took about 7.5 hours, and the schedule is such that you can’t take it back and forth on the same day — you need to spend at least one night.

I nearly didn’t take the train trip, but changed my mind and spent the extra couple of days doing this. I’m certainly glad I did, because it was a highlight of the trip!

Copper Canyon Road Trip – Top Lowlight

Car trouble! Zennie started dying on me!

Fortunately, the problem turned out to be about the only thing I could fix by myself on the side of the road!

The engine first died in the parking lot at Paquime. If you’re going to break down, this is a great location! A little investigation showed that the battery wires had come disconnected, because the battery slid out of position.

So, I hauled the battery back into position, secured the strap holding it in place, and reconnected the wires, tightening everything down as securely as I could. I figured this was a one-time problem, and we were good to go.

—> You can guess what happened, right?

By the road again… Not so good to be by the road again…

Driving up the steep, narrow, twisting mountain road toward Creel, I noticed Zennie acting funny. It was like the engine skipped a beat now and then, and it was making me worried!

As soon as I could find a place to safely pull off the road, I did. Sure enough, the battery was out of position again, and this time had broken off the wires I’d secured so tightly. There was just one teeny bit of copper still making a connection. But I knew how to fix this, so soon we were back on the road.

For the rest of the trip, I’d stop every hour or two (depending on road conditions), check the battery, and shift / tighten things as necessary. It was an annoyance, for sure, but I made it the rest of the trip without a problem.

Copper Canyon Road Trip – Key Places

Nuevo Casas Grandes. This is where we spent the first night in Mexico. The town’s main attraction for tourists is that it’s close to the Paquime ruins, and the famous pottery town of Mata Ortiz. Another plus? There’s a good restaurant here that lets you free camp in their secure yard if you buy dinner.

Food, margaritas, and a place to park, at the end of a long drive

Creel. This is the main town at the top of the Copper Canyon, and it’s a good place to base yourself for some exploring. There’s an RV park, plenty of hotel choices, lots of restaurants, and tour operators everywhere. You can get tours to waterfalls, Tarahumara villages, and even see cave dwellings that are still in use. Creel is one of Mexico’s Pueblos Magicos (magic towns), and I’m hoping to visit as many of these as I can!

Hiking in the Valley of the Monks, near Creel

Batopilas. From Creel, there’s a winding road (now paved) that takes you down to Batopilas, one of the tiny towns at the bottom of the canyon. This was a wealthy town back in silver mining days, and you’ll see historic buildings from those days. You can do some hiking here, and it’s also another of the Pueblos Magicos. It was balmy and tropical down here, while up in Creel, the leaves were changing.

The road down to Batopilas, at the bottom of the canyon

Cartel activity. Some of the remote canyon areas are being used for growing marijuana or opium poppies. If you wandered into one of these sections, you could be in trouble. Either stick to well-used tourist trails, or hire a local hiking guide who knows where to go and not go. I wouldn’t let the current situation scare me off, but it makes sense to play it safe, and not venture off on your own.

El Fuerte. The train doesn’t take you down into the bottom of the canyon. Instead, it descends towards the coast. You lose a lot of altitude going down, but end up in the flatlands, not the canyon. El Fuerte is the town at the lower end of the scenic train ride, and it’s another of the Pueblos Magicos. It’s an attractive town, with a pretty town square.

The streets of El Fuerte are quiet in the pre-dawn morning light

Areponapuchi. Creel is not on the canyon rim, so it doesn’t provide those exceptional views into the depths. For those, the tiny town of Areponapuchi (Arepo for short) is perfect. I got off the train here to do some hiking and spend the night. There’s a nice hike along the rim, and it’s just one jaw-dropping view after another! From here, I caught a bus back to Creel, where Zennie was patiently waiting.

The tiny train station at Areponapuchi (Posada Barrancas)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PHOTO CREDITS: Deanna Keahey

The post The Copper Canyon – Mexico Road Trip Recap appeared first on Uphill Zen.

Related posts:

Sonora Sojourn – Mexico road trip recap

Summer Chill-Out – US road trip recap

Journey – Travels with Zennie | Road trip adventures

from The Copper Canyon – Mexico Road Trip Recap

[trvlbug]

The Copper Canyon - Mexico Road Trip Recap

The Road Trip Plan

Road trip theme: Copper Canyon, Mexico!

A friend of mine mentioned wanting to visit Mexico's Copper Canyon. I'd heard about this place ever since I was a kid, though I didn't know much about it. Looking at a few pictures convinced me - YES! Let's go!

(It's so hard to convince me to take a road trip!)

Copper Canyon vistas stretch as far as you can see

We'd traveled together before, including a little while in Baja, so I knew she wasn't somebody who would be scared off by a bad road or a Mexican checkpoint.

When to do a Copper Canyon road trip? If you want to see both the top and bottom of the canyon, then spring and fall are your best times. There's a 6,000 foot elevation difference, which means big temperature variations. In the summer, the bottom is unbearable, while in the winter, you could see snow at the top. In October, I was wearing a fleece at the top, and shorts at the bottom.

Aside from visiting the Copper Canyon, Paquime, and Mata Ortiz (spots we knew we wanted to see), there wasn't much of a plan. We were just going to play it by ear, and go wherever we wanted each day.

The Road Trip Reality

The Copper Canyon Caper

14 days (for me, less for friends)

2 US states (Arizona, New Mexico) 1 Mexican state (Chihuahua)

1,299 miles

Average 93 miles/day

NOTE: Side trips by bus and train, too, not counted in the mileage

Side trips without Zennie. Usually, Zennie and I are a team, and we travel around together. On this trip, I ended up leaving her parked in Creel for a few days while I went off by bus (to Batopilas at the bottom of the canyon), and by train (the famous El Chepe train down to El Fuerte and back). I'm not used to this multi-modal travel anymore, and it was delightful!

Zennie waits patiently at the campground in Creel

Road conditions. I wrote a bit about roads in Mexico before, on my Sonora Sojourn road trip. Let's just say they can vary widely, and it's hard to know beforehand what to expect. For this trip, we stuck to all paved roads, and here's what I found: .

50% = Good roads. Mostly smooth, wide with shoulders, and Zennie could do her top speed (55 mph on the flats). We had just one short section of toll road.

45% = Moderate. Narrow, with potholes, rough patches, and topes (the serious Mexican speed bumps). These roads are slower and take more concentration to avoid hazards.

5% = Horrible. On these sections, you can't dodge the bumps and potholes, because they're everywhere. All you can do is go super slow (10 mph in places), and live with the bumps.

All in all, it wasn't hard driving, Zennie handled it all OK, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Planning a Mexico road trip? Be aware that driving times are going to be longer than you might expect. It's also more mentally demanding than zipping along on the Interstate, so I really prefer shorter driving days.

Group travel? A third person joined us for the trip, so there were 3 of us traveling in 2 vehicles at first. Having friends along can be really fun, when you're sitting around over drinks in the evening. It can also be pretty stressful, like when our group got separated on the road. I was worried sick! . The two of them had to head back to Tucson early, leaving me back in my normal solo exploring mode for the rest of the road trip. I was sad that they didn't have a chance to do all the fun stuff I got to do. On the other hand, to be totally honest, I do find it a whole lot easier traveling by myself!

Copper Canyon Road Trip - The Route

Zennie 2017 - Mexico Copper Canyon road trip

A couple of notes on the route map:

I've included the legs here that were done by bus and train, as well as the driving segments.

I didn't include the fact that one person went all the way to the city of Chihuahua when she got separated from the group! Thank heavens she made it to Creel and met us there, because I was really concerned, and had no way to contact her or know where she was.

Moral of the story? * Don't pass the vehicle you're supposed to be following. * A cell phone that works in the country where you're traveling is a safety precaution, not just a luxury.

Copper Canyon Road Trip - Top 3 Highlights

Copper Canyon, Barrancas del Cobre. What can I say? This was the purpose of the trip, and I was not disappointed! It's an amazing place! . There are actually 5 canyons here, 4 of which are deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They all come together in this area, which means there's a huge expanse of steep, twisted canyons and cliffs. It's incredibly scenic, and more than you can really take in, when you stand on the rim looking at it. It seems to go on forever.

Looking down from the rim of the Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon)

Of course there are spectacular hiking options, and a lot of spots with cultural and historic interest, too. The canyons were big for silver mining centuries ago, and you'll see relics from that period. Also, these forbidding canyons are the homeland of the Tarahumara people, known for their amazing running ability.

Copper Canyon in green? I was surprised by how green everything was here! I'd expected more brown, like the Grand Canyon. It's due to the season. If you come here between late Sept and early Nov, you'll probably see a lot of green since this is just after the rainy season. The first frost is usually around mid-Nov, and the green at the canyon top disappears after that.

Paquime archaeological site. I've been wanting to go to Paquime ever since I read the fascinating book "House of Rain" by Craig Childs. . This is a World Heritage Site, and a major archaeological center, uncovering the ruins of an ancient city. Centuries ago, Paquime was the largest settlement in the region, and a trading center for goods from distant places. People here built multi-story buildings, and had a sophisticated irrigation system that brought water from high in the surrounding mountains, and ran it directly into buildings in town.

The mysterious ruins of Paquime...

House of Rain ties Paquime into the story of the Anasazi, and the author traces their journey over centuries. His theory is that Paquime was the end of their story. Other theories are that this is where the Aztec people came from, or that the people here were ancestors of the Tarahumaras.

Nobody knows the whole truth, and perhaps we never will. All I can say is that it's fascinating!

El Chepe, The Copper Canyon train. When people talk about touring the Copper Canyon, they are often talking about taking this famous train. It's an engineering marvel, with 86 tunnels and 39 bridges, and it passes through some beautiful scenery as it climbs from the coast to the mountains.

The famous Copper Canyon train, known as "El Chepe"

The train runs all the way from Los Mochis to Chihuahua, but the spectacular portion of the trip is between El Fuerte at the bottom, and Creel at the top. That stretch took about 7.5 hours, and the schedule is such that you can't take it back and forth on the same day -- you need to spend at least one night.

I nearly didn't take the train trip, but changed my mind and spent the extra couple of days doing this. I'm certainly glad I did, because it was a highlight of the trip!

Copper Canyon Road Trip - Top Lowlight

Car trouble! Zennie started dying on me!

Fortunately, the problem turned out to be about the only thing I could fix by myself on the side of the road!

The engine first died in the parking lot at Paquime. If you're going to break down, this is a great location! A little investigation showed that the battery wires had come disconnected, because the battery slid over out of position.

So, I hauled the battery back into position, secured the strap holding it in place, and reconnected the wires, tightening everything down as securely as I could. I figured this was a one-time problem, and we were good to go.

---> You can guess what happened, right?

By the road again... Not so good to be by the road again...

Driving up the steep, narrow, twisting mountain road toward Creel, I noticed Zennie acting funny. It was like the engine skipped a beat now and then, and it was making me worried!

As soon as I could find a place to safely pull off the road, I did. Sure enough, it was a connection problem. This time, the battery wires had actually broken off, and there was just the teeniest little copper strand still in place.

So, I stripped a new section of wire, and repeated everything I did before, and soon we were back on the road.

After this, the entire rest of the trip, I'd stop after every hour or two (depending on road conditions), check the battery, and shift / tighten things as necessary. It was an annoyance, for sure, but I made it the rest of the trip without a problem.

Copper Canyon Road Trip - Key Places

Nuevo Casas Grandes. This is where we spent the first night in Mexico. The town's main attraction for tourists is that it's close to the Paquime ruins, and the famous pottery town of Mata Ortiz, too. Another plus? There's a good restaurant here that lets you free camp in their secure yard if you buy dinner.

Food, margaritas, and a place to park, at the end of a long drive

Creel. This is the main town at the top of the Copper Canyon, and it's a good place to base yourself for some exploring. There's an RV park, plenty of hotel choices, lots of restaurants, and tour operators everywhere. This is one of Mexico's Pueblos Magicos (magic towns), and I'm hoping to visit as many of these as I can!

Hiking in the Valley of the Monks, near Creel

Batopilas. From Creel, there's a winding road (now paved) that takes you down to Batopilas, one of the tiny towns at the bottom of the canyon. This was a wealthy town back in silver mining days, and you'll see historic buildings from those days. You can do some hiking here, and it's also another of the Pueblos Magicos. It was tropical down here, while up in Creel, the leaves were changing.

The road down to Batopilas, at the bottom of the canyon

Cartel activity. Some of the remote canyon areas are being used for growing marijuana or opium poppies. If you wandered into one of these sections, you could be in trouble. Either stick to well-used tourist trails, or hire a local hiking guide who knows where to go and not go. I wouldn't let the current situation scare me off, but it makes sense to play it safe, and not venture off on your own.

El Fuerte. The train doesn't take you down into the bottom of the canyon. Instead, it descends towards the coast. You lose a lot of altitude going down, but end up in the flatlands, not the canyon. El Fuerte is the town at the lower end of the scenic train ride, and it's another of the Pueblos Magicos I mentioned. It's an attractive town, with a pretty town square.

The streets of El Fuerte are quiet in the pre-dawn morning light

Areponapuchi. You can get off the train at this tiny town (Arepo for short). If you want to get amazing views from the canyon rim, that's impossible from Creel, so try Arepo, which positions you for exceptional vistas. There's a nice hike along the rim, and it's just one jaw-dropping view after another! From here, I caught a bus back to Creel, where Zennie was patiently waiting.

The tiny train station at Areponapuchi (Posada Barrancas)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PHOTO CREDITS: Deanna Keahey

The post The Copper Canyon - Mexico Road Trip Recap appeared first on Uphill Zen.

Related posts:

Sonora Sojourn - Mexico road trip recap

Summer Chill-Out - US road trip recap

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