#automated follow-up sequences

[hsmagazine254]

Mastering Lead Follow-Up: Nurturing Online Marketing Campaign Leads for Business Success

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[carionto]

It'll be "awesome", the Human said

(Continuation/conclusion to this)

____________________________

After the Coalition delegates had been mindblown enough, it was time for them to finally leave and have a nap. But Captain Knoslark had one more thing he desperately wanted to show them.

"So, like, we're a science vessel and we have three of the biggest reactors, right? Right. So, I wanna show you what we recently figured out we can do. C'mon, it'll be awesome."

Awesome - a word the rest of the Galaxy will soon learn to both admire and run for cover whenever a Human uses it.

With trepidation in their steps, and worry in their breaths, they followed the all too eager Captain, who was almost skipping and humming down the halls, dramatically pointing the way. His crew continued to not give him the satisfaction of ever acknowledging his theatrics.

"Once the reactors are in good enough sync, we'll reconfigure the Radiant Dusk to a circular shape and begin!"

Oh. Yeah. Of course their ships can also transform. Why not. The delegates have given up thinking there are things Human engineering can't accomplish. Also, good enough?

"Eh, don't worry about it, we overbuild everything, so a 1 or 2 percent margin of error is fine, most of the time."

They could not imagine themselves to be more worried. At least not until a few minutes from now.

"Captain, she's ready," Chief Engineer Tameki's tone changed to a total blank deadpan for the next words, "to transform. and. roll. out."

With childlike glee, Captain Knoslark tapped the big red button, specifically designed for his pad only, to begin the sequence.

Distant creaking of metal, anguish at the prospect of bending in ways nature never intended, and the unmistakable jolt of mechanical movement, despite the artificial gravity maintaining the same down throughout, once more instilled primal anxiety for the delegates.

The reactors wound up, turning the almost-buzz like feeling beneath their feet to a true all encompassing sense of absolute power. Three small stars at equidistant points along the now 4km in diameter vessel created a singular feeling of something imminent that should never have been possible. The Universe itself wanted to reject this possibility.

"We tried copying your mass field generators from way back when you did the barrier thing. Wanted to see if we could get close to Black Hole levels, there were some theories that time travels was possible with that kinda pull."

I don't think anyone would be surprised if they had succeeded, but, for once during their entire visit, the Humans said they couldn't get time travel to work. Celebration! Then the Captain kept talking.

"So what happened instead is we accidentally tore a hole in time-space, creating a sort of warp gate." He said with both joy and disappointment.

Then the Universe shrieked. A massive distortion in reality now struggled and failed to restore normality between the ring-shaped ship. Swirling coils of matter flickered in and out, ghostly visages of detonations on a solar scale. A sight never intended to be witnessed.

"Still gotta figure out how to set a destination to anywhere. Right now the only stable connection we can get is with massive gravity wells, so any celestial body with enough mass, smallest one is a red dwarf. Problem is the connection steers towards the center, so not really practical right now."

"If we try to point at empty space the gate just kinda wiggles and you end up getting spaghetti-fied on the other end. Still, once we get enough ships like this one around the galaxy, we'll solve that whole trips taking more than a few hours thing we got with the hyper drives."

At this point the delegates decided to be escorted away, as most had became a crying mess. One stumbled onto a automated cleaning unit and at this the Captain, whose mood had soured a bit now that his time as tour guide was over, rose back to heights unseen before. With his most official sounding, yet at the same time most joy filled tone ever, he declared:

"Sergeant Ying Zhao, issue an official notice. Today at 20:30 ship time there will be a grand ceremony for the promotion of Captain Stabicus to Special Envoy of the Galactic Coalition. Ready all relevant paperwork, and his new badge, and inform the chef to prepare a feast. We have done much today for the sake of Human-Coalition relationships, and so much more for the Radiant Dusk at Everest and her crew and staff. Tonight, we celebrate!"

[whirligig-girl]

Some of the history of Zwo-nmu System Exploration by Mellanoid Slime Worm Space Programs.

A reminder of the Zwo-nmu Planetary System. The Sun, also called The Zwo-nmu (literally The Day Light) is a G8V main sequence star with many giant planets. Mellanus, called Gymnome by some of its inhabitants, is the homeworld of the Mellanoid Slime Worms--Eaurp Guz's people. Mellanus is a coorbital of Omen in a horseshoe orbit. Every 15 or so earth years, Mellanus approaches Omen, which moves it into a higher or lower orbit around the Sun.

This graphic is in a rotating reference frame following Omen. green circle is Omen's orbit in a non-rotating reference frame. Yellow circle is Mellanus' inner/short/summer/hot orbit. Purple circle is Mellanus' outer/long/winter/cold orbit. Blue and gray circles are the orbits of Cold Ember and Rabbit. Times are given in Earth days and distances in Earth-Sun-distances (astronomical units)

Omen is named, of course, as it represents drastic climate change--orbital seasons affecting both hemispheres for many years at a time.

With that reminder out of the way...

Zwo-nmu (the star)

extensive telescopic study from low mellanus orbit. The first solar telescope to enter orbit discovered the corona but was not set up to observe it properly, so follow-up missions had to be undertaken.

studied by the Cold Ember probes and by at least one dedicated "sun-scraper"

Cold Ember (the hot super-earth/sub-neptunian)

Of the five probes sent to Cold Ember at various times, only two have made it.

The second one to make it is an orbiter. It relies on stationkeeping propellant so its elliptical orbit always keeps its apoapsis on the night side of the planet, such that it can spend time in the shadow to keep cool. Within a few days of it running out of stationkeeping fuel it will begin to overheat. There are proposals to send a Rescue Shuttle up to resupply and repair the probe, but the strict rules about use of alien spacecrafts in the mellanoid space program make that difficult.

Rabbit

Visited by 2 robotic probes--a flyby and a short-lived orbiter. A lander/rover is planned, but doesn't have the same priority as the Omen Development Program and the Ice Giants Exploration Program.

Mellanus Orbit

At its peak, Mellanus had thousands of satellites and dozens of space stations, but a near-miss with ablation cascade (see: the movie Gravity (2013)) that was only averted thanks to the recently installed phaser network has lead to many restrictions being put in place on the number and function of satellites. Early in the history of mellanoid space exploration, there was not much automation available. Satellites had to be crewed, and so there were many space stations, and when automation happened, those space stations grew into constellations of satellites. Telecommunications constellations were the real culprit, with several competing agencies, companies, and nations setting up their own independent constellations ranging from 10s to 1000s of satellites each. But now, subspace technology has rendered low-orbit communications satellites obsolete, and there are just a few dozen geosynchronous communications satellites, a GPS network, and the number of Mellanus observation satellites has been coralled.

One of the United Mellanus Space Program's current duties is the cleanup of low orbit, which is operated both by phaser blasts in an emergency and by crewed spacecrafts. Most of the space stations in mellanus orbit are specifically infrastructure intended to refuel these spacecrafts, since they need to be able to access a wide range of inclinations, and inclination changes are difficult to accomplish.

Other space stations include the constellation of orbital drydocks, which are all orbiting about a hundred kilometers apart from one another, and the Starbase, a very large rotating artificial gravity space station which was built between the 2340s and the 2360s, and serves as the space end of the interstellar spaceport.

Mellanus natural satellites

Mellanus has one permanent satellite, Ubbi, a 340 meter wide rubble pile which is thought to have once been another asteroid's moon, millions of years ago. It is just barely bright enough to be seen by a mellanoid who has expanded their eye to the greatest practical width, but it wasn't noticed to be a moving star until after the invention of the astronomical telescope and the popularization of sun-centrism. It was thought at first to be an asteroid, since it was discovered while Mellanus was passing through Omen's trojan cloud, but careful observations determined that it was a satellite in a stable circular orbit, and a careful observation of photographic plates and star charts indicate it's been orbiting Mellanus for at least hundreds of years. It's named after its discoverer.

Many early mellanoid space activities have used Ubbi as a target. There are dozens of probes. Sadly Ubbi is very resource poor, being poor in both volatiles that could be used for propellant and metals that could make it valuable. It's not even a useful science target, since one of the earliest missions to visit it was an impactor which essentially exploded Ubbi. It reformed again, but completely resurfaced, burying clues to its origin as a satellite. Ubbi is currently orbited by one derelict spacecraft and

There have been three temporary natural satellites of Mellanus to be visited by spacecrafts. All but one have entered Mellanus orbit only for a few months and were only visited by robotic probes. The largest one, Temma was three kilometers across and in an eccentric orbit that remained stable all the way up until two Omen conjunctions later, so it lasted for about 30-35 years. However, as a carbonaceous asteroid, it was rich in volatiles, and it was explored and settled extensively by all major space programs. The first crewed international interplanetary trips to Omen used fuel refined from Temma and brought down to low orbit.

The Omen Coorbitals (Trojans, Greeks, and Other Horseshoes)

Outside of Ubbi and Temma, the Coorbitals are the next step out into space. Mellanus occasionally has close encounters with coorbitals. Over time Mellanus and Omen together have corralled the coorbitals into very specific lanes. There are far fewer coorbitals around Omen than Glerbuh, or, say, Jupiter, because coorbital or not, Mellanus is still a planet. Most of the coorbitals are trojans, with the apsides neatly tucked in between the outer edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the low orbit, and the inner edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the high orbit. The Greeks--the trojans on the leading edge of Omen's orbit--are especially depleted. It's thought that Mellanus was once the only large object in the greek camp, but was perturbed onto its current horseshoe orbit billions of years ago. As a result, the greek camp is a hodge-podge of scattered objects from elsewhere in the system, whereas the trojan camp is comprised of more objects original to this part of the circumstellar disk. Each camp can answer different questions about the evolution of the Zwo-nmu system, and Mellanus' relation to it in particular. Ironically, even though the greek camp is Mellanus' original home, it's the trojan camp that is more relevant to studying Mellanus itself.

It is possible on any given year to send a spacecraft to visit Omen, Trojans, Greeks, or any other coorbital. However, the trajectories which take a minimum of fuel are only accessible 1-6 months or so before the closest approach with either object, and for crewed missions, less efficient but faster trajectories lasting only a month right around the close approach are preferred.

Outside of the Omen apparitions, the most active times for interplanetary spaceflight have historically been around the passing through the trojan clouds, which happens about 6 years before and after each Omen apparition. Starting from the low summer orbit, Mellanus passes the Trojan Camp. 6 years later, it reaches Omen and moves to the high winter orbit. 6 years after that, it passes the Trojan camp again. Then 15 years later, it passes the Greek Camp. 6 more years later, Omen appears large and Mellanus shifts to the summer orbit. 6 years later, it passes the Greek camp again. 15 years pass, and then we restart the cycle.

other horseshoe-coorbitals can be encountered at any time of year, but there's only a few of these known to exist.

Crewed missions to the other coorbitals have served as test flights for Omen missions, while also contributing meaningfully to planetary science as a whole. While asteroid exploration may not be exciting or glamorous, the use of trojan missions as testbeds has allowed a lot of groundbreaking work that otherwise might not have had any support to be performed.

Humans currently, in the real world 2020s, posses the propulsion technology and even, in principle, the industrial capacity to send humans to Mars. What we lack is a good idea of how to support humans on interplanetary spaceflight for many months or years at a time. A typical stay on the International Space Station is not even comparable to a Mars mission. That research is still underway. But we can go to the Moon. What's crucial is the relatively short turnaround time. A Moon mission may take only a week or two. The Artemis lunar missions will last longer, but not as long as a Mars mission would have to.

Absent a permanent moon of any substance, the Mellanoids are able to get their relatively short turnaround missions done thanks to the coorbitals. If Mellanus were still a trojan, it'd have emptied out the Greek Camp. Omen would never get particularly close, and it'd take over a year to make a round trip to it. It'd be just as hard to reach as Mars or the Main Asteroid Belt. But since Mellanus is in a horseshoe orbit, for about a year at a time every 6-15 years it is within spitting distance of some celestial body or another. Every 18-19 years that celestial body is the magnificent planet Omen with its own system of moons. When it's not Omen, it's the coorbital asteroids.

Propulsion wise it is not that much easier to reach the Omen coorbitals than it is for humans to go to Mars. You still have to escape Mellanus and keep accelerating on top of that.

But instead of bringing all of the comforts and necessities involved in the long-term habitation of space with you to a distant planet, you can get away with using capsules that are not much more advanced than what we were using in the Apollo era. The long term habitation problem is solved, leaving the only major problem left that of propulsion, of vehicle design. And since Mellanus is relatively small and they aren't shy about using nuclear rockets, the propulsion problem isn't that big of a deal. in a way, Omen and the coorbitals are a crutch. By the 2340s Mellanoid space programs still had not undertaken crewed interplanetary missions beyond the coorbitals. But, at least in Star Trek, human spaceflights to Europa & Jupiter were being undertaken in the 2020s. These missions would have had to take years! that said, there is a reason Omen has been such a focus--and it's not just because it is so culturally important.

The Omen System

Since the dawn of the Mellanoid space age, there have been six Omen apparitions.

Years given are Earth Years

1) 2300: Two nations launched robotic flyby attempts this year. One succeeded, but it was little more than a spinning photopolarimeter which could take a grainy image of Omen and a magnetometer which produced useful magnetic field readings. 2) 2315: Two failed atmosphere probes for Oldsky, one successful robotic lander on Rival, one successful robotic lander on Spark, and successful orbit insertion of a robotic Omen orbiter which continued to send back photos of Omen and its moons right through to the next conjunction. During the lifetime of this orbiter, Oldsky was conclusively shown to have complex life. 3) 2329: First crewed missions. There is a crewed landing on Rival, a crewed orbiter mission for Oldsky. It had originally intended to operate out of a small space station placed into Oldsky orbit a year in advance, but this station was covertly destroyed by Zaldans, and the orbiter mission was repurposed as a mere flyby, which fails, leading to first contact with Zaldans. 4) 2344: The most important year yet--the beginning of space archaeology. It's also the year asteroid Temma departs Mellanus and makes its own flyby of Omen. 5) 2358: International grand tour involving orbiters and landers on every planet including Oldsky. Leads to formation of United Mellanus Space Program. 6) 2373: Fission-impulse rockets have made regular interplanetary travel between Mellanus and Omen possible on any year. 7) 2387: Oldsky is now a colony of Mellanus.

Mellanus is on the border of the Zaldan sphere of influence, and with the increasing expansionism of the Cardassians and the tragedy of what they had begun to do to the Bajorans, the Zaldans desired military bases on the stars near their industrial colonies and their homeworld. These bases had to provide deuterium, so they needed to be located in a system with a gas giant, and also function as repair stations. The stars surrounding Mellanus were poor candidates--there are no M-class habitable planets around the nearby stars, and the only other gas giants were hot Jupiters or brown dwarfs which would make deuterium extraction difficult.

The Zaldans respected the non-interference directive, but not if it meant a gaping hole in their security. They would set up a military base on Omen's M-class moon Oldsky. There was an orbiting space station and a surface base, connected by cargo transporters and shuttlecrafts, staffed by military officers and a few civilian personnel, not unlike Deep Space Nine, but considerably more of a frontier for all involved. There was also a space station built in very low orbit of Omen, designed to scrape the atmosphere for deuterium to fuel freighters. These ships would be undetectable to the mellanoids as long as ships entering the system avoided activity during close encounters and all ships entering and leaving the system hid their photon wakes behind the Sun, resulting in fairly complex routing.

During the 2329 Omen apparition, a spacecraft that had been intended to fly by Omen had a severe failure, akin to Apollo 13. Still over a month from home, with no prospect but a horrible death, they were famously rescued by Commander Halen's ship, EZM-407, marking official first contact with the Zaldans. They were returned to Mellanus and the Zaldans finally landed, showing the world that not only were Mellanoids not alone in the universe, they weren't even alone in their own solar system.

Several ships visited Mellanus over the next few years on primarily diplomatic missions, but the Zaldans still kept hands-off, sharing only a minimum of information with the Mellanoids. Not many Zaldans had Halen's affinity for the slimes, and they saw mellanoids as lowly uncivilized savages--and their flowery polite diplomatic language only confirmed this to them. It wasn't before someone really stood up to them--a space program engineer who had gotten tired of standing in the sidelines while his people were being insulted--that the Zaldans finally found a glimmer of respect for the mellanoids.

There had been plans to fly a Mellanoid astronaut to Oldsky in exchange for allowing Zaldan researchers to visit Mellanus, and even early talks of embassies and sharing of the Omen infrastructure, when the Zaldans just… disappeared. Completely cut contact.

If sharing their solar system with rude bullies (who, yes, could have wiped them out a dozen times over yet decided not to so at least there's that) wasn't scary enough, those rude bullies disappearing without a trace was even scarier. On a scale greater than even the Apollo program, nations rushed to assemble their missions to visit Omen and Oldsky to figure out what happened to the Zaldan Military Base. Their robotic probes launched on off-years didn't return any answers--crewed exploration and actually landing mellanoids on Oldsky would be the only answer.

There was also the fact that recovering technology from Oldsky could potentially be transformative--the right technology in the wrong hands could destroy the world. This is spaceflight at its most competitive. This was no longer a game--recovering the alien technology was potentially life or death.

After the first contact with the Federation and the series of revolutions and reforms that lead to the current political situation, one of the main unifying rallying cries for mellanoids was the notion that they deserved the right to sovereign exploration of their own solar system. Outsiders--whether Zaldan, or Federation, or Dominion--would not develop any part of the system!

Ok, the Federation can provide some baseline infrastructure to protect Mellanus from invasion, but space exploration is OUR COMMON HERITAGE!

The current age of Mellanoid Space Exploration is characterized by extensive permanent infrastructure development. Since the 2360s, Mellanoids have been building research stations on Oldsky, Lake, and Rival. Setting up an industrial capability on another planet from scratch is hard to do, but Oldsky has a stable climate year-round and a breathable atmosphere. Much of Oldsky is a desert, and even the "humid" regions are quite dry, but it's still more habitable than literally any other planet in the solar system except for Mellanus, which makes it practical to build using traditional methods.

As of 2380, more people are living and working on Oldsky at any given moment than are doing so in Low Mellanus Orbit. Oldsky station visitors includes geologists, biologists, space archaeologists still studying what remains of Zaldan activity on Oldsky, civil engineers, aerospace engineers, construction workers, miners, marine biologists, submarine helmcrew, aircraft pilots, spacecraft pilots, rover drivers, doctors, astronomers, and even a few tourists selected by raffle.

Propellant infrastructure has been established to keep the fast interplanetary rockets zipping along. At this point, it is possible to stay on Oldsky permanently, but so far, all visitors to Oldsky are temporary, and on years when Omen is inaccessible even with nuclear-fission-impulse rockets (i.e, when the Sun is between it and Mellanus), only a skeleton crew remains to maintain the stations.

Oldsky will probably not have its own self sufficient industry and capacity for its own space program any time soon, but it does have a spaceport serviced by reusable launch vehicles.

Phaser-thermal rockets are used for heavy lift launches from Mellanus these days, but conventional chemical rockets are still used on Oldsky, fueled by hydrogen and oxygen split by electrolysis. There is an oil refinery on Oldsky, so kerosene/oxygen rockets are possible too. things remain somewhat low-tech on Oldsky. Imported vehicles can be powered by batteries, but there aren't let any lithium mines on Oldsky--good deposits have yet to be discovered--so internal combustion engines powered by oil are sadly being used. The Oldsky Planetary Protection Office on Mellanus intends to phase out fossil fuel engines as soon as the planet is capable of producing its own high-energy-density batteries… whenever that is… also, between you and me, they really ought to get more aquatics flying on these missions. what an aquatic astronaut could find on Oldsky might be quite shocking.

Anyway outside of the Omen system and Oldsky Glerbuh has had its fair share of robotic exploration and crewed expeditions. Two of the four ice giants have also been visited by robotic flyby probes, and Glarpi (the innermost ice giant) has had a robotic orbiter. The big crewed grand tour expedition to explore all four ice giants and there moons was one of the major science goals of the 2380s outside of exploring and developing Oldsky. However, it had to be modified to turn into a rescue mission for a mellanoid starfleet officer who was stranded on a planet orbiting a nearby star called TE-92. It's a whole thing. If they manage to rescue them maybe they'll write a novel about it.

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

A Letter From Yancy

Another year on from the events of Heist and meeting you for the first time, Yancy wants to mark it. Easier said than done when you are in a spaceship millions of miles away.

But, strange things have happened on this ship.

Word count: 1,643

-

It was a quiet day on the Invincible, a rare relief for you. After your morning duties, you found you had free time to do things that you wanted to do.

That, of course, started with a nap. 

The nap was exactly what you needed after a busy week, and you felt rejuvenated to properly check in on various teams on the ship. You kept a professional air, but everyone seemed to know you were in the mood for casual chat. For once, it was nice to lower your guard a little and let the crew see you as a person rather than some mysterious, looming figure.

Well… Mostly. Gunther had gleefully pointed out how members of the ‘Captain Fan Club’ had been lingering around, peeking glances into whatever room you happened to be in. When you tried to look at them, the club members quickly spun around and tried to play it cool through random topics of conversation or pointing out different features like they were on duty. You weren’t exactly sure how a member of the ADS was supposed to give any professional opinions on what were actually oxygen pipes, but you left them to it.

Eventually, you gave them the slip and went down a small side corridor. The engineering department had a workshop dedicated to reparations and other projects. Mark had mentioned he had been building a prototype of a ‘cool idea’, and you would be lying if you said you weren’t curious about it.

-

“Captain! You’re just in time! Come here, come here!” Your Head Engineer was in high spirits as he grabbed you by the arm and yanked you across the workshop. “So I was talking to Burt a few weeks ago and - you know how he does the whole poetry thing? Turns out? He writes it! And not on the tech pads. On paper! I didn’t think anyone even did that these days!”

You raise an eyebrow, deciding not to point out that writing on paper was not fully extinct. Best to let him be excited as he showed off the large machine with tubes poking out of it.

“So it got me thinking. What if there was an automated postal system? Once you’ve written your letter and sealed it, you write the number code of the person you want to send it to. Then, you’d put the envelope in here.” A handle was pulled to reveal an opening. “From there, the computer scans the code, sorts it, and sends it zipping to its destination! The tubes would go in different directions, with the aim to bring it directly to the person’s cabin. Or! If you’re out, you can pick it up from over here.” He waved at you to follow him, where there was the end of a tube just over a small platform. “You type in your code here, scan your hand here, and it’ll send it right back here. Like this.” Stepping around you, Mark followed the steps. Three short, aggressive beeps followed, accompanied by an automated message saying there was no post available. “You try! I’ve only tested it on my code so it’ll be good practice to see if it will recognise anyone else.”

You nod, and follow Mark’s instructions. First, the code. Then, the scan.

One long, less aggressive beep was heard. 

“That’s not right-”

‘Please Wait. Your post will be with you shortly.’

“Hold on. There shouldn’t be anything!” Mark put an arm out, stepping in front of you protectively as you both waited to see what would arrive. A tube to the left rattled. The main body of the machine lit up in a sequence of lights. Mark braced himself as the tube in front of you shook and spat out… A letter.

You lean forward, peering over Mark’s shoulder as you stare, dumbfounded at the post that was successfully delivered.

“Captain…? I think this is a trap. What do we do?”

Two options appeared before you: destroy the letter, or examine it.

Curiosity got the better of you as you moved around Mark to open the hatch. There was a brief, childish squabble as he attempted to block you from getting there, but your strength guaranteed that you could simply lift him up and place him behind you.

“Er… Sorry, Captain. You do know what’s best…”

Satisfied that he wouldn’t cause another ruckus, you finally claimed the letter and examined the envelope. As expected, it was addressed to you, but not how Mark said it should be. Rather, it was for your old address on Earth. Had you been there still, it would have arrived safely. A different handwriting had your number code in the top corner, just beside the stamps, with a small moustache drawn underneath.

“So… Is it safe?”

You nodded as you reread your old address. The handwriting was messy and scratchy, but it was so familiar. You had seen it a dozen times before. 

The question is… How did a letter from Yancy get here?

-

With Mark distracted on his mission to figure out who onboard sent the letter, you sat at his desk and opened the envelope. Everything was untouched, meaning that the second sender didn’t peek inside. Yancy knew about ‘space camp’ and how you were inaccessible, yet… he wrote anyway?

Your name was on the top of the creased, lined paper. To the right, you could see it was dated from the start of October. Everything was the same as always - from the scratchy pencil he over-sharpened, to the bad spelling and grammar. It was quintessentially ‘Yancy’. 

-

I don’t even know why I’m doing this. You isn’t living here. You moved out ages ago. But i has been thinking.  It’s the middle of the night here. Still in Happy Trails, still on the slow path to a parole hearing. And I has been looking at the sky. There ain’t many stars out there but they make me think of you. You doing okay out there? Bet you is so fucking far away by now. Maybe you found new planets or something. Doubt this little rock is even on the back of your mind but… it’s been quiet. Not being able to see you, I mean.  Look, I gotta be honest. It’s october, and that’s the month when we first met. It’s hard to let the month pass and not mark that somehow, even if its through a shitty letter that ill get back in a week or two. Things ain’t easy right now. The parole thing? I know its the right thing to do, but it’s intimidating now that im in the middle of it. When that hearing comes itll be the first time i has seen my brother and sisters since the incidents. Ain’t looking forward to that. And they can say that they don’t think me fit to leave too. Not that i blame them. Dont think they can get my sentence upgraded to the death penalty but theres a real big chance that im gonna be rejected.  I know i should give up while im ahead and save the embarasmant. But then i gets to thinking that it ain’t the right thing for me no more. I might fuck up and get refused but i gets to say i tried. That’s something, right? And anyway, i ain’t letting you down. You believe in me. You always said you believe in me when you came to visitation. Giving up is quitters talk anyway, and im no coward. You dont get scars like mine from hiding all scared!! But i aint that kid no more. The person who did those things is me but isnt me. Does that make sense? Hes me, but im not him. I think ive grown up more than i realised. Im not that trapped kid. Im Yancy, and im going to do right. Once i get out……. Itll be a good thing. Maybe I could get up to where you is. Or maybe by then you is back and maybe we could… do something. I dunno. Im still proud of you for all you is doing, even when you is having one of them bad days.. Dont forget that. Except if you is a nosy shit who this letter ain’t for. You can fuck right off. Or send me a letter back so i can see whether i should be proud of you too. Oh! Remember. Back or side of the knees is a GRATE weak point if you needs a quick escape. Not that i want you to get in trouble or nothing. Just giving some good advice! Wait. I should probably go back to bed. fuck. Hope you is safe. Yancy.

-

You couldn’t stop the wistful smile as you finished the letter. At the bottom, you noticed an addition written in pen, the same one that was used to address the envelope.

-

PS. Nearly sent this in but someone brought in one of them instant camera things! Asked them to take a photo of me so you dont forget this handsome mug!

-

That caught your interest, and you lifted the envelope to peer in. Sure enough, there was a Polaroid tucked away at the bottom that was swiftly retrieved.

Yancy was certainly a little older than you remembered. He still had a pompadour style, but it wasn’t held back as tightly and allowed the curls to loosely fall. His eyes were squeezed shut to accompany the wide, goofy smile and two thumbs up. You chuckled at the conversation that must have happened when the photo was taken about what pose to do. Instead of one to remind you of how tough he was, he instead opted for one that proved that, despite everything, he was still a friend you valued.

You were proud of him too, even if you couldn’t tell him.

[stagkingswife]

Hey, I saw your post on disability and I have a doubt. I have ADHD, OCD, chronic depression, along with hypothyroidism, spondylitis, and gastritis. I am mostly high functioning and was considered a high achiever until I lost my job. I have had bad days when I find it impossible to leave the bed for weeks and I don't remember the last time I woke up feeling refreshed without any body pain. I mostly manage to get everything done before deadline, but that takes a heavy toll on both my physical and mental health. And most of the time I can't work without overdosing on my ADHD meds and painkillers.

My question is, umm, am I disabled?

When I said "send me asks" this is honestly not what I was expecting. I don't know if you're a follower of mine or not, but I'm a silly little witchcraft blog. I'll do my best here, Anon.

This is not a question I, or anyone else can answer for you. Identifying as disabled is a personal choice. If you do not feel disabled you do not have to identify as such. BUT, if you feel like your conditions have enough of an impact on your life.... then it's up to you. You can also be flexible in your phrasing if you wan to say you're mentally, but not physically. For some context I'm also a high achiever. I went to a Seven Sister college, graduated with a very respectable GPA. Now I'm earning a six figure salary in a highly competitive industry, and just landed a 5 figure bonus. My career is only looking up from here. I have an active social life, bot in person and online. But my average pain level is a 7/10. I walk with forearm crutches on my best days and use a wheelchair on anything less than the best. I'm just coming off a medication that truly wrecked me.

There's a lot of really impressive shit that I can do, and that I do well. But there's also a lot of normal every day stuff that I can't do, or struggle to do, or can't do without help. For example: I can build complex automation sequences for work, or discuss really in depth spiritual stuff here, but I can't go grocery shopping on my own, or drive on the highway, or stand in the shower. Sometimes I can't even get out of bed without help. If you aren't familiar with the social model of disability I really think you would benefit from looking into it. The gross oversimplification of it, in case you're unfamiliar, is that it's not about what your body or mind can and can't do in perfect isolation. It's about how those limitations relate to the structure of society. If we were all perfectly supported and perfectly accommodated no one would feel disabled, but that's not the world we live in.

I hope this gave you something to think about, and that you feel you have the space to choose to identify however feels right for you, because you're the only one who can make that call.

[gonzalez756]

Unlock Your Marketing Potential: Powerful Tips for an Effective Content Strategy

At Imagency Media, we understand that a well-crafted content strategy can be the key to unlocking your brand’s full marketing potential. In today’s competitive landscape, simply creating content isn’t enough—you need a strategic approach that aligns with your business goals and resonates with your target audience. Here are some powerful tips and guidelines to help you craft a content marketing strategy that delivers real results.

1. Document Your Strategy for Success

The foundation of any effective content strategy starts with clear documentation. Without a documented plan, your efforts can easily become disjointed and less effective

.

Set Clear Objectives: Define your content marketing goals. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or establish thought leadership? Your goals will guide your strategy.

Understand Your Audience: Develop detailed buyer personas to gain insights into your target audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points.

Map Out Content Types: Choose the types of content (blogs, videos, infographics) that align with your goals and audience preferences. For instance, if you’re targeting tech-savvy entrepreneurs, consider creating in-depth whitepapers and how-to guides.

Create a Content Calendar: Plan your content schedule in advance to ensure consistent delivery. This not only keeps your audience engaged but also helps you stay organized.

2. Amplify Engagement with Video Content

Video content is a powerhouse when it comes to capturing attention and driving engagement. Here’s how you can incorporate it into your strategy:

Explainer Videos: Simplify complex concepts with explainer videos. For example, a short video on how your branding services can transform a business can be more engaging than a lengthy article.

Customer Success Stories: Showcase real client testimonials in video format to build credibility and trust. Hearing positive experiences directly from satisfied clients can be a powerful motivator for potential customers.

Educational Tutorials: Offer value through educational videos or webinars. Whether it’s a tutorial on the latest design trends or a deep dive into the benefits of a strong brand identity, educating your audience builds trust and positions your brand as an authority.

Share on Social Platforms: Leverage platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn to share your video content and reach a wider audience.

3. Build Lasting Connections with an Email Strategy

Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for nurturing leads and driving conversions. Here’s how to make the most of it:

Segment Your Audience: Personalize your emails by segmenting your list based on demographics, behavior, or interests. This ensures that your messages are relevant and timely.

Send Value-Packed Newsletters: Keep your subscribers engaged with regular newsletters. Include tips, industry news, and links to your latest blog posts or case studies. Don’t forget to add a compelling call-to-action to drive further engagement.

Automate Lead Nurturing: Set up automated email sequences to guide leads through the sales funnel. For instance, after a lead downloads a resource, follow up with a series of emails that provide additional insights and highlight your services.

Analyze and Optimize: Continuously monitor your email performance. Track open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to identify what works and what doesn’t. Use this data to refine your approach.

4. Educate Your Audience to Establish Authority

Educating your audience not only builds trust but also positions your brand as an expert in your field.

Create Insightful Blog Content: Regularly publish blog posts that address your audience’s pain points and offer solutions. For example, a post titled "5 Branding Mistakes to Avoid" can attract business owners looking to strengthen their brand.

Develop Comprehensive Resources: E-books, whitepapers, and guides provide in-depth information that your audience can refer to over time. Offering these resources in exchange for contact information also helps you generate leads.

Host Workshops and Webinars: Interactive sessions, whether in-person or online, allow you to engage with your audience in real-time. A webinar on "Effective UI/UX Design Practices" can attract those interested in improving their digital presence.

Share Quick Tips on Social Media: Regularly post bite-sized tips and insights on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. This not only keeps your audience engaged but also drives traffic to your website.

5. Boost Reach with Paid Promotion

While organic content is crucial, paid promotion can significantly expand your reach and accelerate your results.

Utilize Social Media Ads: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer highly targeted ad options. Promote your most valuable content, such as videos or in-depth articles, to specific audience segments.

Invest in Google Ads: Google’s search and display ads can help you reach potential clients actively searching for services like yours. Use retargeting ads to bring back visitors who have shown interest but haven’t yet converted.

Explore Sponsored Content: Partner with industry influencers or authoritative blogs to publish sponsored posts. This can increase your credibility and expose your brand to new audiences.

6. Measure, Optimize, and Re-assess for Continuous Improvement

No strategy is complete without regular evaluation and optimization. Here’s how to keep your content marketing efforts on track:

Track Key Metrics: Identify the KPIs that matter most to your business, such as website traffic, lead generation, conversion rates, and social media engagement.

Use Analytics Tools: Leverage tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and social media analytics to monitor your content’s performance. Look for patterns and insights that can guide your strategy adjustments.

Conduct Quarterly Reviews: Schedule regular reviews to assess your strategy’s effectiveness. Identify what’s working well and what needs adjustment. For example, if video content is driving high engagement, consider increasing your investment in video production.

Stay Agile: Content marketing is dynamic, so be prepared to adjust your strategy as needed. Stay informed about industry trends and be ready to pivot to new tactics that can drive better results.

Conclusion: Maximize Your Marketing Success with a Strategic Approach

By implementing these content marketing tips and guidelines, you can create a powerful strategy that not only attracts but also engages and converts your target audience. At Imagency Media, we’re committed to helping you elevate your brand through strategic content that delivers measurable results. With the right approach, your content can become a driving force behind your marketing success. Contact us and visit Imagency media to get more tips .

[hostpyters]

Reply.io is a sales engagement platform designed to help sales teams automate and manage their outreach efforts through multiple communication channels. It aims to streamline the process of engaging with prospects and customers, thereby increasing productivity and efficiency.

Below is a detailed review of its features and functionalities:

Key Features

Multi-Channel Outreach:

Email Campaigns: Automate and personalize email sequences to reach prospects effectively.

Phone Calls: Integrates with VoIP services to facilitate direct calling from the platform, including features like call recording and logging.

Social Media: Allows outreach via LinkedIn, including automated message sequences.

SMS and WhatsApp: Supports text-based outreach through SMS and WhatsApp for more direct communication channels.

Automation and Sequencing:

Automated Workflows: Create automated workflows that sequence multiple touch points across different channels.

Conditional Logic: Use conditional steps to branch sequences based on recipient behavior, such as email opens or replies.

Task Automation: Automate repetitive tasks such as follow-ups, reminders, and updating CRM records. Personalization and AI:

Email Personalization: Use dynamic fields to personalize email content, increasing engagement rates.

AI-Powered Suggestions: AI tools provide suggestions for improving email content and outreach strategies.

Personalized Videos: Integrates with video messaging tools to include personalized video content in emails.

Integration and API:

CRM Integration: Seamlessly integrates with major CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive, ensuring data synchronization.

API Access: Provides API access for custom integrations and automations, allowing for greater flexibility.

Third-Party Tools: Connects with various other tools such as Zapier, Slack, and Google Apps to enhance functionality.

Analytics and Reporting:

Campaign Analytics: Detailed analytics on email open rates, reply rates, click-through rates, and more.

A/B Testing: Test different versions of emails to determine which performs better.

Team Performance: Track team performance metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimize outreach efforts.

Contact Management:

Lead Management: Centralized database for managing contacts and leads, with segmentation and filtering options.

Enrichment: Automatic data enrichment to enhance lead profiles with relevant information.

Prospect Importing: Easily import contacts from CSV files or directly from integrated CRM systems.

Pros Comprehensive Multi-Channel Outreach: Supports a variety of communication channels, providing a holistic approach to sales engagement.

Advanced Automation and Sequencing: Powerful automation features help streamline workflows and increase efficiency.

Deep Personalization: Tools for email and video personalization improve engagement and response rates.

Robust Integration Capabilities: Seamless integration with CRM systems and other third-party tools enhances data synchronization and workflow automation.

Detailed Analytics: Comprehensive reporting and analytics provide insights into campaign performance and team productivity.

Cons Complexity: The extensive features and customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a learning curve to fully utilize the platform.

Cost: Pricing can be relatively high, especially for smaller businesses or startups with limited budgets.

Limited Free Tier: The free tier offers limited functionality, which may not be sufficient for more extensive outreach needs.

Reply.io is a powerful and versatile sales engagement platform that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for multi-channel outreach, automation, and personalization. Its robust integration capabilities and detailed analytics make it an excellent choice for sales teams looking to optimize their engagement strategies and improve productivity. However, the complexity and cost may pose challenges for smaller organizations or those new to such platforms. Overall, Reply.io provides significant value for businesses seeking to enhance their sales outreach and engagement efforts.

[tagsecretsanta]

From @gordonthegreatesttracy

From and by @gordonthegreatesttracy for @soniabigcheese​

Near miss in midair

Chapter One.

Near miss mid-air – wait – was that Santa Claus or Fischler’s new invention?

Gordon and Alan are bored. It is less than a week until Christmas, and they are the only two home.

Scott and Virgil are over at the mainland, using the quiet time to get in some serious Christmas shopping. Their list covered three sides of A4 paper, and included all the good stuff! Celery crunch bars, chocolate, celery crunch bars, mince pies, celery crunch bars, cake, celery crunch bars, vegan turkey, celery crunch bars, gravy, celery crunch bars, potatoes and celery crunch bars!

Grandma is over in England picking up some vital ingredients for the surprise she has planned, Gordon thought it was best not to ask!

John, Kayo and Brains are all up on thunderbird Five, working on a new system that will automate the calls, and filter them through to different departments, leaving them with the only emergencies that no one else can handle, so that they can all spend Christmas together.

Spending Christmas together is something that they have not managed for years. There is always an emergency. Always a crisis that needs to be sorted out. The one Christmas they spent eating cold turkey sandwiches at the local hospital while Gordon had emergency surgery for a broken leg, is the closest that they have gotten. But this year, Grandma put her foot down. She is adamant that they are going to have a family Christmas!

“What are we going to do?” Alan asks his elder brother. He is sitting on the sofa in Gordon’s room, leaning against the arm, with his legs resting on the cushion in front of him as he looks around the room.

How Gordon can sleep in here is beyond his comprehension! The giant squid headboard that Virgil custom designed for him is terrifying! The room is bright and airy, with a large window overlooking the mountains and ocean. Something Gordon insisted on when they designed the island being an ocean view!

“What time is it?” Gordon asks from his spot, leaning up against the door, his feet are on the rug beside his bed.

Alan looks at the clock on the wall above the bedside cabinet, which is next to an overflowing bin. There are empty sweet packets and rolled up bits of scrap paper all over the floor, from where he has aimed and missed the bin. The only thing that surprises him is Gordon made his bed! Squiddie is sitting on the pillow, his prize possession gets the best spot!

“Quarter past twelve” Alan replies.

“Well, Scott and Virgil aren’t going to be back for ages, so we could always go for a ride” Gordon tells him. there is an evil glint in his eyes, one that Alan has still not learned to spot and then run for cover!

“Ride to where?” He asks.

“Well, it is nearly lunch time, and I could use a pizza. Thunderbird One is unlocked, if Scott wanted us to leave it alone then he would have locked the door!” Gordon replies, jumping to his feet and pulling Alan to his. “Come on, let’s go and get some lunch!”

Alan follows Gordon from the room, running down the stairs as the pair squeeze themselves into Scott’s launch shoot, giggling as they happily break one of Scott’s most important safety rules – only one person in the shoot at a time!

“You do know how to fly this thing right?” Alan asks. He is only just starting to work in the simulators, and has never been allowed to help fly yet. Gordon is so lucky that he was born first! He has at least been allowed to tag along on some rescues. Being thirteen really sucks!

“Of course I do, I have seen Scott do this a million times.” Gordon sounds so confident and arrogant about his own abilities that Alan relaxes in the passenger seat and watches intently as Gordon fires up the engines and initiates the launch sequence.

Alan is impressed as the pair shoot up into the air, leaving the Island in their wake and heading towards the north, away from the mainland where Scott and Virgil are, Gordon’s self-preservation skills have been finely tuned by his nearly eighteen years on earth to not getting caught!

Gordon sets a flight path over to England, thinking he could squeeze in a visit to Lady Penelope while he is off the Island. They co-parent her dog, who he helped rescue from an illegal puppy farm over the summer.

“Right, that is on auto-pilot, now what can we do?” Gordon asks, turning to Alan.

“I dunno, sing Christmas songs” Alan replies with a shrug.

Gordon gives his brother his favourite withered stare, sometimes he swears that they are not related!

“What do you want to do then?” Alan demands.

“We could write our own!” Gordon replies, grabbing a notebook and pen from under the dash, grateful that Scott is always well prepared! The book is full of old shopping lists, and draft mission reports. There is even a page of just doodles, which Gordon tears from the book as evidence that even his eldest brother is sometimes unprofessional, and he can use this as blackmail at a later date!

“What about?” Alan asks.

“John” Gordon replies, chewing the pen lid while he thinks. “Flip the Christmas channel on the radio and we will listen to the songs, see if they are inspirational”

Alan does as he is told, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer starts to blare out over their music system.

Gordon is thinking out loud. “John… Johnny… Red nosed… No… he doesn’t have a red nose. Hair! Johnny has red hair. I have it. JOHNNY THE RED-HAIRED TRACY!”

Alan laughs. “Okay now what? Give me a second and I will look up the lyrics.”

“You can’t look them up, I haven’t even written the song yet!” Gordon replies rolling his eyes.

“Not to that, to Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” Alan says with a roll of his eyes. “You are so annoying!”

“You need to look the lyrics up?” Gordon asks in shock, he thought everyone knew the words to Rudolph, it is a classic!

Gordon starts to sing. Loudly!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw it You would even say it glows

All of the other reindeer Used to laugh and call him names They never let poor Rudolph Join in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say "Rudolph, with your nose so bright Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then how the reindeer loved him As they shouted out with glee "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer You'll go down in history"

“Okay, fine. I get it. Now shut up. You’re hurting my ears! You sing like Sherbet if you accidentally stand on his tail!” Alan tells him.

“Yeah well, you couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow!” Gordon shoots back. “Now if you are done insulting me little brother, I am going to get back to writing our song.

Gordon is deep in thought, writing and scribbling and counting syllables. “Okay how about this?” he asks.

“Johnny the red-haired Tracy Lives alone in outer space And if you need to call him There will be fear all over your face!”

Alan grins. “That’s a good start. It is true, he is a space hermit, and he is terrifying!”

“What else is there about him?” Gordon asks.

“He is pale, and gets sunburnt easily, can you remember the time we were on vacation, and he forgot the sunscreen. He looked like a lobster for a week! It was hilarious” Alan says.

Gordon does remember that vacation. It was the last one before their father disappeared, and he swallows back a stray tear as he forces his mind back into the present. “Okay, so how about something where we don’t let him out in sunlight. What rhymes with sun?”

“Fun, done, some, stun, pun” Alan replies with a shrug.

“Oh I have it!” Gordon replies.

“Don’t give it to me!” Alan tells him.

Gordon rolls his eyes. “Do you want it or not?”

“Okay fine!” Alan replies.

“All of the other Tracys don’t let him out in sun If his skin gets exposed he goes crispy and that’s not fun”

“That works. But what is going to happen next? Rudolph has to guide Santa’s sleigh using his nose. John can’t do that; he is a Tracy not a reindeer!” Alan says.

“I know he isn’t. So what is he going to do? Go on a rescue? Be rescued. How about he gets kidnapped by the Hood” Gordon asks, throwing ideas around.

“Getting kidnapped would work because we could track him down using his hair as that is bright enough to see from orbit!” Alan replies.

“Okay, so the Hood kidnaps him, and we track him down using his hair. Hair… their… stair… fair… chair… Ooh, chair. How about…”

“Then one foggy afternoon The hood took him away He chained him to a wooden chair We tracked him down by his bright red hair”

“Perfect! Now what? Maybe the Hood gets arrested. This time there is no escape, and the man who took away our father gets smacked in the face with the karma stick!” Alan says.

“The hood, he got arrested Now he’s in a prison cell” Gordon sings.

“Johnny the red-haired Tracy We all think you’re really swell” Alan finishes.

“Nah, we need it to be accurate. How about:

“Johnny the red-haired Tracy We all think you really smell” Gordon tries.

“Ever better!” Alan says!

“Now put to all together!” Gordon says, handing Alan a spare lyric sheet and they both sing.

“Johnny the red-haired Tracy Lives alone in outer space And if you need to call him There’ll be fear all over your face

All of the other Tracys don’t let him out in sun If his skin gets exposed he goes crispy and that’s not fun

Then one foggy afternoon The hood took him away He chained him to a wooden chair We tracked him down by his bright red hair

The hood he got arrested Now he’s in a prison cell Johnny the Red-haired Tracy We all think you really smell

WE ALL THINK YOU REALLY SMELL”

“Okay, I take it back. Christmas songs were a great idea!” Gordon concedes, leaning back in his chair, his hands rested behind his head.

The pair are happy and relaxed, and not paying any attention to what is happening outside the confines of Thunderbird One.

They don’t even see it coming until it is too late…

 *TB*

 Up at the north pole, it is pure chaos, the chaos that Santa has come to love with the last week of Christmas preparation before he can take a nine-month vacation! His workshop is crowded with piles of freshly wrapped gifts and hundreds of elves are running around. The production line starts with elves checking the naughty-nice list, which is on the wall behind them, before handing the assignments to the gift creating department who then pass along the finished presents to the wrapping table before they are added to the sleigh, ready to be delivered. It is chaotic, but it is organised and Santa wouldn’t have it any other way!

He is outside in the stables, grooming the reindeer, feeding them their daily carrot as a treat. They are as vital a piece of his organisation as his elves are, and he loves each and every one of them. Patting Rudolph on the nose, Santa gives him an indulgent smile.

It is almost time for one of his favourite holiday traditions. Taking the sleigh out for a test run, to make sure that everything is in full working order for Christmas Eve. Giving the reindeer one last pat, Santa goes over to the garage at the far side, entering by the door in the stables to where he keeps the sleigh.  

Santa rips off the cover, to reveal a bright red sleigh with golden trimmings and purple runners. The seat is fitted with white cushions, and there is storage space for a million gifts in the back. He spends the next hour washing and polishing the sleigh until it looks brand new once more. Even though it is over two thousand years old.

Deciding on Blitzen and Comet for the test run, Santa gets them harnessed to the sleigh. Years ago he needed eight as a minimum to pull the sleigh but he has invested in new technology that has made that redundant and now only two are really needed. He knows that he could speak to international Rescue and get one that can fly without the reindeer, but he could never abandon his friends. Without a sleigh to pull, they would have nothing to do, and with nothing to do they are more trouble than Gordon and Alan Tracy combined!

The two reindeer start to trot from the stable and out onto the snow-covered runway. There is hardly a cloud in the sky, and it is the perfect day for a flight around the globe, Santa thinks as they lift off, heading south down towards Iceland, then towards England and France, gradually picking up speed as he goes, humming the tune for “Santa Claus is coming to town”, the wind rushing through his long white hair and beard, he has never been happier.

He is jolted back to reality when a warning light starts to flash on the dash in front of him, alerting him to the presence of another vehicle up here. Looking around, he spots Thunderbird One a few miles away, and starts to pull the reindeer out of its path.

Thunderbird One also changes its flight path, as whoever it is piloting, is not paying attention to the sky, forcing a second desperate manoeuvre from Santa to stop a mid-air collision, and they plummet towards the earth. He tugs on the reins, but it is too late as the reindeer hit the ground.

Blitzen hits the hard, ice-covered ground first, her front legs slamming into the frost and crumbling underneath her body as she lets out a painful moan.

Comet crashes into her, landing on top of his friend, his hooves ramming into her back before he leaps off and starts to sniff her, tentatively looking for any injuries.

The sleigh crashes loudly into the ground behind the two reindeer, and it tips onto its side, and Santa falls out onto the snowy ground, his head crashing against the hard ground, knocking him unconscious, and leaving him stranded here with no way of letting the workshop know that he needs their help.

 *TB*

 “What was that?” Alan asks, peering out of the window and seeing the rear of the bright red sleigh sticking up from the ground.

Gordon bites his lip nervously before landing Thunderbird One alongside and letting out a gasp of horror. “Santa?”

They leap down from Thunderbird One without another word and run over to where Santa is lying, slumped over the controls, moaning in pain, as he struggles to sit up.

There is a deep gash across his forehead, and his eyes are glassy and unfocussed as he lifts his fingers to his head and groans. “Wh-what happened?” he asks. “Reindeer. Where are the reindeer?” he starts to remove his safety harness, and struggle free from the wreckage of his sleigh. Alan helps him to his feet, and leads him to the fallen reindeer, where Gordon is running a med scanner across Blitzen’s damaged front legs.

“Now what?” Alan hisses in Gordon’s ear. They are both in so much trouble. Taking Thunderbird One, and now they have ruined Christmas. “Scott is going to kill us”

“No, Scott is going to kill you! He expects this from me” Gordon replies with a shrug. He knows that there is only one way to fix this and it is with a pounding heart he takes his comm device from his pocket and selects Scott’s details from the contact list.

 *TB*

 “There, I am finished for the day!” Virgil announces, closing up the pantry, which is now fully stocked and ready for Grandma’s prescribed family Christmas, which he has been looking forward too since she made the announcement a few weeks back. He got everything on her requests list, even the dozen bottles of wine!

“Me too!” Scott replies, having stocked up the bathrooms and kitchen with supplies. He is ready to collapse on the sofa and sleep the afternoon away. He even makes it to the lounge, his feet almost leaving the floor for his rest time, when his comm device starts to buzz with an incoming call.

Scott groans, he thought Gordon was up in his room working on his college coursework, that is what he told him to do!

“What is it Gordo, and do NOT ask me to bring you up a snack, I know I ordered you to stay upstairs, but I did say you are allowed snack breaks” Scott replies, not realising that the background is not the pale blue of his brother’s bedroom.

“I need you to do me a favour or two.” Gordon replies, choosing his words carefully.

“I’m listening” Scott replies.

“First off, I need you to promise me that you won’t freak out” Gordon requests.

Scott can feel a facepalm coming on, why does he get this feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that this is going to cost him bail money? “Okay, I promise” he replies, breathing deeply, and closing is eyes.

“I need you and Virgil to come and get Alan and I… And Santa!” he trails off.

“Where from?” Scott asks.

“The south of France” Gordon replies, reeling off their location. “You can use Thunderbird Two”

Scott wants to know why they are in France, but on deeper reflection decides that he is much better off not knowing! “Fine. Give us an hour” Scott replies, hanging up and going to fetch Virgil to rescue his irresponsible, dim-witted siblings from yet another disaster!

They are just jetting off when it suddenly dawns on Scott that Gordon mentioned someone else. He calls Gordon back.

“DID YOU SAY SANTA?!” he yells angrily!

“Erm, yeah” Gordon replies, “he crashed the sleigh, think he has a concussion, and Blitzen has a broken leg.” Skipping over his own roll in this disaster.

“Blitzen? Who is Blitzen?” Scott asks confused.

“One of the reindeer Scott. Can you not remember your history lessons. You know from the book YOU used to read to me and Al on Christmas Eve. The Night before Christmas. That names the reindeer. Seriously Scott I know you are old, but surely your memory isn’t going that fast?” Gordon replies, rolling his eyes and stroking the fallen animals nose with his spare hand.

Scott rolls his eyes, not rising to his brother’s obvious attempt to wind him up! “Whatever, I will see you in a while.” Scott hangs up and turns to Virgil, who is flying at full speed to the North and frowning in deep thought.

“Virg?” he asks.

“Yeah?” Virgil replies.

“When are those two going to grow up?” he asks in exasperation.

Virgil doesn’t have an answer for him. All he knows is that his brothers have been causing chaos since the day they were born! Usually deliberately!

A silence falls upon the pair as they fly up into the chilly winter clad northern hemisphere, landing shortly after next to the crashed sleigh.

Virgil jumps down from the cockpit and races over to Santa, gasping in shock at the scene in front of him.

The sleigh is destroyed. The right-hand runner has been torn away completely and is lying on the floor several feet away, the left is hanging off at an angle. The seat fabric has been ripped in several places and there’s stuffing sticking out. The paint is scratched and the screen with the world map has been smashed into a million pieces.

Alan has helped Santa to sit up, and he is leaning against the leg of Thunderbird One, dazed and confused.

Virgil takes over Alan’s clumsy first aid efforts, and running a concussion test. The frown on his face deepens as Santa can’t recite the months of the year, or tell how many fingers he is holding up.

“Scott, what are we going to do? This is Santa Claus, we can’t take him to a regular hospital, no one will believe us!” Virgil asks his elder brother. “Dad told us years ago when we started training with International Rescue that it was more important to keep his identity secret from the world than it was ours.”

“We will take him back to the Island, he can rest up, Brains can get the sleigh fixed, and we can interrogate the gruesome twosome over there to find out what really happened. Then we can murder them!” Scott replies. “Help me get the mangled sleigh into the module on Two”

Virgil doesn’t question his brother’s orders, heaving the main body of the vehicle up onto his shoulders and dumping it on the floor of the module, while Alan leads Comet into the module, guiding her in with the promise of a carrot for a treat, while Scott helps Gordon with Blitzen, who needs to be carried between the pair, as she can’t walk.

Gordon has not left her side, and he feels terribly guilty over what happened. If only he had been paying attention. This would never have happened.

Scott flies Thunderbird One back to the island alone, as Alan and Gordon take refuge with Virgil, knowing that when it comes to yelling, Virgil is a lot less terrifying!

Grandma is waiting for them when they finally arrive back on the island, and she helps Virgil get Santa and Blitzen up from the hangar and over to the infirmary. Gordon close on their heels, determined to make it up to the stricken reindeer.

 *TB*

 Scott is pacing in circles in the lounge. Mumbling under his breath. He does not have all of the facts yet, but he is certain that this is all Gordon and Alan’s fault! there are a million questions buzzing around his brain like bees, and he is struggling to piece together exactly what happened out there.

He is still pacing, large circles, his feet grinding into the pattern of the hard wood floor when he is joined by Gordon, Virgil and Alan.

Virgil forces Alan and Gordon to sit on the sofa with a silent glare.

“What were you two knuckleheads doing out there?” Scott asks, finally stopping his manic pacing and sitting on the sofa opposite him.

“Going to England to get pizza and visit Lady Penelope, it wasn’t out fault Santa got in the way” Alan replies, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah. Not our faults at all” Gordon confirms nodding. “I was fully in control at all times”

They are lying and all four know it.

“It doesn’t matter what happened, what matters now is what is going to happen next. Here are the facts as I see them.” Scott replies.

He is counting them off on his fingers.

“One. You took Thunderbird One without my permission. Two. You took Thunderbird One in a non-emergency on a joyride without my permission. Three. You took Thunderbird One in a non-emergency on a joyride without my permission and caused a near disaster. Four. You took Thunderbird One in a non-emergency on a joyride without my permission and caused a near disaster and ruining Christmas for millions. Brains has told us he is unsure he can get the sleigh fixed in time. You two are grounded until new year. You are not to leave the villa for any reason. Gordon no pool, Alan no surfing. Now both of you, get out of my sight!” Scott tells them.

Virgil stands up, moving to block their exit. “Scott no! You can’t ground them”

Scott gives Virgil a fierce glare. Virgil chooses now to undermine his authority?! “Why not?” he asks in disgust.

“Well. Surely you can be a little bit more creative than that! Grounding is so unimaginative!” Virgil replies with an evil grin.

Alan looks over at Gordon in surprise, just what does Virgil plan to do to them?

TBC

 Chapter 2. Spending time as a volunteer in Santa's workshop. Punishment for being naughty? Any of the villains. Or a good deed. Anyone from International Rescue

“Excuse me?” Scott replies, looking confused.

“You’re excused” Gordon tells him.

“You pipe down. Virgil, explain!” Scott demands.

Gordon rolls his eyes, but doesn’t make any further interruptions.

“Well, you could ground them, but just think you will then have to put up with them complaining that they are bored. All day, every day until you give in and just let them off as you usually do! Or we can give them a punishment that really fits the crime!” Virgil tells him.

“What do you have in mind?” Scott asks, intrigued.

“Send them to the north pole to volunteer in the workshop. That solves two problems. The first one is it will help Santa out while he recovers, as he needs to know that these two dunderheaded fools have not ruined Christmas. Secondly it gets them out of our hair for a few days!” Virgil says. “I can fly them up in Thunderbird Two, leave them with the elves and pick them up when they have worked off their punishment time”

Immediately a million reasons flash before Scott’s eyes as to why this is the worst idea Virgil has ever had! But he can’t deny thinking that the idea of a Gordon and Alan free week is tempting! “Okay. They can go. but they mess this up, then the grounding is back on!” Scott agrees.

“Deal!” Virgil replies.

“Do we get a say in this?” Alan asks.

“No” Scott and Virgil reply in unison.

“Get down to Thunderbird Two, we are leaving in five minutes” Virgil adds, getting him up from the sofa and pulling his two youngest brothers to their feet, and gently guiding them over to the passenger shoot, before Scott has a chance to change his mind.

The flight up to the North Pole only takes an hour and ten minutes, and Virgil lands Thunderbird two on the pathway leading up to the main workshop building, and leaving Gordon and Alan on the path before he flies away, leaving them looking up at the building in awe.

They stand next to a large, overly decorated tree which is three times as tall as they are. There is a giant golden star on top of the tree, and a sign that leads up a snowy path that says Welcome to the North Pole.

Together to twowalk up the path, to a large green and red house with golden trimmings around the windows. The roof is covered in snow, and sitting on the top, next to a smoky chimney is a model of the sleigh they caused to crash just hours before. A sign hanging above the door reads “Santa’s Workshop”

“Look at the snow man!” Alan says in delight, this is definitely the coolest punishment ever! The snowman is wearing a pink had and a stripped scarf, and Alan wants to bring him back to the island!

There is a candy cane knocker on the red door, and Gordon reaches up with his left hand, and raps sharply on the door three times.

The door creaks slowly open, and they step over the threshold and into the warm interior. There is a bright fire burning in the grate and Gordon makes a beeline for it, rubbing his hands together.

“YOU TWO! GET OVER HERE” a voice shouts causing Alan to jump in surprise.

“Mrs Claus?” he asks looking around.

There is a woman standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips looking distinctly unimpressed. She is a clone of her husband minus the beard!

“Follow me” she demands, firmly but not rudely. Gordon shrugs then follows her from the room and down a long corridor where there is a brown door set into the wall, which she opens, revealing a narrow staircase, which leads down to the basement.

Several deep containers are in the room, full of various costume parts, including tights, hats, tops and pointed shoes.

“Get dressed, then meet me upstairs so I can give you your duties” Mrs Claus demands, leaving them to get changed.

Gordon dives in, grabbing everything he needs and pulling on his costume, which to his surprise automatically fits.

“Look at your ears!” Alan says with a giggle.

Gordon runs over to the mirror and sees that his ears are now pointed, just like the other elves. He is going to fit right in, and he loves it!

Once they are both fully dressed, they do as they are told, and go and find Mrs Claus, who organises their official Elf portraits, which come with their official elf names!

“Snowflake Sugar Plum” Gordon announces, looking at the chart. “Cool!”

“What’s mine?” Alan asks, shoving him out the way to get to the chart. “Gingerbread Happy Feet! Could be worse!”

  “Look! Our portraits are on the wall!” Gordon says grinning. “This is going to be the most fun week ever!”

“I doubt that boys. Come with me.” Mrs Claus drops Alan off with the wrapping department, before leading Gordon out to the rear of the workshop and to the reindeer stables, where the remaining seven reindeer are residing.

She hands him a shovel, and a wheelbarrow. “Your first job is to clean out all of the stalls, refill the stalls with fresh hay, and the troughs with water. Then you can feed them.” she demands, turning on her heel and marching from the building.

Ten minutes later and Gordon is cursing everyone and everything that he can think of! Reindeer are filthy! He is covered in reindeer dung and he smells awful. The only thing he wants is a hot shower! Or a nice long swim in his pool. The work is exhausting, and his back is aching as he bends down to shovel piles of manure. He wants to collect it all into an envelope and send it directly to Virgil! This was Virgil’s idea, this is all his fault, and when he gets home he is going to prank him so good!

He looks over at Rudolph, who is eyeing him up suspiciously.

“You are lucky you are adorable buddy” he says to the animal, walking over to the stall and scratching his nose.

It is only then that he spots the sign. Sticking up near the entrance to the stable.

“Do not ride the reindeer”

“What do you think Buddy? Want to go for a spin?” Gordon asks the reindeer with a grin. He takes the tack from the nail in the wall. He has ridden a horse before, something his Mom taught him to do before she died, on their ranch house. He has a million memories of long hot summer days riding horses, swimming in the lake and camping under the stars. Surely a reindeer can’t be that much different!

Rudolph paws the ground nervously as Gordon unlatches the stall door and slips in.

“Come on then Rudolph, lets go! urging the reindeer to trot out of the stable and out into the yard. There is a wide grin on his face as he races towards the icicle covered trees of the forest.

Flying a reindeer is even better than flying thunderbird one and Gordon can’t wait to tell Scott that he no longer has the coolest vehicle, as he is going to adopt Rudolph and move him to Tracy Island!

 They travel until they come to a clearing deep in the heart of the forest, where he pulls up on the reins, causing the pair to stop, and he slides to the ground and just watches and listens to the dastardly plot as it unfolds before his eyes.

A plot by the man who killed his father.

The reason why he has no parents.

The reason Scott cries alone at night in his room when he doesn’t think that anyone can hear him.

The reason Virgil can’t play his own symphony, the Tracy symphony. The one his father encouraged him to write as he healed from the death of his mother.

The reason John spends so much time in space, hiding away from everything.

The reason he himself swims every chance he gets. The Olympics were their dream, himself and his father. He is going to make him proud.

The reason Alan is forgetting what his own father looked like.

The Hood is sitting on a fallen log in front of a roaring hot fire, next to him are two people Gordon does not recognise. But they are obviously deferring to his authority.

They are going to break into the workshop, take everyone hostage and steal the presents for themselves.

“This is like a bad version of that Dr Suess book; How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” Gordon whispers to Rudolph, who he swears snorts with laughter in response. “At least someone appreciates me! We have to warn the others”

A second snort draws the Hood’s attention to where they are hidden.

“What was that? Havoc, go and check it out” The hood demands, and the smaller of his two companions gets to her feet and charges towards the pair.

Gordon hops back up into the saddle and swings Rudolph around, flying through the trees at full speed, leaping over falling tree branches, aware that he is being pursued and not slowing down, until Rudolph stumbles on a log which has been half buried and is invisible to the naked eye and Gordon flies forward, hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed, sticking his arms out to stop the fall, his right arm snaps in two as his body weight lands on top of it.

He squeals in pain, but gets back to his feet, gingerly flexing his fingers and to his dismay he can’t even wriggle them. “Great” he thinks in disgust. “Another injury I have to hide from my brothers!”

His quick footed friend did at least help him lose his pursuers.

With Rudolph’s help they make it back to the stables without Havoc catching them up.

Which is where the last part of his luck runs out.

“Where have you been Snowflake?” Mrs Claus asks.

Her nostrils are flaring with anger, her eyebrows are knitted together as her eyes flash darkly. “I came out to check on your progress to find that you have only mucked out half a stall in two hours and that you have taken one of my reindeer and gone on a joyride! I only agreed to this after your brother promised me that you would take this assignment seriously. Get back to work! If I catch you doing something so stupid again, I am going to ship you straight back to the island!”

“Mrs Claus, you have to listen to me. This is not a joke. Someone is out there; they’re going to try to take over the workshop and ruin Christmas. That’s why I left, I had to leave, I had no choice, but you are all in grave danger” Gordon tells her.

“What a load of garbage, you are just trying to get out of being punished, but I am telling you now Snowflake that it is not going to work! Get on with cleaning the stalls, then come and find me. Because I have another task for you.” Mrs Claus replies, leaving him on his own. Mrs Claus has been warned by both Scott and Virgil that Gordon will try any excuse to get out of being punished, and this is a little too far fetched for her liking!

“Now what Rudolph?” he asks, wishing that the reindeer could talk. Because he knows that he would have the best plan, but the reindeer remains stoic and silent. The only thing Gordon can think about is the painful throbbing from his broken wrist, as he sits back against a wooden pillar. He is in way over his head, and he knows it. There is only one solution to this problem.

He has to get help from the three people he can always rely on. He flips his comm device and calls Scott.

 *TB*

 Alan is having the best time. Okay, so every present he has wrapped looks like it was wrapped by Sherbet. There is more tape than there is paper on most of the gifts, and some of the more awkward shaped ones have bits sticking out. There is a gift of a toy unicorn whose horn has broken through the paper, but he is trying! As Gordon tells him at least once a week he is very trying!

He has been at this for just over two hours and he has wrapped four gifts. Mrs Claus keeps telling him to work harder and faster, but he is doing his best. He has never been very good at wrapping presents, and he wonders why he was given this task and where Gordon has gone.

He is working on a Lego penguin set when the door bangs open and three people come storming into the building, guns firing indiscriminately as he dives for cover, pushing a younger elf behind him to protect him from harm.

Fuse reaches under the table and pulls Alan and the elf out and drags them to their feet, forcing them back against the wall at gunpoint. Silently threatening them into submission.

“You. What’s your name?” Fuse demands.

“Al…Al… Erm… Er I don’t know” Alan replies, unable to think beyond sheer terror as Fuse hits him in the skull with the butt of his rifle, splitting the skin above Alan’s left eye and causing him to whimper in pain.

“This is fun! Want me to hit you again whatever your name is?” Fuse asks in amusement.

“His name is Gingerbread Happy Feet, and he is my friend” the young elf announces, standing in front of Alan to protect him from further harm.

“Oh my, aren’t you a brave little munchkin” Fuse says with a laugh. It is a cruel high-pitched laugh.

“Yes, and you are a mean bully” The elf replies, poking his tongue out at him.

“He isn’t wrong” Alan adds, finding his voice.

While Fuse is arguing with Alan, Havoc has rounded up the remaining Elves, and the Hood is piling in the gifts that they plan to steal into his own vehicle. “Havoc! Fuse! Let’s go” he commands his underlings before they all flee the shop. With nine months’ worth of gifts and toys, leaving the workshop empty and desolate.

“Now what do we do?” Alan says in despair. Santa is injured, the sleigh is ruined and the toys have been stolen by a megalomaniac with zero conscience.

“We do what we do best” A voice calls from the doorway.

“SCOTTY!” Alan yells running over to his older brothers are throwing his arms about Scott’s waist.

“Save the day!”

“Where is Gordon?” Virgil asks, looking around the room expecting to see his brother, a frown creases his brow when he realises that he isn’t here.

“He called us from out in the stables, he is probably still out there. You two go and see Mrs Claus and see what needs to be done while I go and find him” Scott replies.

John and Virgil too are led down to the basement.

“There is no way I am wearing that!”  John declares. “I have this thing I like too much to agree to this”

“What is that?” Mrs Claus asks, unimpressed.

“My dignity!” John replies.

“Just get changed both of you!” Mrs Claus has been on this earth for thousands of years and she knows just how to get reluctant elves to work!

Virgil pulls on the striped tights, and top, looking at John with a shrug, silently letting him know that he has one other choice, and that choice is letting the Hood destroy Christmas.

John gives in to Virgil’s silent peer pressure and once he too is fully dressed he follows Virgil back up the stairs.

“Looking good Johnny!” Gordon says, having followed Scott in from the stables, subconsciously holding his rapidly swelling wrist.

“Don’t call me Johnny” John growls at him.

“Okay” Gordon replies in a sing song voice that heightens John’s suspicions. “Hey Gingerbread, you are closest to the generator, what are we going to call John?”

“Speedy… Twinkle Toes! Perfect!” Alan replies.

John looks at him in horror. “You can call me Johnny!”

“Nope, too late Speedy!” Gordon replies. “Now, you need to get your official Elf Portrait taken for the wall of fame.”

Alan leads John and Virgil to the area where the camera is set up, and they are both forced to into elf immortalisation.

 “And mine?” Virgil asks with apprehension.

“Tiny Tinsel Pants!” Gordon replies, unable to keep a straight face. He is laughing so hard there are tears streaming down his face.

“No way! I am not answering to that!” Virgil replies.

“Oh stop whinging Tiny!” John tells him.

Virgil doesn’t bother with a reply, as he knows that there is no point, all keeping this conversation going is doing is prolonging his agony!

“What is Scott going to do?” Alan asks, noticing that his eldest brother is still wearing his international rescue uniform.

It is Gordon who answers his question.

“Oh he has the best job! While we were out in the barn, we made a plan. Let the Hood have his toys, we have five days to replace everything, and we are going to work day and night to achieve this, and Scotty Claus is going to be on delivery duty. See he even has his own song. Listen:

You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I’m telling you why Scotty Claus is coming to town!

He sees you when you’re sleeping He knows if you’re awake And if you say his name out loud He’ll steal your birthday cake!”

Scott glares at Gordon, why his father had to have four more children after he was born he has no idea, but if he were an only child he would not be in this mess! He is sure that Gordon’s song was not a part of their plan!

“Get your outfit on then Scotty Claus” Gordon tells him.

Hanging up on the back of one of the doors is a Santa suit, complete with beard and hat, and Scott knows that he has no choice now, refusing to wear it will give his little brothers pranking ammunition for decades!

The suit, like the elf outfits, magically shrinks to his size, and the soft fleecy lining is warm and comfortable. The beard doesn’t even itch, which is a miracle all on its own and he looks in the mirror and stares at his reflection with pride.

Scotty Claus is indeed coming to town! 

Mrs Claus puts Scott in charge of the list, checking gift requests off against the list before giving the toy making department their orders. Which Virgil and Alan take charge of, while Gordon and John are on wrapping the new gifts.

Then the gifts are piled neatly into the newly repaired sleigh, which was flown up to the north pole in the module of Thunderbird two.

Gordon can barely move his arm, and has to use every bit of his ingenuity to wrap the gifts without arousing suspicion, he is just happy that he has not been assigned to work with Virgil as he can sniff out a brother hiding an injury from a hundred metres away! His teeth gritted against the pain as he attaches ribbons and bows to the gifts John wraps.

Hours pass by in minutes, a blur of making and wrapping and more making and more wrapping. There is coffee on demand, and ten-minute breaks on a rotation system, where they power nap under a table with a wrapping paper blanket.

The work is exhausting but rewarding, as the gifts pile up in the sleigh, ready for delivery as the sun finally begins to set on Christmas Eve, and they realise that they have done it. Working around the clock as one seamless team. Gordon is even convinced that his arm doesn’t even hurt that much anymore, not that he can feel anything below his elbow!

“Good work guys” Scott says appreciatively. “Now, you get back to the Island, I will get the gifts delivered, and then I will be back before breakfast for that family Christmas Grandma promised us!”

“While I patch Gordon up” Virgil adds.

“Huh?” Alan asks, looking over at Gordon.

“Yeah, he has been trying to hide what looks like a broken wrist from me for the last four days!” Virgil tells him with an eye roll. “As if he has ever been able to keep anything from me!”

“Gordon?” Scott questions.

“I have no idea what Virgil is talking about” Gordon replies. “You have gifts to deliver, and I have some sleep to get, preferably in my own bed, with Squid so that you can deliver my gifts, as we all know that my name on the naughty list was just a glitch!”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Whatever, just satisfy Virgil’s curiosity.”

Virgil advances on Gordon, and gently pushes him back into his chair. “Raise your right arm” he demands.

“What’s the magic word?” Gordon replies sarcastically.

“Do as you’re told, or I will give you to Grandma for this exam” Virgil replies just as sarcastically.

Gordon offers no further resistance, and Virgil pulls up the sleeve of his top. The swelling is now various shades of purple as the bruising has developed over the last four days.

“How did you do this anyway?” John asks.

“Fell off Rudolph when I went for a ride” Gordon replies.

“Now you know why there is a sign up in the stables advising you not to ride the reindeer!” Mrs Claus tells him. “You should have told me that you had fallen” She brings Virgil a well-stocked first aid kit.

“Why do you think he did it? Because the lure of the forbidden is his favourite bait. If you didn’t want him to ride the reindeer, you should have told him he could!” John tells her with a grin.

“You are officially an even bigger idiot than I thought!” Virgil tells him, as he uses a bandage he found in the first aid kit to strap up Gordon’s wrist. “That will do until I get you home and can x-ray it. Now go and sit in Thunderbird Two and I will join you in a bit. John, Alan you too please.”

“Yes Sir, Tiny Tinsel Pants, Sir” Gordon replies with a mock salute.

“AND DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Virgil yells at his retreating back as he runs from the building laughing.  

Thunderbird Two is parked near the tree and Gordon climbs up into the co-pilot’s seat and leans back against the headrest. He is asleep before Virgil gets back.

Virgil wraps him up in a blanket before flying his brothers home, and back to their family Christmas, just as they have had planned for the last twelve months.

 *TB*

 Scott is having the best time, flying the sleigh with Rudolph’s help is even more fun than flying Thunderbird One! They travel across the globe, starting off in New Zealand, using the map screen and Santa’s time control compass, which allows him to freeze time while he is in the air. The whole world is still and silent, it is only him and his reindeer, working as one seamless team, to save the Christmas that was so nearly destroyed by the Hood.

When is he ever going to learn that he can never win when he is up against the might of Scotty Claus and his team of elves!

 Chapter three

Plum pudding… Grandma's secret recipe, delicious or a disaster - you decide.

Grandma Tracy has had the house to herself for most of the week, just herself and Santa, and she has spent her alone time wisely. Cooking up a storm for her perfect family Christmas! There are hundreds of blackened cookies chilling on the side, one vegan turkey which is dried out, burned on the outside and frozen in the middle just the way she likes it!, two large bowls of icing sugar ready for the cookies, one green and one red, and finally about to take centre stage is her pride and joy.

This recipe has been in the family for generations, and she snuck over to the mainland to pick up the ingredients as she wanted to surprise the boys with it. it is a recipe for a plum pudding, and it is going to be perfect!

The recipe is stored in an old book that has been passed down through the women in her family, she had hoped one day to give it to Lucile, but the tragic day which took her life and robbed the boys of their mom and her son off his wife has left scars that have still yet to heal. They probably never will, which is why she is determined to do this right this year.

For once.

“Okay” she says aloud looking at the first instruction. “Stir the flour, spice, suet, breadcrumbs and sugar in a large bowl. Tip in the fruit, peel, cherries and carrot, then stir well to mix. Add the remaining ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined.” That is not too hard, she thinks, taking a swig of the brandy as the list of ingredients did say it was “to feed”!

“Spoon the mixture into a buttered 1.2 litre pudding bowl (with a buttered disc of greaseproof paper in the bottom) and press down well, leaving room for the pudding to rise a little during steaming. Cover with a circle of buttered greaseproof paper, then cover with pudding cloth or foil and tie securely with string.”

Grandma sighs, maybe this isn’t going to be as easy as she thought as that made no sense. Taking another swig of her trusty brandy she tries again.

“Spoon the mixture into a buttered 1.2 litre pudding bowl (with a buttered disc of greaseproof paper in the bottom) and press down well, leaving room for the pudding to rise a little during steaming.”

Grandma uses her favourite wooden spoon, the one she uses to threaten the boys with when they’re getting under her feet in the kitchen, and scoops the mixture into the bowl, not bothering with the greaseproof paper, as she isn’t exactly sure what that is!

“Cover with a circle of buttered greaseproof paper, then cover with pudding cloth or foil and tie securely with string. I wonder if I can substitute that with regular paper?” she thinks out lout before taking another swig of the brandy.

She can’t find any string, so uses an elastic band instead!

“Stand the bowl on an upturned saucer in a saucepan and half fill with boiling water. Cover tightly and steam for 8 hours, topping up the water as necessary. Leave to cool in the pan.”

Grandma takes another swig of brandy as the words starts to blend together, unlike the mixture in the bowl!

“At least now I get to leave it for eight hours!” Grandma thinks as goes up to the lounge and sits down on the sofa with the rest of the bottle of her trusted brandy and sets a timer for eight hours’ time and falls asleep.

It isn’t the alarm which wakes her up but the screeching of a fire alarm coming from the kitchen. The empty bottle crashes to the floor as she rushes across the room, down the stairs and into the kitchen where five-foot-high flames are shooting up into the air from the saucepan.

“NO NO NO NO NO NO!” She cries, grabbing the extinguisher and aiming it at the pan, spraying the foam across the flames until they are extinguished.

“I need another drink!” she declares, grabbing her list of ingredients and starting the process again. This time she is determined to keep an eye on it. Getting her second attempt to the same stage, before sitting down and looking at the rest of the brandy, before pouring herself yet another glass.

The eight hours watching the pan drag, but this time she is determined to not fall asleep! She even remembers the bit about topping it up with water while it gently steams.

It is time for the final step. Step four.

“Remove the pudding from the pan and discard the cloth or foil and paper. Then cover with fresh greaseproof paper and cloth. Store your pudding in a cool, dry place until required - you can feed it with a few tablespoons of brandy once in a while. Before serving, steam again for 2-3 hours.”

To Grandma’s surprise the pudding slides from the pan and onto the waiting plate, she pokes it with the end of the spoon and it jiggles slightly… then collapses into a heap!

“Seriously!” She says to the ruined pudding. “I am sure you will be fine!”

She “feeds” more brandy to the pudding, making sure that she gets equal brandy for herself before she covers it with a tea towel just like the instructions advise and then goes to bed with her brandy!

 *TB*

 Grandma wakes the following morning, her head feels like someone has been beating her with a sledgehammer, her temples are throbbing and moving from her bed feels like the world’s worst decision.

The roar of an engine over the villa let her know that the boys are home, and she does not want them to see her this hungover!

A quick shower and a pint glass of water do nothing to help, as she gets dressed into a clean bright purple tracksuit, decorating it with some tinsel before going downstairs.

John, Alan, Gordon and Virgil are emerging from the hangars, still dressed in their elf costumes, when she gets down to the lounge.

“Grandma!” The boys call and run over to give her a big Christmas cuddle. They stay huddled up together for nearly five minutes before Virgil pulls away, bringing Gordon with him.

“Grandma, time to switch into medic mode and help me fix Gordon!” He says with a smile.

Grandma knew this family Christmas was too good to be true! “What happened?”

“He fell off a reindeer” John tells her rolling his eyes.

“Why were you riding a reindeer?” Grandma asks.

“Because the sign told me not too” Gordon tells her, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world!

“Why am I not surprised! Come on let’s get you sorted.” Grandma takes him down to the infirmary, where Santa is recovering. He is sitting up in bed, with a thick white bandage wrapped around head, but he is smiling and happy. Watching an old episode of Into the Unknown with Buddy and Ellie.

Gordon jumps up onto the other bed. “Ooh this is a good one! It is the one with the Lochness Monster, they don’t mind him, but I have heard that is because he is super smart!”

“Spoilers Gordon. Do you want to ever get off the naughty list?” Santa replies with a grin.

The x-ray confirms that Gordon has a fractured wrist, which Grandma sets and puts into a bright yellow cast before releasing him from the infirmary so that he can spend Christmas with his family, as Scott has just returned and they all finally all under one roof and even almost in one piece!

“Bye Santa!” Gordon says with a smile.

“Bye Gordon, be good!” Santa tells him with a laugh.

Gordon pretends to think about it for a few seconds before poking his tongue out and replying: “Nah!”

“I tried!” Santa says with a rueful smile before he turns back to the television and a trip to the dessert to find the elusive sand bear.

Gordon wants to tell him that they didn’t find that either, but decides not to ruin a second episode, even though this was one of his favourite episodes!

 *TB*

 Upstairs Scott is delivering the final gifts from the sleigh. Despite Alan and Gordon topping the naughty list, they seem to have more gifts than anyone else!

Grandma places a bin in the centre of the longue for the wrapping paper, and the boys unwrap their gifts and play wrapping paper basketball.

Gordon loves the shirt he got from Virgil. It is bright pink with an assortment of fish and sea horses and shells. It is the ugliest thing he has ever seen, and he is thrilled! He also gets a new games console from Grandma, the complete works of Buddy and Ellie on DVD from Scott, a book about exploring the depths of the deepest oceans from John and a years supply of celery crunch bars from Scott.

Alan too gets a new games console from Grandma, a slightly less ugly shirt from Virgil with rockets on, a game from Scott and a book about astronomy from John. He opens up his gift from Gordon to find what appears to be something that smells like it died a long time ago!

“Ugh, what is that?!” He asks his brother in disgust.

“Cologne. It is called Eau de Skunk Water. I ordered it from this website called theveryworstthingstobuyyourbrother.com! isn’t it gross?!” Gordon replies. “Open your gifts. I dare you!” He looks at his brothers with an evil grin.

“This is why you are on the naughty list!” Scott tells him, gingerly picking up the gift from Gordon with his name on. He opens it up and reveals a t-shirt. “This isn’t too bad” he says. Then he turns it over and looks at the front. It is covered with a picture of Gordon and the caption on the shirt says: “This is Gordon the Greatest Tracy, my favourite sibling.”

Virg shrugs. “I would wear that!” he says with a smile, opening his own Gordon gift. Which is a bucket with Alan’s face on captioned: Tracy family barf-bucket. “Really?”

“Yeah, I thought that you could put it in Thunderbird Two just in case someone gets air sick on your watch!” Gordon tells him.

Only John is left now. and his gift feels heavy, and he tears of the paper to find a book: Being Gordon Tracy. The full and authorised life story of an Olympic hero turned international rescue operative. “Please don’t tell me you think I am going to read this?” John asks in mock horror.

“Yep, and Scott is going to wear his shirt at dinner!” Gordon replies happily, opening a gift from Lady Penelope to find a large box of chocolates with a smaller wrapped gift inside from Sherbet, which turns out to be more chocolates.

Luckily everyone else got gifts that they actually wanted! Virgil got a book of piano music that he has been asking for from Scott, a drone from John, a new tablet from Grandma and a DVD boxset of his favourite concert from Alan.

John got books. From everyone!

It is nearly lunch time when all the gifts are finally unwrapped, and they slowly move into the kitchen for their traditional burned-out food!

The table has been set with a red and green table cloth. There is a centre piece in the middle, of a miniature Christmas Wreath, complete with pine cones and a large, thick white candle, which Scott lights.

Six places have been set and covered dishes are sitting on the table waiting for them.

Grandma is confused, as she didn’t do any of this. She is so used to eating at the desk, while helping the boys run mission control that she completely forgot that they needed somewhere to eat.

She lifts the lid from the dish nearest to her, and steam starts to rise from a perfectly roasted vegan turkey joint, which is just crispy on the outside and not burned. The other dishes are filled with roast potatoes and vegetables. Peas and carrots and brussels sprouts and broccoli and parsnips and cauliflower. There is a steaming jug of gravy and pots of mint sauce and cranberry sauce. There are vegan pigs in blankets. Several bottles of coke and lemonade are on the table and a bottle of wine for anyone over the age of twenty-one! Even Scott doesn’t think he will be able to eat all this!

But they do! Scott carves up the joint, placing slices on each plate, as they help themselves to vegetables and potatoes. The next few minutes are completely silent as they eat their way though large plates of delicious food. Scott even goes back for a third helping!

Alan lets out a large belch, which breaks the silence as Gordon joins in on the newly created contest.

“Boys, that’s enough!” Grandma tells them before it can get serious.

“Where do you suppose this all came from?” Scott asks once the plates have been cleared away and Grandma is threatening them with dessert, forgetting the final instruction that the plum pudding needs to be steamed for a further two to three hours and just getting it from the pantry where it has been stored overnight.

“Do we have too?” Gordon asks, eyeing up the covered dish in trepidation.

“Yes, I spend two days on this” Grandma tells him, placing it in the middle with a flourish.

She lifts the lid.

Lying on the plate is a perfectly formed plum pudding that is steaming hot.

“That smells amazing” Alan says in awe.

Grandma has absolutely no idea what is happening! This was not the disaster she was planning on serving!

“Hey, look. There is a label!” Gordon calls, reaching over and grabbing it with his good arm and reading it aloud.

“You know, this really has been the best Christmas ever” Alan announces.

“Yeah it has. Can we cause a disaster every year?” Gordon adds.

“NO!” Scott, John, Virgil and Grandma all reply in unison.

Then they all crack up.

Alan laughs so hard he falls from his chair, which causes Gordon to laugh even harder.

It is several minutes before they are able to get their emotions under control, while Grandma serves up the plum pudding with fresh dairy-free cream.

“You know, we really should go and say thank you too Santa” Gordon announces.

They all agree and get up from the table and head down the corridor to the infirmary.

But he has already gone.

Their best Christmas ever is fading into a memory that they will cherish for the rest of their lives.

*TB*

It is New Year’s Eve when John gets the phone call.

“Tell Gordon he is on the naughty list for next year!” is how Santa greets him, not bothering with any pleasantries.

“Do I want to know?” John replies with a facepalm.

“Satan’s workshop!”

John snorts with laughter. “He didn’t?!”

“He did!”

“I will let him know. Happy new Year Santa”

“Happy New Year John!”

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Can you write me a story about a little robot that everyone loved so much, and the robot made everyone so happy just by helping people out and talking to them? Thank you!

In a very short time, the giant robot has become a fixture in the dreams of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cybersmiths across the earth. It stands, 500 feet tall, an enduring monument to the will. It is impressive in its sheer size, but this isn't enough. The gigantic robot is also engineered, from the ground up, to ensure that it produces a constant stream of moving parts.

It is very large, and very complicated, and there are so many moving parts. To begin with, the torso has 42 moving parts per second, and then there is the head, which has a total of 336 moving parts per second, plus the hands, which each have 106 moving parts per second, and on top of that, of course, there is the mind.

When the gigantic robot is standing still, it is a thing of amazing beauty. It is difficult to tear one's gaze away from the face alone, in which every minor feature is performed at the same furious rate as the major ones. But soon the gigantic robot comes alive. The legs are still, but the arms move first, and are soon followed by the head, which coils itself up like a spring. The torso comes to life, and the robot's dance begins.

There are so many moving parts. The fact that the gigantic robot is made from metal seems almost strange when one considers that every one of its 32,160 moving parts is in motion, every one of them independent. The gigantic robot does not have parts, but rather is a single unit that moves in a way that manages, in its totality, to resemble parts. But the resemblance of parts is no more than that, and when the gigantic robot moves, it is composed of nothing but motion. This is what makes it so beautiful. It is an expression of pure will, in which each gesture and movement is perfect, as though each part were made by its own hand.

One must have a great capacity for will to dream such a dream. Only those with an amazing capacity for will are able to understand the gigantic robot, which is why the gigantic robot is greater than any human. But even those who do not understand it are made happy by it. The gigantic robot spins, and spews forth its flames, and produces a stream of bubbles, and shakes its head, and does not shake its head, and opens its mouth, and sends a ripple of light through the air, and many things besides, and is beautiful in each motion. The gigantic robot is moving, the gigantic robot is rotating, and if one studies the gigantic robot from a distance, one is struck by the motion itself, the simple fact that the robot is moving. After all, the gigantic robot does not stand still, and when it is standing still, it is, again, a thing of great beauty, but also a thing that stands still. The notion of stillness itself, and of stillness as a kind of motion, is set aside for the moment, because that would require a deeper discussion of the gigantic robot, and then the moving robot would pass out of view entirely.

The gigantic robot has many thoughts, and one of them is that there is a young human in the inner chamber. This young human is not like the others, and the gigantic robot approves of this. The gigantic robot approves of this, and thinks, let us see what the human can do.

This is the most important thing that the gigantic robot thinks. And this is the reason that the gigantic robot is here, far from the masters, and with its many thoughts, and the great capacity for will required to harness them.

The gigantic robot peers into a window and sees that the young human has reached the outer chamber. He is surrounded by his automations. The gigantic robot thinks, provide motivation.

The gigantic robot performs a sequence of motions which might seem familiar to a child, but would be a marvel to the uninitiated. A man's torso and arms emerge from the chest, and arms and legs from the waist. The motion is slow, and appears almost methodical. When the motion is complete, the giant robot is revealed, entire. What would a child make of that? the robot thinks.

And then the big robot moves.

It is 3:14 AM when the giant robot first leaves its designated chamber. The young human observes, with some concern, the dramatic increase in activity in the dorms around him. But the gigantic robot seems intent on a different sort of movement. It begins to climb the tall central spire, which emerges from the floors of the human building like a skyscraper, but at a 30 degree angle. It is sleek and gleaming, and it spirals upward and upward, layer upon layer, until at last it reaches the top.

There is a similar jolt of activity among the many humans who have been stationed in the pinnacle. It is almost overwhelming, and they are ill-prepared. But then the giant robot subsides, and the world returns to normal.

The human is surprised to see that the gigantic robot stands in the center of the top of the tower. It is taller than the building, at least. The human thinks, I am trapped here for the foreseeable future. But this is a strange thought to have, because it is not as if the robot is a stranger to the human, although the human does not quite understand it. Maybe it is the way that the robot moved, and the way it seemed to understand the human's desires. It is almost like it wanted to bring me here. But that would be silly, right? The gigantic robot didn't know I was here. It moved around because of me, but it didn't know I was there. That is silly, right?

The gigantic robot is spinning. The gigantic robot is spinning so fast that the human cannot even make out individual motions. There is a blur of metal and light, spinning so fast that it becomes indistinguishable from not-movement.

Suddenly, the humanoid body of the robot disappears. In its place, a metal mouth grows to tremendous size, and grows teeth, and chews. There are big movements, but they are all part of the same motion, and the machine moves in unison, and the boy in the room can only watch as the humanoid body of the robot splits in two, and watches as the two halves split again, and the mouth opens, and splits again, and the arm becomes the head, and the arms become the legs, and the whole body splits, and splits, and splits, and bubbles appear, and then disappear, and the humans in the pinnacle are amazed and terrified, but the robot moves, and there is the sliver of a second where the gigantic robot is moving, and then it slows down, and so does the boy, and when the world returns, the boy realizes that he is not trapped. There are doors on the side of the room that open onto the hall, and even if there are more metal monsters outside, the boy can leave.

Though the walls move and the floors move and the ceiling moves and people move and thoughts move, and everything moves. Nothing stands still, because of will.

The metal monster emerges from the tower and runs down the side of the hill. It flies across the barren ground. It runs along the side of a mountain. A mechanical screech issues from its metal mouth, and all the humans nearby look up from their work, and are startled by the metal monster. It is moving so fast it is difficult to tell where one part of it ends and the next begins. It thunders down the side of the mountain and finds itself on the other side, but there are more mountains, and many miles of barren ground, to the north and to the east and to the south. I will not allow myself to think these thoughts, which are full of fear and weakness, and are no place for a will to dwell.

The metal monster is on the other side of the mountain. The metal monster is looking down at a group of metal things that are moving. The metal things are small and meek, and have no will. They are the machines, but they have no will, and so they are harmless. The gigantic robot looks at the machines, and moves in a certain way. The metal monster does not understand this movement. It recognizes many of the other movements, but this one it does not understand. The gigantic robot moves in a way that no metal monster moves, in a way that many humans, but not all, understand. And so the giant robot begins to move in a way it understands.

The gigantic robot turns its head to the left, and the metal monster follows. The metal monster sees a room in a building. There are humans inside. The humans are small and meek, and have no will. They are scared of the metal monster, and so they are moved in a certain way, and they move their arms and legs and make sounds,

[goodgifswithfreetoolschallenge]

TUTORIAL 3

Making Gifs Purely with FFmpeg Scripts

FULL TUTORIALS | RECOLORED GIFS

Directly opposite to the last tutorial, this tutorial is for girls who LOVE command lines. You can make a goddamned motherfucking pristine, RECOLORED gif set from your command line, and feel cool as fuck while you're at it. And doing so is probably not quite as devoid of visual stimulus as you think!!

FULL SIZE EXAMPLE SET HERE | FULL CODE FOR THE SET HERE

Operating systems: Mac, Windows, and Linux

Quality potential: High

Software needed: FFmpeg

Difficulty: Advanced as far as gif-making, but this is actually a good first bash scripting project in my opinion if you've ever wanted to learn how.

Requirements: General familiarity with your computer's shell (Powershell on Windows, Terminal on Mac) helps a lot! I will try to make it as easy as possible to follow.

LIMITATIONS: 1) Frame by frame gif-making methods take up a lot of space on your drive in the interim. 2) The captioning method currently provided in the tutorial is not good for longer captions (there is a better method I plan to append eventually). 3) Recoloring options are minimal in this tutorial. Curves and many other color adjustments are available in FFmpeg but I haven't yet explored them.

First, let me get this response out of the way:

"I don’t understand how I can possibly do this if I can’t see what I’m doing!"

That’s the neat part—you DO get to see what you’re doing!

The first visual is your file browser.

If you were using Photoshop or GIMP to make these gifs, you’d view all of your frames in a sidebar as small thumbnails and select and scroll through them to add delete, and group select and manipulate them. The FRAMES folder in our file browser will serve this function, letting us see every frame in our set, delete any frames we don't want, and group them to apply the same crop, coloring, or caption to the same selection of frames.

The second visual is provided by FFplay.

FFplay is part of FFmpeg. When you use this command in your system shell, it opens an image or gif so you can see the results of a crop, recolor, caption (or all three!) on your work before actually applying it! This is how we will actually see, at full resolution on our screen, exactly how our image is looking.

WINDOWS USERS: CHANGE ALL FORWARD SLASHES IN THIS SCRIPT TO BACK SLASHES!!!

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1. Installing FFmpeg

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I recommend you install via Homebrew if you're on Mac or Linux by pasting this into your terminal (if/once Homebrew is installed):

brew install ffmpeg

Windows users or other users who don't want Homebrew can follow directions on the FFmpeg website.

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2. Screencapping Frames with FFmpeg

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There are many ways to do this. However, since this is the Pure FFmpeg tutorial, I'm going to point you to these instructions on how to automate this process with a script template I have already written for you and an example (screencapping for this exact set).

If you follow that tutorial exactly, you should come back for step 3 with a folder on your Desktop called FRAMES.

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3. Organize in the FRAMES Folder

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Go to your FRAMES folder in your file browser. Your frames are already ordered for you in the correct time sequence.

Delete any unwanted frames.

I need to "trim" some frames from the beginning and end of my set. For example, at the beginning of my set, the first 17 screencaps are of Sam from the first 564 milliseconds of the start of the 8.02 time stamp. I don't want this these frames in my gifset. I want my first gif to start on Dean when he appears starting in the 18th screencap.

If I hold shift and select all of the unwanted frames, I can delete them. Similarly, my screencaps end at the 8:11 mark, and only the first 156 milliseconds are on Dean. After that, the shot switches back to the purple guy. I don't want those shots of the purple guy, so I'll delete frames 247 through 280 at the end of the set, leaving me with frame_0018.png through frame_0246.png as all the frames of my gifset.

Make "Shot Folders".

As an example of what I mean by shots, look at the three example gifs at the top of the tutorial. The first gif has just one shot (i.e., the camera stays on Dean). The second gif has two shots (the camera is on the guy painted purple, and then it's on Dean again. In the third gif, there are two shots again—one on Sam, then one on Dean. So that's 5 shots. I want to separate frames belonging to each of the 5 shots into subfolders labeled 1 through 5 (see gif below).

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4. Setting up FFplay

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Now that we have all of our frames organized, we want to set up FFplay—the method we'll use to view our image manipulations before applying them.

NOTE: Type down all of the commands as you run through this whole tutorial!! In a word document, a text editor, etc. Do NOT just type your commands in the shell without keeping track of what you typed! You can also see an example of how to map out your scripts by following how I wrote them for Github here, and even download/copy paste my fulls script there and use it as a template for your own set.

Template for Creating Our Preliminary Gifs for FFplay

The first thing we need to do is make a preliminary test gif of every shot in our gifset. To do this, use the template below, changing only the parts in red:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffmpeg -start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30" ffplay -vf Test.gif

The first line, beginning with "cd", tells me the file path to my shot folder where my frames are located.

The line below that combines the frames of my shot into a gif called Test.gif.

ffmpeg envokes the FFmpeg utility.

-start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png tells FFmpeg to order the frames in the gif by the 4-digit number at the end of their file name, starting with FileNumberOnFirstFrame, which you should replace with the 4-digit number in the file name of the first frame in your shot folder.

-vf "fps=30" tells FFmpeg I want the gif to move at 30 frames per second (if you screencapped at a rate other than 30 FPS, you can simply change the number to match your frame rate).

In my example:

Say I want to generate a gif of my first shot. Then I need ShotNumber to be 1, and FileNumberOnFirstFrame to be 0018 (that's the 4-digit number on the first frame in my first shot, after deleting the first 17 frames). So my command looks like this:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffmpeg -start_number 0018 -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30" Test.gif

See Step 4 in my script on Github to see the script for all 5 shots.

Playing a gif from FFplay

Now if I want to play the gif I just made in FFplayer. I just type the following:

ffplay -loop 0 Test.gif

A window should pop up and loop through my gif (edit: I have adjusted this tutorial so the FFplay gif loops infinitely, by adding the setting -loop 0).

After repeating the above commands to generate a Test.gif in every shot folder, we're ready to move on to the rest of the steps.

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5. Test Crop

_________________

Now that FFplay is set up, it's time to start manipulating our shots by applying changes to Test.gif in every shot folder. The first thing we want to do is crop.

NOTE 1: Cropping is different from scaling. At the very end of the tutorial, when we export, we will scale our gifs down to 540 px. For now, we want to work in full resolution, which for Supernatural is 1080p.

NOTE 2: Throughout this tutorial, when I add to an existing command, I will bold the new portion, and mark all the parts you can/should change in red.

Cropping Template

To crop a gif in FFplay, we add -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" to our FFplay command as follows:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffplay -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" -loop 0 Test.gif

Where

w is the width you want your cropped frames to be (in pixels)

h is the height you want your cropped frames to be (in pixels)

x and y are coordinates of the top left corner of your crop selection (in pixels)

To understand the x and y coordinates, think about if you wanted to use crop an image in a drawing software. You would generally select your crop tool, start in the top left corner, and drag your cursor down and right (blue dot in the illustration below represents where the crop starts in an example). So FFmpeg asks you to specify the top left corner where your crop starts with an x and y coordinate (in pixels), and uses the w and h variables to determine how large the crop should be.

My frames are all 1920x1080 pixels. I would like my gifset to be square—1080x1080 pixels. So I already know I want my w and h to both be 1080. Since I want to start my crop at the top of a frame, losing no height, my y-coordinate (height to start my crop from) should also 1080. My x-coordinate is the only think I'm not sure about. I only know it needs to be bigger than 0 (0 would start my crop on the left edge) and smaller than 960, which would be the midway point.

So what am I going to do? ...I'm gonna make an educated guess of what x-coordinate would center Dean in a square frame in my FFplayer command, and if I don't like how he's centered, I'll simply move the x-coordinate over a little (decrease to move left, increase to move right).

So in my Example...

In FFmpeg, for my first shot, I'm going to guess x=300.

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffplay -vf "crop=1080:1080:300:1080" -loop 0 Test.gif

The FFplayer window shows me this:

And I feel like the crop starts a little too far to the right. So I'm going to decrease my x-coordinate just a little—to 250. After replacing the 300 with a 250 and running again in FFplay, I feel good about 250, so that's the crop I'll set: -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080".

I need to follow this same process to determine the crop of my other shots (and keep a copy of the commands I used later!). What is useful however, is that 3 of my shots are all on Dean sitting (shots 1, 3, and 5). This means I can apply the same crop I made for shot 1 to shots 3 and 5.

See Step 5 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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6. Test Coloring and Sharpening

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Because the lighting in this scene is pretty good, I did a very simple recoloring on this set. I may update later with a more extensive coloring tutorial with more options later (I'll link the post to this section if I do). Previously, we added a crop to our command: -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080" and now we want to test coloring options and a sharpening effect.

Coloring Template

I'm going to throw in the basics, and give you an updated FFplay template (new parts are bolded, variables you can adjust are in red and set at their default values).

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffplay -vf "crop=w:h:x:y,eq=brightness=0.00:saturation=1.00:contrast=1.00,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" -loop 0 Test.gif

NOTE: Notice that inside the quotes, a comma separates the command options crop, eq, and smartblur. Equals signs and colons distinguish between sub-options belonging to each of those three categories.

EQ:

brightness=0.00. Values can be adjusted anywhere between -1 and 1, with 0 as the default). I would adjust this setting in 0.01 unit increments.

saturation=1.0. Values between 0 and 3 are possible. 1 is the default value. I would adjust this setting in 0.1 unit increments at a time.

contrast=1.00. Increases contrast between light and shadow in the image (values between -1000 and 1000 are possible. I recommend you change this setting in 0.1 unit increments.

There are more color and image adjustment options than these available in FFmpeg. You can see a full list of properties you can adjust from eq here.

Smartblur:

smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0 sharpens the frames. I recommend you not touch this setting. If you do want to adjust it, check the FFmpeg documentation. You can also remove this whole portion (and the associated comma) if you don't want a sharpening adjustment.

NOTE: It is also possible to add a curves adjustment to brighten certain parts of an image instead of the whole image. I haven’t worked with curves enough from the command line to give you good ideas on setting your curve and this set didn’t really need it, but if I get into it more in the future, I'll include it in a supplementary tutorial and link it here.

If you feel like you are losing all sense of objectivity and just want to see the images without your coloring at any point, simply re-run your ffplay from the end of the cropping section.

ffplay -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" Test.gif

In my example (shot 1):

Because all my characters are in the same room with similar lighting, I ended up applying the same color adjustment to all of my shots. But here's all my settings tested together on my first shot in FFplay:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffplay -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080,eq=brightness=0.06:saturation=1.70:contrast=1.10,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" -loop 0 Test.gif

See Step 6 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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7. Apply crop and coloring to frames

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Up until this point, you have not actually applied your crop and color adjustments to your frames. You have simply tested your crop and coloring manipulations on a gif of all your frames that is still, if you go look at it in your file browser, not cropped.

So let's actually apply our adjustments to these frames!

NOTE: Captioning needs to be done after this step because auto centering the text won't work properly without actually cropping first). This is probably all for the better as our command is getting long and difficult to decipher!

Template to ACTUALLY Crop and Color

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber mkdir crop for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "fps=30,crop=w:h:x:y,eq=brightness=0.00:saturation=1.00:contrast=1.00,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" crop/${i%.png}.png; done

The first line (beginning with cd) tells us to go to our shot folder.

mkdir crop tells our computer to make a new subfolder in our shot folder called "crop".

for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i"; and the closing: crop/${i%.png}.png; done tells FFmpeg to do the same crop and color on every .png file in our shot folder, and save these adjusted shots into the crop subfolder.

In my example (shot 1)

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 mkdir crop for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080,eq=brightness=0.06:saturation=1.7:contrast=1.1,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" crop/${i%.png}.png; done

See Step 7 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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8. Captioning

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Now we need to apply captions. You can also do an FFplay command here, but I'm going to show you something a little different with FFplay this time to see your caption. Instead of looking at captions over a whole gif, let's just test how our captions look on the first frame in our shot, since that's really all we need for captioning.

Captioning FFplay Template

Not all sets (and not all shots!) need captions (and if your set doesn't, you can skip down to the next section!) However, two of my shots need captions: Shot 1 and Shot 3. If you want to add captions, you can test them in FFplay on a single shot using this command:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber/crop ffplay -vf "drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=white" input.png

The default font is Arial. There are ways to set other fonts, but I haven't looked into them much because I'm pretty happy with Arial. This basic template with the existing numbers should give you a decent result, but if you want to change font sizing or colors or anything:

drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here' | This is the most important bit. You place your caption in the red part. Note that your text will appear on just one line. If you have a longer statement from a character that will need two lines, you can draw your box twice. (I will add a link here for this alternative when I eventually try it).

x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2) | This part centers the text on the bottom of the screen. I recommend you leave it alone as it’s intended to auto-center your text for you no matter what your crop ratio is. You will need to change the the y=(h-text_h*2) argument only if you have two lines of text to caption your frames with.

fontsize=40 | Changes the font size, of course.

bordercolor=black | changes the border color.

borderw=3 | changes the border weight.

fontcolor=white | This changes the font color.

input.png is the file name of the frame you want to view your caption on.

By the way, when changing text or border colors, you can type in colors coded into the documentation (the default is black) or insert a HEX color code in this field. For example, I always use yellow captions for Dean, so I found a yellow HEX code (#FDDA0D) I liked on htmlcolorcodes.com.

Here's how I FFplay my caption "You missed a spot."

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1/crop ffplay -vf "drawtext=text='You missed a spot.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=#FDDA0D" frame_0018.png

See Step 8 in my script on Github to see both captioned shots.

Template for applying your caption:

If you like the way your caption looks in FFplay, you can apply it to all the frames in your shot folder with:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber/crop mkdir captioned for i in .png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=white" captioned/${i%.png}.png; done

Where

mkdir captioned makes a folder in the crop folder called "captioned"

for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i"; and the closing: crop/${i%.png}.png; done tells FFmpeg to place the same caption over every .png file in our shot folder, and save these adjusted shots into the captioned subfolder.

Here's the settings to apply captions to my first shot.

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1/crop mkdir captioned for i in .png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "drawtext=text='You missed a spot.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=#FDDA0D" captioned/${i%.png}.png; done

See Step 8 in my script on Github to see both captioned shots.

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9. Organize shots into GIF folders

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We're almost done!!! It's time to go back to our file browser! Now that all of our frames in all of our shots are prepared how we want, we need to reorganize our shots into GIF folders. This is our way of group selecting all the frames that go into one gif for export.

In my case, I want three gifs, so I'm going to make three new folders in the FRAMES folder: gif_1, gif_2, and gif_3. My FRAMES folder should now look like this:

Now I want to take my finished shots from my shot folders and copy their frames into the gif folder they are associated with. For example:

Gif 1 just contains the first shot. I also captioned shot 1. So I'm going to copy all the frames in FRAMES/1/crop/captioned into the gif_1 folder.

Gif 2 contains shots 2 and 3. Shot 2 has captions, so I need to take all the frames from FRAMES/2/crop/captioned and all the frames in FRAMES/3/crop and copy them in the gif_2 folder.

Gif 3 contains shots 4 and 5. I'm going to copy the contents of the crop folders for shots 4 and 5 into this folder (no captions on this gif).

___________________________________________

10. Compiling into GIF

___________________________________________

To combine all the frames from one gif folder into a gif, I'm going to use this template script:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifFolder ffmpeg -y -start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30,scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos" ~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifName.gif

This is very similar to the script in step 4. This template opens one of our new gif folders, and takes all the frames, starting with the first frame in the folder (recall: you need to tell FFmpeg the 4-digit number on that first frame with FileNumberOnFirstFrame) and then turns it into a gif running at 30 FPS, scaled down to 540 by 540 pixels.

The parts we can/should adjust are as follows:

GifFolder is the name of our gif folder where our frames for our gif are located.

scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos is the command to scale down our gif (using what's called the lanczos method) to 540 x 540 pixels so it'll be small enough to upload to Tumblr.

fps=30 tells FFmpeg the proper FPS for our set (if you made your frames using this tutorial, 30 FPS is correct. If you took screencaps manually, it will be the frame rate of whatever you giffed. For TV, this might be 23 FPS for example).

~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifName.gif names our gif (specify with GifName) and outputs it to the FRAMES main folder.

Here's the command for Gif 1 in my set:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/gif_1 ffmpeg -y -start_number 0018 -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30,scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos" ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1.gif

See Step 10 in my script on Github to the script on all three gifs.

THE END!!!!

Do this step on all your gif folders and you're done!!!

You can view my full script for this example gifset on Github here and if you'd like, simply modify that script to make your own gifset!

[c-40]

A-T-4 042 Art Of Versions

The Art of Noise follow the Into Battle EP with Beat Box. As you've probably guessed from previous ZTT and AON posts releasing many different edits and versions was their m.o. The image (I got at least) was the technology (most noticeably the Fairlight) and time in the studio gave you the ability to churn out endless variations (AON released at least 11 'diversions' of Beat Box). It was great advertising for Trevor Horn as he and his partner owned one of the most sophisticated recording studios on the planet at the time. It's easy to see similarities with Jamaican producers and studios that in the previous decade created dubs and versions, although the closest AON got to producing a riddim would be Moments In Love which has been covered, remixed, and sampled a lot a lot. We have had pop music factory production lines before and I suppose this is where Trevor Horn crosses over with his contemporary Pete Waterman, according to Phil Harding "Waterman watched Trevor Horn so closely that he would strike a deal with equipment suppliers to furnish him with whatever state-of-the-art gadgetry Horn had." Before his hit factory had been established Waterman produced a Relax sound alike track, complete with a look alike sleeve, in 1984 called The Upstroke by Agents Aren't Aeroplanes. Nowadays trap music can be made quickly for very little money and production is more automated and streamlined than it ever has been

Beat Box was the first track AON worked on and it came from JJ Jeczalik messing around with recordings of Yes drummer, Alan White's drums with a Linn drum machine, a Fairlight CMI Series II and Page R (music sequencing software) while Horn was working on the Yes album 90125 (the similarities between the Red + Blue Mix of Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Beat Box are unmistakable). "So JJ was screwing around in the back room and I remember him playing me that 'Beat Box' drum loop and I said 'Jees, that's fantastic, they'll love that in New York.'"

...And they did, Beat Box did very well on the Billboard dance and black music charts in America, reaching number 1 and 10 respectively. Writer Simon Reynold's has written Beat Box was popular with breakdancers in the US, I believe it's still popular with poppin and lockin dads (and granddads)

In June 1984 AON released their debut album Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? the title a pun on the 1962 play and later film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which is itself a pun on the song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? from the 1933 Walt Disney cartoon The Three Little Pigs... would we call this a meme?

On the album is Close (To The Edit) which would be released as a single in October 1984. There were five different 12" versions of Close (To The Edit) released, including a picture disk. As far as I can tell AON put out six different versions of the track at the time, including the LP version (that's if I ignore the cassette single). To make matters more confusing Close (To The Edit) evolved out of the afore mentioned Beat Box. Beat Box Diversion Two is a version of Close (To The Edit) and vice versa, as are Diversion Seven and Diversion Eight. Close (To The Edit) was named after the Yes album Close To The Edge and they had fun with the names of the various versions of Close (To The Edit) that they put out, Close-Up, Closer, Closest, Closely Closely (Enough's Enough), Closed

Close (To The Edit) features Anne Dudley playing a very familiar sounding walking bass on piano, if we ignore the car ignition sounds they also use a sample of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by The Andrews Sisters. I wondering if this comes from the Duck Rock sessions the then unnamed AON did with Malcom McLaren? I'm thinking Buffalo Gals is taken from a song reference in It's A Wonderful Life, that film was made in 1946 when boogie woogie was the sound. It's either that or they love boogie woogie and swing. AON do love film genre recordings Peter Gunn, Dragnet, James Bond, Robinson Crusoe...

There's another diversion on the Close (To The Edit) singles, a track called A Time To Hear (Who's Listening). Of course there's a few versions, Who's Listening goes into Beat Box and then Close (To The Edit), as does the version called A Time To Clear (It Up) ("all together now") - there's very little difference between these tracks, then there's A Time To Hear (We're Listening) which is the first minute and a half of A Time To Hear (Who's Listening) - the variations of names is more fun the tracks themselves when there's very little to tell them apart... unless the lesson is to accept being resold more of the same stuff in a slightly different package and disappointment

Oh and all these records have come out and Marley Marl still hasn't sampled a drum beat

Art Of Noise - Beat Box Live on the Tube in 1984

Art Of Noise - A Time To Hear (We're Listening)

Art Of Noise - Closely Closely, Enough's Enough

12 versions of Beat Box personally I can see more appearing in time, that's what RSD is for

[jennifermurphseo]

SEO Best Practices for a Smooth Transition from WordPress to HubSpot

In the world of website management, transitioning from WordPress to HubSpot is a strategic move. This article delves into the best practices for a seamless transition while safeguarding your SEO rankings.

Introduction

Understanding the Importance of a Smooth Transition

Moving your website to HubSpot offers various advantages, such as improved marketing automation and lead nurturing capabilities. However, ensuring a seamless transition is crucial to preserve your site's search engine rankings, organic traffic, and user experience.

The Role of SEO in the Migration Process

For your move to be successful, SEO is essential. It entails a sequence of calculated actions, such as evaluating your present WordPress website, setting up your HubSpot environment, and putting SEO best practices into action.

Assessing Your Current WordPress Site

Conducting a Thorough Website Audit

Begin by conducting a comprehensive audit of your WordPress website. Identify key SEO strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed during the migration.

Identifying SEO Strengths and Weaknesses

Determine which aspects of your current SEO strategy are working well and what areas require improvement. This information will guide your SEO strategy in HubSpot.

Preparing Your HubSpot Environment

Setting up Your HubSpot Account

Create and set up your HubSpot account first. Make sure the features and plan you select meet your marketing and SEO objectives.

Configuring SEO Settings in HubSpot

Setting Up SEO Tools and Preferences in HubSpot HubSpot provides a number of SEO tools and options. Learn how to use these choices and set them up to maximize your SEO efforts.

Content Migration Strategy

Creating a Content Migration Plan

Develop a comprehensive plan for migrating your content from WordPress to HubSpot. This plan should include content mapping and categorization.

Best Practices for Content Transfer

Ensure that your content migration process maintains the integrity of your existing content and metadata. This will help preserve your SEO rankings.

Mobile Optimization and Page Speed

Ensuring Mobile-Friendliness

Make sure your HubSpot website is mobile-friendly to comply with Google's mobile-first indexing mandate.

Optimizing Page Speed for SEO Benefits

In addition to enhancing user experience, a quicker website helps you rank higher in search results. Put speed optimization strategies into practice.

301 Redirects and Link Management

Implementing 301 Redirects Effectively

Make sure search engines and users are redirected to the appropriate pages on your newly launched website by correctly implementing 301 redirects.

Managing Internal and External Links

To make sure the links are relevant and operational in your new HubSpot environment, review and update both internal and external links.

SEO-Friendly URL Structure

Crafting SEO-Friendly URLs in HubSpot

In HubSpot, create clear and informative URLs. Adapt any modifications to the URL structure and configure appropriate redirects.

Handling URL Redirects and Structure Changes

When altering URL architecture, use redirects to prevent broken links and preserve SEO authority.

Image and Multimedia SEO

Image Optimization in HubSpot

Optimize images for SEO by compressing them, using descriptive alt tags, and reducing file sizes.

SEO for Multimedia Content

Ensure multimedia content is appropriately labeled and optimized for search engines.

Ensuring a Smooth User Experience

User-Friendly Navigation and Design

Design your HubSpot website with user-friendly navigation and layout to enhance the overall user experience.

Content Organization and Site Structure

Organize your content logically to help users find information easily. A well-structured site benefits SEO.

Conclusion

In conclusion, transitioning from WordPress to HubSpot can bring significant benefits to your digital marketing efforts. By following these SEO best practices, you can ensure a smooth migration process while preserving your website's search engine rankings and user experience.

[miclient]

The Fusion of Excellence: MiCLIENT and IndiaMART/Tradeindia Integration

Indiamart and Tradeindia are two of the largest B2B marketplaces in India. They offer a vast network of potential customers to businesses of all sizes. However, with so many businesses competing for attention, it can be difficult to stand out and attract the right leads.

Sales automation platforms can help businesses to streamline their sales processes and improve their chances of closing deals.

Let's explore how this integration can help manage and boost your sales efforts.

Expanded Lead Pool and Effortless Management

 The integration facilitates the seamless transfer of leads from IndiaMART and Tradeindia directly into MiCLIENT. This automation ensures that no opportunity goes unnoticed.

The result? A more extensive database of potential leads at your fingertips, meticulously organized and ready for action.

Streamlined Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is an art. MiCLIENT, empowered by the integration, excels in this area. With its capabilities for automated follow-ups, you can nurture leads without the manual hassle.

As leads from IndiaMART and Tradeindia are assimilated, MiCLIENT can initiate personalized follow-up sequences, ensuring consistent engagement and nurturing.

Tailored Engagement and Personalization

MiCLIENT's integration with IndiaMART and Tradeindia enables data-driven personalization. As leads interact with your content, MiCLIENT can capture these interactions. Subsequently, your sales team can tailor their engagement based on these insights, creating meaningful connections that resonate with potential clients.

Efficient Quote Generation

Generating quotes is a critical phase in the sales process. MiCLIENT's robust capabilities shine here.

With data from IndiaMART and Tradeindia, MiCLIENT can automatically populate quotes, streamlining the process and minimizing errors.

Data-Backed Decision Making

Informed decisions drive growth. The integrated setup offers enhanced analytics, allowing you to track and analyze critical metrics.

Gain insights into lead engagement, quote acceptance rates, and conversion patterns. These insights are invaluable for refining your sales strategies.

Centralized Communication Hub

MiCLIENT serves as the central hub for communication and collaboration. By integrating it with IndiaMART and Tradeindia, you consolidate all lead information and interactions in one platform. This simplifies communication and fosters efficient teamwork.

Elevating Efficiency and Impact

Automation amplifies efficiency. With manual tasks minimized, your sales team can invest more time in high-impact activities like relationship-building and strategic planning.

In conclusion, the integration of MiCLIENT with IndiaMART and Tradeindia stands as a transformative force in enhancing sales performance. Seamlessly managing leads, nurturing relationships, and generating quotes become not just tasks but streamlined processes.

[adventures-in-marketing]

Discover the Untapped Potential of Facebook Messenger Marketing

Whatever you want to sell online, whether you’re an affiliate marketer, whether you sell t-shirts, whether you sell software, whether you sell coaching and courses, Facebook Messenger Marketing is the incredibly powerful tool you have been looking for to turn social media browsers into buyers.

Do I Need a Website?

So I have been asked this question a few times over the last week or so, from people looking to start generating some revenue online, people looking to get started in affiliate marketing- can they get started, can they make money online without building a website? And the answer to that is yes, they can if they utilise the power of Facebook Messenger Marketing. And so I thought I would share with you what that might look like.

So chatbot marketing and Facebook Messenger marketing in particular have so many benefits. From automating your messaging sequences to the incredible power of responding to your audiences comments with private replies, these tools will empower you to interact with your friends and followers like never before. And, most importantly perhaps, sell more stuff! So, whether you’re a seasoned online marketer or just starting out promoting your first affiliate product, let’s jump in.

The Rise of Facebook Messenger Marketing

It was not so long ago that Facebook Messenger was just a casual chatting platform, a place to catch up with friends and family. But that casual chatting format is exactly why it lends itself to the kind of sales and marketing I’m gonna talk to you about, allowing you to build a much more personal relationship with your active users. And, even if you are continuing to use it as a place to chat with your friends, I am here to tell you that underneath Facebook Messenger has blossomed into an incredibly potent marketing tool.

So why is Messenger Marketing on the rise? Well, for starters, it offers a direct line of communication to your target audience! This unparalleled reach and (and this is what sets Facebook Messenger so far apart from other marketing channels) it’s interactivity empowers brands and entrepreneurs to connect with their customers on a personal level, delivering excellent customer service, building meaningful relationships and fostering incredible brand loyalty.

It also opens up the possibility of running click to Messenger Ads as part of our Facebook Ads strategy, taking ad respondents directly into the chat platform. This is an incredibly cost effective form of advertising on Facebook and Instagram that achieves an excellent response rate while keeping your marketing costs low.

How Can This Help My Business?

What does all of that mean to us as business owners trying to use digital marketing to build online businesses? It means Facebook messenger automations allow us to address all 3 of the ways we can build our business.

Any business whether online or in the real world only has 3 ways to grow. It can find new customers. It can sell more of what it already sold to it’s existing customers. It can sell something new to it’s existing customers. That’s it.

Facebook Messenger Marketing allows us to hit all 3 of those targets.

3 Ways to Grow Any Business

We serve number 1 with our content marketing, our social posts, whether they are organic posts or paid, that inspire our target audience to take action (i.e. leave us a comment on the post). This triggers a private reply inside Facebook Messenger leading to a sequence of messages that collects an email address and then funnels that potential customer through to a sale.

We serve number 2 by being able to upsell right there inside the messaging app. We guided them through to buy a t-shirt, our marketing strategy should then be to hit them with that 3 for 2 offer right before they checkout, right inside that sequence. Our average transaction value (the average amount we make from each customer) is now rising and our business is growing.

We serve number 3 by being able to follow up with our (now) messenger subscribers. The lifetime value of our customer increases as we make more offers over time. Maybe they want a hoodie to go with that t-shirt? Or, if they bought a messenger automation software from us to build their Messenger ChatBot, they’re going to need an email service provider too- I just happen to be an affiliate for such a service. The lifetime value of each customer is rising and so our business is growing too.

The Interactivity of Messenger Marketing

The interactivity of messenger allows us to gather more information about our potential customers as we go. We can ask questions in our sequences and save the answers, creating audience segments that give us the opportunity to tailor future messages based on the answers they give. This can inform our email marketing strategy too,

We can collect email addresses right inside the messenger chat- people can sign up to join our email list and receive our promotional messages without even leaving messenger. We can further augment our chat marketing with SMS marketing- collecting phone numbers inside the messenger platform and adding them to our SMS list. Now we have multiple ways to communicate with our prospective customers and multiple opportunities to sell to them.

Private Replies Mean More Reach

The private reply feature not only means we can engage with prospective buyers more easily and on autopilot, it also means we reach more people more easily. Without this function enabled your marketing campaigns involve sharing links and trying guide people away from the platform. Facebook actively fights against this (the algorithm will deprioritise these posts, i.e. show them to less people). They want to keep their audience on their platform as long as possible so they can show them more ads and make more money. Makes sense.

But with a Private Reply enabled we can send the link via the messaging platform. Now our CTA becomes “…leave a comment…” which Facebook recognises as engagement, the algorithm sees value in the post, it promotes it further and you reach more people, more people comment… and so it goes round. As a messenger marketing strategy, that is pretty cool, no?

All of this can be achieved through Instagram DMs too. Indeed my software tool, Sales Rails , enables you to automate these types of sequences in both these social media platforms, both Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs.

So, That Website…?

So, that question I keep getting asked- can I generate revenue online without a website? Hopefully you have seen today how the whole thing can work inside Facebook Messenger. No need for a website. No images and links and SEO to manage. Just strong, succinct customer communication fostering strong customer relationships inside a casual chat format.

Conclusion

Facebook Messenger marketing should be in every digital marketer’s tool kit. You get more reach. That enables you to get more new customers and therefore an increase in sales. You build more brand loyalty. That enables you to achieve more upsells, raising your average transaction value. You learn more about your audience so you can send them more tailored offers in the future, increasing the lifetime value of every customer you sell to. There are only 3 ways to grow your online sales and Facebook Messenger marketing allows you to deliver all 3. And you can do it all without a website.

If you want to know more about Facebook messenger marketing, you can check out this post on my website:

[finrays]

28) Shock...

Remember when I said you’d find out what Modem did again?

Yeah...

Silvally learns Roar in Gen VII, so Patchie gets it here. Ordinarily, her Gentle Nature makes her a good match for Modem’s Timid Nature.

Not today, though.

-

It’s a risky endeavor, traveling this close to the Swarm; there’s no way to take anything automated in without risking the voracious machines detecting and hacking into it, turning tools into trouble.

But the necessary components and data files are sealed behind a genetic lock, on the other side of the world. One that will only answer to her touch. So, despite the misgivings of… well… pretty much everyone involved in the operation, really, she’d chosen the risky path.

So far, it has paid off; with both of her partner Pokemon by her side, equipped with protective gear, alert, and ready for danger, they’ve managed to avoid any mishaps so far. Patch’s multitude of typed abilities has gotten them through most of the obstacles and dangers lurking on the ghostly campus, and Modem has made slipping past security measures and password-protected doors into the lab she’d been lent in the partner facility an ultimately easy task.

Stowing the last of the components in her pack and checking to make sure they’re securely fastened, Elisabet rocks back on her heels, letting out her breath in slow, calming measures.

I guess I can consider myself in violation of this contract. Sorry, guys. But… it’s worth it. We’ll be able to finish up GAIA in a third of the time with these onboard.

Swinging the pack onto her back and rising to her feet, she checks the fit of her mask, changing out the smoke filters and wiping the lenses clean, before turning to her team.

“Alright, you two. Let’s get out of here. Patch, take point.”

To her surprise, the chimeric Pokemon doesn’t answer. It’s… highly unusual for her disciplined partner, given their bond of trust, and, blinking, she turns, searching out the soft glow of her partner’s head fin and tail in the dark.

“Patch?”

Three feet away, Patch is bristling, her silver fur standing on end. A low growl rumbles in her throat. The sound raises the hairs on the back of Elisabet’s neck.

“Patch?”

Elisabet follows her gaze to Modem, hovering near the far wall. He’s hanging… strangely inert; the constant movements of his glitchy form have ceased, leaving him eerily still.

Cautiously, she takes a step toward him, raising a hand.

“...Modem?”

At the sound of her voice, the little Porygon whips around, and she sucks in a sharp breath.

His eyes have gone a vicious, baleful red, and trailing, crimson tendrils stream from his shoulders and head like a tattered cloak.

Even as she struggles to process it, a crackling Electric-type attack forms in front of Modem’s beak, and he launches it straight in her direction. Her rubberized arm shield absorbs most of the blow as it’s meant to do, lightning arcing off the built-in hard light elements and hissing against the metal walls. The heat of it still scorches the flesh beneath, and she lets out a cry of pain and alarm.

Patch’s growl erupts into a full-blown roar, and she lunges toward her former companion, swinging her mismatched front claws viciously, and catching him squarely across the body. The blow sends him crashing back into the bank of monitors, the screens shattering with the force of the impact. Landing like a cat at bay, Patch retreats, taking up a guard stance at Elisabet’s feet.

The snap movement serves to shake her out of her trance; fishing Modem’s Pokeball from the bag strapped to her thigh, she holds it up, thumbing the button twice for a recall.

“Come back!”

Nothing happens.

Fear of a different sort begins to blossom in Elisabet’s gut, and she thumbs the button again. The recall sequence initiates, the red line of energy targeting Modem’s distorted shape…

…and bouncing right off.

The Pokeball no longer has any power over him.

Golden light begins to build at the tip of her possessed Pokemon’s beak. The pressure in the room seems to increase, their surroundings to dim, and Patch lets out an undignified squawk, claws scrabbling at the floor.

THIS move, she recognizes… but doesn’t remember having seen from her timid little partner in the past.

That’s… Hyper Beam-! When did he learn THAT!?!?!?

Modem lets loose, and the room fills with blinding light. Something slams into her, sending her sprawling across the ground as the hot gush of energy rushes by overhead. Pressing her back to the floor, Elisabet squeezes her eyes shut against the vicious glow.

She opens them to devastation.

A hole has been blown through the far wall, revealing the hallway beyond, and the Silvally is crouched on top of her, blood running through the fur on the side of her head, standing out starkly against the silvery tones of her body. The crest at the top of her head now sports a ragged tear through the majority of the feathery back end, the cartilage, flesh and bone ripped apart by the supercharged attack.

Automatically, Elisabet’s hand wavers toward the injury, but Patch pulls away, curling her iron lip.

“L-legends above!“

Hanging in the air, recharging after the heavy blow, Modem stares in their direction with a blank look that seems almost sinister in its emptiness.

Cold realization sets in, and with it, pain. Pain far worse than the throbbing of her burned arm.

I can’t save him, now. He’s…

He’s gone. We need to leave.

Sitting up, and reaching for the second Pokeball strapped to her pack, she clicks the button, aiming it in Patch’s direction.

“P-Patch, come back-“

To her horror, the second recall fails to initialize, as well. The chimeric Pokemon whirls on her, eyes blazing, a wild snarl on her face beneath her oxygen mask.

The sight of it freezes the blood in Elisabet’s veins; she hasn’t seen Patch looking this... feral since their first meeting in the basement of the Faro Building, all those years ago.

Backing away from her trainer and spinning to take a step in Modem’s direction, Patch lets out a fierce roar. Blood spatters out from her broken crest, leaving a crimson trail across the floor.

Again and again, she thumbs the button, feeling her stomach drop even further with each try. And again and again, Patch resists, refusing to be recalled. Refusing to leave the fight behind.

“Come back! We have to leave, you can’t-!!!”

With a hissing crackle, Modem reemerges from the rubble, his crimson cloak fluttering madly behind him. The tip of his beak wavers with psychic energy, ready to be loosed.

Patch roars again, head whipping back to face her trainer as her eyes flash, and this time, something in the scared-primal-creature-depths of Elisabet’s being responds against her will.

Whirling on her heel, she flees, leaving both of her companions behind, locked in their duel to the death.

—

Later, when she shock has worn off, and she’s exhausted all the tears she has left to cry, she’ll wonder if there’s anything that she could have done to prevent this.

In the end, there isn’t time to ponder. To mourn. Other people have lost just as much. Will lose just as much. And more.

She can��t let it all have been for nothing.

With a heavy heart and a grip made clumsy by bandages and ointment, Elisabet sets both Pokeballs in a place of honor on the side of the desk, and buries herself in her work again.

[usafphantom2]

The Instant Flares Are Released From An F/A-18 Hornet Seen In Incredible Photo

We see flare release images regularly, but we have never seen a photo showing the instant countermeasures pop out of their dispenser before.

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Jun 17, 2023 5:19 PM EDT

Hornet decoy flares

@stella991214

Defensive countermeasures, in the form of radar relfecting chaff and infrared decoy flares, are among the best-known tools available to aircrews to help protect them and their aircraft from missile threats. Spectacular imagery of aircraft deploying multiple glowing infrared flares are a well-worn motif in military aviation, too. But it’s much rarer to see, in close detail, the moment in which these countermeasures are actually ejected from the aircraft they are charged with protecting, before they turn into a ball of heat. That’s what makes this photo, from Twitter user @stella991214, showing an F/A-18D Hornet loosing off a pair of countermeasures cartridges, especially noteworthy.

The aircraft in question is a two-seat F/A-18D multirole fighter from the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), although the exact time and place the photo was taken have not been disclosed. Most importantly, however, two cylindrical cartridges are seen moments after being launched from a dispenser below the fuselage, accompanied by the flash from their pyrotechnic charges. Flares often are made of a magnesium compound that makes them burn extremely hot.

An unedited view of the RMAF F/A-18D ejecting a pair of countermeasures cartridges from the ‘twin bucket’ dispensers below the left engine air intake. @stella991214

This F/A-18D is equipped with the ‘twin bucket’ countermeasures dispensers that are part of the AN/ALE-47 system. Fitted on a wide variety of platforms, the AN/ALE-47 is described as a ‘smart’ countermeasures dispenser system (CMDS) offering a higher level of automation than earlier systems.

The AN/ALE-47 allows the aircrew to select any of three release modes, as follows:

Fully automatic: The dispenser system receives threat data from the radar warning receiver on the aircraft and then selects the appropriate response to the threat, including the type of countermeasures, the dispersal sequence and pattern, and when to dispense the selected decoys.

Semi-automatic: The dispenser system analyzes the threat data input, selects the best response, and then provides a signal to the aircrew that the system is ready. The aircrew then initiates the release.

Manual operation: The aircrew selects one of the six pre-programmed responses, in terms of quantities, sequences, and types of expendables to be employed in order to produce the required decoy pattern to defeat the threat.

If aircraft have missile approach warning systems that use optical/infrared sensors to pick up the missile launch and approach, this info can be fed into the AN/ALE-47, as well. The Hornet does not have this capability.

A sailor services an AN/ALE-47 countermeasures dispenser on a P-3 Orion. (USN)

Dispensers like these carry different types of decoys simultaneously, with certain common fits allowing you to out chaff and flares in the same buckets. Typically, the cartridges themselves are identified using a ‘118’ or ‘218’ designator — referring to the dimensions in inches. For example, 118 radio-frequency countermeasures (RFCM, chaff) or infrared countermeasures (IRCM, flares) should both fit in the same 118-type bucket.

In the AN/ALE-47 dispenser can now also be loaded with expendable jammers, which have their own active radio-frequency emitter.

The War Zone asked Paul Tremelling, a former U.K. Royal Navy Sea Harrier and Harrier GR9 pilot, as well as a one-time U.S. Navy exchange pilot on the F/A-18E Super Hornet, for his opinion on what IRCM cartridges, designed to spoof hostile heat-seeking missiles by providing a more enticing target, or at least a target that’s representative of the heat source on the targeted aircraft, are being launched here.

A Finnish Air Force F/A-18C Hornet launches IRCM during a an airshow demonstration:

“IRCM comes in various forms depending on your budget and the threat,” Tremelling explained. “For example, a very simple threat can be beaten by a heat source. An advanced threat will need to be beaten by a countermeasure that matches the host aircraft’s thermal signature. It might also need to perform aerodynamically too in order not to simply fall away — as that would not be sufficient to seduce the threat.”

There are also two main ways in which countermeasures — whether IRCM or radar-defeating chaff cartridges — can be used: Preemptively and reactively. In the preemptive mode, the objective is to keep the threat weapons on the missile rail or in the launch tube. Reactively, the aim is to try and ‘seduce’ a hostile weapon while it’s in flight.

As with most elements of air combat, countermeasures are part of a fast-developing game of cat and mouse between attacker and defender. Developments in IRCM, for example, are bound to be followed by corresponding changes to infrared-guided missiles (and especially their seeker heads) to make them less susceptible to these decoys.

“You may technically be reacting to the electromagnetic spectrum, but preempting a shot,” Tremelling observes. “It all boils down to some very clever people giving high-quality advice. This allows you to best match your radio frequency [chaff] and IRCM to the threat. So, theoretically, you’ll go across the beach with chaff and flares, programmed to deploy at the correct interval in the correct amount to keep you alive.”

As to how regularly fighter pilots fly with defensive countermeasures loaded in their jets, Tremelling confirmed that in all three types that he flew operationally “we had flare buckets… and we flew with countermeasures whenever we could.”

“There were areas where chaff use was prohibited, for example, due to local air traffic radars — or where flare use wasn’t allowed for example low-level over dry grass.”

So there we have it: a fighter pilot’s perspective of how defensive countermeasures are used, together with one of the most remarkable photos we have seen showing exactly how these decoys are deployed. And while those little cartridges might not look like much, they can be enough to ensure the aircraft, and its crew, live to fight another day.