#btw by anniversary I mean 1 year of this account

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

I can’t believe you guys got me fired just before my 1 year anniversary </3 (joke)

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

Midnights is defined by duality: The story of an unreliable narrator and performance art (Part 1)

One year on, I think I've finally figured out what midnights is about. And it might surprise you.

The midnights album has just celebrated its first anniversary. And having listened to these songs for the last 12 months, staying up late to watch live streams of the Eras tour, and at times being unable to escape news about Taylor on every medium, I finally have an idea that makes all of this make sense: This is Taylor's duality era. And she wants us to notice. Join me on the ride if you want to know more :)

I made a post a few weeks ago about how the Midnights aesthetic has the ‘two Taylors’ duology: Private vs public, which is the lead theme that carries over into the music and most recently also into her public image. Midnights had a mismatched visual to it from the very beginning with the depressed 70s look (announcement photo and vinyl covers) and the glamourous midnight blue (cover image and public appearances).

The two Taylors in the Anti Hero mv really drove home the message for me that this album is about two versions of the same story, and Taylor is the writer and narrator. And while I'm sure that these two versions have existed for a lot longer than the midnights era, they have not previously been so prominently next to each other. In fact, the very point of having the public narrative, is to keep Taylor's private life out of the public eye. She has never shied away from providing the 'stories' that her fans want to see in order to relate to her music, and as the girl that made her fame with songs about heartbreak and fairytale princes, that usually meant being seen with a man that these songs could be attributed to. And she made sure people would make the connection, be it with scarves that change ownership, or foxes on shirts:

(Btw you can't deny how effective this was, with just a few photos she managed to hang an entire album on each of these men!)

So, acting is not new to Taylor. In addition to appearing in a few feature films and TV shows since 2010, she's done this public performance for well over a decade now. And she has been vocal in recent years about her intention to go into filmmaking, so we know she's able to tell stories in multiple ways. She's a storyteller first and foremost, maybe the best of our generation. But is she a reliable narrator?

What does 'unreliable narrator' mean?

A story told by a so-called unreliable narrator, is usually a first person narration, where it turns out that the person telling the story was either lying or in some other way unable to give a truthful account of events (e.g. hallucinating or dreaming). That usually means that the audience is left with having to interpret for themselves what really happened and what was real or not real. Famous examples of this kind of storytelling are the 2010 psycho thriller 'Black Swan' with Natalie Portman, or the YA novel 'We were liars' by E. Lockhart. If you like stories that leave you guessing, check those out ;)

So, why is Taylor an unreliable narrator? For those fans that have paid attention to her lyrics, it has long been evident that her songwriting and public narrative don't match up. The most obvious theme being her 17-year run of writing songs about secret relationships and hiding, while she was parading men around in public to be photographed with. But, as we know, most people ignore it because it's just easier than digging deeper into lyrics. But now with Midnights, I'm starting to think she wants people to notice the duality and start to question her narrative. The sheer number of songs on that album that have strong double meaning or draw attention to lying or distorting the truth is astonishing: Right out the gate with track 1 we have Lavender Haze, a pretty loud song about bearding using the very well established queer reference of lavender. (And maybe she leaned out of the window a little too far with that title, because we all know the gaylor uproar was so loud when the title was revealed, that she had to backpedal and hetsplain it.) Immediately followed by Maroon, the song that has probably singlehandedly turned the most swifties into gaylors since Bettygate of 2020... Then on to Anti Hero, the ultimate duality song that also makes mention of lying and scheming, same as Mastermind. High Infidelity and You're Losing Me join the ranks of songs that look like they are about romantic relationships on the surface, but could also be interpreted to be about Taylor's relationship with fame and her fans. High Infidelity is a play on words of the term High Fidelity or HIFI, which is a 90s sound technology that refers to truthful reproduction of sound. High INfidelity is therefore a genius way of referring to both cheating and unfaithful reproduction of sound, almost like someone who makes music that isn't quite truthful... We also know from Aaron Dessner that this song was written following the 2021 Grammys and in the light of the whole William Bowery grammygate situation... I think there is point to be made about this song drawing attention to lying in a big way.

The timing of the release of You're losing me right around the time that her breakup with Joe made the news also feeds the narrative of a breakup song. But in this very 'breakup song' she says You say, "I don't understand," and I say, "I know you don't" and talks about sending signals that fall on deaf ears. Doesn't that sound an awful lot like 'I gave so many signs'? What does she know the addressee won't understand? Is it that when she finally reveals all her lies 90% of her fans will be shocked to their very core? On the exclusive CD version that has this track on it, it also immediately follows Dear Reader which on the track list looks like this:

Dear Reader You're Losing me (Does that look like a message? I think it does...)

By the time we make it to Dear Reader, she's basically told us 'I'm a liar who hides behind fake lavender relationships who charms everyone like a sleezy congressman, I'm the narcissistic Anti Hero you can't trust who schemes like a criminal and plans out everything like the puppet master I am, just so you like me and therefore you shouldn't look up to me, but I know you still will.' If that doesn't scream 'I want you to question everything I say or do' I don't know what does. Which brings us to performance art.

What is performance art?

Performance art is any kind of visual art that involves a dramatic performance aspect. To explain how this relates to Taylor and who she may have taken inspiration from, I refer to the brilliant Kristina Parro on TikTok:

Ok, groundwork is laid, but this is getting too long. Part 2 will be relating this to upcoming music releases and media coverage but that will have to wait til tomorrow.

As always, thanks for humouring me guys!

[kaxtwenty]

Star Wars Rebels is one of my favorite shows. I can still remember back when it was just a planned project I'd occasionally hear about either online or in a commercial on Disney XD. I found it a bit funny at the time, because I remembered wondering what they were gonna name the next show after The Clone Wars--because obviously there was gonna be a show after The Clone Wars--and lo and behold I got my answer; Star Wars Rebels (way better than Star Wars Galactic Civil War). I caught the trailers, interviews and the character profile videos online and even managed to catch the shorts during the months leading up to the premiere. Little eleven year old me was optimistic that somehow this show would help fill the Clone Wars shaped hole in my heart.

And boy did it. I remember watching the premiere sitting on the floor, loving every second of it. I especially felt connected to Ezra, who, at that point, was the Star Wars protagonist that I was the closest to in age. Next thing I knew, three and a half years had gone by and the Rebels finale ended up being one of the most emotionally distressing episodes of television that I had ever viewed. At first I didn't like the epilogue funnily enough, but soon came to realize that it was perfect.

This show means a lot to me. It was never the most popular in the fandom, honestly it felt like a good chunk of TCW fans just wish it didn't exist, still bitter about Clone War's cancellation and blaming Rebels for it. The show was chided as childish and silly (this is a Star Wars show we're talking about btw), the animation was cheaper than the later few seasons of Clone Wars, the lower rating meant that it couldn't get away with the same level of violence as Clone Wars and the only things about it that were universally praised were the elements and characters that related to Clone Wars. It felt like Rebels, like many of its own characters, just couldn't escape the shadow of The Clone Wars. But those of us who watched and kept up with it, grew to love its characters, its art, its music and its story--we knew that Rebels was special in its own way. I honestly believe now that Rebels surpasses The Clone Wars in many regards and it's been exceedingly vindicating to see Rebels increase in popularity and become well-respected by the community at large.

Rebels still one of the only pieces of media to really make me engage with fandom at a deeper level, for better or worse. I definitely wouldn't have made this tumblr account last year if it weren't for me rewatching the show with my family and getting back into the swing of things. And I probably wouldn't have found the courage to try and get into art earlier this year if it weren't for that either. So...I owe this show a lot and I got more to say but...I don't think I'll ever find the words that could properly convey what this show means to me.

Happy 10th anniversary Star Wars Rebels, I'm thankful for the decade we've had together. I wish I had more to show my appreciation, but for now I suppose this study/redraw of some concept art I did for art class will do.

Shoutouts to Rebels Recon, y'all were an indelible part of the experience that more of the newer fans need to check out.

Star Wars Rebels Appreciation Week: Day #1 - Favorite Character

Ezra Bridger

[thatsmutaccount]

Wake up, babe, the 1 year ThatSmutAccount/"Rex new life" anniversary special just dropped, and you don't want to miss it!

*****

Exactly, this is the surprise. It's been 1 year since I first published the first chapter of "Rex new life" on my ao3 account, and I want to celebrate with you all this goal!

Is it cringe? Guess what? I don't care! I think is important to be happy about this little stuff, and its also a way for me to thank you all, either be because you where with me on this journey since the beginning or you just casually discovered this silly, horny ideas let me tell you that you are valid and that I love you all. Thank you very much, you are all great and I do mean it.

Anyway, enough sappy stuff, let me bring out the numbers, so I can show you how much I was able to do because of you guys and because of your support

I was able to publish 38 single chapters in a year (47 totals, but 9 of them where either stuff like the Warnings chapters at the beginning of all my longs or the Timeline/Characters Bios, so I don't really take them into account), which means a chapter every 9 day more or less (this year was a leap year, so I counted 366 days, btw);

"Rex new life" was able to get, at the moment I published this chapter 115.444 views total, which means an average of 315 views per day;

"Rex new life" averages more than 1000 hits in less than 24 hours when I publish it, and this is crazy, you guys are proper nuts;

The total of kudos of all my fics combined is 579 (410 only on "Rex new life"), take away at least 50 or something because of the people who lived kudos on multiple of mu fics, and it's still a pretty high number.

Anyway I was able to do so much thanks to all of you and I couldn't be more grateful, thank you so much, you are all awesome.

Now gor read the new chapter, shoo.

*****

WARNINGS: Blowjob; Deepthroating; Anal Sex; Body Worship; Hickeys; Fingering; Spit as Lube; Praise Kink; Soft Sex; Making Love

MINOR WARNINGS: Incest (Brother/Brother; Father/Son); Threesome (M/M/M); Degradation Kink; Bukkake; slight BDSM elements; Dom/Sub Dynamic; Semi-Public Sex; Public Sex; Creampie; Sex Toys; Slut Saming; Creampie; Cum as Lube; Phone Sex; Pet Play; Exhibitionism; Locker Room Sex; Gangbang; Office Sex; Spitroasting; Cockwarming.

*****

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Happy birthday, Rex Brynn! After a day spent celebrating his birthday with family and friends Rex is ready for his birthday evening with one of the most important people in his life, his best friend Walt. And Walt has the perfect surprise for his dear birthday boy,

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Series 14 Recap Review

Following the 60th Anniversary Specials, I said I would be stepping back from making reviews, though I would still be open to giving some quick recaps and thoughts about each episode. Even though it's officially known as Season 1, I'll continue the series numbering from the 2005 reboot, meaning that this will be Series 14 for me. Spoilers begin after the break.

2023 Christmas Special: The Church on Ruby Road

The Doctor meets Ruby Sunday and begins to realise that she is the target of shenanigans by the Goblins, who travel through time and kidnap babies. After meeting Ruby's family, the Doctor suddenly finds her erased from time as she was kidnapped by the Goblins as a baby, so the Doctor goes back and saves Ruby, destroying their ship in the process.

The special was cringe, to say the least. I shared some thoughts about it in my 2023 In Review post, but personally, I don't think musical numbers fit the tone of the show.

The episode also features the debut of Ruby's neighbour, Mrs Flood, who apparently knows what the TARDIS is at the end.

Episode 1: Space Babies

After Ruby steps on a butterfly and the Doctor revives it to turn her back from some alien being (time does not work that way btw), they visit a space station run by (6-year-old) babies and managed by a Nan-E system run by an accountant who stayed behind when the rest of the crew left due to a recession.

The ship is haunted by a Bogeyman which turns out to be a creature created by the ship as a story villain using the snot (bogeys) of the babies. The Bogeyman is the misunderstood villain of the episode and at the end, the babies recognise the Bogeyman as one of them too, with the Doctor saving it from being sucked out of the airlock because Bogeyman Lives Matter (and it didn't make him go blind unlike that other time). While the space station couldn't fly anywhere as it wasn't meant for that purpose, the Doctor finds a way to get them asylum on another planet by using the babies' used nappies as fuel.

Yeah, this is another cringe episode. I thought The Message was going to be an abortion allegory but it was more an allegory on refugees, which is understandable. Also, from this episode, the opening titles were slightly modified to include an extra sequence of the TARDIS flying into the Time Vortex, making it look less jumpy.

Episode 2: The Devil's Chord

The Doctor and Ruby travel to London in the 1960s to meet the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios. When they get there, they find that the songs being recorded are tone-deaf and boring, which extends to Cilla Black and an orchestra. They soon find out that this is the work of the Maestro, a child of the Toymaker, who has consumed all music in the world and caused a nuclear winter back in Ruby's time (speaking of which, how could 6 months have passed in the space of two back-to-back adventures after the Christmas Special?).

The Doctor discovers that just as the Maestro was released by someone finding the Devil's Chord, they could be sealed if he finds the Notes of Banishment. The Doctor does so, but he gets the final note wrong, leading the Maestro to whip the piano out of the room, where it is found by John and Paul, who manage to discover the final note and reseal the Maestro, bringing music back to the world.

I'm not a big fan of the Maestro as a villain because they seem like an exaggerated caricature of Bowlestrek. Same goes for the musical number at the end - I'll admit that the song is catchy, but again, this isn't a Disney production.

Interestingly, the Doctor mentions how the bi-generation literally tore his soul in half and he can't survive another one (at least not at this stage anyway). Again, this just adds more questions to the exact nature of bi-generation, like shouldn't the Doctor be broken by now if each of his previous regenerations became bi-generations?

Also, Ruby is revealed to have a hidden song deep inside her soul and that she has the ability to summon snow out of nowhere. According to the Maestro, this is the work of "the Oldest One", but at this stage, their connection to "the One Who Waits" is unknown.

Episode 3: Boom

The Doctor lands in a Church warzone on Kastorian 3 and steps on a Villengard smartmine. When Ruby tosses the Doctor something to help him counterbalance and change position, he discovers that it is actually a dead soldier's body, killed after an ambulance deemed the soldier's blindness to be fatal (or rather, a liability). The dead soldier's daughter, Splice, runs onto the battlefield to find her father, leading another soldier, Mundy, to go after her. Mundy's love interest, Canterbury, sees Ruby about to shoot Mundy (in an attempt to get the ambulance to turn on her) and shoots Ruby in turn.

Over the course of the story, we learn that the Church's enemy, the Kastorians, don't actually exist; the Church advertised their presence on the planet, which triggered the Villengard algorithm in their weapons and without an enemy to fight, the ambulances began killing the Church soldiers to maintain "the acceptable casualty rate".

With minutes left and the Doctor connected to Ruby through the ambulance, he has the dead soldier's AI hack into the ambulance to find proof that the planet is uninhabited. Despite Canterbury being killed in the process, the dead soldier's AI is successful, reviving Ruby and disarming the smartmine the Doctor was standing on.

This episode was written by Steven Moffat, who will also be writing the Christmas Special (instead of RTD for the first time in New Who history) before stepping down for Series 15, because such comebacks after saying "I'm done for good" totally haven't happened in this show before. Also, Mundy's actress, Verada Sethu, has also been cast as a new companion for Series 15.

The episode was better than the first two episodes of this series, but it got ridiculous for me when it was revealed that the Church were fighting nothing and the Doctor says that they didn't see it because they had faith, "the magic word that keeps you never having to think for yourself". Splice was annoying as well; she was all "I want my daddy" even though she should know she was in a warzone.

Episode 4: 73 Yards

Due to Ncuti Gatwa's prior commitments to filming Sex Education in late-2022, this episode was the first to be filmed in the series as a Doctor-lite episode.

Landing in the Welsh coastal ranges, the Doctor accidentally steps into a fairy circle, apparently binding the soul of someone named Mad Jack, and disappears for the rest of the episode. Ruby finds herself being stalked by a woman who is always 73 yards away (which is the furthest that you can just make out someone) and gesturing at her.

Ruby can't go towards the woman because she will always be 73 yards away from her, so she has to ask other people to find out what the woman is trying to say. When they do, they run off in horror because they found out that in a past life, she was Chris-chan or Lincoln Loud or some fictional character in Rule 34 fanarts. This happens to a few people Ruby meets, followed by her adoptive mother, Carla (did I mention she only fosters kids for the money?) and even Kate Stewart (man, it's like she heard about JaviSuzumiya just from looking at the woman lmao). OK, the excuse the episode gives is always "Ask her" (and the Doctor Who Unleashed episode says something different with the gestures), but this is my headcanon and I stand by it.

Time goes on and Ruby finds out that Mad Jack has apparently resurfaced as Roger ap Gwilliam, who the Doctor previously mentioned as "the most dangerous Prime Minister in history". She makes it her mission to thwart Roger ap Gwilliam and prevent another Years and Years by joining his election campaign, with his main policy being to obtain nuclear weapons to defend Britain's borders (though it probably would have been better to look at who already made it through if you ask me).

Roger ap Gwilliam wins the election, much to the horror of some chick named Marti. As they prepare for his victory speech, Ruby apologises to Marti for taking so long before going onto the pitch and standing 73 yards away from Roger. Despite the perception filter, Roger sees the woman, learns of Ruby being a motherfucker in a past life and runs off, resigning as Prime Minister soon after.

Ruby's life continues on and on her deathbed, she finds the woman coming closer and closer to her. She is suddenly brought back to the day the Doctor disappeared and manages to warn her past self to tell the Doctor not to step in the fairy circle, thus averting the ridiculous chain of events that followed.

Aside from the 73 yards thing with the woman, this episode is a leftist fantasy akin to the Jack Robertson episodes of the Chibnall era. That scene where Ruby was trying to stand 73 yards away from Roger? Yeah, in real life those soldiers would probably have shot Ruby when she ran onto the grass. If that's what counts for activism these days I'm surprised more people aren't getting killed than owned by facts and logic.

RTD implies that Roger ap Gwilliam is inspired by "terrible young men online". Yeah, as soon as I heard that, I knew Roger was an Andrew Tate expy, but because of how vague everything was, it didn't feel like Roger's actor (Aneurin Barnard) was really channelling Tate in character. He can't be a Donald Trump/Boris Johnson expy because those spots have been taken, he can't be a Ben Shapiro expy because many leftists want to cuckold him for some reason and he can't be a Jordan Peterson expy because Peterson isn't extreme compared to Andrew Tate. Honestly, if RTD's intention was to rip off his previous series Years and Years for a plot point then he should have just said it. And to think that this episode was what RTD claimed to be one of the greatest things he's ever worked on.

Episode 5: Dot and Bubble

In the same production block as the last episode, this episode is another Doctor-lite episode, but not really. It's really an episode that focuses on a guest character akin to Love and Monsters in Series 2 or Blink in Series 3.

We follow a woman named Lindy Pepper-Bean, a resident on the NWO world known as Finetime where everyone relies on their social media Dot and Bubble for their daily lives, including how to walk. In the middle of her complaining about her two-hour-a-day job processing substack data, Lindy notices that her friends are slowly disappearing and the Doctor and Ruby manage to convince her that there are slug monsters around her eating people, but others are somehow being spared.

The Doctor tells Lindy to get to a conduit so they can get to the river leading out of a city. On the way, she meets singer (read: lipsyncer) Ricky September who helps Lindy to the conduit. The Doctor has Ricky enter the pulse codes before deducing that the residents are being eaten in alphabetical order. Also, the Doctor believes that the slug monsters were created by the Dot and if they can't kill anyone, the Dot itself will. Lindy's name is up and Ricky fends off her Dot while she finishes entering the numbers. As Lindy unlocks the door to the conduit, she throws Ricky under the bus before she goes through.

At the conduit, Lindy reunites with one of her surviving friends and also meets the Doctor and Ruby. With help from the Homeworld seemingly delayed (in actuality, not coming at all due to the Homeworld being overrun by slug monsters), the remaining residents decide to venture into the forests around the city. The Doctor offers to help them off this world because they will die on the outside, but they refuse, much to the Doctor's disbelief.

So you want to know what the Message of this episode was? It's the New World Order, social media, rich kids or a combination of the above. Oh, I'm sorry, according to RTD on Unleashed, it's rich white kids, because it's not enough that it's got to be kids addicted to social media, but their parents are rich, no less, and we've got to sprinkle in some of that racism too because current year. Not calling this a "shut up RTD" moment, but was it necessary and did it (the entire episode) need to be this exaggerated?

I'm sorry, but this episode just felt patronising to me. "But Azuma, you missed the point of the episode!" Oh no, I got the point. I just don't fucking care.

By the way, I'm sure you will have noticed an actress named Susan Twist playing a bit character in every episode of this series so far, including Mrs Merridew at the start of Wild Blue Yonder. Obviously, like Mrs Flood, she will be playing a role in this series' story arc.

Episode 6: Rogue

Doctor Who meets Bridgerton in this episode. The Doctor and Ruby go to a Regency dance ball when he encounters Rogue, a bounty hunter who is after a Chuldur, who can shapeshift into other humans by electrifying them. And yet other shapeshifting creatures have been able to do this quicker and easier than they have.

Rogue thinks that the Doctor is the Chuldur, but is convinced otherwise when he reveals his numerous incarnations, including that of the Fugitive Doctor- wait, that face after William Hartnell wasn't Christopher Eccleston, was it? No, apparently that is Richard E. Grant, who played an incarnation of the Doctor in the animated series Scream of the Shalka, which RTD swept aside when he was brought on to revive Doctor Who. Yeah, I knew this would happen when Chibnall obliterated Doctor Who canon in 2020 and RTD made it worse in 2023. Honestly I'm surprised they didn't include the other faces from The Brain of Morbius and The Timeless Children in that montage as well.

As the situation progresses, the Doctor realises that the Chuldur are cosplaying Bridgerton and reenacting the drama. He decides to introduce a scandal by dancing with Rogue in front of the guests, then starting an argument with him and rejecting his proposal for marriage. They lure the Chuldur outside, but it becomes clear that they aren't dealing with one, but four, later five.

The Doctor sees Ruby with the Chuldur and believes that they got her as well, leading to him being distraught at the fear of breaking the promise he made with Ruby's mum to keep her safe. However, when the Doctor sets up Rogue's triform trap, it is revealed that Ruby knocked out the fifth Chuldur and cosplayed as it, much to the Doctor's shock.

Rogue comes in and brings the fifth Chuldur into the trap. The Doctor begins to struggle whether he should sacrifice Ruby or release the Chuldur. Then Rogue kisses the Doctor before he takes the trigger, bumps Ruby out of the trap and activates it, telling the Doctor to find him. And I thought this would lead into next week's episode, but anyway, the Doctor sends Rogue's ship into orbit and puts his ring on his hand.

The episode was honestly quite great if you can get around the gay overtone-laden whirlwind romance and the continual doubling-down of the Timeless Child. How is it that the more decent episodes of this series aren't written by the showrunner? Gee, it's almost like you can write a good story without having to force in The Message so unsubtly or making it so cringeworthily cheesy.

So in the Unleashed episode, they only mention that Indira Varma, who played the Duchess Chuldur in this episode, was in Mission: Impossible and Game of Thrones, yet they didn't mention that she was in Torchwood previously as Suzie Costello. Nor did they mention back in Episode 4, 73 Miles, that the location used for the pub in that episode was the same one used in an episode of Torchwood Series 1. Speaking of which, some people are also saying that Rogue is reminiscent of Captain Jack Harness or that he is a replacement for him. Look, regardless of what you feel about the John Barrowman scandal, I think that Rogue is merely a surrogate/counterpart for Captain Jack and that the original character isn't being erased (as far as I know).

Episode 7: The Legend of Ruby Sunday

The Doctor and Ruby go to UNIT for help investigating the mystery of the Susan Twist bit characters appearing throughout their journey. As it turns out, UNIT have been investigating Susan Triad, an IT genius who is about to release her software free to the public; the name of her company is an anagram of TARDIS and Susan also happens to be the name of the Doctor's granddaughter.

While there, the Doctor also intends on solving another mystery as well, namely the mystery of Ruby's birth mother. Ruby is sent back to her house with Rose Noble to get the tape showing CCTV footage of a camera 66 metres (73 yards) away from the church on Ruby Road on Christmas Eve 2004. Ruby's mum Carla goes with Ruby and Rose to UNIT HQ, leaving Mrs Flood to look after Cherry, who warns her about a storm coming in and "he waits no more".

The Doctor reunites with Mel, who had been undercover with Susan Triad, as Ruby and Rose return with Carla and the tape. UNIT makes use of a Time Window to enhance the tape and project the scene around the Doctor and Ruby. As Ruby tells the Doctor about her birth, it begins snowing inside even before the Time Window is turned on. The Time Window is then turned on and in the scene projected around them, they are only able to make out the woman leaving Ruby at the church and walking away, but not her face. They then see the Doctor arriving in 2004 to defeat the goblins and the changed memory of the woman pointing at the Doctor.

A soldier guarding the Time Window takes a look behind the TARDIS in the footage but he doesn't see anything. He tries a different angle and the soldier disappears behind the TARDIS. After the Doctor in 2004 leaves in the TARDIS, a dark cloud emerges inside the Time Window and it is revealed that the soldier was killed. The soldier's voice inside the cloud says that "it's been waiting for so long" before the Time Window powers down.

The Doctor decides to see Susan Triad and Mel takes him to see her just as she is about to give her speech to the world. The Doctor asks Susan if they met before, which she denies, but she does mention having dreams. The Doctor presses Susan on who she dreams about and she appears to remember them. Meanwhile, UNIT discovers that the TARDIS somehow returned to 2004 and became enveloped in the dark cloud.

Susan begins her speech while Carla and other non-essential personnel are evacuated. The Doctor sends Ruby back to the Time Window and it begins to show Christmas Eve 2004 again with the woman coming towards her. Susan and Harriet are revealed to be harbingers of a certain god as the dark cloud reveals itself as Sutekh, the god of death.

Sutekh was originally featured in the Fourth Doctor story Pyramids of Mars and is also a part of the Pantheon of Discord as the Oldest One or as it is revealed, The One Who Waits. Other members of the Pantheon mentioned include the Toymaker, Maestro, the Trickster and the Mara, the latter two being villains previously seen in the franchise.

People thought that Susan Foreman would be returning because of all the Susan Twist stuff and the mention of Susan Foreman in the second episode, but honestly, I'm glad it was a red herring because it would have been disgraceful to her character and her actress, Carole Ann Ford, if she reappeared with a new actress without the original making an appearance in the revived/rebooted series considering that Ford is still living. If she got a Fourteenth Doctor treatment and regenerated after a few special appearances, then that would be fine.

Episode 8: Empire of Death

Sutekh and his harbingers spread the dust of death all over London as the Doctor and Mel rush back to the Time Window at UNIT HQ. As they reunite with Ruby, they discover that the TARDIS in the memory, the memory TARDIS, can be used to escape since Sutekh now has control of the TARDIS.

Sutekh confronts the Doctor and reveals that after his defeat at the end of Pyramids of Mars where he was cast to the Time Vortex, he managed to cling onto the TARDIS and everywhere the Doctor landed, he used the memories of Susan Foreman within the TARDIS to create multiple copies of Susan Triad, which is spreading the dust of death everywhere in space and time. As the Doctor landed on (present-day) Earth hundreds of times, the Susan copy there ended up being reborn stronger and stronger until Susan Triad came to their attention.

The Doctor, Ruby and Mel escape in the memory TARDIS with the screen from the TV used in the Time Window. After the Doctor gets a metal spoon from some planet, he wonders why Sutekh decided to attack now rather than earlier. Ruby asks a question and the Time Window screen changes from Pyramids of Mars to the scene of Ruby's mother pointing at the Doctor on Ruby Road. For some reason, Ruby's mother was something beyond Sutekh's comprehension that even he couldn't see, which is why he kept the Doctor, Ruby and Mel alive.

Suddenly, the screen shows an interview with Roger ap Gwilliam, someone who Ruby didn't meet in this timeline. The Doctor realises that in 2046, Roger ap Gwilliam mandated DNA testing for the entire population of the UK (something that freedom cookers supposedly wouldn't like from a supposedly far-right politician, lol leftist projection much?), so Ruby's mother would have to be in the database. They head to the future after Roger ap Gwilliam was overthrown (yeah, if it happened in 2046, the year when he was elected Prime Minister, there probably wouldn't have been a DNA database at all lol).

The Doctor and Ruby use the DNA database to find Ruby's mother, but the latter doesn't understand what it means. It is then revealed that Mel was killed and possessed by Sutekh as she brings the Doctor and Ruby back to 2024. Ruby offers to reveal her mother's name to Sutekh, but she drops the Time Window screen and leashes Sutekh as the Doctor purges Harriet from within the TARDIS while bringing it to him.

Sutekh is dragged into the Time Vortex; because he had been in the Time Vortex before, bringing him in a second time undoes everything he did and brings everyone back to life. Once this is done, the Doctor concedes victory to Sutekh for allowing him to bring death to death before closing the door on Sutekh, who disintegrates in the Time Vortex.

Susan Triad, who is still alive after Sutekh's defeat, is offered a job at UNIT. The DNA testing finishes on the UNIT computers and Ruby's mother is revealed to be a wonderful, yet ordinary woman. Her pointing at the Doctor was actually her pointing at the signpost saying Ruby Road to name her baby (because the social workers or paramedics couldn't have done that based on where she was left, plus it wasn't like her mum left a note with her name on it). This is what Ruby doesn't understand; how could she have remained invisible to the Doctor, Ruby and most importantly, Sutekh? After reading the /r/gallifrey discussion post for this episode, I thought this was RTD2 pulling a Shirakura 2.0, but if you think about it, maybe the TARDIS psychically tied itself to Ruby's memories because of how she wanted to find her mum and when the Doctor went to the church on Ruby Road to save Ruby from the goblins, Ruby's mum ended up in the 73-yard effect radius of the TARDIS perception filter and it scrambled things for everyone, even Sutekh. It still doesn't explain the snow randomly falling, though, or the song apparently hidden in Ruby's soul, so yeah, RTD2 is still pulling a Shirakura 2.0.

The Doctor helps Ruby reunite with her birth mother before they go back to meet Carla and Cherry. Ruby is about to rejoin the Doctor, but she declines when she hears that her father has been found, so they part ways for the time being. Mrs Flood teases that while Ruby got her happy ending, the Doctor's will end in "absolute terror".

The finale was alright, even if the mysteries didn't end up being solved in a satisfying manner or plot holes begin showing up when you start thinking deeply about it, in which case, yeah, it was bad. If Sutekh was The One Who Waits, then who was the Meep's boss as mentioned in The Star Beast? If Sutekh was clinging onto the TARDIS all this time, then what happened to him when the TARDIS blew up or when the TARDIS got bigenerated? And finally, what was with the Doctor writing off the Egyptian imagery in Pyramids of Mars as "cultural appropriation"? Sutekh was based off the Egyptian god and in the original story, he was written as an alien of the Osiran race and- oh wait.

So yeah, save for some good moments of tension, action or nostalgia scattered throughout the series, Series 14 ended up being rather cringeworthy; if I had lowered my standards and judged the series on a first-watch basis, I would have said that it was just below average, not that good but still fairly watchable. RTD's clearly taken a page from Shinichiro Shirakura's book of not caring about the consistency of continuity or the quality of writing on the series he produces, then turning around to make people point and laugh at those who care. Basically, RTD's running on Zi-O Rule 3, just like every Doctor Who writer since The Timeless Children, and if you know anything about Japanese tokusatsu, you'll understand why I liken RTD as the Shinichiro Shirakura of Doctor Who (after Chris Chibnall).

People seemed to criticise the Fifteenth Doctor crying in nearly every episode. Initially, I thought it was weird that the Doctor got emotional given that the bigeneration was meant as a sort of rehab for him. After looking into this however, I realised that maybe that was exactly what the bigeneration was meant to do - to enable the Doctor to express his emotions more, to tell him that it's okay to cry (not that the Doctor hasn't cried or expressed emotions before). Doesn't make the bigeneration any less a bad idea, particularly with the way it was executed though.

Back in October 2021, just after RTD announced his return as showrunner, I put out a list of hopes for the series going forward in the prelude to my Series 13 (Flux) reviews. Let's take a look at how many came true:

Put the series back on Saturdays - Not only that, episodes are released on BBC iPlayer and Disney+ at midnight UK time, meaning that US audiences can watch it on the Friday afternoon/evening and that Australian audiences can watch it at 9:00 AM on the Saturday morning (thank you, British Summer Time). If I were doing full reviews like before I could honestly have dedicated my weekends to them instead of having to juggle it with work.

Give the series a regular schedule - RTD said that he would have a script that would go to air in May 2025, plus Series 15 concluded filming this past May, so if this series is anything to go by, we should expect the next series to come out the same time next year. RTD also has plans for two more series after that, but the BBC haven't commissioned those yet. Honestly, as much as I hated waiting another two years for a new series, the waiting time has given the production team headroom to work on series in advance so that we can get regularity back in the Doctor Who schedule, so I'm happy either way.

Make each series 13 episodes again without breaks - Yeah, that's not looking likely at this point. RTD's stated the stresses he was suffering through when the series returned with series of 13 episodes apiece, plus Moffat's definitely had similar stresses as well. Even after retiring from my personal project, which had episodes that were 45 minutes long (times 13 for a weekly series and 60 for a nightly series), I decided that I would be better off writing half-hour plots, which I should have considered in the first place, but no, I had to implement tokusatsu techniques in a Doctor Who-style series and make it in the scale of a nightly Chinese drama. Speaking of episode lengths, how long is each episode supposed to be, 45 or 50 minutes? I'm fine with having less episodes and having slightly longer episodes to make up for it (longer series finales are tradition for this series), but can you make up your minds over how long the episodes should be? I didn't mention this back during the 60th Anniversary Specials, but the second one, Wild Blue Yonder, came out 6 minutes short of the expected 60-minute length.

Bring back the Christmas Special - That's a no-brainer.

Return to filming in the 16:9 widescreen ratio - Yeah, more and more series and movies seem to be embracing this aspect ratio nowadays. Not that I'm focusing on it too much given how I tend to have my media player on one side of my screen.

And by the way, RTD isn't the only person who needs to know their place in the fanbase, because before the series premiered, Ncuti Gatwa told haters to "touch grass". I swear, he doesn't even know who his haters are or aren't. Also, are we going to see Daleks this year? I guess Terry Nation's estate isn't getting their royalties now. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if RTD's calling their bluff or the estate doesn't care anymore.

So that's it for my look at Doctor Who Series 14. I hope you enjoyed this new review format instead of the full episode-by-episode format from earlier reviews. It's definitely alleviated quite a bit of stress and helped me manage my creative burnout. I'll be talking briefly about this year's Christmas Special in my Year in Review post, then I'll probably do another "quick" review post like this next year for Series 15. But for now, that's it from me.

[soundsof71]

So, considering you are a passionate fan of music released in 1971, I feel justifiably obligated to ask you what you think of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' album. 😂 (Also, it would make me beyond happy if you could post more about Buffy, my friend! Thank you! ❣)

Buffy Sainte-Marie + Crazy Horse - what’s not to love? LOL I confess that it was the Crazy Horse connection that caught my attention first. I had a general idea who Buffy was, had seen her on TV a few times, but I was a big Crazy Horse fan. News that they were her backing band for this album was easily enough for me to scoop it up.

They weren’t doing anything much with Neil Young in 1971 (other than this album, on which Neil also appeared!), but they had released a tasty solo album in February 71, produced by Jack Nitzsche (who also produced this, and would later marry Buffy), and featuring Ry Cooder (also featured here, although did not marry Buffy). 

(btw, the first place that Buffy, Ry, and Jack worked together was on the Nic Roeg film Performance, starring Mick Jagger. People obviously remember Mick in that, but musically, Buffy was the best part!) 

She Used To Wanna... also features Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist and singer who was a frequent “usual suspect” at these sort of “sure, invite everyone!” jam albums of the era, and played a prominent role at 1971′s biggest concert (at least in the US), The Concert for Bangladesh on August 1.

(I know you know  RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World, the documentary about indigenous music’s influence on rock and roll, which has chapters on both Buffy and Jesse Ed. I just watched it again recently, and love it! A reminder of Buffy’s pivotal role in classic rock history. Not mentioned in the film: she relentlessly championed the work of her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, helping them get their first record deals.)

I haven’t listened to She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina for a while, so I definitely need to do that, along with posting more pictures of Buffy.  (I can’t believe I’ve only posted two!) 

But I’ll tell you what still stands out to me about that record years later. “Smack Water Jack” is an underrated track from Carole King’s Tapestry that got a ton of airplay at the time. Quincy Jones did an instrumental cover as the title track for his terrific 1971 album, too, but it has somehow faded to obscurity since then. Buffy takes a playful trifle, and turns it into a powerful fable of men of color who explode into violence in response to the violence visited upon them, and self-satisfaction of whites in authority who answer their demands for better living conditions by killing them on the spot. 

No need for a trial when you can murder them in the streets, right? “You can't talk to a man when he don't wanna understand / And he don't wanna understand” hits different when Buffy sings it, and in 2020 for that matter. 

It’s also just a terrific performance whose combination of soul and rock and roll and driving piano in a sort of Old West-sounding context would have made this sound right at home on a record like Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection  or something by The Band. I’m limited to five video embeds per post so I can’t embed it here, so I'm linking instead: anyone who hasn’t heard this definitely needs to.

Her cover of Neil’s CSNY track “Helpless” has things I like even better than Neil’s original, including Merry Clayton standing in for CSN. Buffy’s version is more muscular (thanks again to Crazy Horse), and taps even more deeply into the isolation of the song that the star power of CSNY somewhat obscured. 

Buffy’s version also made a brief but memorable appearance in the 2018 film Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. A weird little movie that I loved maybe more than it deserved LOL but I recommend nonetheless:

I know that this album gets attention because of the unusual number of covers, including one by Leonard Cohen, and a cover of a cover that Leonard had made famous on top of that, called "Song of the French Partisan” (hers is the far superior version imo, a song of French resistance to Nazi occupation from the perspective of a woman hiding a resister), but there are a couple of standout originals too. 

I love the title of this record, and the title track is a delightful little stomper that playfully cautions against equating the intentions of grown women with the childhood fantasies they’ve grown out of. More Merry Clayton goodness here on backing vocals too. 

“Soldier Blue” is a powerful song first written for the 1970 film of the same name, billed at the time as “The most savage film in history” -- and maybe it was. It used the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as a metaphor for Vietnam, and it's still shockingly brutal. It was the third-highest grossing movie in the UK in 1971, though, and the single became a top-10 hit for Buffy there. 

It didn’t do as well here, either the song or the movie. Perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, Soldier Blue was pulled from American theaters after a few days, the Vietnam metaphor not at all lost on the Nixon administration. 

As horrifying as it was, this is about when I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (first published in 1970), and Soldier Blue resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. Here’s the song in the opening credits of the movie.

I was also really struck by “Moratorium”, which is the story of “Universal Soldier” (from her 1963 debut, but a bigger hit for Donovan in 1965), coming from the opposite direction. In the earlier song, she blamed war on the soldiers who think that fighting is honorable, but here, she has empathizes with the young men, boys really in many cases, who’ve been lied to by their countries, their parents, and even their friends. They’re not vainglorious. They’ve been duped by people they trusted. 

(I don't think she takes enough into account how many men sign up to fight because they want to embrace and celebrate their worst, most violent impulses, which was of course an undercurrent of “Universal Soldier”, but I appreciate her empathy here. More than one thing is true at a time.)

Buffy goes even farther, though, calling on soldiers to support and validate demands for peace as explicitly supporting them, summed up in the unforgettable cry, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home!" 

1971 was the peak of antiwar demonstrations in the US, with the biggest crowds ever seen in this country until the 2017 Women’s March. The May 1971 demonstrations pretty much shut down Washington, culminating with Vietnam Veterans Against The War throwing back their medals on the steps of the US Capitol, incredibly powerful stuff to see on TV in my formative years, and Buffy was right there in it. Anti-war songs were a cottage industry for sure, but nobody was writing with the nuance and empathy that Buffy was.

Here’s a 1972 performance of “Moratorium”, Buffy and a piano, and more emotionally bare than that:

There’s obviously lots more to say about Buffy, far outside the realm of protest music that was actually just a small part of her musical palette -- her pioneering experiments with electronic music, her educational philanthropy starting in her 20s, Sesame Street, you name it. Her commercial peak was still in front of her, and while I can’t say that this is my favorite of her records, it does have some of my favorite songs of hers, and 1971 and She Used to Wanna Be A Ballerina is definitely where I went from knowing who Buffy Sainte-Marie was to being a fan. 

I'll also note as I do now and again that while this blog started as an offshoot of a book on 1971 that I’d started but abandoned, I mostly listen to music released now. That’s always been my policy, including in 1971. When 1972 rolled up, I was mostly listening to music from 1972, music from ‘80 in ‘80, ‘91 in ‘91, 2018 in 2018, etc., to name just a few other favorites. (Plus The Beatles, okay? LOL I still listen to The Beatles every day. No apologies.) Honestly? It took me until 2011, in my fifties, when a whole bunch of 40th anniversary editions of 1971 albums got released all at once that made me think, “Wait a minute, this was maybe THE pivotal year in classic rock history!” 

So yeah, the historian in me dug into 1971, but even though I happened to be alive and enthralled by music in that year, what I’m doing here has nothing to do with nostalgia, or any idea that that was the *best* year in music, even if for the narrow slice of music that is classic rock, yeah, it absolutely is. For soul/R&B too, and for the explosion of women artists outside the even narrower confines of pop as well. This is not subject to debate. No year like it, before or since. It's just that classic rock is a such a narrow slice, and I like my slices wide. LOL Which is also why my blog has less and less 1971 content as I go along. 

While my general policy is that my favorite year for music is THIS year, this particular year hasn’t left me as much energy as usual for listening to music. Some of it is These Trying Times™, some of it is my bipolarity and schizophrenia getting the better of me in waves, as is the way with these, uhm, things. (Keep taking those meds, kids!) I listen to music and post about the people making it as a creative act, not a passive or reflexive one, and I just haven’t felt as creative as usual.

(This is also has everything to do with why so many Asks have been piling up unanswered. I apologize if you’re one of the many kind and indulgent souls who’s gotten in touch, but I swear I’m gonna get to ‘em all!)

To get an idea of what I’m ACTUALLY passionate about right now, my “to be edited later” running list of 2020 favorites randomly added to a playlist as I encounter them, to be properly curated later, is at Spotify, cleverly entitled “2020″ -- 94% women, which is about right. LOL 

But since I do in fact listen to old stuff (by which I mean 2019 LOL), I made a list of mostly 2020 bangers from women rockers with some tasty treats from 2019 that I haven’t been able to let go of just yet, inspired by a post I saw at tumblr saying that punk music by women is just plain better (also beyond debate), called “Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam”. I’ll be posting an essay with a YouTube playlist soon, because god forbid that I only talk briefly about anything LOL and most of these women need to be heard AND seen.

Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, whom you'll both see and hear more often on my blog soon. Thanks for the reminder! Always a pleasure to hear from you and be challenged by you. :-)

Peace, Tim 

[yuto-mizuguchi]

♡ ONF #YOU_COMPLETE_ME Fuse Support Step-by-step Tutorial  ♡

Hello Fuses! ONF are finally coming back with their 2nd mini album ‘You Complete Me’ on June 7th, so I have decided to make a very detailed tutorial on how you can help make this comeback as successful as possible to thank our boys for being such loving beings and for working so hard to keep Fuses happy (and to show them how much we have missed them duh). It is the time for fuses to do their part and make ONF complete! (see what I did there)

Also don’t kill me I didn’t have time to make a banner for the tutorial

This tutorial will include:

YouTube MV streaming on PC and phone/tablet

digital streaming

voting on music shows

digital downloads and buying physical copies

promoting

If you have any questions, suggestions or complaints, make sure to hit me up on tumblr chat or send me a direct message on @ppangyuto.

Lets’ get started!

1. YouTube MV streaming

YouTube views are important for many music shows and count as a part of digital points for award shows in the end of the year.

Pick a browser you are going to stream the MV with and read the following instructions. Google Chrome is currently the best option for this (you can download it here btw, it is completely safe) but it would be great if you could use more browsers and stream with all of them at the same time. That’s of course if your device allows it.

Do NOT reupload the MV on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or any other social network or website. Make sure to put the LINK everywhere, especially if you are sharing gifs or snippets. Every view counts. If you see more than 30 seconds of it shared on Twitter (usually) without the person providing the link as well, do not hesitate to politely ask them to delete the tweet and report it as spam if they refuse to do so. Use as many devices as possible.

Streaming guidelines for PC:

Do not skip the ads! WM and ONF do profit from them.

Log in to your YouTube account to like the video and leave a few positive comments. That will count as one view, so after watching for the first time make sure to log out and then continue streaming following the guidelines. If you have more accounts, hit like button on each one of them.

Do not use the Incognito mode, it freezes the views. If you notice that the views have been frozen for a few hours, report it to YouTube as “PLAYBACK ISSUE” and do not panick. It is said: “To make sure that all views are validated, as view count goes higher, YouTube updates less frequently and might occasionally freeze above 300 views to assure quality view count. This is the normal operation in YouTube videos.”

You can open as many windows per browser as your internet connection allows but the videos should not be lagging too much to ensure view counts.

Do not refresh the page. Instead, search manually for the MV and stream only the official one uploaded on ONF’s channel. When you type in ‘ONF’ on YouTube, at the moment the first suggestions are ‘ON/OFF’ and ‘mixnine’ . What we want to do is get Complete MV there.

Your volume should be at least 50%. If you have more tabs opened at the same time, mute your device and not the MV itself to avoid the chaos.

Watch it from the beginning to the end without pausing or fast forwarding.

Clear your cache every 10 minutes and cookies every 1 hour. To avoid this step, just check out the history/cookie/cache cleaning extensions I have listed below.

ENJOY!

[TIP!] You could reply to a lot of positive comments under the MV so people come back to it again. Worth a try! Do not forget to report malicious comments.

[TIP!] If you have an active YouTube channel, put the MV as your featured content (my channel > video manager > channel > featured content).

**You can create playlists, but do not include only Complete MV. If possible, create a playlist in this order: ON/OFF MV - Lights On (Performance ver.) - ON/OFF (Practice ver.) - Complete MV x3.

If you are going to leave your device on overnight to stream even while sleeping or while you are away (recommended), download the following extensions for your browser:

Auto HD For YouTube

Cache Killer

Super Auto Refresh

YouTube HD Plus

Empty Cache Button

ReloadEvery

YouTube High Definition

History Eraser

Super Auto Refresh

This will help you do the following: always stream MV in quality above 720p, refresh (not hit the replay button, this is because you cannot manually search for the MV while sleeping or when you are not there duh) and erase your history and cache. The last extension should be on even while being on you device. Auto Refresh MUST be set at 10 minutes (about 5 minutes for the MV and 5 minutes break: YouTube might validate the views faster like this).

Streaming guidelines for phone/tablet:

Do not skip the ads! WM and ONF do profit from them.

Log in to your YouTube account to like the video and leave a few positive comments VIA BROWSER. Do not use the YouTube app. That will count as one view, so after watching for the first time make sure to log out and then continue streaming following the guidelines. If you have more accounts, hit like button on each one of them.

The volume should be at least 70% so if necessary, use headphones.

Watch it from the beginning to the end without pausing or fast forwarding.

Do not refresh the page after the full stream. Instead, close your browser and then search manually for the MV and stream only the official one uploaded on ONF’s channel .

Clear search history ever 1-2 hours.

ENJOY!

2. Digital streaming

Since I am not familiar with streaming, I have found a few very useful tutorials:

How to create an account

How to purchase a MelOn pass

How to stream and download

How to create an account and get a free pass (PC)

How to create an account and get a free pass (Phone)

Free link compilations

How to stream using free link

How to create an account and get 10 free passes daily in 13 steps: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4

How to create an account

How to get a free pass (1)

How to get a free pass (2)  

[TIP!] Search for streaming pass giveaways on Twitter, there could be some Fuses or other fandoms willing to help us with this comeback. Please do not join such giveaways if the passes are for a specified group that is not ONF, that is just mean.

Streaming reflects on some music show charts.

Show Champion: Naver, Melon, Bugs, Genie

M!Countdown: Mnet, Melon, Genie, Bugs

Inkigayo: Melon, Genie, Bugs

3. Voting on music shows

CRITERIA + VOTING

**Digital Score - Streaming + Downloads **Broadcast Points - Views on show performances

THE SHOW

DIGITAL SCORE - 70%

MV VIEWS - 25%

EXPERTS PREFERENCE - 5%

LIVE SHOW VOTING (SMS)

SHOW CHAMPION

DIGITAL SCORE - 40%

PHYSICAL SALES - 10%

NETIZEN’S PREFERENCE - 15%

EXPERTS PREFERENCE - 15%

MBC MUSIC BROADCAST POINTS - 15%

**Netizen’s preference - Online votes

Voting period: Tuesday 00:00 KST - Sunday 23:59 KST

How to vote? I have made a detailed video tutorial on how to vote on Show Champion a while ago for FY!COSMICGIRLS . Click here.

M!COUNTDOWN

DIGITAL SCORE - 50%

PHYSICAL SALES - 15%

SOCIAL MEDIA SCORE - 15%

POPULARITY SCORE - 10%

BROADCAST POINTS - 10%

LIVE SHOW VOTING (SMS)

**Social Media Score - MV Views **Popularity Vote - Online Voting Points

Voting period: Friday 14:00 KST - Monday 09:00 KST

How to vote? Use your Mnet, Twitter, Facebook and Kakaotalk accounts to vote on MNET’s voting page once a day per account.

MUSIC BANK

DIGITAL SCORE - 65%

PHYSICAL SALES - 5%

BROADCAST POINTS - 20%

EXPERTS PREFERENCE - 10%

SBS INKIGAYO

DIGITAL SCORE - 55%

PHYSICAL SALES - 5%

SNS POINTS - 35%

PRE-VOTING - 5%

**SNS points -MV views

How to vote? Click here for a detailed tutorial by CLCPENTAGON.

Do not reupload the performances and watch them only on music shows’ official YouTube channels as the views count as points. Use the same watching method as for the MV.

If you are able to, watch the performances through their official websites and music sites as well.

The Show

MNET

Naver **All music shows have Naver channels, just type in the program name In the search box. (더쇼 / 쇼챔피언 / 엠카운트다운 / 뮤직뱅크 / 음중 / 인기가요)

4. Digital downloads and buying physical copies

DIGITAL DOWNLOADS

Please only download and stream music from these sites: Melon, Naver, Mnet, Genie, Olleh, Bugs

**Purchasing from iTunes and Spotify does not count to the charts

[TIP!] Mass streaming boosts up ranking, so try to stream together with other Fuses at the same time.

[TIP!] Title track is the one being ranked on the charts, so stream it more frequently than the rest of the album.

Buy ‘You Complete Me’ on iTunes as soon as it comes out.

BUYING PHYSICAL COPIES

‘You Complete Me’ is ONF’s 2nd mini album that comes in one version. More info about the album here.

Only purchase physical copies of the album from sites that count towards Hanteo and Gaon charts: KPopTown, YesAsia, DVDHeaven, KPopMart , Synnara , KTOWN4U.

**Other sites are fine if they contribute to the charts. You have to check this before making the purchase. ** Also check out: To K-Pop Fans outside South Korea - a Guide for an International Order (tutorial by Synnara)

[TIP!] If possible, please pre-order the album because it will help contribute to the first week sales. Pre-orders end on June 7th at 12AM KST.

5. Promoting

Other than sharing the MV, you can also help by doing the following:

1. Leave positive comments and tap hearts on comeback V LIVE. There is a safe software called Nox App Player you can use to tap hearts automatically. I used it for the previous comeback! Here is an updated tutorial.

2. Search for 온앤오프 on Korean news sites:

Naver

Melon

Nate

Bugs

Olleh

Soribada

3. Watch ONF videos on Naver.

4. Retweet wm_on7off and wm_onoff. Use #온앤오프, #COMPLETE and #YOU_COMPLETE_ME hashtags whenever you can.

5. Participate in various support events. Here is a 1st Anniversary Project by ONF STATION.

6. Share the MV with your friends and ask them to support the comeback as well.

7. Donate for support projects by fansites if possible and support fellow Fuses’ edits, fanart etc.

Thank you for reading! Let’s make this comeback successful together  ♡

[clownkiwi]

Ruby’s Thoughts on the Super Mario Bros 35th Anniversary Direct Earlier This Morning

ok!!! let’s talk about those silly mario announcements today, because, if ya know me, i love me my marios so much. in fact, some of my favorite games of all time include super mario world 2: yoshi’s island, super paper mario, super mario galaxy, mario & luigi: bowser’s inside story, super mario rpg, & super mario odyssey; it’s safe to say ive been a mario fan for a long time, and i love him alot.

and considering its marios big year (shhhhhh, hes turning 35 this year!!!), you’d expect a lot of big things. and, like i said, we got a bunch of mario announcements!!! some of them huge!!! and some of them i’m mixed about, but we’ll get to that once we start talking about them. so, let’s start with the very first announcement down below!!!

1) Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros

So like, as the first announcement, ummmmmm. This doesn’t look too bad. and I know this was made as a collectors item for like the most extreme Mario fans & game collectors/”historians”. And I’m one of those, a huge Mario fan. So like, I really really want it, even though it’s just a Game & Watch with Mario 1, The Lost Levels, a clock, & a Game & Watch game, priced for $50. And I’m on the fence. Like, ehhhh??? Should I pay $50 for games I could easily emulate on my laptop for free??? But also, this is a collectors item, and I know Nintendo fans will buy these in bulk and sell them for a higher price on Amazon & eBay, so like. Maybe I will get this. Just to see all the Mario stuff on there!!! And I’ll keep the box as well as the thing itself, and yea, I might actually get it for Christmas. yay :)

2) Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

Now this was definitely an exciting announcement!! We all knew this was happening, from all the rumors, just to the fact that this was inevitable. I’m very glad Mario 3D World will get another chance on the Nintendo Switch!! If you’ve heard from many Mario fans & Wii U owners, it has to be one of Mario’s most underrated adventures in recent years; and that’s coming from someone who’s favorite underrated classics happen to be Super Mario Land 2 & Super Mario Galaxy 2! So it’s very exciting that we got one of the best Wii U games ported on the Switch! And this time it’ll have online multiplayer, but I don’t think that’s what I’m excited for the most. What I’m really interested in has to be Bowser’s Fury. What is that? Will it be harder levels, will it just be more of what we already loved from the game, or will it be a whole new campaign/story after beating the main campaign? Nintendo has been very vague about it, and we can only really know once it get’s close to coming out next year. So I’m very excited to see what that’s about!!

And yes, I should warn you, this is the only bit of new Mario content to come out that I can actually play. Everything else will be pure nostalgia bait, for both good and bad reasons. We’ll talk about that later, but all things considered: I’m very excited for this game, and I can’t wait for it to come out on Switch :)

3) Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit

OK, so like. If I was 7-11, I would be very excited for this, and I’d be begging my parents to get this. This would be something fun to play with if I was younger. But not only am I not in the age group appropriate for this, our house is messy as fuck. If I wanted to properly play this, I’d have to clean everything up our house, which will take a lot of work. So, this will be one I will pass on. Not to say it isn’t cool as fuck and I’d love to get it, I just won’t be able to play it ever in my house. Plus, it can only be played indoors, meaning I can’t make cool as fuck courses outside. This’ll be one of those Nintendo Labo things to me personally, where I’ll see it, go “Wow!! Cool as fuck, wish I had that,” I won’t get it, and I don’t think my life will be personally too affected. Still really cool though, I’ll admit that.

4) Super Mario Bros 35

OK OK, so this was another one of those “WOAH, WACKY NINTENDO COMING AT US FROM LEFT FIELD” things that like, seemed so obvious. Why hasn’t Nintendo conceived a Mario Battle Royale? Well, only because they were holding it for Mario’s 35th Anniversary, and, I love it!!! This seems like a game I’ll play alot, and I’ll have to play as much as I can, because compared to these other games, this one will be limited!!

Yea, would you believe it?? If you have a Nintendo Switch with Nintendo Switch Online, you can only play this from October 10th to March 31st. Which seems very dumb!!! Why would you get everybody excited over a cool game that alot of people might love, only to take it away from us, like, barely six months after it came out? This makes no sense! But trust me, we’ll go more in-depth on this soon. Before we talk about that, let’s talk about the other stuff!

5) The other stuff

I wanna get those cute new Mario overalls. I also wanna get those Splatfest keychains when they come out, as well as those Mario pins!! Sadly, you have to buy one of the new $60 Mario games when they come out, which sucks! Because I don’t have much money on my Nintendo account, and I don’t even have a job, so I can’t get it right away. Also seems real greedy to give out something for free when you also have to buy something in order to obtain it. But trust me, this is only a setback; I will get those pins if it’s the last I do.

But, of course, it’s time to talk about the most controversial announcement that was made today. The final announcement Nintendo made today regarding Mario’s 35th Anniversary, and that’s

6) Super Mario 3D All-Stars

That’s right! The highly rumored, highly hyped up, highly exciting announcement yet! The one everyone has been talking about, the one we’ve all been getting excited over! And even though I was first excited by this, I was also a little bit disappointed. Now, however, I’m even more mixed on this one!!

Let’s talk about the Pros & the Cons about this one.

Pros

Mario 64, Sunshine, & Galaxy are finally on Switch!!! Wow, that is very exciting!!!

Wow, Mario Sunshine looks so beautiful in HD!! Probably because of the widescreen thing, but that makes it better!!!

The Music Player is cool, I’m glad I’m now able to listen to the whole soundtrack of Mario 64, Sunshine, & Galaxy on the comfort of my Switch!! :)!!!

I’m glad they’re all together in one collection!! That’s super cool too!!

And hey, it’s coming out real soon too, that’s cool!!

OK, that’s all I have on the Pros, let’s move onto the Joycons. Cons, I mean.

Cons

OKAYYYYYY, where can I even start??? The title is very misleading. It is called “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” right?? Why didn’t these games get beautiful HD remastered graphics, or better yet, full on remakes?? With updated graphics, stuff missing from the original prototypes added in there (like playable Luigi in Mario 64), or, hell, even stuff added from the DS remake onto the Switch remake?? Playing Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo Switch in an All-Stars-esque package should mean a total upgrade!! All we’re really getting is like, “Higher Resolutions” (even though fans have been able to port Mario 64 onto PC at 60 FPS & in 4K widescreen resolution, and the way the game looks on Switch just seems to be barely emulating, but whatever) and updated controls for the Switch. Now, it’s not to say that the novelty isn’t cool. I’m glad we’re able to play Mario 64 & Sunshine on Switch, but like, if these are just straight up ports of the original games with nothing added to it, why even release physical copies of it when you could just release them seperately through Virtual Console, or, ya know, just separate releases on eShop?? It didn’t seem too hard to just port them on Switch, why not rerelease them on the platform for a cheaper price? And speaking of,

The price of this. How are you able to justify 3 games that are all more than a decade old for $60 if you’re not even gonna add in any new content besides a music player?? This kinda seems very cheap and reeks of Nintendo trying to make as much of quick bucks as possible from this. You gave the fans what we wanted, you did the bare minimum, and now you will earn in the reapings. And I wouldn’t even harshly complain about this!! Yea, sure, fans are making more beautiful upscalings to Mario 64 on PC for free, but suuuuuure, make your loyal fans pay $20 for a 25 year old game you can easily emulate on your PC. And that’s not even my biggest complaint.

Oh yea, before I go to my biggest complaint: why didn’t you include Mario Galaxy 2?? I know Galaxy is a pretty long game, but at the very least the $60 would’ve felt a lil bit more justified (not totally justified, btw!!! $60 still feels too much to play 4 games that are all a decade old at least). And as it is now, it feels very bare bones. You can’t just rerelease Mario Galaxy onto the Switch without it’s sequel,,, and again, these would’ve been my biggest and only complaints, if not for this one,,,

Nintendo’s “Vault”

Limited Release. Not just limited physical release, but limited digital release too. You can only legally purchase this game when it comes out on September 18th, 2020 til March 31st, 2021. After March 31st, 2021, you won’t be able to legally purchase this game ever again. And this isn’t just a weird thing for the United States. The whole world will get affected by this too. You aren’t safe if you’re in Britain, Japan, Europe, or anywhere else where this game is legally sold.

Out of all of Nintendo’s anti-consumer practices they’ve done in the past half-decade, out of every greedy way Nintendo tried to make money off of your nostalgia, this has to be the most greediest and the most uncharacteristic ever. And I am absolutely anti-capitalist, all of yinz should know this by this point! But even then, this just seems incredibly shady.

Why would you hype up your fanbase over the anticipated rereleases of fan favorite games onto your console, ones that could rank in fans old and new, and only release it for a limited amount of time, before putting it back into a hypothetical “vault”, never to be legally released for an unknown period of time?

And why, as a company trying to heavily protect their image, take down ROMs & ISOs & emulators, but not even clearly release your classics onto modern consoles without doing something weird about it?

You all know what I’m talking about: stuff like “Nintendo Switch Online Nintendo Entertainment System” and “SNES Classic Edition”!!!! Like, limited edition stuff like NES Classic or SNES Classic are at the very least justifiable because they were made to make a quick profit for Christmas by nostalgia-baiting your audience!! Sure, that kinda makes sense. But this is moment that Nintendo seriously crossed the line.

The one chance, the one chance Nintendo could get every Mario fan happy & excited, and they did the bare minimum, in the most cheapest way possible, in the least consumer-friendly way possible, in order to make up for potential losses during this pandemic.

And honestly, we could’ve gotten something better. You could either chalk this to Nintendo’s results from being terribly impacted by a pandemic that forced everyone way from each other, or Nintendo was really planning this all along. And they could easily do this again as well if this game sells well.

Compared to Disney, which tons of people made comparisons to, I can’t currently pirate these Mario games! I lost important buttons from my keyboard for the D-Pad, and the PS4 controller I borrowed from my bro won’t work on my laptop anymore because I lost the proper cord, and other cords I tried using won’t work as well. So, I can’t really boycott this game. Mario is very close and dear to my heart, and I’m willing to buy this game.

However, what scares me the most is that Nintendo could do this again. Zelda’s 35th happens to be next year. What happens if they released the Zelda 64 games for a limited amount of time on Switch as well??? Or what if they released the Gamecube & Wii Zelda games as ports for the Switch in a collection for a limited amount of time as well??? I’ve seen someone predict that Nintendo could possibly do this again, and I can’t really stop it because I want to play Mario Sunshine on my Switch, I want to play Mario Galaxy on my Switch! But I absolutely despised the way Nintendo went along to do this. And I’m gonna hate it even more when they do it again, thinking they could easily fool us again just because it has the “Mario” name on it, or the “Zelda” name on it.

And that’s what I’m more scared and excited for all at the same time.

At the very least, more people are starting to notice.

[suga-ssi]

SMERALDO x BTS COMEBACK 2017!  

PART 4

FACEBOOK: THE SMERALDO ACADEMY: Just a low down

Link to Part 1: for Entries 1-3

Link to Part 2: for Entries 4-6

Link to Part 3: for Entry 7, Event Entry, and Social Media Links

1. The Smeraldo Academy (TSA) Facebook page was set up last year, July 18, 2016.

2. According to the page, TSA was founded in September 12, 2013. 4 years ago. Same date as Namjoon’s birthday.

3. If you send an email to academy.smeraldo@gmail.com (email for inquiries from the fb account) you will receive this email (This is the actual response I got)

yep... Sir Will Ashbless replies LOL

4.  The updates were sporadic, except for when the Anniversary   approached last year and, well... it’s pretty active now. They post Smeraldo trivia, Flower show we missed (which coincided with their tour dates btw), and a legit event in Hawaii for horticulture! haha Wonder how they found that stuff... LOL

5.  TSA will be celebrating it’s anniversary on September 12, 2017 and we are all invited. “We will gather to celebrate the 4th anniversary of TSA! Lots of food and wines will be served. Anyone who loves Smeraldo is welcomed!!” 

I’m going! LOL

I can smell the comeback... 

6.  In 17.07.17, TSA changed it’s profile to this:

I dunno what’s the tea with the “T” but Son Sungdeokssi know’s what’s up

ANYWAY!

Here we have BTS and BigHit proving to us that they are the Kings and Bosses of all Social Media. Top Social Artists indeed. 

They have found a way of dropping hints and sharing a story precluding a narration with the use of a language and medium we are very savvy with.

Important to note, none of these are real. No Smeraldo, No Will Ashbless, No Testesso, No Smeraldo Academy.

Like Tim Powers who created Ashbless to fit his narrative, BigHit and Bangtan created a well thought out back story, after back story, after back story in able to make the story they are about to share with us more credible.

We don’t understand something, we google it. So they provided us with sources, granted they are fabricated.

All the stories though point to this, Love Yourself. Know your worth before you miss out on opportunities for thinking you don’t deserve them.

The fact that we have seen these flowers and have also seen cards in the past may mean that this next comeback is another chapter in our boy’s story lines and it’s panning out beautifully.

Oh... and also... People have been pointing this out...

do you see it?

I still am not sure if the 7 winners for the stories in the end will actually come from those of us who sent them in (yes, us. I sent one in) or the winners are the boys themselves as they reveal the story to us. I mean, Jungkook was already holding a flower. 

Entry 8 

[kennethherrerablog]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

The Ladder of Freedom published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[samuelfields]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[andrewdburton]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/

[choigiraffe]

Get into Hotshot

So someone suggested that I do an update of this and then someone separate asked me to do this and instead of just editing the ask I decided to just make this a separate post (this will be the last time i do this lol)

We’ll start with the members first :

This ray of sunshine and one of the most precious human beings  is Hoshot’s Leader , main vocalist and Dad Junhyuk (Choi Junhyuk) ( and yes he refers to himself as “dad”

B-Day: April 21, 1992 

He is  a former SM trainee

His nickname is Choi Giraffe ( if you see hotshot stand together in pictures , you’ll see why that’s his nickname )

He calls his fans “loves” and write all his fancafe post by hand ;__; and it’s the cutest thing in the world.

He also likes to compose his own songs X , X( he made this song for their 1 year anniversary :’)))))

Sound cloud: @ choijunhyuk [x]

his personal instagram @92tober [x]

Next is Hotshot’s mom Timoteo ( Kim Moonkyu)

B-Day : January 25,1993

He is also Hotshot’s main dancer, Sub vocal , rapper and sub leader 

He is in charge of Hotshot’s connections ( a title he gave himself since he knows a lot other idols

he was baptized as Timothy,which is where his stage name comes from

To get this out of the way he was also an SM trainee and he was one of the original members EXO, but he left because of the stress he got from his parents and didn’t want to wait anymore to debut 

Also he knows a ton of people such as Taemin ( Shinee) , Kai (Exo), Niel( Teen Top) , Sehun (exo) , Kyuhyun (Super Junior) , Amber ( F(x)), Johnny (NCT127)  the list goes on. The other members make  jokes about  when ever they go somewhere to perform Timoteo would already know someone there.

His special talent is imitating the sound of fruit washing 

Every time he gets embarrassed he touches his nose 

Some of his past dancing videos can be found here  : X,X,X

Note: he has not made a personal instagram account yet

Next is Hotshot adorable smol krumper Kid monster

B-Day : October 15, 1993 

His nickname is Kimon (short for kid monster),  which is why you’ll see people tag him as that rather than kid monster

He’s Hotshot’s main dancer , lead vocal and since I’m a hotshot ™ a Rapper

He loves doing his joker impersonation and can make the sound of a starving stomach with his throast 

He was a former YG trainee

He was a back dancer for Bigbang’s Taeyang during the Alive concert (x)

After dancing for Bigbang’s Taeyang it was then he decided that he wanted to peruse being an idol

Was a part of a krump dance crew called MONSTER WOO FAM

He was part of the Survival show produce 101 and choreographed the Shape of you performance that went viral and because of that performance had the first encore of the season

Personal instagram : @roh_taehyun [X]

Next is Hotshot’s happy virus Sungwoon

B-day: March 22,1994

If i remember correctly his nickname is Real man , why? I have no idea

He auditioned for JYP ( video here )

Also here is a predebut performance Sungwoon did as part of his audition [X]

Says he can impersonate the Korean version of sponge bob and squidward  [X]

His nickname is Rain cloud ,because Sungwoon means” cloud” and because he is very sensitive he tends to cry a lot which is where “ rain” comes from 

He’s close friends with Shinee’s Taemin , Vixx’s  Ravi , BTS’ Jimin 

He can also impersonate Rain 

He’s Hotshot’s main vocal and he really does have an amazing voice( X)

Oh and he also was a feature in Chad No future’s MV (i’m not going to link it , i’m doing you a favor)( i never watched the mv but i already know Sungwoon was the only good thing about that MV

He can also play the piano 

He along with Taehyun was on the survival show Produce 101 

He is now apart of wanna one as the 11th member 

He as of right now does not have a personal instagram account 

Next is Hotshot’s adorable awkward rap San ( yoonsan)

B-day: August 22, 1994 

Well he is Hotshot’s main rapper and literally spits fire (X) (X) (X)

need more proof here’s his soundcloud (X) ( might as well just download his mixtape now )

he lived in france for about 7/8 years

his notable feature is his large head 

he can impersonate megatron’s voice

honestly if you need to know more about him  just remember that he said one of his supporting moments was when he eats cheese

oh and he really like cheese burgers :”) (x)

His personal instagram account is @mcreeeeee [X]

Soundcloud @san yoon1 [X]

Last but not least is Hotshot adorable maknae in charge of aegyo and imo hotshot’s 2nd selfie prince Hojung

B-day: October 20,1994 

He’s Hotshot’s Lead vocal and dancer 

Honestly he’s an adorable little dork , I mean come on one of his talents is dancing to my name’s “ Just tell me”

he used to be called K.HO

he also lived in Thailand

He can speak Thai and Japanese 

He competed in a body sculpting completion and won the fashion category 

plus also there was that one time he had a rap battle against sungwoon  and got the title king of rap(x)

Personal instagram : @kkkhj_ [x]

Note: Hotshot’s company was formally known as KO sound they then changed their name to Ador &Able when produce 101 first aired but have now changed their name to Star Crew entertainment 

______________________________________________________________

Finally here are some videos to get to know them a bit better (in case you haven’t seen them already)

Here are  some of their pre-debut stuff here

Vol.1 / Vol.2 /Vol.3 / Vol.4 / Vol.5 (warning might just steal your soul)

Here are their official Music videos [korean ]

Take a Shot 

Midnight Sun 

Watch out

I’m a Hotshot 

Here’s are their dance practices 

Take a shot [ this isn’t a dance [practice this is the dance version of the mv   ][X]

Midnight Sun [X]

Watch out [X]

I’m a Hotshot [X]

Then here are some interviews you can watch of them  and their 24 hours video:

Hotshot dormitory life

Artist of the Week

Hotshot Warm The show up time

K-populous Hotshot

Tonton interview

Idol Got 10 (warning possible second hand embarrassment)

Pops in seoul self -introduction

Also recently Hotshot debuted in the Chinese market so here was the music battle they did against timez (x)

If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing here are some snippets i’ve linked :

Watch Out  Chinese performance (X)

Manuel of Youth cover (X)

Hotshot Vs Timez relay dance battle (SRSLY WATCH THIS ) (X)

Hotshot little apple cover (X)

Hotshot also debuted in Japan with their single step by step 

step by step MV [x]

here is the performance at kcon japan [X]

You can follow Hotshot on these official links 

Official Youtube

Official Instagam 

Official Twitter

Fancafe 

Facebook

Then to end it all here are some other videos of them (none of these are subbed , but pls still watch them !!!)

24 hours (hotshot’s workout ?)

Next kpop star: Hotshot’s talents

Next Kpop star : Arm wresting/ cringe worthy aegyo (i promise you will hurt from smiling so much from this video)

Hotshot Vol.8

Hotshot vol.9

Hotshot Vol.10 (hotshot in Jeju)

Hotshot Vol.11 (hotshot in Jeju)

Hotshot Vol.12 (hotshot in Jeju)

Hello Korea [this is cubbed ] ep 1 [part 1] [part 2 // ep 2 [part 1] [part 2] not out yet 

Also here are some cringy videos that Hotshot did with some Youtubers [these are subbed btw]

Kpop Stars Guess Celebrity Ethnicity/ Origins 

Korean Celebrities Sing Famous Pop Songs 

Kpop Celebrities Sing Famous KPOP songs 

Kpop IDOL boy groups does my makeup 

Korean Stars Imitate Famous Latino Singers

Also here are some place where you can follow hotshot’s activities 

Fy!Hotshot 

Hotshotsg [translations]

nohtaehyunfan [ translations]

[londonpalestineaction]

Some security advice from a workshop at our February 2017 meeting.

Passwords

If you use the same password everywhere, this is the number one thing you must fix and state surveillance is the least of your problems.

The no. 1 threat is companies holding your data and not securing it properly. Password databases are frequently leaked onto the internet. If the company is good, they've taken some measures to hide your actual password, but that's not always the case.

The last high profile incident happened a fortnight ago with a very security conscious company making a terrible mistake in their systems, which are used by OKCupid, for example. So anyone who uses the same password for OKCupid as they do elsewhere is at risk.

Don't remember your passwords – use a password manager:

Use tools like 1Password or LastPass to save and create passwords for you. You then only have to remember one long password to access your "vault".

2nd Factor Authentication:

Sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, as well as the password managers above offer you the ability to use a "2nd factor", which is something you have on you as well as your password. This is normally your phone.

Don't completely mistrust corporations, or being a needle in a haystack can be a good thing

Anonymity amongst the big datasets of large corporations can be a useful way to operate. One reason is that it's not in Google's or Amazon's interest to give information to the US government due to EU privacy law. Governments then have to try and tap the entire input and output of those company's systems, and given most of it is cat videos on YouTube with the occasional Alec Baldwin playing Trump impression, well, good luck to them.

More importantly, they have the resources to secure data better than most, and have made big efforts to do so post-Snowdon, mainly due to EU/other international contracts they don't want to lose if it was found they were handing everything over to the US government without a fight.

Communications between Google equipment is secure (post-Snowden), so sending email messages between GMail accounts is much more preferable than emailing from RiseUp and Gmail and back again, as the government is definitely tapping what goes in and out of RiseUp, but is having a harder time doing that within Google's network.

The companies are also running their own campaigns against state surveillance.

However, use ProtonMail:

It's Swiss, open source, and has the thumbs up from security community.

Your computer

Keep it up to date:

Don't still be running Windows 7, and don't run old versions of OS X. These are basically dead in terms of security. Windows 10 Anniversary Update and OS X Yosemite are more secure than Linux. Yup, that's right.

Encrypt it:

Either use FileVault on Mac, or Bitlocker on Windows to encrypt your hard disk. This means if someone steals your laptop, they can't get at the contents without your password. The screen unlock was never secure.

Don't use it for sensitive information:

If you fear a state adversary is trying to get to your information, you should assume your laptop is already hacked. The truth is that laptops and desktops were not designed for security in mind, sooo....

Your phone

Use it:

Modern phone systems are designed much more heavily around security. iPhone remains the best, but even modern Android devices and Windows Phone are OK.

Keep it up to date:

Same rules follow as for normal computers. Your phone should be receiving regular updates every month. If it isn't, you can assume your phone is not secure. This means in practice sticking to Apple, Motorola, LG, OnePlus, FairPhone or Samsung for phones. You can use the cheaper brands as burners, but they quite often can't be trusted.

Use Signal:

Just use it.

Photos:

On an action, you may want to take photos and share them. They usually come with a load of metadata to help professional photographers, but which can also help police identify you.

Twitter and Instagram remove this data, so use these sites to share photos.

I think I've been hacked?

Try the Digital First Aid Kit, and failing that, contact someone at Access Now, or Zeynep Tufecki or Martin Shelton (below), by the securest means at your disposal.

Who to follow for more information

Amie Stepanovich (@astepanovich) & Estelle Massé (@estelMP) - Access Now, digital rights group

Zeynep Tufecki (@zeynep) - Harvard Berkman Klein Center sociologist with specialising on technology and protest with first hand experience from Turkey

Martin Shelton (@mshelton) - User research with press and "at-risk groups" at Google

The Grugq (@thegrugq) - Bangkok-based Independent Security Researcher

Delete everything

Don't keep messages, documents or plans longer than you need them. If you can use the disappearing messages feature of Signal, do so. (BTW, SnapChat is not an alternative.)

Glossary

OPSEC

Operational Security. The process to identify critical information that has to be protected, and the processes for carrying out that protection.

SIGINT / COMINT

Signals/Communications Intelligence. What most security researchers talk about when talking about online security. Sounds all military and cool, innit.

HUMINT

Human Intelligence. 95% of anyone's problems in activist communities is trust. Technology is comparatively easy. Don't get too hung up on state surveillance when there are more likely vectors for infiltration. To quote The Grugq: 

SIGINT is really the sort of intelligence collection technique that needs to lose its prominence in the pantheon of intelligence gods. It is very easy for a serious adversary to defeat: basic tradecraft from the days of Allen Dulles will work (leave the phone behind, have the meeting while taking a walk). This tradecraft technique is described by Dulles, in 50 year old KGB manuals, and by Hizbollah operatives last year (2012). The only way to catch people who are capable of any sort of OPSEC / tradecraft is via: a) Mistakes that they make (very easy for amateurs to make mistakes), or b) Via HUMINT. Spies catch spies, as the saying goes. It might be updated to, spies catch clandestine operatives.

Double down on HUMINT and scale back SIGINT. SIGINT can be evaded, but HUMINT, essentially exploiting trust relationships, will always bite you in the ass.

Just use Qubes / Blockchain / GPG2 / Homophonic Encryption

Really unhelpful advice that's possibly technically correct, but way to onerous in reality, given by Twitter techbros who want to sound clever but don't have anything useful to offer. Ignore.

Open source

Sounds bad, right? Not really. All our most secure systems are based on shared assumptions about mathematics. Open source means the code for these systems are shared, and everyone understands how secure they are. 

WhatsApp is insecure

Guardian journalists putting lives at risk through misinformation. Ignore.

[ikonis]

iKON’s love for iKONICs (long)

Let’s start with the story behind our fandom name iKONIC. Why iKONIC you ask? Because iKON = iKONIC we become one with them

+ They even gave us a nickname KONIC

iKONICs Profile according to iKON:

Our birth date is the 2015.09.15 since that’s the day they released their first song + MV (My Type). Our Zodiac is virgo bcs of the same reason and our Blood Type is a heart for all the love we give them ♥️ 

why #iKONIC is My Life hashtag you ask? First time hanbin said it was when iKON won Seoul music award 2016

It became a sentence which the members often use/d since then. So iKONICs started to use the sentence “iKON is My life” instead.

June wearing a fan sign with ‘iKON is My life’ around his neck: 

Chanwoo holding a cupboard made by iKONICs <3:

they are surrounded by iKONICs, wearing fansigns made  by iKONICs and have slogans in their hands that were made by iKONICs

They named their official instagram account withikonic and use the hashtag #withiKONIC under every post 

iKON mentioning & thanking iKONICs in DVD photobooks 

iKONCERT in Seoul DVD (Photobook)

Kony’s Wintertime Season Greetings:

Kony’s Summertime Season Greetings:

MMA 2018 Ending Credits:

Privat Stage KOLORFUL Behind The Scenes Video:

The amount of respect, love, care, support and appreciation that iKON treats us with and shows us every single day

“iKON exists because of you”- Bobby

actual quotes from iKON members:

Hanbin talking about he wants to be remembered by iKONICs:

iKON giving out hot chocolate coupons and hotpacks to iKONICs

During their ISAC Recording they kept on asking if iKONICS have eaten:

The way Yunhyeong and Bobby hold iKONICs hands and bow to them<3:

Donghyuk’s & Hanbin’s reaction when K-iKONICs raised a fan with the words ‘I missed you’ during iKON’s debut concert

Bobby cheering up fans for their exams:

Hanbin forever showering us with love and love <3 “As much as the love I’ve received, I’d wanted to share it with you.”:

“Everyone, we can grow with your love” - Hanbin

after their Continue Tour Encore in Seoul Concert (which btw lastet for 4 whole hours + 10 encore songs):

Hanbin told a security guard to use honorifics when he talked rudely to iKONICs

iKON started their concert in Indonesia later, for the muslim iKONICs who had to pray 

Donghyuk posting the presents they got from arab iKONICs (after their interview with Al arabiya) he even asked the interviewer to help him with the arabic caption:

Hanbin bowing to vietnamese iKONICs before leaving 

Hanbin was so impressed by how many iKONICs came to the airport in vietnam to welcome them that he suggested holding a concert there

After iKON’s 2nd Daesang Win at the 2019 Golden Disc Awards, Hanbin posted this picture with the caption “iKONIC, it’s an honor to live as a part of your memories.” on Instagram:

after the speech Hanbin even went down on his knees to thank iKONIC

+ the other members thanking iKONIC on their instagram acc:

Yunhyeong:

Donghyuk:

Jinhwan:

Donghyuk smiling and shaking Indonesian iKONICs hand during a fansign event:

Yunhyeong replying to a fan on Instagram who had a very hard time: 

Hanbin added a sentence to the end lyrics of ‘Welcome back’ and repeated it over and over again ‘Let’s stay together until we die.’ 

Hanbin further talking about & explaining the meaning of the sentence “Let’s take it slow, let’s last real long.”:

Donghyuk carries the official iKONIC Card in his wallet TT:

Bobby posted a thank you message to iKONICs on iKON’s 3rd anniversary on instagram and added the caption ‘Let’s get old together’:

Bobby mouthing I-K-O-N-I-C into the camera during one of iKON’s promotional Love Scenario stages:

Donghyuk replying “I love you” to iKONICs who were screaming “We love you iKON”

June helping a nervous fan during a fansign event:

Donghyuk cheering up an iKONIC who cried during one of their fansign events:

Hanbin holding a fan’s hand who was being nervous at their 15114 fansign:

Hanbin once again calming down a nervous fan:

An Indonesian iKONIC asked Bobby to wish her luck to get pregnant soon and Bobby wrote “Don’t be hasty about girl from heaven.”:

Hanbin & Bobby encouraging fans who went through a hard time: 

part of hanbin’s letter at iKONCERT in Osaka:

Bobby telling iKONICs to do their best in their personal lives while cheering for iKON:

“Dont live your life just to live but live to do something you want to do.”

“Love yourself more than you love us.” - Bobby

“If you have time for iKON, please focus on yourselves first.” - Hanbin

“I’m just a person just like you. Please buy nice clothes, please eat something delicious. And if you happen to have 25,000 won left over, then you can buy our album. That’s when you should buy our albums.”

“I didn’t give up because I had my family and iKONICs.” - Hanbin

iKON & iKONICs feeding each other <3:

Hanbin thanking iKONICs once again for waiting

Bobby hugging an iKONIC & caressing her hair/head:

iKON thanking iKONICs on instagram for getting #1

Bobby froze when a fan fainted in the audience:

Helping iKONICs 

During the filming for SBS midnight TV in Hongdae a fan suddenly fell down and hanbin wanted to help help her, the manager said just leave, but Hanbin said how can I leave when the fan already fell down so he insisted to help her to stand up and said sorry to her. 

an iKONIC who’s sitting in a wheelchair came to one of iKON’s fansign events but there were stairs so Yunhyeong & Bobby went down to give her their signs:

when one of iKON’s biggest wishes to hold a dome tour finally came true:

Hanbin took a fan on stage and treated her like a queen

Donghyuk giving autographs after their concert in Jakarta:

Bobhwan never forgets the fanboys:

Donghyuk dressed as krunk to be closer to iKONICs:

Donghyuk reveiling that he was Krunk right after spending time with fans (another concert):

Hanbin chatting with fans on CH+ (he wrote a bit in English for the international fans):

Bobby taking selfies with fans when he visited his family in virgina, u.s in December 2018:

He even took a video for the sister of one of them:

Bobby replying to fans on instagram:

Hanbin drew the word ‘romance’ in a heart on his white jacket during one of iKON’s freedom promo performances, he previously said during a fansign event that IKONICs are romance to him, which means the heart and the word he drew on his chest represented iKONICs:

Donghyuk chatting with iKONICs on CH+ chat:

Yunhyeong planned a special event for iKONICs for ‘Awesome Feed’, he made dumplings and gave them out to them and signed the packaging:

Afterwards he even went out to thank all fans who came & chatted with them casually, here are some videos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |  5 | 6 | 7

Chanwoo promised iKONICs on his youtube account to make them the famous inkigayo sandwitches if his video reaches more than 500k views, since iKONICs broke that number he prepared the self made sandwitches at iKON’s Continue Tour Encore in Seoul with a personal message TT:

Bobby posted a picture of himself and iKONICs on instagram and replied to fans comments, urgh the trust!:

Hanbin once again accepting Fans presents at the airport even when he wasnt allowed to by the staff TT:

Chanwoo gave us a fan name for his youtube channel TT it’s Changu (mix between Chanwoo + Chingu which means friend in Korean):

Donghyuk saving an iKONIC from a ball during the 2019 ISAC recording:

June’s letter to iKONICs (ikoncert in Osaka):

Bobby wrapping himself in a fan sign:

Yunhyeong gave a fan his handwrist during their Continue Tour show in Jakarta:

during iKON’s performance for the MBN Hero Concert 2018 in Korea, Bobby went down from stage during their Dumb & Dumber performance and sat down on some fanboys laps to sing and dance along with them:

when iKONICs said ‘pls say you love us’

Bobby chatting wiht iKONICs on CH+ chat:

Hanbin gesturing a fan in the audience not to cry:

Bobby giving a fan his autograph on her Love and Fall album during iKON’s concert in Jakarta (even tho he wasn’t allowed to do it)

Bobdong promised a Vapp broadcast for iKON’s 300 Days anniversary, and they kept their promise like always:

Yunhyeong taking selfies with iKONICs who visited his parents restaurant:

never breaking their promises:

Donghyuk gave the stuffed toy he won to a fan: 

during one of iKON’s concerts:

during one of their Japan Tours after reading his letter:

dunring their iKONCERT in Chengdu concert:

an IKONIC met yoyo and june in japan and they bowed to him and thanked him:

Bobby flirting with iKONICs again:

Donghyuk flirting with a fan:

Hanbin cheering up a fan who was feeling stressed:

Bobby eating more when a fan told him ‘watching you eat makes me full’:

iKON members went down on their knees to thank iKONICs at their Continue Tour Encore in Seoul Concert:

iKON thanking iKONICs after their win at the 2019 Golden Disc Awards: 

Hanbin ONCE AGAIN thanking iKONICs (on CH+):

during a fansign event:

Bobby telling a fan who wants to lose weight to eat:

iKON talking about iKONICs:

never forget how hanbin apologized to his fansite for losing win

Bobby talking about iKONICs

Bobby recording iKONICs singing ‘Just for you’ at iKON’s 180824 concert in Japan:

Chanwoo used the normal vapp because he Is aware that there are iKONICs who can’t afford CH+ content TT:

Bobby talking about the issue regarding iKONICs boycotting iKON’s DVD in 2017 so YG would let them make a comeback again and treat them better:

Yunhyeong taking pics with fans at the airport before leaving for Law of the jungle:

Hanbin asking fans to wait for them on CH+:

Hanbin’s photocard Return album:

The way iKON looks at us like we are the most precious thing in the whole world:

June giving out free hugs to fans :

Yun receiving a fans letter <3

Bobby receiving a fan’s letter once again:

Bobby receiving a fan’s letter:

Bobby receiving a fan’s letter again <3:

Reading fan letters at the airport 💕

The amount of fanservice and skinship

Two little iKONICs went to iKON’s fansign event during their RETURN promotions and Bobdong went to them to give them their autographs, later that year duringig iKON’s Killing Me promotions, iKON held a pikonic day for baby iKONICs, and he remembered the little boy from before and gave him one of his bracelets:

Donghyuk meeting one of his biggest JPN iKONICs aka Mina:

He looked so excited waiting for his turn to finally meet her:

Scarlett, a 7yo iKONIC from the phillippines cried in one of her mother’s instagram posts and saying she wants to meet bobby, Bobby then made a instagram story gratulating her on her birthday:

Later the same year when iKON had a concert in the phillippines, Bobby finally met her and posted it on his insta story

iKON never forgets the international fans:

Chanwoo & Hanbin remembering fans:

lucky fans meeting iKON members:

Bobby & Jinhwan kissing an iKONIC’s hand:

more fanlove <3:

yoyo and dong took a fans handy and recorded a video

Bobby trying to get as close to fans as possible:

literally hugging iKONICS:

he might me awkward but super adorable:

Jinhwan stood up from his seat and decided to stay with iKONICs during their 190119 fansign:

Jinhwan going down to take pics with iKONICS at their 190119 fansign:

Hanbin showing a heart during one of their concerts:

Hanbin went down to take iKONICs hands at their 190119 fan sign:

Chanwoo, Hanbin & Yunhyeong took their fansisites cameras to take pictures of the members: 

Chanu taking pics with a fan’s phone:

Bobby accepting an iKONICs plushy and immediately holding it onto his cheek during their 190106 send off (encore concert in Seoul)

Hanbin caressing a fan’s face while singing his part from today ‘You’ve got perfect make-up on today’ (ikoncert in Seoul)

Donghyuk being a cute tease:

Donghyuk playing rock paper scissors with fans (link of three videos)

June taking selfies with fan’s phones:

+ Jinhwan, Chanwoo & Yunhyeong

Donghyuk invented DONGPARAZZI only for iKONICs. Just to show us unreleased and private pictures of the boys 

“No I put my fans first” 

Yunhyeong gestured to her eyes bcs she was crying and gave it to her to use it to dry her tears 

As an iKONIC you won’t be ignored

An italian fan commented “Remember me” in korean on Donghyuk’s real life broadcast & he remembered her 

Songs iKON wrote for iKONICs

Starting with “Wait for me” (When WIN ended)

The story behind the song

Most important lines of the song

“Time go faster, Time go to her so I can reach her.”

“Oh you and me, We’re under the same sky but we can’t meet, but believe in me, I’ll be there for you.”

“Wait because I’ll go to you right now. Wherever you are, I’ll go. 

“Thank you for making me live as the me right now.”

“I missed you, your voice, your face, even your soft breathing.”

“I won’t go anywhere now, I’ll be by your side. Even until the moment the world ends.”

“I can only breathe when I’m next to you. I’m ready for this, you alone are enough for me. I ain’t gonna leave, I promise you.”

“Wait because we’re gonna be forever now. Because I can’t go on without you.”

“I’ll run against time and go to you, Wait for me yeah, so she can remember me.”

Next “Long time no see” (Mix & Match ending)

Story behind the song

Most important lines of the song

“There’n no one like you. There’s only you.”

“My world I keep stopping when you’re not around. There’s not even a flower around me.”

“Long time no see. This is for you.”

“You were in the center of me – You are now buried in my memory.”

“To stand before you again. I always worked hard. The thought of seeing you again. It makes me excited.”

“I’m so used to calling your name. I talk about you all day. I don’t want nobody else.”

“I ran all the way, baby. Hold on just a bit more.”

“On the other side of my memory, you were waiting. I now stand before you.”

“Long time no see, How have you been? You’ve waited too long. I won’t go anywhere, baby don’t worry.”

“I longed for you a lot too. I got lost on the way to see you.”

“I made you wait crossed our little fingers,I made a promise to you. I didn’t keep it, I’m sorry.”

“Finally I am where I am now. And you are still beautiful.”

“Long time no see. I’ve missed you a lot.”

Next “Welcome Back” (Debut album)

Story behind the song

It’s a song to welcome back their fans and thank them for waiting so long for iKON. It’s also also the title of iKON’s debut album and the first song they performed at their debut concert. Welcome back os a really meaningful song to iKON & iKONIC’s. 

Most important lines of the song

“Baby oh! Welcoming you back here.”

“For me, I’m still the same guy that hasn’t changed a single bit. Except for the fact that I’ve realized how precious you are.”

“Seeing you again for a the first time in a while, It feels like my heart that hurt for so long is getting perfectly well again.”

“Your beauty and grace is still the same. My life without you was really lacking.”

“How were you doing this while? Who did you lean on when you were struggling?”

I found that I couldn’t stand for anyone but you. I mean, I never went searching but there’s not another girl like you in the world, for real.”

“It was really lonely, nothing was new. Every day by day was really just boring. What I want to say is thanks for coming back.”

Welcome back I’m glad you returned, I’ll treat you better now.”

Welcome back I really missed you. Now will you take me into your arms?”

“Without you i was all meaningless. Even my weekends were empty without you.”

When I saw those evening sunsets I reminisced those days with you.”

“I’ll treat you better, please don’t leave me. We’re definitly meant to be.”

“Let’s take it slow, let’s last real long (let’s stay together until we die) Welcome Back!”

Next is “M.U.P/Make You Proud” (Debut Album)

Story behind the song

In M.U.P, they promise that even if they don’t have much to show right now, they’ll definitely make us proud in the future & achieve more. They thank iKONICs for always being there for them & ask us to stay at their side forever. They talk about their struggles & how iKONICs helped them to get over it

Most important lines of the song

“Honestly the ‘me’ of as right now has nothing worth seeing. But I’ll promise to you that someday in this life, girl,  I’m gon make you proud.” 

“Within the trampled of life, I saw the one and only light (talking about ikonics) that illuminated my world. At those times when I couldn’t bear go on living, you whispered in my ear about the holiness of happiness, about the repentance of these 20 years (of his life) and I’m so thankful for you.” 

“It doesn’t matter that gravity’s pressing down on me like always. As long as it’s  with you, nothing better, nothing better.” 

“My goal was always to be your one top source of pride.” 

“Your two frail hands that pulled me into an embrace. You make someone like me want to live once again. I’ll be there at the world’s end, you just need to hold my hand.”

“When my hands were shaking, you took mine into yours. For holding my hand, I’ll promise, girl, I’m gon make you proud.” 

“Just stay at my side, just lean on my shoulder, don’t say nothing. I know that even if you don’t say it, it gonna be something.” 

The most recent song is ‘Just For You’ (iKON TV surprise release + New kids: continue album)

Story behind the song

Hanbin wrote the song a while ago and even talked about it on CH+ long before its release. He was worried that the song probably won’t ever come out. But as you can see he somehow made it possible so that the company would release the song as well as include it to their New kids: continue album later on.

Most important lines of the song:

“There is nothing I can give to you, there is nothing I can do just yet. Big promises, nice words, nothing comes to my mind.”

“But I hope that someday soon..I’ll be good to you and keep you safe, I’ll make you laugh as much as you’ve cried, I’ll be the star that lights you up”

“For as long as you’ve waited, I’ll be with you”

‘I’ll make good times for you and me’

“In this world, you’re the one I run to, but I don’t know if I can give you the world”

“Hand in hand, even if I can’t keep it, I promise for us both”

“You’re the one I want to protect in this uneasy world, you’re the reason I go on living, you’re my light in this never-ending darkness, The day will come to give us good laughs”

“We’ll be with you’, we’ll keep you safe” (ending)

+ BONUS: Hanbin answering why they named  iKON’s 2nd Album “RETURN”:

Those times they get surprised bcs of and by iKONICs

 hanbin’s reaction when iKONICs started to sing along to ‘wait for me’ (pre debut)

Bobby & Hanbin getting super excited and surprised when iKONICs started to sing along

J-iKONICs surprise event for iKON’s last showtime tour concert in Japan:

after the surprise event backstage  (another surprise event J-iKONICs prepared huge fan signs for them)

For iKON’s first debut anniversary, I-iKONICs prepared cake and started singing Happy Birthday for the boys 

For iKON’S very first concert in the Phillippines, PH iKONICs prepared 2 fan projects to show iKON how grateful and happy they are

1. Yellow Cloth Project: All iKONICs started raising a yellow cloth during iKON’s B-DAY performance:

2. Rainbow Project: 

iKON members even posted it on their instagram accounts

And last but not least some family portraits 💕