#i must be financially responsible 😂

[threnodians]

ordering a comm of these two with this pose ✨

[bcacstuff]

Have you heard anything about Sassenach not being able to do business in UK? Don't think that's correct.

It seems, there's an Anon leaving messages in my inbox which, I just found out, are quotes from another blogger. I actually don't like that as I think the blogger herself is responsible for what she posts. But I make this exception, as this is a weird one

I wont post the whole quotes here, but the statement was more or less that Ashley is an employee at SS and she and SH's team can not operate in the UK, because the company is registered in the UK

Of course, as you already thought that is not correct. How could they've done the popup store at the Kimpton in Edinburgh? There were even 4 employees (yes 4; 3 women, 1 guy) there all day, and boss Alex hanging around as well. Was that all just pro bono? Did they get a bottle of SS at the end? smh... of course not.

Even more, do you think OL would ever have been created in the UK if this statement was true? I mean Starz is a US company, right? So is Sony, RDM & Maril working for the US company Tall ship Productions, Lionsgate is a Canadian Entertainment Corporation. I could go on about the crew, set builders they hired (JGS anyone), The members from the Canadian First Nation, Cesar Domboy, a French Actor working for a US company in Scotland..... 😂

Anyway, as you thought BS. It requires a work permit for the employee, or the correct visa.

We can also ask Google and Deloitte will provide a 21 page document, which you can read here when you're interested. The short answer however is:

Can an overseas company operate in the UK? You only need to register an overseas company when it has some degree of physical presence in the UK, such as a place of business or branch, where it carries on business. You must file the documents to register a UK establishment with us within one month of the opening of the UK establishment.

Well I think that's an answer to your question.

(and btw. they did register LATHA ÙR LTD in January 2023 in the UK and end of October this year the unaudited Financial Statements were filed. They show £2 as current assents)

[thestupidhelmet]

What are your least favorite seasons for each of the main characters? Season 8 doesn't count for obvious reasons.

Hi! 😀

I'm going to start with favorite then least favorite (because I totally misread your ask 🙈).

Favorite

Red: Season 1.

Red's still gruff but more complex. He demonstrates his love and compassion for Eric directly in "That Wrestling Show" and "Grandma's Dead" without being emotionally constipated about it (that's a term I use for Hyde, too 😂). Same with Hyde in "That Disco Episode" and "Career Day". But he still does so in-character. After S1, the writers replied down on him being a hardass. Perhaps some humor was gained, but more was lost imo

Kitty: Season 2

Kitty shows her strengths and vulnerabilities this season. She is the sole breadwinner while Red's out of work and supports him through his emotional crisis about his joblessness. She becomes depressed at Eric's growing up (i.e. when Eric and Donna begin their sexual relationship).

Eric: Season 2

This choice was a little tough for me because I love how good a friend he is to Hyde in season 1 and how strong he is in season 5. But in season 2, he must learn to balance his ego, his insecurity, and his wants vs. respecting Donna and their relationship. Unfortunately, he doesn't learn the lesson fully enough.

Donna: Season 3

Donna grows in independence this season while her relationship with Eric remains an important part of her life. Eric's insecurity and resultant controlling actions ultimately push her away. I stead if pushing her anger (and wants and self) aside to protect Eric's ego, she finally puts herself first in a non-selfish way --

Except for her utter disrespect of Eric in "Backstage Pass" (which is the accumulation of her understandable resentment of him for trying to control her and hold her back; story-wise, it makes total sense and is completely set up for by the writing all season).

Jackie: Season 5

Jackie grows and changes significantly in this season. From bossy to communicative. From living in a superficial fantasy to appreciating the depths of reality. Hyde encourages her independence and ability to take care of herself financially as an adult -- and thus encouragement happens before she's forced by her parents to be financially responsible for the family's estate as a minor (her parents left her without any kind of adult guardian, family member, godparent, nothing).

She discovers her true strengths but overcorrects. She has to (re)learn how to let people support her.

Hyde: Season 2

Hyde's protectiveness of and support for Jackie in this season is e v e r y t h i n g . He starts helping her not because he likes (he doesn't and finds her personality abrasive) but because she's heartbroken and vulnerable and he believes helping her is the right thing to do.

Kelso, of Hyde's best friend, is not only responsible for Jackie's emotional state but also punishes her after she refuses to accept him back as her boyfriend. Hyde not only tries to get Kelso caught by Jackie, he also teaches her a method of protecting herself from bullying -- making himself more vulnerable to her by doing so (i.e. sacrificing some of his own mental-emotional safety for Jackie's).

Fez: Season 1

Fez isn't a joke but a complex character who's emotionally insightful. He's someone who's learning how to fit in with his American friends and sometimes overshoots. He doesn't yet suffer from Nice Guy syndrome and genuinely treats Jackie with kindness. He has the awareness and respect not to try to steal Jackie's affections for himself, despite believing he could.

He calls Kelso out on his bad behavior. His bond with Hyde is well-written, too.

Kelso: Season 6

Kelso demonstrates the most growth and change in this episode -- where Brooke is concerned. He leaves Jackie and Hyde alone now that he's interested in someone else (a selfish, self-interested release). He's still selfish with Eric and Donna, taking their toys without permission and destroying them. He tries to sabotage Eric's waiter job at the Holiday Hotel out of a sense of entitlement.

He doesn't reciprocate any of the friendship and support he's given except at the very beginning, trying to undo the damage between Jackie and Hyde he's partially responsible for.

All of that being said, he works hard at maturing for Brooke to prove himself a worthy romantic partner and father. He chooses a stable, albeit potentially dangerous, career. He respects Brooke's boundaries (although he does try to push them a little), and he ultimately lets Brooke and his child go because he believes that's what's better for them: his most unselfish act in the show.

Least Favorite

Red, Kitty, Hyde, Fez: Season 7

These four are almost unrecognizable from their canon selves in too many episodes. Fez is the worst written of the four. He's reduced to a punchline and punchline giver -- and his disrespect for women a d female friends is firmly cemented. (This transformation began at the end of season 4.)

Kitty is devolved from her intelligent, compassion character to a dumbed-down, alcoholic whose fear at Eric growing up and leaving home is transmuted into hostility and resentment toward Donna (but this transformation began in season 5).

Red is changed from someone deeply in love with his wife and has eyes only for her; has no interest in other women sexually, to the point of feeling guilty and scared when a teenage girl hits on him despite all his efforts to turn her away; to someone who acts like a put-upon husband in a terrible marriage, finds joy (and possible lust) in posing with two much younger car models.

Hyde goes from someone clearly deeply committed to Jackie in seasons 5 and 6 to someone who is now commitment-phobic, disrespects Jackie utterly in "Winter" and after she graduates high school. Breaks promises to Jackie. Shrugs instead communicating with her properly. This Hyde is incompatible with seasons 5-6 Hyde except in a select few episodes where he's written in-character (e.g. "On With the Show").

Jackie: Season 4

Jackie vacillates between being supportive of Kelso's potential success and utterly jealous and resentful of it (and him). She chooses her love for Kelso over money, tolerates his lazy approach to finding a job, gets a humiliating job herself -- and while her envy at his modeling gig is understandable under all the circumstances, her treatment of him is unacceptable.

Kelso: Season 5

First, I have to talk about his behavior in season 4, which leads to his behavior in season 5. Kelso's misogyny hits an all-time high in the second half of season 4, as does his hypocrisy and sense of entitlement. He makes a false equivalency between Jackie's one kiss with Todd, which she is tricked into and tells Kelso about almost immediately, to his months of sleeping with at least two other girls with no intention of ever telling Jackie about it.

He also, hypocritically, tries to see Donna's breasts while he and Jackie are in a relationship.

He becomes paranoid and possessive, stalking Jackie at work. He blames his cheating on Jackie's supposed mistreatment of him. But the specific incident he cites is never shown on-screen nor spoken about in season 1 when he first cheats on Jackie with Pam Macy. He claims men cheat "out of joy" while women cheat "out of hate" and that "girls don't even enjoy sex".

This attitude and behavior carries over to season 5. Where in season 4, Kelso is decent to Jackie during the first half, he's awful to Jackie (and Hyde) throughout the whole of season 5. While he's allowed to sleep with whoever he wants, Jackie's "allowed" only to pine for him in perpetuity and get occasional sex from Kelso as a consolation.

Upon learning Jackie isn't going to abide by Kelso's controlling, narcissistic, self-entitled rules for her life and, instead, found joy with someone else -- worse, one of Kelso's friends, he dies all he can to destroy her happiness. Not because he's in love with her but because of his wounded pride.

Kelso feels humiliated that Jackie is in a happy, fulfilling relationship with Hyde. This fact translates into Kelso's mind into other people believing he's not the hottest, most sexually skilled man in Point Place. Therefore, he must "steal" Jackie back to prove he -- not Hyde -- is the hottest, most sexually skilled man in Point Place.

The above, coupled with Kelso's possessiveness of Jackie, feelings of entitlement toward her, and misogyny, renders season 5's Kelso a completely unlikeable and unsympathetic character. He should've been kicked out of Eric's basement long before season 5, but Kelso's behavior this season -- in the real world with the friends he has -- would have clinched his ousting from the group.

Donna: Season 4

While I understand Donna's character development in this season, and believe much of it is set up well by previous seasons, this is my least favorite season for her. She is in an incredible amount of pain. It makes her self-destructive but also outwardly hostile. She jumps into another committed (for her) relationship rather than talking the time to heal herself.

Donna disregards Eric's own grief to distract herself from her own ("The Relapse"), with no regard -- or care -- that this might deepen Eric's grief. Only her feelings matter to her in this episode, and it's written as if the audience is supposed to agree with her.

Dating Casey is a way to narcotize her grief. But she bullies Eric with Casey. She snaps at Hyde and rejects his friendship when he tries to protect her. She agrees with Casey's rapey advice to Fez about Rhonda.

Yet, as I wrote above, much of her behavior is grounded in the show's previous seasons. As much as I dislike how she acts, I believe most of it is in character because of the specific stressors she's under. It's a shame T7S's writers didn't give her a chance to self-reflect on her season 4 choices and gain emotional clarity from them (beyond, "I was so stupid!")

[newtonsheffield]

Do you really think sex and the city old bad??? i must be bad because i think its still great, it was made in a different time and honestly men are so bad today that most of the things are real and still happened

I think it’s fine. It’s a product of it’s time but… I don’t really find any of the characters that likeable. Mr Big is literally the worst. It’s just… yeah I don’t know. They also aren’t that supportive of one another tbh. And Carrie is the least financially responsible person I’ve ever seen 😂

[nayatarot777]

Hi, I'd like to participate in your ongoing game! Can you describe the personality of my future boyfriend/spouse? Thank you for answering<3

Hii, welcome to your reading. I hope this resonates ☺️💛

cards: page of wands, knight of wands {page of swords at the bottom of the deck}

your future boyfriend/spouse is impulsive af 😂. they love fun, adventure, and exploration of different lifestyles. they could be a huge traveller, never being able to stay still in one place, and as a result of this they could be quite unreliable in a way. not in a detrimental way to the relationship, but this person is always wanting to find the next challenge to conquer (heavy fire energy - leo, sag, aries), whether that’s through travel, personal goals, work, etc. i feel like throughout your relationship, you’ll see them become a little more responsible with how they exert this energy out. they could actually be quite fanatic about something to do with physical activity, or a hobby that requires working with their hands (some type of craftsmanship), but they might not go about this in the most well-thought out way at first (for some reason im seeing someone impulsively buying a bunch of wood and material to build something, not thinking about the financial cost 😂). this person is someone who is definitely open to learning and communicating though. they’re someone who listens to the opinions of those who they trust (including you) so you‘lol probably be able to convince this person to organise their reckless energy a bit more than usual and think before they act. instead of just doing things on a whim and not thinking things through first 😂 i’m seeing that they’d also love to cook for you which is really sweet, and they’re extremely passionate (a very sexual person, i must say 👀). they definitely are the type to be a rough-and-tumble type of person, always injuring themselves because they’re physically moving faster than they should be, or they’re always wrestling or play fighting with their friends 😂. this person is very childlike. dare i say immature at times, but this is what gives them their zest for life. they do know when to just calm down and listen to those around them though, and i’m seeing that they’ll even be the type of boyfriend/spouse to always be up for a good conversation with you - whether it’s about random topics or a tea session with you. they may be the type of boyfriend who wants to hear all of the gossip that you know of 😂

[brehaaorgana]

Can confirm as a Bank employee who used to do the call center work we had a policy of

A) the number of attempts we had to overcome objections to verifying a customer that we needed to speak to (and legally we MUST verify before we discuss your account, or verify we are speaking to a "right party". When I was calling it wasn't just "important for security" it was also "this is the US regulatory requirement of this call.")

B) counting "yes this is ____" but refusing to verify against our performance scoring. Ugh.

Anyways part of overcoming that objection did mean referring the customer to please call the number of the back of their card, and frankly at this point it was a loss on the call from my end usually and I want to move to the next call quickly, so I'm being extra nice and appeasing.

Like we're not offended or w/e, I was usually just "oh not a problem if you feel uncomfortable, we understand and value the safety of your information. Please call the # on the back of your card in order to be sure you're reaching the right people, because this is important and we do need to speak with you." Sometimes I would also recite the number printed on the back of the cards.

I only ever really feel like I pushed back harder than this when I could see we'd been getting the same responses for weeks or MONTHS on record, but no call backs.

This is usually like "I completely understand, but I also do see that you told us you would call the number on the back of the card on Monday, and also said the same thing prior to that on March 20th and March 3rd, but did not reach back out by calling in using the number you know is correct any of those previous times we contacted you. I do need to stress that it is important that we speak with you about this matter. Is there a reason why you haven't called back in?"

Anyways although customer pick up/soft identification and refusal to verify did count against my metrics or scoring (boooo) I never ever ever discouraged someone uncomfortable with the legitimacy of the phone call from calling the number on the back of the card.

...I did once have a lady demand my zip code if I was going to ask her to verify hers though, and she was so thrown off when I immediately rattled it off without hesitating that she believed I was legitimate. 😂

Oh also for people trying to call about loans or debts, I once had someone call me about my high student loan debts and coming up with a solution and I happened to be on my lunch break at work and I was like "I know you're not legitimate and not my loan servicer because a) you didn't identify by name the company you represent at any point and b) you insinuated the specific amounts of my debts as being high in number and needing a program or remediation for the problem of my debt without first verifying my identity as the right person to be speaking to, which is a violation of the FDCPA and illegal. If you call me again, I will report this number and associated company and ensure this results in legal fines. Do not call me ever again."

FOR US FOLKS KNOW YOUR PROTECTIONS AND RIGHTS:

How I got scammed

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

I wuz robbed.

More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!

Here's what happened. Over the Christmas holiday, I traveled to New Orleans. The day we landed, I hit a Chase ATM in the French Quarter for some cash, but the machine declined the transaction. Later in the day, we passed a little credit-union's ATM and I used that one instead (I bank with a one-branch credit union and generally there's no fee to use another CU's ATM).

A couple days later, I got a call from my credit union. It was a weekend, during the holiday, and the guy who called was obviously working for my little CU's after-hours fraud contractor. I'd dealt with these folks before – they service a ton of little credit unions, and generally the call quality isn't great and the staff will often make mistakes like mispronouncing my credit union's name.

That's what happened here – the guy was on a terrible VOIP line and I had to ask him to readjust his mic before I could even understand him. He mispronounced my bank's name and then asked if I'd attempted to spend $1,000 at an Apple Store in NYC that day. No, I said, and groaned inwardly. What a pain in the ass. Obviously, I'd had my ATM card skimmed – either at the Chase ATM (maybe that was why the transaction failed), or at the other credit union's ATM (it had been a very cheap looking system).

I told the guy to block my card and we started going through the tedious business of running through recent transactions, verifying my identity, and so on. It dragged on and on. These were my last hours in New Orleans, and I'd left my family at home and gone out to see some of the pre-Mardi Gras krewe celebrations and get a muffalata, and I could tell that I was going to run out of time before I finished talking to this guy.

"Look," I said, "you've got all my details, you've frozen the card. I gotta go home and meet my family and head to the airport. I'll call you back on the after-hours number once I'm through security, all right?"

He was frustrated, but that was his problem. I hung up, got my sandwich, went to the airport, and we checked in. It was total chaos: an Alaska Air 737 Max had just lost its door-plug in mid-air and every Max in every airline's fleet had been grounded, so the check in was crammed with people trying to rebook. We got through to the gate and I sat down to call the CU's after-hours line. The person on the other end told me that she could only handle lost and stolen cards, not fraud, and given that I'd already frozen the card, I should just drop by the branch on Monday to get a new card.

We flew home, and later the next day, I logged into my account and made a list of all the fraudulent transactions and printed them out, and on Monday morning, I drove to the bank to deal with all the paperwork. The folks at the CU were even more pissed than I was. The fraud that run up to more than $8,000, and if Visa refused to take it out of the merchants where the card had been used, my little credit union would have to eat the loss.

I agreed and commiserated. I also pointed out that their outsource, after-hours fraud center bore some blame here: I'd canceled the card on Saturday but most of the fraud had taken place on Sunday. Something had gone wrong.

One cool thing about banking at a tiny credit-union is that you end up talking to people who have actual authority, responsibility and agency. It turned out the the woman who was processing my fraud paperwork was a VP, and she decided to look into it. A few minutes later she came back and told me that the fraud center had no record of having called me on Saturday.

"That was the fraudster," she said.

Oh, shit. I frantically rewound my conversation, trying to figure out if this could possibly be true. I hadn't given him anything apart from some very anodyne info, like what city I live in (which is in my Wikipedia entry), my date of birth (ditto), and the last four digits of my card.

Wait a sec.

He hadn't asked for the last four digits. He'd asked for the last seven digits. At the time, I'd found that very frustrating, but now – "The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue, right?" I asked the VP.

I'd given him my entire card number.

Goddammit.

The thing is, I know a lot about fraud. I'm writing an entire series of novels about this kind of scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

And most summers, I go to Defcon, and I always go to the "social engineering" competitions where an audience listens as a hacker in a soundproof booth cold-calls merchants (with the owner's permission) and tries to con whoever answers the phone into giving up important information.

But I'd been conned.

Now look, I knew I could be conned. I'd been conned before, 13 years ago, by a Twitter worm that successfully phished out of my password via DM:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

That scam had required a miracle of timing. It started the day before, when I'd reset my phone to factory defaults and reinstalled all my apps. That same day, I'd published two big online features that a lot of people were talking about. The next morning, we were late getting out of the house, so by the time my wife and I dropped the kid at daycare and went to the coffee shop, it had a long line. Rather than wait in line with me, my wife sat down to read a newspaper, and so I pulled out my phone and found a Twitter DM from a friend asking "is this you?" with a URL.

Assuming this was something to do with those articles I'd published the day before, I clicked the link and got prompted for my Twitter login again. This had been happening all day because I'd done that mobile reinstall the day before and all my stored passwords had been wiped. I entered it but the page timed out. By that time, the coffees were ready. We sat and chatted for a bit, then went our own ways.

I was on my way to the office when I checked my phone again. I had a whole string of DMs from other friends. Each one read "is this you?" and had a URL.

Oh, shit, I'd been phished.

If I hadn't reinstalled my mobile OS the day before. If I hadn't published a pair of big articles the day before. If we hadn't been late getting out the door. If we had been a little more late getting out the door (so that I'd have seen the multiple DMs, which would have tipped me off).

There's a name for this in security circles: "Swiss-cheese security." Imagine multiple slices of Swiss cheese all stacked up, the holes in one slice blocked by the slice below it. All the slices move around and every now and again, a hole opens up that goes all the way through the stack. Zap!

The fraudster who tricked me out of my credit card number had Swiss cheese security on his side. Yes, he spoofed my bank's caller ID, but that wouldn't have been enough to fool me if I hadn't been on vacation, having just used a pair of dodgy ATMs, in a hurry and distracted. If the 737 Max disaster hadn't happened that day and I'd had more time at the gate, I'd have called my bank back. If my bank didn't use a slightly crappy outsource/out-of-hours fraud center that I'd already had sub-par experiences with. If, if, if.

The next Friday night, at 5:30PM, the fraudster called me back, pretending to be the bank's after-hours center. He told me my card had been compromised again. But: I hadn't removed my card from my wallet since I'd had it replaced. Also, it was half an hour after the bank closed for the long weekend, a very fraud-friendly time. And when I told him I'd call him back and asked for the after-hours fraud number, he got very threatening and warned me that because I'd now been notified about the fraud that any losses the bank suffered after I hung up the phone without completing the fraud protocol would be billed to me. I hung up on him. He called me back immediately. I hung up on him again and put my phone into do-not-disturb.

The following Tuesday, I called my bank and spoke to their head of risk-management. I went through everything I'd figured out about the fraudsters, and she told me that credit unions across America were being hit by this scam, by fraudsters who somehow knew CU customers' phone numbers and names, and which CU they banked at. This was key: my phone number is a reasonably well-kept secret. You can get it by spending money with Equifax or another nonconsensual doxing giant, but you can't just google it or get it at any of the free services. The fact that the fraudsters knew where I banked, knew my name, and had my phone number had really caused me to let down my guard.

The risk management person and I talked about how the credit union could mitigate this attack: for example, by better-training the after-hours card-loss staff to be on the alert for calls from people who had been contacted about supposed card fraud. We also went through the confusing phone-menu that had funneled me to the wrong department when I called in, and worked through alternate wording for the menu system that would be clearer (this is the best part about banking with a small CU – you can talk directly to the responsible person and have a productive discussion!). I even convinced her to buy a ticket to next summer's Defcon to attend the social engineering competitions.

There's a leak somewhere in the CU systems' supply chain. Maybe it's Zelle, or the small number of corresponding banks that CUs rely on for SWIFT transaction forwarding. Maybe it's even those after-hours fraud/card-loss centers. But all across the USA, CU customers are getting calls with spoofed caller IDs from fraudsters who know their registered phone numbers and where they bank.

I've been mulling this over for most of a month now, and one thing has really been eating at me: the way that AI is going to make this kind of problem much worse.

Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.

One of the truest things I know about AI is: "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

I trusted this fraudster specifically because I knew that the outsource, out-of-hours contractors my bank uses have crummy headsets, don't know how to pronounce my bank's name, and have long-ass, tedious, and pointless standardized questionnaires they run through when taking fraud reports. All of this created cover for the fraudster, whose plausibility was enhanced by the rough edges in his pitch - they didn't raise red flags.

As this kind of fraud reporting and fraud contacting is increasingly outsourced to AI, bank customers will be conditioned to dealing with semi-automated systems that make stupid mistakes, force you to repeat yourself, ask you questions they should already know the answers to, and so on. In other words, AI will groom bank customers to be phishing victims.

This is a mistake the finance sector keeps making. 15 years ago, Ben Laurie excoriated the UK banks for their "Verified By Visa" system, which validated credit card transactions by taking users to a third party site and requiring them to re-enter parts of their password there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090331094020/http://www.links.org/?p=591

This is exactly how a phishing attack works. As Laurie pointed out, this was the banks training their customers to be phished.

I came close to getting phished again today, as it happens. I got back from Berlin on Friday and my suitcase was damaged in transit. I've been dealing with the airline, which means I've really been dealing with their third-party, outsource luggage-damage service. They have a terrible website, their emails are incoherent, and they officiously demand the same information over and over again.

This morning, I got a scam email asking me for more information to complete my damaged luggage claim. It was a terrible email, from a noreply@ email address, and it was vague, officious, and dishearteningly bureaucratic. For just a moment, my finger hovered over the phishing link, and then I looked a little closer.

On any other day, it wouldn't have had a chance. Today – right after I had my luggage wrecked, while I'm still jetlagged, and after days of dealing with my airline's terrible outsource partner – it almost worked.

So much fraud is a Swiss-cheese attack, and while companies can't close all the holes, they can stop creating new ones.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to post about it whenever I get scammed. I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing to try endless variations until an attack lands at just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way. If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[rarestnicole]

I’m turning 24 in a week! 🥳 I have a secret though. 😆 I’ve been calling myself 24 ever since the year started. Minsan nga nakakalimutan ko nang 23 pa lang pala ako. 😅 I’m thinking about it being more like a mindset than a couple of numbers, do yunno what I mean? xD

So how do I feel about turning 24? Do I have to feel something? I think so. Do I have to make a big deal out of it and put it on writing? YUP! 😂 It’s not every year that I turn 24 in mind, spirit, and actual age. Lol.

I actually like it, turning 24. I feel like I’ve been presented to a whole new sense of responsibility and accountability. Weird feeling, but it’s here within. I feel like this is another start. In many ways, it sure is another start. Haha. But aside from them all, I do hope that it’s a new beginning of someone that I am. I can already feel that I’m leaving someone that I used to behind. I’m not gonna forget her, I’m just leaving her here, there, somewhere that she should be left in. I won’t forget her, though. I’ll always be thankful to the versions of me, even when I’m not always proud of how I acted and reacted sometimes.

I’m glad to be growing. And I’m most certainly happy to grow more. If growth entails pain and failure and more self-blaming, I wouldn’t mind. Self-awareness will always be my priority. I know I should be careful and be more wise when it comes to knowing myself, and I can only hope and pray for me to be ready. Sometimes, it could lead to self-sabotage, and I don’t want that.

I know. I’m aware that I only have a year left before I reach the point of complete development in some parts of my brain. I’m about to be an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe. 😂 Kaya mas uunahin ko talaga ang pagkilala sa sarili ko and all my traumas, my demons, my pet peeves, and more before I explore out there. And, oh!!! I’m also working on myself sa lover girl concept. HAHAHAHAHAHA. And aspect? Jeez, this is funny. I have to quit thinking ill of having to share my freedom with someone else. Huhu. I’ll get there. 😂 At least I started while I was 23, right? I’m trying to have an open mind about relationships and whatnots. Phew!

Thanks to the books that I’m reading, I’m finally getting comfortable about the idea of having a boyfriend. 😣 Getting pa lang, ha. I’m not there yet. Wew! 😮‍💨 KASI IT WILL ALWAYS BE WEIRD—o, ‘di ba!!! Naka-always pa rin. Ugh. Right now, thinking about it, it’s weird na may maghahatid sa akin, I’m not used to that. I’ve almost always brought myself home, never minding the darkness and the fact that I am alone. Huhu. I have sooooo much to think about, to consider, and to compromise with. I hope that I’ll be ready when the time comes for love to come knocking on my door. Naku, shuta, baka sunduin pa ako. 😬 Chariz.

I also want to think of my future, financially. And academically. And more. Yes, I have so much to prepare for pa. Especially before getting into a relationship. I WILL NOT enter a relationship without being stable in many ways more than one. Jusko.

I also wanna start a collection! OMG!!! Small joys that I won’t allow to be vices. Ooooh, this must be the adult urge to collect something? Lol, no. I just happened to fall in love with a specific masterpiece that I want to know it more, dive deeper into its universe, and learn more about it. I’m liking it a lot, I kinda regret getting to know it just recently. Hmpt. But this may be its perfect time to exist in my life, so, yeah. At least dumating. Yiiiie. <333

And lastly, I want to write moooore. I want to be moooore consistent and be mooore intentional.

Here’s to hoping for the realisation of these things! 🥳

[floatysparrowthing]

Arghh I wanna buy the Caleb and Jester graphic novels so bad!!!

[binary-not-found]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the fact that Kate says "oh there you are" makes me think that Lucy didn't spend the night before with her and that she hadn't seen her during the day

And then Lucy goes on about how moving in together shouldn't be because it's the financially responsible thing to do, because I know she wouldn't say it out loud in front of Jesse but she did want Kate to say they should move in for love 👉🏻👈🏻

Because you want ME!

I DO want you here, Lucy! Do you? So much!

The fact that they both said the reason why they hadn't openly said they wanted to move in shows the fact that they both knew they had to say it but kept waiting for the other to say it first, Kate points out that Lucy didn't tell her she was moving out of the apartment making it seem like she thought Lucy wanted to leave her out of it and then Lucy responds by answering why she hadn't, neither of them wanted to pressure the other and it's valid, they are still developing the relationship and don't want to hurt the other one 🥺

Why are we fighting? We're not! So you're moving in? You can't stop me 🥰

They are in love and now live together, and at the end of the day Kate is right, it is financially responsible but you don't use that as your first point, it takes the romance out of life, but it is important to talk about it

This time Lucy had to guide Kate to the decision and for them to finally say what they both were thinking, and on some occasions it will be Kate who does it, I keep repeating it but I'm not going to get tired of saying it, they are still learning to be with each other and be themselves inside the relationship the way they are outside of it, good communication is not something that takes a few weeks, it is built over time, especially being in a relationship, is about knowing the person, knowing how to read their postures, their reactions, knowing what they say even when they don't, understanding, giving space and at the same time knowing how to say things when needs to be said and accepting that they tell you what is necessary

Plus look at the way Lucy keeps smiling looking at Kate after the kiss 🥺

Kate Whistler being a walking meme will always be one of my favorite parts of the show 😂

On another note, Lucy is becoming a real enigma, first the apartment which must be in the same place as Heather (Jesse's wife) because we've heard of it but never seen it, the ONE spare shoe, a backpack carries everything she owns, something is wrong with her and I need to know what it is, so I know if I need to give her a hug or call someone, because it's not normal for everything she owns to fit in a backpack, at least not for a federal agent

3/3 episode 5 🍒

[fakerbatch]

Benedict and Martin never looked naturally happy again after their break up. They must have shared sth special, not just a fling. Maybe they fought over the way how to deal with a possibly threatened coming out and Benedict decided to give in to the straight man story that ultimately made him a deeply saddened man. Just my thoughts.🤷‍♀️

I actually think Martin has moved on pretty well and he’s looked quite happy to me many times since. I have to imagine anyone close to Benedict, who doesn’t financially benefit from his lies keeping his status, thinks he’s a fool for sacrificing his integrity the way he has. But yes especially Martin because 1) I do think he was emotionally attached to him whatever the nature of the relationship was, 2) I think Ben had generally looked up to him and taken his advice up to that point and it must have bruised his ego that he wouldn’t listen to him saying gtfo of the situation (which he must have done) and 3) he has always seemed (recent weirdness aside) pretty far over on the not playing Hollywood games and seeking fame spectrum so would be quicker than most to lose respect. I’m still convinced that Ben’s “pathetic” comment was kind of a knee jerk hurt response to a time when Martin actually called him that. It’s clear we don’t/can’t know all the details involved but I suspect they haven’t spoken in a few years now. Who knows? Still waiting for Amanda’s tell-all book someday. 😂

[analyze-astrologize]

Some Advice for Pisces:

I’m a Virgo Sun and I love giving unsolicited advice, so in honor of Pisces season, I’m going to offer some to my sister sign! 😃

♓️Learn to set healthy boundaries:

Pisces, you are so sympathetic and can easily pick up on the moods of other people. This leads you to wanna rescue people or keep people around you who may not do you any good. The reason you do this is because you feel sorry for them and that leads to you making excuses for their mistreatment of you or ill behavior. Regardless to whatever they’re going through, it does not give them the reason to treat you like crap and act up! PLEASE PROTECT YOURSELF, defend yourself, and tell people what you will and will NOT stand for! You are THE ONLY water sign without a shell for protection and also without a pincher so that makes you susceptible to danger!

♓️ Let’s escape...in a good way! 😃

The world is a harsh place, especially for someone who literally feels everything. It can become so much for you that you tend to escape. Escapism in drugs and alcohol is the worst coping mechanism for anybody, especially you, Pisces. I mean have you seen a fish swimming in an aquarium of liquor and survive? 🗣FISH ARE SUPPOSED SWIM IN WATER,so drink it. Water not only gives you healthy skin and body, but it also cleanses you! Take a 🚿. Showers and baths are not just used to clean your dirty body(Virgo😂), but it’s a form of healing for you Pisces. It’s a spiritual cleanse that you should indulge yourself in daily. Sit near a body of water. Let the breeze that just grazed the water hit you. Meditate. 🧘🏽‍♀️

♓️ THEIR PROBLEMS ARE NOT YOUR PROBLEMS.

You already have trouble coping with your own problems, but somehow you seem to think you can take on somebody else’s load. Although it is ok to lend someone a helping hand, you end up give them a helping mind, body and soul (your own!). You must not let others happenings in life drain you of YOUR RESOURCES, whether it be emotional, physical, financial or spiritual! It’s been said that you’re a sucker for a sad story and being your sister sign, we are both prone to being Captain Save a Hoe. However, we need enough of juice for ourselves if we are able to give it to anyone else. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for choosing YOU this time for the first time!

♓️But still take accountability for your own actions!

Because of your being prone to being the victim, sometimes you victimize yourself. How? Lack of accountability. Not Everything in our lives is in our control, but the majority of it is because we are responsible over our own lives once we get older. You’re not always gonna be the victim, Pisces (which might be a good thing 🤔). The things you say or do can hurt others too and you should heighten your awareness in that aspect. When you start to take accountability of your actions, Pisces, you began to take control of your life! It also bails you out of that Neptune confusion!

♓️ Why so insecure?

The Pisces that I know are insecure or unsure of themselves. Maybe it’s being ruled by Neptune that explains why you’re insecure: maybe you’re lost? Maybe you’re insecure of yourself because you don’t know who you are or where you’re going, but that’s what makes you Pisces the fish. Just trust that the tides will carry you where you need to go. To me Pisces are very talented people. It’s their vulnerability of which makes them excellent at conveying emotions through singing, writing, acting or anything else they want to do. You guppies are very selfless people who believe everyone should be happy and he loved and you’re the last people on earth who think/act this way. That’s why it’s important that we keep compassionate people like you around and safe at that! Your intuition is A1 and you can pick up on someone’s vibe in an instant! How lucky you are that you can see things others normally can’t! I’ve just came up with 3 ways in which you guys are amazing, but if you don’t think you are, you’d be a fool not to!

Swim on lil’ fish!

[iyyamaria]

WHAT IS YOUR PASSIONS?

First time when I said "hey, I'm cooking now and do catering". I will get shocked responses from few of people. They would ask me back with a lots of questions.

" What? Seriously?"....." Are u sure?"....." Really? Can u really do it? "..... " Hmmm....something wrong with you?".....'" You must be joking.. I'm not sure. Maybe you just can do boil the water".

HELLOOOOOO... YES I'M COOKING now..

Well.. honestly I'm the only daughter of my dad. I was grown up with my Grandma and dad who had taught me to be independently. They were thinking, if they were gone someday..I must be survivor. Last time, when I was at young age - I had admitted, I got feel sick and bored. I've got jealous and compare it to all my friends who could wake up anytime and didn't do any housework.

My Grandma had taught me how to cook, sew, and a lil bit of make up but when came to my dad, he had taught me from the basic things man's skills started with fixed the iron, ride the vehicles, and so on..

When I was in a highschool, I was very interested to be an architect and interior designer but unfortunately my dad's business collapse and I started to think to change my study major fields. Then when the time to go to the Univ, I choosed for hospitality major. I learnt a lot of cooking technic and other hospitalities.

Years gone by, I worked with few company start from zero level and till the, I reached a top management level. After these two important persons were past away, i was missed my grandma home cooking and which I couldn't find it anywhere.

Then, I realized - why didn't I cook? I did cook since I was young , I've got skilled - then why I still bought a food from food stalls during my working time? Since that day, i decided to cook my lunch and put into my lunchbox, so I can carry it to my office.

Life is like a roller coaster, till one day I've almost got scammed with my business partner and made me realize to find more partners or perhaps a new job. But , will they accept your application? Will you get the expect salary? Hey.. You will compete with younger applicants. If there was a company hires you, what will you do after that? keep working with them for whole of your life? or will you open your own business.. What else are u looking for?..and many more questions were pop ups inside my head.

So , I met my closest friends to have some opinions.

Their opinions made my head spinning around at the first place..till I realized..I've got a hints:

"maybe it's time for you to start your own business".

Do it now or never..but you must not regret if the future. Be an employee or employee"

"Think the future, think another 5years or 10years. If you had passion do something then do it. Do you have passions in something ? ".

"Dare you to challenge yourself and out of from your comfrot zone?"

Finally, after a month to think.. I was resigned and I said yes to myself.. I've got passions. I love to cook and travelling. A perfect combination for me to work with - eventhough you're struggling with financial... 😂 But you will do it and will think hardly how to earn the money to satisfy your passions.

You can do it. No matter how hard it is..it's a something new for me...

#dagangnasi

So, that's the reason why I'm cooking now and do my catering. Don't let judge people by its cover. Everyone has their own secret. 😎