#penny is verified but nobody else is

[lunarsilkscreen]

Online Presence

Here's the thing that Nub's get wrong about posting publicly online. 1) you don't know how popular screen grabs sites are (sites that specialize in showing your content to their audience, which don't ask for permission to do so.)

You could have 13 views on a post, and still have it seen by millions and never know because they take credit for your content. (And you get blindsided by the fallout.)

Most posting online, btw, goes unseen by the vast majority of users, so if you get slammed that way, all of a sudden you're a celebrity, but they keep all the revenue. And nobody tells you why they hate you, nor can they tell you where your content was posted. So you can't take it down.

Yes, it happens without permission and it's barely legal.

Since you're used to building your platform slowly, one sub at a time. You only know who's seen your content on your "official" accounts. (The ones you control.)

That camp that sits behind "well they're doing this public,they should know better." (I sit there too, but only when they know how their content is being used.)

Because we assume they got paid, so they should be fine taking the heat, as long as they're comfortable. But oftentimes, they take a lot of abuse without ever seeing a penny they are owed.

Spotify has the right to host a LOT of artists, but the revenue generated is like... 0.003$ per listen. So an artist with a million views *might* make 3000$.

If that doesn't go to their record label, or somebody else holding the rights. (Which happens, the system doesn't verify that revenue goes where it should.)

That means that *one million* sounds famous, but it isn't.

And that's where that pain comes for artists. That's why most of their revenue comes from direct payment and concerts.

It's a problem NFTs can solve, because then you can track who is allowed to play DRM content.

Now, one time, I posted of a video of me playing David Bowie's "man who sold the world" on YouTube, and Immediately, I had a copyright strike from a metro-goldwyn bot because it thought the song was the actual studio record version of the 007 theme song.

This is how easy it is for them to steal ad revenue. I took the video down because 1) It was way to quickly flag, and 2) it was the wrong studio entirely claiming it was the wrong song.

Now imagine if it was a song I wrote and played myself. And they simply refused that I wrote the song from scratch?

I would both have a strike on my YouTube account for copyright abuse AND lose revenue on MY OWN SONG.

This is actually why I'm afraid to release any recording of my own. And why a lot of popular YouTubers and twitch streamers don't have anymoney.

Because they're not receiving it. Big corps are reliant on AI bots and can pay a lawyer to sit in court to waste your time and money trying to get your own money back from them.

What I'm saying is: it's profitable to steal an independent Creator's content, and far to little consequence to deter thieves. Especially, if they can afford it.

It's the cost of doing business ,and you little guy. Yes, you who is reading this. You can't afford to make content, because you'll be rolled by a company who gets a free pass to do so.

[fleetsparrow]

All of this!

When I was in middle school, my period cramps were severe. I mean, like, the extreme pain you might imagine if someone reached into your body, grabbed your innards, and twisted them into knots.

Obviously, I could not go to school on these days. I was lucky if I fell asleep long enough to not hurt right then.

The school counselor called my home to say that I "needed to be in class" or they were going to mark me a truant and possibly expel me. Thankfully, I had three things going for me:

Solid straight A, top of the class student

Strong history of union membership on both sides of my family

My dad took the call

My room shared a wall with the dining room turned office where my dad would make phone calls. Through the haze of pain, I heard him make that call.

Things got heated.

"Is she falling behind in her work?" No.

"Are her grades slipping?" No.

"Is she disruptive?" No.

"Then what's the problem?"

The problem was, if students aren't at school through lunch, the school does not get paid.

"Wow, that seems like a district problem to me."

My dad offered that, if they really couldn't work with my actual illnesses, my parents could pull me out completely. Or we could call in the ACLU and verify if my illnesses qualified as disabilities under the ADA.

As you can imagine, the school backed off real fast at that suggestion.

But they shouldn't have pressed it at all.

Attendance is not a sign of morality. "Perfect attendance" awards do not help anyone.

Every kid who got one of those achievements came to school when they were sick. All those colds and flus and bugs passed to everyone else. And those of us who have shit immune systems, who have autoimmune disorders, who have other disabilities, and/or who were just unlucky enough to sit next to the sick kid that time...

Well, we certainly didn't get the "perfect attendance" awards.

We got punished. We got missed assignments with no make-up dates, automatic 0 test scores, detentions, calls home. When we stayed home to not spread anything further, we got called lazy. We were excluded from class events because, "You didn't do all the assignments/tests." We got extra work on top of our regular homework so we "wouldn't fall behind."

The argument is that schools are "preparing [us] for the real world". That's true to an extent. Jobs don't like it when you're not there, either, even though it really shouldn't make much difference, especially if they're not paying you while you're gone.

My current day job has a "point" system. Accumulate too many points and you're suspended without pay. Too many more, and you're fired.

What does that get them, though?

Sure, at that point, they're not paying you, but they also have nobody to do the work you were doing.

But, then, that's capitalism for you. Penny wise and pound foolish.

If we're going to make things fully accessible, there needs to be an acceptance of varying disability needs as well as a lack of punishment for the fact that we are disabled.

When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”

I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.

Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”

[teophan]

alright i guess it's time for me to make one of these posts bc i just got one, and i'm only gonna say it once.

Please do not send fundraiser requests/links to my inbox.

i will not post them, i am not a fundraiser-vetting account, i am not going to be the one to crawl through the muck of trying to verify that you're not simply preying on the sympathies of pro-palestinian/anti-zionist users to scam them out of money that could and should be going to children and families suffering in the colonized levant and in sudan and other places facing crisis in the global south and elsewhere.

if you want your fundraiser to get eyes on it that's not gonna happen by sending it to the personal blog of a guy who has absolutely no real influence over others, social media or otherwise, and only ever broken 200 followers on long-defunct rp blogs. and even then most of them are bots.

i am nobody. i am a few dollars at best, from what pennies i can spare, and i can hardly even say i have that right now. even this post might not see much traction, if any at all.

if you are legitimate, you're going to get better results going to someone who actually knows how to vet these things properly and has the following to get the eyes and funds you need. i'm not that person. i'm sorry. there are multiple people i've reblogged gfms and esim links and etc from who are equipped to help vet and spread this way, but it's not me. i hope you get what you need to survive and, someday, thrive. i hope we both live to see palestine's freedom and recovery. i hope we see the olives grow in abundance again and i hope the school bells ring once more. i hope no other child grows up knowing the sound of falling bombs.

if you're not legitimate, i will start believing in Hell again solely in the hope that you burn there for all eternity for taking advantage of people's pain and attempting to scam those who only want to help in the middle of a fucking genocide. i'd call you a vulture but carrion birds actually serve some benefit to the world around them.

i give when i can, where i can be assured that the money is going where i'm told it is, and not to someone catfishing off of people's sense of compassion using the faces of the martyred and dying and dead. you coming into some nobody-ass rando's askbox claiming in your own obviously copy-pasted message that the fund is vetted is not the way to assure that sense of security.

to everyone else reading this:

Gaza Funds highlights vetted fundraisers, prioritizing the sick/injured and those close to their goal, randomizing each time you refresh the page.

eSims for Gaza allows you to pay for those in palestine to remain connected to the internet and their loved ones among the diaspora abroad in the midst of the zionist occupation's destruction of digital infrastructure.

Arab.org allows you to contribute to donations by simply clicking a button every day.

those are the ones i can best remember off the top of my head. others have more. help where you can. don't get scammed.

🏞️↔️🌅🇵🇸✊

[pigsriot-blog]

Day 4: Divine

There was a bit of trouble in the village of Treeblossom. The Brassman had come, and in force, dozens of the shiny bastards, marching down the main road with banners and decrees and swords and axes and spears and daggers. Their armor was so fine that not even the mud and forest shit what caked everything else in town seemed to touch them, as if that what affect regular folk was afeared to even touch those who come from the Castle of Joy. Not great for general morale, that.

Not that the sight of the Brassman weren’t necessarily an odd thing these days. ‘Twas seven years since the taking of that damned Castle and ever since these so-called knights had a penchant for sticking their nose into every hovel from the eastern bay to the western gorge, for the sake of keeping the peace they said, but more’n likely to sniff out a penny, or a girl, or just a bit of mischief. Turned the nature of the air sour, like it weren’t comfortable to even be seen outside no more, like it was more trouble being a person than not.

What made this particular procession odd were the carriage they brought with them. ‘Twere magnificent, insofar as a peasant had reference with which to make such a loftisome judgment, but speaking on their behalf I can verify that, aye, the damn thing was magnificent, indeed. Gilded wheels and ivory trim, velvet curtains as black as the midnight sea and closed tighter than a miser’s vault door. They guarded it something fierce, the Brass knights did, screaming and shoving any villager what even looked at it, and arresting them what came near.

‘Twas the reason why little Sleepy Rvena had to hide in the bushes to catch a glimpse, so as to avoid the baleful attention of the oppressor. But she was good at hiding, and curious as all hell, for that carriage was the most amazing and beautiful and mysterious thing she ever did see in all her life, not that ten years is a long life in which to see anything worth a shit, aside from mud and pigs and dead fathers. It transfixed her, that carriage, and she were too young to smell trouble when it came. Same could be said for her friends, clutched around her under that bush, Faraway Jhas and Helpful Dtan and poor, unlucky, ill-fated Tearful Is, dirty hands scrambling over each other to get the better look.

“What’s in it?” Sleepy Rvena whined, then grunted when the elbow of Faraway Jhas made contact with her head.

“Bet it’s the taxes from up Riverway,” Faraway Jhas said. He was biggest and so he had the best view, on account of him being able to push the others out of his way. “They got cobblestreets there. Even a proper house, I hear. I wager there’s millions of coins in that carriage.”

Tearful Is didn’t know what a million was. “Wot’s a millions?” he bleated somewhat too loudly.

The others hissed at him to be quiet. 

“Can’t be taxes,” Said Sleepy Rvena when they were sure no Brassman had heard them. “Already got their taxes this month. They won’t be around for another few weeks yet. Mum says so.”

“The fuck do you know about Riverway’s taxes?” Faraway Jhas shot back. “They probably do it at different times, so as to not get robbed all at once.”

“Nobody robs from the Brassman.”

“The Underjoy does.”

“Underjoy ain’t real, idiot.”

“Underjoy IS real, you fucking shit eater!”

“You’re the shit eater, shit eater!”

Tearful Is’ eyebrows were all the more furrowed. “What if it’s got monsters in it?”

The others laughed at poor, misguided Tearful Is, even Helpful Dtan, who weren’t hardly listening much anyway. “Monsters? In a carriage like that?” Faraway Jhan tapped his knuckles on Tearful Is’ noggin. “Monsters ain’t rich. They live in caves. Think about it for two seconds, why don’tcha?”

But Tearful Is wasn’t convinced. “Mum says a monster lives in the Castle. Brassman comes from the castle. Thinkin’ it could be a monster, aye.”

“Your mum was usin’ a metaphor,” Sleepy Rvena said, enunciating that heavisome word with every ounce of strength she could muster. “She’s talkin’ about Lord Bechla, who ain’t no monster. Just a bad person.”

Tearful Is began tearing up. “Wot’s a metaphor?”

“It’s a thing what ain’t the thing you say it is,” she explained, “obviously. Don’t you listen to the Father’s lessons?”

“No,” he sniffed. “Bastard way to talk, that.”

“That’s a word they use all the time up Riverway,” said Faraway Jhas, with a faraway look in his eye. “They’re all as smart as the Father up there. Got millions of books, even, I bet. Millions!”

“You ain’t ever been to Riverway,” said Sleepy Rvena, “and you won’t ever will. Shut your shit eatin’ trap about that town before I tell the Brassman you was trying to rob them.”

Faraway Jhas snapped back to the here and now. “Fuck you! I’ll tell the Brassman you was the one trying to rob them! They’ll listen to me first ‘cause I’m a boy.”

“The fuck you bein’ a boy has to do with what they believe?”

“They don’t listen to girls.”

“Their Lord is a girl!”

“Oh. Well she’s a monster, so that don’t count.”

“I told you she was,” muttered Tearful Is.

“Carriage stopped,” said Helpful Dtan, voice too deep and too husky for his age, like he smoked as much as any old timer. 

The others silenced their squawking and leaned in for a closer look. Sure enough the carriage had stopped, the Brassman swarming it, shouting at passersby, prodding their spears at anyone they deemed too close. Behind it loomed the only building taller than a single story in Treeblossom, and the only building made of stone, besides.

“Why’d they stop at the church?” wondered Faraway Jhas.

“Maybe they’re dropping off a holy relic,” offered Sleepy Rvena.

“Or the bishop, come to bless our town!”

“Could be the monster seekin’ penance,” mused Tearful Is. The others shut him up with a flurry of blows.

“Whatever it is,” Helpful Dtan grated, “it’s gettin’ out.”

They watched in awed silence as the carriage’s weight shifted, axle creaking and banners shifting, something moving on the inside. Then the door opened, the Brassman saluting all around, and the subtle squelch of mud as whoever rode the thing stepped out. Damn thing was, they got out on the opposite side facing the bush what hid the children, much to their consternation, and they couldn’t see shit. Just more salutes and shouts and threats from the knights as whoever left the carriage entered the church.

“Fuck!” groaned Faraway Jhas.

“Shit!” hissed Sleepy Rvena.

“Didn’t catch no sight of it,” explained poor, doomed, star-cursed Tearful Is.

“Is,” whispered Faraway Jhas with sudden insistence, shaking Tearful Is by the shoulders with brotherly affection, “why don’t you creep up there and take a peek for us?”

“Wot?!”

“Yeah, yeah, just crawl up on your belly and take a look inside the window. Y’know the one by the garden, where the Father keeps his chicken feed?”

Tears streamed down Tearful Is’ face. “But the Brassman’ll see me and hang me from a tree!”

“No they won’t, you’e just a lad! They don’t hang lads.”

A silence between the four of them as they all considered that lie, and how best to believe it.

“Would only take two seconds. Don’t you want to see the monster?”

“Alright,” interrupted Sleepy Rvena. “That’s enough, shit eater. Don’t make Is spy on the fuckin’ Brassman. You know he’ll get caught.”

Faraway Jhas was aghast. “I don’t know that!”

“They sure as shit will, ‘cause we all know Tearful Is got the doom on him.”

They all nodded solemnly at that, even Helpful Dtan, who still weren’t listening all too closely anyway.

“Well I ain’t going,” Faraway Jhas grumbled.

“Nor I,” rumbled Helpful Dtan.

All eyes turned to Sleepy Rvena. Faraway Jhas pleaded silently. Tearful Is’ eyes were wet and wide and sorrowful. Helpful Dtan raised an eyebrow.

“Alright,” she said. “What’s in it for me?”

After a deal been presented, and both parties accept, it’s more or less done, and all that’s left is quibbling over price. Faraway Jhas weren’t no slouch when it came to haggling, but neither was Sleepy Rvena, and by the end she found herself on the favorsome end of that exchange, at least to her liking anyway. Besides, she was going to peek in the window anyway.

Weren’t too difficult to slip past the Brassman, and Sleepy Rvena had done it often enough to know all the tricks, as was the story for any child what wanted to eat more’n one meal a day. The simplest fact of it all was that they was big and she was small, and the man what finds himself mantled with such total authority don’t often think to look down. He thinks instead that his shiny armor and angry shouts and bared blade are enough to keep the doe eyed, worrisome folk of Treeblossom at well enough distance away, and more’n often he was right. So often, in fact, that he starts thinkin’ he’s above being wrong.

Sleepy Rvena was in the church garden and not an eye on her, as she knew there wouldn’t be, and sure enough she found that window by the chicken feed, all stacked in boxes underneath, not quite big nor sturdy enough for a man to stand on but more’n enough for a little girl who had a mind to peek past stained glass. She clambered up, thankful that it was so damn hot in the summer, enough to make the Father open all the windows a crack, so as to not scare his congregation away from taking their daily prayers as they ought. Even just stooped under the glass as she was, she could already hear voices drift from within.

“... can do. I don’t even know why you came here. Can’t you leave this town in peace?” The Father’s voice, congested and whining, but a comfort to Sleepy Rvena in way’s she couldn’t quite define. He was a good man, and she was fond of him.

“Giving this town its peace is my sole ambition in life, Father.” She didn’t recognize this other voice. It sounded odd, slurred almost, like the person had a mouthful of something and had a hard time talking past it. Sounded hoarse, too. Ugly. Gave Sleepy Rvena a bad feeling and she couldn’t help but think back on Tearful Is.

“You’ve a strange idea for peace, my dear.”

“I’ve the only idea for peace. That the people are too easily misled by dissidents and troublemakers is a failure of culture. How else do you suggest I correct it?”

The Father sighed. “The only failure here is my own. God Almighty, how I have failed you. What happened to the shy little girl who was so good with numbers? Who was too gentle to even step on a spider?”

“Not gentle,” the hideous voice said, “scared. I was afraid they’d bite me through my shoe.”

“And so you conquer your fears by instilling it in others.”

A laughter that made Sleepy Rvena cover her ears, so ungodly it was. “I assure you, Father, my fears are unconquerable.”

“Then what? You track me down, after all these years, hoping that I can do something about… what you’ve become?”

“I’ve seen you perform greater miracles for folk worse than I.”

“Faith is not a spigot you turn on when your hands become too dirty to eat dinner. You cannot live the life you’ve led and expect divine benevolence.”

“Fuck faith. I want medicine.”

“There is no medicine for what you have.”

“And just what the FUCK do I have?!”

No answer. Just the rasping gasps of the stranger, the woman with the monstrous voice, struggling, it seemed, to even breathe. Sleepy Rvena struggled herself between fear and curiosity, for both burned in her something fierce, and she were too young to think wisely on such matters. Imagine the look on Faraway Jhas’ face when she came back with a story about an honest-to-god monster, here in the church? Wouldn’t it be worth it? But he wouldn’t believe her if she didn’t see it with her own two eyes.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she gripped the stone sill of the window above her and lifted herself up. Just a peek, she thought to herself. Just the tiniest, fastest, most slightest peek ever done made by a pair of eyes, and she could shut Faraway Jhas up for good. Always have something to hang over him. Always have a story to tell that’d be better than his. The top of her head cleared the opening, slowly. Then her brow, slowly. Then her eyes themselves. And that’s when she saw.

She didn’t mean to scream. Was just the natural reaction when one sees a monster.

Before she knew it, hard hands were clapped over her mouth, and harder voices telling her to shut her trap, to keep still ands top kicking, then a point of hard steel came up in her eye line, glittering in that hot summer sun, and it waved with ginger threat. So she stopped screaming and stopped kicking and was still, breathing hard through the man’s hands. The Brassman’s hands. They were all around her now, staring down through their shiny helmets, faceless and radiant, unmarred by the mud of her home and the blood of her people.

Footsteps just past. Shuffling, awkward, lurching footsteps, and the knights stepped back aways. Sleepy Rvena was still held, her mouth still covered, but her eyes were wide open, filled with tears, staring at the thing that approached from ‘round the corner of the church.

“My, my,” said the thing. “Curious little cat stealing a glance of the mysterious Lord of the Castle. Just like in all the story books.”

Sleepy Rvena could but breathe, hard, trying to get in more air past the knight’s greasy fingers but t’weren’t enough, and the lack of it made her panic more, and breathe harder, and panic more, and breathe harder, and suddenly she was fighting and kicking again, fighting for her life, and all the while she couldn’t take her wide wet child’s eyes off the monster that now loomed over her, nor the leering, grinning, thorny bloody dripping maw of inhuman teeth.

“Have yourself a good look, eh?”

Sleepy Rvena screamed through fingers.

“What of the priest, ma’am?” one of the knights asked.

“Useless. A shadow of the man I remember. This whole town, useless. We have no need of it anymore.”

“Aye, ma’am.” A snap of fingers. A barked order, somewhere beyond. The obedient marching of feet, spreading out. “And the girl?”

Another smile dripping red. More shouts beyond, in the road. Screams. “Bring her. I could use a new lady in waiting.”

[kleeboy]

okay last one for tonight

[nightofmiracles]

okay sorry hi I'm the one from the ask, I'll answer from here.

I figured you didn't like him since... I'll be honest, nobody seem to (beside his fans), but you didn't seem the type to just brush it off instantly after mentioning him.

The reason why I mostly brought it up to you (instead of minding my own business) is more about the fact that in the story this is supposed to be the moment they turn their opinion around on Salem, right? And correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not expecting Ruby to turn to the camera and go "Well I'll be damned, I guess Salem was right all along!" that easily so I can see the approach of the show being that someone from the main cast makes a very similar choice to her and Salem just... lets it slide, because she doesn't see that act as egregious as GoL would have. Plus there is a quote from Clover himself that confirms this to me:

"Those kids wouldn't be where they are without you. You've had more of an effect on them than you realize."

Because then, as proof of this, in V8 we have Amity and Ruby's message, where we have her explain what is happening to the rest of Remnant that is very reminiscent of the scene where her uncle explains to them what is really happening (and where he answers to Jaune's anger sharing that he would have also told about Salem to the world but Ozpin didn't agree to it)

Ruby: This is a lot to take in, and it all sounds crazy, but... I'm willing to do whatever I can to help because I trust you.

Ruby: I know the idea of the Maidens and Relics seems… well… crazy, but I promise Professor Goodwitch of Beacon and Headmaster Theodore of Shade can verify all of this.

Which leads me to believe that the kids did this also because that's what he would have done if he was helping. He left a mark on them and they trust his judgment, despite his many mistakes.

It is generally a show about grief and healing yes, but the point is that Qrow has had to deal with that his whole life. He's most likely an orphan that was found and raised by bandits, he thinks his twin betrayed him, his team leader is gone, the father of his nieces despises him (and probably blames him for everything that went wrong; which is unfair but it's an easier target to pick than anything else), several huntsmen he has known were murdered and were sold out by someone he was close with, everything that happened in Atlas with James, and now he thinks the kids are also on the bottom of a sunken kingdom: he symbolizes death, he picks up the items of those that died (Ozpin and his cane, possibly Pyrrha's diadem too when he found Ruby on the tower and then Clover's pin) to carry on their memory, his entire problem with his self esteem hinges on his vision of himself as bringing nothing but pain and tragedy whenever he gets too close, a trail of blood and tears. Having everything taken from him. And, instead of fighting this trend, he has shown signs to having given up on fixing this at all. ("You don't know my friends, that's how it always goes.")

(There's NO way he's changing his mind on that any time soon if he doesn't do something incredibly good to balance some of it out and it must be him using his semblance to save those he cares about. And yes I'm also convinced his semblance is more or less the same as Clover's and that's going to be fundamental in v9)

Which is very similar, though in a way different scale, to Salem having to see people she has convinced to fight the Gods being vaporized before her eyes. Her family (and for Qrow, the kids) destroyed because of a mandate that her lover wanted to follow through, even if it put a target on her back. She wandered the world alone (like he has, as a spy), withdrawn herself from the viewing eye after being made the scapegoat of tragedies that weren't necessarily her fault.

And okay I'll finish with this before I go on forever but you brought up Penny as a "here is what you want from Clover, it's already been done" and, well... they have also been paralleled a lot. Her death in v3 and his in v7 are very similarly shot. Several visual parallels (with Ruby and Qrow paralleling each other). Her dialogue in volume 7 with Ruby in the truck is a direct prologue to Clover and Qrow opening up for the first time. She directly affirms what his problems are, to us, and we have to just put the pieces together. He just hasn't had the time to go through his arc. Yet. (Small thing I want to say about you said of them is that I fully believe Clover's support for Qrow has always been sincere. His military persona attitude gets in the way of their relationship, yes, but there's care under the shiny exterior)

Their story could be about the brothers in some ways, sure, RWBY loves its entwined parallels, but it's mostly ozlem only they are going backwards, and it possibly foreshadows ozlem actually mending what's being torn. It's not a substituion, it's a preamble to it. Clover listened to what James told him about the kids, about Qrow and his team, about just anything and followed that duty and that led him to fight off Qrow, where even if he had started to have doubts (we have seen his expressions of distraught) it wasn't enough. "James must have had a reason for this, I trust him with my life." Like Ozma has trusted the GoL's call and what his vision of Salem was. His kingdom (Atlas) has fallen. Qrow's "deal with the darkness" (fighting alongside Tyrian / Salem having the GoD make Ozma come back to life) led to Clover to "pay the price" (him dying / Ozma being brought back to live and die over and over). Even Qrow's "Why couldn't you just do the right thing?" would not sound wrong if said by Salem after her battle against Ozma. (I mean, in a way she did, she just phrased it differently)

And for my last point: Clover represents Atlas. Robyn described the kingdom as its people and not as a place, Tyrian described to Cinder how he and Watts "dismembered the body of this very kingdom". Qrow's whole Atlas arc is, beside his relationship with his semblance, him realizing that not everyone there is beyond saving and he can actively make it right; Clover was the spark of hope that ignited this change of his worldview. This is also Qrow saving Atlas (the people). And it will come with a sacrifice. (like part of his aura and/or his magic)

Well. Sorry this was very long, I hope it makes sense.

I will leave these few posts about it as an example and then leave you be (for real this time)

Hello! I've been wondering for a while but, considering you also thought of James = GoL, has the Salem = Qrow thought crossed your mind? With Clover as Ozma. There's been several times they have been paralleled (example: fight vs Clover = vs Ozma, plus they have the same colors) & I'm quite sure that Qrow will be the one to help the kids out and also bring back Clover. Mister "Gone. Live everybody else." has been forgotten by Cinder & everyone else and that's going to be important in the end

ok so. gotta be honest i don’t really. have much interesting to say about clover because he’s… not my cup of tea and i don’t find him particularly engaging in his own right, although the stuff the narrative does with him as the like embodiment of the atlesian military ideal is very fun and he’s a neatfoil to qrow. and now that i’ve said that yeah i can see where you’re getting the ozma repetition from, in that clover is the true believer even to his own detriment and faultlessly obedient until it kills him.

where it gets sticky imo is that ozlem is a broken fairytale and the symbolic repetitions thereof function narratively as attempts to get it right this time; that’s how we get the validation of salem’s grieving rage through ruby at the summit of beacon tower and jaune being dragged bodily out of the self-destructive spiral of his grief by his friends, and so forth. my reading of the atlas arc turns on penny being the fulcrum, the echo of ozma to ironwood’s echo of the god of light, and specifically an illustration of the divine mandate’s cruel injustice; penny is similarly torn between goodness and what she’s been told is right, between duty and desire, and very much like ozma she is ultimately crushed by the duty she can’t bring herself to walk away from—but her arc in v7-8 is all about questioning the assumptions she has been taught to make, vocalizing her internal conflicts, and being resolutely supported by her loved ones as she breaks away from ironwood.

(there are other layers to pick apart here in her death by cinder’s hand […pun intended i am so sorry] and jaune’s unwilling participation in ending her life in order to deny cinder what she wants from this murder, but in the interest of not going off on too long a tangent—)

anyway as the ozlem repetitions angle pertains to qrow and clover, i read them more as abstracted embodiments of the divine conflict: here is a mirror. good fortune on one side of the glass and misfortune on the other. (except they’re the same, because whether luck is good for you or bad for someone else depends solely on how you look at it.) good fortune bolsters misfortune as long as they’re on the same side but is also so disconnected from anything beyond the scope of the rules, the correct order of things that he chooses to attack misfortune, his friend and until minutes ago his ally, above recapturing the sadistic serial killer actively trying to kill them both—and his rigidity and refusal to listen to reason leaves misfortune with no recourse but to side with the serial killer. and when this predictably ends in tragedy it’s portrayed genuinely as a tragedy—not good fortune getting what’s coming to him, but a tragic, pointless ending to a life worth indescribably more than the inhumane rules he sacrificed it for. the anger qrow briefly expresses towards him is hollow, grieving, not really a condemnation of clover himself but a bitter repudiation of the world that made him.

it’s all very *waves hands* on theme, but in a direction that strikes me as pointing more at the gods (whose fundamental problem is the arbitrary and inequitable dichotomy they’ve forced themselves into and the inflexible order the “good” one enforced, to everyone’s detriment including his own) than at ozlem; consider how clover’s earnest if subtly condescending initial support of qrow and its corruption into calmly enforcing order by any means necessary suggests the way the god of light addresses his brother. there’s, again, some layers to pick apart in qrow and clover both also being staunchly loyal to causes to which they are literally (clover) or figuratively (qrow) subordinate, but that’s true of the repetition of divine conflict played out between ironwood and watts, too, and at the end of the day coercion and self-sacrifice are so crucial to what’s going on with ozma that i don’t think you can have a symbolic repetition of him without those elements; merely being subordinate to a higher power of any description is not enough, imo.

what does interest me quite a bit about this angle on qrow—and robyn, who in this layer of the narrative embodies dark’s second gift of knowledge—is that both of them survive the fall of atlas and do not leave solitas, which if it proves symbolically meaningful at all is an intriguing thing to do with a metaphor for what happens if ozma fulfills his mandate. creation (ironwood) and choice (cinder) destroyed atlas, destruction (qrow) and knowledge (robyn) are left behind to pick up the pieces… plus whatever pietro and maria will be up to, and cinder and salem in the event that they don’t leave right away. the natural point of convergence for all these characters is amity, which is a) still falling, b) something salem is lightly implied to have been interested in hijacking and using herself, and c) something salem would probably be able to haul back into broadcast range if she cared to—and of course notionally the point of amity was to bring the world together again. so THAT’s all hamster wheeling in the back of my brain.

[fuck-customers]

I go into work today much like any other day. Despite working in retail, I genuinely try to enjoy my shifts because (quite luckily) I work in a place that doesn't typically have a lot of drama. I don't have many issues with the management, my coworkers, or the customers that come in. My retail setting is a bit different, because we're a very popular Southern restaurant chain with a gift shop.  There's a lot to it, but today I was under the job code that means I lead the shift. It's my responsibility to observe my coworkers, make sure they're doing their jobs correctly (and if they're not, I have to coach them to help them improve), and a bunch of other stuff. I'm not allowed to run a register unless I'm absolutely needed. First issue of the day comes up when a newer waitress messed up with a customer's bill. I call up a manager for help, she walks off the floor to fix it. In that time, I'm talking to the guest and apologizing for the long wait (along with several other people getting angry at me for not being "open") when another guest walks up to me and insists that I get her carryout order for her. She wasn't polite about it either.

So I look at my line, which I have two other cashiers working on, and it's wrapped around into the restaurant side. We'd had an unexpected bus of 50 people and they were all coming out at this inconvenient time. I look back at the guest and inform her that she would be cutting in front of at least 20 other people who had been waiting longer than she had. She starts to get argumentative and says that she doesn't want to wait in the line for 20 minutes only to have to wait for her order to come out.

All I do as a cashier is open the check based on the person's name, verify it's the correct order, have the customer pay for it, then call it back to the kitchen so that they can bring it out from the hot box. I don't handle food, I am a retail employee. I apologize to the customer but tell her that I couldn't allow her to cut the line, so she asks to speak to the manager. Thankfully the manager was right there with the guest, with the correct check. I thank the manager for correcting that and finish the transaction with the other guest that I was waiting to help in the first place. 

A few minutes later, the manager starts yelling at me over the radio about how she told the guest that she could come up to me and that she waited in line. No, I personally saw the guest enter through the front doors and come straight for my register. She simply didn't want to wait for her turn so, like a toddler, she threw a tantrum. Then the manager asked me where the customer had gone, like I'm some sort of babysitter? I hadn't seen her since the manager took her aside to speak to her. I also had a line going into the restaurant, so how could I be expected to keep track, exactly?

Later on, the manager pulled me aside three more times during my shift to yell at me about the missed opportunity that I caused. Even though I was simply just being fair to the entire line of guests that had been waiting their turn patiently. I apologized each time she came back to me, trying to sound genuine even though I wished she would just stop. I'm human, we all make mistakes, and I don't need to be hounded during my shift because of an angry customer. I guess the customer left without paying, but she didn't get her food either. I mean, in that situation, what should I have done? Should I have let her cut in front of all those people? The manager couldn't give me a straight answer, just "Oh, well.. Customers like that... they just..." and then she walked away. Really?

So I take a deep breath and try to calm down. I had to send an email with our numbers to the district manager, so I walked off the floor and sent that. Then another coworker comes in. 

We have a system of who gets on which register, and between this coworker and myself in this particular shift it should have been her. Of course she didn't want to, and starts doing everything but ring up customers. So, as someone who is not supposed to be on a register, I'm stuck on the register for an hour. Her excuse? "I'm doing peak period setup." In my job code, I can stock the bags, clean the windows, fold clothing, and fill in gaps of themes when I'm not with guests. I tried to get her to see it this way and she wouldn't. 

We also have to send pictures of our peak period setup to the manager, and I did that 25 minutes earlier than the deadline today; I was proud of that. Things looked good, I worked hard on what I could. The manager was off work, and she wants to be in the know when she's not around. So she asked if someone could please re-fold the sweaters in one of our collections. This coworker that won't run the registers says that she'll do it, only to tell me quite rudely that I needed to do it.

When the next coworker arrived for her shift, I did what I shouldn't have; in frustration of the BS of my day, I gave up. I stopped really talking to customers on the floor and started simply making small talk with those who came around me while cleaning up the sweaters, then one of our other themes. I didn't do a perfect job but things looked better by the end of my shift.

When my shift ended I was so glad to get out of there. 

These are the kinds of days that I have every once in a while where I question whether I should continue to pursue the shift leader position I just got a few months ago, and the skills trainer position I got a few months before that. And it makes me want to quit, which I can't do because I have bills to pay and nobody else to rely on but myself. I'm always looking for better positions but nothing else pays as good as this position I'm currently in and I need every penny I can get my hands on. 

[millimallow]

pt 23 - silver spoon

kindness can be the worst thing.

well, the day they came to kill me has come sooner than i expected.

something about proximity to the cursed sea makes people… off. maybe it’s the curses. potentially, it’s living in a chilled hellhole for the vast majority of the year, considering all the cold tides and winds which get pulled in with the current. our capital is inland, even though it’s trading that makes a nation rich. and there’s not a single breszian who’ll let a kind stranger in their house, not for any reason under the sun, not now and not ever. they’re afraid- afraid of the darkness in the corners of houses and the moon when it blots out the sun. while most other cultures have amicable relations with creatures that lurk in the dark, so long as the peace is maintained, this is the place where your worst nightmares are supposed to come true. particularly those dreams of eternally elusive individuals clad in black and transforming into animals. not witches, no, but close.

vampires.

and i’m one of them.

let me start by saying i’m not a natural vampire. and that natural vampires do exist- it’s very much possible to be born a vampire to similarly vampiristic parents. i’ve met said individuals. we look alike, and can’t be distinguished aside from familiarity with vampire youth culture. as you might worry, i was turned from a human. my family line stretched back in murentz bres for a good few hundred years, almost as far as decipherable records go back. not only that, i had provided my enthusiastic consent for the procedure regardless of the cost to my personal life. what’s the cost? even those able to reject the group-think paranoia were wary around a creature known for sucking the blood of others in order to survive. understandable. nowadays i can’t help it if people make me hungry. in the eyes of many, there’s no reason why someone could choose that lifestyle with their minds intact. so here’s the story, the last record of me before i leave in such a hurry.

every man wants his son to take after him. they want him to inherit the family business, run it like their father does, then to have children with some upstanding public figure. it’s a pressured life, regardless of the privileges and comforts it might offer you to be the offspring of a well-established middle-class family. yet nobody chooses against it. in other places, people live for adventure and difference. sea-dwellers are used to the irregular and ever-changing oceans, city-dwellers are packed too tightly to not notice the world that shifts and morphs around them to better fit a different world. before i knew of vampires and their secret society, my dream was only to move elsewhere. i might never be truly one of them, but the relief and freedom it would grant me was immense. better than my father’s old butchery and his wire-frame insistence that it would be mine one day. that i had to shape up for this singular future goal which he had set ahead of me. but my mind was secretly set on escape from the first moment he mentioned the future of the business to me. i counted out the pennies i found on the street, exactly an in order, trying to decipher the price of a ferry to canfu sen. better destinations existed than a conflict-wracked semi-tropical island country, but was i in a place to be picky? the cheaper the journey and destination the better. while i could never accumulate much, my stash gave me breath in the morning. kept me going.

however, my best laid plans were set to go immediately awry. years in the future, during my later teenage years, my father encountered a spot of financial trouble. some below-the-table debts had came to collect after a fire upset the underground business he was linked to. the money was there, but his pockets were empty after he was forced to repay. and i do mean forced- it took the threat of burning his remaining stock for him to give in to the shadowy figures bursting into our house one morning. desperate to accumulate funds for the future, by some miracle he was able to locate my own hoard. looked at me in the eyes and told me that he was taking it for my own good, of course. once the business had been revitalized i would once again be able to inherit it and its success, then i would become rich. from there my plans changed- i realized i was property, and that my father would chase me down to the ends of owa all so he could reclaim me. but he was exactly like all of the others surrounding him. closed-minded. shiftless. afraid of the dark.

the cheapest widely-available meat is that of people. nobody will eat it unless they don’t know what it is. but it can be passed off as something else- and if you do it right, profit waits for you like an unclaimed prize. you just have to acquire it first. and under the guise of interest in his business, i was able to track my father’s business associates. i had a good clue as to who, or what, they were. people whose powers were sufficient enough to obtain the necessary human meat for a business to be founded on it. vampires. capable of knocking people unconscious, far-derived from their humanity enough for them to kill and prepare without remorse. so beneath their chambers in the town centre, in the basement, i met with them. and during a business transaction, having verified their otherworldly features and sharp twinkling fangs, i asked for one more thing amongst the “pig’s legs” i was to deliver to my father.

for me to join them, and become forever one with the night. for such a service i would return all the meat we purchased without looking for our money to be refunded. the next minute, i was bitten. from then, i was running. but i was running with the wind behind me and the world on my back.

[roastyoualive-archive]

Penny has died.

“…..has died.” finish it in my ask. || Accepting

… when turned fifty degrees past calibration, will result in a polari– 

Snap. Warren frowned down at the broken pencil lead. Ah, well. That’s what he had extras for. He grabbed one of the two spares from the corner of his workspace and resumed his note-taking. Every now and again, he’d glance up at the blackboard. While some people might question his teaching methods, nobody could say Medulla didn’t know what he was talking about. He was a supergenius, after all. 

He’d been in the middle of double-checking his spelling of the inventor of the first shrink ray (Russian phonics were different than any he’d worked with, before) when a knock on the door stopped the lecture. Warren only spared it the barest glance. 

“Yes?” Medulla sounded annoyed. Warren could relate, but decided to salvage the situation. As Medulla stepped outside to speak with whoever it was - offering a ��one moment, class’ over his shoulder - Warren reached down to rummage through his bag. He’d scrounged together enough spare cash to buy a set of highlighters from the dollar store, so, depending on how long this took, he might be able to get a head start on colour-coding his notes–

“Mister Peace.” He looked up. People were looking at him, now. A glance to the side showed him Will quickly averting his eyes. As Warren sat up, he returned his own gaze to the door. Mr. Medulla stood with a decidedly unreadable expression on his face. Beside him was one of the office attendants. The, uh, the jumpy one, what was her name… Mrs. Springer. 

“… Yeah?” He said when the silence stretched. 

“You’re being requested at the office.” Warren rolled his eyes almost before Medulla had even finished speaking. Of course he was. He shot an irritated grimace at the desk as he pushed himself to stand, bracing his hands on the smooth wooden surface. 

“And, Mister Peace?” Medulla spoke again. Warren straightened with a huff of breath and an arched brow. 

“Yeah?” He repeated. Mrs, Springer shot an anxious glance to Medulla. Warren felt like he wasn’t supposed to notice, but he did. 

“You- Might want to bring your bag, dear.” She said it in the sort of tone you’d expect a grandmother to have. That didn’t make this any less of a headache. He was fluent in teacher, by now. That meant ‘don’t expect to come back, kid’. He shoved his book into his bag, briefly wondering who he’d have to ask to copy their notes. Probably Will. Speaking of- 

“What did you do?” He asked, voice barely over a whisper. Warren shrugged and shook his head, doing his best to convey ‘I don’t know!’ in a gesture. He hauled his bag up by one strap and walked through the silent classroom and out into the hall. As he passed, Mr. Medulla looked like he wanted to say something. Warren paused. A beat of silence, before Medulla shook his head and closed the door. As it clicked, Warren could faintly hear him returning to the lecture with an apology for the interruption. Damn. He hoped this wouldn’t be on the test - or maybe he could ask for a make-up lecture at lunch? … Probably not. Especially not if he was in trouble. Guess he could always check the library. 

The walk to the office was silent. So silent, in fact, he could hear his sneakers against the tiled floor just as well as her heels. Springer seemed more nervous than usual. She wouldn’t stop fiddling, either with her glasses, a stray piece of hair, or the manila folder of paperwork she seemed to have perpetually clutched to her chest. … She seemed scared. Of him? Did she honestly think he’d attack a teacher? (Or- secretary?) …. Scratch that. Baron Battle’s kid. Of course she’d think something like that, never mind the fact he’d never done that kind of thing in his life. (Thanks, Dad.) He decided to think about something else. Like what they could possibly be pinning on him, this time. He honestly had no idea. He hadn’t gotten into any fights, or even any arguments lately, didn’t make a headache of himself in class… Didn’t cheat on tests or plagiarize his work, and ever since sixth grade had made a point of keeping his rough drafts and research notes to prove it… Didn’t destroy any more property than normal in STC (and had not, thank you very much, set Boomer on fire again). Yeah, he had no idea. He figured he had to be getting blamed for someone else’s handiwork. Again. Whatever. The nice thing about having friends (or, one of the nice things) was that, hopefully, at least one of the others would be willing and able to vouch for his innocence. That should speed things along. Maybe he’d be able to catch the tail end of the lecture, after all. 

Springer opened the door for him, and he gave her a small nod of thanks. Received a watery, shaky smile in return. Geez, she looked like she was about to cry. Was she really that scared of him? They’d barely ever even spoken, before! It didn’t put him in the best mood as he stepped into the office. Principal Powers was at her desk. For some reason, she looked older than she had when he’d passed her in the hall, that morning. He wasn’t really sure why. Didn’t think about it long after he saw the person sitting beside her. A man, broad in the shoulders, in a formal black suit. Short hair, dark glasses, ear piece. A Fed, by the looks of it. It took a concentrated effort not to scowl. Had to be about Dad. Because, you know, a fifteen-year-old highschooler in California absolutely had control over what happened up at NAPSE. He’d handled this before. Just give him your statement, get your alibi verified, get back to class. Hopefully it wouldn’t take as long to process as it had, last time. The suit started to ask a question - ‘Are you–’ but clammed up as soon as he saw Warren’s face. Just nodded to himself in silent confirmation. Warren warily set his bag down by the door and crossed his arms over his chest, hovering by the door. 

“Uhm-” Mrs. Springer broke the silence. All three sets of eyes - Powers, Warren, and the Suit’s sunglasses - turned to her. She gulped, stared at the floor, and shut the door with a nervous laugh before scurrying off down the hall. Warren furrowed his brow. Sheesh, and he thought he was bad with social situations.

“Warren?” Principal Powers spoke, and he looked up. First names? Weird. “This,” she continued, gesturing to the suit, “is Mr. Stern, from the Agency’s head office.” Warren’s brows raised, and he blinked. The Agency? What the hell did they want? No Agent had tried to get in contact with the Peaces since Mom went inactive. Were they trying to hire her, again? To hire him? He wasn’t even licensed, yet. That couldn’t be it. … It looked like they were waiting for him to say something.

“Hey.” Warren greeted lamely. He kept studying the Agent, trying to get a read on him. No luck. Not surprising. 

“Would you take a seat, son?” The Agent - Stern - said, nodding to a chair opposite the desk. Warren glanced to the chair, leaning away to get a better look at it and swallowing a comment about how Stern wasn’t his dad. Probably better to not make this worse. Instead, he said nothing and did sit down, but kept his eyes on the two adults. This was so weird. It only got weirder when Stern reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a huge, white rectangle that almost reminded Warren of an overgrown bar of soap. He flicked a switch on the side, the box made a short whirring noise, and Powers gave the Agent what Warren thought would have been an exasperated look, if she’d had the energy. (Why was she so tired? Did the staff coffee machine break, or something?) She didn’t stop him, though. There was a brief moment when the air felt charged with static. It faded quickly enough, but not before piquing Warren’s curiosity. He wanted to reach over to the box and see what it was. He decided against doing so and kept his arms crossed, hands tucked in. Stared silently at Stern, waiting for an explanation. 

“Son,” Stern began again, shifting to a more comfortable position in his chair. Warren leaned back slightly in his. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” A part of Warren very much wanted to be sarcastic. It was drowned out by the chill that raced down his spine. 

“… What kind of news?” He sat up slowly. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair a bit tighter than he realized. Stern sighed.

“It’s about your mother.” 

Warren felt the school rock beneath him. Mom?

“What…?” The air was suddenly too thick for him to get any other words out. In the corner of his eye, he could make out Powers standing up, but he was too focused on Stern to care. No, no, no no no….

“This afternoon, at 1:45 PM, your mother was on her way home from work.”

No.

(It was so cold.)

“… Am I correct to assume you’ve seen the news? About Voltage?”

No.

(Yes.) (He didn’t answer.)

“We have reason to believe that your mother intervened in one of their attacks.” 

No. 

(Please, no.)

(This wasn’t real.)

(Not Mom.)

“And…” Stern trailed off. Warren kept staring, unaware that he was shaking his head in silent denial. 

Please.

Stern sighed. 

“I’m so sorry, son.” 

Sorry?! What did that-?! He didn’t even remember standing up, but the chair that clattered to the ground behind him let him know that he must’ve. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. It was some sick joke, some sort of- Some- It wasn’t-! It couldn’t be, not Mom-! 

“You’re lying!” He wasn’t aware of the break in his voice. He was aware that there was no fire in his hands. Tried again. Nothing. Powers and Stern were standing now. If he’d been more coherent, he might have realized his lack of abilities came from that box. But he wasn’t thinking about that. Only about getting the truth out of Stern. 

To the Agent’s credit, he didn’t flinch when Warren shoved him against the wall. Didn’t fight back, didn’t struggle, didn’t even react aside from re-adjusting his glasses when they got knocked askew. 

“Where is she?!” Warren demanded, yanking on fistfuls of Stern’s jacket collar. “Where’s my mom?!” His vision blurred. It had to be from adrenaline, right? Not from how much he was crying. (’Boys aren’t supposed to cry, Warren’ a voice from first grade whispered.)

“Diana.” Stern held up a cautioning hand over Warren’s shoulder. Warren glanced back - Powers. It looked like she’d been reaching out to them. He exhaled a shaky breath, then roughly dropped Stern and took a step back. His lungs drew in air at a ragged, irregular rate and he sniffed but didn’t wipe his eyes. Only stared, hands still flexed against the humming white box, as the Agent calmly dusted himself off.

(’It’s okay, sweetheart.’ Said a voice he’d never hear again. ‘Everything’s gonna be okay. We still have each other, right?’)

Wrong.

He tried another gulp of air and failed. Squeezed his eyes shut, His voice sounded so small when he spoke.

“Where’es my mom…?” A hand on his shoulder. Warren flinched back. Stern was in front of him, looking down through impassive glasses.

He didn’t even care.

“Come with me.” 

…

He felt numb. 

They’d taken him off in an Agency aircraft. They’d sent someone to collect his things and he hadn’t said a word since they’d left the office, only clung to himself desperately like it might offer some form of comfort and it didn’t. (She was gone. She was gone she was gone why was she gone?) They’d landed in a secure location and he’d asked if they were going to a hospital but Stern had said there’d be no point. No point? Nobody would even tell him what happened. What did ‘no point’ mean? Sure, hospitals were expensive, but- But he would’ve given the shirt off his back if it meant she was okay. He’d have spent every day for the rest of his life at work, he’d cut down on food, he’d- He’d take a page from Dad’s book and rob a bank, anything as long as she’d be around at the end of the day, but- But there was no point. He should’ve been there. He should’ve saved her. He should’ve died, instead. She’d always been there for him. She’d done everything for him, and he couldn’t do one damn thing for her. Walking home from work, they’d said. She wouldn’t have needed that job if he hadn’t been around. She wouldn’t have lost her old one if she hadn’t needed to take care of him. It was his fault she was dead. It was his fault he lost the only person who ever really gave a damn. His mom was gone because of him.

“We’ve contacted your next of kin,” Agent Stern said. Warren numbly looked up from the chair he was in. At some point, someone must’ve put a blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t remember it getting there. “Your uncle has agreed to take you in.” The gentleness sounded alien and forced in the Agent’s voice. A thought broke through the grief:

I have an uncle?

Warren didn’t say anything, though. Only stared.

“Nicholas Peace?” Stern said, as though expecting that to jog some memory. “Your mother’s brother?” 

Mom had a brother?

Had. Past-tense. Mom had a brother. Just like Warren had a mom. Where had this ‘uncle’ been for the past forever? Why was he stepping in now? A man came into the room behind Stern. Neatly combed brown hair, blue eyes, a suit that looked like it cost more than Warren’s entire apartment. Dress code aside, he looked a lot like Mom. Warren’s chest constricted painfully and he looked away. Swallowed a lump in his throat that might’ve been a sob if he let it. Mom was gone. His mom was gone and it was his fault and now he was being shoved off on someone who wouldn’t want anything to do with the kid who killed his sister. Warren wouldn’t want anything to do with himself, either. He just wanted everything to stop.

The funeral was small and quiet. The sun was shining, and Warren, from where he stood alone, idly thought that Mom would’ve liked it. She’d loved the sun. The marble headstone could’ve covered the Peaces’ food budget for a month, easily. A simple epitaph graced its surface. 

Penelope Anne Peace

October 12, 1972 - November 4, 2005

Beloved mother, sister, friend. 

What a joke, Warren thought bitterly. He stared silently at the freshly-turned earth, blinking against tears that had long since been spent. Nobody else had come. Just him, and his… Uncle. Cousin and Aunt, too, but they were doing a poor job of disguising how bored they were. How dare they. How dare the three of them make light of this-? Mom deserved so much better. She deserved a better family than them and a better son than him and better friends than the ones who couldn’t be bothered to make an appearance. Not here, and not when they cleaned the apartment. Nicholas had sent people to do it, but Warren had insisted on being there. Had made sure to gather every single item of importance himself. … It had always seemed like such a cramped space, before. But now- It felt huge. It felt empty. It felt cold. It felt lonely. It was a feeling that followed him no matter where he went. 

Not school, though. Mainly because he didn’t go back. Not the next day. Not the day after that. (He couldn’t take it, any more.)

(Sorry, Mom.)

“Hey, guys!” Will said, weaving his way through the cafeteria to their usual table.

“Hey, man!” Zach reached up a hand for a high-five, and Will obliged, making sure not to drop his tray. He slid into a seat between Ethan and Layla. 

“How’d the history test go?” Layla asked, popping a kale chip into her mouth. Will shrugged.

“I think I passed?” He offered. “I mean, I did study, and I think I did well, but-” He glanced around, looking for a change of subject (the last thing he wanted to do was stress even more about that test. He’d been worrying all week). “So, uh- Has anyone seen Warren? I’ve still got his science notes from the last few classes, and…” The table went silent. Will looked around. “What?” Everyone seemed to be staring at their food. Layla put a hand on his arm.

“Will…��� She began. Will frowned. 

“Yeah…?” It was Magenta who answered. (She’d heard the news, first.)

“… His mom died.” She said, putting her fork down. Will felt the colour drain from his face.

“Wh-? Oh, my god…”

That was the first piece of news that would reach Sky High regarding the disappearance of Warren Peace. 

The second fact was that the lavish estate of Nicholas Peace, practicing attorney, had burned to the ground completely. Thankfully, no casualties had yet been discovered, but a few of the staff were suffering serious injuries.

Next, the student body learned that, some time ago, Baron Battle had escaped from NAPSE, leaving a trail of immolated corpses and chaos in his wake before apparently vanishing off of the face of the Earth. Nobody knew how he’d gotten out. Nobody knew where he’d gone.

All they knew was that, wherever he was,

it looked as though he’d taken his son with him. 

[rfschatten]

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser” ~~~ Socrates

When a spoiled little kid loses in a board game, he grabs the board from beneath and throws it up into the air, pulls a temper tantrum, and walks away shouting; “I won, you cheated”!

Donald Trump is a 7yr old spoiled uneducated little brat, born with a silver spoon stuck up his derriere, and dressed up as a 74yr old stable genius …well, this stable genius is going to have to deal with the reality that the 4 year run of his “Reality Show” has been canceled due to low bad ratings!

This little sore losing cry-baby will never concede! He isn’t man enough to ever say; “I lost, congratulations, You won”! That would be way too much for his ultra-narcissistic fragile ego to absorb.

His eventual eviction and exit, stage right, from the White House is January 20th. Meanwhile, he’s been trying to overturn the Election using his eternal book of conspiracy theories of fraud throughout the country, and every legal trick available.

Projecting all this massive fraud, just reveals how much fraud he must have committed …and how pissed he must be that even if he cheated his ass, off…he still lost!

He’s tried every trick in the book to win the election …including making a Trump club member and big-time political donor, Postmaster General, to steal the Election by screwing all Mail-In Votes…but, that failed. He then tried to intimidate minorities from voting using death threats and suggested his right-wing goon squads browbeat and frighten away Black voters at the polls. That failed too.

When all was lost, he started requesting hand recounts and audits. When that didn’t work, he asked for machine recounts…then, since nothing else worked, he started his inevitable string of lawsuits…62 & counting, and every single one has been dismissed as a farce by every Federal Judge at every level.

They lose, move to the Appeals Court…and lose again. They did it in every State…and kept losing! Pennsylvania’s last straw? The 3 Judges in the Court of Appeals…2 Republicans selected by George Bush and 1 Republican picked by Trump…all 3, pretty much in their own way, told Rudy Giuliani to pack his bags and get the hell out of their Court!

Finally, what has been all along …his ultimate intension…SCOTUS with “His” 3 Judges! Their verdict on PA? 9–0 in favor of Biden.

And it continued. The Attorney General of Texas sued Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia …asking the US Supreme Court to nullify the Biden votes in those states, by legally trying to interfere with another state and telling them how to run their own elections. In this case, 18 states & 126 GOP Congressmen joined the lawsuit …even advocating sedition, and threatening secession if the election isn’t overturned in their favor!

The end arrived when SCOTUS once again voted 9–0! Biden is the winner, again! Then, to put the nail on the Trump Presidency coffin, three days later, the Electoral College gave Biden his 306 votes …It’s Over! The End! El Fin! Finis!

Oh! He’ll continue to publicly say it was stolen from him till the day he dies! …it’s his new MAGA Cult rallying cry; “They stole my election …destroy the GOP”! And it’s beginning to work …lookout, Republicans!

For a while, It looked like he was willing to dig in, call squatters’ right, hunker in his bunker, and never come out! He’s mellowed recently, probably cause one of his baby handlers rubbed a little Rum on his cry-baby gums, calming his temper tantrums down a little …and making the baby do some things he really doesn’t want to do.

It would’ve been something, though …to see to what extent Donald Trump would go, to stay in the White House!

Imagine! It’s High Noon, January 20th, 2021

Donald Trump is in the back of the White House on top of a giant dumpster completely engulfed in flames, while hysterically laughing and shouting; “Ha! Ha! Top of the World, Ma! …I’m on Top of the World”!

Wonder how Jimmy Cagney (a staunch Republican donor, supporter, & close Reagan friend) must feel looking down from heaven in shame at this total fake of a tough-guy wannabe …and all his ‘tough’ Republican cult of political cowards?

He’s too much a coward to stay inside and yell; “You’re not taking me out alive, coppers”!. He’ll walk away, right onto an 18th Green in one of his Country Clubs …and continue his hateful, racist, rabble-rousing ways! Maybe, start a media empire to compete with the now, “too liberal” Fox News.

Maybe …run for President in 2024 …even, if it’s just to bug the living hell out of humanity all over again!

But primarily, to advance his Trumpism, cause trouble & entice civil unrest using his despicable “good fine people”, and become a thorn on the side and a pain in the derriere of whatever is left of the Grand Old Party.

What’s his endgame? This penniless billionaire is making enough money to survive, pay off his mysterious $400 Million debt, and stay out of jail. Now, he’s defrauding his own donors with his “Trump Election Defense Fund” for the use of overturning the election, by funneling 75% of all the money donated into the new “Save America PAC”, where the money is kept…stashed away for whatever “Trump’s future ambitions and endeavors might be”. It’s no secret, it also means he can legally pocket every penny of those contributions!

All his antics are the last act of a desperate man. All narcissistic psychopaths desperately need and live for the “attention”, to survive. When the party is over, you become yesterday’s news …and when the love is gone, you become nothing …a nobody!

He rarely comes out of the White House much anymore (except to play golf) since being declared “the loser”. Mostly, stays inside his bunker …brooding and tweeting his usual obscenities, complaints, and lies. Slandering people right and left. And every once in a while, if his “good fine people” are outside the gates, he’ll buzz around low & fly-over with the White House Helicopter, or he’ll get into his limo and have the Secret Service drive him through the crowd so he can wave & smile at them while seeing them yell and wave back…it’s his obsessive need for attention. Then, to the end of the block, around the corner…and back into his bunker.

Knowing you’re a worthless human being who doesn’t care about anyone else on the face of this earth but for yourself …and knowing of having 81+ million people agree with you & vote you out? …that hurts!

Leaving historically with a legacy of being publicly shamed as a corrupt Impeached ex-President, a loser who lost by more than 7.5 million votes and lost the popular vote in 2016 by more than 3 million votes!

And finally, never being liked or approved by the majority of America …never even coming close to reaching at least a 50% job approval rating throughout his entire 4-year gig!

He’s been forced out of his tiny little bubble of illusions & delusions …and thrown into the world of reality. Having it all happen publicly, in front of the entire world …and nowhere for the Trump Family and the Trump “brand” to ever hide!

For this little man, the eminent jail time waiting in the wings is not as bad as the shame of facing a public that’s learned the truth about “The Donald”…that he really is a Loser, a Liar, a Cheat, a huge Tax Fraud, and a Penniless Billionaire Con-Artist.

Psychologically projecting himself throughout his life for being the loser he’s always been, by calling everyone else in the world a loser …has caught up with him…and reality is now haunting him, dearly.

The self-proclaimed “King of Reality Shows” was in all his glory in today’s so-called “Reality TV” …it’s really all about what you (the producer) want to “pass” as Real. Like a Trump form of reality; WWE Pro Wrestling with his buddy, Vince McMahon, and the scripted feud between Donny & Vince on TV.

Like Wrestling, it always passes as being “real” …even if you already know it’s all fake! And no one is better than the King of Fake …America’s only ever faux president!

Being the greatest, smartest, and astute billionaire in the world …a stable genius, may all work in Reality TV, but in the real world, it’s transparently obvious he’s not a stable genius, he’s the polar opposite of being the greatest in anything, definitely verified for 4 years he’s not the smartest, and obviously, he’s not an astute billionaire …in fact, just a fraudulent penniless self-proclaimed billionaire.

There’s very little that’s real in reality tv …though, a few are truly legit. Seeing a family literally break-up after years working in business together, and then seeing them slowly make-up was pure classic, true reality …thanks to American Chopper & the Discovery Channel.

And it wasn’t due to the pressure of the constant cameras filming it…this all happened long before the show started. It was going to explode on the show or off the show …and the Discovery Channel caught it!

William Burkett once said; “People fight with reality. They fight it tooth and nail, with everything they’ve got. And anytime you are arguing or fighting with reality, reality will win. You can’t outsmart it. You can’t trick it. You can’t bend it to your will. Not now. Not ever.”

You can’t outsmart reality, Mr. Trump …you lost, and lost big …put-on your big boy pants, act like a real man, and admit defeat!

So, why did Donald Trump lose?

Truth & Reality Matters! Where do you start? His indecent & immoral degenerate character? 4 years of America being embarrassed in front of the world almost every single day?

Let’s start with misinforming and lying to the American Nation 30 seconds after taking the Oath of Office …with over 25,000+ lies from Nov. 8th, 2016 to Nov. 3rd, 2020.

Cheating to get elected with help of Russia’s online mass disinformation program and use of bots …all verified 100% by America’s entire intelligence community & confirmed by a GOP Senate Committee. That’s Treason.

His eternal passion for Schadenfreude, his love for cruelty …keeping children in dog cages, separating them and even ripping them away while still being breast-fed by their mothers, and keeping them away from their families…but mostly, enduring unquestionable cruelty and tragedy throughout the 4 years. That’s totally insanely criminal!

Working with Foreign Countries (Ukraine & Russia) to discredit his political opponent. That’s a Treasonous act.

Running a criminally corrupt administration, using Foreign actors, political racketeering, enriching himself and his political cronies. Committing Fraud, Money Laundering, Embezzling, Political Extortion, Nepotism up the kazoo, and destroying as much as he can of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. All that is Life in Prison!

The total outright planned systematic attack on Civil Rights and Equal Justice …openly advocating and promoting Hate & Racism, the Sedition of States, praising QAnon, openly encouraging violence, and fully embracing White Nationalism/Supremacy. Treason! Treason! Treason!

And how about giving away US Classified Information to the Russian Ambassador and the Russian Foreign Minister publicly inside the Oval Office, after kicking everybody out of the room? …that’s pure Electric Chair Treason, any way you cut it!!

Oh, yes! One more little problem facing this country, and the main reason why the not so stable genius, lost …over 16.5+ million Infections and 300,000+ Deaths from a Global Pandemic that he knew all about, back in Dec 2019 & Jan 2020! He knew from the very beginning!

Decided to call it a hoax, very systematically fabricating every move step by step, holding back life-saving measures, and totally misleading the American Public on the grave dangers concerning the state of theirs & their family’s Health…while discrediting Medical Science every step of the way. Purposely “Politicizing” the pandemic, while people keep dying!

And he still fighting it…encouraging all his supporters to gather in mass, like at his super-spreader events, and never wear a mask, which really doesn’t help while trying to control the virus!

And while millions go hungry, and massive lines of cars throughout the entire country lining up and waiting hours to receive food handouts …and the massive lines for COVID-19 testing, that just keeps growing by the day …the President of the United States is out playing golf!

Until Jan. 20th, 2021, he’s still president. Why doesn’t he do something and try to make things just a little better during his last days? Why doesn’t he try acting a little more decent & respectful and do something to help the Health Crisis in this country? …leave a little more dignity, and gracefully? Instead, he’s still acting like a spoiled little cry-baby who doesn’t know how to put on his big boy pants and walk away like a real man …with his head, up!

And then, people really have to ask why Donald Trump lost?!?!

Oddly enough, if he wasn’t so incompetent …if his administration wasn’t so incompetent, and if he really would’ve tried to properly lead the Nation during this very real pandemic crisis, instead of treating dead Americans as “collateral damage” …just a number for economic bean-counters to decide whether to remain open or closed? …if he would’ve been totally honest with the American People? The drama of this pandemic would’ve tilted in his favor, as the hero president who’s leading his country and doing his very best to stop Coronavirus! He may have won!

The biggest reason why Donald Trump lost was Donald Trump!

It’s his dirty, indecent, and immoral degenerate corrupt character, his dirty filthy mind, and his dirty fowl-mouth. But, if he acted like a President whose concerned about his American constituents’ lives if he worked and showed he cared? …he may very well still be President!

Those who first elected him, many thought he’ll take the job seriously, and being a “non-politico”? …they believed in giving him a chance to learn …call it, on the job training!

Well, he never took the job seriously, and he didn’t learn anything from 4 years of “on the job” training! Now, 4 years later, 74 million still voted for Trump? What’s their excuse besides sheer institutionalized systemic ignorance & blind loyalty, if it’s not hatred and racism?

After 4 years, how many people do you have to fool that are still alive from this Pandemic, to keep your job?

The majority of this country already knew, heard, and seen the same spiel this con-artist has pulled for years! …and still, they’ve had no other choice but to put up for 4 years watching our president, openly on LiveTV and in front of the world, literally flip-off America every single day of his presidency!

Before the vote began, he said that he’ll admit defeat if it’s an Electoral Landslide. He called his win in 2016 with 304 electoral votes (2 Trump and 5 Clinton electors voted for others) a landslide victory! Well, Biden ended up with 306, which means, it makes it a slightly bigger landslide, right?

Now, he says he’ll abide by the Electoral College’s decision, but won’t concede? Like everything about the Donald …won’t believe it till I see it! By the way, a caution warning to the permanent White House Staff; When the Trumps move out their personal furniture, keep an eye open …not unusual or above the values for this clan, to pick up a couple 5 finger-discount items that are White House properties.

Well! The American people have spoken, Mr. President. …Bye! Bye! The party’s over, time to call it a night! You’ve been terminated; Now, you don’t have to go home …but you can’t stay here!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice?!?! …YOU ARE FIRED!

[tellsatanisaidhello-blog]

Fire Emblem Heroes Hack Orbs | Fire Emblem Heroes Free Orbs and Feathers Update April 2017

Fire Emblem Heroes Hack Tool & Suggestions Cheats Mod No Survey?

No require to look anywhere else, the most sophisticated Fire Emblem Heroes Cheat is available appropriate now for you to download. Hold on activating none gave up as well as the orbs so one can the personal computer game ask for to mobilize a Emblem brand-new updated hero will definitely begin to reduce in numbers and also you will not remain in have to make use of Fire emblem Heroes cheats any type of kind of a lot far more. http://fehackz.com/

So, if you had been browsing regarding a implies with which you can safe totally free Orbs right after that you could quit your search correct now, those Fire Emblem Heroes Hack forums are not mosting likely to assist do not have to anxiety if you miss anything in this new version if you have actually never ever played the Fire Emblem video games prior to as it can be identified in a brand-new plot in a new platform.

As the name suggests the kingdom is made up of lots of heroes like Alfonse, the value of Askran kingdom which is searching forward to keeping peace in the universe, Veronica the youngest princess of Emblian Empire, which appears forward to destroying the Askran Kingdom via her manipulating powers, and so on.

It may possibly not supply the classic functions that the core titles possessed, but Heroes does have its personal charm and can give unlimited gaming time not bound by definite story is a totally free-to-play mobile RPG complete of tactics and strategies, a spin-off from Nintendo's hit Fire Emblem series.

Our extraordinary group produce you wonderful as well as new operating Fire Emblem Heroes Hack, currently with this certain remarkable device you can produce flash in addition to unrestricted quantity of Treasures along with credit rating to your laptop game, similarly our Fire Emblem Heroes Hack Tool is safe as properly as undetectable in 100%, so basically make use of out Fire Emblem Heroes Cheat Device and also appreciate you easy personal computer game!

As a outcome this hack has turn into extremely intuitive to use and even 2nd class student can use it. You never need to have any prerequisites or any technical information for making use of this hack. Thank you for utilizing this On the web On-line Hack Tool, leave your comment for our improvement.

In instance you could want to make use of our Fire Emblem Heroes hack, just mostly touch the 'Start Hack' receive below. Given that its worldwide release in February 2017, Fire Emblem Heroes has currently succeeded. We do have the compatibility for both IOS and Android with us so that nobody goes empty handed, you just want to verify your system and can access us inside seconds by way of your device.

As soon as you know the crispy attributes of Fire Emblem Heroes game, now it's time for you to attempt the Fire Emblem Heroes Hack. We asks all our players to abide by the User Agreement, including the Code of Conduct, as they continue to appreciate Fire Emblem Heroes.

Perhaps it would be greatest to straight speak to Nintendo through the Fire Emblem Heroes app, a single of the service representatives must be in a position to pass this along to the proper department. Get unlimited orbs for free of charge utilizing the Fire Emblem Heroes Orbs Generator or download the mod for cost-free.

So, do not wait any longer just click on the hyperlinks provided on this web page to access the hack for cost-free. These characters were made by Yusuke Kozaki, the principal artist for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates. You methodically place your heroes on the game board and going for an attack, defense, or heal.

It is crucial to upgrade your castle by visiting the game shop as it will boost the XP of your heroes. Orbs are important resources to invest on upgrades or items in the globe of Fire Emblem Heroes. Moreover, orbs can permanently improve any gained encounter points or even replenish lost stamina.

By employing the Fire Emblem Heroes cost-free orbs hack you can produce unlimited totally free Orbs without getting to devote even a single penny. Using our hack tool, you will undoubtedly have the ability to acquire limitless Orbs supported by the video game absolutely completely totally free, for which you will undoubtedly require to pay actual funds otherwise.

These orbs are the most essential resource in the game as they assist you to advance forward with numerous upgrades and other things of interest. You are a summoner with the unique capability to call upon fabulous Heroes from different Fire Emblem globes. Fire Emblem Heroes game is the successor of the Fire Emblem, an RPG video game for Nintendo platform published by Nintendo in 1990 for the first time and created by Intelligent Systems.

Discovering orbs can be difficult so you may possibly want to find some approaches to boost the selection of orbs right into your account.Soon after you've successfully finished the quick process, your hack will instantly trigger and also start off to settle! The game's enjoyable, but it could seriously advantage from an enhanced amount of heroes.

These are just the some of them once you enter the empire of Fire Emblem Heroes, you will find lots several in your way to deal with. Alternatively of the usual introductory tutorial of any Fire Emblem game, Heroes provides the major story through chapter maps. We told you how you can use the hack and how easy it is to generate the totally free Orbs.

But much more than becoming a winner you also stand to make the most precious Orbs as you win. We have tested this hack on far more than 500 devices before releasing it on our site. Fire Emblem Orbs Hack offers you the ultimate authority to play Fire Emblem Heroes Games with out any issue and whole heartedly.

In the video presentation regarding the Fire Emblem Heroes” hack, the user allegedly earns 99,999 orbs. In Fire Emblem Heroes, the easiest and fastest way to get a lot more effective heroes is by summoning them nonetheless, summoning heroes fees Orbs and Orbs are the game's premium currency, which means they expense actual dollars.

It has the familiar, if simplified, Fire Emblem gameplay and characters from all through the series' history. Sometimes this genuinely is really the really greatest place to uncover cheats as nicely as other perks for Fire Emblem Heroes Cheats, with no acquiring to cover any cheat book.

[rodney-johnson-blog]

All the Banks Deserve Are Crocodile Tears

It’s official. Lending institutions are having a tough time making loans.

Don’t get me wrong, they still make money the old fashioned way: by borrowing from us through deposits on which they pay almost no interest, and then lending it long term to anyone that qualifies. But they’ve had to jack up their other fees because the traditional business plan just isn’t cutting it.

You and I are still keeping tidy sums at the bank, even though they pay us about half the rate of inflation, guaranteeing a loss of purchasing power. But few people, and even fewer businesses, want to take out loans.

Compounding the issue, the Federal Reserve keeps bumping up short-term interest rates, forcing banks to begrudgingly increase the pennies they throw at depositors, while long-term interest rates remain steady or even drop a bit.

As short rates rise and long rates fall, there’s not much in the middle left for lenders.

Excuse me, I think I’m getting choked up. I might even cry crocodile tears.

After the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve guaranteed bank profits by first lending them enough of our money to ensure their survival, and then pushing short-term rates to zero. Depositors were lucky to earn 0.10% on their money, while loans still cost 3.5% to 4.0%.

To make matters worse, the Fed printed gobs of money and paid the banks interest to hold the extra funds on their books in the form of Interest on Excess Reserves, or IOER. This allowed banks to earn extra cash without doing business with other banks that might make questionable loans.

Essentially, banks made something for nothing, while you and I got nothing (no interest) for something (our deposits).

This went on for years as banks in the U.S. cleaned up their balance sheets. Eventually, the Fed started raising rates ever so slightly. Over three years, rates have inched up to a mere 1.50%. You won’t get that on your deposit account, of course, but you might eek out 1% or so.

On the flip side, long-term rates remain stuck, with the 10-year bond paying 2.34% and the 30-year bond hovering around 2.77%.

The shrinking difference between short-term and long-term rates leaves little net interest margin, or profit, for banks. That’s not ideal, of course, but hey, if they can make it up on volume, things will still be all right. Only, there is no volume. Or at least, not as much as bankers expected, and that’s a problem.

Bank lending to businesses recently registered its lowest growth since the first quarter of 2011. Overall, the annual growth rate for U.S. bank loans just touched the lowest level since the end of 2013, as the growth rate fell for the sixth consecutive quarter.

Bank loans are still expanding, but at an ever-slower pace. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

With the economy growing, however slowly, and a pro-business administration in the White House, bankers expected strong loan growth. For the life of them, they can’t figure out why people and businesses don’t want bank loans.

I have a possible answer. Because we hate them.

As business owners, Harry and I ran millions of dollars’ worth of credit card transactions through a bank in the 2000s. That bank took bailout money to survive.

In 2010, my banker called me and said he had to verify my financials so the bank would keep doing business with me. I pointed out this was quite ironic since I remained in business and profitable when he and his firm needed my tax dollars to stay afloat.

That phone call sticks with me, as does the zero interest I earned for years on my deposits, and the lower-than-inflation rate of interest I earn today. I’m in no hurry to give banks more money.

On the business side, companies have options. With interest rates so low, it makes more sense to sell bonds where possible and essentially become your own bank. And many other institutions, such as hedge funds and insurance companies, are lending directly to firms, cutting into bank business.

It’s hard to feel sorry for companies that helped bring the country to its financial knees, needed bailout bucks, were guaranteed profits through the use of taxpayer funds and on the backs of depositors, and now wonder where all the business has gone.

Maybe they’ll get a break in the months ahead as the Fed shrinks its balance sheet. Perhaps, as the Fed buys fewer bonds, long rates will tick up a bit, giving bankers a break. But if it doesn’t happen, I don’t think any of us will shed any real tears.

In the meantime, I’m avoiding the financial sector, unless I’m going to use the Treasury Profits Acceleratorservice run by Lance Gaitan. He does a great job exploiting small interest rate changes to generate significant returns, and I have no problem giving him a shameless plug. Click here to learn more.

As for the banks, they’re business is stagnating, and they can’t figure out why nobody likes them. If they’d only ask, I’m sure we could all give them several good reasons.

Rodney Johnson Follow me on Twitter @RJHSDent

Get more coverage on the Fed and everything else from Rodney and the rest of the Dent Research team!

[topicprinter]

It has been over 10 years since I quit my job and started working full time online.It has been a wild roller coaster ride but now it has gotten me to a point where I make more than I've ever dreamed of, working less than 3 hours a day.In fact, scratch that. I DON'T even have to work 3 hours if I didn't want to. I can work 3 hours a WEEK and I'll bet you if I check my bank account at the end of the month, the earnings will still be the same or HIGHER.No, this is not a "spam" or "hype" - in fact, probably like you, I hate spam and fluff. Because when I look back, it's because of all the fluff and BAD information that got me spinning wheels for years and years!But when I finally "got it" - I tell you my friend, money floodgates literally "ERUPTED"!And it just blew my mind why there was such a stark difference between "what people say to do to make money" vs. "what REALLY makes money".I don't come to this forum that often but today while I was browsing for fun I saw a lot of really BAD information that seemed to make people confused and overwhelmed.Kind of how it was making me when I was first starting out. So even though I was planning to go to the beach (I live close to the beach here in Los Angeles) - I think I'll share some "secrets" that you might not hear about here in the forum before I head out.Considering the fact that here is where I got my feet wet, and since then I've coached literally HUNDREDS of students all around the world make a full-time income online and quit their jobs, I think I'm now at a good place to give back.And now that Thanksgiving's around the corner, I feel like it's a good time to share some good ole' value with you guys.This will be a newbie friendly post and if you heed this advice, I'm sure you will save yourself a lot of frustrations and heartaches no matter where you are at.And if you're more advanced, you will nod your head in silent agreement because it's the same strategy both me and my millionaire friends employ daily.If you're ready, let's begin...1. Killing the "Superman Syndrome"It's interesting because NOBODY talks about this.1 of the 3 FASTEST way to make any change is to change your mindset.You can change the course of your entire life by changing just this one simple thing.So I'll be sharing a few KEY mindset shifts that got me skyrocketing from a four-figure marketer to a six figure marketer.Here's the first one:A lot of people seem to have the "Superman Syndrome".They try to be good at EVERYTHING. They think they're Superman.But in reality, you should have 1 or 2 things your PHENOMENAL at, and suck at the rest.In order for you to succeed with internet marketing, you need to be good at a WIDE RANGE of things. (you need to know copywriting, have technical skills, be good at tracking and optimizing, etc.)Not only that, you need "soft skills" like focus, discipline, taking action, managing time, etc etc.If you lack in any one of the (let's say 10 skills needed to be successful) - that will ALWAYS be your tripping point. You will ALWAYS run into that wall. Over and over... until you tire out.When I realized this and finally ACCEPTED that maybe I can't be really good at everything, I began to delegate...And it ironically REVOLUTIONIZED my entire business!They say smartest people are the laziest. I think it's partially true but in a different way:I think deep inside smart people know that we don't want to spend our precious time on this low-value activity. Why do this when I can do something that is MUCH more impactful and enjoyable with the same amount of time? And this leads to so-called "procrastination".Now I can just do what I'm GREAT at (which is coaching and delivering BIG results and breakthroughs faster than ANYONE) and delegate EVERYTHING ELSE I am not good at or hate (like technical things) - and then, almost immediately you score these incredible benefits:Benefit #1. You can make FAST progress and not get stuck (because nothing trips you up anymore)Benefit #2. Your bottom line SKYROCKETS (as a natural result of #1)Benefit #3. You have MUCH more free time (because everyone's doing YOUR work while you're doing something fun)Benefit #4. You can SCALE much easier (meaning more profits into your bank account)Benefit #5. You spread the wealth instead of hogging it yourself (and you can get it delegated for pennies on the dollars overseas)There's a LOT more benefits but you get the idea.One of the best places I find workers is either freelancer.com or upwork.com.Tip: Try to find workers who have at least a hundred hours logged for the skill you're looking for as well as 4.5 star reviews and up and you won't go wrong. Don't be afraid of hiring workers from overseas because surprisingly a lot speak excellent English and their work ethic is superb.If you're thinking,"But Stevie! That's going to cost me a lot of money!",think again.Keep this as your mantra and you will never go hungry again:MAKE MORE THAN YOU SPENDIf I asked you if you want to trade $1 for $8, would you take it?In a millisecond right?Same thing here. Yes you are paying these workers but you will make MULTIFOLDS that amount from your sales.which brings me to my next point...2. "There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"EVERYTHING'S an investment.If you "get this" tip, your life will change forever. Guaranteed.You might think it's free if you're doing all the work yourself. Not true.Our time in a day is limited. Our time in a week is limited. Our time here on earth is limited.If you are spending hours and hours in a day trying to figure out how to set up your Wordpress site even if you hate it or doing data entry (which I can get it done at $3/hr), You are missing out on the most important resource of all - TIME.You are missing out on other things you can do such as spending time with friends or family, your hobbies & passions, or traveling.So unlike before when I was trying to be a "Cheap Superman" - I do the opposite now - I spend spend spend! Like a BOSS..I see EVERYTHING as an investment and try to simply make more than I spend.That's why I have NO PROBLEM spending thousands of dollars on services and coaching programs because it makes "more money than I spend". Sometimes up to 500X times! (where can you get THAT kind of investment?)Because you see, contrary to what you believe, "free" is not good. And here's why:3. STANDING ON SHOULDERS OF GIANTSOne of the BIGGEST mistakes I made when I was first starting out which got me spending wheels for years and years was spending too much time on forums.I was consuming information after information and taking notes. It was mental masturbation.It was fun learning and I thought I was going somewhere but it did just the opposite.I became overwhelmed, confused, and stuck.I didn't have a solid direction or focus. I was getting distracted everywhere by the next "shiny object".And one day, it got VERY bad. I got so frustrated and sick and tired of being stuck.I became DESPERATE.So I decided to do something that TOTALLY went against my norm.I decided to look for a "coach" (or what you call a mentor)And my life IMMEDIATELY changed for the better. And it has never been the same since.Because check this out.Anybody with a computer hooked up to the internet can type and give advice. Even a monkey with half a brain.And lots of guys seem to soak it up not verifying where it came from or if it's even true.Robert Kiyosaki, the financial guru, says "what's worse than no advice is BAD advice.When it comes to business, you should be VERY careful who you are listening to.Your key job will be to figure out who's the 5% to listen to and ignore the 95%.But if you FIND the 5%, who have walked the walked and been in the trenches and not just spitting theories, listen to EVERYTHING he/she says.Because EVERYTHING he will be saying will be something that is derived from experience - the TRUTH. (hint: when you listen to truths, it should have a 'heavy' feeling in your gut)And applying just a handful of these "truths" that is distilled from hundreds of trials and errors, your income will take off like a damn ROCKET.It doesn't matter if you haven't made a penny online. It doesn't matter if you've failed 10 years. It doesn't matter if you think it's hopeless.If he's a legitimate coach/mentor - he will get you cold, hard, RESULTS. Period.I did this for years for my students. And trust me, they were in BAD shape. It's things like these negative limiting beliefs and lack of accurate information and guidance that keeps people stuck.Don't worry - You are NOT broken. If you just tweak a few things here and there and apply the correct strategies in the right order, you WILL break through. Period. End of story. Often LIFE-CHANGING results in just 30 days. You won't know what hit you!But unfortunately, you won't find many coaches who are successful hanging out here in this forum.I'm not saying they're not here, but like me, most moved on. To a bigger game.So even though it will be rare to find a legitimate coach/mentor, if you do have one, do yourself a favor and work with him - no matter how much he charges! It will be worth it.But choose CAREFULLY. Do your due diligence. There's a lot of "wolves in sheep skin".And here's the questions I ask when picking out my coaches: (yes even the most successful marketers get coached even though they're making millions a year - it's a continual learning process)Can he show a verifiable income proof? Screenshot of some sort?Do you feel it in your gut that he knows what's he's talking about?Does he care about you and not in it just for the money?Does he have testimonials of various kind from his past students?Ask sharp and smart questions. And trust your gut. It has more nerve endings than your brain. Don't be lazy about it.Meeting a legitimate coach may be a bit tricky, but once you find one, your income and life are almost GUARANTEED to change. Period.4. Freedom vs. Another Job?If you want to be free and not have just another job, you need to be in an industry with a PASSIVE INCOME model. Not earned income model.I see a lot of guys who quit their jobs and start doing something like graphic designing, web designing, and programming.While it's okay to get you started, I don't recommend staying here for too long. Because you simply don't want to trade time for dollars anymore.The beauty of internet marketing and probably one of the reasons why you started in the first place is the fact that you can make money while you sleep, right?That's why you gotta pick business models that spit out passive income, not earned income. I see too many people get stuck in the wrong industry and can't get out because they're making some money.They end up working needlessly, way too long. But it doesn't have to be this way.One of the business models I have my business in is Amazon Kindle publishing.I love this business model because all the books that you publish become a "mini-asset". It spits out passive income every single month into my bank account like clockwork!It's a "set-it-and-forget-it" kind of thing.In fact, I have books that I've published 5 years ago that's STILL making me money today! (and I haven't touched it for years)Imagine what will happen if you have HUNDREDS of these books?Yes, your "internet marketing dream" is indeed possible if you play it right...Since it's PASSIVE INCOME, it will make money with or without you. In fact, you won't be able to stop it if you blocked it with TWO HANDS!And here's the step-by-step process I used to build up my six-figure Kindle business that I've been secretly teaching my private coaching students.5. Pick a BIG niche that sells well.Here's another KEY mantra to remember:"Sell What Sells".A lot of writers come into this industry writing books they know a lot about or they like. Big mistake.Sure, you might have a passion for candlemaking or Labrador dog traiing, but how many people in the world shares the same passion as you?Thing about Kindle is you need to sell in VOLUME.If you're selling nonfiction, you'll make about $2 - $4 per book.That means, if you want to earn SUSTAINABLE income, meaning $3,000, $5,000, $10,000+ /month,You need to sell these many:$3,000 / $2 = 1500 books per month / 30 days = 50 books a day$5,000 / $2 = 2500 books per month / 30 days = 83 books a day$10,000 / $2 = 5000 books per month / 30 days = 166 books a dayThat means, you need to be in a BIG niche. Small niches won't have the traffic to yield this kind of sales.What are the BIG niches?I'm glad you asked.Anything that is related to:-mass media-diet/weight loss-fitness-self-development-cooking-dating-gaming-make money...will be a good start. You won't go wrong with these.6. Create An Irresistable "BAIT"You don't have to reinvent the wheel.In fact, this is one of the BIGGEST reasons I see guys failing.They try to be creative.I know we're all entrepeneurial and enjoy creating new things, but when starting out, this is DEADLY.I tell my students until I'm blue in the face (in a loving way of course"Don't reinvent the wheel... just make it CHROME!"What does that mean?You see what's selling in the marketplace.Look at books that are selling under Kindle Bestseller Rank of 20,000.That means, they're selling around 10-15 books a day.Which means potentially,15 books a day x $4 earning per sale = $60 a dayThat means,$60 a day x 30 days = it's making $1,800 from ONE (1) book!Can you see how this can get profitable very quickly?Now, you will want to MODEL this book.Meaning, you LEARN from this book. What works and what doesn't.Don't let your ego kick in. It'll trip you up.You need to be humble and in the mindset of LEARNING.Take a look at their reviews. Especially 5 star and 1 star reviews.What you will be doing is TAKE what people are raving about, and IMPROVE what people are complaing about.So let's take an example. I think it'll make you understand a bit more clearly.Let's say you are looking into the COOKBOOK niche.You find a cookbook that is under 20,000 Bestseller Rank. Let's say it's called "Easy and Delicious Paleo Diet Recipes"You check their 5 star reviews and it says these things:-Loved the pictures! -Really like the clear instructions -Found the grocery shopping list incredibly useful!And you see these 1 star complaints:Formatting was horribleGrammar and typos were everywhereCouldn't careless for stories - just give me the recipes already!So, jot that down on a piece of paper. All of it.What you'll be doing next is totally NINJA.You will now KEEP what your customer says they like and IMPROVE what they don't like for your own books!So it'll go something like this:Formatting was horrible >> Have proper formatting for YOUR bookGrammar and typos were everywhere >> Have correct grammar and spelling for YOUR bookCouldn't careless for stories - just give me the recipes already! >> Just give them the recipes and not stories.And once you publish your book strengthened on your competitor's weakness, you will have 0 reasons why people will give you a negative review for.Remember, on Amazon review is KING.People who are in rush only buys 1) looking at title 2) Cover and 3) reviews.So if you have all these 4,5 star reviews and very few 1 star reviews, you will be GOLDEN.Your book will eventually get more and more sales than "Easy and Delicious Paleo Diet Recipes" and eventually TAKE OVER its spot.Meaning, the sales that he gets $1,800 in monthly passive income will now be YOURS!BOOOM!!!THAT's the power of being in the right, BIG niche and having a KICKASS book that strengthens other book's weakness.!But I can hear you saying,"But Stevie! what if I don't know ANYTHING about that niche? Even though it's profitable, I won't be able to do anything about it!"WHOA! Slow down young grasshopper!I'll tell you all about it in the next step...(btw, are you liking this so far? Just curious...)7. Have an expert to create the perfect bait FOR YOU.Here's where it gets fun.Now you know what to sell. Now you know what to do to out-compete your competition. Now you know how you will guarantee your earnings.But the challenge is, you don't know anything about PALEO, dating, or meditation right?What in the world should you do?Do you think you can figure it out?(hint: check step #1)If you said "outsource",BINGO!You hit the nail on the head!!What's so amazing about outsourcing is, you can get just about any writers who specialize in all kinds of different topics!Here's what to do in 5 simple steps that will work over and over like clockwork:7.1 Just go to either freelancer.com or upwork.com7.2 Post a compelling ad looking for writers in your topic. (make sure you have it in your title)7.3 Invite some candidates to get the momentum going (look for guys with hundreds of hours logged and over 4 star reviews)7.4 Give a simple test to writers to prove they're good7.5 Hire and give them clear, specific instructions about your book!That's it!They will get to work right away!Remember, you know you're going to be making $1,800 /month for this book so you can spend anything under this and you'll come out ahead! (For nonfiction books, I usually get it for $50-$100 for 35-50 pages)Keep it simple.Just make more than you spend.That's it.So while you're at the beach enjoying a fresh margarita, your writers will be hard at work creating your "perfect bait" for you.Speaking of beaches... I think I'm late for MY beach! LOL! But oh well...If you guys are getting value from this post, I'm happy and will be a time well spent.8. Get a MAGNETIC Cover That Is Impossible To IgnoreThis is one of the 3 MOST important pieces to your marketing.You MUST MUST MUST have a magnetic cover.Why?Because we are all busy these days.You will have 0.7 seconds to capture their attention while they're scrolling.If you can't make them STOP on their tracks, battle is lost even before you started.All your time and money spent creating your book will be wasted.Your book will never see light of the day!Don't let this happen to you.Create a MAGNETIC cover. One that is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore.Then how can you create a magnetic cover?Glad you asked. You will absolutely LOVE thisHere are the steps:8.1 Look for a great cover designer specializing in KINDLE cover designs. (it's different from physical book design) - hint: you can get one at Fiverr.com for $5 and it will outperform a $500 design from a US based cover designer if you tell them these instructions.8.2 Ask them to make the titles BIG and BOLD.Thing about Kindle is most people are looking through the titles on their phones. If the titles are small, it won't be read.8.3 Ask them to use High Resolution graphicsPeople associate higher resolution = higher quality. So if your book uses HD graphics as the background, they will IMMEDIATELY think your book is high quality and they will pay more for your book even though the content is the same.9. Load it up with at least 8 reviewsOkay. Now you have your book and your cover. You are good to publish.After you do so, you will want to load it up with reviews. Why?Because it's scary to buy books that has 0 reviews. You need to take a risk and nobody, including you and me, likes to take risks. And that in turn becomes an OBSTALCE for your sale.But by getting reviews in there, you are REMOVING the risk (obstacle) which leads to an effortless sale.Some "gurus" will tell you to get reviews from Fiverr or Facebook review exchange groups. Don't listen to them.It may have worked 5 years ago but recently Amazon has been cracking down on these like crazy.It makes sense. Amazon is BUILT on reviews and they don't want to be known for fake reviews. They want to keep their business.So the best way to get it is 2 ways:9.1. ask your friends, family, acquaintences for a genuine, legitimate review after you send them your book (most will do it happily)9.2. create a review group by adding an email "opt-in" page at the beginning of your book. These will capture interested browsers and you can later ask them to review the book in exchange for a free copy.These are 100% whitehat and legal by Amazon which means, the strategy is EVERGREEN and you can use it over and over without fail without worry about your account getting banned!10. Do a KILLER PromotionHere comes the fun part.Now that you have a HOT bait, magnetic covers, genuine reviews you are 98% AHEAD of all the books out there.Now you just have to do a KILLER promotion.And here's what to do shoot your book rankings higher than the freakin' Empire State Building. It will BLOW. YOUR. MIND. (please keep this a secret between us)Here's what to do:10.1 Right after your publish your book, your book will be ranking high for a keyword for a brief period of time. You will want to get downloads in SPIKES because that's what Amazon likes.So in order to get these spikes, enroll in KDP Select.10.2 Promote your book to as many promotion sites as you can. There's tons of Facebook groups. Just search "Kindle Promotion" or "Kindle Free"Another good resource is this: Free Amazon Kindle Book Submission Tool | Author Marketing Club10.3 Set your book on a "Free Promotion" in KDP Select.That's it! Amazon doesn't give you contact information o fyour customers but your opt-in page will capture a LOT of interested buyers!10.4 If you have your book in a series (recommended), link all of your books together and as soon as the promotion is over, set the 2nd book on the promotion. This will cross-promote your books and your sales will have a COMPOUND EFFECT.10.5. Continue to do this and you'll have generated TONS of sales and amassed a HUGE mailing list that you can sell over and over to!NOTE: Keep on doing steps 1-10 as many times as you can. The more you do it, more CASH you'll make.11. BONUS: Automate EverythingAnd I mean EVERYTHING.Get a Project Manager that replaces you.Now all you're doing is doing market research and telling project manager what books to publish.And your ENTIRE book pumping FACTORY will be rolling non-stop with or without you!12. BONUS: SCALE It To 6-7 FiguresIf you have a project manager working for you, sky becomes the limit how many books you publish.After the project manager starts managing about 5 books a week (or 20 books a month) he'll start running out of capacity. That's when you hire another oneFinal Step: Sit back, relax, and watch the MAGIC all happen.By the way, you could've stopped at Step 10 and still created a 6 Figure business....But if you want more... and you want it done FASTER... then follow all steps to a T.Well, it took a LOT longer than I thought! HahaGuess I'll be hitting the beach tomorrow!But I hope it was useful for some of you guys.Try it out, and let me know your results!*p.s. if you found this post useful please upvote so more people can find out about it!*p.p.s. I know this is a long post so I compiled it into a PDF file along with some bonus materials that are not on this post. PM me if you want a copy!Or if you have any questions, feel free to PM me as well! :)

[bestlivesexwebcams]

Go Nude Cams – Get Naked With The Girls!

If you have an aversion to horny females who have sex for money, you might not want to go anywhere near Go Nude Cams. We learned this the hard way, having unknowingly stepped into its midst one afternoon without first having the proper gear lined up. By proper gear we mean lube, towels, our wallet, a few bottles of water, some baby wipes, and a passport to Hell. Yeah, shit gets nasty in there.

When you’re only a halfway decent chick with pepperoni nipples and a hairy lip, it’s tough to find work. Well, not anymore. Thanks to Go Nude Cams, even trap house bitches can make a living by selling their pussies. What a time to be alive. And because it’s our duty to check these sex cam websites out without losing our gall, we had to maintain a level head even when shit got sticky. While Go Nude Cams doesn’t have dozens of categories, the hottest girls, or even the best-looking web page, it has a lot of redeeming factors that one would only know about if they checked it out for themselves. You know what they say: Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.

That must be the motto of some of the models on this site, since only about a third of them are real-life fuckable. This place is more like a fantasy land for grown ass men who are too ashamed to say they like fucking grateful ugly girls. It’s okay; go to your happy place. We plan to break down this website like it’s the walls of a tight little pussy – no mercy. There’s got to be a good reason Go Nude Cams, with its tiny thumbnail photos of fully clothes girls, has more than 100,000 users and thousands of women doing dirty deeds for dirt cheap.

Who, What, When, Why, How?

This live sex cam site is not like anything we have seen in a long time, and by that we mean it looks like it came straight from 1998. Is there anyone on the Go Nude Cams team who gives a shit about updating the interface? It takes quite a bit to get used to the outdated layout, but once you do you can see how the site is a lot like other sex cam destinations on the net. Although navigating the site isn’t the most user-friendly thing we’ve ever encountered, there’s still a lot of fun to be had therein.

Go Nude Cams is all about raunchy fuck parties with random strangers, as is evidenced by its limited yet specific category list. We’ll get into that shit later but for now, let’s just say this is the place to go if you’re slumming with your mind in the gutter. Nobody on this site seems to give a damn about the rules which are clearly posted on the site for everyone to see. The girls and guys featured here are DTF as a motherfucker, and that’s the kind of hustle we can get behind.

While this site isn’t famous for its selection of top notch bitches, nor is it popular for its high-tech interface, it has earned a name in the industry anyway. It must be because of the pure satisfaction that can be derived by bending the rules of engagement a little bit. Yes, you will get kicked offline if you take things too far, but for the most part, this is one of the most relaxed sex cam sites we have ever encountered. That’s got to count for something.

How Does This Work?

At first glance, we assumed Go Nude Cams would be a bitch to navigate, but surprisingly it wasn’t. Once you get to the main page it’s just a matter of selecting a category or clicking on an image. You won’t get very far unless you register first, so luckily that’s free. In fact, it’s about the only free part of this entire Podunk website. For a porn hub with such a shitty presentation, these cocksuckers sure aren’t afraid to charge big bucks for quick fucks.

After you register, you will become privy to unlimited free chats with the girls who are online. Most of them live there, so no worries about missing someone you like. Remember, these skanks have to be desperate to do some of the things they’re willing to do. Use that shit to your advantage while at Go Nude Cams, because you probably won’t get away with that shit anywhere else.

You also get high-resolution images and videos with your membership, as well as a cool “Video Zoom” option for when you want that extreme closeup money shot. We may or may not have spent more time rating the girls than fucking them, but they shouldn’t include that with the membership if they don’t want us being opinionated like that. Either way, the ability to save our favorite bitches was a huge bonus, so overall, we’d say the site is decent enough for its intended purposes, albeit ugly as fuck.

Who’s on the Site?

We’ve done our fair share of mentioning how somewhat unhot the virtual hookers are on Go Nude Cams, but we haven’t said anything about how attractive they can be. As all hornballs know, a good lay can sometimes come from the most unexpected place. Such is the business model of this site, apparently. That’s not to say that there aren’t some prime pussies on here. We’re just giving you a fair warning about the type of debauchery you’re about to enter into.

You won’t get lost in a sea of options on Go Nude Cams, that’s for sure. While it may be one of the top 10 live sex cam websites out there, the admins have taken it upon themselves to streamline the categories to include the most popular ones (and nothing more). You can do a search all you want, but you will only get what they have. Thankfully, that’s some good shit, like:

Girls 18+

Ladies

Mature Female

Couples

Female/Lesbian Couples

Fetish Female

Threesomes

Group 4

Trannies

Tranny Couples

Boys 18+

Male/Gay Couples

As you can see, there isn’t a lot to choose from on this site. We seem to be missing some shit like MILFS, hairy-pussy-having bitches, Asian/Latina/ebony skanks, and hoes with tattoos. When using Go Nude Cams, it’s like playing Russian Roulette. In the words of Forest Gump, “It’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

What we mean by that is this: you can hop online, sign in, and click a category. But you might end up with a pair of lesbian performers who both have massive bushes. If you’re not into that kind of thing, the whole experience could be a waste of your time and money. We suggest using the chat room that’s provided so you can learn a little more about the hooker you’re trying to bag. Membership may not be very experience, but a penny saved is a penny earned and it always will be. Buyer beware.

What’s in It for Me?

Yes, there is a way to use Go Nude Cams without paying for anything, but we find that most people who enjoy these live sex cam websites want the complete package and we can’t blame them. Free is free, so there’s nothing more to say. When discussing what members get for their money, that’s when people start paying attention; so listen up.

You have to pay for a premium membership after registered on this website. No worries; it’s completely secure and encrypted, although a confirmation email will be sent to your inbox to verify your identity. The premium membership comes with all the bells and whistles we mentioned above, including private chat sessions as reduced prices. These bitches, nor their virtual pimps are messing around. Playing with their money is like playing with their emotions.

Perhaps it’s because Go Nude Cams is replete with hundreds of money-savvy European girls who have important, international-type shit to do (whatever that is). Or maybe it’s because making money by orgasm is a dream come true for anyone who will admit it. Yes, the models seem desperate to make you happy and cop some cash for it at the same time, but you’ve got to hand it to them for their sheer tenacity. Serving over 100,000 customers has to be extremely exhausting.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

With hundreds of horny babes online at any given moment, it can be hard not to come across a skank or two who just isn’t up to par. At least, that’s been the case with every other live sex cam site we’ve reviewed. It’s a good thing we’re not trying to make any friends here, because we’ve probably already pissed 1000 people off. Oh well.

If we’re keeping it real (and we are): The reason for this review is to give you some honest insight into these things before you fork over your hard-earned money on a worthless cunt who can’t get you off. So, let’s waste no more time on this shit and get right to the point, shall we?

PROS

Sort It All Out – The site’s best models can be easily found by simply clicking on the “Sort” tab at the top of the window. Users can sift bitches based on rating, experience, and quality.

Is This Even Legal? – Some of the shit the girls and guys do or say in the live chat and video sessions is downright raunchy. That’s what the fuck we’re talking about!

Going A-Broad – We have a theory that European women are nastier in bed than any other breed, which is why we’re so fucking excited that so many of them decided to join this site.

Keep It Safe, Stupid – You can get pretty wild in the chat rooms because the whole site is on major lockdown despite it looking like something slapped together by a loser in his grandma’s basement.

Frugal Fucking – While a lot of the site is free to use, the good stuff requires the premium membership and the use of credits. It’s a good thing that shit is affordable.

Loud and Clear – We were impressed by the video and audio quality on most of the Go Nude Cams website, probably because we weren’t expecting much since we judged a book by its cover like a bunch of assholes.

CONS

Tiny Tim – The thumbnail pictures of the featured models are laughable, and only become slightly larger when you scroll over them. So much for cheap thrills, eh?

Back to the Future – The terrible interface of the Go Nude Cams website threw us off quite a bit. You mean there are 100,000 people who are okay with this shit?

Caught on Tape – Most of the videos were amazing, but when they weren’t, they REALLY weren’t. It looked more like a taping of the Sasquatch at one point. Who’s in charge around here?

Roll the Credits – There aren’t any notifications for when your credit balance gets low (probably for privacy sakes), so you have to keep a close eye on it lest you be left with blue balls because you can’t pay to play.

Deaf Leopard – Because the video and audio quality are primarily left up to the models, some of the sounds are quite muffled, fully of static, or just plain not there. Hello?! Anybody?!

When Judgment Day Comes

We won’t lie and say that we didn’t cum our asses off from the shit we witnessed at Go Nude Cams. It was a very good time, despite our initial impressions. Having seen so much in the industry, outdated websites like this surprise the hall off our balls. As for content and quality, these bastards know what the fuck they’re doing.

On our coveted scale of 1 to 10, Go Nude Cams gets a solid 8.5. That’s because it has more than enough shit to look at without all the fluff that the other guys use to distract your attention from the important stuff. Whether attractive or not (talking about the girls AND the site), we can appreciate anything that’s dead-set on making us jizz.

from Best Live Sex Web Cams http://www.bestlivesexwebcams.com/sex-chat-sites/go-nude-cams/

[ruination-of-sorrow-blog]

Check Out These Great Roofing Tips Today

When you own a home, you own all the responsibilities that come with it. You are in charge of maintaining systems such as the roof and the heating system, whether you do it yourself or choose a professional. Take a look at this piece to determine if you can make your own repairs or you need to hire someone else.

Look over your roof carefully at least once a year. Roof damage is most likely to occur during winter and spring. Therefore, stay alert during this time for damage.

Never neglect safety when planning repairs on your roof. Trying to repair a leak while it's raining or during a storm can seriously injure you, or worse! Stick a bucket beneath your leak while you wait for the weather to return to normal. Afterwards, you can check out your roof and see what it'll take to fix things.

Wearing rubber boots whenever walking on top of your roof is necessary. They will help you maintain footing whether the roof is wet or dry. Any sort of roof repairs are going to put you in a dangerous situation.

Make sure that your grass is cut before the project begins. This will ensure he can find any dropped nails easily. Some contractors use a magnetic device to find stray nails. These devices are most effective when used on shorter grass.

If you're feeling pressured by a contractor, show him the door. Such shysters can be very aggressive, so do what is necessary to shut them down.

When selecting roofers, verify their insurance coverage. The mere existence of such a policy bodes well for a contractor's reliability. If something happens to the roof when they are working up there, the insurance will pay for the issues.

If the contractor does not require you to pay up front in full, do not do it. Try not to give the contractor more than 25 percent upfront. You would not want to find yourself on the receiving end of poor or incomplete work.

Do not make changes to your roof that are not long-term. This will cause damage in the future and is not cost effective. Fix any issues promptly and properly to ensure that the problem does not worsen down the line.

When it comes to hiring a roofer, they must have insurance. If the roofer lacks sufficient insurance and you suffer damages, the cost will be on you. Don't just ask prospective roofing contractors if they have insurance, have them provide the insurance documents saying that it is comprehensive and current.

Talk to your roofer about what kind of warranty they offer on their work. Some companies will have better deals than others. On top of that, be sure to get the warranty and the estimate in writing, so you will have this information on hand. That allows you recourse if anything happens.

Get references from any roofer you are thinking about hiring. Any good company will oblige you by providing references. Be skeptical about any company that won't do so. This is a sure sign of issues down the road.

Before selecting a roofing contractor, obtain several different quotes. There are roofers out there who will scam people, and will squeeze you for every penny they can. If you don't want to get ripped off, you should consider all your options before deciding on a final choice.

Many people neglect roof boots when roofing. They are near the roof fence and can get dried out. If this happens, you may get a leak, so inspect them and replace them if need be.

OSHA requires roofing contractors to have safety plans for projects. This plan is important in assuring you that your roofing project will be done correctly. Because of this, you shouldn't hire a roofer unless you know they've developed a safety plan. Go with another roofer if they don't have a safety plan.

Don't forget about safety. Roofing is a hazardous undertaking. Never rush anything. If the weather looks bad, hold off. Fixing your home is never worth injuring yourself or dying for. You need to know exactly what to do and use caution.

If you are planning to go up on your roof, wear shoes that have rubber soles. Working on roofs is fraught with danger. Having rubber soles can provide added grip and traction to prevent falls. A roof can get very slippery. If you aren't prepped and ready, you can experience a lot of slipping.

Be wary of roofing companies that solicit your business. Good companies don't engage in this behavior. Many solid companies would rather make appointments. Their employees wear uniforms and drive company vehicles, too. Of course, this does not apply to every reliable company, but keep your eyes open.

Roof work is obviously dependent on the right weather conditions. While rain is weather you need to avoid, be careful with strong winds. Strong winds could make it hard for you to keep your balance and you might fall from the roof.

Don't decide anything based on phone quotes since final expenses are generally different. When speaking to you on the phone, a company just wants to secure your business. Nobody can make an accurate estimate without inspecting the roof itself.

Cleaning out your gutters often is great for your roof. As gutters become clogged with leaves and debris, water begins to build up. This increases your roof's vulnerability to damage and leaks. It is a good idea to clean your gutters monthly.

Make sure that your gutters are not cluttered. This is a very easy thing that many homeowners neglect. Clogged gutters are a common cause for leaks. Clean gutters regularly, paying special attention in the aftermath of a big storm. If you do this then you should be able to save yourself from doing unnecessary repairs to your roof.

From hiring a contractor to DIY work, knowledge is power. This article is a great starting point, but don't stop here; keep learning. Use this knowledge to its fullest advantage.