#since I was adding new stuff for 2025 to the website

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

lol I texted our web designer and she got mad at me for texting on christmas eve lollll. i forget other people celebrate holidays and have days off and that it means something to them, pop off neurodivergent queen living in complete confusion about social norms and people not working on holidays

[the-solar-system52]

NEWS ON THE SKEKGRA PREQUEL COMIC!!

So for those who don't know, BOOM! studios is releasing a comic series titled 'Jim Hensons Presents' which is said to include a collection of short stories from various Jim Henson properties, written and illustrated by various writers and artists. It will have four issues, with the first one releasing in January.

And in a trailer for the series, they revealed that we will get a Dark Crystal story focusing on Skekgra's backstory!

And since I'm incredibly hyperfixated on The Heretic and The Wanderer rn, I've been following the updates for this comic very closely. And, as I expressed in this post, I was very confused as to which issue the Skekgra story will be featured in, since different sources seemed to be implying different things.

But now, I've figured out why there was so much confusion, and the explanation is pretty exciting!

We aren't just getting ONE Skekgra short story, but a longer story spread out between multiple issues!

In an Instagram post by BOOM! studios, they revealed the short stories that will appear in Issue 1.

And as you can see, we got a Dark Crystal story titled 'The Wanderer' (obviously referring to Urgoh) that will be written by Seanan Mcquire and illustrated by Countandra. I assumed that was the Skekgra story.

BUT! The website League of Comic Geeks (as well as a few other websites) put this as the description of Issue 2.

At first, I thought this might've been a mistake, and maybe this description was actually meant for Issue 1 and the website just added it to Issue 2 by mistake.

BUT THEN! This website (https://majorspoilers.com/2024/12/21/boom-studios-for-march-2025/) released the synposis for Issue 3!

The fact that the description actually says 'CONTINUE' confirms that this will be a multi-part story!

This is great news because, although I tend to be as optimistic as possible about this kinda stuff, I was a bit worried that they wouldn't be able to satisfyingly cover Skekgra's backstory in a short story. But now that we have a longer story confirmed, I believe that this comic will do our boys justice!

(Also multiple releases helps to keep the fandom alive for longer.)

The first 'chapter' will probably focus on Urgoh's perspective before he met Skekgra, since its titled 'The Wanderer'.

Although I had my doubts about Issue 2 since it doesn't directly mention Skekgra in its description, cuz its in-between Issue 1 and 3 and is written by the same writer, I'd say it probably does follow on from The Wanderer. And may focus on the other skeksis as well as Skekgra.

Since Issue 3's description refers to Skekgra as 'The Heretic' I wonder if this is the chapter where he gets banished? Or just shown signs of heresy? Or maybe that's just what his character is more commonly known as in the fandom.

We don't have any information regarding the fourth issue, but I think it's likely this issue will contain the finale to the Skekgra arc since its the final issue.

Anyway, I am horrifically excited for this and I will keep you guys updated!

[which-item-poll-archive]

Archiving Which-Item-Poll

Submissions are now open. Please see more details here

Trigger tag list - at the moment outlines NSFW tags but will cover other tags soonish

Tag directory - A key to the tags I use as well as ways to browse by category or the month the poll was originally posted.

Please follow @pick-an-item-poll as they're continuing to post polls where you choose an item

If you want to follow the original blog's new poll blog, it's @hear-me-out-poll

What is this blog?

Basically I'm trying to (manually) reblog everything from their blog to this blog to create a more permanent archive once which-item-poll deactivates the original blog. I'm doing this because tumblr's search functions are notoriously useless for finding specific posts and many posts get entirely lost without a blog's archive page. Additionally, this preserves the tags that contain the information about the items, most notably the websites where they can/could be found.

Once the archive is complete and posted, we'll see where this goes from there.

@which-item-poll if you want me to delete a specific post or a couple that I re-blogged from you please ask me and I will. (Even after you've deleted the blog, since I know your main)

About the Archivist

You can call me Arc (not my name, but it works for now), I'm non-binary and my pronouns are she/they! I'm not the original owner of which-item-poll. I'm typically slow to respond to messages, but will take any suggestions into consideration even if I haven't responded to you yet.

Archive progress

Currently in the queue:

Nothing!

January 2025

Completed Months:

*January, *February, *March, *April, *May, June, *July, *August, *September,*October, *November and *December 2024

*January 2025

(* these months still need their category tags reviewed and possibly edited)

Needs to be queued/drafted:

Anything posted by OP before they deactivate.

Updates

Everything from the original blog as of 18 January 2025 EST has been posted! Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the throwbacks.

I still need to adjust the category tags I added to posts for browsing to make sure that they're all accurate, but other than that the archiving is essentially complete.

So now that the archiving stage is completed, I'm going to potentially create a new version of the pinned/introduction post later on. The focus will be on correcting those tags and finalising the tag directory rather than a new intro post.

Submissions for new polls are now open. If thats the kind of thing you're interested in, see more details here.

Previous updates under the cut

Update: My autotagger wasn't working, which I found out about 1200 posts into this. Currently working on restoring tags to the posts already reblogged. I've managed to fix my autotagger but I had to clear the queue and drafts. (I didn't want to do it... but must to preserve my sanity.... and more importantly my wrist) Once I've got the tags back on the January posts (manually) I'll be able to fill the queue and drafts back up with the original tags intact.

Update: Everything that was posted had the tags added back on. Resuming queuing posts (and I've confirmed that the autotagger is copying the tags). Starting the queue again since there's enough in there to run while I sleep.

Update: I have been misspelling February in all of my tags. I will fix this and continue to fix this as they get posted from the queue.

Update: All the miss-spelt tags have been corrected

Update: I made the pinned post nicer to read! I also added some information.

Update 15/12/24 EST: If I run the queue at 50 posts a day, it will take 45 days to post everything from the original blog to this blog.

19/12/24 7pm EST - Taking a very short break from working on the archive as I have my final assignment due for a university course due tonight. (in about 10 hours in my local time). I should be back to doing stuff with it tomorrow. :)

Update 21/12/24: I'm back to it and working on adding tags to posts before making a directory again. For now, All current archival posts and ones that are in the queue now have the tag #which-item-poll-archive

Update: I have lost my draft about new submissions somewhere :(

Since it was a majority yes vote on the survey about new polls, I'm currently considering how I'd go about doing that.

NSFW items are on their way to the top of the queue. Here's a post about the tags to block if you don't wanna see them! :)

The tag directory is completed! It can be found at the top of this post! There's also a new survey about it. Is it too long?

I'm also going to try and post some things manually to get that time down, but can't guarantee that I can do this a lot due to things happening IRL.

Needs to be queued/drafted:

Any posts remaining in which-item-poll's queue or any other post made between time of update (4:47am on the 15th of December EST) and when OP decides to deactivate the blog.

Pretty close to queuing everything now. Going to include some of the repeat posts from the month of December that were meant to let people know the blog was deactivating ect. But I'm not going to include every single reblog of them. Just for the sake of slightly smoother browsing whilst still backing up the posts.

I found my draft about opening submissions :) Now I just need to edit it so it's coherent.

I've finished queuing and drafting existing posts and are now waiting to archive any future posts between now and when the blog is deactivated.

Everything is now in the queue!

17/01/25 EST - Days left until completed archive: 3 days at 50 posts a day.

The tag directory is completed! It can be found at the top of this post! Since it was a majority vote to not change it, I'm going to leave it as is for now. I'll run another survey on if it's too long once I've pretty much completed it.

[ben10-lostandfound]

Moving Forward

So, we've come to this. Perhaps the beginning of a Bennaisance as it were.

-Dwayne Mcduffie's website updated and gave us incredible insight into the inner workings of the UAF Era, as well as Dwayne's original vision for Omniverse.

-We've had new merch drops, such as these Ultimate Alien bag clip blind bags, or these two shirts. And we're expecting a collab with Daylight Curfew.

-Some other rare media was recovered, like Game Generator 5D, or the (unfortunately useless currently) installer for Ben 10 Alien Force: Bounty Hunters.

-We've had ongoing updates to the official Ben 10 Roblox game, most recently they've added Slapback, Ultimate Cannonbolt, and skins for Grey Matter in the form of Omniverse Teen Grey Matter and Brainfrog. And we'll be seeing Surge added as a code unlock once the game hits 60k likes. (Which you guys can help with.)

-The new run of comics by Dynamite Comics slated for 2025.

-Ben getting to appear alongside some of his classic CN brethren in Jellystone!: Crisis On Infinite Mirths. (which currently has yet to release outside of the Comic Con screening.)

-And most recently, the popup marathon being recovered for the first time since April 2008, ending a long search for the original event.

So, where do we go from here? If I didn't know any better, I'd be tempted to say my work is done. But I know that isn't the case. There's always going to be something.

What about the live plays that debuted Rocks, Squidstrictor, and VilEon? More rare and interesting concept art that could turn up at any moment? The missing Hyperscan cards? An actual playable version of Bounty Hunters or Omniverse: Rise of Heroes?

To close out this post, I just want to thank every one of you who've stuck with me for as long as you have. Despite the ups and downs, I've really enjoyed doing this blog for as long as I have, it's helped me make something of a name for myself in the fanbase.

I've gotten to help preserve the history of our favorite kid superhero. I mean, a lot of the stuff might've not even turned up if it weren't for me making noise about it. 2025 may just be the year we get to see Ben at his full potential again. And perfect timing too, since that'll be the franchise's 20th anniversary as well.

-Rahk-Zi, Galvan Archivist Extraordinare... and the real admin, Roxana Sinclair.

[whereismycaffeine]

[ Hey some of you may know me and some of you make not but you can call me mod 🦇 or just 🦇 ]

[ This is a silly lil blog I made for one of my favorite characters on South Park, most of this will be canon but like maybe just a but (probably not) will be some headcanons of mine ]

[ This won’t be long since I don’t have much to inform here yet. Mostly just Proflie, ask box info, etc. ]

[ If I do end up meeting more South Park rp blogs that will be from my universe I will make a post about it and put it in here. I will also make a post about all the other Tweek Tweak rp blogs I know that you should follow. But so far it’s just me! ]

[ All slots are open and if you wanna join my universe just send me an ask, a private ask, or a dm! ]

Profile

“Gah! Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“M-My name is Tweek Tweak and I found this-ngh!-website on the Internet!”

“You can ask me q-questions and shit”

“I’m in 4th grade and I’m dating C-agh!-Craig Tucker”

Ask Box Info

[ Both myself and Tweek are kids but since this is South Park I will allow questions that are at least not above shit like s-x, but stuff about alcohol, smoking, etc. are fine ]

[ That being said, only at least people who are 15+ can be on here! ]

Extra Stuff

[ I do not indorse underage smoking, drinking, smoking, etc. ]

[ No pedos, feet people, incest, homophobia, etc ]

[ You can give things to Tweek and bring it up later whenever you’d like ]

“Tweek talks like this” *Actions will be like this* Inner thoughts will look like this Mod talks will vary

Mods:

Mod 🦇 - [ Talks like this ]

My oc (Rosie O’donnel) -> @the-rose-medic

Please look at this.

Mod 🦇’s Hate Group Members: 4

Things Tweek was given

A kitten, he named it Bean (#tweek’s cat bean) A 2nd kitten, no name (given by his boyfriend after someone gave Craig a kitten) A gun

Tweek Headcanons

One of the reasons Tweek drinks coffee, is cause it’s how he drowns his sorrows.

He accidentally took a sewing class but liked it and decided to start sewing, he sews in his free time

He hates fighting with Craig, leading to him apologizing at every little mistake he makes with Craig, even if it’s not his fault

He once tried to stop his caffeine addiction but it didn’t go well..

Tweek has a suspicion that his parents are the cause of his caffeine addiction, but he doesn’t want to believe it cause he loves his parents

The first few times Tweek has hung out with Craig/went on a date with Craig, he always wrote something on his friends that were ‘conversation starters’ but his palm was so sweaty that it always made Tweek say weird things when trying to read them out. Craig, oddly enough, just pretended not to notice, finding it cute how nervous Tweek was

Tweek stutters less when he’s angry

Anons

French Press/🇫🇷☕️ Anon

🌮

🌹 Anon

Other People/Ask Blogs in this AU

Tweek Tweak - This Blog Craig Tucker - @askcraigtucker Landon Almerandez - @landon-almerandez Scott Malkinson - @type-1-diabeetus Clyde Donovan - @clydeaxie New Kid - @not-the-new-kid Nick and Nelson - @2-stupid-aussies Angel, Jo, Declan, and Tensi - @thecoolersouthparkforeignkids Latte & Bean -> @coffeens-kittens Brooke and Rosie -> @the-rose-and-the-insect 🇫🇷☕️/French Press Anon -> @thefrenchpressanonguy

(if you want ur name taken off/added, DM me or send me an ask)

Credits

Divider - @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more Userbox(es) - @/lgbtq-userboxes @/sweetpeauserboxes Stamps - @/nnikkouren @/vampyvomit Pfp - @/thecoolersouthparkforeignkids Header - @/landon-almerandez

Last Updated: January 23th, 2025

[the-sleepy-archivist]

Favorite Firefox Extensions

Firefox is a very extensible browser - through a combinations of addons and userscripts you can make it behave just about any way you want. The best part is, they're all free. Here are some of my favorites.

Note: if you have an Android device, check out my post about Firefox for Android's new extended support for addons!

Note: if you have an Apple device, check out my favorite Safari extensions here!

Last updated Feb 2025 (updated list of languages supported for native, local translation by Firefox).

Index:

uBlock Origin

Tab Session Manager

Sauron

Bypass Paywalls Clean

Auto Tab Discard

Video DownloadHelper

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

TWP - Translate Web Pages

UnTrap - YouTube Customizer

Indie Wiki Buddy

Cookie Auto Delete

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

LibraryExtension

Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy

uBlock Origin

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

This is the first addon I install on any new Firefox browser. It's an adblocker, but at its core it can remove pretty much any HTML element from a website, and it comes with pre-configured lists for removing everything from ads to cookie banners to those annoying popups that ask you to sign up for email newsletters.

Tab Session Manager

Have you ever accidentally lost all your open browser tabs due to a computer update, or even just accidentally closing Firefox? With this addon you no longer have to worry about that - it automatically saves your open tabs and windows every time the browser closes, and autosaves a restore point of tabs every few minutes in case the browser crashes unexpectedly. Opening all your previous tabs and windows is a one-click deal.

Sauron

Ever wished your favorite website had a dark mode? With Sauron, now it can! Sauron attempts to intelligently figure out how to edit the color scheme of the web page (including text) to make it dark-mode friendly. It preserves the original color of images, but dims them so that they don't blind you. You can disable image dimming or dark mode on a site by site basis too. It's not perfect since it is making guesses about which colors to change, but it goes a long way toward making the internet an enjoyable place for me.

Bypass Paywalls Clean

This addon removes paywalls from hundreds of news websites around the world or adds links to open the article in a wrapper that provides the article text (like the Internet Archive etc.)

Auto Tab Discard

Ever wanted to keep a tab open for later use, but you notice the browser getting slower and slower the more tabs you have open? Auto Tab Discard will automatically "hibernate" tabs that you haven't used in a while so that they use less resources on your computer. It's smart enough not to hibernate pages that are playing media (like YouTube) or that have forms you haven't submitted yet (like job applications). You can customize how fast it puts tabs to sleep too and exclude certain websites from hibernating at all.

Video DownloadHelper

This addon can download streaming videos from most modern (HTML5) websites, and even finds soft subtitles that accompany the stream and downloads those too. Just browse to the webpage that has the video on it, click the icon in the Firefox toolbar, and select the video you want to download and click "Quick Download". For YouTube I would recommend using a YT downloader website (like KeepVid) to download the video directly, but Video DownloadHelper really shines for websites that aren't popular enough to have dedicated downloader websites like that. I've used it download videos from a Japanese film festival streaming portal, news websites, etc.

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

This addon allows you to blacklist websites and completely remove them from Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo search results. Don't want to see image search results from AI websites? Blacklist them. Searching for tech support advice and getting frustrated by all the auto-generated junk websites that stuff themselves full of SEO terms to jump to the top of the search results without actually providing any information at all? Blacklist them so they don't come up in your next search. Conversely, you can also whitelist websites that you know and trust so that if they ever come up in future search results, they'll be highlighted with a color of your choosing for visibility.

TWP - Translate Web Pages

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Does what it says on the tin: auto-detects a website's language and provides a button that can translate it to a language of your choosing. You can also just select individual text on the page and translate just that. Note that this sends whatever text you translate to the servers of your selected translation service (Google, Bing, Yandex, or DeepL), so keep in mind the privacy implications if you don't want your IP address associated with having read that text.

Edit: As of version 118, Firefox now has the ability to translate text locally on your computer, without needing to send it to a cloud service. You can enable this in Settings -> Translation -> Install languages for offline translation. Note that at this time (Feb 2025), 31 languages are supported - Russian, Korean, Chinese (simplified), and Japanese were recently added. More info here.

UnTrap for YouTube

(compatible with Firefox for Android and they have a Safari for iOS extension too)

This addon lets you tweak the YouTube interface and hide anything you don't want to see. For instance, I hide all the "recommended" videos that come up when you search YT now. They have nothing to do with your search, so they're essentially just ads YT puts in your search results. I also hide Explore, Trending, More from YouTube, and Shorts sections, but you can customize it to fit your preferences.

Note: depending on the particular set of tweaks you want to make to YouTube, you may prefer to use YouTube Search Fixer instead. User preference.

Indie Wiki Buddy

I loathe Fandom.com wiki sites - they are cluttered and filled with ads and autoplaying videos that follow you down the page as you scroll. The organization is also hostile - if a community tries to leave their platform and bring their content to a new wiki hoster, Fandom bans them from the platform and reverts all their deletions/changes. Indie Wiki Buddy attempts to find an independent alternative for the wiki you're trying to browse and automatically redirects you to it, and if one doesn't exist, it will redirect you to a proxy site like antifandom or breezewiki that shows the Fandom content but removes all ads/videos/background images so you can actually, you know. READ it.

Cookie Auto Delete

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Websites store "cookies" - little text files with info about you - on your computer as you browse so they can track you as you browse the internet. This addon automatically deletes cookies from a website a short while after you close the last tab you had open for that site. You can customize how long it waits before clearing cookies too. Note that this can sign you out of many websites, so you can whitelist any site you don't want cookies cleared for.

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

Removes the ads/recommended products that clutter up Amazon and Ebay search results and product pages.

LibraryExtension

This fantastic addon recognizes when you are viewing a book on many popular websites and can automatically check whether that book is available in any of the library systems or subscription services you have access to, including how many copies your library(ies) have and how many are currently checked out. The best part is it shows the availability for physical books, ebooks, AND audiobooks at supported libraries. The extension currently supports libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, but it also supports some global repositories like the Internet Archive and subscription services like NLS Bard for the blind and print disabled, Kobo Plus, Libro.fm, Anyplay.fm, Bookmate, and Everand. Great extension for people trying to support their local library and also save money.

Filtering+ for Tumblr

This addon lets you add tags or phrases to your tumblr tag filters with two clicks, without leaving the dashboard. I've been asking Tumblr for this tag filtering behavior on their mobile apps (i.e. press and hold a tag to get a filter option) for at least a year now in asks and surveys, without ever stopping to see if someone had already implemented this on desktop. More fool me. This addon is from the author of XKit Rewritten. Note that the right-click tag filtering only works on the dashboard; it will not appear if you are on someone's blog. Right-clicking selected text to filter the phrase works everywhere based on my testing.

Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy

This addon does its best to re-enable the normal right-click context menu and copy/paste actions on pages that try to disable them. If you run into a site that messes with either of those, select this addon and check "Enable Copy," then try again. If that doesn't work, check "Absolute mode." It doesn't work everywhere, but I find it very helpful.

[jasperygrace]

January 2025 Mid Monthly Report

Hello hello, everyone! After a year long absence, I’m happy to welcome back the Mid Monthly Report!

To those new to the blog, the Mid Monthly Report is a monthly status report posted around the middle of the month that details stuff I’ve been working on and the going ons in my life. I’ve been doing these reports since July of 2020, but had to break last year because of Life™. Now that I have things (relatively) under control again, I’ve decided to bring it back.

I’ve got some fun stuff to share with you all this month, so without further ado, let us begin!

Project Progress

Mark your calendars everyone, because I have an exciting announcement:

An Immortal Laid to Rest — Log 1: Janahad will be available to read May 17th, 2025.

Log 1 will feature six chapters in total and will release on a weekly basis starting with the first two chapters. It will be completely free to read on my website. I am so excited to finally be able to share this with all of you after four+ years working on it. It really is a dream come true for me.

There’s still some work I need to get done before then. I have 1/4 of the major illustrations completed and I’d like to get one more round of editing completed. Website wise, I should have everything set up, just one or two minor things I need to add to really spruce it up.

Regardless, I hope you’ll look forward to the Log 1’s release!

Change Log

Here are some updates to the website:

Compressed most images featured on the home page and Pro:Des subsite into .jpg files. Buttons in the gallery portal and Pro:Des gallery have been reduced in size as well. This should help with page loading when initially accessed.

Fixed “Go To Gallery” button on the Pro:Des subsite to be centered on Firefox.

Removed hover effect for Pro:Des gallery thumbnails on the Pro:Des subsite.

Known Issues

Backdrop-filter is not working on Firefox. Effects removed for the time being.

Black border appear on Home Page and Gallery pages when viewed on Firefox mobile browsers. These visual errors do not appear on Chrome nor Samsung mobile browsers.

Things to be Added

Original and Fanart galleries

World of Asheva subsite

Bug Report submission form

Goals

Here are my goals for January into February

Finish 2 of 3 remaining illustrations.

Write 2 chapters

Edit 2 chapters

And that’s all I’ve got for this month! Thank you for reading, and I hope you will support me in my future endeavors!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Happy 2024, y'all! It's a sunny day here on the SW Washington coast, and I'm off to a slow, sleepy start after managing to stay up until midnight in spite of myself. I hope you all are having a good start to the shiny new year.

I thought this would a good moment to reflect on the accomplishments of 2023, and look forward to what 2024 might hold.

Last year was, well, a lot of good stuff! Here are a few highlights:

--In addition to keeping my regular roster of online and in-person classes for various community colleges and libraries, I added a few new teaching venues. By far my favorite was the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where I had a marvelous time teaching my two-day Nature Identification for the Everyday Naturalist class amid an incredible coastal forest (they're bringing me back this year, too!). I also got to teach in my hometown in Missouri, with a mushroom foraging class at Rolla Public Library and a lichen walk at the Ozark Rivers Audubon Nature Center, both of whom I hope to work with again in the future. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the series of classes I taught for Wildcraft Studio School in Portland--I'm looking forward to my next round of classes with them for 2024!

--I launched my guided nature tours business, offering ecologically-focused walks and hikes throughout the Pacific Northwest. This was very much a year of "throw things at the wall and see what sticks." Both scheduled hikes and private bookings were successful, though sometimes people thought I only did one or the other, so it was a bit of a challenge getting the word out that nope--I offer both! I'm hoping to expand the scheduled hikes to more locations, since I primarily offered them in the Long Beach, WA area, and I'm hoping to get some private bookings in places I haven't had a chance to explore yet. I do have to say I had a lot of fun taking people out onto some of my favorite trails, as well as some new places, exploring all the amazing flora, fauna, and fungi we met along the way. Here's to more excuses to get outside in 2024!

--With the help of my amazing agent, Jane Dystel of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC, I landed a contract with Ten Speed Press (a division of Penguin Random House) for my book The Everyday Naturalist: How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go. This is an opportunity well beyond anything I had imagined, and I am super excited for the book to be released in Summer 2025. I've already gotten some excellent editorial feedback to help me make this book the best it can be, and I'm looking forward to this continued journey as I kick off the new year with a big writing session.

--I kept up on my quarterly chapbook schedule, producing four new chapbooks in 2023. It's a lot of work, but people really seem to enjoy them, and I relish the opportunity to dive deeper into topics than I can do in a single article. Speaking of articles, I didn't quite keep up with writing one weekly on my website, but I did alright. And I also kept up a good roster of articles in my Rainy Rambles column for the Coast Weekend paper.

And that's really what I'd love to see in 2024:

--More opportunities to teach and reach new audiences who are interested in learning more about nature identification, foraging, and other natural history topics. Since I do a lot of online teaching, I have plenty of options outside of my local area. And as I make my twice-a-year peregrinations to Missouri, I'm planning to do some teaching along the way.

--More tours, please! 2023 was a really great start, and I had such a great time that I just want to increase the number of days I'm out on the trails with folks. I need to do more promotion, especially outside the Columbia-Pacific region, and really work on getting the word out. Some of that will be online, but there will also be some time spent out in the world, too. It can be a very time-consuming thing, but here's to those efforts paying off.

--I already need to have the manuscript for The Everyday Naturalist turned in this April (I'm going to aim for getting it done early, but we'll see.) A lot of the process beyond that will be out of my hands, other than edits and feedback. Still, this will be another thing that I want to make more people aware of, so you can expect me to keep chatting about book stuff all year. And, of course, I'll keep those article sand chapbooks coming for those of you who can't wait for 2025 to read my work.

--I have some other projects behind the scenes that I'm planning--keep your eyes peeled here for updates! (Or you can join my monthly email newsletter here.)

Wishing you all an excellent 2024!

[crow-mortis]

༶•┈┈⛧┈ꉓꋪꂦꅏ

⛧°。ᵗʰᶦʳᵗʸ⁻ᵗʷᵒ ⛧ ᵗʳᵃⁿˢᵐᵃˢᶜ ⛧ ᵖᵃⁿ ⛧ ʷʳⁱᵗᵉʳ ⛧ ᵖʰᵒᵗᵒᵍʳᵃᵖʰᵉʳ 。 °⛧

ᴬᴼ³⛧ ᵏᵒᶠⁱ ⛧ ᵇˡᵘᵉˢᵏʸ ⛧ ˡᵃˢᵗ.ᶠᵐ ⛧ ˢᵖᵃᶜᵉʰᵉʸ

⛧°。 ┊ my stuff.

ʙᴏʀʀᴏᴡᴇᴅ ᴛɪᴍᴇ - ᴘᴀᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢɪᴄ - ᴀʀᴛ���ᴍʏ ʙᴜʀᴀᴋʜ/ғ.ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ Dᴀʏʟɪʟʏ - Pᴀᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢɪᴄ - Dᴀɴɪɪʟ/Aʀᴛᴇᴍʏ Oɴᴇ-Sʜᴏᴛ Dᴇᴀʀ Vɪᴋᴛᴏʀ - WWI Jᴀʏᴠɪᴋ AU Fɪᴄ Jᴏɪɴ ᴍʏ Pᴀᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢɪᴄ Fᴀɴ Dɪsᴄᴏʀᴅ Sᴇʀᴠᴇʀ

⛧°。┊ fandoms.

ᴘᴀᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢɪᴄ, ᴘᴀᴛʜᴏʟᴏɢɪᴄ 2, ᴅᴇsᴛɪɴʏ, ᴅᴇsᴛɪɴʏ 2, ᴅᴀʀᴋᴡᴏᴏᴅ, ᴀ sᴏɴɢ ᴏғ ɪᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ғɪʀᴇ, ᴍᴀss ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ, ᴅʀᴀɢᴏɴ ᴀɢᴇ, ᴀɴɪᴍᴇ, ᴍᴀɴɢᴀ, ᴛᴏʟᴋɪᴇɴ-ᴠᴇʀsᴇ, ʀᴇᴅ ʀɪsɪɴɢ, Aʀᴄᴀɴᴇ

⛧°。┊about/dni

Not everyone has all of their info in their "About Me" so I figured I'd provide this list for anyone checking out my profile. DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU ARE:

⛧ under 18

⛧ racist

⛧ lgbtqia+phobic *including transmeds, exclusionists, terfs and illegitmate sexualities/pronouns - i.e. MAP nor/mal, etc. (if they're meant to mock someone, i don't fw you)

⛧ pro-birth/pro life

⛧ xenophobic/islamophobic

⛧ sexist/misogynistic

⛧ pedophilic/MAP

⛧ ableist

⛧ anti-vax/anti-medicine

⛧ I also don't fw animal abuse, MAGA, blue lives matter, or general bigots.

I can/will add to this if I think of/run across more.

more under the cut !

This is the hardest thing for me to do on any social media website. I'm horrible at talking about myself unless it's in relation to one of my interests. Which, I'll briefly list below:

⛧ music

⛧ video games

⛧ creepy stuff/cryptids/ARGs

⛧ gardening/homesteading

⛧ crows

⛧ oddities/"vulturecore"

⛧ writing

⛧ photography

⛧ reading

I'm sure I have more I'll end up adding here eventually, but I can't ever think of many things I like right off the top of my head.

Call me Crow. I'm 31 y/o, nonbinary, pansexual, and my pronouns are they/them. I'm married and we have two dogs, one cat, a parrot, and twenty-four chickens (I post about all of them a lot so you'll probably get to know them well if you follow my blog.) We live on a 2 acre homestead in southern Appalachia. I practice conjure and rootwork that was taught to me by family and neighbors growing up. I love to forage and make my own herbal salves and tinctures, as well as canned items like preserves and jellies. My partner and I are also professional portrait and event photographers, and I love posting our work whenever I get the chance.

My favorite band is Coheed and Cambria, with Sleep Token and Ghost following closely behind. I'm an old school emo kid, and I also listen to a lot of pop-punk, numetal, and post-hardcore. I also dive into j-rock and SOME Appalachian gothic, neotraditional country, bluegrass, and folk music. My tastes are a little all over the place and if it sounds good I'll probably like it.

I am a gamer, and my favorite game is a tie between Bloodborne and Pathologic 2. I have also been playing Destiny 2 since the launch of Destiny 1 in 2014, and I fall in and out of love with it every few weeks. Depends on what the content is giving me at that time. I also really like Minecraft and other comfy games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. I'm a huge fan of horror games and I especially love the ones with deep and interesting lore and worldbuilding.

I'm a writer, and have been actively doing so since I was 11 years old. I haven't published anything, as it's more of a hobby for me than anything (plus imposter syndrome sucks). I have a world building project/RP that I've had going with a friend of mine for almost a decade now. I love thinking of/writing new characters and short stories. I used to write fanfiction but I'm not consistent enough to post multiple-part fics anymore, and my schedule doesn't leave much time for that sort of devotion. So, for now, it's just a hobby I get to enjoy with a few select friends.

I'm really into creepy content. Cryptids, cosmic horror, ARGs, analog horror, and the occult. I've seen a lot of what there is to offer on YouTube, so I'm always open to suggestions on stuff that I may not have heard of. I also like to collect bones, antlers, and other oddities.

I'm a big reader, and I'm currently doing a 52 week book challenge for 2025. I usually read 2-3 books at a time for when my ADD says I need something different.

I am also autistic and was diagnosed as an adult (age 27). I also have relapsing/remitting MS; it affects my short term memory, vision, and balance, primarily. I also sometimes have some other cognitive issues (forgetting/flubbing words, names, etc.) I am on treatment for a few of the symptoms, but it does impact my daily life.

I think that's about it. Sorry for the wall of text, but I really don't know how else to format this.

[goombasa]

Project Tracking: JANUARY, 2025

Hey there!

So originally I was going to post this on the first of each month, but life (and meds) got in the way of being able to concentrate yesterday, so you're getting a double dip of posts today, along with my usual weekly word vomit of a post.

The basic idea behind this series of posts is, over the course of the month, I wanted to keep track of everything related to the various projects I've been working on, in all mediums. I figured, by sharing these sorts of statistics, maybe it would help to keep me motivated to keep working on this stuff, and maybe show other people that working on a project doesn't have to be consistent. There are going to be some times where you do less than before, and that's okay.

This whole thing is a bit experimental for me, but I hope you enjoy seeing my general progress as I move along through all of this. This isn't very experimental, and a lot of the various ways that I am keeping track of things is pretty arbitrary, but I hope it helps in some way. Enjoy!

January Project Tracking

Projects Started: Projects started within the current month

Retro Quickies - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonstrike

Retro Quickies - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance

Retro Quickies - Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragons of Flame

Indie Uproar - Balatro

Retro Quickies - Adventures in the Magic Kingdom

Retro Quickies - Adventures of Gilligan's Island

Let's Learn HTML

Retro Quickies - Action 52 (Individual Game Videos)

Retro Quickies - Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Let's Learn CSS

Retro Quickies - 3 Ninjas Kick Back

Novel Project: TOWER

Ongoing Projects: Projects started the preceding month that are still ongoing

Finished Projects: Projects finished before the end of the month

Retro Quickies - Action 52 (1-5)

Retro Quickies - Adams Family

Retro Quickies - Adams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt

Retro Quickies - Action 52 (6-10)

Retro Quickies - Action 52 (11-15)

Personal Story

Wordcount Stats

Total Project Words Written This Month: 29143 Words

Collaborative Novel Project: 779 Words

Balatro Script: 2014 Words

3 Ninjas Script: 1488

Personal Story: 8741 Words

Blog Posts: 2892 Words

Let's Learn HTML: 11769 Words

Let's Learn CSS: 1689 Words

Novel Project: Tower: 259

Website Work Updates

1/2/25: 

Got the animation page looking somewhat like I want it to.

Experimenting with background color on flex elements to make them pop a little bit more. Still need to get some placehold elements in there

Went back to the home page and decided to try putting a similar flex look on the updates section so it looks better than just a basic list.

1/9/25:

Worked out the skeleton for the ‘Games’ page. Basically the same as the animation page. I think I'll be using that as the default layout for most of the pages going forward

started to think about how I wanted to structure the links page. Will probably work on that next. That'll be interesting since it's basically just going to be a link dump.

1/11/25:

Began working on the Links page in earnest. Think I've settled on a layout that I like, with links alternating left and right, but already overstuffing it with different categories. I don't think that's a problem, as it's primarily just meant to be a massive dump for links that I find interesting or useful, as well as to direct people to other places where I post, I suppose.

1/14/25:

Continued working on the links page. Want to at least get the full skeleton of that page up and running, but it's a lot larger than I thought it would be, mostly because I keep adding new categories as I go with it.

Audio/Video Editing

Finished Audio Edited: 30 Minutes, 46 Seconds Total

Finished Video Edited: 30 Minutes, 58 Seconds Total

Miscellaneous Notes

Finally feel like I'm coming out of a very long funk. I entered into this year determined to start working on something creative again, and working on shorter, less intensive videos, and slowly building up a personal website that doesn't really have to be anything more than a hobby for me has helped immensely with my creativity.

Still finding it hard to concentrate on longer-form projects, hence why I'm not giving names to a lot of my written work at the moment. A lot of it is more personal stuff that I don't feel comfortable sharing, but I feel in the interest of keeping things up to date that it should be kept in the running total since it is a project I'm working on, even if it isn't anything I plan on putting out for others to see.

Anxious thoughts have made progress slow in the new year, but things are finally starting to calm down. I might actually be able to get some stuff done from here.

Also started writing out scripts for a series of videos for those trying to learn HTML and CSS. Even reading it back, I think it's a bit clumsy, but I think as a primer it works okay, despite my obvious inability to really formulate my thoughts properly.

Started to upload videos to youtube again and the welcome back messages have honestly been really nice to see. It does actually make me feel like putting stuff up for people to see is worth it, even if it is for a small audience.

Unfortunately, due to health issues that only heightened the issues with anxiety I'd been having as of late, things slowed down near the end of this month, but I'm fairly proud of all the stuff I'd managed to produce over the course of the month. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up this kind of pace, but I at least want to do a little bit month to month.

[erasde]

[Weekly Log] - #2 : January 2025

This week was a little quieter than the last in terms of time spent worldbuilding, but good progress was made. Most of it was made on Monday and polished during the weekend.

I started on Monday by making some posts for this blog. Two of them, the Resources post and the Bibliography post, were made with the intent of being updated with my readings and discoveries of useful websites. But I also took some time (more than I thought) to put together my first Worldbuilding post, where I talk about maps, their uses and their usefulness.

On Wednesday, I received my first ask for Worldbuilding Wednesday, which is a great weekly event. However, I think my participation in it will be quite limited to the persons stumbling upon this blog by accident since this blog is only for my own content (as in, I do not reblog other people stuff). It was a decision I had to make, but I intend this blog to be where I centralize and share my project. I'm already having a hard time staying organized and clear, so drowning my posts in the middle of other stuff would make it even more difficult.

On Friday, I participated for the second time in the Flash Fiction Friday challenge hosted by @flashfictionfridayofficial. I've been following them for quite a while now, but I was too busy reworking my project to participate on a regular basis. However, the weekly prompt and short wordcount is a nice challenge, as well as a way for me to flesh out my characters on the side of all the worldbuilding stuff.

In fact, the first thing I did on Saturday was to connect to Erasde's AO3 and format the first work to be published there, a collection dedicated to the snippets made for the FFF and, later perhaps, other writing challenges.

I have another work in progress, a one-shot centered around the characters mentioned in this week's FFF, which is already at 4k2 words and will probably double in size. I'm taking my time with it though, because it's as much a work of style as it is a work of characterization. My writing style is very heavily influenced by the fact that I've been writing fanfiction for years and the tricky thing is that, this time, my "fandom" is an original work that currently exists only in my mind.

Otherwise, I took advantage of my two-day weekend to work intensively on my maps. In addition to slightly reworking my base map to add the bodies of water present within the land, I also added the borders. It will allow me a better visualization of some information, without having to activate a bunch of different layers each time. These borders were determined by the realization, admittedly long and painful, of the first political map on which I placed my territorial and political entities, as well as the names of the main countries.

Otherwise, I borrowed a few new books from the library but haven't had time to look into them too much yet. But I did see a very good book on the history of medicine that will be a good complement to my current interest in herbalism.

I also bought three books, which I should pick up soon: the new edition of the previously mentioned book by Paul Ariès, as well as two books by Alain Corbin, a renowned French historian and one of the world's leading specialists in the history of sensibilities. I got his book on smell and the social imagination linked to it, as well as the one on prostitution. I'll have to pick them up tomorrow after work.

For the upcoming week, I'm working all day tomorrow and I have a shift on Sunday afternoon. I'll also go to a show on Thursday with my mother, so I won't be home before a little while. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do, so let's stay realistic : if I manage to polish the relief map of Omrys and start naming the bodies of water, it'll already be really nice.

[prosperopedia]

Seven Figure Income Bloggers

Over the past year, I’ve made a determination to make this blog my full-time income.

I’m hoping to make it a very large income at that. In fact, my goal is to get this website, Prosperopedia.com, to a level where it’s netting over a million dollars per year. You’ll often hear folks refer to the $1M+ threshold as a seven-figure income, a term that comes from the fact that there are 7 digits in the number $1,000,000. The trick to making a seven-figure income is to make sure that the first of those digits is greater than zero. As most people who have tried, including the majority of those who have succeeded can tell you, it’s not easy.

Is it even possible to make that much income through blogging? The answer is a definite yes. It’s been done by lots of people. I’m going to introduce you to several of them. I’ll also detail how they managed to get from starting on the idea to write their thoughts and opinions and publish them on a website to collecting seven figures’ worth of checks over a 12-month period. I’ve followed several bloggers in their

What is my plan for getting to a seven-figure income with just a simple website, a bunch of pictures and words put together in a way that provides significant value?

I’m going to write, and write, and write…and publish, and publish, and publish…until I’ve written enough useful articles, how-tos, opinions, news updates, etc. that I can prove to Google that there are good reasons to send a decent portion of its users to my domain, and I’m going to figure out how to best monetize those interactions by displaying relevant ads, product offers, and affiliate relationships. For me, the process is pretty straight forward, although certainly time consuming. I have to brain dump the stuff I already know, and I have to learn new things that I can also write about.

In addition to writing articles, which I’m much better at than the social media stuff, I’m going to build an audience of hundreds of thousands of somewhat like-minded (positive, somewhat religious, improvement-focused) people on social media accounts built to promote the Prosperopedia brand through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and whatever else comes along that seems like it makes sense to use.

How do Bloggers Make Money?

You’ve probably heard that Super Bowl ads cost a lot of money. 30-second ads for Super Bowl LIV in 2020 are going for more than $5 million.

That’s a cool $5 million to show your product, service, or whatever message you want to get out to the world.

Why does it cost so much?

Because the number of people who watch the Super Bowl exceeds 100 million. Having access to those 100 million people for even 30 seconds is worth the ad spend for companies that have the budget and want to reach that audience.

The same kind of numbers are at play when it comes to directing online traffic. In fact, Google’s ad revenue for 2018 surpassed $116 billion. Bing (a distant second in search engine market share) has ad revenues close to $8 billion last year.

If Google and Bing can net over $120 billion in ad revenue in a year, revenue collected from advertisers who pay for both impressions (when ads are shown on the search engines’ partners’ websites) and ad clicks, there’s quite a bit of opportunity for hundreds of bloggers to net $1M or more in a year on the traffic they attract from organic traffic that comes to them from search engines.

Some of the bloggers I’ve followed, especially ones who make some portion of their blogging income teaching other bloggers how to make similar amounts of income (which kind of feels like an MLM, but it’s a bit different since there are no downlines and you don’t have to make your friends hate you to be a blogger), are kind enough to publish their blogging income numbers online. Some bloggers give highly detailed reports about exactly where there income comes from and what expense they incur to create that income. Others simply point out that they make over $1M in a year on their blogs.

I’ll share with you the details about a few bloggers of the seven-figure income bloggers I’m aware of, including detailing where the value comes from, as far as I can tell, that allows them to make seven figures.

Some of the information I will review about these bloggers is from a report available from a tool called SEMRush, which is used to determine, among other things, the value of the search traffic estimated to be going to a domain. SEMRush’s traffic value estimate is a data-driven guess at how much the website would have to pay in Google AdWords to attract an amount of traffic that’s equivalent to what the site is getting from organic search traffic.

Depending upon how good you are at monetizing your traffic as well as the type of traffic you’re getting to your website, from what I’ve seen of bloggers who actually share information about how much they are making, it’s pretty common that bloggers have a monthly income that’s at least half of the traffic value estimated by SEMRush for their US-based search traffic. That’s not a hard rule, but it’s a benchmark I’ve seen often as I’ve researched bloggers’ domains through SEMRush.

Steve Chou – MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

Steve Chou is a former engineer whose story involves finding a way for his wife to quit her job and stay at home with their first child in 2007. Less than ten years later, in 2016, Steve and his wife crossed the seven figure blogger threshold when his site, which was named after the experience of transitioning his wife from employee to co-business-owner, surpassed $1M in income.

Chou published a blog post several years ago, which he updates from time to time with more recent numbers, in which he says he made $1.4 million in income from his blog in 2017. I’d guess he’s hit or exceeded $2M by the end of 2019.

In his income report post, Chou gives some context that is inspiring. He explains that during the first two years of operating his blog, he was essentially writing content to a small audience. Most wannabe bloggers give up before even one year of seeing results. What very often happens with Google is that they don’t really start to trust your website enough to send the amount of traffic that will really drive commissions and ad revenue until about two years after you’ve started writing consistently.

SEMRush estimates (as of January 2020) that Chou’s US-based organic search traffic is worth $245,200 per month.

James Dahle – WhiteCoatInvestor.com

I don’t know this blogger personally, but one of my friends who knows him has commented to me a few times over the past several years updates about his progress. Hearing how well he is doing has made me feel like I should have been much more consistent about publishing content on my own blogs several years ago. Instead I’ve only recently become serious about making that (passive income from a niche blog) my livelihood.

Dahle doesn’t provide an income report or even a number for his blog income, but he did write a post in 2018 explaining what it’s like to be a seven-figure earner. Previous to reading that post, the last I’d heard from my friend, who I’ve been helping with his own blog, is that he was making the same amount blogging as he made at his job as an emergency physician.

SEMRush reports (January 2020) that Dahle’s US-based search traffic is worth $364k per month. If he’s monetizing his traffic at an average pace for bloggers, he’s probably bringing in about $150k per month.

Jill Nystul – OneGoodThingByJillee.com

I have worked with some of Jill’s relatives on a project for which we inquired about advertising on her website. The price tag was high. She obviously gets a lot of traffic, enough that even a single promotional blog post costs in the thousands of dollars range.

Jill’s story is an amazing and inspiring one. She started blogging as a therapeutic response to depression. She was told to write something good every single day.

So she did.

And it has paid off, in more ways than one. From everything I can see, including having her very own Amazon influencer shopping page and monetizing her social media accounts well, I’d guess that she’s making at least $250k per month, or $3M per year. Nice work, Jill!

The current SEMRush report for OneGoodThingByJillee.com puts her at US-based traffic estimate at $589k per month.

Richard Robbins – Prosperopedia.com

My own story is still in the making, but my intent is to come back here in the next six months and update this post with new information about having reached the tens of thousands of dollars per month in blogging income. I’m guessing it will take me a few more years to become part of the seven figure club, but success tends to beget success. Unless someone turns off the internet or I become distracted by something else that it feels like life, my wife, or my kids are calling me, I hope to break the seven-figure mark by at least 2025.

Stay tuned…

The post Seven Figure Income Bloggers appeared first on The Handbook for Happiness, and Success, and Prosperity Prosperopedia.

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[mikemortgage]

Three scenarios: How the U.S. midterms are likely to affect investors

In the aftermath of the most devastating month for stock markets in seven years, U.S. voters are heading to the polls Tuesday for the midterm elections that may play a significant role in deciding where equities go next.

Historically, voters have had little interest in midterm elections. In 2014, less than one-third turned out to boost the Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representatives and see them win back the Senate for the first time since 2006.

The added interest in this year’s election, CITI Research North America economist Dana Peterson said, is due to how much is riding on them for U.S. President Donald Trump, whose fellow Republicans currently control both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

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“Usually, no one pays attention to them but they are this year because it’s going to act as a referendum on President Trump’s policies,” Peterson said.

Despite the low turnout, midterm elections tend to have a direct impact on Wall Street, with the uncertainty depressing markets in the runup and then, a post-election rally regardless of which side emerges victorious.

According to Kevin McCreadie, president and chief investment officer of AGF Investments Inc., the market has not declined in the 12 months following a midterm election since 1946. The average boost, post midterm, he said, was 15.3 per cent.

But with more at stake this year, especially when it comes to economic policy, that all could change.

Scenario 1: Democrats win the House; Republicans keep the Senate

Multiple polls point to the most likely outcome being a split of Congress. The Democrats are widely expected to gain control of the House while the Republicans are the clear favourites to maintain their majority in the Senate — and perhaps even increase their strength there.

The split is so expected that Wall Street has already priced it in as the most likely result, said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at Hugh Johnson Advisors, a New York-based firm. If it happens, he said, it will most likely be met with a yawn.

In this scenario, the markets may undergo their usual post-election rally, but the divide in Congress may lead to policy “gridlock” in the coming months — not necessarily a bad thing for investors.

“For Wall Street, less is more and if you’re talking about virtually nothing coming out of Washington, that’s less and might be pretty good news,” he said.

Seeing the two parties work together through the next two years of Trump’s term would be rare, but there are a few policy issues that could offer the rivals a chance to do so. Trump is widely expected to work with the Democrats in the House on a new infrastructure bill projected to be in the range of US$1 trillion to US$1.5 trillion. Former White House economic advisor Gary Cohn told Reuters in September that he expects it to be the first thing the two sides work on post-election. CITI, Peterson said, already has the deal “baked in” to GDP growth projections — she expects the deal will add 0.2 per cent in 2020, allowing growth to reach 1.8 per cent.

McCreadie expects the markets to bounce in November and December, but uncertainty can creep back into investors’ minds as soon as January when the new House sits for the first time.

That’s when the whispers about Democrats potentially moving to impeach Trump could begin. Party leaders have been silent on the possibility on the campaign trail, focusing instead on investigating the president in connection with Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Under a split Congress scenario, it’s unlikely impeachment would result in a conviction in the Senate because it would require two-thirds of the Republican-dominated chamber to vote in favour. Even if the process goes nowhere, McCreadie said the markets will become volatile due to headline risk.

“(The market) will be noisy but not corrective — unless something shows up in that stuff that says they’ve got him,” he said.

Scenario 2: Democrats sweep Congress

Polling website FiveThirtyEight was projecting on Friday afternoon that the Democrats have a 15 per cent chance of winning a majority in the Senate. In fact, they’re widely expected to lose a seat and inflate the Republican advantage in the chamber to 52-48. But if the Democrats pull off the unexpected, they could have a clear path to impeaching Trump.

While going down that road would set off all kinds of market fireworks, it comes with all kinds of political risks for the Democrats as well.

Assuming they don’t move to impeach, gridlock may once again be the order of the day, Johnson suggested, because Trump will be able to wield his veto power on Democratic legislation.

“Nothing is going to happen because it’ll hit a wall when it gets to the White House,” Johnson said.

A few exceptions would be an infrastructure bill and perhaps some kind of co-operation with Trump to resolve the China trade war. The Democrats would also be able to successfully put an end to any hopes the Republicans may have had about repealing Obamacare.

Attempts to challenge or repeal any of Trump’s economic initiatives — such as the US$1.5 trillion in tax cuts announced last year or new measures to tackle the debt — could be worrisome for investors, McCreadie said.

“The fear in the market is that the tax reform and pro-business agenda is stopped — and not only stops but gets rolled back.”

A sell-off in equities would soon follow. McCreadie said bonds would then become positive as investors make a move to fixed income instead.

Scenario 3:  Republicans sweep Congress

Should the Republicans maintain complete control of Congress, “whatever Trump wants, Trump will get,” Johnson said.

Under this scenario, there will be no impeachment and Obamacare is once again at risk.

Trump has also flirted with additional cuts and strangely suggested two weeks ago that he was looking into a 10 per cent tax cut for the middle class. The GOP has since walked back that suggestion.

The tax cuts that Trump made in 2017 will not be rolled back and Congress will instead look for a way to make individual cuts permanent as they’re set to expire in 2025, Peterson said.

“If you do that, there’s no benefit to the economy in the short run,” Peterson said. “You’re not going to see it until 2026 and in the meanwhile you’d signal that you’re going to run up budget deficits even more than we’re anticipating.”

The tax cuts were mostly responsible for the ballooning budget deficit in 2018, which increased 17 per cent to a six-year high of US$779 billion. Further debt increases, Peterson said, could lead to the U.S. running a risk of a downgrade of sovereign debt.

In the long term, continued stimulus will lead to the Fed continuing to increase interest rates so that Trump does not overheat the economy. “They’ll have to go it alone under these conditions and you bet they will,” said Johnson, who added that rising rates could eventually derail the bull market.

The short term offers more intriguing possibilities for investors. With Trump’s pro-business agenda unimpeded, the equities markets may heat up in the next two years, Johnson said.

“As hard as it is for me to say, from the point of view of markets and the economy, you probably have to say we have our best chance — I hate to say this — that the Republicans retain the House and the Senate,” Johnson said. “That’s the best outcome.”

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