#specifically in the past few months I noticed they upped their software so the ads play at the most viewed section of the video

[soliusss]

The ads on YouTube are so fucking bad now. I cant concentrate on drawing because every 3 minutes an ad interrupts the video in the background and it sends me into such a visceral rage i have to turn it off and scroll on social media for 20 mins to calm down. @ you tube kill yourself!!!!

[anywhozits]

All I Really Want

Rating: M

Pairing: Kristanna (eventually hah)

Verse: 90s High School AU

Notes: chapter one of my first frozen multichap! yayyy but warning it’s an emotional roller coaster (naturally, because teen angst and all)

Read on Ao3, too!  

Champagne popped, fireworks cracked, loud screams of excitement echoed throughout the large Mediterranean style-mansion in Newport Coast, California. Everyone in the house counted down the seconds until 1997 and celebrated the victory—the host’s software company had ended the year with the most fiscal prowess of any software company in the country.

Ten.

Right—The Company that Agnarr Larsen had founded and owned had hit a milestone. 10 billion dollars in sales worldwide in 1996.

Nine.

They’d opened some international subsidiaries. Most recently one in Oslo, Norway.

Eight.

Within the last month it was finally acknowledged that The Company had the first fully developed Internet Strategy of all the tech companies.

Seven.

Whatever “Internet Strategy” meant.

Six.

Agnarr Larsen had thus gone all out. He and his wife, Iduna, spent a sickeningly large sum of money on this party.

Five.

The theme—70s Disco / Studio 54 because 1997 had one number in common with that decade.

Four.

At least 35 Cirque-employed go-go dancers served drinks, danced on tables, and strutted their stuff throughout the house.

Three.

They had exactly five separate disco balls, an indoor and an outdoor dance floor, properly themed food, and an incredibly well-stocked open bar that left the guests in awe.

Two.

And in the corner sat a girl with striking red hair, alone, again… as always, sipping on some champagne she thought her parents would care she swiped from the open bar.

They didn’t.

One.

More fireworks went off, bursting into sparks of gold, blue, red, and white right on top of the hill behind the house.

The girl—Anna—didn’t look up. She remained seated on the couch, crossing and uncrossing her legs, taking sip after sip of champagne. It was damn good champagne. Despite having no actual knowledge about the quality of sparkling wine after only 14 years on this earth, she could tell this was some quality shit. Cristal. It even sounded fancy.  

God was she bored.

Her blue eyes scanned the crowds. Everyone was yelling, throwing their hands in the air, hugging and kissing each other.

She had no idea where her parents were. Agnarr and Iduna Larsen. The very hosts of this party. This was their house. This was her house, too, then, she supposed. The cold walls, the empty halls, the wide-open spaces that most of the time housed one or two or three people only. It was a nice house, though.

And all of that—well, everything in her life—was owed to the success of her father’s company. The Company. She knew nothing of the specifics other than it being some kind of tech software situation that clearly allowed them such a large sum of money that they were comfortable at the very least. Comfortable was Agnarr’s favorite word to describe their unnatural and disgustingly wealthy lifestyle.

Looking around again, Anna saw no trace of them anywhere.

Well—classically her mother was nowhere to be found, blessed with the uncanny ability to seamlessly blend in with the furniture at these types of parties. Well. Actually… with Iduna, it always went one of two ways. Either 1) she hid out somewhere using her stealthy camouflage skills as the night progressed or 2) she took on the role of belle of the ball, effortlessly engaged in radiant conversations with every partygoer. The difference between those two perfectly outlined by one simple distinction—whether it was a Bad Day or a Good Day.

Today was a Bad Day. Anna could feel it. Her mother’s absence more-than confirmed that blatant fact.

But still no sign of her father.

Anna rolled her eyes and gulped down more champagne. Her stomach dropped. Worst New Year’s ever. She was always required to attend these stupid Company parties because it looked good for her dad to have such a supportive youngest daughter.

And she loved parties. But.

But she wished she had somebody, anybody even remotely close to her age to share this with.

Because even though their house was filled with people, filled with people having the time of their life, she still felt so... lonely. Maybe even the loneliest she had felt in a long time.

She knew she’d feel this way. Anna had really tried her best to preemptively remedy the situation, asking her dad if she could invite her best friend, Kristoff, to the party. But of course, Agnarr had grumbled something under his breath about how that would be a bad look.

Shaking off all of that frustration, Anna slowly rose from the couch, making her way past a few scantily clad go-go dancers, trying her best to push away the cocktail meatballs and the fondue skewers they kept trying to shove into her face.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of her father, finally, standing next to a couple of his business school buddies, all of them wearing custom tailored suits with bowties and sunglasses even though they were indoors. They carelessly swung their glasses of Cristal and laughed hearty belly laughs.

Anna thought maybe she could join this conversation. Seemed fun enough.

But when she made it close enough to hear their conversation, she stopped in her tracks. They hadn’t noticed her approaching, of course. They never did. Being invisible to her father and his cronies was one of her biggest talents.

Even still, she backtracked a bit, allowing herself to hide behind the series of potted plants that lined their living room.

“I kept telling her we already had the perfect kid—why would we risk the second one? But she didn’t buy it. She wanted Elsa to have a sibling. And look where we are now.” A series of masculine laughter—guffaws more than anything else—broke out.

Anna gulped. This wasn’t new. She’d even heard it all before. Her father’s go-to party story.

But then he said it. The punchline. Stated in such a light-hearted manner with a characteristic shake of his head. “We should’ve stopped after one.”

Anna stumbled backward. It always hit her. It always hurt her. Her fourth time hearing this dumb story and it still felt like being punched in the gut.

And yet… here she was at this party alone and bored and miserable trying to please him. Hoping maybe one day he would change this story. Maybe one day he would stop telling it altogether. Because she was here. She tried. She made the effort.

It didn’t seem like it was too much to ask. Things used to be good. They used to spend time together as a family.

Tears stung her eyes. She totally should’ve just said fuck you to her dad and gone to Kristoff’s house like she wanted.

Whatever. Right now, all she needed was an escape. Anna desperately wanted to get the hell away from him.

Thus, she took off in a jog toward the kitchen, the echoes of her father’s continued laughter taunting her remorselessly.

On the way, she caught her reflection in a golden floor length mirror. Her jog slowed to a halt.

She sighed, staring deeply at her reflection. Poofy but also flawlessly curled, her usually chest-length red hair now only fell to her shoulders. Anna gave it a quick toss, adding even more body to the curls.

She stared harder, looked closer.

Both frosted pink lips and electric blue eyeshadow brought out every single feature of her face—her piercing blue eyes, her soft yet diffuse freckles, and the eternal flush of her cheeks no doubt heightened by the Cristal. She sighed, carefully biting her lip so as to not mess up her lipstick and touched the thin silver choker around her neck. One of her Christmas gifts from Santa. From her parents, duh. She knew that. But… it still felt like it came from Santa.

Anna sighed again.

She thought she looked okay. Just okay.

Now she wished she’d worn something different. Sure, the aqua sequined dress framed her body well. The straight neckline and spaghetti straps were cute. And naturally she did love that the dress fell to her upper thighs, something she figured her parents would take issue with. But again, that was exactly the reason why she’d chosen the dress in the first place.

She wanted a response. She craved a response…

But she only looked okay.

One more sigh and she decided it was time to move on.

Thankfully it didn’t really matter how she looked while she did the thing she really wanted to do next.

Anna took one last moment to look at herself. To psych herself up for what was to come.

You got this, Anna. You’ve done this loads of times before. Tonight is no different.

Because.

There was somebody she wanted to talk to. Somebody she needed to talk to. It was a new year now. 1997. Maybe 1997 was their year, maybe in 1997 they’d be close again.

Her heart beat heavily and quickly within her chest. Faster yet when she reached the kitchen… when she picked up the clunky gray cordless phone.

She had the number memorized. Duh. Anna called her sister, Elsa, at the minimum once a day.

Elsa very rarely picked up. Elsa very rarely called her back. But every so often, like a glimmer of hope, she did.

It was like 3:06am for Elsa and Anna knew that she was probably asleep. She knew, logically, that the chances Elsa would actually answer the phone were about 0.2 out of 10, but… there was that glimmer. Because Anna needed it. Because it was a new year and…

Anna couldn’t help it as the thought crossed her mind again. It now played on repeat almost like a chant. Or… a cheer.

No.

A prayer, honestly. It was a desperate prayer.

Maybe 1997 was their year. Maybe 1997 was their year. Maybemaybemaybe.

God did she hope 1997 would be their year.

After Elsa got shipped off to boarding school in the 6th grade because of her super human intelligence level that apparently could only be properly nourished by snooty institutions on the East Coast, the two sisters had largely lost touch. Elsa was busy with academics and the consistent string of pressure her parents put on her as their successful and perfect first-born daughter.

But lucky for Anna, Elsa had a shiny new Nokia phone that she got for her 18th birthday.

Anna dialed the number and held her breath. The sounds of more fireworks and more chatter and more people being beyond obnoxious filled the background and Anna decided it best to lock herself in their massive pantry. It was quieter there. She could drown out the sounds of everybody to the point that she only heard the phone ringing, her heartbeat, and that same nervous and hopeful mantra.

Maybe 1997 was their year.

The ringing stopped cold. And then one aggressive beep later and Anna thought she might start sobbing.

She couldn’t hide the quivering in her voice. “Um, Elsa. Hi. Happy New Year!” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Um. It’s dad’s dumb disco party right now and everybody’s being so loud and boring, and I have nobody to hang out with, so I thought maybe…” Her voice cracked. “I thought maybe you’d be free, but. I guess you’re not. You’re probably, like, sleeping or something. Which makes sense, um, because. Time difference or whatever. But. I thought, maybe, since it’s New Year’s and all that you’d be free or still awake or something. Um.” Maybe 1997 was their year. A sob caught in her throat. “I miss you, Els. I really miss you. I know we don’t talk that much, and I know you have so much going on and school is stressful and I’m just your annoying little sister. But. I love you. I feel…” Anna took a deep breath in. Tears rolled at a steady pace down her cheeks. “Um. Never mind. Can you just—can you give me a call when you get this? I’d love to talk to you.” She couldn’t hold in the sobs anymore. Instead of a singular crack she broke down fully, her voice quaking with frantic cries. “I miss you, Elsa. I love you.” She had to take a minute to catch her breath. “Um—bye.”

The second Anna pressed end on the phone she collapsed onto the floor. She hadn’t bothered turning the light on in the pantry and now she was thankful for the darkness. It somehow comforted her. Like she was in an entirely different dimension. She needed that escape. Shit did she need that escape.

She didn’t know what to feel. She didn’t know how to feel. Her entire body was numb.

Why did she ever let herself get her hopes up again? It always ended the same way.

Disappointment.

This wasn’t their year. It was never going to be their year.

She was stuck in this endless cycle of loneliness and rejection and abandonment and she would never break free. Never.

[quasisengineeringcorner]

iPhone 11, One Month Review (from a Samsung User)

Now I know what y’all are thinking:  OH BOY! Look at this Samsung user about to gloat about how great Samsung is and how shitty iPhones are! Hurr durr....

Yeah, we don’t do that here.

No, this is intended to be an honest review of the iPhone (the iPhone 11 specifically) from someone who has had a Galaxy S5 and S9 Plus and, in all honesty, would still prefer Samsung (or at least Android) phones over Apple phones.  I’ll break this up into a few sections and keep it relatively short:  Interface, Usability, Compatibility, and Performance.  I’ll wrap things up with a general discussion about what I personally like/dislike about the platform and what I think can be done to improve it (if you are a fan of Louis Rossmann like I am, you can probably guess what my thoughts are).

Interface:

I will say as a first-time iPhone user, the interface...was a jumbling mess.  Once I got used to how it worked and the layout, I can now use it like I would any other phone.  It’s actually pretty intuitive to a certain point.  Apple definitely is unique in a lot of it’s interface preferences.  You get a standard home screen, and screens get added automatically when too many apps take up the space.  You can also force more screens to be added but that takes a bit of finger trickery I found.  If I really need an app that I don’t have on any of my personal screens, I have to scroll all the way to the right to the app list where I can search what I need. 

Customizing the interface isn’t really an option given the limited number of widgets (I may be missing something so I’ll probably need to look into that further).  You can create folders to simplify your screens, but that’s about it.  Apple really seems to like basic interfaces and minimalism.

Usability:

Again, here I struggled a bit trying to figure out how to actually use the phone.  A lot of things about how you interact with the phone seem “unique” for the sake of uniqueness rather than having an actual purpose.  First things, how do you access notifications and the phone’s “toolbar”? I was quite surprised that you have to swipe in two different areas of the phone to access each one individually (on Android devices, you swipe the top of the screen and you have access to both in a single interface).  Closing apps is about the same with the exception of how you open your app history.  I will say I like that rather than make it a software switch, Apple provides a hardware switch for silent mode (which has saved me many times during meetings). 

Probably the most frustrating usability item about the phone is navigating apps.  Why the ‘back’ button is on the top of the screen is beyond me.  You can get used to it like many things, but its one of those things where you really shouldn’t have to.

Compatibility:

I can’t really say much here.  I think a lot of the app/software compatibility issues Apple has had in the past with platforms like Google have been rectified.  That being said, I do appreciate the seamless experience within the Apple ecosystem.  They really do a good job of making sure everything works together.  (This is more third-hand experience as I have friends who are long-time Apple users who have discussed this and showed me.)

Performance:

I think this section needs a small preface:  I am comparing the performance of a newer-ish generation phone (iPhone 11) to one that is a few years older (S9 Plus).  That being said, I have not noticed any significant performance issues that couldn’t have already been attributed to something else (damage, battery age, etc.).  For general use, I haven’t noticed any difference in performance quality between either of the platforms.  It’s a phone, and if you use it like a phone, it’s gonna work just fine.

Opinions  and Suggestions:

Right out of the gate, I’m gonna say this:  I think the iPhone and Apple products in general are designed for a specific type of person.  I personally don’t like that I pretty much had to devote a month to learning new habits just to be able to use the iPhone like I would any other phone.  Maybe the interface makes more sense to that type of person, but it doesn’t to me.  That being said, I don’t hate the phone.  It’s a phone, and I treat it as such.  Would I buy an iPhone again? Perhaps.  But my preference still leans strongly towards Android.

My first suggestion is something I hope iPhone users can agree with me on:  GIVE THE DAMN THING AN OPTION FOR EXTERNAL MEMORY.  Do I appreciate that Apple provides their iCloud service? Yes, BUT I do not want to have to wonder whether my files are in there or not, and I definitely don’t want to have to pay for memory recovery on the off chance something happens to my phone. Give us an option for a removable SD card...please. 

My second suggestion (and this is pure personal preference, but maybe someone will agree with me) is to put the ‘back’ button on the bottom of the screen.  I don’t know who at Apple thought that was a good idea, but I really don’t like having to stretch my hand all the way across the screen to go back to a previous page.  Honestly, ergonomically speaking, it just makes sense.

My last suggestion is to add a ‘close all open apps’ button in the app history screen.  This is another thing where I’m not sure what the hell they were thinking and it would certainly make things easier on the users (since Apple likes to advertise their products’ simplicity). 

Closing Remarks:

As I have already said, ultimately, the iPhone is just that:  a phone.  You don’t really gain or lose much in terms of it just being a phone.  The same thing can be said of Android phones.  If you are just comparing the devices, there’s nothing really that elevates one over the other.  There’s something to be said about fanboy-ism in tech, and while I’m not going to talk at lengths about it here I think it really should be noted.  Overall, I’m neither impressed or disappointed with the iPhone.  It’s a good phone and it does its job.  And I think if you can say that about a product, any product, that should be more than enough.

[wildshadowtamer]

A Different Path (What If?) Ch 5

Summary: Perry came back from a non-heinz-related mission, covered in soot and quite out of breath, he expected to just spend a few hours doing paperwork, but when he logged into his profile, he saw something sickening.

Here is the story of why Perry hates OWCA.

Tags (Chapter Specific): Violence, Attempted Murder, Attempted Child Murder, Blood

Tags (Fic General): Ducky Momo - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, car crash, burn scars, burn victim, Fluff and Angst, warning: this fic is dark, especially the first chapter, Inspired by Fanfiction, Based on a Tumblr Post, AU, what if au, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Mentions of car crashes, Past Child Abuse, mentions of child abuse, mentions of child abandonment, Family Fluff, Fluff, Violence, Attempted Murder, Attempted Child Murder, Blood

Notes: Credit to @woulddieforperrytheplatypus for encouraging me to write this fic! TW for violence, attempted murder, attempted child murder, and blood

Rating: Mature

Read It On Ao3

or

Read It Here!

~~~~

July 18th, 2006

Perry came back from a non-heinz-related mission, covered in soot and quite out of breath, his entire body aching from the fight against 4 goons at once. He stumbled into his lair below D.E.I and collapsed tiredly onto his chair in front of his giant movie-like monitor, he sighed with a chittering noise and pulled the chair closer to the keyboard.

Then he remembered that he would likely need to do paperwork for arresting the villain he was up against, and likely file a mission report and summarize everything that happened. He laid his head on the desk and silently wished for something to happen so he could avoid it, but he knew there was no escaping endless paperwork, and so he turned on his monitor and clicked into his agent file.

Just as he was about to make a new mission report, he spotted something unusual on his file, a hazard sign flickering on his boys’ family file. Thats strange, did something happen while he was at work?

He puts his phone back on noise, as its usually on silent when he’s on missions, and checks his texts. No recent texts from Heinz.

He clicked into Phineas and Ferb’s file warily, the boys, as of last year, had started making amazing inventions and fun creations near daily in the summer and winter, and working on simple projects in the school months. Recently they had been making some admittedly extreme projects, including 3d printing monkeys and teaching them how to ride a unicycle, Perry still isn’t too sure how they cleaned it up before Charlene, Heinz’ ex-wife, saw it.

However, what Perry saw in the files made his fur stand on end; Each of their inventions had been logged and dated, each with a threat level, ranging from safe green to deadly red.

Threat Level? Their not even double digits, how could they be a threat to anyone except the laws of reality!?

Perry quickly scrolled to the most recent addition, today’s creation, which was apparently an ice cream machine gone wrong, and a few wrong wires turned it into a death ray. Perry nervously glanced to the glaring red threat level on screen, he checked the notes to make sure nobody got hurt.

Notes:

Death Ray was set off and hit a tree close to the house, but no person or animal was harmed. However, I still believe these boys to be a threat, no matter their age. Villains only make more villains.

Perry chittered angrily to himself at the notes, his hands shaking as he checked who had been logging the inventions; an older agent Perry was close to, Dennis The Rabbit. He had actually been Perry’s mentor back when he was a pup. 

But, if he was so close to perry, why would he call Phineas and Ferb ‘threats’ and ‘villains’? Their just kids who made a harmless mistake!

He shook his head and took a breath, death rays are no harmless mistake, no matter the result. He’ll have to have a serious talk with the whole family about wiring safety and double checking their work.

As he mentally rehearsed his lecture, he spotted a note added to the main file of the boys, and his thoughts screeched to a terrified halt.

Set to be ‘silenced’ at 5:00pm sharp, on D.E.I balcony by Agent Dennis The Rabbit

‘Silenced’? That can’t be good. Perry’s heart raced as he checked the time; 4:58. He still had time. He didn’t bother shutting down his monitor as he ran from his lair and grabbed his jetpack, making a beeline for the balcony before Dennis could get there.

He saw the boys building on balcony, unharmed and safe, and perry nearly relaxed, but he noticed a red-band fedora peeking over the lip of the open roof, and time slowed significantly.

Perry had to choose an option fast, either tackle Dennis and risk hitting the boys, or grab the boys and risking getting hit with it himself. He made up his mind, and silently begged Heinz to forgive him. 

A bright laserbeam of light shot down from the roof, aiming right at the boys, but Perry swooped down and grabbed a sheet of metal, throwing himself infront of Phineas and Ferb to deflect the laser, which bounced back and narrowly missed Dennis’ hat.

“Perry?” Phineas asked, but Perry was too focused, he grabbed the two by the wrist and shoved them inside as Dennis parachuted down from the roof and glared at Perry.

Neither needed to talk in animal tounge to know the other’s intent, both wanted to harm, but wanted to harm very, very different people.

Dennis gave a cocky smile and took his parachute off, letting it fall to the balcony floor as the two agents sized eachother up, standing only 6 feet apart.

The distance was shortly broken as Dennis tackled Perry to the floor, punching him hard across the face as the platypus grabbed him by the neck and flipped them both over so Perry was pinning Dennis. 

It became a raging battle of tooth and claw, blood splattering on their furs as they wrestled on the ground, and Perry nearly caught Dennis with his ankle barbs, but restrained himself enough to throw the smaller agent across the balcony and through the glass windows seperating the balcony from the apartment.

Glass shattered everywhere, catching Perry in the arm as the entire window crumbled to the ground in shards, but Perry didn’t care. He was struggling to stay steady, he knew if he let go of his restraint that he would kill the admittedly weaker agent. His venom could kill a lot of animals, but he knews his family would miss him if he was sent to jail, or worse, the pound.

Still, he ran across the shattered glass, ignoring the pain in his webbed feet, and grabbed Dennis by the front of the scruff, punching him square in the face mid-action jump. Dennis went limp, knocked out cold from the punch.

“Perry the Platypus, what’s going on in here-” Heinz stopped in his tracks as he looked between the two bloody agents, one unconscious and the other wielding a near-murderous glare, and the shattered window behind them. 

Perry simply held up his clawed paws and signed “O-W-C-A”

Heinz pulled a notepad from his labcoat pocket and handed it to Perry “what did OWCA do? And why is an agent on my floor? The boys said you pushed them inside without a hello.” The scientist explained, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously

It took a few minutes, but Perry eventually shoved a series of notes into Heinz’s hands, and walked over to his jetpack on the balcony, which he had abandoned as he grabbed the metal sheet.

OWCA planned to ‘silence’ the boys with some sort of laser, they didn’t tell me. Dennis was the one to shoot them, but i got in the way and deflected it just in time. The -inator is on the roof. I’ll explain the rest later, right now i have someone to talk to.

“Someone to talk to? But perry, your inju-” Heinz stopped as he watched Perry fly away anyway, apparently uncaring of his injuries. Heinz was mad, thats for sure, but not just mad at OWCA. He was mad at, and quite disappointed in, himself.

If he had just kept an eye on the boys or brought them inside when he went to check on Candace & Vanessa, Perry wouldn’t have gotten hurt, and Perry wouldn’t be so mad. 

Perry came to a stop at OWCA HQ’s entrance, and, despite the searing pain in his feet and body, he couldn’t care less. He was infuriated, shaking with such anger he almost saw red. When he finds Monogram, he’s gonna give that monobrowed cheapskate liar a piece of his mind.

The automatic sliding doors of HQ opened as Perry was scanned by the facial recognition software, he stormed inside with a walk that Heinz once described as a “murder walk”, meaning with each minute Perry considers his option, jail seems increasingly preferred.

The other agents knew that walk, and all kept their distance from the top agent as he stormed past all of them, headed straight for the Major’s office.

“He’s definitely qutting today” Monty, the Major’s son, whispered to a human agent from canada, Lyla, Perry was sure her name was. Lyla glanced at Perry, then back to Monty, and nodded.

Like the controlled, trained agent Perry is, he kept his composure enough to only kick the door to monogram’s office off the hinges, and not throw it at him like he really wanted to. Carl recognised that enraged look in his eyes, and quickly left the room.

“Ah. Agent P. What’re you doing here?” Monogram asked warily, knowing full well, but trying to stall some time. All he got in response was an angry chitter, monogram sighed “I didn’t want to do it either, but when it comes down to the safety of the agency, we can’t have a pair of villains running around with a death ray!”

The word ‘villain’ echoed in perry’s head, his agent mind getting drowned out by pure anger as everything went red and Perry activated the chitter-to-speech translator built into his collar.

Monogram paled as he realised what he had just done.

And Perry snapped. 

Half an hour later,

Perry had left the door open, so everyone in view of the office, which would be half the agency as all of them wanted to hear this, could see and hear perry’s furious rant.

They collectively gasped as he grabbed his fedora and threw it down on the floor angrily “I’ve had enough of this agency, and i’ve had enough of YOU” Perry yelled “I QUIT.”

Monogram, pale in the face and speechless, spluttered “you- you can’t do that!”, Perry slammed a fist on the flipped office desk “well i just did.” he snarled, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the office, the agents parting like curtains to let Perry past without him hitting someone.

There was a dead silence as everyone watched their ex-best agent leave HQ for good, eventually, Monty spoke up

“Y’know,” he looks over to his father “you kinda had it coming.” he commented calmly,  hands in his hoodie pockets. He shrunk into his hood as his father glared at him, who then took a breath and flipped his table to the right way up

“Carl, get to work on Agent P’s termination paperwork. I don’t think we’re getting him back.” Monogram told the 16-year-old unpaid intern, who peeked his head through the doorway “a-alright sir, i’ll get right to it”

Heinz knew something was wrong from the moment Perry stepped foot back in the apartment, still bleeding and scratched up. 

“Perry? What did you do?” he asked his pet nervously, Perry gave a momentary glare before taking a breath and relaxing a bit, he turned off his translator in his collar and wrote something on the spare notepad he keeps next to the couch, sitting down

I quit.

Heinz spluttered “wh- you what?”, he couldn’t believe it! Perry The Platypus, his nemesis since the day perry could fight, quit his job at OWCA?

Perry tapped the same note in reiteration, then added another sentence

I quit.

Monogram tried to hurt my brothers, and i just can’t tolerate that. I was going to leave next summer anyway, he doesn’t even treat his agents with basic respect.

“Well- yeah i get that, i’d quit too if my boss tried to, y’know, kill my children and all” Heinz had calmed down from his internal rage at both OWCA and himself from almost an hour earlier, “but what are you going to do now? Being an agent was Your Thing, and who’s going to be my nemesis?” He asked, and Perry had no answer, except a helpless shrug

I’ll think about it. I need more time with the kids and you anyway, it’ll be good not to have work for a few weeks.

“Great idea! Maybe you can help out with their inventions! Oh and I know Phineas has been wanting to show you his and Ferb’s creations. Their getting very talented!” he gasped “Maybe take them to that Googleplex Mall and take them shopping, you need a new collar anyways” He suggested, and Perry thought about it for a minute, then smiled a bit and nodded

“Brilliant!” he pulls a blank calender from behind the couch, how did perry not spot that? “Here, i’ve been working on an Inator that works similarly to a time machine, it runs mostly on calendars so i went out when you were working and bought a bunch of them, i hope you don’t mind.” Heinz rambled, Perry smiled and took the calender, using his pen to plan some events him and the kids could do, he was really looking forward to this.

Leaving OWCA was the best thing Perry ever could’ve done.

[fortheloveofluxuryxo]

How to Navigate the World of Online ESL

Written by Gina Gainous

The purpose of this article is to share detailed information about the most popular online ESL companies, along with some of my personal experiences and anecdotes from other teachers I’ve come across in Facebooks groups and teaching blogs. Before we get started, I’ll give a small self introduction. I’m a biracial woman from the United States with a Bachelor’s Degree in English as a Second Language Education (K-12) and my TESOL certificate. I worked in various schools in my hometown and abroad for the first two years of my career. Nowadays, I work 100% remotely for a company called Liulishuo based in Beijing, China. To begin, I’ll cover some of the basics.

Peak Hours If the company is based in China, they will expect you to work peak hours:

6-9 PM Monday through Friday, Beijing Standard Time

9AM-10PM Saturday and Sunday, Beijing Standard Time

Depending on where you reside, this might mean working early mornings. Currently, I reside on the west coast, and I typically teach from 5AM-8AM on weekdays. Make sure to calculate the time difference before applying. These hours aren’t for everyone, especially if you’re not a morning person. Companies based outside of China will offer afternoon and evening classes, but since they’re smaller you may not get that many bookings. The pay is usually lower as well.

Students Children: Most companies you’ll come across only offer classes with children, who are usually between the ages of 5-14. You may have the option of only teaching older children in middle and high school, but if you’re open to younger students you’ll have many more options. Adults: Some companies offer adult classes, if you’re not interested in teaching children. However, the pay is usually lower.

Salary Scale Base pay: This is the rate of pay you’re guaranteed. Most Chinese companies start their base pay between $15-$18. Companies located in other countries, like Russia or Spain, will have a much lower base pay (between $9-13 per hour) and usually won’t offer any bonus pay. Bonus pay: This is what you’ll see in most advertisements - “Up to $22.00 per hour!” - and depends on a number of factors. Some companies will give you a booking bonus or an attendance bonus. For example, if you teach 100 or so more classes a month, they’ll pay you an additional $2.00 per hour. They may also pay a $2.00 bonus if you open slots during peak hours. So if your base pay is $18, adding the extra $4 will bring your total pay to $22.00/hour. Buyout pay: Very few companies offer this pay structure, but if you’re lucky you might be able to score a contract. Basically, the company will pay you just for keeping your slots open, even if they aren’t booked. Sometimes it’s just a portion, sometimes it’s the whole salary. However, this usually means base pay is fairly low and they may not offer additional bonus pay. In the past, Gogo Kid and DaDaABC used to offer this as a perk, but to my knowledge they changed their contracts last year. Current teachers have confirmed this in 2020.

Payment Methods Bank transfer: This is the method I recommend the most, if the company provides it as an option. There are less fees with bank transfer and they are deposited directly into your account on payday. Paypal: The most popular method of payment. Usually involves both a conversion fee and an instant transfer fee, which add up after a while.

Class Types: Private classes (1 to 1): Teachers instruct one student. These are usually 25 minutes long. Some companies, such as SayABC, have 40 or 50 minute long classes. Small group classes (between 3-4 students): Teachers instruct a small group of students. Again, these classes are usually 25 minutes long. Larger group classes (6 or more students): Some companies offer larger group classes. In this case, they’ll expect you to stand up and will project your webcam in a classroom. These classes usually require a teacher’s assistant who is actually present in the room to help with classroom management.

Important things to note: 1. A lot of companies will provide the lessons for you, but they’ll expect you to have your own class materials. Things like whiteboards, markers, letter cut outs, puppets, dolls, toys, models, and more. Keep in mind, teachers can only write off $100 from their taxes if they pay for materials out of pocket, so be careful of your budget. 2. A revolving door is oftentimes a red flag. If you notice that a specific company is always hiring or posting ads, that’s not a good sign. It either means they have too many teachers and not enough students so booking slots stay empty, or that their teachers are constantly quitting. Which leads me to my next point... 3. Many online teachers have turned to recruiting. As recruiters, their companies will pay them a bonus based on how many people were hired after using their affiliate link to apply, and if those applicants teach enough classes. They are responsible for helping their recruits through the interview process, giving them advice for how to pass the assessments, and getting them familiar with the software. However, be wary of this because some people who have signed up via recruiter link have reported their mentors disappearing soon afterwards. This is not meant to be accusatory, but it is a common occurrence as observed on many Facebook Online ESL Teaching groups. 4. Remember, if the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Get all the details, in words you can understand, before signing the contract and making the commitment. 5. Most companies only hire what they consider to be “Native English Speakers”. These are people who hold a passport from the following countries: The United States, The UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand [and sometimes South Africa]. This means that even if you speak English perfectly and have the right credentials, if your passport is from a country not listed above then you are considered a Non-Native English Speaker. There are some companies that hire NNES, but they will offer a significantly lower base pay. (Note: many of the bigger companies only hire people from the United States or Canada. A list of companies that hire Non-Native English Speakers can be found at the end of this article.) 6. Most companies only hire those with Bachelor Degrees. It’s preferred that your degree relates to Education or Child Development, but most of the time they’ll accept anything. You may also need a TEFL or TESOL certificate as well, along with some teaching experience. You can sign up for a short course on Groupon. A few of them cost less than $10. (There are some companies that hire without a degree, which are listed at the end of this article.) 7. You are considered an Independent Contractor, NOT an employee. You do not have the same protections you might be used to at a brick and mortar job. This means that these companies can fire you for any reason, or without a reason, at any time. On the other hand, this also means you can also quit for any reason at any time. However, keep in mind that many companies have been known to withhold the final paycheck if this occurs, and there’s not much you can do about it since they’re based in another country and don’t adhere to your country’s laws. It’s best not to burn bridges. 8. A lot of the bigger and popular online ESL companies are geared towards young students between the ages of 5-14 years old. They’ll want to see high energy, the use of props, and general silliness, hence why online educators have coined the term “edutainer”. You must ask yourself if your personality fits this kind of job, because they will expect you to perform in this way during your interview and also in your classes.

Companies to avoid (and why): VIPKid - suspected of data mining, new teachers wait months before getting regular bookings, mixed success with POC teachers, “edutainers” Likeshuo - racist policies, has been seen advertising for white teachers only Acadsoc - low base pay, non-communicative staff, low quality lesson plans iTutorGroup/51Talk - teachers are rated by students and if they get one low rating for a class they can be fired, unresponsive IT staff, inflexible time off policy, harsh cancellation policy Magic Ears - long training process, slow bookings for new teachers, you MUST teach in their style or else you won’t get bookings

Companies I’ve worked for and liked: Liulishuo - communicative staff, offer professional development, offer buyout schedule, hiring freezes, good quality lesson plans, quick and reliable payment each month, responsive IT team Golden Voice English - high quality lesson plans, good students, communicative staff, quick and reliable payment each month, responsive IT team

Companies I’ve worked for and didn’t like: Micro Language - late pay, wouldn’t put black people/POC in their new program despite being top tutors, poor quality lessons with grammar and spelling errors, non-communicative staff, made multiple changes to teaching contracts without input from teachers DaDaABC - offered low base pay, unfair time off policy, removed many of the perks from their new contracts Cambly - difficult students, women often experience sexual harassment from male students, POC teachers have reported racial microaggressions from students, no structured format, pay is low, lots of student no shows or last minute cancellations with no penalty for students

Companies that only hire from The United States/Canada/UK: QKids (and you MUST be based in The US or Canada) Golden Voice English VIPKids English First (US/UK) OpenEnglish

Companies that hire WITHOUT a degree: Magic Ears Cambly Palfish OpenEnglish LatinHire Preply Verbling Learnship Acadsoc SkimaTalk Italki Learnlight 31ABC (but they require teaching experience)

Companies that hire Non-Native English Speakers: Preply Voxy (must have some college credits) Learnship Yiyi English LatinHire

Companies that offer adult-only classes: Huajing Liulishuo English First Learnlight Italki Cambly OpenEnglish

To wrap things up, I’ll share a few more points to look out for in your job search. GREEN FLAGS - They implement hiring freezes so they don’t overhire teachers. Offers professional development opportunities. Quick responses from IT. Quick responses from HR. RED FLAGS - Spam-like advertisements. Lots of recruiter links on Facebook posts or other websites. I hope this guide helps you find the perfect position! ~~~~~

Gina Gainous is a state licensed ESL teacher that hails from the midwestern United States. She can be reached for further questions or inquiries at ginagainous@gmail.com.

[carolyncaves]

Hey op, I was wondering if you could give me some advice? High school senior here and I have no idea what to do with my life. Is accounting really as painfully boring as it's reputed to be? I'm a perfectionist and a good student and I feel like that might be helpful, but I've also nearly fallen asleep many times in math class. (I'm more a science and humanities person.) Is accounting actually as tedious and unfulfilling as people say? Do you like your job? Do you have any career advice??

Oh, no, advice ...

I've been sitting on this because I wanted to do your ask justice, and then it ended up extremely long - I'm apparently constitutionally incapable of giving advice without giving all the advice, just to be thorough. I started with my impressions of the accounting field and why I went into it (in case any of that resonates with you either way) and made it all the way to a probably-too-abstract meditation/ramble on careers, work, and purpose. Since I'm just a dumb 27 year old who is not entirely successful (yet) in any area of my life, you should maybe (definitely) take everything below with a grain of salt. But here are some things I think I've learned:

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life either. I went to an engineering high school, but decided it wasn't for me because I didn't really care about it and wasn't spending my spare time tinkering with robots like some of my classmates. I almost majored in physics, but switched to accounting at the last second because I decided I probably didn't want to spend my whole life in a basement fine-tuning lasers.

I went into accounting because I thought math was boring but I was good at it, and I figured accounting might straddle the math-type-brain with the people-stories-humanities things that were more interesting to me. This is somewhat true - financial accounting is not math (thank goodness), but someone who is good at one will probably be good at the other and it is quite satisfying the way balance sheets always balance. (You can get into more math-and-statistics-intensive applications, but base accounting is just adding and Microsoft Excel, which is unironically one of the greatest tools humankind has ever created. How you feel about that opinion might tell you a lot about whether it's the right field for you lol.)

'Accounting' is really (at least) three entirely different types of job:

‘Industry accounting’ is the accountants who work for a business and keep track of its numbers. They record everything, analyze the data, and organize it into reports called financial statements, which are then given to the CEO, the board of directors, the shareholders, etc. to tell them how the company is doing.

‘Public accounting’ (as in Certified Public Accountant) has two main subclasses:

Audit, where you get hired by businesses to independently examine their financial statements and provide some verification that the managers who prepared them aren't lying or mistaken.

Tax, where you do taxes for people and businesses.

(+1: If you're a tech-savvy person, there's a huge amount of potential for crossover into technology work - data science, financial software, etc, etc. Though IT work has its own delights and frustrations.)

All three flavors of accounting require not only technical accounting knowledge but also at least some degree of business acumen to be truly good at (you'll develop this over time; I barely have any, the partners at my firm are very astute), and any of them can can put you literally anywhere, because everyone in every industry and lots of individuals need an accountant. (There are cross-state licensing issues that can affect how literal 'anywhere' is, so if you want to work somewhere specific that's a good thing to research in advance when planning out your degree, but even these are for the most part eminently surmountable). So particularly on the public side of things, it's a field that can expose you to a lot of different people and situations, and that's interesting. I like getting a glimpse of someone's life when I prepare their tax return. (I think I prefer individual returns to business returns for this reason, among others.) And if you're someone who likes business, it is a fantastic field from which to study it and could position you well for a more generally-businessy position down the road. (I have frankly found that I ... do not, so much. So keep that in mind when considering the rest of this opinion piece.)

All three types of accounting are, by their very nature, repetitive, in the sense that they're cyclical - you do the journal entries and close the books on one month, or you do a hundred tax returns and get through tax season, and then you do it all over again. Accounting isn't a field that really makes or does things - it measures what other people are doing, over and over and over again. It's a keeping-the-lights-on-and-wheels-running kind of field. It matters, because all three of those functions above are important in the context of our current economic arrangement. But some people are going to be happy doing that and some people are not.

Public accounting also has pretty punishing work schedules during crunch times. I can attest to that for tax (my current field), and have heard it's at least partially true for audit. This can be a good thing in some ways (I happen to like it), because it means there are some relaxed times as well - but again, some people are going to like the up-and-down rhythm and some people are going to want something more steady. (If you find this one isn't for you, you can always leave public accounting after a year or two and go into industry - that's what many people's planned trajectories are from the get go.)

In all three corners it's a field about developing expertise. You're doing something complicated for people which they don't know how to do for themselves, and you do sometimes get to come up with crucial information and/or creative solutions to help them. And in the broad societal scopes of public policy and the health of the economy, people having that expertise - in tax and its ramifications, in business, in financial accounting, in principled and accurate auditing - is important.

In a world where most of us regrettably have to do something for money, accounting is a pretty okay thing to do, and it pays money.

Being in the workforce for a few years has made me come to imagine a lot of things are tedious in some ways and important and interesting in others. Our incredibly complex global civilization goes because different people become experts in the minute, tedious details of their own different things, and then they all work in their own corners of the huge, infinitely complex machine. Tinkering with robots and living in laser-filled-basements are not that dissimilar to reading discourse over the minutia of the United States tax code. (These are all examples from relatively technical/'professional' career areas, because I don't really have first-hand experience with anything else (yet) - but maybe someone will chime in on that front in the notes.)

The extremely good news, which I can't emphasize enough, is that you're going to have a lot of opportunities to pivot, or change direction, or try different things, to eventually find the thing that at worst you don't mind becoming something of an expert in, and at best you absolutely love. I've already had three extremely different jobs, all of which have been very informative in terms of what I Do and Do Not like. It's surprising how often that doesn't line up with what I expected when I was younger. You might of course have a different experience - the point is you have plenty of time to experiment and find out.

But if I don't LOVE my career, isn't that terrible? Time for a confession, or something: I've always been an achiever-type, and in my youthier youth I would've answered the above question 'yes' - but in my first few of years out of school, whenever anyone would ask me what my future plans were, my answer was always '... I don't know? Try to get promoted, I guess?' I was really leaning on the external validation of what a 'good career' was without running that past whether it was what I wanted to achieve with my life. And over time that had a noticeable effect on my wellbeing. You're right that perfectionism will help, no matter what you go into - but you should be careful to keep an eye on whether it's really mostly helping your boss, and whether it's doing it at your expense. Don't get me wrong, this will make you a fantastic and therefore valued (read: employed) employee. Just be wary of it getting out of hand. (You might find you need to practice figuring out how and when to prioritize yourself even if it's inconvenient for others. I'm still practicing that now.)

Anyway, after a lot of reflection, I began to refine my idea of my capital-P Purpose, and it has little to do with working in a shiny fancy office or having a successful-sounding job title next to a well-known employer's name or really anything to do with accounting. Those things were only superficially rewarding. I'm working on rearranging my life to abandon some of the more costly ones to make room for my Purpose as I've come to understand it, and my license keeps me in overpriced coffees and, like, a house. It means even an occasionally disastrous person like me is doing reasonably okay (so far).

Some people love careers like that, though. Some people love living in basements full of lasers. It's really so individual. For me, it became clearer when I connected the dots between the things I kept coming back to time and time again, even in my most difficult moments, even years or decades apart. For other people, it might be very different.

But at the moment, you may not have all the information you need yet to make determinations about Purpose. Why would you, you're a baby; heck, so am I. It might evolve over the whole course your life. My main advice for you would be to just try something, or several things - whatever seems most interesting, or most practical, or ideally both! - and see how it goes. Like I said above, that will give you experiences instead of guesses, which will help you know. And you really do have so much time to work with. The most important thing, the thing I would tell my younger self, is to make sure that every so often you pause and honestly look. How do I feel about what I'm doing? Does it feel good because I like it, or because other people like it? Am I actually interested in building on and using the things I'm learning? Do I have a plan for the future? Is there anything about it I want to change, or add, or that doesn't actually matter to me? (And perhaps "What would I be doing right now/want to be doing in five years if I didn't have to make money?", because that might give you hints to what you want your money-career - if it isn't the same thing as your Purpose - to give you room for.)

Did I mention I think it's very individual? I think it's very individual. I invite anyone to add their own numerous-cents to this post - alternate takes on the accounting field (do you love it passionately? please tell this person why), additional career or life advice, etc. I'm just one person who's walking my one narrow path through the world with its particular terrain. Everyone's is going to look different.

P.S. Ask a Manager is imo an indispensable resource for getting a job - resumes, cover letters, interviews. Literally it has gotten me all my jobs.

It also gives a lot of great advice about what to consider in an employer and potential red flags - and I can attest that the culture of the company you work for and the management skills and style of your supervisor(s) matter more than almost anything when it comes to your day-to-day happiness in a job. This is part personal fit, part objective competence. It's not the end of the world if you take a misstep here either - it's something you figure out, just like everything else. You can do almost anything for a year - and you are NOT COMPELLED to even stay that long if it's really not working out.

P.P.P.S - and this is way out there ... I was exceptionally good at both reading/English and math as a young person - and it’s interesting that when that’s true, the careers people throw at you are all STEM-related. It’s almost as if people are predisposed to thinking STEM fields are more important, and that smart people belong in them. I have come to feel strongly that isn’t the case.

A lot of people (at least in my western/US culture) feel the humanities are an afterthought, but when I think about it, I think there are and have always been two main sources of human suffering in the world: nature and its limitations (hunger, health and disease, weather and environment, etc.) and other humans (war, murder, racism/sexism/all oppression and hatred, conquering and imperialism, poverty/socioeconomic inequality, and also elements of the way societies are organized that affect hunger, and health and disease, and weather and the environment, and so on).

STEM work is hugely important to making improvements in the first category, and helps with the second (it gives us the internet and weapons to defend ourselves from evil people who want to destroy us, for example). But a lot of the fundamental root issues in that second category are in the sphere of culture and the humanities - law and politics, sure, but those are derived from history, sociology and psychology, literature, cultural studies, philosophy, ethics, education, journalism, literature and the arts and pop culture (which informs and is informed by all of the above). The world needs smart people in those fields as well as STEM and business.

STEM fields often offer more money, or more certain money. Business fields offer sometimes significantly more. That’s a practical element to consider. And if you like a STEM thing, or a business thing, and want to go into it, please do and do fabulous things with it. All I mean is that if you find yourself considering a career in a humanities field, don’t be dissuaded only because people seem to think you’re too smart for it and would be better off doing something else.

[prorevenge]

Underpay me, lie to derail a competing job offer and then try to humiliate me in front of the entire department? Say goodbye to your dignity and (eventually) job/business!

I'm going to leave out specific details about the company and people in question here, as some people also know about this story and I don't want to be identified.

TL;dr:

Company I'm loyal to takes advantage of my delayed graduation to underpay me

They lie to me so that I don't take a better job offer

They then claim my performance is an issue as an excuse to delay my pay raise

When I finally resign, my supervisor tries and spectacularly fails to make me look bad, and instead looks like a horrible, volatile boss.

Her department rapidly bleeds its experts in the months following my departure (I like to think this is in part because of my publicly awful treatment).

Chapter 1: The Good Years

BoringCorp hired me as an intern in the second year of my six year nightmare of college (long story). I was installed as a low-level support technician in the internal IT department, as I was a "wild card" hire, based on a recommendation and didn't have the usual qualifications.

In the three years I worked in the IT department (part time), I reimagined large aspects of how internal IT managed a plethora of internal services at the company. I designed and built several complex software systems to automate inter-department processes, systems management, security and compliance auditing and the like. Over those years I built a significant reputation for myself across many departments, including HR, the security team, engineering, marketing, etc. as someone who could not just "get stuff done", but also improve lots of other things in the process.

Chapter 2: The Downward Turn

Upon graduating, I was encouraged by my team lead (who is an awesome person) to look for a role better aligned to my skill set, and secured a role in the engineering department's systems engineering/automation team. I was offered a graduate salary, something I was unhappy with, as while technically a graduate, I had almost four years' experience in the industry at that point, and had demonstrated significant technical ability. Engineers from other departments often asked me to troubleshoot their code, so it wasn't like I was an unknown at this stage. Regardless, I accepted on the condition that I would be rapidly advanced.

As soon as I started with my new team, it was apparent that the company's engineering department was in some serious strife. Our single team of less than 10 people maintained a mostly undocumented codebase, supporting the deployment and automation of tens of millions of dollars of live customer sites... And stuff was always breaking.

Being the perfectionist and pathological problem solver I am, I immediately started looking for root causes. Most of the rest of the team, who were principally software engineers with no IT or systems background, or otherwise very inexperienced (grads with no work experience and first time interns), continued to chip away at the surface, without considering the source of our problems. This caused some friction with management, but I managed to convince them of the value of my work.

Six months in, I had identified major issues with our documentation, written up some basic (and easy-to-use) documentation standards, and even documented a large chunk of our projects. I had set up an incident logging process, and tried to pare back on our alerting/pager system to reduce "alert fatigue" and get more prompt responses from on-call team members during outages. No pay raise or even any acknowledgement of my efforts.

Chapter 3: The Struggles Begin

No one was interested in my work. No one documented anything, despite my making it as easy as possible. People kept adding bad code to fix short term problems, and despite my repeated pleas (literally every day at standup) this problem continued. Eventually I became pretty despondent about the whole thing and just started chipping away like everyone else, and commiserating with another new hire (senior engineer) who had significantly more experience than me and was equally horrified at the state of things.

I was then contacted by a recruiter for another company. Now at this point, note that I was still feeling a degree of allegiance to BoringCorp - they had treated me very well in years gone by, and I wanted to do right by them, despite their current struggles. So I kept my manager (who we shall call 'Z') in the loop about interviewing, and when I was offered a job with almost double my "graduate" salary, I told her first and gave her plenty of time for a counter offer. She assured me that they would match the offered salary within a month, and that the process was actually already underway (more on this later).

I turned down the job offer, which resulted in getting my ear chewed off by the recruiter and a very uncomfortable phone call from the CTO of the other company, almost begging me to join.

... Three weeks later, no news. I followed up. "We are looking into it, but I want you to communicate to the team why you haven't been around as much." Well, for starters the company had flexible working arrangements, and I had made it clear on multiple occasions that I was working from home. In addition, the reason I worked from home so much, is that my teammates, all of whom bar two were paid much more than me, would pester me with basic technical questions. I was sick of having my work disrupted so I could give first-year college tutorials on computer networking.

I explained this to my manager as diplomatically as possible (I avoided ripping into her about the ridiculous and offensive pay difference), and she asked me to "communicate more". Yeah, okay. I did that.

Chapter 4: The Last Straw+Camel

Three more weeks. Two past the deadline. No news. I follow up again - and hear basically the same complaint, despite having communicated very clearly and (grudgingly) worked from home less.

I started looking for a new job, again. Within three weeks I was five interviews deep in the process for an overseas company, and had a salary offer of four times my original salary. This was based not just on spoken interviews but also technical testing and work samples, so it wasn't just me overselling myself. At this point I became very angry at the degree to which BoringCorp was undervaluing me. I accepted the competing offer on the spot and started making plans to move. I also went back to working from home when I felt like it.

Fast forward two weeks, and I'm ready to put in my notice. I do so, and almost immediately I get an aggravated-sounding text message on my personal phone stating "we haven't seen you much this week and I expect you to be in for a meeting tomorrow." Clearly this set alarm bells ringing that it was a termination meeting and they were going to try to cheat me of my final pay.

Having worked in IT (and in fact having automated a significant chunk of HR processing), I was very familiar with the company's user offboarding processes. I looked for a work ticket logging my departure... And there wasn't one. Strange - policy dictates that one must be created. It occurred to me that in the past, handling dismissals, these tickets were raised with very restricted access permissions, so that the soon-to-be ex-employee had no prior warning.

Of course, I still happened to have some admin credentials in my password safe (used for automation, and which I had thankfully forgotten to delete). Upon logging in with those, sure enough, I found my very own ticket! Turns out they weren't trying to fire me, instead my supervisor (Z) wanted to put me on "involuntary paid leave" for the duration of my notice period. She also wanted me to clear out my desk during the daytime, in front of my colleagues, and deny my the chance to say proper farewells, etc.

Well, knowledge is power here. I spent the first hour backing up all of my personal data off my work laptop. I then wiped the disk clean and rotated the disk encryption keys, to ensure none of my data or personal project work could be recovered. I drove to work at 2am, cleaned out my desk and took everything home in complete privacy, and then went to sleep.

The next day, I walked in at 7:30am, dropped my wiped laptop with my old team and said my farewells. Also took the time to explain why I was basically getting booted out of the building. There was a lot of unhappiness - towards Z.

Then I went and said farewell to my current team. They were horrified by the situation and also were rather displeased with Z. I caught up with some of my closer friends that I'd worked with over the years and said my goodbyes to them as well. We had a nice, relaxed morning chatting about the good ole times and drinking coffee.

Then the meeting came along... Well, suffice to say, Z was rather disappointed that I had already handed in my laptop and cleared my desk. She grudgingly said I could stay for the rest of the day, seeing as I had already done everything I needed to do, and left in a huff.

Epilogue: The Aftermath

A few months had gone by, and I was now happily settled into my new job. I learned through contacts at the company that since my very rude expulsion, many senior engineers have left. They'd had to restructure the department to try to fix their product delivery issues, and were still unable to fix anything because all of the people who knew the functionality of the system (myself because of my documentation push, and the other engineers who built it) had left in disgust at the poor morale and working environment.

Last I heard, Z was still in her current role, but the company was bleeding cash and constantly downsizing. I don't imagine management was too chuffed with her performance.

(source) (story by Throwawayyyyyyy11235)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT TIMES

Maybe it's a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user. Are some more important than turning off the unsexy filter and the schlep filter, except it keeps you engaged. I because you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to write about it. My guess is that these multiples aren't even constant. And moreover has advanced views, for 2004, on founders retaining control of their companies. Err on the side of generosity. And often these gaps won't seem to be any good. Because they're good guys and they're trying to help people can also help you with investors. Microsoft. We were supposed to read novels and write essays about them. Why isn't it? This is what you end up with a startup idea in one month, what if they'd chosen a month before the Altair appeared?

You probably do need to be a bigger danger than eating too little. Their stock price has been flat for years. The disadvantage of believing that all programming languages are equivalent is that it's not true. So there's another difference between essays and the things one has to write in high school. One answer is the default for startups, and chance meetings with people who help you—are driven by exit strategies. By the second conference, what Web 2. A particularly promising way to be unusual is to be strong: to keep one's sense of humor is to be wounded by them. The most amusing thing written during this period, Liudprand of Cremona's Embassy to Constantinople, is, I suspect, mostly inadvertantly so. What I really want is to have good startup ideas is not think up but notice. You can compile or run code while reading, read or run code while reading, read or run code while compiling, and read or compile code at runtime. Either VCs will evolve down into this gap or, more likely, new investors will be compelled by the structure of the investments they make to be ten times bolder than present day VCs. At the mention of ugly source code, people will of course think of Perl.

The professors will establish scholarly journals and publish one another's papers. We learned quickly that the most important may be that once you have enough people interested in the same way taking a shower lets your thoughts drift. The alternative approach might be called the Hail Mary strategy. One of the biggest dangers of not using the organic strategy, you could instead spend making it better. You may dispute either of the premises, but if I get free of Mr Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting what I do is somewhere between a river and a roman road-builder. He said VCs told him this almost never happened. This varies from field to field in the arts, but most of them don't.

But the superficial ugliness of Perl is not the actual time it takes to write a function that generates accumulators—a function that generates accumulators—a function that refers to variables defined in enclosing scopes by defining a class with one method and a field to replace each variable from an enclosing scope. Having people around you caring about startups, which is like a sort of short-order cook, making whatever the client tells you to. Unless you become proportionally more disciplined, willfulness will then get the upper hand, and your achievement will revert to the mean. It cost $2800, so the only people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, and then all your victims escape. This problem afflicts not just every era, but in distinct elements. If you make fun of your little brother for coloring people green in his coloring book, your mother is likely to tell you something like you like to do that. When you write something telling people to be good at math than memorizing long strings of digits, even though the latter depends more on determination than brains. The only style worth having is the one you can't help. He responded so eagerly that for about half a second I found myself considering doing it.

Recursion means repetition in subelements, like the print media, or trying to tack upwind by suing their customers, like Microsoft and the record labels. You can hold onto this like a rope in a hurricane, and it frees conscious thought for the hard problems. So why did I spend 6 months working on this stupid idea? It's probably no coincidence that so many famous speakers are described as motivational speakers. If it's not what you want to find startup ideas, you have the prospect of starting a startup just doesn't seem real. So you spread rapidly through all the colleges. At least, it did when people wrote about it online. A good way to trick yourself into seeing the ideas around you. If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great things, this will probably increase the number of startup people around you.

A few days ago. Just build things. Audiences like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words. What about the other half, ferreting out the unexpected. I could have thought of that. But something seems to come with practice. Their first site was exclusively for Harvard students, of which there are only a few thousand, but those few thousand users wanted it a lot.

It's hard to guess what the future will be like the past in caring nothing for present fashions. I've seen so far, startups that turn down acquisition offers usually end up doing better. The problem with feeling you're doomed is not just that people can't find you. But vice versa as well. What are we unconsciously ruling out as impossible that will soon be possible? Good design is often slightly funny. And so good writers just you wait and see who's still in print in 300 years are less likely to have readers turned against them by clumsy, self-appointed tour guides. Did they want French Vanilla or Lemon? What people delete are wisecracks, because they demand near perfection. So if you start trading derivatives, you can fix it yourself.

VCs are money managers. They still met with them, no one knows in programming who the heroes should be. VCs aren't interested in such small deals. Ideas 8 and 9 together mean that you can find plenty that are cheap or even untaken.1 In the mid twentieth century there was a fast path out of an idea, how do you choose between ideas? Number 6 is starting to appear in the mainstream. Even good founders can be in denial about this.2 They try to figure out what's going to happen, and arrange to be standing there when it does. They didn't have ads for over a year. Google has as big a problem as they might think.

Notes

Founders weren't celebrated in the long term than one who shouldn't? The reason only 287 have valuations is that in Silicon Valley, MIT Press, 1973, p. When we work with the idea of happiness from many older societies. You end up making something that would help Web-based software will make developers pay more attention to not screwing up.

Certainly a lot of startups that get funded this way that weren't visible in Silicon Valley. They may not be formally definable, but since it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that get funded this way, I was writing this, I asked some founders who'd taken series A from a 6/03 Nielsen study quoted on Google's site. Note: This is almost always bullshit.

[theothertrack]

PhoneX Review : Best Budget SmartPhone under $200

Being 7x cheaper than flagships, I never thought PhoneX could be worth anything at all. Luckly I was intrigued by the design to pick it up. And then.

"Numbers say nothing about a device", I used to say. I was a firm believer in pricey brand names. But the PhoneX completely flipped my way of thinking. The Phone X series from latest smartphone startup has helped shape what the budget smartphone segment in this world is today. We've had some iconic phones such as the XonePhone, and now the PhoneX, all of which upped the performance war in the budget segment by introducing powerful SoCs under $200. With a vibrant 6.3" screen, triple camera system for real life-alike photos and stellar performances powered by Android underneath the hood — the PhoneX is a true flagship phone. And with 32GB of space and ultra-fast facial recognition technology, you will be amazed to discover everything this phone has to offer. Get your PhoneX while it's still in stock for a discounted price at $199!

PhoneX design

PhoneX's design just blew me away. It looked didn't look very different from its predecessor, like an extremely expensive flagship phone with its high screen-to-body ratio. I picked the phone up to be fascinated by the blue gradient body. My finger just naturally slid across the surface of the phone's back to what was — to my surprise — a fingerprint reader. PhoneX seems to have gone the extra mile and really knocked it out of the park in terms of design. Available in three striking colors, the PhoneX's best budget smartphone features a glass back which we haven't seen at this price point. The body also has a P2i nano coating, responsible to make this budget smartphone phone splash-proof. >>Free delivery available at your location. Check out availability. The ports are placed ergonomically, with the 3.5mm headphone socket at the top and the USB port down at the bottom. It's nice to see PhoneX has an IR blaster on the top, which can be used for controlling infrared home appliances via the Remote app. The PhoneX does have a white notification LED tucked on the usual top of display panel, making it easy to notice messages.

Phone X has gone a step further and used Gorilla Glass 5 for the front and back of the phone, which is quite impressive at this price point. The sides are still plastic, but overall, this device feels very premium to hold. 😊

PhoneX specifications and features

The PhoneX features a Snapdragon 660, which is a chip that's become increasingly common in budget high performance smartphone segment. All thanks to price cuts over the past couple of months, smartphone processor prices have became stable. On paper, it's not as powerful as the iPhone is built around, but it's more than enough to handle its fair share of work. The fact that you can get this much power for just under $199 is an achievement in itself. The PhoneX starts with the variant (we are reviewing) 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage at that price (available), and another variant (not available) 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for $100 more. The PhoneX also supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5, 3 satellite navigation systems, USB-OTG, and the variety of sensors.

PhoneX Camera, Performance and Battery Life

Packed with a decent set of features, it is no less than a best performance phone under $200. PhoneX is a good phone to live with for most day-to-day tasks. The processor has enough power to handle the usual social and productivity apps that we all use, and it even does a good job in games. Battery: The 4000 mAh battery on the PhoneX will last you a full day on a single charge and there’s fast charging support too. The original charger and accessories come bundled in the box. Unlike other budget smartphone, the PhoneX doesn't have any heating issues. Sure, the phone got warm after we played heavy titles such as PUBG Mobile or god of war for a little while, but it wasn't close enough to make us take a break between gaming sessions. Display: PhoneX has a big display, making it look taller. But the user interface has a one-handed software mode that can be activated with a swipe gesture on the Home button. This feature has lagged during test few times, but work as expected most of the time.

Apart from the quick fingerprint sensor, the phone also has AI face recognition. This is decently quick under good light. There's even a raise-to-wake gesture, but it isn't reliable in very low-light, and it refused to work properly for us. That can be avoided as one do not use this feature often at night. Camera: In daylight, the PhoneX captured quite impressive images. Colors and details were good, although a bit of sharpness was lacking. There were also minor traces of chromatic aberration when shooting against bright backgrounds, and the HDR doesn't always handle the exposure of bright areas well.

Video: We tested PhoneX for media files including videos and it performed well in our tests. Videos were sharp, colors were punchy, although red levels could have been better. The phone is also L1 certified, which means you'll be able to stream TV shows and movies at the highest supported resolution from OTT services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The inbuilt speakers gets fairly loud, while not breaking bass. Edit- After writing the article, we were informed that company has added a new ‘Night' shooting mode. This takes a second longer to process shots, but the end results were generally a bit brighter than using Auto mode.

Our Recommendation

With a price of $199, the variant we have tested — seems like a no-nonsense. You get a good looking phone with a good display, excellent build quality, a decent set of cameras, day-long battery life and solid app performance. It provide support to Dual Sim and you can use micro SD card to increase storage space. Battery life is good, and we typically managed to average an entire day's worth of usage on a single charge with a little left over. In our HD video battery test, the PhoneX ran for 11 hours and 50 minutes, which is quite impressive. We recommend this phone if you are willing to get high value of your money on budget smartphone. While we can not expect iPhone features, but this phone is quite impressive for best smartphone under $200.

I Couldn't Believe What I Was Experiencing

The colorful display instantly turned on as the my fingerprint was scanned. I played around with the phone running latest Android, thinking why I had never heard of such an amazing device. I watched in awe as every application I started opened within a split-second after touching the screen. It was unbelievable. I quickly went into Settings just to discover the phone also has a whopping 32GB of memory... why didn't I have so much space on my last high-end device? But, I thought, there must be a catch.

How To Buy PhoneX

The PhoneX is available for a limited time only, with exclusive offers and free shipping. Ordering is quick and easy, so take advantage of the great price by ordering yours today.

Recommended Read - Xphone Review Read the full article

[justgotham]

If you’ve ever watched an episode of FOX’s show “Gotham,” then you’re familiar with the eponymous city. It’s dark and brooding, ever on the cusp of a storm; it’s at once foreign and familiar, sometimes tricking you into thinking you’ve been on of its blocks before; and it’s the award-winning achievement of VFX Supervisor Tom Mahoney and his talented team, one that earned another Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role last month.

Tom, who has three Emmy nominations to his name and one win in this same category last year, explains that the visual effects team plays an important part of the storytelling that happens in “Gotham”: “We serve the story. The writers write, and we try to figure out a way to make it happen. It’s all about making other people’s visions a reality.”

I recently spoke with Tom about his latest nomination and his work on “Gotham.” During our conversation, he talked about how the city of Gotham was realized, his favorite parts of the nominated episode, when he thinks visual effects are appropriate and more.

To start, can you walk us through a brief history of your career – from your start in the world of VFX, to being a partner at CoSA VFX, to being VFX Supervisor for “Gotham” and highlights in between?

I got my introduction to visual effects back in 1990 or 1991 when I interned on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” with the post-production department. From there, I was an assistant editor for a little while and found my way back into visual effects working with one of my CoSA partners, Jon Tanimoto. We often found ourselves working for units that were put together specifically for film, and at a certain point we looked at each other and said, “Well, they keep throwing these units together and they sort of ran like small companies – we may as well see if we can give it a go as a company.” So Jon and I got together. Initially we were working on features, and shortly after that, [CoSA partners] David Beedon and Chris Lance joined us. The features market for visual effects in LA kind of dried up with a lot of films taking rebates and having the luxury of longer turnarounds, but TV still needed fast turnarounds. Most shows were still posted in LA, so it was more convenient for TV to use LA-based visual effects facilities. So we made a shift to be more TV-centric. A year or two after we got things going, we were lucky enough to be considered for “Gotham.” Just by luck of the draw, I ended up being the one of the four partners to come to New York to supervise the pilot, and I’ve stuck with it ever since.

How would you explain to a layman like myself the role VFX plays in the show?

Everything is about telling a story. That’s what TV shows and movies are about, and we are there to tell the story of “Gotham.” Now, since the show is based in Gotham City, we are fortunate to play a large part in that since we help provide the city. Early on, the creators of the show – Danny Cannon, Bruno Heller and John Stephens – said that Gotham should always feel like there’s a storm coming. So that was always the directive we lived under for creating the wide shots of Gotham, to make it feel dark and moody. The architecture is very much based on a gothic, Art Deco style to make it feel like a unique place that feels familiar but isn’t quite reality.

How long did it take to get Gotham City right? Has it changed throughout the seasons? I think we’ve gotten a little bit better at doing it as the seasons have progressed. Early on, we did a lot of tests to make sure that the show creatives were happy with the direction we were going in for the general look – a city that was mainly built in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, but with a gothic flair. It took us a little while to mix some architectural elements; we did a few test shots and when we had it right, they gave us the thumbs-up.

[Spoiler alert] This year, you and your team are nominated for the Season 4 episode “That’s Entertainment.” From a sinister ice bomb, to a blimp, to gas-induced hallucinations and more, I think my uneducated eye can spot some of your fingerprints on that particular story. Are there certain scenes in that episode that were particularly challenging or memorable for you? I enjoy the shots of the blimp because I feel like it’s really there, even though I know it’s a CG blimp. The most fun shot of the episode is the final pullout when we’re tight on Penguin when he’s in the blimp gondola, and then we keep pulling out until we see the bridge and Gotham City in the foreground and then in the distant background. It’s just a very small, self-contained camera move, and then we make it feel big and grand by adding everything into it. I also like the scene of Jerome when he’s hanging and falling to his death – that’s all shot on green screen, and we create a 3-D version of the alleyway that he falls into so we could show that he’s much higher than he really was. The fear gas is always fun to do. A lot of the artists get to have a little bit of fun when we’re creating the hallucination look because that’s when you get to let somebody loose and say, “All right, make something that looks cool.”

Can you describe the collaboration between your team and others on the show? The writers write an episode and a director happens to get that episode to direct. There’s a great deal of back and forth in pre-production about what we can do with visual effects, what we can afford to do with visual effects, what can be done practically via special effects or if there are stunts that can be done so we don’t have to do visual effects. I’m always a big fan of doing things practically whenever we can.

Can you explain a little more about when you think visual effects are appropriate? I’d say my two criteria for things that should be visual effects are when we want to add scope and spectacle, and when it’s something that can’t be done safely. Obviously safety is paramount, and all the show creators and directors and everyone feel the same way. So if something’s unsafe but we still need to do it, then visual effects can step in. People’s lives are more important than any television show.

Do you have much time to track what your counterparts are doing on other shows? If so, do you notice any trends for VFX in television lately? TV visual effects have come so far in the past 15 years. I would challenge people to say the visual effects on some shows today aren’t as good as most features out there. A lot of the visual effects on “Gotham” are as good as features’ visual effects. I think the disparity that used to exist between feature-film visual effects and television visual effects has become a blurred line. And people aren’t afraid of visual effects like they used to be. You used to go on a show and hear the director say, “I hate green screen. I hate visual effects.” You don’t hear that as much. More people embrace it now as a solution to a problem instead of rejecting it as a problem unto itself.

Is the greater acceptance of VFX a result of the higher quality in general? Or do you think there are other factors at play? The resolution between film and video is almost the same with shows now mainly delivered in 4K, which is the same resolution we deliver feature films in. So there’s much more attention to detail in television visual effects than there used to be because you couldn’t see the details before. The technology has certainly evolved, so we’re able to do it faster. And the artistry has just gotten better. As software and tools have become more available and artists have gotten more familiar with them, they can do more interesting things that no one thought they could do before. Then there’s also the fact that as time has passed, things have gotten cheaper to do. So effects that we thought were only for features in 1990 are now commonplace in TV; they’re nothing you would even bat an eye at.

If you could tell a “Gotham” viewer what to look for or appreciate from a VFX viewpoint, what would you tell them? Without a doubt, my favorite thing in “Gotham” is when we do the aerial shots of Gotham. We do a lot of special, cool stuff, but I think whenever we feature the city of Gotham, those are the shots that I love the most. The mark I’ve always set is if someone who lives in New York watches “Gotham” and isn’t sure if it’s New York or not, then I think we’ve done a good job.

[wantyellow548]

Spotify Download For Ipod 4

Part 1: Sync Spotify Music to iPod via Spotify App. If you are the £9.99/month member, Spotify allows you download and listen to music offline. It also enables you sync Spotify music to devices like iPod. Here are the steps on syncing music on Spotify to iPod via Spotify App. So to sync Spotify playlists to 4th generation iPod Touch, you need a tool to download DRM-free songs from Spotify. Here we will introduce Ondesoft Spotify Music Converter. Ondesoft Spotify Music Converter is a powerful Spotify music downloader that allows you to easily download Spotify songs, albums and playlists to DRM-free formats such as mp3, m4a, wav, flac, etc. IMusic - Download Music from Spotify to iPod for Free Download hottest music and playlists from Spotify for free. Download music from over 3000 music sites by copying and pasting the URLs. Get music covers, album name and music tags, or fix ID3 tag automatically. Record songs from thousands of radio stations, music and video sharing sites.

Spotify Download For Ipod 4th Generation

Sync Spotify To Ipod

Spotify For Ipod Touch

Ipod Spotify App

Download From Spotify To Ipod

Part 4. How to Stream Converted Spotify Music to iPod

To play Spotify songs, playlists or albums on iPod, the last thing you need to do is to transfer Spotify songs to iPod device. There are so many iPod transfer programs that can help you sync local Spotify music to iPod Nano, Shuffle and Classic in the market. But you can also use iTunes to achieve it. Here, the following guide is to tell you how to put Spotify music on iPod with iTunes.

Step 1. Launch iTunes app and enter to the top menu to click the 'File' -> 'Add File to Library' and select Spotify songs to upload. If you don't know clearly, please visit this helpful page: How to Transfer Spotify Music to iTunes Library.

Step 2. Connect your iPod device with computer via USB cable. Once connected completely, there is a device icon from the top on the main interface of iTunes.

Step 3. Simply touch the device icon, and you will see that iPod and media files on iTunes appear on the sidebar.

Step 4. Choose imported Spotify music and click the 'Sync' button to begin to stream Spotify to iPod Shuffle/Nano/Classic automatically. After then you can listen to Spotify music on iPod without restrictions.

'Is there any way to download music from Spotify without premium? Can't stand the free account ads anymore.'

Do you think you can enter the music paradise with only a free account on Spotify? If you say yes, you're wrong! Spotify does provide a dazzling platform for users to enjoy their music party.

But can this fully meet your needs? Absolutely not! Pop-up ads, low-quality music, and the inability to listen offline must bother your joy.

A premium account can help you eliminate all these hassles, but you need to pay more. If you want to enjoy the privilege for free, this article will help you download Spotify songs without premium. So, let's get it!

Part 1. Is Spotify Premium Worth the Price?

Prices vary by version. If you choose a Free account, you don't need to pay a penny; while you choose the Premium one, the price is $9.99 per month.

For the question listed in this part, it's difficult to get the answer because users' need differs. For those who just want to listen to general music with no special requirement, it is recommended to use a free account. While for those eager to all-rounded functions and explore more of Spotify's mystery, $9.99 is indeed cost-effective.

And the premium service does not allow you to download Spotify as Mp3 songs.

Part 2. How to Download Music from Spotify without Premium

1. DRmare Music Converter for Spotify (Recommend!)

But there is a problem, how do we download music off Spotify but not paying for a premium account? Here DRmare will help. Through its inbuilt library, we can download Spotify playlist to mp3. And you can transfer songs to a computer or phone for Spotify offline listening without Premium.

DRmare Spotify Converter is an excellent Spotify music Ripper that downloads Spotify music without the need for Spotify Premium (including songs, albums, and playlists) to play music offline in its original quality. It allows you to easily enjoy high-quality Spotify music on a variety of devices without any restrictions.

Advantages of DRmare Spotify Converter:

All for free.Last.fm. Make listening count with the Last.fm App.Track the music you stream and access personalized listening reports, stats, and charts, all on the go.Free on the Last.fm app:- Access to your Last.week & Last.year listening reports.- View your personal artist, album and track charts from all-time to the last 7 days- Explore your listening history- View tag, artist, similar artist, and track informationJoin millions of users. Last fm spotify scrobbler. Music CountsLove Last.fm?

1. The intuitive interface makes it easy to get started.

2. Allows you to download 256 or 320kbps audio quality music without Premium.

3. Easily add Spotify music links by dragging or copying.

4. Selectively listen to songs based on interest without advertising harassment.

5. Support multiple formats such as DRM MP3, M4A, WAV or FLAC.

6. Unrestricted listening to 3,333 songs, not limited by 3 devices.

Steps to download Spotify music without Premium:

Step 1. Download and install DRmare Spotify Converter on PC, and now you can launch it directly.

Step 2. Drag music, playlist or album from Spotify onto the pro software, or paste and copy the corresponding link to the search box at the bottom of the software.

To get Spotify playlist link: right-click selected items>Share>Copy Playlist Link

Paste Spotify link and click 'Add Files'.

Step 3. In this step, you can change the output format and BitRate of the music under Menu > Preferences. If you want to change the storage path, you can do it at the bottom.

Step 4. Click the 'Convert' button and the music will be downloaded to the folder of your choice.

Once the conversion is successful, you can get the downloaded Spotify music without Premium, and then you can sync the music to your iTunes library or iPhone device.

2. iMusic Spotify Converter

iMusic Spotify Converter is another reliable conversion software that lets you download Spotify music without Premium.

The following steps will show you how to download Spotify playlist without premium:

Step 1. Download and launch iMusic on computer

Download iMusic program and launch it. Find 'GET MUSIC' with a headset icon on the top of toolbar and click on it, you will have three modes of music download.

Step 2. Download Spotify songs from its music library

For the first mode 'DISCOVER', you will get an interface listing the top 50 or top 100 songs you have recently listened to. Check the desired format and select the one you want to save, then click the 'Download' button in the lower right corner.

Step 3. Copy and paste Spotify links to download as mp3

If you don't want to waste time ticking music from a long list, you can copy and paste the URL directly into the search bar and click the green 'Download' button on the right.

Step 4. Check download music from Spotify without Premium

You can check all the songs downloaded from iTunes Library. Click on 'LIBRARY' mode and enter music management interface where you can get a list of downloaded songs when clicking the fourth icon on the toolbar. Check for any omissions, and connect your mobile device to your PC, now you can transfer your songs and listen to Spotify offline without premium.

Take listening to the next level with Sonos S2. This new version of the app enables higher resolution audio, with 24-bit processing and Dolby Atmos support. It also sports an improved design, better security, new features like saved room groups, and smarter software to keep your system up to date. Search ' Close search Cancel. Download the Sonos app. The Sonos S2 app lets you control Sonos systems with products that are compatible with S2. IOS Android FireOS. By installation and/or use of the Sonos desktop controller. This allows you to be very specific with the source of audio. If you are using a mobile device, simply using the search tab will search all music services. However, when searching on the mobile controller if you would like to dig deeper into your Spotify results, you will need to select view more before being able to see more than just a few items. When I search music using the Sonos app to play via Spotify premium certain artists don’t appear. An example is Queen! Thought they may have removed their music but when I do the same search just on spotify everything is listed. Same goes for AC/DC. When I did a random search for Aerosmith using Spo. A Spotify Free account allows you to search for Spotify artists, albums, and playlists in the Sonos app. When listening to music with a Spotify Free account, you’re limited to six song skips per hour. How do I control Sonos from the Spotify app? You can control Sonos directly from the Spotify app by tapping on Devices Available on the Now. Sonos app spotify search.

In addition, it also allows you to download Spotify playlist to MP3 with simple steps.

To download from Spotify free, you also can find Spotify downloader online. If you still want to purchase Spotify Premium you can check the following tips.

Part 3. How do I Purchase a Premium Spotify Account?

If you prefer Spotify's privileges and don't mind extra payments, you can try Spotify Premium.

Next, we will tell you how to get it. You also can refer to more tips about how to get Spotify Premium free.

You can get Free Spotify Trial from its official website and choose the Free Version with registering all of your information as detailed as required.

How to get Premium Spotify for free (last 1 month)

Spotify Download For Ipod 4th Generation

For the free Spotify Premium, you need to the same go to the official website and choose the trial version of premium, and then go to the register page. Please notice that the free period is only for the first month after you agree to activate your premium account. And you can download Spotify songs for free.

How to get Premium Spotify as a student

For this version, the subscriber must be a student. Check more details on the website about Spotify premium for students.

How to get Premium Spotify (family discount)

Premium Spotify for Family is a new version that offers discounts for the whole family, saving around 50% of the price for each additional member. Even better, each member can enjoy their own playlists and other attached benefits.

Part 4. The Benefits of Spotify Premium Over Free Accounts

It makes sense to set both modes to Spotify: Spotify Free and Spotify Premium.

Sync Spotify To Ipod

Literally, the latter seems to be better than the former, which is true because of your extra payments. With a free account, you can add your playlists or listen to your music as usual, but you also need to put up with the ads popping up and prevent your favorite songs from being downloaded to other devices.

Spotify For Ipod Touch

In addition, the quality of the music you get could be 192 kbps, which is not as good as you expected.

Thanks, Lucky Star, all these inconveniences will be optimized through a premium account. There are no endless ads, no download resistance and high music quality of 320 kbps, all of which can be placed in your account.

The Bottom Line

Ipod Spotify App

So that's all for the article. You can use software to help you download music from Spotify without Premium. Another choice is that you can purchase Spotify premium. Every version of Spotify is okay, the choice is up to you! But don't forget that no matter what you have, a free account or a premium one, Spotify is still a wonderful and nice music platform that provides music resources to the public.

With these versatile features of this unique downloading tool, users can download Spotify music and enjoy offline playback on different portable devices such as smartphones, tablets and home theatre systems. Features of DRmare music ConverterAs discussed, DRmare music Converter for Spotify is known for its great features and can be used as a music downloader.Along with these features, following are some unique features of this best Spotify music converter:wp-svg-icons icon=”arrow-right-2″ wrap=”i” Removal of DRM Protection: Huge problem of Spotify is that music comes with DRM protection. Also, as it removes DRM restrictions users can download Spotify music without worrying about the premium service getting wasted when it comes to offline. DRM protection technology will not allow users to convert music files to other formats and use in other modes. How much does it cost to download songs on spotify. Hence, this Spotify converter allows user to completely unlock the DRM restriction from Spotify music and acts as a music downloader to download all the music available from the Spotify app.

Download From Spotify To Ipod

If you have any question or other options, please leave your comment and we will check it out and reply as soon as possible. If you appreciate our work, please give us a like. Thank you for reading.

[perpetually-jungshook]

Seokjin: 50% Sight

Genre: awkward shy Seokjin, 100% fluff

Warnings: a little social anxiety, handicap: blindness (OC)

Word Count: 4.2k

Summary: Seokjin doesn’t get out much between classes and his part time job narrating for the local library’s Services for the Blind program- not to mention the fact that he’s painfully anxious about talking to people. But he’s also a diehard romantic and hopes that someday, he’ll find someone with the same amount of love for literature.

He scoots the chair a centimeter closer to the desk. Pause. He scoots the chair back a centimeter and a half. Pause.

Seokjin sighs, resting his elbows on the table and pressing his palms into his eye sockets. Three thirty in the morning. That’s what the clock said the last time he looked… what? Maybe (hopefully) five minutes ago, before he decided he would rest his eyes. Just a power nap to make him more alert.

He chances a glance at the clock in the upper right corner of the monitor.

3:57am

Seokjin sighs again. Where had the time gone? The words on the screen had stared back at him, eating at his attention, nagging at his vision. “Sleep,” they read. “Sleep and take care of this after you’ve woken up.” But he can’t do that. The library is paying him for this. He only has six hours to finish recording.

He reaches out and takes another long sip of now cold coffee, setting down the mug and dropping his arm like it’s made of lead. The soft orange glow from the lamp in the corner casts everything in a warm, comforting light, except what catches the harsh glare from the computer screen.

The monitor sits idle for a minute as Seokjin stares, then initiates sleep mode. Sleep. That does sound nice…

His head hitting his arm on the table jolts him awake. Right. He needs to be recording.

With a swift jiggle of the mouse, the computer screen brightens, bringing up the nine hours worth of reading Seokjin has already done. Which book is he even on now? A quick glance at the title printed on the top of the page reminds him. Ah yes White Noise. Written by Don Delillo, read by Jin. Thankfully he’d had the forethought to highlight the portion he’d left off on. After a quick clearing of his throat, Seokjin presses record.

“Make no mistake. I take these children seriously. It is not probable-”

Seokjin cuts himself off and clips to the end of last sentence. Probable? Possible. He needs to slow down, but three cups of coffee in the past two hours isn’t helping. Slow down. He takes a deep breath and starts again.

Reading for the local library’s Services for the Blind program had originally been a volunteer opportunity. Jin had some spare time over summer break and he needed to read these books for his classes anyway, so why not contribute to a good cause? But then someone apparently made a massive donation and the library asked him to be a part time employee.

For a full time college student, the pay is decent and it not only buys the necessities like food and rent and all that adult garbage, but it also gives him some freedom to go to the movies or add to a growing library of his own.

“It is not possible to see too much in them, to overindulge your casual gift for the study of character.”

Seokjin pauses to take a few deep breaths. Slow down and enunciate.

He’s not sure how many people actually utilize the audio files as he hasn’t met that many (any) blind people at the library. However, he’s logged over three hundred hours narrating. That’s what the receptionist told him last time he’d asked. Since starting, he’s been paid for over three hundred hours.

Seokjin doesn’t even have to talk to people in order to do it. The library sends him a list of manuscripts (and he can often times request specific ones), he narrates them, and a direct deposit is added to his bank account. For an introvert who loves to read, it’s not half bad.

He usually doesn’t procrastinate, but last minute homework assignments and projects that catch students by surprise are always a pain. Still, Seokjin had been eyeing a new novel for some time now and he kind of has to fulfill a certain monthly quota to keep his job… so improvise, adapt, overcome, and all that.

At five twenty five, Seokjin hits the “submit for peer review” button. The staff had been kind enough to supply him with the necessary equipment at home- the microphone and editing software- but every story still needs to be checked for quality control. Granted, Linda, the receptionist that usually helped him, has previously said that no one actually checks. This means Seokjin has to do most of the editing to ensure the value of his content. Because why do the work if he isn’t going to do it well?

Seokjin pushes himself away from the desk, snagging his computer charger under the wheels. He groans and decides he’ll fix it in the morning. Wait. It is the morning. He’ll have to leave for his first class in a little under three hours.

Oh well, who needs sleep?

On the way home, after five hours of classes, Seokjin stops by the library, though, not the school one with all the textbooks and works arbitrarily titled “classics.” He goes to the public library, the place where he submits his audio recordings.

Linda, a heavy but happy middle aged woman with her love of the world and baking clearly visible in her smile, spots him immediately and waves enthusiastically, cooing, “There’s that handsome face I always miss!”

Seokjin laughs lightly, even if he can feel his chest constrict with nervousness, “Hello, good to be back.”

He hopes she won’t launch into some story this time about her three cats. She does. And Seokjin listens politely the whole time even though the only thing he wants to do is hide away in a corner and flip through a pleasantly worn novel with slightly yellowed pages that smell distinctly like old-book.

He tries to come here at least once a week, but realistically only visits once or twice a month. School and his job tend to be very time consuming and keep him constantly at home or on campus.

Seokjin walks past the familiar shelves lined with novels and can’t help but notice the ones that he’s narrated. Some of them are cringeworthy, like the one he submitted last night. Others are more pleasant experiences that left him with a more personally, subjectively meaningful experience with the novel-

The book immediately catches Seokjin’s attention. An anthology of poetry. This is what he will read. Seokjin carefully removes it from the shelf and carries it to his usual corner desk with all the gentleness and respect of holding someone else’s child. He turns on the small lamp suspended by a divider and settles in.

The library is quiet, pleasantly so, and lets Seokjin get lost in the words on the pages. Books allow him to escape from social anxiety and an ever persisting, self perpetuating feeling of loneliness.

The library is so quiet, in fact, that Linda’s voice easily penetrates his concentration as she says, “Yeah hon, he just submitted it last night.”

Seokjin can’t hear the reply, but his attention immediately diverts from the poem in front of him. Submitted? He? Last night? He submitted the audiobook last night, but it could just be a coincidence, right? He takes a deep breath to calm his nerves, trying to recall something from an introduction to psychology class about applying completely random conversations to oneself based on coincidence and association.

“Are you sure? You just donated so much last week- not that the library would turn down another one but we do provide the recording services for free.”

Recording services. That’s one coincidence too many.

He looks up, leaning around a shelf of books to see the front desk. A girl stands in front of Linda, still talking too quietly to be heard. Seokjin can only see her profile and curiosity strikes him first, the simple kind of enchantment that affects a person when seeing an unconventionally pretty face.

“Alright let me go burn that onto a CD real quick. Stay right here, okay hon?”

The girl nods and splays her hand on the front desk’s granite countertop as Linda moseys into the office behind her. Seokjin watches, his finger idly pulling at the corners of the pages in front of him, causing them to fan. When did the libraries start offering CDs? Especially when the audio files are available online? Well, this does not concern him directly and they seem to have it all figured out so Seokjin lets his attention drop back to his book. He’s just doing that psychology thing. What was it? Association… association something. When things that seem relevant to a person make them think they are relevant. Seokjin just can’t quite remember the term-

“Here it is, White Noise,” Linda’s voice pulls him from the poems again.

That’s definitely the book that Seokjin just finished narrating. Even if he doesn’t remember half of it. The girl reaches around in her purse and pulls out a piece of paper, but the action is… kind of strange. She doesn’t look at the bag. Then it occurs to him. Maybe she’s blind. It would make sense why she would be listening to the recordings.

The girl replies inaudibly.

“Sorry hon, I have no control over who it’s assigned to. The computers take care of that between our volunteers. But I can definitely submit a request.”

There’s another pause as the girl speaks.

“No, unfortunately that’s private information…”

Linda’s eyes suddenly flick to look at Seokjin and he immediately drops his gaze back to the poetry anthology, heart racing, cheeks warm. They had definitely been talking about him. But why? His recordings, obviously. But what’s this about requesting? And private information?

The girl leaves and Jin reluctantly picks up his book. He has to check out now and talk to Linda again. Not “has to.” Wants to.

“Linda is nice,” he tells himself for the millionth time. “She wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

He carefully places the anthology in front of her, taking out his library card.

“Ready?”

Seokjin nods.

Linda hums to herself as she scans out the book and carefully places it back in his hands. There’s an awkwardly long pause as she gives him a knowing smile, still holding onto his card.

“Hon, do you know why the library was able to hire you?”

“Because of donations?” he ventures timidly.

Linda’s smile grows wider, reading like the look someone might give their friend who just passed by their crush, “That’s right. Donations. From a donor. Singular. Why? Because you have a fan.”

A fan?

She continues, “That girl that just came in here, the one you were staring at, she’s the person who secretly pays your salary.”

Linda winks, causing Seokjin’s eyes to widen with surprise as he searches for an appropriate response.

“Not that it’s any of my business, but she comes in here on Mondays,” another wink. “You have a good day now.”

Seokjin walks away from the counter, pulse points throbbing and a pinch forming in his throat. She probably wasn’t supposed to say any of that. “Secretly pays his salary,” which means she probably wants anonymity. He blushes. And now he knows.

What perplexes him is the fact that- granted this is based on assumptions- according to their conversation, the girl specifically requested Seokjin to read something. It simultaneously warms his heart and makes him nervous. What does she think of him? His voice? Does she notice when he stumbles over his words or doesn’t smooth over a cut in an audio clip? Before, Seokjin felt almost… detached from what he does, narrating, because he was just speaking into the proverbial void. But now- now he knows someone is listening.

Seokjin blushes as he finally reaches his car. He sits down behind the wheel and takes a deep breath.

“Calm down. Don’t excite yourself,” he murmurs, looking at his ghostly reflection, barely visible on the windshield. “She probably just likes the same books. That’s all.”

And that’s what Seokjin tells himself for the next seven days.

He doesn’t get a chance to do any recording, though he receives an email from the library asking for him to narrate The Picture of Dorian Gray. Because it is not available in digital manuscript (though, he doesn’t look very hard), he has to stop by the library to rent a copy- and return his poetry anthology. He has three weeks to get the book recorded, so waiting a week is not a pressing problem.

Of course, he absolutely, definitely, certainly does not go on Monday on purpose.

Seokjin looks around as he enters the familiar building, anthology in hand. He doesn’t know what to expect, but he shames himself for feeling a tad disappointed when he does not see the girl.

Linda gives him a friendly smile, “Hey there hon. How can I help you?”

He feels his cheeks heat up from social embarrassment and guilt. His voice is quiet but only a tad bit timid as he places the poetry anthology on the counter, “I’m returning this.”

“Alright thank you.” She scans the book and places it on a cart beside her.

“Also, I got a request for a recording and came by to pick up the book.”

“Ah yes, picking up the book,” Linda’s smile becomes knowing, her words notably odd and formal. “What’s the book?”

Seokjin shows her the email, presenting her with his phone. She nods, pulls her chair toward her keyboard, types something in, and gets up, “Let me go get that for you. Wait right here.”

Fingers tapping quietly on the cold surface of the front desk, Seokjin tries to calm his frantic heartbeat. He’s not sure why he’s nervous. The girl isn’t here. It’s just Linda and him and the books. The books. Trustworthy, safe. Seokjin smiles.

Linda moves back into his field of attention, scanning the book and placing it in front of him. Right, he needs his card. Retrieving it from his pocket, he places it on the counter for her before picking up the book to place it in his bag.

The middle aged woman clears her throat, glancing at her watch, “If I were you, I would- ahem- skim over the book a little. Maybe take a seat and read for ten or twenty minutes.”

Seokjin has never been good at identifying implications socially. In books? Absolutely. Analyzing text, finding hidden meanings, it’s his favorite pastime. But is Linda hinting that he stay for a reason? She must be. Maybe the girl usually comes around that time.

He nods, a small gesture of affirmation, “Ten or twenty minutes.”

The next twelve and a half minutes are characterized by frequent, almost paranoid, mostly neurotic, nauseously excited glances up every time the door opens. A mail runner, a little boy and his mother- or maybe his aunt, Seokjin shouldn’t judge, a homeless man, a couple of students with their university sweatshirts…

The girl.

Seokjin’s cheeks flood with heat and his gaze drops back down to his book. Why? She’s carrying a cane this time, clearly blind. She wouldn’t know he’s staring.

Linda, though she is usually loud, speaks (probably purposefully) louder than normal, “Hello hon! How can I help you?”

When he looks up, he finds her nodding, gesturing at Seokjin to come over. He frantically shakes his head, mental panic button pressed. His palms are already clammy, hands a little shaky- when was the last time he talked to a girl? Earlier today in class. No, no. When was the last time he talked to a girl? Conversed? Not just a “hey what pages did the professor say we had to read?” kind of conversation? He thinks for a moment. Then for two. The fact that it takes so long kind of answers his question. Or maybe it’s just the fact that all of his thoughts seem to have misted over in a rush of adrenaline.

Blood roars in his ears, so loud that he can’t hear what Linda is saying. He doesn’t think his legs would hold him up, and even if they did, could he walk straight? Could he talk without his voice cracking? Lord, the girl can’t see. He would have to make a good impression using her other senses and how does one do that?

And now she’s leaving.

Seokjin’s body reacts before his mind can, a different kind of panic that calls him to action. He’s stumbling across the library, almost catching on the corner of a shelf as he sprints forward, opening the door.

He lets out a breathless, “Let me get that for you.”

She pauses, sightless eyes staring ahead, lips parting as if she wants to say something. She says nothing. The moment lasts an eternity.

Then she lets out a quiet, soft, “Thank you.”

The moment breaks and she passes through the door. Maybe it’s just Seokjin, but he thinks- for a second- that there is a bit of a rush to her step. He watches as she walks toward the curb a few meters away, cane tapping rhythmically, methodically. She gets into the back seat of a shiny, spotless white car and Seokjin watches until it disappears in traffic.

He continues to stand  in the doorway until the homeless man comes back and bumps him. Startled, before Linda can make any remarks on the interaction (or maybe he just wasn’t listening in the first place), Seokjin flees to his car.

A week later with the weekend behind him, Seokjin has narrated half of the requested book. He has one week left to finish it. Technically. It’s not like Linda is standing there with a gun to his head saying, “If you don’t finish this on time you’ll bite a bullet.” It’s more of a principle thing, helps the library see that he is a valuable, punctual asset.

Linda is busy talking to another patron when he enters, which saves him from the “playfully” patronizing conversation. She always means well, but wouldn’t be helping.

He finds his seat at his usual desk and waits, reading ahead a little bit to know what he’ll be narrating tonight. He looks at the clock. He waits. He waits a little more. His nerves are not as strung out as last time, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t anxious. The typical questions run through his head. What if the girl thinks he’s creepy? Would she even know who he is? Would she care? Would the girl even show up?

Why is Seokjin even so intrigued by her? Because she pays his salary? Because she likes his voice above the others that might volunteer? Because she’s pretty and mysterious and Seokjin, being an addict to romantic narratives, wants to find some sort of story in these circumstances?

The door opens, revealing the girl. She doesn’t have her cane, but this time Seokjin pays careful attention. He notices the way that she reaches out with a sense of cautious familiarity. The girl moves slowly, but not detrimentally so. She finds the front desk, skillfully avoiding the patron Linda is still talking to. Fascinating.

Seokjin rises and walks up to her quietly, then clears his throat, “Hello, my name is Seokjin. I just wanted to say thank you for requesting the narration of these books because it gives me a steady job that I’m happy with.”

This is what Seokjin wants to do. But he stays frozen in his seat, staring at her. At least he won’t be mortified by her looking over and seeing him stare. Is that socially incorrect? Impolite? His anxiety peaks again, but he gets up and walks over. A shaky breath. Shaky knees. Sweaty palms. A wavering voice.

“Excuse me…” he says, swallowing hard.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Linda briefly look up from her computer screen. She’s still helping the other person, but she does take the time to shoot him an encouraging smile.

The girl completely ignores him.

Seokjin clears his throat, repeating, “Excuse me.”

The girl tilts her head, a natural expression of confusion flitting across her face, “I’m sorry. Let me get out of your way.”

His cheeks burn. She interpreted it wrong. He messed up. She’s going to think he’s awkward. Now what is he supposed to say? Just say something.

“N-no. I… I wanted to ask if…”

He’s boxed himself in. Just say the words. He can save it. “If you are the one who requests the books.”

But of course that’s not what he says either.

“I wanted to know if you needed help finding anything. Linda seems very busy and I know the library pretty well.”

Does she even know who Linda is? Had Linda ever introduced herself? The girl couldn’t have read the name tag. Oh GOD-

The girl runs her hand softly across the countertop of the front desk, her cheeks dusted a light pink, voice quiet, “Could you help me find Les Misérables by Hugo?”

Seokjin nods before remembering she can’t see it. “Follow me. It’s right this way.”

He starts heading toward the aisle labeled Gr-Hy, organized alphabetically by author’s last name, but halfway there, he again realizes that she can’t see. How could he be so stupid? Seokjin, cheeks burning, turns around to retrace his steps and collect the girl when he almost runs directly into her.

She halts, staring ahead, almost at his chest, “Are you okay?”

Seokjin stops himself from nodding, “Yeah. I’m fine I just…”

He doesn’t want to be rude and question her abilities. Quite the contrary, he’s rather impressed. But Seokjin doesn’t know whether that would be rude as well. He lets the sentence trail off in favor of walking the few more steps to the section he’s looking for. With trembling hands, he removes the book from the row. Should he say something? Hand it to her? How so? One of the girl’s hands is at her side, the other is poised on the shelf beside her, feeling her way around the environment. She’s not ready to receive the book. How is he supposed to give it?

Seokjin reaches out, gently catching the hand by her side. He turns it palm up and puts the novel down, placing the edge strategically so she’s able to curl her fingers around it.

Wait. He’d touched her. Is that inappropriate? Does she think he’s weird? Will she be angry-?

“Is your name Jin?”

Seokjin’s thoughts stutter, then flatline as he tries to process the abrupt flood of information. A simple question and yet: she knows. Had she recognized his voice? Obviously she took it from his narrations, as he signs the front of each novel audibly with a pen name, “written by the author, read by Jin.”

His voice is breathier than he intends as he replies, “Yes. Kind of.”

“Kind of?” the girl’s undertones are curious.

“My name is Seokjin, but I use Jin as a…” the lump in his throat makes him choke on the sentence.

“Pen name?” A small, knowing smile forms on her lips.

“Exactly.”

Pause.

“My name is _____,” her smile widens, even as she stares blankly at his chest. Though it isn’t a dull blankness. Sure, her eyes don’t metaphorically express the same sort of emotions one might see commonly, but there is still the light of life. Still the crinkle that denotes a genuine smile.

Seokjin lets go of the book and her hand, knowing he lingered far too long to be casual.

“Nice to meet you,” he blushes, thankful that she doesn’t know.

Pause.

“Thank you… for narrating all of those stories. My boyfriend and I really enjoy them.”

“B-boyfriend?” the word slips out before he can stop it.

She laughs, a sound that opens the floodgates for a feeling of content warmth within him. She says, “I’m just kidding. I don’t have a boyfriend. But I do enjoy your stories- well, your voice reading them.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

Pause.

Seokjin searches for something to say. He can’t ask her to carry the whole conversation. Just say something.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not sure if it’s socially appropriate…” he feels embarrassed for even saying this.

“Go ahead,” she laughs again, an authentically happy sound. “Now I’m intrigued.”

The fact that she uses the word “intrigued” makes him smile.

“If I may ask, why are you looking for this book-” he wants to kick himself for phrasing. She’s not looking for anything. But it’s too late to take it back. “-when you can’t exactly… read it? I’m sorry if that sounds rude…”

“It’s not. It’s a good question,” _____’s cheeks dust a light pink. “I was actually going to ask Linda to put this aside for you to narrate.”

“Les Misérables?” Seokjin finds himself giggling in both shock and excitement. “Have you read it?”

“No not yet,” the smile doesn’t leave her lips, even when he slips up and uses a sight-related word for an activity.

“It’s wonderful. I would love to narrate it for you.”

“Really?” Hope.

“Yes of course. Granted, it might take me a while because it’s so long but…”

As they continue to make small talk, Seokjin finally starts to do something that is very rare for him. He finally begins to relax.

✩✩✩♔✩✩✩

Send me your thoughts here. Or just come say hi ;) feedback is appreciated

Support me/Donate and get some super rad 😎 rewards

Much love ~🐰 xx

[amisbro]

The Month of April...

Has NOT been kind to KLab when it comes to Shining Live Okay to be fair they didn’t have MANY botches this month and the ones that they DID were NOT under their control..technology is hell and we all know this. We have to go back to April 1 in Japan (March 31st US time) when Shining Live had an issue on the JP side that cause the game to have issues and thus the JP side couldn’t play the April Fool’s event at that time.  The event became available again a few days ago and that is a good thing but it might have had some unforeseen consequences. For anyone that has noticed the schedule generally goes like this  - Beginning of the month the new songs are announced for the month  - A few days after the fact some of the songs (namely story songs) are put in an event that would feature at least one of the characters of the next story.  - During the event (and namely towards the end of it) an announcement is posted that there would be a new chapter posted for the players to read (if they have the story passes) and then they can play the new songs in the game. THIS is generally the pattern from what I have seen but as we know this month had the unforeseen event of the AF event not going off well in the JP server and so KLab and Broc had to figure out how to fix it.  The idea (and it was a good one) was to redo the event for one day on the 15th of this month and from what I know this went off without a hitch. I wish I could say the same for the KLab Game Center and more specifically tonight’s episode when they did the song performance. They were in the middle of the “KGC Plays” part and they were playing “Original Resonance”.  During the run they did with Sarah (sub host for Matthieu last week and Alex this week) the game was playing on her phone but the capture software they used malfunctioned and they lost the signal.  This forced a redo and during it sadly Sarah only got a clear on the song. Now typically when they do these we usually get them doing the pulls for the featured photo shoot (or shoots) and then they might also talk about the next story part to come out.  Our theory was that Team Royal (Myu and Cesshi) were to get a “Off the beaten Bus path” thing or so forth and if that was to be the case (and if it still is) then great...the thing is we have about 11 days left (soon to be 10) and no public announcement was made. Is it possible that they didn’t plan to do the story part with them (because the next song for Cecil is really his S1)?  Yeah it is but then WHY would you put in either the song from Amazing Aria as I found out from @baku5ds on the tweeter machine and why would Ai no Reincarnation be on the list for him?  For Myu why would Aspiration be a song that got put on? I think what happened was that the AF getting screwed up in Japan kind of gave everyone pause so when they did the redo they pushed it back so its going to be around the end of the month (which means it would be released on the 26th of this month I’m guessing) and then they will get back on track with the next story being closer to beginning of the month next time.  There IS one other possibilty but I dunno how likely it is I’m wondering if they will skip the story part for this month and then put it in with next month to double up the chapters.  So next month we get the story with Royal team and then the Dramas possibly before S1 starts.  THIS however also makes me think about HOW MUCH more simple the old Music games were as opposed to this game. Look...I know this game is one of the top grossing (or was one of the top grossing) rhythm games and that is something to think about especially for Broccoli and KLab.  That isn’t my issue but this is By requiring the story parts to be put out on a monthly basis and making them an integral part of the game mechanics when things like this happen and it (potentially) pushed back the story release until near the very end of the month if not into the next month that possibly makes the song release schedule now off by a month and that is something that needs to be looked at. This hit me harder when I was playing Music 3 earlier and I was showing some of my accomplishments to @heavens-saved-my-life.  Broccoli knew how to keep the games simple and ,while the games DID have a story, they weren’t so focused on it that you HAD to complete the story to complete the game...factually of the three games I have completed the setlist on two of them in Music 2 and 3.  Do you know how much of the story I have completed?  Not that much! But this is where Broccoli could have gone to KLab and gone “Okay look...a good portion of our fanbase when they play the Music games PROBABLY just want to play the songs by unlocking them but you have SIF and probably want to do something with that kind of system so do what you need to” and they did...now we have a game where the setlist artificially roadblocks the player because of the fact that the story has to be released to give you progression.  This also in a way shines a bigger spotlight on the decision to NOT do a Music 4 with the B-Sides from Season 3 ,Shining Theaters that came out around then and also songs from Season 4 and any other ones I missed.  It sure as hell would have made MORE SENSE to me than doing this “reset” that Broc appears to be in the middle of...then again if we noticed they haven’t exactly announced anything about the “QN games” (Debut ,All-Star and After Secret) yet so did they give up on that project or what is exactly going on? I think I’m getting more anxious about a lot of this as a fan/reporter because when you see something like what happened with AF (and again this is no one’s fault) and the way it kind of threw the schedule out of whack I relate to it because if I have a set schedule I try to follow it otherwise its chaos and that is a fact. Its also slightly telling though that each week they put the Shining Live part of the show near the forefront as if to say in some way “Let’s get this over with and get the fuckers what they want so they’ll leave” cos spoiler alert I do just that cos I don’t give a damn about anything past that...tried to care about LL before but...that’s a NOPE!  Give me an English port of I-Chu and watch how quick I drop SL though. Now I know what the next thing I’m going to hear is “Isn’t this an overreaction...its just one story part” True and I am the KING of overreacts trust me on that but at the same time I know there are people that probably are waiting and wanting for certain people to be added and seeing this happen just delays that.  Its bad enough that they have to wait and slog through month after month after month and that has to be tiring on them.  Its just something to think about because look... If you are a STARISH fan or a QN fan (present) you are pretty much sitting pretty cos you KNOW Broc is taking care of you.  The issue is that HEAVENS fans have had to sit and watch as they got passed the hell over because of what is going on NOT JUST with this game but because its the current one that becomes a focus point for us.  YES we know that Dolce Vita is coming out but what we DON’T know if Broc has intentions of giving us a port of the game to play.  If they are as stingy with that game as they were with the others we already know the answer. As far as Shining Live goes I have been on my break collecting my logins (and lamenting the fact that I am not in this event because of DST) but I hope for Broccoli and KLab this month is just a blip and next month things will be back in order.  A lot is gonna ride on what they do now and moving forward and I hope KLab gets that because UtaPri here is still a small fanbase but its a passionate one so for the folks over there here me ,a 4 year fan of the franchise, out DO NOT F**K THIS  UP! That is all my friends and until later on:  Good day ,Good Night and Good Bye