#that way it's able to make a faster rate of bubble noises without losing the Viscous effect

[postmakerkiwi]

🦴 Skelos Badlands Sounds - Crumbled Volcano 🔥

Lava flows from this ancient dome, broken and worn from eons of eroding, forming this massive pool of molten rock. Bubbles will pop and steam will hiss, so be sure to not get too close.

photo by CatbatQuartet

[shield-sheafson]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Raven/Tara Markov, past Tara Markov/Slade Wilson, Background Dick Grayson/Koriand'r Characters: Tara Markov, Raven (DCU), Donna Troy, Koriand'r (DCU), Slade Wilson Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, Romance, Past Underage, Past Abuse, Flirting, Weddings, sexually charged lipstick application, Slade doesn’t show up in the present timeline he’s just in the flashbacks, Flashbacks Summary:

Even normal things feel like they’ve been ruined: it’s been years, but sometimes Tara feels like she’s still with Slade. As everybody prepares for Dick and Kory’s wedding, all kinds of miserable feelings begin bubbling up inside of her even as she tries to have fun. To add to the stress, Raven has been acting awfully cute lately…

—

“So what’s the dress situation here?” Tara asks casually.  “Donna had bridesmaid dresses picked out by this time.  Are you slacking?”  To be perfectly fair, Tara had never worn the ruffly monstrosity Donna had given her.  She’d been too busy wandering the streets as an amnesiac.

“Tamaranians usually do not have bridesmaids,” Kory says.  She’s carefully weaving together circlets of dried flowers.  She has a pile of completed ones in the middle of the dining room table.  “Everybody participates, not just a few people.  I can not pick out matching dresses for the entire Justice League.”

“Just let Gar take care of it.”

“Do you want Gar dressing you?” Kory asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“…Good call. You seem pretty calm about all this.  Donna is going crazy.”

“Donna will relax in time.  She seems to think I want an Earth wedding.  With the DJ.”

“What do you want?”

“On Tamaran, we sing, we dance, and we burn things.  That is all I want; it would be nice to have G'larbac feathers and a torba bowl, but I do not need them to be happy.  Oh, and Dick is not allowed to speak.”

“…Nice.”

Kory puts down her flowers. “It is not as if I am not participating in the human traditions myself!  He is not allowed to look at me and everybody will throw grain.  We will do the bouquet and the garter.  I respect humans!”

“It’s– I wasn’t saying you didn’t!”  Tara isn’t ready to fight.  “…Wait, who said you didn’t?”

“I know that it is selfish to want to bring Tamaran to Earth,” Kory says, looking down at the table.  “I try to be respectful of human behavior, even when it makes me a little uncomfortable.  I do not kiss on the lips to do greeting and I laugh at the sarcasm.  But my wedding is special.  Earth is my home now, but Tamaran is where I was born.  I went to weddings when I was a little girl, and I played at them with my friends.  I want to at least have a little of that here.”  She keeps her chin high and proud, but there’s a hurt look in her eyes.

Tara isn’t sure what to say.  She’s never been any good at comforting people; if anything, she usually makes things worse.  Does Kory even need comfort right now?  She just nods her head awkwardly.

“That’s fair,” she says.  “I don’t think it’s selfish to miss where you grew up. I mean, it’s not like this is someone else’s wedding, so it’s nobody’s business how you do it, right?”

“But the guests will all be human.  Dick’s father will be there.”

“He’s rich, he doesn’t care.”

“What does that have to do with…?”

“Shh.  He’s rich.”

“I met him, he seemed to think…”

Tara leans forward and puts a finger on Kory’s lips.  “Shh.  Wealthy.”

Kory seems to accept.

—

“Fast or slow?” Gar asks, resting his chin on his hands and leaning over the table.

“Both,” Donna says.  

“Song decade?”

“Well, Kory wants Tamaranian folk music, and Dick wants pop from the ‘70s, so multiple.”

“How many dances are we going to have?  Parents’ dances, bridal party dances, anniversary dances?”

“This is complicated enough without all that stuff,” Vic says.

“Aww, embarrassed?” Tara asks.  “Scared of the boogie man?”

“That’s lame,” Gar says.  “Even I think that’s lame.”

“Kory’s parents can’t make the voyage,” Donna says.  “And Dick’s father is single, so the parents’ dance might be awkward.  I’m thinking we can arrange it so that Dick and Kory dance first.  I’ll hire a choreographer.  Then the brides’ and grooms’ parties can go, and then maybe the couple that’s been together the longest, so I’ll check the guest list and–”

Tara coughs. “That’s stupid,” she says, thinking back to her earlier conversation.  “Maybe everyone can just dance.”

“She’s one of my best friends, and I want it to be perfect,” Donna says.  “She and Dick have helped me so much all these years, so I want to help them back.”

“Still sounds like too much,” Vic says.

“Come on, it sounds fun!” Gar says.  He punches Vic in the shoulder with a clanging noise.  “We can teach you if you don’t know how.”

“I know how to dance,” Vic says, but his expression says more.  He presses his lips tightly together.

“Okay,” Gar says, standing up.  “Prove yourself.”

Tara snorts.

“You too,” Donna says, joining Gar.  “If we make Vic do it, we all have to.”

Suddenly, it doesn’t seem as funny.  While the idea of Vic being a bad dancer is amazing and wonderful, Tara isn’t able to dance either.  She’s been coasting.  This is karma.

“I’ll pair off with Vic, so it’s you and Gar,” Donna says, switching on the radio on the counter.  It’s Lionel Richie.

“Is this okay?” Gar asks quietly as he takes her hand.  “I’m not being weird, right?”

Tara rolls her eyes.  “We’re not sixteen anymore.  I think you’ve got your teen horniness under control.”

“Right.”

Off to the side, Donna and Vic are swaying awkwardly.  He looks terrified.

“Okay, do you remember how to do a box step?” Gar asks, nervously resting his hand on Tara’s back.

“Yeah,” she says, even though she’s not sure what a box step is.  She carefully mirrors his feet.

“You don’t remember,” Gar says.  “Okay, put your right foot back.”

Which foot is the right foot?  Tara makes a wild guess.  Gar shakes his head sadly.

“Hey, Raven!” Donna calls.  Tara looks over Gar’s shoulder and sees Raven shuffling sleepily into the kitchenette with messy hair and her blanket dragging behind her.

Raven looks up groggily.  “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Dancing,” Gar says.  “Vic’s low self-esteem is getting in the way of his social skills.  Tara, you aren’t supposed–”

“Hey!” Vic interjects.  “My self-esteem is fine!”

“Join the party!” Donna says.  “I think we need to switch up anyway.”

Raven squints at her, takes the kettle off the stove, and pours some hot water into a mug.

“I’m going with Gar next,” Vic says, letting go of Donna and stepping off to the side.  “Tara’s gonna be unpartnered.”

“But I’m right–” Donna begins.

“Unpartnered,” Vic repeats, looking meaningfully at Raven.  Raven presses her lips together and looks away.  

“This is stupid,” she says.  “I’m not playing.”  Tara feels a twinge of sympathy. She’s not entirely sure what’s going on, but Raven is embarrassed and Vic’s making it worse.

“Donna knows how to lead, right?” Tara asks.  “Because I only know how to… The thing that isn’t leading.”

“I’d better know,” Donna says.  “If I don’t know how to lead, then Kory’s going to be in trouble, because we’ve been practicing for weeks.”

Weird.  Kory always struck Tara as the type who would lead in a dance.  Maybe it’s just because she’s tall.

“Wait,” Raven says.  “I’ll try.”

“Man, talk about wishy-washy,” Tara says, but Raven, with unprecedented confidence, steps up to her and grabs her hand.

“You’re wishy-washy,” Raven mumbles, resting her hand on Tara’s back (electricity shoots up her spine).  

The music changes– something poppy and banal.  Raven swallows and moves carefully, and Tara, somehow impressed by her determination, follows as well as she can.

It feels very different from dancing with Gar– when she was younger, Gar excited a kind of nervousness in her that he doesn’t now (even though it wasn’t really a good feeling, it was a tangible one).  Being close to Raven is a whole new experience.  From the slender fingers that clutch Tara’s hand to the light sway of Raven’s dark hair to the smell of bitter black tea that lingers over her, Tara is oddly entranced.

Step in one direction, reverse, reverse again.  It should be so boring.  Tara can feel her heart pounding against the inside of her chest, either faster or slower than it should be.  She’s sure her hand is sweating.

“We’re going to turn in a circle now,” Raven says stiffly.

“Taking charge, I see.  Yay,” Tara says, bracing herself to either step on Raven’s foot or be stepped on.

“You’re doing a good job!”  Donna says.  Vic shoots her a look just as Tara loses focus and stomps Raven’s slipper, throwing her off balance.  They let go of each other, falling backwards a little.  

Raven takes a deep breath and turns around.  “Sorry!” she says, scurrying away before anybody else can interrupt.

After a few seconds of silence, Gar offers his opinion.  “That was kinda weird.”

“Freaky,” Tara says, still catching her breath.

—

“Fashion, fashion,” Gar chants.  He has one arm around Raven’s shoulder and one arm around Tara’s.

“It looks like you have a broken leg and we’re carrying you off the battlefield,” Raven says.

“He will have a broken leg if he doesn’t let go,” Tara says.

Gar lets go. “Can I still dress you up?”

“I’m not sure I could forgive you for doing something like that,” Raven says.  “You can dress Tara.”

“Hey!”

The consignment store is a small brick building in a strip mall alongside a drugstore and a Vietnamese restaurant.  It’s got a worn exterior and a variety of outdated clothes displayed in its streaky front window.

“Chic!” Announces the light-up sign by the glass door.  A bell rings as they open it and the sleepy clerk looks up from her counter.

“Welco– oh!” Her droopy eyes widen when she sees Gar.  “You’re one of the Titans, right?”

“Guilty as charged,” Gar says.  “Any heroes’ discounts available?”

“No,” Raven says before the clerk can answer.  “Let’s look at the books.”

“But you don’t even–”

Raven gently steers him away.  Tara follows.  She gives the clerk a little wave.

Gar stands around inattentively while Raven looks at something thick with a dusty cover.

“Wanna play the romance novel game?” Tara asks.  “You look at the ones on display and you count how many man-nipples you can spot.”

“Cowboy,” Gar says, pointing. “Upper-left corner.  Two nipples.”

“Kilt guy, bottom middle.  One nipple– maybe one and a half.”

“What are you doing?” Raven asks.

“Nothing wrong,” Tara says.  “Let’s go to the hats.”

They’re probably going to get lice, honestly.  If they just let anybody try on all these cloches, then chances are somebody covered in bugs has tried them on at some point.

“Hey, Gar,” she says.

“Mm?” He looks up from below the brim of a rhinestone-encrusted cowboy hat.

“Do you get lice, or do you get fleas?”

Just as Raven opens her mouth to deliver a scolding, Gar says, “Both.”

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Raven says, gingerly lifting the hat from Gar’s head.

Tara and Gar feel their way through the menswear section (they pet the faux-fur lining of a large and intimidating coat).  Gar’s eyes widen in excitement and he pulls out a shabby pink jacket with patches on the elbows.  He ducks down and begins covertly putting it on.

“There are dressing rooms,” Raven says.

“I look like a professor,” Gar says, standing.  His wrists poke out for a few inches and its bottom is well above his hips.

“Professor of being a bastard,” Tara says.

“It doesn’t fit,” Raven says.  “Also, Tara, stop being awful.”  Tara shrugs.

“I think it fits.”  Gar stretches his arms, pushing his wrists out further. “I’m gonna buy it.”

“I can’t control you,” Raven says.

“You know, that’s a really healthy way to approach your relationships with others,” Gar says thoughtfully as he takes the jacket off.  “Time to dress up Tara!”  He slaps a hand on her shoulder.

“I never agreed to this!  Ask Kory, she knows!”  Tara looks pleadingly at Raven, who just blinks at her like a cat.

They make their death march to the women’s section, Gar in high spirits, Tara in poor spirits, and Raven in some sort of spirits.  Tara drags behind, carefully examining every pointless thing she spots.

“Let’s get the Teen Bible,” she says.  “I really want that plush dragon.  Hey, we should…”

A silly, stupid thing.  There’s a pair of high-heeled slippers in the discount shoe bin.  The puffy feathers on the upper are clumped and ragged, and the color on the insole is worn down.

Tara stops dragging and walks a little faster.

—

A pair of pink mules with puffy faux feathers on the upper.  Tara bought them for ten bucks at the costume store (she’d also kind of wanted a Reagan mask, but she had no excuse).  She had an awkward, mincing walk when she tried them on. There was no strap around the back, so they were always on the verge of falling off.

They were another part of her grown-up costume.  She practiced walking in them in circles around her room for two hours, and hid them carefully when Gar knocked on her door looking for his rubber lizard.  She was determined to come off as mature that night.

“What do you think?” she’d asked, pointing to them proudly.

“You look cheap,” Slade said bluntly.  

Her stomach plummeted.

“It suits you,” he said.

She laughed.

—

Gar is in the dressing room.  He found a blouse, immediately labeled it as “bisexual” and scampered off.  Tara is staring at a pair of overalls, twisting the buttons of the left strap again and again. She wants it to come loose, even though Raven will probably make her take responsibility and buy the whole thing.

“What are you doing?” Raven asks from behind her.  Tara jumps.

“I’m ruining these overalls,” Tara says, turning to face her.  “I’ve almost got the thread worn down, see?”

“No,” Raven says, taking them from her.  “You suddenly got quiet and you’re making that face.”

“What face?”

“I know you, Tara.”

—

“I know you better than anyone. Don’t lie to me.”  He cradled her face gently as he said it, but all she could think of was how close his hands were to her neck.

—

“No, you don’t,” Tara says, reaching to take the overalls back.  “Stop acting like you can read my mind.”

Raven steps back, clutching them to her chest.  “You’re upset,” she says.

“I’m not.” Tara’s voice cracks a little.  “And even if I am, aren’t I allowed to be?”

Raven opens her mouth as if to say something, but she closes it again.  She looks down at the overalls.  The button is hanging down awkwardly.  “You’re allowed to be upset,” she says.  “But I hate it.”

Tara stretches her face into a sarcastic grin.  “All better!” she says.

Raven hands back the overalls without making eye contact.

“Come in and have a look!” Gar calls.

[septic-dr-schneep]

JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Grief (Part 5: Contagion)

Summary: With the others left helplessly behind in Anti’s clutches, the good doctor despairs. Chase struggles to keep hope for the both of them.

This is necessary. This is…She doesn’t mind us being here. She wants to help us.

No matter how many times Chase told himself that, he was honestly surprised that Stacy had let him and Schneep beyond the front porch as he watched her scramble to gather her things so she could drive them to the hospital. Naturally her first suggestion had been to call for an ambulance to get them there faster, but Schneep had been quick to shoot that down.

“No! No,” he choked out as he pressed a hand against his chest, wavering. Chase had latched onto his elbow as he dangerously swayed, but the doctor had shaken his head, shrugging away. “We cannot take risk. There are p—people we cannot afford to see, who cannot afford to see us. I know a way—”

His hoarse voice finally cracked and gave way to a barking cough, followed by an awful wheezing that made it sound like his throat was caving in. He didn’t bother to pull away when Chase latched onto him then and once his fit had subsided in its intensity Stacy had gingerly suggested they come inside and sit.

They were on the couch to the left side of the living room now, Schneep slumped against the armrest and Chase curled up close to his side. After everything that had happened, he didn’t want to stray too far. Every so often he glanced over at him, assessing. Even though he’d been conscious and breathing for a while now, he didn’t look good at all.

Shouldn’t he be demanding to know more about Jack, Anti, the fight? Jack was his everything, their everything. He hadn’t asked a single question about what had happened to Jack since Chase had told him he was awake. Why was he being so quiet about it?

Chase couldn’t expect so much of him, he reminded himself numbly. Right now, Schneep was just focused on struggling to breathe; that was all he should be focused on—and from the violent crashing he had heard during their frenzied escape, he should be grateful that Schneep wasn’t asking how it had all turned out. Even he didn’t know.

Not for the first time, Jameson’s pained, terrified eyes blinked open in his mind, staring into him—staring through him. The deep ache in Chase’s head and chest flared hotly, dizzying him at the thought of what he might be enduring right now if Jack hadn’t won that fight.

I…I left him there. I left him with Anti. If I had been faster, I could’ve…

“So you’re the infamous Chase, huh?” Tom broke through his agonizing, hovering over them. “Heard a lot about you. And who’s this?”

Wordlessly Chase tilted his head back, blinking heavily up at him. Something in his face must have told Tom that he wasn’t in the mood for introductions, so he glanced sideways and cleared his throat, changing the subject with a bit more authority.

“You know I have to ask: what exactly is it that you’re getting us involved in? Are you in trouble with the law? Drugs? Gambling? Something illegal? Who are these people you’re trying to avoid seeing?” he questioned, waving an expansive hand. “I just want to make sure you’re not dragging Stacy and I into anything you could be getting out of yourself.”

At that Schneep shifted suddenly, pushing the startled Chase sideways with his forward motion as he sat up, his glazed eyes cold.

“If is something we can get out of ourselves, do you think in your tiny brain that we would c-come to you?” he growled raspingly. “We come because we need help, not idiotic questions! Du weißt gar nichts! If you do not want to help us, you talk to your precious Stacy about it!” Another chain of coughing rattled through him, breaking up his words, but they were no less fierce. “We do not need you. We—hh—we only need S-Stacy and her car.”

“Schneep,” Chase muttered, warningly tugging on his arm, but he didn’t have the time to say anything to smooth over the situation before Stacy arrived from the kitchen, keys in hand.

“Alright, let’s go,” she urged, brushing her free fingers over Tom’s arm. “Honey, help them to the car?”

“…Yeah,” Tom acquiesced tightly, gripping Chase’s arm and helping him to his feet. Schneep refused the hand he was offered, barely even looking up as he wound an arm around Chase and they were guided to the van.

It was amazing how something so mundane could stirred as much emotion in Chase as it did, but when they slipped into the backseats he was forced to swallow hard as his eyes panned over the crumbs, wrappers and toys scattered across the car mats.

These seats…His babies sat in these seats every day.

Bending gradually down, wincing deeply as the change in pressure spiked in his head, he snatched up one of the action figures. It was a red and silver robot, well worn—well loved.

“Hey, buddy, you wanna go to the toy aisle?” he questioned hopefully, relishing in the feeling of Connor’s small, warm fingers wrapped up in his own. The answer he received wasn’t the eager yes he’d expected, however. “Connor?”

“Yeah…” the little boy admitted, glancing up at him uncertainly. “But…d-do we have enough money, Daddy?”

Something in Chase’s stomach turned at the question and he stilled, coming to a stop and shifting to kneel in front of him. “What d’you mean by that?”

“Well…” Fidgeting, tugging restlessly on the hem of his shirt, Connor lowered his head, staring down at Chase’s knees and mumbling. “S’just that Mama says not to get toys when we’re with you cos you don’t have enough money and it’ll make you feel bad later.”

Chase dearly hoped that Connor didn’t notice the hot flush coming into his cheeks at these words. Tightening his hands on his boy’s shoulders, he forced a light smile. “Is that so? Your mom and I need to talk about that, but y’know what? I’ve been doing really well lately, no matter what she thinks! I’ve got a little surprise money that I’ve been saving just for you, and you can pick any toy you want.”

That finally drew the light into Connor’s eyes that Chase had longed for. “A robot?” he exclaimed. “Can I get a robot?!”

“Absolutely! Let’s get you the coolest robot!”

Schneep’s calloused fingers brushing his head brought him out of his trance-like stare with a painfully sharp flinch. The doctor didn’t embarrass him by mentioning it, merely pursing his lips as he leaned in and thumbed over stray trickles of blood sliding down his temple. Just that small gesture eased the pain’s razor edge and Chase instinctively leaned into it, searching for more relief, but after a few softer strokes Schneep stilled, exhaling huskily.

“Chase…Is my fault we are in this mess,” he murmured under the noise of the AC. “I should have seen signs in Marvin. I should’ve…”

“We both should’ve. If I hadn’t fallen asleep on the job, he wouldn’t’ve gotten the jump on me.” Fidgeting, the vlogger decided to take his chances and ask. “D’you think it was getting Anti out of Jameson’s head that opened Marv up to him?”

“Not all the way. Somewhat,” Schneep allowed, brows creasing. “But this…this new magic he ‘found’ somewhere, I think it was the start. He chose the corruption. He let it in. That one opening was enough for Anti to get through and turn him on us, Chase. And now we all pay for it, just because he wanted new magic.”

“No, no, hey, you can’t blame him for Anti taking him. He wasn’t getting new magic for the kicks. He just wanted to help Jem, bring Jackieboy back,” Chase protested, stomach churning tightly at the thought of the gleeful malice in his friend’s face. “It’s—it was a mistake, doc, a really bad mistake! Marv would never put us in that kind of danger on purpose. Somewhere in there he’s fighting Anti, I know it. Maybe now that Jack’s keeping Anti distracted on the outside, Marvin’ll be able to get some leverage on the inside!”

“Jack…” Schneep repeated softly, staring up at the car ceiling. Tufts blue eyes grew misty. “How could Jack be awake, Chase? He has not been awake for more than a year. There’s been no change, no improvement—if anything, he’s gotten worse and worse.”

“Okay, so I don’t know how he did it, but I saw him!” Chase insisted, latching onto his arm to keep his attention. “He fought to help us escape. We wouldn’t have without him!” When Schneep said nothing, Chase shook his head in dismay, jostling him a little to recapture his eyes. “Why don’t you want to believe me? Why aren’t you happy?”

“Because if he’s awake, Chase, he’s there with Anti. The monster is armed with Marvin’s magic and none of the others are able to help him. And I—I am not there for him. Again. He needs me and I’m taken away from him.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be doing him much good if you were still back there,” Chase pointed out, schooling his voice so as not to sound too demeaning. “You’d still be conked out at the bottom of your magic bubble. Now you’re awake, he’s awake, and we’ll figure out a way to get back to him. He’s fightin’ for us.”

“And what if he loses? Wh-What if Anti…?” Schneep coughed once more, though it didn’t sound the same as the others.

Chase didn’t have a chance to address his implied question as one cough led to another and another and another. Hugging his arms around his sides, he rocked forward, fruitlessly trying to catch his breath. He was going to give himself whiplash at this rate, Chase mused, wincing in sympathy as he patted his back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, buddy. Just get it all out,” he soothed, worriedly glancing up to meet Stacy’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Get us there soon, his eyes said to hers.

By the time the fierce hacking eased, he was practically folded in half over his knees, whimpering exhaustedly. Gripping his shoulder, Chase murmured other meaningless assurances as he helped him sit back up.

“Easy does it, here we go…” Reaching up past his head, he hurriedly flicked the air vent away from his friend’s face. Doctors said that keeping the air still was a way to help with a cough, right? “Try not to talk for a bit,” he continued as he turned his eyes to the pockets sewn into the backs of the front seats. “Stacy, are there—I don’t know, some mints or cough drops or something in here? Something to help his throat?”

“Oh, here,” Tom spoke up first, shifting forward in his seat to rifle through the glove box for a few moments before leaning back and offering a pack of gum. “Gotta keep some of these in here for Bri; she’s always asking for some.”

Chase was promptly forced to bite the inside of his cheek against a surprisingly sharp retort that flew to his throat. Oh, is she? Is that something she “always does”? She never does that with me. I think I’d know her better than you do. The fresh bitterness on his tongue created a new lance of pain in his forehead and he took a steadying breath to help him swim beyond the dizziness as Tom stretched a little farther, shaking the pack expectantly.

“Well? You want it?”

It’s just gum.

Without a word he snatched it from him, taking note of the brand as he tore it open. “Here, Schneep, this’ll help.” As soon as he looked up to hand it to him, however, he froze, flinching back at the pallor that had come over his face. “Whoa—Schneep, bro, you okay?” He was so white he looked almost gray, his skin tight over the hollow of his cheekbones.

“I don’t think I feel well,” he slurred, glassy eyes flickering closed as he drooped back against the seat. “Wo bin ich hier?” One last weak cough forced its way out of him, loose and wet, and Chase’s heart jackhammered as strings of thick, dark fluid flew from his mouth, spattering the front of his shirt.

“What the—?! Schneep!” Chase gasped as his head lolled sideways and more of the bloodlike substance slithered down his chin in sticky rivulets. “Schneep! Henrik?!” As soon as the older Ego started to shake, Chase cursed in helpless terror, lunging to steady him as he yelped, “Stacy!”

“What’s happening, what’s happening?!” she burst out, swerving violently between lanes as she glanced over her shoulder in alarm. “What do I do? Should I pull over?!”

“Floor it!”

Taglist:  @viostormcaller  @spicy-spedicey  @miishae  @athenafg26 @nebula-starlight  @faithissometimesnice  @obsidiancreates  @storm337 @canehdiennobody  @stormcrawler75  @kisstheashes  @gamingbookworm @phantomschild  @plutoandpolaris  @bribrifeefee  @the-kit-kate @thesinginggal  @themightiestspoon  @pixelenchanter  @illyriashade56 @jacksinsanity  @thealyssa4life  @skepticeye  @rogue-of-light-analyzed 

[hfeproductions]

The Torment and Comfort of Laura Dynamite

Summary: Laura's terrified of all the noises ringing out tonight.

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 2791

A story by Hale Fannar Ethan

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19318105

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/27820387

There was an intermittent thrumming somewhere outside Laura's room. It wasn't the dryer or the washing machine, because the dryer and the washing machine would've been a lot louder and more chuggier.

There was also chatter that didn't sound like her mothers. It sounded like someone who relied on their nose for all the sounds they made: their words, their laughter, their whines, and their complaints.

Just when Laura decided that the chatter was probably just a show her mothers had put on, something decided to briiiiiiiiing. It sounded like a doorbell and a cuckoo clock, but no polite person rang the doorbell after bedtime, and Laura's house didn't have any cuckoo clocks.

Then there came the screeeeeeeeee. Someone had to have been dragging a nail across the window. Laura didn't dare look at it. As long as she stayed under the blankets, nobody would be able to see her.

Laura was in tears from how much she wanted her mothers, but what if whoever had rung the doorbell and/or come to sell cuckoo clocks was already inside with their nasally friend. Laura's mothers could've already dead via whatever was still thrumming. If Laura called out for her mothers, she'd give away her position to all these ne'er-do-wells too.

If Laura left her room, they'd find her for sure. Laura would've tripped on several stuffed animals just on the journey to the door, and a ne'er-do-well would've heard her stumbling and rushed in to kill her too or take her away or whatever these particular ne'er-do-wells did with children.

If she stayed in her room, there was a chance they'd just peek inside and move on. It was dark enough that not even the doorknob reflected light. Laura might've been fine if she hid under the covers and stayed still and quiet.

However, Laura knew she was tall for her age, so staying under the covers wasn't an option. She'd make a lump on her bed, and she knew that ne'er-do-wells knew that bed lumps equaled children. Plus the scree-er at the window might've already seen her.

Leaving the room also wasn't an option. Even if she could make it to her mothers' room, the ne'er-do-wells were probably already there too.

Under her desk wasn't an option because with how the door and desk were positioned, the ne'er-do-wells could open the door, turn on the lights or a flashlight, and see Laura right there.

That left the closet.

Unlike most children she knew, Laura had a futon. That meant she didn't have far at all to go from the floor, plus her floor was carpeted, so movement would make minimal noise. What did make noise was the closet door. Laura thought for sure that the ne'er-do-wells were on their way after the closet creaked with every centimeter she nudged it.

She couldn't get in there fast enough. She huddled in the corner between the wall and her toybox, scrunching herself up to be as small as possible. She stifled her sobs and stilled her shaking as best she could. The chatter didn't stop, the thrumming began pulsing even faster, the bringing droned on and on, and the scree-ing continued without any remorse.

Laura picked her head up when she heard laughter and giggling. There were tinny sounds reminiscent of how 8-bit videogames rendered sparkling. She hunkered down, yet the new noises didn't stop. What they did do was drown out the previous noises.

Even so slowly, Laura looked over her shoulder. A breeze hit her skin. Her sight was too blurry to see shapes, yet she could see purples, blues, pinks, and greens. She wiped the tears away to see properly. The carpet gradually morphed into grass as it got farther away from her current spot. The sky was a night sky, but instead of being devoid of color and celestial bodies like the one outside her window, this one shined with auroras and stars. The sky was an iridescent duvet over this world she'd found.

The grass beneath her socks was short and soft like freshly-shorn hair. Laura watched for rocks and sticks and other things that might poke her feet, but there was no danger to be found. Instead, she found particles glittering in the grass.  A path of these particles lead her to a nearby hill. As she drew closer, Laura made out lights floating at the top. Laura paused at the base of the hill and watched the lights. Some of them floated still while others rushed about as if they were playing tag. The lights came in many colors, but primarily pastel yellows and whites that were so soft, they could've been mistaken for snowballs.

Laura looked back towards her closet. It was a blotch of darkness amidst this colorful world. It then occurred to Laura that she couldn't hear the scary noises anymore; there was just the laughter, the tinny sounds, and her own steps across the grass.

Just as she began to take her first step up the hill, there was a burst of laughter before the surprised shout of a child tumbling down the hill. The tumbling child was followed by a floating adult who moved as if he was being dragged by the child, yet there was no chord tying them together that Laura could see. Laura scrambled out of their way.

She moved towards the child to help him up once he'd rolled to a stop, but he got back to his feet with a carefree, "I'm okay!"

The adult exhaled relief, "Good. But try to be careful next time, alright?"

"Okay!" the child smiled, already on his way back up the hill without so much as stopping to dust himself off.

The adult rolled his eyes and moved to follow him, but he stopped once he saw Laura.  She took a step back and made herself look smaller, caught between whether she should flee or surrender. The adult seemed like he was about to speak when he got tugged towards the child.

"Phantom, come back for a sec!" the adult said over his shoulder.

The child, presumably this Phantom, whipped around. He dashed towards Laura as soon as he saw her. The adult got the wind knocked out of him as he got tugged towards the child yet again.

"Hi! I'm Phantom!" the child locked his eyes on Laura's while he glomped the teen. The child's arms initially went through the adult as if the grownup was made of fog. The adult solidified and smirked as Phantom barreled through introductions. "And this is Misty! He's a ghost, but don't worry, he won't haunt you; he only haunts me!"

Misty became incorporeal again and asked Laura, "What's your name, kid?"

"Laura," she said, speaking quieter than Misty and especially Phantom did.

"That's a weird name," said Phantom.

"Phantom," Misty sharpened the word—the name—with sternness.

"You're named Phantom," Laura pointed out.

"Yep," Phantom said without a hint of self-awareness. "And my brother's named Misty."

Misty. Laura suspected that his actual name was just Mist, but what dominated her attention about him was that while incorporeal, light drenched his brown skin. His whole form became translucent. He was also at least double Laura's height, with even more height tacked on because he floated. He also had a curly beard and curlier hair that made him look older than he sounded. Laura couldn't tell if he was an adult or a teenager anymore.

Phantom, on the other hand, was definitely a child—a living child, even! He only came up to Laura's shoulders, but he'd be tall amongst her classmates. His grin displayed a gap in his teeth that was ever so steadily being replaced. His skin was the same light brown as his brother's corporeal skin. His hair bubbled on top and faded down the sides, so he and Laura had bubbly hair in common; although Laura preferred hers in pigtails.

"Mind if we move up the hill?" Misty said after glancing back at it. "Don't wanna lose any of the flock."

Laura followed along. Misty was content to go at her pace, but Phantom was eager to get back to the top.

"We're star shepherds!" said Phantom. "We raise stars for their star dust, and when they're old enough, we send them off into the sky! Stars are nocturnal, so I get to stay up later than all the other kids!"

Misty snorted.

"How did you die?" Laura asked Misty.

"Rude!" Phantom hissed.

"It's alright, Phantom," Misty made a placating gesture at him before addressing Laura. "I'm guessing I'm the first ghost you've ever met."

"I'm sorry," Laura frowned.

"Don't worry about it, you didn't know. But yeah, I'm dead. I have to stay within a certain distance of Phantom, and it's exhausting to stay corporeal for long, but whatever," he said with a shrug. "Some people are paralyzed, some people are blind, and some people are dead. That's life for you."

"You mean afterlife!" chimed Phantom.

Misty groaned, "That was funny the first time I said it, not the nine-thousandth time you've said it."

"But if Laura's never met a ghost before, this has to be the first time she's heard it!"

Misty conceded that Phantom had a point, but he clearly wasn't happy about it, "The problem is you've told it to everyone since I've been dead."

"Well, it wasn't funny when you were alive."

Misty groaned again.

Laura listened and observed, fascinated by the anomaly of siblings. Laura liked being an only child. She didn't have to share her toys, her mothers, or her room. Then again, if she had an older sibling, they'd be brave enough and tough enough to thwart any ne'er-do-wells. If she was the older sibling, she'd have to do the thwarting, and Laura knew she was a shrimp in the grand scheme of things.  She assumed she wouldn't be any good at thwarting.

"Alright, baby stars, we're packing it in for the night," Misty announced when they got to the top of the hill. There were stars all over it. The grass sparkled, presumably with their star dust.

The stars made a bunch of tinny sounds. Laura supposed they were jubilant. Some of them gathered around Laura and circled her like satellites.

"Oh, they do that," Misty said. "They won't bite."

"Stars have teeth?" Laura grimaced.

Phantom smiled too widely to hide his intentions, "Should we tell her?"

Misty sighed before assuring her that stars didn't have teeth. However, one star did rub against her like a cat, leaving a splotch of star dust on her shirt. This inspired more stars to sprinkle stardust on her until Misty waved them away. Phantom gathered them all into what looked like a tiny, star-shaped purse. Phantom clipped this tiny purse onto a messenger bag once he'd collected all the stars. The messenger bag looked big for him, but Laura assumed it'd once been Misty's.

"We're gonna head home, Laura," Misty said. "It was nice to meet you."

Phantom glomped her, "Come earlier next time, and you can play with the stars. You have lots of stardust on you; that means they like you!"

"Just take a bath, and it'll wash right out," said Misty.

"Okay," Laura stood there, watching them go until she finally spoke up. "Mister Misty?"

"Hm?" Misty immediately turned to look at her. "What's up?"

"I'm afraid to go home."

Misty's eyes flared wide, and his fists balled up, "Phantom, hang on."

Phantom looked back. Only his head was visible over the hill, yet he returned when he saw Misty and Laura.

"Laura, do your parents…?" Misty interrupted himself. "Does your family hurt you?"

Worry drowned Phantom's face.

"No," Laura tilted her head to the side, looking at the boys skeptically. "There's lots of noises tonight, and bad guys might be in the house."

Phantom's breath hitched. He looked up at Misty, who took a deep breath before speaking calmly, "Alright, I'll go check it out. One good thing about being a ghost," Laura was amazed when he disappeared from view for a moment, "is I can become invisible. Lead the way, kid."

Laura led them back to the dark blot on the colorful world: her closet. She didn't even want to go back through it if she didn't have to, but Misty couldn't leave a world if Phantom stayed behind.

Slowly but surely, Laura padded back into her room. She wrapped herself up in a blanket before sitting on her bed. Phantom followed Misty to the door, but Misty told him to stay with Laura. Phantom pouted until he saw her face. Laura was trying to keep herself together, but she started to hear the scree-ing again. Phantom sat down in front of her. She sniffled. He fidgeted. He clearly was more comfortable being in motion, yet just as clearly, he wanted to stay with her.

Inspiration splashed across his face.  He took out a wand from the messenger bag. It had a star-shaped attachment at the end. He waved it around Laura. She looked up to see all the stardust drifting towards the wand. It stayed put as if magnetized while Phantom took a jar out of the messenger bag. He opened the jar and tapped the wand against the edge. The stardust steadily fell from the wand and filled the jar. The end product looked like someone had shaken a jar of glow-in-the-dark sand art. There was no dominant color; instead, it was a lantern of pastel particles.

Phantom presented the jar with a flourish, "Ta-da!"

The jar seized her attention. She took it, admired it. The scree-ing quieted down. The stardust spread light generously throughout the room without bothering Laura's eyes.

"Thank you," she said.

Phantom said, "No problem!"

She put it on the floor by her pillow because she wanted it right next to her when she got to sleep again.

"Do you have any stars?" Phantom asked. "Some people keep stars as pets."

"No, but Mama wants a cat. She had one while she and Mom were in college, but he died a little after I was born. Mama says she's ready for a new one now though. She takes me to pet stores and lets me pick out cat toys, but she wants to wait for Mom's next day off so we can all go and adopt a cat."

"Oh wow!" Phantom's eyes practically sparkled with excitement. "Misty says after collecting the next batch of stardust, we'll have enough for a stellar collie!"

"What's a stellar collie?"

"That's a stardog. It's like a sheepdog, but for stars! They're fluffy, but not too fluffy; and they come in a bunch of different colors and patterns. Our neighbor's had puppies a while, and she saved me the one I want. I'm pretty sure she's selling it to us for half-price or something cuz Misty made his you-don't-have-to-give-this-to-us face at her," Phantom frowned and crossed his arms to imitate Misty, although his smile swiftly returned. "But she did her own thing way before Misty died, so if she wants to sell it to us for less, she's gonna sell it to us for less. She lets me walk it and bring it over to me and Misty's house for visits—and there was one time she let it stay over cuz she was at a family reunion for a weekend."

Phantom went on and on about this awesome stellar collie. Its coat was marbled with gold, ruby, and obsidian. It had one floppy ear and one straight ear. It always bolted out the door when Phantom arrived to walk it, yet it always came back when he called for it.

Misty passed through the door, fully visible. Phantom was used to it; Laura was initially surprised to see it, but it eventually made sense to her that a ghost wouldn't bother opening a door.

"I didn't see or hear anybody out there," Misty said. "You're all clear, kid."

"Thank you, Mister Misty."

"No problem. Like Phantom said, come back again sometime. We're out on that hill every night unless it rains."

"Yeah!" added Phantom, already halfway in the closet. "You gotta come back to see my puppy! You can bring your cat too."

"Cats don't usually like leaving their territory."

"Oh, well, I'll just bring my puppy here! Bye!"

Misty followed Phantom into the closet. Laura flipped over her pillow and pulled up the blankets. She fell asleep studying her jar of stardust: how the different colors of particles scattered throughout, the texture of the jar and lid, the heftiness of the whole object. As she lay between the state of awake and asleep, she realized that the scree-ing and all the other noises had stopped.

[nepvantas-blog]

August Flynn McGee

WRITTEN REF

 GENERAL

Real Name: August Flynn Mcgee Alias: August McGee Meaning to Name:

AUGUST - The name August is a German baby name. In German the meaning of the name August is: Latin Augustus, meaning majestic dignity, or venerable.

FLYNN - The name is derived from flann (red): hence, “red-haired one."

MCGEE - McGee (Irish: Mac Aodha, meaning "son of Aodh") is an English language surname of Irish and Scottish Gaelic origin. Nickname(s): Batty Auggie, Auggie, Gus, Gussie Age: 16-18. D.O.B: August (ironically) 10th, 1999-2001. Birthplace: Riverside, California Language: Native tongue is English, but knows some Gaelic Voice: According to Jayden ( @carcinogenicgod ) August has a light colourful voice almost to the colour of pastel. It isn’t at all foul but at times her voice can drop to a deep tone that seems to resemble a male’s. Biological sex, Gender: Male, Transgirl Species/Race: Human, blind. Status: Alive and active.  Occupation: August is currently still in school for blind children. However she wants to teach other blind children how to use echoloction.  Theme song: Possibly Bubbly by Colbie Caillat or King by Lauren Aquilina Hobbies: Because she is blind, it is hard for her to do most activities. However, she enjoys company and making friends. Other times she enjoys making food with her mother and making sure her friends are okay. She has a habit of whistling too. Special Items: Walking stick. She hits it against something to use the ability of Echolocation. Likes: August is interested in teaching others and could possibly make her dreams come true if she tries hard enough. She loves her friends more than anything and is fond of candy. The feeling of certain materials is another thing and she enjoys calm and peaceful moments and calm nature.  Dislikes: She hates being without her walking stick and when she does, she has to click her tongue against her roof of her mouth to make a clicking noise. The fact she has Echolocation just makes her angry. Other materials she can be without and storms scare her a bit. Fear(s): Philophobia Personality:  August is bubbly and bright, and most enjoys things when they are calm.

However too much noise can make her confused as the Echolocation ability springs to life. This causes her to fall down and soon to lose her walking stick. When she does she absolutely is in a panic. Other times, August is more of a mom friend if anything. She can be overprotective of her closest friends.

August is deadly afraid of falling in love. She fears that she ever had a partner and they found out she wasn’t a biological girl, that they’ll leave her.  Other times she’s afraid that she’ll forget Echolocation, but maybe that she’ll be relieved.

August also has a bad habit of building up her aggression and honestly hates being compared to her brother even after the 10 years he’s been absent from her life. Her brother teasing her sometimes lights the fuse that causes her to snap, even though she hates doing it.

Speaking of hating something, August has Philophobia, the fear of falling in love or growing strong emotional attachment. This was caused in her childhood when Juno ‘died’ in the car accident. It wasn’t because she blames him - which she doesn’t - but it’s because for a long time she lost that twin connection again and don’t want to replace him, romantically or sibling wise. Backstory:   Childhood

August was born in Riverside, California at 4:33 in the morning to Charlie McGee and Mallory McGee with her - back then going by he/him pronouns - twin brother Juno. For six years the McGee family grew up happily with their depressed relative, May.

However, even though August and Juno are identical twins there is one difference. August wore glasses. The glasses were a part of the poor eyesight August inherited from his mother, so it was easy to tell the difference between the two when August wore his glasses.

Out of the two twins, Juno was more successful. He was smarter and faster than August. The only good thing August could do was make sure he had enough friends. During this time his - slowly transition to a girl  - eyesight was getting worse and worse

On the way to one of Juno’s sports game, there was an car accident. The car accident took Juno’s life overnight and did a deal of damage on August. August got hit in the head and had amnesia for awhile. This damage also brought August her blindness and since then, she hasn’t been able to see things.

During the time of her brother’s death, her parents had been ignoring her more and more. ‘What use is a son that can’t see? None, I say!’ She heard them say once. She was growing apart from her family except her relative.

May is genderfluid, meaning she can be an aunt, an uncle, both or none to August and once she came out to May, they understood and helped August slowly develop. More feminine clothing. During this time May taught her to whistle, which helped her in the long run as she started to see flickers or imagines of a outline when she whistled in the basement. The basement was a safeplace from her parents who constantly ignored her, and the echoes bounced off the walls and into her brain

  Adolescence/Teens

August soon came out to her to her parents a little while after they found out her Echolocation ability as they were calling her ‘son’. ‘My son is indeed blind, but what about yours? Can he use Echolocation?” After several years of building up aggression, August snapped at them. “For god sake I’m a girl ,not a boy!” Her mother was thrilled, but her father.. Not so much.

  Adulthood:

She has not reached this stage of life yet.   RELATIONSHIPS Orientation: Greyromantic Asexual. Due to her philophobia, August doesn't find much romantic attraction out of fear.

Relationship: Single. ( + BEING SHIPPED) Family: Charlie McGee and Mallory McGee (mother and father, alive). Juno McGee ( twin brother, undead) May (Aunt/Uncle, alive) Allies/Friends: She considers Jayden ( @carcinogenicgod ) a friend, even if they just met not to long ago. Otherwise, she has no friends. Rivals/Enemies: August hasn’t interacted with much people yet to make enemies, and I dont think she wants to.

  APPEARANCE Hair: She has a pumpkin spice coloured hair, dyed from her platinum blonde colour, goes a little past her shoulder blades. Skin: Tanned. She has a few scars on her shoulder from the car accident and some on her head. Eyes: Her eyes used to be a light blue but soon turned this paleish blind colour. Height: 4’10. Weight: 80 lbs. Body Type: Ectomorph with a triangle/pear body type. Thin and narrow shoulders. Outfit:

SPRING: August wears a t-shirt with ripped jeans, leggings underneath. She also has a clip on her shorts where she puts her walking stick when she wants to put it away. Normally, she doesn’t use her walking stick in places she’s familiar with.

SUMMER: In this time of year, this is where you’ll see her wear dresses the most, but at times she’ll wear shorts, flip-flops and a tank-top.

FALL: As the seasons get colder, August will wear light jackets, a scarf, and thick leggings with her normal tennis shoes. Long sleeved shirts

WINTER: In the winter she’ll wear thick coats and boots. She also wears her long sleeve turtlenecks and jeans.

Accessories: Her walking stick. Distinguishing Features: Blind blue eyes, scars.

  PHYSICAL Disorder(s):

Blindness

Unable to see.

Abilities/Strengths: As stated before, August has the ability to use “echolocation”. It is the same ability that Dolphins and Bats use to get around in the dark. She uses her walking stick or her own voice where the echos of the noise paint a picture in her mind to detail where all things are.  August is also super kind. Even when her parents basically disowned her, she still smiles on.  If you are a friend she might

Weaknesses/Faults: After years and years of built up aggression, it only takes a little bit to light the fuse that causes August to snap at you. Otherwise than that, she doesn’t like her body all that much. Is she too skinny for others to like or not skinny enough? What if she has a romantic partner and they leave her because she’s biologically male?

August also isn’t that strong or fast, and even if she ran, she wont make it far. Her stamina isn’t all that well either.

  STATS (Rate from 1-10, 10 being the highest/best.) Intelligence: 9/10 Strength: 4/10 Speed: 3/10 Agility: 4/10 Endurance: 5/10 Stamina: 3/10   Balance: 5/10 Tolerance: ??/10   FACTS/TRIVIA/HEADCANONS  Origins

Scottish Gaelic, Irish and German origin

Irish and German from mother’s side.

Scottish Gaelic from father’s side.

 Smokes? Alcohol? Drugs?

None.

[kingmindint]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Innovating in the Blockchain World [Part 2]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Innovating in the Blockchain World [Part 2]

Interview: Halsey Minor on Innovating in the Blockchain World [Part 2]

Halsey Minor is a world-renowned entrepreneur most popularly known for founding CNET co-founding Salesforce.com, Uphold, and Minor Ventures. He is also the Founder of LivePlanet, an end-to-end capture, distribution, and monetization system for immersive video, and VideoCoin, a distributed computing project that aims on storing, encoding, and streaming video at an affordable, efficient, and sustainable rate.

This is the second part of a two-part interview – here’s the first part of Halsey Minor and VideoCoin if you missed it. The following interview primarily focuses innovation and entrepreneurship with new technologies, problems with the current banking system, regulation, the global landscape, and how the cryptocurrency industry contrasts with the nascent Internet industry in the mid to late 90s.

VideoCoin home page.

Editor’s note: Getting the chance to interview Halsey Minor was awesome, and we made sure to ask a variety of questions that allowed him to shed light on different aspects of the cryptocurrency world from his unique series of high-level experiences. Questions highlighted in italics and bold were shortened to save readers from our interviewer’s (my) rambling.

  Alex: You’ve been very close to the core of the development of Internet infrastructure. Essentially, you’ve seen the rise of the Internet, you’ve seen the rise of social media and you’ve seen the impact that’s had on society. What’s your opinion on the rise of blockchain within the context of those developments?

Halsey: When I was doing CNET and Jerry Yang was doing Yahoo, all we were doing was taking these databases and sort of unlocking them and basically giving them away for free. It was like simple stuff like the weather. I get weather on Yahoo so when flew to New York, I knew what the temperature was. That was an evolution because it allowed you to know how to pack, which sounds like a stupid, silly thing. But what I think is so powerful about the blockchain is for the first time, it allows the ability to share information and money at the same time. There are so many times that in the early days of the Internet, you’d go into a room and you’re negotiating to do something. Like for instance, us giving our content to Yahoo, and its sense of meaning both sides would look to the other and say, well, you’re the one paying. You’d say to Yahoo, we’re getting your content, you’re paying.

CNET review of “web telephones” in 1996. via web.archive.org

And they’re like, no, we’re making your brand more ubiquitous, you’re paying us. And so, the whole issue around paying was really problematic on a whole bunch of levels. Primarily, just because it was hard to do. How do you actually pay people? And the thing that made Bitcoin really make people stand up and take notice is the fact that it’s country-less and I know people say this all the time, but if you think about it, it’s the first time being able to pay people everywhere without having to move money through the banking system.

Obviously, being able to move it between two people quickly, that’s great. But the fact that it’s borderless, that has opened the door to applications like ours that could never exist if we had to use the traditional system for moving money. We rely on two basic things, the ability to gather information about each server, its capacity and what’s done and bundle that information with money. And so, at this very, very high level, you’ve got something that you just think about it that way. The Internet was unleashing information and this time we’re leasing information and money and God only knows how far that’s going to take us.

Just borderless money attached to a certain service or product. Just the higher level of efficiency that comes through using blockchain for anything is, it’s actually pretty crazy to think about. It’s a very exciting journey to follow. What would you like people who have read and/or listened this interview leave with?

I think this industry is going to go through, and already has, these incredible ups and downs and the Internet had been, not quite to the same degree. Since I started doing this, when I first started doing this, Bitcoin was Silk Road. They were the same and it was kind of hard to say, well, I’m doing something Bitcoin thing because Silk Road defined what Bitcoin does. I think that, like we said, no matter what the SEC says, no matter what the Chinese say, this is a real innovation and one of the reasons that you see people taking advantage of what’s happening is because there is something so fundamentally important happening that you’re always going to have people show up who try to take advantage of people’s willingness to invest.

Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison. Image via Quartz.

It happened on the Internet and when the Internet melted down in 2000, nine trillion dollars were lost. But it picked itself up very quickly and you had huge numbers of companies that came through. Like Amazon, they’ve gone on to become the most valuable companies in the world and a lot of ideas that failed in the 90’s later succeeded in the 2000’s.

So, I think my experiences of having been through both of these is that the overinvestment is important because the most important thing is to have all ideas funded so the good ideas will make it. I tell people it would’ve been great if people would only fund the good ideas, so people would lose money on the bad ideas. But nobody really knows what the good ideas and the bad ideas are sometimes until they’re tried.

And so we really need periods like this where people will take high-risk capital and invest in businesses whose future is really sort of unknown. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be very smart about how they invest. But fundamentally having something that’s going on is the most efficient way of moving society forward faster. It’s a good thing and I’m all for the SEC coming in and taking out the people who are committing fraud, but it’s also very good for capital to keep flowing because, like I said, that’s how you move society further faster.

It’s crazy to think about how you could have first mover advantage without even having product market fit and it’s because no one really knows where these projects are headed. Something like Crypto Kitties, for example, might seem silly, but then you’re just like, wait, they’re one of the first digital beanie baby collection things out there and that could be a billion-dollar industry and it’s global.

Exactly. Beanie Babies became Beanie Babies because of eBay. Silly things can become billion-dollar ideas. Time Warner, I think, made $3,000,000,000 on Beanie Babies. Everybody should have laughed at that business plan.

Beanie Babies

You see all the wacky aspects of the startup world just bundled into a global ecosystem. But then you’ve got even crazier things but they’re on the blockchain and they’re global. It multiplies your potential user base by huge multiples.

I had to grow CNET at the pace of the Internet. And so, when I launched CNET, there were 300,000 people on the Internet. When I launched in ’95 through 2000 when I left, the pace of my growth was defined by the pace of the growth on the Internet. Now, you’ve got 2.7 to 3 billion people that if some app catches on, it can explode into 500,000,000 users, virtually overnight.

Think about all the people who play the lottery. That’s actually run by the government. You take your ticket and you can be very successful. Governments provide this service to people. I personally think people are much better off not putting their money into the lottery but trying to figure out what the good companies are because people can make a lot more money than even going in the lottery.

Ideas like Beanie Babies, on the face, and may seem completely ridiculous but it was the technology of eBay that allowed that to happen. My great hope is that the SEC does not come in, that they stick to people who are bad guys. And although I think they’re driving innovation offshore, that they really don’t harm innovation by harming people who are legitimately trying to build services that legitimately do important things. It’s going to be a test here the next couple months on how that sort of plays out.

The global landscape is super interesting too because you have Russia, China, and the United States where they’re all either trying to undermine or prevent the undermining of the US dollar through cryptocurrency. The bet there is just like wait, let’s see this play out before either completely banning or fully endorsing blockchain.

But I think the inflection point of just like, wow, the cryptocurrency market made that much noise last year and it’s still a very teeny, teeny, tiny fraction of what it could be like. The market cap of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter is eight times what the market cap of the entire cryptocurrency industry is right now.

Agreed. Bank of America hold more money in capital, by a lot, then the entire cryptocurrencies. I was thinking that this morning. The SEC is rapidly hiring people to go after people in crypto who are ripping people off. I’m all for doing that but do you know how much fraud is going on within the fundamental banking system? If you’re going to hire a bunch of people, you should point them at where the real fraud is going on. We’re seeing a lot of the same things emerge again in home loans where they’re, again, selling these high-risk home loans. It looks a lot like 2006, 2007.

During the nineties when the Internet bubble happened, the investment banks were making so much money. They were taking out companies with no revenue, that had no right going public. They would get a $500,000,000 valuation and Goldman Sachs would make 30% because they get 6% of whatever it was. And then there was M&A. I bought a company for $750,000,000. I bought another company for $600,000,000. All of this crazy money was all going through the traditional banking system. Nobody said anything about this. And by the way, there were a lot of companies that were flat-out fraudulent, but the SEC wasn’t ramping up to do whatever.

The big problem is that all of [the current ICO model and cryptocurrency fundraising model] is not going through broker dealers, investment banks are not getting anything, but the entire size of the crypto ecosystem, it’s minuscule. There was a there was a mistake that Bank of America made. They wanted to give a dividend to the shareholders and they needed to have what’s called tier one capital and they needed to have enough capital that they could give some of it away to their to their shareholders. They had to give the government the amount of capital they had, and they made a $250-billion-dollar mistake. That was a mistake. The number that we’re talking about right now in crypto, what is it? It’s Bill Gates’s and Jeff Bezos’ net worth? Is that we’re really talking about in terms of the size of the industry?

When you’re looking at 2008 and what they were doing with collateralized debt obligations in the housing market

-Yep.

the government did literally nothing punish anyone in charge of doing that.

-None, zero.

There multiple generations that saw 2008. They saw exactly what happened and they have like the sense of like, OK, the government clearly isn’t going to stop this. So, if they even attempt to go after the cryptocurrency industry, that’s just showing where their heads are really at.

I’m just curious to see how people’s ideologies evolve with a cryptocurrency world because you’ve got this mix of the anarchists’ crowd, the libertarian crowd, the “we’re trying to change the world by innovating and using this technology” crowd, etc. I don’t really foresee a clash with the government in a way that the government can shut down something that’s global and decentralized.

I think it’s as hard to shut down crypto as it is to shut down the Internet. I’ve said specifically to people on a number of occasions that I’m all for them going after bad actors in crypto and putting them in jail. But, I would appreciate if they would start by putting the bad actors who brought the world to its knees because of the fraud that went on the banking industry. As soon as you put all those guys in jail, then I’m absolutely 100% OK with you coming around and finding the guy who took $15,000,000 and ran off with it when we had financial institutions that burn $4,000,000,000,000 of our cash, incinerated it because they created fraud that allowed them to be paid outrageous amounts of money on effectively false profits. Since the beginning, people had been right about being cynical about these government institutions.

There is an absolute crime that has been allowed to go on and that is that banks in this country collect $36 to $37 billion dollars in bounced check fees. Think about how big of a company that is. If this happens anywhere else in the world, the cost will be 25 cents to process a bounced check. They charge you $35 and 20% of bounced checks come from what’s called reverse processing. If you write $100 check and then five $1 checks and you have $100 in your account? They will first take the $100 check and process it so now you have no money and then they’ll take the next five $1 checks and they’ll charge you $35 each. They’ve actually set up their system to maximize the amount of money that they can get out of the people on bounced checks.

The thing is you’ve got people who are incredibly busy. It’s hard to manage your checkbook. There’s never been a bank that sat around and said hey, how do we make sure that people know what their balances are so they don’t bounce checks? They do everything to make sure you can bounce your check. Forget about crypto, just figure out how to get the 35 billion back that all comes out of the pockets of people who fundamentally are at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. It’s ridiculous, but this is why this movement has such force behind it.

It’s just people that are just beyond frustrated to the point of just being bored and cynical of how transparent it is that people with a lot of money in the United States, especially the banking industry, are capable of influencing political decisions in their favor. and then just continues to rip off the general public $35 at a time.

2009/2010, all of the financial institutions were living off of government money because the government had to bail all of them out. In 2009, half of all of the money going to lobbyists was from banks. They took money from the government, recirculated it, hired lobbyists, all of the people who had anything to do with banking, with senators or congressmen, they were all snatched out and turned into financial industry lobbyists. It goes on and on.

Besides the inflection point for many things, for technology, for human evolution, but also how people are viewing power also. I remember seeing Zhang Shouchang, a physics professor at Stanford, talk about how money is actually a storage of energy. With that in mind, energy helps facilitate momentum and innovation. The ability to exchange energy across the world nearly instantly at any time is going to be the future very interesting. That’s kind of what’s really fascinating about the growth of the crypto world, for me at least.

Well, we’re going to find out very soon how all this is going to play out. I’m hoping for some enlightenment.

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[advocatewrites-blog]

Simple/Clean Chapter 8

Simple/Clean: An Original Character’s Story

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (1, with mentions of other installments)

Synopsis: There are many worlds, but they share the same sky. One Sky, one Destiny. And when that destiny is threatened, the universe calls on one hero to save the day. Or, more like, five. When the Earth is consumed into Darkness, Danielle Scott and her friends are given the Keys between light and darkness. If they are going to save the worlds and find her brother, they are going to have to go on a multiverse-wide road trip to find the Door to Light. If only they had a better weapon than keys.

Rated: +K for violence and occasional language

Disclaimer: The Kingdom Hearts series was created by Tetsuya Nomura and owned by Square Enix. The Final Fantasy series was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix. The films depicted were created by the Walt Disney Animation Studios and owned by the Walt Disney Company. Any other work mentioned or homaged are property of their respective owners. This is a non-profit fan-based work that only seeks to entertain. Please support the official releases.

Chapter 8 of 12

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Chapter 8: In the Undersea Kingdom

In order for the Gummi ship to land, the planet had to have land. The Gummi Ship submerged instead.

“Hanna?” Dani asked. “What color was the Gummi Ship again?”

“What? You know it was yellow.”

“And there is a large group of us who have been occupying this vehicle that is submerging, yes?”

“Yes, I—dang it.”

“Here's a better question.” Nadine interrupted. “Why are we underwater in the first place?”

“About 75% of this planet is water.” Donald explained. “We're more likely to find the Keyhole down here.”

“Oh geeze, it's a good thing we didn't have to look for the Keyhole on Earth.” Katie said. “How are we supposed to explore, then? I don't think the Gummi Ship is too comfortable underwater.”

“Just leave that to me!” Donald said.

When Hanna left the Gummi ship next, she had a tail and gills. She supposed it was better than Donald's tentacles.

“Flounder, look at this! Isn't this the most wonderful thing you've ever seen?”

“Wh-what is it?”

Ariel looked at the device in her hand. It looked like her father's trident, but it was too small and lacked the power that flowed from it. “I'm not sure. I bet Scuttle knows!”

“Alright...let's go find him! And not come back here!” Flounder said.

“Since when have you been such a guppy, Flounder?” Ariel teased.

The answer was always. Flounder had always been a guppy.

Ariel swam a bit further. She probably had a bit more time before the rehearsal, and she didn't want to waste it. There had to be something else she could find in here.

She turned around the corner and found it. It was a vessel, she could tell that much. However, it was boxlike and closed, unlike the shipwreck she was in now. Even without being familiar with how it was built, she could tell that it was in pristine condition.

Voices came out of it. She hid behind the corner, only peeking out of the corners of her eye to see. Mermaids filed out, stumbling as they hit open water.  They were followed closely by a merman, and two creatures Ariel couldn't quite recognize. They looked like an octopus and a turtle, but the octopus looked too much like Scuttle on the top and she couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with the turtle.

“Oh.” The mermaid with hair nearly as red as Ariel said. She swam about a bit, clearly awkward. “Oh. Oh...how are we supposed to fight Heartless like this?”

“We can't.” The one with brown hair tied back said. She folded her arms. “There's just no way.”

“There's no need to be so negative about it.” The turtle creature said as he swam circles around them. “It's not that hard, once you get used to it!”

“Easy for you to say!” The brown haired mermaid said again. “Let alone Heartless, what if we get chased by a whale, or a--”

“SHARK!” Flounder cried.

All heads turned towards the source, including Ariel's. Discretion forgotten, she charged after Flounder, and came face to face with a Great White Shark.

She grabbed Flounder and tucked him under her arm and swam as fast as she could before it could even think to get close to her. The sounds of bubbles and splashing told her that she wasn't the only one speeding away. The strange mermaids were behind her, flailing wildly in a mimic of a swim. The shark was faster.

Against her better judgment, she slowed herself down and grabbed onto the hand of the nearest stranger—the merman. She pulled. The merman grabbed the closest to him, and so on, until they had formed a neat chain of mercreatures. Exactly as she wanted.

The extra weight of seven people on her tail was tough, but not overwhelming. Ariel sped forward. She didn't dare look, but the noise of the shark bumping into the remains of the ship and demolishing warned her of how close it was to her.

If she couldn't outrun him...she would have to find another way.

Her eyes focused on a circular device in the wreckage. There! She swam through it, and pulled the chain of mermaids with her. Ariel turned, and was met with a full set of teeth.

The shark snapped its jaws and squirmed. It's tail wagged furiously as it realized it was trapped. Flounder swam up to her to blow a raspberry at the shark, and jumped back into Ariel's arm as the shark snapped its jaw again.

“That was close.” The mermaid with gold hair said.

“Yeah, no kidding.” The mermaid with red hair said. She turned her attention towards the octopus creature. “Let's go underwater, you said! It'll be fine, you said!”

Ariel watched the group banter for a moment as the wheels in her head spun. Finally, she got the courage to speak up. “Excuse me. You're not...mermaids, are you?”

The seven fell silent.

“Wow, we're really bad at this.” The gold hair one said.

“Then if you're not mermaids...” Ariel said.

“We're magic users.” The octopus shaped one said with a sigh of defeat. “Or at least, I am.”

“That is an accurate summary of our abilities, yes.” The one with her hair tied back said.

“We came to this world to look for a Keyhole. Since we're not used to being underwater, we had to adapt.”

“So you're...from the surface!” Ariel gasped as she realized it. “That means you're human?”

“Well, five humans, a duck and a dog.” The one with yellow hair said.

“That's amazing!” Ariel said. Her mind was going too fast for her to really process what she wanted to say. “I've always wanted to meet humans! I've studied you so much—oh! Can you tell me what this is?”

She held out the trident shaped device. The seven stared at it with mild looks of confusion.

“A fork?” The one with red hair said. “Ah—you use it to eat. It's not really all that special.”

“Oh, I think it's wonderful! Humans always create so many wonderful things...” Her mind was beginning to slow down, and Ariel was able to process what they had said to her. “You said you were looking for something? How about I help you?”

“We don't want to drag you into this--” The octopus started.

“Nonsense! Nobody knows the ocean better than I do! Let's stop by my grotto first; maybe we can find some information!”

Ariel's Grotto truly was something to behold. From top to bottom, it was covered in items, no doubt recovered from shipwrecks like the one they had landed it. They ranged from immaculately made and decorated music boxes still full of jewelry that would make some women drool to fountain pens that had long run out of ink. However, it was evident that Ariel had kept them as carefully as she could.

Which was why it was a shame that half the grotto was wrecked now.

“Daddy!” Ariel cried.

The merman that stood in the grotto turned around. Instantly, Dani could tell that he was something important. Power and respect seemed to radiate from him. That and you could grate cheese on those abs…

“Ariel!” His voice boomed through the grotto. Impressive, since there was no air. “I thought I told you to stay in the palace! It isn't safe here.”

“But Daddy, I was trying to help my friends!” Ariel protested.

Ariel's father's eyes fell down onto them. “And I suppose they had something to do with all this...human junk?”

“It's not junk!”

“I told you to stay away from humans! Why must you always disobey me?”

“Why must you always treat me like a child?”

“I think we walked into something really personal here--” Dani interrupted. She was ignored.

Ariel's father raised the trident in his hand. It glowed with magic, and in the blink of an eye the other half of the grotto was wrecked.

“Now go back to the palace and think about what you've done.” Ariel's father ordered.

Ariel froze in place for just a second, tears brimming in her eyes. She swam off in a huff, Flounder close on her tail. Dani turned to follow her.

“You there. Key Bearer.” Ariel's father spoke again.

That got all seven of them to freeze.

“Ah—“A crab scrambled out towards them. “Present to you, his most royal highness, King Trident of the Seven--”

“Sebastion.” Ariel's father interrupted. “Go check on Ariel. Make sure she gets back to the palace safely. I wish to talk to them alone.”

“Y—yes sir.” The crab scrambled off.

Trident waited until he was gone to speak again. “You may have fooled Ariel, but you can't fool me.”

“We didn't fool her at all!” Sora protested. “We told her what was going on and she decided to help us!”

“Then you must know that, as Key Bearers, you must not meddle in the affairs of other worlds!” Trident's voice boomed.

“Oh.” Katie said. “So this was a lose-lose situation from the beginning.”

“I thank you for protecting my daughter.” Trident said. “But my ocean has no room for you or your Key. A Keyblade wielder only brings about death and destruction.”

“We're not like that!” Dani said. “I mean, we've lost three people--”

King Trident obviously didn't care to figure out where this conversation was going. He turned on his tail and left, leaving the seven alone.

Ariel ignored Sebastian's protests to keep up with her. She swam as fast as her tail could carry her, and didn't slow down until she found a private place where she could be alone. Her whole grotto, destroyed in less than 5 minutes! Why did her father not understand! How could humans be so bad, if they make so many nice things?

She didn't know how long she was there, trying to stop herself from crying, when she realized she wasn't alone.

“My, my...the poor child suffers such deep sorrow...”

“What a pity...if only there were something we could do….”

Two eels were circling around her now.

“Wait...maybe she can be some help...”

“Who are you talking about?” Ariel said, trying to hide the shake in her voice.

“Why, Ursula the Sea Witch of course...”

“She would certainly help you...”

Ariel bit back a gasp. Daddy had been warning her about Ursula for years, even if it was buried in all of his other lectures. Still...she was a witch. And a magic user was what Ariel needed right now.

“Do you think...Ursula would know where the Keyhole is?” Ariel asked.

“But of course...”

“Ursula can make any wish come true...”

“Well that went well.” Hanna said. 

Silence submerged. 

“Do you think we should go find Ariel?” She tried instead.

“I'm not sure.” Goofy said. “Ariel's a friend, but as a father, I see what Trident means about keeping her safe.”

“YOU'RE A FATHER?” The five humans exclaimed.

“Gawrsh, have I not mentioned Maxie?” Goofy said quietly, as if he was realizing it. “I've been raising him on my own for years!”

“YOU'RE A SINGLE FATHER?!” Katie and Nadine exclaimed.

“A-yup!”

“I feel like we should have talked about this before.” Hanna said.

“Not to mention, Donald has three little nephews. I bet he wouldn't want them to get into trouble, neither!” Goofy said.

“Not like that stops them...” Donald grumbled and folded his wings. “Huey, Dewey and Louie. They run a shop in Traverse Town.”

“No yeah, we've met.” Hanna said flatly. She didn’t want to reveal the only real interaction she had with them ended with her covered in hi-potion goo. “I don't know...let's go back towards the shipwrecks, see what else we can find.”

“Oh, tank goodness you're still here!” The crab with a Jamaican accent scurried back into the grotto. “Ariel is in grave danger! She's making a deal with the sea witch!”

Maniacal laughter filled the palace. “At last, the trident is mine!”

“Ursula, no! This isn't what we agreed to!”

“Oh? Of course, you're still looking for you precious Keyhole. Don't worry, dearie, I'll give you a front row seat as the Heartless open it!”

“We cannot find the Keyhole...”

“The Keyhole is not here...”

“What?”

Dani was the first to swim into the room, followed closely by the others.

“Why, we have company.” The octopus woman (woman? ...woman.) sneered as she turned to them. “I'm afraid you're all too late. The trident is mine, and the oceans are mine to control!”

Five Keyblades pointed at her, ready to fight.

“Oh?” The octopus laughed. “That may be more than I expected, but it's still no match for me!”

She raised the trident in her hand.

“Ursula, no!”

Magic shot from the prongs, and hit empty space in front of Dani. Then the world turned white.

Dani felt her feet touch empty space.

“Oh thank God, I have my legs back.” Dani thought aloud.

She then bothered to look around. Nothing. Nothing, as far as the eye can see. Only Hanna, Katie and Nadine were visible in the nothing, just as confused as she was.

“Okay, maybe I celebrated prematurely.”

“Kurse all SeeDs...”

Darkness began to form between them, molding and shaping itself into a humanoid figure. She was a woman, clearly; what clothes she had contained a neckline that plunged all the way down to her hi and left little to the imagination. Two black wings formed on her back. Her hair shaped and pulled itself into antlers that were even more ridiculous than the first ghost Heartless’ had been.  

“Oh, one of these.” Hanna said. “Alright, get your last words out so we can kill you.”

The Heartless glanced over her shoulder, and stared right at Dani.

“You think I kannot see you?”

Dani bit back a gasp.

“Seriously, what do you have against C's...” Katie murmured.

“Time kompression…the ability for several presents to exist at the same point in time...it is what draws us together.

It is what allowed Seymour and Kuja to exist in this realm again, only for them to be defeated by your hands. You have witnessed my ascension before, and you shall do so again.

It is what allows me to become a living god.”

The woman transformed into a beast.

“Now face me, Legendary SeeD.”

Dani swallowed her fears and summoned her Keyblade. Whatever that woman was blabbering about could wait. She had a Heartless to fight.

The air grew thick with spells. Dani swung her Keyblade wildly, basically batting them away. It was effective to an extent.

She ran closer to her opponent and jumped. Her hand grabbed the hair of the Heartless ghost, as long and as impractical as the others had been, and swung upward. She put her Keyblade between her and the Heartless as she began to fell.

The Heartless effortlessly raised a hand and put up a shield. Dani bounced off of it.

She landed on her back. It took a few seconds to get her bearings back, enough time that Nadine saw her and was able to get to her.

“You alright?” Nadine asked. A Cure spell was already on the tip of her Keyblade.

“I can’t land a hit on her.” Dani said.

“I’m only doing marginally better.” Nadine said.

“Well, not all of us can shoot bullets out of our keys, Nadine.” Dani said.

“Well then maybe we should think of plan B.”

As much as Dani did not want to admit it, she was right. Dani looked up.

“Time

will not wait

no matter

how hard you hold on…”

Something emerged from the endless nothing they were in. Not human, certainly; big and pitch black and beastlike, with red and yellow wings as big as Dani was. But not Heartless, she could tell. There was no Darkness emitting from it. In fact, it almost felt familiar.

It landed on the ground and tore at the non-existent ground on all fours. The disc on its back spun, crackling with magic and energy. It opened its mouth, and unleashed a spell Dani did not recognize.

The ghost Heartless recoiled.

More creatures were appearing now. Blue humanoid ones that engulfed the Heartless in blocks of ice. Red beastly ones that burned the ground. Yellow mammalian ones that made the air crackle with lighting.

“Yeah, but where are all of them coming from?” Nadine asked.

“We’re fighting a ghost talking about time travel, does it matter right now?” Dani asked.

Another creature struck the Heartless, and Dani saw her opening. She pulled herself back onto her feet, raced towards the Heartless, jumped and put her Keyblade between her and the Heartless.

She could feel herself moving beneath her, another sword striking the Heartless across the face.

The Heartless faded back into the Darkness by the time Dani landed. The creatures were gone as well, and if there was something on the other side of Dani when she struck, it was no longer there. It was empty again.

“I guess that takes care of that.” Dani said.

Nobody decided to argue with her.

“How do we leave?” Katie asked.

Nobody had an answer for her.

Dani blinked, and felt herself submerge.

“Daddy, I'm sorry, I so so--”

King Trident raised a hand, silencing Ariel. Despite reclining in his throne injured, he still managed to be intimidating. “This is not your fault. I was...wrong, to not let you follow your heart and help your friends. And you seven.”

The five humans, one duck and one dog snapped their heads up and stood at attention.

“I was wrong to judge you. The Keyblade has brought nothing but destruction to this world. You have been the first to bring peace.”

“But that means...there have been other Keyblade wielders before us?” Sora asked.

Triton gave a weak nod. “There have been many that have come here before. Soldiers. Surface dwellers. You have been the first in a long time. That is, I'm afraid, all I know about them.

“What I do know is the Keyhole.” Triton continued. “I had it hidden in Ariel's Grotto. My trident can reveal it. Keywielders, I ask you this: seal it for me.”

“Of course!” Goofy said.

“And then leave my ocean.”

Whatever pride Triton had just build up in Nadine collapsed in on itself. A quick look around confirmed the others felt the same way.

“You still trust us that little?” Nadine asked.

“I mean no offense...I only wish to protect my family.” Triton said.

Ariel looked sheepish. “Sorry...”

“Well, you know what? We're gonna do it!” Dani said. “We're gonna do it! And we're gonna seal it better than any other Keyblade master ever has! And we're gonna prove to you we're not all entirely untrustworthy!”

Triton chuckled. “You have much to prove. But I look forward to the challenge.”

“Oh, Christ, my legs!”

“We should have gotten out of the water a long time ago!”

“Look at how pruny my skin is!”

“Okay, can we pull over at, like, the truck-stop world and get a good shower in?”

Author’s Note: I like the Little Mermaid a lot more for what it means to me than what it is. As a kid, it was my favorite Disney movie (although I liked the Little Mermaid 2 more because I, as a young child who wanted to be a mermaid, could relate to Melody more than I could Ariel in the first movie).  Recently I had the pleasure of going to the Little Mermaid Hollywood Fish Bowl, a live orchestra playing simultaneously with the movie, and that was probably one of the best things that has happened to me in the last few years. It’s not the best Disney movie, and it’s not my favorite (which is complicated, but I’ll say Fantasia for now), but it is the one that means the most to be. And I know I already criticized Wonderland for being a very weird Kingdom Hearts world, but what did they do to Atlantica?

So I’ve teased this before, but this story is really in three parts. Simple/Clean is one standalone story introducing the characters and concepts.  The next part will explore the world a little more, and put our characters to the test. I hope to have the second story out around this time next year. If you can figure out this chapter’s villain of the week, than you may be on your way to figuring out where I’m going from here.

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill

Some nice stuff I am reading, watching, and observing at the start of this weekend…

Of Greater Fools and Bubbles

How many greater fools does it take to make a bubble? An old but highly relevant post from Jason Zweig…

Economists have struggled and failed to explain why markets turn into manias. Some have denied bubbles exist; others have argued bubbles must somehow be “rational.” Often, the argument is that bubbles are caused by “uninformed” traders, or “dumb money,” while the “smart money” sits on the sidelines.

The latest findings suggest, however, that bubbles might be caused not by traders who lack information but by those who have too much.

Pessimism is Seductive

Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund hits it again with his post on how pessimism is intellectually seductive in a way optimism only wishes it could be…

Tell someone that everything will be great and they’re likely to either shrug you off or offer a skeptical eye. Tell someone they’re in danger and you have their undivided attention.

Hearing that the world is going to hell is more interesting than forecasting that things will gradually get better over time, even if the latter is accurate for most people most of the time. Pessimism can be hard to distinguish from critical thinking and is often taken more seriously than optimism, which can be hard to distinguish from salesmanship and aloofness.

…On one hand it makes sense. Daniel Kahneman once wrote: “Organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive and reproduce.”

But on the other hand, it’s crazy. We don’t just respond faster to pessimism. We coddle it for longer than is necessary. Optimism demands facts and is ditched at the first sign of trouble. Pessimism can be grown from a crazy thought and clutched indefinitely.

How to Fill Your Years with Life

If you haven’t picked Ryan wonderful book – Ego is the Enemy – do that now. In this book, he shows how ego – irrational or delusional self-belief – has long been linked with success and striving for goals yet this same drive has a dark side. Anyways, Ryan just wrote a wonderful post on things to do to live a full life and leave nothing on the table by 30. Among others, here are two of my favourites from his list…

7. Keep a Journal — Not for looking backward, but to force you to think about what you’re doing now. I should have done this earlier.

10. The Quiet Moments Are The Best — There is a line from Lao Tzu. “Peace is in the emptiness. Emptiness is in the fast of the mind.” It’s in the quiet, still moments that we feel what matters in life. Standing on the shore of a lake. Looking out over a canyon. Resting your head against someone else’s. It’s a shortage of these moments that give rise to the feeling that we haven’t lived enough, that we have to keep going. Seeking them out, encouraging them is what makes you feel like you’ve done plenty.

Ryan ends his post with a paragraph from Mozart, who lived to be 35 but filled those years with many, many decades of life and work…

I have now made a habit of being prepared in all affairs of life for the worst. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that—young as I am—I may not live to see another day. Yet not one of all my acquaintances could say that in my company I am morose or disgruntled. For this blessing, I daily thank my creator.

Howard Marks on Market Excesses

Like Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters, Howard Marks’ memos are a must-read. In one he wrote in 2005, Marks discussed market trends being taken to excess – and the painful consequences that become clear in hindsight. Here’s an excerpt from that memo of Marks, which is highly relevant in today’s today environment…

I often cite John Kenneth Galbraith’s observation that one of the outstanding hallmarks of the financial world is “the extreme brevity of the financial memory.” Investors lose money over and over because they simply forget that cycles are inevitable and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Now I’ve found a great quotation from Churchill, also reminding us that foresight comes largely from awareness of history.

Along similar lines, I’m struck by the extent to which a related factor, inadequate skepticism, also contributes to investment losses. Getting the most out of a book, play or movie usually requires “willing suspension of disbelief.” We’re glad to overlook the occasional plot glitch, historical inaccuracy or physical impossibility because it increases our enjoyment. When we watch Peter Pan, we don’t want to hear the person sitting next to us say, “I can see the wires” (even though we know they’re there). While we know boys can’t fly, we don’t care; we’re just there for fun.

But our purpose in investing is serious, not fun, and we must constantly be on the lookout for things that can’t work in real life. In short, the process of investing requires a strong dose of disbelief. Time and time again, the post-mortems of financial debacles include two classic phrases: “It was too good to be true” and “What were they thinking?” I’m writing to explore why these observations are so often invoked in the past tense.

How Big Oil Will Die

Electric cars with lives 3x longer than those run on the internal combustion engine are being bought in droves in the Western world. But this is just one of the factor that may spell doom for oil and the businesses that survive by producing and selling it…

Big Oil is perhaps the most feared and respected industry in history. Oil is warming the planet — cars and trucks contribute about 15% of global fossil fuels emissions — yet this fact barely dents its use. Oil fuels the most politically volatile regions in the world, yet we’ve decided to send military aid to unstable and untrustworthy dictators because their oil is critical to our own security. For the last century, oil has dominated our economics and our politics. Oil is power.

Yet I argue here that technology is about to undo a century of political and economic dominance by oil. Big Oil will be cut down in the next decade by a combination of smartphone apps, long-life batteries, and simpler gearing. And as is always the case with new technology, the undoing will occur far faster than anyone thought possible.

A Dozen Ideas from Charlie Munger

Tren Griffin of 25iq has done another wonderful post, this time on compiling a dozen thoughts from Charlie Munger from the 2017 Berkshire AGM, including this one…

“A life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” “If we had stopped learning, you [Berkshire shareholders] wouldn’t be here – you’d be alive, probably, but you wouldn’t be here.” “There’s nothing like a personal, painful experience if we want to learn, and we certainly have had our share of it.” “There’s nothing like the pain of getting into a lousy business to find a good one.” “We were young and ignorant then; Now we’re old and ignorant.” “Experience is like eating cockleburs – it really gets your attention.” “It is a good idea to not play where the other people are better.”

Genius of Jeff Bezos

Sean Iddings has written a nice post tracking the genius of Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos…

Jeff Bezos was able to see differently than nearly everybody else in the early 2000’s, and continues today, largely in part to his fanatical preparation.

In Jeff Bezos’ biography The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, childhood friend Joshua Weinstein recalled, “He was excruciatingly focused. Not like mad-scientist focused, but he was capable of really focusing, in a crazy way, on certain things. He was extremely disciplined, which is how he is able to do all these things.” Part of that focus and discipline was vacuuming up details from history. This vast storehouse of details has given Bezos the ability to frame his present situation with the best historical examples. In other words, by looking at the past he has been able to throw out all of the useless noise and draw accurate conclusions to how the future might unfold based on the past.

This phenomenon is perfectly observed in 2003 and is repeating again today.

Keep in Touch with People

Be the butterfly whose wings can create a positive hurricane in someone’s life. A lovely post from my friend Vishal Kataria…

Don’t just keep in touch with people who matter because they can give something. Keep in touch because sometimes, you will give something… something that nobody else can offer. Be there for them. Your friends will thank life for sending a friend like you. Your butterfly wings can create a positive hurricane in their lives.

I’m guilty of not keeping in touch with people who care. Just because. It took a memory to make me realize how selfish I am. It’s not always about me. In fact, it almost never should be about me. I will step out of my comfort zone. I will keep in touch. I will ask people if I can do something for them. Will you?

Compounding Goodwill

Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder.” If you understand the basics of compounding, you would tend to agree with Einstein’s statement. There is immense power in compounding. A small amount of money left for compounding for a very long time, even at a modest rate, can turn into a staggering sum.

But what most people miss is that the real beauty of compounding lies not in wealth creation, but in another, more important, area of life too. It’s called goodwill that you create in this world.

In his book, Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier writes about Mohnish Pabrai …

…over the past ten years, I’ve repeatedly observed how he looks to see what he can do for others, not the other way round…By acting this way, I could see that Mohnish created an incredible network of people who wish him well and would love to find ways to help him and thank him for his kindness. This is the extraordinarily powerful effect of compounding goodwill by being a giver, not a taker. And as he has taught me, the paradox is that you end up receiving infinitely more in life by giving than by taking.

True gifts bring people closer together. An unconditional gift, one given with nothing expected in return, can change everything. It creates conversations and spread ideas. It opens doors and creates forward motion.

So, what value are you adding to the world? What is it that you’re giving out without any expectation of returns?

As with all matters of compounding, the sooner you start the longer runway you’ll get.

Start today!

The post Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill published first on http://ift.tt/2sCRXMW

[heliosfinance]

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill

Some nice stuff I am reading, watching, and observing at the start of this weekend…

Of Greater Fools and Bubbles

How many greater fools does it take to make a bubble? An old but highly relevant post from Jason Zweig…

Economists have struggled and failed to explain why markets turn into manias. Some have denied bubbles exist; others have argued bubbles must somehow be “rational.” Often, the argument is that bubbles are caused by “uninformed” traders, or “dumb money,” while the “smart money” sits on the sidelines.

The latest findings suggest, however, that bubbles might be caused not by traders who lack information but by those who have too much.

Pessimism is Seductive

Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund hits it again with his post on how pessimism is intellectually seductive in a way optimism only wishes it could be…

Tell someone that everything will be great and they’re likely to either shrug you off or offer a skeptical eye. Tell someone they’re in danger and you have their undivided attention.

Hearing that the world is going to hell is more interesting than forecasting that things will gradually get better over time, even if the latter is accurate for most people most of the time. Pessimism can be hard to distinguish from critical thinking and is often taken more seriously than optimism, which can be hard to distinguish from salesmanship and aloofness.

…On one hand it makes sense. Daniel Kahneman once wrote: “Organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive and reproduce.”

But on the other hand, it’s crazy. We don’t just respond faster to pessimism. We coddle it for longer than is necessary. Optimism demands facts and is ditched at the first sign of trouble. Pessimism can be grown from a crazy thought and clutched indefinitely.

How to Fill Your Years with Life

If you haven’t picked Ryan wonderful book – Ego is the Enemy – do that now. In this book, he shows how ego – irrational or delusional self-belief – has long been linked with success and striving for goals yet this same drive has a dark side. Anyways, Ryan just wrote a wonderful post on things to do to live a full life and leave nothing on the table by 30. Among others, here are two of my favourites from his list…

7. Keep a Journal — Not for looking backward, but to force you to think about what you’re doing now. I should have done this earlier.

10. The Quiet Moments Are The Best — There is a line from Lao Tzu. “Peace is in the emptiness. Emptiness is in the fast of the mind.” It’s in the quiet, still moments that we feel what matters in life. Standing on the shore of a lake. Looking out over a canyon. Resting your head against someone else’s. It’s a shortage of these moments that give rise to the feeling that we haven’t lived enough, that we have to keep going. Seeking them out, encouraging them is what makes you feel like you’ve done plenty.

Ryan ends his post with a paragraph from Mozart, who lived to be 35 but filled those years with many, many decades of life and work…

I have now made a habit of being prepared in all affairs of life for the worst. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that—young as I am—I may not live to see another day. Yet not one of all my acquaintances could say that in my company I am morose or disgruntled. For this blessing, I daily thank my creator.

Howard Marks on Market Excesses

Like Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters, Howard Marks’ memos are a must-read. In one he wrote in 2005, Marks discussed market trends being taken to excess – and the painful consequences that become clear in hindsight. Here’s an excerpt from that memo of Marks, which is highly relevant in today’s today environment…

I often cite John Kenneth Galbraith’s observation that one of the outstanding hallmarks of the financial world is “the extreme brevity of the financial memory.” Investors lose money over and over because they simply forget that cycles are inevitable and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Now I’ve found a great quotation from Churchill, also reminding us that foresight comes largely from awareness of history.

Along similar lines, I’m struck by the extent to which a related factor, inadequate skepticism, also contributes to investment losses. Getting the most out of a book, play or movie usually requires “willing suspension of disbelief.” We’re glad to overlook the occasional plot glitch, historical inaccuracy or physical impossibility because it increases our enjoyment. When we watch Peter Pan, we don’t want to hear the person sitting next to us say, “I can see the wires” (even though we know they’re there). While we know boys can’t fly, we don’t care; we’re just there for fun.

But our purpose in investing is serious, not fun, and we must constantly be on the lookout for things that can’t work in real life. In short, the process of investing requires a strong dose of disbelief. Time and time again, the post-mortems of financial debacles include two classic phrases: “It was too good to be true” and “What were they thinking?” I’m writing to explore why these observations are so often invoked in the past tense.

How Big Oil Will Die

Electric cars with lives 3x longer than those run on the internal combustion engine are being bought in droves in the Western world. But this is just one of the factor that may spell doom for oil and the businesses that survive by producing and selling it…

Big Oil is perhaps the most feared and respected industry in history. Oil is warming the planet — cars and trucks contribute about 15% of global fossil fuels emissions — yet this fact barely dents its use. Oil fuels the most politically volatile regions in the world, yet we’ve decided to send military aid to unstable and untrustworthy dictators because their oil is critical to our own security. For the last century, oil has dominated our economics and our politics. Oil is power.

Yet I argue here that technology is about to undo a century of political and economic dominance by oil. Big Oil will be cut down in the next decade by a combination of smartphone apps, long-life batteries, and simpler gearing. And as is always the case with new technology, the undoing will occur far faster than anyone thought possible.

A Dozen Ideas from Charlie Munger

Tren Griffin of 25iq has done another wonderful post, this time on compiling a dozen thoughts from Charlie Munger from the 2017 Berkshire AGM, including this one…

“A life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” “If we had stopped learning, you [Berkshire shareholders] wouldn’t be here – you’d be alive, probably, but you wouldn’t be here.” “There’s nothing like a personal, painful experience if we want to learn, and we certainly have had our share of it.” “There’s nothing like the pain of getting into a lousy business to find a good one.” “We were young and ignorant then; Now we’re old and ignorant.” “Experience is like eating cockleburs – it really gets your attention.” “It is a good idea to not play where the other people are better.”

Genius of Jeff Bezos

Sean Iddings has written a nice post tracking the genius of Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos…

Jeff Bezos was able to see differently than nearly everybody else in the early 2000’s, and continues today, largely in part to his fanatical preparation.

In Jeff Bezos’ biography The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, childhood friend Joshua Weinstein recalled, “He was excruciatingly focused. Not like mad-scientist focused, but he was capable of really focusing, in a crazy way, on certain things. He was extremely disciplined, which is how he is able to do all these things.” Part of that focus and discipline was vacuuming up details from history. This vast storehouse of details has given Bezos the ability to frame his present situation with the best historical examples. In other words, by looking at the past he has been able to throw out all of the useless noise and draw accurate conclusions to how the future might unfold based on the past.

This phenomenon is perfectly observed in 2003 and is repeating again today.

Keep in Touch with People

Be the butterfly whose wings can create a positive hurricane in someone’s life. A lovely post from my friend Vishal Kataria…

Don’t just keep in touch with people who matter because they can give something. Keep in touch because sometimes, you will give something… something that nobody else can offer. Be there for them. Your friends will thank life for sending a friend like you. Your butterfly wings can create a positive hurricane in their lives.

I’m guilty of not keeping in touch with people who care. Just because. It took a memory to make me realize how selfish I am. It’s not always about me. In fact, it almost never should be about me. I will step out of my comfort zone. I will keep in touch. I will ask people if I can do something for them. Will you?

Compounding Goodwill

Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder.” If you understand the basics of compounding, you would tend to agree with Einstein’s statement. There is immense power in compounding. A small amount of money left for compounding for a very long time, even at a modest rate, can turn into a staggering sum.

But what most people miss is that the real beauty of compounding lies not in wealth creation, but in another, more important, area of life too. It’s called goodwill that you create in this world.

In his book, Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier writes about Mohnish Pabrai …

…over the past ten years, I’ve repeatedly observed how he looks to see what he can do for others, not the other way round…By acting this way, I could see that Mohnish created an incredible network of people who wish him well and would love to find ways to help him and thank him for his kindness. This is the extraordinarily powerful effect of compounding goodwill by being a giver, not a taker. And as he has taught me, the paradox is that you end up receiving infinitely more in life by giving than by taking.

True gifts bring people closer together. An unconditional gift, one given with nothing expected in return, can change everything. It creates conversations and spread ideas. It opens doors and creates forward motion.

So, what value are you adding to the world? What is it that you’re giving out without any expectation of returns?

As with all matters of compounding, the sooner you start the longer runway you’ll get.

Start today!

The post Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[sunshineweb]

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill

Some nice stuff I am reading, watching, and observing at the start of this weekend…

Of Greater Fools and Bubbles

How many greater fools does it take to make a bubble? An old but highly relevant post from Jason Zweig…

Economists have struggled and failed to explain why markets turn into manias. Some have denied bubbles exist; others have argued bubbles must somehow be “rational.” Often, the argument is that bubbles are caused by “uninformed” traders, or “dumb money,” while the “smart money” sits on the sidelines.

The latest findings suggest, however, that bubbles might be caused not by traders who lack information but by those who have too much.

Pessimism is Seductive

Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund hits it again with his post on how pessimism is intellectually seductive in a way optimism only wishes it could be…

Tell someone that everything will be great and they’re likely to either shrug you off or offer a skeptical eye. Tell someone they’re in danger and you have their undivided attention.

Hearing that the world is going to hell is more interesting than forecasting that things will gradually get better over time, even if the latter is accurate for most people most of the time. Pessimism can be hard to distinguish from critical thinking and is often taken more seriously than optimism, which can be hard to distinguish from salesmanship and aloofness.

…On one hand it makes sense. Daniel Kahneman once wrote: “Organisms that treat threats as more urgent than opportunities have a better chance to survive and reproduce.”

But on the other hand, it’s crazy. We don’t just respond faster to pessimism. We coddle it for longer than is necessary. Optimism demands facts and is ditched at the first sign of trouble. Pessimism can be grown from a crazy thought and clutched indefinitely.

How to Fill Your Years with Life

If you haven’t picked Ryan wonderful book – Ego is the Enemy – do that now. In this book, he shows how ego – irrational or delusional self-belief – has long been linked with success and striving for goals yet this same drive has a dark side. Anyways, Ryan just wrote a wonderful post on things to do to live a full life and leave nothing on the table by 30. Among others, here are two of my favourites from his list…

7. Keep a Journal — Not for looking backward, but to force you to think about what you’re doing now. I should have done this earlier.

10. The Quiet Moments Are The Best — There is a line from Lao Tzu. “Peace is in the emptiness. Emptiness is in the fast of the mind.” It’s in the quiet, still moments that we feel what matters in life. Standing on the shore of a lake. Looking out over a canyon. Resting your head against someone else’s. It’s a shortage of these moments that give rise to the feeling that we haven’t lived enough, that we have to keep going. Seeking them out, encouraging them is what makes you feel like you’ve done plenty.

Ryan ends his post with a paragraph from Mozart, who lived to be 35 but filled those years with many, many decades of life and work…

I have now made a habit of being prepared in all affairs of life for the worst. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that—young as I am—I may not live to see another day. Yet not one of all my acquaintances could say that in my company I am morose or disgruntled. For this blessing, I daily thank my creator.

Howard Marks on Market Excesses

Like Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters, Howard Marks’ memos are a must-read. In one he wrote in 2005, Marks discussed market trends being taken to excess – and the painful consequences that become clear in hindsight. Here’s an excerpt from that memo of Marks, which is highly relevant in today’s today environment…

I often cite John Kenneth Galbraith’s observation that one of the outstanding hallmarks of the financial world is “the extreme brevity of the financial memory.” Investors lose money over and over because they simply forget that cycles are inevitable and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Now I’ve found a great quotation from Churchill, also reminding us that foresight comes largely from awareness of history.

Along similar lines, I’m struck by the extent to which a related factor, inadequate skepticism, also contributes to investment losses. Getting the most out of a book, play or movie usually requires “willing suspension of disbelief.” We’re glad to overlook the occasional plot glitch, historical inaccuracy or physical impossibility because it increases our enjoyment. When we watch Peter Pan, we don’t want to hear the person sitting next to us say, “I can see the wires” (even though we know they’re there). While we know boys can’t fly, we don’t care; we’re just there for fun.

But our purpose in investing is serious, not fun, and we must constantly be on the lookout for things that can’t work in real life. In short, the process of investing requires a strong dose of disbelief. Time and time again, the post-mortems of financial debacles include two classic phrases: “It was too good to be true” and “What were they thinking?” I’m writing to explore why these observations are so often invoked in the past tense.

How Big Oil Will Die

Electric cars with lives 3x longer than those run on the internal combustion engine are being bought in droves in the Western world. But this is just one of the factor that may spell doom for oil and the businesses that survive by producing and selling it…

Big Oil is perhaps the most feared and respected industry in history. Oil is warming the planet — cars and trucks contribute about 15% of global fossil fuels emissions — yet this fact barely dents its use. Oil fuels the most politically volatile regions in the world, yet we’ve decided to send military aid to unstable and untrustworthy dictators because their oil is critical to our own security. For the last century, oil has dominated our economics and our politics. Oil is power.

Yet I argue here that technology is about to undo a century of political and economic dominance by oil. Big Oil will be cut down in the next decade by a combination of smartphone apps, long-life batteries, and simpler gearing. And as is always the case with new technology, the undoing will occur far faster than anyone thought possible.

A Dozen Ideas from Charlie Munger

Tren Griffin of 25iq has done another wonderful post, this time on compiling a dozen thoughts from Charlie Munger from the 2017 Berkshire AGM, including this one…

“A life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” “If we had stopped learning, you [Berkshire shareholders] wouldn’t be here – you’d be alive, probably, but you wouldn’t be here.” “There’s nothing like a personal, painful experience if we want to learn, and we certainly have had our share of it.” “There’s nothing like the pain of getting into a lousy business to find a good one.” “We were young and ignorant then; Now we’re old and ignorant.” “Experience is like eating cockleburs – it really gets your attention.” “It is a good idea to not play where the other people are better.”

Genius of Jeff Bezos

Sean Iddings has written a nice post tracking the genius of Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos…

Jeff Bezos was able to see differently than nearly everybody else in the early 2000’s, and continues today, largely in part to his fanatical preparation.

In Jeff Bezos’ biography The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, childhood friend Joshua Weinstein recalled, “He was excruciatingly focused. Not like mad-scientist focused, but he was capable of really focusing, in a crazy way, on certain things. He was extremely disciplined, which is how he is able to do all these things.” Part of that focus and discipline was vacuuming up details from history. This vast storehouse of details has given Bezos the ability to frame his present situation with the best historical examples. In other words, by looking at the past he has been able to throw out all of the useless noise and draw accurate conclusions to how the future might unfold based on the past.

This phenomenon is perfectly observed in 2003 and is repeating again today.

Keep in Touch with People

Be the butterfly whose wings can create a positive hurricane in someone’s life. A lovely post from my friend Vishal Kataria…

Don’t just keep in touch with people who matter because they can give something. Keep in touch because sometimes, you will give something… something that nobody else can offer. Be there for them. Your friends will thank life for sending a friend like you. Your butterfly wings can create a positive hurricane in their lives.

I’m guilty of not keeping in touch with people who care. Just because. It took a memory to make me realize how selfish I am. It’s not always about me. In fact, it almost never should be about me. I will step out of my comfort zone. I will keep in touch. I will ask people if I can do something for them. Will you?

Compounding Goodwill

Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder.” If you understand the basics of compounding, you would tend to agree with Einstein’s statement. There is immense power in compounding. A small amount of money left for compounding for a very long time, even at a modest rate, can turn into a staggering sum.

But what most people miss is that the real beauty of compounding lies not in wealth creation, but in another, more important, area of life too. It’s called goodwill that you create in this world.

In his book, Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier writes about Mohnish Pabrai …

…over the past ten years, I’ve repeatedly observed how he looks to see what he can do for others, not the other way round…By acting this way, I could see that Mohnish created an incredible network of people who wish him well and would love to find ways to help him and thank him for his kindness. This is the extraordinarily powerful effect of compounding goodwill by being a giver, not a taker. And as he has taught me, the paradox is that you end up receiving infinitely more in life by giving than by taking.

True gifts bring people closer together. An unconditional gift, one given with nothing expected in return, can change everything. It creates conversations and spread ideas. It opens doors and creates forward motion.

So, what value are you adding to the world? What is it that you’re giving out without any expectation of returns?

As with all matters of compounding, the sooner you start the longer runway you’ll get.

Start today!

The post Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Safal Niveshak Stream – The Powerful Effect of Compounding Goodwill published first on http://ift.tt/2sCRXMW