#trading rituals

[death-metal-mugs]

Coffee, Stocks, and Staying Energized in a Chaotic Market

For stock traders, coffee is more than just a drink—it’s a lifeline. The markets are unpredictable, chaotic, and often unforgiving, and you need focus, energy, and patience to keep up. When every decision counts and every moment matters, having the right tools—including a strong cup of coffee—makes all the difference. In fact, coffee has become as essential to traders as their screen setup, trading platform, and market indicators.

There’s a reason caffeine and market analysis go hand-in-hand. Coffee fuels those early mornings and late nights, providing the mental edge to dive into charts, track indicators, and make split-second decisions. Trading demands a combination of alertness and calm, and there’s nothing like a hot brew to keep you focused when the market swings. If you’re looking for a way to bring even more personality to your desk, the Stonks Coffee Mug is the perfect companion, reminding you to keep it cool—even when the numbers don’t.

Stock traders know that the market waits for no one. While others are hitting snooze, traders are analyzing overnight movements, prepping for market open, and scanning global news for potential impacts. Having a dedicated morning routine with coffee as the cornerstone isn’t just about habit—it’s about optimizing performance. That first sip of coffee acts as a ritualistic cue, signaling it’s time to dive deep into analysis, make sense of price movements, and set up the game plan for the day. It’s all about creating the right headspace, and the right coffee mug can make even a tough day feel a little lighter.

Let’s face it: there are days when the market is kind, and days when it’s downright brutal. Coffee helps soften the blow, allowing traders to sit back, breathe, and regroup before the next move. Whether you’re celebrating gains or regrouping after a loss, a bold cup of joe can be a grounding force. And for those tough days when you’re staring at red on the screen, a coffee mug that brings a bit of humor can be just what you need to keep your spirits up. The Stonks Coffee Mug isn’t just a drink holder; it’s a small reminder not to take things too seriously and that even in trading, it’s okay to laugh at the ups and downs.

So, whether you’re diving into the market at 7 AM or closing out the day with a final cup, coffee and stocks have more in common than you might think. Both require energy, dedication, and a little bit of boldness. Next time you take a sip, remember that you’re not just drinking coffee—you’re fueling your next big trade.

[kittenintheden]

being that bitch this morning bc I keep seeing references to the ascension ritual “killing” 7000 people. they weren’t killed. their souls were sacrificed to Mephistopheles. he owns them. they’re eternally bound to his realm and he can do what he wants with them forever. and he’s not a nice dude.

so just. putting that out there as food for thought. any argument that the ritual puts anyone “out of their misery” is uuuuuuuuh a significant misread*.

* this is different than choosing not to complete the ritual component and using the staff to kill the spawn. that is actual death and release of their souls.

[bos0rka]

²⁰²⁴ gang

[imminent-danger-came]

I'll never get over the fact that MK trades his friends for power to save his friends. What's wrong with him

[0lympus-mons]

and they had matching average annual value...

[testoster0ne]

andrea and alberto

[lovinggreeniehours]

2022 / 2024 (+takahara getting eepy)

hi they're getting married in 2 months btw :) if that matters to you

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer In The Dark -- Fun With Trauma

Hi all -- it's time to talk about my VITD trio again! Specifically, today we're discussing their Traumas! :D Now, "Trauma" in Blades In The Dark refers to a condition your scoundrel picks up when they max out their stress during the course of their adventure -- once they fill up all their stress boxes, they have some sort of mental break, can no longer participate in the rest of the current score, and develop a new specific personality quirk that will haunt them for the rest of the adventures. A character can develop four traumas before they have to be retired from life as a scoundrel (either literally retiring or being thrown into jail as a sacrifice to the Bluecoats). On the plus side, each new trauma is also a chance to earn extra XP -- if your character struggles with the side effects of a trauma during a score, you can mark a point or two of XP for it and level up your character a little bit faster. The book has eight potential traumas for scoundrels to pick up -- Cold, Haunted, Obsessed, Paranoid, Reckless, Soft, Unstable, and Vicious -- but as I've thought about my trio and where I want them to go (and what other systems in the book I'd like to use), I've come up with somewhat more bespoke traumas for them:

-->Alice: Our favorite Cutter actually starts with a trauma -- as I've mentioned before, I looked at the description for the Haunted trauma -- "You’re often lost in reverie, reliving past horrors, seeing things" (pg 14) -- and went "yeah, that pretty well covers her hallucinations of Wonderland." (It's the reason she also gets two starting abilities instead of just one -- trade-off!) As for her next potential trauma, I was initially considering Vicious -- "You seek out opportunities to hurt people, even for no good reason" -- but then decided that perhaps a slightly more logical one would be a tweaked form called Overprotective -- "You make sure everyone knows that what's yours is yours, to the point of violence." Alice is, of course, protective of Victor and Smiler even before she picks up this particular trauma, but afterward, she can get a little overenthusiastic about keeping danger away from them, simply because she doesn't want to lose the people she loves again. That house fire where her family died did a number on her head, after all! The pair probably have to rein her in sometimes to make sure she doesn't accidentally cause them more trouble trying to keep them safe. I don't have a specific scene in mind for what triggers it, but I know it would have to involve Victor and/or Smiler getting hurt and her just letting loose to protect them.

-->Victor: My initial ideas for a trauma for our lovely Whisper were Paranoid -- "You imagine danger everywhere; you can’t trust others" -- as the result of a particularly dangerous score that spooked him badly, or Obsessed -- "You’re enthralled by one thing: an activity, a person, an ideology" -- as the result of him getting a little too much into studying the dangerous magic of Duskwall...but then, while researching the Ritual special ability to figure out how to create new rituals for Victor to use, I found the sample ritual "Portal to the Depths" -- which involves singing an ancient song to open a portal up into the Void Sea, swamping anyone unlucky enough to be in front of it with its dark water filled with mysterious starlight and dragging them into the cold depths. The thing is, whenever someone uses this ritual, along with taking six stress, they must also tick a progress clock called "Seduced By The Leviathan's Song."

Cue me coming up with a scene where Victor, having filled up that progress clock, is with Alice and Smiler at The Docks (yes, this the name of a neighborhood in the city; it is self-explanatory) -- and ends up getting mind-controlled by the song of a nearby Leviathan into nearly walking off one of said docks to either drown or get devoured. Fortunately, this is after the trio have started playing with hypnosis in their private lives, and Smiler and Alice are able to stop him in his tracks by invoking their control over his mind -- but the experience leaves Victor with the custom trauma Phobia -- "You are terrified of a particular person, thing, or place and refuse to be near it." As you might imagine, Victor's terror revolves around the ocean, and he refuses to be anywhere near it if he can -- no more scores involving The Docks for this trio!

-->Smiler: Deciding on any trauma conditions for our cheerful combination Leech/Slide was a bit tricky for me at first -- not only is Smiler a naturally-cheery person who takes a lot of things that would stress out others in stride (see them very casually talking to ghosts in "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of"), they also of course end up in possession of the ability Functioning Vice, which allows them to adjust how much stress they clear when indulging their Vice and makes emptying out that track between scores a lot easier. I really wasn't sure which of the ones on offer would actually fit them --

And then. While reading through the "Changing The Game" section of the book, I stumbled across the "Forgotten Gods" section in "Advanced Abilities and Permissions." Which details what happens when your character opens their mind to a forgotten god -- including access to the ability Glorious Visage, which allows the character to hit everyone in the vicinity with an image of the god's form, costing them three stress and causing everyone around them to at least flee in fear or be paralyzed with dread. The more traumatized the character, the more harm they can do, up to killing a specific person by shattering their mind. I was like "Oooooo, wow, creepy but neat" --

And then I was like "Smiler's already been touched by their god..."

Cue the creation of the custom trauma Vessel -- "Your body is capable of hosting the will of a forgotten god -- and they know it." The way I see this working for Smiler is, the first time they overmax their stress, their god Mar-Mal sees this, is like "!!! Let me help!" and straight-up possesses their body for the rest of the score. Fortunately they do leave once the danger is passed -- helped by Victor and Alice going "It would make us VERY HAPPY if you gave us Smiler back" -- and Smiler recovers from the experience, but the door has been opened in their head, and it's not being shut anytime soon. The trauma automatically gives them access to the customized special ability Joyous Visage -- where Smiler can use Mar-Mal's power to stun people with happiness (it works a bit like the "Hysteria" power in VTMB's version of the Dementation discipline, with people getting completely incapacitated by laughter) -- but every time Smiler uses that power, a die must be rolled. On a six, they use the power safely and only take two stress; on a five through two, they use the power but Mar-Mal takes an interest in the proceedings, forcing them to take three stress; and on a one, Mar-Mal is like "time to take over again!" and possesses their body for the rest of the score. On the plus side, Mar-Mal automatically succeeds at everything they do while in control of Smiler's body (they are a fucking god, after all); on the minus side, when they leave, Smiler has to deal with Level 2 "Post-Possession Exhaustion" harm (because hosting the power of a god is no joke). Smiler has mixed feelings about this whole situation -- on the one hand, they're super excited that they can host the will of their god and not die, but on the other...they are a little scared that maybe, one day, Mar-Mal won't give their body back...

And there we have it -- three lovely traumas for my characters to suffer with! I don't know yet when they'll come into play during all the various stories I have planned, but they are there when I need them! I'm sure the trio are thrilled. XD

[nonconstories]

Someday, I will buckle down and write my sexy monster fucking version of King Lindworm, where the prince stays at least semi-dragonfied. But see, I'm torn. Do I make the monster prince cis and he's semi-dragonfied from the wedding night, and now he's just the heir to throne and also a traumatized, aggressive monster boy married to a Very Weird peasant girl who's THE FUTURE QUEEN NOW and also yeah she's kind of a witch and oh by the way the prince is VERY MUCH not a regular person and oh by the way you know all those princesses he ate? Yeah their dads are like mad.

Or

OR

Is he only called 'the prince' because dragons are all intersex and their gender is always self-selected? Is his human form female and the peasant girl actually does complete the ritual and EVERYONE is surprised? And the king and queen just chuck their new 'princess' in a dungeon to rot out of sight and send peasant-queen home to her goddamn mill like you didn't see shit and she's like actually no I am angry AND fearless AND very horny for dragons and her trans dragon husband is all I WILL break out of here I WILL learn the magic it takes to get my real body back I WILL find my wife and the human prince is sweating goddamn bullets as Deranged Peasant Witch and Deranged Trans Dragon Prince and Idiot Moron Queen are all plotting different plots and several of these plots end with him dead.

[ohimsummer]

FEIN FEIN FEIN FEIN

STOP TRYING TO CAST SPELLS ON ME I AM AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER 🤨🤨

[edwardseymour]

Sorry for being annoying over Anne x Jane but if you ever would have the chance to adapt this ship how would you do it?

by ‘adapt’, do you mean for a dramatisation? because i strictly believe that we need to put a moratorium on tudor related media (excluding henry vii and maaaaybe mary i since they’re underrepresented as is, and it would annoy the right people). so i don’t want an adaptation, frankly.

as for an ideal adaptation… well, i liked the idea of anne and jane’s dynamic in wolf hall — but not anne’s characterisation. it was so belligerent in stripping her of warmth and humanity, and this collective amnesia about criticisms of mantel’s handling of women (and gender) now that she’s dead is really something. personally, i’m fine with violently and bodily shoving her from her pedestal. on a similar strain, channel 5’s anne boleyn tried to give us a similar dynamic — of anne being unsettled by jane, whilst simultaneously looking down at her, and (again) i like the idea of anne being curious about jane, and the dynamic of gender/femininity being played with, with the two being seemingly polar opposites in ideological opposition, but nothing was delivered on that front. for as much as lola talked about jane being ‘machiavellian’... literally nothing was shown really exploring that. the kiss felt like everything else in that show: hollow, trying to be reactionary. you can’t try to explore that dynamic and simultaneously refuse jane any characterisation beyond the periphery of anne’s perspective; it’s imbalanced. also, i don’t like how these adaptations take every opportunity to make anne abusive to others — she is always depicted as putting her hands on jane (as well as striking others) and anne boleyn (channel 5) has her sexually harassing jane. i am not opposed to depicting anne as violent or abusive (there’s arguably evidence for it) but it seems notably one-sided: jane dormer’s account implies jane gave as good as she got (“scratching and bye blows between the queen and her maid”), and jane was clearly willing to undermine and displace her mistress which contradicts the idea of jane as passive/complacently honourable.

arguably the tudors s2 threads the needle the best? anne is irascible and clearly agitated and unsettled by jane, who is shown to be actively involved in her faction, and evidently lacks respect for anne. it just doesn’t take it far enough on characterising jane/giving her a clear motivation, and walks all of it back by s3, anyway.

[revvethasmythh]

i'm so happy about this

[gothdaddyissues]

Rolling up to the Canada/USA border crossing the day of my Ritual...

Border Guard: Are you bringing anything across with you today?

Me: Yes. Concrete evidence of my mental illness:

See you at the Pine Knob ritual August 14th!

[nabsthevulture]

I've been having horrible issues with the skin on the back of my hands and the only thing that alleviates the pain and the itching is the neosporin and lidocaine in it, but it is so horribly greasy that I have to wear my compression gloves so it doesn't get rubbed off on everything but the gloves make my hands ITCH and i want to fucking scream

[wildsagebrush]

guys it's getting kind of embarrassing dancing alone at the club. it's just me breakdancing (slowly, for some reason), the club is empty, and occasionally people come in to collect recycling. i'm having a midlife crisis before my 20s

[mourning-again-in-america]

>playing Minecraft

>want to sleep in a villager's bed because mine is further away

>there's actually two villagers in this one, one sleeping and one standing on top of the sleeper.

>no problem

>try to kick the sleeper out of the bed and get to sleep before the other one starts sleeping

>holding flint and steel

>mistarget my right-click

>oh fuck

>light all of us on fire

>dump a bucket of water on the nearby crafting table to put us all out

>go to sleep

>they'll still trade with me in the morning

I love this game.