#we both obviously have access to the internet. please start using it to fact check your claims

[vamptits]

consistently amazed at how unwilling people are to examine their biases. if you're going to argue with me over junk science I'd love it if you had like a single source. or even just a point to be making beyond "i think you're wrong"

[ticklishraspberries]

hi

I read your post about your courage to talk about tickling in therapy. And that you are thinking about sharing bits of it with us. ❤️‍🩹 If you feel comfortable? Please, do so. I started therapy a while ago, but haven’t had the courage or mental unloading level to talk about this chapter, tbh.

Hello!! I'm gonna use your ask as the place to talk about this, so yes, I really hope this can possibly be helpful to you and others!! This is mostly going to be about dealing with shame surrounding tickling and sort of...why I think it became a kink for me? Trigger warnings for mentions of grooming, sexual abuse, and pornography.

So, I grew up with unrestricted internet access as a child. My parents had no idea how to deal with growing technology, and they really didn't understand how to put child safety features on or how to even check the history, so I could pretty much do whatever I wanted.

From a very young age, I started experiencing the feeling that I thought about tickling differently than other people, but there wasn't really shame about it, I just knew that it...mattered more to me than others? I would describe it as more of a fixation, and now as an adult who has been diagnosed with autism, I'd say it might have something to do with that.

As a very young child, I would look up things about tickling, and I was immediately met with fetish content. Back in the early 2000's, even fanfiction was mostly sexual. Harry Potter ticklefics were all, like, an underage Hermione being non-consensually tickled by magical plants, or Voldemort or Snape using it to torture Harry.

As an impressionable child, I began to internalize the idea that this likely innocent interest in tickling was a dark, perverted sexual deviance and developed a debilitating sense of shame towards it. It's why the word would make me cringe, why I stopped letting my family do it to me, why I would feel disgusted and embarrassed when it happened in shows and movies.

Recently, my partner, our mutual best friend, and I had this very deep talk about fetishes. We all have one that we are deeply ashamed of (obviously I'm not going to share theirs) and both of them have never judged me for a single second about tickling. Whenever it happened in media we were watching, my friend expressed not knowing how to handle it for my sake, because I would very clearly get uncomfortable.

He encouraged me to really think about why it made me uncomfortable, especially in a room with 2 of the only people in my life who would never judge me for it, and I decided to take his advice and really dwell on it.

There had been a reason that I had to bring it up in therapy previously, it's a long and frankly far too personal story to share, but I had really danced around what it was and my therapist ended up asking if she could guess what I was talking about, and she correctly guessed that it was tickling. My therapist is super chill and comfortable talking about literally anything with me, and she didn't make me feel judged at all. In fact, she was like, "I think a lot of people find that hot as like, foreplay at least!" and fully promised me that it was normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

Basically, with a mixture of self-reflection, discussing it in therapy, and talking about it with my partner and our friend, I have come to this conclusion: Being exposed to tickling as a sexual fetish at such a young age, as a child with no prior concept of what sex was or consent or anything, I was conditioned by pornography and inappropiate fanfiction/fanart the believe that there is something perverted and predatory about me liking tickling.

As someone with sexual trauma that was occurring around the same age that I discovered these things online, seeing the constant non-consensual and underage elements in these things made me see myself in the same light as people who were abusing me.

The ironic thing about this is, tickling is not inherently sexual to me, but I never let myself experience it platonically until very recently, because I was convinced I could not separate the sexual aspect from the innocent fixation. Tickling between myself and my platonic friends, or just playful/romantic tickling with my partner is also fun for me, and it doesn't turn me on. But I really struggled to acknowledge that these things could coexist, because I only ever saw the sexual side of it at the most impressionable age.

I have really bad intrusive thoughts, and a lot of self-esteem issues that make it very hard for me to trust myself and view myself in a positive way, so my mentally ill brain essentially convinced me that I was perverted, that I was a predator, etc. for simply...liking tickling. Even though logically I can understand that I am not a bad person, I don't want to non-consensually tickle people, I value consent, all of those important things, I felt like there was just something inherently wrong about liking it, and so, while I have preached being comfortable with it on this blog, I didn't even realize how deeply I have hated myself for years for it.

That is one reason why I think this blog and this community have been therapeutic for me, and why I still rarely write NSFW fanfiction. Tickling is a kink for me, yes, but I can fully separate when a situation is sexual or not. Recently, I have been able to start healing this. The friend I mentioned earlier knows how I feel about tickling and is still comfortable with it happening between us, which has really helped me begin to view it as a fun/safe/platonic thing again, and I'm getting way better at not getting uncomfortable when it happens in media.

My therapist has suggested doing some deeper work on this, but I kind of feel like I got to the bottom of the problem and am already feeling a lot better about it. However, I'm sure it will come up again.

I just wanted to share this because I always said talking about tickling in therapy would be my worst nightmare, that I would never do it, etc. and it ended up being a really positive experience that has made me so much more comfortable in myself and liking tickling.

I hope this could be insightful or helpful to some of you!! Thanks if you read this far.

[caliburn-the-sword]

AUSTRALIA HAS FERAL CAMELS??

no hate at all, just w h y?? what about this question is so embarrassing that you gotta be anonymous?? also i don't remember ever mentioning we have camels on this page so i love how you just consult your friendly neighbourhood aussie instead of like. google FKSDHFHKS. i was about to go "omg how DARE you just assume i'm from the outback and just know these things i'm literally a city rat" and realised that i DID in fact know these things because of school LMAO (astronomically rare aus high school curriculum W for not glossing over the history of poc in this country). i don't normally do this but that question was so random and shocking that i just HAVE to dive into this lmao just don't expect this to become a regular thing

okay, i wouldn't know about FERAL camels, but i do know about camels. south asian and middle eastern cameleers are the unsung heroes of australia fr, so time for a crash course in history with me <3

now, australia is REALLY fucking big right?? we're only a bit smaller than mainland usa. and like a WHOLE lot of australia is desert, which the useless brit colonisers couldn't traverse if their lives DEPENDED on it (both figuratively and literally; many died) but travel across states and exploration was becoming increasingly necessary. now part of this reason is that horses are Not built for the outback. but you know what IS built for desert?? camels. and who has both access to both camels and an ability to traverse desert?? south asian and middle eastern people.

so between the 18 hundreds and 1920s (you'll have to forgive me for a lack of specifics because it's been 3 years since i've last taken modern history) australia started letting in cameleers predominantly muslim from india and pakistan. these amazing people were the absolute BACKBONE of exploration, transporting goods and stuff between cities and all that. they also established the firsts mosques in australia!!

the need for cameleers pretty much stopped in the 1920s. most cameleers couldn't remain in australia because of the white australia policy, which basically barred immigration of anyone who wasn't a WASP. they were forced back to their old countries, and released their camels into the outback since they couldn't be brought back.

now i think feral camels DOES ring a bell from what i studied of robyn davidson in eng adv. the camels descended from the cameleers' camels are the feral ones in the outback. she was the first woman to cross the desert back in the 70s. check out her autobiography tracks. the only thing i really remember from it was her having to shoot and kill feral camels to survive, but not because it's poorly written, just because i have to read a LOT for eng LMAO. my entire class was actually really invested in it.

like MANY animals introduced to australia, camels are actually NOT good for the environment. very harsh on native plants and wildlife. can't go into specifics because i frankly don't know enough and i'm too lazy for google (i guess that would make two of us) but that's not the camels fault or the cameleers' fault obviously. everyone say it with me: fuck the brits.

ANYWAY this is far from extensive. as fun as it is for me to get to ramble on about history, i'm no expert, and i'd definitely recommend reading more up on it if it's of interest to you. and PLEASE don't trust me on this, i'm just a stranger on the internet. i didn't google jack shit, just went purely off memory. fact check me. don't just completely absorb this blindly. or do. who am i to tell you what to do?? i'm not your mum.

this was fun!!! i really hope dear anon sees this, or if they're not following me, that it happens upon their feed by some stroke of luck

[realcube]

The Maid Café || Saiki K x Reader

summary: nendou and kaidou keep pestering saiki to visit their favourite maid café but he shuts them down every time. however, after a bit of prying they manage to convince him to give the place a try and while they are there, you just so happen to be on shift. 

tw// cussing, maid café, (she/her) reader

key:

“non italicised text” = somebody besides Saiki speaking

“italicised text” = Saiki telepathically communicating

‘italised text’ = Saiki’s thought

‘Of course Nendou and Kaidou would be into maid cafés of all things — not cat cafés, not internet cafés — it just had to be maid cafés.’  

Saiki’s internal monologue began as Kaidou continued gushing on about the cute lady he met at the café a few days ago as an argument to why Saiki should join them next time they go. Not to say Saiki wasn’t listening as he felt extremely sorry for whatever lady had to tolerate Kaidou’s advances and his prayer went out to her but besides that, he really couldn’t care less about the maids or the café. 

Until, his attention was involuntarily aroused at the vocalisation of his name from Nendou, “Saiki’s definitely in for Friday, I’m pretty sure I sold him when I told him that the sandwiches there are almost as good as the ramen we usually get.”

‘No, you didn’t. I won’t be coming to join you on Friday. I’d much rather stay--’ 

Somehow Kaidou managed to cut off Saiki’s internal monologue with his annoying voice, “Don’t be silly, Nendou. You’re not going to win Saiki over with such a ridiculous comparison, one that he clearly doesn’t care about.” 

‘Am I delusional? Is this a hallucination? Or did Kaidou just say something logical and based in reality?’

Kaidou’s aura immediately changed to dark and sinister as a mischievous smirk crossed his face, the background squawks of the crows suddenly became much louder for some unknown reason. “Instead, you must locate your opponent's weak point before you can recognise the crucially important moment to exploit it. The process takes patience but it is one I have learned from my many years rebelling against Dark Reunion. Now, young Nendou, watch and learn.” He finished with a dramatic flip of his school jacket which was slung over his shoulders as a cape.

‘What was all that about?’

Saiki wondered before Kaidou turned to him, much less brooding than he was a few seconds ago, and said casually, “Your loss if you don’t come, Saiki — you’ll be the one missing out on some of the best desserts in our whole town — not to mention the coffee jelly.”

✿✿✿✿✿

‘How do I always end up losing to these people? I am a psychic for god’s sake!’

Saiki mentally cursed himself out as he stood shamefully in front of the maid café, wearing a carefully curated outfit — including his germanium ring  — created especially to hide his identity from anyone from his school that might pass by the café and spot him in there through the window or something. Honestly, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a maid café, or so he thought.

However, all the reviews he read along with both Nendou and Kaidou’s thoughts helped him conclude that this place’s coffee jelly and general dessert selection is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, his favourite Tumblr blog - DeadlyDesserts11037 - visited the place and gave it a 5 star review, recommending everybody who happens to pass by the town to definitely check the place out. After that, he was sold.

Saiki looked over at his friends and couldn’t help but facepalm in response to their bright red, thrilled expressions. “Good grief, please don’t tell me you are both that excited over ladies in maid outfits.” As you might’ve guessed, Saiki didn’t really understand the concept of a ‘maid café’, so he simply assumed the male obsession with maids had something to do with the objectification of women hence he obviously did not want to take part.

“Saiki, you’re seriously just built different if this doesn’t touch your soul.” They both brushed the pink-haired boy’s comment off, completely mesmerised by the sight of a particularly pretty maid-lady walking by the window — probably on her way to serve a table — carrying a notepad in one hand and a plate with a scrumptious-looking coffee jelly on top. 

Saiki followed their gaze, his breath hitching at the sight. He was speechless; no sarcastic comment, no running commentary, nothing. Just..woah! If he had known that the girls that work at this place were so gorgeous and the food looked so delicious, he would’ve came a long time ago.

He wasn’t even sure which one he wanted more; the girl or the jelly. In a way, one wasn’t complete without the other because the coffee jelly which she held high next to her head brought out her (E/C) eyes while her shapely figure highlighted the defined curves of the jelly. Drool was quick to start forming at the corners of his lips but he was even quicker to wipe it away; he was starving.

“We’re going in.”

✿✿✿✿✿

To Saiki’s dismay, it was not the stunning (H/C)-haired girl who he had caught a glimpse of through the glass that ushered them to their table. Rather, it was a slightly less gorgeous maid-lady who had long, bright purple hair which was clearly a wig. 

Fortunately for him, after she left Kadiou, Nendou and himself to take their seats, she rushed off saying that someone will come take their orders whenever they are ready.

Even with his psychic abilities, there wasn’t much he could think of to alter fate so the pretty coffee-jelly lady would end up serving their table, and besides that, he was way too caught up in gawking at all the mouth-watering desserts they had pictured on the menu. 

Simply glancing over the menu brought a stupid grin to his face, he wanted to try every delectable treat presented in front of him. However, he knew he must exhibit restraint, which was fairly simple as he knew deep down there was only one thing on the menu that he was truly after. You guessed it  — coffee jelly.

Usually, he couldn’t care less about what his friends comrades were going to order but in this case, he was tempted to try convince both Kaidou and Nendou to order something he liked so he could take a bite of whatever they were having, “What are you two going to order?”

Yet again though, he was ignored as Nendou and Kaidou were both too busy checking out other types of snacks to care about the ones on the menu. 

Then, a movement out of the corner of his eyes caught his attention so his head jolted from the menu to his new target, the beautiful girl he had saw through the window earlier. Previously, she was holding a coffee jelly but now she was basically empty handed, until she approached the table and pulled out a notepad and pen, “May I take your orders?” She asked in the most calming, melodious voice Saiki had ever heard, the sounds that left her mouth were nothing short of angelic. Which made sense since her serving their table must’ve been god’s gift to Saiki for all his hard work.

Chills, Saiki got literal chills before he mused, “A coffee jelly, and two brownies for the pair of clowns.” His blood ran cold; curse his smooth sarcastic comments! Most of the time, he was able to filter himself but due to the nerves that arose while talking to you, he probably shouldn’t be surprised that he had a little slip of the tongue. But now, you probably think he is a bitch that insults people on the regular; which he is, but not usually aloud! Plus, he couldn’t even tell what you were thinking due to his germanium ring and your distant expression, awful combo!

While he was in the middle of feeling bad for himself and considering teleporting away home, a miracle happened, you burst out laughing. And somehow, your laughter was even more silvery than your voice. 

Saiki had zoned-out from pure shock for a moment before coming back to reality, noticing that you had started jotting down something in your notepad, a sweet smile still lingering on your face despite the fact you had stopped laughing. “Alright, so one coffee jelly and two brownies. Anything else?” You asked, glancing back and forth between the three equally unique and strange men sitting at the table. 

“That’ll be all, thank you.” Saiki telepathically communicated as he usually did, considering actually using his mouth to speak for a change so he didn’t seem weird but in all honesty, he couldn’t be bothered. In any other situation, he would’ve gotten a drink of water or perhaps hot cocoa but right now he was way too afraid of making another error in his speech to request something else. 

Silently, he extended his arm to hand you the menu he was given when he entered the café, along with the ones Kaidou and Nendou were given too. His actions single-handedly shooting down your plan of leaning across the table to ‘take the menus’ but in reality it is just a subtle way of showing-off how nice your torso looked in this maid outfit, a trick you learned from your supervisor. 

You nodded, closing over your notepad and making your way over to the kitchen, being sure to swing your hips just a little bit extra to impress the pink-haired megane at the table you just took an order from. You mentally cursed your stupid brain though for always crushing on guys/gals who don’t seem the least bit interested in you. In this case, the guy’s attention was divided between his star-struck friends and the desserts on the menu, rather than you which was an unusual sight in a maid café considering that most people would only come to ogle at the waitresses. 

✿✿✿✿✿

“So, Saiki.” Kaidou finally landed back into reality after a large chunk of the waitresses roaming around were now in the kitchen which he didn’t have viewing access to, “What did you order us?”

‘So, he was fully aware that the waitress came to take his order, he just chose to ignore her and left me to order his food. What a child, it must be a side-effect of his eighth grade syndrome.’

Saiki couldn’t help but sigh, “I ordered you both brownies.”

Kaidou stuck out his bottom lip to form a pout as he crossed his arm over his chest like a toddler, “I hate brownies.” He muttered to himself, realising that if he wanted something done right, he’d have to do it himself.

An amused smirk tugged at Saiki’s lips but he resisted the urge to laugh, ‘I know.’ He thought, his masterplan to eat more food without looking greedy falling into place. “Oh well, more for me then.”

Suddenly, Nendou spun his head around to abruptly join the conversation, “Hey guys, did you see the hottie that was serving our table?” He inquired with starry eyes, as if he was a kid in a candy store.

Saiki nodded, ‘Obviously I did, you moron. I was the one who ordered the food for goodness’ sake!’

Kaidou shook his head, his eyes lighting up as he leaned in close to Nendou, “Nope! I was busy looking at the other girls, but tell us!” 

Nendou chuckled at Kaidou’s enthusiastic reaction before glancing to the side, outstretching his arm and pointing at the waitress that was now approaching the table with the food in her hands. “There she is!”

‘Don’t point at her, you idiot!’ Saiki mentally insulted his friend but instinctively followed the guidance of the tip of his finger until his eyes landed on your shapely figure — accentuated by the nature of the maid outfit  — slowly heading toward his table, holding the coffee jelly and the plate of brownies in the same graceful way you did when he saw you through the window. 

The gleam of your gorgeous hair, the movement of your luscious lashes, the gentle bounce of your upper body, how your perfectly manicured nails clutched the base of the jelly glass; everything about what he was seeing made him believe that if/when he were to die, this would be his ideal first sight as he passed through the gates of heaven. 

Before he knew it, you had reached the table and placed his jelly down on the table, gently nudging it towards him, “One coffee jelly for the cute boy with antennas.” You mused, making Saiki’s heart flutter in a way he was unfamiliar with. Then, you placed the brownies in front of Kaidou and Nednou who sat opposite from Saiki, “And two brownies for the clowns.” 

If it wasn’t for the fact the pair of clowns were too busy leching over you in your maid outfit, they’d probably be curious as to your choice of words but luckily for both you and Saiki, they were way to entranced by your visible bra strap to care about the little nickname.

Saiki felt a light blush creep onto his face, which only got worse as you discretely sent him a playful wink before turning on your heels to stroll back to the kitchen, “If you need anything else, just give me a wave.” 

All of them hummed agreement in unison until the waitress was out of sight, giving Saiki a moment to process the events that had just went down. Not only did you refer to him as ‘the cute boy with antennas’ but you also winked at him, if that wasn’t a clear sign you were interested, what was? However, Saiki still had his doubts since this was a maid café after all, perhaps you were just trained to do that with all your customers.

Luckily, the had the foresight to slip off his germanium ring to read your mind and that helped him come to the conclusion that you were either interested in him or you were just very competitive as the whole time you were serving the table your thoughts were along the lines of;

‘I’ll adjust my skirt- Ha! You looked! Try resist falling for me now, you hot lil’ megane! Your heart is mine and I know it! See, I’ll fidget with my corset too-- just make a move already, pinkie!’

Although he didn’t appreciate being called ‘pinkie’, he had no right to judge what was going on in your brain. All he could do is be thankful that you didn’t say that aloud.

✿✿✿✿✿

You sighed as you noticed the pink-haired boy and his little posy exit the establishment without so much as a goodbye, or even a wave! 

It was disappointing as you had already mentally planned your future with this guy and he had the audacity to do the real life equivalent of leaving you on read. But oh well, it would be approximately a week until you developed a crush on a random customer that lasts for around 30 minutes and for the time being, you can focus on doing your job.

You glumly shuffled over to their table to gather their plates to be washed, then a piece of colourful paper attached to the empty jelly glass caught your eye. As you held up the glass to inspect it further, you realised that it was a sticky note with a message written on it in black ink and neat, cursive handwriting. It read:

‘Dearest waitress,

Thank you for the excellent service, we (myself) tipped accordingly.’

You hadn’t finished reading yet but you were curious as to what he meant by that, and apparently you service must’ve been exceptional as the writer had left a whole ¥2000 tip. That’s a huge addition to the demonia fund.  

Followed by this charming little message was an extra tip for you; the writer’s phone number! Meaning that this little sticky note was something you had to protect with your life..so you shoved it in your bra for safe-keeping. 

But not before taking a moment to giggle with delight at who the note was signed by, 

‘Sincerely, the hot lil’ megane (aka Kusuo Saiki)’ 

[hoseokslefteyebrow]

You've Met With A Terrible Fate, Haven't You? || BEN DROWNED

Pairing : Yandere! Ben Drowned X Reader

Genre : Fluff, Angst, Yandere

Summary : Appears as a normal dude, but plot twist he's really not.

Wordcount: 4k lol

WARNINGS : This is fic is labeled as Yandere, for those who don't know what it means: "Somebody who is sweet and kind at first glance. But when it comes to their love (crush)they will act obsessive and violent." - Urban dictionary, poorly (but still disgustingly) described dead people, I know Ben originally doesn't kill but in the story he does, idk? Shit written¿ 

Also disclaimer this is my first time I've tried doing a yandere and it's obviously not my strongest point. Hope you enjoy either way.

You glance at the abandoned game console which your friend had dumped at your place earlier this day.

According to him, something was very, very, wrong with it. The Nintendo 64 was old, of course, but your friend mentioned not being able to pass the boss battle. He mentioned something along the lines of 'it keeps glitching and Link keeps dying'. In other words ' I know you're a hacker and I suck at this game, please hack it for me so I can feel less like a loser'.

You keep writing the email you're supposed to sent to your boss for another thirty minutes, before letting your curiosity lead you. 

Before you know it, you've plugged in the old console with more cables than originally planned because of how old it is, and with how modern your tv is. The first odd thing that strikes you is that there's only one account on it, and it's not labeled with your friend's name. 

Instead of 'Noah', it's labeled with 'BEN DROWNED' in bold passive aggressive letters.

Simply pushing it to the back of your mind, you start playing.

The second odd thing about the game is that the game has a specific date and it mentions how far BEN, or well, Noah is in the game. Yet when you click it, you have to start all over.

You shrug that off too, simply noting it as the game being old.

Before you know it, several hours pass, and you're finally at the boss battle Noah mentioned. Deciding to see if you can beat it first, you do not plug your laptop in at the Nintendo 64, and opt to play instead.

However just like Noah mentioned, you die as soon as you're close to winning and the game starts glitching.

It takes you barely ten minutes before you're fed up with it, and soon enough you plug your laptop in. You start up some programs and open up a few sites, quickly starting to work. Your fingers glide over the keys of your laptop as you type in the codes in order to hack the game, however after a few minutes, the game starts glitching heavily, and suddenly there's a sentence in bold red letters on the screen of your tv.

' YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT'

It says before the glitching becomes way too much, and some weird kind of red circle appears. Your eyes widen before unplugging the tv and game console, forgetting that your laptop is connected to it.

You miss the small glitches on the laptop screen.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - -

He gritts his teeth as the access to his portal is suddenly denied, the power cut early enough to avoid him.

His red eyes wander in the green coded space, looking for an exit, something that'll make sure he can get his hands on whoever this is. Lucky for him, there's a small white space what'll lead to the outside of it.

Once he's trough, he realizes he's still close to his victim. In fact, he's even closer now.

He smirks as he realizes.

Killing her is fair game now.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - »

You tap your chin as you look as the items on the shelf.

" Should I get the red one or green one?" You mumble to yourself.

" I'd recommend the green one. Green is always better." A voice from behind you startles you.

You whip your head around to look at the stranger who's talking to you.

Behind you is a male you don't recognise from anywhere. And as you start to study him, you realize he's quite handsome. He's got blonde hair, blue eyes and a rosy skin colour. He's wearing black ripped jeans, a dark green shirt, along with a black zip up hoodie, which is left open, he's got a few black ear piercings in his right ear, and has a gold chain around his neck, which disappears beneath his shirt, weighed down by a charm hidden away from your eyes. To top it all of, he's got a matching dark green beanie on top of his messily styled bangs.

" What? Did I say something wrong?" The blonde boy suddenly sweats.

You smile and shake your head.

" No, you didn't. I just tough I was alone here." You smile at him.

ØⱧ ₴₩ɆɆ₮ⱧɆ₳Ɽ₮, ɎØɄ Ⱨ₳VɆ₦'₮ ฿ɆɆ₦ ₳ⱠØ₦Ɇ ₣ØⱤ ₳ VɆⱤɎ ⱠØ₦₲ ₮ł₥Ɇ ₦Ø₩.

" I take that you talk to yourself then?" The male spits at you.

You're not sure if that's meant offensive or not.

" Um, yeah? I tend to do that sometimes yeah." You say, looking down at your hands who're still holding the red silk scarf and green silk scarf.

Đø₦'₮ ฿ɇ ₳₣ɽ₳łđ, ł ₩ø₦'₮ ⱨʉɽ₮ ɏøʉ. Øɽ ₩łⱡⱡ ł?

The unknown male's eyes soften subconsciously, looking at you with an emotion you're not familiar with.

" My name is Ben. What's yours?" 

Ben? Haven't you heard that somewhere before?

You smile at him, oblivious to the fact that you're talking to a killer.

" I'm Y/N. Nice to meet you Ben."

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS ? ¿ »

His mind flooded with ideas.

There's so many options on what he can do to her.

Should he mess with her laptop?

Should he just kill her now?

Or should he become closer?

Maybe he should.

He looks at her trough the screen of the laptop, which is almost always open, today not being any different.

He watches her as while she watches something behind the laptop, from the sounds he can hear trough the mic, she's most likely watching tv.

Perhaps he should become closer to her.

Pull her closer only to have her blood staining his hands.

Oh yes, her blood shall soon become his.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦łvɇ₴

She doesn't realize it when her laptop suddenly starts itself up, nor does she know that there's a figure crawling out of it.

He stared at her with deciphering eyes, silently wondering how she isn't dead yet.

If this was anyone else, he'd had them killed already. Their blood would already be staining his face and she would already be screaming in pain and dispair.

Yet here she was, laying peacefully on her bed. Asleep, obviously not dead. 

He wonders exactly what he should do next. She doesn't know that he's standing right next to her. It almost makes him laugh.

She doesn't even know that he exists.

She doesn't know that he's here.

He glares at her before moving back into the world of codes and technology.

For now, she lives.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦łvɇ₴ - - - ᖴᗩᓰᒪ

" And then it suddenly started glitching and stuff. Weird isn't it?" You finish off your story as you look at your new friend, Ben.

After meeting in the grocery store, he had suddenly texted you. 

Not knowing how he got your number, you got concerned, and asked him. According to him, you had given it to him yourself. At first you didn't believe him, until he told you to check the time of his first message, which somehow was indeed around the same time you were in the grocery store. After that you just shrugged it off as that you forgot it yourself. After all, you knew yourself to be a person with the memory of a goldfish.

Today the two of you met up again, for the fourth time this week.

" Odd indeed. What did you do after that?" Ben asked, acting as if he's interested, even tough he's really not.

" I unplugged it. I think I'm gonna lay off hacking for a while." You shrugged, taking a sip of your drink.

Before he could even think of a response, there was an unknown woman at your table, also holding a cup of coffee.

" Y/N? Long time no see." The new woman greeted you with a smile, sitting down beside you on the booth.

Ben scowled at the newcomer.

Ⱨø₩ đ₳ɽɇ ₴ⱨɇ ₴ł₮ ฿ɇ₴łđɇ ₩ⱨ₳₮'₴ ₥ł₦ɇ ₩ł₮ⱨøʉ₮ ₥ɏ ₱ɇɽ₥ł₴₴łø₦

" Hey, Sara. It's indeed been too long. How are you?" You started chatting with Sara.

Meanwhile Ben's anger only grew.

" My names Ben." Ben suddenly dryly joined your conversation as he slammed his drink down onto the table aggressively, looking straight into Sara's eyes.

" Sorry. Didn't see you there. I'm Sara nice to mee-"

" Yeah, yeah, whatever. Leave. We didn't invite you to come sit with us." Ben spat at her, looking at her with an intense look in his eyes.

Both you and your friend turned to look at him in confusion.

" Is something wrong with me being here? Did I offend you?" Sara asked, genuinely concerned.

Ben was fuming now, on the inside. Who does this girl think she is? First she comes to sit at their table uninvited, then she's capturing the attention of his new favorite plaything, and now she's questioning him? She has to go.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦ŁVɆ₴ - - - ᖴᗩᓰᒪ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ SᖻSᖶᘿᘻ

He heard her conversation with a male he certainly doesn't know trough her phone, using the microphone without her knowing.

According to what he knows, they're on a date. And according to her contacts, his name is Jaime. He can't find where they met, nor did he know why they met up.

But now that she's checked her reflexion one too many times, and made a pic of her full outfit to send to him, probably to mock him for not having her, ɏɇ₮, he realizes that she's on a date.

After some research by surfing quite literally trough the internet. It turned out this 'Jaime' person was Mexican, and had a soft persona. On his facebook page were pictures where he's working with animals or doing volunteers' work or overall just something where he's helping others. He found the black haired male pathetic, weak even.

In all honesty, even he himself didn't really find him a threat. Not when he looked like that and was overall just kind and bambi looking.

However, all his expectations are thrown out of the window when he hears them say their goodbyes.

" You know, I had a lot of fun tonight. You're really a nice person. In fact, I'd like to go on another date with you again." This voice was definitely that of a male's, probably Jaime.

" I agree. I had a lot of fun too." She said.

₣Ʉ₦? ⱧØ₩ ₵₳₦ Ł₮ ฿Ɇ ₳₦Ɏ ₣Ʉ₦ ₩Ł₮ⱧØɄ₮ ₥Ɇ?

" Good. Do you have a ride or would you like me to drive you home?-" He blocks out the rest of their conversation.

It appears that the good guy needs to go too.

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦ŁVɆ₴ - - - ᖴᗩᓰᒪ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ SᖻSᖶᘿᘻ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ ᑢᓍᘻᕵᒪᘿᖶᘿ - ᓍᕵᘿᘉ ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ∆

" We should spend more time together." Ben says randomly as the two of you snuggle on the couch.

You giggle, your ears tinting red.

" We're already together all the time tough." You tell him softly.

" I know, but still. By the way, did your stupid date reply yet?" He asked, eyes focused on the tv in front of the two of you.

" No, and don't call him stupid." You pout, softly scolding him.

₲ØØĐ

He grins at you with mysterious eyes.

You shrug it off, knowing it's part of him. The two of you have been hanging out for a while now. Almost three months to be precise. And you two have gotten very close. What used to be keeping distance and keeping the line between acquaintances and friends, had turned into friends or something more. You two almost hung out every day, you were basically attached to each other's hip now.

After a few peacefull moments, you excused yourself to the bathroom.

Right as you left, your phone rang.

He turned to look at the disturbing sound  his eyes widening at the name which is appearing on the screen.

 SARA

He stumbled over the couch to pick it up, an unpleasant feeling of suprise rising whitin him.

" Y/N?! You have to listen to me! Ben is not who you think he is! He's this-"

" I'm this what?" Ben smirked.

Damn you were taking a long time in the bathroom, not that he minded.

The other end of the line was dead silent.

" Don't worry. You don't need to say anything. I'll come home soon. And trust me, once I am, you will never be able to speak a word again." He spoke, an eerie calm in his voice.

" Goodbye, Sara." He said before hanging up.

" Sara called?" Your voice suddenly startled him.

" What? Oh, yeah. But she was in a hurry so she said she'd call you later." He smiled innocently.

You nodded and the two of you resumed watching the movie.

" Isn't there a way, that we could spend more time together?" He suddenly wondered out loud.

You sighed and turned to face him.

" I'm sorry Ben, but I have a job and I like spending time with other people too. So I'm afraid not." You told him softly.

An idea coded itself into his mind.

JɄ₴₮ ₮ⱤɄ₴₮ ₥Ɇ, ɎØɄ'ⱠⱠ ฿Ɇ ₥Ł₦Ɇ ₴ØØ₦

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦ŁVɆ₴ - - - ᖴᗩᓰᒪ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ SᖻSᖶᘿᘻ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ ᑢᓍᘻᕵᒪᘿᖶᘿ - ᓍᕵᘿᘉ ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ∆ - - - ᕲᓍᘺᘉᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ

You sighed in dispair in the night air as you walked home. Once again, you were rejected in a job interview.

A few days ago you were fired from the job you actually liked. You couldn't understand why either. You didn't do anything wrong, you were quite hardworking and always finished the documents in time.

Your supervisor looked afraid, terrified even when he told you to immediately pack your bags and leave, and ever since you just can't seem to get in anywhere. Not even the gas station wanted you in charge.

" Well hello there. What do we have here." A creepy voice suddenly sounded from behind you.

You turned around only to be greeted by a man with a creepy smile and even creepier, eye lid-less eyes. He was holding a knife, making his intentions obvious.

You didn't need to think twice about his intentions and whipped your phone out of your pocket with the intentions to call the cops and running.

The killer sadly isn't stupid, and has you on the ground under him whitin seconds.

Your phone's screen crack and slides to the other side, the dialed number not pressed on call yet.

" Don't cry sweetheart. It doesn't suit your pretty face. Don't fret, I'll make sure, you'll smile forever. " The killer tells you happily.

Both of you don't realize that your phone screen suddenly lights up in a green colour. Nor does either of you realize the figure crawling out of it.

The both of you don't realize, until the killer is off you and tackled down on the ground beside you.

" I've told you before. She's fucking mine. Go bother someone else." Ben's voice sounds suddenly.

You turn your head to look at him.

This time he does not wear jeans and a sweater. No  this time, he looks like he came straight out of a... Video game? He looks like Link, the main personage of the game which your friend Noah had dropped off at your place around six months ago. 

Ben never told you he was into cosplaying.

Your ears suddenly tinted pink as you realized, he called you his. Suddenly you felt a little giddy, the guy you like so much might actually like you back.

The killer underneath Ben growls out something you can't hear before throwing the shorter off him and leaving.

" Are you okay?" You ask him.

He turns to you with red eyes.

Red. Fucking. Eyes.

And that's not the only thing about his eyes that changed.

Instead of the usual white eyes have, his are now black.

And even there it doesn't end.

There's blood running down his eyes onto his cheeks, as if he's crying blood.

You take a step back.

What the fuck is this?

" Don't be afraid! I know I look a little... Weird, but it's all just part of my..... Cosplay." He explains.

You ponder over it.

He's never gave you a reason to not trust you right? Or did he? 

You ignore the instinct to run away from him, instead choosing to calm down and follow your heart, which is telling you to trust him.

" Come with me. You can stay at my place tonight." Ben tells you, holding his hand out to you.

You take it.

₲ØØĐ ⱠŁ₮₮ⱠɆ ₱Ʉ₱₱Ɏ

- - - ᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ᓍᘉᘿ - - - » ᖽᐸᘉᓰᐺᘿS ᓍᖇ ᕼᘿᗩᖇᖶS  ? ¿ » - - - ₭₦ŁVɆ₴ - - - ᖴᗩᓰᒪ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ SᖻSᖶᘿᘻ - - - ᖇᘿᗷᓍᓍᖶ ᑢᓍᘻᕵᒪᘿᖶᘿ - ᓍᕵᘿᘉ ᖴᓰᒪᘿ ∆ - - - ᕲᓍᘺᘉᒪᓍᗩᕲᓰᘉᘜ - - - ᕲᓍᘺᘉᒪᓍᗩᕲ ᑢᓍᘻᕵᒪᘿᖶᘿ ›

It took longer than expected to reach his house. The whole road to his house is creepy. Ben appartly lives in this supermodern house in the woods.

Which is off already, the woods are known troughout the whole town as mystery. According to urban legends, there's creatures loving in there who shouldn't exist. Because of that, there's barely any people there. According to Ben, everything is all clear and safe, and you trust him with your heart.

You don't question him after his answer and instead follow him into the,indeed very,modern little house which is situated hidden behind the trees.

You get directly hit in the face with a copper scent as soon as you step foot into his house.

" Would you like something to drink?" He asks you as you enter his house, neither of you bothering to take your shoes off.

" Just water please." You tell him as you study the place.

The inside of the small house is more modern than the outside, with a big living space and an open kitchen. There's also three doors in the hallway.

One to the bathroom, one leading upstairs and one leading into the basement.

" Here you go." Ben returns, handing you a glass of water.

" Thanks, aren't you going to take off your make up and lenses?" You ask him.

His smile fades a bit, and for a moment you think you've accidentally offended him, but he nods with a pout before you can think about it twice.

" Yeah, that's probably a good idea. The livingroom is at the end of this hallway, feel free to make yourself comfortable." He smiles before going upstairs.

You stand still for a moment in the hallway as an eerie feeling suddenly starts crawling up your spine.

You ignore it, and instead start walking towards the livingroom.

Until the sound of something falling reaches your ears.

A sound that is directed from the basement.

Your first idea is to call for Ben, to alert him that you two probably aren't alone.

You don't do that however, because it could just be something falling off a shelf, right?

And so you decide to investigate it yourself.

As soon as you open the door to the basement, you're directly hit in the face with a very prominent copper scent. The same on you already smelled when you entered his house, except it's way too strong and there's something eerily familiar about it which you just can't pinpoint.

You silently push the door open, and turn on the lightswitch to the basement. Behind the door is a stony staircase, the rest of the basement is hidden away behind a wall. Curiosity takes over you, and you make your way downstairs before you can think about it twice.

As soon as you near the bottom, you spot blotches of red. The deep red substance is spread like a trail from he bottom stairs onto the rest of the room.

And then it clicks in your mind. It's blood. That's also the smell in the air. Was the intruder injured?

You step down the stairs while following the blood trail with you eyes.

You stumble back in fear and unpleasant suprise at the sight that greets you.

There's dead people down here. Most of which you don't recognise, but a few you do. 

You gasp as you look into a pair of wide blue eyes.

Sara.

She's sitting there, eyes wide open, with cuts all over. There's big ones in her rib case and near her organs, you can even see Intestines spread over the floor.

She's obviously dead.

But how come she's here?

Ben didn't do this? Did he?

Next to her is Jaime, who's eyes are closed but his chest is rising and falling.

He's alive.

You run over to him and shake him awake, not minding the blood that's now on your hands.

" Jaime! Please! Wake up!" You say desperately, tears now escaping your eyes.

" Y/N? Y/N! You have to get out of here. Ben, he's not who you think he is!" He tells you desperately.

" I'm not leaving you! Can you walk?" You ask him trough your tears.

" I'm chipped Y/N, you have to go. Get help. Ben's insane. He's a de-"

" Demon? Mass murderer? Failure? Dead? Is one of those what you wanted to tell her? How dare you lie to her! I'm none of those!" A voice suddenly booms trough the air.

You turn around while starting to shake. Jaime tries to hold you close to him with the little strength he has left. There Ben stands, still with red pupils and black eyes, dried red streaks still on his cheeks.

" Don't fucking touch her." Ben screams angrily, ripping you all but gently away from the male, causing you to tremble against him.

" Don't be afraid my love, he won't touch you again." Ben sushes you.

Is he really thinking that you're afraid of him?

" N-no. Let me go. Do-don't touch me." You tell him, pushing away from him.

He looks confused by your behavior.

" What's wrong baby? Please don't believe whatever lies he told you.-"

" What lies?! That you've killed my friend?! That you've killed these innocent people?! That you've chipped him?!" You yelled.

" They all deserved it Y/N! They're all in the way of our love!" Ben yells back desperately, stepping towards you.

" I don't even know these people!" You say, stepping back into the wall, knocking into a shelf.

You turn around to see what you knocked into.

Wait, is that the Nintendo 64?

" They all stared at you with sick twisted ideas! They really do deserve it." He tells you.

Suddenly it clicks in your mind.

" You're Ben from the game." You state.

He nods.

" Yes bu-"

" How?.."

" You clicked my game onto your computer remember."

" It was you wasn't it? You're the reason I've lost my job. You're the reason my friends all turned their back to me." You wishper, eyes now gathering in your eyes.

You've been so incredibly fucking stupid.

He's the reason your life has turned down the drain.

" Yes. But it's good right. Now we can finally be together." He says like a crazy man in love.

Which he is.

You start sobbing as you fall onto your knees realizing, all these people here. They've all died because of you.

" Hey, don't worry my live. We can now finally be together."

ɎØɄ'VɆ ₥Ɇ₮ ₩Ł₮Ⱨ ₳ ₮ɆⱤⱤŁ฿ⱠɆ ₣₳₮Ɇ, Ⱨ₳VɆ₦'₮ ɎØɄ?

 ᘜ ᗩ ᘻ ᘿ  ᓍ ᐺ ᘿ ᖇ.

[chemicalpink]

Hey, I hope you are doing good this was a thing that was wondering me so there are lot of bts future spouse /soulmate/twinflame videos being made on youtube and honestly everyone is being psychic like it has become a shitshow and what was previously just for curiosity fun and entertainment are becoming extremely emotionally invested in the topic especially for maknae line soulmate it would be interesting if the can do a tarot reading or your spiritual experience why is the future spouse saga turning ugly and does universe what us to know something through it !? Because it's becoming pretty crazy right now

Okay so I believe that yes, the spiritual part has a lot to do behind this occurrence, but I also think its roots lay on psicosocial matters and honestly I could go on for days about this but I’ll try to restrict it to a few points that you’ve mentioned

Why all of a sudden everyone seems to be tarot readers/astrologers/psychic?

The capitalism behind celebrities and how does that play a part in what is going on?

Are these people accurate at all?

How does energy shifting play a part in this?

Is the soulmate journey even something a third person would be able to note?

But first a Disclaimer: this opinion/rant is based on my experience with spirituality, I am obviously a mere mortal, so I do not hold the absolute truth. Spirituality is a constant learning process and it is open to discussion and interpretation of each person. I am also now a proud sociologist graduate that specialises in a lot of the stuff that has to do with what anon is asking, I’m a social behaviouralist applied to the entertainment industry as well but I’ll also provide my resources in the end.

A/N: Some of you might not yet be ready to read all of this, if I see ANY of you trying to start beef with me, even after the disclaimer, I'm gonna block you. If you want to talk more about it or want to discuss it further, DO SO OFF ANON. ISTG you’ve been warned, I’ve been working on this for the longest time, it even has resources to back all of it up! I’m so glad anon asked, I’m done being diplomatic on this topic (I know people that usually ask stuff are so respectful and i love you guys for it, this note is for those people that regularly jump on my asks to stir things up)

You guys are in for a whole academic article if you decide to read this

SO FUN AND EXCITINGGGG Let us start with behavioural economics as our base to understand the whole phenomenon, it's such a broad and kinda complex concept (especially since I’m trying to extrapolate it to this particular scenario) so let me do my best. It has a lot to do with trend following, although at least to me, it's unclear how exactly this content came to be (soulmate readings, channeling messages, etc) I am guessing it had something to do with an intersectionality between the general spirituality boom that we’ve met with during the pandemic and some person that just as any other marketable opportunity, saw a bridge between fandom life and this spiritual life (both prominent trends in the last two years or so) and honestly, it worked perfectly, whatever their initial intentions were, they threw out a new “product” and it kind of sold itself, two different trends coming together… turned into a behavioural game theory where if you played the part that allows your content to be consumed, you’ll get rewarded for it. In more simple words, tarot meets fandoms (alternatively, tarot meets BTS) is great as it is! but the fan behaviour (which we’ll talk about in a bit) positions the most private parts of the celebrities’ lives to be much more interesting than things that we are already able to see (personal experience, love readings do so much better than idk career readings and it all comes down to behavioural trends of perceiving ‘love’ as something very intimate)

Now, this is where we’ll begin to talk about capitalism as a whole, even in non-monetary systems like social media, where it takes more of a rewarding system via likes, views, reblogs, etc. The whole principle of us living in such a system is being aspirational, we see others profiting off of something, we might want to reach out and do the same so we can profit ourselves, which honestly, I think is what happened with the whole BTS soulmate readings boom, they get a lot of attention, and as a basic market law, as demand goes up and a few people that initially did these readings are no longer capable to satisfy the need of the people wanting to know all the tea, there are market opportunities for other people to do the same thing and increase the offer, although since this whole theory is behavioural, it is very context-dependant, which ends up not following the principle of the consumers being rational about how much and what content they consume, they just sort of consume all of it, regardless of whether the content creator is qualified to offer such content or not, which ultimately only adds onto a never ending cycle of more people claiming they are tarot readers/astrologers/psychics and fear nothing because this is the internet, you don't really have to enter any qualifications to be able to create content, whether someone is reliable in internet terms is basically all about how many likes they’ve got (which is why I always tell you guys to please consume content responsible).

When it comes to accuracy- I guess that’s the hardest part of all, we can’t just have pointers that would automatically tells us if someone’s craft is valid or not, since everyone’s craft is different all craft is valid to a certain extent (you can easily find scammers of course but that’s another story) what we can have are personal standards and deciding what content to consume or whose content to consume, but that’s entirely a personal decision and since so many people are invested in it- it seems really hard that these “market tendencies” might change any time soon. On that same note of accuracy, I really feel the need to talk about a major occurrence I’ve come across in this whole soulmate scene, minors. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a minor and approaching spirituality (I was very much a minor when I started) but there’s a huge difference between just playing around and deciding to create content for the whole world to have access to. Of course I’m aware not all tarot readers in the BTS fandom are minors, and ARMY is very diverse and even if they were only minors it would be wrong to invalidate them, but we can’t ignore the statistics of it when touching this particular topic, according to 2020 data, 50,31% of ARMY are below 18 years old, and 42,59% are between 18-29 but why is this important? because the exact historical and economic moment we are living in mainly impacts these two age groups, thus making all 92,90% of ARMY a potential target to consuming or falling in a behavioural game theory of creating this content without them necessarily being qualified for it. But hey, why do you keep talking about the importance of being qualified? Glad you asked, creating spiritual content all comes down to one amazing term: accountability.

And this will explore two main phases of it, one applicable for that 50,31% that could potentially be drawn to create spiritual content and other for the 42,59% that could potentially be dragged to creating that content without much spiritual knowledge. For the first one, it has a lot to do with cognitive aspects, young people tend to do stuff without much further thought about how their actions impact other people, which, as they should, they are kids, they shouldn’t have to worry too much about emotional responsibility as us adults do, furthermore, they are in life stages where they can’t really comprehend many abstract concepts that we later learn in life, and spirituality is one of those concepts, so they tend to just have fun with it with no regards on how their content might impact other minors (this is where the whole feeding a false scenario that is potentially delusional in exchange of more views, likes comes into play) on a more spiritual level, they also aren’t able to comprehend the boundaries of the celebrities they’re reading for, us readers have to always be careful about the information we give out since it is not ours to give. As for the second group, some of this is still applicable since theorists consider a full cognitive maturity until 23 years of age, but since it is very intersectional itself, i would found it more to a spiritual responsibility, since they are young adults, and if they haven’t been spiritually guided as kids, they’re most probably eager to learn and just awakening yet to some of them the drive to this spirituality is content creation instead of inner work, so they get their hands on a tarot deck, might kind of read a few things, call it a day and start reading for BTS (note: not all of them, I’m aware)

As for the maknae line being the most sought out people with this content, I guess it kinda makes sense now that I’ve said all of the information above, maknae line is closest to the age group of 92,90% of ARMY, so they instantly become more marketable to this content creation and the whole Game Theory that we are seeing. With all that being said, and just adding a note coming from my own spiritual experience, soulmates in any form are a difficult topic for a third person to prode, which is why I, personally, tend to not touch that topic, love is one hell of a concept, especially since we all have different conceptions of love and interpersonal relationships. I do know for a fact that there’s only so far we can go in terms of fated connections, like with astrology, but even then, we would have to know their birth times exactly (so we can check for any indicator or a soulmate connection), and/or compare BTS with the rest of the world’s population in order to accurately tell if someone has a soulmate synastry/overlay/composite with them. Also, soulmate journeys are intimate and we are all just fans, what right do we even have to look for things that do not and will never belong to us?

This is why I’m always telling you guys to PLEASE consume content responsibly! Really! Us content consumers also have our part to play that can help us get more accurate, more drama-free content

REFERENCES (what? you thought I was joking? they’re in alphabetical order)

ARMYCENSUS 2020

Loewenstein, G., O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003). Projection bias in predicting future utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1209-1248.

March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2), 587-608.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633-644.

Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-729.

Samson, A., & Voyer, B. (2014). Emergency purchasing situations: Implications for consumer decision-making. Journal of Economic Psychology, 44, 21-33.

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.

Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2008). Heuristics made easy: an effort-reduction framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 207-222.

Thaler, R. H. (2015). Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics. Allen Lane.

Thaler, R. H. (2008). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 27, 15-25.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2009). The habitual consumer. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 579-592.

[darkestwolfx]

Hyperspeed - Re-Review #51

So, Scott’s back! He’s obviously been making the most of that vacation time Virgil mentioned, or maybe sorting out things for Tracy Industries? Who knows, choose what you like, but he’s back in blue!

And it’s another high-speed, runaway train (of sorts). He get all the best jobs, doesn’t he?

And hello to you David Tennant (aka Tycho Reeves, billionaire inventor), thank you for joining us in this great episode of TAG looking very like yourself.

Is anyone else getting 10th Doctor vibes? All we need now are his 3D glasses and the look is complete. Really though, they even put him in blue!

So this is the Hypercar - it’s like the next addition to the monorail or the underground (evolved obviously, the underground is redundant by 2060). It’s even faster than FireFlash apparently. That’s saying something.

Now, let’s meet Gertie Bunson - the next annoying reporter to grace TAG with her presence. Really, let’s just stop writing in reporters hey? That’s an idea right there.

“An excited crowds awaits the arrival of the very first Hypercar, which should be here any minute now! Isn’t that right Tycho?”

“Less than a minute in fact. We’ll be pulling to Nightbridge Station in sixteen seconds. Hmm, that’s two seconds early.”

A whole two seconds? To most people, that would go completely unnoticed. Two minutes on the other hand, that we tend to notice. Two seconds? I’m not a clock watcher.

“Here they come now! This is where Tycho and his guest will be arriving- whoa! Wasn’t it supposed to stop?”

Well, if you hadn’t asked that, Gertie, we might never have guessed that was the intention - you know, always try and cover your mistakes.

And then - in very 10th Doctor fashion - Tycho starts rambling on (like all great scientists apparently do) about the size of bugs. Oh, but, did we mention they’re still speeding up? Oopps.

Time to make that call, I think.

John is clearly taking his turn for vacation time now as Grandma’s at the desk doing a spell of monitor duty. At least it keeps her out of the kitchen!

“If anybody can catch up to you it’s us!”

Yep! Now we get to see them try. Love high speed chases me.

“Boys, sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep with an early morning emergency, but these people need help.”

“Time to fly.”

“And I’ll try to work out what has gone wrong with this amazingly brilliant design!”

Sleepy? Wake up as quick as you like, Scott, but ideally before you pilot One, and ideally before the Hypercar crashes. Gosh, really, what has that boy been doing since ‘Long Haul’?

“Closing in on the Hypertube now. Any luck figuring out what’s gone wrong Brains? Brains?”

“Uh, I think your friend may be a tad... starstruck.”

A tad? Brains is literally frozen starting with blinky eyes.

“I’m your number one fan!”

“Well Brains, if you ever want to meet Tycho in person, we better to figure out how to stop his car.”

And then Brains does the sciency bit with a whole lot of praise thrown in. It’s like the opposite of an episode featuring Langstrom Fischler, no negative vibes here please.

“I’ll be able to rescue you after the hypercar makes a water landing.”

“No!

“Absolutely not! We’re travelling in a vacuum.”

“Hitting the atmosphere at mach eight would be like-”

“-slamming into a brick wall.”

Nice try, Scott, but it seems like you’re on delivery boy duty. I love Brains and Tycho finishing each other’s sentences.

I can’t believe this screenshot is like nowhere over the internet! Seriously Gertie being blown away by Thunderbird One’s landing due to her own stupidity is absolutely class entertainment.

“We’ve been told to evacuate the platform as Thunderbird One lands, but we’re not gonna miss a chance to bring you this thrilling live shot of- whoa! Let’s move back a bit shall we?”

It’s like Ned Cook (TOS) reincarnated. Or maybe he finally married, or had a sister we never knew about.

He looks so happy! Honestly though, I would too if I could have a friend like mini-MAX. I want one.

“If you check your sash, you’ll find a new tool of your own.”

“Thanks Brains, but what does it- Whoa!”

“Meet Mini-MAX.”

“Brains, you always surprise me.”

“Just one question. How do you expect your hypercar to catch up with Tycho’s?

“I don’t expect to catch them. I expect them to catch me.”

“I’ve begun to question the merits of this plan!”

You and me both Tycho. I know Scott lives for a bit of speed and danger but this is a new one. 

“You must go faster Scott!”

“Kinda already knew that Brains.”

Tycho is a smart man. I would have strapped in as well.

“Good job! How did you make it go faster?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

“I’ll try and figure out what you and Mini-MAX did. It may lead us to the problem.”

Now look at Mini-MAX holding on for dear life!

Good idea Brains! Let’s check in with Tycho and the others in their Hypercar, shall we?

“Bet you didn’t know you’d be getting a demonstration of our Collision Protection System, ey?”

“I feel like a balloon animal.”

Where as I saw this, and instantly my brain went;

It’s the Michelin Man!

No, seriously, it is, and he says hello;

And during these testing times, there’s something for everyone. You can join his lockdown running classes;

Or something steadier and calmer, like his yoga classes;

Feel the zen!

Or there’s even dancing classes!

P.S. Wait until we get to the end of the review, I swear this is where Brains gets his moves from. You’ll see, trust me. (And if you’re new to the Re-Review Series, my brains wonders a lot so... and if you’re not new to it, you should have expected to see this).

Right, back to impending doom;

“Tycho, so nice to finally meet you! Virtually at least.”

“Oh, impressive invention!”

It’s like Brains gets to achieve his dream meeting! That little mechanical hand is never getting washed.

Mini-MAX is great, really, I want one, but I’m with Scott here;

“Uh, guys, sorry to interrupt but uh, imminent doom?”

I called that!

“Right.”

“RAD.”

“Tycho’s design appears to be perfect. So the problem must have been a manufacturing error when the car was built.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing. If the throttle is working, one of the plasma plugs must have machined improperly.

“Oh no.”

“Ah, a couple of bad plasma plugs should be pretty easy to fix.”

You obviously weren’t listening to Brains crucial “oh no” there Scott.

“Fixing them is the easy part, but reaching them is next to impossible.”

“The plasma plug assembly can only be accessed from outside the car. Specifically, underneath it.”

“Got ya.”

I love Mini-MAX clipping Scott to the train. I would trust Mini-MAX over my own self any day.

“Looks like a fun place to hang out.”

What is it with Scott and ‘hanging’ out? This does not look like my idea of fun, thank you very much. I would like to keep myself upright, and maybe in one of those comfy seats feeling like a balloon animal. That sounds appealing whilst the world falls apart... if you need me, I’ll be waiting out with the collision protection system and the Michelin Man.

Joke, I’ll be here working and writing the Re-Reviews! I would now like a balloon animal though...

“Dropping even a single bolt would be catastrophic!”

“I don’t think that’s going to be hard to remember Brains!”

At least we’ve graduated from ‘Runaway’ where Brains insisted Scott take notes. That would be a little impossible here, after all. The notepad would be blown away!

Borrowed just a few of Virgil’s power tools there, did you Scott? Best return them all in once piece or he might ruin your portrait too. I know he got Tycho’s from the control station, but I couldn’t resist the chance to reference ‘Inferno’ here. Whist we’re on the note of references, here’s another ’Brink of Death’ (TOS) situation.

I love our contest winners;

“That was Grandpa. He loves to go fast.”

“I do!”

“And you don’t?”

“Honestly, we’re just lucky I have thrown up yet.”

I’m with Tycho this time. Oh seems appropriate. I love that we’re breaking stereotypes here (something TAG have done pretty well at in general). You don’t have to be young to love a bit of speed.

“I probably want to replace these one at a time then huh?”

“Yes, and very carefully.”

Oh, uh, what were you saying about remembering? First the drill nearly went down and then- wait, down goes the plasma plug!

“Nice catch!”

Mini-MAX to the rescue.

“One more twist and we’ll finally be able to slow- down!”

Or not. You just had to say it.

I think Brains should have got on the phone to EOS - she knows all about hacking high-speed methods of transportation.

“Why would the speed increase at random like that! If the controls aren’t making the car go faster, then the only way it could be accelerating is... oh no! Tycho, one of your formulas has a small error.”

“Impossible! My calculations were perfect.”

“I thought so too.”

“No! That should be metres per second squared! Oh how could I be so foolish!”

“Even genius’ make mistakes.”

There goes that Scott Tracy trait of forgiveness and acceptance again. I do love it when they show moments like this. Of all the brothers, Scott is the best at staying calm and talking to people, reassuring them that things aren’t always black and white. These scenes were always building towards something, and we’re going to see the real test in the next episode. To do a job like this you have to be selfless, but Scott is almost self-sacrificing (well, the whole family is in a sense), but remember with Kat, for example, Scott had no reason to stay, but he did. It’s just him, and this is an excellent follow through.

“Yes, but my mistake is going to destroy us all! There’s no way for us to stop.”

“Let’s just take a breath and slow down so we can think this through.”

“Slow down...”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“No, slow down! We don’t have to stop the car we just need to be in a slower vehicle that won’t vaporize when it’s hits the atmosphere! Oh, you’re a genius! Right the vehicle will need to be fast enough to reach us with enough thrust to slow down in time.”

“Brains, we need Thunderbird Four inside the Hypertube ASAP. And put it in there backwards.”

The man with a plan is on a roll again!

Cut back to Gertie Bunson reporting again, and a nice little reconstruction on Thunderbird Four’s traditional launch sequence, because Thunderbird Four has arrived! A submersible out of water.

And now we go from Scott Photo Central to squid screen time!

“Um, are we sure this is a good idea?”

Maybe not Gordon, but let’s launch before anyone answers you.

“Bad idea!”

And then you can answer yourself! Great times.

“You’re losing speed, Gordon!”

“Don’t worry, Brains. If I can see it, I can catch it.”

You know, I am jealous of how good an aim every member of this family has. I am rubbish at catch.

“Welcome aboard.”

Gordon steadying Scott is like brilliant. We need more moments of these two for sure.

“It’s working. We’re slowing down.”

“But will it be enough?”

And there go the hypercars... exploding.

“Virgil, they’re loading into Thunderbird Four, get ready to show them a way out.”

“FAB.”

And because you’ve got to get a daily dose of Virgil in there;

“Let’s hope you guys make a slower, gentler exit.”

“Hey, I’m nothing if not gentle! Brace for impact!”

We’ll ignore the oxymoron there.

“We made it! We didn’t burn up!”

Yeah, just give away to the poor civilians that you weren’t expecting to survive, Gordon. That’s really reassuring.

“Did you guys have a plan for how to land this thing?”

It’s Gordon and Virgil, Scott. There’s always a plan. Even if it’s a little improvised or thrown together at the last minute.

“Um, kinda.”

Just another mid-air catch of Thunderbird Four, nothing special to see here, folks.

Who am I kidding? Bring in the applause! We’ve seen this move in ‘Extraction’ and ‘Clean Sweep’ and Virgil never gets it wrong. Takes talent.

“Everyone ok?”

“Can we do that again!”

“No thanks.”

Yeah, I’m with Tycho again. Just watching it made my head spin.

“Big thanks to International Rescue for saving our lives.”

“And for the thrill of a lifetime.”

Nice to get a thank you in there for once.

More high fives! Is there a gif set of the TAG high fives yet? Keep them coming I like them. Nice happy moments, high fives. Brains has basically just got his dream come true!

Of this I have no wordable description, and it looks like Grandma doesn’t either.

Do you see?

Look at Mini-MAX! He’s like a robot version of a dog. I really want one, and I’m sad we never see him again! Bye Mini-MAX!

“I did - finally - get you to London.”

“Thanks, but um... how are we getting back to Tokyo?”

“Oh... yes, uh... Scott?”

Yeah, just turn to our ideas man. He’ll always come up with something. It’s a little like TOS ‘Cry Wolf’ here, where Scott lets Tony and Bob ride in Thunderbird One. He’s a crowd pleaser, this one.

“Want to go for a ride?”

“Wow!”

“Oh um, that would be great I guess.”

“Now, tell me about those engines.”

That smile of Tycho’s as they walk to Thunderbird One - goodness I love how much is contained in that single expression.

Oh, but don’t forget Gertie! Desperately trying to get her scoop - very Ned Cook. Maybe she’s his daughter? I don’t think I entertained that possibility earlier...

“Scott Tracy, any chance we can get a quick interview?”

*Engines start... deliberately*

“You know what? Nevermind. Another time. Maybe.”

What gave it away that he didn’t want to talk to you?

This ending scene is one of my favourite, little sweet moments. After an epic rescue like that, this was needed.

Well, let’s look to Monday for the final episode of Series 2! I can’t believe we’ve already made it this far. We can tell something is coming though - the end credit music had a slight variant to it. The musical score in this series really was on point.

[topliveroom5475]

How To Use Your Mobile Phone As Being A Webcam (Android Or Ios)

This method does not have lots of configuration options, despite the fact that we could modify some additional stuff by acquiring the Pro model that logically is of settlement. Probably the most interesting 1 undeniably is to be able to pick our back or top digital camera to the transmit.

Similarly, we can even position a person and password for access to the source and make use of the HTTPS setting in the internet browser to ensure the connection is encoded.

A well known absence https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=webcam how the system has within the free of charge variation is the impossibility of configuring the solution in the video clip, getting in such a case standard of 640p only. And so the appearance high quality is fairly minimal, although it makes certain great latency and very low consumption of network sources. With iVCam you are able to opt for the quality.

Making use of your portable as a web camera step03

Inside the website interface it does we will do some more issues with concentrate, focus and Ip address digicam design measures.

More design so that you can take advantage of the Universal serial bus harbour

And in case for some reason we don't have a Wi-Fi interconnection for our own Smartphone, or we simply want to make use of the USB harbour to retransmit and demand the cell phone simultaneously. In this way we are going to go for a connection with significantly less latency between both details.

To make the hard wired interconnection effective, we are going to initially need to let the Usb 2 . 0 debugging choice, which can be found inside the designer choices of our terminal.

Utilizing your mobile phone being a webcam step05

To allow these alternatives, we will have to check out the configuration segment, and enter in "in regards to the telephone", "on the telephone" or possibly a similar choice depending on the brand name and the software covering that this terminal has mounted.

We must simply click an overall total of five times about the version of our covering (ours is MIUI), or on the number of compilation in other versions. We shall know where you can click because below we will see information indicating the lacking details to access the developer choices.

Using your portable like a webcam step06

After the designer options are activated, we must gain access to them, and the best way is to apply the phone's internet search engine to get them. Within the MIUI they will be positioned in "Additional adjustments".

Effectively, by using, we will get the option essentially at the center, and then we trigger it.

The only thing left to complete is always to hook up our mobile phone to the computer via Universal serial bus and the Universal serial bus debugging will likely be automatically stimulated. Within the pop-up concept that shows up, we will need to simply click "usually permit from your computer" then on "acknowledge".

Utilizing your mobile as being a web camera step07

DroidCam configuration in Microsoft windows 10

Now it's your convert to visit the PC to configure and put in DroidCam and utilize your mobile being a web camera. We downloaded the application form from the official web site to avoid bloatware utilizing download mass media.

Making use of your cell phone being a web camera step08

Cellular phone procedure is not any magic formula, so that we will simply click next until a take-up windows seems to set up an extra audio car owner. Of course we should click on set up to be able to use video and audio from my Smartphone.

Right after the installment a windows using a full of three choices shows up on the top.

One is perfect for the Wi-Fi interconnection of the Smartphone

Other for interconnection via Universal serial bus

The very last a person to configure the application as being a host so as to link many mobile phones simultaneously as Ip address camcorders.

With your mobile phone as a webcam step09

For the very first solution we are going to simply have to placed the IP address that the mobile phone revealed us formerly, as well as the slot. Select online video and mp3 and after that click Learn to begin the link.

Straight, our image will show up on the screen, and depending on the connection it will have or perhaps not a little postpone from the image and audio.

If we choose to make it happen through Usb 2 . 0, we must spot ourselves within the next choice and then click on Start off. On this page we do not need any parameter because the mobile phone is definitely linked to the Universal serial bus, with the Usb 2 . 0 debugging mode triggered.

Utilizing your telephone as being a web camera step10Using your phone as a web camera step11

Creating Skype to use your mobile like a web camera

We've already got a connection, both via Wi-Fi or USB with this phone like a digicam and it's working, now it's time to give it genuine use using a video phoning program like Skype.

Let's see the procedure as though we had been accessing this software the very first time or right after an up-date.

From the configuration wizard we shall quit at the Music portion to configure the insight and examination that this operates.

In "Microphone" we will open the decrease-down selection of choices and select "mic (DroidCam Internet Audio)", that can be our audio supply. We are able to select "Analyze Mp3" and talk with the phone to examine that it is actually doing work.

Making use of your phone as a webcam step12

If you've investigated Laptop or computer web camera rates on the Internet lately, you'll realize that they've gone up a lot. But surely you already have an Android mobile phone or iOS Cell phone, to help you help save those funds and make use of your telephone like a web camera. We reveal to you how to make it happen with DroidCam.

For users with Mac and iOS Mobile phone have offered other related software including iVCam and EpocCam. And then we will even offer you a overview and describe cellular phone process.

Making use of your mobile like a web camera

Dinner table of Materials

Great things about utilizing your cell phone as being a web camera

Use your mobile as being a webcam with DroidCam (LAN and USB)

DroidCam design around the Mobile phone

Extra settings for utilizing the USB slot

DroidCam configuration in Windows 10

Putting together Skype to use your cellular like a web camera

Make use of your cellular as being a webcam with iVCam (Wi-Fi only)

iVCam program adjustments in Google android

iVCam settings in the Laptop or computer

Creating Skype with iVCam

EpocCam, the option to configure Smartphone iOS + MacOS as web camera

A conclusion

Great things about making use of your cellphone like a web camera

If you have a laptop you will surely not make an effort with your cellphone as a web camera unless you want a great-quality camera, we certainly have that basically clear, therefore the greatest application with this way is in utilizing it for personal computer personal computers mainly.

With the technologies that people have currently available like Wi-Fi or USB plug-ins, we are able to do just about everything we want. In the marketplace there are many programs to interact from your Smart phone with computers, for instance, to get into through far off desktop, usage of provided documents on the group not to mention change our cell phone into a webcam or a spy IP digicam.

On account of the apps that we will have, which is specifically DroidCam and iVCam, we shall have Click this cam! every thing we have to perform the pursuing

Configure our phone as being a actual-time web camera within both iOS and Android os with online video and sound.

This can be done through WiFi or USB in the case of DroidCam

Have compatibility with both MacOS and House windows 10 in plans such as Skype, Hangouts along with other talk applications.

Utilize your cell phone as being a genuine-time Ip address video camera.

They are cost-free programs, therefore you don't must pay a cent for these people.

To configure your phone being a web camera we have to meet up with some specifications that alternatively are quite clear. For instance, having a Wi-Fi relationship on your personal computer if you intend to use iVCam, or a USB port and cable television if you plan to work with DroidCam. All of those other information we will have from the settings process of the programs.

Making use of your cellular being a web camera with DroidCam (LAN and USB)

First, let's get acquainted with the DroidCam application, one of the more renowned and employed by Android mobile phone telephone customers to make their phone right into a webcam.

Please be aware that the program is merely available for Android mobile phone terminals and not for iOS. We require a client app for the laptop or computer, which in this case is going to be designed for Windows and Linux, and not for MacOS.

To help make the connection we could use our internal LAN at home if there exists a Wi-Fi connection available for the telephone, or USB dock. This is definitely not achievable with the LTE information link.

DroidCam configuration around the Cell phone

When we have experienced is actually a cost-free application that we will get right from Google Play. Let's see that it must be a software using more than 5 million downloads and an excellent report, ensure which it is useful.

Utilizing your portable being a web camera step01

Right after the acquire, it can be time for you to perform original installment and design that is absolutely no magic formula.

The applying is within British, and exactly what it informs us in the initial display screen basically is the fact this app transforms our mobile phone in to a webcam or Ip address digicam which is available through our system from an HTTP assistance, obviously it discusses the application that we will have to put in down the road in House windows or even the internet browser.

About the next monitor, it cautions us that we need to use the app offered in Windows to ensure both audio and video may be used by other plans such as Skype. This is exactly what we plan to attain with DroidCam.

When we advance, the applying asks us to permit accessibility properties for that music and digital camera, one thing typical in Android mobile phone programs. Lastly, DroidCam can have us the Ip and slot we will have to use, or the backlink to accessibility from your internet browser in case we merely want to make use of it being an Ip address digicam.

Utilizing your mobile like a webcam step02

It must be observed that we are certainly not needed to employ a Wi-Fi link to interconnect both the devices, as simply getting attached to the very same LAN will let us make use of the same community.

[pens-swords-stuff]

How to gain attention in the Writeblr Community

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this lately, so instead of replying to each one, I decided to make one large post. Please note that these are based off of my personal experiences, and how I run my writeblr. This is what worked for me, but you might run your blog differently, you might post different things, and that’s perfectly fine.

Post Frequently

If you don’t post, people won’t be able to find your blog! Try to post as often as you can so you’ll pop up on people’s dashboards, and remind them what a cool Writeblr you are.

Obviously real life comes first, and you should never feel pressure to continue posting if you don’t want to. Breaks are absolutely okay and understandable, but if you feel up to it, try to keep your blog going! Use the queue, schedule some posts if that will help you.

They don’t all have to be original content either — reblogs work too, and in fact, probably work better because I know how difficult it can be to come up with original content everyday.

Make your original content when you feel like it, and use reblogs to keep your blog alive and active!

Be smart about your tags

A quick rundown on how tags work

Only the first five tags will show up in tracked tags. (i.e., if you tag your post #writeblr, and I’m following the tag #writeblr, it might pop up on my dashboard even if I’m not following you.)

Only the first twenty tags will show up in tumblr search.

Reblogs will not show up in tracked tags or search.

That’s a lot to remember, are you still with me? The most important thing to remember about tagging your work is that the first five tags are the most important. You want to use your biggest, most relevant tags in the first five. All of your organizational tags for your personal blog tags (i.e., I use #undine writes stuff to organize all of my original writing) and all of your fun tag comments should come after the first five at the very least.

So you know that the first five are most important, but what tags should you use? What tags are the best?

Here’s what I usually use and though I don’t know if they’re particularly popular or not, but they’ve worked for me just fine.

A basic guide on what tags to use

#Writeblr and #writing for any writing-related post that you make. I also sometimes include #writblr because some people use that tag instead.

#creative writing, #amwriting, #original writing work really well for your original writing content.

#WIP and #OC are also popular for your WIP and OC posts.

I’ve written a more in-depth guide on tagging, and what to use here in my “How to use tags effectively in the writeblr community” post! Please check it out if you want more information. It includes a more comprehensive list of what tags to use for what posts.

Engage with the community

When people ask me how to gain attention on writeblr, I often feel like they’re expecting me to have some magical solution that will make them popular.

Well, that one magical solution doesn’t really exist, but engaging with the community is the closest thing I’ve got for you. I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough.

At its core, this is a community; a way for writers to find and support each other. If you ignore the community aspect, you are not utilizing a vital part of Writeblr, and you will probably not gain a whole lot of attention and support.

The absolute best advice I can give you is this: If you want attention in the community, you have to start by appearing in people’s notifications.

It is the one guaranteed way to make sure that you’re on people’s radar. That’s really valuable because the writeblr community is massive and it’s really easy to get lost in the shuffle. The more people that notice you, the more likely they are to gain an interest in you.

For example: I don’t know who all of my followers are, and I don’t know who all reblogs and likes my posts. However, if someone is consistently popping up in my notifications, I take notice. I recognize who they are, I’m grateful for them (and probably consider us friends, honestly), and I’ll check out their blog since they’ve been such a massive supporter of mine. Then I decide to follow them and we become mutuals because I’ve noticed them, and I’m now interested in what they do. Then, because I follow them, I’m more likely to reblog their posts because now they pop up on my dashboard.

This is how it works for the majority of writeblrs; we follow people that have supported us, so we can support them in return. It’s a win-win situation, really, so you should really take advantage.

So reblog and comment on people’s stuff consistently! Send them asks, slide into their DMs, tag them in stuff! Become friends with people! Participate in their ask games! Send them things that you think they’d like!

Doesn’t it feel great when someone reblogs your posts and writes a nice comment? Isn’t it wonderful when someone is genuinely interested in your stuff and sends you an ask? Be that person for other people! It’ll benefit you in the long run, I promise.

Don’t be shy; Kick down the door and barge in!

I get it — It can be really frightening to talk to people, especially on the internet. But like I said, Writeblr is massive, and it’s not that people don’t want to notice you, it’s just that there’s so many other things going on that they might not see you. So assert yourself! It’s okay to message your favorite writeblrs, it’s okay to reblog and comment. Make sure that people know you exist, and that you’re awesome!

As a bonus: It’s easier to talk to people who talk to others publicly and visibly. By having conversations with other writeblrs on your blog, and interacting with others, it shows your followers that you are open to conversation, and that you are accessible, and they will be more likely to engage with you. 

A lot more important advice under the cut! Be sure to keep reading!

Make writeblr friends

If you make a friend, you guys can both support and promote each other! It’s also really fun to have a writing friend to talk to, and talk about writeblr things. Some of the closest friends I have were made on the internet, and they can be a huge support system, and your biggest fan.

Participate in tag games

If tag games aren’t your thing, you don’t have to participate in them; that’s fine and it’s your choice.

However, writeblr tag games are a fantastic way to engage with the community, post about your WIPs and OCs, and make sure people see your content, all in one.

A lot of tag games involve talking about your WIPs and OCs, and you can directly tag other writeblrs without being annoying and invasive! I’ve gotten a decent number of followers, and people on my tag lists because I tagged them in a tag game, and they liked what they saw!

Even if you aren’t tagged any, if you see one you like, go ahead and participate! Tag your favorite writeblrs and ask them to join! By actively participating in tag games and tagging people, you’ll get tagged more often in them as well. It’s a great way to jump in if you’re a little nervous about tagging people!

Reblog your own posts

There are a lot of reasons why you might not be getting notes, and one of them might be that people just haven’t seen it. Time zones, and when people are active, the other posts on their dashboards, maybe they weren’t even following you when you posted it — they all contribute.

So reblog your own posts every so often! It’s okay, it’s not as annoying as you think, and a lot of new people will see it every single time.

Especially reblog your WIP posts!

Promote yourself; Be your own biggest supporter

No one wants to read things if they’re bad. So saying stuff like “It’s not very good, my writing is bad,” isn’t going to make people want to read it. Learn how to sell yourself! Try to be as confident as you can — fake it if you aren’t!

Talk about how much you love your WIP, sell people on it. There’s a lot of other WIPs people can be reading on tumblr, why should they check out yours? What are your strengths? Really push those forward; talk about yourself as if you were talking about your favorite writer.

Be confident! Confidence will bring people in.

Keep talking about your writing, keep posting about where you can read it, keep reblogging your favorite posts. People will take notice eventually, and you’ll find your audience!

Build up your followers with non-WIP content

It’s an unfortunate reality that it’s really difficult to gain interest and followers by just posting about your WIPs and OCs alone. Is it impossible? Absolutely not! A handful of Writeblrs have found success doing this, but realistically, it doesn’t happen very often.

So my very realistic and cynical advice to you is: reblog a lot of other posts. Reblog writing advice, memes, something that’s popular in Writeblr right now, etc., to draw people in initially. They can all be stuff that’s popular, but also make sure that you want to reblog it! Make your blog your own, and unique, don’t force yourself to reblog things that you don’t want to. But if you like it even a tiny bit, consider reblogging it.

People are more likely to reblog things that they can relate to like writing memes, and writing problems. People are more likely to reblog positivity, than they are WIP posts. If that’s something up your alley, try making some posts like that!

By building up a bigger follower base with non-WIP related stuff, you can make sure that more people will see it when you do post about your original content.

Other things that work really well, it following other writeblrs and posting stuff like “Reblog if you’re a writeblr, and I’ll follow you!”, “Looking for more mutuals, I’ll follow anyone back”. (Make sure you actually follow people if you say this though!). I cannot think of a single writeblr that won’t reblog these posts, because we all want followers. And a lot of people will follow back, and be a new mutual, which means a bigger audience who might be interested in your WIPs.

Also you’ll find a lot of awesome writeblrs to follow, and that’s a win in it of itself.

Gaining attention takes time and won’t happen immediately

I know how hard it is to feel like you’re shouting into the void, and no one cares. It really sucks to post something you’re proud of and have it get maybe two likes at most. I’ve been there — I’m still there. It’s a struggle that I think every single one of us here can relate to.

Realistically, overnight successes are something that probably won’t happen to you. Even the biggest, most successful writeblrs have started out with less than a hundred followers, and they slowly, painstakingly increased their audience one-by-one over a really long period of time. 

You can get there too, if you keep at it. I know it’s hard when you feel alone. I know it’s discouraging, and I know how disappointing it is. Take a break if you need to, but there is no magical way, no quick solution to being a popular writeblr. You have to work at it, and revel in the small victories as you slowly grow.

You’ll reap success if you keep at it, I promise.

Here’s a post I wrote about how to deal with not gaining follower and notes if it ever gets really hard.

Be a writeblr for yourself, not to gain attention

At the end of the day, there is absolutely no guarantee whether you’ll gain followers or not. You can try things, but ultimately it’s out of your hands.

The best way to deal with that hard truth, is to be a writeblr for yourself. Do what you want, run a writeblr because you want to, and it’s fun. Don’t expect notes, instead let every note you get be a pleasant surprise. Run your writeblr to engage with an amazing, kind community, not to be popular. Have a writeblr so you have a place to talk about how much you love writing, not so other people will love your writing.

Don’t tie your self-worth and measure of success into your writeblr, because you are so much more than note counts and follower counts. Your writing ability is not measured by your popularity, and it’s important to remind yourself of that every now and then.

It’s just like writing, write for yourself, and the audience will follow. Run your writeblr for yourself, and your supporters will follow.

It’ll be a lot more fun that way, and a lot more genuine. 

You can do it. Don’t get discouraged, and keep at it! Remember that it’s okay to take breaks if you need to, writeblr should not be your entire life. You’re a great writer no matter what, and I really hope that this will help you gain some new friends!

If you’d like to ask me for advice on writing or running a writeblr, please check out my Ask Guidelines and FAQ first.

Ask Guidelines | FAQ | Advice Masterlist

[princepestilence]

Hey Samson, I'm very much a homebody and I wanted to know if you had and tips on where to meet cool queer people?

Hello there! I’m honestly very flattered that you thought to ask me, because that makes me feel like I must look like I’ve got my stuff sorted out and am living that #queer community dream–but that’s not actually entirely true and I sort of want to preface anything else I say with the fact that I am still very much in the process of trying to find more cool people to bring into my life myself, because I’m not where I want to be on that front yet. I’ve been super lucky so far, but I don’t want to give the impression that I’m done meeting cool queer people. There’s a lot of friends I’m still out looking for and a lot of connections I haven’t made yet that I’d really like to, so yeah! Happy to share my thoughts but I am not an expert.

For me, there’s kind of been three major sources of finding My People so far, and those have been: work/university (which count as the same for me, since I was once a student and now I teach students and have cool queer colleagues and they know cool queer people, so it has a run-on effect), the internet, and creative art spaces. 

I think being a homebody can be a bit of a disadvantage if you want to meet cool queer people, mostly because I’ve found online queer spaces and offline queer spaces to have… very different vibes and values. Not always! I’ve definitely experienced first-hand some weird vibes that I didn’t want to tangle with in offline queer spaces (thinking specifically of the queer collective at my university). But broadly, I’ve enjoyed offline queer spaces a lot more, and found more connection with other people, and experienced more genuinely restorative and healing and positive vibes in those spaces than here on tumblr or elsewhere online. 

So that’s kind of my first piece of advice: see what’s happening in your local area regarding queer and/or artistic events! I don’t use Facebook, but there are a lot of local groups that use Facebook to organise and announce events, so if you have that, that can be a great way to keep in touch with that’s going on and see if anything strikes your fancy. For me, I go to the poetry slam every month I can make it, which is something I adore and always an experience of big queer solidarity, because it’s a bunch of creative (often queer or non-norm) people in a space that has a strongly upheld belief in the respectful spaces policy–i.e., be excellent to each other, no bigotry allowed. 

I’ve definitely lucked out with my local slam (maybe I’m biased, but it is the best one around) but a lot of events like that are places where you can walk in, sit down, and not have to really talk to anyone if you don’t want to, and get a sense of the place and the people and I’ve definitely found these spaces to be more welcoming and respectful than more… mainstream (?) events, so that can be a cool place to go. Similar things like pop-up art exhibitions (especially if they have talks or workshops) count, especially if you see anywhere that they’re LGBTQ+ friendly and/or make a clear statement of intent re: supporting grassroots or marginalised creators, etc. 

Alternatively, I can recommend queer book clubs! Sometimes these groups are specifically about reading queer lit., and sometimes the reading is just a way of bringing queer people together, and either way, that’s a good place to at least go along and suss out. If there’s none around, a great option is to actually start something like that yourself–as intimidating as that might feel. Submitting a call for interest on a queer Facebook group, for example, can help put you in contact with people who might be in your exact same boat of wanting to build community but not knowing where to start, or not yet finding the right kind of space for them. 

I personally feel book clubs (or a similar hobby exercise) are a good way to do this, since it 1. brings everyone together in one place on a regular schedule, which is good for getting to know people, 2. isn’t necessarily a huge time or energy or financial investment, which means it’s more inclusive than many other events (although obviously requires some planning and also consideration re: which books and book costs, travel costs, access to libraries etc.), 3. is overall a relaxed space that can be hosted in the daytime, away from alcohol, in a public venue such as a cafe, which for many people is more approachable, and 4. gives everyone something to talk about when they get there and for the duration, so it’s way less awkward than sitting in a circle being like, “hi, I’m gay, are you my new best friend??” or feeling obliged to generate personal conversation the whole time. If it doesn’t work out or it’s too much effort to continue, you can discontinue it at any time, so it’s a pretty low stakes approach, I feel.

Edit: totally forgot, but sometimes [hobby or passion of yours] + “queer” into search bars can show up good results! For example, sometimes there are particular gatherings or small conventions, regular gaming events, forums or talk-sites, so on. I definitely know of Ace & Aro Teatimes that are held, specifically as a way of catching up, and you might luck out and discover something like that, which is particularly great because it means you will already have an interest or hobby in common with the people you meet there. 

Off the top of my head, that’s kind of it for offline spaces. You can probably check out if your local university has a queer collective, because even if you’re not part of the university body, sometimes they will have events open to the general public etc. Like I said before, that’s not my scene, because I’ve personally found the local university queer collective to be… more similar in personality to the online spaces and also just a little more intense than I’m looking for. But! That’s not to say they’re all like that. 

As for online spaces, I met a lot of my queer friends by the sheer bizarre wheel of fate that brings people together in the disgusting blue sea of tumblr. I know that’s not helpful at all, but the piece of advice I have to offer there is that I met all these people by doing what I loved, first and foremost. I was doing my own thing, however weird, and they were doing the same, and we saw each other and went “oh cool,” and we were both queer. To a certain extent, I think this is true in all things: have fun, be yourself, and trust in queer pack magic to bring cool queer friends into your life. 

I am someone who’s very forward, I guess, and very proactive socially (and in general), so I am usually the first person in a new friendship to walk over and say, “hey! you’re cool, I love your you, tell me about yourself,” [paraphrased] and honestly that’s worked pretty much every single time. I admit my charisma rolls tend to be high (I sacrificed constitution and wisdom for them, so they better be) but I do believe that you miss all the shots you don’t take, so it’s worth reaching out. So if you come across someone that seems cool, remember that you’re also a cool person worth knowing and a good friend and give that person a chance to find that out for themselves by saying hello, because a lot of the time, the other person isn’t going to have that courage and if you wait for them, it might never happen. Easier said than done for many, I know, but it’s that whole thing with lesbian sheep (wool-oo-wools, if you will): you can’t stand there and expect someone else to know that you standing there still is a sign of how much you like them. 

I have no idea if any of this is going to be helpful to you, but I wish you so much luck in finding your people! If there’s anything I’ve said that’s not clear or needs more detail or anything, please let me know and I’ll be happy to do what I can to help. I think finding community is one of the most important things in life for queer people to do, in whatever form that takes, so I am absolutely always down to help with that in whatever ways I can. 

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

22 Apr 2021: Welcome back to the new old high street

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: drones form a QR code in the Shanghai sky]

Welcome back to the new old high street

Lockdowns have started easing in the UK and the high street is reopening. Or perhaps shoppers are returning to a *different* high street because 190,000 UK retail jobs have been lost since the first Covid lockdown, 17,500 chain store outlets closed in 2020 and 44,000 retail units are now empty.

The virus has been a catalyst and an accelerant, pulling existing trends forward and amplifying them, and forcing new change everywhere. If you’re shopping for things that you already know you want, or that you don’t need to inspect, or that need to be cheap, online shopping has been winning an increasing percentage of your spend. But what will offline, high street shopping be for? Things you need right now, or didn’t know you needed until you saw them, or things that work hand in hand with an online offer. Or luxuries, or experiences, or fun. 

Where local authorities can let go of a “preserve the high street” mindset, and instead look at reinventing them, the high street can be revived. You have to do something different.

Previously: how Covid saved the high street and Back to normal? Or a new normal?

Next: there is nowhere to hide on the internet

Here’s how Next sees offline versus online.

“the last ten years have been about adapting to the simple truth that, initially, we did not want to believe: Retail stores were, and will remain, at a fundamental and irreversible disadvantage to online competition. This is not being driven by price or even home delivery, but by the scale of the choice websites can offer relative to any physical store.”

That’s from the interesting CEO comments in Next’s annual results. They continue:

“The moment we reconciled ourselves to that fact was, in some ways, a new beginning. Managing the transition was harder than fighting it, but much more productive. It allowed us to follow the new money rather than defend the old.”

That’s relevant for brands and retailers obviously, but also for national and local governments looking at fiscal policy and giving communities more commercial resilience. Next, again:

“Following the money can be uncomfortable, because new ideas often pose a threat to existing businesses. The decision to compete with ourselves through selling third-party brands and, more recently, the opening up of our sourcing skills to other brands through licensing were not entirely uncontroversial. We have learned to embrace these and other opportunities nonetheless. Our view is simple: there is nowhere to hide on the internet, and we are better to collaborate with other brands to our mutual benefit, than cling on to past advantages in the vain hope our customers will not find the competition.”

Related: Homebase will put mini-garden centres at Next stores - more experiment.

Retail experiments

Tian Tian Market looking to introduce Asian style supermarket shopping to the UK. 

A shopper said a skirt she bought from Karen Millen had an Oasis label covered in marker pen. Owner of both labels Boohoo said it was a mistake.

Asda may close in-store bakeries as customers are shifting to more exotic breads.

Externalities

Amazon acknowledges issue of drivers urinating in bottles (and in its apology to US Representative Pocan Amazon said that delivery drivers not having access to public toilets is an industry-wide problem).

Dystopia prime: Amazon subjects its drivers to biometric surveillance - “Earlier this week, Motherboard revealed the company’s cruel “take it or leave” demand to its 75,000 delivery drivers: submit to biometric surveillance or lose your job.”

One reason for this is that shoppers keep voting (with their dollars and pounds) for faster and cheaper deliveries, but the delivery infrastructure and working conditions remain more or less invisible to shoppers. Would you pay extra for delivery that was transparent, fairer, more humane?

Business models for the thing economy

The “Thing Economy” is US bank Citi’s term for what happens when physical objects, often at the edge of the network, become autonomous financial actors. Cars handling parking payments, boilers renegotiating your electricity bill, your kitchen bin ordering groceries, and so on. But also: fractional ownership of everything, smarter supply chains, and circular economies.

Various things

How Benin and Mongolia are fast-tracking digital government.

Automated fact checking: How AI helps Full Fact detect 100,000 potential claims a day.

Post Office could offer sub-postmasters a share in profits.

UK government intervenes in Nvidia takeover of chip designer Arm - there are some national security concerns.

Someone made an unusual argument that the new European football super league would be an early sign of football clubs transcending both local geography and the nation state in favour of a supra-national fando-monetised hypersoccer “crypto civilisation”. No, really. Inevitably the local and the national robustly reasserted themselves and the super league plan fell apart. The backlash: loss of trust and an increased desire for fan- and community-ownership.

Co-op Digital news

The principles that guide our content design and communications in Funeralcare - love the “we say/we don’t say” examples.

Co-op Group's customer and membership chief to step down.

Thank you for reading

Thank you friends, readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets 14 February 2020

Hey There! 

Thanks for reading! If you like what I’m doing here with the newsletter, please share it with folks. They can sign up here.

I’m doing a quick survey so that I can deliver more relevant ideas and content to you. 5 questions. It might take you 5 minutes!

I will be in Philadelphia and New York City this week!

Have you had a chance to download the new ebook, What Matters In Ticketing Now?, created in partnership with Booking Protect we gathered 40+ thought leaders from around the world to give their opinions and ideas on what matters in tickets now! Join us for a free webinar on February 26th at 10 AM Eastern where we cover trends, takeaways, and actions that will help you get the most from the ebook.

FYI, I’m not including the story on Google’s ticket plans this week because I don’t really know enough yet to have formed a realistic opinion on the topic yet.

To the tickets!

———————————————————————————————————— 1. The Premier League is floating the idea of starting a Netflix-style subscription service: 

Everyone is trying to get into the OTT game, especially after the successful launch of Disney+.

At a certain point, saturation has to become a serious consideration. And, we also have to think about what does this mean for folks selling tickets and trying to get folks to come to their venues.

Seven League put together a good list of trends that they think will impact sports in 2020. Some of them seem like obvious things, especially the fact that “customers don’t want to be owned.” And, as we keep trying to think digital-first, we have to ask ourselves what does that mean for the customers we are trying to guide?

First, we have to consider if this is even the right strategy. ESPN is losing subscribers at a faster clip than ever before and the revenue from their OTT platform won’t be able to fill the gap in revenue in the near-term.

Second, how will this continued quest for folks’ entertainment spend impact the live event experience? I’d be a prime target for this Premier League OTT product if Tottenham Hotspur wasn’t already on most weekends, to begin with.

But if you start asking whether or not I’m going to pick the MLB OTT over going to a game, that’s where the challenge becomes a lot more interesting. Or, NBA TV or NFL’s offerings…on and on.

How do we keep the value proposition high? Especially when it is already a challenge.

2. Touts found guilty of fraud in the UK:

This is breaking news as I type of this week’s newsletter. So I’m sure there will be new details emerging over the next day or so.

This is the first case of its kind to be tried in the UK and it illustrates some of the differences between the US and the rest of the world in the way that the secondary market is thought about.

Where this story gets really interesting is that it comes on the heels of the Competition and Markets Authority sent out an Initial Enforcement Order against the Viagogo and StubHub merger this week.

Considering the state of the rule of law and enforcement in the States right now, I’m not 100% sure if this will have any impact on the merger going through in the States or not.

For me, keep an eye on this story. Will there be more lawsuits? What will the secondary market associations have to say about this?

After I finished writing this section, another article popped out showing how much money was being made on reselling football tickets in England…which is illegal.

3. The Australian Football League are crushing it right now: 

The first story is about how David Stern contributed to the growth of the AFL into a national sport in Australia. Which, obviously, coincides with remembrances of his life since he just passed.

It is an interesting story because it shows how sports business ideas travel the world so fluidly.

The second story that caught my eye this week isn’t a story but a piece of content.

My friends in Melbourne, Oli and Tom both sent me this video “To Hell and Back” from the pre-season of Melbourne FC. (The team that heavily recruited me to be a fan when I was speaking at the AFL in November.)

If this isn’t the best piece of team created content I’ve ever seen, I can’t quite remember what beats it.

I’ve watched it twice.

It is raw, compelling, and gives you access to the team in a way that you may only see on Hard Knocks.

And, if I’m being honest, it is much more authentic than other behind the scenes productions I’ve seen.

Finally, the AFL announced that they were freezing prices and eliminating ticket fees at Marvel Stadium in the Docklands. 

This is a really strong move by the AFL to ensure that their fans feel like they are being listened to and cared about. The AFL Fans Association has been concerned that the game was losing appeal to its core fans for the past few seasons in the rush to maximize revenue.

While this is only 1 stadium, I think having it be such a high profile example may start a reaction of changes around the league.

There are  lessons here for all of us from the AFL:

1. You have to tell stories. Melbourne FC’s story is powerful and I can’t imagine that it won’t have an impact on every aspect of their business, especially coming off a season where they didn’t perform up to expectations.

2. Your job as a business is to create and keep customers. With so much TV money flowing into sports, it becomes easy to lose connection to your customers. The reality is that all of this TV money and all of these other monetization opportunities flow out of the fact that you have fans and customers that care. You have to always put them first or you are going to lose them, once they are gone…there is no guarantee that you can get them back. 

4. The XFL kicked off to a solid start: 

The opening weekend saw decent attendance and ratings that were pretty close to the launch of the AAF last year.

The promotion around the kickoff was pretty strong, as you might expect from something led by Vince McMahon.

While tickets on the secondary market spiked to around $130+ in DC for the opening game, it seems that a lot of the games were loaded up with a lot of comps as well…which will be interesting to watch heading into week 2. (FYI, I’ll likely take the boy on Saturday to see the DC v. NY game at Audi Field, if anyone is around.)

Where do y’all think the ticket sales and ratings will go this week?

For me, 2 things to think about:

1. Is pricing going to be an issue for fans?

Get-in face value is $24 in DC, but I saw parking was $40 and I can only imagine that beers are $12+ and who knows about merch and other things.

Again, when people are making these decisions on going to a game, we have to ask the question: “Is this a good value compared to X?”

2. Will people continue to tune in?

The rationale has always been people can’t get enough football. Is that true?

If it is, what does that mean to other sports?

Or, will the NBA All-Star weekend drown out week 2’s games?

I think the advantage that the XFL has going for it is that Vince McMahon is a better marketer than most folks and he understands the need and power of storytelling, which is a powerful tool in building an audience. 

5. Be More Chill and Dear Evan Hansen can teach us a lesson about reaching younger audiences:

Everywhere I’ve gone in the world the last year or two I’ve had people talk with me about reaching new audiences.

In Australia, the concern that despite the population being incredibly diverse that audiences were getting “older and whiter”.

This week, I saw an article about how the Flyers audience is getting olderand they are working to bring in a younger audience.

And, I built a workshop called “Fans For Life” around the idea of managing the lifecycle of a fan in a way that enables you to do a better job of bringing fans to your venue.

The example of these two productions and the continued success of Hamilton in markets around the world shows that people still love theatre and are willing to check out new shows, we just have to be willing to allow the art form to reflect how people view art today and recognize that the internet and mobile devices have changed the ways that folks are going to engage with our content.

The lesson here is that we have to have a strong POV about what we are creating and why, but trust that our audiences are going to engage with our shows and productions in the way that they want to, not necessarily the way we want.

So to continue to sell tickets, we are going to have to continue to think through the ways that we deliver our content to our audiences. Be that online through chats, groups, and forums. Or, video, movies, and soundtracks. Everything is fair game today! 

———————————————————————————

I posted my 100th podcast episode last week. New episodes will start rolling out in the next day or two. Do you have a suggestion for a future guest?

I’m hosting a workshop in NYC on April 1st. I’m bringing “Fans For Life: Creating and Keeping the Modern Fan” to NYC. 

I’m doing a FREE webinar on February 27th at 1 PM Eastern called “The Language of the Sale “. This webinar is built off of lessons learned during my sales trainings with sales teams around the world over the last 6 months and my own experiences creating new business opportunities. 

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets 14 February 2020 was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

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[joshua-norton-ii]

New DuckTales! Yay! (Spoilers, but of a slightly different kind)

So yeah, there is a new DuckTales show out now. I was not planning to see it, because I never got into the old one, for reasons of personally and -very subjectively- finding it to be one of the weakest Duckburg universes. Keep in mind that as a Norwegian, I had regular access to not only Barks/Rosa, but also a lot of different European Donald comic artists with their own takes, so I was fairly “spoiled” on this account.

But this new DuckTales, is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Instead of just simply copying Barks’ plots like the old show often did, they now show how the Barks/Rosa universe is clearly a big inspiration, but still only that: An inspiration. And there are so many things to love about it. The spoilers are about to start (though they will be different types of spoilers than usual), so please, please, PLEASE check the two pilot episodes out on Youtube (Disney put them there themselves, so they should stay there forever) before coming back to my analysis.

You finished? OK, here we go:

So first of all, the inspiration. The pilot episode starts with a Scrooge that is trapped in running his world-wide businesses, and estranged to his family, while Donald is trying his best to raise his three nephews all on his own. And then they meet again, apparently for the first time in about ten years; because Donald made arrangements with Scrooge’s housekeeper to babysit. Though Donald appared to have wanted to have this done without meeting Scrooge himself.

This opening immediately reminds me of chapter 12 of “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”, but it’s just as obviously not just a copy of that story. For one thing, when Donald and Scrooge do (involuntarily) meet, it’s clear that they have a past. What is this past?

And in Scrooge’s dealings with the nephews, it’s clear that he’s not good at dealing with them either, partially because he’s not great with kids in general, and partially because he’s never met his grand-nephews before. Why has he not met them?

Already, in the few minutes Scrooge has been on screen, there has been more characterization of him than I found in all the episodes of the previous Duck Tales I was bored enough to watch way back then (this was before the internet, and my options were limited).

And then the nephews, who at this point thinks he’s a bit of a fraud and no fun at all, basically look through his “mysterious treasure chamber”. After dismissing old pictures of Scrooge and Donald having adventures as fake (this will be important, by the way), they then proceed to unleash evil powers by accident… And Scrooge comes to the rescue to show that he has -not- forgotten how to deal with such things.

Oh yeah, this show was created by people that knows their Scrooge history (especially the Barks/Rosa aspect of it; and considering Barks created Scrooge, it’s only proper). So anyway, Scrooge, the nephews and Webby…

…Oh sorry, I forgot Webby. The grand-daughter of Scrooge’s housekeeper. As a pure Duck Tale character, I never cared for her in the old show. This time, however, she’s definitely a more full-fledged character in herself, and will probably have an important role in future episodes.

And Huey, Dewey, and Louie has gotten something they’ve practically never gotten before, not even from Don Rosa: Different personalities. Not completely unique personalities, but different enough that later on, I’ll refer to them one by one instead of a group. It seems like such a small thing, but it’s actually really important. The trope of identical twins/triplings having identical personalities is, to be frank, pretty lazy; and there are lots of real-world twins who I can guarantee do hate it when people always give them the same presents and so on.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, Scrooge, the nephews, and Webby (and also Launchpad, he’s a pilot) saves Scrooge’s money-bin from a gold-eating dragon, and Scrooge remembers two things: That getting rich through adventure is a hell of a lot more fun than doing it through endless meetings; and that having family can in fact be a good thing, even when they lead you into trouble every now and then.

In the Duckburg universe, “every now and then” is usually defined as “about every twenty minutes”.

Speaking of family, let’s now get back to Donald, who makes more of an appearance in the second episode. What I find noteworthy of him is how much he really cares for his nephews. In a fair few Duckburg universes, this care has been a downplayed aspect, but not so here. For one thing, he’s been raising his nephews all on his own for all these years, and trust me when I say that -that- will take some serious dedication to do. To attempt and succeed at doing this -without- swallowing his pride and going to Scrooge must have taken a lot out of him.

In fact, you can see that his constant struggles just to keep them afloat (literally, as they live on a boat) means that he thinks more of his nephews than he does of himself. And his nephews does not have too much confidence in him either, though at least they are really supportive of him. This is a Donald characterization that you mostly only see from the good writers. This show has good writers.

But anyway, Donald will gladly share pictures of his nephews with people he’s hardly ever met, showing his dedication to raising his nephews, as well as how they are not living a wealthy life at all. For one thing, the closest they’ve been to Grand Canyon was at a display at the supermarket. It’s heartbreaking, it really is.

And one of the pictures is extra important, as it shows Dewey’s first steps. Not only is this a total “D’aaaawwwwww!” moment, it also shows a weakness (albeit an understandable and forgivable one): Donald is in fact over-protective of his nephews. In that picture, Dewey is taking his first step… wearing protective padding, on a mattress, surrounded by pillows. He shall clearly not be in any danger ever.

This is important because just a few minutes after that photo, we see Dewey being careless in a sunken temple. He is careless because he has been protected so much in his life, so he does not understand what real danger is. He just walks right into it, because whenever he’s been even remotely close to danger, Donald has been there to save him.

And as he recklessly sets of death traps, Donald once again saves him (without his knowledge). Good old Donald! He might have been over-protective, but he will not hesitate for a second to put Dewey’s life before his own (it was not a risk-free thing for him to save Dewey). Not. One. Second.

And eventually as the episode finishes, we return to the “mysterious treasure chamber” in Scrooge’s mansion… which by the way turned out to be a garage. And there Dewey looks again at one at the pictures of Donald and Scrooge’s adventures, this time knowing it’s not fake at all. Straightening up a corner of the canvas, he then finds out that there was one other person in it: His mother!

This. Is. Big.

This. Is. Huge.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s mother Della* has appeared, to my knowledge, pretty much exactly -once-; in chapter 11 of Don Rosa’s “The Life and time of Scrooge McDuck”; and even then, only as a child, and only in a few panels, and with no spoken lines. She’s -that- little known.

And while there is obviously the big question of where she is now, at the same time it partially answers so very much. The details are still unknown, but here are the things we now already know a lot more about:

We now have a good idea why Donald and Scrooge were -not- happy to see each other for the first time in ten years.

We now have a good idea  why Scrooge claimed that family was only trouble, and had estranged himself from them.

We now have a good idea why both Scrooge and Donald, in their own ways, had stopped adventuring.

And we now have a -very- good idea why Donald is caring so much for his nephews, -and- why he is so overprotective of them.

And I’m sure that in the future, we’ll also learn more about Webby… And maybe one day meet Della!

And this is why I already like the new DuckTales so much. The characters are well-defined, and the show has already revealed a lot of motivation for why the characters act like they do. Motivations that make sense.

And you may have realized that I mostly skipped the adventure part of the plots, because to me, they are not in themselves the most important part of this show. The adventures are there as catalysts to watch the characters develop both individually, and in their relationships to each other.

Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that the jokes are good, the animation top-class (well, duh, it’s Disney), and the voice acting top notch. Hey, they managed the feat of keeping Donald’s voice properly Donald while at the same time making him easier to understand!

*I don’t know for sure if Della will be her name here, but she does look quite a lot like Della does in the Don Rosa family tree (which was based on a non-published family tree Barks created for his own use), which a lot of Duckburg fans consider to be the most official one. So for now, I think Della will be her name here too.

[thisnerdsadventures]

summer updates

wow i literally just abandoned this blog for two months didn’t i LOL

yes, so, my life got a little crazy and things have been going all right, but just wrenches thrown in the gears here and there, but here’s a rundown of everything that has happened:

So I graduated (per my last post). And I was supposed to be going around the world, travelling and having fun and visiting people, but instead I was at home binge watching Netflix and wishing my internship had started a couple weeks early. If I definitely didn’t get my free weeks of travel in the beginning of summer, maybe by the end I would get them.

For my summer internship this year, googz shipped us all of our work from home stuff, including a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and our computer. This summer I had a great dual monitor setup with the monitor I already owned, which made it feel like I was at the office. However, in fact, I was not at the office, since all our internships went remote this summer, so while I was surrounded by three screens and a keyboard and mouse, I was not surrounded by coworkers, which made the internship experience feel super different.

Week 1 already felt different - some of us didn’t have our credentials, so day 1 and day 2 were pretty slow compared to the rush of getting to know people and getting to know the team in-person. My team though is pretty chill - we have standup every morning bright and early at 8am PST/11am EST (rip me) followed by the daily NYTimes crossword. I was prepped and ready for this, having done the crossword in the back of my systems class every Monday and Wednesday for a whole semester with my best friend. Turns out they’re pretty good too, we did a Friday crossword in like 11 minutes the other day.

Project has been going kind of smoothly? which is surprising if you were around to witness the chaos that was my last summer intern project, which underwent like fifty thousand dead ends and turnaround and permissions errors. Aside from like a couple of permissions errors which got resolved within days, my project has been working? Nothing has exploded?? I haven’t broken prod??? This feels fake. Every time something works I tell my boss: I am shocked. I am shook. But yeah, I essentially did most of my project in like 6/12 weeks, which my manager was also surprised to see (in a good way). I feel like the theme of this summer was getting a really solid design down before going forth and implementing the thing, which I think would’ve prevented a lot of the pitfalls from last summer. Because I had already thought in advance of a lot of the weird things I might run into or identified examples where what I wanted to do had clearly worked, it was a lot easier to implement, and I was a lot more confident that it would work. My manager and team have also been really great at keeping in touch and checking in constantly, so although it’s still obvious that there’s some team aspect missing, it definitely isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. 

Outside of my project though, I can definitely feel a lot of other things lacking. For example, last summer I was really involved with ERG stuff because my team essentially led like two of the ERG’s at the office, but I’m not sure if that’s just not the case at my current team, or maybe they just haven’t been present for the interns because of COVID. Last summer too, my team did a lot of bonding stuff, like we went out to dinner, played games, got lunch, went out for drinks, etc, but obviously nothing like that happened this summer. There also aren’t any other interns on my team, which is a little sad because it was always great to commiserate with someone else (still friends with both of my co-commiserators from previous two summers). I also feel this general feeling of like “I don’t want to put in the effort to make friends because I already have them from last two summers” and also “I am so old I can’t relate to these post 2000′s kids”, but that could also be my work life blending into my life life because of COVID.

Since work isn’t as big of a part as my life as it was in the past, I’ve been doing some other stuff too this summer. Actually a lot has happened, both good and bad. 

In July, MIT announced that only seniors would be back on campus, but only the seniors who lived on-campus could actually access campus. Thus my housing plan with my friend group full of seniors went kaboom.

I was really stressed about housing for a couple weeks after that. I asked myself whether I wanted to even go back, and I ended up choosing to go back so I would a) have at least some socially distanced contact with friends since loneliness has really taken its toll on me and b) get my own place so I can work productively and learn to live independently. I was really convinced that I had to lock it down ASAP otherwise there would be no places left. So I actually signed a lease pretty soon after that, and hopefully MIT will still let their seniors back (please otherwise I will cry so much and probably try to get out of my lease).

My personal life generally has been tumultuous. I think especially with COVID it’s been hard to keep up with acquaintances, and generally relationships are strained across timezones and the Internet. So there’s been a good amount of personal stuff going on in the sidelines, and because work and life aren’t really well separated right now, it’s been leaking my productivity at work, which hasn’t been great.

I thought about applying to grad school. Then it came time to pay for the GRE. Then I realized I didn’t, at all, not even in the slightest, wanted to do grad school.

June and July also had two of my friends’ 21st birthdays, so we did a lot of planning for zoom parties and birthday gifts. For one of them, we made a Google photobook with poems and drawings that 30 of her friends submitted (a lot of effort) and for the other, we put together a mixtape of songs that everyone associated with her. This summer has been hella boring to say the least, but it was nice to be able to pour some time and energy into something that would make friends happy.

We’ve also been playing a lot of Covidopoly. I don’t know why but my friend group has gotten really hooked on this. We really will play for like three hours straight. It’s bad.

I tried to write some more music. It’s been going on and off.

I did Chloe Ting workouts pretty regularly for a couple months, which was actually something I’m proud I stuck with. This week I really fell off the wagon due to some personal issues, but I’m hoping to get back on it this weekend.

Not sure where this falls under, but I go on a lot of walks with my mom, but I ended up getting stung in the face by a wasp and some mosquito bites got so bad I had to go to urgent care. I need to go away from California

Overall everyone has a lot of drama. I have a lot of drama. It is not fun and I wish we were back on campus

I have made shakshuka like seven times during quarantine and it is so so good.

I started journaling in an attempt to empty my thoughts out somewhere more productive and to force myself to slow down when I start thinking a lot. It has been working generally, and I guess it’s just a nice place to reflect on things that have left a deeper than not impact on my day.

[scottmapess]

You Should Buy Bitcoin Today!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In this episode, I’m going to explain you exactly why you should buy Bitcoin today. And I can tell you this already. You would not be alone. Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones buys Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and he actually make that public. Now, just think about how many other institutional or just big investors will do exactly the same thing. Also in today’s episode, the price of Bitcoin finally broke. The eight hundred and seventy date downtrend line to the upside. So we’re going to have a look at some Bitcoin technical analysis. The Bitcoin halfling will go down in a little bit more than three days and we see a very interesting development in hash rate. And also in today’s episode, I want to show you the best possible strategy out there to build a Bitcoin portfolio. It doesn’t matter for new people or for people who are already in Bitcoin and want to stack up their portfolio. And now let’s jump right into it. And with that said, what is going on? Everyone’s some decree here. And welcome back to another episode before we’re going to start. If it goes like this kind of content, please make sure to leave. I like very much appreciated. And for new people, don’t forget to subscribe and also activate the post notification bell to not miss any videos any more. So what we’re talking about mainly today or what we’re going to start with is this headline right here from Bloomberg. Paul Tudor Jones buys Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. And this news is from yesterday. Just think about how this will have an impact on other billionaires or just millionaires who can potentially buy Bitcoin and also use it as a hedge against inflation. We have been talking about the inflation problem of fiat currencies for so long right now. And it is very nice to see and was also predicted here on this YouTube channel that exactly around the Bitcoin halfling, well, people are getting more and more aware of the shrinking inflation of Bitcoin. Every four years, while fiat currency see a drastic increase in inflation lately. Well, obviously, we’re not the only ones out there having Paul Tudor Jones on our radar. So we’re going to have a look at this CNBC article in here. And this is very interesting what they’re saying about Bitcoin and also about Paul Tudor Jones. So let’s play the clip. Welcome back to Fast Money, one of Wall Street’s most successful hedge fund managers sending a giant shockwave across the cryptocurrency market today. Paul Tudor Jones reportedly buying Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. Jones comparing the cryptocurrency to the gold trade back in the 1970s, calling it the fastest horse in this environment. Let’s break this bombshell down with our own Bitcoin. Voller Brian Kelly. B.K. IDOC Crypto Twitter was just on fire today with this. More so than ever. I clip that triggers a putting in place. But yeah, I mean, certainly having somebody to Paul Tudor Jones pedigree caliber come in and kind of put their stamp of approval on this asset class, got everybody really excited when making the comparison to gold back in the 1970s. I mean, if you follow the evolution of gold and Guy probably knows this better than than I do. But at one point in time, you’re buying gold and the ETF didn’t exist. When the ETF existed, it became much more accessible to a lot of different investors. And it sort of it democratize it and also took away that sort of bang for your buck when it comes to the movement of gold because there wasn’t scarcity involved with it. Can you see the same thing happening with Bitcoin, especially as Zeus talks about ETF as this continues to go mainstream? I mean, if this is truly sort of a flag being planted in mainstream investment, the next step could in fact be ETF s. I mean, it could be. We haven’t seen it yet. I think we’re a long way away from an ETF based on what the FCC has said. So at this point in time, it’s much more of an institutional level actually reach out and get into it fairly easily. But you’re buying the spot market. And I think when when you look back at the bull market in the 70s, that’s when gold was no longer pegged. Right. So that was kind of the first real market speculative market that you had. And that’s a lot like what Bitcoin is right now. You didn’t have all the derivatives. You didn’t have the options. You didn’t have the ETF. That might tamp down that volatility. That’s the same case here in Bitcoin. And when you look at big or at least when I look at Bitcoin on a risk reward basis, let’s say you buy gold on the on the idea that inflation is coming and it doubles, you’re going to be happy. Nobody’s going to be upset of a double in an investment. But if you look at the volatility of Bitcoin, where it’s gone and where it could go a five or 10x and Bitcoin would not be inconceivable in this environment. Brian, big fan of your work. A lot of people think the the gold bitcoin is binary. You have to own one or the other. They both can’t work. Do you think in this environment both can do well? Sure, it’s the same thesis. It’s the idea that you have you need a capped security or a capped supply. And so whether it’s gold or whether it’s Bitcoin, I happen to think Bitcoin has a much higher upside. A better risk to reward. But the thesis is very similar. The only other thing I would say about Bitcoin is that it’s different than gold. It’s a lot more. More, right. We’ve seen the issues we’ve had over the last weeks where gold prices disengaged from futures spot gold because they couldn’t get gold bars from London to New York to settle. You don’t have that issue with Bitcoin. This is Internet money. You just send it right over and settle it. So in that sense, I think Bitcoin has a bigger role to play in this environment than gold does. All right. Okay. Great to see you, Brian. Callear, own Bitcoin Boller. Karen, I’m curious when somebody like a Paul Tudor Jones says that he’s buying cryptocurrency. Do you think that sort of paves the way for other hedge fund managers in the mainstream to do the same? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it does. It’s sort of nobody wants to get sort of outed having owned Bitcoin if it completely falls apart. But if you can say, you know, Paul Tudor Jones owned it also, maybe that gives you a little bit of cover. I believe I mean, I think that Mike Novogratz had said it a few weeks ago, really, if this isn’t the environment for Bitcoin to work with this kind of just money printing all around the world, then I don’t know what is. So we’ll see if inflation ever ticks up. I’m optimistic that Bitcoin will go up as well. Well, of course, at this point, you could make the argument that this is mainstream media and why should you believe in mainstream media? But you have to say that what they’re saying regarding the inflation and also comparing Bitcoin to gold. They’re both Scar’s and especially in this environment right now where fiat currencies are just getting inflated. The Fed was saying they’re going to print unlimited cash or they have unlimited resources basically to get out of this crisis right now if there is going to be a harsher crisis than we’re in right now. Well, then we don’t know when Bitcoin can actually shine. Right. So this is the time for Bitcoin and billionaires buying Bitcoin and making that public. That should definitely give you a sign. I’m not saying that you should go all in today, but you should definitely start buying Bitcoin today. All right. But now let’s talk about the charts. What we’re looking at here is the Bitcoin weekly timeframe. And there are not that many people out there anymore who bought Bitcoin at a higher price. Where we are right now. Keep that in mind. The higher the bitcoin price goes, the more the train leaves the station. And you don’t want to be the guy chasing the train. Right. And you also don’t want to wait for the next train because potentially that can take up to four years because Bitcoin is going in for your cycles. So you should really start buying Bitcoin today. If you are interested in building a Bitcoin portfolio, if you understand Bitcoin, if you understand why Bitcoin can be a hedge against inflation. Exactly like Paul Tudor Jones said. So what we’re looking at in here is the Bitcoin weekly chart. Once again, I want to say that Bitcoin broke out this downtrend line, which exists for approximately eight hundred and seventy days. We do not have a confirmation yet in here. If this week can actually close above this trendline, I mean, it could end up as weak as we have already seen it at approximately fourteen thousand U.S. dollars. So the end of the week to close off this week is going to be very, very interesting. That is for sure. Also on the Bitcoin daily chart and here we can see exactly the same trend line. I would love to see Bitcoin establishing around those levels right now. To meet the ten thousand dollar level is not that important. Of course, psychologically speaking, going from a four digit Bitcoin to a five that you’d Bitcoin, that is very nice. And I think people don’t have anything against that who are invested in Bitcoin. But to me personally, the more important level is the ten thousand five hundred dollar mark. I’ve already set that Bitcoin needs to build a higher high before we can start to speak about new all time highs. And here we’re looking at the double top so far of ten thousand five hundred U.S. dollars. And I would really love to see that this is not going to be a trivial top in here, but that Bitcoin can actually break through ten thousand five hundred and then we can talk about new all time highs. And here is also something which is very important. And we’re going to come to that. You should not buy Bitcoin today and expect to get rich tomorrow or in three weeks. We have seen dump’s after Bitcoin hall things, OK? If you don’t believe that, check the video, which is popping up on top of the screen right now. In the past, there has been an 80 percent dump and 80 percent correction all through a huge run up of the bitcoin morphing. But Bitcoin will remain volatile, maybe a little bit less volatile than in the past because we have more liquidity right now. But Bitcoin will remain volatile. OK. That is very important to understand. And just in case that you guys are interested in trading Bitcoin with leverage, I personally recommend the leverage trading platform femoris. A video tutorial is popping up on top of screen right now. And my sign of bling Downbelow can get up to one hundred and twelve dollar deposit bonus for depositing zero point to Bitcoin or more. With that, you’re also supporting this YouTube channel. Thank you guys very much. And now let’s continue with the episode. Now, if you have a look at volume real quick, volume looks very solid on this breakout or indice breakout environment. We’re talking about three point two billion U.S. dollars over the last 24 hours on 10 exchanges, real trading volume. And if we go to the one hour, talked in here and have a look at the volume. Well, we have solid volume in here. This is a solid breakout. And even in the short to mid-term timeframes, I’m leaning more to the bullish side in here, although we already had a pump right now. And the correction can definitely happen at this point. Some people want to take profits, close their positions and so on. Get out of the market. That is totally fine. OK, we’re in here for the long run. All right. Now let’s talk about how you should buy Bitcoin. And this is actually quite simple. You should not go all in today and then tell me two weeks later when the price of Bitcoin dumps 30 percent, for example, that, hey, son, you told me to buy Bitcoin and now I’ve lost 30 percent. That’s not what you should be doing. First of all, you should be convinced about Bitcoin. You should. Learn about Bitcoin. And if you decided for yourself that you want to build a Bitcoin portfolio, what you should do is you should dollar cost average. And what I recommend as well is you go to B.C., a BTC dot com. This is the dollar cost average calculator. And here you can type in, for example, that you want to purchase Bitcoin for one hundred dollars weekly. And you want to check, for example, how much gains you would have made if you would have done that for two years. And you can also compared to other asset if you want to. And as you can see right here in Bitcoin, the percentage change of your portfolio would be plus 40 percent on gold. It would be 23 percent, 24 percent. And on the Dow, it would be minus seven point eight percent in here. And you can calculate and back test the dollar cost averaging strategy. So basically, always a buying at the same time in the month or at the same time in the week. That is the easiest way to build a Bitcoin portfolio. And it is stress free because if you’re buying Bitcoin right now, well, you should also buy Bitcoin in a week or in a month. But if you’re only buying Bitcoin today and the price of Bitcoin is going to drop 30 percent again and we have seen such corrections once again, there has been an 80 percent correction after a Bitcoin whole thing already. And especially if you are newer, you are not resistant to those price swings. OK. So you want to dollar cost average. And with this DCA, BTC dot com calculator, you can back test how it would have been if you would have dollar cost average already in the past. And this will give you a very nice feeling and it will show you the strength of dollar cost averaging. So dollar cost averaging, definitely the best strategy to buy Bitcoin, to build a Bitcoin portfolio right now. And you can start today. All right. And last but not least, a few words about the Bitcoin morphing the bitcoin. Halfan is going to go down in three days and 14 hours. I’m not sure if I will be doing a Lifestream or not. Let me know down below in the comments section, if you would like to see that. What we can see right now is a very interesting development in the Bitcoin hash rate. But that has nothing to do with the whole thing yet. This is because the Bitcoin price is going up and the block reward is still in twelve point five Bitcoin. So if that Bitcoin price is going up, Bitcoin mining is more profitable and therefore more people are actually mining. This is simple economics. So hash rate is always following price and not the other way around, like some people are still trying to tell you. OK. Hash rate is following price, but we also have to be very careful. Often the bitcoin boffing, the profitability will get cut almost in half. And I say that on purpose. It is just almost in half because miners are not just getting the block reward, which is getting Hoft. They also are getting the transaction fees and they won’t get Hoft. But anyway, let’s just speak about the half. So basically, after the profitability is getting cut in half. Well, less miners can mind profitable. Right. So what we expect in here is a decrease in hash rate. And if that would not happen, that means that miners are right now mining very, very profitable. OK. So a very interesting development is going on, will be going on. And I’m definitely interested in your opinion. Should we do a Lifestream during the Bitcoin hall thing? Do you want to have more such topics? Do you want to talk more about fundamentals? What exactly do you want to know about the Bitcoin morphing and so on? Please let me know that down below in the comments section. But that is it already for today’s episode. If it guys enjoyed it and want to support this YouTube channel for free, please make sure to leave a like very much appreciate it. Also, don’t forget to subscribe and hopefully see all of you in the next one by.

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