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Demoscene and “Art” Games on PlayStation 3

Early in the seventh console generation, with the inclusion of storefronts allowing a user to download games on every home console, the ability to self-publish or be picked up by a publisher increased thanks to this new ease of access and lower costs of digital distribution as compared to boxed retail products. For Sony and the PlayStation 3, this would see the release of some games both Sony, games media, and players alike would sometimes deem non-games, especially those that came from a group of artists called demosceners which we’ll look at today.

Currently: Linger in Shadows .detuned

To be completed: flOw Echochrome PixelJunk Eden Flower Noby Noby Boy Journey Datura PixelJunk 4am Papo & Yo The Unfinished Swan Proteus Bound Linger in Shadows

Released: Thursday, October 9, 2008 On: PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3 Developed by: Plastic Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Linger in Shadows was announced at the demoparty Breakpoint 2008 in Germany. Breakpoint was a successor to the demoparty mekka & symposium which ran from 1995 - 2002. Demoparties came out of the demoscene in which software crackers would create their own audiovisual effects and playbacks to be shared via demoparties, the internet, and inserted into cracked software. Organized parties would break the competition into categories of size and platform, letting the restrictions feed creativity. As explained by the organizers of the demoparty mekka & symposium:

What is MS? The mekka & symposium is a demo-scene party that was organized annually at Easter. More than 1200 young Multimedia artists gathered here for four days in order to meet similarly-minded people, to exchange ideas and to participate in the competitions, in which individuals and groups show off their talents in a certain form of electronic art called Demos. ms2002 has been the eighth and last event in a traditional party series that started back in 1995, when 300 mostly German visitors attended the BlackBox Symposium. To our 2002 event, about 1220 visitors came from all over Europe, and beyond - "sceners" have come to celebrate with us from countries as remote as Estonia and Israel! The event was never a LAN or gaming party. People playing Qu*ke or Half-Life on our events would have been considered non-creative by our "serious" visitors, and as a matter of fact, the participation of gamers on our parties has always been exceptionally low, which made the MS one of the last big enjoyable events for real sceners.

Breakpoint would see its first iteration during Easter 2003, Friday, April 18 - Monday, April 21. The lead organizer was Scamp who detailed in an interview some of the difficulties in running the first party such as heating, internet access, attendance-to-expense, and getting permission to have the meeting during the Easter holiday in Germany. Attendance cost was reportedly €40.00 for men and no cost for women. It was during Breakpoint 2008 that the team called Plastic would reveal a video teasing the project Linger in Shadows for the PlayStation 3, with official confirmation coming later that year at E3.

Linger in Shadows was released on October 9, 2008 as an “interactive art” application for $2.99. Sony was quick to assert that this was not the typical PSN release. Rusty Buchert on the PlayStation Blog would state, “I’ll start with the easier side, and that is Linger in Shadows is NOT a game. It was never meant to be a game and it will never be a game.” In IGN’s “Impressions” piece on the game Chris Roper stated, “Linger in Shadows hit the PlayStation Network this week, but make no mistake - it is not a game. It even says so in about three different places just to make sure the point gets across. Instead, it's being dubbed as "interactive art", which is a pretty fitting description.” GameSpot’s Ricardo Torres would similarly remark, “While this isn't a game…”

“Games” are restricted to things such as Pac-Man, Madden NFL, or even LittleBigPlanet. Linger in Shadows is interactable (the player makes inputs and the game responds and reacts) though because it doesn’t fall into the traditional, high score, killing, or numbers-go-up categories so familiar to game players it becomes a non-game. Sony understood this and is why they would denote it as “not a game” themselves in its promotions. While seeking out the various titles listed at the beginning of this article the main things I was looking for were “art” games that lacked the traditional video-game framework such as a scoring system or games that had “artsy” visual styles but were really just dressing up a traditional platformer or point and click adventure game.

Due to its “non-game” status, reviews from release are fairly scarce. HonestGamers’ 1.5/5 community review by zippdementia says, “What bothers me is that this was such an obvious attempt to make an extra buck off the PS3 owner with overblown advertising. Next time, Sony, tell me what's really inside your package. Don't tell me you're going to give me cheese and then hand me Cheetos.” Eurogamer’s Dan Whitehead appeared to be the most adept at talking about the game in a “review” context, ending theirs with “Linger therefore exists in a strange new realm between the hardcore demoscene and the mainstream audience being asked to pay to play around with its peculiar concept. It's an interesting move if it opens up Sony's platform for more demos to reach a broader audience, but perhaps not if they have to pass through the gateway of establishment approval to get there. This experiment may at least tempt a few more people to Google "demoscene" and, payment aside, it's refreshing to see something so esoteric being championed in such a public way. You certainly won't see anything like this on Xbox Live or the Wii Store. That, at the very least, makes Linger in Shadows something rather special.”

Modern reviews have not been kind either, as Gamerhub’s ⅖ reviewer Steven Barry writes in 2022 that, “To be fair to developer Plastic, they do go out of their way to emphasise that this is not actually a game and is instead ‘interactive art’. So, it does feel a little strange to review this like any other game when in reality it’s a glorified tech demo. However, this was a purchasable product on release in 2008 over the Playstation Network so that is why it’s ultimately eligible for critique.”

Since most people were more preoccupied with grappling with its status as a “non-game,” there wasn’t much discussion about what it actually is and does. Linger in Shadows plays and unfurls itself as a dream. There is an unlogic to the procession of movement, space, and plot. The first signal of this is when watching the dog try and run through the air to escape the ethereal black cloud presence haunting the concrete setting. The dog's attempts to flee are vigorous, but without much effect, calling back to a shared experience nearly everyone who dreams has, of trying to run but finding you are unable to move at much more than a snail’s pace.

The game mostly finds itself following the presence of a black sentient cloud figure, as it moves about an impossible high rise grouping and its various unlogic features, such as a large flower atop a levitating rock, barrels similarly suspended in the air, and the biggest “tech-demo” flag of “how many moving objects of different shape and synchronicity can we have at the same time?” The black cloud can be interpreted as a malevolent entity even before it turns the dog to stone due to its coloring and the faint imagery moving about within it recalling the antennae of insects, both elements long associated with the impure. A cat impassively watches as the cloud turns the dog to stone, maybe something of a mirroring of the player impassively watching and even participating, without much of a feeling for what’s occurring on screen. Soon after, a giant creature bearing a mask with eyes and a body of trailing tentacles appears. In contrast to the black cloud, which effortlessly weaved in, out, and between various objects without much effect, this mask creature blunders its way toppling various objects as it seeks out the petrified dog which it also ends up breaking apart. Bearing familiar eyes and a more tangent shape than the ethereal black cloud, this mask creature is instantly interpreted as the “good guy.” Confronted by the black cloud, the mask ascends a pillar of stone atop of which is a semicircle of columns surrounding a statue of a woman. The black cloud begins petrifying the mask’s tentacles, furthering the black cloud’s villainy and the mask’s innocence as a victim. The “camera” is destroyed by a toppled column leading to the credits. As the demoscene is more about visual demonstrations than narrative, it's not surprising that the one displayed here is pretty simple and straightforward and more a way to show off different character models and what the player can manipulate.

The “game” portion of the game is that during this entire video playback you can at any point pause and manipulate the camera and objects on-screen. Since everything is a rendered object you can escape the usual limitations of regular video playback, and the UI even resembles the UI of media playback on the console or any DVD/Blu-Ray player of the time. The game itself will guide you through what types of manipulation you can do, with an additional hidden object portion tied to finding images that are shout-outs to other demogroups tucked away just out of frame. Playing Linger in Shadows is mostly a touch and go affair of moving the timecode forward and backward and moving around the controller and pressing buttons to see what sort of movement you can do in this specific frame or scene. Aside from whatever you can come up with yourself there isn’t any set of objectives beyond the tutorial teachings and then the image hunting collection.

It is this lack of purpose or list of things to do that I think most frustrates people into declaring Linger in Shadows “not a game!” Coming from arcades with high scores to home consoles with experience to accrue and levels to beat and people to shoot, we’ve been conditioned to think of games as filling a certain role and no other. Even Shadow of the Colossus in 2005 was heralded as the fulfillment of “Games as art” that would convince people like Roger Ebert of the medium’s value. That goal is self-defeating anyway, but also Shadow of the Colossus, while a phenomenal work, still falls into the traditional video game category quite easily, with the game bearing the objective to kill 18 colossi that are framed as unique boss encounters. While there is no progression in terms of level or equipment you do slowly increase our stamina and health over the course of the game. Nobody would mistake Shadow of the Colossus as an “interactive art piece” like they would Linger in Shadows, but both are video games.

Watching another of Plastic’s demos from 2008, called “Into the Pink,” many similarities come up, from more explicit bugs, more imposing crawling shadows, moving lots of objects floating through the air, and distorting text/images so that they jitter. Another project of theirs, “Catzilla,” is much more an entertainment object playing with destruction on a city-wide scale which just happened to come out the same year as Man of Steel and its similar experiments.

This art stands among the other “demoscene” game(s) on PlayStation 3 as a period when Sony was interested in courting the margins of games in order to sell its struggling console. At the time, the PlayStation 3 was in dead last place when it came to home console sales, and so Sony had to look at alternative ways to attract engagement. One of those ways was to present the PlayStation 3 as something more than just a video game console. Early advertisements for the PlayStation 3 are routinely mocked, though they really don’t stray too far from some of the advertisements for the PlayStation 2, such as those famously directed by David Lynch. These more “heady” adverts attempt to sell the console based not on gameplay footage but on an idea of what the console could do/be. It didn’t work.

Not until the Kevin Butler series of commercials did PlayStation 3 begin to majorly change its presentation to the larger gaming audience. PlayStation Plus, courting indies, and the humbled approach they took towards developers with the creation of the PlayStation 4, culminating in the disaster that was the Xbox One’s lead-up to launch, secured their continued success to this day. The cost of that success has been a lack of effort to engage the margins of gaming, something unofficially certified with the closure of its internal Japan Studio in early 2021 and further with the shuttering of PixelOpus and the announcement of ending support for MediaMolecule’s Dreams just this month. With its focus on huge titles, contemporary Sony would not throw money towards a group of students and tell them to “go wild” and release their demoware title on the PlayStation Network. The closest we have gotten in recent years was the release of Dreams, a game to create other games from MediaMolecule, itself a development team founded in part by a demoscene participant named Alex Evans known as Statix/TPOLM during the 1990s.

This is not to write off Microsoft and Nintendo’s attempts to court the indie space for success, as Xbox Live famously had its “Summer of Arcade'' titles, as well as being the console that really began today’s online network connectivity and distribution of smaller titles on the OG Xbox. Microsoft still had a restrictive storefront however, with file sizes and other limitations holding back small developers from seeking it out as the best place to try and publish their game. Nintendo also had some success with indie releases under the WiiWare brand (World of Goo and Bit.Trip Beat), but failed to do much to advertise or promote them.

One question that persists is in the intention behind the team of Plastic in creating Linger in Shadows. Dipping into demos and their productions, what strikes me is that the challenge comes from crafting advanced renders on platforms with limited and dated capabilities. As I’ll detail later, .theprodukkt was able to create a first person shooter with a file size of 96kb, and results for demoparties are broken down by platforms such as the C64, Amiga, and restricted file sizes such as 64kb. So why choose to utilize the PlayStation 3? Proudly boasted as the most powerful next-generation console in 2007, what appeal does that have to a group regularly challenging themselves to see what they can create using computers from the 1980s? Perhaps it was the challenge of working with the difficult to develop for CELL processor powered console. Perhaps they just thought it would be fun to swindle Sony out of some cash and just create whatever their whim deemed suitable for a wider audience instead of fellow demosceners. As I mentioned before, portions of Linger in Shadows definitely seem to be examples of the team simply trying to see how much they could get away with without breaking the game, though in 2023 it can be hard to look at it with the same eyes as someone in 2008, as graphics are continually chasing more and more fidelity with reality.

Shared between Linger in Shadows and the next demoscene game, .detuned, is Rusty Buchert, a producer at Sony Santa Monica who was the face of these demoscene games to the PlayStation audience at the time. Previously at Interplay Entertainment from 1990 - 2003, Buchert joined Sony Santa Monica Studio in 2003 and his major credits include flOw, Everyday Shooter, Linger in Shadows, Flower, .detuned, and despite his departure from the company in 2011 gained Special Thanks in Datura, Sorcery, The Unfinished Swan, and Sound Shapes. Speaking to Engadget in 2007, Buchert detailed his role as focusing on producing PSN titles for the PlayStation 3 and details what type of games and culture Sony was interested in cultivating.

We started searching for games like this [flOw] from the outset and we were searching through the Indie Scene right out the gate. In general the Scene thinks outside the traditional development box. All too often people get indoctrinated into one general way of thinking about games in genre, design, and execution. You are not going to get anything new thinking like that. We were betting on the fact that people wanted something new and not a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. There are a lot of games to sort through. When we find a gem we start pursuing it. Some work out, some don't. I recently heard back from one developer that wanted to finish college and then he would like to try. The game made me think he was already programming professionally. There are some other experimental projects that will also fit in this vein too. These are very much art and an extremely different take on interactivity.

In a later post on the PlayStation Blog, Buchert also discusses how he, and another producer, George Weising (who is still at Sony today) scoured the Indie Games Festival booth at GDC 2007 where they found and signed a deal with the team behind Everyday Shooter. Their seeking out of indie games led to the next project from a group called Plastic.

Linger in Shadows developer Plastic was a Polish demogroup led by Michal Staniszewski (bonzaj). Alongside Staniszewski for all three Plastic projects were Grzegorz Juraszek (fei) and Damian Bajowski (mime). Those who developed Linger in Shadows and went on to Datura in 2012 are Krzysztof Deoniziak (rork) and Wojciech Golczewski (Blz). Shared staff between Datura and Bound, released for the PlayStation 4 in 2016, are Andrzej Uszakow (uho), Kinga Staniszewska, Marek Bielawski (mare), and Michał Szymczyk (misz). Plastic joined Epic Games in 2022, and was credited in Cyberpunk 2077 under “Outsource Partners,” though Staniszewski details on his Linkedin that the work was, “Responsible for visual development and prototyping of Cyberspace in Cyberpunk 2077.”

Grzegorz Juraszek (fei) is still active in the scene as he is the main organizer of the demoparty Riverwash, the largest of its kind in Poland. Damian Bajowski (mime) continues to work as an artist, most recently contributing to an episode of Netflix’s “Love, Death and Robots” called “Manson’s Rats.” Micahl Staniszewski (bonzaj) now works at Epic Games and has many YouTube videos talking about Plastic’s last game, Bound, which was released on PlayStation 4 in 2016. He has one lone video on the making of Linger in Shadows from December 2008. Krzysztof Deoniziak (rork) is also active in the scene, being credited on several demos in 2022. Wojciech Golczewski (Blz) continues to make music, though hasn’t been a participant in the demoscene since his time with Plastic early on. Andrzej Uszakow (uho) appears to still be at CD Projekt Red as a “Senior Engine Programmer.” I couldn't find much of anything to see what Kinga Staniszewska has been up to since Bound’s release. Marek Bielawski (mare) is currently a senior audio programmer at CD Projekt Red. Michał Szymczyk (misz) has the most surprising transition, while most of the developers stuck to Poland, Szymczyk is a Senior Software Engineer at the LA-based developer Infinity Ward starting in September 2017.

Plastic’s work on Linger in Shadow would be the first, but not only, demoscene game to find its way onto the PlayStation 3, as within a year of release another title from another demogroup would appear on the PlayStation Network.

.detuned

Released: Thursday, October 15, 2009 On: PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3 Developed by: .theprodukkt GmbH Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Developed by .theprodukkt, .detuned™ is a personalized, interactive music experience which gives you the opportunity to create dynamic artwork in real-time to accompany your XMB™ music collection. Manipulate the given scene by interacting with and modifying its unique graphics using the DUALSHOCK®3 Wireless Controller. Plus you can change and tweak your own music to accompany the scene. .detuned™'s brilliant design and capabilities call for the state-of-the-art processing power that can only be done on the PS3™ system. Download .detuned™ today for an artistic music experience! Features: -Artistic Experiences: An abstract and surreal interactive experience to players of all levels and interests -Personalized Music: Manipulate and tweak music tracks on the XMB™ to accompany your artistic creations -Power of the PS3™ system: Stunning and crisp HD environment that brings your artistic visions to life in real-time

It started with a team of eleven people, a majority of which came from 49Games GmbH of Hamburg, Germany. 49Games GmbH’s main development was the annual winter and summer games for PC and consoles in Germany. Summer Athletics 2009 for Wii, released on July 24, 2009 was the largest collaborative effort, seeing nine of the eleven developers for .detuned credited on that game. An earlier collaborative effort is more closely related to the work of .detuned, a first person shooter game called .kkrieger. Released on April 10, 2004 for Windows PCs, .kkrieger was a product of the Breakpoint demoscene party in April 2004 in Bingen, Germany. It was the result of a challenge to create a first person shooter in the vein of Unreal Tournament and Quake but with the restriction of being 96KB in size. GameDeveloper has an interview with programmer Fabian Giesen (who was only 19 at the time!) and Nostalgia Nerd on YouTube has a great video documenting the development of .kkrieger that is worth a watch if you want to know more about how they accomplished this feat.

Sony Santa Monica Studios Producer Rusty Buchert announced .detuned on the PlayStation Blog on May 1, 2009. He said it would, “[offer] an abstract and surreal interactive experience like nothing else. It is not exactly a game or an art piece like Linger in Shadows. It allows you to create your own visual to accompany your favorite music tracks on the XMB, and using the SIXAXIS™ Wireless Controller, you will be able to manipulate the given scene by interacting with and modifying a man and his world. It even lets you tweak your music as you play with it.” Their announcement is already getting ahead of the “not a game!” crowd, though the comments on that PlayStation Blog piece are generally positive and welcoming.

.detuned would release on PSN for $2.99 on October 15, 2009. Games media reviews were limited, as most game “critics” were used to reviewing games such as Madden, Call of Duty, and Uncharted, but something like .detuned was challenging when approached from the limited scope of a consumer review with the stated goal being a buyer’s guide to “should you purchase this?” IGN gave it a 4/10, Bad, with Chris Roper saying, “Currently selling for $2.99 in the US PlayStation Store, that's about a dollar per minute of entertainment. If you have cash to blow and want to see one of the weirdest pieces of software on any system, go for it. Otherwise, just watch our videos and you'll get the point.” GamesRadar’s Shaun Curnow would rate .detuned 2.5/5 with its negatives being, “-Not really a game, -Won't amuse everyone, -Won't amuse for long.” Again we hit the same reactions and falsehoods of criticism, not being a [mainstream’s expectation of a] game, not reaching some imagined universal appeal, and not lasting long enough to be “worth” it in the mental formula of $/hour. A retrospective review in 2019 from Gaming Audio News’ Trevor Chan would say, “It didn’t take long to wonder if it was worth paying the small amount of money for this bite-sized experience. It’s a great snapshot of a bygone decade. Does that mean one would go recommending .detuned as a ‘must-play’? No, but it is worth experiencing, even if just for a few minutes.” Again we come back to reviews being centered on this one point: Monetary Price. No matter the time it costs you, don’t go questioning whether those 40 hours in the latest RPG were truly meaningful, be glad you got more bang for your buck compared to this!

As mentioned by GameSpy’s Sterlin McGarvey in their news writeup for .detuned’s announcement, Linger in Shadows, and .detuned, were positively regarded for their easy trophies, “It [Linger in Shadows] was also a handy way to clean up on some good trophies, another reason why many people picked it up.” This sentiment was echoed in PlayStation The Official Magazine Issue 22 for August 2009 whose Trophies for Cheaters by Carlos Ruiz includes entries for Linger in Shadows, Flower, and Noby Noby Boy. I admit, my purchase of Linger in Shadows and .detuned at the time was more for their easy trophies than interest in the demoscene or its history. It is only while looking back do I realize there is a richer field to examine than just a quick injection of trophy points.

What is .detuned if not a video game? The visual effects manually activated by the player suggests it is a visualizer meant to mesmerize you while enjoying your custom tracks imported onto the PlayStation 3 hard drive. Reliance on human, rather than machine, for these effects means the attention of the player is squarely on enacting movement to the rhythm of whatever track is currently being played instead of enjoying the track and visuals meshed together. Due to this, it reads as more of a toy, something to pick up and play around with, poking at its odds and ends, seeing what action you can provoke and manipulate, before setting it down and moving on. This briefness of experience and interest may be why publisher, reviewer, and player alike referred to it as, “not a game.” It failed, intentionally so, to entertain for multiple hours, tell a story, or offer a high score. Still, I find it limiting to restrict the moniker of “game” from .detuned and its ilk. The player can manipulate and control aspects programmed by the developer, engaging in a unique kind of conversation between player and program that can only happen in video games.

As a game, what does .detuned evoke? The first time through was spent poking and prodding at the game, seeing what the different button press combinations could accomplish and create in the suited man. The default track demo that you can watch to get an overall feel for what this game is capable of producing works well, though the cuts and camera movement seem way out of range of what the player is capable of producing when in control. The lack of an editable timeline means creating your own music video with this game as the base foundation would be a waste of time and effort. So, as before, it remains a toy, something you can plug a music track into in order to have some fun pulling and twisting it around in your hand, not quite as literal given the capability of the Sixaxis within the PlayStation 3 controller (though maybe for the best given the Sixaxis never achieved much in its lifetime). One of the tracks I chose to test out was probably the most apt for a repeatable batch of animations: Daft Punk’s “Around the World.” Some other experiments were on Blink 182’s “What’s My Age Again?” and M.O.O.N.’s “Hydrogen” from the Hotline Miami soundtrack. Unfortunately I did not realize I could turn off the sound effect to the “crank” noise when using the analog sticks to forward and rewind the animations. Due to this, my experience, and footage, are inseparable from the annoying click-clack of the crank.

In 2012 Q-Games released a game very similar to .detuned in intention, PixelJunk 4am, a game for the PlayStation Move motion controller that allowed players to, “Mix and create your own music with the PlayStation®Move. ‘Paint’ with sound in 3D space by pulling new tracks from the surrounding audio palette.” Though more social-minded than .detuned was, the audio effect manipulation and importing of your own custom tracks, aka your iTunes library, is very similar to the sandbox playground of .detuned, and is something I hope to try out once I obtain a PlayStation Move myself.

Some members of .theprodukkt continue to work in the demoscene today. Dierk Ohlerich (chaos) is an organizer for The Revision, a German demoparty that continues even to this year with an event in April 2023. Thomas Mahlke (fiver2) has continued working in the demoscene as well, most often with the group Farbrausch, one of the groups shouted out in Linger in Shadows. Tammo Hinrichs (kb) has also helped organize The Revision, and continues to make music for demos. Sebastian Grillmaier (wayfinder) has continued to create music for the scene and even provided the theme music for The Revision 2022. Christoph Mütze (giZMo) also appears to have remained active in the scene contributing to projects as late as 2021. Fabian Giesen (ryg) currently works at RAD Game Tools in Kirkland, Washington and maintains his blog to this day. Bleick Bleicken (mcfly) has most recently worked as an art director for Chorus developed by Deep Silver. I had trouble looking for any recent output from Oliver Waechter (joey) and Uwe Meier (moonlay). I believe Thomas Heinrich (aTom) is this same Thomas Heinrich on Twitter who links to Glare Productions as his current place of employment. Lastly Leonard Ritter (paniq) is currently a co-founder and developer at Duangle working on a crowdfunded game called Nowhere, an “alien life simulator.” The game has been in development since 2011 though sadly it appears the latest update was in March 2021.

Ever since my article on the short lived studio Endrant I’ve always wondered where these groups of people end up long after this project I’ve just played was probably last on their mind. Thankfully, in the comments of that Nostalgia Nerd video YouTube on .kkrieger there is a message from Tammo “kb” Hinrichs posted in October 2022 who gives an update on where the team is at now,

"Where are those guys now?" We exist, living our lives, all outside actual game development nowadays (because we wanted to have lives), but still quietly working away on various things that you might or might not have seen. Some of us are still active in the demoscene, and we're all fine, thank you :)

#.detuned #linger in shadows #demoscene #playstation 3 #writing #criticism

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jamalqlow394 · 3 years

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A total of 74,146,928 video clip sights were seen, amounting to roughly $24,716 well worth of donations, which Pornhub subsequently tripled to $75,000. Donations were split among numerous charities, consisting of the Eileen Stein Jacoby Fund and also Cancer Cells Sucks Inc . In 2019, the main Ladies Do Pornography network, confirmed by Pornhub, was eliminated from the site. On 10 October 2019, both proprietors and also two workers were arrested on 3 counts of sex trafficking by force, fraudulence, as well as coercion, after a civil lawsuit submitted in July. The network was eliminated a week afterwards, which journalists at Daily Dot as well as Motherboard claimed was a slow reaction to the case.

Modeled after the pornography site, ScrubHub has thousands of video clips of daily individuals and also pick grown-up performers washing their hands-- some filed under regular porn categories like BDSM, Bear, and also Feet. Pornhub state that instances of child sexual assault rarely appear on the system, yet an investigation by the #NotYourPorn campaign collaborating with the Times in 2015 found, with just a short search, a number of youngster sexual assault pictures on the site. Disturbingly, these videos can be discovered in under 5 mins. Tags like "taken intoxicated teenager video clip" or "public flash to young girl" and also "young teenager snapchat leakage" promoted these kid abuse images even further. Although we reported these videos, it took a number of days for any type of action to be taken.

Vacations Causing Web Traffic Modifications

Pornhub had actually verified the kid target as well as mistakenly admitted to engineering in her trafficking, yet later removed their admission. Modeled after the big porn website, ScrubHub has thousands of videos of day-to-day individuals and also choose adult entertainers washing their hands-- some filed under typical porn classifications like BDSM, Bear, and Feet. A lot of the video clips are scandalously labelled to appear more like porn than straightforward video clips of people scrubbing their hands, utilizing hand sanitizer, and also cleansing.

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waylonvwok573 · 4 years

Text

Is This Gay Porn Tube Point Truly That Tough

Why The Pornography Market Has A Great Deal To Instruct Us About Security In Covid.

Additionally, the video clips could still be found later on unofficially on Pornhub's internet site. In 2009, a 14-year-old woman was gang raped at knifepoint and claims the videos were posted to Pornhub. The lady mentioned that she emailed Pornhub repetitively over a period of 6 months, however received no reply. Another situation in October 2019 entailed a man that deals with fees of raunchy and also lascivious battery of a 15-year-old lady, videos of which were found on Pornhub, Modelhub, Periscope and also Snapchat that result in his apprehension.

Compared to 2018, look for 'Serbian amateur' expanded by 189%, and 'blowjob' by 110%.

' Fully grown' is one of the most viewed classification in Serbia, which is 133% most likely to be seen when contrasted to various other countries.

Serbia places 49th worldwide for web traffic to Pornhub, with 37% of site visitors being women as well as the average checking out size lasting 10 minutes 8 secs.

' Serbian' stayed the number 1 search for one more year, adhered to by 'Srpski Pornici' which acquired 259 areas in the previous year.

Greece rates 32nd for traffic pertaining to Pornhub, with the typical go to lasting 11 minutes 7 secs, as well as 27% of the web traffic being women. The most browsed term by a large margin is 'Greek', adhered to by 'lesbian' which went up 16 settings in 2019. Look for 'footjob' expanded by 998%, along with a 924% boost for 'big boobs' and also 921% for 'homemade'. Visitors from Greece are 149% most likely to check out the 'feet' category when contrasted to the rest of the world, along with 68% a lot more into 'double infiltration' and 62% much more right into 'rectal' videos.

This Week In Sex: Even More Porn Stars Examination Hiv.

The UK based activist group Not Your Porn was started by the pal of a woman whose iCloud storage had actually been hacked, bring about the hacker publishing raunchy photos as well as video clips on Pornhub alongside her full name. Pornhub removed the video clip when reported, however duplicates of the video clip using her complete name reproduced faster than the videos were gotten rid of. The woman located that "the fractured interaction system at Pornhub has actually indicated this has actually come to be a progressively extremely painful procedure". The creator of Not Your Pornography reported that fifty women called her over a six-month duration about non-consensual on-line pornography including them, thirty of whom reported that the video clips were uploaded to Pornhub.

Gauleporno.

he information that 350,000 people-- as well as counting-- have actually signed a request calling on Pornhub-- the world's most popular porn site-- to stop posting non-consensual videos and also marketing them as "porn" is not unexpected to me. Pornhub has hosted events and also projects to increase awareness of breast cancer.

Cyprus ranks 91st for website traffic to Pornhub, with 36% of site visitors being women, and the ordinary browse through size being 10 mins and 40 secs. While 'Greek' stayed one of the most prominent search for one more year, look for 'Cypriot' moved into 2nd location.

Luxembourgh rankings 105th for traffic to Pornhub, with 34% of visitors being female as well as the average check out duration being 9 minutes 54 secs. ' Luxembourg' remained the leading look for one more year, but 'MILF' went up 8 settings to become the 2nd most prominent. Searches for 'femdom' expanded by 423% contrasted to 2018, and 'hentai' was additionally up 288%. ' Anal' is the category of video clip most often seen by site visitors from Luxembourg, but when compared to the rest of the globe, they are 390% more likely to check out the 'German' classification and 237% a lot more right into 'French'.

Pornhub functions online fact video clips which enable 360 ° checking out for costs consumers. It can be made use of with the PlayStation Virtual Reality, though video clips need to be downloaded and install from a computer and transferred by means of USB.

Traffic throughout all of Europe complied with a similar fad as more individuals were functioning as well as remaining at house, as well as many borders started to shut. Total European traffic was up 8.2% on March 17th, with the largest rises from 2am to 4am, adhered to by a -1.4% dip at 7am. Web traffic was changed for the specific time zone of all European visitors. The following graph from Pornhub's 2019 Year in Evaluation reveals the moments of the day that individuals typically go to Pornhub. Peak times are 10pm to Twelve o'clock at night, while early morning traffic is lower while the majority of people are still asleep.

The very first of these occasions occurred in New york city City on 24 April 2012, with the intro of the "Boob Bus", which used totally free bust examinations for passers-by, in addition to mentor soul-searching techniques to utilize in your home. For every 30 videos watched in Pornhub's "large tit" or "tiny tit" classification in the month of October, the website used to donate a dime to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Nevertheless, the Susan G. Komen Foundation denied the offer, specifying that they were not a companion of Pornhub, would certainly decline their donations and also asked the company to quit utilizing their name.

A total of 74,146,928 video sights were enjoyed, equating to approximately $24,716 worth of contributions, which Pornhub subsequently tripled to $75,000. Contributions were split among a number of charities, including the Eileen Stein Jacoby Fund as well as Cancer Cells Sucks Inc . In 2019, the official Girls Do Porn network, confirmed by Pornhub, was gotten rid of from the site. On 10 October 2019, both owners and also 2 employees were apprehended on three matters of sex trafficking by force, scams, as well as browbeating, after a civil legal action submitted in July. The channel was removed a week afterwards, which reporters at Daily Dot as well as Motherboard stated was a slow-moving action to the occurrence.

Modeled after the porn site, ScrubHub has hundreds of videos of day-to-day individuals as well as pick adult artists cleaning their hands-- some filed under normal porn categories like BDSM, Bear, and Feet. Pornhub say that instances of child sexual abuse rarely appear on the platform, but an examination by the #NotYourPorn project working with the Times last year found, with just a short search, a number of youngster sexual assault pictures on the website. Uncomfortably, these video clips can be found in under 5 mins. Tags like "stolen inebriated teenager video" or "public flash to girl" and "young teenager snapchat leak" promoted these youngster misuse images even further. Although we gaymaletube reported these video clips, it took a number of days for any type of activity to be taken.

No Milfs, No Squirting, No Gang Bangs: Just How The Porn Sector Is Transforming Throughout Covid.

Pornhub had actually confirmed the kid victim as well as unintentionally confessed to complicity in her trafficking, but later on erased their admission. Modeled after the big porn website, ScrubHub has hundreds of videos of everyday people as well as select adult performers cleaning their hands-- some filed under typical pornography classifications like BDSM, Bear, and Feet. A lot of the videos are scandalously titled to seem even more like porn than basic video clips of people scrubbing their hands, making use of hand sanitizer, as well as cleansing.

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queeenpersephone · 5 years

Note

Hi, could you please write a fic about Tony and nat acting as Peter's parents in a PT meeting at school?

so this is more of a drabble but i hope you enjoy it!! it exists in my delicate verse, so tony and nat are in an established relationship and peter is a sort of consulting avenger. also daisy johnson’s basically his older sister.

also a heads up with sending in prompts: i’d really prefer for you guys to send in prompts not on anon, if possible - this way, i can ensure that everyone’s getting their prompts answered equally and fairly. you are welcome to continue sending them on anon, but just know i’ll probably save anonymous prompts for last!

Peter drops his head into his hands. There is no way he was getting out of this one.

Midtown High was notorious for genius-level students, mostly because it cost an arm and a leg to get in, and those who didn’t have loads of money in the bank had to jump through quite a few academic hoops to get in on scholarship. For this reason, the school was relatively lenient regarding lab accidents and mechanical fires, especially those that were made in the pursuit of knowledge. Michael Lawson had made the local paper last year for accidentally combining volatile chemicals that resulted in a improved b12 vitamin. Lucy Poisson had gotten an award from the mayor himself when she caused a fire in the school’s garage that had made progress on large sedan fuel efficiency.

Peter was not Michael or Lucy. Peter had burned down three classrooms. Peter was in trouble.

It was completely stupid in hindsight. A mistake he wouldn’t have made in middle school, except that he had flown in this morning at 4am after being awake for 48 hours in Mexico City, helping the Avengers fight a genetically engineered el chupacabra. Ned had promised to wake him up at a key point in his chemistry project, only he had gotten distracted by angry birds (seriously, who still played angry birds?) and Peter had only woken up with the sound of the fire alarm.

And now he was here, in the principal’s office. They were about to call Aunt May, and he was sure he was going to be expelled.

But as the principal picks up the phone to dial, Peter’s spider senses pick up on a sharp sound and a low whispering hum of a voice that simultaneously make him perk up and shrink down further in his seat. The principal’s not going to know what hit him.

Unfortunately, Peter doesn’t know what’s going to hit him either.

“Sir, you can’t go in there! Sir, sir - wait, you’re not… are you-?”

And so it begins.

After a sharp rap on the door, two legends saunter into the room and arrange themselves in the seats next to Peter. He doesn’t look up, even as the principal’s sharp remarks turn into sputtering awe.

Tony Stark leans back in his chair, completely at ease, though his dark eyes tell a different story. Natasha Romanoff sits up straight, a perfectly cordial smile on her lips, but Peter recognizes the set of her shoulders as a pre-battle stance. If he hadn’t still been so in awe of them, even after fourteen months of interactions, he’d probably be embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” the principal is apologizing, “but I can’t discuss Peter’s actions unless it’s with a parent or a guardian.”

Natasha leans forward. “I’m afraid the legal team of the Avengers disagrees. You see, Peter Parker is a special case.” Tony, furthering Peter’s belief that Natasha and he are connected by some weird telepathy, lays a small folder on the table and slides it across to the principle. It is the first time in a long time that Peter has seen Tony even handle paper. “Mr. Parker is designated as a consulting Avenger.”

The principle’s mouth snaps open, and the sputtering begins again. “How - who - what?”

“Any other information regarding Mr. Parker’s status is classified,” Natasha interrupts, her words razor-sharp. “The only thing you need to know is that we have the authority to discuss his actions on his behalf.”

Tony crosses his legs, and now Peter is beginning to understand their game. “Principal Lane,” he says, his words like butter, “we understand that Peter has damaged some of your property. We will happily pay for the reconstruction - for better equipment too - God knows as a school, you probably need the upgrade.” He smirks, and Peter can see his eyes glint under his Fendi sunglasses.

“But Mr. Parker will stay,” Natasha adds cooly, absently running a finger along the edge of the desk. Peter immediately imagines all the things that finger could potentially do to a man, which he is sure was the plan as he watches his principal turn as white as a sheet. Tony audibly swallows next to him, loosening his tie, and Peter does not even want to think what that is about.

“Well?” Tony manages, his smirk turning him a real smile. “C’mon, the kid’s a genius. Easy MIT shoe-in; I’ve guaranteed it myself. That’s gotta look good on your records, huh? What do you say?”

The principal looks like he is about to pass out, but instead he just nods, and Peter barely holds in a whoop for joy. He doesn’t care how many laps Nat is going to make him run. He doesn’t care that he’s probably going to be banned from the lab; he knows Daisy will sneak him in anyways.

Tony and Natasha stand at the same time, leaving Peter to scramble up as well. Natasha plucks her own sunglasses from where they hang on Tony’s blazer pocket, slipping them on as she gestures for Peter to follow them. “We’ll be taking Mr. Parker for the rest of the day,” she tells the principal, who is still nodding aimlessly. Peter feels for him, honestly. He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the Black Widow’s interrogation tactics. “We’ll be watching,” she adds, exiting the room with Tony’s hand at her back. Tony keeps a guiding hand on Peter’s shoulder too, as he shudders at Natasha’s ominous warning, vowing to stay on her good side.

“Honey,” Tony is murmuring, whispering the rest into Natasha’s ear. Peter’s sure he wants no part of that.

He’s so distracted with what he just witnessed that he forgets that it’s lunch hour.

By the time they make it to the car, Peter’s reputation as a shy, quiet nerd has been shattered into a million pieces. He doesn’t have a long time to contemplate it though; when he climbs into the back of Tony’s Mercedes, Natasha at the wheel, he’s confronted with a whole different set of emotions.

Tony leans back, asking where Peter wants to get lunch. He says that he made Natasha promise to lay down his punishment, with May’s help, after lunch. Natasha asks how he feels, if he’s okay, and Peter watches Tony take his girlfriend’s hand in his, pressing a light kiss to her palm before clasping it in his.

Peter sinks into the seat, a glow of contentment swallowing him as he replies to their inquiries. He loves May, he does - no one will ever replace her. Ever.

But this, Peter remembers, is what it’s like to have parents.

#ironwidow #tonynat #incorrectironwidow #natashastarkotp #my writing #myedit #wow this got deep towards the end #hope you enjoy!!#<3 #anonymous #prompts #answered

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someonefromseoul · 4 years

Text

Fuck Me.

Hello. I don’t know who or what I’m directing this to but I’ll just pretend there’s someone actually reading this. Temptation is a strong fundamental desire that doesn’t always have our best interest. Like that time you look in the mirror wishing you haven't had that donut for lunch, or that other time when you turn and toss, only to find yourself not being able to sleep at 4am from the nap you had earlier that day.

I feel like shit right now. I had oily ass bacon for breakfast, cup noodles for brunch, pepperoni pizza for lunch, ice cream cone for dessert, almond soy bean milk as my “work drink”, only to transition my day into a nap.

I feel bloated as fuck and my pimples are having the time of their lives, meeting new friends and such.

So this only leads me to my usual routine of self hatred and disgust for a solid hour, drotting down what the rest of my day will look like just to fool myself to thinking I’m productive, and get on Tumblr to waste more time complaining about my day!

Okay, but here’s the deal. I really do want to get better again. I stopped working out ever since my gym closed down from that fucking coronavirus (yes, I am that spoiled and self centered only to be complaining about my gym closing during this time of crisis) which has been a couple of months now.

I had diet fillers on my chin area to get rid of my chin fat right before the quarantine. That was a fucking waste of money since my double chin is back.

Anyway, my point is that I want to be somewhat sane again. My mind is literally going crazy over being stuck at home and I clearly don’t love my body enough judging by how I’ve been treating it.

I put a face mask earlier today. That’s a change. I’m going to work out starting NOW. In like a few hours. And I’m going to document the progress and process because I want to see the change and actually hold myself accountable if I don’t go through with this.

So this is the plan.

1. I am 51.8kg (114.2 pounds) right now. My goal weight is 48kg (105 pounds). Okay, so basically my goal is to lose around 10 pounds.

2. I just started an art instagram. Try to post three times a week. I want to have 10 followers by the end of May. And NOT by asking my limited amount of friends to follow. I want to connect with real strangers who are really there for my art.

3. My fucked up skin. Let’s try to clear that out as soon as possible as well. I know I have oily skin and a huge part of that comes down to what I consume. Let’s fucking please stay away from oily and salty food. Drinks permitted is only water, tea, and sometimes alcohol.

4. Speaking of alcohol, try to stay away from that. Which I’m doing a good job of these days because I’m “social distancing” (no friends). I’m going out tomorrow though but let’s really try to keep it like max 3 drinking nights per month. MAX. preferably once to none.

5. You can never single out alcohol when you’re a smoker. Hi, hello, I’m a smoker. I’ll write a post going more in depth about my smoking journey. Long story short, I’ve been smoking since August of 2013. So like 7 years already. I genuinely don’t know why I started it. Actually that’s a lie, I got into it because I thought it looked cool and I wanted to fit in. Sad, sad weakling I was. Anyway, I’m going to QUIT. I literally say this like merry Christmas to the point my friends just roll their eyes at me whenever I say this. Like, let’s really try to make this a reality instead of this having to be that time I cried wolf again. LIKE PLEASE. For yourself, man. You know you’re getting old and it’s not like you have any more health to spare.

6. Work on my art project. You know which one I mean. I want to keep it on the down low. To roughly plan, I want to work on my portfolio around June July and August. but by June, let’s focus on instagram, enhancing my drawing skills from proko, and this personal art project I’m not going to specifically go into because it’s confidential. Let’s call it Arty. So yeah, finish Arty.

7. My relationships. Mind you, I’ve never seen a therapist because I’m not financially independent and it’s a taboo subject to bring up in Asian culture. At least with my family. So no, I haven’t been professionally diagnosed, but who needs a doctor when we have google, right? So to preface, this is not a legitimate claim I’m making. But I strongly think and believe that I have anxiety; especially social anxiety and an avoidant personality disorder. I definitely deal with SOMETHING-I do plan on going to a therapist the moment I get the chance to, which is hopefully, soon. Anyway, getting back on topic. I want to work on my relationships with my friends and family because I’ve literally been in my shell for the past couple of months. Avoiding people at all costs. Not healthy at all.

8. My mental health. Probably the most important one. If this was a meat house and I could grade my health, I would give it a B+. Definitely not a S, not exactly an A either-but on the fence between A and B. Not quite A- but more of a B+. I don't have any serious health issues but I’m not great either. I feel slightly uncomfortable when breathing, my mind is foggy, and I think I might have hemorrhoids soon. Literally keeps me up at night because it frightens me-I constantly flex my butthole just in case things might peep out (sorry for the TMI but this is my fucking blog so deal) (me still pretending like someone’s actually still reading this shit post) I lose sleep over it, don’t even get me started. Anyway, if my body health is a B+, my mental health is probably around a B-. I don’t think it’s around the C level, but it’s definitely below average (average being a B). It’s at the verge of either becoming average or enter into the C level. A or S is obviously out of reach with my potential right now. But I want to get to an A; possibly to a S some day. Some day. A girl can dream. Anyway, how I want to go about this is to keep writing on this blog. Because I have a fake ass personality, I literally hide my real self to everybody. Kinda psycho like that. At least this little spot can be my safe space where I can get all my genuine shit out. To be serious for 2 seconds, I think I’m fake to people these days because I don’t feel comfortable being completely myself. My self esteem really plummeted after I graduated high school. I’ve been shushing myself internally too-shaming myself about how stupid and weird I sound. I’ve been trying to press down all my negative judgements and thoughts because I didn't want to spread that kind of energy to other people which made me be fake positive all the time. That can be really fucking suffocating, guys. Those of you who know what I mean say I.

Anyway, I want to find my color again. I think I’ve been shushing and shaming myself for so long, I don't even know who I am anymore. Hopefully writing like this helps. And apparently physically working out does as well. Let’s try to aim everyday, maybe a lazy day per week.

Side note-Kakaotalk keeps spamming me about the sakura flowers and how beautiful it is, suggesting me to go see it. Um, hello. Can you stop harassing me with these insensitive messages? Some people don’t have friends to go with. And it’s quarantine season? Are you dumb?

9. My looks. which goes under self care as well. I’m not gonna lie, I think I’m a fairly okay looking girl. I’m going to change my makeup style because after not putting on makeup for so long and looking back at my old photos, I’ve seen my bare face for so long, I grew fresh pair of eyes to see how I REALLY looked prior to this quarantine. And I finally got what people meant by “your makeup looks obnoxious.” Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE makeup. I’ve loved makeup ever since I was a sophomore in high school. I follow many of the beauty gurus (how they used to call it back in the days. I think people call them beauty influencers or makeup artists now) from youtube and Sephora was my second home. My broke ass owns like majority of the urban decay naked palettes in exchange for eating kimchi and eggs for weeks with my poor college student self in exchange. Poor college student with a BEAT makeup look though.

Anyway, the point I want to get across is that I respect and love ANY form of self expression. There is no such thing as too much or too less (is that even a word) makeup as long as YOU feel good in it. I personally did and I enjoyed my extra caked face. But not anymore. Maybe on some occasions, but I just don’t feel like that’s me anymore. So I need a new make up look, and I literally want new clothes. I hate my freaking outfits. Going to invest in some soon.

I can’t really think of anything else. I want to go in further with some of the topics I’ve tackled today but I think that’s enough journal writing for today. If I think of anything else, I can always update later. I just fucking pray I don't get hemorrhoids. I don’t have it now but I’m just so paranoid because I literally sit down 25/8 and apparently sitting for an extended period of time continuously can cause hemorrhoids. And for some reason I keep feeling like I’m going to get it soon. Like my butthole low-key feels a little weird at times. Hopefully I’m okay.

#journal #selfcare #goingcrazy #self reflection #hate myself #thoughts #plans #life

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kholoudnine · 5 years

Text

THE ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS

Hey guys!

So I have just come out of last weekend's book fest, am writing this at like 4am waiting for my sleep aids to finally kick in because I really should be going to bed now, and I thought It'd be a good time to start a blog post.

This past week has been crazy and just picking up more and more as it goes on. I've been ordering books, selling to stores(more to come on that little detail soon), signing up for signings in other states, booking meetings, and getting together more places to perform my art live. It's a work out for sure but the more I do the clouser I feel like I am to where I wanna be in life, so it's all worth a little lack of sleep. Although I have been making a commitment to sticking to a decent regemin for taking care of myself. If you read my poetry, you know I struggle with this daily, but if I wanna be at my best on stage and at signings and in my work, than it's an important step. It's also something I wanna encourage. For people not to just accept the narrative of being unhealthy and tired, if you're unhealthy and tired, strive to change that. I have so many ideas for blog posts and videos about how I've been going about doing that which I hope you'll enjoy and take something from. This post though, I wanted to talk about something that I've been asked for a lot lately, advice.

Now I knew when I started this that there would be people who looked up to me and people who want to know I did it and want to know what they can do for their dream and just wanna know more about my journey, the thing about that was just I thought all that as a little kid and I thought it'd be something that came from record deals and being rich and screaming stadiums, never did I think my self-published books and my open mic performances would draw so many people asking me for guidance through their own journey or draw so much curiosity for how I got where I am today (which for a time I thought wasn't very far). I've even been mistaken as a professional in the craft, someone with years of signings and publishing under their belt. This got me thinking, what exactly makes a professional, and what do I have to offer?

So for the people who ask me about my experience, I've pretty much been at this my whole life. It's been a constant uphill battle for me with anxiety and doubt and obstacles of all sort pushing back, but since I was a little child dressed as Hannah Montana and using letter stencils to write songs I was sure this is when I wanted. Something I need. That meant going to every free class I could find. The library funded a lot of my passion and education, with improv and acting classes, guitar lessons, computer courses, open mics, and workshops. I lived in libraries. I would read books about design and flip through adventures, I'd sit in the stacks learning about podcasts, I took photography and leadership in freshman and sophomore year of high school (for the gods' awful times I was in online school *shudders*). I still go to those classes now, the maker's space is going to help me tremendously in the next coming year. I'm so excited about it all still. For a long time with all those classes, I was still the quiet one. Even with all these teachers believing in me, I couldn't beileve in my own voice. I didn't think I could speak, and around my peers I was still weird, so I was quiet. Until JYPS workshop, that is when I was put on a stage for the first time in my teenage career. Working with the group definitely drove me to who I am now, instead of just being taught poetry, I was taught business, I was taught to stand on corners and give out flyers, to promote myself, to be confident and build connections, and I still go now. I'll be there this weekend, learning just like everyone else will be. This is where I found my voice. So as you can see, I've got experience, but I'm still trying to learn more. I don't really think I'll ever not be a student.

Knowing that, I will now give my best advice. I'm going to break it down into FAQ's because I do get a lot of questions, and most are more or less the same things.

1. How Do yoU Find Events?

I find all of my events through my mum and word of mouth. My mother started releasing books about a year before I did and she finds a lot of the events this year since most are ones she researched years prior. Other events I find through the library system and old fashioned word of mouth, it is not uncommon for people to come to my performances or see me at a signing and invite me to another somewhere else. Networking is key. Always remember to talk to people at these things as you'll never know who you'll meet. Do not be afraid to ASK "Hey can I preform here? Hey what signings are there in town? Hey Siri search local book signings?" You'll find something surely.

2. How Do You Find Inspiration?

Everywhere. My life, other books and art, music, dancing, etc. I've been dancing and gotten entire scenes in my head randomly or laying back and listening to music then I'll start replaying the song as a whole outline shows itself to me. It's really a magickal thing, being an artist. It does take practice for some to get to that level of spacey but you can always start by writing about what you know. Many scenes or emotions or characters in my books can be connected to my life in some way or another, maybe an altered moment, maybe a name I heard, maybe a character that reminds me heavily of a friend. Start with writing what you know, I will occasionally write out my thoughts like a novel when I'm trying to sort things out or I'm in a funk, find your thing.

3. How Do You Get Over Stage Fright?

You just do it. Get on stage, it's really the only way I've found to deal with it. A lot of people don't know this but I do have grand stage fright, to the point of running off the stage when I was younger actually. It still bothers me and I'm in constant management with it. If you don't get on stage you'll surely never get over it. Start small. For me going up and performing in front of people who don't know me, acting as a character who was not me, would help tremendously. Occassionally I'll still channel some more confident and emotionally showing version of myself for my performances, it's whatever works as a small step for you. Some people feel more comfortable anon like me, but others may want to start by preforming in front of people they trust and slowly work their way to strangers. Don't push yourself too far to fast, and don't worry about if you start by running off the stage, you get over it.

4. How Do You Self-Publish?

There are several ways to self-publish your books, the way I chose to go through primarily was Amazon. I put my books on their website (not signing their exclusivity contract) and then I can sell it other places. So I've also been trying to add my books to Lulu, I have previews up on Tablo and Wattpad, and I'm selling them to a local bookstore. Amazon prints my books so I do pay them to order the copies but I do not pay the same price as a normal costumer, since they are mine I only pay the cost of shipping and printing. You can find loads of other self-publishing routes with some diligent research, look around and find what's right for you, don't be afraid to ask other authors who self-publish questions at book signings, many are willing to help others.

5. What are the benefits of self publishing?

Since I self-publish my book I get to tell the story my way, without some of the hurtles trade might give me. For instance, my books are quite dark and do contain not only strong language but descriptive violence. When JK Rowling was publishing Harry Potter, Ron actually swore quite a lot, but because the publisher felt the book series would appeal so well to children, they had her change that about the character so as not to poke any parents. Prisoner Nineteen could bring a very wide audience (though I in no way compare my work to Harry Potter) but seeing as the characters are mostly quite young (the main being only fourteen) I could see it drawing in a younger crowd than would be expected for a series like it, because I published it myself, I don't have to worry about that. I market it as YA, and really leave it up to the reader (and their parents) what they feel comfortable reading. This for me is the biggest plus of self-publishing, you get no deadlines and complete creative freedom.

6. How Do You Write A Book?

I can't exactly tell you that. Everyone has a different way of writing their book, I've seen a million different writing styles and writing processes, it's really up to you how you write your book. As for finshing it, what helped me was having a clear goal and deadline in mind.

7. How Do You Balance Everything?

Chaotically. I'm definitely not going to lie and say this is all super easy. Meetings, school, art projects, volunteering, blogs, writing, signings, performances, and whatever else I have to do that week balanced on having a social life and not going crazy? It's not exactly easy. And occasionally you will probably freak out and/or cry from stress and anxiety, that does happen to me sometimes, but if it's what you want to be doing and I mean really want to be doing? Oddly enough, it doesn't feel like work a lot of the times. It feels great to be able to be doing something you actually love and want to be doing. If going a little bit crazy is a part of the process, eh, just makes for better writing and more theatrics. Did the sane man really ever make great art or great changes?

8. How Do You Get Your Stuff?

So usually this is directed towards my merch. Everything you see on my tables is customised and designed by yours truly (save for things like my lights or shell). I get an idea, I plan it out, and I then search all over the internet to find my supplies. (Honey really helps with this. Save money, create smarter.) Look on Pinterest or Tumblr or at other cons to try and think of something that fits your book.

9. How Do You Find The Courage?

Caffeine. Straight to the vein. I just get an iv drip before every apperence.

No but, really it's a lot of channeling your nerves into your work. Of deciding if this is really really really something you wanna be doing. If the answer to that is yes? You'll find your courage and strength. A support system doesn't hurt. If that can't be friends or parents, then you can find it in groups. Look around your local art scene. I'm sure somewhere there's a workshop or two, check on NaNaWrimo they do video chats, join a group on social media, find a pen pal, but nothing can really replace knowing people are rooting for you and knowing that you're working towards your dream goals.

10. How old are you?

I am eighteen years old and my birthday is June 24th, so. You're certainly not too young to do something and make decisions with your life. There is no "starting age" that's when you decide it is.

And to close, the thing that makes you a professional. I really didn't know, but a friend of mine posted online a few days ago "You are a rapper if you are rapping." This I think is true in all things. Especially in art, there is no point when you should ever stop learning, but you are what you are. If you sing, and you're serious about it, you are a singer. If you dance, and you're serious about it, you are a dancer. If you act, and you're serious about it, you are a dancer. If you write, and you're serious about it, you are a writer.

#blog #writer #writeblr #writing #advice #the prisoner nineteen series #prisoner nineteen #faq #kholoudnine

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dundasandsuffering · 3 years

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MayDay

The meltdown finally happened. Yelling, screaming, violence and insanity at 4am. Jade called during and can corroborate the story. Trying to figure her out has probably cost more than it's worth. Well. This is mayday. May 1st, 2021. It's a day of renewal and spring. But also of death. Her physical violence ramps up. Her accusations are baseless and bizarre. New fictions are winding through the old complaints. Like snakes in a grassy meadow. If you pretend everything she's saying to me about me is actually being said to her about her BY me, a lot of it makes perfect sense. Her projection and dissociation is so complete that it's like she's channeling her own rage at herself that she obviously cannot face through me. The tics are worse, the devaluation is high. I am so calloused and numbed by all the pain and atrocity that is this relationship. My guilt is so total that it leaves me vulnerable to the worst kind of predation and exploitation. Worse, I am not being true to my word. I should have just left well enough alone. What am I doing? I know it's not my "fault" per se. I know she's a manipulative and malignant narcissist, I know I'm not the evil, abusive asshole she wants me to be (for reasons of daddy) and I know all this logicaly. But emotionally.... God... I'm so denuded, like a sapling after a hurricane. I feel a keen death of my youth slipping through my worried hands. It's an impossible situation. Nothing I would do or could do could ever fix someone else, especially someone not set on fixing anything. What an Utter FOOL I am. I just

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newscheckz · 3 years

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Harsh economic realities of 2021

New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/harsh-economic-realities-of-2021/

Harsh economic realities of 2021

The celebratory New Year mood did not last long for many citizens of East Africa.

Individuals are facing the tough economic realities of 2021, weighed down by weakening macroeconomic indicators and depletion of disposable incomes, signaling difficult times ahead.

With 2020 going down in history as a year of shattered dreams triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, many people ushered in 2021 with hopes of economic recovery and improved livelihoods following good news of available vaccines.

However, a review of the macroeconomic situation in some East African economies paints a gloomy picture, not fitting those expectations.

In Kenya, individuals and companies started the year on higher taxation after the government abolished the tax relief measures it had issued to cushion the public and companies from the adverse effects of Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. Meanwhile, the 10pm to 4am curfew remains in force until March 12, 2021.

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani reinstated the value added tax to the full rate of 16 per cent from 14 per cent, and income tax to 30 per cent from 25 per cent effective January 1, 2021, effectively eroding household incomes amid the rising cost of goods and services in the country.

Mr Yatani also raided corporate earnings by reverting corporate tax rate to 30 per cent from 25 per cent.

Kenya’s overall inflation increased to 5.6 percent in December from 5.3 percent in November, the highest in eight months.

The National Bank of Rwanda Monetary Policy report for November 2020 indicates that inflation in five of the East African countries is projected to average 4.7 percent in 2020 and continue to go up in 2021, but will remain below the EAC ceiling of eight percent.

Job losses

More than 1.7 million Kenyans have lost their jobs due to Covid-19, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics while the majority of salaried workers are struggling to make ends meet after their pay was reduced.

Last week, Kenyan banks were allowed to start listing thousands of loan defaulters with credit reference bureaus (CRBs) following the expiry of the three-month notice period for blacklisting borrowers of unpaid credit.

The lenders offered defaulters 90 days, from October 1, 2020, to start repaying their loans after the Central Bank lifted the six-month freeze on listing borrowers who had failed to pay loans.

In Tanzania, January marks the start of a tough all-round slog at individual, household, corporate and national levels to recover from the economic disruptions of a hectic election year that was further complicated by the global coronavirus crisis.

There is still general apprehension about what President John Magufuli’s second term in office could entail as it gets underway in earnest to complete large infrastructure projects. The country’s economic indicators remained modest going into the new year, with official government-approved estimates making it the least affected of the EAC countries by the pandemic.

The inflation rate continued to drop, standing at three per cent in November 2020, down from 3.7 percent in February 2020. According to the Bank of Tanzania, inflation is projected to remain “in the range of three per cent to five percent for the rest of 2020/21, against the country’s own medium-term target of five per cent.

The Tanzanian shilling remains relatively stable against major global trading currencies, and commercial bank credit extended to the private sector is back on track with interest rates on loans and deposits on the decline, reflecting adequate liquidity levels despite a rough 2020.

On the government side, revenue performance is still broadly in line with 2020/21 fiscal year target expectations.

In December, the Tanzania Revenue Authority broke its monthly revenue collection record for the third month running, at Tsh2.088 trillion ($900 million). The upward trend may be further augmented by the expected introduction of a tougher tax regime in the 2021/22 budget to be tabled in June.

According to TRA, the average monthly revenue collection went up by 11 percent between July and December last year, totalling Tsh9.83 trillion ($4.24 billion) against a 2020/21 fiscal year revenue collection target of Tsh20.3 trillion ($8.75 billion).

The agency’s strategy to meet the target — which would necessitate collecting an average of Tsh1.7 trillion ($733 million) per month up to June — includes enforcement, starting this month, for all formal cash purchases and transactions to be accompanied by tax receipts printed through Electronic Fiscal Device machines.

“We have been working on directives and advice from the government and experts on how to collect taxes more smartly. This has been instrumental to our achievements thus far. And we intend to go even further,” TRA commissioner general Edwin Mhede said last week.

In Uganda, analysts seem undecided on the performance of the government’s economic stimulus packages introduced last year in an attempt to mitigate the negative impact of pandemic lockdown measures on several businesses and households. However, there is optimism about financing opportunities for the 1,445 kilometre Hoima-Tanga Port East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project backed by Uganda and Tanzania.

“Reaching a Final Investment Decision in Uganda’s oil and gas sector during 2021 would practically render our commercial production project bankable. This will make it attractive to both investors and lenders on the international market, and also unlock significant financing opportunities,” said Denis Kakembo, the managing partner at Cristal Advocates, a Kampala law firm.

“One needs about six months to one year before they can trace the impact of those stimulus measures in the real economy,” said Paul Corti Lakuma, a senior research fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre based at Makerere University

So far, the government has invested Ush1 trillion ($269.2 million) in Uganda Development Bank and Ush500 billion ($134.6 million) in the Microfinance Support Centre for disbursement to enterprises most affected by lockdown measures brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Another Ush100 billion ($26.9 million) has been allocated to the “Emyooga” fund, for the informal sector.

#revenuecollection

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womewowitch92 · 5 years

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ILOCOS TOUR 2019

The Ilocos Region is home to the most amazing tourist destinations in the country. I was pleasantly surprised that even up to now, this trip to Ilocos remains on my short list of my best domestic travels. Ilocos is pure love.

Each place has its element. Each place offers an intimate relationship with nature. I believes, for obvious reasons, that wind is the element of this wonderful region. the Bangui Windmills is a proof but really, when you’re in Ilocos, you’ll feel like it is a “wind realm,” not just because of its presence and power but also there’s this constant feeling of being embraced by the wind. I don’t know, the wind there seemed to welcome and entertain us.

During visit, Pagudpud is my favorite part of the tour. A well maintained and clean beach. Crystal clear blue water and white sand, Pagudpud Ilocos Norte is the Boracay of the north less crowded and less commercialized. A Great Beach Indeed! I just love the place and I wish to come back and stay longer to fully enjoy the place has to offer.

Our trip began with a meet up at the foodcourt in Robinsons Galleria, 730PM SHARP is the call time but you know the Filipino time. We were a group of 12 inlcluding My daughter, a tour guide and a driver was with us. We were able to leave the place 2 hours later. (HAHAHA! FILIPINO TIME) We had several stopovers starting at a gas station along NLEX. Truth is, I actually don’t remember much about our moments inside the van because I was sleeping most of the time. However, every time we stop (which happened 5 times so some of us could buy food, pee, buy food, and pee) I would wake up but would go back to dreamland after 2 seconds.

Day 1 : The tour started when we arrived at ILOCOS NORTE at 4AM. Actually We expect to arrive in Ilocos at 9am . (Di ko alam kung anong nangyari, basta ang bilis.)

The next time I woke up we were on the kapurpurawan Rock formation in Burgos, Ilocos Norte.

Tucked in the coast of Burgos, Ilocos Norte, just 1.5 kilometers away from Laoag City, is a breathtaking rock formation by the beach known for its creamy white rock surface sculpted by natural phenomena.

The Kapurpurawan Rock Formation is an art of nature featuring a landscape of smooth ivory limestone produced by the natural process of sedimentation. It’s name’s root word, “puraw”, is an Ilocano word which translates to “white” because of the alabaster rock formations that the tourists would love to see.

In front of the rocks is the view of the Bangui Bay’s crystal blue waters and the visually appealing sight of the waves dramatically thumping against the limestone formations makes the scene a picture perfect moment in every way possible.

Also, the numerous towering windmills from the neighboring Burgos Wind Farm will you as you drive towards the drop-off point of the rock formation. No wonder that this has become one of Burgos’ best tourist attraction.

Kapurpurawan’s drop-off point is three kilometers away from the main highway. From the entrance, visitors have to go down a flight of stairs near the souvenir shops, then trek towards the rocky coast to reach the rock formation. The path is not too steep but take note that it can be muddy.

While trekking, you will see a statue of the Biag ni Lam-ang, an Ilocano epic poem.

For those who want to don’t want to walk, there are available horses to ride on for just Php 100 per person and Php10 If you only want to take picture.

(SOBRANG SAYA NOH! HABANG UMIIYAK YUNG KILI-KILI HAHAHA!)

It is advised to wear comfortable clothes and footwear or bring a jacket to avoid getting cold, wet, or any possible accidents while trekking. Also take note that flying of drones is not allowed in the area due to the strong winds.

It is best to visit Kapurpurawan on early mornings to avoid the harsh sun or sometimes rain showers in the afternoon, and the crowd. Other nearby attractions in Burgos that one can visit after Kapurpurawan is the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse and Bangui Windmill Farm.

the next stop..

the Bangui Windmills, I’d been longing to see these enormous electric fans since the news broke that there were plans of harnessing wind energy in the Philippines. I had seen windmills before in Pililia Rizal but ofcourse I want to see the windmill here in Ilocos.

On the way to the site, everyone got so excited because we could already see the windmills. Everyone prepared their cameras and flip flops, the girls wore their hair up. When our van finally halted, everyone stormed out of the vehicle as if it were about to explode. It was that crazy.

We didn’t expect these windmills to be that huge. Of course we knew they were big but NOT that big. It was a little difficult to find the right angle from which we could see most of the towers.

We were also expecting 15 of them but I think there were more. We counted it but now that we’re back in the city, nobody remembers how many are there exactly.

Paraiso ni Anton is one of the few stops of the Pagudpud, a local tourism project of the municipality that aims to bring visitors to Pagudpud’s top-notch destinations. Tourist take photos while locals take a sip of the waters dripping from the hill.

After then, We slowly climbed the concrete stairway after approaching the site. We chanted a little prayer in front of the Virgin Mary statuette. Then We stepped down and proceeded to the watery part of the hill. Silently, We put our palms together and fetched some drips and then sipped.

Some other locals came with containers and filled them with the water flowing from the small stream.

Witnessing all these made me wonder that these waters may uphold some sort of mystery. Then I found out that locals believe that the water that drips down to the hillside of Paraiso ni Anton contain some healing energy. They believe that drinking the water will cure their mild ailments and in some cases, even the severe ones.

There is also another story circulating among frequent travelers in the area. A white lady seemed to appear within the vicinity scaring drivers. So to pay respect, drivers slow down then blow their horns when passing Paraiso ni Anton.

Whether these stories are legend or not, as long as they don’t get harmed, there is nothing wrong about it.

Patapat Viaduct History

Patapat Viaduct is located in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. This is considered as the 4th longest bridge in the country with a total of 1.3 kilometers in length that connects the Maharlika Highway from Laoag, Ilocos Norte to the Cagayan Valley Region.

It was completed on October 1986 and has since become an important structure for motorists and travelers in the northernmost tip of Luzon.

The moment we stepped out of the van, we were all pleased with what we saw. I kind’a have an idea of what a viaduct looks like. An elevated bridge usually located on valleys. But Patapat is different. It is a coastal bridge elevated for about 31 meters above sea level. It has a beautiful view of the sea and by finding a good spot, you can have a perfect view of the entire length of the bridge.

Well, more than the value it provides to people. Patapat Viaduct is a perfect spot for any groufie or selfie. Since that time, there was just a little number of motorists that pass through the bridge, we were able to walk and explore it further.

JUMPSHOT WITH THE GANG

Then we finally arrived in our transient house in Pagudpud. We actually arrived at the transient house around 12:30pm but we were sooo tired so we decided to had lunch in carinderia near in our transient. I had heard so many good things about Pagudpud that I just had to see for myself. But even when we were still at the Bangui Windmills, we knew swimming at this time of the year would be quite a challenge .

Blue Lagoon is one of the many isolated beaches of Pagudpud. It is located in Maira-ira point, the northern most tip of mainland Luzon. The cove is strewn with white pebbly sand. the waters off the coast can be very gentle and still, reflecting the blue sky, earning its name.

Afterwards, we decided to just walk on the sand and bask in the sun. The sand here was not as fine as those in Bohol or Boracay. They were more like little pebbles but very rounded so they didn’t hurt our skin.

After more than an hour of swimming, we decided to head back to our room and have some snacks and dinner and went to bed for rest.

before the day ends, We finally prepared our Surprise Birthday Party for Mamoy. the other gang took her to coffee shop and the other prepared the decorations.

Day 2 : Our Day started earlier than 6am. With renewed energy, we were more than excited to hit the road again especially that we already had an idea on what was in store for us that day.

The Ilocos Sand Dunes Stretches encompasses the towns of Currimao through to Pasuquin in Ilocos Norte. The La Paz Sand Dunes in Laoag City is one of the more popular sand dune destinations in Ilocos Norte. But more recently, the PAOAY SAND DUNES is remarkably gaining popularity to tourists travelling up north.

For the adventurous type, We rented the 4x4 for an hour which will then include sand boarding and thrilling drops on steep sand ridges that will make you scream in excitement. Hold on to the steel bar while standing on the 4x4 for the most exciting adventure in Paoay. The sand ridges can go as high as 10-20ft at the most, while the most thrilling ride is the “rollercoaster”, where a series of sand hills will make you hold on to that bar of steel for dear life.

Ps. Sorry Mamoy insert ko tong picture na to, Ito kasi talaga yung nagdala sa tour natin na to hahahahaha Love you.

It was that much fun! The hardest and most tiring aspect of the sport? Going up again the sandy slope after sliding down, but this will not prevent you to try and try until you do it perfectly. This package will cost 2,500php.

Next in our itinerary was the Paoay Church. I must say, I had very high expectations. It was one of the places that I was really looking forward to visiting in this trip. I’d seen hundreds of pictures of this UNESCO World Heritage Site and each one of them blew me away. But boy, none of those pictures did justice to the immense beauty of this ancient religious site!

This church is beyond beautiful. It’s beyond magnificent. Its grandeur cannot be contained in pictures or described with words. It’s just impossible.

The first thing we did was take pictures, of course. It was past 11am and the sun was at its cruelest so we had to find some shade and get some rest even for a minute. Then We had our lunch near the church.

Moments later, we were walking around the church and continued taking pictures. Here are a few of them:

ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORY OF PAOAY CHURCH

Also known as the St. Augustine Church, the Paoay Church was started to be constructed in 1694 by the Augustinian friars but it was only in 1894 when it was finally completed. Fr. Antonio Estavillo led the completion of this project.

The architecture of this church is a healthy mixture of Gothic and Baroque designs with some Oriental elements in it. Its facade is somewhat Gothic but the gables are quite Chinese. The niches topping the walls make you think of Indonesia’s Borobudur Temple, revealing some Javanese influence.

One of the best parts of the church is its three-storey bell tower made of coral stone. Standing a couple of meters from the church, this belfry served as one of the observations posts for the Katipuneros in 1896 in the height of the Philippine Revolt against Spain. During the World War II, it was again used as an observation post by the Filipino guerillas.

Some parts of the church were heavily damaged during the earthquakes in 1885 and 1865. Again and again, it was restored.

In 2000, an excavation inside Paoay Church revealed a prehistoric human skeleton and some fragmented ceramics. They are now being exhibited at the National Museum.

Afterwards, we finally got in Vigan. We explored the city particularly Calle Crisologo, had some halo-halo at the Max’s, bought a tonne of pasalubong and hit the road back to Manila.

Vigan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a museum city. Established in the 16th century, this historic city gives the new generation the best glimpse of a planned colonial town during the Spanish rule in the Philippines. It is also one of the few European trading towns in Southeast Asia that are still in exceptional condition.

Calle Crisologo is probably the most visited street in Vigan. Walking down Calle Crisologo is like walking into the Spanish colonial era. Many of the houses here belonged to prominent families who prospered because of the Manila-Acapulco trade. It is flanked with old heritage houses, which keep the “period” charm of the place. Most houses feature a unique mixture of Asian and European design and architecture — red-tiled roofs, large doors, massive walls, capiz shell windows.

We actually had spent some time in this beautiful city on our first day but we had very limited time to see much of it. Because we had to be back in Manila by 5pm, We only had half a day to explore the old city and buy some pasalubong for our friends and relatives back in the capital.

We only had three things in our agenda that morning — camwhore, shop, lunch. We started scouring the area for Vigan longganisa but along the way, we found ourselves buying hats, shirts, and bottles of native vinegar while taking tons of picture.

Before the Spanish arrived, Vigan was just a small village made of bamboo houses on stilts. According to UNESCO: “In 1572 the conquistador Juan de Salcedo founded a new town, which he named Villa Ferdinandina, on this site, and made it his capital when he was appointed Lieutenant Governor (Encomendero) of the entire Ilocos region. Intended as a trading centre rather than a fortress, it was the northernmost city established in the Philippines by the Spanish.

“Vigan’s architecture reflects the coming together of cultural elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe, resulting in a culture and townscape that have no parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.”

The Old Quirino Bridge will never spoil your urge. Even though you have been in this place a lot of times, a moment in this place is such a precious one to take photos.

Just before the Old Quirino Bridge at Bantay Side, you will pass crossway the new Quirino Bridge. But before going to the Old bridge, we stopped at the new bridge for pictorials.

Just before the Old Bridge again, since it has not been used lately, the forest covering the highway going there has been reborn by nature. Without the intervention of human, the forest is slowly gaining its role in this place. I was so happy!

And finally head back to MANILA..

Ilocos Weekend Trip: Summary, Itinerary and Budget

EXPENSES

Here’s the rough estimate of our expenses:

P2400 — 2-days, 1-night tour inclusive of transportation, accommodation and entrance fees.

P1500 — total food expenses including incidentals (drinks, snacks)

TOTAL: P3900

Note that this does not include pasalubong yet. That’s it. I hope this helps!

Overall, I love Ilocos. I think it’s one of the best and most gorgeous places I have visited EVER. Ilocos is just very easy to fall in love with.

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iwillimprove · 7 years

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So I’ve completely wiped this blog, I’m making today the first day of a fresh start since everything’s been working up and I’ve sorted out most of my problems.

So my ebay business is back on track, I’ve had a few decent sales already but honestly I’m just glad my debts been paid off. Brought home 5 bags full of stock yesterday, we left at 7am and got back at about 6-7pm, it felt like my first proper day doing this, it’s weird to describe but previously I was just bringing home a few small things to resell but I brought home 30+ items yesterday and I’ve already made back 1/3 of the cost on one item alone.

I’m working on my business plan which is really taking shape, I probably could have just spoken to some friends about it but I feel like they won’t take a rough idea seriously, but if I can show a solid plan on paper with all the intricacies worked out then they’ll take notice. I want us to run this together, it’s a smart plan that fills several huge gaps in the market, a place we would have practically lived in if it was available to use a couple of years ago when we were studying. I’m so excited about even the vague possibility of this happening

It’s been good recently, two of my friends had a joint double birthday thing and I had a meeting just before that, my friend left and then after I really struggled to leave the house to go to this thing but I’m honestly so glad I did, I got to see about 10 people I haven’t seen since July last year, it was just great catching up with people, quite a few commented on my weight loss too which made me quite happy, like I’m no where near as toned/fit as I’d like to be (thanks irn bru) but I’m about 3 stone down and no longer chubby. The past few days have been great honestly, I’ve had such a proper drive and passion for doing things and I haven’t had that feeling in at least two years. It feels great and I really think I can make my current projects ‘happen’, that being the reselling & the business plan idea, like I can see them being successful and that makes me so excited, what’s even better is that I have friends that believe in me and my ideas too, that means so much and just gives me more drive to get shit done.

Still trying to ramp up my productivity each day so next I have to work on getting a proper exercise routine going again, since I fucked up my arm I haven’t really been able to lift any proper heavy things with that arm so still gotta take it easy, but at least i’ll have a reason to try one handed pushups? I also need to work on my sleeping pattern, I was awake for 40 odd hours, staying up until like 3-4am this morning. I can’t fall back to being that bad, with the solid dark circles under my eyes again. I also want to start working on my maths studying etc again to sharpen my skills, it’s weird but in school etc I feel like I was super smart, I was great at mental arithmetic etc but since I’ve left that stuffs just plummeted and I struggle to do simple maths quickly. I imagine it’s just a result of never really having to do it anymore but yeah, that needs worked on.

But all things aside, everything’s pretty much awesome, only had one thing bothering me lately and its pretty stupid but I just kinda miss being with someone? I have amazing close friends and I adore them but there’s something different when it’s someone you’re in a relationship with that I can’t really describe. But with the shit that happened last year with those relationships then combined with me locking myself away for most of this year like some sort of social anxiety riddled film fanny, but fuck it who knows, I’m going to be going out/socialising a hell of a lot more, working on stuff, meeting lots of new people anything can happen. I’m just excited to see what happens next 🤘

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mean-yoongii-blog · 7 years

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give vjinseok more love

((((me talking about how underappreciated these three are at 4am, where grammar doesnt exist and spelling is dumb. this is entirely my opinion but im pretty sure almost everyone can agree)))) being an army is hard. like, it's really fucking hard. you get to wake up in the morning and cry over seven men who still get hyped over receiving pokemon stuffies as prizes. that life is hard and it's probably where the rock bottom is, but whatever. being an army is harder when there's inequality going on around the group, screentime wise, line distribution wise, etc. this issue existed since 21 b.c.e and im here to finally speak my fucking mind for it. so bts has seven members, right? jungkook, jimin, jhope, suga, jin, tae, and namjoon. anyway, we all know that jikook are the main and lead vocalists of the group so it's very predictable that they get a lot of attention considering it's unavoidable to give them screentime since, you know, they're technically 50% of whatever the hell we're on about, whether it's about a song's line distribution or an mv's screentime. now, obviously there are the three rappers who dominate everything, be it an mv or whatnot. i mean, jesus, joonie walks in with this hard presence and he's literally gonna start owning the video. thats it. so we get that jikook is well known and very appreciated, right? suga and joon are also automatically given attention becsuse these two are powerful when it comes to rap. now, let's just focus on hoseok, tae and jin. let's start with our angel hobi. now, hope is definitely not underrated. we all know that his stage presence is very powerful. he's never not involved. however, the reason why i didn't group him with his fellow rappers is because, let's be real, jhope is not a rapper. he is not a rapper. he is a person who raps. according to jackson wang—tnx jackson tnx got7 woohoo—there's a complete difference between these two and i think u got it already. jhope is not underappreciated, his skills are. first of all, he came into the idol world with dancing the only skill in hand. we all know that he's never an amateur. he's always been a pro at dancing however when you're in a group u cant just fucking dance. you need to use your lips too and hope here has no experience on that. if bighit made him debut as a part of the vocal line, it could've been better as we all know that hobi has always dreamt of becoming a singer even as a child and his high note on the thot ver of n.o is enough to say that he may not be as good as jungkook but he's gr8 at it too. howeverrrrrrr he's not put as a vocalist. he's placed in the fucking rap line. no, im not saying he's bad as a rapper because he's not (ehem outro wings ehem). but if u place yourself in his shoes back when he became a trainee for most likely dancing and rapping, thats hard shit. hobi has no experience in rapping. but guess what? he fucking killed it. he slays every rap he gets. he spits fire in every cypher there is and yall telling me that he's not good? hell no go home in conclusion, for the fuckers who keep disregarding jung hoseok's abilities, back up because golden hyung can sing, dance and rap and i s2g if you still sleep on him ill choke u next is v. kim taehyung kim **that introduction still kills me every time** now before anything else, tae is not underrated. he's very popular actually. he's popular to armys and to his fellow idols as well. i assume this is because he has gr8 looks and he's very friendly and what a precious child amirite so why did i group him here? becAUSE BIGHIT THATS WHY. now, bighit is not a bad company. in fact it's a great company, really considerate to their boys all. i mean the most we can say is that at least it's not sm bc you feel me? ye anyway, the funny thing is everyone thinks that v is in an ok position because he's pretty and everyone loves him. YES tae is beautiful and YES hes lovable but we need to realize that to be recognized for your looks is ridiculous when they do it while ignoring your talent. taehyung is well known already but people also need to know his skill too. this is almost the same as hobi's story. let's get back to the trainee days in which taehyung literally came from a middle class fam and signed up for bighit without having a clue on what he could do. remember that he was inexperienced when it came to dancing, singing, and obviously rapping (but let's let him live for a little). his pretty face has always been pretty, but u cant debut without offering anything else can you? however, as inexperienced as he was, taehyung has talent. he had potential that is now proven talent. so what i dont really understand is why they didnt give this child the position to be a lead vocalist or even a main vocalist, much more fair distributed lines. the old eras—the hardcore gang bad boy wannabes concept—actually stars v a lot—ehem war of hormone, spine breaker, boy in luv, danger ehem—because they used his hard and deep ass voice. but ever since run era came, bc i believe thats where bts dropped the hard look, he barely got lines. i understand that his voice is different compared to others as the other four vocalists—including jh now bc he finally debuted as a vocal—are tenor whereas v has baritone however they can actually use his deep ass voice in great use. like in let me know—tnx min yoongi for this amazing song—, hold me tight, spring day, house of cards, love is not over and more of their ballads, it's shown how talented kim taehyung is because of his capability. not to mention, stigma proved that his voice can reach great ranges too and that goddamn falsetto stjll gets me everytime i havent even started on how sharp his moves are but i think everyone has gotten over that little issue that he should be a part of the dance line so in conclusion, taehyung is a precious beagle who's very talented and amazing that needs to be more appreciated for what he can do rather than just for his face bc nO lastly, sockjin hahahaha now when i became an army he caught my eye a lot bc of fire and he has an astonishing face. jin is a very beautiful person and just like tae, he's almost friends with everyone however, if someone is underrated, jin is your guy. now lets give this guy some slacks because he came into this world without knowing what he can do, just like v. he came without having no experience in dancing nor singing. he has passion for acting apparently but we'll get to that l8r. anyway what he could only offer is how beautiful he looks. now, first of all. let's all be honest that jin is not the best singer in the group. however he's not bad either. in fact, when i watched their mr removed, he's more stable than jimin and v and to sing with that much stability is impressive enough. i assume that jin doesnt hold on to talent but his potential is so great it's so large and it can actually drive him further. jin is always appreciated for how strong he is as a visual but never for how stable and smooth his voice is and that is absolutely rubbish. remember that he's a person who entered this world without any experience and yet here he is, breaking records on billboards and shit, and you're still sleeping on him? the thing is, bts is popular enough but jin isnt, bts is known but jin isnt and as someone who stans every member, this hurts. bts isnt just rm or jungkook. i have nothing against those two, but i present u kim seokjin here. he's full of potential. he can shine so bright if only there's an actual opportunity waiting for him. the reason why he isnt appreciated is because the company doesnt really give him much chance to show what he can do. yes admittedly he's not the best singer there is but how can someone improve when they dont give him the opportunity to improve? i dont need to give an example on w/c song has barely jin because lbr almost every song has barely jin. in addition, jin is a visual and yet his screentime is so little. i know that i shouldnt give a shit on the visual thing but if this guy isnt recognized for his position in singing, why wont u recognize him as a visual either? i understand that there are a lot of mvs that actually show him a lot—bst, boy in luv, spring day—but do u think this is enough? do u think that this is fair to him? jin is a 25 year old man. he's not naive. although he laughs it off whenever he's being ridiculed, I'm sure that he somewhat feels sad sometimes because of this. understand that this man is not just here for entertainment. understand that we cant only appreciate him for his jokes and awkwardness, that he's not just here to make us happy through the stunts they pull to give comedy. understand that he's not just the mom of this group. understand that he's probably gone through so much training to improve himself and yet get so little in return. understand that there's more to kim seokjin than what meets the eye. jin is not bias nor my bias wrecker but i have this special affection for him that makes me want to protect him at all cost. for the last part, the acting thing. now, im very happy for v for debuting as an actor because he slayed being hansung in hwarang. i will never say that he doesnt deserve that because he does. hes amazing at acting and i hope he get more solo projects since the drama. meanwhile, i look forward to jin having his own drama. i dont think it's necessary for him to have one now but hopefully it happens soon. jin has great potential in acting and considering this is his former dream, im sure that theres still passion for it somehow. in conclusion there is more to jin that we haven't seen because of the lack of opportunity given to him and he deserves so much more recognition to whar he gets now. this doesnt mean that im bias to anyone, okay? i adore each seven members equally. i dont want to raise v and bring down jungkook or raise jin and bring down jimin. no. whatever jikook gets at this moment, they deserve every bit of it. all i want is for them to get equal love. ////end

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allandanny · 7 years

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What even happened during Spring Semester?

This semester was honestly the most intense educational experience we have ever had. We dedicated so much time and mental energy to all of our technical classes, project-based classes, and our outside commitments that towards the end, it felt like we didn’t have any time to even breathe (or sleep very much tbh). There was a pretty clear split though from pre-spring break to post-spring break in terms of work load/things happening in general. If we compare our semester to the timeline of a hurricane, Pre-Spring Break was when the sky began turning gray and clouds began forming. Post-Spring break was when high-speed winds of deadlines and pouring projects began.

Classes Overview (the rest of this post will reference the class numbers):

1) 8.02 – Physics II. This was a very not fun class for us, since we really don’t like physics. It involved weekly psets, and being tied to Sunday office hours. In the end we both passed and are super happy it’s over!

2) ES.7013 – Biology (taken through ESG). This class was better than 8.02 since we took it through ESG, so we got more one-on-one attention from the teacher. That was really nice.

3) ES.333 - Production of Educational Video – The goal of this class was to make, as the name of the class implies, an education video. It was extremely time intensive, but very rewarding. Here are our videos (Allan) (Danny)

4) 2.00b – Toy Design – In teams of 5 (we were on different teams), we had to make a toy! Again, very rewarding and very time intensive, especially towards the end.

Allan’s 5) 21M.601 – Drawing for Designers – This class was a very relaxing and nice life drawing class!

Danny’s 5) 4.520 – Visual Computing – This was a pretty cool and somewhat hard to describe class about rule-based design.

Events of Pre-Spring Break:

This was us. The first half of a semester usually has a slow start, but the weather made this spring semester’s particularly slow. We had 3 snow days! In terms of work, we had 2 8.02 exams, 2 ES.7013 exams, and our project classes weren’t that intensive, mostly involving lots of planning. Edit: after reading this, we remembered that we actually did do blog worthy things during this time of the semester! We hosted a knitting workshop in Next House, our dorm, and taught a knitting class through SPARK! (for both, we wore these babies during the whole thing) We also participated in the calling campaign to congratulate pre-frosh, and got some interesting pub .(haha) Also, since one of the snow days was on Pi-Day, we were able to bake all the pies with our friends!

Events of Spring Break

IT WAS WONDERFUL. We went back to the warmth of Florida, and just soaked in beach water for hours each day. We also met up with high school friends, which was really nice! And we met new high school friends (who will now be college friends!) at a local admitted students gathering! That’s about it :)

Events of Post-Spring Break

Campus Preview Weekend (CPW)!

This was so incredibly fun! We hosted so many events from art club to rainbow lounge events, went to so many parts of campus, and talked to so many pre-frosh! One of the days, we had events (some hosting, some attending) back to back from 11am-4am.

Some highlights of CPW:

-When we were walking back to next house at 4 am, we saw a friend (who happened to be a senior) walking out of his dorm, and just casually said “hey guys! Good Morning!” We hope we do not turn into that type of senior.

-During the activities fair, which is the time when pre-frosh get a preview of what activities exist on campus, we met one person that one of us (allan) spoke to on the phone in the calling campaign! It was a really fun coincidence!

-Throughout the weekend, we got the comment “Are you guys THE twins?” multiple times. Apparently the pub we mentioned above was posted to the 2021 facebook page. Every time we got this comment we awkwardly laughed, but it was a pretty good conversation starter.

Ring Committee

This is the committee that designs the iconic brass rat for each class. We both applied to be on this committee, and one of us got it (Allan)! This worked out actually because Danny’s fifth class was more time intensive than Allan’s, so this balanced things out. Ring Comm has involved having a couple meetings so far where we discuss and plan many many more things than excepted, including making a logo, website, getting venues, planning events, getting food for those events, planning study breaks, deciding our public image as a committee, and much much more!

The Borderline Project

This was incredibly mega super duper cool and we are super unbelievably happy that this happened and that we were a part of it! Basically this was a project that let essentially anyone who submitted a sketch to paint a 5x8 foot mural in one long expanse of one MIT tunnel. On top of that, 6 of the ~34 murals ended up having augmented reality animations (ours were 2 of the 6!). Something that was also super duper cool was that we basically witnessed the birth of this incredible project and idea! One of the five project leads did the OpenMind::OpenArt project with us, and she was discussing this idea during our weekly meetings in January. So when we got an email from her a couple weeks into the spring semester about this actually starting, we were super stocked! We ended up painting our murals the weekend after CPW in the span of about 12 hours. It was so cool because at that point, very few murals were painted, and since we’d periodically walk through the tunnels, we’d see people painting and making progress and just filling up the wall! We ended up doing the animations for our augmented reality component weeks later with a friend who is more tech savy than us. We did all the frames for the animation, and then we had a 5 hour meeting with our friend where we meticulously timed and complied our animation in Unity! It was time intensive, but so worth it and fun! We’re really happy we had that experience, and are honestly interested in continuing exploring augmented reality/virtual reality now! The opening night of the tunnels was also soooooo great! It happened really close to finals week, so it was a great distraction! It was also really nice because we hadn’t seen many of the artists, since we were all assigned different weeks to paint, so this was a cool chance to meet the people behind the amazing art! The amount of exclamation marks in this paragraph is a pretty clear indication of our level of excitement for this thing that happened! here’s a (partial) group photo!

Art Club (and specifically fixing its debt)

We started being part of Art Club Exec in the beginning of Spring Semester, but it was pretty chill before spring break. After spring break though, we found out that Art Club was actually put in debt accidentally by the old exec team (basically they took money out of the wrong account), and now it was up to the new exec team to fix it! The process of fixing it involved rasing a third of the money we were in debt by through a bake sale, and then sending some emails back and forth culminating with a very apologetic one that sealed the deal to get Art Club back to a balance of 0. This took the span of many weeks to organize and figure out. Also, the Sunday night that we were baking was an utter mess for many reasons, and we will list them out because we think its pretty funny just how many things went wrong. definitely not our finest baking moment:

1.The drainage in the sinks in the next house kitchen were broken so the water filled up in the sinks.

2.Right before we started baking, a pretty large “Next Iron Chef” contest started, which involved many people running around and using supplies we needed. They also made the sink much grosser than they had to be. So, we’d have to leave the kitchen and go to the bathroom to clean everything, and we are lowkey clean freaks so we made many trips.

3.The hand mixer we were using didn’t mix the flour well enough into the batter, so for about 40 minutes, we had our four hands (they were mega clean, don’t worry!) in the batter bowl taking the flour clumps out.

4.After the first batch of mini muffins came out of the oven, the ones in the metal tray were stuck so we had to cut them out with a knife. After that we decided not to use that tray anymore, so it took about 5 or 6 more batches to finish baking everything. We were in that kitchen until 2 freaking am.

ESG Yearbook

ESG, or experimental study group, is a fancy name for a community of 50 freshman who spend there time eating, bonding, talking, pseting, taking GIRs in smaller class sizes (of 4-12 students), and being awesome on the 6th floor of the very hard to find (due to construction of the new nano building) building 24. We innocently volunteered during fall semester to be in charge of making this year’s yearbook, not realizing that the majority of the work would get done 3 weeks before the deadline and during the super duper busy time of post-spring break. Nevertheless, it was mostly fun to make it! We used shutterfly though, which at times could be frustrating. And when we say “at times,” we mean specifically that shutterfly doesn’t allow you to change a style without ruining all the layout you already completed. So, basically after finishing the entire yearbook unknowingly with a style that would cost people an extra $6 (our fault for not checking this), we had to change the style, and thereby have to start from scratch. So essentially we made 2 yearbooks. In the end, we actually liked how the cheaper one looked more...go figure! This is one of our favorite pages:

Art Scholars

This is a program that brings together graduate and undergraduate students who have a passion for the arts! We get to go on outings throughout the year and get to know awesome people! We applied this semester and we got it! During the interview, the person who runs the program said “this year there were 16 applicants and 16 openings.” It was very cool haha.

FAP Counselors

We applied to be Freshman Art Program Counselors! And we got it! This is especially exciting because due to scheduling issues, we were unable to actually participate in this program as frosh, but now we get to experience it by being counselors! We are super stocked to pass on our knowledge of MIT art opportunities to the frosh and generally be mega artsy for a week in august before school starts!

Declaring our Major

This was a very confusing for us. The majors we were considering were 2 (MechE), 4(Architecture), 6-3(Computer Science) and CMS(Comparative Media Studies). The way we were making sense of these majors was that if we choose that we want to make physical things that look good (as in products mostly and abstract sculpture/conceptual design), then we would choose to combine 2 and 4 in some way or another. And if we choose that we want to critically study and make digital media (including exploring VR/AR more and just generally understanding computers better) then we would combine CMS and 6-3 somehow. Through many discussions, we discovered a major that would allow us to combine 2 majors, which is super convineint because both options involved us doing that! So, this major is called 21E (humanities and engineering). It allows students to choose a humanities field and an engineering field and then mesh them together. After much consideration of what we found fun this semester (which was really difficult, because we found many things fun), we both decided that we each wanted to go with 21E, doing CMS for our humanities and 6-3 for our engineering. This is honestly still subject to change, but this is the decision that feels most right right now.

Finishing our Videos for ES.333

Video editing is so incredibly time consuming. Finishing this video involved spending multiple nights in the computer room in ESG (since we don’t have FinalCut Pro on our laptops) until 1-2 am. This was a very sad existence when we were still in that room when all we wanted to do was sleep, but in the end it was worth it!

Finishing our 2.00b projects

If we thought finishing our video project was hard, this was harder by 10 fold. It is incredibly good that ES.333 finished before the final crunch for 2.00b started because we wouldn’t have been able to do both at the same time. For 2.00b, each of the last four days before playsentations involved literally staying in the lab from 11am-5pm and then spending extra hours in our dorm (until 11pm-1am) just working to get our toys finished. Then the day of playsentations (Allan’s starts 1:21:00, Danny’s starts 2:03:00), we had to rehearse all day for our skit. Somehow, both of our awkward totally non-actor selves ended up in the skits for our teams. But in the end, many people said we were pretty good! Yay! Despite this, many things actually went wrong right before/during the presentations. For Allan, water guns started leaking 30 seconds before going on stage so extremely fast duck taping was implemented, and for Danny, water was sprayed when it wasn’t supposed to be sprayed so improvising was implemented. (somehow both our teams made water-related toys…the twin is strong within us)

Buying tickets to Natasha, Piere, and The Great Comet of 1812!

We bought tickets to see our current favorite musical on broadway. We are going to see it with a friend at the end of August right before going back to campus and we are sooooo incredibly excited!

Sense 8

After our last final, we went back to our room and spent 10 hours watching 10 episodes of this freaking masterpiece of a show. If you have free time this summer, and you want to be blown away by mesmerizing visuals, an incredibly cool concept that also translates to a beautiful metaphor, awesome action pact scenes, badassary redefined, ships you cant help but ship, amazing representation, and absolute authenticity, please watch this show!

ending thoughts

Now we are in Florida, mostly recovering from a super hectic and busy semester. We are really happy with what we accomplished during our freshman year, and are looking towards next year, but right now its great to just float in hot sea water and do absolutely nothing else.

#spring #school #writing #baking

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waitedforgarridebs · 7 years

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What if the IDEA of Moriarty was just the creation of Mycroft, to ensure that his little brother would have a reason to stay alive? Mycroft is not UNDER Moriarty's thumb - Moriarty IS Mycroft' thumb! #TheEngineersThumb

THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME AN ASK WITH YOUR TAGS ON THAT POST (x) I WANTED TO REBLOG THAT !!!! You genius, Mycroft is Moriarty’s thumb, this made my day!

Ask @johnnlocked, I was yelling, and it was 4am!

And yes, I completely agree with you, Mycroft created the idea of Moriarty - but I don’t think his motive was to give Sherlock a reason to stay alive / to stay off the drugs, and since I never came around to write that post, I’ll do a short version now.

(I say “short”. It’s not short. Imagine what the long version would have looked like though, lmao)

I do believe that the government / Mycroft created the project “Moriarty”, nameless or with another codename (”Amo” / “Love”?). “Moriarty” means “navigator” or “sea-worthy”, so it could be something water-y.

Those are, after all, very “deep waters” for Sherlock…

My theory is that Sherlock discovered the very fringes of the whole Moriarty machination in TBB #it’s always TBB. And this was completely not what Mycroft wanted, Mycroft never wanted Sherlock to know about this, at all.

Because, those people are really really dangerous, and Mycroft is far from being able to control them all - at least not as in, “don’t harm my little brother”, that would completely contradict the actual purpose of Moriarty; a tool to ensure “the greater good”.

So, Mycroft wanted to focus the damage Sherlock could do to something more controllable, more limited, and that is not an entire organisation, but a single person. This is why Mycroft invented “Jim” Moriarty, and designed him in a way that he would be the perfect match for Sherlock, that he would be something Sherlock could obsess about, far away from all the actual business of Moriarty.

So far, so good. But if that plan would have worked, the whole plot of the show would have been quite boring though.

I feel like Jim very much was following his own agenda, maybe he even wanted to destroy Moriarty from within, “commit suicide”, his apparent “death wish”, because thanks to Mycroft he now was Moriarty, he was the only person who would be able to stop this project. If Jim is anything like the character he plays, he loves chaos, he loves the randomness of things, and Moriarty is the exact opposite of this. Moriarty tries to order the chaos, to control it. Very much a Mycroft-esque thing to do.

(I’m aware of the fact that all of this probably doesn’t make very much sense when you haven’t read at least this part of my meta series (x), but “Moriarty”, in my opinion, is an Orwellian project run by the goverment.)

After TST, and also looking back at the scene at the end of THoB, I think that Sir Edwin is very much in on this, he is probably Porlock. Lady Smallwood is quite clueless, and honestly, I can’t wait to see her kick everyone’s asses for this, but I’m getting off-topic…

Back to Jim.

The introduction of the character “Jim Moriarty”, in combination with Irene, is the downfall of the Moriarty project. Irene gives Jim the information he needs to turn the tables.

“Bond Air” is Mycroft’s “Skyfall”.

Therefore, even if Mycroft tried to keep Sherlock save and the Moriarty project alive at the same time, there was no way this could ever have worked out. And it was the Moriarty project that had to die, because after the failed Bond Air project, it had already been kind of dead.

It would’t take long for the terrorists to figure out that someone had played this game with them. That the British government had been trying to fool them in this way. Oh my, that would have had serious consequences.

That is why Moriarty had to die. But one also had to ensure that no one would be able to link all those events to who actually had committed them, the British government, because this was exactly the reason why they had to kill Moriarty in the first place, to not have anything that would lead back to them.

Nobody knew up to this point that Moriarty was a thing though. Except some criminals, and they would keep their mouth very much shut about this.

Cue: TRF.

Jim was actively advertising in this episode. And this not because he needed clients, or the money, that was never what he was doing all of this for.

They. Told. Us. All. Of. This.

It was important that the world got to know Jim Moriarty. The master criminal. The person who had committed so many crimes, who was apparently so powerful - and in all of that, Sherlock Holmes was helping.

Up to this point, Sherlock was the only person to ever have seen Jim Moriarty’s face - because, Moriarty itself has no face! - and now Sherlock was telling the world, hey, this is him, James Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime. I am the great Sherlock Holmes, you better believe me, this man is my worst nightmare, he tried to blow me up.

And, just before that, Jim had broken into the three most secure places of the country. Sherlock was only confirming to the public what the press had already been telling them, like, trying to steal the Crown Juwels, ermahgerddddd, arrest this man!

So, not only had Jim been able to show off his skillz, but also had he been able to link the name “Moriarty” permanently to his face.

He does all that, and then commits suicide. Welp. Not very clever?

Except this was what all of this had been for.

Now, Moriarty, the potential traitor, was dead. No need to take revenge on a dead person. And the link to the British government was gone, too. Sherlock Holmes was on vacation, so they had a lot of time of peace and quiet to get the project running again.

Oh yes. Moriarty is dead, long lives Moriarty.

Or (Lord) Moran.

The government didn’t stop doing what they were doing, this whole business was much too promising for that. They just had to carry their coups out in a different way - they have a lot of talented people working there, after all.

And if that meant that Sherlock Holmes had to come back from the dead only to actuate the off-switch on a bomb in order to prevent a terrorist attack that no one ever actually wanted to carry out, that was just meant to frighten people into agreeing with the introduction of an anti-terrorism bill, well. (x)

Which makes me think…

SHERLOCK: […] Tomorrow the US president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment inside her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. KINGSLEY: What?!SHERLOCK (quick fire): Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilise the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable, thus precipitating … (he finally slows down and says the next words slowly and precisely) World War Three. (x)

I guess we should watch out for hints at that treaty in the upcoming episodes…?

ANYWAY.

Mycroft introduced Jim into Sherlock’s life. Mycroft planted the idea that Moriarty is a person in Sherlock’s head, the only person who could ever be an equal or worthy opponent for Sherlock.

And Sherlock believes it.

Sherlock believes that Jim, even if he hadn’t been able to fake his death, would have been able to set up a plan that would take effect after his death, only to continue their little game.

(^balance of probability, Sherlock, why do you even think that. I am so disappointed, honestly. YOU were able to fake your death, and you really think Jim wouldn’t have been able to do the same, and this just because of your gay fever dream, INSTEAD you really believe he would have been able to set up something like- oh my god make it stop)

And I really think that only in TST, Mycroft is beginning to realise what he really has done there. His brother is obsessed with Moriarty, despite the fact that he isn’t even alive anymore.

Yes, the plan to distract Sherlock is kind of working, he doesn’t see what is actually going on, that Mycroft is the source of all of this, but at what cost? Is Sherlock gonna get insane because Moriarty will continue to not get in touch, and this additionally to all the guilt that must be nagging at him now because of that whole Mary-business?

I can really see why he’s gonna be back on drugs tonight… no case and no John, oh my.

#crack the final case #Sherlock #Sherlock meta #meductions #Mykey #MyH #JM #TST #TLD #answered #thechristmasrapture

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tripstations · 5 years

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The worst things about travel in 2019

The world is changing. Constantly. Perpetually. Every time you look, it has altered. Every second, every minute, every hour and every day the world is transforming, it’s morphing, it’s adding and subtracting and shrinking and expanding.

For travellers, that’s a thrilling concept. It means there need be no conclusion to this wandering passion, no end to the joy of discovery that travel can bring. Every time you set out to see the world, you will find something different. You will experience the buzz of the new, even in places that can feel so familiar.

This changing nature is what makes Traveller’s Annual Report so important. Every 12 months our writers take the world’s pulse, they weigh up the good and the bad, track the major changes, assess the current trends. Our team of wanderers considers the destinations that have caught their collective eyes over the last past financial year, as well as the advancements made across the tourism board, from aircraft to accommodation, gear to gadgets.

The report this year takes us from the farthest reaches of Russia to the familiarity of inner-city Melbourne. It moves from campsites in Utah to overwater luxury in the Maldives. It takes in everything from Michelin-starred fine-dining, to hole-in-the-wall taco joints.

123RF

Overtourism is a huge problem – particularly in Western Europe.

READ MORE: * One simple change would ease the horror of changing a nappy mid-air * The future of flying: How air travel is changing * Why is it so expensive to change a name on a flight ticket?

And of course any good Annual Report should include a profit and loss statement. Ours is a summation of where travel has improved, and where it’s begun to let us down. Love slow travel? So do we. Detest spending 15 minutes trying to turn the lights off in your hotel room? You’ll find an agreeable audience here.

The world is changing. Destinations are changing. Hotels are changing. Food is changing. Even modes of transport are changing. And this is where to find the best of it. – Ben Groundwater

Today we feature the worst things about travel in 2019, tomorrow it will be the best things.

GET REAL

Bespoke. Curated. Crafted. Artisan. When will travel industry operators stop using these “authenticity” terms for everything from bath plugs to buffets as a way of appealing to the Millennial market? Coupled with not actually doing anything particularly thoughtful and place-appropriate, let alone unique – a subway tile here, a vintage print there, this movement has become hackneyed, lazy and meaningless.

TOTAL BUNKUM

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has recently walked back (surprise, surprise) on his earlier enthusiasm for bunk beds and relaxation lounges for economy passengers on the airline’s Project Sunrise flights. These are the ultra-long, non-stop flights that Qantas is proposing to London and New York. From Sydney or Melbourne to London – that would mean 21-plus hours sitting semi-upright in an economy seat. Ouch.

FLIGHT FRIGHT

The latest eco evangelist cause spotlights the impact jet travel has on our planet through its contribution to CO2 emissions, one potent factor behind climate change. Australian and Kiwi travellers, who often fly long distances, are responsible for more aviation-industry CO2 emissions per capita than most other nations. While we have cause for concern, the remedy lies in strategy rather than abstinence.

SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Online applicants for a non-immigrant visa to visit the US are required to provide details of their social media accounts over the last five years. Applicants must also provide telephone numbers, email addresses and international travel details over the same period.

JETTING OFF: ONE

Fifty years after the 747 first took to the skies, Boeing is no longer producing the passenger version of its jumbo. We’ll still be flying aboard these four-engine double-decker aircraft for some years to come but their days are numbered, replaced by more fuel efficient twin-engine aircraft that can haul almost as many passengers at lower cost.

JETTING OFF: TWO

It’s the biggest bird in the sky generally made for more spacious seating and major capacity boosts but Airbus, and for that matter its customers, has decided its A380 is no longer sustainable, and will be phased out after current orders are completed. They’ll still be around for a good couple of decades, but their replacements won’t have the same sheer grunt.

CROWD CONTROL

Overtourism, as it’s been dubbed, is a huge problem – particularly in Western Europe – with no easy answers, and it’s one that’s still growing. Cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Dubrovnik are being trampled daily by tens of thousands of feet, as the global number of travellers increases and interest in the hotspots shows no sign of waning. But what to do about it?

GETTY IMAGES

All about the ‘Gram.

FEED THE MASSES

The wildly popular photo-sharing app Instagram is partly responsible for overcrowding at some of the world’s most photogenic locations. Travellers used to read guidebooks and follow those recommendations slavishly. Now they do their research through their Insta feed and seek to visit the stunning places they’ve seen in photos. Everyone wants to go to the same ones.

SLUMMING IT

Visiting a slum or a favela? Touring through indigenous communities? Visiting schools or orphanages? There’s danger here. Travellers have to be very careful that the tours they choose to do are actually beneficial for the people they go to stare at. There are plenty of exploitative experiences out there, and research is required before you commit.

CREATURE DISCOMFORT

Though awareness is slowly being raised, there are still plenty of travel experiences that rely on the exploitation of animals. They’re easy to recognise, too: if an animal is being made to act or live in a way that would be unnatural to it in a normal setting, then it’s being exploited for human gain. Avoid.

CHANGING TACK

Do you want to ride a horse in rural Japan while dressed in plastic samurai armour? Some well-meaning tourism operators urge their clientele do so. Why does this sort of thing – and plenty of similarly tacky experiences – still exist?

RIDE NO MORE

For a while there it seemed like you could switch on your phone anywhere on the planet and arrange a low-cost ride with Uber. But the governments of the world are catching up with the infamous app, and in an increasing number of countries it’s no longer available. Uber has pulled out of Singapore and Denmark, it’s been banned in Hungary and Bulgaria, and it’s restricted to just a few cities in Germany, Italy, and Spain.

WE WUZ SWABBED

At most airports around the world, swabbing passengers in the search for explosives is not a thing. It rarely happens in the US. You hardly ever see it in Western Europe. And how many would-be baddies are actually caught by this constant swabbing?

EXTRAS, EXTRAS

With budget airlines it’s a given – you have to pay extra for any niceties. Now, however, supposedly full-service airlines have begun charging extra money for seat selection, and have even begun forcing passengers to fork out for seat-back entertainment and extra food they want to consume on board. When will this creep of hidden costs end?

RICK BOWMER/AP

The joys of US airport security.

WELCOME TO AMERICA

Hell is a scrummage of 500 people awaiting clearance through two open TSA (Transport Security Administration) machines manned by grumbling, screaming staff, when eight more adjacent machines remain inexplicably closed. National security is a sensitive issue but, no, Mr Customs Officer, that uniform and badge don’t entitle you to act like a bulldog chewing a wasp, especially after a 15-hour flight.

EARLY MORNING NOISE

Certain airlines should desist from Walking on Sunshine at a hideous volume at 4am during check-in (let alone, on the plane itself). Yes, we get the idea of trying to make the whole process seem more fun but maybe hold off on the sunshine at least until sunrise?

AUTO MATES

Robot (or just do-it-yourself) hotel check-ins are already upon us, and robot room services and concierges are likely to follow. Sure, it’s an amusing high-tech innovation at first, but what will happen to the human interaction and emotion, and those late-evening chats to real bartenders? We’d much rather take the good, the bad and the unpredictable that comes from interacting with actual people in foreign places.

CONTROL FREAK OUT

Do the tech-heads who design hotel rooms ever trial a prototype? Have they tried to close the curtains, extinguish the mood lighting, turn on the TV or adjust the shower temperature with their gadgets, iPads, remote controls and complicated dials? A bit of international consistency and user ease would be nice. Sometimes simplicity and a basic switch are good things, especially when jet-lagged.

LEANERS NOT LIFTERS

Dear tourist, we know you aren’t really holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and maybe you could think of something more original than the same thing 500 other tourists are doing right behind you. It’s an old joke. The cliché of holiday snaps. And we don’t need you to pout, make the victory sign or leap into the air either. You look silly. Just saying.

NOT-SO-GREAT OCEAN ROAD

Just say no to the daytripping queues lined up to snap a photo at the lookout at Port Campbell. Stay overnight to go beyond the clichéd shot and there are plenty of other non-official “apostles” along the south-western Victorian coastline.

AGUNG PARAMESWARA/GETTY

Scattered plastic trash brought in by strong waves at Kuta Beach.

WHAT A WASTE

There’s a reason why pool clubs now abound: the pollution on Bali’s beaches is shameful, given the amount of money tourists spend to be there. It’s called “plastics pollution” and reached its nadir with the finding of a plastic bag in the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, 11 kilometres below sea level in May. We should be ashamed.

APERITIF TIFF

Kudos to Campari for making the Aperol spritz a ubiquitous global drink. But who doesn’t long for the days when that first sip of “sunshine in a glass” was something special: a marker of arrival in the Veneto? That’s where the Aperol spritz was invented: a mix of white wine, soda and the orange aperitif created in Padua in 1919. At least those who know, know: spritz will always taste better in Italy.

YES SIR, NO SUR

British Airways, Lufthansa and Cathay Pacific are among the airlines that have bumped up their “fuel surcharges” in the last year. With cash tickets, it makes little difference whether it’s called a surcharge or a price increase. But for frequent flyer redemption tickets, it can mean a couple of hundred dollars on top of the redeemed points. Alas, other airlines may soon have the same idea.

CHECK THIS

Traditional full service carriers are attempting to compete on price with low-cost rivals – and, increasingly, that means making the baseline economy fares non-inclusive of checked-in luggage. British Airways, Air Canada and Virgin Atlantic are all guilty on this to varying degrees. It makes comparing prices for long-haul flights a real nuisance when some airlines work to a different standard.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Faced with fights for locker space, several airlines are tightening hand-luggage policies. Alas, instead of telling everyone with a wheeled case to check the damned thing in, they’re shrinking what you’re allowed to take on board for free. Europe’s notorious Ryanair is the latest to get stingy, only allowing bags that will fit under the seat – maximum measurements 40cm x 20cm x 25cm, down from 55cm x 40cm x 20cm.

FEELING CLUCKY

Airlines seem determined to give passengers the full battery-farm experience, slipping extra seats into planes clearly not designed for them. Air Canada 3-3-3 formation Boeing 787-9s are the most egregious example of cram-’em-in greed. 30 inch (76 centimetres) pitch and 17 inch (43 centimetres) seat width may be just about OK for a short domestic flight, but it’s not for a 14-hour trip from Vancouver to Melbourne.

LEFT DANGLING

The travelling tea-drinker gets a poor deal these days, in that so many hotel rooms sport only a tiny Nespresso machine (if you have ever tried to make tea with the water from one of these things, you will know it tastes more like coffee). Here’s a big thank you to those who do go to the trouble of offering a kettle in the room for tea tragics. We thank you.

GIVE SIP THE ZIP

You’ve nabbed two prime viewing perches on the Champs-Elysees in Paris or the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele ll in Milan and ordered cocktails. Whaaat? They still use plastic straws? Europe, you are now officially on notice. In March, the European Union passed landmark legislation that will ban single-use plastics such as straws, plates and cutlery, giving businesses until 2021 to phase in alternatives. We can do our bit by saying no in the meantime. See laststraw.com.au

DON’T BE A PHONEY

Be careful what you wish for. The widespread availability of free Wi-Fi in attractions, airports and cities now means travellers are increasingly immersed in their phones rather than their surroundings. Take advantage of Paris’s free Wi-Fi to find your way to the Eiffel Tower, but once you get there, try putting your phone away and focus instead on being present and savouring the moment.

BUTLER NOTHING

Do we really need a bath butler, a sleep specialist and a pillow menu with 12 different options? In a bid to differentiate themselves, many hotels are offering unnecessary levels of customisation. Worryingly, this trend will only get worse as chains collect more and more personal data about their guests. Some brands already let you tailor the furnishings, toiletries and mini-bar for your stay. What next? The curtain colour? The brand of TV?

RIGHT TOWELLING

The novelty of finding a gaggle of towel geese waddling across your hotel bed wears off rapidly when you realise, a) all the towels will probably be washed and replaced tomorrow, and b) the housekeeper who made them just scrubbed a toilet. We already have enough work clearing the bed of decorative pillows – please leave our towels in the bathroom where they belong.

BIT OF A STRETCH

We all know how important it is to get up and stretch during a long-haul flight, but that doesn’t mean you have to block the galleys and emergency exits for 15 minutes while you run through your entire yoga routine. A few in-seat exercises each hour is enough to keep the circulation flowing. No one wants to emerge from the bathroom and come face-to-bum with someone doing a downward dog.

PARADISE LOST

Rampant hotel development is slowly strangling the Maldives. The archipelago has more than 130 resorts with another 20 expected to open in the next two years. The Maldivian authorities wants to relocate residents to larger atolls to free up smaller ones for development, which will put even more pressure on the region’s water and energy resources, and meanwhile, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has promised a threefold increase in tourism promotion.

Contributors: Ben Groundwater, Jill Dupleix, Terry Durack, Michael Gebicki, Belinda Jackson, Julietta Jameson, Brian Johnston, Ute Junker, Nina Karnikowski, Rob McFarland, Catherine Marshall, Alison Stewart, Craig Tansley, Guy Wilkinson, Sue Williams, David Whitley

– Traveller

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Jeremy Enns of Counterweight Creative, a company that offers podcast production and strategy.Some stats:Product: Podcast production and strategy.Revenue/mo: $10,000Started: April 2016Location: CanadaFounders: 1Employees: 0Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hey there! I’m Jeremy Enns, the founder and Storyteller In Chief at Counterweight Creative, a podcast production and strategy agency.We specialize in simplifying the process of producing a podcast for busy companies, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, working closely to guide and assist them during the launch and setup phase, and then taking on the bulk of the production work once the show is live.I started the company 3 years ago, in 2016 with one client, making $15/hour and have grown into a team of 10 contractors producing more than 30 shows per week with revenue of over $10K/mo.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I went to school for audio engineering, initially wanting to produce records for bands and artists. After graduating in 2012, I interned at a big studio in my hometown of Vancouver, and while I learned a lot, I quickly realized that I didn’t have the drive (or financial ability) to show up at the studio at 8am and work (for free) until 4am six or seven days a week for a year or more before moving up into a position that might pay $10/hr and actually start getting paid to work on music.After interning just a couple of days per week for over a year, while also working full-time at a retail job, I quit the internship and put my dreams of working in the music industry behind me. I worked a number of manual labour jobs including landscape construction and maintenance, tree planting in northern Canada, and others before taking a year off to travel, bicycling across Europe, and backpacking through the Balkans, and Asia.When I came home in the fall of 2015, I went back to a landscaping job making $15/hr and soon after discovered podcasts as a way to make use of the hours spent at work, diving into shows like Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn among many others as I dove into learning about the world of online business.After a few months of learning and beginning to experiment with a few half baked business ideas, a friend of mine with a well-known podcast made an off-hand comment about his podcast editor and a switch clicked in my mind. I had spent the past six months or so listening to 50+ hours of podcast content per week, and with my background in audio engineering I had more than the necessary technical knowledge to produce high quality podcasts for others.I went home that night, started a profile on UpWork, got my first client three days later, and within six months had quit my landscaping job and was working for myself full time as a podcast producer.Take us through the process of producing your first podcast and launching the business.When I first started, I catered my services heavily to my client’s needs and what they were asking for. While this was a great way to get clients early on, I soon realized that by creating set production and launch packages, I could charge more, and do more to ensure the success of the podcasters I worked with, as there were often crucial steps that they were overlooking when producing and launching their shows on their own.Most of the people we work with have zero experience working with audio, and many have limited experience with online marketing and content production of any sort. One of the ways we’ve been able to justify raising rates while also helping our clients get better results has been by incorporating a lot of education into our onboarding processes.Many clients come to us thinking all they need is the post production aspect of what we do. The problem is that without understanding how to capture great sounding audio at the source, conduct engaging interviews, structure their overall content plans, and introduce their listeners into a funnel, they’re not going to get the results they really want from the podcast. Expanding my initial services into this educational side of things was a big turning point early on that established me in many client’s eyes as a podcast expert rather than simply an audio editor.I also shifted from a per-episode billing model to a monthly “subscription” (of sorts) model. In the early days, I was charging as little as $30/ep, which often would take me 2+ hours to complete. Since I had a full-time job at the time and wasn’t chasing every single client however, I was fairly aggressive with my rate raises, upping my prices by $5/ep with every new client I got.The monthly subscription helped keep my clients accountable to getting me and my team the materials we need to produce their shows on time, keeps them consistently putting out episodes which helps them grow their shows, and allows us to reliably predict our monthly revenues and expenses. But there were issues with how I initially set those monthly fees.After switching to the package pricing 6-12 months into the business, I was making a better hourly rate, but I was still shooting in the dark when it came to how I had set my prices. I made rough calculations based on how long I figured the tasks included in the packages would take me, but had nothing to really back them up.It wasn’t until 2 years in that I read a book called Profit First and really understood how I should be approaching pricing. To that point, I had a ton of overhead that I wasn’t accounting for when I was determining my pricing structure.I had been in decent shape when it was just me, but as I started adding members to my team and outsourcing a lot of the work I had personally been doing, I realized that my current pricing was unsustainable as I transitioned from freelancer to agency.I started tracking my expenses in much greater depth and basing all pricing by shooting for a minimum 40% profit margin over my costs - which included the costs associated with my own time spent working on any project. Setting prices this way rather than going with my gut has sped up the proposal process, reduced my own stress, and allows me to be confident that we’re profitable on every project we take on.When it came to start up costs, there were almost zero. I already had the business registered and a website set up for my music production business which I then re-focussed on podcast clients. I owned all the software I needed, and did zero advertising, relying on free platforms like UpWork at the start and word of mouth as we grew.I didn’t have an official launch for the business, initially applying for freelance job postings and doing cold outreach to potential clients, which grew into a referral-driven business.For the first year I had almost zero online presence, just a simple one-page website outlining the brand story and the services I offered.One of the things I had learned during my cold outreach and freelance marketplace application phase was that personality was incredibly important, and that clients would pay a premium to work with people they felt like they connected with on a personal level. So with that in mind, I injected as much personality into my website copy as possible, making jokes, and writing in a style that would appeal to the type of people that I actually wanted to work with.For a while, I opened all cold outreach emails with something along the lines of:“Ok, so here’s the deal yo. My name is Jeremy and I guess you could say I’m a bit like a zombie, except instead of brains, I have an insatiable urge to devour audio and spit it out the other side all clean and spiffy! BTW audio is way tastier than brains, not that I know what brains taste like...”Our personality driven copy on our website as well as on all our marketing channels does a good job of pre-screening people, so that often before we even talk over a video call with a potential client, we’re both feeling really good about the prospect of working together.A year into the business I began writing a weekly blog covering podcasting topics that I didn’t feel were getting covered elsewhere. Things like how to improve your podcast by using the principles of storytelling (specifically as they’re used in Star Wars of course. Yes, I’m a nerd…), what Oprah can teach us about podcasting and breaking down a client’s podcast launch plan were topics I covered among many others. I also started a Facebook group, Cut The Bullshit Podcasting, which has grown into a thriving community of 1500 podcasters, and is often recognized as one of the top podcasting groups in terms of usefulness and the positive, supportive vibe of the community.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Since about the one year anniversary mark of the business, our client-base has grown almost entirely through referrals, of which we have a consistent stream. I attribute this to being picky about working only with clients who we absolutely know are a good fit for us, who know we’ll be able to get results for.Like most freelancers and business owners, when starting out, there had been clients who I had misgivings about from the start, but decided to work with anyways. While I never had a truly horrible client who refused to pay or tried to scam me in some other way, there were definitely clients that caused more headaches and frustration than they were worth. The problem with a subscription service like ours is that there’s no natural end to the project, and difficult clients could end up being thorns in our side indefinitely.After working with a few of these types of clients I knew I needed to do a better job filtering problem clients out before beginning to work with them. I examined the clients who caused us the fewest problems and who were the most fun to work with and started noting the attributes that made the relationship work.Generally we had similar approaches to business, believed in having fun with what we did, surrounding ourselves with positive people, and believed that the work we did mattered to the world. Our prices at this point filtered out most people who were just taking their first steps into the world of online business, but nevertheless I made a point of only working with people who had experience running online businesses, creating content, and had the systems and support team to be consistent with the production schedule. Maybe most importantly of all, our clients are clear on why they’re doing their podcasts, what makes their shows unique, and who their audiences are.On top of working with clients who are a good fit, I’m a big believer in the value of providing a high personal touch. That involves regular hand-written notes, individualized gifts to commemorate milestones and a very generous referral program of a free month at their current production package for every referral who signs up and sticks with us for 3 months.To encourage referrals, we share the details with all new clients during the onboarding phase and make sure to remind them about the program as part of our bi-annual customer satisfaction surveys.One of the results of being extremely selective about the people we take on as clients is that often, the people in their networks are also a really good fit for us as well. We have some clients who’ve referred so many clients to us that we haven’t billed them in more than 6 months, saving them thousands of dollars over that time.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?In the past 18 months we’ve grown from just me to a team of 13. In addition to myself, our team consists of six audio editors, four writers, and two admin people, all of whom are currently contractors scattered across Canada, The US, and The UK, who work remotely, although I’m guessing a couple of those may be converting into part-time positions within the coming year as we continue to expand both our client base and our team.As with our clients, I’m incredibly picky with who joins the team. I’m a believer that skills can be taught, but culture fit can’t be, and as a result, my first concern when bringing anyone on is ensuring they’re a good fit for our team and our clients. Almost everyone on the team has been referred to me by existing team members or people in my network who are familiar with the work we do and our team’s culture.I’m also a believer that my first responsibility is to my team, and then to our clients, and that a happy, cohesive team provides better results for our clients. I know a lot of similar agencies hire almost exclusively overseas as a way to reduce costs. While this is appealing financially, I’ve always had a gut feeling that in the long-run, there are intangible factors that come with building a cohesive team with a strong internal culture who are all based in the same geographic region as the bulk of our clients.Financially, over the past year, we’ve tripled our revenue, and are looking to continue or exceed that rate of growth this year as we continue taking on new production and consulting clients.Our profit margin is consistently between 30-40% across the services we offer, with an average customer value of $750/mo on an ongoing subscription basis.The biggest focuses over the coming year are first and foremost to systematize the production side of things to a greater extent than they already are so I can remove myself from the day to day operations of production and work one-on-one as a consultant with high-level clients looking to start and grow podcasts.Secondly, we’re looking to expand into digital products, packaging the knowledge and processes we use everyday with our clients to help beginner, indie, and hobby podcasters produce and grow their shows more efficiently and effectively.We’re also really excited about The Podcast Power Pack, an annual bundle sale to help podcasters produce, promote, monetize and systematize their shows. The first Power Pack sale wrapped up in March and we’re looking forward to bringing together and offering a whole new suite of products for next year’s sale!Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?I’ve always been a big believer in the importance of continual learning and education, and starting this business has definitely reinforced that belief. At the same time, there came a point - for me about a year ago - where I realized I needed to tone down my content intake and instead focus on executing what I already knew I needed to do.One of the other big lessons or takeaways from starting my business has been that I have the ability and perhaps even responsibility to be a leader in other aspects of my life, including my general community. So many of the skills that are crucial to starting and growing a business can be used to help improve the lives of everyone around us. Often all it takes is to take the lead and get the ball rolling on some initiative and others will take it and run with it from there. I’m looking forward to stepping into this role more frequently and with more intention in the coming years.When it comes to challenges, one of the things that has been difficult but necessary for me has been taking full responsibility for products or client services that fell short of expectations, either my own, or my customers and clients. While in many cases there may be extenuating circumstances, in almost every case where things have failed to meet expectations, I’ve been able to look back and point to areas where I could’ve personally done more to improve the outcome of the project.One of the biggest mistakes I made was taking my foot off the gas and simply coasting after things had been going really well through the first 18 months of the business. There was a stretch of time where I lost a couple of clients and realized that I was not in nearly as comfortable a position financially as I thought I had been.While this was a stressful few months, it was a necessary lesson and forced me to re-examine everything about my business and marketing, and led to a more diversified set of services, and a stronger focus on improving my lead pipeline.What platform/tools do you use for your business?The list of tools for the production agency side of things is fairly concise. We share files between our team as well as with our clients through Google Drive, communicate through Slack, and use Trello for project management, although we’re looking to move over to Teamwork in the near future for a better dashboard.For online marketing we use ConvertKit and LeadPages regularly, and have our podcast community on Facebook. I’m also a big fan of Typeform for surveying clients, customers, our audience, team, and much more. I’m basically a survey nerd and would create them all day if I could...What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I’m a big reader and podcast listener, so it’s hard to pick specifics, but I’ll give it a shot.In terms of books, Profit First was a book that really changed the way I approached the finances and profit margins of the business, including how I was billing clients. Built To Sell was another book that, after reading, completely changed my mindset and approach to the way I was building my business and instilled a passion for systematizing everything that we do. Lastly, as a creative, both Big Magic* and *The War of Art were really influential books for me in terms of understanding what it takes to be successful as a creative in business.When it comes to podcasts, I’ve listened to hundreds of different shows over the past few years, but some of my favourites, include Smart Passive Income from Pat Flynn and Akimbo by Seth Godin. I’m someone who takes inspiration from a lot of places, and so while not specifically business related, I really enjoy 99% Invisible, Stuff You Should Know, and Revisionist History.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?When it comes to getting started, I’m a big believer in moving slowly but intentionally. I waited to quit my day job until I was making just as much from my freelance podcast production work as I was from my paycheck. One of the most common mistakes I see is people quitting their stable jobs and going all-in on an idea that they’re excited about but is unproven.Without the pressure of needing to earn a paycheck from your new venture you’re able to build things the right way from the start, be picky about your timing, pricing and clients, plus you’ve got a steady source of income which you can invest into your growing business.I also think it’s important to know what you want from your business from the start. For me, I knew I didn’t want to be doing the actual production work forever, and so I made a point of documenting the various aspects of what I was doing from the beginning so that it was easier to begin shifting those tasks off of myself when the time came, and could be sure that they would be done well.I’ve seen a lot of people work themselves into businesses that they don’t actually like, simply because they didn’t start with a clear vision of how their business would fit into the broader context of their lives, and how they would fit into their businesses.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re always looking to connect with audio editors who use Pro Tools and have worked on podcasts before, as well as writers for writing up show notes/blog posts for the shows to work as contractors.We also may be looking for a dedicated Operations person in the near future. If you fall into one of these categories, we’d love to chat!Where can we go to learn more?Counterweight CreativeIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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