#'ok‚ but have you considered paying a market clearing price?' - 'no why?'

[shacklesburst]

The way the question is phrased is supposed to redirect attention away from the real issue at hand.

First of all, yes, compensation need not always be monetary, it can also be status or power or experience. (However, this usually won’t work ad infinitum.) This much is obvious. Yet money is the unit of caring. And do these streamer businesses care about their chats being moderated? Do they care about this moderation being provided in a sufficient quality and quantity? Why do they care? Is it because large parts of their businesses (advertisers, sponsors, engagement) implicitly or explicitly require them to provide content moderation in their chats? Are their businesses, as such, dependent on the quality and quantity of services rendered?

Then there will come a time from which they will pay for that. The question is never if. It’s when. As a business owner, you can take on a certain amount of risk, and up to a certain point, you usually have to to even get started. But soon enough all these streamer businesses will pay, because hunger for risk always decreases with size. Some will take longer to reach this conclusion or not be able to reach it on their own at all, maybe because they lack the required business acumen or because they fail before they get to it. And yes, there will be gnawing and gnashing of teeth once they realize (or stomping of feet, as demonstrated by some of the man-children in the video). But nobody will get past that point without paying up in some shape or form.

Because the question was never really “should you pay?” It always was “can you afford not to?”

[amazonadvertising]

8 Tips on How To Beat Your Competitors On Amazon (2022)

Today, Amazon is the ideal platform for selling. One very clear reason why every seller needs to be on Amazon.com. Selling to a wide range of customers and having a diverse consumer base is now possible thanks to Amazon. The sellers may reach a wider audience than ever before because of the more than 197 million customers who prefer Amazon over rival e-commerce websites. With this, there is insane competition among the sellers. The goal of every salesperson, whether they are novices or seasoned pros, is to increase sales and maximise earnings. One must perform well to defeat rivals. If they don't, their products will be hidden in the search results, costing them clients. Are you an Amazon seller who also feels that your rivals are stealing your customers? attempting to ascertain potential causes for it. If not, then that is OK. But if the answer is yes, you are in the right place. Today, we'll discuss implementing a PPC campaign to outperform the competition and boost Amazon sales. Let's first examine how to promote on Amazon before going on to the techniques. Amazon advertising is one of the most effective ways to increase sales. Amazon is considered to be the third most popular advertising platform because of this. You might be considering the greatest form of advertising at this point. Utilizing an Amazon PPC campaign is the solution. What is PPC on Amazon? Pay-per-click advertising, often known as Amazon PPC, is an advertising approach in which the advertiser only pays the cost when a customer clicks on the advertisement. Amazon PPC ads enable Amazon sellers to raise brand awareness and enhance sales. Through Amazon PPC product targeting techniques, one can steal sales. PPC campaigns provide a technology known as "Amazon product targeting" that enables sellers to display their products on other Asin pages. One can position their products in line with other similar items in the marketplace by specifically targeting the other merchants. Increased visibility and authority may result from doing this. A product's brand awareness and exposure among customers can be increased by aligning it with established rivals, which can lead to higher sales and money. The following actions must be taken to build a targeted marketing campaign: Discovering the terrain is the first and most important step. Using the search tab, one must identify the item they wish to align with. The best-recommended search would be one that used a colour that matched the products. The vendor can utilise software to target the ASIN after they are familiar with the products they wish to promote. They must employ these carefully chosen ASINs in the following step. They need to start a new campaign here. In this campaign, the seller must choose the product they wish to feature in the advertisement from the product area. The list of ASINs from the export is then pasted in the "product targeting" section. How to rank higher on Amazon than your rivals You must identify, keep tabs on, and target your rivals if you want to succeed on Amazon. We'll see how it functions. 1. Define your competitors This can be challenging if there are more brands in your niche than you. Consider that I wish to market a "flavoured organic green tea." It might not be a good idea to launch a "medicinal black tea" product as a rival in such a case. You must identify the best rivals to pursue. Therefore, it would be appropriate to filter them depending on: - Price provided for features - Number of created orders (sales) - Ratings and reviews This aids in obtaining your direct rivals who have comparable clientele. 2. Protect your brand Brand terms should be included in keyword research so that you are informed when a brand defence strategy is required. While brand targeting is unlikely to result in significant growth in sales volume, losing market share on brand terms to rivals means letting them steal your money. Keep track of the performance of any keywords connected to your brand. You might be dealing with a competitor that has just started targeting your brand terms if performance on any of those brand terms starts to drop or you notice a decline in your product ranking. By separating your brand's keywords into their campaign or ad group and increasing spending on those terms, you can defend your brand coverage. Because you'll want to divide your expenditure differently, it's a good idea for well-known businesses on Amazon to keep brand terms apart from generic or rival searches. You may regain some of the share of voice that your rivals are attempting to take away from you by spending more on your brand terms. 3. Target Your Competitors You may determine which search terms your competitors are outperforming you on by monitoring their performance on those terms. Identify the areas where your rivals are succeeding and boost your spending on those keywords to overtake them. Going after the winning items rather than the keywords is another method to target your rivals. To encourage customers to choose your product over competing ASINs, use Product Attribute Targeting (PAT). Consider what would make a customer choose your product instead of another when using PAT targeting. Targeting comparable products with fewer ratings, a higher price tag, or visibly fewer features is a good idea. It's a chance to learn from your rivals as well if these tactics don't help you rank higher or if you evaluate the possibilities for PAT campaigns and find that your rivals are offering a better deal. For suggestions on how to enhance your offering, look at their product positioning and how they fill out their product information page. 4. Track Prices You cannot ignore this factor. On every platform or channel, it is always crucial, but in the case of Amazon, it is especially crucial. It directly affects how likely we are to land in the desired buy box. The double track once more. We can manually check the chosen products and make spreadsheet updates. Because it is not very productive, I would not advise doing this. Depending on what you ask for, there are several tools to achieve it automatically. Repricing tools exist that can control price changes based on rivals' tactics. 5. Find out how your rivals sell their goods A customer's decision to buy can be heavily influenced by the branding and marketing of your items and those of your competitors. The tone of the listing description, the product photos, the packaging design, the A+ content, and how the brand interacts with its audience all play a role in this. Check out their social media presence and other non-Amazon marketing initiatives as well. The impact of social media on brand recognition and e-commerce is significant. More than half of shoppers have bought products they learned about on social media. 6. Take Advantage of Amazon Reviews and Ratings When buying a product, consumers look for reliable information, and reviews are their go-to resource for finding real insights about the item. You may learn three things about your target market and competition by examining Amazon reviews and ratings. - Can you make your product superior to that of your rivals? - Does the product have enough demand? - How to increase brand awareness by focusing on the right consumer persona 1. Can you make your product superior to that of your rivals? Several of our clients' products go through this procedure, particularly niche products and CPGs (Consumer Packaged Goods). Look through the pros and cons of evaluations left by rival companies that provide identical products. Long-term, this will provide insights that will enable you to improve your product's features and functionality in light of user feedback. You can also draw attention to features that can address issues that customers had with the products of your rivals. 2. Does the product have enough demand? For larger brands or a new seller looking to debut a product, this is a crucial consideration. You can determine how popular a product is on Amazon by looking at the number of reviews and how actively customers participate in the reviews. 3. How to increase brand awareness by focusing on the right consumer persona Let me explain why this can be challenging. The mindset of the consumer varies from product to product. For instance, a customer purchasing a premium item like a Rolex watch is more interested in the product's elegance and appearance than its price. On the other hand, another consumer who wants to get a towel will think about if the item is worthwhile. To reach your chosen target group, you must project your brand in the right way. One of the simplest methods to fascinate your customers is using Amazon A+ content. 7. Throughout their buying cycle, target consumers How we reach more people on a tight budget is a common question from our businesses. Well, the solution is to create accurate listings. I've always observed that brands, in particular, get fixated on employing high-volume or branded keywords by sellers. They are reducing their customer base at this point. When a person is considering purchasing a product, their searches start general and get more focused as they approach closer to doing so. For instance, a person would type "running shoes" into the search bar on Amazon to look for running shoes. He inputs search terms like "running shoes for guys," "running shoes for hard surfaces," and "running shoe combo" as he selects what kind of shoes he wants to buy. Thus, for conversions, long-tail keywords are your best bet. Consider including them in your product listings. 8. Conduct Back-Keyword Research It could be a little challenging at first, but you should try this exercise. Additionally, it is advisable to strive to get a reflection of the keyword research of each rival as well as an overall one if you want to conduct a genuinely accurate study of your competitors on Amazon. You can easily locate the terms on which people concentrate the spotlight among all the components of the previous point (titles, descriptions, reviews, etc.), but other less labour-intensive methods can also be helpful. You can search using an ASIN or keywords with several browser add-ons and programmes. We entered the term "body pillow" in the browser search bar and chose the US market to demonstrate how it functions. We will have up to 5009 options in a moment. You must complete the checkout to view all the results, however, we've provided a sampling of some of the more pertinent ones, including: - A neck pillow - Cover for a body pillow - A pregnancy body cushion - Pregnancy body pillow And even others that don't directly derive but stand for ideas we should incorporate into our listing texts and advertising strategies. In this instance - Whole-body - Case for a pillow - Formed body - Body foam From this point on, we will have a clearer understanding of how they operate. By comparing this keyword research with our own, we may determine which words we have in common but disagree with, which words are uniquely ours, and which ones they use but we do not. Then, we can start working on optimising our listings for both our advertising strategy and organic positioning. Conclusion I always keep a watch on the listing quality scores of my rivals, but beating them in the organic ranks is not enough. To beat my rivals organically and provide a better alternative when attacking their listings using Product Targeting Ads on Sponsored Products, I prefer to keep an eye on their pricing both inside and outside of Amazon and, in particular, track any reductions in ranking. The stock of your rivals is another essential thing to watch. It's time to attack them with Sponsored Products PAT and their branded keywords on Sponsored Brands / Products + the backend keywords if they run out of stock or are ready to do so. At the end of the day, Amazon wants to see purchases generated by keywords from prospective buyers. Consequently, you must become an expert in keyword research. Read the full article

[constructionaccounting]

490: How To Raise Your Prices: Value Over Price

This Podcast Is Episode Number 4890, And It's About How To Raise Your Prices: Value Over Price

As prices continue to rise, you've likely noticed that your cost of doing business has increased as well. After all, the main point of any business is to make money, and you can't do that if you're no longer breaking even. 

  It's inevitable in every industry – you must raise your prices to continue making a profit. Many factors decide how much to charge, all of which are dynamic. The rising cost of goods, inflation, and a changing market are just a few reasons why any small business has to reevaluate its rates regularly to stay competitive (and to stay in business).

  If you're overworked and overbooked, you're undercharging. People know your worth and are fighting for your time. It's time to increase your prices!

  Although there's a lot to consider when raising your rates, make a point to reevaluate every six months. Here are some tips on how to increase your prices and how to tell your customers.

  Accept that you have to do it

  It's a daunting task to consider raising your prices, as the danger of losing customers will be front of mind.

  But the bottom line is this: you cannot deliver quality service if you're not charging enough. It's that simple.

  If you're spinning your wheels trying to make up for the difference, you'll lose customers anyway. You won't be able to deliver the excellent service you're known for if you're constantly overworked trying to find profits elsewhere. 

  Raising your prices is part of doing business. It doesn't make good financial sense to swallow the cost to appease your customers. With that in mind, know that you're doing the right thing for yourself and your clients.

  Understand what's costing you more

  At least once per year, consider what your business costs. Check which products or services are making money and which aren't. Then take it a step further and pinpoint the breakeven position for each area.

  You will then be able to decide how much more you need to make to be profitable and comfortable. Evaluate all avenues – supplies, staff wages, bills, rent and utilities, training, etc. Doing this regularly lets you see which areas cost you more over time. Those that cost you more will likely benefit from a price increase. 

  Decide your approach

  A blanket increase would make sense if costs went up across the board. However, if you find that only some of your services now cost more to operate, it might be a good idea to increase only those prices. Your customers will appreciate only the necessary cost increases being passed on.

  Gauge the satisfaction level of your current customers

  If you know that your clients are happy and believe they're getting excellent service, they will be happy to continue paying for that. They won't bat an eye when you inform them of your increase.

  But, if they're not currently satisfied, a price increase will be an excellent excuse for them to leave. This isn't necessarily a bad thing–some of the lost profits from those customers leaving will be made up by the price increase to other customers. And clients that aren't happy could become long-term headaches for your company.

  Give a lot of warning

  If you offer subscription programs (such as system inspections and routine maintenance for homeowners), email your client base three months before your planned increase to let them know your plans. State the reasons for you're raising your prices now.

  Emphasize that this change is necessary to continue delivering the high-quality service they're used to. Giving enough notice to your clients, so they have time to react and prepare shows you respect them.

  Send a personal message to long-time clients or ones that hold significant accounts. This shows them that you care about their reaction and gives you a chance to listen to their concerns.

  Keep the communication lines clear

  Most clients will be OK with your price increase. Some will likely have questions, concerns, or even complaints. Focus on answering their questions.

  This isn't a hard sell – it's a discussion. Because you've done your research, your increase is completely justified. As you take the time to chat with your clients, they will come to understand this. Remember, you aren't asking their permission to increase your prices. You're letting them know of the decision to do so. 

  Communicate your value

  Don't be shy about bringing up what you've delivered in the past. By reminding them of the great service you've provided already, they're likely to come around.

  It's a great idea to provide options if they're still hesitant, but don't give away more than you can. For example, you could offer to keep their prices the same but trim the services included for that price. You can find a middle ground that works for both of you – alleviating their cost and your workload.

  Final thoughts

  Once you've researched and informed everyone, go ahead confidently with your price increase. You'll find that you can keep your customer base while keeping up with the increased cost of doing business. By doing so, you'll be able to continue providing your clients with excellent service.

  If you're already in regular contact with your clients, the conversation around rising prices will be much less awkward. Remember, the price is how much your clients are paying for your service, but the value has no monetary measurement; it's what the consumer believes your services are worth, and you are worth it. Contractors like you deserve to be wealthy because you bring value to other people's lives.

About The Author:

Sharie DeHart, QPA is the co-founder of Business Consulting And Accounting in Lynnwood, Washington. She is the leading expert in managing outsourced construction bookkeeping and accounting services companies and cash management accounting for small construction companies across the USA. She encourages Contractors and Construction Company Owners to stay current on their tax obligations and offers insights on how to manage the remaining cash flow to operate and grow their construction company sales and profits so they can put more money in the bank. Call 1-800-361-1770 or sharie@fasteasyaccounting.com

Check out this episode about Contractors Marketing - Accounting - Production (M.A.P.)!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Understanding /r/wallstreetbets

There is no shortage of takes about what's going on with Gamestop (and other surging stocks), Robinhood and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, many of them contradictory - at least on the face of them. But I think it's possible for most of these takes to be right. Here's how.

First you need to understand the underlying mechanics of the story. Stock markets are fundamentally a way of making bets, including bets on the outcome of other peoples' bets, and bets on the outcomes of *those* bets.

All this complexity creates lots of exploitable opportunities. Some of these opportunities are considered legitimate and are given respectable names like "arbitrage." Others are considered illegitimate, and are called disreputable things like "stock manipulation."

A hypothetical Martian observing all this through a telescope could not tell you which kinds of bets were honest and which were dishonest, because the difference isn't about any objective standard, but rather, about power.

The strategies of powerful people are legit, while the strategies of their would-be dethroners are not legit. Sometimes, even outright frauds are OK if they're done by people with enough power.

If your scam pays out quickly enough, you can sometimes parlay the resulting cash into retrospective legitimization, so even the strategies of the out-group can end up being retconned as legit, if they're successful enough.

That's why Amway isn't illegal: Betsy DeVos's father-in-law was simultaneously the boss of Amway and head of the US Chamber of Commerce, and Gerry Ford was his Congressman, who was then elevated to president in time to legalize its business model.

To understand the Gamestop rise, you have to understand a couple of different kinds of bets.

"Shorting": this is a bet that a stock will go down. There's a complicated backstory to how you make this bet, but it doesn't matter.

The thing to know here is that shorting a stock can make you rich...if the stock goes down. But if the stock goes up, you lose money. There's not really any limit to how much you can lose here.

Every time the stock goes up, the shorts have to pony up more money to keep their bet alive (in the hopes that it will go down again later), or they have to take their losses, pay out the winner of the bet and surrender any chance of winning later.

Shorting isn't just a bet on someone else's failure - it's a way to fund bullshit-detection. If you know (or suspect) that a company is lying about its prospects, you can bet against it.

Shorts fund a lot of research into defective products and scammy businesses, because they win when bad companies are exposed and their stocks go down. Some of the scary security research you read about bad IoT software is funded by shorts.

That's why habitual bullshitters like Elon Musk *hate* shorts. Musk leads a cult of credulous worshippers who buy whatever he's selling. Shorts make bets that Musk's cultists will get deprogrammed. Musk uses this to sharpen his cultists' resolve: "they want us to fail!"

"Options": many different bets get lumped in as "options" but for the purposes of this discussion, buying an option means buying the right to buy stocks later. The people who sell you the option usually go out and buy the stock right away so they'll have it to sell.

"Front-running": Cheating. Front-runners insert themselves into transactions by spying. If I know that Alice is buying a bunch of Bob's shares, I can snap them up a millisecond before Alice gets there, mark them up, and sell to Alice at a profit.

"Retail investor": An "average joe" who buys stocks from a brokerage like Robinhood.

"Institutional investor": Hedge funds, private equity funds, pension funds, index funds, investment banks, etc. Whales and sharks.

"High-frequency trader": A bot. Someone (usually an institutional investor) who uses an algorithm to buy and sell shares very quickly. HFTs might buy a stock and sell it less than a second later (when they're front-running, for example).

With that all out of the way, here's what seems to be going on. Reddit's r/wallstreetbets is a "retail investor" forum of average joes, many of them angry at the scammy, evil stuff that the big institutional investors get up to.

Their grievances are mixed: some are angry that big investors have figured out how to destroy good businesses for money. Some are angry because *only* big institutionals get in on the action when that happens and average joes are locked out of those plays.

They are stuck at home, have little to spend their money on, and - critically - have access to "trading platforms" like Robinhood that let them buy and sell stocks without any fees (institutionals often have sweetheart deals like this, but average joes used to pay to play).

They're getting together to make money and to punish their enemies. The easiest enemies to punish are shorts, because if they push up a stock even a little, the shorts get pounded for millions of dollars.

If they can keep the stock up long enough, the shorts will give up and the average joes will collect their winnings. And the average joes are clever. They've figured out that they don't even have to buy the stocks to force the price up - they can buy cheaper options instead.

An option is a bet. The people on the other side of the bet usually buy the stocks they sell options on. If I buy an option to buy a stock from you and then the stock goes up, you have to go out and buy the stock and sell it to me at a loss.

If you're an option seller who thinks a stock will go up, you protect yourself by buying shares now.

Buying options is a cheap way to get someone else to buy a stock, which pushes the price up. If the price is going up, options sellers will snap up more stock.

There's two prominent versions of the Gamestop story. The first is that r/wallstreetbets represents so many angry average joes that they can "move markets" by buying unlikely shares, like Gamestop or AMC, and confound the markets.

https://marketsweekly.ghost.io/what-happened-with-gamestop/

The second story is that r/wallstreetbets has figured out a hack. They inflict asymmetric pain on shorts (a tiny gain for average joes is a huge wound to the sharks). By buying options, they can eke out tiny gains for a fraction of the price.

https://www.cnet.com/news/reddits-gamestop-stock-surge-is-a-terrifying-new-occupy-wall-street/

But there's a *third* story, and I think it's the most important one. That's Alexis Goldstein's account of what's going on with Robinhood and the institutional investors it's in bed with.

https://marketsweekly.ghost.io/what-happened-with-gamestop/

Recall that all of this is only possible because Robinhood lets average joes buy and sell stocks for free. How can Robinhood give away a service that costs it money and still stay in business? (Hint: They're not making it up in volume).

The answer is: surveillance. Robinhood partners with institutional investors and lets them spy on what the average joes are buying and selling. Sometimes, this is just "market intelligence" ("Hey, people like fidget spinners") but the main event is front-running.

If you're paying Robinhood to tell you what assets its customers are about to buy, you can go out and buy them up first and sell them for a profit to Robinhood's customers.

Or you can buy some of that asset up because you know its price will go up once Robinhood's customers orders are filled.

Or both.

Citadel Securities is Robinhood's main institutional investor partner. Founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, they combine tech (high-frequency trading), an "asset manager" (they spend other peoples' money) and a "market maker" (they sell things like options).

Citadel gets to see all those r/wallstreetbets buy orders before they're filled. They can fill some of those orders, making a profit. They can buy some of the same stock for themselves, making a profit. They can sell options, making a profit.

A little bit of this profit comes at the expense of average joes: if there wasn't a front-runner marking up the stocks they buy, the average joes would pay a little less. But the average joes are still profiting from the destruction of the shorts.

Citadel is merely taxing their winnings. The real losers here, though are Citadel's competitors, funds like Melvin Capital, who were seriously short on Gamestop and went bust thanks to all of this. Guess who bought Melvin at fire-sale prices? That's right, Citadel.

So the third story goes like this: there are a lot of average joes. They're numerous, pissed and smart. They move a lot of money against shorts and make it go farther thanks to the force-multiplier effect of options.

*Then* all this activity is multiplied again by Citadel, a fund that is no better (and no worse) than Melvin or the other targets of the average joes' wrath. Citadel's bots are triggered by the average joes' activity, which turns kilotons of damage into gigatons.

It's not clear whether the average joes know they're triggering Citadel's bots, or whether this is just Citadel's bet on frontrunning average joes paying off for Citadel. It's possible Citadel is the joes' patsy, and the joes are *also* Citadel's patsies.

It's also not clear whether Citadel - and its feuding cohort of competing finance-ghouls - can contain the storm. Maybe they profit off the average joes now, but the joes figure it out and turn their weapons on Citadel and the whole system later.

Remember, the "legitimacy" of a financial strategy isn't determined by its objective decency, but rather by the power of the people who deploy it. If the average joes can attain respectability, they may be legitimized.

But the road to legitimacy is rocky. Yesterday, the finance monopolist TD-Ameritrade halted trading on the stocks targeted by the average joes. Today, Robinhood followed suit. Maybe they fear that they can't control the monster they created?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254102/robinhood-gamestop-bloc-stock-purchase-amc-reddit-wsb

[beebubb]

William grossman: becoming a pasta

(also i mention my OC amari here but they're just friends and roommates here. No romantic things)(also this might be kinda long and I mention some stuff about my creepypasta AU so if you don't wanna be confused you can check it out!)

Like I mentioned in an old post, will and LJ went on a lot of self discovery adventures for Will.

It was always will's dream to become a popular killer like Jeff but sense he couldn't actually bring himself to kill someone, he would doubt himself a lot and would sometimes just be so upset or angry at himself

Will: maybe coming to the underworld was a mistake.. I shouldn't have come here...

LJ: come on bud! There's gotta be something here you're good at!

They had literally tried many things.

Will worked for a surgeon for literally a day before he got fired. He couldn't bring himself to dissect someone. Yes he had seen dead bodies before out on the street but he couldn't bring himself to be the one to actually commit to doing it

He also tried to be a bounty hunter/hitman but, ended up quitting immediately after he was told to kill a family

He even worked at a black market that was hiring someone to just care for the oragans they sold. It was going pretty well but, lets say it was will's first time seeing an actual beating human heart

Will: what else could I be good at?!? Everything here involves killing! And I can't even kill someone if it depended on my damn life...

LJ: you could still try for your dream of being a slender proxy!

Will: but being a proxy involves killing! Maybe I should just go back to the human world... I don't even have my mark! I didn't get a permanent smile like Jeff or red bleeding eyes like ben!

Amari: I don't have any cool marks either!

Will: but atleast you got skulls shapes on your eyes! I didn't get anything! Maybe I just wasn't meant to be here...

Amari hated seeing will so upset. She knew his dream was to work for slenderman, and obviously, she wanted him to achieve it. She got lucky and worked for him from time to time, so she was sure she could talk to slender and see if will had a chance.

How he met slenderman

Amari went to see her boss a few days later. AKA slenderman. She explained to him his situation and, he actually wanted to meet him!

Slenderman isn't judgemental like many in the underworld think he is. He can see potential in someone even at their lowest.

She obviously went to the apartment to tell will the good news

Amari: will! You aren't going to believe this but i talked to slenderman about you and....he wants to see you!

Will: what?!? Are you serious?!

Amari: yep!

Will: holy shit!! Let me take a quick shower then!

Will took a shower and once he was ready he followed amari to the slender mansion.

Once they got there, masky did the regular check for weapons on him (it's normal for them to check new people that go into slenderman's meeting room just to make sure of any weapons or suspicious items)

Will was calm but was holding in his inner fanboy.

"I can't believe I'm seeing slender's most valuable proxy!!! Holy shit!!!"

LJ wasn't all that excited sense he already knew pretty much every pasta and knew what it was like living in the mansion/manor.

LJ: "what a hassle...."

LJ wasn't really aware of all the dangers the proxies tried to prevent. He just saw it as a way to show off their wealth and to think they were better than others

Once they were clear, masky took them to the meeting room

Even if will wasn't sure if he could get a chance working with slenderman, there was one thing he was definetly certain of.

Get their autographs

No way he was gonna waste his visit to the slender mansion and NOT get their autographs.

Masky: you may go inside

Will: um....could i get your autograph please?

Masky: oh, yes

Will: yes!! *takes out a scrapbook he made* here!

Masky: *signs in* there

Will: thank you so much!!!

LJ: come on! You look like a dork!

Will: ok ok! And I'm not gonna waste my visit and not get their autographs *goes into the meeting room*

Once they got in they were immediately greeted by slenderman

"Glad you came here william, please, take a seat"

William was so excited by seeing slenderman in person but was also terrified about what he would think of him.

Will became really shy and nervous while talking

Slenderman: so i heard you were interested in working with me later on but you had a few doubts on your own abilities, could you tell me more?

Will: i um....*fidgeting with his fingers*

LJ: he wants to be a proxy but he has trouble actually killing someone. So we wanna know his chances of actually becoming one

Slenderman: ah I see, well I'll have to look at some other assets, do you have any school documents?

Will: *nods and takes out a folder with his school papers*

These kind of meetings were actually pretty common so slenderman already knew what to look for in school documents

Will's grades weren't that good tbh

He had many subjects he struggled with. On his report cards, pretty much every subject had D's and C's, and the occasional F's. Only is P. E he had a B.

Slenderman usually looked for atleast a B average

Though the only straight A's that will got, were in chemistry

Slenderman: I see you're proficient in chemistry, how come that's the only subject you get A's in?

Will: well um.... It's pretty much the only subject that I like....

Slenderman: may I ask what your under realm mark you for when you arrived here?

Will: i didn't get anything...

Slender seemed kinda surprised at his answer.

He opened up a locked drawer on his desk and took out a heavy book and went through the pages and stopped at one with a picture of a hand with lines

Slenderman: may I see your hand?

Will: uh... Sure? *shows him his hand*

Slenderman seemed really intrigued with will's hand.

LJ and Amari were extremely confused.

Amari knew pretty much the process of these type of meetings but when she was applying as an apprentice for slenderman, slender didn't ask to see her hand like he did with will

Once slender was done checking will's hand, he looked through more of his records

LJ: um.... So what do you think? He has a bit of potential right?

Slenderman seemed lost in though for a second but replied

"William, have you ever took any.... Magic classes or considered taking one?"

The three of them were surprised.

Like, magic? They knew that magic existed in the underworld but why would he think will would Want to study it?

Magic is a really complicated subject and depending on what element you were granted or want to control, it takes a lot of discipline and training and it is rarely recommended to the top students at the institution sense it was pretty much college level

LJ: why do you ask that?

Will: yeah I mean... I'm barely passing and I don't know if my grades are even good enough for me to graduate this year.

Slenderman: well i don't know how you didn't see this before but, look

Slenderman turned the book to their direction

LJ and amari were shocked

LJ: will you?!?

Will: *looking at the book and at his hand* wait....holy shi-i mean oh my god! I have powers?!

Slenderman: i looked through your records and i see you're part of the grossman family.

LJ: uh yeah he had a great grandpa but how does that explain this? He never had any sort of contact with magic

Slenderman: maybe not him exactly but, she did

Slenderman pulled out a picture from isaac's record folder (all demons and rulers from hell and the under realm have a record of their citizens) and pulled out the picture of a woman

Slenderman: she's ida grossman. Isaac grossman's great grandmother. She was killed for practising witchcraft. It would explain why will was granted magic here in the under realm.

LJ: sense he has this power, how come i never saw it before? I've been with him ever sense he was born!

Slenderman: well his power is still undeveloped sense he never had any proper training or took any classes. He has the mark on his hand but if he wants to actually use his abilities, he'll need to start practicing.

LJ now understood, and was happy for will

LJ: how can he start?

Slenderman: well,i have a proxy named sherry that knows about this, she could be will's tutor. Also I have been really interested in getting an apprentice with magical abilities but it has been difficult finding one, but if will wants to work with me then..

Slenderman took out an apprentice application

Slenderman: I could take him in as my personal sorcerer

LJ: well, what do ya say bud? Do you wan-

Will: yes!!!!!

Will didn't even think twice on his answer. Of course he wanted to work as slenderman's apprentice in magic.

He felt like his life had literally no direction but now everything was changing. He felt more confident than ever

LJ: do these classes have a price or somethin'?

Slenderman: it's usually 50 per class in a normal school but it depends if my proxy wants to charge for them or not sense she teaches them individually.

Will: oh....

Amari: ah don't worry i can pay for them!

Will: you don't gotta do that!

Amari: it's fine! You're my friend, we should help each other out

Slenderman: so I'm guessing that it's settled then?

Will: yeah!

Slenderman: alright then, I'll just need a signature of your parent or guardian on the application

LJ gave his signature

Slenderman: thank you. Well you're ready to go. All you need to do now is finish your last month at the institution and once you're done, I'll have amari bring you here again to start your training.

Will: yes! Thank you! Um one more thing, could I get your autograph sir?

Slenderman: oh yes of course!

Once slenderman signed his notebook they thanked him and were free to go

Who knew that will was more special than many thought he was.

I hope you guys liked this! I'll be making more parts!

Also i know will wasn't really developed in the Creeps comic so I kinda let myself create his character more.

Also this was inspired by a headcanon I saw where will was granted powers so I wanted to include that into his character.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - The Delta Paradox. Chapter 1: Deceit

Rumor is the outbreak spreading like fire around the world is somehow Dr. Morbius’ fault: people turned into monsters after getting bitten by the ones already ravaged beyond the irreversible mutation. The last news broadcasted four months ago suggested not all creatures are mindless beasts, a few might still remember who they are and The Joker is about to find out if the story is true.

“Dad…” you whisper and point at the box on the shelves. “I found some peas.”

The Joker turns around and silently walks your way, signaling you to fill up your backpack while he patiently waits for his turn.

The King of Gotham and his 23 year old daughter are scavenging the convenience store on Halsey Street for supplies: food was running low and they had to come out of the bunker in order to acquire basic necessities.

It’s hard to see in the darkness with the tiniest flashlight since they can’t risk being detected.

“Did you find water?” you mumble under your breath.

“No.”

“Dammit, we only have six bottles left,” you sigh, upset at his disclosure. “Should we raid the mall too?”

The Joker covers your mouth, carefully listening.

You can’t discern much until an unnerving screech echoes in the air followed by others in the next second.

“Ssstttt,” J removes the restrain and you clutch to his arm, scared to death.

“Dad…”, you gulp at the commotion happening in the distance: the creatures are probably hunting and you are not willing to become the prey.

“What do we do?” you barely utter and The Clown shakes his head, worried.

“Let’s use the sewers entrance by the dumpster to make it passed the dangerous radius; it’s still open from last time we were here.”

“Ok…” Y/N quietly agrees.

J adds the rest of the containers to his rucksack and lifts it up when he accidentally knocks off a light bulb: the fragile glass shatters to pieces and the two of you stare at each other terrified for a few moments.

The turmoil outside immediately intensifies as The Joker urges:

“Run!”

The panicked Y/N follows her father and she can’t even hear what he’s saying over the deafening roars that seem to come from above the building. Suddenly, the mad man turns and gives you a violent push against the loading dock exit; it’s so unexpected you stumble and before you have the possibility to process what’s going on, J locks it.

“Dad?!” your eyes pop at the small, broken window just to distinguish him backing away. “Dad?!” you start crying. “What are you doing?! Let me in!” The Princess pleads with her parent.

The Joker bites his lip, conflicted at his desire to survive no matter the cost: even if the price to pay is his own daughter.

“Daddy?!” Y/N sobs, petrified at his behavior. “Please?...”

“Better you than me,” he grumbles and runs in the opposite direction, covering his ears when your screams reach him. J rushes out of the shop and drops in the sewer, three monsters already on his trail attempting to grab him; yet they fail because thankfully these beasts are so much larger than the humans they used to be: they can’t fit through the narrow gap The Joker used.

Your father keeps navigating the convoluted catacombs in the darkness while the dim flashlight fails to warn him of the obstacle floating in front of him. He staggers on the dead dog and plunges in the disgusting waters, instantly resurfacing after the initial shock of how bad it stinks. J crawls to near the concrete wall, panting up a storm succeeding the whole ordeal and it hits him: Y/N didn’t pursue.

How could she? The Clown sacrificed his daughter in order to save himself and her agony still resonate in his mind. She was brutally ambushed without any chance of escaping her fate: The Joker made sure of that when he forced her out of the mini-market.

The same daughter that came back for him at the Penthouse when it was clear things are going downhill - no other gang member ever returned; the same daughter that accompanied him in their perilous searching trips as it all went to shit; the same daughter that took care of him when he got sick in the bunker and risked her life in order to bring her father antibiotics; the same daughter that was the only family he had left on this God forsaken planet.

And now she’s gone.

The Joker is all alone like he was always meant to be: nothing can withstand his poison.

**************

8 Months Later

The King of Gotham sneaks in the blackness with precious cargo: tonight was a lucky one. He found soda, crackers and peanuts at a vending machine inside the mall. The road to the bunker is not a short one and he has to be alert; food is scarce and each time he has to venture further and further to find needed items which is why he’s still roaming at this late hour.

Surprisingly calm atmosphere in this neighborhood; J saw a lot of creatures on McCormick Avenue and then an infested Main Boulevard made him backtrack and take this path. It was the correct call because his progress has been steady: moving in shadows has developed into a skillful talent.

He abruptly stops noticing movement blocking his route West of 5th Street. The Joker had no idea it’s swarming with the infected also.

J barely notices something splattering at his feet and freezes: it’s difficult to discern what it is but he has a vague concept. He looks up only to see one of the winged scouts landing on the broken light pole whilst drooling and sniffing the air. The Joker’s body is stiff, his senses sharpened to the maximum: what is he supposed to do? Try to leave? That’s an enormous risk and motion could unleash a chain reaction among the beasts if the one above identifies the helpless individual. Stay? The threat would be equally menacing.

The high pitch snarl belched by the demon’s throat makes him inhale in fear: was he spotted? Or is this merely a power display from the crazed predator?

The Joker feels there’s something behind him and before he can act a sharp pain in his forearm makes him yell. Another bite in his leg makes him lose balance and he collapses to the ground, unable to defend himself from the hoard. The burning sensation is taking over completely: the creatures tear his flesh apart and he passes out without having the strength to shout for help anymore.

*************

The Clown opens his eyes and rapidly blinks since the sunlight is hard to endure.

“Ugh…” he groans and rolls on his side on the concrete pavement.

Everything hurts, including the brain: it’s as if someone drilled holes and he can’t concentrate or form thoughts.

He aims to lift his torso off the walkway unsure why it’s strenuous to accomplish such a simple task; J doesn’t register the reason why is the different anatomy he now has: scaly, gray skin, long, distorted arms with sharp claws, inverted knees and membranous toes. The wings certainly don’t add to his ability to sport the same agility he was blessed with while still a person.

He finally manages to gather himself up, surprised to experience an odd sensation: The Joker is so much taller after his mutation and everything crushes down once the hideous reflection shown in the partially broken glass belonging to “Macy’s” department store glares back at him.

“Ahhh!” J blurs out alongside an uncanny roar emerging from his transmuted vocal cords. The frantic sound gets the attention of beasts in his vicinity, then they ignore him because he’s one of them.

“Fuck…” he mumbles in disbelief at their reaction, grateful they didn’t attack.  

The Joker’s raspy breath scores big with a creature nearby though.

Apparently a female due to her red orbs, she’s approaching the former human with a certain restrain.

The Joker would love to bail: unless he can control the horror of what’s happening to him in a few moments, he might get out of there in one piece.

The curious monster is inches away and J had nothing better to do than articulate:

“… Do you… understand me?”

“Grrrrrrr…” the female sneers, unraveling her fangs.

“Y/N… is that…is that you?” The Joker tosses the question out there for the lack of a better plan.

No answer, just a low howl that makes a few males digging in rubble unhappy: why is the group’s favorite displaying interest in the newcomer?

They shriek and emerge more and more agitated, drawing the attention of others in the proximity. The displeased attitude seems to elevate the mood in a negative direction to the point of having a large flock landing on the same street too.

“Crap…” The Joker assesses his situation and it’s not good. “Shoo!” he gently gives the female a nudge and she coos as her distorted fingers touch his grotesque face. Nevertheless, her gesture unlocks the gates of hell: the female’s keen dart towards the unfortunate Clown with the sole purpose of finishing him off. Competition is not tolerated from a rookie and that’s how The Joker is perceived by the mindless crowd--a threat to the hierarchy.

A loud, eerie scream covering all others makes the murderous bunch halt in their tracks: a humongous female leading the group that arrived moments ago is making them retreat. She keeps shoving them and growling while followed by a huge specimen: definitely The Alpha Male with his yellow eyes and dominant figure that don’t allow disobedience.

The party showing The Joker affection gives up on her advances as you stand in front of your father, not necessarily excited about the encounter.

“Dad?...” you smell the air out of habit.

“… … Y… Y/N?... …” The Joker stammers at the inexplicable revelation. “You… You’re alive??!!”

“If you consider this being alive.”

“Delta, we have to go soon!” one of your fighters announces. “They might snap again!”

Your parent is baffled and you bother to enlighten him a bit:

“I’m part of a coven made of turned humans still self-aware. You’re lucky we flew by and saw you. I felt you were born but I didn’t know it was you until I sniffed you. I wished I knew so I won’t waste my time!!!!” the bitter statement brings to life past memories. “Let’s go!” you raise your voice.

“We’re not taking him with us?!” The Alpha Male inquires, baffled. “He’s self -aware!”

“Trust me, we don’t need someone like him amidst us!” you spread your wings and prepare to fly.

“Y/N… “ The Joker gulps. “Can I come?... Please?... I don’t want to die here.”

Y/N ignores his plea and angrily replies:

“Better you than me!”

How can he justify his behavior in these circumstances? It’s impossible to request forgiveness when you’re at an obvious loss regarding your daughter.

“I’m sorry I did what I did, ok… Pumpkin?”

“I am NOT your Pumpkin!! I am Delta!!!” Y/N mutters.

“Huh?” the clueless King inquires and your obvious disapproval suggests you hate where the conversation is headed.

“Delta is more valuable than any of us and we must protect her at all costs until we find Morbius,” one of your companions gives away details you don’t care your father knowing about. “She can do incredible…”

“Enough!!” you cut him off. “We’re leaving!”

“What… what things?...” The Joker attempts to distract you from the imminent departure.  

“None of your business!” you float in the air, the other 40 sets of wings following you while he is left behind with the horde that made him an outcast: brainless monsters already clustering around once more in order to punish his transgression.

“Hey!!!” The Alpha Male glides on top of The Joker. “Delta said you can come!”

“Really?” hope flourishes in his heart.

“Hurry up before they shred you to pieces!”

“I don’t know how to fly!” J shouts.

“Don’t be an idiot! Move your shoulder blades!”

Your father would normally go ballistic at such affront but he actually ignores the disrespectful sentence due to the insane events leading to today’s reunion.

What other choice does he have besides taking advantage of this unique opportunity?

The Joker clumsily bumps into a trash bin and finally ascends towards the blue skies trying to keep up with the flock.

His daughter might be a mystery now but one thing is undeniable: he would rather suffer a thousand deaths before abandoning her again.

 Also read: Masterlist

https://diyunho.tumblr.com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

You can also follow me on Ao3 and wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho

[undercoverwizardninjaturtle]

A ROTTMNT Fanfiction: The Lucky One Chapter 1

Word Count: 4137

Summary: Leo has never considered himself to be unlucky, but when meets a young rabbit samurai wielding a bokken he wonders if luck is all its cracked up to be

Pairings: Whats zero times zero? MORE ZERO

[1]“Are you Miyamoto Usagi?”

 Those were the first words Katsuichi had ever said to him. At the time he had been a small child just shy of five years and half drowned by a rain storm determined to finish him off. The tree he had found refuge under was barely doing its job of keeping him somewhat dry. The storm had drove him to seek out shelter after a puddle, one that had failed to drown him had taken his sandal as collateral.

 Truth be told a wiser person wold of turned back, even a stupider person would of decided to go back. But there was nothing left for him back in the village. Except for his fathers grave and the pitying eyes of well meaning villagers.

Truth be told, any one fo them would of taken him in and he was sure he’d have a happy life with them.

 But to be thought of as a burden, even as young as he was, was unbearable.  

 That was the reason he didn’t answer immediately. He thought maybe one of the villagers had sent the man after him, but at the moment he was too tired to lie. All he could do was nod before pulling his knees under his chin o help preserve some warmth

 “There’s a lot of people worried about you little one.”

 “I’m not going back.” Usagi had been sure of that just as he had been sure he’d never have a say in the matter. His numb body and spirit had nothing left in him.

 There was a shuffling coming from the samurai in front of him,  but rather then drag him away by his ears, the samurai settled by his side ,sitting with his back to the tree. Curiosity got the better of Usagi and he finally glanced to the stranger.

 He had seen samurai before, his father had been one, but none like this. A tall lion with long red hair and matching beard that barely gives room for his eyes and mouth, wearing a for black silk kimono and a dark blue happi. Both were finer then any clothing he had ever seen but well cared for.

For a moment the two sat in silence, with nothing but the rain to fill the silence. Then the samurai spoke “I am sorry about your father. When I received word of his passing,, I cam as quick as I could.”

 At the time Usagi could only look at the lion samurai in confusion, he was sure he hand known all his fathers friends, “how did you know him?”

 “I  knew him from many years ago, . I made a promise that if anything happened to him I would look after you.”

 “I don’t want another father. I liked the one I had.”

 “As you should. You are a faithful son. You will be my student. Nothing more nothing less.”

 Usagi looked down to the ground. The rain had continued its onslaught since the samurai had joined him, and at this point it almost seemed like the world was drowning.

 What chance did he have other wise?

What choice did he have?

 Taking his silence as a answer ,the samurai  rose to his feet and Usagi with him. If he had known how far they’d be walking, he would of gone back for his sandal. But he kept silent. Through years of training, of living in isolation, and everything he kept silent.

 He would never allow himself to become a burden  

                                                                                 (#)(#)\/(#)(#)

Ten years later

  “Alright, you two, what are the rules?”

 Leo rolled his eyes, “I don’t know, ask Don he was listening.” He could hear Hueso grinding his teeth together but couldn’t be bothered to look up from Miscord, “Right D?” His brother was now giving him the same unamused look but he made sure to give him a smile before looking back to his phone, “Right?”

 “Yeah.”Don looked back to Hueso,” The rules are: Don’t’ leave Hueso’s side, don’t annoy Hueso, don’t’ say anything to anyone but Hueso. And don’t let Leo talk to anyone even Hueso.”

 That brought him back, “What?! Hey!” Leo glared at the skeleton, “I don’t remember that one.”

 “You didn’t remember any of them that’s the point.” Hueso jabbed a finer in his face,’ You didn’t even remember your portal sword. That I told you explicitly to bring”

  Leo puffed up his cheeks before crossing his arms, trying to ignore Donnie smirking at him , “Look I just wont talk to anyone.” He clearly lied, Ok, so he had left his sword implanted in Dad’s armchair, it wasn’t’ because  it was huge, bulky and tired of carrying it around (who could be sick of carrying around a giant portal sword that was almost bigger then most of his friends)but for other reasons that he didn’t have to justify to anyone, “I didn’t know we’d be going to the Mystic City! You’re the ones who supposed to have those toppings! I figured the most dangerous thing we’d be doing is

 “It is not my fault my restaurant ran out of those toppings hours ago and the only way to get more is front the market. And almost every time you go anywhere in the Mystic City you end up being chased by a mob.”

 “I thought Karlos picked up your groceries from the Market?” Donnie asked from disinterest, “and wait on tables, and deliver food.”

 “I need to get that kid a raise.” Hueso said to himself, “And apparently he’s got a weird form of rabies and tetanus  so he’s taking some time off. That is why if you REALLY want those toppings wer can only get them here, in the Mystic City Farmers Market. Now I will ask you two this ONCE. Is this all worth the hassle?”

 Leo glanced at his brother, and this time Donnie actually made eye contact, albeit nervous eye contact , with him. Making a quick agreement  as Don held his phone up higher and switching over to Raph’s number. Leo ducked in closer to be in the video lens. “Um, Mabye its better to show you?” Don gave him clear ‘the hell are you thinking?!’ Look before rolling his eyes back at him and pulling up his phone and pressing on Raph’s number, their brothers phone only rang for a moment before Raph’s desperate face filled the screen, “Don thank god where are you?! Do you have the toppings!? Are you outside!? Are you coming in!? Are you calling to tell me you’re in the kitchen and you’re about the bring it out?!”

‘Heeeyyy buddy.”  Leo squished his face by Don’s so he could be in frame, “Just want to check in on you, hows our sick wittle brover?”

 Raph’s face, which had been young and full of hope a week earlier fell further (Leo noted a plate going flying behind his head, “just checking in?!” Are you crazy?! Do you know what happens when I turn my back on Mikey-“ Raph gave a shriek and dropped the phone, in the background Leo could hear him yelling,” JUST PLAY DEAD POPS! MIKEY PUT THE FRIDGE DOWN!”  It took several seconds before Raph came back into view, judging by the wood behind Leo guessed he had crawled under a table, “Listen to me right NOW. Mikey’s already taken Dad hostage and is dominating the living room. He’s trying to conquer the kitchen next and I don’t know how much longer I can hold him off! My barricade isn’t  going to hold off forever!”

 “Michelangelo is about as intimidating as a wet kitten,” Hueso paused, “Wait, he threw the fridge-“

 Raph gave another shriek before he disappeared from sight followed by a dead tone.  Don put his phone away, “That’s why we need the toppings. Mikey has had a stomach flu all week and hasn’t been able to eat anything other then gluten free dry granola bars. If we don’t give him what he wants, he’s probably going to end up a orphan and a only child.”

  Hueso pinched his brow taking a few steps away cursing in Spanish. Leo could only catch a few snippets, of what he was saying but he was pretty sure Hueso was cursing him out. He couldn’t help but sigh and drop his head on Don’s shoulder watching the Yokai passing by with disinterest. He had heard Hueso mention the Mystic City Farmers Market a few times, normally with scorn and a complaint about “the price of Basilisk Cheese” or something. Hueso finally straightedges, out brushed his hands down the front of his suit and turned to look at them with a deep breath,”alright, but again follow my rules, don’t annoy me and we’ll be out before blood worm hour in the Pizza Restaurant.”

 Leo wasn’t sure he wanted to know what ‘blood worm’ hour was all about. But Hueso  was already walking into the crowd, (“don’t wander off!” Hueso yelled)  He gave his brother a shove on his battle shell to keep in him front , “Hey D?” He started, “I know I already asked you this, but are you going to be ok? If you can handle this I’ll just go with Hueso alone.”

“I’m not letting you go alone,I just.” Don took a deep meditative breath pressing his palms together, “We could of avoided this whole thing if we had just left the Lair on time.”

 “I know, I’m sorry.” He could admit fault sometimes. He just did always like doing it, “We’ll do this as quick as possible. In, out, and I’ll make it up to you I promise. I’ll buy you...” Leo though for a moment, bribery really was the best wa to deal with a stressed Don, “Three Jupiter Jim comics of your choosing.”

 Don gave him a long look, and for a sec Leo though this brother was too off with him to take his offer but Don sighed, ‘It’s fine I have my noise cancelling headphones, now immune to mystic energy, and three back ups. Plus my special noise canceling bandana Dad made me so I’m fine. Let’s just go.’”

 “Great! That’s my man!” Leo did a half skip sideways through the portal for the usual flash of blue before he ended  up on th either side a second later in a crowd of Yokai with Donnie by his side a a second later. Thankfully it wasn’t crowded as he was used to, but like any other time he had gone to the Underground city it was  the sheer number of different Yokai caught him off guard. None of them gave a glance to the two turtles that appeared out of no where. Leo made sure to check on his brother for a moment, “Ready D? Are you ok for splitting up? Who can ever find the creeepy toppings first owes the other five comics!” Rather then wait for Don to verify (or rightly accuse him of trying to weasel out of paying his comics) Leo ducked off.

 The last few times he had been here he didn’t really have the chance to look around stalls too closely. Now he could see that most of them held strange trinkets, like necklaces made necklaces out  of eyeballs and  flasks containing different swirling colors. And a crap ton of weapons that made him feel like he was in a ‘shop’ in a video game store.

 There was a bump on his shoulder and for a moment his vision was filled with starkingly white fur, “Sumimasen,”said the slightly shorter figure before moving past. Leo barely gave it another thought until something white  hanging of its head pricked him in the eyes, “ow!” Leo rubbed his eyes before half glaring at the person who passed him, “Long ass ears. “ he cursed lightly, was that a rabbit? He glanced for a moment. Yup a bright white rabbit who was already giving him no second thought.

 “Looking for something Kappa?”

 Leo drew his attention  to the vendor he had been getting ready to talk to, who somehow had more mouths then head, “Yeah buddy  my bone man, me and my bro are looking for some like weird worms with eyes that normally goes on pizza? You seen anyone who sells it?”

 The Vendor twisted its mouths for a moment, “Uh, not sure what a pizza is.”

 He narrowed his eyes, “You have a infinite amount of mouths and NONE of them have eaten pizza? You lead a. A sad life “ Don gave a half nod of agreement before going back to his wrist tablet. There was a yank on his mask and he found himself Stumbling back into Hueso’s face, “Why am I not surprised you ignored everything I said?”

 “Because its my charm?”Leo said with a big smile. Hueso opened his mouth, probably to tell him off or to threaten to drag him before something behind Leo caught his eye, “oh boy.” He said with the same tone he’d use whenever Leo enter the pizza joint. Leo turned around, glancing around trying to find the source of his concern. There was a Pirate Puppy Yokai, a Cat Cavalier Yokai, that white rabbit looking at a booth, and a yokai that was just a eyeball wearing a fedora. He was about to ask who Hueso was talking about but his eyes were fixated on the rabbit, “You mean Bugs Bunny over there?”

 “Karlos mentioned seeing a white rabbit the last few times he came here. He’s always here by himself which is not a good idea.”

 “Why not? We’re here by ourselves, and we’re fine. And you just said Karlos comes here alone.”

 “Its is not the same, you’re here with me. Trust me if you were alone you would of already had your shell stolen. And Karlos only comes down here on days I designate. As I said its not always safe here-“

 “What are you looking at boy!?” A loud voice shouted over the already loud crowd.

 The rabbit jumped nearly a foot in the air (literally and figuratively) not a that Leo could blame him, the yelling Yokai was some sort of Cyclops Octopus Yokai with fat arms and giant bat ears and looked as though he was the owner of the booth the rabbit had been standing at, “You’ve been here five times in the past two days, are you going to buy something or what?!”

“I-I-I um” the rabbit stuttered out before his arms magnetized to his side and he bowed in a Almost robotic manner,” I’m sorry please forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause you problems-“

“You’re causing me problems by taking up space!” The yokai suddenly grabbed the rabbit by the front of his shirt and yanked him close to his  face in a way Leo could tell he was very uncomfortable with, “Are you trying to steal from me boy!?It’d be the last thing you ever-“

 “OI.” Hueso shouted, finally shoving past a Yokai made of Play-do, “Berbi quit acting like a thug.”

 The Yokai, apparently Berbi, swung to look at him, “I know a thief when I see once Hueso. I’m not  a idiot.”

 “You have glaucoma Berbi, you think everyone is a thief.  Now go eat a candy bar and quit scaring off your real costumers.”

 Berbi glared hard Hueso with snarling broken teeth, but after a moment he flinch and  looked away with a snarl shoving the rabbit away  stomping back behind the curtain behind his booth. When Hueso started walking Leo followed him on autopilot. He was used to seeing Hueso dealing gang members and Big Mama he had almost forgot Hueso was capable of as much intimidation as anyone. Now that they were closer, he could see the the rabbit was his age, if a bit shorter. Wearing a short blue untucked kimono with a white obi and black pants (they were called hakamas right) and some sort of samurai sandals his ears tied back in a pony tail his fur was so fluffy that some of it stuck out on his scalp,  his bright pink eyes looking to them in concern as though he wasn’t sure what to do or expect from them. Instead he did as he did before and bowed, “Thank you, I’m sorry for causing you trouble as well.”He said with a soft Japanese accent

 “Do not thank me, are you here alone? Where are your parents?”

 The rabbit looked at him in surprise,”I-I’m not, I don’t-“ he looked away for a moment as though in shame

“If you don’t’ have parents, then I’ll take you to one of the shelters nearby.”

 “I’m-“ the rabbit froze, “I have a home. I’m just not there.”

 Hueso looked him hard,  causing the rabbit to avert his eyes. Leo could just remember that it was supposedly a sign of respect. Right? Atleast according to the Samurai Sam movies he had watched (not nearly as good as Jupiter Jim or Lou Jitsu but still enjoyable). He took a moment to glance around, don was no where in sight, hopefully finding the toppings they needed. They had a good enough signal  that Don would text him if he needed him-“

“Fine, go home boy. Before someone less pleasant then Berbi decides you’re a thief. You’re drawing too much attention to yourself and here that is dangers out. So go home rabbit,  go back to your family And I better not find you here again.” Hueso turned on his step and walked away. Leo turned after him, looking over his shoulder at the rabbit who was still staring at his feet, but the pain coming off him was enough even for him to notice, “dude, bone man wasn’t that a little mean?”

“No. Not mean. Just harsh. This isn’t a safe place for children to be hanging gout alone. Some yokai who come from neighboring villages like to make a bet out of coming here and seeing what they can get away with, I doubt he’s one of them but he needs to go where he belongs where he can be safe. IF my son were in this situation i would want someone to give him the same advice.’

Sometimes Leo forgot that Hueso was a dad, he had never actually met HUeso’s son, but in the few times he spoke of him and judging by the photo on the wall he loved his son dearly. Which was in no way a bad thing. But He looked back over his shoulder at the rabbit again. His whole body slumped as he turned and disappeared around the corner.

 He wasn’t sure what drove him to do it, but Leo stopped long enough to duck behind a large platypus yokai. Hopping Hueso wouldn’t notice his disappearance for too long. He glanced at his phone, Donnie had sent him a picture of some Creepy Toppings, atleast he had found some. They’d be gone in a few minutes but he didn’t’ want to leave yet.

  Leo ducked the way he had seen the rabbit go, with such a thick crowd he could only guess that the rabbit had ducked between two small buildings. The rabbit was ducked in the buildings shadow, leaning his forehead against the wall with a shadow cast over his face. Leo couldn’t tell if he was frowning or what, and a wiser person might of decided to leave it  be

 and yet

 Leo waved “Hey! Bunny man!” grinning as the rabbit once again metaphorically and physically jumped a foot in the air, looking as though his fur was on end, looking at him as though he was a car insurance salesman and not a overly cheerful rabbit, “what do you want?!” the rabbit asked not rudely, “I’m leaving just please leave me alone-“

 “Don’t let Bone man bother you, he’s a sweetheart. I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”

 The rabbit blinked at him, momentarily stunned “Y-yes I’m fine thank you for your concern but I must go .”

 “Oh come on don’t let Hueso scare you off, why don’t you come hang out with me and my bro-“his words were cut off by a sudden shove on his shell sent him hard  to the ground, his beak cracking against the ground and filing his mouth without blood, he went to raise his head again when something pressed hard on the back of his skull pressing his face hard on the ground

 “I knew you stole something! I knew it! you and this fish kid are working together!”  Leo couldn’t help but groan loudly at Berbi’s voice, “ Aw you again?! Go take a vitamin man-“ before his mouth was full of ground again

 “I- I haven’t stolen anything!” the rabbit said ,” Please don’t hurt him-“

 “Empty your pockets!”

 Oh boy, Leo was starting to see why Hueso didn’t want him or Don  coming here alone.From the lid of his eye he could barely see the rabbit feel around ,”All-all I have is a onigiri and some water-“

 “Then give me that thing you have at your waist!”

 The rabbit hesitated, before reaching for his obi, because Leo had seen far too many samurai movies he had expected the rabbit to pull out a magic katana or a sword bigger then his, but instead he slid out a polished wooden sword, bowing and holding it out, “just please stop hurting him and you can have it.”

 There was a pause, judging by the way the foot shifted on his  head he could guess Berbi was trying to get a better close at it before the Yokai burst out laughing,” That’s all?! a stick?!You run around all day with a stick playing samurai?! God” he snorted, “you’re just a nobody aren’t you?” his face leaned close to the rabbit who kept his gaze to the ground. a meaty fist grabbed him by ear and yanked hard, forcing his gaze up to his, “ I bet you wouldn’t last five seconds in then Nexus-“

 The pressure was finally off his head enough that Leo rolled away, “Go eat a damn vitamin you bitch!” Leo swung his leg out and kicked Berbi hard on the side of the knee causing the large yokai to shout out in pain and stumble away, releasing the rabbit, Berbi grabbed his leg and glared at him, the rabbit suddenly grabbed him by hand, yanking him to his feet “Come on!” dashing down the opposite side badly giving Leo enough time to get on his feet. Berbi was already back on his feet, yanking out what looked like brass knuckles out from his pocket ,” You’re a bitch!” Leo yelled

 Despite running the rabbit looked back on him with a surprised look, “I am not a bitch! My name is Usagi!”

 “No not you, him!” Leo blinked, ignoring the Yokai yelling and running after them, “wait you’re a rabbit named Usagi? Did your parents hate you?!”

 Usagi’s eyes widen,” WhA- no my parents hate-“ before nearly running smack dab into a wall. Leo, being closest to the turn, took the lead dragging Usagi after him before realizing they were at a dead end barely a second later Berbi slammed into the wall after them. He barely had time to shoulder Usagi behind him, “ You two are DEAD,-“ Berbi shouted, “I was going to sell you two to the Battle Nexus. but i think i’d rather keep you and beat some manners into you-“

 “Would you stop talking like a anime villain for five seconds?!” Leo asked ,” Seriously you’re boring me!”  he managed to get his phone. Don had sent him a few messages asking him where he was. He had no doubt that Donnie was already tracking his location. So he  and Hueso would be here soon. Not soon enough though his head was hurting so bad he hadn’t noticed that Berbi was in face until his hand closed around his head before a shout came from behind him

 “Leave him alone!”

 Before Leo could acknowledge what was going on, Usagi had charged forward slamming his wooden sword hard into Berbis stomach sending the Yokai hard into the wall. Any relief that Leo might of ,could of, felt disappeared when the building next to them began to tremble, larger cracks forming, “ah BEANS.” He had fallen of buildings plenty of times but he wasn’t sure he could survive one falling on him-

 Suddenly a familiar blue lights formed behind him. Before he could turn and fully give a reaction, Usagi’s arm hooked around his neck and drug him back, filling Leo’s vision and world with familiar ring of a portal ring he himself had built many times

 Not for the first time that day, he really wished that he had brought his portal sword

a/n

thats right! as a huge Usagi fan it was inevitable that I would write a Usagi fic.  design and certain aspects  for Usagi was inspired by the great and powerful @lesbianleonardo

[1]

[digitalagencybranding]

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[ericsonclan]

Stymphalian Shenanigans

Summary: Louis invites Clementine on a scavenging mission to get some quick coin.

Read on AO3:

It had been about a week now since Clementine and A.J. came onboard Ol’ Kickass and were informally inducted into the Ericson Pirates. Nothing was official yet, but Clementine could tell that the crew was expecting her and A.J. to stay. Apparently that was their recruitment method: run into a stranger and invite them to join the crew, no questions asked. Oddly enough it had worked for them so far: Every member of the Ericson Pirates was intensely loyal and swore that joining the crew was the best thing that had ever happened to them. The whole thing was utterly confusing for Clementine. This wasn’t how pirates operated.

When they reached the nearest port, Clementine had considered leaving with A.J. and not looking back, starting a new life with a clean slate and leaving piracy behind. Louis, the captain, had said they were free to do so if they wished, though Clementine could tell from his expression that he hoped they would stay. In the end, Clementine had decided to stick with the Ericson Pirates, at least for now. She was utterly destitute; running away with nothing to start their new life was folly. The Ericson Pirates had promised her a fair share of the wages if she helped out on the ship. She would build up a nest egg first before deciding where she wanted to go.

They were heading for a new port town now, Tanshire. Walking across the deck, Clementine saw that everyone was getting ready to pull into port. With such a small crew, it was rather chaotic work though everyone seemed to know where they needed to be. Clementine helped Violet pull a sail into place, getting a quick thanks from the blonde pirate before she scurried off to another task. Clementine spotted A.J. working with Willy and Tenn up in the rigging as well. The boys seemed to be having fun together, running back and forth and laughing as they got their work done. It was good to see A.J. with other children. He’d never really had that before. Spotting Louis at the helm, Clementine made her way over. She should probably check with him for assignment.

Louis’ tailcoats blew in the breeze as he manned the wheel, his dreadlocks swaying with the rush of salty winds. Noticing Clementine, he looked to her with a smile. “Hey, Clem! What’s up?”

Clementine paused for a second at the prematurely familiar nickname but decided not to comment on it. “Anywhere in particular you need me, captain?”

“Oh, Louis is fine. That’s what everybody else calls me,” the young man grinned, his freckles prominent in the bright sunlight. “And as far as where you should go, I’d say check with Aasim. He’ll know best what stations need the most help,”

Clementine glanced at the wheel in Louis’ hands then back to the port. They were drawing awfully close. “You’re coming in crooked,”

“What was that?”

“The wheel. You should turn farther to the left if you want to avoid hitting the dock,”

Louis squinted out ahead of them. “Ok, so like 45 degrees or…”

“Like this,” Clementine’s’ hands came to rest beside the captain’s, adjusting the wheel accordingly. Louis watched intently, his eyes flitting between her hands and the water in front of them. After a few minutes they had docked the ship safely in the harbor.

Louis whistled appreciatively. “That was some smooth steering! You do it way better than me! Think you can teach me your tricks?”

Clementine shrugged. “It’s just years of experience and muscle memory at this point,” She paused when she saw the disappointment in Louis’ eyes. “But I can try to show you more later if you like,”

“That would be awesome! Man, I can’t believe we have a real pedigreed pirate in our ranks now! No more crashing into piers for us,” Louis pulled on the lapels of his coat proudly.

Clementine quirked an eyebrow. “Just how many times have you crashed into the pier?”

“Well, they’ve been more like light collisions really, just barely brushing the pier on occasion. Lost a few planks from time to time, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t repair,” Louis glanced down the deck at the sound of a faint voice. “Looks like Ruby’s calling me. I’ll see you later, Clem,” With that he was off, leaving Clementine confused and just slightly impressed that this crew had managed to survive this long.

Ruby had called Louis over to deliver bad news: several of their crates of jujube fruit had gone bad. Apparently, a storm they’d run into a few days before finding Clementine and A.J. had knocked them off course and made their voyage longer than expected, hence the rotten produce. This meant there was far less money to be made at market though. The crew gathered round, waiting for Louis to make a decision.

Louis stood deep in thought, a hand upon his chin. At last he spoke. “We’ll salvage what we can. Marlon, Mitch and Violet will take what we can trade to market. Ruby, Aasim and Brody will collect whatever supplies we can on the funds we have. The boys can go with either group.

“And you?” Aasim questioned.

“I have some business to attend to, hopefully a venture that will refill our coffers,” Louis turned to their newest member. “How about it, Clementine? I could use your dazzling presence and expertise on this one,”

Clementine considered it, looking over to A.J. He stood between Tenn and Willy, excitedly picking through the crates of fruit and tossing the bad pieces over the ship’s edge. She didn’t like the thought of leaving him alone, but she should prove herself useful if she expected to get paid. “Will it take long?”

“We’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,”

“OK…” Clementine turned to Ruby. “Can you keep an eye on A.J. She knew if anybody could be trusted with that task it was the ship’s doctor.

Ruby nodded, determination in her eyes. “Don’t you worry about nothing, Sug. I’ll make sure he comes to no harm,”

Louis spun round with a dramatic flair. “Then let’s depart!” He headed over to one of the ship’s rowboats, Clementine following closely behind. It only took a few minutes before they were lowered into the water and rowing off for places unknown.

Clementine matched Louis’ speed, eyeing the young captain warily. “So, what exactly is this business venture that has us headed into the middle of the ocean?”

“Well… it’s not exactly a business venture. More like an adventure,”

“Oh?” That piqued Clementine’s interest.

“According to what I’ve heard, there’s a flock of stymphalian birds nesting on a little island not too far from here. At first I thought it would be too risky considering the rumors about the birds-”

“Such as?”

“Oh, you know: bronze beaks, metal feathers they can hurl at you, poisonous dung…”

“Poisonous what now?”

“I’m sure that last one is false,” Louis said, waving a hand dismissively. “Monster tales are usually wildly exaggerated. Point is, the feathers are worth a lot of money if you can get your hands on them. I figured it would be a big risk going in blind and given how my crew would handle things it might be best to steer clear,”

That was a fair point. Clementine hadn’t been with them long, but she could just imagine Mitch trying to throw his bombs at the birds and getting himself blown up in the process or Willy gagging on a mouthful of dubious dung.

“But with all that fruit going bad, we need fast cash if we’re going to make it to the next port. Buying the jujube fruit was my call and I flubbed it. Should’ve gone for something with a longer shelf life, but I got greedy and impulsive and now thanks to a freak storm, things are tight. So as captain I’m paying the price for my decisions and righting my mistake myself,”

“And you have me along because…?”

“Figured it would be smoother as a two-man operation. One person distracts the birds and the other grabs the feathers. Besides,” Louis have a playful smile, “I’ve been wanting to get to know you. Figured this would be a good bonding exercise,”

Was he… flirting with her? Clementine eyed Louis suspiciously. It was hard to tell with him, he was so friendly with everyone. Best to let it slide. She didn’t want to say something presumptuous and insult him, although from what she’d seen Clementine figured that would be pretty difficult to do.

---

It was about a half hour of rowing before they reached the island. It was a small, sparsely wooded, rocky mass. There were no birds in sight yet, but according to what Louis had heard, the birds would be a bit further inland. They picked their way carefully across the rocky beach, walking side by side. Louis kept glancing over Clementine’s way. She could tell something was on his mind.

“What is it?”

“Back when we first met and I asked you what had happened to you and A.J., you said it was a shipwreck and you were the sole survivors,”

“That’s right,”

“But that’s not true, is it?”

Clementine’s gut twisted within her. So he had caught the lie. Why not bring it up then? “It’s not,”

“I figured you had your reasons for hiding the truth. Just wondered if now that we know each other a bit better you’d be willing to share,”

Clementine looked at Louis. His gaze was open, trusting. Would it stay the same if he knew the name of the crew she’d been with before? She couldn’t risk it, not while separated from A.J. “I don’t think we’re there quite yet,”

Louis nodded. “Fair enough,”

“It’s not really fair after turning down your question, but can I ask one of my own?”

“Ask away,”

“I heard that you became a pirate after stealing your father’s ship. It’s quite a nice merchant vessel,” Clementine paused, unsure how to word the next part. “You had what most people dream of: a plentiful, stable life. Why give all that up?”

Louis shrugged. “I was unhappy. All of that isn’t worth much if you’re unhappy,” He noted the doubt in Clementine’s eyes. “You’re unconvinced,”

“It sounds like someone who never had to want for anything would say,”

Louis nodded. “Fair enough. This past year at sea hasn’t always been easy, but I’m sure it doesn’t hold a candle to what you’ve been through on the high seas. Still, I don’t regret walking away from that life,”

“But why?”

“Because it wasn’t my own. All my father wanted of me was to follow the plans he had laid before me without question. My whole life was mapped out and he didn’t care at all whether I wanted it or not,”

Clementine shook her head. “Maybe I’m overstepping, but a future as a merchant doesn’t seem like that bad of a fate,”

“It went deeper than that. After my mother died, my father… he wanted control. More than anything. Every moment of my life was monitored, every action I took carefully planned to mold me for success. I stopped being his son; I was simply a project, something he wanted to mold into stronger stuff than I was made of,” Louis looked somewhat sad at those words.

“There was one time Marlon and I snuck out to the market for a day off. Nothing big, just wandering round the city, visiting the marketplace and the docks. My father had servants hunt us down and drag us home. Marlon was beaten for helping me shirk my duties. I wasn’t allowed to see him for a week. After that I knew I had to get out of there. Whatever my father had become, I didn’t want to become that, no matter what. So I stole one of my father’s ships and decided to make my own way in life. And that’s how I find myself here, spending a pleasant day with you,” Louis smiled brightly at Clementine who nodded thoughtfully.

“Maybe no one’s happy, not the rich or poor. We just trick ourselves into thinking there’s something better out there to keep ourselves going,”

“Now that wasn’t the point of my story at all!” Louis scowled. “The point was to take your life into your own hands. Whatever hand you’ve been dealt, you can change it. This may not be the life I expected for myself when I stole that ship, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Each day, each moment, I get to be myself. I couldn’t ask for more,”

It was such a simple desire, to be oneself. Looking back over the years though, Clementine realized it hadn’t been a consideration that even crossed her mind. Survival had come first and foremost, and she’d never been able to get far past that. Who did she even want to be? Someone who kept A.J. safe. Beyond that though, Clementine wasn’t sure.

“We’re here!”

Clementine followed Louis’ outstretched finger to where a flock of birds sat nesting together on the rocky shoreline. They had the appearance of gulls, but somewhat larger. Their beaks shone dully, like metal that had a thin patina from the constant spray of saltwater upon it. Their wings too seemed almost to glisten in the light. Long, pointed metallic feathers gave off shimmers from underneath the cover of softer, regular feathers. There seemed to be at least a few dozen of them, not counting the young that squawked needily from their nests.

Louis gestured for Clementine to follow. They paced along the edge of the tree line, getting as close as they could to the nests without betraying their position. “So I’m thinking one of us serves as a distraction while the other runs among the nests and picks up as many of the bronze feathers as we can,”

“And I’m guessing I was brought along to be that distraction?”

“What? No. It’s me,” Louis gave a broad grin. “After all, I am quite distracting. Charming, theatrical, charismatic…”

“The list could go on and on,” Clementine quipped, smirking at his bravado.

Louis winked playfully before looking back at the flock. “It’s pretty close to the edge, but I figure I can circle round, keep them guessing where I’ll go next before booking it to the woods. We can just keep that up until we have as many of the feathers as possible,”

Clementine nodded. “Be careful,”

“Always, m’lady. Then without further ado…” Louis dramatically stepped out of the woods. Grabbing a coattail in each hand, he began to flap them behind him as he ran forward, cawing loudly.

“Bkaw! Bkaw! Yo birds, over here!”

Clementine couldn’t help but chuckle. Leave it to Louis to come up with a distraction so dramatic. She scurried out while staying low to the ground, keeping an eye on the stymphalian birds above.

The distraction was certainly effective. All the adult birds flew in Louis’ direction with angry cries, causing him to pick up his speed as he circled round the rookery, still flapping his coat wildly. “Woah! Didn’t know we were playing chicken here! Guess it’s a race then!”

Clementine smiled to herself, entertained by Louis’ commentary as she picked through nest after nest, steering clear of the squealing babies within each one. She was peeved by her haul though. Each nest only contained a single bronze feather if any at all. They must not fall out often. They wouldn’t have much to show at this rate. Would they have to capture one of the birds and pluck it themselves?

A started yelp from Louis had her looking up from her work. Clementine followed his gaze to the ground where to her horror she saw a series of feathers embedded in the ground mere inches behind him. When Louis had mentioned the birds could throw their feathers, she’d thought they would be small feathers, only an inch or two long. The ones dropped in the nests were about that size. But these appeared to be almost half a foot in length. If one of those feathers hit either of them, it wouldn’t be an injury they could walk off. “Run!” Clementine called to Louis, cupping her hands round her mouth.

Louis had already circled about halfway round the rookery. It would be quite some distance before he’d reach the safety of the woods. Saving his breath for running, he circled the edge of the nesting ground as quickly as possible, teetering dangerously close to the edge. More feathers came flying his way, falling into the sea as he bent in half to dodge them. As he was about to lift his head, Louis noticed one stymphalian gull flying particularly close overhead. It dropped a load of its own, but this one wasn’t feathers. The poo didn’t come that close to Louis, instead joining the flung feathers in the sea. Louis’ felt his stomach drop though when he saw a dead fish float to the surface, covered in the sticky white substance. “What the shit?!”

“What is it?” Clementine called softly, circling toward him and picking up the feathers strewn along the way.

“Their dung is poisonous after all! Everything’s true!” Picking up his pace, Louis scampered forward, sidestepping nest after nest. “We need to book it!” Louis’ path through the nests seemed to further anger the birds. They began to take turns diving toward him, their sharp beaks snapping at his dreadlocks viciously. “Make for the trees, Clem! Save yourself!”

“Fuck that!” Picking up a rock, Clementine threw it toward the flock of angry gulls. “I’m not gonna leave you!” She picked up another rock, lobbing it at a particularly large bird. The projectile simply bounced off of that animal, not seeming to injure it in any way. It did draw its attention though. The gull turned with an angry look toward Clementine, diving her direction.

“Clem!” Louis called, leaping over nests to try to reach her.

“Caw, caw!” Clementine called, jogging backwards as she kept her eye on the stymphalian gulls. “Come get me, cowards!”

“No! Caw, caw! I’m an imposter, get me!” Louis cried, leaping up and down as he flapped his coat wildly.

Now the gulls were after both of them. It was utter chaos as the pair ran amongst the nests, trying to reunite and reach safety while the flock continued to chase them. The chase continued round and through the rookery till Clementine spotted an opening. “Louis, now!” She sprinted toward the woods, hoping he was close behind her. Reaching their safety, she turned around to see Louis with a squadron of birds on his tail. He leapt into the woods just as a barrage of metal feathers flew through the air. Some hit the trees while others flew past into the woods. When Clementine looked down, she saw Louis collapsed on the ground, pinned in place by several feathers that had cut through his coat and embedded in the dirt.

Clementine ran forward, pulling the feathers out and helping him up. “Keep going! Don’t look back!” The two continued to sprint through the woods and back to the opposite beach, the calls of the stymphalian gulls echoing in their ears and causing their hearts to pound heavily. Racing to the rowboat, they jumped in, tossing in their cargo and beginning to paddle desperately out to sea. On the other side of the island, they could see birds rising above the tree line. The sight made them row all the faster. It was only when the island became a blurred smudge on the horizon that they both collapsed upon the floor of the rowboat, gasping for air.

“That was- way worse- than expected,” Louis managed, his arms spread eagled across both sides of the rowboat. “Sorry,”

“ -‘s fine,” Clementine replied, using her bandana to wipe sweat from her brow. “Definitely a story to remember. And look at the haul we got,” She smiled down at the base of the rowboat, full with over a dozen of the massive feathers. “Can’t believe we grabbed so many,”

Louis whistled appreciatively. “Way to go us, thinking about the moolah even as we fled for our lives. We make quite the team,”

“That we do,” Clementine smirked. “Never thought I’d say that to someone who does such a spot-on impression of a chicken,”

“Um, excuse you, I was a stymphalian gull,” Louis replied, rolling his eyes in mock injury. “True theater isn’t appreciated these days,”

Clementine giggled, her smile hidden behind her hand. “My apologies, good sir,”

Louis smiled back at her. “Y’know, you’re pretty fun when on adventure. I bet you’ll fit right in in no time: a true Ericson pirate,”

Clementine’s face fell at his words.

“Is the welcome premature?”

“Maybe… if you knew the truth,”

Louis’ brow furrowed at those words. “And what’s that?”

Clementine rolled up her sleeve, displaying a large brand on her arm. Louis recognized it immediately: New Frontier. A particularly notorious and bloodthirsty crew of pirates. “Figured you should know before getting too friendly,”

“Oh. Shit,”

“Yeah,” Clementine’s eyes were locked on one of the feathers in the pile, watching it as the rowboat rose and fell with each gentle wave. “I can leave as soon as we get back to the boat. Me and A.J.”

“I’m guessing you joined them out of necessity?”

Clementine’s eyes looked up to search Louis’. There was no judgment there. “Yes. I had nothing left,”

“And you escaped?”

“I was kicked out. Punishment for stealing,”

“What did you steal?” Louis’ gaze was steady, searching.

“Medicine. A.J. was sick. He’d have died without it,”

Louis nodded thoughtfully. “You stuck by him,”

“I would do anything for A.J.”

“You stuck by me too, back at the rookery. I told you to run and you didn’t,”

“I knew I could help,”

“Before they joined my crew, Violet, Mitch, Tenn and Willy were thieves. I met Violet when she was trying to rob me. Only figure that out later though,” Louis gave a rueful chuckle. “We met Aasim in jail. He’s been put there for running dozens of cons. Ruby was our jailer. Helped us escape and wrecked all future job prospects in the process. Brody’s a runaway and Omar… honestly, I’m still not sure why Omar decided to stick with us. The point is, everybody in the crew has a past they’d like to forget, someone they used to be but aren’t anymore. So, Clementine,” Louis extended his hand. “I want to offer you that same thing. Whatever’s in the past, you can leave it there. Would you like to officially become an Ericson pirate?”

Clementine’s mouth was dry. He was seriously offering this after what she had just revealed? She could tell from the look in Louis’ eye that this was genuine though; he meant what he said. A second chance at life, a new start… could that really happen at sea? Clementine wanted to believe it was possible. If Louis was willing to give it a try, then so was she. Clementine took his hand in hers, shaking it firmly. “I do,”

Louis smiled brightly, a laugh escaping his lips. “Then welcome to the crew!”

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss Solutions To Star Coin Bloat?

So a while ago, I ran some analysis on your opinions on price of Star Coins, which is where my 70% of players think Star Coins are overpriced number comes from. Around this, there was a discussion on the Riders On Jorvik Discord around the new Andies being 950 SC/$30 USD, and some solutions to combated price bloat. Which is what I wanted to expand on today.

Ok, I want to start off by pointing out that $30 for a digital horse is a lot of money. You can buy model horses for waaaay cheaper than that, and in terms of video games, $30 is the standard price for high quality 30-40 hours games, like Rimwold and Slay the Spire. Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee and most Harvest Moon/Story of Seaons games are $30 at release, and most triple AAA games drop to $30 once their sequels come out. And in terms of MMOs, is roughly the price of expansions. So for SSO to charge $30 for one horse is outlandish and waaaay overpriced by industry standards. Most games will sell mount skins for $5-$10, max.

I want to go over the one excuse SSO keeps using in reference to this issue: they charge more for newer models/special features because more time went into them. Well I fucking hope it did! It’s SSO’s job to make a better game, which means spending more time making their product better. But that does not justify them adding an “improvement” tax on players because they’re taking a while to figure it out. That’s like if I charged extra on my next book because I became a better writer since I published the first, and not base my pricing on production and industry standards. It’s a bullshit excuse because improving the game is SSO’s job to begin with, and it’s not our responsibility to support that. It’s also incredibly dangerous because it causes extreme bloat, which we’ve seen. 

However, horses are SSO’s main and only real big skins and they don’t do expansions, so we can’t completely compare apples to apples here. So what are some SSO types of solutions we can apply?

1. Just Make It Cheaper

This is the easiest and most obvious. The prices for Star Coins should drop. It’s been proven over and over again that lower prices do better in sales. Dropping Star Coins so that $10 is 1000 SC will make horses more accessible and make it more likely people will make money sinks in the game. It costs SSO nothing to make Star Coins, so there’s really no reason not to outside of extorting players because they don’t know better.

2. Make More Horses At 500-600 Range

This goes back into that excuse I talked about earlier, but since the newer gens started coming out, SSO has continued to regularly price horses at 750+, mostly at 950 SC on account of the “special features” or “newer art style.” Again, bull reason, but it also creates a scenario of bloat. Whose to say that the next gen horses won’t be over a 1000 SC? What’s going to stop them? More horses need to be released again at the 500-600 range to prevent price bloat (and generally prevent going over 1000 SC).

3. Currency Conversion

Some MMOs do have higher prices on their pay currencies, but you know what they have to compensate? Conversion options. You can convert ingame currency into paid currency, which as a lot of benefits. It encourages people to play your game more and it also prevents those premium items feeling like a premium since you can work/play to get more. I honestly would prefer this system over the allowance, though I understand why it may not work for SSO since a lot of players will likely only be able to play on the weekends. I think 10,000 shillings to 100 Star Coins in fair though if they did this, since it’s roughly the equivalent already when comparing shilling prices to Star Coin prices on clothing.

4. More Content With Purchase

This one got a mix reaction in the Discord because I think a lot of people look at SSO as a single player game with other people running around and not an MMO. But as an MMO, I think this is fair, and with either the above or first suggestion, would be pretty fair. I think if they’re going to charge $30 for a horse, then you should get an expansion’s worth of content and not five days of busy work training. Things like mini quests that teach you about your horse’s special abilities (like the cold resist or special movements), or full on expansions. For example, you buy a Jorvik Wild Horse and unlock this side quest with a scientist where you get to learn more about the magic in Jorvik and what causes the transformations and work on tracking wild horses with a special collection daily that has you exploring the map. Or you buy a cold resist horse and unlock a quest with Nic about being able to travel in the cold easier and get extra dailies to help him speed up building his camp. The point is, if we’re going to be paying the same amount as a whole new game or expansion, we should get additional content as well. I know this irks completionists, but MMOs aren’t supposed to be completable, and, again, with one of the previous charges and/or the ability to pick up the quests on their own at a discount, this means the prices could stay roughly the same.

5. Expansion Discount

This is one of the ones suggested by the Discord that I wanted to expand on. The idea requires SSO to switch to an expansion based system. I think if SSO did switch to expansions, they’d need to do it for a whole quarter of the island (so like all of the current map is the same size as the next expansion), but considering SSO’s release style, I doubt that will go over well. But the idea is if you have an expansion (or we’ll say lifetime for the base game), then you get a discount on all Star Coin purchases in the area, which I think is pretty fair. I think for it to work, it means that major areas just need to be open, with smaller areas requiring expansions to unlock, otherwise there’s no point having a discount if you can’t buy the horse at full price. 

Like, as an example, let’s say the map we have now is an expansion area. Everyone gets access to some base quests in Silverglade, but in order to progress, you need to buy the expansion to unlock Harvest, Mistfall, Golden, etc. Or using north western Jorvik as an example, everyone can get the quests to explore Rockville and Sunnyville, but you need to buy the full expansion to reach Coyote’s Ranch, Herman Castle, or get into Pine Hill, at which point you’ll also get discounts on horses in the whole region.

6. Rotating Discounts

I think with horses already rotating in Fort Pinta, this would be a great way to make more horses accessible. Don’t drop the level caps, but horses will appear in Fort Pinta for a week as a significantly discounted price (like 500 SC discounted). The next week, a new horse shows up and gets the discount. They have to be at least gen 3 horses, but I think that’s a great rotating sale SSO could have to make more of their newer horses accessible and it’s a proven marketing tactic. Free estimate, 50% off your first meal, samples. Companies offer something for free or significantly discounted, and that encourages buyers to come back to buy again because they already got a really good deal. While I don’t think a punch card would work very well, I do think this rotating discount could help.

7. Increase Allowance For Lifetime

There’s not really an incentive to buy lifetime. I mean, you should, because you’ll save money in the long run, but as far as SSO’s listed incentives are concerned, there isn’t really one. Woah, you get some free clothes that don’t have any stats, big deal. But, what if lifetime got you 200 Star Coins in your weekly allowance? I think a lot more people would see that as an upgrade and it would cut down on bloat.

8. Log In Rewards

SSO doesn’t have login rewards. I think a great way to both cut down on bloat and encourage people to get on more is to having daily login rewards, where logging in for a month gets you a nice Star Coin bonus, like 500. It’s not enough to buy a horse in a month most of the time, but it’s a nice bump, and if you have membership, then you could definitely get one horse a month. Not to mention it gets players logging on every day!

I think, end of the day, there’s no clear cut solution to this, but there are loads of ways it can be changed so it’s not as abusive as it currently it. Patchworking a couple of these suggestions in could encourage players to get on more often instead of waiting until they’ve saved up enough Star Coins every two months for a new horse. Just, make the game accessible for kids. Most kids don’t get $30 to spend every month on their new horse game. Most adults aren’t willing to pay that either. Something needs to budge, and sooner or later, the players will realize they’re the frogs in the water on SSO’s price bloat.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zuck calls Apple a monopolist

The copyright scholar James Boyle has a transformative way to think about political change. He tells a story about how the word "ecology" welded together a bunch of disparate issues into a movement.

Prior to "ecology," there were people who cared about owls, or air pollution, or acid rain, or whales, and while none of these people thought the others were misguided, they also didn't see them as being as part of the same cause.

Whales aren't anything like owls and acid rain isn't anything like ozone depletion. But the rise of the term "ecology," turned issues into a movement. Instead of being 1,000 causes, it was a single movement with 1,000 on-ramps.

Movements can strike at the root, look to the underlying  economic and philosophical problems that underpin all the different causes that brought the movement's adherents together. Movements get shit done.

Which brings me to monopolies. This week, Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world's most egregious, flagrant, wicked monopolists, made a bunch of public denunciations of Apple for...monopolistic conduct.

Or, at least, he tried to. Apple stopped him. Because they actually do have a monopoly (and a monoposony) (in legal-economic parlance, these terms don't refer to a single buyer or seller, they refer to a firm with "market power" - the power to dictate pricing).

Facebook is launching a ticket-sales app and the Ios version was rejected because it included a notice to users that included in their price was a 30% vig that Apple was creaming off of Facebook's take.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/28/21405140/apple-rejects-facebook-update-30-percent-cut

Apple blocked the app because this was "irrelevant" information, and their Terms of Service bans "showing irrelevant" information.

This so enraged Zuck that he gave a companywide address - of the sort that routinely leaks - calling Apple a monopolist (they are), accused them of extracting monopoly rents (they do), and of blocking "innovation" and "competition" (also true).

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/zuckerberg-apple-monopoly

Now, there are a bunch of Apple customers who consider themselves members of an oppressed religious minority who'll probably stop here (perhaps after an angry reply), and that's OK. You do you. But I have more to say.

Apple is a monopolist, sure, but more importantly, they are monoposonists - these are firms with "excessive buying power," gatekeepers who control access to purchasers. Monoposony power is MUCH easier to accumulate than monopoly power.

In the econ literature, we see how control over as little as 10% of the market can cement a firm's position, giving it pricing power over suppliers. Monopsony is the source of "chickenization," named for the practices of America's chicken-processing giants.

Chickenized poultry farmers have to buy all their chicks from Big Chicken; the packers tell them what to feed their birds, which vets to use, and spec out their chicken coops. They set the timing on the lights in the coops, and dictate feeding schedules.

The chickens can only be sold to the packer that does all this control-freaky specifying, and the farmer doesn't find out how much they'll get paid until the day they sell their birds.

Big Chicken has data on all the farmers they've entrapped and they tune the payments so that the farmers can just barely scratch out a living, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and dependent on the packer for next year's debt payments.

Farmers who complain in public are cut off and blackballed - like the farmer who lost his contract and switched to maintaining chicken coops, until the packer he'd angered informed all their farmers that if they hired him, they would also get cancelled.

Monopsony chickenizes whose groups of workers, even whole industries. Amazon has chickenized publishers. Uber has chickenized drivers. Facebook and Google have chickenized advertisers. Apple has chickenized app creators.

Apple is a monopsony. So is Facebook.

Market concentration is like the Age of Colonization: at first, the Great Powers could steer clear of one another's claims. If your rival conquered a land you had your eye on, you could pillage the one next door.

Why squander your energies fighting each other when you could focus on extracting wealth from immiserated people no one else had yet ground underfoot?

But eventually, you run out of new lands to conquer, and your growth imperative turns into direct competition.

We called that "World War One." During WWI, there were plenty of people who rooted for their countries and cast the fighting as a just war of good vs evil. But there was also a sizable anti-war movement.

This movement saw the fight as a proxy war between aristocrats, feuding cousins who were so rich that they didn't fight over who got grandma's china hutch - they fought over who got China itself.

The elites who started the Great War had to walk a fine line. If they told their side that Kaiser Bill is only in the fight to enrich undeserving German aristos, they risked their audience making the leap to asking whether their aristos were any more deserving.

GAFAM had divided up cyberspace like the Pope dividing the New World: ads were Goog, social is FB, phones are Apple, enterprise is Msft, ecommerce belongs to Amazon. There was blurriness at the edges, but they mostly steered clear of one another's turf.

But once they'd chickenized all the suppliers and corralled all the customers, they started to challenge one another's territorial claims, and to demand that we all take a side, to fight for Google's right to challege FB's social dominance, or to side with FB over Apple.

And they run a risk when they ask us to take a side, the risk that we'll start to ask ourselves whether ANY of these (tax-dodging, DRM-locking, privacy invading, dictator-abetting, workforce abusing) companies deserve our loyalty.

And that risk is heightened because the energy to reject monopolies (and monoposonies) needn't start with tech - the contagion may incubate in an entirely different sector and make the leap to tech.

Like, maybe you're a wrestling fan, devastated to see your heroes begging on Gofundme to pay their medical bills and die with dignity in their 50s from their work injuries, now there's only one major league whose owner has chickenized his workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8UQ4O7UiDs&list=FLM6hLIAIO-KfsNFn8ENnftw&index=767

Maybe you wear glasses and just realized that a single Italian company, Luxottica, owns every major brand, retailer, lab and insurer and has jacked up prices 1,000%.

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-glasses-lenscrafters-luxottica-monopoly-20190305-story.html

Or maybe the market concentration you care about it in healthcare, cable, finance, pharma, ed-tech, publishing, film, music, news, oil, mining, aviation, hotels, automotive, rail, ag-tech, biotech, lumber, telcoms, or a hundred other sectors.

That is, maybe you just figured out that the people who care about owls are on the same side as the people who care about the ozone layer. All our markets have become hourglass shaped, with monop(olists/sonists) sitting at the pinch-point, collecting rents from both sides, and they've run out of peons to shake down, so they're turning on each other.

They won't go gently. Every Big Tech company is convinced that they have the right to be the pinchpoint in the hour-glass, and is absolutely, 100% certain that they don't want to be trapped in the bulbs on either side of the pinch.

They know how miserable life is for people in the bulbs, because they are the beneficiaries of other peoples' misery. Misery is for other people.

But they're in a trap. Monopolies and monopsonies are obviously unjust, and the more they point out the injustices they are EXPERIENCING, the greater the likelihood that we'll start paying attention to the injusticies they are INFLICTING.

Much of the energy to break up Big Tech is undoubtedly coming from the cable and phone industry. This is a darkly hilarious fact that many tech lobbyists have pointed out, squawking in affront: "How can you side with COMCAST and AT&T to fight MONOPOLIES?!"

They have a point. Telcoms is indescribably, horrifically dirty and terrible and every major company in the sector should be shattered, their execs pilloried and their logomarks cast into a pit for 1,000 years.

Their names should be curses upon our lips: "Dude, what are you, some kind of TIME WARNER?"

But this just shows how lazy and stupid and arrogant monopolies are. Telcoms think that if they give us an appetite for trustbusting Big Tech, that breaking up GAFAM will satiate us.

They could not be more wrong. There is no difference in the moral case for trustbusting Big Tech and busting up Big Telco. If Big Tech goes first, it'll be the amuse-bouche. There's a 37-course Vegas buffet of trustbustable industries we'll fill our plates with afterward.

Likewise, if you needed proof that Zuck is no supergenius - that he is merely a mediocre sociopath who has waxed powerful because he was given a license to cheat by regulators who looked the other way while he violated antitrust law - just look at his Apple complaints.

Everything he says about Apple is 100% true.

Everything he says about Apple is also 100% true OF FACEBOOK.

Can Zuck really not understand this? If not, there are plenty of people in the bulbs to either side of his pinch who'd be glad to explain it to him.

The monopolized world is all around us. That's the bad news.

The good news is that means that everyone who lives in the bulbs - everyone except the tiny minority who operate the pinch - is on the same side.

There are 1,000 reasons to hate monopolies, which means that there are 1,000 on-ramps to a movement aimed at destroying them. A movement for pluralism, fairness and solidarity, rather than extraction and oligarchy.

And just like you can express your support for "ecology" by campaigning for the ozone layer while your comrade campaigns for owls, you can fight oligarchy by fighting against Apple, or Facebook, or Google, or Comcast, or Purdue Poultry...or Purdue Pharma.

You are on the same side as the wrestling fan who just gofundemed a beloved wrestler, and the optician who's been chickenized by Luxottica, and the Uber driver whose just had their wages cut by an app.

[pegasusuakbileti-blog]

Vacation Promotions - Acquiring The most From the Vacation Reductions

skyscanner

You will find a lot of reasons why firms give lowered, or discounted vacation discounts, starting from flights, up to packages which contain quite a few parts, all inclusive in a single selling price.

skyscanner

1 with the major factors for travel offers would be the unsold sites. Levels of competition may perform a part in even more reductions in record price ranges.

Right before providing you with a complete listing of tricks to obtain the greatest journey specials and discounts, I would like to indicate you a incredibly uncomplicated but good technique that you just can use very much in most locations and for some services and products.

I have used the technique all over the place it works so well it is just about unbelievable. But it is so uncomplicated that you may dismiss it with out hoping. I want you to definitely be mentally geared up and be prepared to give it a attempt, so in this article we go.

To obtain a reduction or maybe a bargain in most sites, even inside of a significant class boutique or even a significant road store, what you need to have to try and do is: "ASK". Yes, just "ask". But additionally I need you to recall, because they say, "... it's not that which you say, but the way you say it ..." that actually counts.

So, to get a reduction, you must continue to keep your intention to 'buy' to on your own till you're ready to make your payment. You must constantly seem like you might be not certain nevertheless and that in the event the revenue particular person would not "do better" "he will lose" the offer. But you need to also look reasonably intrigued or else the revenue human being will assume you're not major and thus he won't try to sweeten the offer for yourself.

Alright, so how do you need to do most of the earlier mentioned? Effortless which is how I've done it for journey offers all of the approach to purchasing just 2 shirts at an up market men's boutique - certainly for just two shirts:

* I get data around the different alternatives (be it journey bargains or shirts).

* I determine what I would like but will only - which will be the extremely essential aspect - tell the income individual about a part of what I need. So I may show curiosity in only a single shirt or maybe a vacation for two men and women and never four.

* I check with all my queries and display that it's precisely what I would like (therefore the profits person understands he virtually has sale) but ...

* I indicate that I am not delighted along with the cost. As an example I may have viewed a little something identical less expensive elsewhere. Or which i am well prepared to buy groceries all over (all sales men and women know, if the buyer walks out they typically will likely not come back). Or that i contain the money (you'll see why following) but had not prepared on shelling out that substantially.

* I allow the profits human being attempt to 'sell me the IDEA' that it's Okay to get the products. From time to time, they supply some cost-free products (e.g. a set of socks or tickets to get a gallery or some demonstrate though on holiday getaway). Then I 'ask' with the price reduction but make it clear which i will certainly purchase should they give me the price reduction. This is certainly how I 'ask' ...

* "Look I'll certainly just take it at $X". The income human being then states "... and that means you want $Y from the selling price?!". They could inform you they do not typically give a discount beyond the profits period, etc. Should they are quite assured about not providing bargains, I then say "ok, I'll just take 2 shirts ... this just one and ... that just one, provided that you give me them at $Z for both equally ...".

* At this stage the income human being could even say he has not the authority to offer reductions. No challenge, I request them to talk for their manager. I have done this many times and get this: 90% with the time the manager agrees towards the lower price. With the remaining 10% at the very least half enough time, the manager presents me a counter low cost that is a not as good as what I questioned for but nonetheless really superior.

Do you want to understand the type of discount rates I have experienced? Effectively, on two shirts value $62 I obtained $22 off. That may be all-around 35%! Over a vacation deal really worth all around $4,300, I bought about $600 off but hold out for it ... I also obtained an up grade from the deluxe room to your small business suite while in the exact same five star resort. That suite was well worth $800 per night time and the deluxe space was truly worth $250 for every evening!

I'd to explain the above facts at size but all that I did was to screen that i 'WILL' buy with a discount. They realized all they'd to carry out was only one thing: give me a discount, so they did it. I manufactured it, as they say, "a no brainer" for them.

Briefly just "ask" but (a) be sensible (let them produce a tiny profit, never talk to for 80% off) and (b) have a minor overall flexibility for a backup prepare (be ready to explain to them that you're going to get extra, e.g. 2 shirts or possibly a holiday getaway for 4. Hey, even the profits men and women prefer to think they may have acquired a concession form you ... it's not necessarily a one-way avenue).

This technique operates for nearly all the things but will also works particularly effectively for travel bargains far too. So allows get back to a lot more suggestions particular to travel discounts then.

Journey bargains, discounts and bargains are all around you mainly because we all journey frequently and repeatedly for vacations also as for enterprise and of course the vacation marketplace competes for our bucks. Even so, some investigation and getting alert to travel discounts can indicate extra considerable savings. This is how to spot and acquire the very best vacation specials:

* Booking as early as possible usually entitles you to some vacation low cost.

* If you are shopping for a lot more than a person ticket, an extra journey lower price is possible.

* Be adaptable. In some cases weekend flights is often more cost-effective than weekdays (a lot less business enterprise travellers).

* Flights departing later at nighttime is often less costly.

* Dependent with your timetable, look at indirect flights, which just take for a longer period, but are in all probability cheaper, instead of immediate flights.

* Travelling in addition to peak durations, these as colleges holiday seasons and community holidays will probably be heaper.

* Most of the time, holiday getaway offers are more affordable than acquiring the components separately.

* Compare charges on the web, by mobile phone, or visit personal vacation agents inside the significant street.

* As all airways overbook, consider using a afterwards flight which generally includes sweeteners in the airline within the form of further more travel special discounts, and vacation vouchers.

* It might even be possible to vacation on 'stand by', but it really signifies that you'll be termed with quite small recognize

* If you are lucky, it might be possible to travel as a 'courier'. Some companies will pay, or subsidise your airfare in return for carrying critical offers and letters.

* Obtain travel insurance plan that finest fits your situations. In case of emergencies it'll save you lots of revenue.

The more effort and time you devote, the higher journey promotions you are going to bag. In several cases the saving can be pretty sizeable. A great deal so that you may be able to include on extra times keep. Happy vacation promotions.

[guam-webz]

Website Design Guam | Benefits of Web Design- GuamWEBZ

Long-Lasting Benefits of Using GuamWEBZ Services | Website Design Guam

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You shouldn’t be looking for just website clicks. You need a low bounce rate, that is, you should also look for visitors who take the time to browse through your site and get to know your brand. Our Website Design Guam services help your make that first impression count, with eye-catching and attention grabbing web design services. It takes something special to keep website visitors interested, let alone willing to buy your product or service. So let us at https://guamwebz.com help your website increases its amount of visitors, and transform them into buyers.

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[tlbodine]

What is the Market Value of Writing?

OK, so I wrote a while back about what it’s like to work with a small press, and again about how to spot a good publisher, and that raised a pretty good question: How can you know if the rates you’re being offered are fair? How do you know if you’re being ripped off? How can you even tell how much money you should be making as an author if nobody talks about money? 

Well. The short answer is: It’s complicated, and there’s a lot of factors to consider. 

But let’s try to crack it anyway. 

Short Fiction

OK, let’s get this one out of the way first because it’s the easiest. Most literary magazines and anthologies list their pay rates in their market listings. So if you’re using a site like Duotrope, Ralan’s, Dark Markets, Horror Tree etc. (sorry I don’t know what other genres are using these days)...you’ll find the rates. 

The range is usually:

Contributor copies

Token payment (usually $10-25 per story)

Per-word ranging from 1cpw to 10cpw

A “professional��� market generally pays upwards of 2.5cpw -- so a 5,000 word story would sell for $125, and so on. (some would argue that “professional” rates start at 5cpw, but I think that’s a bit restrictive, there are plenty of perfectly fine markets selling below that). 

By that logic, you’d expect book rates to fall in the same range -- so, say, $2,000 to $8,000 for an 80,000-word novel. 

But the reality is a little bit different. 

How Publishers Pay for Books

The role of a publisher is to absorb the production costs of a book -- editing, cover, typesetting/interior formatting, etc. -- and then, hopefully, turn a profit on selling the finished product. 

Which means the publisher is looking at the book, trying to guess how many copies it might sell, comparing that against the production costs, and gauging what to offer the author. 

A book deal is usually paid in two parts: 

The advance, which is sometimes divided into 2-4 payments between when you sign the contract and when the book goes out. 

The royalties, which are a percentage of the cover price and are paid out only after you’ve “earned out” on your advance

So let’s run a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you’re offered a $1,000 advance with royalties of 10% of the cover price. The book sells for $10, so that means you get $1 for every book sold. This means that you’ll need to sell 1,000 copies of the book, before you “earn back” your advance -- so you’ll start getting royalties after your 1001th sale.

Make sense so far? 

So, okay. What are standard royalty rates? 

Depends. Small presses usually don’t offer advances (or will often a token advance of less than $500) but usually offer higher royalties. 10% on print and 30% on ebooks is fairly standard; I’ve also seen 50% of net (so NOT the cover price). Traditional publishers that offer bigger advances often pay middling royalties, 3.5% or so for print, but not always. 

And how much are standard advances?

It really, super depends. It varies from one publishing house to the next, and from one author to the next. In general...less than you’d think, probably. You hear about the 6-figure and 7-figure advances because they’re newsworthy. Low 5-figure is really good for a debut. A low-to-mid 4-figure advance isn’t rare at all. Which means that, yes, if you’re published by Bantam, you might still get a $4,000 advance (spread out over four different checks, maybe). 

Sometimes you can get an idea for what things are selling for by stalking Publisher’s Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/index.html

They don’t always include pricing, but sometimes you can get a feel for it. 

What About Self-Publishing? 

Self-pub skips the middle-man and splits the costs with the author -- up to 70% royalties on ebooks. My Kindle books at $2.99 earn me $2 per sale. 

Of course, you have to account for the other expenses (covers, editing, etc.) to make that an even comparison. 

How the $^*()&^ Does Anybody Make a Living Doing This??? 

"Hey, uh, TL, this is cool and all, but I make $2k a month at my crappy job, so are you telling me I have to churn out 80,000 words a month at 2.5cpw to clear my shitty wages?” 

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I’m sorry. 

There’s some good news, though: There’s some opportunity for passive income, so you can gain traction and make more money as it goes along. Passive income includes: 

Royalties (once you’ve earned out your advance) 

International/translation rights

Audio rights

Film options etc. 

Speaker/panelist stipends for conventions (if anyone invites you)

Reprints (selling the same story multiple times)

See why you don’t want to give up any more rights than you need to in your contract? 

So if you want to make money writing, generally speaking, you need to: 

Be very prolific/fast

Publish with higher-tier publishers (more $$ per word) 

Keep your books in print so they keep creating residual income

Sell lots of copies

That said, how much money are writers actually making? 

Hard to say. The Author’s Guild does an annual survey that is very interesting to read. It’s a pretty bleak picture: https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-survey-shows-drastic-42-percent-decline-in-authors-earnings-in-last-decade/

Bear in mind though that the thing with these surveys is they’re self-reported, and their data can skew because on one side you’ve got Stephen King and on the other side you have roughly a bazillion self-publishers slapping up random garbage on Amazon and wondering why it doesn’t sell. It makes it a bit hard to find the mid-point. 

But I think it’s safe to say that most authors do not make a living being authors. They supplement their income by teaching, or copywriting, or working a day job, or having a spouse who supports them. 

Then again, there are authors doing this full time, or making a really good supplemental income with it -- authors you’ve never heard of, who aren’t big names but who sell consistently in their target genre and release books regularly. So it’s not impossible at all. Just...not easy or glamorous. 

That’s probably not the answer anyone (least of all me) wants to hear, but it’s what I know. 

Hope that helps, @ snowflake927 and anyone else who’s been wondering that same thing! 

[fitdietpills]

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[iampikachuhearmeroar]

Skincare/ makeup culture ☕️

oooh. i’ll divide this post into two parts: makeup culture and skincare culture.

(1.) makeup culture.

i think everyone knows that I’ve never liked makeup, mostly because I had relatively bad cystic acne throughout high school, that reacted badly to all of the makeup that my sister used (but most particularly her l’oreal foundation). I think makeup culture is particularly harmful to young girls, like the makeup youtube channels that are run by the parents I suppose of 8 year olds, where the 8yo is the actual youtuber.

like don’t get me wrong, i know young girls like playing with makeup (I actually did when I was that age, funnily enough)….. but the fact that professional or just plain fucking ridiculously expensive makeup palettes are now being marketed to girls in bloody primary/grade/elementary school, is just fucking wrong. and yeah there’s the post on here about how some younger girls are finding themselves ugly when they don’t wear properly applied makeup or something like that. and that breaks my heart. why the fuck should a young girl be made to feel ugly if she can’t blend like josiemaycosmetics (I made that up btw idk any makeup channels besides Jeffree star, James Charles and that tatti woman tbh) and can’t afford the bullshit Too Faced $98 powered foundation, $65 Sunday Riley blush (I roughly remember the price of this particular blush bc my sister bought it for me for my 20th birthday so that I could according to her “look good for uni” but I never actually used it lmao… and it’s no longer sold here in australia) and Kylie Jenner’s overpriced lip kits and idk Smashbox “photo finish” primer priced between $AU23-$AU55????

like I had this bad enough in fucking HIGH SCHOOL with my sister telling me that I’d “never get a boyfriend” or “never get a date for the formal/junior prom” if I didn’t spend hundreds of $$$$ for a good face of makeup and didn’t spend hours and hours learning how to do my own makeup. or how last year for my uni grad, she made out that I’d ruin my own uni grad if we didn’t spend $250 on the makeup artist we got for me….. where I unfortunately found out that my skin reacts to MAC products 😭😨 bc the MUA used MAC concealer and foundation. my sister also expected me to remember the setting spray the woman used for my makeup, when I was there from like 4:30am till like 6:45am and i was barely fucking awake. the setting spray probably could’ve easily cost over $100. let’s be real here. like why am I expected to remember shit that early in the morning???

one of my least favourite things with makeup culture is that you’re not meant to fuck it up in any way, shape or form. like when my sister did my makeup for my two high school formals/proms (year 10 & year 12) she constantly told me not to scratch my face while she was doing it (but it made me itchy, hooray for L’Oréal being shit lmao)…. not to fuck it up while I ate at those events….. and she didn’t let me eat before my uni grad last year bc “you’d definitely fuck up your makeup. don’t you dare scratch your face at all today!” like for someone who has hypersensitive/highly reactive skin that she has to scratch when it’s itchy….. and also loves fucking stuffing her face with food….. expecting me to never touch/scratch my face and to practically starve myself to preserve the integrity of my makeup (that i ended up paying for some in the end anyway) for an event is fucking stupid and over-restrictive.

like i always hated the way that the kardashians ate on KUWTK bc it looked so fucking mechanical and whatever bc they had to obvs preserve their makeup while shooting and also look nice for the camera. like why the fuck am I expected to eat ~like that~ when I have a faceload of MU on???? FUCK OFF. I will scratch it off. I will smear the food all over my face (ok not really) and eat however I motherfucking want, thank you very fucking much. like for my uni grad last year I was up from 4am and my grad ended at like 12:30pm….. so I didn’t have food til about 12:35 when I left the hall. and the whole time while I was eating my sister kept reminding me to not fuck up my makeup that we’d spent $250 on. JUST LET ME FUCKING EAT WOMAN, I SWEAR TO FUCK. lmao.

the last thing I hate the most about makeup culture is that like….. I absolutely hate makeup like I said above….. but once I have it on I feel pretty and cry a bit bc I’ll just never learn to do it myself…. mostly bc I couldn’t be bothered…. bc I save hundreds, if not thousands of $$$$ from not buying all the bullshit essential items you need just for a ~basic no makeup, makeup look~, and bc my hands have never been steady enough to use some of the things, like false eyelashes and eyelash curlers or liquid eyeliner/normal eyeliner….. 

but yeah. I just hate that it makes me feel pretty???? but I also feel good and more natural without it???? and I’ll never like my sister’s comment that: “you’re the prettier one out of the two of us…. but if only you hurried up and learnt to do your makeup, you’d be even prettier” or some dumb semi-condescending shit comment she’s said to me like that before. like why is the only way a woman can be pretty (other than some clothes that make her feel good) by smearing 100s/1000s of dollars worth of makeup on???? like why the fuck am I expected to spend all that money when a good bulk of men will never bother with the male makeup trend anyway???? like why am I expected to act differently when I basically just have grown up face-paint on lmao???? I’ve never felt natural in makeup, I’ve always felt awkward and like…. not sound like an cringey edgelord emo kid…. but i never felt ~real~ wearing makeup lmao. just yeah.

but yeah I also understand makeup is an art and I appreciate that. makeup culture is so fucked on all sides for women.

(2.) skincare culture:

now skincare culture is different for me. considering that, like I said before, I had relatively bad cystic acne…. and I’ve since also developed eczema during the winter months….. so I’ve had to develop a good skincare routine over the years to keep my skin under control. but again, there are parts that I don’t like about skincare culture…. like women are typically meant to spend, again, hundreds and if not thousands of dollars on super expensive skin creams (some of which I’ve tried) to fix their fine lines, their laugh lines, their crows feet, their blemishes, their birth marks and cellulite…… the list truly goes on and on….. and on top of that (well this hellsite which isn’t entirely accurate) I’m, or we as women, are expected to teach all of that to men in their 20s???? like fuck off. why and how the fuck didn’t they get the fucking memo to look after their own goddamned skin???? like my 20s are already tiring enough, and now I gotta pass on important skincare advice to men, who could easily fucking find it themselves online???? lord help their asses lmao.

but other than the men bit…. yeah skincare culture is just as bad as makeup culture. like when Cosmo mag was still running in australia, more than half of the shit the women at Cosmo were advertising as part of their skincare routines were literally $300 night treatment creams or moisturisers; $150 facial cleansers; or $500 skin peels, or $600 appointments at dermatologists and skin therapies like electrolysis that I’ll probs never be able to afford. like one of the luxury brands that I LOVE (💖) is Mario badescu bc the two pimple treatments that i sometimes I use from them (the drying lotion and the anti-acne serum) are the ONLY two acne treatments that have NEVER made my face turn red and my skin peel off (besides a really good neutrogena one that Neutrogena discontinued 😭). every other chemist bought pimple treatment cream makes my skin peel off/itchy/turn red. but sadly the two Mario badescu treatments are priced over $50 if bought together (ones now $31 (formerly $28, this one’s great bc it dries clear), the other is like $26, this one dries pink). so the chemist bought ones like the ones by Clearasil or OXY10 are my saviours at $11.99-$12.99, even though they dry out my skin to buggery and leave big white marks on my face bc they both dry white lmao. but I’ve gotta suffer that for the price of beauty lmao.

also there’s expensive face washes (or skin care program packs etc) from Paula’s choice that I love.... but again they were like $35 for a 400ml bottle and $25 for a fucking 150ml or 250ml bottle. now the one i like is $20 for 177ml, which is a rip off. some of the other luxury things that I’ve tried (via free samples) that don’t work, like Kate Somerville (priced at like $65 and over), Philosophy and god knows what else that i’ve bought from Mecca Cosmetica, which is the Aussie version of Sephora in the past. and yes, for acne treatments, i’ve used pro-activ before. it was ok… but i never used it in high school, after the awful time we had trying to cancel our subscription to it back in the day for my sister lol.

also can we talk about the ultrasonic face brush systems that are still raging strongly??? like they’re also super rip offs, especially with buying replacement heads for $35 a pop. like I’ve had a Clarisonic for years (that I’ve stopped using, admittedly)…. the model was roughly $250 when I got it for my like 19th birthday. now they’re even more expensive at like $315 for the latest “clarisonic mia fit cleansing system” which is linked on the $315. or now there’s the foreo that costs anywhere between $75 (the cheapest model) to fucking almost $400… ie $395. the replacement heads for the clarisonic and i suppose replacement like pads or something for the foreo are meant to be replaced every three months “for optimum cleansing” or whatever. like $35 every three months is a lot to maintain after a while. also using the clarisonic added like 10 extra minutes to my showers/general skincare routine bc you’re meant to use it for five mins or whatever and then spend another 5mins washing it out to make sure that it doesn’t collect mould and buildup too much soap residue. it was just a lot of effort to use, even if it did make me feel like i had a better and deeper face washing routine.

and yes, i know there’s Lush. both my sister and i (but more my sister) were obsessed with Lush back in high school, after one of our sydney cousins introduced it to us. but Lush’s skincare stuff for pimples just never worked for us. it made me breakout more, actually. but their old apple pie and choc-orange lip balms were the BOMB. it’s a pity that they no longer make them tbh. their jelly soaps were fun to use and smelt nice too. i can’t remember much else about lush tbh lmao.

for face masks, i’ve found that store/chemist bought formula 10.0.06 or whatever works the best for my skin. but the push, especially again in cosmo and other places, to buy more expensive face-masks and like designer FMs that you should really ask a professional to use first imo, is fucking harmful, especially when you’ve got ones that take off the whole top layer of skin from your face (like the famous and the overly popular charcoal face peel masks), or so i’ve read. like it’s yikes out there. please be safe with these masks, ya’ll. and the same goes for making your own organic face masks, considering that i’ve seen posts on here about using lemon juice which is bad for your skin??? idk anyway. i also hate how with the face masks i buy, there’s about 6 different “skin-illuminating”/“skin brightening”/”skin detoxing” etc masks, that all essentially do the same fucking thing. just keep it at one and fucking go; for gods fucking sake lmao.

but yeah, skincare culture does suck just as much as makeup culture, considering that is heavily focused on women’s self-esteem and wallets…. and barely ever focuses on men. like it’s a double-edged sword tbh.

also as side notes: why the actual fuck are makeup companies still giving their makeup shades or makeup lines sexual names???? like i just found a fucking blush shade by NARS, in my research for this post, called “Orgasm”???? like what the FUCK is wrong with ya’ll??? like y’all actually have the fucking AUDACITY to really make 8 year olds say that in their makeup tutorial videos as well??? “our best selling orgasm collection” sweet lord. that sounds bad. y’all need to sort your shit out, and so do the people who name nail polish shades.. 

the other worrying general beauty trends that i keep getting on my facebook newsfeed are the teeth whitening systems like hismile and at home laser treatment machines… and then also the charcoal toothpastes to whiten your teeth. oh and also the facial skin “vacuums”, that suck out dirt/oil and your blackheads/pimples etc from your pores. stay safe out there everyone, and do your bloody research. don’t believe the reviews and the hype.

also finally: take your skin type and skin condition/(s) into account if you want to use any of the things that I’ve mentioned that I use/have used on this post. or that I’ve just generally mentioned, like the Clarisonic and the foreo. because what works for me, might not work for you. I’m not a skincare expert or dermatologist. check with your doctor or a skincare professional or whatever before you start using some of these things, even if you might think that it’s stupid & pointless to do so.