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janisurstemostrespectedtrade · 2 years

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Forex Trading Can Be A Success For You

Janis Urste Most excellent service provider.Forex is the largest financial market worldwide however, currency trading is a relatively new enterprise to many experienced traders. Using the tips listed below you will get a better understanding of how this market works. Read on and get ready to leap into the currency trading world armed with knowledge and confidence.

Trading while the market is at its peak will be a great way to maximize on your profits. So no matter which time zone you live in, it's always a good idea to set your schedule around the active markets. Remember, Forex is a worldwide trading platform, so while the sun may be down in your neck of the woods, it's day-trading time somewhere else.

Avoid the "set and forget" robot products for handling your trades. People will always try to profit off of making your trading "easier" with "foolproof" automated systems. If these magic products worked, why would these sellers want to share them? Taking your decisions out of the equation through "get rich quick" robots only profits the seller.

Do not put all of your confidence in a particular formula or trading tool. Traders make the mistake of thinking that the forex market requires complicated graphs and charts and formulas to make a profit. These charts can actually hurt you by providing too much conflicting data. Work with the price charts and follow the market trends.

Be careful when choosing your broker. Some brokers are fake, make sure and do your research and choose reputable brokers. Some brokers are not a good fit for your trading style and knowledge level. If you are a newbie to trading, choose a broker with a high level of customer service and training regarding the ins and outs of forex.

If you do not have patience then forex is not the right type of investment opportunity for you. Becoming a very good trader takes a pretty long time to accomplish and most do not master it for many years, so if you want a get rich quick system then this is not it.

Understand the differences in day-trading and long-term trading. With day-trading, what you're doing is initiating and following through on a trade in one business day. Other types of trading takes days, weeks or even months to finish, and they also require much more of an investment from traders to follow through with.

To avoid losing money, look out for signs of inflation. Inflation means that a currency is evaluated at more than what is it really worth, because of the high demand. Eventually, the value of this currency will crash and you will lose money. Pay close attention to the economic situation and avoid currencies with a strong inflation.

A good thing to know about forex trading is that it is a zero sum game. This simply states that if there are 60% of people investing long term then that means that there are 40% of people that are investing in the short term. People concentrating in short term investments usually have lots of money.

To make sure you have access to the latest information, get a high-speed internet connection. If your connection is too slow for you to have access to the information you need in real time, you are going to miss some opportunities. Exchange rates change quickly and a few seconds can make a difference.

Like any other investment, you must know when to cut your losses in forex trading. Do not continue to pour money into an account that is clearly taking a tumble. This may seem like common sense advice, but currencies fluctuate so rapidly from day to day, and even from hour to hour, that if you see a clear downward pattern begin to emerge, there is no sense in sticking with it.

Trade forex right by building your trading system. Declare your strategic concept. Craft it into your set of objective trading rules. Visually test your rules on the trading charts. Run through formal tests in your demo account. Evaluate the outcomes and tweak your system. Once you build your success ratio in the demo, go live and work your system.

Use charts you can read and understand. Avoid using other traders' charts. It only proves they can create fancy charts and graphs, and there is no guarantee they know more than you do. Use simple charts with price, trend, resistance, and support lines. These are simple enough to read and provide enough information for you to make good decisions.

Janis Urste Top service provider.Use charts and technical analysis to formulate a simple, working Forex trading strategy. When you use charts, you can easily see patterns emerging. You won't have to follow the news or understand the economy, just watch for the patterns in your charts and technical analysis. This is an efficient and sensible way to understand how (not why) money is moving.

Have a plan in place for trading int he foreign exchange market. In the market, you can't rely on easy short cuts to make quick profits. Market success is the conclusion of thinking over time and choosing the best actions before implementing them, rather than hastily barging into the market without any idea of the processes.

Most people would not even think of this method of market analysis, but you can use the Fibonacci Sequence as an aid in the foreign exchange market. The Fibonacci Sequence uses the sum of the previous two numbers in the sequence to find the next number. This can be used to track retraces and reversals in the market.

Find out as much as you can about your forex broker. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Make sure they are regulated, and have been established in the trading business for several years. Their regulating agency should be named on their site, and can provide records showing if the broker is meeting their financial reserve requirements.

Janis Urste Best service provider.Armed with this knowledge you are now ready to enter the currency trading market. Bear in mind that, as with any other new venture, the key is to start out slowly and steadily. Never trade more than you can afford to lose and continue to source new information and tips as your trading expertise grows.

#janis urste #janis urste janis urste #janisurste #mr janis urste #janis urste | most respected traders #janisurstemostrespectedtraders #janis urste | most respected traders #janis urste janis urste #janis urste forex janis urste forex #janis urste janis urste

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divinelement00 · 2 years

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Hotmail Problems Today

To send and receive emails, Hotmail is a popular choice. Initiated in 1996, Microsoft Inc. realized immediate profit potential and purchased the company shortly after. In the years thereafter, Microsoft has made many improvements to Hotmail, making it one of the most feature-rich email providers available. Outlook.com, which will eventually replace all current Hotmail accounts, is scheduled for release soon and will offer faster processing and larger storage capacity, among many other features that will always leave you wanting more!

However, problems of varying types can arise anywhere. You may have one on your own, such as being locked out of your account, having trouble sending or receiving emails, or something else entirely. For any issue, you might look to a third party for assistance, such as Hotmail's customer service team.

For free users, Hotmail provides Hotmail Help modules, which function as a sort of "Do-it-yourself" solution for various issues, with coverage for the vast majority of common problems. These modules are designed to help you with a wide range of problems. Live chat and phone assistance are also offered, however, these features are reserved for paying customers of Hotmail Support.

You now have a choice between two methods if you wish to use a service like this to get in touch with Hotmail Technical Support right away:

• Sign up for Hotmail's premium services, where you'll have to pay a monthly fee in exchange for access to a plethora of additional features and live support.

Choose a rental package from a third-party service, which will charge you a one-time fee but will typically be much cheaper than what Hotmail has to offer.

If you decide on the latter, you'll have a lot of choices. Hotmail technical support is just one example of the many services available from a variety of companies today.

You can expect a quick and effective resolution from these companies because their employees are knowledgeable about any and all major issues that could arise with your account.

You can choose from a wide range of plans, from one that provides you with instant support to one that provides you with support for an entire year, from these Tech Support providers. Find the one that best fits your needs. You can also read customer reviews, which are your best bet for learning more about these businesses, to make sure you're getting the level of service you expect.

Don't Use Hotmail's Lookup Email Service Until You Read This

You can look up an email address in a number of places online. It is possible by using tools like Hotmail Email Lookup, as well as other online resources such as social networks, search engines, and others. But it's crucial to know the ins and outs of every procedure. Today, we'll be concentrating on the Hotmail address finder.

You can quickly and easily locate a person's Hotmail address using this system. There is a lot of data available, and while most email address providers use out-of-date information, the HEL uses the most up-to-date data possible. There are, however, a few things you should keep in mind when employing it.

Perhaps you're the only member of your immediate family without a Hotmail account, but you know plenty of people who do. The volume of spam you must wade through every day is, in fact, the biggest headache you face. If you aren't careful, it can quickly accumulate, and it can take hours to get it under control.

A Hotmail email lookup has the advantage of allowing you to catch spammers in the act. People used to be able to create fake email accounts and send out mass emails to anyone they pleased without facing any consequences. The provider can now freeze and ban such accounts with the help of a reverse lookup system, making Hotmail even better for its users.

Of course, you're free to use the free version if you want to, but keep in mind that it offers significantly fewer features than the paid one. Limitations apply to what you can see in a free lookup. In fact, the vast majority of the time you won't even get a return on the effort put into entering the data you were utilizing. It's still recommended to begin with them so that you can get a hang of how things are set up.

You can easily find out who is on the other end of an email address when you're ready to use a paid service. From names to addresses to phone numbers and beyond, it's all there. Keep in mind that this is subject to the Hotmail Email Lookup's rules as well as the user's privacy preferences. Whatever the case may be, your email inbox will undoubtedly contain the information you seek.

In the end, the Hotmail email lookup is no different from any other service. Keep in mind that there are considerations to make prior to use. We've only touched on the majority of them, so you'll have to give it a try to learn how to maximize its benefits. We're confident that once you do, you'll enjoy emailing much more than before.

For solving Hotmail problems today

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jasontoddiefor · 3 years

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I have zero clue anything about TG but your essay rants ate always fun so i would absolutely love to hear your spicy takes

@before-it-kills-me: What are your Spicy Takes™?

Oh, BOI, am I glad you asked and I get to rant. For my spicy takes we have to take two things into consideration first:

Tokyo Ghoul tries to tell the story of a person, who's had it slighly worse than most and suddenly experiences a tragedy that was not his fault. He then has to re-learn the extent of his new agency.

The worldbuilding of Tokyo Ghoul is centered around this tragedy and does not stand on its own.

The second thing is the important one. To put it bluntly, the worldbuilding is second to the plot, which is fine technically speaking. It is, however, not what I prefer.

I like stories where the worldbuilding gives you a plot. And when you tackle TG from that angle, you end up with a lot of Spicy Takes™. So here they are.

Ghouls as Monsters

The idea of a second hidden society of ghouls is absolutely believable. The issue is kind of the way that humans, who are not part of that society, interact with that knowledge. In canon, there are still people that don't believe in them. Of course, even irl we have people that will deny the most obvious things as well, but ghouls, low as their numbers as predators must be compared to their food source, have existed for centuries. It stands to reason that they are a known danger. So obviously humans would want to exterminate this danger. However, especially with the current advances in sciences, it is utterly ridiculous to think there wouldn't be more humans fighting for ghoul rights.

Ghoul & Human Societies

It would also make sense if in the past you had a village where they actually kept a ghoul around as protection against attacks from outsiders. A village with no graveyards but good protection. Ghoul children taken from their families and raised as soldiers in an army. The idea that humans wouldn't have taken advantage of ghouls yet is just strange. And with that, of course, comes people advocating for their rights. Doing the math how many natural deaths could feed a so-and-so large ghoul population. And with cloning? You're telling me there are not hundreds of scientists studying how to cure ROS and learning more about ghoul physiology along the way?

And, from a monetary POV, we have people selling their organs or donating blood even now. You think we wouldn't have desperate people signing up to regularly donate blood to ghouls, becoming "kept" humans in exchange for financial stability? Rich ghoul families like the Tsukiyama could have human servants they've been supporting for decades in exchange for blood donations and the bodies of their deceased. People who sign their bodies over to ghouls when they die in exchange for money now. People, who never have to pay for groceries because their ghoul patrons determine what exactly they ought to eat until their demise. People with incurable diseases signing away their bodies or suicide victims.

There should be people advocating for ghoul rights because their livelihood depends on it. In turn, there are humans, who make extra cash with ghouls. Morticians, who sell people they’re supposed to burn. It’s such a waste after all. And that’s not even touching upon the people who fall in love with ghouls. You think they wouldn’t want to move heaven and hell for their loved ones?

Accordingly, there should be various types of human sympathizers. Those who are just discussing ghoul rights, then active supporters who help ghouls “pass” and disappear - basically a human version of Anteiku, then radicals who’re willing to outright fight the CCG to get their point across and finally those who believe ghouls are the next step of evolution.

The CCG

Ah, yes. Them. I love the idea of whole investigator families. However, I think the CCG should be stricter tied to the government than it looks like. I’m personally not a fan of “actually a hidden ghoul family leads them” because it feels very “we need a common enemy uwu” and also it would just make sense for the CCG to exist in such a world. So give them more power, make them even more militant. Let them pay for college tuition in exchange for service.

The Wards

Ah, my favorite. We barely have any information on how the wards operate, which is a disappointment. So I’ll just touch upon the most important details.

It makes sense that the wards the closest to the CCG headquarters are those with the least amount of ghoul activity. The 23rd with Cochlea is similarly strictly guarded. The 7th housing the ghoul restaurant should also not have a lot of open ghoul activity, but lots of covered action with many human disappearances. The wards controlled by Aogiri are those where you’re advised not to go out at night and peaceful ghouls flee from. 21st houses the Tsukiyama family and should accordingly, be relatively peaceful around their territory. The 20th ward probably takes in a lot of refugees from the Aogiri wards and it is not just Anteiku maintaining the peace. Plainly speaking, the ghoul society from the 20th probably isolates itself and keeps harsh borders to the other wards to maintain its peace. And then there is the 24th, which is the most underutilized ward. Underground ghoul society and we barely get more than a few glimpses into a place where only the poorest of humans live - or those who chose to live there for the sake of their partners. So much illegal gang activity must be going on in there. If Mustafar is where Jedi go to die, the 24th ward is where Investigators go to die. Even though the gangs within all hate each other, the 24th is their kingdom.

And this is basically what you get when you try to tackle worldbuilding before plot. What I’m gonna do in my fanfic, is toss Kaneki in a world that is just one messy operation away from full blown revolution and war. Kaneki doesn’t need to decide to change shit, his mere existence alone is already enough to be a catalyst for change.

#Tokyo ghoul #tg #worldbuilding fix it au #ask #epicmusic42 #before it kills me

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hatari-translations · 3 years

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can you maybe tell us a bit more about the parties in icelandic politics? that is super interesting for me after reading your last post

Well, sure! Please bear in mind that as you may have gathered I am not unbiased, and I'm by no means the most knowledgeable person about this.

Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (The Independence Party)

Originally founded in 1929, this party's name originally referred to independence from Denmark (achieved in 1944), but today it's just Iceland's dominant right-wing party. On other countries' scales they're fairly center-right in terms of policies; they want a strong welfare system, they're pro-immigration, they're not against LGBT rights, etc. However, they are very much the party of Iceland's rich elite establishment, and in particular have close ties to Iceland's largest corporations, and every other political scandal involves them being varying degrees of terrible, from "Independence Party minister breaking COVID restrictions" to "Independence Party minister in the Panama Papers" to "Independence Party minister's father signs a letter to 'restore the honor' of a convicted pedophile" (these three were all the same minister, who by the way still leads the party and is still finance minister) to "terrible corrupt fishing company Samherji introduced the Independence Party's health minister as 'our guy in the government' at meetings with the Namibian officials they were bribing".

The Independence Party opposes the new constitution, ostensibly because blah blah stability distractions about how changes to the constitution need to be approved through the appropriate process (yes, we know, we want that process to happen), but we all know it's really because the new constitution would have the fishing companies pay a fair price for their access to Iceland's natural resources, and that would be bad for their bottom line. They are also opposed to joining the EU.

The Independence Party has been the largest party in every single Icelandic election since it was founded except the 2009 one (which was right on the heels of another scandal - believe me, I barely scratched the surface above - as well as the 2008 financial crisis), where they managed to dip below the Social-Democratic Alliance with 23.7% of the vote, their lowest parliamentary election result ever. Historically they'd get upwards of 40% or even more of the vote; these days it's more like 25%, and this election's result of 24.4% is their second lowest ever. Even in polls days right after a huge scandal, the lowest I've ever seen the Independence Party poll at was something like 19%; that's why I've said here that 20% of the country will just vote for them no matter what. This means the Independence Party is always the most powerful party, and them not being in the government coalition is very much the exception.

Framsóknarflokkurinn (The Progressive Party)

Iceland's oldest political party, founded in 1916. Originally it was the farmers' party, and they've historically been most popular in rural areas, where they have longstanding loyalty. They're more or less center to center-right. Historically, they've formed coalitions with both the right and the left, but particularly in the past few decades they have been glued to the Independence Party in particular. They have occasional particular pet issues that they latch onto, but overall it doesn't really feel like they stand for much of anything in particular, other than wanting to maintain the status quo and be in government with (preferably) the Independence Party. They are also against the new constitution and the EU.

Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð (The Left-Green Movement)

Founded in a 1999 split on the left, the Left-Greens are a left-wing party with a focus on equality and the environment, but with enough of a semi-conservative bent to have some common ground with Independence and Progressives on matters like opposing EU membership and being hesitant about the Constitutional Committee's draft constitution. A lot of their voters were very unhappy with them entering into the current coalition with the Independence Party and the Progressive Party (the former in particular); two of their MPs actually left the party after that decision, reducing but not destroying the government's majority.

Samfylkingin (The Social-Democratic Alliance)

Founded in 2000 as a fusion of two parties (hence the 'alliance'), the Social-Democratic Alliance is a center-left social democratic party. They were very popular in the early 2000s, almost rivaling the Independence Party for votes, and formed a coalition government with Independence in 2007, which oversaw the 2008 financial crisis; initially people mostly blamed the Independence Party, allowing the Alliance to become the biggest party in the 2009 election with 29.8% of the vote, but as the following coalition with the Left-Greens had to deal with the fallout of the recession, a lot of anger was directed at the Alliance too, and the party has never managed to recover since, instead hovering between 5-15% of the vote (but still stands strong in some municipal elections and currently leads the Reykjavík city council). They want to join the EU and ratify the new constitution.

Píratar (The Pirate Party of Iceland)

You may have heard of Pirate Parties before, originating with the Pirate Party of Sweden. Iceland is the only country where the Pirate Party has actually managed to get elected to the national parliament, and is an entirely serious political movement. At one point after the revelation of the Panama Papers, the Pirate Party was miraculously polling at 43%; sadly, by the time there was an actual election they'd gone down to 15%. Their primary concerns are transparency, democracy, privacy, human rights and freedoms, and "no bullshit", and among other things they want to establish a universal basic income. A lot of its founders were computer scientists and geeks of various stripes.

They refuse to be classified on the left-right scale, but in practice, their policies are strongly aligned with the leftier parties (one popular website comparing the parties on concrete policy questions for this election classed them as having 90% agreement with the Social-Democratic Alliance, 87% with the Socialists, and 83% with the Left-Greens). They are strongly in favor of ratifying the new constitution.

Miðflokkurinn (The Center Party)

After the 2008 financial crisis, the Progressive Party gained a more populist bent, led by Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who was prime minister from 2013 until 2016 when he was implicated in the Panama Papers. He was reluctant to resign as prime minister and fully intended to stay as the leader of the party, until the party chose to boot him and replace him with current Progressive leader Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson; Sigmundur Davíð went off to form his own party instead, the Center Party, and took the populist arm of the Progressive Party with him. They're where most of the anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQ vote goes, and along with the People's Party, some of their MPs were implicated in "Klausturgate", a scandal where a disabled woman at a bar overheard and discreetly recorded several MPs (including Sigmundur Davíð) who were drinking together while making a variety of sexist, homophobic and ableist comments about named people including members of their own parties. The Center Party was perfectly happy to keep them on board, which really says all you need to know.

I am unendingly disappointed that the Center Party managed to scrape past the 5% threshold to get parliamentary seats this election; for a glorious moment the early numbers looked like they wouldn't. Last election they managed to get seven MPs, and then the two guys from the People's Party involved in Klausturgate joined up with the Center Party too, giving them nine, so seeing them reduced to almost nothing was still deeply pleasing.

Viðreisn (The Reform Party)

A center-right party that split off from the Independence Party in 2016, largely over the latter's opposition to the EU, while the Reform Party supports EU membership, but also because of the endless scandals, cronyism, etc. The Reform Party instead claim to be proponents of "ethical capitalism" and have so far avoided the major scandals and general douchebaggery of their parent party.

Flokkur fólksins (The People's Party)

A populist party with a primary emphasis on eradicating poverty, especially for the elderly and disabled, letting the nation reap the benefits of our fish instead of the few large fishing companies, funding health care to reduce wait times, and so on. All this is lovely in theory, but unfortunately their rhetoric then goes off into pitting the poor/elderly/disabled against immigrants, Muslims, etc. Chairperson Inga Sæland seems totally well-meaning to me off what I've seen of her (disclaimer: have not actually seen that much), but it also contains less savoury people and sentiments, as seen by two of their MPs being part of the aforementioned Klausturgate. To the party's credit, they did expel those guys, but it's not the only example of the party attracting questionable people.

Sósíalistaflokkur Íslands (The Icelandic Socialist Party)

A hardline democratic socialist party founded in 2017, with this as their first parliamentary election. It looked like they would get MPs in polls, but in the end they didn't. They're led by Gunnar Smári Egilsson, one of the original founders of free newspaper Fréttablaðið, and have a much more radical left rhetoric going on than the other lefty parties, focusing on economic equality, housing, free health care, and a shorter work week. They made some pretty controversial remarks campaigning for this election, such as suggesting replacing all the judges of the Supreme Court if they won't agree to changing the fishing quota system (the argument being that the Independence Party appointed all the judges in an organized bid to maintain the current system), but who knows if that dampened their following or something else. They also want to ratify the new constitution.

#iceland #politics #asks #asks: iceland

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lizzy-frizzle · 4 years

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I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

#gambling addiction tw #addiction tw #this is probably a bad idea to post knowing how this site operates #but it matters to me

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reading-writing-revolution · 3 years

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Heather Cox Richardson

October 4, 2021 (Monday)

“hello literally everyone,” the official account of Twitter tweeted this afternoon, after Facebook and its affiliated platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went dark at about 11:40 this morning. The Facebook outage lasted for more than six hours and appears to have been caused by an internal error. But the void caused by the absence of the internet giant illustrated its power at a time when the use of that power has come under scrutiny.

In mid-September, the Wall Street Journal began to publish a series of investigative stories based on documents provided by a whistle-blower.

The “Facebook Files” explore how the company has “whitelisted” high-profile users, exempting them from the rules that put limits on ordinary users. Another article reveals that researchers showed Facebook executives evidence that Instagram damages teenage girls by pushing an ideal body image and that they flagged the increasing use of the site by drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminals; their discoveries went unaddressed.

Concerned about declining engagement with their material, Facebook allegedly privileged polarizing material that engaged people by preying on their emotions. It appeared to have encouraged the extremism that led to the January 6 insurrection, lowering restrictions against disinformation quickly after the 2020 election.

Last night, on CBS’s 60 Minutes, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed herself to be the source of the documents. She is concerned, she says, that Facebook consistently looks to maximize profits even if it means ignoring disinformation. Her lawyers have filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees companies and financial markets. Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said it was “ludicrous” to blame Facebook for the events of January 6. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have not commented.

Lawmakers have repeatedly asked Facebook to produce documents for their scrutiny and to testify about the social media platform’s public safeguards. Tomorrow, Haugen will testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security about the effects of social media on teenagers. Her lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, told Cat Zakrzewski and Cristiano Lima of the Washington Post that Haugen’s information is important because “Big Tech is at an inflection point…. It touches every aspect of our lives—whether it’s individuals personally or democratic institutions globally. With such far-reaching consequences, transparency is critical to oversight, and lawful whistleblowing is a critical component of oversight and holding companies accountable.”

Amidst the outrage over the Facebook revelations, technology reporter Kevin Roose at the New York Times suggested that the company’s aggressive attempts to court engagement reveal weakness, rather than strength, as younger users have fled to TikTok and other sites and Facebook has become the domain of older Americans. He notes that Facebook’s researchers foresee a drop of 45% in daily use in the next two years, suggesting that the company is desperate either to retain users or to create new ones.

While the technology Facebook represents is new, the concerns it raises echo public discussion of late nineteenth century industrialization, which was also the product of new technologies. At stake then was whether the concentration of economic power in a few hands would destroy our democracy by giving some rich men far more power than the other men in the country. How could the nation both preserve the right of individuals to build industries and preserve the concept of the common good in the face of technology that permitted unprecedented accumulations of wealth?

While money is certainly at stake in the issue of Facebook’s power today, the more pressing issue for our country is whether social media giants will destroy our democracy through their ability to spread disinformation that sows division and turns us against one another.

When we began to grapple with the excesses of industrialism, lots of people thought the whole system needed to be taken apart—by violence if necessary—while others hoped to save the benefits the technology brought without letting it destroy the country. Americans eventually solved the problems that industrialization raised for democracy by reining in the Wild West mentality of the early industrialists, protecting the basic rights of workers, and regulating business practices.

The leaked Facebook documents suggest there are places where the disinformation at Facebook could be reined in as the overreaches of industrialization were. When Zuckerberg tried to promote coronavirus vaccines on the site, anti-vaxxers undermined his efforts. But one document showed that “out of nearly 150,000 posters in Facebook Groups disabled for Covid misinformation, 5% were producing half of all posts, and around 1,400 users were responsible for inviting half the groups’ new members.” Researchers concluded: “We found, like many problems at FB, this is a head-heavy problem with a relatively few number of actors creating a large percentage of the content and growth.”

“I don’t hate Facebook,” Haugen wrote in a final message to her colleagues at the company. “I love Facebook. I want to save it.”

While most Americans were busy watching Facebook crash—the falling stock took between $5 billion and $7 billion of Zuckerberg’s net worth—drama in Washington, D.C., was an even bigger deal.

Los Angeles Times reporter Sarah D. Wire noted that the rioters who broke into the Capitol on January 6 ran more than 100 feet past 15 reinforced windows, “making a beeline” to four windows that had been left unreinforced in a renovation of the building between 2017 and 2019. They found the four windows, located in a recessed part of the building, Wire wrote, “by sheer luck, real-time trial and error, or advance knowledge by rioters.”

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will likely look into this oddity.

The committee has begun to take testimony from cooperative witnesses. Observers expect fireworks on Thursday when former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino, Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Trump appointee Kash Patel must hand over documents. Trump has vowed to fight the release of any information to the committee. Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says the committee will make criminal referrals for anyone ignoring a subpoena.

Finally, today, the debt ceiling fight got even hotter. While Congress passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through December 3, the issue of the debt ceiling, which stops the government from borrowing money Congress has already spent, remains unresolved. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the government will be unable to pay its obligations after October 18, and warns that a default, which has never before happened, would be catastrophic.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists the Democrats must raise the debt ceiling themselves, although the Republicans raised it three times under former president Trump and added $7.8 trillion to the debt, which now stands at $28 trillion. But when Democrats tried to pass a measure to raise the ceiling, Republicans filibustered it. As Greg Sargent points out in the Washington Post, McConnell is trying to force the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. Since they get only one chance to pass such a bill this year, this would force them to dump their infrastructure bill.

McConnell is holding the nation hostage to keep the Democrats from passing a very popular bill, and today, Biden called him on it. McConnell complained that congressional Democrats were “sleepwalking toward significant and avoidable danger,” prompting Biden to demand that Republicans “stop playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy.... Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, but threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job—saving the economy from a catastrophic event—I think, quite frankly, is hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful. Their obstruction and irresponsibility knows absolutely no bounds.”

When asked if he could guarantee we would not default on our debts, Biden said, “No, I can’t…. That’s up to Mitch McConnell.” If McConnell doesn’t blink and the Republicans continue to filibuster Democrats’ attempts to save the economy, there will be enormous pressure on the Democrats to break the filibuster.

Meanwhile, every day this drags on, Congress does not pass the Freedom to Vote Act.

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lilibethcostassantiago · 3 years

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Accessorize Your Outfit With Artificial Bangles to Create an Overall Stunning Look

When it comes to accessorizing, the only statement your accessories should make is - "Look at me, I am beautiful." They should complement your lovely features, not take away from it. And if you are like most women, you are not fond of turning your entire look by wearing an unattractive outfit. In case of out and out Fashionista's this is a good problem to solve, anklets being one of the most attractive pieces of accessories that can match a lot of different dresses and this is also an item that is always in fashion. Fashion trends keep changing every year but the simple timeless anklets are ones that never go out of fashion and they are here to stay. In this article, we are going to take a look at the hottest trends in bangle bracelets that are going to inspire you to totally go for the chocolate and orange look.

Have you ever worn bangles before? If not, you should grab it as soon as possible, because it is the perfect thing to give a sophisticated, chic look. Today, vertical line bangles are the thing and what better design to suit the overall package. Whether you are wearing a black designer suit or an elegant grey dress, vertical line bangles are perfect to give a glamorous and chic look. And if you worry whether you can style them just right, worry not because the trick to Vertical line bangles is "notation." In other words, imagine that you have a great character in your agent or coach, someone with impressive knowledge andentric tastes would most likely wear bangles that have pleasing artistic designs. Likewise, imagine dancing the night away, wearing those gorgeously designed vertical line bangles in the vibrant color of orange or passion - this will correctly balance your outfit and make you the most talked about girl (in the area) and the best part is, you can do it with ease.

As a Fashionista, there is no more exclusive item you can add to your collection than a pair of beautiful Bangles. The best thing about exclusive bangle bracelets is that they are not very easily available. So as you are looking for that one bangle bracelet that is saying "Look at me," do not waste time in finding it. Apart from buying those designer bangle bracelets that can be bought from boutiques, that same thing you would also do wonders in choosing custom made bangles online. In these online shops, you can custom make your bangle bracelets according to your needs. You can even take an image of your preference and turn it into a design that is worth protecting by purchasing a custom made set of bangles. As you are very lucky ( endings level) you will also get a bangle bracelet that is wearable on all occasions, whether it is a simple party, a resume talk or a debating match.

Well there is no Otherwise to say that the best bangles is the purely decorative ones. There are literally thousands of bangles are available in the market, probably in thousands of stores. Beautiful statement pieces that emphasize your lovely collar bone and rich colorful outfit. The costume jewels of today are beautifully caught on the wrists worn by celebrated personalities like Oprah - that awes a lot of people.

Most people will have heard a lot about preparing your accessories in the best way. But it is not necessarily the most important things you should pay attention to, but instead to show off your style and taste. The current fashion trend represents all these qualities in one package, making the articles related to them one of the greatest innovations of the times.

This according to the%- Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a Pop Culture Research associate emerita.

Curation today

Try watching the " philanthropic " channel, as many celebrities lend their celebrity support to specific causes. I am sure you wonder, what are the chances for me? In the end, it all depends on you. Call me a idealist, but I dream of a world without national borders and with comprehensive social inclusion designing a common language. Too many businessmen and women succeed in the exclusive club of the rich, the dollars pile up and the play on the system grows too great. That's why all we ask is that you support the cause, because if we don't, what's the point of living?

In addition,women fashionlike clothes- made by famous designers- has become a seamless part of our culture. Modern manufacturing techniques have avoided the use of cheap labor and have brought us a much diverse, because of the burst of globalization. Globalization of course favours big business with its " everybody is parading around the latest fashion ideas, so everyone can make it". Today layering of clothes is one of the major styles. Lilibeth Costas Santiago really is not bad, actually, the more you know about clothing trends, the more daring you'll be.

#finance #education

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irestmycase · 3 years

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On senators and congressmen

I always fancy how Filipinos choose who to vote whenever there is an election. I remember two years ago when a woman was interviewed and asked why she was voting for a certain senator, she merely stated that because the senator is good looking. Another notion that is common with people is that if the candidate is rich, it is less likely that such will be a corrupt official since they are already rich. It's sad that a lot of our countrymen choose based on other factors that are not related to the position they are vying for.

1. What is the main function of the congressmen and the senators?

To start off, senators and congressmen are part of the legislative branch of the government. There main function is to draft and create laws. This laws will dictate how life in the Philippines is to be conducted since this spans from telling what your rights are to how much taxes a person pay.

This is crucial since laws are the tools of the government in protecting its citizens and promoting the rights of individuals. A notable example of this is the labor laws of the Philippines which protect workers from oppressive and unjust working conditions.

Another main function of the congress is to make sure that the system of checks and balance, or in simpler terms the power of the branches of the government to check one another in order to make sure that no one abuses their power, are running. Congress has the power to remove a government official through the ever famous impeachment process, this can be an official from the judiciary or the courts , or from the executive branch or those under the direct control of the president, even the president himself can be subject to impeachment.

2. Why is choosing the right candidate crucial?

This is crucial for one main reason, we need someone who will put the interest of the masses as the highest priority, someone who won't use the office to further his personal benefit or those around him. If a senator or a congressman will have really close ties with businesses, or if that said official will be supported by those businesses to the point that he will owe them a debt of gratitude, that official might use his office to further the interest of those businesses who supported him. A good example of this is the recently amended tax laws, for the average worker especially those in the middleclass, the burden of taxation will affect you greatly since 1/3 of your salary will be destined for tax payments, while the businesses were given tax breaks, additional or higher deductions, and a lower tax rate just to name a few. Those who are earning marginally more than me and you are paying lesser taxes in proportion to what they are earning. Seems unfair right? But that is what we get when we elect people who promote self-interest into office.

3. What can we do to choose the best candidate to vote for?

First, find someone who is active with his cause even prior to running for office. For example, a senatorial candidate back then is actively campaigning to help solve human rights issues and help improve the country's legal system, that candidate is an active human rights lawyer and also does a lot of free legal service to the underprivileged. Second, choose someone as if you are choosing your partner in life, ask the right questions like "does he have knowledge about the job he is applying for?", "does this person seem like the kind of person who has the tendency to abuse his authority?(I'm looking at you Tulfo)", "is this persons campaign promises realistic or are they merely baseless promises?", "what is this person's stand on the issues relevant to our country?". By asking the right questions, we can screen candidates better. We must be selective since our taxes are the one paying this people, we are their boss as PNOY used to say. In a democracy, the power belongs to us, the people, we are merely entrusting them to those officials, we must choose them as if we are hiring an employee to do the job.

In the end, I just want to say that in the internet age, we have a lot of resources available on our hands to be informed and to be wiser especially in elections. If we have time to watch vloggers who are telling us how better their lives are compared to us, then we should have time to be informed and to know about politics.

Vote as if your life depends on it.

#Legislature #Philippine Government #law #voting #election #congress #Philippines #Philippine Politics

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 4, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

In mid-September, the Wall Street Journal began to publish a series of investigative stories based on documents provided by a whistle-blower.

“I don’t hate Facebook,” Haugen wrote in a final message to her colleagues at the company. “I love Facebook. I want to save it.”

While most Americans were busy watching Facebook crash—the falling stock took between $5 billion and $7 billion of Zuckerberg’s net worth—drama in Washington, D.C., was an even bigger deal.

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will likely look into this oddity.

Meanwhile, every day this drags on, Congress does not pass the Freedom to Vote Act.

—

Notes:

https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2021/10/protecting%20kids%20online:%20testimony%20from%20a%20facebook%20whistleblower

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/03/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-revealed/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039

https://apnews.com/article/facebook-whatsapp-instagram-outage-8b9d3862ed957029e545182a595fdce1

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/technology/whistle-blower-facebook-frances-haugen.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-says-she-wants-to-fix-the-company-not-harm-it-11633304122

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/04/facebook-instagram-down-outage/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-files.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-vaccinated-11631880296

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-04/jan-6-rioters-exploited-little-known-capitol-weak-spots-a-handful-of-unreinforced-windows

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/01/bennie-thompson-jan-6-panel-subpoena-514940

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/04/jan-6-panel-trump-collision-514979

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/10/04/biden-schumer-debt-ceiling/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quotes #political #facebook #social media #debt ceiling #political hardball #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American

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ariesjupiter · 4 years

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Event Astrology: Creation of Tumblr 💫

Since it’s Pisces season and Tumblr’s Birthday is tomorrow, Feb 19th, I wanted to talk about the astrology of this website! First of all, there’s a huge Pisces and 10th house stellium. Pisces deals with spirituality, dreams, imagination, creativity, and empathy. The tenth house deals with public persona, how you’re seen online, power, contribution to society, and overall reputation, especially when it comes to your career. This combination means that tumblr is known for being creative and a place where romanticization of life happens, at least many blogs and posts have that dreamy feel. Even though there aren’t any planets in the 12th house, I’d argue Pisces is also associated with solitude & being alone. Going on tumblr feels so different from typical social media. It feels detached & disconnected from other popular apps. To me it feels comforting and a place where you can express your interests without feeling the need to show off your personal life. That’s how I see Pisces. Ok, now let’s dive in.

Pisces Sun in the 10th House: This placement explains why Tumblr is known as a space where people share their art. A real person with this placement would be known for being a talented artist. There is a need to distinguish from others in the public eye here. 10th house sun suggests a hard worker. A lot of people on tumblr put in a lot of time and work into crafting their blogs and managing their account. The mixture of Pisces and the 10th house here indicates a large amount of wisdom. You can find lots of serious, emotional posts on here with lessons, inspiration, and pieces of advice. Compared to other social media sites, Tumblr is a quiet and behind the scenes yet still very established and well known.

Pisces Moon in the 10th House: People with this moon placement usually have a need to escape. Tumblr feels like a safe way to escape from reality for a while. As previously mentioned, Tumblr (the people on it) is known for romanticizing daily life and the little mundane things. Aesthetics and pretty things matter. It’s still somewhat seen today but years ago there was a huge, collective emo phase with a strong connection to musical artists who wrote emotional songs. I think this placement contributes to the site being misunderstood. There’s more than what meets the eye/what you’ve heard about it. There is an emotional need for recognition and achievement here. That makes sense for any social media.

Pisces Mercury in 10th House: Here there is a silly and some may say odd overall type of humor on Tumblr. Mercury being in the 10th means they may be criticized publicly for the way they think and how they express their thoughts. This placement is concerned with bettering themselves. They want to be remembered for being a good communicator and a knowledgeable person who achieved many things.

Pisces Venus in 10th House: Again, all the Pisces themes of the arts, spiritual realm, and romance are heightened here in the planet of love and the public 10th house. Open minded and find it easy to love people, places, and things. Pisces venus could typically have a tendency to idolize people to a great extent but being in the 10th house there is an added layer of realism and detachment. Even though it’s in the 10th house, Pisces venus aren’t attracted to money and material wealth. There is a widely accepted notion going around on Tumblr recently that celebrity culture can be toxic and there is a dislike of rich people. Pisces venus people especially value genuinely kind people who are giving and have strong morals.

Capricorn Mars in the 8th House: There is something mysterious about this placement. They value privacy. This makes sense with the ability to hide or display your likes and who you’re following. Also connects to how tumblr doesn’t show other people your follower count. Psychology and spirituality are two interests this placement would gravitate towards. I didn’t want to have to go there but this placement just makes a lot of sense for when there used to be........you know, .... available on Tumblr. I’ll leave it at that.

Sagittarius Jupiter in the 6th House: I read on Astrohealer.com that the 6th house is associated with your early twenties and therefore ideological formation. Due to all the discourse on here, whether you’d like to admit it or not, you might have found something you believe in here. Sagittarius is naturally philosophical and loves to travel and learn. This placement makes sense for the amount of langblrs, studyblrs, and astroblrs that are on tumblr. This placement attracts good luck/good fortune when they’re helping and educating others. I think this is something Tumblr is known for. Also Jupiter being in the same sign as Pluto, there could be a tendency to push your beliefs on to someone and cause controversy. People with Jupiter in the 6th house though are able to be critical and decide for themselves what they find right and wrong and they will voice that. This is also a great placement for writers. This site is also known for having some really long posts (uh...kind of like this one now.)

Leo Saturn in the 3rd House: This placement shows someone that denies their desire to be in the spotlight or show off. You dislike authority & believe everyone should be in charge of themselves. There’s a mixture of being proud yet insecure here. People with this placement could have back issues. I know it’s a common thing, but so many people on here write posts about their back hurting even at a young age, so I think that’s interesting. 3rd house means you could be outspoken and you take your time to pay attention to your surroundings.

Pisces Uranus in the 10th House: Natural dreamers who find unique ways to solve problems. Uranus being in the 10th house means they’re known for being quirky and inventive. There is a deep desire to help humanity here. I’ve seen that over the years on tumblr.

Aquarius Neptune in the 9th House: A person/place where big goals and dreams are put into action. They may not always be the most realistic though. A creative teacher and a placement that’s open to new or seemingly unusual ideas.

Sagittarius Pluto in the 7th House: Philosophy is a natural topic of interest here. A passion for talking about how beliefs change as well. A placement that truly wants to change the world for the better. This is a true mediator placement. Since the 7th house is an air house, it’s naturally logical and engaging in debates and discourse is transformational. it’s the house of relationships. maybe you made meaningful friendships on tumblr that changed your life/your outlook on life.

Gemini Rising: Obviously I don’t know the exact time of creation, but this makes sense. Gemini rising is known for having lots of interests and having a love of engaging in discussions with people. Tumblr is known for it’s different ��sides’ (various blog communities/interests) and having various phases through time. Gemini rising is always evolving. Also there’s multiple functions on tumblr whereas the main goal of say, Snapchat, is to send pictures to your friends or story which eventually goes away.

Aquarius 10th House/Midheaven: I knew there had to be a major Aqua placement. Unique creators who come up with new and exciting ideas and content. True trend setters. Tumblr has always been years ahead of its time compared to other social media site users in terms of musicians who get popular, fashion and clothing trends, specific discourse topics, and even the creation of certain popular aesthetics. Aquarius is associated with friendships and the collective. As opposed to Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook where most of your friends/followers are people you know, Tumblr is all about following people you’ve (chances are) never met irl. Aquarius is associated with computers, humanity, and nonconformity.

Let me know if there’s any recommendations you’d like to see for an event analysis. Feel free to share your thoughts on whether you agree or disagree with things I said in this interpretation. I find it really interesting to look at charts of when bands were founded, when something was discovered etc. Hopefully this wasn’t too repetitive. Maybe I’ll try to add some aspect interpretations next time

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myhealthmag · 4 years

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15 EASY WAYS TO BE HEALTHIER

More and more research is showing that the key to lifelong good health is what experts call “lifestyle medicine” — making simple changes in diet, exercise, and stress management. To help you turn that knowledge into results, we’ve put together this manageable list of health and wellness suggestions.

We asked three experts — a naturopathic physician, a dietitian, and a personal trainer — to tell us the top five simple-but-significant lifestyle-medicine changes they recommend.

Besides giving you three different takes on how to pick your health battles, this list gives you choices you can make without being whisked off to a reality-show fat farm — or buying a second freezer for those calorie-controlled, pre-portioned frozen meals.

1. THINK POSITIVE AND FOCUS ON GRATITUDE

Research shows a healthy positive attitude helps build a healthier immune system and boosts overall health. Your body believes what you think, so focus on the positive.

In this speedy age it’s hard to maintain health and fitness. We need a lot of time, money and expertise. For the same reason the doctors and Physicians are recommending fitness supplements more than ever. These formulae work best if you are recommended the best. Being a nutritionist, I am recommending a Best Weight Loss Supplement For many months. It gives my clients speedy results, satisfaction and stability. Zero side Effects.

It’s an excellent Fat cutter, energizer, cancer prevention, age restriction, immunity booster and health glower at the same time and in the short time. In maximum 7 weeks you get a slim smart body, shining cheeks, active brain and high level (tested) of immunity. Click Here to see its review.

2. EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

Shoot for five servings of vegetables a day — raw, steamed, or stir-fried. A diet high in vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of developing cancers of the lung, colon, breast, cervix, esophagus, stomach, bladder, pancreas, and ovaries. And many of the most powerful phytonutrients are the ones with the boldest colors — such as broccoli, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, grapes, and leafy greens.

3. SET A “5-MEAL IDEAL”

What, when, and how much you eat can keep both your metabolism and your energy levels steadily elevated, so you’ll have more all-day energy. A "5 meal ideal" will help you manage your weight, keep your cool, maintain your focus, and avoid cravings.

4. EXERCISE DAILY

Did you know that daily exercise can reduce all of the biomarkers of aging? This includes improving eyesight, normalizing blood pressure, improving lean muscle, lowering cholesterol, and improving bone density. If you want to live well and live longer, you must exercise! Studies show that even ten minutes of exercise makes a difference — so do something! Crank the stereo and dance in your living room.

Sign up for swing dancing or ballroom dancing lessons. Walk to the park with your kids or a neighbor you’d like to catch up with. Jump rope or play hopscotch. Spin a hula hoop. Play water volleyball. Bike to work. Jump on a trampoline. Go for a hike.

5. GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

If you have trouble sleeping, try relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga. Or eat a small bedtime snack of foods shown to help shift the body and mind into sleep mode: whole grain cereal with milk, oatmeal, cherries, or chamomile tea. Darken your room more and turn your clock away from you. Write down worries or stressful thoughts to get them out of your head and onto the page. This will help you put them into perspective so you can quit worrying about them.

1. CHECK YOUR FOOD ’TUDE

What we eat and how we feel are linked in very complex ways. A healthy approach to eating is centered on savoring flavor, eating to satisfaction, and increasing energy, rather than focusing on weight. Check your balance of low-calorie foods, nutrient-dense foods (providing many nutrients per calorie), and foods that are calorie dense but nutrient poor.

Most Americans need to eat more fresh whole foods (in contrast to processed, highly refined foods). Try to add more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and legumes into your meals. Pair these carbohydrate-rich foods with a healthy fat or lean protein to extend satisfaction.

2. EAT LIKE A KID

If adding more fruits and vegetables sounds ominous, look to “finger food” versions that preschool kids love — carrot and celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, broccoli florets, grapes, berries, and dried fruits. All are nutritional powerhouses packed with antioxidants.

3. BE A PICKY EATER

Limit saturated fats and trans fats, and aim to eat more foods rich in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids to cut your risk of cardiovascular disease and maybe even improve depressed moods. The equivalent of just one gram of EPA/DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid/docosahexaenoic acid) daily is recommended. Eating cold-water oily fish (wild salmon, herring, sardines, trout) two to three times per week will provide both EPA and DHA.

Adding up to two tablespoons of ground flaxseed and eating meat, milk, and cheese from grass-fed animals will provide you with a healthy dose of omega-3s.

4. USE FOODS OVER SUPPLEMENTS

Supplements are not a substitute for a good diet. Although many health experts recommend taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement that provides 100 to 200 percent of your recommended daily value, each and every supplement should be carefully evaluated for purity and safety. Specific supplements have been associated with toxicity, reactions with medications, competition with other nutrients, and even increased risk of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

5. GET SATISFACTION

Both eating and physical activity are fun, sensory experiences! In both, aim for pleasure — not pain. Pay attention to the nutritional value of the foods you choose to eat, as well as your sense of satisfaction, relaxation, tension, exhilaration, and fatigue when you sit down to eat. Check in with yourself as you eat, rekindling your recognition of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction when considering when and how much to eat.

1. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

“I spend countless hours doing cardio and never seem to lose that last ten pounds!” is a common complaint I hear from clients. Give yourself permission to shorten your workout. Believe it or not, overtraining could be the problem. Your body can plateau if not given adequate rest to restore itself, ultimately leading to a decline in performance. Fatigue, moodiness, lack of enthusiasm, depression, and increased cortisol (the “stress” hormone) are some hallmarks of overtraining syndrome.

Creating a periodization program — breaking up your routine into various training modes — can help prevent overtraining by building rest phases into your regimen. For example, you might weight train on Monday and Wednesday, cycle on Tuesday and Thursday, run on Friday and rest on Saturday and Sunday. You can also help balance your program by simply incorporating more variety.

2. THINK SMALL

Often the biggest deterrent to improving health is feeling overwhelmed by all the available advice and research. Try to focus first on one small, seemingly inconsequential, unhealthy habit and turn it into a healthy, positive habit. If you’re in the habit of eating as soon as you get home at night, instead, keep walking shoes in the garage or entryway and take a quick spin around the block before going inside.

If you have a can of soda at lunchtime every day, have a glass of water two days a week instead. Starting with small, painless changes helps establish the mentality that healthy change is not necessarily painful change. It’s easy to build from here by adding more healthy substitutions.

3. KEEP GOOD COMPANY

You can do all the right things — but if you have personal relationships with people who have unhealthy habits, it is often an uphill battle. The healthiest people are those who have relationships with other healthy people. Get your family or friends involved with you when you walk or plan healthier meals. Making healthy changes with a loved one can bring you closer together as well as motivate you.

4. MAKE A LIST…AND CHECK IT TWICE

Take a few minutes and write down all the reasons you can’t begin an exercise program. Then look at the basis of each reason. For instance, if you wrote, “No time” as one of your reasons, then perhaps that’s based on a belief that an exercise program takes a lot of time.

Starting with even five minutes a day will have a positive effect because you will have created a healthy habit where one didn’t exist before, and that’s a powerful mental adjustment. A closer look at your list will expose those false beliefs hiding behind each excuse.

5. SIGN UP FOR AN EVENT

Let’s face it, exercising just for the sake of exercising or losing weight can get boring. Spice things up by signing up for an event like a run/walk race or a cycling ride where you can be part of a team.

Doing so gives your workouts a new purpose, and it’s fun to be around others who are exercising just like you — not to mention that most events benefit nonprofit organizations, which doubles your feel-good high.

#Weight Loss #Lose Weight #Burn Fat #Reduce Weight #Decrease Weight #How to #Health #Fitness #fit #Obesity #Over Weight #body #slim

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jeannereames · 4 years

Text

Writing Historical Fiction (Well)

From an anonymous ask:

"What advice would you give to someone who wants to write about Alexander?" Sorry I didn't clarify, I was thinking of writing a fictional novel (but do not plan to publish it, lol)

If you’re just writing for yourself with no plans to publish, you don’t have to worry about constraints like wordcount and publishability. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to sell mainstream historicals. Selling a genre historical is easier (historical fantasy, historical mystery, historical romance). But there’s a reason it took me 30 years to get Dancing with the Lion into print. Yes, some of that time I was actually writing it, but much more was devoted to finding a market for it, and notice that I did, finally, have to sell it as genre even though it isn’t really. (It was that or shelve it forever.)

Yet if you’re asking for my recommendations, I assume you want to write something that’s marginally readable. Ergo, what follows is general advice I’d give anybody writing historical fiction.

For historicals, one must keep track of two things simultaneously: telling a good story, and portraying history accurately enough. It’s possible to do one well, but the other quite badly.

First, let’s look at how to write a good story.

There are two very basic sorts of stories: the romance, and the novel. Notice it’s romance small /r/. A romance is an adventure story; in romances, the plot dominates and characters serve the plot. A novel is character-driven, so plot events serve character development. Dancing with the Lion is a novel.

Once you’ve decided which of those you’re writing, you have a better handle on how to write it. You also need to know where you’re going: what’s the end of the story? What are the major plot points? Writers who dive in with no road map tend to produce bloated books that require massive edits. That said, romances will almost always be faster paced, in part because “what’s happening” drives it. Whereas in novels, the impact of events on characters drives it. Exclusive readers of romances are rarely pleased by the pacing of novels. They’re too slow: “Nothing is happening!” Things are happening, but internally, not externally.

Yet pacing does matter. Never let a scene do one thing when it can do three.

You will want to pay attention to something called “scene and sequel.” A “scene” is an event and a “sequel” are the consequences. So let’s say (as in my current MIP [monster in progress]) you open with a fugitive from the city jail racing through the streets with guards following: he leaps the wall of a rich man’s house and ends up in the bedroom of a visiting prince. That’s the scene. The sequel is the fall-out. (House searched, prince hides fugitive, prince gets fugitive to tell him why he’s running.) Usually near the end of the sequel(s) to the first scene, you embed the hook to the next (a slave of the rich man has been found murdered outside the city walls). The next scene concerns recovering the body and what they discover (then fall-out from that). Etc., etc., etc.

That’s how stories progress. Or don’t progress, if the author can’t master scene-sequel patterns.

It also means—again—you need to know where you’re going. Outlines Are Your Friends. But yes, your plot can still take a sharp left-hand turn that surprises you…they almost always do.

When I sat down to write Dancing with the Lion, I knew three things:

1) I wanted to write about Alexander before he became king.

2) I wanted to explore his relationship with Hephaistion.

3) I especially wanted to consider how both became the men they’d did.

With those goals in mind, I could frame the story. Because I always intended Hephaistion to be as important as Alexander, the novel opens in his point-of-view to establish that. And because I didn’t want to deal with Alexander as king, the novel had to end before he became one. History itself gives a HUGE and obvious gift in the abrupt murder of Philip. Where to open was harder to decide, but as I wanted to explore the boys’ friendship and its impact on their maturation into men, I should logically begin with their meeting, and decided not to have them meet too young. From there, I spun out Hephaistion’s background, and his decision to run away from home to join the circus, er, I mean Pages. 😉

IMO, Alexander’s story is Too Big to do in a single novel, or you get an 800+ page monstrosity like Chris Cameron’s God of War. The author must decide on what piece of the story she wants to tell. (Or, like me, view it as a series.)

So that’s (in a nutshell) how you construct a story.

As for the historical side, there are three levels here:

1) What the world looks like (details).

2) The events that take place.

3) How people living in that world understand life, the universe, and everything.

Number two is probably the easiest. Numbers one and three require deeper research on all sorts of things. Sometimes historical novels spend all their time on number one and completely forget number three exists.

The past is a foreign country. Just as you wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) write a novel set in Japan (if you’re American) without learning something not only about the physical country but also the customs…same with stories set in the past.

This is why the Oliver Stone movie failed. He put modern people in a costume drama. He didn’t understand how ancient Macedonians (or Greeks or Persians) thought. So he committed crazy anachronisms like the oedipal complex between Alexander and Olympias. Freud may have named his theory after a Greek hero, but it’s largely a foreign idea to the Greek mind. (Whether it’s valid at all is a topic for another day).

The author has to let ancient people be properly ancient.

Problem: what do you do when they’re SO foreign they’re impossible to understand for modern readers—or their attitudes are outright offensive?

Well, if you don’t plan to get your story published, you don’t have to worry about that. Or not as much. But if you want to share it with others, you might still want to consider it.

There are two basic approaches:

1) Introduce your world through a “stranger” who enters it.

2) Spread out more “modern” views among various characters in the story, to give modern readers something familiar to hang onto.

The first of those is by far the most common. So in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Claire Randall—quite literally a modern woman—introduces the modern reader to Jacobite Scotland. As she learns about her new world, so does the reader, and in Claire, the reader has a voice to express both their fascination and their horror of that world. In Judith Tarr’s Lord of the Two Lands, she uses Meriamon, an Egyptian priestess, to enter the Macedonian world of Alexander. Judy can then contrast Egyptian and Macedonian cultural values in order to explain them. Meriamon asks questions the reader wants answers to—or Niko (or Alexander) ask questions of her about Egypt.

The second choice (which is what I did in Dancing) is to identify cultural mores likely to offend modern readers: indifference to slavery, glorification of war and conquest, Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards women, and Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards sexuality. Then to assign one of the characters to voice a more modern view. Alexander gets to be a proto-feminist, and I gave points of view to two women. One of those women, I made a slave. Hephaistion gets to express a more modern view regarding the horrors of war. Sexuality was a bit tougher, but I used the boys’ atypical relationship—that the younger is the one of higher status—to illustrate Greco-Macedonian assumptions about what a male-male relationship should look like.

That approach presents more hurdles, but for my purposes, I preferred it.

I harp on this because it’s the biggest problem for historical fiction: not having historical characters! It wrecks what might otherwise be decent research into the details. No matter how much you look up what they ate, how they dressed, the way their houses were laid out…if you have them behaving anachronistically, it’s a bad historical. Or if you have circumstances that just wouldn’t occur.

Let me give an example. I’ve said before that, when I started writing the novel in December of 1988, Dancing always began with a run-away boy (Hephaistion). But in my initial version, he showed up in Pella incognito. The more I read about Macedonia, however, the more I realized that was virtually impossible. There just weren’t that many Hetairoi. He’d have been recognized, and probably sooner rather than later. So I went back to the drawing board and, instead of having him try to hide, he comes right out and says who he is, and that he wants to join the Pages. It might take away the “mystery,” but set up more interesting dynamics: would Philip let him stay? What would his father do? Etc.

That requires the author know enough about the culture to know what’s possible, probable, and impossible. It also requires the author to be willing to change original plans in order to reflect reality, not insist on doing ___ anyway.

A good example of jettisoning history in favor of “what I want to do!” can be found in David Gemmell’s Lion of Macedon. So many, many things wrong with that book, starting with his choice to make Parmenion a Spartan for no historical reason whatsoever—but (I assume?) because Spartans Are Sexy. Parmenion likely belonged to the royal house of Upper Macedonian Pelagonia. Although even if he didn’t, absolutely nothing suggests he wasn’t Macedonian, and quite a lot says he was. The whole duology (with included The Dark Prince) was essentially Blue Boltz ™ Epic Fantasy Does Greece. The fact he actually included a bibliography in back, and got weird, isolated details right only added insult to injury.

Yet Gemmell was a best-selling British fantasy novelist who knew pacing and how to spin a good yarn. For a reader with zero knowledge of Alexander, it would stack up as a predictable but tolerable fantasy set.

Remember that as an historical fiction author, your job is to practice the art of getting it right. If that isn’t important to you, please God, write something completely made up.

At the spectrum’s other end is Showing Notecards on Every Page. You’ve done ALL that hard research, and you’ll be damn sure the reader knows it!

Um, the reader doesn’t care. The reader wants to be transported to another world. How locals in that world shoed horses (or if they shoed horses at all) is irrelevant. It matters only if your main character’s a farrier. And even then, it matters only if said-farrier is having a conversation with someone else while shoeing a horse.

If people want all the little details of history, they’ll read a history book.

Now, how much detail is “too much” can vary from reader to reader, and often has something to do with the genre.

Regular readers of historical fiction are fans because they enjoy history. So they’ll expect proper world-building. But they don’t want the Dreaded Information Dump. Weave in details. The Dreaded Information Dump is a common beginning-author error across the board, but especially bad in certain genres, such as historicals, fantasy, and SF.

What’s an “information dump”? It’s where the author provides details the reader doesn’t need at that point in the story. What the character looks like, is wearing, their family background, what they had for breakfast….

As mentioned, details should be woven into the story organically. What your character had for breakfast matters only if, later, it’s giving him/her gas: “Damn those beans in my breakfast burrito!” Some details may be useful to set a scene and prevent characters from walking around, having conversations in a void, but again, a light touch.

Similarly, One scene, One head. We do NOT need to see everything from each character’s point of view. No, really. We don’t. And dear God, please don’t “head-hop” inside of scenes (unless you’re writing omniscient, but be sure you know what omniscient IS). Drives me BUGGY.

Anyway, back to the Notecard Showing Problem. As noted above, genre expectations and reader preferences often dictate what IS “too much detail.” Generally, historical Romance (the genre) and historical mysteries go lighter on detail than historical fantasy or plain historicals. That’s because the former two have genre conventions that work against it. Romances preference the love story front-and-center at all times, and mysteries have a mystery to unravel. E.g, they’re plot driven. By contrast, historical fantasies tolerate more world building because world building itself is a feature of fantasy (and science fiction too). And the appeal of mainstream or literary historicals IS the world building, so you get massive novels like Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth.

I’m blathering now, but hopefully this gives pointers not just about writing Alexander, but writing fiction period, and historical fiction in particular.

#historical fiction #writing #the writing life #writing how-to #Alexander the Great #Dancing with the Lion #ancient Greek fiction #scene and sequel #asks

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schmokschmok · 4 years

Text

a series of events

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Mikaele Salesa, Gertrude Robinson & Michael Shelley, Tim Stoker & Sasha James

Characters: Mikaele Salesa, Getrude Robinson, Michael Shelley, Tim Stoker, Sasha James

Wordcount: 5,314

Freeform:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Missing Scene

Canon Compliant

Vignettes

Summary:

It's not a tragedy. It's not a comedy either. It's a series of unfortunate events and their rather anticlimactic end.

aka What do Mikaele, Gertrude and Tim have in common? A gun!

Contains spoilers up until MAG 115

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28205352

CN: Guns (discussed), Murder (mentioned & idiomatic) Entities alluded to: Buried, Corruption, Flesh, Slaughter, Stranger

Exposition

It starts with a plain looking flintlock pistol and a few percussion weapons. After he had copied Jürgen’s client list, he had studied every last name on it relentlessly until he found one that he was sure enough he could sell to without having Jürgen with him. Then he tracked down a lass in Sunderland who liquidated a relatively sumptuous collection of antique weapons.

Now he’s standing in front of a door belonging to a block of flats which doesn’t look in the slightest like a home for antiques. Mikaele’s used to much too big houses, creaking with old age and looming over him like the head of a giant monster sleeping underneath the earth. He knows brass doorknockers and intercommunication systems at iron gates separating the wide-spreading garden area from the street. A simple intercom at the door and several flights of stairs towards one of half a dozen identical looking doors is unfamiliar territory and sends a rush of adrenaline through his whole body.

After drawing a final breath to brace himself, he rings the bell and waits for the steady thrum of the buzzer inviting him into the whitewashed house with its light grey louvred blinds. His feet hit tiles and then stair after stair until he’s in front of a door with inlaid glass. The sight through is blocked by what seems to be a curtain made from Nottingham lace.

Drawing another breath, he raps his knuckles curtly against the wood of the door and takes a step back. While he listens to shuffling footsteps coming closer, he swallows drily and plasters a sly grin on his face, even though he doesn’t feel like it. He has seen Jürgen interact with dozens of people over the years and had a fair share of interactions with tedious clients himself, so he knows that confidence is the first step to success. If he thinks he can make a deal, then he can make a deal. It’s easy, he tells himself.

The door swings open and a woman in her thirties studies him with tired eyes. She says: “Mr Salesa, I suppose?”

He nods, accompanied by verbal confirmation and greeting, and extends his hand for her to shake, and it only takes an imploring look upon his hand until she grabs hold of it and welcomes him into her small flat.

“It’s in the backroom,” she says as soon as the door clicks shut behind him. “Found them while cleaning out my Da’s cellar but hadn’t had the chance to get them looked at. What with all the funeral preparations, you know?”

Mikaele doesn’t because he never had to take care of such thing, but he makes a non-committal sound at the back of his throat and offers his condolences because it’s the polite thing to do. She thanks him in a detached voice, as one does faced with superficial, sympathetic words.

“It’s a whole chest of them,” she continues while opening the door to a small pantry which is filled to the brim with shelves displaying tinned and pickled food. The floor area is covered with cardboard boxes, two wooden chests and a few rolled up carpets. She gestures towards the chest on the left and steps back to make room for him. He thanks her.

“I don’t know if they’re worth anything at all,” she says, leaning against the doorframe and watching him step closer until the fingers of his outstretched hand touch the copper key of the chest, and sink to his knees. A part of him wants to explain to her that she’s setting herself up to get stitched up like a kipper. But it’s not his problem, is it? Actually, it’s rather his fortune.

Mikaele opens the lid and takes a look at the percussion weapons, eight of them in total. Six percussion rifles and two guns. And right on top of them lies a flintlock gun with a wooden handle. He’s not interested in that, so he takes it out and lays it down next to him on the floor with great caution.

“So, you’re taking them?” She asks and he can hear her shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I’ve got two other potential buyers. But if you want them, you can have them.”

He doesn’t know why she’s so eager to get rid of them and uneasiness settles into his midriff, constricting his breathing in an almost imperceptible way. So, he tells her that he can’t decide without taking a proper look at them. And then he asks her about deeds of ownership.

“Everything I’ve got is in that chest. If they don’t have a deed of ownership, then I haven’t either,” she replies while he takes one percussion gun out of the chest, examining the caplock mechanism and pulling back the hammer, only to be greeted by the strenuous sound of a screw being used for the first time after a long period of inactivity.

Cautiously taking out one musket after the other, splayed around him like sunbeams, the bottom of the chest reveals nine deeds of ownership and even a documentation of the last purchase agreement.

This is too good to be true, Mikaele thinks. But what he says is that he is going to buy them and that he can guarantee her an adequate payment, he can’t, however, say anything about the price just now. He must test if they work, he apologises, then he promises that if they’re usable he’s going to pay her even more. Even though it doesn’t make a difference for his potential buyer. Mikaele will get the same amount either way. But she seems like she could use the money, and this is his first buy all on his own. He can be a little generous, he can be a little accommodating.

“I don’t care,” she says, levity coming back to her and lifting her shoulders as if up until now she had been pressed down by a weight he hadn’t noticed. “I just want them gone. So, if you could take them with you today, that would be appreciated.”

After taking out the documents, he nods absent-mindedly and places the weapons back inside the chest. When he turns towards the flintlock pistol, he asks where he should put it.

“You can have it,” she rushes to say, involuntarily taking a step back and raising her hands in a display of defensiveness, palms spread wide open. He tells her that he doesn’t necessarily want it, but she dismisses his objections. “I don’t want it.” He opens his mouth again. “Look, take it as an eight plus one deal, okay? I don’t want them. Not any of them.”

He nods as if he understands what she’s trying to say. He doesn’t, but does it make any difference?

Together they lift the now locked chest after and they carry it down the stairs, through the small front yard and into Mikaele’s waiting car. As she steps back from the boot, he thanks her for her generosity and extends once again his hand to meet hers.

“Thank you,” she says as if she hadn’t singlehandedly conferred the possibility for his career beyond horror and threats on his life bound in leather. So, he thanks her, too, and as he drives away, he can feel the uneasiness melt from his ribcage into a small puddle of contentment right above his abdomen.

This is the start of something new.

Rising Action

It hadn’t been the start of something new, Mikaele realises when he sees the now familiar chest again. It had been a continuation of misfortune and horrible, sleepless nights. At least until Jürgen’s list began to seek him out to sell him the objects Jürgen wouldn’t take.

It’s a mule chest made of oak, a warm reddish colour and with a beautiful patina spread over the copper of the escutcheon, handles and applications that speaks of a long history of utilisation. Nice to look at with its octagon panelling and its visible age rings and veins of the wood.

But Mikaele knows there’s something inside besides the eighteenth century’s weaponry he held for the first time over twenty years ago. Something that, if it would live in a book, would be in Jürgen’s métier.

Despite his knowledge of the danger that lurks inside this chest, Mikaele had sold it multiple times to all kinds of different people. He thought, a meat grinder, an antique syringe, a wooden crate, a wooden chest – when it comes down to it, it’s all the same.

Slowly, word spreads. Especially in a social circle as small as the one Mikaele operates in. People talk and its hard to bring something to a market that has learned by now that the thing will get them killed. (Of course, there are always the outliers, the unpredictable variables of heedless rich men who think they can withstand temptation, only to fail. Mikaele, however, is not a heedless man and if he knows one thing, it’s that dead men can’t spend money anymore.)

So, he almost got restless at the prospect of owning a chest filled with death impossible to market again, when he remembers the small business card in his middle desk drawer that reads in small capital letters The Magnus Institute.

He calls.

Mr Bouchard welcomes his offer with the generosity of a Lukas and asks him to drop off the chest as quickly as convenient. So, he gets into his car roughly two days later and takes the trip to the institute himself as the loss of Cook is still somewhat thrumming beneath his skin. (He gives the others a few days off, tells Leigh to stock up on supplies, so they can set sails as soon as he gets back.)

When he gets out of the car in the parking lot of the institute, he realises belatedly that he has no chance of transporting the chest all on his own, so he locks up the door and heads up to the institute, a certain spring in his step and something akin to giddiness in his soul.

“Rosie,” he greets the woman sitting at the desk in front of Mr Bouchard’s office and she offers him salutations with a smile as wide as the Thames. “Mr Bouchard awaits me. A delivery for Artefacts that I could not possibly carry alone.”

She tells him that Mr Bouchard is in a meeting with a Lukas, and she says it with a wink and a smile, and even though Mikaele doesn’t quite make heads or tails of her words, he understands that she can’t ring him up until he gets out of his call, so he asks: “Would you mind calling Artefacts to send a helping hand?”

Telephone handset already in hand, her manicured fingers dial a three-digit number, and she waits patiently for the other person to pick up.

Meanwhile, Mikaele studies the stone tiles that could almost look like marble, and the dark, oiled wood that forms the intricate details of the desk she’s sitting at. The surface is covered in paper and sticky notes and handwritten reminders and dates, almost contrary to the planner lying next to her keyboard that is colour-coded and in a minimalistic beauty that Mikaele wants to envy but finds to be incredibly annoying.

Although Mikaele’s clearly occupied studying her surroundings like the engaged columns that bestow texture upon the too white walls, ending in abstract art nouveau capitals that could be worthy of note but only exert tristesse in their colourlessness. It’s a shame, Mikaele thinks, that this is what Jonah Magnus chose to express the prestigiousness of the institute with.

Suddenly, someone’s standing too close to him; entirely unexpected in his line of vision. He startles, ripping his gaze off the columns, and is met with an expressionless look of a woman. She narrows her eyes when he takes a step back to bring distance between them and apologises in a stern voice that doesn’t speak of remorse.

“Oh, don’t be,” he replies, interlacing his fingers behind his back.

From the other side of her desk, Rosie informs him that someone from Artefacts will soon be with them and if he would mind waiting for a bit. He shakes his head in answer, but his attention lays on the gaunt woman before him. She’s one part tenuous and two parts careworn wrapped in white hair and wrinkly skin only broken by thread veins and purposeful inexpressiveness.

She introduces herself as Gertrude Robinson, the head archivist of the Magnus Institute, and asks him for the cause of his visitation. So, without his own volition he tells of the chest and its malevolent contents. He tells of violence and strife and death. And when he’s done, all he can do is blink at her in owlish perturbation.

Adversatively, her gaze is unwavering, examining the parts of his being that he himself is not entirely aware of. With a blink of her eye, he feels like he can breathe again, but her carefully worded question, if he had anything else to say to her, tries to gently pry words from his mouth that he hadn’t previously known existed. He swallows them all down, phoneme for lexeme for root, almost choking on the pre- and inter- and suffixes.

He says: “Beware of the splinters. And always wear gloves.”

Though he thought she’d be displeased, her eyes glow in satisfaction and the smile tugging at the corner of her lips makes uneasiness rear its ugly head like he’s still a twenty-something in the middle of Jürgen’s library.

Climax

Michael’s standing in the doorway even though she has told him a hundred times not to lurk. He’s crossing his arms in front of his chest and the look on his face can only be described as discontent.

“I told you,” she says, weariness settling into her bones, “that it’s an act of utmost discourtesy to earwig my recordings of a statement.”

He doesn’t say anything, just shifts his weight and leans against the doorframe like a scallywag assessing the possibilities to wreak havoc. With a sigh coming from the depths of her soul, she attempts to find chagrin between fatigue and impuissance, but she comes home empty handed.

“I know,” she concedes, “this is of personal interest to you. And I can assure you, I won’t keep you in the dark in regard to research. However, I find myself in the unfortunate position of putting the development of the case before your personal interest. Which, ultimately, should lead to your satisfaction, too.” She interrupts herself in hope that he says at least something. He doesn’t. “Emma is currently tracking down Mikaele Salesa and should return with him and his extensive knowledge of the artefact as soon as possible. A research assistant is accompanying her, for her own safety and the insurance that Mr Salesa will come back.”

Michael narrows his eyes, still rigid and tensed up, every fibre of his body tight-drawn.

She has never seen him like this, without his languid smile and crinkling eyes, without the casual ‘swagger’ of his step and his restless fingers in search of something to hold on to. This is the first time she has ever seen his face in severity and earnest, almost distorted in its unfamiliarity.

“Michael,” she says after a while and she can’t keep every notion of defeat out of her voice. Three words sit on her tongue, heavy and strange, a combination of egoistical self-sorrow and wrong-worded sentiment. An attempt of retaliation, of connecting broken pieces and lost connections.

But her mouth remains empty, her teeth blocking the path separating herself from vulnerability and violability.

It's nothing personal, she thinks to herself, Michael's as good as they come. But here inside the walls of the institute every word is a weapon shock-sensitive and ready to explode. (The shock comes in many forms, most prevalently and most dangerously in the shape of grey-green eyes and blasé smiles that turn benign concerns into malignant worries. The shock comes in bursts, circling into waves that drown out every other thought.)

So, she breathes around three words that Michael deserves and that she would willingly give if he were anyone else, anyone unknown.

Time goes by in little droplets of apprehensiveness, pulling together into a flow of disquietness. But Michael’s not moving, just staring at her demandingly, his jaw locked and his knuckles turning white.

For a moment, she must avert her eyes, cannot take his open display of discontent anymore, and her gaze falls upon the wooden chest, neatly tucked into the corner of her office. A feeling of I can’t believe an unimpressive thing like you could do such harm, but deep down in her core she knows it not to be true. She has had enough artefacts in her hands, only separated from her skin by a thin layer of latex, to know that nothing ever seems as ill-natured and pernicious as it truly is.

Her eyes snap back to him, and she needs him to break the silence. (Needs him to spare a smile to reinforce something resembling normalcy. Although she Knows it to be true that Michael can’t do anything about this situation. He’s bound to the laws of physic, too, and he can’t tilt the world back into its normal position. And Gertrude shouldn’t expect him to do it if she herself can’t do anything about the world.)

“Michael,” she says again, breath catching at the edges of a four-letter word still sitting discomfortably in her throat. “Sometimes the right thing to do and the easy thing to do are two different things.” He continues to stare, vulnerability brought by wholeheartedness. “And the right thing is concentrating on your work so that Emma can do hers.”

Softly, Michael says that they were his friends. His shoulders dropping, weighted down by the acknowledgement of defeat. The start of a sentence escapes his lips, but he struggles to force it out completely, and interrupts himself. He draws a shaky breath. Voice trembling, he tries again and states that one of them did this, and she feels like he should make an all-encompassing gesture, drawing in not only shaky breaths but all the weak-kneed wrongfulness of this place.

He doesn’t know, she thinks, he doesn’t know a thing.

“Sometimes,” she says and lays her hand flat atop the desk to stop them from pushing her upright, “bad things happen. And we must deal gently with them.”

A broken-up sentence that he is just, that he is. But he can’t go on and he swallows the fire in his chest, chokes on the flames and sobs up a few sparks. He says that he’s so, so very angry. And the taste that his words leave in her mouth reminds Gertrude of bonfires and sun storms and the sound of cracking wood. (It reminds her of her adolescence, of nights spend only illuminated by the moon and the flames licking into the sky.)

She nods and presses the palms of her hands on the wooden surface with as much strength as she can conjure. She says: “Anger is a dangerous place. You must tread softly, or it swallows you whole.”

They fall back into silence, the quiet thrum of the air condition a white noise for his grief.

Then his arms fall down, and he tries to smile at her but it's a vain attempt at best. (She knows how his smile looks by heart. And this is only the caricature version of Michael himself.)

Michael's as good as they come, so she settles on: “Trust me, Michael.” And she can see that he does.

Falling Action

In the end, Gertrude is alone in the Archives and she’s buried beneath statements and rituals and eyes that follow every step she takes. Maybe she’s growing paranoid in the wake of a catastrophe she can’t even fanthom the momentousness of. Maybe she’s in her right to collect explosives like wrinkles on her skin. However, she’s still in need of more, more, more. (More certitudes, more dependability, more apologia.)

So, she starts a little fire. Nothing major, just a small one. On the other side of a room that contains a wooden chest that has brought so much grief upon the institute.

Nobody’s in danger of getting hurt, she reasons, every artefact destroyed is a blessing bestowed upon humanity. She only needs them to clear the room, to lose sight of a few things like maybe a Gorilla Skin or a wooden chest full of weaponry.

And the impossible thing is that it worked. Or semi-worked at least because the Gorilla Skin is not in the institute, has never been, and Gertrude’s not any closer to finding it, but she’s got a hold onto the chest, offered by Sonja in an attempt to safe what can be saved.

Time runs out, the Unknowing comes closer, creeps into every waking thought and tries to strangle her into submission. But Gertrude’s not done. She’s almost entirely alone and her hands may be shaking like aspen leaf, but she’s not done.

Shoulders squared and cardigan wrapped around her thin frame, she walks into Research and politely requests help moving an artefact into the Archives. A young man she has seen a few times in the hallways offers his help and she assures him that there will be a sack barrow in Artefacts when he asks if she needs more than one pair of helping hands.

“That will do,” he says light-heartedly and opens the door for her to step through in front of him. It’s a nice gesture and Gertrude enjoys Tim’s joviality as long as it lasts.

They walk in silence for a moment, their footsteps being the only noise they produce. They echo inside Gertrude’s ribcage and for a moment she thinks fondly of Gerry who’s just waiting for her to get started on their trip to the other temples of the beholding. (She won’t think of it as a capital B, she’s been resisting for so long, she won’t cave now. The pressure to give in and paint her dreams with atrocity is big and strong and all-consuming. Just a flick of her tongue and an almost imperceptible strain on her queries and the knowledge of the world would lie at her feet, waiting for her to be crowned and bestowed a gift that she had always declined politely.)

“Tim Stoker.” The research assistant breaks their silence and her train of thought. Blinking through her dusty glasses, she turns towards him without a falter in his steps. “Pleasant to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Robinson.”

Meeting her stern gaze with a friendly one of his, he smiles at her with something more akin to geniality than politeness. (All of a sudden, she’s standing in front of Michael who laughs with an edge of nervousness shortly before she sends him off to find the door. Unexpectedly, she sees Emma in the way he drags his left foot a little more than his right. Without intention, she sees Eric and Fiona in the freckle-constellations on his bare arms.)

She must avert her eyes, forcibly shaking off the images of trust and anger and disappointment dressed in faces she had known so dearly. So, she attempts to focus on their differences, on his height and cadence and the way that he says her name with distant respect like she’s worthy of note.

“Originally, I applied for a position in the Archives,” Tim says at this moment and Gertrude is present again, emerging victorious from the fight with her demons. (Victorious for now.) “But there hasn’t been an opening in quite some time.”

Nodding in thought, she tells him that the Archives is crewed with only her since 2011 and that she doesn’t intend on changing the way that she works. (Gerry’s not employed by the institute, so it’s safe to be in his company for now.)

“Not going to lie, I’m a bit disappointed at that prospect,” Tim retorts without showing any sign of frustration or letdown. And this is the thing that tips Gertrude off, makes suspicion rise in her gut like the tide after moonrise. Tim Stoker is a strange man with unclear affiliations who explicitly applied to be part of the Archives, part of Gertrude’s team. And who, upon dismissal, took work up in the institute anyways. As if he’d like to keep close, take an eyeful of the progress she’s making.

She studies him again, out of the corner of her eye this time, and asks what persuaded him to apply to the Archives in the first place, carefully keeping the compulsion out of her voice, and he says: “I’ve been working in publishing for a long time but in college I used to work as a research assistant in an archive. I guess it’s work I liked doing.”

The lie slips from his skull directly into the hollowness of her chest, and she can feel the draw of the eye to dig deep into the hidden space behind his heart. But she swallows it down, like she always has, like she always will. Pushes it into a corner not to be touched ever again. (It’s going to rear its ugly head time and time again, but hope is a frail thing with sturdy bones and Gertrude is hell-bent on keeping it alive.)

She tells him that she thinks he would be perfectly suited for the Archives, and she apologises that she can’t offer him a position. But he waves his hand dismissively, laughter in his voice and a quick pip on his tongue: “There will be other times.” But she sure hopes there will not.

Denouement

Upon entering the storage room, Tim tells her that he doesn’t believe her, that Sasha James is a liar, but he laughs right with her, holding the door open so she can come inside, too.

“I’m not lying,” she replies, breath still caught in her throat. “Jon really did! I saw it with my own two eyes!”

Tim, however, is not listening anymore. He’s mesmerized by an oak chest in the far corner of the room. A curse falls from his lips into the dusty air of the room and it only takes him a few bee-lining steps until he’s right in front of the thing.

“What’s that?” Sasha asks, following him until she’s standing right beside him. Shrugging his shoulders, he tells her that its from Artefacts and Gertrude Robinson asked him to bring it down here for a time being. (A time being that is long over since Artefacts has been renovated and Gertrude Robinson went missing.)

He kneels down to examine the chest because he distinctly remembers Gertrude telling him to not dwell on the contents for too long. Cautiously, he reaches for the escutcheon of the lid, tinged green and matted by disuse.

Sasha catches his hand mid-air. “Should you be touching it?” The levity of their prior conversation is forgotten, a tension hangs in the air between them, filled only by the muted footsteps of Martin and Jon in the hallways. “If it’s an artefact, it could be dangerous.”

Mischievously grinning, he asks her if she’s as thorough and careful in her daily life as she is with the looming possibility of spooky encounters.

Even though her aim is pretty good, he dodges the jab with a laugh he’s sure causes her to smile at least a little. He tells her to live a little, be great and beyond.

“If you had seen the artefacts we were dealing with,” she says, “you wouldn’t be as careless. You’ve read the statements. You’ve worked in Research.”

He sighs and a constricted look settles on his face, almost mirroring the flood of memories knocking him down, only simmered down to something he can actually display within the boundaries of his flesh. She’s right and he knows it, but he can’t bring himself to voice it out loud, so he settles on the one thing he always knew best: Deflection.

Making a pained sound at the back of his throat, he laments his choice of occupation without acknowledging the true intent of it. He tells her that, when Jon had asked him to move down into the Archives with him and Sasha, he hadn’t thought about it twice, had deemed working with his friends favourable to Research where Conrad works, of all people. He had thought, so he says, that working inside of an archive again would feel like home for an anthropology major like him. Field work may be wonderful, he continues, but he loved working nose burrowed in books.

More quietly, he admits that he misses publishing. Misses reading into the late hours of the night, entranced by academic works filled with hypotheses and argumentation. Misses tweaking phrases and correcting spelling, omitting thoughts only worthy of footnotes to force papers into their linear trickle of thoughts. Misses communicating with people beyond horrifying experiences and lived nightmares.

“This really is an awful lot like Research,” Sasha agrees, still eying the chest just like he is. “Artefacts is much the same, really. Just with the additional splash of weariness of life.”

In as much confidence as they can find in an open room, too close to their colleagues, Tim says that the Magnus Institute is the worst academic facility he has ever seen. That if he has to see Sasha staple documents together one more time, he’s going to pull his hair out and quit.

“I don’t understand your problem,” Sasha replies dismissively. “What the hell is wrong with stapling. It’s fun!”

He stares at her incredulously. Then he tries to explain to her why stapling sensitive documents that they are supposed to keep safe and away from harm is most decidedly the opposite of their job description.

“I think you’re overthinking this.”

Pointing at his face, still on his knees in front of her which means that he has to strain his neck to be able to look at her, he asks if he’s even apt to overthink. And once again she tries to shove at him. This time, though, she succeeds but she doesn’t reckon him trying to hold on to her legs to keep himself steady and upright, which only leads to them falling into a heap on the floor.

Laughing and a bit out of breath, she shoves at him again, trying to free herself to get standing again.

When she manages to upright herself again, she says: “You should stop being quite as overdramatic.” He points at his face once more and mouths Who? Me? at her, feigning a look of innocence. “And you should call Artefacts, so they can come and collect their cursed chest or whatever.” Still pointing at himself, he mouths again Who? Me? This time, however, with fake indignation plastered over his face.

“Yes you, yes you, yes you,” Sasha singsongs, shoving at him for the last time, pressing him into the floor, before she finally gets up and starts to head for the door. “And because of your blatant neglect of your duties,” she’s gesturing towards the chest over her shoulder which, admittedly, looks rather silly, “and your implication– no, your malicious defamation of one Sasha James, I’m going to leave you to rummage through these boxes all on your own.”

She leaves the storage room, and he can hear the echo of her footsteps, while he loudly mourns her absence and begs for her to come back. The laughter, however, that rings out of the hallway, makes it absolutely clear that he has no choice but to suffer on his own.

(If he’s nice enough, and Tim’s confident that he is, then Martin may have mercy with him and join him on their combined quest to conquer the Archives.)

#the magnus archives #tim stoker #gertrude robinson #mikaele salesa #michael shelley #sasha james #fanfiction #schmok writes #missing scene #never posted this here #time to AHHH about tma finale

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