#700 million streams
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''Te Felicito'' has reached 700 MILLION streams on Spotify.
- This is Shakira’s sixth song to achieve this on the platform.
#shakira#shakira mebarak#rauw alejandro#celebs#celebrities#news#te felicito#single#spotify#700 million streams#my gif edit#shakira gifs#tumblr gifs#my own stuff
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🥳🥳🥳
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5 Years, 8 Discoveries: NASA Exoplanet Explorer Sees Dancing Stars & a Star-Shredding Black Hole
This all-sky mosaic was constructed from 912 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) images. Prominent features include the Milky Way, a glowing arc that represents the bright central plane of our galaxy, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – satellite galaxies of our own located, respectively, 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away. In the northern sky, look for the small, oblong shape of the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), the closest big spiral galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. The black regions are areas of sky that TESS didn’t image. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)
On April 18, 2018, we launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS. It was designed to search for planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – and to discover worlds for our James Webb Space Telescope, which launched three years later, to further explore. TESS images sections of sky, one hemisphere at a time. When we put all the images together, we get a great look at Earth’s sky!
In its five years in space, TESS has discovered 326 planets and more than 4,300 planet candidates. Along the way, the spacecraft has observed a plethora of other objects in space, including watching as a black hole devoured a star and seeing six stars dancing in space. Here are some notable results from TESS so far:
During its first five years in space, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has discovered exoplanets and identified worlds that can be further explored by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
1. TESS’ first discovery was a world called Pi Mensae c. It orbits the star Pi Mensae, about 60 light-years away from Earth and visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere. This discovery kicked off NASA's new era of planet hunting.
2. Studying planets often helps us learn about stars too! Data from TESS & Spitzer helped scientists detect a planet around the young, flaring star AU Mic, providing a unique way to study how planets form, evolve, and interact with active stars.
Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums. This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
3. In addition to finding exoplanets on its own, TESS serves as a pathfinder for the James Webb Space Telescope. TESS discovered the rocky world LHS 3844 b, but Webb will tell us more about its composition. Our telescopes, much like our scientists, work together.
4. Though TESS may be a planet-hunter, it also helps us study black holes! In 2019, TESS saw a ‘‘tidal disruption event,’’ otherwise known as a black hole shredding a star.
When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
5. In 2020, TESS discovered its first Earth-size world in the habitable zone of its star – the distance from a star at which liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Earlier this year, a second rocky planet was discovered in the system.
You can see the exoplanets that orbit the star TOI 700 moving within two marked habitable zones, a conservative habitable zone, and an optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits within the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves within an optimistic habitable zone, the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet’s history. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
6. Astronomers used TESS to find a six-star system where all stars undergo eclipses. Three binary pairs orbit each other, and, in turn, the pairs are engaged in an elaborate gravitational dance in a cosmic ballroom 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
7. Thanks to TESS, we learned that Delta Scuti stars pulse to the beat of their own drummer. Most seem to oscillate randomly, but we now know HD 31901 taps out a beat that merges 55 pulsation patterns.
Sound waves bouncing around inside a star cause it to expand and contract, which results in detectable brightness changes. This animation depicts one type of Delta Scuti pulsation — called a radial mode — that is driven by waves (blue arrows) traveling between the star's core and surface. In reality, a star may pulsate in many different modes, creating complicated patterns that enable scientists to learn about its interior. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
8. Last is a galaxy that flares like clockwork! With TESS and Swift, astronomers identified the most predictably and frequently flaring active galaxy yet. ASASSN-14ko, which is 570 million light-years away, brightens every 114 days!
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
#space#planets#exoplanets#science#tech#technology#astronomy#astrophysics#stars#black holes#NASA#spaceblr
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people who say dantes inferno is fanfiction = people who blaze posts = people who pay for ao3 and have never donated to a gofundme = people who bend over backwards not to say the word lesbian = sarah z fans = twitter users = "fandom moms" = people that buy 700 million ugly books per month instead of just going to a library = people that say shit like "you dumb walnut" as an insult = people who have a hundred streaming service subscriptions instead of just pirating
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꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ TXT AS MITSKI LYRICS ⸝⸝⸝
pairing: txt x gn!reader
genre: scenerios/headcannons, fluff, angst, established relationship, hurt/comfort, exes to lovers, lovers to exes, fwb to lovers (suggestive), childhood friends to ???
word count: 500-700 for each member
author’s note: i’ve been listening to mitski a lot and this idea randomly popped in my head! it’s not completely based off the meanings of the songs!! i feel like these would be fun to write full fics for. if you listen to mitski, what’s your favorite song?? mine is once more to see you and last words of a shooting star!!! (｡´‿`｡) all feed back and reblogs are welcome! enjoy!! ♡
⇢ ( continue on to . . . masterlist or request rules )
𓍼 ˋ✮ YEONJUN
brand new city - mitski 𓍯
“but if i gave up on being pretty, i wouldn’t know how to be alive. i should move to a brand new city and teach myself how to die.”
yeonjun couldn’t understand it. he simply couldn’t understand what was making you feel this way. what was making you feel so insecure. the two of you sat on the bed in your shared bedroom, you with tears streaming down your face and the saddest expression on your face that absolutely broke yeonjun’s heart into pieces.
he had his arms wrapped tightly around you, scared that if he let go you’d completely shatter, with your head buried in his chest. you pulled away so you could sniffle and so your already hard to hear voice wouldn’t be even more muffled. “i just… i just feel like i’m not good enough,” you said through choked sobs. “not pretty enough, not smart enough, not good enough. and i feel like nothing that i do to prove that i am pretty, that i am smart, that i am good enough is enough.”
you furiously wiped your tears and stared hard at the comforter of your bed. “everywhere i look, there’s someone better than me. and if i’m not good enough, not pretty, then what am i? what purpose do i serve?” yeonjun could feel his own tears well up in his eyes at your words. at the fact that you even think this way. he cupped your face gently so that you looked at him through glassy tears.
“you’re not here to serve a purpose. you’re not here to be pretty enough for someone, or smart enough for someone, or even good enough for someone. you’re here to simply be, that is all.” yeonjun wiped the tear trails on your cheeks with his thumbs. “and you are pretty enough, and smart enough, and good enough, but none of that matters if you’re measuring yourself on the opinions of someone else.”
nodding, you took in his words, a hiccup escaping your mouth. yeonjun continued, “the people who you see somewhere who you think are better than you? they’re thinking the same exact thing about you. all that matters is how you feel about you, if you feel like you’re enough for you. not for someone you’ve never met, not for me, for you.”
yeonjun kissed your forehead and looked at you in the eyes through furrowed brows to make sure his words were getting across to you. you gave him a small smile before placing a gentle kiss on his lips. pulling away giggling, you apologized for the salty kiss, for which yeonjun just laughed. “i’ll take a million salty kisses if it means you get out of this mindset,” yeonjun said.
you buried your face in his chest again, no doubt getting his shirt all wet. “thank you, jjunie,” you replied, voice muffled. yeonjun rubbed circles into your back, “there’s no need to thank me. what kind of boyfriend would i be if i didn’t try and help you?”
𓍼 ˋ✮ SOOBIN
francis forever - mitski 𓍯
“and autumn comes when you’re not yet done with the summer passing by, but i don’t think i can stand to be where you don’t see me.”
it was a warm summer day when you and soobin stopped being a couple. you were on a walk on a tree-lined street—now that you looked back on it, it was such a normal day. how could you see the forming cracks in your relationship when the sun was shining so brightly outside?
you’ll never forget the words soobin said that changed everything. “y/n, when are we going to stop pretending?” soobin had asked, breaking the silence that filled the space between the two of you. at first, you were confused about what he meant, and you expressed such. “when are we going to stop pretending like we aren’t in two different places?” soobin had then guided you to a bench to talk. there, the two of you had broken up. that was the last time you saw him.
it was autumn now and the multicolor leaves swayed to the will of the wind. you were sitting on that same bench that you were four months ago, on that same tree-lined street, only now not as naive. you were so stupid for letting such a good thing slip between your fingers.
you couldn’t help but think about the good times in your relationship with soobin despite the way it ended. your walks, how you would take them when the two of you needed to be alone with your thoughts but still wanted to be with each other. how soobin would never let either of you go to sleep angry at one another, even if in the moment it pissed you off. how whenever either of you had a bad day, words didn’t even need to be said. all that was needed was comforting looks and gentle and soothing touches.
now you stared up at the gaps of sunlight coming down through the multicolor leaves, cold and alone. four months ago, you decided to mutually breakup to grow alone before you both grew together. but now, you realized just how stupid that was. why couldn’t the two of you have grown together—find yourselves together? why did you have to do it alone for it to be so significant? wasn’t the point of being in a relationship growing together?
just when you were about to think about how much you missed soobin, you heard a familiar voice come from your side. “y/n?” the voice asked hesitantly, and you wanted to thank your lucky stars for this moment. you turned just as soobin came more into your vision. a warm smile lit up your face, “soobin, hi! it’s been a while…” you almost cringed at how awkward that sentence was and how unnatural it felt.
soobin was never one to get to the point, but you could sense a quiet determination in him as he nodded and sat on the bench near you. “i know, and i just want to say that i’m sorry,” soobin started. you gave him a confused look as you waited for him to continue. “and i just want to say how stupid i am to think that even though at the time we were in different places, that we couldn’t make our way towards each other together. i was so stupid for even starting the conversation and i’m sorry that it took four months for me to realize that.”
the smile on your face grew and in turn, it caused a nervous smile to grow on soobin’s. “what?” he then asked. you laughed a little, “you know, i was literally just thinking the exact same thing!” you scooted closer to him and took his hands in yours like it hasn’t been months since you last saw him face to face, last touched him. “i missed you, soobin,” you said quietly.
“i missed you too, y/n,” soobin replied. “let’s grow together, yeah?” you giggled and nodded. soobin came just centimeters from your lips before stopping in a silent question and your smile grew as you closed the gap. you didn’t want to be where soobin wasn’t, there wasn’t any point in it. the last four months showed you that. as long as you were with him, growing with him, you’d always find your way back to each other.
𓍼 ˋ✮ BEOMGYU
goodbye, my danish sweetheart - mitski 𓍯
“maybe when you tell your friends, you can tell them what you saw in me and not how i turned out to be.”
to say you and beomgyu were on the rocks was an understatement. you both were hanging off a cliff by the tips of your fingers with a raging ocean underfoot. it was surprising to the both of you how you managed to get here after three years of dating. one moment everything between you two was perfect—sunshine and rainbows and crystal clear skies.
then the dark, stormy clouds started to form slowly until it snuffed out the sunlight. until you couldn’t see the rainbows anymore. and it didn’t just rain, it poured—hailed even. as the two of you stand in front of each other, red in the face and screaming, you both wondered—how.
“who are you?” beomgyu asked you, brows knitted together. he stared at you as if he was finally seeing clearly for the first time in his life. “because it’s like you’re a complete stranger now…” you scoffed as even more anger filled you to the brim. at this point, you didn’t even know what the two of you were arguing about.
it seemed like anything set the two of you off these days. yesterday, the two of you argued over a blanket. someone had folded it and placed it in the wrong place. that argument ended up with the two of you screaming at each other and sleeping in different rooms. you couldn’t remember the last time you and beomgyu slept in the same bed.
“who am i?” you asked him incredulously. “who are you?” scoffing again, you turned your back to beomgyu and tried to unclench your tightened fists at your side. twirling back around, you started, “if anyone is the stranger, it’s you. tell me, beom—“
“do you love me?” beomgyu cut you off. your mouth closed and you took a small step back in shock, eyebrows raised. you stared at him for a brief second as you tried to process what he just said. “o-of course!” you stammered out, your eyebrows now furrowing. “of course i do! what kind of question is that?” you added. it felt like ice cold water had just been poured over you, suddenly melting away all the anger.
beomgyu gave a defeated sigh as he slumped down onto the couch. he rubbed at his temples and closed his eyes. “not the way you use to,” he spoke, now looking up at you. “you love me out of obligation now. because you don’t want three years to have gone down the drain. you love me because it’s necessary, not because you actually love me.”
you took timid steps towards the couch. “that’s not true…” you trailed. despite your running thoughts, you didn’t know what else to say to him. of course you loved him, he was the love of your life, your everything. this was just a rough patch that all couples have and you would get through it, wouldn’t you? “you’re the love of my life, beomgyu. my everything,” you echoed your thoughts.
“was,” beomgyu responded. you flocked to him as tears formed in your eyes. you went to cup his face but he just turned away from you. “but despite everything, you’re still mine,” beomgyu spoke as he looked you in the eyes. “we can’t keep going on like this—arguing everyday about nothing. one of us has to end it. so i’m ending it.” he stood up, leaving you on the couch in tears.
𓍼 ˋ✮ TAEHYUN
a loving feeling - mitski 𓍯
“holding hands under a table. meeting up in your bedroom. making love to other people. telling each other it’s all good.”
taehyun wanted you, and he wanted you bad. in a way, he already had you. just not fully—not in the way he truly wanted you. and don’t get him wrong, he enjoyed having you under him, but after that moment passed and you both cleaned up to leave, that was it. he wanted more.
he was fine with just hooking up with you here and there, being your date when you didn’t have one and holding your hand under the table hoping you would get his message. but you didn’t. it wasn’t part of the unspoken agreement you both came up with. the intimate relationship the two of you had was strictly physical, not romantic.
“sorry for ending things so abruptly,” you spoke as taehyun helped tie the opening your shirt had, “i kinda forgot that i’m suppose to meet this guy i met online for a date.” taehyun’s eyebrows raised slightly, which you could see with the mirror in front of you. his eyes met yours, “date?”
you smiled slightly, nodding. “yup,” you replied, turning to him as he finished tying your shirt. “pretty nice guy so far. why, you jealous?” you teased him. taehyun smirked, “we both know nobody else can compare to me. why would i be jealous?” your pretty laugh filled his ears as you moved to put on your shoes.
taehyun’s heart dropped slightly at your reveal. he desperately wished that it was him you were preparing to go on a date with. instead, he had to watch as you got ready for a date with someone else. watch as you slipped out the door and into the arms of another. it felt like the two of you were going in circles.
“i just don’t get it? why do they all act the same?” you sulked on taehyun’s shoulder, drunk out of your mind. you had called taehyun after you had broken up with your recent boyfriend, needing a shoulder to cry on. of course he obliged, what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t? you stared up at him with big glassy doe eyes as your speech slurred, but he heard you perfectly, “none of them are you. why don’t you feel the same about me, taehyun?”
taehyun’s eyes widened as you turned to take another shot. he put it to the back of his mind for now, determined to get you home safely. a couple days later he came to you with your admission and you froze in fear. “o-oh…” you mumbled, looking down. “i didn’t—i’m sorry if y—“ you didn’t get a chance to sputter out any more words before taehyun’s lips were on yours, a kiss full of passion and wanting connecting you. “i do feel the same about you,” taehyun smiled as he pulled away, holding you in his arms. “i have all this time.”
𓍼 ˋ✮ HUENINGKAI
two slow dancers - mitski 𓍯
“but we’re two slow dancers, last ones out. we’re two slow dancers, last ones out.”
the first time you met kai was at your middle school dance. your “date” had left you to go dance with your friend, leaving you heartbroken in the middle of the gymnasium floor. he had swept in like your knight in shining armor asking if you wanted to dance and saving you from embarrassment. as the two of you slow danced together, that’s when your love for him had first started to bud.
unfortunately, the two of you never progressed past that moment. kai had moved away shortly after and through the grapevine you heard that the dance was a makeshift goodbye party with his friends. you heart was broken, but eventually you moved past it and middle school.
the second time you and kai met was on your college campus. it turns out you two were actually going to the same place. you feelings for him had always lingered inside you and seeing him in person again ignited those feelings. the two of you had gotten close. your feelings for him suddenly bloomed rapidly, and right when you were gonna take the leap and ask him out, he told you about this girl he was talking to.
“we’re a lot alike,” kai had blushed, turning the textbook page the both of you were studying. “i just can’t believe she actually likes me back!” you had begun to distance yourself from him for your own sanity, not that he noticed. he was a man newly in love and you didn’t want to do anything to disturb that. again, you moved past it and eventually college.
you didn’t meet kai again until years later down the line. you were older now, wiser and all that. you barely thought about the boy who once plagued your mind—not outside the occasional ‘what if.’ by pure chance, you accidentally collided with him miles away from your middle school and college.
“i’m so so sorry, oh my gosh!” you frantically exclaimed as you ran to the nearest table to grab napkins. as you pressed it to the huge coffee stain on a pure white shirt, you finally looked up and came face to face with your first love. your eyes widened and you choked on your words. from the looks of it, kai did too. “y-y/n!” kai exclaimed. “it’s been so long! how have you been? oh—and don’t worry about the stain, i’ll just get another shirt!”
the two of you sat in that cafe for what seemed like hours as you caught up with each other. you asked each other various questions, such as ‘where has life been taking you?’ and ‘are you taken? any special person waiting for you at home?’ it turns out you were both single. you felt that familiar blooming at your chest and as the night progressed. you were determined not to let him slip from your fingers again.
“you know, i use to have a thing for you,” you mentioned as the topic of your college days was brought up. kai laughed softly, his voice teasing, “use to?” you shot him a playful smile back. “i use to have a thing for you too,” he added quietly. your smile turned genuine as it widened. “still do… always will,” you trailed as you took a sip from your mug, you glanced up at him bravely.
“so then what are we waiting for?” he asked you, his features lighting up with a smile causing one of your own. you sat your mug down and gave a playful shrug, “i don’t know—ball’s in your court.”
© jjunieworld - all rights reserved. please do not repost on any social media sites, translate, or modify any of my works.
permanent taglist: @jjunberry @gothgyuu @spooksh0wbabe @beargyuuzz @kittyhyuka @dani-is-tired @riaawr @nxzz-skz @soobieboobiedoobiedaboobie @rapmonie2047
masterlist┊taglist┊request rules
#txt#tomorrow x together#txt x reader#txt imagines#txt scenarios#txt reactions#txt soobin#txt beomgyu#txt huening kai#txt yeonjun#txt taehyun#yeonjun x reader#beomgyu x reader#hueningkai x reader#taehyun x reader#soobin x reader#txt fluff#txt angst#hueningkai oneshot#taehyun oneshot#beomgyu oneshot#yeonjun oneshot#soobin oneshot#kpop x reader#kpop imagines#kpop scenarios#kpop#kpop fanfic#txt au#mitski
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'Love Story (Taylor's Version)' by Taylor Swift has now surpassed 700 MILLION streams on Spotify!
— This is her 24th song to achieve this milestone, the most for any female artist and the FIRST re-recording in Spotify history to do so!
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As the studios continue to shoot themselves in the foot, I thought some people might like an explanation for what all this "writing off for taxes" means when a studio, network, or streaming service pulls a show to write it off.
Disclaimer: I have worked in accounting but am not and never have been an accountant. This is a simplified explanation that doesn't go into all the details so people have a basic understanding of what's going on.
Long post continues below...
Businesses (including self-employed people) are taxed based on the profits the business makes. To determine what the profits are, companies tally up all the money they made from various sources then deduct all the expenses they paid for the business.
For a very basic example with completely made-up numbers, I'm screening a movie to 100 people who pay $10 each to see it. So I have $1000. It cost me $200 to rent the theater, I spent $20 printing the tickets people bought, and I bought $80 worth of flyers to advertise the screening. So I add up all my expenses ($200 + $20 + $80 = $300), then I subtract that from how much money I made ($1000 - $300) to get how much profit I get taxed on, or $700.
Now let's say instead of paying to have the tickets and flyers printed, I buy a printer to do it myself. The printer costs $200, but I'm going to be using it for several years. This is where Amortization comes in.
Amortization is a type of deduction businesses take on assets they purchase where the deduction for that asset is spread over time. The value of the asset is going to decrease over time due to normal wear and tear, but it's going to be in use for many years so I can choose to deduct it over time as well. So for my $200 printer, I deduct $50 the first year, $30 the second, $20 the third, and so on until the full value of the asset has been deducted over the course of several years. Again, it's way more complicated than this but you get the general idea.
Now, in 1993 it was made legal for films and television networks to write off the expenses in creating a movie or show via amortization. The idea is that, instead of losing value due to wear and tear, the intellectual property loses value because it becomes less popular over time. A movie released in 2000 is never going to make as much money in 2001, and less in 2002, and less than that in 2003, and so on because DVD/bluray sales will fall over time and it won't be licensed as frequently by networks or streaming services and those licensing fees will go down. So now all the expenses for a film or show can be amortized over 15 years.
The thing is, if you amortize something and it loses all value, you can claim all remaining amortized value at once. For example, if you have a company vehicle that breaks down completely and can't be repaired, it's not worth 25% less than it was the prior year, it's now worthless. So the company can declare the asset no longer has value and claim whatever expenses were paid as a deduction at once.
So what the studios are doing are saying "This TV show no longer has any value, so we're pulling it from distribution and writing off all the money we spent on production this year."
The problem is, that IP is considered to have no value from that time forward as far as taxes are concerned. If the company makes money off of that IP again, they have to repay all the money they saved on their taxes.
So if I make a movie that costs $60 million in 2022, I can decide not to release the movie and write off all $60 million as a deduction on my taxes for 2022. But I can NEVER release that movie. Because if I do, I then have to pay back the taxes I would have paid in 2022 if I didn't take that $60 million deduction.
So what's going on is all these studios, networks, and streaming services are permanently shelving all of these shows and movies to reduce their tax burden THIS YEAR ONLY, and then they can NEVER release them again or they have to pay those taxes. It also means they don't have to pay any residuals to actors, writers, directors, and other people who made the film (which is funny because residuals paid out are business expenses and can also be written off).
It is the epitome of goosing the numbers for a single quarter at the expense of the entire business. They're saving money on taxes for a single year while destroying the very thing they use to make profits in the first place.
#wga#sag-aftra#film#accounting#Hollywood accounting#I know I used the tag 'Hollywood Accounting' but that's something else really#It's the studios using a separate set of accounting books to 'prove' that a movie or show has never made a profit#Thus they don't have to pay percentages of profits since it didn't make a profit according to their magic math#You'd be surprised the number of movies that grossed hundreds of millions or even over a BILLION dollars made no profit
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Yours
Being back in Boston brings some unresolved issues
Pairing: Alex Blake x Fem!Reader
Warnings: history of alcohol abuse, alcohol abuse, getting shot, heartbreak, abandonment
Genre: Angsty Angsty Drabble
Word Count: 700+
A/N: I apologise in advance I was in the mood for angst (This is a retaliation for @storiesofsvu last chapter of Dangerous Game :') )
There was something so disturbing about the events that lead to the arrest of the unsub that you couldn’t handle it anymore and you turned to the one thing that used to once bring you some sort of relief. Alcohol. Being in Boston wasn’t easy to begin with. You found yourself distracted at every step of the case, continuously looking behind afraid to see her face in the crowds gathered around the crime scenes, terrified of bumping into her while interviewing witnesses. Nowhere brought you any sort of release, not the police station, not even the hotel room. You were on the edge and your team was aware of that.
It wasn’t easy to be the youngest member of the Behavioural Analysis Unit. Despite being perfectly qualified for the job you couldn’t shake the feeling that you did not fit in with the group of exceptional profilers. Alex Blake was the first person to make you feel like it was your place, made you feel confident in your abilities. As much as you didn’t want to admit it, she made you feel many more things. She made you feel appreciated, cared for, and at one point she made you feel loved. Over the months you grew so close to each other that every free moment you had you spent together.
That was until one case in Texas, where the whole team was stuck in a shoot-out. The battle was intense and unfortunately, Spencer got seriously injured. This was Alex’s breaking point, She hardly spoke to you after that, spending countless hours in the hospital. Refusing to leave the younger agents’ side. You knew Alex blamed herself for what happened to him, you wanted to be there for her, but she didn’t want to let you in. You didn’t hear from her after that. The weekend went by and on Monday she failed to show up to work. The worry took over you and that was when you decided to visit her in her apartment. But it was empty. All that she left behind was a note saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
Hours have turned into days, days into weeks and weeks into months. And not a single message from her. Not a single sign whether she’s alright, no clues, absolutely nothing. The thing that stuck was grief, accompanied by anger. You grieved the future you imagined for the two of you, you were angry at how it ended.
It has been a year, but it didn’t get any easier. After you came back to the hotel, tears streaming down your face, you reached for the bottle of whisky that was sitting on the desk, a prize you got for winning a bet with Morgan. The team didn’t know your history and you planned to get rid of it as soon as you were out of sight, but that voice in the back of your head told you to keep it.
The rest of the evening was a blur. You don’t know how it happened, but you found yourself sitting on the floor of the living room of the one person you swore to never speak to again. Alex Blake, the woman that broke your heart in million pieces after she left the BAU without a single goodbye. And you were about to tell her every single thought that was bothering you throughout the year you were apart. Because no matter how hard you’ve tried, how many other people you’ve slept with in the process, and how much you hated yourself for it, you couldn’t forget. You couldn’t move on.
“A year.” you whispered.
“Y/N I’m so sorry I-“ Alex started but you didn’t let her finish.
“You’ve promised that you’d never leave, you said that you loved me and would always be there. And you couldn’t even look me straight in the eyes and say that things have changed, not even a single phone call!” you almost shouted hiding your face in your hands.
“Y/N-“
“No. You don’t get to speak now.” You stood up collecting your things that you have scattered over the floor once you’ve entered the apartment “All I have ever wanted was to be yours!” you shouted through tears as you slammed the door and ran out of the building.
#alex blake#alex blake x reader#reader insert#criminal minds fic#criminal minds angst#criminal minds#ssa alex blake#rae’s fics
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Behold, the king of online cartoons
Ex-Hanna-Barbera whiz Fred Seibert blazing a trail with YouTube network
A couple of times over the years, then-USA Today’s entertainment and tech reporter (and photographer) Jefferson Graham was nice enough to feature me in an article about the cartoons I was producing. First time was in the late 90s with “Oh Yeah! Cartoons,” but in 2015, with streaming video finally reaching the mainstream press (Channel Frederator actually started in 2005) and Graham’s animator son joining our network, he revisited.
Thanks to animator Michael Hilliger, who sent over his copy of the article in 2024.
By Jefferson Graham USA Today July 17, 2015
LOS ANGELES — Fred Seibert wants you to have his card.
And his phone number. He even won't mind if we print his [email protected] e-mail address right here in USA TODAY.
Seibert, 63 is the online toon king, with 400 million views monthly to his Channel Frederator network on YouTube, but he's never sure where his next hit will come from.
So he's always out there looking, at schools, industry gatherings, book signings. You name it.
Next weekend, he'll be at the Vidcon convention near Los Angeles, a gathering of folks who make their living off YouTube, which is where most folks see his online `toons.
"I have no ideas," he says. "But I recognize talent."
That's for sure. Seibert, then president of Hanna-Barbera's cartoon studios in the 1990s, is credited with discovering Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the Family Guy, fresh from college, when he hired him to work on Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
For Seibert's "What a Cartoon!" series for the Cartoon Network, Seibert hit ratings gold, signing up the creators who churned out hits like "The Powerpuff Girls," "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Johnny Bravo." Their series debuted as shorts for first for Seibert's series.
He still serves as executive producer of "The Fairly OddParents," a TV series he began producing in 1998 when it debuted on his "Oh Yeah, Cartoons," series. It's been running ever since on Nickelodeon.
Seibert's biggest audiences, however, have come from online, to the tune of some 1.9 billion views for 'toons like the Bee and PuppyCat and Bravest Warriors.
We had Seibert as a guest on our #TalkingTech podcast in June. At the time, he was averaging 300 million monthly viewers to the Channel Frederator network. Now he's already up to 400 million monthly viewers, and predicts he'll top 700 million by year's end, and 1 billion by 2016.
The reason for the massive growth is that unlike before, when animation was targeted just to young kids, either for Saturday morning TV, and kid-based cartoon TV channels, anyone of all ages can view `toons online.
Seibert's Cartoon Hangover, a Frederator section where he shows the best of his `toons, bills itself as the channel for "cartoons that are too weird, wild, and crazy for television."
“Bee and PuppyCat,” about a young woman with a hybrid dog-cat, is written by Natasha Allegri, a woman in her 20s, about a character in her 20s, and thus, obviously not targeted to the traditional animation crowd.
"No matter what your interest online — whether it be anime, or science fiction or comedy cartoons, there is a place for you," Seibert says. "TV has a tough time supporting the sub-genres. Online is all about sub-genre."
Channel Frederator is what's known as a multi-channel network. Cartoons run on YouTube, but his network promotes them, sells ads and distributes the proceeds to some 2,000 of his video makers.
Through Frederator, the channel makers learn about which color to make their thumbnails to find larger YouTube audiences (he recommends yellow) and which keywords to use in the descriptions ("funny" always works, he says.)
"We give them the tools to grow their performance," he says.
Dominic Panganiban, a 24-year-old animator from Toronto, joined the Frederator network in November, and has seen his subscriber base grow ten times since.
He had been working with Full Screen, another multi-channel network that works with YouTube creators to help them monetize their videos and attract larger audiences.
"Frederator was a better fit, because they cater more towards animation channels," Panganiban says. Because Frederator attracts folks who enjoy cartoons, "I have more potential here."
By being part of the Frederator network, Australian animator Sam Green says he's learned about how to better promote his cartoons, and gotten access to a database of free music and sound effects to use in his cartoons.
He too has seen a spike in traffic.
Being with Seibert "helped me move from my mother's garage to affording my own apartment in the big city," he says.
How did the traffic for both creators go up so dramatically?
Seibert promoted the cartoons to his audience. With 2,000 cartoon makers, that's a lot to choose from. He says he'll plug as many of them as "show an interest" to growing their audience. He looks for people who post new work regularly, stay in touch, and ask "what we can do to help them more."
And despite the massive online audience, Seibert isn't making money yet, and doesn't think he will for another three years.
"Our cartoons are 3-4 minutes long, and the average American watches 6 hours of TV a day," he says. "We have a long way to go to even that out."
Photography by Jefferson Graham, July 2015
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From His Mind to Yours
Chapter 1 >> Chapter 2 >> Chapter 3
✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader
✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content
✣ Chapter CW: graphic torture (not of reader); murder (not of reader); very very bad therapeutic practice
✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; sex (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, torture (not of y/n), murder, discussions of suicide, trauma and abuse, and many more that I don't know yet
✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.
✣ Word Count: ~5k
Any day now, the rainy season will end, bringing a brief respite before the humidity of summer becomes unbearable. You often think about moving to a land with a more temperate climate. A country near the equator, where you could invest in a single wardrobe that works year-round, rather than switching out the contents of your closet five times a year to accommodate the seasons.
Raindrops break through the protective barrier of your hooded cloak. When you lick your lips, you taste cold and wet.
The trip from your apartment to your office is a long one, three-quarters of an hour by train plus a nine-minute walk from the station. Plenty of time for the elements to drench and shake you. Snow in the winters proves especially brutal. Waiting at your office is a change of clothes, cosmetics, and hair product. You construct your work attire like a suit of armor. A blank slate of dry-cleaned perfection distracts from your age and makes patients respect you.
Most patients anyway.
On the train, you scan an article about the winner of last year’s Nenmatsu Jumbo. Through the lens of your phone, you read how the lucky fortunate pledges half his fortune to a shrine in Hokkaido and will spend the rest on sending his four children to private schools, lavish vacations, and a plot of farmland. The winner says he has no intentions of retirement just yet.
700 million yen. A transformative amount of money. You have run the numbers, and with about half that much saved, you would be set for life. No need to worry about disability, disaster, or devils sweeping away your years of hard work. With 350 million yen, you would finally be safe. Happy even.
Hanma Shuji is your winning lottery ticket.
The price you charge for his treatment is obscene; more importantly, if you’re successful, it will unlock a new revenue stream with the Tokyo Manji gang. Their organization must be rife with degenerates, neurotics, and depressives, all with blood money to burn. Ten years of catering to the criminal class, and you may well reach your savings goals. When you think about it at night, you fall asleep with a smile.
Your happy dreams assume, of course, that Hanma doesn’t sabotage you at the get, which is not looking promising.
He’s late.
At the office, you change out of your rain-soaked clothes, blow dry your hair, and read your case notes three times over. Your eyes stray repeatedly to the time on your phone as Hanma’s lateness makes the move from possibility to definitive reality. Arriving a few minutes late seems like Hanma’s style, and arriving fifteen minutes late as a power play might be his m.o. as well, but half an hour? He doesn’t plan to show, and you know it.
You walk to the empty reception room. There are a couple other patients on your case load right now, but you are scheduling their therapy around Hanma’s, clearing entire days just to focus on your golden goose. You even gave your receptionist the day off to ensure his privacy. An hour-long train ride here and an hour back would be for nothing if Hanma ghosts you.
Frustrated, you hover over his name in your contacts. Calling and begging him to participate in his own treatment will cede all authority you have.
While your office is disturbingly minimalist – designed to keep your most distracted patients engaged – the reception room is livened slightly by large windows that overlook central Tokyo. The rain beats against the pane thunderously, but you can still see the activity on the street below. It’s an office district, so mostly fellow professionals leaving for meetings or a working lunch. The street is more active than typical as the Samurai Blue are playing a match at the stadium, and your office block is a well-known detour to the venue. You can make out the blue jerseys as lucky fans stream toward the game and unlucky fans look for a bar to catch the match on TV.
It sparks an idea, and you press Hanma’s name before fully processing it.
“Hello, who is this?” Hanma greets, voice twisted with mockery.
He knows exactly who is calling and why. Your number is already saved in his phone. You ignore the flame it alights in your gut. Hanma likes to play games, and you can oblige that.
“The Samurai Blue are playing right now. Are you near a TV?”
“Hello to you, too. Hide has been resurrected from the dead and is giving an impromptu concert at Tokyo Tower. Are you near a radio?” Hanma says, mirroring your bizarre introduction.
“That’s funny. You’re funny,” you say, momentarily surprised into laughing before you remember you are angry with this man.
“Mmhmm,” Hanma hums. It’s a filler noise. He’s waiting for the inevitable chastisement, to see you plead for his cooperation. He will be disappointed.
“I’m not going to waste your time asking why you are late for our session or if you’re coming in. if you were a typical client, I frankly wouldn’t care. I’d bill you for the session anyway and treat myself to pork belly on your dime. But Kisaki-san has impressed the importance of working with you upon me, so I want to keep this appointment. Rather than beg for you to have mercy and come in –”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing you try,” Hanma interrupts.
A spark of memory from your last session. Standing at full height, he was mountainous, easily one of the tallest men you have ever encountered. His wide-legged stance, so much space between to settle at his feet, legs lolled out because spaces weren’t designed to contain a man of his stature. The hint of tenting, possible erection. Predator’s eyes.
You ignore him.
“How about a wager?” Silence. You think that’s a good sign, so you bully on. “If the Samurai Blue score within the next minute and a half, we keep our session today. If not, I start looking for flights out of town for when Kisaki-san sends someone knocking on my door.”
“Kind of funny to imagine it might very well be me that he sends in that eventuality, huh?” Hanma says, though it’s not funny at all. “Fine. You’ve caught my interest. Ninety seconds. They score, we meet, and you can try your psychobabble on me.”
“Perfect.”
There’s a flatscreen to entertain waiting clients, mounted above a gurgling water tank. The remote is missing, so you manually press the power button and scroll until you find the match. On the line is silence as you assume Hanma also finds the right channel.
“Starting now?” Hanma asks.
“Time it.”
You watch as the match unfolds. The Samurai Blue are already down one, and their opponent, red jerseys, have possession of the ball. Blue streaks of activity as the national team tries to defend and retrieve.
You don’t have any special affinity towards football, but only the most stubborn could avoid watching the World Cup or Olympic matches, when the radios blared the action from the open door of every convenience store or market stall. In university, most of your fellow students were men, and you would join them semi-regularly at the student bars to watch a promising match; you would call it “making an appearance.” Your boyfriend keeps up with the international leagues, catching the scores on his phone and commenting on coaching decisions without ever bothering to actually turn on a match.
This wager is a shot in the dark from a gun that may not even be loaded. You have no insider insight to guarantee Japan scores, and probability is against you.
That’s why when the center forward retrieves the ball, barreling past the center circle, your heart rises in your chest. The impossibility of it, this quick drive down the length of the field, from winger to striker and now nearing the goalpost, is a pure shot of adrenaline.
What are the odds? Are they as impossible as winning the Nenmatsu Jumbo, a New Year’s miracle?
The goalie lines up to block, and you will the striker’s attack to land. Millions may be watching, singularly concentrated on this very play, but in this moment, you are on the field. Your will is all that matters.
When the ball connects with the net, Hanma roars on the other side of the phone. He doesn’t groan in disappointment; he’s celebrating the goal. Like you, the adrenaline has drugged him. You stare at the players taking their victory lap in disbelief. Your own celebration a quiet closing of your eyes, a silent prayer.
“How’d you do it, doc?” Hanma whistles into the phone. “Did you bribe the goalie in advance?”
“Pure luck,” you say, a little breathless at how true the words are. You have never been lucky, and it stuns you. You have to will yourself back to professional reserve. “You wouldn’t have been interested enough to take me up on a wager if the odds weren’t completely stacked against me. That’s what makes it exciting.”
While the Tokyo Manji gang runs underground casinos and Mahjong parlors across the city, no one reported Hanma as a gambler. Under the right circumstances, you speculate he would thrive on gambling. The moment of tension, when both the loss and the win feel equally possible, is an adrenaline high, and the kind of thing to electrify a bored misanthrope. You did not plan to test this hunch on Hanma so early, hoping to save it for future sessions, but you are happy to see your suspicions proved accurate.
“Smart, and a coin toss wouldn’t have worked because you couldn’t trust me to be honest about the results, and I wouldn’t trust you in return. You know, you’re pretty manipulative. Are you sure you’re not a sociopath?” Hanma says. It’s the first compliment he’s spared you, followed immediately by an attack.
“If manipulating someone occasionally was all it took to meet the diagnostic requirements, everyone would qualify,” you disagree.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. Yeah, you say all these things about me being a risk-taker, unempathetic, manipulative, whatever, but am I really all that different than anyone else? In my experience, people are plenty self-serving when anything half important is on the line?” Hanma says.
Sampling bias, you think. Hanma’s line of work exposes him to society’s desperates, the people drowning beneath the weight of their previous mistakes and dying to breathe again.
“That’s a good topic of discussion for when you come in. I’d wondered what you thought about my assessment last week, especially now that you’ve had some time to process.”
“Oh, I’m not coming in,” Hanma says. You hear the slam of a car door and the beep of a lock. Now, the sound through the phone is distorted as Hanma walks through the rain to wherever he’s going that isn’t your office.
“Hanma-san, we had a deal…”
“I know that, and I won’t reneg. You can have your 90-minutes, but I never said I’d come to your office. You can come to me. I’m down by the Port. I’ll text you the address.”
“My office is in Ueno. That’s…over an hour away by train,” you say, knowing as you say it that your logistical concerns will be met with indifference.
“And I have a meeting that can’t be missed. I know, I know, self-care, put yourself first, but I think I might be a workaholic, doc. Work, work, work. They don’t even give me holidays off!” Hanma jokes.
Even as you negotiate with Hanma, you know it’s futile and start preparing to brave the elements once again. You zipper your wet clothes into a plastic bag and hang them in your closet. Your receptionist will take them for dry-cleaning when she stops by to lock up for the night. Your raincoat hasn’t dried off from before and wets your clean clothes as you pull it on again.
“If I come to Koto-ku, will you still be there?” you challenge, imagining making the trek only for Hanma to move onto some other distraction.
“You have my word. I think it’ll be good for you to see me in action,” Hanma says.
You choose not to think about what that might mean.
“If I take the train out to Telecom Center, you need to pick me up. I’m not walking down to the port in this rain, and I doubt you want a random taxi dropping me off at your important meeting,” you say.
Reasserting some boundaries, not allowing Hanma to control the terms. It’s part of your role as therapist, but it feels seedy with him. Maybe because these power plays are standard for his job. Normally your clients are less aware of how you subtly maneuver them.
“I’ll send someone to pick you up,” Hanma concedes.
“We have a deal.”
“I love hearing you say that,” Hanma moans, and then a beep as he unceremoniously hangs up.
As the rain beats down upon your head once again on your walk to the station, you half hope a tsunami strikes the city and carries Hanma Shuji out to sea. But only half.
- - -
True to his word, a yakuza decked out with a neck tattoo and everything picks you up from the station and delivers you to a warehouse by the harbor. The grey sea is frothing and angry. Here, the wind is twice as strong, tangling your hair and tripping your feet.
You enter the warehouse, off-kilter and a little afraid.
In the movies, these criminal warehouses are always empty, perfect for a drawn-out battle, but this one is in active use. Rows, stocked with packages, stretch up to the ceiling. A line of cranes sit powered off by the entrance. A couple yakuza stand off to the side, smoking and playing dice.
Your guide leads you past them to a row cleared from merchandise. Amid the narrow row are two folding chairs, in one sits Hanma, and in the other sits a man who is handcuffed and chained at ankle and wrist to his seat.
You swallow.
The bound stranger is in his thirties. He wears a satin button-up, probably a fellow yakuza or at least someone who works in the entertainment district. Freshly shaven, which means he hasn’t been hostage for longer than half a day. The man sports a black eye, but no other obvious signs of struggle.
“You made it, doc!” Hanma calls out. In contrast to his prisoner, he’s the picture of casual comfort. He sits backwards in his chair, chin propped against the backrest with plenty of room for his gargantuan legs to stretch out.
“Thanks for sending someone to pick me up,” you say primly, deciding not to rise to the bait and comment on the other man. You glance around and realize your guide has disappeared in the few seconds it took you to get your bearings. Apparently, this is Hanma’s show alone.
“I want you to meet Fujimori Hisao,” Hanma says, gesturing at the bound man. “I’m afraid I can only give you half my attention here. You can ask me your questions, but I need to ask Hisao-kun some questions of my own.”
“And if I don’t like your answers, can I do whatever you do to Fujimori-san to you, too?” you ask.
“Funny! I keep forgetting that you can be funny when you want to be,” Hanma giggles. “I promise to be completely honest in all my answers. I need to set a good example for Hisao here. Don’t want to have him thinking he can pick and choose when to answer me. Honesty is the best policy and all.”
Hanma likes to hear himself talk. Sometime during his monologue, Fujimori starts to silently weep. With his hands restrained, there is nothing to catch the tears until they streak past his chin and collect in the column of his throat.
The scene is unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed. Sometimes you hear about violence in the past tense in a clinical setting, but never before your own eyes. Criminal acts are hypotheticals to you, who has never even noticed a shoplifter in action. Your boyfriend always tells you that you’re naïve in the ways of the world. Innocence must cling to your skin, despite your best efforts to conceal it, because Hanma smells it on you, too.
The surprise reveal, the casual greeting, all of this is an act, a performance to frighten you. He wants to see you break.
You decide to get comfortable, shrugging off your coat. There is no third chair, so you lean against the shelves. You situate yourself close to Hanma. The other man is in your periphery, but you can ignore him with effort.
“May I begin, Hanma-san?”
He grunts.
“We could have scheduled for later this evening when your…appointment wrapped up. Why did you want me to see this?”
“You’re gonna cure my boredom, right? I thought you should see one of the last things that still gets me hot and going,” Hanma says.
“You’ve thought about what we discussed last session. Do you have any thoughts or questions?”
“I told Inui that I was officially a sociopath, and he said everyone already knew. Go figure,” Hanma sneers, and the other man goes deathly silent at hearing his captor self-describe as a ‘sociopath.’ “I stand by what I said on the phone though. I don’t see what’s all that different about me from your average guy. Take Fujimori-san here, he betrayed his friends, giving information on Toman to the HKJ – that’s a triad we’re in business with – and for what? Money!”
“NO! I didn’t. I swear! Hanma-san, I swear I would never –”
The way Hanma bursts from his seat is violent, knocking his chair to the ground with a clang. The way his fist connects with Fujimori’s chin is something worse than violent. Fujimori’s neck snaps back, so hard, you fear it broken, before his head falls limply forward. Frantic denials turn to drawn out moans of pain.
“Don’t lie to me!” Hanma hisses.
Your heart thunders in your chest, as if the threat is directed at you. Rather than return to his seat, Hanma prowls around Fujimori’s limp body. A victory lap or another intimidation tactic.
“People can be self-serving, especially where money is concerned. That’s not enough for a clinical diagnosis,” you say as calmly as possible. “To be diagnosed with ASPD, you need to meet additional criteria. For example, right now, I’m having a physiological reaction to seeing you punch that man. I feel for his pain and wish it would stop. A sociopath wouldn’t have that kind of empathy for someone else’s suffering.”
Hanma drops large hands onto Fujimori’s shoulders, massaging them and getting into the beaten man’s face. “You hear that Hisao-kun? She feels for your pain! It’s true that I don’t, but you should just confess and tell me who your contacts in the HKJ are, so that I don’t have to hurt you anymore.”
Before Fujimori can answer and earn Hanma’s wrath again, you forge onward, “I’d love to know more about how you feel about other people, too. Have you ever felt something you would describe as love? Does spending time with your favorite people make you happy? And while we’re at it, why are your favorite people your favorites? What makes them special.”
“You’re asking too many questions at once, doc. Rookie interrogation mistake!” Hanma chastises.
“That’s because I’m not seriously asking those questions yet. We’ll save them for another day. But I wanted to answer your question about what makes sociopaths different than the general populace, and the answer probably lies in how you’d respond to those questions,” you say. “Here is a direct question for you. In as much detail as possible, since we last met, when were you most bored?”
Hanma seriously considers the question, “Last Thursday was collection day, where all the men who report into me, bring their cash for the week. I just have to sit there, watch people count bills, and threaten to split a few heads if they come up short. No one was short this week, so I just sat there until four, then dropped the cash off with Koko. I called Kisaki, but he didn’t need me for anything. So, I decided to try one of our new nudie bars, where the girls are all pros. Nothing worse than seeing the show and finding out they’re all amateurs that can’t deliver, right? Well, I get there, have a few drinks, and as I’m looking around, I realize, I’ve already fucked every girl in the place. A real drag, right?”
You note Hanma’s verbal tick, the tacking on of ‘right’ at the end of his sentences. Is it to make you complicit in whatever vile things he says or a bid for validation? The former seems more likely.
“You never sleep with the same woman twice?” you ask.
“Where’s the fun in that, am I right?” Hanma says, giving a comradely clap to his prisoner’s arm. “Anyway, that was probably the moment, when I realized there wasn’t a girl in the place to interest me and nothing better to do with my night.”
Like you hypothesized on day one. He craves novelty.
“This is a hard question for most people to answer, but please give it a try. What does your boredom feel like in the moment? Can you find the words to describe it?”
Once again, Hanma takes the question seriously, allowing a long pause to collect his thoughts. You find it impossible to watch him as he ponders because to look at him requires you to look past Fujimori. He has regained some of his wits, mouth shaping around silent pleas for you to save him. You, this strange woman who doesn’t appear interested in torturing him, appear like a guardian angel, but there is nothing you can do. You lack the leverage with Hanma, and you would find a bullet in your skull before you finished dialing the police.
There is a sheen of sweat about Fujimori’s lip that strikes you as especially pitiful, and you look away.
“Cold,” Hanma says, at last. “It feels like that one night in winter, the coldest night of the year, when your bones freeze from the inside. Rationally, you know it’s only a few hours until the sun comes back, but instinctually, some part of you thinks, ‘this is it.’ That all you’ll ever know again is the bone deep cold and the dark.”
A phantasm of cold slices through your gut. You didn’t expect such evocative words. A high school dropout with abysmal marks to show for his public education, you didn’t expect Hanma’s intelligence, but his words move you. They are so uniquely human and familiar to the worst days of your own life.
Softening against your better judgement, you continue your line of questioning, “When I’m cold, I usually grab a jacket, an extra blanket, warm up by the kotatsu. My instinct is to do something to get warm. On Thursday, when you realized there were no girls to seduce, what did you do to warm yourself?”
“This is damn poetic what we have going here,” Hanma laughs, breaking a bit of the spell his words cast upon you. “Let me see…Thursday, I took a bump, and then decided to wander around the city. See if I stumbled on something more interesting.”
“Did the change of scenery help, or were you still bored while you walked around?”
“Still bored. I’ve been walking these streets since I was eleven,” Hanma says.
“And did you interact with any people during this walk?”
“Some juvenile delinquent bumped into me. Literally. Landed on his ass. Then, he wanted to pick a flight like it was my fault. I had to shut him down,” Hanma says and then scoffs when a fissure of concern ripples across your face. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill the poor kid. I just flashed a gun, so he understood I was the real deal, and suddenly it was ‘a thousand sorries, sir.’ J.D.s in my day weren’t so quick to back down, but anyway. I ended up at my tattoo parlor. My artist was working on someone else, but she kicked him out when I came in. had her do a color touch up on one of my tattoos.”
“Do you have many tattoos?” you ask, thinking Hanma would fit the profile for a tattoo addiction.
“Not by yakuza standards. Wanna see it?”
Hanma undoes the lower button of his dress shirt, rolling the material up above his abdomen. You can’t see clearly around Fujimori’s shaking frame, so Hanma releases his victim and walks closer to show you. In this suit, Hanma appears deceptively lean, but he’s filled out beneath his clothes. Clear lines cut across a chest and abdomen of defined ridges and dips. Your tongue wets your lips.
A dragon winds around his side, roaring face toward the front and tail trailing to his back. The green ink is fresh and vibrant with an undercurrent of red as the skin is still inflamed from the touch up. The work on the scales looks intricate and must have taken dozens of hours to complete. It is the only tattoo you can see on his chest.
“Pretty,” you admit. “Dragons are associated with the Tokyo Manji gang, right? Do you feel pride in being a lieutenant? Many gangs operate almost as families with people willing to commit unspeakable crimes against outsiders because they’re so invested in protecting the sense of belonging they feel with their in-group.”
“I know what you mean, and it’s what guys like Hisao here should be willing to die to protect. But, for me, not really. I feel pride in how far we’ve come. I’ve been with Kisaki since the early days, and I was part of making all this happen. And, I have a…fondness for some of the top guys, but we don’t feel like a family. I followed Kisaki all those years ago because he promised me a more interesting path than what I could picture for myself, and that’s why I’m still here,” Hanma says.
Something electric is lighting you up from your intestines. The immediate transparency that Hanma offers is not typical of clients. You sense nothing but honesty from his words. There’s a speed to your back and forth, testing your ability to think of the next question and draw connections. The mental strain plus your muted fear on behalf of Fujimoto makes you feel hyper-present, more present than you have felt in weeks as you commute between work, home, and dates with your boyfriend. You don’t want the session to end.
“You don’t feel any loyalty? But you must have had so many opportunities to betray them over the years, and you never took them,” you point out.
“The opportunity never felt worth it,” Hanma shrugs. “But speaking of loyalty! Hisao-kun, I think we’ve neglected you too long.”
Two-pronged annoyance shoots through you. Are you more upset at the promise of pain coming Fujimori’s way or how easily Hanma drops your conversation? The magnetic aura that made you feel as if it were only the two of you in the world must have been one-sided.
“Hisao, I did my research before collecting you. Unmarried, no kids that you know of, parents in good health. No loan sharks breathing down your neck or out of control gambling addiction. So, tell me, what made the money worth betraying your family? Risking your own neck for a couple million yen. If there was some big reason, maybe I could understand it, but without one…you’re hurting my feelings,” Hanma teases.
He keeps his hands tucked in his pockets, almost like sheathing a sword or holstering a gun, but you know he will be quick on the draw. Fujimori suspects as much as well, eyes darting between Hanma’s face and pocketed hands. The purple silk of his dress shirt is stained almost black with sweat at the pits.
“I swear I didn’t do it, Hanma-san. I swear!”
There is no immediate retaliation. Instead, Hanma drops to his knees in front of his captive. You stare in awe at the submissive position. Even on his knees, Hanma’s impressive height puts him at eye-level with Fujimori, who senses nothing good from this change in posture. Unconsciously, Fujimori strains against his bonds. Your fingers flex and twist as if you too were bound.
“We’re both Toman, Fujimori, and that makes us brothers in a way. We both promised we wouldn’t lie, and an oath to a brother is not something to break casually. Do not look me in the eyes and lie to me,” Hanma says lowly. He leans forward so their foreheads are touching, spectacled eyes drilled into Fujimori’s own. You can’t see their faces, just the white column of Hanma’s arched neck. “Now, tell me who was your liaison from HKJ?”
“I didn’t do i–”
Lightning fast, Hanma’s hand darts forward. The attack is soundless. Rather than a blow of force, Hanma plunges a finger straight into Fujimori’s eye. The choice is so startling that Fujimori gasps rather than screams, and then reality catches up to him and he starts to bellow.
“I can’t stand when people look me in the eye and lie,” Hanma sneers.
He stands up to his full height and wipes his hand against his pants. Eyeball juices. His pants are wet with eyeball juices.
The screaming stops. Wait, no, you see Fujimori’s mouth still open in a wail. Above it, blood stains his cheek, and above that…No, the screaming continues but you aren’t processing the sound. You are in shock and dissociating from the stimuli around you as a method of self-defense. Looking at Fujimori’s battered face is impossible, so you look at his legs instead. Panic has set in, and the man is using all of his weight to thrust up against his bonds, arcing the legs of the chair into the air and back down. It’s futile; the chains holding him are too strong.
Eventually, you look to Hanma and realize he’s been observing you the entire time. There is a smile on his face, too obvious to be anything but performative. Like when he threatened to masturbate in your office, he is looking to unsettle you. This time he has succeeded.
“You okay, sweetheart?” Hanma asks.
Even under the traumatic circumstances, there is a fierce streak within you that refuses to back down. Hanma is watching you with a sympathetic expression as fake as the blonde streaks in his hair. You don’t want to reward his bad behavior, or worse, provoke more of it.
“What did Fujimori-san do?” your voice shakes through the question.
“We’re negotiating a deal with the HKJ, big opportunity for us to expand our slice of the Meth trade. If we can secure entry through Hong Kong and replace our current suppliers, we’ll cut our costs by 5% and mark up our prices by 10%, free money. It’s a good deal for everyone involved, but that doesn’t stop greed from setting in. everyone wants to walk away with the sweetest deal. That’s why we think the HKJ will try to infiltrate Toman, plant a few moles. If they can cause a problem for us – say an unexpected police raid or losing our current supplier – they can then swoop in, play the heroes in clean up, and then demand the better cut. In general, we keep a close watch on our subordinates’ bank accounts to make sure everything is on the up and up, and an offshore account wired Hisao-kun ¥5,000,000. Payment for services rendered, perhaps?”
The last question he directs to Fujimori, who sits paralyzed in fear. Denials could lead to another outburst of violence but staying silent doesn’t bode well either. Against your better judgment, you catch a glimpse of his eye. It isn’t dislodged from the attack, but the eyeball is swollen with blood, thick like the juices of a passionfruit.
You shake your head in disbelief, like the gesture might change things.
“That’s it? One suspicious deposit in his bank account is all you have to go on? All you have to justify…this?” you gesture helplessly at Fujimori.
“Uh huh.”
“But that could be anything! Maybe a relative died and willed him some money! ¥5,000,000 is a lot, but it’s not a yakuza-only level of money!”
You know that the Tokyo Manji gang tops police wanted lists not just for their role in organized crime but their penchant for violence. It’s rare to see a yakuza gang in the news for murder these days with so many yakuza fighting to keep their government-granted legitimacy, but Toman bucks the trend. Of the top lieutenants, Hanma is the guard dog, biting any hand that would near the leaders. If Kisaki directs the madness, Hanma executes it with extreme prejudice. You know that.
But you always imagined the violence unleashed against those who had “earned it.” The triviality of Hanma’s evidence, enough to condemn a man, shocks you more than his aggression.
Hanma flings himself back into his chair and says, “Hisao-kun, did someone die and will you the money? Mind I’ll have someone verify before we leave her, and if you’re lying to me, I’ll gouge the other eye out completely and make you eat it.”
“No! No one died!” Fujimori swears quickly.
“Welp, there goes that theory. Got any others, Doc?” Hanma waits for you to answer, but you shake your head. “No? See the truth is it doesn’t matter. Hisao-kun is hiding something, or he would have explained where the money came from already. Maybe he’s not in league with the HKJ. Maybe he’s taken a bribe and not given us our cut. Maybe he’s skimming off the top. Or maybe, he’s our little rat. Regardless, he doesn’t get to keep secrets from his masters, and so here we are.”
It makes sense in a cruel way. Maintaining a criminal enterprise requires absolute silence. You sign your secrets away at the doors. The way the movies depict it, you would have thought gangs were all about freedom and rebellion against society’s rules, but really you just trade for a whole new set of restrictions and far more dire consequences. Gangs are about money. And, if someone would try to steal hundreds of millions of yen from you…you might find yourself capable of gouging into a man’s eye, too.
The way the human brain can rationalize in moments of trauma is truly remarkable.
“You said this got you hot earlier? Are you aroused by this?” you ask, slipping back into therapy-mode.
“Nah, I mean hot as in the opposite of what we were talking about earlier, with the cold boredom. Now, if your skirt rides up any further, that might get my dick up,” Hanma leers.
Startled, you find that your skirt has risen up your thighs, so the dark band at the top of your stockings peeks through. You quickly pet it down into place, and Hanma play scowls at you.
“May I sit down?” you ask meekly.
“Sure, princess,” Hanma says, standing to offer you the seat he was occupying. “But we won’t be here much longer.”
You take it gratefully. Not until you’re seated, do you realize your legs are trembling.
Hanma returns to questioning Fujimori. You watch the back of Hanma’s head as he works, tuning out the particulars. You don’t like knowing so many details about a major upcoming yakuza alliance. It could make you a target. Even without carefully listening, you realize Fujimori has confessed and is starting to share whatever intel he can, like offerings to a malevolent god that demands human sacrifice.
Your stomach growls. Your eyelids lower. In the aftermath of a trauma, your body doesn’t know what is wrong and is cycling through possibilities to fix the problem.
There is plastic-wrapped melon pan in your bag, stashed away from a visit to the convenience store earlier that day. Would Hanma mind if you have a snack?
You are about to risk it when a pop rattles your ear drums. Ears ringing, you take several moments to process Hanma turning around and tucking away a gun. Behind him, blocked from sight by Hanma’s height, Fujimori has been shot. Somehow, you know it was aimed to kill.
Hanma approaches you, continuing to block out the dead man. He grips the chair you’re seated on and spins it around, so that you’re facing away from the body. The gesture of kindness pierces through your shock. You can’t thank him though, gaping like a fish at his blank expression. A smattering of blood and a chunk of something you won’t consider have landed on his clavicle, just above his heart.
“I’m going to take a shower and then take you out to dinner. You can sit near the entrance and wait for me. My men will be outside. Nine rows to the right and twelve up to reach the exit, okay?” Hanma intones slowly, making sure you process the directions through your shock.
You nod.
Hanma walks off in the direction of Fuji– no, in the direction of the body that was Fujimori. You ought to run. Flee the scene. While he’s in the shower, you could race out of the warehouse altogether, trick his men into letting you through, and then what? It’s a two mile walk to the station, and Hanma has a car. Unless he likes a lingering shower, he will catch you. Plus, he knows where you work. You promised him a degree of professionalism, a hardened mob-therapist who could roll with the darker sides of the job. He expects you to do just that.
But dinner?
Part of you understands. The back-and-forth before he lost interest in you had been intoxicating, and you still want to return to that. Like an abuse victim, who reminisces about the early days of love bombing and will ignore the abuse that just occurred. For a few minutes there, Hanma’s attention felt like magic.
Slowly, you limp toward the exit, following Hanma’s instructions. Plenty of time to think about whether you run screaming out the door once you’re there.
Reaching the exit, you stare at the unlocked doors that represent your chance at freedom from the day’s monstrosities. From your interviews with Kisaki and other members of the Tokyo Manji gang, you know Hanma has no history of violence towards women that fell outside the basics of his job. He doesn’t rough up the working girls or ape the girlfriends of his enemies. There is no reason to expect you are the exception. He wants to scare you, yes, but if you don’t give him cause, he won’t kill you.
You can’t forget the money on the line. The life-changing, Nenmatsu Jumbo-level miracle money to which Hanma holds the key. It is your dream, and you have come too far to abandon it now.
So, you lean against the concrete block wall and wait. You have a dinner to attend.
#hanma shuji#tokyo revengers smut#tokyo revengers x reader smut#hanma x reader#hanma smut#tokyo rev smut#from his mind to hers#embossross masterlist#read the warnings please#torture tw#murder tw#improper medical practice tw
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''Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)'' has reached 700 MILLION streams on Spotify.
It is Shakira’s third song to achieve this on the platform.
#shakira#shakira mebarak#celebs#celebrities#waka waka#this time for africa#song#spotify#700 million streams#news#my gif edit#gif#edit tumblr gifs
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‘Walls’, the album just hit 700 MILLION streams on Spotify! (13 August 2022)
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Discord Lays Off 170 Employees Due To Overhiring
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/discord-lays-off-170-employees-due-to-overhiring/
Discord Lays Off 170 Employees Due To Overhiring
Community chat application company, Discord, has laid off 170 employees, or 17 percent of its staff, according to a new report from The Verge. Discord CEO Jason Citron cites overhiring, which has led to the company becoming “less efficient” in how it operates. The layoffs affected people across various departments.
The Verge obtained an internal memo from Citron sent to employees announcing the layoffs, which have already happened. That memo explained why the layoffs were happening, when affected employees would receive the email telling them they no longer have a job, and follow-up meetings for those who remain at Discord.
“We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020,” Citron writes in the memo. “As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated. Today, we are increasingly clear on the need to sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.
“This is largely what drove the decision to reduce the size of our workforce. While difficult, I am confident this will put us in the best position to continue building a strong and profitable business that delivers amazing products for our users and supports our mission for years to come.”
You can read the full internal memo at The Verge here. The Verge writes that Discord raised about $1 billion in funding in total, with more than $700 million “in cash on its balance sheet and the goal to become profitable this year,” according to the publication’s sources.
These Discord layoffs follow a heartbreaking trend in these first couple of weeks of 2024. Just this week, we learned video game engine creator Unity is planning to lay off 1800 employees (25 percent of its workforce) by the end of March, and that streaming company Twitch is laying off 500 people (35 percent of its staff).
This string of layoffs this week follows a terrible 2023 for the people who make games and those in game-adjacent industries.
n January of last year, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees amidst its ongoing $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it completed in October.
Striking Distance Studios, the team behind 2022’s The Callisto Protocol, laid off more than 30 employees in August of 2023. That same month, Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare laid off 50 employees, including long-time studio veterans. The following month, in September, Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios laid off roughly 45% of its staff, and Fortnite developer Epic Games laid off 830 employees.
In October of last year, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog laid off at least 25 employees, and Telltale Games also underwent layoffs, although an actual number of affected employees has not yet been revealed. Dreams developer Media Molecule laid off 20 employees in late October.
In November, Amazon Games laid off 180 staff members, Ubisoft laid off more than 100 employees, Bungie laid off roughly 100 developers, and 505 Games’ parent company, Digital Bros, laid off 30% of its staff.
In December, Embracer Group closed its reformed TimeSplitters studio, Free Radical Design, and earlier in the year, Embracer closed Saints Row developer Volition Games, a studio with more than 30 years of development history. A few weeks before the winter holidays, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering owner Hasbro laid off 1,100 employees.
The games industry will surely feel the effects of such horrific layoffs for years to come. The hearts of the Game Informer staff are with everyone who’s been affected by layoffs or closures.
[Source: The Verge]
#000#2022#2023#2024#Activision#amazing#Amazon#amp#billion#Blizzard#Building#Business#CEO#Community#december#Design#Developer#developers#development#dog#effects#email#employees#engine#epic#Explained#Full#Funding#game#games
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The inevitable M&A question came toward the end of Paramount Global‘s hourlong conference call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday — a session that undoubtedly would have been more contentious for Paramount leaders if they hadn’t started out by serving up sacrifices for the greater good of free cash flow and profit.
Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish waved off the inquiry from Bank of America Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich about the tidal wave of media speculation about suitors coming (and going) for the company with a breezy “We’re always looking for ways to create shareholder value.” But it was clear from the earlier commentary and business updates from Bakish and chief financial officer Naveen Chopra that they are charting a course for this year and next to take streamer Paramount+ to the promised land of profitability and keeps the company entact as a standalone entity.
Indeed, Bakish nodded in his prepared remarks to the endless chatter on the Street and in media about Paramount’s long-term fate. “Regardless of current market sentiment, we’re convinced that the value of our assets today, combined with the execution of our strategy as we move forward represents a significant value creation opportunity, and we are dedicated to unlocking that value,” Bakish said.
The unlocking process will include a $1 billion write-down to be taken in the current quarter. Bakish and Chopra promised Wall Streeters that the company will spend less to make and market movies and TV shows and they will get more bang for those bucks with more aggressive windowing of streaming content across linear assets and vice versa. Moves forced by necessity during the programming drought of last year’s strike months — “Yellowstone” reruns airing on CBS, for one — are helping to guide its future. Most of the write-down ($700 million to $900 million) will stem from existing TV shows and movies that will be yanked from Paramount’s various digital and linear platforms and development projects that will be scrapped.
After recording a $1.6 billion loss on streaming operations in 2023, Paramount+ will reach profitability in the U.S. in 2025, Bakish vowed. Paramount Global will deliver free cash flow and growth in the second half of ths year, Chopra added.
Bakish emphasized that the company will also significantly cut back its efforts to produce local-language content in overseas markets. Instead the company will focus on generating hot prospects at home that have global resonance.
“Internationally, it’s become unquestionably clear that Hollywood hits are the biggest draw for our audiences and partners around the world,” Bakish said. “Which means there’s a clear opportunity to lean into our CBS slate, Paramount+ originals and Paramount films while slowing spend on local content and associated marketing.”
Chopra said the decision was influenced by analysis of what most non-U.S. subscribers watch on the streamer. “We’ve learned the Paramount+ subscribers outside the United States spend nearly 90% of their time with our global Hollywood hits — meaning we can keep them engaged while right-sizing our investment in content that does not travel around the world,” he said.
However, in the hunt for what the executives called “efficiencies,” Paramount will look to produce more TV programs and films overseas, where the cost of everything from hiring extras to an espresso at Starbucks is lower than in Los Angeles or New York.
“You will see us leaning even further into offshore production for our global franchises, including the upcoming London installment of ‘Billions,’ the new ‘Ray Donovan’ origin story as well as new series like ‘The Department’ from George Clooney,” Bakish said of three series on deck for Paramount+ with Showtime.
On the film side, Bakish pointed to Paramount Pictures’ success so far this year with modestly budgeted theatrical films “Mean Girls” and “Bob Marley: One Love,” the biopic that has lead the U.S. box office for the past two weekends. “We’re improving ROI by lowering the average cost per title,” Bakish said, noting the film studio’s refined focus on “balancing high-budget tentpoles with more modest cost titles.”
Paramount Global spent about $16.5 billion on content in 2023, a number that was lower than 2022’s content bill because of the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Chopra said. He expects that 2024 spending will be higher but not by too much. “We contemplate spending really only about 50% of what we’ll call the strike savings. That’s a critical ingredient in our ability to drive healthy growth in free cash flow,” Chopra said.
Other topics addressed on the call:
The Disney/Warner Bros. Discovery/Fox streaming sports venture announced earlier this month has been a de rigueur question for CEOs during the Q4 earnings reporting cycle. Bakish is not impressed with the offering that is rumored to be priced at $40 to $50 a month. “For a true sports fan, this package only has a subset of sports,” he said. “It’s missing half the NFL, a lot of college [events] and has virtually no soccer or golf. So it’s hard to believe that’s ideal, especially at the price points that have been speculated.”
Speaking of game theory, sports is an important subscriber funnel for Paramount+, which offers CBS’ AFC NFL package as well as acquired rights to soccer and golf tournaments. Prospective subscribers come in for a game or two but stay for the entertainment. “For people that come in [to Paramount+] for sports, 90% of their engagement is with non-sports” content, Bakish said.
CBS has been a bright spot for the company. The network got its strike-delayed season off to a strong start with freshman drama “Tracker,” thanks in part to a big circulation boost from large crowds turning out for the Golden Globe Awards, Grammy Awards and the record-setting Super Bowl telecast. But the Eye is also becoming more budget-conscious when it comes to content spending. “We have an increasingly efficient and targeted development process,” Bakish said. “We prioritize lower cost formats, like unscripted and those shot abroad while maintaining our strength and franchises.” He cited the success of last year of “NCIS: Sydney,” the latest interation of the drama franchise that was shot Down Under “at a much more efficient price point.”
In 2023, Paramount+ nabbed a total of 4.1 million new subscribers. Expectations for 2024 are lower in part because Paramount+ will be detached from bundled packages in some overseas markets “where the economics just weren’t that compelling,” Chopra said. “We do still expect very healthy Paramount+ revenue growth and of course, revenue is the more important metric than subs.”
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"FACE" by Jimin has surpassed 700 MILLION streams on Spotify!
Congratulations Jimin!!
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The truth is we cannot all be asked to care about a million things outside our sphere of immediate influence all the time.
The world is big. Tragedies happen all the time. I am incapable of carrying the grief of those tragedies inside me all the time. No one is capable of doing so. Christians literally invented a whole demi-god for that purpose because the tragedies and grief of even one life was too much for most people to handle.
I do not care that a bunch of billionaires died in a submarine fated for destruction. I feel a brief passing sadness for the tragedy of the teenager who didn’t want to be there. I cannot spare more than that.
I feel concern and upset that over 700 refugees are either dead or missing from a fishing boat off the coast of Greece. It is a tragedy, and I feel the grief. But I cannot let it linger. I could not have helped, I could not have prevented it, and so at this point I can only spare them the passing dignity of my mourning. But not for long. I cannot spare more than that.
Tragedy happens everywhere every day. And if we do not let it wash over us and pass by like waves upon the ocean, or as the trickling stream in the spring thaw, then we will be lost and unable to proceed, crushed under the weight of the unending grief that is our daily world where we know everything and are asked to care about everything.
I will do my best to make changes in myself that might help in the future.
I will do my best to make changes locally in my own community that might help in the future.
I will do my best to make changes on progressively larger scales that might help in the future. Until my ability fails to make a difference.
And when my ability fails, someone else more equipped than I, who can spare more thought and attention and resources than I, will hopefully be doing the same.
We cannot mourn every tragedy. We cannot be enraged at every injustice. We cannot possibly hold every negative emotion and occurrence in our souls. No one can take that weight.
But we can do our best. And we can try to make the world better.
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