It’s finally happening

I’m finishing TAZ: Balance tonight

Money’s Worth - You’re Mine

soft husband!Ransom Drysdale x reader

Summary: Starting 2021 answering the question I got asked the most in 2020: “How will the reader react to learning that Ransom hooked up with someone when she was away for Christmas?”

A/N: When y’all filled out this poll, there was a 100% yes answer for a spinoff for The Highest Bidder. Well, here it is: Money’s Worth. In which Ransom is getting $50,000+ worth of experiences with his wife and child(ren). If you have more ideas, don’t be shy, drop ‘em in my ask box! I’ll update this series from time to time. 

If you were tagged in Highest Bidder, I automatically tagged you in this. If you’d like to be removed, let me know! My feelings won’t be hurt, I promise ❤️

Also, I’m sorry if your name is Amanda 🥴

Warnings: smut, swearing, jealousy, angst, daddy!kink

The Highest Bidder Masterlist

Money’s Worth Masterlist

Main Masterlist

“Darling, can you go over to the next aisle and get a couple boxes of pasta?” 

Ransom nods, even though you’re too engrossed in looking at the differences between chickpea-based and gluten-based pasta. 

His son is awake, wide eyes looking around at brightly colored food packages and fluorescent lights with a pacifier in his mouth. From what Ransom recalls of tales from when he was a baby, Harlan Jr. is more like you. Quietly observing, not kicking up too much of a fuss. 

Pinching the baby’s nose gently and coaxing a small giggle out of him, Ransom ventures over to the next aisle to find the pasta you like. 

A sharp gasp and an obnoxious “oh my God,” draws his attention. When he looks up and finds the source of the voice, his stomach gurgles with dread and annoyance. 

“All the times I’ve been here, I’ve never seen you,” she says. “What are you up to? Disappointing more girls in bed?”

Ransom weighs his options in his head. He could dig low, reminding her of all the times she was actually begging for him, or he could take the high ground, grab the pasta, and ignore her. 

He does the latter, though makes the mistake of using his left hand to do so.

“Is that a wedding band?” she scoffs. 

“Yeah, it is--” 

“Oh, Ransom, don’t get that one, we want the bigger noodles.” 

Shutting his eyes, Ransom shouts all the swear words he can think of in his mind. This is such bad timing! 

“No fucking way,” Rebecca--or is it Veronica?--scoffs. 

“Hi,” Ransom sees you give a sickeningly sweet smile and he wants to disappear into the shelves. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall ever meeting you.” 

“I’m Amanda.” 

Wow. Completely different name than the ones his mind was supplying. 

“Your husband and I know each other pretty well.” 

He can see the gears turning in your head, analyzing the situation. 

“Quite frankly, I’m not surprised about the little one. I’m sure he did the same thing to you as he did to me, just finished and decided he was done without fully getting the job done!”

You’re visibly taken aback. “I’m sorry?” 

“Oh, we just hooked up casually like, two years ago? I can’t really remember, it was during Christmas though. Hadn’t heard from him in a while and he mentioned being lonely and I figured ‘Why not?’”

“Two years ago?” you echo, looking at her, then at Ransom. 

“It was casual, I left right after,” he points out, 

“Oh, were you two together then? I’m so sorry--”

“You know what, Veronica, just get your stupid pasta or rice or whatever the fuck you’re here for and leave me and my wife in peace! Don’t you have better shit to do?!”

“It’s Amanda.”

“I don’t care.” 

Rolling her eyes, she leaves, turning on her heel and exiting the aisle. 

Ransom turns back to you and doesn’t like the thoughtful look on your face. You don’t look at him or Harlan, just at the contents in your cart. 

“Hey, don’t let whatever she said get to you. You know I love you,” he reaches for you, fingertip just grazing your cheek and you cringe away from him. 

“Just put the pasta in the cart and let’s go.” 

You’ve snapped at him before to remind him to stop completely at intersections or double check the temperature of Harlan’s bottle. You’ve never snapped at him that way, in irritation as if you can’t stand him. 

He recoils, drawing his touch away from you. “Well, just...let me get the right one.” 

“Ransom,” you deadpan, “I wanna go home. Just put the pasta in the cart and let’s. go.” 

He does as you say, carefully placing the boxes atop the other items. 

You don’t speak to him as you check out and sit in the backseat with Harlan to make sure he’s okay as he drives the three of you home. His little eyelids drop closed, completely calm despite the palpable tension between the two of you. 

Once at home, Ransom takes care of the groceries while you bring Harlan upstairs to his crib so he can continue to sleep. Just as you get him settled, you hear your husband pipe up. 

“So, can we talk about what happened at the grocery store?”

You sigh, straightening up. You cross your arms as you turn to face him. “When was the last time you saw her?” 

“When you were on winter break a few months after you had just moved in.” 

You bite the inside of your cheek, a whirlpool of emotions spinning around in your chest. 

You’re angry and hurt, but you don’t know why. The two of you were just starting your sugar arrangement and it wasn’t anything deeper than that. There weren’t any feelings on your end until the following spring. 

“It wasn’t anything, it was just some hook up. She was just being a bitch because I left--”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” you interrupt him. 

You had long reconciled Ransom’s past and never held it against him. But you just cannot pin the exact reason why this revelation bothers you. 

“Look, I’m still figuring out things going on in my head. And I don’t really...I don’t really want to see you right now.” 

“I don’t understand why this is such a big deal,” he argues, “We weren’t anything. We only became a thing in July.” 

“Really?” you wonder. You weren’t going to bring this up, but it feels fair in order to get him to understand your perspective. “I had a crush on someone from my cohort.” You watch his expression shift from annoyed to surprised. “I kissed him once. In November, after I moved in with you. But it didn’t work out because I was living with you, so we decided to not do anything about it.” 

You can see the visible tinge of red on his neck. “Are you saying that just to get at me?”

“It’s the truth,” you say. “Does it bother you?” 

You can see him setting his jaw as he takes in the information. 

“But we weren’t anything, right?” you remind him of the words he spoke just minutes before. 

Ransom doesn’t say anything. He turns away and walks down the hall. You hear him going down the stairs and then the door to his office slams. 

You check on Harlan, he’s still sound asleep. Slightly relieved, you move into your bedroom and sit on the mattress. 

Ransom lets out a long-winded groan when he deletes the sentence he’s been working on for the fifty-second time in twenty minutes. 

He feels odd knowing you liked someone when you were living with him, just as the seeds of his feelings were being planted. He’s taken pride in the fact that he was the only one to have you, but turns out your heart was a better prize and that wasn’t his completely. 

He doesn’t doubt you love him and he’s certain he never has to worry about sharing you ever again, but it still bothers him. 

He scrubs his hands over his face and rubs the back of his neck. 

He remembers fights between his parents never being resolved, which resulted in their marriage slowly disintegrating into a financial arrangement than a romantic relationship. 

He knows you late at night when you’re both hungry; knows you pregnant and crying over hermit crabs while watching nature documentaries; knows you between his arms and keeping him warm, making him feel safe and loved when he felt he didn’t deserve it. He doesn’t want this to turn into anything close to the example of marriage he saw growing up. 

Shutting his laptop, he gets up and marches to the door. When he yanks it open, you’re standing there. 

“What are you doing?” 

You look caught, as if you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be. “I...I wanted to talk. Unless you don’t want to.”

You begin to leave and he grabs your arm. “No, let’s talk.” 

Stepping into the room feels reminiscent of walking into his office at the publishing house for the first time. You’re not comfortable entering this territory. 

Hugging your arms around your middle, making yourself look as small as you feel, you decide to just be forward. Your words come out sheepishly, “I just...I didn’t like knowing the moment I was gone, you went out and replaced me. Even if we didn’t have an exclusive label. And, I just thought, like, I realize it doesn’t matter because we’re married. And like you said, I know you love me. But, I don’t know. Just didn’t sit right with me.” 

Ransom sighs, shaking his head. “I wasn’t replacing you or anything like that. I...I saw a change in myself from just having you with me for a few months. But I thought you’d leave as soon as you got the opportunity,” he uses a large sweeping gesture as if he’s picturing you leaving all over again. “And I’d…” he hesitates, hand up by his head before his arm goes slack, “be back to my shitty normal self.” 

It’s different now with the explanation, and you wish you had been in the mindset to listen to him earlier instead of hurt him.

“And I get it. Knowing you had a crush on some guy doesn’t sit right with me either. I just,” he looks up and distantly, “I wonder what he had. What made you like him but then you were fine with nothing happening and then you started liking me?” 

“Neither of us were ready for a relationship at the time. We had just started and our first semester was crazy.” You take your turn to explain. “And feelings just come and go sometimes. I saw him again in February and it just...wasn’t there.” 

He takes in your strikingly simpler explanation, understanding your reference to fleeting feelings that are gone almost as quickly as they appear. 

“I’m sorry, Ransom. I shouldn’t have said anything about that. It was so stupid and it really didn’t mean anything--”

“Neither did Amanda.” 

“I…” you trail off, not knowing what to say. 

“I wasn’t being very understanding earlier when you first said it bothered you. You were just trying to get me to know your side of things.” 

“Doesn’t make it right,” you counter. “I really am so sorry.” 

Ransom smiles and laughs to himself. He still doesn’t know how to accept an apology. He sighs, reaching for you. “How long do you think junior will be asleep?” 

“Could be an hour, maybe two,” you answer as he draws you closer with a hand around your waist. 

“Think that’s plenty of time for us to make it up to each other.”

“Technically I need to make it up to you,” you correct him as you take his hand. “And I know how I want to.” 

You lead him back around his desk, ushering him to sit in his chair. It’s large with dark blue velvet, providing enough room for you too and straddle his lap. 

You dive for his mouth, capturing his lips in a heated kiss. 

His left hand comes to cradle your jaw, keeping your lips locked onto his, while his right hand drifts down your back to cup your bottom. 

You grind your core against his, smiling when you feel his hips jut up to yours. Tilting your head you give a tentative lick into his mouth. He opens up, bringing his tongue in to play with yours. 

It reminds you of how it was when it started; being shy  and letting him take the lead. You haven’t fallen into this cloudy headspace in a long time, but it feels so good that when you pull back and gasp the word “daddy,” it feels so natural. 

Ransom, on the other hand, is taken aback. He’s gotten used to you calling him “darling” or other terms of endearment. Hearing you call him that awakens something that had long gone into hibernation; and he wasn’t sure if it would ever see the light of day again. 

But like you, he slips into the space, creating a firm grip on your ass as a smirk appears on his face. 

“Wanna call me ‘daddy,’ baby? Hm?” he taunts. Your eyes are wide and doey, feigning innocence when he knows you’re far from it now. “Well, guess we can do that. We’ll make up for that night I wasted on someone else.” 

He watches your brows furrow and eyes squint in anger. Your hands slide into his hair, fingers tightening in the tresses. It creates a pull on his scalp, something he enjoys. “You’re mine, daddy,” you whisper just before your lips are on his again, kissing him harder than before, certain to bruise. 

You pull away and lean down to nip at his neck, hands moving to the waistband of his pants. You pop the button and undo the zipper unceremoniously. 

You remove yourself from his lap only to kneel between his legs on the carpet, pulling his jeans down to his knees. His boxers are quick to follow, revealing his hardening member. You grasp it, giving it a few squeezes and tugs the way you know he likes, watching his head loll back against the back of his chair. 

“This is mine, too,” you say. 

“Yeah?” he pants, looking down at you. A hand grazes through your hair, stopping at the back of your head. “My cock only belongs to you?” 

You nod, working him with more determination. 

“Then take it, baby.” 

You practically lunge for it, leaning forward to take him into your mouth, lips spreading to accommodate his girth. 

You’re satisfied with the sound Ransom makes, something between pained and blissful. He eggs you on, gathering your hair into a ponytail secured with his hand as he guides you to take more and withdraw in rhythm. 

You want him to finish in your mouth, but he pulls you off him and makes to lift you back onto his lap. You stand, already shimmying out of your bottoms. 

Straddling him again, you focus your attention down to poise yourself just above the head of him. 

He takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger and makes you look at him before crashing his lips on yours once more. 

“Take what’s yours, baby. It’ll always be yours,” he whispers. 

You sink down, crying out at the feeling of him within you. The doctor had just given you the green light to resume sex as normal after Harlan’s birth weeks ago, but you haven’t been able to find a lot of time to tangle with each other without your baby or Ransom’s book needing attention. 

Ransom appears to have an equally hazy feeling, looking at you with heavy-lidded eyes. You straighten up slightly until just the tip of him is in and lower yourself again. 

It’s so much for the both of you that his hands come to your waist and he guides your pace. “Slow,” he instructs you. 

You obey, finding a steady pattern as you build a climax for the both of you. Coaxing your hips the slightest bit forward, Ransom sinks all the way to reach that spot within you that makes you see stars. 

“Like that, baby?” he taunts you again, moving your hips up and down his length. “Tell daddy.” 

“Yes,” you gasp, “Just like that, daddy.” 

He works you until you’re nearing your end, tightening and pulsing around him to bring on his orgasm as well. Just as you’re about to fall over the edge, he taps below your eyes, a silent request for you to look at him. 

Your eyes meet his and he verbalizes exactly what he’s thinking. “I’m yours,” he pants, “I’m yours, my baby, my sunshine.” You fall forward and kiss him, letting him swallow your moans and whines. “Come for me, let me show you.” 

Your body weakens in his grasp, leaning onto him for support. Your movements falter and he makes up for them, jutting his hips up until he’s finishing within you. 

You gasp at the warmth that blooms in your stomach, feeling like gravity is failing but it’s okay; Ransom’s holding onto you, keeping you grounded. 

He holds you tightly as you breathe heavily, trying to recover your strength. You sigh and your arms wrap around his shoulders. You hear him chuckle and lean back. 

“We should’ve thought this through better,” he smiles, “We gotta get upstairs and clean up.” 

You moan your disappointment. “M’tired. Can’t we just stay here a bit?” 

Moving your hair out of your face, he kisses your exposed forehead. “Okay, sunshine,” he agrees. “Just a few minutes.” 

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First Thoughts on YJ S4 Panel

WARNING: SPOILERS for the DC Fandome YJ S4 panel!

Okay, before I start chattering away, can I just saw how much I love this title poster? Because I love it. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT HOW BADASS IT IS. 

Warning: this first bit is a teeny bit ranty, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t genuinely love the panel. It was really fun, but I have a few gripes with the amount of information we got. If you wanna cut straight to the cheery bits, check under the cut.

So... uh. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed? Because I’m not, this was good, we got info, it was nice to see the voice actors. But I’m... underwhelmed. I definitely wasn’t expecting a lot but this was still, mm, not as much as I thought we’d get. No poster, no previews of character designs, not a peep as to when we’re getting the new season, nothing on where it’ll be streaming, nothing as to new characters, nothing as to who’s going to be the villain, and the Q&A session was maaaayyybe 3 minutes long. Oof, guys. Thought you said you’d leave us with something that’d leave us “more than just ‘whelmed.’” 

Essentially all we got was the title, and a few snippets of information regarding what the current status of the Team and its characters is. They didn’t really get the chance to talk to us at all about the actual season, either- I think Brandon spoke maaaybe three or four times? He got the title reveal, but, well, we knew that already, not that it’s their fault, but still. I love hearing the voice actors chat about their experiences and we got none of that, so that was disappointing. I’m wondering if there wasn’t some material cut, actually, because I distinctly recall seeing a clip on Twitter with Phil Lamarr talking about what it was like returning to the show, and it wasn’t in this. So what’s the deal, DC? Short-changing us on YJ again? When are we gonna get some actual news? 

There is the little problem that their big reveal of the title was spoiled, oh, maybe three or four months ago, and that isn’t their fault, but it does make that revelation more of an “okay, well, glad that’s confirmed” rather than an “OH MY GODS IT’S PHANTOMS WHAAAAAAAT” like I think they were hoping. Still, that’s definitely exciting to hear, and the new title poster looks cool. 

I got a “WHAT!!!” moment maaayybe three times, which is significantly less than I thought I would. There just wasn’t that much new info. But I think that’s less of a Grandon/production team problem and more of a world state and DC problem. I’m not annoyed at them, I’m annoyed at DC and at the pandemic, because I’m willing to bet their snippet was cut short by DC and what information they could’ve revealed just isn’t ready yet because of current events. Probably we would’ve gotten character designs if it weren’t for that.

As for the audio play, it was pretty good. They were definitely struggling what with having a distinct lack of people to pull from for a voice cast, but made some tongue-in-cheek references to it to take off the edge. I don’t think I realized just how many people voice for YJ until now... or how many characters each actor does. It’s a bit janky, and weird what with the arguing over who’s narrating the story (why, are they telling us the story, or are they telling it to someone else? Are you breaking the fourth wall, are you not? Make yourselves clear) but I’m blaming that on the fact that they’re more used to scripts than they are audio plays. These are different mediums, so there’s an inherent gap there; this probably would’ve gone better as an actual episode. 

So, FIRST watch-through, here’s my HAPPY cheery thoughts and reactions, in no particular order! I might do a second one later, we’ll see. (Under the cut, because it’s long.)

Return of Bowhunter Security! 

Clipboard makes a comeback!

The Supermartian marriage has taken place and they’re making reference to taking a long journey with Conner, M’gann, Bioship, Gar and J’onn. So... Mars? Do we finally get to see Mars?  

Forager gets to be sassy! And a hilarious narrator! Which, c’mon, it’s Jason Spisak, honestly, I don’t know what I expected.

Ahahah, Jason makes the most delightful faces when he’s voicing Forager. (And a few flubs, but he’s good at covering them.) We all miss Wally, but man, he does a good job with this character. Also, hey, that’s how he does the clicks!

Rocket! Even though she had a relatively minimal presence, sigh. I’m hoping they build her character more this time, she always get short-changed. 

ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM, repeat, ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM!!! YES!!! 

And she also makes a reference at some point to being in this fight for ten years, which, HMM, do I hear a reference point for our time jump? They started back in 2010, so this implies that the season’s caught up to 2020. So... season one was 2010, season two was 2016, season three was... 2018, I think? So does this make the next time jump two years too, or am I off? It also takes place on February 23rd. Eh, either way, it’s absolutely not as long as a lot of people were fearing- heck, I’m thinking this might be the shortest jump yet. Yay!

I’m not sure if the Snapper Carr dialogue is cringy or hilarious. I’m going with hilarious because I’m betting this would’ve been great if it were animated. It definitely loses something without the animation. 

Is... is Crispin Freeman playing four characters? Five? Will, Roy, Jim, Captain Boomerang... I think I’m missing someone, I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch this later, but wow. He switches between them so fluidly, too, that’s impressive.

Forget Freeman for a hot second, Nolan North, what are you doing, dude? Conner, Clayface, Mallah, at least one or two others, with a LOT of animal noises included... wow, okay. I definitely didn’t realize how many of these guys do two or three characters. 

Phil Lamarr doing Brick, Black Manta and Kaldur all at once is definitely impressive. I’m gonna take a guess and say he likes doing Brick best. He seems to get a little grin sometimes when he’s playing the character.

Ahhh, Danica McKellar definitely likes playing Terrence Terror. Don’t ask me why, I’m just getting that feeling watching her. Villains are fun to play.

...Wolf? Where’s Wolf? Uhh, guys? Where’s our fluffy doggo? Don’t tell anyone but I’m scared. 

Oooookay, that was unexpectedly gruesome. Dehydrating a man into sand? I mean, okay, it’s Clayface, but we didn’t know that till later. Eeeewww. Y’all, ik you’re going more dark, but that wasn’t an image anyone needed.

Jokes about Dadbod!Will are... hhh, cringy or funny, cringy or funny... I’m going sorta funny for now. Not enough to make me laugh, but enough to make me smile. 

Okay, Will’s definitely still hilarious. Literally that entire scenario with Captain Boomerang was amazing, and only made better by the fact that it was entirely Crispin Freeman. The “are you the Green Arrow fanclub president or something?” “...you have no idea” moment, the “boomerangs are better and Batman said so!” “...okay, FINE,” FLINGING CLIPBOARD, Boomerang teasing Will for his dadbod and Will answering with a wicked uppercut... ah, man. This is 100% Roy/Will Harper and I am here for it. 

I can see some people disliking this humor, but personally, I’m gonna just sit back and enjoy it. YJ has some quirky humor, but honestly, if you’re part of the fandom and you don’t like it, why are you even here?

Huh, Raquel’s a vegan and nobody’s making jokes about vegan burgers? Nice!

Oh, my gods, Forager deciding that Lian and Amistad playing with the food is an educational activity is AMAZING, 100% in character, and something I really, really want to see. 

(Fanartists? Fanartists, pleeeeaaasse?)

Will and Artemis ribbing each other will never get old.

...wait. Hang on. Is Will the comedic relief character now along with Forager? Is this a thing? I guess it is. If you’d asked me who out of the original Team would replace Wally as the comedic relief back when I had finished the second season, I would not have thought of him first, but I think I’m good with this. It’s definitely in character to his comic version. 

Ahh, Conner and M’gann’s relationship is still... interesting. Still not sure how to feel on this one. But hey, they’re married (?) now? Uh... nice? 

Nightwing’s off on some mysterious mission, hmm? I’m assuming that’s because of Jesse McCartney not being there, but I think I’m gonna headcanon that there are Other reasons for this. 

Yay, Clayface getting redemption! I love this in the Rebirth Batman: Detective Comics, so I’m 100% down for seeing it here. 

Tim did that for Clayface! Sweet! Not a plot thread I expected to go anywhere from that one season three episode, but one I am very happy to see used. 

...more secrets. Uhh, M’gann keeping secrets from Conner is... icky... again... but granted, keeping them because of confidentiality agreements is, well, a better excuse than she’s had in the past. Still, this is getting old.

Huh, so Waller will let out the Team’s secrets if they tell anyone about Belle Reve. I think this was already covered in the third season, but maybe not so explicitly. The reactions... hmm. Of course Conner’s okay with letting out all their secrets (and M’gann’s willing to... go along with that? ...okay...?), but the others, maybe not so much? Hmm. I wonder what Dick would have to say about that one. He definitely has something to lose. Not sure about Kaldur or Artemis, though. 

Jason did NOT get to make any Wally references. That makes me even sadder than if he did make one that made all of us cry. C’mon, guys. Let him have his references. 

I’m always a little meh on M’gann, but hey, M’gann gets to be a 100% certified badass! Saving Clayface AND taking down a ton of baddies with telekinesis, yay!

Oh, my gods. LOOPHOLES. WHAT IS WITH THIS TEAM AND LOOPHOLES. I love them so much.

The Team signing on as Bowhunter Security- oh my gods, all of the Team in fucking Bowhunter Security uniforms- oh my gods, so very in-character, so very true to YJ, so absolutely goddamn hilarious, I wanna hug whoever came up with that. That is the BEST mental image and it is a CRIME that they didn’t animate that. 

And, of course, Kaldur just immediately goes along with it. The Team’s corrupted him fully now. I mean, we knew that, but he’s done now. 

Black Manta attempting to roast Kaldur for his security uniform and Kaldur roasting him back 100 times worse is wonderful. “I wear my dignity on the inside, Father. Where do you wear yours?” KALLIE I LOVE YOU 

Ooooo, Artemis is inviting Roy to the Team? This should be interesting. He’s definitely not totally stable, but it seems to me that Artemis should be able to more or less keep him in check. Hopefully. She had to deal with Wally for five years, surely she can keep Roy in check?

...hmm. We’re all thinking there’s gonna be a Red Hood arc... Roy’s joining the team... Roy and Jason did have that run as the Outlaws in the comics with Kory... and this version of Roy has the sort of temper and attitude that I can just see Jason possibly getting along well with... hmmmmmmmm... 

Hah, villain shenanigans. Having Task Force X argue all the time is in character and admittedly sort of funny, especially as Black Manta’s sort of pulling a Kaldur and playing the absolutely exasperated denmother. I dislike BM thanks to him being a Baddie and all, but watching (listening to?) him struggle to contain them is enjoyable if only because I like watching him suffer. 

Ahh, watching the VAs is fun. It’s definitely nice to see that little view behind the camera. There’s the little smiles, the tiny grimaces at the icky bits, the responses to various bits, the way their demeanor changes with each character, everyone egging Nolan on when he’s yelling for Clayface being disintegrated... I’m sad we didn’t get to see them chat, but watching them interact while they work is fun. Pity Jason and Stephanie didn’t really have any interactions, though, I bet watching them work together would’ve been fun. Ah well. Still fun overall.

There’s a lot of variation in where they are/what setups they have. Some of them seem to have proper studios, some of them don’t but they have mics, Danica’s on the lower bunk of her son’s room with what I’m betting are several sheets hung behind her, and then... well, then there’s poor Stephanie with earbuds and what I’m betting is her phone at her friend’s house XD Also, Greg’s library is really awesome, can I steal it please?

Green title card... I know people have been positing this for a while, but Lazarus Pit? Also, the thing people haven’t talked about: Mars?! Is this a nod to the Martians, since M’gann, Conner, Gar and J’onn seem to be going there? 

Lots of speculation regarding Phantoms, but that’s been going around for a while, so *shrug* I’m not gonna spend any time on that for now.

Someone’s gonna have to write this out, methinks, for further examination. We’ll see if I get around to doing that or not before Fandome ends. I’m betting someone will record it and post it on YouTube, but a written-out version of the script would be useful. If I do, I’ll probably post it, so keep an eye out. 

So... season 3.9, episode 1? Hmm. Does this come directly prior to the fourth season? I kinda wanna say it does.

I have more thoughts, but I think I need to do a rewatch first, maybe in a little bit. Anyway... not what I was expecting, I sincerely miss Dick and Wally, but lots of funny jokes all the same, and lots of interesting information on the fourth season even if it’s nowhere near the amount we wanted. I might be underwhelmed but I’m certainly not disappointed. 

The Deal - Chapter 3

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (web series)

Pairing: Alastor / Angel Dust

Warnings: human!Angel Dust (Anthony), Deal with a devil AU

Summary: Sometimes you had nobody to spend the Christmas with. Sometimes you didn’t want to. Sometimes you took a chalk and drew a pentagram on the floor fully ready to deal with anything that would come out as an alternative to self-pity occurring otherwise.

or

The time when Anthony thought if he can’t get anybody to love him properly, he can just make a deal with a devil and find out what affection feels like. Alastor thinks this mortal is pitiful beyond belief and concede. Cuddles happen.

Can be found on Ao3.

Notes: Holy shit, this took long, and should probably take longer but I'm just itching to get all this out of my system, so here it is. Also realized Alastor’s gloves are not fucking black and red lmao, but burgundy, fuuuck. Changed it.

Unbetad!

2020, January 18th

“What did ya think I’d say to a dead deer in my living room?!” Anthony almost fell out of the window for how far out from his flat he was leaning, trying to get rid of the corpse stench that assaulted his senses. “Is it some kind of fuckin’ peace offering? Like sorry, I fucked up, here’s a dead deer?!”

“A deer for my dear~,” Alastor singsonged in response while happily cutting vegetable at the kitchen counter, as if there was no stinky corpse in the flat, bloody and so, so dead.

“No, fuck you,” Anthony growled back into the flat, not bothering to turn even a little. “I hate you.”

“Now, now, cher, lyin’s bad for your health.”

“You are bad for my health!” he turned to the demon with an accusatory finger pointed at his face, and then made a retching noise when the smell of blood reached his nostrils. His hangover state couldn’t handle the smallest deviation from normal and corpses were definitely not in top 1000 of smells he was used to. Alastor didn’t even raise an eyebrow, he just calmly continued his ministrations as if he just didn’t carve the poor deceased animal right in the very room. Wasn’t it some sort of cannibalism if he would eat anything made from that thing? A deer eating another deer? Was that even allowed?  

“Dat might be tru,” the demon agreed after a moment of pondering. “Demons are rarely good fer people.”

“Ugh,” Anthony sagged against the windowsill and the icy wind blew snowflakes into his face. “Seriously, why did ya even bring this thing. Where did ya even get it? A whole fuckin’ deer…”

“Hunted it down,” Alastor shrugged and walked towards the sink where the meat was resting pitifully (in Anthony’s opinion), portioned, but also skinned with surprising skill, not elaborating on the hunting part like it was his favourite hobby and not worth questioning. “It’s our weekend. Wanted to cook for you.”

Our weekend sounded sweet. Anthony wanted to be wary of that, but he was just a human and he liked it despite the possible danger lying in those words. After all that went down, it was apparent Alastor saw him as something akin to a pet project, a “unfuck this guy before he dies” sort of challenge, if his I’m going to fix you eventually speech was sincere. Who knew if anything about this person was sincere in general, but making dumb life decisions was Anthony’s forte so maybe he was inclined to believe the demon anyway.

“’K,” he huffed, his stomach finally calming down and he started to get chilly. “Just… tell me when yer done with the raw meat shit. The tequila is not agreeing with me otherwise.”

There was no answer until after several minutes he felt a hand touching his lower back and a body leaning against him to join him at the window.

“Aren’t you cold ‘ere?” Alastor asked as if he just didn’t squeeze in with him at the window and his warmth was a stark contrast with the chilly wind blowing outside.

“Well, not anymore,” he forced himself to remain on spot and not lean into the contact, more out of spite than anything else, but Alastor did it for him, hugging him from the side.

Hugging… him, what?

He must have felt the rigidness of Anthony’s body, there was no way he would not. Sure, they talked about hugs, but Alastor never looked like he was going to act on it anytime soon, and this was definitely soon as fuck.

“Meat is boilin’ and I put rest in da fridge,” Alastor’s voice was so, so close.

“I have a dead deer in my fridge now?” the human faked a reprimanding tone and the arm around him tightened and he felt Alastor nuzzling his hair. Oh. He wasn’t lying when he said he and his shadow are one person, because this felt familiar – only much warmer.

“Oi,” he nudged the man. “If ya feel like huggin’, I want a proper hug.” And took a step back and opened his arms.

Alastor hummed… and went back to the kitchen counter.

“Don’t push your luck, cher,” he said instead, like he didn’t just leave Anthony hanging, probably also out of spite. “How ‘bout you peel potatoes instead?”

“Wow,” Anthony let his arms drop down. “Just wow.”

He helped with the potatoes anyway and tried ridiculously hard to ignore the fact Alastor’s Bambi tail was wagging all this time.

***

2020, February 13th

“I have a request.”

“Only one this time?”

Anthony refused to feel offended by that. Alastor had been bitchy for a week now, probably had to do something with Hell fucking with his control kink, but it usually only made him snarkier, rather than hostile. Anthony wouldn’t probably even notice if the demon didn’t snap on Wednesday and Anthony’s living room suddenly resembled a boutique with at least fifty racks of clothes haphazardly appearing where was still free space, making Anthony stare at it like a child during Christmas. It wasn’t a bad “snap” Alastor had, actually seemed like a nice gesture until he said: Now be a good boy, Anthony, pick something nice and be quiet. If I hear one more word from you, one of those jackets is going to strangle you to death. So, Anthony shut up and Alastor eventually calmed down enough to allow him to speak again without the static going haywire (and he also let him keep the clothes, ayyy).

State Alastor was in also meant no touching policy. Anthony taught himself not to initiate anything unless in bed about a month ago already but still sometimes slipped when Alastor was too close – and it usually didn’t rouse a bad reaction (unless it was about the tail. Or the ears), but if Anthony tried it when the static was loud and grating, he’d risk a limb. He didn’t have a problem to keep his distance at that point and Alastor seemed to appreciate it.

But now it sucked.

“Ya know, tomorrow is the 14th,” the human pointed out, sitting sprawled in the comfy oversized cushion he bought himself two weeks ago and at which Alastor scoffed for some reason. It was the best thing to laze in ever, the demon had no taste. “And ya know.”

“I am not sure what I should know on the 14th,” the demon uttered, his red eyes not leaving a page of his book for a second. He was seated on the couch with enough distance between two of them that could be still considered social and as hanging out instead of we had an argument so we’re not talking to each other, which was technically not true. They didn’t argue since the tequila fiasco and that cleared up anyway. This was mostly just… precaution.

“Well, I know this is your last day this week,” Anthony tried different approach and sat more properly on the cushion. Not that it helped much, since he was sporting a pink crop top hoodie and booty shorts and Alastor already expressed certain distaste for it, but didn’t demand him to go change, so it was at least a small victory.

“Indeed, it is,” Alastor responded primly, turning a page in slow pace, like a snob he was sometimes. Another thing about the bitchy state of his was the speech. He never let it slip like he usually did when they were together, just talked like a radio all the time like he was keeping his barriers up almost hysterically. Anthony didn’t question it, but he sure did miss his Cajun accent a lot. It felt much warmer and softer than the radio show host persona Alastor normally presented, although it was probably just his form of coping.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, bracing for inevitable refusal that was going to meet his demand. He knew Alastor well enough to distinguish when he was not going to be swayed, and it definitely reached that point. “Just wondered if maybe you’d stay one more day.”

“I am quite busy, dear,” Alastor responded as Anthony thought he would. “You could have planned it a week prior if you knew 14th was an important date.”

It was like talking to a computer at this point. Please leave a message, beep.

“Ya, I could have,” Anthony admitted and let it go. It wasn’t like Valentine’s Day was something special for either of them. Or, honestly, meant anything to their relationship. Maybe there was some Deal day in hell’s calendar they could open bottle of wine to down the year eventually.

A sigh and Alastor was putting his book down, his smile rather strained.

Uh oh.

“Anthony,” there was the Name CallingTM, “if you have something to say, say it.”

“Nothin’,” the human shrugged while sagging back into the cushion. “Three days are up.”

It was the weekend-less week now too and Anthony knew Alastor was itching to get back to hell to deal with whatever was needing his attention and he sort of thought of telling him if he really needed to go, he could, despite the deal saying otherwise, but was selfish and never did.

“I am not going to repeat myself,” the static rumbled more, meaning the bitching mode intensified and Anthony groaned. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“It’s just Valentine’s Day, ‘s all,” he mumbled and right the moment the sentence left his mouth, he would shoot himself if he could, because even to his ears it sounded so… cringy. Like he was expecting Alastor to bring him flowers and have dinner together with candles and all that bullshit they do in the movies. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Actually. Forget it. I dunno why I even thought about it, for fuck’s sake.”

“Lover’s day,” Alastor didn’t forget it. Oh no.

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean it that way, honest,” Anthony quickly assured him, and really wished Alastor would just shrug it off and return to his book like love never interested him. Since it never did. He was such an anti-intimate and anti-sexual person Anthony suspected him of really being just a little alien in a robotic body, like in Men in Black.

“Then what did you mean by asking me to stay on the Lover’s day?”

Oh yeah, okay, bastard mode activated now as well. Just keen on marinating Anthony in his own sweat and tears from the obvious mistake. Classic Alastor.

“Nothin’,” he piped defensively.

“Nothing would not make you ask me to stay one more day on Lover’s day,” Alastor was staring at him like a laser now, just burning through his skull. He was obviously super into making Anthony squirm in self-pity from his bad life decisions.

“Please, forget I asked.”

“No.”

“Pleaaaaase.”

“No.”

And that was it. That was the end. That was Anthony herded into an imaginary corner with nowhere to go, and Alastor was already turning towards him, and he couldn’t say if the smile was mischievous or angry. Lately the border between those was thin as fuck.

“I just thought a company on the most depressing day of the fuckin’ year would be nice, is all,” he gritted his teeth under Alastor’s red-eyed stare. “Like. We could watch some chic-flics on TV and drink wine and laugh at it, I don’t know.”

“You know how I feel about the picture show shenanigans,” Alastor shot right back, as expected. He learned to more or less tolerate when Anthony wanted to watch something on TV in his presence, but he never joined him for it like a goddamn boomer.

“Ye, see. So, it was doomed from the start anyway!” He hoped it was the end of it. Sure, he might have thought about some cuddles here and there too, since that was what they were supposed to do anyway, but the main plan was not to be alone while hating on all the hearts and roses and happy couples showed everywhere.

“It would seem so,” Alastor finally let him off the hook and opened his book again, the static diminishing slightly. “You can still drink wine though.”

“I plan to,” the human mumbled more to himself than to his companion and was just glad he didn’t need to go to work on that wretched day, or Alastor would find him in hell the very evening.

***

2020, February 14th

He’d be lying if he didn’t have at least the smallest hope of Alastor appearing out of thin air with one of the soft smiles he could do and with his Cajun accent telling him he changed his mind and wouldn’t leave him alone on such awful, overrated cash-grabbing day like this. It was probably 1 % chance of it happening, but he still felt a little disappointed when the clock showed a bit before midnight and Alastor didn’t show up at all, not even saying hi over the radio or sending Junior to give him few comforting nuzzles (Anthony was suspecting him he kept his shadow on short leash since the tequila incident and it was kind of sad).

He was switching between channels with a small frown two wine bottles later, but at least he managed to survive this shitty day without burying his face in PCP. He’d have to leave the house for it and the image of seeing happy hand holding couples on his way would kill the urge anyway.

Once Titanic started to play, Anthony decided it was enough suffering for one day and turned the TV off with a groan. Maybe Alastor knew exactly what kind of boredom the TV was, if not playing shitty movies, then filling majority of its broadcast with ads, and that’s why he avoided it.

He dragged his body to the bathroom and then to the bedroom to cuddle his body pillow instead of Alastor (not the same, but at least he didn’t wake up in the middle of the night anymore feeling cold and alone), and stopped dead in the tracks, staring at his bed.

There was a rose on his pillow – a red, beautiful rose just lying there like it was no biggie, and Anthony was afraid to blink in fear it would disappear. He padded closer, staring at the flower, and then turned quickly, searching the shadows for any sign of Junior hanging around, ready to pounce. He found nothing, the flat was silent and dark, and the rose was still on the pillow when he turned back.

“Al, you fuckin’ softie,” he chuckled to himself, picking the rose with a smile playing on his lips, just to hiss immediately after when a thorn bit into his thumb, drawing blood. Of course the demon would leave all the thorns intact, if not even adding more, just to show him he’s not as soft as Anthony would think.

“Classic Alastor,” he shook his head and brought the rose to his lips. “Thank you.”

He missed the shadow slithering out of the room and disappearing in the radio softly buzzing in the kitchen.

***

2020, July 25th  

“Jazz club?”

“I’m in a mood for some good live music,” Alastor opened another wardrobe in the bedroom and raked through the clothes on hangers, mostly scoffing in distaste. It was Saturday evening and the night was warm and lively, inviting them out. “Do you actually own anything presentable or is it all just random bright coloured horrors?”

“Excuse me,” Anthony pushed him to the side from the wardrobe opening and dived in himself, pulling out a pastel blue shirt with stitched flowers on its lapels. “I only have the nicest-,”

“Denied,” Alastor snatched it from his hand and threw it on the bed. “Try again.”

Anthony huffed but grabbed another of his favourite pieces, an old-pink V neck he couldn’t even properly present before Alastor was taking it out of his hold and throwing it on the bed too.

“Yer such a prude sometimes, holy shit,” he rolled his eyes. “What the fuck ya want me to wear then?”

“Something dashing, of course,” the demon eyed the closet one more time and then closed it with a scoff. “And something red too.”

So we match was left unsaid.

“Maybe you should try pink instead,” Anthony smirked but honestly it was better if Alastor never attempted that one. Red and black were his colours like an ingrained order of the world, any deviation from it would probably make it collapse.

He wasn’t surprised Alastor didn’t react. Instead the demon left the bedroom and Anthony followed him while thinking.

“I can wear a dress,” Anthony offered after a moment. “Like. Those nice jazzy cocktail dresses and feathers in hair in a pearl headdress. And do nice make up.”

“A dress?” Alastor repeated. “Do you own any?”

“Yeah, plenty,” the human shrugged. “Often from work, though it was other bar I worked in before. Most of the guys were in a drag, they taught me how to do my own make up and how to style the hair. Really enjoyed that place, too bad they closed it down once the owner shot himself cuz of his debts.”

“Unfortunate,” Alastor commented with a nod. “Though I do recall you were saying the bar you work in now have the costume events too. Are dresses part of it as well?”

“Anything goes,” Anthony shrugged. “Dresses, skimpy body suits, fishnets, business wear. It’s usually themed with the drinks and the food.” He didn’t miss Alastor’s eye roll when he mentioned the skimpy body suits, but at least Al didn’t comment on it.

“I suppose guests enjoy that kind of show,” Alastor said matter-of-factly and Anthony decided not to elaborate. Going to work no longer made him feel at ease, it was mostly automatic. He just shut down all of the negativity, did the work, slapped grabby hands and went home. It more or less kept him out of trouble so far.

“So? Want me to doll up?” he leered at the demon between the doors. “I even have a red dress that might be just what you’d like.”

Alastor looked curious, that was a good sign. It had been few years since Anthony dressed up like this, but it could be a nice change of pace and a treat for his favourite demon who might not have about any interest in intimacy but could get very appreciative when he saw something he liked.

“Please,” the static dropped from Alastor’s voice. “Surprise me, cher.”

Anthony beamed and disappeared in the bedroom.

***

“Grandma,” Anthony walked into the living room in high heels, a fluffy coat covering his body all the way to his knees. He immediately drew Alastor’s attention and saw his eyebrows shooting up. Before he could open his mouth and ask probably why the hell was Anthony wearing a winter coat in the middle of summer, the human dramatically threw the coat down, so it pooled around his feet and struck a pose. “It’s me! Anastasia!”

Cue for the laugh, though Alastor just remained staring without a single word and Anthony cackled and kicked the coat away back into the bedroom without bothering to put it on a hanger.

“Forgot ya don’t watch TV, joke’s lost on ya,” he commented dryly and walked closer, the heels clicking against the wooden floor rhythmically. Alastor still stared but reached out towards him, so Anthony put a hand into his and their fingers intertwined.

“Ya like?” he cocked his head to the side and Alastor actually beamed at him, his eyes raking appreciatively over the setup the human presented – deep red flapper dress with long, pearl necklace tied on his chest into a knot, with fishnets and open black heels, and long black gloves reaching just above his elbow. The red and black eyeshadow with perfect eyeliner took some time, but Anthony was proud of the result and judging from Alastor’s pleased expression it was worth the wait. He styled his hair into 20’s fashion (thanks google) and the only thing he was missing was the headdress and the feather, but he imagined it wouldn’t be a problem for Alastor if he asked for it.

“Vous êtes absolument époustouflant,” the fluent French came out and even though Anthony had no idea what it meant, he believed it was a compliment. At least the tone sounded like it was.

“Hehe,” he let Alastor to twirl him around and when he finally faced the demon again, he realized he was not in the pinstriped suit anymore, but instead of the coat there was an elegant black vest and the red shirt under had different pattern as well, all accompanied by a thin black tie.

“Damn, that’s pretty sweet, Al,” he gently patted the tie and Alastor offered his arm with a smile.

“I believe we’re ready now, cher,” the demon gestured towards the main door and Anthony locked their elbows together and let Alastor lead them out. He felt his palms sweating in the gloves, the last time he felt so nervous was maybe on his first real date, but he was so not telling that out loud.

***

Birdland jazz club was the first thing that Anthony thought of and Alastor seemed satisfied when they entered the building and found a place to sit. Going out with Alastor wasn’t as frequent as it could be, but Anthony didn’t mind it either way. The first time they ventured outside of the walls of Anthony’s flat was around March and it left Anthony wondering why nobody actually turned around when seeing Alastor from the get go – the suit, the hair, the red glowing eyes – not really a normal sight in New York, that for sure.

2020, March 24th  

“They don’t see me like you do,” Alastor told him when they sat in a coffee shop and ordered. The waiter didn’t even bat an eyelash at the demon, and it left Anthony’s mind reeling. “They just see a normal person, not even that interesting.”

“As in completely different person?” Anthony inquired and Alastor gently touched his forehead before taking his hand back again. In that moment instead of the red-eyed demon there was a man in his thirties, if not younger, with wild brown hair, rather short and tousled, hazel eyes hidden under round glasses, in a white shirt and a vest, looking completely human and normal and honestly kind of cute?

“Oooh,” Anthony couldn’t help it, “what a cute guy, damn. Ya can change to whoever ya want?”

“Not really,” the human had Alastor’s radio voice, how bizarre. “This face… it’s not whoever, it’s just me.”

Anthony blinked, taking in the face and the eyes and the small smile, and oh, yeah, there was a resemblance now when he focused more, but that would mean…

“Wait. Ye were a human before becoming a demon?” he gaped in shock and one eyebrow shot up on the pretty human-Alastor face.

“How is that surprising? We even talked about my mother,” he shook his very human head. Damn, it was so strange, yet adorable. “Of course, I was a human. Then I died. Ended up in Hell.”

“I don’t know!” Anthony groaned. “I know we talked about it but I just… I mean ya seem like an important and strong kind of demon? Like Lucifer-kind of demon? Surely there are demons born in hell and not just sinners becoming ones?”

“Yes, hellborn demons are a thing,” Alastor nodded and then stopped talking when the waitress approached with their orders, placing a steaming cup of black coffee in front of Alastor and Frappuccino in front of Anthony. The demon eyed Anthony’s drink with distaste but didn’t comment on it. “It is amusing to topple them over, while being just a sinner.”

“But then… you don’t really hold your appearance when you get down there? Or did you choose it?” Anthony tilted his head to the side, not getting enough of this stranger in front of him. Familiar, yet not at all.

“You do not have a say in it,” Alastor answered simply. “The appearance the sinner take in Hell depends on his life or the way he died. There are variety of things in play.”

Anthony nodded thoughtfully while sipping his drink and then grinned around his straw.

“What,” Alastor narrowed his eyes at him and Anthony let the straw go with an audible pop.

“Well, didja fuck a deer~?”

 2020, July 25th  

Alastor ordered whiskey and Malibu Sunset for Anthony without even needing to ask his companion and the waiter eyed them both with a pleasant smile before leaving. The club was almost full, and the live band just started to perform, which made the ambience quite enjoyable. Anthony didn’t mind jazz, though he was not a die-hard fan of it either. He knew about the clubs but never actually came to chill in one like this before. It was… pretty nice, especially with the company. Alastor was holding his hand on the table, a gentle touch Anthony relished in, and for some reason here, sitting like this, he felt like his equal. Like not only as a pet project and a future pawn, but a partner.

“It is peculiar,” Alastor suddenly spoke, his eyes meeting Anthony’s again. “For how much the world changed, jazz clubs are still feeling almost the same to me.”

“Compared to which year?” Anthony asked, holding his gaze and felt a thumb gently caressing the back of his hand.

“1930,” Alastor smiled with surprising gentleness. “What a year.”

1930. He didn’t know when exactly Alastor died, but if in 1930 he was enjoying jazz clubs, he must have been an adult already. It made him 80 years old past his death at least.

“30’s baby,” Anthony chuckled. “No wonder you don’t fancy TV. It was probably just coming out?”

“Yes, the biggest wave came after I died, thankfully,” a clear distaste in Alastor’s voice was hilarious. “Would prefer radio anyway. It was my job after all.”

“A radio host?” Anthony guessed as much, and the demon hummed while sipping his whiskey. It fitted him, that sort of occupation. “Well, I dunno what ya did in your life to end up in hell,” he leaned against his palm, smiling at Alastor softly, “but yer biggest sin is not talkin’ in that accent of yers. And I mean it. It’s so hot.”

“Correct speech was a must for a radio,” Alastor said primly, but he looked very relaxed talking about it. “Talkin’ like dis would make me a garbage host.”

“I could listen to ya for hours tho,” Anthony grinned and Alastor glanced back to the live band with a small smile, still holding Anthony’s hand.

 The night passed fast with great music and maybe a little more alcohol then they planned on drinking, but they could still walk on their own legs when leaving. When drunk, Alastor dropped the correct speech entirely and was extremely touchy feely, which reduced Anthony into a giggling mess.

“You’re a lovely companion, cher,” he was crooning at Anthony when they were walking home through the New York streets, arm sneaked around Anthony’s waist. “Da deal we made was da best thing dat happened to me in a long time.”

“Oh, man, Al,” Anthony couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Ya know how to flatter a guy, huh.”

“Truth is da sincerest form of flattery!” Alastor spun the human around, twirling him on the pavement like a ballerina, then stilling him again with both hands holding his waist. “And I mean every word.”

“Ha, are ya this happy because of the dress?” he batted his eyelashes at the demon and Alastor’s hands slid lower to Anthony’s hips before returning to his waist, an appreciative touch that made Anthony’s breath hitch.

“It suits you,” Alastor concluded, standing close and personal. “Da whole look suits you so well. But even in your pink distasteful pieces of cloth you call fashion, you still look da best.”

“O-ooh, boy,” Anthony felt his heartbeat speed up. If he’d only slightly dipped his head, he could be kissing the man in front of him. Maybe normally he even would if his partner wasn’t a demonic deer with intimacy aversion. But he didn’t want to fuck this up. Holy shit, he would really go and kill himself if he fucked it up now of all times by not holding his horses and forcing himself on an obvious asexual only enjoying the company, while having too many drinks to keep his defences up.

“T-thanks, Al,” he gulped down the cringy nicknames he would use on anybody else after a date night. “Yer the best company I could’ve hoped for too.”

He was adamantly sure it wasn’t him who brought them together, that it was Alastor’s hand grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him lower and then pressing their lips together in a quick kiss, and Alastor’s body pushing against his, and also Alastor who stepped away again with half lidded eyes and a sly smile, saying: “Remember, you’re mine forever.”

Anthony was never, ever going to forget that.

***

2020, July 26th  

It was the rhythmical beat of rain against the windowsill that woke Anthony up. The weather let up a little and allowed a little colder wind to blow through the windows and it felt so pleasant Anthony just buried his face back into the warmth and breathed out in contentment. It took him a moment before he realized the warmth was Alastor’s chest and that there were Alastor’s arms holding him firmly in place and their legs were intertwined and even though it was nothing new, he suddenly felt his heart speeding up almost in panic and he blinked in confusion on why the hell would he freak out now after more than half a year of sleeping with the demon like this.

It hit him just a little while later – because Alastor kissed him yesterday. On his own. While drunk.

Nothing happened afterwards, they just stumbled back home and Alastor was clingy and by some miracle Anthony managed to get rid of the make up and change into an oversized t-shirt before collapsing to bed with the demon draped around his torso, mumbling sweet nothings like a suave Casanova with zero experience and then they both fell asleep.

He knew Alastor had his clingy moments, usually when really, really tired, so it made sense his drunk self would be probably another extension of that behaviour. But the kiss was still unexpected, and Anthony was terrified of the consequences. He could see Alastor freaking out over it when sober, he could imagine him being distant and cold to deal with the situation, to keep Anthony on arm’s length again, and it was making him sad. He could maybe hope Alastor would draw blanks after the night, but he didn’t drink himself to stupor, so the chances of that were quite low.

He looked up to the sleeping face of his companion, relaxed and content, and just thought fuck, why is he so lovable sometimes? Why couldn’t he be more demonic, more heartless, or crueller for Anthony to keep at least his metaphorical heart to himself? Why was watching him sleep pulled so many strings in him? Why his presence was so dear and needed? Why falling in love always happened with the worst kind of person?

“Are you tryin’ to curse me, cher?”

Anthony whined and buried his face back into Alastor’s chest. Of course the fucker was awake, witnessing Anthony’s existential crisis.

“I’d recommend voodoo for dat,” the demon had no mercy. “It’s lot less messy.”

“I’m bad ad sewin’,” Anthony mumbled into the red shirt and the laugh Alastor let out rumbled in his chest like thunderstorm. His clawed hand raked through Anthony’s hair with gentleness and it was too much for his poor, weak heart.

“This is gonna sound morbid, but…” he started quietly, “I can’t wait to be dead. So I can be with ya down there.”

The hand stilled for a fraction of second before resuming its pace.

“Dis is gonna be morbid as well, but I can’t wait for you to be ded too, to be with me down dere,” Alastor’s other hand moved to rest on the small of Anthony’s back, the warmth seeping into his body like poison. “To belon’ to me and do my biddin’ any time I’d want you to.”

“Fuck, that’s kinda hot?” Anthony groaned. “Imagine talking like this in front of people though. Can’t wait for you to die already, babe! Like shit, is he a murderer? Is he gonna slice his throat in bed?”

“Romance done right.”

“Till death do us apart… for a moment, until we’re pass that phase,” Anthony couldn’t help but chuckle. Honestly, he never thought about dying as much prior meeting Alastor, like he knew it was going to happen eventually – sooner or later, it depended a lot on drugs and work and attitude – but there were no deep feelings about his life ending. Not even that much fear. But now? It was like a gateway he couldn’t wait to pass, and it was a little fucked up.

“Lookin’ forward to it,” Alastor sighed and yeah, he didn’t help, really. “Comin’ here so often is quite taxin’. I adore bein’ with you, but it would be even better when we’re both in Hell, havin’ you on my lap-,”

“On your lap?!” Anthony whipped his head up, grinning. “So yer a kinky bastard after all!”

“Nothin’ kinky about wantin’ to keep you close,” the demon was so confident all of sudden, sheesh. Was he still a little drunk? He never talked about things like these – hell, he never actually expressed his feelings toward Anthony so openly, unless it was his shadow who, instead of words, was showing him by nuzzles. Sure, it was apparent he liked Anthony at least a little, but now it scaled up so much Anthony was scared it was just a dream and he was going to wake up soon.

“On yer lap, with your dick out, huh?” Stumbled out of Anthony’s mouth, out of habit, honestly, and he immediately regretted it. Alastor, as expected, scoffed at it.

“Darlin’, we’ve talked ‘bout dis.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Anthony rested his chin on the back of his hands. It was somewhere in April, if he remembered correctly, when Alastor informed him sex was probably as interesting to him as stepping into muddy puddle and then having to clean his shoes. Anthony took it as it were – it was in their deal anyway about the intimacy and sexual stuff, so it didn’t come as much as a surprise to hear Alastor was purely asexual character. It was still fun to rile him up sometimes though. “Just want ya to know ya can do anythin’ yer want to me. Even here.”

“You’re always so sincere, cher,” Alastor’s hand previously in Anthony’s hair slid down to his cheek, gently caressing it.

“Life sucks anyway,” Anthony leaned into the touch. “Every time yer not here, it’s like it loses colours. Like yer my impulse control and when I can’t be with ya, I do stupid shit. Like drugs.”

“Lately?”

“On occasion. When alone for too long,” Anthony admitted not too proudly. It was difficult to let it go completely, no matter how Alastor filled the void. Once he was gone, the void returned. “Makes me feel better. When yer here, it’s like I’m addicted to ya and need to fill that void with somethin’ when ya leave.”

“Can’t be helped,” the demon’s thumb slid down to Anthony’s lips, the claw gently pressing down and easing up. Anthony felt an urge to lick it, but Alastor would probably smack him if he did.

“Shouldn’t ya be discouraging me?” he teased a little and Alastor raised an eyebrow.

“Do I look like an angel to you?” he asked with a tilt in his voice and Anthony shrugged.

“Yer trying to fix me.”

“To feel more confident, not a saint,” Alastor opposed and Anthony hissed when the claw cut the tender skin on his lower lip, a drop of blood appearing.

“…fair,” he hummed, watching Alastor stare at the redness with half-lidded eyes before he suddenly pulled Anthony close and licked the droplet away, making him shudder.

“I can’t let you be too much of a good boy,” the demon whispered to his lips. “Or we’d have a problem with upstairs.”

“And we don’t want that,” Anthony added breathlessly, and his partner smirked.

“We really don’t, darlin’.”

***

2020, October 9th  

It was a rare moment – rarer than seeing a rainbow after rain, but it was there. Alastor allowing Anthony to touch his hair and ears, while sitting on a couch in the living room, reading a book he brought along from hell. They were in the middle of preparing dinner but there was at least 30 minutes of downtime and Alastor thought it was the best time to study some of his hell shit, like Anthony wasn’t there, ready for a cuddle.

Unfair.

So he stood behind the couch, right above Alastor’s head and risked a gentle scrape of fingers through the red and black locks. Alastor didn’t react, which normally meant a green light for whatever Anthony was up to, so he buried his hand in his hair and while the demon made a humming noise in the back of his throat, he didn’t stop him. So he played around, twirling the strands, pulling them back, braiding some, poking the ears till they flicked, until he started pulling the hair back from Alastor’s face and from the sides into a neat ponytail he secured with a hairband he had on his wrist from his own hair care just an hour ago and left it there.

Alastor… with a ponytail. Huh.

He circled the sofa and stopped in the front, taking the sight of the new style in, and yeah, okay, that shouldn’t really make him this horny, but it did.

“Am I gonna regret lettin’ you play with my hair, darlin’?” Alastor glanced at him from the book and Anthony buried his face in his hands.

“No, but now I regret ya let me because I made ya even fuckin’ hotter,” he whined.

Alastor delivered an overkill when he rolled his sleeves up once they got back to cooking and left the ponytail be. Anthony was pretty sure he was only preparing him for the suffering in hell in his own way.

***

2020, November 11th  

The first time he had thought of taking off Alastor’s gloves were on Wednesday evening while resting his head on the demon’s legs, playing with the hem of them. He had never seen Alastor taking them off – ever. Honestly he never saw him take off about anything except of his shoes and his coat, but even when he rolled up his sleeves, he left the gloves on and Anthony thought he maybe just had a thing about touching stuff with his bare hands - some people did. He knew there were scars on Alastor’s forearms and his chest, he had seen them when he unbuttoned his shirt a little, so maybe his hands were the same and he didn’t like showing them. Alastor didn’t strike him as somebody who cared as much about other people’s opinion, but he knew appearances might be deceptive. With Alastor’s obvious control kink the image he presented himself with probably played its role.

He was dragging his nails over the fabric of the burgundy gloves with thoughtful hum and when Alastor didn’t protest in any way, he slid two fingers under the hem, touching the bare palm of the demon’s hand. Still no reaction that would mean Alastor hated it, which encouraged him to continue.

The tip of his tongue peaked out in concentration as he tried to fit more in, at which Alastor finally cleared his throat above him.

“Darlin’,” he crooned. “What’re you doin’?”

“Havin’ sex with yer hands, duh.” He wiggled his fingers a little and Alastor sighed while grabbing the offensive hand and stopped the ministrations. “Aww.”

“Leave my hands outta your crudeness,” the demon flicked his forehead instead and then rested his hand back on Anthony’s chest where it was before. It only took about ten seconds before Anthony was on it again and at that point Alastor just grabbed his wrist and held it up.

“Nooo,” the human tried to wriggle out of the hold, but the grip was inhumanly strong. “Spoilsport. It’s not like I’d do somethin’ dirty to it… maybe.”

“Whateva you say, darlin’,” Alastor didn’t budge, obviously. But at least it made Anthony think of something else when it came to Alastor’s elusive hands.

“Let’s make a deal then,” he proposed, grinning at his partner’s confused expression. “You lemme take off yer gloves. And I won’t do anything bad to yer hands.”

“Dat sounds like a rubbish deal,” Alastor shook his head. “No dice.”

“Then… what do ya want in exchange?” he batted his eyelashes seductively, which had about zero, if not minus, effect on the demon. “Imma game for anythin’.”

There was a gleam in Alastor’s eyes as if he thought of something wicked and manipulative, and then his smile widened. Anthony thought of anything – eternal enslavement, monthly donation of human souls, not talking for a week-

“I want t’ see you in a suit.”

“Say what now?”

“I’ll let you take my gloves off, but I get to see you in a suit,” came a term and Alastor was positively beaming now, which was weird, because… a suit? Was that even a proper condition? He could have just asked; it wasn’t like Anthony had an aversion to wear fully buttoned up clothing or something. Sure, he didn’t love it, but to make a deal out of it?

“I mean… sure?” The grip on his wrist disappeared and Anthony sat up, still confused. When a hand appeared with familiar green shine, he checked once more for Alastor’s happy expression and then took it, feeling the tingle running down his spine.

“Pleasure doin’ business with you, darlin’,” Alastor gently grabbed Anthony’s chin to raise up his head a little. “Now dress up. I’ll be waitin’.”

“Yer a public menace,” the human barked out a laugh but got up anyway. He was pretty sure he still had a suit from the cabaret night and could only hope it would still fit.

 It fit. He liked the suit because despite wearing it just once, it fitted him like a glove and even though he wasn’t exactly a fan of black and white setup, it had its charm once in a while. The well-tailored vest and close-fitting pants still made a nice figure and Anthony vaguely remembered the cabaret night granted him quite a bit of extra money, just because of how the pants hugged his ass (and because of his pretty face too, he was confidently sure. He didn’t even need to suck anybody’s dick that night).

He checked himself in a mirror for the last time, trying to find any imperfection he could somehow remedy, until he was completely satisfied and returned to the living room with surprisingly nervous expectations.

“No Anastasia today?” Alastor greeted him with a small smile standing near the couch, and Anthony fidgeted, not really feeling that confident in the clothes as he ironically was in the dress before.

“Wouldn’t wanna make the same joke twice, ya know,” he rubbed the back of his neck and took two more steps closer to where Alastor was standing. “Well. Here I am. In a plain boring suit just for yer viewing pleasure.”

“Pleasure indeed,” the demon looked delighted, which still baffled him, but maybe he had a thing for suits in his asexual spectrum, why not. Then he offered his hand for Anthony to take, palm up, and he realized the gloves were already off. Alastor’s hands were black as night with long, red claws gradually darkening until the blackness swallowed the colour. The obsidian shade was stopping in tendrils around his wrists like the shadows were swallowing his hands in a provocative manner and Anthony had an urge to rub his face all over it.

He must have stared for too long because the hand started pulling away and Anthony panicked with low nonono and grabbed it like a frightened animal.

“Ya can’t just flash it and then walk away with it, sheesh,” he grumbled, holding the hand in both of his and it was smooth and somehow warm, and feeling like a human hand, sort of, but at the same time not really? He couldn’t tell for sure. He wondered how it would taste if he licked it.

“You looked put off, didn’t wanna flaunt it ‘round,” Alastor’s voice cracked his concentration and it made him look up to the demon’s face in surprise. The smile he had was tight – was he self-conscious about it? In all its strangeness his hands were like some famous artist’s masterpiece, nothing to be conscious about.

“Well, ya should flaunt it around,” he said firmly. “Damn, it’s like. Really cool and kinda creepy, I like it.”

The hand visibly relaxed, the claws opened, and Anthony couldn’t stop himself anymore, he just rubbed his cheek against it like an affectionate cat and heard Alastor’s breath hitch in his throat.

Score.

“That feels so niiiice,” he purred happily. “And for just one lousy in-suit evening, ya should feel cheated.”

“Quite the opposite, darlin’,” another clawed hand joined the first one and then Alastor was holding his face on both sides, gently rubbing his cheeks, and Anthony was pretty sure he had the most dorky expression on his face right now but didn’t care. “You look dashin’.”

“Mmmhm,” Anthony grinned, and his hands covered the clawed ones and squeezed. “How ‘bout you walk back a bit.”

“Walk back?” the demon tilted his head, but did as he was told, just to lose his balance immediately after two steps when his knees hit the edge of the couch (Anthony pushed him slightly so he would fall right into sitting position, because he was a little shit and had a plan). Before Alastor could say anything else (though he didn’t look like he wanted to), Anthony sat on top of him, knees next to his thighs and took one of the blackened hand and gave the pointing finger an experimental lick.

Alastor immediately bristled like Anthony just flashed him, the static buzzing to life and off the roof, and shit, it should have scared him, but it did not. He stopped though, watching the demon with seductive smile and Alastor gradually breathed in and out and the static stopped again.

“Scary,” Anthony winked at him, still holding the hand in his, and Alastor shook his head and flexed his claws.

“You try your luck too often,” he just said in a low, warning voice.

“I know,” the human positioned the clawed hand on his chest, right where his heart was beating, vulnerable and open, and smiled. “I’m goin’ to be good from now on. Promise.”

“Moderately,” Alastor added.

“Ya know it.”

Their hands intertwined and Anthony was pretty sure during this night the defences Alastor had lowered for him once more.

***

2021, February 9th

When it came to birthdays, Anthony normally ignored them. Since almost no one knew the date, he was mostly safe to spend the day as any other, so it actually came as a surprise when Anthony brought home bouquet of roses from work (ironically from the patrons and not from co-workers, go and figure) for his birthday and put it in a vase on the table in the living room. It was rather nice of them, sure, though it only fuelled the disdain from his co-workers further. He more or less forgot about it up until Alastor showed up in the evening and noticed the newest addition.

“I thought the Lover’s day is on 14th,” Alastor watched the bouquet as if it would explode any moment, his eyes narrowed.

“Huh? Oh yeah,” Anthony peeked in from the kitchen. “Valentine’s Day is on 14th. This is cuz of my birthday.”

“Your birthday is today?” the demon left the bouquet alone and joined Anthony in the kitchen, his tone surprised. “You did not say anything.”

“Well, cuz it’s not really important,” Anthony shrugged while slicing meat. Even though he normally ignored this day, he kind of wanted to make something special for Alastor, if anything else. As a treat for himself. “Nothing worth to celebrate.”

“What a strange thing to say,” Alastor leaned with his back against the counter right next to Anthony, his expression curious. “Mortals normally enjoy celebrating their birthday. Mainly because of gifts, at least?”

“Well, I’m a special case.”

“Not enjoying gifts?” That was a stupid question. Of course Anthony enjoyed gifts as long as they were not mean or overly sexual, but along with his miserable life his birthday mostly left a bitter taste in his mouth every year.

“As much as any other John, obviously,” he glanced at Alastor with a smirk. “It’s just… not my thing. To celebrate the day I was born.”

“I see,” Alastor nodded thoughtfully. “Would it be an overstep if I said I would like to celebrate it with you?”

“You would?” Anthony stopped with the meat preparations and turned to face the demon, a weird flicker of happiness igniting in him.

“Celebrating the day you were born seems very fitting,” Alastor’s smile widened. “Otherwise we would never meet. And I treasure the moment when we did.”

“Aww,” Anthony cooed, and it was nice, to be told by the person you were crushing on.

“Though I must admit,” Alastor tilted his head to the side. “I am not entirely sure what is the norm in this century.”

“We can bake a cake?” Anthony offered. He was pretty sure he had all the ingrediencies stocked. “I guess people usually do that. Then they wish happy b-day and lots of health and good fortune or… I don’t know, I don’t usually do this shtick. They smooch maybe too. Or shake hands. Same thing for some people.”

“Oh,” Alastor looked thoughtful. “That sounds amendable.”

“Yeah, we can try-mmph?!” Out of anything that could possibly happen to him on his wretched birthday, Alastor pushing him against the counter and kissing him was definitely not one of them. Sure, they did kiss sometimes, though it was usually chaste and almost innocent?

Well, this was extremely far from innocent. This involved tongue. This was some other Alastor possessing the demon’s body, ravishing his mouth in the kitchen on his birthday while his hands cupped Anthony’s face and his thumbs were gently caressing his cheekbones, and what the hell, the gloves were off too, it made Anthony melt. Alastor was nipping on his lower lip and then diving back in, and Anthony felt his body shiver and his hands gripped the pinstriped coat in fear Alastor would stop or something, and when the demon let go of him with a last obscene lick, he realized he was basically on verge of suffocating already without his brain notifying him. He gasped for air with a shudder and Alastor joined their foreheads together, his smile small and private.

“Happy birthday, darlin’,” he purred. “Thank you for bein’ born.”

Anthony made an inhumane voice in the back of his throat and clung to his demon as if his life depended on it.

Maybe his birthday was not so bad after all.

(Later he found the bouquet in the trash and a new and much bigger one on the table instead. Alastor acted like he had no idea what happened.)

***

2024, October 1st

When Anthony thought about dying at any point of his life, it just meant the end. He didn’t know how he was going to die, but that usually changed each year. As a teenager, he wanted to commit suicide several times a year, mainly from age 15 to 17. He wasn’t sure what exactly stopped him each time, but somehow, he pulled through. In his mid-twenties it was a risk from the outer sources – too tight squeezes of hands around his neck when having sex, too many drugs in his system, too much alcohol. Once even a stab wound from his crazy ex. Granted, Anthony almost killed him back on the spot – though later he found out the fucker died in the hospital. So technically it wasn’t exactly murder? It should have been though.

Anyway. When he hit 30, he felt like his mind was on verge of breaking and any kind of distraction was strong enough to keep him occupied. He thought about death from time to time, but always stopped his hand reaching for a knife in the kitchen, thinking maybe, just maybe there is more to life than stubbornly surviving days, weeks, months of his miserable life for no reason.

At age 31 he summoned a demon and for four years his life turned to be enjoyable three times a week, and sometimes even five. He gave his heart and soul to hell for company, and fell in love with a force of nature, a whirlwind of emotions, a lovely devil. He never, ever regretted a single day spent with Alastor, a single hour, a minute, a second. Despite their occasional quarrels, their differences, and their triggers, they enjoyed each other’s company. They learned through their mistakes and they made each other stronger through the weaknesses, and while all that was slowly fading away in staccato of painful spasms and tears, Anthony still felt fondness and maybe even a twinge of happiness of his cage finally breaking free, even though it hurt like a bitch and he felt sick and alone.

It wasn’t like he wanted to die. He didn’t think 35 was some kind of milestone of life and death, a crossroad not meant to be crossed.

But he was tired. He was lonely. He wanted and craved and yearned for more of something that was out of his reach, no matter how much he tried to grab it, to pull it close.

You are still alive, mon chéri, and it is yours and only yours to live. I do not want you to regret it, no matter how much I want you with me. I might have forfeited my life, but your heart still beats. Do not waste it.

Anthony thought Alastor was being cold that day. He thought they were just words said to placate him somehow, a lie spilled to keep him here. If he wanted, if he craved like Anthony did, would he say please live to him? Right after spilling his heart? Even though they both wanted to be together? Even when they both morbidly dreamed about Anthony’s eventual death?

Now, thinking back to it… he saw what he meant. Now, when everything was turning cold and distant and dark, he realized dying at 35 is young and stupid and wasteful.

Yet he didn’t regret it. He was never going to regret selling his soul to a devil and leaving a place that only brought him pain in a ditch.

The only thing he regretted was dying alone in a dirty bathroom, but… it wasn’t like he could choose anyway.

 “There, there, darlin’.”

There were warm hands holding his face. Everything felt raw and searing, like falling through liquid fire.

“Breathe.”

He tried to, but only hacked out blood. He shook his head, curling into himself. The hands gently petted his hair.

“Now, now, my heart,” the voice cooed. “My everything. You are safe now. You belong to me.”

He felt a pain in his chest, like his heart was torn out and left a gaping chasm behind. It was like tasting despair and ash on tip of his tongue.

“Nobody will ever hurt you again, cher,” a gentle reminder, a curtain hiding the missing organ in his body, a beautiful lie. “Nobody, ever again.”

He submitted to it and the pain disappeared.

***

2024, 359th day

“I can’t believe that! Ya almost ate my pig!”

“I thought it lost its way here and it is time for dinner, it was only appropriate.”

“How dare ya! Ya monster!”

“Can you two keep it down?!” A screech came from the stairs and halted the crossfire like a switch before the owner of the voice even entered their field of vision, a fair hair flowing around a pretty face, a fierce glare seizing them. “Bloody old-married couple, do it somewhere else!”

“What she said,” a grumble agreed from the bar, and a tall, four-armed spider demon picked a small pig from the floor and cuddled it to his fluffy chest, cooing at it gently.

“Well, sorry for trying to save my little baby from this guy,” he glared at his enemy from under long, white fringe. “He’d eat him. Eat Fat Nuggets!”

“Oh dear, you already named it?” the red-eyed demon twirled his microphone in his hand, his smile widening. “You should have told me. Would adjust the name on the menu.”

“Keep talkin’, big boy, I have enough venom to make you spend your day in agony,” the spider hissed and the pig in his arms snorted happily, apparently finding all the commotion amusing. “And not the good kind.”

“I am looking forward to it, darlin’,” Alastor crooned and Vaggie made a retching noise when she finally reached the bar. Husker didn’t need her to ask for a drink, he was already pouring her one – and one for himself. It wasn’t like she condoned the bar in the hotel, but sometimes it was a much-needed way of coping, especially when it came to these two.

“Can you leave already?” she turned back towards them once she gulped the alcohol down, grimacing at the burn crawling down her throat. “Angel was talking about this for a week and now you stand here for whatever reason for half an hour, you should’ve been gone by now!”

“I wasn’t talkin’ about it for a week,” Angel shot back while pursing his lips. “Just few days, maybe.”

“A week?” Alastor crossed his arms on his chest. “Lucky. I was hearing about it since he got here.”

“Well excuse me for being sentimental,” Angel stuck his tongue at him and walked towards the bar, handing Fat Nuggets to Husker, who eyed the pig warily.

“I ain’t looking after that fucking thing.”

“Pleaaase.”

A groan, but the cat demon took it, rolling his eyes. “Last time though.”

“Sure thing, hot stuff,” Angel winked and left the bar in easy stride, joining Alastor in the middle of the hall. “Shall we?”

“Only waitin’ for you, cher,” Alastor offered his arm and Angel locked their elbows together. “You sure you don wanna take da pig with you?”

“Why?”

“A late night snack.”

“I’ll fuckin’ smack ya, stop it,” he grumbled at the laugh Alastor didn’t even bother hiding, and let the man lead them out of the hotel.

The red sky above their heads was like an everlasting void pierced by a tall, dark tower in the distance and Angel kind of liked how demons were afraid to come close to it, yet to him the place felt like home. The Radio tower came with big overlord territory and despite it being rather far from the hotel, Angel insisted on walking instead of Alastor using the portals to get them there in seconds. It just felt more date-like rather than abusing the Radio Demon powers and Alastor didn’t argue about that – which was nice because normally he argued about everything for the sport of it.

“I guess it makes sense,” Angel hummed while leaning into Alastor’s warmth on their way through the Pentagram city. “Christmas is ‘bout Jesus being born and shit. No reason to celebrate it here.”

“I was wonderin’ when you’d find out,” Alastor responded matter-of-factly. “Christmas bein’ a big Christian secret.”

“Har har,” the spider demon nudged him. “I’m new, don’t make fun of me. Can’t help I miss it.”

“Of course you miss it,” Alastor freed himself from Angel’s hold, just to sneak his arm around his waist, pulling him closer. “It’s when you met me.”

“Yer so fuckin’ cocky, maybe I just miss the presents,” Angel crossed his upper arms on his chest, but his lower one curled around Alastor’s waist as well.

“I’m da only present you’ll ever need~,” the Radio demon singsonged and Angel barked out a laugh.

“Guess that’s not completely wrong,” he admitted and when he felt a hand on the back of his neck, he met Alastor’s lips halfway in a chaste kiss, both not even stopping on their way to the tower.

“You’re da only one for me too,” Alastor whispered softly. “My dear Anthony.”

Angel couldn’t help but think life is fucking overrated when your boyfriend is owning your heart in all kinds of ways.

LIFE UPDATE (lol)

Hello, this is going to be a long-winded life update because I simply want to just talk about things that have been going on and why I don’t update on a consistent basis :)

One of the reasons is above! Last week (two weeks ago??) I covered Naughty with a friend! Please check it out :D Honestly, this didn’t take away from my writing at all because I do random covers all the time, but I just want the views lmao HUMOUR ME! (I’m the one in white). Oh, and please don’t comment anything about my writing/fanfiction/tumblr on that video! I keep this blog pretty private.

Anyway, what did take away from my writing is A WRITING COURSE! Can you believe :) the :) irony :) I signed up for this writing course because I’ve always really wanted to publish a book aka basically give birth. As a teenager, I followed a few YA authors like they were gods, and when I attended signings, I was starstruck! I’d be like, “Girl, your mind!” So there I was, looking up how to publish a goddamn book and realizing that there were so many things to it other than just writing. It was discouraging to say the least! Then two years ago, I mentioned my hobby to my therapist and she suggested taking a writing course.

She (bless her heart) even searched up local colleges for me and opened my eyes to the fact that educational institutions held entire courses dedicated to romance writing. Wow. Of course, I rejected her idea because of the kind of person I am.

I’m kidding.

I’m not.

LOL ok so I was like “I don’t want to take a writing course because I don’t want people to judge my writing and tell me to write romance a certain way or else it doesn’t feel organic. And what if I lose my interest in it? Then what will I do with my free time? And what if people find my shit really fucking weird? etc”

I put the idea off for a year and finally came back to it last year when I found myself taking frequent trips to the library to write for a whole day. I would buy a Booster Juice, some sushi or Subway, and then I would park my ass on a plastic library chair for 5-8hrs straight. Come Fall/Winter, with the knowledge that I had some basic self-discipline (lmao), I looked into writing courses. I decided to take an online romance writing course that would start February 2020.

Guess when my country began seeing COVID cases? February 2020. Oh boy!

So my lifestyle changed, my work changed, and then I have school work?!?! My dumb ass hasn’t touched anything school related in three years. I was like “you know what? I’m going to try! I’m going to want to learn, and I’m going to put in effort.” Holy shit!!!!! I’ve learned that school still stresses me out lol it doesn’t matter that my grades literally don’t matter in this course. I’m still stressed.

That’s not to say I didn’t like this course. I really enjoyed it because I actually did learn a lot. My instructor (professor???) was also really...ELOQUENT LMAO Her lecture notes would spill mad tea but in the most polite way possible. I have yet to see any of my marks or read any of her comments (due to my fragile ego) but I am excited to do so.

One example of her brilliance in getting her message across is this little section about active vs passive verbs. We’ve all done this lesson hundreds of times in high school, but OMG the line that she uses at the end really solidifies the difference! After reading that, I decided not to skip any of the other readings lmao home girl had my respect.

OK ANYWAY! Back to me stressing! I was very stressed with every assignment. It was nice to be challenged to write differently (creating better mood, fleshing out characters more) because the end products were all...”nice”. But that shit took so much energy that I couldn’t write anymore! I couldn’t think of new plots that I was interested in :( It also didn’t help that I was going through other personal issues, and my libido was nonexistent. As a result, I have so many intros to stories because I’ve had to force myself to think of something for this course, but I never was truly interested in them to actually write it all out from start to finish. Not to mention, I have not written a sex scene since February lol

Then came the final assignment that I just submitted two days ago. OMG. It was a straight up publisher’s package. You had to have a 20pg manuscript. You had to write a query letter/cover letter. You had to research which publisher you would submit to. IT WAS SO SCARY.

I was going to write a whole new story for this manuscript but after writing 4k words, literally nothing was happening in the story and I was so bored. So I scrapped it all and took one of my most recent stories (Universal Differences, but in third person lmfaooo) and tried to tweak it. It was soooo difficult!!! Of course, I also procrastinated this whole thing because procrastination is one of my character traits. On the last three days, I pulled 8-10hrs non-stop everyday to finish it (unrelated, but I watched the SuperM 100 MV after one of these days, and I had to close my laptop immediately after the video because I felt like the MV was attacking me to stay awake LOL). There were so many times where I legit hated myself and my writing and nearly cried because I would think back on all the love that you guys gave to that story and then I’d be like “THE STORY (and, in turn, me as a person) IS SO UNDESERVING OF ANY LOVE AT ALL.”

See, this is why I went to a therapist a few years back loooool I had to rewire my brain to dissociate my writing from myself. I had to keep reminding myself that even if my prof didn’t like it, I would still get good feedback at the end of the day and none of that feedback would reflect me as a person. That even if she told me that I was never going to be able to ever publish anything, there are many writers who were told the same thing and came out of it alive and prosperous because they continued to work hard. I have a whole ass template now of what to send to a publisher/agent. If I wanted to, I would have the skill base to take a story and know where to direct it for publication.

And I would have the confidence to do that!!! Because I’ve already done it once!!!

Something cute my prof said when one of the students said they were overwhelmed:

[ I think it can help if you just think of it as the business processes of that industry - and not you laying your heart and soul out in front of some stranger to judge. :)]

;____________;

OK that is all for now, I think! Since I have submitted my final assignment, my imagination has come free of its reigns so I hope to get more stories out to you guys! Thank you for the requests too! The wilder they are, they more they get my brain going hehehehehehehhehe have a good week everyone~

Lenny McGurr, better known as the multidisciplinary artist Futura (fka Futura 2000) started in the world of graffiti before branching out to the world of fine art, street art, and beyond. A certified “old head,” he’s designed some of the most covetable sneakers to date (forget the Dunkles, all praises to the FLOMs) and during NYC streetwear’s late-’90s heyday, was behind labels like Project Dragon, Subware, and the seminal Nort/Recon outpost done with Stash.

These days, he’s busier than ever. Supreme’s updating some of their collaborative work from the vault, Futura Laboratories is cooking up new products on a more consistent basis, and he’s got high-fashion collabs like last year’s Off-White™ collection and this year’s capsule with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT.

He’s also on deck as the art director for one of NTWRK’s upcoming digital events, creating community online during the Covid-19 crisis. We took some time with the artist to discuss his breakout year, and his unexpected connection to the U.S. Postal Service.

The following interview has been edited and condensed.

Jian DeLeon: You’ve had a busy year. This week alone you’ve got your latest Supreme collab and your first collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT hitting Dover Street Market. What haven’t you released yet that you’re stoked on?

Futura: Wow, yeah. I mean, there’s still projects…as you can imagine, everything has been delayed and pushed back due to the situation at hand, but last year was incredible, and a lot of that was the buildup to what’s happening now.

What Supreme is doing is just re-releasing something I did years ago — the handwritten Supreme — and we added the “Justice For All” messaging on the back which is relevant to the time. One thing you didn’t mention is the BMW, which was going to be the main thing of 2020. We were actually in Munich in mid-March. I was hand-painting the interiors before we had to get out of Europe.

JD: Right, it’s the Futura edition M2, which looks absolutely insane. Is this the first time you’ve worked with a major automobile company?

Futura: Yeah, that’s probably one of the most unbelievable jobs I’ve had, simply because I’ve been driving a BMW for more than ten years,.

JD: Yeah, I’ve seen your car parked around Brooklyn a couple times. It has a pretty recognizable license plate.

Futura: Absolutely! I got that vanity plate. So yeah — it’s a real thing; it’s not a stretch — and the fact that they came to me with the M2, plus the history of BMW’s art cars dating back to the ’60s, it’s great to be part of that catalog. For other companies, you might get to paint a vehicle and they put in on display then have it somewhere in a garage, but BMW actually wanted to go into production.

I painted a car that’s the 1-of-1 art car, but then we got a team of artisans who were able to replicate what I did on the outside, and translated that to a catalog of 500 cars. That’s why I was in Munich, I was painting the interiors — like the dashboard trim where the gearbox is. There are maybe over 1,200 pieces I physically painted. Those original pieces go onto every car. That’s a very cool thing about this project.

JD: As a BMW enthusiast, why did you gravitate towards the M2?

Futura: It’s the car I always wanted. I always wanted an M5, but the M2 hit and I was like: “Oh man, that’s really it.” There’s just something about that car. It’s about performance. It’s not meant for New York streets, but I would love to drive that car in, Utah, Montana, or on the Autobahn, obviously.

JD: Back in February when the BMW collaboration was announced, your capsule collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT was also making its runway debut in Paris. While it’s not the first time your work’s been on the runway, this is the first time you’ve collaborated with CDG. That label occupies a special place in culture. It can touch sneakers, streetwear, and high fashion without losing its appeal. What’s been your perception of the. brand?

Futura: I can recall a CDG show in the ’80s where Basquiat was a runway model. It was like: “Oh, Jean’s here. Wear this shirt please, and have him walk down the runway.” I remember him telling me the price. Even back then, Japan was always expensive as an import and had a level of quality that you knew was above perhaps what Americans and Europeans were doing. Certainly Americans.

Later they did interpretations of Jean’s work in their collections. So for it to all come around in full-circle like this is great, and I mentioned that to Rei [Kawakubo]. I don’t know if I had met her in the past, but it’s a cool story for me…It connects very strongly to all the things that I’m really into. Japan’s been very good to me, not in my experiences there, but how I feel about working with my Japanese collaborators, contemporaries, and homies.

JD: The U.S. Postal Service is a hot topic right now for some very good reasons. Besides the slap history of post office stickers in graffiti, I understand you have a more personal connection?

Futura: I used to work for postal service back in the day…’88 or ’89. The ’80s were amazing, but for the graffiti guys there was only about five years before people were kind of over it because now you had [Basquiat]. You had other artists emerging that were much more important, and I was looking for any kind of job. I was a bike messenger, but then I got injured. We were independent, freelance guys with no benefits, and my son Timothy would’ve been three or four. So I got a job in Long Island City at the post office right across from PS1.

The crazy thing about that was in 1981 I was part of a huge show called “New York New Wave” at PS1. It was a seminal show of the era. We were all in it, and then six years later here I am working at the post office across the street. But luckily I recovered. It was Agnès B. in 1989 that helped me leave that job because I had an exhibition. Someone was very supportive of my work and offered me a show.I sold four paintings — two of which were bought by Agnès B. — and that was the beginning of my. life as a wannabe artist.

JD: I don’t think you’re a “wannabe artist” at this point.

Futura: Well, I think you’re right and I appreciate that, but I was really wanting to be one back then. So, yeah man, I went from USPS to having an atelier — which even sounded cooler than a studio.

JD: Since everyone’s buying. stamps right now to help support the post office, if you could design a stamp, what would it be?

Futura: That’s a great question. Well…let’s just say that’s TBD, because given my own personal history with them, I wouldn’t be against that at all. I mean, that’s the dream. First of all, as a child, stamps were one of the biggest visual inspirations of my life, along. with television. But I come from a visual stimulation culture revolving around things you could tangibly look at and touch — like stamps and money, the design of money. So yeah, designing a stamp would be crazy.

It’s pretty arrogant to think one can smoke their own dope and not end up turning into a fiend like ones customers, yet Bernie is an ego driven character. Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G. was most emphatic about not getting high on your own shit, but here we are, staring into the abyss, super close to having a hype monster in control of our party. Some people love the hell out of Bernie Sanders, some people are indifferent, and some people cannot stand him or his bullshit movement. I fall into category three. So, take my words with a grain of salt if it makes you feel any better. But, let me tell you something before you tune me out. Bernie has zero plans to try to win anyone over who is not already with him, and that’s a big deal.

When asked if he would make overtures to moderate Democrats should he win the nomination, Sanders said the party would have to adjust to his movement rather than the other way around.

Did he just basically say, “Bend the knee?” Um? At first, I assumed that Bernie was talking about the DNC or elected officials, I mean, he couldn’t really be saying he had no plans to reassure reluctant Moderate and Centrist Democratic VOTERS over to his side. Right? He has to know we depend on votes from people in the middle, moderate Independents, and even Conservative Dems in order to win the electoral college, doesn’t he?

“People in the Democratic Party are going to take a look at reality and in a millisecond, they’re going to make a decision: The choice is between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They may say, ‘Oh, God, I don’t like Bernie Sanders. . . . He doesn’t comb his hair nicely enough. But you know what? There is no choice. We’re going to support Bernie Sanders.’ ”

That’s what Hillary thought, are you using her playbook minus the outreach part? Sure, we may say that thing about having no choice. (I won’t.) Or, maybe we’ll say, “We already know what tragic shit Trump will do, but we have no idea what the fuck this crazy guy I never liked who combs his hair with a balloon, will try to do. Maybe we should sit this one out.”

That’s one possibility out of millions of possibilities. Voters may even say, “Wow, this guy is arrogant as fuck! He refuses to even try to reach out to us, let’s focus our energy down ballot.” The fact of the matter is, Bernie isn’t anymore owed votes than Hillary Clinton was. And after four years of the leftists decrying her campaign for not trying hard enough to win votes, this plan of “Take me or leave me, I don’t give a fuck about your vote enough to earn it,” does NOT bode well for a Sanders victory if he is the eventual nominee.

Steve Schmidt, who worked on the McCain campaign in 2008, says,

“They’d run against him as a radical who once traveled to the Soviet Union and ask, ‘Do you want to give up one of the greatest economies ever for that?’ ”

Oh, you mean his love of Breadline might actually turn voters off?

Yes, it sounds stupid. I won’t bother to show you the whole “Honeymoon in Russia in my Underpants” video right now, it’s just grosses me out. But I brought it up just so you can imagine the ads running day and night of Bernie and some sweaty, stinky, half naked men singing, and looking Filthy McNasty on every TV in America.

But, for some reason, Bernie doesn’t believe his radical past, you know, praising murderous dictators, trashing America, and asking kids how much dope they’ve done will be problematic AT ALL.

Sanders fiercely rejected that view and says Democrats must rally around his movement in order to beat Trump, rather than assume that Biden might have a better chance of winning.

Oh, really? We need to dump Biden, and rally around the guy who has zero plans to try to include us, eh? Sounds DELIGHTFUL. Sike.

“The way you defeat Donald Trump is by having the largest voter turnout in the modern history of this country* — that’s how you beat him,” Sanders said. “We think we can get 5, 10, 15 percent of the vote Trump got because an increasing number of people who voted for Trump understand now that he’s a liar and fraud” who backed conservative policies.

*Obama did that.

Who the fuck told you that voters who backed Trump don’t like Conservative policies? WTF? Oh. Yeah. I keep forgetting that Bernie is a hype fiend who gets high off of a steady supply of his own churlish, delusional, and ever-present hype. I keep thinking that Bernie must really believe he is the new Obama. Maybe it’s the crowds chanting his name, the loyalty of his movement, and the very largeness of his crowds that misinforms him.

Bernie Sanders is no Barack Obama, not even close.

Members of the media sat in the back in the dark, ignored by the Sanders crowd amid the revelry. Attendees toasted “the Bern” and spoke excitedly about the prospect of victory in February. The bitter disappointments of four years ago seemed distant.

They are going to go batshit when he loses, huh? Oh, fuck me.

Hours before midnight, Sanders took the stage and told them to believe.

Bitch, are you Tinkerbell? What the fuck?

Okay, okay, maybe it’s just me, but I think this shit is getting to him, and he has hit the point where he’s about to start crowd surfing, while his adoring fans scream, “Mysha Mysha!” like he’s Daenerys Targaryen. I’m only half joking.

This is what happens when you give free passes to some old, angry, self important and repetitive jerk.

He turns into a fucking DIVA.

One Year 💜

I can’t believe that I am writing this because that means it has been one year since I became an ARMY. The year has absolutely FLOWN by and I cant believe everything that has happened in the last year. So let's toss it back to the beginning, shall we?

So, fun fact, I LOVE Jimmy Fallon. My dream job is to work in his social media department at the Tonight Show. I have watched his show every day since he was even the host of Late Night.

So I was first exposed to BTS on the tonight show back in 2018 and yet somehow it didn’t stick back then like it did a year ago. I remember watching the entire episode they were on, being impressed with the performance and STILL not looking more into it (can you believe).

I remember how cute it was when they were all introducing themselves and when they got to Jimin, Jimmy said, “Here we go! My man! Here we go!” and Jimin when, “Hey Jimmy! I’m Jimin!” and I was so endeared!!! And yet, nothing. 2018 me would’ve never guessed that man would become my bias wrecker in 2020.

So fast forward to February 2020. BTS was on the Tonight Show again. This time it was a subway special. My god, it was my bread and butter because I just really love New York and Jimmy was showing it off with BTS in tow. I really think that is what helped peak my interest with them. I remember being FLOORED by their “ON” performance at grand central. That dance break was (and always will be) INSANE.

Now, this didn’t necessarily get me to keep looking into them. I just kept watching the performance over and over again.

Then a few days later, I saw a Carpool Karaoke video recommended to me. I regularly watch Carpool (and I love them. Such a unique interview style) so it wasnt out of the blue. And wow. I was pretty much hooked. They were so freakin cute and funny. The songs were incredible! Tae was unbelievably handsome (I honestly would technically consider him my first bias… but sorry babe, that didn’t last long and you are pretty low on the list now 😬). But what really did me in was Jungkook’s vocals in “ON” and “Finesse”. I was stunned. He had the voice of an angel. To say I was obsessed with the Carpool was an understatement. I remember thinking that the one in the plaid was having so much fun at PlyoJam and was SO good at the body rolls. Makes sense now that our dance king was so incredible. I also remember thinking Jimin must be the top dancer if he is teaching. Still makes me a little mad that Hobi didn’t teach, but it is what it is. Anyways, I continued to watched their other videos from when they were on James Cordon and Jimmy Fallon for the rest of the night.

Then the next morning they were trending because they had their ON comeback at MCountdown. Someone tweeted (and I remember it so clearly) and said “Jungkook said his mic is ON” and it was the bridge from ON.

I watched that video a few times over and then went to something else on twitter. I couldn’t stop thinking about it that whole day, however. So then when I went to try and go find the tweet later because I wanted to watch it again (and duh they were still trending) I couldn’t find it. So I went with what clues I could find in the trend and I found it on YouTube. I screen recorded the bridge and that is the first thing that I have saved on my camera roll that is BTS.

These three things are what sold me. The Tonight Show, Carpool Karaoke, and a tweet singling out Jungkook's amazing voice. I couldn’t stop. I was watching performance after performance and I was enthralled. Their stage presence was insane to me. However, thats how deep it got. I told myself I couldn’t get obsessed and I couldn’t go to deep into it (I am a former One Direction stan. I suppose maybe that is some PTSD lol). I was only going to watch performances and listen to their music… well, four seasons of Bon Voyage, countless documentary movies and series, Bangtan Bombs, lives, and so much more content later, I’m an ARMY. So crazy that I didn’t accept it at first. I even asked twitter for help on good songs to listen to first because their discography is insane and I couldn’t figure it out. I did that instead of digging because I didn’t want to get in too deep (she says as she is now learning Korean. I’ve been told I have an obsessive personality).

So that’s all it was, performances and music. I couldn’t fall in love. The morning of March 9th, I woke up and saw some trend about Yoongi’s birthday and I remember saying out loud “Oh! It’s one of their birthdays?!” That was my first BTS birthday. Naturally he ended up being my bias and love of my life. But I never got to enjoy his birthday, because I tried to be nonchalant about loving them. I am SO pumped for his birthday this year!

To be honest, I am not quite sure what happened after that. It was such a blur. I think I just watched a lot of compilation videos for a month and I wanted to see what the clips were really from. Then I updated this Tumblr (on April 2nd, I checked) to a BTS tumblr (from an inactive One Direction account) and just started finding BTS blogs and I haven’t stopped since. I didn’t know much when I switched my username over, I just knew that I really loved them, hence idkijustlovebts.

In the last year I was here for Bangbangcon (the two day 12 hour youtube stream), D-2, the 7th festa (🥺 7), Bangbangcon Live, Map of the Soul 7-The Journey, Break the Silence series and movie, In the Soop, Map of The Soul ON:E, countless Run BTS episodes and vlives, record breaking singles and albums, Grammy nominations, and so so so much more.

I went from thinking Tae was scary because he had no reaction in flinch to realizing he is the most youthful and fun person (and has the best inner child). From thinking Namjoon was arrogant (!) for claiming to be the leader of the group because he spoke English (I’m an idiot, I know), but learning that is a thing in K-Pop and he is the sweetest boy who loves nature and art (and makes me appreciate it more). To learning the Hobi can go from being a literal ray of sunshine to the devil reincarnate in 2.2 when he performs (he's insane. Jimin too). From thinking that Yoongi was some cold, emotionless person to falling head over heels for that man because he is the softest, most caring person with a heart of gold that is full of passion for his music, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

So much has happened in the last year and they have been my comfort the whole way through. It is true what they say, “you found BTS when you need them the most”. I was very unhappy with my life last year. They gave me a reason to smile and a reason to wake up every day. They have made me feel so loved. A love I have never felt from a celebrity. It is so obvious how grateful and appreciative they are for ARMY and I am so unbelievably grateful for them. They are my comfort. They are my safe space. They are my whole world (re: my pinned post). I know if I am having a bad day, I can turn on any BTS content and have an instant mood boost.

I am so unbelievably grateful for the last year, and I can't wait to see what more BTS has in store for us for many many years to come because I will be along for the entire ride.

February 2, 2021

GUESS WHO’S OFFICIALLY REGISTERED AS A DOUBLE DEGREE IN CELL BIO/GENETICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY????

THIS GAL!!!!

though I’m only mildly peeved that this was confirmed the day after I submitted my February 1 applications, but I couldn’t have known that it would take, oh, you know, all of two days to add a whole new degree instead of the advertised three weeks, so I ain’t too too pressed.

That said, I look forward to being added to all the listservs for my various ~new~ departments.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that this entire change that I’ve been thinking about making for A YEAR NOW (peep my January 30, 2020 post) has finally happened?  It’s one of those stressors that isn’t meant for a long-term freakout but just, like, it sort of just melted into a background anxiety like covid and my lack of a true sophomore year (which, like,,,,,,,,,,,, frankly???  Like if I’m being completely honest????  This is probably the best time that I could’ve experienced a global pandemic tbh, but I don’t think I’m even ready for that conversation) and the fact that I’ve still got this mental blockade where I can’t bring myself back into the discord chat because I feel like after such a long absence it’d be super duper awkward (even though I kinda know??? that it shouldn’t be an issue???  like I’ve always been included in any group events and art projects (my photo-friend made a black and white yearbook slides thing with his friends and it was SUPER COOL, and my dnd-friend made a collage of pokemon that represented us based on a random number we chose between 1 and 880(?) which was super cute).  But.  Now this whole major thing is no longer one of my background stressors.  And it feels good.  It feels really good.  I’m so smiley right now.

argh I just spend so much time second guessing myself all the time and if I didn’t do that I’d probably be so happy?

ALSO

ALY & AJ’S POTENTIAL BREAKUP SONG UPDATE IS A BOP

I used to listen to the original a ton in middle school and WOW I love the sound of the new one too.

Anyway I’m listening to a ton of songs on Spotify rn because it’s one of those days yknow and “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” feels very Technoblade to me??

speaking of technoblade, I found the 420 song Philza plays -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJfg39WkMvE and it’s also kind of a bop too?  Am I considering changing my Friday morning alarm to this?  ...heavily.  My sister will hate me.  I will likely hate myself.  Will it be worth it?  Possibly.

Remember a few days ago when I was talking about how other creators were really running with this idea of an SMP?  Yeah, well, iBallisticSquid and a few other old school minecraft youtubers have started ~Shady Oaks SMP~ as a sort of retirement home for old school minecrafters, and it actually looks kinda cute.  Again, it’s certainly an excellent way to promote yourself to other new audiences as a long-term collaboration/crossover event, and the drama within these series tends to be pretty entertaining.  It’ll be nice if Squid continues to make highlights out of the streams, because, as I’ve said I really just don’t have the time for alladat.  Not with school and the DSMP and CR.  It reminds me of the whole streaming services bubble burst thing.  When it was just Netflix, it was easy to pay for one service that had all of the content you wanted to watch.  Now, there’s more of an incentive for pirating content (which, of course, I would never do) because the market is spread so thin and no one wants to pay for Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and HBO and Disney+.  Big, bold SMPs were fun while they were new and there were only a few, but I’m worried about the “market” becoming too saturated.  People don’t watch YouTube in a vacuum of only certain creators.  I watch Technoblade, Jacksfilms, and iBallisticSquid, for example, and none of them have any link to each other.

Speaking of CR, I started watching again!  These past few weeks I’ve been listening to The Hobbit narrated by Rob Inglis.  This was my third or fourth attempt at trying to get though this dang book that I knew I’d like, but I could simply never get myself past the Troll bit.  But Rob!!  Rob made the narration feel like its own character in the story, and it would be like a continuous bedtime story that I would fall asleep to each night.  I never felt bored while listened because the narration was so animated and magical for me.  Now I can finally bring myself to watch the movies, and I definitely want to listen to Rob’s version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (trilogy!).  

But I’m back to watching CR now and my dnd-friend had been begging me to get caught up on M9 stuff for weeks now I feel like so I’m working on that.  I used to speedrun VM episodes (sometime in 2018 (The First Dark Summer), I think I calculated my trajectory and I was going through, like, one or two episodes a day at my fastest points and about three or four episodes a week at my slowest (if I remember correctly)).

Oh, also, on a somewhat unfortunate note: I will not be applying to a program in Boston for this summer, as it turns out.  The school I was looking at isn’t hosting students outside of their university for this summer which is a bit of a bummer, but I can at least console myself in the fact that their acceptance rate for the program last time was 1.6%, so the likelihood of my acceptance was fairly low anyway.  This means that there’s only one (though possibly two depending on an email reply I get tomorrow) more application I plan to fill out, though this one isn’t due ‘till mid-March and isn’t very high at all on my tier list.  Don’t worry, I don’t plan for this topic to become a thread in my posts like during college application season.  It’s just somewhat exciting to have the possibility to do something other than sit in my room all day.  And to do those things in fancy cities, related to universities and institutions that are higher-ranked than my own?  While they pay me??  I’m down.  Or, at least, I’ll be down if I’m offered a position.  Unfortunately, some of my top choices, the ones that are likely to be far, far more selective (or, to be more specific, the Ivy League one I applied to last night), release decisions long after my mid-tiered choices (though, most of my mid- and low- tier choices send offers in April, I suppose, which is nice).  Is it possible that I’m selected for the you know what?  There’s no need to run through scenarios in my head.  Whatever happens, happens.  And I’ve got a whole month to just chill, so I’m gonna do just that.

Today I’m thankful that it snowed some more!  Three days in a row, guys!!!

Dad Letter 020220

2 February, 2020

Dear Dad--

Well, happy Groundhog Day and, I think, Superbowl Sunday! I think I know which two teams are playing, and I don’t care about either one, so it’s not even worth typing their names! Since it’s Sunday, Zach and I just did our trip to the grocery store, and now we just noticed a few snowflakes falling, so that’s our entertainment for today. We tried going down to the Atlantic Ocean a couple of days ago, but despite our best efforts to greet the road trip with sunny good cheer, the whole thing ended up being kind of depressing. I can laugh about it now, so don’t let this story make you sad!

This was Friday. We both realized we hadn’t left Bangor since we moved here. (Well, except for not actually living in Bangor.) We’d made several attempts to go down to Bar Harbor since we moved here, but they were all scrubbed, mostly because what we really want to see is Acadia National Park, right by Bar Harbor and the good old Atlantic Ocean. The problem is, all the roads in Acadia National Park were permanently closed (due to snow) not long after we got moved in. Fine, we thought, we can still drive to Bar Harbor. The first time we tried that, we abandoned our plans when we woke up to dark gray skies and just ugly weather. This past Friday, we decided to suspend all grown-up activities (job hunting!) and drive to Bar Harbor, just to see the water, and come back.

We thought it would be like when we drove to Mount Rainier in Washington. It wasn’t just spectacular when we got there, it was spectacular in a hundred other spots on the drive up there. It was so huge and so beautiful, that everything about it just blew our minds. When you drive from Bangor, Maine, to Bar Harbor, Maine, however, what you mostly see is a mix of uninspiring, mostly-naked trees, businesses that I’ll never need (like businesses that build basements or sell 4-wheelers, e.g.) and dozens and dozens of motels with cabins or bungalows. Then, when you get to the actual harbor, every bit of it is crammed full of hotels, restaurants, and shops that are all closed for the winter. It’s just saturated with commerce, and that, combined with the fact that we had to go to the bathroom, caused us to turn back as soon as we saw the water, thinking, “Hey! That’s three damn hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

It wasn’t a total waste. We decided this was one of those things that we’re going to consider having enjoyed in retrospect, if only because we got to spend the time together. We also passed two marijuana dispensaries and two or three fireworks businesses, which get to stay open all year round here! There you go, lemons into lemonade. Bam!

Zach and I did our taxes! That took several hours, and wasn’t exactly fun, but we should receive a nice refund. We might buy a thing or two that we need, but mostly we’re going to throw it at the Wall of Credit Card Debt and watch it disappear. That’s not as depressing as it sounds! I’m a big fan of reducing your credit card debt, and right now I have plenty, and it’s making my credit score great, but it needs reducing. I got one of my two credit cards paid off completely not long ago, and I’m managing to hold that card at 0 balance. That’s my favorite way of sticking it to The Man--pay him off so he loses all power over me! (Thunderclap, evil laughter, etc.) 

We’re still feeling a bit screwed by the scanty snowfall. We still want a large, blizzard-like snowstorm to come through and drop over a foot of snow over a few hours, but it hasn’t happened yet. My theory is that global warming has found its way to Maine, or else Zach and I brought it with us when we moved here from Texas, and because we brought the global warming with us, it’s never going to snow more than 6 inches at a time here again. It may not be the most likely outcome, but we braced ourselves for such an extreme weather event the moment we decided to move here, and we’re still braced for it. We own a snow shovel that we’ve only had a couple of opportunities to use!

Zach starts his temp job with the Census in the coming week, so I’ll be doubling down on my own job search. 

We’re trying to adopt a second cat, but the Humane Society might not let us, because of what our landlord may say when the Humane Society contacts them. Or the landlord might say, “Sure, they can adopt a cat, once they pay another $250 deposit.” That would put a damper on things. 

I’ve noticed that, over time here in Maine, I’ve stopped using deodorant, because it’s too cold for my body to produce smells any longer. 

I checked! It’s the Kansas City Chiefs (yay?) vs. the San Francisco 49ers (yay?). Wow, this really is the Don’t Give a Shit Bowl, isn’t it?

Oh, thank you again for the gifts you’ve been sending! I got a hearing aid, a wicked knife a while back, a blood pressure reader thingy, and a shade/tarp thingy. I’m going to put all of it to good use, except for the wicked-looking knife. I’m going to put that someplace safe in case of home invasion by grizzly bears. And Zach and I both really like the gloves you sent! They’re so snug and warm, and that comes in handy whenever we’re outside here, because sometimes it’s cold enough to start doing you harm within a few minutes here, if you’re not bundled up. I love that part of living here, by the way. I still love how cold it is here!

You have yourself a good week ahead. After everything going on in our collective lives, and in the world in general, I’m pleased to be given another week to try again, to get a job, to find a beautiful spot of nature, or just keep you updated on my pulse-pounding, exciting existence, ha ha! Much love to you both.  :)

Hey look, it’s a 2k fic from Yachter Otter’s POV! :D

Why? Why not!

Sorry. Not sorry.

Five Times Yachter Otter Was Part of the Knope-Wyatt Family (and One Time He Wasn’t Yet)

February 2026

It’s dark.

Well, it’s been dark for awhile but even though he can’t see anymore, Yachter Otter can tell he’s somewhere else. And then he’s gently being lifted up and set down on a flat surface.

“Hi? Hello? Oh, there you are. Hi. Ben Wyatt. Um, I don’t know if you remember me but–”

“Oh! I do! You’re the one that used to buy all the stuffed animals. It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah,” he hears Ben answer with a laugh. Although sometimes he’s called babe or congressman or dad at home. Sometimes daddy, but it’s been a year or two since Yachter Otter has heard that version of the man’s name regularly.

“That’s me. So, I was wondering if–”

“Yes, I could definitely make you three bears dressed up as past presidents. Which ones?”

“No that’s okay…well, huh. Actually, that sounds kind of cute. Maybe Roosevelt, Kennedy, and…No, no. Never mind. That’s not why I’m here. I was wondering if–”

“Oh! What happened to this little guy?”

He’s being picked up and examined. Poked and prodded, but not roughly.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. Can you fix him? He’s kind of important to my wife. And well, to the kids. You know, I’m kind of fond of him too, I guess.”

Yachter Otter would roll his eyes if he could. But, he guesses he’s slightly fond of this one too.

“His monocle is gone.”

“Ah, yes, a camping trip a couple of years ago. Wes took him on our hike and when we got back to the tents, no monocle. We looked, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Leslie told the kids it was okay, that he’d get a contact lens.”

“Hmmm. And it says…butt on the top of his captain’s hat? Why does it say butt on the top of his hat?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, it wasn’t me. That was um…see, we have triplets. And there was a period, back when they were learning to spell, that pretty much every surface of our house had the word butt scribbled on it. Unfortunately, this one is in permanent marker. And then, we all kind of thought it was funny, especially Stephen, who was probably the one who wrote it. But, yeah, he should probably get a new hat.”

“I can put a new one on him,” the woman says. “What happened to his arm? And his eyes?”

It’s a good thing Yachter Otter can’t feel pain, because his right flipper has been nearly severed for a few days now. And his eyes fell out awhile before that.

It’s funny, he remembers a time, way back when he first started living with them, when he wished he didn’t have eyes, but he’s found now that he misses seeing his family (plus thankfully, he hasn’t had a front row seat for noisy times in quite awhile).

Although, he’s pretty sure those times still happen with great frequency.

He hears Ben sigh, “The dog. In fact, I just found this little guy in the hallway last night. I think Bark Obama, that’s our dog, has been using him as a chew toy. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, we just moved back to Indiana full-time from DC.”

“I can fix him. Sew him back together. Get him a new hat and monocle. Oh, and a new medallion for his neck.”

“You remember that? The necklace?”

Yachter Otter hears a laugh. “It’s not like I’ve made that many playboy otters lost at sea in my career.”

“Fair point. Okay. That would be perfect. Thank you. Any chance you could have him done by Valentine’s Day at the end of the week? I kind of wanted to give him to my wife again this year, you know, all fixed up and like new. I gave Yachter Otter to her on Valentine’s Day, um, fourteen years ago, back when we were dating. Now we have three kids and she’s running for Governor.”

“And you’re regifting a stuffed animal as your Valentine’s Day present? To the possible future Governor of Indiana? The mother of your children?”

“No. I’m not regifting-regifting, I gave it to her already…oh. I see what you’re saying. I should probably do flowers or something else too, right?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Hmmm. Well, anyway, thanks for your help.” Yachter Otter gets a soft pat on the head. “See you soon, buddy.”

April 2020

His new location is in the bigger bedroom with all the small ones again–their names are Wesley, Sonia, and Stephen. He likes them all of course, but Wesley is his favorite. That’s whose bed he sleeps in and who cuddles him at night.

Li'l Sebastian is usually snuggled up with Stephen, and the girl, she has about twenty stuffed animals, including a very condescending ostrich named BoBo. Sonia also plays with a hard rectangle she calls Dr. Buttons.

He’s just sitting there one afternoon when Wesley comes into the room, crying. He plops down on his bed and hugs Yachter Otter, sobbing into his furry otter belly.

Yachter Otter wishes he could hug the little boy back.

“Wes? Hey, Wesley?”

He watches as Ben walks in and sits down on the bed next to his son. “What’s wrong?”

The small one sits up and sniffles. “Daddy.”

Soon Yachter Otter is set down on the bed and Ben is hugging Wesley. “It’s okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I drew a picture and no one knows what it is.”

Ben looks confused. “Where? On the wall?”

“No, daddy, I know the rules. At school. Everyone always knows what Stephen draws. He’s better at drawing. I’m no good.”

They’re sitting close together now, Wes practically on his father’s lap. “You’re very good, even if your pictures aren’t as obvious as your brother’s. That doesn’t mean his are better, you just see things differently.”

“Because of my glasses?”

Ben smiles and wipes Wes’s tears away with his fingers. “Well, mostly because you’re a different person than Stephen, and you see the world differently. And you draw differently. And that’s okay, it’s how it should be.”

Wes sniffles again and uncrumples a balled up piece of paper. The one he’d tossed on the bed when he first came in. “Do you know what that is?”

Yachter Otter is glad that he’s not being asked this question because Yachter Otter has no clue what that is…a traffic cone? A wedge of cheese?

Ben studies the work of art carefully. “Um, well…I think that’s a carrot?”

Wesley’s face lights up. and he starts to smile “Yeah! And what’s that?” He points to a multicolored blob beneath the carrot.

“Oh, well…I’m sorry, honey. I’m not quite sure, but if you tell me what it is, I’m sure I’ll see it.”

“It’s Benjamin Franklin flying a carrot instead of a kite. And that’s Yachter Otter taking notes for the newspaper and talking with Uncle Andy.”

Ben smiles and peers closer. “Wow. Okay. There’s a lot going on there. Hey, is Andy playing a broccoli guitar?”

Wes nods excitedly.

“This is very creative and colorful. Why don’t we put this up in the kitchen so mommy can see it tonight? I’m sure she’ll love it as much as I do.”

November 2014

Everyone’s been gone for a couple of days.

Leslie had been getting larger and larger and thankfully, the noises (and sights) had gotten a little less frequent over the last few weeks. Although, the other night, Ben did that thing with his mouth that Yachter Otter has never quite been able to understand.

That had certainly made Leslie very noisy.

But now, they’re back home, with three small and crying bundles. and she’s moving a little slower than usual and Ben is doting on her and bringing her things–food, juice, adjusting her pillows, and handing the babies to her to nurse against her chest.

There are other people here too fussing over the whole scene.

Yachter Otter thinks he knows what’s going on here. They finally had a litter of pups.

A couple of days later, he gets moved to another bedroom, this one is light green and has three cribs, a rocking chair, and dancing animal paintings on the wall. He knows what this is too–it’s the den where the new pups are being kept.

He’s up high on a shelf next to Li'l Sebastian, above a table where the new ones are cleaned up. It’s kind of a smelly location, and he and the mini-horse spend a lot of time complaining to each other about the odors.

But still, he thinks he likes these new additions to the family.

October 2012

It’s quieter lately.

Ben is not around anymore, although he thinks it’s not a permanent thing  because he and Leslie still talk to each other on their laptops every night. But, he’s no longer sleeping next to her in the bed all the time–just occasionally when he visits on weekends.

Today Ann is over. Ann is a beautiful, lyrical sunbeam, at least that’s what Leslie calls her.

“I’m just not sure…” Leslie trails off, running her hands along Yachter Otter’s belly, where he sits in her lap. “He seems so happy, out there in DC being all smart and political. Of course, he’d want to go to Florida and work on another campaign. He did travel all the time before, he probably misses that lifestyle.”

“But you just found that great house. Maybe you could–”

Leslie shakes her head. “No. I think he wants to take this new job. And that’s great. I mean, I don’t like it at all and it’s awful but I totally and fully support Ben  and his dreams. Maybe after this campaign is over? But, for now, it doesn’t make sense to rent the house when it’s just me. I’ll just go over and look at it one more time. To say goodbye.”

“Do you want company?”

She shakes her head. “That’s okay, go see Jerry at the hospital. I can go by the rental myself. Besides, I’ll find a better house for us later. One with a trampoline room. Because I don’t think Martha knows what she’s talking about there–I’m sure some houses have trampoline rooms.”

March 2012

What are they doing?

He’s heard these noises before, but Leslie, that’s the blonde one’s name, usually turns him around so he’s facing the wall before they happen. But right now, he can see everything.

Apparently, hair color is not the only way to tell these two apart when they’re naked.

Is he…hurting her? No. No, Yachter Otter thinks, she seems to like it, whatever he’s doing.

“Oh no! Yachter Otter! I forgot to turn him so he couldn’t watch us.”

The one with the very prominent penis laughs (he’d be a big hit at yacht parties, Yachter Otter thinks). “Babe. He’s a stuffed animal.”

“Yeah, but–”

“Besides, if he’s going to live here, he might as well get used to this.”

He watches as they smile and laugh and roll around some more on the bed until the woman is on top, bouncing and moaning, and at least they look happy?

Of course, Yachter Otter wishes he could close his eyes and give them some privacy to mate–he finally figured out that’s what they were doing–but unfortunately, his eyes are permanently open. That was convenient for navigating the waters but now, in his new noisy home, it might be a small problem.

February 2012

He’s used to yacht parties and super models. Dry martinis and caviar. And then one day when he was out at sea, just thinking and planning his next adventure,  he got lost in the high waves. Thankfully, he still has his monocle, even though that was mostly for show. He can see perfectly fine without it.

Then he was in a car…a Saturn? Which, being a playboy otter, seemed far beneath him somehow.

His next location is an office, behind a desk as he watches someone lead another someone closer, but the taller one has his paws over the shorter one’s eyes, so they’re walking slowly and laughing.

Apparently, the one had a dream about him–a playboy otter lost at sea. But how did he get here?

And why are they smashing their faces together now?

I Guess It's Time For A 2020 Wrap...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve kind of had my fingers in my ears going LA-LA-LA when it comes to the calendar lately. I guess some people might have reacted to 2020 by eagerly awaiting the dawn of 2021, but idk. For me, it’s been very la-la-la.

Nevertheless, it’s now basically halfway through January (WHAT?!?!?!!!!!), so I guess at least a brief 2020 overview is warranted 🙂 And, more excitingly, a look ahead to what 2021 might hold.

…Hang on, I’m going to go dig around in last January and see if I did one of these posts twelve months ago. I stumbled across the one I wrote a few years back recently, and as ever, my plans for the year ended up being laughably inaccurate.

…Okay, looks like I never did a 2019 wrap/2020 plans post? I feel like I talked about both these things here, but I must have integrated them into other posts, because I can’t see a specific post in Dec/Jan or Feb talking about it.

OH WELL. I SHALL DIG OUT MY BUSINESS PLAN INSTEAD.

Because in the spirit of having a similar laugh about how inaccurate my plans always are, I present to you What I Originally Planned To Do In 2020.

Write Define Good, approx. 30,000 words.

Write How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell, approx. 75 – 85,000 words.

Edit & release How To Map.

Write A Stag Of Hope And Memory, approx. 70,000 words.

Write Define Love, approx. 30,000 words.

Complete 6 short stories.

Work on Moon Shot.

Release A Fox Of Storms And Starlight.

Trial review boxes.

Plus a bunch of other press related stuff, like publishing the 2020 Inklets, Liana Brooks’ Change Of Momentum, and a whole lot of updates and admin.

…Okay. Give me a second while I die laughing, then I’ll be back and we can discuss this.

…

…

…

There. Okay. I think I’m good. Alright, here’s the annotated list:

Write Define Good, approx. 30,000 words. (AH HA HA HA YOU NAIVE FOOL. This is book 1.5 in the Kaditeos series, following Chiara’s adventures for a bit, and IT IS NOT GOING TO BE 30,000 WORDS. I will be lucky if it clocks in under 60k, which is to say: this is not a short lil novella I can squeeze in in between projects. This IS a project, a full (if slightly short) novel. OOPS.)

Write How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell, approx. 75 – 85,000 words. (Can’t do this until after Define Good, because DG sets up some plot strings. Oops?)

Edit & release How To Map. (Okay, yes, I did this, and this means that all the stand-alone parts of From The Ground Up are FINISHED.)

Write A Stag Of Hope And Memory, approx. 70,000 words. (…Um. Oops? In my defence, I did TRY to write this in Nov/Dec. It just… turned into a prequel for Fox Book instead of a sequel. Oops?)

Write Define Love, approx. 30,000 words. (Yeah this is in the queue after Ring The Hero’s Bell, which means that with two other Kaditeos novels and a Fox Book novel ahead of it in the queue, this one was NEVER going to be completed in 2020, past me what were you THINKING?)

Complete 6 short stories. (Okay I did well on this front. In actual fact, I wrote 25 short stories last year. Oh, wow. Twenty-five. o.O Sixteen of these are super short and are collected in It All Changes Now, and one of these ended up long enough in edits to be a stand-alone novelette – it’s Rush Job, my next release 🙂 )

Work on Moon Shot. (Yep, did this. I wrote 10,000 words in the book, woot woot.)

Release A Fox Of Storms And Starlight. (YES, HURRAH.)

Trial review boxes. (OMG these turned into the Fan Kits and they are even more awesome than I could ever have hoped for, and I am SO GRATEFUL for Kickstarter campaigns that are making these possible!!!!!!!)

Huh.

Okay.

Well, 2020 was not a trashfire, writing-wise. I wrote lots of short stories and published Trust Issues, A Fox Of Storms And Starlight, How To Map and It All Changes Now, as well as all the 2020 Inklets. Woot.

Good to know.

Oh, and How Not To Acquire A Castle was runner up for Best Book in the ACT Publishing Awards 2020! That’s pretty cool, too.

This year, I’m aiming for a slightly more sane plan (though still optimistically unrealistic, no doubt, as my annual plans always are).

This month, I need to get Bones Of The Sea complete. (Oh, this has a cover now! I shall show you next week!) This will be my Q2 release (this is the plan, anyway), and I’m hoping to launch a Kickstarter for it, complete with Fan Kit Minis, on or around Feb 1. It’s a YA outdoor adventure fantasy with carnivorous mist, magical bones, and somewhat of a quest. Yay!

After that, I really need to get Moon Shot done, because of Promises To Children. It’s at 10k out of a planned 50, but I think I might end up chucking most of what I have and starting over, because I did a lot of refining of the worldbuilding for Rush Job, which is set in the same universe (though centuries in the future). The good thing about that though is that now I know exactly what I’m aiming for, so the writing should progress more smoothly.

Then I really need to tackle A Stag Of Hope And Memory for realsies. Storm Foxes is planning to be a duology at the moment, so Stag Book will wrap the events up. Hopefully. In theory. *side-eyes the prequel novella that appeared last time I tried to write Stag Book*.

Then, actually and again for realsies, Define Good, because I need to get back to Kaditeos. There are five books in the main story arc, three for Mercury and two for Chiara. In theory you should be able to read the Mercury and Chiara books independently, so Chiara might seem like the beginning of a new series in that world, BUT it DOES set things up for Mercury #2, so I want to have that clearly sorted in my mind before moving on the Mercury #2 (How Not To Ring The Hero’s Bell).

Assuming that that all goes according to plan (stop, stop laughing, just stop), I’d also like to do a huge massive edit of Aphelion, a sci fi novella also set in the Witch Blue universe like Rush Job and Moon Shot. It is, in fact, set on the same space station as Rush Job! The draft has been malingering since 2015, and I’m keen to boot it out the door to finished adulthood.

As well as that, I have 13 short stories to write because of more Promises To Children, plus another 5 articles for Aurealis. (My article on the history and symbolism of vampires was just turned in this week, and it’ll be out in the February issue of Aurealis, yay!)

And, if everything goes vveerrrryyyyy smoothly, there’s also a sneaky lil Christmas paranormal romance I’m dying to write. But that’s my reward for finishing all my actual commitments first, so who knows if I’ll get to it. We’ll all have to wait and see.

ALSO there will be Fan Kits/Fan Kit Minis for Dreaming Of Forests, Bones Of The Sea, A Stag Of Hope And Memory, A Moment Of Roses And Sunshine, and maybe also Moon Shot if I get the book done in a timely fashion 🙂

So that’s about it! Not a bad writing year last year (and certainly significantly better than the personal trashfire that was 2019), and hopefully an even better one again this year as my health continues to mostly improve. (*stabs insomnia in the guts*)

Tune in next week for a sneaky cover reveal of Bones Of The Sea, and let me know if there’s anything you’re dying for me to hurry up and write! 😀 (Also, sign up to my mailing list that I attempt to send out every second month if you want new release info and special subscriber discounts.)

PS Oh look, I found my 2020 planning posts here, in February and March!

I Guess It’s Time For A 2020 Wrap… was originally published on Amy Laurens

Bitcoin Rallies Higher, Binance Bullish, XRP Resistance, Bold BTC Forecast & Ironic News Of The Day

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another video. Hope you’re all doing well and that you’re all having an incredible day. To start things off, going closed the week up 15 per cent at sixty seven seventy five. And I started the day with a further six percent move to the upside, reaching the seven thousand dollar mark, making highs of seventy three hundred actually moved a little bit further than that over the last couple of hours. Looking at performance relative to its peers, Ether and iOS have posted an impressive 16 percent gain over the past 24 hours. As a result, Bitcoin’s dominance is down by 1.5 percent and is currently roughly around sixty five percent as well. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization breached 200 billion dollars, breaking from the diagonal resistance during late February when the total market value briefly touched three hundred billion U. S dollars. As you might imagine, there is a lot of optimism floating around the cryptocurrency space right now. A lot of people are happy that bitcoin passed by seven thousand. No real reason as to why it should have been below 7000, just my personal opinion. However, we are at the point right now. So the price is actually down a little bit. It was actually around seventy five or fifty seventy five hundred maybe about an hour or two ago is always that big run up like a little dip because everyone gets. Oh is this is it, is it, is it getting too hot. That’s kind of where we are right now. And now the big question is, are we going to start to move towards eight thousand, apparently, take this how you will. According to many articles, they say that if we do pass eight thousand, this will be an indication of a bull market or a hyper bullish sentiment that has once again re-entered the market. I already think it’s their personal opinion. I think the only thing that’s really holding us back are people who are either trying to still accumulate, which I think can maybe go on persistently forever, as people are always trying to get to more of an asset that they believe is undervalued and or I don’t know. Many factors could lead us back over that eight thousand. But I assume assumption that what’s holding us back is mainly people who are trying to keep the price down, like I mentioned before. We’ve had situations. I told you all this before a couple of months ago in 2017 when I saw all the coins like really, really pumping. And you would look at the charts like the actual like our buy our charts any time we passed any. Let’s say this line is a point of resistance if we got near it. These sell orders would multiply immediately, trying to push the price down as far as possible. But the moment it broke here, it would slam over that level. All the all the positions would get liquidated and the price would kind of shoot back up. So who knows what will happen. But it appears that we are aiming for eight thousand dollars during this week. I think we can do it. I think there’s nothing really holding us back once again except for the aggressively rich who are trying to make sure that prices remain low, as you might imagine as well. The wider cryptocurrency space also benefited from prices, or at least the price of bitcoin rising. Everything else is moving and not even in tandem. I think bitcoin rose by four or five percent and at the same exact time I think ether shot up by like 20 percent. So yeah, you might imagine as as finance coin turns bullish and rises above fifteen SRP retreats from key resistance, but bulls are comfortable. I think we passed by 20 cents and a half or something like that last night. Prices are like I said, like a smidge down. That’s only because it was a bit of a pullback because I assume I think Asian markets should just be waking up and also or have already woken up. And also, you know, things can’t get too hard if we if we do have an increase in about 38 percent in a day and a half or prices are going to move back. So I’d rather have a steady five or six percent a day, if you will, steady as opposed to a one huge explosive movement over the course of a day. But yeah, prices are looking good. And without further price ado, let’s move on. Next up, Morgan Creek co-founder Jason Williams is extremely bullish on Bitcoin. He expects the world’s leading cryptocurrency to turn in a spectacular performance in 2020, despite the economic turmoil that has rocked nearly every industry as number 19 continues to be a douchebag. The executive of the digital asset management firm says he believes that the top 19. But looking at the number again, that’s a tough look. Feel like my my mind finished a sentence up here believes that the top crypto currency was open or so passe. Wow. Surpassed its all time high. Okay, I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. Passes all time high of twenty thousand dollars in September. He said the world is trading bitcoin. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. New all time high coming in September of this year, IMO. Oh, no, sorry. That’s I M0. That’s in my opinion, it’s really funny. I have a friend who also just outed daytrading. Hello to you. And he was reveling at the fact that the cryptocurrency market is 24/7 because I have a CO I have another friend who also is thinking about getting it to stock. I mean, just get into something, get into something where you can invest in kind of make money. And my friend, one friend was like, oh yeah, I’m glad that the stock market kind of closes. And the other friend was like, it’s open 24 hours. I could just keep trading all the time. In spite of the overall optimism, William says he’s actually bearish in the short term and doesn’t think Bitcoin will rally until after the having event, which is set to happen in May when the amount of bitcoin that miners earn from powering the network is cut in half. William says he thinks many may be forced to sell their bitcoin holdings to keep the lights on, creating an opportunity for investors. Most think Bitcoin is going to rip before and during the having. I just scratch my head. I think it could go even lower due to minor capitulation and sell pressure. I hold and come in with fresh capital opportunistically. That doesn’t work for everyone, but is just my personal strategy. I don’t I don’t get shit or whatever. Although Williams thinks bitcoin will take out twenty thousand this year. Other traders do not share his ultra I don’t think 20. I don’t think twenty thousand is ultra bullish. I’m seeing people calling for a a seventy eighty thousand dollar bitcoin by December. I think that is that’s a that’s a herd of bulls right there I think. Twenty thousand I think even fifteen thousand is relatively believable. I think my opinion. I think so many people get used to the idea that because we move up, that we have to move down. If the price moves up too fast, that the price has to go back down just as fast as well. For some reason, there’s this very weird negative sentiment cloud over the cryptocurrency space. Not exactly sure winning got started. Why it’s still here. I think it just has to do with the analysts who whenever, whenever, whenever cryptocurrency prices go up, they make sure to rush to read it in Twitter, to tell everyone that it’s getting too hot. Like I had to I was dodging bullets earlier from all the articles saying that just just just just buy bitcoin going up by 5 percent. That that was already too much, which is nonsense. Once again, fundamentals all there. We know that there are certain mining station, computer, whatever, who are reeling back a tiny bit, their amount of. Hash power when it comes to bitcoin network. But that doesn’t equate to Bitcoin should be dropping down to three thousand because Tone vegas’ was someone else says so anyway. Especially with the amount of wheat, we keep getting news all the time that there are billions of dollars being pushed into the market, whether that be OPEC or simply other people who have just started trading or buying up as much cryptocurrency as possible. I know a couple of people. Who are very close to one entire Bitcoin, and I’m certain I know they they they think they won’t, but I know they will. They’re going to keep accumulating after they get that entire one Bitcoin. But it also leads us to the question or rather to the statement, there’s not a lot of bitcoin really floating around out there. So any type of negative news that we get. I kind of just really brush it away. I’ve heard it for so many years, even from many other cryptocurrency analysts years ago when Bitcoin’s price was two hundred. Yeah. Bitcoin is going to fall back down to 50 and the bitcoin hits a thousand. And there lie wall. It’s about the price just looks too hot. It looks like an oven. And then bitcoin goes to like 5000 a day like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s it’s going back to nine hundred. So we’re always gonna get people who. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what their fascination is with trying to negatively call numbers within the cryptocurrency space, but it just creates this really weird cloud. If Bitcoin goes up, it’s fine. Like if Bitcoin goes up by 80 percent in a day, that’s an indication that things have gotten too hype. Things are too hot. But if we have these movements up slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, it’s totally fine. Like Bitcoin fell down to three thousand five hundred because we knew that Wales sold. We all had that information. So for Bitcoin to go back to where it was before the sell off and maybe six, seven, eight hundred dollars more over the course of the last four or five weeks is totally fine, especially when we know that the supply is about to get cut in half. Anyway, the point is there is still a vast amount of optimism within the market, but a lot of the discussion is now because of everything going on within world markets. And I guess even the the falsified drop that we had a couple of weeks ago in the cryptocurrency market is if Bitcoin is going to rally before, during and after a day like a finger movement with that kind of weird after the having or before the having actually takes place. I think no one knows. It’s kind of even as to exactly what people think. I personally believe we’re going to see a move upward as we get closer to it because the hype will be there. To be fair, light coin rallied before it’s having as did other coin who also had a similar having. Ish type event. I think we’re gonna rally towards it. I tell you this now. Don’t be surprised if the day of the having we see tons of sell off. I think a portion of it will be from people who are. Who think they are smart and they’re selling off because they think other people will sell off, but the rest of the sell off will come from Wales. And we won’t get that whale information until a week later. But I think the the. I do want to say the damage will be done. What’s going to happen is prices are probably going to move up before the having because the hype will be there. Bitcoin will probably pass by ten thousand because the hype will be there on the day of the having or the day after when the selling actually takes place. We’re gonna get tons of news, capitulation, market crash falling apart. What’s happening to bitcoin? What’s going on? Bitcoin is no longer digital gold because the prices will be going down. And then we’ll realize a week later that it was just the whales doing it. But the news will have already gotten now that bitcoin must inherently have some type of problem because the price went down after the having with people not usually realizing that is usually after the having as well when the demand still remains. And people are the people who’ve sold off their bitcoin when they tried to rebuy their bitcoin. And they realize that other people are also trying to buy their bitcoin because the reward has been say with me, cut in half and it’s not as easy to accumulate it anymore. This is what causes the price to go up. Anyway, we’ll see. The estimates that we have right now are ranging anywhere from. Fifteen thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by September or fifty thousand by the end of this year should. We keep. Tumbling economically in traditional markets. Oh, yeah. Let’s move on. Next up, the digital one will pass extensive testing by the Bank of Korea staff per the official announcement. The program will last until December. Twenty, twenty one. South Korean businesses and officials were talking about the government backstage coin since December 2018. The central bank was hiring different industry experts. The experts prepare research on the central bank, digital currency related progress in other countries. Also, they propose their own legal initiatives, too. Why? Why are words missing from this? From this? Their own legal initiatives to approve the project. Now the central bank seems to be working really closely on its digital one. Okay. The design is not the classic blockchain with open no participation do. Contrary to the classics, the central bank plans to issue a stable coin. OK, say bitcoins are better at volatility. Almost zero volatility, but worse at decentralization. I think we all got that. However, as the example of many RC 20 tokens in USD TI shows, you don’t have to attract much of the participants. You just need to engage the key ones. This this entire article makes no sense. The point is we have confirmation that the Central Bank of South Korea is apparently officially testing. Their digital currency. None of these blockchains are going to be open. I’m sorry to shock all of you. But governments are going to try to continue to maintain control over. Whatever they think they control at the moment. Yeah, that’s the that news for today. There were a couple of other countries who came out as well talking about that. They’re thinking of testing it, we know. Stop it. We know that they’re not thinking of testing it. We know that they’re testing testing it or have already created it. Probably it is looking for the most opportune time to kind of release these coins out into the wild. But I gave it five years and within five years, every country, every major economic power country should have their own central bank, digital currency as it’s just how life works. Tying directly into that one says be-I. Yes, that is the Bank for International Settlements. Researchers forecasts adoption of digital payments amid nineteen. Any what? Huge. I’m shocked. I didn’t see that one coming. This is a perfect power grab for governments to be able to implement as many things as they possibly want to do. So we are definitely at the point where this has gone on for so long that they can simply say. We’re gonna do this, we’re working on it. Yeah. Is anyone surprised that the Bank for International Settlements is talking about or thinking about or pushing some type of research about the adoption of these things? Because the b.a.’s also once capital tracking. That’s a very well known thing. Anyway, that’s. That’s your super obvious news for. Next up on Monday, crypto exchange bilats announce that it has released Hej mode on its crypto futures platform. Chung Ping saule announced the news on Twitter, he said. You asked for it. Did did they? And we had nothing else to do during the lockdown. Finance now has hedge mode. This is how Bynum’s his announcement describes hedge mode in hedge mode. Users can hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract users. Oh, that’s interesting. Users will now be able to switch between one way mode and hedge mode in the settings. But my back is killing me. Oh gosh. The position mode is set as a one way mode by default in order to be able to use HEJ mode. Users need access to the latest version of the trading interface, which is the case in mobile users means making sure they either have version 1.2 1.1 and above the Android version of Who Cares by then says that in one way mode it is possible to only hold long positions in one direction. That kind of how it’s how it works. whileiN hej mode. It is possible to hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract. I wonder if the people from buying ence. No. Maybe. Did you guys ever see. There was an episode. Oh, gosh. It’s like this is this is very layered. There was an episode of South Park where they made fun of Family Guy and it was pretty much like there was a huge fishbowl. And every single time that a joke would be made, someone would dig your hand into the fishbowl. They would kind of open it up and see whatever the joke was. It would place them all together. And that’s how. The joke would be formed. I wonder if the people from buying ads like pretty much have a fishbowl all had an idea. Throw it into the fishbowl. And every day they just kind of like announce a new one. This is now the this is the eight hundred and forty Earth Day random number that by NANCE has announce something like every day. Biogen’s has a new platform on their. Platform. Sure, go for it. If it works for them, by all means, I do tip my hat to the but is very fascinating that there’s something new every single day. I do fear for the future. However, when people lose money in hedge mode and then go to customer support and buying ads, announcing or rather saying they didn’t know how hedge mode worked and therefore they want their money back and or they’re going to try and sue by NANCE because by Nancy to make it clear that along was a long and a short was a short because that’s how. That’s how suing works now, anyway. Yeah, that’s the. Bynum’s news for the hour. I assume there’s already brand new Bynum’s news that’s come out that I haven’t even. Seen yet anyway, let’s move on. That new research from the crypto mining operation BLOCK where Solutions offers a detailed breakdown of what may happen as the highly anticipated Bitcoin having arrives. The event, which is set to occur in May, will slice less aggressive, will slice in half the Bitcoin reward that miners earn for processing transactions. Its immediate impact on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency market has been highly debated for it’s been over a year. It hasn’t been months as bids bids. It’s been more than a day. According to the report, the having is likely to trigger a shakeout before the breakout. It sounds like it was that food thing shake and bake. And so anyway, the shakeout phase could see widespread capitulation as bitcoin miners who can’t afford to pay their bills sell their bitcoin holdings. And switch off their rigs, causing the price of bitcoin to drop it down to five thousand dollars. After all, the inefficient miners who that’s rude and efficient miners have capitulated. The firm says a significant amount of these sell pressure from miners will be removed, leaving a solid backbone of strong miners who don’t need to offload their bitcoin to. In addition. BLOCK where solutions. Sorry. In addition, BLOCK where Solutions analyzes Bitcoin’s built in difficulty adjustment, which automatically rules reviews network activity and adjust how much computing power is required to process transactions. The researchers expect it is to be a key factor keeping miners in the green and ensuring that Bitcoin hits a bottom after miners have shut off capitulated. Newly mined bitcoin is allocated to the most efficient miners, which minimises cell pressure on the bitcoin market. As these miners are working or well above their break, even prices, I think a lot of these smaller operations will probably. Leave, I couldn’t find a word I was looking for something with an F flourish, flutter, fly away, flip flop, flippity elate something with an F. That was in my head. I assume these smaller mining operations will fall or fall apart. Was that it? No, it wasn’t it. Something’s going to happen to them. And I think the the big boys are going to kind of take over. This is is a tale as old as Time, Beauty and the Beast. We’re pretty much there’s always some type of a shakeout within the cryptocurrency market. I think people don’t realize that they’re being shaken out. And years later, they kind of realize that they sold off their bitcoin or they got rid of their bitcoin or something happened to them. It happens all the time. Every single major event, any type of price movement upwards, even when we have prices going back down and people sold, didn’t really know when to buy back in, could never buy the same exact amount of bitcoin that they had before. And a lot of the players who seem to be getting into the cryptocurrency space now, I think they have no real intention of ever really selling off their bitcoin and if not massive amounts of it, simply because once again, I still think the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq and Fidelity and all these other people already have mining operations. I don’t foresee them selling any bitcoin anytime in the near future. The bills would probably be paid by their other investments that are then keeping the lights on, if you will. It’s kind of all over the place. No one really knows. Of course not. No one knows exactly what’s gonna happen when the having it takes place or is near. It seems relatively believable. I think we’re definitely gonna see a lot of people who are going to complain that it’s more difficult to mine bitcoin. That’s how the having works is meant to be more difficult so that there’s a. I have to sneeze. Go away, go away, go away. OK. OK. OK. I forgot what I was saying. The point is. Yeah, some sometimes do something dramatic is going to happen. I guess that’s the easiest way to sum it up. I assume in about two weeks the news is going to be completely insane as we are very well will be. What is it, seven days away from me at that point? The news is gonna go completely ballistic. I assume assumption that prices will. Be moving on up as we get nearer. I think is just more of a question of like what happens on the day of and what happens after. They will definitely be a shake out of some sort. It will to be a shake out of minors. It’ll be a shake out of people who think that prices will go lower or to be a shake out of people who sell and then don’t realize that at some point the price is going to go back up. So get ready for friends and family members who hold Bitcoin who are going to sell and then about three years from now will keep telling you about this. One moment has to how they wish they hadn’t sold. Yeah. Let’s move on. And to finish things off and the most ironic news on this planet, the National Internet Finance Association of China, a self-regulatory body while ago figure under the People’s Bank of China, issued a warning on Thursday against the fake trading volumes reported by overseas crypto exchanges because, of course, theirs are the most trustworthy. The watchdog agency detailed that some of the digital currency platforms are taking advantage of the recent volatility of the traditional markets, creating a hype that digital assets are safer than investments in gold or silver. It’s not that they’re safer is that you make more money than having like I would have lost money if I had gotten gold. In 2012, as opposed to getting Krypto, I’d be pretty far behind on my portfolio. I think gold went from twelve. Hundred I think it’s at sixteen hundred now. Bitcoin went from two hundred to seven thousand three hundred. I would’ve lost a smidge, I would’ve lost a smidge of money. It’s just a little smidge. Is that these platforms are creating illusions of prosperity in the virtual currency trading market. Through actions such as robot program brushing and data tampering. Don’t talk about data tampering, do that. That’s too ironic. And our sampling analysis based on trading data from some of the exchanges, the daily trading turnover rate for most coins. Well, for more than 40 coins is over one hundred percent. While more than 70 coins rate exceeds 50 percent. Despite the relatively low price and small market value, there have been massive trading volumes. Without having to go much further. This is news that was everywhere, news. For some. I mean, it’s as it’s not a for some reason. We know the reason why I’m going to assumption that as. Markets around the world have felt the pressure, if you will. From not only 19 percent, say Android 19, not only from 19, but also from. You know, the economic system being garbage, like many countries, just assumed that economic prosperity would last forever, that you would simply be able to. That there would never be a hiccup in the system, another there is a, you know, couple week long hiccup. They they simply can’t deal. So I’m going to assume that as that country has control over just about everything that happens within their borders. For those of you who don’t know, please watch a documentary, watch some type of news or something. Every text, every text, every text that goes through within that country is gathered and read by the government. That’s not a joke. They have a guy that actually because they only have a couple of major platforms and all these platforms have to be approved by the government. When they’re approved by the government, they’re integrated into the government systems. And they can tell if you say something negative about the government, you are then flagged, not joking, your account gets taken down or your your social score takes a hit. So I’m going to assumption that during the last couple of weeks, as prices around the world for everything have been going down, there’s been that narrative within the country, hey, let’s look for something else that is making money. And therefore, they’ve definitely seen the letters BTC or the word bitcoin flowing through way too many text messages than they would actually care for. And this is why this data ends up coming out. Still interesting to note that Bitcoin is legal. Within China, it’s just more of a thing, you can’t trade it. You can buy over the counter once again because your data has to be collected, but you can’t actively do it on cryptocurrency exchanges. However, VPN ends and many other things do exist. So I can only imagine the amount of people in that country who are actively trading daily and are making absolute bank. I guess this is more of a. Smack to the back of the head, warning like a don’t do it. We know that you’re doing it. Stay within the lines. Don’t call her outside kind of thing, because it’s very ironic to talk about fake volumes and fake numbers because. Anyway. Yeah. China, release that information because I listen. Why else would you release that information? I’m also thinking about it. We haven’t seen any cryptocurrency ratings from from China in a while. Mm hmm. Interesting. Anyway, yeah, that’s your. How ironic news for the century E! As always. A very special thank you to my Patreon supporters, Professor Whiley from Guttenberg University, Yashar Hardy Moon Madhi Sarpy, Joshua Vinyard, Martin Steuer, Josh Gorcyca Chong on Old Song Golo Lo Love That A Biblio Phobia The Animal Reider, John Sarrazin, Mr Pickles Nostromo Bones Mining Todd Mullis Adam Grayslake Mohair Moroni Master Ventures in Thailand. ratey Neild Jan Schneider. Why Night Owl 2 for 2 to the World Krypto Jo Bankrolled Network Adobo Milanesi Krypto Artist Goldie three-D Nicholas Winner with One Piece, One Love Damien setsuna, Nick Conni or Ritchey Which the Third Vlad the Impaler, Krypton Beer Shipmate Pyxis Nick Mun, Jeanna Body. And Then You, Charles Jim Garner. Jamie Fox minting coins Miller Hitch Chest every day and Kyle skips leg day. Yes, to Krypto. What do you make? Boat face anytime. Fitness Hmongs Corner staff are medic 17. Bake me a cake. I want a cake now take a rematch I only saw on Krypto with Lino Crayola. Michelle, you are Elle and hold on. I have to sneeze. Thank you all very, very much for your support and thank you to everyone who is a supporter of the channel. Click the little join button below and thank you to everyone who used my Amazon affiliate link. That was that was crazy. Thank you all. Yeah. I cannot say thank you enough. I could, but it would it would add like another hour to the video to just be kind of awkward after the three hundredth time I said it at the moment. The market is up, it’s upper than when I first started, it was around here. This was the dip I was talking about. For those of you now looking at the screen, just imagine a dip in your mind. And now the dip is like half on dipped as prices seem to be going back up. Cerium is up by fifteen point nine three percent, e.t.c. is up by 4.5 percent. Ex Arpey is up by 8.2 percent. Litecoin is up by 10. iOS is up by 13 percent. These are great numbers to see. The wider cryptocurrency market, of course, as you might imagine, is also up as well. And nothing is up by like eight hundred ninety five percent. I’m sure there’s some scam coin in the 2, 3, 400 range. That’s kind of. Retain Thor is also up by like a like an up up. Yeah. It’s nice to see. I think that crypto is constantly average. Let me rephrase that. I feel like a lot of coins within the top 10 are very. And it’s empty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Top ten are undervalued, specifically some of the higher ones. And it’s nice to see not them being. I think they’re still heavily undervalued but. I don’t know how I’m trying to end this. The point is prices are up. It looks really good. I assume that we will continue on this upward trajectory as we move closer to the having. But do expect. Prices to drop. There are always going to be good and bad, Weill’s good and bad actors are going to be people who want to lower the prices of cryptocurrency. Even if you may be having a good old jolly time because they may think that prices are I. I can feel it with an hour to when everyone else starts waking up, I’m going to start getting the news. So many people think that the market is over overbought and that prices have to go down. I don’t get it. I don’t think I want to get it. I only want to know these people. I don’t. I don’t see that negativity in my life. I hope you all enjoyed. Hope you all are having a great day. A great morning. A great afternoon. A great evening. Wherever you are, wherever you might be. I do hope that is absolutely faith. Fantastic. Thank you all once again for watching and or listening. And I will most certainly. Be talking to you all soon. See you.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-rallies-higher-binance-ironic-news-of-the-day/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/04/bitcoin-rallies-higher-binance-bullish.html

Bitcoin Rallies Higher Binance Bullish XRP Resistance Bold BTC Forecast & Ironic News Of The Day

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another video. Hope you’re all doing well and that you’re all having an incredible day. To start things off, going closed the week up 15 per cent at sixty seven seventy five. And I started the day with a further six percent move to the upside, reaching the seven thousand dollar mark, making highs of seventy three hundred actually moved a little bit further than that over the last couple of hours. Looking at performance relative to its peers, Ether and iOS have posted an impressive 16 percent gain over the past 24 hours. As a result, Bitcoin’s dominance is down by 1.5 percent and is currently roughly around sixty five percent as well. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization breached 200 billion dollars, breaking from the diagonal resistance during late February when the total market value briefly touched three hundred billion U. S dollars. As you might imagine, there is a lot of optimism floating around the cryptocurrency space right now. A lot of people are happy that bitcoin passed by seven thousand. No real reason as to why it should have been below 7000, just my personal opinion. However, we are at the point right now. So the price is actually down a little bit. It was actually around seventy five or fifty seventy five hundred maybe about an hour or two ago is always that big run up like a little dip because everyone gets. Oh is this is it, is it, is it getting too hot. That’s kind of where we are right now. And now the big question is, are we going to start to move towards eight thousand, apparently, take this how you will. According to many articles, they say that if we do pass eight thousand, this will be an indication of a bull market or a hyper bullish sentiment that has once again re-entered the market. I already think it’s their personal opinion. I think the only thing that’s really holding us back are people who are either trying to still accumulate, which I think can maybe go on persistently forever, as people are always trying to get to more of an asset that they believe is undervalued and or I don’t know. Many factors could lead us back over that eight thousand. But I assume assumption that what’s holding us back is mainly people who are trying to keep the price down, like I mentioned before. We’ve had situations. I told you all this before a couple of months ago in 2017 when I saw all the coins like really, really pumping. And you would look at the charts like the actual like our buy our charts any time we passed any. Let’s say this line is a point of resistance if we got near it. These sell orders would multiply immediately, trying to push the price down as far as possible. But the moment it broke here, it would slam over that level. All the all the positions would get liquidated and the price would kind of shoot back up. So who knows what will happen. But it appears that we are aiming for eight thousand dollars during this week. I think we can do it. I think there’s nothing really holding us back once again except for the aggressively rich who are trying to make sure that prices remain low, as you might imagine as well. The wider cryptocurrency space also benefited from prices, or at least the price of bitcoin rising. Everything else is moving and not even in tandem. I think bitcoin rose by four or five percent and at the same exact time I think ether shot up by like 20 percent. So yeah, you might imagine as as finance coin turns bullish and rises above fifteen SRP retreats from key resistance, but bulls are comfortable. I think we passed by 20 cents and a half or something like that last night. Prices are like I said, like a smidge down. That’s only because it was a bit of a pullback because I assume I think Asian markets should just be waking up and also or have already woken up. And also, you know, things can’t get too hard if we if we do have an increase in about 38 percent in a day and a half or prices are going to move back. So I’d rather have a steady five or six percent a day, if you will, steady as opposed to a one huge explosive movement over the course of a day. But yeah, prices are looking good. And without further price ado, let’s move on. Next up, Morgan Creek co-founder Jason Williams is extremely bullish on Bitcoin. He expects the world’s leading cryptocurrency to turn in a spectacular performance in 2020, despite the economic turmoil that has rocked nearly every industry as number 19 continues to be a douchebag. The executive of the digital asset management firm says he believes that the top 19. But looking at the number again, that’s a tough look. Feel like my my mind finished a sentence up here believes that the top crypto currency was open or so passe. Wow. Surpassed its all time high. Okay, I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. Passes all time high of twenty thousand dollars in September. He said the world is trading bitcoin. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. New all time high coming in September of this year, IMO. Oh, no, sorry. That’s I M0. That’s in my opinion, it’s really funny. I have a friend who also just outed daytrading. Hello to you. And he was reveling at the fact that the cryptocurrency market is 24/7 because I have a CO I have another friend who also is thinking about getting it to stock. I mean, just get into something, get into something where you can invest in kind of make money. And my friend, one friend was like, oh yeah, I’m glad that the stock market kind of closes. And the other friend was like, it’s open 24 hours. I could just keep trading all the time. In spite of the overall optimism, William says he’s actually bearish in the short term and doesn’t think Bitcoin will rally until after the having event, which is set to happen in May when the amount of bitcoin that miners earn from powering the network is cut in half. William says he thinks many may be forced to sell their bitcoin holdings to keep the lights on, creating an opportunity for investors. Most think Bitcoin is going to rip before and during the having. I just scratch my head. I think it could go even lower due to minor capitulation and sell pressure. I hold and come in with fresh capital opportunistically. That doesn’t work for everyone, but is just my personal strategy. I don’t I don’t get shit or whatever. Although Williams thinks bitcoin will take out twenty thousand this year. Other traders do not share his ultra I don’t think 20. I don’t think twenty thousand is ultra bullish. I’m seeing people calling for a a seventy eighty thousand dollar bitcoin by December. I think that is that’s a that’s a herd of bulls right there I think. Twenty thousand I think even fifteen thousand is relatively believable. I think my opinion. I think so many people get used to the idea that because we move up, that we have to move down. If the price moves up too fast, that the price has to go back down just as fast as well. For some reason, there’s this very weird negative sentiment cloud over the cryptocurrency space. Not exactly sure winning got started. Why it’s still here. I think it just has to do with the analysts who whenever, whenever, whenever cryptocurrency prices go up, they make sure to rush to read it in Twitter, to tell everyone that it’s getting too hot. Like I had to I was dodging bullets earlier from all the articles saying that just just just just buy bitcoin going up by 5 percent. That that was already too much, which is nonsense. Once again, fundamentals all there. We know that there are certain mining station, computer, whatever, who are reeling back a tiny bit, their amount of. Hash power when it comes to bitcoin network. But that doesn’t equate to Bitcoin should be dropping down to three thousand because Tone vegas’ was someone else says so anyway. Especially with the amount of wheat, we keep getting news all the time that there are billions of dollars being pushed into the market, whether that be OPEC or simply other people who have just started trading or buying up as much cryptocurrency as possible. I know a couple of people. Who are very close to one entire Bitcoin, and I’m certain I know they they they think they won’t, but I know they will. They’re going to keep accumulating after they get that entire one Bitcoin. But it also leads us to the question or rather to the statement, there’s not a lot of bitcoin really floating around out there. So any type of negative news that we get. I kind of just really brush it away. I’ve heard it for so many years, even from many other cryptocurrency analysts years ago when Bitcoin’s price was two hundred. Yeah. Bitcoin is going to fall back down to 50 and the bitcoin hits a thousand. And there lie wall. It’s about the price just looks too hot. It looks like an oven. And then bitcoin goes to like 5000 a day like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s it’s going back to nine hundred. So we’re always gonna get people who. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what their fascination is with trying to negatively call numbers within the cryptocurrency space, but it just creates this really weird cloud. If Bitcoin goes up, it’s fine. Like if Bitcoin goes up by 80 percent in a day, that’s an indication that things have gotten too hype. Things are too hot. But if we have these movements up slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, it’s totally fine. Like Bitcoin fell down to three thousand five hundred because we knew that Wales sold. We all had that information. So for Bitcoin to go back to where it was before the sell off and maybe six, seven, eight hundred dollars more over the course of the last four or five weeks is totally fine, especially when we know that the supply is about to get cut in half. Anyway, the point is there is still a vast amount of optimism within the market, but a lot of the discussion is now because of everything going on within world markets. And I guess even the the falsified drop that we had a couple of weeks ago in the cryptocurrency market is if Bitcoin is going to rally before, during and after a day like a finger movement with that kind of weird after the having or before the having actually takes place. I think no one knows. It’s kind of even as to exactly what people think. I personally believe we’re going to see a move upward as we get closer to it because the hype will be there. To be fair, light coin rallied before it’s having as did other coin who also had a similar having. Ish type event. I think we’re gonna rally towards it. I tell you this now. Don’t be surprised if the day of the having we see tons of sell off. I think a portion of it will be from people who are. Who think they are smart and they’re selling off because they think other people will sell off, but the rest of the sell off will come from Wales. And we won’t get that whale information until a week later. But I think the the. I do want to say the damage will be done. What’s going to happen is prices are probably going to move up before the having because the hype will be there. Bitcoin will probably pass by ten thousand because the hype will be there on the day of the having or the day after when the selling actually takes place. We’re gonna get tons of news, capitulation, market crash falling apart. What’s happening to bitcoin? What’s going on? Bitcoin is no longer digital gold because the prices will be going down. And then we’ll realize a week later that it was just the whales doing it. But the news will have already gotten now that bitcoin must inherently have some type of problem because the price went down after the having with people not usually realizing that is usually after the having as well when the demand still remains. And people are the people who’ve sold off their bitcoin when they tried to rebuy their bitcoin. And they realize that other people are also trying to buy their bitcoin because the reward has been say with me, cut in half and it’s not as easy to accumulate it anymore. This is what causes the price to go up. Anyway, we’ll see. The estimates that we have right now are ranging anywhere from. Fifteen thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by September or fifty thousand by the end of this year should. We keep. Tumbling economically in traditional markets. Oh, yeah. Let’s move on. Next up, the digital one will pass extensive testing by the Bank of Korea staff per the official announcement. The program will last until December. Twenty, twenty one. South Korean businesses and officials were talking about the government backstage coin since December 2018. The central bank was hiring different industry experts. The experts prepare research on the central bank, digital currency related progress in other countries. Also, they propose their own legal initiatives, too. Why? Why are words missing from this? From this? Their own legal initiatives to approve the project. Now the central bank seems to be working really closely on its digital one. Okay. The design is not the classic blockchain with open no participation do. Contrary to the classics, the central bank plans to issue a stable coin. OK, say bitcoins are better at volatility. Almost zero volatility, but worse at decentralization. I think we all got that. However, as the example of many RC 20 tokens in USD TI shows, you don’t have to attract much of the participants. You just need to engage the key ones. This this entire article makes no sense. The point is we have confirmation that the Central Bank of South Korea is apparently officially testing. Their digital currency. None of these blockchains are going to be open. I’m sorry to shock all of you. But governments are going to try to continue to maintain control over. Whatever they think they control at the moment. Yeah, that’s the that news for today. There were a couple of other countries who came out as well talking about that. They’re thinking of testing it, we know. Stop it. We know that they’re not thinking of testing it. We know that they’re testing testing it or have already created it. Probably it is looking for the most opportune time to kind of release these coins out into the wild. But I gave it five years and within five years, every country, every major economic power country should have their own central bank, digital currency as it’s just how life works. Tying directly into that one says be-I. Yes, that is the Bank for International Settlements. Researchers forecasts adoption of digital payments amid nineteen. Any what? Huge. I’m shocked. I didn’t see that one coming. This is a perfect power grab for governments to be able to implement as many things as they possibly want to do. So we are definitely at the point where this has gone on for so long that they can simply say. We’re gonna do this, we’re working on it. Yeah. Is anyone surprised that the Bank for International Settlements is talking about or thinking about or pushing some type of research about the adoption of these things? Because the b.a.’s also once capital tracking. That’s a very well known thing. Anyway, that’s. That’s your super obvious news for. Next up on Monday, crypto exchange bilats announce that it has released Hej mode on its crypto futures platform. Chung Ping saule announced the news on Twitter, he said. You asked for it. Did did they? And we had nothing else to do during the lockdown. Finance now has hedge mode. This is how Bynum’s his announcement describes hedge mode in hedge mode. Users can hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract users. Oh, that’s interesting. Users will now be able to switch between one way mode and hedge mode in the settings. But my back is killing me. Oh gosh. The position mode is set as a one way mode by default in order to be able to use HEJ mode. Users need access to the latest version of the trading interface, which is the case in mobile users means making sure they either have version 1.2 1.1 and above the Android version of Who Cares by then says that in one way mode it is possible to only hold long positions in one direction. That kind of how it’s how it works. whileiN hej mode. It is possible to hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract. I wonder if the people from buying ence. No. Maybe. Did you guys ever see. There was an episode. Oh, gosh. It’s like this is this is very layered. There was an episode of South Park where they made fun of Family Guy and it was pretty much like there was a huge fishbowl. And every single time that a joke would be made, someone would dig your hand into the fishbowl. They would kind of open it up and see whatever the joke was. It would place them all together. And that’s how. The joke would be formed. I wonder if the people from buying ads like pretty much have a fishbowl all had an idea. Throw it into the fishbowl. And every day they just kind of like announce a new one. This is now the this is the eight hundred and forty Earth Day random number that by NANCE has announce something like every day. Biogen’s has a new platform on their. Platform. Sure, go for it. If it works for them, by all means, I do tip my hat to the but is very fascinating that there’s something new every single day. I do fear for the future. However, when people lose money in hedge mode and then go to customer support and buying ads, announcing or rather saying they didn’t know how hedge mode worked and therefore they want their money back and or they’re going to try and sue by NANCE because by Nancy to make it clear that along was a long and a short was a short because that’s how. That’s how suing works now, anyway. Yeah, that’s the. Bynum’s news for the hour. I assume there’s already brand new Bynum’s news that’s come out that I haven’t even. Seen yet anyway, let’s move on. That new research from the crypto mining operation BLOCK where Solutions offers a detailed breakdown of what may happen as the highly anticipated Bitcoin having arrives. The event, which is set to occur in May, will slice less aggressive, will slice in half the Bitcoin reward that miners earn for processing transactions. Its immediate impact on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency market has been highly debated for it’s been over a year. It hasn’t been months as bids bids. It’s been more than a day. According to the report, the having is likely to trigger a shakeout before the breakout. It sounds like it was that food thing shake and bake. And so anyway, the shakeout phase could see widespread capitulation as bitcoin miners who can’t afford to pay their bills sell their bitcoin holdings. And switch off their rigs, causing the price of bitcoin to drop it down to five thousand dollars. After all, the inefficient miners who that’s rude and efficient miners have capitulated. The firm says a significant amount of these sell pressure from miners will be removed, leaving a solid backbone of strong miners who don’t need to offload their bitcoin to. In addition. BLOCK where solutions. Sorry. In addition, BLOCK where Solutions analyzes Bitcoin’s built in difficulty adjustment, which automatically rules reviews network activity and adjust how much computing power is required to process transactions. The researchers expect it is to be a key factor keeping miners in the green and ensuring that Bitcoin hits a bottom after miners have shut off capitulated. Newly mined bitcoin is allocated to the most efficient miners, which minimises cell pressure on the bitcoin market. As these miners are working or well above their break, even prices, I think a lot of these smaller operations will probably. Leave, I couldn’t find a word I was looking for something with an F flourish, flutter, fly away, flip flop, flippity elate something with an F. That was in my head. I assume these smaller mining operations will fall or fall apart. Was that it? No, it wasn’t it. Something’s going to happen to them. And I think the the big boys are going to kind of take over. This is is a tale as old as Time, Beauty and the Beast. We’re pretty much there’s always some type of a shakeout within the cryptocurrency market. I think people don’t realize that they’re being shaken out. And years later, they kind of realize that they sold off their bitcoin or they got rid of their bitcoin or something happened to them. It happens all the time. Every single major event, any type of price movement upwards, even when we have prices going back down and people sold, didn’t really know when to buy back in, could never buy the same exact amount of bitcoin that they had before. And a lot of the players who seem to be getting into the cryptocurrency space now, I think they have no real intention of ever really selling off their bitcoin and if not massive amounts of it, simply because once again, I still think the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq and Fidelity and all these other people already have mining operations. I don’t foresee them selling any bitcoin anytime in the near future. The bills would probably be paid by their other investments that are then keeping the lights on, if you will. It’s kind of all over the place. No one really knows. Of course not. No one knows exactly what’s gonna happen when the having it takes place or is near. It seems relatively believable. I think we’re definitely gonna see a lot of people who are going to complain that it’s more difficult to mine bitcoin. That’s how the having works is meant to be more difficult so that there’s a. I have to sneeze. Go away, go away, go away. OK. OK. OK. I forgot what I was saying. The point is. Yeah, some sometimes do something dramatic is going to happen. I guess that’s the easiest way to sum it up. I assume in about two weeks the news is going to be completely insane as we are very well will be. What is it, seven days away from me at that point? The news is gonna go completely ballistic. I assume assumption that prices will. Be moving on up as we get nearer. I think is just more of a question of like what happens on the day of and what happens after. They will definitely be a shake out of some sort. It will to be a shake out of minors. It’ll be a shake out of people who think that prices will go lower or to be a shake out of people who sell and then don’t realize that at some point the price is going to go back up. So get ready for friends and family members who hold Bitcoin who are going to sell and then about three years from now will keep telling you about this. One moment has to how they wish they hadn’t sold. Yeah. Let’s move on. And to finish things off and the most ironic news on this planet, the National Internet Finance Association of China, a self-regulatory body while ago figure under the People’s Bank of China, issued a warning on Thursday against the fake trading volumes reported by overseas crypto exchanges because, of course, theirs are the most trustworthy. The watchdog agency detailed that some of the digital currency platforms are taking advantage of the recent volatility of the traditional markets, creating a hype that digital assets are safer than investments in gold or silver. It’s not that they’re safer is that you make more money than having like I would have lost money if I had gotten gold. In 2012, as opposed to getting Krypto, I’d be pretty far behind on my portfolio. I think gold went from twelve. Hundred I think it’s at sixteen hundred now. Bitcoin went from two hundred to seven thousand three hundred. I would’ve lost a smidge, I would’ve lost a smidge of money. It’s just a little smidge. Is that these platforms are creating illusions of prosperity in the virtual currency trading market. Through actions such as robot program brushing and data tampering. Don’t talk about data tampering, do that. That’s too ironic. And our sampling analysis based on trading data from some of the exchanges, the daily trading turnover rate for most coins. Well, for more than 40 coins is over one hundred percent. While more than 70 coins rate exceeds 50 percent. Despite the relatively low price and small market value, there have been massive trading volumes. Without having to go much further. This is news that was everywhere, news. For some. I mean, it’s as it’s not a for some reason. We know the reason why I’m going to assumption that as. Markets around the world have felt the pressure, if you will. From not only 19 percent, say Android 19, not only from 19, but also from. You know, the economic system being garbage, like many countries, just assumed that economic prosperity would last forever, that you would simply be able to. That there would never be a hiccup in the system, another there is a, you know, couple week long hiccup. They they simply can’t deal. So I’m going to assume that as that country has control over just about everything that happens within their borders. For those of you who don’t know, please watch a documentary, watch some type of news or something. Every text, every text, every text that goes through within that country is gathered and read by the government. That’s not a joke. They have a guy that actually because they only have a couple of major platforms and all these platforms have to be approved by the government. When they’re approved by the government, they’re integrated into the government systems. And they can tell if you say something negative about the government, you are then flagged, not joking, your account gets taken down or your your social score takes a hit. So I’m going to assumption that during the last couple of weeks, as prices around the world for everything have been going down, there’s been that narrative within the country, hey, let’s look for something else that is making money. And therefore, they’ve definitely seen the letters BTC or the word bitcoin flowing through way too many text messages than they would actually care for. And this is why this data ends up coming out. Still interesting to note that Bitcoin is legal. Within China, it’s just more of a thing, you can’t trade it. You can buy over the counter once again because your data has to be collected, but you can’t actively do it on cryptocurrency exchanges. However, VPN ends and many other things do exist. So I can only imagine the amount of people in that country who are actively trading daily and are making absolute bank. I guess this is more of a. Smack to the back of the head, warning like a don’t do it. We know that you’re doing it. Stay within the lines. Don’t call her outside kind of thing, because it’s very ironic to talk about fake volumes and fake numbers because. Anyway. Yeah. China, release that information because I listen. Why else would you release that information? I’m also thinking about it. We haven’t seen any cryptocurrency ratings from from China in a while. Mm hmm. Interesting. Anyway, yeah, that’s your. How ironic news for the century E! As always. A very special thank you to my Patreon supporters, Professor Whiley from Guttenberg University, Yashar Hardy Moon Madhi Sarpy, Joshua Vinyard, Martin Steuer, Josh Gorcyca Chong on Old Song Golo Lo Love That A Biblio Phobia The Animal Reider, John Sarrazin, Mr Pickles Nostromo Bones Mining Todd Mullis Adam Grayslake Mohair Moroni Master Ventures in Thailand. ratey Neild Jan Schneider. Why Night Owl 2 for 2 to the World Krypto Jo Bankrolled Network Adobo Milanesi Krypto Artist Goldie three-D Nicholas Winner with One Piece, One Love Damien setsuna, Nick Conni or Ritchey Which the Third Vlad the Impaler, Krypton Beer Shipmate Pyxis Nick Mun, Jeanna Body. And Then You, Charles Jim Garner. Jamie Fox minting coins Miller Hitch Chest every day and Kyle skips leg day. Yes, to Krypto. What do you make? Boat face anytime. Fitness Hmongs Corner staff are medic 17. Bake me a cake. I want a cake now take a rematch I only saw on Krypto with Lino Crayola. Michelle, you are Elle and hold on. I have to sneeze. Thank you all very, very much for your support and thank you to everyone who is a supporter of the channel. Click the little join button below and thank you to everyone who used my Amazon affiliate link. That was that was crazy. Thank you all. Yeah. I cannot say thank you enough. I could, but it would it would add like another hour to the video to just be kind of awkward after the three hundredth time I said it at the moment. The market is up, it’s upper than when I first started, it was around here. This was the dip I was talking about. For those of you now looking at the screen, just imagine a dip in your mind. And now the dip is like half on dipped as prices seem to be going back up. Cerium is up by fifteen point nine three percent, e.t.c. is up by 4.5 percent. Ex Arpey is up by 8.2 percent. Litecoin is up by 10. iOS is up by 13 percent. These are great numbers to see. The wider cryptocurrency market, of course, as you might imagine, is also up as well. And nothing is up by like eight hundred ninety five percent. I’m sure there’s some scam coin in the 2, 3, 400 range. That’s kind of. Retain Thor is also up by like a like an up up. Yeah. It’s nice to see. I think that crypto is constantly average. Let me rephrase that. I feel like a lot of coins within the top 10 are very. And it’s empty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Top ten are undervalued, specifically some of the higher ones. And it’s nice to see not them being. I think they’re still heavily undervalued but. I don’t know how I’m trying to end this. The point is prices are up. It looks really good. I assume that we will continue on this upward trajectory as we move closer to the having. But do expect. Prices to drop. There are always going to be good and bad, Weill’s good and bad actors are going to be people who want to lower the prices of cryptocurrency. Even if you may be having a good old jolly time because they may think that prices are I. I can feel it with an hour to when everyone else starts waking up, I’m going to start getting the news. So many people think that the market is over overbought and that prices have to go down. I don’t get it. I don’t think I want to get it. I only want to know these people. I don’t. I don’t see that negativity in my life. I hope you all enjoyed. Hope you all are having a great day. A great morning. A great afternoon. A great evening. Wherever you are, wherever you might be. I do hope that is absolutely faith. Fantastic. Thank you all once again for watching and or listening. And I will most certainly. Be talking to you all soon. See you.

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Bitcoin Rallies Higher, Binance Bullish, XRP Resistance, Bold BTC Forecast & Ironic News Of The Day

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another video. Hope you’re all doing well and that you’re all having an incredible day. To start things off, going closed the week up 15 per cent at sixty seven seventy five. And I started the day with a further six percent move to the upside, reaching the seven thousand dollar mark, making highs of seventy three hundred actually moved a little bit further than that over the last couple of hours. Looking at performance relative to its peers, Ether and iOS have posted an impressive 16 percent gain over the past 24 hours. As a result, Bitcoin’s dominance is down by 1.5 percent and is currently roughly around sixty five percent as well. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization breached 200 billion dollars, breaking from the diagonal resistance during late February when the total market value briefly touched three hundred billion U. S dollars. As you might imagine, there is a lot of optimism floating around the cryptocurrency space right now. A lot of people are happy that bitcoin passed by seven thousand. No real reason as to why it should have been below 7000, just my personal opinion. However, we are at the point right now. So the price is actually down a little bit. It was actually around seventy five or fifty seventy five hundred maybe about an hour or two ago is always that big run up like a little dip because everyone gets. Oh is this is it, is it, is it getting too hot. That’s kind of where we are right now. And now the big question is, are we going to start to move towards eight thousand, apparently, take this how you will. According to many articles, they say that if we do pass eight thousand, this will be an indication of a bull market or a hyper bullish sentiment that has once again re-entered the market. I already think it’s their personal opinion. I think the only thing that’s really holding us back are people who are either trying to still accumulate, which I think can maybe go on persistently forever, as people are always trying to get to more of an asset that they believe is undervalued and or I don’t know. Many factors could lead us back over that eight thousand. But I assume assumption that what’s holding us back is mainly people who are trying to keep the price down, like I mentioned before. We’ve had situations. I told you all this before a couple of months ago in 2017 when I saw all the coins like really, really pumping. And you would look at the charts like the actual like our buy our charts any time we passed any. Let’s say this line is a point of resistance if we got near it. These sell orders would multiply immediately, trying to push the price down as far as possible. But the moment it broke here, it would slam over that level. All the all the positions would get liquidated and the price would kind of shoot back up. So who knows what will happen. But it appears that we are aiming for eight thousand dollars during this week. I think we can do it. I think there’s nothing really holding us back once again except for the aggressively rich who are trying to make sure that prices remain low, as you might imagine as well. The wider cryptocurrency space also benefited from prices, or at least the price of bitcoin rising. Everything else is moving and not even in tandem. I think bitcoin rose by four or five percent and at the same exact time I think ether shot up by like 20 percent. So yeah, you might imagine as as finance coin turns bullish and rises above fifteen SRP retreats from key resistance, but bulls are comfortable. I think we passed by 20 cents and a half or something like that last night. Prices are like I said, like a smidge down. That’s only because it was a bit of a pullback because I assume I think Asian markets should just be waking up and also or have already woken up. And also, you know, things can’t get too hard if we if we do have an increase in about 38 percent in a day and a half or prices are going to move back. So I’d rather have a steady five or six percent a day, if you will, steady as opposed to a one huge explosive movement over the course of a day. But yeah, prices are looking good. And without further price ado, let’s move on. Next up, Morgan Creek co-founder Jason Williams is extremely bullish on Bitcoin. He expects the world’s leading cryptocurrency to turn in a spectacular performance in 2020, despite the economic turmoil that has rocked nearly every industry as number 19 continues to be a douchebag. The executive of the digital asset management firm says he believes that the top 19. But looking at the number again, that’s a tough look. Feel like my my mind finished a sentence up here believes that the top crypto currency was open or so passe. Wow. Surpassed its all time high. Okay, I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. Passes all time high of twenty thousand dollars in September. He said the world is trading bitcoin. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. New all time high coming in September of this year, IMO. Oh, no, sorry. That’s I M0. That’s in my opinion, it’s really funny. I have a friend who also just outed daytrading. Hello to you. And he was reveling at the fact that the cryptocurrency market is 24/7 because I have a CO I have another friend who also is thinking about getting it to stock. I mean, just get into something, get into something where you can invest in kind of make money. And my friend, one friend was like, oh yeah, I’m glad that the stock market kind of closes. And the other friend was like, it’s open 24 hours. I could just keep trading all the time. In spite of the overall optimism, William says he’s actually bearish in the short term and doesn’t think Bitcoin will rally until after the having event, which is set to happen in May when the amount of bitcoin that miners earn from powering the network is cut in half. William says he thinks many may be forced to sell their bitcoin holdings to keep the lights on, creating an opportunity for investors. Most think Bitcoin is going to rip before and during the having. I just scratch my head. I think it could go even lower due to minor capitulation and sell pressure. I hold and come in with fresh capital opportunistically. That doesn’t work for everyone, but is just my personal strategy. I don’t I don’t get shit or whatever. Although Williams thinks bitcoin will take out twenty thousand this year. Other traders do not share his ultra I don’t think 20. I don’t think twenty thousand is ultra bullish. I’m seeing people calling for a a seventy eighty thousand dollar bitcoin by December. I think that is that’s a that’s a herd of bulls right there I think. Twenty thousand I think even fifteen thousand is relatively believable. I think my opinion. I think so many people get used to the idea that because we move up, that we have to move down. If the price moves up too fast, that the price has to go back down just as fast as well. For some reason, there’s this very weird negative sentiment cloud over the cryptocurrency space. Not exactly sure winning got started. Why it’s still here. I think it just has to do with the analysts who whenever, whenever, whenever cryptocurrency prices go up, they make sure to rush to read it in Twitter, to tell everyone that it���s getting too hot. Like I had to I was dodging bullets earlier from all the articles saying that just just just just buy bitcoin going up by 5 percent. That that was already too much, which is nonsense. Once again, fundamentals all there. We know that there are certain mining station, computer, whatever, who are reeling back a tiny bit, their amount of. Hash power when it comes to bitcoin network. But that doesn’t equate to Bitcoin should be dropping down to three thousand because Tone vegas’ was someone else says so anyway. Especially with the amount of wheat, we keep getting news all the time that there are billions of dollars being pushed into the market, whether that be OPEC or simply other people who have just started trading or buying up as much cryptocurrency as possible. I know a couple of people. Who are very close to one entire Bitcoin, and I’m certain I know they they they think they won’t, but I know they will. They’re going to keep accumulating after they get that entire one Bitcoin. But it also leads us to the question or rather to the statement, there’s not a lot of bitcoin really floating around out there. So any type of negative news that we get. I kind of just really brush it away. I’ve heard it for so many years, even from many other cryptocurrency analysts years ago when Bitcoin’s price was two hundred. Yeah. Bitcoin is going to fall back down to 50 and the bitcoin hits a thousand. And there lie wall. It’s about the price just looks too hot. It looks like an oven. And then bitcoin goes to like 5000 a day like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s it’s going back to nine hundred. So we’re always gonna get people who. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what their fascination is with trying to negatively call numbers within the cryptocurrency space, but it just creates this really weird cloud. If Bitcoin goes up, it’s fine. Like if Bitcoin goes up by 80 percent in a day, that’s an indication that things have gotten too hype. Things are too hot. But if we have these movements up slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, it’s totally fine. Like Bitcoin fell down to three thousand five hundred because we knew that Wales sold. We all had that information. So for Bitcoin to go back to where it was before the sell off and maybe six, seven, eight hundred dollars more over the course of the last four or five weeks is totally fine, especially when we know that the supply is about to get cut in half. Anyway, the point is there is still a vast amount of optimism within the market, but a lot of the discussion is now because of everything going on within world markets. And I guess even the the falsified drop that we had a couple of weeks ago in the cryptocurrency market is if Bitcoin is going to rally before, during and after a day like a finger movement with that kind of weird after the having or before the having actually takes place. I think no one knows. It’s kind of even as to exactly what people think. I personally believe we’re going to see a move upward as we get closer to it because the hype will be there. To be fair, light coin rallied before it’s having as did other coin who also had a similar having. Ish type event. I think we’re gonna rally towards it. I tell you this now. Don’t be surprised if the day of the having we see tons of sell off. I think a portion of it will be from people who are. Who think they are smart and they’re selling off because they think other people will sell off, but the rest of the sell off will come from Wales. And we won’t get that whale information until a week later. But I think the the. I do want to say the damage will be done. What’s going to happen is prices are probably going to move up before the having because the hype will be there. Bitcoin will probably pass by ten thousand because the hype will be there on the day of the having or the day after when the selling actually takes place. We’re gonna get tons of news, capitulation, market crash falling apart. What’s happening to bitcoin? What’s going on? Bitcoin is no longer digital gold because the prices will be going down. And then we’ll realize a week later that it was just the whales doing it. But the news will have already gotten now that bitcoin must inherently have some type of problem because the price went down after the having with people not usually realizing that is usually after the having as well when the demand still remains. And people are the people who’ve sold off their bitcoin when they tried to rebuy their bitcoin. And they realize that other people are also trying to buy their bitcoin because the reward has been say with me, cut in half and it’s not as easy to accumulate it anymore. This is what causes the price to go up. Anyway, we’ll see. The estimates that we have right now are ranging anywhere from. Fifteen thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by September or fifty thousand by the end of this year should. We keep. Tumbling economically in traditional markets. Oh, yeah. Let’s move on. Next up, the digital one will pass extensive testing by the Bank of Korea staff per the official announcement. The program will last until December. Twenty, twenty one. South Korean businesses and officials were talking about the government backstage coin since December 2018. The central bank was hiring different industry experts. The experts prepare research on the central bank, digital currency related progress in other countries. Also, they propose their own legal initiatives, too. Why? Why are words missing from this? From this? Their own legal initiatives to approve the project. Now the central bank seems to be working really closely on its digital one. Okay. The design is not the classic blockchain with open no participation do. Contrary to the classics, the central bank plans to issue a stable coin. OK, say bitcoins are better at volatility. Almost zero volatility, but worse at decentralization. I think we all got that. However, as the example of many RC 20 tokens in USD TI shows, you don’t have to attract much of the participants. You just need to engage the key ones. This this entire article makes no sense. The point is we have confirmation that the Central Bank of South Korea is apparently officially testing. Their digital currency. None of these blockchains are going to be open. I’m sorry to shock all of you. But governments are going to try to continue to maintain control over. Whatever they think they control at the moment. Yeah, that’s the that news for today. There were a couple of other countries who came out as well talking about that. They’re thinking of testing it, we know. Stop it. We know that they’re not thinking of testing it. We know that they’re testing testing it or have already created it. Probably it is looking for the most opportune time to kind of release these coins out into the wild. But I gave it five years and within five years, every country, every major economic power country should have their own central bank, digital currency as it’s just how life works. Tying directly into that one says be-I. Yes, that is the Bank for International Settlements. Researchers forecasts adoption of digital payments amid nineteen. Any what? Huge. I’m shocked. I didn’t see that one coming. This is a perfect power grab for governments to be able to implement as many things as they possibly want to do. So we are definitely at the point where this has gone on for so long that they can simply say. We’re gonna do this, we’re working on it. Yeah. Is anyone surprised that the Bank for International Settlements is talking about or thinking about or pushing some type of research about the adoption of these things? Because the b.a.’s also once capital tracking. That’s a very well known thing. Anyway, that’s. That’s your super obvious news for. Next up on Monday, crypto exchange bilats announce that it has released Hej mode on its crypto futures platform. Chung Ping saule announced the news on Twitter, he said. You asked for it. Did did they? And we had nothing else to do during the lockdown. Finance now has hedge mode. This is how Bynum’s his announcement describes hedge mode in hedge mode. Users can hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract users. Oh, that’s interesting. Users will now be able to switch between one way mode and hedge mode in the settings. But my back is killing me. Oh gosh. The position mode is set as a one way mode by default in order to be able to use HEJ mode. Users need access to the latest version of the trading interface, which is the case in mobile users means making sure they either have version 1.2 1.1 and above the Android version of Who Cares by then says that in one way mode it is possible to only hold long positions in one direction. That kind of how it’s how it works. whileiN hej mode. It is possible to hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract. I wonder if the people from buying ence. No. Maybe. Did you guys ever see. There was an episode. Oh, gosh. It’s like this is this is very layered. There was an episode of South Park where they made fun of Family Guy and it was pretty much like there was a huge fishbowl. And every single time that a joke would be made, someone would dig your hand into the fishbowl. They would kind of open it up and see whatever the joke was. It would place them all together. And that’s how. The joke would be formed. I wonder if the people from buying ads like pretty much have a fishbowl all had an idea. Throw it into the fishbowl. And every day they just kind of like announce a new one. This is now the this is the eight hundred and forty Earth Day random number that by NANCE has announce something like every day. Biogen’s has a new platform on their. Platform. Sure, go for it. If it works for them, by all means, I do tip my hat to the but is very fascinating that there’s something new every single day. I do fear for the future. However, when people lose money in hedge mode and then go to customer support and buying ads, announcing or rather saying they didn’t know how hedge mode worked and therefore they want their money back and or they’re going to try and sue by NANCE because by Nancy to make it clear that along was a long and a short was a short because that’s how. That’s how suing works now, anyway. Yeah, that’s the. Bynum’s news for the hour. I assume there’s already brand new Bynum’s news that’s come out that I haven’t even. Seen yet anyway, let’s move on. That new research from the crypto mining operation BLOCK where Solutions offers a detailed breakdown of what may happen as the highly anticipated Bitcoin having arrives. The event, which is set to occur in May, will slice less aggressive, will slice in half the Bitcoin reward that miners earn for processing transactions. Its immediate impact on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency market has been highly debated for it’s been over a year. It hasn’t been months as bids bids. It’s been more than a day. According to the report, the having is likely to trigger a shakeout before the breakout. It sounds like it was that food thing shake and bake. And so anyway, the shakeout phase could see widespread capitulation as bitcoin miners who can’t afford to pay their bills sell their bitcoin holdings. And switch off their rigs, causing the price of bitcoin to drop it down to five thousand dollars. After all, the inefficient miners who that’s rude and efficient miners have capitulated. The firm says a significant amount of these sell pressure from miners will be removed, leaving a solid backbone of strong miners who don’t need to offload their bitcoin to. In addition. BLOCK where solutions. Sorry. In addition, BLOCK where Solutions analyzes Bitcoin’s built in difficulty adjustment, which automatically rules reviews network activity and adjust how much computing power is required to process transactions. The researchers expect it is to be a key factor keeping miners in the green and ensuring that Bitcoin hits a bottom after miners have shut off capitulated. Newly mined bitcoin is allocated to the most efficient miners, which minimises cell pressure on the bitcoin market. As these miners are working or well above their break, even prices, I think a lot of these smaller operations will probably. Leave, I couldn’t find a word I was looking for something with an F flourish, flutter, fly away, flip flop, flippity elate something with an F. That was in my head. I assume these smaller mining operations will fall or fall apart. Was that it? No, it wasn’t it. Something’s going to happen to them. And I think the the big boys are going to kind of take over. This is is a tale as old as Time, Beauty and the Beast. We’re pretty much there’s always some type of a shakeout within the cryptocurrency market. I think people don’t realize that they’re being shaken out. And years later, they kind of realize that they sold off their bitcoin or they got rid of their bitcoin or something happened to them. It happens all the time. Every single major event, any type of price movement upwards, even when we have prices going back down and people sold, didn’t really know when to buy back in, could never buy the same exact amount of bitcoin that they had before. And a lot of the players who seem to be getting into the cryptocurrency space now, I think they have no real intention of ever really selling off their bitcoin and if not massive amounts of it, simply because once again, I still think the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq and Fidelity and all these other people already have mining operations. I don’t foresee them selling any bitcoin anytime in the near future. The bills would probably be paid by their other investments that are then keeping the lights on, if you will. It’s kind of all over the place. No one really knows. Of course not. No one knows exactly what’s gonna happen when the having it takes place or is near. It seems relatively believable. I think we’re definitely gonna see a lot of people who are going to complain that it’s more difficult to mine bitcoin. That’s how the having works is meant to be more difficult so that there’s a. I have to sneeze. Go away, go away, go away. OK. OK. OK. I forgot what I was saying. The point is. Yeah, some sometimes do something dramatic is going to happen. I guess that’s the easiest way to sum it up. I assume in about two weeks the news is going to be completely insane as we are very well will be. What is it, seven days away from me at that point? The news is gonna go completely ballistic. I assume assumption that prices will. Be moving on up as we get nearer. I think is just more of a question of like what happens on the day of and what happens after. They will definitely be a shake out of some sort. It will to be a shake out of minors. It’ll be a shake out of people who think that prices will go lower or to be a shake out of people who sell and then don’t realize that at some point the price is going to go back up. So get ready for friends and family members who hold Bitcoin who are going to sell and then about three years from now will keep telling you about this. One moment has to how they wish they hadn’t sold. Yeah. Let’s move on. And to finish things off and the most ironic news on this planet, the National Internet Finance Association of China, a self-regulatory body while ago figure under the People’s Bank of China, issued a warning on Thursday against the fake trading volumes reported by overseas crypto exchanges because, of course, theirs are the most trustworthy. The watchdog agency detailed that some of the digital currency platforms are taking advantage of the recent volatility of the traditional markets, creating a hype that digital assets are safer than investments in gold or silver. It’s not that they’re safer is that you make more money than having like I would have lost money if I had gotten gold. In 2012, as opposed to getting Krypto, I’d be pretty far behind on my portfolio. I think gold went from twelve. Hundred I think it’s at sixteen hundred now. Bitcoin went from two hundred to seven thousand three hundred. I would’ve lost a smidge, I would’ve lost a smidge of money. It’s just a little smidge. Is that these platforms are creating illusions of prosperity in the virtual currency trading market. Through actions such as robot program brushing and data tampering. Don’t talk about data tampering, do that. That’s too ironic. And our sampling analysis based on trading data from some of the exchanges, the daily trading turnover rate for most coins. Well, for more than 40 coins is over one hundred percent. While more than 70 coins rate exceeds 50 percent. Despite the relatively low price and small market value, there have been massive trading volumes. Without having to go much further. This is news that was everywhere, news. For some. I mean, it’s as it’s not a for some reason. We know the reason why I’m going to assumption that as. Markets around the world have felt the pressure, if you will. From not only 19 percent, say Android 19, not only from 19, but also from. You know, the economic system being garbage, like many countries, just assumed that economic prosperity would last forever, that you would simply be able to. That there would never be a hiccup in the system, another there is a, you know, couple week long hiccup. They they simply can’t deal. So I’m going to assume that as that country has control over just about everything that happens within their borders. For those of you who don’t know, please watch a documentary, watch some type of news or something. Every text, every text, every text that goes through within that country is gathered and read by the government. That’s not a joke. They have a guy that actually because they only have a couple of major platforms and all these platforms have to be approved by the government. When they’re approved by the government, they’re integrated into the government systems. And they can tell if you say something negative about the government, you are then flagged, not joking, your account gets taken down or your your social score takes a hit. So I’m going to assumption that during the last couple of weeks, as prices around the world for everything have been going down, there’s been that narrative within the country, hey, let’s look for something else that is making money. And therefore, they’ve definitely seen the letters BTC or the word bitcoin flowing through way too many text messages than they would actually care for. And this is why this data ends up coming out. Still interesting to note that Bitcoin is legal. Within China, it’s just more of a thing, you can’t trade it. You can buy over the counter once again because your data has to be collected, but you can’t actively do it on cryptocurrency exchanges. However, VPN ends and many other things do exist. So I can only imagine the amount of people in that country who are actively trading daily and are making absolute bank. I guess this is more of a. Smack to the back of the head, warning like a don’t do it. We know that you’re doing it. Stay within the lines. Don’t call her outside kind of thing, because it’s very ironic to talk about fake volumes and fake numbers because. Anyway. Yeah. China, release that information because I listen. Why else would you release that information? I’m also thinking about it. We haven’t seen any cryptocurrency ratings from from China in a while. Mm hmm. Interesting. Anyway, yeah, that’s your. How ironic news for the century E! As always. A very special thank you to my Patreon supporters, Professor Whiley from Guttenberg University, Yashar Hardy Moon Madhi Sarpy, Joshua Vinyard, Martin Steuer, Josh Gorcyca Chong on Old Song Golo Lo Love That A Biblio Phobia The Animal Reider, John Sarrazin, Mr Pickles Nostromo Bones Mining Todd Mullis Adam Grayslake Mohair Moroni Master Ventures in Thailand. ratey Neild Jan Schneider. Why Night Owl 2 for 2 to the World Krypto Jo Bankrolled Network Adobo Milanesi Krypto Artist Goldie three-D Nicholas Winner with One Piece, One Love Damien setsuna, Nick Conni or Ritchey Which the Third Vlad the Impaler, Krypton Beer Shipmate Pyxis Nick Mun, Jeanna Body. And Then You, Charles Jim Garner. Jamie Fox minting coins Miller Hitch Chest every day and Kyle skips leg day. Yes, to Krypto. What do you make? Boat face anytime. Fitness Hmongs Corner staff are medic 17. Bake me a cake. I want a cake now take a rematch I only saw on Krypto with Lino Crayola. Michelle, you are Elle and hold on. I have to sneeze. Thank you all very, very much for your support and thank you to everyone who is a supporter of the channel. Click the little join button below and thank you to everyone who used my Amazon affiliate link. That was that was crazy. Thank you all. Yeah. I cannot say thank you enough. I could, but it would it would add like another hour to the video to just be kind of awkward after the three hundredth time I said it at the moment. The market is up, it’s upper than when I first started, it was around here. This was the dip I was talking about. For those of you now looking at the screen, just imagine a dip in your mind. And now the dip is like half on dipped as prices seem to be going back up. Cerium is up by fifteen point nine three percent, e.t.c. is up by 4.5 percent. Ex Arpey is up by 8.2 percent. Litecoin is up by 10. iOS is up by 13 percent. These are great numbers to see. The wider cryptocurrency market, of course, as you might imagine, is also up as well. And nothing is up by like eight hundred ninety five percent. I’m sure there’s some scam coin in the 2, 3, 400 range. That’s kind of. Retain Thor is also up by like a like an up up. Yeah. It’s nice to see. I think that crypto is constantly average. Let me rephrase that. I feel like a lot of coins within the top 10 are very. And it’s empty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Top ten are undervalued, specifically some of the higher ones. And it’s nice to see not them being. I think they’re still heavily undervalued but. I don’t know how I’m trying to end this. The point is prices are up. It looks really good. I assume that we will continue on this upward trajectory as we move closer to the having. But do expect. Prices to drop. There are always going to be good and bad, Weill’s good and bad actors are going to be people who want to lower the prices of cryptocurrency. Even if you may be having a good old jolly time because they may think that prices are I. I can feel it with an hour to when everyone else starts waking up, I’m going to start getting the news. So many people think that the market is over overbought and that prices have to go down. I don’t get it. I don’t think I want to get it. I only want to know these people. I don’t. I don’t see that negativity in my life. I hope you all enjoyed. Hope you all are having a great day. A great morning. A great afternoon. A great evening. Wherever you are, wherever you might be. I do hope that is absolutely faith. Fantastic. Thank you all once again for watching and or listening. And I will most certainly. Be talking to you all soon. See you.

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Bitcoin Rallies Higher, Binance Bullish, XRP Resistance, Bold BTC Forecast & Ironic News Of The Day

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. Welcome back for another video. Hope you’re all doing well and that you’re all having an incredible day. To start things off, going closed the week up 15 per cent at sixty seven seventy five. And I started the day with a further six percent move to the upside, reaching the seven thousand dollar mark, making highs of seventy three hundred actually moved a little bit further than that over the last couple of hours. Looking at performance relative to its peers, Ether and iOS have posted an impressive 16 percent gain over the past 24 hours. As a result, Bitcoin’s dominance is down by 1.5 percent and is currently roughly around sixty five percent as well. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization breached 200 billion dollars, breaking from the diagonal resistance during late February when the total market value briefly touched three hundred billion U. S dollars. As you might imagine, there is a lot of optimism floating around the cryptocurrency space right now. A lot of people are happy that bitcoin passed by seven thousand. No real reason as to why it should have been below 7000, just my personal opinion. However, we are at the point right now. So the price is actually down a little bit. It was actually around seventy five or fifty seventy five hundred maybe about an hour or two ago is always that big run up like a little dip because everyone gets. Oh is this is it, is it, is it getting too hot. That’s kind of where we are right now. And now the big question is, are we going to start to move towards eight thousand, apparently, take this how you will. According to many articles, they say that if we do pass eight thousand, this will be an indication of a bull market or a hyper bullish sentiment that has once again re-entered the market. I already think it’s their personal opinion. I think the only thing that’s really holding us back are people who are either trying to still accumulate, which I think can maybe go on persistently forever, as people are always trying to get to more of an asset that they believe is undervalued and or I don’t know. Many factors could lead us back over that eight thousand. But I assume assumption that what’s holding us back is mainly people who are trying to keep the price down, like I mentioned before. We’ve had situations. I told you all this before a couple of months ago in 2017 when I saw all the coins like really, really pumping. And you would look at the charts like the actual like our buy our charts any time we passed any. Let’s say this line is a point of resistance if we got near it. These sell orders would multiply immediately, trying to push the price down as far as possible. But the moment it broke here, it would slam over that level. All the all the positions would get liquidated and the price would kind of shoot back up. So who knows what will happen. But it appears that we are aiming for eight thousand dollars during this week. I think we can do it. I think there’s nothing really holding us back once again except for the aggressively rich who are trying to make sure that prices remain low, as you might imagine as well. The wider cryptocurrency space also benefited from prices, or at least the price of bitcoin rising. Everything else is moving and not even in tandem. I think bitcoin rose by four or five percent and at the same exact time I think ether shot up by like 20 percent. So yeah, you might imagine as as finance coin turns bullish and rises above fifteen SRP retreats from key resistance, but bulls are comfortable. I think we passed by 20 cents and a half or something like that last night. Prices are like I said, like a smidge down. That’s only because it was a bit of a pullback because I assume I think Asian markets should just be waking up and also or have already woken up. And also, you know, things can’t get too hard if we if we do have an increase in about 38 percent in a day and a half or prices are going to move back. So I’d rather have a steady five or six percent a day, if you will, steady as opposed to a one huge explosive movement over the course of a day. But yeah, prices are looking good. And without further price ado, let’s move on. Next up, Morgan Creek co-founder Jason Williams is extremely bullish on Bitcoin. He expects the world’s leading cryptocurrency to turn in a spectacular performance in 2020, despite the economic turmoil that has rocked nearly every industry as number 19 continues to be a douchebag. The executive of the digital asset management firm says he believes that the top 19. But looking at the number again, that’s a tough look. Feel like my my mind finished a sentence up here believes that the top crypto currency was open or so passe. Wow. Surpassed its all time high. Okay, I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. Passes all time high of twenty thousand dollars in September. He said the world is trading bitcoin. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. New all time high coming in September of this year, IMO. Oh, no, sorry. That’s I M0. That’s in my opinion, it’s really funny. I have a friend who also just outed daytrading. Hello to you. And he was reveling at the fact that the cryptocurrency market is 24/7 because I have a CO I have another friend who also is thinking about getting it to stock. I mean, just get into something, get into something where you can invest in kind of make money. And my friend, one friend was like, oh yeah, I’m glad that the stock market kind of closes. And the other friend was like, it’s open 24 hours. I could just keep trading all the time. In spite of the overall optimism, William says he’s actually bearish in the short term and doesn’t think Bitcoin will rally until after the having event, which is set to happen in May when the amount of bitcoin that miners earn from powering the network is cut in half. William says he thinks many may be forced to sell their bitcoin holdings to keep the lights on, creating an opportunity for investors. Most think Bitcoin is going to rip before and during the having. I just scratch my head. I think it could go even lower due to minor capitulation and sell pressure. I hold and come in with fresh capital opportunistically. That doesn’t work for everyone, but is just my personal strategy. I don’t I don’t get shit or whatever. Although Williams thinks bitcoin will take out twenty thousand this year. Other traders do not share his ultra I don’t think 20. I don’t think twenty thousand is ultra bullish. I’m seeing people calling for a a seventy eighty thousand dollar bitcoin by December. I think that is that’s a that’s a herd of bulls right there I think. Twenty thousand I think even fifteen thousand is relatively believable. I think my opinion. I think so many people get used to the idea that because we move up, that we have to move down. If the price moves up too fast, that the price has to go back down just as fast as well. For some reason, there’s this very weird negative sentiment cloud over the cryptocurrency space. Not exactly sure winning got started. Why it’s still here. I think it just has to do with the analysts who whenever, whenever, whenever cryptocurrency prices go up, they make sure to rush to read it in Twitter, to tell everyone that it’s getting too hot. Like I had to I was dodging bullets earlier from all the articles saying that just just just just buy bitcoin going up by 5 percent. That that was already too much, which is nonsense. Once again, fundamentals all there. We know that there are certain mining station, computer, whatever, who are reeling back a tiny bit, their amount of. Hash power when it comes to bitcoin network. But that doesn’t equate to Bitcoin should be dropping down to three thousand because Tone vegas’ was someone else says so anyway. Especially with the amount of wheat, we keep getting news all the time that there are billions of dollars being pushed into the market, whether that be OPEC or simply other people who have just started trading or buying up as much cryptocurrency as possible. I know a couple of people. Who are very close to one entire Bitcoin, and I’m certain I know they they they think they won’t, but I know they will. They’re going to keep accumulating after they get that entire one Bitcoin. But it also leads us to the question or rather to the statement, there’s not a lot of bitcoin really floating around out there. So any type of negative news that we get. I kind of just really brush it away. I’ve heard it for so many years, even from many other cryptocurrency analysts years ago when Bitcoin’s price was two hundred. Yeah. Bitcoin is going to fall back down to 50 and the bitcoin hits a thousand. And there lie wall. It’s about the price just looks too hot. It looks like an oven. And then bitcoin goes to like 5000 a day like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s it’s going back to nine hundred. So we’re always gonna get people who. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what their fascination is with trying to negatively call numbers within the cryptocurrency space, but it just creates this really weird cloud. If Bitcoin goes up, it’s fine. Like if Bitcoin goes up by 80 percent in a day, that’s an indication that things have gotten too hype. Things are too hot. But if we have these movements up slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, it’s totally fine. Like Bitcoin fell down to three thousand five hundred because we knew that Wales sold. We all had that information. So for Bitcoin to go back to where it was before the sell off and maybe six, seven, eight hundred dollars more over the course of the last four or five weeks is totally fine, especially when we know that the supply is about to get cut in half. Anyway, the point is there is still a vast amount of optimism within the market, but a lot of the discussion is now because of everything going on within world markets. And I guess even the the falsified drop that we had a couple of weeks ago in the cryptocurrency market is if Bitcoin is going to rally before, during and after a day like a finger movement with that kind of weird after the having or before the having actually takes place. I think no one knows. It’s kind of even as to exactly what people think. I personally believe we’re going to see a move upward as we get closer to it because the hype will be there. To be fair, light coin rallied before it’s having as did other coin who also had a similar having. Ish type event. I think we’re gonna rally towards it. I tell you this now. Don’t be surprised if the day of the having we see tons of sell off. I think a portion of it will be from people who are. Who think they are smart and they’re selling off because they think other people will sell off, but the rest of the sell off will come from Wales. And we won’t get that whale information until a week later. But I think the the. I do want to say the damage will be done. What’s going to happen is prices are probably going to move up before the having because the hype will be there. Bitcoin will probably pass by ten thousand because the hype will be there on the day of the having or the day after when the selling actually takes place. We’re gonna get tons of news, capitulation, market crash falling apart. What’s happening to bitcoin? What’s going on? Bitcoin is no longer digital gold because the prices will be going down. And then we’ll realize a week later that it was just the whales doing it. But the news will have already gotten now that bitcoin must inherently have some type of problem because the price went down after the having with people not usually realizing that is usually after the having as well when the demand still remains. And people are the people who’ve sold off their bitcoin when they tried to rebuy their bitcoin. And they realize that other people are also trying to buy their bitcoin because the reward has been say with me, cut in half and it’s not as easy to accumulate it anymore. This is what causes the price to go up. Anyway, we’ll see. The estimates that we have right now are ranging anywhere from. Fifteen thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by the end of this year. Twenty thousand by September or fifty thousand by the end of this year should. We keep. Tumbling economically in traditional markets. Oh, yeah. Let’s move on. Next up, the digital one will pass extensive testing by the Bank of Korea staff per the official announcement. The program will last until December. Twenty, twenty one. South Korean businesses and officials were talking about the government backstage coin since December 2018. The central bank was hiring different industry experts. The experts prepare research on the central bank, digital currency related progress in other countries. Also, they propose their own legal initiatives, too. Why? Why are words missing from this? From this? Their own legal initiatives to approve the project. Now the central bank seems to be working really closely on its digital one. Okay. The design is not the classic blockchain with open no participation do. Contrary to the classics, the central bank plans to issue a stable coin. OK, say bitcoins are better at volatility. Almost zero volatility, but worse at decentralization. I think we all got that. However, as the example of many RC 20 tokens in USD TI shows, you don’t have to attract much of the participants. You just need to engage the key ones. This this entire article makes no sense. The point is we have confirmation that the Central Bank of South Korea is apparently officially testing. Their digital currency. None of these blockchains are going to be open. I’m sorry to shock all of you. But governments are going to try to continue to maintain control over. Whatever they think they control at the moment. Yeah, that’s the that news for today. There were a couple of other countries who came out as well talking about that. They’re thinking of testing it, we know. Stop it. We know that they’re not thinking of testing it. We know that they’re testing testing it or have already created it. Probably it is looking for the most opportune time to kind of release these coins out into the wild. But I gave it five years and within five years, every country, every major economic power country should have their own central bank, digital currency as it’s just how life works. Tying directly into that one says be-I. Yes, that is the Bank for International Settlements. Researchers forecasts adoption of digital payments amid nineteen. Any what? Huge. I’m shocked. I didn’t see that one coming. This is a perfect power grab for governments to be able to implement as many things as they possibly want to do. So we are definitely at the point where this has gone on for so long that they can simply say. We’re gonna do this, we’re working on it. Yeah. Is anyone surprised that the Bank for International Settlements is talking about or thinking about or pushing some type of research about the adoption of these things? Because the b.a.’s also once capital tracking. That’s a very well known thing. Anyway, that’s. That’s your super obvious news for. Next up on Monday, crypto exchange bilats announce that it has released Hej mode on its crypto futures platform. Chung Ping saule announced the news on Twitter, he said. You asked for it. Did did they? And we had nothing else to do during the lockdown. Finance now has hedge mode. This is how Bynum’s his announcement describes hedge mode in hedge mode. Users can hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract users. Oh, that’s interesting. Users will now be able to switch between one way mode and hedge mode in the settings. But my back is killing me. Oh gosh. The position mode is set as a one way mode by default in order to be able to use HEJ mode. Users need access to the latest version of the trading interface, which is the case in mobile users means making sure they either have version 1.2 1.1 and above the Android version of Who Cares by then says that in one way mode it is possible to only hold long positions in one direction. That kind of how it’s how it works. whileiN hej mode. It is possible to hold positions in both long and short directions at the same time under the same contract. I wonder if the people from buying ence. No. Maybe. Did you guys ever see. There was an episode. Oh, gosh. It’s like this is this is very layered. There was an episode of South Park where they made fun of Family Guy and it was pretty much like there was a huge fishbowl. And every single time that a joke would be made, someone would dig your hand into the fishbowl. They would kind of open it up and see whatever the joke was. It would place them all together. And that’s how. The joke would be formed. I wonder if the people from buying ads like pretty much have a fishbowl all had an idea. Throw it into the fishbowl. And every day they just kind of like announce a new one. This is now the this is the eight hundred and forty Earth Day random number that by NANCE has announce something like every day. Biogen’s has a new platform on their. Platform. Sure, go for it. If it works for them, by all means, I do tip my hat to the but is very fascinating that there’s something new every single day. I do fear for the future. However, when people lose money in hedge mode and then go to customer support and buying ads, announcing or rather saying they didn’t know how hedge mode worked and therefore they want their money back and or they’re going to try and sue by NANCE because by Nancy to make it clear that along was a long and a short was a short because that’s how. That’s how suing works now, anyway. Yeah, that’s the. Bynum’s news for the hour. I assume there’s already brand new Bynum’s news that’s come out that I haven’t even. Seen yet anyway, let’s move on. That new research from the crypto mining operation BLOCK where Solutions offers a detailed breakdown of what may happen as the highly anticipated Bitcoin having arrives. The event, which is set to occur in May, will slice less aggressive, will slice in half the Bitcoin reward that miners earn for processing transactions. Its immediate impact on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency market has been highly debated for it’s been over a year. It hasn’t been months as bids bids. It’s been more than a day. According to the report, the having is likely to trigger a shakeout before the breakout. It sounds like it was that food thing shake and bake. And so anyway, the shakeout phase could see widespread capitulation as bitcoin miners who can’t afford to pay their bills sell their bitcoin holdings. And switch off their rigs, causing the price of bitcoin to drop it down to five thousand dollars. After all, the inefficient miners who that’s rude and efficient miners have capitulated. The firm says a significant amount of these sell pressure from miners will be removed, leaving a solid backbone of strong miners who don’t need to offload their bitcoin to. In addition. BLOCK where solutions. Sorry. In addition, BLOCK where Solutions analyzes Bitcoin’s built in difficulty adjustment, which automatically rules reviews network activity and adjust how much computing power is required to process transactions. The researchers expect it is to be a key factor keeping miners in the green and ensuring that Bitcoin hits a bottom after miners have shut off capitulated. Newly mined bitcoin is allocated to the most efficient miners, which minimises cell pressure on the bitcoin market. As these miners are working or well above their break, even prices, I think a lot of these smaller operations will probably. Leave, I couldn’t find a word I was looking for something with an F flourish, flutter, fly away, flip flop, flippity elate something with an F. That was in my head. I assume these smaller mining operations will fall or fall apart. Was that it? No, it wasn’t it. Something’s going to happen to them. And I think the the big boys are going to kind of take over. This is is a tale as old as Time, Beauty and the Beast. We’re pretty much there’s always some type of a shakeout within the cryptocurrency market. I think people don’t realize that they’re being shaken out. And years later, they kind of realize that they sold off their bitcoin or they got rid of their bitcoin or something happened to them. It happens all the time. Every single major event, any type of price movement upwards, even when we have prices going back down and people sold, didn’t really know when to buy back in, could never buy the same exact amount of bitcoin that they had before. And a lot of the players who seem to be getting into the cryptocurrency space now, I think they have no real intention of ever really selling off their bitcoin and if not massive amounts of it, simply because once again, I still think the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq and Fidelity and all these other people already have mining operations. I don’t foresee them selling any bitcoin anytime in the near future. The bills would probably be paid by their other investments that are then keeping the lights on, if you will. It’s kind of all over the place. No one really knows. Of course not. No one knows exactly what’s gonna happen when the having it takes place or is near. It seems relatively believable. I think we’re definitely gonna see a lot of people who are going to complain that it’s more difficult to mine bitcoin. That’s how the having works is meant to be more difficult so that there’s a. I have to sneeze. Go away, go away, go away. OK. OK. OK. I forgot what I was saying. The point is. Yeah, some sometimes do something dramatic is going to happen. I guess that’s the easiest way to sum it up. I assume in about two weeks the news is going to be completely insane as we are very well will be. What is it, seven days away from me at that point? The news is gonna go completely ballistic. I assume assumption that prices will. Be moving on up as we get nearer. I think is just more of a question of like what happens on the day of and what happens after. They will definitely be a shake out of some sort. It will to be a shake out of minors. It’ll be a shake out of people who think that prices will go lower or to be a shake out of people who sell and then don’t realize that at some point the price is going to go back up. So get ready for friends and family members who hold Bitcoin who are going to sell and then about three years from now will keep telling you about this. One moment has to how they wish they hadn’t sold. Yeah. Let’s move on. And to finish things off and the most ironic news on this planet, the National Internet Finance Association of China, a self-regulatory body while ago figure under the People’s Bank of China, issued a warning on Thursday against the fake trading volumes reported by overseas crypto exchanges because, of course, theirs are the most trustworthy. The watchdog agency detailed that some of the digital currency platforms are taking advantage of the recent volatility of the traditional markets, creating a hype that digital assets are safer than investments in gold or silver. It’s not that they’re safer is that you make more money than having like I would have lost money if I had gotten gold. In 2012, as opposed to getting Krypto, I’d be pretty far behind on my portfolio. I think gold went from twelve. Hundred I think it’s at sixteen hundred now. Bitcoin went from two hundred to seven thousand three hundred. I would’ve lost a smidge, I would’ve lost a smidge of money. It’s just a little smidge. Is that these platforms are creating illusions of prosperity in the virtual currency trading market. Through actions such as robot program brushing and data tampering. Don’t talk about data tampering, do that. That’s too ironic. And our sampling analysis based on trading data from some of the exchanges, the daily trading turnover rate for most coins. Well, for more than 40 coins is over one hundred percent. While more than 70 coins rate exceeds 50 percent. Despite the relatively low price and small market value, there have been massive trading volumes. Without having to go much further. This is news that was everywhere, news. For some. I mean, it’s as it’s not a for some reason. We know the reason why I’m going to assumption that as. Markets around the world have felt the pressure, if you will. From not only 19 percent, say Android 19, not only from 19, but also from. You know, the economic system being garbage, like many countries, just assumed that economic prosperity would last forever, that you would simply be able to. That there would never be a hiccup in the system, another there is a, you know, couple week long hiccup. They they simply can’t deal. So I’m going to assume that as that country has control over just about everything that happens within their borders. For those of you who don’t know, please watch a documentary, watch some type of news or something. Every text, every text, every text that goes through within that country is gathered and read by the government. That’s not a joke. They have a guy that actually because they only have a couple of major platforms and all these platforms have to be approved by the government. When they’re approved by the government, they’re integrated into the government systems. And they can tell if you say something negative about the government, you are then flagged, not joking, your account gets taken down or your your social score takes a hit. So I’m going to assumption that during the last couple of weeks, as prices around the world for everything have been going down, there’s been that narrative within the country, hey, let’s look for something else that is making money. And therefore, they’ve definitely seen the letters BTC or the word bitcoin flowing through way too many text messages than they would actually care for. And this is why this data ends up coming out. Still interesting to note that Bitcoin is legal. Within China, it’s just more of a thing, you can’t trade it. You can buy over the counter once again because your data has to be collected, but you can’t actively do it on cryptocurrency exchanges. However, VPN ends and many other things do exist. So I can only imagine the amount of people in that country who are actively trading daily and are making absolute bank. I guess this is more of a. Smack to the back of the head, warning like a don’t do it. We know that you’re doing it. Stay within the lines. Don’t call her outside kind of thing, because it’s very ironic to talk about fake volumes and fake numbers because. Anyway. Yeah. China, release that information because I listen. Why else would you release that information? I’m also thinking about it. We haven’t seen any cryptocurrency ratings from from China in a while. Mm hmm. Interesting. Anyway, yeah, that’s your. How ironic news for the century E! As always. 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I have to sneeze. Thank you all very, very much for your support and thank you to everyone who is a supporter of the channel. Click the little join button below and thank you to everyone who used my Amazon affiliate link. That was that was crazy. Thank you all. Yeah. I cannot say thank you enough. I could, but it would it would add like another hour to the video to just be kind of awkward after the three hundredth time I said it at the moment. The market is up, it’s upper than when I first started, it was around here. This was the dip I was talking about. For those of you now looking at the screen, just imagine a dip in your mind. And now the dip is like half on dipped as prices seem to be going back up. Cerium is up by fifteen point nine three percent, e.t.c. is up by 4.5 percent. Ex Arpey is up by 8.2 percent. Litecoin is up by 10. iOS is up by 13 percent. These are great numbers to see. The wider cryptocurrency market, of course, as you might imagine, is also up as well. And nothing is up by like eight hundred ninety five percent. I’m sure there’s some scam coin in the 2, 3, 400 range. That’s kind of. Retain Thor is also up by like a like an up up. Yeah. It’s nice to see. I think that crypto is constantly average. Let me rephrase that. I feel like a lot of coins within the top 10 are very. And it’s empty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Top ten are undervalued, specifically some of the higher ones. And it’s nice to see not them being. I think they’re still heavily undervalued but. I don’t know how I’m trying to end this. The point is prices are up. It looks really good. I assume that we will continue on this upward trajectory as we move closer to the having. But do expect. Prices to drop. There are always going to be good and bad, Weill’s good and bad actors are going to be people who want to lower the prices of cryptocurrency. Even if you may be having a good old jolly time because they may think that prices are I. I can feel it with an hour to when everyone else starts waking up, I’m going to start getting the news. So many people think that the market is over overbought and that prices have to go down. I don’t get it. I don’t think I want to get it. I only want to know these people. I don’t. I don’t see that negativity in my life. I hope you all enjoyed. Hope you all are having a great day. A great morning. A great afternoon. A great evening. Wherever you are, wherever you might be. I do hope that is absolutely faith. Fantastic. Thank you all once again for watching and or listening. And I will most certainly. Be talking to you all soon. See you.

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