Internet: Samsung wont let you install firmware if it isnt from its IMEI region (it wont work, bootloop, etc)

My mom's phone, somehow with chinese firmware and a korean IMEI:

has something happened, Cara? did i miss something? sofia stunt as in sofia the scandinavian girl everybody forgot about? is she back? what has asia to do with that stunt? totally agree that louis' career would only benefit if there were some women in his team but i'm really confused about what exactly you're talking about now. have a lovely weekend!

Hi!

Oh my comment was set off by the AFHF announcement, and the subsequent detective rabbithole everyone went down trying to figure out where it will be this year, and loads of people saying Mexico bc of the cacti in the picture plus that Mexican promoter account tweeting and deleting AFHF recently. I got riled up about how badly they failed last year for AFHF, how we could tell right from when they announced it (quite late) to then being there and seeing how they only sold 2/3 of tickets and not even everyone showed up. They had to cut back massively on staff (one of the reasons why entry was handled so badly and why they didn’t have enough staff to hand out the wristbands), and how they absolutely need to have a (financial) success with this year‘s AFHF in order to not have the whole festival get jeopardised and maybe cancelled. And that led to me talking about the root problem of the team being just men, and then listing examples of their recent fuck ups that very likely wouldn’t have happened that way if they had a woman on their team they‘d listen to once in a while, like for example the Sofia stunt. I guarantee you that no man on that team even thought about the fact that in 2023, with a majorly queer, feminist female fanbase that huge age gap could be problematic for Louis‘ image with his fans, because men in general don’t think about much younger women being with older men as problematic at all. They dropped her like hot iron *after* the backlash from all sides. Then they didn’t handle communication well when they cancelled Asia at all. Like. At all.

For AFHF, I understand that Mexican fans are super passionate but I already gotten many messages by latam fans saying even though living in Mexico City they wouldn’t be able to afford it. I don’t think it’ll be in Mexico, they really need to be in the black numbers for this year‘s AFHF, so they need it to be accessible to fans with strong financial powers. Europe has the majority of louis‘ fandom with strong financial power, and logistically it would be crazy to fly back and forth about 16-18 hours between European festivals for AFHF, if he could do it in Europe again.

If he keeps it in a similar time frame (august) as the past (although he’s already had the first announcement two months earlier than usually), there’s only the last July or last August weekend (going into September) available.

A friend actually sent me the Ponte de Segura bridge that looks a lot like the viaduct used in the picture, and it’s right at the border of Portugal to Spain. End of July he’s got two festivals in Portugal and Spain, and he could easily oversee the set up during the week between those two.

There’s also huge festival grounds 20 minutes from that bridge, that usually hosts the BOOM festival, but only every other year - meaning that July weekend is free for 2024 and the infrastructure for the festival has been well established (since 1997) with shuttles, vendors, camp sites, stage infrastructures… it looks really great.

The thing that still got me entertaining Mexico as a possibility is the cacti that have been edited in, that mostly only grow in South America, and the Mexican promoter.

Anyways, tell me louis wouldn’t go for this?? The shore, the lake, the rocks, the surroundings, the heat??

Anyways the real clowning begins if you imagine louis launches AFHF to be TWO days by having Niall headline the first day… that would certainly draw the necessary crowds and they’re already doing a bit of the festival run together this summer 🤡🤪

It’s not easy for some queer/lgbt+ people to be able to go out and live the queer experience in person but what needs to be clear is that external queer spaces vs internal queer places are two different experiences inside our community, and those who live not having online discourse on Twitter or Tumblr over who’s more valid or what’s correct to identify as, most of the time, don’t care. I was so chronically online years ago that I got into silly debates that in the end never existed in real life situations. I ended up having constant hiatuses on Tumblr or Facebook because of how mentally draining it was to be fighting for situations that most of the time do not happen in person. Then I realized that there’s situations that needed more visibility of.

For instance, did you know trans masculine people in latin america have a higher chance of committing suicide before their 30s? One of the examples would be of a black Brazilian trans man, Demétrio Campos, was an activist who committed suicide on May 16th of 2020, because of social injustice towards the lack of opportunities he had from being black and transgender, many times also denying mental health services towards his well being.

Did you know that Argentina is the only country in the continent that has won the legalization to having a non binary ID? Being the first country to legalize this in all of LATAM.

Did you know that just a few months ago, a trans man named Estéfano González , was wrongfully sent to jail because he defended himself from being murdered in the streets with his girlfriend while the attacker kept shouting transphobic AND lesbophobic comments towards him even though he does not identify as lesbian?

Did you know there is no law in Chile that protects trans people who have the right to labor?

Did you know that Tehuel de la Torre, a trans masc in Argentina, was forcefully disappeared after he went to a job interview in 2021, and to this day the police hasn’t done proper investigations and closed the case saying he passed away when there is no body to be found?

And in another occasion, a few years ago another trans masc (Santiago Cancinos), again, in Argentina, was made to be off the radar, the police not helping this trans male whatsoever, just to find out approx 4 years later that the remaining parts of his body was found deep in a hole just a few meters away from his home?

Two Peruvian trans men went to celebrate their honey moon In Bali this year, both were detained by security airport, because of “supposedly having illegal substances in their luggages”. They were brutally beat up in their cells, to the point one of them died because of the attacks. Leaving the newly wed male, becoming a widowed individual in just short time.

This is what’s happening in Latin America towards trans mascs and men but the internet is so focused in the experiences of trans mascs in countries like the USA, or countries that are in Europe. The trans experience, in this case trans masc experience, is NOT the same in every country. As a trans masc living in Chile, it’s very frustrating to see that many comrades typing from their homes, in a first world country, dare to criticize our experiences saying that our privilege is the same as theirs. I invite you to acknowledge our pain and re-think that not everything is centered around countries that is socially looked as more important than others. Please take your time translating the articles I cited, because my job informing is sufficient. I’m not debating with someone that invalidates trans experiences from my continent. Thank you, and you’re welcome from your angry sudaca.

The suicide of Demétrio Campos (Brasil): https://www.hypeness.com.br/2020/06/mae-de-demetrio-campos-fala-como-a-alegria-de-viver-do-filho-foi-abreviada-pelo-racismo-e-transfobia/

Legalization of the non binary identification in Argentina: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/22/argentina-recognizes-non-binary-identities

The wrongful incarceration of Estéfano González (Chile):

https://www.eldesconcierto.cl/reportajes/2022/06/27/el-caso-de-estefano-el-joven-trans-encarcelado-por-homicidio-y-que-clama-legitima-defensa.html/amp/

No law that protects trans people from working in private establishments in Chile: https://www.latercera.com/paula/inclusion-laboral-trans-una-deuda-pendiente/?outputType=amp

The disappearance of Tehuel de la Torre (Argentina): https://agenciapresentes.org/2022/02/11/donde-esta-tehuel-a-11-meses-de-su-desaparicion-las-organizaciones-reclaman-justicia/

The disappearance of Santiago Cancinos (Argentina):

https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/policiales/2021/07/01/que-revelaron-las-pericias-al-cuerpo-de-santiago-cancinos-el-adolescente-trans-desaparecido-hace-4-anos-en-salta/?outputType=amp-type

The murder of Rodrigo Ventocilla and mourning husband, Sebastián Marallano (Perú): https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-62683218

I apologize in advance if this comes across as offensive in any way!!! (And apologies for my basic English)

After saying the first thing, uhm,,, is saying all this about the war and the crimes surrounding it really going to help? The war has been going on for decades, many spoke and practically no one cared... I don't think talking about this is bad, that's too extreme,, it just seems to me that it will end up forgotten like dozens of other things (Mexican drug trafficking, Venezuelan crisis, attacks on civilians in Colombia, Chilean social movement, etc). And perhaps my examples are not the best because I am from Latam, but in Latam the problems *usually* have more space on television than countries with English speakers,, I really don't see anything wrong with talking about this, I just don't see the purpose anymore, because I can't contribute a single grain of sand.

It may be that I perceive it this way due to personal factors (I partially lost the vision in one eye due to the attack by the police in my country, missing relatives and more, really more) But because of everything I've been through and I've seen the people I know go through, I just don't see any way to help, not just by talking or writing, no one can do it alone from their chair or the comfort of your home, You can only do it by committing yourself and achieving much more, in my case, that meant partially losing my vision... Sorry I aired some things, but I really want to know someone else's opinion on this.

Ah, alright, I understand your view on this. My condolences for your experiences. It must've been difficult and I too might share the same views if I were in your position.

Yes, I agree it would be far more helpful if you could do something more substantial for the people. If it were any other case, I would've been more than happy to donate money to support Palestine. (Trust me, I tried to look for local organisations that would support the people in Gaza but only found news articles)

However, Israel is bombing humanitarian aid. They threatened Egypt that they would bomb the trucks they sent to help evacuate the people in Gaza. They're essentially trapped with no food or water.

I'm simply doing this because I believe part of my duty and responsibility as a person, a human being, is to understand our history and bear witness to it.

We mustn't allow Israel to rewrite history by believing their lies and propaganda.

This can only happen if we make this information of what's truly going on spread like wildfire.

It's easy to feel helpless and hopeless but I am a firm believer that giving up and becoming apathetic is what helps these evils prevail. Nothing will change if everyone stopped learning, stopped trying to help, stopped caring. So why not try to help, even in the smallest of ways?

a few things

I don’t think it’s fair to say she didn’t communicate with joe. it’s very clear to me that they worked through whatever issues they had in 2021, but they kept coming up. ‘you say I don’t understand, and I say I know you don’t’ kind of implies she told him SOMETHING, and he failed to understand. this aligns with him being blindsided by the breakup, because he still didn’t expect her to end it.

I’ve heard the email thing from many different sources that have nothing in common with each other, and it makes sense timeline wise so at this point I believe it.

taylor def wasn’t seeing matty in april. did she flirt with him at his show in January? maybe, sure. timeline-wise, there’s no time when they were in the same place at the same time for long enough between january and the nashville shows in may for that to be the case. he was touring latam, southeast asia, and australia between march 18 and may 4. the tour dates are not spread out enough for travel back to the states to be plausible during this time. it just makes no sense for her to have left joe for matty when they weren’t in the same place at all geographically.

"it just makes no sense for her to have left joe for matty when they weren’t in the same place at all geographically" - so wait a second you believe she broke up with her actual live in partner of six and a half years VIA EMAIL (and no like the sources in different places have in my experience always tracked back to "friends of Pat's at NYU on the platform formerly known as Twitter" and I find that very weird lol as a source - if something that utterly bizarre - like genuinely unheard of in normal people society - had happened and it was that easy to prove then I'm willing to bet actual money that The Sun would've covered it and yet they... didn't... so clearly no person The Sun considers reliable has ever said it lol) but you don't believe she did it in large part because she was talking to someone else because the someone else in question was on tour???? Also we know for a fact that they recorded together for Midnights at some point and there was the thing about them spending Halloween together idk I've never suggested a steamy physical affair but obviously they were actively in touch because then they started saying "I love you" publicly lol? You think she needed to physically be with Matty to want to be with him but she broke up with, again, her LIVE IN PARTNER OF SIX AND A HALF YEARS remotely but yet she couldn't talk to Matty remotely?

Also I can for sure believe emails were exchanged in terms of division of stuff and logistics and shit because that's probably easier than trying to do all of that in person (especially since logistics in their case must've been hella difficult since he had stuff in like six geographically dispersed places he would've needed to collect or had sent to him) but obviously she didn't end it purely via email lol that would be literally unheard of. No one has ever done that lol unless perhaps it's an abusive situation and it's not safe to see the person/talk to them and this clearly wasn't like that??

re whether or not she communicated and especially how well like idk dude we weren't there and no one except the two of them would know how well they felt they were communicating. That's the other thing here like communication is subjective. Per the line you chose in the song, he apparently seemed to her not to entirely understand what he was doing wrong lol (he might've been gaslighting lmfao idk I don't live in his head and again neither does she) and for her trying over and over to sort shit out and make it work eventually just became too hard. Sad but like alack alas that's life sometimes (very often actually) shit just doesn't work out. Again, all I'm saying is there are multiple sides to a story. She obviously felt justified doing whatever it was she did but I'm sure he had his own version of what was going down.

Smallish update because I’ve seen some missunderstandigns going on.

Ok, so yesterday was a day. 

I am still reeling of a lot of it, which is why I have not been able to do a transcription of the panel (although the ones I’ve reblogged, made by other people, are very accurate and their only “fault” is not being in my head to know why I had some troubles translating Guillermo’s long answers as he spoke too quickly and too passionately so I had to paraphrase rather than translate literally as I did with the shorter answers, and at some points, I admit my short term memory may have failed me)

I am trying to get the panel off the facebook page to put it on my youtube (With permission from Harlecon’s organizer, Harleyquinnarts, whom you should all follow in Instagram and follow Harlecon on facebook because she’s amazing and made this possible by giving us the space to have the panel. BTW, I have heard that there IS a version already on youtube? If it is, please, please, please, put a link back to Harlecon on it, yes? These small cons deserve all our support)

I am ALSO trying to contact Adrian Fogarty, the dubbing director (NOT the translator, as some people are mis-reporting) who is, in the end, the one who has the answers as to where the hell the “Me too” came from.

Which is the missreporting I;ve seen going around, and which I need to adress.

During the panel, Mr. Rojas went from talking about the “Original” Script to the “DUB” Original Script without making it obvious that there was a different. Understand, for MOST actors, when they talk about the Original Script, they’re NOT talking about the Original English Script. They don’t get that. They get the Original TRANSLATED script, which can be then FURTHER changed by them or the director in order to fit cadence, and lip sync. 

And yes, we come again to my old nemesis, lip sync.

So he said that the original script said “Me Too”, as a reply to Cas’s “I love you”, and THEN Alejandro Fogarty, who has a TON of experience adapting on the fly, and is a very respected dubbing director, changed it to “And I you,Cas” because it fit better Dean’s lip movements.

This DOESN’T mean that Fogarty ADDED the Me Too. IT WAS on the Original DUB Script that Guillermo was reading.

He said that Dean didn’t reciprocate Castiel’s words too, but that was AFTER he said he didn’t HEAR what Dean originally said (Which, granted, could be him misremembering as he admitted he had a bad short term memory). This is not to say that he lied when he said Dean didn’t reciprocate, but that that’ts the reason why two different versions of what he said may be running around. This was when I said that then we had to ask Fogarty about the origin of the dub script “Me Too” as he’d probably be the one who knows.

He also said that while it was a surprise, that the writers had been very subtle creating the story between Dean and Castiel, and that it made SENSE. 

There are a few things I could say here about voice actor culture, but I won’t as it could muddy the issue and I want to wait until I finish the transcription.

What he corrected from my previous assumptions was that there was no Warner Bros quality control. They finish dubbing, then send it to air and as far as HE knows, there’s no WB exec checking the files. He admitted he might be wrong on that, but it’s more probable that he’s right. So IF the “Me too” was added, there would be no final check to stop it. HOWEVER, there has been no request to RE-Dub the line, so we can assume that, now that the horse is out of the barn, WB and CW don’t really care that, in Mexico and LataM, Dean Winchester is bisexual, canonically.

Which brings us back to the REAL question: Where did that Me Too came from?

Now, I want to make clear this I DON’T BELIEVE THERE’S A BIG CW CONSPIRACY TO KEEP DEAN STRAIGHT. What I do believe is that, due to a bunch of mismanagement of the series, PR, confusion of what their demography is, old-boys club mentality AND good ol’ network censorship, they may have ended up accidentally creating the ILLUSION of one.

And to be honest, I preffer to know the ACTUAL truth, which could very well be a rogue dub director (Which, if you check my previous posts, was a possibility I raised, that if there HAD been a rogue dub translator, the director HAD to be on it too), or a different audio version sent from the US.

I’ve seen script captures from the Original English Script that were leaked, and there Dean doesn’t reply ANYTHING. Not “Me too”, not “Don’t do this, CAs”. HE just goes 404,File not found, Being Loved by an angel, doesn’t compute.

So we know that DEan’s answer in english was Ad libbed by Jensen. 

However, we also know that Jensen had to re-record some lines. 

So he could’ve ad-libbed again, something different (Either by choice, or by the director’s request. I frankly don’t know nor care. I just assume that there were two different readings and the “wrong” one was sent to the Latam Translator. Wrong here to mean “not the one that aired in the US”)

And the only way we’re going to get closer to which was it, is asking the dub director, which is what I am trying to do. And I do hope that by now, you trust me enough to know that, IF the answer was “Oh, yeah, we decided that it was more logical” , I’ll tell you straight (Or, you know, organize another panel so that you hear it from the horse’s mouth just as I did with Guillermo Rojas)

Also, yes, Guillermo didn’t say the words “I ship Destiel” or “I am a Heller”. However, he DID say that the ending of the arc of Dean and Castiel having a love story was the closing of the series, that Dean reciprocating Cas’s feelings made it make sense and that it was beautiful. So he is a heller, in spirit if not in name.

ETA: I had to fix Adrian Fogarty’s name as someone pointed out I wrote “Alejandro Fogarty” and this proves that I need at least a week of sleep as this show has broken my brain.

Idk what Fargo is about, can you tell me about it and your blorbos ? 💐❓

OKAY!! Fargo is an Anthology Crime-Drama/Black Comedy series based off the 1996 movie of the same name by the Coen Brothers. Something I love about it is that, while being an anthology series, all 4 seasons have some sort of connection between them.

Season 1 is about when a man, who's always been kind of a loser, meets another man, who has a very strange philosophy regarding humanity and predators, and the series of murders that spark from their meeting. Season 2 is about a couple who accidentally gets involved in a murder hit-and-run and a powerful family in a difficult situation regarding their territory that will stop at nothing to keep what's theirs and take revenge. Season 3 is about a family feud between two brothers, and how quickly things get out of control when one of them tries to get back what he thinks is his and it ends up with two accidental murders, and the other one ends up in business with a shady person. I have not been able to watch Season 4 because it's not on LatAm Netflix :(

I love almost all of the main characters. This show excels at showing that nobody is perfect, so all characters have some (if not many) unlikeable traits, but somehow they still get you to like them. My favorite character is Mr. Wrench, a deaf hitman sent to investigate one of the murders in S1 along with his partner and interpreter Mr. Numbers. Both of them are great characters and are the highlight of the season, kind of the most popular ones among the fandom lol. I love them and honestly, the concept of a deaf hitman is so interesting and I'm amazed at how I've never seen it before. They have a great dynamic. Then probably my other two favorite characters would be Peggy Blumquist and Dodd Gerhardt from S2. Peggy kind of has a rough start in S2, being a woman who seems to be completely obsessed with being a better version of herself, but she is an absolute girlboss. I love her a lot. Dodd is probably the most controversial of my Top 3 (technically 4 with Numbers) because he's probably the most r*cist and m*sogynistic man there is, BUT whenever he's thrown out of control or his comfort zone he ends up being a huge crybaby and honestly that saves his character and makes him one of the funniest ones for me. Which is what I mean about the characters. He's got some of the most unlikeable traits ever, but just the sheer contrast of his personality ends up making him funny and likable (at least imo). Also, he's just very silly-looking overall. There's a point in S2 where both of them meet and seeing Peggy just manhandle Dodd is the highlight of my life. Other Blorbos include: Lester Nygaard, Lorne Malvo, Ed Blumquist, Nikki Swango, Meemo, Yuri Gurka, Gus Grimly, Molly Solverson, Lou Solverson, Charlie Gerhardt, and Karl Weathers. I could go on for hours about just all the other characters honestly, but I'll keep it to those 4 lol.

I really like this show overall because of all its characters and how, despite always telling pretty dark stories, the humor ends up making it super enjoyable and funny. Though of course, being a Black comedy sometimes a few jokes might be a little heavier than others, but at least to me it never seems like it comes from a malicious place (regarding the writers of the show).

I also love the cast, I was surprised to see how many popular actors there are among all the seasons. It gives it a specific charm since the show is pretty unknown despite the cast or the number of nominations/awards it has. I also love that in several seasons a couple is played by a real-life couple so it gives their dynamic in the show a lot more depth and it feels more real.

To complete the quad, how would you rank the Evas and the Isaks? Only if you feel like it :)

Sorry that this has been sitting in my inbox for like two months, lol. Anyway, let’s do the Evas first 

1. isa keijser, skam nl

queen isa. she also has the esteemed pleasure of being the first eva season i ever watched, but honestly, she doesn’t feel like “eva,” you know? she feels like her own character, and i have to give so much props to both the skam nl team and suus’ acting for making her feel three-dimensional, and able to stand on her own two feet. her little quirks about owning things with avocados on them, or wearing mismatched socks made her so more real to me than other evas. i miss isa. SO MUCH. we deserved more time with her and the other characters. pour another one out for skam nl, please.

2. eva kviig mohn, skam

second is the original that kicked off a show that would then span countries, languages, and continents. eva is so important, i felt her loneliness, her desperation to hold onto jonas after losing everyone else, and then finding a true family with the girls. “your opinion meant more than my own. that’s not how it should be.” is forever an iconic line. we need to stop hating on eva’s season. without her and lisa’s acting, we wouldn’t have skam. thank you, eva. i love you, darling.

3. hanna jung, druck

something i really, really appreciated about hanna was that she was also starkly different from her counterparts. after her season and her breakup with jonas, she didn't take the route of “fun-loving party girl” that other remakes did. she remained sober, but still fun. her relationship with jonas was one that i loved because the druck team took time into building up their eventual reunion (unlike og, a little more foreshadowing would have been nice). and she remained a constant presence in all other seasons. she was there for mia, supportive of matteo, and wasn’t a source of conflict for amira in s4. and i think it’s okay that she wasn’t sure of who she was yet at the end of s4, and still got back together with jonas. she was more confident in herself, and she’s grown. not everyone has their life together, and i think that was a great message for fans as well.

4. megan flores, skam austin / eva vazquez, skam españa

megan, like eva in og, was created by julie andem herself, and i think that’s pretty important, as well as the fact that she’s the only eva of color at this point in time (excluding the LatAm remakes, which have yet to air, and are exempt from this). at the beginning of her season, she is struggling with academic pressures, shows signs of depression, and we see that her homelife is much more volatile than other remakes, as her parents are constantly heard fighting. i think that explains a lot of why she hangs onto marlon, despite the fact that they aren’t good for each other. it’s why she struggles with alcoholism. i wish that her season was more than eight weeks, because megan was one of the most fascinating, flawed evas we’ve ever seen. i wanted more of her with her parents, more of her with the GS, and with abby. her feelings of isolation, jealousy, anger, sadness were incredibly compelling, and i wish we felt that connection with her in season 2 with grace. they were supposed to be best friends, and i never felt that in grace’s season, sadly. i did like how they showed her drinking as an actual problem though, other remakes don’t. (also julie rocha deserves more praise for taking on this show as a 17 year old! for a person who didn’t act before, i thought she did wonderfully.)

i also really enjoyed eva v.’s season in skam spain. i applaud alba, who much like julie, took on this show at 17, and hadn’t had much acting experience. for me, i more enjoyed the changes they made to eva’s story overall. they made vilde the one who sent ines the pictures of eva and cris making out, they made the school cyberbully her, and they acknowledged her shitty behavior towards lucas after he came out to her. i think alba did much better with acting in later seasons, but the fact that they made her connections with the GS much more prevalent in s1 is great, and i really enjoyed how she made it clear to nora that what miguel did was not her fault, and that she continually reached out to lucas after her season. eva prioritized her friendships, and i really liked that change! she was a solid eva overall.

5. emma borgés, skam france / jana ackermans, wtfock

personally, i haven’t seen emma outside of s3, s6, and s7. i think it’s cool that she’s a tattoo artist! and that she prioritized herself outside a relationship at the end of her generation. she’s fine.

from what I've seen of wtfock as well, i like jana as well. she has more of a fiery streak, which i especially enjoyed when she and yasmina flipped off senne. she’s perfectly fine.

6. eva brighi, skam italia

i’ve only seen bits of s4. i like that she encouraged sana to go after malik, and that she stayed by her side the whole season. 

all the evas were okay, i don’t hate any of them.

isaks will come later! thank you for your question, and sorry again for my late response!

I think I'm just confused as to if its actually canon or not ? Lol

It is both canon and not canon because this is Supernatural We’re Talking about. John Winchester being abusive also exists in this fucking limbo so it’s like. It’s canon but not, because many writers and producers have worked on SPN over the years and some of them get it and some do NOT. 

After twelve years of subtext and straight up text, parallels of dean and cas to other romances in the show, scenes that didn’t make the chopping block, “i love you” dialogues (multiple times) that back track on themselves etc., Castiel in 15x18 confesses ROMANTIC love without question for Dean, causing DeanCas to go canon for the first time (partially canon, but again. cas is literally set up to as Dean’s love interest SEASON AFTER SEASON SO WHAT’S THE TRUTH.JPG)

Now here is where I don’t know all the specifics because there is simply SO much to go through but essentially:

After it’s airing spn fans start to investigate as to why the confession scene is poorly edited and it’s fucking discovered that a LOT of weird shit happened behind the scenes with covid and quaruntine. It was the first scene they filmed for the season but supposedly there were reshoots for the tail end of the season after quarantine and covid. Jensen Ackles supposedly has a recording of the entire original scene on his phone pre-edited. Jensen Ackles, as it turns out, really really really liked the confession episode 15x18: Despair. It is the only thing he’s talked about with enthusiasm regarding the show since it aired. 

The last two episodes air afterwards without any on screen Cas. SUS. Since he’s one of the three main characters. (Also, once again Dean/Cas(off screen) is paralleled to other romantic pairings but I digress). 

The finale is a shit show of one last OOC story arc that we now know Jensen had to be fucking backed into a corner about. He has said quite literally that it didn’t sit well with him, but because everyone else was on board (literally emailed the long gone creator the show like “I hate it.” who basically said “Too Bad”) he just went with it because that’s what he always had to do. 

SO. We know the confession is not what it was supposed to be. 

ENTER: LATIN AMERICAN DUB. After the finale airs, the Latin American verison of the episode, titled what it was ORIGINALLY CALLED- “The Truth” gives us a very different dialogue than the original (which went with Cas saying he loves dean and Dean saying “this sounds like a goodbye. don’t do this.” and cas sacrifices himself). No, this version, APPROVED AND AIRED BY CW (LATAM) has Dean reciprocate Castiel’s ROMANTIC love confession with “Me too”. Thus canonizing DeanCas a Second Time. 

After the nuclear fall out of this, the CW sent Misha in to tell us that it was a rogue translator and Misha inexplicably backs out on what he had previously railed as a “bury your gays” trope. Fans tell him why what he’s saying is terrible and he, of course as he is just a Dad trying his best, apologizes and says he’s gonna listen to fans from now on. 

Several things have happened since, but it still boils down to Jensen’s bizarre silence on the fucking FINALE OF THE SHOW HE SPENT 15 YEARS OF HIS LIFE ON but not the episode 15x18, which again he’s made several posts about. Cast members have now thrown all kinds of shade at the shitshow that was the season 15 filming experience, calling the CW out on several lies they’ve made.

Though it all boils down to the fact that they still can’t retcon the fucking tome of DeanCas text they wrote, whether they meant to or not. 

One-Shot RQ. {Savior}

@ininteligibleart asked:

Idk if you still doing request but here comes one, ¿what about a Kidnaped Reader who's beign saved by Leon, Ada, Claire and Chris, bc they are friends of reader? Srry for my english im from latam, greetings from Chile ¡I love your work! Keep going            

Pairing: None

Fandom: Resident Evil

Based around: RE4

Theme: Action

Warnings: Cussing

Writer’s Note: I’m so SO sorry this is beyond overdue!! Life’s gotten in the way of my writings and it’s frustrating, but sitting as a draft for a bit I FINALLY got it done!! This was actually super fun to write and I loved every part of it! Thank you for requesting from me love! ♡

Your eyes slowly flutter open, feeling your head dangle from your neck like a grapevine you feel panic quickly settle into you. The room is barely lit from where you sat, till about a few inches in front of you— gloomy red lights hung over your head. ‘Don’t panic,’ you attempt to pull your arms back forward to only feel zip ties tightly cuffed around your wrists and chair, causing you to shift harshly back and forth in hopes they’d snap. Nothing. You don’t remember how you ended up here, where you were, all you could get a glimpse of was being sent on this mission and arriving on sight. That’s it. Everything beyond that was a blur, causing a massive headache to wash over you, your head hanging once again wincing in pain. Your arms tugged relentlessly at the tightened zip ties, feeling the chair shift creek beneath you. Shit wooden chair, this should be easier than it’s portrayed to you— although deep down you were hoping your group would find you. The eerie lighting covering the room didn’t help in settling your nerves to concentrate, lifting your head again to peer around.

“Ah, Miss {Y/N}.” A voice spoke deeply through a muffled speakers above you, echoing through the room you had been enclosed in. Your head snapped to the right of you in response to the muffled voice, “Bastard.” You growled. A deep, static laugh skidded out from the speakers in response to your bottled anger.

“For such a strong, stealthy woman, you really let yourself slip this time.” The unknown male voice scoffed, “Pathetic.” Your head lazily flicked itself back with a smirk on your face, staring at the ceiling. The red lights barely skimmed the ceiling, faintly outlining the speakers lined vertical across it.

“A woman doesn’t let herself slip.” You scoffed, “Its a little disappointing it took you *this long* to get me at this mercy state.” Sarcasm escapes your tone, the voice chuckling in response. You kept tugging your arms outwards, though, the creaking and splitting of wood began to loosen the two arms of the chair behind you.

“Well, with you, it’s a different story.”

“Ohhh, still mad about that night, huh?” You laughed in response, “Don’t you worry, I know you’re angry with me. So sorry I had to dip like that.”

An irritable grunt came from the speakers, if you learned anything from Ada— it was the stealth and persuasive/sarcastic tone. Heading the wood crack, you chuckled under your breaths.

“I’m a little disappointed in you, as well.” His voice bellowed over the speakers, “{Y/N.}” Dragging our your name, you responded in a disgusted tone.

“And why’s that, Rac?” You chided, although getting sick of the small talk he was prolonging on. You wondered if your team was coming after you, although you should be more aware they need you on this team.

“You joined Redfield’s rambunctious team, although I offered you this more... luxurious high-end job.” He denounced, you shake your head with a prolonged, sarcastic sigh.

“I don’t join teams, love, I play solo on my missions. They needed me, I took the job for now. You sound disgustingly jealous, Rac, that’s not like you.” Reassuring his jealousy in dragged out sarcasm, you hear a sigh, then beeping across the room. Your smirk instantly fades as your head snaps forward, seeing a bright flashing red light about six feet in front of you. Groans of the undead stumble out from the sliding doors,

“You fucking..REALLY.”

“You should learn to behave yourself, {Y/N.} Or, at most, who you come into contact with.” You hear the speakers click off, staring at the undead quickly making their way to you as they notice you sitting away from them.

“At least make it interesting and get a metal chair next time, Rac.” Lifting up from the chair, breaking the two pegs off from the seat of the chair. Pressing the back part of the chair against your back, you harshly ripped your arms forward— snapping the back into two pieces.

“Okay, not what I wanted. But it works.”

The herd quickly made their way to you, god these things moved like hell-hounds. Swinging your left arm in front of them, you threw your other arm up as your melee defense against them. Puncturing the zombie’s skull with the sharpened end by your elbow, pushing yourself through the semi-big herd. You kept going, these stakes of the chair worked good as a defense from the herd biting you. Practically shoving your elbow into the nasty fucks, you found the door, the opening you gave yourself provided a brief minute to get through the door and quickly smash the button on the other side to close it. You hit the other side of the hall, catching your breath and gathering your now—new surroundings. Lifting up your right leg, you pulled out a pocket knife from your boot— flicking it open as you sliced the zip ties off of your wrists.

“Fucking zip ties.” Rubbing your wrists as you pushed yourself up away from the wall, you were in a testing—lab of some sort. White walls with black lined bottoms dividing the wall straight across, heavy duty metal doors lined down the left side from where yours stood. A glass rounded window peeked at the corner of your door, wrapping around, causing you to round the corner to see where you just were.

“Still has to find a way to see me.” You shook your head, suddenly the halls went dark, those familiar red lights lining the halls now.

Building on lock-down, staff must respond to their safety lined departure rooms.

“Of course. Never this easy for me.” The voice repeated in the background several times as you made your way down the maze like halls, the lights have the building a more eerie like tone to it. Not like seeing the, infected bodies in the glass water-casing, or in plexi-glass casing just staring at you. Seeing someone round the other corner about a foot away from you, your back quickly hit the other side from where you stood.

“And all I got is a knife.. great.” Peering the corner to check your surroundings, you feel a hand grab your upper arm. Habitual instinct, you slam your gripped arm into, who you assumed was either Rac or his men, into the wall as you swing your body and other knife-gripped hand up to the person’s neck. Using your knee to pin one of their legs to the wall, it took you a brief second to recognize who it was.

He didn’t even seem to budge or be inflicted by your response, he just stared at you.

“Well, at least you picked up on my techniques the most.”

Sighing, you released him from the wall as you backed up.

“I have my own techniques, Leon, don’t give yourself too much credit. Hm?”

Going to turn away from him to find a way out, he hands you one of his pistols. Confused, you looked back up from the pistol to look at him.

“Really? You, carrying multiple guns?” You remarked, he half smiled at you in response.

“And the sarcasm?” Taking the pistol from him, you cocked it back.

“Again, my own tone Leon. I just know your personality.” Returning the half smile, your eyes shifted back to the eerily lit hallways that spread like a maze. Leon steps in front of you, holding his pistol in front of him, gripped with both hands as he turned his head to the side as a way to talk to you from behind him.

“Stay close.”

Nodding, you two took off down the maze-like hallways as you rounded every corner skidding of your shoes against the floor as you rounded corners. You wondered if the others came along with Leon, or if it was just him alone. Either way, it wouldn’t surprise you as you turned off from the another corner—

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Seeing Leon stop dead in his tracks, you come up from his side to see a line of men blocking the way into the main hall. Guns pointed directly in our direction, you stood your ground as you held your pistol up to them glancing over at Leon.

“Any bright ideas now, genius?” You huffed, watching him side glance over to you in irritation.

“Stand behind me, we’ll move in unison.” Sighing, again you move close behind him as you shifted your pistol pointing past the right side of his neck as you started moving forward. Hearing their guns clock, you swallowed down the slight choked up fear you felt.

“Leon maybe we sh—“

Loud blasts of guns came from the other side of men, watching them drop to the ground like a line of dominoes. You threw yourself off of Leon’s back side as you stepped past him, seeing past the smoke you notice three other figures.

Claire? Ada?! Chris?!

“How in the ever-loving fuck—“ You topple over your words as they quickly approach you two with relief streamed across their faces, Ada and Claire coming to your general direction.

“{Y/N}!” Claire greeted you with a bear hug before letting go, you smiled in relief to see them both. Ada smiles faintly at you, she wasn’t much of an emotional woman but that fit well with your personality.

“I was hoping you guys were with Leon,” You breathed from the panic, Ada shook her head as she stepped forward.

“Seeing as how somebody had to go solo, the three of us stuck together.”

Looking over to see Leon finding his response, the red lights began flashing repeatedly. All of you instantly looked at one another, as if you predicted what was about to be said.

Self destruct sequence activated, all personal and staff must exit immediately.

Repeating itself in the background, loud alarms began ringing and echoing throughout the halls.

“Could’ve expected that.” Leon spoke up, all of you turned towards the direction of the main hall.

“Follow me,” Chris steps forward in front of your group, “but stay close.” One after another, again you took off into the hallway through the flashing red lights, sirens and slight panic you all felt. Leon stayed in back while Chris took the lead of you three, accepting the fact they were both protecting you, Ada and Claire from any possible threats blocking your way out. Closing in on the exit door to the roof, a large metal door quickly begins descending, then another behind you.

Chris skids to a stop, quickly ushering the three of you to get past the metal door.

“Go!”

You managed to slide past the quickly closing in metal door, then Claire and Ada quickly following behind. Watching in panic as Chris and Leon barely make it fully past the metal door as it slams to the ground— locking itself in place. Watching Chris dart to the front he ushers you all to start running up the roof door, watching him kick it down without hesitation. Stepping back as you three nearly flew up the stairs, Claire kicking down the other door.

You’re greeted with a loud helicopter-military like aircraft, heavy winds circling it as you’re forced to cover half your face with your arm. Feeling someone press on your back and assuringly pushing you towards the aircraft, you notice it’s Leon quickly pacing beside you as you all make it onto the back. Chris stepping on quickly at first with Claire and Ada following close behind,

“Let’s go! Move!” He shouted, the pilot responding as they quickly lifted the craft off the landing pad as it shot across the sky. Watching the back of the caboose close, you didn’t get to see the building itself self-combust, but for now you were alright with that.

“Next time, take one of us with you.” Leon commented to you, leaning forward off of one of the seats in the back. Ada smacks his arm in response, glaring at one another before she looks over to you.

“Don’t listen to his arrogance, you’ll catch on soon enough.” She stood up from her seat, approaching you as you stayed standing up for now.

“Besides, I see potential in you, so does Claire and Chris.”

“I never said—“ Ada points back at him, as if shushing him from where she stood.

“I didn’t ask.”

Claire laughed, smiling as she shook her head.

“Ada’s right, it takes time. Besides, when you were captured we were on our feet within seconds.”

You smile in response to their kind words, nodding at Ada as she went to go sit back down beside Leon.

“Glad to have teammates like you four.” They all faintly smile at you as the copter flew away from the scene itself, your eyes wandered to the large windows in the front as you finally catch your breath.

It’s good to be back home.

Hi you're one of my fav blogs (I wish I could talk to you in Spanish but I'm from Brazil and unfortunately we only learn English at school). Anyway, I'm here bc I need help with a playlist and you're the first person I could think of. I want some Latino songs about LatAm, but idk much of other countries' music, so I thought maybe you/your followers could help? I want songs that talk about being Latine, how usa imperialism sucks, etc. I can send u what I already have so u can see what I mean! Thx

Don’t worry! I have brazilian friends and we mix english, spanish and portuguese lkjfg. Yeah, send me what you got! i can give you some songs right now, putting some parts that i love:

Latinoamerica by Calle 13 (Puerto Rico, Colombia, Perú, Brasil): i feel like you already have this in your list, because is our anthem at this point. It’s a song about latinoamérica and what they did here (the video has subtitles) / I work hard but with pride. Here we share, what’s mine is yours. This nation doesn’t drown with the waves. And if it collapses I rebuild it. I don’t even blink when I look at you, so you’ll remember my last name. Operation Condor invading my nest, I forgive but never forget!”

Memoria by León Gieco (Argentina): a song in memory of the dictatorships of Operación Condór (they had the help of US) + in memory of the terrorist attacks here (in the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building) (the video has subtitles) / Two thousand would eat for a yearwith what a military minute costs. How many would stop being slavesfor the price of a bomb thrown to the sea? / Memory aims until it killsthe people who try to silence it and don’t let it fly free like the wind.

Frijolero by Motolov (México) / video with english subtitles: a big fuck you to US from México in 2009, even before Trump. I love this song / “Now why don’t you look down to where your feet is planted. That U.S soil that makes you take shit for granted. If not for Santa Ana, just to let you know that where your feet are planted would be México”

El mojado by Ricardo Arjona / lyrics in english (Guatemala): song for inmigrants. “He said goodbye with a grimace disguised as a smile and he asked God -crucified on a shelf- to protect his people, and he crossed the border as he could / Wet.back, wet of so much crying, knowing that in some place a kiss awaits him on hold since the day he left”

Multi_viral by Calle 13 (Puerto Rico): song of protest / The one who controls, the one who dictates, wants to get you sick to sell you drugs. / A piece of news not well told is an assault with a weapon /Our ideas are free and they are awake because we think with the doors wide open. What is not seen, we are seeing. We are born without knowing how to talk, ut we will die talking out loud.

Canción con todos by Mercedes Sosa / lyrics in english (Argentina): a song for latinoamericanes / All the voices, all. All the hands, all. All the blood can be song in the wind. Sing with me, sing…american brother, set free your hope with a cry in your voice. 

Rubén Rada (Uruguay): this list is looking to sad/dark, so let’s bring some latinidad with this amazing afrolatine artist. here: cha cha, muchacha / muriendo de plena / candombe para Gardel 

Gringo maligno by Todos Tus Muertos (Argentina):  Regan, Clinton Bush, Regan, everyone is the same / evil gringo, sent by Satan ccupying and blocking, imposing your plan.

La patria madrina by Lila Downs and Juanes (México and Colombia): protest song agaisnt capitalism, agaisnt the violent kidnapping and killing of 43 students of Ayotzinapa, agaisnt the destruction of the earth / Everybody wants a share of the oil, you see? and to burn Mother Earth with urgency to make more cars, to make more money, as if you could buy happiness. 

Por si acaso no regreso by Celia Cruz (Cuba): a song dedicated to Cuba, her homeland /  Home, do not suffer. Heart, do not break. Because badness can’t last 100 years nor could any body and I never wanted to abandon you. I’ve taken you with every step and my heart will remain for eternity as a flower on your lap just in case……just in case I don’t return / In the case I don’t return, if I don’t return, remember: I loved her with my life. In the case I don’t return, I will die from pain…I’m already dying.

Los americanos by Piero (Argentina) / lyrics in english: with an ironic/sarcastic tone, he makes fun of gringxs. Every part of this song is gold. / They are born elderly and gradually become kids, throughout the lifetime of “los americanos”. And they are born convinced that there is nobody in the world more important than “los americanos” / Napoleon for them was an Italian gentleman who organized everything without “los americanos”. And they are more than sure that he wouldn’t have lost Waterloo with the help of “los americanos”. If they know anything about history, it’s not from reading it but from seeing it in the “cine americano” / If there’s something to be admired, wherever they go, it’s the grand elegance of “los americanos”. wearing native dress, they mix in with the people, and nobody realizes that they are “americanos”.

“Murciélago” by Porter: about the colonization of natives /  The elders saw them. They do not come in peace, we hear screams. There have three ships, they bring Cristo. 

La Gozadera by Gente de Zona and Marc Anthony (Cuba and Puerto Rico): a really cool song about latinidad. / If you are Latino, take out your flag!

Guerra by Calle 13: anti-war song. they talk about US, wars and refugees. just. please watch this video. it has english subtitles./  I am your defeat, your two broken legs. The nail in your foot which pierced through the boot. I am the strategy in any battle. Today you either win or lose, I am the sorrows of your joys. The war by night and the war by day.

Pégate by Ricky Martin: let’s end this in a happy song, 100% latine with my father Ricky / I come with good stuff for my people, I bring love, I bring this remedy which cheers up the hearts of the entire world. For the pain, for the heartaches. There’s nothing better than the rhythm of my drums / And let rivers of goodness flow to all the people of the world. Because we can’t forget that pure love liberates and lies are poison. As my mother used to say: dancing you can solve anything.

I’m tagging some of the latines that i know, if they want to add any song, please do it! @dasakuryo @the-mighty-microwave @targannington @alteanwitch @koganer @voltronless @bitcherovas @ceibos @duskianfae @im-not-a-real-hero @trashsenal @dixonette1013 @latinxlance @cherry-cokes @lancesazul @freckledai @pamelas​ @elbiotipo guys u are like a bunch of people lkfjg i’m sorry if i forgot anyone!!! a lot of people and a bad memory, not a good mix. 

Deal Volume and Sales Response Rates Drop to New Lows [COVID-19 Benchmark Data, Updated Weekly]

The economic impact of COVID-19 is undeniable. Businesses all across the globe are learning how to adapt to these new circumstances. We’re all learning how to operate in a “new normal” that’s constantly changing. That’s why from now until the end of June, we will be publishing week-over-week trend data for core business metrics including such as website traffic, email send and open rates, sales engagements, close rates and more. We plan to add additional cuts, like channel and region, over time. This week, we’ve added an additional dimension to our dataset — company size. You can explore all the data we’re publishing here.

About the Data These insights are based on aggregated data from over 70,000 HubSpot customers globally. The dataset includes weekly trend data for core business metrics in 2020, focusing on changes occurring during and after March 2020.* Charts in this post are measured against a  benchmark on the y-axis. The benchmark for each metric was calculated by taking weekly averages from January 20, 2020 through March 9, 2020.  The data from HubSpot’s customer base reflects benchmarks for companies that have invested in an online presence and use inbound as a key part of their growth strategy. *The spread of COVID-19 has had a different timeline in different regions, so we are using the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 as our “official” start date. NOTE: Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, may differ based on their own markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors. What We’re Seeing After a slight rally the week of March 30, both the number of new deals created and deals marked closed-won in HubSpot CRM dropped the week of April 6, particularly in EMEA and LATAM. The Easter holiday partially contributed to an end-of-week dip in deal volume in all regions, but deal creation was already trending downward before the holidays. As a leading indicator of future revenue, continued decreases in deal creation here don’t bode well for April and Q2 sales results. We will be watching this metric closely. Sales teams are sending about 50% more email to prospects than they were pre-COVID, but responses continue to drop. Last week, sales response rates hit an all-time low for 2020 at 2.1%, a lower response rate than Christmas week 2019. Like last week, marketers are having more success. Customers still seem willing to engage with marketing materials, as open rates climbed another 8% this week. Marketing email volume began to stabilize week-over-week, but the total volume of email sent is still far higher than pre-COVID levels.  Buyer-initiated chat and database growth suggest that interested customers are still out there. Chat volume, despite declining last week, is still far above pre-COVID averages. Database growth currently sits at February levels; while the aggressive growth of the last few weeks has slowed, it’s encouraging to see that the metric is still holding steady with historical averages for now. Surprisingly, businesses of all sizes were impacted almost equally. Our data showed that buyers demonstrated neither a preference for supporting small businesses, nor a desire to buy from more established and stable companies. You can explore the entire dataset here. How Metrics Changed in March The number of deals created continues to decline, particularly in EMEA and LATAM. After a slight end-of-quarter rally the week of March 30, the number of deals created dropped 11% the week of April 6.

Deals created are down in every region. North America saw the smallest decline (a 3% decrease the week of April 6). EMEA and LATAM had the biggest with 19% and 16% drops, but it’s worth noting that business closures for Easter may have contributed to the drop in these regions.

Deals closed dropped 19% as well, though we expect to see this happen between an end-of-quarter week and the first week of a new quarter. Some of this decrease may come from the 15% drop in deals created the week of March 23, but the bulk of that impact will likely be felt in the coming weeks, so expect this number to continue shifting. We’ll be watching it closely.

The week of April 6 saw the lowest weekly volume of closed deals this year. Buyers continue engaging with businesses online. Buyer-initiated chat volume dropped slightly, but is still around 10% higher than pre-COVID levels — conversational marketing remains valuable to businesses. Database growth has slowed but also has not fallen below February averages. Other online metrics looked healthy as well. Monthly website traffic increased by 13% in March, compared to February.

The average number of contacts added to portals dropped 19% last week, after a 36% drop the week of March 30. These look like big drops, but the average weekly number of contacts is still at the same level of February weekly averages. Continue watching this metric closely.

The number of customer-initiated conversations dropped 4.5% the week of April 6, after steady growth throughout March. This drop did not wipe out March’s gains, as last week’s numbers are still well above pre-COVID levels.

Engagement with marketing emails continued increasing and responses to sales outreach reached new lows.  Marketing email open rates increased as volume held steady. Marketing email volume has held steady the last three week, growing by less than half of a percent the last two weeks. That being said, overall volume the week of April 6 is still higher than pre-COVID levels by about 20%. Open rates on these emails continue to grow. April 6 saw an open rate of 25.5%, the highest single-week average of 2020, and an 8% increase from the prior week.

Sales email volume dropped for the first time in eight weeks, as response rates reached a record low. Outreach was down almost 4% last week — the first time this number has trended downward since February 17 — but the total volume of email sent is still around 50% higher than pre-COVID levels. This prospecting continues to be ineffective. Response rate hit 2.1% last week, which is a 10% lower response rate than the week of Christmas in 2019. This is the lowest weekly response rate of 2020 thus far, and 40% lower than the highest response rate of the year (3.51% the week of January 6).

Transitioning to remote work for the first time? We teamed up with Slack to create this guide to moving your business online.  What This Means for Businesses Targeted prospecting matters more than ever. This week’s headline is the 11% drop in new deal creation, while sales outreach still remains far higher than pre-COVID levels. Some increase in email prospecting is expected as outside sales teams have transitioned inside, but this doesn’t fully account for the acceleration of sales outreach. Instead, the data suggests that many sales teams have reacted to the economic climate by reaching out to a significantly broader base of prospects than they normally would target.  Not only is this ineffective — response rates hit their lowest levels in 2020 last week — it’s a foreboding sign for longer-term sales forecasts as well. As deal creation is the best indicator of future revenue, course-correction needs to happen quickly. Many businesses will need to rethink what prospecting looks like to bolster their long-term pipeline. Operationally, regularly adjust your sales projections to reflect potentially extended sales cycles or lower deal size so forecasts remain accurate. Just a touch of process (or improvements to existing processes) goes a long way in creating a clear picture of your business over time. On individual calls, encourage your team to emphasize a helpful, consultative selling approach. Certain factors, like your customers’ budget and willingness to enter sales conversations at this moment, are out of your control. Instead of cold calling your whole database, use your knowledge of your customers’ industries to prioritize reaching out to: Industries that have been minimally impacted or those that are transforming quickly to meet the new challenges  Industries where your solutions are particularly relevant or useful in this moment We hope to see sales outreach trend down toward pre-COVID levels accompanied by higher response rates in the next few weeks, which would indicate that companies are doing a better job of targeting buyers who have shown interest in their products.  Resources to Help Free Software to Get Started Focus on education, not promotion. The increase in website traffic and marketing email open rates suggest that customers are still looking to engage with companies. Your customers may be more interested in learning and education right now. Our own website has seen an uptick in visits to educational resources like our blog, certifications, and Academy classes. Instead of dialing up the promotion of your products and services during a crisis — an approach that may be insensitive to your customer base, focus on nurturing the long-term relationship. Identify where you can help your customers today, without asking for anything in return.  Resources to Help Free Software to Get Started Incorporate chat into your strategy. While chat volume declined week-over-week, total volume still far exceeds pre-COVID levels. Conversational marketing offers a real-time way to answer customer questions, as well as automating the lead routing process so your business can serve prospective and existing customers even when your team is out of the office. Investing in chatbots to get customers answers more quickly, automate lead qualification or book meetings can help your company meet the increase in customer inquiries. Resources to Help Free Software to Get Started We hope these benchmarks provide useful context as you monitor your business’ health in the coming months. We plan to refresh these insights and add further breakdowns over time (such as by channel and company size). You can sign up to be notified of new insights as they’re available here.

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What if Numbers Could Talk? How Data Segmentation Gives Numbers a Voice

The idea behind Highlights first popped up when Ludo and I were still working at LANDR.

At that time, I was in charge of analytics tasked with understanding business growth and weekly performance.

With aggressive growth targets, the business was actively trying to gain market shares internationally.

While scaling our efforts, we were signing up more users than ever, and our conversion rates had remained about the same.

At the aggregate level, things were looking great, but when drilling down looking at longer-term trends, something had clearly changed.

Using Data Segmentation to Investigate 🔍

Now, the challenge with uncovering data patterns is that, as an analyst, it’s hard to know what you don’t know.

Sure, there’s common data segmentation analyses you can run to figure out what’s going on:

Traffic Sources: Are the behaviors different by acquisition channels? Did the breakdown of acquisition channels change?

Location: Are the behaviors different per country or per region?

Devices: Do behaviors vary per devices and/or browsers?

Languages: Are there differences in the way native and non-native English speakers behave? Do site languages affect on-site behaviors?

It’s a good start, but when none of these analyses give you the answer you seek, you have to dig deeper: What patterns do you look for? What is noise? What is signal?

It took some time, but we eventually realized that payment gateways and payment failures had been a blindside for us. It turns out that, what instinctively looks like a good conversion rate for a market, can actually be subpar.

We learned that credit cards and payment can have major effects on the ability to do business in Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, etc.

The Cost of Having the Wrong Data Segmentation

In October 2017, I decided to dig deeper to see if I could help growing businesses identify blindsides when expanding internationally.

Over the course of a few weeks, I spoke to dozens of business and growth leaders.

One of the stories that stood out was the story of an European business that made the strategic decision to expand in Latin America.

The decision made sense on many levels: 1) they had really good acquisition, activation, and retention metrics in Spain, and 2) they were able to acquire customers for cheap in LatAm.

As the company’s footprint grew in South America, they decided to focus on the Colombian market 🇨🇴, the second largest Spanish-speaking country.

In Colombia, customer acquisition was cheap and their engagement metrics looked good. What the team failed to realize while they were burning through their runway was that most credit card payments were not going through.

It turns out that, many Colombian credit cards can’t make international payments. This issue went undiscovered among the noise created by successful payments in other countries.

Hindsight is Always 20/20, Data Segmentation is Not

The problem with insights like these is that they look obvious in hindsight, but aren’t when you’re deep in the business.

With hundreds of ways to slice and dice data, and analysts and teams not knowing what they don’t know, similar patterns often go undetected.

Although we didn’t end up building those features, they’re still part of our vision for Highlights.

How to Make Numbers Talk with Data Segmentation

Too often, businesses rely on aggregate data to make decisions.

Total number of users, visitors, conversions, or emails sent show you the trajectory. The real insights come when you segment the data.

With data segmentation, you can make numbers talk and understand the context behind them. Context in the form of:

Timing: At what what stage of their customer journey are your visitors? Are they ready to buy?

Trajectory: Can it be repeated? Is it growing or slowing down? Will 100 be 85, or 120 next week?

Customer Lifetime Value: How valuable are the visitors or customers in this segment?

Demographics: What is the age or gender of your visitors or customers? What other information do you have on them?

Psychographics: What are the personas or profiles of your visitors?

Culture: To what culture or country do visitors or customers belong? What are their native tongues?

Engagement: How engaged are they with the offering? Is this their first visit or are they repeat customers?

Advocacy: How satisfied are they with your brand and product(s)? How likely are they to recommend the offering?

Site Performance: How well does the website perform for them? Is it fast enough?

Traffic Sources: How did these visitors or customers discover the offering? How likely are they to bring in other visitors?

Conversion Profile: Did they convert? How likely are they to buy, signup or engage?

Willingness to Pay: How much can they spend on your product(s)? Can they afford them?

Context can be a lot of things. Things you’re keenly aware of, and things you’re not. It’s hard to be aware of all the factors that can affect your interpretation of the numbers.

How Intelligent Data Segmentation Helps You See More Clearly

The promise of artificial intelligence is that computers can quickly analyze large quantities of data and leverage learnings. This allows them to recognize patterns more effectively than the human eye can.

We take this promise to heart at Highlights. We show it in 3 key ways:

1. Traffic Channels

We already talked about the importance of analyzing and understanding traffic sources to grow your site traffic.

Well… Highlights no longer looks at aggregate traffic data. 😮 Our algorithm now breaks down all traffic numbers by traffic sources:

Highlights Data Segmentation – Traffic Source Analysis

One thing we discovered is that traffic channels have different potentials to generate repeatable traffic. For example, organic is more likely to drive consistent traffic than referrals. That’s one of the reasons why we ❤️ organic traffic so much.

This realization led to the creation of a custom metric we lovingly refer to as LTTR, or the Likeliness of Traffic to Repeat.

By breaking down traffic sources and factoring in each segment’s LTTR, we can determine whether a landing page or blog post will become an Iceberg… or a Burb and Fizz, impacting site traffic only for a few days.

2. Traffic Patterns

Knowing the kinds of traffic a page is getting is good, but being able to understand and project traffic acceleration or decline is better.

We spent a lot of time refining Highlights’ statuses and trends. The work we put in allowed us to project the trajectory of traffic and performance for a page. This helps us determine which pages are worth promoting.

Data Segmentation – Traffic Patterns

3. Goals & Conversions

Highlights also factors in conversions and micro-conversions via Google Analytics Goals.

Data Segmentation – Goals & Conversions

By assigning scores to the pages that are converting, and those that should convert, we’re able to help our users optimize performance for the emails and landing pages that matter most to their business.

Channels, patterns and goals are weighed in by Highlights. This helps give our users a clear picture of the performance (and the potential for performance!) of their content. It’s the kind of analysis that takes hours to do well, and Highlights makes it available in seconds.

Highlights – Prioritized Opportunities

Go beyond aggregates. Data segmentation is the key to understanding true performance and doubling-down on the right campaigns.

– Highlights, making numbers talk since 2018. 😉

DataTau published first on DataTau

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/qatar-airways-still-pursuing-american-airlines-stake-after-code-share-hitch/

Qatar Airways still pursuing American Airlines stake after code share hitch

(Reuters) – Qatar Airways said it will go ahead with plans to buy a stake in American Airlines Inc (AAL.O) even though the U.S. carrier is ending their code-share agreement.

American announced on Wednesday that it was cancelling code-share agreements with Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways as “an extension of our stance against the illegal subsidies that these carriers receive from their governments.” Both Middle East airlines deny they are state subsidized.

American’s decision to end the agreements which allow airlines to book passengers on each other’s flights, ramps up an acrimonious dispute between U.S. carriers and Gulf competitors over competitive advantages.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker said on Thursday he was disappointed by the decision, but it would not affect the Middle East carrier’s plans to buy up to a 10 percent stake in American, announced last month.

“Our stock purchase request and filing is going ahead as normal. We had to clarify certain questions of the regulator, which we compiled with,” al-Baker told reporters in Doha.

Qatar Airways sent a revised antitrust filing to U.S. regulators on Wednesday seeking clearance to buy up to a 10 percent stake in the U.S. carrier, according to the filing.

A stake in American would add to Qatar Airways’ investment portfolio, which already includes a 20 percent stake in British Airways-owner International Airlines Group (ICAG.L) and 10 percent of South America’s LATAM LAN.SN.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, however, said in a letter to his employees last month that “We aren’t particularly excited about Qatar’s outreach” and that it was puzzling given the U.S. carrier’s very public stance on state support given to Gulf carriers.

“Anti-Consumer”

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker is seen during a commemorative signing wall event in support of Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha, Qatar, July 13, 2017.Naseem Zeitoon

American and other U.S. carriers have charged that state subsidies allow Qatar Airways, Etihad and Emirates [EMIRA.UL] to offer lower fares and more amenities to long-haul, international travelers.

They are pressing the United States government to curb the Middle Eastern carriers’ access to U.S. airports, and the White House is considering their request, according to government officials and airline executives who have spoken to the White House.

Al-Baker said American’s decision to end the code-share agreement was “not in the spirit of the one world alliance” and that Qatar Airways had other partners in the United States “who want to work with us.”

Qatar Airways, American Airlines, IAG’s British Airways, Iberia and LATAM are all members of the one world airline alliance.

Al-Baker previously said Qatar Airways would buy American shares on the open market before formally seeking board approval from the U.S. carrier to increase its ownership. [nL8N1JX389]

The U.S. airline’s own rules require advance approval from its board for the purchase of a stake of 4.75 percent or more.

American said on Wednesday that cancelling code-sharing agreements with Qatar Airways and Etihad would not have a material financial impact for the U.S. carrier.

Etihad, which flies to six U.S. cities, accused American of being “anti-competitive” and ���anti-consumer” and said it was disappointed with the decision.

An interline relationship between Etihad and American, which allows customers from two airlines to buy connecting flights on one ticket, would remain in place to connect passengers to secondary markets, an Etihad spokeswoman said.

Reporting by David Shepardson and Alana Wise, Reporting by Tom Finn in Doha; Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Editing by Leslie Adler and Susan Fenton