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i-heart-hxh · 2 months

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Hello again! In your opinion, how much more of the manga would need to be completed for a new anime to be produced picking up from the 2011 anime? Not until HxH officially ends? Or do you think the odds are if they ever do produce another show, they reboot it again from the beginning? Has there ever been any rumblings in the Japanese media about wanting to reboot/continue the anime? Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions!

Hello!

At the very bare minimum, I think the current arc would have to end in order for there to be any consideration of the anime continuing. It simply wouldn't make sense to start adapting an unfinished arc with no fulfilling place to leave off, especially with how unpredictable Togashi's pace is with releasing new chapters.

With Togashi's pace in mind and the uncertainty about how much more of the series remains, I do think there's a chance they would consider adapting the next arc, if it leaves off with a reasonable stopping place.

I'm sure the Madhouse (2011 anime) team would be happy to continue the series if they have the opportunity; with how enduringly popular Hunter x Hunter is, it's guaranteed to be a success, and the 2011 team seems to absolutely adore the series so I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to continue working on it. It's just a matter of actually having at least an arc completed to work with, which the manga in its current state can't provide.

I think a reboot of the series any time in the near future is highly, highly unlikely. The 2011 anime licensing seems to be quite active, there are still events related to the 2011 anime happening and lots and lots of merchandise being released. With that in mind, another studio obtaining permission and licensing to re-adapt it within the next decade is probably nearly impossible and wouldn't make much sense, especially with how extensive the series is up until this point and how much already got adapted in the 2011 anime. Making a long series, even a popular one, is a huge investment, and having a pretty well-done and satisfying one done recently enough that people are still watching it and merchandising is still active means it would be highly unusual and strange for a reboot to happen so soon.

(I actually think the odds of a Yu Yu Hakusho anime reboot are pretty high within the next ~5-10 years, with the current popularity of re-adapting older series and the age of YYH's anime.)

I wouldn't entirely rule out HxH getting a reboot someday, though I think a continuation is more likely, but it depends on a lot of factors (like what happens with the manga and Togashi and whether an anime continuation happens or not) and a reboot would likely have to be quite a few years down the line. 15-20+ years from now, maybe...?

In short, the situation with the anime continuing is very complicated right now. If you hear anyone spreading news about the anime starting back up again, there's like a 99.99% chance it's fake. There's always the chance something unconventional will happen, like Togashi working directly with an anime crew to continue the series, but I wouldn't count on something unusual like that happening. There's also some small possibility of things like new original anime movies, but TBH without Togashi's heavy input, I'd have mixed feelings on seeing more of those.

All we can do for now is continue to be patient with the manga coming out and hope that someday it'll reach a point where more can be adapted. I would love to see the anime continued someday or even rebooted, but my first priority is seeing what happens with the manga.

Thanks for asking!

#hxh #hunter x hunter #asks #ive-bean-boozled #my posts #as a note I don't have any special insider knowledge or anything here BUT #I do know more about anime production than your average anime fan #due to going to lots of industry panels at anime conventions over the last 20+ years

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haggishlyhagging · 8 months

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The future does not hit everyone at the same time. Nor are all equally prepared for it when it strikes them. The avant-garde, already far into the future, find old patterns of marriage restrictive, uncongenial. But the rear guard, especially women socialized to conform to old patterns and well adiusted to them, are caught in a lag and find the demands of the new ones frightening. While some women are activists for the Lucy Stone League, others are still not even ready to step out as individuals in their own right. After so many years hidden behind her husband, Mr. William Jones, Helen is timid about her identity as Helen Smith Jones.

Some feel that although chivalry is pleasant, it costs too much. Here is how one woman put it, once she had tasted independence: "It is of course lovely to be protected, to have one's bags carried, cigarettes lighted, doors opened. But all these little amenities come high. They are paid for. Independence is a high price to pay for them. The protected person enjoys advantages but she is not in an enviable position. The serfs used to be protected too. And the Mafia's client." She was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then added: "The trick is to be independent without being so all-fired angry and hostile about it. The fact that you are beholden to no one doesn't license you to put others down."

For other women, however, independence is frightening. They have been socialized to buy protection at the cost of independence. They prefer a model of weakness and inferiority that leads men to surrender seats to them, to open doors, and to extend other favors. Any modification of the relations between men and women, and especially any modification of the permanent commitment in marriage, will therefore seem—and for many women, in fact, will actually be—threatening.

Throughout the discussion in this book we have referred again and again to the necessity for new patterns of socializing girls. In chapter 3, for example, we showed how we socialized girls for dependence in order to fit them for marriage as now structured, however anachronistic; in chapter 5 we noted that the new styles of commitment now being experimented with called for new styles for the socialization of girls, that it demanded preparing them for autonomy; in chapter 7 we discussed the changes in the socialization of girls called for in egalitarian relationships; in chapter 8 we suggested ways in which girls might be led to plan their lives for more than marriage and motherhood, in chapter 10, we presented some of the ideas for the socializing of women proposed by the Women's Liberation Movement; and in chapter 11 we pointed out that in order to implement the shared-role pattern, women would have to be trained to their optimum capacity. This recurring motif was neither incidental nor accidental. For there is little doubt that success in the kinds of marriage now being forged will call for a quite different character structure, in both sexes, but especially in women.

From the very earliest years, girls will have to learn that however large marriage may loom in their lives, it is not nirvana, that it does not mark the end of their growth, that motherhood is going to be a relatively transient phase of their lives, that they cannot indulge themselves by investing all their emotional and intellectual resources in their children, that they cannot count on being supported all their lives simply because they are wives. They will have to prepare for loving autonomy rather than symbiosis or parasitism in marriage.

To help women achieve a better marriage we will therefore have to prepare them for it in ways quite different from those of the past. We used to think that courses in "domestic science" or "home economics" or, later, "family life education" were what was needed. To prepare women for marriage of the future something different will be called for. They will have to be prepared to become autonomous women, not economically dependent; women whose economic dependence does not weight every alternative in favor of remaining in a marriage, regardless. The subject here is not the normal dependencies intrinsic in any good marriage and equally great for both men and women; it is the woman's extra load of economic dependency added to the emotional dependency that has to be lightened. A union between a man and a woman in which, when it breaks down, one loses not only the mate but also the very means of subsistence is not a fair relationship. In the breakdown of a marriage, a man loses a mate, a loss that may be extremely serious; but he does not also lose his job. If permanence is no longer to be guaranteed by the marital commitment, women will have to achieve the independence required to mitigate—though it can never eliminate—the trauma of the breakdown of the relationship.

-Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage

#jessie bernard #marriage #womens liberation #female socialization #female independence #heterosexuality

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sinceraindia · 6 months

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Five Sales Performance Metrics Key to Successful Business Growth

Every metric has a story to tell. Dig in over a period of time, break apart all that goes into the metric calculation, join the dots and there you have your story. But then you also have to ACT – your success depends on what you do after you figure out the story. What do you need to do more of? What do you need to eliminate? With the budget season in progress, sales performance metrics are on my mind again. In this Accenture analysis of Sales Performance Optimization Study, sponsored with CSO Insights, sales leaders say their top priorities for the past year was increasing sales effectiveness (56 percent), followed by increasing revenues (52 percent) and improving up-selling/cross-selling (39 percent). The Operations team can play a big role in increasing sales effectiveness with their clear understanding of the various moving parts and inner workings that contribute to high sales performance. These insights can help determine which levers (metrics) can actually help improve sales efforts and align the sales organization to the business strategy.

When it comes to sales metrics, one size definitely does not fit all. The key is to select a good mix of lagging and leading indicators – a set that not only helps you to measure results but more importantly, gives you the ability to predict outcomes. Going beyond the standard booking or quota achievement vs. target, here are five other metrics that I believe go a long way in ensuring sales effectiveness:

Sales Performance Metrics #1 – Funnel or Opportunity Pipeline:

In the current quarter, there is not much you can do to increase sales radically but you can still implement steps to make the sales grow for the rest of the year if you know where to focus efforts. This metric helps determine the nature of funnel and sales expected in future quarters/months. Organize and record each opportunity the sales team is prospecting and assign them a status such as “qualified” or “suspect” or “proposal” along with an estimated value associated with each of them. Assign probability percentage to each status based on your past performance at each stage. The sales people can then prioritize their time according to the probability of a win (status) and the impact of a win (estimated value). This metric is a dynamic metric and will keep changing as new opportunities come in or old opportunities move out as delayed or lost. The value of sale multiplied by the status percentage gives estimated total sales that you can expect at any period in the future provided the opportunities and stages of each opportunity are diligently tracked and recorded.

Sales Performance Metrics #2 – Sales Mix:

Based on the sales strategy of the year, one can come up with different mixes or ratios that need to be tracked as metrics for the year. This is essentially categorizing your funnel into different fields – say by nature (new, renewals or farming), by market segment (products, services, maintenance), by demographics or geography (Americas, Europe, Rest of World), by channel (direct, indirect). The ratios are arrived at by dividing the mix value by total funnel value. This gives a view on how far your strategy is being implemented at the ground level or if there is a possibility of good returns on investment made in any particular area. The sales mix ratios help zoom in on decision areas and decision types and can change from time to time based on the granularity of information available. Again, here is where the operations team can play a big role in ensuring that data strategy, quality and integrity is maintained in all systems – and garbage in-garbage out decision making is avoided.

Sales Performance Metrics #3 – Cost of Sales to Revenue Ratio:

This is a metric that used wisely and measured as a trend over time can show the overall efficiency of the sales team by segment, market or any other growth area that is in the strategy plan. The calculation should be based on the total costs for the selling efforts of each area of business. Total Sales Costs includes salaries, commissions and expenses for sales management, sales people and sales support. Divided by the revenue in the same period from the area of business, you can arrive at the ratio. I like this metric better than sales productivity (Revenue by number of sales people) as, in a global organization, salaries vary across regions, so does the revenues based on the nature of the business area. Measured over a period of time, it can give useful insights into where sales investments in terms of people is needed to get higher revenues, how long it takes for additional sales headcount to generate revenues and other such trends.

Sales Performance Metrics #4 – Conversion Rates and Ratios:

Conversion rates are very useful in identifying sales methodology or process issues, including poor proposal preparation, inaccurate forecasting or funnel categorization efforts, insufficient research into customer buying behaviors, core strength and weakness of sales persons. Conversion rates need to be measured at various steps of the sales process – the most common one is the win ratio –what percentage of qualified opportunities get closed as won. Other useful rates could be the percentage of deals that get lost after responding to proposals, percentage of qualified opportunities that show no movement over a long period of time, percentage of opportunities that are lost without any reason for loss – to pin point where the improvement is needed in the process and is useful in the qualification and prioritization of opportunities.

Sales Performance Metrics #5 – Gross Margin % by Sales Person:

This metric is a bit controversial as it is not generally used to measure performance of the sales team nor used in sales incentive plans. The general idea is that sales team is responsible for getting in the bookings and revenue and the rest of the organization has to ensure that margins are made. I am of the view that unless we track and reward sales people based on not only the volume of the bookings but also the quality of bookings, the organization cannot achieve its margin mandate. Discounting practices, pricing, “value” selling, terms and conditions on scope, timelines, milestones all affect gross margins and sales team has the highest influence with the customer to ensure favourable terms in these areas. So why not measure not only the actual gross margins of revenue by sales person but also future margins based on the funnel details? This will help the entire organization to plan and also help the sales teams to make the “right” (read profitable) sales.

“Gut feel” is all good but you also need the right data and indicators to validate your gut feel. On the other hand, no sales leader will want to go overboard on metrics and measurements that put additional load on the bandwidth of their teams taking time away from “selling” to filling in all sorts of data requirements. So, it is important to choose the right set and number of metrics to help focus strategy and efforts based on not only past performance but also through a rationalized view into the future to enable course corrections as necessary for the success of the business before it is too late.

So what is your story? What sales performance metrics do you think are must have leading indicators to improve forecasting accuracy? What are some of the more creative sales metrics that you have seen ? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

#Sales Performance Metrics #sincera staffing solution #sincera global staffing solution

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paperdemon-arpg · 7 months

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Art RPG Forge: 10 Ways to Grow Your Art RPG Community

Building an Art RPG is a lot of work, but the work doesn’t stop when you’ve figured out your mechanics and assets. Players are the heartbeat of every Art RPG, so how do you jumpstart the pulse? In this article, I'll share 10 tips for attracting players to your Art RPG. Most of these tips can apply to both Art RPGs that are just launching or have been running for years.

These are in no particular order. What will work best for you and your game depends a little on luck and a little on skill. Choose something that feels approachable but don’t be afraid to explore all of them!

If you don’t see immediate success, don’t worry too much about it. Community building can take months or even years before you see significant results. It’s an investment, and you’ll have to keep it up until you get where you want to be.

#1 - A Playable Game

While this might seem obvious, many Art RPGs only launch with a handful of mechanics functional, if any. Other mechanics are usually teased as “coming soon,” but never happen. Make sure that your game has functional playability before launching it. If a player shows up and is interested but can’t actually play the game, you’ve lost a potential community member. They might come back later, but why miss that first chance?

All of the central parts of your game should be up and running when you’re bringing in new recruits. You can leave some room for future development, but don’t put vital functions behind closed doors.

#2 - Clear Onboarding

The biggest barrier to entry for most Art RPGs is too much information too soon. Some games have a wall of all of their links and others have a starter guide, but few take the time to walk their players through the game step by step in bite sized pieces.

Make sure your getting started guide is approachable. It should be as clear and concise as possible and introduce your players to the world and the mechanics with optional deeper information hosted on other guides. Consider building a walkthrough or a mentorship program for your game.

#3 - Newbie Events

Offer new players an opportunity to get a free character or gift basket of items. Offering free characters or predesigned characters reduces the barrier to entry for new players. Choose giveaway items so that they’re things that can be used early in the game, or give the new players access to an important high value item or two that they can look forward to using.

You can even incentivise existing players to invite their friends in order to earn rewards for both themselves and the new player.

#4 - Eye Catching Art

Invest in the look of your game. Banners, item art, NPCs, import base art. All of these and more are where people are likely to draw their first judgment of your game. The more professional and polished the art in your game is, the more likely people will give it a longer look. Make sure to establish a cohesive style for your game to set the tone.

Consider commissioning artists or bringing them onto your team long term to create event art and new assets as your game moves forward. Don’t cheap out on this– it can get pricey but it’ll be even more difficult and pricey to have to replace the art later on. Make sure to have use agreements in writing, particularly if you’re planning on selling the art as merch.

#5 - Paid Banner and Video Ads

Word of mouth is the primary way most Art RPGs bring in new players, but there are an enormous amount of artists out there who haven’t even heard of the genre. Banner ads on sites that artists and creators frequent, particularly artists and creators your game targets, can help bring in new players. Look into targeted YouTube ads that show up on videos by creators whose audience matches yours.

#9 - In-Person Events

Does your town have a local fan convention? Do you table at an artists alley? Is there an artist meetup group you can plug into? Get involved in your in-person community and keep links on hand to show people about your game. Consider printing flyers or business cards to hand out to other artists you meet in the wild. Get in touch with convention staff before the event, some conventions offer specific tables for creative advertisers who aren’t actually selling merch.

#6 - Active Events and Developments

Some Art RPGs are fairly static, but most have seasonal events and new releases to keep players engaged. Consider putting together a roadmap for your game so you can time the creation of assets and mechanics for a regular release schedule. The summer tends to be a high activity period for many Art RPGs, and summer events can bring in new players as well as excite and engage existing ones.

#7 - Social Media

Social media posts keep your players updated, show how active your game is, and provide quick, snappy information for new players. You can feature art, events, spotlights, and much more to show people the very best of your game. Pick only one or two to focus on at first– social media can be overwhelming and different platforms often require different styles of content. Look into social media scheduling tools to help keep your social media active and on track.

As of the time of this writing, we've seen Art RPGs have the most success with the social platforms Discord and Instagram.

#8 - Healthy Community

While internet communities are made up of many people who have many different styles of communication, there is a lot you can do to shape the atmosphere and expectations of your community. Make sure you have very clear rules about behavior that you enforce consistently and fairly. Talk to your team to make sure everyone is on the same page about how they handle both positive and negative situations with the community. Reward players who engage consistently and positively!

#10 - Connect to the Larger Community

There are hundreds of other Art RPGs out there. Many of them have affiliate lists or Discords where they allow advertising for other Art RPGs. Connect with other leaders and see if they want to work together on anything from swapping affiliate links to building crossover events between games.

Do you have more tips for growing your Art RPG that we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Reposted from our Blog Written by Shyftlock

#artrpg #art rpg #art community #gamedev #paperdemon #closed species #open species #arpg

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avatarar · 1 year

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The Value Of A Dollar One of the biggest, and easiest, lessons to teach the children about money is the value of a dollar. This lesson can begin with grocery shopping together. A good way to do this, depending upon their age, is to tell them how much money you have budgeted for this particular grocery trip. Then, they can help you add up all of the items as you go.

When kids do this, they get to see a physical example of how much groceries really cost. Once this concept is grasped, the next step is to give them a small amount of money to spend on their own. Start with $1 or $2 to show them how far that little bit of money doesn’t actually stretch.

Allowance Give children a consistent allowance as soon as they are able to understand that money is necessary to purchase things they want–this usually happens around 4 or 5 years of age.

General rule of thumb: Ranging 50c - $1 per age per year of a weekly. (i.e. a 10-year old would earn $5-10/week)

Kids in elementary school should be expected to do 10 to 20 minutes of helping around the house each day. You can expect a little more on the weekends and in the summer. Teenagers can do 20 to 30 minutes a day, with bigger chores on the weekends.

Household Chores Appropriate for Adolescents of Any Age

Putting away their belongings

Sorting the laundry

Folding and putting away clean clothes

Vacuuming, sweeping, dusting

Setting the table

Clearing the table

Washing the dishes

Mopping floors

Scrubbing the sink, toilet, bathtub, shower stall

Preparing their own lunches for school

Playing chef and helping to make a meal

Doing yardwork

Washing the family car

Once they've proven they can handle their money, it's time for a raise. If they want to make additional money they can:

Recycle aluminum cans for cash

Recycle plastic and glass bottles for money

Help you clean the garage

Have a garage sale

Run a lemonade stand or a bake sale in your neighborhood

Walk the neighbors' dogs

Water plants at home.

Make crafts or jewelry to sell online

Sell their old stuff or unwanted items online

Take photographs and put them up for sale

These are just a few ideas in regards to allowance and teaching children about the value of a dollar. Teaching children about the value of a dollar is important because it provides them with a foundation for understanding personal finance and financial responsibility. When children learn to manage their own money, they can develop important skills such as budgeting, saving, and investing. Additionally, understanding the value of a dollar helps children appreciate the resources they have and to make more thoughtful and responsible decisions about how to spend their money. By developing good money habits early in life, children can avoid financial mistakes and set themselves up for success in the future. Ultimately, teaching children about the value of a dollar can provide them with the tools they need to achieve financial independence and security later in life.

#parenting #allowance #chores #household chores

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mellowwastelandstranger · 1 year

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How to Find Free Cash Flow

There are a few ways to figure out how much free cash flow your company is producing. Free cash flow is a key measure of financial health, as it provides a glimpse of how well your business is functioning. When a business's free cash flow is low, it can be a sign of financial trouble.

Capital expenditures

Free cash flow from capital expenditures is a financial ratio which is useful in evaluating the performance of a company. It helps determine the liquidity of a firm, as well as its ability to pay back its creditors.

The calculation of free cash flow from capital expenditures is done by subtracting the operating cash flow from the capital expenditures. This formula has to be adjusted for any changes in the net working capital of the business.

Capital assets are items such as buildings, equipment, vehicles, land, and machinery. These assets are used to provide long-term benefits to the business. When a business is in need of new fixed assets, it is best to invest in those that are expected to provide high return on investment.

Investing in the right assets can be an important part of any small business's success. However, not all businesses will need to spend a lot on these investments. Therefore, it is best to make wise financial decisions that will help the company to maximize its profits.

Free cash flow from capital expenditures can be calculated in several ways. First, you must know what the company's balance sheet looks like. You may need to do additional calculations to get a full picture of the finances. After that, you can use the company's cash flow statement to figure out the cash available to invest.

Another method is to calculate the amount of depreciation that has taken place for the asset. Depreciation can be a tax deduction, depending on the specifics of the company's financial situation. In addition, depreciation is an important factor in calculating free cash flow from capital expenditures.

Finally, you can look at the amount of capital expenditures that the company has made in the past. These will show you how much money was spent to buy and maintain the assets that the company owns.

As a result of this calculation, you can easily determine whether or not your company has enough free cash flow to fund growth and expansion. If it does not, it may be time to re-evaluate your business.

Sales revenue

Free cash flow is the amount of money a business has after paying expenses and maintaining its capital expenditures. This can be used to buy back shares of stock, pay dividends to shareholders or invest in company growth. A company can also use this amount to pay off debts.

One of the most commonly cited financial metrics is sales revenue. It is a key metric that can help you gauge your company's performance. The metric is used to set revenue targets and benchmark performance.

The free cash flow to sales ratio is a financial ratio that can be calculated in several ways. However, the best way to understand the value of the ratio is to study it over a period of time.

When calculating the free cash flow to sales ratio, you must first figure out what your business's actual costs are. These costs can be found on your balance sheet and income statement. To calculate these costs, you will need to know what you spent in each category. You should also calculate your operating cash flow.

Operating Cash Flow measures the revenue generated from daily business activities. It includes cost of goods sold, selling, general and administrative costs. Generally, it comes from the first section of your statement of cash flows.

Sales Revenue is another metric that can be used to calculate free cash flow. Although this metric does not include direct costs, it is useful to provide a concrete benchmark for future revenue. In addition, it helps companies benchmark their performance, as well as compare their revenue against other similar companies.

Sales Revenue is typically measured on an annual basis. Businesses with brick and mortar locations will include retail and internet sales revenue in this number. E-commerce brands will likely use subscription revenue as part of their overall sales revenue.

Free Cash Flow is also a key financial metric that a company should monitor. It is a good indicator of the firm's ability to produce and distribute cash. Companies that convert sales to cash are usually high quality, as investors value this characteristic.

Adjustments for changes in net working capital

Net working capital is a critical component of any company's cash position. It is a measure of a business' ability to pay current liabilities. Typically, a company's net working capital is a result of subtracting the balances of its current assets and current liabilities.

Many businesses experience seasonal fluctuations in working capital. This could include a decrease in accounts payable or an increase in receivables. Depending on the industry, this might mean inventory write-offs or product line closures. A company that's undergoing growth would likely use the change in working capital to purchase more inventory.

Free cash flow, on the other hand, is a more accurate indicator of a firm's financial health. Rather than using the net income approach, free cash flow calculates changes in net working capital.

Changes in net working capital are often a source of dispute between Buyers and Sellers. However, this does not always mean a business is in trouble. Often, it's simply due to accounting issues. Using a more practical formula to calculate net working capital will eliminate short-term investments and interest-bearing debt.

There are many ways to calculate free cash flow. One of the simplest is to subtract capital expenditures from operating cash flow. While this method works, it may be a bit cumbersome. You will also need to adjust for any interplay between accounts on the balance sheet. For instance, if a company is experiencing negative sales growth, its receivables are likely to decline. These adjustments will show up as additions to free cash flow.

Increasing current assets will reduce liquidity risk. A growing company will also need more operating cash. New facility openings and product launches can also affect working capital. As a result, accountants can manipulate accounts receivable and payable.

In addition to the change in working capital, the seller may have used superior negotiating leverage. If this is the case, a dollar-for-dollar adjustment may have been applied to the purchase price. Some Purchase Agreements prohibit the introduction of classifications and estimation methodologies. Similarly, some Buyers have argued that an adjustment to reserve for doubtful accounts is appropriate in determining closing net working capital.

Low free cash flow can indicate poor financial health

Free cash flow is one of the most critical metrics in assessing a company's financial health. It is a measure of the net income generated by the business, which is adjusted for changes in working capital, interest payments, and other investments.

A business that has negative free cash flow is likely to need to raise capital to support growth. This can include taking on additional debt or selling equity. If the free cash flow is high, however, the business may be able to invest in additional assets, pay dividends to shareholders, or expand its operations.

Businesses that have strong free cash flow are usually well run and profitable. This can be the result of a business that is investing in high-return investments, such as investing in product innovation. In addition, the business has enough cash to make repayments on debts. However, a cyclical business may not have enough money to cover its daily operating costs.

Negative free cash flow can also be a sign of a company that is heavily investing in growth. For example, a business that is growing rapidly might need to invest in accounts receivable, inventory, and other capital expenditures. While these investments can help expand a business, they can also drain a company's cash flow.

One way to assess a company's free cash flow is to calculate its current ratio. Ideally, a business should have at least 1.5 times its short-term liabilities in its current accounts. The higher the ratio, the better the chance that the business will be able to pay off its bills on time.

Some investors prefer free cash flow over other metrics. Free cash flow is more accurate than net income, and it is less susceptible to manipulation. When used in conjunction with other metrics, it can provide valuable information. Using free cash flow to drive growth can also help a company ride out an economic downturn.

As a business owner, you want to know how healthy your company's financial health is. By tracking free cash flow, you can keep an eye on your progress.

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anuharhomes · 2 years

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CHALLENGES FOR A FIRST TIME INVESTOR

Managing money is a difficult task in and of itself. Saving, investing, money management, and future planning are all hot topics that are often discussed and contested. Many individuals, however, do not invest, either because they believe it is hazardous or because they do not understand it. Inflation is one element that can undermine most low-return conservative investment products over time Challenges For a First-Time Investor. Most investors base their judgments on the nominal rate of return rather than the actual rate of return. As a result, one must have a suitable investment strategy that can withstand inflation and other similar things that disturb financial goals.

Investing is an art form and a discipline that is as much a mental fight as it is about picking certain stocks. At the end of the day, owning stable, revenue-generating, and lucrative enterprises is one of the greatest methods to secure long-term investment success for gated communities.

Even if you have done everything correctly and have gotten yourself into a fundamentally sound company, research consistently shows that the market plays tricks on the ordinary investor’s head.

FIRST-TIME INVESTOR

Many people who want to get into the stock market google around to learn the basics and quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer number of seemingly sophisticated and even contradicting financial market advice on the internet. Fortunately, many of the most dependable trading tactics used by successful investors are rather timeless. first time invester New investors may find it simpler to escape the noise and start with a winning investing portfolio by using books as a reference.

“I’m not sure who I’m meant to believe when it comes to investing advice.”

The good news is that you don’t have to “trust” anyone. Simply said, trust the market. No human being can teach you anything more than the market has already taught you through price fixing. Markets are constantly responding in real-time to fresh information. Anything a pundit says on TV or reads on an internet message board is old news. And, while it may appear simple, keep in mind that there is a distinction between fact and opinion. When it comes to financial punditry, cultivate a healthy sense of skepticism and realize that it’s not news, but entertainment. Consider speaking with an independent financial advisor if you need a reliable sounding board.

Fear

If you live a long enough life, you will experience significant market downturns. Concentrated investments are significantly more likely to cause you to “lose it all” than a well-diversified portfolio. Individual investments may fail, but the contemporary market has been around for over a century, has an average annual return of 10%, and has never lost more than 43% in a year.

Unknown Dangers

Many seemingly easy investment techniques may have hidden risks that new investors are unaware of. This might have a significant impact on their portfolios. To combat this disadvantage, it is critical to be as well-informed as possible. Before contemplating margin, leverage, options, futures, and other investing choices, be sure you understand the risks involved. Before making any financial choice, it is critical to understand your risk tolerance.

You have no idea what you know

It is acceptable to feel nervous! There would be no positive expected reward if investing were a slam dunk. An investment must be risky in order to provide the chance of a higher return than money-market funds. And the stakes are enormous when it comes to determining how to increase your hard-earned money. Uncertainty is frightening, yet without it, there would be no opportunity. Like most things in our life, stock market behavior is unpredictable. We can’t make uncertainty go away, but how we cope with it may make a big difference in our financial results and quality of life. Your task is to stick to a predetermined strategy. A real estate expert can assist you.

Managing Market Fluctuations

The market varies, and when there is a crisis in another market or interest rates change, it can have a significant influence on the real estate market. These swings must be controlled carefully, which is why many long-term real estate investors think it is critical to have a long-term strategy to this sort of investing.

Understanding How the Real Estate Market Works

If you want to start investing in rental property, you need first to understand more about the property market and how it works. You can’t afford to jump into something without first learning and comprehending the fundamentals.

Maintaining Technology and Workflow

Shortly after the epidemic, drastic changes in technology and corporate operations began to take form. There has been a tremendous feeling of urgency in developing tools and solutions to manage and limit the hazards posed by the virus. Touchless doors and elevators, as well as air quality monitoring, may fast become a must rather than a “nice-to-have” as businesses seek solutions to allow their employees to return to the workplace securely.

Whether we like it or not, the epidemic has forced us all to accept these changes. Challenges For a First-Time Investor. Buildings and places that are safer and more efficient will provide more peace of mind to investment property owners, landlords, and renters in the future.

Assets are experiencing hyperinflation.

Investors may be battling right now to keep ahead of buyer competition, which is driving up prices, while also managing limited supplies. The epidemic and economic troubles have also resulted in hyperinflation on assets, especially real estate, making cash flow calculations more difficult. Investors are increasingly considering the benefits of buying for gain vs buying for cash flow.

#apartments in alkapurtownship #gated communities in alkapur township #gated community in manikonda #flats for sale in manikonda

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cryptoetfs · 2 years

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Crypto Market Analysis

crypto etfs

Cryptocurrency have been around for a short time now and there is multiple papers in addition to articles on ideas of Cryptocurrency. Don't just have the Cryptocurrency blossomed but have showed as a new along with trusted opportunity for people. The crypto marketplace is still young nonetheless mature enough to help pour in the enough amount of data to get analysis and estimate the trends. Although it is considered as just about the most volatile market and then a huge gamble for being an investment, it has today become predictable to somewhat of a certain point along with the Bitcoin futures really are a proof of this. Various concepts of the stock game have now been employed on the crypto promote with some alterations and changes. This provides us another evidence that many people are getting Cryptocurrency market regularly, and currently around 500 million option traders are present in it. Although total market restrict of crypto sector is $286. 17 Billion that is somewhere around 1/65th of the currency markets at the time of writing, this marketplace potential is very superior considering the success inspite of its age and also the presence of witout a doubt established financial areas. The reason behind this is nothing at all else but the reality people have commenced believing in the know-how and the products backing up a crypto. This means that the crypto technology have tested itself and so a lot that the companies have got agreed to put your assets in the form of crypto coins or bridal party. The concept of Cryptocurrency started to be successful with the financial success of Bitcoin. Bitcoin, which once was formerly the only Cryptocurrency, at this point contributes only thirty seven. 6% to the whole Cryptocurrency market. For the reason that, emergence of cutting edge Cryptocurrencies and the achievements of projects assistance them. This fails to indicate that Bitcoin failed, in fact economy capitalization of Bitcoin has increased, fairly what this indicates is usually that crypto marketplace have expanded as one.

crypto etfs

These facts are sufficiently to prove your success of Cryptocurrencies and their promote. And in reality expenditure in Crypto sector is considered as harmless now, to the level that some shell out as for their retirement living plan. Therefore cures need next will be the tools for exploration of crypto economy. There are many such applications that enable you to evaluate this market in a fashion similar to stock market furnishing similar metrics. Like coin market cover, coin stalker, cryptoz and investing. Also thought these metrics are simple, a do provide significant information about the crypto under consideration. For example , increased market cap suggests a strong project, an increased 24hour volume means high demand and going around supply indicates the exact amount of coins of the crypto in movement. Another important metric is volatility associated with a crypto. Volatility is actually how much the price of your crypto fluctuates. Crypto market is considered since highly volatile, cashing out at a moment in time might bring in lots of profit or provide you pull your fur. Thus what we find is a crypto that is definitely stable enough to make us time to create a calculated decision. Values such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ethereum-classic (not specifically) are considered when stable. With becoming stable, they need to come to be strong enough, to be able to do not become ill or simply stop old in the market. These attributes make a crypto dependable, and the most reliable Cryptocurrencies are used as a variety of liquidity.

As a lot is crypto marketplace is concerned, volatility arrives hand in hand, but which means do its essential property i. o. Decentralization. Crypto promote is decentralized, therefore that the price autumn in one crypto will never necessarily means all the way down trend of every other crypto. Thus giving you an opportunity in the form of what exactly called mutual income. It's a Concept of owning a portfolio of the crypto currencies that you buy. The Idea is to pass on your investments to help you multiple Cryptocurrencies so that they can reduce the risk included if any crypto starts on a endure run

Similar to this strategy is the concept of Indices in crypto sector. Indices provide a conventional point of research for the market overall. The Idea is to select the top currencies already in the market and distribute that investment among them. Those chosen crypto foreign currencies change if the list are dynamic around nature and only look at the top currencies. By way of example if a currency 'X' drops down to 11th position in crypto market, the index chart considering top 10 values would now will not likely consider currency 'X', rather start contemplating currency 'Y' that are fitted with taken it's spot. Some providers including cci30 and crypto20 have tokenized a lot of these Crypto indices. Whereas this might look like recommended that you some, others are at odds of due to the fact that there are certain pre-requisites to invest in these kind of tokens such as a the minimum amount of investment it will take. While others such as cryptoz provide the methodology in addition to a the index valuation, along with the currency constituents so that an entrepreneur is free to dedicate the amount he/she likes to and choose to not ever invest in a crypto usually included in an catalog. Thus, indices supply choice to further erase the volatility together with reduce the risk required.

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nytech · 3 years

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Teaching Entrepreneurship with Shaun Johnson

This interview is part of our “Getting to Know You” series, featuring brilliant entrepreneurs from the NY Tech community.

Shaun Johnson is an experienced entrepreneur who has worked across the fields of technology acceleration, early-stage investment, and ecosystem development. He lives in New York City and teaches entrepreneurship at Fordham University & Parsons School of Design. Shaun is also a Board Member of the NY Tech Alliance. He agreed to speak with us about his career journey, the lessons learned along the way, his take on diversity in tech, and what makes a successful entrepreneur.

“One piece of advice I’ve been given and still sticks with me in a perplexing way would be to say that perception equals reality. Even though this isn’t always a universal truth, I often wonder if it’s true, untrue, or sometimes true — as there are times one can influence the other, and other times, not at all.”

Tell us about yourself

I like to describe myself as a helper of people, and that has taken a lot of different shapes and forms. I actually started my career in the federal government, then as a management consultant, and finally transitioned into the world startups as an early employee at Techstars, where I ended up spinning out a company called Startup Institute — a career accelerator aiming to equip people with the network skills and mindset to be immediately impactful in the startups that they join.

You teach entrepreneurship ー according to you, what are the skills one must develop to become a successful entrepreneur?

In teaching entrepreneurship, there are a lot of things that are important, especially at the university level because there’s always this tension between “can entrepreneurship be taught?” or “should you just go out and do it?”

The mentality of doing and learning through action is definitely a skill worth acquiring, whether in the field or the classroom.

There will always be a lot of little failures along the way, and that’s actually a good thing, but it can be counterintuitive for folks who aren’t used to accepting failure on their way to success. Grit is also another important factor. And then the last one, just because I want to leave it at three, is empathy. To have a deep understanding of your customer, the mission that you have, and the people that you’re building around helps you to build exceptional teams, exceptional products, and ultimately, address your market in an exceptional way.

What’s your favorite thing about teaching entrepreneurship?

The people. Students are always so different. People come from multiple backgrounds, different parts of the world, different industries, and with different perspectives. Even if you are teaching one specific course on entrepreneurship, it’ll never look the same because it’s always dependent on the people who are there. Everyone brings their unique personality, and the diversity and plurality come together to create a unique experience.

My desire and appreciation for plurality reflect my sentiments about New York City itself. The city is made of 8 million people coming from different backgrounds and places, who all have unique personalities, desires, hopes, and dreams.

We all have to interact with each other and try to build a better future. Whether it’s through entrepreneurship or just our own coexistence, I think that there’s something productive and meaningful about that.

How do you think the tech industry can become more diverse?

I think one of the challenges is that we tend to take one shade or one arc of diversity, drill in on that and assume that we’ve done our job. For example, one aspect of diversity can be ensuring your company hires people of color, or getting women into the tech ecosystem and make sure that there’s equal pay and that gender rights are respected.

But can you actually look at this kaleidoscope and not just say, ‘Hey today we want to focus on, like, LGBTQ rights?’ Or ‘today we want to focus on Black people or women.’ But instead, the dialogue has to answer the question of: “How can we actually approach inclusion and value creation that is accessible to all?”

Rather than trying to identify a specific group on its own, let’s actually think about how we can lift everyone up together while also valuing their uniqueness.

Is this part of the reason or the reason why you wanted to become involved with the NY Tech Alliance?

I’ve been a huge fan of the NY Tech Alliance since my career in startups has begun. Before I was living in New York City, I would take a bus from out of state to attend NY Tech Meetups, to see that the energy in the room with so many different people there.

It just felt like a panorama of what the startup ecosystem has to offer. It was a great entry point for me. And the NYTA still serves in that capacity for others and provides a jumping-off point, an entry point, and a point of connection, learning and motivation for people.

When given the opportunity to serve on the board, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.

Which trends do you think will emerge in the tech industry in the near future?

You know, I never pretended to be a fortune teller, but I think the year we just survived showed us that despite quarantine and isolation, we still need to connect with each other and be productive. It has been great for Zoom but so many people are zoomed out and looking for different ways of connecting with people that may not just be from the shoulders up.

You’re also seeing some trends around climate tech. The conversation is now rightly shifted from climate change to the climate crisis, and it is attracting a lot of bright minds and big dollars. And I think that’s great because it’s imperative for our survival as human beings.

How has a past failure set you up for success?

I mean, I guess I’m always failing at something. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not trying hard enough. I think the little failures along the way are indicative of trying to do something audacious or something that you’re unsure of. I couldn’t point to one specific failure because there’s just a butterfly effect of one thing leading to the next thing. But overall, the lesson in failure is really to process it and move on to the next thing, ideally in an upward fashion.

As New Yorkers, there may not always be the time or space to do that. You know, we move so fast. We break things, we execute, and there’s so much going on that we can forget to stop and reflect for a minute, look objectively at failure and ask “What could I have done better? What did I learn here? What would I do next?”

It’s important to reflect in a way that builds off of that failure rather than just repetitively coming right back at the same scenario, which is likely to lead to the same outcome.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in your career?

Walking away from something that just wasn’t for me at the time. With an early career as a management consultant, a lot of things about that job were great: the prestige, the nice fancy suits, the travel.

But then you start to just understand what your calling is, what motivates you or what nourishes you. Changing your career to pursue your calling can be risky, but it ultimately is good for the soul. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what my calling was going to be. And it took courage and conviction to just say “Ok, all these things are good and everyone else loves them for me. But I just don’t love them as much, and I’m willing to look out into the abyss and seek out something that actually is more aligned with who I am and who I want to be.”

It was really scary and that’s one of the biggest moves I’ve made. That’s the advice I give to my students. Do what you love. Life’s too short!

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given?

One piece of advice I’ve been given and still sticks with me in a perplexing way would be to say that perception equals reality. Even though this isn’t always a universal truth, I often wonder if it’s true, untrue, or sometimes true — as there are times one can influence the other, and other times, not at all.

I apply that saying as a prompt for a lot of different things, from looking at analytics and wondering what’s going on with your company, checking in with your mental health and wondering if all of this anxiety or depression is actually real or if your perception influences what you’re feeling. And it’s also a way to keep yourself grounded.

Any final words?

Yeah. If Alicia (interviewer) says or types anything that makes me sound stupid, that was her edit. Everything that I said was brilliant (laugh). And she’ll make sure that it comes across!

To connect with Shaun on LinkedIn, click here.

To learn more valuable lessons from Founders, watch our NYTA Founder Spotlight series on YouTube.

#entrepreneurship #teaching #nytech #education #entrepreneur #startup lessons #nytechalliance

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amygdalagustd · 3 years

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Kim Namjoon on Identity

Namjoon explores the concept of identity time and time again in his life and in his music. He tends to focus on how different parts of himself might be in conflict with each other, and the tensions and confusion that goes with that experience. People are filled with duality, sometimes to the point that it tears us apart. The question of “who am I?” seems a simple one, but underneath it lies a lot of complexity. Who do I want to be? Who do other people want me to be? How much of my identity is formed by my past? Can I change who I am? Can I be multiple things at the same time? Who is the real me? What does it even mean to be the real me?

The question of “who am I?” seems to both fascinate and terrify Namjoon. In this essay we will tackle the question together as I explore all the different ways that Namjoon contemplates identity in lyrics and interviews.

From his decision to become a rapper in the first place to the struggle of taking care of himself as a world famous idol to the questioning of what having an identity actually means, we will travel through Namjoon’s career and highlight all the moments that he asks himself:

“Who the hell am I?”

It’s no secret that Namjoon was a very intelligent and driven student who got good grades in school. In his earlier lyrics he often writes about the pressure that was put on him to succeed and follow a certain path in life. As someone who was good at studying it was expected of him to prioritize his education above all else. Namjoon fit into that role well, but behind the scenes his heart was longing for music. He discovered rap and decided that he wanted a different path for his life. BTS’s early work is filled with messages of following your dreams and not letting other people decide what type of life you want to live. Namjoon often talked about the struggles of living in between the expectations of those around him and his own desires for his future. Some of those conflicting feelings are expressed in Voice, the intro song to his 2015 mixtape RM:

Straight A student and underground rapper

I occupied myself all day with being graded with meaningless numbers like beef gets graded

I just wanted to succeed

because that’s the only thing I was told by others so much that I almost got sick of it

The mirage called happiness- I thought it would be held there

But, sitting at my desk, I was never happy, not for a single moment

I secretly hid a blank sheet of paper between the pages of my study book without my mom’s knowing

My identity that I wrote down along the sound of drums and bass

The feeling of breathing that is different from that of receiving grade reports

Even when I was the top of my class, my mind was never at ease

Is it absolutely necessary to want something that others want?

I secretly raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

I again raise the volume of my voice

so that you can know, so that it can reach you

He also touches on the subject in Born Singer, which was released in 2013:

To be honest, I was scared that I was to prove myself after talking big

that I, who used to know only pen and book, was then to surprise the world

I dunno, that I and the world’s expectations are too asymmetric,

I was scared that I might betray everyone who trusted me

I stretch my burdened shoulders and step onto the very first stage

BTS and Namjoon will continue to talk about the pressure of society's expectations and the difficulty of following your own path in songs like No More Dream, N.O and School of Tears. Fighting back against the oppressive school system is a huge part of their message and mission in their early career. They ask their fans and themselves to look at the person that they are expected to become and question if that image is in line with their own dreams and desires. Namjoon wrestled with this question himself, and therefore has the experience and passion to guide others who might be struggling with their identity and the identity that is put on them.

Idol and artist

The concept of being an idol vs being an artist is one that comes back often in BTS lyrics. Namjoon is an underground rapper who ended up in a boyband, and the identity of being an idol is one that he has wrestled with quite a bit. Can you be both an idol and an artist? Does becoming an idol mean that you have to give up on being an artist? Does it matter if you call yourself an idol or an artist? Does it matter what other people say about it?

Namjoon mentions this conflicting identity in Awakening on his 2015 mixtape RM:

Every night I fight myself inside me

My heart pounds, and my colleagues stab me in the back

saying I became a cripple after going into a company

Yeah fuck you I’m an idol, yeah yeah i’m an idol

I hated it at one time but now I love to get that title

Unlike some keep denying [their identity] to the end on television,

I now fully accept myself, and I just do me

Whether I’m an idol or an artist- it actually never mattered

The way you guys look at me was what defined me

I was obsessed over titles and hung up on how people described me

Listen to the rap of the guy who became a bit smarter as time passed

Namjoon gets shit for being an idol from the underground rap scene and gets shit for being an artist from the idol scene. He is hovering in between, writing his rap lyrics with the power and authenticity of a hip hop artist while simultaneously dancing and looking like a full fledged boyband member. He responds to this dilemma with unwavering pride, the drive to prove himself and a fuck you attitude. This energy dominates a lot of early BTS music. They are still trying to find their place in the industry while not really knowing where exactly they belong. Songs like the Cyphers and Mic Drop highlight the anger they feel about the mistreatment they face from both sides of the industry while boasting about their accomplishments and pride in who they are. Just like Namjoon in Awakening, Yoongi also often mentions his struggles with the identity of being an idol in his solo work. In Idol, the title track of the 2018 album Love Yourself: Answer, BTS face the subject head on:

You can call me artist

You can call me idol

Or you can call me anything else

I don’t care

I’m proud of it

I’m free

No more irony

Because I’ve been me all the time

You can point your fingers at me, I don’t care at all

Whatever reason you have to denigrate me,

I know what I am

I know what I want

I never gon’ change

I never gon’ trade

Why do you talk loud “blah blah”

I do what I do, so mind your own business

You can’t stop me loving’ myself

Idol is a proud, joyful, wonderfully weird and confident self love anthem. It’s a celebration of who BTS are at their core. In the song, they have accepted all the different aspects of their identity and they don’t feel the need to fit in with just one label. In the future, they will go on to say that BTS’s genre is just BTS, and they see no point in categorizing themselves.

RM and Namjoon

In 2018, BTS released a documentary series called Burn The Stage. The series followed them throughout the Wings tour and was supposed to show a more raw version of them.

In episode 6, Namjoon said:

Being an idol star, you don’t have a choice but to have two identities. I invested a lot in my identity as BTS and RM, and this is really a dilemma. We need to find ways to overcome this, and I’m trying different things. I study, I read books. I need time to be wholly me, the original me that I know.

Everyone in BTS has a stage name, a person they become when they present themselves in front of their fans. On stage Namjoon is RM, a fierce and confident rapper, a powerful and charming performer, a dependable leader and someone who lives a fiery and intense life.

Behind the scenes, Namjoon is Namjoon, a man in his twenties who is trying to figure out how to be an adult just like everyone else. He likes to go on bike rides, take care of plants, go to museums, read books and spend time in nature. He gets lazy and reads webtunes for 5 hours straight and sometimes argues with the people around him because they annoy him.

Namjoon spends the years of his youth as part of BTS, in the public eye, and sometimes that causes tension between these different parts of himself; the stage persona and the private person. In Break The Silence: The Movie which came out in 2020, there was a lot of talk about identity. During one of Namjoon’s segments he said:

There is also the fear of how well I’m taking care of myself, the Kim Namjoon as a person. Aside from money, fame, and a sense of calling, what do I really have? When you have those things all other things start to feel really valuable. Those who don’t have them would find them really special. I think it’s a repetition of that, so for me, there is a fear about whether I’m faithfully living the story of my life to the fullest.

He also mentions this dilemma in Airplane pt.2 on the 2018 album Love Yourself: Tear where the lyrics go:

Who should I live as today, Kim Namjoon or RM?

25, I still don’t know how to live well

For Namjoon and anyone in BTS, there is no simple answer to this question, as the nature of their job puts them in a position that makes it hard for them to develop a sense of self outside of the work they are doing. Even though Namjoon is part of an incredibly successful band, that doesn't mean he got it all figured out. As he has poured his youth and his energy into becoming the best performer he can be, he now feels like the Kim Namjoon behind the scenes deserves some energy and space to exist too.

Rap Monster and RM

Before Namjoon was RM, Namjoon was Rap Monster, a stage name that he used until November of 2017. The name Rap Monster fits the fierce and somewhat angst-ridden style of music that Namjoon was making in the beginning of his career. He decided to move on from the name in 2017 because it was no longer representative of him and the music that he was making.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Namjoon said that RM could stand for many things. He mentioned Real Me as one of the possibilities, but seems to prefer not to pin one specific meaning to the name.

In another interview with J-14 Magazine when asked what kind of advice he would give to himself in 2013, he said:

Hey Namjoon, Don’t name yourself Rap Monster. You’re a human. You’re not a monster. You’re a beautiful human.

Namjoon has often said that one of his missions in life is to love himself. This struggle to love himself often reflects in his lyrics, and now also in his decision to change his stage name, as the old one had some negative connotations to it. Perhaps Namjoons struggle with self acceptance, self worth and self love is one of the reasons that identity is such a big theme for him, as he is trying to figure out how to be a Namjoon that he can love. RM is a stage name that is more aligned with that goal as it leaves more room for flexibility and change.

Map of the Soul

The subject of identity is explored to the fullest in the Map of the Soul era that started with Map of the Soul: Persona in 2019, followed up by Map of the Soul: 7 in 2020.

Map of the Soul is inspired by the ideas of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The words persona, shadow and ego that are used in Map of the Soul come directly from his theory. BTS uses these concepts to examine different parts of themselves and their career over time. A lot of this era feels like a final examination of the question that Namjoon has been asking himself in different ways throughout his entire career: Who am I?

In Intro: Persona, the opener to both albums, Namjoon writes about his journey with identity in the first few lines of the song:

“Who am I,” a question that I’ve been asking myself for my whole life

A question that I will probably never be able to find the right answer for

If I were answerable with only a few words,

God wouldn’t have created all those many beauties

Namjoon realizes that he will probably never have a clear answer to the question of “who am I?” and he accepts that. He recognizes that his identity can’t be summed up by a few words or traits and that this isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it can feel more secure to build our entire sense of identity around one aspect of ourselves (I am a straight A student, I am an underground rapper) but that puts us in a position without flexibility and without space for growth. As different parts of ourselves clash with each other we end up feeling scattered, unsure of who we are, and angry at ourselves. It’s only when those different parts of ourselves are allowed to co-exist that we can find peace and a true sense of self.

BTS will talk about this idea in other songs too, like in Idol, where Taehyung sings:

There are tens and hundreds of myself within me

Today, I greet my another self

They are all me after all,

so I just run rather than worrying

The notion also comes back in the speech that BTS held for the United Nations in 2018. The final message of that speech was to find your name and find your voice by speaking yourself. There was a lot of talk about losing your identity as a young child in favor of fitting in, and Namjoon encouraged everyone to be their own person and to find their own voice back. Throughout the speech he mentions how he is both an idol and artist, Kim Namjoon and RM, and also just an ordinary 24 year old guy. He is saying that he can be many things at once and strives to love all those different parts of himself at the same time.

In the final verses of Intro: Persona, Namjoon boldly and confidently claims that he is no longer ashamed of the different parts inside of him, writing:

Yeah my name is R

The ‘me’ who I remember and who people know

The ‘me’ who I created by myself to speak my mind

Yeah, I might have been deceiving myself, I might have been lying

But, I’m not ashamed of it, this is the map of my soul

The lyrics continue, focusing on duality, complexity and balance within his identity, accepting the different parts of himself that coexist together even if they clash:

Dear myself

You must never lose your temperature

because you don’t need to be warm or cold

Though I might sometimes pretend I’m good and sometimes pretend I’m evil,

this is the barometer of my direction that I want to set

The ‘me’ who I want to be

The ‘me’ who people want

The ‘me’ who you love

And the ‘me’ who I craft

The ‘me’ who’s smiling

The ‘me’ who’s crying sometimes

Living and breathing every second, every moment, even now

Within these lyrics there is a tone of direction and intent rather than one of being lost and questioning. This tone is very strong throughout the entire Map of the Soul concept, especially in ON, suggesting that maybe “finding” your identity isn’t about anxiously defining every single part of your personality, it’s more about choosing who you want to be and boldly pursuing the world as an incomplete human being. In the end, there is no simple answer to the question of “who am I?” and that’s okay.

All lyrics translations come from Doolset. Visit the website for additional notes and interpretations of BTS lyrics.

#bts #namjoon #rm #my writing #bts essay #long post #identity

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thed4rkhand · 3 years

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Im lacking mentally so I’m not 100% sure that aspects are like different placements in someone’s chart but assuming they are could u say a little about Namjoon’s sag moon? I’m a sag moon but I know with the rest of someone’s chart it’ll effect them differently. Sorry if this is just wrong but if it’s not thank u 💜

Hey! This is absolutely true, sag moons differ from one another a lot depending on the rest of the chart. Since I mostly Vedic astrology, I’ll analyse his chart based on that!

We have to note that while western astrology is usually more advisory in nature, Vedic astrology’s main purpose is to predict. Also, we usually go a sign back in Vedic astrology, so according to that for example, Namjoon would actually have a Scorpio moon. ( you would too if you use western astrology and then convert it to Vedic!)

Now let’s be aware that the chart may be a bit different, but given the main d1 (Lagna) chart remains the same for about 2 hours, let’s focus on that and the moon chart (rashi chart) for this reading. We can also just look at d9 for strength but not house placements as that can be time sensitive.

According to sources online, Namjoon was born at about 12noon, in Seoul (don’t worry if it’s another city, since Korea is fairly small, it wouldn’t matter too much, plus they follow a uniform time zone) on 12th September, 1994.

DO LET ME KNOW LATER ON IF ANYONE WANTS ME TO DO A BIRTH TIME RECTIFICATION ON NAMJOON TO MAYBE GET A MORE ACCURATE READING.

Coming to the actual reading now, please read the above part or you’ll be a bit confused. In case you’re unfamiliar with Vedic astrology, feel free to inquire about any of the astrology jargon that is about to be poured here analysing this!

What does moon represent in a chart? As the natural ruler of the 4th house and thus cancer, it represents the mother, it also represents our mind and emotion, and also fame and foreign lands. (It represents a lot a lot more, but main things are these)

What does the sixth house of a chart represent? Daily work, routine, small animals, wage labour, loans, enemies and so so much more.

What does Scorpio represent? Being ruled by both Ketu (south node) and Mars, it covers topics of occult, transformations, obsession, research, mental duress, hidden wealth, and so so sooooo much more too.

Moon in his chart is at 13’ 39 in Scorpio, which means it’s debilitated. Debilation in a chart means that the planet is in a sign which weakens it considerably.

A very generic interpretation of this would thus imply a lot of mental duress within a person, a workoholic, someone who craves routine, someone who finds it hard to connect with their emotions, a communicative relationship with the mother (natural 4th lord is 3rd from 4th house), close to younger siblings but on the bad side we have a dual faced person or person that is very different at heart as compared to their image (see how Scorpio has two rulers, representing two different things), someone who is very insecure and on the search for his enemies at all times, very strong oppositions in life, etc.

Given the fact that the moon here is the lord of 3rd house and siting in the 6th house, one can see that one’s job may be related to communication of words and ideas, and given the lord here is moon, this can be through emotional and/or creative methods (we all know how good joon is at penning lyrics), here, in 3rd house we also see the sun sitting in cancer, which means the 4th lord is 12 houses away. We can thus see that the lyrics or emotions portrayed here may at times be against oppression or defined boundaries of the legal system or society (12 represents losses, and sun is the ruler). Since sun here is also the 4th lord, the communication may also include elements of childhood nostalgia at times. The person may also have learned how to write creatively from their mother, or the mother may have been very dominating during their early education.

Given the lord of the 6th house is sitting 8 houses away, in the 1st house itself, it indicates that the job of such an Individual is transformative in nature, however the person is very passionate about this job himself. Given that here, Mars is sitting in Gemini, a sign that represents youthfulness, the person may also work with younger people, have a very modern outlook on things, have rapidly changing opinions, be very opinionated and aggressive at times, work for the youth, and more.

Given the sublord is sitting 6 houses away (south node Ketu) in the 11th house in Pisces we can get even more clues about him. Such a placement causes devotion to work, as Pisces is all about devotion, however Ketu kicks in the escapist tendencies, making the person confused about what they want (they can be very moody, have periods of working a lot and then long periods of depression). However since Ketu itself is spiritual in nature, such a person finds solace in work itself. They might have a lot of material goods and friends, and may be extremely charming (11th house qualities), but they tend to be quite over it most of the time. So having an ambivert kind of personality, where they actually find their own company quite satisfactory but act as quite a magnet to other people (the Pisces charm), making their true personalities quite a surprise to most people.

Now coming to the Nakshatra placements of this moon (each sign has these constellations within them, which are called Nakshatras, so rather than classifying a whole sign as an archetype, nakshatras, according to degrees, help us decode them better! They also help in reading empty houses or energies of houses on their own!

Namjoon has his moon in Anuradha Nakshatra, which is considered one of the most auspicious nakshatras to have your moon in! It literally translates to the follower, so someone who passionately follows their heart’s desire!

Having one’s moon here often leads to obsessive thoughts and task orientated personalities who don’t know how to let go and relax. The symbol of the Nakshatra is a lotus, which blooms despite being born in muddy waters. Such people may have a poor or average upbringing, but attain fame and wealth on their own might. They might get angry very quickly and may often let loose of their tongues. They might be extremely blunt and staring forward at times, and thus people are careful around them. They are not the kind of people who show off, and thus tend to stay humble even after becoming successful. They tend to become breadwinners for the family quite young, at around 17-18 itself.

They are extremely hard working and dedicated at their jobs. They are extremely disciplined in life and tend to follow principles of the society as a whole. They learn life lesson by their struggles in life. People tend to come to such people for advice because they’re natural born leaders and mature, they are also able to get rid of any of life’s hurdles thrown at them. These people are very concerned with investing in non liquid property such as houses and cars, gold and jewellery. They may also invest a lot in stocks and as a result tend to be quite rich even when not actively working.

Lastly, the lord of this nakshatra is Saturn, which means that the person with such a Nakshatra May deal with masses of people and may serve the masses too (UN hello? Future politician?). Given that Joon’s Saturn is retrograde in the 9th house in Capricorn, he’s had quite a lot of mental resets where he’s constantly putting himself down for not working hard enough, or even when he is working, he often doesn’t see tangible results from it. (Saturn is work), his luck tends to go up and down, and this really affects his mental state, as he is literally one with work. Expect this one to be really really moody but really really helpful and organised due to his Saturn.

Interestingly, since moon represents fluids, it causes issues with fluids in the body too. (Who remembers the nose surgery because joon’s nosebridge collapsed or something?). Such a person may also be a hypochondriac actually.

Sooo this was my analysis, and obviously I could go on and on and on about it for hours, there is so much to say, but I doubt anyone would be interested in so much. Since I wasn’t sure what you wanted to know with the moon, I just put in a bit of everything. In case you do want to know more, give in a more detailed ask and we’ll just dive in and get all the dates and minutes out.

#bts astrology #bts tarot #bts #kim namjoon #rm #namjoon #bts suga #bts jimin #bts jin #jeon jungkook #jungkook #kim taehyung #v #hoseok #jhope #yoongi

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spectrumed · 3 years

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5. sleep

It hardly gets dark in the Swedish summers. Between dusk to dawn, you’ve got about an hour to fall asleep before the sun rises again. If you struggle to fall asleep that fast, you can invest in some good window blinds. Or you can do as I do and place one big pillow over your face. Then the birds start singing around three o’clock in the morning. You can practically hear the sounds of Edvard Grieg’s Morning Mood playing at around four o’clock in the morning. Around five o’clock in the morning, it is as bright as midday. Did you have a good time sleeping? Or did you pace around in a circle having one hell of a panic attack? I thought you took some of those sleeping pills you got prescribed, they should have helped you fall asleep… wait, you did take them? They didn’t work? Oh, they did work, you just felt your body falling asleep while your mind stayed awake? That sounds terrible, real terrible. Very well. It’s morning now. Want some coffee?

You could form a religion out of sleeping. Let’s have sermons where we fill a whole auditorium full of beds and have our congregates take a big collective nap. Sleep for the sleep god! Pillows for the pillow throne! Sleep is a billion-dollar industry, there’s a plethora of handy products you can buy that promise to send you on a luxury liner to dreamland. Pills, mattresses, dreamcatchers, whatever your snoozy heart desires. You can go to a proper doctor and they might help you, or you can settle for the placebo effect and go to some fraudulent quack, instead. He might make you swallow some pills that contain arsenic, but hey, arsenic is a naturally occurring element. It can’t be all that bad for you if it is natural. And you do want to sleep, don’t you? If you take this pill in your mouth and swallow it with a glass of water, I promise you, you will sleep for a very long time.

The esteemed former president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, claims that he only needs four to five hours of sleep every night. While Mr. Trump is well-known to be a paragon of honesty, I do doubt he’s telling the truth. No, I actually do believe him when says that he only gets about four or five hours of sleep each night, I just don’t believe him when he says that is all he needs. He doesn’t look very well-rested, does he? And Margaret Thatcher, the similarly adored former prime minister of the United Kingdom, claimed that she also only needed about four hours of sleep every night. Yes, while researching the sleeping habits of famous monsters, I’ve come to the conclusion that amongst powerful individuals, not getting enough sleep has become a proper badge of honour. The belief is that if you don’t get enough sleep, that must be because you are living such a vibrantly successful life, and are so career-driven, that you simply haven’t got enough time to sleep for the full eight hours. People who sleep for more than four hours are lazy liberals. Go-getters like Trump has got to be out there, working, making decisions, raping women, and showing daddy what a good boy he is. Sleep is for the weak. But maybe I am weak. I sure like sleeping.

It’s the cultural hangover our society has had since the 80’s. Back when the yuppies wearing jackets with obscenely padded shoulders would happily chuck down eight to ten espressos in one go while A Flock of Seagulls was playing on the radio encouraging everyone to go running. And to be fair to them, with the constant fear of the doomsday clock hitting midnight, they really had no reason to think that they’d survive the decade. The new millennia, it seemed, would have no cities, no nature, no humans, only radiated mutants scouring the rubble that remains of civilization for cans of preserved something edible. Self-destructive behaviour was in. It was fashionable. Doubt people got enough sleep back then, between snorting coke and wondering if the next pandemic that hits the night clubs would start killing as many straight folks as gay folks. Well, here we are in the new 20’s, and we’ve got a pandemic that does appear to kill people regardless of sexual orientation. Sure, the looming threat of nuclear obliteration has been lessened dramatically, but we’ve largely come to exchange that anxiety for the fear of total environmental collapse, instead. No wonder 80’s nostalgia is a big thing right now. History doesn't repeat itself, but It often rhymes, said Mark Twain (supposedly.) I wonder how much coke Mark Twain would snort if he lived in the 80’s.

I notice a palpable difference in my mood and mental state when I’ve been getting good amounts of sleep. Lack of sleep results in lack of clear thinking. Caffeine, though it is something I am chronically addicted to, does not help fix a sleep-deprived mind. There are no tricks of revolutionary “life hacks” one can employ to get out of sleeping. To recover from depression, one has to sleep. Sleep often and sleep well. I cannot understate the importance of being well-rested. You cannot process information if you are tired. I am reminded of my teenage years seeing friends of mine who’d stay up all night, then come into school shuffling like agonised zombies. They got so frustrated when the teachers reprimanded them for snoozing in class. Well, dummies, it is your fault for drinking several dozen cans of Red Bull every day! I know that sleep does not always come easy. I know the terror of insomnia. But, c’mon! At some point, you’ve got to realise that sleep is essential. Maybe most of your problems stem from the fact that you refuse to get enough of it? Here’s where the tough love comes in. If you wanna get better, kiddo, then listen to me. It’s bedtime. Yes, I know you’d rather stay up late playing monopoly with your friends, but I’m confiscating your dice and I’ll only give it back to you when you’ve gotten some good sleep. Okay? You hear me, missy? You listen to your daddy now, and go to bed. No ifs or buts about it, princess, I’ve made myself clear. I know what is best for you, and you know that I am right. I’m your daddy.

But what if I can’t seem to fall asleep? Normally, it takes a long time for me to fall asleep. It is not uncommon for me to stay awake for two hours, maybe more, before I finally begin to sleep. Fearing that I won’t fall asleep gives me anxiety. That anxiety keeps me awake. I turn my body. I try lying on my side. First my left side, then my right side. I then try to lie on my back. I’ve got a song stuck playing in my head. Not even the whole song, just a ten-second segment of it. It’s playing over and over. I’m worried about the future, will I ever find security, will I ever find a wife, will I get to grow old? I worry about death. I keep hearing the music playing, it’s grating. I rearrange the pillows, in hopes that will make me feel more comfortable. But no, I keep tossing and turning like a fish caught on land. I’m getting frustrated. If only I could shut off my brain. I’m constantly thinking. I turn to my side again, but now I notice I’ve moved arounds so much that now the bed has shifted away from its position next to the wall. There’s now a gap between the bed and the wall. I almost fall down that gap. I get up and I push the bed back against the wall. I lay down in bed. The song is still playing.

How am I ever going to become a successful businessman if I am wasting so many hours just trying to get to sleep? This is the time I should be spending on the phone, yelling at people and making inappropriate sexual comments to my female employees. That is what good executives do. I need to get my life in order. I need to exercise more. I should practice mindfulness. I should get a life coach, a personal trainer, a stylist, an accountant, an assistant, a trophy wife, and a mistress. I need people in my life to take care of me. It’s funny how rich people create the sort of environment around them where people will take care of all their needs, effectively infantilising them. These people don’t even get to decide how to dress themselves. They’ve got fancy apartments, but they don’t choose any of the furniture. They’ve got art on the walls that they don’t like, but the art looks expensive, and that is all that matters. They’ve got kids, but they don’t raise them. Their spouses are cheating on them, but in fairness, they are cheating on their spouses. They don’t really even know what their jobs entails, as they’ve gotten promoted so many times that they’ve ended up in a position that is totally outside their realm of expertise. But they’re so powerful that no-one is able to fire them over their pretty blatant incompetence. They’re successful. They’ve made it. But they still can’t sleep at night. They only manage to successfully fall asleep at night after swallowing a fistful of pills along with a swig of vodka.

It must be easy being a self-help guru. Well, what I mean to say is that all you really need is charisma, which is something you need to be born with. But you don’t need to do any actual studying, any real research, or any kind of soul-searching or deliberation. All you need is to state what is obvious. You go on stage in front of an anxious audience, mostly composed of middle-class salesmen and miscellaneous white collar ghosts. You smile, show off your eerily bright teeth, and they clap. You tell them to go take care of themselves, to eat more healthily, to take walks, or go swimming, and love their partners. You tell them to drink less, or maybe, if they feel like it, they could drink more. I am sure you could spin alcohol as a positive or a negative, depending on what crowd you’re talking to. Tell them to appreciate family. Tell them to appreciate others. Live, laugh, but most of all, love. Tell them to go clean their rooms. Tell them to remember that if they’re on an airplane that is about to crash land, they need to put their own oxygen mask on before they can help others put theirs on. If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? Now, go to bed!

You know all this stuff. Me telling you that you should sleep more doesn’t really help you. You know that you should sleep more. It’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that. And it’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that it is better to drink in moderation, and that you should smoke less weed. There are many small little things you can do to improve your life, to stop being a terminally unemployed slacker. It’s like your grandpa who tells you stories about life after the war when you could walk into the biggest building in town, slam your fist against the table and demand to be given a job and a house and a wife and a couple of kids, and that was all you needed to do. He can’t comprehend the fact that society doesn’t work like that, any more. Most people my generation have given up hope of ever owning a home, at least if they happen to live in the vicinity of a larger city. It seems that, no matter where you live, the cost of homes has risen to an impenetrable degree. It seems just as likely that you will be able to afford your very own genetically-engineered pet dragon before you will get to be a house-owner. It’s the fault of those damn boomers, why bother changing your ways, when the boomers are still in charge? Others may accuse you of wallowing in your own depression, but you are perfectly aware that this is exactly what you are doing. You are self-aware. But self-awareness on its own is not enough to motivate anyone. You still can’t see the point in doing anything constructive with your life. Life just feels so aimless. It’s easier to sit, smoke weed, and watch cartoons.

Pop psychology is problematic. To say the least. Take all those self-help gurus suffering from their messiah complexes and put them through the shredder. Don’t buy books thinking that they’ll offer you the kind of treatment you would get from an actual psychiatrist. I know that, depending on where you are in the world, treatment can get very expensive, but you’re not going to get better reading the book of some self-aggrandising narcissist’s collection of wishy-washy platitudes. Dr. Phil has done great evil pretending to be a therapist on the TV, and Jordan Peterson (despite having once been an esteemed scholar) has turned a generation of young internet-savvy zoomers into proto-fascists obsessed with the monogamy of lobsters. Pop psychology has become a guise for cult leaders to reap new followers. Getting treatment should not feel like joining a new religious movement. Maybe I’m just one of those annoying atheists, but I dare say, psychiatry works at its best when it's secular. You should not look at your psychiatrist as a prophet speaking to God. They’re just a doctor, and you need treatment.

I do not aspire to create a self-help blog. I do not promise that reading this blog will help you in any way. I would be overjoyed if someone came up to me and told me that I had inspired them to seek help. You may tell me that reading my words have made you feel less alone, knowing that others have gone through all these things that you are going through. When I felt at my worst, I remember reading the memoirs of people I admired who had similarly struggled in their lives, and I felt less alone. But none of those books pretended to exist principally to help others. Those books did help me, through the candid descriptions of struggles that I thought I was alone in experiencing. Knowing that some people had pulled through, managed to find a light at the end of the tunnel, it made me think I could one day be like them. The books didn’t seek to fix me, but they offered me a perspective that came to be very valuable later on, when I started going to therapy, and when I later started taking medication. Sometimes that is all you need. Not someone standing over you and telling you to go to bed, or to clean your room, or to stop drinking. You know all that, already. What you really need is the reassurance that things can indeed get better. Sleep will come.

#neurodiversity #neurodivergent #autism spectrum disorder #autism #aspergers #mental health

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moldy-mold · 3 years

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Hello! It’s already May... Life updates - a roller coaster of emotions

A tempestuous, tearful April... Aghh the struggle has not eased up a bit. Living is just too expensive to be shouldered by part-time wages, meager freelance, and fickle confidence. My parents are disappointed - I’ve always tried to dodge the questions about my uncertain future. After all, I don’t have any answers.

What nearly broke my spirit was the humiliating scolding I received on my birthday. “You’re almost 30. Stop playing around at the cafe, don’t you know your bank account is nearly empty? How will you pay for this? If you can’t afford car insurance then just bike to work!” I didn’t even have time to think about how inconsiderate that was. In a daze, I hung up and went to my second part-time job that day.

Well, Dad, those are the questions I asked myself every single day. All I can do is keep trying even if you don’t believe in me. Because, despite everything, I still believe in myself.

Nothing good will come out of asking these punishing questions. I don’t know if things will get better or worse. Just gotta do what I can to get by as a small creature existing in this universe.

I learned to stop blaming myself for not being successful. Given the circumstances, I think the odds are stacked pretty high against most of us right now.

“Banish the nonsense. Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.” - Annihilation

I’ve begun my investment journey! After studying how it all works I have come to understand the value of investing. It was one of my resolutions for this year and I’m glad I’ve achieved it.

My brother, a crypto enthusiast, knows my monetary plight and has been helping me out in the weirdest ways.

6 am text: “Hey Sis, you got $1000? Put it into Dogecoin... like NOW.”

I don’t like doing these kinds of high-risk-high-reward investments but what the heck, I was desperate. I applied for an account that can trade crypto.

In the end my account got rejected (there was no explanation) and I gave up. Because of course that would happen lol.

“Hey, do you have time to talk about the future?” “UM... are we breaking up???” “LOL don’t say it like that!”

My roommate / best friend decided she wanted to move to her own place and find her own way in life. Of course, my fragile heart, still tender from the previous month’s beating, took it very personally. I was reassured it wasn’t my fault - there are plenty of other valid reasons why.

We’ve been sharing an apartment for 6 years now, and although I knew it would happen someday, it was quite shocking to hear it being said to me in reality. At first, I laughed it off because I’ve been dreaming about moving out of the country anyway and it all works out. I’m an introverted, neat-freak, homebody! It’s perfect! But after a very pensive shower, I realized that I’m actually terrified to be without any companionship. Either way, I have to put my feelings aside because I don’t wanna hold her back from her dreams. I may have trouble accepting it now but hopefully I can genuinely be happy for her in time.

The Plant Life Please welcome Rokurou, the newest addition to my jungle.

It’s been a few weeks and he totally ate bugs already lol. Nice! I was thinking the smaller traps wouldn’t catch anything, but it turns out they’ve been doing the most work. The larger traps can’t catch ants or tiny gnats. They just crawl out after the trap snaps shut.

This venus fly trap is rather picky about what water he gets so I’ve been out there collecting rainwater in buckets JUST for him! Kind of a pain, but I will do whatever it takes to keep him alive.

It was a very tiny dream of mine to collect and care for carnivorous plants. If the shop had more varieties, I would probably buy them all.

I thought I was gonna die... Hostess for a day. One day while working at the cafe, this old Chinese man came in asking how much I made here. Then he told me if I work as a hostess/front desk person at his restaurant (which was next to the cafe, by the way), he will pay me more than the cafe. He slipped me $5 to go see him after my shift at 9pm. It was soooooo sketch. But I went anyway to at least hear him out after telling my roommate and my parents where I was going. You know... in case I die.

Luckily I didn’t die. It was a normal Chinese restaurant. I met the staff and they were all super cool and the mysterious old man goes by Mr. Lin.

Mr. Lin was very chill about it. He said I can have a trial run after my bakery shift on Saturday. If I don’t like it, I can just tell him no and he will pay me for my time.

I knew it was a bad idea to take another shift after a long shift at the cafe but I did it anyway. It was BUSY. Too busy for anyone to teach me how to be a hostess so I literally just had to guess what I’m supposed to be doing. It was kinda obvious though, showing people to their tables. I picked them at random bc I didn’t know if there was a method to seating people or not.

There are three different menus: Chinese, Korean and English and they’re ALL different. Depending on the nationality of who walks in, I have to decide for myself which menu to hand out. Uhhhhh despite being Asian myself, I cannot tell the difference between Korean and Chinese people lmao so I have to keep awkwardly asking people which menu they want. *screams*

The manager, Vincent, is so OP though. He knows exactly which menu to get every time. I was like HOW DO YOU KNOW?? He only responded with “working in the business for 24 years.”

Anyway, it was a long and confusing night of people thinking I am a waitress and me not knowing where the spoons are. But I don’t think this job is for me, even if it pays a lot.

There sure is plenty of demand for part-time food service workers and zero demand for full-time graphic designers... sigh. My journey doing random jobs in 2021 continues.

My brother graduated pharmacy school last week. In our culture, the older sibling’s shoulders is where all the expectations should rest. Maybe in another AU I would feel small and inferior to my younger and more successful sibling. But I don’t feel anything like that. In fact, if he can take care of my parents while I’m trying to figure out my own life, then I’m just more grateful to him. Maybe my parents don’t expect anything of me anymore, which is okay. Either way, my brother and I have each other’s backs.

Berseria I went into it with ZERO expectations because of its infamous predecessor, but I have come out pleasantly surprised. I liked it more than I thought. I’m at the end but I’m not done with the story yet.

I remember expressing my utter confusion about Zesty and everyone was like “play Berseria, it will answer a majority of your questions.” And boy, it did and I’m so glad. I loved all the throwbacks and references and lore that had to do with the previous game. Like, they really had something interesting going on here but it never quite came to fruition last time.

Is it just me, or did it take a very long time to understand all the battle mechanics? Like... I didn’t get the hang of the game until we got to Meirchio. Now I am quite good at playing Rokurou, my main. And it feels way more fun. I usually like mage characters in the old tales games but tbh I wasn’t really into it this time.

After we finish Bersy, we will be moving on to Xillia 2, our final Tales game! Gaius, I’m coming for you.

Xenoblade At the same time, I am also finishing up Xenoblade after spending nearly a year on it. I have weeks where I’m just grinding the side quests to unlock the skill trees. When I’m down, traveling and exploring in this game puts my worries to rest. Really though, the maps are so beautiful... And the music! T_T

This is one of the few games where I like every character pretty much equally, though Dundun and Riki win by just a little bit.

That’s it for now. Thanks for being here!

#diary

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noassallclass · 3 years

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So my roommate spent all of today writing up a report for Critical Role as a company and I really don't know much about business stuff but I think it is fascinating. Read to the end for a wild ride.

"Okay here is my idea of how Critical Role is actually structured based on what public information exists:

At Geek and Sundry, “Critical Role” as an entity was essentially a partnership between all cast members. The only asset this partnership had was the intellectual property of CR and the only Revenue it took in was licensing that IP to Geek and Sundry. This is because Critical Role Partnership was adamant about maintaining ownership of the IP. This license then pays out between the partners. Percentage

ownership of Critical Role Partnership is divided based on money put in, and previous work done. I would be very surprised if Mercer did not own at least 25% but probably not more than 50%, and the others are probably more or less even. At this point, the cast members both draw a salary from geek and sundry as employees (or contractors), and collect drawings from the licensing of the IP and also royalties as actors. When Orion leaves, the others almost certainly force him to sell out his ownership portion and he probably gets royalties from Geek and Sundry (and later CRPLLC). At this point, this licensing agreement is the only transaction that the entity “Critical Role” actually conducts.

Geek and Sundry pays to produce, distribute, and market the show, and takes all profit. It also takes some aspects of creative control, but probably not that much, though this is listed as the reason to leave Geek and Sundry. At this point, Critical Role continues to license with Geek and Sundry’s parent company Legendary Digital Networks and incorporates their partnership into a Limited Liability Corporation “Critical Role Productions”.

The ownership split is probably kept mostly the same, unless someone decides to sell portions of their shares, but I don’t see why they would. The shareholders (or owners) at this point hire a bunch of employees. Some roles they hire themselves, like Willingham as CEO and Mercer as CCO, and some they hire outsiders like COO Ed Lopez, SVP of Marketing Rachel Romero, and VP of Business Development Ben Van Der Fluit. Those who take additional roles will take salaries for those roles, as well as a salary for acting and writing, and dividends from profits. It is likely that Lopez got a certain amount of shares because C-Suite Executives often do as bonuses because it’s non-taxed income until he sells it and it incentivizes maximizing profits because that would increase his dividends. The other employees probably did not receive shares, so as not to dilute the percentage ownership further.

Critical Role seemingly has no board of directors (it’s possible they have one which is not public), which only happens when there are so few shareholders that they can all convene and take votes (Usually less than 20 owners), implying they don’t use investors to raise cash, which is consistent with a desire to retain creative control. This also means that it is up to all of the shareholders to vote on decisions about the managers of the company instead of a board. That means the only way they could fire Willingham as Chief Executive Officer is if all of the shareholders convene and vote for his firing. Without a board of directors, which often has independent outsiders, this is typically seen as bad for the company’s interests, but is legal in this case because it’s a limited liability corporation and they do not trade on an exchange .

Over the next year or so, CRPLLC makes a new studio and Geek and Sundry gradually relinquishes the distribution rights to older episodes. At this point everyone who works towards the function of the production and distribution of shows is an employee of CRPLLC and not Legendary or Geek and Sundry. For the past couple of years, Critical Role has licensed various brand crossover products like Funko Pops and The Darkhorse Comics. Funko Pop pays CRPLLC for the character likenesses and keeps all profits. CRPLLC also produces its own merchandise like t shirts and that sexy calendar that they pay manufacturers to produce and CRPLLC makes the profit in that scenario. They also have advertising revenue, which is a straightforward revenue stream.

Throwing back to two paragraphs ago, if they don’t use investors to raise cash, how can they afford to embark on a new expensive project that wouldn’t pay out until the future? Well, they could take out a loan (ew interest), save more money in retained earnings forgoing development in other areas (what do you mean we can’t afford to redo our website?) OR

They could do an 11 million dollar kickstarter! This would allow them to retain ownership of both the company and the product, because kickstarter is essentially just buying really expensive merchandise! People will buy a 30 dollar mug if it also comes with the promise that if enough people do it, they’ll make a tv show. Kickstarter money is revenue, not financing and it’s actually against kickstarter’s rules to promise equity for backers. Instead, kickstarter backers assume the risk that investors take (albeit on a smaller individual scale) with none of the benefit besides knowing that they helped make something exist. Compare this to if I, Callie invested $11 million into CRPLLC.

If the Legend of Vox Machina completely bombs and bankrupts CRPLLC which was kickstarted: CRPLLC would have to sell off all of its assets, resolve its liabilities (pay people for work done before laying them off, pay off bank loans) and whatever is left over would be split between the owners. Do they owe you, the kickstarter backer, for not making the show? Legally no. You chose to give us that money and had to trust we would spend the money well to make a good show and we spent all our money making sure our tree leaf animation looked good and could only afford to make 2 episodes.

If the Legend of Vox Machina completely bombs and bankrupts CRPLLC and it was Calliestarted: It would still be the same, except now Callie, the person who put in a lot of money for this show, is also an owner, and at least gets a slice of that money after the debts are paid off.

If the Legend of Vox Machina is really successful and it’s kickstarted: Good job, you did it! You got a fun tv show and like a t shirt! Fun!

If the Legend of Vox Machina is really successful and it’s Calliestarted: Not only do I get my fun tv show and probably also every piece of merch that exists, I got mad paid as an owner, not just from the show itself, but as we sell more and more merchandise because I’m a part owner of the company. I then continue to make money from literally everything else the company does until I decide to sell my shares or the company goes bankrupt.

And even better news! Amazon Prime bought the streaming rights for two seasons, so now I, Callie, have even more money from that sweet sweet licensing money.

Speaking of which, it is likely that the Amazon Deal is structured as follows: Amazon pays CRPLLC to license LoVM, with the stipulation that kickstarter backers can access the first 10 episodes legally. CRPLLC pays, with Kickstarter and Amazon money, Titmouse Inc. to produce LoVM. CRPLLC makes the difference between what they paid Titmouse (variable cost, depending on ultimate cost of animating) and what Amazon paid them. Amazon makes the difference of what they paid CRPLLC and what they make at market with LoVM. Amazon is the only company that stands to profit directly from the actual product of LoVM doing well. If it does poorly, there’s the possibility it gets cancelled, meaning that CRPLLC (and maybe Titmouse if CRPLLC already commissioned the work from them) will still get paid by Amazon, but never released. It’s possible that other companies could buy the license from Amazon in this scenario. This is the risk of selling your show to another company.

CRPLLC also has one subsidiary and one associated foundation: Darrington Press LLC and The Critical Role Foundation

Darrington Press LLC is an imprint of CRPLLC created to design and produce card and board games with the Critical Role IP. DP has 3 listed employees, Ivan Van Norman as Head of Darrington Press, Darcy L. Ross as Marketing Manager, and Mercer as Creative Advisor. As a subsidiary, it is wholly owned by CRPLLC. DP pays manufacturers and contractors to design and manufacturers games and pays for its own advertising, as a separate entity from CRPLLC. DP will likely sell its products to games distributers and the Critical Role Store. If the Critical Role Store sells DP games it’s because CRPLLC bought them from DP. The relationship between DP and CPRLLC is that when DP makes a profit and pays dividends, the recipient is CPRLLC. If DP goes bankrupt and cannot pay its debts, CPRLLC is not required to pay them. CPRLLC also chooses DP’s Board of Directors, which is probably just the owners of CPRLLC. This is all very ordinary. DP has four announced games set to release in 2021, but as of yet has not released any products or made any revenue.

The Critical Role Foundation is a registered non-profit and legally distinct from CRPLLC with seemingly no employees, with Johnson as President, and 4 other Board Members: Mercer, Lopez, Romero and another person named Mark Koro, who is a figure very closely tied to critical role I will outline later. Lopez and Romero are also in a long-term relationship or perhaps marriage. It is usually considered a bad idea to have two partners on a board of directors, as a conflict of interest can arise easily. As a registered non-profit CRF’s projected breakdown of donations is 85% grants to other non-profits, 10% emergency fund allocation, and 5% admin costs (this would be where possible future employees’ salaries would come from). Board Members on non-profits traditionally don’t take salaries, but can use their role as a board member to calculate donated time as a charitable donation for tax purposes. This all seems pretty normal. It’s not stated if or how much CRPLLC itself donates to CRF, including its initial endowment, besides the donation of free advertising, as no donation matching or any other programs seem to be advertised. In terms of an initial endowment, it seems that the only money put in was immediately spent on filing fees and legal fees, meaning the initial endowment was less than $5000. As a result, CRF operates from donors and possibly is not funded at all by CRPLLC. Any money that is donated from CRPLLC’s profits to CRF would be a charitable donation and lower CRPLLC’s taxable income amount. CRF began collecting non-taxable donations in May 2019, and as of December 8, 2020 CRF has yet to publish their 2019 financial statements, so not much is publicly known of how much money is raised by CRF and if they achieved their desired breakdown.

Now to talk about Mark Koro. Koro is an executive of Governmental Affairs (some places list director and others list VP) at Qualcomm, a telecommunications technology company with an annual profit of $7.67 Billion, and is estimated to make $20 per smartphone sold. Every smartphone. Qualcomm has been sued by China, South Korea, Taiwan, the EU, and the USA for anti-competitive behaviour. Koro’s department of Governmental affairs is responsible for negotiating and bidding with governments for contracts and rights to airwave frequencies, and also lobby and develop proposals for telecommunications legislation and policy. Before this, Koro worked at the National Security Agency in their corporate relations department liaising with defence and intelligence contractors. Before this, he worked in the George H.W. Bush administration as The National Security Advance Representative. This entails preparing logistics and security for Presidential events and dispatching Secret Service Agents to respond to Presidential Threats and continued in this capacity under following administrations until 2008. Koro was also an advisor to The Deputy Director of the NSA (the second highest position in the Intelligence Agency), and was a consultant to The Lawrence Livermore National Library, which is

“self-described as a ‘premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security.’ Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology.”

These positions are all listed on Koro’s biography on the The United Nations website for the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector (accessed Dec. 8, 2020). Mark Koro has no public associations with Charitable Work.

There is little online about Koro’s association with Critical Role, besides an article stating that Koro, as a fan of the show, in 2016 matched $50,000 worth of donations to 826LA. Koro’s associations with a monopolistic technology company, the NSA, Nuclear Weaponry, and multiple presidential administrations would be cause for alarm for many of CR’s fans, but if it were a purely professional relationship, it could be excused as including him for his business accumen, but Mark Koro is mutuals on twitter with all of the cast members and Brian W Foster, Britney Walloch-Key. This might seem like normal professional courtesy, but there is a lot of interaction between Koro’s account and Critical Role Employees’ personal accounts that reflect at least a close personal relationship between people that he would not interact with regularly just as a board member of a legally distinct organization."

P.S. 100% of Critical Role's Chief Officers are men in relationships with female subordinates.

#critrole critical #long post #i wont be able to answer too many questions as i am not a business major like my roommate is #its about the transparency for me #also theres more but this post is so long as it is

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