Camp Half-Blood Official Camper Entry Report #JDB7YC
First report is based on initial interviews with Camp Half-Blood staff. NOT FOR CAMPER VIEWING.

Name	Age	D.O.B	Height	Weight	Hair	Eyes	Parentage
Isaac Sheppard	16	August 16th	5'10"	109kg	Chestnut	Hazel-Green	Heracles

Origin
Camper Isaac Sheppard, preferably referred to as 'Shepard' simply has detailed his younger years of upbringing as more typical of what we consider mortal activities. Unaware of his lineage, he was raised by his mother, Jennifer Sheppard, in the boroughs of Hartfort, Conneticut without recorded incident. Shepard hinted towards his mother knowing more but quickly halted further questioning, insisting that she wouldn't have hidden facts from him. Shepard dictated mortal schooling had no outstanding events save his performance in physical sports. Regular disciplining regarding a laxidase attitude at any sports, despite exemplary performance in nearly every field. Shepard stated the only one he liked the sound of was archery but the school's facilities did not support this outside of occasional yearly excursions to more advanced facilities.
Satyr Protector Member 38821 was tasked with investigating a phoned-in anonymous report submitted to Camp Half-Blood of a teenager presenting with physical strength exceeding that of even typical demigods. Whilst this tip-off left no further detailing beyond the city of Hartford and to look for excessive physical capabilities, the suspected caller is believed to be Jennifer Sheppard. Protector 38821 was able to determine Isaac's school and infiltrate his class in order to breach the topic of introducing him to the reality of being a son of the god Heracles. Days later, Hartford Police Department reported arson at the home address of Isaac and Jennifer Sheppard. Isaac presented statements of 'scaled individuals' fleeing the scene but mortal services dismissed these as distressed claims of a teenager in shock of losing his mother. Protector 38821 was able to retrieve Shepard from intervening social services and was in the process of transporting them both to camp via train when they both came into contact with individuals described by Shepard as 'guys but with these glowing eyes and armoured...or metal?'. For reporting's sake, contact is assumed to be hostile automata of origin unknown.
Protector 38821 and Shepard were able to reach Long Island whilst under extended assault from these automata, roughly 7 hours later according to statements from Shepard though accuracy of these estimates is lowered due to stress and high fatigue from protecting both himself and Protector 38821. Shepard openly admits that without the help of campers from Camp Half-Blood, he would not have survived the final stint to camp boundaries and his fate would have matched that of Protector 38821.
Powers:

• Legendary Strength AKA 'Unstoppable Force' [Minor]

Isaac displays one of the highest levels of strength and stamina known of half-bloods. He has been recorded being able to lift up to 600 lbs. (or 272.16 kg) and can punch through concrete. Thankfully Isaac is aware of this and seems to have been informed of this by his mother for a significant portion of his life and can control this, despite not knowing of his bloodline.

• Electrical Resistance [Minor]

First displayed during Shepard's extraction to camp, he shows a resistance to the harmful effects of electrical attacks such to a degree that he is able to withstand badly interacting with small appliances.

• X [Minor]

Shepared has yet to display any further abilities. We do not yet know if this is an intentional action of obscuring them or whether Shepard simpy does not have any more abilities.

• Herculean Fortitude AKA 'Immovable Object' [Major]

Isaac possesses a complete immunity to mental and emotional power. This includes reading his mental or emotional state. Those who attempt to influence or read his mental state report the sensation of attempting to read a blank slate, an immutable, unreadable presence some have found disconcerting. His presence/location can still be detected by these powers if a user were to attempt to locate him via these abilities. As a side-effect of these powers, he cannot be positively influenced or 'buffed' by other powers, excluding healing magic.

• Summon Weapon [Domain]

Shepard is capable of summoning a weapon related to his godly parent, though his personal experiences have shaped the typical club that his siblings are capable of spawning into something a bit...scrappier. Whilst not as lethal as a Celestial Bronze weapon, the makeshift maul is entirely capable of lethal strikes when fuelled by Shepard's enhanced strength.

• Alternate Vision [Domain]

Beginner Tier - Shepard describes this as an overlaid indicator in the form of a customisable crosshair over his own field of view that will show Shepard where an arrow will land if it is loosed at his current draw and aim. By drawing the string further and aim differently, so too will the indicator adjust. Shepard has determined quickly that this does not work with melee or thrown items.
Intermediate level - Shepard partially draws strength from his grandfather’s domain here, completely unable to control the winds beyond the air in his lungs but he can observe them. When the HUD is up, he can determine wind-speed and direction, as well as how that will impact his shot with the aiming indicator being able to now compensate for wind.
Master tier - As Shepard masters this power over time, judging distance, aim, and after regular usage, he is able to use the HUD as a range finder to within a metre's precision.

• Enhanced Skill Proficiency [Domain]

Isaac shows a increased proficiency in physical activities when he wishes to put the effort in in, particularly those that Heracles was renowned for such as wrestling, fighting, archery, and overall shows of strength.

Personality
Shepard's time at camp is only just beginning, with a greater report on his tendencies and personality still pending until he has shown his hand and can be interacted with. First impressions are guarded, the boy still getting to grips with this introduction of a new reality. Perhaps we may be able to discern more once he has completed what we believe to be a more introspective assessment, determining who he is in Camp Half-Blood and how demigods fit into what is to him, a new world.
Notes

• No discernible reason behind the dismissal of his first name, 'Shepard' simply being a misspelling of his last name that he has stuck with.
  
• Shepard appears to enjoy what he calls 'tinkering', idle adjustment and construction of functionless trinkets or pieces from mechanical parts. Notions of some kind of link to Hephaestus have been dismissed but camp officials may wish to nudge him towards campers with a proclivity of crafting to engage in Shepard's curiosity or ease any initial worries about joining camp
  
• Be on watch for any conflicts regarding possessions, as Shepard's rushed retrieval has meant he has arrived at camp with only the clothes on his back. Initial talks with him have shown he is very protective of his 'home clothes'. Whilst he has taken to camp clothing without incident, Shepard may be harbouring thoughts of loss beyond just his mother.
  

End report. Begin report JDB36T on camper activities.

But the full tale of Shepard is a story we'll hear later. For now, we cut to the boy himself...
Shepard stood out in the open, placing himself accidentally at the centre of camp with his back to the Big House. His two saviours had to depart to carry on with their own business and so the clueless teen turned slowly to attempt to take in the enormity of where he stood, and what that meant for his tomorrow. Hopefully someone noticed the kid not in camp clothes, scratching his head and epitomising the term 'paralysed in indecision', and could offer kind words. Or even better, directions to the bathroom?

There's a girl in my old workplace I think about still frequently. I've never had so many mixed signals.
Context: Work together in a restaurant in Europe with live-in staff accommodation.
Me: 36, 5'7 150 pounds, used to be beautiful but my face has melted with age.
Her: 23/24 (had birthday) petite and slender, very quiet and softly spoken. Not outright antisocial but just struggles to think of things to say, much like myself. Lots of eye contact when we talk but little otherwise. She makes even less with others. All we ever did was make small talk really. Nose ring. Possible nipple ring.
Reasons she might like me: (in chronological order from arriving to quitting, first four are very mild)
Before we started a shift together and introduced myself, I pass her a couple of times on my induction. The first she mentions to her female friend she needs a haircut and the second time she has got a super low cut top on (never seen her wear it before or since).
We meet properly and I think it goes OK. I compliment her voice and she smiles. I compliment her again at the end and she brushes the front of her hair, looks pleased and slightly flustered.
The next 10 or so days nothing much at all happens we just make small talk like always and are nice to each other. I think I can see a nipple piercing but can never quite tell.
Came downstairs when I was working and asked if I wanted some small packets of chips she bought and didn't like. I say sure and give her some change.
OK here we go. I come down to start my shift and she catches me just before we go in. She is completely dolled up, with pink pigtails, and says her name tag has broke, rubbing her boob over her clothing where the tag should go. I just look and smile and go oh and walk off with a semi (sigh). She follows me into the dining room and says she has fixed it now. All my **** tier gane can manage is "have you got any tattoos" She rolls up her sleeve crazy quick and shows me one on her shoulder. I say it looks expensive and walk off. 2 mins later she wants to practise my waitering skills by pretending to be a customer. She sits at a table and I go "what can I get you, young lady? In my best flirty voice. I think a customer came in at that point so we stopped. *Later she pretends to through a pen at me with a big smile, she then walks over and gives it me. *She clocks me out my shift for me. Fin.
We were polishing cutlery in the back alone for the first time (she said the supervisor had sent her) and she said do you wanna listen to music, she puts Fantasy by Maria Carey on my phone?
Another colleague asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her dog, we did but she is a piss head and I have zero attraction. Two days later, I see X again and in the loudest voice I've ever heard her use, just blurts out I banged on the window and waved out you yesterday! I didn't see her. I just go should have knocked harder then and go into a different room briefly. She then sits next to me for a bit.
Next day says she waved again. Again I have missed it. Stands next to me during the fire drill.
She went home for her birthday and has gotten her nails done. They look nice and all, but she is constantly flaunting them at me (stroking the radiator, the clipboard whilst I'm next to her.) I say they look expensive, then remember I said the sane compliment about her tatt (sigh).
***Reasons she doesn't like me
*Has never ever touched me apart from accidental very brief, platonic fingehand touching when passing items to each other.
*Never brought up sexual topics/things once.
In two months has touched three other male coworkers once each, one on the back, the others pretending to dust *** off their uniform. The WEIRD thing was they were all just as I had entered the room? She went on a date with one of them before I started, but she said nothing happened, and him and the other guy displayed absolutely zero interest in her sexually at any time (didn't touch her back) He left about 1 week after I started.
She did go for at least one walk with thr guy and for drinks with him and supervisor. They invited her but not me. I saw them all and they spotted me and turned round and she waved briefly. I left shortly after.
Towards the end she wad pining (exaggeration but only just) for the supervisor guy when he's not there. I think she means it in a work context as she is put in charge when he's not there and struggles a lil bit because of her quietness. But what do I know?
I mentioned the kitchen staff thought I was gay, and she said "are you?" in a strange stern tone.
I leave job. I still have some feelings for her. I need closure (she had no socials I can contact her on).
Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.

I ended up buying a house at the edge of this town.... before i knew all the bullshit that was goin' on around here. Got bored and went down to the local sheriff Jack and asked about an opening, Didn't even fill out an application, got the job on the spot. For the first few months it was the usual, speeding tickets, drunk and disorderly, normal shit right? Well... let the fuckery commence....
I had been a deputy for 7 months when one of the local farmers called in and reported he had some animals killed last night and wanted someone to come out to his house. John Nixon was a 60 year old farmer who lived by himself. His wife passed away years ago, but he never remarried and they never had kids. We met one day at the local tackle shop. Me being new in town, he took me to some of the good fishin' spots. The man was a huge military history buff and would always ask about my time in. I thought I knew him personally, so i took the call.
As I rolled up to the gate on his property, I saw John standing at the gate with a shotgun. " Hey john, can I ask why you are standing there with that cannon in your hands?" No response, he just stared at me. "John! put that damn shotgun down!!" I yelled. Its like he snapped to out of a trance. "Mason, i need you to come round the back side of the house to the barn, now!" he snapped.
"OK, OK, let me get outta the car and grab some gear." I said opening the car door. While i was grabbing my gear, John was standing there with his eyes scanning the tree line. "Come on mason! you need to see this!" He said heading towards the back. I closed the trunk and started walking over in his direction.
"So what the hell is going on that's got you walking around here with that damn bazooka?" No response, he just keeps walking and scanning the tree line. We finally got to the back of his house where the barn is. It looked like a horror movie in that pen.
"What the fuck happened here!?!" I said covering my mouth. There were pieces of chickens and goats everywhere, a few pigs looked like they had been filleted. "Its back mason, after all these years" John mumbled. "John what the hell are you talking about? what did this?" I asked.
John took his eyes off the tree line and looked me dead in the face. "Your not from here so you dont know." "Know what man? what are you saying?" I asked getting annoyed now. "Years ago this same thing happened to a few guys I know. All of their livestock had been killed. Not killed and eatin', just killed. It got people 'round here up in arms. Well, a few of us got together and decieded we were gonna look for whatever did it" he said. "What the hell are you telling me john?" I interrupted. "There were four of us. We were young, thought we were bullet proof. We went out into the woods one morning, determined to find the damn thing that had been killing our animals.
Tommy was the first to say something. "Hey, did you guys hear that?". The rest of us didnt hear a thing, so we kept moving. We got about three miles deep into the old pine forest at the edge of town. Will was the next to say something, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" he yelled out while looking down at the mud. We ran over to where he was standing to find him wide eyed. "I dont know what the actual fuck did this, but we..we need to go and I mean right fucking now!!!" he said pointing. This track was huge, at least 14 inches long with huge claws. Gerald spoke up "Let's fuckin' go guys!!".
We started back tracking out of the area, when we were stopped cold in our tracks, we all heard it this time. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same damn time. A sickening, shrieking laugh was coming from all around us. We panicked and starting runnin'. As soon as we did that, whatever was making that noise centered as if right behind us, and it was coming fast, ungodly fast" John said eyeing the remains of a chicken that was torn apart.
"We were about a mile from the trucks when I heard a thud and a scream, when i looked back Gerald wasn't there. Will and tommy were right behind me, terror all over their faces. Tommy pulled his pistol and started shooting backwards. Only one shot rang out before something tackled him and Will. I stopped, raising my rifle, but they had already been torn apart. It was seconds, and they were in shreds" John said.
"Mason, what i saw standing over their shredded bodies has haunted me since then. The fucking thing was nine feet tall, shaped like a man, but not. Its skin, or or scales was a mixture of black and grey and it looked slimy. It looked like a damn bodybuilder with hugh claw like hands. Its head was massive, with what looked like horns coming from the jaw to around the chin. Its eyes, glowed bright green in the middle of the fucking day, and it had a mouth full of fucked up jagged teeth." He said lowering his head.
"I jus.. just stood there, waitng for my turn. This thing paced back and fourth, staring at me, with this creepy damn smile. It looked down at Will and Tommy, then it looked back up at me. My heart almost stopped when it pointed and shook its head at me. It started making that shrieking laugh as it grabbed what was left of my friends in each giant claw and walked off into the woods, still fucking laughing. I fell to my knees as it vanished into the trees."
I stood there, thinking he lost his damn mind. John had stopped talking, he had this way off look in his eyes. "John..., john.., JOHN!!" his eyes snapped back to mine. "So what are you telling me? A nine foot creature with claws killed your friends and animals?!" I half mocked. "Yea.... thats what i'm telling you. Its back for me, i know it." "What makes you think it was this thing you say killed your friends? It could have been coyotes" I asked " I know mason, i heard that same horrible shrieking laugh in the woods behind the barn last night."
Now I’ve heard some real bullshit in my time, especially during my time in the contracting field... But this was the most out there shit I had ever heard.
"Alright, alright... let's just take a big ass step backwards. I need to wrap my head around all of this." I said takin a deep breath. John laid the shotgun down to his side. "I'm telling you the truth mason. i'm too old and tired to lie about shit" he said shrugging. I looked deep into this man’s eyes. When I did, I saw something that told me this was the absolute truth as he knew it. " You haven’t given me any reason to doubt you... but fuck man... this is hard to swallow. I need proof John, that's the way this works." A look of frustration washed over his weathered face.
"Proof?! you want proof huh? follow me" John groaned.
He started walking towards the tress behind the barn. As we got closer to the trees, I started to smell rusty copper. Blood I thought out loud. John raised his shotgun as we walked closer. That damn gun had to be illegal, but this wasn’t the time for that. Him raising that gun made me a lil' uneasy, so I pulled my Glock 9mm out and flipped the safety off.
John owned about 90 acres, most of it unkept. A lot of the land was behind the barn which butted up to a state forest. We took about 12 steps into the wood line when the smell of death hit me like a brick. "I'm taking you to where I heard the noise coming from last night... your PROOF is out there Mason" He said with a slight edge to it.
We walked almost a hundred yards into the woods when john stopped in front of a tree. It looked twisted and warped all the way to its top. I stepped around John and saw huge claw marks cut deep all the way around the base of the tree, it's hard to even call it that. "What the hell is this?" I said looking up. "This is a marker, it's territory starts here" John replied. I looked at john like he was crazy, which at this point I thought he was. "This thing travels throughout these woods. I've found five more of these trees in our town" he said putting a hand on the tree.
"This isn’t telling me anything John, just that you've got a weird ass tree on your property" I said back to him. "Do you hear that?" So we could move this mess forward, I stopped talking and just listened. I hadn't noticed that during our walk into the woods it had got quiet, and I mean not one sound. " What the hell? where did all the animals go?" I asked looking around. "They're scared mason... you should be too. Let's get back to the house."
We turned and started making our way out of the woods. We were damn near the tree line when I heard a snap. I turned around, gun raised to see a black streak dart back deeper into the woods. "What the fuck was that?!" All John said was "we need to leave, now!" We turned and started sprinting the rest of the way out of the woods. I was surprised at how fast john was for an old man. We got all the way back to my patrol car. "I don't know what that was, but I don't think you should stay here tonight John. Pack some stuff and come to my place" I said pointing my gun at the trees. John just let out a sigh as if frustrated and defeated.
"You weren't listenin'. The pine forest, these trees, it’s all connected. I’m talkin’ bout before this area was even inhabited by native peoples. This fucking thing has been around for a very long time. I have been looking into this since that day, I had to find out what it was and if it can be killed" he tried to explain. The whole time john was talking I had my eyes and weapon pointed at the trees. " You can put that down mason, it just wanted you to know it's here" He said.
"John, I to need process this shit. I've never seen or heard anything like this and to be straight with you, I’m at a loss right now" I said opening the trunk. "I get it, I get it. The sheriff jack was a deputy back then. When you see him... tell him I said the dark is here..." And with that, he just turned his back and walked back into his house not saying another word.
I got back in the car and sat there. Looking at the treeline. After a few minutes I went back to the station. I must've walked in with that universal what the fuck look on my face, because Cathy the clerk asked what was wrong with me. I told her I was fine and asked if she had seen the sheriff? "Yeah, he is in the gun cage. Are you sure you’re ok Mason?" She asked again.
"Yeah, I'm good, just need to talk to Jack." I started walking towards the back of the building, when Jack came around the corner. "Hey mason, what's up?" he says walking up to me. "I just got back from John's house." The look on his face completely changed. "He had a bunch of animals killed last night. It looked like a slaughterhouse. He told me to tell you the dark was back?" I told him noticing his reaction.
Jack stiffened up and not saying a word gestured for me to follow him towards the back security door. We headed towards the back and out the door. Jack had stopped to make sure the door was secure then pointed at his truck and said "get in."
After getting in he looked over "I need some coffee" then started the truck up and headed west out of the parking lot towards the coffee shop. He ordered a large black coffee with extra sugar then asked if I wanted one. "I'll take a small black, no sugar." We pulled out and headed east back past the station. We ended up driving towards the edge of the county. "What's going on and why are we heading way the hell out here?" I looked at jack and said.
Jack just took a long sip of his coffee then placed it back in the holder.
After a long breath "You want some answers about what happened at Johns' house... I’m sure he told you about a few other things about this town... well we're gonna go get you some answers" He said looking at a black sedan passing in the opposite direction. "Aight so, like you mason, I’m not from here either. I was a trooper in New York for a few years before I came down here. I resigned after a call to an old couple’s house" He said reaching for his cup. "My partner Jake and I responded to what was thought to be an animal attack. We were the first on the scene, having been a couple miles away lookin' for speeders.
When we rolled up an older woman came running over to the cruiser. She had a panicked look on her face and just kept repeating "they're dead, they're dead!!" We hopped out and sat her in the back of the car then asked what happened. "I...I... came over to talk to gloria and... and I saw the door open. I walked in yelling her and Alan’s name, but they didn't answer... I found them upstairs... it's horrible!!" She said sobbing. Jake and I drew our weapons and started making the move inside. Like the witness said the front door was open, so we moved in. It smelled like sulfur and blood when we entered. We started clearing rooms. The first floor was clear, so we made our way up the steps.
The smell was overpowering now. We cleared the bathroom, and the two smaller rooms were clear also. The door to the master bedroom was slightly opened. I motioned to Jake and we hit the door.... it looked like some movie shit!! I kid you not. Jake turned and went back into the hallway and threw up. I stepped into the room and... listen I had never seen anything like this before" Jack stammered out.
"These two people were in shreds on the bed, they're insides had been yanked out and thrown around the fucking room. After looking at the bodies I noticed these huge claw marks in the wall, I’m talking if Andre the giant had had a Krueger glove. I stepped back out of the room and radioed to dispatch that we needed more units. I walked back to the front door where Jake was standing hunched over looking out of it.
Parked outside were 3 black SUVs and a black sedan. I counted 11 men dressed in black tactical military gear, some with a type of rifle I had never seen before, but you could tell it was large caliber. The rest with SMG weapons. When i looked over towards the patrol car, one of the men had the door opened and was talking to the witness. He saw us and started our way. He was dressed in all black too and carried what looked like a desert eagle in a chest holster.
When he got closer I got a better look at him. He looked to be in his late 40's with salt and pepper colored hair and a big ass scar that ran down the right side of his face. He got about ten feet from the steps "We appreciate the assistance, but you are no longer needed" He said in deep voice. As he is saying this, one of the other guys escorts the witness out of our car and into the back of that sedan.
The guy started walking away from us "Who are you? and what the fuck is going on?" I yelled at him. He turned with a look on his face that you only see in movies then took a few steps towards us. "Your command has been informed and you are to leave now!" He said raising his hand up towards that holstered pistol. Jake looked at me and shook his head "fuck it, let's go, let them deal with that mess upstairs" he said still coughing then started heading towards the car. I followed him down the steps... looking this guy up and down, checking out the vehicles... for anything that might tell me who we were dealing with.
The only thing I saw was on the assholes uniform... there was a patch on his shoulder. It was an all-black diamond with a weird looking black M in the middle on it. The guy stared us down until we were in the car driving away. He had that pistol in his hand and the other men starting moving into the house. Jake and I didn’t say a word until the radio squawked and we were told to head back to the barracks.
When we got there, we were told to report to the troop commander’s office. Commander Thompson was sitting in his office along with a man in a nice 2-piece suit. The man in the suit stood there quietly while Thompson told us that we never responded to any call out to that farmhouse, and that this was the first and only time he would say it. With that, he dismissed us and and we walked out. The shit didn’t sit well with me, and I ended up resigning a few months later.
I came down here and then that shit in the woods happened. I was on the scene, I saw the claw marks. They looked just like the ones in New York, and the same damn trucks showed up with different personnel. I knew just to shut up and walk away, and after making that choice I have had a pretty good career here." he finished grabbing his cup out of the holder.
My brain was in overdrive. I was just about to completely question bomb jack when he said, "We're here." He pulled off onto this overgrown driveway and drove for about a quarter mile. We pulled up to an old two-story house that looked like it was in ruins... but the lights were on. "Where the hell are we?" I asked As the last word of that question left my mouth, the front door of the house opened... standing in the doorway was a old man, dressed in weathered black clothing. Jack leaned over to me "You wanted answers... well.... there they are."

I have a mind mapping app that has been running well on Android for a few years now. I have been trying to publish it for iOS and MacOS for some time now. On iOS (as an app) and MacOS (in the browser for testing) I have a problem with the export. The app is a project in Angular, Cordova, Typescript. The problem only occurs in the Safari browser, which is also used in the Cordova version for iOS. I was able to test it on my Mac and an iPhone. The error does not occur on the Mac in Chrome.
The error
If I export a mind map that contains images as an image (.png), the images of the nodes are not displayed in the exports. Everything else in the map is exported correctly, only the images are missing. Only when I export the map three times are the images present in the export. If I add a new image and export it again, the image is only visible in the exported image after 3 exports. It is interesting that the export as SVG, which I also offer, contains the images of the nodes. So the SVG string that I create has all the necessary information.
The base
The mind map consists of various things. HTML and CSS for the frames, lines etc... The images of the nodes are saved as Base64 and each node is in a Foreign Object.
Example of the SVG export
Mindmap with 2 nodes and the Base64 characters of the node images have been replaced with XXX.

This is how I create the .png file to be exported.
I can view all this content in the map view of the app. When exporting to an image, I take this information, turn it into an SVG, have the browser draw it on the canvas and then output it as a graphic. Something must be going wrong at this point.

private exportAsImage( mindMap: MindMap, scale?: number, type: string = "png" ): Observable { return new Observable(o => { this.progress.start(this.progress.PROGRESS_MAJOR); this.mmpMap.export(this.mapVizService.getExportClassList(mindMap), (svgStr: string) => { this.exportService.imageFromSVGString(svgStr, type, scale).pipe( switchMap(img => of( Utils.dataURItoFileObject( img.dataUri, `${Utils.sanitizeFilename(mindMap.title)}.${type}` ) ) ), switchMap((fileObject: FileObject) => this.mapsService.saveAsTemp(fileObject, true, { message: this.translate.instant("mdz.mindmap.saveas.message"), // subject: this.translate.instant("mdz.mindmap.saveas.subject"), subject: fileObject.name, url: `www.myURL.com` }, true) ) ).subscribe(() => { this.progress.stop(this.progress.PROGRESS_MAJOR); o.next(); o.complete(); }, err => { this.progress.stop(this.progress.PROGRESS_MAJOR); o.error(err); o.complete(); }); }) }); } 

What I have already tried.
I have already tested various things such as time delays etc..., none of which change anything. It seems to me that it's a combination of the caching and the order or speed at which the images are loaded. Only the speed can't be, because built-in delays don't change anything.
My guess
But it must have something to do with Safari because on the Mac in Chrome it runs without problems... Maybe it can't handle so many base64 images or it exports faster than it renders? Whereby the SVG export contains all the information and when I open the SVG, all the content is also displayed in the browser in seconds. So something must happen when painting on the canvas and outputting as an image.
It doesn't really make sense, I'm really at the end of my ideas. What can you do?
I really hope you can help me. A mind mapping app without image export makes little sense. And since the app otherwise works great, I'm really getting desperate. :(
Thanks a lot!
Rob

This dream was like watching a movie.
My dad and his (girlfriend/wife/whoever) run this tattoo parlor but it's this futuristic laser tattoo gun. People keep coming into the shop but no one will commit to a tattoo.
During this, my dad and his wife are having a discussion about him going back to some place he hadn't been in 11 years. She was mad because he hadn't been there in 11 years and now he was going without her. ("You haven't been there in 11 years and now you're going without me?") She also mentioned my dad finding a guy named Tom Landry somewhere in the vicinity of where they were but I don't remember what that was about.
Cut to her doing a ritual but I didn't see the full thing. The only thing I remember is her molding meat into a circular tray by a fire like she was making a meat bundt cake.
Later she goes back to the tattoo parlor and I guess some time had passed because there is a huge green foil heart on the wall but on a bulletin board were the words SAVE ME in those cut out letters teachers use for their class. She smirks then turns and leaves and my dream ends.
Not a nightmare but disturbing to me.

Hello guys. This one'd like to share something about the recent situation about Legends Asia in China Mainland.
This article has two parts as title tells. First, 森林屿海 has decided to relauched ESL Asia on Google Play, which will be opened to players in the Asia Pacific region for direct connection. The time is tentatively set for May, which may be delayed for further testing of various performance aspects.
The officials did the same thing as Todd Howard. They boldly predicted that they would develop the server connection function, allowing the ESL Asia server of Google channel to connect with the ESL Asia server of Chinese Mainland, so that the two sides could fight across servers.
That is to say, these are two separate servers, and their accounts are two separate accounts. And due to the deletion of the previous server library, the previous data will not be retained.
The language switching settings are already under development. According to currently known intelligence, the official will continue to translate Japanese and Korean based on the previous game. As they have not done any subsequent text translation work before, the studio will encounter difficulties in localizing the translated content. For example, Japanese is mostly katakana with almost no Chinese characters. Languages of other European countries are also on the agenda.
This also seems to indicate that the game content of ESL Asia, which is about to be launched on Google Play, will be consistent with the unique version in China.
At present, there is a way to play the unique Chinese version of ESL Asia: By changing the area of the App Store to Chinese Mainland, you can search the app store for the name of the game. However, playing the unique version in China still requires a Chinese citizen ID card and a mainland+86 phone number.
Second, ESL Asia in China Mainland has encountered a worrying situation. There are roughly two reasons. Firstly, the official productivity is low, and the launch time of new cards has been infinitely extended. Secondly, players have increasingly strong opinions on the quality of unique new cards, and their wording is almost harsh.
Considering the official is working on the Google Play version, we temporarily understand the huge workload of their small studio. However, at the same time, players have to go through a "Blank Period" similar to the original game situation.
In order to avoid deck similarity and malicious sniping, the official closed the deck copying function of the leaderboard and professional leaderboard during this blank period. This undoubtedly increases the difficulty of the game for new players, and players on the leaderboard no longer receive profits of deck copying. Although this is similar to the international server, most people still hope that players can choose whether to publicly display their decks.
Apart from the above situation, the biggest debate is undoubtedly about unique cards. The opinions of players are divided into two parts:
Conservatives: We should innovate while retaining the TES IP to avoid the introduction of new cards that would cause the old cards useless. But the most important thing is to avoid adverse conditions that govern the environment of rank mode like Invade before. Secondly, due to the influence of the original IP of the ESL, almost all cards can find prototypes in the game, and the design is also interesting. Therefore, our design should pay more tribute to The Elder Scrolls, which is the biggest difference between us and Hearthstone, which removed World of Warcraft Heroes..
Progressives: The basic design of ESL is outdated and inferior, and compared to similar card games such as Hearthstone and Shadowverse, its game model is not outstanding. Nowadays, creating unique new cards is to improve this situation. Therefore, we should follow the example of other card games and make improvements to the poor performance of this game, such as drawing cards and improving the quality of high cost creatures.
In addition, the third voice is mutually agreed upon by both parties, which is that we need to strengthen some systems in order to diversify the environment.
Both sides naturally engaged in a debate on this point.
Conservatives believe that Legends should not be measured by the standards of other card games, even if their game modes are similar. However, this is still unreasonable, as overly powerful designs will only make these card packs meaningless.
Progressives believe that the conservatives approach to designing cards is wrong. They are deliberately catering to the mess of previous designers, and the cards they design have no impact on the game, even being considered weak. Progressives believe that some conservatives have no experience playing other card games and are simply not qualified to participate in card design.
Recently, the news that Hearthstone is about to return to China undoubtedly has a huge impact on Legend's domestic market. In fact, the main players of ESL Asia in China are actually TCG players rather than TES players, and the huge influence of TES in China is limited to Skyrim and ESO. Despite some players playing both games simultaneously, conflicts continue to unfold.
Someone once proposed a solution, asking TCG players to provide design ideas and asking TES players to work on designing Lore. But there's an old saying that goes well: War, war never changes.
That's all, thank you for reading. If you can give some advice on the subsequent new card development, this one will be appreciate.

There's a new movement on social media called "Blackout 2024" sparked by celebrities' views (or lack thereof) on Palestine.
Context:
Last week's Met Gala highlighted the disparity between celebrity opulence and global suffering. Influencer Haley Baylee (real name Haley Kalil) posed in an extravagant floral gown, saying, "Let them eat cake" along with a TikTok sound. This phrase, attributed to Marie Antoinette, symbolizes an out-of-touch attitude toward the suffering of the masses. Although historians doubt she actually said it, the phrase remains a powerful symbol of severe wealth inequality.
Photos of the Met Gala flooded social media alongside images of Israel's attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The stark contrast between celebrities displaying wealth and Palestinians mourning their dead shocked the world. People compared it to The Hunger Games, where the wealthy Capitol residents dressed opulently while children died in the games. The book series' author, Suzanne Collins, drew inspiration from flipping between Iraq War coverage and reality TV shows.
The Blackout 2024 Movement:
TikTok user @ladyfromtheoutside started the Blackout 2024 movement, frustrated with celebrities' silence on Palestine. "It’s time to block all the celebrities, influencers, and wealthy socialites who are not using their resources to help those in dire need," she said in a video with 2.5 million views. "We gave them their platforms. It’s time to take it back, take our views away, our likes, our comments, our money."
People have differing views on who deserves to be blocked. For example, some believe Billie Eilish should be boycotted for not posting about Palestine, while others argue her Ceasefire pin at the Oscars showed her stance.
Celebrities Respond:
Some celebrities have spoken out. Haley Baylee posted a nearly 9-minute apology video, explaining she wasn't an official Met Gala guest but a host interviewing celebs. She claimed ignorance on the Palestine issue, which drew backlash. Critics argued that in the seven months since the attacks began, there has been ample time to educate oneself.
Three days ago, Lizzo posted a TikTok sharing GoFundMe pages and organizations helping people in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, stating she had donated to all three. Commenters pointed out the timing and questioned why a millionaire asked regular people to donate.
Impact:
The campaign seems to be making an impact. Haley Baylee's follower count dropped from 10 million to 9.9 million. Social media users claim Kim Kardashian also lost followers after her ambiguous "Free everybody" comment to a "Free Palestine" protestor.
Operation Blockout:
Online critics argue that events like the annual Met Gala, where elite figures from the fashion world showcase their extravagant styles, highlight the disconnect between such opulence and pressing social issues. As attendees dazzled in dramatic attire, protests in support of Palestine were underway just blocks away in New York City. This juxtaposition sparked the inception of "Operation Blockout."
TikTok users such as @blockout2024, who is credited with founding the celebrity blocking campaign, have called out several of the world's biggest names. Users, from Kim Kardashian to Taylor Swift to Justin Bieber, did not hold back. In one video, @blockout2024 said followers have "full control of celebrities' money and lives." "When we hate on them, they make money. When we praise them, they make money. But when we block their social media accounts and completely forget their names, they lose it all," he said. "The amount of attention we give them and the amount of engagement we give them is their direct currency. Take it from them."
Reducing celebrities' followers aims to pressure them to highlight issues in Palestine and Sudan. Jenny, a TikTok user from Vietnam, told The New Arab that "the genocide going on in Palestine" prompted her to join the campaign. "The algorithm of TikTok allows anyone, regardless of age, sex, or societal status, to go viral if their content aligns with the interests of other users. That's why the portrayal of any social issue on TikTok is non-biased and very authentic since it's the voice of mundane people like you and me," she said.
"I've never been able to comprehend the power of social media until I saw a whole movement to support Palestine, Congo, and Sudan start from TikTok. Especially among Gen-Zs, who are perceived to be the generation that's much more sensitive to social matters."
The 22-year-old TikToker reiterated that with power comes responsibility, adding that celebrities' silence has contributed to the miseducation of humanitarian crises worldwide. "I personally feel so much rage at why people can put so much effort into participating in a lavish event, which costs thousands of dollars while being completely ignorant of the fact that people are being bombed to pieces on the other side of the world," she told The New Arab. "The Met Gala 2024 depicted the imbalance of power and resource distribution in our society."

Please help, I upadated yesterday and running on Manjaro, looks like they released some of the KDE upgrades, but I have no external monitors showing anymore. Currently on Plasman 6.0.4, KDE framework 6.1.0, Qt 6.7.0 and Kernel 6.9.0.1-MANJARO. I do not have an Nvidia GPU but using an intel iGPU inside a Dell Latitude 5520. I originally thought it was my Dock that was messed up so I ordered a new one (it has been working flawlessly for years) today, I decided to dig in a little bit more while I wait for the new dock and it turns out that Wayland just isn't seeing the external monitors. I found an HDMI and plugged directly from the laptop to the monitor, bypassing the dock, and still no display. The monitor will even flicker on and say no output when I plug it in, so the display sees something but not getting the output and the laptop isn't seeing anything.
As far as error messages, I am not getting anything in dmesg, I watched it as I plugged in the monitor directly and unplugged again and nothing. This is the only errors I have in the journal but they don't appear to be for the monitor:

May 14 10:46:41 redacted kwin_wayland[4513]: kf.svg: The theme "Sweet" uses the legacy metadata.desktop. Consider contacting the author and asking them update it to use the newer JSON format. May 14 10:46:45 redacted plasmashell[4702]: KPackageStructure of KPluginMetaData(pluginId:"org.kde.plasma.simplemenu", fileName: "/usshare/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.simplemenu/metadata.json") doe> May 14 10:46:46 redacted systemd[4438]: Started Display Configuration. May 14 10:46:46 redacted kded6[4665]: org.kde.plasma.appmenu: Got an error May 14 10:46:46 redacted kded6[4665]: org.kde.plasma.appmenu: Got an error May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: file:///uslib/qt6/qml/org/kde/kirigami/Dialog.qml:334:18: QML ScrollView: Binding loop detected for property "calculatedImplicitWidth" May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: qrc:/kcm/kcm_kscreen/main.qml:39:5: QML OverlaySheet: Binding loop detected for property "implicitHeight" May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: qrc:/kcm/kcm_kscreen/main.qml:39:5: QML OverlaySheet: Binding loop detected for property "implicitHeight" May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/systemsettings/CategoryItem.qml:33:13: Unable to assign IconPropertiesGroup_QMLTYPE_76 to IconPropertiesGroup_QMLTYPE_76 May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/systemsettings/CategoryItem.qml:33:13: Unable to assign IconPropertiesGroup_QMLTYPE_76 to IconPropertiesGroup_QMLTYPE_76 May 14 10:46:47 redacted systemsettings[10617]: qrc:/kcm/kcm_kscreen/main.qml:39:5: QML OverlaySheet: Binding loop detected for property "implicitWidth" 

I am going crazy and tried to revert back to X11 but the monitors don't work. I can actually see them when running xrandr but the system settings won't allow me to enable them again. I am not sure how to fix this.
I have tried installing drivers again, and removing all mentions of Nvidia (originally the laptop had an Nvidia GPU but the SSD was transferred to this host, it has worked for well over a year though.
Any help the community could provide would be really appreciated.

So, here's the deal. I am still, as many other, fond of Arcane. I also feel that it's a bloody waste that Silco has been in TFT but not added as a champion to the rift. Henceforth, here is my personally created concept for Silco and how he might be added to the rift.
-Bio: A rebellious and sharp, iron willed underground boss and warlord, Silco was a man known across the low levels of Piltover, who was very quickly also recognised by the posh, rich, upper levels of it as a fierce man with an idea, and a plan, to give birth to the independence of the low levels of Piltover, granting it life and freedom under the new name that in not so distant future would be known by another name, that would be recognised not just by Piltover, but all the others as the underworld of Zaun, with him known as the late father of it. Brute force and immense willpower are his greatest tools, which made him the man no one would mess around with. After he split paths with Warwick, then known as Vander, he made an empire dedicated to a greater cause, the only cause, birth of Zaun.
-Silco has ranged auto attacks. His primary role is toplane, secondary support and tertiary midlane. Silco is meant to be a tank.
-Willpower of Zaun (passive): Due to his willpower and fierceness, Silco doesn't condone to anyone. Henceforth, when taking damage, Silco acquires tenacity, stacking up to 10. Each stack carries 1% tenacity and expires 5 seconds after exiting combat. At max stacks, Silco gains additional 5% tenacity to prove his unbreakable will.
-You're perfect (passive): whenever an ally Jinx's passive "Loose Cannon" procs, the move speed buff also applies to Silco.
-Shimmer of Zaun (Q): Silco throws a flask of shimmer, which breaks upon making contact with the ground, creating a circular area of weakening shimmer, slowing enemies. Those foolish enough to remain standing on it for more than 5 seconds are grounded and Silco gets a brief shield scaling with level. Silco's next auto attack is empowered, rooting any target that he attacks in the next 3 seconds, but his auto attack range is halved.
-Eye of Zaun (W): Silco applies shimmer to his eye, granting him sight over his enemies for 2 seconds. This ability requires a 2 second channelling and can be interrupted with stuns.
-Remember your Salvatore (E, passive ability): Silco's auto attacks have a poisonous touch, applying burn that deals magic damage for 3 seconds after Silco grants his enemies an insightful reminder of the salvation he brought to Zaun in form of a touch. This damage scales with his magic resistance (base and item granted).
-The father of Zaun (R): Silco decides to display his power by summoning Deckard and Sevika. After a 3 second channel, upon their arrival he empowers them with shimmer. Deckard and Sevika have low health and resistances, equal to Silco's current base stats, but immensely powerful melee auto attacks scaling with Silco's armour. If not defeated in combat, they will be called off by Silco after 20 seconds.

Not sure this counts as a horror story, but my friends think I should post this, so here it is. It all took place years ago so my memory isn't the best, but I did document some events or was so grossed out I will never be able to forget.
TLTR: DM ignores everyone and gets mad when I tell him no, don't know if I'm the problem or not.
Couple years ago I used to play dnd with a group of online friends. Our first game was classic one. We met in a tavern, showed interest in same quest and teamed up for it and our party agreed to share the loot. I was playing elven bard, DM's girlfriend (I'll call her Stacey) was playing orc barbarian Snak, and since other 4 players never really spoke up or added to this story I won't confuse you with too many details.
Our first few sessions were somewhat fine, ignoring the time a bandit leader made a r*** threat at my character during our very first fight, but on our 3rd session we almost got all killed during a difficult fight we were not ready for. After that the DM decided to introduce his DMPC to the party, a dragonborn fighter. He joined us on the quest and off we went. When we reached the ruins where the item we were supposed to retrieve was, we were faced with an army of orcs and two live statues. Looking back it was likely set up to be show of strength for the DMPC, but in the moment I thought we were all going to die. We were only level 3 and if five cursed bears almost TPK us, no way could we face 20+ orcs and two statues. I was playing horny bard stereotype, something I checked with the whole group and everyone was okay with, so I asked dm if I could roll to seduce a few of them to give the party even a small chance to make it out of here alive. I roll Nat 20 and the dm tells me I seduce the whole army, which took them out but landed my character pregnant. I was uncomfortable with that, but it made sense in a way so I didn't say anything. I sat out the fight against the remaining statues, which confirmed alone that yes, if the orcs had been involved we would all be dead.
We do our thing, a player includes second character, a warforged fighter. The next couple sessions nothing bad happens rp wise, but I did notice a pattern during combat. Most had taken up second characters, so the party started getting closer and closer to 10 members. I was always last in turn, and the DMPC and his gf were if not first, then second, and when it finally came my turn after 6 other player characters everyone who survived DM and Stacey was already dead. I brought it up with the dm, who promised to boost my Initiative from 2 to 4 to let me get at least bardic inspiration in. He did, and the fights after that I was closer to middle, but come my turn everyone was already dead. No matter the enemies, I got maybe 3 turns after that in total during the whole adventure. He also started ignoring every other character, making the whole quest about Snak. The only relevance anyone else had was my bard being Snak's friend, and DMPC her boyfriend. Everyone else totally ignored. We eventually stop playing that campaign as the dm was now rewriting the story, and started a new one.
The new game was superhero themed and honestly not that bad, the DMPC still being totally overpowered, but at least there were enough enemies to give everyone a turn, even if the DM killed everyone left on his second turn. The only bad thing really was the dm making me play info broker npc without giving me any heads up, or asking me if I was okay playing npcs for him. I would have been if he had asked even an hour in advance instead of right before interaction with said npc. Outside of making his dmpc the offical leader of our hero team, nothing alarming happened, and we retired the campaign 5 sessions in due to unfinished writing.
Next campaign was one shot. I was heavily drunk when the dm asked me to make my character over text and with voice messages I managed to make rogue tabaxi named River who liked to look into peoples pockets. The game took place next day and in serious hangover I didn't feel like changing my character, so I went with it. Except instead of just looking and taking maybe 5 coins or less the dm described how River stole everything the characters had from their coats to last penny of their life savings, and not stopping even when I begged him to, or letting me put the items back. I had to waste my time finding where these characters live to return the items I unwillingly stole. I ended up no longer doing anything in the game, as checking pockets was the only entertainment I had while the DMPC and Stacey's character played the story.
However my last straw came when I decided to set up my first campaign and asked our forever dm to join as player. This was my first time dming and I was reading every rulebook I could find. We were playing on Roll 20 and Marcus (the dm) had bought some additional content and offered to let me use them. I told him "Thanks, but I prefer doing it myself so I can learn everything better. It was still nice of you to offer tho." He got really mad, going on a rant of how I didn't appreciate/like him and how I was basically saying "No, f*** you." I was really confused and spent the whole night trying to apologize and saying I didn't mean that at all. It was a bad night and made me feel awful. We eventually moved past it and started making characters. Another player wanted a bard cobalt whose only weapons were a lute and a dagger. I knew right away his combat would not end well, so to bring him to same level with other characters I let him pick a level 5 spell and he wanted Hold Monster. Still not very useful but at least he was more balanced. Marcus threw a fit, asking what if someone wanted a fighter, what benefits could they get, and so on. Again it took me forever to calm him down and beg him to just trust me on this.
Final straw for me was when came the time to make his character. He wanted Tortle with a shotgun as a weapon. I was worried, because the world the game was set in was close to Lord of the Rings as far as technology went, so gunpowder wasn't invented yet. I asked if the gun could be powered by mana stone or something magical, but he once again got mad and complained I wasn't listening to him. He went on a long rant saying he was afraid of me, I was mean and controlling and so on. We eventually agreed his character was first to invent gunpowder, and since my only issue was gone I was more tan happy to let him have that.
I should have distanced myself from him then and there, but it wasn't until I sent my friends online and irl screenshots of the converstation asking if I was really like that, trying to get a mirror pointed at me, when it finally hit me how toxic this was. All my friends agreed I had done nothing wrong, so maybe it wasn't me who is the problem. This was a pattern, in and out of dnd. I say something with even a hint of rejection, he gets mad, I apologize for an hour, he apologizes and takes the blame, we move on and repeat. I sent him a message saying the campaign was on hold and asking to distance myself from him and saying he could remove me from his server if he wanted to. He got annoyed, but agreed, saying he hoped this would be good for our friendship in the long run. 2 months without contact and he sends me a message, but having realized without him around I had a lot less anxiety, so I ended the friendship and he kicked me from all group servers, dnd included. I'm not close from anyone from that group anymore, but I have heard over half of the members have left because of him, so just maybe I wasn't the problem.
Sorry for the long post and may the dice god bless you with Nat 20 when you need it the most.

Part 1
I ended up buying a house at the edge of this town.... before i knew all the bullshit that was goin' on around here. Got bored and went down to the local sheriff Jack and asked about an opening, Didn't even fill out an application, got the job on the spot. For the first few months it was the usual, speeding tickets, drunk and disorderly, normal shit right? Well... let the fuckery commence....
I had been a deputy for 7 months when one of the local farmers called in and reported he had some animals killed last night and wanted someone to come out to his house. John Nixon was a 60 year old farmer who lived by himself. His wife passed away years ago, but he never remarried and they never had kids. We met one day at the local tackle shop. Me being new in town, he took me to some of the good fishin' spots. The man was a huge military history buff and would always ask about my time in. I thought I knew him personally, so i took the call.
As I rolled up to the gate on his property, I saw John standing at the gate with a shotgun. " Hey john, can I ask why you are standing there with that cannon in your hands?" No response, he just stared at me. "John! put that damn shotgun down!!" I yelled. Its like he snapped to out of a trance. "Mason, i need you to come round the back side of the house to the barn, now!" he snapped.
"OK, OK, let me get outta the car and grab some gear." I said opening the car door. While i was grabbing my gear, John was standing there with his eyes scanning the tree line. "Come on mason! you need to see this!" He said heading towards the back. I closed the trunk and started walking over in his direction.
"So what the hell is going on that's got you walking around here with that damn bazooka?" No response, he just keeps walking and scanning the tree line. We finally got to the back of his house where the barn is. It looked like a horror movie in that pen.
"What the fuck happened here!?!" I said covering my mouth. There were pieces of chickens and goats everywhere, a few pigs looked like they had been filleted. "Its back mason, after all these years" John mumbled. "John what the hell are you talking about? what did this?" I asked.
John took his eyes off the tree line and looked me dead in the face. "Your not from here so you dont know." "Know what man? what are you saying?" I asked getting annoyed now. "Years ago this same thing happened to a few guys I know. All of their livestock had been killed. Not killed and eatin', just killed. It got people 'round here up in arms. Well, a few of us got together and decieded we were gonna look for whatever did it" he said. "What the hell are you telling me john?" I interrupted. "There were four of us. We were young, thought we were bullet proof. We went out into the woods one morning, determined to find the damn thing that had been killing our animals.
Tommy was the first to say something. "Hey, did you guys hear that?". The rest of us didnt hear a thing, so we kept moving. We got about three miles deep into the old pine forest at the edge of town. Will was the next to say something, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" he yelled out while looking down at the mud. We ran over to where he was standing to find him wide eyed. "I dont know what the actual fuck did this, but we..we need to go and I mean right fucking now!!!" he said pointing. This track was huge, at least 14 inches long with huge claws. Gerald spoke up "Let's fuckin' go guys!!".
We started back tracking out of the area, when we were stopped cold in our tracks, we all heard it this time. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same damn time. A sickening, shrieking laugh was coming from all around us. We panicked and starting runnin'. As soon as we did that, whatever was making that noise centered as if right behind us, and it was coming fast, ungodly fast" John said eyeing the remains of a chicken that was torn apart.
"We were about a mile from the trucks when I heard a thud and a scream, when i looked back Gerald wasn't there. Will and tommy were right behind me, terror all over their faces. Tommy pulled his pistol and started shooting backwards. Only one shot rang out before something tackled him and Will. I stopped, raising my rifle, but they had already been torn apart. It was seconds, and they were in shreds" John said.
"Mason, what i saw standing over their shredded bodies has haunted me since then. The fucking thing was nine feet tall, shaped like a man, but not. Its skin, or or scales was a mixture of black and grey and it looked slimy. It looked like a damn bodybuilder with hugh claw like hands. Its head was massive, with what looked like horns coming from the jaw to around the chin. Its eyes, glowed bright green in the middle of the fucking day, and it had a mouth full of fucked up jagged teeth." He said lowering his head.
"I jus.. just stood there, waitng for my turn. This thing paced back and fourth, staring at me, with this creepy damn smile. It looked down at Will and Tommy, then it looked back up at me. My heart almost stopped when it pointed and shook its head at me. It started making that shrieking laugh as it grabbed what was left of my friends in each giant claw and walked off into the woods, still fucking laughing. I fell to my knees as it vanished into the trees."
I stood there, thinking he lost his damn mind. John had stopped talking, he had this way off look in his eyes. "John..., john.., JOHN!!" his eyes snapped back to mine. "So what are you telling me? A nine foot creature with claws killed your friends and animals?!" I half mocked. "Yea.... thats what i'm telling you. Its back for me, i know it." "What makes you think it was this thing you say killed your friends? It could have been coyotes" I asked " I know mason, i heard that same horrible shrieking laugh in the woods behind the barn last night."
Now I’ve heard some real bullshit in my time, especially during my time in the contracting field... But this was the most out there shit I had ever heard.
"Alright, alright... let's just take a big ass step backwards. I need to wrap my head around all of this." I said takin a deep breath. John laid the shotgun down to his side. "I'm telling you the truth mason. i'm too old and tired to lie about shit" he said shrugging. I looked deep into this man’s eyes. When I did, I saw something that told me this was the absolute truth as he knew it. " You haven’t given me any reason to doubt you... but fuck man... this is hard to swallow. I need proof John, that's the way this works." A look of frustration washed over his weathered face.
"Proof?! you want proof huh? follow me" John groaned.
He started walking towards the tress behind the barn. As we got closer to the trees, I started to smell rusty copper. Blood I thought out loud. John raised his shotgun as we walked closer. That damn gun had to be illegal, but this wasn’t the time for that. Him raising that gun made me a lil' uneasy, so I pulled my Glock 9mm out and flipped the safety off.
John owned about 90 acres, most of it unkept. A lot of the land was behind the barn which butted up to a state forest. We took about 12 steps into the wood line when the smell of death hit me like a brick. "I'm taking you to where I heard the noise coming from last night... your PROOF is out there Mason" He said with a slight edge to it.
We walked almost a hundred yards into the woods when john stopped in front of a tree. It looked twisted and warped all the way to its top. I stepped around John and saw huge claw marks cut deep all the way around the base of the tree, it's hard to even call it that. "What the hell is this?" I said looking up. "This is a marker, it's territory starts here" John replied. I looked at john like he was crazy, which at this point I thought he was. "This thing travels throughout these woods. I've found five more of these trees in our town" he said putting a hand on the tree.
"This isn’t telling me anything John, just that you've got a weird ass tree on your property" I said back to him. "Do you hear that?" So we could move this mess forward, I stopped talking and just listened. I hadn't noticed that during our walk into the woods it had got quiet, and I mean not one sound. " What the hell? where did all the animals go?" I asked looking around. "They're scared mason... you should be too. Let's get back to the house."
We turned and started making our way out of the woods. We were damn near the tree line when I heard a snap. I turned around, gun raised to see a black streak dart back deeper into the woods. "What the fuck was that?!" All John said was "we need to leave, now!" We turned and started sprinting the rest of the way out of the woods. I was surprised at how fast john was for an old man. We got all the way back to my patrol car. "I don't know what that was, but I don't think you should stay here tonight John. Pack some stuff and come to my place" I said pointing my gun at the trees. John just let out a sigh as if frustrated and defeated.
"You weren't listenin'. The pine forest, these trees, it’s all connected. I’m talkin’ bout before this area was even inhabited by native peoples. This fucking thing has been around for a very long time. I have been looking into this since that day, I had to find out what it was and if it can be killed" he tried to explain. The whole time john was talking I had my eyes and weapon pointed at the trees. " You can put that down mason, it just wanted you to know it's here" He said.
"John, I to need process this shit. I've never seen or heard anything like this and to be straight with you, I’m at a loss right now" I said opening the trunk. "I get it, I get it. The sheriff jack was a deputy back then. When you see him... tell him I said the dark is here..." And with that, he just turned his back and walked back into his house not saying another word.
I got back in the car and sat there. Looking at the treeline. After a few minutes I went back to the station. I must've walked in with that universal what the fuck look on my face, because Cathy the clerk asked what was wrong with me. I told her I was fine and asked if she had seen the sheriff? "Yeah, he is in the gun cage. Are you sure you’re ok Mason?" She asked again.
"Yeah, I'm good, just need to talk to Jack." I started walking towards the back of the building, when Jack came around the corner. "Hey mason, what's up?" he says walking up to me. "I just got back from John's house." The look on his face completely changed. "He had a bunch of animals killed last night. It looked like a slaughterhouse. He told me to tell you the dark was back?" I told him noticing his reaction.
Jack stiffened up and not saying a word gestured for me to follow him towards the back security door. We headed towards the back and out the door. Jack had stopped to make sure the door was secure then pointed at his truck and said "get in."
After getting in he looked over "I need some coffee" then started the truck up and headed west out of the parking lot towards the coffee shop. He ordered a large black coffee with extra sugar then asked if I wanted one. "I'll take a small black, no sugar." We pulled out and headed east back past the station. We ended up driving towards the edge of the county. "What's going on and why are we heading way the hell out here?" I looked at jack and said.
Jack just took a long sip of his coffee then placed it back in the holder.
After a long breath "You want some answers about what happened at Johns' house... I’m sure he told you about a few other things about this town... well we're gonna go get you some answers" He said looking at a black sedan passing in the opposite direction. "Aight so, like you mason, I’m not from here either. I was a trooper in New York for a few years before I came down here. I resigned after a call to an old couple’s house" He said reaching for his cup. "My partner Jake and I responded to what was thought to be an animal attack. We were the first on the scene, having been a couple miles away lookin' for speeders.
When we rolled up an older woman came running over to the cruiser. She had a panicked look on her face and just kept repeating "they're dead, they're dead!!" We hopped out and sat her in the back of the car then asked what happened. "I...I... came over to talk to gloria and... and I saw the door open. I walked in yelling her and Alan’s name, but they didn't answer... I found them upstairs... it's horrible!!" She said sobbing. Jake and I drew our weapons and started making the move inside. Like the witness said the front door was open, so we moved in. It smelled like sulfur and blood when we entered. We started clearing rooms. The first floor was clear, so we made our way up the steps.
The smell was overpowering now. We cleared the bathroom, and the two smaller rooms were clear also. The door to the master bedroom was slightly opened. I motioned to Jake and we hit the door.... it looked like some movie shit!! I kid you not. Jake turned and went back into the hallway and threw up. I stepped into the room and... listen I had never seen anything like this before" Jack stammered out.
"These two people were in shreds on the bed, they're insides had been yanked out and thrown around the fucking room. After looking at the bodies I noticed these huge claw marks in the wall, I’m talking if Andre the giant had had a Krueger glove. I stepped back out of the room and radioed to dispatch that we needed more units. I walked back to the front door where Jake was standing hunched over looking out of it.
Parked outside were 3 black SUVs and a black sedan. I counted 11 men dressed in black tactical military gear, some with a type of rifle I had never seen before, but you could tell it was large caliber. The rest with SMG weapons. When i looked over towards the patrol car, one of the men had the door opened and was talking to the witness. He saw us and started our way. He was dressed in all black too and carried what looked like a desert eagle in a chest holster.
When he got closer I got a better look at him. He looked to be in his late 40's with salt and pepper colored hair and a big ass scar that ran down the right side of his face. He got about ten feet from the steps "We appreciate the assistance, but you are no longer needed" He said in deep voice. As he is saying this, one of the other guys escorts the witness out of our car and into the back of that sedan.
The guy started walking away from us "Who are you? and what the fuck is going on?" I yelled at him. He turned with a look on his face that you only see in movies then took a few steps towards us. "Your command has been informed and you are to leave now!" He said raising his hand up towards that holstered pistol. Jake looked at me and shook his head "fuck it, let's go, let them deal with that mess upstairs" he said still coughing then started heading towards the car. I followed him down the steps... looking this guy up and down, checking out the vehicles... for anything that might tell me who we were dealing with.
The only thing I saw was on the assholes uniform... there was a patch on his shoulder. It was an all-black diamond with a weird looking black M in the middle on it. The guy stared us down until we were in the car driving away. He had that pistol in his hand and the other men starting moving into the house. Jake and I didn’t say a word until the radio squawked and we were told to head back to the barracks.
When we got there, we were told to report to the troop commander’s office. Commander Thompson was sitting in his office along with a man in a nice 2-piece suit. The man in the suit stood there quietly while Thompson told us that we never responded to any call out to that farmhouse, and that this was the first and only time he would say it. With that, he dismissed us and and we walked out. The shit didn’t sit well with me, and I ended up resigning a few months later.
I came down here and then that shit in the woods happened. I was on the scene, I saw the claw marks. They looked just like the ones in New York, and the same damn trucks showed up with different personnel. I knew just to shut up and walk away, and after making that choice I have had a pretty good career here." he finished grabbing his cup out of the holder.
My brain was in overdrive. I was just about to completely question bomb jack when he said, "We're here." He pulled off onto this overgrown driveway and drove for about a quarter mile. We pulled up to an old two-story house that looked like it was in ruins... but the lights were on. "Where the hell are we?" I asked As the last word of that question left my mouth, the front door of the house opened... standing in the doorway was a old man, dressed in weathered black clothing. Jack leaned over to me "You wanted answers... well.... there they are."

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I hope someone can offer assistance, as its driving me crazy lol
I'd like to turn off the start-up sound for Windows 11 Enterprise. This can be done by going to the Sound settings and deselecting the “Play Windows Start-up Sound” option.
When this option is manually unchecked, it modifies the disablestartupsound registry key located here: HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\BootAnimation to 1.
In our cloud-only environment, Intune doesn't offer this setting within Configuration Profiles. So, I attempted to create a simple script for achieving this.
Here's the script I created and deployed: $keyPath = HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\BootAnimation" $valueName = "DisableStartupSound" $valueData = 1 New-ItemProperty -Path $keyPath -Name $valueName -PropertyType DWORD -Value $valueData # **New line to avoid restart:*\* # Since the sound change might not be immediate, a message can be displayed to the user. Write-Host "Startup sound disabled. The change might take effect after the next restart.
Intune reported that the script failed, but when I checked the test machine, the registry value had indeed changed from 0 to 1. However, even after a reboot, the start-up sound persisted, and the “Play Windows Start-up Sound” checkbox remained checked.
I've manually changed the registry key value to 1, rebooted the machine, but encountered the same outcome.
The start-up sound only ceases when I manually uncheck the “Play Windows Start-up Sound” option within the sound settings.
Could anyone advise on why this is happening or share a successful method for disabling the startup sound via a script\Intune?
Thank you in advance.

The IPL 2024 has been a breeding ground for young talent! Here are a few who've shone brightly and have the potential to become future stars for India:
Riyan Parag (Rajasthan Royals): No longer such a young gun, but his maturity and consistency this season have been impressive. He's amassed over 400 runs with a high strike rate, showcasing his all-rounder capabilities.
Kumar Kushagra (Delhi Capitals): This left-arm spinner has surprised everyone with his control and wicket-taking ability. Playing a key role in DC's bowling attack, his variations and composure suggest a bright future.
Nitish Reddy (Kolkata Knight Riders): This explosive young batsman has impressed with his power-hitting in the middle order. His ability to clear boundaries and rotate the strike makes him a valuable asset.
Ashutosh Sharma (Punjab Kings): This hard-hitting batsman has been a revelation, providing crucial lower-order cameos for PBKS. His clean striking and six-hitting prowess could be a valuable weapon for India.
Tristan Stubbs (Delhi Capitals): Another uncapped player making waves, Stubbs has brought power-hitting and wicket-keeping skills to the Delhi Capitals. His talent with the bat and flexibility as a keeper make him a player to watch.
Will Jacks (Gujarat Titans): The young Englishman has taken the IPL by storm with his all-round ability. His explosive batting with a hundred to his name and handy medium pace bowling make him a potential future star.
It's important to remember that development takes time, but these players have shown the talent, temperament, and skills to suggest they can be future stars for India. The upcoming domestic seasons and international opportunities will be their proving grounds. Win Big on Every Wicket: Get Your Cricket ID Now!

Wade took a breath as he picked up his old duffel bag, now loaded with his DD uniform and a few other items from the Ceres mines as he slotted it to his side, with the large band handle around his neck. Having gathered his belongings, he joined Tina, who was waiting near the ship's open bay door as he walked over to her. The couple watched several of the other troopers inside marching out as well, some carrying crates of supplies and items out of the craft as they departed for the base outside. Kelly was one of the last ones still on board, checking on a section of the cargo bay as she did what Wade presumed was some maintenance work.
With the way now clear, Wade and Tina stepped off the transport, glancing at the massive base around them as they touched the roughened pavement. Throughout the large landing port were several more chameleon dropships, their crews disembarking with similar items and loads of rescued drones aboard. Beyond the ships were several hangar bays and fighter craft, mostly A-20s and their space-borne cousins docked in lines going across the pad. And beyond the landing zone, towering over several buildings at the base, were the few cruisers docked to the large clamps holding them in place.
Walking ahead with Tina, Wade observed some of the departing Coalition troops as they neared one of several tents stationed near an inactive group of planes, the military personnel interacting and exchanging the crates with the Coalition officers upon reaching each other. Hearing a low roar of engines from afar, the lover drones looked upward to see the large USN warship that was present at the factory earlier, having followed the transport convoy home and now was beginning to descend for landing. Wade gave a silent gasp as he caught a glimpse of the ship's name and SIC number at the side, remembering it from the ship he and Ron saw while returning to Earth.
"Always a wondrous thing to see, isn't it Wade?" Tina said as she and her boyfriend watched the ship slowly come lower to the unoccupied dockyard clamps below it.
"Sure is, wonder how they built those babies?" Wade replied as the two looked upon the landing starship, the former worker drone smirking as he added, "I could've swore I saw that same exact ship over Henderson when Ron and I came back, before we got mugged earlier."
Tina glanced to Wade with surprise as she spoke up on his claim. "Really? Well, that had to be the one that helped our friends here back at the factory. I think I saw the same name on it too!"
"Wouldn't surprise me, seeing all that's happened today." Wade replied as he chortled a bit, Tina doing the same as the former spoke further. "I wonder, what kind of ship is the... Vickers again? You know?"
"Autumn class, dear. A heavy destroyer variant, not as strong as those enormous Yamato dreadnoughts or Adelaide battlecruisers, but she'll put up a good fight for whatever comes at her." Tina explained as she held back another chuckle, thinking of her education on various USN craft as she teased Wade lightly. "You know, I may just have to grab one of those ship roster tabs when we get in the base. I'd love to show you all they got in their arsenal."
Wade chortled again as he gave his thoughts on the idea. "Well, it wouldn't be bad to have a little more knowledge in ship-story."
Tina almost burst out laughing at his crude pun, Wade smiling at her as F and Nathan jogged over to the two, the latter carrying his own backpack behind him as he spoke. "Well, not a bad place, huh? You guys heading to the clearance station?"
"Oh yes, we were just admiring the ships around us while we walked." Tina said with a stifled laugh, easing herself as she chatted with her new friends. Wade, however, was quickly overcome with panic as he remembered something. Checking his pockets, his fears were confirmed as he failed to find one of his key possessions: his ID card. Wade felt he must have lost it when he was stripped of his old clothing while in the factory.
Oh no, guys? I don't think I can pass through." Wade said with greenish-yellow circles for eyes as Tina and the others looked to him in concern, the drone feeling through his pockets once more before stating his issue. "My ID, they must've taken it off me when they turned me into a disassembly drone!" Wade began to hyperventilate lightly as he grew fearful of the potential outcomes when they reached the security gate ahead. "Oouuugghh, if I don't have my ID, they'll have to keep me lo-"
"Wade, Wade... it's okay. I'll have them make a pass for you, surely we can get them to after getting them to understand what's happened." Tina stated as she put her hand to Wade's chest, who eased his panic as he looked to his girlfriend.
"Yeah, and besides Wade, those people over there went around gathering what ever items the company stole from the drones during their conversion. I'm sure that once they find it, they'll have it sent off to be given back to you!" Nathan said as F nodded in agreement, shunting Wade's panic out of him with their words as he replied to the hopeful responses.
"Right, yeah, they should do that. Sorry." Holding Tina's hand, Wade spoke to her once more. "Lead the way."
Tina nodded to Wade before the two began to walk over to the security gate nearby, several people, drones and humans alike, already in the line as they checked themselves in to the base to relax after the hard-fought battle. Once they reached the line, the four stood together as they waited for the line to slowly go up, more troops and rescued drones coming over to add to the long line. During the wait, a loud, mechanical 'SLAM' erupted through the air, prompting Wade and Tina to glance over to the direction of the noise. The two felt at ease once more as they saw the Vickers finally landed at the base, the loud clang being the docking clamps attaching to the ships hull just moments ago.
As the line moved up further to the gate, Wade and Tina caught sight of a pair of A-20 aircraft passing over them, the two watching as the planes slowed down while descending onto the runway nearby. The four drones' collective viewing of the fighters landing ceased as they caught sight of J, who took flight as she departed the transport nearby before flying over to the tents near the hangar bays.
"Huh, wonder what she's over there for?" Nathan said as he observed J landing onto the ground in front of one of the tents.
"Probably checking on the drones we got back, or meeting up with one of those commanders there." F said as she motioned an arm towards the tents, J walking under one as she made her way to one of the soldiers coming over to her. "Seems like the latter, from the looks of it."
Wade shrugged as he responded to the group's pondering over J's actions. "Well, she'll be here with us if we need her, right? Shouldn't be much to worry about."
Returning their focus to the line ahead, Wade and his team waited as the line moved up over the next few minutes, moving impressively fast as the people in front cleared themselves in one at a time. Eventually, the four of them were up, Tina stepping up to show her ID for clearance. "Hello, it's been a busy day, hasn't it?"
The security agent smirked at Tina's small-talk. "Hah, not too busy here until you all showed up."
As the guard finished scanning Tina's ID, she handed the card back to her as she raised a finger to begin her request. "Oh, um, there's a little issue we need to resolve." Putting a hand to Wade's arm, Tina explained her boyfriend. "This is my dear friend Wade, Wade Carter. We both managed to escape that blasted factory with the help of those Coalition folks there." Wade gave a pleading look as Tina continued. "Unfortunately, Wade was converted into a disassembly drone before he was rescued, and it seems those people at the company took all his belongings he had on him, including his ID. Do you think there's... anyway you could write up something to let him by?"
Stepping forward, F gave her end of the story. "I can vouch for him, Ma'am. Wade and I we're among the teams helping in getting the worker drones out of the factory during the operation." The disassembly drone pulled out a pair of cards as she finished her explanation, one of them being her company-issued Disassembly Service Passcard, which resembled a normal civilian ID in appearance, save for the 'JCJenson (In Spaaace!) Logo on the top left and hazard markings around the rim of the card. As for the other card, it was a well worn, still legitimate ID card, showing F as how she appeared when she was a worker drone. At the side of her picture was a name with an initial. "FELICITY A LEE"
Taking the two cards in her hand, she looked them over and scanned them as Nathan tried to back Wade up as well. "So can I, Ma'am! I helped there too, when he was under the company's control. We all got him out of the factory so we could get him back in order." Pulling out his own ID, Nathan handed it out as the guard returned F's IDs to her.
The guard accepted Nathan's ID as she spoke over what to do with Wade. "Well, normally it takes clearance from higher ranked personnel here to allow someone inside without a legitimate form of identification. We can't just take someone's word on things like this, after all." Tina seemed to frown in disappointment as the guard explained her protocols, Wade looking down at the ground as he felt his worries were about to be proven correct. Going over Nathan's ID further, she gave an intrigued expression at the card before continuing. "Huh, interesting. Got two veteran folks here, I see?" She glanced to Nathan and F as she said that, taking into account their former military background as the former spoke up.
"Three, actually. My pal Kurtis is somewhere back there, I think. He should be heading down here later this evening." The guard glanced back at Nathan's ID as she took in the veteran drone's reply, sighing as she decided to make a slight amendment to the issue put before her and the four friends.
"Well, seeing you two here, I believe I can write something up. The Major won't be happy with me for this, but I think I can trust you with appropriate behavior." Taking a small sticky name-tag, the woman pulled out a pen before starting to write on it. Initially, she glanced to Wade, who stated his name again before she began to write his name on the tag. Once she was finished, the guard gave the tag to Wade, who slapped it onto his jacket before she spoke to him. "You should be fine to enter for the most part, just stick close to your friends and don't cause any trouble. Understood?"
Wade gave a stern salute to the security officer, who held back a chuckle at the honest, yet amusing effort the disassembly drone showed to her. Giving a simple nod and a flick of her hand, she permitted Wade and his friends entrance to the base, the four walking past the walkway barricades as they made their way past the gate.
Wade let out a heavy sigh of relief as he thanked his allies. "I owe you both so much for this, thanks!"
"Don't mention it, Wade." F said warmly as she and Nathan laughed at his joyful face.
"Yeah, just doing what any good friend should." Nathan said as Tina wrapped an arm around Wade, holding him tightly as the two walked together.
Looking to his girlfriend, Wade spoke to Tina about what to do next. "Well, since we're in, you wanna go fi-" He ceased his words as he remembered that there was someone else they needed to find amongst the base. "Oh, I almost forgot about her,"
"Jasmine!" Tina and Wade said aloud together as the former remembered her sister, Wade's words snapping her mind to Jasmine in an instant. "We should look for her, you think she might be here somewhere?"
"Probably. If they got Ron after they captured me, they have to 've picked her up too." Wade stated, Nathan raising a hand as he offered to help.
"I could go looking for her! You know what she looks like?" Readying a holo-projector, he tried to display an image of Jasmine from one of his many memories of her. The picture was, while pixelated and under a blue hue, incredibly well-detailed. And for Nathan, that was all he needed to see to note Jasmine's appearance in his memory. Nodding, he spoke again to his friends. "Got it! I'll see if she's around!" Then, turning to run down one of the paths leading to a nearby base facility, he stopped as he asked one more question. "Oh! One more thing, you got a smartcomm on ya, Wade?"
Readying one from his holo-projector hand, he nodded as he spoke into it. "Seems so, though I don't seem to have all my contacts added in."
Running back over, Nathan pulled out his own smartcomm before putting it up against Wade's hand one, allowing the two devices to exchange information. Upon the devices beeping, Wade and Nathan nodded to each other, the former ignoring a pop-up that stated, "New Contact Added" while the latter spoke once more. "Okay, I'll call you once I spot her!" With that, he began running down the path once more, intent on finding Tina's sister at the base, wherever she could be.
"Fowley! Her last name's Fowley!" Tina said aloud to the departing Nathan, hoping he heard her words before turning away from the miner drone and facing Wade and F again.
As Tina sighed in partial relief, Wade put his own arm around her before asking the question he tried to ask before. "So, uh, with that out of the way for now... You wanna go look for one of those ship tabs?"
Putting a hand to Wade's chest, Tina smiled as she replied. "Oh, certainly." Then, as the three began walking down a different path that Nathan hadn't taken, the pilot drone continued with a chuckle. "I hear they have a place here that sells model kits too!"
...
Jasmine sat in silent sorrow as she took another gulp of her glass of Proxi-Vodka, a tasty, but heavy alcoholic beverage produced at the colony of Proxima 2... and one of Jasmine's preferred drinks to have when she wasn't in a good mood. When she awoke after being stunned by the station guards, she found that she was just recovered by a group that called themselves the 'United Earth Coalition', and that her drone friend, Tina, was unfortunately taken by the JCJenson corporation to be turned into one of their horrid disassembly drones. While the people that saved her offered to help her find Tina, so far there had been no luck in doing so. No successful calls, no response from Wade nor Ron, nothing.
The whole situation widdled at her like scrapes to her form, slowly draining any bit of hope that she had in finding her sister. And once the mission at that factory was over, the ship began heading back to the Nellis Base to escort the recovered drones back to a safe area. Unfortunately for Jasmine, Tina's presence was not given confirmation. Alone, she walked off to one of the bars down at the base, specifically Drexler's Cantina, one of the more popular bars down at the military starport. Thankfully, though she didn't openly exhibit feelings of wanting to be alone in her wallowing, she was glad the place was nearly barren of patrons, with only a few at a couple of tables within the bar.
The stage at the back of the bar also had a few singer drones performing aloud, the lead singer girl reciting the words of a quiet, yet exciting song that, instrumentally, consisted of a strange mix of bass, techno, and a hint of opera. The song itself was one Jasmine had heard a good many times before in her life, known as, 'You Complete My World' by a decades old Earth band by the name of HeartStar. The song, as Jasmine and many others who'd heard it interpreted it, was about someone who described their world like a puzzle, and that the one whom the main singer cared for beyond all was the only thing that could keep their world from shattering into ruin before them.
An oddly fitting tune, given what had just happened on the JCJ Central earlier. For all Jasmine knew, Tina was either alive beyond her knowledge, hopefully searching for her wherever she could, or, the answer Jasmine feared... Dead.
Not wanting to even consider the thought, the human pilot took another swig of the colonial Vodka, relishing in its taste before forcing herself to swallow, almost gagging from the strength of the drink. Easing herself, she glanced out to one of the windows of the bar, taking the faint glimpse of night into her eyes. Then, looking to the clock at the wall ahead of her, she saw the time was about a little over an hour to 10 pm. Jasmine gave a sigh to herself, certain she would be alone for the rest of the night.
Unbeknownst to her, however, Jasmine had been spied upon a little while ago. Nathan, in his search for the woman Tina called Jasmine Fowley, had spotted a woman matching the physical appearance of the target. Knowing Jasmine wouldn't know who he was if he tried to talk to her himself, Nathan immediately went looking for Wade, easing his return to his team by calling the former worker drone and signaling him about his findings.
Deciding to check on the news, Jasmine slowly pulled out her smartcomm, resisting her urge to press the contacts button as she tapped the news app. Looking through it, she spotted a recent story that was posted just over an hour ago, titled, "JCJenson 'Recall' effort sabotaged by joint Government/Militia forces! The Truth Exposed!" Above the article was a video, a play button in front of it teasing Jasmine. Curious over this sudden development, she pressed the button, her attention in complete focus on the video as it began to play.
After the news station's logo appeared on-screen for a short few seconds, the current host for the story, Mrs. Tiffany Joy, appeared at her seat before beginning the story. "Good evening, this is Nevada-78, I'm your host, Tiffany Joy. Tonight, we start with a rapid development for the 'drone recall' incidents propagated by the business conglomerate JCJenson In Space. Throughout the afternoon up to now, several advanced factories under the ownership of the corporation have fallen under violent assault by various militarized forces, ranging from official United Nations operatives to private militia groups with varying goals." The small screen to Joy's left shifted to show the state of Nevada, zooming into it to show a portion of the Mojave desert as Joy continued her story.
"Among these facilities, one such factory based right here in southern Nevada has recently succumbed to the successful efforts of the USN Defense Force and a group by the name of the United Earth Coalition, an alliance consisting of humans and automatons working to create a unified world for both species." The screen shifted again to show the logo for the UEC, which appeared as one half of a human head outline and another of a drone's, along with two arms behind the heads belonging to both beings pictured. "With the attack having concluded just hours ago, we have reporters gathering at the New Nellis Staryards near Henderson City to bring you the aftermath of the conflict. We go to Mr. Jelico, on the scene in five."
The camera shifted after the countdown of five to show Mr. Jelico in front of the camera, the cameraman filming a large tent housing several worker drones being tended to by the base soldiers. "Alright, Jelico here, we're on station at New Nellis. What you're all seeing here are some of the recovered worker drones, many of them were pretty spooked by the events that unfolded in that factory earlier." As the camera panned over the lot of drones, some of them looked to the camera, curious at the news crew filming them as Jelico continued. "A few of them are real glad to be here, Joy. Seems like they feel safe here, as far as I can tell."
As the camera moved to show Jelico again, a plane could be seen taking off as he spoke. "Yeah, these people did them quite a service. The staff here are working to find their original owners and families, it'll probably be a little bit before they can get them all home." The camera switched once again to another view of the base, the lights of various buildings illuminating the night as the news story continued.
At the entrance, Nathan pushed open the door to the bar, the chime failing to catch anyone's attention as he, Wade, F and Tina stepped inside. Carefully pointing at Jasmine, he whispered to Tina, "That's her, from the looks of it. She's been here for a good minute!"
Taking another drink of the Proxi-Vodka, Jasmine listened further to the story. "The authorities didn't just recover a majority of the worker drones taken into the factory, however. A recent update provided by Mrs. Yuka, shows her interviewing a disassembly drone who claims to be among the unfortunate drones the assault force failed to save before their conversion."
"Jasmine!" Tina called out, the voice instantly grabbing the woman's attention as she paused the news story. Swiftly turning her head, her heart began pounding with immense excitement as she saw her drone sister, who grinned upon seeing her face.
"Tina!" Jasmine said aloud, somewhat weakly from her previous wallowing as she tried to run over to her sister, landing on her knees as the two embraced in a flush of emotions. Wade and his friends stood behind the two girls as they hugged each other, clinging onto one another as tightly as they could give. Jasmine seemed to erupt with a pained cough as she allowed some of her sorrow out of her heart, Tina carressing her back in a comforting manner as she held back her own tears. The sisters held the hug for a long moment, not daring to let go of one another for fear of losing each other again. Eventually, however, they did, the two sisters taking heavy breaths as Jasmine spoke up while wiping her face. "I thought I'd lost you."
"Can't say I didn't feel the same way, love." Tina replied as she broke out in light laughter, glancing to Wade before continuing. "But, fortunately, those Coalition boys helped out quite a bit. Though, not as much as my knight in his new armor."
Standing herself up, Jasmine took Tina's helping hand as she looked to the one her sister spoke of. A grateful smile formed on Jasmine's face as she saw Wade, standing in front of her and Tina as he returned the expression. Looking upon her family friend, Jasmine noticed something... different about Wade. He was taller now, his arms were shaped like white cones rather than the silver bendy tubes he and Tina normally had. As for his face, his pure green eyes were replaced with a set of greenish-yellow ones, and above his forehead was a band holding five yellow bulbs that she didn't know the function of.
While the pieces started to click together in her head, Jasmine took Wade's held out hand as she spoke to him. "Wade, I'm so glad to see you! You look different, too. Did something... happen to you?" She already guessed it by this point, but feigned confusion as she opted to hear Wade's take on the matter.
"Yeah, I hope you don't mind your sister dating a vampire from now on." Tina chortled in amusement at Wade's comment at himself, Jasmine raising an eyebrow in confusion at the former worker drone as he returned his expression to a more sincere smile. "The company got me too, and unlike the workers we got out... they managed to turn me into a disassembly drone. From now on, I'm gonna need to take in more oil than I usually did before I was turned. My cooling system's not as good as it should be, from what I've heard." Pulling out his two full canteens, Wade finished his partial explanation. "Don't worry, though. I've got some to keep me down."
Jasmine took in the news with immense surprise, noticing the hazard stripes at the rims of Wade's arms as she replied to her friend. "Oh... Well, if Tina's fine with it, then I see no problem with that, Wade." Admittedly, she was a bit unnerved by the change, concerned for both him and Tina's safety due to this supposed oil coolant issue. Trying to sound as nice as she could on the matter, Jasmine hesitantly asked Wade, "Though... I am a bit concerned with that bad cooling problem you mention. You... don't think you would-"
"Hurt Tina?!" Wade assumed, understanding Jasmine's concern as he gave a horrified glance to the two sisters. Standing with his fists to his hips, he gave his answer to Jasmine's presumed question. "Don't even say such a thing, Jasmine. I'd rather overheat than dare strike her."
Admittedly amused as well as concerned for Wade's selflessness, Tina chuckled at him before speaking up on the matter. "Now now, Wade. It won't be so bad. We'll manage."
Jasmine nodded as she agreed with her sister's optimistic view on the problem. "Indeed we will, we always do." Then, taking notice of the other two drones in the room, Jasmine smiled at them before speaking again. "Ah, I see you brought some friends too."
Wade and Tina glanced over to Nathan and F upon Jasmine's statement, the two friends smiling pleasantly as Wade spoke up. "Oh, yeah. These are some of my work buddies from Ceres, Jasmine. This is Nathan, I first met him when Ron and I came to the mines, showed us around a bit too." Putting a hand on F's shoulder, Wade introduced her too. "And this is Serial Designation F, or, just F. She was one of the guards keeping watch on the place while we worked."
F seemed to blush out of embarrassment as she remembered her and Wade's first meeting. "I... did come off a little rough on them when they first came in, though. Stopped Nathan's touring run too. Just following colony protocol."
Nathan patted F's back as he tried to ease F's guilt. "Oh, it's nothing F. We had to start work in a few minutes anyway. Besides, it's a bit more fun exploring the place yourself without a guide." He winked at the others as he finished his praise. "Trust me, it really is."
Wade, Tina and Jasmine all chuckled at their friend's amusing words, F joining in as she replied to Nathan's encouragement. "Alright, alright."
Walking up to the two, Tina put her hand onto Nathan's as she gave her own praises. "And they may not look like it, dear, but Nathan and F were both formerly in the military, from what Wade's told me."
Jasmine gave a proud smirk at the two as she responded to her sister's claim. "Well, that's quite something. Did she tell you we used to fly for them some years back?"
"Oh, she did, Mrs. Fowley." Nathan replied as he chuckled lightly, F giving a smile of her own as she added her own part to the story.
"Yeah, and given what's happening now, maybe they might call you back for service again. Wade told me you two were excellent pilots."
It was now Jasmine's turn to blush as she chuckled from the compliment, knowing Wade's high praise for her and her sister's flying as she replied. "Well, I can't say that's wrong, Tina saved the day during the flight back here. We ran into an asteroid cluster while in the middle of a jump."
Wade patted Tina on her back as he quietly cheered his love on. "That's what I'm talking about, she's a wonder among the stars, I'm telling you!"
The group fell into an excited fit of laughter at the conversation, a few of the bar patrons taking notice of the bunch as they eventually ceased their joyful moment.
As everyone calmed down, Jasmine spoke up, intending to bring the discussion to another place. "Well, with all that said, it feels great to see you all here. It was such a terrible day after all those company folk showed up." Then, as she scanned the group of friends around her, she noticed someone else missing from this puzzle. "Hey, uh... is Ron here? Did he head off somewhere?"
The mood was quickly put down to a mournful aura as Wade and Tina glanced to the floor in sadness, Nathan and F giving uncomfortable postures as they awaited for someone to speak up on the matter.
Eventually, Wade was the one to open his mouth, breathing steadily as he tried to speak to Jasmine. "Um, Jasmine? Things, uh... really took a nose dive after we got captured. You think we could find a place to sit? It's a lot to talk about."
Looking to the four drones with concern, Jasmine eased her returning fear as she nodded to Wade in agreement. "...Sure, there's plenty of space at the table here." Pointing her arm to the table, which was surrounded by a U-shaped seating bench, Wade and his friends began to move to the table as Tina spoke up.
"I can get us some drinks for the talk, you all want anything?"
"Just some oil, thanks. "Wade answered as F and Nathan gave their own nods to Tina, the drone girl walking over to the bartender near the stage as she went to purchase some beverages.
Sitting down, Jasmine picked up her smartcomm from the table, glancing to it as she spoke up on her half-finished drink. "Heh, and to think I was drowning myself in this drag of a drink before. Probably have to find a different glass."
"Proxi-Vodka? Haven't seen you touch that since we lost Aunt Susan." Wade said solemnly as he examined Jasmine's drink, sighing as he reluctantly continued. "Well, maybe it can go for a few more sips."
Looking to the vodka, Jasmine nodded as she put her smartcomm in her pocket. "I figured, I didn't think this was gonna sound good."
"I wish it did." Wade replied as Tina walked back to the table, a plate of three oil glasses resting on her careful hand as she set it down.
After delivering the drinks, Tina took a seat next to Wade, holding his hand as Jasmine spoke up. "So, where do we start this terrible story?"
Wade gulped a bit as he began to recount the events that transpired today. "Well, it all started when Ron and I came back from the mining colony."

In this post I want to break down how I think about and how I build custom B2B lead gen eco-systems that are designed to engage a cold prospect, educate and help them to then turn into $XX,XXX deals.
I'll share the metrics and best practices from my own experiences from working with around 20 b2b companies with varying deal sizes, starting from $5k marketing packages, to $90k/yr fintech solutions and $200k software dev & IT deals. If you don't agree with my approach, that's fine, there's multiple ways to skin a cat.
Fundamentals are mostly the same and we can split it in 3 main parts.

1. Traffic acquisition
2. Nurture & education mechanism
3. Conversion mechanism.

Where most businesses go wrong is that they try to sell their expensive service to a cold prospect.
That might look like cold emailing and cold "linkedining" (new term) prospects an offer or asking if they're interested in this and that, on the spot.
This is not a good approach for one simple reason - no one want's to be sold to. Not to say that this direct approach doesn't work, for some it works good enough to stay afloat, but it's not something you can use to drive real, inbound interest in your services. Selling to prospects that you get on a sales call from 1 email or DM is extremely hard since you have to do the heavy lifting to educate them on the call and then you also have to sell them.
My goal is to turn this dynamic on it's head. Yes, we want to reach out to cold prospects. Yes, we want to run ads. But not to sell immediately. Rather, we're inviting and getting those prospects into our ecosystem where if they go through your educational materials like reports, case studies, how-to's AND have a real pain, they will come to you to solve it.
Let's break it down.
Traffic acquisition.
There's 2 channels I use to acquire traffic. Sometimes I use both, sometimes one or the other. For the most part that depends on the TAM and what we're selling.
1 - Paid ads (LI and META) are great if you need volume and your deal size varies between $5k - $20k. If you get it right, it's a system that scales easily so you can control demand and growth fairly easily too. It's also very quick and easy to troubleshoot since you can change a variable and see the result in next 3 days.
The ultimate goal of paid ads is to get as many people in your funnel as possible. The only logical way to do it is using lead magnets. Industry specific reports with unique insights that only your ICP would care about, easy-to-code tools that only your ICP would find useful (calculators work great for me), guides and courses made to solve a very specific problem, you get the picture.
We're giving away this free value in exchange for their email address. I can already hear people yelling "But giving away stuff for free only attracts freebie seekers" That's because you don't have a mechanism in place to convert that opt-in into a deal. (I'll go into in the next sections)
To make a great lead magnet I follow this mantra:

1. Has to be industry and role specific
2. Has to solve 1 painful problem for the lead
3. No surface-level, bait-and-switch teasing BS. (using lead magnet as a sales page is a big no-no)

Lead magnet is your chance to build rapport, show your competence and build good will by actually helping your prospects before you ever speak with them. USE IT WISELY. I see many businesses only tease the solution. My advice - give away all your secrets. If you're vague, your leads will think that your approach is basic and you won't capture the interest.
For us, around 20% of lead magnet leads opt-in into the next step of the funnel where we ask much more details. Company name, website, name, phone, etc, etc.
Do this step right and you'll get leads from your ICP opting into your funnel in droves, for cheap.
One little hack I do whenever I launch lead magnet campaigns is create 5-10 lead magnet ideas, create the ads and the landing pages, but don't create the lead magnet itself. Then run ads to those 5-10 lead magnets and see what your cost per lead is AND see what quality leads you attract. My baseline KPI's are sub $15 CPL on the initial launch and 3 out of 10 leads be real, actual companies that fit the ICP.
If you hit that initially, you can reiterate on the ads and the LP and get your CPL way lower.
2 - Cold outreach (LI and email) is great if you're after high ticket or enterprise level deals.
Cold outreach is great for huge target markets and/or very high value accounts. You won't reach Elon Mush through ads, but you could through cold outreach.
Instead of blanket-spamming 10k leads that might or might not need our service we do this.

1. Score companies based on fit (we use AI for this on scale by giving it bad fit examples, medium fit examples and great fit examples while also describing why each is bad, medium or great. Then we ask to output a score from 1-10)
2. For companies that score 7 or higher, look at buying signals. Recent hires, open positions, growth or decline, recent funding, featured in news (why featured in news?) and, of course, technographics.
3. Companies that display positive signals AND are a fit based on scoring, we send a personalized message automatically.

90% of this happens automatically at this point, but don't get confused - it's not AI copy that gets sent out. We have a general template and framework that we base our messages upon and AI fills in the blanks. All that is based on what information we find on the companies and what state they're currently in.
"Hey Adam, saw that Houberz is looking for an engineer with deep understanding of X. I know first hand how hard it is to fill such roles.
I have a case study on how we did Y using X technology, thought you might be interested in giving it a quick read before you pull someone onboard."
This is the general gist of it. Combine it with reaching out to leads that are likely in-market and you'll average 15% reply rates. Blast 10k emails to random list and you'll get 0.5% - 1% reply rates.
That is how we get qualified traffic on the front end.
This is how we convert it into deals.
1.1 - Paid
Once you have people claiming your lead magnet, the magic happens on the thank you page. I've seen many people just have a generic thank you page that does not prompt the next action.
Wasted digital real estate.
Instead of leaving it blank, we either have a call booking page where we pitch a non-sales call that would help fix the lead a specific problem or a signup page for a live workshop.
2nd has higher opt-in rate, but has longer time-to-deal, 1st gives you 1-1 time with high value prospects, but is more expensive..
Ideally, run both. Best of both worlds.
On top of that, when someone opts in and claims your lead magnets, you can then email them on a regular basis as part of your newsletter which gives you another channel to nurture leads and throw offers their way.
2.1 - Cold outreach
As soon as you receive a positive response to your lead magnet offer, you send it over, find that person on LI and connect (so you have another channel and they see that you're a real human) then ask if they're struggling with a specific problem that your service can fix.
If they do, great, share more case studies, share how they could solve the problem themselves and then soft-pitch a meeting in which you propose to "continue the conversation"
For cold, each convo will be different so you will have to come up with helpful and relevant email responses on the fly.
Remember speed-to-lead. The faster you answer, the higher the chance of you pushing the lead to the next step of your funnel.
So do you need both of these acquisition channels? Do you also need to post on Linkedin and dance on Tiktok?
Depends on your business. Generally, the more eyes you have on you, the more deals you'll close. These two channels are foundation for myself and any business I consult, but to supplement that and build credibility, we're also heavily investing in LI organic.
Why? People who watch your ads and engage with your emails will check out your LI eventually. If it's barren, you won't leave an impression. If it's packed with valuable, funny, insightful and humanizing posts, not only your leads will connect with you, but they'll feel compelled to engage.
So it's not one system or another - it's all of them working in cohesion.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Your ships finally arrive at the meeting place, Sitnalta Freeport. The Freeport is a major trade centre well known for being an anonymous place of business due to the abnormal amounts of heavy metals in the surrounding nebula which blocks IFFs. Whilst IFFs are useless the station is more than well defended enough to deter potential attackers as well as the amount of enemies anyone would make from trying to harm their favourite place of business. There is one rule on the station, don't rock the boat. Although officially being controlled by independent interests it is well known that Trion Incorporated holds the largest amount of shares in the station. When you dock Trion's influence is obvious, most of the station's security being made up of personnel from the mercenary branch of Trion Security as well as a number of simple mk1 and mk2 combat droids in standby mode all on display to demonstrate what happens to those who "rock the boat". The coordinates of the meeting place lead you to a private docking bay on the lower levels of the station, where most of the dregs of the station go as to not impede its public image. The moment you enter the private docks multiple turrets and guns are aimed at you. A hooded individual, bearing the symbol of Faction Paradox, greets you with the same modulated voice as the person in the message.
"Apologies for the paranoia, when you're going after the company's dirtiest of dirty secrets a little bit of caution is warranted. Right, now that everyone's here we can begin."
They slot a datachip into a cheap holographic projector and the image of the person who originally made the briefcase is shown
"You already know my name, and if you are listening to this message I am already dead. I've already given my sorry speech so I'll get to the point. There is a reason why the datavault is so difficult to access, why no traceback routines work, the datavault doesn't exist. Well, not really, the datavault exists in a state of quantum flux, simultaneously existing and not existing. This means that it cannot be tracked by any normal means, I have found a way around this. When I first accessed the datavault I installed a piece of code onto the database, completely benign until it comes into contact with the second part, once it does it will create a constant stream of data between the datavault and reality causing it to become "anchored". In order to install it properly you will need access to a datavault interface and slot in the stored datachip, a slight issue considering that only high ranking members of Trion Incorporated are given access to them. Once the datavault is anchored you will have a short window of opportunity to reach and infiltrate it before Trion realises anything is wrong and removes the anchor code. I wish you luck in your endeavours."
The figure removes the datachip.
"There are two locations that can be easily accessed by the public which contain a datavault interface. The Kerris interface and the SS Ultra Lux. Since Kerris has been compromised by the daleks and I don't want to risk giving them access to the datavault we will have to go for the Ultra Lux. Tomorrow, the Ultra Lux will be passing by the station to pick up guests for its latest business party, I have already forged invitations for each of you as well as a copy of the code for eveyrone. Once you're on the ship your job will be to find your way to the interface, either in the captain's quarters or on the bridge. Do try to be carefull, some of the wealthiest and most influential scum of the galaxy will be there and security will be tight, all out assault will be nigh imposible."
They give a pointed look at the pathers.
"Payment for the job is 500k credits per head, if you die it will be sent to your next of kin, if you don't have a next of kin that's one less person I need to pay. More details will be discussed once the location is established, any questions?"
As she says this most of the mercenaries scatter and start taking stock of weapons.

Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
AIDA Sales Funnel Framework
Now we can continue with our hypothetical store example. We’re selling high-end, organic baby clothes on our store. We crafted our ICP, empathy map, work on branding and created our story.

Example Marketing Strategy

First step we’ll work on attention step. Our focus is getting attention of our target market attention.
We can create a educative e-book like “7 Harmful Chemicals Commonly Used in Baby Clothes and How to Avoid Them” and run some campaigns targeted new parents on social network (Facebook, Instagram or YouTube)
This ads will land on a landing page that gives brief information about why we should pay attention to chemicals in baby clothes for our little ones and make a promise like “I spend my last 5 years about researching chemicals on baby clothes and prepare this book for you and your little one”. Also there can be a quick video about our story explaining our expertise in this field and why we’re building this brand.
We can ask for their email address to share the book with them. When they enter their email address, we’ll send them this ebook.
After first email with the ebook, we can send a few more emails with easy to digest information about chemicals.
This will create an expertise image on our target customers and start to create a bond with them. Not a bad start, right?
At the same time we can use this content on our social media, right? Quick videos, infographics and posts about the chemicals in the baby clothes.
After getting a few thousands subscribers we can organize a webinar to answer questions. This will also a great content for re-used social media content and creating trust and expert image.
Then we can share a time-limited promotion with this people for a bundle. Like we’re running a campaign and these 5 chemical free baby clothes bundles 10% discounted until next week!
We can send emails about it and use this campaign for remarketing for only people who show interest in our e-book and webinar.
This is a very brief template of marketing plan.
Now let’s take a look at more common one.

• Post product photos on social media with lot’s of hashtags
• Run a Meta campaign without any targeting, land people on product detail page
• Give them WELCOME10 discount if they enter their email address
• Send them 15 emails in the next 5 days to maximize your sales.

It’s time for you. Which one do you want to choose? All of the experts recommending this without even asking who are your customers. Can you believe it?
Don’t forget that marketing strategy is not a hope. It’s a well documented plan of actions designed for turning strangers into customers.

Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels

Inside the marketing strategy, channels plays a vital role. There are lot’s of ways to group channels. I’ll use most basic one.
Inbound Marketing Channels: With the inbound marketing your customers will find you and start the interaction. Most common channel for inbound marketing is organic search engine optimization.
After creating high quality content, when customers search something online, they can see your articles and first interaction happens.
Outbound Marketing Channels: With the outbound marketing you reach out to customers. Facebook/Instagram/YouTube ads, influencer marketing, display ads, podcast ads can be count in this category.
As you can imagine inbound marketing channels takes lot’s of efforts and time however over the time you’ll have organic marketing channel and it brings you customer without needing any budget.
Outbound marketing channels generally works with advertisement models and you need budgets to run these channels.
Most of time I recommend to start with outbound marketing channels and then invest inbound marketing channels overtime. Don’t forget to check Mastering Paid Ads For Shopify post.
Succesful marketing plans should be supported by high converting growth and conversion plans. Don’t forget to check Growth Guide For Shopify and Conversion Optimization Guide For Shopify too.
to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
This article first published at MarketingLib.
Don't forget to check Growth Suite on Shopify App Store.