No Because The Way He’s Holding Her So Gently Like He’s Worried He Might Hurt Her (because He Saw

Watcher's Expenses

I didn't major in accounting: I took three classes and it grinded my brain to a fine powder. However, after graduating with a business admin degree, being a former eager fan of their videos, and from a cursory glance over their socials, there's a lot to consider in their spending behavior that really could start racking up costs. Some of these things we've already noticed, but there are other things I'd like to highlight, and I'll try to break it down into the different categories of accounting expenses (if I get something wrong, let me know. I was more concentrated in marketing 🤷‍♀️). I'm not going to hypothesize numbers either, as that would take out more time than I'm willing to afford-- you can assume how much everything costs. Anyways, here's my attempt at being a layman forensic accountant:

Note: All of this is assuming they're operating above board and not engaging in any illegal practices such as money laundering, tax evasion, not paying rent, etc.

Operating Expenses

Payroll: 25+ staff salaries and insurance

Overhead Expenses

CEO/founder salaries

Office space leasing or rent (In L.A, one of the most expensive cities in the US)

Utilities (water, electricity, heating, sanitation, etc.)

Insurance

Advertising Costs

Telephone & Internet service

Cloud Storage or mainframe

Office equipment (furniture, computers, printers, etc.)

Office supplies (paper, pens, printer ink, etc.)

Marketing costs (Social media marketing on Instagram, Youtube, SEO for search engines, Twitter, etc. Designing merchandise and posters, art, etc. )

Human Resources (not sure how equipped they are)

Accounting fees

Property taxes

Legal fees

Licensing fees

Website maintenance (For Watchertv.com, Watcherstuff.com, & Watcherentertainment.com)

Expenses regarding merchandising (whoever they contract or outsource for that)

Inventory costs

Potentially maintenance of company vehicles

Subsequent gas mileage for road trips

Depreciation (pertains to tangible assets like buildings and equipment)

Amortization (intangible assets such as patents and trademarks)

Overhead Travel and Entertainment Costs (I think one of the biggest culprits, evident in their videos and posts)

The travel expenses (flights, train trips, rental cars, etc. For main team and scouts)

Hotel expenses for 7-8 people at least, or potentially more

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners with the crew (whether that's fully on their dime or not, I don't know; Ryan stated they like to cover that for the most part)

Recreational activities (vacation destinations, amusement parks, sporting activities etc.)

The location fees

Extraneous Overhead costs (not sure exactly where these fall under, but another culprit, evident in videos and posts)

Paying for guest appearances

Expensive filming & recording equipment (Cameras, sound equipment, editing software subscriptions, etc.)

The overelaborate sets for Ghost files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, Podcasts etc. (Set dressing: Vintage memorabilia, antiquated tech, vintage furniture, props, etc.)

Kitchen & Cooking supplies/equipment

Office food supply; expensive food and drink purchases for videos

Novelty items or miscellaneous purchases (ex. Ghost hunting equipment, outfits, toys, etc.)

Non-Operating Expenses

These are those expenses that cannot be linked back to operating revenue. One of the most common examples of non-operating expenses is interest expense. This is because while interest is the cost of borrowing money from a creditor or a bank, they are not generating any operating income. This makes interest payments a part of non-operating expenses.

Financial Expenses

Potential loan payments, borrowing from creditors or lenders, bank loans, etc.

Variable Expenses

Hiring a large amount of freelancers, overtime expenditure, commissions, etc.

PR consultations (Not sure if they had this before the scandal)

Extraordinary Expenses

Expenses incurred outside your company’s regular business activities and during a large one-time event or transactions. For example, selling land, disposal of a significant asset, laying off of your employees, unexpected machine repairing or replacement, etc.

Accrued Expenses

When your business has incurred an expense but not yet paid for it.

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(If there's anything else I'm missing, please feel free to add or correct things)

To a novice or a young entrepreneur, this can be very intimidating if you don't have the education or the support to manage it properly. I know it intimidates the hell out of me and I'm still having to fill in the gaps (again, if I've mislabeled or gotten anything wrong here, please let me know). For the artistic or creative entrepreneur, it can be even harder to reconcile the extent of your creative passions with your ability to operate and scale your business at a sustainable rate. That can lead to irresponsible, selfish, and impulsive decisions that could irreparably harm your brand, which is a whole other beast of its own.

My guess at this point is that their overhead and operation expenses are woefully mismanaged; they've made way too many extraneous purchases, and that they had too much confidence in their audience of formerly 2.93 million to make up for the expenses they failed to cover.

It almost seems as if their internal logic was, "If we make more money, we can keep living the expensive lifestyle that we want and make whatever we want without anyone telling us we can't, and we want to do it NOW, sooner rather than later because we don't want wait and compromise our vision." But as you can see, the reality of fulfilling those ambitions is already compromised by the responsibility of running a business.

And I wrote this in another post here, but I'll state it again: Running a business means you need to be educated on how a business can successfully and efficiently operate. Accounting, marketing, social media marketing, public relations, production, etc; these resources and internet of things is available and at your disposal. If they had invested more time in educating themselves on those aspects and not made this decision based on artistic passion (and/or greed), they would have not gotten the response they got.

Being a graphic designer, I know the creative/passionate side of things but I also got a degree/got educated in business because I wanted to understand how to start a company and run it successfully. If they’re having trouble handling the responsibility of doing that, managing production costs, managing overhead expenses, and especially with compensating their 25+ employees, then they should hire professionals that are sympathetic to their creative interests, but have the education and experience to reign in bad decisions like these.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TedTalk. What a shitshow this has been.

I don’t want to ruin what’s just begun and I don’t know what this feeling is

but I want to hold you close forever and ever and just listen to your voice as you talk about schedules or performances or whatever

And I get jealous when you hug someone else or talk to your ex

I don’t even know you that well.

I don’t want to get to know you under the guise of friendship only to spring this on you. I don’t want to hurt you when you’re already down from a breakup. I love you. I want to love you. But I don’t want to complicate things.

And like, them apologizing doesn't change the stuff about Steven belonging to a homophobic church and using Watcher to promote it, and it doesn't change the employees and spouses going on Personal Attacks towarda upset fans on other platforms, it doesn't change the comments of "We love when people tell us we got them through hard times " in the same video as making it so people going through hard times jo longer have access to them as a respite. Removing the paywall doesn't change them, subconsciously or consciously, thinking of poor fans as Worthless and Lesser, and unless they actively work at dismantling these notions in their minds They'll Do It Again. They showed, very clearly, that Fans Are Numbers And Not People to them. That Fans are this abstract concept of Praise and Adoration and Money that exist just to serve their endeavors. That's not something you can change your mentality around in 3 days- that's something that needs Active And Purposeful Dismantling Within The Deeper Psyche. And to be quite frank I don't believe they'll be willing to do such work, because it's not Profitable to remember that Your Audience Is Real People, Not Numbers.

today’s word is Weaponisation!!!

the act of using something as a way of attacking a person or a group : 

weaponization of He described the weaponization of the legal system to promote a political agenda as fundamentallyanti-democratic.

The weaponization of language is the process in which language can be used to inflict harm on others.

source: Cambridge Dictionary.

viv uses everything she can, including information about other people that isn’t hers to share, to attack people. She uses the fact that other villains have merch, ignoring the context of her own merch and the context of why people are uncomfortable with that character specifically. Then she uses the criticism itself to defend harmful rhetoric. And of course then she uses her fantastic advocacy for sa victims.

(Also I’ve never seen a creator of a show doing the whole “Well!!! I wasn’t!!! But even if I was!!” Argument. Like bro you’re not a kid anymore you have to do better than that.)

if you can’t handle writing a topic in a show without endearing yourself to the villain who committed a true, happens in real life, sort of atrocity, then you aren’t equipped to write that narrative.

there’s a graceful and an ignorant way to handling every topic and almost media stays somewhere in the middle, with few exceptions for either side. Viv has managed to land so far on the ignorant side that it’s inspired me to start writing with my eyes closed, because clearly that’s how you can get funded by Amazon.

Enjoy. My magum Opus

Also. I have to mention the fact that the enforcers don’t HAVE to parallel cops specifically. They’re “enforcers”. Look back in history to any violent regime and you’ll find more parallels between the enforcers and them.

they’re not just cops- they’re the idea of violence carried out via the government, and that’s never been a North American specific issue.

"Stop projecting your America-centric view of cops onto the enforcers in Arcane!" as if the very first shot in season 1 isn't a bloodbath with Vi and Powder's parents having been murdered by enforcers, as if we don't witness multiple violations of their power in season 2 and as if police brutality isn't a global issue.

yeah

10 year old Dick: "Bruce, when you get married, can I be the best man?"

Bruce: "Of course, chum."

---

12 year old Dick: "Hey Clark, do you think when you get married, I can be your best man?"

Clark: "I don't see why not."

---

25 year old Dick: "In my defence, I had no way of knowing you'd end up marrying each other."

FUUUUCK....... i sure could go for a Nice, Cold, and Refreshing glass of

Ice Water

right about now.......

do you think Eurydice spent the rest of her afterlife knowing Orpheus only looked back because he loved her

do you think that even after she forgot everything else, like she did in Flowers, she still knew that someone loved her so much they’d risk everything for her

do you think Persephone sometimes looks at Eurydice and sees herself. Maybe Hades was the one to grant Eurydice the mercy of knowing that she was loved, even after she forgets her own name.

Maybe it was Orpheus who wrote their song, so that he wouldn’t be the only mortal to have known of Eurydice and how much they loved each other. Maybe that’s why Hadestown paints Orpheus in the way it does, because he can’t help but think of how his distraction pushed Eurydice down that path. And that’s why Hermes sings it, because he thinks that maybe even if the story stays the same, he’s still fulfilling Orpheus’ wish for people to know Eurydice.

I hate this show so much like you don’t even know