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Belgium Chase Tag Compilation

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Daily Check in 08/05/2025 MasterCard got REALLY Spicy with me today. As soon as I mentioned Itch io and Steam to the first rep he HUNG UP. The second one I called was apologetic and filed my complaint ticket, but WOW. They are getting really tired of these calls. Which means KEEP IT UP! PayPal was much less spicy with me today, and filed a complaint ticket for me and offered to send me a list off all the stuff they won't process. Which is really just a list of the things they require APPROVAL to process, which is very different. Lot of false information going around over there and they're back to playing dumb about the situation with Itch io and Steam. Which means we need to keep the pressure on. Strip still refuses to take the call, and Visa just read the script and hung up as usual, though I was able to make me direct me around the sight a bit first. They even

directed me to their website where they have a fun little article about the situation called "Combating Illegal Adult Content." https://corporate.visa.com/en/about-visa/visa-network-integrity.html You'll need to scroll down a bit to find the article. When I asked what illegal content they were combating, I was directed to send them an email about that question and they finished the script and hung up.

Keep calling and keep asking questions! Don't let their excuses go unchallenged. This about about "illegal activity" this is about censorship and we can only fight it by making our voices heard!

Cheat Sheet provided by @dieselbrain.bsky.social‬

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time + work = healing (a soft sequel to this comic)

(Boulet is a phenomenal French writer and artist who will draw his friends as recognizable fictional characters in his autobio comics for their privacy.)

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look I don’t actually expect people to cite every single piece of information they say on the internet, but I would appreciate it if it happened slightly more often than it does. especially when it’s someone with a large follower base posting about something important or outside of their actual area of expertise. misinformation spreads like wildfire on here and it doesn’t help when people are reticent to correct themselves, to provide sources, or to at least provide a caveat about their lack of expertise

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Visa and Mastercard may be getting a lot of calls about their adult content policies, but I just called in to PayPal and not only was there no wait, the customer service rep I got had never had one of these calls before (they were very nice about it.)

Don't overlook the online processors - even more than Visa and Mastercard they are the ones pressuring online retailers. PayPal is the one that's been pressuring Patreon over the last year or so.

I've had no luck reaching Stripe, all of the numbers people have dug up ring through as disconnected.

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Maybe it's just my former neglected child swag but I really hate it when people act like iPads or some technology or whatever is an independent entity which can in and of itself cause what are literally just symptoms of child neglect. Like. Come on. Put on your thinking cap. If a child literally cannot hold a pencil by the time they enter school, if they have absolutely no emotional regulation skills or situational awareness, if they don't know how to entertain themselves to an extent that it's interfering with basic developmental milestones. And the parent either doesn't understand or doesn't care or simply hasn't noticed that this is maybe not fine. Do we think the sole and primary issue going on here is rooted in. The evil technology that melts your brain or whatever. Like sorry does the iPad have legs. Is it gonna sit up and run and start eating people too

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Telepathic aliens enjoy that humans will "play music" for hours at a time. When it's too mentally quiet on deck, they just announce the catchiest song titles they know and the humans will start thinking about it automatically.

The humans hate this so, so much.

Zorf: Human Steve, can you please play that song I like, the one with all the females

Steve: what

Zorf: A little bit of Monica in my life

Steve:

Steve: mother fu--

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the fact that walls get dusty is ridiculous. you're vertical. act like it.

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Ezra for @sixteenthnote // Thank you so much again//

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Current writing advice I'm seeing on TikTok and Insta is telling authors to stop using em dashes in their work because, "AI uses em dashes so people will think you've used AI."

Y'know, the AI that was trained on the stolen work of real authors?

Anyway, I will not be doing that. What I will be doing, however, is adding a note at the start of all my books that no AI was used in the creation of my work because I, the author, did not go to university for four fucking years to study English literature and linguistics only to be told I can't use proper grammar because someone might think a robot wrote it.

Fucking, insane.

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love downloading a pdf to never read. just in case. like lol. you’re coming home with me

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I recently saw that @ssavaart is releasing a book called “How to Be an Artist”. And while I’ve never read the book (but can recommend his social media channels as he is a talented artist and just delightful to watch create art), it got me thinking about how I, as an artist, would give this advice.

And honestly? Just decide to be an artist.

There’s nothing stopping you. Just decide and start creating.

You can watch YouTube and read anatomy books and replicate famous artworks to hone your specific skills, but ultimately it comes down to your desire to create, your decision to actualize this desire, and following through on it.

And yeah, if you want to create art that fits in with the artists you’ve already seen in museums, if you want to do realistic or impressionist or cubist work specifically then that takes specific practice and a lot of trial and error to become skilled in that field, in that style.

But look! Art! With a Post-It and random pens! It can be done!

And the same is true of for everything! Make a drawing, a painting, a sculpture! Take the photos! Try the different angles! See what you like and figure out why you like it and then just make it yourself!

And on a more serious note, keeping this joy in creating can be hard in our culture where being good at something seems to be the only reason to keep going.

If things still aren’t working, if you get frustrated, you can take a break or try changing the artform, the subject, the medium, the paper, the size, the style.

I struggle with overemphasizing the facial features when I do portraits (I Kardashian-ize them and no I will not provide proof) so I took a photo, put a grid on it, and then made a sticky note for one square of the grid. I made the actual proportions more understandable, and the result is this super cool misuse of office supplies.

This is because I did not like the art I was creating, so I practiced changing how I actually made art. I was still an artist before this, and I’m still an artist out of this. I enjoy painting landscapes and practicing digital and film photography. I doodled in notebooks at school and take pictures “for reference” when I’m out. I’ve stayed with these because I gave myself permission for things to not work out with my art, because the process is still enjoyable, because I still learn something even if I hate what I made.

And if I get fed up with drawing, if I hate my portraits, I can fall into one of these other art forms. I’m not saying you have to do all, but maybe try something new and appreciate how good you are in the other field, or focus on finding references, or participate in one of those art challenges so you can explore.

Literally all there is to being an artist is maintaining and cultivating the desire to create.

Anyone can be an artist, if they decide to be one.

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So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.

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His little hands

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funniest thing about dnd is that I made my character a failson specifically to make a rich guy suffer, but I keep rolling really high on important things, so everything has been working out for him really well, and his belief that rich people should never face any consequences just keeps getting reinforced again and again

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i just met an actual wizard on the train and im grieving because i know i’ll never meet anyone that cool for the rest of my life