mikkimadison

[mikkimadison]

Something to watch for, which I learned from stage magic but which is extremely relevant to detecting scams as well:

The magician or scammer will *tell you* how he is going to prove his honesty.

The magician rifles through the deck until you say "stop", then he says, "Are you sure? I'll keep going if you want." and asks "Now, you agree that you could have stopped anywhere you wanted, so there's absolutely no way I could know which card you got" and because it's a magic show and you aren't paying close attention you didn't notice he didn't deal a card from where you stopped, he dealt the bottom card of the deck.

The magician doesn't ask you, "What would it take for you to believe this" because you might say, "I'd need you to use a sealed deck" or "I'd have to personally shuffle the deck" or some other proof that would make the trick impossible.

Magicians say "You agree that if I did *this*, it would mean *that*, right?" and you say yes, and it feels like you are the one who got to verify things, but of course the magician is lying and the proof is nothing of the kind.

Scammers do the same thing. A really concrete example is phone scammers pretending to be working for the government will say, "Look, I see you're skeptical if I'm who I say I am, I'm going to hang up and call back, and you'll see on the caller ID it says, 'FBI' and that tells you that I'm really working for the government."

Now, caller ID can be spoofed pretty easily, so it doesn't prove anything at all.

But it *feels* to you like you demanded proof and the scammer was willing to give you the proof.

But you didn't tell the scammer what out would take to prove it to you, the scammer told you what the proof would be.

This is actually like a really basic thing to look for if you want to start decoding magic tricks and scams.

[mikkimadison]

i wish there was an easier way to tell the difference between an "if it sucks hit da bricks" situation and a "sometimes being an adult means doing things that you dont wanna" situation

[mikkimadison]

Thank you Derek, menswear guide, for reminding me why paying more to be free advertising for brands is dumb.

[mikkimadison]

THE PITT 1.08 • 2:00 P.M.

[mikkimadison]

Buy Story and Art Bundles to Raise Money for Rainbow Railroad!

HAPPY PRIDE! For the third year running, Duck Prints Press is celebrating with all-new bundles to benefit charity. This year, bundles include 31 short stories and 8 artworks across three bundles – an art bundle, a general imprint bundle, and an explicit imprint bundle! Over the past 2 years, with your help we’ve been able to donate over $500 to three different charities; this year, we’re back and we hope you’ll join us again! This year, charitable proceeds will go (once again) to Rainbow Railroad. We’re also offering bundles both on our website and on itch.io!

Already convinced and ready to buy? Here are the links right up top for your convenience!

ART BUNDLE – duckprintspress.com | itch.io

GENERAL IMPRINT BUNDLE – duckprintspress.com | itch.io

EXPLICIT IMPRINT BUNDLE – duckprintspress.com | itch.io

Want to know more first? Read on…

How This Works

you buy one or both bundles between now and June 30th, 2025.

we tally up all the proceeds earned and do some math-e-magic to figure out how much we’re donating!

before the end of July, we donate the raised money to Rainbow Railroad, we post the proof we’ve done so.

you get fantastic stories!

we all get that happy, glowy feeling of knowing that money has been well-spent on fantastic causes!

About the Press

Duck Prints Press is a queer-owned indie press founded to publish original works by fancreators. We’ve been in operation for almost 4.5 years, and in that time we’ve worked with well over 150 creators to publish eight anthologies and almost 150 other stories, from shorts to novels, as well as three substantial art projects (with a fourth, pride-inspired project launching in just a couple weeks!) – and we’ve got more on the works. The vast majority of our creators and their creations are queer/LGTBQIA+.

26 authors and 8 artists have chosen to include their works this year’s bundles. Bundle contributors voted, and we’ve decided to support again the same charity we supported last year – Rainbow Railroad.

About Rainbow Railroad

In countries around the world, LGBTQI+ people face violence and oppression simply because of who they love or who they are. Rainbow Railroad helps them get to safety! Rainbow Railroad is a global not-for-profit organization that helps at-risk LGBTQI+ people get to safety worldwide. Based in the United States and Canada, they’re an organization that helps LGBTQI+ people facing persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. In a time when there are more displaced people than ever, LGBTQI+ people are uniquely vulnerable due to systemic, state-enabled homophobia and transphobia. These factors either displace them in their own country or prevent them from escaping harm. 

Note: This charity is not affiliated with the Press and have not endorsed this in any way! Text is from the Rainbow Railroad website.

About the Bundles

General Imprint Bundle

16 stories! 222 pages/69,029 words. Price: $21.50 USD. Approximately half of the sales price for the General Imprint Bundle will be donated to Rainbow Railroad!

Princess Antonia del Montari, aka the Accidental Barista by A. L. Heard

The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch

So Much Braver by boneturtle

Unsafe Haven by Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Got You Covered by D. V. Morse

Troubled Trouble by Genevieve Maxwell

Ride On, Shooting Star by J. D. Harlock

A Thousand Hopes, A Thousand Risks by Kelas Lloyd

The Ending Line of Casablanca by Lucy K. R.

Going Dark by Max Jason Peterson

The Waiting Wife by Mikki Madison

The Deadman’s Gambit by Nicola Kapron

The Inscrutable Fate of the ISV Devotion by S. J. Ralston

Best Friends AND… by Tris Lawrence

In Fine Feather by Violet J. Hayes

The Lighthouse and the Sea by Zel Howland

Visit the bundle page to learn more about these stories.

Explicit Imprint Bundle

15 stories! 248 pages/86,593 words. Price: $24.00 USD. Approximately half of the sales price of the Explicit Imprint Bundle will be donated to Rainbow Railroad!

A Blessing Shared by A. L. Heard

Running Mates by boneturtle

sweet static by Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

The Benefits of Consequences by Dei Walker

In the Moonlight by E. V. Dean

then, too, at sea by ilgaksu

What Monsters Need by Lyn Weaver

Hold My Reins by Lyonel Loy

The Fated Prince by Mikki Madison

Lust by Nina Waters

Tough Job, Sweet Reward by Samantha M. Piper

Escape by Sanne Burg

Dancing for the King by Terra P. Waters

Just Let Me Lose Control by Tris Lawrence

This Treatment for Chronic Pain has an Unbelievable Side Effect! by Xianyu Zhou

Visit the bundle page to learn more about these stories.

Art Bundle

8 artworks! Price: $12.75. Approximately a quarter of the sales price of the Art Bundle will be donated to Rainbow Railroad!

Ol’ Reliable by Aaron Kotze

Samhain by Aceriee

I want to be different. by Jagoda Zirebiec

Spark by May Barros

Snow Heart by Max Jason Peterson

april’s sweet showers by radicalhoodie

untitled (Mermaids) by swev.art

Chrysopoeia by Zel Howland

Visit the bundle page to learn more about this art.

[mikkimadison]

i've said this before but it's so crazy that some of you just grew up with tornadoes. if i saw one twister snake down from the clouds in front of my physical eyes i would become a mad priest for the rest of my life. and people from kansas are just like "lmao yeah that's why we had basement prom that one year" or whatevr

[mikkimadison]

Y’ALL. We have one of those cling film covers in our bathroom window for privacy and in the afternoon when the sun hits it just right, it makes rainbows, right? And today my wife sends me the best pic she’s ever taken:

[mikkimadison]

Hey if you own a business I need you to repeat after me:

I will not let my web developer manage my domain registration.

My domains are my responsibility and they cannot be handed to a contractor.

If I do not control my domains, I do not control my website.

If my domain is paid for on somebody else's credit card, it isn't really mine.

I will read every contract carefully and abide by its terms.

If the terms of a contract are not agreeable to me, I will amend them until the contractor and I both agree to and are aware of the terms.

I will pay my contractors in a timely fashion.

I will not burn bridges with my contractors.

I will pay for domain registration myself, and will never grant anyone else complete control over my domain.

I will not let my web developer manage my domain registration.

[mikkimadison]

I saw your post about bugout bags and like ... bracketing the Gestapo Doorknock thing, when did the "correct" response to a natural disaster become to immediately flee and go into refugee mode? The negative fantasy here is heroically saving yourself while your idiot neighbors die, instead of making the kinds of community connections that people actually use to survive and respond to disasters.

I get what you are saying about community connections being the best path to resiliency, but you should very much flee from floods and wildfires when at risk, to name a few. Ideally while making sure your neighbors are also getting out of Dodge, all assuming there has been ample warning for this particular disaster. But sometimes, there are scenarios where you just have to go that very moment.

For all their talk of bugouts bags, I don't think the capital-P Preppers actually want to leave their home bunkers.

The same American Exceptionalism that causes people here to have Lone Wolf apocalypse fantasies also makes them think they can survive a hurricane in a coastal flood zone.

There is an element of humility required to leave one's home possibly permanently. But that's the key difference, here -- the Preppers aren't as interested in survival as they are in ushering in some kind of new World Order.

You see this type pop up every now and then as a hurricane sets its sights on a town -- the people who make it a big point to talk about what they'd do to a looter, should the Big One hit. These are folks who are not interested in becoming a refugee amd are fine with the risk of staying home, if it means they can shoot people from their little castles.

I also saw more mundane selfishness when I did hurricane rideouts for emergency operations in my old Florida city job -- part of our comms was to remind people that we could *not* send anyone out to help them peak-storm. Sometimes, fleeing (aka, saving yourself) is what keeps other people alive -- they don't have to risk their lives saving you because of your stubbornness.

So, I'm a bit skeptical of fleeing being a power fantasy. What's more likely to happen in a lot of natural disasters (especially those with lead times) is you either get renegade fools in clear danger refusing to leave, or uninformed folks not at risk who panic and think they need to evacuate when they should just hunker down. (And then there are the unfortunates who should evacuate and want to, but cannot because the system has failed them in some way.)

That said, for a longterm crisis, community absolutely is key. And even in a short-term crisis that requires an evacuation, one is presumably fleeing *to* some place that will have other refugees, and it's in one's best interests to build community even in these temporary conditions.

[mikkimadison]

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[mikkimadison]

Happy Pride!

[mikkimadison]

Once you become a certain age, it is your responsibility to unlearn behaviors that hinder your growth as a person.

[mikkimadison]

fascinating that when you tell people "you have to learn the rules to break them" when talking about drawing/painting etc everyone nods and agrees but the second you say "you have to read books if you want to write better" there's a horde of contrarians begging to be the wrongest people ever all of a sudden

[mikkimadison]

if I may steal these tags for a second

being an Obama, Clinton, Biden, Harris voter was not only a very easy choice, but one I'm very proud of.

In 2008 and 2012 I voted against reactionary conservatism, and the 3 times I've voted against Trump I was voting to stop Fascism.

but whats more, American and the world are better places because Obama and Biden were President, more people got health care, we took on climate change, we repaired the economy with working people in mind, we took serious steps for greater racial equality, great equality for women, and LGBT rights.

And American and the world would be better today than they are if Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris had won and become President.

I voted for smart, knowledgeable, competent people to be President, and I'm proud of that, and I voted for people who gave fuck, who cared, who spent their lives before running for President making the world a better place and wanted a shot at using the vast powers of the Presidency not to make themselves rich or get bribes from foreign lands or punish an enemies list, but to make our country and the world better.

and some of things I'm most proud is the work, the doors knocked, phone calls and all the rest, I've done to elect that list of Democrats President.

[mikkimadison]

HELLO TUMBLR 👋 i am ENORMOUSLY excited to say: i've written a book! and i'm writing two more! and they're all queer romcoms! and the first one, FALL INTO YOU, will be out in JUNE. there is a LOT of my heart in this novel, and i absolutely can't wait to share it with you 💜

if you've ever enjoyed my fanfic, particularly stories like What We Pretend We Can't See and I've Got Nothing to Do Today But Smile, then you'll love FALL INTO YOU. it's full of ROMANCE and JOKES but also REAL, MESSY PEOPLE with PROBLEMS and TRAUMA, because those are the stories i love telling! it's chock full of things i adore: set on an APPLE FARM in NORTHEAST OHIO, main characters who hate each other more or less immediately, gratuitous depictions of food, and they were ROOMMATES?, people healing wounds they didn't even know were still open, AND MORE.

i'll be sharing more about this book in the weeks to come (i promise i will try so hard not to be obnoxious about it 🫡 ), and about the next two as we get closer to publication! but until then, i just want to say: the fic stays UP and the author stays GRATEFUL, always. i am honored and humbled by your readership, and really proud of the work i've done for and with fandom, and that's not a tune you're ever going to see me change.

okay, thanks so much for reading!! hope you're all well; i'll just be here having one of the coolest and most surreal days of my life 😂👋💜

EDITED TO ADD 4/29/25: for those who have been kind enough to ask, you can PREORDER Fall Into You here in the US (or here in the UK)! Will have info to you ASAP on options for folks in other countries, this is all as new to me as it is to you, but will keep you very posted 💜

[mikkimadison]