#& I Know I could not get back market price for like. the out of print DA stuff that I have if I went to hpb for example

[ringneckedpheasant]

trying to find somewhere to sell the textbooks that I had to buy this year but one of them had a new edition come out like a month ago & I cannot find anywhere willing to pay more than $14 for the old edition even though it cost me $60 used & already full of highlighted pages

[l0velylecter]

If your requests are open... could you write headcanons of the cod boys with a fem s/o who loves flowers? Like everything she owns is a floral print, she grows her own flower garden, she usually wears long flowy floral print skirts, etc. Do you think they would ever surprise her with flowers? Or do that cliche but lovely thing where a man will pick a wildflower and put it in the women's hair. 💓 Sometimes I feel a little silly over how much I love flowers, I let out a little gasp ever time i see them. 💐

— the cod : mw ii men + s/o who loves flowers ! characters : simon ‘ghost’ riley, john ‘soap’ mactavish, alejandro vargas, captain john price, phillip graves, kyle ‘gaz’ garrick, rodolfo parra fandom : call of duty modern warfare ii tags : f!reader rating :  g for general , sfw!

01 | Knowing how lonely and anxious you get when he leaves for missions, Price decided to build you a garden, knowing it would take your mind off worrying. And it worked: by summer, the whole backyard was in full bloom, a reflection of Price's love and your devotion, seen in every petal. The sight of napping by one of the chairs with a book open by your lap or trousers stained with dirt from being knee-deep in a cluster of bellflowers, cottage pinks, and delphiniums is always something that Price looks forward to when he gets home. 

02 | When you told Soap how much you loved flowers, he went above and beyond to show you he remembers. You'd open the door to greet him home — and he'd have a bouquet in his hand, hoping that the pattern of roses, thistles, and bluebells would distract you from the broken nose he got on duty ( you still scolded him.) " Flower delivery for my bonnie lass !" He'd announce playfully, never failing to make you smile each time. And whenever you show him your new skirt or blouse, he'd be ready with a compliment, telling you dreamily how the floral pattern matches your eyes.

03 | You weren't surprised at how good Gaz was with plants, nurturing and gentle by nature: his softer traits tend to get overlooked because of his profession. But when he's home with you, helping you change the pot of your carnations, you can't help but melt at how gentle he's being. He's growing into a bigger mother hen than you when it comes to your flowers— " I think we should take the lads ( the pot of blue and purple lobelias) out for some sun, love." Making the best of his time home, the two of you would often garden and go hiking together, stopping by the trails to pick some violets on the way home. 04 | It's obvious from the beginning that Alejandro is a roses man. Romantic and down-right chivalrous, he always comes home with a bouquet of them: a cluster of classic, deep, red petals between his fingers. The colonel loves how sweet they smell on you, buying you attar oil from the market so you can thread it through your hair or pour some into the bath when you're both unwinding against the warm water. Infatuated with how beautiful roses look on you, Alejandro decided to gift you a simple, golden necklace with a rose pendant hanging from it. And you're more than happy to show it off around your neck. 05 | Too shy to approach you, Rodolfo started leaving flowers instead. He'd place the simple banquet of sunflowers in your office, always waiting from afar to watch you carry it back home from base with a smile on your lips. Eventually, he was caught and had to come clean. You were far from angry — if anything, you were in love. Even when you start dating, he still brings home sunflowers, a symbol of faith, loyalty, and adoration. His face burned when you decided to tuck one behind your ear. Plus, Rodolfo finds it endearing how you gasp every time he comes home with fresh flowers as if he hasn't been doing it forever now, chest physically aching from how cute you looked. 06 | When he's around you, Graves turns into a big softie. It's almost hilarious how quickly he switches from a lean, mean commander to a man who would re-paint your entire room with flowers just because you love them so much. You'd pick him up at the airport, and he'd be the one bringing a bouquet — " What kind of man doesn't bring home flowers for his girl, hm?" And on the mornings when you'd wake up, and he'd already be gone, having to fly for D.C. on an emergency call, you'd see a vase of white tulips and pink carnations resting above the dining table. A silent yet beautiful way for him to say he's sorry, (and how can you not forgive him when he still finds time to give your flowers, no matter how busy he gets?) 06 | You know that Ghost is not the one for grand romantic gestures, understanding that he's reserved and somewhat hesitant when loving you. Because of this, reassurance is often hard to get from Simon. You would have expected communication to be nonexistent when he's a man of few words, but if anything, it's always constant: proven by the different flowers he'd get for you, knowing that it is a language you can both understand. After arguments, he'd say sorry by leaving white orchids by your bedside table. While 'I love yous' were expressed through red-white carnations and peonies. And with Simon, it's about paying attention to the little things, like when he walks up to you out of the blue, silent yet gentle as he tucks a chrysanthemum behind your ear. He'd stand there and admire you, hands still resting under your chin, " Fucking hell... you're beautiful, you know that?" From then on, you've been hard at work in your little garden, knowing that with it, you've made him a home to come back to.

a/n : so sorry for the late response anon, university has been kicking my ass, but thank you for requesting ! when i tell you i had so much fun writing this (i’m such a sucker for pure gentle fluff), what a creative and lovely request, i can already tell you’re wonderful by just this. i hope you enjoy it !! <3 

[porcelainpistol]

hey! you're super cool and i wanna know: how to find cool scene clothes and where to look :3 im in the uk and a beginner in scenemo style (i listen to the music too :3)

aw, thank you honey!

my number one suggestion is thrift/charity shops! you can find genuine pieces from back in the day, and more modern pieces for cheaper than brand new. it's ecologically sustainable by keeping less clothes out of landfills, which is super punk. you can also find a lot of accessories this way as well

i think it can also depend on your sub-style. are you a layered cami with a ton of chunky necklaces and skirt layer over leggings scemo? a band tee and shutter shades scene kid? a hoodie and skinny jeans emo? a kandi crazed scenecore raver? all of the above? you can find a lot of basic pieces (solid colored tops, jeans, hoodies) for any sub-style thrifted! it doesn't have to be things with prints or patterns!

of course, for really niche things, pickings are a bit more slim. but the good news is a lot of mascots, media, and bands that are popular in the scene have either stayed relevant, or have had a comeback! so it is possible to find things like hello kitty and some band merch thrifted. (a lot of cute mascot and "girly" stuff ends up in womens/teen girls sections, and a lot of band merch and "masculine" stuff ends up in mens/teen boys sections. i also find patterns like leopard, star, and skull prints can end up in either section)

i wouldn't say there's a "technique" to shopping, but by color/pattern for some pieces like tank tops i find works. by cut for dresses, such as if it flares in a tutu-like manner if you vibe with that for example. i often just look at all the tshirts because you never know what can be screenprinted on them unless you look!

there's also the resale market, like depop and ebay. i find those are hit and miss because oftentimes they inflate prices, especially for really sought after brands (tripp fairy shirts or bondage pants as an example.) i also find it less appealing that there's no fitting room to try things on in, and often you have to pay shipping. i personally recommend it most if you have a very specific thing you're trying to find, or for accessories since they're pretty much one-size-fits-all or hard to get one that won't fit, like belts

if you can't find things thrifted, a lot of brands still sell merch new for reasonable enough prices, and a lot of them sell to different retailers. i'm in the us so i'm not as familiar with uk retailers unfortunately, but i know a lot of brands and retailers also ship internationally

truffleshuffle is a retailer i've ordered from in the past based out of the uk, and i believe they carry some brands that i even wore back in the day, such as loungefly

for other accessories, this may sound ridiculous, but sometimes childrens' sections may have things, like cute bows in a girls section, or hats in a boys section. for some jewelry, plastic and gaudy is popular in scemo style, so fake plastic jewelry in cute colors could work! that's also a section to look for things like cartoon merch, if there's anything you can find in your size

you could also franken-style, say if you find a shirt that's too small but has a print you like; you could cut it out, and sew it onto another shirt, maybe jazz it up with studs or safety pins? sewing bows and applying studs to pieces is a way to make basic pieces more scemo too

i hope any of this was helpful ;w;

[foone]

ok please tell us about the tandy-memorex vis :D

OKAY the Tandy Memorex Video Information System is a hilarious console that Tandy/Radio Shack came up with in 1992.

It's called the Tandy-Memorex VIS partially to distance itself from Tandy, but Memorex was owned by Tandy at the time, and this is entirely their fault. Back in 1992, the CD-ROM was the NEW HOT THING and everyone wanted to get in on that. Arguably every console that tried failed to some degree or another, until the Sony Playstation in 1994. But the VIS failed spectacularly hard, selling something like 11,000 units, and Radio Shack was nearly giving them away towards the short lifespan of the console (1992-1994).

It got about 20 games, and another 24 releases that could charitably be called "multimedia products". Things like encyclopedias, photo albums on assorted issues, and spoken-illustrated-book things with minimal animation. Of those 20 games, many of them were edutainment games, things like word puzzles, math games, drawing tools along the lines of kid-pix (on a console with no way to save pictures or print them out, so... yeah).

On top of this, it cost 699$. IN NINETEEN NINETY FUCKING TWO. Plug that into an inflation calculator and it comes out at about one and a half thousand dollars, for a console with barely any games and the ones that it did come with are designed for the little kiddies. This thing never had a market.

But here's the thing that makes it so memorable to me: While the games available for it were not interesting, and it's just another example of a failed CD-ROM console alongside the endless failed or barely-survived ones that littered the early-90s... (Every played a CD-i, 3DO, NeoGeo CD, PC-FX, FX Towns Marty, LaserActive, Commodore CD-TV or Amiga CD32? How about one of the add-ons, the Sega CD, TurboGrafx-CD, or Atari Jaguar CD? Hell, this is what the Nintendo Playstation was supposed to be, before that deal went sideways and it became two separate consoles)

The thing is that technologically the VIS is super unique because it's an idea that wouldn't really be repeated until 2001, nearly a decade later: The VIS is a console that's a computer.

Yeah, I know, all consoles are computers (except maybe arguably some early pong units), but I mean like a desktop PC. The Tandy-Memorex VIS is an IBM PC clone running Windows!

(EDIT: Accidentally submitted too early)

It's a modular windows, a sort of embedded-windows that only runs off a ROM chip, but it's still an Intel 286 with a relatively normal VGA card, a megabyte of RAM, and a 1X CD-ROM drive. This thing could basically play a ton of DOS games, it would just be a matter of some basic porting.

And it just never happened. Instead all the games are custom-designed edutainment/multimedia things, and no one ported Duke Nukem or Commander Keen or Kings Quest to it (Actually Sierra did make a test port of Kings Quest 5, but it never came out. Reportedly it was slow as hell)

It could have been a very interesting console that let us play tons of DOS games in the living room in 1992, but Tandy mismanaged it with the ridiculous price and bad policy regarding games releases which meant it never really amounted to anything.

Anyway I've got one in my room right now, and I'm planning on building a CD-ROM emulator for it so I can easily play around with making homebrew with it. I want to port a bunch of DOS games to it and make it reach its potential, like Tandy should have done in 1992.

They already had a successful line of PC compatibles in the Tandy 1000, and the VIS is partially made of advancements they developed for that weird line of computers. If they had leaned into that angle, sold it at a better price, they could have really built something special. So many advanced DOS games (and even more advanced ones made possible by the CD-ROM format) that would blow away anything else in the console market in 1992 could have been VIS releases. Instead we got some (barely-)FMV games and a bunch of sub-par Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit clones on a console that no one wanted to buy because it was too damn expensive.

[fredseibertdotcom]

We was chocolate before chocolate was cool. 

It was a great idea, before its time. Oh, and I didn’t exactly know what I was doing. 

The late 1990s and early 2000s saw me straying into some areas that were a result of my arrogance and ignorance. I haven’t written yet about my short, disastrous foray into comic book publishing, but it led into a fun, but equally calamitous venture. Chocolate bars. 

Long story, short, in 1997 I put together a few people to invest to save storied, but troubled underground comix publisher Kitchen Sink Press, founded in Princeton, Wisconsin, but relocated in Northampton, Massachusetts. In addition to comics, the company put out all sorts of artist tangential products like trading cards, cloisonne pins, and my favorite and their best selling product, R. Crumb Devil Girl Choco(late) Bars.  When it was clear that KSP was going to continue being a black hole of financial losses it shut down. Clearly, I had no idea how to usefully help the company, and my living in Los Angeles with the company 2,920 miles away didn’t help one bit. 

I’d lost a lot of money, including my wife’s savings and my kid’s college fund, and I really wanted to earn it back for my family’s sake. Fast forward, I did, but certainly not in the KSP spin off I conceived. 

For reasons best sorted out with a therapist, I love everyday objects that have cool images printed on them. Skateboards, T-shirts, posters, you get the idea. So the fact that chocolate bars are obsessions of a lot of people, no matter their age, gender, location, and the R.Crumb and Fabulous Freak Brothers bars being a hit that I felt KSP had ignored in their plight, I got the bright idea of partnering with a Massachusetts based KSP consultant to launch a company named True Confections, solely in the business of boxes of chocolate bars with cool images printed on them.  Can’t go wrong, right? 

As I write this post in 2024, it’s pretty common to find “cool” candy bars in gourmet markets around the country. But, that wasn’t the case in the 00′s. We came up with some pretty neat designs (a few of them above), and our sales team did pretty well too. We sold pretty successfully everywhere from Toys’R’Us to Home Depot to my local Santa Monica pharmacy (they could keep Devil Girl’s in stock!). But, we didn’t know how to source the bars with good chocolate at a good price, and of course, we had no idea how to ship the candy properly when the weather turned hot. Long story short, True Confections was eating money faster than KSP was, and honestly, I got sick of eating chocolate myself. 

It was fun while it lasted, but like I said up above, we were ahead of our time. 

And, as I’ve learned, over and over, a great idea is all well and good, but if you can’t execute... well, that’s that. 

[alicenpai]

closed my redbubble!

by the way I quietly emptied out my redbubble a while back, i want to say will no longer be supporting the platform. T__T the tldr is that my art kept getting flagged + the cuts taken from artists is too much.

thank you for reading if you got this far!

1. My art kept getting flagged

- jojo stuff gets flagged by v1z. but golden kamuy is licensed by the same company and it's? fine? looks like there's a difference between mainline v1z series + v1z signature series.

- other people are constantly selling stolen artwork + official art, basically any artwork that is not theirs. i don't really want to be on a platform that turns a blind eye to some users and shuts down others.

- listen, we're not going into the legal debate of whether or not fanart is ethical to sell. that is not an viewpoint i can reliably uphold and provide information on. as a freelancer, doing cons + online shop stuff is a part of my income. but generally in the grand scheme of things, i don't even earn that much money from each series. without tagging series/characters, it very drastically decreases your chances of having your art seen.

2. too much profit is taken from artists

- at first i didn't know you could fiddle with the profit margins... until I got some sales, and I was like why am I only earning 20 cents a sticker when they're a full $2.50 😶

- I had to raise the profit margins so that I could at least earn like, a dollar or two per sticker, which I think is more than fair for all of the hard work artists put into their creations. understandably people did not really want to pay $4-6 a sticker on the platform, however, i'd like to argue that is pretty much the average market price for stickers (like a 3" sticker) at cons and individual artist shops.

- i saw the recent update where they're taking an additional "cut "account fee" from artists. i do not wish to support them any further.

I still have an inprnt! but I'm in the process of cleaning out the old stuff that don't have much interest anymore + filling it with newer, better artwork! i feel that i've improved and i no longer feel the old art/style reflects me as an artist. unfortunately, full illustrations are very hard on my arm and sometimes they flare up the RSI i got in art school... so i have to work much more loosely these days + cannot feasibly draw illustrations as often as before. it will take some time to have like, more than 3 prints up on there!

and i know inprnt takes 50% which is more, but justifiably prints are higher priced. on redbubble most people buy cheap small items like stickers, which are priced way less than an average print, and no one was buying prints off redbubble haha.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Built to Last

Not knowing an ad’s genesis, I make it a rule to refrain from commenting on it, but there are times when exceptions to the rule are necessary:

Appalled by commercial after commercial appearing on a recent Super Bowl, I didn’t hold back, dismissing the dozens that were dismissible, praising the one  that wasn’t.   

Impressed by the long overdue recognition of my former agency, Ammirati & Puris, I didn’t hold back there either, acknowledging what was great about a shop most everyone considered stellar.  Like other once-great-now-gone firms victimized then extinguished by holding company avarice, Ammirati’s rightly celebrated work endures.

Australia not only has earned a reputation for inventiveness when it comes to films and scripted television drama, they are marvelously iconoclastic when it comes to advertising, best reflected in the spot, “Dumb Ways to Die.” Suspend judgement on the wickedly direct, very unsettling title and watch; you’ll see why Australia is home to some of the best creative work ever.

Given the deep respect I have for Yvon Chouinard and the company he founded, Patagonia, years ago I cited one of the print ads I hold in high regard, recognizing that to this day remains true to the company’s core values.

That makes four examples in nearly 750 posts written over more than 13 years, so I often don’t give in to the need to play the critic, but am reminded of this because Chouinard was in the news recently, this time with a New York Times guest editorial, where he observes: 

“The company I founded turns 50 this year. People ask me how it has managed to stick around so long when the average life span of a corporation is less than 20 years. I tell them it’s been our unrelenting focus on quality, which includes making things that last and that cause the least amount of harm to our planet.”

He observes that critics,

“thought we were crazy for repairing our own gear and urging our customers to buy less. They said our focus on quality would drive up prices and put our products out of reach. “But the naysayers were wrong.”

Then goes on to say,

“Quality is smart business. Even during economic downturns, people don’t stop spending. In our experience, instead of wanting more, they value better.”

Patagonia makes stuff – climbing gear, all-weather apparel, a variety of outdoor equipment – but step back from the items they produce and you see not things, you see values – durability, sustainability, longevity that borders on timeless, unimpeachable, and eternal.

I work in a business that doesn’t make stuff; at its best, it makes ideas; ideas that find their voice in all forms of advertising and marketing, in colleague support when its needed most, in client service at its best, when it solves problems, pursues opportunities, and builds enduring relationships.

It’s a business to which my former advertising agency, Ammirati & Puris, dedicated itself, explaining, in part, the post I wrote about it, in an industry where fewer such shops exist, seemingly losing their sense of mission, vision, and purpose. 

It’s a business to which The Art of Client Service dedicates itself, explaining, in part, why I’ve written three editions over the last 20-plus years, and always am thinking how I can help people get better at what they do.

And it’s the business to which Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia dedicates itself, explaining in part, why it could succeed when predictions said couldn’t.

As Chouinard points out, “the poor can’t afford cheap goods.”  Clients can’t afford cheap advertising either, or short-changed client service, or work that is perishable, disposable, and forgettable, something all of us should keep in mind the next time we search for something cheap, which often means, something not worth whatever you paid for it.

A concluding thought:  “Built to last” is a fitting way to end the year; the next time we connect, it will be 2024.  To repeat what I said in my last post, if you’re traveling to see family or friends, by all means travel safe.

Thursday also is Roberta’s and my 26th wedding anniversary, another thing that’s built to last.  Happy anniversary Honey!  Xoxo mbb

[redhillconfetti]

Blog Post 13-01-23 - Know Your Worth

Now that we are well and truly into January and the year is settled in our minds and calendars, with the chaos of ‘back to work’ gone and a schedule that we are all optimistically following and hope will continue. But as we get into the swing of work days so come the enquiries where they may make you as a small business stop and think, could i do that? And more importantly, should I do that?

Even with a company such as myself with a mere 998* followers on instagram, I will get daily requests from influencers or people working at companies asking for free items in exchange for promotion or exposure. Many people have spoken out about this and that exposure does not pay the bills, but when the requests come from charities or people you know, you may sometimes feel compelled to say yes to something that if a stranger was asking, the answer would be no.

A big pretence that a lot of these requests will start with will be wanting to ‘support local/small businesses’, piling on not a guilt trip of such, but leaning strongly towards heavily discounting your price for the sake of local promotion. But where will it get you? In the past I have agreed to these ‘at cost’ pricings for wholesale quantities, but all it has resulted in is further companies in the same industry coming looking for the same deal. If the end user gets the product, will the ‘exposure’ lead to an increase in turnover? Unless it's a product each and every single recipient actually wants more of, then no.

But I can also remember what it's like from the other side, from the corporate side where you are tasked with creating a product with as little budget as possible, even when the company you work for is part of a multi million (sometimes billion) pound industry leader. The kind of company that answers to shareholders more than staff, and any ‘goody bags’ at staff events will end up in one of two places; the bottom of their desk drawer or handed over to their spouse/kids/housemates when they return home.

Since the start of the year (mere 12 days!) I've had three enquiries for a sizable quantity of products, even to compile complete ‘goody bags’ for one particular company. All three enquiries started with carefully worded emails where a strong emphasis was on ‘budget friendly’ and ‘mass exposure to a large market’, but once costings were compiled and quotes were sent out, a sense of indignant shock was met with each one that i would be so crude as to charge them for my time and my work, and even more shocking; to make a profit (how dare i?!).

So let's look at the breakdown of such a ‘goody bag’. What it would have been is a small gift box, with a selection of my own handmade products inside, plus wholesale sourced items such as cookies and chocolate. Each would have an internal wrap of tissue paper, with shredded tissue to pad it out and prevent breakage. It would include my business card, a flyer from the customer (which i would have to print). It would be sealed with a branded pre-printed security seal, and have a custom printed sticker on the top of the box, with a final touch of satin ribbon tied around the outside of the box in a coordinating colour to match the client’s corporate colour scheme. These supplies would have to be sourced from 5 different online suppliers, plus involve in-person sourcing from wholesalers. The total time to create 100 of these boxes would be 15 hours of my time. When all net costs were worked out, the price quoted heavily favoured as the client was one i knew of and had dealt with when i was still in the corporate world, but meant that just the raw product materials would equate to 80% of the final cost price. That remaining 20% not only had to cover my own hourly wage, but also profit and overheads. That 20% was £1.20 per unit meaning that for the whole job over the course of almost three days work, would mean my take home amount was £120.00 for my time, overheads, and my profit.

That’s £8 per hour pay for me if i don’t count overheads or profit. Less than minimum wage, and certainly way below a livable wage. And profit was nowhere to be seen. And yet the client was horrified that I suggested charging £5 per goody bag. This client has an annual turnover over £400 million pounds a year, but yet baulked at paying £5 to a small company to individually hand make gift boxes for their staff. And was the third such company in the last two weeks to have had the same response.

This attitude towards small companies is one of the many reasons why I left the corporate world. I knew my worth, but I also knew the worth of the small companies, where the individuals put in considerably more than 40 hours a week. The big companies do not value their employees, even to the point of spending a fiver on each member of staff to say thanks for their continued servitude.

So, as I wrap up this week's blog post, which may have surprised those reading it with the subject matter, I know what my time and work is worth, I know that I can provide a quality product to a standardI would be happy to receive myself. And I know that I am putting the price of my corporate goody boxes up to £6.50, because I too would like to turn a profit, although maybe it’ll take a few more accepted quotations to get to a £400 million annual turnover just yet.

Stay true to yourselves,

Simone

*i think the magical 1000 followers on Instagram is like a magical unicorn, maybe one day i'll see it if i believe enough!

[miraculousmarkets]

Another topic I want to talk about that isn't news related but I feel will give legitimacy to my words, is how I see so many parallels between Pokemon cards and crypto. Pokemon card trading and grifting was how I got started. I was a kid, I liked Pokemon, but I liked getting bargains and ahead more. Always had a thing for winning although nothing beats the W I got with my bugaboo.

We grew up very differently. I was a poor kid, both her parents had money. She immediately knew how to make a portfolio and had doors opening, but also had a lot of pressures I never had. Noone expected me to succeed, noone forced me to do anything I didn't want to do. There's a certain freedom and peace of mind in that, but at the same time it sucks not to have, especially when you have a competitive and masculine spirit. It was only natural I'd get into sales and marketing as a job as I got older. Used car-lots, cold-calling... But that's a story for another day. What I want to discuss is how all the same nerdy kids who grew up on Pokemon cards, either moved on and forgot about it, or evolved much like their Pokemon, probably into crypto.

Crypto is considered the laughing stock of investments because of it's volatile nature. As I write this, Pepecoin for example is at 1.87usd and still dropping. Which isn't half-bad for a crypto all things considered, and I believe in Pepecoin. However, most don't like too put their faith in memes, especially when there's so much mythology around crypto. Now, this Gengar card will run you about 70 dollars. It was released back in like 2008. Ex was a new game-mechanic and people freaked. (Game freak huurhuurhuur bad pun) Ok... So what can we learn from this?

1: Pokemon cards will appreciate in value... sometimes. Evidentially I guarantee this card might've been double in market price back in 2008, however, it maintains some of it's value because it can only drop so steeply, along with physical rarity.

2: The market of Pokemon cards vastly differs from other markets because it is a game first and foremost. As such, a lot of it's costs depends on immediate demand coupled with rarity. "Meta" defining cards will go for a lot regardless of how common it is. True of any card-game. However, once the meta changes, you can expect a huge dip. This kinda makes timing the market even more difficult than with other investments. Trends can give you some idea of the trust in a stock or the direction of a meme coin. You either have to open a new set Early and capitalize in the small window of time this card is in rotation to sell high, pull a random holo and hope card shops give you a decent deal, or sit on it for seventeen years and sell it for 70 dollars when you had no way of knowing how much of it's value would be maintained unless you had some notion of how it would interact in unlimited formats and/or how much it got printed. I looked up the price of a Platinum booster box (the set this was released in) and first price I saw was 1500usd. There are 13 cards in a booster pack, 36 booster packs. If I had unbelievable luck, dare I say...miraculous... And pulled this Gengar out of every single booster, I could make 252,000usd. More than a year's salary of a doctor.

But I won't. I don't even think I physically could considering how shipments and print sheets work.

I could pull 10. That's lucky and realistic. That's 700 dollars which is nice, but it doesn't let me even break-even. I'm sure there's other cards in the set, but I'm not going to retire on Pokemon cards this way. It'd have to supplement the hobby. Whether I like playing the game, or just collecting, it could only incentivize, that's why it was a "fad" in the 90s as people were thinking of booster packs like lottery tickets that one good pull could be the difference between eating ramen every night to caviar. It was never going to happen.

The same holds true with crypto to some degree. While I do believe crypto is the future of commerce which I will get into in a later blog, and you can more steadily profit off of it playing it's guessing game. It is essentially just another game. It's a game for adults of trading memes and hope over make believe internet coins that can increase your income, but at the end of the day most coins flounder. Even the ones that are built to withstand the test of time like Bitcoin, are essentially Gengar. Noone knew at the time what Bitcoin was, let alone what it would amount too. Now even on a bad day, Bitcoin is sitting at 60k and it's only going to get better. However, it's the same as saying gold is your ticket to owning a yacht. It isn't. It'll be an asset, it kind of already is. That's why JP Morgan and Blackwater are buying into it. Evidentially their backup plan is Bitcoin should they need to rely on that as a padding to a huge crash of some sort. However, as it stands... It's just gambling for big nerds who never grew up. And I keep coming back to this but I don't think everyone is going to be trading in Bitcoin when crypto becomes normalized anyway. People will probably use an infinite number of crypto and I'll write about that later as it just keeps coming up.

I just wanted to illustrate that a lot of the same mentality it took to succeed in crypto, it took to get ahead in Pokemon cards. And just like Pokemon cards, the real winners are the people who made friends, who have fond memories, who kept themselves busy, who met a nice girl and married her through a mutual hobby.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Loving Local Luxuries

I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned how much I enjoy winter markets. But I don’t know if I’ve talked about how much I just love local markets in general. I went to an indigenous artist market with my friends last Saturday and it was just swell! We purchased some stickers, pins, and small art prints. However, the absolute cherry on top were these four masterpieces that we looked at over and over again trying to contemplate which ones to get. They’re these beautiful works of art that me and one friend bought in pairs because we just couldn’t separate them. The silliest thing about this purchase we kept gushing over is that we’re saving them for our future shared house. The house that we have no idea when we’ll even be able to live in, but when we do, our walls are going to look glorious. 

I get so hyped over these things. Whether it’s the artist alley at Fan Expo or a seasonal market, or the multitude of tents at Pride that display goods of all kinds. I feel so warm and fuzzy inside when I support local or small businesses and it’s something I find hard to do in normal everyday life. I feel like I can’t justify paying the higher price for my wants and needs when I could get it all cheaper at large chain stores. And it sucks, it feels icky, but I’m also poor. That said, when there’s a specific event, I can mental gymnastics my way into justifying buying from local folk then. Because this isn’t an everyday thing. I’m not doing this all the time. I have to wait for one of these things to happen and that typically means that I wait months in between. 

It’s so fun to window shop and look at stuff and sometimes buy that stuff. I love to decorate my house with purchases from people who don’t seem like they exploit their staff. I wish I could do this more often, but I’m glad to do it when I can. Back when I lived on the Coast, I went to a farmer’s market with my mum every week for awhile. We also used to go to garage sales every weekend too. And it’s always fascinated me how people can be so crafty and what people decide to sacrifice from their inventory. I need to pick up so many artsy hobbies sometime because I envy these folks so much. I so admire those who can make a wee living from things they make with their own hands. I wish we as a race would calm down with the big business and corporations and shit. How lovely it would be if we could support our economy and way of life on a more personal level. I want to know that my clothes were made by people who are paid living wages and treated well. I want to know that the food I eat comes from the farm six streets down. I want us to focus on quality and artistry over monopolizing the world and building rubbish. 

I keep telling myself that one day I’ll be able to afford to live and have some coin to spare. And I keep in mind all these places that I’ll get my goods from and all these people I want to support. I like to picture my nonexistent cabin decked out in the art I bought from various markets. My closets filled with sustainably made clothing. My kitchen stocked with local produce. I’ve deluded myself that if I can get to that point of stability, then I can single handedly save the world from its fast coming demise. I know in reality I’m just taking a bunch of baby steps rather than the lengthy strides I imagine, but each little step is at least a step to begin with. If getting laundry strips and raising plants and buying from quality businesses and recycling brings me happiness and does a bit of good, then huzzah.

[kafkaonthegore]

i’m a disappearing darling. i sail with an anchorless boat, bolting from the dockyard as soon as someone gets too close.

i’m a magician with my departures. they look for my footprints through the timeline of their lives but they find none except for at the door of their entryway, one print on each side of the door, like i was always preparing to leave.

i always run back to my little cage. and they were mistaken thinking that they could pick the locks and make me see that it is okay to retire the life at sea and return to the shore. but they were forging keys out of unconditional love for locks that did not even exist. i live in a hollow metal box. i have never known a love like this, a love that is not a paradox.

i have always been a performer, never just a person. what a circus! the tightrope is my podium, one act further and more venturesome: i spin and spin and spin and- until my toes break in my pointy shoes.

spin but it is alright, the gore is covered with flashy clothes. i will be brand new once i catch some rest. i cannot be sick; i’m the ringmaster of my own show and the heartbeat of my own well of death. and each day, a fresh coat of paint comes on.

i’m a mimic at my very best. every shiny quality that i have comes from another human being. but i have one original trick; my feet flat on the barbed wiring, marvelous show of utter submittance while i carry a suitcase in my other hand.

at the break of dawn, here is their love with the paint scrubbed off my traitorous skin. clowns are outdated, but becoming a laughingstock, not so much. town’s number one entertainer cries himself to sleep because he is lonely even when he dreams. always waking up screaming, “i cannot be loved!”, but when someone tries, cautions them, “dead dove: do not eat!”

i’m an expert at reading faces. one hint of resentment and i’m sprinting for the carriages. clutching the reins and dashing to the cages. because leaving gives me a sense of safety, i sit in my jail and that is my security. the familiarization of each injury makes the blow hurt less. the steps to first aid have become a muscle memory.

i am, the knife jugular, shaking hands with all my knives, so i’m well acquainted with every way a blade can puncture or cut when it drives through the dermis. there are no surprises in my circus. it is a routine. to wake up and please. to exhibit qualities of a daring lover and disguise the filth i breed.

still walking on that tightrope. “look at me, i'm shiny and colorful, not distasteful at all. brighter than the skies. i can bend backwards just to make you smile. and even if i trip and tumble, being seen is worth the pitfall.”

i’m addicted to the concern, but i would not let anyone break my fall. because what would i be if not someone who so desperately wants to be seen and liked but runs off as someone does? i think i harbour dirt between my teeth, so as we speak they know, no amount of trying will get me to cease.

i will eventually leave. because that is all i have ever known ever since i have known anyone. running when things get rough, and fleeing as soon as i feel some kind of love.

i am the disappearing darling, top shelved, the shiniest doll at the market. with a price tag too heavy to pay, i’m never going home with anybody.

(i keep forgetting that apart from the hefty payment, top shelves are the dustiest, no one ever really looks there.)

[stoookes]

So in response to one of your previous asks, where you said that there are many omegas around the world pretending to be alphas, which made me think about who could be those players from India. Like one thing I wanna ask is how expensive and accessible is the Antarax that Stu uses to hide his identity, and the facility he goes to in the first chapter, and whatever other pills and medicine he uses to prevent heats, hide his scent, and generally erase all parts of his omega identity. because I feel a service supposed to be this covert and secretive would be really costly. Essentially how rich and influential would you need to be to afford Antarax and all that? Stu comes from an affluent family, so he can access those facilities, but can other people, from not so strong financial backgrounds manage it? The purpose behind asking this is that tbh there are very few Indian cricketers who were sorta born into wealth? Most of them came from middle class families, and quite a few clawed their way up from poverty. Like MSD, Hardik, Jadeja, Shami-- all of them came from poor backgrounds. So I doubt they would have been able to afford Antarax like Stu.

Tbh the only player from the 2000s Indian team likely to afford Antarax and any similar facilities (if they are supposed to be very expensive), would be Sourav Ganguly, whose father ran a printing business and was one of the richest men in Kolkata. Oooh Sourav as omega actually might work out, bc Sourav is credited with starting a revolution in Indian cricket, and is remembered as an aggressive and very successful captain. He practically built the Indian team up from scratch after the 2000 match fixing scandal, and he handpicked a lot of the squad members, being responsible for giving debuts to and backing Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Sehwag and MSD, all of whom went on to become India greats. He also encouraged the players not to back down and urged them to be more aggressive, and himself had a pretty short fuse (his iconic shirt-off celebration in the balcony of Lords will remain in my mind forever). Imagine the utter power of the person who revolutionised Indian cricket coming out as an omega all along 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

So it is a very expensive thing - Antarax is one of a variation of omega suppressants, that just so happens to be the British developed one but I’m sure all countries have their own variation of the drug that does the same thing.

It’s expensive, exclusive and only really used by the rich and famous.

I have had this thought about the Indian players and I believe they’d use more black market methods because of the high price point. Antarax and the equivalent are one drug does all, a black market equivalent would probably entail a cocktail of pills to be taken; heat suppressants, testosterone boosters, scent hiders etc.

I might explore it with VK; I can see him looking at going down that route but getting freaked when he realises how many drugs he’d have to take, how hard it would be to hide via paperwork and the fact that there was no guarantee the cocktail will consistently work (plus fuck knows what taking all those drugs for a long period of time would do to a person)

[alchemiasart]

Making the write choices

The hardest part of getting back into writing for me has been unlearning all the marketing "wisdom" that I gathered from back before the internet was a thing and then shifting over to figure out what works now.

Back in the day, the Rule of 13 was that you had to have thirteen stories out to magazines and publishers at a time to have a decent chance at getting anything in print - but most are going to get rejected. Now the Rule of 13 is that you need to have [an arbitrary high number] of completed works released under your name for the algorithms to pick it up enough for anyone to know your stories exist. This is in the self-publishing market where you also will be competing with every other schlub who managed to string a minimum of 30,000 words together, editors be damned. Also, there are those [EXPLETIVES] who crank out trash dumpsters of vaguely related sentences with plagiarism machines - but they use the algorithm to get market share through sheer numbers and low prices, pushing out the actual writers.

Also, "back then", you could call an agent and speak to a secretary to find out if your work was interesting enough to be worth the cost of postage, because you had to send everything via the post - and that was good because that meant that it was tacitly recognized by the US government as Your Stuff. (Yes, that was Actual Advice.) And maybe access to paper, ribbon, and working typewriters made the

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely chuffed that I have the option to self-publish instead of waiting for weeks or months or literally years for a rejection (pun intended), but then there's the problem of how to market without a publishing house behind you. Except, according to some of the people I've known who've done both (self and trad publishing), having an agent or even publishing deal as a new author isn't worth a bag of dicks most of the time.

That's very discouraging in a lot of different ways because for most of my life, getting The Publishing Contract was the pinnacle of accomplishment. Gaining that would be that People Liked Me and that My Work Was Worthy, but now... that's just not the way it is.

Anyway, long story... well, not that shorter, but here it is: I removed all my stories from Vella because literally no one read them, even after multiple waves of marketing along the channels that, according to Hoyle, should have gotten at least a few people watching - plus, there was NO money to be made because the first TEN chapters are always free.

Dude, people die of exposure every year, but probably worse is dying from lack of exposure.

So, screw it, I'm putting those stories out as their own novels/novellas. I write enough that, given enough time for editing, I could maybe hit that Rule of 13 within the next year. (Two down!)

[the-draw-pirate-roberts]

My application to become President of University of Arizona

Good Afternoon,

Your wonderful staff member, Paula Grates, has assured me that this is the proper avenue in which to contact you: The UArizona Presidential Search Advisory Committee. In short, I expect the due diligence of your members seeing and critiquing this document, and if not, expect more emails. Directly to the Board members. This is a promise. Anywho, with those formalities out of the way: Let’s talk business! My CV may be unimpressive to the untrained eye, but I have years of experience bending over backwards to both the hoi polloi and those useless, festering pustules that for some reason people think have power (Administration, the Managerial Class, and Ivory Tower Bootlickers alike). In addition, I’ve currently served 7 years here at the University of Arizona, specifically in our wonderful Library! Library Service has taught me many things, how to deal with vagrants, vagabonds, and all manner of violent individuals, as we are one of the rare institutions that does not provide security! In addition to this, I have learned to operate on a razor-thin budget. As we have regularly received cuts throughout the years, UAL (University of Arizona Libraries) has excelled at cutting to the bone to make sure the vultures get their pound of flesh. Most staff are underpaid and overworked, being classified as Grade 4 Employees (according to University HR and our Job Library) and placed at the very bottom of the pay range. Due to this we are constantly understaffed and have a turnover rate that rivals a fast-food joint! What I’m trying to say is that I can handle a team of hungry and bitter wastrels, which our current President seems to have forgotten the old adage of “Bread & Circuses.” While I know he is loathe to bring all staff to a reasonable $25 and hour Salary, the least he could do with his $40,000 Car Grant is deliver some pizzas to his staff. After all, he has a golf cart that flagrantly ignores our campus rules and his office is next to the Cholera Machine known as Dominoes, right at our wonderful Student Union! Now on to some projects that I plan on implementing to get us that sweet, sweet cash money. First, we replace CatCash. As is, we are losing money on Credit Card and bank transactions. We replace it with the proprietary Crypto Currency “Wildcat Coin.” As we will be directly in control of minting and producing the amount of coin, we can easily replace all of our direct cash flows with extra fees via Etherium (GAS fees in the nomenclature). This will allow us to control both inflation/deflation of Wildcat Coins Price and obfuscate our fees. Generating a roll over “Slush Fund” that can sustain us for decades! In order to offset the disastrous environmental effects of Wildcat Coin, we will announce that the University of Arizona is going to be the first “Green” College Campus (We can add any number of qualifiers to ensure this is true, what else is a marketing team for?). We will cut our contract with Wepa Prints, and exclusively use email and D2L for all submissions and forms. This is the last free one y’all get (Never sell yourself short as my momma always said). We really must capitalize on our Athletics Department. It seems queer to me that a unit that exists to generate revenue never seems to return on that promise. What sounds like a better return on investment: A Surgeon teaching others their trade , or an assistant to a guy that says “Throw the ball good?” As a first proposal is to direct that money stream back into Academic Units, as well as changing the pay grade structure of Coaching Staff here at the University. Their base pay will be adjusted to our new standard minimum wage of $25 per hour, and they can earn bonuses based on performance. Losers get Loser pay, which should still be livable because they are at least OUR losers. You can expect more new, fresh, innovative ideas should you be brave enough to buck the mold and pick me! Fondest Regards,

■■■■■■■

[best-wishes]

Don’t Look Back Part 6 - Nth+1 Iteration

Beware, it’s part 6, to find the beginning of the story, it’s here

CW: Major Character Death, doubting reality, suicide of an immortal character

---

This time, Hob decided that they were going to travel, never settling in one place for long. They had already in one of their lives, travelling and trading their way further and further east. If he was going to be haunted by the dark star-eyed man, he was going to show him how rich life could be and why Hob would never get tired of it.

The first, and most arduous part was convincing Eleanor to abandon everything she had ever known. Hob's wife was not the most sheltered, nor the last adventurous, but it was a leap into the unknown that was always delicate, and had already blown up spectacularly in Hob's face.

This time, persuading her was unusually easy. Not even a year of preparation later, they were on the road, travelling through France with their load of English wares. They would trade them off for typically French stuff, that they would in turn exchange in Italy. Robyn was taking to French as quickly as he was taking to English, hearing both languages equally often. Soon they would move south and they would have to switch to Provençal, that Hob hoped he would remember well enough from the life they had lived in Marseille.

For the time being, they were in Paris. The city was as bustling as ever, crowded and full of smells under the sun of spring. Being there always sent Hob back to his life as a printer. Hob wondered how Jean and Valère were faring, in the absence of his little printing workshop. They were likely up to no good, but Hob hoped they would turn out right, in the end. They were good lads with bad luck.

It was only natural for Hob to head toward the familiar market of La Halle for the trade of what they had bought from England. Though no one knew Hob here and now, Hob remembered most of the prominent traders, their habits and their business. He had no difficulty finding the right set of buyers. Bertrand was the one Hob wanted to sell most of his goods too, as he would give a fair price. Hob was lucky again, Bertrand was there, and ready to buy from a stranger after inspecting the load. He would come back a few hours later with a cart.

Around one hour after Bertrand, Hob crossed path with another merchant that he used to know in his other life, though merchant was a generous assessment. Denis was more of a scammer, and he'd conned Hob himself once. Now was a good time to pay him back in spades.

"Let's go, we've got no time to spare!" Hob urged Eleanor.

After negotiating with Denis, Hob had hurried his preparations to be ready to leave as soon as the deal with Bertrand was concluded.

"What is the hurry? I thought we were going to spend the night in Paris."

"I want to be out of the city as soon as possible, we'll spend the night in one of the hamlets along the Bièvre."

Later, as the sun was setting and they were arriving to the group of houses and farms around the manor of Cachan. Hob remembered a welcoming tavern there, where they would sleep for the night.

It was only when Hob paid the innkeeper that Eleanor, seeing the amount of coin in Hob's purse, pieced everything together. She was wise enough to wait for them to be alone in their room to broach the subjects.

As soon as the door closed, she turned toward him, hands on her hips.

"Robert Gadlen, have you or have you not sold our goods twice in Paris?"

Hob chuckled. He would never grow tired of his wife's quick mind.

"Do you know me so well?"

"I thought I did, but the Robert Gadlen I knew was not a scoundrel!"

"That's entirely Hob Gadling, I confess. Though it could be a bit of the Hobgoblin, too. In one of my lives, I was abducted by the Fae, and I spend decades in Faerie being the Hobgoblin. It was my sacred duty to play tricks like this one. I guess you can take Hob out of Faerie, but you can never totally take the Fae from Hob."

Eleanor refused to believe it. Time travel was one thing, the realm of the Fae was another. No matter how many details Hob provided about his life in Faerie, she would not fall for it, she said. It devolved to a game between them, Hob slipping a lie inside every story he told about his many past lives, and Eleanor trying to guess the truth.

Fortunately, they were not caught for Hob's scam in Paris. It was likely that no one believed Denis when he denounced Hob, or those who did thought it served him right. The weather kept being perfect for their travels, and their business flourishing. It made Hob nervous. He was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. He had travelled enough during his many lives to know such luck was not natural, and he was expecting to pay for it sooner or later.

 ---

Dream tapped his fingers on the armrest of his throne, waiting for the summoned Nightmare to appear. Jessamy was perched on the top of the seat, grooming her feathers. The three stained glass panels behind the throne were filled with images of two humans, Hob Gadling, eternally young and charming, and his wife, Eleanor Gadlen. The mesmerising shape of Gault, the shape shifter, was standing between them.

Dream's plan was on schedule. If he played his cards right, Hob would never restart the loop again, and the universe could escape running his circle for eternity. Except that he felt doubt stirring in Hob Gadling's psyche, doubt that needed to be squashed immediately.

Gault entered the room, the lights in her body shining in the shadows of the hall. She knelt on one knee, and waited.

"I have been following your work with Hob Gadling from the start, Gault. I feel, and Lucienne agrees with me, that you are not good enough to fool him. He's doubting you."

"My Lord, he had never given me any reason to think so. He behaves with me as a husband with his wife. I can detect no deception."

"Would you doubt my word? Hob Gadling is an adept trickster. He might be fooling you, but he is not fooling me."

"Yes, my Lord. I will endeavour to do better. Would you have any advice for me? You know him better than anyone."

"Go and see Lucienne, she shall give you insights on the roots of Gadling's suspicions. Study his wife. Unlike the nightmares you are used to create, this dream is supposed to feel real. You should strive to emulate the real Eleanor Gadlen, not the idealised image Hob Gadling wished his wife was."

"Thank you, my Lord."

"Go, Gault, and do your best. The fate of the world rests upon your shoulders."

 ---

In the end, it was Eleanor that tipped Hob off. His wife had always been strong willed and obstinate. She was way more intelligent than Hob was, and she knew it. In their first life together, Hob often let her taking the decisions for them both, though custom would have dictated the opposite.

In most subsequent lives, though, Hob had to impose some decisions because he knew the future. It was always difficult for Eleanor to be relegated to the role of follower, to feel like a child again relative to her husband's vast experience of the world. He knew best, and she was wise enough to admit it, but she resented him.

In this life, though, she followed him easily. In any other life, Hob double crossing Denis without consulting her would have earned him an earful, and weeks of acerbic criticism. Yet, she had let it slide. After this first episode, Hob was more attentive to her mood. She was more patient than she used to. She was more sedate, too, content with their lot instead of striving for more.

Little by little, Hob started doubting.

Even with centuries of times, and Hob estimated he had only decades of marriage with Eleanor, one could never fully know another. In every life, Hob had learnt more about Eleanor, new things he ignored, pieces of her that he had never had the occasions of discovering. As the repeats followed one after another, he had come to cherish these titbits of knowledge, these new parts of his wife to love.

The imposter, as Hob was increasingly thinking about her, never told Hob anything he hadn't already known. She was never surprising.

Hob planned in advance, to reproduce situations that had occurred in one of their previous lives. Where the real Eleanor had always behaved differently from one life to the next, this false Eleanor parroted the real one. This was a play, like one of Will Shakespeare, a game of deception and false pretence. Was it a comedy, or a tragedy? That was the question. Hob didn't trust fate to be fun, except in the darkest irony. The thought of Will brought with it the memories of Robin Goodfellow, tricking Hob to take his place as Eleanor's husband. He'd said Eleanor had known, then. Was he living the same fate, but reversed? When Hob had lived in Faerie, he had heard much about the Changelings, simulacra they left instead of a kidnapped human. Had Hob's dark patron made a deal with someone from the Court, and kidnapped Hob's wife in the hope of tricking him? The Changeling would not die as Eleanor did every time, and Hob would believe he had tricked fate at last.

Once this idea had entered his mind, it never left it. Hob kept noticing more and more details revealing his wife to be an imposter. Yet, doubt was still lingering. Was he playing tricks on himself? Was he going mad from the endless repeat of time?

Surprisingly, the one who finally convinced Hob was his dark patron.

He visited one night that was not different from any other, in the darkest hour. Hob woke up suddenly and he was there, sitting on an armchair like he owned the little room of the inn where Hob and Eleanor were sleeping. He was looking at Hob pensively, his hands joined in front of his mouth.

"Hob Gadling."

"What do you want?"

The silence stretched between them. Hob glanced at Eleanor, who was still soundly asleep.

"She will not wake up unless I allow her. I have come to tell you that I have bargained with my sister Death for your family's life."

It left Hob gobsmacked. His sister Death? Who was he then? Hob had always believed him to be Death, or at least a representative of Death.

"I would have expected some gratitude."

"I am. Grateful. I don't know how I could thank you for such a gift. I'm sorry I'm left speechless."

"I expect you to desist from time traveling again. I have ensured you would not need it."

"Sure. Great. I promise." Hob stuttered.

"Good. I hope I shall never see you again. Enjoy your eternal life."

And he was gone. Hob looked at the empty chair. Then a chuckle escaped him. Once the laugh had begun, there was no stopping it. The chuckle turned into an irresistible laugh, until Hob was crying with laughter.

Only then the laughter turned into sobbing.

It was too good to be true, so it was all a lie.

 ---

After Hob was wholly convinced he was living in a lie, his and his family's course shifted toward England.

If Hob's current wife was a Changeling or something of the sort, the Fae would be the ones to know and understand it. There was one point in time when Hob was certain the door to Faerie would be open: for the first representation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As always in this life of deceit, luck was on their side and the travel was fast and eventless. No bad weather hindered them, no epidemics nor accident slowed them down. At the end of spring 1593, they were back to where they had started.

They avoided London where the plague was striking again, to follow the steps of Lord Strange's Men.

That was how Hob found himself sneaking around the countryside, lying in wait in the meadow for the Court of Faerie to enter this plane. He watched as the giant on the hill opened the portal to Faerie.

Seeing them all again sent Hob to his life as the Hobgoblin. Auberon and Titania, unbearably perfect and unnaturally beautiful, led the assembly. The Fae, large or small, fair or monstrous, followed them disorderly through the gate. Hob saw here and there a familiar face, people he had tricked or pranked during his time as the Hobgoblin. Puck himself fooled around, playing and dancing in the crowd, overjoyed at being on Earth again.

Seeing them all again, in this world left Hob dumbstruck. The oppressive perfection of Faerie had felt the same as the supernatural string of luck he had in this life. It was the mark of something profoundly disturbing, a distortion of the reality of the universe that unsettled his mind. Hob had felt it, and it had reminded him of his days as the Hobgoblin. He'd felt compelled to play tricks, to tempt the fate against this perfection.

He waited for the play to begin before moving. From afar, he watched as the familiar silhouettes of the actors got ready. This time, he was not there to play Robin Goodfellow on stage. He wondered if his replacement would be as unlucky as he had been. Maybe not, given Hob's given name, so close to Hobgoblin already, had eased the transfer.

He scanned the crowd as the play began. He knew Nuala should be there, as they had talked about the play before. It took him more than a few tried before he noticed her, or rather before he noticed her brother Cluracan. Both siblings were hidden behind glamour charms, and Hob was more familiar with Cluracan's than with Nuala's. She never liked the charms, and dropped them around Hob.

The presence of Nuala's brother was a problem Hob did not know how to tackle. The only thing Hob knew about him, from his many complaints from his sister, was his habit of seducing everyone and falling into bed with them. Hob was only one man, and he could not distract Cluracan and talk to Nuala all at once.

Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself with the intermission. Lured by the smell of fresh humans, Cluracan mingled with the actors immediately, touching a wrist here and a hip there. Leaving his sister on her own.

Hob rose from his hiding, and nonchalantly joined the crowd, passing as part of the troupe. He approached the Fae from behind, seeing her seething as she observed her brother seducing his way through the humans.

"Hello, Nuala."

She startled. He sat next to her in the grass, crossing his ankles and leaning back on his hands.

"Excuse me, do I know you?"

He smiled.

"You don't know me, but I know you. Or at least, I knew a version of you, in another version of this universe."

Faerie was not stricto sensu in the flow of time, and the Fae were familiar with nonlinear timelines. In his life as the Hobgoblin, Hob had confessed to Nuala about his time travels and she had accepted it easily. She accepted it as readily this time when Hob explained his story.

"It must be lonely." she said at the end of his tale.

"Why?"

"Because of this," she explained as she showed him and herself. "You know me, but I know nothing of you. The Nuala who was your friend, all the memories you shared with her, they don't exist here. Your friend is dead, I'm just a stranger who looks like her."

"You're still her though, even if you can't remember."

"Yes, but you're not the man she befriended either. With every life, you get farther and farther, as you keep advancing in time and we're all stuck in the same state."

"Eleanor told me something like that, in my last life. She felt like I wasn't seeing her, only the ghosts of the past Eleanor. And yet, I keep building new lives with her, and loving as many of her as I meet. At least, until this one."

"Why not this one?"

"This one is fake. I don't know exactly how, or why, but I don't recognise her. That's actually why I was looking for you. I hoped you could tell me what was wrong, with your magic Fae eyes."

Nuala laughed. The other her had done her best to explain Fae magic when Hob was the Hobgoblin. He'd been stubbornly impervious to any of it.

"Is this mysterious false wife around?"

"Well, no, I didn't take her here. It would have been hell to explain, all of Faerie suddenly appearing on the hill and me needing to talk to one of them. I hoped you could drop by, sometime soon? I invite you to my home, you're always welcome."

Nuala smiled and accepted the hand he was extending to her.

Hob realised she was right. He had missed her, and he was still missing her.

 ---

The days Hob spent waiting for Nuala's visit seemed to stretch into infinity.

Now that he and his family were back in England, they had gone home. The manor was dusty but well preserved after only a few years of absence. A maid from Eleanor's parents’ estate had come to help them settle for the time it took to recruit a new one. Eleanor's parents, of course, were overjoyed at having their daughter and grandson back.

For Hob, though, the return was unbearable. In the familiar setting of their home, it was painfully obvious that the Eleanor Hob was married to was a fraud. She kept parroting and mimicking Hob's true wife, like some twisted déjà vu that was always uncannily wrong. The dissonance was unsettling, and Hob was running out of patience as he waited for Nuala. The imposter was placating, and in turn it was driving Hob even madder. The real Eleanor would have snapped, yelled at him and threatened to leave.

Fortunately, Eleanor and Robyn were at her parents when Nuala showed up at the door.

"Hello, Hob. I am sorry that I am so late, I had some trouble finding you."

"Be welcome, my friend. I was in no hurry. Though I am afraid you will have to wait for my fake wife to return, she is absent for the moment." Hob answered as he led her to the sitting room.

"There is no need, I know exactly where your problem comes from," she explained as she took a seat. "It is also the reason it took me a week to find you. After we parted, I went looking for you on Earth. I found you asleep. I waited, unnoticed, and heard people around you talking. Apparently, you've been sleeping uninterrupted for years. You are dreaming, Hob Gadling, that is why everything feels off."

Terror seized Hob. It was impossible. He had tested it, extensively, at the beginning. He was sure he was not in a dream. Had everything he'd lived since his first life been a lie? Would everything crumble into dust as soon as he would wake up to a reality where Eleanor and Robyn had been dead and buried for decades?

"When…Since when…" Hob stuttered, his breathing so hectic that he could not formulate a whole sentence.

Nuala moved from her seat to kneel next to Hob's, and placed a reassuring hand on Hob's arm. She accompanied him as he tried to find his bearings again.

"Has every life I've lived been a dream? Was nothing real?" He finally asked when words returned to him.

"I am unsure. I do not think so, because how else would you know me? The life you lived as the Hobgoblin would have to be real."

A weigh lifted from Hob's shoulder, and the fist that held Hob's heart unclenched a bit.

"So only my last life is a dream? Why?"

"Yes, I think so. As to why, you would need to explain to me what you did to anger the King of Dreams and Nightmares that he plunged you into an eternal sleep."

"The King of Dreams and Nightmares?"

"Tall guy, always dressed in black, brooding, cheekbones that could cut glass, perfect nose, deep rumbling voice?"

"Oh, him," was all Hob could utter.

His mysterious patron was the King of Dreams and Nightmares. That was unexpected. Hob had always thought he was related to Death somehow, since he'd given Hob physical immortality, and Shakespeare eternal fame.

"Death's brother?"

"Yes, that's the one."

"I know why he's pissed off with me. He doesn't like me returning back in time to save my family. He must have built this dream were Eleanor and Robyn would not die, so that I was not tempted to go back. This is a trick."

Nuala nodded, but did not add any suggestion of solution.

"Nuala, I need you to do something for me again."

"What is it?"

"I need you to go to my body in the real world, and kill me."

"What? Absolutely not!"

"I would not really die, it would only free me and restart the loop."

"No. Only someone stupid or crazy would meddle with the affairs of the Endless. I am neither."

"I beg you, Nuala my friend, you are my only hope."

"I am not your friend. Your friend disappeared long ago when you went back in time. I owe you nothing. Learn to live with what you were given. Good bye, Hob Gadling."

She stood up to live, and Hob tried to grab her. He dodged unnaturally fast, and was out of the house before Hob could try to convince her to give him a chance.

 ---

Hob was contemplating his razor blade. Last time he had tried this, the King of Dreams and Nightmares had stopped him. Hob thought about his body, unaging and asleep in the real world, like a marble statue. He wondered how time had passed there, if Eleanor was already gone and what had happened to Robyn then.

Hob looked at the blade again. He was certain he had tried ending this life already. There was no trace of it. No blood, no wound. He raised the blade to his throat again, pressing it against the artery.

A hand came over his, guiding the move.

"What are you doing here, Robert Gadling. Tired of this life already?" A barytone voice muttered in his ear. It was both soft and full of threats, amused like a cat was amused by a mouse.

Hob glanced over his shoulder and froze. A blonde man, short haired and young was standing behind him. His hand over Hob's was as unyielding as the Dream Lord's had been. Both his eyes were full of teeth.

The creature inhaled a deep breath in Hob's neck. Hob felt a drop of blood pearling from the blade at his neck, then a lick that caught it before it could slide down.

The terror was totally unexpected. Hob had been trying to off himself, what was he afraid of?

"I heard you, the other day, with your friend the little fey."

"Who are you?"

"I am the Dream Lord's hound. His hunting Nightmare. I am the one tasked with watching over you, and until now I have been very bored."

The one watching Hob to ensure he would not find a way out? Was this man his jailor?

"Fortunately for you, I do not feel very loyal at the moment. If I understood you correctly, you want someone to kill you in the Waking."

Hob nodded imperceptibly. Another drop of blood.

"And when I do it, the universe will wind back in time. And no one but you will remember what happened."

"No one but me and him. The Dream Lord. He remembers."

"Of course, he does. But I will not, and that's what matters."

"If you do not remember, why would you do it?"

"Because I want to experience killing you. I have been wanting it for so long, a real death, in the Waking. I want to smell the hot blood as the pulse fades away, I want to taste the horror in the eyes. And with you, I can do it, and face no consequence for it."

Hob closed his eyes. With any luck, he would not even feel it, nor remember it. He would sleep through it.

"Do it. Go to the Waking, enjoy my death."

---

To go back to the masterpost, it’s here

[deepfriedseagullfeet]

I need a side job for an online shop but I can't afford a printer to make stickers or art posters what are your suggestions of other craft things I could learn?

I thought about pins but I'm not sure how they're made.

this ask actually came at a funny time cause i am closing my etsy shop until further notice cause im not really interested in selling rn haha, but!!! i do have some ideas for you!!

clay pins! these can be really fun to make and i think theyre still popular! theres a lot of tutorials on youtube on how to make them, but youre gonna need white clay and paint (or colored polymer clay if you dont want to paint them), pin backings (you can get these at any craft store) and something to seal them (you can use mod podge or polymer clay glaze for this!) theres a lot of fun designs you can make for these and theyre cheaper than making enamel pins

painted wood things! if you are artistic and can paint stuff, get some mini wood circles/hearts and paint a design, then superglue on a pin backing, then boom its a pin! this is an alternative to clay pins if you dont want to deal with clay haha. i can find small wood pieces at any craft store for cheap and i have too many of them lying around lol

go to any store that does printing and print stuff if you dont have a printer! for awhile before i got my printer i would order printed stuff from staples for cheap. id look into this if you have a lot of ideas for art prints or zines, theres a lot of options!!

if you have some cash to spare, look into stickerapp!! they print die-cut stickers and sticker sheets, and they havent failed me yet, all their stuff turns out good and they have options for different quantities of stickers.

you may want to look into digital products if youre tech savvy! on etsy you can make good passive income from digital items like downloadable prints, digital stickers, desktop icons, templates, etc. this is kinda a hard market to get into cause theres a lot of competition, but theres a lot of different things you can do with digital products.

going back to clay cause its the most affordable thing i feel, you can make trinket dishes, charms for jewelry, keychains, figurines, etc. people always seem to be interested in little things like that, and i feel like clay, especially polymer clay can be a fun rabbit hole to dive down with all the different tutorials and things you can do with it out there :) air dry clay stuff is great too!

resin can be touchy for some people cause it can be messy and toxic if you dont have good ventilation, but i used to make shaker charms with molds i got for like 2 bucks off etsy as well as jewelry! check out some tutorials for this one if you'd like to get into this world, it can be fun!

if you want to get into button pin making, id check out badge-a-minit! they were my first intro to pin making, and you can get a starter kit for like $30 i think?? the price may have changed but thats what i paid for like 3 years ago lol

do you know how to crochet?? crochet plushies and even digital patterns are still super popular!! its fun and relaxing too if you want to get into it

overall these are the first things that popped into my head when it comes to crafty things to sell, i hope it was somewhat helpful ;_; if you'd like to really dive into the world of products and marketing for artists, i highly recommend checking out kelsey rodriguez on youtube!! she has lots of good advice for artists and just recently came out with a video specifically for products that artists can sell!