#Choosing the Right Tax Option

[techminsolutions]

Understanding India's New Tax Regime: Benefits for Earners Above Rs 15 Lakhs

In the past few years, India’s tax laws have changed a lot. These changes were made to make the system easier to understand and to offer lower tax rates and fewer exemptions. According to Nitin Gupta, head of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the new tax regime, which is now the default option, is expected to provide numerous benefits to individuals earning more than Rs 15 lakhs. In this…

[priestfrommidnightmass]

now that i’m actually on somewhat of a real break for the first time in a while and i’ve recently completed two of my most time consuming fanfics so… i must ask again

[kosmicsound]

places to go next time you shift:

- a cryptid town in the deep south where everything is slightly off and the animals are not quite right (southern gothic music inspired)

- a sky castle where the clouds are just as fluffy and soft as you imagined

- a free theme park where you can just chill with your friends and go on rides as long as you want

- barbie: life in the dreamhouse where you can get ANYTHING you want and look hot doing it

- ratty catty where ur just a rat living in the walls and stealing food from the house’s owners to feed ur children (cats optional)

- subway surfers.

- infinite train ride (not to be confused with infinity train) sight see and chill on an overnight train for free!

- be a dog, live a dog life (maybe even be adopted by an immortal vampire owner)

- become an animate painting that just roasts ppl who walks past (harry potter style)

- ur cr but everything is pixelated

- be a mermaid but like a nurse shark or smth idk choose a species try not to get eaten

- any of the barbie movies

- the live action bratz movie

- THE JUST DANCE UNIVERSE GUYS. THINK ABOUT IT.

- one of those corny tiktok povs where when u turn 18 you get a superpower or smth

- the purge but after the 6th year no one bothered with murder anymore and realized lying on government tax write offs would be way better in the long run

- world where ur just someone’s drawing that came to life

- world where YOU are the ai (taking over the world is optional)

[decolonize-the-left]

If Americans shouldn't vote for Biden what should they do instead? Vote for trump? Vote third party? Not vote?

(I know most people would probably ask you this in bad faith but I'm just really distraught at the state of politics and keep hearing people say "don't say he's the only option and don't support him" but there's never alternatives given and I don't know what an effective alternative could even be)

I think a good place to start that a lot of people are comfortable with is probably volunteering and petitioning for 3rd parties to make sure they Do have ballot access next year. So that ppl Can vote for someone else next year.

And yes, vote 3rd party this election. Or don't vote at all.

Besides that? Learn some basic defense and join protests. Support encampments and do things leftists say like join a union and organize your own community whether it be your schoolmates, coworkers, or all your friends and their friends.

Y'all see the news right?

Censorship and propaganda are rampant right now, along with transphobia and racism and even Nazis are back. Tensions are high to say the least and everyone is worked up about the election and Israel.

Figure out what you wish someone else would do and then do it. Is that de-arresting protesters? Organizing a bail fund, fighting cops and throwing tear gas back at them when they make things violent?

There's a lot to fight against and even more to fight for. Find what's worth fighting for (to you) and actually start fighting for it. Don't let cops or your principal or boss or anyone else stop you.

I think one of the most important things we can do right now is remind the government and those that serve the government that they won't take our rights so easily. That if they want to silence us then we're gonna make sure it'll hurt more than it'll help. That we can and will fight back.

And that's why it's so vital that we show them we won't settle either. We won't vote for Biden.

We settled for Clinton and look where that got us.

Does it feel like voting for more and more conservative blue candidates actually helped prevent harm? Or does it feel like you were manipulated and lied to?

Gonna be real, it feels like the government is a manipulative abuser and we're all it's gaslit victims who don't want to believe things are that bad just cuz he killed someone else instead of us.

Which is like...it doesn't mean good things for us that our government could do that and we'd rationalize it, you know?

How we want to get out of this fucked up dynamic is up to us. We work, we pay taxes, we listen to the governments rule of law, and still our government won't codify rights, our trans friends are being abused by the government, or it's banning apps with censorship. And the whole time it's telling us to shut up and be grateful it isn't worse.

Abusers never ever tell you that it could be better too. And they don't want you to know that. Cuz then you leave. And if you leave then they can't manipulate and abuse you.

So yeah. They'll shit on us for doing Anything that doesn't result in us staying, for doing anything that results in us choosing our own well being instead of theirs.

But that's what we need to do.

And you need support before you do that. That's what organizing is. It's like calling the besties who hype you up to leave your shitty ex. Except it's a bunch of people agreeing to support each other when they choose to stand up for something. Organizing is making sure there are people watching back and making sure if one of you is harmed or arrested that there'll be someone there to help bail you out.

The more people you have to bail you out, the less you have to worry about being outnumbered, spoken over, or physically stopped with force.

So yeah. Do that.

Organize. I hope I stressed that enough. The people on our front lines need us to be there for them as much we need Them to keep fighting for us.

Also since I'm here: make sure you and your friends don't talk shit about protesters even when they get violent and break shit. It's not abuse when the victim finally hits back at their abuser, it's self defense.

[twstfanblog]

Brothel AU!

There's an old historical thing about how, when someone wanted to marry a prostitute, they'd have to buy out their contract with the brothel they work at, or wait for it to run out, but due to a mixture of financial abuse and hidden taxations on food and board, typically the former was pretty much always required.

So.

I guess I'm asking as such, exactly HOW expensive are each of the boys in that regard, and whether or not they'd respond well to someone wanting to buy out their contract to marry them? Assuming they knew the person 'buying it out' relatively well.

Like, in no way is this an equal partnership, but nonetheless, it's fun to think about.

[Excluding that time with Vil and that one customer.]

I was actually going to touch on that in a funfacts post I had planned on making! So thank you for asking about it now.

So far I'm not putting concrete numbers on anything since most of the fun for me is just world-building in the form of character interactions and relationships. But the price is basically built on rank. So depending on how popular the Entertainer is the more expensive they are. So as of now, the most expensive Entertainer to buy out of the brothel is Vil.

In terms of how an Entertainer can leave the brothel, there are three ways; four if you count death.

One is to simply run away; doing this will basically forfeit all protection, pay, and employment the brothel offered. If you run from Crewel's brothel you better hope you have somewhere stable to go. I haven't spoken of it yet, but the setting I have this AU is pretty much just a crime city where the only way to live a peaceful life is to live in gang territory. Since the brothel is linked with the Leech family, the biggest and most powerful gang in the city, there are very few areas that would accept a runaway Entertainer from Crewel's brothel.

Two is to accept a marriage proposal. This can go one of two ways. Since Crewel is the 'Madame' of the brothel, he gets the final say. He has accepted marriage proposals for Entertainers who were troublemakers or who caused unneeded drama in the brothel with clients they CLEARLY didn't like. But if you are in his good graces, he will negotiate with the Entertainer on what they actually want to do but the client will still need to make a lump sum payment of the Entertainer's current value if the proposal is accepted. In Vil's case, Crewel would not have accepted the proposal because he is fond of Vil, Vil is an excellent worker, and Vil said NO.

Three...Is getting pregnant. Which is another way that can go multiple ways; your standing with Crewel once again matters. He will either give you the choice to forfeit your last paycheck and simply leave the brothel to raise your child in peace; the client still needs to make the payment, but you're able to still access the benefits the brothel offers. He could tax both the Entertainer and whoever they claimed knocked them up until the child comes of age, OR the client has to pay either a lump sum or make payments as child support until the child comes of age if the Entertainer chooses to raise the child in the brothel. Kinda the safest option as children of Entertainers are treated like lil lords and ladies. Plus they get free education.

So far, Vil is painfully aware Rook seems to have the means to just outright buy him since he just easily throws around the money to book him for a whole day and STILL sends expensive gifts like clockwork.

Azul teasingly asks Jamil at the beginning of their sessions if he'd let him have his hand in holy matrimony. Jamil then hypnotizes him and reads for the next two hours.

Ruggie asks Leona to marry him every night as a joke. (He fucking falls off the fence when Leona says YES one day)

Riddle's path is predestined. Either Floyd gets tired of him or they're getting married. These are his two fates.

As of right now, asking Crewel how much Yuu costs will result in a ban. Crewel costs the amount of the building's yearly profit

[224bbaker]

If there were - hypothetical - three mice waiting to be named, and someone - hypothetical - considers naming them after his favourite detectives on Baker Street but stood before the problem of really liking Archie as a mouse name, which, due to there only being three mice would mean another detective having to sit this mouse naming out, which three would you choose as name patrons? Archie, James, Madge or Hampton?

Ok, first of all, @angryducktimemachine , !!!

Second, I will attempt to view this objectively for advice giving reasons and address the question not on personal preference, but on your very astute pre-stated criteria: the best objective names for a mouse.

As you’ve noted, Archie is an excellent mouse name. There is no possible room for doubt here. It is both cute and distinguished, the perfect combination. It is funny for a mouse’s full legal name to be Archibald, but it innately feels right to call a small critter something like Archie when they have done something adorable or mischievous. Obviously correct, good call you.

Next, I would argue: Madge. Mouse, Madge. Alliteration from the start. Evokes the image of something small—dramatic irony for our canonically tall detective, but also objectively correct for a mouse. The choice.

That leaves us with: James or Hampton. Correct in their own ways. We face a dilemma. There are multiple ways to approach this conundrum:

Even though Hampton is a human name, I would argue it has more whimsical energy. It FEELS like a cartoon name. It’s why we chose it for the show. Cartoon names work well for mice.

Conversely, James is a human name, this cannot be denied, which would appear to be a strike against it, but NO! There is something perhaps more innately whimsical in a human name for an animal companion. You imagine him with a job, with a briefcase, with taxes, which clearly he cannot have. He is a mouse. That’s absurd. Even funnier, he is a mouse named after a man who is hot. These are the building blocks of humor themselves. You can also pair him with Mouse!Archie and make humorous tableaus about how they are in love. That is adorable. I would argue James may have the edge here.

However, there remains one factor at your disposal still in determining the answer: the vibes and style of the mouse. Is this mouse innately pathetic? Do they give the vibes of insecurity? Are they light-colored or small but trying desperately to seem big? Does this mouse enjoy puzzles, mazes, exploring, or pretending to be other mice in elaborate disguises and voices? Does this mouse struggle to stand out among the other mice? If so, Hampton.

Is the mouse innately pathetic? Do they give off the vibes of insecurity—wait, sorry, that’s not helpful, both characters have that. But does this mouse’s pathetic energy have the sheen of cool? Could this mouse day drink at 10:30 in the morning and kinda pull it off? Does this mouse just kinda, like, vibe rather than puzzle? Are they good with other mice and show an effortless charm every time they waltz into a room? Does this mouse stand out? Most importantly, is this mouse hot by mouse standards? If so, James.

I hope this helps. I doubt it will, but I had a great time!

*throws in Ambrosius as a wildcard option*

[benkyoutobentou]

Hello

What are some good resources for learning Japanese?

Thank you for asking!

For just starting out, I recommend JapanesePod101's videos on both hiragana and katakana.

For beginner grammar, I used and really enjoyed videos from both Japanese Ammo with Misa and Miku Real Japanese (both on YouTube). Misa's videos are a lot longer and more in depth, but if you want a quick overview of a grammar point, Miku's videos are great. Both channels also have lots of other Japanese learning content as well!

For beginner textbooks, Genki is well loved, but I haven't used it myself. I also believe that there are YouTubers who make videos based on the lessons within Genki, if that's up your alley. I won't even name the textbooks I used to start out, because I'd never recommend them.

To get started with kanji, WaniKani is a popular choice that seems to work great, but it's a pretty pricey subscription. I use the app Learn Japanese! - Kanji, which is a one time purchase of 10 USD. It can be buggy, but it has a built in spaced repetition system and, hey, it's ten dollars.

The subreddit r/LearnJapanese has a huge resource list here, but I only link this hesitantly, as my main advice to using it is to look at the resources, and never darken r/LearnJapanese's door ever again. That place is horrible and will eat all motivation you have to learn Japanese. I saw someone ask elsewhere if it was possible to be fluent in Japanese because they saw someone on that subreddit say it wasn't. Seriously, it's bad.

As for my current resources, ie. very much not beginner resources, I'm slowly but surely making my way through Tobira. I really like it as a textbook, but I also just use it as far as I need it. To elaborate, I came back to it after a while of not using it, and found that it was just a bit too easy now (singing the praises of immersion!), so I've been skipping around on the reading comprehension questions, because I just don't think they're worth the effort for me right now. The later chapters probably will be, though.

JPBD is a lifesaver for me right now. I've fought with Anki on multiple occasions and had it work for me many times, but right now, the premade decks are what are gonna get me to study vocabulary, not pretty pictures. I also really like the ability to study a deck before you read something, rather than only being able to study vocabulary retroactively. The example sentences can be weird or terrible, but it allows you to choose from multiple sentences or make your own, so the benefits absolutely outweigh the drawbacks for me. Another thing of note is that these flashcards only go Japanese-English, so if you want to have the option to do English-Japanese cards, you might want to stick to Anki (or idk rip the decks and put them in Anki).

If you're ready to immerse and want to start a collection of physical books, I buy 90% of my Japanese language books through CDJapan. They have multiple options for shipping and are generous enough with sales and rewards points that usually I can get that to cover the cost of shipping. Plus they sell at Japanese retail price (minus tax!) so it's extremely reasonably priced.

I hope this helped a bit, and good luck on your language learning journey!

[babacontainsmultitudes]

So you wanna sell your art on Redbubble but you don't know how?

(Or, I meant to write this months ago but better late than never lol)

OKAY okay. I have a bunch of friends as well as mutuals who have lovely lovely art and have considered selling it online (specifically on Redbubble lol that's what's being covered today anyways) but don't really have any clue how RB works, if it's right for them, or what to expect. SO I'M HERE TO GUIDE Y'ALL THROUGH ALL THE BASICS and hopefully, if I've done my job right, this tutorial will help you set up your RB shop and start selling your art online (or help you decide that RB isn't for you lol).

Table of Contents:

What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?

How to make your account and set up payment

How to add a new work

Pricing? Markup?

Extra: Checking sales and payment history

Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.

Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)

What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?

>> RedBubble is a site that allows you to upload your artwork and sell it on quite a variety of different products.

>> The main benefit of using RedBubble, aside from reach and visibility, is that RB handles *everything* when it comes to the manufacturing and shipment of your product. You are literally not responsible for anything other than making the art, uploading it, and deciding how you want it to look on different products. If there is any kind of problem with material quality or delivery (though in my experience they're pretty good with both of those things), it's not your responsibility to correct!

>> RedBubble does not charge you to sell on their site, but they do set a base price for all products to cover manufacturing and to ensure that they make some level of profit for each sale. We'll look into the specifics of this in a later section when discussing pricing and markup, but it would be considered pretty standard, for example, for an item to cost $20 and you to make $4-$5 upon making a sale.

>> At the end of the day, whether or not RB is right for you largely depends on whether or not you feel their pricing and payment is fair, and whether their available products correspond to what you wish to sell.

Okay, so how do I get started?

Well first you're gonna need an account!

>> Head over to the RedBubble main page and click "Sign Up"

>> Select "Artist Signup"

>> Fill in your email, shop name (this is your username also), and password

>> Click "Sign Up"

>> You will be brought to this dashboard page:

>> We will discuss creating products in the next section. Everything under "Set Up Shop" is optional and I'll let you explore that on your own so we can focus on the essentials. That just leaves... Getting paid!

>> First, check the email you used to confirm your email address. If you didn't receive an email to confirm your email address, don't worry, we can resend the form- keep going with the steps for now.

>> Then, under "Get Paid", click "Add your name & address". Note that all of the options in the "Get Paid" section actually lead to the same form, but selecting this option starts us near the top.

>> Fill out all the fields on this page. If you didn't receive the email to confirm your email address, click on this button:

Then check your email again.

>> Note when choosing your payment method: if you are from Canada, like me, then paypal is your only option. Same for parts of Europe that aren't in the UK. Otherwise, you also have bank transfer options:

>> Once you've finished filling in everything on this page, click "Save Changes" at the bottom and... That's it! Now you can get paid :)

**Note: I believe RB still requires you to make a minimum amount of money before they do a transfer (for me in Canada I believe it's $20 CAD?), so do keep that in mind!

>> Payments are made to your account monthly, generally on the same day every month (assuming you've made profits!).

How to add a new work

So you've made your account, fantastic. Now you're ready to actually add your works to RB and make them available for purchase to the wider public! To demonstrate the process, we're gonna use our pal Nicky here (who was a gift from my lovely friend @llumimoon) and pretend that we want to upload him:

Ain't he a doll? Anyways, let's begin.

>> Hover your mouse over your pfp in the top right corner to make this drop down menu appear:

>> Click on "Add New Work"

**On a new account with nothing uploaded, this will look a bit different. instead choose "Sell Your Art" from this dropdown menu, then "Add New Work" from the top right corner of the same dashboard page from earlier.

>> Click on "Upload New Work" (and note the file type and resolution requirements at the bottom. I always stick with PNGs, but in theory JPEG or GIF works as well.)

>> Select the file of the image you want to upload. In our case, that's Nicky.

>> Now write a title for your work, tags, and a description if you want. The tagging system is how people will actually find your work, it works a lot like Tumblr's! Try to choose things that are relevant to whatever your piece is. If you're uploading fandom-related art and aren't sure what tags are used for your fandom on RB, try looking some up and seeing what generates the most relevant results!

>> You may have noticed the "background color" section right below Nicky. This sets the default background color for your piece on different products. We're gonna keep this as the default white here, and I'll show you how to adjust this for individual products very soon.

>> Scroll down. This is where we decide what products we want this design to be available on and how we want Nicky to look on each thing we've enabled.

For example, if I were actually selling Nicky here (if that wasn't clear obviously I'm not actually selling my friend's art lol don't do that ofc) I would definitely want people to be able to buy him as a little sticker :]

>> In this case, "Stickers & Magnets" have been enabled by default. If you wanted to disable them, you would simply click that little "Enabled" button. Similarly, if we want to enable a product type that is disabled, just click that same button (which will be grey rather than green and say "disabled").

>> If a product is disabled and you are being prevented from enabling it, that's because the dimensions of your image are too small for the product in question! You'll wanna resize your image (preferably in a manner that retains its resolution of course) and come back.

>> Hm. Let's use the hats here as an example of how we might make edits to the layout of a specific product.

He's kind of cut off, as you can see actually that's pretty in-character, and I think I want this hat to be pink rather than this default beige-looking color.

>> Click on "Edit"

So, the first thing I'm gonna do here is use that "Scale Image" slider to scale him down a bit. I'm also gonna click the image and drag him up a bit to re-center him.

Next, I'm gonna pick from one of the default colors and choose the pink one.

>> Notice the two arrows beside the words "Bucket Hat"? This lets me go through the different types of hats available and change the background/base color for each of those, like the dad hat:

>> Before we apply our changes, click that little gear icon right under the pencil icon

>> This lets us adjust the markup price for each individual hat. It is 20% by default. Changing the markup percentage affects how much you will make off of a sale, as well as how much your product will cost. More on that in the next section!

>> Click "Apply Changes"

The "dad hat" was the last hat I had selected (when setting its color), so the display has changed to show that one in the preview. Here's our bucket hat from before:

Nice!

>> The specifics of how you can adjust your design will vary depending on the product. With pillows & totes, for example, the editing menu looks like this:

Using the "Choose pattern" option, I can make the Nicky image repeat as a pattern like so:

(note that I also scaled the image down a bit here too).

>> One last thing. See that "Replace Image" button near the top?

You can use this when you want to use a different version of your image altogether for a specific product.

>> That's the gist! Play around with the settings for each item as you see fit. You can always edit them again later.

>> Scroll down. Select up to 2 relevant media types.

I'm pretty sure this affects search results when users choose specific filters, but tbh otherwise I don't think it's all too important.

>> Let's look at what remains.

>> I have the "Who can view this work?" section set to "Only You"- THIS IS SO I CAN FINISH THE STEPS HERE AND SAVE THE WORK WITHOUT ACTUALLY MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. In practice, you'd only use this option if you wanted to buy your own work on something but didn't want other people to be able to see or buy it. Otherwise, you're always gonna choose "Anybody (public)".

>> Collections can be created to organize the pieces in your shop (for example, by fandom), but we won't cover the specifics of how to do that here.

>> Set whether or not your work contains "mature content".

>> If you want, you can set which product shows up in the preview for your work when people view your shop. If you think your piece looks especially nice on a mug, for example, you can make sure that's what people see first.

>> Finally, agree to RedBubble's User Agreement (read that little blurble, since that's basically all you generally need to care about when it comes to what you can and can't sell on RB, but more on that later).

>> Click "Save Work" and voila! Your piece is now available in your shop, and can be found in the search results of whatever tags you left on it (this may take a few minutes to take effect).

>> If you want to check out your design in your shop, navigate to your pfp and click "View shop"

>> Don't fret if the design doesn't appear in your shop right away! Again, this can take several minutes.

>> To edit your design again (and to view/purchase privately uploaded designs like Nicky here), click the "Manage Portfolio" option instead:

>> Here is Nicky as he appears in my portfolio (again, your portfolio and your shop are different things- Nicky will not appear in my shop at all because he is set to "private")

>> You can click that little gear icon to do a variety of things, like return to the editing menu from earlier. The three icons below Nicky refer to the amount of comments, sales, and likes your design has received in total.

>> Click on your design either from your shop page or your portfolio page. Wow! Your cool art is now available on all the products you enabled. Be sure to look through them and make sure that everything is to your liking!

Pricing? Markup? What's that about?

Well good tumblr user, RB handles everything regarding the production (and shipping) of your product, which means that they set a base (minimum) price for every kind of product to account for materials and production, and of course make some amount of profit themselves. The *markup* is a percentage that you the artist set (see the previous section on how to do so), and will determine how much you actually make off of a sale. Note that increasing the markup price means that your product will increase in price as well!

>> An Example (using hypothetical but more or less realistic numbers):

Let's say that the base price (0% markup, i.e. no profit for you) of a phone case on RB is $15. You set the markup to 30%. 30% of 15 is 4.5, so the public price is increased to $19.5, and if anyone purchases this phone case with your design on it, you will make $4.5.

And that's really the gist! Ultimately the markup price is up to you and what you feel is reasonable, though RB sets it to 20% by default.

Extra: Checking sales and payment history

Eheh, unfortunately I've reached the image limit for this post but:

To check your sales:

>> Click on your pfp

>> Click "Account Settings"

>> Under "Artist Tools" (on the left side), click "Sales History"

To check your payment history:

>> From the same "Artist Tools" menu (see above), click "Payment History"

Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.

>> Do I need to report the income I make on RB when I do my taxes?

Yup! But dw, it isn't anything special. I mean, I'm not here to do your taxes for you, but money you make on Redbubble counts as "Self-Employment Income", same as if you sold your art just about anywhere else really!

>> So what am I actually allowed to sell on Redbubble? Is fanart okay?

Generally speaking... Yes! Obviously work should be your own, and it should not contain any company logos or names that you don't have the right to, nor photos of actual people unless you have their explicit permission.

>> Hm, okay, but what if I *do* accidentally sell something that isn't allowed?

In most cases, it'll just get taken down 👍. And no, you won't be asked to pay back any profits you made off the work in the meantime.

**A more extreme case: Story time. So, years ago a friend of mine uploaded some official Rick and Morty art that he forgot to set to "private". Overnight he made... Let's just say he made quite a bit of money. RB responded by taking down the work and banning his IP address, effectively preventing him from ever selling on the site again. But they still let him keep the money he made, and he didn't get into any actual trouble outside of that. What I'm saying is, even if you really fuck up, it'll be alright. And again, this was a pretty extreme scenario.

***Note: if your work falls under one of the brands in Redbubble's "Partner Program" (see the next section), it will be temporarily removed from the search results and your shop while it undergoes review. So don't panic if you see your fanart suddenly disappear from your shop!

Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)

Very briefly, Redbubble has their partner program, which I won't explain in full detail here, but basically it means that if you upload a work and tag it as one of these brands, it will be inspected for review and, upon passing that brand's guidelines, will be considered "officially licensed" merch for that brand. Just felt worth mentioning!

So that's really the gist folks! There's certainly much more to play around with when it comes to RB, but that's all you need to know to get started! Hopefully this was useful? Hopefully lol. In any case, good luck out there!

[cookstorys]

𝚅𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜

_____________

Character- Miguel Diaz

Show/Movie- Cobra Kai

Warning- Cussing, cute, Demetri and Hawk are dating bc y not, Miguel bein bbg 🤭

Note- Wish I thought of this on valentines 🧍🏾, and yes I did indeed look into information about bracelets

Females dni

_____________

“This place looks pretty expensive.” Miguel was awed as he walked into the perfectly decorated jewelry store. “Which means chicks will dig anything from here,” Hawk smirked. “Once again [name] isn’t a chick.” Miguel didn't know why he trusted Hawk and Demetri to help him with this. They were both losers when it came to relationships. It took them 4years to finally confess to liking each other. He was starting to wish he had waited for his mom or Sam to be free.

“Look given your past experiences, it’s best if you buy something more expensive. You know, to seal the deal.” Demetri perked as the teens walked up to the display of heavily shiny jewelry. “Get this one, no this one, or this one. There’s so many to choose from.” Demetri looked as if he was spazzing out. “Dude your freaking out again,” Hawk mentioned then turned to focus back on Miguel. “So what are we thinking? Earrings? Necklace?” The clerk asked. “I don’t know yet, it’s our 1st anniversary and I just wanted to give him something special.” Miguel grinned at the clerk. She couldn’t help but give the same grin back. “I think I have something you may like, give me one moment.” She smiled and left towards the back room.

“Why don’t you give me anniversary gifts?” Demetri asked crossing his arms together and giving his boyfriend an eye roll. “Probably because you force me to celebrate all our first. First kiss, first time holding hands in public, hell you even celebrate our first time seeing each other as a couple.” Hawk shot back. Before Demetri could shoot back a comeback, the young clerk came back with a box of nicely arranged bracelets. She pointed to one specifically. “This one has top of the line 18k white gold bracelet, surrounded by 60 Pavé Diamonds, for a extra fee we’re willing to give you a chance to engrave anything you want into it. It’s can be your anniversary date, a quote, a name, anything of the natural.” Holy shit. Miguel only understands a quarter of what she said but the bracelet itself was definitely worth the listen.

“What’s the price?” He asked still memorized by the gorgeousness of the bracelet itself. “Well, right now this one-of-a-kind bracelet is sitting at about 899$ but with the engraving, it could bounce up to about 950$. However plus tax and if you want our insurance plan that’ll all equal up to roughly 1,238$.” She finished. Miguel let out a modified laugh. That’s more than his paycheck in two months. “Can we look for a cheaper option?” Miguel smiled. “And by cheaper he means a LOT more.” Hawk chipped in which sent a smack on the back of his head by Demetri.

That’s when he saw it. A necklace with a cute bear charm attached to it. The exact stuffed animal he won you on your first date. “How about that.” He pointed. “That is indeed on our cheaper side. 210$ with engravings it’ll be 260$.” Miguel gave the clerk a huge smile. That was perfect and in his price range. “I’ll take it, with engravings also.”

___________________

“Gift time!” You enthused as Miguel sat on your bed. You stood from your position and went over to the hiding spot of Miguel’s gift and returned to your spot in front of him on the bed. “I wanna go first.” You smiled and handed him the gift. He nervously unwrapped it but smiled when he got to the gift itself. He lifted a big book from the box and opened it and saw all the memories you’ve made together, even before becoming a couple. “I love it, baby.” He smiled and leaned over to set a sweet, simple kiss on your cheek.

“My turn now.” He handed you a much smaller box and a lighter box. You lifted the top to reveal the gift inside, and to your surprise it was empty. “ um I think yo-.” You cut off your sentence when you saw Miguel holding a shiny necklace with a cute bear hanging in the middle. “No way.” You laughed not even trying to contain your excitement. You turned around allowing Miguel to place the necklace around your neck. It surprisingly felt a tad bit heavy but it was so worth it. “You have no idea how much this means to me.” You smiled planting a long passionate kiss on his lips.

[igneous-croc]

THE LONG AWAITED DRAGON COMMISSIONS HAVE RETURNED!

I'm trying to give my good buddy Doc a hand, since it's currently in a spot of financial trouble. The money will go to it directly, so I will link you to its paypal if I do take your commission.

They're different this time since I'll be using a different program, on my phone, to draw, and so are the options I offer!

FOR FULL BODY:

•10 dollars - In colour. You can pick textured or non-textured

•5 dollars - lines only

I'll also offer a ONE DOLLAR DISCOUNT for Shoulders-up/half-body rather than full body, if you so choose. There is also a SEVEN DOLLAR TAX (that means it costs seven dollars more) for EACH HUMAN CHARACTER. PLUS THREE DOLLARS for each extra character, taxes and discounts apply to them too.

I won't draw NSFW, real people, hateful imagery or very intricate designs. Again I reserve the right to refuse without having to justify it.

If you can't commission rn, that's alright, but please share if you can

[idontreallyknow26]

"I choose Rhaenyra cuz she's the feminist option" Oh bless your heart.

Rhaenyra is these second-coming of that white lady in the mall screaming to "TAKE HER PHONE AWAY!!"

Rhaenyra CHOSE to have three bastards. You heard Alicent; Jace she could've gotten away with, but she had two more. She willfully put her children's lives in danger. She knows how Westeros treats bastards, and she had them anyway.

Just because you wanna act like the Dornish are a part of the Kingdoms doesn't mean Westeros agrees with or puts to use any dornish customs.

(Just cuz he called Daren don't mean he belong to Daren)

And even Rhaenyra herself doesn't thunk women have the right to rule by default; in the scene where she's asking Rhaenys to betrothe the twins to Jace & Luce, she says "Baela will be queen, and her sons will rule after." So she still buys into the Andal succession shit. She is the fucking Caitlyn Jenner of women.

I'm F&B/ROTD, she starts taxing the smallfolk for HAVING BASTARDS. As if not even a year prior she planned to put her bastards on not one but two thrones... Very much entitled white woman move if I ever saw one.

She's also fine with the plan to sell Alicent & Helaena to brothels & watch them be raped and impregnated.

Oh wait, one more thing, SHES A RACIST TOO. (All the Valyrians are, they hold the same racial ideologies as Hitler but she was very obvious about it) She call Nettles a CREATURE and said she must've used her magic on Sheepstealer because if you take one look at her you'd know she's not Valyrian. Considering her first three boys were brown haired, I highly doubt she was talking about her hair. She also uses this as a reason Daemon wouldn't fuck her- Honey a child's a child he's gonna fuck it.

And these same people will turn around and blame Alicent for Aegon ii being a rapist...Congrats, you're blaming a woman for a full-grown man's actions. How feminist of you.

But yeah let's just keep acting like you're choosing Rhaenyra for feminism.

I wrote & posted this at 2 am and I'm aware that I get off topic multiple times but I'm still right lmfao 😭

[betterbemeta]

Hello it's a USA election year now and it's extremely important to remember that no matter how ridiculous things get, other people aren't stupid.

I understand the appeal of laughing about the 'Leopards Eating People's Faces Party'. Schadenfreude itself isn't bad-- we all like to see someone fuck around and find out. But 'the outcome of propaganda' makes things different. Who fucks around and who finds out aren't the same.

What we're usually seeing is damage that's been done to people, in action. And there's also no such thing as a completely undamaged person whose perspective, goals, life investments haven't been skewed by some kind of violence.

(This isn't me saying like, 'aw, pity them, they're damaged,' either. That's another kind of mentality that's JUST as self-defensive, self-reassuring as 'how could anyone be so stupid.')

A good, relatively low-drama example of this (I live in the USA, so this is local to me) would be the general conservative rejection of funding infrastructure. The origin of the fucking around-- the wealthy who don't want to return to the 91% tax rate of the 1960s-- hardly ever uses public anything. They have private roads, private planes, private schools, private doctors, and more. But the average person who votes red in the USA probably isn't extremely wealthy; the conditions they experience have made the idea of paying more taxes undesirable at best and unlivable at worst. But whether they're informed about if they'd even be subject to a higher tax rate, or if there are benefits for them in there, they still experience that a degrading environment SUCKS.

So in order to access what a smart, reasonable person (that they are!) would obviously want, we get the 'strong towns' movement, which is basically an urbanism that doesn't compromise conservative narratives... even if in the USA, infrastructure projects and maintenance are massively contracted out to the private sector. SAM.gov exists to facilitate contract opportunities on a federal level. If you live in the USA and want to see more local types of projects, search online for your state's agencies and find their procurement portal. There's thousands of projects up for bid, all the time.

ANYWAY, it would be easy to think, 'are these people stupid? They idealize private business but they want the private sector to get fewer opportunities and less money?' But what's going on here is not stupidity but the outcome of violence. Right-wing populism turns political options into a contest of aesthetics, feeling-bad-feeling-good, to strangle the ability to choose based on more than vibes. It's the destruction of informed consent, no matter what somebody believes about the world.

Unless they actually are the ones who reap a benefit from releasing the leopards, people who get their faces eaten aren't stupid-- they were discouraged from understanding what 'gladiator' as a career choice even was, and now the guy who bought the leopards is giving the thumbs down. And anyone who won't be manipulated into the pit will be thrown in by force.

[publicmuse]

ᴍɪɴɪ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇꜱ ✉

𓃭 Hello, welcome! There are 3 options to choose from below. Use your intuition to choose between the posters to reveal your message. This reading is timeless and general. I appreciate all feedback!

𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚛: 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢. 𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕, 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕, 𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚕 𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜.

▌│█║▌║▌║ ║▌│█

From left to right 1,

                                2,3

*Credit to the rightful owners for pictures/media used.*

⚀ One

{VII of Swords, The Lovers VI, The Start XVII, The Chariot VII, Ace of Swords}

You can feel the changing energy whisking in as the seasons come close to changing. I can see that you've recently gone through an overwhelmingly taxing time that has shaken up your perspective on a situation. This could be some endeavor or project that you were grateful to make progress towards but soon realized that you might have taken on too much. This probably caused you to become discouraged because you had to put some goals on the back burner. You could also simply not be putting in the best effort that you thought you would've been able to when you first started. I can see that if everything hasn't come to a settled point quite yet, it will soon. You were forced to be realistic about your situation, bringing you to a happier, stabilized place in your life. This could also be that you finally have come to a place where you can see the self-reinvention paying off for you. You've come to a conclusion of the best ways for you to manifest, and you are diving head first into using these tactics to your life's advantage. Now that you are set in your groove, I see you moving at an even faster pace with no sweat or interference. I see you coming to a point where you have accomplished a large chunk of your goals, giving you the ability to start planning the next stages. You could feel that you're in an in-between period currently. I can also see that you are confident in your speech and very direct with others at this time. Making sure you stay in this confident energy is what is going to keep everything balanced so that you don't feel like you're falling back into the 7 of Wands energy.

Clarifications:

{VI of Swords, The world, III of Swords Rx, IX Swords, Knight of Swords}

You have moved out of the constant chaos. The overbearing people, places, things, or ideas have finally taken you to a breaking point. Due to how much was weighing on your shoulders, the universe forced this change to rebalance your life. I can see that you collected yourself before descending into a potentially deep depression. Your highest self and the universe are so proud of you for being alert and on top of your emotions and reactions. You have noticed you're getting better at spending more time creating your own pathways instead of being stuck going down past roads that no longer serve you. I am telling you that after this transition period comes to a tail end, you will get a confirmation of some sort. The confirmation will come from the universe in a way that you won't be able to miss. For a lot of people reading it's going to be in the form of a message, email or someone physically communicating something to you. They will be passing off information of some sort that will point you in your next direction. You have come out of the broken heart stage and taken responsibility for your own happiness. The world is soon to reward you.

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢.

⚁ Two

{Queen of Swords Rx, V of Pentacles, Knight of Swords, VI of Wands Rx, King of Cups}

Have you started to fall back into some old patterns? During the time I'm writing this reading, Mercury is currently retrograde; This could be the cause of some of this energy. Whoever/ whatever is to blame, causes you to feel that you're not totally happy with yourself because of these old habits or ways of thinking it brings. You could have recently connected back with someone that you left behind in the past. You moved away from this energy for protection. I'm seeing you bump into and chat with this person for a while. A part of you decided to let this person back into your life because you felt that they have changed or maybe had elevated in some fashion. This person has grown and learned some lessons, but I see that the core problems are fundamentally still alive and well. It could be the simple fact that you and this person are just different and don't end up mixing well after a while. If you haven't reconnected with this person because you are having trouble figuring out if they're genuine, then this is your confirmation to proceed with caution. I believe this person has a problem with running their mouth to others. You are someone who tends to keep your life private, and this person knows that is a comfort of yours. This person could be a parental figure or just someone you grew up around but ended up cutting off for some time. I can see that the situation you had in the past was a dreary time. This was a person that was very close to you but against you, maybe you caught this person talking about you in a negative light. I see you're nervous about letting this person back in emotionally due to how much effort you've put into your healing. It's never a coincidence that the people who have brought you down decide to come around when you're at your best. If this is a significant other, I can see that this recent run-in has brought back a lot of intimate emotions from the past, and this has you debating whether to take this person back. You're scared it's too good to be true.

Clarifications:

{The Chariot, Page of Swords Rx, The High Priestess Rx, Temperance, VI of Cups, The Devil }

The key in this situation is to listen to your own intuition. If you're picking up on past patterns and red flags, you need to take that information into consideration. This person is still going to be at the core themselves, and you know them like the back of your hand. I can see that for most it is going to take a lot of strength to leave this person behind, but I do feel that it is best to do so. If you were dealing with someone who was purposely planning and setting up situations for sabotage and failure, then you need to know that they haven't given up their past agenda. Love this person for the parts that you cherish, forgive them for past hurts, but do not become attached under this person again whatever you do!

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢.

⚂ Three

{V of swords, Page of Wands Rx, V of Pentacles Rx, X of Wands}

Past burdens are coming back up for you currently. You are specifically being guided to reflect on how you represent yourself to the outside world. There has been major work done internally (Congrats!) so now it is time to apply what you have learned in solitude to the test with the surrounding public. I see that there may have been a time when people were comfortable throwing you under the bus and speaking to you in hateful language and tones (you’ve never deserved to be treated that way, I’m sorry). These people felt that they had some kind of control over you, or that it was their right to use you in whatever capacity they wanted. This is someone who had some sort of authoritative position over you. This could also just be whoever you’re dealing with is a narcissist who thinks everyone is inferior to them. I’m getting directed to two masculine energies that have been around you. I mention it in this manner to show that they could be two different people you’ve dealt with at two different points in time. The Five of Wands image shows two men who are focused both on their own despair at a loss to the transformative woman figure at the forefront of the card. This could be a father and/ or significant other(s). Maybe you have recently started reflecting on your dating life and have realized why you attract masculines who show these same toxic traits as an unhealed father figure in your life. This could also be not having a stable masculine view, meaning you may not have a clear picture of the masculine energy that coincides with your feminine (or vice versa). There is a need to sit down and truly think of the traits that you would want in a partner or anyone around you. This will help you to understand what you won’t sacrifice when it comes to the way you deserve to be treated. It all stems from the way you see yourself.

You are on a path to cut out all the negativity within your relationships, no matter who they were, are, or supposed to be. I’m getting that you have already moved on from this energy physically, but it seems like it keeps following you in all your relationships due to a lack of letting go emotionally. These people are just trying to hypnotize you in some way so that they can put all their responsibilities onto you. They will try to put on a façade to manipulate you into letting them back into your life the way it was before. I see you gracefully shutting these energies down, whoever they may be to you (place the energy where it applies in your life, use discernment). These people clearly watch, lurk, and check up on you. They know that you are currently moving onto something new with the fall equinox on the horizon, bringing you into a new moment. This is a situation where you’ve been putting in the work this Summer, going from being in a previous 4 of swords state to success. Now the people around you can see that all that work is about to pay off for you. They didn’t think that what you were working on was of any value until they could physically see that whatever it is, is clearly making you happier than dealing with them. Basically, you did the inner healing this cycle and they didn’t, so they want to blame you for their current misfortune. Please tell these people to eat their words and go mind your business elsewhere. I want you to be confident in this new endeavor and waste no time thinking of these people because they could never handle getting attacked by the same sewage they put out, they would literally disintegrate.

Clarifications:

{III of Wands, IX of Wands, The Hermit, VII of Wands}

All 4 of these cards depict a lone Feminine. I’m interpreting this as living in the truth of your intuition. With the Hermit and 3 of Wands, you have decided to listen to the voice in the back of your mind and deep within your soul. You believe now that you can confidently live without these energies. Keep finding your own answers and solutions because you don’t need to consult anyone else. It’s all within you, and I think you truly know that now. You will look back; you will reminisce, and you will even think when things get hard that maybe it was worth keeping the situations the way they were. This stage in the transformation process is always the hardest, due to feeling like you could easily be knocked off balance. Your life really needs you to fight off the urge to give up on yourself and what you’ve built. If you are around people who are bothered by you pouring into yourself, do it even more. Whoever you're dealing with, you need to start setting the boundaries now. If they can get over their pride and come around to respect you, then they are worth rebuilding a relationship with. Using the boundaries you’ve set as starting points for a new foundation. Protect yourself and show these people who you are for real!

P.S. > I feel the need to tell you these events may be sudden, but will also pass chaotically fast.

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚕����𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢.

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚜: 𝙳𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚜 𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚍: 𝚁𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚆𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚎, 𝙴𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚜𝚢 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚝 𝙿𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚘 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚜: 𝟷| 𝟸| 𝟹

© 2023 Publicmuse

[ff7ogzine]

Making a zine?

Consider going ✨ digital first and free/not for profit! ✨

There are so many benefits to this approach:

Eliminates your risk of fraud, embezzlement, tax issues and legal liability (which might be on your mind after the latest scandal)

Reduces scope and logistical complexity while your zine is being produced 

Makes your zine more accessible to readers, contributors, and first-time mods 

Allows you to include whatever content you want without worrying about unfriendly storefront policies (often a concern for NSFW content)

Reduces your zine’s overall timeline to delivery

Allows you to have a nice big simul-launch party

Keeps your zine a community passion project rather than a professional commitment, preserving the spirit of fannish culture

You can still coordinate a print run later, if you want to!

Free + digital first is the strategy we took with Return to the Planet, and everyone on the team feels that it was an excellent decision. Our zine was a success! To give you an idea of our impact:

Our Twitter follower count is about 512, and our zine release has received 444 likes and 289 retweets (a 144% engagement rate), plus 697 impressions to our website, indicating that it has been pretty widely read among the audience we have

Although our zine was completely free, we raised $1300 USD and counting in at-will donations using Tiltify as a charity fundraiser platform – without a mod ever having to handle money or personal information

Even with the digital zine freely available, we still had enough interest to proceed with a print run, and sold 133 copies internationally (which we are now working to fulfill)

I cannot overstate how well this model worked for us! After the cut I’ll go into detail about the logistics and the benefits at each step. If you’re curious about this option, or just want to read about our process, read on!

We chose free + digital first for RTTP because of two constraints on the project:

As an anniversary zine, we had a fixed deadline we were targeting for delivery, which would have given us 7 months total from “hey let’s make a zine” to delivery. A print run was out of the question.

We had a team of first-time mods and wanted to minimize scope, stress and risk by taking money out of the equation

Here's how it turned out.

Timeline

Our mods are spreadsheet-loving workaholics, so YMMV, but the 7 month timeline from inception to delivery turned out to be just right. This broke down to:

1 month interest check and initial planning

1 month contributor applications opened and prep finalized

3 months for contributors to work on their pieces

2 months for zine production and promotion

We saved a significant amount of time that would have gone towards printing and shipping, which could have easily doubled the length of the project. We also had to make fewer decisions and do less research and setup up-front because we didn’t need to make decisions related to costing early on. 

Although we were working towards a fixed deadline we didn’t want to move, choosing a digital release generally affords you better control over your timeline by reducing your dependencies on external factors such as shipping delays and changing import laws.

Contributors and Content

Under normal circumstances, printing or selling your zine comes with contributor and content restrictions. 

The number of contributors a zine has will impact the size and weight of the physical book, which will affect its cost to print and ship. Digital zines simply don’t have this problem, and so our contributor limits were instead dictated by the amount of work our mod team felt willing to handle.

The same physical size constraints tend to cause zines to feature more art than writing because it takes less space per piece. Alternative, fewer writers being accepted with a much more restrictive word count. Because we weren’t worried about the size, we were able to accept many writers with a reasonable word-count, and invite essayists as well as fic authors for content variety.

Our zine was SFW, so we don’t have strong experience here, but going free/not-for-profit will also eliminate issues NSFW zines might encounter with trying to comply with storefront policies.

Charity Campaign

We decided later in the project that although the zine would be free, we should try to raise some money for charity while we were at it. We created digital merch that would be gated behind a minimum charity payment as an incentive. It was very painless to set this up without mods having to handle money directly. We used the charity fundraising platform Tiltify to accept payments on our behalf.

Anyone who contributed to the Tiltify campaign above a certain dollar amount received an email with a link to a Google Drive folder containing all the digital goodies. One could easily use this service to deliver a digital charity zine in the same way without having to manage a storefront. It's an excellent option for not-for-profit mods who want to avoid bookkeeping.

Release

Working toward a specific release date for the zine helped with the sense of community and morale on this project. We were very in control of our own delivery timelines and not beholden to external delays, so building the hype train was fun! Everyone involved got to see their work go out into the world at the same time and share in that sense of achievement.

Contributors also had a pretty minimal publishing embargo on their work, and were able to share their pieces approximately 2 months after the completion deadline, as opposed to having to wait for all shipping and fulfillment to complete.

Print Run

We had always entertained the idea of a limited print run, so we kept the project print-safe from the start, enabling us to do a print-run afte the fact. 

After the zine’s release and a much needed several-month break for our mods, we felt we had the confidence, experience and trust we needed, and we set out to pursue that print run. We were unsure at the outset whether or not anyone would be interested in buying a copy of an already freely accessible zine. Turns out, the interest was definitely there!

We had no trouble at all meeting minimum order thresholds and have been able to move into the production phase. We are still in the process of delivering on our print run, so more reflections to come later, but I think having already delivered on our zine made the process less stressful and created less guesswork for us when it came to working out costs. We knew what our product would be like and we had a pretty good idea about the interest of our audience. This allowed us to stay pretty close to at-cost pricing for the zine.

Minimal Stress and Headaches

Our mod team had two mantras. One of them we repeated to each other whenever things felt overwhelming: “Free digital zine.” Just by removing any money from the equation we lowered the stakes – and therefore the stress �� substantially. We were blessedly free of internal problems and drama, but if they had arisen, the “free digital zine” principle also would have helped to protect us, and protect the success of the project.

It also limited the stress on mods to break creating the zine and coordinating the production run into two separate projects. We were able to focus on one thing at a time and make sure that the details were all ironed out to the point that nobody lost any sleep over the project.

In the end, reduced stress + greater accessibility are probably the #1 reasons to pursue free and digital first. If you've made it this far - thanks for reading, and feel free to reach out with any questions. We'd love to see more free digital zines make it out into the world!

[astriiformes]

One thing I really love about Pentiment is that like. For one thing it's very easy to play a very straightforwardly kind, compassionate, sympathetic Andreas who listens to the concerns his friends in Tassing are voicing and tries his hardest to do right by everyone and volunteers to help people a lot. As someone who always worries games are going to force me into making choices I don't want to (or that certain dialogue options will turn out to be harsher than I expected) it's sort of funny that Pentiment, a game that is about forcing you to make difficult choices, at least always let me feel good about Andreas' internal motivations and relationships with others, even when there were sometimes really upsetting consequences in-game.

(And of course, the idea that he's a good person trying his hardest and yet a lot of things go wrong for him and others over the course of the story is one of the things that sends Andreas spiraling, so this is very much something that's woven into the fabric of the game)

But I know on our first playthrough, we chose some of the background options that felt like they specifically lent themselves to that, which lead to playing a very like...polite, bookworm type Andreas. Who I adored as a character obviously, but figured was very specific to our run.

Anyways, I've enjoyed learning that while there are certainly background and dialogue choices that lead to him being brasher/more abrasive and some decisions that cross a bit of a line for me personally (there are a couple suspects I could never accuse, even with solid evidence and I know it's possible to make him a more unsympathetic to the peasants), even some of the more "unsavory" sounding background options really don't lock you into that at all.

I'm specifically thinking about the Rapscallion background because that's what the streaming gang had me choose but I love that the description for it is like "Andreas does CRIME and gets in FIGHTS"

And then in practice a lot of the options it gives you are like

"I'm going to STEAL MONEY from a wealthy abbey to help the NICE PEASANT FAMILY I'm staying with PAY THEIR TAXES!!"

or "I'm going to THREATEN YOU because you are cruelly and unfairly accusing my good friend the SWEET ELDERLY MONK!!"

And when you pair that with certain actions that he takes regardless because they're baked into like the plot or cutscenes, or certain actions he won't take or people he won't agree with because the game never even gives you the option, plus some of the other most popular dialogue choices it's like

Yeah this man does feel a bit like the antithesis of an edgy protagonist

[ruthlesslistener]

all the recent lurien/hegemol shipping is hilarious to me because i have a post somewhere on my hk blog that's like "lurien is the type of guy to resign himself to courtly pining forever (palewatcher) and get horribly embarrassed he actually likes his betrothed" and that's just. lurimol. pk (guy who arranged the marriage) giving an oblivious thumbsup in the bg as lurien realizes he'll never be able to explain the situation his ridiculous pining ass got in (at least he stops pining)

OH NO MY WEAKNESS: ARRANGED MARRIAGES

(Seriously I think they're so underappreciated in fiction. I'm not even like the 'got into arranged marriage and fell in love' thing, I just like the idea of the married couple forming some sort of partnership be it friends with benefits, actual love, tax evasion/political boosts, or 'yeah this is just easier and more secure, date who you want', though I'm especially partial to political fwbs)

Arranged marriage Lurimol is an interesting one though, because I feel like it would be less arranged and more...encouraged? If that makes sense? Given that Lurien is like the third most powerful bug in Hallownest after the King and Queen themselves, and Hegemol is one of the Great Five. I can totally see WL doing the encouraging too, as I headcanon her being an ambiguously defined 'Root' to mean that she represents the mutalistic connections between fungal mycellium and plants, so she has less of an individualistic view and more of a communal one. Lurien's wilting away in his tower? Perhaps he needs a supplement. What is a very effective supplement to the lives of her people? Long-term partnerships. These can be familial or friendly, but since Lurien has no living family and is too socially isolated to easily make friends, a mateship will work. At the very least, it would improve his health during breeding season, provided that he actually interacts enough with the outside world to come into cycle (which is part of the problem-he doesn't). And since Lurien is one of her beloved's favored, he is set to age extremely slowly, and thus has limited options to choose from. What are those options? Well, there's Monomon, who is technically immortal in her own right, but is also very strange and never showed much inclination to form partnerships in the way Lurien would desire- and, of course, she is a woman. There are the Five, but three of them are also women, and also taken themselves. That leaves Hegemol and Ogrim- but both are beetles, and beetles do not like to share. So, Hegemol it is. A talk with her hudband about the benefits vs the potential political costs (of which there are none) would ensue, and then she would bring up the idea to Lurien.

(Let's also assume here that WL is unaware of the fact that the source of Lurien's pining was PK, for if she'd known she would have urged her husband to do something about it. She is actually quite fond of Lurien, after all.)

As for Lurien's side of things, I'm not sure if he'd be too keen on it at first- his loyalty is to Hallownest first and foremost, and he doesn't know Hegemol very well at all, which is an intimidating thought. But I can also see him caving into his queen's request that he at least comes to watch one of the sparring competitions that the Great Knights show in as a means of boosting morale to the public and having a bit of fun, during which he notices that hmm, Hegemol *is* quite a magnificent fighter, and he *does* have a humble charm outside of battle that appeals to him quite well, as well as a handsome and kindly air. Fierce on the battlefield, focused and strong-willed, but gentle at hand- that *is* what he tends to find quite attractive in men. And since Hegemol *is* a knight, there likely won't be political banter that he has to deal with, no secrets or ulterior motives that he has to navigate, so talking to him shouldn't be too hard. Knights tend to be straightforward folk. And he's beloved by and close to the King, so Lurien's...eccentricities likely wouldn't phase him. Not a dangerous gamble. Just an uncertain one, for a person who spent all his life pining and shelving away his desires to focus his attention on other things

As for Hegemol himself...WL wouldn't have told him, as she would have liked to see how him and Lurien got along naturally, but PK would have been very blunt about it, so he'd give it a shot. The Watcher is an engmatic figure, after all, but he knows that he is dedicated to the City and the King and is kind at heart, for he and Ogrim trained the Watcher Knights, and he knows Lurien treats them quite well. What's the risk, especially since he's gone so long since his last true partnership (perhaps even before his knighting)? He could flirt with the spectre of the spire for a bit. And that sort of thinking is how he ends up learning that despite Lurien being a pragmatic political mastermind, he's really quite unsure about how people work behind closed doors, and hasn't had an actual romantic relationship like...ever. Which seems a bit confusing, given that he is a classy bug with an eye for fine art, but then again, Lurien was beloved by the King, and the King was a bit of an odd one. I think he would find Lurien's artificially calm, soft-natured means of speaking contrasted with his hard, unyielding resolve to do best by Hallownest quite appealing, especially given that it comes from a deep love for the City and its people, just like Hegemol. They're both warriors- Lurien just fights with words in unseen corridors behind lush velvet curtains, while Hegemol slogs through the earth with his armour heavy on his carapace and his mace firm in his hands. Different methods, same results. Same heart. They'd be a good match.

(As for PK's thoughts on this...they'd basically boil down to 'is Lurien content? Good. Then I have done my duty.' Dude's love language is acts of service, though he'd never admit to it nor try to linger on what Lurien, Monomon, or the Five meant to him. Too many feelings. Too much uncertainty, and a king should never be uncertain.)