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arimiadev · 3 months

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(you can read this article down below or on my blog!)

How to Sell Visual Novels at Conventions

Or, “how do you table at an anime convention and actually get people to stop by your booth and actually get interested in visual novels????”

Picture this – me, someone who’s never been to California nor flown alone arrived to the Hyatt at the San Francisco Bay, being greeted by several online friends I’d known for years but never met in person. After a great time walking around the surrounding Burlingame area and meeting back up with the rest of our group, we had to actually put in some work for the day.

That is, setting up our booth for the convention starting the next day.

We unpacked box after box, taking turns standing around with our hands on our hips and heads tilted wondering “how the hell are we going to set all of this up?”. I decided to make it my job to set up our keychain display. All I had to do was get a copy of each keychain we had and pin them up – we even had a box from prior conventions that had a single copy of (most) of our keychains, for displaying. But as I opened more boxes, I found more and more keychains…

After threatening to change the password on their Vograce account, I found we had 10+ boxes of merchandise for niche visual novels that we were trying to sell at a vtuber convention. Not an anime convention, not a gaming convention, a vtuber convention! Going to bed that night, already tired, I was sure there was no way we would make a profit…..

…And yet, we made more on Friday than they had for the entire convention in 2023. By Sunday, we had made more than double that, having sold items to over 100 customers with most purchases around $40 each. We weren’t selling fanart, we were selling a majority completely original art.

We lived the dream of a lot of indie developers – we sold physicals of our indie games and people bought them. But how did we do it??

a little context

Some background – OffKai Expo is an annual vtuber-oriented convention in Burlingame, California, a suburb of San Francisco and just 15 minutes away from their airport. If you don’t know what a vtuber is, just go watch my oshi Gavis Bettel. In 2023, Studio Élan had a booth at the convention as it’s somewhat local to some of our members. We decided to have another booth at the convention for 2024 and I offered to work at it (what’s a booth without a marketer?).

The only anime convention I’ve ever been to was the local one in Memphis, namely Anime Blues Con, but those are….lacking, to say the least. Not much to do, very limited artist alley, waning attendance (which was already small to begin with), barely any new artists nor sights year after year… I’ve always wanted to go to a convention outside my area, to say the least.

But how did we manage to make the weekend successful?

conceits

What we did won’t be entirely replicable for most devs reading this, but there will be some insights and takeaways that I’ll highlight that are applicable to anyone wanting to table at conventions and sell their games.

Our table was for Studio Élan x VirPro – it was a joint table between our yuri visual novel studio and our indie vtuber friend streaming group, Virtuality Project. We sold some merch for VirPro, but I’d estimate that was no more than 20% of our sales – we still would have made a profit even if we weren’t selling that merch.

this table held our limited VirPro merch. we were able to hang our Élan prints on the wall behind it thanks to our friends at Studio Nekomata allowing us to tape our prints to the backside of their display. we also had a Miho cutout, but she didn’t want to stand up this weekend…

However, it is important to note that Studio Élan is not a new studio. We’ve been around for years, have 15k followers on Twitter, and have several visual novels released. We’re not extremely well known, as we are within a niche within a niche, but we aren’t unknown either. Some people actually cosplayed our characters at the convention! It’s definitely possible some locals came to OffKai Expo just to see our booth & panel (we also held a panel on Saturday where we announced 2 new games).

Another thing to note is that we have a stock of merch from running an online store and having held Kickstarters before. Specifically, we have physical copies of almost all of our games as well as artbooks, soundtracks, clothing, and more. We had tons of keychains and 11×17 prints, sure, but we also sold a lot of merch that is much harder and more expensive to produce.

So, tl;dr, things we had going for us:

We are established developers with a following & released games

We have a sizeable amount of merch already made for our online store, including physical games & artbooks

We were boothing with our indie vtuber friend group and selling their merch on the side

But our main problem:

We were boothing at a vtuber convention, not an anime or gaming convention

Now, with all of that out of the way….

convention standards

First off, let’s look at some basic things you can expect while tabling at a convention. (for the purposes of being specific to visual novels, when I say “convention” I’m only referring to anime & gaming-adjacent conventions—OffKai falls under this as vtubers are both anime & gaming-adjacent)

At a convention, you will typically be selling in either the artist alley or the dealer’s room, which are both referred to as the vendor’s hall. For small conventions, these two may be the same area. The artist alley is typically for artists selling keychains, prints, and more. The dealers room is for vendors that sell larger merch or have more items to sell – this can include artists but also includes people selling imported items (such as anime figures) and companies.

Conventions have a set amount of hours that the events go on and the vendor’s hall is usually not open the entire time. These rooms will usually open in the morning, around 10AM or so, and allow vendors an extra hour for fixing things before opening every day. For OffKai, we had to stay at our booth for about 8~ hours every day, except for Sunday. Sundays are always the shortest days for 3-day conventions, as the convention will usually wrap up around dinner time (if not earlier).

Vendors get time the night before the convention starts (usually Thursday night, with most conventions I’m referencing being Friday-Sunday events) to set up their booths. It took us around 3 hours to fully set up our booth, with 4 of us working on it. Setting up your booth will go a lot smoother if you do a trial run before the convention.

Every convention I’ve tabled at or known a vendor at provides vendors with at least 1 table and a chair. More chairs are usually easy to get, you just need to ask staff before the vendors hall opens up.

tip 1 – bring a friend

Conventions provide tables and chairs, but they don’t provide helping hands! You’re probably going to need help unpacking and setting up the table, but you’ll definitely need to take breaks during the convention for the bathroom, food, and more. You can’t just ask staff to sit at your table and you can’t just hide everything while you’re gone. Bring a friend to help out!

If you have to go alone, make friends with the people boothing next to you and ask them to watch over your table if need be. Be sure to keep your money and payment processors with you if you ever have to step away. And bring snacks & water!

our merch

Like I said, at Élan we have typical merchandise for our visual novels like keychains and acrylic standees, but we also have physical copies of our games for PC & consoles, artbooks, soundtracks, and more.

We had these types of merch:

Acrylic & wooden items

Keychains

Standees

Pins

Print media

PC discs

Console discs & cartridges (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5)

Artbooks (game artbooks, limited edition anniversary artbooks)

Soundtrack discs

4×6 prints (CGs, key artworks)

11×17 prints (key artworks, exclusive convention artworks)

Clothing & fabric

T-shirts (4 designs, 1 color each)

Hoodie (new collaboration design, for all of our games)

Scarf (new collaboration design, for 1 of our games)

Fabric flags (key visuals)

Misc.

Grab bag (misc small items)

$5 bin (misc small items)

Pencil bag

Mousepad

Enamel pin

Plushie (limited Makeship leftovers)

Some of these were items we’d never sold before such as the hoodie, scarf, and 11×17 prints. Some of them were also much more of a hassle than others.

In terms of storage and cheapness to make, prints and stickers are by far the winners (we didn’t sell stickers at OffKai but plan to in the future). Prints are basically the best thing you can sell for production cost:profit, as a 4×6 print can cost you $0.20 but sell for $5+ and an 11×17 print can cost $0.60 and sell for $15-20.

On the other hand, t-shirts can be some of the most difficult merch to work with. They take up a lot of room (we had at least 2 boxes of just shirts/hoodies) and require you to have multiple different sizes. The plushies were great & easy to sell, but at the same time they cost a lot per unit and take up even more space than shirts.

The physical copies sold great, but the cost to produce & room to store them makes them unwieldy for most developers. I would recommend them over more bespoke merch like clothing, though—several people came to our booth, having never heard of our games, and left with a physical game. CD discs rather than DVD cases are much easier to store and can be handmade, although ours are manufactured.

tip 2 – be selective with what merch you make & bring

Unless you’re lucky enough to have a convention down the street from you, chances are you’re going to have to travel to the convention. That means packing everything up, possibly shipping it, etc…. You need to be picky with what you bring if you don’t have multiple cars to throw it all in.

My merch recommendations:

4×6 prints

Ours were $4-5

Dirt cheap to print, easy to store

Easy for people to buy because of the low price point and ease of carrying

Idea – these are so cheap to print, at the very least print some of your key visual & logo to hand out to people for free

Stickers (die-cut or sticker sheets)

Dirt cheap to print, easy to store

Easy for people to buy because of the low price point and ease of carrying

Idea – some conventions won’t allow you to hand out free stickers. For conventions that don’t, I would sell either singular die-cut stickers or sell them in packs

Keychains

Ours were $12-15

Cheap to print, not very hard to store

At this price point people want to have an attachment to the characters before buying

Idea – if your game is relatively unknown but you still want to print keychains, consider packaging them with something else like the game or a sampler CD of the demo / soundtrack

Physical CD disc games

Ours were $30

Not cheap to print, not very hard to store

People will buy copies of games they’ve never heard of because it’s an interesting item to own and seen as more value than a digital copy (even if physical is more expensive)

Idea – it doesn’t cost much to get a 50 pack of CDs, the cost comes from the packaging and time to make the entire thing. If you don’t have a finished game yet, consider printing your demo out on CDs in paper slips to hand out for free

our booth

Now that I’ve talked about basics for conventions and what merch we sold, what did our booth actually look like?

We didn’t have a pre-convention trial run, so we were essentially winging it. With all of the merch I outlined, could you believe we crammed all of the display copies on 1 table, 2 shelves, and 1 clothing rack?!

Our main focus was making sure each of our physical games were visible. After all, we were at a vtuber convention where most attendees didn’t know us, so we wanted to have a way to show off our games. We spent a lot of real estate on showing individual game copies and having brochures spread out.

tip 3 – have an idea of how you’re going to display things before the convention

We also brought several items to display merch. For keychains & pins, we had a simple corkboard leaning on a photo stand / easel. For acrylic standees, we had a clear nail polish stand. For physical copies, we had photo stands and bookends. For clothes, we had a small clothing rack. For physicals, we had 3 small bookcases. These were all extremely helpful, but they are added costs and more things to carry to the convention.

here’s a better look at our 2 bookshelves. the purple ladder one was at the back of the booth highlighting some items and storing various artbooks & bundles and the smaller one was at the front left of the booth by the VirPro merch, basically in the walking aisle

The corkboard and various photo stands were must-haves, regardless of what you’re selling. A corkboard makes it easy to display anything on it, whether it’s keychains, stickers, mini-prints, announcements, posters, and more. Photo stands were also super helpful for propping our corkboard on but also showing off individual physical copies.

this was me trying to arrange the corkboard and acrylic stands. photo stands and art easels can in handy!

Along with the display stands, we also brought some decorative items like pink table clothes and flowers. These aren’t required, but help make your booth more noticeable.

A few miscellaneous items I plan on bringing to our next convention are a hand sanitizer dispenser, a small air purifier, and fliers. I always keep hand sanitizer on me, but it’s easier to use it when it’s in a convenient bottle and place. Several of us got sick after the convention (despite me wearing a mask), so I’m also bringing a small air purifier to keep some germs away from the table. I also want to bring small fliers for our upcoming games—while brochures are wonderful, I want something that’s easy (and cheap) to hand out to anyone who looks at our booth, not just the people we talk to.

tip 4 – be aware of merch thieves

We arranged our table in a way that we didn’t have to worry much about people stealing merch, though that is a problem at some conventions. As you might’ve noticed from the pictures, our smaller items like the keychains are at the far back of the booth, right beside where we sit. That allowed us to keep a better eye on it.

Rather than sitting behind our tables, we arranged our booth to be where people would walk inside it. This allowed us a way to talk to people easier. We also made sure to hide our card readers, phones, and more when any of us left the table, though this was easy because we almost always had 2-3 people at the booth at any time.

my advice

If I were an indie dev looking to booth at a convention and had the time and spare change, I would if it were close enough to drive to and the booth cost under $500. Unless you’re an established developer or have a popular artist working on your project, it’s hard to justify that cost.

tip 5 – don’t forget to budget for…

booth costs

extra badges (most booths come with 2 free badges)

hotel

travel

food

merchandise manufacturing

any shipping fees (your luggage, merch, etc.)

display items, extra things for your booth

While you may find a booth for $250, you also have to remember the travel fees, cost of food, all of the extra items you’ll need aside from merchandise, and more. A $250 booth for a 3-day convention could easily end up costing you $2,000+, and that’s if you don’t pay yourself or coworkers for their time at the booth!

If you’ve never been to a convention before then definitely go to one as an attendee before becoming a vendor. Get a feel for the place and have some fun, even if it means you won’t be able to booth there for months or a year.

tip 6 – be sure to bring…

Some kind of handout for people with your game & logo on it (fliers, business cards, brochures, etc.)

Small stationary merch for your game (4×6 prints, stickers, etc.)

Corkboard to display things on and something to prop it up

A way to take card payments and cash for change

Hand sanitizer

Pen/pencil and sticky notes

Clamps

Tape

this is the inside of our old brochure! it details our different games and highlights some upcoming titles

I’d also try putting your demo on CDs to hand out to people who seem really interested if you can. CDs are pretty cheap to get now, and even if you just get a 50 pack that can run you around $12, which ends up being $0.25/CD. Not a bad cost for getting a potential fan, if you hand them out only to people who are really interested or package them with other merch and sell them.

Your main effort if you’re not an established developer, however, will be awareness. Talk to the people who stop by your booth. Tell them hi and explain to them what you make. I had several people clearly not understand what visual novels were, but I had many more who became interested once I mentioned we made these games. “Wait, you actually made them?!”

tip 7 – talk to people!!!

People at conventions think art is cool. They think indie games are cool. Be honest with them and show them your hard work. Yeah, this means you have to put on your extrovert cap for the weekend. Just don’t treat it like you’re a car salesman—you’re a game dev first and foremost and enjoy this line of work so much you want to share it with strangers at conventions. Let that shine through in your words.

All in all, conventions are stressful, tiring, and a lot of fun when they’re run well. If any of this sounds interesting to you and you find a convention close enough to you or one that will be relatively cheap to attend, I recommend trying it out.

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OffKai Expo was so, so much fun and I’m so happy I was able to attend. It was a well run convention, our booth did amazing, I got to meet actual fans IRL, and I was able to finally see a lot of my online friends in person. I was scared leading up to it but I’m so glad I pushed myself to go. Having an in-person panel there where the room was almost full absolutely blew me away—I kept asking “do they know what room they’re in? Did they get lost?” If you came to our panel or booth, thank you!!

— Arimia

read more of my articles on tumblr here!

#visual novel #visual novels #my articles #indie game dev #game dev #visual novel game

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pichongames · 8 months

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It's time for a new DEV UPDATE! [February 2024]

Let's talk about the upcoming Nintendo Switch port, localization, plushies, and new content coming soon?

It's time for a new development update, we've been working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes so let's talk about some of it, shall we?

The Bunny Graveyard is coming to Nintendo Switch!

If you didn't know already, The Bunny Graveyard is on its way to Nintendo Switch. But this port will not just be any normal port, the game will receive some enhancements and changes both visually and gameplay-wise. Including motion-controls, HD vibration and more!

But do not worry PC users, even though some gameplay features will be exclusive to Switch, any content updates, improvements and future chapters will be released at the same time on all platforms.

More languages!

The Bunny Graveyard: Chapter 1 is currently being translated to more languages, some of these are:

Brazilian Portuguese

French

Russian

Japanese

Simplified Chinese

Korean

...and more!

Boxers Plushie!

You probably heard of this already, but yes! Boxers got himself his very own plushie, which is still available at the time of this writing, however, this is a limited edition plushie so make sure to grab one before they're gone. As of right now, there's still 8 days left, so think about it! You guys absolutely CRUSHED that funding goal by the way, 450 sold so far!

We're definitely making another one... hehe.

This is also our first piece of merchandise and we're open to do more merch stuff in the future! But for now we'll only be choosing things that don't slow us down during development. So, if you got any requests for merch, let us know and we'll look into it!

NEW free content is coming this year...

We are working on a new secret project for the game, it will be released as a free content update at the same time as the Nintendo Switch release. It's a small thing that we wanted to make for a while now, but never got the chance to do due to time constraints. Think of it as the next "4-1-1992" for now.

We'll be releasing a separate trailer for this soon, so stay tuned!

So... how's Chapter 2?

Finally, let's have a quick talk about Chapter 2.

We are still not ready to fully reveal Chapter 2, buuuut we can tell you a little bit about it. It is the most ambitious project we have ever done, we expect it to be about the same length as Chapter 1, but despite the length, this chapter has proven to be quite a challenge to develop... but you know us, we love ourselves a challenge!

The story has been fully written, the gameplay has been finalized, but there's still quite a lot of programming to go, and don't get me started on all the music and animations left. Oh, did I also mention that this chapter will be releasing at the same time on Nintendo Switch and PC? And that it will also release in multiple languages? And that I'm still working on this game mostly by myself?

Yeah, things are not the same as they were back when I was making Chapter 1, The Bunny Graveyard is no longer just a silly lil' indie game, but that's exactly what makes it fun. I seriously can't wait to show you guys what we've been working on, this chapter is going to blow you away. Expect a trailer sometime this year.

You can add Chapter 2 to your Steam wishlist now!

Final Thoughts!

2024 is looking like an awesome year for this game, I'm hoping that this year we can get more people to know about this game. I'm extremely thankful for all of the support that we've been getting lately, it's crazy that I can now FINALLY focus on this game full-time, something that I've been trying to do for a long time now. I'm still processing the fact that this game is coming to the Switch, but it really is! Truly a dream come true. If you got any questions, ask in the comments and I'll try to answer as many as I can! And as always, thank you all!

#the bunny graveyard #pixel art #devlog #indie games #indiedev #game dev #bunny graveyard

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skyc47su · 2 months

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Topic: Concerns over making skycotl figurine sculpt commissions

Hi everyone! First of all, I'd like to say thank you so much over your comments and reactions to my two skycotl elder sculpts! I've worked hard for them, and I just feel so happy to everyone's comments on my work! Especially to some where I've managed to convince people they were real sky merch hehe (note: they aren't x'D). I think that's the highest honor I've ever received being an artist~

I'd like to address this topic, as I've been receiving a few comments on how they'd love to own one and perhaps commission me for custom skycotl sculpts. I hope it's alright with you guys for a moment of a very long text post ;u; So for starters, I'd like to state the fact that I am not a professional artist. I'm just a hobbyist with a background in veterinary medicine. ;w; zero background on art school. I was pretty much self-taught. So if I ever do create sculpt works for sale, they will be made by a hobbyist artist with no art background other than years of self-taught art stuff.

I'd like to state reasons on why I hesitate to make custom figurine art commissions.

I have never made nor sold physical merch/ sculpts -However I have made and successfully shipped sculpt works to friends! They were however made with oven-baked sculpey, which did not handle shipping well and had to be glued together. However, the elder pieces were made with quality air dry polymer clay. This clay, when dry, has the same feel as nendroid or SHFigurarts figurines. They are amazingly flexible and takes a lot to break. So I'm confident with these figures being able to survive shipping.

I cannot guarantee flawless, clean, uniform quality similar to goodsmile and other well-known figurine makers, or even indie makers -The results may be different every time, there may be unwanted notches here and there, I might see something during painting progress that I didn't spot while sculpting and cannot adjust it once the clay dries, my paint job may be flawed (uneven lines, color mistakes, etc.). These are my main concerns. Again, I am not a professional, although I do improve each time I work on something new. Currently, these two were the second time I've sculpted using air dry polymer clay.

From the images above, you guys may spot imperfections such as: -Tsadi's helmet and head being a little rough -Rough-looking paint details (especially the white "glow") my hands were shaky -Tsadi's gloves not being perfectly straight -Little dry paint "dirt" bits which leaves some little bumps here and there (Notice Tsadi's arm having little bumps) -The underside of Teth's hair was hard to reach and paint perfectly -Teth's hands looking a little odd (the clay air-dries fast and the more I worked, the more it risked their fingers breaking apart) -Teth's skirt should've been more flared-out, but the clay decided it doesn't want to hence the skirt flaps became a little limp -Accidental score marks I must've left from being pricked by something (like a fingernail or a tool next to me) before it dried completely 3. Price -Even if I consider my work shoddy, I'd honestly price Tsadi (Golden Wasteland elder) $200 and Teth (Hidden Forest elder) $150, without shipping fees and etc. I think that sort of price will turn people off, but these are completely hand-made, from sculpting to painting. No any sort of pre-made clay cast used. I did lose a lot of skin on my fingertips because of this project. I'm actually still in the process of growing it back ;; I was constantly checking my work everyday for 30 days, leaving the clay to firm up a bit and coming back to adjust it as it dries, so it did take a lot of time and effort. (I'm not complaining however, I really did have fun with this project!) 4. Material supply -The main concern is the clay. It's brand is "Modena" air dry polymer clay sourced from Japan. I've waited half a year just to buy it from one local art shop, and currently I've only seen 4 packs left in stock. I had to use 1 and a half pack of clay just for GW elder, because he's such a big guy x'D

So ah... Yes, these are my concerns if you guys do really want to commission me. I'd be willing, of course! But I'd like you guys to know first of what you guys may receive if you do so. Thank you all so much for your consideration and taking time to read my post! I hope you guys have a wonderful day QwQ your comments have made me so happy! Oh and I still do digital art commissions though :3

#moof art #skyblr

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yeehawnatalie · 2 years

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Let’s talk about what went wrong with Taylor Swift Presale today. By now, you should all (hopefully) be aware that today, November 15th, was the start of a war declaration for all swifties. I myself was fortunate to get tickets, but thousands upon thousands of other die hard taylor fans were not. There are quite a few things that went wrong, and I hope to make this post cover as many as I am knowledgeable about so that in the case of future panic, concert ticket buyers can navigate the absolute hellscape that is ticketmaster. Fair warning: this post is long and winded, read at your own risk…. Screenshots will be included

Ticketmaster placed all sales on the same day with only a 1 hour buffer

In all their genius and ingenuity, TM decided to place all 52 presales (not including cap 1) on the same day. with a one. hour. buffer. If you’ve been on Twitter, you’ve seen the panic and anger from all pre-sale goers (myself included) East coast encountered many crashes and 504 bad gateway errors, not even including the “code not working” errors that eventually caused all queues to be placed on hold for over 3 hours… People couldn’t even get into waiting rooms due to site overload. Around 1 hour after this, TM told us to join using the code from our texts, but recommended using a laptop or desktop device… make it make sense? It was not any better in Central nation however. Upon joining the queue, I found myself to be behind nearly 5k people while my mom (who had gotten a code too and was trying incase my night was sold out) was behind nearly 22k people. Within 5 minutes of the queue opening, it was paused. There was no communication at all from TM for about an hour to an hour and a half. Twitter was flooded with people panicking that their codes weren’t working and the lines weren’t moving. I sat there for 4 hours until TM posted the following image.

Absolutely ridiculous. There was little to no communication about known issues or why TM couldn’t get their sh*t together in the span of 4 hours. Keep in mind I waited almost 6 hours to get tickets and others waited even longer. Stadiums were completely sold out in some cases with no update in the queue lines.

Boosts were not recognized/supported

Towards the bottom of this section I have attached a screenshot of a twitter thread discussing this. I personally feel this rumor may have some truth to it. I had no boosts, have never bought merch, and was relatively high in the line. However, I have yet to see a loverfest ticket holder who had a high place in line. The theory is that TM placed the boost holders at the end of the queue. Why? The ongoing theory is that it is for profit - TM is notorious for scalping and ripping off buyers, and it does not surprise me in the slightest that they would do this thinking that all the more dedicated swifties would be willing to spend more $$$ than the “locals.” There is a ton of outrage rn due to this. What was the point of the boosts if they didn’t work? Many boosted fans did not get any tickets as pre-sale sold out quickly.

UPDATE 11/16

Apparently this rumor has been confirmed from TM. See the attached picture. Seems that TM is having trouble keeping all their information consistent. Makes me wonder what exactly the boosts and loverfest did bc they defiantly did not help people get presale codes or ahead in the queue….

Dynamic Pricing + VIP packages

This is a concert lovers greatest enemy. We’ve all heard about how Ed Sheeran opted out of this, and we thought Taylor did as well…. until we walked into the gates of hell. It is still unclear if dynamic pricing is confirmed, but the prices across stadiums and pre-sale times is insane. I paid 299+fees for an 8th row lower bowl while one of my friends paid 400 for a 10th row and another only 250 for a floor ticket. There is absolutely no reason this should exist. Not only does this not detour scalpers, it simply makes the concert less accessible to people who ACTUALLY want to go. Not to mention the insane number of VIP packages available. IMO VIP should be something you add on after, not sold as an individual seat. The prices for floor VIP were 800+ for houston, and when I went to check about 2 hours after getting my tickets, they were one of the last things to be sold. These VIP packages had no communication before presale, and limited the number of good seating for people who simply wanted to watch the concert.

Weird error messages

This was a MAJOR problem during the presale that I haven’t seen many people talking about. I’ve attached a picture of my own error below. After finally getting through to purchase tickets, I found two amazing floor seats within my price range and immediately took them only to be met with the error below. I was literally freaking out while my mom kept on trying different tickets to no avail. I finally found someone on Twitter with the same issue who said they cleared cache and cookies and it worked. Luckily, I was able to do this, reenter my code, and get tickets (although not the amazing floor ones I had in my hand previously) TM has still not replied to my questions about the error messages, and it seems that more people are coming out with the same issue I encountered. I know TM was trying to prevent bots, but someone like me who has a verified email, phone, and clearly residential email handle should not have been flagged and given this code (still don’t know why tf I got it?) Some people are speculating these errors were to limit ticket buyers to cover up TM errors in calculating how many presale tickets were available.

Lack of support and ability to contact support

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I was not helped at all by TM support. There is no easily accessible number to call TM support, and even if there were, there is no guarantee they would pick up in time. Frankly, I was absolutely infuriated with how TM handled this. The lack of texts being sent, emails being sent late into the night with no waitlists in sight, no communication on how presale was going to work. Everyone was told completely different things and no one had any idea what was going on. Add this onto cap 1 presale being pushed back to tomorrow, this is going to make a lot of people really mad. I’ve heard of peoples cards not going through, codes declining, constant ticket disappearing, getting kicked to the back of queue, TM just dropping them - it’s a nightmare. Seriously, just look up some trending Taylor Swift tags on tiktok or twitter rn… And frankly, twitters TM support is just not helpful - the below twitter user received two completely different answers when asking about how codes can be used for different nights.

I sent TM support a message nearly 48 hours ago and still have no received a response - curious as to why, but I’m not entirely surprised. Haven’t heard too much about the situation over on seatgeek.

No Reputation Style Boosts

This is another speculation, but many swifties have said TM wouldn’t allow another reputation boost style system due to the low level of scalper activity during this sale. These boosts worked insanely well to get actual fans on the sale (unlike the verified fans) and it is inferenced that bc TM makes a lot of their money from resales and scalpers, they were against using this method for a popular artist like Taylor. This style of boost could have greatly benefited people who weren’t going to resell tickets, but because of cooperate greed TM has not allowed anyone to use it again.

Insane scalper prices

Literally what is says. 50k for a SINGLE floor ticket is just not it. don’t buy the resell tickets, wait it out for people to sell them at a slightly above face value. They knew people want this tour, and they’re taking advantage of that. How did so many tickets disappear and magically show up on stub hub during the queue pause? (hmmm I wonder it’s almost like that’s TM whole business model) This image is from chicago alone…. and look how many tickets are already here.

“Unprecedented” demand

*sigh* TM you were literally the ones who sent out the presale codes…. you cannot call this “unprecedented” when you literally knew the exact number of people who would be trying to get tickets. These overpriced service fees do what exactly? pay developers to pause queues and not send updates ever? People skipped work and school to buy these tickets and because of your oversight, they lost time and money and may have to miss more tomorrow to participate in Cap 1 presale. There is no other option for this volume of tickets being sold. Taylor has no option but to use this trashy, overpriced site to sell tickets to her loyal fans.

Overall, I am incredibly grateful to have even gotten a presale code. This is of no fault to Taylor or Taylor Nation - the blame lyes only on Ticketmaster. These past 48 hours have been brutal, and I know everyone is frustrated and mad at the shit show that happened today. I’m just asking any and all swifties to put your anger on TM not Taylor. She’s going to have a rough time responding to this, and I think we should make it as easy as possible for her. But most importantly, we need to hold TM accountable, there’s a reason monopoly is americas most hated game. Hopefully someone can crack down on this, but at the end of the day the only thing we can do is continue to support Taylor. Please let me know if there’s anything you think I should add to this post or want added. Thank you and I hope everyone recovers from today. <3

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tamberlanecomic · 1 year

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July Newsletter

Hey everyone! Here are some general updates for everything that’s been going on and what you can expect for this month and throughout the summer.

Health Update

As some of you may remember, right after the Kickstarter closed I was knocked out by a one-two punch of a fibro flare and Covid. While I’ve been put through the wringer, I’m FINALLY feeling like I’m crawling back out from under this extended period of sickness.

I’m still dealing with some pain and fatigue due to my fibro flare-up, but it’s more or less back to the “normal” levels of what I’m used to, so overall I’m doing pretty good. I took some extra time to recuperate from Covid in the hopes of avoiding any long Covid effects, and while I am still taking it easy, I take a lot of joy in drawing and being forced to not indulge in any of my creative pursuits have made me all the more eager to get back into the swing of things. So, I’m still being careful, but I’m also easing back into work.

I got so many amazing comments from patrons, readers, and Kickstarter backers all encouraging me to take as long as I needed to get better, and I can’t thank you enough for the kind words and well wishes! It was measurably easier to take some time off to rest knowing I had so many people cheering me on and encouraging me to do so, so thank you so much for taking the time to say something and for sending me words of support. <3 You da best!

Comic Updates

We’re moving right along, with 12 pages currently in the pipeline at various production stages. In fact, I’ve just put three new finished pages into the buffer for $10+ patrons today! Our priority right now is to get a healthy buffer so that I can have ample time and space to catch up on other work without impending deadline pressures.

Patreon Rewards

Next, I plan to knock out a good chunk of Patreon commissions for my $50+ folks. I’ve already been doing that here and there, but I want to make sure that the oldest ones are finished first.

Likewise, due to the chaos of a sudden move and a lot of life changes, Ari didn’t send the May postcards out until today, so I apologize for the delays there – we’re getting back on track! June’s postcards have already been sent.

Speaking of, I’ve included some of the patron reward art I just finished last week!

Kickstarter News

We still need to finish the internal book edits, draw up the Q&As, format the information in the book, and finish formatting annotations. These are all things I had intended to get done both during and after the campaign but I was simply unable to keep up with it due to health reasons. Curse you, chronic illness!

I am also going to explore another option for getting the softcovers printed locally, which is something I will only go with if the quality is up to my standards. But we're less than $5k away from being able to reprint Chapters 1-3 so if we're able to get a cheaper local deal with a good printer, I'm willing to explore the option!

By the way, we are now officially sold out of Chapters 1 and 2 books, but you can help us reprint them by preordering them and other stuff through our Backerkit shop!

Preorder Here

We’ll be streaming edits in the Foxglove discord server, so be sure to keep an eye out on there!

New Pride Merch

For Pride month I launched two new apparel designs as part of our Pride collection! Choose from Agender or Non-Binary Ainsley or Biromantic or Transgender Marie on comfy shirts available in a wide range of colors and sizes.

This collection also features downloadable Tales from Treehollow comics dealing with LGBTQIA+ themes. Come check it out!

Shop Now

Artfight

I’ve never done Artfight before, but I’m gonna try this year! It’ll be fun to have little warmup drawings I can squeeze in here and there between larger projects.

If you’ve never heard of Artfight, it’s an annual art trading game where you “attack” by drawing other people’s characters. It seems really fun! If you’re participating and want to add me, here’s my profile:

https://artfight.net/~Cvilbrandt

Thanks all for reading! May this month be ever better!

#newsletter #art #comics #webcomic #cute #animals #adorable #furry art #furry community #digital art #indie comic #TamberlaneComic

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whoisthis234 · 28 days

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guide to jjk events when visiting japan!

a hopefully helpful post for when you are vacationing at japan and want to experience anything jjk-related!

all jjk events and pop-ups can be found on collabo cafe, here

For events like the jjk exhibition (the next one is from 4/19/2025 to 6/8/2025 in osaka i think), reserve your ticket as soon as possible as the days and time slots usually sell out quick! The exhibition uses the website “eplus,” which makes it hard for foreigners to reserve a ticket because you need a japanese name and address. Those might be easier to bypass as you can use a translation of your name and your hotel address, but the hardest part is needing a japanese phone number to verify your account via sms.

If you need a japanese phone number, I suggest calling the inquiry number on jujutsuten.com, the exhibition website. The help line might only take japanese inquiries, so if your call doesn’t work or you cannot call via an international number, try asking your hotel to make that call for you!

For pop-ups (i.e. collaborations with malls like loft), there usually isn’t a reservation required and it is first-come-first-served. However, the later you go to a pop-up from its start date, the more likely it is that specific goods are sold out. For example, sanrio x jjk merch was out of stock when compared to other goods in the last week of a pop-up. The location and time-span of a pop-up can be found on collabo! The benefit to going to a pop-up is getting limited edition goods, and if you spend a certain amount, there are freebies with your order.

For the weekly shonen jump (relevant for jjk until the end of september), weekly copies are typically sold in any konbini — 7-11, Lawson, or FamilyMart — starting Mondays at 5am local time. Leaks happen around the Thursday before at 12pm local time (i’m not even sure where leakers get their early copy 😭) and the new chapter is mass-released on Monday. WSJ is a thick book with several chapters from several mangas! it costs around 300 yen ($2.10 usd) for a copy. The WSJ also contains new exciting news, such as how jjk is ending soon. If you want to have a keepsake for the last few chapters before official volumes are released, the WSJ is a cheap option. Copies from the week before or older might not be sold in konbinis, so going to a bookstore like “animate” might help you get an archived copy.

Best places to shop for jjk merch, based on personal opinion. Your best choice is to go to Akihabara in Tokyo, which is basically anime-central.

Akihabara Radiokaikan- huge multiple-story building with floors for figurines, collectibles, and goods. I suggest K-Books on the 4th (?) floor for limited edition merch, as they re-sell goods from events like the jjk exhibition and jujufest. Just as a note, the characters do carry different price tags 😭. Gojo costs almost 3 times the amount of any other character.

Animate (any location in any city)- multiple-story building that sells mangas and goods. Lots of jjk blind-box merch. Animate separates its store by anime, so there should be a jjk section specifically. Manga is cheap and accessible; each volume costs around 480 yen and can be found in local bookstores as well. For reference, a translated copy of jjk costs around $10 usd and the raw japanese copy is $3.36 usd. Downside: if you can’t read japanese, the book is still pretty to just look at!

Other notable stores- Suruga-ya and amiami in akihabara. Figurines are cheaper in Japan!

Save your 100 yen coins for gacha machines!

All your jjk merch can be tax-free in certain stores, if you spend above 5000 yen! Tax-free will deduct that extra 10% from your price and make it cheaper! Only thing is, you’ll have to wait until after you leave Japan to open and use the goods. Bring your passport to stores 🫡

Hope this helps if you plan on going to Japan, and feel free to ask any questions! ❤️

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk exhibition #japan

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kremlin · 2 years

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i listened to a great lecture from a penn IP law professor that made a point about the state of heavily (oppressively heavy!) restricted content industries and the state of another industry bereft of those restrictions

the former being the music industry, owned by universal music group, and the film/television/video industry, owned by universal. these are the companies that own these industries, and that is not a metaphore, those two companies own the majority of their respective industries by almost any economic metric you wish to use

do i need to tell you that modern music and modern films, modern television, is for the most part, not compelling? i almost used the word "bad" there, but that doesn't describe what i mean -- there are some great TV series, maybe 1 or 2 good movies, and some jams that come out from time to time, but it is good in the way that eating candy as a meal would be. it would taste great. it would be 3 or 4 orders of magnitude more expensive than eating normal food. it would rot your (teeth, brain) in short order. you put it in your mouth, chew it, and swallow it, but it wasn't created and sold with intentions that things you chew and swallow usually are

they are made to have broad appeal. they are not made to make statements or explore ideas of significance nor are they ever capable of exploring the pathways that will elevate human culture to a higher level. drake does not rap about anything you don't completely already understand. the beat goes off -- hell yes, it does -- it has too -- but you (or i) like drake by nature of it being familiar and containing no unexpected or potentially anxiety-inducing unknowns, and can be trusted to always be that way. the marvel super hero comic movies are all the same movie, that no adult has any business seriously enjoying

movies, music, television -- these are at the top of the hostility food chain when it comes to content protectionism, by nature of the copyright law, the copyright law, now irrespective of any one sovereign nation as the copyright law stands as one of the (if not) only instance of a globally ratified law.

it is ironic -- they sold us DRM, "don't copy that floppy!", telling us that without it, all the musicians would starve, but now in the DRM future, artists no longer receive residuals, no longer receive portions of ticket sales (except for maybe the top 20 at any time), and receive checks from spotify worth less than the cost of postage they were sent via. they only have the merch stands left.

this is the core perpetuated mistruth -- that the industry benefits from these protections. they do not. the artists earn less, and the content they must create to change this does not have value or meaning.

----------------- let's compare these with another different industry. the fashion industry. the garments and clothing industry.

clothes are useful articles. those words are in bold because they denote a specific term of art that means "your anticompetitive lawsuits to destroy your competitors more cheaply and easily than outperforming them will not work" -- that is to say, some things, like clothes, are not subject to copyright protection because they a necessary utilitarian "thing" that makes no sense to copyright. you didn't "invent" nor "own" the "concept" of a "shirt" (???)

what is the fashion industry like? it's a huge number of competitive entities that routinely, and expeditiously advance the state of fashion in meaningful and compelling ways. styles change almost yearly, and what comes next is never expected, can never be planned or forced, and is normally innovative

-----------------

these alleged protections do not achieve the goals printed on the box they sold them to you in. they do the opposite, but their reasoning sounded so compelling that you (or we) bought it. it is a phenomenon akin to an efficiency problem getting stuck in a local minima -- it is trying to cheat the un-cheat-able, and achieve higher behavior without accomplishing any of the prerequisites necessary to do so

this happens as the reasoning for these advertised-as-necessary protections is easy to be fooled by unless you are paying very close attention, and they perpetrators realize this and thrive on it. for example -- someone may read this post, and attribute the above issues to a seemingly related, but completely unrelated, system. like, the economy -- they will say this is the fault of capitalism, most likely, which is exactly the kind of dialogue the copyright proponents would hope for, since they no longer need to personally put the effort into the ruse -- people will lose the critical details in the expansion of the discussion away from copyright protection, and into the vast & hopelessly unnavigable realm of macroeconomics (or worse, politics, as would most likely happen in my country, the united states). the critical details being, of course, that the consolidation and protections initially in question are inarguably anti-competitive which is something a free market explicitly must not contain.

but this is just some example -- god, you see, i am already doing it myself -- these huge and attention-deflecting topics muddy the waters, and muddy waters makes it easy to catch fish, if you get what im saying. go down that route, and you will go from "wow, i am upset at this clearly dysfunctional system that very substantially subtracts from humanity's dignity, a conclusion which i arrived at by nature of direct observation and thought and without anyone telling or convincing me of anything" -- to you arguing with tucker carlson about trans people going to the bathroom or some shit. that's by design!

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theminecraftbee · 2 years

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Like. I’m thinking again. That can be dangerous. But. We’ve talked about merch. We’ve talked about movies of the au. I’m just. Thinking. Of cosplays. Of team scar and Grian and people just… maybe making their own spirits to either cope that they were possessed or because they think it’s cool and wanna look dubiously elderitch. Cosplays of varying qualities too. Like store brand cosplays. Like. Like cosplays you’d order from Amazon. Then flippin homemade cosplays from people who know how to sew. And casual cosplays as well. Also props. Imagine prop making. Also. I’m soft for the idea of little kids in wheelchairs cosplaying Scar’s magickal persona. Or really any folks who are physically impaired. Who do you think would have the most cosplays of themself? Also, on the social media, the Twitter I think it was, do they ever like, like, fan art or fan works or cosplays? Or deep dive analysises? I have another thought but it’s a bit more to the side so I’ll send that in a separate ask. Also I’m hoping to high heavens that tumblr isn’t eating my asks cause I got really excited when talking about the possibilities of spirits the other day and I’m just. A ball of anxiety.

i think scar saw a cosplay of him in magical girl form one time on a like twelve-year-old girl and almost burst into tears, is what i think happens.

i think scar probably has the most cosplays by virtue of being A) the most visible magical girl who is B) not a supervillain - like, grian probably gets people dressing up as him, but it's like, you know there are people who are "fans" of criminals in real life, but they get weird looks, right? and over time blackbird fans get... somewhat less weird looks as she gets less blatantly a supervillain and starts to appear to be helping more often. BIG social media fights on what "villain" even means. and then with the other two - cub mostly sticks to the background except when he does big dramatic chaotic things (and also has not nearly as much of a costume as scar for a while he'd be less fun) and bdubs... bdubs gets a pretty dedicated set of fans too i think but less than just scar.

i think we've made the jokes about fanfiction already (bdubs has it saved on his phone to blackmail scar with as needed lol) but also yeah, that definitely exists. fanart also definitely exists and i think after bdubs joins the team he shows scar and cub how to properly find fanart that isn't being sold as merch when he gets their in-persona social media in order.

as for analysis... i think the local newspaper eventually has to ban op-eds on the local magical girls for like two weeks because they got NOTHING BUT OP-EDS ABOUT THE LOCAL MAGICAL GIRLS and they're like. okay. we need to publish op-eds about other social issues guys. there are probably SO MANY video essays and thinkpieces about "are they good" and "what could they be doing better" and you know, all the stuff i said got talked about, haha. as i said, basically the only taboo here is people who try to do analysis to dig up their real identities, mostly because that gets you cancelled off the internet. which is good for scar, right up until he outright reveals his own identity to the world.

i think a good thing to keep in mind is that they’re basically like... a cross between celebrities and political figures and also sort of fantastical action stars, all at once. they’ve got some weird stuff going on with public relations you know

#answered #magical girl scar

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heidiblack · 2 years

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Convention Artist Alley Review: Crunchyroll Expo

Convention: Crunchyroll Expo

Location: San Jose, CA

Date: August 5-7

Table cost: $323.75

Table size: 8’

Application: Juried

Fandom/audience: Anime

Items for sale: 11x17" posters (fanart and original), coloring book, zines (fanart and original), comics, pins (original), resin coasters and jewelry (including primogems), leather keychains (by my sister)

Mask policy: Required in all areas

Previously attended? Yes, in 2017.

Pros: Visiting friends in California, back in the bay area! Large, well-known property (crunchyroll) that spares little expense and makes an outright huge show, convention artist alley staff were very friendly and checked in with us regularly, smoothly run.

Cons: California so everything is expensive, tables were crammed together, audience seemed to be guys more interested in ahoge/hentai/waifu bs, allows proxy selling (including the person next to me who was selling stuff by someone else already in the alley) and no policing of work (they say they encourage original art, but someone near me had essentially traced logos on shirts they were selling), requires event insurance (only event I’ve ever done that does)

Most popular item(s): Posters (59); Zines and pins (23 each), primogems (22)

Least popular item(s): Commissions (2)

Upon entering the venue we were accosted by many helpful staff directing us exactly where we needed to go (hooray!). Vaccine card checks and masks were mandatory. As soon as we checked in the artist alley liaisons introduced themselves to us and let us know they were happy to help with anything we may need.

My friend and I set up on the thursday before the show, giving us time to go have fun in San Jose afterwards (oh how I missed California, even if it did catch fire while I was there).

I have done crunchyroll expo before on its first year (2017?) when it was in the Santa Clara convention center. I find that California shows tend to not be impressed with my work (they largely like the work of people like sakimi-chan and other digital artists). Unfortunately, the attendees were more impressed by the proxy seller to my one side and the seller on my other side who sold ahoge face masks and traced shirts.

The tables were 8’ each, which was nice, but they were also smooshed directly up to each other, making each row very packed. With many artists creating booths that wall off their sides it made each table feel very claustrophobic, and assaulted attendees with just a constant sensory stream. By the time they reached my table in the second to last row I could see their eyes glazed over - your work had to be incredibly different to entice them.

Additionally, the “guests” were these hololive AI v-tubers, which I had no merch of, and seem to attract the “stereotypical otaku guy,” who is not my audience in any way.

Crunchyroll also requires all artists to have their own event insurance (with coverage up to $2m) - they are the only show that requires this, which just adds an extra cost to an already expensive show.

I did make a commissioner cry (from happiness) when I handed her the commission I drew for her, which is always extra special.

Gross sales: ~$2000

Recommend/will attend again? It is such a big name show, but I can’t justify flying out for so little return. Had I still been local to San Jose it would have been much more affordable.

Other 2022 convention reviews:

Otakon

Gem City

Dokidokon

Anime Midwest

Anime Ohio

Huntington Toy & Comic Con

Momocon

SPACE

Causeacon

Indiana Comic Con

Ohayocon

Anime Zap (featuring 2021 review links)

These reviews take a lot of time and effort, but I think they are something the artist alley community needs! If you would like to support me so I can keep doing these, please consider donating or buying from my shops!

Help support Heidi Black by donating or sharing with your friends.

Storenvy

Etsy

#crunchyroll #crunchyroll expo #crx #artist alley #anime convention #convention #anime #artist alley review #convention review #con review #anime con

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figurecollection · 2 years

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Hi! I was wondering if you knew anything about the figures that come from CultureFly. They’re made in China but are they legitimate? I’ve run into a Nezuko one in my local Target but couldn’t seem to find any information.

CultureFly are legitimate; they're a New York based merch company that make all of their figures in-house and have access quite a few big Pop Culture licences like Disney, DC, Marvel, and Nintendo. I've checked their site and they are the ones who have produced the Animal Crossing Collectors Box that I've seen a few times on Instagram. They make all of their figures from vinyl, combined with them modelling their own figures.

But as you mentioned, I can't find much on their Nezuko figure. I did a basic search and found a couple available on ebay.

As I mentioned earlier, Culturefly only make vinyl figures, so the vinyl part checks out. She also has a bit of a bonked face, which is characteristic of some of their figures.

lol. Looking closely, her box has quite a few copyright credits, which I assume having them on there was part of the licencing deal, and their twitter claims everything is officially licenced, something you do not lie about when your base of operations address is 1 click away, lmao

She's not part of a collectors box, since all their box items come in one package with one barcode and she has her own separate code, and you mentioned you saw her at Target. I had a quick look and it looks like Culturefly actually do some Target exclusive merch that isn't available on Culturefly's main site. So I think it's a Target/retail exclusive item, possibly being in store only (not sure how Target works I've never been to the US lol) and wasn't listed on their site. This is backed up by the fact I can't find ANY stock photos of it, only photos people have taken to resell, and every listing is American, meaning she wasn't sold internationally.

So to answer your question: It seems she is legit, possibly a physical retail exclusive of some kind, and not exactly rare, since there's a fair few ebay listings for reasonable prices, just... Cryptic. I messaged Culturefly to see if I can get any more info on her, so I will let you know if they get back to me.

#these are my favvvv kind of asks please ask me to find stuff #thank you so much anon i hope this is helpful #replies #asks

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dimeeasy · 3 years

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10 Legit Ways to Build Passive Income Online

Whether you are a student looking to make some extra cash, a working professional wanting to build a side hustle, or a corporate escapee and whosoever who is starting to build an online business need to have some cash inflow for the further smooth flow of your business.

There are many sites out there saying make money like $100 a day with surveys, with google sites, etc. Of course, they may make you money for a certain period of time but are not long-term and passive.

You always need to look out for ways to make money that are passive. You need to earn money every month and double it. Here are my top creative ideas to make money online. These real methods have worked in past and will work now and then too.

Freelancing

You would have heard a lot of this from others. But yes, this is the first best way to earn some cash before starting out your business. It will help to get some extra money into your pocket as well as fund a little for your software if you are starting out. You can start freelancing with no investment upfront. It's FREE. You can make money online freelancing.

Don’t worry if you think you don’t have any skills. You can learn small skills by taking a free trial in skillshare. There are tons of gigs people are looking for to get their work done and with the right process, you can make money as a freelancer.

By the year 2027, freelancers are projected to make up the majority of the workforce in the United States, with 50.9% of the working population. In fact, at the current growth rate, it’s estimated that 67.6 million Americans will be freelancing by the end of 2021. That’s 42% of the American workforce! (Website planet).

What are you waiting for? Search in-demand gigs on google keywords and search trends. And yes, patience is the key. You need to wait a few weeks while you get your first gig. Start promoting your services on social media and find your spot.

Starting a Blog

As of 2021, there are more than 570 million blogs on the internet, based on activities reported by WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, and Medium (and this number is constantly growing) (firstsiteguide).

Now do not get overwhelmed, the one thing is though blogs are growing rapidly, and so are people reading blogs. Of course, blogs are saturated, but when you niche down and find your audience then you can achieve your space in this sea of bloggers.

Starting a blog, yesterday, today, tomorrow, is possible as long as you are using proper rules, like optimizing your SEO, giving unique content to your readers, and more. But, the best day to start blogging for your profit is today and now.

Let us look at some stats on why you should start your blog today

61% of online shoppers in the US say they made a purchase after getting a recommendation from a blog post

Companies that blog actively have 126% better lead growth

80% of bloggers say that they see positive business results from their blogging efforts

Blogs affect customers’ buying decisions as 47% of them go through 3 to 5 blog posts before the buying process (Firstsiteguide)

Give me a better reason why you should not start a blog after these mind-blowing facts.

You can start a niche blog, review blog, cooking blog, gaming blog, parenting blog, and more. Just write what you know or keep an eye on your competitors and outperform them. And blogging is the best for your long-term passive income.

Starting a YouTube channel

Now as we’ve known how YouTube has evolved to be like a video search engine, the platform has grown considerably and is been growing millions of YouTubers.

Again, let’s talk about some statistics about YouTube. YouTube has 2.3 billion users worldwide.

79 percent of Internet users have their own YouTube account.

YouTube viewers watch over a billion hours of video on the platform every day and generate billions of views. (YouTube, 2021)

YouTube is localized in more than 100 countries and is available in 80 languages. (YouTube, 2021)

Every day people watch one billion hours of video on YouTube (source-Oberlo)

Now, the real question is how to make money out of YouTube? Well, there is enough space for you to sink in. Are you a coach, fitness enthusiastic, a person with good communication, or even just an individual with no skills at all? You can make videos, monetize your YouTube account, and earn from AdSense and affiliate marketing.

Umm! Some people may say that YouTube is not for me. I don’t know how to make and produce videos. I don’t have any skills. Well, I have a solution for that. You can make money from YouTube absolutely by not showing your face at all.

Here are some of the niches you can make videos y not showing your face.

If u do not want to record videos, you can head up to free stock videos or images and give a voice-over and start making content.

If you feel shy to start, you will never get ahead. So, the one thing I want to tell to everyone who is shy to make videos and for my younger self, stop doubting yourself. Just do it, don’t care about criticism, success will follow you

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when a person earns a commission for referring a product to others. For eg: You register yourself as an affiliate to promote certain products, when the person you promote the product click on your unique affiliate link and purchases through your link you earn a commission. A commission can range for each and every product.

And the affiliate marketing model is the best, safe model for beginners. You can drive traffic for free and for paid as well. You can be an affiliate marketer if you need a passive income, you don’t need to have any other customer support, you can work from home at your own comfort.

Now, how to register as an affiliate. First, think of what do you like the most. What products do you love using? Type the name in google and see whether there is an affiliate program or just see other affiliate programs in your niche. Choose the one you love so that you don’t feel tired and exhausted in the long run.

There are many other sites where you can choose your products from. You can take products from Click bank, Digistore24, Share a Sale, Jvzoo, and similar other platforms.

Here are the best affiliate platforms for you to choose from

How do you want to promote is the next question?

Well, you can create landing pages in click funnels, kartra, or builderall and promote them through ads. If you are on your budget, you could start a blog and promote it. You can write blogs for free on medium.com. It is a cost-effective way to sell your products. You can create a YouTube channel, talk about how you love using those products, and promote them, you could even use Pinterest to promote your blogs and landing pages.

We all know that Pinterest is a visual search engine and no doubt you can get quite a good sale from affiliate marketing in Pinterest

Once you get your first sale and testimonials you can start your Instagram page and build trust with others to promote the products and scale your business.

Instagram Influencer

Do you love making TikTok videos, always want to be active on social media? Then here is your chance to start earning being an Instagram influencer.

You can start by creating content about the topic you want to talk about the most. If creating a YouTube channel feels a bit challenging, grow your audience and monetize them through Instagram. Feel free to talk about what you feel.

Collect your follower's email IDs. Once you become consistent with the audience and platform, the content you are generating makes a digital course or something you think to monetize your people. Giveaway a lot of freebies, checklists, and many other things to lead your audience to the product you are offering. Build trust with them and try to use all of Instagram's available channels. Use carousals, reels, IGTV, go live to show behind the scenes of your work, and more!.

Staying consistent is the key to grow your audience on Instagram.

Starting a T-Shirt Business

Whether you’re an artist, writer, designer, or entrepreneur, physical products can be the perfect canvas for monetizing your creativity. Yes, you heard that right. You can start your own merch for free. Starting an online T-shirt business is booming in this era an why don’t you be one of them. You do not need to hold any inventory, just design your t-shirt online and publish it.

Let me make it clear. So what is print on demand? How to start your free t-shirt business

Print on demand is a process where you work with a supplier to customize white-label products (like baseball hats or tote bags) with your own designs to sell them on a per-order basis under your own brand.

That means you don’t pay for the product until after you’ve actually sold it, so there’s no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory yourself.

Plus, with print-on-demand services, everything after the sale, from printing to shipping, is handled by your supplier. Once you’ve set everything up, it takes only a few clicks to fulfill an order once you’ve made a sale.

You can use print-on-demand services to:

Test a business idea or new product line for an existing business without the risks that come with buying inventory.

Monetize an audience you’ve built. Printing on demand is a great option if you’re a YouTuber, cartoonist, or social media influencer who wants to spend your time creating content instead of fulfilling orders.

Create original products for a niche of customers. For example, apparel for people who are passionate about gaming.

Easily print one-off items—t-shirts, books, shoes, bags, wall art, phone cases, clocks, laptop skins, mugs, and so much more. You can send these as gifts or keep them for yourself and your team (source-Shopify)

You can get started with print on demand for almost free with teespring, redbubble, printful . Or you can start your online store on Shopify and sell them as a custom branding.

Do not worry if you are not a pro in graphic designing. You can design your t-shirt on canva and paste the design on your t-shirt too. This is a legitimate and easy business for beginners online. You can promote your merch by using SEO, keywords, and various social platforms.

Let's take a look at the print on demand statistics:

This statistic depicts the market value of the custom t-shirt printing market worldwide from 2016 to 2025. In 2016, the global custom t-shirt printing market was valued at 1.16 billion U.S. dollars, and was forecast to reach a value of 3.1 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.

This is insane amount the industry is making from print-on-demand only.

COVID-19 impact Fabric face mask accounted for 11.14% of all goods sold through Printify in September 2020. (Printify)

A 2020 survey revealed that about 96% of millennials and Gen Z have concerns about how the ongoing pandemic will impact the economy. (BigCommerce)

With more people staying at home and focusing on home improvement projects, the Home & Living category is on the rise, with the first 6 months of 2020 seeing a 243.77% growth. Both canvas gallery wraps (2.19%) and premium vertical posters (1.35%) are in TOP15 products sold by Printify merchants. (Printify)

According to Merkle’s report in 2020, roughly 79% of consumers plan to be more conservative with how much they will spend shopping online during the pandemic. (Merkle)

In the first 6 months of 2020, Printify monthly active users have grown by 69%, with registrations up 39%. (Printify)

62% of sellers in the United Kingdom changed their marketing plan because of the pandemic. Moreover, only 14 percent of businesses have decided to stick with their original marketing strategy for 2020. (Statista) ( All sources- Printify) Read more at: https://printify.com/ecommerce-statistics/ And these are just stats alone. Don’t wait now. Start your print-on-demand business right away.

Online Tutoring

Again, online tutoring is gaining massive demand in this digital age. During the pandemic the online tutoring business was a boom and it will be more in the coming years. Just teach people what you know. There are many people in this world who want to learn and are ready to pay for it.

Whether you know to speak English, or drawing, graphic designing, marketing, business, or anything that matters, turn your own skill into a business

You can tutor in paid platforms like cambly, Oakary, iTutor, or just start teaching in YouTube and create tour own course and sell it. You can create courses and teach in udemy too. People all over the world are searching to learn skills and may be you can teach them what you know and monetize your skills.

Amazon KDP [ Selling E-books and low content books ]

As I told you print on demand is a big thing and so does amazon KDP is too. What is KDP? Amazon KDP is nothing but kindle direct publishing. KDP allows you to self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free. Amazon gives you direct access to your book on Amazon and allows you to create a product detail page for your book. It also gives you the option to expand your book’s availability on a global scale, making it more accessible for readers around the world. Publishing with KDP gives you full rights to your book, which is not something a traditional publishing house typically allows.

What types of content can I publish through KDP?

KDP allows you to publish eBooks (Kindle) and paperback books. However, KDP does not allow the creation of magazines, periodicals, or spiral-bound books.

Content types typically published using KDP include but are not limited to the following:

Novels

Book Series

Children’s Books

Comics

Cookbooks

Journals

Poetry

Textbooks (source: amazon.com)

Selling Photography

Are you a photographer? Are you making enough money? If no then this will help you , if yes you are gonna make an extra dime.

You can sell your beautiful photos on Getty Images, Pexels, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and many more sites and earn money whenever your image is downloaded. If it is a subscription-based site then your earnings will be more. You can post your beautiful images on Instagram and become famous. Ultimately you can collaborate with various brands for their product photography.

If your camera is lying there near you, take it and start clicking pictures and sell your photos online.

Selling on Etsy

Etsy is an online market place that works as an intermediary between customers and artists, crafters of handmade items or collectors of vintage products. The company engages in customer to customer (C2C) or peer to peer (P2P) e-commerce in which both the seller and the buyer are private individuals or micro-businesses. This is in contrast to other forms of internet commerce such as B2C or B2B (source: Statista).

Let's head to our facts about how profitable it is to sell on Etsy

Etsy had over 2.5 million sellers at the end of 2019, and we can only expect that this number has increased.

Etsy sellers live all over the world, in 234 countries

62% of Etsy sellers are based in the US.

California is home to the most Etsy sellers with 14% of US-based Etsy shops. (credits: veeqo)

Etsy is a huge commerce platform, with an especially strong US presence. Plus, the fact that most sellers are multi-channel retailers—and also selling their products on marketplaces like Amazon and Shopify sites—suggests that the platform isn’t just for amateur makers. It’s for eCommerce businesses.

So if you’re already selling handmade or vintage products on another platform, it’s worth it to expand and start selling on Etsy.

If you’re starting a business, it’s important to run the numbers before setting up shop—or at least quitting your day job. Etsy does have associated costs, though it’s worth noting that the listing and transaction fees are lower than other platforms, like Amazon and eBay. (cre: veeqo)

So, if you can start your print on demand you can sell it on Etsy too. If you are good at handicrafts Etsy is the best place to promote.

Conclusion

So here are the top 10 ways where in you can make legitimate money online. You can try all these methods one by one. Well, everyone will look for quick methods to make money online, but those won’t suffice for long run.

If you should build a strong business online you need to stay consistent no matter what. Staying consistent will help audience grow along with you on your journey to make money online. For beginners starting out these methods will help you in starting out to make a dime or two.

One thing I need to make particular is you will not see results instantly. You need to try and try, keep on trying. Whether it is 2 weeks, 1 month or 3 months, you should not stop. Keep up that grind and let’s start the digital lifestyle. Start by making money online fore free with these methods and start investing in ads and make the business run for you in long run.

#passive income #makemoney #make money online #remote jobs #jobsearch #building a business #freelance #social media #education #money tips #earnmoneyonline #make money blogging #make money on instagram #make money now

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anistarrose · 4 years

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Summary: Winters running the Mystery Shack are difficult, but two unexpected guests improve Stan’s day.

Characters: Stan Pines, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Ford Pines

Relationships: Mabel Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines

Happy Holidays, @halogalopaghost! I'm your Secret Santa, here to mash together a couple different prompts through the power of time travel (and Mabel)!

***

It doesn’t take Stan many years to learn that winter’s no good for the rural Oregon tourist business.

Granted, he can hardly blame the tourists — he has to drive on Gravity Falls roads himself, much to his disgust. Between the paved, plowed streets that always turn slick with ice where you least expect them, and the winding gravel roads that you might as well ignore when road and wilderness alike are under identical four-inch blankets of snow, he knows no gallery of fake haunted paintings or taxidermied coyote’s ass is worth the trip in these conditions.

He’s on his third winter in town, now — not counting the first, worst one he arrived at the tail end of — and if there’s a right way to run a business this time of year, he hasn’t found it yet. He always scrapes together just enough to pay his bills, thanks the occasional local who wanders over to purchase a seasonally appropriate if overpriced snow globe — but he’s lucky if he breaks even in December, and knows January through March are a lost cause before they begin. He’ll make it back within the next year, sometimes even before summer ends, but it stings to know he’s about to fail at his one goal for the next three to four months straight, and there’s nothing he can do to change it.

It might sting less if he had another way to spend these winters — if he had a good reason to formally close the Shack for a few months, like an experienced business owner making a grounded and responsible decision. But he can’t even search for Ford’s journals in this weather — he’s learned from his mistakes, his countless brushes with frostbite, throughout those cold, desperate months in the wake of the portal shutting down.

He’s useless right now, and worse, this season’s shaping up to be the bleakest yet. His usually-scammable neighbors have already lined their shelves with winter knicknacks from Mystery Shack visits past, and the bulk of Stan’s meager sales have come from shivering out-of-towners who’ve never tried to take a Pacific Northwest road trip in December before, and probably won’t be keen to try again.

What seasonal merchandise hasn’t he sold yet? Bumper stickers for miscellaneous holidays, maybe — but neither timely bumper stickers nor the usual selection of tchotchkes will convince people to visit the Shack in the first place, under these road conditions. He can’t even walk around selling merch door to door, for the same reason he can’t look for the other journals — he’d freeze to death, presuming he could make it through the snowdrifts to somewhere worth visiting in the first place. Even with snow chains on the Stanmobile’s tires and a bucket of salt in her trunk, grocery runs alone are perilous enough.

Damn it, Ford, he thinks, why couldn’t you have gone missing in Florida?

He could always do what he does best and lie, maybe — send out word that there’s free hot chocolate or something with every purchase at the Mystery Shack, and hope that people hand over their hard-earned cash before they pick up on the false advertising. He might draw in some local customers that way, and even if he loses their trust for the next few months, they always seem to forget about his cons eventually — as if he never scammed them, and they’ve never so much as heard the words caveat emptor.

He’s just about to dial the local paper’s number on the phone, hoping to flatter Toby into letting him run another ad for free, when he hears a telltale knock at the gift shop door. The bell atop that door doesn’t ring, which means that despite the hostile winds and snow they braved to get here, his visitors are still out loitering on the porch — or so Stan thinks for a moment, before it dawns on him that he doesn’t even remember unlocking the door this morning. He’d just been that pessimistic about even seeing a customer.

“Hello?” someone calls — a fairly young voice, probably approaching the tail end of puberty. “Are you there, uh…Mr. Mystery?”

“On my way!” Stan shouts, throwing on his fez and bolting for the door. His neighbors in Gravity Falls might forget and forgive a lot, but he doesn’t want to risk the wrath of a parent whose teenage kid froze to death on the local grifter’s doorstep, so he unlocks and flings open the door as fast as he can. “Welcome, travelers! Prepare to be baffled and bemused by our mind-boggling boreal mysteries, here at this last refuge at the edge of the Arctic we like to call the Cryptid Cabin!”

His visitor — no, his two visitors — both blink slowly, proving to at least be baffled, if nothing else. Both are bundled up in what Stan assumes to be several sheep worth of wool garments, lovingly knitted into sweaters, hats, and scarves.

“But you call this place the Mystery Shack,” the girl speaks up, and the boy nods.

“Yeah, and we’re nowhere near the Arctic! This is Oregon, not Alaska!”

Stan groans — the only customers he might see all week, and of course they’re teenagers. “Look, punks, business is slow these days! I’ve had a lot of time to think about a seasonal rebranding, and not a lot of chances to workshop it, alright?”

The teens’ expressions instantly soften, and the girl exclaims: “Well, you can workshop it with us!” She grabs the other kid — her brother? — by the hand, and pulls him into the gift shop.

Maybe Stan’s judged them too quickly — he’s still not thrilled to have strangers pitying him, of course, but he’ll take it over strangers mocking him any day of the week.

“Dang, you’re right,” the boy comments once inside, and face-to-face with shelves of untouched merchandise. “It really is empty in here in the winter.”

With little light coming in from the windows, and a flickering bulb overhead that will soon need replacing, the often-bustling room is now dim and eerie — aside from the junk food wrappers on the floor, which Stan hastily kicks under his desk.

“Look at all the lonely snowglobes in need of homes!” the girl pipes up, swiping a glass-encased antelabbit off the shelf and giving it a hearty shake. “Good thing I’m here to adopt this lucky little guy — how much is he?”

Stan takes a second to run the numbers — the maximum amount of money a teen would have on hand, versus what Stan needs to charge to make a profit — and replies: “Twenty-nine ninety-nine and nothing more. We don’t do sales tax here, ‘less you’re a cop.”

“Bet there’s a lot of other taxes you don’t do, either,” the boy snorts, rummaging through a shelf of hats until he unearths one with the old Murder Hut logo on it. “Aha! Now here’s a collector’s item!”

“Oh, did you come here before the rebrand and forget to grab a souvenir?” Stan asks. He doesn’t remember these two, but it’s been a couple years since he painted over the last Murder Hut sign — and they do seem pretty familiar with the building, not to mention Stan’s whole… business model.

“Oh, uh, that’s a funny story, actually! Real funny!” the boy stammers with a whole lot more trepidation than the topic should’ve warranted, and looks to his sister for help.

Sure enough, she steps in. “We lived here for a while — in Gravity Falls, I mean! Not here in the Shack, obviously — wouldn’t that be ridiculous, if we lived in your house for months without you knowing? Could you imagine —”

“That is to say, we still visit sometimes!” the boy supplies. His eyes are a whole lot more fixated on the snowglobes than with anything in Stan’s general direction. “You probably don’t remember us — we weren’t in town for very long, or anything…”

Stan sighs. They’re lying, obviously — but hey, there’s no cops in the Mystery Shack, and he doesn’t have a dog in whatever fight compelled the duo to spew this bullshit. He’ll keep an eye on the cash register, of course, but these kids are tolerable company when they’re not being suspicious as hell — so if they want to invent a bad cover story for a low-stakes tourist trap visit, more power to them.

“Well, the hat’s vintage, so that’ll be double price. Twenty bucks,” he announces matter-of-factly, and the boy groans — but there’s a smile behind it, like he’d expected this and now he’s just playing along. If there’s one thing Stan’s willing to believe, it’s that these kids have been to the Mystery Shack before.

“You’re a highway robber, old man, and I’m the coward who’s gonna let you get away with it,” the boy declares, and Stan can’t help but laugh. The kid reaches under several layers of sweaters to pull out a wallet, with a blue pine tree embroidered on, and miscellaneous charms of fantasy characters hanging off a chain on the side. Stan doesn’t recognize any of them, but they still tug at his heartstrings, because he can tell they’re the exact kind of nerdy references Ford would love.

He does take note of the pine tree design, though — it’s generic enough that slapping it on some shirts and hats wouldn’t quite be plagiarism, and in Stan’s eyes, those are always the best souvenir designs.

The kids put their money forward, hovering awkwardly as Stan rings up their items — the girl busies herself attacking a loose string on her brother’s scarf, nimble fingers tying it back in its approximate place, while the boy twiddles his thumbs and stares at the snowy, gray scene out the window. At the moment, only light flurries fill the air, but tomorrow night promises a blizzard… and Stan, grump with a soft side that he is, can’t help but hope that if these kids are really on vacation, then they aren’t planning to drive anywhere tonight.

With it being winter, and him running the business that he does, he doesn’t have much charity to give — but, if he’s going to play along with his customers’ little lie, then he should probably at least bring up the topic.

“You’re not hittin’ the road any time soon, are you?” He makes eye contact only with the green illustrated presidents in his hands, so not to come across as overly invested. “Weather forecast says tonight’s gonna be a doozy.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us?” the girl coos, because apparently both parties here are damn good at picking up on each other’s lies. “That’s so sweet — but you don’t have to be! Our great uncle’s waiting for us in town, and he’ll… well, let’s just say he’s planning to bring us back home before the blizzard hits.”

“He’s, uh — he lived here back in the seventies, so he knows what he’s doing,” the boy adds. “On the roads, that is. Mostly.”

“Well, you two take care,” Stan tells them, hastily adding on: “So you can come back when the weather isn’t terrible and buy more keychains, that is.”

“Oh, we will.” The boy grins, sharing a conspiratorial glance with his sister. “Maybe don’t count on it being next year — or the year after that, even — but you can count on it.”

“Well, uh…” Stan stops himself, resisting the impulse to divulge things he really shouldn’t. “You just shouldn’t count on me running this place forever. Be sure to get your novelty cryptid pins while they’re hot, y’know.”

He’s never really wondered what he’ll do with the Shack when he gets Ford back — and yes, he has to believe that statement deserves a when, not an if — but he figures the Shack’s fate will depend more on Ford’s own whims. If reality lands somewhere between the nightmares of Ford wanting him gone and the fantasies of finally sailing around the world, if Ford doesn’t hate him but still wants to spend more time with Important Science Experiments than with his brother, then Stan could see himself returning to a mediocre life in his moderately successful tourist trap… but with the search for the journals still coming up empty, Stan can only try not to think about the future, and accept that he’ll just cross — or burn — that bridge when he comes to it.

“Okay, Mr. Mystery,” the girl suddenly declares with a tone that frankly reminds Stan of his mother, “you look like you could use a pick-me-up!”

“What?” It’s starting to freak Stan out how well she can read him, and there’s no telling whether it’s just a sharp intuition, or something significantly more Gravity Falls-y. “If I look tired, kid, it’s because it’s December in Oregon, I haven’t seen the sun in a week, and I am tired. Only pick-me-up I need is for you to get out of my hair, and let me go back into hibernation like nature intended.”

“Okay, but counterpoint: you hear us out,” the boy insists. “We’ve got a little something up our sleeve to really light up your winter —” He winks at his sister. “Don’t we?”

“You bet we do!” She pulls a bag of marshmallows out of not her sleeve, but her backpack, and grins. “Prepare to be amazed and astounded by the natural wonders of this town, and also the miracle that is processed sugar and gelatin!”

“Are you imitating my sales pitches?” Stan asks, dumbfounded. “And do you carry those on you at all times?”

“In winter in Gravity Falls, I do!” the girl replies, already heading for the exit with her brother. “C’mon! If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will!”

“We all know you’ve got time to spare, Stan,” the boy adds, cracking open the door. “Get a move on!”

“Spare time doesn’t mean I’ve got spare limbs to lose to frostbite,” Stan grumbles, but follows them anyway. There’s something captivating about these little punks — not so much this mysterious phenomenon they’re trying to sell him on, as if they could really out-charlatan Mr. Mystery himself, but rather the way they’re not put off by his frigid facade. They see right through him, showering him in alternating kindness and acerbic wit.

Stan can’t help but wonder if their uncle’s kind of like him — tired, bitter, and pretending to be indifferent, but secretly soft on the inside, like a marshmallow that’s burnt on the surface but melted within. It would explain why they’re so good at calling him on his shit — but then again, Stan and this mystery guy can’t be too alike, because if Stan had a niece and nephew like these two, he’s sure he’d be living his life a whole lot differently.

He exits the Shack, and all his questions are immediately replaced with new ones when he sees the teens just hurling marshmallows towards the edge of the woods. The wind’s in their favor, so some of those sugary little fuckers fly far.

“Okay, so I’ve already got a couple concerns,” Stan tells them, shivering. “First off, what the hell?”

“It might take a couple minutes before one shows up,” the girl admits, as if it’s a totally reasonable stand-alone explanation for whatever the hell’s going on here. With about a third of the marshmallows now blending into the snow on Stan’s lawn, she and her brother stop with the throwing, though they still hold onto the bag. “Our grunkle theorized that they move slower in winter, to save energy — oh wait, never mind! Here comes one now!”

“Sorry, what? And where?” Stan squints out into the woods, terrified to lay his eyes upon a woodland monster these kids just lured to his doorstep — but all he sees, at first, are a few wisps of smoke dispersing in the wind above the trees. He’s not even convinced it’s smoke, really, because these aren’t the right conditions for a fire — but to his surprise, he glimpses an orange light within the woods, glowing steadily brighter until the trees and bushes around it are all casting faint shadows.

When it steps into the clearing, Stan realizes he has seen something like it before, albeit only from the overcautious distance he tries to keep from all anomalies. It’s an otherwise normal campfire perched on wooden, spiderlike legs, and it melts a path in the snow as it trots forwards, then lowers itself to the ground to absorb the first of a dozen marshmallows.

It lets out a satisfied little sound — a low, steady crackle that sounds almost like a purr — then scampers up to the next morsel of food to repeat the process.

“It’s called a Scampfire!” the girl explains, beaming. “There’s a bunch of them out in the woods, and they’ll always wander over if you leave out enough campfire food — especially sugary stuff! Isn’t that cute?”

“Our great uncle figured out this amazing trick when he used to live here, and he passed it down to us!” the boy adds, practically bouncing up and down in place. “If you leave them a trail of food, they’ll follow you around until you run out — which means they can clear your driveway, warm your hands, even save your car if you drive into a snowbank! Or help you make s’mores, of course.”

“Our grunkle says he even skipped paying his heating bill a couple winters,” the girl adds with a grin, “but I dunno if we can recommend that in good conscience.”

As the scampfire draws a closer, continuing to purr as it consumes more of the sugary trail, the boy slaps a handful of marshmallows into Stan’s palm. “Give it a try!”

Stan’s not thrilled about bringing a fire onto the wooden porch attached to his wooden house, even as cute as said fire is, so instead he tosses his ammunition at something much more disposable — the golf cart, since if this one croaks, he can always just steal another from the insufferable rich family up on the hill. His aim isn’t great — he blames his cold fingers — but exactly one marshmallow lands right in the cart’s driver seat.

The scampfire breaks course from its path towards the Shack, clearing a path through the snow before it crawls into the cart, absorbing the final morsel and curling up atop crossed legs. Nothing explodes, and in fact, a few of the icicles on the awning start to melt, dripping water into the patch of bare muddy ground surrounding the cart.

“Huh,” Stan mutters. Dozens of harebrained schemes flash before his eyes — if he could find a slingshot, or even better, some kind of cannon to mount on the cart’s front hood, then he’s sure that with practice, he could entice some scampfires to clear a path through any snowdrift…

But no matter his exact solution, it’s a way to get into town consistently. He can finally go door-to-door selling knickknacks, instead of sitting in the gift shop every day and hoping some poor soul would get bored enough to brave the roads and visit. He can actually work out a way to line his pockets even in the winter, instead of constantly waking up from nightmares about getting foreclosed on —

“See? They get food, and we don’t freeze — classic mutualistic symbiotic relationship!” the boy declares, and his sister gently socks him in the arm.

“Nerd!”

“Hey, you knew that too! We’re in the same biology class!”

It’s familiar, but the kind of familiarity that Stan doesn’t treasure anymore. It’s more like the kind that he hides in the basement or in boarded-up rooms whenever he can, and grins and bears with a heavy heart when he can’t, like every time he looks in the mirror or hears someone call him Stanford. He comes so close to asking these teens if they’re twins, because he figures the answer can’t be worse than wondering — but the question dies in his throat, and he tells himself it’s for the best.

“Is your uncle who invented this trick the same one who’s waiting in town for you?” he asks instead.

“Yep!” replies the girl. “He probably won’t get worried about us for like, ten or fifteen more minutes, though — I’m sure he’s got his nose buried deep in a book right now.”

“Do me a favor and let him know he’s a lifesaver,” Stan says. “Also tell him I’m glad he moved out, because he sounds a little too smart to fall for the fake monster wares that I peddle.”

The kids exchange a look that Stan can’t even hope to comprehend, though he’s damn sure it’s worth a thousand words to the two of them. Twins or not, he’s getting an “inseparable” kind of vibe from these two, that’s for sure.

“I’m not sure he’d like the Shack at first,” the brother muses, “but I’ve got a hunch it would grow on him.”

“He does like cryptids — sometimes even fake ones!” the sister chimes in. “Oh, shoot — we still need to grab a souvenir for him! I knew we were forgetting something!”

“Huh.” Stan throws a few more marshmallows in the direction of the woods, and the scampfire stumbles off the cart before trotting along on its merry way back to the forest. “I can get you something, no problem — I don’t call this place a gift shop for nothing, y’know. But for the love of Paul Bunyan, let’s talk about it inside.”

He’s not great at mental math, but he doesn’t have to be to know he owes a lot to these teens and the mysterious uncle he might never meet. Hell, even forgetting the business perspective — he can actually look for the journals in winter without risking frostbite, if he gets one of his fiery neighbors to tag along. Even if he finds nothing, even if he only winds up with more failures to contend with, he’d rather rule out locations than be useless to Ford for months at a time.

None of this weird family that he might never see again, these three benevolent strangers that he can only put two faces to, could possibly know how much they’ve just changed for him — and he can’t tell them, as much as his oversized heart promises he can trust these snarky kids who remind him so much of himself. But he does owe them, so when he reenters the gift shop, he goes straight for a seldom-opened and never-advertised box of knickknacks that he has no intention of charging them for. It’s got the dimensions of only about two side-by-side shoeboxes, so he lifts it onto the counter with hardly a grunt, and opens it up.

“Got lots of goodies in here — mostly stuff that I made or, ahem, acquired in bulk, so they never quite sold out by the time everyone and their mother in town had already bought their own. Take a gander.”

He knows that gander will reveal some Murder Hut-branded shirts with the words written on in marker, plastic six-sided dice with a different cryptids pictured on each side, cheap whistles purported to attract Bigfoot, cheap flashlights once advertised for attracting Mothman, exactly three cool rocks that Stan found in the woods… and the pièce de résistance, a little wooden Mystery Shack-shaped music box, which chirps out a pleasant tune when Stan flips up the roof. That last one’s a rare knickknack that Stan really put effort into personally crafting, back at the height of last winter’s monotony, through cannibalizing parts of premade music boxes and sticking them into brand-new shapes — but he couldn’t sell them for enough to be worth the cost of making more, and could never sell this last one at all.

“Oh, wow!” the girl gasps, clearly delighted. “How can I even choose between —”

“No, take it all. It’s on the house — but don’t you dare tell anyone about this, you hear me? I’ll know if you blab, ‘cause people will start asking me if they can get free crap, too, and I don’t wanna hear a word of that nonsense.”

“Free stuff at the Mystery Shack?” The boy narrows his eyes. “Are you feeling okay, old man?”

“Kid, stuff only goes in the Free Bullshit Box when I can’t sell it anyway.” Stan crosses his arms with a huff, even though he’s technically telling the truth. “The only catch is take it before I change my mind.”

A sudden spark of recognition in the brother’s eyes morphs into a grin on his face, and he nods. “Oh, we will. Don’t worry.”

“I think our grunkle will love this! Especially the dice,” the sister adds. “Hey, maybe we could give all this to him piece by piece for Hanukkah! There’s enough here for a new surprise every night!”

“Whoa, there is! Man, the look on his face the first time we bring out a Bigfoot whistle is gonna be great —” The boys eyes dart to the watch on his wrist, and he coughs into his hand. “But we should probably get a move on, huh? Don’t want to get caught in, y’know, the blizzard tonight.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Stan returns the lid and hands the box over. “You, uh, need a ride back to town? ‘Cause being a man of mystery and all, I know this neat trick to clear a whole road with just a bag full of marshmallows —”

The kids both start cackling, so hard that the box almost escapes the girl’s hands, and Stan laughs with them — not because he thought his joke was that funny, but because the kids’ laughter is absolutely priceless. The isolation’s definitely getting to his head and his heart, but he’ll take whatever reprieve he can get.

“I think we’ll manage on our own,” the boy finally wheezes out, “but thanks for the offer, Mr. Mystery. Thanks for everything, really.”

“See you later!” his sister adds as they leave. “Don’t let the feral gnomes bite!”

“You take care, too,” Stan replies, not nearly as loud — but he figures that the kids can read his lips. They can read so much about him, and know so much about the town, that he’s honestly a hair’s breadth away from assuming they’re two more anomalies from the woods themselves, just in more recognizable shapes than most…

Though if Stan’s honestly considering that theory, then more of Ford must’ve rubbed off on him than he likes to think about — which is to say, it’s a good a reason as any to stop thinking about it. What or whoever they were, the duo were actually pretty tolerable for teenagers, and Stan’s pretty sure they didn’t put a curse or whatever magic mumbo jumbo on him — because if they could manage that, they could definitely tell some less conspicuous lies, right?

He kinda likes the idea of one goddamn supernatural force in this town that’s actually benevolent, actually watching his back when his mood’s at its bleakest, and coming to his rescue with — no, he’s dropping that train of thought. No baseless hoping, just letting himself down easy before he gets up.

It does occur to him, several minutes after the gift shop door swings closed, that Hanukkah has already come and gone this year. Which probably just means the kids are prepared to hide that box for another twelve months… but maybe, when Stan finds the other journals, he’ll double-check for entries on helpful teenage cryptids who can’t lie. Just to be sure.

***

Mabel, Dipper, and Ford barrel into the living room so suddenly that Stan almost drops his mug of hot chocolate. They’re all covered in a ridiculous amount of snow, considering how briefly they were just outside, and Ford looks awfully delighted for someone whose glasses are someone whose glasses have just turned opaque with fog.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel shouts. The cardboard box in her arms has seen better days, but she’s cradling it like an infant. “You’ll never guess when we just were!”

Dipper points a gloved finger in the air. “You mean, when we just — oh wait, did you already —”

“Yeah, I beat you to it this time!” Mabel pumps her fist. “Anyways, Grunkle Stan — you’ll never guess who we just visited!”

#gravity falls #stanley pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #stanford pines #gravity falls secret santa 2020 #rosalia writes fic

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ledamemangociana · 3 years

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BIG BNHA STAGE PLAY NEWS

okay hi 👋 if you've been enjoying my BNHA Ultra Stage gifsets and you want to know where you can watch the show, this post is for you.

There's going to be an online event called JAPAN 2.5D STAGE PLAY WORLD 2021 happening althroughout August, with the intent of "Bringing Japan's 2.5D stage performances to the world." It's the first time they're doing it and they're rolling out the gate with their big guns.

The event will showcase three of the most popular 2.5D stage plays from the last handful of years - LIVE SPECTACLE: NARUTO from 2016, Boku No Hero Academia: The Ultra Stage from 2019, and Sailormoon: The Musical Nogizaki46 version from. 2019. each show will be available for streaming WITH OFFICIAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES for about a week each, starting with Naruto in the first week of August.

Each viewing is only 15USD and WILL NOT REQUIRE A VPN. you just need to choose which country/timezone and date you want to watch, and if you miss the live broadcast on your schedule, the VOD will be available within 24 hours of your chosen timeslot.

This is a pretty big opportunity coz 2.5D shows have been slowly gaining popularity outside of Japan, but also because in Japan, the 2.5D industry isnt entirely lucrative despite its popularity with local anime fans. It's been said that the cast and staff dont get paid during rehearsals, and really only start getting anything from ticket and merch sales, so sometimes some actors and crew members would do more than one show at once or back-to-back, which is tough considering these shows tour major cities across the country for an average of 30 performances. And then of course the pandemic caused ALL active shows in March 2020 to shut down, as expected, and because times were hard, some shows began performing again by August or September last year, despite the pandemic continuing to rage on in most of big cities in Japan where 2.5D shows tour, meaning cast and crew were all basically risking their lives to make money and entertain fans - in fact, some shows had to either recast, reschedule or cancel when anyone in their cast or staff caught the virus (i know Haikyuu had to recast for their October 2020 show coz two people caught COVID, and the 2nd BNHA stage play, which only got to play 4 performances before the lockdowns, got pushed back even further into 2021 because at least two people in the staff caught COVID). 2.5D shows dont usually stream outside the country, and DVDs/blu rays and merch are only sold in Japan, so international fans have had to pay more than an extra pretty penny or two to support the shows and to help spread the word internationally. The fact that 2.5D shows like BNHA, Naruto, HAIKYUU, etc. started being available to stream online in Japan is a big enough deal on its own, and the reason some of them became available to stream internationally during the pandemic is kind of a sign of how the industry needed a boost, financially and otherwise. So this paid event is a FANTASTIC opportunity to support the industry and the people who work in it while also spreading the word to more fans, in the hopes that 2.5D shows will become as much of a tenet in international anime fandom as it is in Japan's anime fandom. If this does well, it might mean that future shows will become more accessible to international fans as well.

So if you're a fan of BNHA or any of these other anime, PLEASE spread the word and support this event! I've obviously seen the BNHA musical (my sister bought a DVD in 2019) and it is a LOT of fun, i can promise that much. i know the Naruto musical was also BIG BIG HYPE when it came out in 2016, and i think the Sailormoon musical already had a beloved legacy and history on stage before the 2019 version came out. It's gonna be really good if this got a LOT of international support, so please tell your friends and fellow anime fans 😁

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #naruto #sailormoon #herosute #hirosute #PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch these u gaize 🥺#im out here begging for money for myself AND for these shows coz these shows deserve to be supported #AND BY THST I DONT MEAN IM ASKING FOR MONEY SO I CAN WATCH IT LOL

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lucaalbertoadventures · 3 years

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Wahh, I can't believe it has been 5 months since I created this account! I haven't realized how long it's been since I began posting these photos of the fish boys going to Disneyland!

Thank you so much to everyone for all the support you have given up to now! Whether it was leaving a like, reblogging/retweeting posts, or following this account, I really appreciate it all. 🙏

It's probably long overdue, but I would like to share the story of how I started this Luca/Disneyland photo blog. Though, please be warned: it is VERY long! I tend to ramble a bit too much, ahaha...

Watching Luca

Well, I think I should start off with the first time I watched Luca back in June 2021, haha. I actually didn't know much about the movie beforehand, so I only knew of a few details (like its portrayal of the Italian Riviera and the joys of summertime). Come to think of it, I don't think I ever saw the trailers! But I enjoyed a lot of Pixar's previous movies, so I assumed I would enjoy Luca just as much.

However, I was not expecting the movie to completely capture my heart! It had such a beautiful story filled with wonder and warmth. I was captivated by Luca's daydream sequences and the feeling of freedom yearned by both Luca and Alberto. To me, it felt really intimate and special.

One other big reason why I loved the movie so much was Luca, Alberto, and their friendship! It was very heartwarming to see these boys become so close in the movie. I still get emotional whenever I think about how they were willing to set aside their own dream to make the other's dream come true... 🥲

And yes, I adore Luca and Alberto both as best friends and as budding romantic partners! The love between them is so profound, and it's plain to see that they care deeply for one another. It just makes my heart flutter! 💗

First Steps into Luca Fandom

The impact Luca had on me was undeniable. I couldn't stop thinking about the movie (especially with that ending! *sob*), so naturally I started hunting for more Luca content!

It was surreal seeing so many amazing Luca fan art and fan works on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. There were even storyboards and behind-the-scenes tidbits shared by the crew who worked on the movie! I was devouring all that content up!

In addition to browsing for fan art, I also looked for official merch. Whenever I get into a movie/anime/video game/etc., I go searching for official goods to add to my collection--particularly plushes and figures! I was eager to find all sorts of Luca merch that would be available to purchase.

... Sadly, there weren't a lot of Luca-related stuff for sale. I checked the shopDisney site and my local Disney Stores (back when they were still open), but there were barely any merch. And the plushes and figurines that were previously released were all sold out! ☹️

I didn't give up, though. I checked shopDisney multiple times every day to see if they restocked. Then one fateful day towards the end of July, the plushes and figurine playsets were finally available! I remember going through checkout blazingly fast, since I was afraid they would be out of stock again!

The Mattel Luca Figures

During this time, I also saw that Target opened online preorders for Mattel's Luca toy line: a scooter set with Luca and Alberto in human form, and a Target-exclusive set featuring the boys in their sea monster form.

When I first saw the promo pics, I was pretty impressed with their range of joint articulation and how accurate they were to their film counterparts. I've seen plenty of other figures that don't quite match the character, and with limited articulation to boot. The Luca sets also had pretty neat accessories, so it was an obvious choice to place my preorders for them!

The figure sets had an estimated delivery date of August 4-9, so I patiently waited for the release day to come...!

... Unfortunately, some slightly disappointing news came instead. Target sent out an email with an update stating that the release date would be moved to next week. A week delay was not that bad, especially during a pandemic, so I waited once again.

Exactly 7 days later, Target sent another email with the new release date set for the following week. I was getting slightly nervous with this second delay, but I continued to wait.

Another 7 days, and another email from Target with a new release date for the next week. I haven't experienced this kind of delay before, so I was getting a bit worried! I wasn't sure if Target would end up canceling my preorders, so I started looking for alternative places to purchase the figures.

I saw that Amazon was selling figures of sea monster Luca and Alberto separately. These figures had an extra feature to them: their head paddles and tail fins could change color in hot and cold temperatures!

I placed my order for them, and they arrived promptly about a week later. I was very excited to finally hold these figures with my own two hands, lol.

Upon opening the box, I was surprised by the size of the figures--they were bigger than expected! Their sea monster bodies had a subtle glittery sheen to them when put under the light, which is pretty cool. The range of articulation was also better than expected (Ball joint for the neck! Swivel movement in the elbows and knees! Rotation in the waist and tail! etc...) And finally, Luca and Alberto's little fishy faces looked very cute! 🥰

Meanwhile, my Target preorders were still being delayed... *weep*

Disneyland and the Magic Key

I've been writing a lot about Luca so far, and I haven't even gotten around to Disneyland yet! Aha...

To tell the truth, I actually wasn't that into Disneyland before. I appreciated the attractions and stuff, but I wasn't a diehard fan or anything. My sister, on the other hand, is pretty into Disneyland and theme parks in general. She was the one who convinced me to go to Disneyland for the first time in years. She wanted us to go see the new Star Wars land called Galaxy's Edge, and since there was a discount deal on multi-day tickets for Southern California residents, she argued that it was the perfect time to go, lol.

After giving in to my sister's demands (I jest, hehe), we went to Disneyland in early 2020. We had a blast going on the rides and remembering all the things from when we were kids. The new Galaxy's Edge was massive and had such incredible detail to it. I gained much more appreciation of Disneyland and the technology, innovation, and imagination that went into the park.

And then on mid March 2020, California issued a state-wide shut down in response to the terrible pandemic...

~~~

Disneyland reopened its doors on April 30, 2021 after over a year of closure. It was initially only open to California residents, with online reservations required before entering the parks.

My sister was eager to go back to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, but I, again, had to be persuaded a bit. We were already fully vaccinated, but I was still a little weary. Being on top of Disneyland news and such, my sister reassured me that the parks were operating on limited capacity, so it wouldn't be crowded like in the pre-pandemic days. The cast members were also working hard to keep park goers socially distanced and wearing their masks.

We ended up going back to the parks a few times around May and June 2021, and like my sister said, the crowds were unusually sparse. It was admittedly pretty nice walking around the parks so freely without bumping into people.

A few months later on August 2021, Disney announced the Magic Key pass for Disneyland and DCA, the newest iteration of the annual pass program.

My sister (who still couldn't get enough of Disneyland, lol) wanted to get Magic Key passes. I, once again, had to be persuaded. I liked Disneyland, but I wasn't sure if I could keep going there for a whole year. It was also a bit pricey, especially for the highest tier (Dream Key) at $1400 USD!

My sister, being an expert on good deals, noted that the Dream Key tier was the best bang for the buck: no blockout dates, the highest discounts on food/merch, and free parking.

I mulled over it for a while. There were still places in Disneyland and DCA that we haven't fully explored yet. In addition, there would be upcoming seasonal events we haven't yet experienced, like Halloween and Lunar New Year. This would also be the chance for us to try all the different food and drinks at the parks.

And so... after careful consideration, I got myself the Magic Key pass at the Dream Key tier! 🗝

A Realization

Remember the Target preorders that were delayed? Well, Target finally shipped the Mattel Luca sets, and they arrived in mid September 2021! Yay!

Both sets were quite awesome! The sea monster set had nice quality accessories--I especially liked the gramophone and Luca's shepherd's crook. And the diving helmet was a hilarious touch!

The other set had an impressive mix-and-match scooter with working wheels. But, to me, the real prizes were Luca and Alberto in their human forms! I couldn't get enough of their cuteness. Alberto has that confident grin, and Luca has that innocent smile. Their articulation is pretty similar to their sea monster versions, although human Luca's head had slightly less range of motion.

With that (plus the beautiful Stargazers set with Luca and Giulia I bought later in the year), my Luca toy collection was done! 🥳 I was glad and relieved to finally have the plushes and figures after they were out of stock/delayed.

Well, actually... There was another set of Luca plushes that I wanted for my collection, but the aftermarket prices + shipping costs were too high. The plushes were the Sega prizes available only in crane games located in Japan!

I first saw pictures of them back in July 2021 when I was browsing Enrico Casarosa's (director of Luca) Twitter account. He retweeted photos of these adorable chibi Luca and Alberto plushes that I hadn't seen before! The photos belonged to @Bonn102 and @sunny_day_o, who cosplayed with their plushes at Tokyo DisneySea.

I thought it was super neat that they brought their Luca plushes on their trip! It reminded me of the collectors who bring their anime figures or dolls outdoors to take stunning photographs of them.

I wanted to try something fun like that with my own figures/dolls in the past, but I never had the courage to actually do it. Just thinking about how embarrassed I'd get if someone were to stare at me with strange or disapproving looks on their faces... 😖

Sometime later when I was browsing the #PixarLuca tag on Twitter, I saw @klein__inin__ posting very cute photos of their own Luca and Alberto plushes at Tokyo Disneyland. I imagined the fun they must have had going around and taking pictures with their plushes... and then I had a realization. Is it all right if I too could take photos and have that sort of fun? I have a Magic Key pass, am fortunate enough to live near Disneyland, and have my Luca plushes... Can I really step out of my shell and do it...?

I decided that, yes, I will take this opportunity and do it!

Silenzio, Bruno!! 🙌

Bringing the Fish Boys to Disneyland!

Now that I have decided to bring Luca and Alberto with me to Disneyland, I was getting pretty excited for my next visit!

Though, I decided not to take my plushes. I am a big germophobe and didn't want to get them dirty, aha... So instead, I chose to bring my Mattel Luca and Alberto figures! They won't get dirty as much and are easy to hold and put away in a bag. Plus, they can do all sorts of dynamic poses!

In mid September 2021, I went with my sister and brought the fish boys for the first time to Disneyland. Here is one of the very first photos while we were in line for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance!

From that point on, I brought Luca and Alberto with me on every trip to Disneyland and DCA! With the Magic Key pass, it was great visiting the parks as many times as I like and photographing all sorts of different places. I had a lot of fun imagining what sort of shenanigans the fish boys would get up to in the parks, hehe. And to my surprise, I even got a few compliments from park guests passing by! 😳

After a few trips and amassing a number of photos, I thought about making a blog account. However... I am very much a lurker who stays out of the spotlight, with little experience in being a, uh, "content creator" (sounds weird saying that about myself!). It was intimidating, but I wanted to share at least a small bit of the joy I had while taking these pictures of the boys!

When deciding on the name for the blog, I imagined Luca and Alberto finally getting their Vespa, fulfilling their dream of traveling the world together, and having many adventures! And it turns out one of their destinations is Disneyland, lol. Although it's not the most creative name, this was how I came up with Luca⭐Alberto🐟Adventures🛵!

Though sometimes it feels like this account should be named LucaAlbertoDates instead! ❤

~~~

... And I guess that is all I have for now! I apologize for writing this massive wall of ramblings, but thank you very much for sticking around to the end!

I wouldn't have started this blog without my sister urging me to go to Disneyland with her, Enrico Casarosa and the entire Pixar team who created such a beautiful movie that I love very dearly, and @Bonn102, @sunny_day_o, and @klein__inin__ for the inspiration to go out and do something I've wanted to do for a long time.

The reason this blog has kept going is the support you have given since the beginning! It makes me very happy, and I hope to continue this for as long as I can!

To end this post, here is a sneaky photo my sister took while we were riding the Disneyland Railroad train on a recent trip, along with my photo of the boys while this was happening!

#update

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