#Boxing Day Sale 2023

[trestinafashionjewellery]

Boxing Day Sale: Sitewide up to 70% OFF

Sandals from $20 Bracelets from $10 Rings for $50EA or 2 for $80 Free Shipping on orders over $69.95

[daftpatience]

hi everyone its boxing week and also the preorder is ending so im running discount codes everyday until the end of the preorder!!!

also if yall didnt catch my earlier post the ginko pen standee is back as a preorder item until the end of this preorder as well!! ik some of you were hoping to grab one!

january is gonna be sorta quiet for the shop as we're trying to apply for disability assistance again so every bit will really help us survive during that time ♥

hi guys the shop is reopened and restocked!!!

i'm also running a lil holiday sale to go along with the restock and new preorder merch - until Dec 20th you can use the code GUNCH for 20% off your order :)

there are only 3 disco elysium swingset standees remaining and they won't be coming back, so i hope the folks that have been waiting for them see this update!!

[sabjolelectronics]

It's Boxing Week and you know what that means! Enjoy up to 70% OFF your Favorite Brands and shop for the Best Deals. Boxing Week Deals: https://sabjol.com/product-category/special-offer/ Boxing Week | Boxing Day | Boxing Day 2023 | Gifts for Him | Gifts for Her | Gifts for Kids | Laptop | Printer | Gaming Devices | Gaming Laptop | 3D Printer | XBOX | Monitor | Gaming Monitor | Desktop | Headphone | Headset | Smartphone

[ayeforscotland]

One last anti-capitalist rant of 2023. Asda employees near me have had to sweat their arses off between Boxing Day and New Year to put up Easter Decorations.

Collectively as a society we should have grace periods between festivals/events where we’re not getting shite shoved down our throats.

I honestly think it plays a part in keeping us fucking miserable all year round as we’ve not even had a week since the most expensive holiday of the year and we’re being primed to *get ready* for the next.

Fucking Easter eggs are now on sale. Honest to god, can we pause for five minutes please?

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Let's talk about Jump GIGA

Jump GIGA covers, 2016-2024. Volumes are published (left to right per row) as Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn releases, with 2018 and 2019 briefly breaking the pattern by having three Winter and three Summer volumes each. 2023 has an Early Spring volume in addition to the standard four.

So, people have pointed out that the 2024 Spring cover is, uh, not like other covers.

But I've only seen comparisons to other MHA GIGA covers and MHA Weekly Shonen Jump covers. Out of curiosity for what GIGA's typical marketing aesthetics might be, I put together a comparison between all of Jump GIGA's covers to date.

And, um. Some things stand out, to say the least.

First, let me clarify what Jump GIGA even is: it is a seasonal magazine from Shonen Jump, published separate from Weekly Shonen Jump. SJ is an absolutely massive brand and they have a number of magazines serialized outside of the most well-known weekly magazine.

The content of Jump GIGA is primarily made up of one-shots and spin-offs. From the beginning, a lot of the appeal has been the cool cover illustrations which showcase special merchandise that comes with the purchase of GIGA. Usually the cover also promotes big things going on related to the WSJ series, like movie events, new games, or special figurines for sale.

The marketing aesthetic has been clear from the start: the cover consists of one core illustration and a number of ads surrounding it. Most often you get a cover illustration of a protagonist, and then ads and merch for other series, e.g. Food Wars protagonist cover with One Piece film promotion and Haikyuu!! merch.

The purpose of this marketing direction is pretty obvious. Spin-offs and one-shots are not likely to generate a ton of interest consistently, so they lure people in with the cool covers and tempting limited edition merchandise of the series they already know and love. In this way, highlighting one series with the cover and different series with the merch makes sense, because maybe somebody doesn't care about Food Wars, but they definitely want those Haikyuu!! stickers, stuff like that.

Starting from 2020's Autumn volume, you can see a shift. For the first time, basically all of the merchandise is for the cover series. The Demon Slayer manga had already ended five months earlier in May, but a two-chapter spin-off was scheduled for release in WSJ during October. This GIGA was released exactly one day before the second chapter was published and it capitalizes on the hype.

After this point, only MHA and Jujutsu Kaisen dominate the cover and the merch in quite this way, with Black Clover getting attention last volume as a way to highlight the fact that it actually switched syndication from WSJ to GIGA.

Anyway, most commonly the cover illustration is a solo shot of a core cast member (usually but not always the protagonist), and if it's not a solo, it's a big cast illustration.

Only a few covers focus on two characters, and usually it's a crossover as opposed to characters from same series sharing the limelight.

Here we've got Food Wars' protagonist with the main characters from Dr. Stone and Act-Age.

The two covers most similar to the Izuku & Kacchan cover are 2022 Winter and 2023 Autumn.

Winter depicts the main trio of Blue Box in a seasonally-appropriate aesthetic. Not gonna lie, this one kinda makes me laugh--Blue Box is a romance and sports manga, and even though Christmas has a romantic air to it in Japan, instead of depicting any sort of like, hesitant but hopeful romantic energy between the heterosexual couple that actually get together later in the series, they focus primarily on the two girls being cute with the guy is a wee footnote? I mean, all right.

Meanwhile, Autumn depicts one of the protagonists with the series antagonist with a typical cool action style. I'm not very familiar with JJK, but I hear these two have got Some Drama going on, so, there's that.

The merch itself has also evolved over the years. Stickers and posters were present early on, but they have since expanded to decorative folders and now acrylic stands and coasters. 2021 Summer sees the first time the cover illustration is marketed as merch, with the Jujutsu Kaisen cover included as a decorative folder.

Right after that, the Kacchan cover of 2021 Autumn is included as a poster alongside earlier covers featuring Todoroki and Izuku.

2023 Summer's cover is a huge, wrap-around MHA cast illustration and it was published three days after chapter 396 came out, strategically timed to highlight the big shift in the final battle as Ochako vs Toga ends and All Might vs. AFO begins. Merch includes a decorative folder of the wrap-around cover and character motif stickers.

And then we get this!?

A duo cover illustration where the cover art itself has been merchandised to hell and back!?!?

Acrylic stand and pin set!?

Double-sided coaster showing bkdk greatest hits!? With volume 29's river scene cover!?

There's also a double-sided poster featuring the Spring cover with the ninth popularity poll art and a decorative bag with the anniversary art. The cover art itself is plastered all over the volume, front, back, and spine, apparently a total of 19 times.

I honestly don't know what to say about this. It feels wild that this is actually what the cover is. Obviously it is a huge marketing push in anticipation of season 7, and Izuku and Katsuki are the most popular characters, but. it just feels... unique.

In the course of Jump GIGA's publication, this direction is kind of unprecedented. Genuinely no one could have expected this. This seems to be the first time there's been this much merch for a cover. And it was a solid fucking move, marketing-wise--it's sold out basically everywhere, everyone is talking about it. And even people who don't follow the series or ship these two can't help but comment on how strikingly romantic it looks!?

I don't know how much say Horikoshi had in what the cover was, but damn it sure feels like he drew this with immense affection. I kind of wonder if he personally pushed for it to be these two, rather than the typical solo shot, cast shot, or even a protagonist vs. antagonist shot.

I'm KO'd, man. idek if this post is useful to anybody I'm just on my hands and knees here.

Everybody knows what we're all here for, and it's these cute boys finally getting their happy ending.

EDIT NOTE: I gathered much of the information and many, many of the images in this post from a fan-made Jump Database. I neglected to say it properly when I first posted this, but special thanks to the very dedicated people who maintain that website!

[blueiscoool]

$1 Million Worth of Gold Coins Stolen From 18th-Century Shipwrecks Found

After an extensive investigation, Florida officials recovered dozens of gold coins valued at more than $1 million that were stolen from a shipwreck recovery nine years ago.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced in a news release Tuesday it had recovered 37 gold coins that were stolen from the 1715 Fleet shipwrecks.

The fleet of Spanish ships sailed from Havana, Cuba and headed to Seville, Spain on July 24, 1715. The journey was short-lived, as a hurricane wrecked the fleet just seven days later off the coast of Eastern Florida.

The first ship was discovered in 1928 by William Beach north of Fort Pierce, Florida, about 120 miles south of Orlando. Since then, gold and silver artifacts have been recovered offshore for decades following the first discovery.

In 2015, a group of contracted salvage operators found a treasure trove of 101 gold coins from the wrecks near Florida’s Treasure Coast, about 112 miles west of Orlando. However, only half of the coins were reported correctly. The other 50 coins were not disclosed and later stolen.

The years-long investigation by the state’s fish and wildlife conservation commission and FBI “into the theft and illegal trafficking of these priceless historical artifacts” came to a head when new evidence emerged in June, the news release said.

The evidence linked Eric Schmitt to the illegal sale of multiple stolen gold coins in 2023 and 2024, officials said. Schmitt’s family had been contracted to work as salvage operators for the US District Courts’ custodian and salvaging company for the fleet, 1715 Fleet - Queens Jewels, LLC. The Schmitts had uncovered the 101 gold coins in 2015.

During their hunt for the coins, investigators executed multiple search warrants and recovered coins from private residences, safe deposit boxes and auctions, the news release said. Five stolen coins were retrieved from a Florida-based auctioneer, who unknowingly purchased them from Schmitt.

Investigators used advanced digital forensics to nail down Schmitt as a suspect in the case. In most cases, digital forensics can recover data stored electronically on devices such as a cell phone, computer system or memory module.

With the help of advanced digital forensics, investigators identified metadata and geolocation data that linked Schmitt to a photograph of the stolen coins taken at the Schmitt family condominium in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Authorities said Schmitt also took three of the stolen gold coins and put them on the ocean floor in 2016. The coins were later found by the new investors of the fleet’s court custodian and salvaging company.

Throughout the investigation, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission worked closely with historical preservation experts to authenticate and appraise the recovered coins sold by Schmitt.

Schmitt is facing charges for dealing in stolen property, the release says.

The company commissioned to salvage the shipwreck said in a statement it “was shocked and disappointed by this theft and has worked closely with law enforcement and the state of Florida regarding this matter.”

“We take our responsibilities as custodian very seriously and will always seek to enforce the laws governing these wrecks,” the statement read.

Recovered artifacts will be returned to their rightful custodians, the news release said. But the investigation is far from over: 13 coins remain missing.

[arimiadev]

(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.

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

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!

[bananaofswifts]

01 - Taylor Swift

No one in the music industry wielded more power over the past year than Taylor Swift, who made history at stadiums, movie theaters and on the Billboard charts, leaving even the most seasoned executives speechless. While they’d long celebrated her staggering popularity as a singer, songwriter and performer, her force as a strategic business leader suddenly came into sharper focus — and industry veterans took notes as they watched some of her bravest and most innovative business risks reap remarkable rewards.

At 34, she is one of the music industry’s most charismatic and influential leaders — and she rewrites the rules.

“The piece of advice I would give to the other executives on this list is that the best ideas are usually ones without industry precedent,” Swift tells Billboard. “The biggest crossroads moments of my career came down to sticking to my instincts when my ideas were looked at with skepticism. When someone says to me, ‘But that has never been done successfully before,’ it fires me up. We have to take strategic risks every day in this industry, but every once in a while, you have to really trust your gut and take a flying leap. My rerecordings are my favorite example of this, and I’m extremely grateful to my team and fans for taking that leap with me because it absolutely changed my life.”

Sage advice for an industry in which instinct has largely been supplanted by metrics and data analysis.

In December, Time named Swift its 2023 Person of the Year. In September, after encouraging her 279 million Instagram followers to vote and linking to vote.org, the nonpartisan nonprofit said it received over 35,000 registrations. She appears on the cover of this issue of Billboard and in the No. 1 spot of our annual Power 100 issue because her force across the business of music is now unparalleled — and because she models commitment to innovation that the rest of the business will need in order to tackle the big challenges ahead.

Swift’s gambles have paid off handsomely over the past year.

Her massive The Eras stadium tour, which began in March after she controversially put all the tickets on sale at once, crashing Ticketmaster and sparking mass hysteria, grossed an estimated $906.1 million in 2023 and is poised to become the highest-grossing global tour of all time before it wraps in December, according to Billboard.

The Golden Globe-nominated Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour film, taped during her six-show run at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in August, has grossed over $261.6 million worldwide since its October opening, according to AMC Theatres Entertainment. In January, the publicly traded movie-house chain announced that the film’s box-office take made it the highest-grossing concert/documentary picture ever released, surpassing Michael Jackson’s 2009 This Is It. Once again blazing a new path, Swift made a groundbreaking distribution deal directly with AMC Theaters instead of linking with a film studio.

Swift has shaken up the catalog market, too. When Scooter Braun infuriated her by acquiring the master recordings of her first six albums through his Ithaca Holdings and then sold them to investment firm Shamrock Capital at a profit, Swift rerecorded the albums with loving precision and added bonus tracks to the new releases. They performed phenomenally well, as she deftly used her tour to promote them. When her latest rerecording (and 14th studio album overall), 1989 (Taylor’s Version), spent its fifth week at atop the Billboard 200 at the end of 2023, Swift beat Elvis Presley’s record for the most weeks at No. 1 by a solo artist. Her industry market share last year was 1.72%. If she were her own genre, she’d rank ninth for 2023 — bigger than jazz.

“She’s the smartest artist I’ve ever worked with,” says Messina Touring Group’s Louis Messina, who promotes Swift’s tours and has worked with her since 2005. “She outworks everybody and she has always had this vision. If you’re around her, you can’t help but believe in her.” —Melinda Newman

[dotthings]

The denialism and revisionist history going on pushing the fairy tale that Nexstar CW is the only CW era with problems that required calling out, and the invalidation towards any criticism of the pre-Nexstar eras, have gone completely off the rails.

Perpetuating these fairy tales and the erasure of CW Network's long-running history of issues helps enable the broken system people claim they care about denouncing.

The reality of CW Network history: Racism, homophobia, poor set practices, toxic abusive showrunners, systemic failure to support actors especially in marginalized groups, and fan base after fan base used for engagement and then treated badly.

These are systemic industry issues, not confined to any one network. CW became a lightning rod for it because it was unusually concentrated from one platform, so it stuck out and CW earned a terrible reputation, long before the sale.

To combat the revisionist history and denialism, behind the cut is a timeline with a few of the egregoius systemic problems that have plagued the CW historically and reflect severe enabling and lack of oversight on the part of the network.

Nexstar Media era acquired the CW on October 3, 2022.

The harm starts at the very beginning, though. On January 24, 2006, The CW was born. In its founding, The CW destroyed an entire slate of Black-led series on UPN and the resulting network was extremely white.

Candice Patton, in EW, reflecting on the early seasons of The Flash and how she had to speak up and advocate for herself and for Iris West (date of article May 23, 2023, but refers to pre-Nexstar CW) “The scariest thing is speaking up, and I had a hard time talking about it for such a long time because you're so afraid of being seen as problematic," she says. "That's a word that no actor wants to have follow them around. But I think we're learning that speaking up and speaking out is the only way for change. And it's not about blaming people or canceling people, it's about just really being able to have a conversation so that the industry changes for the better. And I hope that whatever struggles I may have had, doing that has made it even the smallest amount easier for the next crop of actors coming up who feel like they need to be heard and seen and accommodated for."

July 8, 2022, EW. Candice Patton reveals how she considered quitting The Flash in S2 due to racist fans and The CW and WB didn’t give her the support she needed, and reflects on how she was treated differently than her co-stars:

"Even with the companies I was working with, The CW and WB, that was their way of handling it. We know better now that it's not okay to treat your talent that way, and to let them go through this abuse and harassment. But for me in 2014, there were no support systems. No one was looking out for that. It was just free range to get abused every single day. There were no social media protocols in place to protect me, so they just let all that stuff sit there….It's just not enough to make me your lead female and say, 'Look at us, we're so progressive, we checked the box.' It's great, but you've put me in the ocean alone around sharks. It's great to be in the ocean, but I can get eaten alive out here…It was more about the protocols in place and the things I see happening for my white counterparts that's not happening to me. Seeing how I was treated differently than other people, seeing how I'm not protected by the network and the studio, those were the things that not necessarily hurt me but frustrated me."

January 28, 2022, Sunstroke Magazine - Looking Back On Kat Graham's Racist and Anti-Semitic Experience on 'The Vampire Diaries’ A summary: * Kat Graham endured racist and antisemitic comments from a co-worker. * The show forced her to wear a wig when she recommended using her natural hair for Bonnie * Ian Somerhalder had to step up to protect Kat, threatening to quit the show if Bonnie was killed off or written out * Showrunners shot down the idea of Bonnie being queer and was patronizing to Bonnie fans * Here’s a compilation of Kat Graham and her character Bonnie being mistreated during the run of TVD:

October 2021, EW and THR - Ruby Rose accuses CW and WBTV of bad set practices and that they were forced to keep filming 10 days after major surgery she had to undergo after being injured doing a stunt and called out bad practices that harmed crew and endangered everyone on set. CW and WBTV denied everything

June 7, 2021, Hypebae, Candice Patton speaking on issues concerning how PoC are treated at CW and systemically in the TV industry

November 22, 2020, Popsugar - The all-black cast of the superhero series Black Lightning have to find out from social media that the show is cancelled and are given no advance warning. China Anne McClain reveals she was going to quit the show even if it had continued: “For different reasons, that, to be honest, I don't want to go into. I just want y'all to trust me on it."

November 9, 2020, Slashfilm - 'Superman & Lois' Writer Nadria Tucker Says She Was Fired After Raising Issues With CW Show's Sexism And Racism

San Diego Comic Con 2017: the cast of Supergirl singing a song to mock a predominantly queer fanbase for the Supercorp ship

March 14, 2016, Variety - “What TV Can Learn From ‘The 100’ Mess” in the wake of The 100 killing off Lexa, an openly queer character.

April 6, 2016, EW - The 100: Ricky Whittle says showrunner 'abused' him off the show May 6, 2015 - Season 10, episode 21 of SPN "Dark Dynasty" airs, killing the show's only recurring openly queer character at that point, Charlie Bradbury.

It’s common knowledge Daman Salvatore is bi in The Vampire Diaries books. The character on the show, one of “classic CW”’s biggest hits, was straightwashed.

2013: Misha Collins at NJ Con comments on how women are treated on SPN:

2024: Misha Collins at Purcon 8 shades the CW for placing representation caps on queer rep at SPN

The fact CW had other queer rep does not preclude the existence of pinkwashing, queer erasure, or queer censorship)

November 2020: in the wake of Castiel's romantic love confession to Dean Winchester and in the immediate aftermath of the end of SPN, the nature of the confession was ommitted in all official promotional material and Misha Collins hinted he was told he couldn't talk about Cas's pov. Eventually, Misha Collins was able to speak openly that the writer intention and the story and everyone who worked on the scene intended it as a romantic love confession and that Cas is queer and in love with Dean.

---

Love the shows. Support the shows. Support the creatives who were trying to make things better from within the system.

The megacorporation does not love you.

Stop bootlicking for the megacorporation.

[yyh4ever]

Yu Yu Hakusho White Day 2023 by GraffArt

This is the beautiful period of the year when girls give chocolate to the boys on Valentine's Day and one month later, on the White Day, boys are expected to present girls with gifts. Who wants to get flowers from Youko Kurama? 💐

After the Winter Goods, GraffArt - the graffiti style design of the A3 original series - is back with White Day merch!

➤ On sale: from March 4, 2023 (Sat.) at GraffArt Shop Ikebukuro Main Store and Namba Store.

➤ Reservations: February 3 to February 9, 2023 on eeo store

➤ Shipping: mid-April 2023 or you can pick-up at one of the available stores from March 4, 2023.

➤ Goods:

Acrylic Petit Stand (6 types)

Blind: 900 yen each

BOX: 5,400 yen

Size: about 70x70 mm

Can Badge (6 types)

Blind: 550 yen each

BOX: 3,300 yen

Size: about 65 mm

Collection Bottle (3 types)

An acrylic okimono bottle with a thickness of 10 mm.

Price: 1,650 each

Size: about H120mm x W50 x D10 mm

Youko Kurama & Hiei

Kazuma Kuwabara & Kurama

Yusuke Urameshi & Koenma

Deca Chara Mirror

A compact mirror that fits in a bag.

Price: 1,210 yen

Size: about W92 x H115 x 6 mm

Leather Sticky Book (3 types)

It comes with 2 sizes and 3 colors of sticky notes.

Price: 605 yen each

Size: about 57 x 11 x 77mm

Youko Kurama & Hiei

Kazuma Kuwabara & Kurama

Yusuke Urameshi & Koenma

Character Clear Case

A hard clear case that can hold paper up to A5 size (148mm x 210mm).

Price: 900 yen

➤ Benefit:

Benefit Period: February 3 to March 17, 2023

If you purchase 2,200 yen on related products, you will receive a special postcard.

[idontgiveaflyinggrayson69]

Author: Nat / @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69​

Tagging: @ryanpulock​ @suitandtys​

Relationship: Andrei x Kat

Word Count: 2.6k

Comments: I wrote this specifically for Katie and Tiff and the anon messages I got about how Kat told Andrei he’s gonna be a dad, so here it is 😌 Drei is officially in his DILF era in the When it Gets Crisp in the Fall universe! I had way too much fun writing and writing them again and hmmm maybe keep your eyes peeled for more Kat and Drei in the future 👀

(c) nat g. 2023 // do not repost, do not claim as your own

Andrei instinctively reached out to Kat when he woke up, the Florida sun peaking between the hotel curtains. But instead of his girlfriend’s soft skin, he found cold sheets and he frowned as he opened his eyes. The bed was empty which forced him to lift his head and look around, his eyes were still blurry with sleep and his hair was messy from the long night before.

“Kisa?” He asked as he rolled onto his back.

“Right here,” Kat smiled. The hotel robe was wrapped loosely around her and her hair fell messily around her shoulders while she curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee in her hand. Despite how long the night before had been, between the game in Buffalo and flying out to South Florida and everything that happened after… Kat had still woken up early that morning needing to throw up the contents of her stomach, another reminder of the baby she was growing, the baby Andrei still didn’t know she was pregnant with.

It had been a week since she found out. At the time, she was supposed to go out to dinner with Andrei, Elena, Geno, and Geno’s girlfriend, but after a long day of nausea, she just couldn’t muster it, the thought of dinner making her stomach twist enough she went running to the bathroom, again.

Being pregnant honestly wasn’t even on her mind despite them actively trying since November. Between work and the team playing so well and Andrei going back to the All-Star Game and Elena being in town, Kat really didn’t have the time to think about herself. Plus, a bug always seemed to go around the team at least once a season so she had brushed everything off as a stomach bug she just couldn’t shake for the last month.

It was only when she went rummaging through the bathroom cabinet looking for more antinausea medication that she stumbled onto the several packs of pregnancy tests she had bought when they were on sale back in November and she froze, the gravol abandoned as she took a sharp breath in and picked a box up.

Nausea, vomiting, swollen, sensitive breasts, fatigue, mood swings, no… no period.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself and gripped the edge of the bathroom sink to steady herself. Could she? Could she really?

Her hands shook as she opened the box and took both tests out before hurrying to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. She knew it was supposed to be taken in the morning, but she had to know now, and if it was negative, well, then she would try again in the morning.

It took way too long for her to have to pee and she paced up and down the hall until she had to, and then it was the longest three minutes of her life as she waited for the results, her hands still shaking.

But sure enough, they were both positive. She was pregnant. She was pregnant with Andrei’s baby.

They were having a baby.

Part of her wanted to tell him as soon as he got home. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him they were having a baby, that he was going to be a dad, but she didn’t. They were a week away from their second anniversary and they were going back to the All-Star Game where they had first gotten together. It would be perfect to tell him then, so Kat had to restrain herself.

So, instead of telling him as soon as he got home, she fought her smile and told him she was feeling much better, and when Andrei was at practice the next day, she swung by the team store to pick up the smallest jersey she could find and had them customize it to ‘DADDY 37’.

Kat smiled to herself as she held the jersey before she hugged it to her chest. They were having a baby.

The hotel bed sheets pooled around Andrei’s waist as he slowly sat up and he frowned as he ran his hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. “What’re you doing up?” He asked, sleep making his words slur together.

Kat shrugged and gave him a soft smile before she moved to sit on the edge of the bed, the neck of her robe falling down a little more, exposing her shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep, don’t worry about it.”

“Gonna worry, Kisa,” he frowned and ran his hand up and down her thigh, looking at her like she hung the stars in the sky. “It’s our anniversary, I wanted to wake up with my sexy girlfriend in my arms and make sweet love to her until I absolutely have to be on the beach,” he hummed and pulled her onto his lap so he could kiss her neck.

Kat laughed as she blushed and sat her nearly empty cup of coffee on the bedside table before she looped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him properly. “Sorry,” she hummed. “I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep so I slipped out so I wouldn’t wake you. You need rest, Drei, you had a long week and have a long weekend ahead of you.”

“Need you more, Kisa,” he whispered and kissed her again. Kat smiled into the kiss and softly cupped the back of his neck as she pressed herself closer to him, but when Andrei began to trail his hands down to her ass, she pulled back from the kiss and tapped his chest, pulling a frustrated groan from him.

“Soon, big boy,” she smiled, and her smile widened at the way Andrei scrunched his nose up at the nickname. She hadn’t let him live it down since he uttered those words in that post-game interview. “I have something for you first,” she continued and bit her lip as she pulled back from him and walked over to her suitcase, laying it down before she unzipped it and pulled out a neatly wrapped box.  

“Oh?” Andrei hummed and sat up a little straighter as he ran his eyes down her body and licked his lips. It had to be lingerie, he thought to himself, already imagining what the latest addition to her collection could be. Black lace? Sheer? 37 embroidered above her pussy? Crotchless panties? He hummed as he thought about it. He could be a little late to media day, couldn’t he?

“It’s not what you think it is, Drei, but you’ll still love it, I hope anyway,” she laughed nervously as she walked over and sat the box on his lap before tucking her leg under her as she sat on the edge of the bed.

“Not what I think?” He scoffed, so sure it was lingerie. But maybe not a set, he thought, a babydoll? A teddy? A chemise? And if not lingerie… Oh a toy for them? Like one of those vibrators he could control from his phone? He bit his lip as he thought about it. He could mess with her from the ice during the skills comp, know he was making her feel good while he put on a show for the fans, fuck yeah that would be fun. His cock definitely liked that idea and he wasted no time untying the bow Kat took ages to tie and shredded the wrapping paper with a smirk.

But his as soon as he saw what was in the box, his grin dropped in shock as he saw “Daddy” and the top of what was surely his number on a little jersey with a test on top. He was gentle as he picked it up, his eyes widening when he read “pregnant 3+” on the little screen. “Are you serious, Katarina?” He asked breathlessly as he looked up at her with wide eyes.

She bit her lip to contain her smile as she nodded, “I’m pregnant, Andrei.”

His smile grew as he dropped the test back into the box before he pushed it aside and pulled her back onto his lap so he could hug her, burying his face into her neck as he clung to her. Kat laughed as she hugged him back just as tightly and ran her fingers through his hair as she cradled his head. “God, I love you so much,” he told her, his voice muffled by her shoulder. “We’re really having a baby?”

“We’re really having a baby,” she nodded and pulled back to look at him, her smile widening at how soft his eyes were as he looked back at her. He didn’t think it was possible for him to fall more in love with her, but he was falling deeper in love with her every minute.

His shook his head, wondering what he had done to be so lucky to have her before he kissed her, pulling her closer to him by the small of her back, but he couldn’t stop smiling so he had to pull back and his smile widened as he quickly rolled them over so she was below him, pulling a laugh from her. God, her laugh was his favourite sound. Or maybe second favourite, her moans were music to his ears.

Andrei peppered her cheeks with kisses making Kat laugh harder before he moved down her body and pulled her robe open before he pressed a soft kiss to her stomach. “Hi Baby Svech,” he said and kissed her stomach again before he gently laid his hand over her belly. Their baby was in there, he put their baby in there.

Kat’s smile softened as she looked at him and she covered his hand with her own. “Our baby, our little Baby Svech,” she whispered and started to tear up, so indescribably happy.

“Our little Baby Svech,” Andrei echoed and kissed her belly again before he moved back up her body and kissed her again, both still smiling too hard for it to last longer than a second and he rubbed his nose against hers as his smile widened. “And now I get why your tits have gotten so big.”

Kat laughed so hard she snorted and she shoved his shoulder hard. “Seriously? I tell you I’m pregnant and your first comment is my tits?”

He laughed deep in his chest as he shrugged. “Can’t help it, I love your tits,” he replied shamelessly before he leaned onto his side so he could push her robe open a little more and squeeze her breast softly.

“You only like them now because they’ve gotten big and they’re just gonna keep getting bigger,” she replied and knocked his hand away before pulling her robe back over her chest.

He groaned as he toyed with the edge of her robe before he looked back up at her. “I’ve always loved your tits,” he told her. “I just enjoy how full they are. I mean, they’ve been spilling out of your bra lately. And fuck, how I love when you moan when I play with them,” he groaned at the thought and slipped his hand back under the edge of the robe and tweaked her nipple between his fingers.

He was rewarded with a soft moan as she arched into his touch, and his eyes darkened as he looked at her. “Shut up,” she rolled her eyes, but didn’t push his hand away. “But I did order some new bras the other day.”

The corner of Andrei’s lip twitched up before he bit his lip, “Oh, did you now? Did they come in? Did you pack them?”

Kat shook her head, “no, none of them came in… But don’t worry, I packed a lot of tiny sets and bikinis for you, Drei.”

He groaned before he kissed her and quickly deepened it as he ran his hand down her body to her thigh and pulled her closer before he returned his hand to her stomach. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers and his voice softened, “I can’t believe we’re really having a baby.”

“Neither can I,” Kat whispered as she returned his smile. “We’re gonna be parents, Drei.”

His nose scrunched up as his smile widened, “you’re gonna be a mama and I’m gonna be a papa. God, I can’t wait.

“I know, neither can I,” she hummed and wrapped her arm around his shoulder to pull him closer, hooking her thigh over his hip as she hugged him tightly. Andrei held her just as tightly, his hand spanning her lower back. “How am I supposed to do anything today when now I know you’re carrying my baby?” He asked with a soft laugh, this was the happiest day of his life and he didn’t ever want to let go of her, let alone be paraded around the beach for media.

“I could have told you earlier, but I wanted to wait to tell you for our anniversary,” she laughed and kissed his jaw.

His eyes darkened as she continued to mouth at his jaw and he slid his hand down to squeeze her ass, “God, you make me want to ravish you, woman.”

His words had heat pooling between her thighs and Kat bit her lip before she gently pushed him back so she was straddling him, her robe slipping down to her elbows as she rocked her hips into his, making Andrei groan loudly as he reached out to cup her breast. “Think we have time for—” she started before her eyes widened and she clamped her hand over her mouth before she pulled back from him and rushed to the bathroom to throw up.

Andrei groaned under his breath and closed his eyes before he pushed the covers back and followed her into the bathroom where he knelt beside her and gently pulled her hair back for her. “Oh, Kisa,” he said softly and rubbed her back with his free hand.

Kat threw up again before she flushed the toilet and rested against the toilet, “I cannot wait for this morning sickness thing to pass.”

Andrei winced and stood up to get her a glass of water before he knelt back down and handed her the cup. “But at least it’s not a stomach bug?” He tried before furrowing his brows. “Well, I guess it kinda is a stomach bug… But you know what I’m saying.”

Kat gave him a tight lipped look. “Yeah, a stomach bug I caught from you,” she told him before standing up to rinse her mouth.

Andrei followed her up and wrapped his arms around her waist, his hand covering her stomach as rested his chin on her shoulder. “A bug you asked me to give you,” he corrected her and kissed her cheek.

Kat smiled at him through the mirror before reaching for her toothbrush. “Yes, a bug I asked you to give me,” she agreed as she leaned back into him and covered his hand with hers. “Baby Svech.”

She watched as Andrei’s smile widened and he kissed her cheek again. “The first of many,” he hummed, pulling a laugh from Kat.

“Yes, the first of many, many Baby Svechs.”

[wormthing]

Taking commissions for some Animal Jam items:

I've been playing Animal Jam Classic lately, and drawing in their Art Studio, and I cobbled together a wish list of random items I want. I'll draw a piece of art for you for some of those items; it doesn't specifically have to be for an in-game Masterpiece item. Check below the Read More for the list of items I'm looking for.

(And of course my commissions for $ USD are always open still!)

Please trade me at least one item off the list below in exchange for a piece of art.

Please message me about your proposed commission and what items you'd like to trade! Let me know if you want this drawn as a Masterpiece item, or if you just want a regular image file in exchange, probably done in MS Paint in a similar style above.

Give me a few days to get the drawing done!

If you want me to draw your avatar, I am not going to draw culturally insensitive items. I'll let you know if I have an issue with your proposition.

I can take payment when the art done/approved and we can trade, but I can also do half-payment up front.

If you want a Masterpiece item:

A Masterpiece Token included in the trade is appreciated, but not required.

Give the art time to be approved. If it isn't, I'll see if we can work something out.

Please keep complexity down, especially in regards to colour schemes.

Click below for my wish list! I'll cross things off as I get them (or add to it if I see stuff I really want).

Check out the Animal Jam Wiki (link) to look up these items (or other related pages). (I also said what event they were from if applicable.)

Den items:

Painter's Palette ("Let creativity fly" collection) [Got it!]

Fancy Pottery Wheel (same) [Got it!]

Cosmo plushie (2023 scavenger hunt) [Got it!]

Peck plushie (same) [Got it!]

Rare Wavy Bookshelf (2013 rare item monday) [Got it!]

Rare Giant Panda Plushie (promotional) [Got it!]

Rare Giant Tiger plushie (Lunar new year prize)

Art Camp Bead Station (2021 Art Camp collection) [Got it!]

Mira Tapestry (2017 Mira v Zios event)

Mira Banner (2017 MvZ event, not to be confused with the Beta mira banner)

Glowing Spiked Phantom (2019 box prize)

Clothing:

Phantom Beanie (2017 Fall box prize)

Slime Green skullies (2022 trick-or-treat event)

Cursed Hypno glasses (2021 spooky sale)

(I'll also take the Rare Hypno Glasses with the similar colour scheme instead!) [Got these ::-)]

Classic Werewolf mask (2022 spooky sale)

Classic Creature mask (same) [I got a bunch of spooky masks from someone!!! ::-D]

Huntress hat (this is the only members item here)

Low priority:

Any other* promotional plushies (for non-members)! I love them ::-) [*Note: I now have: Rare giant panda, Rare giant raccoon, Rare monkey]

Any Slime Green clothes (for non-members)

Non-member Halloween masks from 2022 (Classic Vampire Mask, Wicked Witch Mask)

A green spiked collar for non-members [Got it!]

My Den has other art I've done, some of which is from 2024 but some is from 2017! My username is 113457.

[youareiron-andyouarestrong]

so we could call it even, you could call me “babe” for the weekend (the road not taken looks real good now)

Today it’s five pm on Christmas Eve, and they close at six. No one is in the shop at the moment, the streets outside are empty, save for falling snow. Jyn’s plans are to go home, warm up the roast she prepared that morning. It’s only forty-five more minutes until the shop closes. In the next fifteen minutes, she could sweep the floor, make sure the displays are tidy for Boxing Day sales, and leave the incandescent Christmas lights softly glowing until closing. Then she’ll need to close up the cash register, take the day’s earnings to the safe, write down the earnings— The delicate little gold bell over the door chimes merrily as it opens. Biting back a growl, Jyn turns to face this interloper, this complete and utter layabout of a customer, coming at the eleventh hour on Christmas Eve— “Oh,” she says flatly. “It’s you.” * Cassian forgets to get his sister a gift. Jyn helps him out.

'tis I, @woahpip, your Secret Santa of 2023! I hope you enjoy this little story, as I scootch it on under the wire on this, the day of deadline.

read the rest on ao3

[lol-jackles]

https://twitter.com/CreationEnt/status/1763754174766792962

Jensen already signing on for 2025 cons?? CE is clearly fishing for money (the cruise and now selling packages for this new 2025 con) which tells me 2024 is in the red or close to it. It reeks of desperation to be pushing 2025 cons when they haven't even had a 2024 con yet (when I sent this message at least).

And Jensen signing on so early.... do you think he's feeling pressure about the future? Maybe he's not landing the jobs he thought he would and is lining up cons just in case?

Link. to be fair it's early 2025 so far, but...yeah.

As you know, peak-TV is over even though TV business still accounts for 80% of the total advertising revenue. And we are supposedly in the "third act of the streaming wars" as streaming services are struggling to reach profitability. The movie box office sales are expected to be $8 billion in 2024, which is down 10% from 2023, and down 30% from 2019.

All this means is number of scripted shows will be halved, from peak 633 in 2022, then 481 in 2023, to 300 in coming years (source: market research firm Ampere Analysis). Development executives are taking longer to greenlight shows, even for projects from established showrunners.

So yeah, acting gigs are going to be tougher to come by and Jensen is taking the best current option.

I've always thought that everybody decided to lose their minds and dump millions into streaming services and shows that didn't have a chance in hell of being profitable.

Phase One: Streaming by borrowing money from Silicon Valley banks, get into massive debts by making whole bunch of shows that nobody watch in order to crowd out competitors.

Phase Two: Profitability. This means less shows, and an introduction of advertising.   So you aren’t getting unlimited content for 10 bucks a month forever. The math never made sense

Phase Three: Production spending will fall and budget for "prestige drama" will be cut from $10 million to $4.5 billion per episode. You know, like the good old days before everybody decided to lose their mind over streaming.

On the plus side, there could be another Indie boom akin to the '70s and see really weird niche genres like disco themed movies and artsy odd experimental ones, etc.

[jambusaur]

the new guide to getting free sapphires/memberships on animal jam in 2023!

i love playing animal jam. some say i love playing animal jam too much! but what i don't love is spending money to do something in a game when i can do the exact same thing for free.

in fact, i've made it my personal goal to enjoy both versions of animal jam (classic and play wild) as much as i possibly can without spending a single penny.

some people are unaware of the fact that animal jam play wild memberships apply to both ajpw and aj classic, so i'm gonna walk you through how to get and maintain a free ajpw membership using some easy peasy methods!

click the "read more" thingie if you're interested :)

background information

in ajpw, you can buy a month-long membership for 600 sapphires in the sapphire shop located in jamaa township.

you can also buy a den item called a "my shop" there for 100 sapphires.

a shop lets you sell items for sapphires or gems. keep in mind, however, that if you're a nonmember, there's a fee taken out of any sales you make.

a shop is ideally going to be the first thing you purchase once you get 100 sapphires!

getting the initial 100 sapphires

getting your first 100 sapphires can take some time, but there are a lot of ways to speed that process up!

logging into ajpw every day

on most days, you have 3 possibilities when spinning the wheel: gems, 5 sapphires, or an item.

on wednesdays, the possibilities change to 5 sapphires, 10 sapphires, or 20 sapphires. getting a 20 sapphire spin on a wednesday can really help you out!

the possibilities also change on mondays: gems, 5 sapphires, or a clothing/den item with a rare tag.

in the beginning, it's really important to log in as many days as you can, especially because you can get 10 sapphires every month just by logging in for 15 total days (depending on the number of days in the month).

one more thing to mention about daily logins: a "new day" in ajpw might turn over at a weird time for you, depending on your timezone. i'm honestly not really sure what timezone ajpw is in, but i know that a new day in ajpw turns over at 8:00 PM EST for me.

it can be really helpful to know what time a new ajpw day turns over for you, especially if you're busy throughout the day and need to plan out when you can log in to get your daily reward.

if you don't want to manually figure it out by guessing what time a new ajpw day turns over for you, there's another easy way! you can join the unofficial animal jam community discord server (this isn't an ad i swear LMAO), and once you're verified in that server, you can check the #game-updates channel. that discord server is really good at posting about ingame updates right when they go out, so you can scroll through the #game-updates channel and look at the time stamps of messages to determine when a new day turns over for you. here's a link to the discord server if that's how you want to do it:

(let me know if there's any problems with that invite link, i'm pretty sure i got it to work tho!)

playing minigames

if you open the minigames screen, you'll notice that there's a sapphire icon on the right side of the popup.

clicking that will show you your progress in every minigame.

there are 3 gift boxes of rewards for playing each minigame. the first gift box gives you 5 sapphires, the second gives you 10, and the third gives you 15.

touch tank is definitely the easiest minigame to beat first. after that, it kind of depends upon your own preferences? i personally love overflow, fast foodies, and jamaa derby!

leveling up, gem tree, & dig sites

these three ways of getting sapphires only give you small amounts, so i'm grouping them together!

once you join a pack in ajpw, you have access to the alpha hideout and pack hideout.

every day, going to your pack hideout gives you exp towards leveling up (i don't think going to your alpha hideout gives you exp though, so make sure it's the pack hideout). leveling up can give you rewards, including small amounts of sapphires! it's a good passive way to earn a couple sapphires here and there and, in case you were curious, here's a link to all the level-up rewards!

at your pack hideout, you can also find a gem tree, which looks like this:

gem trees are in different locations based on which hideout your pack has. the image above was taken in the greely pack hideout, but every hideout has a gem tree!

if you click on the gem tree, you can either earn gems or, more uncommonly, small amounts of sapphires. the gem tree replenishes every hour, so try to click it as often as you can!

another way to earn a few sapphires is to click on golden shovel dig sites:

fun fact, there's always at least one golden shovel dig site on the ajpw map at all times. and you can tell if the land you entered has a dig site in it by listening for a sound effect that'll play right when you enter it. i can't really describe the sound effect, but it's like, magical? idk. you'll know it when you hear it! you might want to turn down the music volume in your ingame settings though if you want to hear it better.

the sound effect makes it really easy to find dig sites- you can just go to random areas of the map and listen for it! this is what it'll look like once you find a dig site and click on it:

sapphires are going to show up as a 2 by 2 square on the grid.

sapphire drops

the final way to earn sapphires in ajpw that i'm going to talk about is sapphire drops. sometimes when you're roaming around, you might get a popup like this at the top of your screen:

that means that someone used a super sapphire potion (which can be bought in the phantom dimension for 3500 phantom tokens), and if you walk around a bit, you'll find a big sapphire on the ground like this:

click on it!! you'll get 3 free sapphires!!

(super sapphire potion images are from the ajpw fandom wiki!)

getting the next 600 sapphires

now that you have a shop, you're going to want to sell as much as you can to get the next 600 sapphires. you can sell pretty much anything, but here's some of my favorite things to sell!

before i go into this though, i want to talk about a REALLY important part of selling your items: the shop explorer!

when selling items, even as a nonmember, you have the ability to list your item in the shop explorer.

clicking that toggle will put your item in the shop explorer located in coral canyons.

this means that anybody who wants your item can search for it and see a list of everybody selling that item.

once you list something in the shop explorer, it's there for 3 days. once the 3 days runs out, your item is no longer in the shop explorer, but it's still in your shop in your den. you can relist an item in the shop explorer by relisting it in your shop and clicking the toggle again.

now here's my favorite things to sell!

rare plushies

i sell my rare plushies really cheap so they sell faster, but honestly, they're super easy to get, so selling them for 5 sapphires each really isn't a waste at all!

to get rare plushies, you're going to need "the superclaw" which can be bought in the sapphire shop for 100 sapphires...BUT DON'T BUY IT.

the great thing about the superclaw is that, if you know someone who has one in their den, you can go to their den and use theirs! my den is always open with a superclaw for anyone to use :) my username is jambusaur and the superclaw is directly left of where you spawn in.

the superclaw is very simple to play, but it can get boring pretty quickly. that's why i made an autoclicker script that i can run overnight using autohotkey! if you're interested in using something like that for yourself, dm me and i'll walk you through making one :) fair warning though, you're going to need to download two things (autohotkey and a specific mouse coordinates finder), but i've been using those two things for years and they haven't given me any trouble or viruses or whatever!

after you've played the superclaw for a while, you might've gotten lucky and found a rare phantom plushie!

these guys sell for a bit more than a normal rare plushie! i usually sell them for 22 sapphires, but you're probably going to want to check the shop explorer in coral canyons before you list them, just to make sure that you're selling them for a reasonable price.

treasure chest items

after doing some golden shovel dig sites, you've probably gotten a couple treasure chests. placing them in your den and clicking on them will give you an item.

these items are usually not really worth much, but some of them can be sold for decent amounts of sapphires. the best way to check if you should sell a treasure chest item is by checking the shop explorer in coral canyons!

after doing these things for a while, you should eventually get 600 sapphires to buy a membership! WOOOO! with that membership, you'll now get daily rewards of 5 sapphires, you'll be able to open pack chest rewards, you'll be able to send pets on expeditions, and much more.

pet expeditions are a big topic on their own, so i'm not going to explain them here, but i'll update this post if i ever end up making a pet expedition guide!

now that you have a membership, you might be wondering, how can you earn enough sapphires monthly to keep that membership?

it's pretty much the same process as getting the first 600 sapphires! selling items in your shop will be easier though because you won't get the "nonmember tax" taken out.

that's all that i have for now! if you have any other questions or if you think i missed something important, feel free to dm me or send an ask in. thank you so much for reading through this post, and thank you even more for waiting for this post to come out!

[coqxettee]

Why I love being a girl ♡

- January 8th 2023 -

Written by Kellen-Pippa Beckett (@coqxette)

I adore being a girl. 💋

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been literally living my mornings, afternoons and evenings on Pinterest, and as I’ve been scrolling, I’ve come across so many pretty pictures, of simple girly things that just make me so happy. Bottles of perfume, lipgloss, other pretty girls, pink clothes, bags, shoes, outfit combinations, pretty bedrooms, skincare, makeup. All kind of things I didn’t ever used to particularly romanticise and see the true beauty of up until this year. Since January I’ve not taken anything for granted, in terms of enjoying my life on this planet as a girl. There’s so many things I love to do, that I just don’t often think about. But since the beginning of 2023, I’ve been doing so many little girly tasks and activities, and I thought I’d share them with you 🎀

Girly habits to have: (@coqxette)

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ | ✧˖°. | ʚɞ ⁺˖

🎀 Take a shower every morning, using the sweetest, sugary, and most divine shower products you can

🎀 Invest in cotton candy scented soaps, scrubs, shower gel, body lotion, hand cream

🎀 Have pretty makeup products. This will motivate you to want to do your makeup on days your not feeling it

🎀 Lipgloss & Mascara are essentials. Keep them in your purse for quick top up’s throughout the day

🎀 In your purse keep genuine essentials. A tiny mirror, hairbrush, lipgloss & mascara, headphones, emergency money and tissues/hand sanitiser

🎀 Save up your money. You know that one thing you’ve wanted for ages? (Dior bag for me ) Put some money aside each month to eventually pay out for it

🎀 Devote every Sunday to a pamper day. (Or one day a week) Wash your hair, manicure, pedicure, exfoliate, moisturiser, do a face mask, hair mask The lot ✨

🎀 Get an early night for an early morning, and do one girly thing before bed. Read a beautiful story, listen to soft music or your favourite song, watch a comfort episode of your favourite show. But try not to go on a screen 45 minutes before you actually sleep

🎀 Take time out of your day to do things YOU enjoy, playing a video game, reading a book, whatever you enjoy doing. Self care is important too

🎀 If the weather is appropriate, go on daily walks. I live in the countryside in the UK, so the weather isn’t always on my side but for people that live in hot climates, don’t take your beautiful weather for granted!

🎀 Even on windy days, a compact brush goes a long way. Keep your hair healthy, maintained. Have a hair care routine, and go to the hairdressers every 1-2 months (if you can) if you want that extra pampering feeling

🎀 Thrift to find the best stuff! Designer clothes are heavenly, but nearly ALL of my clothes are thrifted! (Some thrifted things are cuter than designer) and you can find so many vintage sales! Check TK/J MAX for Juicy Couture)

🎀 Maintain a healthy diet, but never fear to compensate when it’s that time of the month 🤒 One of my favourite, (but healthy in moderation) sweet treats are dark chocolates and it can help with cramps, so it’s a win win!

🎀 Paint your nails pink. Baby pink, hot pink, dusty pink. Just… pink

🎀 Invest in some new girly stationary. Pink notepads, pink pens. Girly stationary = girly notes & girly planning

🎀 If it’s pink and girly, buy it :)

🎀 Collect pretty jewellery! Silver or gold, or pink :))

🎀 If exercise is your thing, invest in some pink gym wear

🎀 Always keep a pair of earphones/headphones/AirPods with you to listen to girly music wherever you go. The world can seem so boring without pink, bubblegum music

🎀 Bored? Go shopping. Day off? Go shopping. No friends? Go shopping. Loads of friends? Go shopping

🎀 Have a signature scent, so people always know it’s you.

🎀 Have a box in your room dedicated to hair accessories.

🎀 Make your room girly! Pink floral bedsheets, a vanity, and fairy lights are all staples

🎀 Boys are cute but don’t obsess over them. Obsess over pink instead <3

🎀 Watch girly cartoons! It’s not childish and if it makes you happy, then it’s worth it. I love ANYTHING Barbie, I watch all of her content religiously :)

🎀 Start watching Barbie life in the dream house. This sounds niche but it’s SO cute and watching Barbie being effortlessly girly will imprint in your brain, trust meeeee

🎀 Lastly, and the most important of them all. Don’t force any of this. If your a girly girl, your a girly girl and there is nothing you can do about it! But these are just habits I tend to keep up, because I enjoy doing all of them. Don’t take being girly for granted, even when your just putting your perfume or body spray on before you go out, that’s such a lovely girly act, and remember that. Orrrrr maybe I’m just queen of over romanticising everything. Either way just implant these habits day by day and you will start to see girly changes <3

All my love… your homework is to try and do ONE of these girly things today, love you always. Stay girly, stay beautiful. - Kellen 🎀🛼