#but as someone already working full time

[orphyd]

Just paid outta pocket for my summer semester...maybe selling 🐈 is a lucrative business opportunity-

[teacupsandcyanide]

Something I miss from earlier eras of the creative side of the internet was things just being unabashedly low-budget. Just all unashamedly amateur, unprofessional, ‘I don’t own a good camera but I have a story to tell you’, ‘I can’t afford a good mic but I have a song to sing for you,’ ‘I don’t have any kind of background in editing or lighting and I only just picked up this guitar last Tuesday but here’s an entire musical me and my friends wrote about our favourite book, we filmed it on a potato and put it up on YouTube in ten minute segments because we thought it was pretty funny.’

[queen-scribbles]

Taking advantage of a bonus day off to meta about my spy son and his relationship with his Sith gf. :D

It was really interesting with Arkady's run through SoR and RotE, watching his opinion on Lana change. When I started the prelude stuff, I wasn't sure they were going to work, considering he's... not the biggest fan of the Sith. (refresher: he grew up on Ziost and watched a Sith kill his best friend as a teen for "mouthing off". [read: not groveling enough] There was no punishment or anything bc that's The Sith's Right as Superior Beings and he's always been quietly furious about that.) And he was suspicious of Lana at first. But much as I hate the "you're not like other [X]" trope, it does sort of apply here.

Lana is far more practical, level headed, and open minded than any other Sith he's met. And, more importantly, she doesn't act like she's superior simply for being Sith. She listens to his insight, acknowledges and even compliments his skill(and others'). And not in the flattering, hope-to-distract-you way Darth Arkous does; her praise is genuine. That she trusts him with her concerns says volumes to Arkday and goes a long way towards softening his opinion, as does her willingness to work with Theron from Depths of Manaan onward. She's cunning, subtle, and patient, and all those are things he admires.

There is, admittedly, a bit of a setback in his opinion after her "let Theron get captured" stunt on Rishi; the events of the Agent story have made him really sensitive to anything that resembles betrayal from within or not being able to trust your own team. He does insist she apologize, even if he can see her logic. Trust is paramount in something like this. Still, he can appreciate her ability to assess the situation, weigh risk/cost against benefits and make a call quickly in the field, even if he emphatically disagrees with that call.

She's invaluable, and picks up spycraft so quickly he's pretty sure she would have made an amazing operative if she didn't have the Force and get claimed by the Sith. In turn, he's not shy about telling her that. He thinks she's doing an impressive job with the limitations of not knowing who to trust, the lack of resources that includes, and the immensity of what they're facing. By the time they get to the end of Yavin 4 and the aftermath of fighting Revan/the Emperor's escape, he's a a big fan of This One Sith in particular, and has no problem with Marr putting her in charge of Sith Intelligence(even if he rankles at the general concept; he's gone free agent, this doesn't affect him xD). He is, in fact, effusive in his support of this, encouraging to her before they part, and quite saddened by the thought of how long it might be before their paths cross again(if ever). He likes her quite a bit.

In RotE, I was worried I was setting him up for no smooch bc he only took the flirts that seemed in character, and I know pub-side you have to take them all to get a Theron smooch. Lana is not so picky. xD Even if it wasn't Lana asking, he would have jumped to help seeing as Ziost is his home planet. (WHOOPS 😬) He didn't take the first flirt, no matter how glad he was to see her, bc it didn't feel right, under the circumstances. He gets the rundown on what's happening and her plan for dealing with it and backs her immediately. "If that's what you think we should do, we'll do it." He does think she's in over her head, but only bc the chaos unfolding on Ziost would be over anyone's head, even if they were standing on someone else's shoulders. Fortunately, since both he and Theron are here to help, that's three of them and maybe they can get one of their heads above water, so to speak.

It does, of course, only reinforce his general dislike of Sith as power-hungry tyrants(Lana and Marr being literally the only exceptions to this in his experience). He very deliberately doesn't say anything about the fact Theron had to modify the "pacification" weapon to be non-lethal(meaning it was lethal to start. :) The Sith were willing to kill their own people :) for expressing discontent. :)) Lana, do you see where he might have a problem?). There are bigger fish to fry. Like Vitiate.

Master Surro proved another ~Arkady Disapproves~ moment wrt Lana. Having had his mind played with and prodded, he's not inclined to let that happen to anyone, even if she is a Jedi. Lana, of course, thinks he and Theron are soft-hearted and irresponsible for not following what they could learn from this. Arkady doesn't think it will be worth it(who's to say there's any evidence of what Vitiate did or how he took/maintained control? You could break or kill her and gain nothing and she's been through enough.) [PS. He didn't say anything in KotFE ch 4 about Valkorion being in his head. This moment right here is why]

Even with that leaving a sour taste in his mouth, and the fact their big, last-gasp plan does not seem to have worked for more than ten seconds, he still admires her. She kept the Sith Emperor from taking over her mind, thought and acted decisively under extreme pressure(hot), worked well with other even with personal friction, and did the best she could with an impossible situation. When they fail, and Ziost is devoured (and he sure feels Some Kind of Way about that, even if he didn't have a lot of fond memories of home, it was home), Lana acknowledges the failure, figuratively dusts herself off, and thinks about what to do going forward.

It's very sexy, to him, the way she never seems daunted and presses on regardless. Of course he's not going to let her do it alone. Of course he's going to help. However she needs.

This method of helping is 100% fine with him. :3

I may do a separate post about their KotFE/ET era relationship (making it official etc) once he's further along than KotFE ch 5, but I will say: after the nightmares Arkady went through in carbonite, Lana's face being the first one he saw coming out of it was an immeasurable relief.

[chiimeramanticore]

i have been condemned to work on christmas fucking eve despite working an office job and literally none of our clients being here can u guys send asks so i can be distracted out of seething about it all day

[majoris]

hi hello im just gonna complain in the tags so don't worry about that hope you're having a nice time a good day cozy soft day to you my friend ✨

[unopenablebox]

eternal experience of being like "i'm not sure my quantitative analysis is working/the best possible approach and i'm very bad at a) writing code b) forcing myself to endure writing code c) task-switching once i am writing code. oh hey here's someone with extensive experience in this field. do you want an author credit in exchange for helping me write code to find interesting content in this data"

and they're like "well you already did the hard part and this is so easy you could just do it yourself"

and i'm like " :( but i won't"

[mdemn]

like i know struggling isn’t a competition but it should be illegal for me to be forced to listen to this guy in my office complain about how hard it is to ‘go to work full time while in school’ when he takes one (1) class a month and just got back from a two week vacation that i had to cover him for and also i work three jobs & still have to borrow money every week LMAOOOOOOOOOO

[silent-sentinels]

we have gotta actually finish the other account, it has been months and we want to tell revi that we're also plural hgkjgk

[theflyingfeeling]

I hate it here sm

[sweet-potato-42]

At first i was a believer of qommunication smp but now that its starting to fade i want more characters to commit to being against each other

i want more drama and fighting

the era of all being together and friends seems to be ending. We start to see a rift as people align themselves with different groups and start disliking each other. Close bonds get stronger and distant ones break.

but fun drama as well. I watch other minecraft content on youtube and prank war shit is so fun to see. I have faith in aypierre, tubbo and bbh starting the first true prank war on qsmp.

[sugar-omi]

I was so happy living my Leech Daughter Era™️ tho 😩

RIIIIGHTTTT?!??! like i enjoyed the freeness of my gap year, and i love being unemployed bc. well i aint gotta do anything😂😂 but i hate being broke..........💀

i am enjoying the busyness n buzz of my life now bc im in a (bit</3) better place n im having more fun now, but dammit!!!! i jus wanna look pretty (i actually look like a frog in my pjs n unkempt bun majority of the time lol) and paint, read n write, and watch anime in my room all day😩😩😩

but we got this!!!!!! we'll grind n then we'll be retired on the beach one day i swearrrrr 🙌

[moe-broey]

Why did I start like three other projects when I was already working on a big project when I just got hit with the autism exhaustion beam (requires. At least One Full Day just dead in bed, and then some more Taking It Easy time after)

[stars-inthe-sky]

10. tell me about an insecurity you overcame.

It's been a while since I started freelancing for fun and profit, but the beginning of that journey is still a pretty big deal to me.

I'd previously worked at an agency for nearly three years, so I knew how to do client-based work, but I knew nothing about business development (or billing, or taxes, or client management, or admin).

And, for those I didn't know back in 2017, I started down that whole road in the first place after getting very unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired after like four months on the job. It was never clear exactly why, but I'd thought things had been going well, and that was a pretty gutting Thursday afternoon.

I'd also just gone through a job search, so I knew there weren't many positions available in the region that would be a fit—and that the most recent thing that had seemed to be a great fit had, uh, not been. (This was before remote/hybrid work was a real norm, even though my agency job had functionally been hybrid and taught me to work effectively as such.)

But when I'd gone through that previous job search, a couple of people I spoke with had mentioned maybe needing some freelance capacity down the road, and perhaps I should get in touch once I got settled in the job if I was interested. So I reached out to them, without mentioning the rest, thinking I could at least bridge the gap while I figured out what the fuck to do. Both had solid projects for me where I learned a bunch quickly, made some money, and was excited for more.

And then it just kind of made sense to keep seeing about those kinds of opportunities—both because I liked the client-based work and flexibility, but also because it quickly became apparent that it'd be harder for any one person or institution to fuck me over in the same way.

Plus, one of the people who needed a subcontractor turned out to be a great mentor and reference; I don't think I ever told him quite why I'd decided to go all-in on freelancing full-time, but I have thanked him repeatedly for some truly foundational early guidance as well as a couple of projects he helped set me up with. He's semi-retired now but I'm still using some of those templates!

Anyway, I networked my way into a couple of additional early projects and finished 2017 with about the same overall income for the year that I had had in my agency job for 2016. (Not the fuck-them one, the one I got laid off from because, well, that was a bad end-of-year for anyone working in Democratic politics, much like this one.)

And the rest is history: I've been self-employed for about 7.5 years now and, while the constant hustle and inconstant income/workload have their own challenges, I think I've landed in a pretty secure (emotionally/professionally) place about the whole enterprise.

[forbiddenseason]

In crisis personally. I don’t want to leave my home. I’m being forced to. Staying with my grandparents means staring at stupid amounts of trump merch but it’s better than being on the street I Guess.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than wheat

You're more amazing than job applications

[joutsummer]

.