#but i need prints to SELL AT SAID CON. AND I NEED MONEY TO BUY THE PRINTS

[dragqueenpentheus]

waiting for refunds to come thru on my card with two dollars in my bank account like 👁️👄👁️

[gamergirljournalist]

2024 will be the last year I buy Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lair products

I've been buying Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lair sets since the release of Faerie Faerie Rad. I don't buy every product that was dropped, only the ones that piqued my interest or would do well with my commander deck. But recently, after the events of The Marvel Superdrop and how unorganized and terrible the experience was, I have decided that 2024 may be the final year I purchase Secret Lair items until the system is fixed.

What Is Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lair?

For those out of the loop, Secret Lair is a special Magic: The Gathering product where it's mainly reprints of certain cards through unique artwork and interpretations. Sometimes, they would offer original/new cards due to collaborations with various IPs via its Universe Beyond program. These items are limited, feature 4-6 cards, and have a usual starting price of $29.99. It used to be a print-on-demand system, where customers would be given a few days or weeks to make an order, then would have to wait months for the item to arrive. But Wizards of the Coast changed it, having already printed a certain amount and it will be shipped immediately after a few days.

This new system is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, your stuff arrives quickly and can use it immediately. Also, not every set sells out immediately, so you can save up for a bit till your next paycheck and buy the item. Then, there is the clusterf*ck that was both the Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Marvel Superdrop release, where items would sell out in an hour, long wait times and most recently, people cheating the system.

While many complained about how bad this is, many sceptics believe that nothing will change since it doesn't hit Wizard's bottom line. As long the items sell out, there is no need to fix them. People will spend their money on it, regardless. They just need to know how to play the game. Well, guess what?! The game is rigged and it's unfair to those who really want it. What's even worse is for those in countries like Australia, who have to wake up early or stay up all night just to grab hold of these items.

An Australian Perspective of The Marvel Superdrop Release.

Many Americans and Europeans have said their piece about their recent Secret Lair experience. But what about an Australian? Well, as someone who managed to get through the lines without cheat codes, and still managed to get the product, here is my story on what happened during that pre-sale sh*tstorm.

I found out about the Marvel Secret Lair like everyone else, via New York Comic Con. I got to report about it for Collider and after watching Tolarian Community College's video on potential Commander builds, plus a funny card interaction from MTG Flavor Judge Drawings on X/Twitter, I've decided to order two sets - Captain America and Iron Man and create a Civil War-themed deck. Then my boyfriend, who was on the fence to buy this set, eventually agreed to throw money to Wizards as he liked two of the sets as well - Wolverine and Storm. The only thing we've debated was if we were going to get Black Panther and spend nearly $200 USD for the whole caboodle.

But then, we learned that Wizards was also giving a limited Arcane Signet card featuring the Avengers Tower. With that knowledge, we agreed to get all 5 Marvel sets, but under the condition that I fork out the shipping if I do manage to get Arcane Signet. According to my boyfriend's version of Girl Math, the shipping cost would be less than what the card would eventually be worth in places like TCG Player, and it's true as the last time I visited, a single copy of Avenger's Tower Arcane Signet was $50 USD.

As someone who lives in Australia and freelances for a North American news outlet, the timing of this wasn't that bad. All I had to do was work as normal then by 4 am, when I was supposed to sleep, just spent at least 30 minutes in line and get the item. The most I've spent in line for a secret lair was 40 minutes, and that was for the Hatsune Miku Superdrop Part 2. So theoretically, it didn't sound like a bad plan, it's a great plan.

Boy was I wrong...

4 AM came and little did I know that buying Marvel-themed Magic cards would be as bad as buying Eras Tour tickets. And that's saying something because I waited 8 hours just to see Taylor Swift. I was on the site 1 hour before the items were on sale. I went to the bundle page, put everything in my cart and off to the races.

"More than an hour"

That's what it said when it came to my wait time. I had to wait for more than an hour. How long? Didn't say, but boy howdy I was going to find out. Not only was it long, but the lines paused for a bit due to "technical issues." Eventually, it moved, but I wasn't at the checkout till 6 AM! Not only that, I had multiple checkout issues, like the site logging me out despite being logged in, and removing Arcane Signet from my cart because the card I used had insufficient funds (turns out shipping added an extra $10 USD from the usual $7.99), and, not to mention, didn't find this out till after the transaction, there was a stupid hidden transaction fee that no one was aware of.

TLDR: I waited 2 hours in line, only to be forced to sign in again once I made it to my cart, lost my Arcane Signet promo, and paid too much due to added shipping cost and a hidden fee.

What... the... f*ck...

Needless to say, the sun was already rising and the birds were singing the moment I paid and my order was sorted. The bedroom needed to be in total blackout and I needed to wear an eye mask if I wanted to sleep properly. But dang, I could have pulled off a 24-hour no-sleep challenge if I wanted to thanks to Wizards.

Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lair System is Broken

Yes, I've said it, the new system is broken. Not only did it create an even worse experience for customers, but there were multiple reports of people skipping the queues, which could explain why my wait time fluctuated between 20 and 40 minutes, why many of the cards were scalped and put to the aftermarket, and why I missed out on Arcane Signet.

What's the point in buying limited Magic: The Gathering product if you're going to be stuck in line the whole day and have a high chance of not getting anything? Not to mention, is Wizards of the Coast going to fix its queuing system? If not, I'm literally going to pull the same moves as the queue cutters once Hatsune Miku Part 4 drops sometime in December or January, just so I can end this nightmare.

My experience at the Marvel Superdrop opened my eyes to how bad this new system is. Back then, I wasn't too fussed about it as usually, I waited less than an hour and due to my job, I can order the items with no issues. But suffering from severe sleep deprivation was definitely not worth the $120+ AUD (inc tax, shipping, and hidden fees).

Including the Marvel Superdrop, I've purchased a total of 7 Secret Lair items under my account, maybe one or two if I were to count the stuff my boyfriend ordered on his side. I only bought one set via Facebook groups because it was a better deal than ordering via the Secret Lair website at the time. Until then, my experience buying limited cards wasn't that bad. It wasn't great either, but it was fair and less stressful. But this latest experience sucked so much that it drained so much energy out of me. Never again do I want to experience that. So once the fourth and final Hatsune Miku Superdrop is released, I will end my support for Magic's Secret Lair and will resort to either making proxies or buying singles until the system is fixed.

[poisonedspider]

Totally random, but I have a few people that owe me money and am currently around $2,500 short because of it which is really fucking with me and my bills and I keep getting interest charges. That being said, I have a few art prints from when I guested at cons last year that I would love to get rid of and might help me with some money. I'd sell them for $5 each, the issue is that I would need people's addresses to be able to send them. Would anyone here even be interested in something like that? I refuse to take charity money, and I have all this stuff I can get rid of for some profit so....anything that would help me make some money to cover these expenses since my friends fucking suck. ;; I also have some stickers and some keychains! I just am putting out feels to see if anyone would even buy from someone they barely know on Tumblr.

[judesmoonbeauty]

The Past Records: Ellis & Jude Chapter 5

Fan translation only. Not 100% accurate. Please expect grammatical errors. Cybird owns everything. Feel free to re-blog, but please do NOT post my translations elsewhere. Also, feel free to ignore my random commentary.

Translation notes are marked with *** Alternate translation is marked with///

I followed both Ellis and Jude to a warehouse at the port, just as Liam had said.

Alfons: What in the world could they be doing here at night for a business meeting?

Harrison: Let’s say they have some kind of deal with a prisoner-

Liam: This is something the Crown should judge…perhaps.

Liam: I don’t think so.

Alfons: It seems like there's already someone inside the warehouse.

Harrison: That’s-?

When Jude and Ellis confidently stepped into the warehouse, the figures inside suddenly became startled.

Jude: Ah, you're the guy who tried to sell me a shoddy product the other day.

Business Partner: !!

Jude: And who's that next to you…?

Wilson: Thomas Wilson, president of the Wilson Trading Company.

Jude: Oh, I remember you, the guy who was running a shitty business, lost money to us, and went bankrupt.

Wilson: Ugh!

Ellis: So, he’s the worst of the worst?

Jude: I guess. I can’t believe he made a de with that pale-faced coward of a former convict.

Ellis: The one with the pale face, uh, not Mr. Wilson….

Jude: Dennis Donald.

Ellis: Mr. Dennis.

Dennis: N-name….you know….

Ellis: He said it's fundamental to know the name, family structure, assets, and backgrounds of those you’re dealing with.

Ellis: So, Mr. Dennis was threatened by Mr. Wilson, and stashed dangerous drugs in this rented warehouse.

Dennis: H-did you know that too?

Wilson: You idiot! Who would admit to that?

Jude: You’d make money by using my warehouse as a storage facility, and selling drugs to criminals coming out of prison.

Jude: And in the end, you'd say, "Jude Jazza pulled all the strings", and frame me for the crime to get your revenge?

Wilson: That's right. It's all for revenge against you!

Wilson: Tomorrow, the deal with the prisoners will begin. And the information has already been sold to a certain newspaper.

Wilson: It is impossible to move all the inventory in this warehouse right now. You’re done…ahahaha!!

Jude: Do you enjoy your life by wasting your time on such shitty things?

Jude: After all that hard work and making deals with dangerous people, there's no way you can ever go back. Pathetic.

Wilson: Hmph, you act like you can take it easy.

Dennis: Uh, uwaa!

Wilson: It’s so loud! What all of a sudden!?

Dennis: Drugs….there’s no drugs.

Wilson: What did you say?

Ellis: I'm sorry. I knew it was a drug you went into debt to procure.

Ellis: I got rid of everything.

Wilson: What…That’s a lie…when and why did you—

Jude: Didn’t you mention you have a clients coming tomorrow? I don’t know what they’ll do to you.

Wilson: Ugh, waaaaa!!!

Ellis: Oh, he jumped at you.

Jude: That’s a fishy move.

Ellis: What should we do? Can I knock him out?

Jude: There’s no need.

Wilson shook his fist and plunged it into Jude's leg, which swung up.

Wilson: Ugh!

Jude: Dennis, buying and selling drugs and people is illegal... It was written in the contract properly….oh, and…

Jude: You just scared the shit out of that cowardly little bitch, and were just looking on from the sidelines. *** I believe he’s addressing Wilson now.

Jude: If it weren’t for you….

Jude: You don't even know how many people's lives you could end with what you're trying to sell, if you don't get your hands dirty and let others do it all for you.

Jude: Besides, someone like you, a scumbag who thinks he's the only one who deserves a good meal, even if I didn’t do it, someone else would’ve done it.

Jude: If you're going to be my slave for the rest of your life, I might as well save you before some junkie ex-cons comes after you, right?

A few minutes later, Wilson's face was clearly marked with shoe prints as he begged for his life with an apology.

Ellis: Mr. Dennis, you are now Jude's slave, too, because this is a breach of contract.

Dennis: Ugh, ugh….. if you detach me from Mr. Wilson, I'll follow you for the rest of my life. ......

Ellis: Oh, are you crying tears of joy….?"

Jude: Disgusting.

Jude: So when are those sneaking around going to come out?

Alfons: Oh, did they know?

Liam: Well, I don't know what’s going on, but the person who is lying there has a grudge against Jude.

Liam: You mean he was trying to make a  dangerous deal in this warehouse to bring you down?

Ellis: You're right on the money. Jude, gets resentment all over the place, so it happens.

Harrison: Then you turned down the assignment tonight, and you were acting suspiciously.….

Jude: We're going to be busy with the missions. I'm just trying to get rid of one of the troublesome things.

Ellis: The person with whom Mr. Wilson was trying to make a deal to frame Jude.

Ellis: He seems to be a former noble who drugged and locked up the people he kidnapped.

Ellis: I think he was going to re-offend once he got the drugs from Mr. Wilson.

Alfons: That's quite a scoundrel, isn't it?

Jude: If this scumbag catches that criminal, I'll do whatever it takes, crown duty or not."

Jude: It's so easy to come back to this world, damn it. I’ll show you hell.

Harrison: You’ve got a personal vendetta against him?

Ellis: No, he simply doesn’t like him.

Jude: If you’re on a Crown mission, you’re allowed to torture these guys aren’t you?

Jude: It’s like a hobby to torment corrupt aristocrats, and if I get paid for it, it’s a good job. 👌🏻 

Liam: Wow…..you look evil.

Alfons: There may be no one more qualified for the Crown than Jude. 

Harrison: Oddly enough, that concludes the report.

Ellis: Report?

Harrison: It’s nothing.

Later, the report was completed by Harrison and successfully submitted to Victor.

Jude: I knew you were sneaking around, but this is shitty.

Victor: Done. That settles the matter.

Harrison: Well, there’s one thing that still remains a mystery.

William: Mystery?

Harrison: Why is Ellis hanging out with Jude?

Harrison: It doesn’t sound like he’s being extorted….

Jude: Oy!

Liam: Yea, it’s not like they’re on the same page.

Ellis: I made a promise.

[Previous] [Next] [Master List]

[celticcrossanon]

Hairless and WALMART WALLIS will not be at the Coronation, so that is done, so too, the balcony shot of them is a non starter. Charles has spoken from the beginning, that “he wishes them well etc.” They are toast. It does not matter what they do, say, print, or publicize. This is their destiny, so all their antics were wasted, all their money was wasted, all their Awards mean nothing, and all their posturing as to their status was wasted. They are not royal adjacent and no matter how many times they say they are important, we all know they are not important. Now that means Spotify, Netflix, the US, the United Kingdom, the networks, Oprah, the press and every other outlet and person and corporation that they have tried to manipulate to gain traction. It no longer matters what they say, as now we know they are liars, con artists and grifters who will attempt to spread more lies. No one will listen. They have not gotten the money from Netflix or Spotify for their books, podcasts or film as they do not sell. No one will pay to buy anything from them. We know the ratings for their TV show tanked. We know their listing for Best Seller ratings was fixed as they actually sold so few books. They did not meet the number of books they had to and now it looks like some of the advance may have to even be repaid. Everyone has lost money on them. They are the losers, we always thought they were. There is a just God.

*

Hi Nonny,

The Harkles are going very heavily on the ‘will they or won’t they?’ PR at the moment, imo. I think that a lot of people are sick of hearing about them. I hope they are staying away as well, but with those two you can never be sure of anything until the day and hour of the event.

I agree that the Harkles are irrelevant and that they are using awards etc to try and make themselves relevant, and it is failing as more and more people see through them. As you have said, people are now seeing their lies and not believing what they say. You would think that by now the pair of them would have realised that they need to change their approach, but they seem to be deaf to the messages of the universe. I think that they are going to be increasingly desperate for attention and we will see the same PR and the same PR tricks over and over again as they try and fail to obtain what they want. As they say, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

[the-firebird69]

There's a few more things about this car it is a four-speed there was a recall and it's going to say the documents to recall was addressed and he says how would that be if I was sitting in there and I already had it done that's an answer too and we have to check that to make sure that it was checked and the recall I was worked on and he says he can always wait and see if it happens that's a funny thing to say but usually notices but really objective in number you check the VIN number and Saturn is still open no you can check it with that repair shops and it works there's another item

-there's a huge number of people who would like to see John remillard and company dead the driving by here telling him to go away and the sun said the other day if I get a Jeep and drive around they're going to harass this s*** out of me and it's true if he gets the Saturn they're going to drive around and harass the s*** out of him and it's going to be a nuisance and he wants to have some objective to driving somewhere and we're going to try and provide that at first he's going to have to go to Comic-Con and things he says and it's true and it'll be a financial burden and you won't be able to do it unless he has money to spend and he'll just sell it for a lot more money than when it's going for and he doesn't care for your numbers those are not cars that are in mint condition with low miles $10,000 and he'll ask that but really we know that they'll have some funds run $90,000 plus 3 years of seven hundred dollars a month which is another almost $30,000 and it's a way for him to try and better himself and make some money somehow and he and can go through a lot of ideas maybe four or five. And he wants to like deliver stuff for something and he looked into it he said they drive everywhere and beat the s*** on their cars and people suck so he said no and it takes too much gas for 9 bucks to go to Walmart and back it's too much head also this you have to report it too but anyways you have ideas for the car and for additional funding cuz I figure out he's just going to sit there and not do anything and go get groceries and other things they sort of needs and it's not enough money to do squat with. Occasionally we get another call like this says we should print though cuz we're going to run out of runway okay so we will

Thor Freya

Olympus

He'll also have money to buy things that people want them to they might not be the greatest and there's a lot of those people

Hera

What are the main reasons they want me to have money is because they're a bunch of bums who threaten people for money and if I'm in a car they think they can threaten me for money

Zues

I did get that idea and I get the feeling that he's just going to resist practically no matter what I'm doing so you can try and kill me and it says I'm pretty smart for a stupid piece of s*** sometimes but not often enough and nowhere near fast enough so I'm starting to figure out something I'm risking my life and he's threatening me for some reason this is people would be forced to wipe us out he knows what it is and it's happening every day it could be the 70% of the world's businesses that I kind of giving up most of and gosh how can I figure it out well here's how it goes I'm selling it and they're buying it and most of the money it's hard to use and I think I'm getting away with something so I have proofs in terms to offer my people

Trump

Olympus

[diah-the-demon]

yeah the vibe is different </3 it now feels less like a personal chat and more like a personal chat in a public space but what else can we do when tumblr keeps being homophobic TT-TT

yeah I hope so too!! I'll bring it up to her soon as we still have Sci-fi cons which we regularly attend bcs I think that'd be cool!

and aaaw that sounds adorable!! The Sci-Fi cons that I visit always have lots of kids that age running around with their plastik lightsabers and usually clone wars masks of Anakin and Obi Wan and it's the cutest thing to watch them run around and play out their ideas

yeah she probably won't ksjdlsk it's just that we're both so used of someone bitching at us for buying even the most necessary shit so we gotta get used to that no longer happening slkjdlsk I'll probably bring it up to her soon, maybe tomorrow after uni! Hell I can even pay for it myself, I still have a lot of unused money from the past few cons since I barely bought smth aside from postcards / small prints

ksjdslk you're going to have the sickest bookshelf if that works out! and I hope it does skdjsl But yeah that sounds like a solid idea as to where to put them!!

ooh I think with the shows coming out there should definitely be a spike on tutorials for them!! Though I highly doubt there weren't some to begin with with Star Wars being such a huge franchise!! (and yeah I think that could probably be a solid start!!)

Yeah that's also always what I have noticed (it's probably also one of the most comfortable options ngl skldjsk) I think attaching them is going to be the most tricky part but I bet there are tricks to do so very easily!

yeah it feels way more out in the open, like speaking into a microphone instead of like just a casual conversation sat at a table in the corner of the room.. we could switch to discord or insta dms if we want it less open but idk, feels weird when its not on tumblr

ooo that sounds like fun! i need to try going to a sci-fi con, i know they have some in edinburgh occasionally throughout the year so il see if i can maybe go there eventually

it was!! it was so fucking fun, i remember around that age me and my sister would have lightsaber duels occasionally, too bad the sabers were bad quality so i accidently broke mine when i hit it too hard </3 thankfully it was after halloween so i still had the saber for halloween, just imagine like an 8 or 9 year old with a darth vader mask and red lightsaber walking down a dimly lit street dsjdsslkdj

i remember when i went trick or treating later that day i used my vader helmet (well its more like a mask tbh, its only the front half of vaders helmet lol) as a bucket to keep my sweets and candy in dlskjdslkjds

thats fair i cant rlly blame you or her, it will probably take a long time to get over that (i know the feeling cause my mother is like that sometimes, its so fucking annoying. she does it less to me now cause i have my own money but still)

i hope it goes well when you talk to her about it!! i doubt she wont let you buy it but wishing it goes well anyways!! if you dont do it tomorrow tho do keep in mind the sale is i think only lasting 1 more week? (or until everything sells out) so dont leave it too long slksjdlskd

IK ITS GONNA BE SO COOL, id say my bookshelf is already pretty cool because ive got 2 shelfs of books (one is mostly manga and star wars books, other is recipe books and other misc books) i could put them in 1 shelf but ive done it that way so theres space on the shelf next to the books, so i can put the helmets next to the books!! thinking about it now i can prob get 2 on the bookshelf and then the other 2 could go ontop of it maybe, idk il figure that out when i get them dsjlkds

Edit: heres a pic of said book shelf, forgot to mention the (fake) plant that hangs infront of my manga!!! skdjd Ignore the basket on the second shelf of books btw thats just where i keep my socks rn lmao (and random clothes in the shelf below too sldjslskssjk, im working on it so ignore that)

Anyways i could totally fit a helmet or 2 in here, one where the origami book is and one where the basket is, then the rest can go ontop of the bookcase idk lol

oh yeah its def gonna be trending, i saw one for storm trooper armour a few months ago, not mandalorian but tbh they are close (i mean storm trooper armour was based on the clones armour which was based on mandalorian so it is connected lmao) even if there isnt im pretty sure i could probably figure it out on my own if i had to

i think the way il have to attach it is maybe velcro? cause pins could fall out and if i try to put it back on it will be in a slightly different area probably, so what im thinking is having small velcro patches put onto the body suit and some on the armour pieces!! probably wont work out how it is in my head when i finally do it but i can atleast have ideas until then lol

[anandasamsara]

few updates cause its been a while

first, and less exciting one: i went to the cinema with a friend today. after what, 3 years?? probably. but i forgot its carnaval for a moment, and was reminded by seeing so many boobs. so many. girls with boobs out. in public transport. panicked for 3 seconds, remembered where i live and what time of the year it was and everything was good again.

second, we might be able to buy the 4th floor apartment! im having a crisis tho, bc my new bedroom will be less than half the size of my current one and its been very difficult to plan where tf am i gonna fit everything. as i said in the last few updates, i sleep inside a print shop now, so i need to have my bed and also all the machinery i use, and my books, and the product inventory... and beyond the new room being smaller, it is also very VERY... diagonal? crooked? one of the walls goes on diagonal to the rest of the room, with one other being 1,97m long and another being 2,60m, and both the crooked and the remaining one are 3,10m. i'll update again with images eventually, but the whole place is way smaller.

third, we are both, me and mum now, on our last leg with dad. he doesnt contribute anymore, he spent all of our money, he made debts when i specifically told him not to and im very suspicious of him having an affair. i dont recognize him anymore. he hasnt been a dad, my dad, in a long while. i have my issues with mom, but she doesnt deserve this. in fact we've been way closer and getting along way better. we're at the point of maybe waiting for the new apartment to be bought and finished and telling dad to get his shit together and leave. i dnot have the mental fortitude to deal with his shit, and i wont be taking care of a person who does not take care of himself. one of my friends called me a caregiver, as im my parents only child, but i refuse to be one. i dnot want kids, i will not parent my parents.

fourth, and the most exciting news for me: was approved on the post grad interview! i might be reaching (no one else thinks so), but im trying to be logical an at the same time not get any expectations. But. if there were 40 openings, 32 people were selected to be interviwed, and only 30 attended, me being one of them, this may, maybe, mean that im in, right?? i sure hope so, but i also worry bc its paid, and i have no idea if i can pay for it. i cant get a grant, or a scholarship, bc dad's gross salary is high enough to take me out of those lists, even tho hes receiving less than half of it. i cant apply on my own bc my address is the same as my parents. and having no job other than the few cons im attending will get me not enough money for the monthly pay. it may sound stupid in dollars, as its less than 60usd per month, but thats 280brl and i make about 180 average per convention. a few cons i make more, but i dont have a con every month, or more than one per month most times, and i also have to pay for them anyways, an the material. anyways, im happy but slightly discouraged. i already had to give up the japanese classes, idk how im gonna keep up with my studies.

thats it for now. wish i could sell things internationally, but no one would buy and the mail service would be expensive anyway

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[unholyhelbig]

Hosie where Hope finds out that Josie is dealing... Oregano?

A/N: I wish I had some oregano to get me through this quarantine... 

Title: Searching for a Deal 

Ship: Hope Mikaelson/ Josie Saltzman 

Request prompts here | Read on AO3 

Magic had a scent to it that reminded Hope of home. She could never pinpoint the exact smell, it was more of a feeling than anything, a memory that pulled at the very back edges of her mind until it felt familiar.

Her aunt carried a dark mahogany box; its wood was soft and finished and hot like sage. And that’s exactly what magic reminded her of. Of course, she kept weed in that box and hid it behind the books she knew her family wouldn’t reach for. But not everyone was as cunning as Rebekah. Hope was.

She would reach her hands past the spell books, feeling that cold energy along the way, and pull out the box. It didn’t take much convincing to get one of the witches in the quarter to teach her how to roll the paper around the herb, she would sit on top of the toilet in her bathroom near the small window and blow the smoke through there. Hope probably inhaled more off-brand air freshener than the actual weed.

There were parties at the Boarding School, kids who had a handle on where to get drugs, but part of her always felt horrible about drawing smoke into her lungs and passing it back to the person who had paid for it. She was used to doing things herself, and she had gotten to the itchy point in time where she wanted it on her own.

She couldn’t call her Aunt Rebekah, she had gotten away with too much as a young teenager and she was nice enough not to say anything. And going into Mystic Falls to con Maya out of her supply wasn’t an option either. She needed to find a hook-up within the walls of the school.

Hope tried Lizzie first.

“Oh come on,” she whispered harshly, sandwiched between romance novels and a shelf of non-fiction Norse magic. The blonde let her eyes flick from the finely printed spines to Hope before going back to her task. “I know you have some.”

“And what makes you think I do?”

Hope shrugged and tested her luck “There’s no way in hell that therapy is the only thing that has mellowed you out this much, Lizzie. Just give me a name.”

The blonde blinked slowly at her, fingers running against the nearest textbook. She swiped it from the metal shelf and piled it on top of the other one in her arms before letting out a small breath. “Even if I was about to tell you, which I’m not, insulting me isn’t the way to get answers, Hope.”

“Then what is?” She arched a brow.

“Simple. Ask someone else.”

Hope let out a groan of frustration and the taller Saltzman twin went back to her book report. The library was mostly empty at this time of day, golden strings of light bouncing from the shelves. She wouldn’t be able to find an answer with the librarian behind the counter or the young vampire lounging in one of the leather chairs with oversized headphones.

She was agitated, and albeit, desperate.

That very desperation leads her to the gym; it was vastly different than the study. Its floors gleamed and the sound of rubber against glossed wood pounding against her already existing headache. She lingered by the doors for a few moments, watching a few of the wolves pull themselves effortlessly up the ropes.

As soon as Rafael met her gaze, she beaconed him over.

“Not a chance, Hope.” He said, breath caught in his throat. A fine layer of sweat dripped through his shirt. “Dr. Saltzman is strict about that stuff. You think I would be caught with that in my system?”

It hadn’t stopped him before, not at the same parties that Hope had gone to. He was often sitting right next to her, blunt between his teeth and smoke clouding his lungs. “Fair point, but you know who sells it?”

He stalled for a moment, clenching his jaw and glancing back at his teammates. “No. But I know who might.”

Penelope Park.

Hope was growing exhausted of this game of telephone, and even more wary of rushing around the Salvatore school. It wouldn’t be hard to track down Satan herself, she stuck to the dark corners of the school and often camped out under the bleachers, letting the coolness of her perch soak through her jeans as she breathed in the sharp smoke. She reeked of it, and Hope lingered at the entrance. She kicked a metallic can of off-brand beer to get the woman’s attention.

Two other witches lingered, one with his arms stretched above his head, he clung to the bars like a vice and narrowed his glowing eyes at her. The other witch grabbed the rolled paper that Penelope jutted out to her. Hope despised the smug look on her face and the sloppy grin that followed.

“You have a moment?” Hope asked, shoving her hands into her pockets.

Penelope stood from the cinderblock with little hesitation. With the nod of her head, the blunt was handed back to her and the two witches exited from their position at her flanks. They never took their eyes away from her. Hope hated being alone with Penelope.

“You want a hit?” Penelope asked, stretching out her hand.

Yes, she did, more than anything. She nodded and took the rolled cigarette before taking a deep breath in. The toxic taste coated her lungs and instantly made the tension release from her shoulders. “Thanks. I actually… Raf said that you know where to get this?”

“mm, try in town.” She grabbed the blunt back and then dropped it into the wet soil, using the tip of her toe to ground it into nothing. “The humans at Mystic High thrive on it.”

Hope shook her head “I know someone here supplies it. Just not who.”

Penelope laughed and she hated the sound of it. It was something that mocked her and kept her up on certain nights when she was forced into the same social situations as the girl, which wasn’t often. It made Hope cross her arms over her chest defensively.

“Relax, dude. I just think it’s funny that you’re just now hunting this kind of thing down. Even funnier that you have no clue who sells it. It pays to have friends around here, you know?”

Hope glared at her. “I just need a name, Park.”

“Fine, fine.” She shrugged her shoulders in defeat “Josie.”

She wanted to tell Penelope Park to crawl back into whatever hole she had dug herself last. To lay down and cover herself in dirt because there was no way in hell she had spent this long talking to the girl for a bullshit answer like that one. Josie Saltzman. Yeah right.

Penelope must have read the expression on her face. “You asked for a name, Red. I gave you one. She doesn’t’ sell the best stuff, but it’s high quality for Mystic Falls. And even better, you don’t have to travel into town for it.”

Hope waved her off and walked out from under the bleachers, back into the sunlight. She was instantly washed with an easier scent of freshly mowed grass and off-brand sports drink. Maybe she would find Josie, because if Penelope lied, at least it was about Josie. Soft lipped and kind-hearted Josie. She might get scoffed at, but that was the extent.

She found the girl in her dorm room, the door cracked open as she drew little swirls in her notebook.  Ukulele was on her right side. She had been scrawling notes and lyrics but took a creative break, it seemed. The girl glanced up with a stunningly potent stare, setting everything aside as the tribrid knocked sheepishly on the doorframe.

“Can we talk?” Hope had asked, and she knew the answer before she even parted her lips. Josie had a certain vulnerability to her eyes that spelled everything out. Of course, they could talk. Hope could speak for hours without a breath and Josie would listen.

Josie scooted over at the base of her bed and patted the spot on the carpet with a slight nod. Hope was feeling the few breaths she pulled in under the bleachers, the taste still thick on her tongue. Her mouth was dry and she would kill for one sip of water, but this seemed like the most important place to be right now.

“I’ve been asking around the school,” She started. Josie nodded, her slight curls bouncing “and Penelope Park of all people told me that I could… buy something off of you?”

“Like what?”

Josie got this adorable little crinkle in her nose when she was miffed, or when she was lying. Hope never noticed it at first, but she did after once too many dinners with the family. Josie didn’t like lemon and she didn’t like fish either but she would eat it if they were in a fancy enough restaurant because that was the polite thing to do. Her nose crinkled now.

“weed Jo. I’ve been searching through this entire school, and so help me God if Penelope is fucking with me,” She stilled and sighed “I’m stressed. I need something.”

“I don’t even smoke weed.”

“Christ,”

Hope pinched the bridge of her nose, because she knew this meant having to go into town. She didn’t like Lizzie Saltzman much, but she disliked Dana even more. All the townies had something against each and every one of them, and she wasn’t prepared to drop a good amount of money on something so small.

Josie shifted as she turned towards the bed and pressed her shoulder against the floor. She was reaching blindly under her bed for something, letting out little grunts of exasperation. She said something, but it was muffled by the carpet. Finally, she pulled a small mahogany box from the darkness.

“I asked if you could close the door,” Josie emerged, breathless.

Hope just nodded dumbly and got to her feet before following the order. She remained there, her back against the mahogany as she rose both of her eyebrows. Josie hummed in gratitude before unlatching the container.

“I hide it in my sage because people like you can’t smell it otherwise.”

“I thought you said you didn’t’ smoke.”

“Oh I don’t, but I can recognize a good business venture when I see one. There’s not a dealer within fifty miles of this place. Simply no competition so my margins are great.” She stopped rooting around and pulled out a little baggie, a portioned clump of browns and greens.

“I never would have figured.” Hope laughed.

“That’s kind of the point,” Josie beamed “First ones free.”  

[repentantsky]

5 Gaming Controversies in 2020, That Just Seemed So Avoidable

Gaming has over the years, been full of controversies, some caused by bad management, some caused seemingly by human error, and some that just seem avoidable. 2020 has had a slue of these controversies, so let's talk about what happened this year that ticked all of us off, but didn't need to. 

5. Joy-con Drift. 

Nintendo will probably appear on this list more than once, but the most obvious controversy caused by them that could have been avoided, is Joy-Con drift. The Switch has had issues with this since not long after release, and if the PS5 and Xbox Series X are anything to go by, it's natural to assume that issues on a new console are expected, in fact given the history of console launches, I 'd say that is unavoidable. However, the Switch is going to be four years old this coming March, so for this persistent issue to still exist, it seems like a lack of concern from Nintendo. A number of class action lawsuits have been filed against them because of Joy-Con drift, and as recently as October, in order to try and deny the problems coming from those legal cases, Nintendo denied there was anything wrong at all. They've had years to fix this problem, and didn't even manage to do so with the Switch Lite, which is a much worse situation for Lite owners, as they'd have to give Nintendo their whole console to get it repaired. Then there's the fact that they originally charged almost as much to fix Joy-cons on regular Switches, as new Joy-cons cost to buy, and even suggested that Switch owners should plan to buy a new set of Joy-cons every two years. While they did eventually reverse course on that due to pressure from lawsuits and general backlash, it's safe to say, Nintendo went really anti-consumer with this, and as you probably know, it's not the only time they did it this year. 

4. Crunch 

While crunch has been a part of this industry for far longer than the Switch has, people really started to take notice of it this year after many developers were interviewed about their horrible working conditions. Naughty Dog, who was seen as one of the better developers out there got hit pretty hard after Jason Schreier wrote a piece about how bad their hidden crunch culture was. Crunch in the industry is seen as a major problem, because at times, due to a lack of a union, developers are overworked, and underpaid, and many of them, are either looked down upon by their fellow developers for not partaking in it as much as others, or more importantly, by their management, which could jeopardize their career. Mandatory crunch is also a thing, sometimes seeing developers work twelve to sixteen hour days, and only getting paid for the first eight or so. It only gets worse, when you realize, that delays tend to cause more crunch, because more ideas are shoved into a game when more time is given to develop it. An article by Kotaku, made a valid point recently, when it called out The Last of Us Part II and Naughty Dog for winning best direction of the year at The Game Awards, despite their crunch culture. Many games have gone through it this year, espeically after COVID caused delays, but none may be more announced than CD Projekt Red, something you've probably seen me talk about here before, but that I'll save for another entry down the line ... when it called out The Last of Us Part II and Naughty Dog for winning best direction of the year at The Game Awards, despite their crunch culture. Many games have gone through it this year, espeically after COVID caused delays, but none may be more announced than CD Projekt Red, something you've probably seen me talk about here before, but that I'll save for another entry down the line ... when it called out The Last of Us Part II and Naughty Dog for winning best direction of the year at The Game Awards, despite their crunch culture. Many games have gone through it this year, espeically after COVID caused delays, but none may be more announced than CD Projekt Red, something you've probably seen me talk about here before, but that I'll save for another entry down the line ... 

3. Xbox Series X and PS5 pre-orders. 

Microsoft and Sony, despite being on the cusp of a new generation, spent the majority of the year keeping certain secrets from the public in a bid to outdo each other price wise for their console. While in the end, it played out exactly as most people predicated, top end consoles priced at $ 499 with variations priced one hundred, and two hundred dollars cheaper respectively, they took too long to get to that point, and pre-orders were a mess as a result. Sony announced it's prices and said PS5 would go on sale only a few days removed from that reveal. While that was already a problem, most people need more time than that, the fact that certain retailers let the pre-orders go out early, only added to the confusion, and bots ended up sweeping the majority of the consoles anyway, because those were easier to set-up for scalpers, than buying the system outright. Microsoft tried to be a bit better about that, and give people more time to prepare, but that also fell through, as the demand for the console, was much higher than the supply even tried to prepare for, an issue both systems faced. Even Japan, which is notorious for not selling Microsoft consoles, sold out far quicker than anyone could have expected. Had Sony and Microsoft just put the prices and pre-orders up earlier, and let them be bought over a period of a month or so, instead of just one, super hectic day, all the issues could have been avoided. which is notorious for not selling Microsoft consoles, sold out far quicker than anyone could have expected. Had Sony and Microsoft just put the prices and pre-orders up earlier, and let them be bought over a period of a month or so, instead of just one, super hectic day, all the issues could have been avoided. which is notorious for not selling Microsoft consoles, sold out far quicker than anyone could have expected. Had Sony and Microsoft just put the prices and pre-orders up earlier, and let them be bought over a period of a month or so, instead of just one, super hectic day, all the issues could have been avoided. 

2. Smash Bros, Splatoon and musical takedowns

Nintendo is back on this list as they recently fell under fire from fans of the Smash Bros community, for disallowing a major tournament to take place, because it simply chose to emulate a game that is out of print, using a mod called the Slippie Mod , so those partaking in the tournament, could play from home, instead of having to meet and risk spreading COVID to each other and tournament goers. A few weeks later, several people in an official Splatoon tournament changed their names to show support for the Smash Bros community and Nintendo's response was to shut down the whole finals of said tournament, in an attempt to try and lower the visibility of support for people who simply felt wronged by Nintendo. This of course backfired because it's the internet, and that's not going to go unnoticed, which only made them look worse. Not long after that, Nintendo started taking down videos and songs on YouTube that were from Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart Wii and others. Hundreds if not thousands of videos were taken down, and while Nintendo was within their rights to do so, they crippled several channels by issuing copyright strikes against them, which not only removed their ability to make money on their channels, it can disable streaming, and even cost them money they are no longer making, to try and get their channel back. In the end, Nintendo was in their rights to do all that they did, but that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do, especially in 2020, where leaving these things well enough alone, would have only led to more people enjoying Nintendo products. Instead, games like Bravely Default II and other major upcoming Switch game releases, are facing potential boycott's, because of Nintendo's sour attitude towards it's own communities. It was once said, that a corporation, is within their rights to make people hate them, and Nintendo has embodied that well in 2020.

1. Cyberpunk 2077, The Whole Thing

Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that has been worked on for years at this point. It was announced the January before the 8th gen consoles, the PS4 and Xbox One released, and only managed to come out, about a month after the following 9th gen began. Despite this fact, the game runs horribly on consoles, and requires a pretty beefy PC to run well. The delays that happened in 2020, which lasted 8 months, were supposed to be about optimizing the game for 8th consoles, which are by far still the largest market for any multi-generation, multi-platform titles, but it came out recently that CDPR lied about that, and were instead focusing on the PC release. They also lied to Sony and Microsoft about how well the game ran, lied to their consumers when they didn't put out any review copies for the game before launch, lied to everyone regarding returns, which only came up three or four days after the game launched, meaning digital owners were pretty much out of luck, lied to retailers who's reputations were put on the line based on their return policies, and oh yeah, they lied about crunch to. They also promised the game would release “when it was ready” and obviously lied about that as well. Lying is a choice, and CDPR has lied, and lied, and lied. It wouldn't be shocking to find out more lies were made by them in the coming months, such as maybe the two major upcoming patches in January and February not being as effective as they are proposed to be, or the fact that they will need more patches after those to run properly. They even lied about in game content, making it seem like the path you choose in the start of the game would last a long while and have a major effect on the game, but that doesn't appear to be true either, as many people have gotten through the start of the game, in about 20 minutes. It's a shame really, to see a game with such promise, be ruined by such habitual liars, but alas, here we are. Even time might not save CDPR as they are currently as a loss of billion dollars total because of this disaster, and their trust with consumers is all but gone. 

Can you think of any other avoidable controversies for 2020? Let me know with the notes below.   

[howtobeaconartist]

My income has taken a hit this year due to con cancellations. I know you've said before that it's important to diversify if art is your main source of income for the very reason of cons being unpredictable, but how do you suggest doing so? Especially during a time like this, it's hard for me to tell if less people are buying my art online because of current events or because of decreased interest in my work. How is it possible to stay afloat? :(

Kiriska: Well, first thing's first: if conventions were your primary income and you live in the US, do look into whether your state has (temporarily, in some cases) allowed for self-employed people to apply for unemployment benefits. This along with applying for an SBA loan (which will likely include a grant of $1000 via CARES Act, even if you don’t end up getting a loan) can really help with immediate financial need. If you’re not in the US, check if your country has similar aid in place.

But definitely know it's way, way harder to sell online than in person.

People go to conventions with the intent to spend, and many specifically save up hundreds and even thousands of dollars for their big show of the year. This is really hard to replicate online, even with all the virtual cons popping up. You don't get the benefit of people randomly walking by your table and having something catch their eye -- online shopping is done with a lot more intent and less spontaneity. And you're competing with the entire rest of the Internet, not just the other artists in a particular alley.

I've often said you don't need any following to speak of in order to sell at conventions, but it's a totally different game online. To be successful online, you do need a following. You do need marketing know-how. And you do need time. Viral successes aside, few people can build an empire overnight, and you need a lot of perseverance and patience to be able to steady and significant online sales.

So 1) it’s really hard to sell online. 2) A lot of other AA artists are suddenly pushing online presence and sales at the same time. And 3) A lot of people are unemployed right now, and a lot of people are uncertain about their jobs, which means a lot more people are penny pinching out of fear. 

These things together mean it’s harder than ever to push online sales. So it’s not you, and it’s not just you.

But as you probably know, there’s no easy solution here.

Income diversity means having different ways to make money. While selling via an online store is very different from selling in person, they are actually still very similar types of income streams: that is, both involve making product yourself and selling directly to your audience.

Other ways to make money with art include: freelance and commission work, print-on-demand shops, art licensing, art classes or mentorship, and resource or digital asset downloads (e.g. tutorial ebooks/PDFs or custom brushes).

Unfortunately, all of these avenues also take time and effort to create, to build up, and to market. The best time to build a dam isn’t during a flood. Trying out these other things now may not help in time for the present crisis, but they may help in the future.

For the time being, if the financial situation is dire, I’d really recommend seeking temporary non-art work if there’s anything available. Staying afloat in general is most important. If, while you’re paying the bills with other work, you’re able to continue building your online following and presence and maybe start building the foundations of other revenue streams, great! 

But income diversity was never going to be a quick fix. They’re all separate things you have to grow and nurture with time. But once you have them in place, you’ll be in much better shape overall.

Best of luck in these trying times, friend.

[otogetranslations]

Announcing of Dropping DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE;BLOOD

To sum things up:

Someone leaked the Diabolik Lovers Limited V Edition patch, posting it publicly despite all our warnings and requests. Thus we are following through with our original policy.

We’re stopping every projects related to Diabolik Lovers, including further support for Limited V Edition, and there won’t be a patch for More;Blood.

Collar x Malice Unlimited will still be released, but privately. After all, you guys will get the English version of it from Aksys for the switch next year!

I (the leader of otogetranslations) will still be helping other translators with their projects: Brothers Conflict, Hakuoki SSL. How the patch is gonna be distributed is up to their respective leaders (coquettishcat for Hakuoki SSL, and PassionandBrilliance for Brothers Conflict).

No more Black Wolves Saga. This project I (Reishiki) started by asking permission to use existing translation from orlandoblue @tumblr, Siberia (twitter.com/bakemeatz). The patch of Black Wolves Saga Bloody Nightmare is to be completed soon. But it’s no more.

Read on if you wanted to know what really happened:

As you all know, we released DIABOLIK LOVERS LIMITED V EDITION fan translation patch this August 16th, 2019 for homebrew enabled/hacked Playstation vita, and only for people that have proof or purchasing the game.

There are over 50 people who showed us the proof of purchasing the game and they received the patch for free. All we asked was for you to actually buy the game before you can play it with a hacked playstation vita.

Our 30-people team worked on the patch for 10 months. We only used outsource translation for 8/277 total scripts. Our in-house hacker did the romhacking process, our in-house proofreaders proofed the translation, our recruited translators worked on the translation. Everything was done by us and it’s our team effort. So we have the right to decide how we’re gonna distribute it.

However, on August 20th, 2019. Rojaaalice on reddit r/vitapiracy posted a thread, asking the patch to be given to them for free (without purchasing the game). A lot of people who frequent this subreddit accused us of being Gatekeepers, while all we’re doing is asking for proof of purchasing the game (not the patch, the patch is 100% free). Is buying the game you play wrong? Is asking for a proof of purchasing something you play gatekeeping, when we could have chosen to not share the patch at all in the first place?

I don’t think so.

But, this person, SilicaAndPina (https://twitter.com/SiliCart) is not happy with how we distribute our patch. He said that we should keep the vita hacking scene free, we can’t ask for people to buy anything to be able to get the PATCH that we worked on. He doesn’t play otome games in general, and he doesn’t even know what otome games is.

He started to trick me into giving the patch to him, by making a fake proof of purchase with a cloned gmail account. I noticed the proof was fake and didn’t give it to him. Then he got mad and sent this (WARNING: GORE IMAGE) to me. He stated that he will leak the patch eventually.

He attempted to acquire the patch once again with a different fake proof this time. I also noticed this and we trolled him by sending him a FAKE patch. We left the prologue in English and put ridiculous/crack fanfiction in other parts. He thought it was real and distributed it, declared he has won over us.

He thought he tricked us but no, we weren’t being tricked by his half-assed effort. 

Today, August 22nd, there is someone from the DiaLover Fandom that received the real patch sent it over to him. I’m sorry to say that the patch would be leaked eventually, one way or another, because if someone really wants to leak it, they could buy the physical copy, take a photo with it and send it to us. Then they can sell the game to get the money back. 

So, we lost.

But to the one that sent the patch to him, lost to the malice of this world, and not to him. 

I had envisioned this would happen when I first started the project. So I’m not surprised. I had a small ray of hope this wouldn’t happen so soon, but I was wrong. 

As we’ve stated before, we will cease every project translation related to DIABOLIK LOVERS.

No more patches of DIABOLIK LOVERS will be made from us, at least when I’m the leader of that project (as well as the leader of otogetranslations): Reishiki.

I’m proud to say our patch was enjoyed and praised by people that bought the game and received the patch.

I (Reishiki) will still be supporting other translators if they need it, but I won’t start any new project from now on (in which could be AMNESIA LATER/CROWD/WORLD, VARIABLE BARRICADE - these games I completed extracting the texts with our inhouse hacker’s help, and I planned to announce we would start one of these projects soon. But… I’m sorry to say that it’s no more. At least it won’t be made available to the public.)

Thank you everyone for your support.

These are our team members opinions:

JokerTrap-Ran: I think I just lost faith in the community as a whole again, coming back after 4 years. I hope you’re happy! This was really demoralising and I hope ya’ll had fun putting us down like that. I’m not one for drama and honestly I’d very much like to stay out of it considering the bad medicine bashing that happened on otome reddit about 3 years ago. I’ll continue releasing translations for blog’s followers but that’s it. I’m whimsical, and most of my followers know it. I pick things and I drop it all the same. 

Khikari: For those who thinks that what we have committed is blasphemy and should be shut down for this, great, please take the time to learn Japanese yourself. Or learn to care about other people with emotions for once in you life. Demoralising people who were willing to work endless hours for free with just one condition sure is satisfying, isn’t it? It really hurt all of us. For those who genuinely cared and are saddened by this post, I am sorry and I wish the best for you all. I know that the few doesn’t represent all but this is a massive motivation killer, and I don’t need this drama in my life. From now on, private translations all the way! Also, Silica, attacking an idea is fine, but attacking people with malicious intent is stepping out of line. Enjoy being a rock specimen.

LoliChan195: I hope you are happy with what you have done! We only wanted to bring this out for people that had difficulties playing the game, and also help support Rejet by having more people buy their games. Its people like you that cause all these game companies to go bankrupt! (Also SiliCar, you sick fuck. Who sends pictures like that!? XD you’re probably just some edgy 12yr old XD Besides, who says WE WILL NOT FORGIVE XD what a dumbass! And is it that hard to search on google about the game? Why would we make it so it specifically needs to be the limited edition?!?! ) Seriously, the people who attacked us for putting the rule out are just as bad, like can’t you just wait and buy the game? Or even if u just pirate it, read online translations. Its not that hard! 

Hermy: Nothing much to say, except, ya’ll could have totes pirated the game and played it along the translations available on the net. Welp, I hope you don’t dislike that idea too much because that’s what ya’ll gonna need to do if ya’ll wanna play the sequels.

PS: the MB translations available on the net are riddled with errors, but by all means have fun with them :)

Anon: Oh yes, silica? Perhaps you should just lead on with your true intentions next time instead of trying to honey your words and do some "re-con"  for dots, yeah? 

Marzi: I'm a bit numb to this situation at this point, but it is disheartening to know Silica was so intent on distributing our translations that he didn't stop even when we threatened to cease all translations. It wasn't like he was ever going to play the game - he just felt so personally offended by the fact that we were "gatekeeping" for some reason - which, in my opinion, is a bit of an immature reason to ruin a translation group. You can't argue that we're "unrightfully holding something when we don't have the intellectual rights," when you're bypassing all copyright laws as well in wanting to post it PUBLICALLY. But what's done is done - whoever manages to get a copy of this, I hope you enjoy it. Please know so much effort and passion went into these translations, and that we loved working on this project every bit of the way. If the game leaves you antsy for More Blood well LOL you know who prevented that from happening.

Sonic-nancy-fan: I never knew someone could have such an illogical mindset. Silica/PSSDude made the original base repatch program, and we used one that someone had edited and added to (which Silica was fine with). But, because he made the original one, that means he feels like HE can getekeep all uses of variations of it. This would be like saying people can’t use paper to make a paper airplane because the original creator of paper said no, or you can’t print manga because Gutenberg said no. Also, who in the world thinks they can take a moral high-ground by telling us to promote piracy? Patches are already a sort of grey area, so we were trying to take the most legal method available while still making a patch. I know in modern society, piracy is very common, but I can’t imagine your average person would call us in the wrong for trying to hinder piracy. God forbid we try to get people to buy Diabolik Lovers. I can’t say I’m shocked as I expected it to get leaked sometime. I’m just saddened at certain people’s general hate and unyielding desire to leak it. So, I don’t blame the community as a whole, nor do I feel any malice toward the community (we had a lot of people buy the game and get excited). I’m just mad at very specific spiteful people. Also, if I ever hear someone say “the scene” as much as Silica, I’m going to go nuts. It sounds like something the “cool guy” in an 80’s show would say.

[risottostitties]

Hi! First time here to ask haha! Any HCs for La squadra with an Otaku s/o? Like she watches anime and even buys merch in secret cuz she's scared they might find her hobby lame and immature? (Also,what will be their fave anime? And genre?)

Oh boy let me tell you I have some THOUGHTS about these boys and their taste in anime

La Squadra with an Otaku s/o

Risotto 

at first he’s gonna be kinda confused, not gonna lie. Growing up the only ‘anime’ he knew was like, Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z but at that point he was too old to really get into Pokemon, and he never considered DBZ anime because it aired next to cartoons and stuff.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate s/o and their good taste. He’s the kind of guy who wants to learn about what interests the people he loves, and he loves you. So he’d honestly enjoy late nights spent binge watching your favorites.

Comes to realize that DBZ was low key his gym goals for the early years of him working out. If you bought him a ‘Swole like Goku’ tank he’d probably wear it to lift in, ngl.

Knowing your favorites he’d probably look to merch for his go to birthday or Christmas gifts. Considering the hobbies and interests of some of his co-workers, a scantily clad waifu figure is honestly a welcome change of pace.

Depending on the style or aesthetic of the anime (ie, is it goth) he would be down to couples cosplay, although he wouldn’t be comfortable with you posting pictures of his face or any identifiable features of him online

His fave is probably the original Dragon Ball Run, followed very closely by DBZ for the nostalgia bit. Something deep like Full Metal Alchemist (Brotherhood and the original) would also appeal to him

Is also a big fan of Beserk, disappointed by the anime. And Vinland Saga, not disappointed by the anime.

Partial to Princess Mononoke as well. He likes some Ghibli films, isn’t afraid to admit it. Thinks the score for Spirited Away is bomb af.

Prosciutto

Prosciutto doesn’t really get it at first either. Honestly? He probably didn’t know the difference between cartoon and anime until you explained it to him.

Unlike Risotto he might be a bit more judgey if you try to get him to watch some with you. So you gotta hit him with the real classics. 

But similarly to Risotto, he at least makes an effort to try and indulge in the things you like. He might not be as patient, but he tries.

Probably wouldn’t do cosplay himself, but would hunt down exclusive seasonal merch to gift you. He’d take careful stock of your collections and do some research to pick out only the finest figurines and posters for you.

Would buy that hella expensive premium bandai apparel for you too, might even pick something subtle up for himself if he really liked the show it came from.

Also back on the cosplay note, if you agreed he’d find the highest quality cosplay possible and have you model some of his favorites for him.

(In particular if you were comfortable in fem clothing, Faye Valentine gets him going)

He loves Cowboy Beebop. 100%, wants to watch it again as soon as it ends. Everything from the characters to the story to the music and the fliud animation that has aged like fine wine appeals to him. Prosciutto is a man who likes the finer things in life. He oozes class. Cowboy Beebop oozes class and prestige.

Also likes Maasaki Yuasa. It was his idea to go see The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl in theaters.

In general his tastes tend to lean towards arthouse type anime or bona fide classics.

Pesci

Pesci knows anime and has been doing his absolute best to keep it a secret from the rest of the gang because they already tease him enough.

He’s one of those secret weebs, you gotta know where to look. Your best bet is to look at his accessories. Is there a watch with a certain symbol from an anime you recognize? A lanyard with a familiar print? Something subtle that isn’t immediately noticed by people not looking for it.

He has a secret box in his room full of blue rays from his faves. He watches them sometimes when he’s home alone. There’s nothing X rated in there obviously, he just doesn’t want people to know.

Thank god he has you.

The two of you probably bonded pretty fast over your mutual love of anime. Hell, you being such an open and proud Otaku probably gave him a bit of confidence in expressing his interests too.

Yall are the weeb couple. Yall definitely go to conventions together. Couples Cosplays, the whole thing.

He’s a sucker for Shonen just as much as he is for the really good heart wrenching painful ones. 

He watches Boruto because he loves Naruto so much.

He would also tear up at Clannad.

Dango Daikazoku triggers almost a pavlovian response of heart ache.

So does Secret Base.

Ano Hana is probably his favorite, although even you’d need to pry it out of him. Its one thing that Prosciutto gives him shit for liking anime, its a whole different ball game if he found out Pesci liked girly anime

Fromaggio

He knows what hentai is. That’s about as far as his knowledge went before yall got together.

He thinks its pretty interesting though, so he’d be down to watch some with you.

Turns out he really likes action shonen. He got really, really into One Piece. Like, instantly. He likes the fact there’s so much to watch/read before he’s caught up too.

Another boy that would couples cosplay and be really into it. Especially if it continued into the bedroom.

He’s pretty go with the flow, so he isn’t picky about what y’all watch. Even if it isn’t his cup of tea he’ll sit through a few episodes on a night with you.

Fromaggio can’t tell the difference between a high quality figure and a shitty one. Its a crap shoot what he buys for you. Its more a process of ‘oh, so likes this character’ rather than checking the seams and paint quality and how dynamic the pose is/interchangeable parts. 

Definitely buys way too much in the dealers room because of this.

He tries his best.

His fave is probably One Piece, liked bleach a lot but never read the manga, Yu Yu Hakusho is another one he really enjoyed. The Dark Tournament arc had him at the edge of his seat and hype as shit.

Illuso

Had a passing knowledge of anime before dating you. Knew what it was, saw a few of the mainstream ones, thought they were enjoyable, moved on with his life.

Your dedicated interest in anime would surprise him at first, because he always figured it was kind of a niche thing.

Would snoop around your collection of manga/figures/plushes in the mirror world while you sleep.

Winds up reading a lot of your manga like that (he’s good at reading in reverse because of his stand)

He finds he appreciates the art style of 80s-90s manga a lot more than he does the modern stuff. He really got into Ranma 1/2 and thinks Rumiko Takahashi’s artstyle is excellent.

If you asked him to watch Inuyasha with you he wouldn’t say no.

Probably wouldn’t want to do couples cosplay, but he definitely has an appreciation for you in cosplay.

You could talk him into going to a con if you caught him in the right mood. It’d be a hard sell though.

Has a surprising enjoyment for J-Rock. 

Inuyasha is high on his favorites list, as is Ranma 1/2. Also a fan of Ghibli movies although its pulling teeth to get him to admit it.

Melone

This man has watched so much hentai in his life.

He probably actually knows them by title honestly.

He enjoys anime too, and is not ashamed unlike Pesci. Everyone already knows he has unconventional tastes there is nothing to hide here.

Melone enjoys traditionally feminine anime, especially Sailor Moon. That one has a special place in his heart as he has memories of his sister watching it with him when he was much younger.

Its more of a decompress thing than anything else, so he doesn't tend to favor heavy anime with dense plot and more mature subject matter.

He likes Maid Costumes. On you, on him, it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t know a whole lot about merch and what makes something higher quality but he learns fast. Between you and him the Dealers Room at cons won’t know what hit them.

Is the type to preorder a figure he knows you’d like. And maybe one for him.

Buy him this and he’s putty in your hands for a month straight (SFW don’t worry) https://www.amazon.com/Bandai-Sailor-Moonlight-Memory-Locket/dp/B00UA9XB48

Sailor Moon is his favorite as I’ve said before, his favorite sailor scout is Rei. Is also a fan of Ano Hana, Violet Evergarden, and Toradora although he needs to be in the right mood to watch them.

Ghiaccio

He went down the Fate rabbit hole and we haven’t seen him since.

The gender bending grates as his soul but he is addicted regardless. There’s just so much dense lore that he can’t seem to stop going.

But also seeing how much care and attention is paid to the historical background of a lot of the servants is intriguing to him. Its the perfect blend of accurate and harem trash that infuriates him but also leaves him needing to know more.

He hasn’t played every game but he has Grand Order on his phone and has sunk an ungodly amount of money into the gacha trying to get his favorite (Its Jeanne Alter, in case anyone was wondering) and has seen all the anime (His favorite is the cooking spin off because its surprisingly calming to watch)

Fate Zero is probably his favorite ‘serious’ Fate adaptation. He enjoys the gravitas of the Holy Grail Wars (and hates how it was tossed out the fucking window in UBW/Stay Night/Heavens Feel) and the ritual aspect to the summoning and foreshadowing of future events as well as hints at a deeper magical lore in the universe hit all the right spots in his lizard brain.

The fact every fate anime has a different version of Saber (or a Saber Clone) pisses him off too.

He really loves Fate. And will scream about it for hours at you.

Getting him to watch or talk about anything else is like pulling teeth but he eventually relents because he loves you.

Its difficult to get through a single episode without him grumbling about something or another, but he tries once he sees its important to you. He does his best not to outright insult your favorite anime.

Can appreciate high quality merch as well, probably collects Jalter Figures himself.

If you’re comfortable in fem clothing, Cosplay Jalter for him and he will literally ascend then and there. Keeps pics on his phone. Would probably make it his background. He’s weak

Outside of Fate he finds he enjoys high fantasy shows. Historical fantasy pisses him off too much, and straight up historical drama would also have him grasping for inaccuracies.

Full Metal Alchemist is a non-fate series that he really loves because of the world building. The movie Maquia was one he enjoyed as well. Likes every Miyazaki film, don’t tell anyone. Cried (and raged) when Ushio died in Clannad.

In general he just likes really good world building. It has to be good otherwise he’s going to spend the whole time picking it apart.

[mamerto8odld]

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9:00 a.m. Aug. 26, 2020

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BusinessWire - BZX

When a client enters their email after which abandons their products or services into the shopping cart at checkout, you are able to send an automated email to draw them back for their purchase. You can also personalize the emails and include discount codes. This is a money saver that is real! An average of, these emails win back 12-15% of customers, while personalized emails are six times more efficient than regular ones. Reaching customers has never been so easy. With BigCommerce, you can "sell everywhere" using multichannel integrations. Put simply, you are able to sell through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon, and much more. Manage everything from one place, sit back, and watch the sales roll in from all over the web. Keep track of all those sales using BigCommerce’s data reporting tools. Identify customer trends, track your store’s performance, follow your conversion rates, and more - all from your dashboard! These are are just some of the essential features BigCommerce has. If you do wish to expand your internet site beyond these functions, it is possible to - you’ve still got over 600 apps to choose from within the BigCommerce app store. BigCommerce has a much more limited app store than its competitors. But that’s only as it has so many impressive in-house features already! You simply don’t need as many apps while you would with Shopify, for instance. This keeps costs lower, since you don’t have to pay out for third party add-ons on a monthly basis. How Good are BigCommerce's Template Designs? Your online store needs all the latest sales tools to remain in front of the competition. But when it comes to standing out from the crowd, the thing that is first visitors will notice can be your website’s design. BigCommerce has over 100 themes being offered. There are 12 free themes and over 100 paid themes, starting from $145-235. That’s a lot of themes to select from! Luckily, BigCommerce causes it to be really easy to get your perfect theme. It is possible to search by industry, or by the layout you want for the template. For instance you can choose from grid layouts or designs featuring images that are large. You could view just free or paid themes, or make use of the search bar to get tailored results. Themes really vary with regards to the industry they are categorized under. For instance, themes in the ‘Fashion & Jewelry’ category have a product zoom feature, while other categories don’t include this. Therefore it’s worth having a proper search to find a theme that best fits your store’s needs. It is possible to preview a layout just before select it, that is a truly useful option. Should you pick a style and then improve your mind, don’t worry! It is possible to switch your template any right time you love.

All BigCommerce themes are fully mobile responsive. You can’t edit the mobile view, as the theme automatically reformats to fit mobile screens. This means you don’t have to spend a second worrying all about losing out on mobile shoppers. With more than 50% of traffic originating from cellular devices, this is certainly a vital feature to possess! The question that is real, how customizable are BigCommerce’s themes? It’s a question with an answer that is exciting. BigCommerce recently released a fresh merchandising that is visual, called Store Design. Whereas before you had to customize your storefront in 2 separate areas and wait to start to see the results, this tool changes everything! The Store Design tool lets you pick out chapters of your page and there customize them and then, right in front of you. Thus giving you instant control over everything from background colors to logo positions, wide range of featured products, navigation arrow colors, and much more. This tool that is new a much higher level of customization to BigCommerce’s themes than ever before. When you’re making money through your site, any problems can be costly. Fortunately, BigCommerce has help options set up to get you sorted quickly and easily. The support and help channels available be determined by what price plan you’re on. As standard, BigCommerce provides 24/7 phone and live chat support. No need to stress out at 4am, counting down the hours until 9am; simply pick up the device or open up a live talk with get your condition dealt with by morning. There’s also email support. In reality, when you sign up for a trial that is free you get an email through offering an appointment for a 10 minute call to go over your company, its goals, and exactly how BigCommerce can help you succeed. As well as phone, live chat, and email, you are able to make use of video tutorials - and better still, the BigCommerce Help Center. If you’re on the most expensive Enterprise plan, you unlock priority support. This includes an consultant that is onboarding as well as prioritized telephone calls. With instant connections to your most senior and highly-trained support staff, this allows the level that is highest of quality support for the store. BigCommerce Pricing - could it be Good Value for Money? Everyone understands you must spend some money to help make money. But simply simply how much do you have to spend with BigCommerce? There clearly was a 15-day trial that is free and you will even request a demo to observe how BigCommerce can benefit your on line store. What exactly Do You Get for Your Money? The Standard plan sets you up with a well-rounded, fully equipped store that is online.

[shego1142]

Apps I reccomend to get Money

Because what says “We live in a capitalist dystopia” like selling your bio-data for money?!

Full disclosure: Many of these apps will give me a reward/incentive for inviting people to them. If that makes this less genuine or less trustworthy to you then I fully understand, but I don’t and would not reccomend any app that doesn’t work fully. That said I’m not affiliated with any of these apps and I don’t know anything about them outside of “they give me money” so as far as trustworthiness on their part, I can’t really vouch for them. I assume the way most of these work is by collecting your data and selling it to 3rd parties, much like most things online, the only difference is with these you actually get paid lmao.

Sweatcoin: Get Paid to Walk!

This app converts your approved steps (steps you walk and not like, steps accidentally generated by your phone moving) into their own cryptocurrency called sweatcoin, which you can use to buy offers.

So this is one I have used for a while now (almost 2 years) but I never would have recommended it until now, because they have recently updated to include indoor steps, where it used to be only outside steps, making this much more user friendly and accesible.

The pros:

Getting paid to walk! You probably walk (wheelchair users this also counts steps that you roll btw, I am an intermittent wheelchair user myself and it counts it when I’m in my wheelchair) a little bit everyday, so why not get paid to do so!

New businesses are beginning to accept sweatcoin everyday, making the cryptocurrency gain credibility, which increases its value.

The offers can be of incredibly good value, which is awesome!

There are three chances daily to get extra sweatcoin by watching ads.

The cons:

The offers are not always cash

The offers change regularly which can make saving up for something difficult

The app works best when open in the background which can be annoying

There’s a limit to how many sweatcoin you can earn a day.

This app unfortunately has a lot of cons, imo, but I use it anyway because I’m desperate.

This is my referral link (i will get 5 sweatcoins and if 6 people use this I will get a $6 PayPal reward)

And this is an independent link that doesn’t count as a referral from anyone

Achievement: Get Paid to be Healthy!

This app reads your health data from any approved app you have that also reads your health data (so, for example, the Health App, Fitbit, Dexcom, myfitnesspal, etc) and rewards you with points for making healthy choices. It also has articles you can read in exchange for points and questions you can answer and health studies you can be a part of. The more apps you link to it often the more quickly you can earn points. The points can be redeemed for PayPal payouts.

Pros:

This app is passive and runs in the background, collecting your data and saving it anonymously (so your privacy is maintained)

You get points for even small things, like choosing to drink water or eating something healthy, which can be a great motivator.

Cashes out via PayPal, which is very useful and reliable

Also works with wheelchair users afaik/have experienced myself

Cons:

Bio-data collecting is still kind of... ehhh so if you have privacy concerns of any kind this probably isn’t for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s easier to get points if you’re able to be active so it’s not always accesible to everyone

Takes 10,000 points to get $10 which can be difficult and frustrating for some people!

I use this app a lot and I have used it for far longer than I used sweatcoin so I’m a bit biased towards this one, since it works so well. I’ve gotten $20 or more from this app so far and I’m not a very active person.

Here’s my referral link (I will get 100 points for everyone I refer)

An independent link that doesn’t count as a referral from anyone

Ibotta: Get Paid to Shop!

The og money “making” app! I feel like I don’t really need to tell anyone about this app but I’m going to anyway because it’s so useful and helpful. This app, for anyone who doesn’t know, gives you cash-back coupons, which you can redeem after buying the product said coupon is for. Basically they get paid by companies to advertise products and they pay you a small cut for buying said product.

Pros:

User friendly! Just create an account and press the check button on any coupons you want to redeem, buy the product, scan the receipt, and get cash back.

Super useful if you already buy the items they are advertising. Basically you get paid to do the thing you were already doing.

Often has many coupons for healthy food items, which can be motivating

PayPal cashout is available

Has “any item” coupons so you can get paid just for being human and needing things to live

Cons:

Can be frustrating if you don’t want anything the coupons have offered

Has a $20 minimum before you cashout

Many of the products to redeem can be expensive as they’re usually name brand

Costs money to make money system isn’t exactly “making money” so much as saving money

Be sure to read the fine print on the coupons you want to use, sometimes they are “must by two” deals or “only available on products of a specific size”

Honestly ibotta has become a staple in my family for years now. It has its cons but it also is really nice if you use it passively, just every now and then. I do reccomend making a written list of the items you want, since phone signal/internet connection isn’t always reliable inside a store and it is a lot more useful to write down exactly what you want/need in order to get the reward. I also reccomend not buying things you don’t want just to get coupons, it really isn’t helpful unless you can give the items away or something.

Here’s my referral link (I get $5 for anyone who downloads the app and redeems two items)

(here’s my referral code in case the link doesn’t work: nxdsmfs )

And here is an independent link that doesn’t count as a referral from anyone

Non money making apps because I just adore these apps and highly fully recommend them! Also I hate talking about money making stuff so much!

#SelfCare App: Take Care Of Yourself

This app is my absolute favourite app on my phone and I adore it. It’s very witchy, very aesthetic, and very calming. It’s an absolute treasure of self care techniques and motivational tools. It has become a home to me in many ways, a refuge and a sanctuary that I reccomend to anyone and everyone who may have need of one.

Pros:

There’s a cat! ^_^

Tarot

Customisable!

Moon phases

Journaling

Words of affirmation

Plants

Crystals

Positivity

Supports independent creators!!!

And more!

Cons:

I would say “none” but there is a bit of a learning curve that comes with the app, I may make a post regarding this in full but it becomes intuitive very quickly and if you have questions you can ask me!

There’s no referral link or anything so this is just a link to the App Store!

And one for Android!

Fabulous app: Create a Routine

This app is also super useful and very motivating and helpful, especially since I’m autistic and struggle with creating a routine that works for me, even though I really need one.

It’s very positive and lenient, and it has a lot of motivational tools in its own right to help you create a path for yourself.

Pros:

User friendly!

Helps you create simple goals

Keeps you motivated

Has built in journeys, mediations, exercises, stretches and similar tools to help you be the best version of yourself you can

Has a lovely community and a very supportive help center

Isn’t harsh on you if you need to restart your routine and is actually very encouraging

Can go as slowly or as fast as you need it to. Your routine can be simple or more complex because it’s ultimately your’s and no one else’s.

Cons:

Premium version costs money, but you can get a couple of free trials!

There is one meditation that triggered my existential anxiety called “The Value of The Present Moment” and I reccomend anyone who deals with existential anxiety to avoid that one

Not fully accesible/not always geared or mindful towards those of us with physical health problems which can be frustrating (uses a lot of able bodied specific terms)

Again no referral code so here’s just a link to the App Store!

And for Android!

If you read this post I do hope it was informative and helpful and not too annoying! If you use my referral codes on any of these then I thank you immensely, but please don’t feel pressure to do so. ^_^ i just want to share some of the tools I use to help with money problems.