#reseller prices are ABSURD

[kellerybird]

Just a heads up, I'm going to be absolutely insufferable about the Red River reprint from here on out

Will try to tag it in with anatolia story (bc there's a movie also called red river that's entirely unrelated) in case anyone wants to not be subjected to it but some stuff may slip through

[catboynutsack]

no joke I feel like most "vintage clothing stores" are just thrift shops reinvented for rich ppl and I mean that in a bad way. like once found a place that referred to themselves as a vintage clothing store and it was like........just a thrift shop with exorbitant prices. like fuckin unsold overstock t-shirts from Hot Topic (still with tags!) on their shelves for $20. Like what the fuck are you on to think that you can justify that shit.

[water1oo]

cant believe i actually got tickets for CLOSING night for olivia after failing to secure tickets since her first tour

h4uyfhuyiewhciuheriwhfieqb YESSSS

[penebui]

(Big news for Houseki no Kuni merch heads and the entire fucking history of the houseki no kuni manga merch ig)

There is only two instances of a clear folder manga release (note that what I have is called a Flat Case, my mistake). These were both sold/released at the same time and they both seem to have been released during the start of the run as they both feature original Phos.

Many JP sites had them for sale. So theyre ""common"". If you look up "クリアファイル 宝石の国" (Clear File Houseki no Kuni), you will see both of them appear in your search results, including resales up for listing (which you'll have to most likely use buyee for). There are multiple amazon relistings, one will even sell you the Phos keychain Red-dia featured above. Yahoo jp also has resale listings.

Note that the Phos with the Moon one is normal, while the one with the Lunarians has iridescent flakes

(Source - Deadlink)

The art of Original Phos with the moon behind them also appears as an illustration card, as such other manga illustrations including Shattered Moonphos, and the one art of Phos, Dia, Bort, Morga, and Jade. These I presume came as additional items for the Afternoon Manga Issues (since I cannot speak japanese). These you can find by looking up "原石〟フェア特典イラストカード". Once again, you can find resale listings of them.

(Source: The Afternoon Manga site itself)

BAGGU was a collab with the business (cant read the jpeg so fuck me I guess) which looks like it came from the Manga Vol 6 original release run. It may have been a reserve to buy situation. You got a regular sized bag and also a little baby one. Relistings avaliable if you look up "宝石の国 baggu".

(Both promotional arts for the BAGGU series are somewhere in my Official Art tag).

There was also an early manga merch run from kodansha that happened around the release of Volume 5! They had bags (not from the baggu event btw) were sold along side candles that imitated the crystal versions of the gems (made by NURI), shirts, phonecases (for the Iphone 5/6s), and a jewelry set of Phos. These items were sold on the natalie site.

There were multiple bags for the kodansha series. Including standalone bags of Phos, Dia, and Bort (Shinsha was also featured in this series but no standalone so Ig we hate Shinsha...)

The phone cases (We still hate Shinsha IG).

The jewelry set, from its description, is described to actually have been made from phosphophyllite and 18K gold with a warning of its obvious breakage. The earrings is actually a singular earring. Let it be known that that these motherfuckers were EXPENSIVE.

The Phosphophyllite Pendant Necklace was sold for 50k Yen/~$311USD and the Phosphophyllite earring was sold for 30k yen/~$187USD.

It seems like there were multiple pieces of the necklace since theres numbers from 1-12 for the pendants.

These listings are still up despite obviously being unavaliable/discontinued on natalie. Link to Official Webpage.

Speaking of jewelry... There was a jewelry merch run of all the characters, featuring a pearl and the actual gem type itself (and us hnk fans know this is a literal feat in itself). This was a collab event with the jewelry brand TASAKI. These released around the time of the anime back in 2017 to help promote it!

Although the TASAKI page for hnk is now defunct, it is still avaliable on the wayback machine. The page for the collab was very interactive, where you could read the concept, story, characters, and store (heres the deadlink address if you want to go check it out: https://www.tasaki.co.jp/land_of_the_lustrous/). The gems that appeared after the card art have no art to represent them btw.

Oh yeah did I say every character? Cause I mean every character. Heres an article that features this merch run from around the time it was released, including the initial tweet from TASAKI themselves. And a jp article recounts this entire merch run.

Simultaneously running alongside this event, was the Minna no Kuji Lottery event (which is what your shiro mug image is). This lotto event also came with a tote bag.

(Link to an article showcasing all the items).

Unrelated tote bag from ANIMATION ADDICT STORE

There was also a twitter raffle for a few of the actual real gems.

Not pictured here but you can find the images: Antarc (who was in a little capsule since they were liquid), Benitoite, Red Beryl, and Yellow Diamond (who was extra small, like super tiny because Yellow Diamond is rare as shit).

And last but not least before this post gets too long, is the item I own! I actually did find information on this item. This item you can find searching up "宝石の国 フラットケース" (Houseki no Kuni Flat Case). Good news for everyone searching up that little phrase, theres plenty on sale.

It was originally sold with the original release of Volume 8, however you had to set up a reservation just for it as it is limited. It was provided by ANIMATE SHIBUYA. Here is a tweet where they announced it.

All in all there are certain reasons you wont be seeing resells of certain houseki no kuni merch, according to the article that recounts the TASAKI jewelry run some people HAVE resold their phos jewelries for even more absurd prices.

Although the Minna no Kuji lottery event was limited, you could still find relistings of some of their items like the keychains and the shiro plushies (whom I saw were around ~$50USD on mercari).

It finally arrived! This a limited edition official clear folder of the 4th volume cover art. Since I own this now, it is very high quality. It feels like its made of plastic silicone(??), the button clasp is metal, and the cover is actually transparent, so you can see the lustrous laying on your documents.

There are several official clear files/folders of houseki no kuni (the manga, not the anime) floating around, yet there is barely any information I can find on them.

Note: photo is badly edited to show the colors more because my entire house has bad lighting, the colors on the folder match the actual colors on the artwork.

[cptn-bluebeard]

Someday Ticketmaster will realize no one should be able to resell tickets at absurd prices…

Also a big fuck you to anyone who snagged those tickets from fans of CR just to list them and never, ever sell them again.

[pegasussomnus]

Why Bernard fails as a love interest for Tim

So this write up will explain why Bernard ultimately fails as a love interest for Tim

First off, he makes no sense to be paired with Tim. He only appeared in six issues and none of his interactions with Tim gave us insight into who Tim was as a character or lead to any meaningful developments. The whole 'he represents the War Games era of Tim in terms of uncertainity' or 'his civilian life before losing his dad' is just untrue as we never see Tim seriously appreciate his friendship like he does with say Ives, or the people at Brentwood as something that keeps him grounded or as a distraction from the hero life/normaly he needs nor do his interactions with Tim show said uncertainty like the struggle of balancing the civilian/hero life that we saw his above friends do. All of his appearances are either comic relief or a springboard/exposition for more important developments such as Tim's relationship with Darla (ugh)

There is also how he wasn't a close friend of Tim and more often than not, Tim was shown to not like him too much. At best they were casual friends and none of their interactions went beyond that. The nicest thing Tim said about him is that he "THINKS he's going to END UP LIKING" him not that he actually does so which at best shows Tim is willing to give him a shot.

At worst? Well

Yeah. The first panel is his first impression of him while the last three are the LAST interactions/mentions Tim has with him and occur after saying he 'thinks he's going to end up liking him'.

It makes no sense why Tim would even want to reconnect with him let alone date him. Tim's opinion of Bernard went from "I guess we can be friends but this guy is sus to "maybe he's not so bad and deserves a shot" to "nah screw this guy". It's telling we keep getting sold a false meta history of them being super close friends and have Bernard essentially replace Ives to try and sell the pairing.

And being honest? The notion of Tim dating the guy who perved on his stepmom who appeared in six issues and this is being pushed as his OTP over Stephanie is just an absurd concept.

 Second of all. Like it really doesn't do anything for Tim at all.

Bernard doesn't help Tim grow as a character, or even as a person relationship wise as Tim is still doing the same faults he did in past relationships with civilians not telling them he is Robin, keeping secrets, cutting dates/missing them, etc). but they are "resolved" by just making Bernard some ultra perfect guy who knows Tim's identity

Aka the resolution he had with Stephanie in terms of the civilian/hero life balance of having someone who knows both, so Tim is getting a balance he already had and not to mention you can't even say Tim progressed in this manner or learned from his mistakes as he never revealed his ID in the first place, so it requires no growth on his end) (never explained how he does, not to mention watering down Tim's competence in keeping his ID) so it's all moot.

Tim also doesn't progress in his civilian life at all. Like he lives on a boat and (it is said that Bernard helped motivate him to do this but never shown/explained at all and all we see is Bernard saying he likes it and the people there)? Like he doesn't even meaningfuly develop a connection with the people there aside from friendly neighbors at best. As an example There was this "subplot" of them being in danger of being evicted but Tim just doesn't care at all or do anything. Like why not use some of his wealth from his dad or something to like buy people's boats and resell them at a cheaper price so the people can stay?

The people on the boat don't even offer him a meaningful civilian connection as like I said he just doesn't connect with them and even then that civilian connection is kind of moot in the last issue when they all know his identity as Robin so that balance or finding a solution is rendered moot for the same reasons as above as he already found that balance with the Batfamily/YJ friends who know both aspects of his life and again he didn't even it reveal it to them.

Like what do they offer him? People to chill in a non-vigilante way? Like he can already do that with the Batfam/YJ and not to mention that as the series showed the Marina got involved in a lot of Robin related stuff because of Tim's ID, so it's also moot.

Another point is how Bernard for a 'relationship for Tim beyond Robin' really is a relationship where the substance largely comes from Robin. Like aside from Robin is how they got together which Bernard even states in issue 3, in the beginning of issue 7 when Bernard list why he likes Tim all the things he likes about him are reflective of his role as Robin. Like his whole trusting Tim to keep him safe, Tim being special, and Tim being his lucky charm, the examples he uses are of Tim saving him as Robin/being Robin.

And issue 7 also shows like I said above that what saves the relationship is Bernard knowing that Tim is Robin. Not to mention how he really only opens up to Tim/confides in him seriously when Tim is Robin as shown in issue 3 and 9. Hell in issue 3 when he talks about wanting to help Tim, knowing that he knows his ID, when he talks about Tim 'taking too much on his own and not asking for help and loosing himself or whatever' we know it's about Robin.

And issue 10 the grand saving moment for their relationship after the 'falling out' in issue 9 was Bernard saving the day in a Robin related mission and getting the ID reveal (but not really)

Issue 7 highlights how Tim really doesn't do anything for Bernard as Tim. Like all he does is tell him that his parents suck, he's great to make him feel better, and tell us a bunch of stuff about Bernard we've never seen before.....twice and given how the issue kept emphasizing this point (to the point where villains commented on it) and how over the top his parents/with Bernards heroic it felt generic and like the bare minimum and Tim felt like an exposition device.

Tim never really talks to him about his issues with his parents or actually substantially helps him as after Tim does the above it immediately cuts back to their relationship for cute moments. Like Bernard giving him the necklace isn't even connected to Tim 'helping' as he was gonna do that anyway.

Tim as a civilain is just the BF and the real substance comes from Robin (as it was a Robin related mission and Tim saving civilians as Bernard which lead/inspired Bernard trying to save his parents and oh look Robin once again is tied to their relationship)

TLDR: Bernard doesn't make sense as a pairing, doesn't do anything for Tim as a character nor fulfill the purpose he was supposedly brought back for

[bethestars]

getting tickets to the short n’ sweet tour is an absolute nightmare.

team sabrina should not have given out codes to every single person who signed up for rsvp. i even saw an article promoting that a third LA show was added. the article included the presale code… presale codes should not be so accessible. i was very lucky to receive a spotify code. there was barely anyone in the queue and i still couldn’t get a ticket during that presale.

like always, scalpers and resellers got to the tickets first. this is unfortunately an expected issue with concert tickets nowadays. but i can’t believe it’s this bad. at my choice of venue (madison square garden - i didn’t look at brooklyn), resale tickets were at least $350 each. this would vary per venue but man is that absurd.

sabrina deserves to play arenas. her venues during the emails i can’t send tour were way too small and greatly suffered from overcrowding. it even became a safety concern at points. however, i am genuinely afraid that these arenas are only going to be half full - not because she’s not popular enough, but because these prices are so astronomical.

i went to the eras tour, in the 200s and paid around $200 for 2 tickets. i can’t remember the exact amount at this point. i went to niall horan’s the show tour a couple of weeks ago in the 200s again and paid $230. a single resell ticket for the short n’ sweet tour is $350. it’s so dystopian.

i bought the resale ticket but i can’t even bring myself to be thrilled about it because it cost an arm and a leg and i can’t bring a single person with me. i feel guilty that i might be encouraging scalpers and resellers for even buying the ticket. the fact that i could afford a single ticket is a major privilege.

as fans, we deserve better than this messed up system. sabrina deserves to play to a full, sold out arena full of fans. whether they’ve been with her for 10 years or 10 months. i’m just so dejected.

[discluded]

I was wondering if you'd have any opinions on why MileApo haven't done any fan-meetings yet (just purely them in a hall/arena with fans only doing a qna, playing games etc.)? I know we've seen them do promotional lives, the world tour, they did the FanStar event in Vietnam, ManSuang promo, Dior etc. But I would have hoped they would've done one by now. I might be projecting since I follow a lot of kpop etc. but I was thinking about it and wondered why, could a duo fan-meet not be worth planning?

Hi! they actually did do a fan meet last year.

It was in November and in collaboration with a Line Friends promotional event.

if you remember these outfits.

I can't find the announcement press release, which was in Thai anyway, but it was at Central Pattana mall (what I tagged it as) and called Embracing Happiness 2023 (what @nattaphum tagged it as) if you want to look through our tags for it. It should turn up quickly with a search.

This fan meet didn't require tickets and the turnout was genuinely huge... so I'm guessing you mean something else? I looked up some variations on what a fan meet vs. fan sign vs. concert is for kpop just to try to get an idea of the nuance you're looking for I'm missing... if you're talking ticketed event where they play games and take audience questions, the Woody interview was fairly close to that. Mile had a fan sign to make up for missing the KPWT send off (it's tagged under mile send off on my blog) but those were from random raffle winners and not available through buying tickets. The Planet of Stars event in Vietnam had more of the concert element and I think they were supposed to interact more with fans who bought certain levels of tickets but that was, um, kind of a mess.

maybe you can clarify what specifically you qualify as a fan meet? I'll answer based on what I'm thinking right now anyway:

1) financially, I think doing events with sponsors makes more sense for them. it's not as intimate for fans, but it does allow more people to attend events, which is better for sponsors. additionally opening it up to a larger audience avoids the element of fan scalping / reselling tickets at absurd prices for fan meets (which was an issue with some of the man suang showings with actors in attendance).

2) for foreign fan meets, the logistics are challenging and BOC isn't really sized to scale to handle that.. for various reasons. working with a third party to coordinate is risky: see Planet of Friends concert and the JeffGameplay fanmeet in France that didn't include Jeff in the end, and the sponsors made off without even hosting the meet.

3) The air is poisonous right now. there's already been instances of fan photos or fan engagement where the person invited up was openly nasty to Mile or Apo (see: Woody interview when Apo invited up a greeny rose, or a recent fan photo event where an apc was openly hostile to Mile). why open the door to more of that?

I mean, look at Bible's fan meet today... I really sympathize for him right now. He doesn't deserve this for his first fan meet and no one deserves to be treated like an accessory to someone else's career. (I'm not posting it but check @blramblingx2's blog. they posted it because I sent it their way...)

but we'll see! I wouldn't mind seeing a large scale fan meet like embracing happiness again. that was fun... for me... mile and apo were going through it in those 3 layers of sweaters and jackets 😂

[faithfromanewperspective]

concert tickets are not an investment. hate how everything in this economy we’re like ‘ooh what if I buy it cheap then hike the price up and resell’ and it’s perfectly normal—it’s not. it’s not okay. what’s happening is you’re taking advantage of someone who’s really desperate to see this artist when if they wanna spend that money on the artist, the money should go to the artist themselves. who probably don’t change as much as they could because they’ve set a price that is financially sustainable for themselves and accessible to most who want to go not just the wealthy or those who don’t spend money on any other artists. and I’m not talking about if you can’t go to your concert and resell your ticket closer to it for like 25% more to get a bit back for all the time you spent waiting in queue for a concert you don’t even get to go to. the reason concert tickets are so hard to get is because there are people competing to buy them who are just gonna resell them for absurd amounts of money and honestly? as concertgoers and fans of artists we deserve better. our artists deserve better. they didn’t put a middleman in there. we don’t need it.

[saltminerising]

there's this one user who I am SURE is multi accounting. They're buying my commissioned skins, even copied one themselves, and are now trying to sell the skin they got from me for 1kg more than a five bundle blueprint is even worth ???? you know who you are. I got one of them blocked but the other one just keeps merrily posting the exact same posts everywhere. ALSO tf why buy an UMA if to resell it at such an absurd price??? Someone put a lot of effort into that!!!

🧹

[galaxymooing]

i do think the argument about “is it art” killed the conversation forever though because it doesn’t matter if it’s Really Art or not. even if it is art, that doesn’t mean it suddenly stops being exploitive during a time where the industry it’s exploiting is very vulnerable. this is not inherently the tool’s fault, it’s a tool. it is just one that’s being taken advantage of in ways that don’t give proper compensation to people who need it (and often can make better work)

but also spending every bit of energy talking about how it can’t possibly be art because x y z does make you sound like someone who’s mad at a canvas entirely painted red im sorry LOL. “it has to be made with intention” this is why people hated ready mades (among other reasons ofc). “it has to be made by a human” do we not call it art when an elephant paints? or any of the amazing things animals create? “it’s a mishmash of existing things” collage. photography. digital art at some level depending on your process

and then it’s like. so we have the ai art being sold at a convention space thing. very bad obviously! but how different is it from people printing images they found on google to sell, or badly reproduced merch, or reselling at an inflated price, or tracing existing work… are those things bad because they Aren’t Art or is it because people are stealing things

* pulling my hair * and this thought doesn’t even go into how fucked up it is to side with copyright law for this stuff, something that will fundamentally hurt artists so much more than AI will in the longterm and AAAAAAAAUUUGHH

i just think most arguments against it being art do make you sound like a modern art hating weirdo if you think about how those points have been previously used but some people are way too comfortable being smug about those “evil blue haired bourgeois artists getting what they deserve” like that isn’t an absurd thing to say when the people most in danger from this are routinely hurt by the companies they work for

[ashyfurz]

there is a special place in hell for people who buy up concert tickets and then resell them at absurd prices

[xxwhiteveilbridexx]

Hi! Prices like that really are not necessary, 600 dollars to see a band is absurd (altho i would probably pay it to see mcr if i had no other options so fair enough). In many countries prices are way better, I’m dutch and i saw mcr on the last tour for about €60-€80 per ticket, which was for general access/standing spots, no crappy cheap seats. The problem in the usa (and maybe other countries but i don’t know those for sure of the top of my head) is A) that scalpers buy all the tickets to resell at higher prices and B) also that ticketmaster and similar sellers are allowed to drive the ticket prices up to absurd amounts. It’s a lack of regulation. In the EU there’s laws that mostly stop ticketmaster from selling tickets for 600 a piece. Prices like that are NOT necessary nowadays, it’s not just a normal effect of inflation. I’m SO sorry they made you pay that much, that sucks. But yeah it doesn’t have to be that way and it is not like that in many other places

my point was to see my fav band i would pay literally anything, its totally worth it

the main point was that 45 dollars is an amazing price for 3 bands, for america at least lol

[stolencenturies]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to bring attention to this user on redbubble whom is reselling other artist’s work as their own for absurd prices. Please do not purchase any of their products if you stumble across their page and report them. Thank you for your time.

[catch-needed-hobbies]

Ain't no way in hell I randomly stumbled upon one of my dream Transformer figures on a random Wednesday

Dropped a pretty fucking penny on him but shit man, I can't trust online resellers to not have him be an absurd price

[lionews]

I want to share this experience with everyone here for a second. RL/RLC community or not. But between all ive seen and heard. All these dramas the entirety of lioden is toxic. Even if people dont mean to be toxic. Between the constellation rl hate. And whats going on now. The hate on private lines and people harassing or trying to accuse people of harassment at times (ive seen it happen). Something needs to be changed. Its not the systems fault. Its not liodens fault. Its our fault we are all toxic in this community due to greed and personal gain. No one is entitled to anything in this game.

Its a game.

A game you gamble on. But everyone is trying to scam, swindle or trying to get their own way some reason or another. Not everyone are saints. Not everyone will get what they want. But people are to stubborn and entitled to realize that. Who cares how much GB or status you have in lioden.

It also hurts seeing that people will go out of their way to harm and try to throw others under as well. Ive also seen that happen before.

the undercutting of prices, people trying to scam others out of breeding items, GB, jaglions. Other rlcs and hybrids. Or scalpers scamming and reselling at higher prices.

I didnt even cover half of the other stuff ive seen. Or experienced on lioden and ive only been on this game for a short while a year or so.

Question is: why? . Why dont we change? Why are we like this? Why are people like this?.

This game is supposed to be fun. But whats the point of having fun when people are being entitled over fictonial lions that dont effect the real world. Only time it effects the real world outside of this game is if you buy GB or you made a living off lioden.

So why. So why does it matter?

Tell me. Does it matter when you dox or send death threats to people over winning and keeping a special lion to themselves? Just because you want a clone or a lion similar to it?

Does it matter if people get hurt? All because you absolutely NEED this certain lion?

I just ask you all as a community to think about all of this. Think about whats going on. And what we need to change. Because this is absurd. And it’s only going to spiral even worse if people wont do anything about it. If people themselves don’t wake up and change.

.