#selling for $60 instead of the $100

[cortexifansquint]

Hello! Looking for anyone interested in a Lucy Lawless photo-op ticket for the upcoming Xenites Reunion Weekend in Burbank this month. I bought it a year ago but am sadly unable to make the full trip down as it's too costly (flight, hotels tickets to the con itself). They're sold out now and Creation doesn't give refunds so if anyone is interested shoot me an ask!

[wistfulwatcher]

the death of reruns was the death of television.

we talk a lot about why streaming is killing television, but i think one factor that is under-discussed is syndication. there have been some good short-run series, but the majority of our most beloved series had long runs. like, 5+ season runs. runs that hit that sweet 100 episode mark, meaning they qualified for the most lucrative syndication deals. streaming shows are reducing and eliminating the need for such deals because they’re so siloed. instead of making a syndication deal with another station (and paying your creatives fair residuals), streaming services host their shows on their own platforms and instead pay the streaming rights residuals that are nowhere near as fair.

because these streaming networks (both streaming-only, like netflix, and core networks with original content streaming, like cbs and nbc) aren’t selling their shows off-platform, they don’t need to hit any kind of episode landmark to be cost-saving. you can host a show in any increment, so having a 20-episode series is the same as having a 60-episode series. except the 60-episode series, of course, takes longer and costs more to produce. as long as a network makes one season of a show, they get to market it for new viewers. and once they feel they’ve gotten all the new subscribers they will out of a series, they drop it to save money.

until there is some monetary benchmark incentive to get a series past one or two seasons, television as long-form storytelling is dead.

[mayakern]

i know you’ve been getting flak from people for using synthetic fabric instead of natural, and as a fat person who doesn’t make a lot of money, i just wanted to throw in as a counterpoint to those people that i really appreciate that you use synthetic fibers because it means i can actually afford your clothes! i’m so used to all clothes for fat people being either 1) $200+ for a single garment 2) ugly as sin and/or 3) so cheaply made they fall apart within a month of regular wear, so finding your store full of clothes that are reasonably priced, extremely cute, and super well made has been a HUGE relief.

i also just really want to emphasize to people who don’t make clothes that natural fabric can cost a LOT of money compared to synthetics—i like to sew historical costumes, and while i’d love to use period-accurate materials, i often go with synthetic blends because most 100% natural fabric runs $20-60/yd (compared to $6-10/yd for synthetics). and that’s just shopping for mass-produced fabric, so i have to imagine that even if you’re getting some kind of bulk discount, procuring custom-printed, high-quality, ethically-sourced natural fabric would be a huge increase in cost compared to synthetics.

i would love for all my clothes to be made with natural fibers, but as someone making barely above minimum wage in a super high cost-of-living area, i just can’t afford that. and i honestly really appreciate your commitment to making clothes that fit fat bodies while also being well-made and affordable, because finding clothes that hits all three of those things is a rarity.

you’re gonna make me cry, goddamn 😭😭 thank you this is really sweet and it means a lot

yes natural fiber fabric is much more expensive as a base cost than synthetic but the kicker is the printing. for reference, we’re reasonably confident that we will be able to sell the solid dyed natural fiber skirts for around $45-50. it’s literally just that custom printing is so damn expensive it’s not even worth pursuing.

[milkweedman]

NEED TO MAKE RENT SALE

As you may have seen I'm selling some of my handspun yarn, along with some fleece, batts, rolags, and other odds and ends. I'm really short on rent this month, largely due to having so many flare up days that working was almost impossible. So, I'm selling some of my work in the hopes that I can still make rent somehow. I need over $500.

Im also linking to my kofi. If you don't wish to buy anything but still want to help me make rent--which I would appreciate so much <3

I'll be updating this post as I sell things so please make sure to click back to my original post to check if it's still available. First come first serve. Unless otherwise stated, all shipping is $5 USD to within the USA. If you're outside of the USA please let me know--shipping will likely be between $30-50 USD depending on to where, but I am happy to work with you if you're interested.

PLEASE DM ME IF YOU WANT TO BUY SOMETHING <3

YARNS (please ignore the slips of paper, ive given everything a nice label now)

A: 572 yards/ 480 meters. 5.75 oz/ 165 grams. 2 ply, approximately DK weight. Silk and merino blend assembled by myself. There are stripes of different greens which are arranged to be bigger at one end than the other, so a triangle shawl (working from the correct end of yarn) will have stripes that are more or less even instead of getting thicker near the narrow end of the shawl. I don't know how noticeable the effect will be, though. Silky soft and shines beautifully in the sun. $100 USD or best offer.

B: 175 yards/160 meters. 2 oz/ 57 grams. 2 ply, light fingering weight to sport weight. Luxury blend of alpaca, cormo, debouillet, silk, silk noil, angora, and cashmere. Very textured due to how I plied it and some noils, but also extremely soft and with lovely drape. Next to skin soft. $60 USD or best offer. SOLD

C: 176 yards/160 meters. 2.25 oz/64 grams. 2 ply, light worsted. Merino, silk, silk noil, angora, and mystery wool blend. Next to skin soft, lots of different colors, and good drape. $50 USD or best offer. SOLD

D: 152 yards/130 meters. 2 oz/57 grams. 3 ply, light worsted. Cormo, alpaca, and merino blend. This yarn was arranged into a stripey gradient--white stripes separating a light purple to dark purple gradient. 3 ply. Incredibly soft--would be perfect for a hat or cowl. $55 USD or best offer.

E: 100 yards/91 meters. 2.5 oz/71 grams. Traditional 3 ply, aran/bulky weight. Romney 3 ply. Durable, squishy, and warm, but not particularly soft. Would make a great hat or gloves. $35 USD or best offer SOLD

F: 140 yards/128 meters. 1.75 oz/50 grams. Traditional 3 ply, fingering weight. Beautiful BFL yarn in autumn colors. Due to the traditional 3 ply the colors constantly shift and change. Very soft and with good drape. $45 USD or best offer. SOLD

G: 325 yards/300 meters. 4 oz/115 grams. 2 ply, fingering weight. Wool, silk, silk noil, alpaca, and Angelina blend. Very textured but soft and drapey. $80 USD or best offer.

H: 166 yards/145 meters. 2 oz/57 grams. 2 ply worsted weight. Targhee, BFL, Angelina blend. Incredibly soft and drapey. Fuzzy and lightly underplied for maximum softness (so a little delicate). Next to skin quality. $45 USD or best offer.

(I'll accept the highest offer I get in a timely manner, so if you really want something and think other people also want to buy it, you can offer more to potentially guarantee you get it. Or offer less, and get it for cheaper if nobody else wants it. Although I wont accept very low offers, sorry.)

BATTS AND ROLAGS. These all contain several large handfuls of milkweed floss, because why not. Very fun and soft to spin.

A. 0.75 oz/21 grams. Romney, BFL, silk, bamboo, Targhee, milkweed floss. Somewhat soft, would be very soft if plied with a fine fiber. Lots of purples and blues, with small amounts of rainbow. Should yield a heathered, smooth yarn except for bumps of milkweed floss. $15 USD or best offer. SOLD

B. 0.75 ounces/21 grams. Naturally dyed Shetland combing waste (yellow), BFL, silk merino, milkweed floss. Many different colors arranged in stripes--yellow and blue primarily. Should yield a textured yarn due to the combing waste, but also lofty and colorful. Fairly soft and very squishy. $15 USD or best offer.

C: 0.5 oz/14 grams. Tussah silk, BFL, merino, merino combing waste, milkweed floss. Very soft. Majority tussah silk which is charcoal black. The other colors are dark purple, a few streaks of red, and the shining white from the milkweed floss. Should spin up to a fine and soft yarn. I am also able to make more of these, which would be the same weight and price and matching the original as closely as possible. Let me know if you want several. $12 USD or best offer. SOLD -- but i can make more, if youre interested !

D: 0.5 oz/14 grams. Merino combing waste, merino, BFL, silk, milkweed floss. Buttery soft. Mostly dark brown with purple, blue, and white streaks. I can make several identical ones if desired, for the same price each. $12 USD or best offer. SOLD -- but i can more, if you're interested !

E: 0.5 oz/14 grams. BFL merino, mystery wool and milkweed floss blend. This has stripes of purple and blue, suspended a squishy mystery combing waste. Should yield a fine but squishy yarn. $10 USD or best offer. SOLD

If I sell all or most of these I will make some more !

FLEECE. I am selling by the ounce (28 grams). I'm also willing to process these into fluffy hand carded rolags or fine hand combed top as desired, which will cost extra depending on how difficult the fiber is to process.

A. Jacob lambswool. Very soft but lots of large vm (so, easy to pick out) and nepps/noils. Those will stay in the fiber unless combed, so this tends to produce a very soft, bumpy yarn. I love this fleece but I just can't seem to use it up. Primarily dark brown, but I also have some white and mixed as well. I have about 8 ounces. Washed but still a tiny bit greasy (just to my preference). $3 an ounce.

B: Rambouillet. I have almost a pound of this stuff. Incredibly buttery soft. Like touching seafoam. But it has a ton of fine VM, so it can only be cleaned either lock by lock on hand cards or combed. I am willing to clean it for you. Takes a long time to get into a spinnable state but it is SO worth it. $2 an ounce. SOLD

C: Breed unknown. Some sections are salmon pink, others closer to hot pink. Not much vm, can be combed open lock by lock on hand cards or combed into top. Yields a silky, strong, hairy yarn. Willing to process for you (this would be one of the cheaper ones to do, it's very easy). I have 5 ounces. $2 an ounce. SOLD

D & E: These are both rya lambswool, naturally dyed with yellow onion skin (the bright yellow one with alum, the copper one with copper). Very soft and silky, spins up to a surprisingly robust yarn. Absolute treat to work with. Some vm but the nature of this fleece causes the vm to fall out pretty easily. I have about a pound total. Will process for you. Washed and dyed by myself. $5 an ounce. D IS SOLD, E IS STILL AVAILABLE

F: Sunshine Shetland. Very soft and fine. Naturally dyed, again with onion skins. The tips are somewhat felted and need to be pulled off, which is quick and easy. If combed lock by lock and then spun that way you can get a subtle gradient of orange to yellow with each lock... absolutely gorgeous. Will process for you. I have about 10 ounces. Washed and dyed by myself. $5 per ounce. SOLD

G: Red Hampshire. Not neon red like in the picture, more of a brick red. Very soft and foamy. Some vm. Easy to process on hand cards by combing lock by lock or turning into a rolag. Washed and dyed (using food coloring) by myself. I only have an ounce and a quarter--which is $6 for all of it. SOLD

COMBING WASTE GRAB BAGS

These are 1 ounce bags of primarily combing waste (so, short fibers and likely some vm) along with other interesting scrap such as mohair locks, colorful merino, and sometimes the occasional single rolag. Lots of the colors are naturally dyed by myself. Great for turning into rolags or using for batt fodder. These are $5 USD if you're buying more than one item (that could be yarn, another grab bag, some fleece, etc) or $10 USD each if you are only buying a single grab bag.

SPINDLES

Lastly, I'm also selling some spindles. A-C are whittled and decorated by myself. D is a beautiful Dealgan which I never could figure out how to use.

A. Supported spindle carved from a fruit tree. I gave it a steeple shape, which does make it slow to spin with. Really enjoyable for special spins that you want to do slowly and thoughtfully. Small spindle, about the length of my hand. $55 USD or best offer.

B. Onion dome supported spindle. Very light for its size, so it can hold a decent cop on it. Small spindle--about the length of my hand. $50 USD or best offer. SOLD ! thank you 🩵🩵🩵

C: Larch spindle. This one has lots of beautiful spalting, as well as being woodburned. Also the length of my hand. Has a very distinct feel to it, sort of in an alive way. $90 USD or best offer.

D: Lightning Dealgan. I got it for $50 and it's basically unused, so reselling for $50 USD. Very heavy and smooth.

And thats it ! If you don't want to buy anything but still wish to help me make rent, you can also donate to my kofi, which would mean the world to me <3

[mediumsizedpidegon]

The Naruto timeline is killing me. I know the general idea is that it’s been ~60 years since Konoha formed but everyone’s talking like Konoha has existed for forever.

It doesn't make sense! Tsunade is in her 50s in canon! she shouldn't talk about Konoha like it was well established when she was a child! By saying Tsunade is Hashirama's granddaughter instead of his daughter, we must interpret that Hashirama had a child like. a decade before Konoha formed, so that when Konoha is 10, Tsunade is born. But that's BATSHIT. that means anyone older than sixty– an age even front line shinobi can reach as evidenced by Hiruzen, and surely an age shinobi that specialize in skills that are less directly combative/take them out of the village often, MUCH LESS CIVILIANS!! You cannot make propaganda good enough to make an entire generation of senior citizens forget that your honorable village hasn't even hit a century.

There is such a big deal made of Hiruzen remembering a time before Konoha and so you expect him to be like. late 80s or 90s. old enough to makes him recalling that time suitably rare. old enough that every shinobi is like. wow. you're hot shit and also God Of Shinobi. But he's SIXTY EIGHT. Sakura's civilian grandparents probably remember a time before Konoha. This is not that big of a accomplishment. I don't care if Kishimoto thinks 60 years is a long ass time to a shinobi. It just doesn't work for the sort of worldbuilding he's trying to sell.

My only options are to either stretch the timeline to fit the vibes of "Konoha has been around soooooo long (while still be relatively new in the grand scheme of things)" or scrap all that "Konoha is ancient" shit.

......So. I’ve stretched it to Konoha being formed 100 years ago when canon starts (the year Naruto graduates the Academy). This is more reasonable, making it so that no one alive really Remembers A Time Before, making Konoha's propaganda much more effective.

This, however, has had some significant impact on Hiruzen's generation because even though I have made them significantly older when canon starts (like. mid 80s) they were still born about ~20 years after Konoha was founded. Early enough that some instability was around and Hiruzen's generation could personally know Hashirama and Tobirama, but they don't actually have any experience living through the Warring Clans Era. This has likewise made the Sannin much much older– around the same age as Hiruzen actually is in canon.

But Tsunade's age actually makes sense for her being Hashirama's granddaughter now! So there's that!

[nevros-fr]

Big question: Who or when was the first use of the term UMA?

Cross posted to FR's forums but I thought fr tumblr meta readers would like this too! Introduction What is a UMA? It stands for User Made Accents, where the companion term is User Made Skins, but UMAs caught on as the catch-all term instead of UMS. I was in the Arcane discord server where foxaquinn made a joke about UMAs and wondered who was the first to use it. If you are on GASP (general accent and skin pinglist), UMAs pop up regularly where I got pinged 60+ times for threads with UMA in the title. I research by day and play pet sims by night so here I am, combining research and pet sims to unravel how language changed throughout the years in the skins and accents community! I included in text citations for my sources because I like those and I don’t like making works cited lists. :) First, what language does the staff use for skins? Maybe UMAs came from them? The Kickstarter uses the word “customs” in regards to the skins (Kickstarter, 2013) The first skin submission competition for the festival, Undel used the word “customs” to refer to the skins users made (Undel, 2013). Note that the current competitions and even the tooltip for blueprints use the word “customs” as well. The blueprint page even uses “user-created” and not “user-made” so "user made" must have stemmed from the community as a more casual way to say user-created.

Results Let’s rule out some approaches that may give an easy answer. I tried to use the FR search tool to see if I could find the first use of UMA, however it only indexes up to one year of results or 100 pages, whichever you hit first when you sort by age so I wasn’t able to glean anything from that. Note that I tried to stick with UMA as the search term because use of UMS just overlaps too largely with the sound “um” when I use the search bar, which also means that plurals are captured by FR’s search. I can also tell you that FR’s search lets you type in user-made or user made and it will pull up the same results.

Then I tried google where I used the key terms site:https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/ "UMA" with a time range from 2013 to 2014. It looked promising at first because it looked like there was an instance as early as 2013. When I actually checked it though, it pulled up the most recent use of UMA in the forums in the first two hits as seen by the timestamps of May 2023 next to it. Google indexed when the forum board was established instead of the individual threads for this search. I dropped the time range and just checked what results it would pull up.

There was an individual thread called the FR Abbreviations Guide that got pulled up. It was made in 2014 and includes both UMA and UMS in the definition list. However, UMA was added to the page in 2020 (FR Abbreviations, 2020).

I decided to just look back at some of the early Skins and Accents posts to see what language they use. It was pretty interesting, where many people just used skins and accents. There is no distinction yet, likely because there weren’t any festival or coliseum skins that users could submit yet! There were still categories though, since blueprints were so expensive, some artists offered “premades” which were skins people could buy for a certain cost on top of providing a blueprint. There were also options for “ghost artists” where the artist could design a custom skin but pass the psd files to the patron for them to distribute instead of the artist selling them instead. “Customs” was also another common term, where it works the same as it does today. People commission an artist to design a unique skin for them. The majority of skins on the market right now would be considered premades back then, which makes sense as it lets the artist have their creative liberties and will allow like minded users to support them.

I was clearly a fool to think UMAs were old because with the skins and accent threads research, I decided to comb through my forum posts to see what I ended up using. I first used UM accents in 2016 since that is when I first started collecting them, then the last time I used it was in early 2018 because I started using UMA by early 2019. I have no posts between 2018 and 2019, but clearly there was a language shift for me that preceded the FR abbreviations update just a year later  (FR Abbreviations, 2020). I’m usually slow in the uptake so I decided to try and track down other forum boards besides the skin specific threads to see what terms were used.

As I was thumbing through the pages, I think I may have overestimated the age of UMA use popularity because I thought it started back in 2013-2014 since that is when the site first got started and I felt like UMA was such an old acronym. The General Skins and Accents Pinglist (GASP) started in 2016. I raked the first version for mentions of “UMA” and there was nothing ! The use of “UM skins” and “UM accents” was the norm (GASP, 2016; GASP V2.0, 2016; GASP v2.0, 2018). One of the first instances of UMAs being used in this thread was in 2018 (GASP, 2018). Can I do any better than 2018? It surely is an older term!

The accent trading hub was established in 2014, so chances are, there are some time points there! The results for “user made” predates “UM accents” by one year, and “UMA” by two years which were 2014, 2015, and 2016 respectively (Accents Trading Thread, 2023a; Accents Trading Thread 2023b; Accents Trading Thread 2023c). There were 14 pages of results for “user made”, 64 pages for “UM accents”, and 96 pages for “UMAs” from the accent trading hub thread. “UMA” was used by two people in 2016, then 5 pages worth of posts in 2017, then another 6 pages worth of posts in 2018, and it took off with 25 pages worth of posts in 2019. Clearly the language was developing around 2016 but exploded in popularity in 2018. This trend was similar in the UMA mentions in the skins and accents forum board. I used ctrl + f with UMA to see when it started regularly showing up in titles, and that was in 2018.

Discussion

According to the UMA searches in the discussion boards, do you know what cultural icon got a revival in the minds of mainstream media? Uma Thurman specifically because of Fall Out Boys who released a song with her name. And you know what Uma is like? UMA, User Made Accents. I’m not saying that Fall Out Boys planted the idea in our heads, but it’s quite the coincidence the song came out in 2015 and UMA as an acronym use started in 2016. In fact, when I searched the FR threads for UMA across the site, the early ones were Uma as a name and Uma referring to the song. The earliest mention of UMA that was actually relevant and broke containment from the skins and accents board was in 2017 in the tiny little questions thread asking what does UMA stand for. (tiny little questions, 2017).

I would like to say that while this user wasn’t the first to use it, they repeatedly popped up when I tried to see who used UMA the earliest. And that user is chocomonster, they showed up and consistently used UMAs in the forums since 2016. I’m saying they showed up in the bug reports, suggestions, dragon trading posts using “UMA”. They are definitely an early trendsetter for UMAs and repped it across the forums.

Popularity of UMA rose in 2018, you know what else got popular in 2018? Reselling UMAs to the secondary market. Typing in UMA in a title means you have more characters for other things. You know which artist got really popular in 2018? Ravenhearst. She has since changed her username but I will keep Ravenhearst for the search results legacy.

I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but her skins were massively popular when she was regularly releasing skins for the highly rendered wings and sky scenes where there were skins sold in the 100s range. I looked at the game database for Ravenhearst’s earliest skin which was #24078 and compared it to my hoard of festival skins as a year benchmark. The Flameforger’s event in 2017 has a skin with #23992 while the Crystalline Gala in 2018 had a skin #25608. She started her night sky niche around skin #25001 so it lines up with the 2017 - 2018 timeline.

A stronger communal identity was also created with groups like accent addicts anonymous in 2017 or aaa for short, which is a group of collectors and artists who came together to make collaborative skins. An early "big hit" for them were the wildclaw male line where the participating artists made flower/halo/wings skins that were super popular at the time but also being hated on by the vocal minority. If you weren't around for the bustle, one example that came out would be Invidious by fenmori or Bewitched by Churyu. Some examples of the aaa's recent work would be like aaa. Amanita Ambrosia where three artists take turns, one sketches the concept, one lines the skin and one renders it .The increase of more people interested in buying skins and artists flexing their creativity allowed for a great burst of interest that has carried on to this day.

Conclusions Can I pinpoint who first used user made accents, UM accents, UMAs? No, but, I can guess that it was sometime between 2015-2016. It is clear that language has evolved in small ways right under our noses and that human memories are terrible as I thought we were using UMAs since the very beginning. The customization and uniqueness of the UMA system on FR is such a joy and I can't wait to see how the community changes in the future!

If someone wants to try to tackle who first said UMA, be my guest and let me know! My earliest mention of UMA was October 2016 in the Accent Trading Hub  Accents Trading Thread 2023c.

In conclusion, I love umas and will probably look at their sales and trends more.

[treba-neco-napise]

i hate having four fucking ads on a 20-minute podcast episode.

(it's a rant, enjoy.)

no, i don't want to get your shitting plus subscription, i don't even pay for 95% of the films and shows i watch online. stop fucking begging for patrons, it's not our problem you want to do this full-time. good for you if you do it but it's not somehow our duty to get you there just because you're a creator. not everyone can afford 60 fucking subscriptions. instead of people getting the minimum to at least get by as a basic human right, i bet like 85% of creatives online are making elite clubs on patreon and shit for those who have spare money. i get that you need it, but so many people (especially PDA neurodivergents) are extremely put off by being asked to pay and won't do it (like me) just because of that. i've encountered art that had the option to pay without requiring it, and I did. because they deserved it anyway, and they understood the classism and capitalism ingrained in the internet creative culture and that a lot of people don't have the means to become members of the club. i'm planning on starting a podcast, been wanting to publish fiction in paper since i was a kid, and i still want to make all that 100% free with the option of payment, because i believe that knowledge, stories and art should be accessible to anyone, regardless of financial situation (what do you think libraries are for, hm?????). when it's not, that's when elitism starts to rise and i'm just too tired for that shit. the empty snobbery culture around modern art alone is driving me insane.

Starkid has been recording their performances for years and guess what - they're massive, they sell out, people attend their live plays for the experience, but those who can't are still able to be a part of the fandom (as opposed to broadway musicals that get shared through bootlegs, hm) and they don't expect their fans to be responsible for their means of living. people who want to see a live performance, to buy your book in a bookshop professionally bound and keep it, to thank you for making your day by buying you a coffee will do so of their own free will. don't beg them to pay for your groceries if you made the choice to put your art out there. it's the system that is responsible for taking care of your basic needs, not your fans.

[meeeeeeese]

Moose's Guide to Quick and Easy Gold

So I get the vibes in the community here that a bunch of people don't really know all the tips and tricks to making easy money, so I thought I'd do a writeup on some of the small ways I make gold in Guild wars 2

Trick 1: You have wealth you don't know about

An inportant thing about Gw2 is that a lot of the wealth it gives out isn't in actual gold but in materials that you can then sell for gold. For a lot of people I think its easy to just click 'deposit all materials' and then forget about it. For me personally I have only 100 gold in my wallet but If I were to empty out my material storage I'd gain an additional 300 or so gold. The site GW2 efficiency is really helpful for telling you what high value items you might be holding on to, though It takes a bit of setting up.

Trick 2: Sell Orders!

Admittedly this is something I'm bad about, but if you can delay your gratification, but when you sell something don't fulfill someone elses buy order and instead, set up a sell order. I'll give you up to 10% more gold out of everything you sell

Ok now onto the acutal wealth generation methods

Trick 3: Send your least favorite character to the New Kaineng Jumping Puzzle

Jumping Puzzles in EoD reward jade runestones from their final chest, which go for 80 silver on the trading post.

Find the wiki page to get you through the jumping puzzle here, though there are often commanders on the New Kaineng lfg offering teleport to friend transport to the end of the puzzle. Basically you get a character to the end chest and every reset log in on that character and get your free! runestone, almost a gold for ~30 seconds of work

(as a note you only get the runestone once per day per account so don't send multiple characters there)

Trick 4: Leivas Hands out Gold, make sure to collect it

Ok not actually but he may as well. So this guy who hangs out in Arborstone, once you've gotten the Globalization mastery, will sell you 5 antique summoning stones every week for a grand total of 10 green prophet shards, 10 unusual coins, 100 imperial favours, 7000 karma and 1 gold. The summoning stones can then be sold on for ~3 gold each, netting you a profit of 14 gold for going up to an npc and pressing 'f' (or whatever your interact key is)

Trick 5: fast and profitable metas you should be doing daily

Let me introduce you to my favorite wiki page:

the event timers list

This lists out every meta event and world boss that'll be happening soon and all of them will give you at least something, and the meta's from HoT onwards awards you a hero's choice chest that'll contain at least one of these valuable materials to choose from: amalgamated gemstone (60 silver), jade runestone (80 silver), ancient ambergris (1 gold 70 silver) or an antique summoning stone (3 gold). It should be noted the last 3 only appear in the EoD meta's, for all other times choose the amalgamated gemstone.

With that aside there are 3 events in particular that you should try to get done that'll take 10 minutes or less

first up is the Legendary Ley-Line Anomaly, the naked man. The timer's page tells you which zone it'll spawn in and when it does you have to seek it out and murder it. Mounts are very recommended because this thing dies fast. Anyway when you kill it, it drops 2 things: a mystic coin (1 gold 20 silver) and some vendor trash worth 50 silver, pretty gold for 5 minutes of work

next is Dragonstorm. It happens once every 2 hours starting from the eye of the north and affords you the opportunity to beat up Ryland. If you join the public option you join a crowd of up to 50 other people and its easy enough that you could even afk if you wanted (though that would be very rude). Anyway once you murder the champions and blast the dragons you get to watch them share a passionate kiss as the die and you then get 2 gold straight up, 6 memories of aurene (worth 1.5 gold in total) as well as a chance to win the lottery and get ascended weapons or, even rarer, the very expensive eye infusions

Finally is Tequatl the Sunless, a world boss in Sparkfly Fen that awards you 1 gold straight up as well as a chance at an ascended weapon as well as a bunch of materials and unidentified gear

speaking of which all the other events give unidentified gear too and they aren't actually terrible rewards, you can get a pretty penny from selling them.

Trick 6: Daily Rewards

Firstly, just logging in every day gives you a sadly decent amount of income, mostly in laurels and mystic coins. Coins can just be sold if you're after cold, laurels can be spent on a variety of stuff. And if you're looking to turn a profit, HERE are the best ways to do so.

Also, do your daily achievements people, sometimes they're a pain but the daily completionist gives 2 gold as well as 15 achievement points, more than most other achievements in the game. Also they drive you towards content you wouldn't do otherwise (the daily achievements are the reason why I've done most of the jumping puzzles). Also If you're bad at any of the dailies on offer, usually a bunch of other people are also trying to do dailies and they're often willing to help. I see mesmers porting people through the daily JPs all the time.

Trick 7: Spirit shards can be converted to Gold???

I admit, this isn't something I do myself but if you're accumulating spirit shards like I am there are methods to turn them into gold

They're listed HERE

(again, this isn't something I've tried myself, I can't vouch for how well it works and all the methods require a starting amount of gold. But if you're desperate it might be something to consider

But I want more Gold, how do I get it?

If your looking for serious gold farming there are probably better guides than this but here are a few pointers to start raking in the money

1: As far as I understand, Drizzlewood Coast is the most profitable activity in the game, gold per hour wise. Runs take a while and you kind of have to pay attention to maximise gains but, if gold's what you want this is a good option.

2: Look for meta trains, I notice them happening a lot around reset, basically its a group that goes from meta to meta doing them in sequence. There are a few guilds that do them every day so if you see a train, chances are its on at the same time every day. I find them to be pretty chill, offer some nice variety in content and offer good rewards as well.

3: Fractals. Yeah I know this is getting into endgame content but doing T4 fractal dailies every day gives you around 20 gold straight up, a bunch of materials worth even more gold and a decent chance at ascended armor and weapons (and so many ascended trinkets, seriously at this point they get auto-salvaged if they drop)

Apart from that, pretty much everything in this game gives you some amount of rewards, even if they aren't entirely obvious, so don't stress too much, provided you aren't roleplaying in the serrated blade or whatever (Though good on you for having fun!) you're likely earning some amount of income. Even if it's only in materials

[simply-ivanka]

What the Choice of Tim Walz Says About Kamala Harris

In her first presidential-level decision, the Vice President bends to progressive pressure.

Donald Trump did Democrats a favor by choosing a running mate who reinforced his base rather than reaching out to swing voters. Kamala Harris has now returned the favor in selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the progressive favorite, as her pick for Vice President.

The choice that scared Republicans was popular Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a swing state crucial to an Electoral College victory. But Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, was the target of an extraordinary and nasty campaign against him by the Democratic left. He was too pro-Israel and had upset unions by showing rhetorical support for school vouchers.

Ms. Harris appears to have wilted under this pressure, perhaps fearing protests at the Democratic convention in Chicago this month. She went with Mr. Walz instead, and there goes Mr. Trump’s hope of flipping the decisive swing state of Minnesota. That’s a joke, since the Land of 10,000 Liberals has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1976.

Mr. Walz’s progressive bona fides will please Sen. Bernie Sanders and the teachers unions. But his governing record will be fodder for Mr. Trump. And picking him is a bad omen about the ability, or even willingness, of Ms. Harris to defy her party’s left.

***

Mr. Walz, age 60, has a plain-spoken personality and an appealing Midwestern background. He joined the Army National Guard at 17, graduated from a state college, and became a high-school teacher and football coach. He was elected to Congress in 2006 from a rural district, and one selling point to Ms. Harris is that he might appeal to Trump voters.

But as Governor since 2019 Mr. Walz has moved Minnesota sharply to the left. He still wears a baseball cap and work jacket, but since Democrats gained control of the entire Legislature in 2023, he’s governed more like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, including:

• Increasing taxes, though Minnesota already has the fifth-highest top income-tax rate among the states, 9.85% at $193,000 of earnings for a single filer. Mr. Walz added a 1% surtax on net investment income above $1 million, while reducing deductions, and the Governor wanted more.

Minnesota is a rare state that still levies a death tax, up to 16%, on top of the federal 40% rate, which is one reason the state is losing taxpayers to better climes.

• Making an estimated 81,000 illegal immigrants in the state eligible for driver’s licenses, along with health insurance through the MinnesotaCare public marketplace.

• Funding “the North Star Promise Program, which provides free college for students with a family income under $80,000,” including illegal immigrants.

• Creating a state system for paid family and medical leave, capped at a combined 20 weeks a year and funded by a 0.88% payroll tax.

• Mandating that public utilities generate 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030, ramping up to 100% by 2040. He’s a fervent believer in “climate action.”

• Subsidizing electric vehicles by “requiring EV charging infrastructure within or adjacent to new commercial and multi-family buildings,” as the Governor’s office bragged.

• Passing one of the nation’s most permissive abortion statutes that has essentially no limits and no age consideration for minors.

• Declaring Minnesota to be a “trans refuge,” with a law saying that the state will ignore a “court order for the removal of a child issued in another state because the child’s parent or guardian assisted the child in receiving gender-affirming care in this state.”

• Establishing automatic voter registration and letting Minnesotans sign up for a permanent absentee ballot option.

No wonder Mr. Sanders is a fan. Yet now the vetting will begin in earnest. Mr. Walz’s response to the 2020 riots, after George Floyd’s killing, will be scrutinized in particular, as poor areas in Minneapolis burned and many business owners lost everything.

Did he hesitate to send in troops? Why is Minnesota losing residents to other states? Republicans are circulating remarks by Mr. Walz acknowledging what he calls his white privilege and urging his party: “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”

***

Despite her four years as Vice President, Ms. Harris is largely unknown to most voters. Democrats want to keep it that way, hoping she can dodge media interviews and ride a gauzy theme about “the future” in a campaign sprint of a mere 100 days.

But her choice of a running mate is her first presidential-level decision, and it confirms the views she expressed in 2019 when she ran for the White House as a left-wing Democrat. Choosing Mr. Walz suggests that the real Kamala Harris is the one who wants Medicare for All and to eliminate cash bail. Voters who don’t like Mr. Trump might decide he’s still better than signing up for that.

Appeared in the August 7, 2024, print edition as 'Kamala Harris’s Revealing VP Choice'.

[vintagegeekculture]

RIP John Jakes, Pulp and Fantasy Author

A man who’s career began in pulp scifi, then was one of the greatest group of fantasy fans turned authors, and who finally ended it as one of the most commercially successful “men’s adventure” paperback novels of the 1970s, John Jakes died at 90 last week. What a life! He started his career in scifi pulp of the 1950s, switching to sword and sorcery action in the 60s, and finally, ending the 70s as one of the top selling authors of the decade. In one guy’s life, you can see the ebb and flow of trends in men’s adventure fiction over the decades.

Let’s start the John Jakes story at the end, and then work our way back. Does this book series above look familiar to you at all? 

If you have grandparents and they live in America, I 100% guarantee the Kent Family Chronicles (also called the Bicentennial Series) are in your Mee Maw and Pep Pep’s house right now. You probably handled them while visiting their house and went through their bookshelves as a child, right next to their Reader’s Digest condensed books, Tai-Pan and Shogun by James Clavell, copies of the endless sequels to Lonesome Dove, and old TV Guides they still have for some reason next to the backgammon set. If your grandparents are no longer with us, you probably found this series when selling their possessions after death. That’s because these things sold in the millions, back when the surest way to make money in writing was to write melodramatic, intergenerational family sagas of grandiose sweep set around historical events. Weighty family sagas, ones critics call bloated and self important instead of “epic,” were a major part of 70s fiction as they were four quadrant hits: men liked them for war, action, and history (every guy at some point must choose between being a civil war guy, or World War II guy) and ladies loved them for their romance and melodramatic love triangles (after all, the Ur-example of this kind of book is Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind). This was the kind of thing turned into TV event miniseries, and ably lampooned in the hilarious “Spoils of Babylon” series with Kristen Wiig and Toby McGwire, which, decades after the fact, did to this genre what Airplane! did for the formerly prolific airport disaster movie: it torpedoed it forever by making it impossible to take seriously.

This genre eventually went away because men stopped being reliable book buyers and book readers in the 1990s (or at least, were no longer marketed to as an audience), Lonesome Dove’s insane popularity was the last gasp of this audience. I’ve said this before, but men and boys no longer reading is the single most under remarked on social problem we have. “YA books” now basically mean “Girl Books.” 

John Jakes did not suddenly come out of nowhere to write smash hit bestsellers set around a family during the American Revolution. He came from one of the weirdest places imaginable: a crony of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter in fantasy and weird tales fanzines like Amra, he was one of the original “Gang of Eight,” people drawn from fantasy and horror fandom to become pro-writers now that fantasy fiction had a home at Ballantine Publishing, just before the rise of Lord of the Rings and the paperback pulp boom, which is an incredible case of being in the right place at the right time. There, John Jakes, a fanzine contributor and ERB fan, wrote “Brak the Barbarian,” which is amazing as L. Sprague de Camp and Ballantine hadn’t even reprinted the Conan stories yet and Conan was as well known as Jirel of Joiry or Jules de Grandin. Only superfans of pulp knew who that guy was at all, there was no audience for it. He wrote Brak the Barbarian as a superfan, and was lucky the paperback market found him. 

The tireless work John Jakes, Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, and the Gang of Eight did in preserving fantasy novelists of the pulp age into the 50s-60s is one of the great historic feats of preservation and keeping fandom flames alive. It’s no exaggeration to say that you know who Conan the Barbarian and HP Lovecraft are right now because of them, fans who kept the flame alive tirelessly and thanklessly in the ultra-rational 50s that had no place for dark horrific fantasy. 

Like his friend in fantasy and pulp fandom, L. Sprague de Camp, John Jakes started as a scifi guy in the endless scifi pulp magazines of the 1950s. Unlike his friend de Camp or Hugh B. Cave, who were full of humor, characterization, and satire, Jakes was often pessimistic, dour, and downbeat, and he disliked to laugh.  

It’s shocking to lose someone with a connection to, in one lifetime, the first great group of fantasy fandom, 50s scifi pulp, and 70s men’s adventure. John Jakes’ life spanned all of them. 

[inactivedoll]

Some Affordable BJDs and alternatives from my experience

Time for some rambling from me again. I will only list companies whose dolls I own since I can't give much of a recommendation if I don't have a doll.

Guard Love- Resin company with both realistic and cute anime heads. They have variety of bodies and heads available and you're able to mix and match within the size. They also have a good range of resin colors. I think their anime heads are actually quite varied since they have different mouth and eye shapes. Hertz is a very distinct anime sculpt and they also have a head where you can use decals for the faceup instead of of painting it yourself. Their production times are fairly quick, being around 3-4 months. Your doll also comes in a grey duffel bag that you can use to carry other dolls in. Most dolls are under $300 blank.

Fatemoons - Really pushing it as their dolls are just slightly under $300, but you can get some really nice sculpts. They're popular in their home country of China but not so much on English forums, which is likely due to them being a banned company on DOA. This is due to an account issue and not from recasting or counterfeit issues. They also sell a variety of resin parts such as accessories, wings, limbs, and pets. Their current available sculpts are humanoid, but they do occasionally have a more unusual sculpt such as one of their cat heads, Willow. It's my favorite cat head sculpt and I do have one. Their 1/3 dolls are over the $300 budget and some newer 1/4 dolls are also over that.

Jun Planning Ai - This line has long been retired, but these are tiny 1/12 strung ABS dolls. Single jointed. A complete set has a wig, eyes, shoes, a full outfit set, and some have an additional accessory. Their price varies, but they show up all over the place, usually ranging from $50-100 dollars depending on which doll it is. This is actually my first BJD before I even realized what a BJD was since I found an almost complete Nerine [just missing her teddy] at Goodwill for just $3. So keep your eyes open for them in the wild.

Lots of 1/6 dolls from more expensive resin companies are under the $300 mark although shipping is a different story. A lot of companies also have 1/4 dolls under the $300 mark as well. I'm just naming a few companies that have dolls in this price range. I would say that most resin doll aren't even anywhere near even $500. If, and only if, you are collecting in 1/4 and below scale. I don't have a lot of 1/3 and I can't give you good reference for that.

Alternatives

Most of these are well known, but I'll go over them.

TinyFox - Anime styled plastic dolls. They're not vinyl though, and they're mostly called that due to the lack of proper terms to describe their classification. They are primarily known for selling elaborate full sets, or a doll that comes with faceups, wig, eyes, and clothes. No shoes though. They have a rubbery coating on them that stains super easily and is impossible to fix once stained, but I heard the newer ones don't have this coating. Honestly, I wished they never had this coating to begin with seeing how hideous the stains are on my dolls. Their clothes are well made and elaborate and you can buy just clothes once in a blue moon. These dolls are heavy and their joint system is similar to a ball socket. Think obitsu 11s. Almost all of their dolls are under $300, and they come in either 1/4 or 1/6 sizes. They also sell bodies and heads that you can customize yourself. No boy bodies at the moment though.

Imomodoll - Honest to goodness vinyl dolls structure wise like a Dollfie Dream. I have issues with their quality, but they have a bunch of available options that Dollfie Dreams usually don't have available for everyone. Such as tan skin [it's darker than DD too] and male bodies. They have 1/6, 1/4, and 1/3 sizes, and they also have a small strung doll at the 1/12 size. A complete doll from this company varies depending on size. 1/6 dolls are roughly ~$60, 1/4 ~$90, and 1/3 ~$200. Really depends on your dealer. There are a lot of different heads that you can buy and a good range of bodies with more to be released in the future. Imomodoll also has resin dolls, but they're slightly over $300, so they don't really make the list.

Obitsu/Parabox - A cheaper vinyl doll company selling a whole bunch of different sizes and a whole lot of heads. You can either buy parts individually yourself or get a premade set. Most of these dolls fall under the $300 budget range, although whether this holds true or not depends on your currency's exchange rate against JPY. And while some of their larger dolls like the 80 cm Otohime would meet the budget, the shipping costs are high. You can also select a variety of faceups, clothes, wigs, and eyes for your doll. The only issue with this company is the availability of items, with you needing to wait for several months with no idea when an item will be available. Their obitsu 11 bodies are widely available, which leads me into

Obitsuroids - A whole type of dolls that I would argue is even more customizable than the typical BJD doll. So where to even start with obitsuroids? Most are around the 1/12 scale, although it's been creeping up to 1/8 and 1/6 scales as of late. There are a variety of different materials for this doll, ranging from PVC, vinyl, resin, and even rubbery materials somewhat like silicone. These dolls are called obitsuroids due to the original ones being Nendoroid heads on Obitsu 11 bodies, but it's really used as a catch all term for all dolls with Nendoroid styled faceplates and 1/12 bodies. If you want to get into obitsuroids, keep in mind that you will need something called a headback to complete the head. A faceplate is not a complete doll head. If you get Nendoroid hair, this can complete the head, but if you don't, you will need a headback. You also need a neck card to attach your head to the body and not all companies that make bodies for obitsuroid hybridization [oh i can go on a whole tangent, only mini tangent though] comes with a neckcard. Overall, obitsuroids fall well under the $300 mark, but that really depends on what body, faceplates, hair or headback it has. And it can be difficult for some to source parts, although I'm sure there's resources available for this somewhere. I have a ton of obitsuroids and I will probably make a master post for this one day. The 1/12 blind box BJDs are also structurally based on obitsuroids, albeit modified for proprietary purposes.

Azone Pureneemo and Picconeemo - A line of 1/6 and 1/12 fashion dolls, although the Picconeemo lines and female body Pureneemo lines often have more elaborate joints like an Obitsu of a similar size. They're known for their well made clothes, and the cost of the doll is primarily in the clothes over the actual doll itself. Most of these dolls are under $200 new or secondhand, although some dolls can be over that. However, a lot of their dolls have painted eyes and their hair is rooted in, although I think they have unrooted caps available for some dolls.

Dollce Mini Sweets Doll - Cute little 1/12 dolls. Expensive for their scale and size, but you can find some secondhand ones for cheap. Most shouldn't be more than $150, although I have seen a few like that for really no reason. They use Dollce vinyl heads and obitsu 11 bodies.

If you don't mind second hand dolls and have a currency that's strong against the JPY, Mandarake is an excellent Japanese second hand shop, with some dolls even coming with accessories from their previous owners. There is a risk of running into counterfeit dolls, but Mandarake is reputable and I have bought several dolls from them. You can also find a lot of obscure Japanese brands via Mandarake as well and even parts.

There are way more affordable dolls in the marketplace than I listed here or on other lists, but they aren't accessible, or 'region locked' so to say. But keep that in mind.

[flannelfoxen]

Ok there were a few more babies that hatched these past few days.

Eublepharis macularius - Leopard Gecko

9/1/23 TSF Mack Snow Black Night

9/1/23 TSF Hypo Mack Snow Black Night

9/4/23 TSF Super Hypo OR Black Night

9/5/23 TSF Black Night

9/5/23 TSF Super Hypo OR Black Night

(This one looks weird in the photo because she’s trying to dig a little hole. She’s fine.)

•

I will have to wait and see what these babies look like as they grow up. They will change so much.

(I’m just gonna say black nights instead of possible like the other posts because they are black nights. The father is a 100% pure black night. The babies are just going to be low expression. I don’t know what they will look like though.)

Also there are two that I don’t 100% know the father yet. One male is a super hypo but he had a prolapse (he’s better now) so I bred the female to the male black night just to make sure. One looks slightly more orange than the others so I just have to wait. I cannot tell yet.

They should be low expression black nights (dark morph). Some will be hypo (have fewer spots).

The black night and the hypo morphs are line bred traits. These babies won’t be pure black or pure spotless. They should look about in the middle.

Most will be raised up and bred back to a pure black night. That should produce the all black animals.

If any are actually super hypos, I might sell those ones. I just have a lot of that morph. Unless I get attached. I know I sold all my babies from 2016 and I wish I kept the one or maybe 2.

I don’t know what a hypo Mack snow black night will look like but we have a few.

I am putting my honors biology class to good use. I actually use Punnett squares in everyday life.

Mack snow is an incomplete dominant gene. Two of the moms have one copy and the dad has none so those babies have a 50/50 chance of being Mack snow. So far, the odds have been perfect. 4/4 I do have one more egg so hopefully we get 5/5 on snows.

Also here’s a line bred example: breed a dark animal to another dark animal and the baby could be even darker. There’s no dominant/recessive genes controlling that.

•

Here’s the first 3 babies if anyone missed them.

8/31/23 TSF Mack Snow Black Night

8/31/23 TSF Black Night

9/1/23 TSF Hypo Mack Snow Black Night

•

Some of the snows have a grayish look to them. They should be black and white but their white is grayish.

I have two more eggs in the incubator but those won’t hatch for awhile. One is from a second clutch. All the other second clutches went bad or were infertile but I have one good egg.

I used the same male so fertility was down. I think 10 is enough for this year though.

The other egg was just laid later than the rest. 4 years old and first time mom. She laid her first egg on top of a rock which went bad but there’s one good one in there. She has some good genetics so I hope that egg makes it.

I can’t wait until these babies start showing their adult coloration. They have their baby bands. They don’t get spots and colors until they mature.

I might have studied leopard gecko genetics a few years ago. Now I know why they look pretty.

TSF = Temperature Sexed Female

They should all be females. Incubated at 81° for 55/60 days. (Males are incubated at a higher temperature in less time.)

They are all named after Vocaloid characters.

[mayakern]

I am being nosy. Right now Minis skirts are retired/ on hold due to business things. I am just morbidly curious about the 'extra logistics this entails' and if that is something on the horizon (6-12 months) or like a 5 year plan. I also don't totally understand the difference in your new manufacturer. I think the fabric will be more detailed with the new manu? Thank you in advance!

so, miniskirts were retired for 2 main reasons:

1. when you sells two products with minimal differences (i.e. two different lengths of the same skirt design, two of the same style of shirt with different sleeve lengths, etc) it doubles the amount of variations you have to account for in inventory without necessarily doubling sales. some people are only interested in either mini or midi skirts, but a lot of people are happy with either, and for us midi skirts were more popular ever since we introduced them and by the end made up about 60-70% of our skirt sales.

2. our old manufacturer fucked up really, really bad. in march 2021 we ran the most successful round of preorders we had ever run. in two weeks we made sales comparable to almost our entire sales in 2020. we made a huge order with the manufacturer we’d been working with for around 5-6 years at the time and we stressed (as we always had) that we preferred quality over speed, that we would pay extra and wait longer to make sure the skirts were made well, that they could be made and sent in batches so we wouldn’t overwhelm their holding capacity. well. they didn’t fucking do that. our old manufacturer changed skirt materials without informing us and about 60% of the entire skirt order was defective and specifically around 90% of miniskirts were defective. most of the midi skirts defects were minor printing errors (so a few white dots where there was dust on the fabric when it went through the printer, or a couple dark splotches from some splattered ink, or some minor print banding) but about 60% of the defective miniskirts were unsellable because they were literally falling apart. we are still dealing with the ramifications of this. we’ve sold through a bunch of the horrible miniskirts, selling them as scrap material below cost in the hopes that literally anyone can find a use for them so they don’t end up in a landfill. we still have a ton left that we need to sort and list in the store, but it is a truly staggering amount of work. we had to pay out of pocket to remake those skirts, which sucked.

so the difference with the new manu is about more than just material or print fidelity. it’s about consistency and quality. with the skirts from our old manu, we spend a ton of time quality checking every individual garment because there are so many defectives. that’s why the restocks had to be broken up into smaller, more frequent restocks: because that QC takes a TON of time. the new factory does their own, extensive QC, including wash tests, which will likely cut down our processing time to a 10th of what it is currently because we won’t have to scour every individual garment. defectives will be the outlier instead of the norm, meaning if someone gets a defective item without our knowledge it’ll be easy and painless to replace it because it’ll be at most 5% of garments instead of like 60%. if we had to process returns/exchanges on 60% of our orders it would literally shut us down. and we likely wouldn’t be able to process most exchanges bc we wouldn’t have that many non-defective skirts to exchange with defective ones.

i don’t have an ETA yet on the return of miniskirts, but i would guess either later this year or some time next year. i just wanted to get things settled with the new factory, to make sure we know our production timeline/etc and have midi skirts 100% figured out/squared away before we add other variables. unfortunately there have been delays with the first batch of midi skirts (i talked abt this earlier today but there have been a number of earthquakes in turkey, where our new factory is) so we are running behind on that, but we’ll be getting part of our first batch of new manu skirts later this week and the rest will arrive some time in the next few weeks. after that devin and i will sit down with ash (our lovely supply chain manager and pattern maker) and go over an action plan/logistics for miniskirts, among other things. we have a lot of projects cooking right!

[xingxueyue]

Hi @missshinazugawa and those who wonder how does the mic function works, please refer to my ss below.

You'll need to nagivate through your store and find the tools/props icon. Then you'll find the mic for sale.

For 7 days mic, it cost 60 purple gems and you can purchase twice a month. For 30 days mic, it cost 180 purple gems and you can purchase only once a month.

Do note that mic is not shared across the 3 LI, instead it's selling as solo LI.

P.S do check if your server has it as I'm playing on CN server. Some of my gamemates and players on discord did mentioned that they do not have these on Global (Asia/US) server.

The duration for each Mic function range from 13 to 16 minutes, and it has a cool down period of 20 hours. Meaning you can use the function again after 20 hours.

They do not respond to 100% of what you say/tell them. Rather, it's how you phrase it and what word do they respond to.

For instance, when I say "call me jiejie (older sis/female)" LiShen responded. However, when I say "I'm jiejie", he reponds with default replies set by Paper's algorithm. It's more of a trial and error for us to see what he responds to.

Perhaps they will add more in the near future?

I hope this helps to clarify 😘

[mrslittletall]

Little Update on my FF14 progress: The Machinist job is on Level 70 now. Right yesterday I got an Omega raid to prove it in the roulette. I also finished the Machinist job quests, now only the epilogue after I hit Level 80 is left. The level 70 Machinist outfit was not looking good and I dislike the colour and I can't even dye it. But the Scaeva set is looking really good on Rispale so he keeps it for now. I also finally finished the Ixal allied society quests. I am FREED of the gloves! I spent a little time more there to get all the DoH jobs on Level 50 and do the last ARR quest. Now I am with the Moogles and slowly will get all my DoH jobs up to 60 there. I don't plan to rush, that is just a nice daily thing to do ^^ I always have to laugh when I get the quest where they actually make a stone ball instead of a block! That is impressive but misses the mark so much! Anyway, my plans so far are... -> Get Machinist to Level 100. Do the Endwalker and Dawntrail role quests ont he way. -> After that, get Astrologian to Level 100. Finish the Astrologian quest line. Role quests are already done (thanks Scholar). -> Do the daily allied society quests with my crafters. -> Sell the inventory of my retainers because I don't need the ARR materials anymore. -> Keep doing the raids until we get the next tear weekly. I noticed that I don't have the accessories for the monk job yet. -> Do Khloe's Wondrous Tales each week for the extra EP and because I quite like doing it with all my played jobs so that I am keeping the practice.

[crystalelemental]

And so, after much delay, I have finished Final Fantasy 9. I don't have a clever intro, due to pizza-induced migraines, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway because man. That's a good game.

I remember hearing that FF9 was a sort of "wrapping up" of this era of Final Fantasy, in a sense. Or at least a tribute game to the rest of the series. Which. Tracks. There are a ton of little references to the rest of the series proper, particularly the 1-6 era. This is largely unimportant, but it likely contributes to my general enjoyment of the game, given that I prefer high fantasy over sci-fi.

To keep this segment brief: this is my favorite of the PS1 era and it's not close. An absolutely massive part of that is gameplay. FF7 and FF8 both had pretty interesting stories, but are held back severely by gameplay issues that drive me up a wall. 9 solves for a lot of it. A big part is that maps feel a lot smaller, and a lot easier to navigate. I know "hallway" is a thing that gets tossed around for 10 and 13 onwards, but I do not besmirch the noble hallway. It's easy to navigate and I'm not getting mad about random encounters. There are also just very few minigame moments where I have to worry about timers to press a button correctly. FF7 in particular is hilariously bogged down by such minigames, whereas 9...really only has the Frog Cid segment, which is the worst part of the game because of it.

9 also has a cast that feels distinct. 7 and 8's systems, while inventive, ultimately make every character feel identical. The difference between Aerith and Barret is honestly minimal, depending on material loadout. 9 returns to a sort of 4 and 6 vibe, where characters come with preconfigured roles, and it makes them stand out a bit more. The AP system also is not absolute, with characters learning different skills based on what's relevant, and learning them through different pieces of equipment. I think Eiko and Dagger also have completely different white mage spell lists and summons, too, with only the essentials being copied over. Everyone feels a lot more dynamic as a result.

This isn't to say 9's systems are without flaw, but they are much improved. My biggest issue is stealing being a central focus. I hate thief characters, and I hate wasting time on steals that are just going to fail, instead of aiming for proper damage. That said, almost nothing until the endgame is unique. In fact I'm...not sure anything that can be stolen is completely unique. So maybe that's a me problem. Usually, the goal is early access or reduction of cost later, which is a noble goal, but unnecessary. I think money is extremely tight in this game, and it's not a positive aspect of the game either. I found it really hard to stay on top of new equipment, while avoiding selling older stuff for synthesis. Though again, a lot of synthesis items repeated skills and weren't ultimately necessary. So maybe that is, again, a me problem.

I say this mostly because the annoying ones are optional. Chocobo Hot and Cold is...a treat. I did recently find out that you can, in fact, speed up the game's movement, which does not impact the 60 second timer, making it really easy to farm points. Coincidentally, I also got to learn that getting two Protect Rings, despite their +50% all elements reduction, does not reduce Shadow (or two 50% reductions don't stack to 100%), and nearly killed myself with Doomsday fighting Ozma. The worst part is Vivi only dealt like 3.5k with that move. Poor little dude is Not Great at this fight.

Oh yeah, this is also the only game where I beat the optional superboss. If that's any indication of preference for combat system. FF7 takes too long and is way too involved with the breeding system, I didn't want to stick around for FF8, so this is the only PS1 era game where I 100% completed stuff (catching 99 frogs pending). Freya's Dragon Crest spam rules.

I would also admit I don't love the AP system? It's more flexible than equipment for blocking status, but it does result in the problem of Ribbon not canceling all status by default, and thus making it really hard to negate things that don't have an AP solution to. Some of these things are also just really expensive, and I never felt like I had enough points for anything. I know that's half the point, you're supposed to choose what's needed, but exploration feels rough because I never knew what status resistances were critical. I tended to just keep Body Temp, Clearheaded, and Soft on at all times to compensate, and it worked out alright.

Anyway, enough about that. The bigger reason this is the easy favorite of the PS1 era is story. Which is saying a lot.

FF9's thematic focus is on life and death. There's already an excellent analysis of FF9's general theme here that will cover a lot of what I'd have to say better than I can here. As such, I'm left with stuff that impacted me that is aligned to that theme, but not talking about stuff that makes me feel like I'm copying someone else's homework. Specifically, how the game discusses what it means to live, and how to find meaning in a meaningless existence. This is primarily exemplified through Vivi, who is probably my favorite in the game. Every scene with Vivi is gold.

Vivi is home to the best scenes in the game. The first of which involves the Black Mage Village, where Vivi both learns of the shortened lifespan of the black mages, and where Zidane has a great story about his own history seeking his homeland only to realize where his home is, over Vivi wandering the village at night. Zidane believes Vivi is seeking a true home, somewhere he feels like he belongs, and questions if that will be here. This goes straight into the real gut punch of Vivi asking the sort of head of the village about when they "stop moving." The head, 288, calls Vivi kind for using their words, but expresses that Vivi understands what it means to die, before telling him they live for about one year.

The reason I love this isn't just how it sets up Vivi, but how it blends perfectly into the next two scenes in Madain Sari and the Iifa Tree. In Madain Sari, Vivi reflects on this, commenting that he doesn't think he does understand death. He questions what happens when you die, and wonders whether he goes back to where he came from, uncertain of why he's shaking as he contemplates this. Death is terrifying when you consider it actively, and as Zidane says earlier in the game, some things you can't think your way through. You just have to go with your heart.

This trail ends with the death of Brahne. As Brahne lays dying, Vivi's internal monologue talks about how she's caused so much suffering, he should be happy she's dead. Yet seeing Garnet, his friend, crying over her mother's body...he feels like crying too, and he doesn't understand what to feel about her death. What we're presented with is the seed at the heart of the game: that all life matters. That all life has significance. It starts easy with Brahne, who has direct relevance to Garnet, and ends with Kuja, who...let's be honest, no single individual will mourn. He's caused too much suffering. Yet Zidane saves him all the same, because his life, all life, is worth protecting.

Mikoto waxes philosophical about Kuja's connection to the world as well, noting that Kuja was the only Genome to defy his fate, paving the way forward for their current lives as individuals. Prior, they were only tools with a singular purpose, dictated by Garland. Despite the harm he caused to literally everyone, through all the death and destruction, life continued on and thrived.

It's a small scene, but one I really liked: when the Black Mages leave the village, enticed by Kuja's promise to expand their lifespan, three of them stay behind to care for a Chocobo egg. They couldn't just leave it on its own. Later, the egg hatches as they return, and the mages weep without knowing why. Later still, one of the Genomes arrives and questions the purpose of this creature. There is no real reason. The mages simply cared for it until it produced life. There is no real meaning, and no real purpose, but life remains important all the same.

I think that's a big theme of the game, is that dichotomy between purpose and meaning. Many major players, as well as two distinct races, are created for a singular purpose. Yet none who follow that purpose are happy, nor are they entirely conscious. Even characters who aren't created suffer this, be it Steiner's absolute adherence to duty, or Amarant's lack of understanding for what he's doing or what he wants. This is reflected best in Zidane, who is...kinda directionless. He's called out as shouting to affirm his existence, without knowing what the point of his life is, and it's kinda true. But while Zidane doesn't know his purpose, he finds meaning in his place with the theater group, and in his current quest with his friends. He is, in a way, the embodiment of "I was put on this earth to do one thing, but fortunately I forgot what it was, so I can do whatever I want."

In a similar vein is birthplace vs home. Many characters struggle to find where they came from, or are led to discover the place of their birth, but their true significance is in their home and the places and people they care for. Connection builds the meaning that makes life worth living. The opposite force, a sense of egocentrism, is when you give in to death. Kuja is prominently self-important, with his primary motivation in most of the game being to wrest control of both worlds from Garland to rule himself. When confronted with the knowledge that he will die, and likely soon, he determines the only course is absolute death for all living things. He cannot see beyond himself, and has no connection, no home, to ground his meaning to live. He cannot understand why Zidane would struggle to keep him alive after all he's done, because he cannot see beyond himself. Zidane is similar. He assumes a like compassion from Kuja, asserting that he would've done the same were their roles reversed before retracting that. But his belief in others and willingness to put faith and trust in others allows him to empathize so strongly that he can still find reason to preserve Kuja's life.

I'll be honest, this is one of the only Final Fantasy games this far that had me crying. I think what stands out about is that, despite being a bit more surface level than FF7 and FF8, all of its dramatic moments land. There are a few tidbits that I'm not a huge fan of, but by and large, there is little I can criticize about the story or its cast. Which is huge. FF7 and FF8 had the issue of a lot of the cast feeling pretty irrelevant, but outside of Amarant, I wound up really loving the whole cast. The dynamics and individual personalities really shine here. I even really like Kuja! I dunno, man, I just think he's neat! I love this scheming little bastard, he's so fun, and his pivot into despair actually lands. I know there's somewhat of a push now against the whole villain trauma as explanation for their actions, but I think it resonates more strongly when you can understand their motives.

I would also praise the use of eidolons in the story. Summons have been important in other games, but this is the only game thus far where they actually feel horrifying. Odin's complete annihilation of Cleyra and Atomos literally devouring Lundblum are shows of incredible power that make them stand out as a threat.

I'm running out of things to say, but this...really was excellent. Despite a rough opening that had me put the game down for a while before officially picking it up, once that ball got rolling, this became a standout for me. Absolutely huge fan of 9.