#why is printer ink so expensive????

[lylethewaterguy]

Decided to reorganise my comics on my day off and making labels for some my dividers that don’t have one so I had to take the bus in to town to spend £65 on printer ink… shoot me

[munchboxart]

HP is one of BDS's boycott targets. You should switch to a different printer as soon as possible

Luckily I don't use any of the HP account bullshit and the last time I bought ink for it (and am currently using) is a recycled cartridge with another brand of ink I think? So thankfully I haven't put any money into HP (I think the printer is like, 4+ years old too, which my family bought). But thank you for this info

I definitely do plan on buying a Brother printer or something as soon as I have enough money to replace it, especially since the print quality on this fucking thing SUCKS (though I would've replaced it anyways even if it didn't)

[asjjohnson]

Do you ever think about what the 12 Days of Christmas song really says? How, though it's usually thought of as a summary of all the days, it might not be? That the person might've given 12 partridges and pear trees, 22 turtle doves, and etc.?

I donno, I was just thinking about the stuff I'd ordered online that is broken up to come on individual days. "On the first day of my birthday, myself gave to me... ink in a printer cartridge."

[hauntaku2]

Modern printers are evil

[foone]

why are printers so hated? it's simple:

computers are good at computering. they are not good at the real world.

the biggest problems in computers, the ones that have had to change the most over the time they've existed, are the parts that deal with the real world. The keyboard, the mouse, the screen. every computer needs these, but they involve interacting with the real world. that's a problem. that's why they get replaced so much.

now, printers: printers have some of the most complex real-world interaction. they need to deposit ink on paper in 2 dimensions, and that results in at least three ways it can go on right from the start. (this is why 3D printers are just 2D printers that can go wrong in another whole dimension)

scanners fall into many of the same problems printers have, but fewer people have scanners, and they're not as cost-optimized. But they are nearly as annoying.

This is also why you can make a printer better by cutting down on the number of moving elements: laser printers are better than inkjets, because they only need to move in one dimension, and their ink is a powder, not a liquid. and the best-behaved printers of all are thermal printers: no ink and the head doesn't move. That's why every receipt printer is a thermal printer, because they need that shit to work all the time so they can sell shit. And thermal is the most reliable way to do that.

But yeah, cost-optimization is also a big part of why printers are such finicky unreliable bastards: you don't want to pay much for them. Who is excited for all the printing they're gonna be doing? basically nobody. But people get forced to have a printer because they gotta print something, for school or work or the government or whatever. So they want the cheapest thing that'll work. They're not shopping on features and functionality and design, they want something that costs barely anything, and can fucking PRINT. anything else is an optional bonus.

And here's the thing: there's a fundamental limit of how much you can optimize an inkjet printer, and we got near to it in like the late 90s. Every printer since then has just been a tad smaller, a tad faster, and added some gimmicks like printing from WIFI or bluetooth instead of needing to plug in a cable.

And that's the worst place to be in, for a computer component. The "I don't care how fancy it is, just give me one that works" zone. This is why you can buy a keyboard for 20$ and a mouse for 10$ and they both work plenty fine for 90% of users. They're objectively shit compared to the ones in the 60-150$ range, but do they work? yep. So that's what people get.

Printers fell into that zone long, long ago, when people stopped getting excited about "desktop publishing". So with printers shoved into the "make them as cheap as possible" zone, they have gotten exponentially shittier. Can you cut costs by 5$ a printer by making them jam more often? good. make them only last a couple years to save a buck or two per unit? absolutely. Can you make the printer cost 10$ less and make that back on the proprietary ink cartridges? oh, they've been doing that since Billy Clinton was in office.

It's the same place floppy disks were in in about 2000. CD-burners were not yet cheap enough, USB flash drives didn't exist yet (but were coming), modems weren't fast enough yet to copy stuff over the internet, superfloppies hadn't taken over like some hoped, and memory cards were too expensive and not everyone had a drive for them. So we still needed floppy disks, but at the same time this was a technology that hadn't changed in nearly 20 years. So people were tired of paying out the nose for them... the only solution? cut corners. I have floppy disks from 1984 that read perfectly, but a shrinkwrapped box of disks from 1999 will have over half the disks failed. They cut corners on the material quality, the QA process, the cleaning cloth inside the disk, everything they could. And the disks were shit as a result.

So, printers are in that particular note of the death-spiral where they've reached the point of "no one likes or cares about this technology, but it's still required so it's gone to shit". That's why they are so annoying, so unreliable, so fucking crap.

So, here's the good news:

You can still buy a better printer, and it will work far better. Laser printers still exist, and LED printers work the same way but even cheaper. They're still more expensive than inkjets (especially if you need color), but if you have to print stuff, they're a godsend. Way more reliable.

This is not a stable equilibrium. Printers cannot limp along in this terrible state forever. You know why I brought up floppy disk there? (besides the fact I'm a giant floppy disk nerd) because floppy disks GOT REPLACED. Have you used one this decade? CD-Rs and USB drives and internet sharing came along and ate the lunch of floppy disks, so much so that it's been over a decade since any more have been made. The same will happen to (inkjet) printers, eventually. This kind of clearly-broken situation cannot hold. It'll push people to go paperless, for companies to build cheaper alternatives to take over from the inkjets, or someone will come up with a new, more reliable printer based on some new technology that's now cheap enough to use in printers. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it can't last.

So, in conclusion: Printers suck, but this is both an innate problem caused by them having to deal with so much fucking Real World, and a local minimum of reliability that we're currently stuck in. Eventually we'll get out of this valley on the graph and printers will bother people a lot less.

Random fun facts about printing of the past and their local minimums:

in the hot metal type era, not only would the whole printing process expose you to lead, the most common method of printing text was the linotype, which could go wrong in a very fun way: if the next for a line wasn't properly justified (filling out the whole row), it could "squirt", and lead would escape through gaps in the type matrix. This would result in molten lead squirting out of the machine, possibly onto the operator. Anecdotally, linotype operators would sometimes recognize each other on the street because of the telltale spots on their forearms where they had white splotches where no hair grew, because they got bad lead burns. This type of printing remained in use until the 80s.

Another fun type of now-retired printers are drum printers, a type of line printer. These work something like a typewriter or dot-matrix printer, except the elements extend across the entire width of the paper. So instead of printing a character at time by smacking it into the paper, the whole line got smacked nearly at once. The problem is that if the paper jammed and the printer continued to try to print, that line of the paper would be repeatedly struck at high speed, creating a lot of heat. This worry created the now-infamous Linux error: "lp0 on fire". This was displayed when the error signals from a parallel printer didn't make sense... and it was a real worry. A high speed printer could definitely set the paper on fire, though this was rare.

So... one thing to be grateful about current shitty inkjet printers: they are very unlikely to burn anything, especially you.

(because before they could do that they'd have to work, at least a little, first, and that's very unlikely)

[luveline]

steve or sirius established relationship! just them being flirty and cute and in love! having a wonderful day! maybe reader is shy but also super loud when you get to know her 🌷🌷🌷 CONGRATS ON 40K YOU DESERVE IT

luveline's 40k party ☆ tysm!! boyfriend sirius x shy fem!reader

"I'm not watching that!" 

Sirius flicks through movies, ignoring your protests to offer up another horror. "Why not?" he asks when you shake your head. 

"Because! It'll scare me and you'll just laugh," you say. 

Sirius slides a finger through your belt loop and tries to push you into a spin. You keep your footing and push his chest in retaliation. He doesn't even pretend to feel it. "It'll scare you and I'll get to give you a cwtch to make it better, doesn't that sound nice?" he asks teasingly. 

You sidestep him to poke at the comedy's instead. Sirius follows, sidling up behind you like you're not in the middle of the supermarket. "You know you want to," he says, voice dipping down to a murmur, his lips skimming the side of your neck. 

You squirm but can't escape his hands on your hips, breath catching in your throat as he lays a soft kiss down. 

"Don't, babe, people will see," you say, tickled by the scratch of his stubble. 

"Free show," he says, kissing with more pressure. 

You weasel out of his grasp and point a warning finger at him. His eyebrows jump. You quickly drop the finger, taking small, measured steps backward so as not to bump into anyone. "Don't start." 

"I'm not starting," he says, starting, ditching your trolley to stalk you from the film section to the printer inks. 

"Sirius, don't! You always do this when we're in the shops and it is so embarrassing!" you whisper-shout furiously.

"What's embarrassing about being in love?" he asks loudly. 

You cringe. You hate this sort of thing, despise public displays of affection, and what's worse is that Sirius knows it, so half the time he's not even kissing you because he wants to, he's doing it to wind you up. You check behind you, worried you'll walk into something expensive, and Sirius creeps forward, a delighted smile on his face. 

"Dove, come back!" he says, like he doesn't love the chase. 

Your cheeks glow hot with a shame-faced flush. "Get lost, Siri, please." 

You back all the way into a corner. Defeated, you watch your boyfriend approach one smug step at a time. He doesn't look like the kind of man to corner a young woman such as yourself. He's handsome in an awful way, like he just nipped to Tesco's between shooting an aftershave advert. His hair is freshly cut but still long enough for his curls to glow slick under the fluorescents, and his eyes are grey like heavy clouds. Lips you can still feel on your neck curl into a salacious smile, his hand finally close enough to hold your arm. 

"Just one kiss?" he asks. 

You sigh. "Sure," you say, knowing it's a lie. 

You get one kiss, a second, all warm and sweet but rougher as they go on. A third kiss, a forth, his curious fingers running lines down the sensitive arc of your sides. You laugh against his mouth and forget where you are when he laughs back, the sound smothered as he dips in for more kissing. 

[aaronsrpgs]

A Worksheet Manifesto (Rough Draft)

The Worksheet Manifesto is an attempt to explain why I'm moving my game design toward something I can print for free at the public library and give away. It's not a scold or a call to action; I buy full-color zines and hardcover books, and I support people charging for their work. This is a personal manifesto—an exercise in self-exploration.

The first reason I pursue this is ACCESS. I want people to be able to find and play my games. (Accessibility is maybe a better word for this, but I don't want it confused with the process through which something is made easier to use for people with disabilities.)

Some of the main barriers I've seen are financial (someone can't afford my games), technological (lack of computers and/or printers makes it more complicated to read my games), and international (shipping to someone outside the U.S. is prohibitively expensive).

Combining these three elements, I realized I wanted my games to be cheap or free. The common "community copies" solution on itch.io is much touted, and for good reason, but as I tried explaining the process to friends who weren't familiar with the site (or who flat-out aren't tech savvy), many responses were confused or frustrated. So I've set most of my games to pay-what-you-want with a suggested price.

Going from computer tech to printer tech, my most recent games were laid out in black and white, without ink-sucking textures (although some still have large spots of black in the art--something I continue to consider). Many American libraries offer limited free printing, and I always hope people will "utilize" the printers at their jobs or schools. I want people to be able to easily print out my games and share them at the table or pass them to friends.

And more selfishly, I hate dealing with fulfillment and shipping. It's stressful for me, it requires money up front to print things, and I'm bad at it, which means shipments go out slow, or not at all if someone lives outside of the U.S. Creating a file that's easy to print hopefully encourages people to create their own copies.

These cheap print copies also hopefully contribute to a feeling of DISPOSABILITY. I grew up with comic books, magazines, newspapers, and mass market paperbacks, and I think these cheap, short slabs of culture helped them feel like someone could engage with them without having to be fancy or educated or in the know. (A lot of us gatekeep ourselves!)

Prices for RPGs, like so many nerd collectibles, have steadily risen at least since the start of the pandemic. Crowdfunders often capitalize on FOMO, encouraging people to go all in on deluxe hardcovers with fabric bookmarks or whatever. And if my experience working at a used game store is anything to go by, lots of those fancy editions go right onto the bookshelf, unread. Don't want to break the spine or get fingerprints on it!

And I guess I'm just against consumerism? If someone wants a nice thing, I hope they get it, but a culture of games as luxury items and status symbols is not something I'm interested in.

So if someone has a game of mine and they don't want it anymore, I hope they pass it on, put it in a little free library, or recycle it.

And those dirty little printouts of my games? I want people to touch them and write them. I want TACTILITY. This is partially a usability issue: 300-page hardcovers are hard to find information in, and they're heavy if you have to lug them to a friend's house.

So I try to design games where everything a player (including the GM) needs is on, at most, three sheets of paper. I want them to be able to spread a couple pages out and take in the shape of the game they're about to play. I want them to circle things and make notes in the margins. Moving a pencil around does wild things to your brain, the same way that picking at a guitar or molding clay does. It focuses attention in interesting ways.

And in the end, you hopefully have a personalized article of play. And if you spill beer on it, no one's worried about replacing that $50 hardcover.

Speaking of beer, I want my games to be available to and contribute to COMMUNITY. As the pandemic started, I retreated into lots of online spaces, and those were absolutely vital to my survival. But I lost touch with lots of my friends and acquaintances in my city. I want to reconnect with them.

One of my favorite cartoonists, Mark Connery, is known for drawing little zines and just...leaving them all over. Coffee shops, art galleries, bathrooms. And when I think of him, I think of an artist responding directly to the places around him. Is it sad that some of this work is probably "lost" to all readers other than the person that happens across the zine? A little bit. But I think that comes from a bad part of my brain, the part that wants to own things.

I certainly don't want the entirety of my own work collected and widely distributed. Some of those things were specific responses to specific times that I've moved past. Some were bad! But I want to keep responding to my specific times and my specific place. I want to give things to friends (even if they just pass them on or recycle them). I want to give a game to someone at a zine fest and have them recognize my name from a zine they read in a coffee shop bathroom. And maybe they'll give me a zine in return.

My last hangup is MODULARITY. First, similar to tactility, I want to be able to give a player only the rules that matter to them. Character creation and basic rules? Here's a page. And once you're familiar with that and we've entered a downtime phase, here's a page with those options. You want to start a farm? Here's a page. I want it to feel like printing coloring pages for kids or ripping out my favorite magazine articles. These are the parts that matter. And if they stop mattering, you can get rid of them.

But I also want modularity on a system level. I want to add a subsystem to game as I think of it. I want to throw in an adventure pamphlet when it comes to me. I can keep them all in a little box, like a care package from my past self, and when it's time to run a game, I can dig around like a verminous animal and build my nest out of the best bits.

In CONCLUSION, I want to reiterate that this is a personal practice, and I'm not criticizing people who work differently. I used to work differently, and in the future, I'll probably work differently again.

This is simply the way I've identified what's important to me, set that up against the things that cause me to stumble, taken advantage of the privileges I have, and tried my best to bring that all together in a way that keeps me excited about my own work.

[raining-tulips]

hi! i just found your blog :) love your commonplace book scans! if you don’t mind me asking, could you give a more in-depth explanation of what commonplacing is exactly and what your process is? i’m intrigued and considering getting into it but i wouldn’t even know where to start! thanks a lot xx

Absolutely! So my commonplace is specifically all movies, qoutes, articles, tumblr/Instagram posts, book excerpts, etc. that either resonated with me or I think I'll want to reference later. That is the heart of what common placing is - saving things for later physically rather than digitally.

Some of these just pop up in my feed, and I'll hit the like or save button. If it's an article, it usually first pops up as a preview on my Instagram and I'll open the full article on my desktop than bookmark it in a specific folder for common placing.

Sometimes, when I want to actively find something out (say, about if perfume is really bad for the environment, or I want to look at author interviews because I just loved a book) I will go out and search for that information.

Then, usually once a week I compile everything I'd like to print - i print the sources bc my handwriting is messy - into a word document formatted for two columns. I try and hold off printing until i have a full page worth, or two full page worth.

For images, I have another word document (these are printed in color, and i usually have to jigsaw to fit as many images on the page as possible, so different word document). Same thing, I try and wait until I have a full page to print. Usually x2 a month. I sometimes will print with an HP sprocket but the quality is really bad and the pictures are thick so, it's for when I'm out of printer ink or I think a photo will look okay with a sorta...uneven look.

I use just a Staples brand journal, TruRed. Cheap and easy. I draw a line at the top so I can write the date, and in the future if I want to tag it with a colored sticker or something, I can. My layouts usually include divided space on either the left or right of a page. The article goes in the bigger open space, and then the source (always write your source!!) and any commentary goes in the smaller margins.

Commentary is usually why I wanted to print it, what it reminds me of or makes me think about, etc. What I think the argument was missing, etc. Can be as little or as much as you like. As emotional and deep or as plain-jane as you like. There are no rules!

I trim printed text and images with a 12 inch trimmer bc I've got wobbly hands, but some people just use a little (blanking on the name) exacto knife? Any 12 inch trimmer will do mine is expensive but I also scrapbook so I use it all the time.

I paste things in using a tape runner (again, because I scrapbook and found a tape runner and my mom sells scrapbook supplies they're very accessible to me). Some people use tape, washi tape, glue sticks (liquid glue I've never seen).

And yeah, then I just decorate and play around. It doesn't have to be pretty. It can be really pretty if you want - I'm motivated by aesthetics, so, I like mine to be a little pretty.

If you'd like to see how I actually put it together and why I print certain things, my YouTube channel is the place to go.

Some people tape in movie tickets, receipts from where they shopped or ate, pictures from daily life. Some people mix common-placing and journaling, so including diary entries about their day or about a topic they love, or their thoughts and feelings (I keep mine in a separate journal, explained in this video). Some people mix common-placing with bullet journal or planning. Some combine all three!

At the end I just use a printer scanner (HP Envy 5500, cheap) and post them online that way bc I love the look.

People who have other styles you might try and look at are @petite-gloom (an OG who inspired me and many others) @fakelavender , @teddybearsticker .

[chowtrolls]

Moving Day

Dia moves into his first apartment!!! :D His favorite rust moirail comes to help! Google Docs

---

Jodiah really, truly, did not have nearly as many belongings as he thought. He pondered on this as he carried another box inside the rather crappy apartment. There was so little to his name. Even the things he kept at his father’s, the things from his old bedroom he was allowed to take with him. Clothing and tools, mostly. 

The box is set on a coffee table- not originally his, but one his well-meaning moirail insisted on giving him. Said well-meaning moirail stumbled his way into the room shortly after Dia, arms shaking as he struggled to carry two boxes on one trip. 

“Dude.” Dia’s mask did little to hide the amusement in his voice, though he made no motion to help Festur as the scrawny rustblood toted the boxes in. He sets them down rather harshly next to Dia’s box, panting with exertion. 

“M-Maybe…You should’ve asked your…other moirail…to move you in.” Fester all but wheezed, doubling over with his hands on his knees. The lime shot him a sympathetic look and patted his back lightly. 

“I’m not ready for Tori to start sugar-lusus-ing me just yet. You good?” 

Festur looked up at his moirail, seemingly unaware of the trickle of ruby ichor dribbling from his nose, mixing with the sweat above his lip. Dia used the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe it away. 

“Why the…fuck…are those…so heavy?” 

“I think you grabbed my box of impact and torque bits.” 

“...Your what?” 

“Tools, Fes. You grabbed a box of tools.” 

The rust’s brow furrowed, a microexpression that spoke volumes to those who knew how to read him, “...There’s a toolbox in there?”

Dia sighed, a sound not autotuned by his mask. He reached into his stolen boots for a hidden knife - a gift from his father, naturally - and cut the box open with ease. To his surprise, there were no tools. 

“Oh, it was paper.” 

Festur stood upright, peering over Dia’s shoulders with curiosity and annoyance, “You have a box of paper?” 

Dia resisted the urge to elbow his already wounded moirail in his already busted ribs, “Important papers, dumbass.” He rifled through some, pulling out examples. Letters, wriggling day cards, holiday cards, drawings from his siblings,  awards, certifications, palmhusk pictures printed on printer paper, pages torn from books. 

Festur joined in, taking a small handful of papers to nose through. He didn’t bother questioning why Dia had these. He always knew the lime was sentimental. Hard to be sentimental in space. It was amusing to look at everything Dia had saved. Older cards had fingerprints from where Dia had held them, rereading the messages over and over. Fold where he had tucked drawings into pockets for safekeeping. Handwritten letters from his father and mother, tucked safely in their original envelopes. Setting one card down, he noticed an oddity. 

An unopened letter. New- the stamp was expensive, still shiny, and dated recently. The return address was some random Fleet port, with no name to send to. The envelope was neat, a gentle lilac shade, with a strange floral embossing. Festur turned the unopened document around in his hand, investigating it closely. 

“...Are you saving this?” 

Dia’s ears perked up slightly, then dropped again, “Hm? Oh, no. They were sent to the wrong person. I keep forgetting to return them to sender. Here- see?” He gently turned the document over, pointing to the name in the center. 

In a curly cursive handwriting, written in dark indigo ink, was the address of Her Beloved Annihilation. But right above said address was a name that made Festur’s brow furrow once more. 

Little Cristo. 

“Little is an…interesting name.” 

“And Festur isn’t? Who are you to judge, Mr. Septic?” 

Festur’s frown sank deeper, though not from the insult. A seed of worry had seated itself in his chest. He couldn’t quite place it, nor could he shake it. Some deep paranormal concern that the contents of this beautiful lavender letter were not as lovely as it looked. 

“Is this the only one you got?” 

Jodiah shook his head, unaware of his moirail’s growing concern. He rooted through the box of books and pulled out two….three…..four……..five…………six………………..seven. 

Seven more letters. All unopened, all addressed to Little Cristo. All with different dates. And sent from different Fleet ports. 

Wordlessly, Festur opened one, ignoring Dia’s complaints. He unfolded the crisp letter, holding it above his moirail’s head to read. Dia only tried to grasp it a few times before giving up, and waiting for an explanation. 

As usual, Festur’s face remained unchanged. He raised his brow in a faux amusement before folding the letter back up. With a perfect monotony, he said simply, “You got someone’s love letters.” 

“Are they at least juicy?” 

“No. Bland, boring. Old guy language.” 

“Ew.” 

“Mhm. Here- There’s a drop off by the House of Restoration, I’ll take them for you.” 

With a remarkable amount of casualty, Festur collected the other six letters, tucking them into his waistband for later. Dia had no complaints. They would go on to unpack a few more boxes, then Festur would say good day. He made Jodiah promise to lock the doors on his way out. 

“Paranormal paranoia. Watched a lot of trolls die from not locking their doors.” 

Dia rolled his eyes. 

Festur opened the remaining six letters on his walk hive. He scoured over the meticulously handwritten pages, noting how they were, in fact, not love letters. The language was flowery and poetic but deeply sinister. The author waxed on about meeting The Littlest Cristo (as it turned out, Little Cristo was not their name) only a handful of times, but knowing they belonged to each other. The letters would vary from violent in descriptions, to nearly sickening in how loving they were. Descriptions of ownership, of leashing one like a bad dog. Of painting the walls with their illegal hue, of washing them in violet so they knew their place. 

Either these letters belonged to a truly disturbed couple, or the true recipient was in danger. Festur wasn’t sure which he preferred. He knew one thing for certain- even if he knew the letters weren’t for Jodiah, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something very bad was about to happen.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for "misusing" the office printer?

I (40s F) am the secretary for a small company, and we do a lot of printing, obviously, as most businesses do. You know how it is. So I decided, hey, might as well print some fun stuff!

So I started using the office printer to print out comics, y'know, Dilbert and Family Circus and whatnot. It brightens up everyone's day! Mostly my day. I've probably photocopied whole books of comics, just to include them in stacks of paperwork as a fun little surprise. And to give to my lil' nieces and nephews, y'know, a little bit of personal use.

Anyways, my boss (30s F) got mad at me, saying I'm "wasting ink" and "it's expensive" and "how did you use up all the ink in one hour". Which, fair enough. But I think it's worth it, y'know, to boost morale! Not a big deal. How much could ink even cost, $20 a cartridge? A small cost, for funny comics!

So am I the jerk?? I'm just having some fun, I don't know why my boss is so mad. I've done way worse (paperclip theft, forgot to file the company's taxes once, etcetera), so this isn't that big of a deal, is it?

[ritz-writes]

A, E, F, J, N, S for the fic asks :)

OOO so many!! lets get right into it 😊

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why? Ooooh that's a toughie... honestly, even though it's a darker theme, Hope has always been a fav. I'm really proud of the poetic way I wrote it. try try again is another fav though.

E: What character do you identify with most?  Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well? Aziraphale. Immediately Aziraphale. I kin him in ways that I honestly don't want to lol. idk if any of my fics fit it very well, but I suppose try try again is a good enough one? I made a similar mistake as Aziraphale in the final fifteen (which is why it hit me so hard), so that fic is pretty much what I wish would have happened, for both me and Aziraphale.

F: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]? Well, since there isn't a fic listed, I'll just choose one. It's a bit of a cheat answer since the fic title is the name of the song, but You Will Be Okay was named as such because of this song! (I tried looking through my fics for a different answer, but nothing really came to mind rip)

J:  What’s your favorite fanfic trope?  Have you written it? PROTECTIVE CHARACTER!! Ohhh my god I love when someone protects another. Specifically when they stand in front of someone with their arm out. I will squeal over it every time. I know I've done it with Wukong and MK, and I have a few fic ideas with Crowley and Aziraphale.

N: Any fic ideas brewing that you’d care to share? Hehehe, on the note of protection, I have an idea for an Oospie!Omen's fic that's been rotating in my mind. @asleepyy how do you feel about Jophiel whump and BAMF Azazel? >:3

S: How do you feel about fan art inspired by your writing? I will literally cry /pos if anyone draws me anything. It's the absolute BEST feeling in the world to see fanart of my fics. Even if it's just a small sketch. If printer ink wasn't so expensive, I would print out the few that I've gotten already and frame them.

[godtier]

any advices for a beginner artist pls?

hi there!

i guess it would depend on the medium you're working with or what kinds of things you'd like to do. i'll try to give some general tips that can be applied broadly!

disclaimer: a lot of "beginner" tips are going to be really, REALLY boring. developing an art style relies heavily on patience and repetition. it can get very boring and you will feel like you're not improving. but the more you do it, the more you will improve. that's what everyone says, but it's 100% true.

tip #1: start basic

if you're a super-duper beginner, you could start by taking stock photos of people and tracing over them in an art program. you could also do this on paper if you have any magazines lying around, but i know that's probs less common nowadays lol.

tracing over a human body can give you an idea of what the human form looks like and how it operates. i wouldn't recommend always doing this, of course. this is for practicing purposes if you're super new to drawing.

you could also set up the stock photo side-by-side in a canvas on a drawing program and try to copy it as closely as possible. this is what i'd recommend after tracing. you don't generally want to rely on tracing all the time since that can make your style look super stiff, so trying to copy something freehand develops your drawing style bit by bit.

if you are inclined to look through some books about figure drawing, i would highly recommend books by andrew loomis. they are from the 50s or so, but the methods and recommendations are timeless. the books are still in print for a reason.

tip #2: get a foundational understanding of the human form

another tip that a lot of people kinda roll their eyes at is the whole "get a foundation in anatomy/real figures before trying to draw stylized stuff." people don't want to hear that because, again, it's boring! but it's true: if you have a foundation in how real people look, you can easily apply that to a stylized drawing and have it look nice. beginners who don't develop a foundation can instead lean into mistakes from other artists and it can screw up their entire drawing ability. that's what i did; it took me years to undo a lot of the stuff i learned as a beginner from copying anime and manga because i didn't have the foundations of real figure drawing and i was too stubborn/bored/ADHD-brained to focus on the boring stuff first.

you can also try beginner landscapes to get and idea of perspective and form. again, another super boring tip, but it does genuinely help when it comes to figure placement in a scene and making the background not look like it's on a different plane of existence than the figure that's supposed to be in it.

tip #3: don't splurge on really expensive equipment/art supplies when you're just starting out

this is a big one. a lot of beginner artists (myself included when i was young) think that in order to make great art, they have to buy the most expensive, industry-grade equipment or art supplies. this isn't true. when you are just starting out, using basic stuff is fine to get the foundations down. i still don't use expensive pencils for my sketches! I USE TICONDEROGAS, THE BEST PENCIL EVER MADE (not sponsored).

what matters more than the utensils when you're just starting out is the paper you're using. i wouldn't use printer paper, for example, but sketch paper. here's a pretty cheap and good quality sketch book for pencil work. if you want to use other mediums, like markers, strathmore also sells good quality marker paper for cheap. is this like, PROFESSIONAL GRADE? no, not really. but you don't need professional grade to start with.

and i can say all of that, but why is that the case? well, mostly because when you're first starting out, you're going to make mistakes. a lot of mistakes. and expensive equipment and/or supplies are going to add up fast. do you want to use up all the ink on a 30 dollar set of 5 copic markers because you don't know the proper inking techniques? or do you want to use a 100 color set of crayola sketch markers to get a foundation down of how colors interact with each other for roughly the same price? (granted, copics are alcohol based and crayolas are water based. if you want to try alcohol based markers first, ohuhu makes a 48 color set for around the same price.)

tip #4: don't stress about being the best, just experiment and have fun

this is probably the BIGGEST one. you are not going to be great right away. that's just a fact. don't get hung up on how your art looks just starting out. just keep doing it. draw whatever you want. share with others or keep it to yourself. don't look at your art and give up because it's not an immediate masterpiece. just do whatever you think is most interesting and experiment!

tip #5: don't get offended by good-natured and genuine critique

last tip for today, and it's very important, just about as important as #4. there's a difference between criticizing to bring someone down and providing constructive criticism. if you ask someone who is also an artist to look at your art and have them tell you what they think, don't get upset if they tell you what they think. most artists have been in this situation. most of them are going to try to give you a "compliment sandwich:" start with a compliment, then provide critique, then end with a compliment. this is a pretty standard way of providing criticism because people will generally respond better when the positives of their attempt are highlighted first.

however, some artists or teachers might just come out the gate with criticisms. this doesn't mean they think your art is shite, but that they see potential. the worst thing for an artist is for them to surround themselves with yes-men who only praise them. that gives an artist, especially a beginner, a false sense of their current skill and can be detrimental to improvement.

if you are sharing a piece and for whatever reason don't want critique? just start with that. "i worked on this for x amount of hours and i don't want critique right now, thanks" is usually enough. but don't hide behind that. hiding from critique will make your art incredibly slow to improve.

and that's what i got for now! sorry for the massive response, but i tried to give some really basic concepts for beginners. if this ain't helpful or if you have something more specific, you can send me another ask! i'm happy to help!

[warcats-cat]

Please please tell me about printers, I would like to know <b>everything</b>

You asked for it /lh

Ok so some clarification: I spent three years at Staples working with a Xerox C70 color laser printer, so that's where my "expertise" lies.

FIRST OFF - DO NOT EVER GET YOUR PHOTOS PRINTED AT A STAPLES/OFFICE MAX/FEDEX/UPS/ANY OTHER OFFICE STORE!!!!!

All office stores (that I have been to) use laser printers. Laser printers are high capacity (meaning they can print loads of stuff before the toner needs to be changed), and use toner, which is a powder version of the ink that is electrically fixed and baked onto the paper. (Forgive the oversimplification) This means that the color will not soak into the paper/past the coating if there is one. So, if you want a glossy photo printed, you will literally be baking the color over top of the gloss, and the color will not be glossy. It will be ugly. I've made like at least 300 family photos and other shit on a laser printer. Don't do it.

Sometimes you can play with the printer settings (the Xerox C70 has pretty in-depth settings because obv it's for office printing) and you can set the color load to be "glossy" but that really just means a thicker layer of toner. It's a little shinier but not glossy.

Also, laser printers just can't get that tight, crisp color quality that an inkjet can. So many people came in wanting to make their Christmas cards with these ultra high quality photos and wanted them cheap and same-day, and then would complain that they were "fuzzy". Personally, I always thought they looked fine, but white suburban mom Karens complained all the damn time about the "fuzziness" of their fancy professional photos. Inkjet can get the crisp, sharp lines that you see in digital photos and art, whereas the toner, being powder based, just can't quite get it.

ALSO also! The colors on your computer screen will always be a little brighter and nicer than what comes out of the printer! That is because your computer is back lit, it's shining light at your eyes. Paper cannot do that, so sometimes the colors look a little "dark" or "muddy". Personally, I've seen this with really light lavender, beige, and cyan the worst. Combine this with the more limited scope of color mixing with a laser printer, and sometimes you get weird ass colors coming out. If you have a specific idea for your colors, inkjet is the better bet.

Tldr: get your photos printed at Walgreens or Walmart, or send them somewhere that specializes in photo printing.

There are two main categories of printers, Laser and Inkjet. You have an inkjet if you have a printer in your home.

Inkjet printers have the liquid ink in the cartridge, that's why you have to wait a little bit before it dries, especially for specialty papers or really old printers. The liquid ink can soak into the paper/through the coating, so that's where you get the nice glossy photo prints. ((You can also buy sheets of primed canvas for inkjet printers, which is super cool and I definitely have a bunch of it for some of my favorite digital artworks from friends)).

Ink can come in two types - dye based and pigment based. You have dye based ink if you have a printer at home. Pigment based inkjet is for like,,, the top of the top art printing. It's expensive as hell, but it doesn't fade from light exposure, like dye ink can. (Don't worry, the things you print at home are not likely to fade very much, unless you have them in direct light and never turn the lights off. I have seen photos fade because of light exposure, but that's because Staples never turns any of the lights off for whatever reason, and we had printed pictures using the poster printer to get the nice gloss without realizing.) Pigment based is also apparently a powder, but I'll be honest I don't know how it's fixed to the paper. I assume heat as well. (I've never gotten to work with a pigment printer, I only know about them because I was looking for good printers to print art and found out about them, then I saw the price tag and was like lolol)

When buying specialty paper to print on (like photo paper or canvas), you need to check the label!!!! There are papers designed for laser printers that can withstand the heat and accept the toner, and there are papers designed for inkjet that can hold the liquid ink as it soaks through. The coating on an inkjet safe paper is not as heat resistant as ones made for laser. If you put it in the laser printer, the coating will melt, and you will ruin the internal machinery. I have seen it happen. Don't do it.

Speaking of specialty paper! Have you ever heard of pearlized paper??? It's my favorite paper!!! It's sparkly!!!! 😍

Pearlized paper is typically for laser printing; I've tried to print on it with an inkjet but it came out looking really weird. It's shimmery without having chunky glitter on top that will fall off and go everywhere. Go to your local Staples and ask if they have pearlized paper, just to look at. Pictures can't do it justice. (My business cards for my fairies are printed on soft pearl, which is ivory colored, because I printed and made them myself so I got to do what I wanted /lh) We mainly used it for weddings and stuff, but I recommended for all kinds of stuff because I thought it was so cool.

Other papers: the two main types of paper you will work with at home are regular paper and cardstock. Cardstock just means thick. Both can come in tons of cool colors and textures (linen texture is my personal favorite, you usually buy it as 'resume' or 'business' paper.) you know how thick a piece of paper is by its "weight" which is measured in pounds. I don't know why it's measured in pounds, it just is.

If you want a nice quality paper to print on that's still flexible and foldable, you want to look for something that's 24-30lbs. Typical cheap copier paper is 20lbs, and a lot of the time you can see through it, i.e. if you print something double sided you'll be able to see a little of the text on the back showing through. I have found that 24lbs is thin enough to be more affordable (per ream), but thick enough to not have the bleed through. We had a 32lb paper that was thick nice thickness and super smooth, and we called it "ultra premium". It was nice, but I wouldn't print like flyers and stuff on it. I did a lot of booklets with that one.

If you're gonna get a cardstock, get something 60~lbs and up. 65lb is a really good thickness if you're printing coloring pages because it soaks up the marker ink and holds it nicely. Use 100lb if you're making a coloring *book* that's going to be double sided.

Cardstock cannot be machine folded without a really heavy duty machine, and it's very annoying because those machines are usually at the high-volume production centers and not in-house, so customers complain that they have to wait for their booklets. >.>

When working with business cards, post cards, and the like, you will hear about "bleed area" or "print to bleed". That just means whether or not the ink can go all the way to the very edge of whatever is being printed. When you design a business card or other card to be printed, you will typically have a bleed area, where you want the background to go a little farther than the actual size of the card to allow for cutting, but you want to keep any important text or photos to a certain area so it doesn't accidentally get cut off. The bleed area is not a negotiation. If you don't have space for the bleed, something will get cut off.

At Staples, our business cards were 2x3.5 inches, but the designs had to be about 2.25x3.75 to allow for bleed. The number of times I had to go in and manually fix some idiot's card because they didn't understand what a bleed was is absolutely absurd.

You can get full page size (8.5x11) printed to bleed, for things like flyers with special borders and letter heads, but those also require specialized printers that are at the production facility. The number of people who outright refused to understand this was also absurd. If you have a printer at home, there is a 99.99% chance it is not able to print to bleed for a full 8.5x11, and that's why you still have a white edge if you try to print something that is supposed to have color all the way to the edge of the paper.

My final bit of advice before I end my rant: when you're financially independent and able to/want to buy your own printer, if you plan on making your own art prints to sell, do NOT get an HP printer. HP is fine for general use, it prints well and it's pretty ink-efficient, but it's just not got the super fine quality. Brother and Canon are the two brands I personally recommend for art and photography; they're more expensive but they have a really nice quality of printing. I had to do a lot of training for HP printers and computers, and it's a lot of big words that mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

[idrawprettyboys]

Mimi Maka, from my upcoming manga, "Maka!" Drawn with a Ticonderoga pencil on printer paper. I plan on doing the comic entirely in pencil. Which of these do you think looks better? Should I add contrast (first image) or keep it the way it initially scans (second image)? My problem with upping the contrast too much is that some parts get whited out, since my lines can be very light. Or we could have the opposite problem, with the lines that were supposed to have been erased ending up as visible as the final lines. 

I might get some flack for making a comic in pencil, but I have a few reasons for this. Inking is the hardest part of manga-making for me. It gives me a feeling of "I already drew this once. Now I have to draw it all over again?" I've quit working on a lot of comics during the inking stage. So I decided, since I'm not working for any company, why not do it my own way? We live in an age where anyone can publish their comics online and show it to the world. It doesn't have to pass any rigorous tests to get published by a company. So why torture myself? I want to make comics fun again, like they were back when I made the original draft of this particular manga story when I was ten! I want to make myself fall in love with making comics again! I also want to show that you don't need fancy, expensive tools to make a comic. Lastly, I believe there's a beauty to my art that gets washed away once I cover the pencil with pitch black ink. There's a subtle softness to pencil that you just can't get with a pen.

PS. While drawing this, I realized how much she looks like Tohru Honda, which is interesting, since I actually created this character 4-5 years prior to ever knowing of Fruits Basket.

[lindsaywesker]

Good morning!  I hope you slept well and feel rested?  Currently sitting at my desk, in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day. 

Welcome to Too Much Information Tuesday.

It is illegal to be drunk in a UK pub.

We forget 80% of what we learn every day.

HP Printer black ink is more expensive than human blood.

Strawberries actually contain more vitamin C than oranges.

60% of the alcohol in America is drunk by 10% of the people.

American plumbers refer to the day after Thanksgiving as Brown Friday.

In 2021, the investor community on Reddit adopted 3,500 gorillas in a week.

By 2050, 3.3% of the world’s population will be millionaires (in US dollars.)

In general, the more time you spend with someone, the more you will like them.

Rats emit ultrasonic squeaks of happiness when they get to hang out with another rat.

A cyberchondriac is someone who scours the internet looking for details of their illnesses.

The presence of CCTV cameras increases the fear of crime but doesn’t reduce crime rates.

Not one but two cross-country skiers suffered from a frozen penis during a recent world cup race.

If you keep going North, you will eventually go South, but if you keep going East, you will never go West.

Coffee drunk from a white mug tastes more intense and less sweet than coffee drunk from a clear mug.

Stomach rumblings are caused by air moving through your digestive tract and doesn’t always mean you are hungry.

AI can guess your age, location, gender and income with up to 85% accuracy by analysing your social media posts.

A sophomaniac is a person who’s under the delusion that they are extremely intelligent.  Too many of them about!

Memorizing the lyrics to songs can help strengthen your brain and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.  Do more karaoke!

King Harold didn't die at the battle of Hastings from an arrow in the eye, he was hacked apart by four Norman knights.

Listening to loud music interferes with your vision.  This is why we usually turn the car radio down when looking for somewhere to park.

Negaholics are people who become addicted to self-doubt and negativity.  They find the bad in most things and are hardly ever satisfied.

The directors of ‘Despicable Me’ actually wrote a language for the gibberish the minions speak throughout the film.  Each word has a meaning!

The company that made the modelling clay for Wallace & Gromit has gone out of business.  There is currently only enough clay for one more film.

The first BBC radio presenter with a Northern accent was hired in the second world war to make it harder for the Germans to produce fake news bulletins.

The peanut is not a nut, it is actually a legume.  A legume refers to any plant from the Fabaceae family that would include its leaves, stems and pods.

It’s a myth that you only use 10% of your brain.  Most of your brain is active almost all of the time.  The problem is: some people don’t have much in there!

An American on the national average salary would have to work for 21,000 years before they became a billionaire, assuming that they spent none of their money.

A Crook County, Wyoming, judge has dismissed property destruction charges against a pair of ranchers accused of bleaching penis shapes and other markings on their neighbour’s cows.

In 2011, a 25-year-old Spanish man sued his parents for refusing to give him money unless he tried to find a job.  The court denied his claim and ordered him to leave his parents’ house and find a job.

The Sound of Music was so popular in South Korea when it was first released that one cinema owner decided to shorten the film by cutting all the musical pieces from it so they could show it more often.

In 1962, Brendon Grimshaw purchased Moyenne Island in the Seychelles for £8000.  He planted 16,000 trees on the island, brought and bred giant tortoises, and introduced a variety of bird life.  He was the sole inhabitant of the island until his death in 2012.  Instead of selling it, he declared the island a national park.

‘Malleus Maleficarum’, a 15th century witch-hunting manual, described how witches kept ‘live’ wriggling penises as pets.  The witches were said to have kept the penises in nests in trees and to have fed them oats.  Written by Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ is of course today regarded as misogynistic nonsense.  However, centuries ago, such books would have resulted in the gruesome murders of women accused of being witches.

Okay, that’s enough information for one day.  Have a tremendous and tumultuous Tuesday!  I love you all.

[roboticchibitan]

Using printers that don't belong to you is such an intense experience like waiting for it to warm up the entire time I'm like "why is this taking so long it's jammed there's not enough paper the ink cartridge exploded something is wrong I definitely just broke this expensive tempermental machine that doesn't belong to me" and then it prints fine and I have to recover from the intensity of the experience. Anyway just printed a pattern for a sleeve placket.