#Cheap Paper Writing Online

[litreviewwriting]

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[assignmentdesk]

#write my research paper #assignment help #cheap assignment help #assignment help online #student #online assignment help

[bmebookmyessay]

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[kleefkruid]

Every fun post on here that encourages people to have hobbies/be creative always gets an avalanche of "Some people are poor Karen" type reactions and respectfully, you're all super annoying. I've never lived above the poverty line and this is a list of hobbies I have that were cheap or entirely free:

Read books: Go to the library, lend a book from a friend

knitting, crochet, embroidery: Get some needles from the bargan store and ask around, people have leftovers from projects they'll happily give you. Thrift stores also often carry leftover fabric and other supplies. And talk about your hobby loud enough and an old lady will show up and gift you their whole collection, because there are way more old ladies with a closet full of wool than there are grandchildren who want to take up the hobby.

Origami/paper crafts: get some scrap paper and scissors, watch a youtube tutorial

walking: put on shoes open door

pilates/yoga/etc: get a mat or just use your carpet, watch a youtube tutorial

Houseplants: look online for people that swap plant cuttings. There are always people giving out stuff for free to get you started. If you're nice enough you'll probably get extra

gardening: You're gonna need some space for this one of course but you can just play around with seeds and cuttings from your grocery vegetables.

aquarium keeping is a bit of an obscure one but I got most of my stuff second hand for cheap or free and now I have a few thousand euro worth of material and plants.

drawing/art: You get very far just playing with bargan store materials. I did my entire art degree with mostly those.

writing: Rotate a cow in your head for free

cooking: again one you can make very expensive, but there are many budget recipes online for free. Look for African or Asian shops to get good rice and cheap spices.

Join a non-profit: Cities will have creative organisations who let you use woodworking machines or screen presses or laser cutters or 3D printers etc etc etc for a small fee. Some libraries also lend out materials.

candle making: You need some molds (cheap), wick, two old cooking pots for au bain marie melting and a ton of scrap candles, ask people to keep them aside for you.

a herbarium, flower pressing: Leaves are free, wildflowers too, ask if you can take from peoples gardens.

puzzles: thrift stores, your grandma probably

Citizen science: look for projects in your area or get the iNaturalist app

And lastly and most importantly: Share! Share your supllies, share your knowledge. Surround yourself with other creative people and before you know it someone will give you a pot of homemade jam and when you want to paint your kabinet someone will have leftover paint in just the right color and you can give them a homemade candle in return and everyone is having fun and building skills and friendships and not a cent is exchanged. We have always lived like this, it's what humans are build to do.

And all of it sure beats sitting behind a computer going "No stranger, I refuse to let myself have a good time."

Anyway I'm logging off bc I'm making some badges for a friend who cooked for me and then I'm going to fix some holes in everyones clothes.

#hobbies #mental health

[helpmyassignment028]

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[ellierenae]

SUPER UNIQUE writing ideas for hobbyists and professionals looking for fun, personal projects to get their inspo back

get a fictional pen pal (ask your other writer friends!) and spend time decorating envelopes, picking out a handwriting style, maybe buying a cheap perfume/cologne that smells like your character to really get to know them and feel their presence. if you have hand tremors or bad handwriting like me, you can choose a handwriting font for them and print their letters out!! more examples: save the dates, wedding invitations, birthday cards, party invites, etc.

use old calendars in character (there are many "expired" planners on sale around the end of the year, usually August) personally, i use them to record major life events like first band tours, trips abroad, holidays, birthdays... even trash pickup days and when they forget to roll out the bins!

sketch floor plans this can be on graph paper if you have the know-how when it comes to scaling down, but there are also tons of simple apps that allow you to both create the floor plan a builder would use and add furniture like an interior decorator. some even let you rotate them afterwards and see the furniture and walls burst to life in 3D! you can think of them as the sims but where everything is actually to scale

make an architectural model if you have some scrap cardboard, paper, and glue, you can easily bring the floor plan you just made to life (you'll need practice if you want to get really fancy with it of course! window panes and railings are the gnarliest part for me, haha)

make a playlist as your character maybe the most accessible one on this list, you can make the playlist your character listens to. sometimes this can be fun and surprising, like when my little guy Possum from Violence Without Plot is covered in tattoos and plays punk music on stage but listens to nothing but spa music to wind down between shows

write something your character can see this one is so weird to summarize but what i mean is like... a school essay for your teacher character to grade. cryptic street signs warning about danger by the lake. a memorial plaque beneath a statue. a character's online blog. a few of the cards in a grandmother's recipe box. a business card for a smooth-talking lawyer. things you can write that make everything feel so textured and real

these are all things i do on the daily, and it makes my life as a writer a thousand times more joyful and fulfilling. so have fun, be safe, and don't forget to unplug the hot glue when you're done <3

#writing advice #writing inspiration #writing tips #writeblr #writing prompts #from ellie

[netherworldpost]

With the various rumors and releases of Tumblr possibly changing how they do things... (gestures to the vague rumor mill)...

Zines.

I really think we as Folks Who Make Things and Folks Who Like Art Writing Poetry Music Comics Other Things need to explore zines. And I mean ZINES. Nothing glossy. Nothing fancy.

Very. Cheap. Zines.

I've been threatening mentioning I was going to create a guide on how I'm going to approach this -- and I'm going to -- but I am also realizing in the writing I Do Things Highfalutin because I am who I am + had a career in graphic design.

Let's talk about how you can make a zine very cheaply and very pretty.

STEP ONE: SUPPLIES

Very bright paper. I like "Astrobrights" because they are absurdly bright. Here is a link in a store I like. I buy a lot of paper and envelopes from them. You can generally find Astrobrights in big box office stores. It prints on laser printers and ink jet and photocopiers.

Very bright envelopes. What's that? Astrobrights has envelopes?! AM I SOLVING PROBLEMS let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Letter paper is 8.5" x 11" and is the most common size in the united states (overseas folk will have to use this advice with a grain o'sea salt and search yer own waters).

A9 envelopes are a letter sheet folded in half.

A2 envelopes are a letter sheet folded in half, then folded in half.

#10 envelopes are your common long envelopes, letter paper folded in thirds.

Pick the size you like.

If you want to get big and fancy, Tabloid is 17" x 11" -- so double a letter sheet. This gets tricky to work with but is neat in sizing.

STEP TWO: ZINE CONTENT

Do you know how to use InDesign or similar program? Use that.

No? Use Google Docs or Word or whatever other program and ramble.

Want something special? Write out some or part with a sharpee or pen.

Mix and match both.

If you are feeling fancy, design it like a booklet -- mock up a sheet of blank paper as if it were a brochure. If not, just design it straight up and down like a letter. There are no zine laws.

STEP THREE: ZINE PRINTING

Print at home on your home printer.

Don't have a printer at home? Print it at work (don't get fired)

Can't? Your local library may be able to help.

You need 1 copy on white paper.

FedEx Office has photocopiers. Your local library may too. Or your job.

Print 1 copy of your zine on white paper and then photocopy the rest onto colorful paper (or white paper, it be yer zine seadog).

Or print everything on the color paper if you have access to free printing, that's fine too.

The photocopy setup is purely "printing tends to cost more than photocopying."

If you want to slash prices, print 2 per sheet and have FedEx office cut them for you, this will cost $1 - $5 depending on how many sheets you are dealing with. This is for when you're doing a LOT of zines at once.

Or use their manual paper cutter yourself for free.

STEP FOUR: ZINE STAPLING

"Long reach stapler" is what I recommend. There are a few varieties. They tend to be $20 - $30.

Or just use 1 sheet!

STEP FOUR: ZINE POSTAGE

A single first class stamp for 1-2 pages. If you get up to 3+, go to the post office and ask them to weigh a comp you have assembled.

This is a guideline.

It's a really good idea to check at least once how much your zine weighs just in general. Post offices have scales. And are pretty. And have stamps.

OKAY ENOUGH LUSTING FOR THE POST OFFICE FROM THE GHOTS POST OFFICE BLOG BACK TO WORK

STEP FIVE: ZINE MAILING

This is actually the most difficult part. Label printers exist with various costs -- if you're starting out? Go with printable labels.

Your office supply shop will have them and they'll have templates you can drop in the customer addresses.

Save yourself time by using this label as the thing that seals the envelope -- don't lick envelopes.

A key tenet to staying in business is constantly reviewing physical (and mental) labor and stressors and reducing them as much as possible.

Return address labels are intensely cheap in literally every online printer, google "return address labels." Make sure you have this because at least a few of your shipments will come back to you.

STEP SIX: ZINE PRICING

Okay here is where we get uncomfortable because we're talkin' coins.

Prices are based on above links. You can get whatever paper you want, so this is guidelines. All numbers rounded up.

Payment processing ($0.30) + $0.05 sheet + $0.15 envelope + $0.66 first class postage = $1.16 base cost

$1.16 + 2.9% of $1.16 payment processing = $1.20

Plus taxes. I'm not getting into tax figures YOU DO THAT (just say 30% for easy math, this is not saying "your taxes are 30% or that mine are" I am saying "I am going to factor 30% for this equation to complete this guide".)

I did not include the mailing label (it will be $0.01 - $0.05 depending on how fancy and how many you buy) because you have the option to just write things and also it fits into the rounding of the above.

If you use Patreon, include your fees. Probably replace the above processing fees with your patreon processing... fees? I don't use patreon I don't know how it works.

Retail option 01: $1.50 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.09 / net / zine.

Retail option 02: $2 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.56 / net / zine.

Retail option 03: $3 - 1.20 = $1.80 gross - 30% = $1.26 / net / zine.

Should it be $1.50? Should it be $3.00? MORE? LESS?! That is for you to decide. Base it on what your zine contains, how long it takes you to write/draw/etc. it and how you want your flow to be.

STEP SEVEN: ZINE FREQUENCY

When my shop launches, it'll have a zine once a month. We are going to offer a subscription option + a "I just want 1" option.

You can do a zine monthly, or every few months, or whatever.

Keep in mind that the purpose of doing this is to break the dependency on social media marketing.

KEEP IN MIND AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER TO A CREATOR YOU LIKE THAT THEY ARE DOING THIS TO BREAK THEIR DEPENDENCY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

If you have a lot of energy and an audience that comes to your shop a lot? Consider doing a zine monthly.

If you do not have a lot of energy and/or your audience is tapped for cash frequently? Considering doing 1 zine per season.

Consider 2 zines a year if that works better for you!

NO RULES ONLY JOY

Not sure? Experiment! Be upfront! "This is new. I'm figuring this out. Billionaires are tinkering with these things and we gotta figure something else out."

BONUS STEP: NETHERWORLDPOST.COM

so hi I'm atty and I'm your loud long rambler today

Netherworld Post Office used to be @evilsupplyco and now we are rebranding in prep of relaunching. Same person behind the rambles and comics, new name with a more focus (mail instead of mail + seemingly everything else in experiment)

if you enjoyed this ramble and/or like ghosts, monsters, witches, mermaids, and fun stories and projects focused on cozy Halloween, you may like us when we finish the rebranding and relaunching in autumn 2023.

email sign up (the zine will come when we are open)

WHETHER YOU JOIN MY LIST OR NOT

I really, really, really hope you consider doing a regular, or irregular, zine. Something outside of email, something outside of social media, something that connects I MADE A WEIRD THING and the people who say I LOVE THIS WEIRD THING YOU MADE.

The walls are closing in on free social media as a platform for people who make weird things to build audiences for free or very cheap.

And with that...

netherworldpost.com as one final hat pass

good luck folks

thanks for listenin' to the ol' ghost

#small business #small business marketing #small business fun #zines #zine #making zines

[what-even-is-thiss]

If you're wondering how so many books got lost and also how we have surviving ones, let me explain how books used to circulate before the invention of the printing press.

These days, a writer gets into a partnership with a publisher and this publisher prints and circulates these books to bookstores or other sellers and a percentage of every new sale goes to the writer and their agent. Used books are either resold privately or in used book stores or thrift stores or online. Some books are gifted to libraries. When the libraries have no more use for these books they are sold or thrown out.

In ancient times, there was no "books" as we currently understand them. Everything was written down or drawn on long scrolls of papyrus or parchment.

A writer would likely finish their final draft and do all their editing on cheap scrap paper or other writing surfaces like tree bark. Then they would either hire a scribe to make a few expensive copies or make the copies themselves if they were trained to do it all with good handwriting or calligraphy all in columns so that you could roll the scroll from side to side, only reading one column at a time.

The writer would then give these copies to their friends and family members, or as a gift to some important person, or perhaps just to someone who hired them to write it.

So let's say you are an educated courtesan or prostitute in the 1st century BC in Roman Greece and you write a fun and informative sex manual going over sex moves and sexual health complete with pictures. So you finish writing this sex manual and have a copy of it made and sent to a few of your other rich friends.

Your other rich friends think your sex manual is really cool and they take care of it and keep it unscrolled and flat stored in their personal libraries along with all of their other books. When they're moving it around or loaning it out to other people they keep it tightly rolled up to keep it compact.

Some people who borrow your sex manual from your friends really like it and want their own copy. So then either your friends will pay a scribe to make a copy of it and gift it to these people or the people who want it will borrow the copy and pay to have a copy made themselves. Copying your book in particular is even more expensive than normal because it has drawings in it so they need to find a scribe that is trained in copying drawings and not every scribe will take a commission for a sexual book, but they like your books so much that they're willing to take on the expense.

So this keeps going. People keep paying to make copies of your book. People like it a lot and eventually it becomes well-liked by the rich and they pay people to make copies of it for all their friends. After a couple of centuries of your book getting copied over and over again your book is a "bestseller" of sorts but you and your descendants never really saw any money from it because the people getting paid in the circulation of your book are scribes being paid to make copies of it and merchants selling what scrolls of it they can get their hands on.

By now the original copies you gave your friends are likely in the hands of their descendants, if the original copies still exist at all. They might've been burned in a fire when your friend's daughter dropped her lantern, or maybe worms ate it, or maybe your friends didn't keep it in a dry enough place and it just started to rot.

If the people who own a copy of your book like it enough or think it's important enough and they see that their copy is rotting or torn or charred, they can pay to have another copy made, but they also might not care enough and throw it out or just let it rot.

Over the centuries, your book slowly circulates less and less and the existing copies of your sex manual slowly rot in libraries or are purposefully burned as Christianity takes over, Rome falls, and literacy rates plummet while attitudes towards sexual books become even worse than they were in your time. Less people can read, less people work as scribes, less people have the skills to copy the drawings that were in your book.

And then on some unknown date, the last copy of your book is quietly eaten by worms in a damp and poorly cared for library.

This is what happened to The Book of Elephantis, a sex manual written by a prostitute or some other kind of sex worker working under a pseudonym somewhere in Greece in the 1st century BC. Her book was really popular in the time of the Roman Empire but it's since been lost. All the copies of her book just rotted away or burned over a thousand years ago. People just didn't care about sex manuals anymore and most people couldn't read them either.

It's also why most of the oldest copies of stuff like the Iliad we have are from the middle ages. The surviving works we have for the most part are the ones that people kept making new copies of and were stored properly.

Sometimes we get lucky and find some really old parchment scrolls in a dry cave or something or we scan books we have and can find where ink was scraped off and the paper was reused. But for the most part stuff gets lost because someone just didn't want to pay the expense to make a new copy.

Be thankful it's so cheap to make copies of books now and that modern paper lasts longer than parchment.

#roman said a thing

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Any tips on writing for people with ADHD and a short attention span?

Hello! As someone who was recently diagnosed/had to go through the process of jumping through hoops to get meds, I've been trying to put together some new writing routines to get back on track. It has... been a process. Here are some things I've learned (from my personal experience, your mileage may vary):

Writing everyday doesn't work. I think this really common advice has been debunked overall, but let me tell you, there are days when the energy bar starts on empty and stays there. I can function, but the creative juices aren't there. Trying to stay creative by other means, either by reading or working on another hobby, can be a way for you to keep your day productive instead.

Hard schedules don't work. To reflect the above, I can get up at 5am every damn day, but only some of these days will get work done before work. That isn't to say you shouldn't try to make a schedule and stick to it - you'll definitely get more done that way. But it isn't always going to work, and you shouldn't beat yourself up if you can't keep to it every day.

Being 'plugged-in' definitely doesn't work. The 'oh I need to look up how to spell this oh no I'm twelve pages into a Google hole' is definitely still a trap. To keep focused, keep that instant internet away from you. Need to look up something, slap a note on it and come back when you know you don't need to write another 1000 words.

Medication/caffeine/whatever you use to function can only do so much. I can drink a cup of coffee and immediately slam myself into bed. My meds exist to get me through the work day, which is what I need them to do, but won't always be able to keep me through the extra work day. Trying to stay awake and focused when my brain is fucking done for the day just doesn't work. Instead, I have to focus on what does - writing in the morning or at noon, making time when I know I can still function rather than trying to take it on at the end of the day when I know I'll be spent.

What has been working and I've been trying to incorporate more has been:

Drafting on paper. This has always worked for me, and it continues to work for me. Physically writing the words down and editing as I type them does slow down the work, but it makes much more sense to my brain.

Using color codes/other visual tools. Color-coding characters, using different colored pens for types of notes, and flashcards help me flesh out plots. It makes plotting more like an art project, but that in itself can help me be more creative. If you like working on a computer and not by hand, you can spice up Excel sheets and Google docs with different fonts, templates, and adding notes.

Lists, lists, and more lists. I have a planner for work, I have a planner for my personal life, and I have a notepad where I write down all my daily goals, however small. Using a combination of the three has been working great for keeping me on track. For me, physically crossing things out and checking things off is a great motivator.

Alarms and writing sprints. Slap a timer to a screen and write to it. Use an online writing sprint, hop into a work-focused Twitch stream, or use a timed YouTube video to put yourself in a focused environment with a goal in mind.

Relocate. There are certain areas of my apartment that I've dubbed 'The Ooze Zone' where all I can do when I'm there is get nothing done. Unfortunately, because my apartment is quite small, the Ooze Zone takes up most of it. So if you can't set up an office space or a designated area where your brain knows to get work done, consider checking out your local library, a relatively peaceful park, a friend's house, or a cheap coffee shop. I know somewhere who would just drive somewhere and do 80% of his writing in his car. If you can't do your work from home because your brain won't let you, look into alternatives.

If you have meds, take them. Getting medicated and on the right dose is hard, believe me. I've been trying to get back the swing of things after a. being checked out from not being medicated and b. being checked out from not having the right dosage/type of meds. It is a process, but if you have the ability to seek a diagnoses and treatment, it is worth pursuing. If you have meds, take them on a regular schedule and how your doctor recommends. Add an alarm on your phone to remind yourself. Make it part of your routine. Doing it haphazardly is only doing yourself a disfavor.

And lastly, Get More Sleep. The number one thing that may be fucking you over is not sleeping enough. Having ADHD is directly tied with having more sleeping problems in both children and adults. If you have this problem, it is affecting you way more than you know.

Here's the thing - I thought I had a great sleeping schedule for the longest time, and could not figure out why I was so exhausted half the time. But I recently got a fitness tracker, which informed me that actually, my sleeping patterns were complete dogshit. I may have been in bed for eight hours, but I spent three of them tossing and turning.

Make a sleep schedule and stick to it. Go to bed at the same time of night. Consider getting a sleep tracker to see where your sleep patterns are messed up and what you can change to fix it. This sucks, believe me, but going to bed at 9pm to account for that time you'll spent tossing about before you get up at 6am may be the only way to recover those missing sleep hours. Even if it feels like it's taking away from your free time, you will function better overall.

#writing with ADHD #writing tips

[janisbuggybones]

Rent-a-yandere!....please, we're begging you take them off our hands.

Janis Foster (my oc) × gn!reader

Cw: yandere, rent a partner situation, trans girl yandere, poly relationship kinda, pretty short idk what else I could say, pretty boring tbh (only realizing this as I got to the elevator part :( )

Og idea is from @moyazaika on this post that I kinda spit balled off of and then got the motivation to write again.

You can't believe you found yourself coming to this. One too many late night browsing sessions led you to get overwhelmed with adverts about this new fad in the dating scene. Rent-a-yandere, the hottest site online where you could find a devoted lover for cheap.99 per hour. In all honesty, it did seem appealing when compared to the heartbreak and trauma you've expierienced prior, but you dare stoop so low?

"Hello darling, are you (y/n) (l/n)?" A tall girl said from behind you. She had beautiful pearly paper white skin and matching hair put in one long braid. She had piercing red eyes and dare you mention her height? She was at least nearly twice your height, but her body wasn't well built. She couldn't have been living very healthily If she was that skinny. She had a large chest, despite her skinny body, well in her description it had said she had some cosmetic surgery done before. It didn't look fake or anything and it's not like she showed it off. She wore a modest black turtle neck with small embroidered hearts on the cuffs and chest of the sweater. The sweater was paired with some baggy black jeans and simple black work boots.

Fuck yes

"Oh, yeah that's me...you're Janis Foster, right?" You found yourself asking after getting over the height difference. Shit, were you being rude? She's really pretty, come on, don't fuck it up.

"Yep, the one and only. Honestly I'd be surprised if anyone got me confused for someone else." She smiled softly, her soft pink lips looked tantalizing. "Well, let's be on our way then. I've arranged a breakfast date for us before a big day of fun" She said as she grabbed your hand with her own cold and large hand. Her nails lacked any polish and were neatly manicured.

You remembered you picked the option for her to come up with the itinerary. You hoped it wouldn't be too exhausting, the public can be a bit overwhelming. "A-ah okay!" You find yourself smiling slightly as you went along with her.

She took you to an animal themed Cafe nearby, themed after your favorite pet animal. "I thought you'd like this, darling" She giggled as she checked you both in, having made a reservation. You recall mentioning your favorite animal in the description of yourself they required you to give them.

"Nice and quiet, and they limit it to 10 customers in here at any given time, so I won't have to worry" She giggled innocently but you read between the lines. It made you blush at the thought of such an attractive woman getting jealous of you.

You two were taken to your seat, a seat in the back where one of the animals sat on the table. You promptly gave your order and she gave hers before you were left alone with her.

"Honestly I'm not much of an animal person..I feel like it's a good bit of upkeep that i couldn't keep up with. But I do have a little lavender bunny at home. His name is Geo" She said, starting a conversation as she looked around.

"Oh? Is he purple? I didn't know bunnies could be purple" you said, interested as you looked at the calm animal on the table before it left, instead taking the window sill beside your table as its resting place.

"Oh they do, it's a bit rarer than your average bunny so he cost a good bit, but he's Oh so adorable" She smiled, her bluish eyes landing on you. "I'd say nearly as much as you, cutie" She teased, which left you blushing slightly as you avoided her eye contact for a second.

"O-oh yeah?" You smiled slightly, you never were able to take compliments well.

"Mhm, oh look, food's here" She smiled as the waitress brought your orders. Janis had ordered a simple cup of juice, a bagel, and small bowl of a variety of fruits.

"Thank you for coming here today" the waitress said with a smile as she walked to serve another table.

Janis stared at her for a second with an unreadable expression before turning to you. "In my opinion, breakfast isn't that good. Lunch and dinner foods are far superior" She said with a sip of her juice.

That statement had ignited a conversation that then strayed to your favorite foods and then on to other topics as you ate and enjoyed her company. She wasn't too overwhelming and was sweet up until you two had been finished for a good bit and were asked to leave because her reservation had ended.

She pouted but complied, leaving with you to her next planned activity.

"You had mentioned you liked anime and movies, so I thought we could see that new studio ghibli movie together?" She said with a contagious smile. "You know the guy who writes them and all, Hayao Miyazaki? He keeps announcing his retirement but then goes back to the studio with a new script each time, it's pretty funny when in the interviews with employees they complain about that." She giggled.

"Oh? I can imagine the frustration they must feel" you smiled slightly as you two entered the theater. You then realized, shit, this place is gonna be crowded. Fuck, you hoped it wouldn't be too overwhelming. She then promptly paid for your tickets and some snacks to accompany your movie viewing.

You two passed the many movie posters on the halls as you walked to the movie screening. Dread hit you as you opened the door and you two went in, only to crumble away when the theater had been empty. Did she really book this entire theater room for you?

"Yeah I'm not too good in a crowd either, I'm a walking distraction" She smiled slightly as she led you two to a good pair of seats in the middle of the theater.

"U-uhm I don't know what to say-t-thank you, this is crazy. How did you get your company to pay for something like this?" You found yourself asking. "W-wait sorry I didn't mean to say that, I'm sorry..." you apologize a second later after seeing how that could be offensive.

"Oh? They'd never pay for something this expensive. While their other services are much more profitable, my section doesn't get nearly as many sponsored activities like this. I paid out of pocket so you wouldn't feel wierd in the crowd, darling" She smiled. God that smile, how she acted, you swore you'd fall for her before she fell for you.

Her explanation left you blushing and wordless as adverts started rolling on the big projector screen. You unintentionally just ended up staying quiet and watching the movie with her. At around the halfway point of the movie, when you both finished your snacks, she had began holding your hand. It shocked you at first, before you relaxed, discretely returning the gesture.

The rest of the movie went along swimmingly. The plot was heart wrenching and hadn't made you cry, but did arise sadness in you.

As you two walked out the theater and you winced at the bright light, she prosed a question.

"So darling, my place or yours?" She asked "for our next little activity I have planned, a baking sesh" She added with a smile. "I had cute mochi and cookies in mind" She smiled "though mochi isn't baking, it's versatility as something you can shape into a cute thing is almost unmatched" She said

"O-oh-um" you said, taken aback by the idea. You had liked cooking to an extent and mentioned that, but wow. She really planned this out and it left you blushing again....wait...wasn't it in the terms and conditions that neither of you could go to the others house?.....maybe it was for their other service, rent-a-darling? You couldn’t recall and your place was a mess. "My place doesn't look the best...is yours okay?" You asked shyly

Janis giggled "of course! Anything you want is okay with me darling" She smiled as she held your hand and went with you in the direction of her apartment.

Surprisingly based on her ability to buy out a whole theater for you, her apartment was relatively average, though it ran a bit on the pricier side because of the economy lately. The inside looked clean and nice, and the elevator ride was relaxed as she started a conversation about her apartment complex.

"I dont mean to show off where i live, but i hope you like it. When I started living here, it was actually way cheaper than it is now, I'm glad they never raised the price for my rent though. I'm kind of friends with the owner. Not in a wierd way, but we hang out like once a month. They're in my friend group I've had since middle school" She said as she watched the numbers on the small screen above the door go up.

"Oh, that's interesting. I wish I had something like that with my landlord. I've recently been trying to save up for something I want, and it's not going too good in all honesty..... Damn gacha games, am I right?" You smiled, feeling comfortable, but then suddenly worrying you overshared.

"Oh don't get me started! I started playing this gacha game that recently came out and ahhh! The skins look so good, but two are locked behind a pay wall each update" She huffed slightly. "And all the characters have such diverse designs and tons of different ethnicities, how could I not pull for them all and be absoloutely broke in unilogs?" She laughed softly before the elevator stopped, the 6th floor. "Alright now to 603" She said as she held your hand and walked to her apartment.

Nothing was out of the ordinary about her apartment, it was pretty plain actually. Apart from the squishimallows instead of pillows on the couch of her living room. The kitchen was lightly messy, a bowl and cup in her sink with a few pieces of silverware and a stray rag just on the counter.

"It's not much, but it's comfortable for me" She said "well, settle in, I have to go check on geo real quick, I'm sorry darling" She said, excusing herself before leaving to the other room.

"It's fine" you find yourself saying quietly, overwhelmed by the events of today. This was all crazy....how were you now in a crazy hot girl's apartment?! The one chronically bitchless person of the high-school friend group, in this stunning woman's house? It was unbelievable...until you considered this was a paid date. Then reality sunk in. Shit...should you ask her out for real? Would that be okay? Would she be okay with that? She wasn't much of a yandere...it'd be okay, right?

"He was such a hungry little boy, he ate down all his celery in a minute" She giggled happily as she came back and saw you still had your bag with your outing necessities on.

"Oh want me to take that for you?" She offered and you obliged.

"Oh thank you...I feel like I haven't properly thanked you enough today" you said as you looked around.

"Oh don't worry, the pleasure is mine, darling" She smiled "now, shall we get cooking?" She smiled as she put on a pink frilly apron. Shit...you didn't know how to feel.

"Alright" you offered in response with a fake smile as you took the apron She handed you. It was your favorite color and had a lap pocket and chest pocket shaped in hearts of a slightly brighter color.

You two then spent the next couple hours baking cookies and making mochi, before settling down on her couch and watching the news, because nothing else was on, as you enjoyed the fruits of your labor.

"It's not too sweet is it darling? I heard cookies need some salty aspect to balance out all the flavors" She smiled softly as a missing persons report came on over the tv.

Geo Archviste, a 5'4" man with black and white naturally colored hair and blue freckles. Missing since this day 3 years ago, he would have been 21 by now.

That was terrible, his family must be haunted by their missing son...wait-

"Darling?" She asked, as you kinda ignored her prompt for conversation. "Everything okay?" She asked.

"Uhm yeah- that missing persons case...just seems sad." You found yourself saying as you swallowed the crumbly cookie.

"Oh...yeah...that boy was actually my ex...we broke up a year before he went missing but we were still on good terms" She said sadly. "I miss him...I named my little bunny after him" Janis said as she looked down.

"Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't know......I hope he gets found" was all you could find yourself saying, but something didn't seem right. Not that what she said had any contradictions, but you just had this uneasy feeling. "Um restroom?" You asked

"By the door with heart decals on the left down the hall, darling" She smiled sadly and you excused yourself.

You walked down the hall and found the room, but the heart decorated room piqued your interest. She wouldn't mind...right? You opened the door and were met with darkness until you cut on the light and saw a figure sitting on Janis' bed, restrained on his feet and hands heavily.

All you could really see was their perfectly trimmed black and white locks that hid their sleeping face...matching the picture of the man on the missing persons report.

Chills ran down your spine as you went to grab your phone but it wasn't in your pocket. Shit you must have left it behind....how could you sneak out with the missing boy?

You struggled with yourself over this until you heard Janis coming and ducked into a open closet after turning off the light, shutting it behind you.

"Geo darling, I'm back" She smiled as she cut the light on and walked up to him. He looked at her tiredly and sniffled quietly.

"Remember my side gig to try and find you a buddy we can both love?" She asked "I think I found the one, they're so cute! And we baked some things, you could probably smell it" She giggled "I'll give you some when they leave...if they get to. I haven't decided if I wanna reel them in or just go in all at once and kidnap them like I did you" She said happily

"I'd say just kidnap them, two minds are better than one" he sighed, implying you could help him escape her.

"Come on now, I love you...you love me, i know it" She huffed

"Yeah true..which is why I want you to get help instead of doing this to me...." he sighed

"Stop it, i don't need help" She mumbled

"Yes you do. I love you and want to be with you, but you did this and refuse to get therapy. I only broke up with you because you killed my friend, remember. Get your head out of the past and live with me now. I'll stay and all like I've said repeatedly- just come-" he said before she interrupted him.

"Shut up! I don't need help! I'm perfectly fine and you need to shut up. You're only still tied up because you tried to escape the other month!" She shouted, less sad and more angrily.

"That was last year! I've been good for you so I can do normal couple things with you and we could have found our third lover together!" He shouted back, making her tear up.

"Shut up! I'm going back to (y/n)....I promise you'll love them as much as I do" She said shakily before you backed up a bit too far and bumped against the wall.

She looked dead at the closet in shock before walking up to it and opening it.

"Darling?"

#yandere #janis foster #original character #trans yandere #trans #yandere oc #tw yandere #date-a-yandere #Rent-a-yandere

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk

In “Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation,” a trio of business researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Pamplin College investigate the difference between the goods purchased through highly targeted online ads and just plain web-searches, and conclude social media ads push overpriced junk:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4398428

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors

Specifically, stuff that’s pushed to you via targeted ads costs an average of 10 percent more, and it significantly more likely to come from a vendor with a poor rating from the Better Business Bureau. This may seem trivial and obvious, but it’s got profound implications for media, commercial surveillance, and the future of the internet.

Writing in the New York Times, Julia Angwin — a legendary, muckraking data journalist — breaks down those implications. Angwin builds a case study around Jeremy’s Razors, a business that advertises itself as a “woke-free” shaving solution for manly men:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/opinion/online-advertising-privacy-data-surveillance-consumer-quality.html

Jeremy’s Razors spends a fucking fortune on ads. According to Facebook’s Ad Library, the company spent $800,000 on FB ads in March, targeting fathers of school-age kids who like Hershey’s, ultimate fighting, hunting or Johnny Cash:

https://pluralistic.net/jeremys-targeting

Anti-woke razors are an objectively, hilariously stupid idea, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Jeremy’s has to spend $800K/month to reach its customers, which means that it either has to accept $800K less in profits, or make it up by charging more and/or skimping on quality.

Targeted advertising is incredibly expensive, and incredibly lucrative — for the ad-tech platforms that sit between creative workers and media companies on one side, and audiences on the other. In order to target ads, ad-tech companies have to collect deep, nonconsensual dossiers on every internet user, full of personal, sensitive and potentially compromising information.

The switch to targeted ads was part of the enshittification cycle, whereby companies like Facebook and Google lured in end-users by offering high-quality services — Facebook showed you the things the people you asked to hear from posted, and Google returned the best search results it could find.

Eventually, those users became locked in. Once all our friends were on Facebook, we held each other hostage, each unable to leave because the others were there. Google used its access to the capital markets to snuff out any rival search companies, spending tens of billions every year to be the default on Apple devices, for example.

Once we were locked in, the tech giants made life worse for us in order to make life better for media companies and advertisers. Facebook violated its promise to be the privacy-centric alternative to Myspace, where our data would never be harvested; it switched on mass surveillance and created cheap, accurate ad-targeting:

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876?ln=en

Google fulfilled the prophecy in its founding technical document, the Pagerank paper: “advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” They, too, offered cheap, highly targeted ads:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Facebook and Google weren’t just kind to advertisers — they also gave media companies and creative workers a great deal, funneling vast quantities of traffic to both. Facebook did this by cramming media content into the feeds of people who hadn’t asked to see it, displacing the friends’ posts they had asked to see. Google did it by upranking media posts in search results.

Then we came to the final stage of the enshittification cycle: having hooked both end-users and business customers, Facebook and Google withdrew the surpluses from both groups and handed them to their own shareholders. Advertising costs went up. The share of ad income paid to media companies went down. Users got more ads in their feeds and search results.

Facebook and Google illegally colluded to rig the ad-market with a program called Jedi Blue that let the companies steal from both advertisers and media companies:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/11/google-meta-jedi-blue-eu-uk-antitrust-probes/

Apple blocked Facebook’s surveillance on its mobile devices, but increased its own surveillance of Iphone and Ipad users in order to target ads to them, even when those users explicitly opted out of spying:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Today, we live in the enshittification end-times, red of tooth and claw, where media companies’ revenues are dwindling and advertisers’ costs are soaring, and the tech giants are raking in hundreds of billions, firing hundreds of thousands of workers, and pissing away tens of billions on stock buybacks:

https://doctorow.medium.com/mass-tech-worker-layoffs-and-the-soft-landing-1ddbb442e608

As Angwin points out, in the era before behavioral advertising, Jeremy’s might have bought an ad in Deer & Deer Hunting or another magazine that caters to he-man types who don’t want woke razors; the same is true for all products and publications. Before mass, non-consensual surveillance, ads were based on content and context, not on the reader’s prior behavior.

There’s no reason that ads today couldn’t return to that regime. Contextual ads operate without surveillance, using the same “real-time bidding” mechanism to place ads based on the content of the article and some basic parameters about the user (rough location based on IP address, time of day, device type):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#contextual-ads

Context ads perform about as well as behavioral ads — but they have a radically different power-structure. No media company will ever know as much about a given user as an ad-tech giant practicing dragnet surveillance and buying purchase, location and finance data from data-brokers. But no ad-tech giant knows as much about the context and content of an article as the media company that published it.

Context ads are, by definition, centered on the media company or creative worker whose work they appear alongside of. They are much harder for tech giants to enshittify, because enshittification requires lock-in and it’s hard to lock in a publication who knows better than anyone what they’re publishing and what it means.

We should ban surveillance advertising. Period. Companies should not be allowed to collect our data without our meaningful opt-in consent, and if that was the standard, there would be no data-collection:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/22/myob/#adtech-considered-harmful

Remember when Apple created an opt out button for tracking, more than 94 percent of users clicked it (the people who clicked “yes” to “can Facebook spy on you?” were either Facebook employees, or confused):

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

Ad-targeting enables a host of evils, like paid political disinformation. It also leads to more expensive, lower-quality goods. “A Raw Deal For Consumers,” Sumit Sharma’s new Consumer Reports paper, catalogs the many other costs imposed on Americans due to the lack of tech regulation:

https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/A-Raw-Deal-for-US-Consumers_March-2023.pdf

Sharma describes the benefits that Europeans will shortly enjoy thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, from lower prices to more privacy to more choice, from cloud gaming on mobile devices to competing app stores.

However, both the EU and the US — as well as Canada and Australia — have focused their news industry legislating on misguided “link taxes,” where tech giants are required to pay license fees to link to and excerpt the news. This is an approach grounded in the mistaken idea that tech giants are stealing media companies’ content — when really, tech giants are stealing their money:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/18/news-isnt-secret/#bid-shading

Creating a new pseudocopyright to control who can discuss the news is a terrible idea, one that will make the media companies beholden to the tech giants at a time when we desperately need deep, critical reporting on the tech sector. In Canada, where Bill C-18 is the latest link tax proposal in the running to become law, we’re already seeing that conflict of interest come into play.

As Jesse Brown and Paula Simons — a veteran reporter turned senator — discuss on the latest Canadaland podcast, the Toronto Star’s sharp and well-reported critical series on the tech giants died a swift and unexplained death immediately after the Star began receiving license fees for tech users’ links and excerpts from its reporting:

https://www.canadaland.com/paula-simons-bill-c-18/

Meanwhile, in Australia, the proposed “news bargaining code” stampeded the tech giants into agreeing to enter into “voluntary” negotiations with the media companies, allowing Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp to claim the lion’s share of the money, and then conduct layoffs across its newsrooms.

While in France, the link tax depends on publishers integrating with Google Showcase, a product that makes Google more money from news content and makes news publishers more dependent on Google:

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-competition-authority-greenlights-google-pledges-over-paying-news-publishers/

A link tax only pays for so long as the tech giants remain dominant and continue to extract the massive profits that make them capable of paying the tax. But legislative action to fix the ad-tech markets, like Senator Mike Lee’s ad-tech breakup bill (cosponsored by both Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!) would shift power to publishers, and with it, money:

https://www.lee.senate.gov/2023/3/the-america-act

With ad-tech intermediaries scooping up 50% or more of every advertising dollar, there is plenty of potential to save news without the need for a link tax. If unrigging the ad-tech market drops the platforms’ share of advertising dollars to a more reasonable 10%, then the advertisers and publishers could split the remainder, with advertisers spending 20% less and publishers netting 20% more.

Passing a federal privacy law would end surveillance advertising at the stroke of a pen, shifting the market to context ads that let publishers, not platforms, call the shots. As an added bonus, the law would stop Tiktok from spying on Americans, and also end Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft’s spying to boot:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

Mandating competition in app stores — as the Europeans are poised to do — would kill Google and Apple’s 30% “app store tax” — the percentage they rake off of every transaction from every app on Android and Ios. Drop that down to the 2–5% that the credit cards charge, and every media outlet’s revenue-per-subscriber would jump by 25%.

Add to that an end-to-end rule for tech giants requiring them to deliver updates from willing receivers to willing senders, so every newsletter you subscribed to would stay out of your spam folder and every post by every media company or creator you followed would show up in your feed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

That would make it impossible for tech giants to use the sleazy enshittification gambit of forcing creative workers and media companies to pay to “boost” their content (or pay $8/month for a blue tick) just to get it in front of the people who asked to see it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

The point of enshittification is that it’s bad for everyone except the shareholders of tech monopolists. Jeremy’s Razors are bad, winning a 2.7 star rating out of five:

https://www.facebook.com/JeremysRazors/reviews

The company charges more for these substandard razors, and you are more likely to find out about them, because of targeted, behavioral ads. These ads starve media companies and creative workers and make social media and search results terrible.

A link tax is predicated on the idea that we need Big Tech to stay big, and to dribble a few crumbs for media companies, compromising their ability to report on their deep-pocketed beneficiaries, in a way that advantages the biggest media companies and leaves small, local and independent press in the cold.

By contrast, a privacy law, ad-tech breakups, app-store competition and end-to-end delivery would shatter the power of Big Tech and shift power to users, creative workers and media companies. These are solutions that don’t just keep working if Big Tech goes away — they actually hasten that demise! What’s more, they work just as well for big companies as they do for independents.

Whether you’re the New York Times or you’re an ex-Times reporter who’s quit your job and now crowdfunds to cover your local school board and town council meetings, shifting control and the share of income is will benefit you, whether or not Big Tech is still in the picture.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: freeimageslive.co.uk (modified) http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk/free_stock_image/using-mobile-phone-jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

[Image ID: A man's hand holds a mobile phone. Its screen displays an Instagram ad. The ad has been replaced with a slice of a vintage comic book 'small ads' page.]

#pluralistic #ad-tech #ads #surveillance ads #commercial surveillance #behavioral ads #contextual ads #link taxes #platform economics #enshittification #instagram #julia angwin #end to end

[oftenwantedafton]

Personal Space - Steve Raglan/William Afton x Female Reader

Chapter One

Rating - Explicit

Warnings - none for this chapter

Excerpt- The new hire is delivered right to the door of Steve Raglan’s office one rainy Monday morning.

He can feel the nervous energy wafting from you. But he’s good at this. Used to dealing with anxious job applicants from less than ideal backgrounds.

He can handle some new college grad.

Also available on AO3

The problem with being good at one’s job is that everyone relies on that person. Got a question? Just ask Steve Raglan. He’ll tell you what form to use or find the phone number needed. A long term resident of the area that was a walking guidebook for directions. He knew all the roads. The best shortcuts. What stores to shop at. What establishments to avoid. Hell, he even had some great recipes. Some background in the food world or something. Restaurant experience? Something like that. It was never quite clear. But he was the go to man. Everyone in the office knows it.

So of course the new hire is delivered right to the door of his office one rainy Monday morning. Looking like a drowned rat. Carrying what had obviously been your school backpack. Cheap polyester office attire. A gray skirt and blazer that are off the rack, not quite fitting you properly. The hem of the skirt hitting your legs at an awkward level. The sleeves of the jacket too short. Hair already falling out of place. He can feel the nervous energy wafting from you. But he’s good at this. Used to dealing with anxious job applicants from less than ideal backgrounds. He can handle some new college grad.

He’d rather not, of course; he prefers working alone. It’s more efficient. Faster. You’re going to make the day difficult, he can already tell. Still he plasters on a fake smile. Drags one of the chairs intended for clients around his desk, still leaving room between his own leather specimen and the vinyl padded hardback.

“Welcome. I’m Steve Raglan.” His hand shake is firm, confident. Your own is tentative, weak. You’re going to have to work on that. “You can put your things down over there.” He gestures towards a small table in the corner. Down goes the backpack and out comes a spiral bound notebook. Pen. You sit stiffly in the chair, near the edge. Fold back the cover of the notebook and lay the writing utensil on top of it. Clear your throat, swiping at one of the stray damp hairs trailing across your cheek. The silence lengthens. Steve’s chair creaks as he leans forward. “Where did you study?”

“University of Utah.”

“You from that area?” You nod. “First time away from home?” Another nod. He suppresses the urge to sigh. Great. He was going to have to deal with you being homesick at some point, too. Salt Lake City was at the opppsite end of Utah. A good four hour drive north, minimum. “What made you end up here?”

“I went online to see other social workers in the state. You have a great reputation. A lot of awards.” You nod in the direction of the framed papers on the walls. “So I thought, why not learn from the best?”

Raglan grunts. The praise means nothing to him. The job doesn’t either, if he’s being perfectly honest. It was his former profession that was his true passion. This is just…well, it’s just something to do for the time being. Yes, he’s good at it. But it doesn’t mean he likes it. “You might as well put that away. It’s not a lecture hall. You’re not going to be taking notes. You’re just here to observe. Pay attention to verbal cues. Learn the vernacular. Become accustomed to interacting with people.”

Your cheeks flush. You close the notebook and tuck it inside your backpack. Leave the pen out, your fingers fussing anxiously with the clip on the cap. He sees you staring at the things on his desk. The white rabbit’s foot keychain on the ring of keys set next to his eyeglass case. The powder coated rabbit shaped wire frame for sorting mail. The coffee stained coaster with the logo for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza sitting on the desk blotter, a yellow bear and yellow rabbit standing side by side waving jovially, mouths stretched in toothy grins. “You like rabbits, huh?”

Another dismissive sound. Then silence. “Do you drink coffee?”

You shake your head. “I try to avoid caffeine. My parents are tea drinkers anyway. Just never developed a taste for either.”

The bearded man pushes back from the desk, walking over to the small coffee bar lining the wall beneath the solitary window in his office. He leaves the room long enough to fill the pot from the sink across the hall. Fills the reservoir and presses the filter into place. Spoons out a measure of coffee grounds. Thumbs the orange switch at the base of the machine and looks out the window. His office faces the rear of the building. There’s a small pond out back. Trees. Benches. A nice place to have lunch when the weather is good. Not today. The surface of the pond ripples. Everything looks very green. The coffee machine begins to chortle. Angry hisses and spits. Dark liquid emerging in a steady hot trickle. He fills a mug and settles back behind the desk. Takes a sip. Sighs. Glances at the clock. It’s five past eight. Another twenty five minutes before his first appointment.

It’s going to be a long day.

***

The morning passes relatively uneventfully.

None of the first few clients are particularly problematic. It becomes an automatic reflex to introduce you, the same spiel given each time. You are a new employee, there to observe. Then Steve simply ignores you. Pretends you aren’t there and conducts the discussion as he normally would. Mid morning he announces it’s time for a break. You remain sitting. He stands and stretches. He’s six foot four and being seated doesn’t do his body any favors. The crack of the synovial fluid being pushed between the spaces of his joints is loud. The joys of aging, he thinks bitterly. His eyes flick to your seated form. “Get up. Go somewhere.” It’s not a suggestion. You jerk to your feet, stepping out into the hallway and he sighs with relief. Makes his way back to the coffee pot, a little huff of disappointment escaping when he realizes he’s already nearly emptied it. He debates about making another. Hears footsteps behind him.

“I…I don’t really know my way around. I don’t know where to go.”

He sets the pot back onto the burner. So much for a respite. Now he’s to be a tour guide, too. He knows he’s being a little unfair. Unreasonable. Of course you can’t be expected to know the layout. The routine. It’s only your first day. But it doesn’t rankle any less. So inconvenient. Bothersome. Another sigh. He doesn’t think he’s ever heaved so many regretful sounds in one day before. “Follow me.” He brushes past you without waiting to see if you’re trailing behind. Begins pointing things out. “Restroom, copy room, break room. Emergency exit. The rest of the offices down this hallway. Another restroom.” He turns and almost stumbles into you. You’re like a shadow, close and clingy. He really doesn’t care for it. “Personal space is something that people tend to respect in this profession.” Another flush. You take a step back. “Further.” Another. “A little more.” Still another. “Better.” You pass the break room again and he gestures towards it. “Why don’t you go spend some time there. Introduce yourself. Think of it as practice. Come back in fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t have a watch,” you murmur.

He clucks his tongue. “You need to get one, then. Time is important. Yours. The clients’. You can hardly expect to keep appointments without it. There’s a clock on the wall in there.” The career counselor escapes back to his office. Honestly. They are really testing his patience with this one. He jerks the coffee pot free. He’s definitely going to need more caffeine to get through this.

***

The real trouble begins in the afternoon.

Steve can smell the alcohol long before the man ever finds his way into the seat across from his desk. His body automatically leans back, away from the applicant, the folder containing the man’s resume and background information clutched in his hands. He does his best to remain professional. Focusing right on the heart of the matter. Four terminated positions in as many weeks.

“‘S’not my fault. If my bitch wife hadn’t left—”

“—I’d prefer you not use that language, sir.” Steve interrupts firmly. “And your ex’s affairs are her own. We’re here to discuss you. Your employers state that you’ve been coming into work late, if at all. Poor attendance. Multiple complaints of being rude to customers. The most recent one says that you actually assaulted someone.”

“That’s a fu— a lie,” he corrects.

“Be that as it may. You’re going to need to complete a drug test and enter a rehabilitation program before you’ll even be considered for another position.”

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he mutters. “You don’t even know me. Just because a few people lied…”

“I’m not here to judge you. I’m simply stating the facts. Our goals are the same. We want to see you employed successfully.”

The man’s eyes shift to you. Lingering a little too long on places that clearly aren’t your face. Steve wheels forward again, a little in front of you as if to shield you from the client’s gaze.

“I can recommend an excellent local program.” Raglan pulls a drawer open and sets a pamphlet on the desk. “Give them a call. That’s the first step towards getting you back to work and getting your life back in order.”

The man makes no move to pick up the offering. “I’m not going.”

“Then I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do for you.”

“You’re supposed to be getting me a job.”

“You are supposed to be getting yourself a job. I can’t assist you in this current condition.”

“What about her? Maybe she can help me.” Another leer in your direction.

Steve rises to his feet. Fingers curled tightly against his palms. Glaring over the edges of his glasses. “I think you had better leave.”

“Or what?” He lurches to his feet. A little gasp from your direction. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Security will escort you out. Or I will. I really don’t think you want me to be the one to do it.” His voice is cold as he lifts the phone, waiting to see what choice will be made. The client hesitates, the bravado evaporating. Something terrifying lights the career counselor’s eyes. It’s not an idle threat.

His shoulders slump in defeat. “I’ll leave.”

Steve dials an extension. “Yes. Can you make sure the gentleman leaving my office makes it outside? And he’s not to return. Yes. Thank you.” He drops the phone back down and glances at you. Your eyes are wide, and he can see you shaking. “You alright?” You swallow and nod. “Not every aspect of this job is going to be pleasant. It’s just as well you get a lesson in that now. The key is to maintain control and de-escalate the situation.”

He settles back into his seat, smoothing his tie before shutting the folder and placing the pamphlet back in the drawer.

“What would you have done? If you went outside with him, I mean.”

Raglan flashes a grin that looks anything but friendly. “Don’t worry about it.”

You remain quiet for the rest of the afternoon.

***

The shift finally ends.

Steve unhooks the umbrella from the coat rack tucked in the corner, shaking it to dislodge any dust that might have accumulated. It’s unusual for Hurricane to have wet weather, especially as damp as this. The umbrella doesn’t see much use.

You, of course, haven’t brought one. Not even so much as a jacket. He’s going to have to be a gentleman and walk beside you, shielding you from the inclement weeping of the heavens. Closer to you than he’d like. The near contact makes him uncomfortable. He’s used to keeping himself distant. It’s been years since he’s experienced any intimacy. And yet here you are, demanding his body brush against yours. Walking you to your car which is quite far from his own. “You need to get here before seven if you want a decent parking spot.” The rain patters on the purple fabric tented above. You nod. You’re digging in your backpack for your car keys. “Don’t you have a purse or something?”

“I do, I just didn’t bring it, I thought…”

“Bring it. You don’t need that bag. You’re not in school anymore. It’s not some clunky thing, is it?”

“I mean, it’s a mini backpack.” He glowers disapprovingly. “They’re in fashion right now,” you protest.

“You should have a wallet and car keys. That’s all you need.”

“What if it’s that time of the month?”

Now it’s Steve’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Fine. Just…bring whatever you have tomorrow.”

“Found them!” You withdraw your key ring, giving it a little shake. The disapproving stare hasn’t wavered. “Thanks for putting up with me today.” Your voice is quiet, barely audible in the downpour.

“It’s my job.” He shrugs, swapping the hand holding the umbrella.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He waits until you’ve unlocked the car before stepping aside, keeping you covered for as long as possible. He doesn’t know why he’s making such an effort. Just the polite thing to do, he supposes. The interior of your car is alarmingly pink and bedazzled. Pink lining the cup holders. Covering the steering wheel. The seats. Little jeweled cat faces clipped to the air vents, dangling from the rearview mirror. You notice him staring. “It’s Hello Kitty.”

”I’m aware.” His daughter had gone through that phase. At a much younger age. He scowls but says nothing.

”Some people like bunnies. I like cats.”

You did kind of have a point. “It’s fine,” he says grudgingly. As if you needed his permission to like something. Of course you don’t. Still, you feel like you’re asking for his approval. “To each their own. Until tomorrow.” He begins making the trek back across the parking lot to his own vehicle, a vintage luxury sedan. He struggles to close the umbrella. His glasses are foggy and smeared with moisture. He lets the engine run for a few minutes, waiting for the glass to clear while trying to find a dry surface to clear his lenses with.

A car horn startles him. He recognizes your automobile behind his. You’re back out of the car into the deluge, that ridiculous book bag clutched above your head in an insufficient impromptu umbrella to shield you from the torrent. He cranks his window down. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I forgot which way I’m going when I get out of here. My apartment’s downtown…”

Steve sighs. You really are testing the limits of his patience.

#william afton x reader #william afton x you #steve raglan x reader #steve raglan x you #dividers credit @saradika-graphics

[neil-gaiman]

I have two questions for you that are slightly related, like a cousin twice-removed:

A) What kind of paper did you use for your fountain pen? I've got a notebook that I write in, and I'm concerned about switching over to fountain pens because it's a fairly cheap notebook with thin paper. It would suck to write down an entire page and then realize that the previous page is unreadable now. To clarify, I use a gel pen right now and it still bleeds through fairly easily.

B) In your opinion, would reading a book out loud online in a non-permanent format (like a live stream) count as copyright infringement to you? I am NOT asking for permission to read any of your works on stream nor am I asking for legal advice. I just want to know what you think as a published author. Would you consider it an infringement on your property?

If you've already answered these questions before, my bad.

You need paper that is upwards of 70gsm in thickness in your notebook.

And as far as I'm concerned, no it doesn't.

[secondbeatsongs]

since none of the poster-printing sites (block posters, rasterbator) were doing exactly what I wanted, here's a tutorial for you!

how to print out a seamless poster on a normal printer

download this free printer calibration sheet from blockposters (links: a4 - letter. I'm using the letter size one, since that's how my printer works)

2. set your printer settings so that it uses borderless printing, exactly the way you would if you were planning to print a high-quality photo.

3. print the calibration sheet, and then look at the edges of it. write down which arrows touch the edge of your printed sheet (for me this was 7 on the left, 10 on the bottom, 5 on the right, and 4 on the top)

4. open the calibration sheet image in GIMP (or another photo editor of your choice

(you can use the image I posted above for the letter one, but for A4 you can use an online convertor to make the pdf into a png)

5. create a rectangle that exactly covers up the arrows that were right at the edge of your paper this is your template!

6. now you can edit your poster image to fit within that rectangle! (I'm using this speed racer poster as example because of fucking course I am)

7. export the pieces of your poster to .png (the full sheet, not just the part in the template rectangle! include the whole 8.5" by 11" sheet!)

8. make sure you have enough ink!

9. print your poster using the exact same settings you used before to print the calibration sheet. for me, this was borderless, high-quality printing

10. let the ink dry, tape your shiny new poster together, and you're good to go!

ta-da!

bonus tips:

glossy paper is the best for printing posters

off-brand ink is cheap, and depending on your model of printer, it's often easy to refill ink yourself! with some (like mine), you can just drip the ink onto the lil sponge things in the cartridges!

if you're worried that your calibration measurement wasn't 100% accurate, you can leave some overlap in your image design, especially where the seam in the middle is. but it probably won't be necessary?

two 8.5"x11" sheets of paper = one 11"x17" poster! but you can go as big as you want with this. paper your walls like this, idk

make sure your images are at a high enough resolution to look okay when printed! ideal print quality is 300ppi, but I printed this at 200ppi and it was fine. 150ppi would probably be fine too, but if you go too low it'll start to look fuzzy

#tutorial #back on my bullshit #printing #diy #poster #speed racer #?? #I guess I'll put this in the speed racer tag?? #why not

[kaeyx]

pmzai is such a little pervert i love him!! has a diary where he writes about all the things he wants you to do to him, n purposely leaving it on your nightstand in hopes of you readings it (he’s too shy to actually confront you about the things he wants), records you fucking him dumb without your knowledge, and excuses himself multiple times during the day just to jerk off in the bathroom to the video. moans obscenely loud when you’re fucking him in the office as a way of trying to get you to put your hand over his mouth to silence him.

-pmzai anon

Yes! Me too!! He's such a pathetic little guy I have to ruin him and ugghghhh your ideas are so GOOD???

First off yes the diary holy shit. It might read like the worst Wattpad porn you've ever seen or it might just be a collection of all the times he's thought about you dragging him into an alleyway and fucking him until he cries, but he's definitely leaving it somewhere you can see. Or slipping it in your papers or bag, or leaving it open on the table where you can see. Anything for you to know what he wants, and he hopes you'll want to put alllll of those ideas to the test. He might be a little bad at communicating in the moment or right after when you're cleaning him up and praising him, but he has many thoughts and feelings about your arrangement and loves to put them on paper so you notice.

Definitely sneaky enough to record your voices or just straight up make a tape, cumming again and again while he watches how you fuck into him, manhandle him, hears all those disgusting names you call him and hears himself moan like a cheap whore every time. He'd do it only once at first but he uses it so much that he memorizes it, and needs new material! Possibly getting bolder every time. And if you ever send him a voice message telling him to be ready for when you get home, or joi, or scolding him for something.... it's going straight into his porn stash. Also the type to look for people who look or sound like you online, so he can imagine it's actually you with him.

I feel like on top of sneaking videos and recordings he'd also steal your clothes, underwear, deodorant/perfume, any makeup you have or nail polish, anything that reminds him of you. I have the image of Dazai painting his nails in the colour you always wear because even if your hands look nothing alike he can see it and think of you when he jacks off. Pmzai like all Dazais is a dedicated panty stealer too, even better if they're used or covered in your or his cum. Absolute menace.

Always trying to tempt you too! Not just by being loud but also whining about how much he needs you while you're trying to do something else, or showing up to work in your clothes, or letting himself get injured and only letting you tend do him so you have to undress him.

#asks.answered #dazai.bsd #dazai x reader #dazai smut #pm!dazai

[netherworldpost]

"Say, your advertising your project's existence was just a little zine, wasn't he?"

I will never advocate being anything less than professional with Staff. Raging user at social media network is not effective or good for anyone.

A(n alleged) decrease of commitment on their part to a platform I am committed to is not a comfortable position

Ultimately, they are treating this like a business decision, which is fair

So am I. We both have an equal right to self preservation and project growth.

Here is an outline post on how to make zines in the thought line of "I run a small widget and I want people to remember I exist."

It's not for everyone, it's not the only solution, it's not perfect, it's not a one-size-fits-all. You'll have to modify it.

MY PLAN

My current numbers as of this writing is to produce a small zine using 1 sheet of paper on a custom-printed envelope and mailed to customers once a month.

Retail price will be $10/year, production cost per customer is just shy of $14/year, so each sign up costs the company $4/year (about $0.33/month).

Free shipping (simplifies things)

Billed 1 year at a time. Payment processing has a floor of $0.30, costs would be destroyed if we handled it monthly.

No auto-renew. This easily could become an experiential nightmare for customers and us as a shop. Reminders will be included during the last few months.

1 sheet of paper cut in half and folded in half stapled into a zine. Very limited space. Fun, bright, we can produce it quickly in-house. Small so it doesn't create a project backlog.

For us: this project is not to make money.

It is to remind folks we exist when they remember "oh hey Someone's Birthday is coming up, I should get a card from Netherworld Post Office. Maybe a few labels to decorate the envelope, a sticker or two for my water bottle."

From past experience, a handful-percent of customers on this kind of system will make the entire system profitable, annually.

The rest will enjoy it tremendously, which pays dividends in unexpected and myriad ways. Word of mouth of mouth of mouth of mouth of mouth (etc.)

Ultimately: the risk is brutally small.

YOUR PLAN

Can be whatever you want.

Part of the reason my costs are so high is because I want custom printed envelopes. If I got blank envelopes then rubber stamped them, I would save about 25%

But. I explicitly want crisply printed multi-colored envelopes

(because we are going to sell envelopes in time, so it's a continual proof of production in terms of what we can do)

You could also charge some or all shipping. Or raise the price. (Or not do any of this!)

There is a pin company in Canada that sends me a reminder every six months or so that they exist and like clockwork I buy a packet of pins and stickers. Not every reminder, probably 2-3 times every 3-4 years.

Same idea.

Some folks will prefer email newsletters -- which they don't pay for, that's great, we offer that too.

Online advertising exists. It can be cheap. It is always at least medium-level complicated.

Moving into the woods and saying "no social media networks for this biz!" is not practical (or us and for many)

Rebooting an audience every 5-10 years on a different network is not practical

I HOPE TUMBLR OUTLIVES ME

It is my sincere and legitimate hope that this site continues, grows, evolves, strengthens. For both personal and professional reasons.

I similarly recognize that my goals and theirs may not continue to align forever -- and that's far more my problem than theirs.

Here is the zine guide link from the beginning.

Here is our shop's landing page with newsletter signup for when we launch.

Good luck everyone (staff explicitly included in "everyone")

#zine #tumblr #small business #small business marketing #small business advertising