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luveline · 8 months

Note

hi honey, i love you so so much!!

what about stripper!reader with derek morgan?? he's on a case where strippers are being murdered, and while hotch is driving morgan calls you and tells you not to go into work because of what's going on, and emily is listening in on the conversation from the backseat and they tease him

thank youu!! love you!

ty for requesting lovely!! ilysm ♡

"I know you don't like listening to me, but could you do me a favour? Just this once?"

Emily leans over in her seat so Spencer can see her side eye. "Who's Morgan talking to?"

"Stay home tonight. No, this isn't a jealousy thing, you vixen–"

Spencer shrugs. "No idea. But–"

"But," Emily agrees. They've just left a crime scene with a specific victim, and now Morgan's on the phone asking someone to stay home. That someone would have reason to visit said crime scene's location, and the word vixen suggests female rather than male, which means, "Morgan has a secret stripper girlfriend."

Spencer's entire face takes his frown, eyebrows pinched, mouth quirked into a telling line. "I like the implausible," he murmurs, "but that feels illogical. Where would they have met?"

"Uh," Emily says, widening her eyes at him. "Where do you think, Spence?"

"Morgan doesn't need to go to a strip club."

Emily understands what Spencer's saying. There are lots of reasons that people frequent strip clubs or gentlemen's clubs and none of those reasons apply to Derek. It's possible he could go socially, but it's just so unlike him, it doesn't add up.

"I'm telling you the truth. I can't give you more detail than that, I just need you to stay home tonight." Derek pauses, laughs. "Alright," —his voice takes on a mechanical rendition, clearly having been fed a line he has to repeat aloud— "I, Derek Morgan, am an ignorant, jealous man, who can't cope with the fact that you don't want me, and am making up sad and childish lies to get you to stay home from your job. Is that what you wanted? Yeah, laugh it up."

Emily laughs and grabs the headrest as he hangs up on you, pulling herself forward to taunt him as is required. "Care to explain yourself?"

Derek sighs. "This is why I didn't tell you guys."

"What!" Spencer says, though his smile is more audible than his incredulity.

"So you have something to tell us?" Emily asks.

Derek knows he can't weasel his way out of telling them, and he doesn't really want to. "I don't have a secret stripper girlfriend," he says, rolling his eyes, "she's not my girlfriend. She is an exotic dancer at one of the clubs downtown, and I met her at Home Depot."

Emily isn't perturbed that Derek heard their gossiping. She's shameless. She doesn't even care that Hotch is frowning behind the wheel. "What was an exotic dancer doing at Home Depot?"

"Weirdly, Emily, she has a home. She wanted help finding renter friendly flooring."

"Can we meet her?"

"Never," Derek says with a smile. Emily couldn't know this, but he really likes you. You're sweet, super funny, and yes, you're a stripper. You work hard. Pole dancing is as physically demanding as any manual labour and you're damn good at it. "Ever."

Spencer interjects the ensuing argument with a statistical analysis of strippers who are homeowners (unfairly few), but Morgan doesn't answer, trying to read a new text from you discretely.

Sorry if I embarrassed you at work :( is it really not safe to go ?? Maybe u can come and be my bodyguard. I won't even make u tip me 4:10PM

He sends back, Really not safe. Stay home for me, relax for a few days. Call you tonight even if nothing changes 4:11PM

My hero <3 I trust u, but be careful OK ? and pls if it isn't too much trouble can u bring back some of those weird candies again? thank u thank u <3<3<3 4:14PM

Hotch makes a quiet sound of approval, eyes on the road. "The same girl you were with at Docklands? Rossi said she was cute."

"She is."

"Rossi met her?" Emily asks. "Oh, you're the worst."

#derek morgan #derek morgan x reader #derek morgan x you #derek morgan x y/n #derek morgan x fem!reader #derek morgan imagine #derek morgan fluff #derek morgan fanfic #derek morgan oneshot #derek morgan scenario #derek morgan drabble #derek morgan fic #derek morgan fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

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overandundertarot · 4 months

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On Loop 🔄

What's the cycle you keep perpetuating, and how can you finally break free?

pick a picture(1-2,3-4) to select your pile.

PILE ONE: King of Pentacles, Knight of Wands reversed, Ace of pentacles reversed, Knight of pentacles reversed.

I get the sense that this pile is a succesful pile of people. If someone looks at your life from an outsiders perspective they'd think its all chocolate and rainbows. You work hard and play hard. The fruits of your labour are obvious. You love to adorn yourself with your success. But despite this there's always a sense of what else? What's next? Is this it? You work towards success. Material gains. But you don't work towards your own satisfaction. You don't know your passions, your creative talents. You've neglected them. Sometimes you may find yourself sick of the people and environment around you. It feels like there's no deeper meaning. Make money and go out, next day repeat. This is the pile of people who may go on to have a life story such as being a successful business person who made a six figure salary but quit it all to become a bookseller in rural Italy.

How can you break out of this cycle?

Well, the answer is pretty obvious. You have to stop prioritisng money and monetary gain. You are too attached to money, so much so that you LIVE for money. You just can't let go of the comfort it gives you, the esteem, the safety. You are also too attached to 'productivity'. You may be really into hustle culture. If you're not working, who are you? To break out of this cycle you need to separate your identity from productivity, finances, career. Who are YOU? What do you like to do to relax? How do you indulge yourself? If you had a whole month purely to yourself, no obligations, what would you do? How would you spend your time? Essentially you need to start devoting your time and energy to yourself RADICALLY. Even if it makes no sense, even if it feels scary, even if it makes you feel lazy.

PILE TWO; Death, Queen of cups, Two of swords.

This is funny to me because usually when people have to break out of a loop, change is involved. They have to break out of something, introduce a new habit and do something different. However for you the loop you have been perpetuating is the change. Particularly of a healing type. I feel like youre always trying to climb the mountain to look into the horizon; whats next for me? How more can I improve? How more can I heal? What spiritual practice should I look into next? I feel like this is not even a distraction tactic, its just in your nature to always be curious; to always be applying yourself. But this loop is bringing dissatisfaction in your life. The energy from this pile is calm and inspiring, like a refreshing dive into a lake, or the sound of rushing water. You may be the therapist friend in your friendgroup or the one that always seems to have got it together. Also, for a lot of people in this life, you jump from relationship to relationship too quickly, you fall in love easily but also fall out of love easily. The relationships end amicably and it seems that you remain friends with these people long after.

How can you break out of this cycle?

Whatever the change may be; love, location, hobbies, healing and growth. You should allow yourself to grow roots somewhere, at the very least you should think about it. What are your requirements for setting up station in a place? What is needed for you to be somewhere long term in a way that can still appeal to your needs? Allow yourself to think about this, allow yourself to grow. By changing so constantly you did not allow yourself to reach the full potential of what you applied yourself to do. There's something here about backward procceses as well. Let me use the example of finding love, travelling to get away from that love and then doing the whole process again in the new location. But on top of that, going to the starting point again and renewing the whole process. Kind of like running in circles. There is something at the core that you are looking for in all these changes. And you just have to dig a little deeper to find it; it is with you and closer than you might have ever expected. There are somethings around you that you are not seeing or taking for granted.

PILE THREE; King of wands, Two of wands reversed, Ace of wands, Five of wands reversed.

This is a fiery, ambitious pile. You could be leos or have a strong solar influence. Pile three you are ambitious, but that ambition feels like it leads you nowhere. The cycle you're perpetuating feels like its out of your control. I feel you change your ideas to accomodate other people, trying to make them more appealing to others. Maybe you feel that other people don't understand your point of view and you want to make it digestable to them. You feel that you should be a leader or you feel constantly pushed in that direction without actually being able to measure up. Well, you have these inspiring qualities, but you are focusing too much on your reception and other people. Has any of the work you've produced appealed to you truly? You're meant to shine, if other people don't understand you, maybe that's part of your appeal. There is a lack of momentum, a blockage of the flow. The cycle is that no matter how much you try; you do not produce results.

How to break out of this cycle?

The ace of wands is obvious enough. Get inspired! Be somebody you are proud of. Do things that please and appeal to you regardless of what other people think. Be the first person to credit yourself, and if necessary don't feel ashamed to be the only person to do so. The opinion of other people is important to you, because you crave the spotlight, you want to be seen and appreciated but you have to get comfortable with the reality that this will not always be the case. There are internal blocks to work through. You'll have to be in conflict with yourself. Everytime you doubt yourself or think of what you are capable of as too simple or 'basic', you have to fight yourself. Loudly dissaprove of that, show even the simplest of your work and gass yourself up for it. Let's take an example of an artist. To you, you may be the worst artist in the world but to someone else, your art has value. In this situation don't change your artsyle to fit the mainstream or hinder yourself from showcasing your art and showing it to other people, sending it to magazines etc just because you hate it. They may love it and it could be the thing that propels you to fame. Or maybe it was a drawing that only took 5 minutes to draw so you think it needed more effort than the time it took so you scrap it. But it was a good drawing that was suitable for presentation. You have to treat yourself like you're the shit!! Affirmations may work for you. I feel that something as simple as; 'I am awesome' may have an effect on you. 'I am beautiful.' 'I am amazing.' 'I am kind.' 'My work is good.' 'I did great!' Do you even tell yourself these things? Build self confidence, don't be ashamed to be perceived as pridefull.

PILE FOUR: The moon, Knight of pentacles, The lovers, Seven of cups.

Confusion, illusion. You're hopping from one idea to the next. I think you're the type of person who has very good ideas. And you work on them, in the beggining but then abandon them for your next one. You want something that is going to sustain your attention. Something that will feel like your true calling. It seems you feel that you can only work when motivated. There is a lack of discipline. Some of you are talking to people? Or hoping for communications from people and you are working very hard for them to help you. But its for nothing, their promises are lies. I have a feeling you know this but are still holding on to the hope. For some of you, this looks like constantly signing up for dating apps or websites and being ghosted. Also, being a people pleaser and trying so hard for people who don't care about you. Either way, there is self deceit involved in your situation. You don't have a clear view of your reality and are operating on grounds of your assumptions being true when they are not.

How can you break out of this loop?

Keep dreaming, but be more discerning about it. When you find yourself held within one of your hyper fixations, know that this is not the end all be all. Possibly, keep working on all those things at the same time. You will eventually come to see that one of them is one that you can do well and enjoy at the same time. The one that strikes the perfect balance. Keep the fact that you always have other options available at the back of your mind. Also, there is advice to put in the work, but the slow boring, grueling work. Particularly when it comes to a project or a person. Steady progress is what will help break you out of the cycle because its something you haven't seen much of. For those who are going through this cycle with romantic interests, the partner who makes you feel steady and is reliable is the best one for you. Even though they may not necessarily be the most 'exciting' option. This isn't to say that you should settle with someone just because they fit the description. But assess your partners more keenly and look past passion and into what you actually need from a relationship and who can provide that.

****

That's all! I haven't posted a PAC in a while so it felt really good to work on this and post this. If you liked the reading feel free to like the post and reblog! If you'd like to book a private reading with me, send me a dm or check out my private readings post in my masterlist pinned on my page!

#pac #overandundertarot #divination #tarot #pick a card #intuitive reading #pick a pile #tarot pick a card #pick a picture #free readings #free tarot readings #tarotblr

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dracowars · 11 months

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Could I please request an Anakin X reader where reader gets overwhelmed in a mission and Anakin gets her out?

overwhelmed | anakin skywalker

pairing: anakin x jedi!reader

word count: 1,1k

summary: where y/n gets overwhelmed on a mission

a/n: i missed writing so much, especially for anakin so i really hope that you enjoy it <3 feedback and reblogging is always appreciated!

warnings: angst, mentions of death, mentions of blood

universe: star wars

"What's happening down there?!", Anakin screams at the hologram map in front of him, demanding to know what is going on on the planet beneath the Resolute. His eyes frantically roam over the map, trying to find the source that caused the small transporter and the protective shields around it to be blown to bits. "General Y/L/N, do you copy?"

It was supposed to be an easy mission with no complications. The plan was simple: deliver the required weapons and care packages to the surface of Ryloth to support the troops and then leave again without a trace, not alarming the Separatists while giving your men an advantage. But instead of doing that, you walked right into a trap.

Pressing your body, which is still shaking from the bomb's hard impact, against a shattered part of the transporter, you try to control your breath, squinting your eyes to see through the dust. Inhaling it, you cough several times, waving your hand in front of your face to make the smoke slowly disappear. You hardly see anything around you, at most silhouettes of soldiers lying on the ground, injured or worse. And very close by, you hear the loud mechnical noise of spider droids coming your way.

Ignoring the panic rising within your veins, you close your eyes and try to think about your next move, trying to find a way out of this. Only then do you notice your com and the voice coming from it, instantly grounding you.

"I copy. We ran into an ambush, I don't know how many of my men survived", you answer into the comlink, forcing your voice to sound as steady as possible. But Anakin notices. He always does.

"You need to get out of there. Right now!", Anakin says with pressure, not paying attention to the fact that he has never felt so relieved to hear you voice, that, as far as he can tell, you are safe and sound. And he does not care what his men around him think, why he is so keen on getting you out of there in one piece.

When the explosions happened, Anakin felt his heart stop, his world stopped spinning. But hearing your voice right now makes it a lot more bearable because you are still there, you are still with him. He should have been down there with you and he is beating himself up for not insisting on coming with you.

"Sir, I don't think that is possible", another voice clarifies through the comlink as Bly, your commander, approaches your side, kneeling in front of you as he speaks to Anakin. His armor is covered in dust and mud, but he appears to have survived the attack without any major damages.

"Why not?", both Anakin and you ask at the same time.

"General, you are injured", Bly points out, motioning to your lower body, which is, indeed, covered in blood. Taking in a deep, shaky breath, your eyes widen and you press your hand on the bleeding wound where a piece of metal must have hit you. Only then do you notice the excruciating pain running through your body, previously hidden by the adrenaline that was still rushing through your veins mere seconds ago.

"How bad is it?", Anakin wants to know immediately, his knuckles turning white from grabbing the table with the hologram map forcefully as it is making fun of him for not being down there with you, only showing him what happened without him being able to intervene.

"I don't think any important organs are damaged, but I can't be sure, Sir. And the Separatists are approaching our current location quickly", Bly explains, offering you an encouraging smile, but all you can feel is bile rising up your throat and panic lacing your laboured breathing. "They knew we would come."

"And they were only waiting to strike", Anakin concludes, lowering his head while searching for answers. But with his heart painfully beating against his chest and your ragged breathing over the com, he can't concentrate. He needs to get you out of there.

"Prepare a shuttle", he orders one of the clones around him, his voice harsh and demanding while you are down there, possibly fighting for your life right now.

"Sir, we are not equipped for such a rescue", you hear from afar, the unbearable pain blocking everything out.

"I can do it, Anakin. It's f-fine", you try to convince him, your hands trembling and your voice only a whisper. Every breath hurts, it gets worse every second and you know that you reached your limit.

You know you won't make it. Even with Bly by your side, the chances of leaving this planet alive are falling close to zero. This realization hits you hard and a single tear slips down your cheek, leaving a wet streak on your dirty face.

"A-Anakin?", you call out to him in pain, the beeping in your ears getting louder and louder. But he does not answer.

Looking up at the sky, in the direction where your transporter came from, where Anakin is located right now, you force a smile on your lips. Black stars cloud your vision as you desperately reach for the Force, calling him.

"General, what are you-", is the last static sound you hear before your body slips into complete darkness.

════════════

Anakin is not the type to stand there doing nothing when the love of his life is on the verge of leaving this galaxy, no matter the cost. And he certainly does not care about being equipped for the rescue. Because if someone is going to get you out of there safely, then it is Anakin Skywalker.

And that is exactly what he is planning on doing the moment he leaves the bridge, when he jumps into the Twilight and lands on the rough surface of Ryloth. When he takes down every single droid with his own hands, leaving behind a trail of destruction. When he finally reaches you, unconscious frame held up by your loyal commander.

Immediately, he takes you onto his arms, carrying you to his ship with the remaining soldiers following and flanking you. The determination in Anakin's eyes is eerie, he speaks no word, only making sure to get you off this planet in no time.

Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, he reaches out to you with the Force, just like you did before leaving into unconsciousness, telling him to leave you behind and complete the mission. The moment he does, he feels your warmth, your joy emanating through his body and your eyes flutter. Softly, your hand touches his, your lips parting ever so slightly as you croak: "I knew you would come."

"I always will", Anakin answers, placing a delicate kiss on your forehead, squeezing your hand in his gently. "I will always come for you, my angel."

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acti-veg · 10 months

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i genuinely feel like it’s impossible to be an ethical person without sacrificing pretty much everything which gives me any joy

i went vegan, but now i just keep seeing how i fall short in so many other ways. it seems like everything i previously enjoyed has to be boycotted. everything is problematic in some way.

I don't feel like 'ethical' is a thing anyone actually just achieves and becomes 'an ethical person' one day by being nice enough and boycotting enough companies; it's something we have to strive for. I agree with Aristotle that virtue is a skill, it's not something you just are, it's something you have to constantly practice and that won't always be easy. That is made all the more difficult by capitalism.

Whatever you want to buy that will give you joy that you know is harmful, consider whether there is a more ethical version. Can you buy it second hand? Is there a more ethical company selling the same thing? Can you replace it with something else? You can't deny yourself every pleasure, but if something that brings you joy is inherently harmful you can choose to examine whether or not you actually need it to feel happy, and if you really do, how you can mitigate at least some of that harm. It's about choosing your battles.

I can't not eat any vegetables or grains without a severe health impact for example, and I can't afford to buy everything locally and I can't grow it all myself, so I buy it from the supermarket, knowing that much of it will have been farmed in environmentally destructive ways using unfair labour practices. People who aren't even trying will bring that up as a reason why veganism isn't ethical, but it's a lot better than consuming that unethical produce alongside animal products, which require even more of that exact produce.

I can't be completely cruelty free but I can relatively easily boycott animal products, and I can pay for the extra 15% on coffee, chocolate and bananas to buy Fair Trade. There is just about no smartphone or computer that does what I need it to do that is also ethical, but I can buy them refurbished instead of new. I can boycott particularly harmful companies, while knowing that what I replace their products with won't be ethically perfect either - just better. None of these are hugely commendable acts or difficult sacrifices, but it all helps.

Being vegan does not make you a good person, it's just one stance on one particular issue, which is the exploitation of animals. I oppose exploiting animals and refusing to purchase products which engage in that exploitation is accessible to me, and so I do it. It's that simple. Plenty of my other purchases aren't ethical and neither will yours be, because a lifestyle free from any and all harm is not possible under capitalism.

So long as you're doing your best that's really all anyone can expect. We're going to pass through this world just once, so we should enjoy it while trying to leave our small corner of it a little better off than it was before we got there. Being kind to one another and living a good life may not always be easy, but its also not some great burden that robs you of any joy. It is the entire point of living.

#ask #vegan #ethics #philosophy #ethical consumerism

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eusuchia · 5 months

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sorry to the anon but I couldn't figure out how to edit my answer once it was in my drafts (great website).

the question was (badly paraphrasing) shouldn't we try to preserve the livelihoods of ceramicists and weavers too? and instead of saying 'mass production already killed this industry, and it will happen to others,' try to save more art from it?

basically yes! deskilling due to industrial capitalism sucks and mass production makes commodity fetishism infinitely worse. I think it's important to preserve craft knowledge and don't think we should just cede everything to industrialization, but that feeling isn't going to shift industrial trends -- only industrial action will do that. for what it's worth, it's really annoying to hear 'just unionize!' as an artist, when many, like me, are self-employed/freelance, and without sudden mass interest in some kind of low-entry-requirement sectoral guild, are not very unionizable because we don't have workplaces in the traditional sense. but by sheer numbers a lot of the job loss to AI would be corporate-level, I think, and there's more potential for people employed by like, marvel, to actually do something significant about the use of AI, than for individual customers trying to throw their weight around by buying or boycotting. I'm happy to get proved wrong here by some targeted mass boycott campaign, but I'm not holding my breath.

on a personal level I regularly spend money on handmade ceramics, fiber arts, and original art commissions both physical and digital because I find them valuable and beautiful. but I also use my IKEA plates and print-on-demand t-shirts, functionally devaluing those crafts. no amount of hypothetical discourse shaming me for 'stealing from working craftsmen' would really change that due to the economic realities. (tangentially, I don't use AI as a stand-in for commissioned art because they are not at all interchangeable to me.)

broadly though, isn't every kind of automation 'taking a livelihood' from someone in theory? my original reply to metamatar's post was basically asking where you draw the line. digital printing is taking the work of typesetters and sign painters, canva presets are taking the work of graphic designers, slip casting is taking the work of ceramicists. yet those trades still exist, and if anything I think their creative horizons are a little wider when the drudgery of the industry is taken up by machines. I know that's paltry compensation for a vanishing job market under capitalism, but isn't it a good thing when ceramicists and weavers are free to explore their ideas and not confined to backbreaking work of making the same bowls or yards of tweed for years on end? (especially in The Good Society with robust social protection that we should all be fighting for anyway)

there can be different use cases for these things (artisanal vs mass produced) and one use doesn't mean 1:1 something is being stolen from the other. personally I'm never going to pay someone to render my likeness instead of taking a photo; the money that's being 'lost' by a realism portrait artist there is purely hypothetical. same for when people get mad about others generating AI art for fun. 'you could have paid an artist for this [generated meme in the style of hr giger]' ok but they weren't going to and you can't make them.

I think people are unthinkingly flattening all kinds of creative labour when they talk about what might happen with AI. to start with, people are often talking about the job market of the first world/imperial core/etc despite the huge amounts of creative labour in/outsourced to other countries. but wherever you want to apply AI -- I don't think boutique client-based work is ever going to vanish, because the stuff that AI can do well is limited to certain types of digital illustration and animation, and you need human, creative problem-solving for new creative work, even on industrial levels with lots of automating tools in the workflow. art directors with good sense can see that. big name editorial illustrators are going to remain big name editorial illustrators. etc. (tbh, I think even the stuff AI is 'good at' looks dogshit a lot of the time, hence my disinterest in it, but that's a personal valuation and has no economic bearing.)

I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, especially because managers and execs are often stupid and have bad taste and want to 'incorporate AI' when it makes no fucking sense, and would gladly thin out their staff for any reason. but that is ultimately a labour problem and not an artistic one.

#sorry I got carried away there. just digesting a lot of things I've been thinking about already.#I really am trying not to be flippant about artists who are really anxious about industrial trends but yelling at people online won't help #I promise #also there's a whole conversation about IP and copyright I'm not touching on here when it comes to 'protecting art'#but in brief: copyright is not your friend as an artist

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river-taxbird · 9 months

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Soon I'm going to be starting a master's degree in international accounting with data analytics, so to celebrate, I figured I'd pass on a little of what I know:

Artists: How to Cost your Commissions.

If you are an artist and you aren't sure what you should charge, or if you're not an artist but wonder why they might cost more than you'd expect, read on. This is just one way to do costing, but if you've not thought about it much, this post is for you.

I'm not a hustle bro, I'm just your friendly neighbourhood anarchist who picked a slightly incongruent degree and wants people to be fairly compensated for their labour.

First you need to determine your financial goal. This is where you want to be, and it's probably more than you think. This is assuming you either want to go full time with your art, or want to use it to supplement your income. If you are just doing it casually on the side you probably shouldn't think about it this hard and just skip to the part about the hourly rate.

So how much money do you need? Start by adding up all your expenses. All of them. Rent, food, entertainment, whatever. Include some extra for your savings. Don't forget tax too.

To calculate tax, you can't just multiply it by the percent either. You need to gross it up, so if the tax is 20% where you live, multiply your net financial goal it by 20/80 to get the tax you need to pay, so it's actually 25%. The same goes for if it's 40%, it would be 40/60. Add that as a other expense.

If you already have a job and want to supplement your income with commissions, your figure should be the difference between where you are now and where you want to be financially, but you need to be realistic.

Financial goal - Other Income = Commission Income Goal.

Next you need to determine your labour hours. This will vary widely depending on your style, habits, and other obligations, but it's up to you to determine how many hours a week or a month you are able to work. It also helps to do your budget with different amounts of labour hours so you can prepare for the unexpected. Maybe you can do 10 hours a week, maybe you can do 40. Don't forget to budget in time off. I'm never going to be in that hustle shit and work shouldn't dominate your life.

Now you should be able to calculate your approximate labour hours for the year. Maybe it's a little, maybe it's a lot, maybe you'll need to try some different numbers until you can get something that works for you, but I'm sure you can guess what comes next.

Required income ÷ Labour Hours = Cost per Hour

Have you ever walked into a business class by accident, and as the famous tweet says, the teacher is writing a fomula like that on the board and everyone is taking notes like it's actual school? Now you can use it too.

Next you need to figure out average times for each style of piece, colours, shading, backgrounds, extra characters, you should be able to get an idea of how long each kind of drawing takes, so from there it's just,

Cost per hour × Hours required = Commission Cost

It would be nice to be done there, right? Sadly this isn't a magical finance class class world, so if you've ever taken an econ 101 class, you know what's coming.

Supply and demand mostly only works in theory and falls apart in many real world circumstances, (Economists DNI) but for online art it's actually fairly reliable. The calculation above is what your ideal cost should be, especially if you are thinking of going full time, but in reality the main thing that determines your com prices is supply and demand. How much do people pay for art the same fidelity as yours? Is there a demand for your unique style? Some artists can charge hundreds an image because they are popular, some are great but the demand isn't there.

Basically what I'm saying is to massage the numbers until you commission cost is someone people are willing to pay for. That's finance baybeeee

The whole of this post is don't undervalue yourself. Even if the market value of your art is technically below what it should be for you to make ends meet, you shouldn't undervalue yourself. Keep your goals in mind and make your prices as high as they can while people will still pay for it. I can't wait for the day when market values are a thing of the past and people can make what they want because we are no longer being forced to do bullshit to survive.

Your art is probably worth more than you think. Value your time and charge what you deserve.

#costing #personal finance #economists log off #insomnia posting #the real secret is that living off commissions is usually not achievable for all but artists with top tier technical skills #so start a patron if you can

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ghooostbaby · 4 months

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maybe it's because i had to get a new computer for school in the last few months (and also being back in University post-pandemic when they figured out they can offload a lot of costly labour to provide university services by offloading the responsibilities to the students by making things "virtual/online/digital")

but it feels like a very steep curve of acceleration in just how mediated by online/digital/computer accounts and processes my life is ... everything i need to do or need to acquire I have to find some online platform that I need an account for and then have to go through all these extra identity verification methods to get into and then invariably some part of that process goes wrong, or i DO get into them and then something I'm trying to use them for and there's no accessible way to find support from a fellow human. just the coldly serene text of the FAQ pages spinning me in circles where the thing I need that should be so attainable I get error after error that I can't contact anyone to help me resolve... it's kind of grim and terrifying what the future is going to become with such an accelerated push into more and more computer automated technology.

i truly do feel like a ghost trapped in a machine ... it feels totally alienating. like I'm just floating in this vacuum of metal and 2020s website design unable to enter anywhere, just doing 2 step verifications and creating and entering account information and account synchronizations that go nowhere and i can never move beyond this place...

even my fucking university exams. all of them this semester are "remotely proctored", for courses required for the degree we have to provide our own space to do an exam (when there are reports every night on the news of the complete crisis of housing in this country) on our own computer, download a chrome plug-in that seems to be spyware that will monitor you through your webcam and microphone and record your screen, and if AI notices any flag behaviours notify your prof who will watch your video to see if you were cheating... the amount of logistical work I had to do to get set up for this exam, when I have enough to do with studying for the exam, it makes me so angry how much of University services are being eroded away and the work is being pushed off on students to do for free, actually we're PAYING THEM to do this. I even have a disability and asked the disability office for accommodations for the exam, because when I was at a University before I had always been told part of my accommodations were to do the exam in a separate space to help with distractions and anxiety... so if that's the case for an exam where the University handles all the logistical considerations, I would think it certainly should be where I have to do the exam in my home where I have no control over the noise around my apartment or find some public place to do it, and all the work I need to do setting up my computer for this ... and the disability services basically said "nice try" and gave me some canned bureaucratic "please fuck off" response. the last exam I did I booked a study room at the library and took out one of the laptops the library loans and the webcam was not working and I missed the first 35 minutes of the hour time limit trying to figure it out. I contacted my professor and the exam support (thankfully at least this is ONE case one of these online platforms allows access to a human support person) and they started the hour from the time I got into the exam, but it was so stressful. the next day my professor emailed me to get the details because they wanted to make a complaint about the library for it and I'm like ... these librarians are the ONLY things keeping me from totally losing my mind and just being a human presence talking to me and helping me out in the faceless void digitally automated hellscape...

i had kind of been safe for a while with my ancient macbook that just couldn't access certain websites and apps, that was slowly having more and more apps and websites just refuse to support my OS anymore ... now that i can access them I have to say this is much worse.

#THIS IS A RANT #computers #i wish you a very die #ARGH #fuck google #fuck AI #give me back human beings #'dark academia' for real #dystopic academia #technology

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fumblingmusings · 11 months

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why do you say kiku is part of the problem in your end note of the chapter? is he knowingly or unknowingly being manipulated by alfred or something regarding putting evelyn in her "cage"? sorry i dont really understand why she's in a cage too post-war (at least not anymore than other nations also subject to the international order, alliances and power hierarchies).

These two asks are kind of related so forgive me pinning them together! This is long and rambling, so please forgive me if it's not particularly coherent and is obtuse. I wanted the ending to be a bit off. Like things are better, but there's still a lot of the same old problems that remain.

But yes, Evie has in many ways done a full circle. The people dictating what she can and cannot do have shifted from the Cromwells and Naval Officers and Prime Ministers to simply Alfred.

This is fine by her, as one is much more benevolent than the others. She had been wanting it for a long time anyway.

She is fine it because she is genuinely in a better place after the war, Alfred genuinely cares for her and wants to help her, but. You know. America's poodle and all that. Especially tossed England's way under that Blair Labour Gov and anytime she disagrees with Europe.

Regardless of the truth of such a label, I wanted to - in the fic - show just how there is no easy and correct path for these guys to walk, because despite all the love they have for each other, international relations is going to keep butting them in the head. Everyone in the story lacks autonomy one way or another, the trouble is trying to work out a system that they are either happy or functional within it.

Alfred began wanting to break out of that construct - he ends the story as perhaps its biggest enforcer.

History rarely repeats, but it sure does rhyme. Eva has a decent relationship with the kids and is entering a romantic relationship. There's also progression: she is going to confront and look at how she failed people, with the knowledge that maybe she can't fix it, but she still needs to try regardless.

However, for all that progress, her and Kiku know, if Alfred had said 'no' to them reuniting, their conversation wouldn’t have happened. England and Japan rarely do anything together on an international level without America giving its backing.

Yes Alfred loves her dearly, but she is very clearly the junior player in that relationship now. Her ability to intentionally or incidentally cause harm to others has been greatly reduced, and with that comes the need and chance for her to seriously look at what she did(n't) do. She feels more free because she is more free, but she is also very dependent on Alfred maintaining that.

Alfred's last line: 'we're all together, just like I promised.'

He never promised that. Evelyn did. Alfred internalised it and sort of went: 'only on my terms'. Evelyn accepted this before she got him to shoot her last chapter, saying essentially: 'fine, do whatever you want with me, but you need to protect me if so'. She had been trying to make that transfer for years. Wanting Alfred to be the world’s major player has always been her in some ways trying to exercise autonomy... by signing over autonomy. Maybe that's a really cynical way of looking at it though.

This makes Alfred sound incredibly cruel and Eva a poor victim, but that's really, really not my intention. She never held power in her own right, always propped up by sucking the life out of others. She had to have it ripped away for everyone's sake. Her status required exploitation. She trusts Alfred to do the right thing. Should she? How different is Alfred from her really? Has the dynamic just flipped? Ehhhhh... Open ended I think.

#q&a #fanfic ask

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not-poignant · 22 days

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hi pia i just wanted to respond to what you said in your tags about the burnout w chronic illness. and i dont mean to condescend or blame but i think your burnout came about because you are an absolute beast of a writer!!!!! the amount of words you were pushing out consistently had me wondering what kind of spell you must’ve been on. (in a good way, except it turned out to be harming you) you worked really really hard for a long time, i think harder than many healthy people even (my chronic illness could never). i know you also enjoyed writing (we enjoyed it too!), but that workload honestly never looked sustainable. the astounding part is not that you burned out, but that you managed to push for so long, despite your handicaps and hardships. want to be careful not to sound like im praising/blaming you. but you’re really just build different than a lot of folks. i hope you had time to recharge so far and keep taking it easy. i do miss your updates but i can assure you im fine waiting, as are your other readers! its really okay! get better soon 💐🐀💓

Hi anon,

This is very kind of you to say, but tbh, I don't think many people know how much some writers can, well, write.

I might seem like an over-achiever, but there are writers out there who easily write around 6000-10000 words per day, and release a book per month. I have met successful authors who aim for 150k or 200k at NaNo, because 50,000 words is 5 days of work to them.

It's hard for me to comprehend, because I know I can't do that. But likewise, I think many folks don't realise that I actually used to write a lot more than I do now!! For some years it was normal for me to write 50-80,000 words every single month. NaNo was a joke. That caused burnout, and so I adjusted down to a 25,000 minimum monthly wordcount which sometimes felt so easy that it was absurd. I now have a maximum which I have to adhere to per month (50k), because it's too easy to go past it.

For me, writing is relatively easy. It's still work, yes. I still need to put time into it. But I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who hasn't done it for thousands and thousands of hours. I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who can only touch type at 80 wpm, when I touch type at 120-150 wpm.

The amount of stories is an issue, and the number of chapter updates is an issue, but the actual output re: words themselves really isn't. In fact I've written more words this month than I did last month already, and will very likely hit my monthly minimum with the next chapter.

The things that contributed to my burnout are multifaceted. Getting a puppy. A death in the family. Not having access to the mental health drugs I need to function for a long period of time. Friendship disintegration. These things can cause burnout in anyone, even if they are working very sustainably, because they all require separate labour on top of the labour that someone is doing for their job.

When I come back from hiatus, I will not be writing less. I don't believe the wordcount is the issue and haven't for a long time. I will be scheduling out less chapters, because admin is overwhelming to me. If you told me that my job wasn't writing anymore, but I had to schedule + figure out when to post twice as many chapters, I'd fail, lmao.

So I will be addressing admin stuff! But the amount of words I was pushing out, anon, was completely sustainable, and in fact a highly reduced number compared to what I was pushing out 6/7 years ago. Anon, I have been pushing out this many words or more for 5 years without stopping until now. It's felt comfortable. It's been so much less than what I used to make myself write.

So yeah, again, it can be hard for people who don't do this professionally to imagine writing at this level. And all professionals are different. I couldn't write 150k for NaNoWriMo, but the people writing 100k a month find that extremely easy to do. How I feel about their output - that it's impossible (because it is for me) is not how they feel about their output. For them writing 50k a month to make it easy might be extremely laughable to them, like, 5 days of work and then they get 25 days off. That's sometimes how I've felt about 25k (though it's more like 10 days of work to me - which is great, because I have chronic illness lol, so I need a lot of rest days and periods).

The amount of words I was pushing out consistently will be the amount I go back to because that is truly the most sustainable part of my job. I don't expect folks who haven't plugged in as many hours into writing, and who haven't written millions of words to understand, but the fact is the more you do something, the faster you get at it. The more practice you have, the more competent you become.

That was actually how I knew the burnout was so bad, because the easiest part of my job - the words + the writing - was impossible last month, and I only ended up with 14k for the first time in 5 years, and had to make a call.

The reason the hiatus is so frustrating is that so much of it is being caused by external factors, and not actually the job itself. Like yes, I am working on too many stories, and I can address that, but I was actually doing much higher wordcounts when I was working on less stories.

It's all the extra stuff that becomes very overwhelming! But I'll get there anon, and my wordcounts aren't going anywhere.

#asks and answers #pia on writing #no one else can decide what is causing my burnout except for me and my therapists #and someone else being like 'i couldn't imagine writing your wordcounts so it must be that' is like #it's kind of you to want to problem solve it anon but that is not the problem #those word counts are actually the *solution* to #a different kind of burnout i had 5-7 years ago lmao #if a person cooks dinner every night all their life #and then has 20 other things in their life go wrong #so they can't cook dinner anymore #the thing they need to permanently stop is not cooking dinner #it's the 20 other things #aslkfjsda that's where i'm at #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

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bread-and-roses-too · 1 year

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not to go nuts over a random song that got popular on tik tok but the part of Labour where they go "it's not an act of love if you make her" makes me feel righteous rage. Obviously the immediate thought goes to sex which is of course a good message, but if you take it a step deeper it really starts to fuck with your head. Cooking, cleaning, caring for someone when they're sick, those are all supposed to be acts of love. But because they're so expected that you basically can't avoid them they become chores, and more than chores they become required. I've heard a lot of cishet women, including my own mom, talk about how they can never take a break because their family can't function without them. I love to cook and bake, but I would never show off that love or skill until very late in a relationship with a man. For a long time I didn't cook or bake at all because I was afraid of being seen as "wife material" because "wife material" means "taken advantage of by men who don't want to put in their fair share". I feel like the exploitation of women is so normalized that even if you want to do traditional housewife roles you have to stay out of them to avoid being abused and taken advantage of. It's not an act of love if you make her, so many of us have stopped showing love in the form of housewife tasks to avoid being roped into relationships with men who will make us serve them. I just want to bake my future partner a cake without worrying how they and other people will view it in the framework of gender.

[image id: a banner that says "this post is about misogyny, do not derail" on the first line and "terfs, twerfs, and swerfs dni" on the second line].

#inclusive feminism

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inevitably-johnlocked · 2 years

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Hey Steph! This is kinda a weird ask but well, I don't really have a reason. Its just that I turned 20 yesterday and I feel so lost, so I was wondering if you had any advice on you know... navigating life in your twenties or something

Hey Nonny!

First off: Happy birthday! I hope it was a good one!

Secondly, Nonny, it's COMPLETELY NORMAL to feel lost at your age, honest to goodness. I certainly felt like my life was going nowhere at that age, being denied from college and stuck working a retail job with no benefits because they refused to give me the final 2 hours I needed to be full-time.

I actually answered a similar ask back in May 2022 from a Nonny who didn't know what they should do now that they were 19, and I think that the advice is fitting for someone in your place as well. The long-short (HAH, spoilers, it’s not short at all) of it is this, plus some extras I missed on that last post:

Get your finances sorted as soon as you're making some money.

You DON'T have to have everything figured out already. It's SO FUCKING ANNOYING that people y'all are supposed to look up to preach the whole grind-set mentality, which in turn makes people feel like utter failures before they're 25. It's SO gross and a horrific way of putting pressure on people that – let's be real – these people only see as chattel for babies or future mindless worker drones who won't question authority.

Take your time to figure out what you want to do. I took a two-year gap between high school and college, and I don't regret it. I didn't go back to school until I was 21. My gap years were used to work. I was also fortunate enough that my parents let me live at home rent-free during this time, so I KNOW that I am more privileged than most. If you can do it though, and it's safe for you to do it, I recommend it. It will give you time to REALLY consider your options and career choices, and not jump from course-to-course and accrue more and more debt.

University is NOT better than Community College. They drill the opposite in your brain when you're in high-school because – guess what – University costs more of YOUR time and money. Absolutely, there are things only Uni can do that you can't at college... think of it this way: if you want a more hands-on career that will give you beneficial skills all across the board, take college. If you want a career that requires a bunch of letters before or after your name, take university. It's literally that simple. I wish someone told me that in high school when I felt like utter garbage for getting denied from university. Now, nearly 2 decades later, I have a fulfilling career that I enjoy, for the most part.

Sometimes, University OR College isn't the answer. A lot of people just don't go on to post-secondary education, and THAT'S OKAY. North America (and probably other continents and countries) have made education a luxury product, something only those who get approved for loans or can afford to pay the admission fees can have. There's NOTHING wrong with being an apprentice for a skilled labour job, or wanting to work retail and want to move up in the company. Sometimes that's YOUR calling. Hoity-toity, entitled people will sneer at the same people who fix the electrical or plumbing work in their houses or make them their no-foam 7$ lattes in the morning, which I've always found rather hypocritical and hilarious. Do what's best for YOU, and not what's best for someone else. Heck, if YouTube is what you want to do, do that. Research. Go to Skillshare or Linda.com and self-teach yourself some useful skills. Do you like to write? Write that novel you wanted to, and fish it out for interest. Are you an artist? Make a serious go at selling your work.

Know your worth. I know it's hard, but please know that you are not any better or worse than someone else. Regardless of your path in life, know that people will pay you fairly for your skill if they're not a "choosing beggar" and know the value of it.

Learn about yourself. I had my journey of self-discovery in my mid 30's. I wish I had it sooner. Since you have the time, maybe start soul searching and asking yourself questions about yourself and what you want to do. It's a scary thing, but in the end, you will come out more at peace with yourself and the world around you.

It's okay to enjoy things, be it fandom, food, entertainment, a place, a hobby, or life itself. Don't let people tell you otherwise.

You're never too old to have fun.

Be your authentic self. Don't be shamed into thinking you're "cringy". And if you don't know who your authentic self is, I direct you to my "learn about yourself" point. I used to put too much value into what people thought about me, and to an extent, I still do care a bit since I sadly have divided myself up into 4 different people: Work Steph, Personal Life Steph, Fandom Steph, and Public Steph. It's a system that's worked for me, but it doesn't for everybody, and I wish now I could be Personal and Fandom Steph for my Public and Work Steph. BUT, again, I try my best to be my authentic self when I can these days... because honestly? Betty from Economics 1A won't even fucking remember your name in 2 years. Billy from Accounting will give no fucks about you after you leave your previous job. It's an unnecessary stress we hold ourselves to, thinking people care more than they actually do. And you know what? If they actually DO care in a way that negatively impacts you, that's THEIR fucking problem, not yours.

Parents and family aren't always right. Not gonna go into the full details here on my own personal story since it can be found across various other posts, but long-short is that sometimes, cutting certain people out of your life for your own sanity and mental health, despite your best efforts to try to keep some semblance of a relationship with them, is the only answer. You'll feel sad, but you won't regret the decision. Reading about psychology as a hobby in my spare time helped me see what was happening wasn't fair to myself, and looking at the situation from an outsider's perspective made me see that the person was doing more harm than good.

Therapy is GOOD, even if it's just a once-a-month thing. Now that I'm finally talking to someone about my own traumas, no matter how minute (and even some I wasn't aware even affected me), I'm finally understanding that what happened in the past wasn't my fault, and that my feelings of self-doubt are valid and we're working on learning self-love.

You don't have to have a significant other in your life to be happy. Another bullshit thing that going to religious schools fucking drilled into my head, was trying to convince me that I needed a man (HAH!) and a child (SNORTS NO THANKS) to feel fulfilled in my life. Well, joke's on them, I am 100% not straight, and 100% do not want kids NOR sex, so LOOOOOOOL (of course, I didn't know about the former until I did that soul-searching thing, heh. The latter was brought about mostly from retail work). Am I lonely? Of course I am, and yes, I DO want someone to spend my days with, but you know what I'm not? I'm never bored, and I make my own entertainment. I go to movies and on trips by myself. I'll eat at a restaurant by myself. It's honestly great. Downside is, though, now I'm FIERCELY independent, and I am REALLY frustrated if / when something disrupts my "normal" day. I need to plan a day with friends WAY in advance so that I can mentally prepare to be disrupted from my "timeline", that other people just don't follow schedules like I do. And that's okay.

Get hobbies outside of blogging. This is more self-advice to me than anything else. Don't let being perpetually online be the only thing you do. Enjoying the outdoors or knitting or going for a run are underrated. Being on Twitter or TikTok all day long is VERY BAD for your mental health. Learn to re-connect with people. I know this is hypocritical of me to be saying as the Tumblr addict that I am, but you're still young, save yourself, my god, lol. Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with spending a couple hours a day online, but unless it's your job, just... find something other than being glued to your phone or computer as a hobby. Playing a video game is just as productive.

Learn to cook and/or do basic home economics, like sewing and cleaning. Another thing they stopped teaching in school. I learned to cook in school. We had a home-ecs course in high-school. I learned basic sewing, and which chemicals should NOT be mixed together to clean. I learned I love LOVE baking. LOVE IT. And I'm an AMAZING baker. It's just TOO fucking hot in the summer to bake in my apt, lol.

It's okay to be stressed, and it's okay to cry as a release mechanism for that stress. I've been mocked in my younger years for crying when I'm frustrated, and in my older years I feel shame when I do. I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because I'm frustrated and stressed and a situation feels out of my control. My therapist told me it's a totally normal response, and I guess I just needed someone to tell me that, so I'm here to tell you that too. Regardless of your gender identity, IT'S OKAY TO CRY.

And branching off of that, you're not showing weakness when you show compassion and empathy for other people. Honestly, this world would be a better place if more people cared about other people in a genuine way.

Which segues nicely into: Never, EVER hesitate to show you care. Love comes in many forms, and saying "I love you" can mean the world to someone. I do it because I genuinely care about people, and because the one time I didn't say it, I couldn't ever say it to that person ever again. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and yes, I get hurt a lot, but for that one hurt I feel, I'm certain that 5 other people genuinely needed to hear SOMEONE, ANYONE tell them that they are loved or that someone is thinking of them. At least that's my hope, anyway.

There's a reason they're called "safe spaces" and even neurotypical people, and people who mock them need them, even if they don't realize it. My safe space is my bedroom wrapped in blankets and hugging exactly 2 pillows, with my phone and an old fave fic queued up in iBooks. Yours might be your car, or a place with lots of people, or an online forum, or heck, even your work's bathroom stall in a pinch. Sometimes we just need a place to go to to re-collect ourselves and mentally prep ourselves to deal with bullshit again. Find yourself a few comfort places, because believe me, as you get older and have to deal with more and more and MORE bullshit in today's economy and society, you will need a place to deescalate your mounting tension. I make sure I have one in every place I go to regularly.

So yeah, not much else I can think of at the moment, but I hope these will get you started. I hope you are alright, lovely, and I am sorry for the delay in a response... I just needed a block of time I could sit down and really give you a heart-felt response.

If I think of anything else, I'll tag them on here, but please know that, again, it's OKAY to feel lost. My lord, you're ONLY 20. You AREN'T supposed to have it all figured out yet!! Just... breathe, relax, and just let life play out the way it's supposed to for you. <3

Love you, Nonny!

And friends, if you have some life experience you would like to share with this smol bean, please do! <3

#steph replies #i am not a professional #life advice #my advice #it's not perfect #but my anecdotes seem to comfort people #long post

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talkshowgirlboy · 2 years

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Music for money bonus graphics! Full plain text transcription under the cut ^^

Image 1: Talkshow boy, Music for Money

image 2:

1.To Meagan Or Max Or Mark Or Mia

2.The Work Never Ends

3.The House That Jack Built

4.My Cynical Exercise

5.Barefoot Predator

6.Yr My Shop

7.Oppenheimer's Burden

8.Don't Fuck With Freedom

Melbourne Dance Music Association - 2022 - www.ilovemdma.com

Image 3:

the people have voted and they have chosen lo-fi.

screenshot of his twitter pole "What is more important?" New Talkshow Boy ASAP!!! 58% vs. Master it better first??? 42%

sooner rather then later! life's short act now! no more EQ! keep all the bad bits! that's a wrap, folks! no more compression! no more tweaking the saturation! onto the next thing!

complaints/paypal: [email protected]

Image 4:

TALKSHOW BOY - "MUSIC FOR MONEY"

01. To Meagan Or Max Or Mark Or Mia 02. The Work Never Ends 03. The House That Jack Built 04. My Cynical Exercise 05. Barefoot Predator 06. Yr My Shop 07. Oppenheimer's Burden 08. Don't Fuck With Freedom

The best things in life are free. This release is neither. I'm charging money for it, although ultimately I don't really care if you obtained it without paying for it. Ideally I'd like to make money from it, but please don't let that stop you from redistributing it freely. Money makes the world go round. Time is money. My time is precious. I've spent a lot of time dreaming up "get-rich-quick" schemes but I'm yet to reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's a constant battle. I'm frequently in the red, frequently behind. Frequently playing catch-up. It's a dog-eat-dog world. Caught in a vicious cycle. It's the circle of life. Like the rat in the wheel, like a slave to the wage. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em? How depressing is that!? Damn the man. Be yr own boss. Help this sell-out grow a nest egg - buy into this cash grab.

KEY CONCEPTS: (anti-)capitalism, labour, power, captivity and freedom, cynicism, exhaustion/burnout, bacon, breathing down necks, lost minds, freaks, plans, hands, feeling lucky to have you by my side.

This release was created on land that was stolen from the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation.

Written, re-written, misdirected & overproduced by Adrian Trajstman (primarily in 2022, except for the MC-303 pattern on "To Meagan Or Max Or Mark Or Mia" which was sequenced around 50 bajillion years ago).

THANKS: friends, family, fans. NO THANKS: fear, failure, finance.

Notes on this release:

* I have multiple up coming releases in the piplien that were actually created before this one:

(a) 10 perplexingly dark TSB songs about auspol/celebrity chefs/rubbish on the side of the freeway etc recorded for a split release with a prolific egg-punk superstar,

(b) a progressively quickening 14-track psychedelic concept album featuring loads of bonkers hardware freakouts and zeo vocal pop songs

Those releases are destined for physical media! Releasing physical media requires time and money. This first release of "Music For Money" is unfortunately digital-only so that it can get OUT THERE as fast as possible!

* You can make money from this music too! If you run a record label and are interested in paying for and organizing the manufacture/distribution/sale/etc of a physical "Music For Money" release then please do reach out. I would love for this to happen.

* Mixed and masted using headphones only due to the fact that I blew my studio monitors DJing my friend's house party and couldn't afford the cost of repairs.

* After Deciding to title this release "Music for Money" I stupidly Googled the phrase and discovered that it is also the title of a really fun Ice MC single from 1996. Ice MC were responsible for one of the best songs on the Trainspotting soundtrack so I'm cool with it.

* After writing "Oppenheimer's Burden" I stupidly Googled the phrase and discovered that an artist named Dustin James had already released a song with this title in 2020. I decided to keep my title despite the fact that somebody else technically got there first.

*_ I am aware that The House That Jack Built is a film by Lars von Trier but I am yet to see it and it was not an influence on my song whatesover.

*_ Yes, I am aware of fact that the lyrics to "Yr My Shop" are utterly repugnant - I hope it's clear that just because I'm illustrating an attitude it doesn't mean that I'm explicitly endorsing it or necessarily hold it.

xxx Adrian

Monday 24 October 2022

Melbourne Dance Music Association 2022 web: www.ilovemdma.com / twitter: @talkshow_boy & @mdmalebel instagram: @mdmalabel / bandcamp: talkshowboy.bandcamp.com

#talkshow boy #music for money

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msfbgraves · 1 year

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I've been down a rabbit hole of "this capitalist system is criminally insane in that it disincentives meaningful work while making everybody do either meaningless labour or forcing those doing meaningful things while labouring into poverty." So far so hellscape. The more insane take of that is to then encourage people to find meaning in their working life. Because people doing meaningful work are more productive. But please fam. Jobs that pay enough to live on exist for one reason and one reason only and that is to make already rich people even richer.

That's not what work is for of course, but that is what jobs are for. Remember, meaningful labour or work is paid fuck all.

That is not what they told me. They told me to go find a well paying job that is fullfilling. And those don't exist by fucking design.

Changing a system either requires a lot of bloodshed - if it is to be done quickly - or a lot of graftwork which is glacially slow. So the obvious answer, if you need a fair amount of money - and I am disabled enough to hurt every day but not disabled enough to qualify for any assistance, good times - is to find meaning anywhere you can, but certainly not primarily in a job. This takes away a lot of the alienation because of course this shit is meaningless. It's meant to make me too tired to overthrow the system.

So what does have meaning? How can I further that, or, if they steal all my time, at least fund that?

Now employers want you to take a job personally because you work harder but in most cases, that way madness lies. I mean fantastic if you can find both, but again, that is the antithesis of what many jobs are supposed to do, which is keep you depressed and passive outside of work.

Kafka's problem was not that he didn't see it, it was that he took it seriously.

So how can you sustain yourself while finding meaning, if it's not in your nature to choose violence?

I think I would have lasted a lot longer if I had shamelessly disregarded "company time". Fuck it. Fuck them! Fullfill your contract if you don't want trouble but fuck everything else. And here I was, feeling guilty for not doing much work from home. What work outside of crunch time? Lie, cheat. Further your own objectives. Again, fullfill your contract, but if your job has no tangible purpose, there will be empty time. Make it yours to get to what brings you meaning.

People get miserable because they buy into the idea that a job should have meaning and if it doesn't, there is something wrong with them.

But if you cannot happily exist doing meaningful work - and the majority of us can't - than work for or at least fund other kinds of meaning. The misery of selling your life away is lessened, because it's not our fault. We're basically POW's of class war here.

I'm seriously considering taking an office job and using it to write a dissertation on wage slavery.

Honestly I think that'd be hilarious.

#work life #capitalism #quiet quitting #work to rule #resistance #meaning

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ithoughtuweregoingforahug · 11 months

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This isn't a original opinion, I don't think, but the problem with AI isn't even AI. AI is technology, technology and technological progress is good, actually. Or at least not inherently bad.

If I didn't resent AI for how it's used right now, I'd primarily find it super interesting, technologically and philosophically. Especially philosophically. What makes intelligence etc.

The problem I see is more a general capitalist hellhole problem. The problem is that AI is used mostly to avoid paying people, especially creatives, for their work, while the economic system requires people to have a job to survive. Technology is supposed to make life easier, and tech taking over certain tasks from people is supposed to be a good thing, but when no job = no food, of course we have to fear technological progress if it's gonna "take away the jobs". As long as capitalism dominates our economies and politics, as long as we have to earn the right to survival through selling our labour, technological progress can't be made freely and without fear that it will make human work economically obsolete. AI, being technological progress, could be helpful and relieve a lot of people of dull and/or mentally taxing jobs, it could be fun and interesting to do philosophy about it in relation to art and questions of intelligence and sentience and so forth — but not as long as the survival of workers depends on it not being used in all these ways.

Another, less existential problem is that the meaning of art gets bastardised. It's difficult to put into words how it feels to see AI images being treated as on par with the art you spent years and years working towards. It's even harder to form a cohesive argument based on that. Human-made art being compared to AI-generated work in a way that implies they have the same cultural and emotional value feels like...a dismissal of my humanity? Like none of the emotion and thought and intent and personal history that I put into all of my work matters and all that's important is what it superficially looks like or that the sentences are cohesive, and an algorithm can do that just as well but for cheaper and in no time.

Where both of this sort of comes together is when creative jobs specifically are threatened to be taken over by AI. Not because AI-generated works necessarily have similar quality to human-made art (at least for any those of us with artistic standards), but mostly because greedy CEOs/production companies/streaming companies don't give a fuck about the art itself, project that thinking onto audiences and assume they just want something to consume instead of actually good quality art. I feel that art (art as such, not as an investment or status symbol) has very little value to the capitalists running this system, and that thinking spills over into our cultural and social understanding of art — it's fun and games and nice to look at, nice to have, but it's not really important, at least not important enough to pay the people making it a living wage, and maybe don't become an artist and instead do something sensible.

Largely, what matters is money and numbers, which feels dystopian and inhumane to me. A rejection of art feels like a rejection of humanity and human history. And the way that AI is increasingly used to further signal to artists and creatives that what makes art art isn't what matters, casts a deep dark shadow over any interesting or useful aspect that generative AI might otherwise have.

There are other critical aspects to generative AI, like nonconsensual inclusion of artists' works in the data sets that the algorithms 'learn' off of, or issues relating to other ways people exploit AI (eg. fraud and creepier things than that). But the points I elaborated on are the ones I've thought about most.

So yeah, basically. Art is inherently human. Art is made by humans for humans. Art, by this definition, cannot be made by AI. It's just images and words. (that's roughly a thing CJTheX said, who is much smarter and more committed to reading philosophy than I am. But I feel that it sums up so well why the concept of AI 'art' feels so wrong™, so I have to paraphrase it any time I talk about this topic.)

I think we, as humans, instinctually know that there's more to art than the corporate necktie people try to convince us there is. We have to know. It's just really hard to unlearn a lifetime of capitalism. But by god, don't let art get reduced to a set of data, or pixels, or probabilities of which word follows which.

#conner.txt

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backslashdelta · 2 years

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Hello! As someone who really loves Puck's character, I was wondering if you had any thoughts about his career? Like, if he would stay in the military or leave and do something else? There wasn't really any mention of whether he continues with it in the flash forward in 6x13, and I've always wondered whether he would

Hello I am SO sorry for taking so long to answer this, it has been on my mind since I got it but I had another rather involved ask I wanted to answer first, and I just didn't have the energy until now. I hope you are still around to see it!

Okay so I talked briefly about some thoughts on Puck's career here, and I mentioned him going into a trade, but let's get into some more detail!

I don't think he would stay in the military. When he joins, he isn't in a good place; he's just lost Finn and he's feeling like he has no sense of direction in life. The military offers structure and discipline. He doesn't have to make any decisions; he can join and just do what they tell him to do and go where they tell him to go. He used to look to Finn to guide him but he can't do that anymore, and he's not confident enough to do it himself, and, well, the military is more than happy to do it for him instead.

I think it's actually really interesting that he turns to the military for this, because as a teenager he was not the kind of person that liked or respected authority at all so you might think it's a poor fit. But I actually think it's something he would really excel in, at least at first. Puck is a character with (many) flaws, but one strength of his is his dedication and commitment to something when he makes a decision. If he decides to do something, he's doing it, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says. So when he decides to join the military he's all in; he puts in all the hours and then some, works hard through all the training, and it's really physical and hands on and it feels productive and he likes that, likes that it gives him something to do and a distraction from thinking so damn much. He knows the rules and expectations and he can just turn off his brain and do it.

"But Bella," I hear you saying, "if Puck would do so well in the military, why don't you think he'd stay there?"

I'm so glad you asked!

The military helps him. It gives him purpose and structure and a distraction, and that's all well and good, but as he grows and heals and finds himself and his confidence he outgrows it. He finds himself disagreeing with the best way to get things done, disagreeing with orders and decisions from those who rank above him, and he doesn't like that he doesn't really get a say. It's too restrictive. But even then, I still think it takes a bit longer for him to leave, because as much as he's starting to resent some of these things he's still a bit scared that if he leaves and loses that direction he might start spiralling again. But eventually, finally, he does leave. And he is a bit lost at first, but it's different this time because he's older and wiser and he has the confidence in himself that he can figure out where to go from here.

He gets some job that doesn't require education beyond high school, something labour-intensive and honestly quite exhausting probably. It's hard work but Puck is a hard worker so he does it and does it well and he doesn't complain. I could see him getting into construction this way, he gets a job just helping with the less skilled stuff, does a lot of hauling materials around and whatnot. But then he starts learning new things: he learns how to put a new roof on a house, how to build a deck, all these hands-on practical skills where he's making something and it's productive and fulfilling in a way that he never felt when he was in the military.

Eventually he starts his own construction company. He knows his shit, he wants the freedom of being his own boss, and he's built up a solid reputation of being skilled and reliable, so it's an obvious next step for him. He gets to take the jobs he wants and tell people to go fuck themselves if they're being difficult or entitled. He's not looking to expand or have a huge team or anything under him, it's just him and a few other guys he trusts doing solid work and making a living. I think he would absolutely thrive in that environment, and the more I think about it the more it just feels right.

If he didn't get into construction, I think he'd still need to be doing something hands-on. I definitely can't imaging him just working in an office at a computer all day. I could see him doing something like coaching kids sports maybe. I don't think he'd want to work with adults, but now that I think of it I actually think he'd be really great working with kids; he'd be able to strike just that right balance of remembering they are still kids but also treating them with respect and not talking down to them or anything, and kids would love him. Or maybe not even just coaching sports, I could see him working at a Boys and Girls Club and helping out disadvantaged kids, which he would find incredibly rewarding as someone who had a lot of hard shit going on in his life throughout his youth himself. So yeah, I think if he didn't go the construction/trade route, he could end up doing something like that.

#glee #noah puckerman #glee headcanons #glee meta #headcanons #meta #my headcanons #my meta #mine #ask #anonymous #this was SUCH a fun question thank you SO MUCH for asking it!!!#I had such a great time writing this answer I love noah puckerman so muchhhh #and again I am so sorry it too me so long to respond to this #I got this question literally on May 17th it has been over a month I APOLOGIZE #I hope my answer was worth the wait <3

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