JonFreeman

I think it's important to clarify to any holdouts that Ukraine is not a proxy war.

The Isreal/Gaza situation this past winter was a proxy war. Hamas was a brainless puppet of Iran, going all the way back to their founders being yasah groomed by the kgb, a well documented fact ...and now they're all dead. Israel is basically a John Wick who's supported by the West. Iran told Hamas to kill several thousand innocent civilians and start a war, and John Wick gonna John Wick.

The key feature of a proxy war is that if either side loses, their supporters (the puppet masters controlling the proxies) only lose a sphere of influence when their proxy dies. The masters still stand at the end of the day.

The Russia situation is different. People who say it's a proxy war state that Ukraine is the western proxy ... that half fits the definition. The other half doesn't fit because Russia isn't using a proxy. Compounding the Russian half of the equation is that Putin missed his "off ramp"; had he stopped the war even a year into it - the limpdick western politicians would have said "oh that putin" and just let it slide... in other words, Russia could have lost the war and still stood.

...

But that's not what's happened.

Putin played so hard into the bit that if he loses the war now, at this point, he'll get killed, and Russia will dissolve. With there no longer being any chance of pulling out: this is a full conventional war. And with China Russia putting the pressure on Iran to act, and Taiwan on the horizon (and them nearly starting a war in Venezuela)...

What we have been seeing is the start of a conventional World War 3 ... though with an equivalent of if Germany's invasion of Poland was spearheaded by a bunch of special needs generals.

the same person who threw a bitchfit on new years eve threw one saying "hey, I know you're having financial difficulty right now, but can you prioritize my commissions over everyone else because it's my birthday."

More time dealing with stuff like this, paired with IRL pressures, means less time actually doing art ... means I gotta make my art pay more per piece ... hence the price hike.

good times.

My joy in this day gig has now been depleted.

This is due to C-Blaze21. :iconc-blaze21:

It's not worth dealing with him.

Ergo, moving forward there will be a $10 increase on the base price of all offerings and a $20 increase on the base price of promos. This is to compensate for me having to spend my time playing customer service.

Congrats everyone.

Science is not real whether you believe or not.

now this is the part where libs say "THAT ISN'T TRUE SCIENCE."

... much in the same way that "THAT ISN'T TRUE COMMUNISM" is thrown about

Site 3.0-ish is now live

https://artofjonfreeman.com/Dopts.html YAY. this one's a pretty hefty update, but it's packed with a ton of amazing features that my friend has put together. As such ... i kinda figure that an informal changelog here would be useful... - **AUCTIONS!** - we have auctions now. These will be posted on the daily. And the end time is 3PM on the listed date. (if you click on the auction page it presents a countdown timer for clarity) - **GIVEAWAYS MOVED TO MAIN PAGE** - now everything's on the same page. no more having to bounce back and forth between the different sites. The rules and whatnot are there, so that's still clear. Additionally, the 2 existing giveaways have been transferred over without issue (they still show the same number of tickets purchased) - **FILTERS!** - you can turn on/off mature content, view dopts/promos/auctions/giveaways/all, sort by newest/oldest, view by particular dopt sets, etc - **NEW STICKERS AND COLORED BUTTONS** - I'll be updating the buttons for additional clarity in the near future, but now it'll be a little bit easier to tell what's what.