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currentfandomkick · 4 years ago

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Marinette did not sign up for this pt 3

Part 3 time. part 1 here part two here, ao3 link here

Cass had long since taken to eating at Yan Toh Heen when she was in Hong Kong, where head chef Cheng Wang served her favorite soup, Marinette Soup. Given that Cass often came at odd times and remained a regular whenever she was in town, she had come to know of Shifu Cheng’s inspiration, his niece’s daughter. A girl who reminded Cass of Bruce’s usual adoptees when she first saw her picture, and mentioned it was a good ting her father hadn’t begun adopting until the girl was already a toddler. Shifu Cheng had laughed at the time, and mentioned that Cass might be a good influence on her, if she could keep her father from trying to steal his great-niece away that is.

Now Cass was looking at the girl’s picture a bit more critically, and with Bruce and his parents in mind, she wouldn’t be surprised if this Marinette—a young designer who had managed to have two major figures in the industry recognize her by 16 with an apparent knack for helping her local heroes—was Bruce’s daughter. Her eyes reminded Cass of Thomas Wayne’s from the portraits, and her smile was a lot like Bruce’s when he wasn’t hiding anything.

With all this in mind, Cass was already on a plane to find the girl and test out her theory—to see if Marinette of the Dupain-Cheng Boulangerie was also Ladybug—Batman and Bruce Wayne’s daughter.

She did smile when she saw the group chat for “Middle Kids Only—No D’s Allowed” exploded with Jason, Tim and Steph arguing over who would find her first and what the prize would be. It looked like Cass would win at this rate. She was fine with that—and having a no-questions asked favor from each of the three in the future would be the icing on the cake to meeting their new sister first.

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Marinette has to explain to Adrien a bit of her blow up while they were civilians and out of sight in her room. Tikki and Plagg were napping.

“So, you’re uh…” she couldn’t blame him for the lack of words. She tended to forget (re: ignore) the fact herself most of the time.

“Yeah,” Marinette shrugged. “Maman and Papa got me in a closed adoption case, the mother was young.”

“… I’m now picturing a young Batman and can’t wrap my brain around it.”

Marinette snorted at that. “It was before Batman existed.”

Adrien frowned at that, thinking it over as… “So did you ever…”

Marinette shook her head. “My mother warned against it, the note she left for me said it was dangerous to even attempt contacting him.” She ran a hand through her hair as she remembered Maman and Papa letting her read the note not long after her Guardian training began. It was another life entirely. “She said he was an unfit father, and that she never wanted kids so I was better off not looking for them when I grew up. I never planned to—Maman and Papa were all I ever needed or wanted.”

Adrien smiled at that, grabbing a cookie for himself. “So what happened?”

Marinette winced. “I, I don’t want to talk about it. Long story short, a wild Murder Robin appeared and told me not to contact his family or else, and I promised to steer clear of affiliates so he wouldn’t try anything.”

Adrien twitched at that. He knew Marinette and Alya made a few comments about it once upon a time but…

“Is he the one dropping off the weapons and flower threats?”

Marinette looked away, keeping her eyes low.

Adrien tightened his fists. “I see. If he or that family get near you, they’ll have to take on Chat Noir first.”

Marinette huffed at that. “They’re the normies that took down the world ending metas, I doubt there’s much we could do against them chatton.”

Adrien shook his head and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Black Cat wielder, destruction incarnate, and the idiot you share a soul with.” He gave her his Chat Noir smile. “There’s nothing I can’t take on.”

Marinette snorted at that. “Chemistry.”

Adrien’s face fell at that. “You cannot tell me chemical reactions are that easy!”

Marinette smiled at him then. “I can and will say it—Chemistry is easier and superior to physics. Kitchen Chemistry is how we get food.”

“And physics keeps us from floating off into space.”

“Not studying it. Studying chemistry I get food, physcics is just a headache of formulas on formulas on formulas.”

“But the theories!”

With that, the pair fell into their familiar rhythm of banter for the rest for the night.

Tim was crossing French designers in Paris aged 14-20 that own or work at a boutique, online or physical, and turned up a large number of candidates for who Ladybug/the missing Wayne could be.

Babs rolled in on this particular search, and gave him a look. “You know the Justice League wants us to not to contact her, right?”

Tim made a vague sound of acknowledgement.

“And that Bruce probably didn’t have a kid at 15, right?”

“Just covering my bases.”

Babs looked over his search margins. “Did you check Damian’s search history?”

Tim scowled at her. “Of course I did, he’s been doing more through wipes, I couldn’t get more than a few scarps of useless code.”

Babs began to grin then. “So that means I do have a leg-up on you then.”

He didn’t even want to know how she knew about the competition. But she wasn’t officially in it either (all of the placed their bets down negotiated rules (re: no asking for help from Damian) and agreed the only participants were the four of them). What did Barbra Gordon want out of this?

Tim paused at that. “What.”

Babs grinned at him. Tim remembered why Oracle is the queen of hackers everywhere—nothing is safe from her reach.

“He was particularly taken with a few designers, and one of them happens to be in the range you’re looking for.”

Tim scowled at her. “What do you want?”

“You know that picture of me you took a few years back?”

Tim blinked as that was what she wanted. His ‘Don’t tell The Family’ insurance.

“Yes.”

“I want your copies of burned, and any you may have floating around returned to me.”

Tim weighed the pros and cons to this. The girl should be in his current data pool. And he does know to use Damian’s search again (tracking Bab’s hacks was child’s play now) but she probably deleted most—if not all of—her trail. Decisions, Decisions…

He could just wait to meet the baby bat. But then he would owe Jason a no-questions asked favor if he found her first… and he didn’t want to know what Jason would use it for. Owing Cass a favor meant family nights with the worst board games or tea parties when he was elbow deep in a mission. A no question favor for Steph was always interesting and usually resulted in Bruce giving them both looks.

Did he want to lose his leverage on Babs, or did he want to avoid the consequences of the bet more?

Chat and Carapace exchanged a quick look when the pair arrived. A nod from Carapace as he trailed after their paling Ladybug was all Chat needed to begin operation Distract the Justice Leaguer Members.

He and Rena Rouge were having the time of their lives. Both were genuine in their admiration of the pair and the work they had done. And they were both eager to learn from them—both as individuals and what their people knew of the Miraculous—something Chat and Rena knew there were large gaps in the history of still. And if they could help out Ladybug with gathering information and ensuring she was given space, well, the pair were down for it.

Chat was asking a confused and mildly frightened Aquaman for combat tips in aquatic situations for future Syren-eqsue akumas.

“So how do you keep an eye on attacks from all directions? Is it a ‘feel the water movements’ thing? Or is it just something you know how to do from growing up underwater? Could you teach me a few things on it—it’s a weak point that I need to work on.”

Aquaman was quick to agree to help, eager to avoid angering the Black Cat and given Ladybug’s (apparently continued) evasion of Justice League Members, this may be the best way to both prevent the possible apocalypse and ensure Atlantis’ future safety.

Wonder Woman was having an interesting conversation with Miss Sting about the uses for her spinning top and potential ways to work on her use of Venom while Rena asked about the Amazons and was there really an amazon who wielded the Ladybug miraculous? There were no confirmations from Ladybug and the Guardian was impossible to find to ask. Was there a Fox and did they have anything on the Miraculous’ history?

Wonder Woman was quick to supply answers while scanning the area for Ladybug, and noted that the Turtle was missing too.

“Is Ladybug well?”

Rena and Miss Sting exchanged a look.

Miss Sting stepped forward. “Ladybug just needs some space. She isn’t willing to risk breaking her promise since certain people do know where she lives.”

Rena tensed at that, a scowl quick to her face as she remembered why Ladybug was absent. “She can’t talk to either of you until Murder Robin,”--Wonder Woman winced at the reminder of the current Robin’s past--“makes it clear he won’t keep threatening her if she does.”

Chat caught enough of the conversation to join in. “Its also not good to stress her out, especially since its going to be open season soon.”

Miss Sting sighed at the reminder. “Application and testing season.”

Rena rubbed her forehead. “Don’t remind me. Last time Ladybug was so stressed over her workload that the cure was off for a week.”

Wonder Woman and Aquaman exchanged a look.

“Are you stating that stress on Ladybug alters how the Miraculous Cure works?” Aquaman asked cafefully, hoping it wasn’t the case.

“Yeah,” Chat rubbed the back of his neck. “I figured it always did.”

Wonder Woman shook her head, mind racing as, “No. Not during Mother’s time—it must be a side effect of something. May I speak to one of the Guardians?”

Chat didn’t even have time to respond. Both adults noted the way his pupils shrunk and body tensed at the question. He knew something the others didn’t.

“Uh, there’s only one, and the guy has been radio silent for months now,” Rena explained. “And not to be rude, but given the security breaches in the past, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our Guardian to be in contact, just in case.”

“I see…”

Aquaman was the quick to defuse the situation. “Perhaps one of your sisters could reach out to Ladybug? They are not affiliated with the League so that should lessen her stress.”

Chat nodded along at that. Good. It was better to keep the Destroyer content.

“I can see who Mother would like to send of the historians given the interest in past miraculous wielders,” Diana conceded. “Could you ask Ladybug if that is acceptable?”

The teens grabbed their respective weapons and messaged Ladybug. A moment later the trio stated that Ladybug would agree to those terms.

In the meantime, Chat, Rena and Miss Sting caught the adults up on the Hawkmoth situation and their limitations on investigation. Rena was particularly annoyed by the lack of progress as “Our best suspect was akumatized before Mayura showed up, so he can’t be Hawkmoth. But he lives in the target area, has the funds for a butterfly garden and the ability to keep it underground if LB’s theory about artificial sunlight to keep it secret is right.”

“But we know he can’t be, so we should drop it and look for other suspects,” Chat added a bit nervously.

Miss Sting nodded in agreement.

Rena sighed. “I know, its just, too much adds up on him being Hawkmoth, but then again, that would mean he’d put his own kid in danger just to get the Miraculous. I mean, he’s bad and all but…” Rena shook her head. “LB is right about him making sense but it’s too obvious. I mean, who hides in plain sight, right?”

Wonder Woman made a mental note to find out who this suspect was and maybe—MAYBE—let the bats do a deep search on this suspect if Rena would name them. He could very well be their villain, but she didn’t know enough on this investigation yet to make a call, nor did she have much knowledge on the Butterfly or Peacock miraculous. She only paid attention to the Ladybug and Black Cat legends—a soul spilt in two, destined to always find one another and willing to do whatever it took to protect the other from self-destructing once they grew close as allies.

In Gotham Jason Todd is on a Mission. That mission happens to be meeting the Baby Bat before Timmers or the Waffle Queen herself beat him to it. Cass hadn’t responded to any of their texts, so he figured she was knee-deep in Black Bat and forfeited for once. He hoped.

Either way, Red Hood would be tracking a certain Little Lady when he touched down in Paris once his plane took off, and take out whoever this “Hawkmoth” was. Magic terrorism is one thing. Targeting kids? Well, that puts you Hood’s list and high on his priorities real quick. Add threatening his family (estranged, feuding or 'well they're a Bat') to that? Gotham would live without him for a bit.

Ladybug is currently holed up with Carapace in one of their hide-y holes on patrol. She has borrowed (re: snagged and is not returning any time soon) Carapace’s headphones. The music helps her breath. No immediate danger, she didn’t (further) break the rules of engagement, and she didn’t see any sign of Murder Robin in Paris from news reports.

“So, uh, Murder Robin?”

Ladybug wanted to groan. She knew this conversation was coming. “Can you send the others the cliff notes?”

She did not want to do this with each one of them. there are a lot of miraculous users. Besides Chat and Carapace, there was Rena, Miss Sting, Pegasus, Ryuuko, King Monkey, Viperion, and Bunnix. She did not want to have this conversation seven more times.

“Sure thing Ladybug.”

Ladybug took a deep breath.

“Remember Incinerater and Goo-Boy?”

Carapace paused, face a bit slack as he nodded his head. “The first time Mr. Bug appeared, and the day Rena, Sting and me got our miraculous.”

Ladybug nodded. “Well, it lasted so long because my transformation timed out. I couldn’t figure out what my lucky charm meant—I didn’t know what the kwami box looked like, and a bigger version of the jewelry box I got Tikki in meant nothing to me.” Ladybug sighed, as once again, she realized how much easier it would have been if Fu contacted her and Chat Noir after the first attack, or even during one on their built-in communicators. Just. Something.

“So you timed out.”

Ladybug nodded. “And I got caught in the building that went down.”

Carapace froze. “Most people were still injured.”

Ladybug winced. “I was. Still. Chat somehow knew to look for my civilian identity and found out I was Ladybug. I thought…” Marinette shook her head, pushing old fears of losing Tikki away. She’s the Guardian now. Tikki and her are together as long as Marinette remains so. “Nevermind. The point is, even after he cast the cure and helped me get home, Goo-boy showed up and Mr. Bug was needed again.”

Carapace put the pieces together. “You were still hurt. And he left you alone.”

Ladybug ran a hand through her pigtails. “He had to. I told him to, I figured I could make it the rest of the way.”

Carapace frowned at that. “LB…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “What happened?”

Ladybug swallowed a lump. “Tiny Murder Robin.” She stiffened a bit, fiddling with her yoyo then. “He uh, grabbed me, pulled me into a car and held me a sword-point. Not gun point, sword point.” Marinette bleed through then. “Who does that? What kid goes around and says they’ll kill you with a sword at your neck?”

Carapace rubbed her back, keeping her grounded. “I managed to get him to leave since I was ‘unworthy of the Bat legacy’ and all, discarded and useless.” Marinette shook her head, reminding herself she’s moved past those feelings, the one that tried to well up in her moments. She was bigger than those thoughts. “He let me go since I wasn’t worth the effort if I didn’t know I was Batman’s daughter.” Marinette kept her eyes on her lap, a nervous hands running through one pigtail vigorously. “I kind of sicced him on the current Robin to save my skin.”

Carapace pulled her in for a hug. She clung back a bit. she didn’t have to look at him as he explained the deal. “I promised to not contact Batman or the JL and he agreed to leave me alone. And he did.”

Carapace pulled back. “That’s not all of it, is it?”

“He uh, started leaving flowers and some weapon for winter holidays, Easter and my birthday in my room….”

Carapace paled at that. “He’s threatening you.”

“y, yeah…”

“So that’s why….”

Ladybug nodded.

Carapace hugged her tight. “One sec, I’ll text the team. Then we’re doing that plan of action you made the rest of us do for when we can’t show up.”

Ladybug nodded.

She noticed a text from the others, asking if she’d be willing to talk to an Amazonian historian on the history of the Miraculous and learn from her. That… wouldn’t violate the terms of the agreement, in spirit or wording. She sent her agreement on the terms that none of the sent historians were Wonder Woman or the Queen herself. As cool as meeting Hippolyta would be, Marinette does not want to risk the violation in spirit (family members probably counted to Murder Robin.)

“Done.”

Ladybug blinked as Carapace turned to her.

“Now what can we do to help?”

Ladybug opened and closed her mouth, running over her options. “Just keep non-miraculous heroes from contacting me, especially in battle. I just...” Ladybug struggled for words. “He knows where I live. My family.”

Carapace nodded, keeping a steady hand on her shoulder. “Can’t risk it, I got you—we got you.”

After a moment of silence, Carapace spoke. “Keep the team on speeddial—if you don’t want everyone on, then at least me, Pegasus and Rena. Rena can distract without getting hurt, I can protect all of us and Pegasus can send him and anyone he works with packing. Monkey probably would want in on this too—he is the Distraction King after all.”

Ladybug laughed a little at that. It came out weak. “Sure. Chat, he’s…”

“Busy.” Carapace shrugged. “We all know his dad has him running through hoops to make it to patrol half the time.”

“Yeah…”

(Marinette agreeing to intern with M. Agreste and work on her accessories brand under the Gabriel umbrella did give Adrien more lee-way than he had before, but not by much at first. Ever since her line of scarves based on the miraculous heroes took off last winter, he was given more free reign if it involved Marinette as a designer, not Marinette as his friend and classmate. Adrien was allowed at her house at all hours now without no questions asked on the basis of ‘Marinette’s muses have spoken’. As far as Gabriel was concerned, Adrien was learning more about the designing process and crafting of individual garment and accessories from her, and offering critiques as a model on wear-ability and helping her develop her style as a designer while keeping her ‘on-brand’. The fact they mostly goofed off or worked on miraculous-related things together was another matter for another time.)

Ladybug and Carapace stayed like that for a while, until after the JL left. She may have trolled the Monkey tab on the Ladyblog and snorted at someone’s short of ‘era 1’ Chat running at an akuma while screaming “this is how I will get Ladybug will love me!” with an ‘era 2’ Chat cringing. “That. That is how I got Ladybug to baby brother me.”

Dick was wondering where the rest of the bats were during patrol. The night before, it was only him. Something about needing to look into something for the JL on Bruce’s end, and Damian was working on something again—trying to make up for a past wrong was the most Dick ever got out of him. It was the third year in a row this happened, and around the same time. Apparently needles are part of this apology.

Dick really hopes Damian manages to meet the person face to face this time. He has a feeling the person Damian’s apologizing to might be a civilian by Bat standards, and is probably missing Damian’s message completely. Maybe Dick would check up on him tomorrow—Gotham wait for no one and apparently Nightwing is the only responsible Bat at the moment. Thank god for Oracle’s Birds of Prey and the other vigilantes Gotham’s collected over the years. Dick doesn’t want to think about what would happen if this happened without them all.

PART FOUR HERE

Thanks for waiting on the update. Working with burned hand so it will take longer for the next installments. Mostly planned for the next chapter but character will do what they want and highjack my writing constantly. Things are moving forward (somewhat) on the Bats and JL end, while Miraculous Team stands with their leader, Ladybug, and aren’t ready to let Anyone threaten her.

this makes for a set-up for much to go Wrong. Feel free to add to the upcoming chaos or put in things youd like to see happen in the comments or by messaging me.

@heldtogetherbysafetypins @laurcad123 @raisuke06

#bio!dad bruce #bio!dad bruce waye #maribat #my writing #marinette did not sign up for this #long post #how do i tag

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life Review

Happy Birthday To Me, as I continue my birthday celebration by taking a look at comics that have a personal connection to me.. And for our main feature, i’m taking a look at the first volume of a series that was vitally important to a teenage me, Scott Pilgrim.

Scott Pilgrim is the brainchild of Brian Lee’O’Malley. O’Malley came up with the concept from a number of things. Being a fan of the band Plumtree, O’Malley was curious about the name of their song “Scott Pilgrim” and wondered who this Scott Pilgrim guy was. So over the years he slowly built the guy up in the back of his mind using bits of his life and what not. As for why he ends up fighting 7 evil exes, that came from a discussion with his then girlfriend, later wife and currently ex-wife Hope Larson, where he threw off the joke that her exes should form some kind of League. After finishing his first solo work Lost at Sea, O’Malley decided Scotty would be his next project and the rest is history. To date while O’Malley has written two works since, Seconds which is delightful and Snotgirl which didn’t grab me but I intend to try again, Scott remains his most popular work, in large part due to it’s SUBLIME video game and movie adaptations, the former of which is finally getting a rerelease next month.

The series charm is in it’s style: A manga styled comic that combines two desperate kinds of story: Shonen Fight Manga and Slice of Life Indie Comics. The story shifts from Scott going through normal life stuff while trying to make his new relationship work and get his shit together and Scott getting into big bombastic fights with his new sweetie’s exes for the right to keep dating her and to you know, stay alive. The series effortlesly blends a video game like world with real grounded characters and is wonderful for it. As for where I came in, one Free Comic Book day I found a little comic named Free Scott Pilgrim, which I genuinely loved and was instantly charmed by it’s humor and well done art. So I picked up the second and third volumes of the series proper and the first once I could find it and the rest ,as they say, is history. For my high school life, this was one of hte most important things in it and I wrote fanfiction, which I thankfully never put online and in general enjoyed the hell out of the series. Then I just kind of.. let it sit on my shelf for a while. It wasn’t BAD, I just never got back to it and as the franchise went dormant I just sorta slept on it and the movie and that part of me...

Cut to a few weeks ago, when Comixology did a massive sale for black friday that marked a ton of Graphic Novels down to just 1 buck each, and the color editions of Scott Pilgrim happened to be part of this, though only volume 1 was that cheap. But thanks to my best friend micheal and an early christmas/birthday present I got the rest and got to revisit the series as a whole, with me rethinking my previous thoughts of volume 1 and thus.. wanting to review it and share both why this series is so damn special and what’s good, and what’s not so good about it. I’ll also be covering the game, once i’ts re-released, and the movie once i’m finsihed with the comics so look out for that. And get ready to take a trip to the glorious land of canada...

As a heads up and as you can tell i’ll be using the color version as while I could get scans of the black and white, I prefer the color version. While the black and white was fine and always will be, I think the impressive coloring job really adds to thing and makes the already great fight scenes pop more, as well as making certain background elements stand out a bit. While it does negate the black and white gags, the tradeoff is more than worth it. That being said either version is fine so if you can get the black and white cheaper that’s fine and i’ve kept my original copies, with volumes 4 -6 having been picked up as they came out.

So as our story starts we meet our hero: Scott Pilgrim Age 23, a charming but jobless and kind of sketchy possible college graduate whose really been adrift in his life since a breakup about a year ago. And when our story opens he’s taken a turn for a worse and decided to date sweet but naive and inexperinced Knives Chau, a 17 year old girl. And why yes the power dynamics there are messed up and why yes Scott is pretty damn sketchy in this moment in time, and while yes I am aware the age of consent in canada is 16, it dosen’t make this any less greasy and the story knows that. And how it knows that MOST of his friends aren’t on board. The only ones who seems to is Stephen Stiles, leader of Sex Bomb-Omb, the band scott’s in with one of the best names ever and even then it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic or just a total douche. The other, Young Neil Nordgraf, Stephen’s roomate, is well 19 or 20 and kind of a dipshit so we just ignore him. I used to use him as kind of a projection, to put myself in the adventure when I was younger as Neil kind of lacks personality in the comics but in the comics.. he’s not hte best or most complex character. He is great in the movie though and Edgar Wright did an amazing job fleshing him out. The rest of his circle are .. not so permissive. His best friend, roomate and king of all gays for all time Wallace Wells very much does not want to come with Scott to school to pick her up because every part of that sentence after hurt to type. Granted Scott gets him to come with him with promises of boys, but frankly knowing wallace he was probably just playing along/wants to protect this poor child. His ex and fellow bandmate Kim is clearly bothered by it and is flat out worried Scott is taking advantage of her. Kim and Wallace are easily my faviorites both for personality and because I have a massive crush on both. With Wallace it just didn’t manifest till the reread. Finally Scott’s kid sister Stacey chews him out over it before genuinely wondering if he’s gone insane or he’s actually happy. For my two cents: he’s not. He WANTS to be, but he dosen’t know how. And as someone whose both neurotypical, which given Scott’s troubles with empathy and relating to people like yours truly I strongly suggest he is, and has struggled with depression I can relate to that. He wants to move on but he just.. can’t, he just wants to get past the haze he’s been in since Envy dumped him.. but he dosen’t know how. So instead of doing someting constructive or finding a job or anything .. he just took the first and easiest way out of his depression he could. I’ve done that with video games and stuff. Scott did that by entering a relationship that’s really easy, requires only so much effort, and is with someone who utterly adores, looks up to him and will never expect better. Being with Knives makes him feel better.. but it dosen’t MAKE him a better person. As i’ve made clear dating someone just for a boost makes him actively worse and had fate not intervened, I shudder to think what Scott might have become. That being said his actoins are still creepy and since Scott has a habit of landing ass backwards into being an asshole here’s a counter to track that. That’s 2 for doing this overall, one for tleling her to be good, and 1 for trying to ply wallace with underage boys.

Your the Scum of the Earth Scott Counter: 1

Thankfully fate does and Scott’s dreams, ones of him crawling through a desert alone, are interupted by a mysterious pink haired girl on skates. The next day he’s just sort of in a daze, kind of confused, and even more so when he sees her IN REAL LIFE, while at the library with Knives. He’s understandably frazzled but ends up finding out he’s not hallucinating when talking to MIcheal Cormeau. Micheal is a minor character and another artist and friend of o malley’s who represents that one guy in social circles who knows everybody. And indeed he knows the mystery girl, Ramona Flowers and that she’s there. Scott TRIES talking her up but just creeps her out, so Scott goes with plan b and decides to ask around about her. Enter Sandra and Monique, two college aquantinces of Scott, who just sorta show up at major events and aren’t that developed or intresting. They turn him to Julie who forbids him to date her. To which I say.

Naturually we’ll aslo be needing a counter for this.

Shut Up Julie Counter: 1

Scott however did find out she’s a delivery girl for Amazon Canada, and thus orders some CD’s on Wallace’s Credit card to hopefully see her. And while his behavior IS obessive.. it’s understandable. I’d be weirdly obessed with finding someone too if they showed up in my dreams every day and were apparently a real person. I’d probably play it cooler but still i’ts kind of understandable. So after a day with knives in which he’s clearly checked out she kisses him, he freaks out and it’s very clear that while Scott’s good at attracting women he’s just.. not good with his emotions and has finally woken up to how messed up this is, but has no idea how to get out now he’s intrested in someone he actually has a future with maybe. Speaking of Scott’s package and Ramona finally arrive. Scott’s move is to.. ask her out abrubtly but after he mentions her Dreams, Ramona finally puts two and two together and explains things: She’s been using Subspace, a seris of highways connected by the subconcious and apparently more common in america, though it’s later revealed she was taught this but being the first book with a lot of the lore and what not ironed out this is fine. Point is she was just using his dreams as transit and didn’t mean to get him obessed. Scott continues to try his schtick and eventually gets her to agree to hang out with him. Why she does I generally do not know, as SCott basically fell ass backwards over himself conversationally, but whatever. If he didn’t succeed we wouldn’t have a plot.

That being said things pick up a bit with the date though. The scene is really good and simply just the two.. talking. Having plesant conversations getting to know one another. That good stuff. it’s just really nice to read and it’s hard to explain why. Highlights include Scott’s x-men patch, Ramona not wanting to talk about her last job and Scott admitting he hasn’t been obessed in a long time.. and it comes off sweet rather htan creepy like that sounds. It just means he hasn’t fell this head over heels felt like this. As I said Knives was easy.. but this is hard.. and this.. feels right. So as things Snow Ramona yanks scott through subspace to escape the blizzard.

So we end up back at Ramona’s place and she offers some tea which leads to one of the best gags of the volume as she lists them off:

So Ramona goes to get Scott a blanket, Scott ends up following finds her changing, and she decides to warm him up another way.. by embracing him... cue.. the inevitible really.

It feels organic though: The two are clearly attracted to each other and while Scott came on as strong as freaking colossus, he still rebounded well once they hung out and he could relax a bit and show the scott underneath the lairs of dumbass. The two end up cuddling in bed and Scott seems..genuiley happy saying he needed this... awwwwwww. They part the next morning with him asking her to his band’s performance.

So Scott finds Wallace at home who says what Scott needs to hear “You need to break up with your fake highschool girlfriend scott’ Granted the entire first 40 pages could’ve been titled that but now he’s actively cheating. He’s also got a letter.

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It’s a death threat Scott barely grazes through, just like an email earlier.

But scott’s more concerned with his emotional distress.. i.e. the consequences of his throughly shitty actions finally hitting him in the face.

Scott heads to practice for his gig and can’t bring himself to break up with knives, but does find out about the opposition: Crash and the Boys, based on an NES game title because of course it is. Crash, their leader, Joel their baseplayer who scott hates because he hates all other baseplayers (”I don’t hate myself kim) and Trasha, an 8 year old progedy they found playing Drum Mania. Don’t ask me what that is, i’m not going to get every refrence.

So at the show Scott runs into Stacey and her new boyfriend Jimmy with Stacey being supportive. And then Knives shows up and then RAMONA SHOWS UP. Oh no scott’s cheating might be discovered!

So Scott books it while we’re introduced to Crash and the Boys. Wallace heckles them, to the band’s annoyance, until they eventually get fed up and we easly get the best gag of the volume. I was wrong this clearly tops the tea thing.

So Crash and The Boys continue to play their set, including a song that supposdely kills the audience but really knocks them out.. which of course bothers kim because they play next. Meanwhile Ramona and Stacey meet and the two really get along.. and come back to find the audience ko’d and Wallace Making out with Stacey’s boyfriend. Oh no! Which is a dick move, no question. But Stacey’s next move is questionable even for a 19 year old: She says “You won’t steel another guy from me and tells wallace to sit over there”. Okay Stacey even if he is bi, and this series has trouble with the concept of bisexuals we’ll get into that later trust me, he made out with someone else entirely while on a date with you. Wallace is still an asshole, it’s part of his charm.. but it dosen’t change the fact your date kissed someone else seconds after you were gone and has been eyballing him all night, as seen even above. He’s not into you as you thought, just accept it, move on, and kick Jimmy in the balls and then wallace like a proper lady. So Scott prepares to play and this happens

And it’s here, at the very end of the comic the series main premise finally kicks in and the world takes it’s true shape. It’s a world where an indie comedy about a mess of a being putting his life together after finding his dream girl.. also has said mess being forced to get into fist fights with wizards, movie stars, vegans, half-ninjas, twin roboticists and a katana wielding douchenozzle record exec in order to continue to have the right to date his girlfriend.

It’s where the series charm comes from and really what made it a huge sucess so it’s no suprise this volume perks up immensley for the climax. I’ll get more into it’s pacing problem at the end. For now it’s fight time and as we find out in a hilarious and awesome turn.. Scott is the best fighter in toronto.. which just makes me REALLLY want a Scott Pilgrim version of letterkenny. I mean who wouldn’t want to see wayne fight some guy who can turn his hands into dragons or see Squireely Dan do E.Honda’s hand slap move from streetfighter or see the skids all fuse into one mega emo. It’s just.. the possiblities are as endless as they are wonderous and I want this now.

But yeah as Patel is both the first boss and Scott’s first real opponent Scott.. handles him really easily. This was by design as O’Malley wanted a shonen progression to the fights.. and honestly it’s a great way to do things. Since the fights are styled after shonen and video games, and both have power based progression in bad guys and threats, it just made sense. Patel.. is just pathetic even with his magic powers, and his habit of sending letters and emails just pounds it in. Though he is right to be a bit pissed Scott didn’t read a letter he hand delivered in a snowstorm. That’s just a tad rude.

Mid-Fight, Scott, now he knows the whole evil ex boyfriend thing, wonders what Matt and Ramona’s past is and while Matthew refuses to tell.. Ramona spills easily. It was midddle school, all the jocks wanted her for whatever reason, likely because from experince in high school, guys really like indie girls. Matthew was the only non-white non jock, so they teamed up and with her strength and his mystic powers they beat them.. but since his use had dried up, she flipped him off and left. Matthew dosen’t take this well and summons demon hipster chicks to fight while Scott and co, minus ramona, fight back with a finger gun routine and block his fire balls before propelling Scott into matthew somehow, and landing the KO Evil Exes Left: 6 Matthew bursts into coins though fun fact, O’Malley says the Exes all respawned back at home afterwords and learned their lesson. With Pattel I genuinely don’t think he did... but clearly given his penchant for formality what with the letters and emails, he probably felt it’d break protocol to attack before the rest were done. He probably jsut formed a hipster emo band and found more sucess using his magic for that instead and just forgot about the whole thing. Could be wrong but that’s what i’m going with. So Scott asks Ramona to go out with him then make out with him, both of which she says yes to. Nice one scotty boy. Ramona then explains the whole evil exes thing: He’ll have to defeat each one as they come after him, and while Scott wonders if they’ll come one at a time Ramona’s not sure. As time will bear out, Scott is MOSTLY correct as most exes take him one on one, with the exception of the twins. But since as I said earlier the twins are basically one person, and as we’ll find out by choice, so it’s an exception. Plus their the last step before the final boss, so by that token it’s a bit fairer to have the penultimate boss get an unfair advantage. Scott is fine with that, he and Ramona share another moment and a kiss.. but Scott makes the mistake of asking if gideon is one and Ramona’s head starts glowing with her dodging the subject, though still going out with SCott and him worried.. it just feels.. off. not a bad ending but the only one of the series three cliffhanger endings that just dosen’t work for me, especailly since it is a bit before the Gideon mystery really picks up steam again. But with that we close this chapter

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Precious Little Life is a decent start to the story. While Scott is loathsome at first, he’s still a compelling character and does get more likeable as things go, the humor when it is there shines and is one of the series best assets and while the fight is short and only at the end, it is oh so glorious especailly in cover with the impacts taking cues from the movie. It’s a good intro to Scott’s world and ther’es a reason the movie adapts this book the closest as it sets up the cast and premise well, with only Stephen Stiles feeling a bit off and ONLY for the first few chapters. The volume is only really held back by it’s pacing, as before Scott runs into ramona in his dream the story feels a bit sluggish as we’re just watching some douche date a high school kid. While it is necessary to set up the world, it just dosen’t have the snappy pacing the series would be known for and that makes the rest of the series more charming. it’s nto BAD.. but it’s not FANTASTIC like the series would become. What keeps it from being bad is simple: These aren’t general badness signs but more just O’Malley coming into his owna nd getitng better and better as the book goes, to the point that by the next book the pacing is much better and by book 3 onwards he has it down pat. Overall not a BAD volume but certaionly the weakest of the bunch.. which given it’s still really good says something about the ride we’re in for. I’ll be back sometime in the future, likely january. Yup i’m taking on YET ANOTHER PROJECT. but since this one, while clearly exausting and time consuimg, is much shorter in overall length, and i’m still proritizing the three I have running over this, I think i’ll be just fine. Until next time, have a happy holiday.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrims precious little life #ramona flowers #wallace wells #kim pine #stephen styles #knives chau #neil nordgraf #julie powers #matthew pattel #gideon #crash and the boys #reviews #comics #oni press #micheal comereau #stacey pilgrim

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realtimereports · 4 years ago

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Creating An Automated Report In Word - Principal Toolbox 9.5

How I Automated My Daily Progress Report As A Software ...

Table of ContentsAutomated Reports - Jotform'Automated Writing': Implications For Digital Communicators ...Automated Journalism – Ai Applications At New York Times ...Quill - Narrative ScienceCan You Tell The Difference Between A Robot And A Stock ...

As online marketers in 2020, there's one significant thing that we share: We're driven by information. Despite whether we're copywriters, social media supervisors, videographers, or web designers, data is key to helping us determine which jobs are successful, which methods may need more of a spending plan, and which methods we need to leave behind.

Even if you have an analytics software application that tracks a campaign's traffic, engagements, ROI, and other KPIs, you'll likely still require to take some time to arrange these numbers, evaluate them, and create a reasonable method to report on your projects to your group or customers. In the past, marketing companies and companies charged full-timers with reporting-related responsibilities. real time reports.

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This is an issue that my Cleveland-based marketing company, PR 20/20, encountered a couple of years back. As part of our procedure, we produce monthly efficiency reports for each of our customers. When we produce them, we pull the information from HubSpot and Google Analytics. Then, we compose a report to describe the information to our colleagues, clients, and task stakeholders.

However, although they were assisting our customers, creating them was holding our team back. While our clients found the reports important, the procedure of pulling the data, examining it, and preparing the reports easily took five hours per customer, per month. This took our marketers far from tasks that might have been productive in the long run, such as conceptualizing new concepts and techniques that could visibly assist their customers.

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Whenever you're trying to explore or implement a brand-new technique, you'll wish to look into the subject completely. For example, you'll want to recognize your budget and after that look into software application that suits it. You'll likewise wish to determine the advantages and disadvantages of any software you think about. This will help you better acquaint yourself with the world of AI and which tools can actually help you.

Prior to choosing that we desired to improve our reporting method, we 'd been researching AI through resources at our Marketing AI Institute. The Institute is a media company that aims to make AI more friendly for online marketers. time reports. Because we launched the business, we have actually published more than 400 short articles on AI in marketing.

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2 billion. After learning about how AI had already streamlined lots of marketing-related procedures, we chose to explore how automation and expert system could help us with our clients at PR 20/20. We ended up being consumed with how smarter technology could increase earnings and lower costs. While doing so, we discovered natural language generation (NLG) innovation that wrote plain English automatically.

You've encountered NLG anytime you have actually used Gmail's Smart Compose function. Or, when you hear Amazon's Alexa react to your voice inquiries. As soon as we discovered a possibly practical NLG software, we decided to run an experiment to see if the AI technology might partly or fully automate our efficiency report writing procedure.

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Now, the next action is to browse for software that works for your company. Here are a couple of things you'll need to consider: You'll want to consider the expense of any of the software application's memberships or costs, as well as the cost to implement it. For example, you might require to contract or employ an engineer to prepare your information and take any actions to ensure the software works smoothly.

Make certain to comprehend what you'll require to do if something isn't working effectively so you do not sustain any emergency costs. As a marketer, you will not want to rely on a full-time engineer to utilize AI software application to run your reports. You'll wish to purchase software that your less tech-savvy staff member can ultimately get trained on and discover. time reports.

As you select software, you'll likewise want to locate case research studies, reviews, or user testimonials that explain how a company used the software to run reports or complete a similar activity. This will provide you an idea of if the item you're considering has a good track record or credibility in the AI software application industry.

Here are two highly-regarded examples: Domo is a data visualization and reporting tool that integrates with significant data and analytics platforms including Google Analytics. When you link these platforms, you can use a control panel to set up and generate data visualizations or reports for your customers. These visualizations include pie charts, other graphs, and word clouds.

Manual Reports Vs. Report Automation & Scheduling Tools

The platform offers guides on how to produce datasets or spreadsheets that its algorithms will recognize as well as a drag and drop guide which asks you to submit specific info such as "Monthly Budget plan." Here's a quick demo that shows Domo in action: This reporting software application permits you to generate reports or reporting control panels that your group and clients can edit and cross-collaborate on.

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Aside from data visualizations, you can likewise include boxes to your control panels that reveal you scorecards that note whether you're hitting your goals or not, in addition to filters that assist you drill down on particular aspects of your task. Here's a demo explaining how small companies such as nonprofits can take advantage of the software application's dashboard reporting features: Despite which product you pick, you'll likely require to prepare your data in a manner that your software application's robotic or algorithm could quickly acknowledge and analyze - automatic report.

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Real-time insights

The software application needed structured information in columns and rows to generate text. So, first, we had to pull HubSpot and Google Analytics information into spreadsheets. Because doing this manually would take excessive time and limit the potential time conserved with automation, we utilized APIs and constructed our own algorithm using Google Apps Scripts to pull information into a Google Sheet.

We understood NLG software application would be unlikely to deal with entirely custom-made reports well. So, we developed a design template for these reports that didn't alter every month. To produce a format for each report, we determined a set of 12 common questions we were trying to address for clients monthly: Just how much traffic concerned your site, and how does that compare to the previous month? In 2015? How engaged was last month's site traffic? What were the top traffic-driving channels? Was there fluctuation in general traffic, and if so, what caused it? How did the blog site carry out last month? How engaged was blog site traffic? What were the top-performing article? Were there any modifications in blog traffic last month, and if so, what triggered them? The number of objectives or new contacts were generated last month? What were the top transforming pages? Where did objectives or brand-new contacts originate? Was there any modification in overall goals or lead volume, and if so, what was responsible? A great AI software will either permit you to develop files or even dashboards, as your reports.

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When we 'd structured our data and developed a basic report format, we had to translate our basic report format into an NLG template. The design template was basically a completed version of an efficiency report. When the NLG software runs, this report gets copied into the NLG software application. Then rules are applied to the copy to programmatically update what's written based upon the structured data offered.

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The last output might be a CSV, Word, or Google Doc file. Even if you're working with a trustworthy AI software, you'll still want to check it and fix any problems that emerge. This avoids any AI-related occurrences from happening when the tool is actively being utilized by workers or on tight deadlines.

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Address: Viby Ringvej 11, 1 tv

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Real-time insights

And we ultimately perfected the process to regularly produce clear, precise automated efficiency reports. If a software application company that you work with deals a trial or discount rate for testing out their product, leverage it. This will permit you to witness first-hand if the expense of the item outweighs its advantages, or give you time to determine if there is a preferable item that you need to be utilizing - time reports.

When you do this, here are a couple of things that you'll wish to examine: The amount of time that the software is saving workers, or if there were any bugs, just how much time the software application cost. The amount of other efficient or revenue-generating tasks your group was able to get done with the extra time you had.

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As we tracked our brand-new automated efficiency reports, we discovered that our tools took a portion of the time to produce the very same report that we took hours to create. Furthermore, the level of information in our client reports is now constant throughout all accounts. Prior to we carried out AI tools, the reports were only as strong as the account team's convenience level of analyzing marketing efficiency reports.

Study Report Writer - Synchrogenix

The only handbook part of the process now involves spot-checking the data for precision, applying some styling, and after that sending out. real-time progress reporting. What when took us five hours per report now takes 10 minutes. While the original process needed to be managed by multiple teammates, only one employee is needed for spot-checking.

Although our team has the ability to gain access to AI companies and specialists for our in-office experiments, other little service online marketers can likewise benefit from this strategy rather economically. Nevertheless, bear in mind that AI execution can take some time. For us, we required to put time into developing structured datasets, along with our Report design template so that our AI software application could read our analytics and draft reports correctly.

Complete info, faster conclusions, and much better decision-making digital-era success hinges on them (automatic reporting). However an organization with a single version of the reality, spreadsheets filled with accurate information, is still a couple of rungs brief of success. One reason: management needs easy-to-digest reports that translate the numbers. That tends to lead to cleaner interpretations and crisper decision-making.

These items drill-down into ab organization's database and auto-produce easy-to-understand, written reports from the very same information that Microsoft Excel utilizes to create graphics. Some of these relatively brand-new AI tools also known as natural language generation, or NLG, software application are variations of the exact same technology that helps major media companies produce computer-written news products.

Top Use Cases In Automated Report Writing - Phrazor

Anna Schena, a senior item manager at Story Science, another AI-generated composing toolmaker, states that "data storytelling" indicates users do not have to discover how to evaluate spreadsheets or glean insights from long rows of control panel dials. "Easy-to-understand language and one-click cooperation features ensure that everybody in a business really comprehends the data, all the time," Schena says.

States Sharon Daniels, CEO of Arria: "NLG-driven, multi-dimensional stories are the advancement that [data-generated] visuals were years back. The big data issue was partially addressed with the development of organization intelligence dashboards," she discusses. "However while visuals paint a picture, they're not the complete image." Adds Daniels: "The ability to gain access to key details in near real-time communicated as if written

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professorchaos · 5 years ago

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a few people have expressed interest in this, so under the cut is a list of academic resources focused on critical analysis of south park and/or relating it to a wider context in either animation, television, philosophy or social studies.

books

The Deep End of South Park: Critical Essays on Television’s Shocking Cartoon Series, edited by Leslie Stratyner and James R. Keller, 2009

this title is available on a 14-day loan from archive.org’s online library, found here. i would recommend downloading it as a PDF for easy reading. my personal favourite essay from this book- that i have read so far- is the very last one: “Among School Children: Lacan and the South Park Felt Board Lesson Set” by james r. keller, though i think there’s something in here for everyone depending on personal areas of interest. i’d recommend reading the introduction to get an idea of which essays you’re interested in. one warning is that this book is much heavier than most of the sources recommended here, both in use of language and in content (at least, the way the content is dealt with and examined in depth). a lot of it is pure critical & literary analysis, so if you didn’t enjoy english class in school, you might want to give this one a miss. (if you did, however, absolutely go for it. it’s a great book).

South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today, edited by Robert Arp, 2006

this one is... weird. you can read some of it on google books here, but the rest will have to be purchased- if it captures your interest then i’d recommend just buying a secondhand paperback copy, since they go on amazon for as low as like, 20 cents. the weird thing about this book is mostly the attitude of the editor; the book’s tone is very laid-back, not professional or academic outside of the essays themselves (and even then, not always). there’s even a totally made up ‘interview’ with matt and trey at the end of the book.

that said, it’s a good read, and there’s a lot of content. if you’re interested in religion, politics and ethics you’ll most likely enjoy this quite a bit. i think that “Is It Okay to Laugh at South Park?” by catherine yu might be particularly relevant to fandom, and it’s one of the chapters that can be read online for free!

Prime Time Animation: Television animation and American culture, edited by Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison, 2003

only two chapters of this book put focus on south park (7 and 12) but it’s still worth worth giving a read if you’re interested in television and/or animation. i found “Back to the drawing board: The family in animated television comedy” by michael v. tueth especially interesting, as it provides a wider context to the ways in which family is presented on the show, from early sitcom television to the rising popularity of the simpsons through the late 90s. on the other hand, “’Oh my god, they digitized Kenny!’: Travels in the South Park Cybercommunity V4.0″ by brian l. ott will be of interest to anyone fascinated by the old web, focusing on examining and analysing online south park communities from 1998 to 2002. though hugely outdated, it’s a very endearing piece and a relic to a time gone by.

journals

“Won't somebody please think of the children? Or, South Park fanfic and the political realm” by Judith Fathallah in Journal of Youth Studies, 2015

“Something in My Pocket: Bakhtin, Freud, and South Park” by Ian Ganassi in The Critical Flame, 2016

“Motherhood, Stereotypes and South Park” by Victoria Nagy in Women’s Studies, 2010. As far as I can find, this is not accessible without a university library, but contacting Nagy directly to ask for a copy might work. (I also might be able to provide a PDF over email, but only for personal reading).

note that these are just a few that i’ve read- there’s definitely more out there, and if i find anything else which i enjoy, i’ll add it to the list! feel free to send in any resources you would like to recommend as well. happy reading!

#rambles #feel free to reblog for ref or whatever! enjoy!

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bedlamgames · 4 years ago

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No Haven 0.912

Main highlight for this one is definitely dilemmas where slavers will have a variety of requests for you to manage.

Also includes some new assignments, new commissions, assignment generation improvements, crafting additions, and more.

Download links can be found on the No Haven page. Update notes can be found under the break.

If you don’t have RAGS and you need a copy to run it there’s one on the help page here or the one pinned on the patreon you can find a link to in the attached read me which is more up to date. If RAGS has never worked on your system despite the help page suggestions then it might be worth trying with one of the alternate players. There’s also improvements on there to the RAGS player that can also help with performance.

v0.912:

-New commissions: ---Recapture. Also used for Sea Elf Female slaves.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Added some race/corruption specific fondles as an alternative to the minimal text. If set to minimum only these won't be shown. Specifically ones for Lago'Mae/Lago'Mae Ears Corruption, Ori'Nek, Lamia, Quintari/Centaurs/Quintari Tail Corruption, Kitsune, Neko/Neko Ears Corruption, Long Sinuous Tail Corruption, Prehensile Tail Corruption, and Marlsune. Includes variations based on obedience, whether the slaver is dominant or slutty, and some have more than one variation. ---Replaced the Arrogance Subjugated commission with an updated version generously provided by the artist. ---Added some extra description to the Sinuous Tail corruption to make clearer that it's the traditionally demonic spaded tail look. ---Added a new heart-tipped tail corruption as I was in the area anyway, and noticed that it was an obvious omission that needed feeling. Comes in two different variations. ---Added some extra highlighted messages to slave mantras when they become fully embedded, improved, reduced, or are lost entirely for better visibility. ---Upgraded the prioritization of back tentacles if multiple tentacle options are available. ---Changed how forced encounters for repeated attempts work on the initial roller. Before it was possible for them to completely lose interest after getting max gold. Now they will be more likely to keep initiating, and be more likely than before if there's a chance to earn more gold. ---Added a new Glossary to explain what effects Forced Encounters available under Glossary, Help, and Options.

-Bug fixes: ---Fix for an issue where the summonee and sibling second-in-command races, along with the siblings in the Birds of the Feather scenario could be overwritten incorrectly. Also changed the mention to needing Corrupter. ---Fix for an issue in dilemmas involving a respect check with more than one slaver involved where the instigating slaver's name would be replaced by one of the others. ---Fix for Valendil Starlover's lore page applying to all sea elf males when you're playing him. ---Fix for Untamed Lusts not counting down for you. ---Fix for Demi-Angel/Fallen/Succubus with elven heritage not going the elven pussy description or elven flexibility racial. ---Fix for Savage Orc and Human Northerner racials where racials were incorrectly displayed. ---Fix for opportunities requesting male amazons or wanting amazons not to be human. ---Fix for the stats increasing for assignment types on fails and disasters. ---Fix for the Catastrophics on Price of Freedom for the slaves also affecting the two slavers. ---Fix for the various findable uniques not being counted as having unaltered assets. ---Fix for the missing extra values for slaves found from Meddling Fools and Spectacle of the Sacred. ---Fix for the new mechanic to trigger puppet leader when mental manipulation isn't involved. ---Fix for Cutprice Roses > Armour > Maid generating a bunch of broken and unusable battlemaid outfits. ---Fix for Stats only showing your slaves sometimes. The trait slots were also using the wrong variable and so were displaying one person's trait slots for everyone. ---Fix for which regions assignments have been completed not increasing which had broken the region based aspects. ---Fix for an issue where it was possible that not enough assignments would be generated. ---Fix for the unknown CT Error that could occur during Finish Day. It's possible there's others but I've definitely squished the one I could reliably reproduce. ---Fix for a far too high a bonus to Forced Encounters from Sissy/Bimbo. ---Some text fixes.

v0.911:

---A Rare City of Aversol assignment in the City of Aversol with two pieces of patron provided commissioned art. Comes with the opportunity to learn one of ten potential traits, specially upgraded versions of all those traits, and a new penalty effect in Enflamed Lusts. While currently used on this assignment I'm sure it will also be a fun option to inflict in other places in future. ---Hidden Special assignment follow up to that one needing multiple critical successes with specific traits to find a very powerful reward with two new unique slave(r)s with four new aspects and a special encampment upgrade.

-Crafting changes: ---Added two more qualities. Formerly it was Poorly Made, Average, Designer/Masterwork, Spectacular, Epic, and now it's Poorly Made, Average, Impressive, Designer, Spectacular, Epic, Ultimate. ---Changed up the odds due to this of the likelihood of these being generated. ---Respect checks for seduction are now affected by each quality rather than just for designer and above. Armour works too if it's got a 20+ slutty rating. ---Reduced the assignment bonus from Average with Impressive now contributing what Average used to. ---Increased the assignment bonus for Epic attire.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---It is now possible to gain the puppet leader status from forced encounters without the forcer needing a way to be able to change you mentally though it will need them to be taking the max amount of gold for it to be able to happen. The method used should be familiar to those that have played the Rough Landing games and I hope you enjoy the little callback. ---Lamia futanari will now always be double cocked. Added some extra description for lamia/lizardman cocks. ---Replaced the last part of Golem descriptions with a new set of nine options as the old ones like spectacles, face prints, and forehead gems really weren't appropriate. Also updated the wisp last part replacement so there's now four different ones rather than just the one. ---The Male Nethemir Cult Vessel has picked up Back Tentacles as a starting corruption. The aspect Aura of Dark prophecy now also replaces Scavenging for Corruption as a favoured assignment type and Follower for Leader along with Faith: Frozen Queen for Magic: Corruptions as favoured traits ---Legion, Golems, and Wrights can no longer be Were. Centaurs and Harpies now can be. ---Updated the you golem physical attributes generator to match the updated one used for other golems. Other golems with Monster will now have a set height rather than being variable.

Bug fixes: ---Fix for Private Passage not listing the needed gold. ---Fix for Truly Divine increasing potential slavers instead of slaves. ---Fix for Sissies having the wrong chastity options. ---Fix for a slaver's reputation being changed correctly by an enslave attempt prior to the bit where it should be changing. ---Fix for Oozes, Wrights, Wisps, Driders, and Golems being able to be enslaved by the talk to option. Some will be enslavable in future but you'll need to discover a way to do it. ---Fix for 150g dilemmas only costing 50g. ---Fix for a big issue with dilemmas where it would forget what it was doing halfway through on several options. ---Fix for the Ensnared Rose fulfilled opportunities being broken.

v0.91:

-Dilemmas: ---Now slavers won't just want to talk to you in the morning about random bits of in-setting lore and will instead have a variety of requests. ---Should happen more often than lore unlocks and should adjust how often they happen based on how many slavers you have in the encampment. ---Wisps don't really have normal desires, and will just do what they like. Legion are also not really into asking permission for anything. Zharr, thugs, bimbos, obedient slavers, and other completely loyal ones are all far too content with their lot to ask for stuff. Mercenaries are just here to get paid and will also not bother you. ---There are twenty three different dilemmas to start off with at various levels of rarities in how often they'll happen. Several of which have variation in outcomes, options, and reasoning. ---Slavers on negative reputations and on certain levels of morale will be far more likely to either ask to leave if disliked or insisting you do something about being lusted after. ---Lots more usage for the respect checking system with some using the initial check only, while others skip straight to needing to force the issue like making use of. ---Can gain new traits, rarer assignments, new slavers, cheap(ish) biomancy, and region buffs among others. ---Due to this I reworked how Trait Transmission worked where a slaver can learn a trait of another slaver. Currently this only affects one of the new dilemmas and one of the Coastal Caves outcomes, but there will be other uses including one in the near future. Previously it was in strict order of checking for and applying Depraved > Slutty > Unscrupulous > Friendly > Sneaky > Seductive > Aggressive > Brutal in turn. Now it's more randomized (though still with a greater chance of picking up Depraved) and now can also potentially learn Connected, Cooperative, Creative, Dancer, Folklorist, Follower, Herbalist, Heroic, Honourable, Perceptive, Persuasive, Singer, Tactful, Tracker, Trainer, Trapper, any of the Faiths including Spiritual, and most of the Crafter traits. ---Can get your second-in-command to deal with it if they're around. Due to this Persuasive (Per), Seductive (Sed), Hypnotic (Hyp), Dominator (Dtr), Malevolence (Mal) are now listed as positive traits and Bimbo (Bim), Sex Addict (Sex) are mixed. Also added a note that them having a decent reputation helps, as it does. ---If you do this second-in-commands on lower morale have a chance to dislike the role more making them easier to remove if you want to do that. They also have a chance to lose some reputation if they handle it really badly.

-New assignments: ---A Forest Goblins vs. Wood Elves themed Uncommon Slaving assignment in the Ever Forest for a new solid source of supplies. Critical success has two versions, one for getting a slave, and one for if you have no slave capacity/are not taking slaves. ---An Adventurers themed assignment Rare Marauding assignment in the Dreadsea Coast. The Critical Success has patron provided commissioned art. Findable from the second month and will apply a penalty to Dreadsea Coast assignments along with a lesser penalty to Great Plains assignments while it is active giving the choice of sending five slavers to deal with it at a high risk or waiting for the assignment to expire. Critical success has three versions, one first time getting a specific semi-unique slave, one for after that with more variation in who you get, and one for if you have no slave capacity/are not taking slaves.

-New commissions: ---Halt Draenei Caravan with two versions for intro and the success. Also used for Draenei female slavers and female slaves. Also used for now for Draenei Farm, but I'm getting something new for that. ---Forest goblin female slaves. Will also be used for an upcoming assignment in the Deep Mountains. ---Bred to be Broken. Also used for Quintari female slavers and Centaur slaves. ---Gone for a Soldier. Also used for Orc female slavers. ---Lago'Mae in Maid Outfits for both Submissive and non-Submissive options. Will be used for Basic/Advanced Maid Training in a future update.

-New patron provided commissions: ---Human Fancy. Part of a larger commission to be used for an upcoming assignment. Also used as an alternative to tentacle sex as appropriate with the existing beast on goblin one. ---Shadow Outcast. The larger commission just mentioned. Also has an alt for Shadow Outcast futanari. ---Planning out assignments/Winning the Golem Scenario. Has many variations being used, including zoomed versions, for having a Golem Second-in-Command, female Akir slaves, Noble slaves, and blowjob sex scenes. Like the encampment scene you won't see it every time you do planning out assignments though there will be a greater chance if you are playing a Golem.

-Crafting additions: ---New race styles in Asanei, Ori'Nek, Unrefined, and Neko (which has a few extra cute variations). ---Will now correctly account for if the smith/seamstress is Slutty or Reserved. ---More than doubled the number of different messages. Small chance they will now show up on not specifically Slutty/Girly items. ---Several new decoration additions including asymmetric and tassels. ---To better reflect the style of the setting the oversized shoulder pads have been replaced with sensibly sized shoulder pads.

-Assignment generation: ---Extended the recent system where there'd be a reduction in rare assignments in the first month and a slight increase after the first six months. Now it is possible to increase the chance of getting a rare assignment based on it being a solid lead, a quality lead, or best lead for an increasingly large bonus. ---Most assignments will work as they did before with the following exceptions. ---The assignment you can get in the Tavern is a solid lead. ---The assignments from brought scouting upgrades will be either normal, solid, or quality based on the level purchased. ---The assignments from Inquisitor will be quality leads. ---The bonus assignments from the Scouting aspects on Critical Success will be best leads, and on a Success will be quality leads. ---A Critical Success on Scouting assignments along with Grove Creepers will be solid leads. ---The assignments from Decadence like No Other on a Critical Success will be best leads for the City of Aversol ones, and quality for the others. On a Success all assignments generated will be solid so this should hopefully make this assignment a lot more worthwhile than it was before. ---An edge case not likely ever to come up, but it amused me so why not, so on a Failure of Sudden Betrayal if you did try to get rid of a slaver with the A Friend in Every Tavern aspect the assignments generated will be best leads.

-Miscellaneous additions: ---Stats now shows how many free trait slots you, a slaver, or a slave can have. This is how many extra traits can be learned from most sources including corruptions (usually, as there are exceptions that ignore this limit such as training). The number of slots can be increased by levelling up. ---Used zoomed in versions of the Nymph commission for generic sex for elves or those that have been dominated performing oral on lady or futanari slavers. ---Reworded the Decadence like No Other intro a bit along with adding a note in the Special text. ---A few bits of text additions and formatting improvements to respect checking. ---Changed the colour of wood elf speech from maroon like other elves to match the one used also by Centaurs, Horned Ones, and Fae. ---Adjusted Critical Success/Success odd additions a bit if the chance of a Failure/Disaster falls well below negative at time of applying. They'll still improve the chances and add to Crushing it, but by a slightly lower amount in the same way that the odds additions/subtractions are based on the numbers present so the more the assignment requires the less a Success trait is worth. This shouldn't be noticeable unless you're really, really overloading an assignment, and even then it shouldn't be too harsh in terms of effect. ---Added a bunch of new succubus first name variations. ---With the cheerleader precedent Known Shark of the Cards will no longer be earned by having Magic: Illusion and such slavers now have more text on the Critical Success to reflect that.

Bug fixes: ---Big backend overhaul for how assignments generate specific other assignments along with how the expiry is applied that should fix some obscure issues. ---Fix for a critical bug where cancelling while assigning a slave to a slaver would break the game. ---Multiple fixes for forced encounters including who was doing it wasn't being tracked correctly so the amount being taken wasn't being increased so you could never get to the puppet leader event and that a bunch of text was being skipped over during the possessed variants. Also changed the forced encounter checks while I was there so rather than skipping days 1-10 to each month to having a penalty to the roll on days 1-10 of the first month. ---Fix for the assignment buff from the Critical Success from Complete Profane Ritual only lasting 3 days due to a cap on the variable used instead of 8 as was originally intended. ---Fix for an issue where some of the newest assignments may not have been clearing on a quick restart. ---Fix for golem butts being too small on average. ---Fix for heritage not being cleared on rerolling your start so could pick up incorrect racials if you swapped out of a demi-angel or succubus. ---Fix for some of the newer Diplomacy assignments not working with the Diplomacy rank up assignment generation correctly. ---Fix for Lady of Light being treated when started as a slaver recruiting assignment rather than a slave capturing one. ---Fix for unintended wing growth if you corrupted a winged character before examining them. ---Fix for an issue where a slave would be rated as the wrong value during sexytime. ---Fix for switch showing up twice after trait removal which happens most obviously for you at game start. ---Fix for some repeated text on forced encounters. ---Fix for trying to increase the height of a minimum height character being treated as a reduction attempt. ---Fix for Marauding Spectacle of the Sacred Clumsy/Magic: Corruption being swapped in the description but not in the actual checks. ---Fix for not being able to change a sissy's chastity options if they were already wearing a cage when they made the transition. ---Fix for not being able to get the Succubus Summonee second-in-command given the change to corrupter. ---Fix for the broken night goblin's traits from Coiled Tentacles which were well broken by a recent change in how specific slave rewards are generated. ---Fix for repicking during training showing the slave being trained. ---Some text fixes.

#NO HAVEN

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royalbloodedbastards · 5 years ago

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chatzy // lucky f*cker

DATE: Friday, April 24, 2020 CHARACTERS: Casey and Alec ABOUT: A friendly (?) five-round competition. Cheating encouraged. Curses, not so much.

Casey didn't bother changing out of his joggers and company tee after work. Teaching children how to walk on a balance beam, Casey barely ever broke a sweat, so the clothes were about as clean as they were when he put them on. Besides, Casey wouldn't be surprised if he and Alec somehow found their way into doing some sort of physical activity. Casey felt the tall weeds smacking against his shins as he neared the lake. "Hey!" he called out to an Alec-shaped person 20 yards away.

Alec spun around, flat rock ready to skip in hand, and threw their hands into the air. "Casey!" they called back. They started to jog over to him, tripped over a stick, pedalled their arms through the air for a few seconds to regain their balance, then continued until they were close enough that they didn't have to yell. "What's up?" they asked, holding their hand out to start their handshake. "Come here often?"

"Not in the daytime!" Casey chirped back. He slapped his hand into Alec's, pulled them in for a bro hug, then tenderly laid a palm on Alec's butt cheek. He rested his head against Alec's, completely still and silent for a few seconds before pulling away. "Glad you could make it!"

Alec copied Casey right down to the seconds of silence, then laughed as they pulled away, handshake completed. "Me too! Here." They pressed the rock into Casey's hand without any other explanation. "No twister and oil, but still gonna be a fun time!"

Casey just blinked down at the rock in his palm. "Are we... Stoning each other?"

Alec ran their fingers through their hair to mess it up. "Kinda one-sided if we were, eh? Let he without sin." They grinned at him. "We can get stoned!"

Casey smiled and clasped a hand over his chest. "A person after my own heart. Please don't tell anybody, but—" Casey pulled his pen out of his pocket. "I took like, three hits before teaching my class today."

Alec mirrored him and pressed a hand to their own chest. "You say like you're only learning that now!" They leaned forward and lowered their voice to a whisper. "I'm going to tell everyone and get you fired."

Casey gasped and smacked the side of Alec's arm. "Don't you dare! Those children are grubs but their parents tip me so well." Casey held up his pen. "They're even sponsoring this afternoon, don't you know?"

"You guys are getting tipped?" Alec grinned at him and plucked the pen out of his fingers. "Thank you, parents! Think if I email them they'll sponsor my bad habits?"

"If you offer to take away their children for two hours, I think they'll sponsor anything," Casey half-joked.

Alec laughed. "I thought you meant like, threaten kidnapping for a second! Blackmail them!"

Casey clutched Alec's arm and guffawed. "That's so evil, oh my gods! How much money do you think they'd offer? Don't answer that, you'll go straight to hell." Casey shook his head and stepped toward the water. "Brilliant mind, Alec Masters, brilliant mind."

Alec shook their head vigorously. "No! I'm not condoning that at all." They winked at him. "Not at all."

Casey closed his eyes, smiled, and shook his head. "You smooth talker." He turned to gesture out toward the lake. "So what's the vibe then? A stoned swim? A baked boat race? Some fazed fishing?" Casey looked back at Alec, grimacing. "Please don't say fishing."

Alec looked out over the lake when Casey gestured to it. "Fishing? Gross, I left that behind when I was fifteen." They started heading back towards the water. "Can we combine them? Make our own game?"

"Yeah!" Casey agreed. "I love a good game. Or—that's not true. I love a good win. The game is secondary." He looked at Alec. "Are you thinking some sort of athletic competition?"

"I love a good win," Alec agreed. "No matter what." They picked up another rock and hucked it into the lake. "We should find a way to balance this shit out, you got crazy time powers and I'm lucky as all fuck." Laughing, they picked up another rock and tried to skip it, getting a solid few bounces before it sunk into the lake. "Some sorta middle ground, eh?"

"Interesting," Casey muttered. "We could play Russian roulette. I doubt you'll get the bullet and then I can just try dodging it."

"Huh. That's is an idea, but if you readily have a gun on you, I gotta go." Alec squinted at him.

Casey grinned. "Do you think I seem like the gun-totin' type?"

"Gimme a second to think on that," Alec joked, bumping their shoulder into Casey's. "I'm gonna go with no?"

"Damn, guess I bought those chaps for nothing then." Casey shook his head. "What about a tourney? Five game spread, half skill, half luck, winner takes all?"

“I’ll still admire you in them.” Alec continued speaking immediately after saying that. “Amazing. Ideas for games or are we making them up?

Casey smiled and nodded at the first part of Alec's sentence before continuing onto the next. "We don't have to make them all up, but maybe the tiebreaker—assuming we'll need one—should be a custom challenge. So we make sure the odds are dead even."

Alec messed their hair up again. “I like it. What’s the winner get?”

"Hm..." Casey looked out onto the water. "The chaps?" he joked.

Alec grinned at him. “I’ve never wanted anything more.” They tossed a rock into the water. “I’m kidding, please don’t actually give me them if I win.”

Casey laughed. "I'd have to actually get them if you did, so I can stand behind that." He shrugged. "Is there something that you want? Maybe the loser can grant some sort of wish or service to the winner."

Alec took a seat on the bank of the lake. “Yeah, sounds good. Winner gets a wish?”

Casey nodded and joined Alec on the ground. "Winner gets a wish," he repeated. "Better if it's not something of monetary value, I think. Might make it more special. Not to say that it can't have a cost associated, but more than just getting you something off Amazon."

Alec made a face. "Yeah, I can't afford anything of– what is it? Monetary value?" They laughed. "I was thinking more of the favour kind."

“Perfect.” Casey leaned back onto his elbows. For a moment he tried to think of something he could get Alec to do if he won, but realized the possibilities were too endless and shelved the thought. “Got any ideas for games?”

"That I could win? So many, you bring any cards?" Alec laughed at the idea someone could leave their room without a pack of cards in their pocket. "I mean, for you it could be dodging shit the other throws."

Casey tipped his head back and forth. "Could be..." Suddenly he clapped and looked at Alec, eyes widened. "Paintball gun. Sixty seconds each, fish in a barrel style. Nail the other player with as many balls as you can."

Alec's eyes widened. "Do you have a paintball gun? I'm so down."

Casey pumped a fist in excitement. "I don't, but I bet you fifty bucks my friend Cameron knows where to get one. Rhetorical bet."

"Awesome!" Alec scooped up another rock. "What do we do for right now?"

Casey shrugged. "We could race? Opposite shore and back? Or lap the lake on foot."

Alec looked down at the condition of their sneakers and judged they’d probably last a lap around the lake. “On foot, ready set go!” they blurted out, already launching themself forward to start running.

"Oh, fuck you!" Casey shouted after Alec, scrambling to get up. With his eyes locked on Alec's back, he took off in a sprint. Suddenly, Casey was very glad he decided not to change.

Alec laughed, losing a couple steps of speed as it took some breath from them. They continued on, jumping over sticks and large rocks as best they could without careening headfirst into anything. “I need the head start!”

As Casey veered off the path and the ground turned into stones and sticks, Casey closed his eyes and flipped a switch in his mind. When his eyes opened again, the earth was gliding below him in slow motion and each of Casey's bounding strides felt like flight. He watched carefully each time his foot hit the floor, aiming for the flattest parts of the earth too give himself the best leverage to spring forward. He could hear Alec droning ahead of him, but was too focused on his footholds to parse what the actual real-time words were. Casey just shouted back, "Cheater!" hoping it would come through even in hyper-time.

Alec glanced over their shoulder when they heard Casey say something and promptly tripped over a root. After windmilling their arms for balance they succeeded in not wiping out, but definitely lost their early lead. “Fuck!” they exclaimed with a laugh. “S’why I needed it!”

Seeing Alec's form crumple, Casey thought for a moment that he was about to witness his friend eat dirt. He snapped out of hyper-time and watched as Alec flailed, caught their balance, and then whiz by as Casey gained the lead. He laughed and yelled out, "I thought lucky kids don't trip!"

“Lucky kids don’t fall,” Alec exclaimed although they still had no idea how their powers worked. Determined not to lose any more ground, they fell silent and tried to grab for Casey in front of them to pull him back.

Once Casey had the lead, he stayed in real time to try to gain ground the "fair" way. That is until he felt Alec clutch onto the back of his shirt, pulling him back. Casey stumbled and found himself running alongside them. "Fucking cheater!" he yelled in a glee-tinged rage. "Unreal!"

Alec grinned over at him, hopping easily over the next root that came up. “Don’t be a sore loser!” they yelled back as they cut to the side, ducking under a tree in a shortcut they had spotted a few seconds earlier. Once they skidded to a halt on the beach a few minutes later, in the lead, they sat down, trying to catch their breath. “Fun!”

One moment, Casey was trailing Alec, fully engaged in hyper-time. Then, suddenly, Alec veered sharply off-course and even in hyper-time, Casey couldn't shift his momentum quickly enough to give chase. Cursing himself under his breath, knowing he had lost the race, he kept running anyway. Sure enough, when he arrived at the beach, Alec had already beaten him there. Casey used what little breath he had left in him to sprint forward and leap onto Alec, knocking them flat down onto the sand. Hovering over them, Casey pointed an accusatory finger. "You dirty, little bastard! I see your game!" His voice thundered, but Casey was smiling cheek to cheek. "You wanna play dirty? I can get dirty!"

Alec grinned up at them from the position they now found themself in and took a second to wonder how long it would be before they stopped finding sand around their cabin. They shoved Casey’s chest and laughed. “Threat or promise?”

"I fucking swear," Casey replied, panting. He pushed off the sand and collapsed onto his back, his chest heaving as he breathed. "You are so in for it," he laughed almost maniacally.

Alec rolled onto their side to face him, still grinning widely. They rested their cheek on their hand. “I’ll believe it when I see it. What’s next?”

Casey turned his head to look at Alec. "Just give me a minute to stop dying," he laughed. Slowly his breath returned to him and Casey propped himself up on the sand to look at Alec. "Alright, fine. Maybe this is a mistake, but since I picked something, you should pick the next thing."

Alec sat up as Casey propped himself up. They clasped their hands together. “I was hoping you’d say that. How biased am I allowed to get?”

"Fuck," Casey hissed, falling back onto the sand. "I already hate the sound of this. What is it?" He asked, afraid to know.

Alec laughed at his reaction. “Not that bad! Since I cheated and all.” They put the word ‘cheated’ in air quotes. “How about diving in the lake and seeing who finds the coolest stuff?”

Casey narrowed his eyes. "Okay, but are you secretly a merperson? Are you gonna try and drown me this time?"

“Yep! I brought you here to drown you!” Alec replied cheerfully. “Wanna check me for gills?”

Casey grinned. "Okay, well you know nothing turns me on like a good threat." He stood up on the sand and shook his legs out. "Is there a time limit?"

“Five minutes? Keep it short and sweet?” Alec started shaking sand out of their hair.

"Five minutes," Casey repeated. "Let's do it!" He kicked his shoes off and started pulling off his socks, making a small pile of them on the sand.

Alec followed suit and pulled their shirt over their head before running into the lake. “Starting now!” They dove down and opened their eyes underwater to search for anything out of place along the bottom of the lake.

"What the fuck!" Casey was still getting undressed when Alec ran off into the water. Quickly whipping his shirt behind him, he started toward the water, hopping out of his joggers as he went. Once he was in, he held his breath and dived deep, paddling toward the floor of the lake. He tried opening his eyes underwater to search for anything, his hands patting at the mud and sand.

Alec noticed a faint glimmer at the bottom of the lake after their third time coming up for air, and swam down to clear enough silt away to figure out what it was. A minute later, they emerged at the shore, holding a tiny chest, maybe half a foot long, over their head in victory. “Got something! Wanna open it?”

Casey was catching his breath on the sand after dropping off his third empty alcohol vessel. He looked over to see Alec emerging from the water, holding something of actual interest. "What the fuck," he sighed in exasperation. "How did you even find that? Yes, obviously. Crack that bad boy open, baby."

“Luck?” Alec chirped, sitting down on a log instead of the ground so all the sand didn’t stick to them while they were soaking wet. It took them a few tries but after slamming the clasp into the log, it sprung open and a collection of coloured glass marbles poured out into the sand. “Aw, fucking sweet. I love marbles.”

"Oh my gods," Casey gasped as the marbles spilled out onto the sand. "You're..." Casey held up a hand to block Alec from his field of vision. "You're a fucking cheater and you know it, with your lucky bullshit, but I can't even hate you because I think you're so cool, and that disgusts me."

Alec laughed and tried to push Casey's hand to the side so they could still see him. "What? How is it cheating if I can't control it?"

"Don't make me explain my logic, Masters." Casey dropped his hand and pointed accusatorially at Alec. "This is a purely emotional argument and I stand by it 100%."

Alec started gathering up the marbles to return them to the chest. "Should we put this back? I don't wanna get cursed." They slid off the log to kneel down. "But okay, okay! Your turn to choose, you can cheat now!"

Casey waved a dismissive hand at the chest. "It's marbles, how bad could the curse be?" Casey sat down in the sand, then quickly clambered up to his knees when he felt granules of sand find his way into his boxers. "Fuck. Okay. Uh..." He closed his eyes, tipping his head side to side. "I don't know. I need to catch my breath for a minute."

"If each marble is cursed it could be really bad," Alec offered as they closed the lid to the chest. They had one green marble still in their hand, and they held it out towards Casey. "A souvenir! Sure, let's take a break. You can brainstorm ways to beat me at a game. Mind map, maybe?"

Casey laughed and leaned away from Alec's hand. "Why would you say that every marble is cursed and then give me one? I'm not taking one unless you take one!"

"I said if they're all cursed!" Alec laughed and tossed the marble at Casey anyway. "I'm not risking bringing pirate treasure into the place I sleep! What if there's ghosts?" They considered the chest anyway. "But they are nice. Maybe I'll leave it here and see if it's disappeared by tomorrow. It could belong to one of the naiads, I don't want to steal it– but what if it doesn't belong to anyone, and we were meant to find it, and I'm spitting in the face of destiny by not keeping it? It's a treasure chest! That's some find, eh?"

"Okay," Casey laughed, standing up on the sand. "Just get this thing away from me because now it's just cursed in my brain. Like hashtag cursed." He walked over and placed the marble beside the chest. "And listen—I wouldn't have to brainstorm ways to beat you if you weren't such a cheater. I'm not over here, confounded by your skill, let's just make that clear."

"Sounds good!" Alec picked up the mini chest, walked to the edge of the water and hucked it back into the lake. They dusted off their hands and headed back over to Casey. "Whoa, okay, there was no cheating going on in that last game. No skill, either, but no cheating!"

"Uh-huh. How am I supposed to know you didn't run over here this morning and chuck that same box of marbles into the lake?" He shrugged. "Seems kinda convenient, don't you think?"

"Sounds like way too much work for me." Alec grinned at him. "Out of character."

Casey smiled. "Fine. I'll concede, it does seem like more effort than I can imagine you putting in." Casey walked over to his joggers and started dusting the sand off his thighs and calves.

Alec picked up the marble that they had left behind originally and threw it into the lake as well. "No loose ends!" They scooped their shirt up to pull it back on, only realizing after it stuck to them that they were still dripping water and now also covered in sand. "Aw, fuck."

Casey laughed seeing Alec's mistake. "Shit. I didn't think this through." He looked at his own clothes that he had strewn about the sand. "I mean... Guess I have no choice. Just gonna be sandy."

"We'll be smooth like rocks after it exfoliates us!" Alec sat down to put their shoes back on, giving up entirely on not turning into a sand dune. "Probably shoulda taken my pants off before jumping in the lake, eh? Too late now. I'm right tempted to just roll around and get as sandy as possible so I can stop avoiding it."

Casey laughed. "Okay, you can do that. I'm gonna wait." Casey spread his legs and held his arms out to the side, facing the sun in the hopes that it would dry him off faster.

Alec considered going through with it, but the sand was less appealing by the second. They stood up and joined Casey facing the sun instead, closing their eyes and focusing on the warmth against their skin as though concentration would aid in the drying process. "How many rounds is this competition out of?"

Casey shrugged, his eyes closed. "I don't know, five? Wait—" he looked over at Alec. "Did those two just count as rounds? Did we already start?"

Alec cocked their head to the side. "Did they not?"

"Well, if I knew they were gonna count I would have tried a little harder!" Casey argued. "Cheated a little more," he added with a smirk.

Alec grinned and shoved his shoulder. “You still got three more chances.”

Casey laughed and shoved Alec's shoulder back with a bit more force. "That's not how majority works, asshole. I only have three more chances if I win the next two rounds. If you win one more time, you already win by default."

Alec leaned when they were shoved but didn’t move their feet. “Easy solution! You just gotta win the next two rounds.”

"Alright, fine. Then I know what game we're gonna play." Casey dropped his arms and instead turned to stand completely straight facing Alec. "Ninja. One on one."

Alec huffed at the game choice, still smiling, and turned to face Casey too. “Times like this I wish I knew how to control my powers!” They shook out their arms. “Remind me the rules?”

Casey stepped away, just in case Alec tried to pull any funny business and start before Casey was ready. "We take turns. Single, one-strike movements, try to hit your opponents limbs. When a limb is hit, it's out. First person to lose all four limbs is the loser. Got it?"

Alec nodded, well aware of how this round was going to turn out but willing to give it a shot anyway. “Got it. You start?”

Casey smiled and in the blink of an eye, time skidded to a near halt. His eyes focused on Alec's leg—the closest limb to where he stood—as Casey aimed a sweeping kick at the back of their heel.

Alec tried to lift their leg up out of the way but started too late, and only succeeded in unbalancing themself as the kick landed. They winced as they hit the ground. “Can I get up or am I disqualified?”

Casey laughed. "You can take a turn to get up or you can try to strike me from the ground."

Alec grinned. “I dunno if I agree with these rules.” They kicked one leg forward anyway to try and hit his shin.

Almost too easy. Casey watched as Alec's leg swung toward them at a glacial pace. As they reached his shin, Casey just picked his foot up and set it back down after they had passed. Then, without waiting more than a second after Alec had reached stasis, Casey brought an arm down to try to take out one of Alec's.

Alec expected the next hit to come immediately, but without knowing where Casey was aiming, they still pulled their arm back too slowly and got caught on the wrist. They tucked their arm behind their back and grinned up at him. “Cheater,” they sing-songed as they lunged forward for one of his legs again.

Casey realized too late that he was overzealous in his previous attempt to take Alec out because it left him prone to a straight shot in the leg. But somehow, Casey managed to spring up as Alec lunged and hop away from their strike, landing in a more upright position this time. "Oh shit! Close call!" With a spin, Casey swiftly turned and went for Alec's remaining leg.

Alec gasped when Casey managed to dodge them and, with their momentum from the lunge forward, there was no chance of dodging Casey’s attack on their other leg. “What! That was such a good dodge!” they exclaimed, momentarily pulled out of game mode by how impressed they were. “That was awesome!” Realizing they still had one arm left, they tried to swing towards Casey’s leg without using any of their other limbs.

Casey watched as Alec came for his leg. He tried to lift his leg up over Alec's arm but underestimated how much force he'd have to apply. Casey felt Alec's hand clip his foot and cried out. "No!" He fell to one knee and assess his opponent. "Thanks. Guess your luck is rubbing off on me," he smiled. Then, after calculating his best move, Casey lunged forward to attack Alec's remaining arm.

Alec tipped backwards in a last ditch attempt to avoid Casey, but they were too slow and ended up both losing and sprawled out on the ground. “I got you once!” they exclaimed as they sat back up, rubbing their heel where Casey had kicked them originally. “That’s more than I expected! Good game.”

"Good game," Casey agreed. He held out his hand to Alec to help them up off the sand. "Your heel's okay?"

“Just bruised,” Alec replied cheerfully, taking Casey’s hand and pulling themself to their feet. “That was a sweet kick. And that dodge! Fucking awesome.”

"Dodges are my game, babyyyy!" Casey tapped Alec's shoulder as they came to a stand. "Can't get beat if you don't take heat."

"That's a fantastic motto! Rhymes and everything, full poet." Alec widened their eyes as a thought came to mind. "Did you kill at dodgeball when you were a kid? Not actual murder. Like, make your opponents cry. Emotional murder."

"Oh yeah, dodgeball was child's play. Way too fucking easy, it was almost sad," Casey mourned. "But also actual murder."

Alec laughed. "Dodgeball is child's play, that's kinda the point, eh? I can't think of it without getting flashbacks to grade 7 gym. A fuckin' time."

"Maybe we should make it adult's play," Casey suggested. "Could be our next round?"

"Adult's play," Alec repeated with a laugh. "Sounds like a sex shop. For sure, let's do it!"

Casey chuckled at the observation. "Great. Then we should change venues. And clothes, I guess, unless you wanna play wet."

“Guess we need a sorta ball, eh? Or more than one.” Alec sighed and tipped forward so they were leaning against Casey, chest to chest. “Where do you even get those?”

Casey smirked. "You trying to see my balls? Is that what this is all about?"

Alec laughed and wrapped their arms around Casey, resting their chin on his shoulder. “My Masters plan.”

Casey snorted, returning Alec's embrace. "You know, for a vegan, you're so fucking cheesy."

“I’m gonna choose to take that as a compliment!” Alec swayed side to side. “Are we gonna find a ball or just chuck rocks at each other?”

Casey lowered his arms to Alec's waist so they could slow dance more properly. "We could chuck rocks, but it'll suck a lot more for you when I peg you in the face with one."

Alec put their hands on Casey's shoulders and leaned back enough to grin at him as they followed his lead. "I can try and find the cursed marbles again, dive back into the lake."

Casey laughed as they swayed gently. "Why would they be cursed? If somebody was going to bury a treasure chest and lay a curse on whoever found it, do you really think they'd just fill it with marbles?"

"One hundred percent! Why wouldn't you fill it with marbles? What else is there to put?"

"I don't know, bones? Gold? Something more exciting?" Casey started turning them in circles as he spoke. "If I got cursed with a chest full of marbles, I literally would not tell anybody. That would be the lamest curse. I would rather let it kill me."

Alec snickered. "Maybe that's why. The true curse is the embarrassment that comes with."

Casey sighed longingly, looking into their eyes. "You just get me."

Pretending to swoon, Alec leant against Casey again. "Is the third challenge seducing me?"

Casey smirked. "Depends. Is it working?"

"Like a charm." Alec pressed their cheek into his shoulder. "But that doesn't mean you win."

"Are you sure?" Casey tipped his head to rest on Alec's. "'Cause I'm already holding a prize, baby."

"Oh my god," Alec whined under their breath. "You're so smooth, what the fuck."

"You've been hit by—" Casey thrust his hips to one side. "You've been struck by—" Then to the other side. "A smooth criminal."

Now, Alec was holding onto Casey for balance as they laughed, moving with him. "And he's talented too! Triple threat!"

Casey laughed. "Gotta have those smooth karaoke skills." He gasped. "Oh shit, we should have a karaoke party."

Alec gasped in unison. "We should– fuck! Yeah! I love karaoke." They laughed. "That can be our tiebreaker if you win the next round!"

Casey exhaled a sigh of bliss. "I am so down for that. How do we determine who wins? Won't we need an unbiased third party?"

“Aw, man, yeah. It’d be better with like, music too.” Alec took one of Casey’s hands and tried to spin him. “And karaoke’s meant to be bad! Trying to be good at karaoke goes against the laws of the universe.”

Casey lifted his arm up and spun through it. "Mm, those are some straight truths." Once he spun around, he lifted their hands to get Alec to do the same. "Okay, whether or not it's part of the game, let's make this happen for us because now I have the idea and my soul will never be at rest until we do."

Alec spun too and let go of Casey’s hands to flop back onto the ground now that they deemed themself dry enough. “We gotta! Can’t have you sticking around to haunt me ‘cause we failed to make karaoke happen.” Alec grinned up at him. “I bet we can set it up in the rec room, make it a whole thing.”

Casey clapped in excitement. "Yes! Oh my gods, are you friends with Blue? She would eat. This. Up." Casey clapped again on each word for emphasis. He joined Alec, siting on the ground beside his sweats. "Wow, look at us. Party planning committee. Who woulda thought? Not me."

Alec leaned against Casey as soon as he was seated next to them. “We got a lotta friends in common!” They laughed and twisted to flop over Casey’s lap, looking up at him. “I’m more the ideas guy than the planner. Are you good at actually getting stuff like this to happen? ‘Cause we can always rope Ime in, they’re right organized.”

Casey wove his fingers through Alec's hair and scratched their chin with his other hand. "Yeah! I organize Asian Dinner Club and I'm also doing a thing with Akira. A party's a straight shot, no problem. But definitely ask Ime anyway because they're just a legend and I would like them to be there."

Alec closed their eyes, their expression drifting from excited to content. "Aw, sweet, double the planning, half the work. Ime'll be down for karaoke night, they love watching people get embarrassing. Whatcha planning with Akira? They're so intense. Like, in a hot way."

Casey groaned. "Oh my gods, don't even get me started. Like... Oof." Casey shook his head. "We're planning a fight night. I think right now it's gonna be an elimination-style bracket, but we haven't really worked out the safety details of how to make sure people don't die." Casey squeezed Alec's cheeks together to push their lips into a pucker. "Aw. You're so cute."

“I’m guessing you agree,” Alec laughed. “But that sounds cool! I like the rhyme. Fight night.” They moved their mouth like a fish a couple times as Casey pinched their face, then snickered and lifted a hand to push his face away. “I’m cuter when my face is normal!”

Casey laughed and dropped his hand by his side. "Everybody is cuter as a fish," he disagreed. Casey scooped up a bit of dry sand and began sprinkling on Alec's chest. "Do you think we should have a theme? Or do you think 'karaoke night' is the theme?"

“There’s gotta be a theme. Pyjamas? Oh man, what about like, borrowed clothes, you can only wear shit you take from your friends. Vibe swap.” Alec traced a fingertip along Casey’s collarbone.

"Oh, cute!" Casey exclaimed. He scooped up some more sand and continued sprinkling it over Alec's chest. "Wow, that's a great idea. Huh... Except if we invite Akira, I have no idea what they look like with a shirt on," he snorted.

“They can borrow one of my cropped shirts,” Alec laughed, starting to trace spirals into the sand on their chest. “Maybe that’s close enough?”

Casey laughed. "Hot. I might ask you for one of those too." Casey scooped up another handful of sand and sprinkled it on their stomach this time to avoid ruining their pattern. Then suddenly, he gasped. "Oh my gods, you can wear my sporty spice outfit. Loved that text, by the way."

“We can swap outfits from that party! But you can wear real shorts.” Alec beamed. “I forgot about that text until I saw it again the next morning, I was some wasted. But I remember the outfit! It’s stuck in my brain. In a good way.”

"It better be," Casey grinned. "That was easily, like, top five hottest things I've worn." Casey started to scoop up more sand, then added, "Oh, but you have the wear the little white shorts. The outfit is a set. The cleats are optional," Casey joked with a wink.

“I’d never leave them out! The shorts were the best part!” Alec continued the spiraling pattern down to their stomach. “I dunno if your cleats would fit, which is a national tragedy. An international tragedy.” With a dramatic sigh, they finished their pattern and started tracing spirals along Casey’s chest. “I have the perfect pair of shorts I can lend you.”

Casey laughed and shook his head at Alec's sensationalism. Tracing their pattern, Casey spiraled his finger up Alec's torso. "Ooh, describe them to me. Paint me a picture."

Alec tapped their fingers above Casey’s heart in a moment of thought. “Nope!” they decided, grinning at him and dragging their fingers across his chest again. “It’ll be a surprise.”

Casey's jaw dropped in offense for a moment before closing back into a smirk. "Should I..." He narrowed his eyes in contemplation before shaking his head and laughing. "Fine."

“Should you what?” Alec chirped, lifting their hand from his chest to card their fingers through his hair. “You’ll like them, they’ll be funny with the shirt I wore to the party. Maybe I should offer to lend everyone my clothes for the party and start an army of short shirts.” They sighed. “But I only have three. I should buy more. But money.”

Casey shook his head. "Nothing. I thought I would surprise you back but the idea I came up with feels like an uneven tradeoff. Too inappropes." Casey put his finger on Alec's chest and resumed tracing it along the patterns on their chest. "But we could make some of my old t-shirts into crop tops. If you don't mind me stealing your look."

“Too innapropes?” Alec threw a look of clearly exaggerated offense at him. “That sounds even more fun.” They closed their eyes again. “That can be a different themed party, where everyone gets sloshed. ‘Short shirts and shoot shots’.”

Casey laughed. "It would probably be too intense for this kind of party, so maybe we'll just save that in our little back pocket for later. But yes—" Casey tapped on Alec's solar plexus. "Fucking love the sound of that. Short shirts and shoot shots. I want both of those things."

“Aw, I hate mysteries.” Alec drummed their fingers on one of Casey’s shoulders. “Imagine we call the party that and people show up ready to get wasted, but it’s really an amateur basketball league?”

Casey's eyes widened and he let out a laugh. "Wow! Oddly enough, that's exactly the kind of party the surprise would be perfect for." Casey shook his head and looked off into the distance. "Has anybody ever told you that you have a beautiful mind, Alec Masters? Beautiful, mystical, and chaotic."

“You’re killing me,” Alec whined, pressing the back of their hand to their forehead. Before they could continue complaining, their momentary frustration was erased by compliments. “Other than you, right now? Sure gotten the chaotic part a lot!” They started brushing the sand off of their chest. “My mind thanks you.”

Casey grinned. "Your mind is so welcome." Casey leaned back onto his hand so Alec could dust themself off.

Alec sat up as Casey leaned back and brushed the remaining sand off. They climbed into his lap, kneeling on either side of his legs, and rested their arms on his shoulder with a smirk. “Keep the compliments coming, it’s distracting me from how much I want to know the mystery.”

Casey hummed as Alec climbed up into his lap. He slid his hands up to Alec's waist and smiled up at them. "Wow, if it gets you on my lap, then I'll compliment you all day long, baby."

Alec laughed and started running their fingers through his hair again. “Aw c’mon, it wouldn’t even take that much. Not that I’m turning them down.” They traced the fingers of their other hand along where his neck met his shoulder.

Casey laughed and shook his head. "Okay, you say that, but I feel like we've said this to each other before and nothing has happened, so clearly it takes a little more than compliments."

Alec scanned his face for a moment then gave a lopsided grin and ducked their head to press a kiss to the side of his neck, an inch below his jaw. “And what do you want to happen?”

Casey's smirk grew into a full-on smile upon feeling Alec's lips against his neck. He wrapped his arms around Alec's waist and replied, "This." Then, Casey leaned back onto the sand, pulling Alec down with him so they straddled his hips.

Alec moved with him easily and leaned over Casey, one hand on his shoulder pressing him into the sand. “Smooth,” they commented, voice lower though they were still smiling, and leaned down to kiss him.

Casey just hummed back happily and slid one hand up to thread through Alec's hair as they kissed.

Alec broke the kiss for a second to move to lean on their elbows, half to get closer and half so their hand was free to tug Casey's head back enough that they could kiss along the underside of his jaw. They grinned against his skin. "Does this count as the fourth game?"

Casey tipped his head back to relinquish his jaw to Alec. He traced his fingers down their neck and along their spine. "Mm, depends," Casey teased. "How do I win?"

Alec hummed in thought as they continued their trail of kisses along Casey's jaw and down his neck. They released his hair and brushed their thumb along the other side of his jaw. "Not a clue."

When his fingers couldn't crawl any lower, Casey began sliding them across the rivers of Alec's ribs. "We'll call it a win-win."

Alec considered this as they dragged their teeth over his pulse. They pressed a final kiss to his skin, then sat up abruptly and grinned down at him. "I thought you were competitive.”

Casey shrugged, his hands falling to Alec's legs as they sat up. "There's no winners in love and war, right?"

Alec glanced idly around the lake. "Fair point. Wanna go back to my cabin?"

Casey smirked. "Would it make me sound too eager if I said I'd race you?"

With a laugh, Alec rolled off Casey and climbed to their feet. "Game four, race to my cabin?"

Casey reached over to grab his joggers and started pulling them back on. "If that's game four, I can't wait to see what game five is."

Alec waited for him instead of launching into a head-start this time around. "Assuming you're gonna win this race?"

Casey pulled his shoes back on, but just balled up his socks in his pockets and tucked his shirt into his waistband. "I don't know, are you gonna push me?"

Alec grinned at him. “Only if you’re in the lead.”

Casey shook his head, grinning. "Fucking ridiculous." He rose to his feet. "Alright," he announced, starting a slow jog. "Let's do this."

Alec immediately took off towards their cabin at full speed.

Casey waited until Alec was ahead of him to start picking up speed. With any luck, Alec would cramp up or run out of breath by the time they got to the cabin. Then again, Casey wasn't the lucky one. Casey slowly built up to a run, keeping at least two meters to the right of where Alec was running in case they decided to get tricky again.

Alec managed to keep up their pace until the cabin was only a minute or so away, at which point they slowed to check behind them as to where Casey was in comparison.

Casey had kept pace with Alec the entire way there. Right when Alec turned their head, Casey bounded forward to run right at their side. "Feel like cheating?" Casey taunted.

Alec huffed a laugh and tried to pick up speed again. “More with every second!”

Casey matched Alec's pace, running ahead along with them. "Sorry I have to do this! Casey prefaced before shoving Alec to the side and sprinting even faster.

Alec yelped and somehow managed to grapevine their way into keeping their footing. They found an extra burst of energy from the adrenaline, running faster to try and catch up. “Fuck off!” If they weren’t so focused, they’d be grinning, but it was still clear they were amused by the tone in their voice.

In one last mad dash, Casey burst into a sprint toward the cabin. Casey extended his hand out toward the door. As soon as they connected, he yelled, "Safe!"

Alec skidded to a stop before the door and slumped against it. “Close,” they answered, catching their breath. “Really close.”

Casey turned around to lean against the door frame. "GG." He smiled and extended a hand toward Alec. "Ready for round five?"

Alec slapped him a high five, then realized what he probably meant and grabbed his hand, tugging him inside after them. “Tiebreaker.”

Casey followed them inside, kicking the door shut behind them. "First to bust is the loser."

“Wasn’t a given?” Alec paused to lock the door behind them then reached forward to pull Casey closer.

Casey stepped on the heels of his shoes to swiftly pull his feet out as he moved toward Alec. "No cheating."

Alec turned once Casey was close enough to press him against the door. “No promises.”

Casey hummed as his back hit the wood. His eyes flickered over to the various game tables. "You ever get fucked on one of those?"

“More times I can count.” Alec slid their hands over his chest to his hips. “You interested?”

Casey feigned a sigh. "Well, I don't wanna be contrived." Casey's hands mirrored Alec's, grabbing their hips and pulling them in. "But I can't say I'm not interested."

Alec lifted one hand to touch his jaw as they leaned into him when pulled. They moved to speak into his ear. “You wanna get fucked on one?”

"Interesting," Casey replied, in a tone of voice that sounded genuinely interested. "Porque no los dos?"

Alec laughed and kissed him briefly. “Take turns?”

"Fuck yeah," Casey replied with vigor before kissing them again.

Alec pulled the tucked up shirt out of Casey's waistband and tossed it to the side, pulling his lower lip between their teeth as they pressed against him. "Yeah?"

Not wanting to break their kiss, Casey just responding by gripping Alec's thighs and hoisting them up into a carry. He moved across the cabin to set Alec down on a card table. "Hope this thing is strong," he mumbled against Alec's lips.

Alec exhaled a short laugh against Casey's lips but closed the distance again as soon as possible. "S'not a machine," they teased as they were lowered to the table. "Breaking promises."

"We can make the rounds," Casey chuckled as he moved to trace kisses along Alec's jaw.

Alec tilted their head back and grinned up at their ceiling. "Then we better get started."

#mus.casey #rel.casey&alec #frm.chatzy

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brynwrites · 6 years ago

Text

What I learned while self-publishing.

@milkyteefs asked:

I'm unsure about the entire self-publishing world! Do you have a basic outline of the process? Some key highlights/headings of how you started and what connections you needed to make? Thanks again! <3

I went through the process of self-publishing Our Bloody Pearl this summer. Even with all the guides in the world it turned out to be a very grueling experience. I’ll be doing it again with Quasi Stellar soon, but I also hope to traditionally publish The Warlord Contracts trilogy.

First, let’s get this out of the way: Self published books are often very bad.

But they don’t have to be.

Self publishing requires you, the writer, to either wear the hat of everyone else at a publishing house, or be your own investor and pay for professionals to do the jobs you can’t. If you’re willing to put in that effort and money then you can come out with a more professional book than you might have had you published traditionally. If you’re not, then self publishing might not be the right road for you.

Now then, how do you self publish in a way that produces a professional book?

Fifteen Basic Steps to Self-Publishing:

1. Write and edit the book.

This is, understandably, the step that a lot of people get stuck at. Writing a novel is hard. Don’t worry about how or when you’ll publish it until it’s finished.

Just write it.

During this time you should also be marketing yourself as a writer. Learn more about that via my marketing tips tag.

2. Beta readers and critique partners.

Getting feedback from handpicked peers is essential for any book no matter which publishing route you choose. If these terms are new to you, learn more about beta readers here and critique partners here.

During your first book (or two) I recommend starting with critique partners and then moving to beta readers afterward, because critique partners will shred your novel down to the bare bones, which you usually really need the first few books you write. Critique partners will also generally pick at your grammar and typos though, which can be very useful at the end of the editing stage so that your manuscript looks cleaner to an editor (or agent, if you traditionally publish.)

3. Write your blurbs and summary.

While your story is in the hands of your final group of readers, you should already be working on blurbs and summaries. By the end of the publishing process you will need:

A back of the book blurb.

A one-two sentence logline style blurb.

A one page summary of the story.

Don’t put these off! They won’t get any easier if you wait. You can find tips on writing blurbs in this article.

4. Determine that you’re done making changes to the manuscript.

A writer who’s growing and learning will forever feel as though there’s something they can change in their manuscript, but at some point you have to decide that what’s done is done. You will always have another awesome book which will be even better than this one.

If you have trouble determining when this point should be, check out this explanation!

5. Make a publishing timetable.

Give yourself more time on your timetable than you think you need! Traditional publishing takes about two years for a reason. A lot of the steps below this point seem relatively simple compared to writing and editing a book, but they require you to learn new skills and spend a lot of time waiting for other people with busy schedules.

Five and a half: Start book two.

You might have already done this during the beta reading stage, but if not, start another book! Writers should never stop writing and editing (outside of planned vacations, emergencies, and mental health breaks, of course), so pick that pen back up and start pounding out another book.

6. Find a content editor.

If you ran a beta reading stage with 10-20 critical and knowledgeable beta readers in your target audience then congratulations, they served the purpose of a content editor already!

6. Find a copy editor.

A copy editor is the person who checks your grammar, sentence structure, flow, and word usage. I found my editor though the editorial freelance association directory. The main things to look for when choosing an editor:

Experience. This should include testimonies, information about any publishing companies they worked with, and the works they edited in the past. If you can’t easily access and double check these things, then keep looking.

Sample edits. Any editor worth your time will offer you a free sample edit. (For copy editing this is generally 750-1k words of your novel. I’m not sure about other types of editing.) Take advantage of this! Send the same sample to the top four or five editors who fit your price range and see who returns feedback that you jive with and feel comfortable paying.

What if I can’t afford a copy editor?

In general, you can probably get away without hiring a professional copy editor if you (a) find 3-4 solid critique partners who are willing to do a very detailed line edit and proofread of your final draft (do not take advantage of your fellow writers!! Offer them the same in return!!), (b) get free sample edits from a handful of freelance authors to see if they catch any major formatting issues you do regularly, and (c) learn what a style guide is and make at least a simple one for yourself while you do another round of proofreading.

Remember though, traditionally publishing exists specifically so that you, the writer, can get a professional edit without having to pay for it. If you want a professional book without putting in the investment, then querying an agent might be the better option for you.

7. Prepare to offer ARCs to reviewers and friends.

Getting reviews for your book is the most important marketing activity you can do. The sooner you contact reviewers about this, the more reviews you’ll have when the release date comes. Note that the large majority of book reviewers you contact will never respond. If you email 20 reviewers, expect to get one or two reviews out of it, most likely in 4-6 months. (Which is why you should email all your friends and past beta readers too.)

How do we maximize the number reviewers who will read our books?

You know those neat little lists of book blogs who will review indie books? Don’t use them. Anything that with nicely compiled and easy to get reviewer lists is going to be overcrowded with blogs who have two year wait-lists and 97% of them will never even email you back.

Instead, try searching for reviewers you already follow on twitter and tumblr. Look for semi-popular goodreads reviewers who put positive reviews on books similar to your own and check if they have a link to a blog, or an email for review inquiries. Find less well known booktubers that youtube links to off your favorite popular booktubers.

8. Format the book.

You can pay someone to format your novel, but its rather expensive for something that’s relatively easy to learn to do yourself using guides off the internet. Paperback and ebook formatting must be done separately, and your first time I would set aside a full Saturday to tackle each of them, just to be safe. If you have a program like scrivener, with a little tweaking you should be able to get a nice looking ebook with none of the hassle of learning html. There are many other options though. Do a little research to find the one which works for you!

(Note: If you’re printing a paperback you cannot get a paperback cover until you’ve formatted the book and know final page count for your print size!)

9. Hire a cover artist.

The book cover is the most important part of your book, so far as sales and success are concerned.

There’s a huge trend in self published books to skip this stage and work with photoshop or cavna instead. I would not recommend this. Cover artists for professional books do what they do full time. They know the market. They know what sells. So do some writers, but the truth is, many of the writers who think they can design covers, turn out the sorts of designs that are easily pegged as self-published books.

If you want a professional looking book that pops in the amazon charts, hire a professional.

There are a multitude of ways you can go about this. Some large cover art sites like damonza offer bundles which can get pricey, but let you back out with no charge if you don’t like their first drafts and include unlimited changes if you commit. There are also many freelancers who specialize in book covers, for a wide range of prices.

What if I don’t have the money to hire a cover artist?

If there is anything you don’t want to go cheep on, it’s your cover art. But let’s say you absolutely have to get a cover for cheap or free. There are people who do cover designs for $5 on Fiverr, and I think some of them actually turn out half decent covers for very specific genres, but its a gamble. A couple writeblrs do cover design as part of their day job and might be willing to do something cheep or for a trade. You could also learn how to design covers yourself, but if you want to compete with books whose designers went to school just to do what they now do full time, you’ll either have to put in a lot of time or be lucky enough to have a very good, easily executed idea for your particular novel, and hopefully not one with requires any stock photos unless you want to purchase rights to them.

Now, there are some exceptions. Some writers have a natural design brain, and some writers are in fact designers themselves. Sometimes you write a book where the perfect cover design is very simple and easy to produce yourself. But that won’t be most people, with most books.

So far I have seen exactly two of the hundreds of self publisher made covers I’ve seen have actually made me want to buy the story. I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just the truth.

10. Offer ARCs to more reviewers.

Now you have a nicely formatted book and everything! Who can resist that?

11. Do a cover reveal, and during the cover reveal, offer everyone there an ARC.

Cover reveals come in many different forms. Some writers just post the cover on their blog, some do livestreams on facebook, some do question and answer sessions leading up to the reveal, some even go all out and have other writers come talk about their books on their site for a full day prior to the cover reveal.

Do whatever works best for your schedule. The goal is to attract attention for the book, so make sure you link to anything you’ve already set up from #12, so people can easily find your book when you release it!

And, as always, give out ARCs.

12. Get your book and author profile set up on everything.

Prior to your book’s release you should have a goodreads author page, an amazon author page, and a bookbub author page, all with your book attached. You should also have a website and a mailing list (linked to via your ebook), prepared release announcements for every social media site you work off of, and be ready with attractive and easily noticeable links to the book’s sale page off your tumblr blog and website.

Keep in mind that some of these things will take a decent chunk of time to set up, and a few of them require a live human being to confirm you are who you say you are. Start them as early as possible!

13. Release the book!

Time to actually put the book out there for all to buy. You can do a similar hype release as you do with a cover reveal, if you so desire. Make sure you remember to post all your announcements and put up all your links.

Try not to check on the book’s sales until the following day! It does not help their growth or your mental health to constantly be haunting your sales charts. When you do check them, keep in mind that a book which sells two thousand copies in its entire life time has done well, all things considered.

The fantastic thing about self publishing is that you never have to stop selling your book. If you sell fifty copies your first month and then twenty the second and then five the third, you can always dive back into marketing, run a discount, apply for a bookbub ad, focus on marketing yourself as an author and gaining followers. You chose whether your book is done selling.

To offer pre-orders or not?

This is a toss up. In my experience, pre-orders aren’t a good idea for your debut self-published novel, even if you think you have a large audience who will buy them, because they take away from the sales you could have your release week, and the boost those sale give you on the amazon charts. If you do wish to offer pre-orders though, try going through ingramspark instead of amazon advantage, to save yourself tears and heartache.

To go amazon exclusive or not?

Many authors claim that you have to try both to know what’s right for any particular book. Do your own research and decide what you think is best for you.

Thirteen and a half: Start book three.

At this point you should already have finished at least the rough draft of second novel, so don’t forget to start your third book at some point!

14. Offer people read for review copies.

Especially if your debut novel is aimed toward broke teenagers and younger adults, there will be a lot of people who are interested in the book but aren’t motivated enough to actually buy it on faith alone. By offering free ebooks on a read for review basis, you...

Grow your reviews.

Create fans out of people who may have never read the book otherwise.

Have higher paperback sales, because readers who loved the ebook you gave them may decide to buy themselves a paperback.

15, unto infinity: Keep promoting your book into the sunset, while writing new books!

The time to stop promoting you book is whenever you feel you’ve had enough sales and reached enough readers. Until you reach a point where you’ve published so many books that you can’t handle marketing them all, you should still be trying to expand your readership!

And don’t forget to have a little bit of fun along the way. You worked hard for this. Celebrate it.

But what if I just want to get a book out there?

If your goal is not to publish a professional looking book with will expand your fanbase and set you on a path to full time authorship, but rather to have a piece of your writing available in a book format your friends and family can buy, then there’s no reason not to publish exactly how you wish to.

Are all these steps really necessarily?

I believe they are, at least for a debut novel. In fact, there are probably more steps which I missed entirely. But, if you can find multiple self-published authors who went through a less rigorous publishing process and still received hundreds or goodreads reviews, then by all mean, follow that process instead (and let me know about it!)

So which book did you self publish?

This one here! You can support me and my ability to keep giving writing advice by purchasing a copy today =D

#writeblr #writing resources #writers on writing #writers on tumblr #self publishing #authors on tumblr #writing tag: publishing

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betterthedevilyouknowuk · 6 years ago

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Cannibalism, Blood Drinking & High-Adept Satanism by Kerth Barker

We read this book so that you don’t have to. Upon discovering Satanism, one thing you might do, is browse Amazon in search of reading material. If, like many of our readers, you’re money savvy and like to hunt for deals, you may be tempted to find the cheapest satanic books. DON’T. This was one of the first to come up on the list. At only £5 for a physical copy, it looks like a bargain. It is not. You will lose brain cells.

Please be aware that this book talks about child abuse, and so this review may be triggering for some.

Kerth Barker is a man who has written many fictional titles in which he depicts his own “Satanic abuse”, committed by various Satanists; most of which are apparently part of the illustrious Illuminati. They control everything in the world, want to see it destroyed, and yes, they all want to have sex with him. It is a classic example of Satanic Panic and is further proof that to this day, we still need to fight these unfathomable, despicable excuses of human beings who spread such codswallop. Spoiler alert. This guy (pictured below) is a con artist.

The Satanic Panic was born in the United States in the early 1980's. Evolving mainly from rumours of Satanic Ritual Abuse (commonly referred to as SRA). Allegations involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. By the late 1990's this epidemic of paranoia had spread to many parts of the world.

The first written account of SRA, which was a major trigger for Satanic Panic, was Lawrence Pazder’s 1980 book Michelle Remembers. Much like Kerth Barkers book, it was written in the form of an autobiography of Michelle Smith. Told by Smith and her husband to her Psychiatrist, Pazder himself. It is easy to see where Barker gained his inspiration. Michelle Remembers has now been completely discredited, but not before major uproar and accusations stemmed from it. Triggering what was essentially a mass witch hunt.

Mike Warnke is another example of how the Conservative Christian right added fuel to the fire. After appearing on ABC'c show 20/20 in an episode titled "The Devil Worshippers" Mike Warnke was frequently cited as an expert on the occult. After all he claimed to be an ex high ranking member of a Satanic organisation. He was debunked in 1991.

We bring up Warnke’s ‘The Satan Seller’, as it has the most in common with this month’s book. More importantly it's author Kerth Barker. The whole book reads like twisted fantasies of repressed sexuality and identity. And is dangerous in its accusations. He seems intent in ushering in a new age of Satanic Panic! In a failed attempt to seem like he isn’t trying to create unneeded panic, he states in his first chapter that he is not talking about all Satanists. He ‘acknowledges’ that there are some Satanists, who are not into cannibalism. It is almost like he is expecting there to be a #notallsatanists trend as we cry out in anger about how we are being misrepresented.

After a warning that adorns one of the first pages, it's plain to see that this was not going to be a light read. Amy (who regrettably suggested this book), read the whole thing in one sitting, fueled by pure hatred. With Lynsey and Cato getting through it almost as quick, they found it to be equally as excruciating. It left Cato wondering what dark secrets the author is really trying to hide, and Lynsey feeling as though it had taken all of her white blood cells, which where then shat on.

Going down the list of chapters, it becomes clear fairly early on that Barker is either insane, or he is taking the piss.

The first chapter starts off with Barkers need to announce that he is a Christian and that Satanists ruined his life. It escalates at a rapid pace from 0-100. Paedophilia, murder, cannibalism and ritualistic abuse, none of which are a laughing matter, spring out of nowhere. Barker, in all his inability to convey himself maturely sees it as an opportunity to put himself as the centre of an entirely fictional world. According to his book, from a young age he was a candidate, who was primed to become ‘one of the greats’.

The book is scattered with accounts of blood drinking, aliens, surgery and a resistance that communicates via discarded cigarette cartons and rubbish piles on the streets. Somehow Barker knows how to instantly interpret piles of garbage into something meaningful, which is more than we can say about his own work.

Barker often speaks of his enforced alter ego Kathy, and her special meetings. These ‘multiple personality disorders’ are still being used for fuel satanic panic today, and it is something that The Satanic Temple is working to fight against.

It is clear upon reading that this book is in fact less to do with actual satanism, and more to do with his lustful desires and need to be admired in a sinister sort of way. This comes in a range of forms, mostly being preyed on sexually, even talking of his own ejaculation and public sexual acts. Some of them are just laughable. At one point in the book, he tells of how the ‘Baron’ was walking up a set of stairs in front of him.

Barker sure does have a wild imagination. It is a shame the same can not be said for his choice in character names; the ‘Baron’ and ‘Dark Mother’ being the most excruciatingly cliché.

The deeper you get in, the more apparent it is this book is about spreading fear and attempting to force conservative christian opinions in disguise. One such example is Barkers take on the ‘Gay Agenda’.

This sort of damaging propaganda is not only inaccurate, but it is giving homophobes everywhere an excuse to stop the LGBTQ+ community having rights.

‘But where were his family?’ we hear you all ask. Conveniently all of Barkers close family are Christians, and only an older, lesser know family member was a Satanist. It begs the question, while he was being carted around by the ‘Baron’, what did his family think he was doing. There isn’t much talk of his actual family. He has been careful not to mention them too much or claim that they were in fact in on it, because that would be too easily debunked.

The worrying thing about all of this, is that there are so many people who believe the rubbish Barker has written. In fine-combing this book it is easy to see the tactics used by Barker to convince the reader. The most prevalent being the illusion of rationality. He states he believes in religious freedom, and that he isn’t trying to convert anyone.

The main tactic used in this book, is making the characters seem human. If you stand up in court and give a character assessment on someone whom you have spent a vast amount of time with, but only share with them the negatives, you may well fail in convincing the jury. It can make it seem like you are ‘trying to hard’. It doesn’t sound logical, but even Hitler was nice to people sometimes. By talking about some of the nice things that these so called ‘Satanic Abusers’ did for him, it makes his story seem more believable. Because surely if he was making up this whole entire story, he would make it all murder and horror. Wrong. He has added in these ‘niceties’ to make you think exactly that.

There are people out there, who genuinely go through sexual abuse as a child. There are victims and survivors of horrific crimes. This whole entire book is a kick in the face to the people who really have suffered.

Towards the end of the book, he goes all ‘David Icke’ on us and claims some of these high ranking Satanists are part of a reptilian race that are controlling us and taking over (I don’t suppose that has anything to do with the fact he is a fan and David Icke recommended his books). Also in case you weren’t aware, the moon is actually a hollow space station.

The biggest contradiction written throughout, it whether or not we are actually doomed. At one point he claims we aren’t far away from being completely ruled by these high-adept, alien Satanists. Only to then write a whole entire paragraph as to why they’re going to fail. It's almost as though he knows it isn’t going to happen because he made it all up, so he has to write a reason why it doesn’t come true.

If these Satanists were ever nearly as powerful as claimed, and the stories true, he would have never been able to write this book. All the time he happens to just know everything about the destruction of the world as we know it and has access to books that nobody could ever possibly prove existed because after all… Illuminati.

He talks of the weakness of others and how he can help them overcome their blood addictions. But the entire time he is on his own high. A throne of disillusion.

To sum things up, ‘Cannibalism, Blood Drinking & High-Adept Satanism’ is one of the worst books we have ever had the malignant displeasure of reading. There is just too much wrong with to be able to cover it in one blog.

Again, we do not recommend you read this book. We read it so you don’t have to. But if you so wish, you can read part of it for free here or you can purchase it from Amazon here.

Ave Satanas!

This book was published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (16 Nov. 2014). It is copyrighted to the author, Kerth R Barker and we are not endorsed by him or anyone else to write this blog.

Kerth Barker image source Blood drinking image source Illuminati pyramid image source Alien image source

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stevensavage · 5 years ago

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Steve's Marketing Advice June 2019

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve's Tumblr. Find out more at my newsletter.)

It’s the latest update of my Marketing Tips! As always, I keep updating these every few months.

The Core Principle: The Web Of Connections

To promote yourself your various activities, giveaways, social media, and so on need to connect and reinforce each other. If a new book comes out, promote it on your website and give away a few copies in your newsletter. If you’re speaking on art, give out bookmarks with links to your website. Everything ties together.

This does make finding what works a bit challenging, so I take these steps:

Do what is easy, like cross-posting sales and stuff among my social media. Hey, it’s easy. Then I monitor what seems to work.

Do what seems rational and looks like it’ll pay off. Don’t try everything, try what will probably work.

Do what seems fun. Why not enjoy this?

Advance marketing with incremental steps. Usually that takes a month or two to show, so I tend to do my experiments every month or every other month.

Record what I find from above. What do you think this post is?

Over time you’ll find what works for you, what doesn’t, and how elements interact. It might help to keep a list like this!

Have A Website

Have a website, period. A website is a place you can send people to that acts as a "hub" for your marketing efforts. It doesn't have to be complex (I've got some tips below), it has to be a place that acts as a hub for finding out more about you. The goal of a website is to have a one-stop-show for people to come to for information, and leave from to go to your various portfolios, books, social media, etc.

Follow these steps:

Get a domain name (networksolutions.com, tierra.net are recommended). Make sure the name is unique, fits you, and can be re-purposed if your plans change (FrankDoesArt.com is a bit specific, but FrankGetsCreative.com is more general).

Set up a website. Most people I know use www.dreamhost.com or www.wix.com. Just start with one page to make it easy - I've seen successful authors whose page is a blurb and a list of books.

A fast way to do it is buy a domain and redirect it to one of your social media accounts or a portfolio setup (like Twitter or LinkedIn). You can build the site later.

Link to all your books, art, portfolio, and social media from here.

This website should be mentioned in your books, social media, etc. so people get prompted to visit.

Link to all your social media from the website – LinkedIn, Goodreads, whatever. Well, whatever is appropriate, like maybe no one wants your photo collection of antique pots on that photo sharing site.

Other things to add:

A schedule of speaking engagement.

Reviews of your books.

Testimonials.

Helpful downloads - like character sheets, guides, etc.

Fun things not necessarily related to your writing like a cookbook or a link to pet pictures.

Have Appropriate Social Media

Social media is a troublesome subject. Yes, it can let you market - or be annoying. Yes it can let you meet people - or it can waste time. It also changes in value over time. However, done right it's a great way to connect with people.

Your social media should always link back to your website and in many cases, your other social media. This helps create a "web" of connections, so people are able to go to one social media source, find your others, and of course buy your stuff.

My takes on social media in rough order are:

Twitter: Twitter, for it's many flaws, has a lot of use, its simple, and with lists and filtering (and learning when to ignore it) you can meet authors, promote yourself, and be found. I'd determine what approach you want to use (from marketing to just goofing off) and do it.

LinkedIn: You should have a LinkedIn profile anyway, but how much of your "creative" life you want to share or link to depends on your goals and personal image. If you do list your creative works, don’t forget the options like “publications.” Also remember there are communities there you can join.

Instagram and other photo-sharing sites: Some people use this to promote their work, others use it as a sort of photoblog. I'm mixed on it myself.

Facebook: Facebook keeps having issues, but it helps to have a presence. I'd keep an author page on it at the very least and see how you engage.

Amazon Author Site: Set up your Amazon Author Site at Author Central. This also can be a place to point your web domain.

Books2Read Author Site: I learned about this as Draft2Digital.com sets you up there if you use them. Not sure it’s useful as I’ve just set one up, but its pretty nice.

By the way, a good way to manage social media in one go is www.Hootsuite.com.

Have A Newsletter

A newsletter is the way to engage with readers and keep people informed, as well as give them cool reviews, interesting updates, and more. In some ways it's like a mailed blog, but I separate them as a newsletter is more focused and like an update, whereas blogs can be more freeform. If you don't do a blog, do a newsletter, and if you only have time for one do the newsletter.

The ruler of newsletters is www.mailchimp.com, which has an amazing free service and reasonable paid services.

Make sure that your newsletter subscription form(s) are linked to from as much social media as possible and, of course, your website.

Some newsletter tips:

Don't overdo it or underdo it - I do it every two weeks.

Find a "feel" for your newsletter - a roundup, personal, chatty, serious, etc. Judge what works.

Include any vital updates about your work. Link to your blog, new books, cool things.

Give away "Lead Magnets" - basically free stuff like samples, an occasional free book copy, downloadable cool stuff, etc.

Use it to promote other cool things - help folks out.

Remember that most newsletter software gives you all sorts of statistics and data - you can use this to improve reaching people!

Have A Blog

Blogs are ways to post thoughts, essays, and more, turning your web presence into a kind of personal magazine/announcement/discussion board. Most authors use them, though at various rates of usage, from constant posts to "occasional speaking updates."

A blog is usually part of your author website, and thus is another reason to come there - and to go and check out your work and your other media. Most blog setups can act as your author page as well (which is what I do).

I use blogs to:

Give weekly updates on myself.

Post various essays and thoughts.

Review or promote interesting things.

In a few cases, blog posts then became other books, or I round them up to publish free "compendiums."

You can set up blogs at the following sites, with various advantages and limits. Some allow you to use your own domain name, some don't.

Most webhosts.

Wordpress.com

Blogspot.com

A few techniques:

You can get a domain and just point it at your blog or a similar site (like your Tumblr) and save time.

Some authors and artists do blog tours where they post across each other's blogs.

If you have related social media accounts (LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) consider posting your blog entries to all of them when appropriate. Just make sure they redirect to your site.

Set up an RSS feed (or find it's address in a standard setup) and put a link on your blog. I also recommend www.feedburner.com despite it being sort of static by now.

Mailchimp.com and some other mail software programs let people subscribe to a blog feed so they get email updates. You can also load those with helpful extras and information.

An important caveat - if you're a prolific writer, you have to find the blogging/writing balance. It's not an easy call because a few long blog posts can take as much time to set up as a small fiction piece. In some cases small books may be like blog posts so you have to ask “write a book or write a set of blog posts.” I cover that more later.

Physical Media

Many authors and artists give away cards, bookmarks, etc. I find these different giveaways vary in effectiveness, so I’m not sure how well they work for me or you. However, it doesn’t stop me from doing them as they’re easy, and sometimes expected. I also figure saturating the world with references to my work helps.

The one challenge is that this costs money, and you may not want to spend money on business cards, bookmarks, etc. So you want to balance your choices.

Here’s what I try and what I find works:

Business Cards – These are a must if you’re serious, and the only physical media I can truly say that about. Business Cards are cheap to get, easy to give out, and even expected. Most print shops and office supply stores have quick options.

Bookmarks – This is popular among the book crowd for obvious reasons. I’m not sure how well they work, but they do make it easy to set out information, give them away in panels, leave at interested shops, etc. They can be a bit pricey depending on the deal you swing,

Mini-pictures – I’ve seen artists give away small cards with their art and contact information, sort of a sample/bookmark/business card fusion. This may be worth trying.

For printed bookmarks and the like I recommend www.clubflyers.com.

I always have business cards with me, keep some bookmarks in my car, and take bookmarks to any events I speak at.

Giveaways And Promotionals (Mostly Authors)

A great way to get people's attention is to give out stuff like free books, extras, samples, and more. With these properly done (and linked back to other works), its a great way to get attention, meet people, and of course get sales.

There's two services I recommend for authors. For artists you may have to look for other methods.

Prolificworks.com - having both free and subscription modes, it lets you give away work and join (or create) promotions. The paid version lets you tie giveaways into your mailing list as well. It does get a bit pricey beyond the Free level ($20 to $50 a month), so I recommend paid tiers for serious authors nly.

www.bookfunnel.com - Is a cheap ($20 a year to start) way to do book giveaways in a variety of formats, and higher tiers include features like Prolificworks.com. I'm fond of the starter tier as its a great way to make book giveaways easier (and if you don't want to host your giveaways).

To make these work you have to obviously be dedicated to it and work out strategies. I use them to:

Give away free stuff and samples to my newsletter subscribers.

Give away a few copies of new books via Prolificworks.com

Have promotional giveaways (often samples) that people can sign up to my newsletter to get.

I join groups on Prolificworks.com to do team giveaways.

I use both - Instafreebie lets me set up easy giveaways, and Prolificworks gives me all sorts of options.

If you use KDP, there's a KDP Exclusive you can use for eBooks. In exchange for making your work exclusive with Amazon, you get some tools to set up sales and giveaways. It’s easy for starting authors.

Have A Portfolio

If you're a visual artist of any kind, have a portfolio. Put it on your website, use a social media site like Deviantart.com, whatever. People want to see your work and maybe buy it, so make it easy to do. If you take commissions, it's pretty much a way to market yourself.

Non-visual artists like authors may want a portfolio as well. This would contain:

Cover art.

Sample works.

Free giveaways.

Summaries of your work (with links to purchase it). For instance, I have a press website a lot like this.

Do Series

If you're doing fiction, you probably already have a series in mind. If your books are non-fiction, you may want to group them into series, because various bookselling sites will remind people that "X book is part of Y" series. If you’re an artist, this may help as well.

The advantage of the series are:

A series promotes the books within it. When people seem a book is in a series, they may check out another.

A series creates cross-promotion as it sells. When one book gets another book to sell, the various websites that sell them may refer books to other readers.

A series shows commitment. When you’re doing a series it shows that you care and plan to stick around – or did stick around.

It takes time for a series to “take off.” Once it starts getting attention and people buy other books, then they get more recommendations, more attention, etc. On Amazon and other book distribution services, this results in more promotion over time.

A series can even act as a kind of low-profit loss-leader or self-promotional. If someone buys small books in a series, or you write a series to focus on a popular subject, then it gets attention to your other works.

Do Multiple Formats

One of the challenges of selling media is that people want to consume it in different formats. Unless you’re very sure that your target audience wants a certain format, try out different ways to sell things.

If you write books, then consider ebooks, different ebook formats, and print.

If you do art, maybe your art can be in several sizes and formats.

For instance, I’ve found some of my physical books sell well around the holidays as people use them as gifts. Others are the kind of thing people want in print for easy review or taking notes. So over time I’ve branched out in my book formats.

Remember every sale helps – though some formats (like print) are hard and costly to set up, so evaluate their worth.

Calculated Distribution (Authors)

This part is pretty much only for authors – and for book distribution.

For print books, your usual choices are Amazon and IngramSpark (or IngramSpark via Lulu). Amazon doesn’t charge, the other services do, but bookstores don’t always like to stock Amazon books as it’s a competitor.

For ebooks, your choices are:

Go with Amazon’s KDP Select, where you only go through Amazon but get marketing tools like sales. Amazon is the majority of the market, so if you go Amazon its easier.

Distribute incredibly widely. This takes time, and you don��t get Amazon’s marketing tools, but you get the chance to make more sales. Some authors I know find they sell more books outside of Amazon, but I haven’t figured out any rules or principles to this.

If you go broad here’s my take

Draft2Digital is the easiest way to go broad, but only does eBooks. I also recommend managing your Amazon account separately. Draft2Digital doesn’t have the broadest range, but it’s free (taking a cut of your sales) and very, very well done.

Smashwords is also free, but takes a larger cut and doesn’t have the extras of Draft2Digital. It does get into a few unusual areas of distribution.

Lulu.com will do full service, but partners with Ingrahm, and there are charges.

Ingrahm is full service as well, and charges. It’s probably a better choice than Lulu these days.

Publish Lots Of Stuff

Like it or not your goal as a creator is to be noticed so people get ahold of your work and benefit from it. This means that you may need to create lots of works to get attention – or use work that you aren’t making public to do the same.

For instance, I realized that a lot of my blog ideas were better off as books – or could be turned into books. There was far more benefit to turning certain ideas into small books (or expanding existing work into books) than letting things sit. Some things just work better as a book anyway, and I have more works that people can get their hands on.

(Plus, the polishing that goes into a book made them, honestly, higher quality.)

If you’re an artist it’s probably the same thing, depending on your market. If you have lots of different things to sell and buy and do you increase your chance to get more sold.

Remember that this ties into having series as well. Don’t just publish lots of stuff, tie it together as series.

Advertising (Mostly for Authors)

I’ve used both Google ads and Amazon for books, though it’s been awhile since I’ve done Google (and I may want to try again). I have done a lot with AMS, or Amazon Marketing Services.

AMS lets you set up promotional ads to appear during searches or on pages of specific projects, and you can set up keywords, targets, and even decide what to pay for a clickthrough. It’s a pretty advanced tool, and though it obviously only targets Amazon, that’s a pretty big market! The challenge is that you have to figure out the right words, monitor progress (to avoid overspending or waste), and tweak marketing for each book.

I’ve found it effective, but it takes a lot of work. What I do is update AMS every month or so with new terms, shut off ones that aren’t working, and try to get an idea of what works. You can download data from each ad you set up, and then make a new ad with just the data that worked. You honestly need to start with 100-200 search terms to get it working.

Paragraph

Done right, I find AMS yields roughly $2 in sales or more for each $1 spent – as long as you tweak the advertising, cancel bad projects, and keep learning.

More To Come

That’s my latest! I hope it helps you out!

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

#marketing #advice

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handmadecp · 6 years ago

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The Little red Bag.

Welcome back to another little project from Beginners journey into Leather Craft here at HandMadeCP. We are doing a few build alongs showing ‘Kit’s’ for those thinking they might like to have a go but unsure what to do, this time it’s a kit slightly larger than the last, if you missed that one please look into the archive. The first thing is to locate a reasonable piece of leather. I used a Veg tan leather, not quite sure of the actual thickness but I chose one that was fairly rigid but that could still be manipulated into the shape I needed. hope that helps....as I’ve often mentioned I’m not a professional I started my own journey into Leather Craft almost three years ago and have enjoyed every minute of it so much that I like to share my projects and my experiences good and bad with others who may enjoy it. but the actual way they measure Leather is confusing as heck lol. So let’s begin.

Pic 1 : I used the original as a template and made a copy on the Veg tan, of the main body the strap, the inside base piece and the small side straps. I used a ‘Box cutter’ style knife with a new blade to cut the shape required as shown above, I marked all of the holes through onto the new piece and used a revolving punch and hand punch to make the holes as can be seen.

Pic 2 : here you see the traced pattern I wanted to carve and tool onto the front flap of this bag, quite a simple design and quite easy to learn if it’s your first venture using a swivel knife but I would advise some practice on old scraps first. Then wet the leather all over..not just where you are going to trace the pattern, this is because each time you wet the leather you will change the shading of it and doing it all over will help to prevent..’Tide’ lines which may still show through after dying. Then I used a Ball point drawing tool and traced over the picture so the imprint came out on the leather as shown, ‘don’t’..have the pencil side down or the lead will mess up the leather and don’t press too hard that you go through, you just need to be able to follow the lines with the swivel knife.

Pic 3 : Just enough to see the pattern.

Pic 4 : Begin your cutting with the swivel knife, make sure it’s sharpened and you’ve practiced a bit first to warm up.There are some very gifted people on YTube showing how to carve why not drop by and have a look at some.

Pic 5 : using paper tape cover the back if doing any tooling this helps to resist stretching whilst hammering the leather with tools.

Pic 6 : The pattern is carved and now we are tooling, starting a the upper most leaf.

Pic 7 : Close up of the cuts and the Beveling

Pic 8 : All the beveling is finished.

Pic 9 : using this hand punch I made the required holes in all the other pieces.

Pic 10 : I chose to use a ‘Crimson’ colored water based dye by ‘Eco-Flo’ ( some call it ‘Echo’ as in a vocal Echo Echo Echo...others call it ‘Eeeeco’ as in Eco-warrior or Eco friendly lol..take your pick lol. I coated everything in the dye then left it to dry..I left it a few hours, because the next step required all moisture to be out of the leather so it wouldn’t be locked in with the ‘fixer’..the Resolene coat, that would trap moisture inside and I’m told it can rot the leather..hence..letting it dry, don’t try to help this process with an oven or hair dryer as the leather can become brittle,....yes...I admit..I tried it lol...so hopefully you won’t.

Pic 11 : No.you’re not seeing things and I haven’t got pics mixed up..I thought you might like to see how I passed the time waiting for it the bag to dry..I made a Belt for my son, this is another fun simple project and I may do a full build along if any one is interested but these are pretty self explanatory.

Pic 12 : This Brass Buckle from Tandy leather goes great with the dark of the leather and the matching Brass rivets.

Pic 13 : The slot was cut using a small cutting blade that comes in a box of blades in all shapes found on Amazon and very affordable, they do a great job, a very clean cut.

Pic 14 : As you can see it’s a very quick thing to make once you know how, if even one person asks I’ll do a build along set. Ok, you can see the bag sections drying in the back ground, time to put this together.

Pic 15 : There really isn’t much to show for the putting together, I used Antique brass rivets,’D’ rings and line 27 snap stud, it all just folds together and you pin it with the rivets and Voila a nice small red Bag...can be any color you choose with any design you can come up with, I chose this one as its easy for any one to follow if new to carving and tooling.

Pic 16 : Back view

Pic 17 : Side view.

Pic 18: Shows the inside base piece, you can glue it in place or leave loose..your choice.

Pic 19 : I left the inside flesh colored for contrast I think it works well. this Bag is small but plenty big enough to carry keys, purse / Wallet, I.D. Make up, Vanity Mirror etc. I was very surprised how much goes in actually.

Pic 20 : Makes for a nice accessory bag for make up keys and phone etc, suits young Adults as well as young Girls. One of my nieces kids also carries her small doll around in it with all the dolls accessories...Kids are so inventive hahaha that’s thinking outside the box. Well guys that’s it. the little red bag, I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing this little build along and might give it a go or maybe it’s fired your imagination towards doing some other style. Thanks for following Watch this space for many more projects this year yet. Feel free to ask questions, as I’ve said I’m still learning myself as I go along but if I can help in any way I will. All the best till next time....and as always..’Stay Crafty’

#bags #fun bags #kids bags #accessories bag

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real-good-now · 6 years ago

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Riverdale Books: a Bughead One-Shot

Loosely inspired by the movie “You've Got Mail”.

Summary: Jughead really just wants to find a book for Jellybean. He happens to get lucky when he goes into a small bookstore in Riverdale.

As Jughead approached the quaint little bookstore in the dinky suburb of Riverdale, he felt nothing but defeat in his heart.

It has to be here.

He had been searching high and low for this one book, a special edition, limited print of the only book Jellybean has ever liked, and this was his last stop. Her birthday was tomorrow and if the novel didn’t turn up here, then he would have to surrender his “Best Big Brother” Mug and give her an insincere Amazon Gift Card and an “I’m sorry” smile.

It has to be here.

He took a deep breath in before entering the store and being greeted by the charming ring of the bell above the door. A cursory glance around the front room told him that the store was certainly not as small as he had originally anticipated. There were shelves and shelves of books, ranging from the obscure to the commercially known, all organized by the color of their book jackets, something that couldn’t be a simple endeavor to maintain.

There seemed to be no one at the register and a large hoard of people huddled in the back, in a room that was alive with vibrant colors. He drifted toward the area, taking peeks here or there for his target.

When he arrived in the rear of the store, he understood exactly what had everyone so enraptured.

Three was a young woman, around his age, he presumed, who sat in a chair with a children’s book in her hand, surrounded by a group of enthralled five-year-olds and their parents. Her light blonde hair was tied in a tight pony-tail that moved with the turn of her head and her fair skin was complemented by a free-flowing floral dress.

Though her looks seem to draw him in, it was absolutely the soothing lilt of her voice that surely captured the attention of everyone who entered here. He could listen to her talk for hours, about anything, and never tire of the gentle timbre that she used. She had a calm about her, despite the craziness that must come from owning a haven for rambunctious kids.

Jughead was sure. He had to meet this woman.

He waited for her to finish the story book, applauding when the baby bird finally found his mother, and watching as all the mothers and fathers gushed about how much their kids loved her story time.

It took at least twenty minutes for the commotion to die down and most of the little ones and company to filter out, some even purchasing the book she read.

She was at the register when he finally decided it was time.

“Excuse me, Miss?” He said, already regretting his choice of an opening line. He didn’t “have much game” as his buddy Archie would say, but he could have certainly done better than that.

He was momentarily stunned when she turned around and her eyes met his. They were the most beautiful shade of green that he had ever seen, something could spend hours pouring over on his vintage Underwood but never truly capture.

She smiled brightly at him, warmth radiating through her features, “Yes! How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for this book”— he held out the warn out copy that Jelly had given to him “as a lone only”—“that they just had a limited release of a few weeks ago. I have looked through every Barnes and Nobles for 20 miles of the city and cannot find it for the life of me. Could you help? You are kinda my last hope.”

“You’re in luck!” She quipped. “I happen to have a few copies of it behind the desk. It is one of my favorites and I didn’t want to sell it to anyone who hasn’t read the regular edition.”

He sighed in relief at the news as she presented the book to him. “Oh, I haven’t read it myself…Its a gift for my sister. Her birthday is tomorrow and it is her absolute favorite book. Something I try not to take offense to as an author myself.”

She laughed at his comment, already hard at work on the gift wrapping before he even uttered the last of his thought. “Ahh, a writer. Anything I may have read?”

He blushed. He was proud of his work, but it was always awkward when people found out who he was. He wrote because he loved it, not for the paychecks or the recognition. “Mostly crime and mystery. Occasional satire. I write as F. Jones III.”

She smiled timidly at him, but the excitement in her eyes betrayed her. She knew him. “Yeah, I have definitely read your stuff. Look at the bookcase behind you. Third shelf from the top.”

He turned around to see the wood piece labeled “Owner’s Top Picks” and found the shelf she had mentioned. On that shelf, sat all of his published works. “My own shelf…I’m honored.”

The phrase came out as a joke, but, honestly, he was honored. This woman had a sincerity that is hard to come by. She obviously has a somewhat refined taste, judging by some of the notable literature that filled the shelves of the bookcase in front of him. He felt…special, to be among these greats, to be loved by her.

God, Jughead had only just met her and he was sold.

“It might not be there for long. Looks like they are constructing a new chain right down the block. Could really stamp us out,” she said, a wave of sadness clouding her delicate features. She finished the gift with a curly bow and handed it to him. “On the house. From a fan.”

“No! I insist, really.”

The woman looks at him, amused. “And I insist you take it. Get your sister the author’s new release when it comes out.”

Jughead cannot believe this woman. She wants to give him this limited edition book, which is easily over $100, probably much more. “I have to do something.” I have to see her again, he thinks, as she walks away from the counter, a broom in her hands. “Can I at least get your name? I’m Jughead.”

“Betty. Betty Cooper. So, what does the ‘F’ stand for?” She asked with a bemused expression on her face.

“How about I tell you over coffee?”

______________________________________________

That coffee date was the first of many.

Jellybean loved her birthday present, but was even more excited when Jughead brought a date to her party the following week.

Turns out that Betty meeting Jughead was the best thing to happen to the store. When it threaten to go under after a new corporate giant appeared down the street, Jughead’s book signing brought in enough traffic to keep them open for years to come.

Jughead thought that that meeting Betty was the best thing to happen to him.

He made sure to tell her that, a year later, when he got down on one knee in the middle of the store.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! I promise that Letters to Juliet will be updated soon. Hope you all like it!

#oneshot #bughead fanfiction #bughead #bughead one shot

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annoyingcatwolf · 3 years ago

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Mpd Client For Mac

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It has been almost 10 years since I published my article Back to Mac OS 9, Because It’s All I Need on Low End Mac. Lots of things changed in my life since then – I got married, became a dad of three kids and I changed my job. But one thing remained in my life – Mac OS 9.

From the website: “Music Player Daemon (MPD) is a flexible, powerful, server-side application for playing music. Through plugins and libraries it can play a variety of sound files while being controlled by its network protocol.” Wikipedia has a more comprehensive description. An MPD client for macOS, written in Swift. Download M.A.L.P. MPD Client for Android to this application is a remote control for the music player daemon (www.musicpd.org). Cantata - MPD Client programs used in Windows PC, Mac OS X. MpcOSX - MPD Client programs used in Mac OS X. Theremin - MPD Client programs used in Mac OS X. This example video will help you to understand about MPD Client. As like all other music player programs, MPD also creates and manages the database for tag and path informations of music.

One could certainly ask if something is wrong with us for sticking with a 20+ year old operating system. Everyone has his/her individual answer to that. To me, Mac OS is the pinnacle of Personal Computing. I’m reminded of it every time I tweak my system to better fit my personal workflow.

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Seeing that there is still life in our community, I decided to undust my old Edelweiss column on Low End Mac. I hope to cover the latest news on Mac OS scattered around the web. And I’d like to share some practical “how-to” tips for using your Mac OS9 machine in today’s world. Because you can still do many things on them once you realize that a computer is not just a terminal to Facebook / Google / Amazon.

That said, let’s start our first LowEndMac OS9 news roundup. Bear in mind that we have to catch up with some news, so forgive me if some stuff is rather added for the sake of completeness rather than currentness.

SSHeven – a modern SSH client

Thought SSH and Mac OS was a dead end? Well, not so much anymore. “CY384” created a new SSH client for Mac OS 7 / 8 / 9. While still in an early version, it is “a functional SSH client with decent terminal emulation, able to run programs like htop and nano” as the author puts it. Needs a ‘040 Mac or PowerPC machine. Definitely one very exciting project to keep an eye on!

URL: https://github.com/cy384/ssheven

MacMPD

Every once in a while we still see cool new software for Mac OS released. Ivan Holmes’ MPD client (Music Player Daemon) for Mac OS falls into that category. Ivan created an app that lets you use your vintage Mac to connect to an instance of MPD running on another machine. If you’d like the music to play through speakers connected to your Mac, you can set up your MPD to output to an MP3 stream and then configure MacMPD to play this. Full feature-list, screenshots and downloads can be found over on his website.

URL: http://ivanholmes.co.uk/mac/macmpd/

New game: The Queen’s Footsteps

When was the last time you bought a new boxed & sealed Macintosh game? Too long ago? Then this might be your chance! The Queen’s Footsteps is a new Interactive Fiction (think Infocom!) game in which you play a female archeologist going on an adventure in the world of 1904.

The boxed copy is around 20$ + shipping and includes a floppy disk of the game as well as some goodies (a poster, stickers, …). If you’re the modern minimalist who likes his stuff only virtual, you can also download the game for free. (but it’s only half the fun, really)

The game requires System 7 and a 68000 CPU. Maybe a good reason to undust your old Macintosh SE.

URL: https://www.polyplay.xyz/The-Queens-Footsteps-Collectors-Edition-Macintosh-Diskette_1

Free image & web hosting

The Macintosh Garden has added two interesting new features – one is a very lightweight image uploader. Upload and share photos & screenshots directly from your old Mac. Pick an image and upload. You’ll get an URL for sharing. According to the Garden, there is no time constraint and the images retain full quality. However, 3 MB is the upload limit. I prefer it over any other solution on the web because it’s ad-free, reliable and fast.

URL: http://images.macintosh.garden

The second new feature is essentially a free web hosting. After sign-up you’ll receive 100 MB of storage on their server. Using an FTP client like Fetch or Transmit you can upload your assets & stuff or using it to put up a simple Website. There’s no support for PHP & databases, but then it’s completely free! If you feel you missed out on something because you never had your very own geocities website, well … this is the closest you’ll ever get!

And that is it for now! Make sure to let me know if I missed out on something and I’ll gladly add it to this or the next Mac OS news roundup. In the meantime, stay healthy and enjoy the time with your trusty old Macintosh.

Cornica – the Quicktime video archive

Cornica attempts to recreate late 90s media fascination of the young internet. It’s essentially an archive of Apple related video clips – served solely in Quicktime format. There are low-resolution versions for 68K Macs as well as “high resolution” ones. Bear in mind, high-res in 1998 was something like 640×480 🙂

Mpd Client For Mac Download

The page was specifically written in HTML 3.2, so you can take good ol’ Netscape out of the garage for a test drive. Great trip back to our youth on a rainy saturday …

URL: http://www.cornica.org

At last !

It took me more time than expected, but I finally got the beast properly compiled and bundled for Mac OS X.

Go grab Claws Mail for Mac OS X here

Beware, it’s a PPC only bundle for now. Universal bundle should follow in some weeks.

And of course the usual screenshot :

So now some explanation. In my previous post, I explained roughly how to compile Claws on Mac OS X. Since then, I have successfully embedded the whole application in a bundle, and made an image of it. More information are available on the developper page.

Mpd Client Mac Os X

Next step : recompile using GTK+ natively on Mac OS X.

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bedlamgames · 5 years ago

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Q&A #100

Yes, been a hundred of this things. Totally a meaningless milestone which is one of my oldest tags on here (assuming any are left after the purge...) still I thought I’d do something for it.

Specifically I’ve gone back over the old Q&A’s and found some favourite questions and answers which I’ll be including in this after the usual round of outstanding ones. Possibly also with some extra commentary where appropriate.

Anonymous said: Hey. Any pair of characters connected by an Owned relationship/reputation seems to crash the game if you use either one of them on an assignment. Any chance of this being fixed?

- That should be sorted in yesterday’s update.

Anonymous said: Got a Forest Goblin with both Dancer and Clumsy. This seems like a very strange combination, but imagining it kind of makes me want to laugh my head off.

- Agreed I think that just works due to being amusing. Less poetry in motion and more of a limerick.

Anonymous said: In No Haven 0.871 the trait " Elementalist: Air " does not appear when using the estimate value function.

- Cheers for pointing out that oversight. Will sort.

Anonymous said: Hi sory english isn't my native langage, In No Have 0.871 TF Edition I have aquired a slaver But with a bug first i don't know how i acquire her and two she had noting , no name no perk jus a little description i will copy the full examine optin on it : - - - - ExamineName: Race: - Sex: - Status: - Reputation: Traits: Condition: 0 Will: 0 Estimated Value: 0 has a flat chest, a regular pussy, and has an unremarkable ass. She is the same size as most goblins, and .She is .

- That looks like an empty character in all respects. I believe there was an issue with Ritual Casting where that could happen and is now sorted. If you see it happen again please let me know what you were doing when they appeared.

Anonymous said: Hey Bedlam, watched stream where you discussed not selling slaves debuff, thing is i always imagined slavers being in this business for fun and pleasure first, and gold second. I mean why else would they agree to live in some Skyrim style, long abandoned really, hard to get to fort in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills and marshes(at least that how i imagine it)? So maybe you could make something like,"no new slaves, or slave training for X days, getting bored" or something like that?

- It wouldn’t be too harsh at all. Just a bit of a poke to encourage that you’re business model is based around being a slaver over the leader disappearing to the coast for a week and returning with suspiciously large amounts of gold. In that case you’ve got to think that your slavers might feel that they’re surplus to requirements :D

Anonymous said: I hope you're happy for taking so many hours of my life away from me lol. But playing this again; got a question about NH. Any plans on making some rival groups that we can interact with? Diplomacy, getting tribute, ect. It would be kinda cool to have rivals that push you along

Glad you’re enjoying it!

Likely yes. There’s ways currently now to set up a few ways to get tribute every so often. More groups though who are more hostile than the not-witches in the marshlands or the mistress of the Ensnared Rose are sure to be a thing sooner or later.

doof-ex-machina said: Have you read the Gorean saga by John Nornan? If yes, did it influence your vision of the No Haven world? Gor explores a legal female-oriented slave system, yheah, but there are pretty close similarities with NH in regards to the numbers of ‘fodder’ and the ways of training. Anyway, me personally thinks your world is even better because magic and draenei/succubi boobs, duh.

I haven’t but I am aware of them in general.

NH is a lot more equal opportunities than Gor where males doing it to females, females doing it to males, and all possible variations of that including others like futanari and sissies are likely to happen. Still high praise indeed, thanks!

And now onto some old questions starting with one from before where I realised beginning to combine these might be a good idea.

onedrift from 2015: Trying this again...what's your coder fuel of choice? Red bull, Monster, coffee? None of the above? Soon to be bimbofied slavemakers want to know!

- Heh, totally giving my nationality away (if it wasn’t blatantly obvious already) but the fuel of choice is copious amounts of Earl Grey tea.

Anonymous from 2015: Hiya, been a fan of your work for a long time, captions and games thanks for making them, but a question regarding whorelocks revenge, is it possible to get the tangle infection and bonds of insanity? in all my time playing them I never had either I dont think.

- Not in the current version. Basically I wasn’t happy with the implementation in terms of how they were removed so I disabled them for a bit till I can sort it out… which unfortunately has lasted quite some time.

Soon as I got this No Haven update done they’re top of my list of things to sort in Whorelocks.

(Oh zogging hell. Still not done that yet... Extenuating circumstance for sure with NH taking off and WR was still in RAGS at that point, but even so)

Anonymous from 2015: This is probably a poor place to respond to your open-ended poll question, but have you looked into Twine?

- I’ve looked at Twine and when I one day get round to Rough Landing 3 it’s definitely going to be done using it, but to me it looks like an incredibly poor fit for working on No Haven.

(Oh past me why would say such a thing even if it did make a lot of sense at the time. Let’s hope that guy was wrong)

Anonymous from Q&A #1: Title image is hype, cant wait for next update. recall you mentioned that you had enchantments planed for the update after next (or something there abouts) how far ahead have you planned ahead and any spoilers for the update after this one? :D

- Why thank you! I have several pages bullet pointed of what I have planned along with what I have in my head. For stuff not in the next update I’d say not counting more slave training assignments and options and more assignments in the other areas the big bits of content outstanding are;

Way more potions. (Still do do)

Enchantment/cursing of items system. (Also still do do)

Crafting Devices. (Also, also still do do)

Ways to manage encampments when they get to large by sending slavers/slaves to new areas to provide ongoing gold/supplies along with the occasional assignment. (Oh dear, also, also still do do)

More stuff for you like going on every assignment, bad ends for some of them, more interactions, being enslaved and so on. Basically lots more sub and also some dom content for when you’re not managing the encampment. (Woo progress made! Bad ends for some assignments going on are indeed a thing. Still work to do as I do want to give Crossbones and Into the Depths the QAYL treatment sometime)

Special events that will occur every so often that will affect things be it for good and bad. This will include a way to get a lost slaver back though perhaps forever altered by their experiences. (Woo again this is done. Definitely could do with more done with)

Encampment reputation to reflect a slaver’s standing with how the other slaver’s see them. This will includes slavers becoming slaves and visa versa. (On a roll now as a great deal of this implemented)

More biomancy options and improving thanks to a multi-part assignment. There will also be other multi-part story based assignments. (Partially done and the biomancy multi-part assignment has been started)

And a bunch more basically but those are the priorities after this next update. Probably not all in the same update though.

Anonymous from Q&A #6: I would play the hell out of Paranoia set in No Haven.

- Temptation to give slavers and you conflicting secret societies and agendas rising.

Y’know like…

Dire Panthers: A mottley band of young savage orcs, amazons and trolls out to raise hell by breaking stuff, setting stuff on fire and generally being a nuisance to everyone.

The Cooperative: A dedicated group of Frozen Queen cultists out to oppose the Human Empire by working together to make things better for the common people… till you know the Queen awakens and buries all the land in eternal ice.

Mage Smashers: Magic iz like wrong an’ stuff! We smash dem in dere stupid face till dey not so smart.

Fellowship-Fel: The denizens that lurk beyond our reality and infect our dreams with tainted nightmares are our friends! We must expose ourselves to as much corruption as possible to make ourselves like them. We see no flaws in this plan whatsoever, you see the chorus of whispers in our minds entirely agrees with us.

Psion: No changes need to be made whatsoever from the original version.

Trekksters: …and I think that’s enough of that, or further evidence of why I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near RAGS or indeed tumblr when I have my old sourcebooks nearby :D

(Also apologies to most of you who have no idea what that was about!) (This is still far too much of a good idea)

Anonymous from Q&A #17: 2/2 and another hilarious one: Your succubus slave Jaeil was not looking so hot right now so Virholen just held her close and told Jaeil that everything would be alright. Jaeil was oddly quiet everytime you looked in on them and you wonder if they have resigned themselves to their fate. Condition: 45 (Change: 20) - Will: 47 (Change: 15)

After their mistreatment Jaeil sees no reason not to only care for them self as clearly no one else will leaving them hardened and even outright cruel. usc++

- You win best bug report in ages, that is beautiful :D

Anonymous from Q&A #37: Will there be other spirit races in the game besides wisps, such as undynes, gnomes, and dryads? And finally Im new to patreon. I decided to pay for the your character teir but ask for a unique because I dont really understand it. Is the “play your character” a scenario or what? And where do I go to talk with you on what I would like for it?

- True story, I had to google undyines and for ages I couldn’t work out what you were referring too as so many of the results were of that character from Undertale :D

Undines themselves would be no, but I do have a water spirit of a kind planned. (Still do!) Gnomes no, as I’m happy with Hakh Dwarven and the various Goblins as my short races. Dryads absolutely yes, and will be one of the advanced races. See the last Q&A for more details of those.

Thank you for your support! Those options are for those that want to play a specific character that isn’t available in the standard options or design a specific slaver that you can have in your encampment. If you want to see some examples of ones others have asked for before on the playable character front then Orc Wright Raptor, Lago’Mae Scholar or Goblin Underground Potioneer would be a good ones to look at to start off with.

As for the unique slavers then pretty much any of the slavers available under Strong Right Arm/Recruiter.

How much detail you want to go into is up to you. If you want to say oh I just want a Kitsune lady who likes to pole-dance then I’d put something together for your approval, or you can go full on detailing everything about them from their art, description, traits etc. and I’ll work with you to the point I’m happy having it as an option in the game. (Note: If you want an entirely new race like the Golems you need to go for the lore tier given the significantly larger amount of work involved)

For discussing please send me a message on patreon and we can take it further from there.

One thing to bare in mind is that patreon only charges at the end of the month, and so while I’m more than willing to talk it out, if you want to me to do a lot of work on your request I’m going to need to see a pledge go through first. It sucks I know, but this is the unfortunate reality of the internet that alas trust can only go so for.

I’m always happy to discuss things though, I really am, and some people have asked to pay some of their pledge upfront via paypal to get round this which is not a problem if that’s what you want to do.

valhallaimmortan from Q&A #47: I managed to get a elven smith who makes fancy armor that is usually masterwork quality, and equipped my ‘Basher’ Squad with it, the Basher’s are all Ogre’s who I recruited and I have a alchemist who seriously creeps me out with how many petrification potions he has been pumping out. I also like the Lago'mae Scholar how now the Lizard man is using her as his new project… poor Scholar… and I got to ask is it actually possible to recruit a keldan from the keldan mission in the city?

- I love this question, absolutely adore it, and you made the patron who requested the lizardman unique really happy when I mentioned it to them. If people want to send in their favourite/amusing/interesting slavers/slaves that have resulted from generation and gameplay I might do a tumblr post series on them called ‘Tell me about your Character’.

As to the question yes she should be on the critical result.

Anonymous from Q&A #61: Silly question. For clothing and armor, what in your mind is the major difference between micro, and impractical? I can’t really visualize a difference between the two when reading armor/clothing descriptions. Scandalously short is divergent enough that it creates its own image for me. The other two seem as if they would be interchangeable, but they aren’t since there is a distinction so what is it?

- Yay silly questions are always the best questions. Okay micro is where you have outfits that are recognizable bits of clothing but it’s incredibly brief so a skirt that’s more a belt than actually trying to cover anything whatsoever and/or a bikini top so teeny-weeny that it doesn’t even cover all of the nipples. Completely impractical though is the kind of clothing beloved by a certain kind of fantasy art which just doesn’t make any kind of sense whatsoever where looking good trumps any pretension of realism, and the only way it could stay on is either with copious amounts of glue or magic being involved.

Anonymous from Q&A #66: Hello again! I’m the guy who asked about the post-slave [slaver] titles. I’m going to very respectfully push the idea that ex-slaves should get unique titles. First, I honestly think having the unique titles is cooler. It’s more interesting to send a Chosen, an Acolyte, and a Hedge-Witch on an assignment than it is to send three Slavers. It’s a rarity thing, sort of? If you get a character who qualifies for one of those things, it’s a BIG DEAL. Secondly, it already changes with jobs, so…

- Alright, alright, you’ve twisted my arm :)

That should now be included for the most recent update along with a couple of new titles so that all of the more rare traits (not counting crafting ones) should have one. Let me know if there’s any issues as while it was a fairly straightforward change I didn’t get a chance to test that particular bit.

Thanks for reading and here’s to another hundred of these.

#Q&A #meaningless milestones

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