#MacSpeaks

[macaqueyfreedom]

....

How.... uh.... How is one meant to feel when they learn they’re someone’s hall pass????

[adiandrade-blog]

Hey Mac make sure you eat today

[macaqueyfreedom]

I know we’re all living in hell right now, but I’ve gotten entirely too many DMs and such on my social media’s about it, and my circumstances being what they are.... Y’all are AWARE of how much I hate admitting I need help and then asking for it.

It’s almost Christmas and then 2 days after is my birthday. I don’t particularly care about either one but some people like to use them as excuses to be nice to someone so we’ll roll with that and see what it gets us.

I’m unemployed since mid-August, I’ve been living off what money I had from my job and am now down to 3.49$ in my account. I can’t buy a soda nevermind food or a roof over my head.

Speaking of roofs over heads, I’m not sure how much longer I have one. I’ve been staying with a friends family and it has been brought to someone ELSE’S attention that I’m “overstaying my welcome” since I don’t have a job and all that. Cos it’s totally my fault that what few places are hiring won’t hire ME cos my drivers license is issued from a different state and I don’t own a car. I can put apps in all day long (and I do put in a lot of apps! I am TRYING) but it doesn’t matter how many I fill out if the place doesn’t wanna hire me!

So I’m staring at an unknown countdown to being homeless and jobless! I’ve no place else to go, and even if I had somewhere I have no money to get there! I don’t even have the 120$ to keep my phone on come next months bill. So I’ll also be looking at owing ATT the remaining 400$ for my phone in January

If anyone wants to get me anything for Christmas or my Birthday, I don’t need THINGS I need MONEY

paypal.me/MacaqueyFreedom

[starport-rodeo]

You’re my best friend and I know I’m not yours and that’s okay

[macaqueyfreedom]

[macaqueyfreedom]

Hey @the-werewolf-queen remember when we used to IN one of those trillion shitty sprite comics not worth mentioning? I kinda miss those days....

What were early 2000's webcomics like?

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. Kids who grew up in the 90s manga boom weren’t old enough to get scanners and the like, so the first webcomics were Newspaper comics based on nerdy things.

Like General Protection Fault, which was an even nerdier version of Dilbert. 

And, of course, 1999′s Penny Arcade. Penny Arcade’s success would inspire a million “two dudes on a couch playing video games” clones.

A dude saw Penny Arcade and convinced his artist friend to make a comic with him. He wanted a standard 4-panel comic just like in the newspaper. But his friend was a huge weeb, and wanted to have four vertical panels like in Japanese 4koma comics. So they found a compromise format and started a comic in 2000.

Megatokyo had a lot of video game jokes early on, but quickly morphed into being about anime stuff, which happened to be pretty popular. In lieu of video game jokes, it introduced some light sex humor, a woman with huge boobs who wanted to fuck the gamer dude, and a sentient android that everyone accepted as normal because it was a silly comic and a lot of early-2000s internet humor tended towards randomness.

So you had these two really popular webcomics with elements that had obvious appeal: Dudes on a couch playing video games, sexy chicks with huge boobs who wanted to bang the MC, robots, and a weird square format that happened to be easier to read at lower resolutions. But could these elements be combined? One man dared to dream they could. And in 2002 he made his dream a reality

Given what a joke it’s rightfully since become, I feel the need to emphasize that CAD was one of the big early webcomics, and helped inspire it’s own share of imitators. It’s probably fair to say that it was more influential than even Penny Arcade, in that it had more elements that could be slavishly copied and passed around.

(If you ever wondered why it took so long for anyone in Questionable Content to acknowledge the weirdness of all the robots, it’s because random unexplained robots were really popular in webcomics in the early 2000s)

Meanwhile, it its own little isolated corner of the internet, Bob and George was popularizing “sprite comics”, a genre that consisted of itself,8-Bit Theater the next year, and a trillion shitty comics not worth mentioning. These were less influential than the Penny Arcade ==> Megatokyo ==> CAD ==> Questionable Content progression, but even this early the tiny webcomic scene was start to grow and split. Questionable Content was much more grounded than other webcomics at the time, and it’s rom-com plot was a big step away from the gag-a-day strips, but its influence was dulled because a bunch of other comics were starting to spring up. In the early 2000s, everyone was reading the same things because there were so few comics worth your time, but by the mid-2000s you were starting to see some quality. 

You were also starting to see people getting serious about monetization. Scott McCloud’s dream of selling your comics for ten cents a pop and making bank in volume had crashed into the twin peaks of “most comics are also good and they’re free” and “credit cards charge fees, idiot”. Some of the better, more respected comics started joining together into one site with all of them that you needed to pay to access, kind of like how Slipshine works now except without the porn. 

This didn’t work out financially, and it also meant that the best webcomics of the mid-2000s like Digger and Narbonic had really small audiences because you couldn’t read them without paying a fee first. Advertising was less useless then than it is now, but times were tough for the webcomics business in the pre-Patreon days. But some webcomics realized that they could find a profitable niche by appealing to new audiences. Instead of the straight white boys who made up the general webcomics audience, they’d reach out to a new demographic:

Perverts! 

And, more specifically, 

Furries! 

Because furries really wanted furry content, and they were willing to pay for it. Pay a lot for it. Furry cheesecake comics prospered, and even though they didn’t have mainstream success, they were pulling it the big bucks compared to your average video game comic. People were starting to realize that 1000 hardcore fans was better than 100,000 casual fans, and a lot of comics started searching for a niche. (This is kind of related to webcomics becoming more progressive/inclusive a bit later, but that’s a whole ‘nother essay that I’m not the one to write)

These webcomics were pretty tame PG-13 stuff like you’d see in the shounen manga its creators were fans of, with nary a nipple to be seen, and a lot of them would die out in favor of straight-up porn.

In the late 2000s, art students realized that making a webcomic was a great way to build a portfolio, and we were hit with the Great Boom Of Webcomics By People Who Can Actually Draw. In 2003, that TwoKinds art was not only acceptable, it was top-tier for a free comic

By 2006 it was not the top tier

By 2008 it was no longer acceptable. 

The world of webcomics became flooded with high-quality work by actual artists who’d gone to school and everything. The first generation of webcomics creators no longer ruled as the comics everyone read. Doctor Fun, the first-ever webcomic, ended in 2006. So did Narbonic and Mac Hall. Applegeeks, one of the most successful PA clones, ended in 2010 alongside 8-Bit Theater. Ctrl+Alt+Delete ended and rebooted to the interest of no one. 

While in 2001, a bad artist could build a following just by updating regularly and slowly improving, that became a lot harder to do as the Bush Administration ended. There were too many brilliant artists making great content for someone to break onto the scene with simple art or sprites. And one day a lot of people gave up on ever being able to make a successful webcomic if their panels didn’t look like a magic the gathering card.

And it just so happened that that day, the 13th of April 2009, was a young man’s birthday…

[macaqueyfreedom]

Current mental debate: do I wanna bleach my hair or just dye it pink as-is and let the roots be slightly darker?

[macaqueyfreedom]

I learnededed how to can tuna today

30 pint jars, 4 half-pint jars all by mahsef! (In like 45min)

Am v proud mmhm!

[macaqueyfreedom]

Christmas is in 2 days and my birthday is in 4. It’s looking like I DO have somewhere else to stay soon just need help with covering travel costs now, and I’m still 60$ short for Januarys phone bill, so any help would be super appreciated!

Idk if it’s any incentive but I could try and write oneshots for people that help? Just has to be for something I’m at least somewhat familiar with.

paypal.me/MacaqueyFreedom

Venmo: macfree

[macaqueyfreedom]

I. . . .

I’m sorry JP is doing W H A T

They’re really tryna do a new W,TR????

You.... They.... I....

I’m sorry, I know this is a SPN Finale Conspiracy post, and I care about that, despite my several-years-long attempt to Stop Caring about that hellshow I still Care Very Much A Whole Fuckin’ Lot.... but like “Walker, Texas Ranger with Not Chuck Norris” has my brain stuck like a Nea on a basement meat hook in the middle of Lampkin Lane. In struggle phase. With a camping Legion.

I am READY for PowerPoint night

let me know what I’m missing lmao. Based on several great posts (x) (x) 

[macaqueyfreedom]

I got Hades yeeted at me the other night and GODS am I having fun playing it

Imma burn myself TF out on it real damn fast but it’s so worth it 

Faced Meg for the first time and I was absolutely NOT ready for that fight yet and we both knew it

She handed me my ass in 13 seconds and I ain’t even mad

[nphcnews-blog]

Alumnae sorority chapter hosts discussion on prison overcrowding

Thursday the Montgomery Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc held a discussion titled ‘Prison Overcrowding and our Community: Reversing the Statistics’. More than two dozen people came out for Part II in the MACSpeaks Series on Criminal … {$inline_image} To read the full story please click here: Alumnae sorority chapter hosts discussion on prison overcrowding

[macaqueyfreedom]

This is literally how @the-werewolf-queen introduced me to Grumps

This fucking video

I wasn’t even functionally awake and human and they were like “YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS”

I felt that shit in my SOUL

This is literally the best fucking thing I have ever seen

[starport-rodeo]

I need to stop caring so much about people who couldn’t give two shits about me.

I mean, go ahead and throw me out of your life but at least have the decency to tell me why.

[macaqueyfreedom]

@the-werewolf-queen

@tiny-raptor

I love you both for being as batshit as I am and willingly being part of this weird ice cream cone of encouragement and enabling we have had going for like.... at least a decade now

My best advice for fic writers?

Get thee an enabler.

By that, I mean that you should have a friend who will encourage you to write whatever makes you happy. 

Self-indulgent stuff you think no one else will like? They’ll devour it. 

You’ve stumbled into a new ship? They’ll send you all the prompts you could ever want.

Every fic writer should have someone like that.

[winters-blue-children]

you and Felicia are such inspirations to me that I decided to write some of my own fics! this is my first time writing, so if you have time could you check out my stuff? ANY critique is welcomed :)

Thank you so much! That really means a lot! I remember I was super nervous when I posted my first fic so you should feel proud. I read your fic, and I LOVE any and all murder night angst! I really hope you decide to keep writing :)