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burnedbyshoto · 4 years ago

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hawks_littledove.mp3

— You’re an avid listener to NSFW ASMR artist Hawks. It’s just your luck that he’s offered to have phone sex with you.

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pairing: takami keigo (hawks) x fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, slight abuse of power/influence, phone sex, masturbation, degradation, praise, nsfw asmr artist!hawks

word count: 5,018

a/n: my keyboard is broken and i could actually cry. but hey, hawks do be sexy even tho I would never trust him with my life. also LOL this might be a call out to a lot of us, do not be offended or I will cry.

kinktober day 14 main kink: phone sex | kinktober masterlist

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Fantasizing about being in relationships with fictional characters was entirely healthy and normal.

That was something you believed to the core. It was fictional; thus, no one but you were to be hurt at the end of the day. The character, being fake, could never have an opinion because you must be real in order to have an opinion. So when you were between boyfriends, you discovered a new anime, and before you could stop yourself, you fell hard for a character.

It started as a mild obsession.

You had looked up fanart via google images, your heart warming when you saw the plethora of different fanart. The anime itself had been in circulation for a few years now, the manga for much longer, so the content was endless. Then google images wasn’t enough, and you began crossing into Twitter and Tumblr.

The fanart became better, more engrossing, and definitely much more NSFW. And then, one night during your endless rabbit hole down Tumblr after your daily search on Twitter, you stilled when seeing a new type of content.

⇒ grey fullbuster x reader

The obsession grew worse.

So much so that you had followed nearly five hundred self insert writers and artists on Tumblr, and maybe seven hundred artists, meta writers, and thread makers on twitter. But three months into consuming all the content you could find, you came across a new name that made you tilt your head.

Hawks Fierce Wings

It was a name that was being repeated and heavily talked about on both sites. It was an ASMR artist, apparently, and you frowned at the thought. You didn’t have anything against ASMR videos, but you weren’t exactly sure how to handle an anime ASMR artist. Were they cosplaying while making all those weird ASMR sounds? You really didn’t have any idea, but due to the immense boredom of your lazy day in, you decided to hell with it and tried out his most popular video.

It was simply entitled: Hawks is Jealous.

Did you have any idea as to who Hawks was? God, no, you didn’t. But if it was just some random cosplay he was going to do, you didn’t think it was going to matter. So as the only slightly educated ASMR listener, you never truly became invested when it was a thing; you slipped on your earbuds and pressed play.

The introduction screen faded into an illustrated picture of a slightly handsome man, and some calming yet tense music played in the background. You shifted, eyebrows drew as you waited for the ASMR session to begin, and when it did, you were not ready.

“I saw you walking around with that asshole today,” a voice practically growled in your ear, and you froze.

Oh, no.

Oh, no!

For almost an entire hour, you sat glued to your sofa, your fingers digging into your lap as the jealous, spiteful words of this man named Hawks poured bitterly in your ear. His words were a near aggravated assault on you and definitely something you were beyond uncomfortable hearing from a stranger, but there was something about his voice that kept you there. Maybe it was the tenor of his tone or the way there was this sly, cunning scent to his words that he seemed to hide deep within his throat, but there was something that kept you there.

The second the passionate, heated kissing noises and heavy moans began to spill from his lips, you screeched, slamming your laptop closed as your cheeks pounded heavily.

Oh my god?!

It took a bit, but eventually, you were able to finish the audio and quickly figured out why he was an NSFW artist. You had never, ever heard a man eat a pussy fake or real as eagerly or vigorously as he did. Your hands were gripping the pants of your leggings, and your chest heaved.

Oh, motherfucking shit.

Finding out there were almost seventy other videos for you to still experience sent you scrambling for more, and eventually, you had to confess you were obsessed. Despite the anime fandoms you had discovered him for, Hawks seemed to be more famous for the content he created as himself. His real name was unknown by the looks of it, and he was only addressed as Hawks by his audience, something you caught on to quickly. So only after creating a new profile for his Youtube account, you made quick work of liking and commenting on every single of his already published seventy-eight nearly one hour and thirty-minute videos.

Each one was different.

Each one filled with various roadmaps on how Hawks' scenarios would play out for you — the listener. When he used his own persona, he called the listener his little dove or his chicken nugget, sometimes his KFC thigh, or his shish kabob.

You were glad at the very least he didn’t call you by any of those nicknames when pretending to fuck you at a speed only a “porn-is-my-only-education-on-porn” virgin teenage boy. You knew it wasn’t ideal, usually, but for some reason, it just worked. You commented on everything, read his summaries and thoughts on each video. Eventually, when you found yourself on his final, most recent video, you were ready to go a step further.

The Patreon app on your phone seemed jarringly out of place as you opened the app and subscribed yourself to Hawks' highest tiered option for the price of twenty USD.

And when you got your access to his page, you were immersed in more heavier, better content.

It was a goldmine in a sea of fools gold, and you absolutely went insane.

You weren’t sure if you were insane, needy, or just straight-up idiotic for scrolling to the very first Patreon post and indulging in the content Hawks created.

There was a stark difference between the warnings alone between the Youtube videos and the Patreon posts. While the porn was readily accessible on Youtube, the kinkiest thing that ever happened in a video was a slight implication that Hawks had left the listener on a vibrator and fuckmachine as he went to go talk to the visiting neighbors.

It was a slight, tiny zone out and miss a detail, but one you had clung onto like an obsessed psycho and even commented on in your comment on the post. Of course, Hawks hadn’t responded, not that you had ever expected him to because all things considered, a video that was eight months old and hadn’t done that well, to begin with, didn’t seem like anything he would remember: notifications and all.

But Patreon? Oh good, sweet, ravishing Patreon.

The very first video was of the following:

Stepbrother!Hawks fucks Stepsister!Listener in the stairwell during Christmas Dinner.

After praying and swearing to all the deities of the world that you were merely a person with a voice kink for this man and not, in fact, a perverted pseudo-incest worshiper, you clicked on it and began. It was downright sinful.

There were active voices whispered in the background as Hawks laughed about how fucking slutty you were for letting your brother fuck you like this. In the hallway, like a dog, where anyone in your joint family could walk out into. He laughed that you probably wanted it, how your wet ass pussy was greedily sucking him in, so how could you even begin to deny your lust for your brother.

You had to take a break five times during that audio.

Eventually, you do end up catching up.

Each video he had ever posted to your disposal, and most likely due to the different tier levels, you always commented on the videos. Even if it made you feel awkward for lusting over things months old, even if there were no other comments on the videos, which was much more common than you thought, you always commented and liked. It wasn’t anything ever crazy, you had seen the rarest comments bring a whole essay of analysis on why they loved it or the hating words, but you kept it simple.

Just something to keep Hawks spirits high without draining you even further of energy.

A simple: holy shit, that was hot as fucking hell!!!! you never disappoint me!!!

You never expected anything out of it; as a matter of fact, you had merely thought that you were doing the least by merely appreciating his creations when, one night, a few hours after you had gotten home. Your phone chimed with an alert.

Your mouth formed an ‘o’ in surprise; you hadn’t realized there was going to be a new release after he had just updated four days ago. Still, you popped in your earbuds and began the audio with a simple title.

i fuk ur stupid lil pus until u cri

He wasn’t precisely putting much effort into his titles these days, but his tags were definitely accurate and entirely explicit in what was to come. And in this newest video, the prominent tag was degradation.

You weren’t entirely into degradation, but still, you did what you had to do because you weren’t turned off by it. With the beginning sounds of the music playing in the background, you warped into the situation Hawks carefully carved.

But, oh?

Your face simmered with heat as Hawks dirty words dripped from the earbuds, the wet, squelching noise of your cunt and throat being fucked like some inanimate object made you soak through your panties as his disparaging words burned against your spine like a hot brand. After the thirty-minute audio was finished. Your body trembling with the aftershocks of an orgasm that had come despite the lack of actual stimulation of your clit, and you panted on your bed.

Opening your phone once again, you quickly liked the new audio and typed out your comment.

listen, i know i always comment about how fucking hot this shit is, but i have /never/ fucking soaked through my panties… you just did that and i expect a full refund for these panties 💦

You pressed send and, without so much of a second thought, continued your night. You had dinner, talked with friends, and ended the night curled back on the couch with a wine glass in your hand and a simple sit-com playing on the TV. The familiar sound of the Patreon alert rang in your ear, and you frowned, confused.

Grabbing your phone, you opened up the device and nearly shrieked at the sight of the information the notification that said:

Hawks F.W.: lets see those panties before i refund anything

A chill ran down your spine as you quickly put together the indications of this message, and you smirked, despite your quivering hands.

Me: I have a seven inch dick requirement before seeing any of the goods — yes, that includes my panties

And from that very moment, you began a strange arrangement between you and the NSFW ASMR artist Hawks.

Working was the worst part of your life, you would say.

At work, you would sit in your small 4x4 cubicle, your shelves stacked with plenty of papers and items you needed, not to mention the computer that took up the majority of your desk. You weren’t quite sure what your job here was, you sort of sat at your desk and did meaningless assignments when assigned, but you did nothing for the most part.

Before becoming an active Hawks stan, you would spend your time doing nothing playing video games. You had somehow managed to install a VPN onto your hard drive so that your employers wouldn’t be able to see what was on your screen outside of the home screen. They couldn’t trace what you did all day, but they could care less, given you got all your work completed on time and done in an over exceptional way.

But lately, since you had dropped into this… engrossed whore like relationship with Hawks, things changed.

To be honest, it still shocks you to no end when he tells you that he had always been aware of you. Well, with your consistent, ever appearing comments on his posts and overall enthusiasm for everything he posted, it was hard to not be aware. The mental image of your soaked through panties after a long day at his own work had sent him over the edge, and he finally messaged you.

Through the DM’s in Patreon, the two of you grew to become quite the friends with benefits. He would send you countless personalized audio files because you had quickly confessed to your voice kink and how his voice sent your stomach into hormonal knots. In return, you’d send the picture of an occasional soaked panty, and if he was lucky, an audio clip of your pathetic whines back to his audios.

You couldn’t complain about this arrangement.

But as the number of his patrons doubled, and he wanted to entice his subscribers with paying him even more money, Hawks began to offer a bimonthly personalized five minute audios for his $20 tier. The fans poured into that spot, and Hawks and proudly sent you the new number of adoring fans he was getting. On account of growing platforms such as Tiktok, the number of new listeners he got was nearly exponential, as he currently passed one million followers last week.

The cheeky bastard was also making enough money to stop working his regular work hours anymore. Choosing to transition slowly into his Patreon career while recording.

Hawks, however, seemed to have other ideas for your eventual personalized voice audio.

Hawks had simply asked if, by any chance, you were going to be working tomorrow the night before. Groaning loudly in recognition of your work schedule, you had texted him back that you were going to be working. Snidely including the fact that you weren’t rich like him, you needed the tedious old nine to five job.

Hawks: how utterly boring anyway u can b free around 2?

Me: Eh… probably not. Busy girl w busy schedule, ill be back from lunch so no break Why?

Hawks: well, u knw tht uve been amzing & th bst follower so i wanted 2 give u smthing better then the personalized audio

Me: Oh? Well, what is it?’

Hawks: pick up tmrw n find out

He had changed the subject immediately afterward by dodging all of your questions with ease. So you dropped it, and the two of you resumed a night of flirting. But now, sitting in your small cubicle, your eyes flashing to the clock that read 1:57 p.m., sweat began to build on your palm.

You peered down to your phone as you waited for something, anything from Hawks to show up. The fucker was too cheeky, evasive, and quick for his own good. You felt like pouting as you glared at the phone, waiting for the screen to light up.

And you stilled when finally, at precisely 1:59 p.m., your phone gleamed with light. You couldn’t abandon your computer mouse quicker than you did as you grabbed your phone, unlocking it, and reading the message from Hawks.

Hawks: do u have earbuds?

Me: Yes?

Hawks: good put them on n pick up

The moment you had read the first message, you were already pulling out your earbuds, synching them up to your phone, and placing them into your ear. But your jaw dropped when, for the first time, the call feature highlighted onto the screen, the time immediately changing to that of 2:00 p.m. The decline or accept button had never looked as daunting as it did right now.

Despite the call trying to go through, you still saw his follow up.

Hawks: if u dont pick up u wont get shit

[Accept]

You felt your heart hammering in your chest as both fear, apprehension, and excitement boiled through your veins, the hammering blood pounding in your ears as you waited for some sort of noise on the opposite side of the line.

“Little dove?” Hawks' voices filled your ears, and despite yourself, you smiled softly. The naturalness of his voice sends warm thumps down your spine.

“Hi, Hawks,” you whisper breathlessly, your head already checking to make sure your neighboring cubicle mates didn’t try to look over the divisions to stare at you. For the most part, the office building was quiet except for the phone calls, the clanking of computer keys, and the monotonous music playing softly on the speaker's head.

“Whatcha doing?” he drawled, and you felt your skin heat up when you heard the all too familiar sound of his shoes hitting the top of his desk, the soft whine of his chair as he leaned back onto it. “Are you really at work?”

“What do you mean, am I really at work?” you squeaked, half horrified at the way the lazy, warm heat of lust was infiltrating your body at the sound of his voice, and the annoyance that he thought you had been lying? “Of course I am; it’s two p.m. on a Wednesday!”

“Ah, so little dove-chan is a raging pervert who engages in phone sex to bypass her long hours at work?” Hawks sighed his tone that of understanding and dismissal. You splutter. “You never fail to surprise me.”

“I do not do… that!” you stammer, your face feeling like hot cinders, your fingers and eyes double-checking to make sure that the audio was going to your earbuds and your earbuds only. You also couldn’t help the way your eyes swept around you, trying to make sure you hadn’t accidentally invited unwanted attention. “I said I was busy!”

“But, you picked up my call?”

“You said, or else!”

“Mmm, okay, I think I see,” Hawks tutted, and although you had never seen what you supposed to be his handsome face, you could imagine a lazy, toothy smirk on his face. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind using your little cubicle to talk you into fucking yourself good for me.”

Your jaw drops.

It hits the desk, and the muffled shriek of utter humiliation is only silenced because you bit onto your tongue like a rabid animal.

“Aw, you sound so excited for me already, little dove. I bet you want to know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you? I just know that I’m going to make you feel so... good…”

“Hawks!” you plea in a hushed whisper, your heart hammering where you sat frozen like a deer in headlights. Sure, you had definitely played his audios before to pass the time, but never before in your existence had you had actual phone sex. This was riskier than just listening to his audios; his audios always had a pattern, a way to escape from the madness of his voice when people were closer than you’d like. But this? No, there was no escape. “I’m at work! I c-can’t!”

“But, fuck, I want you so bad,” Hawks' voice dipped into a gravely tone, his voice just perfectly scratchy enough that your shoulders trembled in unspoken, untouched want. “I want to feel your cunt around my cock, baby, your pussy is so hot and I want to be the fucking lucky bastard that gets to fuck you through your bed.”

“O-Oh my god…”

“I’ve been thinking of what your tits look like,” Hawks continues on, his voice continuing in the style you liked the most. It was raw, heavy, and deep. No character impersonations, just him, pure Hawks. “I hope they bounce the way they do when I imagine you riding me. I want to see you moan when I kiss the underside of your tit, I want to see your face when you realize that you’re my girl, nobody's else's, but mine.”

Heat floods your panties at his words, your shallow breaths making him chuckle on the other end.

“You’d be so lucky to be just mine, wouldn’t you, little dove?” Hawks snaps, his voice demanding a response, and you heave.

You look around, no one is near, and you croak out: “I’d be so lucky.”

“Louder.”

“I’d be so lucky.”

“Mm, there we go,” Hawks laughs, and your ears prickle for any noise that may indicate that someone was listening in. “What? Are you getting nervous that your needy ass will be heard by your coworkers right now? Answer me.”

“Mhmm,” you hum loudly, your cunt pulsing with more incredible heat and your hands shaking with a slight fear of being caught.

“Aww, don’t worry, little dove. I’m sure your boss will understand that you’re my newest fucktoy and will let me continue. Maybe they’ll want to join in?”

You whimper softly, shifting in your seat at that thought. You didn’t really want your boss coming anywhere near you, he was old and gross for one, and nothing could take the place of this beautiful man's voice in your ear right now.

“Oh, was that a no? You don’t want other people fucking you, do you, y/n? I bet you only want to have my cock in your tight little pussy, bet you want to watch the way that greedy little thing sucks me in, begging for my seed. Would you want me to cum deep inside you? You would like that little dove; you’d like to be full of my cum.”

“H-Hawks,” you keen as quietly as you can, your hips shifting uncomfortably in your seat, your heart hammering in your throat. The pressing heat in your cunt is growing, your panties growing with wet slick as Hawks' voice whispers down your ear, filling every empty and void space in your brain until you were having trouble focusing on the very much public spot you were in.

Hawks let out a soft, guttural moan, and you froze, face entirely combusting into an inferno as the familiar slick slapping of his fapping cock filled your ear. Immediately, you forgot everything.

“A-Are you—?!” you splutter, unable to find the words or the energy to come up with a way to ask if he was masturbating right now. Your eyes spun, your mind in a complete haze as soft, raunchy moans spilled from his lips, striking against your nerves and soul with each successive sound.

“I’m only trying to help you out here, dove,” Hawks growled, undoubtedly in effect to a rather loud smack of his fist colliding with his thrusting hip. “You’re the little office slut who picked up a phone call to entice in phone sex. I bet you knew exactly what I was going to do, and your pathetic, needy whore self caved to my instructions.”

Your fingers curled into the armrest of your chair.

“I bet this makes your boring ass job tolerable, the perfect distraction to a shit job, then imagining a few minutes of fucking yourself against my hard cock.”

“That’s not true!”

“No?” Hawks laughed, not believing you any more than you did. “So you wouldn’t hate it if I showed up and fucked you into the wall of your cubicle? You wouldn’t mind if I claimed your sweet-smelling pussy against your desk for everyone to hear? I know you can scream like a bitch in heat. I know that pretty little cunt of yours would milk my cock dry. Oh, I just know you would look so fucking sexy with your back arched, eyes closed, and you begging for hours just to cum. You wouldn’t cum without my permission, right?”

You gasped, heart fluttering, hammering in your chest as you shook your head, not trusting yourself to speak.

“I need a verbal answer, little dove.”

The heat in your core was blistering, your thighs shaking with your unadulterated lust and need as you ground into the cushion of your chair. All logic and moral long gone as he snarled and moaned your name in your ear, the slick of his fapping cock echoing like a great bell in your ear. You wanted to hear him cum, wanted to listen to the pithering sound of his echoing moans as he spilled the contents of his balls onto his hand — and how you wished it was your womb.

“I won’t cum w-without your permission!” you whispered, your skin shivering with your fear of being caught.

“God, you sound like such a dirty fucking bitch. I bet your pussy is fucking soaked already. Bet you really want to run that slutty embarrassed finger against your clit but don’t want to be caught by your perverted coworkers,” Hawks hissed, his breaths turning into steady, heavy hot pants. You mewl softly, confirming his spoken thoughts, and he huffs out a laugh. “How many fingers do you normally shove up that pretty cunt of yours, little dove?”

“T-Three!” you gasp, your forehead pressing to the cool of your desk, your eyes glazed over and looking at the entrance of your cubicle, fervently wishing that no one tries to check on you as you grind against your stable chair. “O-Only three fit.”

“Fuck, you really do have a tight cunt, don’t you,” Hawks snaps, the wet sounds of his fisting hand around his cock a beautiful melody in your ear that makes you whine at the back of your throat. “Bet you can’t even fit cocks up your cunt without lube, huh. You gotta stay on top, or else you’ll get hurt with how thick and long my cock will be up that baby pussy of yours.”

“H-Hawks!” you grit out, the friction of grinding on the seat no longer working.

“Go to the bathroom, now,” Hawks commands, the small gasps on his voice from his approaching orgasm more than enough ammo for you to do as told.

You sprint to the bathroom, the slick of your cunt hot, and evident to you as you sped to the bathroom. Your phone clenched in your hand as you locked the door behind you, glad the room was empty. Barely managing to get yourself into the stall, the toilet paper placed on the seat as you raised your legs up, already prepared. The skirt you wore was bunched above your ass, and the panties you wore, stretching out around your knees.

“Sounds like you’re ready to start fucking that pussy for me,” Hawks laughs, but there's no humor, just bite. “Put in three fingers, now.”

Without even arguing or caring, three fingers slip into your cunt, and you cry at the feeling of your fingers completely stretching you out. The smell of sex and slick filling your nose as your fingers slick up, fucking your tight cunt as you moan louder and louder for Hawks.

“God, your fucking pussy is so fucking wet, I can hear it from here!” Hawks moans, the frantic sound of his drilling hips gaining speed and momentum.

“I want it to be you!” you moan, your face burning in your humiliation. “I want it to be you fucking my pussy, claiming me in this bathroom. I need you, Hawks, I want your cock so badly!”

“Fuck,” Hawks gasps, something tumbling in the background. “Such sweet words for a fucking dirty ass cumslut,” he growls, and your legs shake, your clit and cunt thrumming with your increasing arousal and pit of tightness in your core.

“HAWKS, FUCK!” you sob as your hips try to start a merciless speed against your fingers, your body trying to match the speed in which Hawks was fucking his own hand.

“Keep screaming my name, whore.” Hawks gasps, his noises of pleasure beginning to grow louder and louder, your eyes crossing in satisfaction. “Screaming my name like the fucking slutty mess you are. All this shit just to get me to fuck you? God, you’re so fucking pathetic y/n. Begging for me, begging for more? I think you’re my favorite little dove ever, gonna make you mine whenever I get to fuck that pussy.”

“Hawks!” you wail his name again, your arms and pussy throbbing with the energy it takes to keep up with his inhumane speeds. Your vision seeing stars as you tremble more and more, your legs slipping from the toilet seat, yet. “I am your whore, your little dove. Please let me come, please! You fuck me so well, fucking hell, please, I needa cum, I needa cum!”

“Cum with me,” he snaps, his voice so deep, so dangerously smooth. It was precisely what you needed, the voice kink you had for his tenor exactly fulfilled entirely with that simple, last command. And just like that, your jaw slackens, head slamming backward, and pleasurable waves crash through you.

Your fingers still rock at your clit, and your vice gripped walls, your toes curling within your shoes as you soundlessly scream. Hawks, on the other end, is practically snarling, voice deep and altogether dangerous as grunt after grunt leaves him, and you can imagine the milk-white cum splattered all over his chest and hand. A beautiful, perfect sight that you wish you could see for yourself.

Exhaustion settles in your bones as you sit on the toilet, still entirely exhausted as you heave for air.

“I think that was the best fucking orgasm I ever had,” you mumble, your eyes closed, not ready to stand up and move. “Thank you.”

“I’m good at what I… at what I do,” Hawks stumbles, husky exhaustion ringing in his own voice. “Now, little dove, finish up work, and I promise there’ll be a surprise waiting for you when you’re done.”

Not entirely agreeing, but not disagreeing with his command to go finish you last… two and a half hours at work, you begrudgingly said goodbye to Hawks before washing your hands and exiting the bathroom.

When five o’clock came, you watched as your phone screen lit up, and your face flushed as you read the DM from Hawks.

Hawks: this is my fav audio now ↳ hawks_littledove.mp3 but you surprised me today, so in case u ever want to have more fun sometime call me 03-9183-2495 ;)

#hawks smut #hawks x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #mha #bbs kinktober 2020

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kornyo · 5 years ago

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Hello, my name is korny and some of you know me as a former beta, then sweet elite’s former clothing artist, that also (singlehandedly) drew the animated mini-game with momo and the little coffee and coin icons. I never had a proper introduction which is why probably most of you see me for the first time now.

I didn’t plan on publicly making a statement, but it has been brought to my attention that the se management said rude and nasty things that – most importantly – are just plain bullshit and I cannot let this be said without a proper response.

If you click this link you will find a google doc with various screenshots, showing what exactly has been going on that made me (& cecile) finally leave the team. I made the doc and the screens a few days prior to leaving (April 2019) and already shared it with all the betas and some staff back then, but also some people on tumblr who have come into my dms asking me to clarify what happened. I feel the right time has come to share this link with the public, although it might be a little confusing to understand for some.

Now, what bothers me the most about serenas ugly behaviour from the past few days is the topic of “’lazy’ cecile”. I’d like to clarify that this entire post is MY opinion, and was written because *I* am angry about this, I was not forced to write this whatsoever by Cecile or anyone else. I’ve kept my mouth shut so far bc I could not be bothered, but this is where I draw the line.

“Lazy Cecile” has been something even BEFORE my beta days (which started in January 2018). Serena used (and still does, as you can see in her latest posts) to call Cecile “lazy” a lot jokingly, but saying it that often didn’t make it funny anymore, and it certainly isn’t a nice thing to say to a good friend. She continued to say it even after Cecile approached her not to.

To add, Cecile is - if not THE - most hardworking person that ever participated in the production of the game. While juggling a full-time job, she also drew AND redrew ALL the sprites, for a short time also drew ALL the illustrations WITH customization (2 genders x 3 three different hairstyles), AND new backgrounds because An already left the team. And that’s just the art she did! She also took part in writing large chunks in almost every chapter, even writing an entire big ass chapter 7 ON HER OWN, which she now has posted on her blog @retconomics (which Serena in response tried to make us afraid by telling us how merciful she is by not suing us for copyright. Your case wouldn’t be that strong honey LMAO not without a contract anyway 😉 ). ALL WHILE WORKING A FULL DAY JOB AND GETTING A DOG, WHICH ALSO REQUIRES A LOT OF ATTENTION. Meanwhile, it took Serena several months to almost a YEAR now, guessing from the release date, to write chapter 6 and it wasn’t a rare case for her to magically loose the file or it getting corrupted. So please tell me how the fuck cecile is lazy? In any fucking way?

Her time schedule was very demanding, so of course we had to cheat a little bit, which brings me to my next point: professionalism. Serena claims that Cecile was very unprofessional, “cutting corners” and her art “unpolished” and “not up to par”. In her example of ‘proper’ professionalism, serena used this image:

Illustrating how the new artist does things better and more polished.

This is where I call huge, MAJOR bullshit.

I have worked on the sprites with cecile. Due to the tight deadline Serena has given us, Cecile would give me the rough sprites and I would finish them & look for any spots that were smudges/did not have clear edges or full transparency. Wanna know how these files looked like?

Hm! Absolutely no fucking different! The expressions were all on one layer, unlike in the example above, but as Serena said: she didn’t say anything against that. That was because Serena wanted to pump content out, which, fair enough, and she needed everyone in the team to “set priorities”, as she said. And adding so much customization was NOT a priority at that time and she knows it.

However, if it DID bug her that much, it’s her own fault if she won’t say “hey Cecile, could you put all the brows on one single layer, all the mouths etc”. And if her excuse is that Cecile lacked the time, I could’ve done it just as easily, as I worked on the sprites anyway and did not have the huge workload cecile had at that time. If the manager is unhappy with their product, they should say something, otherwise nothing will happen. So, if Serena was unhappy with the ‘lack’ of expressions (lets be real tho, 5 expressions isn’t lacking at all)? Her fault.

“Not to mention, all of the sprites will be polished and the artstyle will finally be consistent throughout the entire game (something that our old artist really struggled with at times). Also, both Alita and Ariel are awesome at what they do, take growth and sustainability seriously, and constantly look for ways to improve and build onto the world of Sweet Elite.” Taken from here (x).

Ah, yes. You want consistency and yet hired two artists with two very different styles, and even *advertised* it as something good. Also, if somebody improves art wise, they rarely stay the same way. Art is FLUID. Art CHANGES, especially while improving. And if ceciles art was so unprofessional looking and unpolished for you serena, why didn’t you just tell her to stop drawing? Why not “get rid of the garbage” sooner? Would have saved both you and cecile the clownery that has happened and is going on right now.

(taken from here)

Also calling Cecile a weakness while she literally held the weight of the entire game on her shoulders while having to provide so much art and writing while you failed to write even one chapter during all that? You’re pettier than you care to admit.

I literally could go on and on about this, but this is already 1k words, so im gonna wrap this up. But I am so mad about this “boo hoo there is a narrative spun against me ☹” “I was creatively constricted by my cowriters” (also bullshit lmao, but another topic). You’re just a big liar and an awful person overall, and don’t get me started on your boyfriend.

While you’re getting “rid of the garbage”, please also remove MY minigame which I was forced to make while I was collecting money for my dog, and pay me 100€. You can have the clothes as I actually *agreed* on doing that for no money. 25€ for all the coffee and coin icons would be appropriate as well.

Now, as a former fan thats been on this journey since 2015, I am very dissapointed in how this game is developing. You’re taking this game into a direction you promised not to - not diverse, full of clichés, mainstream. As a fan, this broke my heart. A lot.

I hope you learn that your actions have consequences and that I will NOT be quiet if you decide to spit some lies again.

#sweet elite #se-serena #long post

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msuatlas · 4 years ago

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'ello, love. i'm june (she/her), from the gmt+7 timezone and i'm 18+ but act like a 9 years old so don't be afraid to approach me. it's my first time joining msu and it's exciting to be here! i can't wait to plot with everyone *smoochez* so heart this post if you wanna plot with me, i'll jump into your inbox! now, let me introduce y'all to my boy, atlas jeong of house toseong, your resident mean but lowkey lovable male bitch. below this cut is everything you need to know about him and click here for my plot page if anyone's interested !!! again, lovely to meet y'all

jeong howon / atlas, senior, 98liner, cismale & bisexual

house toseong but everyone can sense the hwaseong-ness from him

majoring in illustration, art history as his minor

born and raised in seoul, came from a filthy rich family that owns a hotel chain across the nation so you probably have heard of him at some point

his older brother, whom atlas looked up to the most, passed away and the family told the public that it was due to an unfortunate accident. atlas doesn't want to comment further so don't ask him about it >:( though everyone now knows that he doesn't have a good relationship with his parents

works part-time as librarian’s assistant and as a bartender at borealis bar

the grumpy yet surprisingly humorous and responsible president of the art club

also member of the chess club and news editor for mokseong mondays

he's a more aggressive version of wednesday addams and very much reminds everyone of a slytherin... talks shit but doesn't get hit because everyone's afraid of him

so he's this really sassy sarcastic rude son of a bitch who doesn't care if his words hurt ur feelings, he's all about honesty and absolutely hates sugarcoats but !!! he's very hard-working and one of the most responsible peeps you've ever met, that’s why they made him art club president

if he cares about you then he GENUINELY cares about you, if not then oh you're falling off a cliff? fall faster

was a fuckboi and broke so many hearts during his freshman and sophomore years but he realized he's been an ass so he's a changed man now, currently doesn't want to get into a serious relationship but life's full of surprises y'know

yes he's one popular student mMMMMMMM

also popular for being the most hated guy because he's rude and inconsiderate and broke hearts but he will try to change T___T just not now tho Haha !

you either hate him or like him, it's hard to have neutral feelings because... he's just that kind of person......

#/ ooc.#its 2am so im going to schleep #but like this post so i can HIT u real hard jk i want to hit yall up #msu:intro

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earthbovndmisfit · 4 years ago

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I hope this isn't too weird of a message to send, but doesn't it seem like Jonawagon doujinshi are pretty uncommon? I've only seen maybe 3 posted online & I have a copy of a SpeedJona doujin but aside from those I haven't come across any. Is it like a rare pairing or something? I thought they were fairly popular

It isn’t weird at all, anon! All the opposite actually, cause I love getting asks even if i'm not always around or it sometimes takes me a hot minute to get to them gfjhkjh

This is gonna be long and probs gonna have bits that might sound rant-ish to some, but I hope that’s alright! :'D

For starters, sadly, jonawagon/jonaspeed/speedjona or however you call the ship is quite an underrated ship. This has to do partly with the wrong perceptions some folks have built around it and around the characters as well (that them both and the couple itself are the epitome of "purity" and "innocence", sometimes even labelling them as "boring" as a result even though both characters are far from that, that "it could only be a one-sided thing" on Spw's end despite both showing and sharing a certain bond/closeness towards each other -closeness that sometimes Jonathan didn't show towards anyone else-, etc), partly because of the many timeskips in PB and all the scenes the anime cut out and people wrongly assuming that the main events happened in the span of a few days and thus people dropping the ball on the ship/characters when Jonathan and Speedwagon actually knew each other for as long -sometimes even longer- than other more popular characters/ships in jjba did, partly because neither Jonathan or Speedwagon are as popular as other characters in the franchise as a whole, and also partly because, as sad as it is to say this, the ship lacks a LOT of support, especially from it's own fanbase. While jonawagon is a popular and well liked ship overall (in the sense that even general fans who don't care much about shipping, or those who are still on the fence about mlm ships, or those who just don't actively ship jonawagon actually like and support the ship or the idea of it upon seeing the actual dynamics between the characters and their potential and the fact that the ship can actually coexist with jonaeri without altering the characters/making them ooc, nor altering the story and so on), it still lacks a lot of support from it's fans. I often see most other ships/characters get lots of reblogs and exposure from their fans on literally any and all platforms, helping those ships/characters reach new audiences and gaining more popularity and drawing interest from potential new fans, while jonawagon stuff as well as solo Jonathan or Speedwagon stuff usually only get likes and a few reblogs at most from their fans, which is nice and all, but it doesn't give the artists/writers any exposure nor get those works or the ship any farther than that and just keeps them within part of the already existing fanbase at best, which often times makes the artists/content creators lose interest in continuing to create stuff for the ship/characters. This is also why I always strongly ask -almost beg at this point ngl- for people to support the artists/writers/etc via reblogs!! The ship having a bunch of different names also might have an impact on all of this, as it's not always as 'easy' to tag/find contents if you don't know how to tag/search for it. Jonawagon (normally used in the western parts of the fandom), JonaSpeed/SpeedJona (Western version of the ship's most popular names in Japanese: ジョナスピ/スピジョナ or JonaSupi/SupiJona respectively], SpeedStar (a name that became a bit more popular more recently after a mini jonawagon event in 2019), being the most common ones afaik, asides from the standard JonathanxSpeedwagon/SpeedwagonxJonathan ie and others. In short, Jonathan and Speedwagon as well as jonawagon are quite well liked and even popular to an extent, but they lack a massive amount of support from the fans, which also usually translates into artists and content creators for this ship losing interest in continuing to create new material for it and thus end up not making any more contents.

In regards to doujinshi more specifically, I’m a bit disconnected when it comes to Jojo doujinshi in general, but it seems to be a bit like that for most of the non "crazy popular" Jojo ships if you ask me, which is kinda normal considering the massive amount of characters in the whole series. Putting my experience as example, if it helps, I used to collect doujinshi from one of my previous fandoms, which had a shit ton of them for plenty of it’s ships and it was somewhat easy to acquire hard copies of despite it being an “old anime” basically while most Jojo doujinshi (especially anything that is not parts 3, 4 and 5) seems to be a bit hard to come across regardless of the ship(s) in them, even in auction sites or places like pixiv that sell digital copies if the author puts them up on sale, which is understandable since the aforementioned parts are some of the most popular parts in Japan, where most doujinshi is created, and thus take most of the fandom's interest -authors’ and readers’ alike-, as well as the hype for parts like Phantom Blood being long dead (with it being dead/dormant since the original airing of the anime ended in 2013, and it coming back ocassionally whenever there's a 'special' re-airing of PB in Japan or when events such as the Joestar Radio take place), so maybe my parameters on the whole subject are somewhat disproportionate?

This is also gonna sound all boomer-like, but I’ve also noticed, or it seems to me at least (still in comparison to the doujinshi from my previous fandom), that doujinshi books as we knew them aren’t /as/ common nowadays as they used to be a while back. Even the works themselves don’t seem to be much that way either. For example, doujinshi anthologies used to be a big thing a while back and, while they still exist, they don’t seem to be too common anymore (these worked as "promo books" of sorts for all the artists featured and they also helped lesser known/popular artists and ships to get some exposure to newer audiences). Nowadays such thing still exists, and I actually recall seeing a Jonaspeed/Speedjona anthology being made “recently” (recently as in 2019, if I’m not mistaken? it was published and sold during the mini Jonaspeed event they held at a Jojo con in Japan that year), but they aren’t nearly as common as they used to be, since now most artists can post any samples they want (much more reduced tho, cause you normally get a few pages instead of a full mini story) in places like Twitter or Pixiv. And it’s kinda the same with regular doujinshi. Before, most doujinkas had to publish a book in order to get their stuff out and get some exposure, so they were always working on new stories and making new books to sell and promoing their stuff, sometimes one after the other and even creating multi-volume stories in some cases. Now, thanks to how "easy" it is to get some exposure on social media, it’s much more common to see doujinkas for any ships/characters making short stories (1-4 pages, sometimes more) or just 1 page illustrations instead and posting them on their social media every now and then as a promo for their works. They also still make and sell their books (a few jonawagon artists on twitter do, at least), and these short stories/illustrations serve to boost their works instead, which is not a complain at all cause I think it's amazing tbqh! But this also translates into less stories/doujinshi being created as many of these artists often opt for leaving those stories that years ago would have been their own book or a mini story in a book as a prompt or a short story only.

As for actual jonawagon doujinshi, while it is not as common as say pt 3 doujinshi, there is quite a bunch of it. Some date from 2012-2013 (when the PB anime was originally aired), some are much older than that and some others are much more recent (as there are still some active jonawagon doujinkas around). There are also "fanfic books" that are also considered doujinshi and that seem to be a thing sometimes, but these contain little to no art at all and are usually written 100% in Japanese. The problem here is that not many of them have been scanlated/translated yet, sometimes because they aren't easy to find on sale online, sometimes because re-sellers who do have them set high prices for them plus shipping costs, sometimes because the artists/online shops won't sell stuff overseas, sometimes because those who do own doujinshi copies don't always know how to properly share them (since scanning a doujinshi in high or decent quality without destroying the book can be hard af) among other reasons.

All that said, there is a bunch of jonawagon doujinshi that has been scanned and is available online! but it can be tricky to get sometimes due to the different names this ship can go by and because of the "translations" of said names into different languages (as some doujinshi can only be found in Chinese sites, or Russian ones, and so on for example, so it can take some serious time to figure that out and have a successful search).

In all honesty, anon, I'm a dumdum and I had never thought about doing so in a more public manner until now, since I've already shared my entire jonawagon collection (pics, doujins, etc) with friends who have requested it more privately, but I can upload the doujins I have scans of if anyone's interested?? (I’d post the links where I found most of them but since my hd is pretty much dead and I can’t access Windows or my windows/mozilla profile, I’ve p much lost all my old bookmarks). They were only like... 8 last time I checked (9/10 if you count the Japanese and English versions of the "Joestarsaaaaan" one), but it's something :D Just be aware that some of them are nsfw! and that a couple are either part of a book that has stories from other ships in them (I only have the jonawagon parts tho) or contain other ships implied or openly shown in the jonawagon story.

I also have about 4 more, but the scanlator of one of them openly requested for the file to not be reuploaded, so Idk if it'd be alright to share it? (and they also deactivated their blog, so there's no way to ask them for permission). The other 3 are scans a friend sent to me of their own doujinshi copies, so I also don't know if it would be okay for me to post them?? (i haven't seen this friend in over a year so idk gfhgjkjlkñ). 2 of those 3 are nsfw.

#long post #super long actually oof #sorry about that #i tried to make this shorter #i swear #orz #anonymous

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derrickdent · 6 years ago

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BBHMM, OR HOW TO DEAL WITH THE DEADBEAT CLIENT

You’re a fucking freelancin’ badass, with a semi-steady flow of work, and you’re living the dream of doing **insert best/fave thing here** , and getting the money from your biggest fans. Can’t be better, right? Well, one of things you were probably not informed about is what happens when the dream sometimes becomes a financial nightmare. 30 day waits for payment. Invoices and reminders. Anxiety waiting for that check. Clients that don’t seem to care that you’re eating peanut butter for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while your payday is delayed in a death spiral of perpetuity. Getting stiffed sucks, and you gotta keep the lights on. How can you keep this bullshit at a minimum? I’m not a financial expert, but I’ve eaten a fair amount of shit trying to get money from clients that have a sense of urgency about everything except paying me. There’s a ton of info about this online, but hopefully my lewd voice in the choir is helpful. (Samuel L. Jackson voice) LET’S GET YOU YOUR MONEY, MUTHAFUCKA. FROM THE BEGINNING

Make sure that you get everything down in writing. Have a statement of work or a contract that states your scope of work, your fee, deadlines, usage restrictions, deliverables, and any notes about late fees, payment timetables, and billable expenses. (Example of a statement of work).

Make sure that a client knows that you can’t begin work without acknowledging these terms. They should return a signed copy of this document, or acknowledge its terms via email. Sometimes there’s a rush situation and you may be pressured to dive in. It’s still a clients responsibility to make sure everything is taken care of on paper, to protect you and to ensure that they are also in the best position to get the best from you.

If they “politely” ignore the contract, then reiterate the terms in a follow up email, with a polite call to action (ex: “Hi! I’m just making sure that we’re on the same page about what the scope of this project is all about. I going to be [**rates, usage, time, deliverables, expected expenses, payment expectations here**]. Is that correct?). It’s important to get this down on the front end. Depending on your state, this counts as a legally binding statement.

NOTE: Try to get an upfront deposit if you can. 30-50% is normal, and this is also a test of whether the client will be good for it after all is said and done. This is also an incentive to put your best foot forward. Some clients will balk at this, but if the early “what is your rate?” convo suggests this is a possibility, go for it. This also depends on the industry. This is almost impossible with editorial, and though I’ve heard mixed stories in publishing, it’s hard to get an advance or deposit unless you’re doing a full book. Large corporations often have a convoluted accounts payable system that pretty much guarantees money will be slower than human evolution. The best results I’ve had are with small, dynamic businesses and individual clients. Once they confirm the terms, then you can begin scheduling and first steps in a project. FAST FORWARD TO PROJECT COMPLETION

INVOICE IMMEDIATELY. Seriously. Do NOT delay this. Most clients are not going to remind you to send one after you’ve finished a project, and you are ultimately responsible for this. (example invoice). Include the basics: your business name your contact info and address the client’s info and address an invoice number total due

Don’t forget an invoice number- accounts payable folks have a hard time placing your invoice in their system without one, and you don’t want to delay things because of a technicality. You can use a simple numbering convention: I use my initials and a double digit combo (ex: DD01). Also, if you haven’t gotten an EIN, get one from the IRS. WHEN YOU APPLY, ONLY GO TO THE .GOV IRS LINK. SCAMS ARE A-PLENTY AND I WANT YOU TO AVOID TEARS THO. An EIN is great, because it can be very compromising to keep putting your SSN out there, and in some cases an EIN can get you paid faster. You should itemize your work in the invoice, similarly to how you would find items on a receipt (ex: 1- Illustration for “client and application”, **brief description** = $THIS AMOUNT.00) Write amounts in dollars and cents. Instead of “$3000”, write “$3000.00”. Again, this helps your client or client’s accountants process your payment a touch faster, and saved time counts. Include a line with a total of your billable expenses. These are items that you HAD TO purchase to finish your work. Make sure you keep your receipts, and make a PDF slideshow with scans of those items for transparency’s sake. Send that PDF with your invoice. Finally, include a line that is the grand total of EVERYTHING. Put that total in BOLD PRINT just to make sure that it’s clear what the client owes. If necessary, you can include direct deposit info. This includes your routing and account number. This way, you give the client another way to pay you, and you can fight off the delay of waiting for a paper check. Even though it’s assumed in many places, make it clear that payment is due NOW. From the moment you send the final invoice out, the onus is on the client to pay up. They should confirm receipt of this, but if they’re slow after a day or two, give them a quick email reminder. NOTE: If you have a client’s phone number, keep it handy. This will come in handy later. FAST FORWARD TO A FEW WEEKS LATER AND YOU HAVEN’T BEEN PAID YET

Either way, you’re waiting (and hopefully pursuing other work!) for money that you need. The timeframe for a reminder varies. Some people will drop a friendly note after 15 days. I tend to be a bit generous, and will wait until 10 days before the invoice is late. The email is friendly, and assumes good faith. Something like: “Hi! I just wanted to touch base about the payment for this invoice. Is there any progress on this? Is there anything I can do to assist with this? Please note that you will be 30 days late on (date here). If so, then a (late fee percentage) will be added to the final amount due.” The key is to emphasize some kind of fiscal penalty. People don’t like to spend more money, so you’ll, at the very least, get a response to let you know that things are being processed. You may also get redirected to an accounting department. If you get a number or an email to them, HOLD ON TO THIS INFO. Hopefully, at this point, the client gets the push to make good on payment. FAST FORWARD TO 30 DAYS AND NO PAYMENT

At this point, you are apprehensive because no one wants to wait to be able to pay bills, eat pizza, and enjoy their own Netflix account. The dynamic changes now, because this is the day that the client has to pay you before it’s late. Tomorrow is late. In some states, you have legal recourse to pursue payment (In NYC, the default timetable for freelance payment is 30 days). You should email your client reminding them that payment is due today. If you have their number, call them as well to reinforce this message, but emails are important now. Each email you send is a recorded effort to receive payment, and they are timestamped for posterity. Note that a client may have already sent a payment out, but the check is transit. Also, calling/emailing an accounts payable department will reveal that a payment has been made and it will be in your bank account in a few business days. Get confirmation of this before you continue. AFTER THE INVOICE IS 30 DAYS LATE

Clients need the benefit of the doubt, but it’s their responsibility to pay you now. After 30 days, you have “permission” to increase the frequency of your correspondence. During the first 10 days of being late, I will email and call every other business day (Monday, Wednesday, Friday was my model, but it may differ for you). Afterwards, I will check in once a day. This may seem excessive, but persistence goes a long way. You may get an exasperated response, but don’t stop until you get a confirmation of payment or a layout and timeline of the payment. If you have a contact within a company, use them as your ally within an organization. It’s easier to get things moving with someone on the inside, and pressure on them will translate to pressure elsewhere to get you to stop asking for your money. Be professional, but direct. They owe you, and any further delay will result in additional fees, and possible collection action (including legal action to collect). If you have a number for accounts payable, hammer them hard. They will be probably be your last line of communication, and you’ll need to get an email to reach them again, an employee name to refer to, and a timeline for payment.

SIDEBAR>>> NYC CREATIVE PROS AND THE FIFA ACT

If you live in NYC, you have an additional resource: the city government. The NYC Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), and The Office of Labor Policy and Standards (OLPS) have a complaint form that you should fill out as soon as the client is over 30 days late. The Freelance Isn’t Free Act (FIFA, passed in 2017) is very clear that what your client is doing is ILLEGAL, and the city will assist you in gathering materials to make a case for nonpayment. Fill the complaint form out, be very specific about your client and any related contacts. Note, they are not legal representation as much as they’re navigators who will help you find legal counsel and resources needed to file a claim in court. Remember when I said to get everything in writing? That’s important. It may be a bit of work, but find every email thread related to your freelance gig. If you’re doing this on your mobile, open the thread. Go to the first message. Find where the “print” option is. You’ll be taken to a preview window. Look for the “download” button. This is really easy with Gmail. You can basically save the entire thread as an organized PDF, with messages in chronological order

Do this with every gig-related email attached to the overdue payment. Save these PDFs to a folder. Create sub folders that can put this correspondence in context, like chapters (ex: one folder is “Beginning of Job”, another “Job in Progress”, another “Invoice/Payment Requests”). This will make it easier to navigate everything. Include the PDF folder (zipped) with your complaint folder. OLPS will take a sec to get back to you, since you’re not the only person in NYC that gets stiffed. After about 5 biz days, give them a call. This can help you get ahead of the pack. You will receive a call from an OLPS office case manager who will confirm your info. They will ask if you’ve been paid. If yes, then you can thank them and call everything off. If not, they will send a certified letter (WITH AN OFFICIAL ASS LETTERHEAD) to your client, reminding them that they’re late. They have 20 days to respond to this- if they don’t, then they will basically be on the hook to go to court for a nonpayment case. You’ll have to either get a lawyer to rep you, or you can rep yourself, but the client is on the hook to prove they don’t owe you. Since you already have a record of your interactions, this will be very difficult for them. It should be noted that clients tend to get reallll antsy when the government says that they owe money. They’ll probably contact you directly. Keep up with these responses. Each email builds out the timeline of your case, and is fodder for the cannon. At this point, they usually pay up. DISCLOSURE: I’ve never had to go to court, so you may need to look elsewhere for advice. This may be a good place to start. SPEAKING OF DOCUMENTATION- I forgot to add that you should record your calls when speaking to clients that are late. ACR is a free app that allows you to record your calls. Make sure recording is legal in your state, and always let clients know that the call is being recorded. You can borrow the “for quality control purposes” line if you’d like. Sometimes people will try to circumvent documentation by using the phone. Don’t let them weasel out of that. LASTLY, this is specifically related to NY. The parts about documenting your correspondence are universal, though. Wherever you are, a vital part of making a civil case is piling on the material against a deadbeat. Be vigilant and persistent. I would suggest looking into whether there is a state govt. entity that you can go to about civil cases, and also look up if there are any local volunteer/low cost lawyers in your area.

The FIFA Act has been a gamechanger in giving freelancers more power to get what is owed to them, and my hope is that other cities follow suit, or organize to get similar legislation for this purpose. SIDEBAR AGAIN>>> LAWYERS

Another way to get a client to pay up faster is to lawyer up earlier. After 30 days, you should see what your options are. If you can afford it, you can consult with a lawyer and get a pro opinion about your case. They may be able to send a stern letter to your deadbeat client (WITH AN OFFICIAL ASS LETTERHEAD) prompting them to pay or else. Like with a government agency, people don’t like surprises from legal. They will probably pay up quick, but if they stick it out, then you can file a claim and take them to civil court. This will be costly for you and your client, so nonpayment usually gets resolved before this happens. If not, know that if a court rules in your favor, the client will have to pay you and cover your legal fees. My experience with lawyers is limited, and I would suggest looking elsewhere for particulars. Also, keep in mind how much you’re owed. A $300 case may not be worth as much squeeze as a $3000 or $30000 one. If it’s a low ball sum you’re owed. You may have an easier time calling it a loss and moving on.

EDIT: I’ve been told that contingency fee lawyers are out there that don’t collect fees until after an event (like you winning or losing a judgment for example), but they’re kinda like unicorns for freelancers and tend to take on bigger cases. It doesn’t hurt to see if any are out there anyway!

NEW!>>> COLLECTION AGENCIES

So, you may want to seek help through a collection agency. They have the time and resources to call, mail, and chase money when you’re trying to focus on good clients that pay on time and are depending on your A game.

The good news is that most are contingency fee based. That is, they won’t collect anything from you until they get the money from your client.

The down side? They can take anywhere between 18-40% of what your client’s debt is. Note that I didn’t say WHAT THEY COLLECT. If your client owes $100, and the contingency based fee is $30, an agency will take $30 even if they only get $60.

Also, based on a lawyer friend’s input, if your collection agency is legally shady, you may be indirectly on the line if your deadbeat client decides to sue said agency. Also your payment, connected to the collection agency and your client’s legal battle, will be held in indefinite limbo.

So do your homework and weigh your options before taking this route.

FAST FORWARD TO 60 DAYS Fortunately, I haven’t had to do this, but you can start pursuing legal action to get your money. Check on state laws to make sure this is the case, as well as the particulars about filing a claim. By this time, you should hopefully have a lawyer or some legal counsel at your disposal. If you don’t, then look up the laws of your state and local area to see where you stand if you have to rep yourself. Remember that as long as you have written acknowledgment of your terms of work and written acknowledgment of your invoice, things should lean in your favor. THE END

HOPEFULLY this has been helpful. The best parts of freelance (independence, flexibility, control, and self-prescribed wages) are often at odds with the pitfalls (feast-or-famine dynamics, wearing of all of the hats, taking all of the risks). It can feel like robbery when you put your blood, sweat, and tears into a project only to have an empty bank account as thanks. Some of this info is boilerplate, and some is from direct experience. If any of this relates to you, and you were able to get closer to your hard earned scrill because of this, I can die happy(er).

GOD SPEED AND GET PAID, GODDAMMIT!

ADDENDUM: One of the things that I didn’t emphasize enough is that doing this will be emotionally draining. Unless you are a robot or a stone cold Type A business beast, it will strain you. Make sure that you’re taking care of yourself mentally.

If you have a partner or family, make sure to take the help and support they provide and don’t turn your money issues into a personal issue with them.

Also, doing this requires energy. It will feel like a part time job, and even if there are late fees that factor into what you get paid, this will largely be unpaid labor.

Persistence is key, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s not hard or that you won’t have other obligations that make keeping up the effort difficult. I’m lucky in that my girlfriend and I have a relatively low-expense lifestyle, and no dependents, and we’re both fairly flexible because we both freelance full time, and that we had a bit of financial padding saved to weather the storm. Mileage will certainly vary.

Edit: Tumblr is weird about making links visible, so I put them in bold body font for you to find them easier.

#Illustration #invoices #payment #business #deadbeats

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dailyantiques · 5 years ago

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“Friendly” letter (18 Sept, 1951)

Antiques Daily - Day 1 (5/1/20)

[image text below photos]

I want to start this blog off right with one of my personal favorite letters.

This letter is written by an American named Jane Talbitt to their presumably German friend Egon. I have to give Jane credit for pulling off this wonderfully petty and backhanded writing so elegantly.

Throughout the letter Jane remarks on the “messy international situation” and makes reference to the fortune and luxury of the USA as compared to other countries at this time. It is unclear whether the clear tension between the two corespondents is due to international politics (perhaps some anti-German sentiment left over from WWII), or simply a personal grudge.

On the back of the letter is printed a recipe for Boston Baked Beans. I have not attempted to follow it, mainly because for something that takes 6-8 hours to cook it just doesn’t sound that appetizing. If any bean fans try it though, please let me know how it turns out.

Now enough of my commentary and on to what you actually want to read. The full transcript of the letters will be below the photos if you don’t want to try and read Jane’s handwriting (which is quite good, to be fair) through your screen.

[Front page: Illustration of a woman stoking a fire at the top, more flowery patterns and cooking supplies line the border]

[Back page: No illustrations, only writing]

[Third page: No illustrations, only writing]

[Fourth page: Flowery illustrations around edges, pre-printed recipe in center]

Dear Egon

What a nice surprise to receive your card from Switzerland. Aren’t you lucky tho! Did you visit the same people you did last year? Judging from the post card, Lurich is very beautiful. I’m so glad you had an opportunity to have a vacation there.

What are you doing with yourself? I had decided that you did not wish to write anymore - so I stopped too.

Have you been terribly busy at the University? And are you still working the same job you were when we met you?

I almost thought I‘d get to Frankfurt this year - as a teacher for the G.I. children. But the pay was considerably under my present salary and the vacation entirely inadequate. I would hate to come to Europe to teach and not have time to travel rather extensively. Better that I work here and spend my summers abroad, although even that hope is becoming remoter each month. Oh well, one cannot always do what they wish. Right.

Part of my summer was spent at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a truly lovely old place. This stationary is from there. Quaint isn’t it. The recipe is an old New England one. Mabe your mother would like to try it out.

How is the messy international situation affecting you personally? Will you be part of the West German Army if there is one? How do you and your friends feel about this? Quite an era we live in, don’t you think!

The so call Dark Ages could hardly be darker. And yet there is a glimmer of hope - and a challenge to meet. Of course we shall be victorious in the end.

We in the U.S. are indeed conscious of what is going on in the world - especially with our boys dying in Korea. But what must be done must be done. The price of living is quite high here and our taxes getting more tremendous each year. But with all we are still the most fortunate country in the world and this is still the “good life” in spite of what some disgruntled persons would have you believe.

I do hope you can get to our lovely America someday Egon, and see for yourself.

Please do write if you get time won’t you. Have a pleasant autumn season.

Your American friend,

Jane Talbitt

--- Boston Baked Beans ---

Soak 3 cups pea beans overnight in cold water. Drain and put in bean pot. Mix together 2 tsps. salt - 3 tbsps. molasses - 2 tbsps. brown sugar and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard. Add to seasonings enough boiling water to cover beans. Mix together and pour over beans in pot. Cut 1/2 lb. salt pork into pieces and bury in beans. One onion or more may be buried in beans for extra flavor. Dried lima, red kidney or yellow eyed beans may be baked the same way. Bake in oven 300 degrees - 6 to 8 hours. Serves 12

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beyond-the-mirror · 6 years ago

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Nocturnal Encounters - An Incubus! V x Reader story

So yeah, this is my first attempt at writing a fanfiction. The first few chapters will be SFW but as the story progresses it will become more NSFW with lots of fluff then and there. This is my first time publishing a story of mine, not to mention that english is not my first language, so please be patient (I’m trying here ;-;)

The plot is basically an AU where V is an incubus who falls in love with the reader. This first part is more like a prologue before jumping into the main story.

Finally I want to thank @thechurchofv for inspiring me with her fic. If you too are a V fan then you should totally check her profile (can’t wait for that sequel!).

Evening before the First Night

After a long day at work, you finally reached your apartment. Closing the front door, you let out an audible sigh.

It had been an exhausting week. You had just started your new job as a book conservator at the local library, so you worked extra hard to impress your current supervisors and prove to them you were more than suitable for it. But most importantly, you did it because books have always been your passion since you were a little girl.

You remembered the first time your parents took you to the Red Grave City Public Library for a school trip along your classmates. The design and the architecture made your eyes sparkle with wonder and fascination, it wasn’t the most prestigious library in the city for nothing after all. Your eyes scanned the shelves filled with books of all sizes and colors, the ones that captured your attention being the rare antique ones displayed in a special display in one of the buildings sections. You examined the books through the glass; some had their covers ornamented with intricate and gorgeous patterns of gold and silver, others lied with their pages open, revealing beautiful illustrations that pictured the scenes the written words tried to convey.

Oh how you wanted to read them, alas they weren’t allowed to the public due to them being first editions of high value. Of course, you understood why, artifacts of great cultural and historical value must be preserved and protected so their knowledge passes on to the future generations. This passion led you to aspire to become a conservator, and who knows, maybe one day you will be a curator at the Red Grave Library nonetheless.

Returning to the present you immediately walked to your kitchen, dropping your bag on the couch along the way. After cooking a simple stir-fry, you go to your bedroom to watch a movie while having dinner.

You were sitting on the bed with your pajamas already on, watching The Night Before Christmas for what could very well be the 100th time, empty dishes already placed on the nightstand next to the bed. The ending was about to take place when your phone buzzed, the screen flashing with your best friend’s name on it. Unlocking the phone you answered her text, starting a conversation soon enough.

Everything was going normal, that is until she had to make that question

“So how are you feeling now? You know… after what happened with him?”

You definitely didn’t need to remember that, though you understood that your friend was simply worried about you and your feelings.

A few weeks ago you had ended your relationship with your… Boyfriend? Date? To be honest, you weren’t even sure of what you both were. All you knew was that you had a huge crush on him when you were working at your former job, you started dating, and after a couple months it seemed that he was serious about his feelings towards you.

Until you caught him with another girl… and then those comments he made about you…

“Damn it, not now please” you muttered to yourself as sadness started to creep into you yet again, you were still recovering from that incident after all.

“I’m a little better I guess, still a bit down from time to time tho” You answered your friend with honesty. Not wanting to be a downer, you replied you were feeling tired at the moment and decided to go to sleep. After taking the dirty dishes to the kitchen and washing them in the sink, you returned to your bed and climbed under the covers. Hopefully you will get some well-deserved rest before the busy day before you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A full moon glowed brightly in the dark of the night, the air was gentle and cool and not a single rain cloud could be seen for miles. One could describe it as a very peaceful and tranquil night, perfect for a walk outside; however for those who have lived in Red Grave City for enough time, an apparently peaceful night could only mean a bad omen.

After all, everyone in Red Grave knew that nights like these were perfect for demons to come out and hunt.

In fact, one was soaring through the sky searching for his next plaything.

#devil may cry #dmc5 #dmc5 v #v x reader #fanfiction #incubus!v #v fanfiction #this is more like a self-indulging thing #god knows i love V #vitale #tattooed lanky man extraordinaire

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tessacxstello · 5 years ago

Text

hello im (F, 24) an idiot and forgot to post tessa’s (F, 22, fictional) intro!

pls bare in mind most of this was written 5+ years ago n i haven’t written tessa since 2015...... but lets get this show (LOCKWOODRP) on the road (DASHBOARD).

tw school shooting, tw bipolar disorder

art hoe. always covered in paint. why?? she bad at painting

the mark rothko jackson pollock kind of bad tho wher people are like.... omg.... revolutionary..... its a badly drawn vagina

fuckin loves astrology, but cant take it that seriously bcos one of her bfs was a gemini so there’s some lenience there. but she WILL blame her hormones and mood swings on the positon of mars

embodies pure sunshine.

one of those really annoying people that can go through the most traumatic shit and still find a positive spin.

cares so much for others but does not really care for herself n it’s meant she just bottles up all this shit n when someone asks her how her day has gone she just falls on the ground like tht bit in midsommar when florence does that loud wheezy noise and sits down

has never really had much money at all. learns to make-do with what she has. loves upcycling!! her bookshelf is made from cardboard which she’s reinforced by pappering it over with pages ripped out of thrifted books. her sofa is an old car boot which she’s repainted, put on wheels and stuffed w cushions so that it’s actually bearable to sit on.

her knitted cardigan? its made out of wife material.

knits all the time. will crochet you a christmas scarf. if ur lucky you might get a knitted jumper with a penis in a santa hat

still sleeps with cuddly toys n then wonders why ppl dont think she’s mature enough for a serious relationship

very passionate about Sister Doing It For THemselves!! raised by a single mom who worked her ass off so that tessa could do fun activities after school, have lelli kelly shoes, and go to college (not necessarily in tht order of importance)

tessa was born out of wedlock as the result of an affair between her mom (a journalism intern in her early 20s) and a new york times editor.

the editor offered to pay tessa’s mom off to have an abortion, but she was like fuck u and told the papers he’d done that and used the money to cover the cost of her internship which they refused to pay her for

and because of the scandal, he ended up going through a pretty messy divorce with his wife, and losing custody of his kids. so as a child tessa was seen as the cause of a divorce and received mutliple letters from the editors wife (to tessa personally!) and his kids saying how she had ruined everything, but her mom moved them to another town so tessa didn’t have to deal with that crap.

her mom worked 3 jobs to put her through school, so in return tessa pushes herself incredibly hard to succeed. needs a break and a hug and to get laid to be honest.

an old soul. likes old films, old music, old people. only recently got an iphone 5s so not really with this century yet

very sweet and soft and kind but also a fucking mess and won’t listen to anyone else’s opinion. she’ll take comfort, but not advice.

feminist buddhist bisexual vegetarian for human rights and animal welfare. standing on a soapbox shouting about the climate in the quad, shoving flyers into your hands. flyers everwhere. she turns up at your grandmas funeral and shoves one into her mouth. she’s stolen the mic from the vicar to talk about pandas.

says “mother of pearl” and “heavens to betsy”.

had an affair with her married piano teacher and he’s now facing a custody battle and his wife is leaving him and tessa has completely internalised that guilt despite her being the victim in the scenario

aesthetics: paint splattered jeans, loose curls spilling from a scrunchie, thrifted blouses in bright yellow, guzzling coffee in the library at three am when a term paper’s due, shoddily illustrated campaign posters to save endangered species, polaroids plastered to your bedroom walls with scribbled dates on the frames, jumping into a stack of autumn leaves, jumping off piers in the summer months and stripping off your wet clothes on the beach, digging your thumbs into peaches to leave a bruise, smoking with the extractor fan on to hide the smell, bath bombs, letting the girls at lush rub samples all over your skin, cacti with knitted bobble hats, decorative pillows and sun and moon blanket throws, basic bitch fairy lights hanging from every single window, painting the name of the boys you’ve loved inside your wardrobe door.

studies fine art and philosophy, and wants to become either a lecturer or the first woman president. vibe wise, very similar to leslie knope, missy from big mouth, and basically the naive everygirl with a high opinion of themselves trope

gets drunk off like one double vodka lemonade because she’s small and she’s a pretty messy wild drunk. it’s when slutty tessa comes out, and the next day she’ll thoroughly regret every choice made and decide she’s never drinking again and cutting out all men and starting daily sudoko

on the cheerleading team and is a flyer, which she sees as a HUGE responsibility and she works really hard to make sure she’s on it for her team. one of those get up at 7am and go to the gym before school types its sickening

she had a really traumatic time at high school because there was a shooting in her school. she was in the next classroom when it happened, and she lost one of her friends in the shooting. she had to take two months off school, was diagnosed with depression and put on anti-depressants because of it. in her 2nd year of uni she was rediagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety, which she’s now on medication for. she can be really good for several months at a time and feel super creative and determined (she actually finds manic periods helpful for her creativity n art, n sadly sometimes doesn’t take her meds in these periods to push herself more which is obvs super bad.....). but when the bad periods come they can also last months n she had to take a semester out of school last year because of her mood, so she should be a senior by now but she’s retaking junior year

she attends weekly stress-management sessions prescribed by her doctor which she finds pointless.

very childish in the sense that she can only see her own point of view and kind of views herself as the “protagonist” and thinks her ideas are super important and life changing and she IS Destined for Greatness! despite being pretty much average af

pinterest board.

STATS

age: 22

height: 5'2"

positive traits: kind-hearted, gregarious, selfless, philosophical, open minded, idealistic, courageous, feisty, charismatic, loyal, adventurous.

negative traits: stubborn, hot-headed, reticent, escapist, self-destructive, easily led, naive, troubled, complicated, stepford smiler, envious, overdramatic, explosive.

distinguishing Marks: heart-shaped birthmark on the right of her chest, splattering of freckles across the cheeks during summer months, full lips, large eyes, porcelain features, long wavy hair, tattoo of a bird and a cage on her ankles and a basic bitch arrow tat on her wrist (srry to anyone with an arrow tat).

skills: jack-of-all-trades, talented pianist, perceptive, knows the correct way to throw a punch, good survival instinct, is able to remain calm in stressful situations, endures, artistic, excels in academic studies, hard-working and self-motivated, expert liar and talented actress.

likes: wolves, vintage thrift store fashion, old leather-bound books, left-wing democratic politics, cigarettes, poetry, John Hughes movies, cold coffee, hot tea, the sound of laughter, staying up til 4am having deep conversations, Tchaikovsky, having deep conversations about life, stationary, DC Comics, horoscopes, winged eyeliner, cats, knee-high socks, house music, abandoned buildings, studio ghibli, the smell of the earth after rain, Wes Anderson films, herbal tea, old people, solitude, esoteric things, the smell of freshly baked bread, Charles Bukowski, the moon.

fears: death, oblivion, global warming, losing those she loves, isolation, clowns, guns, enclosed spaces.

nicknames: Tess, T-Dog, Tessie, Socrates, Princess, Sunshine Girl, Florence Nightingale.

alignment: Neutral Good

MBTI type: INFP

BIOGRAPHY

tw school shooting

Her story begins with Cordelia Costello, a twenty-three year old college drop-out, turned beautician, turned columnist, turned intern at a local publishing company. She was a youthful, beautiful, siren of a women, always surrounded by an aura of enigma and an entourage of men. It was no surprise to the gossips in the office that within six months working at the company, Cordelia had added to her list another title – mistress to Franklin Hozier, the Editor of the New York Times. After two blissful months and three hundred and twenty seven orgasms, Cordelia decided she wanted a baby. Franklin laughed in her face. Feeling isolated and used, Cordelia continued her affair with her boss’ boss for another month, before deciding to take matters into her own hands.

It started with a turkey baster.

Soon the infant cries of a baby girl graced the world, her wrinkled skin puckered and pink as her mother held her in her arms, glancing upon the most beautiful thing in her life. Once Tessa, named after Cordelia’s favourite literary heroine, entered the world, Franklin left her life and things took a turn for the better. Despite living in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Staten Island, on what little money Cordelia had saved, Tessa’s childhood years were filled with nothing but the happiest of memories. Times were tough, but what they lacked in money, the Costello’s made up in love. While Tessa was at school, Cordelia did odd jobs cleaning, child-minding, working in local nurseries, in order to save up enough money to give her daughter the best start in life.

Despite what she had been led to believe by television shows and teen movies, the first few years of High School were some of the best years of her life. Tessa threw herself into a multitude of activities that High School offered her, including the drama club, the orchestra, choir, badminton and the school newspaper. While she certainly wasn’t considered ‘popular’ at school, Tess had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. In fact, High School was a place where she made some of the greatest memories of her life, but come her final year, it was also a place where she was haunted by some of her worst.

On the January 17th of Tessa’s senior year of high school, a shooting took place in Westville High School. For two hours Tessa locked herself in a supply cupboard, her head between her knees as she tried to stay silent despite the screams of horror from the corridor. Eighteen students were caught in the crossfire, two of which were Tessa’s best friends. Bouquets of flowers, laminated photographs, Teddy Bears in cling-film bags attached to balloons littered the streets as families and friends came to pay tribute to the eighteen students withered before they had a chance to bloom.

It took two months of therapy before Tessa could return to school. Some of the survivors could never return due to the horrors that their eyes had laid witness to. Sometimes Tessa felt like a part of her had died with the friends that were stolen from her too soon, but one thought kept her going through: she had survived, she was alive and breathing, and she could not afford to loose a second of the precious time she had been granted on this earth. Despite the nightmares that continued to haunt her each night, Tessa found in the aftermath of the disaster a new sense of motivation. She began applying for scholarships for colleges without her mother’s knowledge, in the hope that her academic success would be enough to carry her through further education. Thankfully, it was, and after three torturous months of waiting Tess was offered an arts scholarship to her dream school, Lockwood University, where she hoped she could finally start to rebuild her life.

THE PRESENT:

Life at university was like a separate world. Students came and went like moths among the whisperings and the tequila and the stars. In this new world, Tessa was exposed for the first time in her life to alcohol, drugs, and the sexual appetites of other students her age – though she politely declined all three. Instead, Tessa threw herself into the vast array of activities in the hope that by distracting herself she could escape the terrible flashbacks that continued to haunt her. Tessa joined the lacrosse team, despite never having played before, and took up cheerleading discovering a new talent; she joined the musical theatre group, and the film club, and even set up her own acapella singing society. But despite how much she tried to throw herself into student life, her past hung around her like a bad smell, and with the added pressure of the Sinking Ships zine, Tess began to feel the weight of her secret tying her down like a pair of shackles around her wrists.

PERSONALITY:

If someone was to describe Tessa in a single word, it would most likely be ‘bubbly’, ‘open-minded’ or ‘sweet’. But they would be wrong – Tessa is not bubbly, or sweet, or stubborn, or hotheaded, or fiesty, or infectious, or any of the things the world see her as, but merely a numb and lonely echo of the gregarious, halcyon girl she once was. Tessa Costello was one of life’s enigmas. No one knew who she was, for to each person she met she wore a different mask – she dripped confidence, or was painfully shy; she was an exhibitionist, or a brooding wallflower; she took things too seriously, or not seriously at all. She was an actress and the world was her stage, each person she met a different member of the audience in the performance of her life. In truth, Tessa no longer even recognised herself. Insecure, and self-destructive, she tried to hang on to the extroverted, mischievous pieces of herself that everyone had once loved, but day by day it got harder to know what lay in the vacant holes blown through her mind. While she was stubborn and hot-headed, Tessa always saw the best in people, which meant that she was easily led astray. While she had grown up learning to be street smart and astute, she was idealistic and allowed silly fantasies to cloud her mind. By nature, she was passionate, which lead her to misimagine and romanticise those she met. Despite the hell she had witnessed, and the anxiety that feasted upon her, she believed that people were innately good and that to have courage and be kind could cure anyone of their sadness – yet she was unable to cure herself.

TWITTER:

@500daysoftessa: i blame disney films and musicals for my high expectations of men

@500daysoftessa: i am in love with the boy who works at starbucks. today i asked for a double latte and he gave me a tripple, which i think is proof that my love is requited. our children will be smart and talented and beautiful.

@500daysoftessa: little known historical fact: pharaohs were burried with their hands crossed over their chests because it was a popular belief there would be countless water slides in the after life.

#huntingtonintro #pounce on me for plots #tw school shooting #tw bipolar disorder #tw depression

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vamytas · 7 years ago

Note

Alex: 12, 16, 19; Moll(u)s(k): 4, 10; Daena: 13, 14; DJ Dad: 1, 16; Heidi: 4, 2; Jake: 3, 18; Bubble Dee: 10, 11, 4; I-A-go: 16,8; Seb: 13 (canon as in: related to Lexie), 1 HAVE FUN I'M SORRY THIS IS MUCH NO RUSH

Questions About Alex’s Conceivement

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)?

Writing wise, Alex has never really been that hard … he’s very soft.. very receptive to pulling his strings. If the meme question was worded as ‘most challenging’ then there’d be a lot more to cover! Welcome to challenges !! Much of the research that goes into him, as well as what routes I’ve decided to take since his fruition, have been a learning curve as a writer to just throw any inhibitions and initial criticisms of ideas out the window and just say FUCK IT!! Eg. from the get-go of this blog, his dialect and accent were nowhere near as apparent because I was afraid people wouldn’t take him seriously and would find it laughable..but after actually Going For It after a few months, I feel his voice is truer to how he’d vocally express his thoughts and the phonetics that adorn such conglomerate of profanity, flamboyant vocabulary and SOUTHERN BRIT BOY roots.

In terms of graphics, the black/grey/red colour scheme was always a primer & foundation I loved but I just never had a character who fit that? Especially only limiting myself to canon characters beforehand. Then when I got further into delving through zines and tattoo work as those aspects of Alex were brought to the forefront, editing stuff that was representative of that was just FUN in its challenge rather than ‘too difficult !! this doesn’t look right!! >:((’ since technically there is no ‘right’ way of making something that’s based on the ethos of being messy and experimentatening.. and Alex is a boy who’s adverse to The Right anyway … to the left, to the left. …

GENERALLY VERY LIBERATING !! If there are any difficulties, I get enjoyment out of tackling them and seeing what I find on the other side!! Alex is very ripe for trying new things… haven’t tried drawing him though– has been a !!! lifetime since I’ve put pen to paper with intent of illustrating anything !! Maybe something to think about getting back into !!

16. What is something about your OC can make you cry?

EVERYTHING???????????/ In all seriousness though I may have a bestowed realisation to do with tragic elements of his past while I’m traversin through day-to-day life and while externally, at work while making a bed, I’ll be D: for 0.5 seconds, internally – this is mE (warning for earthshatteringly loud Tom Hardy wail ( ALSO an apt analogy for ~death~ of Molly in 19th Century Gothic AU)).

I GUESS the saddest element of him would be that he still has yet to realise manipulative elements of relationship with sire due to his own overdependency at the time, however the sexual aspect was probably the healthiest in terms of amplified importance of consent and assurance that he was actually enjoying BDSM. Sire, however, took full advantage of his vulnerability post-break up with Molly, and I’m wondering whether to implement that she may have been in the Sabbat and had intentions of ‘grooming’ Alex into the sect (PLAN WENT AWRY THO!!). He definitely defines the bloodbond with an emotional tether of grief and anger but thinks this is simply due to her killing then leaving him, which certainly plays a part, but he doesn’t like to dwell on past trauma AT ALL and so any retrospective ‘oh shit’ from experience with sire that he may learn from to extrapolate ‘oh, shit’ into ‘oh shit that was emotionally abusive’ is something he needs to be helped with… Seb seemed to be the only one around to recognise this (even though he jumped to conclusions on the wrong end of the stick sometimes), so if he and Alex reunited there’d be a CONVERSATION.

(( As a fairly digressive disclaimer; I don’t really have any interest in indulging the stereotype that all Toreadors will manipulate people they obsess over in order to ‘attain’ them. Alex, I don’t think, would ever fall into that kind of destructive behaviour (if any woman shows cues of disinterest he wouldn’t bother pursuing anything or trying to convince/charm them into otherwise). It’s something he’d be even more mindful of after getting the therapeutic help to reflect on that attitude present in his sire, and EVEN more after reuniting with Molly since she’s so harshly critical of Toreador clan accepted practices, much like he is with ghoulification.))

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

He’s animated !!! He’s expressive !! He’s beautiful !! And he looks good eating a Crunchie bar. ..(even tho he would throw it up afterwards..)

NOW ONTO SEB !!!

(Since this is the most relevant place to answer)

13. How far past the canon events (canon as in: related to Lexie, who is the centre of all things) that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

After being too overwhelmed by the PANDEMONIUM of abiding by Alex through his embrace, Seb moves back to England and becomes roomies with Molly (the two were very close before Seb moved to the States! Siblings of the soul!!) The original uprooting to America wasn’t actually a move Seb wanted to go ahead with, he was under the impression that flying to California would be a temporary respite and Healing Ritual for Alex, as well as a good laugh, but didn’t work out that way.. Kindred ruin everything ..

SO after getting back on his feet, he’s offered the leather shoppe he originally worked in by the owner who trained & employed him. Business fairs very well! Reconciles close ties with Thomas (who now has a family) and attends many art exhibitions with Molly! Also full well knows about her nature… Gets therapy and councilling for healthily dealing with Ricky’s death! Only grievance is estrangement with Alex, then when the floor above leather shop is up for sale he reaches out to mate to see if he’s curious about moving back to London. Alex thinks about opportunity a lot before making final decision… To be continued. ..

#oldspeaker #▏▪ ASK ﴾ signed & sealed.#[INCLUDES Highly gratuitous shirtless pic...... wot a treat ...#will answer other q's on respective blogs!! apart from jago.. who is entirely independent from WOD kids..#NOT SURE WHERE TO ANSWER his .. deleted the blog !!#will prlly make private post and send link #aNYWay a tad more info on the boy.. be sated ..#V EXCITED TO READ UR ANSWERS ALSO! !#demystification of eph-man will be !! thrilling !!!!!]

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sparto-i · 8 years ago

Note

Soul character analysis?

hoooo BOY you better buckle in because he is my favorite gotdam character and i have a lot of things to say about this boy

first off, let’s start out with a summary so ppl who don’t wanna read 4,000 words can still get something outta this:

soul is a bit of an anomaly with his characterization in the beginning being VASTLY different from his characterization in the end: overall, he’s gone through the most change out of any character in the series. starting off, he was highly insecure and defensive, which likely could be the result of growing up under scrutiny: i have every reason to believe soul’s upbringing was not colorful or happy, but rather harsh and rigid. this is reflected in his desperation to scramble for an identity in the beginning (i have some theories about that). his turning point is when he’s infected with the black blood and begins to have more and more conversations with the Little Ogre- which made a few observations about him: he’s insecure. unsure. nothing like his partner. as the series progresses, he begins to gain confidence and lose that desperation to fit into a certain box and really starts to come into his own. he gains confidence in his abilities to think and analyze, as well as his abilities to support others. this shows his truly kind-hearted nature: a cool dude wouldn’t be a total jackass, right?

now for the REAL party (after the readmore)

just a warning, there will be a lot of mentions of mental illness (especially when it comes to his self-image) and unhealthy family relationships. if i need to add anything else to the warnings, please let me know!

let’s start off with soul’s past:

it’s a well-known fact that he comes from a rich, successful family of musicians- which is something he seems to be trying to forget. soul drops all of the aspects of his past life: he hides his skill and love for the piano, as well as redacting his last name entirely. again, this is common knowledge in the fandom by now. when he discovered he was a weapon, he took the chance to drop the Evans’s family tradition of producing musicians and started a new life.

but why? it’s never explicitly said that his home was a bad environment for him, only that he felt pressure to continue to uphold the esteemed family’s reputation. growing up under such a big shadow would produce that reaction in just about anyone. perhaps it’s soul’s running away that’s the most telling aspect of his life pre-DWMA. not only does he book it out of his home and into Nevada, but he completely tries to erase everything he was- the Wiki page on him states, “Memories of his past still affect him emotionally, so much so that he prefers to forget them entirely.” Pressure to be successful, while extremely stress-inducing, wouldn’t likely make him like this, unless his family was actively exerting this pressure on him. If his parents had reassured him that he didn’t have to fill in their shoes, he probably wouldn’t have run away, but would have rather gotten permission to enter the DWMA as per his request. But, that’s not what happened.

parents who live vicariously through their children put them through a lot of stress and oftentimes, that results in the child feeling unable to live up to their expectations, which turns into a low self-esteem complex. the child will either try hard to live up to those expectations, or give up entirely: soul chose the latter. as for his self-esteem, you can see this just about anywhere: he often compares himself to other people. he compares himself to his brother when it comes to his music skill, and he compares his abilities as a weapon to that of Giriko and Justin, both of whom can fight proficiently without a meister.

so, soul evans left his home and his name behind, ready to re-invent himself into the total antithesis of what he was going to be raised to be. which leads us into…

the image of ‘coolness’

soul’s beginning personality and appearance is the most well-known- a laid back, chill dude that worshiped the idea of “coolness”. during this stage, he was impulsive like Maka was, but for entirely different reasons: where maka would often act on emotion, soul would try to take shortcuts to get things done a lot quicker- this is shown in the first chapter when he tries to full-on charge through blair’s window instead of coming up with some sort of battle tactic. this is also in-line with the typical cool guy archetype- the guy that doesn’t take any shit from anyone, and who doesn’t think before he acts because only un-cool nerdasses do that. when an event occurs that makes Soul seem anything other than detached and in-charge, he clearly notes how “uncool” the situation is in an attempt to save face. noting soul’s typical personality during combat situations (i.e. advising maka to keep her guard up, seeing situations about five steps ahead, stressing the importance of plans), the moments of impulsive behavior he does have seems rather forced.

his past easily explains why he does this: he doesn’t want to be like his family. he isn’t soul evans, he’s soul eater. his insecurity caused by a rigid upbringing turns him to over-compensate by building this “cool guy” image, which is also the epitome of ‘Western Masculinity’.

here comes the speculation piece: while i don’t believe you need to justify trans headcanons with explanations to make them valid, soul’s narrative illustrates a very familiar one: a lot of trans kids who are first starting out often over-compensate to try to mold themselves into the cis-normative perceptions of gender in society. i definitely remember my first year of my transition, trying every which way to look and talk different, walk different, like different things, even changing the way i sat down: since i was trans, i felt that i had to over-compensate and make up for my transness. soul’s over-compensation when trying to be and act “cool” definitely parallels that.

as time goes on, Soul begins to come into his own, after the first Crona encounter gave him yet another pair of eyes to criticize him:

The Little Ogre

the circumstances in which he earned this pest serve as the catalyst for his change in personality. trying to protect Maka from Ragnarok after she’d refused to use soul to block the hits from the sword, he became gravely injured and infected with the Black Blood. it’s after this that his maturity begins to show, but isn’t quite as apparent until the Kishin Revival arc, and the Little Ogre is introduced.

through the series, the Little Ogre serves as an internal conflict for Soul, harping on him through all of his decisions: he’s too patient, he plans too often, he’s too scared, he’s too anxious, he holds back too much. all of this are feelings that soul knew he had, but never had them pointed out (likely because he never confided in anyone about these issues). this causes Soul to try to prove the Little Ogre wrong by either doing the opposite of what he’s being criticized for, or carry on what he’s doing and try to be successful while doing it. considering soul’s past and his lack of motivation due to being pushed too hard, it’s strange to see the Ogre’s insults actually motivate him: but, perhaps since this conflict is internal, and the Ogre is a facet of his mind, he sees the end goal as less of an unattainable one and more of something to work towards. one of the criticisms that really got to him, though, was that he was lacking in something really big:

the courage his meister had

(yikes that was a really bad segue)

it’s easy to see that maka and soul were created to be two sides of the same coin- opposite. soul’s eyes are red, while maka’s are green- they’re contrasting colors. soul’s soul (i never wanna use that phrase again) is blue, while maka’s is orange, which are, again, contrasting colors. their approaches to battle are vastly different, as well. maka acts on emotion, on what seems like the best option at that very second, rather than detailed observation. soul, being the weapon, observes the situation from every angle, keeping calm in most situations so that he can think a way out of any predicament: a great way to balance out his impulsive technician.

however, it’s his tendency to overthink that holds him back. the Ogre had commented that he makes decisions by way of elimination, not daring to act until the only logical path is an option. there aren’t many examples in which this messes up maka’s or his ability to fight: after all, maka is a very smart girl. but, soul’s inability to act affects him personally. he’s shown to have no direction in his life or conviction of his own, which is probably left-over effects from his life as an Evans. after all, if every moment of his life was planned, how was he ever to learn that he had a will of his own?

it was the courage maka had that motivated Soul to take some direction in his life. in fact, she’s the reason he does a lot of things. albeit indirectly and in no way to blame, maka was the reason he was infected with the Black Blood- he’d acted impulsively and out of emotion in order to fulfill his duty as a weapon: to protect. soul was a source of sage advice for maka, someone who would see the plan out to ensure their safety at all times. maka, in turn, was a source of courage and motivation for soul.

it’s this dynamic that pushes both of them forward, up until they finally achieve the goal of creating a death scythe:

while i could go on and talk about all of the facets of his character, from his strong friendship with blackstar, to his struggles in the book of eibon , this analysis is already mcfucking essay length lmao

if anyone requests a part two tho, i’ll most definitely do it

#long post #character analysis #soul eater #soul #headcanons #trans headcanons #this took me over an hour to write go me

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comicteaparty · 6 years ago

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February 4th-February 10th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 4th, 2019 to February 10th, 2019. The chat focused on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic~! (http://www.offshorecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until February 10th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite strip in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Given the comic’s focus on financial markets and all that composes them, what is something this comic has taught you about the subject? Alternatively, what is something you wished you understood better to understand the comic’s comedy?

QUESTION 4. How do you think the comic’s illustrative style and choices help the comedy of the comic? What is one moment where a particular design or image really stood out to you and helped the point the strip was trying to convey?

QUESTION 5. The comic features several recurring subjects like the legitimacy of IQ scores, LLCs, and more. Which of these recurring topics did you like the most? What about it caught your interest?

Stefan G

Hello everyone, 1) Just updated www.offshorecomic.com with a new strip. Check it out. 2) RebelVampire, are your questions intended for me or any new reader? Ciao, Stefan the creator of #Offshorecomic

snuffysam

They're intended for both (still working through the archive)!

keii4ii

Is there a way to get permalinks for individual strips, so I can come back to specific ones at a later time?

Stefan G

Thanks & okay, snuffysam keii4ii, unfortunately there’s no way to get permalinks for individual strips ... I coded the website myself as a side project and am not that good a coder

keii4ii

Oh man, I can relate to that... If I ever get rich, comic website coding and maintenance stuff is the first thing I'll hire someone to do for me

I do like how it loads and makes it easy to read through the archive, for what it's worth.

Stefan G

Thanks for the feedback ... and I totally, totally agree. One could spend a fortune for a coder to take care of all the fixings and stuff ... now I’m learning on the side whenever there’s time left over from work & family.

Stefan G

Answer to Q1 => readers have found the “happiness” strip the best. It’s also one of my favourite ones [succinct & clever & relatable] ...I truly don’t have a favourite strip, but the attached Reto & Urs -strips make me chuckle whenever I read them [I appreciate below-the-waist-humour and/or humour where people are really, really selfish].

lomcia (princess_lom)

1. The newest one is so funny

2. Trader

3. i dont work in office but i cant find nothing to improve that comic, i think the design of characters and humor is on really high lvl 12/10 for me

4. Style is perfect ffor that comic, i wouldnt change it

Stefan G

Answer to Q2 => at the moment my favourite character is the Economist. He’s a genuine IYI [intellectual-yet-idiot] ... which the world is full of and the finance industry in particular. The Economist is easy to write for because I’ve discovered a never ending source of humorous material called the daily financial newspaper ... please find attached also one of my favourite strips

Thank you, lomcia (princess_lom) for your feedback.

lomcia (princess_lom)

your welcome I hope i didnt misunderstood question 3 xD

Stefan G

I think you got everything just right

lomcia (princess_lom)

cool

Stefan G

Answer/comment to Q3 => I’ve spend my professional life in finance, hence, I know every nuance of the industry. However, for the layperson the finance industry [money, banking, insurance, etcetc...] is a big black box of unnecessary complication. My humble attempt with #Offshorecomic is to untangle this complexity and make money related topics more accessible/understandable to anyone ... using humour as my main tool. Finance is more stupid than you think; trust me

I’ll answer the rest tomorrow. Gotta go to now. is like in a totally different time zone and all that Thx again y’all !

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. Which joke not related to finance did you enjoy the most? What about it made it stand out to you among all the others?

RebelVampire

1) i really enjoyed the life coaching strip about facing reality and lying to yourself. i just really enjoy the bluntness and simplicity by which the self-deception line is delivered. A+ comedy right. 2) i like p-bird because i consider him a much needed counter balance to many of the other characters. he at least has more feet planted in reality. 3) hedge funds. not that i understand them perfectly from the comic, but now theyre more than just a financial word i see tossed around. and despite the very negative absurdist humor regarding them, was still interesting to get some insight into what they actually involved. 4) i think the style overall really balances well with the comedy. a lot of the comedy is reliant on the dialogue, so keeping the illustrations clean, bold, and somewhat simple really helps direct attention to the words. i also really just enjoy the character designs cause every single one really hits that idiot or absurdist mark that needs to be hit. 5) actually i really liked the address of IQ scores. because literally these characters seem like the type whod wind up on r/iamverysmart and use their IQs to talk about how cool they are. so it was kind of nice to see some evidence for that with the subject. that and i always like seeing the concept of IQ being torn apart. 6) i actually liked a lot of the jokes that pertained to the academic sphere in regards to things like publishing and teaching. selfishly it most just stood out to me because academia is something im more familiar with in regards to its simultaneous setup of worthless class structures and cutthroat profs trying to further their careers.

Stefan G

Thank you, RebelVampire, for your thoughtful analysis & feedback I believe that the writing is the most important part in comics ... and the best humorous writing is often blunt & simple [you hit the nail on the head with that comment]. Furthermore, I intentionally designed the strip in a simplistic style in order to A) highlight the writing/gag, B) to save time and C) cuz simple drawings are funny I love to make fun of pompous, self righteous folks ... academics are thus some of my main targets [due to the same reasons I make fun of financial professionals].

Stefan G

Answer to Q4 => My childhood inspiration and spark for cartoons/drawing came from F.Ibanez [Clever & Smart] ... very funny yet simple style. Nowadays I enjoy Dilbert by Scott Adams or the political cartoons from cartoonist Jari Elsilä; also both of them are hilarious without wasting unnecessary lines. I believe a straightforward style highlights the writing and that’s what I’m trying to achieve. Moreover, I love to have backgrounds in my comics [to steer the reader to a particular thought or mood] but hate to draw them and/or dislike it when they clutter the cartoon ... I’m rather happy with a style that I’ve developed over time where I draw the background but reduce the opacity to 25 %. I think that works pretty nice

Stefan G

Answer to Q5 => My favourite themes are 1) anyone predicting the future, 2) mistaking luck for awesome skill and 3) incompetent yet pompous professionals ... there is so much hilarious material right there

Answer to Q6 => I often use the characters Reto und Urs for jokes/strips that are not necessarily financial because they are so endearingly stupid [well, mostly Urs is]. This one makes me chuckle

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. In what ways have any of the strips changed the way you think about life, finances, or any other topic covered in them? Alternatively, what have the strips portrayed that you wish more people knew?

RebelVampire

(the archive for the chat on Poco Adventures is now available https://comicteaparty.com/post/182650076295/january-28th-february-3rd-2019-ctp-archive)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. Of all the parodies and jabs at financial markets and life, which do you consider the most on the nose as far as its representation in the comic goes?

RebelVampire

7) the strips have made me realize in a way that this is another industry where basically theres lots of ridiculous junk going on in the background cause you can never remove human faults completely. cause when it comes to finance theres lots of advanced vocabulary and concepts being thrown around usually, so for someone untrained it can sound intimidating and hard to follow. i think these strips do a great job of humanizing things tho and showing that the concepts arent all that alien cause at the end they were created by humans and reflect the desires of humans in a way. 8) one of my faves that i think is totally on the nose is this one where the economist is telling p-bird about ppl on twitter debating him being ignorant. and that his facts and stuff will prevail but p-bird points out that wouldnt even work on the economist. and the economist goes home confused. i think this is way too true for what its like to argue on the internet and how facts and logic get infinitely buried for the sake of narrative.

Stefan G

Excellent analysis/comments, RebelVampire really constructive. The human element is everywhere and money is such an emotionally laden topic that it’s easy to get confused even without the unnecessary complicated vocabulary ...which is often misused even by so-called “professionals”. If my strip has helped you understand all of that and un-demonised the beast, you’ve made me a very happy man Yeah, the Twitter-Fact-Confusion strip is one of my more relatable strips ... I’ve given up on trying to change people’s minds with facts; if changing minds is possible, it can only be achieved through via emotions. It sounds more logical the other way around but that’s not how we work. Here’s a special academically oriented strip just for you, RebelVampire Enjoy

snuffysam

haven't been able to get all the way through the archive yet, but my answer to both #2 and #8 is the Regional Manager. I love all the characters, but there's something to be said for the simplicity of having a guy literally run around headless.

Stefan G

Thanks , snuffysam. I almost forgot about the regional manager. I have to bring him back to life; I also like him ... by the way, there are 308 strips in total.

Answer to Q7 => I can’t claim that any one strip has changed the way I think about life and/or other things ... however, I do believe that writing & drawing Offshore strips has reinforced in me some of the main ideas from my favourite author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who’s books have influenced me deeply [e.g. Black Swan, Antifragile, etc etc] ... luck versus skill, thinking about risk and stuff like that. I regularly come back to his books for inspiration and recommend his books & Twitter -feed. Here are two strips that highlight my point ...sort of

Answer to Q8 => wow tough question ... with 99 % of my strips I genuinely try to convey some message about basic human quirks and/or outright stupidities that actually take place on a regular basis when handling money + and then I add my own personal humours twist to it. Here are a few strips with the message never to buy something you don’t understand [a hint: they always have complicated names]...

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What other finance related topics are you hoping to see the comic explore? Which characters are you hoping to see involved with the topic?

Stefan G

Answer to Q9 => As the creator of the strip I’m obviously biased to answer this question, but I’d love to hear what the new readers have to say. I don’t have a particular preference for any topic [except make fun of pompous forecasters ] ... but I feel myself wanting to write & draw more strips for the Markets-Weasel and Reto und Urs. And that’s surprisingly hard to do; forcing it doesn’t work [at least not for me] ... Offshore’s main characters were supposed to be Reto und Urs and somehow P-Bird and the Economist and the trader stole the show. I guess that happens when you get to know your characters better. Funny how that happens ... here’s one nostalgic strip from my early work that I really enjoy

Stefan G

Addition to Q9 => ... I’ve steadily build up an audience on Twitter [@NonMeek] which consist mainly of likeminded financial and/or other professionals ...hence, hearing the viewpoints from anyone outside that sphere would be awesome

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

RebelVampire

9) idk about specific topics, but id like to see the CEO who i think appeared in like one strip. I'm really interested to see the CEO dynamic with the other characters in terms of finance. learn how they view what theyre doing, how they view what the others are doing, etc. but im all for bringing the regional manager back too cause i enjoyed that character as well. a lot of great humor picking fun at how some managerial positions are kind of ridiculous to even exist to a degree. 10) learning more, mostly. overall its nice to see a harder to cover topic in comics. ive enjoyed how approachable and humanized the strips make finances, and how they remind you that professionals can be like this and actually have no clue what theyre doing. @Stefan G that academic oriented strip you shared was actually one of my faves. not necessarily in college, but i see this a lot in the blogosphere where ppl do a thing once and try to pass themselves as qualified experts to deliver advice. XD

Stefan G

@RebelVampire Thanks again for your opinions. Those really help with the development of the strip ... finance is a hard topic indeed and there are no really finance oriented strips out there [that I know of anyway], which is funny cuz the industry is filled with emotions and mind blowing mental errors. I guess people still believe finance & investing is some sort of scientific discipline which it’s really not ... there are hardly any black & white answers to anything even though there’s lots and lots of historical data ... it’s time to fix that myth with Offshore I’m glad you enjoyed that academic strip. It resonated rather well on Twitter too

@RebelVampire [adding to my previous answer] ... I agree that the managers need to be reanimated and given another chance. I’ll try to do that and see how they resonate. I never know beforehand which characters will work and which will fizzle out; e.g. der Compliance Offizier is one of my favourite characters, yet, resonates weakly outside the banking circles ‍♂️ [I love the strip below ].

keii4ii

I would like to see more strips that cracks jokes about this very specific context of finances! Things like that strip about funds blowing up on day 252. I think that gives this comic its own flavor. Readers get to laugh about not just any kind of incompetent people, but incompetent people in this specific field. Readers with no background in finances don't know the context, so more strips that shed light on the context of the jokes would be great.

Stefan G

@keii4ii All valid and excellent points ... I genuinely try to write & design my cartoons in such a way that the joke is understandable even though you don’t know the context. It’s a hard thing to do ... my wife is my toughest critic and she tells me the same as you ... but keep following Offshore and I promise to come up with more stuff like that 252 strip

Answer to Q10 => My ambition with Offshore is to 1) amuse myself first and see if anyone shares my sense of humour [if a cartoon doesn’t amuse me, I don’t publish it]. It’s a splendid way of letting out some frustration from work ... and 2) to make investing & finance more approachable to the layperson by infusing some humour into it in the form of cartoons ... which by the way nobody thought of doing on a serious basis. Weird. However, to produce material on a semi-regular basis I figured that writing only gags/jokes is too much work and/or too shallow of an approach, hence, the characters in the strip need to be interesting/relatable enough in order to create humorous material by mere interaction with each other. That’s easier said than done. I’m quite satisfied with my characters so far but am continuously looking for new interesting characters to add to the strip [either permanently or impermanently]. Like Scott Adams once told me: “The trick with comics is to reflect the reader's own experience. To allow people to say, "That's me!" I’ll conclude with this sneak peek strip [only for you guys] that should relate to the experience of anybody working in a big corporation.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Offshore Comic this week! Please also give a special thank you to Stefan Gasic for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Offshore Comic, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://www.offshorecomic.com/

Stefan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonMeek

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #offshore comic #stefan gasic

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attract-mode-collective · 8 years ago

Video

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The One Man War Against The Bydo, As Depicted By Just A Single Animator, Is Complete

Remember the work in progress R-Type fan flick from Otaking77077 (aka Paul Johnson) that I highlighted a little over a year ago? Well, as you can see above, it’s finished! And other than the rather questionable usage of a filter laid on top to accentuate the time from which the source material hails from… the game’s from the 80s; fans of the game knows this already, and for those who aren’t, it probably doesn’t matter the least bit…, it’s good stuff.

Johnson’s next project is Street Fighter related, which is neat and all, though I was kinda hoping he’d stick to shmups. Since he covered the 80s, why not a shooter from the 90s? Cuz a Thunder Force anime would be pretty rad and all.

Speaking of Street Fighter, the current focus of the Video Game Art Archive is Street Fighter The Movie: The Video Game. So get this; the Japanese instruction manual has illustrations of all the characters doing their specials, and they modeled after the actors!

Remember: here’s how Blanka appeared in the movie…

And here’s something to do with the live action Mortal Kombat flick; pondwitch sez: “me and my neighbor scorpion at the easter barbecue”

Buranovskiye Babushki, according to Wikipedia, is “a Russian ethno-pop band containing eight elderly women” (you’ve probably never heard of them before, unless you follow the Eurovision Song Contest, hence why they’re no strangers to me). Anyhow, TNT4, which appears to be the Russian equivalent of Comedy Central, recently enlisted the grannies to do a cover of the Mortal Kombat theme…

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Can’t believe I’ve gone this long without mentioning the big news from last week! Well, big news in my book at least; the creator of PaRappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon is teaming up with the creator of Gitaroo Man and Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents. It has the name of Project Rap Rabbit for now, and otherwise, not much else is known…

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[UPDATE 5/16/17] Actually a new, crucial bit of intel has been revealed; Project Rap Rabbit is something you can Kickstart.

Speaking of PaRappa, here’s a snapshot I’ve been meaning to pass along for some time now, tho instead of waiting for the next installment of the Super Attractive Club newsletter, here’s the cute little stamp that accompanied the box full of 20th anniversary goods that miki800 ordered a few months ago…

Now might be as good a time as any to mention that the RodneyFun.com storefront is no longer open for business. How come? Well, Rodney Greenblat (the other person responsible for PaRappa, for those who needed an explanation) is about open a brand new shop!

The Rodney Shop will open this Saturday in the Catskills here in NY. Yup, it’s an actual store, not a website. Though hopefully an online version will open shortly thereafter, and hopefully I’ll be able to make the trip and be one of the first customers to enter the doors…

Everyone knows about the Nazca eagles in Xevious, though @isami_ichifuji points out that the game contains at least one other real world landmark…

Some time ago, I mentioned a series of discs for the Sega Saturn that weren’t games but were instead filled with CGI portraits, plus a tune or two, each based upon a Virtua Fighter. Well, some time before that, lvrllnd wrote about something a series of tapes for your VCR, which again was designed to cash in on “VF Fever”…

As before, there was one for every single character; each features various tricks and tricks and I want each and every one. If you look on eBay, you can find them for about $27 each! Along with plenty of other Virtua Fighter VHS tapes. Though I’m actually more interested in just the one on Virtua Racing…

Sticking with Sega for a little bit, courtesy of kazucrash is the unused cover art for the North American release of Gunstar Heroes. Call me crazy, but I kind of really like it?

Via Video Games Densetsu are some old photos that Koichi Namiki, who was part of the Sega Sound Team Band, recently shared. My fave is this one, back when Macs were considered part of the band...

Also via videogamesdensetsu is the most interesting tidbit from Hideki Sato (one of Sega’s main hardware designers) at something called the Game Business Archive: “Ryuichi Sakamoto was paid ¥10.000.000 to create the boot up sound of the Dreamcast.”

The dude from Yellow Magical Orchestra got paid close to 90k for the DC start up sound! I wonder how he feels about the fact that his handiwork is always accompanied by the sound of that loud ass disc drive mechanism, along with the beep of a VMU that needs its battery replaced? Eh, got his close to 90 grand, I’m betting he doesn’t really care.

Something else that recently took place was Retro Express, described simply as “an event for retro PC”. Other than some Toho port for the Famicom, the only other notable observation from shoutime is how he or she “was done in about 20 minutes”…

Behold the Family Cube R. It’s basically a Famicom and the Famicom Disk System in a very nice looking red translucent housing, which I originally spotted over at sixteen-bit. the creator “gorigo” explains what’s inside, but due to that pesky language barrier, I’m not 100% sure what is being said. I believe it’s a combination of authentic hardware and clone hardware. Especially since: “If it is a genuine Famicom board, it will not fit”…

Perhaps the most interesting component is the “homebrew L type connector” that allows Famicom carts to be playable without having to protrude on top…

It’s also super neat how it’s the same exact size and dimension as a GameCube with Game Boy Player attached…

The Family Cube R is also the closest thing we’ll get to a Famicube IRL…

Here’s a completely different kind of mash-up, one involving Splatoon and Space Channel 5, by kitsune23star…

And here’s another, from the CDTcrew, featuring Die Hard the movie and Die Hard the video game (or at least that’s what Dynamite Deka is called outside of Japan)…

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Though back to the subject of hardware, miki800.com shows us that a Ford dealership in the UK of all things decided to take the iconic look of assorted consoles and apply their stylings towards cars. The end result is pretty… interesting. Their take on an Atari 2600 as a car is perhaps a good starter…

The car based upon the Mega Drive/Genesis is perhaps the nicest, though is mostly looks like what the Transformers turned into, before they crash-landed on Earth (am talking about the G1 cartoon btw)…

Though this van based upon the NES looks looks like a clone console by Hyperkin, aka I think it looks awful…

As for the Switch mobile… remember when the G1 Transformer lost their ability to transform and had to drive around in big goofy cars?

miki800.com also shares with us how various sports titles for the Famicom and Super Famicom illustrated the Player 1 vs CPU mode. I dig how in Super Famista 3, the two are pals, but by Super Famista 5, they’re bitter rivals…

I’m already iPhone 5S buddies with Eric, and coming this June, I might be Darius arcade cab cradle for my iPhone buddies with JC…

And once again, I wish I still had my iPhone 3GS, so I could take advantage of yet another batch of recently discovered assortment 3GS covers from National Console Support…

Please enjoy this video from a dude in Japan who’s all about showcasing their wide and weird assortment of junk food. In this case, he’s checking out the just released Dragon Quest chicken nuggets. The vid itself is nothing wildly exciting, just nice and calm and relaxing; I watch his YouTube channel to relax and help fall asleep at the end of a long hard day…

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Unfortunately, someone didn’t get the memo about the lids being perfect for making yet another kind of snack, as @xoxo_lalafell shows us all…

Meanwhile, @TakeponFX recently tweeted about Koppa’s, that deli in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the Atari 2600 for customers to play that I wrote about almost a year ago. There are two things worth noting here: first is the following image that was shared, which shows a slightly different configuration, sans the massive multi-game selector. Considering when it was originally taken, which according to Flickr is 2010, I’d have to assume it’s a prior set-up…

The same older config was present in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, which I also mentioned in that aforementioned post, and which is also from 2012. So the selector hasn’t been around before then, I’d wager. Anyhow, the second thing of note is that I had no idea you could purchase shirts from Koppa’s, including…

Behold the evolution of Bald Bull (via brotherbrain)…

Very few fanbases are as multilayered as Nintendo’s. For most folk, who consider themselves to be fairly dedicated fans of the house that Mario built… they barely scratch the surface. And to determine how deep your love for Nintendo goes exactly, here’s a handy chart (via radicalhelmet)…

This week’s recommended reading is courtesy of Kotaku, which details an arcade that holds tournaments centered on the rather obscure Neo Geo fighter Galaxy Fight. Though there’s one key difference, one that sets it apart from all the other tourneys out there (aside from the unique choice in game): every round lasts only a single second…

“You’d think such a thing wouldn’t work, and yet it seems to have distilled the intense mind games associated with the fighting game genre to their purest form, crafting a unique experience for players and spectators alike. Strategy that typically plays out over a minute and a half is crammed into just a few brief moments. Should you wait for your opponent to make the first move and react accordingly, or bet everything on a risky uppercut that can be punished if it misses? With such a small amount of time for gameplay, the weakest attack can secure a round, opening avenues for outlandish tactics that infrequently pop up during normal competition.”

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And last but not least, a photo from arcade-crusade, of a dude standing next to a pinball machine that’s also wearing a shirt with some sound advice…

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.

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veryfineday · 4 years ago

Text

Tuesday 5 May 1829

11 3/4

Breakfast at 6 1/4 - tooK george and off at 6 35/60 - thro’ the gardens, crossed by the pont Royal and all along the Quays to the rue de Seine Gate of the Jardin des plantes in 50 minutes - waited some time in the lecture room - waited perhaps 10 minutes my pendule being about 5 minutes too soon -

the lecture began at 7 1/2 - 8 or 9 ladies on chairs close to the lecturer - the benches well filled - Monsieur Desfontaines an old man - the students received him with clapping of hands and paid him the same compliment on going away - odd enough - Monsieur de F-‘s[Fontaines’] table covered with flowers and plants with roots by way of illustration - the lecture from 7 1/2 to 8 40/60 no sooner over then a rush from the benches to get the flowers, and for the moment I found myself in a mob -

Lecture interesting enough - chiefly a description of the roots of plants - 9 Kinds of root of which I only recollect fusiforme, tubereux, grenu (granulata), cheveleux, tronquè (praemorsa), bistort (bis contorta) ...... a saxifraga the example of racine tronquèe - the little bulb of the 1st year is tronquè, and succeeded by a racine cheveleuse? mentioned the orchis tuberosa - 2 bulbs - the one of the last year, having thrown up its stem and flowered, dies; and the new bulb, which grew out of its side throws up a stem and dies in liKe manner, so that the flower removes every year about an inch - plants’ lived into annuelles, bisannuelles, and vivaces - the 2 former dying as soon as they have fructified - many of them may be prolonged for many years by preventing the fructification - the tige differs from the racine - the one will seek the air and turn upward, the other the earth and turn downward - besides no canal médullaire (with rare exceptions) in the racine - this canal ends in a little bulb at the col de racine or top of the racine -

the lecture over walked about a little - Mr.Royer gone to Saint Cloud - sat a few minutes in the great table room of the administration - then at 9 20/60 was seated behind Langier at his chemical lecture - the 7th of his present course - had begun precisely at 9 1/4 - so entirely behind him, could not hear well - lecture over at 10 40/60 - spoke to Monsieur Langier on coming away - asKed if he had published any system of chemistry - no! - was there no résumé of his lectures? no! but there was his course of lectures taken down by some shorthand writers and published by Pichon and Didier, Quai des Augustins, 47. -

en passant stopt and bought this work done up in petites brochures of each lecture - 46 now ready - to be 54 in all - 27 franc would have 10 per cent allowed so to have the work for 25 franc to come this evening - got home in an hour at 11 40/60 - Siding a little expect Mrs. and Miss B-[Barlow] sleeping here for tonight and perhaps tomorrow night to avoid the nightman at their own house -

Had 1/2 hour’s nap - From 1 to 2 3/4 wrote out Saturday, Sunday, and the 1st ten lines of yesterday At 2 3/4 Monsieur Doseur came about the apartment au 2 nde. No.11 rue Saint Florentiin - said he had a person who would give 2700 francs yet it seemed he wanted to have and would take of me 2500 francs - said he had best let it for 2700 francs I would give him 2000 francs as offered yesterday but no more therefore it was useless for me to say another word about it, and surprised perhaps to find me so little inclined to talk about it, he went away - He had let out yesterday, yet it was let before for 2200 francs - then immediately came to my room, and sat musing on my sofa till after 4 - Shall we try to take Monsieur Séne’s apartment rue nueve de Saint Augustin? Perhaps my aunt had better go to Shibden with the prospect held out of returning here or the death of my father; and for the present I can travel with Mrs. B-[Barlow]?

at my desk again at 4 10/60 - at 4 1/2 Monsieur Van Raveschot the tapissier, 5 rue Pot de fer Saint German, recommended by madame Droz, came - Thinks I could furnish a salon (including tapis 600 francs) for 3000 francs, and at 12 percent on this value could hire furniture for 360 francs per annual - but on handsome new furniture one sometimes paid 15 percent Monsieur Droz had bought his carpet himself un tapis Anglais at 300 francs and this men made it - asked him to val moveue my bed, bois de lit, and all as it stood - he said it was a bois de lit of 30 francs - new mattresses 80 francs chaque - If I gave 160 francs my bed as it was - it would be enough - said I was disappointed of the apartment I fancied I had got yesterday and must therefore look for another, but have determined to employ him, and would write per post as soon as I have made up my mind - finding one could furnish at a reasonable rate has sset me rather at ease - I will wait a few days to decide - perhaps after all we may get this rue Saint Florentin apartment, if my aunt does not go to Shibden Had I less fear of hampering myself with Mrs. B[arlow] I could decide at once -

at 5 1/2 the ambassador’s carriage stopt and there came up a packet from Miss Hobart enclosing a little note from herself 7 or 8 of her humourous anecdotes copied from her journal that she read to me in coming and a letter from Miss McL-[MacLean] 17 Duke Street Portland Place and the bills belonging to our journey here {the note is ‘Dear Miss Lister I send you a letter from our Sib which came last night I am quite ashamed to be so long in your debt but I cannot get hold of the maitre d’hotel to change my English notes I have copied the cream of my anecdotes for you according to your desire but you must write them in your own clean hand was it not too extraordinary that I should not have seen you once in the course of the evening of the 30th we are this instant going to a breakfast at the Austrian ambassadors how it will pour by and by eever yours ssincerely V Hobart’} no date - well either she really did not see me or she is indeed a finished worldling she is apparently in a good school at present but lady S[tuart] has really behaved well enough to me

2 full sheets from Miss McL-[MacLean] 1st dated 20 April very cold weather in London miss McL-[MacLean] gives a good account of herself but owns having the worst cold she ever had in her life, and that she had expectored the last 5 days a pint per day! she has now the wash at home but is ‘considered cured’ of the uterine cancer ‘without the aid of what you dreaded you will one day think differently of the honor of one who has acted in this case the reverse of what you expected and would have done, as you said, had the case been yours’ - Likes her new lodging 17 Duke Steet Portland Place 1 1/2 guinea a week including kichen fire and cooking and attendance - no sofa but hires one - this will look better to lady Stuart who has balled twice and is all kindness but repeats the same thing again and her memory fails poor old lady Vere will be spoilt for her by and by ‘I am so happy you liked Vere as she was quite captivated by your manners and the style of your dress which it seems in the morning she did not so much admire as for my Vere she loves you with all her heart she says ‘Miss Lister is ....... it is impossible to tell you how much I like her and admire her in only two days time she might laugh at a very warmly expressed opinion so I will not venture what you too might quiz but I can say my drive to Dover was delightful and no people can to all appearances agree better than we do if you were with us a trio would be too much happiness (for me) and one must fall out or fall sick’ ‘this was from Calais and you have lost nothing as you proceeded I rejoice to hear lady S[tuart] de Rothesay called on you and invited you to the ball it was just what she ought to do’ -

Left margin: Miss H-s[Hobart’s] praises of me

somehow my heart misgives me in reading all this is really all true on Veres part does Miss Macl[ean] know her as she really is is she a little flippant - ... ‘It was parting with Vere put you in the vapours, so put away this dulness by seeing as much of her as you can, she is a treasure’ it seems ‘she does not care about Henry Yorke she took all I said in good part she thought it very funny that the first people she met at dinner were the Radnor Sabs family she says he must have given up all thoughts of her else he would have reappeared before now how could he when forbid the house’ -

great deal about Mr. Long - Mr. Scott of Bromley os now all for him - he has still fears about Margret Roxburgh, tho’ she seems going on well - a widow with two children well provided for and fifteen hundred a year has offered to him and a charming young lady who has just by the death of an aunt got a considerable addition to her fortune and a nice place in the country all this Miss Macl[ean] knows she sees the letters I suppose does he write them himself?[with a dot] she says she does not mind the heat of Paris ‘as if I relapse I can run back again he will then have a wife and I can with due decorum occupy the large front bedroom long allotted for me I drove with him to Richmond by promise to call on the Skinners’ .... well how is it that I doubt so much and she not at all what he really is will surely appear by and by he certainly does not seem to be curing Miss Macl[ean]

miss Bury has almost killed herself by the folly of riding out on a wet day, but is getting better captain Bury almost well - Mrs. Teed, miss Parker that was, does not appear to have made a good match as to fortune - ‘a boy all in dirt and rags opened the door, one sleeve almost off - I suppose Mr. T-[Teed] by this not be over rich’ -

Dinner at 6 - came to my room at 8 - Read my letter from Miss McL-[Maclean] wrote copy of note to Miss H-[Hobart] Coffee at 9 20/60 came to my room at 10 1/4 - just after dinner the man brought Langiers ‘cours de Chimie general’ 46 leçons - to have the 8 more by and by - just before dinner Mrs. and Miss B-[Barlow] came to say, they do not come tonight, nor do they quite know when - Sat reading the 1st and 7th leçon Langier’s chemistry till 11 10/60 - very fine day - ‘Le Docteur Tanchou de la faculté de Paris’ left his card for me this morning -

Margin symbols: + + N L + Vc

#anne lister code breaker #1829 #vere hobart #sibella maclean #Mr.Long #Maria Barlow

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