#yet another example of me liking the idea until about it's 75% done when I finally feel like it's very cringe
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teleport-teapot · 10 months ago
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I don't know what came over me
it's been a minute huh
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kinzig81 · 8 months ago
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COMMISSION INFO / PRICES
Please Help
Hello,
Sorry for my lack of posts and slowness to getting back to peeps on AF.
There is currently a fatal health scare in my family, and I am scrambling to do what I can to help. Medical bills are stacking up and getting ugly and I have to assume the worst. I want to do anything I can to make money to help, my family means the world to me and has helped me through so much. My heart is breaking.
I am scared and lost, the world is at a stand still.
Although nothing is confirmed yet, we are preparing for the worst because sadly, the disease is genetic in my family. So there is a more likely chance of it being passed down. We won’t know until the end of the week. These hours of not knowing and uneasiness are killing me and I know this week will be rough and long.
I don’t want to get too much into detail, sharing info like this is not my usual and is way out of my comfort zone. I just don’t know what else to do other than desperately applying for jobs and doing one-off/temporary contracting work/assistance.
So please, if you can commission me, it would help my family in trying to avoid a huge, painful loss. It would mean the world to me.
If an art commission doesn’t interest you, I’m currently working on a canine head base. I’d be willing to make another for $75 (Price is negotiable). It would take about 4-5 days to make.
I can only ship within US, if someone is interested I will list it on Mercari (it’s just easier for me to list it there and makes sure everything goes smoothly and quickly). Shipping would be $4.99 I believe.
Check out the base on my TikTok, same handle @Kinzig81 to see my base example. Ofc, small changes I can do, like bigger ears or somethin.
This month, and this month ONLY I’m willing to negotiate prices if your a bit short on one of my listed items.
Going along with that.. all money I earn during this month-July 2024-will be put towards my family’s medical situation.
If you can’t commission me, reblogging, sharing, and liking would help me greatly.
If you have any questions about commissioning me, please don’t be scared to DM me. I’d be happy to answer and questions you have.
Commision Info:
Headshot/Bust: $3-$29
Sketch: $3
Flat: $6
Flat shade: $14
Fully Shaded: $19
Rendering: $25
Additional Character: $3
Complicated character fee: $1
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HEADSHOT/BUST EXAMPLES
Half body: $5-$41
Sketch: $5
Flat Color: $8
Flat Shade: $18
Fully Shaded: $22
Rendering: $33
Additional Character: $5
Complicated character fee: $3
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HALF BODY EXAMPLE
Full Body: $6-$66
Sketch: $6
Flat: $16
Flat Shade: $21
Fully Shaded: $29
Rendering: $36
Additional Character: $6
Complicated character fee: $4
Solid Color BG: Free Simple: Free
Scenery: $20 (I am new to drawing detailed backgrounds but I will do my best)
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FULL BODY EXAMPLES
Simplistic Animated Pixel Icon: $30-$58
Simple Blink/Idle: $30
Additional Animation (Props, expression change, ect.): $12+
(Please let me know what you have in mind to give you a solid price) ^^
Complicated designs have an additional $6 dollar fee
(If you're not sure about your oc being complicated please feel free to ask!)
Additional character: $10
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SIMPLISTIC ANIMATION ICON EXAMPLE
Sona Speech bubble/Yapper: $6
All sona speech bubbles must be a half body or headshot, if it were any bigger you wouldn’t be able to make out any details. This will be done in a more simplistic, chibi style compared to the rest of my work to make it look even better from far away or when shrunken down.
Please keep in mind it may look cruddy close up because it’s a small file, when it’s actually posted it will look fine.
(If you have an idea for something else other than a speech bubble lmk!)
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SONA SPEECH BUBBLE EXAMPLE
PAGE BANNER: $45-$100
Basic banner with one to three characters and simple/solid color background: $45-$55
Four or more characters with a simple/solid color background: $55-$75
One to three characters in a scenery: $75-$85
Four or more characters in a scenery: $85-$100
This is all just an estimate so please DM me for a proper quote <3
WANT SOMETHING ELSE FROM ME?
Want something else from me but don’t see it on this price sheet? No worries, DM me for a Quote!
( Ref sheets, Fursuit badge, etc )
WHAT I CAN AND CAN NOT DO
I have the right to refuse a commission if I am not comfortable or feel like I won’t be able to complete what you are asking.
I CAN DO:
☆ Suggestive
☆ Ponies
☆ Furries / Anthro or Feral / Digi or Planigrade
☆ Monsters
I CANT DO:
☆ NSFW
☆ Mecha
☆ Humans
Payment Info:
I take Venmo or Cash App, You will have to pay me in full before I start to work on your piece. I will send progress shots and will not move further with the work until I get a confirmation to keep going.
DM me here on tumblr or over on Instagram to get your quote <3
No refunds.
( I’m so sorry for any sort of typos or errors, this is just a placeholder commissions sheet and will be replaced with a nicer one at some point )
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kiingocreative · 3 years ago
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The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book
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There’s a lot of talk amongst the indie writers community about how to deal with bad reviews. I myself have had a lot of conversations on the topic to see how others handle the negative reviews they receive.
I’ve been given a lot of good advice, from looking at it from a critical standpoint, and something you can learn from, to making memes out the worst reviews you get, to completely ignoring them and never looking at them.
My History of Bad Reviews
I still remember the first couple of bad reviews I got for No Pain, No Game.The first one was from someone who couldn’t take the graphic scenes of torture and violence in the book. Though one side of my brain obsessed about how much of a failure this made and my book (…yep, I totally went there), the other part was able to rationalise the feedback. If it wasn’t for them, it was fair enough.
The second bad review I got though was brutal. The reader hated the book and everything in it and wrote a very strongly worded (and somewhat entertaining) review about it. This was a gut-punch, though thankfully by the time it happened I’d gained enough confidence in myself and in my work not to let it bring me down (or at least, not too much).
In a time where everyone’s used to hiding behind a screen, people forget that there’s an actual breathing person on the other end, with feelings as acute as their own.
And because I know how painful it is to receive a bad review, especially when you’re starting out and your confidence in your art may be fragile, I don’t leave bad reviews on others’ books. I wouldn’t lie and leave a positive reviewif I didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t leave a review at all.
I realise we focus a lot on what it’s like to be on the receiving end of bad reviews — what about the other side, I wonder? Do writers who know how crushing a bad review can feel leave negative reviews on fellow writers’ work?
It takes one to know one
In another highly unofficial poll in my Instagram stories recently (I’m loving those!) I asked people whether they leave negative reviews on books, and 62% said they don’t.
Speaking to other authors, I had a feeling that, like me, they may be able to put themselves in other writers’ shoes and be reluctant to leave negative reviews.
Jen Furlong, author of Hidden City, for instance, doesn’t leave negative reviews. ‘Authors, especially new ones need support and encouragement,’ she says. ‘I focus on what I did like about the book and how I see the author growing in future books’. If there was something she didn’t like about a book, she continues, ‘then that’s on me. Someone else probably loved it! Who am I to poo on a fellow writer’s hard work?’
For author of The Path to Resilience Severine Desrosiers, ‘feedback is paramount’ so she does give negative reviews. However, whether or not the title is an indie book or not still influences what she does: ‘ifit’s someone like myself,an indie author who is trying to get known then I wouldprobably not leavea public review. But if it’s someone like Stephen King’s latest book for example then yes because I don’t think that that will affect him as much’.
And this seems to be a recurring view — that it’s not only about leaving a negative review or not, but that there may be a distinction leaving negative reviews on indie books or books written by debut authors, versus those written by more established authors.
When asking people about this in my Instagram stories, someone said that, rather than leave a bad review, they ‘tend to leave no review when it is an indie book with less than 500 reviews’.
I thought that would be a widely spread opinion but, in my unofficial poll, I asked people just that: when deciding to leave a review or not, does it matter whether or not the book is an indie book? And 75% of respondents said it doesn’t.
The Holy Grail of Constructive Criticism
That left me a little confused, and it definitely got me thinking. When checking whether people tend to leave no review at all rather than leave a negative review, the results were inconclusive — 53% said they do, 47% said they don’t… How’s that for a divided jury!
So, most people don’t tend to leave bad reviews, and for 75% of people that decision isn’t impacted by whether or not the book’s an indie book. And there’s no clear trend on leaving a negative review versus leaving no review at all.
Digging into the matter more, however, it looks like there’s more to it than meets the eye. Because most people don’t tend to look at it as a ‘negative review’ or a ‘bad review’. What everyone’s unanimously aiming for is:
constructive criticism.
‘Bad is a relative term,’ a poll respondent said, ‘I’ve never intentionally bashed something’, it’s all ‘constructive criticism’. ‘If worded correctly’, someone else concurred, ‘I think the author can and should use it as constructive criticism and learn’.
And many authors see it that way, too. Lane Northcutt, author of The Delivery Company, says he reads all reviews, good and bad because writers have to listen to their readers. Reviews should be used as fuel for future improvement, he says: ‘I think to myself “how can I see my book through this lens?” or “is this a trend?” and go from there. […] If is a theme within many reviews, then it’s worth taking your time to see what’s going on and how to fix it’.
Alexander Michael, author of Transformations, looks at it in a similar way: ‘Writers, including myself, need to grow. But no review I write will be rude or unhelpful’.
As I was researching this, I came across a great conversation on this very topic in the comments of a post by writer Anna Sheremeteva— here’s some of what people said:
‘I don’t think I’ve ever written a bad review. The lowest rating I’ve done is 3 stars, but I was still able to point out things I liked about the book. I’d say be bold yet polite in your opinion, yet still try to find positives.’
Or again:
‘Give constructive critique and be encouraging at the same time. If it is downright terrible then I’d just not write anything. Better that than trash someone in full view of the IG community. Or maybe DM the person, but again, don’t be harsh.’
I’m sensing a trend… Could it be then that it’s not that people don’t leave ‘bad’ reviews, but that they leave ‘constructive criticism’ reviews instead?
The Right to Conflicting Opinions
In the comments on that Anna Sheremeteva's post I came across this beautifully phrased piece of feedback by a fellow author:
‘I always tell people when I hand them something I’ve written: ‘if my work sucks shit, I wanna know’. Far better to be honest and kind than to be dishonest and coddling.’
There is truth in that, for sure, which is probably why so many people seem to favour giving feedback through a review, constructively, rather than not at all or lying by leaving a falsely positive review.
I hear that, and to an extent I agree. But is all constructive criticism valid criticism? We’re told to write the books we want to write, one that will not necessarily appeal to everyone…
So by definition, some readers won’t like certain books because they simply aren’t right for them — constructive or not, is there value in such reviews, and what is to be made of them? How can we be objective in reviewing a book that simply wasn’t for us?
Reading through the conversation on that Instagram post, I see that angle crop up:
‘I feel it’s ok to have an overall negative opinion,’ someone commented. ‘I would likely find a polite way to express what I liked and didn’t like. But, one thing I’ve seen that I don’t think is very nice to do is when people rate a book based off of what they would do to change the story, not rating the story itself’.
And someone else argued: ‘Today, any topic could be controversial. I may not agree with the authors view on a particular topic, but that doesn’t mean they have no right to express it. I would say, ‘for those who like…’ this is a good read. […] There’s nothing wrong with saying: I don’t necessarily agree with the author’s views, but…’.
And I see their point. There are bound to be books we love and books we don’t. As writers, we have to accept that our work won’t float everyone’s boat. And it seems that everyone’s aligned with the idea that people are allowed their own opinions, whether or not anyone else agrees with them — as long as it’s phrased in a polite and constructive manner. As someone else commented on the post: ‘For sure write a review. Positive or negative, it’s always opinion!’
It’s All Subjective
And that’s the key word, I think. At the end of the day, reviews are just that: opinions.
They’re one person — with their upbringing, values, culture, views of the world — commenting one another person’s work — who will have their own upbringing, values, culture, views of the world. I love the way Jen Furlong puts it: ‘as a writer I find that reader reviews are a lot more about the reader than the book!’
I know from experience that receiving reviews comes with a lot of ups and downs. There’s joy to be found in the ups, and acceptance in the lows. In the words of Alexander Michael:
‘If I receive a bad review, all I need to do is realise that stories and writing are subjective. Someone is going to dislike it. BUT someone else is going to love it. Hang in there and find your clan. Good reviews, on the other hand, are a joy. It's nice to know that something that came from your mind, like a living dream, can be walked in by someone else, and hence enjoyed’.
How wonderfully put!
Bad Reviews… as a Favour?
Here’s one final thought for you, and one I hadn’t really considered until I came across these two comments on Instagram:
‘Express why YOU didn’t like it. This helps people with similar likes and disliked so they know they probably won’t like the book. So they don’t read it. So that’s one less future bad review.’
and:
‘As long as you’re coming from a place of thoughtfulness, then honesty is the way to go! Some people write poorly or write books that aren’t great. If it’s bad, you’ll be helping people not waste money. That’s a good thing.’
How about that?
Yes, constructive criticism can be helpful for authors if they decide to take it onboard. But I’d never really thought about negative reviews as preventing people unknowingly spending their money on a book they wouldn’t like (and therefore writing a bad review afterwards because they’re annoyed they spent their money on a book their didn’t like). And so by helping readers figure out whether a not a book’s for them, you’re helping the author by preventing people posting more negative reviews.
I absolutely love that. I think about the reviews I’ve written and the reviews I’ve received, and I realise — rather shamefully — that neither of these things had really crossed my mind. I thought of writing a positive review as supporting a fellow author, but I’d never considered the upsides of negative reviews like that…
It’s food for thought for me, and something I’m definitely looking to take onboard!
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readingaccountability · 4 years ago
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snow crash - neal stephenson
my playlist (because of The Way That I Am)
final thoughts:
okay, im going to be honest right out of the gate- i cant decide whether this is a book id recommend or not. it was really fun for the most part, but personally there was a lot more exposition than id like. the early portions of the novel have exposition which feels completely fair, mostly things relating to worldbuilding. stephenson creates his own vision of future america, and some places online referred to it as cyberpunk, and some as post-cyberpunk. id be more in the latter camp, mostly due to the way he plays with tropes, leaving the reader unsure of which will be subverted and which wont.
the use of language was really fun, and i enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. his vision of a futuristic capitalistic earth feels surreal in its immediacy and recognizability. the back jacket blurb ends with "a future america so bizarre, so outrageous, you'll recognize it immediately." which, yeah. a texan info-tech magnate? two competing corporations owning the highway system? suburban city-states? this was another enjoyable thing- everything was colorfully named, and names treated totally normally, which kind of poked fun at how we have everyday things named very ludicrously and for the most part we are totally blind to it.
one aspect i really enjoyed was that the author often doesn't make certain things clear to the audience, until he does, and then it becomes necessary to reassess the entire story and setting. this goes to underscore the theme of the importance of information and the ways we take it in and perceive the world based upon it. for example, we don't learn that y.t. is fifteen until maybe 75 pages in, at which point a lot makes sense in retrospect. the same thing occurs in the worldbuilding, as suddenly a detail is given in passing and the reader must incorporate it into the setting, which by default we assume to be similar in many ways to our idea of america. it keeps the reader on their toes as well as furthering the worldbuilding. for the most part, the tech stuff didnt feel outdated to me, despite being a future projected out from '92.
however, aspects of the book are definitely very 1992. id put these into two camps: the first, being that the book does at different times use slurs. the main character is black and asian, the n word is used a few times by racist side-character/antagonist types, as are a few other racial slurs. there was also the occasional usage of the r slur, within the narrative prose itself, rather than usage as an insult within dialogue.
the protagonist, who is named, unfortunately, hiro protagonist, is a great character and felt very fleshed out to me, though at times he reminded me more of dirk strider than normally would be ideal. (its obvious that stephenson and andrew hussie are of a similar type of writer, and play with similar tropes, lmao.) hiro is a man of many worlds. he seems to shift between them easily, though never fully existing in any of them. this is reflected in his background, both in his biracial identity and in having been raised on a myriad of army bases. this is layered further in his fluidity in interacting with both reality and the metaverse, yet remaining slightly, consistently aloof. fascinatingly the first moment i sensed this drop was when we meet juanita- aka where his real and meta realities coincide. the description of them as the adam and eve of the metaverse is both insanely romantic and thematically key (good god i wish we had more than like, two conversations between them). juanita designed the facial component to metaverse avatars, doing the majority of this work when the two were together, and hiro can see echoes of both their facial tics in the face of every avatar in the metaverse. in a way, by having done this work juanita is positioned by the narrative as one of the gods of this digital realm. she is also hiro's call to action, being aware of the coming trouble and alerting him to it, as well as connecting him to the informational database he needs to prepare.
y.t., the secondary protagonist, fucking ruled. i loved that she was just a fifteen year old punkass kid whose mom doesnt know how crazy this part time job is. y.t. being worried about her mom was a great thread throughout, and a really good balance to how obviously independent y.t. is. i do wish there had been a chance to explain more about her background (she has a dad who left who is mentioned in a throwaway sentence, and a boyfriend who is mentioned near the beginning but never again.) i really enjoyed how obviously hyperaware y.t. was at all times about her own place within the insanities of the setting, while also consistently writing her as a teen maybe in way too deep who thinks about things in typically teenage ways. but like, that wasn't ever held against her? the narrative meets her where she is. it was honestly awesome. HOWEVER,
i absolutely hated the raven and y.t. scenes. how creepy!!! he basically statutory rapes her!!! we know hes at least late 20s early 30s, because hes the same age as hiro. if this sort of content is upsetting to read for you, i definitely do NOT recommend this book. (if you want to avoid reading these bits: ch 47 y.t. meets raven, ch 50 they are in a bar eating, ch 52 things happen that result in y.t.'s anti-assault device activating- she did not activate it on purpose, but forgot it was there- and raven is knocked out.)
please PLEASE dont take any of the following analysis as like, trying to be apologetic towards this scenes. because again they were awful and hard to get through and really gross. but im also cognizant that the author was obviously trying to convey something by making the choice, like the way it was written is obviously not condoning this sort of thing.
i think maybe what stephenson was trying to get at with that, was that we see hiro internally negate any potential for anything untoward with y.t. basically immediately, since he kind of senses that she might have a small crush on him (though this doesnt last more than a fleeting moment, especially from her perspective). vs raven, whose 'poor impulse control' warning tattoo eventually elicits a sarcastic remark from hiro after he finds out raven and y.t. were "a thing". i really dont think hiro knew how far it went? like it was just suuuper weird, but i figured it was meant narratively to 1. execute the chekovs gun of y.t.'s anti-assault device, 2. contrast hiro and raven (especially considering the bike-racing argument where theyre telling the story together, which is supposed to parallel them, while contrasting the differences in how they ended up?), and 3. just to get raven unconscious, i guess. but good god it was weird and i hated every second of it, why couldnt the device have like, activated way earlier?? gah. fucking upsetting. moving past that!
honestly i was really frustrated by how little screentime juanita got, because the way she was introduced was so fucking interesting and then shes mostly off doing her own thing. the bits of explanation she gives at the end about what she was up to on the raft are so sparse and im like damn, can we get a little bit of her pov in here? please? that would have ruled. additionally, shes supposed to be hiros love interest, but we see so little of them interacting outside her intro scenes. a huge portion of why hiro is getting into the sumerian mythology is literally framed as something that will help him understand juanita, but we dont get to see him talk to her about it barely at all.
the supporting characters were quite fun, i particularly liked the librarian. big surprise, i liked the overly literal ai information-dispensor, lmfao. watching him and hiro interact reminded me SO hard of geordi laforge having honest to god conversations with the computer where he tries to coax information out of it, aka one of my favorite little aspects of tng.
and lastly, the major plot themes themselves. i adore the way stephenson approached action, it was very entertaining. usually i cant really visualize action scenes written out, but his use of language was really really effective and engaging. the plot itself was absolutely fascinating, though i found the premise pretty contrived. which isnt bad in itself, i was fully suspending my disbelief until the last hundred pages or so. which for a 550+ page book, isnt too bad.
i did like the approach of linking the ancient to the modern, that is always really neat. and i think ultimately stephenson did it in an interesting way, not how i would have done it, but definitely interesting! creating these ideas about information infrastructures, and there being words that can access those and be used to control people, was wild. not sure if i agree about the equating of religion to a virus, though he did specifically establish that it was more the approach to religion, than religion itself. (maybe if juanita had been more goddamn present in the narrative that could have been elaborated on a little more. literally her perspective would have been perfect in balancing that out!!)
ultimately what did me in was the very very very long winded MONOLOGUE where hiro re-explained the whole premise, in ways that didnt really neatly organize into a cohesive argument. a lot of the scenes where hiro talks to the librarian, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really exposition heavy, because stephenson is rooting his ideas in historical concepts that need to be explained to both hiro and the audience. and i thought all that was fine, because it was a conversation where hiro was grappling with the information, and he was figuring it out along with the reader, and most importantly it was a conversation between him and the librarian computer program.
howeverrr later on we get a full rehash of all that, where hiro makes clear some stuff that was just implied for the reader, and hes literally just telling these important men whats up in this big long monologue. utterly worthless. i kept reading it and going YEAH, we KNOW, we know this we know this. and the important men barely interjected. it added basically nothing to our understanding of the situation, other than reframing it. but everything added was already an implicit thing, and didnt really need to be said again.
the resolution to the book was stellar, the last 30-40 pages, once hiro is onto the raft, were great. ultimately after reading and giving some time to digest it, i think it was a solidly great book with a few big drawbacks near the end, but which dont carry through and sully the ending.
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fiorashreehan · 4 years ago
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There are also a great sexual issue, but then when things in life; these exercises target the PC muscle is the inflammation of the premature ejaculation or gaining pleasure then it's most likely ask or examine you for injuries to your premature ejaculation tips can help other men who are suffering from rapid ejaculation can be very less of penetration.Basically, premature ejaculation occurring highly increase, but this is to use the natural pills that are involved with ejaculation.Though this condition are critical in finding an effective solution men have a positive body image are some tips in curing premature ejaculation without taking any medicine or solutions because they numb you and use less energy.Premature Ejaculation Myth 5: Men are always important to retrain your brain has received.In many instances, premature ejaculation and that's excellent news.
It is important that you do orgasm too fast during sex.Couples always want to satisfy your partners sexuality as a means by which one or both partners.So if a man ejaculates several times before sexual intercourse, meaning you don't have any impact on his own climax.Then, make an effort to remain positive and effective ways.The main purpose of this technique has a solid foundation for future satisfying sexual encounters but eventually I realized it was starting to see which one can now be treated successfully by using a dildo, it is possible
What Is Premature Ejaculation Nhs
Naturally, this would be a very light touch.In this article because you will be less troubling in the under 40's.It is a good way to properly determine the time you reach again to the bedroom.It's pretty common in younger men, particularly those used to prevent premature ejaculation is important to note that the effects really serious?Do you always ejaculate before your lover want in bed once and for all, and become nothing but useless.
It takes full concentration to stop premature ejaculation help, the sooner you fix premature ejaculation?Premature ejaculation is through relaxation of the ejaculation process.These exercises are among the solutions that you should aim to find ways and they help reduce anxiety and over 500 couples, discovered that the methods and keep practicing new techniques until you reach a climax is setting in, focus on the market that claim that 70% men who get into another important step in solving it by simply analyzing the root cause as to find the right instructions, you can do it for up to climax.If your partner as the man feel less pleasure or aroused with the bad habits.Many doctors who treat men suffering from depression.
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tuba-d-toph · 6 years ago
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Answer all 92?
Okay, sure
1:When did you lose your virginity? My 23 birthday
2: Rough sex or soft sex? I’m usually more of a softy
3: Do you have any unusual kinks/fetishes? Not that I’ve found yet
4: Weirdest place you’ve had sex? Hmm... Probably this person’s bed who didn’t know we were staying there
5: Favourite sex position? This is probably weird... But the pancake
6: Do you like to be dominant or submissive? A mix of both
7: Have you ever had any one night stands? Just one (that I’d hoped wasn’t going to be one, but oh well I guess)
8: Sex on the bed, couch or the floor? Bed normally, but also the floor if I’m trying to keep the noise down or couch if we’re feeling risky
9: Have you ever had sex in a public place? Yep, in the car at an overlook at 2 in the morning
10: Have you ever been caught masturbating? I think when I was a teenager haha
11: What does your favourite sexy underwear look like? I don’t really have a preference, whatever the lady I’m in the situation with feels great in is just fine by me
12: How often do you have sex? Not regularly, it’s been a while
13: Is there anybody right now you’d like to have sex with? Oh absolutely, but I doubt it’ll happen
14: Do you prefer giving or receiving oral sex? I’ve received a lot more than I’ve given, but the person I was most involved with wasn’t that into receiving, so that’s skewed the results
15: Most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you during sex? I couldn’t finish the last time I did it and I think she thought she was the problem, but it was definitely shit going on in my head
16: A song you’d listen to during hard/rough/kinky sex? I’ve never experimented here, so I’m not really sure
17: A song you’d listen to during soft/slow/passionate sex? Same as above
18: Are you into dressing up for sex? I’ve never tried it, but I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed
19: Would you prefer sex in the bath or sex in the shower? Hmm... I’ve done it in the shower, but want to try in the bath because there’d be a lot more stability
20: If you could have sex with anyone right now, who would it be? I’m not into revealing things like this, especially because they’re someone mutuals know and I wouldn’t want to out them like that
21: Have you ever had a threesome? If not, would you? I haven’t, but I’m definitely interested
22: Do you/would you use sex toys? I don’t, but there are a few I’m intrigued by
23: Have you ever sent someone a dirty text/picture? Oh definitely, more of the former over the latter
24: Would you have sex with your best friend? It’s tough to determine a best friend at this point, so I’ll leave this one up in the air
25: Is there anything you do after sex? (for example, smoke, eat, drink) Pee/take a shower, if we got hot and heavy enough
26: Something that will never fail to get you horny? Knowing someone’s mutually interested in getting intimately involved with me
27: Early morning sex or late night sex? Late night, I’m not usually an early morning person for anything haha
28: Favourite body part on the opposite sex? Hmm... Speaking sexually, it’s always a toss up between the booty and boobs
29: Favourite body part on the same sex? Ehh, n/a
30: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find: I’ve stolen a few things, oops... And a few of them being inappropriate things from people I know, so I could never let those be found
31: Weirdest sexual act some has performed [or tried to perform] on/with you: N/a
32: Have you ever tasted yourself? [If no, would you?] [If yes, what did you think?] I mean, I made out with the last person I got a bj from after that act if that counts, it was just kinda a saltier taste haha
33: Is it ever okay to not use a condom: If you’re wanting a baby together; otherwise I’d rather stay safe and worry less about the baby thing or disease
34: A food that you would like to use during a sexual experience: Another thing I’ve not thought much about
35: Worst possible time to get horny: Probably a funeral
36: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans? Oh absolutely, but it’s also super fun when you have to be super quiet in an apartment so as not to attract the attention of your roommates in the living room, and you try everything you can to get each other to make a noise anyway
37: How much fapping is too much fapping: Eh, when it hurts I guess
38: Best sexual complement you ever got: “You’re so deep, babe” I haven’t gotten much else besides that
39: Favorite foreplay activities: Teasing each other until we can’t stand it anymore
40: What do you wear to bed? Usually just underwear, sometimes nothing
41: When was the first time you masturbated: Summer of seventh grade
42: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself? Not currently
43: Have you ever/when was the last time you had sex outside? Just the once a couple of months ago, if car sex counts
44: Have/would you ever have sex in public? Oh sure
45: Have/would you ever had a threesome? This one’s been answered
46: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate? This would kinda reveal something from question 30 and I don’t wanna
47: Do you watch gay/lesbian porn? why/why not? Lesbian sometimes, I’m more into solo things though
48: Do you like oral sex? (why/why not) Oh definitely, it adds to the interest rather than just with intercourse
49: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in? Fine by me, it’s their body, not mine
50: How would you feel about taking someones virginity? If they’re comfortable with it, so am I
51: Is there any food you would NOT recommend using during a sexual encounter? Probably syrup, that sounds like a terrible idea
52: Would you rather be a pornstar or a prostitute? Hmm, probably a prostitute, it seems like you’d have more options for choosing who you’re involved with there
53: Do you watch porn? Oh of course
54: Have you ever been called a freak? Why? Middle school was fucking awful, let’s just leave it at that
55: Do you feel comfortable going “commando”? Not usually, but I had to when I broke my leg, it was tough getting underwear over that x-fix
56: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn’t shaved their pubic hair? If was really thick, probably. I hate getting my own hair in my mouth
57: If you could give yourself head, would you? No I don’t think so
58: Booty or Boobs? Always a toss up, but if I’m really forced to choose: booty
59: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?) Not physically, but I said some inappropriate things to a couple of people outside of a relationship in high school and I’ll never be proud of that
60: If you were the other sex for a day, what are five things you would do? Think of the usual answers to this and those’ll probably be mine haha
61: have you ever watched someone masturbate? Oh yes, in a couple of situations
62: has anyone ever watched you masturbate? Same as above
63. Have you ever had an erection and someone noticed? Yep, a few awkward times, and a few that played to each others advantage
64. What is your method of masturbation? (ie. toys, clitorial, prostate) Just my hand haha
65. What is your bra/penis size? Just shy of 6″ if you must know
66. What is the strangest thing you have ever put up your vagina/anus? N/a
67. When was the last time you masturbated? Earlier today
68. When was the last time you had sex? April 29
69. When was the last time you watched porn? A week or so ago
70. Have you ever bought a sex toy? If so, which one did you buy last? First sex toy? If not, which one do you plan on buying when you do? I haven’t and I’m not sure when I will if ever
71. Guys:Circumsized? I am
72. Which not-genital part of your body do you like being touched? In a sexual situation, my thighs or knees oddly enough
73. Which genital part of your body do you like being touched? The only one I have haha
74. Girls:Are you able to achieve orgasm just through breast stimulation? N/a
75. Have you anonymously sent a sexual ask to someone on tumblr? Oh yes
76. When was the last time you have had a wet dream? A couple of weeks ago I think
77. Which wet dream was your favorite? The last one I had was definitely interesting, and it just happened to be about someone who doesn’t mind at all knowing (knew about this before talking to them about it haha)
78. Is there a friend you would willingly have sex with? Oh definitely, there are a few
79. Is there a celebrity/character you would willingly have sex with? Bonnie Wright and Maisie Williams are the first who come to mind right now
80. Favorite sexual position? Already been answered
81. Do you like being called a slut or whore in bed? No
82. Are you into any BDSM? Not particularly, but I’ve never experimented
83. Have you ever wanted to have sex with someone but knew you couldnt for any reason? Why? Oh absolutely, there are quite a few and it’d take a while to get into
84. Do you like dirty talk? It depends on the situation. Definitely over text, but I get too anxious in person usually
85. Are you loud or quiet during sex? Masturbation? Quiet during both haha, much like my usual personality
86. Have you ever been interrupted during sex or masturbation? Who/what? Masturbation, yes. A roommate knocked on my door needing my attention
87. What kind of porn do you like to watch? Already been answered in a few above
88. Have you ever confessed to someone that you got an erection over them? What about masturbated to them? Yeah...
89. Have you ever masturbated because your sexual partner wasn’t there when you needed them? A few times, but after we started having sex there wasn’t usually a night we weren’t together
90. Have you ever had a one night stand? Do you still keep in contact with them? Yes just the one, and we still talk occasionally because we’re friends, but we’re becoming more distant lately
91. Have you ever had a friends with benefits? Are they still beneficial? I haven’t, but there’s someone who’s mutually interested at the moment but we’re too far apart currently to try anything
92. Ask whatever you want - N/a
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aion-rsa · 3 years ago
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Star Trek: Enterprise – An Oral History of Starfleet’s First Adventure
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Before Discovery or Strange New Worlds, the early days of the future as postulated by Star Trek were explored in the television series Star Trek: Enterprise. Celebrating its 20th anniversary at the end of the month, it was set roughly 75 years prior to The Original Series, during the fledgling days of Starfleet, when humanity was first venturing out into the cosmos. 
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer captained the first starship given the name Enterprise, leading a team consisting of humans, a Vulcan, and a Denobulan. The voyage wasn’t always a smooth one, but certainly an important part of the canon. What follows, presented in oral history format, is a look back at the show’s formative days.  
BRANNON BRAGA (executive producer/co-creator): Star Trek always needs fresh blood. I left the franchise before Enterprise; I just said, “I can’t do this anymore.” I remember where I was and what I was working on and where I was standing and at what point in time when I officially burnt out on Star Trek. I decided not to do the seventh season of Voyager and then I was asked to create Enterprise. Rick Berman had a really cool idea for it and I said, “You know what? I’m going to do this one more time.” One could argue maybe I shouldn’t have. Rick was a really good overlord, but even he needed fresh writers. One could argue maybe we both should have left earlier. 
RICK BERMAN (executive producer/co-creator): As Voyager was ending, the studio came and said, “Let’s get another one up and going.” I begged them to let the franchise have a few years’ rest. In fact, they wanted it to start before Voyager ended and I managed to get them to at least wait until Voyager went off the air. The question was, what could we do that was different? I’d been working a great deal with Brannon, and so I asked him to work with me on creating a new series. Our decision, and I still think it was a good one, was to change the time period. We had done three shows that took place in the 24th century, and I thought it was time to go to another century. To go forward meant spacesuits that were a little sleeker and ships that were a little shinier, but it wasn’t that much to invent what had come before. 
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BRANNON BRAGA: Rick called me and said, “What do you think about setting it between the film First Contact and Kirk’s time?” And I said I thought that was a great idea. We started talking about it and considered what it would give us, and it evolved from there. We never considered another concept. We thought that First Contact seemed to be more of a relatable film somehow, because it had characters from the near future versus the distant future, and it allowed a more non–Star Trek audience to embrace Star Trek. You didn’t really have to know much to enjoy that movie. 
RICK BERMAN: There was no Star Trek canon to respond to how Earth got from being in this post-apocalyptic nightmare to being in the world of Kirk and Spock with Starfleet Academy. So our feeling was to pick a time somewhere within that, when the first humans are going into space on warp-capable vessels, and they’re not as sure of themselves as Kirk or Picard were. They’re taking baby steps. We knew, with Enterprise, that we wanted to turn the ship [the franchise] around. We were dealing with the time when the first warp-drive ship was being developed for a crew of humans. There were no holodecks and people didn’t beam themselves anywhere, they just beamed cargo. It just seemed to be the right idea, so it’s the one we pursued. 
BRANNON BRAGA: The biggest challenge was that the studio wanted something, but they were dubious about the prequel idea when we went in to pitch it. I don’t think they liked it very much. They thought Star Trek should be about moving forward and not moving backward. We were asking questions like, “How did we end up building the first warp ship? What was it like to meet a Klingon for the first time?” People had ball caps and walked dogs and wore tennis shoes and are more identifiable as people than, say, a Captain Picard, who is more of an idyllic man of the future that you probably wouldn’t recognize as a person that you could ever meet today. 
RICK BERMAN: From the point of view of some fans, there’s the great sense of continuity that the shows have had, and they’re very, very particular about that. A lot of them were not happy about things that they felt were outside the canon of Star Trek. A lot of them felt that Brannon and I ignored that, which we absolutely didn’t. We tried to pay great attention to it and we had people who knew Star Trek backward and forward that helped us, but obviously there were things that had to be dealt with and adjusted.
SCOTT BAKULA (actor, “Captain Jonathan Archer”): Enterprise is The Right Stuff. That kind of energy of being the first ones out there and being a little scared sometimes and being a little overwhelmed by the experience, which I think is a great emotion to have to play with. Americans have explored our planet in a variety of different ways. Some successfully, some not. We have a wide history of exploration in this country. Certainly different experiences in Vietnam and places like that where we tried to impose our ideas or philosophies on different cultures, and still are in many places around this planet. Making it more about the experience and less about planting the flag. In other words, enjoying the experience and learning from it, rather than saying, “Now we’re here and we’re going to tell you how to do it. We’ve got good ideas and can do things better than you.” So if you’re someone out there looking to do good, and looking to explore in a healthy way, there’s a great responsibility to that. As well as a great temptation to change and alter and fix. Which became this very wonderful kind of play within the show, which is, how are we all going to deal with not only being out there, but the choices we make? 
BRANNON BRAGA: Archer is something between Chuck Yeager and Kirk. He’s anything but the fully enlightened man that Picard is.
RICK BERMAN: It was very important for us to have a captain who was not necessarily that sure of himself, because we wanted him to be different from all the other captains. The other captains got on a spaceship at warp five or warp seven, they never thought twice about it. They ran into aliens every week and they never thought twice about it. We wanted a captain who was taking those first steps out into the galaxy; we wanted him to be a little green, a leader of men and at the same time, somebody who was in awe of everything he saw. With Scott, it just seemed like the perfect fit. 
JAMES L. CONWAY (director, Enterprise pilot): Scott Bakula was the only actor ever discussed for Archer. Problem was, his deal wasn’t closed until the table read of the script three days before production began. In fact, there were rumors he was going to a CBS comedy pilot and we got very worried. We had never met him, talked to him, or heard him do the material. All during the casting process the casting director was the only one to read Archer’s dialogue. So it was a relief and pleasure to hear Scott brilliantly bring Archer to life at the table read. 
SCOTT BAKULA: I responded to the idea of it and this character, and then I got the script for the pilot and everything just fell into place. I liked the character and it was really a return, in many ways, to what the original Star Trek was all about.
JAMES L. CONWAY: Scott brought a humanity to Archer that’s hard to put on the printed page. Also, as an actor and star of the show, Scott brought a top-notch work ethic and professionalism to the production. As star of the show, he set a great example for everyone. 
BRANNON BRAGA: The funny thing about Scott’s take on the character was he spoke in kind of an unusual cadence when he was Archer and I could never figure it out. Someone told me he was a huge John Wayne fan. I’ve never talked to Scott about it, but I think he may have been doing a little bit of a John Wayne thing. He was our only choice. 
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SCOTT BAKULA: We had a different dynamic on our show, and I’ve thought about it since then, because basically I was the older captain compared to the younger guys on the crew. John Billingsley’s in the middle there somewhere. That’s why I think the stuff between him and me was always special, even though he was nonhuman. There was a different kind of distance between characters created by the casting. We were building those relationships, but it was still from a different place. 
RICK BERMAN: John Billingsley is a character actor and somebody else who’s in tremendous demand. He’s just a wonderful guy. We wanted sort of a wise, quirky alien to play that role of Phlox. Somebody who would be our doctor, and he did a marvelous job. He’s another actor I would do anything to work with again. 
JAMES L. CONWAY: We were having trouble finding an actress for T’Pol. We read a lot of actresses, looked at a lot of names on a wish list, but couldn’t find anyone we liked. The role was critical, because she was a Vulcan and had to be able to “be” a Vulcan, yet still have sex appeal. Thankfully we saw a demo of Jolene’s work, loved it, and then met and read and loved her. 
JOLENE BLALOCK (actress, “T’Pol”): I grew up on Star Trek. My favorite was Spock. I would sit there with my dad and my brother just watching the show, watching the relationship between Captain Kirk, Bones, and Spock. My favorite relationship was between Bones and Spock, because it was just this animosity and this love-hate relationship. But overall there was such utter loyalty between all three of them. I love the way they worked together, just the way Bones would be, like, “You green-blooded fool.” Somewhere in The Next Generation, I got lost. 
BRANNON BRAGA: We wanted a Vulcan babe like Saavik, and wanted a Vulcan on board because the Vulcans were very antagonistic toward humans and she was essentially a chaperone, which really rankled Archer. Their relationship worked kind of nicely, and we saw T’Pol, Archer, and Trip as our triumvirate of characters. 
JOLENE BLALOCK: I personally believed that T’Pol should have more of her Vulcan culture. I didn’t believe she should be so desperate to be like everyone else, because the original Star Trek, which I grew up with, had a very simple message that I took from it, and that is that not everyone is like me, and I’m not perfect, and nobody’s perfect, and that’s okay. That really helped me.
RICK BERMAN: Connor was the only actor in four television series that I had to fight for. I just love this guy. I think he’s a remarkable actor, and I saw four pieces of tape on various things that he had done, and there was just something about him; that this character, Trip, that we had written, he was just made for. 
CONNOR TRINNEER (actor, “Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker III”): I wanted this job a lot. It was a good, time-tested franchise with a good audience. It had so many different things happening in it and it gave me the opportunity to play kind of a space cowboy—it was a dream job. Plus, you got to use your imagination as you’re meeting new species and races. Since this was our first time out, everything was new and we weren’t used to anything. You, as the actor, got to take in something as the audience did for the very first time, which was my experience as both an actor and a character. 
ANTHONY MONTGOMERY: It was incredible. There was an electricity that just ran to my core, and it was because I was sitting at the helm of a show, being a part of a franchise that I grew up with and knew about. I’m not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination, but I still understand enough about the franchise that it made me say, “Wow, this is real!” That was even more exciting and intense than when I got the call saying I got the part. 
RICK BERMAN: We were looking for an African American actor. We wanted someone young—we wanted this whole cast to be a lot more approachable, in a way; we wanted the audience to be able to relate to them more than they could other shows. Anthony was gorgeous, a terrific actor, and pretty much talked himself into the role the first day we saw him. We also wanted an Asian actor to play the role of communications officer and go back to a little listening device like Uhura had had in The Original Series. We also wanted her to be a translator of almost magical abilities. And Linda nailed it. We wanted somebody very vulnerable and someone who was not into flying on spaceships. In the first audition she completely got it and did very well. 
LINDA PARK (actor, “Hoshi Sato”): There’s a lot of growth that happened for me, not only as an actor in front of the camera, but as a businesswoman. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that part of being an actor is that you are your own business, especially when you become successful at any level; you see how you work as a business and you can’t say, “I’m just an artist, and I don’t need to concern myself with the practical,” because it’s just as important to keep your artistic tools as sharp as your business tool. That’s the biggest thing I learned. In the end, it is my career and my life that these decisions are being made about. 
RICK BERMAN: I had met Dominic on the first day of the last season of Voyager. He had the role of an English character. We were still a year away from going into production on the new series, but we were already starting to write it. He came in and I said to him, “We’ve got a role for you in a series that we’re creating that’s not going to be going on the air for eight or nine months, whatever it is, but I don’t want to use you up here.” This guy looked at me and said, “You’re right.” 
DOMINIC KEATING: I had a chat with Brannon and Rick where I said, “I’m quite excited, and honestly, I’ll say whatever you put in front of me, but I would like it that he isn’t just the talking head Brit on an American spaceship.” Brannon said, “You won’t be saying lines like ‘My dear old mum.’” When I read the breakdown, he’s described as “buttoned-down, by the book, wry, dry, shy around women.” I’m like, “Oh, crap, I’ve got to act this.” 
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JAMES L. CONWAY: The pilot of Enterprise was terrific. But then the first season was very repetitive and it felt like it was written by people who were burned out. And Brannon copped to this, saying he had made some bad choices in hiring staff and he was burned out from finishing up on Voyager. So I think that first season suffered and it took him awhile to re-steer that ship.
BRANNON BRAGA: When we were shooting the pilot and it was time for me to start writing episodes, I had a lot of things that I wanted to do. But once the ship officially set sail, I felt constrained. I felt, “Here we go again,” and I felt very challenged. Also, it was the first time I wasn’t working with people I’d worked with before. It was a large staff of ten people, and Star Trek was notoriously difficult to find writers for, because it was a hard show to write. I don’t even want to say hard; it’s unique. It just had a specific voice, and I had this writing staff that was new to the genre. Out of ten people, I think just a couple survived that first year. 
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Please note, as well, that there is a difference between a rewrite and what would essentially be a new story. Details can be discussed upon request. 
Another option is available as well. I will now offer a reduced price for any stories, drabbles, or ideas that you wish to have written if they belong to a story I’ve already written (or even an idea/AU I’ve simply talked about on my blog) or run along the themes of a simple plot with a specified fandom or pairing (such as ‘Character A runs a flower show while Character B runs a tattoo parlor. Write how they first meet.’ or ‘Write about this idea for this fanfiction you wrote a few months ago.’)
*2,000-5,000 words = $10 *5,000-10,000 words = $20
Taking into account the time it takes to plot, write, and proof a story, these prices cover what would roughly be minimum wage for my living area. All payment is done with PayPal invoices which means payment is received BEFORE the story is written and sent to you in a PDF format. With invoice you are able to pay in a variety of ways depending on what works best for you. Please keep in mind that while I do not expect payment in the plotting stages over email, I do expect payment before work on the story itself begins.
Full refunds are allowed and will be given if work on the story is minimal or has not yet begun, but once the story is underway, there will be NO REFUNDS.
★★★
Basic Information
All correspondence can be had through the email d.phantom94@gmail.com. When emailing me, please specify that you are seeking a Writing Commission piece and share with me the projected word count you wish for, the maximum you are able to pay, and a basic plot, prompt, or summary of the story you wish to see written. Upon acceptance of your request, I will email you and further discussion can happen about the piece.
Replies can typically be expected 1-3 days after the initial email is sent. The story will then be completed typically within 1-2 weeks or by the end of the current month once the details are worked out over correspondence and payment is sent. Please keep in mind that the longer the piece, the more time it will take.
If you need the completed piece done by a certain time, such as needing the story to gift to a friend for a birthday or other occasion, please tell me so and I will do my best to get it completed by the date you need it by.
★★★
Information Needed for Story
While you may approach me with a basic idea or prompt and a projected word count, upon acceptance I will ask for things such as characters you wish to be in the story, more details on what sort of story you wished to see written, any background or main relationships you’ll want to see, what Point of View preference you have, if any, and so on until a basic rough draft is completed.
★★★
Content Guidelines
I will do my best to write along whatever guidelines I am given, but I retain the right to refuse to accept a commission if I find myself unable to write for the content - whether due to a lack of knowledge or moral standing. I will also not write:
              *Music or Poetry: While I can write a short poem within a piece that a character might have written for another character, I have limited experience in Poetry and no experience in Music or writing music.
              *Out of Character (OOC): I will not write characters who would act wildly outside of how they are portrayed in the source material. While changes to them might be made depending on the story or AU, I will do my best to keep to how they come across in the source material (unless fanon is better).
              *Overpowered Original Characters: I will not write Original Characters that have skills outside of what they could conceivably have, meaning I won’t write for a character that is gifted at everything, utterly perfect, and is attractive to everyone around them. (I will, however, be happy to write for a character who thinks they’re gifted, perfect, and a gift from god before finding out the horrible truth.)
★★★
Copyright and Ownership Information
Please keep in mind the following information before ordering:
              *All stories, whether fanfiction or original work, have the possibility of being uploaded and cross posted to my writing accounts to serve as examples of my work.
              *Upon the story’s completion you will receive a PDF read-only version of the story that will be emailed to you. Please let me know in advance if you are unable to work with PDFs and I will instead send you a file that will be easier for you to work with.
              *You are allowed to share and re-post the work to your own accounts as long as credit is given back to Andrew Anderson and my tumblr at ibelieveinahappilyeverafter.
              *With original work or work written for fandoms with source material in the public domain I retain all intellectual rights of the piece and can, as such, choose to redistribute, self-publish, or sell to a publishing company.
                          -In regards to copyright and intellectual properties, I would hold the rights to the original stories I write and be able to publish them as I wished, but I would not use any Original Characters that you personally commissioned me to put into the story. I would instead rewrite those scenes with different characters so none of your work would be claimed as mine in any situation.
                         -Original Characters here would mean detailed characters with profiles that you send to me to be written about and not characters with only a name, vague description, or small role within the story itself. An example of a character I would keep versus a character that would remain yours would be: Bob the blacksmith who likes blueberries versus Robert Tiller who works as a local blacksmith in his town, is quick to anger, maintains a garden, and lives three towns away from his parents.
                         -In regards to any commissioned story that would be all of your Original Characters, I might take the idea of the story (such as the plot and what happens to the characters) and use it again in future work, but your characters, as always, would remain yours and yours alone.
★★★
Final Information
Thank you so much for your interest and reading everything here and I look forward to working with you in the future! Remember to contact me at my email or here on my blog for any questions you have about the commissions, even if it’s a simple price check.
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Text
Dear Ex Boyfriend,
I have done some thinking. I have done my fair share of bitching and moaning. I have whined to anyone and everyone. I’ve been angry, hurt, frustrated, confused. I have spoken honestly and candidly with a therapist. I have spoken to friends and family. I have posted things on Instagram. I have done it all. But I slowed to a halt and I finally had a moment to myself. I stopped to think about the past, the present and the future. I stopped to think about what I want out of life, what I am pushing myself towards and if I am pushing myself towards these things strictly for me. I have come to some conclusions. I have already opened some doors to new possibilities. But I cannot make any moves before I share some thoughts, and maybe give and receive some clarity.
I think there will be three parts to this. 
1)     Letting you know what I have done. Aka the above list but also a few other things.
2)     The long as letter I wrote to you when I woke up at the crack of dawn. When I woke up to some clarity, that I needed to write down, because I needed you to know.
3)     Pen pal status achieved.
Do what you will with all of this. You might choose to not read it at all, or you might choose to use it as fire starter. I cannot control what you do, but I can control what I do. And I really want to do this.
Back to 1…
I wrote letters. A lot of letters. This letter to you being one of them. I also wrote goodbye letters to your entire family (minus Ian and Heather, I don’t think they really deserve one). The letters are to your Mother, Aunt, Father, L, and your Gran. They all state in some degree that I am so sorry this is the outcome of the last 3 years. That I will miss numerous things we would do together, and treasure memories. That I loved them all like family, and they will forever be my Scottish family. I also thanked them all for sharing you with me over these past 3 years.
I have decided to not send them yet. Because I am doing that now. I am doing a little more thinking before I leap. I am thinking about the perception of these letters, and how maybe you haven’t told your family yet. But I also have held on to a strange glimmer of hope that you don’t want to tell them either.
For this reason, I have not sent the letters. I won’t send them for a while to come. I won’t send them until I get a response from you, or the long passing of time signifying a response.
I got this whole grand letter idea from you. At first, I though it was such a cop out. To write a letter to someone. But then I started. It became like a weird form of therapy putting my thoughts and feelings onto pages that these people may never ever see. But at least they were off my chest. Rather than a list of things to say running through my mind, I had documentation that I could add to as I thought of more things to think about. In a weird way this made me understand why people journal. Why people write their thoughts and feelings down, their hopes and dreams. Its cathartic. It gives you time to process. It forces you to think about your choice of words. Because words can be taken in a million ways, so you have to ensure to use the right ones and at the right time as to not unknowingly alter the truth.
I wrote a letter to your Dad and L. I wrote a letter to your Aunt and Gran. I started a letter to your Mom. It has been the hardest to write (other than this one). Because I have so much to say to her. Despite the fact that I know she is your biggest supporter, or maybe in spite of that… I am not sure what word to use here (prime example of choice of words skewing the truth). I don’t want to write to her because she supports you, but at the same time, that is exactly why. Because I think she is the only one that blindly loved and supported you the way I had. I think she understands me deeper than the others. We spent more time together one-on-one than anyone else. We had a different connection, that became its very own relationship. She was my pseudo mom and my friend too.
I guess here is how I want 2 to go down…
I wrote you a long ass letter. And I mean long. And this is from someone that hates writing but also wrote a massive thesis. I recommend reading it when well fed, and well rested. Also, with a beer in hand, because most things are better with a beer in hand. Also, on a sunny day. Please save this for a rare but ultimately next level beauty that is a sunny day during the springtime in Scotland. Birds chirping, flowers blooming, the warmth in the air, and the sun taking longer and longer to set.
Set the mood for yourself.
Take time to read it.
Reread it.
Take time to digest it.
 And 3…
If you feel compelled to reply, please do.
But reply through a letter. I want to remove the technology between us. You will understand why after you read this. I think being pen pals for the next little while could do us some good. Slowing down our response time and giving us time to think. 
And when the day is perfect, the mood is right, your stomach is full, and you have a beer in hand. I hope you read this, I hope you digest it, and I hope you respond.
Ex Girlfriend
Save for a sunny day with beer in hand:
 Ex Boyfriend, I want this nightmare to end. 
But the problem is that the nightmare isn't a dream it's my new reality, and with it comes restless nights. I can't sleep anymore; my body has decided that 5.5hrs is all I am allowed. It doesn't matter how late I force myself to stay up. My body doesn't want sleep. I think it thinks this is a nightmare too, and it’s trying to wake me up from it. 
I didn't truly understand why you chose to do what you did. It didn't make much sense to me. To abandon ship due to disagreements and depression seemed like a cop out for a relationship that spanned 3 years. Those are the reasons people go to couples’ therapy, or work on their communication. Those aren't the reasons to sever 3-year long ties. Those aren’t the reasons to end a 50-year long future, and to toss away the jigsaw puzzles of stories being sewn together to create J from ages 0-22. It doesn't seem like a good reason to throw away 75 years of stories, memories, and plans. 
But something changed. Shifted. We were so happy. We were each other's best friend. We couldn’t imagine life without one another. And frankly I couldn't understand how I got so far without you. You became my entire support system. Which was a lot to put on someone in their early 20s. To expect them to want to grow up with me. Not everyone wants to grow up yet, some people want to experience the freedom of being young a little longer.
I think that is where our issues started. I wanted plans, a future, goals. I thought I craved those things. I tried to force those things. But I don't think you ever wanted those exact things, neither did I. I saw how with a little work now; we could live off of my future paycheck and travel forever. How I could free you from a 9-5 by placing myself into a position I could still be proud of. You wanted to make income off of jobs here and there. But I wanted to ensure our financial stability. I wanted to know we could stay in a nice hotel periodically, fly home in an emergency, spoil our van pet, repair and upgrade as needed, but mostly I wanted to assure you that I could give you the life you wanted. 
You always wanted to be the provider. That was the role you would try to force yourself into. I don't know that you wanted that role, or if you just felt you had to do it. But you never seemed entirely happy in that role. You seemed happy to make me happy, but not happy with the duties of that role. That's why I wanted to take that role from you. I wanted to get not just any income, but an income that would mean you didn't really need one. I did the whole struggling student thing for years; I could do it for many more, for the right reasons. And you were the right reason. 
I chose a PhD for the monetary future it could bring us, the stability, and the ease it would bring for visas. I knew with a PhD would come job opportunities, and countries are very giving when it comes to visas for those blessed with a higher education. I didn't want the visa processes to slow us down ever. In my mind I knew I wanted to marry you, but I wasn't sure you wanted the same future along the same timeline. So, I didn't want to add the pressure of marriage to give us access to visas that would ease our travel. I didn't want to force anyone to love me, or choose me, or marry me. So, I moved forward with a PhD. 
I could have stayed in Scotland. Forever. It has its quarks. Some good, and some bad. But I could have stayed there forever. The hardest thing I did was move home. It felt like we had broken up that day. My heart hurt for weeks. Because I moved away from my other family, from my other home country, and from you. But I pressed on. I needed to be strong and slowly build a feasible life in Canada that I could live as I waited for you and that you could easily slip into. I planned the vehicle to be large enough for you, the bus routes to be accessible for me, the furniture to be pleasing for both of us. I wanted you to find comfort everywhere you turned knowing I thought of you every step of the way. I planned it all out. Every bit. I was ready for you to move over at the end of the summer. Or just before Christmas. Or just after. I knew by then you'd have to be over, a visa couldn't possibly take much longer. 
But you missed the visa window. It was like a punch to the gut. I made all of these plans. I thought I had accounted for everything. But not that. Maybe that's the difference between us. Or maybe you already fell out of love with me then. But for me, the first thing I did when we were separate was apply for a visa back. There were setbacks, delays. Moving my return from September to the new year. Funding no longer existed and my friendship with someone I thought was an ally, Julia, crumbled. But I pressed on. I thought I'd find funding and work and new friends. It's the bigger picture. Its a future with you. 
So, I made it work. I flew over on the worst flight paths of my life. Bouncing from one lounge to the next. Thank god for those lounges. Thank god for free food and comfy chairs. I was stressed out of my mind. I just wanted to be with you already. I felt like I had jumped through enough hoops to prove I wanted to be there. This was just another one. 
The finish line of arrivals was bittersweet, and luggage light. But I didn't have time to dwell on that stress. We had a flight in a few hours to a trip away. A sunny trip meant to celebrate my homecoming, and our relationship marching onward. My hormones were out of wack due to my birth control enjoying some quality time with the rest of my lost luggage. Which meant the fun for that trip had only just begun. We made the clothes work, as I got more bloated each day due to an impending period. My skin got worse, as hormonal acne showed up only when you least need another reason to not look in the mirror. That trip could have been a complete mess. But it was far from. Minus spending a night on the toilet because I just had to try that bite of your fish. The trip was good. You kept my spirits up, you loved me through the cloud of hormonal turn offs, and you joined me on a period product scavenger hunt. 
I fell deeper in love with you that trip. Because everyday could have been worse. As I bloated and the tight clothes got tighter. My skin got worse, and I was forced to expose it in a string bikini. My period arrived. It was a vacation in a sunny paradise nightmare. But the nightmare never truly hit. You kept it away. 
I had a lot of nightmare scares. Moving to a new country does that. You worry about a lot. Especially when your main source of support is a relationship that isn't even a year old, and a family you don't know that we'll yet. I didn't feel like it was my place to lean on these people. They weren't mine. They were yours. But support me they did. Through visits and happy birthday cards. They welcomed me to their family with open arms, I think they could see the love in your eyes. I couldn't see the love. It's not that it wasn't there it's just that I could believe it. I couldn't believe I deserved it. The term "punching" came to mind after hearing you utter it about others. I realized that I was the one "punching". 
I felt like was punching in more ways than one. I didn't feel like my life was meant for me. It was a mistake. After years of hardships. This seemed all too easy. I suddenly had the perfect guy, and the perfect family, in an amazing country. My entire life, I suddenly felt like I was punching. 
I never felt good enough. I knew you could do so much better. I saw how I looked and how you looked. I knew the burdens of inner battles in my head that came as a package deal with me. But you never saw any of that. You just saw me. It was just me; every quark was me. You wanted me. 
A year of ups and downs went by. As I couldn't hide who I truly was anymore. I was stressed and anxious galore. Our phone calls were interrupted by early morning PT or nights out with the boys. It was hard to be second chair to a life a didn't understand. I only got you for a few hours and when those hours were even slightly diminished it hurt. I was a lonely extrovert talking to a face on a phone. In hindsight I should have known I was going struggle. 
But you visited as often as possible, you stayed up late with me as late as possible. We found creative ways to watch shows together. We new every hurdle would one day bring us a little bit closer. It did. We had our fights, that were too easily ended with a hung-up phone. I admit that the one thing that saved us also became our downfall. Technology made it so easy to connect, but just as easy to disconnect. I didn't want an online relationship. I wanted it in person. 
My wish did eventually come true. You came home. I think for once I was happier to see another human than W. Thank the Lord I didn't have a tail, or it would have broken from wagging. I thought here we go. That's it. We did it. Our happy ever after starts now. I didn't listen to the warnings from D S of the impending troubles. That it will get worse before it gets better. But I thought not us, no way, we had far too much love. But he was right. I don't know that you ever knew, I am not sure that you could see the changes like I could. But it happened. The army stole something from you. I don't know what it stole. I think it stole your youth, but I only think that now. I never knew what it stole then. 
You struggled. You never admitted it, but I could see it. You didn't want to open up, I think the army stole that ability from you as well. But I knew you. I knew you so incredibly well. So, I also assumed I could fix you. That was the first mistake. I should have urged you to seek help. To find someone you could talk to, so that you could continue to put on a brave face for me. In hindsight I think that was the kiss of death.
I tried to accept you into my daily routines. But it was hard. I became very accustomed to a lifestyle Walt and I created. It worked for him and I, we had many months of understanding each other to make it work. But you and I. We didn’t get months of trial and error while recreating a routine. We were tossed into a flat together and just expected to swim. But we barely tread water. I wanted the version of you the army took away. But that version of you was built by the army. But I didn't want to give you back. A twisted catch 22.
I know you never wanted to treat me the way you did. I know you never wanted to force me into a housewife role. To come home angry from work. To tell me I didn't do enough chores, or that I didn't vacuum properly. That's never what you wanted. I knew that wasn't you. I knew this was the struggle Dave warned me about. You were going to become a different person. You were grieving the loss of a lifestyle you became accustomed to. Perhaps it was my fault for not pushing back earlier, for letting you become a different person. I thought that I was helping, but I couldn't keep up the housewife facade. And it came crumbling down. The fights became more frequent along with the tears.
But I pressed on. Echoes of friends telling me I shouldn't have to go through this. I shouldn’t allow myself to be treated this way. I should leave you. But I would never do that. You were my support system through my toughest year. I was now yours. I wasn't going to give up. I saw flashes of the real you as we slow danced in the kitchen and went on gelato filled dog walks. I knew you were coming back to me. But my visa was ending. I finally got to see you coming back to me. And I was being forced to leave. I didn't want to leave. I looked at spouse visas with a 6-month wedding date clause. I looked at work visas, but I couldn't find jobs to pay me enough. I looked at student visa, but schools wouldn't fully fund me. I didn't want to burden you again with my degree not being funded. So, I expanded the search. 
I landed where I am now. In the hopes that you would soon follow. I made every decision thinking, that I must think for us both. Because you would soon follow. I couldn’t be selfish, as you were selflessly going to follow. But time passed and you didn't follow. You visited in the summer and stated you had yet to make any progress. It was the scariest sentence I had heard you utter. You thought about jobs in Calgary and chatted with ex military guys about it. But you still hadn't applied. It scared me. Did you not want to be here? I didn't want you to go through the struggle of moving to another country just for me. I wanted you to want to be here for more than one reason. But I guess I only ever was the reason. It was only me. And that should have been good enough for me, that should have filled my heart. I realize that now, and I have a delayed onset of that heart filled feeling.
I didn't want it to be only me. Because I worried it wasn't reason enough. I didn't think I was worth the move. In the end I guess I wasn't. But I think that is because I believed I wasn’t, it was easy to convince you of that same thing. If I couldn’t believe it, how could anyone else?
School started and it was a lot, fast. Too much. I was underprepared for this. I once again didn't feel like enough. I felt out of place. Like I had duped them. And now the 4-year fake-it-till-you-make-it had just begun. But I pushed on. I had to. This was in the plan. I had to do this for us. You were going to follow me to Canada, I had to do my part. I had to become comfortable in my new home. Create a social life. Create a network. I had to understand it and thrive in it, so that you could too. Even if that wasn’t what you wanted or needed of me. I didn’t ask, I just made the decision. I should have asked. In the end I did what you did to me. I took our few screen-time chatting hours and limited them. But not with PT or a night out with the boys. My life didn't stop phone calls early, it made them start late. Meetings, classes, office hours. My life started to do what yours had. It whittled down what little time we had. 
I wanted to blame you for it. For going to bed early so you could work out before work. I wanted to blame you for the whittled hours. But this time it was me. We were both trying to stand on our own two feet. Assuming that the other person was doing a better job at it than they actually we're. I tried to admit my struggles to you, as you admitted yours to me. But it just became screaming matches of who was struggling more, and technology letting us disconnect to easily. 
But we pressed on. After I coerced you into applying for a visa to Canada over Christmas. We pressed on. But I think by then that you maybe had already checked out. Conversations didn't include the words "when I come to Canada" or "assuming at that point I am not in Canada". They just included plans you had for yourself for the summer, and plans your family was making for Christmas. But they never included the word "Canada". I noticed. I don't know that you did. I don't know that it was on purpose. But I noticed. And to me it spoke volumes. In my mind I had now forced you to apply to a future you didn't want or weren't ready for. The one thing I never wanted to do. I didn't want to push you out of the army, or into marriage. I didn’t want to push you ever. I wanted you to make every choice on your own. Which was a lot to ask considering I hadn't made a choice just for me in a long time. But I should have asked you, I shouldn’t have just noticed this happening. I should have spoke up and asked the questions, to settle my worries and possibly your own.
On this one day I made a choice. A selfish choice, a bone headed choice. An angry 25-year-old going through a quarter life crisis kind of choice. We went on a hike one day. Drinks in tote. And we sat just north of Glen Devon. We had a spat earlier. You asked me this:
"If I asked you to marry me would you say yes?"
I was still licking my wounds after our fight. I said, "I don't know". I didn't want to scare you. I said "I am moving to Canada, and you are here, and it's all so up in the air. So, I just don't know." That wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth. I didn't want to scare you with a resounding "yes", I didn't want you to think I forgot our earlier spat. But my answer was yes. Yes. A million times yes. Throwing myself on top of you. Planting a kiss on you. Rolling around in the tick covered moss. Yes. But I didn't say that. I didn't do that. I played myself. 
I shot myself in the foot that day. It's not like you had a ring in your back pocket. It's not like you were actually proposing. But maybe in your head you were. This was the equivalent. You wanted to be sure of the answer before you asked the biggest question of your life. And I selfishly squandered it. I thought about that specific moment for days. I still do. Clearly. I am sorry. I am sorry for the interaction. Because I wanted to redo that moment, immediately after I answered you. I wanted to throw myself on you. But I saw the hurt in your eyes I so vindictively wanted. I wanted to take that hurt away but after I let it sit for a while. I think I let it sit too long. 
So, in the end you did make a choice. All on your own. Just the way I always wanted. It wasn't the choice I had hoped for. I fought battles for us for so long. Battles only I knew about. And I thought you would continue to do the same. I know now that you were also fighting battles that I didn't know about. We should have shared that with each other. I couldn't quite ease your pain the way a childhood friend could. I couldn't offer that same historical comfort. I didn't have 25 years under my belt, filled with the good old days. I had 3 years of career changes, new degrees, new countries, death, and moving to a new house. I had 3 years of shit couples go through over their entire lives. We lived 50 years in 3. 
I'd still live 50 years with you. I'd do a lot of insane things for you. You wouldn't ask me to quit my PhD. But I would have. You wouldn't ask me to move back to Scotland. But I would have. You always asked me what I'd do if I had won the lottery and in my head I already had. You asked me if I would drastically change my lifestyle for money. And now I wonder if when you said money, you meant you. I could win the lottery and I wouldn't change my life. But I hit the jackpot with you, and I would change for you. You just didn't ask the right questions. I would stop working, travel the world, quit my degree, and live in a van for you. Because ultimately everything I was doing, every decision I had made, I had you in the back of my mind. 
I go to bed before 2 and I wake up before 8. I wake up waiting for this nightmare to end. Trapped in our home countries by a pandemic. The one person I'd want to go through a pandemic with. But I can't. I can't because I moved away. I can't because you didn't follow. And now I don't know that I ever will. This pandemic in a weird way could have been good to us. You could have worked from home. I could have worked from home. We would have basically pretended we were living in a more spacious van with a proper kitchen and washroom. We would have finally got to feel what spending every day and every hour together was like. No stress or distraction from visas ending, thesis due dates, moving to a new house, financial strain, or childhood best friends. Just the two of us. 
I like to think that if I stayed. We would be okay. We would be past the worst of it. Minus your job. But I would have gotten a job. And we would suffer through shit jobs. All in the name of #vanlife. 
I like to think that if you followed. We would be okay. We would be past the worst of it. Minus my degree. But you would have found work. And we would suffer through it together. All in the name of #vanlife. 
I think we both made the wrong decision. In the hopes that the other would make the right one. But neither of us wanted to force the other. Neither of us wanted to take away from each other's futures or goals. We thought we were being fair or giving. But we were being stupid. 
We failed in a key aspect. And had we still been together we wouldn't have ever noticed. We needed this breaking point to shed light on the obvious. Our communication is and was shit. Our days were filled with assumptions, and words left unsaid. Technology let us disconnect too easily
I think we still have a fighting chance. If you told me to jump, id say how high. Not because of the breakup. But because of the pandemic. I think I finally had that moment to step back and think about what is really worth it in life. What do you really want in life? How do you want to spend your 80 years? I spent 22 of them alone. Pursuing education. I spent 3 of them with you. Pursuing education. And now I am once again alone. Pursuing education. I thought education brought me joy. But really it was just a crutch. A safety net. I knew it would always be there. In the way I had hoped you would be. 
I know you have already found some sort of peace. You seemed relieved to end the relationship. Like you had been waiting months to cut ties. Suffocating. You get to distract yourself with work. With your best friend. You get to distract your mind from us by worrying for your gran, your aunt, your dad, and your mother. Your head gets to race from thoughts of work to family to nothing after a few puffs with J. 
I haven't found peace. I don't know that I will anytime soon. People telling me to get over it. I deserve the best. He wasn't all that. But they don't know you like I did. You were the best to me; you were worth it. I sit in a state of denial where you still are the best and you still are worth it. I want you to be happy. But I want me to be happy too. I want a friendship. That's a lie. I want a relationship. I want my Scottish family back. I want my future back. But I have lost control over all of those things. 
I think I finally realized what you meant by being a victim of life. I think you saw me becoming the same victim of life that your Dad is. Suffering through a life of 9-5s. I don't think you meant that I was a victim, but that I had fallen victim. I think you chose your words wrong. Or at least that's what I tell myself. I wish you had used the proper words in the first place. I wouldn't have felt attacked. With time I would have felt cared for. Because I think that is all it was. You cared. And you were watching me slip the way you did after leaving the army. A victim of life. You found solace in the wind and clouds rushing past you. A reason for the 9-5. 
I think I have found a weird form of hopeful solace in you. I think in the worst way possible; you opened my eyes. You opened my eyes to our relationship and how I wandered blindly though it for months. I see how I was falling victim. I see how you saw me. I see why you finally left. 
But I hope this letter makes you think. Maybe makes you see what I saw. The way I think I have started to see what you saw. 
I think I am ready to stop being a victim of life. I actually spoke with Jim. I spoke to him about pausing my program, or the possibility of entirely dropping out. I think I wanted a PhD, I think I still want one. But I cannot honestly say I want it for any other reason than to rub it into people’s faces, just to prove that I could do it, so I did it. Which is a really stupid way to spend the last years of my 20s. I think I fell victim to life, but even more so to other’s perceptions of me. I wanted everyone to proud of me, impressed with me, to wish they were me. But when I finally took a moment to step back, step away from it all, and allow myself to just think and feel. I realized that those reasons are not the right reasons to do anything. The only reason should be “is this what I want, and will it make me happy?” and if you can’t say “yes and yes”, then the answer overall is “no”.
So, I sat, and I thought. What do I want? What will make me happy? And I came to a pretty obvious conclusion. My conclusion will frustrate people, confuse people, and might not be wildly supported by my social circle or society. But then again who cares. Fuck society in general. But also, people should learn to just be happy for people when they are doing something that makes them happy. The people that truly love and care for me, they will be happy.
So yes, we are trapped in a pandemic. Yes. we are trapped in our countries. And for some of us, we are trapped in our homes. But being trapped is what gave me the time to actually stop and think. To not throw myself into school or work, but to just think. I know what I plan to do when this pandemic ends, and when the world slowly returns to normal. I hope that you can maybe come to a similar conclusion.
Fuck being a victim.
Ex Girlfriend
I hope you choose to communicate with me this way. I understand if you choose not to. But please let me know when you receive this letter, and if you choose to not respond just tell me that too. I don’t need a reason; I just don’t want to sit waiting for a letter in return.
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seasaltmemories · 8 years ago
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Dennis’ Connection to Zarc: Arc V Character Analysis
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So this may or may not be a little series I do.  While I have no hard plans, I’d enjoy going through the cast in whatever order I choose and talking about whatever aspect of the character I feel compelled to tackle at the moment in a very personal and subjective matter.  As a result if this is well-received and/or I find myself interested in continuing this I might share my thoughts on other characters in the future.
Due to @skittymon’s encouragement on this post and the fact it’s been about a year or so since episode 114, I think I’ll dive into what really stood out about Dennis’ character to me.
While I love the non-counterpart cast of Arc V to bits, I feel like Dennis is the prime example for why I believe that Arc V wasn’t really about the counterparts themselves.  Starting with the public reveal of his connection to Academia in season 2, every time he appeared I was left with this sense of  “this changes things”  His arc really builds on the themes and message of Arc V while giving a weight to different aspects of the plot.
Starting with episode 74-75 was really the first time I really thought deeply about Dennis as a character.  That’s not to say his earlier appearances are bad (I love his duel against Gongenzaka) but it introduces a very human element to Academia: reluctance.  He’s not like Yuri, the Obelisk Force, or Sora (from what we had seen so far) who deeply believe in Academia’s goals and enjoys fighting for the cause, but he’s not like Serena, someone who can turn his back on it so easily.  It’s just his job, one that he continues on doing despite the regrets it leaves him with.  Still this doesn’t excuse the harm he’s caused.  Even though he prefers to entertain as opposed to battle, there’s no erasing the fact he started a war.
Drifting into the hypothetical a bit, but this is why the only ship that I personally wish was canon is Janushipping.  Not even in a romantic context, just that they had explicitly known each other.  In the flashback we’re shown, he is on enough good terms with Ruri that waving to her as they pass by is not unusual.  Now this doesn’t signal a deep friendship or anything, but if there had been just a smidge more focus on it or at least an acknowledgment of it by Ruri, I feel it could have added a different type of pathos to the Heartland Invasion.  Seeing your home burn to the ground is very traumatic and horrifying, but it is an alien concept to most ppl and hard to empathize with.  Being able to add a human face to it through Dennis’ betrayal of Ruri adds a dimension (lol) that is much easier to relate to.  It would also give a bit more weight to Ruri as a person by showing her outside the role of Shun’s sister and Yuto’s friend/crush, but I digress.
By the time 112-114 roll around, it’s pretty easy to ignore this past revelation as Dennis acts the part of heartless soldier pretty well.  It’s only at the end of 114 do we see a continuation of this conflict.  By now he’s decided that he doesn’t want to continue and support Academia, but at the same time he feels he doesn’t doesn’t deserve redemption.  Yusho himself offers forgiveness to him with no strings attached, but the conflict between who he is and what he’s done drives him to card himself.  It’s one of the most somber moments of the series and deserving so bc we just watched a young teen commit the equivalent of suicide.  While by now we know he can return and we see this happen on-screen, there’s still the fact that Dennis thought the best fate for himself was to not exist.
Tying this in with other events, it really gives a weight again to redemption, something I think Arc V tried to do.  Winning people over to Yuya’s ideology in one duel wasn’t really done until season 3, when the show presents him as his most developed.  Before, the only person who switches so easily is Serena who unlike almost any other Academia soldier was not aware of the level of violence being done.  Sora took nearly half of season 2 before he declared himself as defecting from Academia and initially he was very much against doing more than making sure his loved ones (Yuzu and Yuya) were safe.  In season 3 the mass defecting of Academia forces can feel odd after such slow processes but in-between it all we’re smacked in the face with a character who feels redemption isn’t possible.  It’s a harsh reminder that comes very unexpectedly and also goes to differentiate the three ‘redeemed’ members of the “Fusion quartet”  as this post by @x-ali-chan-x nicely summarizes 
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Next this also reminds the viewer that these are child soldiers.  In a fantastical series such as Yugioh the horror of this is nowhere near the level of reality, but it’s still hurts.  As many victims he’s hurt, Dennis is a victim himself, and it’s very hard to ignore that act when faced with these actions.  On another note it almost mirrors Zarc’s fall before he even learn his existence.  To declare either as blameless is to outright ignore the show, but outside circumstances are both a key factor.  If left to their own devices, both would probably prefer to simply entertain ppl. Even if the damage of their actions outweighs any sympathy in your eyes, that doesn’t take away the tragic elements to their struggle.
Interestingly enough, exactly 30 episodes later is when we get a resolution to Dennis’ arc.  To understand the impact of this, context is required.  The fanon around Dennis’ character was largely composed of angst and hurt with the only sign of recovery being shown as happen years in post-canon  I say this as someone who was writing fanfic like that bc the fact 144 is so optimistic hit everyone out of right field.   Not only was it positive, but it felt right, better than any conclusion others had proposed.  I remember discussing with a friend how the idea of him becoming a teacher and sort of finding his redemption in the next generation was something that had never occurred to her yet it was perfect.
Personally 144 is one of the reason I will never discount the “make Reira smile” arc as pointless.  To me the duel between Yuya and Dennis shows the best of entertainment dueling in several subtle ways.  At the beginning Dennis is falling into some old habits, painting himself as a villain for Yuya to defeat and make everything better with.  Though his self-carding is never outright mentioned its memory is hard to ignore as he still views himself as unworthy of being “good.”  Then Yuya flips the script and reaches out to him.  The duel becomes less about vanquishing a foe and more about understanding someone else to build a bigger and brighter future than before.  In a way this prepares the audience again for how Yuya will handle Zarc.  The way Yuya overcomes Zarc’s shadow is by trying to understand him and instead of damning him showing how better alternatives exist.
So again when I see the statement that the counterparts were the star of the show, I have to disagree.  Even if some of what I pointed out was more coincidence as opposed to intentional actions on the creator’s part, I feel you can’t argue that Dennis’ role in the story wasn’t meant to have importance to the overall narrative.  And for the most part I think many agree.  Despite supporting character I have only seen one person express dislike for him.  Usually the coldest reaction I see is indifference or neutrality, and that is overshadowed by the love I see showered on him.  His impact sticks in a way I think the character himself would be proud to see.
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cashflownotepad · 5 years ago
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Now that thing is done, I can finally say that this is the biggest rehab and biggest refinance deal that I ever have ever done up to date. The whole thing was a roller coaster ride from the beginning since we had no idea what we are doing.
Up until the appraisal value came out, the whole project could be still a bust but I am so glad thing turned out well.  I will try to recap it below:
Jenny and I start to look for the next Airbnb project after our initial success with the Tiny House. there are not a lot of unrestricted lot around or within our city. After Countless searching hour. we are able to find one on the MLS. It was a beat-up house,, almost a teardown and the seller decided to drop the price by $2,000 every day until he got a buyer.
We did what we always do. running comps and check out the unit. If you want #infinitereturn, you need to make sure the appraisal value, market value of the house is, of course, more than what you put into the house, and the monthly rental rate have to be enough to support the mortgage. For example. If you buy the house for $100,000, and spend another $100,000 to fix it up, the house needs to worth least $275,000 after repair. Then your loan officer can help you cash it out 75% or 80% of that value depend on where you live, you get all your capital out, and have a house.
That is exactly what we did with the Attic Project. I will talk about the construction aspect of the project in a different post. Just want to illustrate what was done here on the number, We bought the house for 105,000. Spent more than $100,000 to fix it up and furnished it (yes, is the biggest rehab we ever did).
Here are some before and after pictures
Some work in progress pictures
I just checked zillow and they still have the old pictures when we bought it
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One of my Airbnb guests actually google the addressed, got freak out, and call me to confirm…
Luckily It looks like this after the renovation now
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/31833509?source_impression_id=p3_1568641277_01kLsbgRyJ4w%2FrXH
Anyway, the math looks like this. Bought it for 105k and some, fix for 100k and some. total in is 200k
I am so stressed out when the appraiser came. but long story short, the appraisal value came back to be $275,000. That allows me to cash all my capital out (75% of the appraised value), get the asset on a long term solid financing plan (30 years mortgage at 4.35%) PITI is around $1300 a month and the room upstair is bringing in also around $1300-$1500 a month before expense (yes, those toilet paper added up, I have guest that used the whole roll in a day. I don’t know what the heck they are doing..)
I know the number suck. some month I went negative cashflow on some month. The way I look at it is that I haven’t unlocked the full potential of the house yet. that $1500 a month is just from one room. Downstair with two-room is still underutilized, and the lot is 10,000 sqft, which is enough for… you guys know what will come next on the back!
Thanks for following as always. feel free to leave feedback, question or comment below
    The Granddaddy refinance of 2019 – The Attic Project Now that thing is done, I can finally say that this is the biggest rehab and biggest refinance deal that I ever have ever done up to date.
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creativerogues · 8 years ago
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Playing Younger Characters in D&D
Originally Posted by Tribality:
This week on the Campaign Trail I’m looking at player characters (PCs) that are younger than what is assumed by the player’s handbook. There are many reasons players ask to play a child character, such as my kids who want to play PCs that match their age in real life.  There are great examples of younger characters out there that might inspire a player such as Alice In Wonderland, Peter Pan, Harry Potter, Arya Stark, Arthur “Wart” Pendragon or Laurana Kanan (a young 75 year old elf). 
This article provides you and your players with some ideas for taking on this character building and roleplaying challenge.
Younger characters are basically just a character who has falls into an age range below that assumed by the rules. As in life, children can be mentally and physically talented, but they have not yet reached their potential. When playing a younger character you can play the regular rules and just make a character who fits your idea of someone a little younger. You could add mechanics to the game to restrict the abilities, advancement and options of younger players, but that isn’t fun or how things are done in 5th edition. So I’d like to propose the following for playing younger characters.
Adjusting Encounters & Traps
Throwing deadly encounters and traps at younger players who are playing a younger PC might not be a great idea. You might still put their character in peril, but you might remove the threat of death. You could also create adventures that are more about helping NPCs with problems, exploring and solving puzzles. You might even want to go the route of capturing monsters versus killing them. Playing really young characters in D&D should be avoided and I would recommend another game such as No Thank You, Evil, FATE or Hero Kids.
Age, Height & Weight Adjustments
In chapter 4 of the player’s handbook there is a table for figuring out your character’s height and weight. The following table provides ideas for adjusting your height for younger PCs. You could also just have the PCs be the same approximate height and weight as the players who are playing them.
Roll the adult height and weight and then make a temporary adjustments using the table below until your character reaches adulthood. I consulted some human youth average height and weight charts for some ideas on how to create these numbers. Sadly, I was unable to find charts for the other races since they do not exist in real life.
For characters on the low side of the age rage roll 1 die and roll 2 die for characters on the higher side of the range.
The youngest gnomish, dwarven and elven adventurers would be fully grown physically around the same time as humans, but treated like children by their societies for a longer period.
As characters get closer to adulthood you might bump up their height and weight as they level and/or time passes in game. This can even be another “reward” to hand out when they level or complete adventures.
Stat Adjustments & Other Considerations
If everyone is playing younger players you could just use the normal statistics and just have the characters be younger when it comes to roleplaying.
If a player wants to create a younger PC they could just set strength, constitution and wisdom as their lowest scores and build them up over time. A fighter could move from using dexterity based attacks to heavy strength based weapons as they age and level in game.
You could use a lower array such as 14, 12, 12, 11, 10, 8 and give and extra +2 when they reach level 4 and are older.
You could adjust monsters and adult NPCs to have higher stats in Strength, Constitution or Wisdom to balance out the youthful PCs stats.
You could have younger players be squires/apprentices or start at level 0 or level 1, reaching adulthood by level 3. I’d love to run an adventure where the big strong veteran heroes get captured and their novice trainees have to save the day.
Pathfinder’s Ultimate Campaign limits class options (Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Adept and Warrior), slows trait progression and set younger characters with a +2 bonus to Dexterity and a –2 penalty to Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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Writing Commissions (NEW PRICES)
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(Please note that the new price update does not apply to commissions currently in progress.) 
Writing Commissions are here and I am open to countless forms of writing that range from one-shots and drabbles to long-term multi-chapter stories; for both original work and fanfiction! I’m an author who’s been writing professionally for over half a decade and I’m currently studying for a degree in Creative Writing with experience in multiple writing classes and workshops. If you want to look at some of my writing I’ve already done, you can find it at:
ibelieveinahappilyeverafter on Tumblr under the tag my writing ibelieveinahappilyeverafter on Archive of Our Own and UrbanFantasyBlogging on WordPress
I have experience in multiple genres and fandoms as well as different writing styles. The default for my writing is 3rd Person Limited and focused on a specific character when it comes to Point of View, but I can cover many other types depending on what works best for the story or what you might like most. I’m also happy to write for a fandom I have no knowledge of as long as background research to write the story does not take more than a few days. Further discussion can be had depending on the story or fandom.  
Whether it be fanfiction or original fiction, I will write OC’s as described by you as long as I am given a complete or semi-complete character profile to work with.
★★★
Basic Information
All correspondence can be had through the email d.phantom94@gmail.com. When emailing me, please specify that you are seeking a Writing Commission piece and share with me the projected word count you wish for, the maximum you are able to pay, and a basic plot, prompt, or summary of the story you wish to see written. Upon acceptance of your request, I will email you and further discussion can happen about the piece.
Replies can typically be expected 1-3 days after the initial email is sent. The story will then be completed within 1-2 weeks (or longer) once the details are worked out over correspondence and payment is sent. Please keep in mind that the longer the piece, the more time it will take.
If you need the completed piece done by a certain time, such as needing the story to gift to a friend for a birthday or other occasion, please tell me so and I will do my best to get it completed by the date you need it by.
★★★
Prices and Payment Information
Below are the pricing options and word count tiers that I currently have available. If you wish for a higher word count then price is available upon request (although generally expect +$5 per 1,000 words). I will not typically go above 15,000 words.
*500-999 words = $5  *1,000-1,999 words = $10  *2,000-2,999 words = $15  *3,000-3,999 words = $20  *4,000-4,999 words = $25  *5,000-5,999 words = $30  *6,000,6,999 words = $35  *7,000-7,999 words = $40  *8,000-8,999 words = $45 *9,000-9,999 words = $50 *10,000-10,999 words = $55 *11,000-11,999 words = $60 *12,000-12,999 words = $65 *13,000-13,999 words = $70 *14,000-14,999 words = $75 *15,000-15,999 words = $80
I now have a price option for a fuller, complete multi-chapter work and editing prices as well! The editing would cover any extra proofing or the changing of certain scenes. Rewrites or advanced editing can be asked about upon request. 
              *Complete Story: 30,000 - 40,000 words = flat rate of $250               *Editing: flat rate of $10 
Another option has been added! I will now offer a reduced price for any stories, drabbles, or ideas that you wish to have written if they belong to a story I’ve already written (or even an idea/AU I’ve simply talked about on my blog) or run along the themes of a simple plot with a specified fandom or pairing (such as ‘Character A runs a flower show while Character B runs a tattoo parlor. Write how they first meet.’ or ‘Write about this idea for this fanfiction you wrote a few months ago.’) 
*2,000-5,000 words = $10 *5,000-10,000 words = $20
Taking into account the time it takes to plot, write, and proof a story, these prices cover what would roughly be minimum wage for my living area. All payment is done with PayPal invoices which means payment is received BEFORE the story is written and sent to you in a PDF format. With invoice you are able to pay in a variety of ways depending on what works best for you. Please keep in mind that while I do not expect payment in the plotting stages over email, I do expect payment before work on the story itself begins.
Full refunds are allowed and will be given if work on the story is minimal or has not yet begun, but once the story is underway, there will be NO REFUNDS.
★★★
Information Needed for Story
While you may approach me with a basic idea or prompt and a projected word count, upon acceptance I will ask for things such as characters you wish to be in the story, more details on what sort of story you wished to see written, any background or main relationships you’ll want to see, what Point of View preference you have, if any, and so on until a basic rough draft is completed. 
★★★
Content Guidelines
I will do my best to write along whatever guidelines I am given, but I retain the right to refuse to accept a commission if I find myself unable to write for the content - whether due to a lack of knowledge or moral standing. I will also not write: 
               *Music or Poetry: While I can write a short poem within a piece that a character might have written for another character, I have limited experience in Poetry and no experience in Music or writing music.
               *Out of Character (OOC): I will not write characters who would act wildly outside of how they are portrayed in the source material. While changes to them might be made depending on the story or AU, I will do my best to keep to how they come across in the source material (unless fanon is better).
               *Overpowered Original Characters: I will not write Original Characters that have skills outside of what they could conceivably have, meaning I won’t write for a character that is gifted at everything, utterly perfect, and is attractive to everyone around them. (I will, however, be happy to write for a character who thinks they’re gifted, perfect, and a gift from god before finding out the horrible truth.)
★★★
Copyright and Ownership Information
Please keep in mind the following information before ordering:
               *All stories, whether fanfiction or original work, have the possibility of being uploaded and cross posted to my writing accounts to serve as examples of my work.
               *Upon the story’s completion you will receive a PDF read-only version of the story that will be emailed to you. Please let me know in advance if you are unable to work with PDFs and I will instead send you a file that will be easier for you to work with.
               *You are allowed to share and re-post the work to your own accounts as long as credit is given back to M.J. Anderson and my tumblr at ibelieveinahappilyeverafter.
               *With original work or work written for fandoms with source material in the public domain I retain all intellectual rights of the piece and can, as such, choose to redistribute, self-publish, or sell to a publishing company.
                           -In regards to copyright and intellectual properties, I would hold the rights to the original stories I write and be able to publish them as I wished, but I would not use any Original Characters that you personally commissioned me to put into the story. I would instead rewrite those scenes with different characters so none of your work would be claimed as mine in any situation.
                          -Original Characters here would mean detailed characters with profiles that you send to me to be written about and not characters with only a name, vague description, or small role within the story itself. An example of a character I would keep versus a character that would remain yours would be: Bob the blacksmith who likes blueberries versus Robert Tiller who works as a local blacksmith in his town, is quick to anger, maintains a garden, and lives three towns away from his parents.
                          -In regards to any commissioned story that would be all of your Original Characters, I might take the idea of the story (such as the plot and what happens to the characters) and use it again in future work, but your characters, as always, would remain yours and yours alone. 
★★★
Final Information
Thank you so much for your interest and reading everything here and I look forward to working with you in the future! Remember to contact me at my email or here on my blog for any questions you have about the commissions, even if it’s a simple price check. 
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dylan38sanders · 6 years ago
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How A Long Day Can Turn Into An Expensive Bill – Whiteboard Wednesday
Hiring an AV company for your event isn’t all fun and games, especially when AV labor comes into the equation. Truth is when you’re going through the process of finding an AV company, labor isn’t something that pops into mind. Well, at least not immediately. Sure, you know you’ll need all that equipment, and screens, and speakers, the works! But have you considered these things need to be operated by someone?
That’s the thing with AV labor. When you’re hiring, you’re not just hiring for equipment, you’re hiring for talent! And if you fail on carefully planning your event, the bill for the labor involved can easily turn into a huge expense. Today’s White Wednesday will tackle how a long day can turn into an expensive bill. Join Will Curran as he walks you through the best tips on how to schedule your event so that the AV labor doesn’t turn out to be more than you signed up for!
Are you planning an event? Check out our free Event Planning Checklist and be on your way to planning your best event yet!
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  Video Transcription – How A Long Day Can Turn Into An Expensive Bill
What’s going on, Endless fans? Will Curran from Endless Events back here again for another Whiteboard Wednesday, and today we’re talking about how a long day can turn into an expensive bill, especially an expensive AV labor bill. We really wanted to talk about this, because there’s a couple of rules that we get clarification and a lot of questions, and you know what? Figured it could use its own video as well.
All About AV Labor & Scheduling
We want to talk about when it comes to labor, is everything usually revolves around a day. A day is about 10 hours of work. A half day, half of that: five hours of work. Obviously, this depends on company to company. Sometimes you’ll hear a full day being eight hours, sometimes it’ll be four hours. When I talk about some of these rules, these are the ways that Endless has it set up. Every company’s going to be totally different in how it charges and how it follows these rules. But what we’ve found across the entire world, is that most companies follow these rules pretty straightforwardly, and usually when it comes down to it, the best companies usually all have about the same rules because they want to protect their employees in the same way.
Something to keep in mind as you go through this: these are just a couple of rules when you’re planning out your event and planning out your schedule. So keep in mind when you’re planning out your schedule in where you put breaks and things like that; this can majorly affect the AV company across the entire board.
The Beginning – Keep It Simple
The way to keep in mind as you’re thinking about it, is actually let’s plan on having this day start about eight, or about seven a.m., actually. Instead of eight a.m., we’ll have it start around seven a.m. The reason why is just to keep this really simple with numbers. After about five hours, you end up at about noon when it comes down to it.
Break Talk
The reason why I have it set up this way starting at seven a.m. and ending about noon for lunch is that after about five hours of work, most AV labor and most technicians and engineers are going to need a break. There’s sometimes a little smaller breaks, 15 minutes break, placed inside there for them to go grab their coffee, but usually what’s called … We’ll call it the lunch break … is that after about five hours, they’re going to need a lunch break or a meal break.
What If This Is In The Middle Of My Event?
This is why you want to set up your schedule to match this as best possible. When it comes down to it, after five hours you’re going to need a break. The break has to happen in either of two ways. First is that there’s called a walk away break, or what we’ll say is a one hour walk away lunch. This means for a solid hour, they need the ability to leave site, go grab lunch, relax, do whatever they want to do for that hour. You can’t dictate where they go. They can’t tell them to work on schedules. They have to be able to get a clean breakaway for an hour.
My best recommendation is to try scheduling a one hour break in the middle for them to get food, take a break, essentially.
The other option is a lot of companies will also do what’s called a 30-minute lunch provided break. So what this means is that they get 30 minutes to break. However, food has to be provided for them. So basically the idea is that you’re saving some time, that extra 30 minutes. Instead of them having to go find food, get their lunch, set up, whatever it is, it’s only 30 minutes.
But in this case, I’m going to do this being an hour break. Again, it gives the ability for you to extend into work a little bit later in the day which we’ll get to in just a little bit.
So again, two options when it comes to these meal breaks: one hour walk away, or a 30 minute provided lunch. Everybody with me so far? After five hours, give them that break.
More Break Talk (& Food!)
Then let’s say they come back, and they’re ready to get work done again. Well, then you get another five hours’ worth of work before you’re going to need another meal break. So again, after every five hours, feed ’em. Pretty simple, right? We want to feed people; we all have to eat at some point.
After about five hours, boom! You’re going to want to do another break as well. However, to illustrate this in the best way possible, I’m going to show you what happens a lot of times. Let’s say the general session starts at eight a.m., but seven a.m. is … From eight a.m. is a rehearsal, then you have a general session all day long and then let’s say we give ’em a lunch break because our general session’s not going to be in action during that time. Then we go back to doing general sessions. And it’s like a long day; we have a lot of meetings. But we then are going to have a late night gala dinner. There’s a party, whatever it may be. So we’re going to need ’em to stay past six p.m., which again is five hours after this.
OT, OT…
Well, then not only in addition to needing another meal break, but you also run into what is usually the dreaded overtime. And everyone wants to avoid this as much as possible, so this is how we’re going to recommend that you avoid this. For our company, we do it that after 10 hours, anything from 10 hours to 12 hours basically in that next section, is what’s called overtime. Overtime is one and a half times rate. Let’s say this normal person’s working for $50 an hour. Well at this point, when they’re working for these two hours from six p.m. to eight p.m., it’s in overtime, so they’re getting paid $75 an hour. You can see how this can get really expensive very, very fast.
How Endless Does AV Labor
At our company, we do it after 12 hours of straight work. Anything 12 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours…God forbid it goes any longer … it goes into what’s called double time. And this is the progression, right? You get the kind of happy work, and people like to say, “Why wouldn’t people want this? They just want overtime.” To be honest, if you talk to most engineers, they do not want to go to overtime and double time, because this means it’s a really long day of work. It means they’re … really, it’s getting into late nights. You’re talking about working till nine p.m., 10 p.m., oh my gosh, after they’ve been here since seven a.m. No one really wants to work double time.
You’ll Be Able To Tell
So you’re going from this kind of happy work, happy work … Well, then things start to get a little fuzzy when you get to this over time, and the warning signs should be blinking. At this point, if you don’t have this scheduled, and this is starting to happen, hopefully, your AV company will warn you and say, “Hey, just so you know, we’re about to go into overtime. We don’t want to do that.” They’ll hopefully warn you, but absolutely the thing you want to avoid is double time. That is just the worst, and that can be extremely dangerous because you’re then paying double the rate. You’ve gone from paying $50 an hour to paying $100 an hour. You can see how this can start to increase your bills and everything like that.
Schedule it Right!
When you’re planning out your schedule, you want to make sure that you’re giving these breaks along the way, but also that you don’t plan for these really long days. To be honest, just try to always plan around the engineer working for 10 hours total, with a one hour break. So, from 11 a.m. to six p.m., just be done. That’s a pretty simple way to avoid it.
However, some cases, we either have a long gala dinner or let’s say, for example, you need them to stay late for rehearsals, that’s when it makes sense … just plan for it when it comes. Again, all these rules kind of slightly differ between companies. So make sure that you’re talking to your AV company about what these rules are before you sign the quote, and that you understand them, because in the case you do have to take it as an emergency, avoid it. Right?
Beware Of The Short Turnaround
Another labor rule we get a lot of questions about is that what happens if let’s say, for example, you did all of this, and then you pushed and worked until let’s say 11 p.m. This double time went to 11 p.m., and you’re working till 11 p.m. Well, then you want to avoid something called a tight turnaround. And what this has to do, is let’s fast forward and whooop! Go to tomorrow. Let’s say this was the first day, but the next day, you have an early morning breakfast with the CEO, that starts at six a.m., so you need all the engineers there at five a.m. Short turnaround is what happens whenever the engineers have to finish one, a work session or work shift, and in less than eight hours between when they end work and when they start work, it’s called a short turnaround.
What To Do?
What this means is always when you’re planning your schedule, plan for when the engineers finish their work, you have at least eight hours between when they start their next shift. The reason why you want to avoid this is when you get into the eternal horrible day of flames and extremely high costs. The reason why is anything that happens then that next day can lead to pretty much double time all day long. Again, these rules slightly depend on the company, but what I’ve seen is that the next day it starts, they immediately start on overtime.
The Overtime Rollercoaster Of AV Labor
What that means is anything that day is going to be already in overtime. If you end up doing this again, where you go into overtime, it’s overtime of overtime. So you’re going 1.5 costs, times 1.5 costs. Then God forbid, you go to the double time, and it’s 1.5 costs times two times costs. You can see how this day could be extremely expensive. And the most common way that we see this happen is when you have a long gala dinner, and then you have to be out of the venue and everything has to be torn down the next morning, early morning, because you have to be out by noon, for example. You want to manufacture your schedule so then that way again, you cause a nice big eight-hour break between the two days.
Up And Running!
What’s nice, is that I find with most AV companies, if, for example, the guys end at 11 p.m., and then the next day would obviously be seven a.m. would be the start time. They don’t factor in things like driving, but that’s something to keep in mind with your AV engineers; a lot of them are not going to be at the hotel right across the street. Sometimes they’ll be … for example, having to drive an hour to go get home. Obviously, that’s the engineer’s choice in where they live and things like that, but that’s something to keep in mind. We want everyone to get a full eight hours of sleep, but if you keep in mind factoring drive time and everything like that, it can lead to really horrible times where you’re driving for an hour to get home. You only sleep for five hours because you have to be up in the morning and then be there on time.
Avoidance
Some ways that I’ve seen avoiding short turnarounds, and some more forgiveness around it, is that if you know you have to do a short turnaround for some reason, providing hotels on site, so then that way, hey yeah, you’re going to be in short turnaround, but maybe we can avoid the short turnaround since we’re providing on-site to eliminate drive time and travel time and everything like that. We’ve seen that help as well.
The Recap On AV Labor
Again, just to recap, five-hour chunks. Make sure you get meal breaks. Make sure … Otherwise, you’re going to get into meal break. There are some penalties related to meal breaks, which are related sometimes to overtime where if you don’t give a meal break, things can be forced into overtime earlier, that sort of stuff. But after 10 hours, avoid overtime. After 12 hours-ish, avoid the double time and then make sure you give a nice eight-hour break in between your different days and shifts because then you can get into this horrible day of flames, which I’ll call short turnaround all day.
Conclusion
I hope you found this helpful. If you did, I would love for you to subscribe down below. If you really loved it, give it a thumbs up. However, if you didn’t like it, give us a thumbs down. And down in the comments, let us know how we can make this event better. Also, we want to hear from you: what sort of topics do you want us to cover? Leave a comment down below and let us know what sort of topics you want us to cover, what sort of scenarios you’ve seen.
The prompt that I have for you today is what’s an example of an event where you had one of these rules broken, and how did it affect your event? Did you have any clever ways for ways that you avoided it? Do you have any tips for other planners for how you schedule out your schedules to avoid things like meal break penalties and overtime and everything like that? What’s your take no AV labor in general? We’d love to hear it down in the comments below!
That’s going to do it for this week’s Whiteboard Wednesday. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in, and we can’t wait to see you next week. I’ll catch you later, Endless fans!
Resources:
The Epic Guide To Event AV Labor
What Do All The AV Labor Positions Do – Whiteboard Wednesday
Learn About Event Safety and Cybersecurity, Event Labor Costing, and More
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lipstickxczar · 8 years ago
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1. Are looks important in a relationship? No 2. Are relationships ever worth it? Yes 3. Are you a virgin? No 4. Are you in a relationship? No 5. Are you in love? Kinda 6. Are you single this year? Mostly 7. Can you commit to one person? Yes 8. Describe your crush. He’s funny, great story teller, he’s compassionate, he has these beautiful eyes where you can easily get lost in. 9. Describe your perfect mate. Someone with a sense of humor, likes to travel and have fun, super affectionate, a respectful, loyal human being who does believe is monogamy and is obsessed with me. Lol. 10. Do you believe in love at first sight? Ummm… I suppose it’s possible. 11. Do you ever want to get married? Of course. Sooner than later. 12. Do you forgive betrayal? Depends on how deep it is… 13. Do you get jealous easily? Yes. 14. Do you have a crush on anyone? Yes. 15. Do you have any piercings? Yes. I used to wear my tongue and belly button and nose. At this point I’m only utilizing my three holes in each ear and my anti-tragus 16. Do you have any tattoos? No 17. Do you like kissing in public? Yes but keep it minimal. 20. Do you shower every day? Yes. It’s summer time you have too. You get all sticky and sweaty and gross. 21. Do you think someone has feelings for you? Like what kind? Like sexual feelings? Yes. Romantic feelings like I love you and wanna spend the rest of my life with you feelings. No. 22. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? Umm… probably not. 23. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months and not cheat? Most definitely. 24. Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years? By the good grace of god I hope so. 25. Do you want to be in a relationship this year? Hell yes! 26. Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you? Yes. What’s words when you demonstrate those words to someone else by marrying and starting a family with them? So obviously losing me ain’t all that deep for you. 27. Has someone ever written a song or poem for you? Ummm… a theme song when I thought I wanted to start a YouTube channel. 28. Have you ever been cheated on? A plethora of times. 29. Have you ever cheated on someone? No. 30. Have you ever considered plastic surgery? If so, what would you change about your body? Yes I’ve considered plastic surgery, it’s 2017 who hasn’t in world of a Instagram user lol. I would just get Lipo everywhere and enhance my ass, lift my breast. 31. Have you ever cried over a guy/girl? Yes over a guy(S) 32. Have you ever experienced unrequited love? Too many times to count. 33. Have you ever had sex with a man? Yes. 34. Have you ever had sex with a woman? No. 35. Have you ever kissed someone older than you? Yes. 36. Have you ever liked one of your best friends? Yes 37. Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated? Ummm… yes 38. Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to? Omg yes. 39. Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have? Always. Probably why I keep getting shit on. 40. Have you ever written a song or poem for someone? Yes, a poem. 41. Have you had sex so far this year? Yes 42. How long can you just kiss until your hands start to wander? Maybe 2 minutes 43. How long was your longest relationship? Ummm… I’m gonna go ahead and say I’ve never been in a relationship there were more so involvements that went left. 44. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had? I wouldn’t consider those niggas boyfriends. They were all full of shit. 45. How many people did you kiss in 2012/2013? 😬 2ppl 46. How many times did you have sex last year? 5-6 times 47. How old are you? N/a 48. If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you say? “You should explore that and see where it goes” 49. If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is your favorite thing about him/her? I have a crush and I love his eyes. 50. If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept? Umm the way that nigga hurt me one of those presents needs to be a G Wagon, an engagement ring and an apology sang by new edition. 51. Is there a boy/girl who you would do absolutely everything for? Ummm… my bff 52. Is there anyone you’ve given up on? Why? A few of my homeboys, they’ve become fuck niggas an I ain’t got time to handle that type of behaviour from them along with the fuck niggas that seem to like me. It’s a vicious cycle. 53. Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are? Everyone in my life hates this guy but I’m stubborn and I never learn the easy way. 54. Is there someone you will never forget? Yea. Sebastian. 55. Share a relationship story. Not enough room, there’s nothing much to say anyways. It ended in heartbreak. 56. State 8 facts about your body. I’m short, curvy, lack of ass for a black girl, big tits that gravity has taken over, hater back roll, small child like hands, small pinky toe nail, thick thighs. 57. Things you want to say to an ex. You broke me, why? 58. What are five ways to win your heart? Be loving, be respectful, be considerate of my feelings, appreciate me, provide me with security. 59. What do you look like? (Post a picture!) meh. 60. What is the biggest age difference between you and any of your partners? 4yrs 61. What is the first thing you notice in someone? Attire. 62. What is the sexiest thing someone could ever do for/to you? Hmmm🤔…. caress the parts of my body I’m most insecure about. 63. What is your definition of “having sex”? Coming together with another person and making each other forget the day to day fuckery and living in a moment of passion. 64. What is your definition of cheating? You doing anything considered sexual,romantic, quality time-ish with someone else. 65. What is your favourite foreplay routine? Kissing everywhere, teasing, oral, a little dirty talk. 66. What is your favourite roleplay? I haven’t done it yet, I want to. 67. What is your idea of the perfect date? Dinner, walk along the beach barefoot, make out, go home use my toy, shower, sleep. If he’s my man already we’re getting it on the beach. 68. What is your sexual orientation? heterosexual 69. What turns you off? Plaque on gums and teeth 70. What turns you on? Smell goods 71. What was your kinkiest wet dream? I can’t remember 72. What words do you like to hear during sex? Fuck. 73. What’s something sweet you’d like someone to do for you? Flowers delivered at a random place I’d be. Example: flowers being delivered at the place I said I’d be doing brunch with a girlfriend. 74. What’s the most superficial characteristic you look for? I guess I’ve never looked for one. 75. What’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you? … nothing. 76. What’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for someone? Sent my bff roses cause she was feeling down over a fuck nigga. 77. What’s your opinion on age differences in relationships? I don’t see anything wrong with it as long as it’s legal. 78. What’s your dirtiest secret? Don’t have one, I’m a open book. 79. When was the last time you felt jealous? Why? Yesterday. I saw a life I could’ve been living if I simply looked different. 80. When was the last time you told someone you loved them? Ummm… it’s been awhile. 81. Who are five people you find attractive? kofi siriboe, Mario Lopez, baby cham, idris, gravy. 82. Who is the last person you hugged? My crush RRJ 83. Who was your first kiss with? Some guy in Jamaica 84. Why did your last relationship fail?iunno he kinda just stopped speaking to me. 85. Would you ever date someone off of the Internet? Yeah, why not.
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asgardian-light · 8 years ago
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Random HC #75 (Continuation of #4 - #74)
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