I find it amusing that the ace in this meme just happens to look a little like Levana, because Levana is actually asexual. Never had a reason to actually address this, but yep; this is one of the reasons why she strongly dislikes being hit on by horny dudes looking to get inside her (the fact that as a vampire, one of the only times she can walk the streets is at night didn't help her either).

Ozoneocean wrote:

Speaking of default images, what is it with these pseudo four wheel drives that EVERYONE seems to have an almost identical version off, INCLUDING Lamborghini now! And what kind of hilarious moron spends hundreds of thousands on a Porsche or Lamborghini when it's simply another version of the standard car you can get from anyone? XD
You ONLY buy those brands to stand out because of the body and shape, the actual brand name is only a small part of it, and yet these brainless idiots are buying them ONLY for the name.

Here are some pics I put together:

bravo1102 wrote:
And the highest rated, with the best warranty and arguably the least ugly is among the most affordable. Hyundai.

The BMW classic grille is like the Dodge Ram pick-up grille they were putting on their crossovers a few years back. I would say they were “inspired” lol.

I hate the Ram XD They created the new fad for the style we call a “Ute” (pronounced “yout”) in Australia and you guys call a “pick-up”, with the hug blocky flat grill front, so those relatively wimpy vehicles LOOK as if they're extremely powerful, even though it's obvious they're some of the weakest vehicles of that style. They're SO extremely ugly and blocky but their target market is well known for having no taste what so ever.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I find it amusing that the ace in this meme just happens to look a little like Levana.

Why did you make Levana Ace?

Personally, I thought it was an interesting direction to take. I felt like it kind of fit her initial anti-social personality and demeanor when she was a vampire, given how aloof and standoffish she was around anyone who wasn't Laura, since Laura was literally her only friend in the world. On top of that, like I say, given that she was a vampire and could only travel by night, the fact that guys would see her walking the streets, and given her dark, brooding, goth-esque appearance, many a guy would take one look at her and assume she was a . . . lady of the evening, shall we say? She never wanted to draw attention to herself for being a vampire anyway, but with a lot of the unwanted attention she did garner coming from horny guys who saw her as an object to play with in bed greatly repulsed her.

As a matter of fact, given that I once flirted with the idea of adapting VAMPIRE GIRL into a live-action short film, I devised a subplot (admittedly for filler) in which she catches the attention of a lonely street musician (appropriately named Jonathan, in tribute to Jonathan Richman's song that inspired the comic) who becomes something of a stalker who Levana eventually has to scare away because she can't shake him.

I had no idea Levana was asexual, and I read both parts of Vampire Girl @J_Scarbrough.



==


Happy Thanksgiving to all Ducks who celebrate it on this day. What dish are you contributing to the meal? I am making cranberry sauce.

Like I say, I never really had a rhyme or reason to even address it, since it wasn't necessary to the plot or storyline of the comic, or really even developing and evolving her character. But at the same time, now also feels like a pretty good time to reveal such, considering the rights of the LGBTQ+ community are basically threatened now, and I haven't really done much to inform people that myself and my art are safe and inclusive.

Happy thanksgiving to all the Amerikarnos here ^_^
Going by all the TV shows I have seen you should all be having contentious dinners with dispersed family members and co-workers, awkwardly attempting to cook cartoonishly oversized solidly frozen bird carcasses, eating masses of bright orange pumpkins, smearing cranberry sauce on your faces and in your hair and going on an annual killing spree XD

I might be wrong on some of the details…?

————-

Silly thing happened yesterday-
I went clothes shopping with an attractive female friend. As we drove to the shops I was tying my hair up short and telling her that even in very masculine clothes and with my hair up or hidden I STILL get misgendered and even catcalled.
She doubted it as people usually do.
When we finished shopping and were heading for the car a woman comes over and says to us “LADIES! I'm sorry to bother you but can you tell me if I have to pay for parking here…?”

Now I was wearing a black long sleeve button up collar shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons open halfway down my chest, tucked into khaki linen trousers secured with a brown leather belt, and brown suede shoes. Dark sunglasses on and my hair was tied up in a small bun behind my head so my hair looked short.
And yet even so… Even being next to someone who was obviously VERY feminine, that didn't provide the woman with enough contrast to get my gender correct! XD

My magic power is a girl aura apparently.

Some people see long hair and *BING* female.

Doesn't help that you are skinny. Me, broad shoulders and short hair, fine it's a guy. But someone just hearing that high pitched voice of mine?
“Hello ma'am. May I speak to the mister of the house please”

And if you knew how many times I'd wished I wasn't so sexual. Sure doing it all tge time promotes good prostate health. (Forehead slap and eyeroll)

I'm really not much of a superficial guy. I know a lot of guys seem to have preferences or even “types” when it comes to women, but for me, stuff like hair color, eye color, skin color, body type/shape, height, etc. is rather inconsequential to me - as long as they have an appealing personality, that's what I'm more interested in . . . and if they happen to be rather attractive, sure, that's a bonus. Okay, yeah, I know that sort of contradicts what I said in another thread of how I would actually go for a quirkier, artsy sort of girl than I would a shallow, vapid, plastic type - that still remains true, but again, that's also more based on personality than it is looks.

Having said that, there is one thing that really turns me off to the point that I would consider it a dealbreaker (and yes, I am aware this is an incredibly unpopular opinion): tattoos. Like B.J. Hunnicutt once said, why would anyone want to hang a picture on their body they wouldn't be caught dead hanging on their wall? They say the female body is a work of art (and seeing some of the comics here on DD, I would say some take that notion quite seriously) . . . why deface such a work of art with body graffiti? It seems like in this day and age, there is not one single woman left on the face of this planet who doesn't have some sort of a tattoo somewhere.

I mean, okay, if it's something small and insignificant that doesn't draw much attention, like on a wrist or an ankle or something, I could let it slide, but if we're taking about neck tats, arm sleeves, tramp stamps on the small of the back, entire thigh coverage (okay, I admit to being a leg man, and thigh tats are the worst), then hard pass, as the kids say today.

Agree about the tattoo thing

bravo1102 wrote:
Some people see long hair and *BING* female.

Doesn't help that you are skinny.

The hair isn't really a factor a lot of the time, it's just the body shape I think.
It's weird how people perceive you based on small superficial factors. It's not their fault at all, it's just how the brain works: it takes in only the roughest sliver of info and constructs reality based on previous experience.
So having a slight body at 5'6" automatically codes for female.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
there is not one single woman left on the face of this planet who doesn't have some sort of a tattoo somewhere.

Tats are a popular fashion :)
My ex had amazing ones all over her, she looked incredible with them! Hers were well designed so that they flowed and were integrated beautifully with one another.
Another fashion is the style inspired by Russian Mafia… some call it flashing. Random unconnected scribbles and pictures all over, anywhere.

I don't mind any style. Weirdly though most of the women I've been with over the years haven't had any tats at all anywhere. Just for their own reasons. But I have some great non-romantic friends with some really good tats!

Tats don't affect my “type”
I'm not sure if I have a type… It's usually slim women. Petite blondes are over-represented as are dark haired Persian ladies.
Long noses, high cheekbones, and nice bums attract my glance so that's why Persians are often a magnet to my eyeballs haha!
But personality trumps looks and I find a lot of ladies super attractive.

I find body art distracting. I really want to pay attention to the person first. But I'm like a Squirrel distracted by the pretty shapes and words and just stare at them and not make personal contact.
I've seen some fascinating people and want to look at their face and see their expressions as they talk and all I can do is look at the sleeve tat and try to figure out why they go it, who designed it and how much it cost.
It's far worse than clothes or fashion because this is on the skin so I can't help but feel it's more personal to them.

I am fascinated with tattoo art and keep imagining arm sleeve designs with a whole bunch of woodland animals (bear, owl, rabbit, fox, squirrel, hedgehog, skunk). Still not a fan of needles of any sort, so I would settle for full length temporary arm tattoos that last one month and then wash out.

Sorry, but no!
There are exceptions, but most of the time, tattoos just look obnoxious to me.
…says a guy who personally pre-drew one or two of them directly with felt pens on various limbs and other places of fellow human for a donation of beer during his student days (True story! The tattooist was a self-taught acquaintance of mine, had even built a machine himself, and the result erm… varied with his intake of the down payment). It's one of the things I'd rather forget - still building up the courage for a laser removal of an old reminder of these times on my right leg. It's one reason why I don't wear shorts even in hot weather. I might get that spot inked again with my blood type information or some such thing if remnants need to be covered up, but otherwise I've had it with body art.
The older I get the less I like seeing tattoos and such on others too, professionally done ones included. I won't leave off the relatively unobstructive tattoo on my comic's main character's arm - yes, indeed modelled on something I was asked to draw on someone's actual arm, before she changed her mind last minute - but IRL I tend to find them off-putting.
Only piercings are worse.
Long ago, I briefly met a punk girl who wore a cow's yellow plastic earmark in place of an earring - and I must say this looked so silly it came out as cool again. To me, anyway, because it's just the kind of thing piercings tend to remind me of.

I have a tattoo. My fiancée has several. It's not really my thing, but it's not exactly a turn-off either (we're not talking about extremes, obviously anything can be taken to an extreme). I'm fairly neutral about it. Do I prefer non-tattood women, aesthetically? Sure. But my preferences for my own amusement and carnal desires and etc fade away if I truly care for someone and love them. And it's not like it's any of my business what makes them happy or satisfied with their own bodies. But I'm not big on 3D erotica anyway, I prefer my beloved in the bed and 2D online. I'd rather obsess about fetishes and waifus than actual real models. “Reality is often disappointing.” :D

When I was younger I think I was very much against body art because that was a different time- back then you only had tats if you had a hard life so they indicated specific things about you, each one had a story… It was the preview of ex-soldiers and sailors, bikies (bikers to Americans), and miners… But only the toughest miners.

But in the 90s it became a fashion thing and it all changed.
The “alt” scene was HUUUUGGE! And I was semi-immersed in that because I was an art student. I was not into the culture that much because it was pretty superficial but I liked the music and the aesthetic, especially in pop-culture.

Piercings and tattoos are things I was never too interested in for myself though I have considered them at times. With tats the issue is it could ONLY be my own art and I am so picky and critical of my own stuff. Having another person's art on me would be disturbing and gross.

On other people tats and piercings are just like clothes and jewelry- That's how I see them. It doesn't negatively affect my view of the person at all. It's just another thing to admire.

(there are a few people walking around with tats designed by me)

BTW, did you hear about the crazed leader of South Korea declaring martial law?
I think they got him to rescind it now but that was scary.
That's the South, not the north BTW.

Ozoneocean wrote:
BTW, did you hear about the crazed leader of South Korea declaring martial law?
I think they got him to rescind it now but that was scary.
That's the South, not the north BTW.

Sometimes the only way for them to keep power is by making themselves out to be some great defenders of the country against this and that and giving themselves unchecked power. Now, I don't know a lot about South Korea, but considering their far from ideal relationship with NK, I'd say this trick only works if the average voters are complete morons, like here and there they probably have a more realistic perspective on what a dictatorship looks like.

Seems like you've been heard, Inky. I just read Yoon was made to take that decision back and is facing impeachment.
That's quite a relief, hopefully, as voters' perceptiveness or intelligence is not always the decisive factor in such manoeuvres: he didn't have enough backers with a personal interest in keeping him, more like, and so the coup fortunately just produced a pretty darn cool show of civil courage on video by a certain Ms. Ahn.

The South Koreans certainly know more about dictatorships than they let on, not just because of their neighbours, but also because there mist still be plenty of people around who remember their own autocrats which they got rid of only in the 90s or so.
If I gathered that correctly while researching South Korea for something else a few months ago, to many it must have seemed like an “upgrade the economy first, then become a respectable country fit to live in” approach, meaning that a president declaring martial law just like that must look like a step back. The cabinet vote against Yoon's decision was unanimous, btw..

Some of the countries we are from could certainly do worse than to try and learn one or two things from this night.

Back in 2003 I was pumping gas and one customer was a teen with a piercing in her nostril and multiple earrings.
As she was leaving a car came in with a woman in traditional Indian attire and she laughed looked askance at the teen and turned to me,
“She is not married. In my culture it is the same as a wedding ring. The bride gets it when she is wed. You have taken the meaning out of it.”
Gave me a pause. Cultural appropriation. One culture's fashion statement is another's personal identity and/or societal status.

bravo1102 wrote:
Cultural appropriation. One culture's fashion statement is another's personal identity and/or societal status.

It is sort off… But nose jewelry is worn by many cultures and ethnic groups around the world so who was the girl influenced by?
Even in India there are different meanings and nose studs rather than rings have no meaning, so it's pretty varied.

When I designed Pinky from my Pinky TA comic back in the late ‘90s I did some reading on traditional African jewelry and collected a lot of research material… I wanted to go back to the origins for the styles of piercings so I could understand where they came from rather than just copy popular alt styles of the time.
Since then piecing styles caught up with Pinky though and big ear plates aren’t that unusual anymore XD

I actually had a backstory of how she came to have her piercings due to her adventures in Sub-Saharan Africa, but I shelved it because it's hard not to make something set in the 1920s in Africa sound colonial or apologist or just really “wrong”. :(

I will manage it one day.

Nightmares again? But I thought; no, when “you thought” you're wrong.

Defeat one set of fears and another shows up. Bit harder to dismiss when you've actually lived this one.

And spend Thanksgiving trying to keep the border line conspiracy theorist 1980s thinker busy so the millennial don't have to deal with them.

And then there's the fact that your employer decided to turn down your vacation even though a manager got that exact time off. I'm indispensable. Managers aren't important so they don't need to be around. But nothing for me.

And the fight against seasonal affective disorder begins in earnest.

And then the arm on the lead figure in my comic breaks. Do I have spare parts? This is an endemic issue with these figures. Can I fix it right this time?

bravo1102 wrote:
And then there's the fact that your employer decided to turn down your vacation even though a manager got that exact time off. I'm indispensable. Managers aren't important so they don't need to be around. But nothing for me.

That sucks man >:[
You need to get into management!


This is something I was thinking about the other day:
“Why aren't smart people more successful?”

It's a general truism that if you're an actual smart person (not some savant who is highly specialised in one field), you tend to be a lot less successful than people with less awareness about history, politics, financial stuff, the implications of foreign affairs, philosophy, poetry, literature, science and so on.
(not conspiracy theorists or people caught up in a Dunning Kruger loop that just THINK they know a lot).

I think the reason is a couple of things, but mainly just correlation rather than causation, because when you are very successful it's often because of the circumstances you were born into or the luck of being in the right place at the right time, or lacking the morals NOT to screw someone over, so basically you rarely need to know much to achieve success, it's about what you DO rather than think.
And if you're not in that fast track to success you have more time to think, read, and research.

Since that subject has been broached, should I mention that my employer has been on vacation sixteen times this year alone?

A company with 999 CEOs and 1 worker would not go very far, one with 999 workers and 1 CEO can.

So evidently “we” don't pay CEOs more because we need more of them.

The same argument, at a minor level, works for lower management levels.

Plenty of organizations with 999 workers and no CEOs have gone even farther. Corporate decision making doesn't require any chiefs. Capitalism likes it because it all about profits. The less people who
reap the benefits of profits the better.
(Insert maniacal laughter here)
Now let's all sing a few choruses of John Lennon's Imagine and think about a moneyless utopia with no greedy little Ferengi CEOs making certain every worker is miserable while they enjoy their vacations.
Scrooge was pretty awful to his employees but he was a miser and workaholic. No vacations, just hoarding.

Just think about it. Humans I'm sure have debated it since that first Sumerian sent the complaint letter about the poor quality of bronze he'd gotten nearly 4000 years ago.

bravo1102 wrote:
Plenty of organizations with 999 workers and no CEOs have gone even farther. Corporate decision making doesn't require any chiefs. Capitalism likes it because it all about profits. The less people who
reap the benefits of profits the better.

OMG you dirty commie!
I approve ^_^

Funny, back in the day my dad was a bank executive in the city, handling billion dollar clients, getting invited to stay on private islands etc, but he'd stated out as the lowest position in the bank and worked his was all the way up. He was always communist at heart, ALWAYS on the side of unions and workers. Very ironic!
And my sister and I never had anything too special growing up. We moved to a good area but we never had expensive things, clothes, presents, holidays etc. We always lived cheaply. My dad would only splash out very occasionally

So that's why I live so cheaply now and splash out occasionally for big things.

Ozoneocean wrote:

So that's why I live so cheaply now and splash out occasionally for big things.

The nicest things I own were purchased second hand because good quality items last much longer than ones made with inferior materials at full price.

Bravo1102 —- seen anything interesting in the sky lately?! Your state has been the toast of London. The news keeps droning on about out of this world visitors, and I am not talking about Bruce Springsteen.

Mistaken identity and mass hysteria. Out of 5000 reports to a tip line, only 100 led to anything.
The great majority are aircraft that were always flying overhead but no one was looking up because there weren't news stories everywhere about things in the sky. Even have planet Venus showing up in reports.

bravo1102 wrote:
Mistaken identity and mass hysteria. Out of 5000 reports to a tip line, only 100 led to anything.
The great majority are aircraft that were always flying overhead but no one was looking up because there weren't news stories everywhere about things in the sky. Even have planet Venus showing up in reports.

Probably related- I heard there have been masses of complaints about UAVs in Texas. even the arch-moron himself Donald Trump said “they should be shot down”
-the very best indicator he IS indeed a moron because a real president would find out if there WAS actually an issue BEFORE suggesting action like that. OMG
f**kwhit

It turns out of course that there are not masses of UAVs and drones, it's just idiots calling in and reporting the usual hysterical rubbish but now they're UAVs instead of aliens.

We need to bring back public humiliation. Lock them up in a pillory in the town square and throw rotten veggies and cow dung at them.