#whenever i finish it i thought maybe i will clean it all up. an hd remaster if you will LOL

[carmenpeach]

sonic and tails are dead, in the midwest! part 1

[huntressjinsoul]

The Making Of

Summary: AU. As they decide to turn over a new leaf and a better deal, TBD signs to a new record label and meets their new songwriter, MC.

A/N: Slightly nsfw. Happy Kaitlyn Appreciation Week! Thank you for hosting @aryn-choices

Kaitlyn looked around the building and its surroundings before looking at the man in front of her.

“Alright, welcome, TBD, to HDS Productions. I know it’s a little unorthodox, but I’d like to give you a tour of our building,” the CEO of the record company, Chris Powell said. “I know we’re fairly a new label, but thank you for choosing us.”

“Oh it’s no problem. You were the most genuine label offering us a good contract,” Amara smiled.

“Thank you, we try our best to be authentic to our clients,” Chris beamed. “I’m sorry my partner, Ms. Becca Davenport, isn’t here to welcome you as well. She had to attend to one of our other clients.”

“Oh it’s fine, Mr. Powell,” Annisa replied.

“Please, at this label, we’re on a first name basis with everyone. Now, c’mon let’s start this tour.” Chris led them through the building, noting important people. “While I manage the label and its overall business affairs, Becca looks over the legal stuff and the contracts.” They reached another private office, and knocked before opening it. “This is Zack, he’s in A&R and the head of promo for all of our artists.”

“Hey, you must be TBD. I look forward to working with you guys,” Zack grinned.

“Nice to meet you Zack,” Kaitlyn grinned as she shook his hand.

“Alright, moving on next door is the head of our marketing team and publicity. She also creates the cover art for our artists’ singles and albums,” Chris explained. “I think she’s away for lunch now, but you’ll meet Abbie later. Now onto the most important part, the recording studios.”

As TBD looked around the booths, Kaitlyn heard a loud laugh coming from one of the booths. She directed her attention to the two men and, more specifically, the woman. “Who are they, Chris?”

“Ah, that’s one of our signed artists, Zig Ortega. The other guy is Tyler, our senior producer, and the woman is MC, one of our senior songwriters. It looks like they’re on a break, let’s go meet them.”

Chris opened the door and popped his head in the room. “Hey guys, our new clients are here and I’m giving them a tour.”

“Hey, I’m Zig, one of the artists,” Zig smiled politely.

“Sup? So can I take a look at those drums in that booth there? Because I’m digging them,” Rachel stated. Chris shrugged and nodded before Rachel went inside the booth.

“She’s… not one for talking with new people,” Kaitlyn explained.  

“Hey it be like that,” Tyler chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you girls, I’m Tyler.”

“And I’m MC, songwriter,” MC smiled widely. Kaitlyn was enraptured by her smile and was too busy staring at MC to greet her.

Thankfully, Amara saved her. “Hey, I’m Amara. These two are Kaitlyn and Annisa. And the one checking out the drums is Rachel. We can’t wait to work with you guys.”

“The feeling is mutual,” MC replied sweetly. “Now, I’m used to writing more pop and R&B, but I think I can take on the challenge of writing some metal and rock.”

“Oh don’t worry, Kaitlyn can help you. She writes most of our discography,” Annisa said as she playfully bumps her elbow at said girl.

“Cool, it looks like we’ll be spending a lot of time together then,” MC grinned at Kaitlyn.

“G-great, I look forward to it,” she hastily replied.

“This is your chance to ask her out,” Annisa told Kaitlyn as they sat in Rachel’s van on their way to HDS Productions. Annisa grabbed a stale pizza crust up from under her seat. “Rachel would it kill you if you cleaned up your van?” She scrunched up her nose in disgust.

“Yes, yes it would,” Rachel replied bluntly.

“What do you mean?” Kaitlyn asked, feigning innocence.

“We all know you’ve got the hots for MC. So don’t play dumb,” Amara interjected from the passenger seat, throwing a smirk at Kaitlyn. For the last couple of days, TBD worked with a few producers and songwriters to get a feel of the artistry. They collectively agreed that it’d be best to work with Tyler, MC, and another one of the senior songwriters, James. “Maybe try not to undress her with your eyes whenever you look at her?”

“Ugh I thought that I was discreet,” Kaitlyn groaned. The last couple of days gave her a challenge between work and pleasure. Through her eyes, Kaitlyn was being discreet and there was a little flirtation between her and MC. In actuality, the rest of TBD suffered second hand embarrassment from all the stuttering and butchered pickup lines Kaitlyn tried with MC.

“As discreet as a bomb,” Rachel deadpanned. “If you don’t ask her out today, I’m going to do it for you.”

A few minutes later, the band was met by MC and James in the studio. “Hey girls. We’re going to do something a little different today. MC and I will talk to each of you individually to compose and write your parts on your single. Amara, Rachel, you’re with me. Kaitlyn and Annisa, you’re with MC.”

“You’re with me first, Annisa,” MC grinned. “Let’s go across the hall for more privacy.” During the wait, Kaitlyn mentally prepared herself for her time with MC. She calmed her nerves as if she was preparing to perform at one of her concerts. After a few minutes, MC and Annisa came back to the studio. “Alright, Kaitlyn, your turn.” She got up and followed MC to the other studio across the hall. “Ok. So I know we settled on a having a socially political song undermining our current government- great idea by the way- but is there anything else you’d like to add? Annisa said that you guys wanted it to be direct, no metaphors, no double meanings.”

“Yeah, I feel like we could use our music to inspire our audience to take a stand,” Kaitlyn explained. “I want it straight forward so everyone can see our stance and understand better.”

“Well, I think that’s an awesome idea. I’ve always believed that artists should be able to connect to their audience and inspire them,” MC smiled widely.

Kaitlyn felt her heart skip a beat upon seeing her smile and decided that now was a good time to bring up asking her out. “Hey, I was thinking, well, wondering. You’re single, I’m single, we should fix that,” Kaitlyn finished off lamely. She groaned and face palmed.  “Ok, I really like you. And I’ve been so nervous to ask you out. My bandmates keep teasing me about it, and I’m finally growing some balls.  Will you go on a date with me? You don’t have to say yes if you’re not interested, I underst- mmmph.”

She was cut off by a pair of lips kissing her own. After the initial shock, Kaitlyn eagerly kissed MC back. After a few more minutes, MC pulled away, but still remained close, smirking. “I was wondering when you’d make your move.”

“I- you- wha,” Kaitlyn stuttered.

MC giggled and played with Kaitlyn’s hair. “You were pretty obvious, Kait. I can call you Kait, right?”

“You can call me anytime,” Kaitlyn said dreamily. She snapped out of it when she heard MC laugh and blushed. “I mean, yeah you can call me that.”

“Now as much as I want to continue making out with you, we have work to do unfortunately,” MC said as she stroked the side of Kaitlyn’s face softly. Kaitlyn sighed in content and moved her face closer. “We can discuss the details of our date later.”

“One more kiss?” Kaitlyn pouted. MC smiled softly and kissed her once again.

Four Months Later

“Mmmm you sure we can’t just stay in bed all day?” Kaitlyn murmured as she kissed her way up to MC.

“You know I really want to but it’s your first album listening party, babe. That’s a huge deal,” MC sighed as Kaitlyn kissed her way towards her breasts. “You need to get glammed up soon.”

“Is it really that important though? I mean, I could call Amara and say that I’m sick,” Kaitlyn smirked as her fingers wondered down MC’s stomach.

MC groaned, “You really should go, Kait. It’s a party for TBD and your album release. Although, you’re making it really hard for me right now.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s hard.”

“Babe, you don’t have a penis.”

“Ooo but we could get one,” Kaitlyn smirked mischievously.

MC laughed and flipped both of them over. “We’ll revisit that later.” She kissed the rockstar soundly before sitting up to gather her clothes. “Now come on. Annisa texted me to drive you over to her apartment to get ready. And Rachel left a voicemail basically saying, ‘Stop fucking and get our girl over here pronto!’”

Kaitlyn groaned but complied. “We should, like, take a shower together though.” When MC glared at her, she countered. “Hey, I’m serious! We reek of sex and taking one together will be quicker. No funny business I promise.”

There was, in fact, funny business during that shower.

After dropping off Kaitlyn to Anissa and Amara’s apartment, MC drove off and prepared for the party as well. She arrived at the party early and was talking to Abbie and Becca when TBD made their appearance. She walked over to the band and greeted them. “Hey guys! Congratulations on the album! You all look great, especially you,” MC directed towards Kaitlyn, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend and kissing her soundly.

“Barf. I’m gonna go drink all of our bosses’ alcohol,” Rachel said as she walked off. Amara and Annisa rolled their eyes at her but followed her after thanking MC.

“Hey, Kaitlyn, congratulations on the release. Chris and I are very sure that this album will blow you guys up bigger than ever,” Becca said.

“Thanks, Becca, but TBD has to thank you and Chris for signing us on to HDS Productions. We made the best choice signing on here,” Kaitlyn replied.

“It’s no problem at all,” Becca grinned. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I heard Zack telling Tyler and Zig that he’s bringing the big guns out tonight and I have to find out what it is. Can’t have the whole flooding fiasco happen again,” she rolled her eyes playfully as she walked away.

When Kaitlyn looked at MC confusedly, MC replied, “I’ll tell you that story later. It was before HDS first opened for business.”

A few hours later into the party, Kaitlyn was resting outside and nursing a beer bottle in her hand.

“Hey, you tired?” MC asked behind her.

“Nah, just needed the fresh air,” she shrugged.

MC walked up behind her and held her from behind as Kaitlyn sighed and relaxed further into MC’s embrace. “I’m really happy and proud of you and TBD, I hope you know that,” MC mumbled into Kaitlyn’s hair.

“I know, and I am so happy that I met you. You, James, and Tyler helped us a whole lot. We’re so lucky to have an awesome record label.”

“I’m so glad Chris and Becca expanded their reach to rock and metal musicians. Without them, I wouldn’t have met you. I love you, Kaitlyn, and I can’t wait to see you grow into the talented artist you are.”

Kaitlyn turned around to face MC and kissed her deeply. She pulled away slightly, “I love you too, MC.”

[topicprinter]

I was encouraged to post this after joking about it in the Amazon FBA $8k loss post. My story takes place back in 2005-2006 but I would imagine everything in it is still pretty relevant today.It was my first year out of college, I was living at home in Long Island while a friend and I were trying to come up with a business idea to avoid living the meme that is Office Space for the rest of our lives (we were both cubicle-based design engineers). I had a decent $60k + OT salary and my partner was finishing up his last year of college but he had a decent amount of savings from a small inheritance to contribute with. We had no debt or major expenses. We considered a lawn care business, pool cleaning, and eventually settled on the most expensive thing we could possibly pick - house flipping in LI, at the peak of the housing bubble.We started by looking at a lot of houses and after looking for an eternity of maybe 2 months, we settled on a house that we thought we could make bank on. It was a probate and we bid up against multiple bidders, settling at $385k on a 2Bd/2Ba where comps were going for $480-$500k with $13k in taxes/yr. We estimated it probably needed $30-40k worth of work and were planning on putting in sweat equity rather than paying out expensive contractors. We had our inspection done, got approved for way more than we should have ($400k @ 23 yrs old?!) and got to work.The house needed to be gutted. And I mean GUTTED with some uppercase letters. The yard was over grown, the patio was falling apart, the aluminum awning needed torn out (we actually sold this for scrap), the roof had to be replaced, the interior smelled of smoke which permeated the 3 layers of wall paper that we found in every room UNDER the wood paneling that covered it, the kitchen was straight from 1950, the breakers were those old circle types, the bathrooms were blue and pink, and the windows were aluminum framed garbage.We worked daily with 2 day laborers that my partner had worked with in the past. They were paid $100/day each and were worth every penny. They chose to work 10-12 hours a day, we never asked for more than 8 and often I was asking if they were ready to leave... My friend and I jumped in and helped wherever we could - though we were more effective in the demolition side of things. We had some fun, throwing old toilets off the roof into the dumpster and punching through drywall between studs before we ever knew the situation had a chance to not turn out well.The beginning was exciting and we were quite creative. I managed to replace all of our 16 windows for like $3500 by contacting a local manufacturer directly and representing myself as a reseller. My partner convinced his friends to help paint the house by hosting a keg party. I designed the kitchen in Ikea and learned to tile. We leveraged any connection we had to save money with every aspect of the flip, friends who were electricians upgraded the electrical panel to modern day 200amp service, and my landscaper buddy helped us clear out the yard. We used the HD credit card and got discounts on almost everything we purchased, and often purchased from the clearance section when possible. Craigslist was a great place to find used appliances in decent shape.Our laborers accomplished a ton, they tore down the aluminum siding and put up vinyl. They brought in a couple more guys to do the roof & also replaced 25 rotted 4'x8' pieces of plywood under the roof & fixed some trusses. They installed all of the windows I purchased, including 2 large bay windows. They sanded and poly'd the original wood floors. They laid a new patio in the back and a small brick porch in the front. Those guys were master carpenters and whenever I had an opportunity, I tried to learn what I could from them as they did different projects.And then the house was done. It took about 2-3 months over the summer to finish everything but we didn't just polish this turd, it actually looked pretty good! At this point, we probably had $40k invested and we knew we had to start working on getting it listed to unload it before we made too many more mortgage payments. So we put it on the market FSBO and I actually had a guy stop by that first week it was for sale who offered me $440k. I had recently read a book about negotiating and it said when someone makes an offer, don't respond, let them sweat while you think about it. I wish I never read that advice because I was dying to say "450 and its a deal" but I went against my gut and told him I'd get back to him after I spoke with my partner. I did speak with my partner and he said we should probably just take it and move on. We were hoping for $450k+ but $440k is close enough when you consider we wouldn't have to make more than another 1 or 2 mortgage payments. We probably would have come out very close to break even, maybe even have made a small profit, but he never returned my calls. And I called, a lot.We didn't get any other bites and we didn't know enough about advertising FSBO to really make it work. We also didn't have the same supporting websites that exist today outside of craigslist and the very beginnings of the biggerpockets forum. We couldn't just throw it on Zillow & Redfin, etc., we relied on signage and newspaper ads. Time wore on and then the school season started, and the housing bubble had just begun to burst. My partner managed to find someone to rent the home to for $500 or so a month less than what we were paying on the mortgage but if you remember the environment when the bubble did actually burst, it was better than trying to continue to list it. We were in a bad spot and I was working a lot of overtime to keep the mortgage going and the absurd taxes that started to hit us ($6500 semi-annual). I was making as much as I could and got paid straight time for OT which was barely enough to keep me out of bankruptcy. At this point I had a $20k credit card bill hanging over my head, my first and last experience with CC debt.After a year or so, our tenant was ready to move on and she let us show the house with her furniture in it to show it staged. We finally bit the bullet and get a real estate agent who was pretty hard core. This time we vetted the agent and she had a strategy for us to sell the house. We listed at $440k and within a couple of weeks had an offer for $415k. We both knew that there was nothing left to do other than take the loss and finally get out from under it. The buyer's inspection was done and we got some bad news - apparently a neighbor had been "taking care of" a 2 foot by 10 foot portion of our property that was on the other side of a fence for many years. The buyer's inspector noticed this and we found out there are some absurd laws in NY where the neighbor was able to make an ownership claim of that property because they had been taking care of it. If the inspector hadn't seen him mowing this part of the property that day, it would have never been an issue. We had to pay this neighbor $10,000 to get the property back. This was done through a real estate lawyer and exhausted all of our options before this. God damn this house was trying to take my soul.We finally made it to closing and if you thought I already went through the worst of this process, there was apparently one more bonus kick in the balls waiting for me: the guy who bought the house is the guy who offered me $440k a year prior. I shit you not.Lessons learned:We over bid. We wanted the house (or any house?) so badly we over paid to make sure we "won"We over leveraged with a mortgage we should not have been approved for (thanks Countrywide!!)We chose our real estate agent probably more based on her looks than her knowledge. I believe a better agent would have stopped us from choosing a 2 bed 2 bath project for our first flip. A 3 bedroom is way more marketable. Surround yourself with good people.Too big of a project. We should have started with a cosmetic flip, not something needed structural work.You can get mulch for "free" from the town. We only paid $15 to rent a home depot pick up truck.Renting the HD pickup was a life saver... used that 5 or 6 times over the life of the projectRenting tools is not a bad idea to save some cash if you don't think you'll use the same tool more than onceDesigning a kitchen was actually pretty easyGuys who own dumpster companies don't fuck around, if you don't pay on time they will literally dump your garbage out in your driveway... we paid before they did.Follow your gut, not some shitty advice you don't yet know is shitty that you got somewhere on the internet. I can't figure out how to properly phrase this, but at least if you fail when following your gut you have a known piece of yourself that you can work to adjust.CC bills are as most here probably know, the worst debt to have, avoid at all cost!If you get an offer that's pretty close to what you're looking for, take it and run, cash really is king.Due diligence is critical. Do not cheap out on the up front work of digging through potential issues that can cost you $10k in the wash. I probably could not have ever figured this out short of doing a survey and knowing real estate law and this was an expensive lesson.Partnerships are not for everyone. My partner and I were not on speaking terms for a while there for a variety of reasons. Our work ethics were different and some of our goals did not align well. Thankfully we were able to get our shit together and wrap things up before either of us went bankrupt.I don't have an exact figure for what my loss was on that project. It was definitely at least $40k, possibly closer to $50k. I sold my 1992 corvette for $15k to pay off a big chunk of my CC debt and I was not fully recovered for another year or two. Do I have any regrets? Sure, some. But honestly, I'm still glad I did it. I learned a lot, and the painful lessons I learned were burned into my brain where they've been called upon many times since. I haven't flipped a house since and I probably never will with where I am now in having a good career and stable life that really doesn't need that type of chaos again. I'm more likely to buy some houses as rentals and hire a property management company than put the type of hustle in needed to make a flip work and I'd like to continue investing in small businesses like I have been the past few years.One last thing to note: in my experiences, you will learn much, much more from your failures than your success. In that regard, failure is the key to success.TL;DR: Office space is a great movie.