hanofearl

[hanofearl]

“You need to take care of yourself”

“…I’m trying.”

I just started Rude Tales of Magic and this scene has been playing in my brain nonstop. Albie and Bellow make me feel so unhinged.

[hanofearl]

Big art dump from my other social medias bc Twitter is dying.

[hanofearl]

I’m open for commissions!

[hanofearl]

Burn Resources, Get Money

While having a business plan on hand at all times may seem cliché, it is actually the mark of an efficient and well-thought-out business. Business owners who do not have a business plan can often be stumped when put in an impromptu networking situation. They also may cause their business to fail because they have no direction where they want to go or no plan for how to get where they are going. A business plan is essential to the success of your business because it determines how various resources should be allocated and enables strategy in interpersonal settings.

Spend Wisely and the Rewards are Mighty

Businesses always come with budgets and it is the responsibility of the business owner to determine how the budget should be spent to obtain various types of assets. These decisions can be difficult, but spending money wisely can result in positive growth for the business. However, unwise decisions can lead to heavy losses to the business and even can result in business failure. Having a business plan can help determine what are wise investments and what are wastes of money.

For example, having a business plan can help determine if the business needs to hire new people to help run the business[1]. Whether it’s a personal assistant or an accountant or another professional to lend their services to the business, it’s important to be able to attract people with talents and skills that the business owner or other employees don’t already have[2]. It diversifies your business and grows the business’s potential[3]. The business plan allows for easier determination if hiring help is cost-effective or is a waste of resources.

Another resource that needs to be invested in wisely is renting office space. Rent is a financial obligation that is often fixed and can be a financial drain if the space isn’t used[4]. It may be more financially prudent to buy instead of lease. The business plan helps determine how much your business has the potential to grow and if investing in space is worth the financial risk[5].

Networking Events are Strategic Social Interactions

The idea of networking may seem daunting to the new business owner. It may seem like a forced and manipulative way to talk to friends and family. Or it may be hard to remember the reasons someone should invest in the business on the fly. However, networking is essential to business growth. A business plan allows for ease in talking with friends, family, lenders, and investors about why they should care about the business.

The act of starting an independent business can be scary for friends and family. They will want to know exactly what the direction is, how the business is going to get there, and if there are contingencies for things going wrong. All these concerns can be assuaged easily if there is a business plan[6]. It provides an easy way to answer all these questions and can also calm personal anxieties about the business by being a reminder that there is a plan and it’s not all unknown[7].

Having a business plan on hand sets anxious feelings investors and lenders can have as well. Investors and money lenders are essential because they help get the business off the ground and help it grow to reach more clients. They need to know how risky investing in this business is and what are the advantages of investing in this business[8]. A business plan prepares for addressing these issues intelligently and honestly, which helps grow the business[9].

How to Be A Wise Spender and Strategically Social

These skills are hard to learn, but ultimately extremely rewarding in the end. As a freelance typesetter and book designer, I have a unique skill set that will help me have a successful business. There are not as many freelance typesetters as there are freelance copyeditors. My plan is to use purchased resources and networking to grow my business so it can sustain my lifestyle during grad school in the way a part-time job would.

           There are quite a few purchasable resources that I will need to have to have a successful business. Firstly, I will continue my subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, which is approximately $32 a month. While this may seem expensive to some, it is an essential resource for typesetting and book design. Having a Creative Cloud subscription gives me access to InDesign and Adobe’s vast array of fonts and other free resources. It is also industry standard to use the Creative Cloud, so I need it to remain competitive with other freelancers. Secondly, I plan on selectively investing in fonts when I find ones that I like enough to reuse multiple times. This will be a rare purchase, due to the wide variety of Adobe fonts, but it may sometimes be necessary. I will need to be especially judicious when buying fonts. Lastly, I will probably invest in some kind of website subscription so I can display my design portfolio effectively. I will have to ruminate for a long time about this, since there are some free website building platforms that are good. I may want to save money, but I also may want to look more professional by spending money on my own domain name. All these decisions need to be taken into consideration with great care, especially since I currently don’t have a constant source of income.

           Networking will also be essential to building my freelancing business. I know a few people heavily involved in the small publishing scene in Utah, so I will let them know I am open for business and will post on the Facebook groups for networking that I am on. I also have a couple contacts in the New York book publishing scene, so I will reach out to them and find out if they know of any online freelancing communities that I can join. Additionally, I will also probably become that annoying person on social media that posts all the time about my small business. I may need to create social media pages separate from my art accounts just so it doesn’t get too confusing for any of my followers. I am uncomfortable when I feel like I am manipulating my friends, but I am going to have to do these things to be a competitive freelancer.

Conclusion

The business plan allows for business growth by determining how resources should be allocated and aiding in interpersonal business practices. A business needs to have potential to grow to succeed in the market. If there is no potential for growth, the business is essentially dead in the water. There will be no investors, no clients, and no hope at explaining bankruptcy to friends and family. A business plan is essential for success.

Bibliography

Berry, Tim. “15 Reasons You Need a Business Plan.” Entrepreneur. March 13, 2006. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83818.

Now from Nationwide. “What is the Importance of a Business Plan?” September 19, 2019. https://blog.nationwide.com/importance-of-a-business-plan/.

Nunn, Les, and Brian McGuire, “The Importance Of A Good Business Plan.” Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 8 no. 2 (2010) 95-106.

[1] Tim Berry. “15 Reasons You Need a Business Plan,” Entrepreneur, March 13, 2006. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83818.

[2] “What is the Importance of a Business Plan?” Now from Nationwide, September 19, 2019. https://blog.nationwide.com/importance-of-a-business-plan/.

[3] Nationwide, “What is the Importance…”

[4] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[5] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[6] Berry, “15 Reasons…”

[7] Les Nunn and Brian McGuire, “The Importance Of A Good Business Plan,” Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 8 no. 2 (2010) 95-106.

[8] Nunn, “The Importance…”

[9] Nunn, “The Importance…”

[hanofearl]

REVIEW: Beastars (2019)

Beastars (2019)

Netflix Original Series

Beastars is what happens when Zootopia and Ouran Highschool Host Club form a gang rivalry that leads to two star-crossed lovers dying in the crossfire. This anime is a beautiful—and horrifying—amalgamation of Japanese and furry culture; the first season perfectly explores the dysfunctional relationship between romantic and sexual attraction that is present in a repressed society. The world is rich with political and racial strife that asks what it means to be an individual in a society and how much of that individuality needs to be sacrificed for the greater good.  

The characters are also incredibly endearing: Legoshi is a soft-spoken wolf, Louis is an inspiring deer, and Haru is a rabbit antihero whom you just want to be happy. The mystery presented in the first few episodes is left to the wayside for most of the season, and the animation style of drawing 2D over 3D models can be unnerving for some. But who cares? Beastars tells an incredibly compelling story about race, politics, carnal repression, and theater kids giving their all in the school play.

Originally published in Leading Edge: Issue 77

[hanofearl]

🕯🍂🌙🥀🖤🥀🌙🍂🕯

May the autumn months bring you closure, understanding, and a feeling of contentment.

[hanofearl]

today is the day that percy and annabeth had their underwater kiss

[hanofearl]

According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.

[hanofearl]

No offense summer, but 🖤🎃🍂🕷🔮🕸🌙👁🦇🔪👣⚰️💀🖤🕷🎃🍂🕸🌙👁🦇🕷💀🖤🎃🎃🎃🖤🕷🕸⚰️🦇👁🖤💀🕸🌙🍂⚰️⚰️⚰️🔮🍂🍂🍂🔮🔮🎃🖤🖤🕸💀👁🔪👣💀🖤🍂🎃 🕸💀👁🔪💀🖤🍂🎃🔮🕸🌙👁🦇🕷💀⚰️🖤🕷🖤🕸🔮🕸🌙🦇🕷🎃👣💀🍂🖤💀🕷🕷🌙🌙🎃🍂👣🍂🕸🌙👁🎃🎃🦇🎃💀🔮🕷🌙

[hanofearl]

Aqua’s experience in A Fragmentary Passage and subsequent Norting changed the entire way I look at Light and Darkness in the Kingdom Hearts series.

Up until now, the light/darkness dichotomy was only ever something I interpreted as being a plot-specific force within the narrative. Sure, we had characters verbally telling us that darkness is related to negative emotions, light is related to friendship and positivity, etc. but beyond characters getting powered up for battle after verbally making those connections (“My friends are my power,” basically anything that comes out of Ansem SOD’s mouth), we don’t really get a chance to see what that means.

A Fragmentary Passage connected the emotions to the forces in a much more obvious way, for me at least. I’ll never forget playing the mirror level that has Aqua’s inner monologue going the whole time and realizing that, holy shit, this game is about depression! And then we see the E3 trailer from this year. For her to get Norted, we know she had to succumb to The Darkness, and because we have her experience in AFP as a background, we know how she got to that point and exactly what she was feeling when it happened. (Yes, AFP ended on a more hopeful note, but … I still think this is probably what happened).

I’m playing through all the main games again, and suddenly, the rest of the series has a LOT more context. The Xehanort/Eraqus arguments get a lot more nuance. Honestly, I think Xehanort has a little bit of a point? Light and Darkness (ie: positive emotions and negative emotions) existing in a balance seems WAY healthier than just trying to have ALL POSITIVE EMOTIONS ALL THE TIME. This could apply to “The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes.” The more you try to push down or hide your negative emotions in an attempt to remain positive 24/7, the more that negativity festers beneath the surface and can explode out of you. Maybe this is what happened with Terra. Dealing with the Darkness is something that has plagued him since he was a kid, but because light-obsessed Eraqus basically raised him, he had to repress negativity until it sorta just exploded in BBS. (As someone with mental health problems who grew up in a family that didn’t talk about problems or emotions and just pretended everything was fine all the time… my most recent BBS playthrough hit me kind of hard.) Along these same lines “hearts of pure light” don’t seem totally healthy either? Maybe it’s different for Princesses of Heart, because they’re Naturally Occurring, but it makes total sense why my boy Ven was so fragile after Vanitas got ripped out of him. In any case I am REALLY SCARED for Sora. I know he was close to getting Norted in DDD, but if he just tries to stay positive all the time because so many people are counting on him my boy is going to BREAK.

Now, when I see the darkness cloud animation emanating off a character, I have context for what that means and what that feels like. When Terra uses his dark command styles, I used to think “well yeah, he’s mad” but know I get that he’s pissed. When a Nort uses dark attacks, I get that he’s channeling his greed, his feelings of superiority. When Sora goes into Anti-form, I get that this is his moment of release, where he physically can’t be his happy-go-lucky self. The black cloaks, which protect people when travelling in corridors of darkness, have the power to shield people from negative emotions. Does turning into a heartless feel like being overwhelmed with hopelessness and dread?

This also makes Riku’s arc way more interesting to me! His “road to dawn” becomes a road to recovery!! Instead of pushing down his negativity, he lives with it! He uses it to his advantage without letting it overtake him!!! He doesn’t pretend to be sunshine and rainbows, and his friends still love him!!!!

I don’t really have a conclusion to this. I’m just really glad that they did what they did with A Fragmentary Passage.

[hanofearl]

i was speaking to a customer in Japanese once at work and my coworker overheard me and later in the break room he said to our other coworkers “man Andrew was over there speakin Naruto”

[hanofearl]

hoodies are one of the most powerful and underappreciated articles of clothing. cold? put on a hoodie. raining? put on a hoodie. no bra? put on a hoodie. nothing to wear? hoodie. cripplingly low self esteem? you already know. so versatile! so multifaceted!

[hanofearl]

They like to steal each other’s stuff

[hanofearl]

ArtFight Revenge for @itsbobbah !

[hanofearl]

anyone else fucking LOVE BEING IN BED???

[hanofearl]

People: WOW it’s August already, happy August everyone

Me internally: Halloween 🎃 Autumn 🍂 Halloween 🎃 Autumn 🍂 Halloween 🎃 Autumn 🍂 Halloween Autumn 🍂 Halloween 🎃 Autumn 🍂 Halloween 🎃 Autumn 🍂 Halloween

[hanofearl]

so it’s august 3 (in my timezone) and that means it’s 179 days until release

179*2=358

358/2=179

in other words there’s 358/2 days until kh3 is released