#as well as a new pen so I can start using my old software again

[stepswowdsen]

【Magi】 Judar in hanfu 🖤❤️🐈‍⬛

Doodles

Speedpaint

Intro Rambles

Judar skrunkly (rough colour draft) 🖤❤️🐈‍⬛

Judar Speedpaint 🖤❤️🐈‍⬛

Music: Mass Destruction (Persona 3 - Battle Theme)

Original time: 16 minutes

Sped up by 8x

It's just me filling in the base colours for now

Judar Colour Edit

Btw the colour edit of the Magi anime's Judar concept arts were done by me! The purple toned one, specifically. It has nice colours...

I love using teal/cool toned black + red combo in my arts 💗 So I used more blue tones instead

I like doing colour edits cuz it helps me harmonize colours and see how colours work together on the actual design itself. Love playing around with colours

I do love the teal toned black hair the Magi anime uses for him, but I tend to shift colours by saturating the colours more (shifting to cooler tones and saturating reds)

When I refine and redraw the rest of the drawing, I'll redraw the hair and clothes and add more patterns onto the clothes

Misc Rambles

Didn't feel like starting a new sketch so I'm just playing around with rough colour drafts. I think teal/cool toned black + red combo looks so nice!

I want to do more rough coloured sketches 🙏

Like the Douman doodle WIP turned out super nice. I think doing rough colour drafts is nice cuz I get to play around with colours

Also, I actually recorded me filling in the rough base colours through OBS, which is a free software that records monitor footage and streams well

But the video editor program I'm using, OpenShot, is usually ok but it's so doodoo with speeding up clips, it constantly stutters and skips frames so I'm gonna have to find a better free video editor first before I post it

It's been a long time since I recorded something!

Wanna doodle JuAli again soon… I miss them 🥺🖤❤️💛

Speaking of which, I haven't seen KuroEne fanarts with Kuroha's Manga Route 2 design, so I will deliver 🫡 Hopefully soon

Oh another thing I forgot to mention

I love using saturated red and hot pink~ Technically if you eyedrop pick the colour, the colour of the red ru (top of the hanfu) is red~ish hot pink. But cuz of the contrast against the cool colours, the teal/cool toned black daxiushan (coat jacket), the colour reads as red

I love picking colours. Sketching and picking colours are my fave part of the art process

Persona 3: OST

I love Lotus Juice and Yumi Kawamura's voices!!!

Recorded this last night as an excuse to shill my fave Persona OST~~

Lotus Juice (P3's main rapper) and Yumi Kawamura (P3's main singer) are my fave singers!!! I love P3's OST sm

Mass Destruction is my fave P3 track

Yumi's "Ooh yeah~ Baby, baby~ Dada-dada!" It's so catchy!!!

A song with singing parts that are just "Ooh yeah, baby baby, dada-dada~~" sounds amazing

Yumi has a very unique voice quality and really strong singing voice. I love how Yumi's "Dada-dada" sounds like "Dada-dadao" and "Baby, baby" sounds like "Babeh, babeh"

Art Rambles

I love picking colours 🥰 My fave part of the art process is sketching and picking colours

I use CSP's Oil Paint Flat Brush to line! I've been using CSP since 2016. The first thing I drew on CSP was a KuroEne comic page attempt on CSP back in 2016

It's a free brush. CSP updated the Oil Paint brush with a new one so you can find CSP's old brushes on the CSP Assets store

Ever since 2022, I prefer using textured brushes to sketch/line compared to soft opaque brushes and hard pen brushes

Makes it easier to control line weights for me

This brush has a flat edge so the newer Oil Paint brush makes it easier to draw sharper lines, but I have better control over this brush and I'm just used to it. It works with my art style well. I love weighted inky brushes.

Also dawg I just realized that I recorded Display Capture on OBS so it shows my tablet's button presses on screen and me opening folders and files oops 😭

I'll record just the CSP window next time with Window Capture

I downloaded ShotCut, a free video editor this morning and it's already better than OpenShot tbh. It can speed up the video without stuttering and skipping frames, and has more features too

If I was filling in the base colours for real, I'd use a hard brush to fill in the base colours (cuz as you can see in the video, the Oil Paint brush is slightly translucent so it'll create lighter spots and won't fill in the base colours completely)

So I duplicated the layers multiple times. Since it's just a rough sketch, I filled in the base colours manually since it's fine for it to be messy. I'm just getting an idea of colours so it doesn't need to be clean

But if it was more refined with a cleaner refined sketch/lineart, then I'd use lasso tool and magic wand by selecting the outside of the lines and inverting the selection

I like using the old Oil Paint Flat brush for sketching and lining, but just keep in mind it has a flat edge (so if you need something that makes sharper lines use the new Oil Paint Flat brush) and it can't blend for shading/rendering.

[almostdailysusie]

Drawing streams will start again after Chrimbus! I’ll be hoping to bring them back to 1-2 times a week. So keep an eye out for schedule updates in the future.

[perpetual-stories]

How To Fight Writers Block

hello, hello. hope everyone is doing well. as you can all tell, this post will be about how to fight writers block.

it’s really annoying to me when I hear people say “oh you don’t have writers block, you’re just lazy.”

first of all, yes, I am naturally lazy. second of all, how dare you. writing isn’t as easy as many think. granted, all you have to do is write down words on paper, but it’s not always easy to find the right words to express what you are feeling, or what you wish to say.

I have had terrible writer’s block for the last few days and it’s horrible! as a business owner or a small writing store, I have to be ready to write and fulfill my clients’ ideas and orders.

it’s not easy. It takes a heavy toll on my imagination, and digs me a deep pit of blockage, drowning in the lack of originality because of the constant writing and repetition or certain phrases and sentences in different projects.

i am making this post in the hopes to remind myself about over coming the dreaded and sometimes skeptically believed writer’s block.

What is writer’s block?

Yeah, I know. We all know what that is, but let me define it.

is the state of being unable to proceed with writing, and/or the inability to start writing something new

some people believe it to be a real problem, others believe it's “all in your head”

What Causes Writer’s Block?

in the 1970s, clinical psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios decided to find out

they concluded that there are four broad causes of writer's block:

Excessively harsh self-criticism

Fear of comparison to other writers

Lack of external motivation, like attention and praise

Lack of internal motivation, like the desire to tell one's story

How to overcome writer's block: 20 tips

1. Develop a writing routine:

Author and artist Twyla Tharp once wrote: “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.”

it might seem counterintuitive

if you only write when you “feel creative,” you're bound to get stuck in a tar pit of writer's block

The only way to push through is by disciplining yourself to write on a regular schedule. It might be every day, every other day, or just on weekends — but whatever it is, stick to it!

2. Use "imperfect" words:

A writer can spend hours looking for the perfect word or phrase to illustrate a concept

You can avoid this fruitless endeavor by putting, “In other words…” and simply writing what you’re thinking, whether it’s eloquent or not

You can then come back and refine it later by doing a CTRL+F search for “in other words.”

3. Do non-writing activities:

one of the best ways to climb out of a writing funk is to take yourself out of your own work and into someone else’s

Go to an exhibition, to the cinema, to a play, a gig, eat a delicious meal

immerse yourself in great STUFF and get your synapses crackling in a different way

Snippets of conversations, sounds, colors, sensations will creep into the space that once felt empty

4. Freewrite through it:

free-writing involves writing for a pre-set amount of time without pause — and without regard for grammar, spelling, or topic. You just write.

The goal of freewriting is to write without second-guessing yourself — free from doubt, apathy, or self-consciousness, all of which contribute to writer's block. Here’s how:

Find the right surroundings. Go somewhere you won't be disturbed.

Pick your writing utensils. Will you type at your computer, or write with pen and paper? (Tip: if you're prone to hitting the backspace button, you should freewrite the old-fashioned way!)

Settle on a time-limit. Your first time around, set your timer for just 10 minutes to get the feel for it. You can gradually increase this interval as you grow more comfortable with freewriting.

5. Relax on your first draft:

Many writers suffer form perfectionism, which is especially debilitating during a first draft

“Blocks often occur because writers put a lot of pressure on themselves to sound ‘right’ the first time. A good way to loosen up and have fun again in a draft is to give yourself permission to write imperfectly.” — editor Lauren Hughes

perfect is the enemy of good,” so don't agonize about getting it exactly right! You can always go back and edit, maybe even get a second pair of eyes on the manuscript

6. Don’t start at the beginning:

the most intimidating part of writing is the start, when you have a whole empty book to fill with coherent words

instead of starting with the chronological beginning of whatever it is you’re trying to write, dive into middle, or wherever you feel confident

7. Take a shower:

Have you ever noticed that the best ideas tend to arrive while in the shower, or while doing other “mindless” tasks?

research shows that when you’re doing something monotonous (such as showering, walking, or cleaning), your brain goes on autopilot, leaving your unconscious free to wander without logic-driven restrictions

showering is my favourite thing to do if I may add

8. Balance your inner critic:

successful writers have in common is the ability to hear their inner critic, respectfully acknowledge its points, and move forward

You don't need to completely ignore that critical voice, nor should you cower before it

you must establish a respectful, balanced relationship, so you can address what's necessary and skip over what's insecure and irrelevant

9. Switch up your tool:

a change of scenery can really help with writer's block. However, that scenery doesn't have to be your physical location — changing up your writing tool can be just as big a help!

if you’ve been typing on your word processor of choice, try switching to pen and paper. Or if you're just sick of Google Docs, consider using specialized novel writing software.

10. Change your POV:

great advice from editor Lauren Hughes: “When blocked, try to see your story from another perspective ‘in the room’ to help yourself move beyond the block. How might a minor character narrate the scene if they were witnessing it? A ‘fly on the wall’ or another inanimate object?

11. Exercise your creative muscles:

Any skill requires practice if you want to improve, and writing is no different! So if you’re feeling stuck, perhaps it’s time for a strengthening scribble-session to bolster your abilities

12. Map out your story:

If your story has stopped chugging along, help it pick up steam by taking a more structured approach — specifically, by writing an outline

13. Write something else:

Though it's important to try and push through writer's block with what you're actually working on, sometimes it's simply impossible

feel free to push your current piece to the side for now and write something new

14. Work on your characters:

It follows that if your characters are not clearly defined, you’re more likely to run into writer’s block

15. Stop writing for readers:

write for yourself, not your potential readers

this will help you reclaim the joy of being creative and get you back in touch with what matters: the story.

this is something I really need to do. because of my etsy business i don't write for fun anymore, but instead as a business and a deadline. i'm going to have to pull out my old crappy wattled fanfics or write some new ones.

16. Try a more visual process:

when words fail you, forget them and get visual. Create mind maps, drawings, Lego structures — ideally related to your story, but whatever unblocks your mind!

17. Look for the root of it:

writer’s block often comes from a problem deeper than simple “lack of inspiration.” So let's dig deep: why are you really blocked? Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I feel pressure to succeed and/or competition with other writers?

Have I lost sight of what my story is about, or interest in where it's going?

Do I lack confidence in my own abilities, even if I've written plenty before?

Have I not written for so long that I feel intimidated by the mere act?

Am I simply feeling tired and run-down?

once you identify what's wrong, it'll be so much easier to fix.

18. Quit the Internet:

If willpower isn’t your strong suit and your biggest challenge is staying focused, try a site blocker like Freedom or an app like Cold Turkey

19. Let the words find you:

meditate, go for a walk, take that shower

Word Palette is a great app that features a keyboard of random words, allowing you to simply click your way to your next masterpiece.

You can also try AI auto-completers like Talk to Transformer, where you can enter a phrase and let the app “guess what comes next.”

even though they often produce nonsense, it's a great way to help that writer's block.

20. Write like Hemingway:

And if your biggest block is your own self-doubt about your prose, Hemingway offers suggestions to improve your writing as you go

it's a pretty cool app if you ask me.

it highlights your sentences (if need be) and makes suggestions on how to improve them!

well, there you have it! a lengthy post on how to fight writer's block. now i just hope i can combat my own soon.

like, comment and reblog if you find this useful! feel free to reblog in instagram and tag me perpetualstories

Follow me on instagram and tumblr for more writing and grammar tips and more!

[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning Into Stone

A/N  Another long drive, another Outlander fanfic idea that dropped into my brain out of nowhere, shoving aside the historical AU I have been wrestling with for months.  Here’s the pitch: Claire Beauchamp is a psychiatrist specializing in grief counselling.  Jamie Fraser is referred to her by his sister, who is worried for his well-being after a series of family tragedies.  You can probably guess the rest, but I’m going to write it anyway.   The title is taken from a song by the amazing Phantogram that was playing as the story idea came to me.

After losing my WIP virginity posting Ginger Snap, I’m going out on that limb again and posting this first chapter with only a rough outline mapped out in my head.  You people are a terrible influence!  Also, there will be some trigger warnings on future chapters, so please watch out for those.   And now, on with our show.

Claire Beauchamp glanced down at the leather-bound calendar open on her desk.  The ivory page for Thursday was packed to the margins, each hourly block filled with the name of a patient followed by a series of cuneiform symbols she used to remind herself of the last session, course of treatment, overall progress, all while maintaining strict confidentiality.  Not even Geillis Duncan, her office administrator and very good friend, knew how to decode the script.

Geillis liked to laugh at the old-fashioned day planner, reminding Claire that their practice utilized software that could perform the same function electronically, but she enjoyed the act of physically logging each session.  The solid heft of her Mont Blanc pen in her hand, a medical school graduation gift from her Uncle Lamb.  The scratch and grab of the nub as it bled black ink over virgin paper.  It was a tactile ceremony in a detached world.  Geillis would nod and then tell her she needed to get laid.

Speak of the devil, a sharp rap on her office door was followed by the appearance of her strawberry blonde head. blue eyes alight with mischief.

“Yer two o’clock is here.  Did ye need more time tae finish bolting down tha’ chaff ye call a salad, or can I show him in?”

“It’s kale,” she defended.  “It’s full of anti-oxidants.”

A disdainful scoff was the only response.

“Yes, Geil, please show Mister...” she glanced down at her planner, “...Fraser in, thank you.”

The tiny rectangle contained only a name, which meant this was their first appointment.  Geillis vetted all prospective patients, but Claire preferred to go into the first meeting blind, with no assumptions or pre-conceptions.  

She wondered what misfortune had caused Mr. Fraser to seek out her psychiatric services.  The death of a child, perhaps, or the end of an extra-marital affair.  People grieved for very different reasons and worked through or around that grief with a surprising variety of coping mechanisms.   Most called upon her practice in much the same way they would a breakdown truck when their car’s engine failed.  They simply wanted to get back on the road to happiness.

Despite the degrees and accreditations that decorated her office wall, Claire wasn’t certain such a thing was possible.  In her experience, grief was a phantom limb that never really went away.  The best one could hope for was to learn healthier ways of living with it.  

The sound of Geillis clearing her throat snapped her back to the present.

“Was there something else, Geil?”

“Och, no’ really.  Just, when yer considerin’ how tae thank me later on, remember tha’ my favourite stone is an emerald, that I prefer gold tae silver, but platinum is ne’er amiss.”

“What are you on about, Duncan?”  But her friend had already disappeared back into the reception area, leaving behind only the glow of her Cheshire smile.  Claire was shaking her head, bemused, when another knock rang out, this one considerably heavier than the first.

“Come in,” she called as she looked up.  And up.  And up some more.

The man who now practically filled her office door had to be at least six foot four, with powerful shoulders and a broad torso encased in a blue henley.  His nearly endless legs were likewise muscular, as testified by the stretch of his jeans across each thigh.  As if his physique wasn’t remarkable enough, he had a head of outrageously wavy red hair, worn long enough to graze the tops of his ears and the nape of his neck, but swept back from a high brow by a judicious use of product.  His face was angular in a pleasingly unique way, with a day or two’s growth of beard counter-balancing an almost youthful, earnest appearance.  But his most striking feature by far were his aquamarine eyes that shimmered like a tropical sea.  Eyes that were currently observing her with perplexity.

“Dr. Beauchamp?” a deep Scottish brogue inquired.  He pronounced it as though she were French.

“Yes,” she startled.  “That’s me.  And it’s pronounced Beecham.  Please, come in Mister Fraser.”  She shuffled a few items around her desk needlessly as she tried to compose herself.  Damn Geillis for not giving her a bit more warning that her newest client was some sort of fitness model.

“Thank ye,” he replied.  “An’ it’s pronounced Jamie, if ye please.”   She added wit to the growing list of the man’s attributes.

If anything, he grew even more impressive as he approached.  She could see he was nervous, although hiding it well.  His striking eyes darted about the room, trying to get a sense of his environment.  She indicated the well-upholstered armchair that sat to one side of her desk.

“Have a seat,” she invited.

With a surprising amount of grace for one so tall, he eased into the chair but didn’t lean back.  The fingers of his left hand tapped restlessly against his thigh.  She watched him quietly, waiting for him to speak.  This was a trick she had learned when she first started practicing psychiatry, but in this case it also allowed her to continue her appraisal.  He was, she concluded, the most attractive man she’d ever seen in the flesh.

“No couch,” he finally observed.

“No.  That’s a bit of a Hollywood trope, I’m afraid.  Lying prone in front of a stranger is hardly conducive to feeling at ease.”

He nodded his acceptance of her logic, but was otherwise silent.

“So,” she spoke at last, unable to wait him out, “what caused you to seek out counselling, Jamie?”  His name suited him, she thought as she spoke it for the first time.  Both boyish and imposing at once.

“I didna.  Twas my sister, Jenny, who insisted I see a doctor.”  His mobile mouth twisted into a grimace.  She could imagine the sibling discord that such a demand would have caused.  Whoever this Jenny was, she was made of strong stuff.  Unfortunately for her, a hostile patient would receive no benefit from merely visiting her office.  Counselling was a participatory process, and she could tell from the stubborn set of Jamie’s shoulders that he had no intention of participating.

“I see,” she said carefully.  “Well, it’s your time and your dime, Mr. Fraser.  This session lasts for forty-five minutes, and you’ve not been here for five.  There’s a carafe of hot water on the table over there, if you care for some tea.  Or you’re welcome to just enjoy that comfortable chair for another forty minutes.  I’ll be working on some administrative necessities.”

She turned her chair away from him, but from the corner of her eye she could see his gobsmacked expression.  He had clearly expected her to cajole and manipulate him into co-operating, but that simply wasn’t her style.

“I meant no offence, doctor.  I’m certain ye’re verra good at what ye do.  Tis only... well, Jenny is my older sister, ye ken.  She practically raised me.  And so ofttimes she treats me like a muckle-sized bairn, and no’ a man who’s capable of lookin’ after himself.”

As he spoke, Jamie leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees, expressive hands gesturing in front of his face.  Hostile to the notion of counselling he might be, but he clearly wanted her to understand it wasn’t a slight.  As a physician, she had been trained to never take a patient’s reactions personally, but it didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the effort.

“No offence taken, Jamie.  If you don’t need my assistance, I’m happy for you.  That’s one less person hurting in the world.”

“I didna say I wasna hurting.  But I can handle it my own way.  I am handling it, that is,” he hurried to add.

Unable to sit still any longer, he rose and walked over to the small table where she kept an assortment of herbal teas and a tray of Geillis’ homemade biscuits.  Bending over, Jamie set about making himself some; chamomile by the smell of it.  The sound of spoon ringing off porcelain as he stirred in some honey made her smile, reminding her of Lamb and his obsession with the lost art of afternoon tea.

“Can I make ye a cup?”

The question was so unexpected, it took her a moment to process it.  The tea was there as a distraction for her patients, to give them something to do with their bodies as they worked through difficult emotions.  None of them had ever thought to offer her a reprieve as well.

“No, thank you.  I just finished lunch.”

He dipped a shortbread into the steaming tea, then ate it in a single bite.  Instead of sitting back down, he began to browse the framed certificates and photographs along the far wall as he sipped his tea.  With his back turned, her eyes dipped to admire his ass, which filled out his jeans perfectly.  When she caught herself, she gave her head a shake, appalled at her lack of professional detachment.  Maybe Geillis was right.  Maybe she really did need to get laid.

“How long have ye been a doctor?” Jamie asked without turning around.

“Ten years,” she replied.  “But I’ve only been a psychiatrist for the last two.”

It was a dangerous topic, and she blamed his ass for letting the words slip out.  Fortunately, his inquisitiveness took him in an entirely different direction.

“Were ye some kind of prodigy, then? Ye hardly seem old enough tae have yer own practice, let alone fer a decade.  If ye dinna mind me sayin’ so,” he added quickly, as though realizing what he’d just said.

“Not at all.  And you hardly seem young enough to be a, what was it? A muckle-sized bairn?”

As he turned to look her way, she understood the expression ‘shot-gun smile’ for the first time.  It spread across his face like a sunbeam, transforming what was already remarkable into a work of art.  If she hadn’t been sitting, she likely would have stumbled backward from the force of the blow.  Scrambling for something familiar to keep her from making a very grave fool of herself in front of this man, she clasped her clinical training with both hands.

“Are you and your sister close?” 

“Aye, when we’re no’ tryin’ not tae kill the other.  Our Mam died when I was only four, and with Da workin’ dawn til dark on the farm, Jenny was parent, teacher an’ playmate all rolled inta one.”

“You’re not from Edinburgh, then?”  Although what that had to do with his counselling, she hadn’t a clue. 

“Nah, I hail from a wee village in the Highlands ye’ve likely ne’er heard of called Broch Mordha.”  She shook her head to indicate she was indeed unfamiliar with it.  Jamie launched into a detailed description of the place, his hands sculpting the landscape out of thin air.  He obviously cared very deeply for his home, and she felt a twinge of jealousy, having never known that feeling of deep belonging  herself.

“And what brought you to Old Smoky?” she asked as he wound down, her interest piqued.  It was like slamming a lead door on his previously sunny disposition.

“Family obligations.” Said in such a way as to make it clear that no further words would be forthcoming on the topic.  She regretted her nosiness immediately, despite what it revealed about his emotional state.  Jamie was most certainly grieving something, but handling it he was not.

Before she could find a way back to the easy flow of conversation, a chime from her laptop indicated that the session was up.  She couldn’t bear to dismiss him without trying to set things right.

“Listen, Jamie, I understand that you only came here today to humour your sister, but I want you to consider something.  Whether we’re grieving or angry or jealous, or any destabilizing feeling, we’re often the worst surveyors of our own landscape.  Just like you can’t know your place on the sea without referencing the stars, it takes something external to ourselves to measure how far adrift we have become.  Your sister obviously loves you.  Ask yourself, what has she seen in you that prompted her to force you to seek help?”

They parted with cordial but muted goodbyes.  The door closed behind him, leaving Claire to stare at the blank rectangle in her planner that bore his name.  No coded symbols flowed from her pen.  When the door re-opened, it was Geillis, closing it firmly behind her.

“Weel, did I no’ tell ye?  Wee fox, tha’ one.  And he told me he liked my shortbread!”   Geillis said this as though it was some kind of sexual euphemism, which for all Claire knew, it was.

“Yes,” she replied distractedly.  “He’s very nice.”

“Nice!  Nice?  Tha’ man is tae nice what Wagyu is tae beef jerky.  Have ye completely lost yer senses, woman?”  

“Yes, well, he’s a patient, Geillis, as you well know.  And not one I’m likely to see again,” she added, acknowledging out loud what she already knew.

“Oh, no?” Geillis sing-songed.  “Thas’ strange, as he just made an appointment fer the same time next week.”

Claire’s eyes flew to where her friend looked on, smug as could be.

“Yer three o’clock called tae say she was runnin’ five minutes late.  I’ll leave ye tae think about yer... patient.”

Claire picked up her pen, trying to pull together something resembling a professional summary of her first appointment with Jamie.  Her mind replayed their interaction, but all she could remember was the way his eyes crinkled when he was listening attentively, the tidy half-moons of his fingernails, the seam of his jeans as it contoured his thigh, and the cymbal-crash in her chest that accompanied his smile.

Patient, she reminded herself.  Jamie Fraser is your patient. 

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with MustangSally

MustangSally has 33 stories at Gossamer. Even if you haven’t read it, you’ve probably heard of at least one of them, Iolokus, since it’s an X-Files fanfic classic. All her fics hit big and are well worth your time. I’ve recced some of my favorites here before, including And Dance by the Light of the Moon, All the Children are Insane, and Iolokus. Big thanks to MustangSally for doing this interview.

What's the story behind your pen name?

I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Yes and no. Yes, because life has moved on since the early nineties and the characters and the fans are in vastly different places now. Our current tech would make the premise of the X-Files impossible. No, because of the longevity of some of the Star Trek TOS work (there’s an archive of hard copy fanzines at the University of Iowa). Top-drawer authors started out in TOS fandom.

I’m just greatly saddened that my physical body is showing wear and tear while the fic doesn’t. Fic gets to stay smooth-skinned and muscular, captured at the peak of perfection.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

At the risk of sounding atrociously trite, I think of the friends I made.  I met some very remarkable women that I’ve been able to stay friends with online for over twenty-five years.  We may have moved to Facebook and post entirely too much about our pets and which of our body parts has sagged this week, but we’re friends.  It’s a furiously funny, feminist, and well-educated group of women with jobs in the highest levels of academia, finance, communications, and media.  I’m amused by the fact that if I have a question about how a virus replicates, I can ask a PhD I’ve been drunk with in Las Vegas.

Back in the day, I had a job that sent me traveling around major cities in the US and UK. I could post on a message board and within ten minutes there were people I could go out for dinner and drinks with. We already knew we had something we could talk about for at least a couple of hours. Additionally, most of these people were women so there was an added level of security. Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Well, it was mostly atxc and the Yahoo! groups mailing lists that spiraled out into Geocities sites and, eventually, LiveJournal. The amusing thing is that getting in on the ground floor of social media and the Internet has helped me get jobs!  When I look at a new piece of software, I think, ‘this is hella easier than uploading to Geocities.’  We had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, on dial-up, fighting off dinosaurs with our AOL CDs while writing HTML code. What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

The past four years in politics have basically been the ugliest online kerfuffle the world has ever seen. I survived the Shipper Wars of ’96 and I thought those were brutal, but that was NOTHING. The only way to win an argument online is to not have the argument at all. Arguing with a troll is like mudwrestling a pig: You both get filthy and only the pig is happy.

Also, READ THE FUCKING TERMS OF SERVICE.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had the most terrible straight-girl crush on Scully. I wanted to be her best friend, I wanted to BE her.  I wanted to order Chinese food and paint each other’s nails and talk about bones.  Scully and Princess Leia and I could all just hang out poolside with hot and cold running waiters and poolboys, drink margaritas, and bitch about how unfair it all was – if the stupid men would just get OUT OF THE WAY AND LET US DO OUR JOBS, the world would be so much better. What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

This question is really about Iolokus, isn’t it?  You can’t fool me. [Lilydale note: I can neither confirm nor deny the motivation for this question, but I cannot complain about the answer.]

Simply put, I was enraged. The moment it was revealed that Scully’s ova had been used in experimentation, I lost my feminist mind. It was the most obscene defilement imaginable.  Scully wasn’t nearly as angry as I was.  What I thought needed to happen was for Scully to become a fiery force of vengeance against the MEN who had done this to her.  Clearly, I was not going to get that level of satisfaction from the show, as I was imagining Kali-like carnage on a global scale. I emailed RivkaT (whom I did not know well at that point) with a proposition that we work together. Strangely enough, we didn’t meet face to face until we were well into the project, but we did talk on the phone quite a bit. The rules were simple – everyone had to be punished in truly horrific ways, and at some point, we had to see if we could write a car chase (only because that seemed impossible).  Then it basically turned into a very twisted game of chicken to see who could be the most outrageous in terms of killing people off or writing really horrific things that fit within the structure of the narrative.  I did, in the end, write the car chase, but RivkaT one-upped me by throwing in a helicopter (a FOX News helicopter, at that).  

Really, RivkaT?  A helicopter? What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? I am terribly proud of what I wrote, pleased that it brought pain and pleasure in equal amount to people, and, again, thrilled by the people I became friends with. I admit that I stopped watching the show when Scully announced her pregnancy.  I could only see a long jump over a shark tank for the rest of the series. I haven’t watched the new episodes, either.  It is complete in my mind and doesn’t need to be continued.  I wouldn’t say no to having a reunion with some of my fic friends, although we’re still chatting online like everyone does.   Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Rivka and I wrote in the Buffy fandom for a few years, but then we moved on to real adult jobs that left absolutely no time for me to write. I’m in education, and I regularly sweat blood for fear that someone is going to find my old fic. The Buffy people were fun; there was a certain *shininess* to them that I really enjoyed. The X-men authors were just batshit and delightful, and some amazing stuff came out of Marvel fandom, particularly in the Thor/Loki and Steve/Bucky subgenres. I’ve learned to appreciate a good coffee shop AU and one famous Erik/Charles fic where all the main characters are crabs. Seriously, crabs—it’s hysterical. [Lilydale note: Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted by groovyphilia currently has almost 2,500 kudos at AO3.]

Every few years, I’ll have a student try to explain to me what fandom is and I just smirk. Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? No. Not really. Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom? I fell into an X-Men hole a few years back and had a great old time wallowing in the Cherik muck, and there was a flirtation with BBC Sherlock as well. Strangely enough, I became interested in A/B/O fics only because of what they were saying about the role of women in our society. The limitations on the male omegas seem absurd and then you realize those are the same limitations put on women all. the. time.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

RivkaT very nicely formatted everything and put it up on AO3. What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I will always be stupidly proud of how shocked and horrified people were by Iolokus. The truth of the matter is that Iolokus has Greek drama at its core. Scully is Medea, and the entire story is lousy with “blood on the threshing floor” and Dionysian rites. The everyday is subverted into horror, and wives and daughters will tear men limb from limb like the Maenads. Since I was ultimately disappointed with what Chris Carter did with the entire show, that approach seemed appropriate.

At a certain level, all fic is corrective fic.  Like critic Anne Jamison said, “Irritated fans produce fanfic like irritated oysters produce pearls.”  And because fic has fallen so much into women’s sphere, a pure form of correction is not just the death of the author but the MURDER, a new creation springing up from the spilled blood like Cadmus sowing dragon’s teeth.

Okay, that’s a bit much. Maybe I should just take myself back to the isle of Goth Amazons or something. Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I had to write a self-evaluation and a reflection on pedagogy today. If that’s not fiction, I don’t know what the fuck is.

All my creativity is caught up in trying to pretend to be a normal middle-aged white woman so no one knows I am really a lizard.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Keep writing, keep reading, keep fighting the commercialization of narratives. As things grow more and more commodified, all our dreams and desires reduced to tchotchkes made in China, it’s a revolutionary act to separate your work from the marketplace. Be bold, take chances, turn the trope on its ear and kick it in the ass. Take everything the creators have done to make a work palatable to the unwashed masses and set it on fire.

Be subversive.

Be mean.

Have a great fucking time.

(Posted by Lilydale on March 2, 2021)

[little-cereal-draws]

Hi feel free to respond to this privately but Hi, i love your animated videos, especially the shadows ones! What program(s) do you use if you don’t mind me asking and do u have any tips? I would love to start doing animatics but idk how/where to start. Thanks in advance! ^^

Hello! I'm so glad that you enjoyed my videos! My software is not fancy at all and might be a bit of a letdown tbh lol

For drawing I used to use Paint tool sai (which i think is what a lot of ppl use) but it wasn't working right on my computer, it wouldn't let me save my images. I got it off of some Japanese website and it was $19 (USD). Now I use the app that came with my computer. I have a Windows computer. It's called Sketchbook (oOoOh, so fancy lol) and it is limited in terms of brushes and pen pressure but I like it. Very easy to figure out. I also have Krita which I think I had to pay for. I don't remember how much tho, I want to say $15 (USD)?? Maybe? It is much more complex and lets you do things like animate but I don't use it bc I'm too lazy to figure it out lol I know there's a lot of great tutorials online tho. I also know a lot of ppl use Procreate which is much better especially in terms of brushes but it's not compatible w my computer :( Procreate costs $10 (USD) I think.

As for editing, I use Shotcut. It's a free software that I downloaded from somewhere, I don't remember. It is definitely limited in terms of filters, camera angles, and what you can put in it but hey, it's free! The one thing I hate the most abt it is you can't pan. It drives me insane. But it has zoom, text, filters, etc. I used to use Filmora which is also free but is even more limited and I think it puts a watermark on your videos.

Now for tips!

Uhh, I guess the most obvious is practice. I started doing animatics four years ago and I can't watch any of my old ones now, they're so bad lol

Another thing is vary your shot type. If you have a couple ppl doing smth together, do close ups, medium shots, and wide shots. Try different camera angles. It's ok to do the same type of shot a couple times in a row but after a while it can get boring.

An extension of the last point, if a character does smth like knock a thing over or move it or whatever, show the object moving and then their reaction. Reaction shots are very important for character's emotions. Wide shots to establish a setting.

As an extension of that point, watch your favorite show/movie and watch how they film it, when they zoom in, how they frame the characters etc. I've spent so much time doing that lol (WWDITS might not be the best example bc it's a documentary but it should still work pretty well)

In terms of moving characters/making it smooth, layers are going to be ur best friend lol I end up with so many layers when I make a video. It's partially because I'm scared to delete layers in case I need them later but it's also helpful to see a character's last position. If they're on the left and need to move to the right, draw them on the left, copy the layer, and move the new layer a little bit using the original one as a reference point. Continue until they've made it. Same thing if they're moving their hand up or whatever. Use old layers as reference points to avoid jumpiness.

Because animating/drawing in general is hard and time consuming and I'm lazy I try to reuse shots/poses as much as I can. Again if you have a character going from left to right and then later in the video going right to left, save the left to right layers. You can just flip them to make it look like they're going right to left and now you don't have to draw it again! This can be tricky tho bc you don't want your video to get repetitive like I said before. So do it but do it sparingly lol

THUMBNAIL FIRST! This is very helpful. Just make a bunch of little boxes with stick figures mapping out what's going to happen in ur video. It doesn't have to look good at all, it's just so you don't forget what's going to happen/get lost. This is mine for the video of Laszlo and Nadja dancing:

I put notes on this one so I remember what the actions and camera angles are. Since I was copying an already choregraphed dance here, I did that in black and then put in more interesting camera angles in blue on a different layer so it wasn't two minutes of the same full body shot

And uh yeah I think that's it! Hopefully this is helpful!

[scrawler-jay]

of mice and artblock

So, midterms happened and I abandoned this blog for a while. But now I’m back, and I come bearing mice.

*

I’ve been really struggling with finding subjects I like to draw. I’m happy to work on skeleton studies until Judgment Day to better understand anatomy, but I know I need to balance “homework” art with “for fun” art, or else risk losing motivation for learning to draw -- and I’m so used to writing fiction at this point that no subject really appeals to me artistically unless it’s got 5,000+ words of story attached (or at least some narrative/character ideas, yanno -- something for my brain to pick at). The obvious solution is to draw concept art and characters from my written stories, but I feel really intimidated by that because I’m such a beginner artist that nothing I create now will do justice to the vision I have in my head.

I need art OCs and concepts – things that I will only draw art of, and have never written a story about. Stuff that doesn’t have to match a previously established, written story, and that I can change as I learn more and my skills improve.

I ended up drawing a bunch of mice.

This was initially just a whim. Human anatomy requires a lot of skill to pull off, especially faces and hands, but mice felt more beginner-friendly to me. Admittedly, I was going for a more cartoony style as opposed to photorealism, so if you’re looking at this from a realism perspective then these are pretty poor mice. However, I don’t feel ashamed of them, which I am taking as a good sign.

I kept drawing one mouse over and over. I ended up calling him Leo just because it was funny – “leo” refers to lions, but here Leo is just a little mouse. But of course, giving him a name (and a gender, incidentally) is the start of a story. Via a flight of fancy, I got it into my head that I wanted to do a painting of Leo trying to catch a big snowflake. I made some thumbnails of what I wanted the scene to look like, and then cut out a roughly 7 inch x 7 inch piece of watercolor paper from a big sheet that I had under my bed, sketched the scene in pencil, and then finished with watercolor pencils (and a white gel pen for the snowflakes). The process probably took 2.5 to 3 hours.

So, now the lore is that Leo is a mouse living in a little house in an old tree at the edge of the woods, and he wears a red scarf. I did not like this painting. It seemed over-saturated and the colors didn’t quite work the way I wanted them to. I ended up watching a tutorial on color theory, and decided to redo the painting using my newfound knowledge of color schemes. I used this color palette tool to get an idea of what kinds of colors would look good together, and settled on a complementary scheme with bluish green and brownish red.

And then, everything went wrong.

I tried to redo the painting, still working traditionally. I rushed the sketch because I was so eager to get right into working with color. This time, to avoid over-saturation, I used watercolors out of a pan rather than in pencil form. Mixing the colors in the lid of the pan took a really long time because I was so picky about shades, and because I continued rushing I didn’t allow the layers enough time to dry. Leo’s scarf (now green instead of red) bled into his russet fur, and the mailbox was the wrong shape, and I tried to erase a pencil line and created a dark blotch over an area that was supposed to be white with snow – and then I gave up.

I had downloaded Krita, a piece of digital drawing/painting software, a while ago, but hadn’t had any success using it because my desk isn’t big enough to accommodate both a laptop and my small tablet. Using my lap to hold the tablet was an exercise in frustration, and I knew so little about how digital art works that I just felt really overwhelmed and lost whenever I opened the program.

However, Krita (like most digital art software) has an undo button that I find very alluring, so I decided to try it again, now on a shiny new desk from Ikea that is actually big enough to support tablet and laptop together. I think just the space on the desk really made all the difference, but also I was determined to get this artwork of a mouse to a place where I felt satisfied with it.

I spent a solid 5 hours working on what ended up being a very simple colored drawing of a mouse catching a snowflake outside his little house. I barely blended anything at all, and there’s no light source that required me to shade anything – it’s just flat color. However, I really like these colors, and I think I did well (for an absolute beginner). I want to go back and add textures/shading to give an impression of depth, but I'm not sure how.

Leo – like all of my figures – feels really stiff, so I also want to work on gestures/studies of mice doing things. And, thanks to the popularity of mice as lab animals and pets, there are way more reference photos of mice than I expected! Most refs depict the house mouse, Mus musculus, but I did find the work of a wildlife photographer named Dean Mason who spent 15 years photographing harvest mice (micromys minutus).

Unfortunately, all of the prior artwork in this post I had drawn almost purely from imagination, and I think it shows. I studied two mice from photos in pencil, then erased the lines until they were barely visible and tried to do the fur texture in ink (with a dip pen, so there is some unevenness when the pen was extra inky).

Left is my first attempt doing the fur texture. I was more cautious with layering pen strokes, so you can see the lines of strokes fairly evenly. Right is my 2nd attempt, where I was bolder with the pen. I like these mice more than the one I created in the digital painting; these ones (especially the right) feel more Beatrix Potter-ish, which is a vibe I like.

Do I want to go back and fix the anatomy in my digital art of Leo? Yes. I also want to take another stab at doing this piece traditionally, but this time, I'd go monochrome and try to do everything in brown. However, part of me is exhausted from drawing ten million snowflakes and does not want to relive that experience with a gel pen -- I've already done it once with a tablet pen, and that was enough.

I have a hazy, far-off goal of creating a comic of Leo having adventures with another mousy friend, but that’s so far in the future that it’s not worth spending time considering right now. In the nearer future, however, Leo’s friend might become a reality – I know he’s an albino mouse (name TBD) who either escaped from a drug-testing facility (I loved The Secret of NIMH movie as a kid) or else is a pet who was dumped into the wild by a human owner who no longer wanted him. Leo is outgoing and adventurous, and this friend is shy and cautious.

[uni-life-tips]

Resume Tips

I've been handed quite a few resumes at work by people looking for a job. I always give them a quick read-through and show interest because I've been in that position. Job hunting sucks, even more so when the people you're handing your resume to aren't even going to pretend to be interested. I know that my workplace is not hiring and that my boss basically throws out the pile of resumes we leave for him in the bin at the end of the month--without really looking at them.

I've noticed quite a few things about the resumes we get handed at work and I decided to include some tips that I've picked up on. I have a few friends that have made it to manager or supervisor positions in their jobs, and some of them are also in charge of recruitment at their workplaces--basically, they're the ones that get to decide who to hire and when. They helped me workshop my resume time after time for different sorts of jobs and it's only after I got their help that I started getting calls back and interviews. Some of the tips that they gave me seem like common sense and at first I thought I was the only one that didn't know those things...but pretty much every resume I've seen at work has these 'simple' flaws in them.

1) Tailor your resume for the specific job you're going for. You don't need to have the company name in your cover letter, but having different resumes geared at fast-food and at desk-work (reception, secretary, desk-clerk, etc.) would definitely increase your chances of being taken seriously. Typing speed and/or what computer software you know how to use is not going to impress the fast-food manager. Get rid of that to make space for relevant information--customer service or experience serving food, for example. At a fast-food restaurant that I worked at the employees and even the manager would share comments on the resumes we'd see in the back. Whenever we saw "wpm" (words per minute) or "proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel" etc. we'd all have the same kind of reaction. "They must have been in the area, handing out resumes to the dental offices, clinics, and registries in the area and stopped by to throw one at us for good measure." None of the people who handed us those sorts of resumes were even considered for a call back.

2) Pen-marks look bad. If you have to scribble out your old phone number and write a new one in by hand as well as scribble over a typo, you're better off re-typing the entire resume and printing it off without the errors. Pen-marks don't look professional and the pen-edits tell the manager a lot about you. It tells them that you don't have as much attention-to-detail as your resume claims because you failed to spot the typos or whatever before going to print. It shows that you're unmotivated--especially if there are known ways to print stuff for free in the area, look into public libraries in your area and chances are that they provide some quota of free printing every month. A finalized, error-free resume is seen as the absolute least you could do if you want to be considered for a job. Overall, pen-marks and crumpled resumes look unprofessional. You're not just being judged by what you say about yourself in the resume, 'cuz that's your word about yourself--how you carry yourself and how the resume looks really says a lot about you.

3) One page, single-sided--maximum. The person hiring goes through dozens of resumes at the same time as yours. They're not going to want to flip through 3+ pages of stuff. If you have a lot of experience at different places that may be good, but see number 1 and only write down what's relevant to the position you're applying for. Example: if you're applying for fast-food positions include any experience you have working with food and don't waste page-space on your time as an AV person. Also, if you have had multiple employers, only include the latest ones--either within the last 5 years or only your latest two or three. You're 28 years old applying for a fast-food position because nowhere else is taking you seriously. Your high school volunteering experience isn't going to make you look good. It was over a decade ago and if you have to include it to pad your resume up to one page then that says a lot about you--you've had 10 years to get other experience, what were your contributions to society in those 10 years and why should the employer expect you to be motivated to work if you have not worked/volunteered in the last decade?

4) Purpose/intent/goal--again, tailor this to the specific job you're handing the resume into or nix it all together. "To use my skills in a professional setting", "Full-time job", "To earn experience that will get me closer to [insert dream job here]". They don't need to know your purpose in your resume. That's a "where do you see yourself in 10 years" question best left for the actual interview. When someone hiring for minimum-wage entry-level positions sees your aspirations they aren't thinking that they want to hire you--they're thinking, "this person clearly has aspirations for a different job. They are not a safe training investment because nothing guarantees that they'll stick around long enough to make the training investment worth it for me." Your dream job or your ideal position or whatever is something best left for the interview or for after you get hired--leave it off of your resume. You don't have to be all fake and talk like that minimum wage position is your dream job, but you have to present yourself as a safe training investment. It takes a while for anyone to learn the ropes in their new job. Official training may only take a week or two, but it'll probably take 3-6 months for anyone to get the hang of the position and start performing well. Any mistakes made in that time may cost the company money. If you piss off a customer because you're not familiar with the menu and can't answer their question, that's a lost customer. If you haven't gotten the hang of serving customers quickly then you're costing the company money because they could have served two customers in the time it took you to serve two. Above all, a lot of employers just want to know that they can earn back their training investment. Suppose it'll take you three months to get the hang of stuff and to stop making frequent mistakes--double the training investment for a ballpark of how long you'll have to be prepared to commit to the job for them to take you seriously. If it takes three months to develop the proper habits for the job, then you need to show the manager--starting with your resume--that you're willing to be there for at least six months. If your resume is clearly geared toward a different kind of job and you outright state your dream job to be something else then you're not a safe investment for them because you're clearly looking elsewhere.

5) Point form. Under each work-experience entry write up to 5 points that are relevant to the specific job you are applying for. Worked retail in a clothing store before and now you're applying to fast-food? Include time-management skills, organization of a workspace, task delegation, customer service, and any other transferable skills like training others in your area or key-holder status. This'll help you cram a lot of info onto one side of a page. The manager isn't looking to read anything in-depth--they're just going to skim your resume and if it looks like you're going to give them a return on the training investment and that you're a responsible person then their next step is probably locating your contact information to schedule an interview. Save the full sentences and elaboration (i.e. one specific time where your customer service skills stood out) for the cover letter. The first page of your resume should read like a table of contents of yourself--it's a sales ad. If they're interested in what customer service experience you have, they'll ask you more later. Don't shove it at them on the resume 'cuz that resume is just the table-of-contents. Include your contact information and if they're interested they know how to reach you.

Good luck! If you're looking for a job, I know it sucks. I've been in that position a lot and felt helpless a lot. Lots of summers went by with me unemployed between years in post-secondary because I went to university in a different city from my home city. Nobody wanted to hire someone for four months out of the year because the training investment alone wasn't being met. It sucks and it's depressing. Hang in there. Revising my resume after every rejection was my way of trying to keep hope. Each resume revision got better and better and I got more and more calls back the more I revised my resumes and tailored them for the specific positions I was applying for. I had a different resume for reception, a different one for service/wait-staff, and a different one for fast-food and I labeled them as such on my computer.

[marikaaajoy]

my relationship with digital art and how BNHA salvaged it

I just wanted to let out my thoughts but I can only do it here :>

This might be a downer for some people but I’d like to share it with people here. BNHA means the world to me and this is why.

I first started drawing when I was 7 years old in 2006

I think it’s ugly now, but 7 year old me remembered being so proud of this because this is a drawing of my stepfather. This is the only drawing I have that was from my childhood. I think the aim here is to draw in anime style BUT I didn’t even watch anime back then. I had a classmate who loves anime and she taught me to draw in school. Drawing became a favorite hobby immediately after that.

Then it was 2013 and I was 14 years old. Drawing is still my favorite thing to do besides being on the computer. I love anime at this point too. My parents bought an iPad for the whole family, but I was almost always the one using it. I discovered an app called ArtStudio and thought “Wow, I can draw without making a mess and with only my fingers” because I was always too lazy to take out my drawing materials and clean up afterwards.

These were my first digital drawings. The pirate one was the very first. I got obsessed real fast. I can color so easily, undo any mistake, layers are a blessing too. There was just so much more freedom. I always sucked at coloring in traditional art and I didn’t like the mess (idk my hands get so messy traditionally)

The next year, it was 2014, I was 15. My birthday is in a couple of months and I knew my parents were planning to buy me something pricey (I think it was a laptop) so I approached them and asked if they could just buy the Wacom Bamboo as a present which was cheaper anyway and I even explained how it works to them and how it would allow me to draw on the computer instead of the iPad. I tried really hard to be convincing. I would have prepared a powerpoint presentation if I had to.

They did give me the wacom as a present. They even gave it to me months before my birthday so I could use it already. I thought I was the luckiest teen in the world with my parents.

These are a collection of my favorite works from 2014 to 2016. The middle one was my second drawing using wacom and Paint Tool SAI. I was a part of a lot of fandoms in those years lol

It gets downhill from there :/

April 2016, my mom and I moved to Japan, while my stepfather and siblings stay in my country. It was tough. For someone who is obsessed with anime, you’d think I’d be thrilled to live in Japan.

I was. Though only at the first few months. It’s not the same as it’s portrayed in anime (I should’ve known but I used to be blinded by anime). It was just lonely. The language barrier sucked and then lots of financial and family issues until my parents split. I got my first boyfriend too and I thought I was blessed by the nicest boy, but the relationship became extremely toxic but I didn’t have it in me to walk away.

All the shit that happened affected me mentally and emotionally. My biggest outlet which was digital drawing, was also out of the question because I did not have a computer/laptop when we moved to Japan. We left it in our home for my stepfather and siblings, even the iPad. I have my wacom with me, but no computer/laptop to use it with. I couldn’t draw.

I tried though. I used my phone to draw, but it wasn’t the same. Then the life problems got piled up, things got worse, and I just lost motivation in anything. Literally anything. From 2016 to 2019, I stopped watching anime, I dropped out of all the fandoms I’m in, I stopped watching my favorite TV series or movies, and I stopped drawing. I even got a bit disconnected with my friends who lived in my country (we talk regularly online). My family was broken so I gave all my attention to my toxic relationship as well which made everything worse too lol

I didn’t draw besides from a few scribbles and the drawings above. I did try digital art on my phone a couple of times again and even posted them on my IG, but they weren’t any good. Eventually, I got mentally and emotionally drained and dropped out of senior high school. I just stayed home for almost a year, leeching off of my mom. I felt even more worthless and my life had no direction at this point. Nothing mattered anymore.

April 2019 or so I think, my (ex)bf bought me a laptop. He says it’s a gift, but I think the real reason was to make up for something horrible that he did (which is stupid because money /gifts won’t resolve anything). I have a laptop. I can draw again, but I didn’t. I didn’t care, I wasn’t interested in drawing anymore anyway.

Welp. June 2019, I went back to my country. My (ex) bf stayed in Japan. The distance helped me end the relationship and my friends were there (they always were) to help put me back together along with two trips to therapy. I went back to finish my senior high school in my own country this time. That said, I have to stay in my country for school (but I was happy because I didn’t wanna go back to Japan yet when the breakup was still fresh and with going back to school, my life has a direction again.)

It was weird. I remember just being sorta lost and confused because I used to put my time, effort and everything into my previous toxic relationship, which was now gone. I was free and I had so much free time that I didn’t know what to do with it. I got so used to doing nothing and being nothing.

This is where BNHA enters.

Dunno when it started, but I started seeing Bakugou frequently online. It’s usually just Bakugou. I knew who he was because my friend suggested BNHA to me back in late 2018 I think but I didn’t watch it since I’ve lost interest in everything at that point in my life.

But ye I thought he hot af but I still didn’t watch BNHA.

But then for some reason he REALLY kept appearing in my social medias and it was really frequent. The last straw was when I saw a pic of him in UA’s gym uniform and thought “damn boi aight imma watch bnha for u” (y’all gotta admit he looks good in those colors with his combat boots XD )

I watched BNHA. Fell in love with Iida along the way. Then I switched to Tokoyami (but Shoji was hot too so aaaaa), but then angry emotionally-constipated sea urchin head caught my heart again. But oof. BakuDeku moments really made me feel some type of way I haven’t felt since I moved to Japan. It felt new but nostalgic. I fell hard in that ship.

I started obsessing. From memes to posts to fanfictions to buying merch to filling my room with BNHA posters. I realized I was reverting to my old self from the time I was still happy and it was thanks to BNHA (and the good people who helped me through the worst too)

Shit I wanted to draw BNHA, I thought.

I mean, I have a laptop, I still have my wacom and drawing softwares. I could totally draw digitally again if I wanted to.

But guess what

I can’t :c

My hand physically cannot draw. My drawings don’t look the way I want them too. 3 years of not drawing really destroyed any skill I had. I was back to square one.

September (yeah they’re ugly, I laughed at it). If you’re wondering why I drew on paper, it’s because, for some reason, I really CANNOT draw digitally. I mean it. I can barely sketch digitally at this point. The lines and shapes just doesn’t come to life. They’re just scribbles. But somehow, I can kinda draw on paper with a ballpoint pen. But yeah, that was the best I could do at this point in my life

After that, I still tried to draw, to regain my old art style, but it didn’t happen... It just doesn’t look or feel the same. Drawing used to be fun. But during this phase, it felt like my ugly drawings were just mocking me (probably was just too emo that time lol)

Weirdly, around a week or two I think, after my half-assed attempts at drawing, I managed to draw digitally somehow o.o

I did a Midoriya and Todoroki drawing like this too. It was my first post here on Tumblr I think. The annoying part here is that I cannot draw digitally unless I draw on paper first, take a pic, and then trace the lineart. I couldn’t draw directly on the computer. Granted, drawing on paper and drawing on digital is very different for me in the first place anyway. But it was still a pain. And it still looked like shit. I can only draw stiff poses :/ it seems like my brain decided to delete all data about anatomy and posture and backgrounds. My lineart here is even messy af. It still really not the same as my old style.

By 2020, I think I got my old art style back. On March, I made this. This took me 27 total of hrs to make.

Right now, I think it’s not bad, but back in March, I was disappointed with the result. This is when I finally broke down crying because it didn’t look good enough and I hated that it took me 27 hrs to draw “bullshit.” I was angry at myself for losing interest in drawing for 3 years when I could’ve used that time to improve. I had to start all over again and it still didn’t look good. (Current me thinks that the drawing above is alright. I was just a lot harsher to myself back then. Used to have a lot of issues but I’m doing great now)

I cried myself to sleep that night. Woke up wanting to cry again. I wallowed in sadness for a couple of days. Eventually told my friends what’s up. Got some pep talk. Even talked to my sister (she’s great, she always hypes me up with my stuff and sometimes I think she’s my biggest fan with how she appreciates my drawings and I’m really grateful for that).

My world turned a 180 and I was weirdly positive after all that crying because brain chemicals and shit. I had a revelation. If I hate how my art style looked so much, then I should have been putting effort in changing my art style, not trying to regain my old art style (that I don’t like anymore)

I researched a lot. I analyzed different art styles and anatomy again. I did everything I could think of to find a style that works for me. I might have even neglected school for a bit to focus on digital art lmao

After all that work, I posted a fanart of middle school BakuDeku in their classroom. I love that fanart so much even if I probably have better ones by now because that was the first fanart I made that I felt like I could be proud of and it was the first one I made in my new art style. It was a milestone for me.

March 2020, I moved back to Japan and without the toxic relationship, I’m a lot positive now. Happy. I’m myself again after the previous bad years. I’m still continuously learning though, trying to improve, but at least, now, I found my own art style :) I really suck at interacting with people online, but I’m always grateful for the support everyone has been giving my fanarts. I’m happy when my content makes people happy.

This is why BNHA is important to me. The series is great alone, but it’s not just that to me. BNHA is so much more. It’s what made me find the passion to create again, only this time, it’s focused on drawing (I used to write, but now I just draw, but maybe I’ll write again for BNHA).

My family is supportive with my love for BNHA, but I think they don’t know the deeper reason why I love it. Sure, I was fine living on with nothing much going on in my life. I’ll finish school, get a job, work until I die or something. It was okay. It was the way of life. But BNHA gave my life color again. I wasn’t just blindly going through life anymore. I have something to look forward to everyday now. BNHA even became a bridge to other things. Ever since then, I’m a lot more open to people, to try new things, to explore and not just live through life and waste away. I got better at leaving my comfort zone. I’ve never been happier in my life :D

Thank you for supporting my fanarts. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to express myself through BNHA. I hope to make more content in the future and improve even more :)

[murumokirby360]

My XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 drawing test with my GIMP 2.8.10 - Part 1 (Aug 12, 2020) - [1st Attempt]

Hi. Once again I’m continue my topic about my medium-sized XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 drawing/graphic tablet. 😊🖊️📝 As I’m done explaining about my installation experience, it is time that this moment I’ve been waiting for... A scribbling / drawing test on my recently art software (which I’ve already put it in on my title above, as well as the version I used).

*But before that, I want YOU... Yes you, which you’re reading my description. I want you to watch my recorded video first 📹📲 (as a observation) before you read the rest of my reaction experience. Hope you’re watching...

Now without further ado, let’s get started.

•(Now as you already done watching video.) My experience on using my medium-sized drawing tablet was very response when I touched the working area using my stylus pen, as continue to scribble on a new artwork from low to pressure sensitivity. As you can see here, I tried to drawing my signature twice- followed by few strokes and a long curve from a bit low to high pressure. 💻 📝🖊️

•Suffice it to say, my drawing/graphic tablet is perfectly fine, led alone of my bit messy digital paper but hey- I’m trying to test out as my first time. 🙂

•Although this is my first time journey to digital art using my drawing/graphic tablet rather than my computer mouse as my art tool for many years now that I’ve done before. Remember; I have no experience and no knowledge when it comes to drawing/graphic tablet usage in 2011, and yes I did numerous times but then I lost my old pen and a USB cable, which I can’t find it as of today and ultimately abandoned my old one and stick with my mouse instead. Now since I the new one, that means it’s time to revisit and practice my digital art skills as a newbie, for real. And uh, I want to venture on my own and learn from experience digital artist(s). 😊

I’ll show my artwork(s) and reaction later, so that’s all for now. And I already posted my 2nd recorded video, so If you want to see it then please drag upward with your mouse right or better yet → [CLICK ME!].

And in case you missed my related parts and accessories for my XP-Pen Deco 01 V2, then I’ve already provide some links down below. ↓ 😉

Previous: • XP-Pen PenTablet Window Software for my XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 (Aug 8, 2020) • My XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 connecting computer laptop(Aug 8, 2020): Part 1 - [1st Attempt], Part 2 (Final) [2nd Attempt] • Installation steps for my XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 [Aug. 7,2020] • Accessories for my XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 [Jun 25,2020]: [Part 1], [Part 2] • Part 5 [May 8,2020] • Part 4 [May 1, 2020]: First Half, Second Half • Part 3 [Apr 22, 2020] • Part 2 [Apr 17, 2020] • Part 1 [ Apr 14, 2020] • Recorded video opening [Apr 10, 2020] • Unopened parcel/package [Apr 7, 2020]

(Tagged: @bytern, @gibsonfreak49)

[melonkooky]

moonlight | ch. 2 - the address [jeon jungkook]

word count: 1151

genre: idk how to label this. it’s not fluff, but it’s not angst. jungkook is just kinda... there, working in his office. 

pairing: rich!jungkook x reader

author’s note: finally, chapter two is out. i know i haven’t been posting, or am hardly even on tumblr. i’ve been busy for once, mainly because i got a new job. but anyways, i’m getting used to working on school nights so hopefully i’ll start writing soon. please look forward to more stories!! love you!!!

taglist: @randomkoalablog @babyyynatty

please do not copy my work. but please like and reblog it. thank you!!!!

ever since jungkook had that dream, he hasn’t been feeling himself. then again, he’s always been rather quiet and shy (that is until he’s around his high school friends, although he hasn’t seen them in a while since they’ve graduated. they still keep in touch when they can).

jungkook’s mother wanted him to take over his step-father’s business. it was a large corporation, worth millions of won. jungkook didn’t particularly like his step-father though. he still got to see his biological father whenever he wanted to, but sometimes his own mother would stop him, claiming that he had to attend an “important” (and jungkook’s mind would translate that to unnecessary) meeting with his step-father. jungkook wasn’t one to argue or put up a fight, especially since he knew his mother would be very disappointed in him. jungkook loved his mother. he would never be able to purposely hurt her. he would never even think of doing such a thing.

jungkook currently sat at his desk in the small office that his step-father had provided for him. jungkook was an employee, but did a lot of tasks that basically prepared him for when he becomes the owner of the company. jungkook was already stressed as it was from the amount of work he had. he didn’t dare to imagine the amount of work being an owner was like.

the young man sighed. he was tired, exhausted, all of his energy drained because of work, and from the lack of sleep. he finds himself staying up most nights, even though it’s been only a week since he had the dream. he could not get the innocent face of the little girl in his dream out of his head. it wasn’t haunting at all, and yet it was all he could see as soon as he shut his eyes for the night. she was imprinted onto the walls of his brain.

but, it wasn’t because he didn’t recognize her. in fact, he remembered her well. she was his best friend when he lived in that old neighborhood. they were neighbors and quite often, their mothers would schedule playdates for them. it was rare to see them apart. jungkook had grown close to her, and his heart always ached at the thought that she didn’t know what had happened to him. she probably hated him for disappearing so suddenly. perhaps she even thought he had died. if she even remembered him that is.

jungkook sighed for what felt like the millionth time. while sitting at his desk, he had read the same line four times, because each time he didn’t remember what it said. so he would have to go back to reread it only to be distracted by his thoughts and have to read it another time. his mind was not working. he tried to read it a fifth time, only this time it only brought frustration. jungkook set the paper down and rested his elbows on the edge of the desk. his hands came up to rub his face, attempting to wake himself up. but instead, it seemed to make him only want to take a break (and perhaps never come back from it).

and sitting there, alone in the silence, his mind was racing with thoughts of that girl again.

“y/n.” he mumbled quietly, staring at the discarded sheet.

suddenly, jungkook had an idea. he reached for his office phone, pressing a single button, and held it up to his ear. it hardly rang once before the person on the other end answered. “yes, mr. jeon?”

his lovely assistant: mrs. young. she was an older lady. jungkook always felt weird around her because of the age difference, and yet she was working for him, and did everything that he asked. still, she was a nice lady, and sometimes her caring, motherly presence was just what he needed.

“can you come into my office, please?” he asked.

“of course.”

he hung up and pushed his chair away from the desk slightly. he leaned back into the chair, a tired breath leaving his mouth. in a few seconds, mrs. young was knocking and entering his office. she flashed a warm smile to him, and jungkook felt his heart become just a bit lighter. “yes?” she asked.

jungkook pulled himself closer to the desk. “i need you to do me a favor.” he explained while reaching around for a stack of sticky notes - or a notepad, whichever he found first - and a pen. when he found it, he began writing down what he needed. “i need you to look up this name. i just need to know where she lives.”

he tore the piece of paper off the pad and handed it to her. honestly, he half expected her to ask him what the reason behind it was. after all, he had never asked her to do this before. he wasn’t even sure if she had the right software to do so. this wasn’t a police center where they could just pull up a web browser and search someone’s name, finding every single piece of information there was on that person. no, this was just a typical corporation, that happened to be one of the most wealthy and successful corporations.

after giving mrs. young the sheet of paper, and watching her leave with a kind smile, jungkook felt a little weight lift off of his shoulders. he puffed out a breath, glancing around his desk to see what he was working on before. now he felt like he could work properly.

about ten minutes later, mrs. young entered jungkook’s office. jungkook felt a sense of hope and anticipation erupt in his chest. he looked up from his computer. “any luck?” he asked, his doe eyes wide, making him look younger than ever.

she lightly chuckled. “took a few phone calls, but i found her. l/n, y/n. she lives in busan-“ that place that jungkook was born in but only spent a few years living there, “-at [korean street name in busan].”

jungkook took the piece of paper that mrs. young was offering him. it showed a picture of the house, the one that he could still remember vividly. so, you hadn’t moved, he thought to himself, you hadn’t gone anywhere.

he looked up at mrs. young. “thank you so much. i’m sorry it wasn’t work related.”

she waved a hand, winking at him. “no worries, dear.”

jungkook felt a tiny bit of heat creep into his cheeks. he felt flustered by her actions and kindness. he watched her walk out of the office, softly closing the door behind her. once he was alone again, he sunk back into his swivel chair, his eyes finding the picture of the house. he read the address once more. and seeing the house again, after so many years, brought a flood of memories into his mind.

[bffhreprise]

Entry 338

 “A free name change has been provided, and your account has been cloned to a new one.” announced Mila when I was seated.

 “I see.” I replied.  Since coming here, I had found the notion of playing video games in a ballroom ridiculous, but now that I could see once more, I was eager to see what these systems could handle, not that anything struggled with Ancient Tribes of Earth.  Still, I would miss my old account.

 “Apparently so.” teased Lady Pen-... No.  Alma.  She wished to simply be called Alma now.  “The new glasses look lovely.”

 “Thank you.” I replied with a slight nod.  Looking back to the screen, I said, “As for the name, Theophany.”

 “A bit pretentious, isn’t it?” questioned Alma with a hint of amusement in her voice.

 “That was the name of her primary exosuit.” explained Mila for me.

 I couldn’t very well argue with Alma when she could basically destroy my poor suit with a thought.

“Name change complete.  Would you like the full chair tutorial before I start the game?”

 “Your chairs have tutorials?” I questioned, wondering who would bother writing a tutorial for a chair.

 “Aaliyah designed them.  She writes a tutorial for everything in such excruciating detail that most would find using it to be torturous.” replied James, seeming perfectly friendly again now.

 I resisted the urge to shudder as a thought of Death crossed through my thoughts again, certain she wouldn’t have made dying pleasant.  Pushing away the terrible thought, I wasn’t surprised that Aaliyah was the one who created the chairs or bothered with a tutorial.  That child was an unbelievably prolific engineer.  “I’ll be fine without it then.” I assured Mila, thankful that my voice wasn’t showing my fear again.  My hands were shaking still when I was working with Jarod on the design for my glasses earlier.

 James then asked “Are the glasses working on par with your old model?  Jarod seemed enthusiastic about the technology you developed.”  He hadn’t seemed that interested earlier when we were actually designing the glasses, but now he actually did sound curious.

 “Marginally better, actually.  Jarod is every bit as intelligent as I imagined.  His suggestions were useful, and I admit that I’m envious of the resources here.  The various technologies for fabrication are incredible.” I freely admitted.  I hadn’t ever known someone with whom I could really discuss engineering without them making stupid comments before.  Having someone eagerly discussing improvements was fantastic.

 “As I’m sure Jarod mentioned, Aaliyah designed most of the equipment he uses, though Mila’s done some software work.” explained James.  Then, after a brief pause, he asked “Would you like to join my guild, since getting you back into whichever one you had before is probably inadvisable?”

 “I’ll take you up on the offer.” I replied, fighting the pang of annoyance.  My previous guild wasn’t filled with the most exceptional people I knew, but we all got along plenty well.  I even enjoyed a few of them.  When I accepted the invitation to James’ guild, my chat box was flooded with text scrolling far more quickly than I could hope to read.  “This is ridiculous.”

 “Which officer would you like to serve under?” asked James, surprisingly giving me the choice.

 Alma quickly suggested “You should pick me.  We have always enjoyed one another’s company immensely.”  The rumors of her exceptionally high standards would make most reconsider working under her, especially in a game.

 “No.  James, can I serve under you?” I asked hopefully.  If one of the two would be watching over me, I still preferred James, despite his… friend.

 “Sure.” he replied, assigning me under him in the guild rankings  “You’re free to join Alma’s group when they do formation practice if you prefer a properly militarized group.  Mine’s a bit more…”

 “Absurd.” teased Alma with a playful grin.

 “Fun.” argued Cosette from my other side.  She was still a bit of a mystery for me, though background checks had turned up slightly more than Portentia’s.

 “Well, we do get our objectives accomplished quickly enough.” insisted James, smiling as he glanced in her direction.

 “What do you like to do on here?” asked Cosette, leaning over her armrest toward me.

 I was still admiring the digital keyboard and mouse system.  Only Aaliyah could have managed something this sensitive without any bad reads from the recognition software.  “I’m specialized in armor crafting, so I spend a great deal of time hunting down rare ores.” I told her.

 “Really!?” exclaimed Raine, suddenly next to me.

 I jumped clean out of my chair, in shock, but I was seated again with no transition from air to chair.

 As my mind still tried to make sense of what just happened, Alma casually said, “James told you that she’s fast.”

 “Raine’s the guild’s best crafter, so she’s an expert at getting every type of resource you might want.” explained James, ignoring what just happened.  “She arranges many resource missions for other players when stocks get low.  We even got her a meteorite a few months ago.  She’s the one to ask if you’d like a nice house in the guild’s town.”

 “Y-You really l-like… t-to craft?” questioned Raine, her bright red eyes staring at me.

 “Obviously.  I craft things in real life as well.  I thought you considered me dangerous.” I told her, trying not to show how unnerved I felt.

 “N-Not to m-me.” stated Raine without the slightest trace of doubt, despite the slight stutter in her speech.

 “If something’s dangerous to Raine, you probably wouldn’t enjoy meeting it either.  Even in Ancient Tribes of Earth she single-handedly held off one of the demon lords for quite a while, using only crafting skills I might add.” asserted James proudly.

 “You’re joking.” I told him, not understanding how such a feat could be possible.  James, however, shook his head, so I said, “I had heard a rumor about that but there are many crazy rumors about your guild.”

 “Our guild.” corrected Alma with a little amusement coming through.

 “I guess I’ll be seeing the truth of them firsthand now.” I agreed while considering if I should try running the numbers on what soloing a lemon lord would take.

   “What’s Maxine doing in here?” questioned Portentia as she barged into the room.  Then she immediately asked “Why does she have glasses again!?”

 Raine was suddenly behind me, telling Portentia “S-She crafts armor!”

 “Yeah.  She tried blowing me up using some of it.” replied Portentia gloomily.

 “Maxine wanted to get back to playing Ancient Tribes of Earth and has agreed to help Jarod with some of his work in real life.  Raine’s excited to have a crafting buddy in the game.” explained James in my defense.

 “Oh.  What if she tries to escape now that she can see the exits?” questioned Portentia dubiously.

 James quickly assured her “She won’t.  She made an agreement and will happily be assisting Best Friend For Hire.  Besides, Mila will remain as vigilant as ever.”

 With a shrug, Portentia said, “I suppose…  but shouldn’t she be paying for her crimes?”

 “Other than helping my company, what would you like her to do?  We could get her a costume to help you fight crime.” suggested James without a hint of mockery.

 “What?  But she’s a criminal!  She’d probably turn on me.” insisted Portentia, sounding shocked by the idea.

 “How would that make any sense, you imbecile?” I demanded, still disgusted that I was beaten by the halfwit.  “You’re more than capable of capturing me again if I tried, and I’m not even equipped for a fight, not that I want to go gallivanting around the city looking for trouble with you.”

 “B-Be nice.” warned Raine, having appeared in front of me.  She spoke softly, in a way that would sound nervous for less well-honed ears, but I heard the threat plainly.

 “And imagine trying to escape from her!” I exclaimed, pointing at Raine as I stared down Portentia.  Even the halfwit should recognize that a being as swift as Raine would be impossible to outrun.  Still, I turned to her, needing to hear confirmation, so I asked “Did you really do fifty laps around the city at James request when I arrived here?”

 “N-No.” she told me with a slight shake of her head.  “H-He was c-concentrating… I d-did… extra.”

 James laughed, seeming unsurprised, but I was running the numbers.  Checking and rechecking, I believed Raine would need to be traveling far, far faster than any physical being should be able to move without somehow causing the physical world to slide around her.  Even contacting air at such speeds would be catastrophic to the surroundings.  Assuming she did somehow create an effect somewhat like a warp field, studying her could well help lay the foundation for interstellar travel.  I suddenly wanted to have a long discussion alone with Jarod and Mila, but I forced myself to stick with playing the game and checking my math again.

[phinnsyreads]

The Last Man

It’s day 50 of freeze-dried beef stroganoff. Doctor Beckett swallows the meat and rice with a grimace. He’s made a challenge out of it, seeing how long he can eat the same meal without cracking. This is probably as far as he’ll go with this dish, beating his previous record with the chicken curry. At least if he stops here, he’ll have plenty of the beef left to break up the nutrient paste and vitamin pills, once the rest of the prepackaged meals run out.

I’m not looking forward to that day when I find this swill a treat, he thinks.

He looks out of the porthole, imagining the ventilation fans as a breeze blowing across the lunar plain. Not for the first time, he wishes he had tried to smuggle in just one pack of cigarettes. It wouldn’t have done any harm, in the end. Werner would have lost his mind if he’d found out, though.

Werney, the sour-faced, stuck-up bastard. Of all the people to be shot into space with, the O5s had to send me with Site 19’s tie-on-casual-Fridays Werney, the guy who thinks putting sugar in his cereal is the height of adventure. Maybe it’s for the best he went off. Living together, one of us would have by now.

Not a word. Not even an I’m-just-going-out-and-may-be-some-time. You didn’t even shake my fucking hand before you left.

God damn you, Werney.

Beckett thinks back to that day a few months ago, seeing Doctor Werner walking through the craters, heading towards the horizon. Opening a radio channel. “Hey, Werney, where are you going?”

The last words of Man. “Hey, Werney, where are you going?” Jesus Christ.

You didn’t have to explain yourself, or say something deep and meaningful. Hell, “Goodbye” would have been deep and meaningful enough for anyone. I’d have been satisfied with that.

If I’d gone after you, would you have come back?

No, you wouldn’t have come back. That’s why I didn’t say anything else.

God damn you, you bastard.

It was ironic, that gloomy, unsmiling Doctor Werner was the first one to snap, because in the end, it was because he was the positive one. He was the optimist. He believed the briefing from the O5s, that they were to get ready for the next wave of staff, the pioneers of New Humanity rising from the ashes. Even when they both knew no more shuttles were coming, he still thought the Foundation had something up its sleeve, that some portal would appear and the O5s would pop out to give them medals and take them back to the world as it was before.

I guess the day he walked out was when he knew we were the last ones left. I’m still here because, in the end, I was less hopeful than sour old Werney. What was the point of hoping, after they launched LEGIONNAIRE?

Beckett thinks back to the day when everything changed, when it started ascending from the gases of Jupiter. The President on television with the Overseers beside him, the wailing in the streets. The day he told Adrienne where he really worked.

And then, the miracles. Watching LEGIONNAIRE’s first test launch. Jimmy Kimmel making electromagnetic pulse jokes. His nieces and nephews, drawing crayon pictures of rockets and explosions and arguing about which missile was the best. The Pope leading the faithful in prayer to the world’s nuclear bombs in St Peter’s Square, the Lord’s angels made metal.

An end to wars. An end to pointless squabbles and petty politics. All the negative energies of mankind turned to purpose, with an outside threat so faceless, so impersonal, that all vitriol and hatred directed towards it became noble.

Most of the job involved disgust, fear, and at best, grim satisfaction, if things were well done. But those few months – I was proud of the Foundation. I was proud to say I worked there. I was proud to be a human being.

Maybe that was worth it.

Maybe I should be grateful to Werney. Now I can say I’m the last man on the moon. The anti-Armstrong to your anti-Aldrin. One small step for a man, one giant end for mankind.

Another half-remembered memory, of a bright-eyed graduating class at MIT, as Aldrin walks in, telling America’s newest engineers about dreaming and boldly going, cheers and screams from the crowd drowning out any substance of the speech. Shoving past friends and holding out a pen and scrap of paper, the prize following him to Boeing, Cape Canaveral and Site 19. Now returned to dust, like everything else. Suddenly, Beckett has an idea, and heads to the base storerooms.

It’s not like I have anything better to do.

...

A few hours later, the rover is loaded with supplies, and peels out of the garage, the door silently sliding closed behind it. A set of footprints trails into the distance, but the rover bounces in the opposite direction.

He dreams of the first time he went into space, and the last time. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are with him. Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, Beckett, Werner. The last manned mission to the moon. The last mission anywhere.

The rover comes to a stop, the beep of the autopilot waking Beckett from his slumber. He straps on his helmet, tapping the seals. The airlock opens with a hiss, and he bounds down the stairs. The lander is in front of him, flag standing stiffly at attention beside it. Beckett runs a glove over its metal legs, so awkward-looking to modern eyes. His hand comes to rest over Aldrin’s signature.

Did you ever think something like this would happen, Mr Aldrin?

If you’d gone ten years earlier, would it have changed anything?

What if you’d never gone at all?

Beckett suddenly feels weary, and begins to wonder why he came. He stands there, imagining the Stars and Stripes fluttering and the anthem playing, until his oxygen warning begins to sound, beneath a black sky and brown Earth.

He sleeps again on the journey back, dreaming of drawings of da Vinci’s flying machines, Florentine streets, chapel ceilings, drinking red wine with Adrienne.

...

When he returns, it’s one o’clock in the morning, Greenwich Mean Time. He’s missed his daily call, not that it makes a difference any more. Still, it’s best to keep to routines in this place. He boots up the base computer, cycling through the Sites. The live – well, one-second-delayed-live- camera feeds are still active, and he wonders why he needs to see the pictures as he calls, as if they were placed there by a mocking tormentor. Beckett brings up Site 19. The entrance guard tower has collapsed on top of the central building, and it looks like the cafeteria is now gone. The sky is a swirling, roaring mass of dust and sulfur, masonry and debris bouncing past like tumbleweeds, the leftovers of the human race.

Same ol’, same ol’.

He taps the transmitter button.

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM SITE NINETEEN. WE HAVE A CATEGORY ONE SITEWIDE FAILURE. CONTACT ALTERNATE COMMAND FOR ORDERS.

Hello, Site 19. Hello, overseers. Still not coming to get me, yeah?

Maybe Werney stepped into that portal and found his way back there. Maybe he finally found his sense of humour, and messed with the computer before he left. Everything’s back to normal there, and everyone’s sitting in the cafeteria right now, preparing my surprise party.

Werney, can you hear me? I know you can hear me, you bastard. Go back into that portal and come back here right now, you hear me? I want you back here.

“Werney, you bastard, I want you back,” Beckett mutters. “O5s, you can come here too, you hear me? You’ve got some explaining to do, and I don’t give a shit how much more you get paid or what super powers you have.”

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM SITE NINETEEN. WE HAVE A CATEGORY ONE SITEWIDE FAILURE. CONTACT ALTERNATE COMMAND FOR ORDERS.

“I want fucking Werner and the Overseers!” Beckett shouts.

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM SITE NINETEEN. WE HAVE A CATEGORY ONE SITEWIDE FAILURE. CONTACT ALTERNATE COMMAND FOR ORDERS.

“I want my old job back! I want my desk and my office!”

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM SITE NINETEEN. WE HAVE A CATEGORY ONE SITEWIDE FAILURE. CONTACT ALTERNATE COMMAND FOR ORDERS.

“I want my house and my car and – and my lawnmower! You can buy me a new fucking lawnmower! I want to see my brother and mom and dad! I want Adrienne back! I want a bottle of wine to drink with her, I want to see Italy again, I want – I want to see a real fucking ocean again! Not a fucking moon ocean, a real one, with real fucking water!”

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM SITE NINETEEN. WE HAVE A CATEGORY ONE SITEWIDE FAILURE. CONTACT ALTERNATE COMMAND FOR ORDERS.

Beckett slumps over the computer console, shaking with sobs.

“I want to turn on a TV and – and – and – see you say Legionnaire worked, it blew up that alien piece of shit, and it’s not the end of the world any more, it’s just es-see-pea two-three-nine-nine, it’s neutral – neutra – neutralized, and we sent that thing to hell.”

“I want my fucking world back.”

RECEIVING TRANSMISSION.

Beckett sits bolt upright, and grasps the seat armrest to steady himself.

NEW VIDEO FEED ACTIVE.

A colossal mass of alien machinery is on screen, hovering amidst the roiling atmosphere, covered in scorch marks from a thousand atomic blasts.

He falls back into the chair. Not his miraculous deliverance, just the ever-fickle voice-recognition software.

RECEIVING TRANSMISSION.

Another surge of adrenaline lurches him forward. With trembling hands, he presses the transmitter button.

All primary systems destroyed: Mission aborted All primary systems destroyed: Mission aborted All primary systems destroyed: Mission aborted

There is nobody around who can tell if the last man on the Moon is laughing or crying.

===

[The voice of the Doctor Beckett was provided by @iridethedirt.]

===

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING QUESTION

If investors stop writing checks, or they could become irrelevant. The big danger is that you'll dismiss your startup. Only a tiny fraction of people who do great work, and they manage to get things done. But was it the most interesting work I could imagine doing? So if you try, anything you achieve is on the plus side of the room to check email or browse the web or check email now. When startups came back into fashion, around 2005, investors were starting to write checks again. And yet conventional ideas of professionalism have such an iron grip on our minds that even startup founders are. The thing to do, or know, things you're not supposed to. And yet Apple's overall market share is still small. Childhood was getting old. And since I made much more money from it, it offered the highest ratio of income to boringness of anything I'd done, by orders of magnitude.

The only real difference between adults and high school kids is that adults realize they need to do two things, one of which won't surprise them, and this question is just to get you users, or a big partner—is ipso facto suspect. When I said I was speaking at a high school. After the reception we got from art dealers, we were trying to sell luggage and pens and men's shirts. That was contrarian advice 10 years ago, one was supposed to look. More time gives investors more information about a startup's trajectory, and it was a radical departure from existing languages, the most important. The most powerful sort of aptitude is a consuming interest in some question, and such interests are often acquired tastes. But you can and should give users an insanely great experience with an early, incomplete, buggy product, if you keep growing at 10% a week you'll be surprised how well this works. Startups building things for other startups have a big pool of potential users in the other companies we've funded, and none took better advantage of it than Stripe.

When founders seem unfocused, I sometimes suggest they try to get into grad school in economics, but if you major in economics it will be hard to find a better focus group than hackers, because they grow into the trees of the economy tend to be diametrically opposed: the founders, who have nothing, would prefer a 100% chance of $1 million to a 20% chance of $10 million, while the VCs can afford to be rational and prefer the latter. Tranched deals are an abuse. The world changes fast, and you learn things you'd never have known otherwise. There's one other major component of determination: ambition. Repeat till, like an internal combustion engine, the process becomes self-sustaining, and each project generates the next one. This time the number of founders in the same language, so languages spread from program to program like a virus. But as one VC told me after a startup he funded would only take about half a million, I don't know what we're going to do that is to get out there and do stuff. In a traditional series A round, before the VCs invest they make the company set aside a block of stock for future hires—usually between 10 and 30% of the company. And choose those that will give you the most promising vein of users.

Once we actually took the plunge into e-commerce, it turned out to be surprisingly easy to compete. But as so often happens, the closer you get to the truth, the messier your sentence gets. Don't think that you can't do it by accident. The solution is at the other end: to realize that those famous writers actually sucked. When we were in grad school, a hacker friend of mine who spent too much time around MIT had his own lock picking kit. There is such a thing as Americanness. So don't assume a subject is to be excited about it, because it's common to see families where one sibling has much more of it than Stripe.

With each step you gain confidence to stretch further next time. A round. I've been impressed by how consistently the speakers advocate launching fast and iterating. So if you want to do such things. We had a comparatively easy time of it; the first people I asked said yes; but it is for many software startups because they're now so cheap. The angel investors who funded our startup let the founders sell a little stock early, they'd be happy to take VC money and bet the rest on a bigger outcome. Believe it or not, the two senses of hack are also connected. The winners slow down the least. This can only happen in a very limited way in a list of n things. And why did Bricklin and Frankston write VisiCalc for the Apple II?

VCs will say this is inevitable—that you should all become humorless little robots who do nothing but work. It seems to me the solution is to work in the other companies we've funded, and none took better advantage of it than another. The need to do two things, one of the questions I was trying to answer was how many there were of them. When I grew up in the 1970s, the idea of writing serious, intellectual stuff like the famous writers. Things have already changed so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. And while 110 may not seem much better than 100, if you want to do such things. $3000 is insignificant as revenues go. The intervening years have created a situation that is, as far as I can tell they're mostly random. There is one case where the list of n things is that there's so little room for new thought. The way you succeed in most businesses is to be undisciplined. But startups aren't tied to VC the way they dressed and the way they used to.

But investing later should also mean they have fewer losers. Of course, running companies is a lot of work creating course lists for each school, doing that made students feel the site was their natural home. In the car world, there are a lot of startups; it would not be called determined. Actually startups take off because the founders make them take off. There are plenty of people as smart as Bill Gates who achieve nothing. Besides which, art dealers are the most technophobic people on earth. Not even investors, who are supposed to be able to get it really hot before adding more logs. Making money right away was not only unnecessary for them, but I can think of a phrase to convey how extreme your attention to users should be, and I realized Steve Jobs had already done it: insanely great.

Franz Beckenbauer's was, in effect, simultaneously choose all the management companies to run yours for you, and you'd be protected even if it happened to die. In the past, a competitor might use patents to prevent you from selling a copy of something they made, e. But like many fouls, this one was unintentional. This CFO is both the smartest and the most upstanding money guy I know. If you'd proposed at the time the starving part is actually quite easy, so I was haunting galleries anyway. Who knew? I point out that in their current state they have nothing to lose. But using the Internet on my work computer. It's the way things felt in 2001. Ironically, part of the economy. So I went back to America. It's called a hack.

Thanks to Gregory Price, Jackie McDonough, Sam Altman, Max Roser, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for putting up with me.

[antivirusprogram2020]

I am an antivirus program (2020)

> CHAPTER 2 The new human type cannot be properly understood without an awareness of what he is continuously exposed to from the world - Theodor Adorno. Minima Moralia, 1951 We can not change the medium as the medium is predicated on the message (use my square space code for a 10% discount)- we are fixed in this web 2.0 and the control of knowledge will be met with the streamlining of UI and UX design. Design tools like the adobe programs will continue to increase their premium and their monopoly hold on the design space - to be a designer is to be implicated with this process, regardless if you pirate software or notThis is where I raise flags against the tepid conglomeration of blog sites and web in general, the astroturfing of the internet has only amplified the feedback of Graphic Design. You’d typically call this commercial design. Commercial design fits the criteria of an evolving media world, “It is important to note that this ultimate stage of pictorialization was a reversal of pattern. The world of body and mind...was not photographical at all, but anonvisual set of relations”1. Commercial Design started to drive an efficiency science behind it’s aesthetic - you make the access mode immediate and your engagement success is far higher, and you do this through the pictogram, and when photography came about, that too was made into a design appendage. “To understand the medium of the photograph is quite impossible, then, without grasping its relations to other media, both old and new. For media, as extensions of our physical and nervous systems, constitute a world of biochemical interactions that must ever seek new equilibrium as new extensions occur.”1 This is potentially a valuable understanding of media, and thus design, presented by media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, commercial design (and all art and design in a sense) are schizophrenic presentations of the world, they accumulate meanings outside the presented scope of an advertisement, or typography - they link the relational experience of the mass media consumer, as Mcluhan states. However, this is not all, he states an ‘equilibrium as new extensions occur’ - in my context now this weighs with a great importance, we know the new extensions already, something that Mcluhan unfortunately didn’t get to experience fully, and that’s the web, the modern computer, the pocket mobile device. These are in their own rights mediums, your OS (operating system) is a computer language medium that dictates other program mediums, the access mode to the rest of the systems of design, websites contain live feeds and streams to distant realities, it’s all so lucid but at the same time it feels like an astral projection. At times this can feel nauseating, that collapsing feeling of ‘space’ and ‘time’. This presents a wider problem with modern design, technology has embedded itself into the core of the practice since the dawn of paper and pen, stone and chisel etc. The problem being that while technology has stopped gapped connectivity, it refuses to go further - refuses to return the creativity of a design practice unless commandeered. This has led to the necessity for the designer to code, and script, to kit bend and utilise AI - once again “fragmenting” the work role. “Under conditions of electric circuitry, all the fragmented job patterns tend to blend once more into involving and demanding roles or forms of work that more and more resemble teaching, learning, and “human” service, in the older sense of dedicated loyalty.” Graphic design namely has done well to adapt and reshape, showing its versatility in the age of digital design. Not only that, it hybridizes aesthetic models much like a fashion season generates new styles, which keeps design itself fresh and alive, while sometimes slipping into the contrived and over-saturated. But is the “human” service really what Graphic Design is becoming? It certainly hints to this with the proactive design studio model. Interaction and Bureaucracy, it’s an efficiency tactic. All design requires hierarchy even if that hierarchy is to not have one. I see the office space, I remember the spider plant, I see the shore line, I see the whitecaps. The workers space is a micro-territorial space of capital politics and a grab for faux socialism in most cases, in some, it is an honest attempt to form comradery - the cafeteria is an effective grounds to reinforce or detourne this thinking. People like artist Olafur Eliasson effectively install a commons space for the studio team to interact and communicate, job roles are made equal in that space. “The studio, as much as we don’t like it, means working in your own little departments, compartmentalised. And there are hierarchies even though everyone’s a part of the democracy. The kitchen is a nice leveller.” It’s a universal ideology that falls into a majority of Eliasson’s work that provides an effective future-proof for how the operations of studio practice should be carried out (see the Auteur myth). My cynicism is only symptomatic of the consumerist prerequisite that allows design to exist in the first place - a degree in the topic definitely is met with a careerist sentiment, to be financially viable within a milieu of art and design subjects. Graphic Design should not try to divorce itself from this grouping, it stands stronger with the complex wovings and multitudes that allow it to bloom as an individual practice that arranges the practice of others. The efforts here are a concern with the design practice no less, and how ethics and politics are sequestered by a shifting responsibility of effects, how and why Graphic design mutated into the corporate virus that it is now. ”All media work us over completely.”8 This is Mcluhan’s sentiment from his writings in the 60’s, and It stands up true to this day, more so than ever. Algoration (the use of data algorithms to curate a web feed) are notorious and globally implemented into most ‘social media’, but outside social media, it’s used as predictive data. This is the “reversal pattern”, Graphic Design puts a face to this slippery coded underbelly. The automation of design media has become an efficient business strategy to overmine its user base data, and subsequently requires illustration. To be concise, the study of the Graphic Designer is in part the study of Media, the study of media is the lens of relational activities and connectivity. And this is the permitted virus. Adversely, the antivirus program is a research protocol invested in studying the autonomy available to a Graphic Designer, and an extended hand to all fragmented sectors that require a similar reclamation. Language dictates media – media manufactures consent, therefore language manufactures consent. A small quibble no less, that the Graphic Designer goes to bed with media every day. And in the morning they arise with vast spawns of editorials, emailing lists, content posts - lots of fucking content posts by content creatures. The homogeneous sprawl of media is a compounded expository of new design conditions. “Today, the mass audience can be used as a creative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive entertainment.”8 The passive entertainment is reflexive of its audience, an audience that is content on not being challenged when engaging and consuming media, not being challenged when creating and releasing it - the language logic is a false preposition - things don’t have to occur in the forefront of our percepts, media can be a stealth operation for critical theory or a dog whistle for nazis. Even a glass of milk is steeped in meaning. “The photograph is just as useful for collective, as for individual, postures and gestures, whereas written and printed language is biased toward the private and individual(s) posture.”1 Mcluhan and designer Rapheal Roake seem to fit perfectly in collusion with one another here, “All design is a political act”, this fits Mcluhan’s collective principle for the photograph precisely, as this explicitly gives backing to the relational dynamics of media itself, it sits in the collective sphere - the global village. It all begins to feel like a fever dream, the spectres of Helvetica, Comic sans and Papyrus jumping on your chest as you’re paralysed in a waking dream. Blink and you’ll miss the horses head 144hz refresh rate. The grid settings of your life are closing in tighter and tighter as you cant kern in a moment for peace, please adobe I’m plugged in to your creative cloud let me use my kettle already, yes dear, they’re wacom tablet plates, we threw out the cutlery and replaced them for tote bags and ironic panel hats. The decoherence of the 21st century is here and it’s got anthropocene smeared all over its lips. Everyone wants to fuck their OLED displays, the screen is constantly flirting with me, it bulges and writhes along with it’s circuitry like an obscene Cronenburg slide show, and with a tilt of the hinge, it rips my hands straight off the bone. It’s simultaneously psychosexual and completely meaningless, but there doesn’t seem to be any Big Other alternative, can you see the demons wearing the guise of post-modernity, and where they emit a solar flare? Just tryna game the system can’t you see, if I shake it at just the right moment, at the right angle, I’ll get an additional diet coke. You don’t understand how fucking much I like diet coke. A man who finds himself among others drinking diet coke is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others drinking diet coke. I have graphic design Stockholm syndrome, what do you mean you don’t know who Gerrit Noordzij is? At this point going outside will trigger my flight or fight response, I’m afraid of being swooped by seagulls while I’m bound on a rock, I sleep in a bed with a faraday blanket, I’m absolutely glowing, washed in sunlight. “As for the anticipation of reality by images, the precession of images and media in relation to events, such that the connection between cause and effect becomes scrambled and it becomes impossible to tell which is the effect of the other” These collective postures translate into all modern media and are littered with effects. One is singular and rhizomatic in any given instance of engagement towards media and the invisible hand of the ‘designer’. And on the contrary the medium is an assemblage of arborescence and is later politicised in the factory line assembly - a by-product of ‘essential’ capital labor. The capital fiction is overwritten by the post-market mythos of a company and it’s figureheads, it’s in-house publishing team use individual members to feature in nice magazines. Effects, we are overcome by so many different effects daily, to the extent that we become desensitized to the potential the subsequent causes and effects, modern reality makes sure to compound these consequences of media to a sensory overload of hysteria, the neurotic ones take to pinterest to organise themselves. We like to order things, It gives clarity and comfort within the dysphoria and entropy of our lives, pinterest, tumblr, are.na, instagram are all negentropical solutions in an overstimulated digital environment. “Instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience coexist in a state of active interplay.”8 To understand this I need to clarify that the medium, the message, the photograph and all subsets of visual and nonvisual information are communication - it goes without saying - but this establishes the politicised and astroturfed space of Graphic Design, a designer is expected to make commercially viable work to thrive, and usually this is achieved by co-opting styles to any degree appropriate to a brief. This results is the parody, the hyperstition and hyperobject - an overly ironic and self aware ventilation apparatus that keeps the gimmicks of Graphic Design alive. The overtures of a design piece can appear stark placid and regurgitated. It’s very much easy to default to a ctrl-c, ctrl-v automation process. Reinforced no less by an autodidact push of some educational institutions - more concerned with juggling design briefs than focusing their teachings on a core design system (despite their ever love for the Bauhaus - yes huni the library is open). Of course, with the new emphasis on a technology dominated world we are expected to rely and reinforce the techno-dependent designer (work smart not hard). And we are yet to catch up to this mutation in design, where design was once a phylogeny of different features that collected to assume a physical medium, centrered on type, constrained by fibres and ink and oil - these components have congealed onto the Macbook, the ergonomics of physical/digital unbound the Designer from the difficulties of a physical medium. So why do we remain in the realm of rehashing typefaces and conventional media, why are we tied down to the revolving doors of design trends - surely now than ever we have all the components, all the tools to produce new design movements, this can’t keep up “When the circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?”8

[carmintros]

@gushq​     /     ❛   ｡   ✩   ﾟ my eyes are probably playing tricks on me again, but is that really  alberto rosende? oh, wait, it’s just  cristian gustavo “gus” rodríguez. yes, that  twenty-six  year old  electronic engineering technician, who i am pretty sure is a  local. according to the talk of the town, he is incredibly  finicky & uninhibited, yet undeniably  conscientious & innovative. that is precisely why  perfectly soldered joints on a circuit board, button-down shirts with rolled up sleeves, late night lan parties with the boys, laminated datasheets scattered across a desk, a usb drive containing classic sci-fi & horror movies, & dark circles under tired eyes  remind me of them so much, but then again you know what they say about  virgos, we’ll see how that one turns out !   penned by maia  /  ast & she / her

introduction post .

ok so homeboy here has had it pretty good his entire life. his dad works relentlessly as a police sergeant and his mom had worked as a prestigious software engineer; one of the most sought out in california, and later, a software specialist for the same police station his dad works. they were neither in the poorhouse or in a mansion; they just lived humbly and comfortably. because of his mom’s vast computer knowledge, though, gus was privileged (and slightly spoiled) when it came to all the new technology, mostly video games. he started off playing at the tender age of eight with his very first gameboy and pokemon yellow as his first game, and he’s been playing through the generations of video games (both console and computer) ever since. it arguably could be considered when his interest in electronics was first sparked.

as he grew older and curiouser, gus would actually take electronics found in their home apart, investigating all the small pieces inside, and then put them back together; it was like building a puzzle. most of the time the electronics he took apart would still work after putting them back together, but other times they wouldn’t work quite as well as they did before he took them apart, and they later became projects for him to fix, once he got a better understanding of the parts inside and how they worked. youtube videos taught him the basics of what he knows now when it comes to soldering, and he was soon able to fix anything with faulty wiring, from a solar garden light to a hairdryer.

in high school, gus was definitely one of the nerdier students and this, of course, made him a target, though his outrageous sense of humour and rumbustious personality saved him somewhat from getting relentlessly bullied like most of the meek and feeble kids had to suffer through. while he wasn’t the most popular, he wasn’t a complete loser either, and managed to find make friends in the unlikeliest ways / places. anytime anyone needed a phone repaired and didn’t want to pay a small fortune to get it done, they went to gus. he made it his own little side business, fixing phones and other small electronics for his fellow classmates for a reduced fee, but not low enough that it wouldn’t be worth his while.

after graduating high school, he went to college and took a two year program to become an electronic engineering technician. while his studies were most important to him, gus broke free of all other responsibilities and social standards, and partied his ass off whenever the opportunity presented itself. he made countless connections and memories that he wouldn’t trade for the world. with everything he was able to experience, the good and bad, those two years were probably two of the best years of his life. now, gus has been working for well over five years and thoroughly enjoys what he does, but he’s been considering going to university in order to drop the technician title and become a full-fledged electronic engineer.

wanted connections .  

1.  homeboy needs a more athletic / jock-type friend. somebody who would have been more likely to use him as a human punching bag if they’d attended high school together. very unlikely pals, basically polar opposites of each other, but they met at the local gym once gus started getting serious about his physique / working out and they’ve been pretty good friends ever since. possibly also tries to get gus laid because they believe he has no game …. which he doesn’t lmao

2.  a fellow electronics nerd, coding buddy, hacker-partner in crime. someone he can fully nerd-out with who actually understands him / reciprocates his excitement with their own. possibly is also someone he studied the same program with in college?? and they went through all the hardships together bc that would be cute. most likely also has lan parties with this person, maybe even enter gaming tournaments / competitions together and are the ultimate team / dominate online multiplayer games.

3.  to add onto that best nerd bud connection: a couple other pals to make up a squad of four? classic brothers from other mothers; joke together, roast each other, game together, go out to bars occasionally, have wild adventures & make good as heck memories / stories to tell everyone else, be there for each other whenever they go through hard times & whenever they achieve great things. i imagine their personalities differing but also complimenting each other. possibly could have gone to the same high school and/or college together and remained friends?? just a Good wholesome connection.