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bao3bei4 · 11 months ago

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why zines? how zines?

i was on a panel at fanworks con 2023 about zines today. it was a lot of fun! i decided to turn my portion of the talk into a post for my friends who couldn’t make it to the panel.

this post includes my thoughts on:

why make a zine

how to generate ideas for zines

how to finish your zines

how to build an audience for your zines

so why zines? what are they? [ZEENS, rhymes with beans], pronounced that way because it’s a shortened form of the word magazine, are basically just that: self published magazines. but why make a zine over, say, a blog post? or any other piece of art.

i have basically three reasons. the first is that making little books is cool. it’s genuinely awesome to make physical zines and have the product of your labor in your hand. it’s a great feeling to finish a project and feel a concrete reward, and a lot of times we don’t get that in our lives.

the second reason is that zines give you absolute editorial control. you can put anything you want on a page. whatever layout, whatever order, whatever fold, whatever content. you name it, you can do it. this is something other venues rarely give you. for artists, it’s phenomenal. and for the rest of us, it gives us the ability to become artists for a little bit, as we lay things out.

the third reason is that zines can be absolute shit. in fact, the more shit they are, the more diy and punk they are. they have an incredible lineage of stolen copy paper and anarchist politics. all that to say, is that there are no standards. the zine ethos is say what you wanna say. it’s tremendously freeing to go fuck polish and respectability, i’m making my project.

because of these three reasons, i want to encourage you to get started making zines by describing common challenges and worries and giving you several practical tips for each on working past them. so, in order, they’re “i don’t know what to make a zine about,” “i struggle to finish projects,” and “no one will read my zines.” let’s get into it.

first up, “i don’t know what to make a zine about.” i think this one is pretty common, even for experienced zine creators. sometimes you’re in the mood to make things but you have no clue what. a lot of people suggest to just go with random words or whatever pops into your head, but i’m picky! i find that unsatisfying! so here are some tips for people in the same boat.

ONE: what’s distracting you? work with it. because anything can be a zine, let the things you’ve already done serve as inspiration. photos you’ve taken can be formatted into a zine. is there a game sucking up your attention? make a zine about it. the song stuck in your head can turn into a lyricbook, forgotten works in progress or sketches can be resurrected, cannibalized, or even published as incomplete zines. if you’ve been busy with real life, maybe the recipes you’ve been making—even if, especially if, they’re struggle meals, can turn into zines. interview your most interesting friend. summarize a book you read recently. even if you’ve just been doomscrolling, that’s a zine too! i got a zine last weekend called bay area newsreel which was collecting recent articles about local news from leftist perspectives gathered up into a handy volume. your attention is a gift, so look at what zine fodder it’s accumulated for you naturally.

SECOND: add a twist. sometimes i have an idea but it isn’t quite right. it just seems too straightforward. so i try to develop along a single axis of content or form. what this means is basically go against your instincts, or rather, your first impulse. that first idea is very hard to walk away from, but doing so often gives you an idea that gets you unstuck. so for content, add a different perspective. for me this is often a theoretical approach. when i was stuck on my scum villain zine, turning it into freud zine let the words start flowing. next, on form: present it differently than your first instinct is to. if my first thought is “essay,” i try to figure out how to chunk out the information into modules or how to add interactivity or what kind of illustrations to add. if my first thought is “this could be a fic or comic,” i try turning it into an essay. saying things a different way often gives you a new perspective on the content as well.

THIRD: copy! make your take on the same thing as someone else. it’s not stealing—well, ideally it isn’t. make your original take and give credit where credit is due and ask permission if necessary. but engage with the medium!!! making zines without reading zines is the same thing as trying to write a paper without citing sources, or a novel without reading your contemporaries. that is, you can do it, but it’s hard. zines are a genre into themselves so figure out how to situate yourself in their ongoing dialogue. an example of this from my own practice is that i own a zine about queer gods and mythological creatures from chinese history. reading it i was like. why don’t they talk about this. why don’t they talk about that. and that became the basis for my own zine, guaitai the strange and the queer which focused on queer chinese history and literature instead. different zine, same inspiration.

all of my ideas suppose you have SOMETHING going on. what if you truly have nothing. my advice? adapted from my “how to write an essay” blog post, is to read a book. read an article. read something. and then post about it. and then turn your posts into a zine. don’t start entirely from scratch — give yourself a scaffolding. so first. read something and tell someone about it. i wasn’t lying about calling myself a consummate poster. it’s a big part of my thought process.

second up, what if “i struggle to finish projects.” i’m no stranger to having a bunch of half finished half started projects lying around. but here are some zine-specific tips i have for addressing that.

FIRST! go smaller; go shittier. reduce the scope of your projects. make one pagers, lists. once when i was feeling stymied, i made a physical zine about movies i’d watched that month, just listing them with a couple bullet points on each film. i eventually turned it into a bigger digital zine where i listed movies i’d watched over the past several months with more thoughts on them, and nicely formatted. but that was something that came out of reducing my scope from “i need to write a manifesto on a movie i’ve watched recently” to “well i can just tell people about it” to “i can say two things about it.” and something actually got finished.

SECOND. your friends are a great tool for accountability. something i like to do is zine jams with my friends. nothing fancy, it’s just we’ll sit down for an hour and go we’re going to make something in this hour. or, for a bigger scope, we might work separately but commit to making a zine that weekend. it’s nice to have community and it’s nice to feel a little bit of a friendly deadline. i recommend this even if you DON’T have problems finishing zines. it’s a good time.

THIRD. a lot of times if the words aren’t coming easily, it’s because i’m not trying to say the right thing. keep in mind that your zines don’t have to be “content.” this little paper zine i made about movies wasn’t made to share online; in fact, it’s not available online. i didn’t make it according to what other people would see or be interested in. you can and will burn out on making “marketable” content. corollary to this: sometimes what i have to say is something i DON’T want to share online. it might not be that it’s boring, it might be that it’s too personal. and i share a lot online, i write personal essays after all. but some projects i stall on because they’re really just for me, and i’m again, focused on making content. so this piece of advice is about rejecting the tyranny of the imaginary audience.

and the next challenge is about embracing that audience! what if no one reads your zines, something that’s entirely possible. well there’s plenty you can do about that.

FIRST. cultivate zine community. read other people’s zines! talk to them about their zines! this greatly increases the chance that they will do the same for you. don’t go in expecting reciprocity; do it for its own sake, but it’s a great place to start. try asking people at zine fests if they’d be willing to trade with you, for instance.

SECOND. write for yourself. it’s cheesy but it’s true. you really have to. if you’re not proud and happy with what you’re making on its own merits, what’s the point. now because this is a cop out tip, i’m not counting it as a tip on its own.

so SECOND PART TWO. make your zines more accessible. if they’re not free, make them free—yes, you deserve to be compensated for your work, but it’s up to you to decide if you want a bigger audience first. if your zines aren’t short, make them shorter. make them short enough that you can post their entirety on social media or something else easy for your audience to consume. it’s a big ask sometimes to get someone to download your pdf! if they’re physical, hand them out to people you meet. remove all the barriers to entry.

THIRD. related to this, change medium. if you’re not making physical zines, try printing them out. if you’re not making digital zines, try digitizing them. both of these offer access to new audiences and new people who might be more interested in one form than another.

i hope these thoughts encourage you to make a zine! if you do, please let me see it. i love reading zines.

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arimiadev · 5 months ago

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(you can read this article down below or on my blog!)

How to Sell Visual Novels at Conventions

Or, “how do you table at an anime convention and actually get people to stop by your booth and actually get interested in visual novels????”

Picture this – me, someone who’s never been to California nor flown alone arrived to the Hyatt at the San Francisco Bay, being greeted by several online friends I’d known for years but never met in person. After a great time walking around the surrounding Burlingame area and meeting back up with the rest of our group, we had to actually put in some work for the day.

That is, setting up our booth for the convention starting the next day.

We unpacked box after box, taking turns standing around with our hands on our hips and heads tilted wondering “how the hell are we going to set all of this up?”. I decided to make it my job to set up our keychain display. All I had to do was get a copy of each keychain we had and pin them up – we even had a box from prior conventions that had a single copy of (most) of our keychains, for displaying. But as I opened more boxes, I found more and more keychains…

After threatening to change the password on their Vograce account, I found we had 10+ boxes of merchandise for niche visual novels that we were trying to sell at a vtuber convention. Not an anime convention, not a gaming convention, a vtuber convention! Going to bed that night, already tired, I was sure there was no way we would make a profit…..

…And yet, we made more on Friday than they had for the entire convention in 2023. By Sunday, we had made more than double that, having sold items to over 100 customers with most purchases around $40 each. We weren’t selling fanart, we were selling a majority completely original art.

We lived the dream of a lot of indie developers – we sold physicals of our indie games and people bought them. But how did we do it??

a little context

Some background – OffKai Expo is an annual vtuber-oriented convention in Burlingame, California, a suburb of San Francisco and just 15 minutes away from their airport. If you don’t know what a vtuber is, just go watch my oshi Gavis Bettel. In 2023, Studio Élan had a booth at the convention as it’s somewhat local to some of our members. We decided to have another booth at the convention for 2024 and I offered to work at it (what’s a booth without a marketer?).

The only anime convention I’ve ever been to was the local one in Memphis, namely Anime Blues Con, but those are….lacking, to say the least. Not much to do, very limited artist alley, waning attendance (which was already small to begin with), barely any new artists nor sights year after year… I’ve always wanted to go to a convention outside my area, to say the least.

But how did we manage to make the weekend successful?

conceits

What we did won’t be entirely replicable for most devs reading this, but there will be some insights and takeaways that I’ll highlight that are applicable to anyone wanting to table at conventions and sell their games.

Our table was for Studio Élan x VirPro – it was a joint table between our yuri visual novel studio and our indie vtuber friend streaming group, Virtuality Project. We sold some merch for VirPro, but I’d estimate that was no more than 20% of our sales – we still would have made a profit even if we weren’t selling that merch.

this table held our limited VirPro merch. we were able to hang our Élan prints on the wall behind it thanks to our friends at Studio Nekomata allowing us to tape our prints to the backside of their display. we also had a Miho cutout, but she didn’t want to stand up this weekend…

However, it is important to note that Studio Élan is not a new studio. We’ve been around for years, have 15k followers on Twitter, and have several visual novels released. We’re not extremely well known, as we are within a niche within a niche, but we aren’t unknown either. Some people actually cosplayed our characters at the convention! It’s definitely possible some locals came to OffKai Expo just to see our booth & panel (we also held a panel on Saturday where we announced 2 new games).

Another thing to note is that we have a stock of merch from running an online store and having held Kickstarters before. Specifically, we have physical copies of almost all of our games as well as artbooks, soundtracks, clothing, and more. We had tons of keychains and 11×17 prints, sure, but we also sold a lot of merch that is much harder and more expensive to produce.

So, tl;dr, things we had going for us:

We are established developers with a following & released games

We have a sizeable amount of merch already made for our online store, including physical games & artbooks

We were boothing with our indie vtuber friend group and selling their merch on the side

But our main problem:

We were boothing at a vtuber convention, not an anime or gaming convention

Now, with all of that out of the way….

convention standards

First off, let’s look at some basic things you can expect while tabling at a convention. (for the purposes of being specific to visual novels, when I say “convention” I’m only referring to anime & gaming-adjacent conventions—OffKai falls under this as vtubers are both anime & gaming-adjacent)

At a convention, you will typically be selling in either the artist alley or the dealer’s room, which are both referred to as the vendor’s hall. For small conventions, these two may be the same area. The artist alley is typically for artists selling keychains, prints, and more. The dealers room is for vendors that sell larger merch or have more items to sell – this can include artists but also includes people selling imported items (such as anime figures) and companies.

Conventions have a set amount of hours that the events go on and the vendor’s hall is usually not open the entire time. These rooms will usually open in the morning, around 10AM or so, and allow vendors an extra hour for fixing things before opening every day. For OffKai, we had to stay at our booth for about 8~ hours every day, except for Sunday. Sundays are always the shortest days for 3-day conventions, as the convention will usually wrap up around dinner time (if not earlier).

Vendors get time the night before the convention starts (usually Thursday night, with most conventions I’m referencing being Friday-Sunday events) to set up their booths. It took us around 3 hours to fully set up our booth, with 4 of us working on it. Setting up your booth will go a lot smoother if you do a trial run before the convention.

Every convention I’ve tabled at or known a vendor at provides vendors with at least 1 table and a chair. More chairs are usually easy to get, you just need to ask staff before the vendors hall opens up.

tip 1 – bring a friend

Conventions provide tables and chairs, but they don’t provide helping hands! You’re probably going to need help unpacking and setting up the table, but you’ll definitely need to take breaks during the convention for the bathroom, food, and more. You can’t just ask staff to sit at your table and you can’t just hide everything while you’re gone. Bring a friend to help out!

If you have to go alone, make friends with the people boothing next to you and ask them to watch over your table if need be. Be sure to keep your money and payment processors with you if you ever have to step away. And bring snacks & water!

our merch

Like I said, at Élan we have typical merchandise for our visual novels like keychains and acrylic standees, but we also have physical copies of our games for PC & consoles, artbooks, soundtracks, and more.

We had these types of merch:

Acrylic & wooden items

Keychains

Standees

Pins

Print media

PC discs

Console discs & cartridges (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5)

Artbooks (game artbooks, limited edition anniversary artbooks)

Soundtrack discs

4×6 prints (CGs, key artworks)

11×17 prints (key artworks, exclusive convention artworks)

Clothing & fabric

T-shirts (4 designs, 1 color each)

Hoodie (new collaboration design, for all of our games)

Scarf (new collaboration design, for 1 of our games)

Fabric flags (key visuals)

Misc.

Grab bag (misc small items)

$5 bin (misc small items)

Pencil bag

Mousepad

Enamel pin

Plushie (limited Makeship leftovers)

Some of these were items we’d never sold before such as the hoodie, scarf, and 11×17 prints. Some of them were also much more of a hassle than others.

In terms of storage and cheapness to make, prints and stickers are by far the winners (we didn’t sell stickers at OffKai but plan to in the future). Prints are basically the best thing you can sell for production cost:profit, as a 4×6 print can cost you $0.20 but sell for $5+ and an 11×17 print can cost $0.60 and sell for $15-20.

On the other hand, t-shirts can be some of the most difficult merch to work with. They take up a lot of room (we had at least 2 boxes of just shirts/hoodies) and require you to have multiple different sizes. The plushies were great & easy to sell, but at the same time they cost a lot per unit and take up even more space than shirts.

The physical copies sold great, but the cost to produce & room to store them makes them unwieldy for most developers. I would recommend them over more bespoke merch like clothing, though—several people came to our booth, having never heard of our games, and left with a physical game. CD discs rather than DVD cases are much easier to store and can be handmade, although ours are manufactured.

tip 2 – be selective with what merch you make & bring

Unless you’re lucky enough to have a convention down the street from you, chances are you’re going to have to travel to the convention. That means packing everything up, possibly shipping it, etc…. You need to be picky with what you bring if you don’t have multiple cars to throw it all in.

My merch recommendations:

4×6 prints

Ours were $4-5

Dirt cheap to print, easy to store

Easy for people to buy because of the low price point and ease of carrying

Idea – these are so cheap to print, at the very least print some of your key visual & logo to hand out to people for free

Stickers (die-cut or sticker sheets)

Dirt cheap to print, easy to store

Easy for people to buy because of the low price point and ease of carrying

Idea – some conventions won’t allow you to hand out free stickers. For conventions that don’t, I would sell either singular die-cut stickers or sell them in packs

Keychains

Ours were $12-15

Cheap to print, not very hard to store

At this price point people want to have an attachment to the characters before buying

Idea – if your game is relatively unknown but you still want to print keychains, consider packaging them with something else like the game or a sampler CD of the demo / soundtrack

Physical CD disc games

Ours were $30

Not cheap to print, not very hard to store

People will buy copies of games they’ve never heard of because it’s an interesting item to own and seen as more value than a digital copy (even if physical is more expensive)

Idea – it doesn’t cost much to get a 50 pack of CDs, the cost comes from the packaging and time to make the entire thing. If you don’t have a finished game yet, consider printing your demo out on CDs in paper slips to hand out for free

our booth

Now that I’ve talked about basics for conventions and what merch we sold, what did our booth actually look like?

We didn’t have a pre-convention trial run, so we were essentially winging it. With all of the merch I outlined, could you believe we crammed all of the display copies on 1 table, 2 shelves, and 1 clothing rack?!

Our main focus was making sure each of our physical games were visible. After all, we were at a vtuber convention where most attendees didn’t know us, so we wanted to have a way to show off our games. We spent a lot of real estate on showing individual game copies and having brochures spread out.

tip 3 – have an idea of how you’re going to display things before the convention

We also brought several items to display merch. For keychains & pins, we had a simple corkboard leaning on a photo stand / easel. For acrylic standees, we had a clear nail polish stand. For physical copies, we had photo stands and bookends. For clothes, we had a small clothing rack. For physicals, we had 3 small bookcases. These were all extremely helpful, but they are added costs and more things to carry to the convention.

here’s a better look at our 2 bookshelves. the purple ladder one was at the back of the booth highlighting some items and storing various artbooks & bundles and the smaller one was at the front left of the booth by the VirPro merch, basically in the walking aisle

The corkboard and various photo stands were must-haves, regardless of what you’re selling. A corkboard makes it easy to display anything on it, whether it’s keychains, stickers, mini-prints, announcements, posters, and more. Photo stands were also super helpful for propping our corkboard on but also showing off individual physical copies.

this was me trying to arrange the corkboard and acrylic stands. photo stands and art easels can in handy!

Along with the display stands, we also brought some decorative items like pink table clothes and flowers. These aren’t required, but help make your booth more noticeable.

A few miscellaneous items I plan on bringing to our next convention are a hand sanitizer dispenser, a small air purifier, and fliers. I always keep hand sanitizer on me, but it’s easier to use it when it’s in a convenient bottle and place. Several of us got sick after the convention (despite me wearing a mask), so I’m also bringing a small air purifier to keep some germs away from the table. I also want to bring small fliers for our upcoming games—while brochures are wonderful, I want something that’s easy (and cheap) to hand out to anyone who looks at our booth, not just the people we talk to.

tip 4 – be aware of merch thieves

We arranged our table in a way that we didn’t have to worry much about people stealing merch, though that is a problem at some conventions. As you might’ve noticed from the pictures, our smaller items like the keychains are at the far back of the booth, right beside where we sit. That allowed us to keep a better eye on it.

Rather than sitting behind our tables, we arranged our booth to be where people would walk inside it. This allowed us a way to talk to people easier. We also made sure to hide our card readers, phones, and more when any of us left the table, though this was easy because we almost always had 2-3 people at the booth at any time.

my advice

If I were an indie dev looking to booth at a convention and had the time and spare change, I would if it were close enough to drive to and the booth cost under $500. Unless you’re an established developer or have a popular artist working on your project, it’s hard to justify that cost.

tip 5 – don’t forget to budget for…

booth costs

extra badges (most booths come with 2 free badges)

hotel

travel

food

merchandise manufacturing

any shipping fees (your luggage, merch, etc.)

display items, extra things for your booth

While you may find a booth for $250, you also have to remember the travel fees, cost of food, all of the extra items you’ll need aside from merchandise, and more. A $250 booth for a 3-day convention could easily end up costing you $2,000+, and that’s if you don’t pay yourself or coworkers for their time at the booth!

If you’ve never been to a convention before then definitely go to one as an attendee before becoming a vendor. Get a feel for the place and have some fun, even if it means you won’t be able to booth there for months or a year.

tip 6 – be sure to bring…

Some kind of handout for people with your game & logo on it (fliers, business cards, brochures, etc.)

Small stationary merch for your game (4×6 prints, stickers, etc.)

Corkboard to display things on and something to prop it up

A way to take card payments and cash for change

Hand sanitizer

Pen/pencil and sticky notes

Clamps

Tape

this is the inside of our old brochure! it details our different games and highlights some upcoming titles

I’d also try putting your demo on CDs to hand out to people who seem really interested if you can. CDs are pretty cheap to get now, and even if you just get a 50 pack that can run you around $12, which ends up being $0.25/CD. Not a bad cost for getting a potential fan, if you hand them out only to people who are really interested or package them with other merch and sell them.

Your main effort if you’re not an established developer, however, will be awareness. Talk to the people who stop by your booth. Tell them hi and explain to them what you make. I had several people clearly not understand what visual novels were, but I had many more who became interested once I mentioned we made these games. “Wait, you actually made them?!”

tip 7 – talk to people!!!

People at conventions think art is cool. They think indie games are cool. Be honest with them and show them your hard work. Yeah, this means you have to put on your extrovert cap for the weekend. Just don’t treat it like you’re a car salesman—you’re a game dev first and foremost and enjoy this line of work so much you want to share it with strangers at conventions. Let that shine through in your words.

All in all, conventions are stressful, tiring, and a lot of fun when they’re run well. If any of this sounds interesting to you and you find a convention close enough to you or one that will be relatively cheap to attend, I recommend trying it out.

------------

OffKai Expo was so, so much fun and I’m so happy I was able to attend. It was a well run convention, our booth did amazing, I got to meet actual fans IRL, and I was able to finally see a lot of my online friends in person. I was scared leading up to it but I’m so glad I pushed myself to go. Having an in-person panel there where the room was almost full absolutely blew me away—I kept asking “do they know what room they’re in? Did they get lost?” If you came to our panel or booth, thank you!!

— Arimia

read more of my articles on tumblr here!

#visual novel #visual novels #my articles #indie game dev #game dev #visual novel game

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redgoldsparks · 9 months ago

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I did a short interview for an alumni spotlight on the CCA website. You can click through but I'll also just copy my answers below the cut.

Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir) is a nonbinary/queer/trans author and illustrator, a voracious reader, a k-pop fan, and a daydreamer. You can learn an astonishing number of intimate details about em in Gender Queer: A Memoir and in eir other short comics, published by The New Yorker, The Nib, The Washington Post and in many print anthologies. Gender Queer won a Stonewall Honor and an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2020. It was also the most challenged book in the United States in 2021 and 2022.

Maia shares more about eir life as a full-time artist and activist, fighting to protect diverse literature and the freedom to access information.

1. What is your current practice/business?

I am a full time cartoonist. My job consists of days working at home writing and drawing mixed with days speaking out against book banning and censorship, and in support of the freedom to read, the freedom to teach, and the freedom to access information. I spend a lot of time talking with other authors, teachers, and librarians about protecting diverse and queer books from the current wave of conservative attacks. The first piece I drew for the comics journalism site The Nib was about the rise of fascism in the United States; my later writing about queer, trans, and nonbinary identities has led me into consistently political territory.

2. Why did you choose CCA?

I chose CCA because I was looking for a MFA Comics program, of which there are very few, and I wanted to stay in the Bay Area. Because I'm a local, I was able to meet the majority of the MFA Comics faculty before I applied and felt immediately welcomed into their community. The fact that a majority of my professors for the first year of the program were queer was a huge draw as well.

3. If you could share one piece of advice with current or future students, what would it be?

Every single person has a story only they could tell. No matter what media you are working in, do your best to tell the story which is uniquely yours. If you aren't ready to tell it yet, just keep making art until the time to share that story arrives. No time spent creating is ever wasted.

4. What's your secret to staying inspired and creative?

I realized fairly early in life that my very favorite way to spend the day was drawing while listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. I like making things! I would rather be making things than doing almost anything else. I created a life in which I can spend a lot of time creating things and even if I don't particularly know what I am making, I am happy.

5. What do you have coming up?

My second book, Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding, written with Dr Sarah Pietzmeier, is coming out in May 2024 from Dutton. It's a nonfiction comic about chest binding as an aspect of trans healthcare. I'm currently drawing my third book, Saachi's Stories, written with Lucky Srikumar; it's due out from Scholastic Graphix in 2026. I am also working on adapting Gender Queer: A Memoir into an audiobook.

#maia kobabe #gender queer a memoir #interview #comics #making art

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holespoles · 6 months ago

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Octopus is tasty but cute. The image shows an octopus toy drawn by Kyosen Kawasaki , an ukiyoe artist active mainly in the Meiji period. Kyosen was a person who compiled local toys from all over Japan into toy books and other publications.

The one on the left is a paper balloon octopus and the one on the right is an octopus flute, a souvenir from Sasajima. If I found such a cute souvenir, I would definitely buy it. I tried to find out where the paper balloon octopus was a local toy, but I couldn't find it. Some children's toys have developed specialisations since the Edo period, and it is difficult to say which area they originated from. Is Shinojima an island in Mikawa Bay, my home area? Mikawa Bay is still famous for octopus, but there seems to be no octopus flute as a local toy.

タコは美味しいけど可愛い。画像は主に明治に活躍した浮世絵師、川崎巨泉が描いたタコの玩具です。巨泉は日本各地の郷土玩具を玩具帳などにまとめた方でした。

左は紙風船蛸、右は篠島みやげの蛸笛との事。こんな可愛いお土産を見つけたら絶対買っちゃうと思います。「紙風船蛸」はどこの郷土玩具か調べましたけど判りませんでした。子供用玩具には江戸期以降専門職業が発達してどの地域発祥かとは言えないものもありますね。篠島は私の地元、三河湾の島でしょうか？いまでも三河湾はタコの名産地ですが、郷土玩具としてのタコ笛は存在しないようです。

#Kyosen Kawasaki #川崎巨泉 #illustrations #ukiyoe

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cannabrer · 2 years ago

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I'm currently displaying art at Haze Rio Vista today!

I’m currently displaying art at Haze Rio Vista today!

I’ll be displaying my art at Haze Rio Vista today and till the end of January! I’ll be available for questions about art and talking about future projects I’ll be working on so feel free to stop by today!

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slasherhoe87 · 2 years ago

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🕹The Slashers' Favourite Video Games🖥

So you've introduced your murderous partners to the wonderful world of video gaming... what is their favourite game??

MICHAEL MYERS

THE SIMS 4

He enjoys recreating Midwest-like towns in the worlds of Newcrest, Willow Creek, Brindleton Bay & Copperdale

He uses/downloads both mods and cc (cc is cosmetic stuff for the game like clothing, decor, hair, furniture etc) for the game

Has has decorated his worlds as Halloween wonderlands - spooky decor and lighting is everywhere

He built Laurie's home right next to his own childhood home

Downloaded the 'Extreme Violence' mod so he could terrorise and murder the poor sims

Downloaded his navy coveralls and his mask cc

Controls Laurie's household and makes her life miserable

She hasn't showered in weeks and is forced to use a toilet on full display out on the front lawn

You have to drag him away from the PC otherwise he'll sit there causing misery and bringing chaos to the lives of the sims forever

JASON VOORHEES

DEAD BY DAYLIGHT

A killer stalking the woods for victims trespassers?

Can actually play as himself?

Gets to play with you as well?

Can enjoy the forested scenery that he so loves?

All of the above are a recipe for a great time to Jason

Likes to play at night as it helps him unwind after long days of setting up/securing traps and patrolling his woods

You and 3 of your friends would play as the victims for Jason to hunt down

More often than not you and your friends die by his hands but on the rare occasions that you survive, Jason rewards you with hours of fun in the bedroom

BO SINCLAIR

GRAND THEFT AUTO V

Play as criminals causing murder and mayhem in a big, sprawling city? Yes please

The cars! Bo is obsessed with the variety of vehicles on offer in the game

Spends hours customizing all the cars he "procured legitimately"

Likes to park his vehicle at a pretty spot somewhere on the map and enjoy the sunset while listening to the in-game radio station music

Trevor is his favourite "protagonist"

Punches every npc that pisses him off

Knocks down and reverses over every cyclist he encounters on the road

Really likes the desert and the free spirit atmosphere of southern cali... sometimes makes him wanna pack-up and move himself and his brothers out to a town around the Salton Sea area

VINCENT SINCLAIR

LAYERS OF FEAR

A psychological horror centered around an artist whose one and only goal is to complete his Magnum Opus? Vincent immediately bought this game

Vincent takes his time traversing through the paintings (trippy doorways) trying to uncover every clue and unearth every bit of lore

The imagery and artistry of the game has inspired some of his own recent works

Is fascinated by the psychedelic horror and is not often affected by the jump scares or disturbing imagery though sometimes he'll jump especially when his character turns around to find a painting had crept up right behind him

Plays as often as he can, though not at the expense of the "family business"

CARRIE

THE SIMS 4

Like Michael, she can spend hours in front of the PC screen playing the Sims 4

Unlike Michael though, she is not murdering and terrorising the sims (unless they really cross her)

She loves the world of Henford-on-Bagley

She downloaded (because she can't build for shit) a little yellow and stone country cottage from the gallery where you, her, your pets and livestock live

A quiet, happy life filled with love - that's all she wants. And while the two of you still live in the noisy city, the Sims can provide her dream life until the two of you are able to move one day

In the game she is a housewife who makes money off of her knitting, baking, small scale farming and other crafts while you own and work at the local vet clinic

Decorates your shared cottage and your sims with the cottagecore aesthetic

JENNIFER CHECK

VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE BLOODLINES

Plays this game during the week nights

Has downloaded a ton of cosmetic mods to update the graphics of this older game

She chose her vampiress to be of the Toreador clan as they were the closest vampires that resembled Succubi/Incubi

Has fun using the seduction dialogue options in the game to get her way

Has heard some great songs in the game to add to her Spotify playlist

The game makes her wonder if vampires actually exist... is she, a Succubus exists then why not vampires? If they do exist she hopes they don't sparkle

WILL GRAHAM

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

Plays this when he can't sleep - which is almost every single night

Enjoys getting to play as a detective and the crime scene investigations

Playing as androids with artificial intelligence adds an interesting sci-fi element for him

There are a lot of moral choices that need to be made in the game and he's not so sure a lot of his fbi colleagues would agree with many of his choices - especially Jack and Alana

He doesn't think Jack would appreciate some of the similarities he finds with Hank and him

Also wonders if Hannibal isn't an android himself as his eerie calm and levelheadedness and barely-there facial expressions would certainly allude to it

BILLY & STU

MARIO KART

They love playing with you

After watching movies on the weekend you all settle down with snacks and play the Mario Kart games

Billy and Stu are of course Mario and Luigi

You and Stu never get angry if you lose but Billy just about loses his shit

Billy will sulk and give whoever won the race the stink-eye

Because of Billy's attitude, Stu makes it his mission to get Billy to lose. His favourite method is throwing banana peels in front of Billy's kart. Even Mario (Billy's character) gives Stu the side-eye

Regardless, you all have great fun despite Billy being a sore loser - but you and Stu sure do make it up to him later in the night in your shared bed

I don't know why I wrote this. Damn you, spontaneous thoughts 🙄🤣

#michael myers #jason voorhees #bo sinclair #vincent sinclair #carrie white #jennifer check #will graham #billy loomis #stu macher #ghostface #slashers #video games #slasher lovers #slasher fuckers #slasher imagines #slasher fandom #slasher community

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midpenmedia · 1 year ago

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Another show for the history books!

This past weekend we hosted another Vecino Lemonade show. Some great artists came out and rocked the roof off the building!

#public access #media #palo alto #atherton #menlo park #nonprofit #east palo alto #midpen #mountain view #bay area #local music #music #local artist

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robobrainrot · 1 year ago

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The Knack

Chapter 2: It’s Not Stalking

Notes: its a Knockout-Centric Fic with a human OC. Breakdown is alive and well. Optimus is alive and well. Set in the Prime Universe: Post Predacons Rising, Pre-RID15

[Chapter 1 Here] [Chapter 3 here]

enjoy my scribbles ✌️

Two weeks later...

Though he’d loathe to admit it, Knockout had returned to that parking spot three times in the last two weeks. Not that he was counting. His excuse to himself was that it was a pleasant covert spot in the shade. The weather was pleasant in this area at this time of year and he deserved a break.

It was merely a coincidence that it was also the way the human artist walked.

He had only seen them once in his last three attempts. They had been walking with a femmine human and didn’t notice him. Not that it bothered him.

Today, it was exactly two weeks after their first meeting. Same time. Same place. Sure enough, they came walking down the hill. When they were about 20 meters away, they finally noticed him.

In Knockout’s rear view mirror, he saw them smile brightly. They didn’t run over exactly, but their posture straightened instantly. The human paused in their stride for a moment. “Hello again, pretty boy.” With nothing more than a flirty finger wave at the car, they continued down the street.

That was it? What a tease.

…

Against his better judgment, Knockout looked up the username the human had given him. He was very familiar with social media. He used it occasionally to find races and fellow car enthusiasts.

Their account was mostly art stuff. Some occasional rambling posts. Scattered memes.

He learned their name was Kylan and they were an art student at the local university. They liked drawing various cool things they found around town. There was a text post referencing a gorgeous red sports car that they forgot to take a photo of.

Attached to that post was a rough approximation of what he looked like. It wasn’t as good as the one they did live, but considering it was from memory- it wasn’t bad. The detailing on his doors was completely wrong.

He scoffed. The purple scribbles they had added made him look like an illegible death metal band logo. Much less elegant than his custom pattern.

“My decals do not look like that.” He commented indignantly.

“Knockout. Darling,” Breakdown’s voice came behind him followed by two large servos on his hips. “What’s got you so revved up? I could hear you from across the bay.”

He minimized the tab quickly. “Nothing!” He looked up at his Conjux. Even leaning down to accommodate his ample chest, Breakdown was still taller. “Just a personal project.”

“You know I support your car junkie addiction… you don’t have to hide it from me.”

“It’s not an addiction. I can stop whenever I choose to.” He huffed. Knockout placed a kiss on his chin. He traced his servos down to intertwine with his partner’s. “If you want to talk about addiction…” he moved both their hands up his torso. “I could go for another polishing soon.”

The larger mech moved closer to press against him. “Hm… That could be arranged. I just got-”

Knockout’s computer pinged. His screens popped back up with the social media interface to let him know he had a notification.

It was a direct message.

“ OMG! It’s you! I thought maybe the drawing got blown away with all the wind. I hope it made you smile! “

“‘Drawing?’” Breakdown read aloud.

Knockout sighed dramatically. “Can we go back to my seamless distraction?”

The Stunticon looked between the screen and his Conjux several times. “After you show it to me. Have you been sneaking off to be a secret art model?”

“Not yet. I am playing the long game.” He wriggled out of his partner's embrace to walk over to his storage crate. It was mostly full of polishes, buffers and other beauty supplies. He picked up a small glass case. Knockout revealed it to Breakdown with a flourish. “A human left that on my window. Evidently, they were so taken by my lustrous finish that they couldn’t help themself from stopping to admire me.”

Breakdown leaned down to look at the tiny image. He squinted.

“And, they know I’m… not a car.”

He raised a brow. “You showed them your root mode?”

“Of course not. They just… know? They thanked me for letting them draw me– not that I had much choice in the matter. They didn’t ask permission.” He huffed through his vents. “They just knew.”

“And… your solution… is to stalk them?”

“It’s not stalking!” Knockout huffed. “They gave me their username with the drawing. Clearly, they wanted this.”

Breakdown took a deep vent in and out.

“I can handle it.” He placed the image back in his crate. Spinning on his wheels, he turned back to him. He reached up to pull him down to eye level.

“Be careful. For their sake, and yours.” Breakdown brought Knockout’s hand up to his eye patch. The hard gray metal contrasted his orange protoflesh. It was a stark reminder for both of them of past mistakes.

“I will, BD.” He smiled at his partner. “Trust me. This isn’t some Hollywood blockbuster. Nothing drastic is going to happen.”

…

After they started messaging online, Knockout was easily able to trace their IP address to know where they lived but he had never actually driven by their house.

Today was the day he finally got curious enough to look. Kylan lived in an old town house. It was white with brown shutters and looked like a scrap heap.He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to find but there was no obvious sign of the human. It’s not like he could go up to ring the doorbell to ask for them.

The Aston Martin parked across the street and settled down. He must’ve slipped into power down mode because when he woke up, it was dark out.

There was another slip of paper on his dashboard. He smiled to himself.

Glancing up, he saw the lights on in the second story of the human’s house. Zooming in, he could see Kylan sitting at their desk drawing. They had headphones on, wiggling back and forth to whatever they were listening to.

Knockout never really understood human’s relationship with music. Of course, they were good at it. There were plenty of songs he liked the sounds of. It seemed to affect their species more. He could ask their resident radio wiz about it, but he didn’t want to give Bumblebee that satisfaction.

With that, he pulled out of his spot. He headed to his favorite hiding spot and slid under the gas station canopy.

Knockout pulled the slip of paper out of his plating. This time, it was in a yellow-ish envelope. The artist was upping their game. How fancy, he purred to himself as he pulled out the piece of paper inside.

His optics narrowed at the tiny image.

“A parking ticket!?”

…

Over the next month, Knockout learned that they came home at approximately the same time every Thursday. This wasn’t always because he was there. Their posts had consistency at that time as well.

The Autobots kept him busy with various tasks around their new base. Ratchet always needed an extra hand, even if he didn’t want one. Arcee was still tense around the former-Decepticon but things were easing up. She had gone from openly hostile to occasional glaring. Agent Fowler was a similar story. Whenever the other two sports cars returned from Cybertron, they’d burn rubber until someone sprained something. Then, they’d get another lecture from Ratchet.

Overall, life after the war was pleasant, though strange. There wasn’t anyone threatening him every other minute of the day. He was allowed to just be.

Integrating Breakdown into the team was more of a to-do. Bulkhead and Wheeljack were not keen on the idea. But, with time and conversation, they came to a mutual understanding.

The ex-Decepticons got their own remote warehouse. Originally, they had been staying with all the Autobots, but that lasted about 2 weeks before someone put in a noise complaint. Their little home away from home gave them some much needed space from the other bots. It was dinghy but it was theirs.

Knockout leaned against a crate as he stared at the blankest wall of their space. It was gray metal, like the landscapes of Cybertron. It was distinctly not light the bright colors of the planet he currently resided on. Over time, he had become quite attached to the rainbow of hues that made up Earth’s environment.

“Breakdown,” He called to his conjux, “I think it’s about time we got some color in here.”

[ >> NEXT CHAPTER >> ]

#transformers #maccadam #transformers prime #tfp #knockout #THE KNACK #transformers OC fic #transformers oc #rory magellan #canon divergent au

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nolanhattrick · 1 year ago

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here is a a bullet point explainer of my top surgery day (like when i was actually in the hospital) because i feel like if i had something like that i would have been less horrifically life-endingly anxious

day before:

we drove to the city it was in because we were staying with family and wanted to get settled. we left around 10 ish? in the morning and it took us 3 or so hours to get there with all the bathroom stops we made

i received a call from my surgeon's office at 10:30 in the morning giving me the time i needed to show up at the hospital. i was to show up two hours before my surgery time (5:45 am ; 7:45 am), and i was first on the schedule

we showed up at my cousin's house and got settled, i was fasting as required and took my special soap shower at around 9pm. i needed to show up at the hospital at 5:45am but my cousin lives less than 5 minutes away from the hospital so i could afford to go to bed late.

day of:

i woke up at around 2 and went back to bed at around 3:30, woke up at 4:30 and took my second hibiclens shower. i got dressed in clean clothes and we drove to the hospital at 5:30 am

we had never been to the hospital before so we fucked around and found a place to park. we walked in and were confused until we looked around and found check-in. they didn't ask for ID or insurance, just my name. they scanned my advanced directive and medical power of attorney, told me to wait in the surgery waiting area, and told me that someone wld come find me! i was also given a hospital bracelet with my real name on it not my government name which is cool.

we waited for a little bit. there were two other people there. we were all in pajamas. it was great. the waiting area was full of local indigenous art. i wish i would have taken pictures now.

a nurse called my name and verified my date of birth and that i was there for gender affirming double mastectomy. she took me and my mom back to the preop area and took me to a preop room with a bed.

i was weighed and given a urine sample cup for pregnancy testing. this sucked bc i was NPO for like 12 hours and dehydrated as fuck but if you still have a uterus and ovaries you will have to do this.

she gave me a six pack of hibiclens wipes and instructions on how to do the surgery wipe down. neck to toes. one for neck and shoulders, one for chest and torso, one for back, one for arms, one for legs, one for groin and glutes. there r details on the paper. this is recommended but not required depending on ur surgeon. u do it urself. ur nurse does not touch u.

u put on ur gown and then ur given an IV with saline. i was given an oral anti inflammatory and 1000mg tylenol with a teeny bit of water. this is when they blew the valve in my hand. i COVERED my preop nurse with blood and almost threw up. it was great.

she went over some mental health questions and some physical health questions - are u depressed when did u last eat and drink etc. they were concerned because i hadn't eaten solids since the ninth and my surgery was on the twelfth but it was okay.

they asked me who my favorite music artist was because apparently listening to your favorite music while in surgery improves recovery outcomes. i blanked and then told them my chemical romance and the 1975. i hope they enjoyed that whiplash of a mix.

i was taken down and my mom was kicked to the waiting area. the elevator broke and we had to wait. awkward.

i sat in the real preop bay and started crying. got rly nauseous. a preop nurse gave me a puke bag and opened my fluids completely. i think this is where the additional damage to my arm happened but we're not sure. she was really nice but REALLY busy. she needed help lol it was just her for four people :(

she came and verified my name and date of birth. she gave me these sleeves that squeezed my calves to prevent blood clots. she put a warming blanket on me. she gave me consent forms to sign. she moved me to a private corner so my surgeon could draw guidelines on my chest. she put a scopolamine patch behind my ear and then dipped to do more work. love her

my anesthesiologist came by. she asked me my pronouns - the only person to do so (they're charted but still)! she checked my heart and lung sounds and complimented my lung capacity. she asked me what my fears were regarding anesthesia and told me that i was safe with her. she read over my consent and my preop EKG i got in weeks prior. she said that she considers me zero risk and that she is unconcerned which was a big calm down moment. she went to go do pre surgery things.

my surgeon came by. he unhooked my warm blanket and had me stand up so he could draw lines on my chest. he double checked my consent papers and then put me back under my warming blanket and gave me my puke bag back and then went to go do pre surgery things.

about 10 minutes later i was being wheeled into the surgery room. this is around 7:45am. it was actually REALLY close to preop. and it was very cold.

they had me put myself on the table. i was introduced to the rest of the surgery staff. they were literally all women. so cool. my head was going to be sitting on this jello bundt cake looking thing. i laughed and pointed that out. then i got hooked up to an oxygen mask by the anesthesiologist and it smelled like playdough. i commented on that and she laughed and that's the last thing i remember before

i woke up! i was groggy as fuck. first words out of my mouth in recovery were "oh that's exciting, i woke up" and the recovery nurse looked Very Concerned. she was nice to me. she also sprinted when i asked for a puke bag.

i was there for about two hours. one asleep, one awake. they needed to watch me eat and not throw up and i Succeeded and i also needed a bed to return to, which they didn't have.

my surgeon came by to check on me, said i did great! i don't remember much of this.

i went back to the same preop wing at, like, noon-thirty ish. i got to see my mom at one. my postop nurse was a SAINT. he monitored my immediate pain levels and the instant it got above a four he tried to get me pain medication, but was stonewalled by my surgeon.

he got me more food. i had like 12 ounces of apple juice and some cheese and crackers. he let me look at his tattoos and he told me stories while we waited for my mom and for discharge papers.

we got discharge papers, i got dressed mostly by myself. mom gave me my phone back so i could text my friends that i was alive. mom was also handed a 10 pack of gauze with nipple cut outs and we were told to open my swelling reduction binder and change them out once a day.

i was also instructed to empty my JP drains once or twice a day depending on fluid level and given urinalysis cups to empty them into. i never got more than 12mls out of them so this wasn't an issue

you just kind of pop them open and let the oily blood drain out and shake them a little and then squeeze and close them again. yes u can feel it sucking when u close it. it's not painful just weird.

then we went back to my cousin's house! and i devoured a burger and slept kinda shitty

i was up and walking normal same day. i got up slow and did circles around her living room. it was helpful.

#my post #recovery documentation #ftm #top surgery

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