#i drew this in my photo settings ignore the neon colors

[kaveh-a-day]

Day 163

[sophiascribbling]

i am desperate for miami stormpilot

You and me both. I’ve got around 20K written for that fic. I’ve got it mostly outlined, but it’s far from done and I haven’t had any time to work on it lately. I have all these things I really want to work on but until BWG is completed, I feel this weird sense of guilt when I work on other fics. 

I don’t release fics until they are pretty much done. I thought I was following my rule with BWG, but it changed so much over the course of the release that now it’s changed into something way different. I sometimes wish that I’d never released it, tbh.

That being said, here is a snippet from Chapter 2 if you’re interested:

Finn took a steadying breath as he got out of the car. The warehouse was nondescript and a passerby would think it was just the same as any of the other buildings surrounding it. The district was a maze of giant buildings—storage facilities, chop shops, and machining were most of what the area boasted.

He wondered if he’d have passed it by if he hadn’t already seen a photo of it during a debriefing. It didn’t matter, in the end, he had made it. Two years of work had gotten him to this location, but Finn was well aware that one wrong step and the entire investigation would collapse—beginning with a bullet in his own head.

He walked towards the door and his eyes met those of the guards who wandered around the area. They were dressed as though they were homeless, their voluminous coats and shopping carts hiding AR-15s from the casual eye. He nodded at one and the heavy steel door on the side of the building opened.

It was bright outside and it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust. There were cars parked inside—let in through the loading doors off to the side. Some were like Finn’s—old with fading paint and busted glass, while others . . . well they stood out with their gleaming chrome rims and smooth body styles.

The clicking of heels drew his attention.

Phasma was a tall woman with platinum blonde hair and a penchant for grey power suits. She towered over him as she came to a halt. Her eyes moved over his clothing and bearing. She didn’t seem terribly impressed, but then his fashion choices had always been limited.

“Follow me,” she said before turning and walking away.

He followed after her through another set of doors and the quiet of the front was banished as the sounds and stench of human misery overcame him. Finn did his best to focus on the subtle herringbone pattern of Phasma’s suit jacket, but there was not blocking out the mules and whores who came and went, getting their fixes, cash, and product. Their gaunt appearances turned Finn’s stomach and it took everything in him to stay the course.

He wanted to run—make up and excuse, turn around and leave. Tell Wexly and Organa that he wasn’t made for this, but he couldn’t. So much time, money, and resources had gone into getting him exactly where he was.

In this shithole of a building surrounded by the very dregs of society.

She lead him down a dark hallway and into a side room where several girls clad only in their underwear were measuring out the pharm and packaging it for distribution. Her expression was flat and her eyes were on him even as she made a shooing motion towards the workers. They dispersed without a word or a backward glance, leaving the table was littered with tiny foil packs and wrapped plastic bricks.

“You know what this is, of course,” she said, her eyes blinking in a way that would have made another man think there was nothing going on upstairs. But there was—Phasma was watching him like snake would a mouse.

He nodded his head, answering softly. “Aegis.”

Phasma’s expression didn’t change. “Yes, and I assume you know how to test it.”

Again, Finn nodded. “Adding phosphoric acid to a sample shows how pure it is.”

“Good,” she said, gesturing again. Finn heard a strangled scream as a girl with tanned skin and dark hair was dragged into the space. She was pushed to the ground, tears running down her face. Finn could see track marks on her arms, and her hands shook as she kept her head down.

Phasma spoke again, her voice even.“Pick the appropriate dose and give it to her.”

Finn blinked for a second. “What?” he asked, his attention swinging back to the blonde.

She gestured to the product on the table. “This girl came in with a fresh batch that we got a few days ago. She’s still . . . developing a taste. Test the cuts and give the girl her drug.”

Finn licked his lips as he looked from Phasma’s unyielding face to the sobbing girl on the floor. Time seemed to slow down as his gaze traveled around the room. They were all watching him, waiting to see if he would become a new boss or if they would need to dispatch him.

Those were his choices. This girl’s life or his own.

His fist clenched as he walked towards the table. His legs felt like lead as he took step after step and died a little more inside the closer he got. The girl was still crying, her heaving breaths splintering through his mind and his eyes fell shut for a second as he came to a stop.

Finn allowed his mind to blank out as his fingers moved through the motions of dusting a gram into a vial and mixing it with the suspension and the acid. The fluorescent pink color flared to life as he tested a few of the foil packets along with a bit from the bricks.

He chose a cut that was on the lighter side, but still enough to assuage Phasma’s suspicions and turned around. The girl was hauled to her feet as Finn shook the vial dissolving the aegis and then piping it into the syringe.

“Please don’t!” she begged and Finn clenched his jaw but only nodded to the man holding her. She was shoved face down onto the table and a bit of tubing was wrapped around her arm. Finn pulled on her wrist as she struggled, but he ignored her whimpers and cries as he located her vein.

It was quick really, getting the drugs into her system. She went limp after only a few seconds, and the man picked her up none-to-gently and threw her over his shoulder. Phasma nodded again and the man walked away, taking the girl out of there.

Phamsa said nothing for a few minutes. The room was quiet, but Finn was keenly aware of the weight that had settled on his shoulders . . . he felt it getting heavier as the seconds ticked by. Phasma pursed her lips before walking towards a free-standing shelf off to the side.

She picked up a plastic case and walked back to the table. He knew what it was—what was inside—so he merely watched as she clicked the latches open and pulled the lid up. The Colt 45 was different than the others he’d seen.

Nines’s had been black with gaudy gold inlays while he knew Phasma’s was a polished pale steel with mother of pearl grips. This one was two-toned with a dark grey handle and black slide. The barrel was extended, giving the already substantial weapon an even more pronounced appearance.

His hand came out to touch it, but the lid fell shut and he hastily pulled his hand back. Phasma raised a brow as she latched the case shut.

“You didn’t want to hurt that girl,” she said evenly.

He looked up, eyes wide before getting control of his expression. “I don’t enjoy hurting people. Fucking morons out there want to hurt themselves—fine. I got no problem making money off them, but I don’t get off on forcing shit on people.”

Phamsa sneered. “If you don’t have the balls—”

“I got all I need to take care of business,” he said, cutting her off. “And if business requires me to dope up some dumb bitch, then I’ll do it.”

Her expression was flat at first, before a smile spread over her lips. She held the case out to him. “You still have to get by Hux and Ren, but for now . . . Welcome to the family . . . Finn.”

He took the case, nodding silently and was about to turn and leave but Phasma stopped him. She picked up three of the packets from a smaller pile on the table and handed them over. He looked them over critically. They were marked with the hexagonal symbol for the First Order, but rather than black, the emblem was red.

“You’ll have fun with those,” she said with a tilt of her head. “You’ve got the rest of the night off . . . What’s left of it anyway.”

Finn felt dead inside as he nodded and walked away carrying the packets and the case. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he walked by, but he could feel the eyes of the guards on him. They knew he was a new area boss. He’d passed the first test and the case in his hand was proof of that.

He wasn’t due to report in to Wexley for another week—had no one to talk to about what he’d done. Even when it came time, he knew what he sargent would say. That he’d had no choice, that this was exactly the reason he had to stay.

Finn got into his crummy car, the case resting on the seat beside him, the shiny plastic reflecting the street lights like an accusation. He shook his guilt off as best as he could as the car started and turned the music up as loud as he could to muffle the echoes of the girl’s screams. Rain was beginning to fall in light drops as he drove through the city, moving through the high-rises of downtown and into the suburbs. The vibrant lights of restaurants and shops made the roads seem like oil-slicked rainbows.

He parked his car in front of Julip, the green neon of the club’s sign shining against his windshield. Finn saw one of the bouncers headed his way, ostensibly to tell him to move his car.  Finn got out first, and the man came to a dead stop at the sight of him, no doubt recognizing the new area boss for the Order.

Finn didn’t say anything, he merely walked past the man and into the building. No one tried to stop him and no one even spared him a glance as he pulled out one of Phasma’s foil packs and tore it open.

You’re making a mistake, he thought even as he held it close to his nose and inhaled. His jaw hung open as the numbing feeling spread through his face and then his limbs and brain, blocking out the pain, anger, and guilt. All that was left was the music and the hands that were touching him.

Finn shoved the pack into his pocket and let himself be moved into the crowd—let everyone around him grind and touch. He just wanted to feel something . . . anything but the guilt.

He’d never done any of the hard stuff before—a test here or there, but whatever was in that packet was far more potent than anything he’d tried out in the past. He was hyper aware of everything that was going on around him. Every beat of the music, ever brush against his skin was like a bomb going off inside his head.

He felt so . . . alive. There was a hand sliding up his back and around his waist, pulling him close—-grinding against him. His head leaned back against the other body and he seemed to be moving. The clear noise and feeling of being surrounded by a hundred writing bodies gave way to the feeling of a wall against his front as he was shoved forward.

He blinked in confusion as he was turned around to face the other man. He felt a pain in his face, but it was far away, more of a strange feeling of sandpaper against his skin. He could feel every cell that was torn by the impact and the bursting of blood vessels.

He’d been punched, Finn realized belatedly.

Another was headed his way, but the man was pulled off him, other swarming them and Finn could do nothing but slide down the wall until his butt hit the floor. He stared up as the most beautiful person in the world looked down at him.

“I know you,” he said with a smile. “You’re Poe Dameron.”

The man crouched down in front of him, his hands coming on either side of Finn’s jaw, moving his head from side to side to get a better look at the shiner that was probably already blossoming.

“Yeah, that’s me,” the man—Poe—said . . . or shouted . . . it all sounded the same. “I’ve never seen you take anything before, Finn. What are you on?”

“I don’t know,” he answered without thinking before his brain caught up with him. “How do you know my name?”

Poe snorted. “I know all the dealers who work in my clubs.”

Finn blinked. That’s right . . . he was a dealer. He sold drugs and . . . and . . . “They made me hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

The club owner's eyes widened before softening and he leaned in closer. “I’m sorry Finn,” he said as Finn felt his shoulders slumping and everything went black.

~~~~

Hope that helped tide you over, even if it was a little depressing. The entire story is pretty depressing tbh, but that’s the way I like my fics lol.

[hayleyoliviahines]

Professional Practices

1. Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership

Having just completed my Bachelor’s in Media Communication, I decided to push on to earn my Master’s. Not only did I know that I was already low on enthusiasm as I was tired from the previous journey, but I knew I needed this to achieve a personal dream. I wanted to be a good example of it’s never too late to get that degree - so my daughter could see, you can have a family and an education. This month was about getting the importance of self-discipline and understanding that I was only going to get out of this program what I put into it. We did our first research paper (which I quickly learned, I still had a lot to learn in that aspect) and made a timeline for our journey with our personal goals incorporated.

2. Defining Client Needs

In this course, we did a reflection of previous work and dove right into client research. By learning what directly goes into defining the client, their needs, and the ultimate goal - the design created can be crafted to speak directly to that market. Here I learned about mind mapping, something completely new to me. I thought, “I don’t work this way” and initially fought the process but soon realized the more I mind mapped, the more ideas that came from it. And sketching, which I personally don’t sketch (or should say, I didn’t) - I drew. Learning the process of quick sketch and rough thought on paper, makes the creative flow easier to get out.

3. Brand Development

Here we continued to develope previous coursework and grew our skills in critque and review processes with workshops discussing our logo creations. Being able to see everyone’s skillset and thought process, helped me to impliment new techniques and learn to take criticism and better my work. I strengthened my ability to do vector work and color theory. Making sure that the direction I was going was appropriate for the city client. Vision boards were crafted to reflect the different viarables of the city (geography, tradition, and culture) and at first, my boards were too cluttered and after refinement and guidance from the instructor and classmates, I was able to develope boards that more clearly reflected the client.

4. Effective Copywriting

I was ecxited to be entering this class. I enjoy writing and determining the story. We were given the opportunity to choose a non-profit organization to create testimonial ads for a campaign to drive recognition to the cause. In order to determine the message, personas were created. Even though these were based on a ton of research, they were completely fun to create. It was like creating a character for a story. By doing this you remove personal bias and create something for the market your are trying to reach. This was one of my favorite classes.

5. Design Research

Professor Argo, taught us about writing narratively. A process that I completely love. His feedback for learning how to give an object/place/thing, a voice is one of the most valuable things I learned. Researching the city to learn on how it may speak and then convey it in a message that didn’t read as a “do this, see that” touristy statement - is a very skilled techinique that I feel I accomplished pretty well with help from him and classmates.

6. Organizational Structures

Keeping on task with writing narratively, we were asked to keep a story journal. This process allowed us to think and write in a way that presented our everyday tasks and environments, in a more descriptive way. We were able to further or storyboard creations into dymanic boards. This was a great accomplishment, as I hadn’t worked in motion in a few years. I was able to flex my AfterEffects muscle and create something that spoke to Marrakech. This reignited my love of AfterEffects. We also created a cinemagraph - I wasn’t too happy with mine, but it still spoke to the message I was trying to create.

7. Design Strategies and Motivation

Here we were tasked with our home city project. I quickly learned that just saying something without rationale, was not going to cut it. I enjoyed exploring my city and conducting research to determine what was needed to help my city grow. Here I created my first survey to see how the locals viewed their town and to learn about city definciencies and unique qualities. I was able to create a problem statement, and the beginning of a design brief. Photo documentation was a large part of the research and I loved every minute of that. The data collected from the initial survey was pivitol into determing the problem statement I crafted.

8. Design Integration

With the forward progession of the city assignment, the next step was to determine a solution statement that would follow up the problem statement. With this new research and data, a vision board, dynamic board and design brief were completed. I am most proud of the creativity I put forth in all the assets for this project. The dynamic board pushed me to set a high bar for my physical assets. Voice and tone are also an extremely skill I learned, as it set the stage for everything I was able to create. The media matrix was completed and determined that I was going to make a neon sign, pole banner, and vinyl decal. I also created an Instagram story and Youtube spot.

9. Multi-Platform Delivery

While I was initially disappointed in learning that we were not going to be doing anything with web design or web layout, I was able to still create assets that would work on social media outlets. We further refined logos to represent the brand of the city and then creation of the assets we chose the previous month. Critiques from the professor guided the final outcomes which were of high quality and are all things I am most proud of.

10. Measuring Design Effectiveness

This month was a hard one to swallow. We released our assets out to the world and by creating a survey. I was sure that I would receive positive feedback. While I did receive more positive than negative - some of the negative really got to me. I was able to take to some of the helpful feedback to heart and make minor tweaks to assets. For the most part, I just learned how to get thick skin. Further analysis was done with the collected data to complete the research paper.

11. Thesis Presentation

This course was almost maddening - I, for the life of me, could not determine what innovation was when it came time to develope my arguement for the DLO’s. I had felt like previous instructors explained it differently and just couldn’t digest the way it was being explained now. With that aside, I did complete a nice thesis site. This began with several options that were created for layouts of each of the DLO pages. Then they were workshoped and discussed and ultimately the best ones were used for the layout of the site. Another confusion came into play when were asked to create a portfolio page - this is because all year whenever Behance would appear in our directions, we were told to ignore it - that they were no longer doing that. Then in this month, asked to use it. If had implemented this all along, I am sure the final product of the portfolio page would have been of higher quality. Then we were told we would receive panel feedback from our thesis site and it would come in the first or second week of the last class. That did not happen. My self accomplishments did outweigh the negative, so for that I am proud.

12. Professional Practices

This final month explored ethics, copywrite policies, and the designer’s responsibilities. Discussions and classmates interpretations were given and further elevated the understanding of each. I will take this understanding into my career and better follow the guidelines set forth by the AIGA. Reflection was given to the creation of the experience map. I was excited for this project and had looked forward to this last bit of creative outlet.

Here is my experience map, highlighting my ups and down and the actions I took to complete my journey.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

ART & DESIGN Bowie, Bach and Bebop: How Music Powered Basquiat By EKOW ESHUNSEPT. 22, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Pin Email More Save Photo Jean-Michel Basquiat, pictured in 1981, sold his first painting that year to Debbie Harry of Blondie for $200. Credit Edo Bertoglio, via Maripol/Artestar, New York LONDON — In 1979, at 19, the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat moved into an abandoned apartment on East 12th Street in Manhattan with his girlfriend at the time, Alexis Adler. The home, a sixth-floor walk-up, was run-down and sparsely furnished. Basquiat, broke and unable to afford canvases, painted with abandon on the walls and floor, even on Ms. Adler’s clothes. The one item that remained undisturbed was Ms. Adler’s stereo, which had pride of place on a shelf scavenged from the street. “The main thing for us was having big speakers and a blasting stereo. That was the only furniture I purchased myself,” said Ms. Adler, who still lives in the apartment. When Basquiat was around, she recalled, “music was playing all the time.” On Thursday, the exhibition “Basquiat: Boom for Real” opened at the Barbican Center in London. The show focuses on the artist’s relationship to music, text, film and television. But it is jazz — the musical style that made up the bulk of Basquiat’s huge record collection — that looms largest as a source of personal inspiration to him and as a subject matter. The first major retrospective of his work in Britain, it is a kind of homecoming for Basquiat’s art: In 1984, the first institutional show of his work opened at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, and then traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In a satisfying closing of a circle, a large drawing that Basquiat made in London for the institute’s exhibition, but that ended up not being shown there, will go on display at the Barbican. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Basquiat’s tastes were eclectic: Curtis Mayfield, Donna Summer, Bach, Beethoven, David Byrne, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Public Image Ltd.’s “Metal Box” album. “And he had his favorite tracks that he would just play and play,” Ms. Adler said. “Bowie’s ‘Low,’ definitely. And the second side of ‘Heroes.’ The influence of music was huge.” Basquiat eventually amassed a collection of more than 3,000 albums. It spanned blues, classical, soul, disco and even zydeco, a type of popular music from southern Louisiana. He also made his own music: as the leader of Gray, an experimental art noise quartet; as the producer of the single “Beat Bop”; and as a D.J. at venues like the scene-setting Mudd Club in TriBeCa. Photo “King Zulu” (1986) represents the trumpeters Bix Beiderbecke, Bunk Johnson and Howard McGhee, and a face inspired by Louis Armstrong disguised as a Zulu king at Mardi Gras in 1949. Credit The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Basquiat made frequent references in his work to the musicians he most admired. He paid homage to Parker, whose nickname was Bird, in paintings such as “Bird on Money,” “Charles the First” and “CPRKR.” “Max Roach” was a nod to the vision and style of the jazz drummer of that name. And in “King Zulu,” a masterly painting inspired by the history of early jazz that occupies a prominent place at the Barbican, Basquiat summoned the memory of the trumpeters Bix Beiderbecke, Bunk Johnson and Howard McGhee. In the center of the painting’s intense blue background, a face in minstrel makeup stares out, the image culled from a photograph of Louis Armstrong disguised as a Zulu king at Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 1949. Basquiat was especially devoted to bebop, the restlessly inventive genre typified by the likes of Parker, Davis, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. Basquiat’s love of bebop fueled his art, said Eleanor Nairne, co-curator of “Boom for Real.” Photo The exhibition at the Barbican in London is the first major British retrospective of Basquiat’s work. Credit Tristan Fewings/Getty Images “Bebop was quite an intellectual movement,” she said. “It was also quite iconoclastic in wanting to break away from these older jazz harmonies. That idea of a kind of rupture, and of these musicians who were very young, vibrant powerful forces; there were lots of parallels he found with his own work and life.” Basquiat, who died of a drug overdose at 27, attained dizzying heights during his short career. His first sale, the painting “Cadillac Moon,” was to Debbie Harry, the frontwoman of Blondie, in 1981. She paid $200. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Within months, his works were selling for tens of thousands of dollars. By his early 20s, he had made his first million. Yet Basquiat was discomforted by success. He was acutely conscious of his place as one of very few African-Americans in a predominantly white art world, where he was regarded by some as little more than an interloper. The eclectic taste of Jean-Michel Basquiat The American art critic Hilton Kramer once described Basquiat as “a talentless hustler, street-smart but otherwise invincibly ignorant, who used his youth, his looks, his skin color and his abundant sex appeal” to win fame. According to Ms. Nairne, Basquiat was “hugely, uncomfortably, constantly aware of the racist ways he was constantly being pigeonholed.” And he found a telling parallel between his position and that of his jazz heroes. “These are musicians who are, in one sphere of their lives, incredibly celebrated,” Ms. Nairne said. “And in other aspects, on a daily basis and in the most banal terms, consistently reduced to the color of their skins. They are literally having to use the back entrance of clubs. There’s no way you can divorce their music from their treatment in society. There was a lot of identification in there.” Ultimately, Basquiat felt more at home in downtown New York. He had first come to prominence in the late ’70s as a graffiti artist with a “SAMO” tag, scrawling the streets of Lower Manhattan with sardonic and elusively poetic maxims: “SAMO for the so-called avant-garde”; “Samo as an end 2 the neon fantasy called ‘life.’ ” Photo Basquiat dancing at the Mudd Club in 1979. Credit Nicholas Taylor The downtown scene was a famously antic fusion of emergent art trends, street style, graffiti, trendsetting nightspots like the Mudd Club and Area, and upstart musical genres like New Wave and hip-hop. Its flourishing took place against a wider backdrop of MTV, sampling, scratching, semiotics and postmodernist theory; a time when the creation and dissemination of culture seemed an increasingly fluid, boundary-free process. “It was all merging,” Ms. Adler said. For Basquiat, “it was a period of discovery.” "I wanna go back," by Gray. Video by BLASPHEMER4711 The multifaceted nature of the scene gave Basquiat license to crisscross artistic forms on the way to developing his own style. He performed poetry onstage and produced the a mesmeric hip-hop “Beat Bop,” by the graffiti artist Rammellzee and the rapper K-Rob, that remains a genre classic. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story In the band Gray, he played the synthesizer and the clarinet, and made Steve Reich-style sound experiments, looping snatches of audio on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The group performed only sporadically but drew admirers including Mr. Byrne and the hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy. An Interview Magazine review described them as “an easy listening bebop industrial sound effects lounge ensemble.” Basquiat pulled out of Gray in 1981, when painting started to command his attention in a serious way. But music still remained a significant marker of his creative achievement. David Bowie, writing after Basquiat’s death, hailed him as a kindred spirit whose sensibility belonged as much to rock as to art. “His work relates to rock in ways that very few other visual artists get near,” the musician noted. “He seemed to digest the frenetic flow of passing image and experience, put them through some kind of internal reorganization and dress the canvas with this resultant network of chance.” Basquiat himself was less forthcoming. “I don’t know how to describe my work,” he once reflected. “It’s like asking Miles, ‘How does your horn sound?’” A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2017, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Name That Tune. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe Continue reading the main story