#i have to make a zine this week but i need access to the feelings part of me

[blackmoldmp3]

its so fucking annoyinggggggg i want stuff to feel good and exciting again but instead its Nothing. and i have things to do

[doodle-zine]

Doodle Zine!

Hi! I'm Stars ( @ilovedthestars ) and I like making zines.

I would like to invite anyone who is interested to participate in a fun and low-stakes collaborative zine project! We can't quite get the scissors-glue-and-photocopier vibe of a classic zine on Tumblr, but I'm hoping to make something that's as close as we can get over the internet.

There's something so fun and personal about doodles. They mostly exist on paper, and are rarely shown off to other people, but they can be so unique and individual. I always loved swapping doodles in friends' notebooks and having a little something from them in the corner of my homework. That's a vibe I'd like to bring to my little corner of the internet.

So! If you're interested, I would love for you to draw some doodles, take a photo, and send them to me via this form! I will compile the submissions into both a digital zine and a printable version (5.5x4.25" pamphlet format), and share them here on Tumblr when they're finished.

(The form requires a gmail sign-in, but I will not be able to see the email you use. If you don't have a gmail account to use, you can DM me on tumblr or discord to submit)

There is no selection process--I will be including every submission that I feasibly can. I would like to emphasize that this is not an art zine, it's a doodle zine! Here are some examples of what I'm talking about when I say "doodles." The point is to have fun together, and I will not be holding you to any sort of artistic standard, so please don't hold yourself to one.

This form will be accepting submissions for at least two weeks (until July 16th).

I will leave the form open longer if submissions come in slowly. If I get too many submissions for one zine, I will simply make more zines and turn it into a series. If I am absolutely overwhelmed with submissions, we'll see how far I get through them, but I will work approximately in order of submission until I run out of energy. I have no solid timeline beyond that--this is a fun summer project for me, and I'm trying not to turn it into homework. But I'm very excited about making this happen!

The (loose) guidelines for submissions are listed in the form, as well as below the cut, for your convenience. Feel free to follow this tumblr for updates, or send in questions via the askbox. Happy doodling!

Guidelines:

Doodle anything, as messy, scribbly, abstract, or silly as you want! This zine is about little moments of connection, not about artistic quality. Treat your page like the margins of your notebook during a long lecture (or doodle in the margins of your notebook during a long lecture and submit it!)

Your page of doodles will be 4.25 inches wide by 5.5 inches tall, or 1/4 of a sheet of letter-sized paper. Either work at this size or be okay with me cropping to fit the dimensions!

Use whatever drawing tools you like, but know that light pencil might not show up well.

Lined paper is fine. So is paper with stuff printed or written on it that you have doodled over/around (as long as there are no identifying/sensitive details, like the name of a school or workplace).

Sign your page somewhere with whatever name or username you're comfortable with! Or indicate below that you chose to submit anonymously.

Take a photo! It doesn't have to be a great photo, but a decent photo will make it easier for me to edit. Try to have brightish light, no direct shadows on the paper, and a mostly straight-on angle. Leave the edges of the paper within the photo, no need to crop. I'll take care of the rest!

If there are any issues with your submission (like a photo I can't use) I will contact you and give you the chance to resubmit, so no worries.

Most importantly, have fun :)

[ofmdrecaps]

07/03/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Leslie Jones; Ruibo Qian; Dominic Burgess; Samba Schutte; Logie Awards; AdoptOurCrew; Auxillery Wardrobe Zine; Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week Spotlight Cont'd; Fan Spotlight; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika

New month, new blog! Thanks everyone, as you probably can tell there's a new blog for the recaps! I'm doing this to allow for some more silly shenanigans to happen on my main, but also keep the recaps available and more easily accessible to those who want them! For the first few weeks I'll be reblogging them from main, but then will eventually move to just here so as not to overwhelm anyone following. Thanks so much for reading! I love doing these and I was actually surprised how many people followed! I didn't realize so many people were reading, so tysm that warms my heart and made my day!

== Rhys Darby ==

Rhys will be join Baron Vaughn and Rory Scovel on AfterMidnight with Taylor Tomlinson on July 8th, 3 PM PST in Los Angelos, CA! Are you in the area? You can request tickets on their website!

Source: 1iota's Instagram

Next up-- Peacock has posted an exclusive clip of the upcoming The Hungry Games: Alaska's Big Bear Challenge-- starring the voice of our very own Rhys Darby!

== Taika Waititi ==

Awesome new promo for Time Bandits! I'm gonna keep reminding you because I'm actually super psyched for this. July 24th on Apple TV!

Source: Matt_Grace_Photography

== Leslie Jones ==

Leslie out with the LA Sparks! <3 Also, did you know Leslie will be voicing a character in the New Hulu series Hit Monkey? I didn't know! New seasons starts July 15th!

Source: LA Sparks IG / JoshuaGordon

== Ruibo Qian ==

Our Pirate Queen is going to be taking on the role of Ms. Sherlock Holmes in Ms.Holmes & Ms.Watson in APT 2B at the Old Globe Theatre in San Deigo CA! You can buy tickets for July 27th, opening day -- or any of the showings here!

Source: OldGlobeTheatre Instagram

== Dominic Burgess ==

Dominic is gracing us once again with cat pics. I love it <3

Source: Dominic Burgess' Twitter

== Samba Schutte ==

More pictures with Samba at Dancing with Fire LA with the cast / crew of Advanced Chemistry!

Source: alecmoore219's Instagram

== Logie Award Nominations ==

REMINDER! Our beloved Mads, aka Eddie Redcliffe in Deadloch, aka The Baddest MF in Tasmania, has been nominated for a 2024 Logie for Best Lead Actress! So was Kate Box, her costar, and Deadloch was nominated for Best Scripted Comedy Program!

-- and guess what? It's done by vote! If you feel so inclined, please take a moment to go and vote for our dear Archie/Deadloch (or Dulcie whomever you'd like)! https://vote.tvweeklogies.com.au/ Note: You do need to use your email to submit, just FYI!

== Adopt Our Crew ==

Looks like something exciting will be coming soon from @adoptourcrew! I think I might have an idea what it may be related to...

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

== Auxiliary Wardrobe Zine ==

There's a new non-profit charity zine starting up-- in honor of our beloved Captain Stede and OFMD!

"From his flamboyant coats to his sword-slashed shirts, we want to celebrate EVERY way that Stede and fashion come together! Whether this be a canon look you're fond of, his job as a luxury fashion designer in an AU, or Stede in a style of clothing you personally love (or lack of clothing… pinups anyone?!) we encourage contributors to make this prompt their own. This zine will be a digital-only PDF and will consist of a SFW edition and a NSFW edition featuring fanart and fanfic. All proceeds for the zine will go to Care for Gaza."

Want to learn more? You can visit their carrd.co below for scheduling and FAQ's!

Info & FAQ: https://auxiliarywardrobezine.carrd.co

Artist & Writer Signups will start July 6, 2024!

Follow them on Instagram and Twitter!

Source: The Auxiliary Wardrobe: A Stede Bonnet Zine

== Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week Spotlights ==

Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week may be over, but that doesn't mean the spotlights have to end! Tonight we have the fantastic @hameko1019! I absolutely adore her style and use of color! You can check her work out on Hameko1019's Twitter! Thank you again to @garlicsoupweek for the wonderful prompts!

Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 / Day 7 / Bonus

Source: Hameko1019's Twitter

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

Tonight's cast card by our fantastic @melvisik is Jordan Feldman who "was listed as 'Heavily Made-Up Man' in The Best Revenge is Dressing Well."

Source: @melvisik's Twitter

== Love Notes ==

Well lovelies, you've made it half way through another week. Only half more to go-- for those of you in the UK, good luck at the elections! For those in the US, tomorrow is July 4th, and while I know there are mixed feelings this year in the US, please remember to take some time to relax and enjoy a day off if you have it.

You're doing so very well friends. There is SO much going on in the world, so much going on in the fandom, so much going on in your lives. But you are still kicking, and I'm so very proud of you for that. If you need to take a break-- do it. Give yourself some grace and get some rest, the world will still be there in a few days. If you've already done that and you're taking some time to yourself-- great job-- you deserve it. Remember that we will still be here, and we will still love you when you get back. Ed and Stede? Still in love when you get back. They're off terrorising some poor patron of their Inn with stories of being gut stabbed, or forcing them to watch a puppet show they came up with.

You're kicking ass at whatever struggles you are dealing with right now-- give yourself time to celebrate the fact you're surviving them. Rest well lovelies, see you soon <3

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Tonight's theme is these two goof balls singing. Someone help me find Taika singing Queen, cause then we'll have some gif smushes <3 Tonight's gifs courtesy of @celluloidbroomcloset and @eddie-redcliffe!!

[hyperions-light]

2024 Writing Roundup

Yeeeehaw it's writing roundup time! Thank you for the tag @uchidachi! <3

words posted: 41,838, plus miscellaneous amount of words on Tumblr

additional words written: uhhhh apprx 22,700, give or take. Probably give, bc I'm not counting any of the meta on here

fandoms: All published is for One Piece, almost everything unpublished is Dragon Age + there's some original something for Elden Ring (probably not going to clean that up tbh)

highest kudos: The Road(trip) to Hell is Paved With Questionable Decision Making at 103... which, yeah, it's the most accessible of them lol

highest hit one-shot: catalyst at 513-- pretty good, considering I only posted it at the end of October. Maybe cheating because it needs a sequel? But I haven't written it, so for now it remains an OS

new things I tried: I did two zines and three events (BB, Corazon Week and Fight)! They were fun, but I'll probably mostly focus on making my own stuff this next year. And I expect to mostly be hanging around the DA fandom, as opposed to OP

fic I spent the most time on: I doooon't know, but I think it was the ascent? High concept, difficult to write and wrangle into something resembling what I wanted. Good exercise, though.

fic I spent the least time on: I think it was resentment-- I do really love this one, actually, but I didn't spend too much time on it because it came together in like a day? Even the editing was quick.

favourite thing I wrote: Probably it deepens like a coastal shelf, which is an AU of someone else's fic lol, so very niche, but I loooove writing about terrible people and family drama. And I got to quote poetry. And make people cry <3

favourite thing(s) I read: I've really loved reading all of your fics that you all keep sending for BW fic comments Saturdays! And I enjoy hearing about everyone's Rooks, too <3 I don't feel it's fair to do 'best of' fics but I thought I'd pull a few that have lower interaction rates for various reasons; the BW fandom is soooo talented, though, my recommendation is to give whatever sounds interesting to you a shot!

pray for rain by mafalda_157 who I believe is @darethshirl on here? Elgar'nan/Solas, Mythal/Elgar'nan, dubcon + politics with especially strong character voices

Five, Seven, Five by theharellan, @queenaeducan Really beautiful and poetic Solas&Cadash!Inquisitor gen fic

The Memory of Her Scent by Vespaer, @vespaer77 Angsty Solavellan between games, gorgeously written

Mien'Harel by bodysnatch3r, @bodysnatch3r canon divergence Felassan/Solas, really stunning prose and well-realized world. Also recommend the Heistverse series, for any Hobbit enthusiasts!

(please don't take this as like... me not endorsing the other fics, I'm really enjoying reading everyone's <3 I just went off the top of my head + pulled stuff I think may have been somewhat overlooked. Also I am not even done with last week's set yet)

In every other fandom I peruse I am an Old Man Yaoi enjoyer, so I also will always recommend A Reflection of Starlight (reread) for Les Mis, and, for those of you interested in OP fic, the works of spaceliquid, ArgelTal (@chaoticargeltal-- they wrote this fic based on a prompt of mine & did an incredible job!), and Harmonica_Smile/Rescue_Remedy (@chromatic-lamina) who all write beautifully <3

writing goals for 2025: Need to finish that original thing I'm working on by... August?? I should check lol. And then I need to publish as much of this DA stuff as I can that's sitting in drafts lol... will the foursome be first?? unclear

new works: idk, Leth's thing I'm writing, probably some Lucanis&Bellara stuff, some Neve/Rook/Lucanis, and the Rook/Teia/Viago/Lucanis WT: speak of me in the language of reverence

tagging: I'm actually not sure if it's going to let me tag anyone else BUT @covertleathers, @thedissonantverses, @taashyvashedan, @chromatic-lamina, @wardensantoineandevka, @biowaredisasterbisexual, @mageofquandrix + anyone else who would like to do this!

[hermannsthumb]

Hello! For the summer prompts, if you feel the inspiration, I'd love to see "sunburn" and "mosquito" combined please! 💜

2. Sunburn + 29. Mosquitos

from summer prompt memes here

i'm at the beach for a little bit, so i am in a beachy mood and wanted to send these guys off to one too!! been so busy with zine stuff that I haven't had time to write a silly fic in a while, so here's a short one :-)

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

“This is fun, isn’t it?” Newt says.

Hermann, swathed under a large sunhat and a loose terrycloth button-down, peers out at the ocean with an expression that Newt might call, generously, vague skepticism, and ungenerously outright distaste. But the crease in his brow smooths out as he turns his attention towards Newt, and he quirks up the corner of his mouth. Not exactly a smile from anyone but Hermann. “Er, yes,” he says. “It’s very—hot. But lovely,” he adds quickly. “Very—hot, and lovely.”

Newt hasn’t been to the beach—for non-work related reasons, which is to say a beach that isn’t crawling in, like, enough xenobiological radiation to kill him under ten minutes without the proper PPE—in what must be almost fifteen years at this point, back since the days when he used to crouch for hours over tide pools and scribble barely-legible notes in a composition book before he had to hustle back off to campus for class. Baby’s first field journal. The Pacific coasts are still very much a gamble for a fun day out, but they’re chilling outside DC for the week while they’re traded between nearby universities and fancy banquet halls to get their hands shaken and backs patted or whatever, and by God (Newt decided) he was going to take Hermann on a good, proper beach date if it killed him. Metaphorically. Hopefully not actually with kaiju blue poisoning, because that would suck.

Whether through the lingering effects of their drift or Hermann just being fluent in Newtonian mannerisms at this point, he picked up on Newt’s ulterior motives for insisting on getting a jeep from the car rental place pretty much immediately. He was at least surprisingly chill about it all: all he did was tell Newt, calmly, that he’ll need to stop off at a department store for the proper attire, and that Newt might want to consider a motel room as well so they don’t have to spend seven hours on the road in one day, both of which were pretty reasonable requests. Newt was just planning on swimming in boxers. Not like anyone but Hermann would be able to tell the difference.

They hit miserable traffic on the world’s most terrifying bridge while the A/C sputtered tragically at them (Newt is so asking for a partial refund, it’s July man, come on), and Hermann stared out the window at the ocean a long drop below without making a peep while Newt tried to awkwardly fill the silence with anything that came to his head. Mostly about how much fun they were going to have. They shelled out ten bucks for parking at the public access beach and even more money to rent a tattered umbrella, and the beach was just enough on the wrong side of practically empty that it set both of them on edge (though Newt could tell Hermann was trying to hide it). People are still a little wary of setting foot within fifteen miles of an ocean.

It's romantic, Newt told Hermann, and he tried to rub sunblock on his shoulders sensually, but accidentally jabbed his thumb in the wrong way and made Hermann full-body recoil away from him. I can handle that, he told Newt tersely, but he gave Newt a small thank-you kiss anyway as he wrestled the bottle away from him. The umbrella doesn’t work—too many metal prongs broken with age or over-use. Newt wonders if they dug it out of the bottom of the pile or something. Not wanting to risk getting impaled by a spoke, they ended up closing it and just hoping the sunblock does the job right.

“You’re hot and lovely,” Newt tries, lamely.

Hermann doesn’t acknowledge Newt’s half-assed flirting beyond a small sigh. Newt can’t blame him. Hermann lifts the brim of his hat, peering at a fly that’s just landed on Newt’s calf, and Newt winces a second later when it bites him. "Fuck," he says, and slaps at it. It buzzes away angrily to Hermann’s ankle, presumably to bite him too, so Newt leans forward to valiantly shoo it again. Hermann looks down at him in mingled annoyance and fondness. “Biting flies,” Newt sighs. “Forgot about these bastards.” Benefits of living in various UN-sanctioned basements for ten-odd years, weird bugs that like to cause you bodily harm are a rare occurrence.

“Newton, ah,” Hermann says, adjusting the brim of the hat against a sudden gust of slightly fishy sea-breeze, “how long did you want to stay out here? On the beach, I mean?”

“As long as you want, dude,” Newt says. It’s date-day, and when they drive back they’ll be consumed by their lectures and suits and making good impressions again, so he wants to enjoy himself for as long as possible. More specifically he wants Hermann to enjoy himself for as long as possible. Then again—he’s hot and a little on the sting-y side of tanned, and he’s pretty sure he just saw a mosquito settling on Hermann’s shoulder. “Why, did you want to leave?”

He sounds pathetically hopeful and immediately feels guilty about it. He hyped this up to Hermann so much, he’s not gonna ruin the guy’s fun. “No, no,” Hermann says. “Of course not. I’m having—er—a wonderful time.” He begins to scratch absently at his shoulder. There’s a small bump rising up from what looks like a gnarly patch of sunburn.

“Cool,” Newt says.

“Bit buggy though, isn’t it?” Hermann says. He scratches at another mosquito bite on his ankle.

“It’s not too bad!” Newt says. “I can deal with it.”

“If you're sure,” Hermann says.

They pack the rented jeep up around sunset when the public beach blessedly closes at last. Newt drops the busted umbrella twice on the dunes on the hike back to the parking lot, and Hermann (who’s clutching on to Newt so he doesn’t lose his footing on the uneven ground) finally loses his sunhat for good when he tries to bend down to help Newt the second time: it’s caught in the wind and blown out to sea. They watch sadly as a wave swallows it. “I’ll buy you another one,” Newt says.

They sit in silence in the jeep for a few minutes when Newt starts it, enjoying the A/C (however weak it is) after a day spent in the thick humidity. Hermann’s bony shoulders and fine cheekbones are lobster-red. He’s scratching absently at his thigh. It’s the first time Newt’s ever seen the guy in shorts, and he can’t even enjoy it through the uncomfortable haze of guilt. “Newton,” Hermann finally sighs. “I very much appreciate your, er, enthusiasm for the day, but—” He touches the back of his red neck, wincing, and cranks the A/C up a notch. “—perhaps next time, we might just see a film, or go for dinner?”

“Oh, my God,” Newt says. He sags in the driver’s seat. “Fucking yes, please. That was awful.” It’s cruel to rip them from the comfort of their underground lab and drop them back into the elements of, like, the great outdoors without some build-up, even if this was in fact all Newt’s doing. Like a zoo putting a penguin in a lion habitat or something. Except Newt was the one to tell them to do it.

“It was terrible,” Hermann agrees.

“Why the hell didn’t you say something?!” Historically Hermann has never, ever had a problem bitching at Newt about even the slightest inconvenience or perceived annoyance.

“You went to all that trouble,” Hermann says, “and I was trying to be—” He grits his teeth. “Nice.”

“Gross, dude,” Newt says. “Don’t ever do that again.”

[windydrawallday]

Where do you find inspiration and motivation to make art? Is there a process to the whole mental prep for creating?

(Love your art so I thought I would ask :D)

You want me to make a TED Talk about art? Because that is what this will be coff

Inspiration comes from everywhere for me! I think it helps to have not only an open mind but also the spirit of an infant: get awestruck by what nature, science, history, culture, etc. offers. Even between my everyday activities, I find myself asking about how it felt for the first human to discover they could cook their food, or experimenting with so many shapes for pasta to get sauce stuck to it! I'm that silly.

Because most if not all things were already thought of if not invented by someone: we have so much heritage. We are blessed to have access to all this information and tools. Don't feel afraid to reference them! To dig critically into the work of someone else you feel it vibes with you and make it yours, too. Is healthy. Is good!

That ties in with one of the processes that helps me yank the abstract clay from my head to the canvas: making MOOD BOARDS!* I use them mostly to nail the visual style I want for illustrations (almost all my zine pics started with a mood board):

I use a similar method but call them MUSE BOARDS when working with character's archetypes, mannerisms, behaviors, etc I want to portray both accurately and with personal twists:

*Some prefer to call them aesthetic boards because of how the internet bastardized the use of the word for gif sets but ask a graphic or fashion designer, architect, etc; the term for a collage of visual references that are usually static IS mood board.

Tho, lately, during these weeks dealing with the burnout and gnawing art block, another thing became my motivation to keep doing art... and I'll put it under the cut because it can be quite dark for some (CW mention of death/mortality themes):

Probably I'll sound cynical and/or edgy for saying this but it's the truth:

One of these days, I could die (not by my own hand but this world is bigger and powerful than me, I can't control everything in it) and all those ideas and visions I never put on paper, will die with me.

And so, when I'm struggling with a part of the process during a piece and find myself wanting to quit, I say: If I give up now, I'm letting the idea die before I step into the graveyard.

When I'm killing my ideas, I'm killing myself, slowly. And I don't want that.

I go back to the canvas and try, TRY and T R Y. Until the idea comes out.

Probably incomplete. For sure imperfect. Still a work in progress.

But out of my mortal brain.

Flesh of paper, blood of ink. Colors of pixels, layers upon layer of illusory ligh and shadows.

Mine and at the same time, for the world. It's free now to be welcomed by other minds, to be wanted and played by other hearts.

It's immortal, it can inspire people beyond my reach. Even after I'm not here in constant presence.

Isn't that enough motivation?

I got overboard with this but I hope it doesn't sound too overdramatic orz I needed this out of my chest too haha

THANK YOU for your interest! Is always welcomed ✨✨✨✨✨

[darlingpoppet]

any updates on wtdf? i hope u have a wonderful day 💕

Hi anon! Thanks so much for checking in! And thanks for doing it on tumblr, this is a good opportunity to push me out of lurk mode and refill my queue while offering some much needed updates!

Anyways, the short answer is: WTDF chapter 8 is coming along, albeit more slowly than I intended, and it might still be another month or two before it’s finally done.

The longer explanation is this: Chapter 8 is another doozy like chapter 4 was… if you read the notes for chapter 4, or read my other WTDF-related posts here on tumblr, then perhaps you’re familiar with the fact that completing that chapter was also a protracted process that juggled a different fic project with a fixed deadline, a bout of writer’s block, and inspiration wandering to some different one-shots before ultimately getting me back on-track. I’m a bit sorry to say that I seem to be unintentionally experiencing an exact repeat of last year 🥲💦

In April, when I was still on-track to finish the chapter within my self-imposed deadline, a friend asked me to pinch-hit for their zine, and I was happy to put all my own projects on the back burner for a couple of weeks while I helped out a friend in-need. Once that project was finished at the end of April I immediately got back to work on WTDF, but less than two weeks in (right around the time Hades II Early Access dropped, so I was already a little bit distracted lol) I got saddled with a leadership position preparing for an event at my kid’s kindergarten, which took up 100% of my free time as well as the complete use of my hands (because A LOT of crafting was also involved lol.) So for the rest of May, zero writing got done (though I listened to a lot of podcasts and youtube video essays during that time, I’m thinking of making a rec list sometime of the stuff I enjoyed just for fun!)

And now here we are toward the end of June and the chapter still isn’t done. Even now I keep huffing the copium by telling myself I can finish it by the end of the month, but I’m gonna be honest: all of the interruptions & delays have left me struggling to get back in the right headspace for this story & at this point I admit that I seem to have fallen into another writer’s block 🥲 The last couple of weeks have been me making incremental progress while also trying to refill my cups.

I really hoped I could finish it this month because I’m already planning on doing camp nanowrimo in July to FINALLY finish the draft for the dreamers AU that has also been in the works for over a year now. And tbh that’s the story that I’m now daydreaming about as I start to get myself back into the writing zone. So I think I just gotta Trust The Process on this one and strike the iron where it’s hot for now, because at least I can point to my experience last year and give credit to my fics Closest & Flourishing for giving me the needed momentum to finally get WTDF Ch 4 over the finish line (followed by a streak of productivity that lasted me pretty much up until this point!)

So while I’m sorry that this means WTDF Ch 8 is gonna continue to be delayed a bit longer, I also think it’ll be worth it in the end when I have both these projects finished and I’m feeling good about the direction the inspiration is taking them. FWIW a lot of the ideas & themes I’m thinking about for the dreamers AU—such as prolonged periods of transition, coming of age, and the liminal qualities of queerness & gender identity—they are helping ideas coalesce in my approach to WTDF Ch 8, which, as I may have mentioned before, is a treatment of the Skyros arc. It’s actually fitting that I’m working on these projects both at the same time because I think they’re actively making one another better, which means I’m getting even more excited to complete & share them! The dreamers AU seems likely to be split into two parts at this point, so it makes sense to me to sandwich the WTDF update in between those. I can never really make concrete promises about my publishing schedule anymore, but for now at least, that’s the plan.

Anyways sorry for the longwinded & possibly boring explanation/list of excuses. But I appreciate your ask, it means a lot to know that people care 🥹🙏 Thank you everyone for their patience so far!!! I know I’m slow haha but everyone has been nothing but kind & understanding about it <3

You have a wonderful day as well ❤️

[circlejourney]

so idk if it was clear but. I'm doing really bad. Constant brain fog, spontaneously breaking down, hiding from Discord. I've gotten so used to handling burnout like this, by forcing my mind and body to go through the motions of moving and doing, that even now I'm working.

I promise, I am not saying this to make anyone feel bad for giving me things to do, I can't begrudge anyone. I am the one who accepted those responsibilities or social contracts. I didn't think it would come down to this, though it is very much my fault that they did.

I can't work on commissions + do business management and accounting for commissions + prep for and then tutor 2 university classes + write a research paper + run a study not related to the research paper + attend all the meetings I have set up in the next few weeks + run a zine + run the zine's social media + manage physical distribution of the zine + volunteer to do an online panel + make verdicts on a community album with >100 submissions + manage the emotional pressures of several different projects relying on my contributions, all at the same time, while dealing with the worst insomnia, relying on medication to sleep and also idk cooking and cleaning and doing the things needed to stay alive.

I made several mistakes to reach this point. I now have to respect that this is unprecedented even for me. It is my fault because my way of coping with feeling like I'm bad at things (i.e. all the time) is to give myself more things to do. And because I'm incapable of saying no or telling people I'm overwhelmed.

But rn even seeing unread messages sends me into an anxiety attack, and the thought of sacrificing even one evening to relaxation feels the same as throwing it away. Pretty much the only non-work/obligation-based thing I am capable of convincing myself to making the time for rn is time with my partner.

I get it, if I don't rest, I'm never gonna be in the best state to work. But I can't afford to rest. I've gotten in too deep with too many things and I'm scared for them to grind to a halt, or even fall apart, without my help. I know life will go on without me. but who can trust me anymore if I can't fulfill the responsibilities I signed up for?

if you wanna respond please respond here I am not checking my main discord this is the only place I'm looking at for non-work things that non-IRL friends have access to

[contentment-of-cats]

Part II: Growing Pains

When we ended Part I of our overview of Fandom, we saw fic evolving from Zines and independent publishing to fic specific platforms such as Fanfic.net, LiveJournal, Ao3, and Dreamwidth. The hand-off from one platform to the next was not always a process of evolution, nor a smooth transition, rather often necessity demanding invention. With the transition from paper to online exposure came the opportunity to develop community and an opportunity for problems.

We’re back at the Asker’s Studio™️, so grab a cat, move a cat, kick the toys out of the way and get comfortable.

Today, I would like to discuss what I like to generally define as Growing Pains. These are the issues that arose on all fronts which ranged from the highly personal, to technical assaults that threatened the mere existence of fic, online.

I have chosen a few topics that reflect on the evolution, creation and demise of Fandom platforms/archives/host sites. Let’s begin with the big one: Censorship. Over the months, I have heard fragments about a wave of censorship that hit both FF.net & LiveJournal. I understand that the results caused rifts/fragmentation in the fandoms. Since those platforms existed before my time, could you briefly describe what they were, how they served your needs, and what ultimately led to their demise?

Out of the ashes grows a rose: AO3. I understand that Ao3 was borne as the answer to the failings of the aforementioned FF.net & LiveJournal. However, it is not without its own attacks/problems - as recent as the last two weeks, hackers with content issues successfully took down the site for a solid day. Could you add any insights to these purity attacks & whether they are a continuation of the long war on creativity? Even less spoken of are issues of internal strife, regarding fic content/underage content. Having participated in several Fandom platforms/host sites, was the creation of Ao3 the answer that Fandom participants were looking for, or do problems evolve along with solutions? (I invite @olderthannetfic to feel invited offer any historical perspectives on the creation of AO3 at this time)

Finally, I would like to throw out what I call The Next Frontier: the introduction of AI. Many of us have locked our accounts and designated them Registered Users Only, as the AI beast lands like a pack of Death Eaters. We see the entertainment industry walking the picket lines with AI being one of the contract issues. Can you offer some insight on this topic?

This is a hackneyed list of issues - both human & technological - that has confronted Fandom/fic over its long and short history. Please feel free to add, abridge, omit or expand on anything I have brought up. As always, thank you very much for your time..

*settles in*

I wanted to answer this sooner, but really needed to think about some of my answers. This has been through a few drafts, so hold steady.

Censorship:

In the beginning (Usenet), there was always censorship. The fandoms would start off with 'all are welcome' but that was never actually the truth. Popular ships always eclipsed rarepairs, and people got downright nasty about it and there was also a lot of anti-smut action. Then there was the slash vs. het vs. noromo (no romance - now called 'gen) disputes. The fragmentation came with e-groups and members only listservs where people could write their stories without the censorship of the majority or characterization cops. There was still more fragmentation over other subjects, the purity police existed to make more wedges. The first time I ever saw a fight over 'queer' being a slur was on a Skinner/Mulder e-group so that was around 1996ish. E-groups purged a lot of slash and smut lists before it was bought by Yahoo, and Yahoo did the same.

Archives were curated sites on accessible hosting sites like Geocities, Angelfire, and so on. either dedicated to a specific fandom, pairing, or genre. Posting power rested in the hands of an archivist or a board of archivists. There was a lot of favoritism, and some authors posted their own work on a private website and often joined a ring of likeminded sites.

Fanfiction came out of the woodwork of the internet in 1998 when fanfiction.net came to be. FF.net was the equivalent of a publisher's 'slush pile.' A knocked-over fire-hydrant geyser of fic and fandoms as opposed to the neatly bottled and displayed stuff. It took a while, but the tweaks started in the early 2000's (dammit I am so fucking old) with banning works from a specific source (Anne Rice, Archie, Terry Goodkind etc.), then moving on to banning reader insert, filk and songfic, RPF, NC-17 and sexually explicit material (purging existing content also). They banned CYOA, Self-Insert, Character/Reader (You) fic. A lot of this was for two reasons.

The leadership of ff.net wanted to make the site attractive to advertisers.

They wanted to play nice with publishers, studios, media, real people depicted in fic, and intellectual property attorneys.

The migration to LJ placed fic in the hands of the author. They could post whatever they wanted and screw the mods.

If fanfiction came out of the woodwork on ff.net, it came out of the closet on LJ.

LJ came along in 2000ish, it originally was a place for fans to interact with other fans - like a forum where you could also post fic. The ban and excision of NC-17 and explicit fic from FF.net made LJ into a fandom hub, and for a short while kept the fan-run archives from dying out. However, even the hosting services did not want smut, slash, or other possibly-prosecutable fic on their servers, and were shutting down those sites. It was haphazard, but not random, as fandom grudges and the purity police would rat archives out.

LJ also saw the rise of the BNF, and also the phenomenon of Dark Fandom and Fandom Wank (FW originated on LJ and was driven off several platforms). LJ was sold to 6 Apart in 2005, and the Russian company SUP in 2007, with the founders mostly bolting after Strikethrough and Boldthrough - instigated by Warriors for Innocence (actual identity unknown, speculation attributes to Ms.Scribe). However, 6 Apart and SUP also wanted to - you guessed it - make LJ profitable. WFI was arguably the first successful, large format purity troll. I was already moving away from LJ and FF.net at the time, that just hammered the nail in.

Archive of Our Own:

That leads us to Ao3 (called AoOO and cue the 'Werewolves of Fandom' jokes), began with a 2007 LJ post by @astolat. The genesis of Ao3 was widely mocked, but fifteen years later it is still standing. I remember hearing about it and wondering if it had any relation to the essay 'A Room of One's Own' by Virginia Woolf.

"But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction—what, has that got to do with a room of one's own? I will try to explain."

I view the attacks on Ao3 as an attack on marginalized groups using nontraditional media. There are still vast numbers of people who do not want women or other marginalized groups to have a room of one's own, much less an archive, much less an archive that can't be held by the balls via their wallet, or threatened with a squad of foot soldiers with Esquire and Juris Doctor next to their name. Ao3 is now a part of fandom culture - good, bad, and ugly - and is a target for purity trolls using straw man, gaslighting, and red herrings to pull Ao3 apart for their own purposes.

Ao3 does have the problems that any institution has - and those unique to those dependent on user-generated content. It has its own internal struggles with the content that users generate as it pertains to underage/noncon and other squicks. To censor or not to censor? Is it enough to ask grown ass people to tag their work or to ask other presumably grown ass people to use tags when to eliminate content they do not want to see? are they doing enough to attract a diverse staff? How is that staff being treated? It is non-profit, staffed with volunteers, and lives on funding drives like US public television and NPR. It has a big enough base that understands the mission and is active enough to parse board candidates. In much the same way as NPR/Public Television, the content is a draw for trolls. Legacy media was the means to control the message, but when you can shoot content on your phone, write and publish from your connected device, the media can't control the message. It scares the piss out of people who have every reason to want to control the message.

When people attack Ao3, their reasons are spurious troll food for the most part. There's another, deeper, more nefarious agenda at work.

AI and the War On Creativity:

AI art, music, and writing is the idea of someone who views media as something to be consumed. You buy a book, you watch a show, and that is monetized.

Nobody has ever successfully monetized fandom.

The war between creators and media controllers heated up when technology handed creators the tools to make their own content and the platforms to distribute it whether it's video, writing, art, or music. AI is an attempt to wrest that control back.

To the Powers That Be, fandom is a resource that needs to be squeezed for money. People consuming fanworks for free are people not giving their money to Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, and so on. The PTB have taken over the cons, despite the inclusion of artists alleys, so that they can once again control the media and control the message. The PTB like to deem themselves creators and disruptors. However, creative human beings are an unruly lot. The PTB want creatives and what they produce, but under their control. No unions, no contracts, no pesky IP issues.

An AI has no rights, no needs, no true consciousness and thus can only copy or derive when it 'creates' content. Their 'disruption' is for everyone but themselves. So when we bar them from scraping our content, they see it as our refusing to give them something that they are entitled to use.

AI scraping from Ao3 and venues like DeviantArt are attempts to make unpaid use of creators' content. Creators write and create art that is uncompensated, which is then shared. Some writers and artists have 'tip jars' or take commissions, but the vast majority get nothing but comments and likes. Since this work is uncompensated, the PTB deem it 'free' and therefore they can do what they want with it. When they scrape a work to train their AI, they are working to replace creatives. Full stop.

For that matter, a scraper doesn't need to be from Google or MicroSoft. You can download scrapers for Wattpad like this one:

There are also tools available on sites like GitHub that can be used to scrape Ao3 and FF.net. Moreover, there are a fuckton of AI specifically marketed for fanfiction writing to fanfiction writers - all of which have been trained on fan-generated content. There are AIs for art and for music. It could be argued that these AI will help people unleash their own creativity, improve stories, and unearth creative potential. The thing is that none of these tech companies does anything for free in the long term.

Finally, the US Copyright office has ruled that you can't copyright anything - image, writing, music, video - that you create with an AI. anyone can use it for any purpose, without you having any legal recourse. There must be a minimal 'human involvement' - in this particular case, the art generated by a human entering text prompts into an AI was deemed insufficient to meet the standard. The ruling is the first of its kind, and more will follow, but keep in mind that you are one ruling from the AI creators assuming a stake in your work.

[trans-axolotl]

I'm in a very dire situation mentally. I think I will take my own life. Can I ask for more support from you/can you point me to where I can find help? I'm very isolated right now.

💜I'm glad you reached out, anon. I'm sorry that things are so rough right now--I know how overwhelming and exhausting dealing with life can get. Sometimes, it really just feels like we've hit our breaking point, and it can be really hard to see any way forward out of how we're feeling. I want to share some resources with you and give you some more options that make it feel more possible for you to stick around.

For me, something that helps me when I'm in crisis is looking for things that help me feel even just 5% or even 1% better. Usually, by the time I've gotten to a crisis point, my emotions and experience have gotten so big that it can be really frustrating to try out coping skills that I knew couldn't solve the problems I was having. Thinking about coping through crisis as trying to "turn down the volume" on the experiences I was having so that I could survive through the moments and access longer term support helped me feel a little less horrible.

This is a set of questions taken from a zine by Carly Boyce that have really helped me to get through some really tough moments in the past:

If you've felt this way before, what got you through it?

Who are folks you trust to talk to, ask for help, be near you?

What is a physical space you can be in? can you/we do anything to make it feel cozier, safer, better, etc?

Are there things/people/objects/meds/environments you want to avoid? What can help make that happen?

Are there basic body needs that if met, could make you feel just 1% less bad? ie-water, snacks, shower, baby-wipe bathing, warmer clothes, more blankets, a fan, deep breaths, deep breaths outside, stretching

Have you slept lately? eaten? changed any sort of med/drug use lately? seen your therapist/support worker/whatever sort of healer you see lately?

Sometimes it helps me if I tell myself that the rule is that I have to try something from this list to see if it even makes me feel 1% better before trying out more risky and drastic coping mechanisms. Sometimes if I'm feeling like making some really big choices and suicide seems like a super urgent threat, I ask myself if I can just do whatever is the next most drastic option. If I'm thinking about killing myself, can I quit my stressful job instead? Can I take some time off? Can I use a riskier coping strategy that will still keep me alive? We're allowed to make room in our lives for whatever helps us survive.

Something else that has helped me in the past is looking at different ways of understanding suicide. Sometimes for me, it wasn't always about wanting to die-it could be my body + minds way of giving off a bunch of alarms that shit wasn't okay in my life right now, and that I needed something that I wasn't getting. This slide has a lot of different possibilities for ways that suicide might show up in our lives, and can sometimes help us identify needs that might not be getting met. Sometimes, being able to identify what it is I really want and find ways to express the depth of my pain helped me feel a tiny bit more secure and safe to get through the next few weeks.

This stuff can be so fucking hard to deal with, and can feel really isolating. I know this can be a complicated message to hear, so ignore if it doesn't resonate with you, but I'm really proud that you're still here and for everything that you are already doing, however big or small, to get yourself through the day and keep surviving. You deserve support and care, and if there's anyone in your life who might be able to provide some of that for you, I hope that you might be able to reach out to them. If it's helpful for you, filling out a crisis plan like this one with a support person might help you make a plan for what to do in the moments it gets really tough, and think through the practical strategies and coping skills that are relevant to you.

I also want to share some online resources that you can reach out to for support. If you want to talk to a crisis line that doesn't call the cops, you can check out any of these lines: Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860. THRIVE: text message line at 313-662-8209 Promise Resource Network: (833) 390-7728. I'd also really recommend the Wildflower Alliance Discord server and their alternative to suicide zoom groups. They are a great community where lots of people come to get peer support, vent, get advice, and usually there's always someone online at any time. Project LETS also offers peer support with trained peer supporters who might be able to offer you some crisis support. Please feel free to reach back out through my inbox at any time if you want to vent, if you just want to give an update, anything you want to share--I'm here to listen and support as much as I can. I am not online 24/7 and it might take me a while to respond, but I do care and will respond when I can. If you need an urgent response, the resources I've listed above might be able to help you more quickly.

If you need irl support and feel like you want to be in a different space beside your home to keep safe, I want to share a directory of peer respite. These are non hospital settings that provide 24/7 support for you to stay in for about a week, and give you time and care to help get through this tough time. If you want to send another ask with your location on anon, I can send you more specific resources for places like mental health urgent care, non hospital crisis stabilization options, and peer respite for your area. There are options that can help you have space and time from your normal life to get through this.

I know it's not easy and I'm not going to say any of the cliche things we hear a lot when talking about suicide, but I do want to say that lots of messy, complicated things can be true at once. It can be true that we feel absolutely horrible and in crisis, and like things will never get better, and at the same time there is always the possibility for more future moments of joy and connection. You're allowed to exist fully as a person with whatever complicated emotions you might be feeling right now, and there is room for you. I'm glad you're here.

Please feel free to reach back out and share whatever you need--I'm here to listen and I'll be keeping a closer eye on my inbox through the next few days. 💜💜💜

[m-r-levine]

On Interruptions of Flow

Blocks used to be just part of the normal cycles of work and rest and refilling the well, the rhythms of moving between projects. (I won’t deny the good feelings and brain juices from feedback on the work, but it was never the driving force. I treasure comments like a dragon treasures their hoarde, but the urge to write and the pleasure of storytelling are not primarily or even secondarily grounded in the reception of the work.)

In the last few years, that changed. I don’t know if this was a true cause or if it was just one little part of a whole system of events that led to my creative process breaking down, but.

In 2019, I dropped all my other projects to meet an absurd deadline for a zine piece, and then for various reasons, a month later I took that story to pieces to see if an actual novel length concept might be hidden in there**.

Meanwhile, some fairly major things were going on in my personal life, and the tremors were getting markedly worse.

Suddenly I didn’t have blocks of time or steadiness of hand to paint either, except for pushing through for a couple of excruciating outstanding commissions, and struggling to wrap up the second volume of the graphic novel. Yet even with a few of those deadlines dealt with I could no longer make words go on any other project. I tried everything in the toolbox to get the brain going again, especially after a side effect of quarantine gave back my former 3+ hours daily commute time.

Finishing the renovations on the old house ate almost everything I had to give, and my partner’s mental health struggles took the rest. I cannot begin to explain to you just how few spoons I have had between the boring job (which became much more intense with the effects of the pandemic) and Life™️.

Previously, writing and sketching helped me unwind and ground after a shift, or even during breaks. In the last few years though…

Words came slowly for La Mala Suerte, but opening any other story filled my brain with static noises. I could not string basic sentences together. I could not outline plot, I had no fragments of dialogue or vignettes fall into my head like before. When I ran out of backlog to post… Suddenly I had nothing.

Short stretches being dry like that are familiar enough, but days and weeks turned into months and years of desperately wanting to tell the stories and in the few moments of quiet I could steal away? Nothing. It’s an eerie feeling, having the vivid and even visceral scenes that are already written and outlined still looping in my head, screaming to get out, but the moment I try to write connective tissue? Right back to tv snow.

Unlike painting, my writing is accessible everywhere I go, even when it hurts to hold a pen - being able to get ‘lost’ in stories helped me through some incredibly hard times in the past, and losing that ability was devastating. The disappointment and yes, the shame of being adrift and wordless has been wretched. I have longed for the elation I used to find on the other side of a hard passage, the joy of solving the puzzle and freeing the spirit from the proverbial stone.

I still don’t entirely understand what happened in my brain that autumn of 2019… I just know that something changed, and we’re still not… entirely back from it. I am suspecting that Long Covid is now part of it - that was summer of ‘21 though, and I was already firmly lodged in The Block by then.

Maybe it was just one a longer but still normal drought and needing recovery time from intensely brain-heavy Life Events™️ until that extra layer was added? I truly don’t know. I don’t know if it matters either, except in that I am deeply afraid I will lose it again.

Anyway, that’s the ramble for the afternoon on the writing side. Hopefully the Boring Job leaves me some braincells to work on asks and stuff later.

* caveat: Except for the fact some truly wretched negative/judgy feedback can entirely poison the affected work for me and make it impossible to get forward motion(Obsidian Slipper is one such victim, I may talk about it more later.)

** hola Teca. 😒

[chromatic-lamina]

Of course I’m one of those who would benefit, and also not all fan events do this, but I feel that zines and events that are promo-ing said zines and events could maybe dip into the reserves of drabbles or other written work from creators on the characters/themes they’re featuring, in addition to the art work they use.

Pre-existing art is often featured. Why not pre-existing writing? Smaller pieces or excerpts at least? (To be fair, some events have done this/do this).

Like, I think that writers get it; many events are only interested in art or artists: Art is instantly accessible and will always get more traction, but I like reading fiction in events and zines too, and interest checks show that most people are interested in its inclusion.

Pertaining to zines (as opposed to character week events, etc).—aside from limited space for writers, and roles already being allocated to mods and guest writers within that limited space—I think this maybe adds to why interest checks receive a much lower participation rate from potential writers.

Writers know that chances of inclusion are very slim. And zines and many events just don’t seem to be interested in the written word if their lead-up promos are anything to go by.

In terms of physical products, I know there are many factors contributing to lower writer inclusion, such as space in the zine, printing and postage costs, etc., and I know that many artists are actively working in the field whereas many writers are not—so maybe if a zine is artist-driven it’s easier to assess work, etc., if it is purely visual. And yeah, the written word will always be less popular on social media.

But I feel that zines/events could make more of an effort to acknowledge the existence of written pieces, and to also help promote them, or, alternatively, maybe just put up the sign: Writers need not apply/contribute, if inclusion is not wanted or has already been decided.

I know it takes a lot to organise an event, and I’m mostly talking about the hype period before production or the start of a zine or event. I do appreciate all the work that a ton of people do for free to bring these products and events to fandom’s table, and know that you absolutely cannot please all of the people all of the time. Digital zines and anthologies are the way to go for writers, btw, if better odds of inclusion are sought.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Have a bunch of really cool texts to read tomorrow. Some pertinent to work, others pertinent to my hobbies, but all of them delightfully anarchist in nature. I do truly love how many of us there are across the fields and subcultures I spend my time in. It makes me feel good about where I choose to put my energy.

Anyway, I want to do some reading this weekend, maybe formulate some theories around my Trauma Focused DBT modality I've been trying to formulate. Done right, I think it could be an entirely functional model of therapeutic care that could be taught at many levels of social learning, making it a great therapeutic mutual aid model. It's also, with more research final being done into autism from the perspective of self and community driven need these days giving me direction into the specifics, a good option for other autistic people like me. Especially if, as a functional and skills driven model I can make it accessible to my comrades with low processing, intellectual disability, etc. I know it's doable. I can build it ground up with them in mind.

So my brain's been churning obvi, between this, the food forestry stuff, the new art program for the zine (I've settled on Fire Alpaca for now because the name and logo delight my brain), the clients at work, my chats about the future with my lady (it's our 10th anniversary this year and I've been feeling nostalgic), the lot of it. Some weeks feel like months, some days feel like years. Anyway, the point is, I've had a LOT of interesting thoughts on my mind and not necessarily as much free time as I'd like to explore them. My weekend will be a great opportunity to do that. I'm definitely going to have to call my moms and do some medical notetaking tomorrow, so that means I'll want to do some reading either tonight or in the morning. Then when I wrap up with moms and medical stuff maybe I'll start doing some stuff for work on conceptualizations of stress versus trauma and why the way we as western society treat PTSD actually entrenches it rather than manages the root causes. Not to get preachy about it lmao.

[michelleisdead05]

CTS B | Compulstory Question 1

Together, we developed a few ways to demonstrate how CTS-B might help us with our critical thinking. We discussed the significance of self-awareness, self-confidence, and communication skills. Every argument made has merit in that they are abilities that can make us better people and more skilled designers.

Since I think it could represent how I learnt and how I wanted to be as a nineteen-year-old student, I would personally like to draft my own manifesto. It may alter in the future, but for now, it works more as a reminder for me as I carry on my creative career. When we design, there is always insecurity (I think this is a problem that many other designers have too). There were moments when I was having a lot of struggle with ideas of failure or inadequacy. I thus jotted down a few points that I will always remember when working or when I'm feeling anxious about where I am going.

Personally, my favorite manifesto is "Perfect takes time" because I always want everything to be perfect at the beginning, or I will never finish my works because I know I cannot demonstrate it as perfect as what I have in mind.

For me, one of the most important things about CTS B is that I can utilize the sessions and activities as a time for self-reflection, which allows me to assess my life's path and myself, something I don't often do on a daily basis. I find the topic of Week 10: Statement of Artistic Vision to be the most intriguing, as it allows me to critically evaluate my hobbies, career path, and what is required. I need to take some time to reflect and make decisions about the future, so I have to sit down and question myself honestly about what I want to accomplish and how I'm going to do it.

Learning various creative skills, including weaving, knotting, and embossing, in Materiality and Techniques enabled me to establish a stronger bond with Asian cultures. I grew up with baskets and fishing nets, and Non La, the national symbol of Vietnam, is made by weaving. And as a nineteen-year-old Vietnamese girl, I am proud of our traditional costumes. Since Ao Dai is already well-known, I decided to write about Nhat Binh for my zine. Since this is the most magnificent traditional costume of Vietnam, I would want to show everyone a work of art from my homeland. I also believe that it is simpler to convey information that is relevant to me. It's fascinating how taking this course helps me learn more about my own ancestry during the researching phase.

440 words

Michelle, et al. "CTS-B Manifesto." 22 Oct. 2024. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

Michelle. "Michelle's Manifesto." 9 Nov. 2024. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Vietnamese Ancient Costume: The Beauty and History of Nhat Binh [출처] Vietnamese Ancient Costume: The Beauty and History of Nhat Binh|작성자 한아세안센터, 6 Sept. 2021. https://blog.naver.com/akcsns/223157567870

Nguyen, Binh. "Eateat Saigon Street Food" 10th May. 2020. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024. https://www.behance.net/gallery/96855071/Eateat-SaiGon-Street-Food?tracking_source=search_projects_recommended%7Casian+food+comic

[plloydarts246]

Reading & Reflection 9

Type on Screen

This chapter discusses the challenges of preserving the integrity of type in on-screen design. It explains the limitations of rendering type on screens, such as the reduction in resolution and the jagged appearance of curved and diagonal edges.��​It also talks about techniques for displaying on-screen fonts, such as antialiasing and hinting. Which I never understood fully and I think is interesting to know about. ​Also it provides guidelines for selecting typefaces for on-screen use. For example, using sans serif typefaces for clarity and simplicity. ​ The use of grids is still very important when it comes to web design and creating web pages. I pulled the quote below because every designer knows the struggle of choosing a font. A good choice (would could take a long time) can make or break a design.

"As (web) designers gain access to a greater percentage of the world’s font libraries, the need to understand typography from historical, technological, and communicative perspectives is critical."

We finished up working on our Zine projects this week and I was dreading the process as usual. That being said, I like how it turned out, especially referring to the postcard aspect of the design. I feel like it was sort of different from the others that I saw. It was very challenging as far as placement goes for several panels because you have to account for "THE FOLD." I test printed and folded so many times to get it correct and I still managed to mess it up in the end.

Anyhow, our next 2 projects are a little daunting in my opinion. I have only just begun sketches and things. But I have a vision for what the poster could become, hopefully my skill will match that. I have completed a good amount of research into the national park that I am working with. The Sequoia national park is one that is dominated by the large redwoods. I am faced with the challenge of giving the viewer some notion of scale and grandeur and trees without just obviously using a tree trunk. I added some sketches that I liked here.

Below I added the design I made for the Friends of Congaree Swamp. I was tasked with remaking an old design, they only had a single photo of the bandanna, and they wanted it digitized. At first I tried to just pen tool it and add text with a font I chose. They wanted it all done by hand to match the original drawing style. So I used a stylus in illustrator and redrew all the lines and words by hand. I got ahead of myself and created this soundtrack and everything for the video below. I will also try to do the same thing for my current national park. But next time, I will have to make up my mind sooner.

[alexisginesphoto]

Final Project Field Plan - HUN 191

I plan to photograph the region by walking through it systematically over the course of six weeks, breaking down the area I plan to cover each week by region. I will start from the North and work my way South—I usually get more caught up in the South, as the neighborhood becomes more lively, and I prefer to have more time for that at the end. I plan to photograph the buildings/architecture of the neighborhood, as I feel this will be important to document as time/gentrification will inevitably change the look of these neighborhoods. For this same reason, I plan to document the people of the neighborhood as well—the residents, but also some of the locally famous shop owners and street personalities. The last component I plan to photograph are the parks and train stations within 10459, making observation as to how these public spaces are utilized by the local community. I do not plan to photograph the schools.

I will be transparent and say, as this project is rooted in street photography I don’t have a set goal as to how I want the project to look in the end. My goal is to hold myself to the schedule of showing up, being present, making connections and allowing things to flow naturally within the 6 week timeframe. I expect that the people I encounter along the way will be what makes the project special. 

Week 1: April 3rd – 9th                   *Easter Weekend

Areas of Focus: Starlight Park to Freeman Street (pictured below)

Definite Photograph Goals: 

Starlight Park, Freeman Street Station

People exiting churches after Easter Sunday services on April 9th. 

There is a cluster of three Christian Churches in the triangle block of Jennings St., Freeman St., and West Farms Blvd.

Week 2: April 10th – 16th        *Wedding Weekend, Spring Break Week 

*** I have a weekend to attend this Sunday so I need to format my shooting schedule accordingly. I also start a new job this week. I will be shooting early mornings during the week before work, and Saturday. 

Areas of Focus: Freeman Ave (North Boundary) to 167th St. (South Boundary), Whitlock Ave. (East Boundary), Union Ave. (West Boundary) – see below. 

Definite Photograph Goals: 

Whitlock Ave. Station 

Paradise on Earth Community Garden @ 1106 Fox St.

Field of Dreams Park @ 167 & Southern Blvd.

Concrete Plant Park (not technically in the 10459 zip code but just on the other line of the border. I am choosing to include this because without a doubt it is a huge part of the neighborhood—no other “zip code” has direct access to it.

Whitlock Avenue Bridge, also known in popular culture for a famous photograph Martha Cooper took of it in the 70’s.

Bryant Triangle—it’s known as a junkie hangout but it’s undeniably part of the neighborhood that everyone is aware of and not something to be overlooked. Also, lots of pigeon feeding goes on here. 

Reverend Polite Playground. Big during baseball/softball season. 

Week 3 & 4: April 17th – April 30th

Areas of Focus: 167th St (North Boundary) to 163rd St. (South Boundary), Whitlock Ave./Bruckner Blvd. (East Boundary), Tinton Ave./Union Ave. (West Boundary) – see below.

Definite Photographic Goals:

Simpson Street Station, Intervale Ave. Station, Hunts Point Station

Southern Blvd Shopping District, Street Vendors, notable shops

Davidson Houses, NYCHA

Basil Behagen Playground, Horseshoe Playground, Lyons Square Playground, Printer’s Park

Big Pun Mural 

Tats Cru Bronx Mural, present-day graffiti tour point

Hoe Garden

20/20 Deli

Week 5: May 1st – May 7th

Areas of Focus: 163rd St (North Boundary) to Longwood Ave. (South Boundary), Bruckner Blvd. (East Boundary), Tinton Ave. (West Boundary) – see below.

Definite Photographic Goals:

Bill Rainey Park 

Prospect Ave. Station, Longwood Ave. Station

John Ahearn sculptures

Salsa music store on Longwood Ave

Week 6: May 8th – 14th

If there were any areas I needed to revisit, this is my time to do so. 

Making a final edit to the photos taken—Ideally I would love to make a zine out of this material but that may be ambitious depending on my workload from class. Plan B would be to As of right now, there is no Plan B. I will discuss with Prof. S if my presentation plan does not materialize as I’d like. I’ll know whether this is feasible by Week 5.