#like. what am i doing. this company was not designed to work with this format. we're not an arts and crafts group or a club meeting

[miodiodavinci]

im being so so brave but also i am gripping you by the shoulders and leaning in and letting you know i am so tired of being brave

[markrosewater]

I appreciate your patience in listening to the people mourn what's currently being decided right now. If I can contribute something as well: I am also a UB fan, and I agree with the mechanical uniqueness and the awesome designs and all that.

However, the mantra being spoken before has been "maybe this product isn't for you," and while that was far from easing my concerns about some decisions, now that ub is going to be at every level of competitive play, wotc has taken away the ability for competitive players to opt out of an experience they don't want to partake in. If you want to win, you HAVE to get Sephiroth and Green Goblin, etc.

I like UB as an opt in choice, but the current decision feels malicious towards those who expressed their concerns before who were abated by consolations that wotc has rolled back. It does feel like a cynical money grab at the cost of many of the most dedicated players.

It’s not a “cynical money grab”. It’s us responding to two big pieces of feedback from the players.

1) Straight to modern sets were speeding up the flux in Modern. Metagames are influenced by how many new relevant cards enter the environment, and having a bunch of straight-to-Modern sets was creating unwanted flux. Modern players enjoyed that archetypes lasted longer than in smaller formats. It was a loud compliment often made here on Blogatog. This change is made to address that.

As a corollary to that issue, because we had less experience with making straight-to-Modern cards, our ability to balance them wasn’t as efficient as premier sets. This change also has the vast majority of cards going through the same system and power level, one we have years of experience with.

2) Players who were entering through Universes Beyond (and there are a lot of them - it’s a primary strength of UB sets) that wanted to play competitively were thrown into Modern. That’s just a bad entry ramp into tournament Magic, and it was a common complaint we were getting from newer players.

Universes Beyond’s greatest contribution to the long-term health of Magic is as a conduit to introduce new players. Learn the game system with a property you love, and then once you see what a great game Magic is, become a lifelong Magic player.

To accomplish this we need to have a “softer” landing spot, and we believe that is Standard. Note this is in addition to a lot of other work we are doing to return Standard to prominence.

I know it’s easy to want to attribute malice to a company’s decisions, but we really are trying to do what we feel is best for the longterm health of the game

[traegorn]

So when I do finish this book I am writing (speaking it into existence bc adhd is a BITCH) Like what's your experience with publishing? How much does it usually cost? What kinda income does one get? I don't really care about making money but it would be super neat to make something since I cannot work. How do taxes work on that also? Google is confusing me

So far i have an idea and half a first chapter with thrilling notes such as " add a cat" and "insert spell here"

So I self publish, so that's the world I know. If you want to find a traditional publisher, you'll need to query agents and do a bunch of other stuff. My only advice for traditional publishing is that when going that route, money should always flow towards the author. If they're asking you to pay for something, they aren't a traditional publisher and there's a good chance it's a grift.

So let's talk about what I do know.

(And this turned out to be long as hell, so I'm putting in a "keep reading")

When you self publish, you are effectively acting as the publisher. If you want someone to do edits? You'll have to hire an editor. If you want someone to do the book layouts? You'll have to hire someone to do it if you can't do it yourself. You need a cover? You get the idea.

Now I don't pay an editor, so I can't really give you a price range on how much they cost off the top of my head. I do know they can get expensive though.

I also do all my own interiors, but I have a graphic design background and have been doing print layouts for decades. If you want to hire someone to do the interiors, that can run you $100-500, so I recommend just... learning to do it yourself.

Frankly, it's not terribly hard. I do mine in Apple Pages on my Mac for my paperbacks and Amazon has a free program for formatting eBooks (which you can export both as the Kindle format OR the more universal ePub format). With your print version, you just want to make sure you get your margins right, along with using a standard font like Times New Roman.

Like, literally just pick up a book and study the layout. Look at the front matter (copyright page, title page, etc) of a handful of books and mimic what you find there. I don't know why so many self published authors get that bit wrong. It's a book. Format it like a book.

Now the cover... this is where you'll probably end up spending something. I do my own covers for my comics, but hire out for my novels because I can't do the kind of covers expected of my genre. And you do want to match your genre, because you want a potential reader to know what they're getting into. I've seen so many self published books with terrible covers and it drives me nuts.

Cover design can run you anywhere from $35-$400 depending on who you choose to contract, and this is where I recommend you spend your money. On the cheap end you have companies like GetCovers. Now they primarily do covers made from edited stock photos, and I've honestly been pretty satisfied with their work... but you have to hold their hand and be very clear with what you want.

GetCovers is a part of Mibl Group, and it's pretty much all of their most inexperienced employees. The whole point of it is to get them the experience to work on bigger projects down the road. They have cheaper packages, but for their best work you'll probably only spend like $35-$45. If you're working in a genre that mainly uses stock images, that's who you want.

I often end up retouching the covers they do though, because I'm impatient. Like there are edits to The Witch and the Rose and Shadowcasting I made after they handed me the completed files. You're going to have to be very specific with what you want. The first version of the Bloody Damn Rite cover they did... was awful. But they did the revisions I asked for, and the version they delivered in the end was great.

Now if you want, like, original art or just more complicated, custom stuff? You're looking at at least $250 on the cheap end, but sometimes you end up in the ballpark of $700-$1000. Like on their regular site (just to use the same company as GetCovers for comparison), the Mibl group charges like $300 for a more complicated stock photo based cover (that requires more complicated edits) and at least $700 for covers that require digital painting, 3d modeling, etc.

There are a wide range of prices depending on what you're asking for. But, y'know, you're paying that once for a commercial piece of graphic design.

I'm cheap and can do some of the work myself, so I go for the $35 cover. I also figure out what fonts they used for the covers, so I can go buy my own commercial license for them and replicate a similar logo on my title page. You don't need to do that bit, I'm just finicky.

Actually publishing the book is easy. You'll want to use a self publishing platform like Kindle Direct Publishing or IngramSpark (or, if you're like me, both). I sell KDP books on Amazon, but all other distribution is through IngramSpark. You make more money on Amazon by using KDP, but even though they offer distribution, no book store will ever order through them. So I turn that option off, and then I take the same book and I make it available through IngramSpark.

On amazon I make a little more than $2 on a $3 ebook, and about $4.00 on a $12.99 paperback. When a bookstore buys an IngramSpark version, I make about $2.50 on a $14.99 book (if you wondered by my books cost more when not buying it through Amazon... that's why). Now if you buy yourself author copies, they cost way less -- in the end I think I can get them for like $5 a book? So when I sell them in person, my margins are much higher.

But, y'know, you have to actually sell them.

Because that's the hard part. When self publishing, you only have you to market it. I don't know how many books I'd be selling if I didn't have a pre-existing audience -- and even then it's not a huge amount. I've sold about 200 books this year? Which isn't nothing, and I appreciate every single person who's purchased one of my titles, but it's obviously not enough to quit my day job for, y'know?

That said, I've known people who do sell enough to make a steady living. So it's possible for sure.

But it's not going to happen overnight, and it won't be easy.

As for taxes, you'll need a 1099 and do stuff with the Schedule C. I always forget exactly what until I'm actually doing them, but it's not super hard, just annoying.

[jiveyuncle]

Hi omg!!!!! I just saw the book you posted for TNAHP and I am dying! It looks GLORIOUS!!!!! Turned out so beautiful binded like that! And the art is absolutely stunning, may I ask what company printed it? Like what shop did you use? I’ve wanted to print certain stories just for myself so badly over the years but there are so many places and I can’t decide and this is exactly what I’ve been looking for!!!!! ��😍😍 thank you so much for sharing!

Hi, anon! Thank you! 💕 I was so happy getting to hold it and put it up on my shelf! Look!!! 😭💕

I want to preface everything I’m about to say with this: if you use a third party service to print any material (fics, art, art in fics, etc.) please, please, please reach out to the author/artist and get permission to use the service before printing! It doesn’t matter if someone else already has permission, make sure *you* have permission. Also consider if the art in the fic belongs to someone other than the writer (like if the work was a collaborative piece or if it features fanart of the fic) and get permission from them, too! You may have to wait for a response, or you may never get one (in which case, don’t print without permission), but it really is worth it to make sure the authors/artists feel comfortable and confident that they keep control over their own work.

This is the first service I’ve used, and I have no experience binding, so I’m just sharing what I did and what I noticed with my untrained eye.

First, the service I used is Barnes and Noble Press. Here’s a link:

You can make books publicly for sale or books strictly private for personal use. If printing fanfic, be certain that you are creating a “personal” print. It will appear like this in your projects section (note the “PERSONAL” banner above the cover art):

As you can see - the price is pretty decent as far as books go! After tax, shipping, and handling costs, this book turned out to be $21.82.

You can choose how you want to customize the materials your book is made up of. Different materials cost different amounts (i.e. printing color pages inside is going to increase your price a lot). If you don’t know where to start, here’s the preference settings I selected for my copy:

Now, understand that they are not editing your book for you - you’re still going to have to do all the formatting and arranging in a document yourself and designing your own cover (so be prepared to still spend a lot of time on this project). They simply print and physically put all the pieces together for you.

Lastly, I want to address quality. While this is far better quality than I could manage on my own, it’s still not 100% up to quality of most books I can purchase in a store. For comparison, I’ll show a couple side-by-side images of the fic print next to my favorite published book, The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.

Dust jacket: Feels great! Literally no complaints.

The hard cover: A bit cheaper feeling. Definitely noticeable difference with a printed visual texture instead of real texture. The printed texture creased and wore away to reveal the white beneath. It’s visible here after just a few openings of the book. Also, unfortunately, you cannot customize the hardcover under the dust jacket, so no spine labels and you’re stuck with this color blue:

Finally, my biggest concern, the binding of the pages: looks a lot more like a paperback that had its cover glued onto a hardcover than an actual standard hardcover. Again, I’m no expert and idk if that’s normal, what anything is called, or how this affects the lifespan of the book, but you can even see where the spine kinda hovers away from the hardcover casing and how that compares to the The Raven Boys.

Anyway, the service isn’t perfect, no, but it works for what I wanted, looks nice, is user friendly, and allows me to hold a fic I otherwise never would have had the opportunity to. I appreciate it for that.

Hope this was helpful! Print responsibly 😊

[aita-alternia]

aita for Eating a bee and blaming it on my coworker? 

i [12 indigo] am an apicultural engineedler for [a Large company name redacted]. we Provide a live software service so realtime support and updates are very Important. recently, a concentrated Effort has been made to port our old and Exceedingly convoluted network onto a new beehouse mainframework to comply with silicomb 2.0 standards and drag our Very tangled Very old codebase into the present decasweep. it has been a lot of effort over almost a full sweep, but the new mainframe is beautiful and well worth the time and will make it much easier to debug and re-bug the network going forward. 

due to our service being live, our small team of developunishers were required to supervise the migration of our bees between mainframe overday, which we turned into a little Shindig since if all went well there wouldn't be much to do once Everything was underway. one of my coworkers [14 violet] who I will call aparna for this story brought faygo for us to celebrate with [she is Not a practicing juggalo but she still talks about growing up in the church All The Time. it is frankly Quite grating. we do not need to hear again about how you chose your paint aparna you do not actually paint anymore i fail to see how it is presently Relevant. and she Always seems to talk about it louder when she notices im listening]

anyway it was getting close to migration time and Most of my coworkers were there. we opened bottles of soda and began to prep the signal drones. [not like Her Imperious Condescension's drones, these are apicultural beenary signallers that serve signposts for the queen for the interframe migration. basically Her Smaller Majesty the Hive Queen Who Makes Our Code Work needs to know where to go to get to the new mainframe but we can't move her there directly since she's too vicious to be handled directly. instead we move the drones who we can manually override and she follows them into the new beehome.] this step of the process is Usually pretty smooth. the Most difficult part is usually when the queen moves and the Entire hive follows her; the multithreading can be somewhat difficult to manage and if the beestreams begin to cross over too much, they can jam the entrances to the new beehome, causing the formation to collapse and potentially bringing down the network. that's why we have to supervise the migration closely. 

however. a Mistake was made. and it was made early. 

at some point during setup one of the signal drones was knocked loose of its designated position. i do not know how this happened [but it's probably aparna's fault. she is always making these kinds of very Small mistakes. never anything Severe but little things. annoying things. many of them.] this is usually easy to correct except that it went unnoticed and, drawn by some instinct of insects Everywhere, found its way into my soda. 

which i then drank.

i could tell the bee was in there right away, but my instinctive self defense reaction was to swallow and crush whatever was buzzing in my mouth with my Powerful esophageal muscles. so that is what I did. the signal drone died Swiftly in my throat. i was safe from the Threat of its sting - and we were down an essential component for the migration

i Panicked. i turned my head and frantically coughed up the signal drone, passing it off as the soda going down the wrong pipe. this dislodged the signal drone into my hand. i knew that if i were caught it would Not go well for me. if i got in Trouble at this job my lusus might start trying to push me toward the cavalreapers again. i could not let that happen. 

then i noticed that someone's soda was open on the table next to me. 

i invite you to guess what i did next. i also invite you to guess whose drink it happened to be.

it took some time for the absence of the signal drone to be noticed, but eventually aparna took a drink of her faygo and spat it out along with the body of the drone. it was Very clear what had happened and she took the blame for the subsequent Disaster of having to emergency patch the signal formation, as well as the debugging required to fix the resulting path collisions during the Full migration. 

aparna will be fine. our boss likes her Very much overall and is Extremely unlikely to get rid of her [i would likely have come forward by now if i had done this to Any other coworker, but aparna is in no danger and Also she deserves it for being careless and Also it was probably her who knocked the drone out of formation to begin with], whereas i would Very likely have been fired had they known it was actually my fault. however i am concerned that aparna may be on to me. she has been glaring at me even More than usual for the past few days. i have glared back as i will Not be Cowed by a juggalo - and a lapsed one at that. she'll have to do better than an annoyance if she wants anything out of me.

so. am i the Asshole?

[codeandcanvas]

A process, a person, maybe a designer?

Around every first Saturday of the month, the following happens between me and my computer—some step repeat on other days, too, but rarely all:

encrypting local files

syncing encrypted local files with a remote cloud

copying notebooks from my notetaking programme into an archival section, named like this: year, month, and notebook name, like so: the notebook called “Projects” has its content moved to “2024-09-projects”, before the next step

exporting notebooks from my notetaking programme into various formats, then using an archiving programme to make an archival copy of these files

a certain analysis takes place, knowing I have my projects and ideas in one place: when I get around to them, I will do them

these exports and archives get synced from one local drive to another local drive, which itself is the decrypted representation of the encrypted local files I keep in sync with the remote cloud

While this is not exactly a pleasurable process, it does provide a certain comfort: all is not lost. And while physical archives are rarely easy to access or a joy to use (my SO might have the one exception I am aware of: a suspension filing system by Leitz, which I find really neat absolutely glorious), this is one of the systems whose only tedium comes from the redundancy in exporting.

As I work my way down my list of notebooks concerning topics like my projects and ideas, personal diary entries, changes to my workshop and its tools, social content, I take notice of why I do this process. Of course, there is that thing about being German and loving archives, sure, check that stereotype, sure, yes, sure.

But why I do this is at all, is this: my existence is meaningful to me. What I do is meaningful to me. My observations and experiments have value to me. Maybe there is a little bit of becoming older playing into this, but I have always found computers to be a delight for one simple reason: I can search all of my files. And with interesting new tools like AI, I can even analyze my own files in meaningful ways, looking for patterns, and most often: for tone.

If I would allow all of this to disappear into the obscurity of whatever social media does to a few people’s capacity to become involved in their own perception and processes, then all I would have done, is to allow my own words, my own life, to disappear.

I rather uphold structure. I rather write about what I have done.

Maybe you are into that sort of thing. Maybe you have read some of this, wondering about me and what I do. Maybe this is all very obvious and clear to you. All the same, I believe that knowing what we do, what we write, is of value to us.

And most of what I am currently doing, is writing. I haven’t done that for years, and I am still struggling to get away from any kind of promotional tone: not because I was ever any good at that, hell no, but because the idea of having to market what I do and why I do it, has basically poisoned joy.

Imagine doing work like this, and then having to satisfy some imaginary person you have in your head, because someone said something somewhere to get under your skin.

For most of us, creative or not, that is a sad truth of existence: that only with time we can find joy in what we do, rather than looking for joy given to us by satisfying what others demand of us.

And like I have said up there, doing this archival work is not exactly on a par with eating vanilla ice cream—but it satisfies something, which does not even need a fancy name. Maybe being your own person is about that: to neither be able to be understood by others easily, nor putting any effort into neither being understood nor being misunderstood.

In a way, I am alone with my thoughts, in the company of a few hundred people. Imagine. I actually can’t. I just do these things, and write about them. Some of it in private, some of it like this, in the privacy of a few hundred mutuals, friends, and family.

I think I will finish up reading Maeda’s Creative Code now.

Maybe I will switch on some sort of archiving for my Threads account, too.

I think I want to blog like this. I think I just did.

[taldigi]

I heard that 3D animation is cheaper, that's why they went with it for Miraculous Ladybug.

That's a slightly complicated question. It really depends on the scale and scope of your animation.

Let's say that I wanted to do a short. 3 minutes to 8 minutes long. I would say that the 3D animated option might be more expensive because the startup would be more expensive I would have to have models made and rigged. backgrounds and props would need to be modeled and designed. I might not use more than one or two sets. I would have to consider if a character will need to stay in the same outfit or not. How many characters am I using? The more characters, the more expensive it will be. How complex is it going to be? Is it going to be more stylized or is it going to be a little stiffer or more realistic. Because then I would have to consider working the models into being able to squash and stretch.

A lot of that consideration takes very different forms when approaching it from a 2D angle. I would have to do quite a few backgrounds individually, but the characters would be pretty consistent and they would be incredibly flexible. The character done in a squash animation is no more expensive than doing one in a standing animation. I would also have to consider if it's going to be frame by frame or if it's going to be a puppet style animation (think like robot unicorn warriors eternal versus bluey!) Because one is indeed more expensive than the other. Either way the freedom of movement, expression, and variation is going to be significantly more flexible than what a 3D model might provide. Because drawing a unique expression is indeed easier than having to 3D model one.

When one considers stretching it into a show format it really depends on the sort of show you want to go for. You're going to need a lot more characters and a lot more backgrounds and settings. A 2D show can probably provide a large variety of settings, and each setting is going to be the same-ish amount of effort, whereas a 3D setting needs a whole new model and props... but once they are made, they can be shot from any angle and reused as many times as needed. Where as a 2D background might be able to be reused for a few shots but if a new angle is needed they will have to redraw the background. So that is a win in the 3D department. The same goes for characters. Characters in 2D animation can grow, transform and where other clothes ... and it's going to be the same price per frame... Unless you're doing puppet animation and then you will have to make a whole new puppet. That same line of thinking is for 3D. You only need to pay for one model and you can use it 100,000 times, but if you want the character to change in any way you're going to have to know what you're doing or you're going to have to pay to have it changed. That includes outfits, hairstyle changes, etc etc.

If you're going to make a show, and you're going to have only a few characters and a few settings, then the 3D option might be more appealing. You only need to spend the money to get it set up, and then you can just pay bare minimum to have animated in. Whereas it's going to be the same ish per episode of 2D animated show. 3d is also been a huge fad. You can thank Disney and other like-minded executives for devaluing 2D animation and pushing 3D as the way of the future.

Animation is very often outsourced anyway. I believe Zag outsources their animation to... Korea? Vietnam? I think it's Korea. Samg was Korean. But very rarely is animation done in the home it is intended for. And they often do it for a reason. Sometimes it is simply because the company has already invested in render farms, other times it is because the country they are outsourcing to is able to cut costs on labor. Which is kind of scummy.

The reason why Japan can push out a ton of 2D animation is because they basically work in sweatshop-like environments. There's also a gambling element that people have over anime the incentivizes it being made. (I remember reading more detail about it but I currently can't at the moment. I think the gist was that anime and it's merchandise is treated a lot like stock. And that's a very loose explanation of it there's a better one on YouTube somewhere I'm sure.)

Miraculous does not have a very flexible art style. I believe when I was talking with one of the people who had been working with the show, one of the companies had definitely pushed for a realistic sort of animation style, and they very much discouraged squash and stretch or " anime expressions" which is why miraculous can feel kind of stiff. And if you've noticed there are definitely a very limited amount of sets. I think there's like a handful of street sets a handful of home sets and a school set or two... The characters rarely have outfit variation and I think it took like five seasons for them to give Adrian a casual/ set of pajamas? And I think they just recolored marinettes pajamas to be her exercising outfit or something.

It definitely cut costs. But it's not in the way that people think it cut costs. I see a very big theory that they switched to 3D because ladybugs spots were too complicated to animate. Which I don't believe is true because... Well, it's toei.. the studio that makes magical girl anime aka "overly complicated designs, the genre".

I think the show would have benefited from being 2D, anime or not. It wants to be a show about a fashion designer... Well, Marinette could have had a new outfit every episode. And that's way harder to do in 3D than 2D. It also lacks a lot of really snappy combat. I think the show is definitely held back by its younger Target audience especially in terms of the story it wants to tell. It is definitely a show for teens that has been retroactively fit to be a "dumb baby show." And the animation definitely reflects that.

I would also like to remind people that they did make a 2D miraculous show. It was called tales of Paris, and it is on YouTube. They also did the chibi shorts. That should show you the kind of money or style they would have probably gone with if they decided to go with 2D. And a lot of people hanging on to the hope/ the mention that they might work on a 2D series... Well they already did it and it didn't do well so now they're never going to do something more substantial so there you go.

[shelandsorcery]

website thoughts

Since moving apartments, I've been feeling a kind of spring cleaning urge for all of my things physical and it turns out, digital. Since my physical belongings are in unmanageable mountain of family heirlooms in the form of bankers boxes full of loose photographs, and artifacts from my grandmother's childhood that nobody can identify but also nobody ever threw out, I've been feeling like I should try something a little bit more manageable first.

By that I mean, my digital life. I have maintained a personal website on the internet since 1997; for the majority of that time, my personal website has served primarily as a portfolio of my artwork. However, that's not necessary right now, for a couple of reasons:

A) Careerwise, I'm working as a salaried, permanent art director at a videogame company. I'm not only not currently looking for a job, but my prior approach to jobhunting, having a collection of examples of my concept art and illustration, probably isn't the best way to find another salaried art director job in future. While it might be one part of that hunt, I suspect I will also need examples of the finished games, as well as all the other things people use to get real jobs like references, etc. This means that a personal portfolio site won't be the make or break in my future job hunt at this time.

B) Perhaps even more importantly, though, I don't know that a portfolio of my prior work is going to be a particularly accurate demonstration of what my work going forward is going to look like. Since my arm surgery, I'm learning to draw with my left hand, and since I don't have anywhere near the physical control over it that I did over my dominant hand, my approach to making art is being forced to change. And it's very early days, right now I'm still teaching myself to write legibly, and building the muscles it takes to do that. Line control and mark making with appeal are simply not on the short-term schedule. So much as I am proud of, and attached to my prior work, my prior style, and my prior process, it feels dishonest to promise those to future clients. Or to myself, really. So a portfolio format just asks a lot of questions I have no answers to at this time.

Other reasons for having my work on the internet include selling it, which I certainly love to do, but between moving and my arm and paperwork, right now I'm just selling PDFs in a pay what you want capacity on my gumroad store. I do hope to get back into designing products and selling playmaps and so on, but it's the right choice right now to keep that on hold.

So I'm a bit at a loss for what to do with my personal website, is the TLDR of all this. I really got out of the habit of blogging or writing personal thoughts on the Internet when we entered the everything is problematic phase of cultural conversations; I would like to reclaim that but it might be safer to do so in the less personal/more anonymous space of cohost or tumblr or such. I'm certainly curious to hear people's thoughts on that!

One angle I had thought of was approaching my website as an archive, as opposed to a portfolio; I can be a bit obsessive about tracking the chronology of things, why not take advantage of that? But I don't know if that has any interest to anybody aside from myself, though I guess that's reason enough to do it. I had considered blogging about the process of learning to use my nondominant hand/retraining my dominant hand once we know what its final capacity will be, and I have been keeping personal notes on all of this, but I don't think this is something I can share publicly in real-time. It's a bit intense. Maybe years down the road I'll be able to condense it into a simpler narrative that I'm comfortable sharing?

Unfortunately all of this is tied up in my process of relearning to create right now; I'm not sure that I really need outside help figuring this out, as much as I need just the space to dump thoughts out of my head. But if you do have thoughts, or stuff you'd like to see from me, or questions, certainly let me know!

Thanks for reading this hot mess!

*(dictated but not read)*

[salubriousbean]

*kicks down door*

HEY HI HELLO (If you couldn't tell I'm really excited about this I hope whoever's reading this is excited too)

Well long story short today's my birthday so I brought treats for the class and those treats are . . . a whole original clone division! With original Jedi characters too!

*fanfare* I AM PROUD TO INTRODUCE TO YOU TODAY THE 495TH DIVISION!! ✨

So I'm listing each character by Company (no I do not have a profile for every single member yet), then some of their traits, then a random quote rhat seems like something they would say. Also, sorry if it's formatted weird, I had to copy and paste this from the notes app of my phone and then re-format it

('m putting it under the cut because otherwise this post'll be annoying to scroll past)

Shabam! ⚡

The 495th Division!

• Their Division is nicknamed the Jarkiv Divison (Jarkiv means charisma or presence in Mando'a, plural is Jarkive). So sometimes non-495th will be like "Oh there goes a Jarkiv" or "Yeah some Jarkive stopped by last rotation" or something like that.

• Their color is periwinkle! And they have lots of twins!

• They can do normal clone battalion stuff but they also specialize in undercover/infiltration ops and ops that require a smaller size force. Basically just very specialized operations, they can do lots of stuff.

• They've received tweaked training, and are also slightly more genetically modified (just slightly) than regular CTs, but still carry the CT designation so as to not tip off the Seppies/enemies that something's up with this division.

• They usually use shadow holograms for their disguises when they're undercover. They've received more extensive training about different religions, cultures, languages, and species. And before each mission they study up on where they're going, what it's like, the culture, climate, language, customs, etc.

Numbers:

1 Jedi Knight, 1 Jedi Master, and 1 Padawan, 3 Companies.

1 Commander, 3 Captains, 6 ARCs, 90 other troopers. Per Company, that maths out to:

1 Captain

2 ARCs

30 troopers (3 squads of ten, the Captain leads one and the two ARCs lead the other two)

So basically, there's 100 troopers and 3 Jedi.

Also, the Commander usually just tags along with a random company when he goes on missions.

It was a matter of great debate in the Jedi Council whether or not to have so little clones per Jedi in this Division. Some wondered at the efficiency of it all, but the 495th has proven themselves extremely capable. They're all very close, and work very well together. However, any casualties affect them more so than a normal clone / Jedi battalion.

THE GUY WHO KEEPS IT ALL TOGETHER:

Commander Jagger, CT-2874

• The guy who keeps all the captains in line lol. Tired man, like the dad of the 495th, makes the best caf even though they all use the same caf machine, it's wild.

• Unfortunately does a lot of paperwork (somehow).

• Good peacemaker

• Dual wields blasters

"Troopers! Put aside your disagreements for later and focus on fighting the Seppies, not your brothers!"

NEBULA COMPANY:

Jedi Knight Star Nubo

Lightsaber color: pale green, lightsaber spear sorta thing, with small sabers on both ends. Kinda like those electrostaffs, but with lightsabers.

Species: human. Long brown hair, medium skin tone, has some freckles on her face, short queen.

• Very strong with the force, occasionally receives visions from the force, usually in the most inopportune, inconvenient moments ever

• Had her hair cut off by Grievous like 3/8ths through the war, it used to be in a very long, beautiful braid and then it gets cut to her shoulders and then trimmed to her chin because the lightsaber burned the ends

• Also she can practically fly with the force, the force is her weapon, she's very very very good at levitating and force pushes and stuff, even like subtle stuff.

• She is also skilled at playing some space flute kinda thing and was in several Temple Theatre productions.

• She's always there for you. dependable, but sometimes changes her plans on the spot/with little warning.

"Incoming from above!"

Captain Koden, CT-8355

• Star's Captain (kinda sorta maybe they fall in love). Noble sorta guy. His name is like Kote and Commander Cody's.

• Unless there's extra lives put at risk, he doesn't usually change his tactics mid-battle• Also dual wields

• Good at evaluating terrain and keeping people in line

• Knows Mando'a

• Very close to Jagger

"I've learned that sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. And sometimes that means jumping out of a gunship without a parachute because your plan went wrong."

Angel, CT-8260

• ARC

• Almost no color to his armor at all

• Bro has no chill in fights whatsoever

• Menace on the battlefield (to the clankers of course)

• On breaks, 1/3 of the time he's super chill and 2/3 of the time he's just raging about something (or somebody)

• Has a pair of stylized wings tattooed on his back and painted on the back of his armor

"GRAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Graham, CT-0397

• ARC

• Likes crackers, even the ones in rations• Not picky about food

• Picky about like mud and such

• If you're not on a mission he will talk your ear off

"Agh, we're gonna have so much fun cleaning our armor when this is all done. Stupid mud. I miss the clean facilities on Kamino. Not the Kaminoans, just their cleanliness."

Ten, CT-4736

• Medic

• Doesn't have a single 1 or 0 in his CT number at all, nobody except himself and Jagger knows how he got his name

• The classic medic stereotype of wouldyouidiotsjuststopgettinghurtalready and stopdoingidioticstuffI'myourmedicnotyournanny but other than than he's chill, he's only annoyed with his vode (and even then it's kinda jokey), and he's never annoyed with his Jedi getting hurt

• Also really good at hacking (Ten got his name from binary)

• Wired different, kinda loopy sometimes

"Hammer! Do I have to manage your metal-chomping tendencies every second of every rotation? This is ridiculous! You're gonna ruin your teeth before you're thirteen!"

Hammer, CT-2699

• Heavy gunner

• Good at using a battering ram and breaking down doors

• His bad habit is chewing on metal absentmindedly, Ten always gets mad at him

• Plays pranks on Ten

• Very slowly comes to appreciate snipers

• When he's in disguise he likes pretending to be a feisty old grandfather who has back problems

"Let's hammer this home!"

Jelly, CT-2603

• Twins with Bell

• Armor is fully colored in, like there isn't a speck of white on this guy's armor it's all periwinkle

• Good at dancing

• Life of the party

• Talks a lot but mumbles when he speaks

• Calls Bell "Belly" all the time (Bell hates it)

• Also kinda loopy sometimes, friends with Ten (not his assistant though, Jelly doesn't like that stuff)

"Heyy, Belly!"

"Don't call me that."

"Aw come on vod, then it rhymes with Jelly! And we all know that that name's funner anyways."

Bell, CT-6023

• Twins with Jelly

• Likes everything to be on a strict schedule

• Good at ramping it up and also mostly calming it (which is sometimes Jelly) down

• Ten's coolest and best and only assistant, great at helping troopers take and remember to take whatever medications they may need

• Efficient cleaner

• Good first responder to any accident

"Okay, okay, let's take a deep breath. In . . . and out . . . in . . . by any chance have you seen Jelly anywhere?"

Burst, CT-5904

• Ordnance expert

• Likes explosions

• Besties with Hardcase and Wrecker

• Has an explosion painted on his helmet

• You can only wake him up with explosions or by shaking him aggressively or dropping him on the floor or something, he does not wake up to normal alarms

• Has a ✨prosthetic arm✨, his hand got blown off in an explosion so now he has a prosthetic from just below his elbow

"Hey guys, need a hand?"

SHAV'RAM COMPANY:

Jedi Master Aada Zubin

Lightsaber color: fuschia. Normal lightsaber.

Species: uhhhh idk but she's orange and she doesn't have any hair. Also a short queen.

• Serene, patient, well-rounded in her skills.

• Wears cool dark robes but she's not a sith, absolutely not.

• Can hack into a computer like nobody's business.

• Thinks ration sticks are actually good.

• Good at Jedi mind tricks

• Besties with Jocasta Nu

• Wears the most oddly patterned/colored head scarves

"You will grant me access to the mainframe."

Captain Alaar, CT-1946

• Aada's Captain. a little more traditional and Mandalorian-like than the others.

• Speaks fluent Mando'a and Huttese, as well as Basic (obviously)

• Shav'ram is another word for Silent. (DISCLAIMER: from what I could find, shav'ram is not a preexisting Mando'a word with a preexisting definition. So I made up my own.)

• Good at making things up on the spot, whether that be on the battlefield or when he's undercover.

• Dual wields Mandalorian pistols, has thigh holsters instead of the kama holsters (but he still wears a kama)

"Fight for the glory! Fight for your kin! Go show those Seppies what they came for!"

Nerin, CT-6782

• Twins with Davin

• ARC

• Got a strange sense of humor

• Once he discovered googly eyes he put them on everything, and I mean everything he could get his hands on: mouse droids, mess hall trays, Alaar's helmet, Davin's kama, etc.

• Good at flips and somersaults and parkour

• Preferred disguise is some type of alien

"Yes, I know, but have you seen the caf machine yet?"

Decant, CT-0322

• ARC

• Named Decant because his CT number matches the date he and his batch were decanted

• He got the rizz, as they say

• Often has dreams about moons for some reason

• He has a way with words and is good at convincing people, like on missions where he needs to convince someone to lend them something or something like that

"Why, thank you. I think I owe you a favor." *winks*

Spot, CT-4034

• Twins with Snap

• Sniper

• Good at sniping

• And spotting

• Literally just has polka dots all over his armor

• Likes techno music and usually listens to it on breaks (he's a good DJ)

"Oy, watch out!"

Snap, CT-6056

• Twins with Spot

• Heavy gunner

• Buff and angry

• Has stripes all over his armor, it looks like plaid

• Will fight anyone at any given moment

• Likes kittens

"DON'T YOU DARE HARM THAT CAT! YOU HARM THAT CAT AND I'LL HARM YOU!"

Coleman, CT-9367

• Dyed his hair red

• Likes outdoor missions

• Good at starting fires

• Could survive alone outdoors for a very long time

• Starting to grow a beard (it's not working out very well for him)

• Very light sleeper

• If you have chocolate cake he is there within a second of smelling it

"Is that cake? Can I have some?"

GUST COMPANY:

Padawan Neea Tayni, apprenticed to Master Aada Zubin

Lightsaber color: main blade purple, little offshoot blade yellow, double-bladed.

Species: twi'lek, dark blue. Usually wears some kind of handkerchief bandana thing on her head. Taller than her Master and Sola.

• She can force heal so that's cool.

• Makes the most hilarious dad jokes (she gets it from her master).

• Unlike her master, she thinks ration sticks are the spawn of the devil.

• She's also friends with Ahsoka. Does the dramatic robe drop.

• Very good at sneaking and pickpocketing

"Haha! Take that, you bantha cud!"

Captain Lik, CT-0827

• Neea's Captain. He's here to have fun. Heavy gunner.

• Likes burritos and similar food items

• Good at taking out lots of droids very fast

• Always carries extra droid poppers but usually gives them to others

• Usually places bets on stuff and usually loses, but he's sportsmanlike whether he wins or loses

• Scar on his neck where he almost died

"Press forward! Those droids won't take us today!"

Davin, CT-6783

• Twins with Nerin

• ARC, Gust Company

• No-nonsense sort of guy

• Hates it when people don't get to the point straight away

• Doesn't like politics

• Likes getting the job done as fast as possible and then going to take a nap

• Has a flower painted on his thigh plate

"Just-- stop talking."

Ambrose, CT-3157

• ARC

• Makes really bad puns (he gets it from Neea)

• Really likes honey and sweet stuff, massive sweet tooth

• Would call significant other honey if he had an s.o.

• The second best cook of the 495th (he learned from Commander Jagger, the best cook)

"STOP STEALING MY HONEY! I'm just trying to make cookies!"

Simon, CT-1889

• Twins with Agatho

• Likes tea, not caf like the rest of his vode (he's the only one who likes tea)

• Resident food connoisseur (can't spell connoisseur)

• British accent

"You can't even cook the tea right!"

Agatho, CT-1890

• Twins with Simon

• Got his name from "agathokakological", meaning "comprised of both good and evil".

• Good at spelling, large vocabulary

• Has lots of geometric lines on his armor

• Also has a British accent

• Good witness because he remembers everything

• And because of that he holds grudges for a long time

• One of the calmer troopers of the 495th

"Simon was the one who broke the caf machine. Don't blame me."

"Agatho! What the kriff?"

"I'm just telling Jagger what happened!"

James, CT-5628

• Likes instrumental music

• Mustache

• Also a calmer dude UNLESS you take his stuff (don't take his stuff)

• Always lays on the floor

• Has cool diagonal geometric design things on his armor

• Good at mapping stuff and drawing out building plans

"Don't touch me until 1600. Unless there's food, or cream for my caf."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So anyways, there they are! I'll probably make a better masterpost for them in the future lol

And hopefully I'll start writing stuff with them now, and draw them but that might take a while

Also if you have any questions I'd be more than happy to answer them that would mean a lot to me but no pressure

[acaseforpencils]

Gustavo Magalhães.

Bio: My name is Gustavo Magalhães and I am a Brazilian illustrator/cartoonist. I live in Caçapava, a small town in São Paulo state. I have worked as an illustrator since 2013.

As an editorial Illustrator, I've been published by The New Yorker, Golf Digest, Forbes, The New Republic, GQ Magazine among others. The first time I was commissioned by The New Yorker was in 2021, for "The Critics" session on a portrait of Sandra Oh" for her new show at the time, "The Chair," which aired on Netflix.

Sketch, refinement, finished piece.

I also have a web comic strip called "Curb Talk." It's published  twice a week in a classic Comic Strip format.

Lately, I am a Senior Illustrator at a Studio called "Fried Design Company ,'' in Springfield, Missouri. But I work from Brazil.

AOIKTYE Procreate Keyboard for Ipad / Apple Pencil / Ipad Pro

Mac Mini / Asus Proart PA248QV Monitor / Huion Kanvas Plus 22 Display

Tools of choice: My process of work is mixed, I like to sketch the first thumbs and sometimes more advanced pieces on paper and "ink" / color them using digital tools. It's been 5 years that more than 90% of my final pieces are done in digital, and along that period I discovered that I'm a person that likes to do a significant amount of tests while inking, and digital tools help me a lot in that.

Lately, I've been trying to achieve an inking process that I could do both on paper and on digital, that way I could do my pieces however I feel on that day, and my comic strip has been a good place for this test field, and I'm enjoying that mix very much.

Pentel .09 Mechanical Pencil / Staedtler Water Brush / Staedtler Pig LIner 0.3 / Royal Talens No. 2 Brush

If you were asking me "You are on a desert island and can bring just one setup with you," I'd say I would bring my iPad. It allows me to sketch with an "analogic feel," where it's important to feel that you are actually crafting something. But it also gives me all the testing possibilities the digital work has.

Huion Display pen Battery Free Pen PW517

Tool I wish I could use better: Coloring in general, but mostly painting. It's always a struggle to translate what I have in mind to the final piece. And there are some aspects of texture and rendering that you can only get in analogical tools like gouache, oil, watercolor. Of course there are excellent artists that do those digitally, but there are certain aspects that you need a physical touch to achieve and I have never done anything like that. Maybe one day.

Tool I wish existed: A chair + desk set that automatically corrects your bad posture whenever your body is hurting or sitting in the wrong way. I hate having lower back and wrist pains while working, haha!

Tricks: One thing I brought from the full analogical days is an adaptation of the "drawing from your shoulder thing." Personally, I found it very hard to do, so I use a bandana on my pen hand, and use the other hand to pool this and drag. This is a thing that helps me a lot when drawing straight lines with a handmade feel, instead of just using shapes in Photoshop or any digital tool for precise lines.

Misc: "Go easy on yourself and have fun!" I never thought I could work with illustration. I spent almost a decade working in the aircraft industry (half of it doing freelance illustration jobs for local bands and brands) and the factory mentality lever left my mind, just now (after 10 years as an illustrator, 7 as my main activity), I'm recovering the passion that I had as a young doodling kid. Everyone sees artistic careers as this romantic thing, but it's always a struggle (at least for me) to face your passion as an obligation day to day, and make this trade of time and love for money. So after several years going hard on myself I am finally learning how to be lighter and having more fun and joy in my work.

(Outro/Editor's note: I asked Gustavo if he would care to discuss how working in the aircraft industry affected his work as an illustrator):

I think the biggest influence I got from this industry was the routine and how to deal with work. Artists naturally tend to be less rigid in the aspect of routine because of the nature of creativity, and I think that having almost a decade working in another industry in a more conservative environment helped me in how to take it more serious in all aspects, from my day to day process, to how to treat my clients and deadlines.

That's basically the biggest influence and learning I got from this period. How to understand that the work isn't just the drawing and thinking, but everything that happens behind it, from the clothing choice I pick to work at home, from the time management I need to have in order to balance all simultaneous projects I have.

Website, etc.

Portfolio

Curb Talk Comics

Instagram

Twitter

----

If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi  account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!

[fioras-resolve]

31 Days

Exactly a month ago, I started playing this game that my extended family had made. It's a daily math game, or like, a daily classical cryptography game. I have been solving the new puzzles each day, for 31 days.

I'm still taking it in, you know? I've never had such a clear idea of how long a month is, but now I have to know: It's the time between getting an email showing me this game and right now. Perhaps this should horrify me, as confronting the passage of time should come with the spectre of mortality. But as someone who has never believed herself to have a future, it has the opposite effect. It gives me a sense of just how time passes, how long things take, and how much I can do in a month.

But it's hard to believe there can be anything in my life so consistent. I flounder between projects and take opportunities when they come, my activities or mood on any given day is largely dependent on fate and happenstance. But I have somehow managed to do this one tiny thing each day for a month. It makes me think about the importance of rituals, to have something in your life that can anchor you in time.

These days, games come packed with rituals in some form or another. Plenty of games, online and offline, come with daily bonuses, daily activities, and rewards for sticking with it, every day. It's hard to know where to draw a line. These techniques are a few of many that companies can use to extract every bit of time, money, and attention out of you. But in individual cases I am okay with them. I like the daily nature of Wordle or Animal Crossing. I like it when Fire Emblem Fates or Bravely Default give me small rewards as real-world time passes. In the days of the DS or 3DS these mechanics felt more experimental and benign. I can't help but wonder if that was ever really true.

Summary is an ephemeral game. It changes every day, and a missed day cannot be taken back. Missing a day in my streak was actually what made me give up Wordle, unsurprisingly, and that'll probably be what gets me to drop this game. Back when Wordle was popular, there was a controversy over it being ephemeral like this. Some didn't like its daily slow-paced nature, which is fair enough if you don't care for game as ritual. Others made an argument that the daily format is inherently anti-preservation, as one day's experience will never be the same as the next. I balk at this framing, as someone in theatre. Yes, some art cannot be truly (or at least losslessly) preserved. It is of the moment, and that is part of the beauty of it. For art to be an event, for it to require you to be there, in that moment, is not as terrible a thing as some would tell you.

Thinking on it after a month, I'm not sure if I'd say I "like" Summary as a math-y puzzle game. It's missing the kind of tension and strategy that Wordle has, and while its puzzles are certainly coherent, I don't really feel like I'm getting "better" at the game, or that it particularly wants me to. I'm curious to ask the developers how they designed these puzzles, because as a designer, this game is a fascinating piece of work. But the Wordle formula is... It's one of those things, you know? It's like Minesweeper, it has a set of mechanics that just works, and it's hard to replicate without losing the charm somewhere. Summary is a good attempt, one I've stuck with for a month and plan to continue. But the ritual matters more than the game.

[ear-worthy]

Josie's Lonely Hearts Club: A Semi-improvised Audio Drama You'll Love

Have you ever seen a Russian nesting doll? Remove one and there is another underneath. That's how the new audio-drama podcast Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club unfolds for listeners. It's a captivating drama with layers upon layers -- all of which will fascinate and enthrall. Here's the premise. Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club is a semi-improvised audio drama set in the studio of New Mexico’s third-best romantic advice call-in show. On-air, listeners eavesdrop as Josie (Rachel Music of How Do They Bone?) squares off against top improvisers and her engineer Frank (Maximilian Clark of Superhuman Public Radio). In reality, Josie, the romance advice DJ, is melancholy Joanne Holtzinger. Each episode has off-air vignettes that chart Joanne's journey to nationally syndicated sensation Josie Heller, and then back again when the mics are off.

I listened to the first episode and was fascinated and wildly entertained. The episode begins with Josie discussing first impressions on dates with her listeners, and then encouraging callers to discuss that topic. Josie's voice is faintly Southern - Western and has a breathless quality to it.

For those who know radio, Josie's voice and demeanor reminds me of Delilah, who is a well-known American radio personality. Her show -- on the air since 1996 -- perfected the format for call-in romantic advice radio shows and has an estimated eight million listeners.

Then the call-ins to the radio station begin. These calls are improvised by professionals, and Josie (Rachel Music) has to respond. The callers include a bouncer for the nu metal band Korn, who doesn't know how to talk to women and a man who recounts a tender slow dance with a woman, who abruptly walks out, leaving a shoe behind a la Cinderella. 

Then, on a commercial break, we meet "Joanne," who is the real person behind Josie. We discover that unlike Josie, who dispenses advice on life and romance, Joanne needs support and guidance about her seemingly despairing life.

The calls are fascinating, funny, odd, weird, yet strangely touching.  "What results is an often hilarious and surprisingly human show exploring the risks we idiots take every time we fall in or out of love."

The character Josie Heller was born in 2021 while Rachel Music drove from New York to LA with all of her possessions, her boyfriend, and her dog -- hopefully no in that order. 

"The week-long road trip was full of colorful characters and long stints of AM radio on old Route 66. The germ of a great idea took root...and like most great ideas, the first iteration was crap, and it sat on her desktop." Around this time, Rachel Music was picked to help write and voice season two of Superhuman Public Radio by its showrunner, Maximilian Clark, and the two clicked like Lois and Clark or Cagney And Lacey. A few months later, when Rachel co-founded Good Story Guild, a puzzle emerged: a show as nimble to produce as an unscripted podcast, but with arcs that deepen an audience’s connection to a flawed, vulnerable character. Together, puzzlers Maximilian and Rachel developed an ingenious hybrid– half-improv Olympics, half writers room. An ongoing experiment in creativity, Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club is designed to surprise:a living, breathing show with a narrative spine. Rachel Music (co-creator, Josie) is a full-time artist and road-tested in New York's cabaret and cirque scene. She hosted and produced burlesque and circus revues as airborne, opera-singing Mistress of Ceremonies Kittyhawk Boone before stepping into a production role. Her work spans theater, music and new media, including GUNS, A CABARET, the award-winning short WENDY/GIGI, and the TikTok series EAVESDROPPERS. Now in Los Angeles, Rachel is the co-founder of the Good Story Guild and executive director of the company's audio drama and podcast slate. According to Rachel, she has lent her voice to children’s toys, rodeo commercials, and a lot of alien-on-human erotica. Maximilian Clark (co-creator/showrunner, Frank) has written and/or directed festival winning films, web series, and audio dramas that provide insightful commentary on the human experience interspersed with slapstick and fart jokes. He’s largely responsible for the Starz digital series Llama Cop, and the audio drama Superhuman Public Radio on the Fable & Folly network. He’s been invited to the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal three times, and has been temporarily banned from the Podcast Movement festival in Denver for six months. When he’s not being a creative menace in the world of fiction, he spends his time going undercover at Qanon rallies, producing content with Walter Masterson that exposes far right extremism through comedy and trolling. You can hear about their experiences on their politics podcast We Are Not Journalis.

Good Story Guild apparently birthed Jose's Lonely Hearts Club and when I googled the company this is what came up: "It is a time of crisis in the realm of storytelling: the barriers to entry are getting smaller, new technology continues to disrupt business models and power has consolidated into the hands of a few empires. Storytelling needs a new wave of heroes to usher in the next era. Instead, they got us - a guild of industry veterans, rogues and outsiders alike, brought together through a little serendipity and a passion for great story hooks. GSG is on a journey to bring back a little risk and danger to our beloved art form. Will you join us?"

I really have no idea what all that meant, but their manifesto is weird, intriguing, and I think we need a new true-crime podcast to investigate these people.  

That said, this show is a rule breaker, a genre mash up of epic proportions, a half-scripted, half-improv Jekyll Hyde creation, and 30 minutes of all-out fun, genius, humanity exposed, and as outrageous as detective Benoit Blanc in Knives Out and Glass Onion.

Check out Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club. Even if you don't love it (which you will), you can get some romantic advice or insights on alien on human erotica.

[lailau7904]

the job market SUCKS

rant incoming. also first time writing anything big on tumblr and i have no idea how the formatting works so bear with me.

just for context, i'm a minor situated in germany currently working on getting my "abitur" (basically a specific graduation certificate that gives me the right to study at a university). the school course i'm in is forcused on design classes and in order to succesfully complete it, i need to complete an internship in a design departement. this intership is supposed to take place next year in feburary to march (4 weeks) and is as said, mandatory. ALSO my school offers an international program where we can do this internship in other european countries, one of those being ireland. to me it's incredibly important that i gather international work experience as i want to travel a lot later in life and live in an english speaking country (and at the moment it looks like it might end up being ireland, but for that it's still too far into the future).

so i applied on the work placement in ireland, was the first one that was interessted that actually submitted the application in late july. we were supposed to know whether we were in or not by october, but due to some new circumstances it got delayed by a month and a half. you might be able to guess that i have an indication for mine now, and you might also be able to guess what that indication contains, considering i am writing this post.

while i was waiting on the feedback for ireland however, we were supposed to try to secure a second work placement (just incase ireland didn't work out). so i tried. and i tried. and i tried. at this point i am probably at 10 or more negative replies from the places i have sent application to and my patience is wearing off. like i know that none of the replies are personal issues with me, but it's still damn fucking frustrating to get no after no. ireland was pretty much my last hope.

today we finally got feedback for ireland. i don't have a place (yet), we've been told to keep our hopes up, that there's still a chance we'll get a place. my hopes are not up anymore. after so many negative replies and then the thing that was so very important to me seemingly not working out. i'm just at the end of it. they told us that the companies prefer "the older students that already have experience in marketing and advertisement" and it's like, yeah, of course they fucking do. what else do you expect, but how am i supposed to get that experience if i just get rejected everywhere i aks for work? this is a FREE internship, the company doesn't even loose anything if they choose someone with a little less experience. we're still trained in the programs, the internship is supposed to TEACH US this shit.

the market expects everyone to have experience but then refuses to actually GIVE anyone new that experience, and it's gonna be what kills the market. if my one and a half years of experience working with these programs and grabbing myself good grades for being good with them isn't worth anything, then how am i supposed to get the experience required to do an UNPAID INTERNSHIP?

gonna go back to sending out my fucking applications to anyone who will listen now.

(also i know how random this post is, i just really didn't feel like ranting on twitter but i needed this out into the public to survive what feels like me going mad)

[sharkface]

🔥pokemon designs. Also if it isnt too painful rvb (winces)

Listen. A character design is not always really good just because that character is beloved. A character being attractive to YOU does not mean they are Well Designed. A lot of pokemon designs are kind of bad. In a fun way. But they're bad. And the old ones are often bad because they are old. But npw they're also iconic so they can never change and it makes me a little bit crazy.

Oh also on the actual creature side object mons are freaking awesome you're all just haters. Varoom and Revavroom RULE you just have not looked in the guts of a car before. The Vanillish line is only lame because its evos are uncreative but other than that it rocks.

As for RVB *winces back* It should have ended years ago. They had the perfect ending set up for it but they have just kept making it until it stopped making money which it very much has and they still haven't announced an official cancellation even though the company's biggest property can't afford to be hosted on their actual website anymore so they're definitely not just not making more they're probably about to implode point blank which will probably mean some kind of shitty last-ditch revival effort before everyone there (but especially people who aren't their big personalities) lose their jobs. It has been 20 years please let the reds and blues die.

Another big thing about RVB is that it is literally impossible to get into in the modern day. I'm not saying that because a lot of its early humor is erm. Outdated. Though that's a thing people fight about all day too. But its format kind of requires you to do homework, you can't understand it all just by watching it in order because there are also the shorts that are plot relevant, the PSAs which will probably confuse you if you aren't already aware of them, a lot of lore and info was only mentioned in podcasts or on livestreams a lot of which is straight up lost to time now, AND on top of all of that you do have to have some basic knowledge of how the Halo universe works because it is a series that canonically takes place inside ANOTHER series even though neither's plot is relevant to the other because it's a machinima. For MANY reasons I would never recommend anyone start this show without knowing them extremely well and the only reason I am here is because I have been here since I was like, pre middle-school.

Oh also it has one of the worst fanbases of all time. Picture one million homophobic reddit people clashing with the kind of person who will find two generic men to ship and write awful angst fic of no matter what it takes. Help me I am in hell.

[womanlalaboy]

Read More and Give Back with BooKey

Due to the nature of my current job in education and the fact that I live on my own, it has become increasingly difficult to find time to read books. I used to read a lot when I was living with my parents and working in the BPO industry, but now even when I try, it takes me a month just to finish one book. I've tried listening to podcasts while doing chores, but I feel excluded from the conversation. I've also tried audiobooks, but they tend to be slow and they lack emotion. Then, I discovered a mobile application called BooKey.

BooKey is designed to help people read more by offering book summaries, similar to Blinkist. The summaries are concise, capturing the key takeaways from each book and allowing users to quickly and easily digest the information without having to read the entire book. Users can choose to read the summary, browse the mind map, or listen to the summaries. The audio format typically takes only 23-30 minutes. This allows me to listen to multiple BooKeys during commute and while I do household chores.

Bookey's product design and commitment to promoting reading have earned them several recognitions, including "Most Promising Education Innovation" at the Bett Asia Awards, the "Outstanding Mobile Reading App" award at the China Digital Reading Innovation Forum, and a place on HolonIQ's list of "Top 50 EdTech Companies in the World." But what really caught my attention was their 21-Day challenge. Once a user finishes 21 days of reading any book for at least 5 minutes, the user gets to donate a book to children in Africa. This is a great way to motivate myself to read more while also giving back.

Most of BooKey's featured books are on self-improvement which was nice because I am obsessed with Atomic Habits. Through this app, I found a way to unlock related books and understand the key concepts behind them. These self-help books are often written by experts in their respective fields who have conducted extensive research and/or have personal experience with the topic they are discussing. They provide readers with practical advice, tools, and strategies that can be implemented in their daily lives to improve their personal and professional growth. Some of the ones I've read so far are as follows:

I am no stranger to digital tools that offer rewards for continued use. GCash, for example, has their GForest initiative, which has led me to plant four trees virtually (as of checking, they've already been physically planted). This approach has been effective in helping me establish habits, whether it's making paperless transactions or reading more books. Digital tools like BooKey also make it easy to track my progress and stay accountable, which is key to building habits (pun intended).

These models not only work but also inspire. With each tree planted, I know I am helping to promote sustainability. With each book donated, I know I am helping to promote literacy, education, and lifelong learning.

BooKey overall is a great tool for anyone looking to read more books and improve themselves. With its concise summaries and commitment to promoting reading, the app makes it easy to save time and get the most important insights from each book. And with the 21-Day Challenge, you can establish a habit of reading and give back to the community at the same time. So why not give BooKey a try and start establishing a healthy habit today?

[jobsthe24]

A Thorough Guide to Job Searching Job searching is both thrilling and intimidating at the same time, especially in the current competitive job market. If you are a fresh graduate, looking to change your career, or just need a new job, a clear strategy is very important. This guide offers actionable tips to help you navigate the job search process efficiently.

Define Your Goals Before applying for work, make sure you know exactly what you are looking for. Ask yourself questions like;

What are the industries I am interested in? My strengths and skills? I need which type of an environment? What are the salary and benefits that should be available to me? The clearer you are of your goals, the closer you get to focusing on and not wasting time on applications that don't fit your wishes.

Craft an Exceptional Resume and Cover Letter Your resume and cover letter are your first contacts with potential employers. They must be customized, professional, and free of errors.

Resume Advice:

Format is clean and easy to read. Emphasize your relevant skills, achievements, and experiences. Use numbers wherever possible (e.g., "Boosted sales by 20%"). Use keywords from the job description to get past applicant tracking systems (ATS). Cover Letter Advice:

Customize it for each application. Address it to a person when possible. Explain why you’re interested in the role and how your skills align with the company’s needs.

Leverage Online Job Platforms Online job boards are a primary resource for finding opportunities. Some popular platforms include:

LinkedIn: Great for networking and job listings. Indeed: Offers a wide range of job opportunities across industries. Glassdoor: Provides company reviews and salary information. Specialized boards: For niche roles, use industry-specific platforms like Behance (design), GitHub (tech), or Mediabistro (media). Set up job alerts to stay updated on new postings, and use filters to narrow your search based on location, salary, and other criteria.

Network, Network, Network Many job opportunities aren’t advertised publicly, making networking a vital part of your job search strategy. Here’s how to network effectively:

Connect on LinkedIn: Reach out to professionals in your desired industry. Send a polite, personalized message introducing yourself. Attend events: Go to job fairs, industry conferences, or meetups to connect with potential employers and peers. Ask for informational interviews: Request a casual meeting to learn more about someone's career path and industry insights. Leverage personal connections: Let friends, family, and former colleagues know you're job hunting—they might know of openings or refer you to hiring managers.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile LinkedIn is not just a job board; it’s a professional networking tool. A strong profile increases your visibility to recruiters.

Use a professional photo and write a compelling headline. Craft a summary that showcases your skills and career achievements. List your work experience with descriptions and relevant keywords. Request endorsements and recommendations from colleagues or supervisors. Stay active by engaging with posts, sharing insights, and participating in industry discussions.

Prepare for Interviews This is your opportunity to prove why you are the best candidate for the position. Preparation is the key:

Research about the company: Know its mission, values, and its latest projects. Practice some of the most common interview questions: Such as "Tell me about yourself," "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" or "Why do you want to work here?" Prepare some of your own questions: Good questions indicate that you're truly interested in the role. Dress appropriately: Follow the company’s dress code. When in doubt, err on the side of professionalism. Follow up: Send a thank-you email after the interview, reiterating your interest in the role and highlighting key discussion points.

Stay Organized Job searching can involve juggling multiple applications, interviews, and follow-ups. Keep track of your progress with a system:

Use spreadsheets or apps to track job postings, application deadlines, interview dates, and contact information. Set reminders for follow-ups after interviews or networking meetings.

Don’t Forget Soft Skills While technical skills are essential, employers also value soft skills like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. Highlight these in your resume, cover letter, and interviews by sharing specific examples of how you’ve demonstrated them in the past.

Be Persistent and Patient Rejections are just a part of the job hunt process. Do not let it deter you. Learn from the experience and refine your approach. Celebrate small victories such as landing an interview or getting positive feedback.

Consider Temporary or Freelance Work If you cannot get a full-time job, temporary or freelance work may keep you busy and put you in a position of gaining experience. Many large companies hire full-time from their pool of temporary employees.

Get Expert Help if Necessary Consider hiring a career coach and/or resume writer who can guide you with professional advice unique to your situation. If, after trying hard, you are not getting results, then it may be well worth investing in professional help.

Learn Something New Upskilling can make you a more attractive candidate. Take online courses, earn certifications, or attend workshops to build relevant skills. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer affordable options in various fields. End Job searching is a journey that requires persistence, preparation, and a proactive approach. By setting clear goals, leveraging resources, and continuously improving your skills, you’ll be well-positioned to land a role that aligns with your career aspirations. Stay confident and trust the process—you’ve got this!