#making an arts degree 50k at the end of 3 years

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

the evil is infiltrating arts courses. and this comes after my area's uni is cutting like 40% of their arts degree majors to save money

[cornsobsessions]

It's the end of 2022 so here are my favorite fics that I read this year! These weren't all written in 2022, in fact many of them were not, but I did read all of them this year. 

They cover a wide range of ratings and topics so please read any of the writers tags and content warnings before reading. a * means you need to be logged in to ao3 to read. 

Anything in Italics is my thoughts.

1. consider the hairpin turn (do not choose sides yet) by jjcofeesa (@30samwiches) zimbits, holsom, shardo, pimms | 50k You are not in a car with a beautiful boy. You are in a car next to a beautiful boy. And in a car behind your ex. And in a car ahead of your best friend. If you're Jack Zimmermann, current World Driver's Champion, that is. If you're Eric Bittle, you're too nervous about your rookie season to be thinking about what the boys in the other cars look like. (You tell yourself you're too nervous, anyway. You do think about it.) If you're on Twitter, well. They're all beautiful boys, and you wish you could be in the car with them. I don't know when this became a comfort fic for me but I have read it several times now and it has been wonderful every single time

2. action painting, abstract in the making by unconventionalturtle (@watermelonmountaindew) zimbits | 35k A stolen painting. A forged painting. A mysterious blonde. That's how it all begins.Jack Zimmermann thinks he’s set himself up for a nice, simple life when he quits playing hockey and gets started on his degree. But for the grad student, and night shift security guard, the summer of 2015 seems to have other plans. A fun story about the gang and you get to learn about some cool paintings along the way!

3. Defining Expectations by cricketnationrise (@cricketnationrise) nurseydex | 32k When Will joins the team at Samwell Dictionary, he doesn't know what to expect about anything other than his job description. With the help of good friends (and good pie) he might just have a shot at defining his expectations.

4. Got Your Back Means I'll Get You Out by cricketnationrise (@cricketnationrise) bitty and shitty | 17k Bitty Comes Out. Shitty Comes To Get Him. heartbreaking, wholesome, and full of platonic love

5. getting used to letting go by jennycaakes nurseydex, farmer | 37k Dex was supposed to have a fancy job in some city upon graduation, but his plans changed once his uncle died and left the family home in Maine to him. Without immediate obligations of their own, Nursey, Chowder and Farmer follow Dex up there to help him clear it out and clean it up. The way this feels so true to life is insane

6. I Don't Know What I Would Do by specklesandflowers jack and shitty | 57k The adventures of first-year Shitty Knight and Jack Zimmermann and the beauty that is their friendship I love Jack and Shitty’s friendship so much and this was so fun to read

7. The Gay Favour by FightMeImSmall nurseydex | 43k “I need a favour.” Will said intensely to the group of people assembled before him. “Okay so last year my brothers were ragging me about going to a liberal arts college and just generally being dicks. Sibling stuff, and like, that was fine. But then Christopher was like ‘found yourself a boyfriend yet?’ like as a joke and I’d had it up to here with their shit and replied, ‘so what if I have?’ So now my family think I’m gay and expect me to bring a boyfriend to this big ole reunion. If I don’t bring one they’re just going to get worse.” His friends all blinked at him, surprise evident in each of their faces. “I’ll do it.” Nursey said slowly The OCs are amazing and it was just so fun to read

8. Breathe With No Air by bluflamingo parswoops | 25k After Jack kisses Bitty on the ice, Kent's attacked one night by drunk, homophobic hockey fans. He's got no memory of the attack, but that doesn't make it any less traumatic. Fortunately, he's got his friends to get him through, in more ways than one. Pain but its also so beautiful

9. got the feeling you're the right thing after all by bisexualnursey nurseydex | 74k Two and a half years after he breaks up with Dex to go to grad school across the country, Nursey runs into him again when he visits New York for the holidays. What starts as them just rekindling their friendship quickly turns into a whole other thing: a 100% no-strings-attached friends with benefits arrangement while they’re in the same city. Which is totally chill because Nursey is definitely over Dex. He swears. He’s going back to California soon anyway.

10. (simply having) a WTF christmas time by loud_as_lions * whiskeytango, wtf | 17k All the Ford siblings are home for the holidays. Denice’s brothers are more than a little surprised when their sister brings not one, but two men home for Christmas. Logically, they assume she’s dating one of them. Which one, though? Just so much love can be felt and the OCs are wonderful

11. write our names in the wet concrete by MyCupOfTea zimbits | 20k “Oh my God, has it? Been ten years already?” The Olympics are never without their fair share of drama, scandal, and movie worthy storylines. However, the 2018 Winter Olympics remains burned into the sports world’s memory especially bright. And the sports world, despite their somewhat recent retirement, includes Eric Bittle and Jack Zimmermann. I love the way this is written

12. I've been waiting for a lifetime, for a moment just like this. by pandabob parswoops | 25k It's Jeff's last Christmas hospital visit before he retires so Kent is determined to make sure that he visits everyone, little does he know that this visit will change their lives forever.Heart wrenching and beautiful

13. Your heart hurts, mine does too by the_p_in_raspberry zimbits | 19k Shitty had always thought that because of Samwell’s LGBTQ+ friendly rumor, if one of his teammates weren’t straight they would come out eventually, only waiting because they weren’t ready yet, but never waiting because they were scared. He could see now how his logic was flawed. heartbreaking and heartwarming, all at the same time

14. From the Ground Up by Rianne kent/omc | 167k Kent has a pretty good life. It’s been a couple years since the Aces last won a cup, but he’s still at the height of his career. He has an apartment with a stunning view over Vegas, a best friend who’s always dragging him to basketball games, a cat to cuddle with, and more money than he could ever spend. Everything is fine. So it won’t be a problem at all if he strikes up a friendship with that guy he meets at the All-Star party. ---- Tomas enjoyed the years he spent in Minnesota, but he’s ready for a new life in a different city. It means he’ll be even further from his friends and family in Quebec, and he’s not sure he’s going to adapt well to the desert. But he’ll have his new job to distract him, and he’s never minded the challenge of developing a new circle of friends and acquaintances. He doesn’t expect Kent Parson to be part of that.

15. mon pays by weneedtotalkaboutsherlock (@weneedtotalkaboutfic) zimbits, shardo, farmer, zimmerparents | 41k He didn't suggest they come to the cabin because he misses home, not really. At first, it was a senior thing between Shitty and him, one last weekend together before their final semester at Samwell, before graduation, before their lives inevitably change and diverge in ways Jack doesn't want to think about too much. Shitty suggested that Lardo and Bitty should tag along, and Jack agreed. Having them at the cabin… it was a good thought. He'd have them for his own, for a few days. But then, four became six, when Holster and Ransom heard about their plans, and cherry on top, the Frogs tagged along as well after that. So much for a quiet weekend between friends. snow filled shenanigans

16. four calling birds by wit (@parvuls) zimbits, shardo | 11k "You are now listening to Shits and Bits on Hub 98FM!" In which four radio hosts and one medical emergency result in Jack and Bitty co-hosting a show the night before Christmas Eve.

17. Friend Request by WrathoftheStag (@wrathofthestag) zimbits, shardo, nurseydex, fordtango | 26k When Eric Bittle was 18, he made out with 20-year-old hockey player, Jack Zimmermann, at an Olympic after-party. 25 years later, an unexpected friend request from Jack throws Eric for a loop. What’s a guy to do?

18. Time and Hearts by rickysims katyageorge, zimbits | 16k In 2002, a figure skater from Russia and a hockey player from Canada met at the Olympics. They fell in love. Jack and Bitty know that part. What they don’t know is what happened next and why Katya and George might not want to rekindle flame that went out 20 years ago.

19. Becoming Lardo by loud_as_lions * shardo | 9k Larissa was different with these boys than she was with anyone else. She had always thought that all the talk about finding yourself in college was bullshit, but these boys were making her wonder just how much of what she had previously believed might be changed by this place. An absolutely wonderful lardo character study

20. Like Our Own Private Island by imafriendlydalek * zimbits, shardo | 85kAfter Eric loses his spot on the SMH team and Lardo graduates, they're both left floundering with few options. So when the opportunity comes up to manage a cafe on a remote island in Quebec, it seems like as good a place as any to figure out their next steps in life. Even if it does mean he'll need to brush up on his French. The last thing Eric expects to find in a place like this, reachable only by ship in the warmer months or tiny little tin-can airplanes, is a town full of people who welcome them like family. Well, everyone except one: the enigmatic, irresistible Jacques Laurent.

21. Eric Bittle, NBC 10 by foryouandbits zimbits | 82k In 2009, Jack Zimmermann was drafted 2nd overall to the Providence Falconers. After a tumultuous first season in the minors, Jack returns to the NHL and is named captain within a year. Known to the media as the "hockey robot," no one seems to be able to break through the polite barrier that Jack has built — no one until Eric Bittle, newest intern at NBC 10. Bitty, interning as a requirement for his journalism degree at nearby Samwell University, forms an instant connection with Jack. Throughout the rest of the season, and the rest of Bitty's junior year at Samwell, the two grow closer while learning how to both trust each other and succeed in their respective careers. A fun alternate meeting AU

22. thinking outrageously (I write in cursive) by bumblegremlin (@bittysthesis) pimms, zimbits | 15k Jack was glad Bitty wanted a long engagement. It gave him time to address the very large, very pressing issue at hand. Eric Bittle was Jack Zimmermann’s fiancé. Kent Parson was Jack Zimmermann’s husband. A fun and funny fic in which Kent is a little shit and so is Jack

I read so many awesome fics this year and like last year making this list was very difficult! I can't wait to see what all you write in the future (or have written in the past) that I will get to read!

[notanotherstuckybb]

NASBB Presents Masterlist: Week 6

Hey, we know how it is. You’re just a weary him/her/thembo, lost amid the  detritus of our prolific authors and artists, unsure where to start.  Don’t worry, we’re here to help.

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Check out all the COMPLETED fics posted for Week Six below the cut, and make sure you’re following @anotherstuckybb for the latest and greatest. To follow along with our collab teams as they post, keep an eye on the #NASBBPresents tag, and watch for a special teaser graphic (courtesy of @spacerenegades​‘ passion for graphic design) under the #NASBBMastertweet tag.

The Red Daisies || riskywrites & bicappy & espressosaur || rated T || 50k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: slow burn, pre-war, oblivious idiots, and they were roommates, first time Summary: The year is 1938 and Steve Rogers is an oblivious idiot. Having moved in with his best friend after Sarah’s death, he wasn’t prepared for how much space Bucky would take in his mind, or the way his heart flipflops when he’s around. A fun jaunt of mutual pining featuring the Barnes family, Howard Stark, Edwin Jarvis, and two very dumb boys. 

Supermanny || rainbownerds & velvetjinx & ransomdrysdale || rated T || 68k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Kidfic, Dad Steve Rogers, Nanny Bucky Barnes, Domestic fluff, Slowburn Summary: Steve Rogers: Single dad, perpetually tired and finally ready to break out of the rut he's living in. Bucky Barnes: Successful small-business owner, living alone with his cat and ignoring the empty space in his life. They each might turn out to be just what the other needs.

We Freak on the Cam || howdoyousleep & prettierandyounger || rated E || 15k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, Sex Worker, Mutual Masturbation  Summary: He finds his mind wandering back to The Captain. Tall, broad, beefy. Hair that looks like it’s been kissed by Midwestern sun, a beard that is meticulously well-kept, hands with thumbs that could touch if he grabbed Bucky just right around his bitty waist. Unattainable. Porn star.

Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Grad Students || theemdash & deisderium & softestbuck || rated M || 46k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Roommates, Romantic Comedy, Flirting in Lord of the Rings, Mutual Pining Summary: As a student returning to finish his bachelor’s degree, Bucky has a few problems: he’s nearly ten years older than the other students, he has lingering pain from shattering his arm, and his Tolkien-obsessed roommate Steve Rogers is way too hot for his own good.

Barnes Blooms || bleuett & fadefilter || rated E || 50k Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Tags: florist Bucky Barnes, friends to lovers, alternate universe-different first meeting, fluff, hurt/comfort Summary: Bucky Barnes is the heart of Barnes Blooms, a flower and plant shop. He’s gentle and kind and smiles at Steve in a way that makes Barnes Blooms feel like home, so of course Steve keeps finding excuses to visit the little shop.  But Bucky has his own secrets and Steve, recently de-iced and awake in a new century, has his own fight to win.

Steve Rogers, Uncensored || softobsidian74 & potterspink || rated E || 81k Archive Warnings: Major Character Death Tags: Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, Epistolary, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn Summary: Bucky’s boyfriend hosts a weekly podcast on the life of the former Avenger, Steve Rogers. When shocking outtakes of Steve’s old PSAs surface, it starts a chain reaction that leads to unexpected revelations and a life-changing encounter with the elusive superhero himself.

Setting Out (For a New Tomorrow) || racetoanyways & softestbuck || rated M || 35k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Alternate Universe; Enemies to Lovers; Disney World & Disneyland; Pre-Serum Steve Rogers; Pining Summary: Steve is not an asshole, this is a fundamental truth. If he was, he wouldn’t work at Disney World, and he's very good at his job, thank you. It’s not his fault that Prince Charming is seriously testing his patience. 

Color Me with Kisses, Color Me in Love || winterraven & middimori || rated E || 108k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Domestic life, Slice of Life, reclusive artist Steve Rogers, art college student Bucky, Falling in love Summary: Steve Rogers is a famous artist who walked away the New York art world five years ago and has been living in Indiana ever since. It’s a quiet life until he meets Bucky Barnes who works at his favorite diner Barnes & Cobbler. They’re smitten with each other right from the start.

The Very Memory of You || alaska rogers & deisderium || rated M || 20k Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death Tags: John Wick AU, Temporary Character Death, Suicidal ideation, The Dog Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: James Barnes loved and lost Steve Rogers. The Winter Soldier had gotten out of the life of being an assassin. Now Hydra wants to force his hand and bring him back to the fold. What James finds when he returns is more than he ever expected.

The Unwanted Quest || nina8228 & anisstaranise || rated T || 26k Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Tags: Minor character death, Mutual pining, Friends to lovers, Fantasy au, Knight au, Royal au.  Summary: Once upon a time, in the future, Steve Rogers gets invited on a Quest to rescue the beautiful Princess Carter. But what happens if Steve doesn't want to save the Princess? An introduction to Sir Rogers. Featuring a prince, some gods and a judgy shapeshifter.

Bucky Runs (his mouth) and Comes (back home) || jacqueemackee & shax92 || rated E || 25k Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Arranged Marriage, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Recovery, Found Family Summary: After the helicarrier, Steve guards Bucky's identity closely as he rampages against Hydra & recovers his memory so the Avengers & media are in quite an uproar when the Winter Soldier keeps blurting out inappropriate things about their Captain. Then the WS issues his ultimatum...

[vivianblakesunrisebay]

2020 Creator Tag Meme

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I was tagged by @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3 and @petrodobreva ! Thank you!

1. Welcome to Cabaret

All the fics I had written in 2019 were canon compliant, so for my first foray into AUs I decided to tiptoe into it by doing a canon divergence fic. The premise is that David is Moira’s assistant director for Cabaret and casts Patrick as the Emcee after he meets him singing karaoke. Looking back, what I like about this fic is that Patrick has a gay best friend (Mia) and some experience with men before he meets David; that their first kiss is in a closet while they’re hiding from Sebastien in his motel room; that Gwen is David’s enemy, a bit like Ronnie is for Patrick; and that Moira grows to respect David’s talents and abilities over the course of directing the play with him. And of course, I loved showing David lusting after Patrick in his Emcee costume! This fic is over 50k and is still my longest work!

2. Lies, Damned Lies, and Fake Dating

Fake dating has long been my favorite trope, and at the time I wrote this, there were actually relatively few fake dating fics for David and Patrick. (There have been quite a few excellent ones since!) In addition to the fake dating aspect, I enjoyed exploring David and Alexis’s relationship in this one, since the premise is that she has been off working for Klair while David has been in Schitt’s Creek. I loved writing a horseback riding scene in this one. Also, most of the story takes place on Klair’s yacht, and somehow I worked in David leaping off the crow’s nest, which I was very happy about.

3. The Rosebud Diamond

This was my last long fic of the year. After doing two canon divergence AUs, I went out waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone to write a noir AU, set in 1940′s New York. I loved playing with noir themes and making Patrick a little more cynical as the hard bitten detective, and David the mysterious “homme fatale” with a secret. (Unlike many noirs, though, of course I still had to give them a happy ending.) I challenged myself to come up with a genuine mystery plot for Patrick to pursue, and according to the comments, I was able to surprise people with some twists and turns!

4. Cute Spectator Look

Usually my one shots focus mostly on David and Patrick, so it was really fun to incorporate Stevie and Ronnie, and the Ronnie/Patrick rivalry, in this baseball themed fic. David has embraced the role of spectator to the nth degree, but he finds to his dismay he has inadvertently learned quite a bit about baseball along the way. I also enjoyed exploring how David and Patrick might negotiate their very different interests as husbands.

5. Easy as Pie

I love writing Patrick overthinking things, so I decided to torture him by having him attempt to make a pie for David. It’s soon after the night at Stevie’s and he has a lot of thoughts about that night while he’s struggling with the pie. When David arrives, of course he makes everything okay. This fic is special to me because it was podficced by the amazing Amanita Fierce. It was such a thrill to hear her reading my words! 

There are so many incredible authors in the SC fandom, and I made some incredible friendships. Special thanks to my amazing betas @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3 and @missgeevious, I could not have written the above without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I tag @missgeevious, @hagface, @blueink3, @grapehyasynth, @dinnfameron

[colony42]

Story (Arthur's Version)

“Nothing could ever compare to the fields outside his window, the muted earth tones turning to bright versions of themselves only to fall back to their muteness once the seasons changed again, the scent of the crops after the first rain, the way his chest filled with warmth after drinking his favourite morning beverage. The latest one was currently tugging on his heartstrings as he laid his gaze back to the hot liquid occupying his mug, it was alright though soon enough he’d wish his biggest problem was an almost-but-not-quite-right-tea.”

Humans have always been the most curious of creatures. So much so, that was the name they gave to the rover they first sent to Mars who, unknowingly at the time, was the first step in mankind’s galactic exploration. In 2191 the first Martian colony was built and had such great success the only question humanity could ask was “why stop here?”. In succession, many more colonies in planets within our galaxy were built to aid the long term exploration of their resources. Almost a thousand years later in 3091 the latest colony was built on a dwarf planet in the fourth galactic quadrant and was given the name: Colony 42.

Colony 42 was set up on the south side of the planet on an arid plane where the first stage of the planet’s exploitation would take place. When humans first discovered the planet known to them as Astra-L7, they sent out a fleet of rovers to determine whether it had any resources to be interested in. The rover that was sent to the south of the planet found traces of Zaphyte in its soil and under further inspection, it was determined that the concentration of said mineral increased the deeper the soil was sampled. Much like uranium was used in nuclear power plants by humans in earlier times, Zaphyte is transformed and used to fuel most of the human activities in other planets. The problem with it was that up to that point it had never been found in its raw state, only being achieved through a long process that derived it from another mineral. The reliance on this fuel created a high demand for it so any planet that showed signs of having it in abundance was immediately deemed off high interest. That is why Colony 42 was set up, having as a main purpose the exploration and exploitation of Zaphyte.

The colony is constituted of five main sites, the digging site where Zaphyte would be extracted from, the laboratory where it would first be tested and its quality would be assured, two residential areas for military and scientist personnel, and a more distant docking site where the ships landed and remained parked. It is set up in an arrow formation, the tail of the arrow is the docking bay followed to the north by the first residential area destined for those who work at the bay. At the tip of the arrow is the laboratory which is connected to the second residential area destined to the personnel working at the lab on the west side, and to the digging site to the east. Due to the planet’s atmosphere, the air isn't breathable for humans so all of the sites are inside their individual dome, only being connected by a road.

The domes have a unique atmosphere which allows humans to experience the same conditions as on Earth, therefore humans can breathe in them without O2 tanks and gravity is the same as on Earth. They also grant the opportunity for terrestrial flora to be planted. The domes have another purpose which is to protect humans from the natural environment of planet Astra-L7 whose extreme night and day temperatures would be unsuitable for human life. The domes are made of AndroFe which allows the separation and maintenance of the habitable conditions from the outside ones but also allows the natural environment to be seen from the inside out. The residential area for the lead scientists and executive personnel resembles an American suburb in a cul de sac design, having around five to six houses in each one, they were designed that way as a homage to earlier visions of how a space colony would look like. The interior of the houses was equipped with the latest technologies all the way to the state of the art transmitter MaRv-1n with an unprecedented 50k lightyear range. Meanwhile, the residential area for the rest of the personnel (other scientists, lab technicians, docking bay workers, etc…) was more like a central neighbourhood made of small 3 story buildings.  

The digging site was chosen based on where soil samples and other metrics showed the highest concentration of Zaphyte. Using a process similar to seismic reflection scientists were able to identify a large mass of what they believed to be Zaphyte and the digging started towards this mass. During the process, scientists came to discover an underground chamber in which they found elements of a new alien species that inhabit the planet. [Full alien description after sketches completed]. These seemed to be disturbed by the atmospheric change caused by the dome, giving the biologists an opportunity to select a few and take them back to the laboratory for further examination. This discovery caused a halt in digging operations and a suspension to the mission until further notice.

At the laboratory, biologists were quick to realise bright light caused extreme discomfort to the alien species and exposure to direct light killed one of their subjects, so they were careful to perform their tests under as little light as possible. They discovered the subjects emitted a soft [colour] toned bioluminescence that was caused by a chemical reaction from their bodies digesting Senatol which made them secrete Zaphyte. This was a huge discovery since it meant an endless supply of Zaphyte for as long as the species lived. The scientists decided to call them Vonkrans and moved them into chambers that would mimic their natural habitat except for the light conditions, this caused the aliens to come out of their daze and become aggressive towards the scientists, one of which was shoved into a wall and, in a pure stroke of bad luck, straight into the light switch. This made them lose all advantage they had against the Vonkrans who proceeded to attack and kill them.

Here’s a funny thing about Vonkrans, they are very similar to a parasite in the way that they can latch onto a host body and get whatever they want from it. Vonkrans latches onto a host’s nervous system, in the human case, it uses a piercing extremity to insert its needle-like appendages that latch on to the spinal cord just under the C1 vertebrae and all the way down to the S1. This makes the parasite have full control over the bodies mobility and other bodily functions so it allows the parasite to survive in the host’s environment. They took full advantage of their new bodies to seek out more of them for the rest of their colony so their species could thrive on the planets modified surface.

While all of that was going down, Arthur was at home drinking something that resembled tea but didn't taste quite right. As the lead scientist for Zaphyte exploitation in the weaponry division, he was supposed to be in the laboratory working, however since the operation was put on hold due to the discovery of our latest friends, he was currently sitting on his couch thinking about what was so off-putting about his almost-but-not-quite-right-tea.

Arthur grew up on a planet in the second galactic quadrant that goes by the name of Earth 2, it was given that name in homage to Earth 1 that became uninhabitable due to the extreme climate conditions caused by centuries of not respecting its limits. Earth 2 is extremely similar to its predecessor environment wise, so humans wasted no time in making it a colony. His parents owned a farm where he lived for his entire childhood, as he was homeschooled he had a lot of time to explore the land around his home and picked up the habit of drawing it. As he grew up he realised his biggest passion was the nature he had been drawing for most of his life so he decided to dedicate his life to one of the most underrated (in his opinion) science fields which were galactic geology. The study of the rocks of which celestial bodies are composed, and the processes by which they change over time fascinated him to no end. Unfortunately after completing his degree, he quickly realised that not only was it an underrated science field but it was also an underpaid one with not many job opportunities that considerably sparked his interest. The overwhelming need he had for paying his bills and student debt lead him straight into the military and their weapon development course in a neighbour planet Dartona-82 (which he entered as a favour from a friend of his father). Arthur wasn’t too passionate about his new course but he wasn’t going to complain about being housed and fed especially since a job was waiting for him at the end of the course. It was only on his third year when he realised maybe he could pursue his dream career after all, like many people he didn’t pay too much attention to things he took for granted, such as breathing. Breathing in Dartona-82 was permitted by the O2 generators all over the bases that ran on Zaphyte, which was brought to Arthur’s attention when then one in his dorm stopped working, near-death experience aside, this lead him to have a bigger interest for the resource. Once he graduated he voiced this interest to his superiors on the base which were also intrigued by the idea which got him to a weaponry research lab on another planet and after many years of research on Arthurs end he concluded that Zaphyte not only could be used as ammunition but also it would be the most powerful one known to Man. The development of such weapon would be hard to do since it required a large amount of Zaphyte which’s deriving process made it not seem worth the hassle. But Arthur remained in the department trying his best to figure out how to bypass the process. That is until Astra-L7 was found along with its seeming abundance of pure raw Zaphyte.  

However Arthur was not alone in Colony 42, he was with his wife Tracy and their twins. He had met Tracy while on his course at the Dartona-82 weaponry base, working endless hours on the project had made his apathetic towards other elements of his life he had no time for such as dating. During one of his tea breaks, he overheard a conversation about a colleague that had met her wife on a dating platform called Celestial Connections (CC for short) and was recommending it to another co-worker. Although she hadn’t been talking to him Arthur felt she might as well had been because suddenly he was hopeful that maybe his whole life wouldn't just be weapons and Zaphyte and he signed up that very same night. He didn’t find his match right away in fact it took him nearly two years, but he had always been an optimistic guy so he knew Ms.Right had to be out there somewhere. Somewhere happened to be Bellum-35 a military base twice the size of Earth 2 and the biggest military base in the galaxy, Tracy was studying there also in the weaponry department under the explosives division. The two of them bonded over weapons (how romantic) and formed a nice long-distance relationship, and it was quite the distance that separated them by almost 20 thousand lightyears, they were barely in range of each other’s transmitters. As fate would have it, Arthur was transferred to conduct his research to no other than Bellum-35 where he moved in with Tracy and the rest as some would say is history.

Arthur was still very fond of drawing, every planet he visited had been in his sketches and even soon to be displayed on the walls of their new home but the ones he held closer to his heart were from Earth 2. Nothing could ever compare to the fields outside his window, the muted earth tones turning to bright versions of themselves only to fall back to their muteness once the seasons changed again, the scent of the crops after the first rain, the way his chest filled with warmth after drinking his favourite morning beverage. The latest one was currently tugging on his heartstrings as he laid his gaze back to the hot liquid occupying his mug, it was alright though soon enough he’d wish his biggest problem was an almost-but-not-quite-right-tea.

[itraininginchandigarh]

Animation courses after 12 in Chandigarh

Animation courses after 12 in Chandigarh: Animation is the process of giving life to stable images. It creates a sense of an illusion of motion in static images by photographing the subject matter one frame at a time and afterward, it displays the images in quick series at high frames per second.

The students who are interested in creating animations like generating lighting, backgrounds and creating special characters can choose animation courses after 12th in Chandigarh. There are several 2-years associate and 3/4-years bachelor’s degree courses in animation. Generally, animation courses do not require any essential skills or knowledge but students should have a basic working knowledge of computers and must be capable of utilizing colors, graphics, and sounds. It is one of the creative fields where a learner should choose their own high imagination qualities and fast improvisation skills. A learner who selects an animation course learns the traditional digital techniques like stop-motion, claymation, 2-D and 3-D animation.

Eligibility – The students who have passed 10+2 (streams – Science, Commerce or Arts) from a recognized board are eligible to pursue the animation course. There are no minimum marks criteria for this course but in some cases, institutes demand 50% marks.

If you are searching for the best animation courses after 12th? You are actually standing at the crossroad of chances as far as your choice is concerned. There are various opportunities on offer, from B.A and B.Sc graduate courses to specialized certificate and diploma courses in animation in chandigarh. Click and discover the best animation courses after class 12th and find all the information you may want right from admission to placement.

Degree Courses

B. Sc (Multimedia)

B. Sc (Multimedia and Animation)

B.Sc (Animation)

B.Design (Multimedia)

B.Design (Multimedia)

B.Sc Graphic Design

BA in 3D Animation and Visual Effects (BA [AVFX])

BA in VFX animation

BFA (Animation)

Advanced diploma courses

Graduate Diploma in Print, Broadcast, multimedia journalism or online

2D and 3D Animation

3D Game development and programming

ACGPS (Advanced CG Pipeline) Specialization

Advanced diploma in 3D animation

Advanced diploma in animation and gaming

Advanced diploma in Digital Animation

Advanced diploma in Game Art

Animaster Maya Professional

Animation Film Making

Certificate courses

Certificate Course in Adobe Photoshop

Certificate Course in Adobe Illustrator

Certificate Course in Adobe In Design

Certificate Course in Adobe Premiere

Certificate Course in Particle Illusion

Certificate Course in Flash

Certificate Course in Director

Certificate Course in Anime Studio

Certificate Course in Dream weaver

Animation Courses Skills and Qualities

Necessarily, to become an animator, one should have a number of few qualities and skills –

Powerful Observation

Concentration

Minute Attention

Drawing

Sketching

Creativity

Software skills

Team-spirit

This article provides you a complete guide for Animation and various related courses in India in this particular field. It lists and talks in detail about numerous animation courses you can pursue after finishing your 12th and after your graduation.

IMPORTANCE OF ANIMATION IN TODAY’S WORLD

The animation is an art which plays a very important role in the business world as well as touches the lives of general masses. In this world of digital marketing, a lot of animation is used on the internet for advancement among the target audience. We come across animation on other mediums such as print media and television as it is one of the most adaptable and flexible means. The requirement for animation arises as a form of an excellent means of interactivity that helps to communicate the concept of any kind to a large number of audiences, whether young or old.

People accept that it is the medium that can bring ideas or thoughts to real life through character outlining. Animations are made by puting time and effort besides money in a storyline. This storyline has to be well scripted to keep the audience engaged and enveloping to the end. Animation has been used since ages to approach the general masses. For a generation, we have been watching characters like Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Tom, and Jerry, etc. which have lived in our memories more than any text we might have read recently.

Career and Job Opportunities Under

Animation Courses

Unlike in old times, the demand for animators in the industries is increasing speedily. Animators are now required in different sectors of the economy.

Owing to such high demand, the number of job opportunities and career prospects is also enhancing in the field of Animation.

Below, we have stated a few of the career fields where Animators can advance.

A Director

Script Writer

Illustrator

Digital Painter

Modeler

Editor

Production Designer

Storyboard Artist

Layout Artist

Animator

Compositor

Animators can also select to work under firms and industries. Some of the sectors with a high demand for animators include

Animation Studios

Film Production Houses

Advertising Agencies

Game developing Firms

Media Agencies

Post-production Houses

Web Entities

Job Prospects, Scope and Salary

A decade back, animation courses were not so famous among the Indian students. With the growth of Indian animation films and cartoons, the animation courses in India started to gain popularity. The film production units along with the animation companies are investing huge amounts of money to improve the quality of animation in India. They have realized the possibility that animation has in the Indian market. So, there is a need for qualified and skillful animators in the industry.

The animation is not just about sketching, drawing, and giving life to characters. It is much more than that. A good animator has to go through various stages and processes before releasing a good piece of animation. The job profiles of an animator are –

1. Layout Artist 2. Product Designer 3. Digital Painter 4. Editor 5. Illustrator 6. Director 7. StoryBoard Artist 8. Script Writer 9. Animator

There are freelance work opportunities for animators. They can also start their own journey or work for companies in domains like Advertising Agencies, Film Production Houses, Computer and Mobile Game Developers, Animation Studios or Media Agencies.

The starting salary of an animator ranges from 10k-15k. With experience, the salary transmission capacity increases to 25k-10k. A good animator can also earn a high amount of 50k-60k.

[healthbetold]

Vacan makes Olympics 17 years after eating disorder forced her to quit racing – The Reporter

Robyn Stevens made an unlikely path to the Summer Olympics in the mysterious sport of race walking.

It probably should never have happened – not 17 years after she quit attending San Jose State because of an eating disorder.

“When I left in 2004, I didn’t see myself coming back,” Stevens said this week. “I was ready.”

Stevens, 38, qualified for the Tokyo Games on June 26 by winning the 20-kilometer race at the US Olympic Trials in Springfield, Oregon. With a winning time of 1 hour and 35.13 minutes, she was the first woman from the state of San Jose to be accepted into a US Olympic team since discus thrower Margaret Jenkins in 1932.

Her friend Nick Christie won the men’s 20 km in Oregon and secured an Olympic place with it.

Racewalking has been an Olympic sport since 1908, although it wasn’t until 1992 that women made their debut in Barcelona. The sport has only two rules, the biggest of which is that hikers must always stand with one foot on the ground. Losing contact with the ground is referred to as “flying,” a violation that is called by the judges on the course and can lead to disqualification. The races are 20 km (12.4 miles). There is a 50K (31 miles) event for men only.

The US has never won a medal in women; Larry Young is the only American bronze medalist in 1968 and 1972. Stevens, who ranks 54th in the world, is unlikely to change that, but it will be on August 7th in Sapporo at the age of 38 go a victory for yourself.

The Vacaville racer looked like a potential Olympic competitor for the 2004 Athens Games until she suffered from eating problems in response to college weight gain at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where she began her college career before going to the State of San Jose changed.

The National Eating Disorders Association estimates that 30 million Americans will have an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Top athletes in endurance sports such as running are at greater risk of developing problems.

“In the competitive sports world where there are performance-minded individuals, they’ll do pretty much anything to get that gold medal,” said Katherine A. Beals, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Utah.

Stevens said she had no one to speak to about her condition while she was in Parkside. She returned to California for assistance. Stevens pours water over his head on a hot day at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials. (AP photo / Charlie Riedel)

She said to her former youth coach in Solano County, “What I do to my body could kill me.”

Stevens moved to the state of San Jose for the 2003 cross-country season while he continued to struggle with his illness.

Stevens said she survived on two ice cream biscuit sandwiches a day because it only cost her $ 3 and provided the 2,000 calories she thought she needed.

During that time, a San Jose State teammate confided in Stevens that she had eating problems. The teammate even told Stevens about a product that made her vomit.

Stevens didn’t tell the teammate about her own trauma or how she would vomit badly after eating to remove the food.

But she bought the Expectorans the same day her friend mentioned it.

Stevens has since learned that she suffered from the early stages of the female athlete triad, a combination of eating disorders, missed menstruation, and osteoporosis that led to lifelong health problems.

In early 2004, she decided to stop the induced vomiting because it was causing so much pain. But she took the drug again after a cross-country race in which she set disappointing times.

Two days later, Stevens said, racer Al Heppner killed himself by jumping off a bridge in San Diego County after failing to reach the 50-kilometer Olympic team.

“He just gave up,” she says.

Stevens realized that her state of mind might be similar to Heppner’s.

“It’s no different for me,” she thought at the time, “I no longer concentrate on winning. I just concentrate on getting thin. ”

Stevens called her mother to say that she was through with competitive sports because it had become a toxic environment. She would end the season with SJSU and then quit.

“I hate myself and I hate food,” she told her mother. “How do I live?”

San Jose graduate Robyn Stevens celebrates victory in the women’s 20-kilometer race at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials in Springfield, Oregon on Saturday. (AP photo / Charlie Riedel)

Beals, the author of Disordered Eating Among Athletes, said some of the main causes of the problem are pressure to be thin, go faster, and be aware of body image with the kind of skimpy uniforms that distance athletes often wear.

“You put such pressure on an athlete and I’m surprised they don’t all have eating disorders,” said Beals, a retired triathlete.

Stevens struggled for years to feel good, though the condition never required hospitalization or clinical help.

She had several jobs to help fund her college and graduated with an arts degree in 2007. The dangerous behavior of starving, eating, and overtraining to clean the food didn’t stop when she left the SJSU cross-country team. Stevens said she still suffered for years, including symptoms of body dysmorphism.

“Every time I looked in the mirror, I cried,” she says.

When Stevens was fit enough to train again, she stopped thinking about the Olympics. This time she did it for fun.

A friend persuaded Stevens to take part in a 20K race in Sacramento in 2014. Not only did she compete, she qualified for the 2016 US Olympic Trials and even surprised herself in only her second race at this length.

Vacaville Olympian Robyn Stevens is photographed on Thursday July 1, 2021 at Al Patch Park in Vacaville, California. Stevens travels to the Tokyo Olympics after qualifying for the 20K race. (Jose Carlos Fajardo / Bay Area News Group)

Following the success of qualifying for the Olympics, Stevens became concerned that returning to full-time competition would bring a return to her health problems.

“I don’t know if I’m well suited to racing,” she said. “If I wanted to come back to this, I had to know that it would be a healthy relationship and that it wouldn’t cause abuse.”

Stevens kept the idea at bay until he competed in the 2015 Pan American Race Walking Cup in Chile.

The pull was too strong. Stevens loved racing. She made it to the Team World Championship in 2016, but suffered a strained calf about a month before the Olympic Trials in which she finished 11th.

Robyn Stevens of Vacaville (right), a San Jose State graduate, won the 20 km race at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon on June 26, 2021 to qualify for the Tokyo Games. Her friend Nick Christie (right) won the men’s 20K but is waiting to see if he meets Olympic qualifying standards. (AP photo / Charlie Riedel)

The disappointing experience motivated Stevens to apply for the Tokyo Games. She wanted to take part in at least one US test in good health. But it didn’t seem feasible because the racers have to support themselves financially.

Stevens was ready to forget her dream until the owner of the Campbell tax firm she worked for suggested that they devote the next four years to running.

She quit her job to give the sport another chance.

Stevens said she cried the day before the race last weekend in Oregon and remembered all the people who have helped her over the past two decades.

Some of those tears also represented how she found her way back from the dark nearly two decades after her first qualification for Olympic trials.

“This athletic version of me is the best I’ve ever been,” said Stevens.

The post Vacan makes Olympics 17 years after eating disorder forced her to quit racing – The Reporter first appeared on Health be Told.

source https://healthbetold.com/vacan-makes-olympics-17-years-after-eating-disorder-forced-her-to-quit-racing-the-reporter/

[darcyfirth]

Hartwin fic recs (2/?)

[Long post]

These are lovingly saved in my laptop's Kindle and I love them dearly. It's umbrellas this time, glasses if I made part 3.

Authors' tagged tropes are included and I tried my best not to include spoilers. As usual my comments are in italics.  

☂️ Sparking - LapisLazuli. E, 2k. Traped in a closet trope. 

“Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while,” Harry whispers, calm as you please, as if Eggsy’s face isn’t pressed directly into the little hollow between his neck and his shoulder, as if Eggsy isn’t drowning in the fucking scent of his cologne, as if the fabric of his bespoke suit isn’t caressing Eggsy’s cheek like a goddamn lover.

☂️ Red Striped Ties - violentcheese. G, 1k. Red string of fate AU.

"Eggsy is the ragamuffin kid who refuses to stop hanging the Kingsman Tailor shop because he has a crush on Harry Hart, the owner."

Eggsy follows his string patiently. Harry ignores his.

☂️ You Get Up With Fleas - evil_brainmate. T, 74k. Corgi/prince!Eggsy. My first time prompting someone (with my old url) and the result is so much more than I expected.

Eggsy is a fairy prince, trapped in the human world and cursed to transform each day into a corgi. Harry Hart is a gentleman spy, and mortal, who picks him up thinking he's a stray. The two of them must work together to find a way to break the curse.

☂️ Paint With all the Colours of the Wind - Della19. G, 1k. Soulmates AU. 

Harry x Eggsy soulmate au where you only see colour once you meet your soulmate (so you don’t know them until you see them).

And it goes away when they die.

☂️ our vintage misery - fideliant. E, 23k. Pining, slow burn. 

hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?

On a difficulty scale of one to saving the world, love shouldn't be this far off the charts.

☂️ into the wails of your windfight - fideliant. E, 8k. Pining. 

It takes a mission gone wrong for Eggsy to find out that even in real life, the dead don't always stay dead. Sometimes the movies get that part right, it would seem.

☂️ Class Of Conduct - fideliant. E, 13k. Slow burn. 

Or, Six Things Eggsy Has Learned About Being A Gentleman

“Lesson number one,” Harry says. “Manners matter.”

☂️ Random Access Memories - fideliant. E, 20k. Memory loss.

Having a supercomputer in your head isn't all that much to be cracked up about.

☂️ down dark tides the glory slides - fideliant. E, 23k. Pining, memory loss. 

You only ever truly hurt the ones you love.

☂️ Or Else - breakdancingfish. M, 4k.

Before they’re allowed to go out on their own, Eggsy and Roxy form a four person team with Harry and Merlin, completing several missions together. Oh, and Harry is the world’s biggest tease. Of course.

☂️ We Are Faking It - lokidiabolus. T, 62k. Fake relationship, slow burn.

For Eggsy it was a thing - he was taking from Harry enough, now was the time he should give something back. Even if it meant playing his lover to get the mission going and catch the culprit. Who would it be if not him, right? Right.

☂️ 57 Degrees. Precisely. - Galahard. M, 6k. Marine!Eggsy, texing, coffee shop AU.

In an alternate world Eggsy goes into the Marines, and stays in the Marines. This is a take on that au, though please forgive my lack of actual Marine knowledge. Also included: finicky coffee drinkers, texting addictions, and baristas with ulterior motives.

☂️ A Not So Lazy Evening - Galahard. E, 3k. Bottom!Harry, PWP. Really good read.

☂️ Vermillion - Galahard. E, 14k. Shy!Harry, slow burn.

He didn't know what to do with that. He didn't blush. He wasn't some teenager to be so affected by anything Eggsy did. Though really, he couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at someone and not pictured them in his bed but rather his dining room, chowing down on too sugary cereal while loudly revealing his plans for the day.

☂️ Soulmates - Galahard. 1k. Soulmates AU. How much do I adore this? A lot.

For Harry Hart's 16th birthday he not only gets his soul mark.

He gets a complete sentence.

☂️ Withdrawal - Saucery. T, 1k. Pining, finger kink.

Eggsy goes into withdrawal without Harry’s touch.

☂️ The Language of Flowers - Saucery. M, 1k. Flower shop AU, florist!Eggsy, lawyer!Harry, meet-cute, mutual pining.

Eggsy is a florist with an attitude. Harry is a lawyer with a conscience. Flowers bring them together.

☂️ The King’s Thief - twentyfourblackbirds. T, 8k.

"Harry," Eggsy said one day, while Harry was deep in a report about weapons smuggling in Ukraine. "I really fancy you." "Mmm-hmm," Harry responded, flipping to another chapter about airline safety standards in Indonesia. "If I had to say it," Eggsy mused, slightly put out, "I would, in fact, say that I am deeply, wildly, and madly in love with you." "That's very good, Eggsy," Harry said absentmindedly, scrawling his signature at the bottom of the paper. Eggsy sighed. "Sometimes, I might think you don't listen to a word I say."

☂️ Patience and Sheer Determinaiton - blacktofade. E, 47k. Fake relationship, prostitute!Eggsy.

Harry goes undercover to infiltrate the circle of a corrupt overlord and is given Eggsy, a young prostitute, as a token of goodwill. Harry has to live with Eggsy and keep him safe, while maintaining his cover.

☂️ Care and Custody - esama. T, 50k.

Eggsy takes out the medal in slightly worse circumstances, asking for a miracle.

☂️ How Eggsy Met Harry, As Told Through A Series of Soul Marks - thayde. 91k. Soulmates AU, WIP. I would warn you that this hasn't been updated for a long time now but if you have a brave heart then march on soldier.

Eggsy stares at the Mark on his chest sometimes, and wonders if his soulmate would ever settle for street trash like him.

☂️ Boyfriend Material - Deepdarkwaters. E, 3k. Mutual pining, oblivious!Eggsy.

"Are you a cigarette? Cos you're smoking hot and I wanna put your butt in my mouth."

☂️ Pig Latin - aerospaces. E, 10k. Fluff.

In Kenya, Eggsy falls off a flight of stairs. Or: lessons in cohabitation.

Eggsy discovers the joys of a home-cooked meal among many other things.

☂️ Considerably Less Cannibalism - LizaPod. E, 6k. Shaving, barebacking. This  one is the myth, the legend, the fic.

It is a real, physical struggle to not stare like a dogger while Harry shrugs off his jacket and undoes his collar, sets his signet ring aside. He has detailed, minutely detailed, fantasies about unbuttoning that fucking collar. At least he’s not wearing the holster right now, or Eggsy’d be sprung already. “It’s time you learned the fine art of the straight razor shave.”

Eggsy gives him his best you havin’ a fucking giggle, mate eyebrows. “Like Sweeney Todd?”

Harry’s sigh is just bordering on melodramatic, but he’s also got that odd— Roxy calls it enigmatic—smile he gets when Eggsy trots out some unexpected bit of culture. "Yes, Eggsy, like Sweeney Todd."

☂️ Kiss Me Now (before I can run) - persephoneggsy. M, 37k. Soulmates AU.

It wasn’t unusual, Eggsy told himself. There were plenty of people- just a little under half of the world’s population, really- that weren’t with their soulmates. Some of them just hadn’t met yet; others had died beforehand; and then there were the people in Eggsy’s situation. Sometimes people genuinely didn’t want their soulmates. Either they were in love with someone else, or they just didn’t like what they got stuck with, and Eggsy imagined the latter was very much the case with him and Harry. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for him, the world’s prime example of a posh bloke, to have his soulmate be some beaten-up kid. He would have rejected him too.

Or: soulmate AU where you know your soulmate from the moment you touch them, and when you do, their name gets written over your heart like a brand. But that's not always a guarantee.

☂️ “It suits you, you should keep it” - eggsystolemyhart. G, 600-ish.

"What...?"

"Pardon, Eggsy."

"What...?"

"Did you not hear me previously? I said it suits you, you should keep it."

"What...?"

☂️ Five Stars, Would Shag Again - EmmyAngua. E, 6k. Seduction.

This time, the penultimate task isn’t to seduce an heiress, it’s to seduce an agent. Merlin assures the final three that the agent is chosen entirely at random.

So of *course* it’s Harry.

☂️ are we human, or are we dynamite - randomhorse. M, 13k. Pacific Rim AU. 

It’s been seventeen years since Harry has lost his co-pilot Lee Unwin in the drift, and still the world won’t stop ending.

In the Hong Kong Shatterdome, Merlin is launching a new line of Kingsman Jaegers fit to fight Category 4 Kaijus emerging from the Breach.

In the suburbs of London, Eggsy Unwin gets the draft for Jaeger Academy.

☂️ who got the keys to my bimmer - hartwinning. M, 69k. Mutual pining, mechanic!Eggsy, UST, slow burn.

"What's the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?"

Harry gives him a slightly bewildered look and furrows his brow.

"A porcupine has the pricks on the outside," Eggsy finishes.

☂️ hold courage to your chest - Fahye. E, 46k. I adore this.

Eggsy slumps against the wall, feeling every bruise like it's new, and tells the truth.

"You want to make sure I jump when I'm told?" he demands. "It'd better be you doing the telling, Harry."

☂️ Bang to Rights - concernedlily. E, 17k. Police AU.

Constable Unwin never met a tailor before, but he knows this bloke who keeps turning up at his crime scenes ain't one.

☂️ Breakeven - theshizniiit (orphan_account). E, 85k. Omega!Harry, mpreg.

When Harry walked inside the church (and then out of it, and right into Valentine's bullet) he didn't know he was pregnant.

And now he's back from the dead. This time, with an extra passenger and quite a few problems.

☂️ The New Age - DivineProjectZero. Soulmates AU.

It starts with being cursed.

No, scratch that. It starts with a garden and a serpent. And no, it goes a little differently from what you’d think.

☂️ You Are Beautiful - Sheepie. G, 8k. Coffee shop AU.

Eggsy Unwin works as a barista at the Suited Bean. He's been in love with regular customer Harry Hart for a long time, but he never said anything. Who would want to date someone his size? But Harry sees nothing wrong with the way Eggsy looks.

☂️ Couple of (Couples) Mugs - ilokheimsins. T, 2k. Fluff. 

Harry and Eggsy absolutely do not have couples mugs that proclaim their love for one another. Harry is about 70 percent sure of this.

☂️ Gimme All Your Love - midnightsurge. M, 11k. Fireman!Eggsy, rimming.

“Sorry,” a soothing, male voice started hesitantly, “but… didn’ I pull you out of a burnin’ building a few weeks ago?”

Harry nearly choked on his drink as the question registered in his mind, his brown eyes flicking to the side to confirm that, yes indeed, it was Eggsy standing there with wide eyes.

���Fuck, sorry!” Eggsy apologised profusely as he held his hands up, wanting to help but unsure how to do so. “Ain’t meant to startle you!”

Or

Eggsy is a fireman. He saves Harry's life when a mission goes awry. A few weeks later, they meet again.

☂️ Rules of Insanity - inthepapers3times. E, 54k. Dark!Eggsy. 

The worst mistake of Harry Hart’s life started like many of the minor mistakes he had made: with a one night stand. If only he had taken the taxi all the way to his house. Maybe then he wouldn't have met this particular young man, and he wouldn't have taken him home. Maybe then all of this could have been avoided.

Harry gets pulled into a dangerous game with Gary, a disturbed man he barely knows, and has no choice but to play along.

Gary is in control completely. He makes the rules. Harry is just forced to follow them.

☂️ dig in your fingers - kirkaut. E, 42k. First time, body worship.

The lack of a silver suppository has set Eggsy upon a certain path. The way that Eggsy looks, dripping wet and half naked, sets Harry on another.

(Or: Total Canon Re-Write, aka The One Where Harry's Libido Saves His Life)

☂️ sins without tragedies - kingstier. T, 11k. 5 + 1. Fake marriage.

"Harry, are we married?"

"Aren't we?"

Or, the five times they're practically married and the one time they're not (yet).

☂️ 5 Knots Harry made + 1 Knot Eggsy tied - therune. T, 2k. 5 + 1. I love this immensely!

Whenever Eggsy gets dressed in his suit he purposefully skips a button or struggles with his tie so that Harry is forced to step into his personal space and fix it for him.

☂️ Like Real People Do - coloursflyaway. T, 3k. 5 + 1. Undercover, first kiss.

Five times Eggsy called Harry a pet name, and one time Harry called Eggsy one.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE VENTURE ANIMAL

But you may have to like debugging to like programming, considering the degree to which programming consists of it. Don't talk and drive. The easiest way to get started in angel investing is to find a friend who already does it, and have never spoken to a group of people they didn't already know. This seems to me the leading theory to explain why the exit polls so wrong? A round is two founders, two VCs, and one independent. I bet even Google had moments where things seemed hopeless. The big disadvantage of the new system is that it seems promising enough to be worth trying, and all the VCs know is that their new model seems promising enough to be worth trying, and all Evan and Joshua had to do was grow that core incrementally. I've been wondering about that.1

The central issue is picking the right startups is for investors. I've said before, is a dangerously misleading example. At some firms it's over 50%.2 In fact, it's kind of weird when you think of yourself as rich there's some amount that would be painless, though annoying, to lose.3 Maybe they made you feel better, but we didn't have much hope. All the search engines are trying to get people to start calling them portals instead. That should last several years at least, and maybe a lot longer.

One, Reddit, had already launched, and were eager to tell pollsters they had. The results so far bear this out. And not just for the obvious reason that more competition for deals means better terms. Considering that the summer founders learned a lot from one another—maybe more than they learned from us. And that means they need to get as much of the company away from all the existing shareholders just as you did.4 The super-angels could win practically all the returns are concentrated in a few big hits, and those who prefer to bet on markets. Google didn't come close to that.5 That's less the rule now. One interesting consequence of this fact is that there are a lot of money from a deal, it's not imaginary either. Some of the startups that take money from super-angels are in most respects mini VC funds, they've retained this critical property of angels. The traditional board structure after a series A.6 Most will self-destruct before you can finish.7

A super-angel has some of the startups from preventable deaths. But don't give them more than four or five numbers, and only take money from super-angels is good news for two reasons: a it's an encouraging thought, and b it means that Y Combinator, we planned to invest the way other venture firms do: as proposals came in, we'd evaluate them and decide yes or no. That's a signal to everyone else that they think you're lame. The problem is not finding startups, exactly, but finding a stream of reasonably high quality ones. Don't try to seem more than you are at producing it. Experienced investors are well aware that the best ideas are also the scariest.8 The traditional series A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and we make a point of exerting less. There are sometimes minor tactical advantages to using one or the other. Y Combinator started in Boston, and for the first 3 years we ran alternating batches in Boston and Silicon Valley.9 Investors don't expect you to collect all that money, but mainly because it shows you care about: how much money you're putting in, and they'll sense that.

Are there zero users who really love you, all you have to do anything if you don't want to give the impression there were no problems this summer.10 I were a boss making people work this hard. Too much money seems to be as bad for startups as too much time, so we don't give them more than four or five numbers, and only give them numbers specific to you. Whereas if investors seem hot, you can be as convinced as you like about your idea, and it also has to be some plausible sequence of hops that leads to dominating a large market. Angels would invest $20k to $50k apiece, and VCs usually a million or more. This kind of expert witness can add credibility, even if the audience doesn't understand all the details. When we were visiting Yahoo to talk about it.11

Notes

Don't invest so much pain, it increases your confidence in a cubicle except late at night to make a more powerful, because such users are stupid.

Why go to die. MITE Corp. Ron Conway had been trained that anything hung on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was putting local grocery stores out of the business much harder it is certainly part of wisdom. If anyone remembers such an idea?

A country called The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably not quite as harmless as we think we're as open as one could argue that the http requests are indistinguishable from those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, and one kind that's called into being to commercialize a scientific discovery. But not all are.

Ian Hogarth suggests a way to tell computers how to deal with them. If you're good you'll have to pass.

Which is also to the prevalence of systems of seniority.

The first assumption is widespread in text classification.

I'm sure for every startup we had to write a new version of this type of x. Fortuna! That is the most convincing pitch can't sell an idea where there were 5 more I didn't like it takes a startup.

6% of the causes of the world, and why it's next to impossible to succeed in a couple years. Maybe markets will eventually get comfortable with potential earnings.

If a prestigious VC makes a small set of good startups, has one booked for them. 339-351.

An hour old is not to like to invest at a middle ground. That follows necessarily if you ban other ways to make peace. Never attribute to malice what can be times when what you're doing something, but all they demand from art as stuff.

Because we want to take action, there are those that have it as a constituency. Not all were necessarily supplied by the high score thrown out seemed the more powerful version written in 6502 machine language.

[antionetterparker]

Ranking the 39 best ways to get out of debt in 2019

Whether your mountain of debt started with a shopping spree where you got a little trigger happy with the plastic or pursuing a fancy liberal arts degree, you’re here because you want to take a bulldozer to that mountain and finally be #debtfree.

Sitting on a big pile of debt is basically burning piles of money on the reg. For some perspective, Americans with commercial debt spend, on average, $1,300 per month on interest payments. (1)

That’s more than a lot of people’s rent, and it does nothing but keep collections at bay.

This only solution is to pay your debt off faster. This post covers how to do that in 3 different ways:

Improving the terms of your debt

Cutting costs

Making extra disposable income

Be sure to check out my other rankings: best online business ideas, small business ideas, and how to make money fast.

Let’s do this. Ranked by how quickness, sustainability, and ease, here are the best ways to get out of debt:

39. Do the math

If you’ve got $20,000 in credit card debt and you’re making $300 payments each month, it’ll be just over 12 years until you’re debt-free. You’ll have basically lit more than $23,000 on fire in the form of interest payments.

Use a debt repayment calculator like Credit Karma’s (2) to crunch the numbers and figure out exactly how long it’s going to take you to pay off your debt and how much you’ll be paying in interest.

38. Automate your finances

Self-made millionaire David Bach wrote a whole book on this one called “The Automatic Millionaire”, saying that it’s “the one step that virtually guarantees that you won’t fail financially.” (3)

Set a goal for when you want to finish paying off your debt and use the flipside of that debt calculator to calculate how much you’d have to pay each month to do that. Set up automatic payments on all of your credit cards and loans to that monthly minimum.

Recent college grads: the US Department of Education gives you a 0.25% interest discount just for setting up autopay, and many private lenders give you up to 0.50% off. (4) Not a lot, but it takes like 20 seconds to sign up for autopay.

37. Pay the maximum

A whopping 73% of Americans die in debt. A big reason is that many of them (yep, lookin’ at you) are only paying the minimum on their debt, which is the best way to stay in debt forever.

Instead, pay the maximum amount your budget will allow each month. Those courtside tickets can wait until AFTER you’ve paid off your debt.

36. The “avalanche” method

Call it the avalanching, stacking, or the ladder method, it’s all the same: hands down the most financially savvy and efficient method for paying off multiple different streams of debt.

Pay off your high-interest debts first (usually your credit cards). Set your automatic payments to the minimum on all of your cards and loans except the one with the highest interest rate: throw all the money you can at that one until it’s gone. Then target your second highest interest rate using all the extra money you have in the absence of the first debt, and so on.

35. The “snowball” method

For those who need to be coddled a little, snowballing is paying off your smallest debts first so that these little wins can motivate you to attack larger, more intimidating debts.

That initial boost of confidence that the snowballing method creates has helped people tackle $50k+ in debt in just a few years. (5)

34. Cash out your credit card cashback

If you’ve got cashback sitting around on any of your credit cards from incurring all this debt, you may as well take advantage of it.

Don’t try to earn any more cashback until you’re debt-free, though.

33. Put windfalls towards your debt

Put any random money you earn outside your regular income towards your debt.

Whether it’s a work bonus, birthday money, a holiday gift, your tax refund, or a $100 you found on the ground, directing that money towards your debt puts you a little bit closer to debt-free status.

32. Sell stuff

Don’t lie, you probably have a basement, garage, or closet somewhere that looks like an audition for Hoarders (without the dead cats, I hope). I’m not going to preach to you about the “life-changing magic of cleaning out your garage”, but I am going to preach to you about how selling crap you don’t need to pay off debt you shouldn’t have is a good idea.

What’s that? You’re too lazy? You don’t even have to leave your house. Sell stuff from your phone on Letgo. (6) Try out Decluttr. (7)

31. Downgrade your stuff

Lifestyle inflation is real. People don’t like to downgrade their standard of living. But you have to if you want to double down on your debt.

This couple even sold their brand new car and got a used junker when they realized they could have used that money to pay off their debt. It probably stung a little, but they managed to pay off $52,000 of debt in just 18 months. (8)

30. Free entertainment

Instead of spending money on movies or concert tickets, seek out cheaper ways to have fun.

Look online and see what kind of free things are happening around your city. Outdoor festivals, movies in the park, all that stuff.

No need to be deathly bored while you’re climbing your way out of debt hell.

29. Garage sale arbitrage

Dig through cheap crap at garage sales, strike gold. Buy valuable items for a fraction of what they’re worth, and resell them online for a huge profit. Repeat.

Corey Levitan, a writer for Men’s Health, banks an extra $20,000 a year doing this. And he only spends 3-5 hours/week on it. (9)

28. Shop through cashback sites/apps

Cashback sites like Rakuten (10) give you money for shopping online and in-store, kinda like a delayed discount. When you cash out your earnings, put it all towards your debt. Also, use a debit card instead of a credit card when doing this unless you want to spend more time paying it off.

Don’t go on a shopping spree just for cashback, though. That’s exactly how a lot of people end up in credit card debt – cashback rewards on their credit cards.

Save these sites for those everyday purchases you have to make, like groceries or maybe clothing.

27. Buy everything with cash

Many studies have shown people generally spend less when they pay with cash than they pay with credit. (11)

Think about this: not only do you have to visit an ATM or bank any time you need cash, but watching those green bills leave your hand is more difficult than swiping/chipping/tapping a piece of plastic.

Also, you won’t be adding more to your current credit balances.

But this applies to debit cards, too. No debt involved with debit cards, but it’s still easier to swipe it than to hand over bills.

26. Keep the change

Take all the loose change you find or get back throughout the day and put it in a jar. Each month, deposit it all and use it to chip away at your debt.

25. Negotiate your bills

Anyone who tells you that you can’t negotiate bills is a liar. Everything is negotiable. According to Consumer Reports, 89% of people who try to bargain are successful at least once. (12)

Try your hand at haggling with your cable and internet bills, and then move up to the big leagues: medical bills, credit cards, and car insurance.

24. Lower your rent

Bargain with your landlord, especially if you live in an apartment: offer to extend your lease, give up your parking space, agree to show your apartment to potential renters, get some roommates, pay a few months’ rent upfront, or refer new renters for a discount.

The best time to negotiate is a few months before your lease ends.

23. Negotiate your credit card interest rate

Sometimes it really is as easy as just asking.

Time Magazine’s money experts recently did a personal finance boot camp that recommends you call up your credit card company and ask them for a lower APR. 80% of callers asking for a lower interest rate were successful. (13)

22. Don’t close credit cards

The second you pay off one credit card, you’ll probably want to immediately call up the credit card company and close it. Don’t.

Unless your card charges an annual fee, keep it open. Check the FICO 5. (14) One of the biggest factors making up your credit score (30%) is your credit to debt ratio. The less credit you have available to you, the higher that ratio, the lower your credit score.

21. Freeze your credit cards… literally

Of course, keeping your credit cards in your wallet after you pay them off is like a recovered cocaine addict keeping an old stash in his bedroom.

Stick them in a bowl of water and freeze it. Every time you want to take the plastic gods out on an impulsive shopping spree, you’ll have to wait for a block of ice to thaw while you think about your life choices.

20. Monitor your credit report

Monitor your credit report on a regular basis for any errors that could be hurting your credit score. If you see any, immediately submit a dispute to get them removed so you can nudge your score upwards to secure better interest rates in your negotiations.

Each of the 3 credit bureaus gives you 1 free report a year. (15) Sites like Credit Karma (16) let you look at your report as much as you want with no penalties as well.

19. Rent your stuff

Airbnb’s cutesy tiny houses and extravagant vacation rentals are taking over, but you don’t have to have real estate to make money renting things out anymore.

Rent out your bike/recreational gear on Spinlister. (17) Got an old bridesmaids dress or fancy tux lying around? Rent out clothing on Style Lend (18) and Date My Wardrobe. (19) Compete with Alamo by renting out your car on Turo (20) or GetAround. (21) And you can rent just about anything on RentNotBuy and Loanables. (22) (23)

18. Borrow against your life insurance

If you’ve got a permanent life insurance policy with a cash value, you can borrow from it to pay off your debt. Just make sure it doesn’t backfire. Interest rates are often lower with this method, but there are penalties involved (including burdening your beneficiaries if you die before the debt is paid off) and you could risk losing your life insurance.

17. Make every debt payment on time

No, not just to keep collections at bay. Paying your debts on time keeps your credit score as high as possible, seeing as it’s the most important (35%) of the 5 FICO credit score factors (24).

A higher credit score gives you more leverage when negotiating down your interest rates with your credit card companies. It also helps you secure a lower rate if you want to refinance/consolidate your debt, which you can learn about in the next two tips.

Also, paying on time means you avoid late fees, which are just a waste of money.

16. Refinance your debt

If you qualify for refinancing, you should 100% do it. Basically, you get a new, better (lower interest, usually a personal loan) loan to replace one of your old (higher interest) loans. You can cut years off of your repayment schedule by refinancing.

Pay attention to the term length of the loan you’re refinancing your debt with, though, especially with long-term debt like mortgages. Let’s say you have 5 years left on a 30-year mortgage. Refinancing to a lower interest rate will lower your payment, but you’ll end up paying thousands more in interest.

15. Debt consolidation

Consolidating debt is simply combining multiple debts into one debt by taking out a lower interest loan. Most of the time, consolidating your debt also involves refinancing your debt (see previous tip) – especially if you have several high-interest debt sources.

In addition, you can spend less time juggling 5 different debt accounts and making sure to pay everything on time. Less chance of incurring late fees or worse – the wrath of collections.

If you’ve got debt from more than 2 different sources, you should definitely consider a debt consolidation loan.

14. Balance transfer credit card

Live-saving credit cards exist: they offer a 0% interest rate for a specific “introductory period”, which can be 6 months, 12 months, or even 21 months. You transfer your debt to this card and pay it off interest-free.

Just make sure you pay it off in time, and don’t use it to spend.

The Chase Slate is the only 0% APR balance transfer card with no fees, (25) and the Citi Simplicity offers the longest introductory period of them all (21 months). (26)

13. Loan forgiveness

If you’re a teacher, public servant, permanently disabled, Peace Corps volunteer, nurse, or law enforcement and you have student loan debt, the government might actually pay it off for you.

You don’t get away scot-free, though; these programs usually require you to make 120 qualifying payments (aka 10 years of monthly payments) before you’re considered for loan forgiveness. Check out the Federal Student Aid website for details. (27)

Whether or not you’re forgiven for your gluttonous spending on a metaphysical level is another matter.

12. Have a small emergency fund

If you don’t have some cash set aside for emergencies, you’re going to incur more debt if you get into a bad car accident or something similar.

It doesn’t have to be a lot – $1,000 should be enough for the moment, and you can build it up in increments of as little as $50 a month if you need to.

11. Quit investing

Here’s the thing: paying down debt gets you a guaranteed return (in the form of interest you no longer have to pay), and that return is almost always more than you’d earn on the stock market and always more than you get from a savings account. (28)

Drop the investments for now and put any savings in excess of your small emergency fund toward being debt-free. Not only that, but consider selling some investments and putting the proceeds towards your debt.

10. Become a digital nomad

It’s no secret that I think working from home is the future, and I’m not alone. (Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company all agree). (29)

“Digital nomads” have traded in the 9-5 for a digital career that lets them roam the globe while they rake in cash. Aside from the obvious perks – from showing up at the “office” in your swim trunks to your “office” being a tropical island – you can also save tons of money by living somewhere cheap. The cost of living in Thailand is half what it is in the United States. Think about it. (30)

9. Gig economy jobs

Drive for Uber, doing odd jobs on TaskRabbit, shop for people with Shipt, you get the idea. These aren’t the most glamorous ways to make some extra cash, but money’s money and these jobs aren’t too hard to sign up for.

8. Teach a skill for pay

Monetize a skill you have by teaching others how to do it. Know how to play the guitar? Give private lessons. Excellent at a language? Find a language tutoring site and sign up to tutor others.

Even better, make an online course or eBook that teaches your skill for some passive income. Just make sure the content is actually useful.

7. SEO consulting

If you can learn a thing or two about SEO and find a company that would like to improve their SEO (every company), you can rake in enough side money to be out of debt asap. Entry-level SEO Consultants make about $50,000-$60,000/year…with no experience. (31)

6. Be a Virtual Assistant

If you don’t have time to learn technical skills, Virtual Assistants can make money doing any odd job that remote workers need help with, from making phone calls to making Pinterest boards. Find gigs on Upwork – according to them, Virtual Assistants are one of the fastest-growing freelance positions. (32)

5. Content writing

Can you put together a well-written sentence? Know how to capture an audience with some well-crafted words?

Content is still king, and writing it pays well too because you can’t outsource it to just anyone (we see you, wannabe internet companies trying to get away with hiring amateur Malaysian teens to write your blog).

Freelance writers can make anywhere from $30 to $70 an hour. (33)

4. Facebook ads

There are over 25 million businesses using Facebook to market themselves. (34) That’s 25 million potential clients if you know how to run a successful Facebook ad campaign because many business owners are completely clueless when it comes to social media.

Brush up your skills and start offering to do Facebook ads consulting to small businesses in your area.

3. Open an e-Commerce shop

If you want to reel in the side money, this one takes some time to build up, but it’s passive, which you know I love. E-commerce is projected to make up about 13% of all sales this year, and it’ll be up to 17% just 5 years from now. (35)

Make something and sell it. Even better, find yourself a dropshipper and cut out most of the work. Either way, get a piece of that pie.

2. Learn to code

The national average salary for a computer programmer is $84,360. (36)

Combine that with the fact that this job is 100% digital, and you’ve got a recipe for success. Imagine living on a Caribbean island where you can live comfortably on $1,200/month while you’re raking in $7,000/month. Your debt will be gone in no time.

1. Provide leads online for local businesses

Nothing out there beats raking in hot leads for local businesses. You might as well be handing over stacks of cash to these companies, so trust me when I say this: small businesses pay good money for leads.

Plus, local lead generation hits the money-making trifecta: it’s remote, scalable, and automatable. Plus, you’re cutting down on the competition by focusing on local areas.

TBH, it doesn’t really matter whether you stack your debt, snowball your debt, avalanche your debt or any other fancy terms that basically just mean paying off your debt.

Unless you want to spend the next 50 years of your life picking away at a mountain of debt with a toothpick, you need to do more than stop buying pumpkin spice lattes. You need to increase your earnings fast… local lead generation is your bulldozer.

via https://mlmcompanies.org/ranking-the-39-best-ways-to-get-out-of-debt-in-2019/

[mlmcompanies]

Whether your mountain of debt started with a shopping spree where you got a little trigger happy with the plastic or pursuing a fancy liberal arts degree, you’re here because you want to take a bulldozer to that mountain and finally be #debtfree.

Sitting on a big pile of debt is basically burning piles of money on the reg. For some perspective, Americans with commercial debt spend, on average, $1,300 per month on interest payments. (1)

That’s more than a lot of people’s rent, and it does nothing but keep collections at bay.

This only solution is to pay your debt off faster. This post covers how to do that in 3 different ways:

Improving the terms of your debt

Cutting costs

Making extra disposable income

Be sure to check out my other rankings: best online business ideas, small business ideas, and how to make money fast.

Let’s do this. Ranked by how quickness, sustainability, and ease, here are the best ways to get out of debt:

39. Do the math

If you’ve got $20,000 in credit card debt and you’re making $300 payments each month, it’ll be just over 12 years until you’re debt-free. You’ll have basically lit more than $23,000 on fire in the form of interest payments.

Use a debt repayment calculator like Credit Karma’s (2) to crunch the numbers and figure out exactly how long it’s going to take you to pay off your debt and how much you’ll be paying in interest.

38. Automate your finances

Self-made millionaire David Bach wrote a whole book on this one called “The Automatic Millionaire”, saying that it’s “the one step that virtually guarantees that you won’t fail financially.” (3)

Set a goal for when you want to finish paying off your debt and use the flipside of that debt calculator to calculate how much you’d have to pay each month to do that. Set up automatic payments on all of your credit cards and loans to that monthly minimum.

Recent college grads: the US Department of Education gives you a 0.25% interest discount just for setting up autopay, and many private lenders give you up to 0.50% off. (4) Not a lot, but it takes like 20 seconds to sign up for autopay.

37. Pay the maximum

A whopping 73% of Americans die in debt. A big reason is that many of them (yep, lookin’ at you) are only paying the minimum on their debt, which is the best way to stay in debt forever.

Instead, pay the maximum amount your budget will allow each month. Those courtside tickets can wait until AFTER you’ve paid off your debt.

36. The “avalanche” method

Call it the avalanching, stacking, or the ladder method, it’s all the same: hands down the most financially savvy and efficient method for paying off multiple different streams of debt.

Pay off your high-interest debts first (usually your credit cards). Set your automatic payments to the minimum on all of your cards and loans except the one with the highest interest rate: throw all the money you can at that one until it’s gone. Then target your second highest interest rate using all the extra money you have in the absence of the first debt, and so on.

35. The “snowball” method

For those who need to be coddled a little, snowballing is paying off your smallest debts first so that these little wins can motivate you to attack larger, more intimidating debts.

That initial boost of confidence that the snowballing method creates has helped people tackle $50k+ in debt in just a few years. (5)

34. Cash out your credit card cashback

If you’ve got cashback sitting around on any of your credit cards from incurring all this debt, you may as well take advantage of it.

Don’t try to earn any more cashback until you’re debt-free, though.

33. Put windfalls towards your debt

Put any random money you earn outside your regular income towards your debt.

Whether it’s a work bonus, birthday money, a holiday gift, your tax refund, or a $100 you found on the ground, directing that money towards your debt puts you a little bit closer to debt-free status.

32. Sell stuff

Don’t lie, you probably have a basement, garage, or closet somewhere that looks like an audition for Hoarders (without the dead cats, I hope). I’m not going to preach to you about the “life-changing magic of cleaning out your garage”, but I am going to preach to you about how selling crap you don’t need to pay off debt you shouldn’t have is a good idea.

What’s that? You’re too lazy? You don’t even have to leave your house. Sell stuff from your phone on Letgo. (6) Try out Decluttr. (7)

31. Downgrade your stuff

Lifestyle inflation is real. People don’t like to downgrade their standard of living. But you have to if you want to double down on your debt.

This couple even sold their brand new car and got a used junker when they realized they could have used that money to pay off their debt. It probably stung a little, but they managed to pay off $52,000 of debt in just 18 months. (8)

30. Free entertainment

Instead of spending money on movies or concert tickets, seek out cheaper ways to have fun.

Look online and see what kind of free things are happening around your city. Outdoor festivals, movies in the park, all that stuff.

No need to be deathly bored while you’re climbing your way out of debt hell.

29. Garage sale arbitrage

Dig through cheap crap at garage sales, strike gold. Buy valuable items for a fraction of what they’re worth, and resell them online for a huge profit. Repeat.

Corey Levitan, a writer for Men’s Health, banks an extra $20,000 a year doing this. And he only spends 3-5 hours/week on it. (9)

28. Shop through cashback sites/apps

Cashback sites like Rakuten (10) give you money for shopping online and in-store, kinda like a delayed discount. When you cash out your earnings, put it all towards your debt. Also, use a debit card instead of a credit card when doing this unless you want to spend more time paying it off.

Don’t go on a shopping spree just for cashback, though. That’s exactly how a lot of people end up in credit card debt – cashback rewards on their credit cards.

Save these sites for those everyday purchases you have to make, like groceries or maybe clothing.

27. Buy everything with cash

Many studies have shown people generally spend less when they pay with cash than they pay with credit. (11)

Think about this: not only do you have to visit an ATM or bank any time you need cash, but watching those green bills leave your hand is more difficult than swiping/chipping/tapping a piece of plastic.

Also, you won’t be adding more to your current credit balances.

But this applies to debit cards, too. No debt involved with debit cards, but it’s still easier to swipe it than to hand over bills.

26. Keep the change

Take all the loose change you find or get back throughout the day and put it in a jar. Each month, deposit it all and use it to chip away at your debt.

25. Negotiate your bills

Anyone who tells you that you can’t negotiate bills is a liar. Everything is negotiable. According to Consumer Reports, 89% of people who try to bargain are successful at least once. (12)

Try your hand at haggling with your cable and internet bills, and then move up to the big leagues: medical bills, credit cards, and car insurance.

24. Lower your rent

Bargain with your landlord, especially if you live in an apartment: offer to extend your lease, give up your parking space, agree to show your apartment to potential renters, get some roommates, pay a few months’ rent upfront, or refer new renters for a discount.

The best time to negotiate is a few months before your lease ends.

23. Negotiate your credit card interest rate

Sometimes it really is as easy as just asking.

Time Magazine’s money experts recently did a personal finance boot camp that recommends you call up your credit card company and ask them for a lower APR. 80% of callers asking for a lower interest rate were successful. (13)

22. Don’t close credit cards

The second you pay off one credit card, you’ll probably want to immediately call up the credit card company and close it. Don’t.

Unless your card charges an annual fee, keep it open. Check the FICO 5. (14) One of the biggest factors making up your credit score (30%) is your credit to debt ratio. The less credit you have available to you, the higher that ratio, the lower your credit score.

21. Freeze your credit cards… literally

Of course, keeping your credit cards in your wallet after you pay them off is like a recovered cocaine addict keeping an old stash in his bedroom.

Stick them in a bowl of water and freeze it. Every time you want to take the plastic gods out on an impulsive shopping spree, you’ll have to wait for a block of ice to thaw while you think about your life choices.

20. Monitor your credit report

Monitor your credit report on a regular basis for any errors that could be hurting your credit score. If you see any, immediately submit a dispute to get them removed so you can nudge your score upwards to secure better interest rates in your negotiations.

Each of the 3 credit bureaus gives you 1 free report a year. (15) Sites like Credit Karma (16) let you look at your report as much as you want with no penalties as well.

19. Rent your stuff

Airbnb’s cutesy tiny houses and extravagant vacation rentals are taking over, but you don’t have to have real estate to make money renting things out anymore.

Rent out your bike/recreational gear on Spinlister. (17) Got an old bridesmaids dress or fancy tux lying around? Rent out clothing on Style Lend (18) and Date My Wardrobe. (19) Compete with Alamo by renting out your car on Turo (20) or GetAround. (21) And you can rent just about anything on RentNotBuy and Loanables. (22) (23)

18. Borrow against your life insurance

If you’ve got a permanent life insurance policy with a cash value, you can borrow from it to pay off your debt. Just make sure it doesn’t backfire. Interest rates are often lower with this method, but there are penalties involved (including burdening your beneficiaries if you die before the debt is paid off) and you could risk losing your life insurance.

17. Make every debt payment on time

No, not just to keep collections at bay. Paying your debts on time keeps your credit score as high as possible, seeing as it’s the most important (35%) of the 5 FICO credit score factors (24).

A higher credit score gives you more leverage when negotiating down your interest rates with your credit card companies. It also helps you secure a lower rate if you want to refinance/consolidate your debt, which you can learn about in the next two tips.

Also, paying on time means you avoid late fees, which are just a waste of money.

16. Refinance your debt

If you qualify for refinancing, you should 100% do it. Basically, you get a new, better (lower interest, usually a personal loan) loan to replace one of your old (higher interest) loans. You can cut years off of your repayment schedule by refinancing.

Pay attention to the term length of the loan you’re refinancing your debt with, though, especially with long-term debt like mortgages. Let’s say you have 5 years left on a 30-year mortgage. Refinancing to a lower interest rate will lower your payment, but you’ll end up paying thousands more in interest.

15. Debt consolidation

Consolidating debt is simply combining multiple debts into one debt by taking out a lower interest loan. Most of the time, consolidating your debt also involves refinancing your debt (see previous tip) – especially if you have several high-interest debt sources.

In addition, you can spend less time juggling 5 different debt accounts and making sure to pay everything on time. Less chance of incurring late fees or worse – the wrath of collections.

If you’ve got debt from more than 2 different sources, you should definitely consider a debt consolidation loan.

14. Balance transfer credit card

Live-saving credit cards exist: they offer a 0% interest rate for a specific “introductory period”, which can be 6 months, 12 months, or even 21 months. You transfer your debt to this card and pay it off interest-free.

Just make sure you pay it off in time, and don’t use it to spend.

The Chase Slate is the only 0% APR balance transfer card with no fees, (25) and the Citi Simplicity offers the longest introductory period of them all (21 months). (26)

13. Loan forgiveness

If you’re a teacher, public servant, permanently disabled, Peace Corps volunteer, nurse, or law enforcement and you have student loan debt, the government might actually pay it off for you.

You don’t get away scot-free, though; these programs usually require you to make 120 qualifying payments (aka 10 years of monthly payments) before you’re considered for loan forgiveness. Check out the Federal Student Aid website for details. (27)

Whether or not you’re forgiven for your gluttonous spending on a metaphysical level is another matter.

12. Have a small emergency fund

If you don’t have some cash set aside for emergencies, you’re going to incur more debt if you get into a bad car accident or something similar.

It doesn’t have to be a lot – $1,000 should be enough for the moment, and you can build it up in increments of as little as $50 a month if you need to.

11. Quit investing

Here’s the thing: paying down debt gets you a guaranteed return (in the form of interest you no longer have to pay), and that return is almost always more than you’d earn on the stock market and always more than you get from a savings account. (28)

Drop the investments for now and put any savings in excess of your small emergency fund toward being debt-free. Not only that, but consider selling some investments and putting the proceeds towards your debt.

10. Become a digital nomad

It’s no secret that I think working from home is the future, and I’m not alone. (Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company all agree). (29)

“Digital nomads” have traded in the 9-5 for a digital career that lets them roam the globe while they rake in cash. Aside from the obvious perks – from showing up at the “office” in your swim trunks to your “office” being a tropical island – you can also save tons of money by living somewhere cheap. The cost of living in Thailand is half what it is in the United States. Think about it. (30)

9. Gig economy jobs

Drive for Uber, doing odd jobs on TaskRabbit, shop for people with Shipt, you get the idea. These aren’t the most glamorous ways to make some extra cash, but money’s money and these jobs aren’t too hard to sign up for.

8. Teach a skill for pay

Monetize a skill you have by teaching others how to do it. Know how to play the guitar? Give private lessons. Excellent at a language? Find a language tutoring site and sign up to tutor others.

Even better, make an online course or eBook that teaches your skill for some passive income. Just make sure the content is actually useful.

7. SEO consulting

If you can learn a thing or two about SEO and find a company that would like to improve their SEO (every company), you can rake in enough side money to be out of debt asap. Entry-level SEO Consultants make about $50,000-$60,000/year…with no experience. (31)

6. Be a Virtual Assistant

If you don’t have time to learn technical skills, Virtual Assistants can make money doing any odd job that remote workers need help with, from making phone calls to making Pinterest boards. Find gigs on Upwork – according to them, Virtual Assistants are one of the fastest-growing freelance positions. (32)

5. Content writing

Can you put together a well-written sentence? Know how to capture an audience with some well-crafted words?

Content is still king, and writing it pays well too because you can’t outsource it to just anyone (we see you, wannabe internet companies trying to get away with hiring amateur Malaysian teens to write your blog).

Freelance writers can make anywhere from $30 to $70 an hour. (33)

4. Facebook ads

There are over 25 million businesses using Facebook to market themselves. (34) That’s 25 million potential clients if you know how to run a successful Facebook ad campaign because many business owners are completely clueless when it comes to social media.

Brush up your skills and start offering to do Facebook ads consulting to small businesses in your area.

3. Open an e-Commerce shop

If you want to reel in the side money, this one takes some time to build up, but it’s passive, which you know I love. E-commerce is projected to make up about 13% of all sales this year, and it’ll be up to 17% just 5 years from now. (35)

Make something and sell it. Even better, find yourself a dropshipper and cut out most of the work. Either way, get a piece of that pie.

2. Learn to code

The national average salary for a computer programmer is $84,360. (36)

Combine that with the fact that this job is 100% digital, and you’ve got a recipe for success. Imagine living on a Caribbean island where you can live comfortably on $1,200/month while you’re raking in $7,000/month. Your debt will be gone in no time.

1. Provide leads online for local businesses

Nothing out there beats raking in hot leads for local businesses. You might as well be handing over stacks of cash to these companies, so trust me when I say this: small businesses pay good money for leads.

Plus, local lead generation hits the money-making trifecta: it’s remote, scalable, and automatable. Plus, you’re cutting down on the competition by focusing on local areas.

TBH, it doesn’t really matter whether you stack your debt, snowball your debt, avalanche your debt or any other fancy terms that basically just mean paying off your debt.

Unless you want to spend the next 50 years of your life picking away at a mountain of debt with a toothpick, you need to do more than stop buying pumpkin spice lattes. You need to increase your earnings fast… local lead generation is your bulldozer.

[topicprinter]

Pat from Starter Story again, here with another interview.This one is a bit different, as it's more of a side project, but a pretty cool one at that.TLDR:Allen finds old radios at places like garage sales, restores them and even adds bluetooth to them.Primarily works on the weekends and grosses $50k/yr.Featured on CNN! (see video below)He puts his radios on dozens of online marketplaces, to "cast a wide net".Hope you enjoy:My backgroundMy name is Allen Chiang, and I founded Retro Radio Farm, where I repair and restore old radios. I offer Bluetooth MP3 upgrade if the customer wants to play digital music.I have a busy career as an IT professional. Retro Radio Farm is side business that grew out of a recent hobby of mine.Right now, I make about $50K a year for the work I put in primarily on weekends. While it’s highly profitable, it has not yet lucrative enough yet for me to quit my day job. Although, the business has been growing 20% every year.What our radios look likeHow I came up with the idea.One day back in 2012, I happened to go to a local flea market. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and I'm not a flea market or garage sale regular.I noticed these two old radios for $15 each. I had not been interested in old radios before, and I was not a collector or a retro guy. These particular radios were from 1950s, bright and colorful, oozing with retro pride, but in sad, neglected shape.As far as my professional background, I have an electrical engineering degree but never worked on radios. My understanding of these things was only basic at best. I knew analog audio sounded better than digital from my guitar days.I read a few articles online, postings on forums, and figured out how to repair these things. It was a slow process at first, with a lot of trial and error.I was looking to launch an online business of some kind to generate additional income. I had been selling random stuff on eBay for years.How I find radios and how I repair them.Radios manufactured between the 1920s through 1960s were built on vacuum tube technology, which became obsolete with the introduction of solid-state technology.Vacuum tubes are actually glass tubes about the size of a small light bulb. All digital technology today is based on some kind of semiconductor transistor, but much smaller. There are still manufacturers of vacuum tubes, but they mainly cater to guitar players and high-end audiophiles.Vacuum tubes are fundamentally analog. They are expensive to make and service. They are power hungry, big and bulky, relatively unreliable, burn-out over time, and run at higher temperatures compared to digital. Yet, many musicians and audiophiles insist on them because of their sound quality. Many people feel vacuum tube based audio is a lot more organic sounding.I've been working on old radios from all periods between the 30s through the 70s, but I prefer the 50s mid-century designs because of their bold and colorful designs. During the 50s, America as a country was going through rapid growth, experimenting and taking chances, leaving old conventions and attitudes behind. This is reflected in how these radios look. Brown and white Bakelite radios of the 30s and 40s gave way to pink, turquoise, and seafoam greens with oblique angles, chrome, and space-age design motifs.Featured on CNN!These radios are becoming very collectible. The upcycling potential of these old designs with modern technology is driving prices higher and higher.So I started finding these old radios from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s online and buying collections from collectors. Often for me, the satisfaction is the thrill of the hunt. I remember one collector who had so many of these old radios in his garage. The radios were propping up the falling structure and were lying around in piles in his yard! Another collector had so many radios in his attic that there wasn’t enough room for anyone to walk around. He ended up dropping them out of the attic windows while I caught them in his driveway!Most of the collections I acquire come through word of mouth and via my website as well as through various social platforms under the Retro Radio Farm name.Each radio repair and restoration project is different - each one is a mystery and a hidden story to tell. When I fix a radio, and it plays again, I feel like I've solved a puzzle. It’s true not many people listen to AM radio anymore. AM band nowadays seems to have 1 of 3 basic programming formats; talk, latin, and oldies. It’s fitting, like from a Stephen King story, when a 50’s song is the first thing that plays after decades of silence.There’s one common thing I find inside all these old radios: DIRT. These old radios were mechanical as much as electrical, not like the solid-state designs of today. Dirt and anything mechanical is a dangerous combination. Plus, these old radios were warm, dark, enclosed, and most cases stored in attics, basements, and garages for years, sometimes decades. That's a haven for mice, spiders, ants, etc - you name it!A great idea without hard work won’t succeed. An OK idea with a lot of work might succeed.Some radios were still working before being put into storage - making the repairs simple. Maybe a tube was blown, or an old beeswax and paper filter capacitor dried out. eBay and specialty electronics supply stores still carry plenty of replacement vacuum tubes at a low price. Replacement parts like capacitors, resistors, and most other components are widely available.Other radios have had a more unfortunate fate. Remember, these radios were not glorified muscle cars or the cherished cultural icons such as the custom colored pre-CBS Strat. I find them with missing knobs, cracked or chipped, coated with grease and lint, painted with latex, etc.It is time-consuming to repair cracked and chipped cases, repaint or re-veneer them, or re-manufacture and fabricate missing pieces or trim. Electronically, troubleshooting can take many hours. Armed with a schematic and a hefty dose of electrical intuition, I discover root issues are defective capacitors, a broken circuit trace, an open transformer, or tolerance drift. My workshop articles documenting some of these restorations help tell these stories. The workshop stories seem to outperform my other content, especially in email marketing blasts.I strive to maintain originality. Unless the customer requests new totally new technology, then all circuits and exterior features remain intact and factory original.With the resurging interest in the phonograph, I figured analog radio or Bluetooth to play MP3/MP4 makes sense. I figured out a way to add Bluetooth to make these radios play modern music formats MP3, MP4, Bluetooth or Wifi. For many people, these old radios are just shelf art unless they can listen to their music on iTunes, iPhone, or iPad.These radios sound great with the Bluetooth addition. I add a rocker switch on the back to select between Bluetooth and regular radio. The Bluetooth feature allows customers to play their own music wirelessly from any Bluetooth capable device.The Bluetooth MP3 modifications are intended to be reversible. All circuit modifications can be undone by someone who is qualified. I find my customers are equally men and women across a wide age group. Typically, they appreciate the nostalgia aspect of these old radios. Most want them working, but some collect as display pieces. About half my customers upgrade to Bluetooth MP3.My radios have even been used in several movies as props. One Manhattan decorator used my radios in a wall display. I have sold my radios nationwide across all states and to many countries globally.Launching the online store/business.I started off by selling completed products on eBay, but I eventually outgrew it. I put up RetroRadioFarm.com because I wanted to build my own brand.My professional experience gave me an advantage in setting up my own e-commerce site.My startup costs were nominal:About $30 to register my domain.Maybe $100 for both state and federal tax IDs.Soldering iron and maybe $100 of spare parts and I was off and running.I quickly launched my Shopify store. I came up with RetroRadioFarm.com as the domain as my first choices, such as retroradios.com or vintageradios.com, were already taken.The Shopify platform is pretty turnkey. I also looked at Magento and GoDaddy. I even considered oDesk to build my own site from scratch. I came up with the logo and store concept in one afternoon. I chose not to use Shopify store templates because I wanted something unique.I've learned it is crucial to learn about SEO marketing. It is an evolving playing field, and new opportunities are introduced every day.As Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc evolve their platform, I try to stay on top of it all to get my message out. Initially, however, I just jumped in and started buying AdWords and developing campaigns.Attracting new customers.The list of my online channels keeps growing, some involve costs, and some do not.I am on Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Etsy, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram, among others.I just added my product inventory to Houzz, Kik, Wish, and Wanelo. There’s more.I strive to cast a wide net. Every hit counts. I rely on a diversified strategy. I leverage every opportunity to reach new customers. I use Omnisend for email marketing. I target folks who have signed up through my website, Facebook look-alikes, and existing customers for my email campaigns.I try to describe everything about my product to eliminate purchase objections. I try not to assume people know anything about my product features unless I state it explicitly.I do not have plans to set up at antique shows or maker faires because of cost constraints. I do not offer a retail storefront either for the same reason.The best campaigns for me have been Google Remarketing campaigns and organic search and display advertising. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter are growing. Email marketing is excellent, but I can’t do it every day.I’m thinking about starting a podcast to share my workshop experience live, but I’m not entirely sure how I would go about it.Every once in a while we get a windfall event, like our CNN Great Big Story feature, or our feature on MessyNessyChic, and we see a pop in traffic. It is exhilarating to see 1000% or more percent bump day over day, and the resulting revenues! I’m not sure how to get more of these.Plans for the future.Someday, it would be great to be able to quit my day job and do radios full time.In order to achieve this, I am considering various possibilities; a reproduction line, a storefront, a book, or all the above.I am looking for investors. I am in the process of getting patents.Have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Beautiful images:. I am constantly comparing photos I find online with my own. Do my pictures look better than theirs? I try to ask someone else’s unbiased opinion.Product descriptions: I try to describe everything about my product to eliminate purchase objections. I try not to assume people know anything about my product features unless I state it explicitly. I value questions which customers have asked me and incorporate all those criticisms in my future offerings. No matter how obvious it may seem to me, I may lose a customer if they are unsure. However, I won’t lose a customer if I tell them something they already know. I try to leverage audio and video to sell.Customer communication: Building good customer relationships is key. I check my email, Facebook messaging, YouTube comments every day. I analyze any and all feedback seriously and take all the necessary steps to improve my product and brand.Platform/tools.My online store is on Shopify.Shippo for fulfillment and postage generation.I maintain an Etsy store which has been successful.USPS for shipping.U-Pic for shipping insurance.I use YouTube for product video demonstration.The best advertising vehicles have been online ads at special interest group websites. We offer international sales, but I have found it to be a small percentage. I'm not sure why.Resources I recommend for others in the business of radios.I haven’t found too many people doing what I do. Radiomuseum has been a good source for schematics. Radioatticarchives has been a good source for model and manufacturer identification and photo library. Once in a while, I query antiqueradios.com forum for troubleshooting tips.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out.A great idea without hard work won’t succeed.An OK idea with a lot of work might succeed.If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.Substitute 'work' for 'new learning' as applicable.Allen will be in the comments if you want to drop any questions in there.

[mredwinsmith]

Master Artworks Captured In … Hairstyles?

Brunette, Blond or Redhead, Your Hair Can Be Art!

Hey remember that one time I did that thing? Well I’ve got other things I’m working on, and they might be even cooler, so just calm down, everyone. I gotchu. #rainbowhair #finearthair #fineart #igotufam #art

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Nov 12, 2016 at 8:41am PST

When it comes to making art, it’s okay to think outside the “canvas.” Ursula Goff does just that by taking “getting into the creative mindset” to a whole new level: creating masterful artwork … in her clients’ hair!

Hair colorist by trade, Ursula creates beautiful styles from daring dyes to bright balayage highlights. But, that’s not all she does. She walks a thin line between a stylish hairdo and a striking work of art, incorporating the works of Old Masters from Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night to Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

With more than 50K fans on Facebook and over 91K followers and counting on Instagram, Ursula’s unique approach to hair leaves people wanting more — and more she gives! Her website not only features some of her hairstyles but also offers tutorials, videos and even a blog so her fans and clients alike can keep up with her dos and doings.

“I suppose I am known primarily for being a hair colorist, which is my main occupation, so you will see a lot of that [on my website],” writes Ursula. “But I also have a degree in psychology, and I have a lot of random interests — some of them creative, some of them academic. and some of them are just miscellaneous.”

Do you, boo. We love it, and we think you will, too. Below are some of Ursula’s artful hairstyles. Enjoy!

We are Screaming with Joy with This Edvard Munch-Inspired Do

I entered this in the BTC one shot contest last year, but I’m entering it again because I love it and I’m sort of proud of it and it was hard as hell to get right. Plus, it’s super weird and you know I love my weird shit. #behindthechair #btconeshot_vibrant17 #btconeshot_unconventionalcolor17 #expressionism #edvardmunch #thescream #arthair #paintingsonhair

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Apr 7, 2017 at 11:20am PDT

  Channeling her Inner Joan Miró

Channeling some Joan Miro. My favorite kind of work to do – totally weird and experimental. Sometimes you just have to ask yourself what would happen if you did some abstract expressionism on someone’s hair. #rainbowhair #experimental #abtractexpressionism #changecosmetics #arcticfoxhaircolor #Nrage #behindthechair #modernsalon #americansalon #beautylaunchpad #fckinghair #fiidnt

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Feb 22, 2017 at 3:29pm PST

  Get Your Marilyn On with Andy Warhol Flair

Soooooo….Debbie wanted to try a new piece of artwork and decided on a Warhol. Thankfully, I received a metric ton of color today, very generously provided by @changecosmetics, so I had some pretty new colors to play with. The yellow and red are Change Cosmetics brand, the blue is Ion, diluted with Change white and with two drops of Change yellow added, the skin is Change white with a drop of fuschia, and the black outline is @arcticfoxhaircolor in Transylvania. We are pretty happy with it, and it was super fun to do – I FUCKING LOVE MY JOB!!! PS I think as her cowlick grows out it will start to look like David Bowie so that’s technically a TWOFER. Check out @atlaspherehair for the original buzzed hair art. #warhol #popart #rainbowhair #neonhair #finearthair #sponsored #changecosmetics #marilyndiptych #behindthechair #modernsalon #americansalon #beautylaunchpad #fckinghair #fiidnt #nothingbutpixies

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Feb 3, 2017 at 8:09pm PST

  Starry Night, Starry Hair — Take 1

Touched up Debbie’s Starry Night color/cut – this gave me a chance to clean up my work a little bit and play around with the palette some more. I love getting to make a literal painting on her head, and she says she feels like a celebrity when she goes out in public because she gets stopped about her hair so often. She says it helps her feel more like herself, and if that ain’t the best dang compliment you can get, I don’t know what is. Also, if you wanna see the original painter of heads, go check out @atlaspherehair – some seriously great inspiration on that page, including a couple more Van Gogh’s! #starrynight #arthair #vangogh #finearthair #haircarving #manicpanic #ioncolorbrilliance

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Dec 30, 2016 at 7:13pm PST

  Simultaneous Style and Art with This Robert Delaunay Do!

Simultaneous Window On The City, by French abstract artist Robert Delaunay. I wasn’t necessarily trying to make it look so similar to this particular piece, but once I got done styling her, this is exactly what it reminded me of. And I even described it to her as looking like light coming through windows at night, and many of Delaunay’s works explore the appearance of light streaming through colored glass panes. I thought I was being slightly original for a minute, but this just proves again that pretty much all art is imitation on some level, even if it’s subconscious. #art #abstractart #arthair #cubism #cubisthair #rainbowhair #delaunay #behindthechair #modernsalon #americansalon

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Nov 5, 2016 at 3:17pm PDT

  Marilyn and Andy Warhol — AGAIN! (Because, This is Brilliant, Right!?)

Here’s one of colors I did that’s been nominated for the Behind the Chair One Shot Awards – an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe amongst custom colored (and sponsored) @vpfashion extensions. I really didn’t expect to get nominated this year, because I didn’t think my work was quite what they were looking for, and I even considered the possibility that my stuff was going completely unnoticed by them because, well, maybe it’s not that great. Maybe last year’s nomination was a fluke. Maybe I just get lucky sometimes. Maybe maybe maybe. It’s impossible for me to be objective about my own stuff. I mean, I know I usually like it, but that doesn’t mean anyone else will. And even if a ton of people like it, that still doesn’t necessarily mean it’s anything special. I always allow for that possibility. My main priority is enjoying what I do, but it’s admittedly pretty neat to get industry recognition. So thank you, @behindthechair_com, for appreciating my personal brand of ridiculous circus carnival hair. Makes my outcast, blue haired, former teenage self feel pretty validated about staying weird. AND, of course, if all y’all like this color scheme and/or you wanna do your own paintings on hair, then order some of these bad boys and use code UGGOFF so you can get a discount. I just used pink, yellow, and aqua to color them, and then mushed the colors together in varying combinations and dilutions to get the greens, oranges, and purples. I had to color them about three times, though, because there’s so much damn hair; be prepared for a workout. #extensions #Warhol #popart #marilynmonroe #rainbowhair #mermaidhair #unicornhair #stayweird

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Aug 18, 2016 at 7:38am PDT

  Starry Night, Starry Hair — Take 2

The usual Van Gogh #vangogh #vangoghhair#hairpaintings #artonhair #starrynight #behindthechair #btconeshot_unconventionalcolor17 #btconeshot_vibrant17

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on May 22, 2017 at 8:06am PDT

  Color Me Pretty with This Style Inspired by a Wassily Kandinsky Color Study

I never shared the original piece with this one; it’s a color study by Wassily Kandinsky. I’ve been working on a couple more of these and I am going to TRY to get one done in the next few days. We’ll see if I get distracted by other stuff…. #paintingsonhair #hairpaintings #kandinsky #synesthesia @seminaraangelo #redhair #orangehair #manicpanic @manicpanicnyc #joico #adore #arcticfoxhaircolor @arcticfoxhaircolor

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Jun 27, 2016 at 9:51am PDT

  Can’t Forget THE Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Lovely Poppy Paintings

I love Georgia O’Keefe’s poppy paintings, so I decided to do one myself, first on paper with watercolor (left), then on hair (right). This is part of my project to help @matrix promote their new ColorSync Vinyls line of Demi’s, which should become available this fall! I used copper and red for the petals and cobalt, midnight violet and copper for its dark center, painted onto a blonde extension and then clipped into the hair. My client’s hair was also colored with the Vinyls; we do her regrowth (ashy level 6) with the red and then after processing added a layer of the red Color Graphics lacquer to the top third to bump the intensity. We let that bleed down into the mids a bit and then did some balayage on her ends with Matrix Lightmaster, which turned a fabulous bright coral! Loved how this came out! #matrixbrandpartner #matrix #colorsyncvinyls #redhair #paintingsonhair #hairpaintings #georgiaokeeffe #americanart #finearthair #beautylaunchpad #BehindTheChair #modernsalon #americansalon #fckinghair

A post shared by Ursula Goff (@uggoff) on Jul 24, 2017 at 10:06am PDT

My eyes are drawn to brilliant colors, and Ursula’s Instagram page is filled with them. Instagram is by far one of my favorite social media platforms. Perhaps, it’s because the app is so visually engaging; or, perhaps, it is because the app prides itself on being in the moment (hint: “Insta”).

Regardless of the reason, I check Instagram daily to inspire my inner creative — which is how I stumbled upon Ursula.

If you get inspired by seeing other artists’ work like I do, then you’re in luck. I promise to keep trolling the platform for more amazing art goodies. Stay tuned, artists!

What do you think about Ursula’s artful hairdos? Tell us in the comments below!

  The post Master Artworks Captured In … Hairstyles? appeared first on Artist's Network.

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[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Game cloning? Does it have anything to do with Dolly the sheep or stormtroopers? Every game developer who has had the sad opportunity to experience it first-hand knows that is not the case. If and when they decide to provide an account of what they went through, the rest of us can learn what can be done to avoid or at least prepare for such a scenario. Only a few days ago we found out that someone took the liberty of making as part of the "cloned" crowd. Time to share our story.

We released our debut title 60 Seconds! on desktop computers back in 2015. It originally started off as a simple Unity prototype with the intent to test if the engine would be a good fit for us. Almost two years later we had a game that was ready to ship, severe sleep deprivation and spines that resembled a nicely calligraphed letter 'S'. We were hopeful 60 Seconds! would provide enough to keep our studio, Robot Gentleman, going. Its success caught us by surprise. The degree of freedom it gave us was astonishing and terrifying. It took us a few months to figure out how to operate and make sure we do not do anything silly, such as buying a maniac mansion or expanding our team like crazy. After coming back from Indiecade 2015 finals we decided we would love to see 60 Seconds! on more platforms. Player feedback and our own gut feeling pointed towards the same direction: mobile was the way to go.

We decided to approach the project cautiously and start with the iOS version. This move was rationalised by going for a premium sales model and the intention to limit the supported hardware. The happy day came in September 2016 when the game was unleashed on iPad and iPhone users. We were enthusiastic to see the price tag was not discouraging for our audiences and within three months mobile 60 Seconds! was played by over 100 thousand players. This was a great complement to the 300 thousand sales mark on Steam. Crossing that line and feedback from our fans set our eyes on Android. 

We were certain that if by this time there were no incidents of cloning our game, we should be fine. 60 Seconds! was too small of a deal to get ripped-off by income-hungry corporate-sized cloners [2], but also too complex to be easily replicated by a tiny team [3]. Vlambeer's experiences with Ninja Fishing [1] seemed like the only scenario that may have been a viable threat to us. What we did not anticipate was that someone had a different idea on how to monetise our success for their own means. 

On 13th of January 2017 a malware/adware clone of 60 Seconds! found its way to the Google Play store. 

It didn't seem very serious at first. Someone made a simple app with stolen assets from our game and its marketing art. The app would only load what looked like the main menu from 60 Seconds!. Any interaction with it brought up a loading screen, which generated tons of ads. Just before the loading was to be concluded the app crashed. With a lot of folks eagerly waiting for 60 Seconds! to be released on Android, and all the attention other versions of the game received, it was inevitable that downloads would spike soon. The fact that it was made available for free did not help and also made players overlook the fact that the app requested a wide spectrum of access privileges on their devices. 

When we found out on the 16th the number of players was still below 5000. Quite a few of the reviewers who downvoted the game did not realise it was not the official version of the game from Robot Gentleman. We were concerned some of our fans may think we are responsible for this atrocity. To counteract we immediately reached out to Google, reporting the incident with their copyright infringement forms and attempted to contact people at Google we've met personally in the past.  As of the 22nd of January we have not heard back from any of them, despite following up on the issue through formal and informal channels. What is worse, the app climbed to 50k - 100k downloads and another, similar malware clone was uploaded to Google Play. Tracing the account that released the first app we found out that a similar strategy was used with three other games before. These clones were either banned by Google or taken down by the "developers" themselves.

This case may not be as bad as some other cloning scenarios. When discussing the Ridiculous Fishing cloning, Rami Ismail from Vlambeer [1] claimed that they have lost a million dollars to the team that ripped their game off. Luckily for us, we are not losing potential revenue. Not yet, anyway. However, the damage caused by whoever malwared our game may be very real. We care about our player community, present and future, and we consider this a problem that should not be ignored. Some players believe what they are downloading is the official release of 60 Seconds!. In fact, we only found out about the malware clone, because one of our fans contacted us through Facebook with a request to fix the Android version of the game. We cannot be entirely sure how this situation will develop. It may affect the popularity of our game on Android, should we decide to enter Google Play, as well as impact the game's and studio's reputation.

This problem could have been resolved at the app review stage, but it would seem that Google Play's review process, which supposedly involves human in the procedure [4], did not work. Still, averting the damage was possible in a day or two, if the platform owner was to step in. Unfortunately, the lack of response from Google prevents that. It makes the whole situation frustrating and confounding for us. Instead of acting quick, we have someone benefitting from our work at the expense of our fans and causing potential PR damage to our studio. We do not have any timeframe on when this malicious app will be shut down and the appearance of its second version is a sign this whole mess is far from over.  

Is there anything that can be done to end this right now? Not really. We can contact Google via our lawyers to make the copyright infringement report more official, but that does not guarantee anything and will take time. With more people getting tricked by the malware clone, more ad revenue is generated. In the age of post-truth and the discoverability crisis on game distribution platforms, it is not hard to imagine scenarios like that happening more and more often and affecting developers both big and small. This has been an ongoing issue, since the entry level for game development and games distribution was lowered in the past few years.

As our example suggests, at this point cloners do not even have to expend any effort to clone an entire game. All they need to do is "impersonate" the game using official artwork, build up a fake profile to lure players into installing the supposed game and they can start reaping the profits. One may consider this phenomenon facade cloning. If platform owners, fans and the actual developer are too slow to respond, cloners can get several days’ worth of ad revenue money, making such a ruse a highly profitable endeavour. All it takes is repeating it over and over again with one or more recognisable titles.

Sharing the experience seems like the best thing we can do, in case you were not aware what may be coming to your games. Be prepared.

Update #1: as of 23/01/2017 the app's downloads are between 100 and 500 thousand and we have still not heard back from Google Play. The cloner is using a strategy of "releasing" new versions of the app to lure back players who assumed the app was not crashing intentionally.

Update #2: Google got back to us in the end and took down the malware app in the evening of 23/01/2017. Another clone is currently available on Google Play and we filed a second report with Google. We can't be exactly sure how much money the clone made with ad spamming, but  with hundreads of thousands of installs our guess is that it was much more than the $25 Google Play registration fee. Facade cloning seems like a parasite dream come true.

Update #3: Two more clones available on Google Play as of 24/01/2017. We reported them to Google. Seems like this is a beginning of a neverending clone story. It seems that with every clone, more "features" are available and not as many ads. 

[1] http://ift.tt/1va1ZQF

[2] http://ift.tt/1OEDvI6

[3] http://ift.tt/1oh3qgz

[4] http://ift.tt/1AVBe33

[5] http://ift.tt/1Jtkcxl

[6] http://ift.tt/1kdgfW6.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Game cloning? Does it have anything to do with Dolly the sheep or stormtroopers? Every game developer who has had the sad opportunity to experience it first-hand knows that is not the case. If and when they decide to provide an account of what they went through, the rest of us can learn what can be done to avoid or at least prepare for such a scenario. Only a few days ago we found out that someone took the liberty of making as part of the "cloned" crowd. Time to share our story.

We released our debut title 60 Seconds! on desktop computers back in 2015. It originally started off as a simple Unity prototype with the intent to test if the engine would be a good fit for us. Almost two years later we had a game that was ready to ship, severe sleep deprivation and spines that resembled a nicely calligraphed letter 'S'. We were hopeful 60 Seconds! would provide enough to keep our studio, Robot Gentleman, going. Its success caught us by surprise. The degree of freedom it gave us was astonishing and terrifying. It took us a few months to figure out how to operate and make sure we do not do anything silly, such as buying a maniac mansion or expanding our team like crazy. After coming back from Indiecade 2015 finals we decided we would love to see 60 Seconds! on more platforms. Player feedback and our own gut feeling pointed towards the same direction: mobile was the way to go.

We decided to approach the project cautiously and start with the iOS version. This move was rationalised by going for a premium sales model and the intention to limit the supported hardware. The happy day came in September 2016 when the game was unleashed on iPad and iPhone users. We were enthusiastic to see the price tag was not discouraging for our audiences and within three months mobile 60 Seconds! was played by over 100 thousand players. This was a great complement to the 300 thousand sales mark on Steam. Crossing that line and feedback from our fans set our eyes on Android. 

We were certain that if by this time there were no incidents of cloning our game, we should be fine. 60 Seconds! was too small of a deal to get ripped-off by income-hungry corporate-sized cloners [2], but also too complex to be easily replicated by a tiny team [3]. Vlambeer's experiences with Ninja Fishing [1] seemed like the only scenario that may have been a viable threat to us. What we did not anticipate was that someone had a different idea on how to monetise our success for their own means. 

On 13th of January 2017 a malware/adware clone of 60 Seconds! found its way to the Google Play store. 

It didn't seem very serious at first. Someone made a simple app with stolen assets from our game and its marketing art. The app would only load what looked like the main menu from 60 Seconds!. Any interaction with it brought up a loading screen, which generated tons of ads. Just before the loading was to be concluded the app crashed. With a lot of folks eagerly waiting for 60 Seconds! to be released on Android, and all the attention other versions of the game received, it was inevitable that downloads would spike soon. The fact that it was made available for free did not help and also made players overlook the fact that the app requested a wide spectrum of access privileges on their devices. 

When we found out on the 16th the number of players was still below 5000. Quite a few of the reviewers who downvoted the game did not realise it was not the official version of the game from Robot Gentleman. We were concerned some of our fans may think we are responsible for this atrocity. To counteract we immediately reached out to Google, reporting the incident with their copyright infringement forms and attempted to contact people at Google we've met personally in the past.  As of the 22nd of January we have not heard back from any of them, despite following up on the issue through formal and informal channels. What is worse, the app climbed to 50k - 100k downloads and another, similar malware clone was uploaded to Google Play. Tracing the account that released the first app we found out that a similar strategy was used with three other games before. These clones were either banned by Google or taken down by the "developers" themselves.

This case may not be as bad as some other cloning scenarios. When discussing the Ridiculous Fishing cloning, Rami Ismail from Vlambeer [1] claimed that they have lost a million dollars to the team that ripped their game off. Luckily for us, we are not losing potential revenue. Not yet, anyway. However, the damage caused by whoever malwared our game may be very real. We care about our player community, present and future, and we consider this a problem that should not be ignored. Some players believe what they are downloading is the official release of 60 Seconds!. In fact, we only found out about the malware clone, because one of our fans contacted us through Facebook with a request to fix the Android version of the game. We cannot be entirely sure how this situation will develop. It may affect the popularity of our game on Android, should we decide to enter Google Play, as well as impact the game's and studio's reputation.

This problem could have been resolved at the app review stage, but it would seem that Google Play's review process, which supposedly involves human in the procedure [4], did not work. Still, averting the damage was possible in a day or two, if the platform owner was to step in. Unfortunately, the lack of response from Google prevents that. It makes the whole situation frustrating and confounding for us. Instead of acting quick, we have someone benefitting from our work at the expense of our fans and causing potential PR damage to our studio. We do not have any timeframe on when this malicious app will be shut down and the appearance of its second version is a sign this whole mess is far from over.  

Is there anything that can be done to end this right now? Not really. We can contact Google via our lawyers to make the copyright infringement report more official, but that does not guarantee anything and will take time. With more people getting tricked by the malware clone, more ad revenue is generated. In the age of post-truth and the discoverability crisis on game distribution platforms, it is not hard to imagine scenarios like that happening more and more often and affecting developers both big and small. This has been an ongoing issue, since the entry level for game development and games distribution was lowered in the past few years.

As our example suggests, at this point cloners do not even have to expend any effort to clone an entire game. All they need to do is "impersonate" the game using official artwork, build up a fake profile to lure players into installing the supposed game and they can start reaping the profits. One may consider this phenomenon facade cloning. If platform owners, fans and the actual developer are too slow to respond, cloners can get several days’ worth of ad revenue money, making such a ruse a highly profitable endeavour. All it takes is repeating it over and over again with one or more recognisable titles.

Sharing the experience seems like the best thing we can do, in case you were not aware what may be coming to your games. Be prepared.

Update #1: as of 23/01/2017 the app's downloads are between 100 and 500 thousand and we have still not heard back from Google Play. The cloner is using a strategy of "releasing" new versions of the app to lure back players who assumed the app was not crashing intentionally.

Update #2: Google got back to us in the end and took down the malware app in the evening of 23/01/2017. Another clone is currently available on Google Play and we filed a second report with Google. We can't be exactly sure how much money the clone made with ad spamming, but  with hundreads of thousands of installs our guess is that it was much more than the $25 Google Play registration fee. Facade cloning seems like a parasite dream come true.

Update #3: Two more clones available on Google Play as of 24/01/2017. We reported them to Google. Seems like this is a beginning of a neverending clone story. It seems that with every clone, more "features" are available and not as many ads. 

[1] http://ift.tt/1va1ZQF

[2] http://ift.tt/1OEDvI6

[3] http://ift.tt/1oh3qgz

[4] http://ift.tt/1AVBe33

[5] http://ift.tt/1Jtkcxl

[6] http://ift.tt/1kdgfW6.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Game cloning? Does it have anything to do with Dolly the sheep or stormtroopers? Every game developer who has had the sad opportunity to experience it first-hand knows that is not the case. If and when they decide to provide an account of what they went through, the rest of us can learn what can be done to avoid or at least prepare for such a scenario. Only a few days ago we found out that someone took the liberty of making as part of the "cloned" crowd. Time to share our story.

We released our debut title 60 Seconds! on desktop computers back in 2015. It originally started off as a simple Unity prototype with the intent to test if the engine would be a good fit for us. Almost two years later we had a game that was ready to ship, severe sleep deprivation and spines that resembled a nicely calligraphed letter 'S'. We were hopeful 60 Seconds! would provide enough to keep our studio, Robot Gentleman, going. Its success caught us by surprise. The degree of freedom it gave us was astonishing and terrifying. It took us a few months to figure out how to operate and make sure we do not do anything silly, such as buying a maniac mansion or expanding our team like crazy. After coming back from Indiecade 2015 finals we decided we would love to see 60 Seconds! on more platforms. Player feedback and our own gut feeling pointed towards the same direction: mobile was the way to go.

We decided to approach the project cautiously and start with the iOS version. This move was rationalised by going for a premium sales model and the intention to limit the supported hardware. The happy day came in September 2016 when the game was unleashed on iPad and iPhone users. We were enthusiastic to see the price tag was not discouraging for our audiences and within three months mobile 60 Seconds! was played by over 100 thousand players. This was a great complement to the 300 thousand sales mark on Steam. Crossing that line and feedback from our fans set our eyes on Android. 

We were certain that if by this time there were no incidents of cloning our game, we should be fine. 60 Seconds! was too small of a deal to get ripped-off by income-hungry corporate-sized cloners [2], but also too complex to be easily replicated by a tiny team [3]. Vlambeer's experiences with Ninja Fishing [1] seemed like the only scenario that may have been a viable threat to us. What we did not anticipate was that someone had a different idea on how to monetise our success for their own means. 

On 13th of January 2017 a malware/adware clone of 60 Seconds! found its way to the Google Play store. 

It didn't seem very serious at first. Someone made a simple app with stolen assets from our game and its marketing art. The app would only load what looked like the main menu from 60 Seconds!. Any interaction with it brought up a loading screen, which generated tons of ads. Just before the loading was to be concluded the app crashed. With a lot of folks eagerly waiting for 60 Seconds! to be released on Android, and all the attention other versions of the game received, it was inevitable that downloads would spike soon. The fact that it was made available for free did not help and also made players overlook the fact that the app requested a wide spectrum of access privileges on their devices. 

When we found out on the 16th the number of players was still below 5000. Quite a few of the reviewers who downvoted the game did not realise it was not the official version of the game from Robot Gentleman. We were concerned some of our fans may think we are responsible for this atrocity. To counteract we immediately reached out to Google, reporting the incident with their copyright infringement forms and attempted to contact people at Google we've met personally in the past.  As of the 22nd of January we have not heard back from any of them, despite following up on the issue through formal and informal channels. What is worse, the app climbed to 50k - 100k downloads and another, similar malware clone was uploaded to Google Play. Tracing the account that released the first app we found out that a similar strategy was used with three other games before. These clones were either banned by Google or taken down by the "developers" themselves.

This case may not be as bad as some other cloning scenarios. When discussing the Ridiculous Fishing cloning, Rami Ismail from Vlambeer [1] claimed that they have lost a million dollars to the team that ripped their game off. Luckily for us, we are not losing potential revenue. Not yet, anyway. However, the damage caused by whoever malwared our game may be very real. We care about our player community, present and future, and we consider this a problem that should not be ignored. Some players believe what they are downloading is the official release of 60 Seconds!. In fact, we only found out about the malware clone, because one of our fans contacted us through Facebook with a request to fix the Android version of the game. We cannot be entirely sure how this situation will develop. It may affect the popularity of our game on Android, should we decide to enter Google Play, as well as impact the game's and studio's reputation.

This problem could have been resolved at the app review stage, but it would seem that Google Play's review process, which supposedly involves human in the procedure [4], did not work. Still, averting the damage was possible in a day or two, if the platform owner was to step in. Unfortunately, the lack of response from Google prevents that. It makes the whole situation frustrating and confounding for us. Instead of acting quick, we have someone benefitting from our work at the expense of our fans and causing potential PR damage to our studio. We do not have any timeframe on when this malicious app will be shut down and the appearance of its second version is a sign this whole mess is far from over.  

Is there anything that can be done to end this right now? Not really. We can contact Google via our lawyers to make the copyright infringement report more official, but that does not guarantee anything and will take time. With more people getting tricked by the malware clone, more ad revenue is generated. In the age of post-truth and the discoverability crisis on game distribution platforms, it is not hard to imagine scenarios like that happening more and more often and affecting developers both big and small. This has been an ongoing issue, since the entry level for game development and games distribution was lowered in the past few years.

As our example suggests, at this point cloners do not even have to expend any effort to clone an entire game. All they need to do is "impersonate" the game using official artwork, build up a fake profile to lure players into installing the supposed game and they can start reaping the profits. One may consider this phenomenon facade cloning. If platform owners, fans and the actual developer are too slow to respond, cloners can get several days’ worth of ad revenue money, making such a ruse a highly profitable endeavour. All it takes is repeating it over and over again with one or more recognisable titles.

Sharing the experience seems like the best thing we can do, in case you were not aware what may be coming to your games. Be prepared.

Update #1: as of 23/01/2017 the app's downloads are between 100 and 500 thousand and we have still not heard back from Google Play. The cloner is using a strategy of "releasing" new versions of the app to lure back players who assumed the app was not crashing intentionally.

Update #2: Google got back to us in the end and took down the malware app in the evening of 23/01/2017. Another clone is currently available on Google Play and we filed a second report with Google. We can't be exactly sure how much money the clone made with ad spamming, but  with hundreads of thousands of installs our guess is that it was much more than the $25 Google Play registration fee. Facade cloning seems like a parasite dream come true.

Update #3: Two more clones available on Google Play as of 24/01/2017. We reported them to Google. Seems like this is a beginning of a neverending clone story. It seems that with every clone, more "features" are available and not as many ads. 

[1] http://ift.tt/1va1ZQF

[2] http://ift.tt/1OEDvI6

[3] http://ift.tt/1oh3qgz

[4] http://ift.tt/1AVBe33

[5] http://ift.tt/1Jtkcxl

[6] http://ift.tt/1kdgfW6.