#my first full illustration with my knew tablet :D

[sad-leon]

What an unfortunate development

Got a close up, then my first design of iterator leo. still getting used to iterator designs and proportions

Mikey and Raph are others in the local group, thinking they may share they're own water source, mikey being the newest of the group. Donnie takes Moon's place and Leo takes Pebbles' :D

I don't expect this to become a whole thing, but I have some more thoughts about it if people are interested

[cosmica-candy]

Chapter two: one pretty fishy

Another chapter written by @mechamastermind​ with illustrations done by yours truly for our Coraline NSR Au!! I apologize for the lack of illustrations 

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING, Abandonment and Neo getting in trouble

Chapter one

Neo was returned back home later as his Daddy grabbed the last of the briefcases, before calling Neo back over. 

“Neo! Come on, help me carry Papa’s luggage up to his room!” 

Neo was stomping around angry cause of the way his father treated him, he got a proper scolding when he came home just for being over the hill with Yinu, to Neo he was out playing with a friend, but to Neon he was out far past where he could see him, and that demanded a scolding apparently.

Neo kicked his feet through the dry piles of dirt, the terrain so old and worn out that a mini cloud of dust filled the surrounding area, leaving Neo to cough and try to fan away the debris. When the dust settled though Neo looked down and saw a glint in the yard. Buried under the falling dust seemed to be a palm sized metallic object, and Neo's natural curiosity would drive him to pick up said object. 

“Neo! Come on!” 

He looked closely at the thing in his hands now, pressing a little button at the top as it sprung open, revealing a system of moving gears and clicking springs. A pocket watch. None like Neo had ever seen, it was clearly very old in design yet shiny despite its age. A jade ring around the minute and hour hands, and the X’s in the roman numerals were all made in gold.

“Woah…” neo simply said, before hearing his daddy call out to him a second time. 

“Coming daddy!”

Neo pocketed the watch and ran after his daddy following him up the stairs. Neon carrying the big heavy briefcase with all of Nova’s shorts, and Neo carrying the small little snow globe with the solar system in it, gently shaking it as they walked up the creaking stairs, and past bits of wallpaper peeling down like the curled nails of an elderly woman. The second story was so much more quiet than the first, the wind blows outside and into the front door, but once it starts making its way upstairs it stops dead in it's tracks. The insects they refuse to chirp on the second story, instead they do their best to crawl through the walls of the mansion without disturbing a thing. Even the wood of the stairs as they go up begins to silence itself, as creaks become quieter and quieter with each step, until even the wood falls peacefully somber. The second story was so much more quiet, it was certainly peaceful in its own way. 

But even silence has its own killer, and does not live forever. As the quiet and dull silence that has draped over the second floor is suddenly cut down in its prime by a deep gutteral animalistic growling, air flowing in and out of a mighty beast. Neo froze when he first heard the hall suddenly filled with the boom of something much larger than him making its presence clear, meanwhile neon had no such fear… as he simply opened up the master bedroom door to reveal the source of sound, being that of a passed out nova face down in the bed, his snores pouring into his pillow and shaking the bedframe. 

Neon walked over to the dresser, beginning to unpack the briefcase of shorts he carried, while neo walked to the bedside with his snowglobe in hand. Placing it on the nightstand next to nova, as he turned the key on its side… playing Neo’s favorite tune. Neo looked to his Papa for approval, thinking it might rouse the beast from his slumber. But nova’s eye was still shut even if pointed at Neo… Neo reached up to tug on his papa’s sleeve. Tug tug. He was only responded to with a small groan as Nova laid their still asleep. 

“Papa… Can you play yet?” Neo asked, and before he could get his answer Neon scooped him up under his arms and held him to his chest. 

“No buts neo… If you want to play with someone so badly, let's go find someone then!” 

“No No Neo, let Papa rest, he had a long night driving…”

“But…” 

“I…” Neo looked down at his feet, kicking them softly as Neon took him out of this room, and watched the door shut on his sleeping father. 

“...Can I go play with Yinu?” He asked, 

“Oh neo no one lives around here but us in the mansion… Oh! How about we go meet our new neighbors! I hear there’s a group of young kids!” 

“Yinu? I don’t know any Yinu here.”

“Oh! She’s the girl I met in the field!” 

Neo pouted once more, he knew of the group his father was talking about, he overheard him talking with papa about the other mansion tenets, the people living on the first floor were a group of college students, still much older than Neo, but comparatively young to Neon. But he was already in daddy’s arms and he couldn’t quite reach the floor anymore, so it was off to meet the neighbors, to his disappointment. 

First it was down the stairs, the first floor, past the entry room that led up the stairs to the other tenants. Neon stood in front of the first floor housing, with Neo in his arms. The door was the oldest one in the house, the tenants having done nothing to repair it even as it hung off its hinges. What they did do was manage to carve their initials into the front of it, “D, R, S, T.” there was also a newly installed doorbell made of sleek and shiny plastic, sticking out against the backdrop of the aging house. Neon reached out and pressed the button, making a horribly loud buzzing noise, as both Neon and Neo had a bit of a jump. Neo was set down at the door, as the crashing of foot steps came from behind it, door knob slowly turning, breathing heavy, shadow stretching out underneath the doorframe. Click. 

Door swung open, and a tall man with blue skin, covered in large white orbs all across his jacket looked down at Neo, holding all the emotion in his face. For a few seconds there was just silence between Neo and this stranger. Neo’s eyes quickly scanning him up and down as his child mind raced to try and find anything comforting, but he looked so cold, and what didn’t help was the katana strapped to his back, worrying neo even more. The silence finally broken by Neon as he greeted the young man, 

“Dodo! How are you?” Neo felt reassured by the sound of his Daddy’s voice, but the blue man would not respond… Neo still felt unnerved by his lack of a smile… 

“I wanted my boy to see your fun project! Perhaps you can show him?” Neon said, and this lit up the blue man's eyes, as he looked down at the young neo with a smile of excitement now, he stepped out of the doorway to reveal a hall lined with fish tanks, and at the very end was a door with many flashing colors coming from underneath it. Neo felt his fear all wash away as suddenly he felt at ease seeing the man finally smile, and the beautiful tanks full of fishies behind him. Neon gently pushing him inside as Dodo lead him in. 

Neo ran straight up to the fish tanks along the wall, bouncing on his toes with glee. He peered into the glass boxes, and into their bright colorful miniature worlds, each one designed specifically for them. Each one seemed to only hold a single fishy, and it was given the entire tank to play around inside of, filled with glowing castles, divers that created bubbles, and plenty of moving parts to keep the small fishes entertained. 

Atop her shoulders in place of a head, there was  blue ringed octopus instead, gurgling its tentacles out at neo much to his fright as he leapt like a cat into Mr. Dodo’s arms. The others extremely disappointed as well as their creation turned into a half fish, half human, half octopus monster of legend. So they gave it all a hard reboot, and once it was gone from their sight everyone slowly began to laugh at the experience. The girl in the pink hoodie hanging to Neo a poster, a design of what it was meant to be, and there on that poster was “Sayu”, a pretty mermaid girl with adorable features, bouncy hair, and a fish tail. 

Mr. Dodo opened the next door, the sound of music bopping in the background as it led into a backroom, lit only by colorful nontraditional lights, like Christmas lights strung up against the wall, or the dozens of computer monitors sat around a small glowing table. Sitting at that table were three other kids, all college aged roughly the same as Mr. Dodo. There was a larger man in a yellow tee, wearing an umbrella hat. Next to him was a girl in a pink hoodie, her face hidden by her attire as she didn’t look much at Neo. And lastly there was a boy in a plaid shirt and shorts. Each one hunched over a monitor with a piece of recording equipment in front of them, a microphone, drawing tablet, and a simple mouse and keyboard. Everyone's eyes lit up though when neo walked into the room, the boy in the plaid shirt standing up. He began pointing at the others in the room, despite their silence they all seemed to be on the exact same page, they began to work overtime for Neo, as the table in front of them lit up like a mini projector beaming its light upwards at the ceiling. All the other lights were switched down until there was only the glowing of the projector. And suddenly the light began to move and form a shape, starting from the bottom neo watched particles fall together and form a fishy tail, a bright and colorful pattern along its scales, then the middle, the waist was made, the torso and the arms, of a pretty and thin little woman, dainty and elegant her form was, complimenting her bubble gum like skin… Neo was enthralled seeing this amazing light show turn the air into this pretty lady.

At that moment one of the monitors exploded, lights began to flicker, as the rest of the girl was rendered. Poorly. 

Neo enjoyed the rest of the hour he spent with the Sayu Crew, even though they did not talk very much at all, they mostly sat around on their devices trying to remake Sayu again and get her modeling correct, occasionally taking breaks to drink sparkling water and stare at the fishes in the tanks for inspiration. Neo’s favorite part was the fish tanks, each fish seemed so happy in that little box, and shined so brightly. 

At the end of the hour neon came back around to see a much happier looking Neo being brought out to him with a little mini bottle of lemon sparkling water. Scooping him up under the arms and holding him to his chest, Neon thanked the Sayu crew for their friendliness and carried his boy back outside and down the steps, towards the lower floor now, residing under the house itself. 

Neon held neo in his arms, and stood in front of a painted door split down the middle in two coats of paint, on one half was white, and the other half was pink. To Neo the bright colors of the door were slightly alarming, they weren’t gently painted like the rest of the house, they were bright and vibrant, splattered on by paintbrush. 

Neon took his hand and pounded it lightly against the door, only to find it slowly creak open… 

Neon sat his boy down on his feet, taking his hand as he walked him into the bottom tenants housing, calling out to her. 

“Miss Eve? Miss eve? Are you home?” 

Neo looked around the hallway they walked in, to see the divots in the walls, and along those divots there rested statues of a woman's head, her skin tone split down the middle, pink and white, long blonde hair, her busts lined the walls. 

At the end of the hallway Neon and Neo walked into a large dugout, surrounding this hexagonal room were even more statues of this woman, standing in various positions and holding various objects. And in the middle standing atop a ladder with a chisel and bucket of paint in hand, was the very subject of all these statues, Miss Eve herself. Neo was wandering around the room, excited at all the fresh buckets of paint, as Eve was mindlessly painting her latest statue. 

Neo tapped a green paint can, expecting it full but finding it very empty, it shifted off the edge of the desk and fell onto the floor. The sudden sound shifted Eve off her ladder as she took a step off the ladder from surprise. The buckets of paint she was holding in her hands going flying and clattering against the floor completely recoloring the room. 

Neon gave his boy a scolding look as neo began to rub his arms. He ran over to help eve up as she seemed quite upset. 

“Did you not hear us coming in, eve?” 

“Neon could you go fetch me more buckets, they’re in the back room.” Eve asked, Neon nodding as he went and fetched buckets. 

“I was in my minds eye…”

She looked over at Neo, frowning at him as he shrunk in on himself… 

Eve walking up the step ladder again, but when she walked up the top she looked down at the floor, and saw what the paint cans had fallen into, the paint splattered in a beautiful but completely random pattern, and this put a smile on eve’s face, suddenly from upset to very happy as she looked down at neo now, seeing a tiny artist. 

She stepped off the ladder and knelt down in front of the boy with cupped hands against her cheek. 

“Well hello there little artist! I’m afraid we didn’t get introduced properly… I’m eve.” 

But neo didn’t respond back, he was still startled by the mess he made and worried about the trouble he was in. It was quite clear he was very close to crying… that’s when eve got an idea. 

She went over to her fridge and pulled out one of her Artistic Juice boxes, neo’s eyes almost instantly lit up as he saw her pull it out. 

She walked back over to him with the juice box in hand, as she looked down at the tiny artist, 

“Perhaps you’d like some juice? I find juice helps me when I feel down…” 

Neo bounced as he looked at the extremely tall woman with the juice. Reaching up with the grabbiest of hands, clamming up at her wanting the juice already. 

She pulled the straw off the back and poked it into the top for him, kneeling down as she handed it off. His eyes sparkling for a moment as he took a long hard sip. 

Neon walked back in to see his boy and eve giggling over two juice boxes, their feet covered in paint as they stomped around on the wet floor. 

Neon darted over taking neo up into his arms, a mix of frustration and concern. 

“Thank you miss eve for your hospitality but I think we must be going now.” Said Neon, as he took away neo and carried him back up to their floor, passing by the other boys as they all walked to their rooms for the night. 

Neon set him back down in the kitchen as he sat him against a kitchen chair, pulling his shoes off as they were absolutely covered and ruined with paints. 

Neon was upset for sure, so he left neo in the kitchen for a moment, coming back escorting a half asleep Nova into the kitchen, as Neon pointed down at his feet and the shoes on the floor.

“Look what our boy did, his shoes got ruined!” Neon exclaimed, as Nova began to frown at neo… Neo felt a new level of fear he didn’t know he had before… as he watched his large space dad kneel in front of him, picking up one of his shoes and holding it. 

“Neo… What were you doing to make your shoes all messy?” Nova asked, as neo couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. 

“I was… painting with miss eve… and stepped in the wet paint…” Nova simply sighed as he shook his head. 

“You can’t be ruining your shoes like this Neo… Your father will take you to get new ones in the morning.” He was so stern and direct, and Neo felt his heart sink… 

“You mean… you won’t take me, Papa?” 

“No Neo, i’ve got work to do.” 

“...But I didn’t… get to see you all day…” 

Neo felt his little heart twist as he was about ready to cry, he hadn’t spent time with his Papa in days it felt like, and it was just too much for him to handle… He tilted his head down as a few tears began to roll down his cheeks, hidden to both of his father’s… as nova simply turned away and went back to bed. 

Neo felt the tears burst like dams holding back too much water, as Nova leaving felt like the last straw. He hopped off his chair with one arm covering his eyes, darting past Neon who was too slow to catch him. Neo ran to his room, eyes tucked into his elbow soaking his sleeve as Neon stood back and just watched him run, gently sighing as he felt pain in his heart as well… 

Neo leapt into his bed, boxes upon boxes of unpacked toys and clothes stacked to adult height levels in his room, the only thing he had ready for him was a blanket and pillow, of which he held onto tightly as he poured the rest of his tears into it… 

Minutes and one tear stained pillow later, neo was laying there clutching onto it still, as his sobbing turned to sniffling and all he could do was look at his door, wishing, waiting, hoping that maybe Papa would come back and apologize, and tell him they’ll look at the stars again together… 

Neo ended up staring at the door for hours. 

Waiting. 

He fell asleep waiting. 

Another time, another place… large fingers, massive like loaves of bread descended down carefully against a workshop desk. Atop this desk laid a small mouse, as if disassembled of all it's parts. One by one the pieces were picked up, cogs and gears, springs and levers, in such massive hands carefully putting it back together again. The eyes put back into place, a tail reattached. But when all the pieces came back together it looked like any other mouse, just with a small keyhole in its back. It was missing the final touch. The massive hands reached into the desk, pulling open the large drawer to reveal a collection of hundreds of keys, various shapes and sizes, materials and textures. It hovered over the pearl section for the longest time, sometimes switching back and forth between it and the silver keys… but ultimately deciding on the bronze keys, picking one up and rubbing it in oil and wiping it clean with a delicate rag, before slowly pushing it into the back of the mouse. Locking into place as it turned the key several times, winding up now… 

The mouse sprung to life as soon as the hands let go, scurrying across the desk before leaping into a grandfather clock and disappearing. 

“You’re coming home soon, neo.”

Chapter three

[gumnut-logic]

The Fight (Bit 18b + Epilogue)

Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4 | Bit 5 | Bit 6 | Bit 7 | Bit 8 | Bit 9 | Bit 10 | Bit 11a | Bit 11b | Bit 12 | Bit 13 | Bit 14 | Bit 15 | Bit 16 | Bit 17a | Bit 17b | Bit 18a | 18b + Epilogue

It’s finished! All 18,380 words of it :D Writing every day before work and at lunch seems to work well :D Though I usually need a weekend to wind up the ending - needs more concentration :D

So many thanks to the wonderful @onereyofstarlight for all her help throughout this fic and for a final read through of this bit :D You is amazing and wonderful.

Also, so many thanks to everyone who has commented and liked and cheered me on. You guys keep me writing these crazy things. ::hugs you all so much::

From here, it is onto the Kermadec fic ahead of Fandomversary ::eyes the date:: Oh dear, I better write fast. It will be a miracle if I finish it before 17 July.

As for Anna....I don’t think this is the last we will see of her :D This is the second story in a new series, apparently. :D

-o-o-o-

“There were some concerns regarding the MacIntyres and their connections to organised crime.” Jack’s voice was matter of fact. “You are a witness and/or a victim of both incidents. The Tracys were concerned for your safety.”

She hadn’t noticed anybody following her. Of course, she had considered the possibilities. Thoughts like that had kept her awake at night. But her conversations with the police had been reassuring.

“The police said there wasn’t anything to worry about. That the MacIntyres were in custody.”

Scott’s voice was quiet. “We have traced a connection to a worldwide crime ring. John, in particular, is concerned.” He held out a mobile phone. “We would like you to have this.”

She reached out and took it from him. Latest Tracy phone, worth a couple of thousand dollars. Completely outside her price range.

She looked up. “Why?”

“It has a direct connection to Thunderbird Five and we will be able to track you.”

“You could follow me?”

Scott’s voice was quiet. “Yes.”

He left it as a simple fact.

“Why?”

“For your safety.”

“What could you do from space?”

“We have security in the vicinity and can respond immediately.”

“So, you are following me anyway.”

“Yes.”

She held his gaze.

“We protect those we care about and Alan cares about you. Virgil, in fact, threw a fit after you left the hospital. He demanded we provide security.” A snort. “If he had given me a chance to answer, I could have told him that I had already spoken to Kyrano.” He didn’t look away, his eyes as challenging as hers. “The threat is there. We want to negate it.”

She hadn’t seen any security following her. She hadn’t seen Kyrano since the incident. Not that she had been looking. The thought that there were people watching her, hiding behind buildings...

“You should have told me.” An indrawn breath. “I work in a school surrounded by children. If I am a danger to the kids...”

“You’re not.”

“How do you know that?”

“We’re monitoring the situation-“

She shot to her feet. “How can you possibly guarantee that nothing will happen?!” The thought of a MacIntyre with a gun in her classroom was absolutely terrifying. “I have a responsibility to my students. How could you let me return to work when you knew that was a possibility?”

Scott stood up, his hands out obviously in an attempt to placate her. “Anna, you are not a danger to your students. Kyrano has you under surveillance, you’re safe.”

“I’m safe? Like Alan was?” The words were out of her mouth before she could think and she regretted them immediately as the man in front of her paled.

“That hole in our security has been plugged. I’m sorry we were unable to prevent that incident.” His voice was still strong and determined, but there was an uncertainty, a guilt in his undertones. This was a man trying to do the right thing.

“An apology is not necessary. That was not your fault. The point I am trying to make is that International Rescue is not omniscient. If there is a threat, I should not be in this school. How could I face the parents of my students should something happen? How could you?”

She grabbed the paperwork on her desk and shuffled it into a pile, her mind going through all the things she would need to do to resign from her position. But then, where would she go? Where would she be safe? She found her handbag in her hands and stared at it a moment. Looking up, she found both men calmly staring at her.

“Anna, I’m sorry.” And there was the young man who had lost his father only a matter of months ago. The suit suddenly seemed too big for him, the blue in his eyes just that touch unsure.

The door to the classroom was pushed open, no knock, no hesitancy. Kyrano strode in as if on cue. Dressed in loose black pants, a grey polo shirt and runners, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck, he appeared insignificant, a dad at the school to pick up his kids.

Only the sharp green of his eyes betrayed that he was anything but.

“Ms Kent, you and your students are safe. You have my word.”

He spoke as if his word was a certainty.

Anna sat down, thoughts swirling around her head, her whole body wilting. “How can I risk it? With so much at stake?” Her career, her life, was not worth those that filled this room, this building, on a daily basis.

And her family...De, her partner, hell, even the dogs. Her flatmate...

Her elbows hit the desk and her head fell into her hands.

The scuffle of footsteps. A tentative touch on her shoulder. She looked up to find Scott crouched down beside her, blue eyes intense. No longer towering above her, now looking up at her. “You are safe, Anna. I promise.”

He held her gaze. He was the commander of International Rescue. He was asking her to trust him.

Trust him.

“You. Are. Safe.”

So many questions. How could they monitor her at all times? Her family? Her friends? Her students? It wasn’t humanly possible.

But this was International Rescue, they dealt in miracles, they made things happen.

A lump caught in her throat.

Voice small. “Okay.”

Those eyes softened just a little and his hand squeezed her shoulder.

His voice was gentle, no doubt the same voice he used on frightened people he was rescuing.

She was frightened people.

Could she be rescued?

A flicker of steel in those eyes answered that question.

“Kyrano is in charge of your security, John is monitoring from orbit and Jack is tackling the legalities. We will find those responsible and remove the threat. International Rescue has resources across the globe and we are mobilising. You need us, that phone will have a Thunderbird on your doorstep in minutes.”

She stared at him. “All for one small town school teacher.”

He unfolded and straightened up to his full height, looking down at her. The confident and certain young man returned and steeled his stance. “It is what we do.”

A blink and she found herself believing him. It was little more than faith. Hope.

“Okay.” This time her voice was stronger. “Tell me what I need to do.”

That suave smile curved his lips again.

-o-o-o-

 Epilogue

 “Okay, class, pull up page 58 in your grammar text and read the first two paragraphs. I want you to write an expressive piece using first person and present tense. One hundred words minimum.”

She didn’t miss the twin groans from the holoprojector on her desk. She had to smile, they often forgot they were in a class of twenty-odd students and their reactions were obvious. “Alan and Rory, I heard that.”

“Sorry, Ms Kent.” Alan had his head in one hand and appeared thoroughly bored. Rory didn’t even bother to answer. He was doodling on his tablet.

An arched eyebrow. “Alan, I didn’t say what the topic had to be. Perhaps you could write about flying a rocket into space?”

That caught his attention. “I could?”

“You could. And if you finish quickly enough, you could illustrate it.”

Gemma was bouncing in her seat, her hand in the air. “Ms Kent, can I write about a rocket, too?”

Anna smiled. “Of course, you are all welcome to write about subjects that interest you. You have the next forty-five minutes to complete the exercise. Make it yours, make it into whatever you want.”

She didn’t miss the grumble from Jonathon about making it into a way to get out of here. He was overdue some special attention. She wrote a note on her tablet.

All the heads in the room bent down to read.

All except Rory.

She eyed her dejected student who was still doodling. A touch at her own screen and she pulled up what the boy was drawing.

A number of words scattered over his screen, all angry and understandable, interspersed with abstract figures and angry lines.

He was having one of those days.

A sigh and she touched her headset to confine his audio to her alone. His holofigure was removed from the classroom and confined to her screen.

She didn’t miss Alan’s sudden raised eyebrow as he looked up from his work.

Rory received the notification that he was on privacy mode and looked up at her sullenly. “What have I done now?”

She suppressed another sigh. Voice quiet so the class couldn’t hear. “Nothing, Rory. I was just going to suggest that you could write this piece of text using whatever is on your mind today. You don’t have to present it to the class, it can be a private piece.”

“Don’t wanna.”

Her lips thinned. Definitely one of those days. “Do you need a break? Should I speak to your mother?”

“No!” His eyes were alarmed. “Leave Mom outta this.”

Her heart lurched. There was only so much she was capable of doing to help Rory. But she would use what little reach she had to do the best she could. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Still doodling. Apparently, he had forgotten she could see what he wrote on his tablet. Bloody leave me alone was certainly clear enough.

“Okay, Rory, try to write something. It might help.” So much anger. Understandable, but it needed to be managed. She would speak to Rory’s counsellor later today and see if there was another strategy that could help. Rory was slowly working through it all, he just needed a little help.

As for her other long distance student...

“Gordon, getoff!”

The class burst into laughter as Gordon Tracy suddenly appeared in Alan’s stream and gave the younger boy a thorough noogie.

It didn’t last long, as a red flannelled arm reached into the feed and yanked the fish out of receiver range.

Alan, hair now sticking up at all angles, glared at something the rest of the class couldn’t see. “Serves you right, fishboy!”

Blue eyes widened as Alan reacted to something Anna couldn’t hear, but its contents were obvious as the eleven-year-old snapped back to attention, guilt under her gaze. He hurriedly returned to reading his tablet.

Someone in the class snickered.

Anna raised an eyebrow at the room and all heads ducked back to work.

Rory started writing a story about a boy who was scared.

Alan was describing Thunderbird Three...another paper she would have to save to the locked server John had provided for all such possible technology breaches.

The wind rustled through the rosemary bush outside the schoolroom window.

Her phone flashed up with an apology from Virgil regarding Gordon. Apparently, he was sentenced to cleaning the bilge pumps of the family boat. An unusual punishment task, but then the Tracys were an unusual family.

A glance at the room’s security camera. It had become a nervous habit.

An internal sigh.

Unusual indeed.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

[berniesrevolution]

THE OUTLINE

Last January, I was broke. I lived in a car, and that month I had to choose between paying my cell phone bill or buying food. Two years before that I was a freelance photographer in Chicago, but walked away from that life to travel around the country. My travels had given me a collection of stories and photos I was proud of, and more than 9,000 people were following me on Instagram. I loved what I was doing, but I didn’t make a dime doing it. I’d hit bottom at the worst time, mid-winter, far away from my comfortable network of jobs and connections back in the city. I decided to take a shot at Patreon, a crowdfunding site that encourages artists to “regain creative freedom” by raising money directly from fans. I knew friends had made Patreon accounts over the years, selling their art and music, funding their writing and podcasts, and figured if I could make $400 to $500 a month, I could continue doing photography full time.

Patreon is basically a payments processor designed like a social network. Every creator sets up a profile where they fill out a prompt about what they’re making: “Oliver Babish is creating cooking videos,” or “Hannah Alexander is creating Art and Costume Designs inspired by pop culture and Art Nouveau.” Patreon encourages creators to provide a description of themselves and their work and strongly suggests uploading a video — “This combo is incredibly motivating for fans — it shows how real this is to you and how much you value their participation in your journey,” the site says. Next, you set up “rewards” — these are the tiers that your patrons can choose from. You can set these up so that patrons get something for their money, like an update only for patrons or some patron-only content, or you can set them up to reflect what your patrons are paying for (for example, Naomi Wu, a DIY technologist in Shenzhen, says patrons who support her at the $1 tier are paying for a bag of screws, and those who donate at the $5 tier are paying for her lunch). Then you set goals, which are actions tied to monetary benchmarks, such as being able to quit your job in order to pursue your creative passion full time.

I wrote my bio and added a short story about a sunset, a mountain, and the bandits who hid out there a century ago. I set up tiers so my Patreon subscribers could get stories published to Patreon or stories accompanied by a photo every week in an automated text, depending on how much they donated. I’d used a similar format on Instagram, where hundreds of people liked my photos and story captions, so I was eager to see who all would drop $5 to support my work. After an hour, my page was set up. I added a picture of me with my dog. My dog is very cute, so I figured I should capitalize on that. I was thrilled when 24 of my friends and family signed up to be my “patrons” and I made $120 in the first month.

When Jack Conte, a former YouTube musician, and Sam Yam, a co-founder of the mobile ad platform AdWhirl, launched Patreon in 2013, Conte posted a video he had made for an original song called “Pedals.” The video cost him $10,000 and three months to make and got nearly 2 million views, he said, but he made just $963 through YouTube’s ad network. “This devaluing of art and creators is happening at a global scale,” Conte wrote in a blog post on Patreon. “It actually makes my heart sink when I think of the magnitude of the web’s systemic abuse of creative people.”

Today, successful Patreon creators include Chapo Trap House, a lefty podcast with 19,837 patrons at the time of writing paying $88,074 a month; the new commentator and YouTuber Philip DeFranco (13,823 patrons paying an amount that is undisclosed, but is enough to put him in the top 20 creators on the site); and the gaming YouTuber Nerd³ (4,494 patrons, $8,003 per month). It’s enabled many more indie creators, including members of communities at risk of poverty such as the trans community, to support themselves and each other. Ayla Arthur, an artist and trans woman in Chicago, has been funding the comic she writes on Patreon for two years now. Arthur works in a pop-up store part time, making $15 an hour, but she spends between 20-25 hours a week updating her comic and on Patreon she currently earns $200 a month. That was enough to let her buy a tablet for illustrating. “It's a way of keeping people most at risk of unemployment afloat while they do what they love,” she told me.

But despite the revolutionary rhetoric, the success stories, and the goodwill that Patreon has generated, the numbers tell a different story.

Patreon now has 79,420 creators, according to Tom Boruta, a developer who tracks Patreon statistics under the name Graphtreon. (He has his own Patreon — “Graphtreon is creating Patreon graphs, statistics, and history” — which earns more than $500 a month.) Patreon lets creators hide the amount of money they are actually making, although the number of patrons is still public. Boruta’s numbers are based on the roughly 80 percent of creators who publicly share what they earn. Of those creators, only 1,393 — 2 percent — make the equivalent of federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $1,160 a month, in October 2017. Worse, if we change it to $15 per hour, a minimum wage slowly being adopted by states, that’s only .8 percent of all creators. In this small network designed to save struggling creatives, the money has still concentrated at the top.

“Finally, ‘starving’ and ‘artist’ no longer need to be joined at the hip,” according to Patreon, in one of its many positive blog posts about its successful creators. But Patreon seems to know that most of its creators are actually making a pittance. In 2016, Patreon boasted that 7,960 users were now making over $100 a month, which struck me as such an insignificant monthly income to brag about. Around the same time, the company reportedly had 25,000 creators, meaning only 31 percent of Patreon’s users were making over a hundred bucks.

(Continue Reading)

[rumbleemelye]

Client Studies 2020/2021

Stage One: part two

Pre-Placement/Project Reflection:

In the pre-placement stage of this module, I had several avenues of potential sources of experience. Overall I wanted to gain more experience in areas outside my comfort zone and I really wanted to go and do some physical Illustration in shop windows or packaging.

A. After contacting serveral places including Khiels, I felt quite hopeful that I would be able to get what I was after, as businesses were trying to get people back in stores spending after the blow of the first lockdown and all the major festive periods were around the corner. Unfortunately in October Wales was put into another 2 week firebreak lockdown and all of those opportunities for physically go and ilustrate were gone. I was really disappointed and discouraged, but I still had other ideas for my placements, so not all hope was lost there. Sadly though since that time, most of the places I had in mind to illustrate, either were out of business or had to remain closed; then of course in December Wales went back into full lockdown, so by this time I had abandoned this idea.

B. Fortunetly I had other things going on for me, one of which was participating in Inktober 2020, which I put a spin on by doing DRACtober. At this time I knew I wanted to complete this challenge using traditionally methods of illustration and using dip pens and ink, but of course these images would be displayed online on instagram and on my website. I was still very focused on traditional methods of illustration, since my only digital resource at that time was a PC and a wacom tablet, which I hated using, the only work I really ever did use this for was the work with my brother.

C. As the opportunities for physical illustration faded out of reach, I turned back to working with my brother on some stroybords for short films he was planning to make in the coming year. I had previously completed one for him earlier in the year which he was pleased with and he has a couple more ideas in mind, including another short film and some music videos. In the end we agreed that the short film one would work out more beneficial for both of us and we spent some time discussing the ideas and shortly after he sent me moodboards and shot lists so I could start drawing some stuff up for him. I chose to carry out this project digitally as it was an area I lacked experience in and something I knew was only getting more and more popular.

D. Eventually I did try and apply for some of the univeristy opportunities and was quite optimistic, but unfortunetly I was not chosen for any of them.

As I moved into the in-placement part of the module, I was quite suprised about how things had gone, things definetly took turns out of my favour, but I began to set my conentration of the opportunities I did have going for me instead of dwelling over the missed ones.

[acaseforpencils]

Joana Avillez.

Bio: I have been doing illustration full-time since 2012. It's what I always wanted to do (see image below) but somewhere along the way I got distracted, or it was drummed out of me. I was always drawing and ended up at RISD where I studied painting. I remember sophomore year being told my paintings (which were extremely bad) were very "illustrative" and understanding that was not a compliment. I began making things I never would have even imagined being able to make: big things, tactile things. RISD was incredible and if I had been studying illustration then, I don't think I would have learned everything I did about ideas and materials and intention. 

 After art school I knew I didn't want to make things for walls or galleries and I honestly never had. I always knew the page was what I loved and everything to do with that — comics, writing, humor, drawing, satire, books, magazines, newspapers.  Essentially, what I make now is what I did when I was eight.

I don't do traditional gag cartoons, although I once tried for about two months. I was truly terrible at it.  It really is a unique genius I don't possess but admire. However, returning eagerly to rejection each week taught me to take things a lot less personally. I have been so lucky to work with Emma Allen doing illustrated Daily Shouts pieces; it's one of the few places in the world that feels like a home for what I consider my ideal work: a drawn and written hybrid used to induce varying shades of laughter.

My first one was this piece, chronicling the arduousness of seasonal transition, inspired by mom, one of my top muses.

 Besides The New Yorker, I've worked for a variety of places, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Zeit Magazine, apartamento...

Tools of choice:  I am very into simple-processes and working in a way that produces the most direct brain-to-hand-to-page drawing.  I feel about this the way I do Lucinda Williams' music: like she is singing right beside me, wheras a very produced song can feel like it exists very far away, on another planet — which of course has it's merits — like I would like to live on another planet.

I make drawings by very easy means and I like it that way.  It means I can work anywhere. I don't need expensive machines (granted, I have a sick scanner) or hard to find materials. I could truly make a living using materials sold at my deli.

My favorite pen is the Uni-ball vision in fine.  I wrote a love letter to this pen for New York magazine, which goes into detail about why I think it's the best drawing and writing tool.  It is easy to find, cheap, waterproof, and never finicky.  I love it.  I use five pens and brush pens in total; in order of weight thick to thin they are: Pentel brush pen FP5M, a Kuretake Fudegokochi (my friend Alexa Karolinski got me a pack of these in Japan and I have routinely reordered), Uni-ball fine, Uni-ball extra-fine, Muji gel pen .38 mm (a pen trade with Liana Finck).

I use this GraphGear 500 mechanical pencil for laying out my ideas, and these Faber-Castell erasers to erase the trace once I've inked. I'm obsessed with these erasers (such a scandalous statement).

I know for me simplicity is best, so that is pretty much all I use.  I keep an old-timey "draftsman's mini-duster" on my desk to brush away eraser residue and lunch's crumbs.

Tool I wish I could use better: I always wished I could be a nib person. Whenever I use a calligraphy or dip pen I wind up spending the afternoon addressing empty envelopes to friends or writing Joana Avillez Joana Avillez Joana Avillez over and over again in some sort of trance or meditative naming ceremony.  

When I went to SVA in 2010 (for the Illustration as Visual Essay program) I didn't even know how to use a Wacom tablet. So even just using that feels like I'm a person of the world! I was also still fussing around with Rapidographs and white out.  My tools and process have become more and more dumbed down — or streamlined — depending how you look at it.  

Tool I wish existed: A pencil who's lead, once drawn onto the page, would transform to ink.

Tricks: This is perhaps less about tools, and more for working, but I always leave something unfinished at the end of the day.  When I get back to work the next day I can jump right in, and there's no lugubrious preamble.  

Misc: 

This is Pepito. He's probably four years old and he's my studio manager.  He is very intent on making sure I get away from my desk to walk along the river and then throw a ball around for as long as possible and then lay in the grass and stare at the sky panting. He's a huge asset.

Website, etc. 

joanaavillez.com

Look out for D C-T! my book with Molly Young (writer and crossword-maker and friend), an illustrated and coded book inspired by William's Steig's classic CDB being published by Penguin Press in 2018.

Be sure to follow Case’s Instagram and Twitter for fun quotes and photos!

[duaneodavila]

Small Firms, Small Bars, And Tech Training

I spent Friday in Rochester, N.Y., for the second-annual Solo and Small Firm Conference of the Monroe County Bar Association. It was a stark reminder of how far we still need to go in getting lawyers up to speed on technology. But it was also a demonstration of the important role a small bar can play in educating lawyers about tech.

My reason for being at the conference was to deliver the keynote, in which I spoke about the duty of technology competence under ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8, and reviewed some of the ethics opinions and court rulings that have interpreted the scope and application of that duty.

From speaking to some of the lawyers afterwards, it was clear to me that, in imploring them of the need to become technologically competent, I might as well have been telling them that they need to become fluent in Russian. One lawyer I spoke to swore he would retire from law practice before having to learn technology. During my talk, when I asked, as I often do, how many in the room knew how to encrypt an email, four hands went up.

But the majority of the 60-70 lawyers there were clearly thirsty for more knowledge about technology and how to use it in their practices. The best illustration of this came in a breakout session led by Jared D. Correia, a lawyer who provides management and technology consulting to solo and small firms through his Red Cave Consulting.

Correia had prepared a presentation on the topic, “What You Need to Know About Legal Technology.” But before he even got to speak to his first slide, a hand went up with a question. Then another. Then another. Then many hands. Correia never got to his presentation, instead answering question after question. Should I get rid of my server for the cloud? Is Dropbox safe? Why would I want a tablet? Do I need Office 365? For 50 minutes, on came the questions.

Presented entirely off the cuff, Correia’s session was one of the most useful of the day, rivaled only by another nuts-and-bolts session in which the panel presented tips on how to get clients and keep them happy. Again, the audience peppered the panelists with practical questions. Do radio ads work? How do I handle referrals? What should my retainer say?

I have been to a number of state bar solo and small firm conferences over the years. But as far as I recall, Friday was the first such conference I have attended by a county bar. Based on the number of attendees and exhibitors, it was the smallest such conference I have attended.

Even so, I ended the day thinking that this had been a truly useful conference for those who attended. It was a day full of practical, nuts-and-bolts advice delivered — apart from Correia and me — by lawyers and judges from the community and from practices that share a common thread of challenges and needs.

Credit for the day goes to several people, but most notably Kevin Ryan, who became executive director of the Monroe County Bar Association in 2016 after a number of years as director of education and communication for the Vermont Bar Association; Meredith M.B. Lamb, chair of the MCBA’s Solo & Small Firm Committee; and Nicole Black, the Above the Law columnist and legal technology evangelist at MyCase, who is chair of the MCBA’s Technology Committee.

For me, however, there was a bigger takeaway in the day. It was that these smaller bars such as MCBA could play a critical role in educating lawyers about legal technology and helping them achieve the level of competence required by Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8.

Even though 35 states have adopted the rule, and even though two states now also mandate technology CLE, the fact is that many lawyers still have only a rudimentary understanding of technology, at best. The surest way to get them the knowledge they need is not from the top down, but from the bottom up — from their local peers and their local bar associations.

I have no idea how many city and county bars put on programs such as that presented Friday by the MCBA. But I hope more will consider doing so — and consider making technology training part of the curriculum.

Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

Small Firms, Small Bars, And Tech Training republished via Above the Law