#next I want to get a digital commission to get a definitive version of my Dragon Link - so he can get talons like the other dragons as well | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ahiddenpath · 8 months ago

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Writing News

You might have noticed that I launched a new fic recently called Infinite Possibilities! I think it's really interesting, and not the sort of fic I see often. It's (what I hope is) a realistic look at the difficulties of digimon living on earth as more people find their digimon partners and have access to the Digital World via their digivices, from several perspectives (Chosen, partner digimon, non-Chosen, non-partner digimon, the Bureau, Yggdrasil, Homeostatis, etc). The setting is canon in the Adventure world, but of course my thoughts on the topic are speculative/head canon. The fic opens before the events of Kizuna, so most of the Chosen are college age.

That's the big thing, but I have a lot more details and thoughts about the future of my fics beneath the cut.

I've been talking lately about being unsure of sharing my work, due to various threats (AI, stolen content, book binding of fanworks, etc) accompanied by a general decrease in engagement across social media in general, and especially in old fandoms like digimon specifically.

I still feel that way, frankly. But I have also noticed that if I don't share my fandom work, I tweak it forever. I can only grow as writer if I practice producing finished works; fussily editing a few chapters indefinitely won't teach me a damned thing.

So, I will be sharing Infinite Possibilities, and probably trying to complete my other open fics, too. There may be some changes, though. For example, I will not be drawing art routinely for IP (it may happen sometimes if I get the urge, but it won't be a chapter expectation). I will also shift to using screen grabs from Tri to promote Tri: Integrity Lens when I post for that, and only drawing if I really want to, rather than using the art as a mandatory promotional tool.

Future fics

Currently, my plan is to not launch any more longfics. I can't say at this time if that means forever or until I complete one or two longfics. It will likely take me a few years to knock out my open longfics, so it's better not to speculate that far out.

I may, however, launch the occasional oneshot or short fic. I actually have a short fic (about 3-5 chapters) in the works right now. It's an explicit sex story, and it's a bit chaotic. It explores various sexualities and lifestyles in a safe, accepting, patient environment. I'd have to say that it's... definitely the most, just, blatantly sexy thing I've written.

Here is the status of my current open fics and my plans for them:

Puits d'Amour

I've been struggling for months with the next art for Puits d'Amour, and I don't want art struggles to hold me back from completing my writing. I will eventually share the next chapter of PdA, and the half chapter that exists after that (I am unsure if I will add more to it or just post a shorter chapter). After that, there is no more existing content, so there will be a pause as I figure out my next steps.

Tri: Integrity Lens

I am going to cut down on artwork and utilize more screenshots. There are currently about three chapters written that could be published without too much intensive effort, so I imagine you will see these after I post the remaining PdA chapters. They're quite good/exciting/interesting, too!

After those are shared, I will need to sit down and figure out what gets worked on next.

Four Years

There is no material waiting in the wings for this one. I still need to sit down and plan how I will handle the rest of the story. I would also like to get back into editing the old chapters, and hopefully book binding the edited version.

I've never done art for this fic, and it's going to stay that way, with wiggle room for an occasional "I must draw this!".

Infinite Possibilities

Currently has about 10 written chapters waiting, but I do need to add in scenes, so they aren't "ready to go." Most upcoming updates will be for this fic until I get through the existing material. I will be using the commissioned cover art when I announce new chapters, so art won't slow me down, although I may draw on occasion if I really want to show you something.

Practice

This is the current title for my sexy fic, but I am hoping to come up with something better. I could start sharing it soon, but I'd like to finish the whole piece and use that to cover about two months' worth of updates, while I work on other fics. No art for this one, except maybe a cover piece.

#digimon #digific #digimon fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #digimon adventure #digimon fanfic

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radellama · 9 months ago

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3 12 19 for writing asks

3. Computer or pen and paper?

Computer, for the actual writing! I'm much faster at typing, I can last longer and it's a whole world easier to edit digitally!

But, for planning I have written things on paper too! I have an easier time with visual plotting so for some of my bigger stories, I find it more helpful to write out the plot points I want and physically map them out on the floor, and see how 'full' each section is and if I'm happy with the progression. It was super duper helpful for my star trek au, and I keep the hand written chapter summaries on my wall next to my desk for motivation and encouragement. (Tho often, I'll transcribe these notes to my computer or make a version of the map on my iPad once I'm done with it and only need to refine, as I can't control+f on paper......)

12. Describe your perfect writing space

My current setup works for me. Finally have a desk at a good height, a chair with decent support and my computer. I have some loz posters/fanart and some notes for my story on my wall, and a little commission I got of magland just chilling near me. It's helpful if I have my headphones on noise cancelling so there's even less distraction, and it's also helpful if my cats don't bother me every 5 min haha. I just need quiet and comfortable spaces, and if I had a laptop that worked I wouldn't mind writing in bed or taking it to the library to write as well.

19. How do you keep yourself motivated?

I motivate myself with the story itself. Once I fall in love with an idea, it doesn't really leave me. I'm notoriously slow and take my time with things, but that's cause I'm spending so much time with the ideas. I find it quite rewarding and motivating to plot things and figure out how to get exactly what I want out of a story I'm crafting, and it's definitely helpful when I can discuss certain points with a friend who is a good listener and good at asking questions - as bouncing ideas is reeeaaalllllyyyyy important if you care about how it will be read. I also try my best to be that good listener and ask good questions for other people's work, as it's quite inspiring and motivating in its own way to hear what other people are coming up with.

Send me some writing asks

#rads asks #anon #thank you!

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thechekhov · 4 years ago

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Hi Chekhov! Really enjoying your white diamond au! I had a quick art question: How do you start comissions? I've been improving my drawing skills and thinking about drawing for others after having fun in artfight, but I don't know where to start? How much to charge, how to get paid, etc. Do you have any tips? Hope you're doing well! :)

Alright, since a few people have asked, I’ve decided to put together a few things about how to get started on commissions - what you need, what you should make, and how to keep things organized.

This will get a little long, so I’ll divide it into 4 main sections:

1) Draw Art - Getting started

2) Get Commissioned - Making a commission sheet, Advertising

3) ??? - Communicating, Setting Limits, Running the Business

4) Profit - Pricing Yourself and Getting Paid

* Disclaimer: I’m an artist, so this How-To will be illustration-focused. I’m sure many of these tips can apply to ANY types of commissions, but I will be focusing on the type I know best. If you are proficient in other types of commissions for other types of art - music commissions, photography, etc - feel free to chime in and leave a comment or make your own tutorial!

1) Draw Art

I think this is probably the most obvious part, but it needs to be said:

Before you start making art for other people, you must first be comfortable making art in general.

I’m not saying your art has to be Disney-quality, or industry-level! Not at all.

BUT! You must be comfortable creating what you sell. If you try to sell something you have little confidence in, you will stress yourself out and possibly end up losing time AND money.

Don’t shoot for the moon if you haven’t landed on it even once. Sell what you know you’re good at. Your commissions don’t HAVE to include full-body illustrations if you don’t know how to draw feet/solid stances. Limit yourself to what you can do.

Things you need to should probably have before starting commissions:

1. Access to art materials or a fully downloaded art program

DO NOT - Use a free tutorial version that will expire in a month and leave you without a way to draw! If you are having trouble finding a program, try free ones like MediBang Paint Pro.

2. Free time to complete the amount of commissions you want to take.

DO NOT - Take on or offer commissions if you KNOW you’re going to be overwhelmed with school or personal life for the next 2+ months. Pace yourself, otherwise you’ll burn out, get stressed, and get discouraged.

3. A reliable way to communicate with your customers like a commissions-only email

DO NOT - Use your friend/family/college email. It’s hard to keep track of things as it is, and creating new emails is easy and free. And keep it professional if you can! Not many people will reach out to dong-wiggles20434 to ask for a design. Ideally, your email should be close to your brand - however you want to brand yourself. Usernames are fine!)

DO NOT - Use Instagram/Twitter/Tumblr to collect commission info unless you are ready to do the organizing yourself. Some people make it work, but in my experience, if you use these SNS sites to communicate with friends and network... you’re going to be losing commission inquiries right and left and accidentally ignoring people. Email is much easier to organize and sort into folders.

4. A portfolio or at least 2-3 pieces of each type of art you’re planning to sell.

DO NOT - Advertise commissions without having any examples of the art you plan to sell. People will find it difficult to trust you if you can’t even give them a vague idea of what sort of drawing they’ll be getting.

Disclaimer: These are not hard ‘do not’s. If you have had a different experience, I respect that. I’m simplifying for the sake of streamlining this advice.

2) Get Commissioned

So - you have your art, you have your art program, and you’ve got all the time in the world. That means.... that’s right! It’s time to let the world know you’re taking commissions.

One of the most common ways artists signal to their audience that they can do commissions is by creating a commissions sheet. There are MANY ways to make this - and they range from simple and doodly ones to VERY complex designs. For example, here’s mine!

There are many ways to organize a commission sheet. At its core, a commission sheet should display the types of art you WANT to be commissioned to make. Let’s go over a few ways they can be done!

#1.... Body Portion Dividers!

This sheet is most common with those who want to capitalize on drawing people and characters. If you want to draw lots of characters, this is a great way to offer several tiers of pricing based on how much of their character your customers want to see.

#2... Complexity Scale

If you’re open to drawing many things but want to base your pricing off of how complex something is, you can split your tiers into done-ness. This type of commission is popular with those that draw characters AND animals, furries, etc.

#3.... Style and Type

If you’re more on the design side of things, or if you have various niche art styles that you can’t quite lump together, display a variety of your skills alongside each other! It helps if all the ones you have can be organized under a common customer - like those looking to advance their own business and get logos, websites, or mascots made for them!

3) ???

You got your first commission... what happens now???

Well, ideally you have the time, tools and motivation to make things happen! Now all you have to do is... sit down and... draw.......

I’m going to say something that may be a little controversial:

Commissions aren’t fun.

No, no, hear me out: I have fun doing commissions! I genuinely enjoy drawing characters and coming up with designs. But even with all that said, commissions are, first and foremost: WORK

I’m not saying this to discourage you, I’m saying this to keep things realistic. When I first began commissions, I thought it would be just like any other type of drawing. I would sit down, imagine a thing, draw it... it would be fun!

But then I realized that I couldn’t just draw what I wanted - another person had an idea in mind and had asked me to do it. I stressed over getting the design correct from descriptions. I stressed over not having the right reference for the pose the commissioner wanted. I stressed over not being able to draw the leg right in the way I had promised I would do. I stressed about billing. I stressed about digital money transfers. It was difficult, and time-consuming, and I did not enjoy it. At all.

And a part of that is definitely on the commissioner - we, as artists, NEED to demand proper references or descriptions. We, as artists, NEED to limit the amount of changes we’re going to make at the flick of a finger. We NEED to demand clear instructions and set boundaries. That’s also super important.

But also - don’t be discouraged if you find yourself exhausted drawing your first commission. MANY artists go through this. Adjust your rules, fix up your limits, practice putting your foot down on finicky commissioners who expect you to read their mind! It does get easier, but you have to communicate and put in the effort and act as your own manager AND your own customer service AND your own accountant. That’s what you’re looking at.

Good limits and boundaries to set:

Limit the amount of changes a person can ask to make. “I want blue hair.” Next email: “No wait, yeah, make it red.” Next email: “Actually I changed my mind, can I get the blue but like, lighter?” Next email: “No, not that light.” ... At some point, we have to stop. I personally allow 2-3 changes on the final stages of a commission before I start refusing or start asking for extra money.

Demand clear instructions and/or references. If something isn’t described, you have to take artistic liberty and design it, but that’s difficult! And if the customer is not happy with it but can’t tell you more? That’s not your problem - the burden of reference is on THEM. You cannot read their mind, and that’s not your fault.

Get at least half the payment up front! This is a good balance between the ‘pay before art’ and the ‘pay after art’ conundrum that will limit the amount of woes between artist and customer. (I’ll touch upon this a little more in the Profit section.)

Organization:

Where possible, create good habits! Tag your emails and organize your folders. I have a tag on my emails for active and finished commissions. I also keep my emails on Unread until I have time to sit down and properly look at/reply to them.

My Commissions in the folder are also organized chronologically and I mark down which ones are paid and which ones are not.

(I understand not everyone can do this, but if you want to give it a try, it does make things easier in the long run. Again, this advice is just what I have found personally helps.)

One last thing - I do not want to shame ANYONE for taking their time with commissions! Commissions are complex, and they take time and work. You can draw in 8 hours, but some things take research, materials, etc. Some illustrations realistically take up to half a year, or, depending on what’s involved, several years!!

THAT BEING SAID - it’s good manners to be upfront with your customers about how long you expect the commission to take. If you think you’re busy, just say that! Explain that you have a lot going on, and you will probably take (insert time period here).

And if your commissioners are worried, work out a system to keep them updated! I send my commissioners updates when I finish the lineart/flat colors/etc and I try to be clear about how long everything will take. I try to estimate with a +3-5 days buffer to give myself extra time... and recently I’ve been using it. Always say a bigger number than you think you’ll need.

If someone wants a rushed commission... make them pay more. If ANYONE wants a commission done ‘by the end of the week’ - that’s an automatic rush-job for me because I’m juggling an irl job and several commissions at once. I WILL charge a rush fee and I won’t feel bad about it.

If someone wants a commission within 24 hours...... Well, they better be paying you 3x your normal amount, or more. And remember - you CAN refuse! It’s perfectly reasonable to say ‘No, sorry, that sort of turnaround time is not realistic for me.’

Food For Thought - Invoicing

Many artists I’ve commissioned in the past have not used Invoicing, but I’ve recently begun to fill out invoices and file them in my Commissions folder just to keep track of things. It’s not necessary until you start getting into the Small Business side of Freelancing, but it’s not a bad idea to get into the habit early in case you might need to do it later for tax purposes.

Here’s what my Invoice looks like, for example.

I’ve optimized it to help me remember who, what, and how much is involved! It also contains important info for my customers like where to send the money.

Which brings us to...

4) Profit

One of the hardest things for artists is pricing themselves. I’m not going to tell you which way is BEST - there is no BEST way, only the best way for YOU.

One of the options available to you is pricing by the hour. It includes averaging out how long it takes you to draw a specific type of art (whatever you’re offering as a commission) and multiplying that by an hourly wage you’ve decided on.

When you do this, I stress - do NOT price yourself below minimum wage if you can help it. When you first start out, aim for the $15/hour mark and adjust accordingly.

Other ways to price your art:

- Per complexity: Portraits vs full body should be scaled based on how difficult you find one vs. the other. You can also easily decide on a price for a sketch and double it for lineart, triple it for full color, etc.

- Per type: Look up for industry prices for website design and logo design. They may surprise you! You don’t have to charge that much, but it helps to keep things in perspective.

It’s okay to change your prices! Keep your commission sheet image handy so you can update the amounts as you grow. :)

Payment up front or after completion?

Some artist take full payment up front. Some only demand payment after they’ve finished and sent out the piece. I personally think these are both risky for everyone involved.

I recommend doing at least HALF of the payment BEFORE you start the commission. Calculate your full price and ask for half before you start working on it in earnest, to make sure the person can actually pay you. Then, when they receive the full piece and are satisfied, they can complete the payment.

I personally work in this structure:

> Someone emails me with their idea/reference

> I send back a rough draft sketch that shows the idea/pose (only takes me 10-20 minutes so not a huge loss if they ghost) and quote them a price

> They can pay the full thing upfront OR pay half

> I finish the commission and send updates when I do the lineart/colors to double check anything so they have multiple chances to spot any errors

> If the person paid only half on completion, I send them a low-res version of the finished thing, they finish up their payment and THEN I send them the full-res version plus any other filetypes/CYMK proofs, etc.

Many of the people who commission me pay me up front even though I offer they pay half - and I’m really flattered that they trust me that much! Because of that, I feel encouraged to update them frequently and ask for their input as I work, so they have the peace of mind knowing I’m actually doing their commission.

Great, but how do I get PAID????

There are NUMEROUS ways - these days money is relatively easy to transfer over digital means, and you have a few options.

Paypal is perhaps one of the oldest digital wallets and is geared towards businesses. By setting up a PayPal and connecting it to your debit card of bank account, you can tunnel a pathway from your online business directly into your hands in a matter of days.

Paypal also offers Invoicing - you make an invoice, price it and send it to the person’s email and they can pay whatever way they need! (It also allows partial payments.)

Pros: transfers from PayPal to bank account are free, and take a couple of business days. It also has no upper limit to the amount of money you can move in/out each month. It can force refunds due to the nature of its business-oriented payment system.

Cons: Because it’s used by businesses for larger transactions, PayPal may demand a more rigorous proof of your identity. It may also take longer to set up and be harder to get used to. I’ve also heard that they can be a hassle when it comes to closing your account.

Venmo is another type of digital wallet that acts much like paypal, except for a few key differences - it is NOT made for businesses (so depending on whether you’re officially registered as a freelancer, you may not be able to use it). I personally don’t use venmo, so I cannot speak to its usefulness, but I know a few people that use it for casual transactions. It’s easy and quick! :)

Keep in mind that you cannot force a refund over venmo! The transactions are final.

There’s also CashApp, GooglePay (which could load gift cards but also allows peer-to-peer transactions) and I’ve heard good things about Due, though I’ve never personally used it.

Other ways to pay: I’ve had people pay me over Patreon by upping their pledge, and I’ve had people pay me over Ko-Fi by donating a specific amount.

Many people even use Etsy - the website specialized for independent small businesses selling art - by listing their commission sheet and offering up several ‘slots’ of commissions, which allows you to track taxes AND allows your clients to pay using whatever they feel comfortable with.

If you’re in Canada, you can even pay by emailing money directly from bank account to bank account - check whether your country offers this type of service! There’s no shortage of ways to move money in the digital world.

Just like everything else, there’s no singular ‘Best’ way. It just depends on what works for you.

I think that just about wraps it up! I can’t quite think of what else to put here - but I’m sure other artists will chime in with their own advice. :) I’m very sorry this became so long but I hope it was helpful!

Obligatory Disclaimer: I’m not qualified to give legal or accounting counsel. Please double-check the laws in your own country/state in regards to taxation of freelancing work and do your own research. If you are underage, DEFINITELY get an adult’s permission before you start doing commissions, and have the adult help you through the process.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Further Reading

Infrastructure - Wikipedia

Facility Planning: Design Mismatch by James Rydeen - American School & University

PDF - Forum Guide to Facility Information Management: A Resource for State and Local Education Agencies - National Forum on Education Statistics (2018 version)

How crumbling school facilities perpetuate inequality by Mary Filardo et al - Phi Delta Kappan

The Importance of School Facilities in Improving Student Outcomes by Penn State University - Interior Avenue

Why education infrastructure matters for learning by Janssen Teixeira et al - World Bank Group

PDF - Digital Education at School in Europe - European Commission (2019 version)

Feral: A high school is not at all what television would have you believe, but TV Tropes might still be able to give you a basic overview. Of course, the US isn’t the only place with high schools (or whatever equivalent terminology is most applicable), so you’ll want to be more specific when researching. Depending on where in a given country your high school is set, they can vary wildly from each other. For example, in the US, high schools have general federal and state mandates but are actually administered on a county level, called school systems or districts, and depending on the efficacy of that administration, which changes with the elected or appointed officials in charge, and the relative wealth of the residents paying taxes into that system, the quality of the actual education as well as the building standards can be different even between systems right next to each other.

There’s a joke on The Good Place that Jason’s high school was a trailer park, and that’s actually a thing, at least in the South. Where there isn’t a lot of funding or there’s been a population boom that the school district cannot accommodate all at once (as was the case with my high school), students might very well go to class in what amounts to a trailer park behind the main school building, which could be in various states of repair. These are usually supposed to be temporary measures while funds are being raised or new buildings or schools are being built, but I just checked a satellite image of my alma mater, which was opened in 1997 (originally built for about 1,000 students), put trailers out back in 1999, and completed a second building in 2006 (at which point I think there were close to 2,000), and there are still like 6 trailer classrooms out back.

And that’s something you can definitely do as well. Decide where you want to set your story or base your setting on and pull up satellite images of the schools in that area.

The actual layout of your school building can impact how students socialize. For example, my cafeteria was obviously way too small for the student body, even with like five or six possible lunch periods you might be assigned to, so the students most likely to sit inside the cafeteria were the students who were closest when their lunch period started and/or who did not care to have the extra distance to walk back to their classrooms, so a lot of students would eat in alternative locations, like the Mall (main hall outside the cafeteria), the amphitheatre (just outside the cafeteria), or in a classroom (typically the classroom of a teacher who was the faculty advisor for an extracurricular that student was involved with).

#pylons #schools #Anonymous

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springsaladgaming · 3 years ago

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Progress Update 6/18/21

Happy Friday (or Saturday)!

Some real-life stuff happened to me this week, as well as the minor setback of losing a couple of hours of work on Wednesday, so I didn’t get quite as much work done as I would have liked, but let’s get into what I did get done!

This week I dedicated my time to transferring over Chapter 1 into Twine. That involved adapting the coding, revamping some choices and their subsequent scenes to match the new personality stats, writing some new scene variations, and improving the overall narrative flow (in general, but also specifically around the appearance customization).

As a result, alpha Chapter 1 a la Twine is finished! I’m definitely happy with the changes I’ve made so far, and it will only get better from here.

I’ve also put out some feelers to some artist friends I have to see if they are interested in taking a commission for the art assets that I would like. I have two people currently making some mock-ups of what I’ve asked for to see if their style is what I want. Preliminary results look great, but if I decide their art style doesn’t work for me then I will start reaching out to other digital artists.

Moving Forward...

One of the real-life things that happened to me this week was learning that the owners of the house where I rent a room are looking to stop renting. This means I need to find a new place to live. Luckily, one of the house owners is someone I have known for more than twenty years; we have a good relationship, and he was generous to give me (and the other two tenants) six months of warning, so I have plenty of time to find a new place.

However, this does mean that I may have to cut down on my work time on some days so that I can spend more time apartment hunting and, eventually, moving. It also means that my rent, which has been very affordable for me these past seven years, is going to go up quite a bit. On my current income, I technically won’t be able to afford it. Luckily, I have enough money saved up to swing it until I can make changes to my income.

So that brings me back around to the topic of my writing and the likelihood of me opening a Patreon in the future. Part of the reason I always planned to open a Patreon is so I can really practice my passion as a writer while also earning an income for it. Even before learning that I would need to move out in six months, I was planning on finding an apartment within the next year or so. Opening a Patreon with structured bonuses will help me achieve that goal.

The only thing that has changed is that the timeline will be moving up. I’ve been dedicating my time almost exclusively to transferring the project to Twine and making sure that I have a workable demo. I’ve also been considering what tiers I will have and what kind of benefits those tiers will provide people with.

I do not have an exact launch date for my Patreon, but you can expect that it will launch within the next six months. Currently, I’m leaning toward the Twine demo being a Patreon-only thing, but I may decide to have a public version that is a little bit behind the Patreon-exclusive one. If I decide to go that route, the public version would likely not go past Chapter 5, though other coding tweaks may still take place.

TLDR; I’m moving soon and need to supplement my income to afford rent, so I will be launching my Patreon within the next six months.

One of the Patreon tiers is going to be for my other interactive fiction project, which I haven’t talked about hardly at all, but I will give some sneak peaks and additional information about it before the Patreon launch. What I can tell you right off the bat: it’s a sci-fi/fantasy story set in a fictional universe. It will have some action, adventure, and (small?) horror elements to it. Similar to Ninelives, the project is adapted from something I wrote in the past. (However, Ninelives is based loosely on a short story I wrote while this other project is based on a novel.) If it sounds like it might be up your alley, keep an eye out for an announcement post in the future.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Stay safe!

#ninelives progress update #ninelives if #ninelives wip

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theurbansquared · 3 years ago

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Guide To Avoiding A Loser Brokerage

by James Hill | theurbansquared

Brokers can be bastards and some even get better at it while other brokers are legitimate life-changing business Sherpas

A broker is supposed to guide you through a career in real estate much like a coach or pimp - offering protection and how to understand a complicated system better and direct it to revenue without getting your neck broke while playing the game. I created and ran the most well-reviewed, largest full-service brokerage in the fastest-growing city in America. This gave me access to nearly ever broker and their broker's pay structure and innovations. I also got the agent's version of my same broker buddies brokerages when they eventually joined my brokerage; hovering anywhere from 20–60 agents. Trending insider chatter has blame going to real estate brokers of decades past (and current) and how they’ve managed their agents - - letting unsupervised agents with no experience run wild on the streets practicing on the public wearing out Realtor love and making a need for all the Mountain Dew-made Zillow-y options that currently exist.

Brokers are out of touch more than ever with today’s current media load, having to understand and use social media platforms for their advertising (since the private Town & Country affair that real estate once was is forever over and the landscape is a bit more like a half Juggalo, half programmer flea market).

Let’s dive into some situations and tenets that most agents don’t consider when choosing a brokerage.

Sales Volume

This is a bit of negotiating psychology and due diligence. Simply ask how much sales they (the brokerage) did last year and how much they’re currently at. If they don’t know these numbers they’re goons. If they don’t give it, you guessed it - they’re hiding something; their lack of revenue. I’ve hired and fired hundreds of agents and in interviews so few ask this question but it’s one of the most important questions you can ask as an agent and you need the information. An agent that doesn’t ask this has already given a tell that they’re not a top producer since they’re not interested in the production capacity of the team they may join. No bueno. Creep the brokerage as well obvi -- reviews, FB & IG engagement and current running ads, and make sure the company Christmas Party isn’t catered by Chic-fil-a at a Burnet Road dive bar.

Office

40% of your learning and 350% of your work will be done at the office. Those numbers will make sense 90% of the time after a few years in real estate. The rest should be on the streets - your car, properties, driving 75 mph talking and sending out docs, gorging on breath mints. Office, home, tiny homes, motorhomes have all blended into one larger conversation where work/live ethos are all in re-definition.

But, when you do need a more savvy moment in any market when people talk about borrowing or selling something that’s over $100K they don’t want to hear some bullshit too loud pedantic conversation seated right next to them at Starbucks or the local kooky coffee shop. In real estate Murphy’s Law is always in effect. The super important listing sign off that has to go well and they want to hear you pitch again before deciding? There will be someone (at this super ‘caj’ coffee house meeting) there projectile vomiting, or throwing cats, or something else tiresome or bad that takes more calls.

Speech and body language are massive parts of sales so when the entire set is thrown because a barista is running through a whole Sublime album. You want the most inviting cool office you can ever pull off at any given moment in real estate . Was that ever a question? There's a balance -- you can't afford that year one or three, but it’s called real estate for a reason. Sexy, exciting buildings is what the brochure said when I joined. Also, it’s about style not size.

If you haven’t lost business to coffee house back pressure you really haven’t failed at agency properly.

Social IQ

Social reach is the only conversation now. Many brokerages won’t make it as the lead generating aspects of the industry aren't powered by a private MLS anyone and the publicly-hated ‘Realtor’ designation have both brokers and agents guessing about tomorrow. Calendars, best practices and free shitty tips & templates are the du jour of the day for anyone trying to get an agent's eyes. You can Google and get all the ‘basic’ social media dance steps, but with everyone at the same happy hunting spot, you’re being covered up, which leaves all your new artistic efforts fruitless and also squandering winning time.

Traffic, leads and engagement are all separate areas that have to be fulfilled properly and even this is in flux with historic corporations and current start ups all on the same advertising playing field. Social reach and engagement is about going to the consumer direct and becoming their friend with soft bribes -- free food, gifts, prizes (trips, events tickets) or industry work tools. The great news is, real estate has always been mostly consumer direct - start up a convoy at the grocery store (bar, church, meetup) and you’re in the car that weekend looking for houses with a new client. While you, your brokerage and the world are figuring out their exact social media mix, you need to make sure a brokerage isn’t lost on social media since many won’t be able to stay in business in the next few short years. Your brokerage needs to have a plan and and at best some presence on social media. Plus, they should be running low-cost performative marketing ad campaigns to get a feel for what and if set user groups are responding to ads. Anyone can post on IG but people engage on IG when they become inspired. A brokerage should have some sort of inspiration and relationship tied in with the local allure of their city -- or heading that direction.

Mentoring

Much like a neurotic buyer chasing an interest rate for their home mortgage (and then never buying a house) agents too focused on commission may miss the essential career need for mentoring -- for their clients and career. I had a 5 deal minimum for my new agents before they were ever unsupervised and received more commission. I've had new agents with celeb clients in hand and celeb agents with no clients in hand. No one wants to do business with someone with absolutely has no, experience but they do it because they like you as a friend or fam. Your mentor is the person riding shotgun with you at the beginning of your career. On many levels you want to be this person since they embody the position and role. You're literally and figuratively are borrowing experience from them and they deserve to be paid for it. You always have to strengthen your brand outside of your brokerage but if you don’t have any experience your brand doesn’t have ‘strength’ you simply have a logo and a drag & drop website where you're possibly talking about yourself and love of unicorns or football shit but the big boat deals you dream about in bed aren’t gotten this way. Remember, no unicorn could ever throw a football good without a lot of practice and a good mentor.

Support

Support in a brokerage is really communication and solutions for small problems, and systems for managing bigger ones with people. Most of the annoying things in real estate happen outside of the deal - contracts, calls, emails, docs, signatures, more docs. You typically want a super admin, broker, or agent manager that you can call and they pick up the phone. It’s pretty simple. With a mentor, admin, or broker you’re going to have a n 8:30 PM question or deal that’s going down. You’ll need printer help. Real estate always happens now (this was one of the main mantras in my office). Printing, prequal, weekend support and constant post dinner shenanigans.

Training

Meet Frank Miller, David Mamet, the Sex Pistols, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Hendrix, Tom Hopkins, The World’s Greatest Detective and Conan The Barbarian. We had a lot of different inspirations for the style and ethos of our urban brokerage. The World’s Greatest Detective is Batman. It was a moniker that became popular in the seventies. We used this example about how important due diligence and proper Fact Finding techniques are for serving and closing deals for clients. (It’s almost essential to be inquisitive in real estate esp about property/development to have success). Training is largely your sales meeting(s). Although I don’t come from a car background I’ve mentored many car guys transferring to real estate (they typically are out of the industry within 2 years and are there only for boom markets). Car guys have meetings every morning 6 days a week and they’re not at 9 or 10 am. They’re already working.

free module: The Burger King Phenomena: Why Agents Do Less Working For Themselves Than If They Were Working At Burger King

Many brokerages have no training/meeting schedule (monthly doesn’t count -- that’s a meet and greet company pump and catch up meeting). If a brokerage doesn’t have training on a schedule then there is no training. You’ll possibly be thrown a 3-ring binder, or given some PDF’s, or links to old bizarre training videos or a soup sandwich of all three and sometimes even a bill for the training. An agent’s training/meetings and their attendance to them are the difference between an agent making it or not when you’re 24 months or less in the role as an agent especially in the fast turbulent waters of the current 2021 market where brokerage and agent purpose and pay are under attack. From my experience, new agents that hide die.

Media

Having a background as a creative director I’m aware with great detail of agency and brokerage media needs, the cost and time they extract, and the corresponding revenue they’re projected to bring back. Brokerages are looking for their purpose now as simply having a brokerage doesn’t bring in leads like it used to. This is fitting, since the digital dumbass brokers that that didn’t understand the importance of ‘the web’ rickshawed our MLS data and sold the agent/broker centric real estate system for their benefit while current agents are left with an empty greasy enough to-go box to curl up with. Brokerages were never media houses or ad agencies but now that consumer level graphic programs and website builders are ubiquitous and any agent after being licensed for 10 days can drag & drop a website up in 4 hours and make it look like a brokerage that’s been around for years. I know I’m going wide on the subject here but stay with me because this is the crux of where the industry and consumer are renegotiating roles.

A brokerage’s value proposition has changed drastically with the telecommute revolution that was only sped and strengthened by Covid. Also, generational knowledge base gaps in technology are more apparent than ever with technology as younger agents can often be more media savvy than their broker. The market is flooded with self appointed companies or gurus that are taking on the role of the classic ad agency (Mad Men) or media production house. Also beware of real estate coaches with little or no real estate experience offering to guide you in social media. Okay media can’t be used in apex situations (such as the luxury listings you’re after) and doesn’t draw apex listings. Beware of tapioca room temperature tips and general lists from companies that can appear informative but are really boilerplate low grade data to get your attention to ultimately upsell you on a paid service.

As an agent or a brokerage, consumer level graphic and website building programs can be a death ticket to your business as your competitors have the same tools and are cranking out the same type of style of messaging you are now. Now agents, principals, admins and in art class creating flyers. This has been done since the nineties as the valleys of dead agent careers is full of 2-day Microsoft Word (or any of their shitty office offerings) seshes to produce nasty flyers and presentations. These programs are fun and making bad flyers absolutely work related - the kind of work you don’t want’ related to your business because it’s adult crayon coloring. Activity does not equal production. Staying busy doing the wrong things doesn’t make money in real estate. Rather than spending agent winning time staying in the wrong lanes for way too long, get with a team or brokerage that are providing the most exceptional visual media you can find in your market. It used to be cool 2 years ago, now it’s the only thing that matters. Visual content.

free module: Better Agent Media, Less Agent Money (media tips and hacks).

Access

This is access to your broker. Brokers with families are typically less available. Your best bet as an agent is looking for a grinder broker who sleeps on the couch at their office. This person doesn’t have kids to build into so they’ll build into your career and you’ll get the most out of these brokers. Beware of cheesedick, apathetic, rich boy, bored brokers not around and more concerned with projects like a shitty vanity wine brand that their wife’s forced them to launch since she’s not living her best life anymore as an agent.

Style

What kind of style is your brokerage? Is there an opportunity to bring more style sophistication to the market -- standout in a smaller market? Or, are you in an ultra stylish market currently and butt hurt because you already have a little story about how you’re going to keep it real and be a Dockers wearing slob for eternity? The thing about style in agency is you always need to look like you can list a million dollar house. Oh, is it really that simple? Yes it is. You complicated it. Clients always care about their housing a little bit more than they care about your real estate career. They don’t have time to figure out why you’re wearing shoe styles from 7 years ago. Don’t make it hard for people to do business with you. If you’re ugly, even better. It can be a massive advantage. Everyone on the planet loves when someone who doesn’t fall into our general current ‘attractive’ spectrum doesn’t give af, looks great and puts themselves together in a stylish way that the viewer can understand (can I get away with Teen Wolf?). A great side benefit from this step in the right direction is it’s a great way to make someone who is conventionally attractive insecure.

You want to be in the same style as the people in your area but the secret is you need to lead that style pack if you can -- you always lead and dress apex. Years ago this was anecdotal but after over 100K hours in real estate a good suite (tailored) saved my ass and literally got me business. I listed the largest house in east Austin because of a suit (and got a front page story on the newspaper real estate section for free because the owner saw me walking into the next door neighbor’s house).

Offices, dress, logo, email signature are all elements of you and your brokerage’s style. Style in and of itself isn’t enough to be a top producer in real estate. I’ve had stylish and even celebrity agents that didn't do zilch, but style often is a fingerprint to something more.

Picking the right elements for your agent style is an art because you have to offer something from yourself that’s unique enough as well as something familiar (a bridge to your uniqueness). I have a background as a musician and also as a merchant sailor. Fortunately those are easy convo starters. You could be a philatelist and have some challenges, but regardless it absolutely will take a year or three to develop your own angle and style towards the market as you learn it and the agent role more.

Things that look attractive and familiar puts client’s psychologies at ease. So, if skinny jeans are in you better get in them (that’s like five years old now). You’re on stage. You don’t wear what the worker people behind the camera wear. If you want to wear boring shit get on the other side of the camera. If you want less leads saddle up to a forgettable brokerage. People have hard days. They want you to put an effort into your real estate agency role. Currently it’s a fried role so you’re dealing with that too. People love to be smiled at and sold and especially from someone who smells good. It doesn't ever get old. Don’t make them beg for your charm. Be a nice charming person with a shirt that fits good, it’s a powerful combo.

Get My Damn Paper

If you’ve never seen a werewolf in daylight mess with an agent’s commission after the deal’s done and funded. Admin? Who is the damn person who does the admin? (accounts payable is the icey pro word if you like). That person that you contact to get your commission check cut? If that person is a weirdo, or there’s an unfriendly or sketchy quality to the office or admin staff, do not go forward (don’t confuse this with new people or industry jitters). Grab some free coffee, leave the smarm and jet to the next brokerage blind date.

Software

CRM is an annoying conversation. Here’s the things with CRM’s - for all the work CRMs curtail, because of their complexity and existence and the work(time) they take to interact with you need to consider how much work you’re putting into operating the CRM software verses how much time it’s saving. Many times brokerages have expensive yearly subscriptions with per agent fees for their CRM which can make the brokerage have a zealot meth thing for the ‘team’ software and promise you can’t have a career without taking a bump too. To understand CRM better before it was a name, Client Relationship Management is what analog Proximity became. Let me explain - being close to people in Church, bar, school, same building -- all give proximity. This becomes familiarity, then ease, then trust. People do business with people they trust & like. Once people disconnected physically and started using other means more contact attempts have to be made to work for or ‘prove’ worth.

Follow Up is a large component of most CRM’s and there are gobs of money for agents who follow up meticulously. Simply ask the broker what CRM they use and research it. Something to remember - unless you’re extremely busy with your career you don’t need a CRM. You can manage & database your clients & leads ‘by hand’ and strap it to the cloud with G-Suite/Google Sheets.

Brokerage Name

A small but important aside, if a brokerage have named themselves after a precious metal or a gem, or if it says elite in the name then it’s not elite. If it has the words prestige or worldwide or international it may not be any of those either. I know a handful of exceptions to this rule but this is a great dirty primer to use when choosing a brokerage that’s going to propel your career and have shrimp options at the Christmas Party.

#agent #realtor #realestateagent #broker #brokerage #newhomebuyer #coach #businesscoach #entrepreneurs #new agent #zillow

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midshipmank · 4 years ago

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i wanted LWJ with a motorcycle & somehow ended up with this librarian!LWJ & art student!WWX au

LWJ is a librarian at a public library

WWX met LWJ when he returned some books 3 months late

LWJ looked at him all judgy like “these are 3 months late,” & WWX promptly became obsessed

WWX is now a much more responsible library user, mostly because he’s there all the time

but listen he’s not great at focusing in the library, that’s why he doesn’t even use the one on campus. so now he’s his usual amount of restless + distracted by LWJ

trying to figure out how to make a move

meanwhile LWJ is just like “do not throw crumpled pieces of paper through the air”

some of those crumpled pieces of paper are failed sketches of LWJ

one day WWX stays all the way to closing because LWJ PRETTY OKAY? also he has an art theory paper due pls don’t talk to him about it

so anyway he’s there when the library is closing & LWJ is like “leave”

so he goes :((( but he’s so late LWJ practically follows him out

which

is when WWX discovers that that pretty white & blue motorcycle that’s always parked out front?

that’s Lan Wangji’s

he absolutely loses his mind

all of his friends know about his ridiculous librarian crush by now & they all make fun of him for it

but anyway, the poor boy has it bad

he’s like “A-Cheng, you don’t understand, he could step on me & i’d thank him. actually i think i need him to step on me.”

JC is like “i did Not want to know that”

meanwhile WWX is bemoaning the fact that he ever became a responsible library user

“how am i supposed to interact with him. i can’t return books late anymore bc i’m always there! what would my excuse be? & he��s already explained how to use their database to me 3 times, i can’t keep looking this dumb”

JYL is very gently like “maybe just ask him out?”

“but he doesn’t like me! i committed library crimes! i have to get him to like me first!”

then WWX sees a flyer in the lobby asking for volunteers. there’s gonna be an event in the kids section! for some special reading day! who tf knows, WWX doesn’t care, the point is, he’s good with kids. that would probably be appealing to LWJ. right? right? WWX really doesn’t know. LWJ is so hard to read. on the one hand, he’s the most tight-laced & responsible person WWX has ever met. on the other, he has a very sexy motorcycle. WWX doesn’t know what to do with that

but okay he has a plan

he calls up WQ & goes “can i borrow A-Yuan”

he already babysits A-Yuan every week, so it’s not that weird right?

WQ is like “i stg WWX if you are going to use A-Yuan to attract hot guys like in that movie with the people who love dogs....”

& WWX is like “i would never use A-Yuan like a dog! WQ do you even know me!”

he gets A-Yuan, barely

anyway, he gets to the library ready to read to a bunch of kids & gets side-eyed by a lot of parents, but he still has fun!!

LWJ is, unfortunately, not the librarian supervising the event, but he is reshelving when WWX is off reading duty & A-Yuan gets the zoomies

ie, zooms right into LWJ’s legs

LWJ is, surprisingly, good with kids. WWX may need to marry him. he somehow manages not to make a complete fool of himself after this revelation

in fact, after this interaction, WWX thinks he may actually have scored some points with LWJ. he’s elated

he’s building all these elaborate future schemes in his head when suddenly he gets a call from Auntie Yu

she wants to know why his grade in his art theory class has plummeted.

oh right. that class. that class that’s taught by that professor who hates him & that he honestly can’t understand a word of & honestly he hates art theory, he’s good at art, why does he have to take theory too?

Auntie Yu lets him know in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t improve his grades by the end of the semester, she will stop supporting him—it’s bad enough that they let him go to art school after he flunked out of his business degree anyway

so—fuck. fuck.

WWX throws himself into the redo paper he manages to beg off LQR. he has 3 days & he’s gonna make them count

the first day goes well, if by well you mean that he raids the art section of the library & works himself until closing & tries desperately not to look like he’s dying in front of LWJ

day 2 goes........similarly, except he falls asleep at his desk & doesn’t wake up until LWJ tells him the library is closing, which? wtf? LWJ usually wakes him up when he falls asleep in the library. WWX has been asleep for hours.

& also he looks like a wreck, which is not cute

he flees from the library only to find that the bus is going..... going......... gone

fuck. he doesn’t have a car.

he’s staring down the road after the bus, trying to figure out which friend with a car is available for him to call when he hears someone say “Wei Ying?” behind him

it’s Lan Zhan.

how mortifying.

he tries to laugh off his situation, but LWJ gets this set expression on his face & says, “i will give you a ride home”

& WWX is like kinda definitely freaking out because this was not how his first ride on LWJ’s sexy motorcycle was supposed to go. WWX had a plan. he was supposed to be flirtatious & ask LWJ about his bike & then LWJ would offer to give WWX a ride & they’d go all around the scenic parts of the city & when they stopped WWX would be all flustered & breathless & he’d wobble getting off the bike & maybe fall into LWJ & maybe—

okay so his plan was more like a daydream, but at the very least, he wasn’t supposed to look like he’d spent the last 48hrs out of the sun, drinking unhealthy amounts of shitty coffee, wearing a ratty hoodie & art-grimed jeans. like, they’re not even grimey in a cute way

but LWJ is insistent & WWX is weak, so somehow he ends up on the back of the bike wearing LWJ’s helmet with LWJ telling him to hold on tight

he’s half-convinced he’s fallen asleep on the bus stop bench & is dreaming the whole thing

but soon enough, it’s over & they’re stopped outside of WWX’s shitty student accommodations

he gets off & is trying to awkwardly thank LWJ when LWJ says, “you’ve seemed upset these past 2 days”

“ahaha, yeah, i’m just writing a paper”

“for an art theory class?”

WWX is like ????? but then he remembers that LWJ knows what books he checks out

“yeah. it’s a redo actually. professor Lan hates me.” he forces a laugh. why did he say that. being hated by a professor is not cute, especially not to sexy librarian LWJ.

“my uncle has high expectations,” LWJ says.

WWX brain short circuits.

“your uncle???” shit shit shit Lan Qiren is LWJ’s uncle! LWJ’s uncle hates him! he has no chance now!

“mn.”

WWX wants to die

LWJ looks considering, then says, “it is my day off tomorrow. if you would like, i can help you with the paper.”

WWX is already the least cute, most pathetic version of himself he’s ever been in his life. he says yes.

so they meet up at the library the next day & WWX apologizes profusely for making LWJ come into work when it’s his day off. he promises LWJ endless free coffee from the coffeeshop he works at (even if he has to pay for it himself—he doesn’t tell LWJ that part).

LWJ is way too nice to him & also manages to explain this school of art theory in a way that?? sort of?? makes sense?? though not in a way that makes WWX like it. but LWJ seems neutral about it, so at least he’s not trying to get WWX to agree with it.

but anyway, WWX manages to pull a passable paper together & in the process LWJ reveals that he’s noticed WWX sketching in the library a lot more than WWX realized, and that he likes WWX’s art.

WWX is lightheaded

he stares at LWJ for a while & LWJ looks at him & says, “Wei Ying. you should be typing.”

WWX gets the paper done by 5pm somehow. somehow! he sends it off to LQR with a groan of relief. he’s so tired his bones are aching, but he looks over at LWJ, art theory & citation king, who of course always looks perfect & beautiful, & goes, “i could kiss you.”

instead of “i don’t know how i’m ever going to thank you for this,” which is what he thought he was gonna say

LWJ’s eyes widen slightly & his ears go red. WWX wants to smack himself in the face. he wants to eat his words. he wants to crawl into a cramped dark place like a disgusting little mole & never see the sun again.

then LWJ says, “have dinner with me first.”

WWX gapes at him. LWJ looks back, ears still red but eyes steady.

“okay,” WWX squeaks.

they go to dinner. WWX still feels like trash, but they end up having a rousing discussion about art & WWX learns all about when LWJ studied art history in undergrad & how he actually doesn’t like the kind of theory his uncle teaches (“but you’re too good to ever tell him that,” WWX teases. “....most of the time.” WWX laughs in delight.)

LWJ reveals that he brought an extra helmet today, in case WWX needed a ride again. WWX is embarrassed & pleased & wants to marry LWJ again. feeling foolish, he leans into LWJ flirtatiously & suggests they go for a ride—just for the view. LWJ looks at him so long his knees turn to jelly. then LWJ says, “mn.”

they make out on some scenic ridge somewhere

the end!

other things about this au:

WWX does digital painting mostly, his ideal job is illustration/comics; he has a instagram/patreon he uses for art commissions (some of which are pornographic—LWJ catches him sketching in the library one day, early in this tableau. it does not go well.)

his instagram/patreon is mostly anonymous. it’s not that he minds people knowing he draws explicit stuff sometimes, it’s that he doesn’t want Auntie Yu to find out

he draws LWJ a lot

not explicitly

(at least not until he’s got a life model and LWJ’s consent)

he’s not at the library 24/7. he has a coffeeshop job, classes, studio time for non-digital art, A-Yuan, and friends. but he’s at the library a lot.

this is undergrad for WWX, but he’s non-trad. he flunked out of a soul-sucking business degree in his first go at undergrad & was on pretty shaky ground with the Jiang family for a while. then he sold some of his art & Auntie Yu said they would support him through art school if it was the only thing he was good at. kinda stung, but at least he doesn’t have to pay tuition.

he’s desperate to prove he can make it as an artist

when anyone asks LWJ about his bike, he says he got it because it allows him to weave around traffic. yes, there’s more to it than that, but no he won’t go into it. (this entire au formed because i found out WYB rides motorcycles professionally & went, “wow that’s hot.” we have no thoughts here.)

WWX did not have to try to make LWJ like him. LWJ liked him. & while WWX might not have gotten his ideal first bike ride, you better believe LWJ got his. he daydreams about scooping WWX onto his bike & riding off into the sunset

#posting as a bullet point fic bc while i wanna write it as a real oneshot i have other things i need to do & i think it works like this too #mdzs fic #mdzs #cql #wangxian #The Untamed #fanfic #my writing #idk what to tag it's literally been 4yrs since i posted fanfic here #my fanfic #author assumes art theory works similarly to lit theory in that some is great and some is bs #author clearly grew up in the les mis fandom #also has anyone read juliet takes a breath?

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your-dietician · 3 years ago

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Best extended 4th of July tech sales 2021

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/lifestyle/best-extended-4th-of-july-tech-sales-2021/

Best extended 4th of July tech sales 2021

Yahoo Life has received compensation to create this article, and receives commission from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

Grab yourself a tech toy; these extended 4th of July tech sales are popping! (Photo: Yahoo Life)

The 4th of July weekend might be over, but its tech sales still remain. That’s right! It’s time to save big on all manner of electronics. Thanks to mid-year release cycles and post-Prime Day overstock, post-July 4th is one of the best moments to shop for all things tech and the sales are still deep.

Whether you’ve had your eye on a new big-screen TV, a cushy pair of premium headphones or a starter set of smart home devices, this post-holiday weekend represents a window of opportunity. The price drops are epic!

To save you time, we’ve gathered the very best still-alive 4th of July tech deals from Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe’s and more. You’ll find products ranging from small (hello, AirPods) to large (70-inch 4K Samsung TV, anyone?) at amazing discounts.

Snap up the best extended 4th of July tech sales below:

Best 4K-TV sales

A massive Samsung 70-inch 4K TV for just $680? Yes, please! (Photo: Best Buy)

Still on sale for $700 (was $750), this Samsung 70-inch Class 7 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart TV has a massive 70-inch display with full 4K Ultra HD resolution; vivid, bright colors and deep, dark black levels. That exceptional picture quality supports HDR (High Dynamic Range) movies and TV shows for the best 4K viewing experience around. And shoppers say this 4K TV is great for families.

“…The whole family loves it, especially my husband,” raved a delighted five-star Best Buy reviewer. “He is so glad we got this! Both him and our son love gaming on this nice sized TV. My daughter and I enjoy watching our shows. We are all pleased to say the least!…”

It’s also Wi-Fi-enabled with smart home support for Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung’s Bixby. Video-streaming capability is also baked into this cake. Translation: You won’t have to buy a separate device to watch Netflix, YouTube, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+ and much, much more. You’re ready to start binge-watching as soon as you turn it on.

Story continues

Check out more 4th of July 4K-TV sales below:

Toshiba 43-inch 43C350KU C350 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $320 (was $370), amazon.com

Insignia 55-inch NS-55F301NA22 F30 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $400 (was $500), amazon.com

Sony 55-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV, $750 (was $950), bestbuy.com

LG 65-inch Class 4K Ultra HD NanoCell Smart TV, $997 (was $1,200), walmart.com

LG 65-inch Class CX Series OLED 4K Ultra HD Smart webOS TV, $1,900 (was $2,200), bestbuy.com

Sony 65-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV, $900 (was $1,150), bestbuy.com

Best home audio sales

Get these Beats beauties for half price right now! (Photo: Walmart)

On sale for $149 (was $300) for post-4th of July, the Beats Solo Pro Headphones sync to just about any smartphone or laptop via Bluetooth, delivering rich audio and heart-thumping bass. Super sleek, the pro-level headphones come in Gray and Ivory. They’re noise-canceling, so you can block out just about all background and ambient noise to enjoy your favorite music and podcasts.

“These beats are so pretty. They sound amazing and definitely block out background noise,” raved a savvy Walmart shopper. “They charge and are compatible with iPhones….”

The Beats have up to 40 hours of battery life per charge, so you don’t have to be tethered to an outlet all day long. They pump out a solid stream of music with top-notch audio for nearly two days — impressive, considering that most wireless headphones tap out after about 30 hours.

Check out more home audio sales below:

Bietrun Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds, $26 (was $130), walmart.com

Beats Flex Wireless Earbuds, $39 (was $50), amazon.com

Apple AirPods (wireless charging case), $160 (was $199), amazon.com

Apple AirPods Max, $490 (was $549), amazon.com

Philips Wireless In-Ear Headphones, $30 (was $60), walmart.com

Beats Solo3 Wireless On-Ear Headphones, $120 (was $200), amazon.com

Samsung Galaxy Buds+, $100 (was $150), bestbuy.com

Meidong Bluetooth Noise-Canceling Over-Ear Headphones, $35 (was $70), walmart.com

Best smartphone and tablet sales

An iPad with 40,000+ five star reviews, for less than $300? Is this for real? (Photo: Amazon)

On sale for $299 (was $329), the latest entry-level iPad model (32GB/Wi-Fi model) has the same impressive 10.2-inch display, quick Touch ID fingerprint sensor and 3GB of memory as the last version, but it features a speedier processor. You’ll notice — and appreciate — the speed with any videos, web sites or games. (For the tech savvy, the speed comes from Apple’s A12 Bionic chip). To say this thing is popular is an understatement: It has a ridiculous 40,000+ five-star reviews!

“I love it! It’s fast and easy to use plus it’s super affordable compared to the other models,” wrote a satisfied Amazon shopper. “The display is beautiful and picture quality is great…It’s like I have a mini laptop everywhere I go. Perfect for students, the screen quality is amazing and the battery lasts all day long.”

Check out more smartphone and tablet sales below:

Apple iPad Air (10.9-inch, Wi-Fi, 256GB), $699 (was $749), amazon.com

Core Innovations 7-inch, $54 (was $70), bhphotovideo.com

onn. 8-inch Tablet Pro, $79 (was $99), walmart.com

Samsung Galaxy A11 (Net10), $99 (was $149), walmart.com

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus, $160 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Best video game sales

Save 60 percent on super-popular games. (Photo: Amazon)

On sale for $20 (down from $50), BioShock: The Collection features all three games in the popular franchise: Bioshock Remastered, Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite. These fun-tastic games explore futuristic science fiction worlds underwater and above the clouds.

“One of the best video game trilogies of modern gaming,” raved a delighted gamer. “All three games play and look fantastic, and 2k has done a great job with the attention to detail with all of them. I’ve had zero performance issues.”

Check out more video game sales below:

Luna Gaming Controller, $56 (was $70), amazon.com

NBA 2K21 (Xbox Series X), $20 (was $70), amazon.com

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4), $20 (was $40), amazon.com

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4), $15 (was $40), amazon.com

The Sims 4 (Xbox One), $5 (was $50), cdkeys.com

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (Xbox One), $13 (was $35), cdkeys.com

Minecraft (Xbox One), $10 (was $30), cdkeys.com

Outriders: Day One Edition (PS4), $40 (was $60), walmart.com

Microsoft Xbox Series S 512GB with Xbox Game Pass and Accessories, $636 (was $700), qvc.com

Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Edition (PS4), $20 (was $60), walmart.com

Madden NFL 21 (Xbox One), $20 (was $60), walmart.com

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Xbox One), $30 (was $60), walmart.com

The Pillars of The Earth (PS4), $29 (was $45), walmart.com

Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled (PS4), $34 (was $40), walmart.com

PlayStation Plus Membership (12 months), $39 (was $60), cdkeys.com

Playstation Plus Membership (three months), $20 (was $25), cdkeys.com

Best smart-home sales

Start building the smart home of your dreams today, with this discounted bundle. (Photo: Lowe’s)

For this extended 4th of July sale, Lowe’s is giving you a chance to score the Google Nest Mini (second generation) and GE Smart Plug for just $40 (was $60).

The next-gen Nest Mini packs the Google Assistant into a sleek design with really great sound. Enjoy crisp vocals and balanced bass while you stream songs from Spotify, YouTube Music, SiriusXM, Pandora, Apple Music and more. Want a smart home? Now’s the time! If you have a phone in your pocket and a Wi-Fi network at home, you’re well on your way to building a smart home.

Plus, the bundle includes the GE Smart Plug (a $15 value), which can easily pair with the Google Nest Mini. Simply plug into a wall outlet, then plug in anything — a lamp, a TV or even a coffeemaker.

Then connect the plug to your Wi-Fi network and use your phone to sync to the Google Home app (for Android smartphones and Apple iPhones). That’s it! Now you can control just about anything in your home with your phone or just the sound of your voice via the Google Assistant. Fun!

“I am amazed at how much sound can come out of this little bitty device,” raved a delighted five-star Lowe’s reviewer. “The ease of setting this little unit up via Wi-Fi was a breeze. All I have done so far was talk to the device and it does what I ask with the weather even popping up on occasion which is what I was looking at. I like the fact that it sync to my devices with the calendar update with the busy schedule I have…I would recommend this little device for not only sound, but also ease of use. It can make your life simple and up-to-date if you carry a busy workload. Set a reminder and it will remind you even with a little music.”

Check out more smart-home sales below:

TP-Link N300 WiFi Extender (TL-WA855RE), $17 (was $30), amazon.com

Google Nest Mini, $35 (was $49), lowes.com

Google Nest Learning Smart Thermostat, $199 (was $249), lowes.com

Google Nest Hello, $149 (was $229), lowes.com

Lenovo Smart Clock Essential, $30 (was $50), lowes.com

Brookstone PhotoShare Digital Picture Frame, $110 (was $130), lowes.com

Moen 7594BL Arbor One-Handle Pulldown Kitchen Faucet, $289 (was $500), amazon.com

Honeywell RLV4300A1005 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat (renewed), $10 (was $35), eBay.com

Google Nest Cam Indoor Security Camera, $130 (was $200), walmart.com

Defender Ultra HD 4K Wired Outdoor Security System (1TB), $260 (was $450), walmart.com

Monoprice Wireless Smart Outdoor Dual Socket, $25 (was $38), target.com

XODO Smart Wi-Fi HD Video Doorbell, $90 (was $150), walmart.com

DHcamera Wired Spotlight Cam HD Security Camera, $150 (was $230), walmart.com

Garmin Vivosport Fitness Tracker (renewed), $70 (was $200), eBay.com

Kamep Wireless Wi-Fi Video Doorbell Camera, $75 with on-page coupon (was $90), amazon.com

Best home-office sales

Sleek, thin, and convertible (lapop to tablet), this Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 is $180 off. (Photo: Amazon)

For extended 4th of July sales, the slick Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 convertible laptop is just $370 — that’s 33 percent off.

Incredibly thin, the Samsung Chromebook is actually more than just a laptop. It has a brilliant 12.2-inch HD touchscreen display (at 1900×1200 resolution) and flexible 360-degree hinge, so it can rotate to any angle for use as a tablet.

“I wanted both a tablet and a computer. I love that you can download apps and use them for both the computer and the tablet form,” reported a five-star fan. “The stylus makes using Lightroom and other creative apps a breeze. Being able to use the cloud is a must because the storage would fill up pretty quickly…The large screen is also good for editing photos, drawing, and taking notes. Startup, web browsing, and apps are quick. The battery life is really great for everyday use…”

Check out more home-office sales below:

Cloud Massage Shiatsu Foot Massager Machine, $250 with on-page coupon (was $350), amazon.com

Renpho Neck Shoulder Massager, $30 with on-page coupon (was $50), amazon.com

Vybe Percussion Massage Gun, $150 with on-page coupon (was $200), amazon.com

DamKee Massage Gun, $56 with on-page coupon (was $110), amazon.com

WorkEZ Rise Aluminum Laptop Stand, $30 (was $33), qvc.com

Samsung 27-inch Smart Monitor, $300 (was $329), qvc.com

HP OfficeJet Pro 8035e All-in-One Printer, $220 (was $249), qvc.com

Asus Chromebook C223, $265 (was $340), hsn.com

Bell & Howell Adjustable Laptop Desk, $32 (was $50), hsn.com

Embassy NanoShred 8-Sheet Paper Shredder, $100 (was $124), hsn.com

OttLite Wireless Charging Desk Lamp, $35 (was $61), hsn.com

Apple MacBook Pro (mid-2020), $1,099 (was $1,299), bhphotovideo.com

Microsoft Surface Pro 5 (renewed), $540 (was $800), eBay.com

Ousgar 47-inch White Desk, $100 (was $266), walmart.com

Hemu Fashion Bamboo Laptop Lap Tray, $38 (was $80), walmart.com

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queenofcarrots · 5 years ago

Text

Manuscripts in Star Wars (And Star Wars Fan Fiction)

This is the text of a talk originally presented at the conference Fan Cultures and the Premodern World at Oxford University in July, 2019, organized by Dr. Juliana Dresvina of the Oxford History Faculty. This presentation represents a collaboration between myself and Dr Brandon Hawke of Rhode Island College, and is essentially a summation of our video project Sacred Texts: Codices Far, Far Away, (Introduction to the series at that link) and examples below will include links to brief conversations where Brandon and I talk about the examples in a bit more detail. This has also been posted on my academic blog but I’m cross-posting here to reach a different audience.

Hi, My name is Dot Porter, and I want to start by thanking Juliana for the wonderful organization of this conference, and also for including me in the program. This is very different from the kind of conference I normally present at – in my day job I’m a special collections curator at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in medieval manuscripts, their digitization, and their post-digital lives. Basically I get paid to digitize medieval manuscripts and then play with them. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources, which is just finished, and through which we digitized and made available for reuse more than 465 codices from institutions in Philadelphia)

Aside from my family there are two things in life I adore: medieval manuscripts, and Star Wars. I must admit that while I am a scholar of manuscripts, of a sort, I am also a fan. I love manuscripts – the way they look, feel, smell; I love to hold a manuscript and think about all the other people who have touched it, and consider the signs of use that imply their long histories. This interest has led to current work on conceiving of medieval manuscripts as transformative works themselves, first presented at Leeds 2018 and work I’m continuing looking specifically as Books of Hours. (My original draft of this presentation featured some of this work, but it threatened to take over, so I axed it all; a blog post of my Leeds paper is on my blog, if you’re curious).

While I am arguably a manuscript scholar, I am most definitely not a scholar of fandom studies – you will, I’m sure, find my theory wanting – nor am I a scholar of Star Wars, but I am a fan. I do the things that fans do. I’m on Tumblr, although that platform is pretty dead now, and I have a fandom Twitter account, which is much more active. I write and consume fan fiction, and I regularly commission artwork to illustrate my stories and stories I would like to write. I have written exactly one notable meta, which was even picked up by the AV Club – they actually cited me, unlike many of the other websites, which only cited the person who stole my work and posted it on Reddit!

In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, released in December 2017, we were introduced, for the first time, to manuscripts in the Star Wars universe. I had avoided trailers and spoilers, so the first time I saw this was in the theater, and I was, as the kids say, shooketh. Not only one manuscript, but a whole shelf-full of them! And they’re important. Rey, our heroine, has been sent to the island of Ahch-to to bring Luke Skywalker back to help the Resistance, led by Luke’s sister General Leia Organa, defeat the First Order. Rey has been there for a day or so, following Luke around, making no headway, when she is called to the Uneti tree, a large, hollow, Force-sensitive tree that houses these manuscripts. It’s in the company of these books that Rey and Luke finally communicate with each other, when Rey admits that she has only recently come to the Force and that she needs Luke to train her to be a Jedi, and when Luke grudgingly agrees to give her some lessons, but also tells her that the Jedi must die. Exciting stuff, and the books are there to hear it.

According to Star Wars The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary, Luke Skywalker scoured the galaxy for these texts and collected them himself, storing them in the tree that we see in the film. So these texts weren’t originally all in one collection, they are from many different planets, potentially written in ten different places, ten different times, ten different languages and alphabets, although there’s only one we ever see in the film. The starwars.com blog post “Inside the Lucasfilm Archives: The Jedi Texts” gives us an up-close look at the prop book that was shown in the film; as you can see it’s a real book, written and bound, and even damaged. There are manuscripts in our collection at Penn that look not very unlike this book. It is a real manuscript.

This is one manuscript in the universe. What else do we know about manuscripts in star wars in general? To be honest: not much. But we do know that it is rare to write by hand (as opposed to writing with digital technology like data pads). In Claudia Gray’s novel Bloodlines, which takes place six years before The Last Jedi, Leia Organa is preparing for a fancy party when she finds a handwritten note at her seat, and she’s shocked: “Virtually nobody wrote any longer; it had been years since Leia had seen actual words handwritten in ink on anything but historical documents.” So it appears that, by the time the current films take place, there are no longer manuscripts being actively written in the galaxy, or at least it’s very rare.

Interestingly there is one character in the Sequel Trilogy who it is suggested knows how to write by hand: Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo. There is a scene – the same scene is actually shown three times, from three different points of view – where a young padawan Ben is sleeping and his Uncle, Luke Skywalker, comes to him and looks into his head, sensing great darkness in his dreams. Ben calls his lightsaber to either attack his uncle or defend himself against him, depending on the version of the scene, and in one of these shots we can see that he has a calligraphy set in his bedroom. We can see the set here, in a screenshot of his desk just before he calls his lightsaber over – which knocks over the pen and inkwell and jar of parchment scrolls in the process – and in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

What else do we know about these specific books? There is concept art in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi; including six internal pages and six shots of the bindings.

I remember looking at the concept art and thinking how alike and different they were from the manuscripts I’ve had the pleasure of working with at Penn, and I discovered that my Twitter mutual Brandon Hawke, an Assistant Professor of English at Rhode Island College, was having many of the same thoughts that I was. So in October of 2018, Brandon came down to Penn and we sat for hours in front of a green screen and talked about manuscripts and Star Wars, comparing books in the Penn collections to what we see of the manuscripts in the concept art. We’ve been posting snippets of our discussions on the Schoenberg Institute YouTube channel, and there’s a link at the top there if you want to check them out. So for most of the rest of this paper I’ll be walking through some of the possible comparisons between real manuscripts and the Star Wars manuscripts. I want to stress that we did this for fun, and not for science, and that we’re limited by the collections at Penn and by our own knowledge.

Consider yourself warned: The remainder of this presentation is essentially an educated fan, raving.

As far as Brandon and I have been able to determine, this is a previously unknown script in the Star Wars universe. When I saw it my mind immediately went to Ge’ez, shown here in an early 20th century book of Hymns from Ethiopia. There’s something about the blockiness that is just slightly curved, and a few of the letter forms are slightly similar although I don’t think that’s necessarily meaningful. (video)

We also made a comparison with Coptic, which is thinner, more curved, and perhaps a closer match. (video)

For the third example we looked not at the text, but at its layout on the page. We found a similarity with this 16th century collection of Persian poetry, both its illuminated header (similar in aspect to the illuminated blue line of text in the center of the ancient Jedi text) and the framing of the text. (video)

Aside from text, it is clear that the concept art of pages supplied to us here represent astronomical texts. This is really not surprising, considering that in the Star Wars universe we have a galaxy that seems to have been very closely connected, between planets and cultures, for a very long time, and so it makes sense that even the most ancient texts would be concerned with objects in the system – stars and planets and moons – and how they related to and interact with one another. And this is a major concern in medieval astronomical texts, too: these texts illustrate people trying to make sense of the system they live in, in the best way they know.

One of the pages in the jedi texts is the symbol of the Galactic Republic, but placed on some kind of chart, with characters dispersed through the chart and text – perhaps labels – along the outside. We found a similarity with this chart in LJS 57, a 14th century astronomical anthology from Spain. I don’t know exactly what this chart represents but I can tell you that astronomical texts are full of similar charts; it was one of the ways that medieval people made sense of the data they had available to them. (video)

Something similar is happening here, in LJS 449, a 15th century German medical and astronomical miscellany. These charts are perhaps a bit simpler than the Spanish chart, but they have that attractive blue coloring. Both the coloring and the arrangement of data around the circle reminded Brandon and me of the diagrams on this page of the Jedi texts. (video)

The next three slides show diagrams from LJS 26, a mid-13th century copy of Johannes de Sacro Bosco’s, Algorismus and Tractatum de sphaera, an immensely popular text that was copied and translated and commented upon from the time it was written in the early 13th century (it is possible that our copy was written during Sacrobosco’s lifetime) through the 16th century. It is full of diagrams illustrating the movement of the planets, and the sun, and the moon in relation to the earth. I personally find these diagrams most reminiscent of the two pages on the bottom left, although I feel like their organization suggests a sense of scale that is lacking in the medieval diagrams. (video)

Medieval astronomers only had to think about the earth, and the moon, and the sun, and a few other planets. On the other hand, the Star Wars universe operates on a whole other level – a galaxy with countless star systems and planets that aren’t even charted. When I look at these diagrams I see a clever attempt to illustrate scale using the relatively primitive technology of ink and paper in place of the star charts and 3D maps that we see in the films.

On the other hand, there are some really simple 1:1 comparisons to be made, such as this diagram, which pretty clearly illustrates the phases of a moon. (video)

I want to take a quick look at the bindings of these manuscripts, particularly this piece of concept art, which is quite similar to the prop that we see in the film.

This has a fairly standard binding structure, quite similar to LJS 102, the Ethiopic manuscript we looked at earlier, except for the front cover, which is built of three separate pieces that are obviously connected together. In western bindings, if a wooden cover were a composite of multiple pieces, we would expect that to be obscured, as in this late 13th century Catalonian manuscripts (It’s hard to tell, which is the point, but this cover is made of three pieces of wood).

The only example of a cover like this I’ve seen is from the Walters Art Museum, this 14th century Ethiopian Gospel book. The cover was broken and then sewn back together, but this was the result of an accident, not done on purpose.

My colleague Alberto Campagnolo also suggested that it is similar to the Chinese practice of writing on bamboo strips and binding them together, as in this 18th century example.

This is one instance where the artists who created these concepts have done an excellent job with suggesting a manuscript culture – in fact, several manuscript cultures, cultures that use what is available to them. There are two manuscripts here that appear to be bound in decorated tusks, one that has what appear to be shells embedded in a leather binding, and another that might be bound in hairy skin or – I like to think – had the binding grown on it underground. In any case these all suggest books written in different places, perhaps at different times, and as a manuscript scholar I find that fascinating.

Following up on this I wanted to see how the concept of the manuscripts was received by writers of fan fiction. As a fan author myself I have written a few stories featuring the ancient Jedi texts, but given my interests that made sense; I was curious to see what other authors have done with them. I think there’s more extensive work to be done here, but in reading through the 40 or so stories I was able to find (by searching AO3 for ancient jedi texts, and the “jedi text” tag) I discovered not surprisingly that the stories focused on the text of the books, not on their physical appearance (which is at least partially due to fan fiction being a written medium, vs. film being a visual medium) and that there are three main themes that can appear by themselves or be combined:

Rey can read the texts on her own, or she needs help (Kylo Ren, C3PO, Obi Wan Kenobi’s force ghost)

The translation is used to further the story (whether or not it happens)

The texts do something (e.g., magic spells)

What will happen next? Will there be manuscripts in the Rise of Skywalker, the final film in this last trilogy? Of course I hope so, and it seems likely. The Uneti tree was struck by lightning and burned, but Rey took the manuscripts with her (here is a screenshot of a drawer in the Millennium Falcon, at the very end of the film, showing the books clearly safe and tucked away)

and in the Poe Dameron comic #27 we learn that Rey has been working with C3PO to translate the texts.

And there’s also the spectre of Kylo Ren with a calligraphy set; if he had access to these manuscripts when he was studying with Luke Skywalker, it’s possible that he has read and perhaps even annotated some of the books. Only time will tell, and I for one can’t wait for December.

#star wars #meta #manuscripts #ancient jedi texts #jedi texts #medieval manuscripts

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years ago

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I Love Mew

This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page! A version with the text: I Love Mew Coloring Page And a version without it: I Love Mew Coloring Page (No text) ____ Hmm. Does this look familiar? If so, that's because I tried remaking Watercolor Kitty, one of my first attempts at branching out into watercolor from about this time last year. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in an appropriately seasonal piece of art and see how I've improved with my watercolor (and to a lesser extent, cat drawing) skills since then. Last year, I intended for that image to be uploaded in time for Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen because I was a bit too optimistic about how quickly I could have it painted and prepared once my then-new paints arrived to me. This time I was determined to not let that happen again. Fortunately, this time I already had the paints, so that left me with just actually making the drawing and painting it. Believe it or not, I used the exact same reference image for this drawing as I did for the original, but I followed the reference more closely and used the style I've been using for all my themed kitty drawings lately. It's still not a 1:1 to the reference, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out. So I made my little sketch, and then scanned it in and used the method I've been favoring lately of taking the sketch and making the clean lines digitally (in part to force myself to get more accustomed to my non-Cintiq set up) and then print them out and trace them onto the paper of my choosing. Compared to Watercolor Kitty, this time around I had slightly nicer (not professional quality, but nicer) watercolors to work with, and I went as far as to use some of the 100% cotton watercolor paper I have in my stash, even though by this point I've been working with the same paper from the original painting (Cason XL watercolor paper) that I think I still could've seen an improvement with it all the same. But, I wanted to be sure. I primarily used my Master's Touch 48 half-pan set watercolors (which I should mention are becoming my favorite among the watercolors I own), but I ended up grabbing a few pastel yellows from my Arteza tube watercolors around the cat's eyes and mouth. While I tried to leave the white of the paper and lift the paint as is the "proper" watercolor technique, the red color had already stained the paper a little too strongly, so I relied on the more opaque nature of the Arteza paints to bring back that lightness I wanted. It's still not as bright as it maybe should be compared to the reference, but because I prefer smooth blending this is as light as I was going to get it and still accomplish that. Honestly, comparing the two, I'm not sure one is necessarily better than the other. Stylistically, this one feels more refined and the colors are more saturated/vibrant, but that's about it. You could argue the blending is a little better here, but part of that is just the higher quality paper doing its job. And to be fair, I wanted to keep roughly the same idea as the original painting, but I was purposely trying to refine the overall look, including using some fonts on the computer as reference/basis for the lettering this time around. But I kept the reddish color for the cat, the purple for the background, and even the burgundy lines and gold gel pen border. (Though I did change the pawprint border to a much softer gold that almost looks silver by comparison here; it just felt like the better choice.) It's interesting to me how the two paintings can be as similar as they are, but also be so different. And it's also interesting since I think this is the first time I've recreated a drawing so close to when I made the original. Usually, my recreations are 3+ years apart time-wise. How much I've learned about watercolors and using them may not be readily apparent, but I know I've come pretty far since then. I've definitely come quite a ways' from the completely uninspired painting experiences I had in K-12 school. I've since found that mixed media is where my artistic heart really belongs, so I don't think I'll ever be a full-time painter, but it is nice to once in a while focus in on just one medium like this and evaluate the progress I've made since first trying it out. So perhaps in the future, I'll keep a closer eye on older pieces to re-do for just that purpose. In the meantime, I've got a couple more Valentine-y things coming up and a couple of other projects I'm pretty excited to share with you guys...and maybe some adoptables. Maybe. I want to do them, but they might get pushed into next month or beyond. We'll see. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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3monthsineurope · 5 years ago

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June 1, 2019

Ingvar and I woke up at 4 am Saturday. Wowowowo that’s early! Ingvar and I had spent the week moving his stuff out of his old place, and some of it into mine. He’s spending a few weeks with me in my room, before he leaves for Hawaii for the summer. It’s really nice that he was taking me to the airport! I had packed almost all of my things the night before (and rather well, I might add! I only had four outfits for the weekend packed!), so we left my place around 4:20. We stopped and got gas, and then wanted Starbucks, but all of them were closed in Bellingham!

We hit the road to Everett. I was so excited to try out the new airport! There was no traffic that early, and we ended up stopping at Starbucks in Burlington. Ingvar got a $75 gift card when he left Bank of America (Wednesday was his last day!), so it was his treat. We got to Everett around 5:45, an hour and fifteen minutes before my flight. You can’t do that when you fly out of SeaTac! I said “see you tomorrow” to Ingvar (it was such a short trip but I was happy about it), then checked out the airport.

Security took about five minutes and there are only two gates. The airport felt very much like a lounge! It had fireplaces and a bar and nice couches. I did my make up, then got assigned my seat, 19a. It was a smaller plane, only two seats per row, and only about twenty rows. I boarded the plane, and we took off around seven. I tried to sleep the whole flight, since I slept only about four hours the night before, but the plane was really chilly! I probably got an hour of sleep, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

I landed at LAX around 9:30. I grabbed Starbucks for Haley and I, then she picked me up. It was a good to see her, but the cruise was only about two weeks prior, so it hadn’t been long. We had a busy day planned! We called and talked to Mom and Dad on our way to Haley’s place, where we changed and got ready to go to Universal Studios! I was seriously amped to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Dad paid for our tickets, since we didn’t go to Universal Studios Orlando, which was really nice! Thanks Dad! We took a Lyft to the theme park, since Haley lives so close, and then we wouldn’t need to deal with parking.

Universal Studios has an area around the park with restaurants and stores, called the City Walk. It’s kind of like Downtown Disney in Anaheim and Disney Springs in Orlando. We saw butterfly mural that was done by the same artist the Taylor Swift commissioned for her butterfly mural in Nashville, so that was a cool surprise. The weather was pretty chilly for LA—65! We were wearing sweatshirts, haha. Our main goal was to see Harry Potter World! We went right there and I was amazed! It really felt like I was in the movies! Haley and I got in line for the 4D ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. I was a littler nervous because I don’t love those rides, but I wanted to try! The line was almost an hour and a half! The ride was pretty scary! Haley and I thought it would be like Soarin’ Over California at California Adventure, but it was must more interactive! I had to close my eyes for some of it, and I’ve basically decided that I don’t want to do 4D rides anymore, haha.

We had a bathroom break, then tried butterbeer! I had the slushee version and Haley had the cream soda version. It was actually so tasty! It was butterscotchy and super rich. We were hungry, so we shared a hot dog and chips, then went for the next ride, the Flight of the Hippogriff. It was a small roller coaster but it was actually really fun, and a much shorter wait! We checked out Olivander’s wand shop, and some other shops. I ended up getting a Griffandor shirt and a Hufflepuff keychain (I’m a Hufflepuff, so I was in disguise in the shirt, hahah). Haley and I took photos in front of Hogwarts, then wandered around the rest of the park. There were Simpson’s, Minions, and other areas. The Jurassic Park ride was closed, otherwise we would have done that! Haley got a hat and some candy, and we took photos with Shrek! That was so funny, haha. We walked around the whole park, then decided to go home to take a quick break and change for the reason I was in LA—Wango Tango, a music festival!

We took a Lyft home and saw Andy for a bit. He had bought a ticket with us, but couldn’t get his shift covered, which was a real bummer, since we saw Taylor Swift in concert at the Rose Bowl, last year, the three of us. I laid down for a half hour, then Haley and I changed and waited for her friend, Alexandra. Andy gave her his ticket, isn’t that nice? The three of us took a Lyft to Carson, where the concert was, at Digital Health Sports Park, formally StubHub Center.

The ride took about 45 minutes. The line for Wango Tango was insane! It took us about half an hour to get in, even though the doors had opened an hour earlier, at 5:30. I had wanted to arrive early, to see some of my swiftie friends, specifically the ones I went to Pittsburgh with, last August. It was almost seven when we got in, so we decided to get some logistics out of the way before getting to our seats. We got our wristbands to access our floor seats and took photos with the Wango Tango sign. We went to the bathroom and got drinks and food. Haley and I shared a mini cheese pizza and it was actually so good! We made it down to our seats and they were pretty good, I was so happy! We had the isle of row 9, in the second section back from the stage! I had better seats for the reputation tour, but they were still really close! Haley and Alexandra has never had such good seats, so that was really cool!

The concert was amazing! 5 Seconds of Summer was first, and I knew a few of their songs. Next up was a kpop (Korean pop) band, called Tomorrow X Together. They were really good dancers! I went up to the food area and met two girls from Twitter, Lee and Jordan, and that was really fun! Fletcher went next, with her song, Undrunk. It was so fun to be dancing and having fun with everyone! Alexandra is trying to make it in the music industry, so she was really fun to be around at, at a concert. Next up was Ava Max, who has a really popular song, Sweet But Psycho. My friends Matti and Bianca came and found me, and it was good to see them!

Ally Brooke came on next. I didn’t know any of her music, but she is a former member of Fifth Harmony. It definitely seemed like she was lip syncing, which was a bummer. She brought out Tyga, a rapper, for a song, and then it was onto the next, Halsey. Halsey has a ton of radio hits, and she put a really good show! Near the end of her set, we ran upstairs and went to the bathroom before the final acts, got a churro and some carne assada fries to share, and Haley and I both got Wango Tango long sleeves. It was a successful trip!

The next act was Zedd. Zedd is a DJ, and really famous. He put on a fun set with a ton of poppy songs mixed in. For some reason John Stamos introduced the next band, the Jonas Brothers! They recently got back together and haven’t put on many shows since then, so the crowd went wild. They played their new songs, Sucker and Cool, and some old ones, like Year 3000, which was so fun to dance to! Also, Hannah B., the current bachelorette on ABC was there and did an introduction, which was cool.

Finally, Taylor Swift was the final act. The reason I was in LA! She came out in a super cool rainbow outfit with a ton of fringe. It was amazing to see her again! The last concert I saw was in Pittsburgh, in August. She opened up with Shake It Off, and I was so happy! She played eight songs: Shake It Off, Blank Space, I Knew You Were Trouble., Love Story, Delicate, Style, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, and Me! Me! is her newest single, for her seventh album, but that’s all we really know! We don’t have an album name or release date, yet. Brandon Urie, the singer of Panic! at the Disco, is featured in that song, and she brought him out to sing with her. It was amazing to see her preform Me! for one of the first times live. A couple times a camera crew was filming me during Taylor Swift, especially when she was surprising us with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. I hope I can find that footage sometime!

After Me! Wango Tango was done. Of course, she ended the show with confetti. There were so many swifties that it felt like a Taylor Swift show, which was really cool! During Delicate at the reputation tour, the fans would scream “1, 2, 3, let’s go bitch!” in a pause (don’t ask, haha), and everyone did that at Wango Tango, which just shows how many swifties were there!

After the show ended, we waited for Sergio. We went to Pittsburgh together, so it was so good to see him! He had seat filler tickets, and was lucky enough to have pit tickets near the cat walk! That must have been so amazing! He was taking a Lyft home with us, so we could catch up, since I didn’t get to see him during the show. There wasn’t a designated ride share lot, so a security guard told us to go to the nearby 7-eleven, so that’s what we did. I guess Carson isn’t a great area, so I’m glad it was close by. Haley’s phone was the first to connect to a driver, so she took care of that for us. The ride back to Haley’s was much shorter than the drive to Carson, and we didn’t even have to wait long at the 7-eleven. Sergio and I got to catch up, which was so nice! He is a really genuine guy that I truly consider a friend.

There was some drama on the way home, though. Alexandra found out that her boyfriend had been lying and possibly cheating on her. Alexandra and Haley had been blocked for a social media post, but using my phone, she was able to see her boyfriend “dancing” with a “friend”. Alexandra is a big personality, so she called her boyfriend and his friends and her mom, and broke up with him. Wow, that’s really sad! We all got out at Haley’s, and Sergio took a short ride home. I’m so thankful that I got to see him!

Alexandra came up with Haley and I, and was definitely going through some hard stuff. Haley and I got ready for bed (I was sure tired!). We tried to console Alexandra, but there wasn’t much we could do to make her feel better. Around 1:30, she took a Lyft home, and Haley and I immediately fell asleep. Honestly, it was an amazing concert and I’m so glad I flew down for it! :]

#taylor swift #wango tango

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cosmosbv · 6 years ago

Text

Cosmos Market

Hi All

It has been a little over a month since I started this project.

The first Kickstarter was unsuccessful. I will be setting up a new one next week after I sit down to talk with the investor and after my meeting with the realtor. It took a while, mostly because phones and I are not friends, along with my dyslexia screwing things up, but I got through.

I am leaving the GoFundMe up and running, because I am going to open a bookstore. I feel one step closer now then last week.

Goal

I am going to crowdfund to open a small store. It will be a combination of a second hand and indie bookstore, farm market, and artisan crafts store. I already have seven farm market and artisans ready to work out contracts for spacing to sell their wares, more then a thousand used books boxed up and ready to go, plus several boxes of crafts.

Why a bookstore?

Prior to the car accident I wanted to open a bookstore. Then the accident occurred, and that was not an option at the time because of health problems. I didn’t stop collecting books for that purpose, with the thought that someday I would return to that goal in order to open that second hand bookstore like I wanted.

Now I write books to publish and thought: wait, what if instead of just a second hand bookstore, I make it an indie bookstore and secondhand store? Perfect idea! I can sell mine, and other indie authors books.

Why a farm and artisan market?

The idea of the market has two different sources.

The first is when I studied our community and realized there is nowhere besides the farm market to sell handmade crafts that are not paintings. That gave me the idea to combined my bookstore with an artisan craft store.

The second is when I was speaking to a vendor at the farm market, one who makes both artisan crafts and farm market foods. She made a comment about wishing to have somewhere she could rent a space for a reasonable price. that gave me the idea to work with the farm market vendors.

Thus far all but two have committed. Those two stated that they would consider it if I successfully acquire the building. There are still more to be spoken with.

Why both GoFundMe and Kickstarter?

GoFundMe - I am familiar with it, there is no time limit, and goals can be adjusted as needed. Beyond that, the GoFundMe is for individuals who would like to give to the project now, because they don’t know that they will have the money later. All money from it will go towards the goal of opening the store in some form, whether in advertising, product, or bills.

Kickstarter - it is an all or nothing funding. If I hit the goal, I have to open the store. Which if I hit the goal, I will definitely open the store because I will buy my building to do so. Yes, the time is getting close for the first one, perhaps I will change programs or goals.

There was some confusion with an individual earlier about how I would give the money back if the store failed. They didn’t seem to comprehend that is not how Kickstarter works. With Kickstarter, if I hit the goal, and I open the store, I have done as promised, no refund needed. If I hit the goal but don’t open the store, that’s when I have to issue a refund.

What if you are unable to get the building in the image?

That’s when I move on to plans B or C. In other words, that’s when I buy one of the other buildings I have picked out, those that might not be as great for the goal but would work over all.

What makes building one better then two or three?

Location! It’s in a great spot for my needs.

Size, it is three times bigger then building two and four times bigger then building three.

Apartments in the upstairs. That means I can update them sooner then later with any extra money after stocking the store and rent them out. Renting just one of them out would make the buildings monthly mortgage with the amount of money I have planned to put down, renting out both would also pay the electric, gas, and trash removal.

Extra rooms beyond the store that can be rented to artisans who might wish to have a new space or bigger space to work in.

Some of the extra rooms can also be used to host various classes, either by artisans, tutors, or even myself for creative writing.

Three to Five are part of Six: renting out the spaces and offering classes will make it so all the stores profits go into further stock and employees. Insuring that there is plenty to sell and that it continue on.

Then why have plans B and C if A is so good?

Someone else might buy A. In that case it’s a good idea to have a plan B and C. There aren’t a lot of buildings for sale in the area, and I would rather not rent or lease, as I want control over the building, that only happens if I own it.

Plans B and C are also for if the first doesn’t work out for a different reason. For instance, perhaps I have a investor who is willing to back purchasing a smaller building.

Investors

I am reaching out to various angel investors as well. Yet another way to try and fund this. There is a long list of individuals for me to contact who help small businesses get off the ground.

Depending on investors, I may change building plans if one is willing to work with of the smaller ones. Would it be as profitable as the larger building? No. However, I would be able to build up the smaller store, then either try again to get my plan A building if it is still on the market, or find a different bigger building. After all, the real estate market is always changing.

If you would like to be an investor, even a small one such as fifty dollars, please use my Contact Me form. It’s primary purpose is for commissions, but it also covers other questions and communications off this website.

Loans

Why don’t I try getting a business loan? That requires a decent credit score, which I would need a job to get. It is the lack of job due to my disabilities that has caused me to take this route.

Do you have a business plan?

Yes, though it’s hand written because that’s how I roll. Actually, I have several, because I kept redrafting it as I considered new details and points. It evolved!

I keep each to make sure details that are needed are not lost in the rewrites.

Do you have a budget?

Why yes I do! Checked multiple times, to make sure the math isn’t off. It is based on building costs, bills (gas, electric, trash, accounting), employee pay, advertising prices, permits, equipment, and stock.

A basic form of it can be found at the bottom of my first Kickstarter. If you’d like to discuss it, I am open to doing so. I have a projected finances excel, I will be creating a google sheets version as well, and will be updating it as I receive new information.

You have several disabilities, how are you going to do this?

With help. That’s why there is employee pay as part of the costs. I know I physically can’t do it alone, so I will pay someone to help me. I’ve already spoken to that person, we have an agreement set out and a pay schedule.

Why should we back you?

At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what to do, nor would I. What I can tell you is this:

I managed to get my family from 50k in debt to 10k in debt in 4 years (love the parents, they’re not the best at finances, plus there was that entire stroke that just added to the mess of bills) - so I know how to balance a book and raise money.

That does not count the times I asked for help for myself, only the family as whole’s situation. After all, hard to balance my own books with no money coming in during those months I did not have any commissions or ghost writing.

I was trained as a store manager

I have a bachelor’s degree in business administration

I’m a fast study

If you are an indie author, I’ll sell your books. That means I buy several copies to sell, so you automatically get paid, and then if they do well, I buy more copies to sell.

You’ll be helping a small business get started You get a personalized signed copies of my book, yes they are digital copies but I will still be making the signing for each personal, scanning them in, adding them to the file and sending them off.

You help a disabled writer stop living with the constant worry of how to pay the bills and when will the next need to ask for help happen. Thus I stop needing to ask for donations every time life goes sideways because I barely have enough to live before that happens.

I am also a firm believer in paying it forward, so once I am no longer stuck in the cycle of I have no money, I am barely paying the bills, and I have to ask for help, I will be able to help others who may need it.

You’ll get updates on the business, what the current specials are, and even coupons for online purchases from time to time.

For those who do more then the twenty five dollar pledge, they will get signed copies of more then just my first two books. Every five past twenty-five will get one more book, unless told to stop. Example: If you do fifty dollars, you get the initial two plus five more personalized signature books.

I have done a lot of research, this isn’t just a whim, it’s not a lark, while most my notes are hand written, they are repeatedly checked as I wish to make sure that I am successful. Once it is open I do not want to have to ask a second time for help with it.

It’s a New Year, if you are feeling generous, consider helping someone start it differently then years past.

All I can ask is you take a chance. Money is important, as it funds everything. Sharing the GoFundMe is just important as it shows it to new people. All I ask is you take a few moments to share this, or the GoFundMe. I understand however, if you are not willing or able to.

Thank you all for reading this,

Jaimi

1/5/19

#Gofundme #kickstarter #signal boost #crowdfunding #indie author #trying to open a bookstore and market #Cosmos Market KS #Cosmos Market GFM #Cosmos Market

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kimonobeat · 6 years ago

Photo

aiko bon: Official “Mikuni Eki” liner notes

aiko’s 17th major label single, released on February 16, 2005. The song is named after a local train station in Osaka that aiko used often when she was a student.

Mikuni Eki (三国駅; Mikuni Station) ★ not translated by me

Hachimitsu (ハチミツ; Honey)

Kotori Kouen (小鳥公園; Birdie Park)

Mikuni Eki (instrumental)

(Thank you parasmichael for the commission!)

☑ Mikuni Eki

I wrote this song around the time I was doing “LOVE LIKE ROCK Vol.2”. “Look at this song I just wrote!” I said. After listening to it, they asked, “So, are you gonna sing it?” And so that’s how I ended up singing it for the very first time at a concert. When I picture this song, I imagine myself looking back on everything that’s happened since I was a student, hanging out and having fun in Mikuni almost every single day, up to the present. I really poured my heart into this song. I wrote it when I was 27 or 28 years old. I think I was only able to write this song once I was at an age where I could look back at all of it objectively. The faces that come to mind in this song change with every single sceneーguys I liked, my best friends, and even guy friends who were really important to meーall pop up in my head. When we recorded the song, I suddenly remembered walking through a row of gingko trees with all of my friends. At the concert I played it on the piano. The CD arrangement has a piano in it too, but there’s also strings. We talked about keeping the arrangement simple. I really love the analog synthesizer bit in the interlude and how bittersweet it sounds too. I wanted the song to have a bit of a lonely vibe to it, and it fits the bill perfectly. Every single time I sing this song at concerts I feel like I’m about to cry.

☑ Hachimitsu

I’m really glad that I got to re-record another one of my indie songs. Normally you sing a song in the studio for both the first and last time, so it’s a real treat for any singer to get to do it one more time, you know what I mean? I was also feeling a bit unsure that I’d be able to sing it the right way because it’d been 7 years since I last recorded it. I mean, my voice is definitely a tad bit different than it was back then. It was a lot of fun, though. I sang it well, and there were a lot fewer takes than usual. It made me realize the song was ingrained into me a lot deeper than I thought. That melody had stuck with me all that time, and yet it felt fresh and new all over again. I wrote the song back when I didn’t know as much as I do now about how to write a song. It made it feel brand new to me. The arrangement was all digital MIDI instruments in the older version, but this time around, we used live instruments instead. Shimayan arranged both versions though, so not a whole lot changed, honestly. I didn’t want to change it too much so that it wouldn’t sound strange to the people who had the indies version of the song. I love the sound of the Wurlitzer in the intro, though. Before that I was just throwing ideas out there, left and right. “Should I do some ad-libbing? How about we add in some ad-libbing?” As for the lyrics, I wrote them when I’d just started living on my own for the first time in a 7 tatami mat place. The guy I liked at the time wasn’t anything like the person in the lyrics, but I do remember thinking that if someone like that ever said something nice like that to me, that that’s probably how I would’ve felt. I guess that’s what I was yearning for at the time. Whenever I listen to this song, I think, “Aw, 22 year old aiko is really trying her best.” (laughs)

☑ Kotori Kouen

I wrote this song while reminiscing about when I was a little kid. The kid world has firm rules. You care about your parents, and sometimes you have crushes, too. I took a little slice of that world to make this song. The bit about the trash can in the lyrics is something that actually happened to me. I was squatting down, playing with sand when my friend’s older brother came over and kicked over a metal mesh trash can. It came rolling all the way over to me, and when I looked and saw what was coming… WHAM! It hit me right in the forehead and knocked me over. Man, did it hurt! (laughs) Also, the boy in the song is this naughty… er, smart mama’s boy who used to live next door to me. Like, he always had to get permission to hang out on a Saturday. (laughs) The sound is all Negishi (Takamune, the arranger). Shimayan plays the organ in Negishi’s arrangement. That was pretty neat.

#aiko #aiko yanai #yanai aiko #yume no naka no massugu na michi #translation #aiko bon

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written-in-light-blog1 · 7 years ago

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“LET US SPEAK OF THE TERRIBLE BEAUTY OF BECOMING OURSELVES”

Illustrating Destiny’s Books of Sorrow with community artist Francine Bridge

One of the most impressive Destiny fan-projects we’ve seen to date has been Francine Bridge’s incredible illustrated rendering of Destiny’s Books of Sorrow. Francine, otherwise known as Witnesstheabsurd, agreed to take some time to answer a few of our questions about her work, its impetus, and what the project means to her.

Written by Seth Dickinson, the Books of Sorrow tell the story of the Hive - and by extension Oryx and his siblings - and give deep, rich background to one of the game’s largest and most important conflicts. Lyric and evocative, the books offer insight into both the Hive themselves and the universe they inhabit, and remain Destiny’s most impressive and most in-depth piece of lore-building. For those who may have joined the community in Destiny 2, or never had the chance to read the original books, they can be read in their entirety here. Francine’s project shows the same impressive attention to detail, and most importantly, the same level of empathy as the works that inspired it. We’re ecstatic to be able to share this conversation with the Destiny community, and we hope you’ll take the time to admire the full project.

You can find Francine on Artstation, as well as on Twitter and Tumblr.

Written in Light: To get things started, tell us a bit about yourself. What you're studying, what field you work in, what you like to do for fun - give us a brief summary of who you are and what's important to you!

Francine Bridge: HI! I'm Francine, although I'm better known online as Witnesstheabsurd. I work as a freelance illustrator and concept artist in the UK - you might have seen some of my work in the game Hiveswap or at labels like Killstar. I do album covers, shirt designs, character/monster etc design work for games, comics, private clients. I'm currently in my 4th and final (I took an extra sandwich year to do a supplemental diploma in professional studies) year of my Illustration and Visual Media BA degree in London, after which I'm probably going to look for more permanent studio/contract work rather than the one-off freelance stuff I've been pursuing while I've been in school.

A couple of years ago, prior to starting the degree, I came out as a trans woman, which is probably an important detail, and it's informed a lot of my work. However, my driving impulse has always been monsters - my preoccupation with Destiny started entirely because a friend of mine showed me screencaps of Oryx after the The Taken King release and I was smitten. Pretty much all of the media I consume, the games I play, the art I create is in pursuit of ever greater or more unique creature and monster design, and they're very dear to my heart.

As far as what I do for fun - my day is 90% working at the tablet, but I find time to play some games and build "gunpla" model kits as well as paw through my artbook collection. Almost everything I do is informed by my profession, so I use my hobbies as a means to access and process more referential or inspirational visual material or techniques. I only recently started sincerely learning how to actually "paint," rather than just do some basic rendering under lineart, so that's been a major part of my work lately.

WiL: Was there anything in particular about Oryx that really drew you to him? Did Oryx come across as particularly great and/or unique to you, or is there something else that struck you with his character or design?

FB: Well, as I said, I'm transgender. In the ‘pitch’ my friend made to me about Oryx as a character, the most interesting aspect to me was that he's a transgender man (although I'm a trans woman, the experience has some shared parallels obviously).

In media, it's incredibly difficult to find trans characters not wholly defined by that aspect of their identity, or who aren't constantly wallowing in the Misery and Tragedy of being trans. I want trans characters who occupy all roles - villain, hero, supporting and main - and it's rare to find anyone who's more than a token or like, tragedy porn. Oryx super resonated with me because he was this figure who acquired power and immediately transitioned, asserting his identity in a way that couldn't be defied - Oryx's story is very much one about self-definition and the value of existence under your own terms, which are very important concepts to me.

When I decided to start work on illustrating the Books I actually reached out to Seth Dickinson, the author Bungie contracted to write them (and the Cabal Booklet/odd flavour text, by the way) to get some specific questions answered and he was kind enough to respond and was very cooperative and supportive. Among the things I asked about I wanted to know if Oryx was consciously written as transgender character or if it was just a coincidental "weird alien race" flourish. I was very happy to learn Seth had purposefully written Oryx that way, and that he was happy people took strength from it.

It's very novel to have, like, a "trans power fantasy"... a character who acquires absolute power over the self and instantly rewrites the contract between themselves and their body that so many of us spend our entire lives making adjustments to and renegotiating for some measure of peace. It was satisfying, refreshing.

Oryx is super cool to me on multiple visual levels obviously as well, being a mineral-encrusted deep space insect mummy warlord, but that element specifically sets him apart for me, and always will. It's cool to know that a trans character in Destiny can also be a hideous monster from beyond the stars.

WiL: Nice! I've wondered if Oryx was intentionally written to reflect a transgender person. I'm glad to hear a positive answer to that question, and I'm glad you found strength in it!

My next question is, why did you decide to take on this project? I mean, it's very clear that you love Oryx, so that factor is a given, but you mentioned in your original post that this was something you did for your degree. Care to elaborate on that?

FB: So, the structure of my illustration degree is such that while we’re given specific "briefs," such as topics or techniques, the final year gives us significantly more free rein. We're obligated to complete three "projects" and author a thesis over the course of the final year, but the subject matter, material, everything about those projects is our call. The outcomes are judged based solely on technical and professional development rather than adherence to a specific brief.

This left the field wide open for me to kill two birds with one stone and bring in a project I had intended to do anyhow, but hadn't had the time or space for; something that I was sincerely passionate about rather than an edict handed down by a tutor. Illustrating the Books of Sorrow was something i'd wanted to do ever since I first read them back in The Taken King, and I jumped at the chance. In addition, while i've produced and formatted artbooks before (My first published work, The Occult Supergiant Primer, can be found here ), I've been able to recoup the time invested away from client work in sales and funding. The Books are obviously material belonging to Bungie and I can't justify selling copies, digital or otherwise, of my illustrated version, so I had to find some other reason to make this investment of time and unpaid work worthwhile as well as enjoyable.

Being able to use the work produced to further my degree was the perfect "excuse.” That said, I've received so much attention from the Destiny community at large, including commissioned work from several new clients, that it would have easily been worth it regardless.

WiL: Your work definitely deserves the attention, you clearly have a strong sense of design! Would you be willing to tell us a little bit about the process you went through to make the Books of Sorrow? Do you have any early versions or storyboards that you'd like to share? Or did any of the illustrations go through any major changes from start to finish, and would you be willing/able to show us that process and talk a bit about why you made the changes you made?

FB: The greater part of the Books came together incredibly smoothly and naturally, with very little iteration required on specific pieces. The images had been stewing in my mind ever since I read the original verses a few years ago and they were more than ready to be rendered. What did require a lot of research, development and false starts were the designs for the sisters, Savathûn and Xivu Arath. Both of them have yet to appear ingame in any major capacity (although it's looking likely Savathûn is going to be a Year 2 DLC), so it was up to me to create designs for them that:

Satisfied the descriptions appended to them in the verses, as light as they were, and also matched the info Seth gave me

Satisfied my own personal expectations and interpretation

Conformed to the lore and the existing known morphology of the Hive in a way that would make them recognizable to a player with no prior familiarity with the Books

Balancing these principles lead to a lot of internal back and forth - Savathûn was easier because we had already seen her brood in D2 on Titan, so I knew to emphasize ornate crests, bonelike texture and a slightly less mineral, more biological look by comparison to Oryx's brood, the hive we exclusively encountered in D1. She was tough at first but ultimately fell into line with something satisfying for me, which actually drew a lot from the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens.

Xivu Arath was a little trickier because she had to be distinct from Oryx, who kind of already occupies the "big mineral/bone-encrusted bruiser" archetype visually, so I had to take her even further. I spent a lot of time wondering whether she would have any ornamentation like some of the bigger Knights (Alak-Hul comes to mind), given that she represents the "ultimate" Knight morph, but I eventually eschewed all decoration in favour of something reflecting her nature in the narrative: blunt, implacable, spartan. She dispenses with the ritual and hierarchical trappings the other siblings indulge in - notably she decides that all battlefields are her Court, rather than entertaining a court herself, and she tends to default to just brutally bludgeoning whatever stands in her way rather than making an appeal to the Deep or engaging in trickery. I was very satisfied with how she turned out, and the piece featuring her is easily one of my favourites.

WiL: I was going to ask which piece is your favorite! Do you have a Top 3 that you're most proud of?

Is there anything about the Books that you wish were different, or is there something you wish you had the opportunity to draw for this project but couldn't justify including it?

FB: I have a strong tendency to favour whichever the last piece I completed was, because by default I'm always proudest of my most recent work and very rapidly lose favour with pieces even like, a week old. That said, I think overall the strongest piece for me personally would be Oryx slaying Akka, alongside the final Wormfood painting and the Savathun piece, although honorable mentions go to Xivu Arath and Quria, Blade Transform.

I can't say there's anything about the Books specifically I wish was different. The part of me that's purely consuming it as a narrative wishes that they had found Taox, that there had been some confrontation there. I feel like there's a very strong "childhood vengeance" element to the Taox subplot, like when you're put down by an adult for drawing in class and you fantasize about coming back to the school years later as a wildly successful artist and making them admit they were wrong to have stopped you. A key part of that fantasy is recognizing it as a remnant of childhood, this impulse born out of a narrower perspective and inflated self-worth, and realizing you can move past that shit (Although if/when I do become a wildly successful artist there might be a few teachers I'll look up).

Ultimately, I think the arc of the books and what the story is trying to say about distortion of intent and self makes Taox disappearing a much more emotionally resonant and interesting turn. It would be neat if Taox turned up somewhere in-game, and became the focal point of a new Hive offensive. An entire species/culture with such a specific individual grudge is a fascinating concept.

With about a month and a half of time allotted for the project and 50 verses, there was a lot of stuff I had to cut despite how much it hurt - in a complete version I would have wanted a painting for every verse, but specifically I would have liked to draw Akka in full, the Dakaua War Angels, the Harmony/Gift Mast, the Qugu; basically I would have given form to the many species and cultures Seth conjures up with a few phrases and a loose description but still manages to make incredibly evocative.

WiL: Do you think you'll ever return to the project and draw those images, either as standalone pieces or as an update to the PDF you've already made?

FB: An update to the .pdf itself is unlikely. I tend to consider projects released to be complete, and usually by the time I revisit a subject I'm not obligated to work on it will have been a few years at the very least. I tend to have developed my technique and approach enough that new pieces inserted retroactively would look somewhat disjointed in terms of quality and style. The chance of releasing standalone paintings - especially of points of specific interest for me like say, Akka in his entirety, the Dakaua war angels, the Qugu, etc. - is significantly higher. Whether that happens sooner or later depends entirely on what my current workload looks like, and aside from the incredibly generous and supportive response to the project from the larger community the Books are very much a passion project and have to be weighed against, say, contract or school work going forwards.

WiL: That makes sense. What other projects do you have going on right now, if any?

FB: Just this morning I decided on the subject of my final degree project, which I'm also planning to run as my second artbook with an accompanying Kickstarter and print run - something I can actually sell as well as being material that excites me! It's entirely too early to disclose any specific details about it though.

Other than that, I continue to produce odd pieces of fanart in between a regular flow of client work both from private individuals and studios. I guess I can safely say I'll be doing more work on the second Homestuck game after contributing to the first, as well as doing some designs for a music video I was contracted for, and also finishing my thesis for the aforementioned degree.

The key thing, I think, is to keep moving - I get very anxious when I'm spinning my wheels between projects, and the temptation to linger on the threshold a while longer is incredibly strong, especially when there's always the fear your new work will fail to surpass what's come before. Reaching a personal peak like some of the paintings I did for the Books of Sorrow is a double-edged sword, and it can signify both a great accomplishment and a raising of the bar that can be daunting to follow. I'm confident that whatever you see from me next will manage it, though!

WiL: Believe me, after talking with you for a while, I'm confident your next project will meet your expectations. You are a very talented and very ambitious artist, and we can’t wait to see where your career takes you! It’s been a pleasure to talk to you, and we’re looking forward to your next Destiny passion project.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

All images courtesy Francine Bridge

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