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[bardraelyn]

Okay, another little lesson for fic writers since I see it come up sometimes in fics: wine in restaurants.

When you buy a bottle of wine in a (nicer) restaurant, generally (please note my emphasis there, this is a generalization for most restaurants, but not all restaurants, especially non-US ones) you may see a waiter do a few things when they bring you the bottle.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it

The waiter uncorks the bottle in order to serve it

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle

The waiter pours a small portion of the wine (barely a splash) and waits for the person who ordered it to taste it

The waiter then pours glasses for everyone else at the table, and then returns to fill up the initial taster's glass

Now, you might be thinking -- that's all pretty obvious, right? They're bringing you what you ordered, making sure you liked it, and then pouring it for the group. Wrong. It's actually a little bit more complicated than that.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it so that they can inspect the label and vintage and make sure it's the bottle they actually ordered off the menu

The waiter uncorks the bottle so that the table can see it was unopened before this moment (i.e., not another wine they poured into an empty bottle) and well-sealed

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle so that they can inspect the label on the cork and determine if it matches up; they can also smell/feel the cork to see if there is any dergradation or mold that might impact the wine itself

The waiter pours a small portion for the person who ordered to taste NOT to see if they liked it -- that's a common misconception. Yes, sometimes when house wine is served by the glass, waiters will pour a portion for people to taste and agree to. But when you order a bottle, the taste isn't for approval -- you've already bought the bottle at this point! You don't get to refuse it if you don't like it. Rather, the tasting is to determine if the wine is "corked", a term that refers to when a wine is contaminated by TCA, a chemical compound that causes a specific taste/flavor. TCA can be caused by mold in corks, and is one of the only reasons you can (generally) refuse a bottle of wine you have already purchased. Most people can taste or smell TCA if they are trained for it; other people might drink the wine for a few minutes before noticing a damp, basement-like smell on the aftertaste. Once you've tasted it, you'll remember it. That first sip is your opportunity to take one for the table and save them from a possibly corked bottle of wine, which is absolutely no fun.

If you've sipped the wine (I generally smell it, I've found it's easier to smell than taste) and determined that it is safe, you then nod to your waiter. The waiter will then pour glasses for everyone else at the table. If the wine is corked, you would refuse the bottle and ask the waiter for a new bottle. If there is no new bottle, you'll either get a refund or they'll ask you to choose another option on their wine list. A good restaurant will understand that corked bottles happen randomly, and will leap at the opportunity to replace it; a bad restaurant or a restaurant with poor training will sometimes try to argue with you about whether or not it's corked. Again, it can be a subtle, subjective taste, so proceed carefully.

In restaurants, this process can happen very quickly! It's elegant and practiced. The waiter will generally uncork the bottle without setting the bottle down or bracing it against themselves. They will remove the cork without breaking it, and they will pour the wine without dripping it down the label or on the table.

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Bigger than everything 🥲💗

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I think people misunderstand "x fell first, y fell harder " trope because it's not about like the one who fell harder loves the other person harder. It's just that the one who fell first falls in a graceful way, one step at the time, maybe gradually over a span of time. The one who fell harder smashes trough the air, there's blood everywhere, everything is fine-

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Reminder:

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From a state hearing in Texas

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embroidery from peacockandpinecones my friends and I have been losing our minds over all morning.

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Bad Omens?

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armageddon is an emotion palette

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Michael was not the first to have an obsession with paperclips.

Michael + paper clips

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the reason "robot racism" is often a really stupid metaphor is the same reason that like. discrimination against demons or vampires or whatever doesn't work, is because there's often a pretty justified reasons humans are scared of vampires or robots or whatever, in a way that doesn't apply to real life minorities, like a fantasy author will be like "the reason vampires are discriminated against is because most of them and kill and eat people for fun and pleasure, and so humans respond by trying to kill them, isn't that so sad" and like no that's a perfectly fine reason to not trust vampires i think.

[bardraelyn]

Hi, I saw your comment on a locked post about majoring in comic books, and was wondering would you be so kind please if you have a moment I would love to hear every single thing about that if you have any old info dumps that is so fascinating??

I was not aware that was something a person could do

Hi! Sorry for taking so long to reply; I don't check Tumblr very often.

You can absolutely major in comic books. At some schools, it will be listed as sequential art. That's how it's listed at SCAD, which is where I got my degree. It was the first college to offer a sequential art major; the other schools were comics-focused technical schools founded by comic book artists. Now there are more colleges and universities that offer courses, minors (often under an illustration major), or even majors in comics.

A major in comics covers a lot of different aspects of the comics-making process along with providing a solid foundation in fine art. I took classes in art history, drawing basics (that is, learning to see and render shapes and negative space, light and shadow, and local color, i.e. the color an object is without the influence of color in the light applied to the object), perspective drawing, figure drawing, human and animal anatomy, the history of comics, comics scriptwriting, penciling comics, inking comics, digital coloring for comics, painting for comics, comics cover art, comics lettering, and character design for comics and animation.

If studying comics is something you're interested in doing, there are a lot of options, but be forewarned that many of them are ridiculously expensive, and some of the schools out there are less than reputable. My advice would be to avoid any private for-profit schools, and look instead at public or private not-for-profit schools. Most public not-for-profits will be local colleges and state universities. Art schools typically fall under private for-profit (ex: Full Sail) or private not-for-profit (ex: SCAD) and are generally expensive. If you decide to go to an art school, get as many of your basic classes out of the way as you can at a state or community college before transferring, to minimize the amount of student loan money you borrow. Most reputable schools will work with you to help you select classes that will transfer, but you'll need to handle reaching out to admissions in both your starting school and your transfer school to coordinate.

If you are highly motivated, you can learn a lot of the same things I did on your own, without a degree program. You'll miss out on the feedback you get from professors and peers in classes, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper, and many early comic book artists started out in exactly that way. If you pair this route with a degree in business, you'll have the skills to market yourself effectively as an artist. And you can still get feedback if you reach out to artist communities online or in your area; it just may not be comics-specific.

The place to start learning on your own would be with all of the following:

Scott McCloud's series on comics, starting with Understanding Comics (literally the textbook for many of my sequential art classes, and it's written in comic book form), then Making Comics and Reinventing Comics.

The Art of Comic Book Writing: The Definitive Guide to Outlining, Scripting, and Pitching Your Sequential Art Stories by Mark Kneece. (Mark was my scriptwriting prof.)

The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering by Nate Piekos.

Perspective! for Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in your Artwork by David Chelsea.

Any number of books on figure drawing (making sure to include books that specialize on hands and feet, heads, facial expressions, and drawing figures of differing body weights). Burne Hogarth has a pretty good figure drawing series, but there are many others. A lot of artists I know like the Morpho series.

And as I mentioned in that comment you saw, comics is definitely not a "useless" degree. However, how much use you can get out of it and what you can earn depends on how flexible you are with what you want do for a living. Getting stuck on the idea of only doing comics might make it challenging to build a lucrative income (hence the strong advice to avoid expensive art schools). I combined my art school degree with a degree in English, then took a circuitous route through teaching and other creative professions to eventually land a job developing corporate training content, which I enjoy and which uses my creative skills, but not in a way that burns me out, so I'm still able to apply those skills to my own passions outside of work. It also pays really well, but it took a while to get here, and I'll be paying off student loans for a long time to come. For me, it was worth the cost, but not everyone will feel the same.

I hope that covers everything you might want to know, or at least gives you a starting place if you want to learn more!

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Well shit, the Republicans brought a certain anti-online porn bill back to the table.

The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.

This should alarm you guys.

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