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idreamofplaid · 4 years

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Inspiration

Square Filled: Artist AU for @spnfluffbingo & Angst to Fluff for @spngenrebingo

Characters: artist!Sam x Reader

Rating: M

Word Count: 1863

Created for @spnfluffbingo & @spngenrebingo

The opening was a smashing success. It was what Sam had been working for a long time, and you couldn’t be more proud of him. He had sold five paintings tonight, and the gallery owner was already talking about a second show. You poured two glasses of wine and handed one to your tall handsome boyfriend.

Sam was unusually quiet, especially after such an extraordinary night that had made one of his dreams a reality, and it prompted you to ask him, “What is going on in that brilliant mind of yours, handsome?”

He took a sip of his wine and put it down on the concrete counter. “Everything’s going to change. Maybe.”

You put your arms on his shoulders and let them loosely rest there, your wrists crossed behind his neck. “You deserve this, babe. Why do you sound so worried?”

Sam looked down at you; his eyes were clouded a dark gray, and he quietly studied your face for a few seconds. “What if I can’t do it?” He reached up and wrapped his hand around your forearm by his neck, holding it. You knew what he was doing; he needed the contact. It meant he was feeling at loose ends. “This doesn’t exactly seem real.”

You moved your arms from either side of his neck and lowered them to your sides. As you did, Sam let go of your arm. You took his now idle hand into yours. “Tell me, baby. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

He sat down on one of the barstools by the counter, never letting go of your hand. “Every night, I came home from working in an office that made me feel like it was sucking my soul away, and I’d paint. Everything inside me that I wanted to get out, I’d put on the canvas.” You sat down on the empty barstool beside him and squeezed his hand to urge him to keep going.

Sam sighed. “Then it happens. Finally, a gallery is interested in my work.” You remembered how excited Sam had been when that happened. It had only been two paintings at first, and they hadn’t sold immediately, but they had sold. That was the beginning. It was followed by the sale of more paintings and eventually culminated in the show tonight that was all Sam.

He looked troubled, and you could feel it. His doubt was real, and it was keeping him from fully enjoying his accomplishment, a success Sam deserved. “Y/N, I haven’t painted anything in a week.” You sat in silence, processing what he’d said. Sam took a big sip of his wine. “I haven’t even picked up a brush.”

You understood. It had been the same way with your business. When you were reading tarot cards for your friends, it was fun. Then you’d started posting videos on social media about the meaning of the cards; it led to offering free readings online, which ultimately led to paying clients. Now you were a full fledged intuitive life coach, and the cards were one of the tools you used. It was one of the ironies of life that finding success doing what you loved could freak you out and shut you down.

Sam was still talking. At least, he had opened up to you now. “What if that’s the best I have in me, and I did it? One show. What if that’s all there is?” He ran his free hand through his hair. “I’m scared to pick up a paint brush, Y/N. What if the whole thing was a fluke? What if I start another painting and it’s just this mediocre thing that no one likes? What if it doesn’t speak to them, doesn’t touch them, doesn’t make them feel anything? What if no one wants to see my work, no one cares about it?”

You brushed your thumb lightly over the scruff of beard next to Sam’s mouth and then traced up his jawline, an idea forming in your mind. “Go change into something comfortable, something you’d wear when you paint.” He didn’t question you, just got up and went toward the bedroom area of the loft. That was one thing that made your relationship strong. The trust between you was solid.

While Sam changed, you did too...in a manner of speaking. You took off all your clothes and lay down on the sofa, pulling the throw from the back of it to cover yourself. You positioned yourself in a seductive pose and waited for him. When Sam reappeared, he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a deep V; his feet were bare.

His eyebrows raised slightly when he saw you. You swiped your tongue out over your bottom lip and pulled it back into your mouth, dragging your teeth across that lip behind it. You waited a beat before announcing, “Hi, Sam. I’m your muse.”

“Y/N...I...uh…” Sam’s eyes were riveted on you.

You shifted and rolled a shoulder, holding the throw to your bare breasts. “Go get the easel, bring it over here, and put a blank canvas on it.” Sam’s mouth was slightly parted, then he swallowed looking at your cleavage peeking out over the throw. You nodded to him. “Go on. Get it.”

Sam followed directions very well, especially when he was feeling lost. He had told you more than once that you anchored him, and that’s exactly what you were going to do for him right now. He came back carrying the easel and a medium sized canvas, set them up along with some paints, brushes and his palette, then waited for further instructions from you.

Instead of saying anything, you dropped the throw to the floor. Sam’s eyes traveled down the length of your body, following your curves, and back to your face. “Wh...what are you doing, Y/N?”

You draped yourself over the couch the way you’d seen artist’s models do in movies. “You’re going to paint.”

“I don’t do figure painting; you know that.” His mouth hung open before he found the words. “I can’t paint you. I could never make you look…”

You combed your fingers through your hair. “You’re not going to paint ME.” Sam’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “You’re going to paint for the next hour whatever it’s in your soul to paint, and when that hour has passed I’ll be here waiting for you.” You winked at him just in case he hadn’t caught your meaning, but the way he pushed his palm against his crotch told you that he knew exactly what you meant.

Sam gathered his paints and the brushes he wanted to use. He squeezed some paint onto his palette, then dipped the brush into a cerulean blue and swiped it across the canvas in a broad stroke. He glanced at you every so often as though he were actually painting you then directed his intense focus back to the canvas.

You stretched your arms over your head, ran your fingertips over your decolletage, and started at him seductively providing inspiration and motivation for whatever it was Sam had started to create. Sam didn’t notice when you subtlety checked the time on your phone. He was immersed in the painting. His intensity when he was in the process of creation this way was a kind of sexy that was ethereal and earthy. You quietly put down the phone so you could watch him and marvel at the man who had agreed to be yours and possessed a kind of talent that was rare, a talent to be treasured, and a talent he wasn’t fully aware of.

His hair moved with the strokes of the brush, falling over his forehead and he tossed it out of his eyes with a shake of his head; he had broken past the barrier of his earlier creative block. He was into the work now. You smiled, and like he could feel it; Sam turned to look at you. He smiled back, dimples framing his mouth. The worry and uncertainty was gone. He put down the brush, walked to you, and reached for your hand. You lifted your hand up to him, inviting him down to the couch with you. Sam took your hand, and you pulled him down on top of you. Your lips met, and the passion was instantly ignited.

His tongue tangled with yours, his firm body pressed against you, and you felt him grow hard through the denim he was still wearing. You could feel Sam’s muscles through the cotton of his t-shirt while his tongue delved deeper into your mouth. You grasped at the back of his shirt to pull it up so you could feel his skin warm beneath your touch. “Sam, take your clothes off; I��ve been waiting for you.”

He peeled off his t-shirt, then went for his belt buckle. In seconds, he was naked and gorgeous before you. If you could paint, you would want to paint him. You’d want to capture the strength of his shoulders and the way his muscles gave form to his arms, gracefully curving to shape powerful biceps. You’d want to give life to the light in his green, gray, and golden hazel eyes. Most of all, you’d want to show just how his hopeful smile could inspire joy in anyone who saw it.

The most beautiful man you could have ever imagined made love to you there on that couch where you had patiently waited for him to reconnect with his confidence and tap back into his talent that sprang from the well of experience inside him that fueled everything he created. He gave you his passion and his tenderness. He worshipped you with his body and his words.

In the afterglow of your joining, you lay in his arms with your head on his chest listening to the beat of his heart. Sam’s fingers were entwined in your hair, and the contentment you both were feeling was palpable. “What did you paint?”

He nuzzled his nose into your hair and inhaled you deeply before he answered. “The ocean, at night under the full moon, with the waves rolling onto the sand. It’s a balance of turbulence and peace.”

You rested your chin in the center of his chest and drew curling lines on his pec. “I’d like to see it, but I don’t want to move.”

Sam slid his hands down to your hips and pulled you up so he could kiss you again. Even after being completely sated, he could still make you breathless. It was your turn to play with his hair and run your fingers through it. “I’ll show you tomorrow. It’ll be waiting for your appraisal.” Sam smiled. “I can’t let you go right now. This feels too good.”

He located the comforter with one hand and pulled it over you. You were snuggled in a warm cocoon between the blanket and his body; it made your eyelids heavy. Sam whispered in your ear as you were falling asleep, “Promise me you’ll always be my muse.”

As you drifted off, in the warmth of his embrace, you answered, “I will.”

Everything: @gambitwinchester @princessmisery666 @onethirstyunicorn @peridottea91 @logical-princey @emilyshurley @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @fangirlxwritesx67 @waywardbaby @atc74 @ledzeppelinsbonzo @shaniquacynthia @mariekoukie6661 @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @fandom-princess-forevermore @terrarium-jpeg @emoryhemsworth @crashdevlin @jules-1999 @mrsdeannafuckingwinchester @cosicas-cuquis @sammyimpala-67 @queenoftheunderdark @dean-winchesters-bacon @mrs-meghan-winchester @timelordy-fangirl2 @sweetness47 @hobby27 @awesomesusiebstuff @kickingitwithkirk @gh0stgurl @becs-bunker @sandlee44 @supernaturalgrandma @lonewolf471 @sea040561 @dawnie1988 @volleyballer519 @outcastedangel @kdfrqqg @lizette50 @daisymoder72 @sorenmarie87 @oldfreakything @winchesterxfamilybusiness @deansotherotherblog

Sam/Jared: @girl-next-door-writes @stunudo @feelmyroarrrr @sammit-janet @idabbleincrazy @evansrogerskitten @focusonspn @i-joined-social-media-finally @autumninavonlea @spnxbsessed @durinsbride @deansyahtzee @wendibird @team-free-will-you-idjiot @waywardnerd67 @neii3n @fullmooner @supernatural-took-me-over @julesthequirky

#spnfluffbingo #spngenrebingo #sam fluff #sam angst #sam oneshot #sam x reader

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kuramirocket · 3 years

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Sonia Gutierrez dreamed of returning to her hometown of Denver as a television reporter for the city's defining news station: KUSA 9News. When she finally achieved it, however, it came at too steep a cost, she says.

Gutierrez says she was told that she could report on immigration, an issue about which she cares deeply, but only if she were to state her own immigration status on air in every story on the subject.

"I was put in a box simply for who I am," Gutierrez says.

She had never tried to hide that her parents had brought her as a baby from Mexico without documentation. But Gutierrez, 30, says she balked at the station's directive. She was told she could continue pitching stories about immigration, but, she says, she was asked to pass off her ideas and sources to other reporters.

Gutierrez is no longer with KUSA. Nor are two other Latina reporters. One had pushed editors to involve Black and Latino colleagues in more decisions about news coverage. The other's contract was not renewed five months after she had returned after having a stroke. She, too, had challenged station leaders on how they cover issues affecting Latinos in Colorado.

Over the course of a year, from March 2020 to March 2021, KUSA allowed each of the women's contracts to lapse without renewal, the way television stations typically part with their journalists.

"It is racist to require a Latino reporter, a Hispanic reporter, to disclose their own immigration status [to viewers] before reporting on immigration," says Julio-César Chávez, the vice president of National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

The outcry has focused an unwanted glare on Tegna, one of the nation's largest and most prominent owners of local television stations, just as the company faces claims of racial bias from a dissident investor.

"9News is the market leader in Denver and has been for decades," KUSA news director Megan Jurgemeyer says, "Having worked at another station in town, it was always viewed as the top competition and who we wanted to beat."

9News is unusually woven into the fabric of its parent company. Tegna's CEO Dave Lougee used to be the station's news director. KUSA's general manager, Mark Cornetta, is also the executive vice president of Tegna Media, the company's local television division. And Patti Dennis, a Tegna vice president and director of recruitment, is herself a former KUSA news director who still works out of the station's main building in Denver. All three are white, as are Jurgemeyer and Ryan.

Parent company faces its own issues with race

Tegna faces its own allegations of racial bias. An activist hedge fund, Standard General LP, recently nominated rival directors, saying it wanted to diversify the company's largely white board.

In an April federal securities filing, Standard General accused Tegna of racist practices stretching back years.

In 2019, a sports anchor at the company's Phoenix station accused its general manager — recently promoted from a job as KUSA's sales manager — of making "loud and unwelcome racist and sexist comments about coworkers" at a baseball game, in a civil complaint reviewed by NPR

Jamie Torres, a Denver city council member, was among the Latina state and local public officials who met twice with KUSA executives following the dismissal of the three journalists. She says the meetings left her unconvinced that there would be real progress beyond some changes in language and style.

"The conversation felt just incredibly transactional," Torres says.

And it renewed long-held frustrations: Torres says the three Latina journalists had been hired after an earlier round of discussions between the station and Denver-area Latino officials about representation at KUSA.

"Why Don't You Pitch It To Telemundo?"

While in college, Gutierrez interned at the local affiliate of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Back then, it was housed inside KUSA's headquarters. Though owned by Tegna, KUSA is an affiliate of NBC, and Telemundo is part of NBC's parent company, Comcast.

As Gutierrez rose at Telemundo Denver, she also pitched stories to KUSA.

She says she often heard back: "That's a great story idea, why don't you pitch it to Telemundo?" Her response: KUSA also needed to serve Latino families — the ones who speak English.

"After a while, when stories wouldn't get picked up, I would just take it upon myself to do the interviews, write up a little [script] and give it to the anchors and say, 'It's done.' To the producers, 'It's done. You want it or not?' " Gutierrez says it was easier to hand off the idea fully baked.

After a stint at a station in Columbia, S.C., Gutierrez returned to KUSA as a reporter. She says KUSA leaders told her that she could be a defining person for the station, someone who would thrive there. By her telling, Gutierrez ignored the little slights that accreted.

Then, Gutierrez says, she was told she had to disclose that she had been a DREAMer, protected from deportation through the Obama-era policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, before she became a legal permanent resident through marriage. She didn't see why viewers needed to be told that in each of her immigration reports.

Gutierrez says she received no response when she asked for concrete examples of how her status had compromised her reporting. And when she refused to go along, Gutierrez says, she was told she would have to pass her story ideas and sources on immigration to other reporters.

"It's not like there was something wrong with me or my reporting," says Gutierrez, who left last year. "There was just something wrong with who I was — a liability to them."

Allegations of unfulfilled promises

Aguirre, 34, a Mexican-American who grew up near Midway Airport on the South Side of Chicago, says she had been inspired to become a journalist to tell stories about Latinos that were not simply about crime and immigration.

She came to Denver after being an anchor at a smaller station in Flint, Mich.

Aguirre says she believed her pursuit of community-driven news brought value.

"I can tell a story in a much different way than a female white reporter can because I lived it. I know the questions to ask," Aguirre says.

In April 2019, Aguirre suffered a stroke that resulted in a traumatic brain injury and paralyzed her on her left side; as she built back strength and returned in the fall.

After roughly six months, as new newsroom leaders rotated in she did not return to the anchor's chair. Aguirre alleges in a formal amended complaint she filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this year.

Aguirre left the station in March 2020. Her attorney, Iris Halpern, says the complaint is currently in mediation.

"Because they're KUSA, they can just get somebody else," Aguirre says. "They can get another Latino who fills that Brown category, who's cheaper, younger, greener and more afraid to ask any questions. Although I was recovering [from the stroke], I was still that woman who would push back. So I'd be in those meetings and I would ask 'Why?' "

"I was instructed not to wear my hair in a bun"

After two years as a reporter in Bakersfield, Calif., Lori Lizarraga says, she was told by 9News that she would be an asset and she joined the station.

Lizarraga, whose mother was born in Ecuador and whose father is first generation Mexican-American, remembers saying, "'My voice will never track this [the word illegal] slew of words." She says she ended up shying away from stories involving immigration.

Lizarraga recalls even having her hairstyles vetoed. She wrote in Westword, "After six months, I was instructed not to wear my hair in a bun with a middle part anymore — a style I have seen and worn as a Mexican and Ecuadorian woman all my life. Not a good look, I was told."

"We Would Have Had Reporters On Every Corner"

Lizarraga, who left in March, says she hit an inflection point early last year. Colorado state regulators had just announced a record fine against a Canadian energy giant whose plant had been polluting nearby neighborhoods for years. She read up on it as she raced with a colleague in the official KUSA 9News van to the press conference.

"Ash was falling from the sky onto people's cars and yards and playgrounds," Lizarraga recalls. "Water was impacted."

She was struck by something else: The communities affected were heavily Latino. Yet, she says, state regulators had not consulted with those communities or even put out information in Spanish. And back in the newsroom, she says, producers focused solely on the size of the fine — potentially up to $9 million.

"I was very upset and I said, 'You know, if this were a community in a ZIP code just up the street with a different demographic, we would have had reporters on every corner ' " to interview residents, Lizarraga says. "And because this is a Spanish-speaking, low-income, largely immigrant community, we don't have an interest. We are choosing what is newsworthy based on what you care to talk about, not what is actually newsworthy."

"We have to confront management"

At KUSA, Lizarraga says supervisors resented her for demanding that African American colleagues be consulted on coverage about Floyd's murder and the protests. She thought they had a right to weigh in on questions such as: How much of the video of Floyd's death should be shown? When and if the word "riot" was appropriate? How much coverage should there be of police tactics?

Lizarraga says she rallied colleagues of color to object when the station decided to stage a town hall meeting on race and equity hosted solely by a white anchor. Instead of channeling that fervor, Lizarraga says, it was largely deflected.

"We can't be exhausted, we can't be scared," Lizarraga recalled telling colleagues. "We have to confront management and tell them that we have ideas and that we deserve a spotlight right now."

Meanwhile, she says, she was not recognized for the initiative she showed, such as the data-driven pieces that officials and advocates said (in text messages reviewed by NPR) served as a road map for government agencies seeking to arrange COVID-19 testing in heavily affected Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Life after KUSA 9News

Gutierrez now works across town at Rocky Mountain PBS. Aguirre is a local news anchor and reporter in Asheville, N.C., part of a television market that is about half the size of that of Denver.

Lizarraga returned to her family home in Dallas. In late March, she published her allegations against KUSA in Westword. "What Lori Lizarraga did took a lot of courage and bravery," the NAHJ's Chávez says, singling out Gutierrez and Aguirre for praise as well. "Journalism is an industry where a lot of people are mistreated, a lot of employees are mistreated, and discriminated against, and then people simply go quiet.

"For Lori to actually tell the world how bad the situation was, how bad she was being treated and how racist some of the management policies were, that takes real courage. She put her entire career in jeopardy."

In October, the Colorado ACLU will honor the three women for "fighting discrimination in the newsroom."

#🇲🇽#journalism #news reporters #racism #KUSA 9News #usa #united states #colorado #national association of hispanic journalists #tegna #denver #denver colorado #telemundo #NBC #canada

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penprp · 5 years

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On P5/DCMK...

I saw a very interesting post earlier that compared P5 and Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, drawing parallels between Hakuba and Kasumi, and between Akechi and Shinichi. (Not reblogging because the OP does not need my word vomit clogging up their dash.) I’m going to have to say that honestly, I see it the other way around-- Akechi is Hakuba and Kasumi is Shinichi. I suspect the OP has seen a bit more of the Royal trailers than I have, of course… but I’m gonna do a bit of a deep dive into Hakuba and Shinichi’s character evolutions first, and then explain the way I see the correspondence. I know the OP was focusing almost totally on their relationships to Joker... but I’m going to nerd out a bit further.

Okay, so it all starts back in the late 80’s with the manga Magic Kaito. Aoyama’s first manga series, if you can believe that. Magic Kaito introduces us to Kuroba Kaito, teenage magician, prankster, and occasional pervert. (It was manga in ‘87, that was practically required.) He slapsticks his way through a school day, and then discovers that his father, long dead in an accident, was the legendary thief Kaitou Kid! But Kaitou Kid is holding a heist tonight! Kaito crashes, dressed in his dad’s old costume and learns that his father’s accident was actually murder, and swears to bring the culprits to justice. So right away, we’ve got the tone set-- a lot of slapstick and silly humor, with the occasional dramatic suckerpunch hitting when you don’t so much expect it.

That goes on for two volumes, with mostly silly stories about Kid escaping an army of robot surveillance cameras, Kid helping a little boy deal with bullies, Kid dealing with an honest-to-god witch who’s attempting to put him under her spell, Kaito and Aoko hunting ghosts that turn out to be a teacher trying to hide his research into hair growth formula… you get the idea. Then in 88, Kid went on hiatus, as Aoyama had moved onto his next manga, Yaiba!

Then we hit 1994. Yaiba has just ended, as has a short baseball-themed series called Yoban Saado, and so Aoyama comes back to Kid. His drawing style has evolved and so has his storytelling-- seven years of continuous work will do that to you. There’s still a lot of slapstick and silliness, but the drama has tightened up its act and is now setting snares for you instead of just punching you and running off laughing. It’s in this period of time that we meet Hakuba Saguru.

I should pause at this moment to say that Aoyama Gosho has some of the strongest special interests I have ever seen in a mangaka. The man loves Sherlock Holmes, Arsene Lupin, stage magic, and baseball, not necessarily in that order. He also loves working in a semi-unified world. Yaiba ended with a character announcing that “Kuroba and Nakamori,” IE, Kaito and his best friend Aoko, were finally going out. The new volume has a chapter in which Kid goes up against Yaiba in one of the most ridiculously slapstick things the series has done at this point. Remember this for later.

So into this mess comes Hakuba Saguru, transfer student. Hakuba’s role, as suits the slightly more focused and dramatic tone of the series in this volume, is to be an antagonist slightly more competent than Nakamori. His initals make him a reference to Herlock Sholmes, but as he’s half-British, reading his name in the Western fashion does evoke Sherlock Holmes. Really, at this point, Saguru is not narratively one particular reference as he is The Detective-As-Antagonist. He’s handsome, smug, confident, charming, brilliant, and basically a rival to Kaito in every arena, from school to romance to their nightly activities. His very first appearance has him ignoring the trick that the rest of the police fall for, forcing Kid to step up his game. Not long after that, he actually manages to realize that Kuroba Kaito is Kaitou Kid, and comes up with a clever plan to prove it. Unfortunately, he’s still in the Magic Kaito manga, and thus is thwarted by a witch riding in on her broom. (It makes sense in context.)

It’s towards the end of this volume that Kid learns of the gem Pandora, the reason his father was murdered, and vows to find the gem himself and destroy it. At this point, Kid switches from stealing various interesting baubles to targeting gems and only gems.

… And cue Detective Conan, which has been running for, as of this writing, twenty-five years. (Dear God.) This introduces us to Kudou Shinichi, detective and Sherlock Holmes otaku extraordinaire. One of the first things we learn about Shinichi is that he is incredibly privileged. (He’s also a huge dork, but I digress.) He’s handsome. He’s rich. His parents love him, but they’re out of the country, leaving him to live on his own with a ridiculous degree of freedom. He has cases to stimulate him. He’s a brilliant detective whom the police and media adore. The kids at school love him, though none can really be considered his friends except Mouri Ran, his best friend. Shinichi’s biggest problem in life is that Ran has a nasty habit of cracking concrete with her fists when he says something insensitive. Later flashbacks and retcons tell us that Shinichi, while he can be hugely thoughtless, is nevertheless instantly ready to throw all of that power and privilege behind protecting the weak and the innocent. He’s just… better with victims and witnesses than he is with normal social interaction.

Contrast this with Hakuba, who while, yes, he’s rich and charming and his father has enormous social and political pull as the Superintendent of the police... he’s still half-white. And thus will always be, on some level, an outsider. Neither manga does a lot with this, but it is still there.

Then he witnesses a drug deal, gets shrunk into an elementary-schooler, and it all goes down the tubes. Shinichi starts off as being very much like Hakuba-- or rather, Hakuba was a sort of proto-Shinichi. But Shinichi has twenty-five years of appearances and is the protagonist, so he gets the kind of character development Hakuba could only dream of. Shinichi loses almost everything and has to build it anew, without the privilege he had to begin with. In the process, he grows and changes, becoming more thoughtful and more appreciative, with less smugness and ego.

Into this world, Gosho decides to do one of his usual things, and drop Kaitou Kid in for a story. Holmes vs. Lupin, it’ll be fun, right? The fans ate it up, and so Kid became a regular guest star. After that, when doing Sunset Mansion, a story loosely based on Young Kindaichi’s “House of Wax” story, which involves a detective gathering, Hakuba Saguru was a natural choice. And here we come to one of Hakuba’s issues as a character.

It’s now the year 2000. Detective Conan, always more serious in tone than Magic Kaito, given the rampant murders, has progressed in the past six years. The art is better, the storytelling is more dramatic… And Hakuba’s previous narrative slot has been filled by Shinichi. What does Gosho do with him? I think a lot of the characterization that follows was Gosho trying to get a handle on who Hakuba IS, in a world where all the characters he played off of have changed so dramatically. In Sunset Mansion, he acts more like James Bond than either Herlock Sholmes or Sherlock Holmes. He’s handsome, charming, and dangerous, and while he’s not convinced of Kid’s essential benevolence, he is adamant that Kid is no killer.

Fast-forward to 2006. Hakuba shows up again for the Tantei Koshien, a detective competition that seems designed to play up the differences between Hakuba and Hattori Heiji, Conan’s best friend and fellow detective. This is quite possibly the most characterization Hakuba gets, and he’s… not shown in a great light. He’s scornful of Heiji’s impulsive nature and rash action, and lets his focus on thefts and frauds mislead him into identifying the wrong culprit. He takes his correction rather graciously, but hasn’t appeared in Detective Conan since.

And now it’s 2007. Kid is rabidly popular, enough that Gosho puts out another volume’s worth of Kaitou Kid chapters. Now that we’re back behind Kaito’s eyes, we see a combination of the goofy prankster in the earliest chapters and the smooth gentleman thief we’ve come to know in Conan’s tales. These stories are more tightly plotted, with more danger and escapes, the magic tricks used to set up a central “howdunit” for the chapter, and there’s a bit more character development. Kid also evinces more detective skills, as there’s often a mystery for him to get to the bottom of, as well as his own tricks for others to decipher. Hakuba makes a guest appearance, calling Kaito to give him information when he’s going head to head with another kaitou over a rare gem, and then shows up when Kid is threatened by a murderous thief named Nightmare. At the end of this case, he agrees with Kid in deliberately hiding the truth of Nightmare’s identity, as the man is dead and the truth would only hurt his family now.

Hakuba is still charming, flirty, and confident, and to be honest, still kind of smug. But now he’s being shown as someone capable of empathy, not a detective concerned only with the law, or even the truth. He’s come to understand that justice requires mercy. But we don’t get to see any of this happen, and he’s still only in a few pages in two stories out of five.

Hakuba and Shinichi both have complicated relationships with Kid that can’t be boiled down to “rival” and “enemy” quite so easily. The biggest difference, in my opinion, is that Hakuba is chasing Kid to catch and stop him, while Shinichi really sees Kid heists as a chance to match wits with an intellectual equal. Hakuba is concerned with Kid’s breaking the law, while Shinichi seems to consider that mostly a non-issue, being focused more on beating Kid as almost a matter of pride. He’ll give it back and nobody died, no big deal. … That said, Hakuba’s characterization in spinoffs such as the Magic Kaito specials is leaning a bit more towards actual rivalry, but that’s because in that continuity, he has bigger spiders to fry.

So why did I go into all that? We don’t know much about Kasumi, but we know a lot about Akechi, so I’m going to start with him. Visually, he resembles Hakuba much more than Shinichi, with the perfectly pressed appearance, light hair, and visually adult fashion choices. He’s a media darling, and is incredibly charming. Beyond that, in all his interactions with the Phantom Thieves before his reveal, he is apart from them, even when assisting them. His outfit is brilliant white and gold, rather than the blacks and reds of most of the team. He even tells them that while he will help them clear their name of murder, they have to stop thieving. This is all very Hakuba. Of course, it’s all a mask, but even so… he wants to stop the Phantom Thieves. He’s tied into the forces of law and order, both in his mask persona and as Yaldabaoth’s pawn. (Law and Order being two different forces here… although maybe not so different as they seem.) He’s strongly drawn to Joker and winds up helping him, despite what his position and duties would suggest.

Kasumi is… well, we don’t really know. Visually, however, as a thief, she strongly resembles Joker. We’ve seen that she seems to act as a Phantom Thief, even if she’s quoted as saying that she doesn’t believe in their justice. (“Thieves are boring,” Conan scoffs, right before meeting a nutter in a white top hat.) A lot of her visual shots are set up to suggest a strong parallel between her and Joker, and there’s a possibility of her being yet another Wild Card. Kaito and Shinichi are canonically said to resemble each other strongly, and while this is probably partially Gosho making fun of the fact that all his hot teenage boys look alike… he’s said there is a deeper reason for it.

This is all speculation, of course. We won’t really know until the game comes out. (Can we get a Switch port Atlus? Please?)

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natalie-hemstock-project-one · 6 years

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Context

Notes From The Lesson

The Newspaper: The headlines of the newspaper are bold, catchy and interesting (to help draw the reader into the things they may be interested in; as they select what they read). The newspaper is mainly for reading about news stories, sport, the weather, varied reports, articles, events and reviews. Also, the newspaper can be used as a source of both information and entertainment; crosswords, Sudoku and TV guide. The newspaper is described as ‘throw away media’ as people can just recycle the newspaper once they have finished with it. Alongside that, the photographs in the newspapers can be informative; only if it is related to the actual article, as it shows the item that the article is talking about, also the photograph gives off a different message in different items.

Online Article: An online article can refer to the past and its events for information. With an online article you can find them in various places online; such as: news feeds; Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and other social media’s, online articles Google Search, news websites; The Daily Mail, and you can also Google the journalists name. The photographs also perform differently on social media than they do in a newspaper. Alongside that, online articles are also known as ‘scroll away media’ as people tend to only read it for a couple of seconds before carrying on scrolling or they just completely scroll past the article.

The #: People who want to get more attention on social media tend to use the # that is most popular with the other people on the social Medias that they are on.

Framed Photograph: The framed photograph has more intention than the others because a framed photograph is something that you want to preserve better. As the photograph is framed the highlighted meaning behind is highlighted more so the viewer can see the artist impression much more clearly. Framed photographs are often found in galleries, museums and homes as it could have been taken by someone famous person or it could be of a family member with a famous person, a memory or a family photo; which can be embarrassing. Also the viewer is able to read more into the photograph.

Tea Photograph

Colours: The colours in this photograph are beige, red, white and blue. The red, white and blue could represent the flags of the UK, America, France, Russia, New Zealand and Australia. The tea; on the other hand, is associated with the British; as we are stereotypically tea drinkers. The Royal Family is also associated with Britain; as some of the British people look up to the British Royal Family, alongside that, the UK is one of the only countries that have a Royal Family still in power. With that, tea and the wealthy British people are also stereotypically involved as back in the past only the wealthy drank tea as it was quite expensive to buy tea, as the Brits had to import tea leaves from places like: India, China, Africa and Thailand as they have warmer climates than the British do.

Fine China: The china of the cup is in a traditional East Asian style and to hold the cup, you would have to stick your pinkie out so it is also stereotypically a cup used for the wealthy as most of their cups require you to stick out your pinkie finger.

The Checkered Blanket (The Table Cloth): This type of checkered blanket can be used for picnics, parties, dining rooms and cafes. If it is found in a picnic area then it is made out of cotton and as for the rest it will be made out of either paper or plastic as it is easier to wipe up or throw way if it gets too dirty.

The Photographer: The photographer of this photograph is Martin Parr who is famous for taking over-saturated, flash, film, over exaggerated close up photographs of British Culture. Parr mainly took photographs around the 70’s and 80’s where he used a 35MM colour film with flash. Alongside that, in the 80’s Margret Thatcher (The Iron Lady)came into power; as she was elected Prime Minister, and as she came into power the classes of Britain where divided because of her and her parties ideas (Thatcherism). Her ideas where that the you had work extremely hard to get where you are now and that had an effect on the working class; as the rich managed to work less and still have a lot of money, whereas, the working class had to either work as hard as they possibly could or struggle to find jobs; as she had closed down the mines, and they still didn’t have a lot of money because of the wage gap between the two classes. Martin Parr took photographs of the lower classes in detail to try and get the working class to realize that the Prime Minister was wrong and they were the ones with the most influence to get Margret Thatcher to change her policies.

Context

1. Introduce the image, who’s it by, when was it taken and what body of work was it from?

This photograph is by Ed Burtynsky and it was taken in 2009 of a mass of tires in a circle from the body of work: ‘Oil”.

2. What is the genre of photography?

I think that the genre of this piece of photography is abandonment as someone has just left the tires to be left and added to once people have finished with those tires, so they just leave the tires to be left there to collect dust.

3. What is the photograph of?

This photograph is of a lot of old tires surrounding a concrete hole in the middle.

4. What does the article say about the body of work? (Use quotes – remember to use “quotation marks”)

What the article of the body of work says is ‘Burtynsky captures the effects of oil on our lives, depicting landscapes altered by its extraction from the earth and by the cities and suburban sprawl generated around its use. He also addresses the coming "end of oil," as we confront its rising cost and dwindling availability.’

5. After reading this – what do you think this image about?

After reading the article I have come to the conclusion that I think that this photograph is about tires are being used too much so then collection of tires are being mounded up and being updated with tires too much that the photographer; Burtynsky, takes these sort of photographs to tell everyone that this is the impact that we are having on the world.

6. Why did the photographer make this body of work?

The photographer; Ed Burtynsky, made this body of work to address the ‘”end of oil”’ and ‘the consequences of our use of oil’ so people would be able to see the damage of what they were doing to the world, so they would be able to attempt to do something about it and pressure the government into allowing the right decisions to go through to help save the environment from anymore harm.

7. What connotations are you seeing in this photograph?

The connotations that I am seeing from this photograph is: the world has managed to pollute the planet Earth that much that people of Earth have finally realized what they have done, so they have taken apart all of the cars and just left them waiting for the government to decide on what they are going to do about them and then while that was happening a group of people stole all of the tires in this photograph and the others that we cannot see and placed them into the places that they are in the photograph and left the space in the centre for the leader to perform all sorts of things for their beliefs while everyone stands on the tires cheering with what their leader says. Alongside that, I am also getting the connotations of: aliens have finally invaded Earth and have taken all of the cars, bikes, trucks and anything else that needed the use of tires, to use as new hovercrafts and have just disposed the tires in that circular motion until they figure something out to use them for. Also, I am getting the connotations of: that Earth has finally reached the stage of either a dystopian or utopian place and no longer needs the use of tires.

8. Do you think the photographer successfully communicates a message with their image?

Yes, I do think that the photographer has successfully communicated a message with this image. However, there won’t be a mediate on what Burtynsky is trying to say as the governments are too busy discussing things that they think is more important because they haven’t gotten the photographers message yet.

1. Introduce the image, who’s it by, when was it taken and what body of work was it from?

This photograph was taken by Richard Billingham in 2000 of a man in his house with a cat jumping above him from the body of work called ‘Ray’s A Laugh’.

2. What is the genre of photography?

I think genre of this piece of photography is comedy, because it’s not every day that you see cat jumping over a man who is moving out of the way.

3. What is the photograph of?

The photograph is of a man sat in a room; that is filled with all sorts of things, moving out of the way of the cat that is jumping over the man’s shoulder.

4. What does the article say about the body of work? (Use quotes – remember to use “quotation marks”)

The article says that this body of work is ‘It is a chronicle of everything that hurts… a cartoonish-nightmare jaunt through the land of alcohol-living, wet-smelly breath that stinks and simmers, chapped-lips that burn and crack, of space to live that shrinks and crowds further inward, of carpet that rots, of scratched linoleum that looks as if it wants to escape, of paint that wants to peel away and go somewhere else, of childhood dreams that learn to stay in the closet and behave, that learn to stay in the clouds, far away, of love and devotion that exists but is trampled on by vice and forcefully dominated by earthly human-short-circuits.’

5. After reading this – what do you think this image about?

After reading this I think this image was used to help the photographer; Richard Billingham, to have a funny coping mechanism to help him forget all of the hard things that he and his family had gone through and will go through because of their place in the world and not being able to do anything about it.

6. Why did the photographer make this body of work?

Billingham; the photographer, made this body of work to remind the viewers that they need to dream more and not to be fully sucked into the world of reality, dreaming isn’t really something that the realistic world needs; as they are too busy focusing on the facts of what is true and what isn’t. Whereas, dreams can allow you to do anything.

7. What connotations are you seeing in this photograph?

The connotations that I am seeing is that an alien has probed a cat to do unexplained things; that humans do not know the answer to, and this is the first time that the cat has done something like this so the man is shocked and is trying his best to get out of the away; in the small space that he has to move about in, of the probed cat before it floats more and eventually ends back up on the alien space ship to be de-probed, as the aliens have finished their experiments with the cat. Alongside that, I am also getting connotations that ghost has possessed the cat and is making the cat do supernatural things and the man is shocked that the cat can do something like this, because the cat normally just sleeps.

8. Do you think the photographer successfully communicates a message with their image?

Yes, I do think that Billingham has successfully communicated a message with his photograph because it allows other people to know that they are not the only ones who dream or live in the same living conditions as someone else. Alongside that, it also allows the people who are richer than them to try and pressure the government into helping people out more.

Links Used: http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/site_contents/Books/Oil.html and http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/07/richard-billingham-rays-laugh.html

1. What is the photograph of?

This photograph is of a sheep; that is looking at the camera, on a hill in a field; that is surrounded by wire fencing.

2. What genre of photography is it?

The genre of this photograph is nature and portrait, as it has sky, grass and sheep in it and it also has the sheep looking directly at the camera.

3. What message is your photograph communicating?

My photograph is communicating that sheep are very judgmental animals; as they like to judge people as they walk by.

4. What could you have done differently to make this image more successful?

To make my photograph more successful I would zoom in more on the sheep, so you can get more detail on the sheep’s features.

1. What is the photograph of?

The photograph is of a slide on an empty playground.

2. What genre of photography is it?

The genre of this photograph is loneliness because there are no children running about having fun, so the playground just sits there waiting in the cold for a child or children to come and play.

3. What message is your photograph communicating?

The message that my photograph is communicating is that things get left and forgotten about, so the places become lonely and abandoned because there is no one there who remembers this place to use the facilities.

4. What could you have done differently to make this image more successful?

To make my photograph more successful I would put the camera on the slide and take the photograph of what someone could see as they were preparing to go down the slide.

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aaltohelsinki · 4 years

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Aalto-Helsinki 2020 is here, come meet us!

The time has come for Aalto-Helsinki 2020 to finally take over the blog! Despite the COVID-19 situation, we have been busy with planning our project since February. We have brainstormed, read countless scientific articles, contacted experts and companies and had a lot of online meetings.

Now let us introduce ourselves:

Tytti

I did my Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering and decided to continue with Biotechnology to the Master’s studies. What fascinates me the most about biotechnology is that we can study and engineer the tiniest components of life and at the same time do industrial scale production with them. I applied to iGEM because I’m very interested in entrepreneurship and this project mimics all the different elements that are needed to develop a business. Apart from science, my favourite things in life are playing the guitar, spending time in nature and enjoying tea.

An adventurous trip you have been on? My most recent adventurous trip was to Norway because I had always wanted to visit the Arctic Ocean. There was this fishing boat where some Finnish guy had designed a sauna among other unusual things. After warming up in that sauna, I jumped from the deck to the ice-cold water. It was cool to actually experience the Arctic Ocean fully!

Your most extraordinary skill? Making perfectly thin “muurikka” crepes

What is your favourite board game? Pandemic, rising tide version.

Carla

I am currently studying in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology MSc program at the University of Helsinki. I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Genetics at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in Barcelona, Spain. I have always been interested in Genetics and Evolution of organisms. I believe that a lot has still to be learnt about evolution mechanisms to make insights that can be applied to healthcare and medicine. In my free time I like to exercise, I am a bouldering enthusiast and I also try to go running as much as I can. I love watching movies as well. I applied to iGEM because it seemed the perfect opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary team and get to know people from different science fields. I consider myself an extroverted and curious person, so this could be the perfect opportunity to make new friends and learn from them. I thought it would also be the perfect opportunity to start a project on a topic of interest for all of us from scratch.

What is your favourite movie of all time? I don’t have a unique favorite movie, but my list of must watch movies is the following: Inception, Shutter Island, Green Book, The Good Will Hunting, The Shawshank Redemption, Jungle, Into the Wild, Mr. Nobody, Untouchable, Captain Fantastic, Interstellar, Donnie Darko, V for Vendetta and Dead Poets Society.

What kind of music do you listen to? I don’t only listen to one type of music, I like all types. Some international artists that I like are: Jonathan Wilson, John Frusciante, Steven Wilson, Eddie Vedder, Chet Faker, Gus Dapperton, Isaac Gracie, Billie Eilish, The Kooks, and Men I Trust among others. When talking about Catalan and Spanish music I usually listen to rumba, and rock, and also a bit of pop.

Your dream travel destination? My dream travel destinations would be: Iceland, Canada, Japan and Australia!

Amanda

I am studying at the Bachelor’s programme in Science in the chemistry study track at the University of Helsinki. In this year’s iGEM team I will work in the wet-lab but I am also involved with the funding, human practices and business. I applied to Aalto-Helsinki team to get the opportunity to take theory to practice and to learn a lot. In my free time I like cooking, baking, crocheting, knitting and gardening. I recently bought a greenhouse, where I will grow lots this summer!

What’s the most interesting or adventurous trip you have been on? Hard choice, but I would have to say the trip to Kenya with my family. So different and we saw a lot of animals and the whole Big Five!

What is your favourite board game now? And as a child? I think my favorite board game now is Dixit, but as a child I think it was Kimble.

Coffee or tea? Definitely tea, preferably green or white.

Artur

I study bioinformation technology at Aalto University. My minor is computer science. My role in our iGEM team is dry-lab and during the project I will be focusing on modelling as well as wiki development. I applied to iGEM because I wanted to be a part of a student driven team project and international competition. In my free time I enjoy programming, playing video games and going to the gym.

Your best tip to survive the quarantine? Outdoor activity, that does not require other people e.g. skateboarding and riding bicycle. Also playing video games with friends and watching tv series makes it easy.

What is your favourite movie of all time? Definitely Interstellar. After watching this for the third time I still get chicken skin. This almost three hour movie is a perfect combination of action, sci-fi and drama. Hans Zimmer did an astonishing job on music in this movie. I still keep one of the movie's soundtrack as my wake-up alarm. It's so good!

Who is your favourite scientist and why? Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. I remember watching his show on Discovery Channel about black holes and teleportation. He got me interested in science and that's why he is my favourite scientist.

Daria

I am a second year master's student in Genetics and Molecular Biosciences, with focus on Molecular and Analytical Biosciences at the University of Helsinki. I have done my bachelor's in Biotechnology at the University of Silesia. I have experience in both environmental and biomedical research.

What was your favourite game to play as a child? Scavenger hunt. We lived right next to the forest, it felt good to be there for hours unsupervised.

What’s the grossest food you ever had to eat to be polite? Bananas. My culinary nemesis. Being grossed out by them is one of my earliest childhood memories.

What was the worst haircut you ever had? Bob at the age of 13. Thanks, mum.

Emilia

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Tampere University and I’m now continuing my MSc (Tech) studies at Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering, major in Biotechnology. In my free time, I work out at the gym and love to cook. Also, I enjoy being outside in nature and spending time with my family and friends. I applied to iGEM because of my passion for life sciences and interest in challenging myself. I wanted to be a part of a powerful team of young professionals who share the same goal to achieve something meaningful. iGEM is a unique opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary team and carry out a research project from start to finish. In this iGEM project, my main responsibility is working in the wet-lab and obtaining funding. I will also contribute to human outreach activities and updating the team’s social media. Furthermore, I hope to learn more about bioinformatics and modeling. I have some experience in biomedical research and I’m looking forward to expanding my knowledge in the field of synthetic biology during the iGEM project. In the future, I wish to work with innovations which would somehow improve the quality of life.

What is your favorite time of the day and why? I love quiet mornings. I want to enjoy my morning coffee in peace and start my day without rushing. On the other hand, I also love spectacular sunsets, especially during the summer in the Finnish archipelago.

Your dream travel destination? Iceland. I would love to get to experience its unique nature, geysers and hot springs.

Coffee or tea? Coffee, of course.

Gustav

I am currently finishing my first year of masters studies in biosystems and biomaterials engineering. I applied for iGEM since I have always been interested in cell mechanisms and the intriguing and complex principles behind these cellular-systems. In the Aalto-Helsinki team, I am primarily doing wet-lab and budgeting, which means that I’m currently mostly researching data and cell-mechanisms related to our project. I often find one hobby at a time for which I am very passionate until I get tired of it and eventually switch. Previous hobbies have included been sewing, chess and origami, but for the moment I most do horticulture.

What is your dream travel destination? I would love to see the Socotra Island and the strange species living there.

What makes you happy? A cup of good quality tea in the evening.

Cats or dogs? Both??

Julia

I study Molecular Bioscience at the University of Helsinki. My part in iGEM is mainly in the wet lab, but I also take part in social media and human practises. Outside of iGEM I enjoy reading and listening to music, as well as playing video games and D&D. I applied to iGEM because I wanted to do something different and concrete with my knowledge and skills. Besides molecular biology for the last year I’ve been studying Chinese and hope to be fluent in it one day.

Most interesting trip you have been on? A couple of years ago my friends and I went on a trip to Chongqing, China. The trip was very pleasant despite none of the locals knowing English, the hole in the outer wall of the room or there being no warm water for the first couple of days. One thing led to another and we somehow ended up as models for the hostel’s website, which meant a full-blown photoshoot with free drinks and food. Afterwards the hostel owner even treated us to delicious hot pot!

Also, the baby pandas were cute.

What is your favourite book of all time? The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. The heroine of the story is refreshingly sensible, the plot innovative and the book builds an interesting world for the sequels. Would recommend to anyone who likes fantasy, paranormal, or is interested in librarians using spycraft to steal books from alternative worlds.

Coffee or tea? Most definitely tea. Jasmine tea is especially close to my heart.

Maria

I am a third-year physics student from the University of Helsinki, majoring in theoretical physics and minoring in computer science. My main motivation for applying to iGEM was to apply my science skills to a real-world problem. I’m also eager to learn how research projects work. In our project I will focus on modelling, human practices and social media. Besides science, I love languages, especially French. In my free time I enjoy ballet, board games, walks and reading.

What fictional world would you love to visit? With all the chaos in the world currently, I’d love nothing more than to escape to Moominvalley. Moominmamma’s pancakes and a worry-free life sound really appealing. I’d also like to visit Hogwarts, I have been waiting for my letter since I was 10.

What skill would you love to master? I’d love to master flying, imagine all the freedom it would bring! However, all my attempts so far have failed. I wonder why that is.

What is your favourite board game? Probably Battlestar Galactica or Dale of Merchants.

Nata

I study Biosystems and Biomaterials Engineering in the program of Life Science Technologies at Aalto University. I completed my Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology and Chemical Technology. In this journey of iGEM, I'm responsible for Human Practice activities and taking part in the wet-lab work as well. In my free time, when I'm not passionately studying life sciences or being fascinated by nature, I keep myself active with group gymnastics, friends and family. I applied to iGEM to be part of the fascinating project in the field of synthetic biology. I'm sure that we will learn precious skills of planning, team working and presenting as well as meet many wonderful people! Currently beside the iGEM, I'm working with seedlings of tomatoes and herbs that I will relocate in my glass house when it gets warmer.

Describe your dream job: In my dream job, I would be able to utilize the field of life sciences to help people and the environment at the same time.

Your best tip to survive the quarantine? Your favourite movie of all time?

My tip to survive this quarantine would be to spend time in nature and watch as many movies as possible. One of the movies should definitely be my all time favourite: The Intouchables.

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luxe-pauvre · 7 years

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Wow. Thank you so much for sharing something so raw and personal. First of all, I'm glad you made it through the sickness and the breakdowns and the "rules." If i may be so bold, I can definitely relate, I almost think it's a right of passage for 20 somethings to experience that uncertainty of "what do iI want to be when I grow up?" I have started and stopped college many times ( 27 y/o American here). The first due to being thrown out in the real world at 19. The second from a breakdown [1]

continued… from a late night breakdown of realizing that I did not want to pursue childhood education. I was living with my mom and the time who had encouraged me to go back to school and to “pick something.” I was almost afraid of telling her that I wanted to quit as I was on continuing on with something I didn’t feel a passion to do. I finally told her, dropped out of that degree, and I was told to “pick something and stick with it” by my mom. I chose a medical administrative degree this time. Two years later, I also quit that degree path for communications at another university. I lasted a semester. I’m now back to pursuing Health Information Management and after taking a health terminology class (or rather cheating my way through it to an A because I knew there was no way in hell that I would remember, let alone learn all of the thousand terms in 18 chapters) I knew that I didn’t want to pursue this anymore either. I asked about fashion journalism because that was my intention of pursuing communications. Fashion is truly a passion. And yes, I’m rolling my eyes as I reread that cliche back. I am however always coming up with excuses for not pursuing it. 1. it isn’t offered online, I’m 27 I can’t go on campus again. 2. it won’t pay well, I’m already struggling. etc. Maybe I figured if you can’t do it then I can’t either. I have only recently arrived at the idea that taking broad classes like you’ve suggested is the way to go. How will I know what interests me if i don’t? Thank you once again for sharing your story. I hope I haven’t bored you with mine.

That’s quite a predicament you find yourself in. I’m not a careers advisor and have little to no knowledge of the US university system or job market, so if you have access to a careers service I would definitely solicit their advice.

(To specify, in case some UK/US wires were crossed in my last answer, by ‘school’ I mean ages 12-16, by ‘college’ or ‘A-Levels’ I mean ages 16-18, and by ‘university’ I mean 18+ where you do a degree: college ≠ university in the UK. I’m presuming your use of college here is my definition of university.)

Being told to just “pick something” never works, but at the same time the opposite “follow your dreams and ignore the haters” advice is dreadful and misguided. Sections of this quote explain better than I ever could why people pursue unrealistic career dreams and how this is backed up by never hearing stories of failed ones. Most people are not in a position, financially or otherwise, where they can just study and do what they want until they find their calling. I want to clarify for those who read yesterdays ask that ‘changing your mind is okay’ should come with the caveat that it must be well thought out and have a solid explanation that will be accepted by future admissions tutors/employers. There is an element of ‘sticking something out’ - you can’t leave a job or a degree programme after a few weeks without giving it a real try or it will look like the problem is you as a person, rather than that you have learnt and developed skills/perspectives that have led you to decide on a different career path.

How long would you have to remain in your current degree to have something to show for it? You have to think about how this will look on an academic record/CV/resume. There has been a lot of time invested, but what has been gained in the concrete terms of a CV? If it’s a few more months or a year it would be sensible to finish the degree.

Why can’t you go back to campus? If it’s for practical or financial reasons then that’s sensible and understandable. But if the reason is you think you’re “too old” I would disagree. There are people at my university, and on my programme, of all ages and that makes the student experience interesting. Yes, most students are 18/19, but that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing something that’s worthwhile to you.

I chose a different career path from fashion journalism, but that definitely shouldn’t affect the decision of what you chose to do. I would argue there’s very few people who ‘can’t’ do journalism: research and writing are skills that can be developed, some will have a natural flare for it, but they will come with practice. However, at this point I wouldn’t do a degree in it. I remember having a conversation at a dinner with an art director and editor of two magazines who said that they usually don’t recruit people who’ve studied fashion courses. They preferred individuals with a solid degree, from a good university, in language and/or literature who had ample work experience and by-lines.

They were not above admitting that both the fashion and media industries are not about academic merit. They are about who you know. People hire people that get recommended to them by those they trust without sparing much thought for what they scored in a module five years ago. I got my internships this way, though I got the attention of the programme director who recommended me for them through academic merit, but that alone would have done nothing for me. Essentially the purpose of the degree I was doing at LCF, and I realised this before applying, wasn’t the ‘doing of the degree’ and what I would learn, it was about who I would meet. Those contacts would be how I got a job. Employment opportunities wouldn’t be reflective of my actual ability.

You are right in saying a career in fashion journalism is unlikely to pay well. Without knowing someone in the industry you may have to lower your expectations as to where you’ll end up working. From what I remember of the last contact I had with anyone on the degree programme I left, many ended up as copywriters for department stores, weekly lifestyle magazines, and celebrity gossip magazines; some had the resources to become full time bloggers; others completely retrained, one as a lawyer.

You don’t necessarily need to take classes to find out what interests you, particularly if they’re costing you financially. There are lots of talks/lectures/courses available for free online, and even more ‘popular’ books on all kinds of subjects. As for how will you know what interests you/what you want to do, I’m not sure how to answer that other than to choose a few options and experience them. I mentally could picture myself working in the fashion industry, but when I actually did I realised it wasn’t for me. People often have an idea of what a job is and find that when they do it it’s not like that idea at all. Read widely (I would throughly recommend Derren Brown’s ‘Happy’ for you and anyone in a situation where they feel stuck and/or unsure of what they want to do or where they are in their life), gain as much work experience as possible, and hope that you’ll know when you know.

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blschaos3000-blog · 4 years

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Its 8:09 pm sunny/spring/RIP Steve Cash

Welcome to *8 Questions with……”

I first met our next guest,film director Michael Wong,a couple of years ago. He had sent me a email me asking if the cheetah and I would review his debut film,”The Story of 90 Coins“. I agreed to take a look and was blown away with how good it was,it made our Best of List for 2018. But as I often do with actors and directors,I stayed in touch with Michael. Many nights found me chatting with him about film and then life and family. I kept waiting to see what Michael would produce next and last year he finally dropped his second short film called “The Tattooist” which is a 90 second hayride to hell. I had never seen such pure creative storytelling done in a mere 90 seconds but Michael had done it and “The Tattooist” won several awards from around the world and it also made our Best of List last year. Michael currently lives in Beijing,China and has gotten a front row seat of the Covid-19 pandemic and how China was handling it. Its been a very hard ordeal on hundreds of thousands of folks but they are really doing a great job in staying united and helping each other. I admire his grace under pressure outlook and tremendous courage while sheltering in place in his home. I thought now would be a long overdue time to do a interview and so I asked Michael if he would like to share his story and below is his response. I hope you enjoy it as much as I liked conducting it…….

Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about you.

I was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but I’ve been working and residing in China since 1999. I started off building a career in the advertising industry as a visualizer, then climbed up the ladder as an Art Director and finally a Creative Director; having worked at such leading advertising agencies as Ogilvy, BBDO, TBWA, Grey and Saatchi & Saatchi. In 2010, I made a career jump to be a film director and I’ve never looked back ever since. My directorial debut short film ‘The Story of 90 Coins’ picked up 60+ accolades from international film festivals; which includes the Best Direction and Best Cinematography at Malta Short Film Festival, Rising Star Awards at Canada International Film Festival, Best Foreign Short Film at Ukrainian International Short Film Festival, Best Drama and Best Cinematography at Los Angeles Film Awards, Best Foreign Short at Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards, among others. My most recent micro-short film ‘The Tattooist’ has been awarded Best Trailer at HorrorHaus Film Festival, Best Gore, Best Editing and multiple nominations at Independent Horror Movie Awards, Most Terrifying award and multiple nominations at Top Indie Film Awards, Best Trailer at Terror In The Bay Film Festival, Best Director at Diabolical Horror Film Festival, Winners at Calcutta International Cult Film Festival and Cult Critic Movie Awards, among others. Nowadays, I do film projects mainly in Greater China and on and off for Malaysia and the South East Asia region.

What was it like growing up in your home? I grew up in Pudu, a slumpy district in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Back then, my mom operates a hair salon in an old shop lot which also doubled up as a home for the family. The place was smacked right in the middle of a huge marketplace; a dense area with a rich potpourri of multi ethnics and assorted of trades. There was this large wet market that sells all sorts of fresh farm products. Encircling the place are pots and pans stalls selling snake oils and cheap goods, holes-in-the-wall dim sum places, VHS rental shops, cheap electronic shops, traditional Chinese medicine stores, sundry shops, etc. Back home in the daytime, there were lots of activities going on at the hair salon. The customers were mostly shop owners and people from the neighborhood thus I’ve had tons of real-life stories and fascinating gossips to be immersed in. It was such a fascinating place to grow up in!

What three films did you watch as a youth have stayed with you and what made them so special? Alien (1979): A classic, scary alien movie. The Thing (1982): Another classic, scary alien movie. Demons (1985 & 1986): Perhaps my first intro into gory (yet fun) horror flick during the VHS era. For a 13 years old teen, it was truly memorable; with certain scenes that stuck in my mind like an ice pick! *Note that all 3 titles are R rated. For a 10+ years old child, it’s always a novelty to pick some off-limits genre upon walking into a VHS store.

How did you get your start in the film industry? After more than 16 years in the ad industry and has won over 50 creative awards, I somewhat found myself getting more involved in a managerial role and office politics and less of the actual creative work. Initially, I decided to have a long break from advertising and started freelancing as an Artistic Director for film production houses. Basically, my role was to help out with the local Chinese film directors in elevating the aesthetic look of their work. After a few projects, I was pondering if I should be helping myself craft a name of my own. My first break into the filmmaking scene was as a writer/film director gig on a commercial project for Lenovo; a viral video campaign that was to be used in such markets as India, Russia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey, South Africa, South East Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Finally, I’ve taken a leap of faith and pursue a career as a film director on the receiving end; concentrating on film crafting and artistic expression.

What do you enjoy most about directing?

It’s most enjoyable when you see that the vision is built upon, layer by layer. The creative process from A-Z as your ‘baby’ is being realized; from concept, idea development, script, pre-production, production, and all the way up to post-production.

What are some of the pitfalls young directors should try and avoid? Try: Doing freebies! It’s the best way to own a new piece of work. Since it’s a collaboration deal, it opens up a great opportunity to push for your wild ideas and have it accepted by the client or producer. Worth trying: Don’t be afraid to copy and imitate other director’s styles. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.” Remember that! Avoid: Avoid copying/ imitating directly! Only select things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. Then your work will be authentic.

How did you come up with the idea for “The Story of 90 Coins”?

Well, it started off with a jewelry company client of mine who wanted to jump into China’s digital bandwagon; the mass shifting of the advertiser’s marketing budget from traditional media to internet media phenomenon, and also to leverage the online video craze. Instead of doing a hard-sell advertisement, they wanted a less intrusive yet effective approach in their marketing strategy. The owner of the company specifically asked for a story that touches the heart and our team started off scratching our heads trying to make up some interesting romantic stories. We had a stroke of luck when my writer came across three interesting true stories that happened to her friends. Very touchy stories on their own merits. One of them involved the idea of embedding little memoirs with coins wrapped in small envelopes. The client eventually chose that story and we further spiced it up with our ideas and developed a concrete storyline.

Do you like to handle the casting of your projects or are you okay with casting directors? Well, it really depends on the budget and the unique situation with each project. For ‘The Story of 90 Coins’, we initially worked with a casting director. They came back to us with a stack of comp cards and casting videos for the 3 main roles. One candidate by the name of Han Dongjun was highly recommended by the agent for the male protagonist role. Following his ‘The Story of 90 Coins’ role, Han Dongjun catapulted into stardom after appearing in the popular Chinese drama series Wu Xin: The Monster Killer. For the female role, we don’t have any good candidates as all that was shown to us looked superficial plastic look. Then, we got lucky and came upon Zhuang Zhiqi who was a friend of Han Dongjun’s acquaintance. It was her first time acting in front of a camera! She was in Hong Kong and she e-mailed us a home-made casting video and we immediately fell in love with her earnest performance. The antagonist José Acosta was an acquaintance of the client and he is a shoe designer in real life. For ‘The Tattooist’, I handled the casting myself and gotten the amazing ensemble from Troy’s Team Action. They also doubled up as the film production team! Brilliant and crazy-ass talented folks!

What is the relationship like between a director and a producer? A director handles the creative side and its job is to dream it all up and be extravagant. The producer needs to ensure that it all happen on time and on budget, so their job is to conserve. The director and producer have opposing jobs, and this symbiotic relationship creates an important balance. The little tug-of-war between the producer and the director is necessary and healthy.

Why are cats the perfect pet? I’ve owned both a dog (he passed away a few years back due to old age) and cats as a pet. Cats are perfect as they demand less attention from the owner. There’s no need to walk the cat during snow, rainy days nor any other days.

If you had a chance, would you like to make a feature for “The Tattooist”? The idea for ‘The Tattooist’ started off from an escape room business that my business partners and I have created. I wanted a theme that players are yearning for; something that they would love to experience in a controlled environment but wouldn’t want to experience in real life, hence a horror theme. ‘The Tattooist’ which is currently in a micro-film form was written in a way that has the potential of becoming a full-length feature. There is so much potential backstory to build around the antagonist as well as those poor victims. Hopefully, ‘The Tattooist’ will gain enough traction to pique the curiosity of producers (Jason Blum & James Wan, please take note!) from Netflix and film studios alike.

You live in China; how have you been personally affected by the culture? I arrived in Beijing in 1999 for a job posting in BBDO as a Senior Art Director. The country was pretty backward and raw back then. One of the more memorable snapshots of life back then was a minibus ride I had along Changan Avenue, the main boulevard in the capital. The minibus was kind of a dingy stuffy vehicle ran on diesel. As I stepped in, the bus conductor handed me a foldable wooden stool and mumbled a few words to me. I can’t speak a word of Mandarin during that early years so I can’t comprehend at all what he was saying. He pointed to the rear of the bus and I was flabbergasted to see some other passengers were sitting on stools in the middle of the aisle! Fast forward 21 years later and you can find that all the city buses are running on electricity. No more messy paper ticket but you pay either using a bus card or by tapping the smartphone on the scanner. It’s a crazy pace the progress that’s happening here. In terms of career, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some memorable campaigns during China’s best advertising period; the dotcom boom (and subsequent bubble burst) in 1999, the roaring economy from 2004 towards 2008 as brands capitalized on the Beijing Olympics. Then, there was the automotive industry boom in the early 2010, followed by the consumer-driven digital economy and now the Industry 4.0. It has been a fruitful and amazing journey living through these China milestones and having personally being rewarded spiritually and economically throughout these years. Lots of ups but unfortunately some downsides as well, which includes 2 global pandemic that was SARS and now the SARS-CoV-2.

Do you feel the film industry can bounce back from a pandemic like this? Even back in late 2018, China’s film industry was already affected by a State Taxation Administration campaign that tightens its tax policies and collection methods within the television and film business. The controls caused investors to pull the plug on new productions and even on-going projects. To further aggravate the suffering, the Covid19 pandemic puts 5,000 Chinese film and TV firms out of business, as recently reported in Variety. Being an optimist, I’m sure that the film industry will bounce back from this crisis but will be operating within a new ecosystem. In the near future, there’s no doubt that the film and TV industry will need to accelerate its pace of digitization and shifting online. This trend started a few years ago as the local Chinese players saw the success of Netflix’s major international expansion into 130 new territories (excluding China) in 2016. We have already seen the increase in budget and production quality of these web series and the focus will continue to do so. Due to the pandemic, cinemas are still shuttered and ticket revenues are badly affected. Looking at all this, investors and studio producers will be more focused on internet-based movie and series.

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch your latest film but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide, what are we doing? First of all, the ‘must-see’ is the usual Beijing tourist attractions such as the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Lama Temple, Drum & Bell Tower plus a tour to the old hutong (alleys) for a glimpse of old Peking. Another must-do recommendation is an overnight stay at the Simatai stretch of the Great Wall of China. Simatai offers a memorable experience of the unrestored part of the Wall with superb vista for sunset and night hiking along the Wall. For night activities, perhaps to catch a Chinese opera show and the famous Peking Duck feast in the capital. Foodies will love the Ghost Street, where a long stretch of restaurants operate 24/7 offering different choices of gourmet from various provinces around the country.

I like to thank Michael for taking the time to chat with me and with the bright hope that he and his fellow peers can get back to making films,look forward to his next project. I know Michael must be chomping at the bit to get behind of the camera once more!!

You can follow Michael by the following ways:

You can follow him on Vimeo. You can follow him on Facebook. Keep track on his upcoming projects via his IMDb page.

Thank you for taking the time to read and supporting this interview. If you’re new to the blog and “8 Questions with…..”,you can catch up by going here and meeting over 100 very talented people from all over the world.

8 Questions with……. film director Michael Wong Its 8:09 pm sunny/spring/RIP Steve Cash Welcome to *8 Questions with......" I first met our next guest,film director Michael Wong,a couple of years ago.

#8 Questions With #cats #China #Covid-19 #family #Film director #film maker #interview #Malaysia #Michael Wong #relationships

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doodlewash · 7 years

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Hi, I’m Gareth. I’m a watercolor artist from England living and painting in Japan. I love to wander around the rural part of Japan I live in looking for beautiful scenes to paint. Perhaps I’m nuts, but this year I felt like a challenge and that’s how the idea for 100 watercolor paintings of city scenes came about. I often work in a series. Two of my favorites are one of rickshaws and another of a beautiful place called Sasebo in Japan where there are over 200 islands.

But I’ve never done more than about 20 to 30 finished paintings in any one series. Doing 50 paintings would have been more sensible but that number just doesn’t sound as exciting as 100 – so it had to be 100.

I feel fairly confident though that I can paint 100 pictures of the city as I have been painting cityscapes for over 10 years now and it has become a very familiar subject for me. Below is one of my early efforts from about 10 years ago and very unlike my paintings today.

Nowadays, I am interested in the effect of light and shadow. In Japan, the light is often intense. And like alchemy, this intense light transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. For instance, the painting below shows just a few ordinary buildings, but in the right light they become extraordinarily beautiful.

The light is so intense in Japan that I have to wear sunglasses – even in winter on occasion. The intensity of the light creates dramatic, you can even say harsh, contrasts of light and shadow which I love to paint. They can, as in the painting below, almost be black and white images.

Through shadows the ordinary becomes more distorted into an abstract pattern of shapes and lines. Such as in the picture below where I painted the shadow of an elevated railway as the foreground but also as another frame within the picture itself.

In the shadows, cars and people become partially dissolved, almost spectral. I especially like to have the cars become just lights and a windscreen. In the painting below, the familiar every day evening rush hour becomes I hope more of a ghostly and mysterious moment – and with that beautiful sky in the background, somewhat romantic.

Recently I was called Mr. Shadows. This title surprised me because I always see myself as a painter of light. And then I realized you can’t have one without the other and it is getting the shadows right that creates the brilliance of the light.

Sometimes I wonder though if I don’t go too dark – especially for a medium like watercolor – as in the painting to the right. I do tend to be a little heavy handed I think.

But now and again I do manage to create a more delicate piece – such as the one below.

A lot of my paintings are of evening scenes. As the sun goes down, I find it spell binding to see the lengthening shadows of objects. Everything becomes beautifully exaggerated and distorted and blends together. It’s a change from the real to something more surreal – in other words, it’s a magical period.

I often paint looking into the sun – with my sunglasses on, of course. When the sun descends so that it is just above buildings then these shapes begin to glow with warmth – they look like molten gold or a red hot poker in the fire.

The sun also seems to slice into buildings. In the painting below I had the sun cutting through the building.

As well as looking up, I’m also looking at the ground a lot. I have a fascination for surfaces. Roads are so beautiful with their rough appearance, cracks, skid marks and white lines. And the scattering of light upon the surface of the road attracts my eye. Often it is just a small rough patch of dazzling light in the middle of the road that nobody really notices but in a painting it can become the main piece.

I spent some time using the dry brush technique when painting seas and I used the same technique to capture these dazzling patches. Later, I thought of having this dazzling patch of light on a crossroads. It then becomes a mix of rough texture, dazzling light and sharp white man made lines – beautiful. It’s also an ideal spot to put a cyclist or a pedestrian.

The surface of the road becomes magical in the rain. The way the light from the cars scatters across the surface of the road and contrasts with the dark reflections of the cars is beautiful and dramatic. I sometimes walk by the streets in the rain taking photos for future paintings. Below is one of my favorite paintings of a road in the rain.

Another wonderful find related to water was a waterjet feature near my local train station. This circular feature shoots out jets of water, produces mist and at night has lights. Watching children, including my own daughter, running through the mist and laughing will always be a source of enchantment and happy memories for me. It took a while though before I had the courage to paint this scene. I knew it could make for a fantastic painting, but I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

So you know that even though I’m painting city scenes what I’m really painting is the light. And this series called really be entitled 100 paintings of light. But it is not simply depicting the light that I hope for. What I really hope for in my paintings is a feeling of atmosphere, otherwise it’s just paint on paper. And whenever anybody tells me they can feel something then I feel a sense of success – although it doesn’t come as often as I would like.

If I were to give tips to inspire other artists then it would be firstly and mostly importantly to get out more. I really value studio work but if you are just a stay at home artist then I think you are missing out on a great source of inspiration.

It is so vital, in my opinion, to get out and to be looking and training your eye to find visually arresting scenes. And to paint outdoors is even better – and it’s so fun. My bicycle is like a mobile studio. I roam about the city looking for scenes to paint with my easel and equipment in the basket of my bicycle.

You also have to be an opportunist always on the lookout for an inspiring scene. One day, while taking my daughter to nursery school by bicycle, I saw the beautiful scene below of a temple gate. It was early morning which is often an inspiring time of the day. As soon as I returned home, I grabbed my materials, jumped on my bike and went to paint this scene.

Another example of being on the lookout for inspiring things to paint is the watercolor sketch to the left. This piece came from seeing a figure in the rain holding a white umbrella and carrying a plastic bag. At the time, I was unable to sketch this figure as I was in the car but I couldn’t forget how white and bright the umbrella and bag looked and what an exciting image it was. When I got home I had a go at trying to capture that image. I’ve not used it in a painting yet – but one day.

You also have to be patient and hopeful that inspiration will come. The painting to the right is of a castle wall which is in shadow. For a long time, I disliked the short, squat concrete wall next to the moat of the castle wall itself.

And I painted many pictures of this concrete wall that all failed. Then one day I was looking at it from an oblique angle and could see a beautiful pattern of light and shadow that led the viewer into the picture in an enticing way – it was a eureka moment. It also led to a miniseries of 5 paintings of this wall.

Inspiration also comes from spontaneous doodles. It’s essential to be open to ideas from your own mind and to act upon them immediately so that your action happens under the influence of the idea and within the freshness of it – it’s hard to describe but it’s a very living thing and it has a very short life. These ideas just seem to pop out of their own accord.

I’ve become sensitive and respectful of them and to quickly pick up my brush and try to realize them on the paper while they are appearing in the mind. One idea was to try and capture the warm and cool colors of the sky in the windows of a building which led to the painting below.

And finally, inspiration can come by accident – which is my favorite source of inspiration. Sometimes for economical reasons I paint over old paintings for practice and by chance it can lead to unexpected creations where the underpainting and the new one dramatically work together.

One example was a road painting over a sea scene. When I did the new painting however I had turned the paper so that the waves of the sea were at a 90 degrees angle to the city scene that I was painting and this led to the idea of a vertical sky. Below is an experimental attempt at having a vertical sky. It’s not natural and I know someone on social media will give me a hard time about it, but it just looks great – perhaps because it emphasizes the vertical-ness of the city blocks.

I’m presently working on painting number 7 in my series – so I have a long way to go yet. Below is number 6. I’m still at the exciting point of embarking on an adventure. I’m not even sure myself if I can finish it. Last year, I intended to do a really big series on rickshaws but after about 15 finished paintings I got distracted by other subjects.

It’s always nice to have some support and feedback so if you wish to follow me (or just wish to see if I actually finish) then please sign up on my website. You’ll get the chance to the see the sketches and the finished works as they are done and the chance to give me some feedback.

And you might have some suggestions with my final problem. I hope to do an exhibition of this series, but how am I going to frame them all? It’s always these little practical things that come between a dream and its realization.

I hope from reading this you have realized how painting in a series can greatly improve your own work and lead to more satisfying and enjoyable results. Please also remember the importance of getting out there, always looking for scenes to paint, doodling, and happy accidents.

Happy Painting.

Gareth Naylor Website Facebook YouTube Doodlewash

#WorldWatercolorGroup - GUEST ARTIST: "100 Watercolor Paintings Of City Scenes" by Gareth Naylor - #doodlewash #usk #urbansketchers #watercolor #Japan Hi, I’m Gareth. I’m a watercolor artist from England living and painting in Japan. I love to wander around the rural part of Japan I live in looking for beautiful scenes to paint.

#WorldWatercolorGroup #doodlewash #featured #Japan #painting #plein air #sketching #Urban Sketchers #Urban Sketching #watercolor illustration

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wastebaskettaxon · 7 years

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"Why I think it’s time for a new kind of advertising” (1970)

The Saatchi ‘launch ad’ - By Jeremy Sinclair

The first Lord Leverhulme, Britain's original marga-rine and soap king, won undying literary fame by observing that half of the money which he spent on advertising was wasted, but that he didn't know which half. For all he knew, Lord Leverhulme may have wasted still more of his advertising money, and many of today's advertisers doubt-less waste more than Lord Leverhulme.

Wasted ads are the ones which nobody sees, reads or notes. Ads are unseen unless the agencies which create and place them, and the clients who approve and pay for them, remember the prime purpose of advertising. Lord Lever-hulme never forgot that prime objective. In his day, the age of the entrepreneur, the great ads and the great advertisers were the great sellers. They still are.

Expenditure of shareholders' money is only justified if it ultimately produces a quantifiable and adequate return in the same terms - money. In advertising language, this means that a campaign only succeeds if it ultimately helps to create new sales for the client, and does so effectively and economically. This self-evident truth rests on another: advertising cannot create sales unless (first and above all) it catches the consumer's attention; then, interests the con-sumer; then, changes the consumer's attitudes; and finally sells to the consumer. These are the four Stages of Man in advertising; Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

The sheer power of advertising is so great, anyway, that it can triumph over a lack of penetration which would kill off many other industries. Research by Gallup shows that only 26 per cent of readers of a national newspaper read the average full page ad: in other words, if the ad pulls, it does so despite the 74 per cent of the readership which completely ignores the advertiser's expensive message, and never passes advertising's Stage One. Gallup's files also contain examples of full-page four colour ads in a national daily which were noted by only 5 per cent of the readers, and actually read by none of them. Plainly, an ad which everybody reads is far superior to one which somebody reads: but an ad which nobody reads does nothing except cost money. Oddly enough, some companies expect little else from their advertising.

A familiar management failing ...

This emerged from a recent survey in Management Today by Simon Majaro, director of Strategic Management Learning, and a partner with management consultants, Urwick Orr. He found that many manufacturing firms glibly claimed advertising objectives (making no attempt to measure their achievement) like 'improving image of com-pany products', 'improving company's image' and 'crea-ting brand awareness' - these objectives were put above 'increasing sales', which was regarded somehow as inferior. This is an example of a familiar management failing - putting the means before the end.

Images and brand awareness are meaningless if they fail to achieve greater turnover: the test is the cash in the till, and passing the test is far harder than image-building or winning awards.

The great split between the so-called creative hot shops and the big marketing agencies is wholly fictitious. A creative ad is only an exercise in self-indulgence unless it achieves the client's marketing purposes, expressed in concrete terms of sales penetration; and a marketing agency cannot achieve any result, except the expensive duplication of its clients' own marketing and merchandising skills, unless it makes ads that seize the public mind.

The proper role of the middle-man

The self-induced schizophrenia in the advertising world can create confusion in the agency itself. For example, what is the proper role of the account executive, the middle-man between the advertiser and the people who are paid to create the ads? It must not be to block the creators from direct access to the client, for the risk then is that ads will get created, not to sell more for the client, but to give the middle-man something which he can sell to the client.

The current experiments with internal agency organisa-tion point to this anxiety: the famous open plan offices at KMP, with creative people hopefully jostling against account executives to some better effect than bruised shoulders; or the division of Lonsdale Crowther into self-contained groups of creative and account-servicing staff; or the total abolition of the account executive by the new Saatchi and Saatchi agency, which adds to its gratifying start of almost pounds 1 million of initial billings, a self-declared role as 'just salesmen'.

The account executive's replacement is a co-ordinator who is not briefed by the client, does not brief the creative people, does not pass judgment on ads and does not present ads to the client, but works with the creators as a day-to-day administrator.

Obviously, the mode of organisation counts for nothing compared to the results and, in agency world, there is always a fashion of not being in fashion. No new agency, bursting with all the usual bravado would dream of appear-ing without new organisational clothes. The Saatchi and Saatchi salesmanship dress gets its individual cut (what you might call a Unique Selling Proposition) from the peculiar nature of its birthplace - a hard-selling creative consultancy called Cramer Saatchi.

Two years ago, creative consultancy itself was a virgin idea. Its subsequent flowering also points to problems inside the big agency. An agency presumably calls in consultants because of doubts whether its own creative staff can produce effective advertising unaided. Several causes arise naturally from time to time even in the best-regulated shops like simple shortage of able bodies; or else thinking on an account gets too inbred, until the agency realises it cannot judge campaigns objectively - it is trapped by its total im-mersion in the client's own business philosophy and prejudices.

Great advertising nearly always involves looking at a marketing problem in a totally new light - often from a viewpoint which is distasteful to the conventional client. Thus Bill Bernbach of Doyle Dane Bernbach came back to Avis with the unwholesome news that the only thing which the agency could find to say about Avis was that it was Number Two: the rest is advertising (and selling) history. The consultant trades on his blissful ignorance - on coming in fresh to every account, unexposed to the client's sales objectives, marketing problems, management preoccupation's and fixed ideas.

Diminishing the power of the retail chains

The major snag when consultants, like Saatchi and Saatchi, proliferate into agency form, is how to preserve this freshness. Their device is to split the agency into two groups on every campaign. The so-called working group, advised by an ex-supermarketeer whose role is to tilt at the growing power of the big retail chains, gets fully involved with the client; its Siamese twin, the control group, knows nothing about the marketing ideas behind the cam-paign, and asks only one awkward question. Will these ads sell to a consumer who knows equally little about the marketing logic behind them and cares even less?

The potential for what is euphemistically known as 'creative tension' between the groups is enormous, but again the results are the only criterion. For this particular agency, that criterion looms especially large, since it is not cheap - charges will average about 22 per cent of total billings - far above the norm: it results from dropping that dear, dying, illogical commission system in favour of cost-plus fees. Its clients pay the agency's costs, amortised over the period of expenditure and net of commission; the quid pro quo for the 22 per cent touch is a promise of the cheapest possible buying of space and time. The growth of the new media brokers has shown how far shrewd and determined media buying can stretch a budget (and stretch a middle-man's profit).

The mechanical task of placing ads most effectively, in terms of price and impact, has been most curiously neglected. For instance, back covers of magazines are seen by far more people than inside pages: yet all media owners know that most back covers are hard to sell. Advertising is beset by other hoary prejudices - for instance, that there's no point in advertising in August and January. Prevalence of myths, which could be smartly destroyed by investigation (or even by common sense), means a disregard for fact - and fact is the foundation of all successful advertising.

A salesman's job

You cannot, except for the briefest span of time, persuade customers to buy a bad product. If the product is genuinely good, the most effective method of selling and advertising that product is invariably to present the facts about its advantages. Advertising which does its salesman's job presents accurate, meaningful facts about the goods or services of the client: and these few factual ads must be bold or original enough to persuade readers or viewers to pay attention to the facts.

Similarly, effective advertisers must judge agencies by the facts of their own sales performance - and many don't: Saatchi and Saatchi make the unlikely boast that their salesmanship line will cut them off from half their potential clients. Certainly, it is folly to hide behind the smoke-screen of Lord Leverhulme's celebrated dictum (another non-factual myth) and the intangibles of the image. What should concern all advertisers are the tangibles of their advertising expenditure and of the revenue which that spending generates - or (as in the Case of the Wasted Ads) fails to generate.

#advertising #brand #planning

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char27martin · 7 years

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16 Agents Share 34 Tips for Success: From Studying the Market to Proper Querying

When compiling the literary agent feature for the October 2017 issue of Writer’s Digest, I was overwhelmed with the amount of advice, tips, and thoughts agents were willing to share. We had so much extra content, in fact, that we decided to post it online—most of it couldn’t make it into the issue! (You can order your copy of the October issue, featuring 34 agents actively looking for new writers, today!)

Below, 16 of our agents share tips that didn’t make the issue. Continue reading for advice on doing agent research, working with beta readers, establishing yourself as part of a community, writing query letters, and more:

The Market:

Read, read, read! The best way to become a successful writer is to be a passionate reader. —Susan Hawk, Upstart Crow Literary

Study the market and submit your best story for that market. Read the type of books you want to write to get a feel for the type of voice, story, and tone those publishers want. Put together the best proposal you can, including a professional head shot with your author biography. Write the proposal in third person. —Tamela Hancock Murray, The Steve Laube Agency

Read as much as you can in your genre. —Jennifer Johnson-Blalock, Liza Dawson Associates

Be aware of the market, but don’t spend too much time worrying about it – write the story that only you can write. —Susan Hawk, Upstart Crow Literary

Walk into a bookstore. Go to the section you think your book would go in. If you have a hard time deciding what section your book belongs in, you probably have some editing to do. It’s always better from a marketing standpoint if you can concretely place your book in a genre, or in this case on a shelf. —Vanessa Robins, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Research:

Do all the research you can. There are so many brilliant sources out there for free on how to pick an agent, how to write a query, and how to stay positive in a business that can be stressful and (at times) discouraging. And there are a lot of very friendly people in the community who like to give back and offer advice. —Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret

Do your research. You want to learn as much as you can about publishing, from how to query agents to how to promote your debut. —Jennifer Johnson-Blalock, Liza Dawson Associates

Beta Readers and Critique Groups:

I think the best thing a writer can do when they finish their first or second draft is solicit the help of fellow writers, critique partners, and beta readers in revising the manuscript. Agents can always tell when a book has or has not been workshopped and polished with the help of other writers and editors, so this is not a step to be missed! —Hannah Fergesen, KT Literary

Join a writer’s group. Getting supportive feedback on your work is invaluable. And, writing can be lonely. Finding your writing family is key to a long-term writing career. —Susan Hawk, Upstart Crow Literary

Community:

A literary community is probably your strongest ally. Join writing groups, go to open mic nights, follow other authors online, and just be present. —Vanessa Robins, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Writers should get in the habit of giving back to other writers as often as possible. It’s good karma, and it makes you a part of a community that, when you do publish your book, will help you support it. Your end game isn’t just to be published; it’s about having a career and about being a good member of the community you’ve chosen. Writers are amazing people, and you don’t need an agent or a book deal to be a part of the writing community. —Jenny Herrera, David Black Agency

Platform:

Try to have an online platform. You don’t have to have ten thousand followers or know how to market inside and out, but just seeing that you have a workable start helps! —Kaitlyn Johnson, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Editing:

A clean query is the mark of an attentive writer. While a small typo probably won’t lead to an automatic “no,” getting the agent’s name wrong from the get-go might. —Amelia Appel, Triada US

Put your differences aside and become besties with editing. Even when you polish the thing shiny, your beta readers will have edits, then your agent, then more beta readers, then your agent again, then editors, and more editors. Basically, even when you think you’re done editing, you’re probably not. —Vanessa Robins, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Your manuscript is your resume. It should be as polished as possible and show exactly what your talent is as a writer. —Quressa Robinson, Nelson Literary Agency

Queries:

If you’re querying you should be making regular trips to bookstores. There’s so much to learn just by browsing displays. —Steven Salpeter, Curtis Brown

When it comes time to query, make sure your pitch is crystal clear and to the point. It’s said over and over again, but it’s true that agents won’t have the time or patience to read a long wind-up to the book’s description. —Rachel Vogel

Once you’re ready to query, try to remember you’re attempting a working relationship with someone. It’s no different than a job interview: practice respect, give your best work, and follow directions given. Agents notice when a writer proves they’d be great to work with, but they also take note when they see the opposite. —Kaitlyn Johnson, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Make sure you are ready to query and make sure you know what you’ve written. There’s nothing as disheartening for an agent as requesting a full manuscript only to be told it isn’t ready yet. —Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary Agency

When mapping out your sections on marketing and promotion, think outside the box: Who is this book written for? Who will those readers recommend it to? Don’t limit your readership by believing only one type of reader would be interested in it such as “romance readers” or “history buffs.” Readers are hungry for new experiences and your book could be just what they’re looking for—but they need to find it first. The more options you add to your proposal, the better armed your editor will be to go in and fight for your book in the war room. —Stacey Graham, Red Sofa Literary

I don’t read queries that aren’t specifically addressed to me; that are written in the voice of a character; that admit the manuscript isn’t complete (for fiction only); that are intentionally disrespectful. Your goal is not to shock me with your query, but to get me to read your sample pages. And in those pages, novels that begin with a dead body, a sweeping panorama of an exotic locale, a first person introduction (“Hi reader, my name is…), a character waking up, commentary on the weather or a dump of expository information are not interesting to me. —Noah Ballard, Curtis Brown

Even if you’re not certain something would be of interest to me if it falls within my ranges of interests I would always rather see something and decide for myself. When in doubt, query me. —Steven Salpeter, Curtis Brown

Agents are notorious for having a wide variety of guidelines. Oftentimes they will be in correlation to the overall guidelines for their specific agency, but they can also be guidelines that the agent has specifically created to further help writers with their submissions. It’s important to remember that these guidelines are there to help you. I understand that it can sometimes feel like a lot of hoops to jump through, but having guidelines allows for you as the writer to be able to create stronger and more impactful queries. When you’re working on your queries, always remember to include the submission guidelines within your overall research. The lack of effort when following submission guidelines is one of my biggest pet peeves as an agent, and if I can tell that a writer blatantly disregarded my guidelines, it results in an automatic dismissal of the query. —Justin Wells, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Agent-Author Relationship:

Whether you receive one offer of representation or ten, ask questions of the offering agent to make sure you are a good fit. Speak to them via video call in you’re not in the same city and don’t be afraid to ask for references. An author-agent relationship is a lot like a marriage and you want to make sure you’re partnering with someone who can sell your book and who you trust to advocate for you. —Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary Agency

The Call is when you and the agent assess each other. Do you fit? Are they really offering what you’re looking for? They are wondering the same things. This is a business partnership and like after any interview either party can decide that they aren’t a good match. But when the stars align, you both know it’s a good match, and now you have an agent! —Quressa Robinson, Nelson Literary Agency

Be polite and professional. When an agent takes on a client, they do so knowing that there is going to be a lot more to that relationship than just the written work. If an agent wants to work with you, it’s because they believe in your writing, but also in you. Agents want to take on clients they can see themselves successfully working with throughout their career. Given that, keep in mind that your query letter is your first impression, so it’s to your benefit to make it a good one. —Amelia Appel, Triada US

Be prepared to be a partner in your success. Your work as an author isn’t finished when you type, “the end.” It’s not over when you sign a publishing contract, either. Publishers love authors who are willing to learn how to be on social media, who will bring promotional ideas and opportunities to the table, and who can network. Don’t worry, if this sounds daunting, your agent will be there to walk you through it all. —Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary Agency

Perseverance:

Patience is by far the most important thing, for agents and authors. Even if you finally snag your dream agent, the process can be like a sloth using crutches, slow and painful (okay, only slightly painful). —Vanessa Robins, Corvisiero Literary Agency

Just like with finding a job it can be a long road before you get an offer and find the right spot, but it happens. Perseverance, dedication to your craft, adaptation, and a bit of gumption will lead you to success. —Quressa Robinson, Nelson Literary Agency

Hang in there! We completely understand that querying can be a nerve-wracking process and that rejection can be extremely disheartening. But, this is a super subjective business—what’s not right for one agent might be perfect for the next. Be open to feedback and don’t give up! —Amelia Appel, Triada US

Prepare for rejection. It happens to everyone, authors and agents alike (editors tell us no, too) and is part of the process of being published. As clichéd as it sounds, this is a marathon, not a sprint—this is especially true if you want to be a career novelist. —Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary Agency

Rejections are opportunities. They teach us about the marketplace, and sometimes reveal insights about a manuscript that can be used to make a book better and bring an author to another level in her or his career. —Steven Salpeter, Curtis Brown

As with any job, an agent may read your query letter and decide from there that they are not interested in moving forward to your manuscript (typically a partial). This could be subjective. It doesn’t speak to them. Or you may not have conveyed your knowledge and story in the best light. If an agent does move onto the manuscript and still decide to pass, again this is the subjective part of the job. Your writing could be solid, the story well plotted, but if the agent doesn’t connect to it, if they don’t have passion for it, if they don’t love it, then they know they need to move on. And you should want them to! If they pass on your manuscript this means that you don’t get to move on to the interview stage of the process, which is the call. —Quressa Robinson, Nelson Literary Agency

As cliché as it might sound, I will always encourage writers to never give up. I discuss the subjectivity of publishing, and the agent world a lot with other agents. Once you get your manuscript to the point where you start seeking an agent you really need to remain determined throughout the entire process. The idea that all agents look at manuscripts differently can never be stated enough. Don’t let an agent passing on your manuscript keep you from pursing your goal. I’ve heard of quite a few cases where agents have passed on manuscripts because it personally wasn’t a good fit for them, and another agent felt it was a great fit and was able to land a deal for the author. It all comes down to finding that one agent who falls in love with your manuscript, and will work to get it out there to editors. —Justin Wells, Corvisiero Literary Agency

The biggest literary agent database anywhere is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the most recent updated edition online at a discount.

If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at [email protected].

The post 16 Agents Share 34 Tips for Success: From Studying the Market to Proper Querying appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/16-agents-share-34-tips-success-studying-market-proper-querying

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jennywarhurstsmith-blog · 7 years

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Manifesto(es)

I’ve got a multiplicity of ideas about what I want this blog to reflect and record. The ideas which I’m hoping to put down aren’t solid. Even as I’m starting to channel this manic burst of inspiration (thank you late afternoon coffee paired with IMing Jennifer Taylor for madcap blog title ideas) into an introductory post, I’m getting distracted by my Dad arriving home from working at his friend Geoff’s and wanting me to talk to him and help him pick raspberries from the garden, on this very grey afternoon. So all I can do is to tell you now about how I feel today, and what I want this to become. And why I’m nervous and finding this so hard to compose.

I’ve got brain cancer, and it can’t be operated on. And that’s the first and biggest fact I am going to reveal about myself. The shadow on the scans creeps over my whole life, and it chokes all of the ideas that I have and checks my ambition. It stunts the growth of the flowers of poetry. It comes knocking at my doors and my windows insistently, carrying an insidious bouquet of chronic fatigue. Today it’s a mild headache, a compulsion to sleep. I don’t know where my illness is going to take me, or stop me from going. It is from a sense of confusion and flux that this blog will begin to take shape.

The beginning of this blog came from a few different places. Firstly, I guess, there’s the fact of my new feeling of impermanence. For a while, I really did feel like I could just die at any time. And although I’m still more aware of being weaker than I was, I have begun to rationalise this idea of frailty against comforting ideas (although bear with me, because they are very morbid…)

Every day, we do things that have a risk factor just to survive. And that’s why although I can accept that I have cancer and that as a result I get more tired more easily and I struggle with big gaps in my memory and concentration, I refuse to accept that I am closer to death than anyone else. I’m simply not. I’m sick, yes, I’m maybe a little weak, yes, but I’m also just as likely as you to get hit by a car or choke on my next (illicit, sorry Slimming World!) chocolate biscuit or even trip and fall in the canal. So I’m going to do it. I’m lighting a fire under my own arse and committing a gross act of creation, I’m going to indecently expose my innermost thoughts to the world. And I’m going to do it in a way which reflects the hormonal rollercoaster of emotions which has definitely sped up recently, but has really always been a part of ‘Jennifer Louise Smith,’ as my long suffering friends and family can attest.

Lovely Siân of the City Hospital Teenage Cancer ward is responsible for this particularly madcap and infuriating mode of self expression. She began the whole thing by giving me a scrap book early on in the phase when I was first beginning to gain an awareness of what was happening to me. I made a lot of progress early on, but as I began to get busier, this format began to suit me less because firstly I was filling up my days by leaving the house, and secondly I was becoming more self aware and self critical. Quite often I find my artistic skills lacking. However, I’m hoping that the early style I was developing which was really mixed media and responsive can continue, because my artistic inspiration really does come from all sorts of sources less obvious than just the books that I read and my day to day life.

That’s the other reason behind the mixed up format I’m hoping to embrace. Around the time when I first received this scrapbook (which I hopefully titled ‘I AM MORE THAN MY ASTROCYTOMA’, which became darkly funny because I was later re-diagnosed with Multifocal Glioma….multi….as in there is ‘more’ than an astrocytoma…) I was still really struggling from the most surreal aspects of the tumour and associated raised pressure inside my skull. I was having big memory blanks, some of which I still haven’t been able to re-obtain (something which frustrates me, and is part of the reason I’m constantly writing down every scrappy idea that paddles through my brain) and I was also having some slightly trippy and surreal experiences. Those issues have mostly resolved themselves and I’m much more acquainted with the here and the now and the rational and the solid. But I feel in some way the strangeness of those experiences is something that I really won’t ever be able to forget, and that the experience of losing parts of me has changed something essential about me.

For a long time, I couldn’t have concentrated for the extended periods of time that any type of blogging would recquire. Let’s call this my goldfish phase…due to the problems I was having just with every day life, I was referred to a wonderful occupational therapist called Zandra, who has really helped me to look at methods to improve my life not only in terms of getting back to work but really at helping me be at one with my personal circumstances once again. It’s hard to hold onto anything in a concrete way when you can’t even remember what you’re doing as you walk from one room to another. Perhaps I’ll include some of the things which Zandra encouraged me with – one of the first being these big sort of day planners that my Dad was writing for me around Christmas 2016. These planners/journals were a way to check and record myself and try and replace my memory. It’s from these early ‘diaries’ that new ideas developed.

Zandra also really pushed me to think about the future. The way that this episode has positioned itself in my life is beautifully ironic (though not to all parties involved, just to me, Miss Morbid.) My most dramatic symptoms coincided with the end of my time at Sussex University, and my collapse and first admittance into hospital happened as I was undertaking a liberation graduation Eurotrip with my American friend Amanda. So all of this happened just as I was about to leave education, as I was about to become a fully fledged adult and begin to experience life for myself. I wanted to make concrete roots and career successes. I hoped for boyfriends and travel and excitement.

It’s difficult not to sound dramatic when I touch upon how these things aren’t accessible to me now, like they felt that summer in Amsterdam and Berlin with Amanda.

Still, maybe this could be the start of a new future. And if it isn’t, it still feels wonderful to begin to re-organise my thoughts in a way that other people can understand.

I’d hoped to be a teacher some day, but I just don’t have the ability at the present moment to be reliable. Due to my medical issues I wouldn’t be allowed to learn to drive. I feel for the same reason that perhaps I would no longer be able to take responsibility for a class and teach. So when I was finally coming back to myself and Zandra was helping me come up with goals, I had to refigure. Because I am not the same girl who was travelling with Amanda. I’ve shared a lot of experiences with that previous Jenny, but she doesn’t know me anymore. What I know now is that some parts of me are fragile but simultaneously resilient. And I have interesting and insightful things to tell people because of what has happened to me, but I also still have a lot to learn.

If I’m not going to be able to teach, maybe then I can pursue less practical career paths without feeling like I am being selfish and not giving back to society. Perhaps the most generous thing I can do now is to recover as best as possible in order to bring peace of mind to the people who care about me most. In a lot of ways this entire work will be dedicated to my family and all of the things they have always done for me. My mother in particular – I just CANNOT express how grateful I am. Even if I was to fill a library with the word ‘Thank-you’ it couldn’t begin to tell you how thankful I am for my family and my friends and everyone else (medics and counsellors and members of the public) who have all contrived to create a new niche to cradle me in and help cushion my return to lucidity.

So although I feel my oxymoronic noble-selfish wish to teach (selfish because it allows me to remain in academia) I also know that I’m probably not currently reliable enough to take on students – a student-teacher relationship is one where the tutor must be available to the student first and foremost, and I feel that a lot of the time I’m just not mentally THERE. This has left me a fish out of water – where do I go from here? I’ve also lost the ability to travel the world independently, which was another huge motivation and a dream for the future. Yet while my world is shrinking, I’m also feeling the strangest kind of zoom effect. Everything seems to carry more significance and beauty than it did before. Sometimes I feel like a receptor for nature. Other times I feel like a lump, and an undeserving one at that, because I don’t really contribute anything to society at this moment in time.

One of my strongest convictions is that creating optimism and drive in your immediate life moves outwards from you like the rings created by dropping a stone in water. This butterfly effect is all I can have for now, so I may as well take all of my frustration and devastation and turn it into something. Anything at all! Its better that I’m sat here expressing this big lump which sits between my heart and my throat than just letting it catch every time I sit about listening to other people rather than speaking my mind.

A lot of the time, that mental voice is just screaming YOU HAVE CANCER YOU ARE DYING over and over again. It’s not a thing that’s easy to ignore, but it’s something I have to put into its box and just let it stew. I can’t look that thought in the eye.

So much has become unreal recently that I find it difficult to explain simply to anyone what it is exactly that I’m feeling. I’m going to put a positive spin on it for the purposes of this blog post, however, and just say that although I can feel my limits, and they never go away, I also feel liberated in other respects because something as simple as getting out of bed and getting dressed has become a victory. I can be proud of myself for not giving in. And in that way I’m hoping to use this adventure in journaling as a way to celebrate all of the interesting outcomes of a really cruddy situation.

Yes, my writing makes me cringe. And I’m already critiquing myself and second guessing every single word choice that I’m making. And I do intend to edit and refine the work that I create and publish on this blog. However, I also want to show resilience and ambition. Being so physically weak has helped reinforce how much I really do love reading books and how much I’d love to continue to study. I keep getting this idea that I could succeed in a creative writing course. Perhaps this will be the very first chapter of that narrative.

I don’t want to give up anything more. I’ve given up enough already.

The use of this format, the blog, is a substitute for an ideal format that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past few months. I’ve been struggling to describe exactly what I want this to look like and show, but I haven’t generated all of the content I’d want to be contained within it. So this is all a work in progress. That’s part of the reason I’m calling this post ‘Manifesto(es)’ – like an avant garde artist I want to set out to explain to you what exactly it is I want to show you, because I’m not yet certain how I’m going to execute it, and I may even need your help to make it possible.

I can’t get the idea of the spider’s web out of my mind. Having such pervasive cognitive issues, these big gaps and misty confusions, I spend a lot of my day trying to re-create arcs of thought which have occurred, bursting into life then fading back into the general miasma of my brain. The only way I can think of to describe the way my brain feels is to picture that old secondary school technique, the mind map (or sometimes known as a brainstorm). By linking ideas, memories, pictures, photographs, messages and factual information, I can mimic the paths which my thoughts have taken, and use them to build new ideas and create a new memory artificially. For a very long time now I’ve been keeping notes of all sorts of abstract ideas on paper, on my phone, but now I’m becoming engaged with society again I need to be able to explain them to people, to make this ‘second brain’ a physical thing that I can access. It’s a sketch of my brain. I wish I could sketch it, perhaps using a computer programme to make it interactive? However, I don’t yet have the skills. My solution in the meanwhile is to use the popular medium of the hash tag at the same time as the standard chronological blog format. In this way, I can keep a diary which is multimedia, which chronicles my recovery, which allows me to edit and curate what other people can see and will also help me develop. Because perhaps, if I can become more confident in my ability to express what my brain is trying so desperately to make known, I can recover myself.

Because that is what’s breaking my heart about my illness. It feels like the border between me and the rest of the world has been damaged. Nobody else quite gets me anymore. I’m me, I’m vivacious and silly and embarrassing...but I’m also this fragile brain damaged train wreck. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost so much, sometimes it feels more like I’ve learned from this experience. But always, it feels insular and lonely inside my skull. And even this, thinking about my thinking, is cathartic. And I’m hoping that eventually this blog can help me feel like Jenny Smith again.

Manifesto{es} is an unashamedly pretentious title for an early blog post, but I’m hoping to keep writing new variations on these explanations, and keep adding to these ideas. And I’m also going to add hash tags to the blogs I write in order to show the secondary methods of sorting and linking the ideas in my brain. Over time, I’m hoping this will create a structure to model the way my mind works and perhaps to solidify the changeable. However, only hard work and time will allow me to live out this experiment. So I’ll sign off here, and start to input old thoughts onto the blog. I’m going to try and back date as much stuff as I can, even if it doesn’t yet seem relevant. It’ll help assuage some of the fear I have of losing the little memories I’ve recovered. And perhaps it’ll even help me build up my creative impulses, and become a half decent writer. So the way the new structure is going to work is that I’ll sign off each post with dates and times, and if I go back I’ll acknowledge the changes. It reminds me of Joyce’s ‘Trieste, Zurich, Paris 1914-1921.’ This is my palimpsest, my monument of sand shored against the tide:

Written on my laptop from my bedroom, 3rd July 2017, altered from a piece started 27th June 2017

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