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melloian · 4 years ago

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Witches

🛑 WARNING THE FOLLWOING ARE BIG SPOILERS TO COMIC 🛑

also long read.

What are witches?

Witches are a humanoid species who have unlimited power amongst all species. They are the most important species in this universe because they basically the ones who made the entire au existence.

Miraculouses creation? witches.

Kwami’s curse? witches.

Existence of Superhumans (like majestia for example)? witches.

Ancient objects? witches.

The existence of- ok you get it already

Without them, this entire au wouldn’t exist.

Magic

There’s two types of magic, Dark and light. Dark is usually evil magic and light is usually good magic. Witches can use both which will make them a neutral.

Witches can possess god-like power, meaning they can becomes mean powerful. Let’s talk in battle tiers

Witches can be powerful, right? so if a witch train themselves long enough, they can be in tier cosmic, multiversal , extradimesional, hyperversal, and outerversal. But they never strong enough to beat a deity. That how I can describe their power.

Some witches are unpredictable with their spells because some of them can say it in the head.

So any power u can think of, they have it....unless didn’t train enough for that.

Ranks

Of course, witches have ranks. Even though all them name are witches, they all go by different ranks actually. Ranks are to determined how strong or low they are. List of ranks from low to highest:

Charmer - this is the beginning of a witch. These are witches that are in training and learning powers. They can’t really use power all that good and mostly fails since they are beginner. Low Mage - a beginner witch who learned the basics of magic. They sometimes don’t work and sometimes it do.

Mage - Advanced beginner witch who got some hints of advanced beginner magic and basic magic. They are starting to get hang of magic and getting more balanced with it. Advanced Mage - These mages learns bits of advanced magic, more advanced beginner magic, and basic magic. They make less fail and mistake powers in this rank. They still getting hang with it. They learn alchemy later. Witch - Competent rank. They’ve learned advanced, advance beginner magic, basic magic and now they are learning competent magic. Witches power don’t usually fail, but it will one in awhile. they also good at alchemy in this state. This is usually the final rank but if the witch want to go farer then they can. Enchantress - Proficient rank. They learn many magic, this rank does proficient magic. They usually have good understanding of magic and they’re spell usually don’t fail but it might. They are very experimented with alchemy. Sorceress - Expert rank. They learned every magic (plus expert magic) and is skilled at them all. They are experts at magic and alchemy at the same time. They try to make sure they spells don’t fail.

Overlord - Master rank, aka the last rank and the most powerful. They mastered it all, he they power never fail. This is the hardest rank to achieve because it requires many tasks to get up here (stuff like rituals, ingredients, etc) and alot of focusing. They possess many powers, which they are unpredictable. They also mastered alchemy. Some overlords become teachers to teach charmers how to use magic.

Weakness

ThEy TOOO oVeRPPROrowereD!!!

Calm your horses. That’s the point actually, which I will get to that why on the next subcategory.

Anyways, Witches (high and low ranks) do possess weaknesses.

They possess many so I can’t really list them, but I can list at least 2 one them.

Why theses specifically? Well, These earrings was created specifically for witches. Witches can attack things from spiritually and physically, but not folks who wears these. Anyways who wears these earrings will exist and also not exist at the same. They disconnected from all universe entirely, making them almost unstable (done on purpose.) Witches will question if they even exist in the first place. Due to its dangerous power, it can erase witch, kill them or extremely injured a witch entirely. Witches decided to lock these earrings in another dimension so no one can attack them with these. Oh not to mention, witches can’t wear theses. If they do, it will kill them because these earrings are with repentant.

Witches fear these earrings, even overlords. Ancient objects info here Backfiring spells affects them. It also can lead to their weakness if the backfire was that bad.

Origins of witches

Ok now we can talk about why they overpowered for a reason. So why are they exactly? Back in the days when humans was still trying to settle with earth, There was group of people who hated the idea of kwamis and wanted to rid of them. The hated their cosmic dangerous power and little jealous of them. They formed a group and called themselves witches. The leader of the bunch tries finding ways to overpower a kwami. They came up with idea of throwing colorful powder at kwamis. They believed that the powder would weaken kwamis, but in reality it doesn’t. Kwami later shapeshifted to human and attempted to side with them. They told them they will gave them special powers if they do one favor for them. They told them to fight each other just for the power, to see who wins. The reminding who survived was 4, so the kwami gave them 4 special powers. The kwami told them they have train in other to master their power. So the 4 did, and they attempted to use it against a kwami, but they couldn’t. They got mad at the kwami and try to beat them for more power. The kwami accidentally unleashed their powers after falling unconscious. They took as much as they can and left with the power. For now, the go on a flee to attack kwamis with it. Whoever, they weren’t truly witches yet.

Many years later, these “magical” people started to create a new group that attacks anyone who isn’t in their group. They used their powers against people and kwamis. Deity-like kwami punish them by making the good people have abilities that much stronger theirs. The good defeated them and punished them. The deity kwami decided it will best if they crated a new species called witches to separate them from people. The kwami gave them different abilities and left them be.

Yea. Witches entire existence was to wipe out kwamis and to overpower them. However, it ended up becoming a whole species of good and bad witches.

Human becoming a witch

Humans can become witch, but it requires to do one ritual. However its not easy. The ritual requires: Blue powder Blue Crystal Purple lotus Old scroll for ritual Stick Worm Drop of ur blood.

To do the ritual: Before even starting, the person must learn the languages of witches writings.

Ok here’s instructions: the person must rub blue powder on their face. Next, Place the crystal, purple lotus, stick, and worm in a circle. Then the person must use the scroll and say the ritual that’s on the scroll. After finishing saying the scroll out loud, the person then must cut their skin to get a drop of blood. Then they place their blood on the center of the circle. Finally the person must accept if they want to gave up their human state t o become a witch. If agreed, the energy from the circle will transmit to their body.

What if they don’t want to be witch no more?

They can revert that actually. Its more easier though. they have learn a spell to change them back to human.

Life as a witch

Witches have a bad reputation all together, doesn’t matter if they good or not. Because of the past witches, society view witches as wicked people. Because of this, witches hide behind other species so they wouldn’t classify them as a witch. Witches is scared of society since they would kill them if found.

Witches usually don’t become heroes because it ruins the superheroes fun. (the only ones who are witch heroes are caline bustier and barbara.)However, most witches became villains. Only few didn’t become neither.

Witches lives longer then superhumans.

Familiars

Witches creates familiars for them to help them with certain things. Is not much to say about them.

Other info

yes I changed barbara to a witch and yes the story in new york is different.

Some witches uses a staff, wand or just they hands.

Some witches carries a spellbook around them.

#barbara keynes #caline bustier #jessica keynes #miraculous kwami #miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #miraculous ladybug au #miraculous ladybug reboot #ml reboot

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orihara-infobroker · 5 years ago

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Hobbies and Criticism

I sat on this when it happened, and again yesterday but it’s something I do want to speak about because I’ve seen it happen often enough that it merits discussion. There are a few separate elements here and I will try to be cohesive in stringing them together.

It’s long so it’s going under a cut... Sorrynotsorry XD

On Unsolicited Criticism

Fan art and fan fiction are, fundamentally, hobbies. I am not addressing commissions here. I am talking about artists who create their art out of their own desire to make something based on whatever inspired them. Some people love sharing that art with the world. Some people don’t. They are not doing so because they are being paid for their work but because they want to create something out of personal love for it. Those who share it with the world are not obligated to. It is a gift. A gift, by virtue of the internet, that you are not required to accept or like - certainly I don’t like every fanfiction written about my fave pair. In fact I don’t like most of them. It is still a gift, however and the mannerly thing to do when you come across a gift that isn’t to your liking, is to simply pass on it. It’s very easy to do on the internet. Hit the back button. Scroll past it. Block the artist if you find their art repulsive. The fundamental rule of mature fandom behavior on the internet. Curate your own experience.

Further to this, when a person offers up a gift, it isn’t your place to critique them, unsolicited. You aren’t doing anyone a good turn by pointing out where they are fucking up. You may think you are somehow contributing to fandom by “helping” a struggling artist to improve their works by providing unsolicited criticism but you aren’t. In fact, from what I have seen and heard from artists, it’s usually the opposite. Many fan artists aren’t professionals. Some might be, more so I’ve noticed in the graphic art sphere than in the writer sphere, but most aren’t. Many fan artists are beginners. Many fan artists are students of their art. Many are learning as they are doing. Most importantly, many are doing this for fun, as a hobby, and aren’t aiming to become professionals.

Many fan artists who are either learning as they go or just doing this for fun when they have time are more than aware that they aren’t professionals. They know that they aren’t the best. They usually have an idea of where their weaknesses are. Sharing their art often takes a great deal of courage for them because they know they are offering something up that isn’t perfect but they love it enough to share it in the hopes that other people will love it too. Coming into their space after they’ve shared a work of love and pointing out all the things that are wrong with it is more likely to cause a new writer or artist to recoil and give up than it is to cause them to double down and try to get better. This isn’t theoretical for me. I’ve heard former artists and writers say that they gave up because all they ever heard was how bad they were. Again, not people who wanted to be professionals. People who just wanted to create things for fun. Who had that fun stripped away from them by strangers who thought it acceptable to enter their space and shit on their work.

When a child is learning to do something we do not take the picture they drew of their stick people families and smiley suns and tell them “Honey, the sun doesn’t have a face. People aren’t sticks. That’s not how to draw hair.”

We do not do that because it is not productive. It is hurtful. We know this and yet fans seem to think it’s “helpful” and acceptable to do this to other adults. Assuming the artists are adults, which is a fallacy. Many are teens as well. Under the assumption that adults aren’t going to burst into tears because you pointed out their failings, you shovel your criticisms over them without stopping to consider that maybe, just maybe, they will because they know they aren’t that perfect. They know they can’t draw hands. They know that their grammar isn’t the best. But they’re trying and they’re creating and they just want to share their ideas. They want to share their love with people who love the thing too.

They didn’t ask for criticism. They provided a gift and had someone take a shit on it. This is not kind and helpful and certainly I would not be inclined to continue to provide gifts to anyone who treated me in such a way. Unsolicited criticism does not improve artists, it drives them away.

On Solicited Criticism and Being Constructive

I’m going to talk from a writer’s perspective here because I am a writer and I don’t entirely understand artists methods because I never took any sort of art classes. I still think the overall theme of this applies to artists as well, especially when discussing the purpose of criticism and the method of delivery.

Many artists and writers do want to improve and would appreciate genuine criticism of their works. This is a double-edged sword, of course because in my experience we aren’t taught how to take criticism as a flaw in our skill without feeling like it is a flaw in ourselves. We associate our worth very strongly with our ability to do things and as such, addressing our flaws can become a very emotional battle.

When an artist solicits for constructive criticism, they aren’t asking you to point out everything that is wrong with their work. That isn’t what criticism in this situation is meant to be. They are asking for explanations on why things don’t work. They are asking for guidance on how to improve. If you cannot provide that kind of feedback, don’t give the criticism in the first place.

As a writer I do wonder if I am perhaps more attuned to the way words work than the average reader. As such, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to word choices and I want to talk about that a bit as it relates to online conversations around criticism. We give tone to certain words. A single word’s meaning might not be negative but how we use it in day-to-day conversation can very much instill a level of emotional subtext to that word that translates into how people write and read that word.

When giving feedback to a person, it’s easy to make a checklist of all the things they got wrong. In some cases, this can be acceptable, such as with basic grammar mistakes. If you’re asking me to proofread your work for grammar, I’m just going to red pen it and note the corrections in the margins because this is simply the mechanics of writing and I know plenty of native English speakers who don’t understand the full complexities of the language. I speak about English (which is the literal worst language in existence) because it’s my native tongue but this can apply to any language.

However, when you begin to delve into deeper things like characterization, themes, plot and so on, this becomes significantly less straightforward. When you add a writer’s voice (or an artist’s vision) into the mix, it gets very messy.

The one thing that should never change when giving criticism is tone. One should not be cruel or harsh in delivering criticism. One should be kind and understanding. The artist is opening themselves up and asking for help which is difficult enough on its own. The response should be patient and helpful. Take care to choose your words to support and uplift the artist, not to tear them down. For every criticism you offer, you should also try to offer a solution or a guideline for the artist. If the criticism is about how the pacing of the story is too slow, making the story drag, then explain what makes it feel slow and why that is a negative thing. Offer suggestions on what might improve the pacing.

Ex. I noticed that in this chapter it felt like nothing was really happening to further the plot and that left me feeling bored. Perhaps you could improve the pacing of this chapter by including some reference to how this affects the greater plot? Or add something to the end of the chapter to bring us back around to where the plot is headed?

As many “beta readers” are also not professionals, it’s understandable that maybe you don’t know how to offer constructive criticism. Maybe you just have a feeling that something doesn’t look or read write but you don’t know linguistics well enough to identify the why behind it. That’s ok too, as long as you convey that honestly and kindly.

Ex. When I was reading this part of the chapter it didn’t feel like it flowed very well but I’m not sure why. If you have another editor, maybe ask them for their opinion on it?

Because sometimes when we are reading something our own internal biases will create problems where there are none, or catch problems without knowing why they are problems. This is especially useful if you’re being asked for your opinion on whether or not someone is handling a sensitive topic well (race, sex, sexual orientation etc.).

When it comes to the writer’s voice, this is where criticism is very difficult. If an author loves their purple prose (overly flowery descriptions of everything) and it bothers you as a reader, you’re probably not their audience and criticizing them for it isn’t actually helpful. It’s fine to ask them if they mean to write in that manner, or ask if it serves a specific purpose to them but if their response is that it is the way they enjoy writing, then it is not a topic that is open for criticism.

Conclusion

Artists - Nay, People grow by learning from their mistakes but they need support in understanding what those mistakes are and how to improve them. They do not grow by constantly being told to “get better”. Respect those who are gifting you with their art. Give them the respect they deserve for being kind and brave enough to post their creations. If they don’t want criticism, respect that boundary. If they do want criticism, give it in a kind and helpful way.

Lastly, and especially because this is what bothered me the most about the incident that caused me to write this:

Artists grow by doing. They cannot get better without doing and making mistakes and doing more and making more mistakes. This is the literal process of learning a skill. Do not ever tell an artist to stop creating because they aren’t good enough. It doesn’t make you ‘helpful’. It makes you a giant fucking douchebag.

#writer things #or artist things #fandom observations #constructive criticism #what it is and what it isn't #just really needed to put this out there #cause I really hate watching artists and writers #getting shit on in the name of constructive criticism #and the entitlement that some fans show #thinking they have the right to determine #what is good and what is bad in fandom art #ps I hate the term beta reader #like there's a word for this already #so why'd you go and steal an tech term?#what's wrong with editor?

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handmadecp · 5 years ago

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Western Gun Rig.

Hi, I’ve been busy doing all the bags and pouches, book covers etc that I have previously posted all of which can be located on my Blog ‘Beginners Journey into LeatherCraft’ in the archive. So, what’s this about a Western Gun Rig I hear you ask, Well, the Big Kid inside me has come out after watching some of the fast draw videos on YT. and I’ve made me a ‘Cowboy Belt’. Unfortunately I’m making it in the UK, one of the most strict places on the planet against firearms so I have had to make it ‘very’ clear that what you see are ‘Props’, nothing more than replicas with zero chance of anything going Bang because basically..it’s a Toy used to help me in the build. So lets get on, hope you enjoy.

The first thing I needed was a Replica of a Pistol that I fancied making the holster for. I looked online and settled on the ‘Single Action’ Colt ‘Army’ .45 (Short barrel) and a handful of Dummy rounds for the belt.. Not cheap but it was needed..as an actual ‘toy’ pistol wouldn’t have the weight or the bulk of this.

I also needed a pattern so I purchased the Holster and Gun belt pattern pack from Tandy leather. As you can see..it looks a bit complicated, but we have a saying in the UK..’Give it a coat of Looking at’...and after 3 cups of tea and many coats of looking at I finally realised how simple it really was. So I chose which belt I wanted to make from the ‘several’ that are here and started cutting.

Following the pattern guides I used a sheet of paper laid the gun as shown along the fold line

Then I dropped it down to the Right side and drew around the Pistol as seen here, to the ‘right’ allows for a Right handed draw. if for a left hander...just go to the left, all other instructions are the same.

The basic holster pattern is done.

I use anything to hand that will give me the curves I want on the holster and after getting the basic shape you can use a bit of artistic licence to get it how you want it, but there has to be enough to actually hold the pistol in so don’t cut too much away. there is a quite slim looking piece to the pattern on the front, top left...I worried it was too thin but as the project progresses it looks less of a weak spot.

I chose to use the same 3.5-4mm leather for the Holster as well as the belt. next time I would definately choose maybe 2.5-3mm as..although it came out beautiful It is quite a heavy holster and when you consider the weight of leather in the belt plus a Solid Brass Buckle plus a Pistol ‘and’ 24 Dummy rounds...it makes for quite a weight so next time I will ‘save’ weight where I can without giving away quality or looks though.

I used the template / pattern I made to cut out the leather as seen here. A quick tip: When I forst started I was going through Stanley blades really fast...now I ‘Use jewellers rouge and strop’ them and one blade is lasting me at least a month and its so easy to do.

Here I’m ‘dampening’ the Leather ready to Burnish the edges. Don’t soak it or it will go to mush when you burnish. if you over wet it by mistake just wait for it to dry out a bit and carry on.

I did use my machine to Burnish most of the edges but had to revert back to the old wooden burnisher for the harder to reach places.

I cut a ‘Welt’ as I would for a knife sheath, it does protect the stitching but in this case it also helps to create space for the pistol. See here I have used 528 contact cement from EVO STICK and have put glue on both pieces...waited for it to get ‘tacky’ before sticking in place.

I glued it one side at a time, don’t try to glue and stick both sides at the same time, I was reliably informed by a very experienced gunbelt maker that if you do...it can cause all kinds of problems...if you get it out of line and the contact cement touched...it sticks fast.

Also, as I was sticking it along one edge I left it ‘proud’ of the edge as seen in this pic’ by an 1/8th or so...for sanding later.

Transferring a pic of some Oak leaves and acorns to the holster after dampening it. You can do any design you please or leave it plain. more on this later.

Cut out the pattern for the Belt part of the build. I used 3.5 - 4mm thick veg tan leather, By the end of this I found that this is ideal for the Belt itself and with all the manipulation during the build by the finish it was very supple, far different to what I began with.

After drawing the outline with a Paint pen refil, (which comes of easily ) I wet / dampened the leather and used a ball point tracing tool to go over the design lines pressing to leave the imprint in the leather. I chose to do everything as it came on the pattern but you can choose sections...it’s your choice. I then put on the soft cotton glove and started the carving with the swivel knife. Some of you know but for those who don’t, I wear the glove to prevent my nails dragging on the leather leaving marks, it’s a tiny detail but adds a little extra professionalism not having nail ‘dents’ everywhere.

Pattern cutting almost done..

Next I used the beveler to make the design more pronounced from the leather.

A good Tip...I made a ‘shot’ bag from suede..filled with lead shot, it’s great for holding the leather still whilst tooling.

don’t forget to cover the back in the decorators paper tape before tooling to minimise stretching.

I chose for myself, to ‘stipple’ the background. When doing leather crafting, you start with an idea but that idea swaps and changes as you go along and in my mind I felt it would look good once all the dying and polishing was done.

The outline beveling is done and the back ground stippling is well under way.

The long blank area at the bottom of the belt is the area I will put the Dummy rounds.

These next few pics show the detailing going on, making the leaves and flowers etc stand out more.

Next I punched the holes I need to put the strap through to hold the ‘Rounds’ then I threaded them to see which particular style of threading I wanted. This way looks good but only allows me to put twelve rounds on the belt.

patterns for the buckle strap and the belt holes strap.

Here you can see the pattern piece I used to trace and then cut these belt end pieces.

Beautiful Handcrafted solid brass buckle.

here you see the Buckle strap cut out edged and burnished with a decorative line added around the edge and a Solid Brass Buckle I had made for this project from some guys who make them by hand.

Notice here how I have changed the strapping style to a much tighter closer look, this allowed me to put 24 rounds on instead of only twelve and I feel it’s a much nicer look.

Ok so now we’re back to the holster. The tracing and transfer of the design is the same as with the belt design and a very easy thing to pick up, takes a little practice as with anything but beginners will soon get better with practice on old scraps, I developed my technique by carving coasters for friends and family.

A good view here of the swivel knife cutting, almost finished cutting the oak leaves and acorns in. you can also see a decorative / stitch line around the edge. looking back I discovered it would be better to leave the decorative / stitch line until I’m done sanding edges as I took off so much it left the line slightly closer to some of the edges, luckily this was on the back of the holster out of sight...lesson learned.

The Welt, used for a couple of things, one ...to protect the stitching and two..to give more space for the Pistol.

Here the Welt is glued to one side, better I’m told by a very experienced gun belt maker because if you try to stick both sides at the same time it can go very wrong as the contact cement...once it touches..sticks. You can also see the very soft 1mm leather I chose for the liner, I’m told the liner is to prevent the tougher veg tan flesh side taking the coating off the gun over time.

Here I’m gluing the backing to the holster and trimming. I glued the holster to an oversized piece to make it easier not to have to line up the edges. easier to cut later.

Here you can see that I have left the Welt sticking slightly proud of the edge to make the sanding easier later.

Dampening the dges ready to burnish.

I had to carefully use a sharp blade to get the welt off so that i could put the liner on and roll it down, but it was simple enough toglue back on. Some of you may notice that the actual holster changes half way through the pics, that’s because I got tired and made a left hand holster instead of the right and had to change it.....it’s such an addictive craft that you fail to notice the time sometimes, it gets late and mistakes start to happen.

Ok, so here ‘s the first fitting. I loaded up some dummy rounds in the strap ( I still have no idea what that bit’s called lol.) to see if I was getting the fit right. very pleased by this point. I will say that this is a lot of work, so maybe not for a complete novice to try right away but after a few months of learning the basics you (anyone) should be ok to give it a go. I like how the color looks too but ultimately I’m looking to make it more ‘worn’ and antiqued looking. also, if you have a leather stitching machine you can do your stitching quicker, but I like the look of hand stitched so thats what I did.

The dummy rounds strap is missing a few here, I was waiting on a delivery of more rounds.

here are a few of the tools I used, Dividers, stitch groover and two sizes of bevellers.

Gluing down the other side of the holster.

I used Fiebings Walnut Pro dye on the inner liner to help it match the rest later.

note how much thicker the holster is after gluing the Welt in. I used my sanding machine to smooth down the excess over hang I left earlier.

Note the left handed holster ..I’ll use that on another belt. Here I’m Walnut dying the bullet strap, the buckle strap and the belt extension strap.

Dying the inner liner.

Time to dye the Holster, using Walnut and following it with a coat of eco flo dark brown antique dye.

Once dyed the belt and holster need to be darkened off so that it ages the look of the belt. I used Eco Flo Dark Brown antique dye.

Note how much darker the holster is now after the antique dye has been added compared to the belt.

I decided to add line 27 snap studs to the back of the holster to be able to change it out for bigger holsters / pistols if required. The dye came out great and after the antique it polished up very well. Also..though it’s not intended for it...it turns out the antique works great for darkening and polishing the edges. I didn’t use edge kote as I personally don’t like the look. Just a personal choice, maybe you’ll like it...try it on scrap first.

Test fitting.

The straps were then dyed to match and burnished, ready to fit to the main belt.

Meet ‘Ken’ our model.

Loving the match with the dye.

I was advised to use an oval hole punch as it doesn’t get mishapen as quickly as a round hole. I now use this on all my belts and straps.

I always use the Evo Stick 528 contact cement if possible, be warned though this stuff..once cured..will really stick and if you are not lined up..you have a problem, it’s good stuff. Not necessary as I only need to attach the strap long enough to hold it in place whilst I Hand stitch it, but I always think..”Why not”..it just makes the whole thing that bit stronger.

Again with 528 glue for the Buckle strap. I used a leather ‘rougher’ to create grip for the glue but you can do it with a scratch awl or other sharpish object.

The straps are glued, here I’m making the stitch holes I used a 4mm.

On to the Hand stitching using a Saddle stitch and a Dark Brown waxed thread.

What follows from this point is a lot of extra pics showing off the almost finished belt, You can see I’ve added the Brass buckle, very simple, if you are more than a novice you will be aware how this is done, if you are new to leather craft you will find lots of pics in the archive showing how to do this.

All that’s left to do now are fiddly bits. To burnish the edges of the main belt, very easy to do as I decided ‘not’ to add a ‘Liner’ to the main belt...the reason?...well the holes I cut for the ‘Rounds’ strap were a tiny bit close to the edge of the belt and I didn’t feel there would be enough material stuck in that area, hence my decision. lesson learned for my next one. I said four and a half years ago when I began my ‘journey’ that I would mention any issues or mistakes I make in the hopes that you might avoid doing the same thing...that was not so much a mistake...as I followed the pattern..but I learned that not all patterns are exact and I will adjust this area next time.

I also need to add some lace in these two holes to pull over the Pistol ‘Hammer’ to prevent the gun falling out of the holster whilst the ‘Cowboy’ / ‘Cowgirl’ is running or rolling around and to add a longer lace to the back bottom edge to use as a leg tie.

Excuse ken, he’s a slim kinda guy and it’s falling off him...oh well. lol. But I’m Loving this thick strap with the hand made solid brass buckle.

The lace over the ‘Hammer’ and the leg tie.

Annnnd..that’s a Wrap folks, What a great project this was, I would recommend having a go, maybe not for a complete beginner.....not that you couldn’t do it if you took it slow but it’s expensive to make, especially if you need to buy the replica and the dummy rounds and to make mistakes on expensive leather can ruin your day. I’ve learned a lot making this and I will improve again on the next one but I am more than happy with my first ever attempt, I’m looking forward to the next one. I hope this might encourage some of you to try your hand at leather craft. For those who aren’t already aware there are many more project build alongs in the archive of my Blog ‘Beginners Journey into Leathercraft’ . Watch this space, good luck with your own Projects and Stay safe...Stay Crafty.

#leathercraft #leather #western #gunbelts #hobbies #Arts and Crafts

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voicesfromthelight · 6 years ago

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Getting The Wires Crossed - A Potential Pitfall to Watch Out for in Mediumistic Group Settings

Today, I’d like to discuss an issue that has cropped up for me, once in a while, in the process of learning evidential mediumship in a group setting. Namely, I am speaking of the kind of confusion that can happen when we receive mediumistic information that is genuine and accurate, but, because of the presence of many different energies in the room, fail to recognize the correct recipient of it, sometimes even mistaking messages meant for ourselves, for ones meant for others. I call it “getting the wires crossed.”

As I’ve mentioned before in my posts, although my connection with my spirit guides is strong, and my readings rely almost completely on their channeled communications, as a medium passing on messages between the living and the dead, I am still a work in progress. Getting the wires crossed is one challenge I have faced in my learning process. I haven’t yet figured out how to resolve this issue, and suspect it is something that mediums grow out of over time, but perhaps being aware that things like this can happen can help all of us catch little mixups like them more consistently. (It can also make for some funny stories, so, why not take this opportunity to share some of them?) I was reminded of this phenomenon last night, at a tango event, when a detail that had come through in a group setting suddenly turned out to be relevant not to a person at that circle, but to myself.

Two days earlier, after a long hiatus from participating in mediumistic message circles, I had attended one organized by The Holistic Studies Institute. This was somewhat outside of my comfort zone, as most of my readings are currently channeled at a distance, and not the result of real-time mediumship. I was excited to get back to honing my skills.

After the initial prayer and meditation, I eased into tuning into the group energy, and then turned my attention to each person in the circle. As the leaders of the circle passed on their first message to a woman sitting across from me, I saw, in my mind’s eye, the Italian island of Sicily. Knowing how clairvoyant symbolism had been working for me, lately, I understood this to either be a literal image of Sicily, or a symbol for the name Cecily (or, at the limit, Cecilia.) I would have to wait until later to confirm the relevance of this communication, as only the leaders were passing on messages during the circle itself.

As the session progressed, I began to receive more impressions of the attendants. One man received a message from one of the leaders of the circle that he would be traveling to Greece next year, and for a moment, I second-guessed myself, thinking that maybe the impression I had gotten of an island in Southern Europe was actually coming from him. Then, looking at a young woman sitting by a window, I saw a flash of silver around her throat, and a symbol of twins above her. I heard a snippet of a name that sounded like Kia, Kyle or Kai. Finally, I saw the Golden Gate Bridge - a symbol for San Francisco. There was an exceptional feeling of urgency to what I knew I needed to tell her: To pursue public speaking, and use her power of communication to align with her highest purpose - to inspire others and make the world a better place.

At the end of the circle, I went over to the young woman, and passed on what I had received. While the name didn’t have a current association with her, it turned out that the symbol of twins was a strongly evidential detail within the context of her family history. The city of San Francisco and the message about public speaking were both relevant, as well. We both felt exhilarated by the exchange, and I felt confident enough to go to the first woman to receive a message that evening, and pass on my impression of Sicily - or Cecily, as the case may have been. My communication was met with a blank stare. “OK,” I thought. That detail might only reveal its relevance later. My job was merely to pass it on. Still, I had hoped for confirmation, so, I walked away wondering if my imagination had run away with me.

Two nights later - last night - at one of the many Argentine tango events I attend, a lovely woman asked me to dance. (In the New York milonga scene, especially in recent years, it has become more and more common for people to break out of the traditional gender roles that have held such strong sway over the tango world in the past.) I had danced with her once before, earlier in the summer, but couldn’t remember her name, so, after our tanda, I asked her to remind me. “I’m Cecily,” she said.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. In my last post on The Macarena Incident, you may recall that while meditating on the energies of people surrounding me on the subway, I received the name “Carmen,” thinking it was associated with the man standing next to me. Instead, it turned out to be relevant to my own experience later that evening. As I made my way home last night, I was reminded of other, uncanny incidents of a similar nature. I realized that this has become a bit of a pattern for me in group settings.

Last spring, at a mediumship circle, while meditating, I received very clear impressions of two spirits - a stocky, rustically dressed man named Simon, and a slender woman with brown hair named Millicent. Not recognizing them from my own life, and thinking they were at the circle for someone else, I diligently jotted down all the details, waiting for the circle to open up for attendants to speak up. Lo and behold, when it was my turn to receive my message from the leader of the circle, he described the exact spirits I had picked up on, down to names. As it turned out, the two strangers were there for me. (The story of how Simon and “Millie” proceeded to hang around me for the next few days after crashing that party is the subject of a whole other, weird post.)

One of these kinds of incidents was especially memorable, and a great example of just how easy it can be to miss the obvious when we are caught up in the moment during a reading.

A while ago, right before my guides prompted me to start giving channeled readings professionally, I attended a message circle started by another local medium. We’ll call her Anne. It was a new group, and only Anne, myself, and one other person were in attendance. (That other person would become my first client.) Anne was eager to teach us the process of evidential mediumship, and encouraged us to trust in the impressions we were receiving. She asked me to read her.

As I tuned into Anne’s energy, I heard the name “Sofia,” and soon, a woman with short, wavy brown hair, dressed in a fancy dress, kind of like one an opera singer would wear to a concert, appeared in my inner eye. What I was seeing, in fact, was my grandmother as a young woman. I assumed that the person coming through for Anne must have looked a lot like her, and my grandmother was appearing as a clairvoyant symbol. As I described what I was seeing, Anne recognized her aunt. The name I had received was not her aunt’s name, however, so I chalked up my error to beginner’s bumbling.

The next day, I spoke to Anne over the phone. In the context of an unrelated conversation, seemingly not remembering the name I had brought through, she mentioned that she had been woken up the previous night by a spirit loudly announcing herself as Sofia, declaring herself to be Anne’s new spirit guide. “Do you think she might be Sofia, the goddess of wisdom?” Anne wondered.

After my phone call with Anne, I went to do my daily channeling session. During it, Salvador casually informed me that Sofia was a departed soul who had been drawn to the circle because of an association with “someone else” who was present, and had decided to become Anne’s spirit guide on the spot.

Then, it hit me, and I burst out laughing. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to realize what was going on.

My grandmother’s birth name was Sofia.

I had always known my grandmother by the Finnish version of her name she adopted in early adulthood - Sohvi. It was plain to see now that either she had been inspired to take on a new hobby as spirit guide to Anne - whose colorful personality in many ways reminded me of her - or, simply put, she was messing with her.

I sheepishly messaged Anne to inform her that most likely, her newly-minted spirit guide was not the ancient goddess of wisdom, but a mischievous matriarch from the family of Yours Truly. Should she choose to work with her nonetheless, they had my blessing. I thought they would get along just great. In fact, my “Sohvi-mummi” is most probably the person, if any such exists, from whom I inherited my psychic tendencies. It made perfect sense.

I told my mother about this incident, who in turn, told my uncle. My uncle took it in stride, saying that a few days after her death, when he had called her old home number, my grandmother had answered the phone with her maiden name, in the voice of a little girl. (She was deeply disoriented about time towards the end of her life, waking up in her nursing home to agitated thoughts of having forgotten to take the cows to pasture - something she had not done for over 70 years.) It seemed my grandmother had a history of being skilled in inter-dimensional communication.

I don’t think I am the only person studying psychic development or mediumship to whom this kind of thing happens. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and can lead to some very funny situations, as you can see. However, in the long-term, it is definitely in the best interest of everyone concerned to figure out when one’s energetic wires are getting crossed, and, failing that, maybe limit one’s reading practice to private, one-on-one sessions. Often, the simplest solution to these kinds of issues is simply to ask: “Who is this for? Is this for me? Is this for so-and-so?” Alas, so far, my experience has been that this doesn’t always work. So, has this ever happened to you? If so, have you figured out how to plan for such incidents and clear up the confusion? Let me know!

P.S. Since first posting this piece, Salvador has weighed in on how to beat this issue. Here is what he said.

#psychic development #psychic readings #mediumship #psychic medium #psychic development circles #shaman #life after death #psychic #spirit guides

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disappointingyet · 8 years ago

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She’s Gotta Have It

Director Spike Lee Stars Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Hicks, Spike Lee, John Canada Terrell USA 1986 Language English 1hr 24mins Black & white/Colour

Spike Lee’s splendid debut

She’s Gotta Have It was a big deal for me. I’m struggling to think of another movie that I believed going in was going to baptise me with hipness, turn me from a dorky suburban 16-year-old into, well, the kind of person readers of The Face imagined they were rather than the less glamorous reality of who we really were. She’s Gotta Have It was from New York! Its director was young and black! It was low budget (that had just become a good thing, as far as I was concerned)!

I saw She’s Gotta Have It at the now long-lost cinema at the bottom of Queensway. It met all my expectations. OK, so watching didn’t actually make me cooler, but I certainly felt cooler, and the process of rewiring my taste in films took another big leap forwards.

Revisiting SGHI three decades on, what struck me most is that urge to ‘timelessness’ that was so strong in the mid-‘80s. It’s always been there of course in the films of Lee’s film school buddy Jim Jarmusch, but it also applies to Absolute Beginners or many of the films starring Mickey Rourke in those days. In She’s Gotta Have It, it manifests itself most strongly in the pervasive, often rather mournful jazz soundtrack (by Bill Lee, Spike’s dad) and Ernest Dickerson’s elegant black & white camera work*. No American film from the late ‘50s would actually have all the sex and nudity you get in Lee’s film, mind.

It’s mildly ironic, maybe, that the one representative of the hip-hop generation in the film is played by Lee himself: the motormouthed Mars Blackmon, a character who went on to have a lucrative life in Nike commercials. Mars is one of the three men sleeping with Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) – each of them puzzled by why they aren’t enough for her on their own. All the main characters – and a few others beside – get to make their case straight to the camera.

The question, though, isn’t so much why Nola doesn’t settle for one of them as much as why she bothers with any of them. She’s gorgeous, she’s got a great apartment in Brooklyn and a good job**. Greer (John Canada Terrell) is an absurd narcissist and snob, while Jamie (Tommy Hicks) is sincere and apparently nice but humourless. Mars might be deeply immature, but at least he’s got energy and charm.

And he’s funny. One of the things that surprised me watching SGHI again is the comedy comes in doses, rather than being persistent. It’s less funny than I remembered – not because it tries and fails, but because Lee has a bunch of other things he wants to do as well as making us laugh.

There are famously two things wrong with She’s Gotta Have It. One is the jazz ballet scene, the one outbreak of colour in the film. People who had Lee down as edgy and new were particularly baffled by it. I think I was confused by it at the time, but now it feels much more of a piece with the rest of the movie. Maybe that’s just expectation – the bit you remember as being terrible will rarely be that terrible. It’s also context: we now know is Lee is a guy who loves West Side Story and An American In Paris – few filmmakers have had less of a scorched-earth attitude towards cinema’s past. For decades Lee and his opponents have contrived together to depict him as a political and aesthetic radical, when he’s nothing of the sort.

The other wrong thing? That would be a spoiler, but it’s as horrible now as it was then, and Lee has admitted it was a mistake.

The one mystery is why (apart from Hollywood being racist) Tracy Camilla Johns didn’t become a big star. She’s so smart and knowing here, so effortlessly superior to the men around her. It’s one of those films that stands or falls with one actor living up to all the claims that the script makes for their character – and Johns is all that and more.

So She’s Gotta Have It isn’t exactly the film I remembered, but it is as good as I thought it was, an auspicious start to a career of a director who, yes, has been patchy but has produced more than his share of terrific movies.

*Spike Lee is a vocal opponent of the gentrification of Brooklyn, but this film might have played a part pushing the process on, showing off great architectural details from around the place, while stressing how affordable the rents were.

**If one that wouldn’t exist in the same form within a few years – she’s a layout and paste-up artist for magazines. The desktop publishing software packages Adobe Pagemaker (launched in 1985) and then the much superior QuarkXpress, two years later, would doom manual production of magazines. Then again, plenty of designers I know made the transfer from cow gum to Macs, and are still hanging in there today.

[2020 PS: I wrote this review just before watching the first series of Spike Lee’s TV series adaption/update of his own film. I think the first series is good, the second patchier, but it’s a fascinating attempt to address the effect of the changing times on a story. Some notable changes: whereas in the 1986 Nola repulses interest from her lesbian friend, in the TV show she is happily bisexual. Mars is now Latino. Most of the characters now smoke weed, which I think tell us more about Lee’s changing attitude than recreational drug use in New York. And – of course – Brooklyn has been heavily gentrified, and the effects of that process is one of the main themes of the series.]

#she's gotta have it #spike lee #1986

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alexandralyman · 8 years ago

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Hi alex! I dont know if you take prompts and if you dont thats ok. If you do can you write a scene in your bth verse where emma tells killian about her ability to spot lies please? Thank you and dont worry if you dont have time to write it i understand.

So, this is one of those things where it’s clear that at some point in Beyond the Horizon, Killian finds out about Emma’s superpower, but I never wrote the actual scene where she tells him. Then I got carried away and wrote 4,000 words once I started thinking about how it would have come out. Unlike the other BtH extras, this isn’t a single scene, this is some missing bits and pieces that take place over several chapters of the main fic.

Also on ff.net here as part of my Interlude at Sea series.

(and yes, there’s smut)

…..

Something was nagging at him.

It was a faint but insistent tug at the back of his mind, a lurking shadow in the corner of his eye.

“Women on ships are bad luck.”

Killian Jones was superstitious - all sailors were, to some extent. He wore charms around his neck to guard against the cold grasp of Davy Jones (no relation) and never dared to challenge the wind by absent-mindedly whistling on deck. He steered well clear of the flocks of albatrosses soaring about overhead in search of dinner and avoided the sleek schools of mermaids below - treacherous, untrustworthy creatures they were, but he’d never held much stock in the old belief that a woman aboard a ship was bad luck. He certainly didn’t think that his golden-haired treasure had brought him any ill since he’d stolen her away for his own, the single storm (that they’d forded with no casualties and no cost save a lost day or two on repairs) aside, he’d had nothing but astonishingly good luck with Princess Emma by his side.

In his arms.

In his bed.

But still, there was something about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Some mysterious quality about her that had nothing to do with her more obvious, feminine charms, like the tilt of her lips that practically begged for his kisses or the curve of her waist that seemed to have been made for his hands to circle and pull her close, lovely and dreadfully distracting whenever he tried and failed to get to the bottom of exactly what was bothering him.

So he watched,

And waited.

He’d spent days tracking ships, keeping them in view through his spyglass as he bided his time until just the right opportunity arose to strike. Killian knew the value of patience, and it was hardly a hardship when they were tangled together in the sheets at night with the sweat of their lovemaking cooling on their skin and her fingers playing with the charms around his neck until she fell asleep with her nose pressed to his neck and a pale curtain of gold hiding her face like a swan with its head tucked under its wing. This thing between them was so new and fragile and he scarcely dared to breathe at times for fear of it slipping away and leaving him alone and empty once more, so he didn’t pry and he didn’t push his luck any farther than he already had, quieting the persistent little voice in his head that whispered old tales of ill fortune and following her easily into slumber.

….

The princess was a shrewd negotiator. Killian had seen it first hand the day they met, when she’d held him and his entire crew at bay with nothing but sheer cunning until he’d conceded and agreed to her terms. Privately, he’d thought he got the better part of that bargain in the end, but he was a greedy man (pirate, it came with the territory) and it was rare for him to give any quarter or make the smallest concession. She’d also bested him at cards, much to his shock, calling every last bluff with unerring accuracy and taking his coin with a smile that disarmed him as easily as if she’d also taken his sword. He heard the murmurs from the men around the gaming table when the final hand was shown and the queen of diamonds trumped the eight of hearts, “Beginner’s luck.”

That word again, luck. The deck hadn’t been stacked and he was certain there were no aces hidden up her sleeves, but he couldn’t figure out exactly how he’d lost the upper hand in that particular encounter, not when he’d been playing cards since he was a lad of thirteen against the saltiest of old sea dogs who knew every trick and seemed to invent new ways to cheat during each game, but beginner’s luck was as good an explanation as any.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

While the Jolly sat in port and he visited the local suppliers to procure what was needed for the long voyage ahead to the uncharted isles in the west, Emma accompanied him to the warehouses that lined the docks, ringed hand resting delicately on his sleeve and finely gowned as befitted her new status as his wife. The merchants took one look at her pretty face and fluttering eyelashes and practically fell over themselves to both flatter her and fleece him. Killian could practically see the wheels turning in their greedy little minds, if the captain of the Jolly Roger could afford such a lovely and useless ornament as a richly-dressed wife then surely he could also afford to pay grossly inflated prices for basic staples like salt beef and flour. He’d made the same mistake of underestimating her once, but now he watched Emma’s eyes narrow and her lips purse at each oh so magnanimous offer from the oily men who sat across from them and swore up and down with insincere smiles that the ridiculous sums scribbled on bits of scrap parchment were the best they could do. Curiosity seized him and he held back, pretended to mull the prices over while she lulled the merchants with her charm and drew them in with her smile, a beautiful siren singing them right to their doom.

They never saw the rocks coming until it was too late.

Prices were slashed to the bone over their blustering protests, Emma seemed to know the precise moment she’d bargained them down to the absolute lowest they’d accept, right to the penny. When the wagons rumbled down the docks to the ship laden with goods even the normally unflappable quartermaster was impressed, noting the better quality meat and finer ground flour with a slight raise of his brow as he examined the barrels and sacks, all for less coin than usual that left higher profits all around. Profit that Killian partially spent on buying her a pair of silk stockings, as delicate as cobwebs and as light as air, and that he took great pleasure in peeling back down her legs when she first tried them on, hearing the hitch in her breath and seeing the heave of her bosom as he propped a bare ankle on his shoulder and pressed his face into the heart of the sea. With the briny taste of her thick on his tongue and the rolling waves of her hips carrying him off into the storm of unbridled lust where his world shrank down to nought but the join of his body to hers and jewel-bright eyes that looked into his and pierced him down to the depths of his very soul, he forgot about everything else for a while. Word quickly spread through the taverns that he had taken a wife and that the winds had clearly blown in his favour, none of the men dared to protest their captain’s new orders and when they finally departed port a fortnight later she was even more firmly enconsed on board, undisputed mistress of all who called him master.

….

It was the encounter with the so-called Captain Charles Blount and his pathetic excuse for a ship that really gave Killian pause. With the heat of battle still firing his blood and flush with his victory he’d almost missed it, but after the interrogation was over and Blount had spilled his guts (figuratively, not literally, although Killian would not wager on the disgraced captain surviving the night once his crew was released from their confinement) he’d recalled Emma’s strange turns of phrase.

“You know who he is, you say you don’t but you’re lying….probably because that’s not even his real name. That was a lie too.”

“Women don’t belong on ships. Bad luck.”

His attention was drawn back as Blount – or whatever the hell his real name was – spat a glob of bloody phlegm onto the floor of the stifling cabin and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Bleeding gums, Killian noted absently, a sure sign of scurvy.

“Bad luck for you, mate, but not for me. She’s brought me nothing but good fortune.”

He smiled, showing his own healthy white teeth.

“A woman’s only good for lying on her back,” Blount mumbled, his rheumy eyes fogged over with both drink and defeat, “But that one, she’s more than just a damp quim to swive, she’s a bloody witch, isn’t she? Does she call the winds to your favour and turn the tides for you before she parts her legs, Captain Jones? But women are feckless, disloyal cunts and you can’t trust a witch, best to toss her overboard in the night before she turns on you.”

Blount said no more after that, his impertinent mouth left even more broken and bloody once Killian had let loose the furious pirate in a rage and paid him back for the insult to his lady, but the words burrowed incessantly under his skin as he worried his thumb over the hilt of the blade at his side. She’s a witch, isn’t she? He’d thought it himself, more than once. She could swim like a mermaid and enchant like a siren, and she could see right through him. Every weakness he kept well-hidden from the men, every secret locked carefully away, every piece of him had all been laid neatly at her feet for her perusal and he’d even given her his one bit of magic, his sea diamond, without so much as a second thought. In truth, Emma was more dangerous to him now than an ambitious first mate, the knife in the night he’d never see coming.

Sirens lured sailors to their doom, but when she held him to her breast that night and sang away the nightmare that kept following him across the ocean, the shackles he could never escape as if he had crashed against the rocks and silently slipped down to Davy Jones’s locker, he simply closed his eyes and listened until dawn broke over the Jolly at last and the ghosts that haunted him receded silently into the ether once more. Witch or wife, princess or prisoner, salvation and destruction both in the form of a nineteen year old slip of a woman who held his scarred heart in her small hands. Was it bad luck, or good fortune?

Did it even matter?

….

“Lies.”

Emma looked up when he stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him, locking it with a flick of the latch that echoed loud in the small room.

“You can tell when someone’s lying.”

Her eyes darted away and he could tell that he’d struck home, the pieces all finally clicking into place at last. Haggling over provisions in port, driving harder bargains than the most tight-fisted quartermaster. Teasing out the truth from Blount. The way she’d called every single one of his bluffs as if she knew exactly which cards he was holding…he was a pirate, and he’d fallen in love with a woman impervious to all his tricks.

Somewhere, somehow, Killian swore he could hear Liam laughing at him.

Serves you right, little brother.

Emma peeked up at him from beneath lowered lashes, both demure and coquettish and the contrast never failed to make him want to court her like a gentleman and to ravish her until he forgot his own name between her thighs, but he was well-versed in her tricks and he pulled the other chair back to sit down, sprawling back and giving her an expectant look. The stalemate went on for several long moments until he saw her slump down and concede defeat with a whispered, “Yes. Yes, I can.”

“Princess….”

“I’m sorry.”

She stood up, putting distance between them as she went over to the window and ran a finger along the ledge. It was a familiar action, whenever she got overwhelmed she’d always pull away from him and withdraw into herself. It was a bitter draught to swallow, to know that her first instinct was still to flee. He drummed his own fingers against the table, wondering if he was always destined to lose the ones he loved.

“How long have you been able to…..?” he asked, his head still reeling from the implications.

“For as long as I can remember,” she answered, still staring at the panes of glass instead of meeting his gaze, her face a smudged reflection that he couldn’t read, “It’s hard to describe…I always had this feeling when I thought someone was lying, but I didn’t know it for sure until I was twelve. Some of my mother’s jewellery went missing and a footman was caught in her chambers the next day with a key to the door in his pocket. He swore up and down on his own life that he’d never steal from his queen, but he wouldn’t drink the truth potion to prove it and couldn’t explain how he got the key, so everyone believed he was guilty.”

“Except you, I take it?”

Emma turned just enough for him to see her profile, giving a single nod with downcast eyes, “I don’t know how, but I could hear that he wasn’t lying and I just knew there had to be some other explanation. I even snuck down into the dungeons that night with extra bread and meat from the kitchens for him.”

Killian suppressed a snort at that, thinking of all the food that she not so secretly slipped to Fergus from her own plate. He pretended not to notice, remembering when Liam used to do the same for him under the table in the galley while they hunched protectively over the meagre rations dished out by the one-eyed cook. She had a tender heart, his princess, one that he needed to guard against the many evils in the world that would delight in crushing it.

“It turned out that he was having an affair with a lady-in-waiting. That’s why he wouldn’t drink the potion, he was protecting her because she stole the key for him so they could meet in secret. The dwarves came back from the mines a few days later and they were the ones who had taken the jewellery, sneaking it out of the castle to make a matching tiara for Mother’s birthday.”

The memories flickered over her face like the light from a candle as she recounted the tale of forbidden love and missing gems. Killian felt a shiver run down his spine, she spoke of power that many men he knew would kill to possess. The ability to spot a lie, to see through an opponent across the gaming table in port or during a parlay with a rival captain…it was more valuable than gold.

It was his now.

Good fortune.

He could keep no secret from her, speak no falsehood or hide behind flattery or charm. He couldn’t lie or cheat to get what he wanted…he had to be honest.

Bad luck.

He pulled the flask from a pocket of his coat and took a long swallow. Good or bad, he couldn’t turn this particular tide, and he rolled the silver between his palms, listening to the faint slosh of the rum inside. He also knew men who would slit her throat without a second thought, paranoid and fearful that she’d turn on them one day. Blount’s warning echoed in his ear, “Can’t trust a witch.”

“Well,” he said at last, setting the flask down on the table, “In light of this revelation, it seems that you owe me a forfeit.”

She turned to face him fully, clearly surprised by that, “What?”

“Do you remember the night we played cards? I believe I was quite clear about the stakes, if I won, you’d owe me a forfeit, and you agreed to my terms. But now I know how you were able to call all of my bluffs, you were cheating. That’s very bad form, my love.”

He slowly rose to his feet, peeling his coat off and hanging it up on the peg. Emma’s eyes followed his movements, a faint flush painting her cheeks.

“You were the one who said it wasn’t cheating, it was merely changing the rules of the game.”

The belt was next, unbuckled and set aside with the sword still attached. He wouldn’t need a blade for this, at least, not the one he wore at his side.

“I always knew there was a little pirate in you, Princess. You may have changed the rules, but the wager still stands. If you won, I’d give you a prize. Which I did, I kept my end of the bargain. And if I won-”

“-I’d owe you a kiss,” Emma finished, her blush deepening to a dark rose, “And even though I won, I think I’ve paid you back in spades by now, Captain.”

“Hmm,” he mused, tapping a finger against his lips while he pretended to think it over. Of course they’d kissed dozens of times since that night, perhaps hundreds, he knew exactly how well her mouth fitted to his and it was very well indeed. He’d kissed the beauty mark on her breast more times than he could count and trailed his lips along the curve of her spine, traced the outline of her navel with his tongue and left love bites on the inside of her pale thighs. He might have lost the battle that night at the gaming table, but he’d certainly won the war.

And to the victor goes the spoils.

“Come here.”

He turned his palm and crooked his finger, beckoning her towards him. In the tales it was always the sirens who lured the sailors and not the other way round, but she came to him without hesitation, heedless of the danger that lurked below.

Or maybe…because of it.

“Kiss me.”

An order, a command, a plea breathed against her lips while he stroked his thumb along the curve of her jaw and cupped her cheek, a strand of golden hair wrapped around his finger. Emma tilted her chin up and her hips pressed flush to his, swaying slightly with the rock of the ship underneath them. He’d captured the siren and carried her off, keeping the sweetness of her song for his very own. It thrummed low in his blood like the pull of the tides, forever seeking to make its way home and kiss the welcoming shore in greeting. She kissed him, stealing the breath from his lungs and his heart from his chest and whatever else she wanted, it was hers, all of it. His back hit the ladder and leather met velvet, soft and yielding under his exploring hands. Her own fingers tangled in the chain around his neck, she could strangle him and he’d die with a smile on his lips, but then his head was tugged down again and the last of the spiced rum on his tongue dissolved into nothing but Emma.

She must be a witch, to drown out the taste of his favourite spirit.

His waistcoat hit the floor with a muffled thump from the small knife hidden inside it, another weapon falling by the wayside as they frantically undressed each other while his kiss turned rougher, warning of the storm that awaited her should she venture into the sea of linen sheets that beckoned from across the planks. But every storm had an eye, a moment of calm and when he was fully bare with his cock standing thick and proud and ready to make port in the welcoming harbour between her legs he stilled, brushing his thumb over the swell of her breast in his palm and bending down to press a gentle kiss to the spot where her heart (and his) lay nestled under skin and muscle and bone. So delicate and fragile she was, and a pirate’s life was a merciless one. Kill or be killed, strike or be stricken down, there was no room for sentiment or space for love. A woman could make a man hard and he was, hard and throbbing with lust in his veins and filling his loins with desire. A woman could make a man soft, tamed and complacent, a laughingstock and a fool. Emma was more dangerous than any rival, he’d lied for her, killed for her-

Killian knew in that moment that he would die for her.

She flipped him onto his back and rose above him like a goddess of the sea, born of spray and foam with eyes the colour of the changing tides and skin like pearls, breasts tipped in coral and hair more gold than any doubloon. Her lips found the hollow of his throat and his head tilted back, sinking into the pillow while she traced his scars with more gentleness than he deserved and nipped at the skin along his hip. Emma followed the groove of his groin and lashed at him in a sweet torture that slowly drove him mad with need and want until her mouth closed around him at last in the most intimate of ways. A deep groan rumbled from his chest and his hand fisted in the sheets while he fought madly for control that quickly slipped away like sand through his fingers. Killian wondered dimly if this was what it felt like to drown, lungs fit to burst and heart racing as he could do nothing but give into the pleasure that pulled him deeper and deeper until the blood pounded in his ears and he was a gasping, quivering mess. She could ask for anything and he’d give it to her gladly, his princess, his lady, his lover, his. Satisfaction was so close, he could feel it tug sharply as his balls and belly drew tight and he was on the verge of giving in and letting her draw him under…but he didn’t want it to be over so soon.

“Not yet,” he muttered, rolling Emma onto her back and pinning her wrists above her head. The pirate within him relished the sight of her lips, pink and swollen and twin to what else was pink and swollen lower down.

“Kiss me.”

The point where sea met sky was called the horizon. It was always there, and yet it was forever beyond a sailor’s reach. He anchored himself in the plant of his knees on the bed and she met him in the tilt of her hips, lifting to allow him safe passage. Sea-green eyes met his, sky blue, and he was swept away on the tide that was Emma. Her thighs cradled him and her kiss set him aflame, warming places he hadn’t even realized were cold. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and pooled at the small of his back, slick under her hands that wore his ring while the rest of her was gloriously nude, his siren of the rocks.

“I love you.”

Killian isn’t dashed to pieces, but he falls apart in her arms anyway.

…..

Emma scratched a nail through the hair on his chest, her head on his shoulder and her leg thrown over his. Night had fallen as the hours had passed, shadows dancing over their skin like the moonlight on the water in reverse.

“Are you angry? That I didn’t tell you sooner?”

Her voice was muffled by the press of her face to his neck and he sighed, reaching to catch her fingers in his own.

“I don’t begrudge you your secrets, but I do wish I’d have known that a bit earlier. I’d thought…hoped, that you trusted me.”

It was odd, how loud and deafening complete silence could be.

“Of course I trust you!”

Emma pulled back, breath escaping in an exasperated huff, “Killian, no one else has ever believed me about that except you, they think I just guessed or, I don’t know, got lucky.”

The words ran through his mind, old superstition fed to him alongside hardtack and grog, “A woman on a ship is bad luck.” But then he was struck by what she’d just said, the confession wrenched loose like a dagger in the dark.

I trust you.

No one else.

Whatever else she was going to say was lost in the press of his lips to hers, another stolen kiss while she stiffened briefly in surprise and then went pliant and relaxed beneath him. He kissed a path to her ear, slipping a hand down to tease out more secrets with the press of his thumb just below the damp curls and feeling her shiver. His siren sang only for him.

“The next time we play cards, Princess, you’ll be the ace up my sleeve.”

Good fortune or bad, Killian Jones made his own luck.

#cs ff #cs fic #beyond the horizon #my fic #CS fic prompt

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imperatorsupremus · 8 years ago

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☀ Why did my Spell fail? ☀

✯ Is your intention strong enough? ✯

You're a beginner. You read your books, you read more books, more books. Then, you practise, practise, practise some more, your energy manipulation, your meditation, grounding, centering, energy flow. OK, bravo! Well done! You're good to go! Then, you feel that you're ready to cast a spell. You cast your spell, and you wait, you wait to see if it's going to work. And it doesn't, so you come to the conclusion that your spell hasn't worked and then you get disappointed in yourself and your abilities.

☹ Why did this happen? Why didn't your spell work? What did you do wrong? What would a sane person do after a "failure" like that? ☹

First of all, let me clarify, go one step further and say that...

No "failure" is a "failure".

☾ ☽ See it as a learning experience , because in actuality that's *precisely* what it is. A learning experience, an experience that is, that can help you grow and keep you from repeating the same mistake over and over. Sit down, relax yourself, maybe get some herbal tea, turn all the lights off, all the appliances off, take a warm shower and sit down. Nowadays, in our modern society we're all constantly on the go, go, go so much so that we have forgotten the simple act of just relaxing, sitting down and reflecting on what's happening to us, of what's going on in our lives. ☾ ☽

۞ ۞ Well, make the difference and just do that. Think this through from the moment that you decided to cast that spell of yours until the moment you cast that spell. What was your intention? Why did you want to cast that spell? Did you doubt in yourself? Did you know that it would work? Were you certain about yourself? Was your motivation strong enough? Did you have positive thoughts during this whole process? Because yes, that is a process. Sit down, maybe in front of your altar, take some deep breaths, ask your patron or matron deities to help you and think things through. What did you do wrong? Ask yourself all the above questions and reflect on them. Write down your experience on your Book of Shadows. ۞ ۞

✯ *Did you doubt in yourself? When we do spellwork, guys, we want to show the universe that we deserve what we're asking for, that we're worth it. The universe is not going to "trust" you if you're not sure about yourself. Doubting can only destroy your spellwork, and any magickal working you might want to do in the future. Get a grip of yourself, stand still and be proud of yourself, your knowledge, your potential, and your abilities. Make sure you know what you're doing, and if you don't, see what needs to be done so that you get there. Don't have any doubts, especially when you're doing spellwork. Know that it will work, know that your attempt will be successful, be 100% sure of it. Visualize the outcome, feel it, taste it, embrace it, touch it. It's right there! You're halfway through! Have a positive attitude during this whole process. ✯

❀ ❀ *Do you really need what you're asking for? Sometimes, the universe comes up with ways on its own to show us that what we're asking for is not in alignment with ourselves, with the things we need to do to reach enlightenment and grow. You cast your spell, and you made sure that your intention was strong enough. You can just wait and cast the same spell, after a while (maybe after a month or so). You repeat the spell and it "fails" again. Maybe that's a sign! Yes a sign, a sign from somebody out there who wants to show you, that you do not *need* what you're asking for, what you're craving for. Now, 'need' and 'want' are two entirely different words with two entirely different meanings to them. When we say that we 'want ' something, then our ego meddles in our way and our ego is nothing but a burden towards growth, the way I see it. Now, when we say "I need" something, though, the word itself has an entirely different connotation to it. The word "need" means that you *have* to have something, in order to survive and grow. Ego has nothing to do with "need", yet ego has a lot to do with "want". I hope you can see where I'm coming from. So, maybe it's not meant to be. Someone might be sending you a signal that you're not meant to get this "thing" you're asking for, whatever that is and that's for your own good. ❀ ❀

♆ ♆ ♆ * Was your intention strong enough? OK, nothing to talk about here. Magick is all about intention , every serious practitioner must know that. You must have a very strong intention when doing magick, any type of magick, really. Crave for what you're asking for with every cell of your entire being, desire it, love it, be ... "it"! If your intention is not strong enough your spellwork is not very likely to work. ♆ ♆ ♆

☯ ☯ ☯ * Do you know what you're doing? Take a moment to sit back and just think about that. Are you ready yet to jump into spellwork? Do not underestimate yourself, but also do not overestimate yourself. Acknowledge the situation you are in, acknowledge your potential, and think very well whether you're truly ready to do that. We're coming back to the "Know thyself" concept here. Yes, you' and only you are the only one in this world who knows...yourself better than anybody else. If you feel you're not ready yet, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that!!! Just take the time to do what needs to be done and then you can get back to your spellwork once you're feel you're ready to handle something like that. ☯ ☯ ☯

* ツツツ Were the energies of the day, month in alignment with what you tried to achieve? For example, Friday is indicated for love spells -- The Waxing moon is indicated for anything that's to do with growth, loving yourself, acquiring something new, for new beginnings, a renewal and so on. The Waning moon now is indicated for banishing spells, to get rid of something that no longer serves you in your life, maybe a bad habit or even... a violent husband. All in all, you need to make sure that when you're doing spellwork, the energies of the day and moon are in alignment with what you're asking for. However, I've got to add this as well right here and say that there are people who do NOT take all the above into consideration, and they just act on impulse and they go by gut feeling. Nothing wrong with that, you know what they say? To each their own. I suggest our beginners do take into consideration the above, though. ツツツ

❤ My, my, my post is miles long, sorry for that. Thank you for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoyed it, and I encourage all of you to share your feelings, insight, thoughts, and reflect on the post you just read. ❤

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ashesofus · 6 years ago

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How to Overcome Failure and Achieve Success?

You may have read all the self-help books and the autobiographies of men like Abraham Lincoln who failed all their lives and finally succeeded. It all seems so positive and feel good until you fail. One of Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes is, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." There’s just no denying that failure is a bitter pill to swallow.It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, you’ll still feel that twinge of disappointment or some anger when your best laid plans collapse.

Usually, the most successful people are also the ones who are best at coping with failure. The reason for this is that they fail more than most people but they just never give up. That also means that they do more than most other people who quit the moment failure knocks on their door.There are many ways to cope with failure but you must understand that it is going to hurt when you fail.

Sometimes it may feel like the only thing you ever learn from a failure is that you failed. While this is not true, it will seem that way. We are all human and no one likes to see their efforts go to waste. It could be a business venture that collapses. Or maybe your relationship with your spouse crumbles and is beyond repair. Maybe your health takes a turn for the worse despite living a healthy lifestyle. All these are events.

Understanding this point makes all the difference between handling failure successfully or letting it break you. Failure is an event, not a person. Like they say, never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart. It will hurt and there will be disappointment but you must embrace the experience and push forward.Success is not final and failure is not fatal. As long as you’re breathing you still can turn your failures into successes.

It’s time to discover the 7 secrets that successful people use to cope with failure.

Different individuals may do it differently but the general rule of thumb is this – Failure is always temporary. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success. Now let’s look at how you can cope with it when it comes your way… and you can rest assured that it will. So be prepared.

1. Don't take it personally This is the biggest mistake that most people make. They blame themselves when things go wrong. Or they blame other people. When you do not separate failure from how you identify yourself, then your self-esteem will drop and you’ll be much more tempted to quit.

People usually quit on their dreams because they don’t believe that they’re capable of achieving what their hearts desire. They feel that it’s too hard and the reason they feel that way is because they may have failed. For example, when someone is trying to lose weight and watching their diet closely, there will be times when they give in to temptation and eat something they shouldn’t. When this happens, they feel guilt and regret that they failed at maintaining their diet.

What do they do then? They toss their diet aside and gorge themselves on food that they’re not supposed to. They believe that they lack the self-discipline to stay focused and lose weight… Just because of one temporary lapse in judgment. This is ridiculous and it’s like accidentally dropping your mobile phone once only to pick it up and keep smashing it on the ground over and over because of one accident. It doesn’t make sense… and yet people act in a similar way.

When you fail at something, whether it’s with your blog or your email marketing or if your latest product launch is a flop, do not assume that you’re useless and just throw in the towel. What defines you is how well you rise after falling.So the most important point to note is that you should not let failure define you as a person. Always know that you can do better.

2. Learn From Your Mistakes

All the most successful people have learned from their mistakes and try not to repeat them. Failure can also be treated as feedback. If some aspect of your online business fails, ask yourself why this happened. For example, if your product launch was a flop, there must be a reason why. Was your niche unprofitable? Did the sales page convert poorly? Did you not actively recruit affiliates?

Analysis is very important so that you do not repeat the same errors. This is the only way to make progress and succeed.Michael Eisner, the Chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation said, “Failure is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.”

The only way to prevent failure from becoming a habit is to take stock of your situation, learn from your mistakes and adapt. Try to maintain a certain degree of detachment so that you can evaluate your failure without feeling bitter. Sometimes it might be a good idea to take a break for a short while and come back to it when you’re feeling better. Either way, ALWAYS analyze your failures.

3. Stop Dwelling On Your Failures

You may have noticed that all some people can talk about is how life has treated them so badly. No matter what they do, they fail at it due to bad luck or unforeseen circumstances. We’ve all seen people like these… and while you may not know why these things happen to them, you know that things like these always seem to happen to people like them.Harsh but very true. Do not dwell on your failures.

Analyze them and move on. You have better things in store for you. Missed out on an opportunity? No worries. Better ones are coming your way. Product launch flopped? That’s ok the next one will sell thousands. Picked the wrong niche to monetize? No big deal. You now know how to find niches with people waiting to buy stuff. Problem solved.

It is inevitable to lose time, effort and money when something fails. If you keep focusing on what is lost, you’ll never be able to focus on what you can gain and there is so much more out there for you. Focus on the positive and bury your failures.

4. Model Other Marketers

There’s a saying that you should always learn from the mistakes of others because you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself. When trying to build an online business, instead of believing all the hype that you see in all the info-products that flood the market, you’d be better off watching what the successful marketers are doing. Do what they do and not what they say.

Most beginners to online marketing encounter failure repeatedly because they follow untested theory and blindly believe what they read or hear. You have to be smarter than that. If whatever you’re doing seems to be failing, then you need to look at what other marketers who are succeeding are doing then model them.

That alone will reduce your learning curve and put you on the path to online success. Stop being like a housefly that repeatedly bangs its head on the window hoping to get out when the door is wide open for it to go through.

5. Assess Your Finances

One of the biggest concerns marketers have when they fail is that they’ve lost money. Creating a product costs money. Testing out ads costs money. Outsourcing costs money. There is no getting away from this. In fact, to run any business you need money. It’s like oxygen for your business and without it, your business will shrivel up and die. So, it’s crucial that you have a source of income coming in to tide you over if any online endeavour fails.

Some marketers quit their day jobs to make their online business work. When the business fails and the bills start piling up, they start getting desperate. At times like these, you just may need to get another job to get back on your feet. Do not feel like you have failed and are doomed to a life of ‘working for the man.’ This is just a temporary setback and like Joel Osteen, always says, “A setback is a set up for a comeback.”

Go ahead and take that job. It will feel like retrogression but you must understand that even a tiger crouches before it leaps. Once you have money coming in, the pressure that your finances are causing you will ease. You’ll be able to save up some money to keep funding your online business. That’s really how it is. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice.

Do not throw your efforts down the drain and quit online marketing totally just because you failed a couple of times. As long as you keep learning and doing, success is inevitable.

6. Release the Need for Approval from Others

This is a very common fear and makes failure seem worse than it really is. People often worry what others will think or say about them when they fail. It’s definitely true that you’ll have friends and family members who will tell you, “I told you so!” when you fail. Some of them may even take pleasure in it. This is human nature. It could even be your spouse or parents who don’t support your dreams.

When you fail and see their disapproving looks or hear their sarcastic words, it can seem worse.The truth of the matter is that you only have one life to live and you need to live it for yourself. It doesn’t matter what others say or think about you. Just because others think you’re dumb for failing doesn’t mean that you’re really foolish.

How people see you should have zero impact on how you see yourself. Have faith in yourself and don’t pay heed to the naysayers.

7. Take a Break

Time heals all wounds. Sometimes when failure really gets to you, it may be time to take a break and put some space between you and your business. This will help to clear your mind so that you can think objectively. While taking a break, you can self-reflect and think about your future plans. You may decide to have backup plans to correct any future failures or problems that may crop up.

Take the time to exercise. Research has shown that hard training like boxing, Crossfit, sprinting, etc. help people to release pent up frustration and anger. This can be therapeutic when coping with failure. Instead of hitting the bottle, you can hit a punching bag or lift heavy weights explosively during CrossFit sessions. Do what suits you best.

What is most important is that you not let failure make you quit. That is the most common consequence of failure. People fail a few times and they quit. If you read the story of Colonel Sanders, you’d realize that he was turned down 1,009 times before he finally found someone who would use his recipe. Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he received financing for Disney World.

source http://www.forcesalign.com/how-to-overcome-failure-and-achieve-success/

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sarahburness · 6 years ago

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20 Tips For Building the Body of Legend Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee had one of the most iconic bodies in the film industry. Even the big-shots of bodybuilding like Joe Weider and Arnold Schwarzenegger have nothing but praises for him.

Here’s what Arnold Schwarzenegger has to say about Bruce:

“There’s a lot of people that do all those moves and they do have the skill, but they don’t look visually as believable or as impressive as Bruce Lee did. He was one of a kind.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Even though Bruce looked small compared to most of today’s A-list celebrities, I bet most people would much rather look like Bruce instead of looking like a muscle-bound freak. But, to build muscle one must work hard and smart.

Most beginners waste precious time on stuff that just doesn’t work. As a result, they end up looking the same year in, year out.

By following the tips below, you’ll be able to instantly bypass beginner mistakes, pack on more muscles, and just feel good in your own skin.

Sound good?

Get ready to find out what it takes to get the body of a legendary movie star.

Start Lifting Weights

Join a gym and start lifting weights. If you want to look like Bruce Lee, then you need to have access to a barbell, squat rack, and a lot of weight plates. Body weight exercises just won’t cut it.

You can also train at home, as long as you’re ready to spend some money on a good power rack, a well-built bench, and a 300-pound barbell set. You can get all three items for less than $1,000 on Amazon.

Obviously, if your budget won’t take this expense, focus on the remaining tips in this post.

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your work. The same rule holds true if you lift weights. 80% of your muscle and strength gains come from just 3 lifts.

Enter the The Big Trio:

Deadlift

Squat

Bench press

Unlike most lifts, The Big Trio works your whole body. The more muscles a lift works, the bigger the spike of muscle building hormones.

Do Less, Be Intense

At the heart of each of your workouts should be just a few lifts on which you give 100%. The more you stress your body, the bigger the spike of muscle building hormones while you sleep. It’s that simple.

You need to let your body know that you want more brawn. The best way to do that is to train with intensity.

Focus on Getting Stronger

Size follows strength. You’ll never look like Bruce Lee if you keep on lifting the same small weights each workout. Focus on The Big Trio (2nd tip) and go hard while you’re at it. Strive to add a rep or extra weight to the bar each workout.

Log Your Workouts

If you want to lift more each workout, you need to keep track of how much weight you’re lifting. Your memory does a poor job at this task, that’s why you need to log all of your lifts in a small notebook.

Write down how much you lifted as soon as you’re done with an exercise.If you have a smartphone, you can use a web app like Fitocracy to log your workouts.

Make Your First Set the Heaviest

If any set counts, it’s the first one. The logic here is that in the first sets of your lifts, your muscle fuel stores are filled up to the max. That’s why your muscles will be able to exert the greatest amount of force.

With this in mind, try to do your main lifts at the start of your workout and make sure you give 100% while you’re at it.

Learn Proper Lifting Technique

Lift with good form and you shall reap the rewards. To be able to train long term with no injuries is a blessing many fail to grasp. Guys just can’t wait to be all jacked so they end up doing stupid stuff that gets them hurt.

Most of the time, good form is sacrificed in order to be able to add a few extra pounds to the bar. Spend those extra 2 to 3 weeks at the start and work on your lifting form. Once you move on to big weights, you’ll be glad you did that.

Warm-Up Before Exercising

This is the first step of your two-part warm up drill. At the start of each workout, you must spend a few minutes to get your heart rate up. A light cycle session of 5 to 8 minutes, done in a brisk way,will do the trick.

When you do this, you raise your body’s temperature, your joints get lubricated and as whole, your body gets ready to bear the load of your workout.

Stretch Before Exercising

This is the next part of your warm-up drill. You should do it right after your cycle session. When I say stretching I don’t mean hold the muscle stretched for minutes on end. More and more scientific studies tell us that that’s bad if your goal is to lift more weights. Do dynamic stretches.

They are a great way to transition from rest to high-intensity exercise since they work your muscles through a full range of motion and make your nerves fire with more power. There are many dynamic stretches I could list, but if I had to pick just 3 that give you most bang for your buck, these would be the ones:

High Knee Walk to Spiderman with Hip Lift and Overhead Reach

Squat to Stand With Reach

Kneeling Superman

Use Lifting Aids

Use lifting aids to make sure that your back muscles get worked up to the max. Most of the time, people aren’t able to train their backs as they should because their grip is too weak. This is a big issue for most pulling exercises – rows, pull-ups, pull-downs, etc.

Lifting aids like lifting straps or liquid chalk will boost your grip strength so your back muscles can get a better workout. For me, liquid chalk proved to be the best tool for building more muscles. It’s cheap, mess-free and it lets you lift more weight instantly (all lifts).

Limit Aerobic Activities

Running and weight lifting don’t go hand in hand, at least not for most people. When you lift weights, your body wants to add muscle. Running tells your body to drop weight – this also includes muscle. Just look at the marathon runners and you’ll see what I mean. While it’s OK to run, try to keep it at a minimum.

Get Plenty of Rest

You grow while you’re at rest. There’s a big spike of muscle building hormones that takes place in the first hours of your sleep. That’s why it’s vital that you get at least 7 to 8 hours of good sleep each day.

Space your workouts so there’s at least 48 hours of rest in between them. Try to set up your routine so there’s at least 96 hours of rest between your squats and deadlifts.

When you work out, 3 to 5 mins of rest time between your sets will be enough to fill up your energy stores.

Learn to Listen to Your Body

When your body tries to say something, be all ears. People take the “no pain, no gain” motto at face value and that’s not good. You need to discern good pain from bad pain.

A case of bad pain is when your knee starts to hurt while you do squats. Knee pain (bad) is not the same kind of pain as training to failure or muscle soreness (good).

Learn to love good pain but avoid bad pain like it’s the plague. Also, be alert on slight cues your body gives when it starts to be drained.Take a few days off of your training if your body needs it – don’t want to risk overtraining.

Take Measurements of Your Body

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. You need to track the right things to be able to see if your moving down the right path.Things to track while trying to build muscles:

body weight

body girths

the look of your body (take pictures)

I didn’t list body fat on purpose. It’s really hard to track body fat if you don’t own costly gadgets.

Fix Your Diet

“When you are a martial artist, you only eat what you require and don’t get carried away with foods that don’t benefit you as a martial artist.” -Bruce Lee

The same rule holds true if a rock-hard physique is what you’re after. Try to eat as many whole foods as you’re able to and cut back on junk foods like sugary snacks, soft drinks, fast foods, trans fats, etc.

This may be hard to do at first, but as time moves on you’ll learn to love this new healthy way of living.

Eat More Protein

Muscles are made out of proteins. Try to get 120-160 grams of protein per day for. Diets high in protein help keep your hunger at bay. You won’t feel the need to binge on junk foods.

Foods with high levels of protein are:

meats – beef, pork, poultry, fish, sea food, etc.

dairy – cottage cheese, mozzarella, Swiss cheese, etc.

legumes – beans and lentils

eggs

Use the Right Supplements

Most supplements are a scam. With that said, there are a few supplements out there that are worth your hard earned cash. Best of all, they won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Here are the only 3 supplements you’ll need for more strength and more health:

Creatine – Research-proven, creatine monhydrate helps you gain strength and size. It cuts your recovery time.

Omega-3 – These are essential fatty acids our bodies can’t make on their own, but are a must for brain health, joint health, eye health, and a lot more.

Vitamin D – used to boost your body’s immune system, helps keep your teeth, bones and joints healthy, etc.

Try Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is not a diet fad, it’s a way of life. Once you try this diet, you’re hooked for life. More muscles, more strength, and less fat – you can do it with intermittent fasting.

With tons of case studies and scientific research to back up its true power, it is slowly rocking the fitness world to its core.

Here are some more benefits of IF:

more growth hormone

lower insulin levels

freaking easy to stick to

I’m sure even Bruce Lee would love this diet. In case you’d like to know more, Martin Berkhan from LeanGains covers the topic of intermittent fasting more in-depth.

Have a Strong Mind a.k.a. Stay Motivated

At some point, in your quest for brawn, you will get scared and feel like you’re not enough. This is OK and you should not let these mind tricks get the best of you. You need to have a strong mind all the time, if you want to fight off these bad thoughts.

But that’s easier said than done.

The way to do that is to use good results as fuel to keep your mind strong. If you keep track of your workouts and body stats, a quick glance at your notes will turbo-charge your mind strength to new heights.

Don’t Do Stupid Stuff

Don’t do stupid things that can put your health at risk. To show you what I mean, here are some of the things you should never do:

bench pressing to failure without a spotter,

deadlifting/squatting with bad form,

doing stupid lifts like “squats on an exercise ball” (yes, people do that too!), etc.

Use good sense and you shall grow strong and big, just like Bruce Lee.

Love the Process

It’s not about the end goal, it’s all about the process. The skills that stem from your hard work in the gym (persistence, mental strength, ambition) will spill over to other areas of your life.Success breeds success.

All of a sudden, the idea of starting your own business won’t seem so far fetched. But in the end, do keep in mind that your is journey is unique to you so …

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” – Bruce Lee

Do you know of any other tips to help you build muscle, lose fat, and just feel good in your own skin? Please share them in the comments section below, I’d love to hear them.

See Also: How To Find The Time To Workout Every Day

Written by Dejan Antic. Get Dejan’s Free Muscle Building Course designed for people that are having a hard time growing more muscles. For more awesome fitness tips like these, check out No Brainer Muscle – Dejan answers every comment he gets.

The post 20 Tips For Building the Body of Legend Bruce Lee appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

from Dumb Little Man https://www.dumblittleman.com/21tips-for-building-body-of-superstar/

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mellifluous-cicadas-blog · 7 years ago

Text

How to Make It As a Health Design!

fitness So You Wanna Be a Physical fitness Product? Individuals that stick to my things know I commonly produce about diet, supplements, instruction, and other subject areas that are additional science based mostly than subjective topics, such as what is coated in this report. I made a decision to shuck my science geek persona, and write on a topic I know will be handy to hundreds of would be and want to be health styles. As well a acknowledged "tough main" science based mostly no BS writer, why I am creating what some will understand as a "fluff" short article? More than the years I have gotten hundreds, probably hundreds, of gals that question me by using email, letters, or in human being "how do I grow to be a physical fitness design Will? You have been in the small business a prolonged time, surly you of all folks need to know." I get this from newcomers and I get this from girls that have been at it a although but have been unable to "break in" properly. The reality is, I have been in the fitness, well being, and bodybuilding biz a long time, and while I am identified as a science and nourishment based mostly "guru" variety, I have experienced several a health athlete, and judged fitness and determine/bikini exhibits for the NPC, Health The united states, Health and fitness Usa, and other federations as very well as offered advertising and marketing and company suggestions to all types of athletes, like health versions. So, it really is not as considerably fetched as it may seem to be that I am going to use this area to include a non scientific topic, which is, how one particular goes about staying a health and fitness design. This post will be useful to both equally seasoned and beginner varieties searching to "crack in" to the biz. If you are already a professional and profitable physical fitness product, I am certain you may possibly still glean some beneficial information from this article. Very first the bad information, there is no 1 way to turn out to be a prosperous health design. There is no one route or magic mystery. There are nonetheless some critical points a person can do to significantly enhance their possibilities of "creating it" in the exercise biz as a model, and perhaps working with that achievement as a launching pad to increased issues, this sort of as movies, Television, etc. Numerous of the top health and fitness styles (Trish Stratus and Vicki Pratt occur to thoughts but there are many other folks) have absent onto careers in amusement of all sorts. Base line, although there is no magic solution to getting profitable as a exercise design, this short article will be about as shut to a blueprint for good results as you will come across. "Do I want to compete?" This is a query I get requested all the time and it really is not an effortless just one to response. In simple fact, the response is (drum roll) of course and no. The individual has to deicide why they are competing in the 1st spot to solution that question. For illustration, do you want to contend if your target is to be a profitable fitness model? The solution is no. Many of present-day properly-acknowledged physical fitness styles have under no circumstances competed, or they competed in a few little displays and it was clearly not element of their success as physical fitness designs. Even so, competing does have its likely utilizes. Just one of them is exposure. At the higher amount reveals, there will often be editors, publishers, photographers, health supplement corporation owners, and other small business persons. So, competing can enhance your exposure. Also, competing can make perception if you are attempting to create a company that is related to your competing or will benefit from you winning a exhibit. For instance, say you have a non-public coaching gymnasium you are striving to build. Absolutely sure, obtaining the title of say Ms Fitness The united states, or successful the NPC Nationals and getting an IFBB pro, will help your reputation and the notoriety of your organization. There are several situations were being it would help to have won a display for a organization or other endeavors. On the other hand, it need to be realized that successful a demonstrate does not in any way ensure accomplishment in the business finish (and it genuinely is a company) of getting a fitness model. The phone wont ring off the hook with major delivers for contracts. Also, it is quite essential to understand that it really is prevalent that the 4th or sixth or 8th place finisher in a physical fitness or figure display will get additional push than the winner. Why? Even though the winner might have what it took to get that demonstrate, it truly is generally other gals the editor, publishers, dietary supplement companies and so on, feel is additional marketable. I have seen it quite a few moments wherever the winner was shocked to come across she didn't get just about the attention she predicted and other girls who put reduced have gotten focus in the kind of pictures shoots, journal protection, etcetera. Anything to maintain in mind when you check with yourself the significant issue "do I need to contend and if so, why am I competing?" Reply that issue, and you will know the response to the heading of this section. Winning a title of some kind can be a stepping stone, but it is not in itself any ensure of accomplishment in the fitness marketplace. It is like a college diploma it truly is what you do with it. Now. If you compete for the entertaining of it, then by all means go for it, but the over is concentrating on competing as it relates to the business element of becoming a health design. Appropriate entire body, erroneous federation? Ok, so after studying the earlier mentioned you have made a decision you are likely to contend, or will compete once again. If you will not prepare to compete, you can skip this section. The most important mistake I see here is so several gals have the suitable human body for the incorrect federation. Every single federation has its personal judging conditions and a competitor will do inadequately only due to the fact they failed to trouble to analysis which show would be best suited for them. I will give you a excellent true earth example of this. Lately I judged a show whose criteria for the determine round was the gals ought to be a lot more on the curvy softer side with some tone, vs. being additional muscular and athletic with much less bodyfat that other federations may let. At this show a single of the most stunning females I have ever observed came out. She was incredibly proportional, wonderful muscle tone, lean, and athletically shaped with slender hips and waistline and broader shoulders. How did she do at this exhibit? She didn't even place in the top 10! Why? Since she was not what we were instructed to look for and did not fit the requirements. Right after the demonstrate I educated her that she looked great, but this may well not the federation for her. I told her she had much much more of an NPC sort overall body, exactly where a tiny more muscle mass, athletic make, and much less bodyfat is rewarded. The pursuing 7 days I was judging an NPC health, determine, and bodybuilding display and there she was. How did she do? She gained the entire present with all judges voting her variety just one unanimously. Conversely, if your human body kind tends to be additional rounded and toned, but with a minor a lot more bodyfat, broader (but not fat!) hips, you could be far better off competing in say the Physical fitness The us Pageants. If you are likely to compete: (one) locate out precisely what the judging conditions is for that federation and (two) go see these reveals as a spectator for a number of diverse federations and see which one particular your physique, style, etc will suit into very best. (three) You have to determine if you genuinely have the athletic qualities to compete in a fitness competitors (which demands a program) or a figure/bikini opposition. I typically see girls who would do very well in a determine present but genuinely never have the athletic qualities do the routines essential to be aggressive with other athletes in the show. Some exhibits will permit you to do equally competitions and some wont.

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jpweb12 · 8 years ago

Text

The Worst Websites On The Internet. Ever.

We may not judge a book by the cover, but we always judge a business by its website. This is the reality and we have to deal with it.

Back in time, in the early days of the Internet, creating a website was something that only IT guys were capable of making. With today’s advancement of technology and increasing interest for better and easier solutions when designing websites, almost anyone can design websites without much effort or any coding know-how.

However, this also brings some inconveniences since not everyone understands the concepts and principles of website-building. Therefore, sometimes the creativity goes too far away either due to lack of knowledge or experience or simply laziness.

In order to solve this problem, some companies have created website builder apps. Most of them have pretty nice templates, responsive designs, many options for customizing them, and can be used to create attractive websites with a few clicks of a button. But what most people tend to forget is that a website builder is merely a tool. If you don’t have the right vision and you don’t know the design principles, then you will most likely fail to make your site eye-catching, functional, and efficient.

Instead of having a website conveying the right message to your audience, you will get something that will either make people laugh or ask what was in the designer’s mind. Either way, your visitors will leave your web page without giving you any second chance.

Before listing the worst websites I have found on the Internet, let me be clear about some things:

– Firstly, I don’t mean to cause any trouble or pain to anyone, and I am certainly not making fun of web designers. Therefore, I beg the developers of the listed sites not to take offense at my remarks. I am quite sure some of these sites are designed by beginner designers. We all have to start somewhere. Besides, mistakes easily occur if you don’t have any experience.

– Secondly, I’m not talking about those websites that are just too old and haven’t been updated since their inception. Those sites may look unappealing to us now, but surely, they were created while considering the design principles of their time. But if it happens to display some old designs, it may also be because there is something in the design that’s plainly terrible and hideous.

I have listed these websites keeping in my mind several design principles:

Easy to understand navigation;

Proper use of color;

Right use of animation;

An easy-to-use layout;

An aesthetically-pleasing model;

Appropriate to the topic;

The design elements do not hinder content;

Great content that’s easy to find, navigate, consume, and share.

Simply put, the main idea is that I don’t want to shame anyone. Taking into consideration that we are all used to finding and appreciating the best website designs, I think we should also analyze awful designs and learn from such painstaking mistakes.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some websites that are hilariously terrible:

1. Penny Juice (link to www.pennyjuice.com/htmlversion/whoispj.htm)

Penny Juice is a fruit juice concentrate that’s made specifically for childcare centers, preschools, etc. When you get to the website, the first thing you need to do is to choose which version you want to use: either HTML or Flash. Choose wisely!

Once you have chosen the version you want to use, you get to the next page with a simple menu structure and flashy colors that irreversibly hurt your retina. You will also find a copyright notice since 2001-2002. That should explain the horror, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

All of this looks pretty innocent until you click to visit a particular page on the site. That’s when your monitor bursts out. The color scheme is completely overwhelming and drowns the little information left about the product. It is also extremely challenging to navigate through this website, with small links hidden at the bottom of the page.

2. Yale University School Of Art (link to http://art.yale.edu/)

You would expect a college art school to have a lovely website that reflected the kind of education you could get from there. Therefore, you would assume Yale’s site was more appealing to your visual senses. Instead of this, the website leaves you wondering if you are really in the right place.

It uses Ruby on Rails, and it is updated by the faculty and students quite often. But the tiled images in the background and the horrible font choices are just inexcusable. The navigation is pretty user-friendly, but the ghastly use of animated backgrounds is enough to put you off.

3. Patimex (link to http://www.patimex.com/)

This website looks and sounds bad from the very beginning – starting with allowing running Adobe Flash player if you want to enter. OK, maybe if you take each element separately, that wouldn’t be too terrible. But if you put them all together and add the music, then YES – it’s THAT bad. If you go to their actual site (www.wegieldrzewny.pl), it looks quite normal. But this only makes you wonder: “Why is the devil grilling himself in a floating BBQ? What’s with that music? Why? Seriously… Why?”

4. Ling’s Cars (link to www.lingscars.com)

Ling Valentine, the owner of Ling’s Cars, first appeared on the BBC program Dragon’s Den in 2006. The Metro named Lingscars.com as “the worst and weirdest website on the internet” and taking a look at it, I can understand why. It’s filled with flashing graphics, gaudy patterns, and bubble writing.

5. ARNGREN (link to www.arngren.net)

OK, this is probably the ugliest and most confusing website I have ever seen. The enormous quantity of tiny pictures and links does not help us understand the purpose of this web page. When designing your site, remember that less is more. And this is the best example.

6. Uglytub (link to http://uglytub.com)

Are you thinking of replacing your old bath tub? Then you should do it because this website doesn’t really convince you to do otherwise. A combination of flashing poor quality imagery, tiny fonts, and garish colors in conjunction with the limiting frames minimizing the site to a small window in the center of the screen sure makes this the worst offenders on the web.

7. Jamilin (link to www.jamilin.com)

Jami Lin “Love Love, LOVES helping you to evolve” but maybe she could use a little of her own advice to revamp her website. Collages of images, videos, links, adverts, and copy are all crammed into the center of the site. This surplus of images and text is a little overwhelming and blocks the clear navigation

8. Gatesnfences (link to www.gatesnfences.com)

At first glance, this Florida-based company has a website that’s stuck in the past. And taking into consideration that you will find a copyright notice of 2004-2008, I think I’m right. At the same time, they’ve decided that the best way to increase the user engagement is to bombard them with A LOT (and I mean A LOT) of information straight on the homepage. Some small, low-quality images are scattered throughout the page, but nothing to break up the huge amount of text. It hurts. Badly. Maybe they should learn that sometimes less is more.

9. James Bond Museum (link to www.007museum.com)

For decades, James Bond has been gracing the silver screen as a charismatic, charming and ultra-slick secret agent. Yet, the website for the James Bond museum is SOOO FAR AWAY from the classy image of the secret agent that it’s offensive. Its stark background and Times New Roman typeface make it obnoxious. Barely expressing the character of Bond himself, the homepage is an overwhelming, sour and incomprehensible mix of menus, hyperlinks, and random imagery.

10. Rudgwick Steam & Country Show (link to www.rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk)

Although this may not be the worst website, it’s still terrible. I think the developers tried to have a responsive design, but they failed miserably. If you visit the website using a phone, it doesn’t look that bad, but if you use a laptop or a desktop, the website looks like an image placed in the center of the screen. What’s more, they’ve chosen a design packed with primary colors and a collage of random images. The relevant information is there, but it is confusing due to the busy layout.

11. Irishwrecksonline.net (link to www.rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk)

In contrast to many websites listed here, this one lacks not just a catchy title, but also text. Larger pictures, a new layout, and functional links would help make this website more inviting and visually-appealing.

12. Constellation 7 (link to www.constellation7.org/Constellation-Seven/Josiah/Index.htm)

OK, I think this is one of the ugliest websites I have ever seen. I’m not kidding. They use a blend of conspicuously bright colors throughout the entire site, bold and colorful typography, and some animations that are making you run as far as you can. Fortunately, they don’t have any music.

13. Mojo Yogurt (link to http://mojoyogurt.com/#/home)

Again, this is a website built using Flash. The whole design wouldn’t be that terrible, had it not been for that horrible, annoying background music, and sound effect that you can’t pause. Just to let you know, dearest Mojo Yogurt, people who visit your website are trying to look for your product, not listen to that awful music.

14. Industrial Painter (link to http://industrialpainter.com)

This company has chosen to have irritating music in the background with no option for you to turn it off. Along with Flash-based, horrible design and low-quality images you get the idea of a terrible-terrible site. I really don’t know how they plan on attracting customers with such a website.1

15. Superior Web Solutions (link to http://industrialpainter.com)

This is the company’s website that built Industrial painter. Taking into consideration that it’s a web design company, I can say it’s even worse than Industrial Painter. That’s mainly because you expect a web design company to know about the latest trends and design. Instead, we find annoying music, along with a non-responsive, flash based, and horrible homepage design. I cannot overstate how horrific this website looks.

Read More at The Worst Websites On The Internet. Ever.

from IT Feed https://webdesignledger.com/worst-websites-ever/

#IT Feed

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regulardomainname · 8 years ago

Text

The Worst Websites On The Internet. Ever.

We may not judge a book by the cover, but we always judge a business by its website. This is the reality and we have to deal with it. Back in time, in the early days of the Internet, creating a website was something that only IT guys were capable of making. With today’s advancement of technology and increasing interest for better and easier solutions when designing websites, almost anyone can design websites without much effort or any coding know-how. However, this also brings some inconveniences since not everyone understands the concepts and principles of website-building. Therefore, sometimes the creativity goes too far away either due to lack of knowledge or experience or simply laziness. In order to solve this problem, some companies have created website builder apps. Most of them have pretty nice templates, responsive designs, many options for customizing them, and can be used to create attractive websites with a few clicks of a button. But what most people tend to forget is that a website builder is merely a tool. If you don’t have the right vision and you don’t know the design principles, then you will most likely fail to make your site eye-catching, functional, and efficient. Instead of having a website conveying the right message to your audience, you will get something that will either make people laugh or ask what was in the designer’s mind. Either way, your visitors will leave your web page without giving you any second chance. Before listing the worst websites I have found on the Internet, let me be clear about some things: – Firstly, I don’t mean to cause any trouble or pain to anyone, and I am certainly not making fun of web designers. Therefore, I beg the developers of the listed sites not to take offense at my remarks. I am quite sure some of these sites are designed by beginner designers. We all have to start somewhere. Besides, mistakes easily occur if you don’t have any experience. – Secondly, I’m not talking about those websites that are just too old and haven’t been updated since their inception. Those sites may look unappealing to us now, but surely, they were created while considering the design principles of their time. But if it happens to display some old designs, it may also be because there is something in the design that’s plainly terrible and hideous. I have listed these websites keeping in my mind several design principles: * Easy to understand navigation; * Proper use of color; * Right use of animation; * An easy-to-use layout; * An aesthetically-pleasing model; * Appropriate to the topic; * The design elements do not hinder content; * Great content that’s easy to find, navigate, consume, and share. Simply put, the main idea is that I don’t want to shame anyone. Taking into consideration that we are all used to finding and appreciating the best website designs, I think we should also analyze awful designs and learn from such painstaking mistakes. With that being said, let’s take a look at some websites that are hilariously terrible: 1. Penny Juice (link to www.pennyjuice.com/htmlversion/whoispj.htm) Penny Juice is a fruit juice concentrate that’s made specifically for childcare centers, preschools, etc. When you get to the website, the first thing you need to do is to choose which version you want to use: either HTML or Flash. Choose wisely! Once you have chosen the version you want to use, you get to the next page with a simple menu structure and flashy colors that irreversibly hurt your retina. You will also find a copyright notice since 2001-2002. That should explain the horror, but I wouldn’t bet on it. All of this looks pretty innocent until you click to visit a particular page on the site. That’s when your monitor bursts out. The color scheme is completely overwhelming and drowns the little information left about the product. It is also extremely challenging to navigate through this website, with small links hidden at the bottom of the page. 2. Yale University School Of Art (link to http://art.yale.edu/) You would expect a college art school to have a lovely website that reflected the kind of education you could get from there. Therefore, you would assume Yale’s site was more appealing to your visual senses. Instead of this, the website leaves you wondering if you are really in the right place. It uses Ruby on Rails, and it is updated by the faculty and students quite often. But the tiled images in the background and the horrible font choices are just inexcusable. The navigation is pretty user-friendly, but the ghastly use of animated backgrounds is enough to put you off. 3. Patimex (link to http://www.patimex.com/) This website looks and sounds bad from the very beginning – starting with allowing running Adobe Flash player if you want to enter. OK, maybe if you take each element separately, that wouldn’t be too terrible. But if you put them all together and add the music, then YES – it’s THAT bad. If you go to their actual site (www.wegieldrzewny.pl), it looks quite normal. But this only makes you wonder: “Why is the devil grilling himself in a floating BBQ? What’s with that music? Why? Seriously… Why?” 4. Ling’s Cars (link to www.lingscars.com) Ling Valentine, the owner of Ling’s Cars, first appeared on the BBC program Dragon’s Den in 2006. The Metro named Lingscars.com as “the worst and weirdest website on the internet” and taking a look at it, I can understand why. It’s filled with flashing graphics, gaudy patterns, and bubble writing. 5. ARNGREN (link to www.arngren.net) OK, this is probably the ugliest and most confusing website I have ever seen. The enormous quantity of tiny pictures and links does not help us understand the purpose of this web page. When designing your site, remember that less is more. And this is the best example. 6. Uglytub (link to http://uglytub.com) Are you thinking of replacing your old bath tub? Then you should do it because this website doesn’t really convince you to do otherwise. A combination of flashing poor quality imagery, tiny fonts, and garish colors in conjunction with the limiting frames minimizing the site to a small window in the center of the screen sure makes this the worst offenders on the web. 7. Jamilin (link to www.jamilin.com) Jami Lin “Love Love, LOVES helping you to evolve” but maybe she could use a little of her own advice to revamp her website. Collages of images, videos, links, adverts, and copy are all crammed into the center of the site. This surplus of images and text is a little overwhelming and blocks the clear navigation 8. Gatesnfences (link to www.gatesnfences.com) At first glance, this Florida-based company has a website that’s stuck in the past. And taking into consideration that you will find a copyright notice of 2004-2008, I think I’m right. At the same time, they’ve decided that the best way to increase the user engagement is to bombard them with A LOT (and I mean A LOT) of information straight on the homepage. Some small, low-quality images are scattered throughout the page, but nothing to break up the huge amount of text. It hurts. Badly. Maybe they should learn that sometimes less is more. 9. James Bond Museum (link to www.007museum.com) For decades, James Bond has been gracing the silver screen as a charismatic, charming and ultra-slick secret agent. Yet, the website for the James Bond museum is SOOO FAR AWAY from the classy image of the secret agent that it’s offensive. Its stark background and Times New Roman typeface make it obnoxious. Barely expressing the character of Bond himself, the homepage is an overwhelming, sour and incomprehensible mix of menus, hyperlinks, and random imagery. 10. Rudgwick Steam & Country Show (link to www.rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk) Although this may not be the worst website, it’s still terrible. I think the developers tried to have a responsive design, but they failed miserably. If you visit the website using a phone, it doesn’t look that bad, but if you use a laptop or a desktop, the website looks like an image placed in the center of the screen. What’s more, they’ve chosen a design packed with primary colors and a collage of random images. The relevant information is there, but it is confusing due to the busy layout. 11. Irishwrecksonline.net (link to www.rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk) In contrast to many websites listed here, this one lacks not just a catchy title, but also text. Larger pictures, a new layout, and functional links would help make this website more inviting and visually-appealing. 12. Constellation 7 (link to www.constellation7.org/Constellation-Seven/Josiah/Index.htm) OK, I think this is one of the ugliest websites I have ever seen. I’m not kidding. They use a blend of conspicuously bright colors throughout the entire site, bold and colorful typography, and some animations that are making you run as far as you can. Fortunately, they don’t have any music. 13. Mojo Yogurt (link to http://mojoyogurt.com/#/home) Again, this is a website built using Flash. The whole design wouldn’t be that terrible, had it not been for that horrible, annoying background music, and sound effect that you can’t pause. Just to let you know, dearest Mojo Yogurt, people who visit your website are trying to look for your product, not listen to that awful music. 14. Industrial Painter (link to http://industrialpainter.com) This company has chosen to have irritating music in the background with no option for you to turn it off. Along with Flash-based, horrible design and low-quality images you get the idea of a terrible-terrible site. I really don’t know how they plan on attracting customers with such a website.1 15. Superior Web Solutions (link to http://industrialpainter.com) This is the company’s website that built Industrial painter. Taking into consideration that it’s a web design company, I can say it’s even worse than Industrial Painter. That’s mainly because you expect a web design company to know about the latest trends and design. Instead, we find annoying music, along with a non-responsive, flash based, and horrible homepage design. I cannot overstate how horrific this website looks. Read More at The Worst Websites On The Internet. Ever. http://dlvr.it/PbGZZ6 www.regulardomainname.com

#Editors Pick #Featured #Inspiration #Reviews #UI

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othersportsnews-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Chicago White Sox prospect Yoan Moncada is prepping for his big league debut

New Post has been published on https://othersportsnews.com/chicago-white-sox-prospect-yoan-moncada-is-prepping-for-his-big-league-debut/

Chicago White Sox prospect Yoan Moncada is prepping for his big league debut

All 30 groups remaining Guatemala impressed: Moncada had explosive velocity on the bases and the muscular develop of an NFL linebacker. Some scouts when compared him to Mike Trout. Other individuals reported they had been reminded of Robinson Cano. He had the flexibility to perform anywhere in the infield, and he could hit for uncooked electrical power from both sides of the plate. Very best of all, compared with some Cuban gamers who failed to defect right until their late 20s, Moncada had his total primary in advance of him.

It had all the makings of an clear bidding war in the open up industry of international cost-free company, and in the conclusion it arrived down to the Yankees, Dodgers, Padres and Pink Sox. Moncada arrived to the U.S. at the conclusion of 2014 and moved in with Josefa and David. David, a CPA who’d hardly ever labored in baseball, became his agent and represented him in negotiations. The earlier history signing bonus for an intercontinental beginner was $8.27 million. By late February, the Pink Sox had improved their give for Moncada to $31.five million, and they had to pay back yet another $31.five million to the league for exceeding its paying out restrict for international signings.

“I truly feel totally exhausted,” David reported, standing in the family’s St. Pete kitchen area, as soon as the offer was last but not least signed.

“I truly feel so abundant!” Moncada responded.

It took him awhile to realize just how a lot dollars he had currently gained. David discussed that Moncada had just produced the equivalent of 656,250 several years of operate, primarily based on his $4 every month salary actively playing for Cienfuegos. Even now, when Moncada got his very first test, the whole was a lot much less than what he’d been anticipating, and he arrived to David in a rage, persuaded he’d been robbed. “He failed to genuinely know about the thought of taxes,” David suggests. “I had to print out a pay back stub and demonstrate him why it was 35 per cent much less than he believed.”

Even at 65 per cent, Moncada had dollars to spend on drones, video games, toys and clothing. He sometimes invested $1,five hundred or a lot more for the duration of nights out, David suggests. After he acquired the 2nd $200,000 motor vehicle, Josefa tried out to converse some perception into him. “You are currently being an fool, just wasting all this dollars,” she informed him. “What are you even imagining?”

“Go massive or go property,” he informed her with a smile.

A showcase in Guatemala spurred the Pink Sox’s $31.five million offer for Moncada. Prensa Libre/AP Photograph

“They are like my American dad and mom,” Moncada suggests of Josefa and David, and to them it sometimes felt as if they had been increasing a moody teen. They known as Moncada “the kid,” and frequently he could be sweet and endearing, staying up late to video-chat with his relatives in Cuba. But he could also be stubborn and aggravating. David permit him push his 10-yr-outdated Toyota Sienna, and Moncada sped absent so speedy he “almost got that motor vehicle up on two wheels,” David suggests. Moncada identified Twinkies at Wal-Mart and begun consuming them by the box, sometimes taking in a lot more than 10 in a one sitting down even as the Pink Sox had been hoping to counsel him on diet regime and nutrition. When David took Moncada to the dentist in the winter of 2015 — the very first dental go to of Moncada’s life — he had about 15 cavities, David suggests.

And then there had been the mornings when Moncada only would not wake up, which drove Josefa mad. As a former flight attendant, she had been taught that currently being late intended dropping her position. “You aren’t truly worth $31 million to any one just staying all working day in bed,” she would tell Moncada, and sometimes she would beat him with a pillow to get him out of bed for exercise.

But as soon as Moncada last but not least got to the ballpark, his coaches and teammates gushed about his willingness to operate in the batting cage and subject extra grounders. “The only location I’m comfortable is on the subject, so I’m generally heading to continue to be as long as I can,” he suggests. His progress was obvious: He stole 94 bases in his very first 187 minor league games and flashed sufficient electrical power to increase swiftly through Boston’s program.

From prolonged spring training, to Class-A, to Class-A Highly developed, to Double-A, just about every shift introduced yet another seismic cultural changeover. He questioned the Pink Sox to indication Mesa to a $200,000 deal, and Mesa traveled and played with Moncada in the minor leagues. The two good friends ate at Chipotle virtually just about every working day for the reason that Moncada had mastered the menu and he could reliably get in Spanish.

Anytime he moved to a new metropolis, the Hastingses would go there very first to discover him an condominium, choose treatment of any paperwork and supply his cars and trucks. Then they would go again property to Florida and hope. “It can be generally just kind of, ‘OK, excellent luck, fingers crossed,'” David suggests.

What David usually concerned about most was Moncada’s dollars: “I glance at his lender account every morning to see if he’s making massive faults or very little faults,” David suggests.

What Josefa concerned about most was his status: “If I was in his place, there would be no women, no golf equipment, no cars and trucks,” she suggests. “I would be both on the subject or locked in my space. But that requires wisdom, and sadly which is something all of his dollars cannot buy.”

Concerning every of his recurrent moves, Moncada would usually occur again to Florida to see Josefa and David. He acquired a house on their road and invested afternoons sitting down at Josefa’s cafe, in which a gigantic map of the entire world hung on the wall. Often, Moncada and Josefa would stand jointly under the map and she would level to in which he was heading next. “Incredibly hot or chilly?” he would generally talk to, and then as soon as in a while he would set his finger on the map and trace the length among his new destination and Cuba.

“I understood I wanted to occur right here to perform baseball, but I hardly ever believed about dealing with all of this,” Moncada suggests. Jose Mandojana for ESPN

Then, in December Josefa was all of a sudden pointing him to Chicago, and at very first Moncada was devastated. He had scarcely produced it to the big leagues in Boston, actively playing for the duration of a handful of games with the Pink Sox last September, but he had imagined paying out his vocation there. In twenty five several years, no team had ever traded absent the No. 1 prospect in baseball, and now Moncada and a couple of other individuals had been swapped for Sale, an ace getting into his primary. “It can be reasonable to say that Yoan took it as a quite particular rejection,” David suggests.

But that very first evening soon after the trade, Moncada acquired a text information from a person of his new teammates, All-Star very first baseman Jose Abreu. The two guys had as soon as played jointly in the infield for Cienfuegos when Moncada was seventeen, and now around text messages Abreu informed Moncada about the White Sox’s deep Cuban custom, owning highlighted practically 20 Cuban-born gamers, together with Minnie Minoso, Orlando Hernandez, Jose Contreras and Alexei Ramirez. “This team will get it,” Abreu texted that evening.

Abreu considered Moncada was a future All-Star. Moncada, meanwhile, saw in Abreu a “mentor and close friend whose case in point I can only hope to observe.” Abreu had transitioned to life in the U.S. a lot more swiftly than virtually any other Cuban participant, defecting to Haiti by boat in 2013 and earning a location in the MLB All-Star Sport much less than a yr afterwards. Like Moncada, he had been produced quickly abundant, with a $68 million deal that was the most significant in White Sox historical past. Like Moncada, he had also invested some of that original dollars getting luxurious cars and trucks from Vega. “He is encouraging me navigate the video game but most of all the lifestyle,” suggests Moncada, whose locker was side-by-side with Abreu’s at spring training. “He is a couple of several years in advance of me in that. I try out to observe what ever he does.”

Moncada will begin this time in Triple-A Charlotte, with the likely to occur up as early as April or Could (nevertheless virtually definitely not prior to a mid-April series versus the Twins, allowing the White Sox to help save a yr of Moncada’s company time). During spring training, he confirmed off his electrical power but also struck out in fourteen of his very first 41 at-bats and produced a couple of routine mistakes at 2nd foundation. And so he invested extra time with Abreu in the batting cages and labored to widen his fielding stance. In his remaining seven games in Arizona, he went 10-for-22 with 4 doubles, three property runs and eleven RBIs.

A person evening this spring, soon after most of the team had currently remaining the facility, Moncada completed in the cage and walked by yourself to the team’s parking lot, in which a person of Vega’s cars and trucks was waiting. It was the BMW X6, with forged wheels and purple-and-white trim. On the front of the hood was Moncada’s personalized logo, an artful blend of his initials, which he had also a short while ago inked on to his neck.

He had a overall body designed for baseball and a motor vehicle designed for velocity, and in both areas his tattooed initials appeared clean and purely natural. He begun the car’s ignition and zipped out of the parking lot, logo primary the way, even if it wasn’t yet crystal clear precisely what that logo would occur to signify.

Eli SaslowSaslow is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine and a Pulitzer Prize-successful employees writer at The Washington Write-up.

Supply hyperlink

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carltschweitzer · 8 years ago

Text

The 4 Keys to Learning Anything

By Leo Babauta

I’ve been studying how to learn, as I try to teach myself new skills … and absolutely love learning new things. But I keep running up against a few key problems:

Becoming overwhelmed. The more you learn, the more you see there is to learn. The beginner doesn’t know how much there is to study, but as you start to explore, you find new caverns, and they are immense. Then as you explore those caverns, you find even bigger ones. It can become overwhelming, and lots of people eventually give up because of this feeling.

Failure feels bad. If you want to learn to play chess, you’ll lose a lot at first. Then you get better, and lose a lot. In fact, no matter how good you get, you’ll probably lose a bunch of times. This happens not just with games, but with learning languages, physical skills, academic subjects — you’ll fail a lot. There are ways to set it up so that you rarely fail, but then you’re not really learning much.

It can feel like you’re just treading water. In a fantasy world, you’d learn at a breakneck pace, downloading new skills and knowledge into your brain like they do in the Matrix. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. You read and read, or practice and practice, and a lot of the time you barely get better. Other people seem to be learning at twice your speed! Sometimes it seems like you’re not learning anything. This can be really discouraging.

There’s always a strong feeling of uncertainty. Humans don’t like the feeling of uncertainty, for the most part. We avoid it, become afraid of it, get angry or frustrated. But when you try to learn a new skill, it’s almost all uncertainty. You constantly forget things, you don’t understand anything, or when you think you do understand, you try it and it turns out you didn’t understand at all. This feeling of uncertainty causes a lot of people to give up.

OK, so we all want to learn skills — new languages, programming skills, physical skills, history, math, writing, games, so much more. But these four problems stand in our way.

Let’s take them on. We’re going to discover four keys to overcoming these four problems, so that we can tackle anything we want to learn.

First Key: Small Focuses

Yes, it’s true: there’s a vast amount of things to learn, and it can be overwhelming. But that’s true of life itself — there’s so much to see and do, and no one can ever do it all. All we can do is one step at a time.

So we have to not focus on all the innumerable huge caverns that have yet to be explored … but the ground right in front of us.

What small area can we study right now?

What small focus can we conquer? What little area can we explore?

Ignore all the vast uncharted territories for now, shut the rest of the world out, and just be in this one place. Just study this one thing. One small step at a time, a few small steps each day, and we can explore a lot over time.

Second Key: Flip Failure on Its Head

Did you all see the video of Deepmind’s AI after it taught itself to walk? The amazing thing about this is that it did all of that through trial and error. Every single mistake was a lesson.

In fact, that’s similar to how we learn. We don’t know that our knowledge is wrong until we test it out and see whether it works. We can’t truly learn something new until we try and fail a bunch of times.

We all learned to walk that way … wobbly, falling down, until we got the hang of it. That’s also how we learned to talk, to feed ourselves with a spoon, etc. Sure, we had the benefit of being able to see examples of doing it right, but we had to try and fail a whole lot of times before we got it.

Unfortunately, at some point we start to fear failure, but that fear is just holding us back. Failure is really the learning process. Every loss at chess, every falling down when we’re learning a backflip … those are lessons.

So instead of looking at failure as “bad,” we have to flip it on its head. Failure is a lesson, an opportunity to get better, a wise old teacher telling us where we need to focus our learning efforts.

When you fail, smile and say thank you for the lesson.

Third Key: Find Enjoyment in the Process

It’s a tough thing when we feel we’re not making progress, that things are moving too slowly. We want to get to expert level (or at least “advanced beginner”) as quickly as we can, and when it takes five times as long, we can get frustrated.

The answer is to forget about the pace of our progress, but just focus on enjoying the process of learning.

It’s like when you go on a hike, and you’re fixed on getting to your beautiful destination … but it’s a long journey, and you get frustrated by how long it’s taking. Instead, focusing on the journey itself is a better way of traveling. Enjoy the scenery, the exertion, the beauty of each step.

When we’re learning, instead of focusing on where we want to be, we can enjoy the particular focus we’re studying right now. We can be grateful for where we are, for having the opportunity to learn at all. We can enjoy the falling down, and any progress we’ve made so far.

Whenever we find ourselves wishing things were moving faster, that’s a good sign to change focus to where we are.

Fourth Key: Learn to Relish Uncertainty

I think the uncertainty of learning something new, of being in such a foreign place, is probably the most difficult thing. We don’t like that uncertainty, and we usually shy away from it.

With conscious practice, we can change our feeling about uncertainty. We can start to find the joy in this place of not knowing, of not being in complete control, of not having solid ground under our feet. That might sound weird, but it’s possible.

Let’s take a few examples:

You’re learning to play Go, and you are playing your first few games. You keep losing, you don’t have any idea where you should play, you worry that every stone you place is a big mistake. This is a place of uncertainty. Can you enjoy this process of trying something and not knowing how it will turn out? Be curious about what might happen when you play your moves? See it as an exciting opportunity to experiment, to explore, to play and have fun!

When you’re learning a language, you might be deeply afraid of speaking, because you don’t know what you’re doing (uncertainty). But if you don’t speak, you’ll never learn. So instead of fearing this uncertainty, you dive in and make a complete fool of yourself. Better to be a fool who’s learning than the chicken who doesn’t learn anything new. It’s like dancing wildly with random moves in the middle of a crowd … just have fun being silly! You can do the same thing with speaking a new language — try it, look foolish, enjoy this place of wild abandon.

When you’re learning to play music, you can get stuck on the certainty of learning songs from sheet music, because it’s easy to just follow pre-written instructions. But you don’t really learn until you put the sheet music away and try to play the song on your own. And you really learn when you try to play without following someone else’s pre-written music — just playing your own song, riffing and making it up as you play. Of course it’s much more uncertain, and will probably suck. But so what? Just have fun and make stuff up. Relish this place of creation and uncertainty.

So uncertainty can be enjoyed if we think of it as play. If we think of it as creation, learning, exploration, curiosity, finding out, experimenting, openness and newness. It’s courage.

Be courageous today, and put yourself in a place of uncertainty. And then let your heart fill up with the freedom of not knowing and flying without a plan.

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symbianosgames · 8 years ago

Link

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

TL;DR: At the bottom.

I'm Jeffrey Nielson. I’m an independent developer coming from a game artist background, who recently started working solo. Now, I'm in the late stages of finishing my second self-directed project, Nova Drift. I'm no expert, but I've had some success, so I want to share some of what I've learned for aspiring small / solo developers, clear up some misconceptions, and also talk about how I got here and what I'm working on now.

Disclaimer:

There are many strategies and approaches to game development. This one is just mine. Also, when I say that solo game development is "working for me", I don't have nearly enough data to know that it will continue to work for me. Having said that, I can say that based on my checkered career, there isn't really a particularly stable place to be in games. Anyone can bomb, and even huge, successful game corporations can lay you off without warning. Because of this, you might as well be doing what you love, whatever that is. In any case, I hope that some of the lessons I've learned benefit you.

(Skip it if you like!)

I started playing around with pixel art in MS paint when I was around 10 years old, mimicking the art style from Genesis JRPGs I loved. At 15, I joined my cousins and their programmer friend who were making a ridiculous shooter-platformer called "Worminator" I'm still amazed we were somehow able to create and distribute (for free) a finished game at this age, given how quickly random collabs tend to go sour as adults. They would later create the sequel, Worminator 3 (yes, they skipped 2, it was that good) I played around with RPG Maker, and later discovered Game Maker. After college, where I studied art & design, I worked for a few game companies creating art and animation in a wide range of styles. I met PixelJam Games during this time, after sending them fan art for one of my favorite indie games. To my great surprise, they offered me contract work as a side job. They would later become my foot in the door to independent game development. Meanwhile, my primary employer's company was bought by Facebook game giant Zynga, and I was swept up along with it. Despite having less-than-no interest in those types of games, I decided to go with it and see what it would do for my career. It ended up being incredibly valuable. I learned from talented and brilliant people, became a far better artist, and most importantly, figured out what I wanted out of life.

Gear Shift

My greatest revelation was that I never truly wanted to be an artist. I didn't carry sketchbooks like the others, practice, or show off personal works. I wrote down ideas and made little games. Art turned out to be a means to an end: to create games. I never considered learning to program because I had been encouraged to be an artist all of my life. I had assumed it was my only entry point to the video game industry... and programming seemed incredibly inaccessible. Once I knew I wanted to be more than a small cog in the machine, I had to try. So, after two years, I put in my resignation. I worked with PixelJam for a few years on many small projects, benefiting greatly from their years of experience both thriving and struggling in the industry. I continued to practice coding with GameMaker, until one day Miles Tilmann of PixelJam suggested I try my hand at it full time for one of their clients. Unsure of myself, I reluctantly accepted.

Last Horizon & Nova Drift

The game was a gravity-based "planet lander" game titled Last Horizon. I drafted a design for the game and got to work prototyping it. Rich Grillotti, PixelJam artist, handled the artwork. For the first time, I had nothing to do with the visuals of a game! The game was meant to be a small browser game, but we soon recognized its potential, and it ballooned into a year long desktop & mobile project. It was really difficult. I had to solve a lot of problems I'd never encountered before, and lost faith a few times. However, to our surprise, the game was a hit on mobile! With the revenue split only four ways, we did alright. I started to wonder just how small a team I could manage. An earlier project of mine, Nova Drift, still interested me and I decided to make it my full time job & first solo endeavor, utilizing PixelJam as a publisher and hiring Miles for audio. Two years later, it’s nearly finished.

Be versatile, know your weaknesses.

The common advice I see given is to specialize in a field that can get you an entry level job, such as art, writing, or programming. This still makes sense, but if you want to work alone, you're going to need to be far more versatile. The trick is to practice by creating (just make something-- anything! As soon as possible!) and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are. Games encompass a huge number of specialized fields, and most people simply won't have time to excell in all of them. Once you know your weaknesses, you can design with these deficiencies in mind, or hire help to fill the gaps. In my case, I had a very strong art and animation background, and a fascination with design. By the end of Last Horizon, I was a pretty solid programmer-- but I'd never had a chance to learn about audio, marketing or production. Now that I'm self directed, those are the areas I contract out, or fill with partnerships. One more thing bears mentioning, and I might start some arguments here, but I believe it to be far easier to be an artist or musician who learns to program than the other way around. Most people can learn to program well enough to create a game in a few years, but developing the arts can take most of your life. My advice is start early, hire out, or both.

Don't underestimate what you can accomplish.

I put off learning to code in earnest for decades. I thought it was "for another kind of person". It’s not. It’s intimidating, but you can learn it piece by piece.

I recommend working for companies before going independent.

...Especially if you plan to work solo. This is for many reasons: First, there is an incredible amount to learn from the success and failure of other people. I can't overstate this: Failing a lot is really, really important. It's a lot better if they're failures you're witnessing, or at least still getting paid for, than failures that burn through your savings. Second, the contacts gained from doing so are too valuable to miss out on. You can benefit from these for the rest of your career. Moreover, working for companies hopefully provides you with a decent amount of startup capital so you don't have to rely on begging, borrowing, or crowdfunding (which is unreliable at best).

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” - Stephen McCranie.

Networking and building contacts early will benefit you in the long term.

They’ll help you get eyes where you need them, cross-promote, and they may know how to solve problems you do not. I made quite a lot of mistakes in this regard. I resisted Twitter and Facebook networking for years, relying on my employers and producers for networking. I failed to direct thousands of DeviantArt followers to my social media for future endeavors. I waited way too long to create Reddit presence and credibility. I never blogged or wrote about what I was doing. Thanks to my producer, I’m OK, but had I done this we’d have two pools of resources to tap!

Beyond the internet, make as many meaningful connections as you can.

Attend conventions, talk to people, attend events, or work in shared dev spaces. Always remember to be polite, giving and gracious. People are far more likely to help you or care about what you're doing if you show genuine interest in them, too. Most of all, do not underestimate yourself or the strength of your passion. The most important contact I have ever made, PixelJam Games, was made by sending them fan art. This small gesture quite literally changed my life. I was hired, creatively galvanized, and relocated to a new state. There, I met my wife whom I’m now traveling the world with while making video games (she is an elementary school teacher, employed by an international school). PixelJam taught me most of what I know about running a business, empowered me to work solo, and continue to be my most valuable business allies and dear friends. I’m not saying that slinging fan art is going to get you your golden ticket, but don’t underestimate the power of a bold initiative and a little fearlessness.

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” - Seneca

Make things, whenever you have time.

Anything that aligns with your passion and your goals. In doing so, you can let your work do the talking for you while you're networking. I got my first game job by showing the art director a little pixel art shoot 'em up game I had created in GameMaker. He told me, "This is the most fun interview I’ve ever done". Even if your first creation is hot garbage, it shows great character to have finished the thing on your own impetus.

Write down all of your ideas, even the bad ones.

Scribbles, diagrams, ideas that are nothing more than titles, your spouse’s bad ideas, everything. Archive all of these, make a collection. You'll find uses for some of them later, and others will coalesce into a greater idea.

Rapid prototyping! Get your hands on it!

Prototype ideas often to find out what works and what doesn't. You really won't know until you get your hands on it in action. Game Maker Studio is an alternative to Unity, and a good tool for prototyping if you're still getting the hang of coding or come from an art background. In fact, I still use it for professional development today. If you have any doubts, look into the great games it’s produced. It’s also great for weekend game jams. (These are awesome for getting reinvigorated during long projects).

Better yet, get other people's hands on it.

When we design, we are sort of in a vacuum and take things for granted. Testers will reveal fundamental problems with your game very quickly that you didn't consider. It may not be easy, but I recommend keeping silent as they play and avoid helping. You won’t be there to help your players once the game is out. Recognize that these frustrations are places where the game fails to convey what is needed of the player. Keep notes. Do this early. Fundamental flaws are not something you want to discover at the 11th hour.

Above all, keep things simple.

The tradeoff for complete control is that you have to be incredibly conservative with scope and features due to lack of manpower. Because I'm designing and programming as well, I can't spend all day polishing a painterly masterpiece. Instead, I choose a simple and stylish aesthetic which allows me to rapidly create art and execute ideas. Undertale is a good example of this working well, as is Super Hexagon, Geometry Wars, and Spelunky.

Don’t make your “masterpiece” your first game!

You should try to keep your first few projects very, very small. Maybe even attempt the tiniest crash course to get all of the problems out of the way. What you do NOT want is to encounter every inevitable hang up and brick wall on your grandest, favorite idea, losing your valuable momentum. That game should be your third or fourth, maybe.

Plan, but not too much.

Nobody's estimates are accurate. Just know that it will take far, far longer than you expect it to. It's very easy for a 3 month game idea to turn into several years if you aren't careful. As you develop, you'll often find that your game starts to deviate from your original concept. This is fine; the game informs its own design. Where you need to be alarmed is when the game idea begins to proliferate, considerably larger than you had originally planned. This is called "feature creep", and depending on your restraint and financial situation, it can either bury a project or improve it. Plenty of people have written on this subject, so I'll keep it short: Decide how much you want to allow your project to grow over time, and be strict about it. One thing I do recommend planning for is systems you plan to port to. Look ahead of time at all of the requirements for getting on things like iOS and Android’s Google Play. Saying these platforms are fussy is… putting it mildly.

Don’t over do it.

Inevitably, as you develop, your skill as a programmer will grow immensely from sheer repetition and immersion. You may be faced with the urge to constantly correct mistakes, over-optimize, and even rip things apart and start over. I suggest not doing this. Instead, get it working well, but accept that your early work will inevitably be below your standards and look forward. Do it right in the next game. Unless it's ruining the performance of your game, that imperfect code won't make a huge difference and it's more valuable to complete the project, start building your audience, and begin earning revenue. Also, be careful not to overreact to feedback. Oftentimes, people know something feels off, but they give the wrong reason why. Trust your instincts and solve the problem the best way you know how.

Simple Ideas.

Did I mention to keep it simple? You should keep it simple. It probably won't work, but you can try, and each time you will get better at it.

Live cheap.

Unless you're very solvent to begin with, the full creative control that solo dev allows you comes with a heavy demand: live and work cheaply. I won't get into the basics such as housing, food, lifestyle, and material possessions, but of course these are important. The big one is staying small: by definition, employees and employers are out of the picture, but that doesn't mean you won't have partners, such as publishers, or work with contractors. In fact, I suggest you do, but keep it to the absolute minimum. I've seen many games (and studios!) wither and die because overzealous creators struck too many deals and split the pie too many different ways, beyond the game's capability to generate cash. Another way this happens is over promising during desperate Kickstarter campaigns. I'll go over this more, later. A big company wants to grow, you should want the opposite: become as lean as physically possible. In doing so you can be agile and focus on our strength: creating a uniquely cohesive product in the way only a lone visionary can. So, generally speaking, if you can do it yourself well, do it. However, be willing to pay generously to hire out work you can't do well. If you can't compose music or write, paying for that could make a huge difference in the reception of your game… and paying well for it means getting it done right, and quickly.

Be cautious about cutting people in.

...For reasons other than money, too. There are many ways people you don't know well can throw you a curve ball, or even kill your game. Look for and learn to read red flags. Ask yourself: Do they have a library of creations to verify their skill and follow-through? Are they earnest and forthright with you? Does it seem like they're trying to sell you something? Are they promising impossible or unlikely things? Is there anyone you trust to vouch for them? Have you protected yourself legally? Just... please be careful. Listen to your gut. I've seen a lot go wrong, and I’ve experienced it, too.

Consider working abroad.

I totally get that this isn’t an option for most people, but if you can manage it, it’s possible to have significantly lower living expenses and still earn globally. (I’m living in Thailand at the moment, where a fairly comfortable life is cheap). If you can’t do this, you don’t have to live in Palo Alto / Seattle / Austin...

Auxiliary Income

Crowdfunding: Use it, don’t need it. These are powerful tools that should be wielded with great care. Platforms like Kickstarter are wonderful, but they're often misused. People rely on it, get caught up in the hype, become desperate, and make too many promises. In the end, many cannot deliver, run out of money, or delay and delay until they’re vaporware. Bottom line: Definitely use it, but never need it. I personally won't ever create a kickstarter campaign until I know for certain I can deliver my product without it. It's great for having extra funds to survive the long stretch, maybe add some nice new features, but I firmly believe that if your game cannot survive without being crowdfunded, it should not be created in the first place. It's too great a risk, because we can never predict what won’t go as planned. The resulting time, morale, and energy sink from a failed campaign can be devastating, and a backed campaign that cannot follow through is even worse.

Backers can’t read your mind.

If you do run a campaign, consider the following: Take nothing for granted. Your game idea may be crystal clear in your head, but if a stranger watches the video and doesn't understand what the game is, they won't be backing it. Remember, you’ve been in a vacuum with the game for a long time. Everyone else has not. Make sure a lot of people see your trailer and provide critical feedback. Show it to hard-ass devs and ask them to be brutal. Show it to me. If you've planned properly, you've budgeted time to fix it.

Don't just prepare your kickstarter page, prepare the update material, too. Get an early start on screenshots, GIFs, press kits, social media, etc. This is all easier if you're fairly late in your game development and already have a lot of information and visuals to work with.

Above all, be honest and as transparent as possible with your backers. They will appreciate it, and it will generate faith in you. If they believe supporting you will reflect well on them, they will be far more likely to help you spread the word and get more backers. I hear Steam early-access and Patreon can be also great sources of income during development, but I haven’t tried them.

Self Promotion

It’s OK to ask for help. Getting used to this was the hardest bit for me, as I tend to prefer hiding in the shadows to the spotlight. You have to do it, and there's nothing wrong with it. Despite what you may instinctively feel, it's pretty hard to get annoyed at an earnest self-promoter, provided they're only asking once. Again, people are far more likely to help you if you show genuine interest in them, too. Start a conversation, talk about what's important to them. Ask them for a signal boost if they're into what you're making. Don't ask for money, and don't ask to trade promo, that's a bit weak. I recommend using Facebook, Twitter, maybe a blog if you enjoy it.. Having a separate Twitter and Facebook for work and personal can be useful. Good hashtags to use are #indiedev and #gamedev. Post a lot, show your passion, and as long as you're respectful and your product is good, people will help you.

Don’t go crazy.

Bear in mind that working alone, creatively, can have some psychological tolls. When you work for years on something important to you, it's easy to give in to doubt and anxiety. The longer you work on it, the greater it seems to need to be to live up to that. You keep raising the bar, but whenever you do, every aspect of the game has to rise up. Distraction, too, can become a constant problem to the developer who disengages with their creation. It can get bad.

Some things you can do to counter this:

Move around. Work from cafes, outside, or in shared work spaces in cities.

Don’t make your sleep-zone or gaming-zone be your work area. That separation helps you relax during off-time.

Take advantage of your flexible schedule. If it works for you, occasionally break up your work day and enjoy the daylight outside.

Get and give feedback from developers you trust, who are also making awesome things. I’m always surprised how much this small thing matters and inspires.

During the drag of a long project, take days to work on something else. Game jams, or new ideas. (I make nerdy charts and skill trees for future games)

You should love it.

Let’s face it, if you can make a game, there are much easier ways to use your talents to make lots of money. If you’re in this field, it should bring you joy. If that’s not happening, and it’s not on the horizon, you should reconsider the path you’re on.

If you made it this far, awesome. Thank you for listening. I’m happy to answer any questions you have in the comments. Ask me anything! Also, please take a look at my game in the link at the bottom, and if you’re into it, spread the word.

TL;DR:

Work for a company first, earn some coin, exp, and recruit allies.

Try to become versatile, and don’t underestimate what you can learn.

Determine your strengths and weaknesses, and know how to fill in the gaps with help.

Spend good money on things you can't do well.

Start building an online following ASAP.

Write all of your ideas down, bad ones too.

Create, a lot. Good things, bad things, just create.

Get people to test early, because you're in a vacuum and take things for granted.

Don’t try to make your first game your masterpiece.

Plan, but not too much.

Don't over-optimize or start over, instead do it better the next time.

Finish projects and don't get ahead of yourself.

Everything you make increases your residual income, brand strength, and freedom.

Keep your business as simple and as small as you can.

Be careful who you sign on with and what you sign up for.

Live cheaply.

Don't "feature creep".

Crowdfund for extra money, or use early access but never rely on these. Avoid the "cycle of need".

Promote and share often, don't be afraid to ask for help, but don't be annoying either.

Care about what other people are doing and they will care about your work.

Master solitude, self-doubt, and distraction.

Love what you are doing, and if you don’t, change course.

Nova Drift Kickstarter and Trailer

#IFTTT #Blogger

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