#so my goal is post more ...even if its dumb sketches

[skimmeh]

Pspspspspsps Tumblr following! How's it going, man's nearing the end of my uni grind hah ... I'll be free soon!!!! I miss posting more ahh

[sabrerine911]

Unholy Trinity in frigid lands and jolly spirits

Wanted to sketch something sorta holiday related with the 3 redhead degenerates that have been keeping me sane trough the years XD

This year has been...something, cant say its been particularly great, had goals and I feel like I failed most of them. Was supposed to continue big comic projects, find an alternate job(cause Im barely standing with commissions alone), no luck there and no luck increasing my prices cause of something traumatizing that killed a lot of my confidence. Wanted to reconnect with real life friends and that didnt go anywhere(Im still good with them but we just dont talk/hangout and I didnt have the energy to do it this year). Managed to reconnect with some online friends, even if in a disappointingly sparse manner( and not all of them)

Hasnt been great HOWEVER here is the weird twist on this post.

I usually am 100% on being a self hating piece of garbage but today I want to cherish something that I made.

Wanna say that Im thankful for the existence of my Unholy Trinity. These redhead degenerates have been my comfort characters for more than half a decade. Making them trough the different games and keeping myself happy with dumb comics with them has truly kept me from some dark moments and I cant say how grateful I am for it. And while I did my absolute best to make them as different as possible from me there is always some small pieces of relatability for me personally that I gave them. I want to thank everyone that has been enjoying the pieces(be it small skits or actual sequential work) with them and I am beyond thankful for the people that love my 3 vampire hunting redheads. It truly means the world to me.

SO I thank you all and I wish you all a happy Holiday!

Ps: the joke is that Beth and Galmar are immune to the cold(a race trait they have) while Cerise is very sensible to it

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Alliance

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Leicester Alliance I therefore have below the male Deer, Almyran and former Goneril indentured servant Cyril, runaway Alliance noble Balthus, and Alois because his biography states that he’s the son of a merchant family. The Alliance is the nation most associated with successful mercantilism, so there.

The Empire

The Kingdom

Claude

Indecipherable from the start. The alluring shirtless selfie and goofy profile read like a fun and easy lay, but rather than sending nudes he engages in long meandering conversations that last for days or weeks before the first meeting. An expert at drawing people out while revealing almost nothing of himself in return, this takes on more literal dimensions when talk and pictures get more explicit; he’ll respond to dick and ass pics with vaguely positive emojis but deflect repeated requests to send some of his own, but he’s so disarmingly chatty that few guys get angry about this. In-person encounters are similarly frustrating in a way that’s hard to convey, as he’s eager to get his hookups naked and cumming via whatever method expedites the process with as little effort on his part. He’s left more than one satisfied but confused partner wondering some time after their meeting if he’s even really into guys at all, or if he’s playing out some weird service kink or vicarious voyeurism. Whatever the case he’s not much the dating type, not because he’s closeted or non-monogamous but because he has other priorities that don’t mesh well with long-term companionship. A shame too, when he’s become a permanent part of the masturbatory fantasies of many a man with whom he’s had even the briefest of encounters (particularly tops, who see in him a cocky bottom who desperately needs to get wrecked). That’s mostly all it is with him though: just fantasies, quick and dirty and unfulfilling because sex is apparently little more than a means for him to connect with people who may help him reach something bigger. Open-minded about his partners’ kinks, but is extremely touchy about race play; he’s aware that he has an ambiguous look about him, and does not appreciate anyone bringing that up even if the intention is completely innocent.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: your erogenous zones, your fetishes, your guilty pleasures

Favored gift: a lavish dinner, not for the expense but for the pleasure of sharing it

Lorenz

You may not like the hair, or the overwrought floral motif, or the polite but pointed way he pursues dates with the men he’s scoping out, but it’s undeniable that his reputation precedes him as someone who is known and who is worth knowing in the community. He’s not as slutty as that suggests, far from it, but he does enjoy his lunch dates and his inordinately expensive shopping dates and generally being as publicly social as it is humanly possible to be. Has an assortment of fem bottom BFFs on speed dial who are always up to the minute with him on social media, but it turns out he’s more versatile than his age and his...expressive fashion sense might imply. Would absolutely love a boyfriend, but judges all his dates in every aspect and considers least of all the size of their dick or what they know to do with it. It’s unusual for him to run across a guy who’s as well-educated and career-oriented as himself who also meets his admittedly snobbish criteria regarding class, and most of the time when he does they make better friends than marriage candidates. Cannot abide poor manners in or out of bed, and has corresponding expectations about proper condom use and prep (also PreP) and won’t hesitate to interrupt a makeout session with a lecture on not fingering him when he just ate an hour ago and he hasn’t had the chance to use an enema yet. Jock types do little for him, although he does have this one celebrity crush of that sort that he holds dear to his heart precisely because it will never, ever happen (although, he does happen to move in adjacent circles....). 

Favored erotic tea time subjects: office sex, hustlers, the tea itself...not like that

Favored gift: his crush’s contact info, also measurements if he can get them

Raphael

His selfies come in two varieties, gym and food, and this perfectly sums him up as a person and a friend and sexual partner. Sociable but not particularly quick-witted, his conversations are filled with emojis and exclamation points and it’s not very long before he’s making invitations to hang out at either his favorite fitness center or one of his many favorite restaurants. Don’t expect much from the latter however, as he favors quantity over quality. Is more or less the perfect boyfriend if you like them big and dumb, and on some level he knows this because he’s clearly comfortable with who he is and the goals he’s set for himself, both in body weight and in life in general. Even nicer, he likes skinny nerds just as much as he likes guys who can hold their own (or even surpass him) during workouts, and he’ll try just about anything once. Not the most skilled at topping or giving head or anything else that demands precision in action, but he’ll always give his best effort anyway. Besides, he makes a great bottom, with enough cushion and stamina to take a really hard pounding and jerk himself to completion in just about the time it takes for him to coax his partner to orgasm. A simple man with simple tastes and an insatiable appetite for food and pleasure and good company, and if it comes to it a sweet and devoted familial sort as well. Doesn’t have much of an imagination for kinks, but the person who shows him how to combine food with sex might be on the receiving end of a marriage proposal right then and there.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: sexy workouts, feeders, power bottoms

Favored gift: food, especially if you get into watching him eat it

Ignatz

Fucking an art student is always a unique experience, and he’s determined not to disappoint. More likely to share pictures of his latest projects than nudes up front, although he welcomes receiving them himself as he’s quick to explain that he draws his influence from all areas of his life. Has a particular fascination with the kind of unintentional eroticism found in certain religious art, which is more likely to be found quietly perplexing than offensive in hookup spaces. Is shy and relatively untested when it comes to sex, and as such he’s a natural fit for tops who love to break in new twinks. Said tops may have to put up with his request to sketch them in the bed or on his sofa afterwards though, because apparently the nude models in his classes just can’t compare to the men who ten minutes prior had their dicks in him. As he gets older and acquires more familiarity with the medium he’ll start to gravitate more toward guys of a similar age and disposition as himself, who can be subjects for his art without the constant demanding to get off. (They still get off with him of course, but he has trouble convincing the less understanding that that’s not his first priority.) Sometimes too he’ll just want someone to cuddle with and tell him that he’s good at what he does and isn’t making any questionable life choices. However, with art being the uncertain career that it is he may find himself one day having to reconcile himself to a sugar daddy to spare him from a mind-numbing day job - or worse, admitting to whatever disapproving relation(s) he’s got that he screwed up his professional prospects and isn’t doing so hot in the dating scene either. Never quite loses his mawkishness in bed, but hopefully he’ll get past his public anxieties with a bit more success. Is not really into the gym bunny types, although they love him to death and he has to admit that all that toned musculature is easy to work with. Keeps the glasses on during sex, or at least until he has an accident with them.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: artistic nudes, sexy statuary, missionary (he likes to watch the top)

Favored gift: a set of professionally done nude selfies, for modeling

Alois

A loving and devoted husband and father, he’s only in the app space because a friend made a joke about them and he just had to check it out. Utterly clueless on the terminology and the rules of etiquette, such as they are, for a place where it’s considered perfectly acceptable to begin conversation with a picture of your erect cock. Needless to say he completely misunderstands the term “daddy” in this context, thinking it naturally applied to him without being aware of all the horny twinks that would be hitting him up as a result. Will eventually be prodded, laughing and blushing the whole time, into taking and sharing some mildly saucy selfies, and the boys go wild for his literal dad bod and hair in just the right places (including on his face; the handlebar variation is a few decades out of date, but that just makes him more endearing in a dorky retro way). It’s not clear initially whether he’s even attracted to men, but after a few months of chatting and swapping pics and perhaps furtively jerking off to the ones he gets he might agree to a discreet encounter or two. Well, they would be discreet if he weren’t always so loud, and if he didn’t always resist everyone’s immediate impulse to shove a dick in his mouth just to get him to shut up by coming up with yet another dumb joke. Doesn’t get much further than the idea of oral anyway, as he’s not the most sexual guy to start with and he can’t quite get past the immature giggling over ass play. Not a bad jerkoff buddy when it’s all said and done provided you can stand all the puns, nor is he all that bad to look at or cuddle with afterwards once he figures out that guys like his hugs too. One can only wonder what his wife thinks of all this.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: (bad) sex jokes, porn, glory holes

Favored gift: links to daddy porn, so he’ll finally figure it out

Cyril

Born into a rough background and forced to get by in some difficult circumstances has left him hardworking to a fault - emphasis on “fault.” His greatest act of teenage rebellion was to be aggressively not rebellious, and he still hasn’t grown out of that mentality as he’s quick to scorn his more carefree and hedonistic peers and wouldn’t even be on the apps at all were he not so privately, guiltily horny all the time. As may be expected this mentality wins him few admirers and even fewer friends, of any age, the more so because he’s inexperienced and still figuring out exactly what he wants from a sexual encounter. Will bottom but has a complex about the implications, but unfortunately most of the guys willing to hook up with him are tops and expect to get it in at least for a little while. Manages better when it comes to swapping head, having experimented with his more adventurous friends in school. His fastidiousness and unusually good eyesight lead him to subconsciously fixate on his partners’ minor bodily blemishes, and since pointing those out never goes over well he’s taking to prefer sex in the dark. He’s absolutely not looking for a daddy and is annoyed at the suggestion, just as much as he’s annoyed by guys who try to turn pillow talk into impromptu therapy sessions regarding his past. Will take a few more years and probably some time away at school to properly find his footing; there’s a no-nonsense if slightly insecure top buried under the fading twinkish exterior, and provided he learns out to mellow out a bit he could be quite popular one day.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: circle jerks, docking, race play (which he feels guilty about)

Favored gift: a cock ring, for those size woes 

Balthus

He was on the wrestling team in school and acquired a notable reputation for his strength and skill in a brawl, although it was also at this time that he realized he was getting hard every time he would throw down with another guy. Deflects this with an exaggerated womanizing demeanor and a blank profile announcing only that he’s looking and saving even the headless torso shot - impressive though that shot is - for messaging. Gets handjobs and blowjobs and occasionally tops, all NSA and very discreet, but his internalized insecurities fortunately do not extend to his partners. This is probably because his preferred types are either closeted muscle bros like himself or self-confident young bottoms with no patience to take anything from him except a hard fuck and a thick load. His awkward younger days will be long past him before he learns to open up to anything more than that, and even then it’s unlikely that he’ll be very relationship-minded. Has to be educated by more experienced partners on lube and prepping a bottom, and it’ll take a lot of drinks and a lot of convincing to get him to try eating ass (he will though, eventually). Bottoming himself is out of the question except perhaps with the most dedicated of vers guys, but put him on the mat with another total top and there are good odds that someone’s going to end up penetrated before it’s over. Speaking of odds, is terrible with money and not domestic in the slightest, but he’s got a rich family that he can theoretically fall back on in a pinch. Not really boyfriend material, more like the ideal perpetually naked roommate with wandering eyes and a boundless libido.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: erotic wrestling, dirty talk, praise kink

Favored gift: a harness and matching jockstrap, he’s got a thing for gear

[unosbarros]

Self reflection

For today's post I thought it would be easy pickings to respond to some of my own historical thoughts that I found worthy of noting down. I won't say much more than that except to say that I haven't let this occupy much time and is a sketch more than a painting.

Human intelligence.

I was thinking about information, the steady increase of entropy, and the way life operates by setting up little cells of control. I then thought about the way in which humans order things as opposed to ameba and slime molds, fungi and such and now I have a sneaking suspicion that we are confusing ourselves that we are particularly intelligent but rather our peculiarity is the scale at which we have managed to be organized (on the city and national scales to some extent say). At this scale we are totally unrivaled, not because we are particularly intelligent at this scale but because at this scale we have no competition.

Basically every other life form can outperform us, cope with more diversity at the scales they operate, be it the viral soup of the seas or the bacteria embedded for eons in the lithosphere, its just we can make things easier for ourselves by eradicating that same diversity to make things super simple for ourselves (dumbed down) by leveraging our totalitarian control of large scale organization.

Power makes even the stupid appear intelligent, whether its a granary falling on a child hiding from the sun, a CEO giving orders to an expert within his own domain, or the ocean swallowing yet another ship.

Not really sure on this one still, it is hard to consider, but I do think that great strides can be made in interpersonal organization and that this has a great impact on apparent intelligence.

What I know.

The outside world is totally unknowable, all that is knowable are the mundane images, sounds, tastes, and feelings that populate our lives, nothing is possible beyond this without changing who we are or making the unusual mundane as well.

Trivially this is true, everything we know is unfortunately known, but the way we know is particular. Within our particularity I see no reason why many things (not all) should not be able to be known. If that means that some essential aspect of the universe will always be beyond our reach then that is so, but if not it is not, and either way it does not prevent us from knowing a great deal else - the problem of time and induction aside.

Poor aspirations.

To ask without question, to listen without judgement, and to act without regret.

These are aspirations to the impossible, goals that cannot be reached within this universe, to ask without question leaves no voice with which to ask, to listen without distinction leaves no sound to be heard, and to act without regret leaves leaves action meaningless in its complete premeditation.

This thought leaves open for me the nature of good questions, the nature of good judgement, and the nature of good regret. Seemingly good questions allow an encodable amount and type of information to be elicited, seemingly good judgement manages this encoding, while regret picks up on information missed due to lack of inquiry and lack of comprehension. Hence the aesthetic is transformed completely, rather than a vacuous angel we see ourselves devoid of every bias except the ones that we see as being ourselves, quietly scanning the horizon and leaving little more than footprints on our travels except where we leave towering monoliths and stepped wells, we are totalitarian moral-artist-engineer-scientists and in our totalising we cannot help but include society in our ego.

Baxter.

I'm sorry for a couple of things. When I got the award for being the shyest here I consoled myself by saying that if I have something to say I say it so here goes. Please eat my cookies and let me get this all of my chest.

You guys deserve someone thinking about your feelings enough that he doesn't leave bleach all over the stuff going in the room. You're more important than the slight inconvenience of slightly more intense wiping with a lighter load of bleach. Seriously I know there are a few things like that I do that must annoy the shit out of some of you sometimes and I should set my goals accordingly. They are the first set of things I'm sorry about and its probably the hardest for a day dreamer like me to face up to.

The other thing I am sorry about is not being honest about who I am at work. As Martel said on Friday I know Joe doesn't care greatly about compounding. I don't think he cares really about the patients we're helping, and it shows when our colleagues over at Fresenius Kabi are talked of like we're playing a zero sum game of rugby where there can be only one winner.  So why do I act day to day like I can do my best to save and sustain lives while the brass explicitly tell us we are trying to undercut the people who have been delivering parenatal solutions with us for so long? I'm not paid enough to be able to help the people I'm hurting so I think now I have to try to talk about us acting with some solidarity and work towards not giving everything over to a system which cares only enough to maintain control of profitability. I believe continuous improvement of our workplace and lives will come faster when we act with sincere intentions and talk plainly about our place in the world. We do enough work here that if we take greater control of it, in a caring fashion, things could change a lot for the better.

What we do here helps people feel better, and even with some window cleaners earning more than me I am going to be happy with that if I can see our work being done wisely, I have no need for the blessings of rugby fans or Wall Street.

I still feel a lot of guilt/friction between how I feel comfortable acting around people and what I feel I owe them, I owe people liberation, I owe them to be honest and to fight alongside them for eudaimonia. To speak of this is embarrassing. I think one of the big things I am learning to improve, which is a casual and energetic friendliness to my peers, will help me gain the skills to speak more freely of my beliefs. This will relieve me of the guilt of suffering my morals quietly and will let me sound the waters of my colleagues sympathies.

[thestudyfeels]

How To NOT Be Depressed.

(Or If You Prefer — How to Be Substantially Happy About Life.) 

WARNING: This is one rollercoaster ride of a post. Proceed with extreme caution. For some, the staggering levels of insight may induce true purpose and re-establish their warrior spirit. For others, side effects may include grammatically incorrect hate or aloof eyerolls. We advise exiting if the said group includes you, for we're very tired of cleaning vomit off the seats.

Step aboard at your own risk.

If you’re one of the brave souls who stayed back to join us, I congratulate you for even I am scared of how crazy this post truly is. Alrighty then, kick back and relax folks, today we’re having a mature, adult conversation. Merely another cheery afternoon spent talking about life and its realities. Not too bad, eh?

Before we begin, spoiler alert! For those of you already turned off by the mention of 'depression’ and packing their bunnies to leave, sit tight. This ISN'T really about depression. This is about HAPPINESS. No clickbait. That got your attention, right butterfly? Nice, now stay.

A welcoming, maybe demanding A/N: Do me a favor and read this in one go. Maybe even plug in those headphones and listen to the songs dedicated to each part as you read. It's long, you have the new Riverdale episode to catch up on, but don't hop away just yet because (I had a couple moments writing this, alright) it's life changing. You'll prolly cry a few tears of realization, nod all nod-able body parts in agreement, beat your chest at random instants 'cause the hype’s too real, and perhaps, if it isn’t too much to hope for, finally go change your life for the better. In case you've forgotten, this'll remind you that there’s always hope, that you're a born conqueror, and you were made to THRIVE, not survive. Convinced? Kay, roll the cams.

   To clarify first-hand, no, I'm not depressed although I’ve experienced mild depression for a period before. Glad to say I'm out of it but I still struggle with tackling what I'm about to detail next.

Insert bitter voice, it’s this: My life is nowhere near I want it to be. Though I know vaguely what I wanna do, I haven't yet figured out how the hell I’m supposed to get there, or how my dream life is to be sketched out. It’s all a blurry mess. Which, to put it bluntly, hurts. I HATE feeling powerless and worthless, roaming about aimlessly.

There are many such moments where I hit the brakes to wonder why I’m not living THE Life already. There have been several times when I curl up and cry a frickin’ Amazon. There are horrible nights where I'm shaking with emotions, but they won't release, leaving me choked. (…not in that way, you hoes. Um, just ruined the dramatic mood with a lame dirty joke, sorry.)

   They say talking helps and that's why I figured I'd drop in. But perhaps more importantly, I wanted to hang because no matter how unfocused the lens may seem at my future, I don't consider myself a dopey loser incapable of the crazy dreams or wild bucket lists I fantasize about– and I thought I'd skip along to remind you that neither should you. (Or maybe I just came to sniff the new appetizers, who knows?)

PS: I also broke a sweat listing six ways to get outta depression– alternatively, to be more of a conqueror– because y'all are always pestering me with asks that go “how do I conquer omg send supplies” (Like, imagine a conqueror saying that! Oh, the crime, the atrocity!)

So yes, you're welcome. Have a feast with this litness.  

The main reason behind people being so frightfully sad, I’ve found, is a huge lack of fulfillment. We don't do what we love, for either— [ 1 ] we aren’t living life the way we want to (since we keep doing things we feel we're supposed to do) OR [ 2 ] because Mama, Papa and Mrs. Carter next door feel that struggling is the only way, and project their traditional beliefs onto us. Either way, whether or not we consciously realize this, subconsciously, we're all hurting because of it. Badly.

That lingering feeling of emptiness never seems to leave. You feel drained every night when you drop into bed, not because you gave it your all, but because you couldn't. And so, we do the next best thing. Drugs. Maybe not literally, but figuratively. We numb out this subconscious pain by binge watching Netflix shows. We deaden ourselves to that discomfort by reading smut in the bathroom or by playing dumb video games all day. We try (and fail) to extinguish this feeling of not ‘being enough’ by having silly flings or fake friendships.

And ultimately, we NUMB ourselves out to LIFE for we can't bear to live the way we're living. There's a reason why “How to Stop Procrastinating” posts are so popular (they’re a blogger’s most foolproof way of paying the month’s rent, and yes, even I'm guilty of a couple). We’re constantly having FOMO and tuning into others' highlights on social media– completely missing out on our own lives in the process. We fail to realize that the culprit is lack of genuine purpose more than zero self-control (or maybe it’s both, but that’s a tale for another day).

[On a side note, obviously I did generalize a bit– video games can be a passion for you, watching shows a way of winding down. But for most, they’re only DISTRACTIONS, just another way of ignoring the calls of life by hanging up the phone.]

   And here's the bitter truth about depression: The longer you wait to start living authentically, the more you start tuning out the inner cries wanting change, the faster your dreams start to ebb away, and the more you'll want to become insignificant. And to me, that's the scariest part of this journey to my dream life.

Nothing frightens me more than knowing that the moment I stop pushing, the very moment I give in to distractions and fears, my goals will stop manifesting themselves and I'll be stuck in this small town with its small people eternally. And THAT, I'm certain, won't be any more fun than working your way through a soggy ham sandwich, ironic as soggy is what life has become. (Yes, I have a thing against soggy sandwiches. They were a kid's worst lunch nightmare.)

   If you relate, and I’m sure you do (it’s probably why you stopped scrolling through cheesy fanfic for ten minutes to read this, I know you amigo) — here are six ways to NOT be depressed. Or more accurately, to gift wrap yourself some sweet ol’ happiness.

You're a Samurai and the Following Be Your Katanas —

Hol’ up. The second you reach the End Card, I want you to drop your Cheerios and implement at least THREE of these six strategies. Just follow the Takeaways, I've made this really simple. And as a rule, one of them has to be this one. (Look, don't whine. If you wanna climb outta that dark hole, you gotta put in some effort. So pop that booty, and let’s get down to business!)

Here’s the most truthful, though cheesy thing I’ll ever say: I would be nowhere I am today without this blog. If not for it, I would most likely be weeping in a dug-out hole somewhere, drowning in my salty little pond of tears and chiming every loser’s favorite words (“there's no point”). Creating this blog gave me a definite purpose – putting out fiery content, dipping myself deep into my newly found passion for writing and influencing, and connecting with other conquerors on the platform.  

I meet a lot of folks, whether at Sad School, Mouldy Mall, or Boring Bus stop, who always seem to be in a state of death-inducing boredom. When asked about their favorite thing to do, they’ll mumble “sleep” or “food” like Siri narrating your cat’s evening routine. And then you see adults, dragging through life mindlessly. Utterly clueless, floating like a piece of driftwood in an ocean bubbling with life. My sympathy quota gets overdosed everytime I think about it.

   To spell it out, find something to do. Anything! Learn a language, try some ballet, take pictures of your neighbor's rose garden, make an art piece and show it to your mom, stitch buttons onto shirts for fun, heck, make an entire shirt out of buttons, take a break from reading smut to write your own, frutify your farts, WHATEVER, just get up and move.

And here’s why – nay, not to keep you engaged or make you feel less worthless, not that bullcrap. It’s to put in gear the journey of figuring out what is the shite that you love doing. Too often we get stuck thinking about what our oh-so-great passion is. Get this, passion is energy. A spark for something. A magical fortune cookie which, when cracked, seems to explain everything, gives you the very reason for being alive. You can only feel that fire, that wild love, when you actually do it. So get cracking is all I’ll say!

Takeaway:

Attempt something. Nah, scratch that, imagine you’re in a sweet shop with shelves lined with free samples and try everything. Pick up that Polaroid cam, take that dreaded history course, buy that children’s cooking kit– in short, start working. Pull out all the stops, get curious, and get creative. In the process, if you promise to try hard enough, you WILL (money back guarantee) find out what makes your little heart burst with mad happiness and would willingly do for free, if needed, because you really are that crazy about it. And that, my dear, will be your oh-so-great-indeed passion. Have no doubt, you’ll never be “bored” again.

Real talk, having a dream is a big deal. And unfortunately, I’ve witnessed, rarely anyone has one to begin with. They’re either more dead than the cheap skeleton I bought for Halloween or believe they have a dream, but in reality, it belongs to mom, dad, or Uncle Sammy. Listen, doing something for someone you love (my Uncle Sammy used to supply me with cold cash whenever he came around, loved that guy) is great! YET, if you’re willing to throw away your life to fulfill others’ expectations, convincing yourself it's because they love you, even when YOUR lonely heart craves bigger things than just a marketing job, then you, my friend? Are the biggest fool. Don’t get offended, we both know it, this girl needn't ramble.

Recently, my relatives were over (nope, sadly not Uncle Sammy) and my cousin and I had a chat about life (correct, I grab every opportunity to do so). It wasn't very exciting I must say, he kept staring off into the distance (I wonder why), but what he SAID is what I'll talk about. After I’d gushed about my dreams, he asked skeptically if being an influencer would still be an ambition two years from now when I graduate. I raised my eyebrows, mock hurt, like eff you son, I ain’t giving up on my dreams! But that question got me thinking.

Life is wild. Unpredictable. An unexpected call, a single person, a random BLOG POST (cough) – can turn your life upside down, sometimes in the affirmative, other times not. This variability of life isn’t uncommon, and everyone experiences some part of it– unpaid student loans, failing startups, talent and art going unnoticed in industries dominated by wealth and connections, you name it. If all of that doesn’t make you run for the Himalayas and abandon any dreams, throw in a quick side dish of dysfunctionale famiglia with a sprinkle of self-image issues.

It ain’t easy, darling. The world is one cruel headmistress; it loves slapping awake the daydreamers and wishful thinkers. That hasn't ever actually stopped the dropouts and class clowns from building castles in the air though. And the common blueprint you notice they follow? Let me introduce you to��  Madness. Obsession. Maniacal obsession, to say. (Yes, I'm done playing with my words.)

   I struggled writing this point. A pestering voice in my head kept mumbling – They'll go back to doing the same sad shit anyway. Um, does anyone even read your posts? Lol, call yourself an influencer, hun. Hesitation started creeping in. Then the irony of the situation struck me. I laughed, shook my head and got back to typing.

We ran out of juicy gossip weeks ago, so here’s your tea served cold: insecurities and self doubt WILL get in the way. That whiny voice was just a mild version of what you face when you go all in. Fear traps you in its cage, and those who prattled behind your back now progress to talking shit in your face. Criticism and self doubt resurfaces, so unless your defenses are strong, you'll be crushed. Destroyed REAL quick.

When hell breaks loose (oh honey, and it WILL), your self defense comprising of maniacal obsession must be well learnt. Let them attack, mock, heck, drag you away from the desk and hurl you at the top of a damn mountain, but you better STILL hike back down, show them the middle finger, and continue working. That's how bulletproof you've gotta be. That's how madly do you have to love your dreams. And if you really think this will be a cake walk or want to continue complaining about Stuart being born with a silver spoon, hop off the train already. Your destination isn't on the tour list.

Look, my dreams terrify me. But they certainly make me feel more alive than complying with what every parent said about getting good grades and holding together a roof on my head. My ambitions set me free, give me a reason to fucking live. And yet, every now and then, something makes me question them. A fear engulfs me, some doubter proclaims I suck, someone I love is so blinded they can't see my vision. And that's okay. My defenses are way stronger. The next day rolls round, and you'll find me hustling again, thriving again. All because I know that even if no one reads my posts (the worst case scenario, I know y'all love me lol), someday in the future, someone will. I know that even if I’m not an influencer yet, if just one reader becomes a conqueror because of my words, it would be a win. A big win. I'd have done my job. All because I’m wildly, yes maniacally, obsessed with my dreams.

So hey, cousin? This influencer thing? This will be my dream long after I've graduated. Till the day I die, and maybe even then I'll rise from my grave to give a dead pal a lively pep talk. My watchtower has just been upgraded, so thank u, next.

Takeaway: 

“General, we've arrived!” Finally! Position those cannons, Martha, let’s talk them through the defenses. All aboard? AHOY MATEY! (wait, that was one for the pirates). Step one, dare to create a dream in your mind’s eye. The bigger, the crazier, and the scarier, the better. Doesn’t matter how impossible it is, don’t care how many voice their opinion against it, just imagine, keep a million possibilities in mind.

Once you see the life you truly want (you’ll know, everything will seem to zing)— have a sip. Become OBSESSED for that life. Thirst after that vision, itch to manifest it, and pine for the satisfaction that’ll come to your soul once it’s made a reality. Fall madly in love with the process and how magical it feel when you do it. And THEN, bellow a loud war cry and charge headfirst into battle, shields held high at all the criticisms. We conquerors never cared much for them anyway.

(play ♬) Picture this: forehead stamped with beads of sweat. Calloused hands working their fingers to the bone and eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. Conjure an image where powerful beats are pulsing hard in your ears, synced with your own elevated heartbeats, and you’re thriving. Performing. Winning. Guess the secret to that? Preparation. Champions prepare. You can’t throw anything to the winds or rely on ‘luck’ or chance to conquer.

Tough days are in everyone’s calendar, be it your extra cheerful neighbor, Sally, or lone wolf classmate, Derrick. We’ve all found ourselves sulking over an awful situation, scooping into mint ice cream to forget mistakes, errands, and ghosting exes. Yet guess what? The solution isn’t the proclaimed “be positive!” or “It all happens for a reason, don’t you worry” - the key is coming up with a method to dodge the discouraging effect these hiccups have on us.   

So every bad day, I bring out a mason jar containing a knot of chits and one secret letter which is, on most days, kept hidden on the top shelf of my cupboard. I make myself comfortable on the bed, read all my bits of paper carefully, including the letter addressed to yours truly, close my eyes, and mentally fight back whatever’s bringing me down.

A short while later, I get up, now a warrior, and go slay the rest of the day like it was my last one on this planet. That jar is my jar. A Conqueror’s jar. One look at those powerful reminders, and I’m grounded once again, the beast within me now unleashed to kill.

Takeaway:

Honey, go get yourself a jar. Along with some papyrus and ink. Then start jotting down. Document past victories, future visions, fears that mean zilch to the person you’re about to become, batty goals you’ve still gotta chase, reminders that the majority will never understand what it is you’re tryna do here, and how that’s perfectly alright 'cause you'll find your conquerors, your squad one day. Create your victory jar. And then go knock ‘em down dead. Bad days stand no chance against you. You’re a winner, a fucking rebel. Go take what’s yours.

Y’know, I’m perfectly aware that many muggles reading this will whine that dealing with depression ain’t no piece o’ pie and it’s hella hard to get up and take the crown when you feel like a pile of dino dung.

Stop it. Get some help. (See what I did? Like Michael- ok ok, calm thyself.) For real though, and I’m tired of repeating this with my kitten stamped microphone (but I’ll keep at it ‘cause it’s that significant) – whining is WORTHLESS. It saps up precious energy that could be used to make life a scrumptious smoothie. (Loothie? As in life + smoothie? Right, yes, I’m shutting up.)

And even THEN, we find denizens complaining about slow WiFis and thin crust pizzas and how the market’s down and the government’s incompetent. Because blabbering makes us feel important. Heard. But keeping yo’ trap shut and actually doing stuff? Hustling for your dreams when nobody’s watching? Actually walking the talk? C’mon, Emma, don't be naive, ain’t nobody getting recognition for that.

Trust me, I get it. The world is yet to become a feminist, turns out your boyfriend was cheating on you while you were looking up wedding dresses, mommy’s a drunk loser, and idiots are being voted into office. It’s a lot to handle. But thanks to our immense and ever increasing population (we folks really love our rumpy pumpy, can you tell) — there will surely be one chum, facing exactly the same misfortunes as you, but still turning up at every party and bulk-spamming his friends with puppy pictures while you sit and wail. (One Moaning Myrtle is enough, thank you very much.)

Look, I’m not undermining your worries or obstacles. I’m only reminding that you have the marvelous choice of positivity. To CHOOSE hope and a better future when others won't. To FIND (and it's always possible) something to look forward to even when the to-do’s a big snore. To KNOW, deep inside, that you're a magnificent conqueror, no matter what mess you’re in at the moment, and that the world dances to your rhythm. Realise that it's up to you to let yourself be happy. At any moment, you have the very say-so to get up and start rocking. Dumbledore said it himself, “It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” So choose better, and you’ll unconsciously do better as well. And yes, that being said, this is the last HP reference, don't fret. Be positive instead. (Edit: Ha, look at these quips, the girl's all grown up now.)

Takeaway: 

Your new occupation is to be a sunflower. If you think back, you'll probably recall Miss Honey rattling on about phototropic movement in AP biology. No? Me neither. Point is, sunflowers always face the sun. Put them ANYWHERE, hide them in the dungeons, throw them in a trash bag and shoot it off to the moon, they’ll still turn around and face the sun. No matter what. And taking inspo from that, you too can stop scripting creative soliloquies for being depressed. Happiness is YOUR right, YOUR priority, don't let anyone take it away from you or diminish its importance. DON’T let sadness ruin your vibe, do what you've gotta do to protect yourself. Track happiness in yo’ journal, set 84 reminders on your phone, and tattoo “Long as you’re beaming up at the sun, all the shadows will be left behind” on your boobs. Do whatever, just don’t turn the corners of your mouth down. You’re so pretty this way.

The other day, I was doing the deathly Plié Alternative Heel Lifts (these names, I swear) and my legs felt dead. Gone. Put to sleep like the Wicked Witch of the East. Now obviously, the timer wasn’t not even halfway done yet, but my cheeks were already flushing red like dear Santa, and NOT because I was high on choco chip cookies. I sighed, and at that point, I was so over giving up. All this while, I’d been whining and protesting because my muscles felt sore, but in that moment, I made up my mind. I bit my lip and kept going. On and on. Keep pulsing, you got it, don't stop, was the mantra I kept chanting.

   Won’t sugarcoat it, I honestly hadn’t died this much since that time Miss Honey buried me alive with trig assignments. My legs were now basically Play-doh and I was shaking, fighting for balance. A few seconds in though, something crazy happened. My legs went numb. My grumbling mind quietened and the pain vanished. That evening, I had the upper hand, not my physical perceptions of myself. I was powerful. Flawless. (Hey Santa, do you even lift bro?) Real talk, I was in the Zone, bitches.

I’m not sure if that was the result of excessive pain or because Wonder Woman’s spirit possessed ma bod, but staying loyal to my love for metaphors, I’ll use the experience to explain what I’m tryna get at here.

   Look, here’s the real deal — if all of the greats gave up the second things got frowny, we probably would have no one to worship. Nix role models, nix inspirations, none to stalk on Insta - we’d all be bumbling about like Sad from the even sadder Emoji movie (no shade, emojis be lit).

And that'd be very sad (pun definitely intended). Hence, cue some tangible ways to boosting your grit, so that you can be your own superhero:

1) Get yo’self a goddamn motto,

2) Know your “Why,”

3) Repeat the cycle till it’s in your blood. Btw, Shawn, if you here, I’m still a single pringl—HEY PAL I SEE YOU, DON'T SCROLL.

Seriously, don't brush these prime steps aside. We're always going for the advanced modes, and deeming these basic levels a waste of time. Well guess what, compadre, YOUR LIFE IS A GODDAMN WASTE O’ TIME IF YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR BASICS RIGHT. Excuse my outburst, but listen. You can’t do a hundred bicep curls on your first workout if you haven't lifted anything more than a crisps packet. Likewise, if you simply jump into Life one day, and decide “ok, here it is, 12 habits to build, sleep schedule to fix, man to ask out, let's go,” you ain't getting nowhere, chum. Start small. Take baby steps. It's clearly not as fun (definitely negates the bragging on Facebook part of it) but it'll stick. You’ll create a consistency that not even Grandma's cake batter can achieve.

1. Talking mottos — For context, a motto that I always mutter (my mom thinks I'm cursing, oh what a bad child) every time I spill milk while making coffee is “Do more. Give more. BE more.” Not only does it help me stay right on track for the rest of the day but it helps me clean up my mess, figuratively and otherwise, or I’d just be sitting in a puddle of spilt milk, cursing adulting for real this time and with more laundry to do.

2. Why you need the Big Why — Owning up, I’m guilty of attempting to learn Welsh for less than 48 hours because I hadn't a single reason to speak the language. A similar thing happened with half of my 2018 resolutions, which had a bunch of rubbish like “Floss daily”, something my eyes got trained to skip because, um, who the hell flosses every day?

Lame humor aside, I still workout almost daily because I have my Why straight. 1) I want to feel good about my body and get closer to the confident badass I envision my future self to be, 2) I simply HAVE to sustain my health to live to build my legacy and fulfill my dreams of opening a bakery at 90 and 3) Because I’m an influencer, and want to walk my talk and be the inspiration people need. Those are the reasons as to why I turn up to my yoga mat everyday, shut my jabbering mind, and keep on pulsing. This “Why” strategy applies to everything. Wanna get outta depression? Why? Wanna lose 20 pounds? Why? Wanna listen to your dentist’s desperate pleadings and floss already? WHY EH? Unless you know your intentions, you’ll give up at the first chance you get to not act on your goals. And watch out, because there'll be a LOT of those.

For me, leaving a legacy behind means more than having a slice of cake or missing a workout because there’s a fun movie playing. Find what's important to YOU, make it your why, and go marry your goals.

3. And then, Repeat — Bear in mind, if you're not living your best life yet, there are NO weekends. NO work-shy days. No weak days, no pick-me-up days, no eat-candy-do-nothing days. Everyday is a damn Monday. EVERYDAY is life or death. Every holy day you wake up is a chance to push your limits, challenge your mindset, and see how far you can go. And every 24 hours, when the cycle starts again, it’s your mission to race to build a stronger, wiser and crazier you.

And who knows, perhaps one day, you and I will just be casually sipping tea in our dream home, laughing at how the milk is still being spilt but knowing, proudly, fiercely, that we’ve come so far, even though there’s still more left to do, more to give and so much more to be.

Takeaway: 

Quit quitting. You're, guaranteed, 20x stronger than you think. I doubted I could go through with the workout, it seemed beyond my present physical capabilities. But I did, because I treated it as life or death. Understand this, the second you start making excuses, for being depressed, for taking an unnecessary day off - you give away your power. You are a very powerful being. You're limitless, capable of everything.

I'm not throwing these words around to make you feel cute, I actually mean AND believe them. There’s so much that's been done already— the iconic four minute mile by Roger Bannister, invention of the light bulb, cars, toothpaste and other junk, people who lost both legs and climbed Mt. Everest, we sent a man to moon in frickin’ 1969 (50 YEARS ago), some ran a 26 mile marathon with zero training, love and hope is still strong in this world, oh let's also add coffee and motivational music— and YOU think you can't finish a workout or get outta depression or meet your idols or marry the man of your dreams or become the artist you wanna be? Ridiculous. Don't give away your power that easily, this ain't no charity shop.

(play ♬) Having personally dealt with unwelcome yet familiar feelings of emptiness quite often, I’ve now reached a point where each bad day is simply a reminder of how long my journey ahead is, and just how badly I want to reach my destination.

We finally near the end of this novel of a post (thanks for sticking around, bud), and my best advice would be this: Rather than wallowing in self pity and throwing one-man parties because your life is so awfully dreadful, know that even when life throws you to the floor, long as you can look up, long as you can read an entire book about defeating depression (cough)– you can GET UP too. Let those emotions of sorrow and frustration blaze up into a roaring, crackling fire that doesn’t consume you, but instead, urges you, fuels you.

Lately, no matter how much shit I go through, how many arguments I tumble into, or how barren my dreams look sometimes, I don’t break down. And no, it wasn't always like this. I never even had aspirations to name two years ago. Six months back, it had become a night routine to cry. Not anymore.

Now, every setback and every failure only pushes me to be stronger and give more than I ever gave. The day I made the decision to Conquer (truly, madly, deeply, with all of my heart) was also the day I said a big, loud ‘fuck you’ to every resistance that was to cross my path. I had finally understood that life was nothing but a battle of WILLS, that it was all in or nothing, and I made up my mind once and for all to NEVER give in to depression, or to society, or to anyone who tells me I cannot make it.

I had conquered depression. There was no looking back now.

Takeaway: 

Here’s something no one will tell you: the key to bringing depression to its knees is seeing it positively. Pretend that it's a friend continuously sending strong, aggressive signals urging you to be happy. And what do you do when a caring friend throws some holy light? You listen, push past your ego, and follow accordingly.

And if that parallel seems unconvincing, here's another one (sup, DJ Khaled. This post is turning musical, sorry): it's scared of you. Depression is scared shit of you. Y'know how bullies are, right? Majorly insecure, self-loathing too perhaps, hardly fans of self love, and always trying to numb all that subconscious pain by inflicting pain on others. Depression has the same instruction manual. Your fears and doubts are your (pathetic) bullies, and depression is the big ol’ crony who does the dirty work for 'em.

Whenever you decide shit this is it, I'm going for it, they go paranoid and try stopping you because they've seen no better. And if they succeed, BOOM, you're depressed, paralyzed, your qualms reigning over you again. Don't let them in. I'll say it a thousand times if I gotta because I want (HAVE) to see you conquer – you're so much stronger than you think you are. You can do so much more than you think. It's all in your head! Don't just sit there, click away, and go back to living a sad life. You’re better than that. DO better than that. You’re meant to freaking CONQUER, straight-up dominate, my pal. Pay heed to that voice craving freedom. You got this. And you better know it.

One thing’s fixed like the (beloved by all) proportionality constants in Physics, you will come across depressing mornings and sluggish evenings even in the future. I assure you. Lots o’ bad hair days in the calendar, sis. But here's what you’ll do: you'll deactivate the miserable thoughts, keep a cool head, remind yourself that this is yet another test (better, rap your new mantra) and USE that hurt, pain, and anger to create a fervor and passion that wreaks havoc on its obstacles and drives you to accomplish EVERYTHING you've ever wanted to do. The easy choice would be to just give up, bellyache about the situation, and want sympathy for your worries. Yet, what you'll never do is… exactly that.

Rule 1) NEVER give up. Stand your ground. Have faith in your strength. Know that you'll have your way soon enough anyway. Rule 2) NEVER complain. All it does is drain your energy, that precious fire you could to high jump your way into the clouds. Makes you a pathetic wimp too, definitely not something you want on a warrior’s resume. Lastly, Rule 3) NEVER seek validation. From anyone. It sure feels nice to be acknowledged and encouraged, but grasp this— this is your journey. YOUR life and YOUR vision. Validation won't get you anywhere, for there'll never be enough of it.

Cuz Marty, if you're tryna bring something new, different, and authentic into this world – you'll most likely be hated on badly, before you'll be loved madly (hi, me a rapper). Learn to invite hate instead—IMPORTANT: hate from others, not yourself. Sounds counterintuitive, but this is the real tea: hate is good. It means you're standing up for something, refusing to fit like a puzzle piece in society, and being UNAPOLOGETICALLY yourself. And it’s certainly a sign that you’re on the right path if you can ignore that hate and stick your tongue out at it.  

Yet another reason to never seek validation is simply this: you have to fight for yourself. In order to meet your own expectations, reach the doorstep of the best version of you, and transform this world, you'll have to go wildly IN. Toil and hammer away. Shut out all the haters and non-believers, listening only to your gut. Importantly, learn to accept the rejection slips, validating yourself not with what Molly says about it being okay, but with the reminder that your time is coming soon. Depend on yourself. Validation will NEVER be enough.

I get it, it's a lot of homework, but perhaps you already realize that it’s THIS work that'll change your life forever. Not “how to not procrastinate, Jesus take the wheel” or “HELLO, life's a mess so here are ten things to do (you won't believe number four!)”. Clickbaits don't work, stop believing that a fancy planner is going to be your savior. There is no rule to making your life a masterpiece. You'll have to get to know yourself and your dreams (journaling, meditation, silent pondering), build the work ethics and the mentality needed (lots of work in this one, yet no strict framework to go about it) and GET GOING.

AND with that firework, I'll begin to slip away now. Again, I won’t say it’s easy, that’s cock and bull. Life’s no fairytale. You will never feel ready to start bringing your dreams to fruition. But, my darling (I’m being so nice yo, follow me), you must. You must force yourself to work for the future you want till it becomes a habit, an obsession. The world badly needs heroes; confident people who can stand for themselves so that others can stare at first, maybe even hate a little, but then follow because they seem unstoppable and are, truthfully, having the most fun at life. YOU'RE one of them. No validation, just plain facts.

You see, conquering is a LOT of blood and sweat (K-pop, anyone? BTS? Lmao, this is me tryna clickbait y'all to read). Even getting up will seem huge when you're just starting out, and this is one long road, dear pal. Still then, I have enough faith in you to hope you don't give into your fears, I hope you willingly chase discomfort, and I hope you find the courage to do all that you want to do, while that heart's still beating.

I hope you conquer. I'll do too, and I'd really like to see some familiar faces during the ride.

Peace, amigo.

A loud ass A/N: And now, we come the most important part of this post. WAKE UP Luke, stop snoring, and take some notes. Remember kids, I won't accept anything but an A.

   If you couldn’t identify yourself throughout this post and currently are scoffing like um woman, that's not really why I'm depressed, hang in there a sec. Yes, you can stop singing It Ain’t Me now. You've a very nice voice by the way.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't have enough exposure to know why so many earthlings are depressed today. HOWEVER, by talking to many, following their stories, watching and reading stuff – I do know with firm conviction that a majority suffers from severe unfulfillment. Don't believe me? A study shows 85% of the working class worldwide hate their jobs. Do you realize what that actually means? EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT of the THREE BILLION PEOPLE employed today, hate being employed in the first place! They do it for prime survival, to sustain themselves. And that's just jobs. I won't scare you, but 50% (yes, HALF, you heard that right) of students HATE going to school. Kids waste SEVEN hours of their life every day going somewhere they dislike, doing something they hate. Who's singing now?

People find themselves trapped in golden handcuffs, taking the paycheck despite the passionless job. They push aside the art and business they love, to become a slave of good ol’ cash. Several surround themselves with negativity and get frustrated when unable to escape the choking (no, not THAT kind again, hello someone pour holy water over this post) atmosphere. An innumerable are forced into taking up courses that they don't care about under parental pressure. The reasons are endless, and I don't think I'll amuse myself listing all the sad excuses.

This has always been the story. Hundreds of influencers have preached the same words I’m tryna put into your head here and you’ll yourself say you’ve heard this a million times. YET, you’re dissatisfied. YET, you feel like crap everyday, feeding yourself the same lie that the next day will be better, that you’ll get up tomorrow– while you let life beat the shit out of you.

That’s why, all of my words, everything you’ve read today - all of that boils down to just one single question. A difficult but necessary choice. Will you let this happen to YOU? Will you, seriously, even after this wild ride together, go back to doing nothing and being nothing? Will you, for real, continue deceiving yourself, sacrifice your happiness for the sake of pleasing everyone else, and remain a statistic on a website?

   (play ♬) If you’re not sure of your answer, read: Look, making you feel guilty is not my intention, because that’s not how this works. I need you to understand instead. Guilt wears off, it’s only understanding that brings about change. So, just for old times’ sake, I’ll rant a bit more (ik, just can’t seem to leave y’all).

You’re so, so young right now. More than half of your life is yet to be experienced. None of this probably makes much impact right now but it will the day you die. Remember, on your deathbed, you won't EVER look back and say, “Damn, wish I'd spent more time at the office. Saved up just one more dollar. Could’ve got that promotion before Amy.” Nay, it won’t even be on the calendar. That day, one foot in the grave, you'll reflect and wonder why the heck you didn’t let yourself be happier. Why you took up that lacklustre, soul-sucking architect job when all you've ever wanted to do is keep laughing. Why you didn't ask your crush out, why you were so afraid to walk up to that audition, because dammit, you could’ve been running your own comedy show by now. Why you dragged around a karaoke machine all this time instead of singing your own song. Why you couldn’t love yourself. Why you submitted. Why.

And the moment you realize that you hadn't lived a life for you, you’ll be crushed. Broken. The arthritis in your grannie joints won't even compare and neither will the mild dissatisfaction you’re feeling right now. Those whys will haunt you, they'll terrorize you, break you. It'll hurt tremendously to know that there isn't a single thing in your long life that you could call completely your own.

 With every death today so many dreams are left unachieved, crazy things left unchecked on the bucket list, and unique potential left unexpressed.

DON'T let that be you. Please. I'm still a mess myself, struggling to reach class on time and studying subjects that aren't exactly fun, when all I want to do is create content (read: fireworks) that is at a level of insanity, influence folks to do better, hold crazy world tours and meet-and-greets to give hugs, and get an adorable puppy so I can create a dogstagram (yes, I'm that mom). Sure, I could declare it's too hard, hang onto small-minded and negative people who whine endlessly, and follow the crowd, getting lost in it, with ease.

But I won’t because I can’t take the burden of those regrets. That painful unrest and discontent that nothing could cure, not drugs, alcohol, buddies, not even true love. For then I’d be just another drone, my controller in the hands of society, forcing me to see the world through its eyes. I can’t give in because I’m scared, terrified even, of wasting away this one life doing the bidding of others- folks who won't even notice when I’m gone.

It’s easy to be depressed and crib your entire life. It’s easy to think you’re worthless and that trying is pointless since nothing ever goes your way.

But perhaps, if you rise, if you simply DECIDE to have the audacity to fight for what you believe in, if you work and focus on becoming better, things will go your way. Life will bend to you, in awe, at your incredible relentlessness. Life will take one look at you, wonder who the fuck is this person? How the fuck are they so incapable of giving up? And back right away. And then perhaps, life will be such a blast for you that depression would become the past you never had.

   I know you can get there, conqueror. It’s time you knew it too.

🌚🌝 Further reading? 🌝🌚

Last Post :— How To Get Back Into The Creative Process – For you, if you're in a creative rut. Get outta it and go create magic!

5 Reasons Why You're Unhappy — To help you identify & cut out CURRENT sources of sadness so that you can spice up yo’ life with some happiness instead. Definitely recommend reading AND implementing.

The Bubble Trap & How To Get Out Of It — One of my classics. Everyone is in one of these 'bubbles’ till they consciously do something about it; that's just how it is. Are you still in one? (Someone teach me marketing, lmao.)

The 5 Biggest Regrets of The Dying (from Greatist) — I LOVED reading this. Pretty much all you need to cut the crap and do meaningful stuff. Read it, memorize it, work it.

++ Want to request a blog post? Leave your request in my ask box! I'll get back to you with a reply, along with the average time I'll need to birth that magical idea.

Thanks for dropping by! It was a pleasure to have you around. If you wish to stick for a bit, I'd suggest picking one of the related posts mentioned above.

If you wanna check out my blog, here's a little something about me (y'all know I love the attention). What do I write about? Three arenas I dominate, Work, Lifestyle and Life, they are, my mate! Take your pick!

I post new blog posts bi-weekly, and my wins, & journal entries throughout the week, so follow me if you're into conquering life, leaving a legacy and being the baddest badass you can possibly be. I'll be your side pal, cheering you along.✨

And that was it, it's a wrap! Martha, shut the cams, Henry, pause the audio, and Nandita, I know you're pretending to be deaf, but Mom's yelling something about doing the dishes. Better skip along.

And you, fellow conqueror? Keep slaying life, doing the work and making it count. I hope you're well, stay strong and go conquer life. ✧

I'm sending you so much love, see you soon.

— Nandini 💌 (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

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The First Step: Introductions, Missions, and Assumptions

Hi! My name is Sharn, and this is the first post on a new blog, a project I’m starting to gather my thoughts and maybe present them in a form that will be useful both to myself and others in the future. Thoughts on what? Worldbuilding, of course, as the title of the blog implies. I’ll give you that one for free :>).

I’ll get to the thrust of this blog and the kind of posts it will host in just a moment, but I think it would be helpful before we go any further to give a bit more of an introduction - why I think this is important will also come later, but for now you can be polite and hear me out. I’m a graduate student in history, particularly early medieval history. It’s a great opportunity to survive (sic) while studying and thinking about a subject I love, but it’s not my only interest. No, as one of my professors in another field quipped, I’m a D&D major.

I like fantasy. A lot! I think the freedom that it gives us to imagine people like and unlike ourselves is very useful for the development of empathy, something that’s critical to being a historian and being a Good Person in general. Besides any claim I’ll make about the moral advantages of the genre, though, it’s just fun, if you’re of the kind to like wizards, dragons, elves, and all of those other staples that the past seventy years have formed into a neat package for our consumption. 

People have used fantasy in a lot of different ways for as long as the genre has been around. This isn’t a historical literature blog; I (probably) won’t get into it in great depth unless it becomes very relevant. But nevertheless fantasy has been aspirational, dystopian, cathartic, and quite frequently controversial in the ways that it has chosen to represent worlds parallel to our own. I’m not looking to fan the fires of those debates but I do want to point out the essential, too often unexamined act of fashioning that’s going on here. Fantasy begins, quite obviously, when the author decides to invent a world different from their own. 

In a lot of cases, this process goes unexamined, or is subject to a kind of smug hand-waving that reflects uncritically certain assumptions about the real world onto the newly-born imaginary. There’s plenty of great stories that have been born out of worlds which are mostly unsophisticated transpositions of high medieval and early renaissance Europe; there are also plenty of bad ones. What I want to do here is to address this process, with all of its baggage and its assumptions, from top to bottom, toe to tip. When we theorize a world different from our own, we should always be asking ourselves how and why as much as who where and what. The former helps to give meaning and bring out the truest reflection of the latter, while the latter provides the context and the constraints for the former. We should be looking at the worlds we make not as high-handed creators, but as critical thinkers (or if you prefer, historians) constantly problematizing our own notions.

So that’s the pitch; as ideas come to me, and in an order that will hopefully seem sensible, I want to sketch out a more careful, considerate path to walk through everything from geography to religion to ecology to culture, language, and the very first soggy tavern in which our heroes meet. I want to talk through the choices we make so that we can (hopefully) make stronger ones, ones that better serve the world and the narrative we’re trying to create. I’m not going to be a purist; you could find something useful in all or a single one of these posts, and I won’t consider this a total method, if a method even in part ends up being the end product. At the end, we may find that we can imagine worlds that are just as satisfying without all this hullabaloo, but even then I won’t consider it to have been a wasted labor. 

Before we get to the nitty gritty, though, I should probably explain an idea I’ve been throwing around a lot since the title - the idea of assumptions made in the worldbuilding process. Object lessons will be helpful here, but what I basically want to recognize is this: humans are among some of the most powerful spontaneous semiotic machines on the planet. That’s why those dumb ink blot tests exist, for as much as there is a reason; we can see a totally random shape and impose meaning on it drawing from a vocabulary we’ve built through all our lives.

Why does this matter to worldbuilding? Because at a macro-level, assumptions we hold to be true for our world, when callously applied to those we’ve imagined, may not work, or they may hamstring where the beauty and dynamism of a particular invention really shines. Without care, we can put something into our world that seems like it ought to be true, even if in the best version of that world it isn’t actually. We’ve all seen it before; this is the loophole, the lapse in logic that makes the drama and the tension of the setting fade to nothing. It’s not all bad, of course; properly employed, these kinds of tropes can be powerful tools in helping the people who interact with fantasy - whether they’re players in an rpg or readers of a story - connect with and identify elements in the world. But my point is that we should be careful in how - indeed, whether - we apply these, and we should think with equal care about what our choices in world design evoke unintentionally.

It also bears acknowledging that these assumptions are not universal. I’m a young, white American man of the upper middle class; I may see and say things that don’t hold validity for you because we don’t draw upon the same experience. You will certainly have ideas and images you reach for that don’t grip me in the same way. Our goal as creators isn’t to speak to the whole of the human experience, but if we look at worldbuilding like posing a question, making an argument, or any other intellectual endeavor that relies on fallible transmission between humans, striving for understanding is always a good policy.

And there we have it. I’m not going to pretend this will be the most exciting post on this blog, but at this point in my academic career I’d be pretty far up the proverbial creek if I didn’t start by outlining my thesis and the plan of the work ahead. I’m excited to get to work, and I’m hoping the conversation will be a fruitful one.

[anycontentposter]

Guest Blog: Photographer and Photoshop Addict Gilmar Smith

Christmas Cards Don’t Have To Be Boring…

For the last few years, I have made a goal of mine to create the most amazing memories with my kids, both in real life and photography-wise. Of course, it is a mission of mine to make our Christmas Card an epic one every year. Who wants to receive another boring Christmas card anyways?

Our Christmas Cards and my Bad Santa series were personal projects I started doing for fun, and they turned out to be the greatest marketing tool for my business during the Holiday Season. 

This year, I started booking Christmas Cards sessions even before Halloween. 

As the song says, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and it is also the perfect time for you as a photographer to make money. 

Mostly everybody I know sends Christmas Cards to their family and friends. A big part of that group prefers to send family pictures instead of store-bought Christmas Cards. 

I am sure you usually receive pretty much the same version of a Christmas card from different families. Matching outfits, fake smiles, all of them in front of a Christmas Tree. But not all Christmas Cards have to be like that! 

What I look to capture on Christmas Card sessions is a little bit of everyone’s personality in one image. For me to be able to do that, I make sure to collect as much information as possible from my client’s family. Some of my clients have already a concept picked by the time they book the sessions, and some others need a little help choosing a theme. That’s when the info I collect from them comes handy. I go ahead and customize inspiration boards for them and even draw a few sketches. 

Then my job is to escalate their concept to the epic level!

Having shot multiple clients’ Christmas Cards through the years, I can also say it’s a very competitive time between family and friends, but the fun kind. Once you send out your first fun Christmas Card, there’s no going back. They will be expected every year.

This family recreates a rock album cover every year for their Christmas Card… Can you guess which one is this?

This family wanted a portrait of the chaos that goes behind doors… I can relate!

Kitchen portraits are always fun!

This lovely classic portrait:

Here’s a beach theme without having to pray to the weather Gods for good weather or having to spend a few days getting rid of the sand.

Our Christmas Card this year was inspired by our beloved state of Florida and its fumbling superhero, the Florida man. Who every year gives us the most embarrassing, outrageous, cringy, dumb, awkward, funny, infuriating, and even sometimes, inspiring news stories.

I built up the set in my garage with a ton of Props I got from Spectacular Themes. I really wanted to have a wooden fence as a background, but I couldn’t fit anything like that in my car. After giving it a little thought, I remembered I have laminated wooden floor that I sometimes use on portraits, so I put it against the garage door and BAM! Instant wooden fence!

I didn’t have to spend money on outfits; we used what we had, and of course, I had to wear my Santa suit like every year.

After setting all that up in my garage, I wasn’t going to shoot just one picture. We created a fun little series, and my kids made sure to stamp their personalities on them. 

Since I managed to get all the props I wanted, I only had to Photoshop the sky, and I added a little bit of my personal retouching style.

All of these images were shot with my Nikon Z7 and a 24-70mm Z mount lens on my 3 Legged Thing Leo (except for Christmas car one, that was shot with my camera on my Platypod Max). I used two Elinchrom BXRi 500 strobes: one with an octa on camera right and the other one with a strip light set horizontally on a background stand for fill. I also had a Vflats from V-Flat World on each side of the set to bounce light.

This is my busiest time of the year, but it is also the most fun because I get to be creative doing the kind of work I love. 

I hope you have a fantastic Holiday Season!

Here are our Christmas Cards from the previous years:

You can see more of Gilmar’s work at GilmarPhotography.com, and keep up with her on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

The post Guest Blog: Photographer and Photoshop Addict Gilmar Smith appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

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[lk-mitogen]

I’ve been thinking about my comic making process lately.

(just a rant for myself -- I’d post it on livejournal but I forgot my password =w=)

I love drawing comics. Sequential art is something I genuinely love above all other story telling forms. You can be artist, writer, director, producer — every single job in one. In a single panel you can reveal what would take paragraphs in a novel, or minutes in a film. A single microexpression and you convey oceans. I love it, I love it.

But it takes time to create. An expontential amount of time relative to how long it takes to consume it. A panel that took you hours takes less than a second to digest. The creation:consumption ratio is massive. And I have a life outside art -- I’m a med student entering fourth year. Time is not something I have in spades, y’know? I have to be realistic in how much time I can invest in a hobby.

I’ve had the same concern before, so over the years I’ve gotten extremely efficient at every step of the process. I am very, very fast at what I do. I remember a single page of my DMC comic taking me 4-6 hours, and I was already very fast for I updated four times a week when most webcomics updated once a week (if even that much, then). 

Hell, I remember drawing my Kingdom Hearts comic in 2006 and spending HOURS per page when each page was functionally a tiny 350x450 panel. And!! I used to thumbnail stuff. I used to write down the dialogue and doodle concept thumbnails — the whole shebang. To get from idea to delivery, it took so much time compared to how long it took to glance at it and understand.

Now? I crunch everything. I come up with an idea and I immediately start drawing the final lineart. Sometimes I quickly ghost a sketch but it takes me seconds. I can draw a panel in 10 minutes. I can create dialogue on the fly. I have an end goal, but I let my hand wander on how to get there, so the story becomes organic, more natural to consume instead of carefully tailored. I like it! I like what I’m doing.

It keeps me entertained, too. Before, I used to micro-plan every single line of dialogue, every single nuanced change of expression, hours before I ever put my pen to paper. I was already exhausted and bored of the story before I had begun, because I knew how everything would work out, and then it was just a chore to draw it. It was work with no fun. And then posting it gave me feedback of course, but it was never proportional to the amount of energy I’d expended to put it out there.

Now I fly by the seat of my pants and I learn the story as I show it to my readers. It’s super engaging, it’s fast and snappy and the payoff is more equal to the amount of energy I put in, sometimes even greater. Plus, I can juggle it with my studying and class. I can handle it and do well in life outside art.

But.

Because I don’t plan my stories out well, because I let my hand do whatever if wants at the moment it touches the tablet, I don’t thread the story together as coherently as a well planned final product would be. And always, in retrospect, I wince and want to change things but it’s already done, it’s already polished and posted. This is what the planning stage is for, I chastise myself in frustration. You’re supposed to iron out the kinks and tie together threads ages before you start drawing so you don’t have to erase so much work.

But my brain is like a train — either you keep going or you fall off the rails, and good luck trying to get that lazy mammoth back on its tracks.

And I know my brain — it’ll come back within 3-6 months with the same fervor, and I’ll chug along for a while before burning out and rinse and repeat. It’s how I’ve been drawing the same DMC comic for 8 years going on 9, now. I wax and wane and slowly something coherent is crafted, something I cared for and raised and enjoyed creating.

But webcomics can’t be done like that and keep an audience engaged. You can’t post at a dumbass unpredictable rhythm if you want your readers to keep reading while your work is a WIP.

So my mantras are “you have to be fast, consistent, efficient — plan just enough to have a goal but not too much that you lose interest” and “if you fuck up, you can’t retcon, so try as hard as you can not to fuck up — else, from your gamut of options, make the best of your mistake: just be decisive and stick with it”.

But what if your fuck up is such a dumb cockup? I’m fully capable of erasing hours upon hours of work with just grit teeth for the sake of the story, but I’ve already posted it. I’ve already strung people along for a good long while with it.

It’s a dumb frustration, honestly. I’m the master of my own story. I can do whatever I want...

I’m losing steam. Where was I going with this again? Haha, you can start to see the flaws in my creative process just by reading this semi-coherent rant that was ill-planned and executed on the fly.

Let’s stop writing prose and start writing bulletpoints. Maybe that’ll help.

Don’t sacrifice good planning for speed, or you’ll regret it in the future. Be okay with sinking in the time to thumbnail and dialogue before you open photoshop. Use your school square notebook, like you used to. It’s okay. It’ll save you time in the long run.

Set realistic update speeds. You could do daily over the summer, but you can’t anymore. Be okay with that. When you were a kid you read webcomics that updated one measly page a week and you were hooked for years. If the story is good, folks won’t lose interest. Make sure the story is good.

Be okay with indulging yourself in however dark you want to take it. Not everything has to be kept pure simply because a lot of people have become invested in it and you’re worried about their feelings. Your primary audience is YOU. What would YOU like to read?

If you cockup and you’re losing steam because of the cockup, RETCON IT. This is YOUR story. You don’t have to delete what you fucked up from the internet if you don’t want to, since you spent time on it and its otherwise good; you can just label it as “unused” or “reworked” and cut it off from the index and it can exist as a discarded draft.

For fuck’s sake, have fun. This isn’t a job, you dumbass, this is what you do during your minuscule amounts of free time. Don’t tie yourself into knots over it. That’s what pathology homework is for XD

[elementroar]

Alien: Convenant - ‘WTF David!’ theories

So, just watched Alien: Convenant last weekend.

FYI, it really is Prometheus 2 in disguise. Like, incredibly, blatantly so. I can’t believe Ridley got away with that production money...

Anyway, so general review: It wasn’t great, no comparison to the first 2 movies, but I think every Alien fan has realized nothing really meets up to those 2 (except Alien: Isolation). Better than Prometheus, and I would argue that I don’t think its better than Alien: Resurrection because as dumb as Resurrection was, it at least didn’t feel like 2 different movies smashed together.

The main problem is how its both Prometheus 2 and the prequel to Alien at the same time, and does neither one really well IMO.

But aside from that, this post is mainly about David. That mad son-of-a-bitch who is now suddenly, one of the most important parts of Xenomorph canon, for reasons I cannot say.

And even then, this is specifically about David and Elizabeth Shaw. Somewhat big spoilers, so turn away from the cut if you don’t wanna see it. You’ve been warned.

This is really for those who have watched the film, and came away from a certain revelation between David and Shaw, that maybe made them go WTF man.

So yeah, Elizabeth’s not only dead, but she got massively fucked up by David in the process. 

But, did David really kill her deliberately just to use her as raw materials? Or did something else happen that made a whole chain of despair that we ended up with in Covenant?

See the original plan of Prometheus 2 was essentially The Space Adventures of Shaw and David. In other words, David was unlikely to just flat-out plan to kill Shaw from the beginning, otherwise the movie would be pretty short. Instead, likely it would have been about them exploring the Engineer ship, bonding, talking about life etc. 

Then eventually David going crazy would still have happened, but at least there would be a build-up.

Well Ridley wouldn’t get the funding for THAT, so instead, we only have “The Crossing” video, wherein we do get glimpses of them bonding with Shaw re-building David, and them pouring over starcharts and what-not to plot their way to the Engineer planet of Paradise.

Then Shaw goes into cryo-sleep, and David says “And I was alone again.”

Okay so here’s the main crux of my theory. One reaction I’ve heard is that David lied about Shaw dying before reaching Paradise, that he killed her, and then killed the Engineers. The end-goal being his sudden burst of megalomania and ‘God am I’ moment.

I don’t think that’s what happened, like I said, there was suppose to be elements of him bonding with Shaw in Prometheus 2. When he said to Walter that he loved Shaw, I don’t think he was lying. David did create and maintained a garden, a memorial plaque, and brought flowers to her ‘grave’ for years. He had no reason to make those to set-up a lie, when he didn’t expect anybody to even come to Paradise. He made that place, for himself, and for Shaw. His love, or at least what he think is love, and his grief, are not lies.

Now I’m just deducing from ‘The Crossing’ video here, but I have two theories of ‘what happened. The first one is this:

Shaw entered cryo-sleep, and either died in cryo-sleep or couldn’t be woken up.

The cryo-pod was made for the Engineers, a much more robust species than humans. Even if they tried to modify it, it’s likely the cryo-sleep process may be too much for regular humans like Shaw.

David says that “And I was alone again.” with a kind of finality that I think, suggests that’s how he remembered her. She entered cryo-sleep and she never woke up, he was ‘alone’ again.

Up to that point, David seemed to be happy with following and helping Shaw with her plan to ‘meet their creators’. He says he did love her, and I would think then, that working for her objective was enough for him, and that kept him more or less grounded.

But then she goes to sleep, and David had to resign himself to travelling alone through space for a while. But he may have been fine with that, it was logical for her to sleep.

Possibly some years later, they’re nearing Paradise, and David tries to wake Shaw up. Except she can’t be woken up, her brainwaves might even be completely dormant even though her body was still alive and preserved. 

So the one person in the universe that David legitimately felt affection for, and one that he was willing to sacrifice and support for, was ‘dead’. And their creators were already a bunch of jerks, they knew, but at least Shaw would have confronted them, at least there was some unknown future there.

But Shaw was gone, so there was no point. To anything. And David snapped, hit his despair event horizon. The payload gets dropped and the Engineers wiped out. He experiments on the remains of Shaw, while at the same time mourning her and not seeing the ‘flesh’ left behind as really being her, and we end up where we are in Convenant.

Now, I have a 2nd theory, which is similar but definitely pushes David’s ‘evilness’ more.

Shaw entered cryo-sleep normally. David spent several years looking through the ship himself and learning more about the Engineer’s culture and teachings. He realizes Shaw will never get the answers she wants, the truth might even devastate her more, and he decides to let her ‘dream forever’ by sabotaging the cryo-pod and then wiping the Engineer’s out.

I think this is also plausible, especially also given David’s ruthless nature. I suspect that when the trauma from his head being ripped out by the Engineer in Prometheus may have shook off some of those three-laws-protocols and he would be able to do it. He may also see it as an act of ‘love’ to let Shaw die within a happy dream.

The thing is that his actions were so extreme on first reaching Paradise, that I think its plausible he came to these conclusions during the time that Shaw was asleep, and she wasn’t around to keep him grounded.

And through both theories, it hinges on her having died in her sleep because of what we don’t see in David’s flashbacks. Not once do we see him ‘attack’ Shaw, in fact he may have always harbored the idea that Shaw would have to die eventually, but couldn’t bring himself to actually directly hurt her because of that pesky ‘love’ feeling. Letting her die peacefully in her sleep was probably the only way he could even bring himself to do it.

In fact, even in his sketches of Shaw, she’s sleeping. In one of the sketches, she’s actually even more mutated in his drawing than her corpse in reality. It might suggest he dreamt of her looking even worse, maybe as a symptom of his guilt.

In other words, it’s suggested his last memory of her is of her sleeping, hence why I think she never woke up after going into the pod. 

There’s also that twisted sense that, he decided to use her for experimentation because, as seen before with Ash attacking Ripley in the first Alien, and then with David more blatantly with Daniels, the Weyland-Yutani androids are somehow programmed with the very conscious realization that they have no genitals, and are fascinated with sex/procreation.

Why would Weyland-Yutani do this and just NOT program some kind of lingering sex drive into their androids, I don’t know. Or I don’t wanna know why.

Either way, to David, using Shaw’s genetic material in some way with the Neomorph breeding experiments, allows her to have the ‘children’ she couldn’t have. With him as being the pseudo ‘father’. So it’s his own twisted way of continuing Shaw’s legacy and insinuating himself in it.

Anyway, that’s my take. One of my big peeves is the sudden “I’M A MAD SCIENTIST” now moment with David. 

Also that Walter couldn’t beat the ever-loving shit out of him. Like, how the fuck could Walter die to a fucking knife!? He has a healing factor!

#WalterLives !

[haeroniel-doliet]

i need more money to buy little art

honestly tho feeling like for that ideal goal existence i’ll try get to someday, i’ll needa be making proper money comfortable and good so i can spend all i like on society 6 and other to buy shirts and bags and just everything to a house all in different art prints (mostly florals) bc just those pictures are  like everything i want but just so expensive. i’m trying to sum down like 10 to stickers, bc i wanna do up my laptop, but dedicating to a single decal (thats like 25 ON SALE) is too much esp since i love so much. so ive kinda decided to get a hard cover for the laptop just in case i break it, and just in case i do break my laptop that i can keep the stickers on the hard case and dont lose them to replaced parts. idk seems smart. ill probs buy a kinda shady cover off of ebay for 5 or 6 pound and then spend 20 on stickers for it :] since theyre on sale till 8 am today and its 3 am im probs just gonna settle and order them. might order cover tomorrow w my dad bc i need trust assurance. hes not all on board on the stickers so im just gonna go for it. theyre gonna be like my post cards. i buy so many every place. and no. not trashy postcards. i want art. i have so many postcards of paintings in galleries and so many from comic con art valleys (guess who wants to get so much more and 100% will) i love original art the most when its pretty to me and like everyone who sees it. simples okay but i prefer soft and detailed. excited now i can go to con and also be looking for stickers bc maybe ill get a few cool ones that wont cost me as much as the society 6 ones do. and then my laptop can replicate my walls, displaying all the art ive loved that ive been able to take with me (bc theres so much i obviously dont have on my walls) anyway im looking at these and making some small bc i suddenly realise this laptops got realestate. and the saddest thing w stickers (literally why i had one of those waxy paged sticker books as a child) is that i cant dedicate stickers to a single spot. its so much dedication. what if i buy a bigger sticker and it wont fit? what if i get the perfect sticker for that spot and it wont fit? (over lap i guess) how can i be sure i put them in the right spots to start with? augh i dont really wanna cover just half of it and obviously leave space bc that puts pressure on finding stickers and i might get ones i dont love. i cant get sick of any one bc itll be there  (joy of having multiple mean theres less getting sick of anything). anyway i think im happy w the sizes of these 10 stickers and can work w them (also for now i think im just gonna be going around the edges and leaving the apple logo as it is, esp bc it glows and theres already this shitty old smiley face sticker from my old psych teacher and i kinda dont wanna get rid of it, i just wanna add things around it so it doesnt look so: clean (actually dirty) laptop that a child marked as their own) 

anyway society 6 has random discounts all the time which is p rad and maybe the day im ready to invest in my own living space and dont feel obliged to check w my parents about just about any purchase, i’ll then subscribe to something thatll tell me what discount is on. that in mind, i think i’ll only get the 9 now, that hopefully wont cost too much, and leave a bunch in my wishlist, bc there’ll be another discount (this is 20% off everything)  and maybe that’ll be like 50% off stickers and boy then when my collection is underway you bet ill go for it. and like maxx sticks on their sketch book, if i dedicate to a new book maybe ill get more for that and have a pretty thing to keep and reminisce over (tho knowing me, ill not use it much bc i have a need for pretty things to stay perfect and presentable, and i have a need for everything that i might show to others to be like near perfect otherwise its sucks and ill feel bad bc i dont wanna show it off to people. like my art book, sure i couldve made it all experimental and crap and then edited the real pages together on the computer. but no. i needed everypage to be presentable and pretty and handwritten and creative. and they must go page after page, its so awkward showing someone something and then going “oh wait now these few are empty sorry yeah heres the next page” so i baasically have  a book with mhmmm 20-26 pages of beautiful spreads that im quite proud of inside beautiful covers ( i knew id want to be presenting it for years to come) and the back pages are just...empty. and theyll probably stay that way bc i no longer have projects to be doing to fill them with. maybe one day ill grow into myself and grow out the fear of ruining what ive achieved and fill some with new projects to please myself and be an indepenednt artist not just a teacher pleaser. you know its like that with my work too, like it has to have a direction and a plan that will be achieved, and its terribly frustrating when that vision doesnt happen. but i think thats the same with everyone. 

anyway on a side note, dont you guys think its so fun and cool how ive not done my post labs that were due last friday? how every night ends up being 3-4 am until i go... mhmmmm yeah i guess nothing is happening. like i hope id bloom and do work at that 11pm-3am window and then i get here, suddenly having lost all track and sense of time and just sigh. its wasted, its basically tuesday already. have to keep telling myself dates bc it moves so weird. i planned on getting shit done two days ago. here we are regardless. and the most ill get done is get those stickers ordered bc that is i guess what ive been half focused on for mhmmm5 hrs. then ill save my 7 dollars or whatever, have stickers on the way, tomorrow order the case and thats one insignificant thing done. then the question will be have i looked at summer jobs? no of course not ive looked at ballet courses. shush. i havent showered for days bc theyve just slipped by too laying in bed, maybe tomorrow ill take a shower and pick up all the trash and tissues on the ground. maybe i will. i know i wont get real work done tonight, and already ill be sleepy till 1 pm and by then mom will be again on me abt sleeping to latesoo... yeah no point. and here i thought id make a quick totes relatable short post about how i need more money to buy stickers and maybe a brief my ideal life is to have enough money to spend on art being in every part of my life and all this  being unique so people love coming to my house and go wow its so original and cool. and that turned into a word vent thats so far taken me over half an hour. hi my batterys dying. 

lng story short, i’ll order the stickers currently in my basket after so much though, suck it up and do it and know that i have a bunch over in my wishlist for that next maybe even better sale when it happens. the only thing is im taking all the rest as transparent which for sure dulls them down (yeah white background looks sick but for some its just more classy w transparent, then theres this one bear i’m 100% naming wojtek thats in white bc i feel it’ll be best for him, and i guess having him in white will set that theres no clear rules to follow and worst case if it doesnt fit he can come chill on the keyboard side next to my mouse pad thing) honestly i cant tell if i should be getting them all in white and just hope that theyll look gorgeous no matter what. yikes 3 dollar shipping for stickers, ok itll actually be 19.62 pound and using euro card 22.50 in  euros.... am i dumb? maybe. and tho im supposed to be saving money up so i have some, i also did get birthday money sorta recently soo... birthday gift from them. first set of stickers. deep breaths ok. my parents told me when i bugged them that i just have to make a decision and not ask them all the time, and he said to get 3 stickers i told him id pick 12 so i think getting 9 is reasonable. also oh shit realising that the delivery time is 1-3 weeks and im staying here only 1 and a half more so i should really order it to scotland even tho it might get ther ebefore i do bc my parents might not rly want to send them up to me. idk ok order to scotland, thank f at least one of my flat mates is staying and tbh i should really bring her some chocolate... shes done me faavours. 

[jontheredrc]

SCRAPPED CHARACTER #2: SAMSON RAYEARTH

I have a lot of characters as well as books that have ended up left unused for extended amounts of time, or even abandoned altogether.  (And people are caring more than I anticipated!)  I don’t know if I want to encourage people to keep on creating, allow them to use the characters, or even gauge interest and nudge me into restarting these projects, but one thing is for certain: I want them to be a little more than just a two-page Word document.

Today we have a mute powerhouse that isn’t quite as abandoned a character as the title implies...

Samson Rayearth was a high school senior when he and a friend of his stumbled upon a secret tunnel being excavated, on its way underneath the nearby prison.  A jailbreak ensued, and the prisoners used this tunnel as an escape just as Samson entered the tunnel.  His friend left him to his fate, running away as Samson’s tongue was carved out by a shiv.

Betrayed, distrustful, and traumatized, Samson found it difficult to complete school and eventually dropped out, but was ultimately picked up by a recruiter interested in bolstering a lagging (para)military academy with some fresh recruits.  This institute was tentatively named “The Hard Corps” because I like the Contra series of video games, and will be referred to as HC in the rest of this writeup.

This is where Samson’s story ties back in with many of my other works; HC was a pet project belonging to the same Mr. Lee that antagonizes Nicole Ellery and her superhuman ilk, and who fathered and abandoned Greg “Grizz” Lee.  Lee’s elitist daughter Anna was Samson’s first obstacle at HC, an obstacle most were wary of crossing, but whom Samson simply moved away from the front doors of the academy to let himself in. 

Despite her insults before and after this, he still came to her aid when bullies pilfered her locket, containing a picture of her mother.  Anna’s confusion only grew when Samson told her he had no reason for helping, save to spare someone suffering, and even refused a reward.  Anna’s haughty nature caused her to see her new friendship with Samson as a reward in its own right. 

As mentioned before, Samson lost his tongue, and things spiraled out of control long before he was able to learn sign language; many of his thoughts are conveyed to his friends in charades or writing notes.  To better defend both himself and Anna, he built tons of muscle mass at HC’s fitness center, and of course there’s the nature of HC itself.  (He majored in assassination, studying infiltration and silent killings.)

Samson was always a tall guy, but by the end of his arc, he had grown swole enough to walk around effortlessly with Anna simply sitting on his shoulders, and a short story proof of concept (accompanied by crude sketches) exists somewhere in a notebook I’ve since lost where he literally snaps a street sign pole with his bare hands and uses it as a weapon in a pinch (against Nicole, natch).  In yet another nod to HC’s namesake, Samson was a reckless driver, and with the help of Anna’s money funding research and development, had a van with a windshield that could be slid open almost like a window in a house.  This was because he would drive without a seatbelt, slamming the brakes or even crashing into an obstacle to quickly exit the vehicle through the front.

I don’t think I put the relevant chapter on FictionPress yet, but this is indeed the basis for the small town guard Samson that Heather and Ace meet in Riverside.  His fantasy counterpart is equally mute and equally mistreated, but Anna is changed to be his daughter, shot to death by a desperate townsperson who would rather Anna die than risk alerting a monster.  (This Anna is nothing like the one that attends HC.)

While Train had roots in the Japanese samurai and especially the ronin, Samson was meant as a more contemporary archetype.  Many shows and movies feature a relatively pompous VIP guarded by a burly, stoic bouncer.  But rather than go the “dumb muscle” route, my goal was to write Samson as a nuanced, tortured soul, and to focus on the relationship with Anna.  I was also eager to accept the challenge of a mute character, or one that would otherwise have difficulty interacting with those around them.  Hence, one of Samson’s big niches is kind of obviated by Atsuko Shimazaki, the cyborg of In Other Words who’s stuck speaking Japanese in post-apocalyptic Maine.

In real life, quiet people are often stereotyped as creepy, stupid, or rude.  My #1 priority with Samson was to subvert this expectation.  Not only does it show in his actions, but his story was told from his point of view, so readers could see his thoughts, often amounting to screams in his head that could easily fill the silence if only he could speak them.  Thus, many concepts often pitted him against Nicole Ellery, her ice powers making her a literal glacier to contrast his metaphorical glacier (in that so much of him and his personality is hidden from view).  Might one of these concepts come to fruition in a later writing?  Well, not in the sequel to Absolute Zero; I’ve already got that written and he’s not in it.  But maybe past that...

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Guest Blog: Photographer and Photoshop Addict Gilmar Smith

Christmas Cards Don’t Have To Be Boring…

For the last few years, I have made a goal of mine to create the most amazing memories with my kids, both in real life and photography-wise. Of course, it is a mission of mine to make our Christmas Card an epic one every year. Who wants to receive another boring Christmas card anyways?

Our Christmas Cards and my Bad Santa series were personal projects I started doing for fun, and they turned out to be the greatest marketing tool for my business during the Holiday Season. 

This year, I started booking Christmas Cards sessions even before Halloween. 

As the song says, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and it is also the perfect time for you as a photographer to make money. 

Mostly everybody I know sends Christmas Cards to their family and friends. A big part of that group prefers to send family pictures instead of store-bought Christmas Cards. 

I am sure you usually receive pretty much the same version of a Christmas card from different families. Matching outfits, fake smiles, all of them in front of a Christmas Tree. But not all Christmas Cards have to be like that! 

What I look to capture on Christmas Card sessions is a little bit of everyone’s personality in one image. For me to be able to do that, I make sure to collect as much information as possible from my client’s family. Some of my clients have already a concept picked by the time they book the sessions, and some others need a little help choosing a theme. That’s when the info I collect from them comes handy. I go ahead and customize inspiration boards for them and even draw a few sketches. 

Then my job is to escalate their concept to the epic level!

Having shot multiple clients’ Christmas Cards through the years, I can also say it’s a very competitive time between family and friends, but the fun kind. Once you send out your first fun Christmas Card, there’s no going back. They will be expected every year.

This family recreates a rock album cover every year for their Christmas Card… Can you guess which one is this?

This family wanted a portrait of the chaos that goes behind doors… I can relate!

Kitchen portraits are always fun!

This lovely classic portrait:

Here’s a beach theme without having to pray to the weather Gods for good weather or having to spend a few days getting rid of the sand.

Our Christmas Card this year was inspired by our beloved state of Florida and its fumbling superhero, the Florida man. Who every year gives us the most embarrassing, outrageous, cringy, dumb, awkward, funny, infuriating, and even sometimes, inspiring news stories.

I built up the set in my garage with a ton of Props I got from Spectacular Themes. I really wanted to have a wooden fence as a background, but I couldn’t fit anything like that in my car. After giving it a little thought, I remembered I have laminated wooden floor that I sometimes use on portraits, so I put it against the garage door and BAM! Instant wooden fence!

I didn’t have to spend money on outfits; we used what we had, and of course, I had to wear my Santa suit like every year.

After setting all that up in my garage, I wasn’t going to shoot just one picture. We created a fun little series, and my kids made sure to stamp their personalities on them. 

Since I managed to get all the props I wanted, I only had to Photoshop the sky, and I added a little bit of my personal retouching style.

All of these images were shot with my Nikon Z7 and a 24-70mm Z mount lens on my 3 Legged Thing Leo (except for Christmas car one, that was shot with my camera on my Platypod Max). I used two Elinchrom BXRi 500 strobes: one with an octa on camera right and the other one with a strip light set horizontally on a background stand for fill. I also had a Vflats from V-Flat World on each side of the set to bounce light.

This is my busiest time of the year, but it is also the most fun because I get to be creative doing the kind of work I love. 

I hope you have a fantastic Holiday Season!

Here are our Christmas Cards from the previous years:

You can see more of Gilmar’s work at GilmarPhotography.com, and keep up with her on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

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